“Let me wash my hands.” She retreated to the other room, her heart racing worse than it had the whole time in the bazaar.
What was it about this man—this Michael Bellis? She had seen a man’s body before—much to her shame. She fumbled water into a basin and washed her hands, slopping liquid all over the desk with her shaking.
“Who is he?” Mirri hissed.
“Amrikaayi.” Khadija spat the word as she hurried to do as her father bid.
Mirri flipped back her burka, exposing her black eyes and the fine lips that had always as a child been turned up in mischief. Now they turned down as she grabbed Khadija’s shoulders.
“How—how can your father do this after Yaqub?”
Khadija shook her head, still trapped by Michael Bellis’s image.
“Papa—he—he says this man is a friend.”
“Devil, more like.” Mirri’s black gaze burned. “You don’t know, do you? Your father hasn’t told you?”
A warning sounded in Khadija’s gut. Something her father did not want her to know?
Mirri leaned closer. She stroked Khadija’s face through the blue cloth.
“You are a good Afghani woman. Like Malalai who raised the flag against the British. But you, your father, should not be with this Amrikaayi.”
Khadija barely heard. Something her Papa had not told her. Something about Yaqub? She turned back to the curtain. She had thought since her return her Papa shared everything—how Yaqub had been accidentally killed bringing aid to the Hazzara people.
“What has my father not told me?”
Mirri shook her head.
“That’s for a father to say. I will go. Thank you for the offer of tea. You’ll come to my house? My brothers would like to see you again.”
Mirri slipped on her burka like she closed a door, but Khadija stopped her. Mirri’s association with those who fought to free her country sometimes got her information.
“Tell me.”
The blue cloth hid Mirri’s face, but not the venom of her voice.
“Your brother. It was the foreigners—the Amrikaayi—who killed him.”
Chapter 7
“Khadija! I need the needle!” Mohammed yelled as Michael shifted like a great restless beast. “Have patience, my friend. This is a lesson for you. She does her best.”
Michael’s dry chuckle filled the room.
“You don’t know your daughter, my friend. The look in her eyes says she’d prefer to see me bleeding on the floor. I’m sorry I came. I wouldn’t have, except I couldn’t get the damn cut to stop bleeding.”
Michael’s description of Khadija was mortifying.
“Forgive my daughter. You’re like a…son to me.”
“You honor me, but I don’t…want to cause problems.”
Mohammed heard the hesitation and turned towards the curtain. Michael was an astute reader of people and there was worrying silence from the other room.
“My Pishogay…. She carries wounds I did not see. May Allah heal my internal blindness.”
“May he heal your eyes as well.”
“I thought you did not believe.”
“I don’t. But peace and compassion—those I understand even if they’re beyond me. I’ve brought enough mayhem into the world, but you—you did not deserve your blindness.”
Footsteps and a movement of air and Khadija’s cool hand fell on Mohammed’s wrist. She placed a needle in his hand.
“As you asked, Father.” Her voice was stiff, brittle enough to crack. She guided his hands to Michael’s side.
“Wouldn’t it be easier if you did it?”
Michael’s casual question hung in the room, but the slow heat of Khadija’s anger radiated from her.
“That’s from a knife.” Cold, cold voice of his daughter. Far beyond clinical.
“It’s no problem, Michael. I’ve done this many times, as you know. It’s just my sewing is not quite so neat as it was.” Mohammed chuckled to lighten the mood.
He pinched the firm flesh together and felt for the correct spot to insert the needle. It slid in smoothly, Michael’s flesh barely flinching. He tied off the suture and went on to the next.
Khadija stood just behind him, her presence like a pulsing heat, heard the stir of her robes.
“There’s a long line of people who’ve been badly injured and you interrupt the only medical care they’ve got? Why don’t you go to your embassy? Why don’t you go to your military? My father’s a doctor—to the Afghani people.”
“Khadija!”
Michael flinched under the needle, but Khadija stopped her vitriolic attack.
“This man is a patient. We treat all who come here.”
“If you don’t give your life for your freedom, you will be ashamed of your country,” she spat.
Another father might have struck her. He was a proud Afghan who defended his country. He always had been. He did not need to explain himself to an irrational woman. He swallowed his anger and focused on the flesh he mended.
“This is not the time.”
His vehemence seemed to stop her argument. He completed another suture, inserted the next. The next. The next. The next. He felt the wound. It drained slightly from the bottom.
“You’ll live,” he said patting Michael’s arm. Mohammed taped a bandage in place and handed a few extra to his friend. “Just change the dressings regularly and you should heal.”
“Good. I need to travel.”
“As usual.” He smiled but heard the rustle of clothing, then Michael pressed money into his hands.
“No! We are family,” he said, offended.
“Father, I’ve used all our supplies in the bazaar. We could use the money to replace them.”
It was more than the burka that made her voice almost unrecognizable. Cold as dead flesh—worse than at the house. Was this truly his daughter?
“An Afghani does not take money from family.”
“Mohammed, consider it a gift—or a loan if you must. A peace offering, perhaps. And now I have to go. Allāhu akbar.” God is great. Michael stuffed the bills into Mohammed’s unwilling hand.
“As-salaam ‘alaykum,” Peace be upon you, Mohammed answered.
There was a stir in the air, the scent of the well in the alley, and then Michael was gone. The room seemed empty without him. It had always been like that. The Amrikaayi had filled his life like a force of Allah’s nature, ever since Yaqub brought him home so many years ago.
He turned to Khadija, releasing the money.
“We do not take payment from a friend. God will forgive you if you forget him, but not if you forget your neighbor.”
Khadija’s burka swept the floor as she bent for the money.
“Our neighbors stand in line at the door. He’s not my friend. He’s not yours either—but you knew that, didn’t you?”
Her voice held ill-concealed venom. Mohammed stopped wishing he could see his daughter, her lovely face, for she would be a beauty. But not at this moment.
He remembered a small child running a park, her pretty pink scarf coming loose from her hair as she chased after her much older brother and his gang of Pashtun friends. Beyond them was another group of children—Hazzara—kept apart by the societal codes of the city.
“Khadija!” his wife called and stood up from their place on the blanket by the river. The child ran on, her chubby, young-girl legs pumping to keep up. Such a heart, she had, such determination not to be left behind.
“Khadija!” Again Shafiqa called, her musical voice lilting on the breeze amid the laughter of the crowds who were out on this holiday day.
Still Khadija didn’t hear. She plunged on too close to the river where the boys were climbing down the treacherous rocks to the rushing water’s edge. It was easy to slip on those rocks and the river was a high force in those days—like the heart of all Afghans.
Mohammed was on his feet in an instant, running for his daughter, grabbing her up in his arms and swinging her around as if in pl
ay before bringing her back to Shafiqa.
“I just wanted to show them the flower I found, Papa. Such a pretty flower. It smells nice.” She held a small blossom up for him to sniff.
He took a whiff and shook his head. “Those are Yaqub’s friends, Pishogay. They wish to play boy games, not smell flowers.”
She sat in his arms, but her eyes—so like her mother’s—telegraphed her desire to be free, to be with her brother. She looked at her father but waved her arms wide.
“But aren’t they my friends, too? Aren’t we all friends?”
He’d hugged her then. For all the love his child had for others. For all the helpless love he felt for her. To love so much….
What had happened to make her like this? Her compassion—it had been that quality that had made him sure she would be a good doctor.
“Pishogay, please.” He caught her arm and tried to pull her to him, to recover his child, but she yanked free, leaving him alone, anchorless.
“Honor me in this,” he said, looking where he thought she was. “You’ve been filled with love—like your mother.”
“My mother died at the Russians hands.”
Her voice came from near the door when he hadn’t heard her move.
“Why should I love foreigners?”
“Because love is the greatest of Allah’s faces. Because it gives compassion, caring—all good things. You know this. It’s what our faith tells us.”
“How did Yaqub die, Father?”
The question sent him stumbling to the wall, seeking the stool in the room. He sank down. There were no words to tell her; there was no way he would return to that terrible day when the news had come and the guilt he still felt.
“What does it matter, how he died? He’s dead.” His voice cracked and the tightness in his chest increased. Silence filled the room.
“Islam also teaches jihad, Father. Against those who harm our faith and kill our people. And tradition demands revenge.” Her voice was quiet, with none of the hesitation he’d heard earlier.
“You speak of war and that is not what Afghanistan needs. Another war. Where do you get these ideas?”
“I hear things, Papa. What else could Islam teach after all they’ve done—the colonial powers destroyed our ways of life, made us feel like we were less than them. And as for revenge—the Amrikaayi and the West—that’s the only reason they’re here. That and oil.”
“Allah, save us all,” he whispered through bile. How—where—had she learned these things? “Allah said the greatest jihad was the taming of the self. That is my belief. It is what I practice and it is what I taught you and Yaqub. It is what I’ve begun to teach Michael. What you do, will come back to you.”
He reached for her again, but she was no where he could reach her.
“Then you fail Allah, Father. And me. And Yaqub. Most of all Yaqub. With your faith and your secrets.”
He felt the air stir in the swirl of her burka, the sweep of the curtain.
“Khadija, please! Let me help you. Let us fix things.”
But the slam of the clinic door said she was gone—chasing something other than Yaqub.
Chapter 8
Khadija rushed uphill past the clamor of Jadayi Maywand Street and the crumbling carpet bazaar with its scent of old wool and sour dye, up into the narrow twisted ways of the old city. It was how she felt—twisted, shadowed, unable to see what waited ahead, what was left behind.
What had she done, leavin her father…? It wasn’t like her. She’d come home to help him and here she left him alone with patients to deal with.
But fury at her father had sent her crashing through the crowd outside the clinic. And anger at herself. She shouldn’t have said what she said—not to her Papa. She shoved through shoals of blue ghosts and old men towards the upper market, avoiding the major thoroughfares where there was too much chance of running into one of the invaders’ patrols.
Too much chance of seeing the hungry white faces of her enemy. She thought of Michael Bellis’s eyes—ripped her thoughts away.
Get away. Just get away and clear her head. She was so furious she could scream at everyone.
Except Yaqub.
Yaqub, beloved, her defender and confidant. Yaqub dead at the hands of Amrikaayi. How had it happened?
She’d wanted to press her father, but suspected he’d lie if he hadn’t told her by now. It was betrayal.
She searched for Mirri’s blue-clad form. The woman—she had to be somewhere near. Somewhere she could tell Khadija the truth. But none of the blue-clad forms in the street moved in the right way or wore the silly pink sandals that Mirri-khor affected.
The road she followed ended in a locked door in a pitted wall, the ancient, battered, city wall looming above her from the slopes of Kohi Sherdarwaza She sagged against the brick and stone, fighting for breath. Somewhere near, the wail of Hindi music had started again, but it came from so far away—down a distant tunnel.
How could her Papa be such a fool? She stopped herself.
She should honor her Papa. It was not him she was angered by. No. Papa was a good man. A man of faith, even if his loss of sight blinded him in more than his eyes. Perhaps it was just that with no sight, there was no chance for him to do his duty.
Or perhaps he would not do his duty because he feared for her safety. Thus he allowed the Amrikaayi into his house; he had no way to safely stop it.
She closed her eyes, encased in the safety of the burka, and wiped sweat off her face. She reeked of blood and the metallic scent of her anger. Nothing was safe and that saddened her.
Once she had thought so. Her father had held her in his arms, hugged her so hard she thought her ribs would break. Yaqub had done the same and then led her into the night to the distant cousin who would smuggle her out of Afghanistan and on to London.
It had been terrifying, posing as a too-young wife on the long drive through the night southeastward through the mountains, through the destroyed streets and gardens of the Jalalabad that she had visited as a child with her mama. Then up into the rugged mountains towards the Khyber Pass. The stark peaks had frightened her. Bodies at the side of the road had frightened her more.
She had awaited her visa in Peshawar and then flown to the safety of London, stripped of everything but her innocence—all before she turned sixteen.
It took the West to steal the innocence.
The sick feeling frothed in her stomach as she recalled the handsome face of Doctor James Hartness, the supervising physician at London’s Grace Hospital.
“Khadija! Come. Sit with me awhile. I could use a break from these files.”
James Hartness smiled over his half-glasses, his red-blond hair falling across his forehead in an unkempt way that made Khadija just want to push it back. She stepped into the office, scenting a slight sweetness in the air, and glanced around. No one here. The leather couch along the wall lay empty, waiting, inviting.
She seated herself in the armchair in front of his cherry-wood desk and nervously smoothed her skirt and white coat across her lap. His gaze still sent a flush up her shoulders and neck that she knew he wouldn’t mistake.
James sat back in his chair and glanced at the open office door.
“You afraid to be alone with me?” he asked softly with a half-wink of his too-blue eye.
Her body loosened at the way he looked at her. It evoked thoughts of being together, of their torrid three-month-old affair. Her body ached for his touch and the couch loomed like another presence in the office.
She shook her head and gripped the arms of the chair. Things had gone farther than she’d ever intended. She’d fallen too easily.
After avoiding all the randy young men in medical school, it had seemed James Hartness really saw her, really wanted to hear what she had to say. At first she’d been flattered at his attention, this man who was a doctor like her father; at how he had asked her to assist him on so many cases in the E.R.
She had been stupid—like a child—to l
et things progress farther. But then Yaqub had died and James had been a comforting shoulder to cry on. He was so understanding, so gentle when he kissed her, when he laid her down that first time.
It was love, wasn’t it? He had told her he loved her that first time on the couch.
Then why had things changed?
“I wanted to talk to you.” She kept her voice professionally level. “You’ve given Dr. Miller the Johnson case.”
Amy Johnson was a five-year-old girl who had presented with low-grade fever that had continued for five days. Tests had been unable to confirm what was wrong, but while in the emergency room, the fever had spiked to 104 degrees. The child had been hospitalized.
James went to the door, closed it, then came back and leaned on the edge of his desk. His long legs stretched out in front of him, new Italian loafers gleamed on his feet. She expected the touch of his hand on her cheek, the offer of his palm to pull her into his body.
Instead he crossed his arms.
“Just what did you expect, Dr. Siddiqui? The right to follow cases is reserved for interns deserving of reward.”
Her tongue felt stuck to the roof of her mouth. Finally she managed: “You said I was to follow the Johnson child.”
He pursed his lips—those lips that had tasted the innocence of her body.
“You must be mistaken. Dr. Miller has shown herself to be a most capable doctor. That tracheotomy on Tuesday was almost a work of art. The case is hers.” He glanced back at the files on his desk. “Is there anything else I can assist with? Otherwise I need to get back to these.”
She looked at him not understanding, and yet, and yet—the sweetness in the office—a sweetness she recognized as Tanya Miller’s perfume.
It made her gag, but the arms of the chair held her in place. She had to get out of here—was going to be sick. At Dr. James Hartness. At her honorless self.
Mostly at herself. She had stood, then retched all over James Hartness’s gleaming shoes.
At least she had done that.
She had done it to herself—had lost her honor and her father should beat her for it. That was what Afghani fathers—or brothers—did to daughters who dishonored their family. Honor was everything. Family was everything. Yaqub.
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