Zeba bit her lip.
“Let me think about it,” Zeba said. “I’m not sure what would be best . . .”
Actually, she didn’t know at all. Gulnaz had never tackled dilemmas of this ilk, which was not to say that she could not have managed them. The opportunity just hadn’t presented itself.
Madar, you would have the time of your life in this place.
Zeba cobbled together recipes from her childhood, recalling what Gulnaz had done in similar situations.
“This place, these crimes—it is an injustice what’s being done here,” Zeba declared. A chorus of agreement rang through the small cell. “What a burden it is to be born a woman.”
What she could not articulate sometimes came more naturally to her in rhyme.
“Men treasure their manhood as God’s greatest gift
Because without it, justice is brutal and swift.”
There was an outburst of laughter.
“What did she say?” Like links on a chain, the women passed Zeba’s couplet from the cell into the hallway, the beauty salon, and beyond. They repeated it to themselves, not wanting to forget the two lines that should have hung like a slogan beneath the prison’s name.
“Zeba, you’ll never have to wash your clothes again. I’ll do your laundry and use my own detergent if you’ll help me.”
The woman before her had two wide-eyed children at her side. They looked like baby birds hidden under their mother’s wings. Zeba noticed the bandages on her left wrist. She’d seen this woman undoing and redoing the strip of cotton a day earlier in the washroom, her back turned for privacy. Zeba could still picture the neat row of scabbed-over slice marks that ran from the middle of her forearm to the end of her wrist.
“My clothes?” Zeba asked with surprise.
“Now, that’s an offer worth considering. I’d move her request, whatever it is, to the top of the list. But that’s just me,” Latifa said. She was standing at the television, turning the dial to flip through the channels. When she came to the TOLO channel, she stopped abruptly and clapped her hands together. Zeba and the three women still waiting to talk to her all turned their attention to the television.
“It’s the finals! They’re going to announce the winner today,” she exclaimed. “How could I have forgotten?”
Two young men stood on a stage, microphones clutched in their nervous hands as they shifted their weight from foot to foot. They were being judged by a colorful panel of three men and one woman, some of Afghanistan’s biggest names in the music world. One man wore a tuxedo, the two other men wore butterfly-collared dress shirts under jackets, their necks adorned with bold silver jewelry, the kind only musicians could pull off. The woman, with heavily darkened eyes, wore a beige, glimmery long-sleeved shirt and layers of thin gold necklaces. Her inky, black locks cascaded over her shoulders and acted as a backdrop for her dangling gold earrings.
Her name was Fariha and she was everything the women in prison were not. She was bejeweled, sitting in a room full of men. The audience revered her voice. She leaned back in her chair with the comfort of an unchallenged ruler, sparkling as she congratulated both contestants on their tone, emotion, and range. Rubbing her hands together and lowering her smoky eyelids, she announced: “I choose . . . Isah-jan as the winner!”
The camera panned to Isah, a young man with curly hair and a sheepish smile. The host of the show lifted Isah’s left hand into the air triumphantly. The audience, young men in their twenties, stood and clapped wildly.
“Isah!” Latifa cried. “I knew he would win. He’s the best by far. You know he’s from the same town as my mother.”
“Oh really? My congratulations to your whole family, then,” Nafisa mumbled. She sat cross-legged in front of her bed, flipping through a beauty magazine.
“Zeba-jan,” the woman went on. “As I said, I’ll take care of your laundry if you can help me get out of here before my boys turn seven and they’re taken away from me.”
Somehow, the fact that they were twins made them seem even more forlorn.
“How old are they now?” Zeba asked, touching the top of one boy’s head. The prison was home to enough children that walking through its halls sometimes reminded Zeba of an elementary school.
“Six, and the guards have already started talking about sending them to the orphanage with the others,” the woman said, her voice cracking. “I can’t be away from them. I’ve only survived this long because they’ve been here with me.”
“You’ve been here seven years?”
She nodded. She was younger than Zeba and had the freshness of an adolescent. But judging by the ages of her boys, she had to be in her early twenties.
“Why are you here?”
Latifa was glued to the television. The winner of the competition, Isah, was singing his victory song. The audience was clapping in time, cheering him on. Fariha moved her shoulders to the rhythm and nodded in approval.
The young mother looked at her boys and then around the room. She spoke so softly that even Zeba had to lean in and pay close attention to make out her painful story.
“I was attacked by my cousin at my home. He cornered me in a room and told me he would kill me if I screamed. My family didn’t believe me and when I went to the police, they arrested me.”
“They arrested you?”
“No one had seen or heard what had happened. The police said if it had been forced, I would have screamed. Since I hadn’t shouted, they arrested me for zina. I was already in prison when I realized I was pregnant. Once my family found out about that, I never heard from them again.”
The boys were watching Zeba, looking for her reaction. She forced a quick smile their way. They’d heard the story before, she could see.
“Because you didn’t scream . . .” she echoed. The words rattled her. “But you didn’t scream because you were scared?”
“He had a knife,” she said plainly. Zeba sensed these were words she’d said a thousand times before to no avail.
Zeba rubbed at her eyes. The stories were too much for her. There was no way her jadu would free a prison full of condemned women. No spell would change the fact that a woman’s worth was measured, with scientific diligence, in blood. A woman was only as good as the drops that fell on her wedding night, the ounces she bled with the turns of the moon, and the small river she shed giving her husband children. Some women were judged most ultimately, having their veins emptied to atone for their sins or for the sins of others.
“You’ve said nothing about wanting to be released,” Zeba remarked. “You just want the boys to stay with you?”
“Released?” She laughed lightly and shook her head. “Not at all. I don’t know what I would do if I were turned out. My family will not take me back. I have no friends to take me in. I have two boys and a story no one wants to hear or believe. The boys will be sent out when they’re seven, and even though they are what they are, I can’t . . . I can’t imagine being in here without them.”
The boys flinched. Their mother’s lower lip quivered.
Latifa was flipping the channels again. Nafisa pretended to turn a page but was looking past the magazine at the woman with her two boys. She looked relieved not to be in her place. Zeba hated sending every woman away with nothing but a promise, so she undid the taweez she had safety-pinned to the breast pocket of her dress. The needle pricked her finger and drew a spot of blood. Zeba wiped it on her own skirt and pinned the taweez her mother had gotten from Jawad to the inside of the young mother’s collar.
“Take this for now. I will think very carefully about what can be done,” Zeba promised. Even as she spoke the words, she could hear how hollow they sounded.
THE NEXT TWO DAYS BROUGHT MORE OF THE SAME. THE STREAM of women grew steadier. They followed Zeba into her cell or found her in the yard or approached her in the hallways. Zeba was not accustomed to so much attention. They clasped her hands between their own. They brought her small hand mirrors or tubes of lipstick. They offered to wa
sh her hair or to allow her to use their contraband mobile phones, which wouldn’t have done her any good. Kamal’s sister did not have a phone and, even if she had, likely would not have answered her call. Zeba tried to refuse the gifts and favors though some were left anonymously on her bed or done before she could protest. If bribery was practiced in the outside world, it was perfected in the prison.
“I HAVE A SIMILAR PROBLEM, BUT IT INVOLVES MY HUSBAND AND his new bride. He had me locked up in here so he could get married without me in the way. Tonight’s their wedding, and I want to do something to make him limp as a noodle.”
Another woman was elbowing her way into the room.
“I’m not trying to ruin anyone’s life. I have a simple request. My hair’s been falling out in clumps since I’ve been here. Look here, sister. Just look at this!”
She lowered her head before Zeba and let her head scarf slip down to her neck. She raked her fingers through her hair, showing large patches of white scalp.
“I’ve tried washing it with red mud. I’ve tried rubbing raw eggs on my head. My sister even brought me a bottle of hair oil from India, but nothing’s worked. You must know something that will help my hair—please!”
Zeba turned to Latifa and sighed heavily.
Latifa had become Zeba’s agent. She would sit at her side and appoint each visitor a turn. When Zeba grew too fatigued to even listen to their requests, she had only to look at Latifa. With a nod, Latifa would shepherd the women out of the cell.
“Time to go!” Latifa announced with a clap of her thick hands. She turned the television off and guided the woman to the door with a hand on her back. “God created head scarves for situations like yours. How wise of Him, no? Khanum Zeba’s not a doctor or a pharmacy. If you ask me, I’d say you should really stop gossiping so much. The things you said about your own cellmates—shame on you. Someone’s probably cast a spell on your hair. Did you ever think about that?”
The woman scowled at Latifa and pushed her hand away.
Zeba wanted to help them all, but there were so many pleas and not even Gulnaz’s jadu worked all the time. Sometimes it was overpowered by another spell, Gulnaz had explained, and sometimes it was struck down by God. Zeba also knew that she was not Gulnaz. Zeba’s eyes were a dull brown, her skin showed its age, her convictions were weakened by doubt. She was an apprentice when what these women really needed was the master.
Latifa closed the door to the cell.
“Thank you,” Zeba said gently.
Latifa shrugged her shoulders. She was quite content with the informal position she’d been given. Zeba knew that Latifa had also been showered with gifts by women hoping to have Zeba’s ear. Prison guards, police officers, and judges had their palms greased all the time. For Latifa, having her turn at it meant she was rising in the ranks.
“I need to get out of this room for a bit,” Zeba said, fanning herself with a rumpled magazine. The electric fan in their cell had stopped working a week ago. “I need some air.”
“Sure,” Latifa said. “I’m going to go down to the beauty parlor and see what the women are up to.”
She was probably trying to drum up more business for tomorrow, Zeba realized with a sinking feeling as soon as she stepped out of the cell. She didn’t have the energy to fight it.
She wanted so much to help each and every one, to open the doors and set them free or promise them that their children would stay with them forever. But Zeba was neither a lawyer nor a judge. She could do nothing with the bribes she’d been given, nor could she even know if her own children would ever see her again. This prison, with its beauty salon and televisions and crayon-scribbled walls, was a dungeon. The injustice inside it leached all the energy from her body. Zeba ran her hand along the red oily scrawl left by a child just learning the alphabet. The children here made her most sad.
“Madar-jan!”
Zeba spun around. Shabnam? Kareema?
“Madar!”
The echo of a child’s voice through the cold hallway made Zeba weak, even when it belonged to another woman’s child. She turned each and every time, though it had been so long since anyone had called to her.
A six-year-old girl with plastic sandals and a brightly colored dress came racing down the hallway. The hems of her hand-me-down pantaloons looked like they would catch between her feet.
“Slowly, slowly!” Zeba cautioned.
The little girl slowed her step and looked at Zeba curiously. The roundness of her eyes, the drift of her bangs, the dimple in her chin called to mind Kareema. Zeba’s eyes watered.
“You sweet thing. Why are you calling your mother? Do you miss her?”
“No, I . . . uh . . . I just needed her.”
Zeba’s head spun slightly. She’d not had a chance to eat lunch with all the women coming to see her. Latifa had brought her water, but she’d left it untouched.
“Your dress is so pretty.”
Kareema had been wearing a dress just like this little girl’s dress on the day Kamal had died. It had been Shabnam’s until just a few months ago. The girls would have grown since she’d been away. Rima must have learned a few more words by now. Maybe she was running.
There were thoughts that Zeba couldn’t push out of her head. Did Tamina really look after them? If Rima cried at night, did anyone soothe her? Were the girls being used as house servants or would they be married off as revenge for their father’s murder? They were only children. She prayed, with the fervor of the most devout believer, that Kamal’s family was not blaming them for Kamal’s death.
She remembered the faces of the twin boys, the way they’d flinched on hearing the crime committed against their mother. Tiny shoulders bore a lot of blame.
Zeba was on her knees. She was holding the startled girl’s hands in her own, turning them over and staring at the pink of her palms.
Children had such perfect hands—so soft and eager to hold on to someone who would love them. Was Rima holding her aunt’s hands? Did she try to nestle against her aunt’s bosom? And when she did, was she pulled in so she would forget Zeba or was she pushed away and left to wonder why?
A little boy came along. By the way he took the little girl’s hand from Zeba and moved close enough that their shoulders were touching, she guessed he must have been her brother though he couldn’t have been more than a year older.
“What a good brother you are! So good of you to take care of your sister. God will reward you for being such a caring brother. What is your name?”
The two children exchanged looks.
“My name is Bashir,” he answered slowly.
Zeba threw her head back and laughed. She wiped her tears away and leaned in to share her story.
“My son’s name is Basir! Did you know that? He’s older than you. He’s such a good boy, too. When he was your age, he used to take care of his little sisters. Your mother must love you both very much. You should never leave her, understand me? No matter what people say about her, you should never believe it. Even if they call her a whore or a liar or a murderer or a . . .”
The two children were looking past Zeba at the warden and Yusuf. They stood behind her, listening to her wild rant.
Zeba didn’t hear them calling her name.
“People don’t know. They say terrible things, but they don’t really know what’s happened.”
The children took one step backward, then two.
“Are you afraid of me? Please, please don’t be afraid of me! I’m nothing to be scared of! I’m so sorry. I only wanted to talk to you!”
There were hands on her elbows, bringing her to her feet.
“Why are you running from me!” she shrieked. “I’m not the person you should be running from! I promise I am not that person!”
There were shouts, calls for guards to help, more hands on her even as she kicked. Her head scarf fell to the floor.
“Let me go! Let me go! I didn’t kill him!”
Latifa loomed over her.
�
��Shut up, Zeba! You’re scaring these children! Look what you’ve done!”
But Zeba hadn’t done anything. Why couldn’t anyone see that? Why did everyone continue to blame her?
“Zeba,” Yusuf said. Asma and another guard were holding Zeba up by the elbows. Her knees were bent, and she was writhing in their grasp. “Control yourself!”
Latifa grabbed Zeba’s face with her hands—thick, manly hands that made Zeba’s feet kick out, striking Latifa in the shin. Latifa let go and scowled sharply.
Zeba’s head ached. She felt the urge to slam her skull against the wall and release the poison. Human skulls are nothing more than eggshells anyway, she thought. And even a child can crack eggs.
“Get your hands off me! You brought that filth into our home. I could smell it and taste it and feel it and you told me it was nothing! I should have killed you long ago!”
“Khanum Zeba, please, stop screaming . . .”
“Take her to the interview room and watch over her until she calms down. She’s not going to get away with acting like this in my prison,” the director said, her arms folded across her chest. Her words cut through the shouts and made Zeba go still. Her legs straightened, and she was standing on her own.
“This is not prison. Prison is out there,” said Zeba in a throaty, singsong voice. “I’m no one’s slave. I’m no one’s prisoner. God as my witness, I’m unshackled!”
“Not for long, I’m sure. My God, Zeba. You’re as crazy as we always thought you were,” Latifa shouted from far enough away that Zeba’s foot couldn’t reach her.
Yusuf watched carefully as his client was led down the hallway, her back now straight with a dignity that only an insane person could feel. Maybe Latifa was right, he thought.
Maybe, just maybe, Zeba was as crazy as she seemed to be.
CHAPTER 26
YUSUF STOOD WITH CHIEF HAKIMI AT THE DOOR TO ZEBA’S home. Hakimi pushed the door in.
A House Without Windows Page 20