by Lucy Ferriss
• • •
Afia, stay a minute,” Sue Glasgow said this afternoon as they all rose from their desks in Organic Chemistry. It had been more than two weeks since the awful moment on the bridge. Classes were starting to wrap up. Afia had shifted to the back of the room, where she hoped she would not be called on. Now she gathered her library textbooks and made her way to the front.
“I have failed the exam,” she said as Sue Glasgow lifted a sheet from the pile on her desk. She had been allowed to take the midterm late, but the questions had swum in her vision. Suppose you allowed cyclohexene to react with Br2 in water. What would you expect? You would expect nothing, because you would be in purdah, pregnant with your enemy’s child. “I am sorry.”
“I’m not worried about the exam, Afia. I’m worried about you. You had a terrible winter. Terrible. And now you look ill. Should you be in school right now?”
“Professor Glasgow.” Afia tugged at her hijab. She felt warm on her neck. “I have nowhere else to go.”
“Well, there’s the hospital.”
A little snort escaped her. “They have no medicine for me, Professor.”
“Talk to me about it. Afia, please. I know you’re estranged from your family, but—”
“It is private, Professor. I cannot.”
“I thought we were friends.”
Afia managed to lift her eyes. Friends? Here stood this well-meaning, brilliant teacher, ignorant as a rock. “Perhaps I should not come to class—”
“That’s absurd.” Sue Glasgow waved the sheet, filled with red X’s, then slid it across the desk at Afia. “I’m going to speak with Dean Myers,” she said.
Afia nodded. She took the exam, its F circled at the top. She stepped out into the cool sunshine. How startling it had been, more than a year ago when she first came here, to see bright blue sky and yet walk out into frigid air. Now she was used to it. She pulled her wool cardigan close. Three months ago, she would have felt devastated to hear Sue Glasgow speak to her that way. Now it felt like her missing toe, an absence of what should have been pain.
Her eyes were on the walkway when she heard a familiar voice. “I thought you agreed I could be, like, your brother.”
She looked up. “Afran!”
He held out a cardboard cup. “Tea?”
She surveyed the area before accepting it. Khalid had not admitted watching her movements on campus, but neither had he told her what he did all day, except to say he was getting the money. She imagined he was dealing drugs, up at the state university where there were plenty of buyers. Looking nervously around, all she saw were American girls chattering as they hustled between classes. “What—what brings you here?” she asked.
But his eyes had followed hers, flicking left and right. “Let’s step into another building,” he said.
“Afran, I cannot invite you—”
“Not your dorm. Here.” He gestured with his head at the library. “They let you bring tea partway inside. I checked.”
The feeling as she followed him up the steps to the library was so alien that she had trouble naming it. Happiness. She was happy to see him. Happy as she would not have been to see Coach Hayes, or even Gus, the thought of whom made her gut constrict in shame and confusion. Afran found a bench in a corner outside the main desk and motioned her to sit. She uncapped the tea and sipped. It was hot, sweet, spiced. They called this chai in America, not knowing that all tea, in Pakistan, was chai. It tasted delicious, and she said so.
Afran nodded. He’d reverted to his squash clothes, the blue warm-up jacket and loose pants. The uniform Shahid had died in. He looked older than she remembered him. Quieter, somehow. “Coach might lose her job,” he said, as if this were an answer to a comment about tea.
“She did not think she would.”
“That’s because she’s being nice to you.” He drank the tea the way men did from a teacup in Nasirabad, lifting the rim with thumb and fingers and sucking out the liquid. “You going to call her?”
Afia felt her neck grow hot. Of the unanswered calls on her mobile, at least half were from Coach Hayes. Before, she had been the one to prod the coach into taking her to a place of safety. This time, she feared, the opposite would be true. And yet of all the people Afia knew in America, Coach Hayes was the one she wanted most to talk to. Like her, Coach had loved Shahid first and foremost. If anyone could see a way to honor Shahid now, it would be Coach. “I will try,” she said lamely. “I have been so busy.”
“Busy? Like, with school?”
“School, yes.” She stared into the dark tea, the silhouette of her face reflected on its surface.
“No more . . . legal stuff.”
“No.”
“You’re missing Shahid, aren’t you?”
“Every day.” For a moment, the image of Shahid flung backward onto the snow floated into her mind. They came, these awful apparitions, and she squeezed her eyes shut and tried to make them go away.
“Coach doesn’t think you killed him.”
“Coach does not know everything.”
“Maybe because you don’t tell her.” Afran set his cup down. He turned to her. “You still engaged?”
“I . . .” Her hand holding the tea shook; she steadied it with the other hand. Then she remembered: Zardad. “Yes,” she said, her voice tight. “Still engaged.”
“To some guy in Pakistan, Gus said.”
She hesitated. But they would be in Pakistan, when it really happened. “Yes.”
“And what about your brother? Your other one, I mean.”
“I don’t understand you, Afran.”
“I think you do.” He reached across the bench. He touched her fingers. Even as a charge of fear went through her, she didn’t draw them away. “You’re hiding something, Afia. Shahid was hiding things, too. Not your brother—he told me you guys had a brother. But he hid other stuff. And it didn’t work out very well.”
She couldn’t lie to him. Any moment now, he would say again, your other brother, and her flinch would give her away. “This is to do with me only,” she said. “And it is for the best, Afran. No one else is at risk—”
“You think not?” He withdrew his fingers. He was shaking his head quickly, as if to rid himself of confusion. “Then why is Gus getting this creepy feeling?”
“What creepy feeling?”
“Like he’s being followed everywhere. Like this car that ran a red light in Pittsfield, right where he was crossing the street from his doctor’s office, wasn’t just some crazy dude. Another guy yanked him back or he’d’ve been dead. I mean, if anyone’s got a right to paranoia, it’s our boy Gus. On the other hand”—he tipped his head and smirked—“I know the rule.”
She couldn’t help herself. Her heart burned. “What kind of car?”
“Ah. So that matters.”
She pressed her lips together. She needed to think.
“The rule,” Afran went on, “is you don’t just punish the girl. Not if you want a clean slate. The guy has to go, too. Even if they’re not . . . you know. The fact is it happened. To make it unhappen, you’ve got to go after everyone.”
She struggled to stick to a lie that kept everyone safe. A story where there was no Khalid, no murder of Shahid, no engagement to Khalid. Any other story put Afran, too, in danger. She looked at him. He had offered to be her brother. He did not look afraid. But he was not her brother, and this badal was not his. “Tell Gus,” she said, “I will phone him.”
“That’d be a start.”
Afia reached out and took Afran’s hand. She squeezed it too hard, and for a very long time.
• • •
She needed a plan. It would be weeks before Khalid earned—or begged, or stole—enough to fly them both to Nasirabad. Weeks of Khalid’s regarding her like brother and sister, like warden and captive, before he could marry her
and possess her body. During those weeks, it was unlikely she could meet Gus for tea, go with Taylor to watch him play squash, even walk down the sidewalk by his side without Khalid being driven to murderous rage. No, worse. The longer Khalid needed to guard her, here, the more his badal would turn toward Gus, the man who had seduced her and paid no price beyond a broken leg and a lost home. And Ramadan would only stiffen his resolve.
Once—in what felt like another life—she had explained to Sara Desfani that by her people’s law Gus was makhtoray, that Shahid had had the right to kill him. But Shahid was gone, and Gus was not subject to this law. She was ready to sacrifice herself to Khalid. She wasn’t ready to sacrifice Gus to Khalid’s honor.
Like he’s being followed everywhere. In hundreds of places Gus could be alone, unprotected. How could she stop Khalid from killing him, if that was Khalid’s intent? Think, she told herself as she lay awake at night, her books untouched. Think.
Khalid would not walk proud to the gallows, as in that old saying. He wanted to live; to bring Afia home with him. He would wait his chance to kill Gus in a place where he wouldn’t be caught; or he would kidnap Gus, drive him into the mountains, destroy him there and bury the body. Alone in the dorm room that Thursday night, Afia pulled out the gun she’d taken from Khalid’s glove compartment. She checked the chamber and found it loaded. Holding the handle out from her chest with both hands, the way Thalia had shown her in prison, she tried to sight down the barrel, to imagine her stepbrother in the crosshairs. Then she remembered how the other gun had gone off, at the edge of the wintry woods, how it had kicked hotly back at her and she had dropped it. She would be useless, trying to fend off Khalid. Nor could she predict when he might move against Gus, or where.
The next morning, trembling, she found the last missed call from Gus on her mobile and pressed the green button.
“Afia,” came his familiar voice, smooth and boyish. “I’ve been worried about you.”
“I need to see you.”
She heard him sigh. “Look, Afia,” he said—not M’Afia, no more nicknames, sweet words—“Afran told me. You’re going back to Pakistan. This whole thing . . . well, it’s awful. I’m going to blame myself the rest of my life.”
“It’s not for that I call, Gus—”
“So I don’t think I should see you, Afia. Not that I don’t love you. I really do. But it’s not going to work if—”
“I have something to give you, Gus. We must meet somewhere . . . somewhere safe.” She waited through a long silence. “Gus?”
“I don’t like,” he said, “where this is going.”
“Not I neither. Tell me a safe place.”
“On one condition. When we meet you’ll tell me”—she caught the hard edge of his voice, same as when she’d rung him up from the store in Hadley—“what the hell is going on.”
They agreed on the squash center, where he’d started trying to hit the ball again. It was off season, no one else would be there. She would text him about the time; she had to beg Esmerelda for a ride. She checked her watch. She had Sue Glasgow’s final biology class this morning. No matter. She would fail the class, anyway. Wrapping the gun in a scarf, she thrust it deep into her backpack and set off across campus, to the road that led out of Northampton Center to the Price Chopper.
The day was warm, true spring at last. Tulips clustered in front of the businesses on State Street. Clouds scudded across the sky, and she felt almost cheered, walking her old route to work. At the Price Chopper, Esmerelda fretted about stretching her break too far. Was it important? she wanted to know, and Afia said yes, very important, and Esmerelda’s dimples showed as she asked if this was about Afia’s fella. And Afia reminded her that she was engaged, but Esmerelda laughed and said she’d give that four Pinocchios, and if Afia could wait in the sun for an hour, she’d scoot her over to Devon, only she’d have to get a lift back or take the bus through Springfield.
Afia sat weary but with a bubble of hope in her chest. Maybe there was no danger. But at least she would be giving Gus two weapons—the gun, and the truth. Part of the truth, at least. As much as he needed to know. After that, Allah would have to protect him. Flipping open her mobile, she sent the text. Squash centre 2:00. A breeze blew across her face. When the door opened from the Price Chopper, the sweet smell of their bakery drifted out.
Car doors slammed every few minutes, in the parking lot. Why she bolted awake when Khalid’s slammed, she didn’t know. But she was upright as he came at her, his face unshaven and his eyes like nail heads.
“Khalid lala!” she said. She moved away from her backpack. “Why are you here?”
“You think I don’t watch your classes?” He took hold of her arm at the elbow. “You go to classes so that I know you are safe! Are you playing truant, now? Must I fetch you back each time you wander away?”
“Khalid lala, please.” She made her voice soft, tried to press the panic out of it. “You don’t care about my education. Why does it matter—”
“I am not such a fool. You have no strength. This place has corrupted you through and through. In class, in your room, you stay safe. You stay mindful. But this place!” He flung an arm out at the Price Chopper. “I knew when I saw those women, they were dangerous for you. Now get in the car. We’ll go back to your school. You wander off again, I can’t answer for what I’ll do.”
“Do you mean”—she edged back toward the backpack now, ready to obey him—“you’ve been checking on my class attendance? But Khalid lala, you need to earn money, you said so.”
“And how can I,” he said, pulling her toward the blue car, “when you have no self-control?”
“I am sorry. So sorry. I didn’t think. I wanted only to see my aunties here—”
“You’ll see them when I say you can see them.”
“Of course. You’re right. Now let me just—”
“I’ll get it.” He pushed her into the car and went for the backpack, still on the bench. No, she thought. Please, no. But as soon as he lifted the handle, he seemed to know. He loosened the cord at the top. He pulled out the scarf. His face, as he flung the empty bag into the car, was a raging storm. In the driver’s seat, he removed the gun from its wrapping and tucked it into his waistband. For a full minute he sat staring straight ahead. Afia heard his breath going in and out of his nostrils. She heard her own breath, the battering of her heart. “Give me your mobile,” he said at last.
“Khalid lala, I don’t think I have it with me, I—”
He twisted in the seat and wrenched the backpack up from the floor behind him. Rifling through its outer pockets, he found the little flip phone. Afia looked out the window. She willed Esmerelda to come out. She would run to Esmerelda. Khalid wouldn’t dare fire on an innocent woman in a crowded parking lot. But shoppers went in and out of the automatic doors, and no Esmerelda.
Khalid scrolled through the phone’s numbers; through the messages. When he turned to Afia his voice was calm and flat, like a computer voice. “Where is he.”
“Who?”
He held the phone up. Though she couldn’t make out the number on the screen, she knew it was Gus’s. “Tell me or you die.”
“I die, then.” She said the words easily. A decision she should have made weeks ago. She met his eyes without flinching.
He put the car in gear. “I will find him first,” he said, “and then we will talk about living or dying.”
The car spun around and down the aisle of the lot; a women with a baby perched on a shopping cart yanked the cart back in alarm. “Where are we going?” Afia asked when she had her breath.
“Somewhere,” Khalid said in that same flat voice, “from which you cannot wander off.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Lissy’s temporary office was built originally as a storeroom, off the corridor by the squash center where she’d once seen Gus and Afia kissing. It had a des
k, a set of shelves, a box of weights in the corner. Already she’d hauled up her squash equipment and bins of balls. She would rather be here, she’d told Ernesto, than haunting the central office on the main floor, with its reception area and administrative assistant. If he was taking charge, however briefly, he needed to sit in the director’s chair.
She’d attended her last meeting about the capital campaign, along with Ernesto, who kept squinting at the rows of figures; he was too vain for reading glasses. Charlie Horton, Don Shears had reported, was making good on his pledge. They would break ground on the fitness center in the fall. “Congratulations,” she’d said to Shears as she made her swift exit.
He’d caught her arm. “You might call Horton,” he said. “Thank him. Say good things about football.”
“Don, when I got here—”
“Just call him, okay?” He’d placed his hand, a little too heavily, on her shoulder. “Keep the lines open.”
She turned this advice over in her head as she began unpacking boxes. It felt good to pack, to unpack, to arrange. Grief was like any season, forced eventually to give way. The terrible choices she had made in February, and their terrible consequences, felt like a great glob of cold earth that she had swallowed and planted inside her, to grow however it must.
She pulled her clock out of the first box and set it. One fifty-five. In a couple of hours she’d fetch Chloe. Ethan had expanded his practice in the past month, saying little about it, but Lissy knew he was preparing in case they were reduced to one income. And what if she had to go on the market, apply for a coaching spot in Nebraska or South Carolina? No, she couldn’t. Ethan loved their house even more than she did. Loved getting down to professional meetings in New York, loved seeing his sisters there. He’d talked—angrily—about selling the family camp in Hadley, now that death had spoiled the place. But Chloe was getting bigger. He’d want to take her fishing on the Hudson.