The Pearl that Broke Its Shell

by Nadia Hashimi

  Khala Shaima hadn’t been by for months, which was unlike her. I worried that she might be ill but I had no way of getting in touch with her or finding out. I could only wait for her to show up again. I hadn’t even seen Parwin in about a month. I wanted them both to see Jahangir. He was starting to clap his hands and would grab on to tables to stand up. I wanted his aunt to see the things he could do now.

  I had made up my mind to arrange a visit with Parwin. I had been given a little more freedom these days, now that I’d borne the family a son. Abdul Khaliq was bringing a foreigner to the house to talk business and there would be a lot of preparations to attend to. I knew I would be summoned to help the cook and servants. I decided to put off my visit until the following day.

  Just after midday prayers, I began kneading the dough for dumplings when Bibi Gulalai came into the kitchen. I waited for her to point out what I was doing wrong. She looked perplexed, as if there was something she wanted to say.

  “What are you doing now?”

  “I’m going to roll out the dough for the aushak, Khala-jan. I finished cleaning the living room. It’s ready for tonight.”

  “Yes, well, maybe . . . I guess that’s fine. Keep on doing what you’re doing.”

  I was puzzled by her behavior. “Is everything all right?”

  “Yes, everything’s fine. Why? Why do you ask that?”

  “No reason, just that I . . . well, I was just asking,” I said, and turned my attention back to the dough. It was getting tough. It was time to cut it into ovals and stuff it with leeks and scallions.

  “Fine then,” Bibi Gulalai said, and went back out the door.

  That was my first clue that something was wrong. I think my mother-in-law, as cold as she was, was working up the nerve to tell me the news. She returned two hours later. This time Jameela was with her. Jahangir was crawling around the kitchen. I had blockaded off the stove, remembering how Bibi Shekiba had been burned as a child. I didn’t want my son to carry such a scar. Life was difficult for the disfigured, I’d learned.

  Jahangir was pulling on my skirt hem, whining. He was hungry but I wanted to finish the aushak before the guests arrived. I kept an eye on him but the expression on Jameela’s face put my nerves on edge.

  “Rahima, my grandchild is looking for food. I’ll have Shahnaz feed him something,” Bibi Gulalai said. She looked almost as uneasy as I felt.

  “I’m done now, Khala-jan. I’ll make something for him,” I said nervously. “Jameela, what’s going on? What is it?”

  “Oh, Rahima-jan, something terrible has happened! I don’t know how to share this sad news with you . . .”

  Madar-jan. My mind flashed to her.

  “What’s happened, Jameela? Tell me!”

  “Your sister! Your sister Parwin has been taken to the hospital! She’s been very badly injured!”

  Parwin?

  “What hospital? How was she hurt?” I was on my feet, my son in my arms.

  “I only know what I’ve heard from Bibi Gulalai.” Jameela turned to our mother-in-law, who scowled and looked away.

  “Go on, tell her already!”

  “They say she set herself on fire this morning . . .”

  Nothing Jameela said registered after that. I put Jahangir on the ground as my head closed in on itself. Parwin had tried to kill herself. All I could picture was her unconvincing smile, her feeble reassurance that she was doing all right, that people were treating her well enough. Why hadn’t I gone to visit her this morning?

  I pieced things together much later. Jameela took me to her house to lie down. She brought Jahangir along and one of the older girls in the house watched him while she sat with me. I asked her over and over again what happened and she explained it as best she could. Parwin had doused herself with cooking oil in the morning, while most of the women and children were eating breakfast. Her husband, Abdul Haidar, had already left the house.

  Abdul Haidar’s second wife, Tuba, came to help tell me what had happened. Some things she made clear. Others she twisted in vagueness but I understood that my sister had been seen that morning with a fresh bruise on her face.

  Tuba claimed they had no idea Parwin would do such a thing to herself. There were no warning signs, no red flags. She hadn’t said anything, and as a matter of fact, Tuba said Parwin had smiled at her last night. I wanted to call her a liar. I knew the empty smile Tuba was talking about. I wanted to call them blind and stupid but my tongue was tied with guilt. If I, her own sister, had ignored her behavior, what could I expect of her co-wives? What could I expect of her husband?

  They had heard the screams. She’d lit the match in the courtyard and that’s where they found her, tried to cover her with a blanket to put out the flames. She’d fallen to the ground. There was a lot of confusion, screaming, trying to help. She’d passed out. They had taken her back to the house and tried to undress her, clean her burns. But it had been too much. They talked about it and talked about it and finally someone had decided that Parwin needed to go to the hospital.

  The nearest hospital was not near at all. Her husband was not happy about being called back to the house to deal with the situation.

  Somehow, they’d sent word to my parents.

  Madar-jan must have been crazed with worry. Even Padar-jan, who had given us away for a bag of money, had been partial to his artistic daughter. The news must have shaken him. Khala Shaima had been at the house when they sent the message. She was on her way over to see me. I wanted to be with her but feared her reaction.

  Please don’t make this worse, Khala Shaima.

  But Khala Shaima was our voice. She said what others dared not say. I needed her. She arrived in the evening, out of breath and teary eyed.

  “Oh, my dear girl. I heard what happened! This is just awful. I can’t believe it. That poor thing!”

  She hugged me tight. I could feel her clavicles press into my face. I’d never realized just how little flesh she had on her frame.

  “Why did she do this, Khala Shaima! I was going to go see her today but I didn’t. How could she do such a thing?”

  I shuddered thinking of how painful it must have been, how horrifyingly painful.

  “Sometimes women are pushed too far, kicked too hard, and there’s no escape for them. Maybe she thought this was her only way. Oh, my poor niece!”

  We all need an escape. Khala Shaima was right.

  “What did my niece say?” Khala Shaima demanded. “Tell me, was she talking when she was taken to the hospital?”

  Tuba shook her head. It had been an ugly scene. The smell of burning flesh, agonizing moans, hysteria. She couldn’t bring herself to describe the horror to us.

  “She wasn’t talking at all? Was she conscious?”

  “She was . . . she was just lying very still but she was awake. I was talking to her,” Tuba explained. “She was listening to me but she just wasn’t saying anything.”

  “She must have been in so much pain! Allah save her, that poor thing!”

  “I’m sure they will give her medicines in the hospital, Shaima-jan. Allah is great and I’m sure he’s watching over her.”

  I resisted the urge to spit at her. Pretending. She was pretending that things hadn’t been that bad. Parwin hadn’t been in that much pain. The hospital, which was a day’s journey away and itself in woeful condition, would patch her up in no time. Allah, who had let this happen in the first place, would fix everything. It was all a game of pretend, just as Parwin had pretended every time we’d seen her. There was no honesty in our lives.

  Khala Shaima began to lament. I wished she would stop. The sound of her wails made my head spin.

  “You people destroyed her,” she cried. “If she dies, her blood is on the hands of this family. Do you understand? This young girl’s blood will be on your hands!”

  The women were silent. Tuba bit her lip and fought back tears. I wondered if she could be honest with me.

  I asked Tuba, with one mournful whisper, if my sister wo
uld live.

  Through tears, she told me that God was great and that the whole family was praying for Parwin and that she was on her way to the hospital, so they really were very hopeful.

  I wanted to believe her. I wanted to believe that my sister would be okay.

  Tuba’s eyes told me it wasn’t in her naseeb.

  CHAPTER 31

  RAHIMA

  PARWIN HAD STOPPED PRETENDING.

  After ten agonizing days, her peace finally came.

  Her body was brought back and buried in the local cemetery. My father attended the burial, as did a few of my uncles and my grandfather.

  At the fateha, I saw my mother again. The first time since my wedding day. Had I had a life more ordinary, I would not have been able to believe what she’d become.

  “Rahima! Rahima, my daughter, oh God! Can you believe this? Allah has taken my daughter, my precious Parwin! So young! Oh, Rahima-jan, thank God she at least had you nearby!”

  My mother’s hair was thin and stringy. Her words came out wet and lisped. She was missing a few teeth. Her skin sagged and she looked much older.

  “Madar-jan!” I hugged her tightly, surprised at how much like Khala Shaima she felt. “Madar-jan, I’ve missed you so much!”

  “I’ve missed you too, my daughter! I’ve missed all of you! This is your son? God bless my grandchild!”

  “His name is Jahangir, Madar-jan. I wish . . . I wish you could have come to see him. He’s a sweet child.”

  My son smiled, showing off his two bottom teeth. I waited for my mother to reach out to hold him. She didn’t. She touched his cheek with her trembling hand and then looked away. Jahangir looked as disappointed as I felt in her lack of interest.

  “Oh, I’ve wanted to come and see you, Rahima-jan. Especially when I heard about my grandchild, but it’s not easy for me to get away from home, you know that. And your husband’s home is not very close. With two kids at home, it just hasn’t been possible.”

  I bit my tongue, wondering why the distance wasn’t too much for Khala Shaima and knowing that she could have brought my sisters or left them with one of my uncles’ wives if she’d wanted to. My mother was weaker than I’d ever realized.

  We women in mourning sat in a row, a wall of misery and tears. Women from our village came to pay their respects, whispering the same words of condolence to each of us one by one. Some even cried. I wondered why. So many of them had laughed to see my sister try to keep up with the other children, had called her Parwin-e-lang and had thanked God out loud that their own children weren’t similarly deformed. They had made her feel small and wrong. Today they pretended to share our pain. I despised the insincerity.

  We prayed. The women sat in rows before us, rocking to the rhythm of the prayer, the gray haired in the group blowing their noses into handkerchiefs and shaking their heads. They cried for us, their hearts softened with age and they themselves one step closer to the grave than most others. In the last ten days, my eyes had dried up. I sat still, blankly watching the faces in front of me. Madar-jan reached over and held my hand.

  Rohila and Sitara sat on my right. I shook my head. How wrong I was to think I wouldn’t have recognized my sisters! They had grown taller, more mature, but their faces were unchanged. They spoke sweetly and I hurt to think what home was like for them. Rohila grabbed me and wouldn’t let go.

  “Rahima, is it true? Is Parwin really dead? That’s what Madar-jan told us but I can’t believe it!”

  “I wish it weren’t true.” Nothing good came of pretending, I’d decided. “How are you, Rohila? How are things at home?”

  “Can’t you come back home sometimes? It’s been so lonely since you all left!”

  I believed her. I’d felt the same loneliness. I bet we all had, each in her corner of the world, separated by so many walls.

  “Are you taking care of Sitara?”

  “Yes.” Rohila nodded. It occurred to me that she was now the same age I’d been when I was married off. I looked at her and wondered if I’d looked just as young. I could see that her breasts were just starting to bud. Her shoulders were hunched forward, her chest pulled in. I recognized her posture. She was uncomfortable with her changing body. I wondered if Madar-jan had given her a bra yet.

  Sitara was now almost nine years old and clung to Rohila more than she did to Madar-jan. She looked unsure around me, as if she didn’t trust anyone but Rohila.

  “How’s Madar-jan been, Rohila?” I whispered. I knew I would draw looks for talking, even in a hushed voice, during the fateha but this was my only opportunity to see my sisters. What I saw worried me.

  Rohila shrugged her shoulders and glanced over at Madar-jan. “She just lies around most of the time, just like Padar-jan. She cries a lot, especially when Khala Shaima comes over. That just makes Khala Shaima angrier.”

  At the mention of her name, Khala Shaima looked in our direction. I expected her to give us a chastising look but she didn’t. She didn’t give a damn about decorum.

  “Are you going to school?”

  “Sometimes. Depends on what Padar-jan says. Sometimes, when she’s taken Padar-jan’s medicine, I have to stay home to clean up and get Madar-jan up and dressed. If Bibi-jan sees her the way she is, there’s always a big fight.”

  Sitara stared at the ground but I could tell she was listening to our hushed conversation. She looked so timid, so different from the inquisitive little girl I’d left behind. I looked back to see Madar-jan wiping tears away, muttering angrily and fidgeting in her chair. I stared at her cheekbones, the lost look in her eyes. She was every emotion and blank at once. She was as badly addicted as my father.

  Madar-jan, what’s become of you?

  My stomach sank when I thought of what might happen to my sisters. I prayed for God to keep Khala Shaima alive and present in their lives. I pushed away the thought that they would be addicts soon too.

  Things were worse than I’d let myself believe, even with Khala Shaima’s dismal updates.

  “Rahima, why isn’t Shahla here?”

  Shahla hadn’t been allowed to come. She had just delivered her second child and it wasn’t proper for her to be out of the home in her condition. I wondered how she had taken the news, alone and so far from the rest of us.

  Respects had been paid. The prayers were complete. The women repeated the procession, again wishing for Allah to ease our suffering, praying for Parwin’s place among the angels in heaven and to themselves thinking it was in her best interests that she put herself out of her handicapped and childless misery. I wanted them all to disappear so I could spend this precious time with my mother and sisters.

  The fateha passed quickly. I was back at the compound, but even more miserable. Madar-jan was in bad shape. Rohila had taken over as matriarch. How had this happened to us? I was the only one of my sisters who’d had a chance to live any kind of childhood at all, and that was only because I’d been a bacha posh. I looked at my son and thanked God for making him a boy. His lips turned up in a cheerful smile, his eyelashes so long they looked like they could get tangled. At least he had a chance.

  I wanted to be alone but there was little possibility of that at the compound. With the fateha over, so was my period of mourning. I was expected to resume my duties. Bibi Gulalai treated me just as she always had, if not worse. I think she had convinced herself that Parwin’s suicide had been a purposeful attack on her family. With Parwin gone, I took the fall for the tragedy she’d brought to her extended family.

  I ignored everything and everyone. I carried out my duties, often with Jahangir a few feet away, playing or napping. I watched him wistfully, vowing to be better to him than my mother was being to my sisters. Thankfully, Abdul Khaliq had no trouble clothing and feeding his family. Jahangir was his son, as much as the other boys in the house. He would go to school and enjoy the privileges that came with being a warlord’s son.

  And his father loved him in a way that surprised and relieved me. Abdul Khaliq kept his daughters at arm�
�s length but his sons stayed at his side. The older boys even joined their father in some of his meetings. The younger ones nervously scattered when Abdul Khaliq came home, afraid of getting yelled at for spending too much time playing. He didn’t have much patience for crying babies but he would watch them while they slept. Except for my son. Often, I caught him gently stroking Jahangir’s cheek or whispering something into his ear. He held him with the same adoration I did. He chuckled when Jahangir spilled things and his chest swelled with pride to hear him say “baba,” as if he were hearing the word for the first time. The rhythmic breathing of his sleeping son calmed even his foulest of moods. I was happy Jahangir was a favorite, knowing I never would be. At least my son was safe.

  The older boys, my son’s brothers, both feared and adored their father. They vied for his attention and looked for ways to make him happy—or at least not angry. The older boys stood tall when they recited suras from the Qur’an and the younger ones would bring him his sandals when he asked. He was proud to have boys. He smiled for them, and for little else.

  My husband was spending more and more time with foreigners and the men he kept around as close advisers. Plans were brewing. The wives were on edge, though only Badriya knew why. If things were not going well for Abdul Khaliq, then things would not be going well for us. When we asked Badriya, she brushed us off dismissively.

  “Don’t bother yourselves worrying about it. He’s worked up because he’s renegotiating the arrangement he has with some of these people. It’s too complicated to explain to you,” she would say, not wanting to divulge the knowledge that set her apart from the rest of us. As his first wife, he discussed these matters with her. It was really the only interaction he had with her since he rarely called her to his bed. Everyone had a role in the house. That was hers.

  But walls were thin and I spent most of my time at the main part of the house. I started to hear things when Abdul Khaliq and his men sat in the living room.