The Pearl that Broke Its Shell

by Nadia Hashimi

  Two weeks had passed. Her back was healing. Her skin itched more and burned less, which was how she could tell it was better. With better days came better nights. She learned the routines of the house and found a way to fit in without being a nuisance. She knew from experience that she should not consider herself a permanent fixture in any man’s house, even if she was his wife.

  Aasif now said a few more words to her, but their exchanges were still brief and polite. He looked past her face and made only fleeting eye contact. Gulnaz watched their interactions from the corner of her eye and seemed satisfied that the second wife was not her equal. She began to see Shekiba more as a housekeeper than a second wife.

  Through the window she could see one of the canaries pecking at the other’s head. The two others tried to retreat. Peck, peck, peck. They tried to fly from one side of the cage to the other but hadn’t enough room to flap their wings more than once before they crossed the cage. Contained. Three caged canaries singing.

  Aasif came home that night. Shekiba kept her door open to listen in on their conversation.

  “There will be a wedding in three months’ time. The palace is preparing for a monumental event.”

  “I wonder how many people they will invite.”

  “Plenty. And it will be all the most important families of Kabul. His fiancé’s family is well respected and they carry a great deal of clout. They could not have chosen better for Amanullah.”

  “What is her first name? I know her aunt, Aalia Tarzi. I have seen her in the market from time to time and she is a friend of my cousin Sohaila. Aalia-jan speaks very highly of her niece. She was educated while they lived in Syria. I wonder what kind of queen she will be.”

  “It’s a powerful match, Amanullah and Soraya Tarzi, although I know Habibullah is not thrilled that his son is taking Agha Tarzi’s daughter.”

  “Why is that?” Gulnaz asked.

  “Tarzi writes what he thinks. And what Tarzi thinks is not always what Habibullah thinks. But the problem is Tarzi thinks Habibullah is not doing enough to bring Afghanistan to modern times. He thinks we should look to Europe and learn from them.”

  “But we are a different people. We are a Muslim country. Why should we learn from them?”

  “Because they are making progress and we are not. Habibullah has made some roads but not much else. Tarzi wants science, education—and not just the religious kind. But Amanullah, his ears are open to Tarzi’s ideas.”

  “But, Aasif-jan, he is not king.”

  “He will be. I don’t see his brothers taking the position. Amanullah has been groomed for this since a young age. He’ll make a much finer king than his father, who spends his days quail hunting and riding around the countryside for attention.”

  Gulnaz sighed. Her husband detested the king and she feared his dislike would eventually be the subject of gossip. If it did, he could expect no mercy. And he had already done enough to jeopardize them. He didn’t talk about it and Gulnaz wasn’t sure if her suspicions were true. She’d heard things from others. A stoning. One of the king’s concubines. She would not ask him about the girl. She did not want to know more.

  Aasif saw his wife’s eyes turn away. He knew her burdens were his doing.

  “Anyway, I’m busy with my own work. I don’t have time to be Amanullah’s counselor anymore.” His way of saying he would stay away from the palace.

  Gulnaz looked at the door, pictured the hallway and the scarred woman hiding in the far room, her husband’s other wife. She wondered if her husband’s plan would work or if he had only added another barren wife to his home.

  Shekiba listened carefully to every word. Amanullah was to marry Agha Tarzi’s daughter. She marveled at her own naïveté.

  Why should he look at me? I’m no one. I have no father or mother, no family name. I am a half woman with a half face. How stupid I was to believe anything else!

  Shekiba waited till Aasif had gone out before she went to the kitchen to fix herself some food. The spinach and rice she had made earlier had cooled but she didn’t care. She took a piece of bread and retreated to her room. She moved about so quietly that Gulnaz almost didn’t hear her from the living room.

  In the night, Shekiba woke with a start. Aasif was in her room again. The door stood open behind him while he considered walking back out. Shekiba’s heart galloped. She prayed he was here only to talk some more. She did not move.

  He closed the door and Shekiba pressed her eyes shut, hoping to ward him off. He sat next to her, with his back to her face for a few moments. Shekiba felt his presence. Her body was tense.

  What does he want?

  Aasif sighed and turned to her.

  “Shekiba,” he whispered. “You are my wife. You have an obligation to fulfill.”

  Shekiba did not answer. His voice was raspy and low. He did not sound like himself.

  She clutched her blanket tightly with her two hands, knowing she had no right to resist. She was his wife and she had a responsibility to lie with him, even if it terrified her. Her breathing quickened. He turned toward her and pulled the blanket away. Shekiba could keep her eyes closed no longer. She saw him, saw him looking at her nightgown, the thin white cotton that surrendered without a fight. He undid the drawstring of his pants and lifted her hem over her hips. Shekiba pressed her back into the mattress, wishing she could melt into the floor. A wave of panic rolled over her body as Shekiba closed her eyes, clenched her teeth and became Aasif’s wife.

  CHAPTER 56

  SHEKIBA

  IN A WAY IT WAS A RELIEF. She knew now what to expect. He came to her infrequently and briefly, leaving when he had finished his grunting and sighing to sit in the living room. Sometimes he retreated back to Gulnaz. Shekiba always avoided Gulnaz the following morning, embarrassed and feeling as if she had committed an offense against her.

  Her only reprieve was her bleeding. Only then could she whisper in the dark, her face flush with humiliation, “Forgive me, I have illness.”

  He understood right away and would leave her chambers, seemingly relieved. Only last night was different. She had started bleeding two days ago.

  “I have . . . I have illness,” she said softly, pushing her thighs together.

  But he didn’t leave. Instead he sat again with his back turned toward her. He put his head in his hands.

  “Things are not going well. Why are you still having your illness? Are you lying about it?”

  Shekiba was surprised. His voice was gruff. “No, I would not lie about . . . about such a thing.”

  “What happened to all that talk? All the talk about the women in your family and the lines of sons they birthed? You’ve been here for five months and you are still having your illness!”

  Shekiba once again realized just how simple she was. That was the reason Aasif had taken her from the palace. Gulnaz had given him no children at all. He didn’t want Shekiba—he wanted sons.

  “I . . . I . . . it was not talk. I had brothers . . . I—”

  “This is a joke! How can this be possible? They were going to execute you. Do you understand that? Do you understand what you escaped?”

  Shekiba understood better than anyone what she had escaped. She had been close enough to see the blood seep through Benafsha’s burqa and pool in the earth. She understood exactly what she had been spared.

  “I understand.”

  “Do you? Do you really? What are people to say? Two wives and not a single son! Do you know what that does to me?” He was livid. Gulnaz could hear him through the thin walls. She turned on her side, knowing that Shekiba was receiving the anger that he intended for them both. “A harem guard! Did you like being a man? Maybe that’s what it is! You liked being a man so much that now you refuse to be a woman! What are you? You are not a man! You are not a woman! You are nothing! Do you have anything to say for yourself? Where’s all the boasting now?”

  “I . . . I . . .” Shekiba did not know what to say.

  “I feed you and clothe you a
nd for nothing! This is what you do to me! I should throw you out on the street! I should throw you back to the palace and let them do with you what they planned! You and your cursed face! Damn you!”

  Shekiba braced herself for the blow but it never came. She cowered in a corner of her mattress. Aasif stormed out and slammed the door shut behind him. A few seconds later, Shekiba heard glass breaking and the metal gate clanged loudly. Her throat clenched, she could not help but agree with her angry husband.

  Not a man, not a woman. I am nothing.

  Gulnaz slipped quietly into Shekiba’s room a few moments later. Through the open door, a sliver of moonlight lit the floor of the hallway. The two wives stared at it, Aasif’s rant still echoing through the house. The first wife finally spoke.

  “We have been married for one year and I have been unable to bear him a child. Your head would spin to know how many herbs I have ground under the pestle at my grandmother’s instruction. I have prayed at the local shrine and given alms to the poor. Nothing. My bleeding comes month after month, as does yours. He thought you would be different but I suspect now that Allah may have cursed him and no matter what woman or how many women he beds, a son is not his naseeb.

  “And now, now that he has heavy sins on his shoulders, he may have poisoned his naseeb even more.”

  This was the first reference Gulnaz had made to Aasif’s involvement in the palace scandal. Shekiba was not sure how much she knew.

  “You were a guard there for the harem. He told me this much. You were living as a man. Your short hair, the way you walk, the way you hide your breasts. I think you may have been more content that way. To be honest, I would not mind trying it myself. I wonder what it would be like to be able to walk through the streets freely, without a thousand critical eyes. Do you miss it?”

  This was something to which Shekiba, the woman-man, had given a great deal of thought.

  “It did feel good. But . . . pants or a skirt, it changes nothing in the end. When it mattered, I was as vulnerable as any woman . . .” Shekiba decided against talking about the lashing. “And now I am here.”

  Gulnaz intuited what Shekiba meant. “It must have been awful, what they did to you.”

  Shekiba felt her back stiffen. There were still three raised scars she could feel when she bathed. She wondered how many more scars she had that she could not see. Gulnaz sighed.

  “He was so angry. He did not say much about it but a wife knows her husband’s moods. He was angry from the beginning and I didn’t understand why until Aasif’s sister told me about her. She wanted me to know I wasn’t her brother’s first choice.”

  Her. Shekiba looked at Gulnaz from the corner of her eye. Her expression was blank. She was talking about Benafsha.

  “He knew her from before. She was nobody. Her family is as poor as they come and with three daughters, her father cursed his luck. She was just some girl who lived near his uncle’s home. I don’t know how, but he saw her once or twice.

  “Aasif wanted her but his father rejected the idea. Not a proper family, not good enough for his son. But he kept at it. Kept trying to convince his father, and he had almost gotten his way when her father sent her to the palace. One less girl to provide for. Aasif was angry, but she was out of reach behind the palace walls so he let his father choose another family. And then we were married.”

  Shekiba listened intently. Gulnaz was speaking to no one in particular.

  “Men don’t like being denied something. Even if it is by the king. He won’t say exactly what happened there but I know something happened. I know it must have been terrible because he came home with eyes so red he looked like he could cry blood. He didn’t eat, sleep or speak for days.”

  Shekiba looked away. She did not want to explain and hoped Gulnaz wouldn’t ask.

  “And then he came home one day looking like he’d just met Shaitan himself. His eyes were dark and serious and he sat around staring at the walls, muttering something about atoning for his sins, begging forgiveness of God. He announced that he was going to bring home a second wife since I haven’t been able to bear him a child. There was nothing I could say to that, especially when I saw the look on his face. His family had spoken to him about the idea months ago but he hadn’t seemed all that eager. But I thought . . . well, when he said he would bring a second wife I wondered if he was crazy enough to think he could bring her here, but then it was . . . you.”

  Shekiba kept her eyes on the ground. Her head spun. Benafsha had not turned him away. She had loved him, enough to protect him with her own life. How could a woman love any man so much?

  Because of Benafsha, Aasif had saved her life. For that, Shekiba was grateful.

  CHAPTER 57

  RAHIMA

  I WAS A LITTLE GIRL and then I wasn’t.

  I was a bacha posh and then I wasn’t.

  I was a daughter and then I wasn’t.

  I was a mother and then I wasn’t.

  Just as soon as I could adjust, things changed. I changed. This last change was the worst.

  “Rahima-jan, remember that life has typhoons. They come and turn everything upside down. But you still have to stand up because the next storm may be around the corner.” I hadn’t changed much since I lost my son. Abdul Khaliq had become withdrawn. Bibi Gulalai was more present than before, making sure that the family was carrying itself properly. We had to mourn appropriately or our neighbors would talk. Her narrowed eyes fell on me, checking the color of my chador, the dress I wore and the expression on my face.

  When my mind wandered, she caught me and told me to stop staring. She told me to get back to work. I couldn’t expect to just lie around forever. There were still floors to clean. There were clothes to wash. It would be good for me to get back to the routine.

  A mourning mother should have been given her forty days to grieve, our visitors were surely thinking. Bibi Gulalai, mother to the most powerful man in our province, knew their concern was driven by fear, not respect, and she did not care.

  Khala Shaima summoned the strength to visit me still. Each time she left, I wondered if she would make it home. And I worried that she wouldn’t make it back. I needed her. In a house full of people, I still felt totally alone. There was something on my mind, something I didn’t want to admit to myself or to Jameela. I didn’t know how to feel about it.

  “Khala-jan, do you know what the people of Kabul think of us?”

  “What are you talking about, Rahima?”

  “Kabul is different from here. Just like Bibi Shekiba thought. It’s amazing how many cars, how many people, how many posters. There is so much noise there.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” Khala Shaima looked concerned that I was losing my mind.

  “I wonder what those people think of us. They’ve got buildings, banks, taxis, hotels. People from all over the world, construction companies working on new buildings. Beauty parlors and restaurants. Hospitals.”

  “You’ve seen a lot of good places in your travels, haven’t you? Seems like you haven’t shared some stories with me!” She smiled wanly.

  “And the parliament . . . sometimes I can hardly believe that so many people could come together in one room. And they talk about things, even some of the women. Sometimes they talk about things people in this village don’t think about in a lifetime.”

  “Rahima-jan, what’s on your mind? Did something happen in Kabul?”

  “Lots of things happen in Kabul. It is so different from here.”

  Khala Shaima looked thoughtful. “Is that a good thing?”

  I looked at her. Anything different from here was a very good thing.

  “But there’s something else,” I said, my heart heavy with worry.

  “There is?”

  I nodded.

  “What is it?”

  I looked away, my eyes starting to tear.

  “I see.”

  I knew she did. Khala Shaima knew me better than anyone else.

  “Well, that�
��s something to think about then.” She sighed heavily and shook her head.

  I’d given it much thought. Thoughts I didn’t care to admit.

  People close to death have little to lose. They can think things, say things, do things that others wouldn’t. Khala Shaima and I were both in that position, she because of her health and me because I felt no desire to open my eyes in the morning. A conversation began to take shape between us. A conversation that happened in unspoken words, in false words, in knowing glances. It was difficult to say what we were both thinking but it was something to be explored.

  Because, as Khala Shaima had so often said, everyone needs an escape.

  CHAPTER 58

  SHEKIBA

  SHEKIBA AND GULNAZ KEPT HOUSE TOGETHER and endured Aasif’s outbreaks, episodes where his frustration got the best of him. He ranted, berated and slapped. He threw things, twice breaking windowpanes. The cost of replacing them sent him into a new rage.

  The tension drew the two women together. They shared a husband, they shared blame, they shared punishment. They bickered as well. Shekiba hated Gulnaz’s lofty attitude and her bland cooking. Gulnaz thought Shekiba dull and plain, a lousy conversationalist. But they made the situation work. Shekiba added spices when Gulnaz turned away and Gulnaz talked enough to make up for her husband’s boring second wife.

  There were a few months of nervous respite when Gulnaz’s belly began to swell. She told Shekiba when she realized that she had not bled for two months. They wondered on the possibilities until Gulnaz began throwing up once every four days. Shekiba confirmed that these were the signs that a child was growing, as she had learned in the harem. Nothing was said to Aasif, since it was improper to discuss such delicate matters with men, but when he noticed her belly protruding, he smiled with satisfaction and entered Shekiba’s room after dark with renewed zeal.

  Aasif came home and shared meals with his wives. They had taken to eating together, the three of them, from time to time. Shekiba was cautious not to join them too often, knowing now that Gulnaz was carrying Aasif’s child he would see Shekiba as an even bigger failure than before.