He puts his hand on the lever and balances himself. He starts to push the lever down, but as he pushes toward the ground, he leans over. I take a quick step toward him, afraid he’s going to tip over.
“No!” he yells out when he sees me getting near. It’s not an angry yell. It’s more like a panicked one. “I don’t need help, bachem.”
“I can do it, Padar . . .”
“I know you can. I know you can.”
I get it then. I understand that my father needs to prove he can do this without his daughter’s assistance. I shut my mouth and go back to the spigot.
With a grunt, he pushes the lever down. It’s an undertaking made by his entire body. He lets the crutch drop to the ground and puts both hands on the lever. The veins in his neck bulge with every push. I hear a gurgle in the pipe and see a wet sputter at the spigot’s mouth.
“It’s coming, Padar! It’s coming!”
I’m cheering him on as if gold has spewed from the spigot instead of water. But it’s not just water. It’s much more than that, as proven by looking at the broad smile on my father’s ruddy face.
When the container is full, we decide to rest. My father lets himself fall into the plastic chair. I sit on the concrete base of the pump. My feet dangle just a few inches off the ground.
“Obayda, do you remember the day in the market? The day I lost my leg?”
That day is not a day we ever talk about.
I feel my stomach churn at the mention of that day. How could I possibly forget it when it had all started with that bottle of medicine? I can’t look at my father’s leg without hearing the screaming, smelling a world on fire, and seeing my father torn to pieces. It’s the blackest, ugliest day I’ve ever seen, and I don’t think it’ll ever get even a little fuzzy in my mind. But that’s not how I answer my father.
“I remember.”
The sky is more gold than purple now. I can hear a dog yelping in the distance. The world is waking.
“It was a terrible day. I wish more than anything that I could go back and change things—if only we’d left the house a half hour earlier or gone to the pharmacy on the other end of the market. But none of that can be changed and no one is to blame for that other than the people who exploded that car there.”
My throat is thick and hot. I stare at my feet because I don’t know what will happen if I look up. Something in me feels lighter, though. I hadn’t realized, until this moment, just how bad I felt about being the reason for my father’s injury. I concentrate on taking slow, steady breaths as he continues.
“I only remember the first part of that day. I remember looking at you sitting on a bench across the road. I remember my arm going up to wave at you and I remember you waving back. I remember the green-and-white dress you were wearing. I remember the way your bangs were tucked behind your ear. That’s the last thing I remember, and I’m glad my mind stopped recording then, with my eyes on your face. After that, there’s nothing but black until the next day, when I woke up and your mother was sitting next to me, crying.”
I nod. My father is lucky not to remember anything that happened after the explosion. I wish I didn’t remember either.
“All the days after that—the pain where my leg should have been and everywhere else, the fevers, the look on your mother’s face when she saw me. I couldn’t bring myself to talk. I wanted to be alone. I asked your mother not to bring any of you to the hospital.”
“She told us the doctors didn’t think it was a good idea for us to visit.”
“The doctors didn’t say a thing about it. It was my idea.”
I look up at him curiously.
“Why did you do that?”
“I couldn’t bear to look at you girls. I’ve been your father your whole life, but when I woke up and realized what had happened to me, I knew I couldn’t be your father the way I wanted to be. I couldn’t work or pay our rent. I couldn’t pay for your schoolbooks. I couldn’t do much of anything for any of you. It was very hard for me to accept that.”
“But then you came home . . .”
“But then I came home and things were worse. I couldn’t walk to the corner to buy a newspaper. I couldn’t even get my clothes on without your mother’s help. What good is a father who can’t do anything for his children?”
I am crying, and I cannot help it. I sniffle and rub at my eyes to make them stop tearing.
“I missed you so much, Padar. I just wanted you to talk to us again. We all did.”
“I missed you too, Obayda. And I want you to know that things will be different. Your uncle has been asking me to come work with him, and I think it’s time. I have two capable hands I’ve been ignoring for too long.”
A metal gate clangs and I wipe my eyes in a hurry. It’s Agha Samir. He’s headed our way with a five-gallon blue container. He’s beaming from ear to ear as he walks toward us.
“Should we go, Padar?” My father hasn’t socialized with the neighbors at all, and I wonder if he’d rather avoid a conversation. My father shakes his head and stays in the green chair. He picks up the walking stick he let drop and props it up against the chair’s side arm. He straightens his back and pulls his shirt into place.
“Good morning!” Agha Samir hollers with a wave. “Well, well, I never imagined I’d be seeing my old school friend today. I’m glad I came out when I did. Brother, how have you been?”
“Samir.” My father smiles. “It’s good to see you, friend. It’s been a lifetime, hasn’t it?”
I watch Agha Samir’s eyes float to my father’s stump and stay there for a little too long before he collects himself and stops gawking.
“It sure has,” Agha Samir agrees. “But when I think of it, it feels like yesterday. Do you remember all the trouble we used to get into? The time we used up all your mother’s yarn to make kite strings?”
My father shakes his head with a soft laugh.
“She had just bought that yarn to make herself a sweater. She wouldn’t speak to me for two days—thanks to you!”
“Me? You’re the one who snuck the yarn out!”
“Yes, but I told her I hadn’t touched it. She might’ve believed me if you hadn’t blubbered out an apology.”
I can’t imagine my father lying to my grandmother.
“I couldn’t help it.” Agha Samir’s belly rolls as he laughs deeply. “I felt so bad, I spent the next few weeks trying to learn how to knit so I could make it up to her, but the best I could do was a sock with no heel!”
I can’t help but smile. Sometimes laughter is as contagious as a bad cold.
My father looks at me. I try to hide my grin, but the sparkle in his eyes tells me I don’t need to.
“You haven’t changed a bit,” my father says, rubbing his neck.
“Not a bit?” he asks, rubbing his round belly. “I don’t know if I’d agree with you on that, but I’m not one to argue with a long-lost friend. And you, you look . . . You look well.”
Agha Samir fidgets and glances away as he says it.
“You’re still a pathetic liar,” my father says. He means it, but there’s a little tease in his voice that tells Agha Samir he’s already been forgiven for this fib.
Agha Samir rubs his forehead and shrugs.
“My fatal flaw,” he admits with a sheepish smile.
Agha Samir’s gaze drifts to me, with my curious boy hair and girl clothes. I’m sure he’s thinking I look strange—like someone who is playing a bizarre dress-up game. I look at the ground and wish I could snap my fingers and make my boy clothes appear. Or even make my girl hair grow out instantly.
My father must feel the heat rising from my face. He takes the crutch and pushes himself to standing. Agha Samir rushes toward him, just as I did a few moments ago, but my father stops him with a raised hand. Agha Samir nods in understanding.
“I have all the help I need right here,” he says slowly and confidently. He lifts the crutch a couple of inches off the ground and points at it with his eyes. “You se
e this stick? This has brought me back from the dead, nothing short of magic.”
“It’s a beauty,” Agha Samir says. “Your brother must have made it for you.”
“No,” my father says with his eyes locked on Agha Samir’s. I stand next to him and feel his fingers on my shoulder. “My brother’s a good man, but this piece of magic is not his doing. My daughter made it for me. She’s something special, my Obayda. She’s my miracle.”
Thirty-Three
With every step, my heart beats a little harder. I remember how nervous I was to go to school on my first day as a bacha posh. What was I thinking? That was nothing compared to what today is going to be like.
I asked my parents to let me stay home for a few more days, but they refused.
“It’ll be fine,” Meena tells me. I can feel her eyes on me even as I stare at the ground. I’m watching my girl feet inch their way down the road, and strange thoughts float through my head. If someone were to see my toes, would they mistake me for a boy? What about my hands or my ears? I know some parts of my body are definitely girl parts (I’ve been checking them pretty frequently to see if anything changed after my trip to the waterfall). But there are other parts of me that could go either way. My legs, the legs that climbed up the tree to get the perfect branch for my father’s walking stick, are those girl legs or boy legs? And what about my brain?
“I can’t believe I’m in a dress. This is such a horrible day.”
“A horrible day?” Alia scoffs. “And you all say I’m the dramatic one!”
I know as soon as I say it that I am being whiny and unfair again, and I would hate for that to be my thing. I think back to the night my sisters stayed up with me when my parents decided to change me back into a girl. I bite my lower lip and try to look up a little. Meena wraps her arm around my shoulders.
I’m glad my head scarf is covering up my boy hair—or missing girl hair. I’m not sure what to call it yet.
As much as I drag my feet, there are only so many steps between our home and school. We are here and I see the boys kicking around a ball. Abdullah and Ashraf are in the middle of the group, but I spot them easily because they’re taller than the others.
I take a step closer to Meena and try to disappear into her shadow. We’re close enough that I’m breathing in the dust of their early morning soccer game. I pull the corner of my head scarf over my mouth and nose, not because of the dust but because I don’t want to be recognized.
The girls are standing outside the school building in loose clusters. My sisters stay with me until it is time for us all to line up and step inside. The doors open and a teacher comes out to ring the bell. My eyes fall back on my shoes as the girls gather around us and form two lines. We enter the building, with me trying to be undetectable.
I follow Alia into her classroom. We’re close enough in age that we are in the same class. I’m really grateful that I can be with her. She makes room for me next to her on the floor, but before I can sit down the teacher puts a hand on my shoulder.
“And you are?”
“Good morning, teacher. My name is . . . Obayda.”
I wonder when my name will be my own again. Alia stands up.
“She’s my sister, Moallim-sahib. She’s with me.”
“Ah, yes.” The teacher looks at me and nods, like something’s just occurred to her. “Obayda. Welcome to the class. I’m sure you’ll settle in fine.”
And then she does what I’ve been fearing she might do all night and with each step of my walk to school this morning.
“Class, please welcome Obayda. She is Alia’s sister and was in one of the classes down the hall until a few days ago. Obayda, please stand up so everyone can meet you.”
I want to say that I can’t believe she’s done this to me, but actually it’s not surprising at all. Do all adults forget what it’s like to be a kid?
I feel my face go from pink to white to red. My stomach turns upside down as twenty-five pairs of eyes turn to me. That’s fifty eyes in total looking at a boy in girls’ clothing. I slide back down to the floor as quickly as possible and the whispers start.
The moallim goes over a math lesson, and I try hard to pay attention, but I can’t. I’m straining to hear every hushed voice behind me. I watch the back of every girl who fidgets in her place and wonder if she’s itching to turn around and get a better look at the freak sitting behind her.
Alia looks over at me a few times and gives me sweet, reassuring smiles. That helps some, but there seem to be more and more whispers around me, and that’s the only multiplication I can focus on.
When recess comes, I am so relieved. I plan to disappear into some hidden corner of the schoolyard. I remember the day Rahima chased me down and the way I retreated back into the building to get away from her. I wish she were here today so we could be girls together.
There’s a lot of jostling to get out the door, though I know from experience that there’s much more on the boys’ side. I am shoulder to shoulder with Alia as we walk outside. I shield my eyes from the sun and start walking toward the side of the school most of the kids avoid.
“Where are you going, Obayda?” Alia asks.
“I just want to get away from everyone,” I mumble. “You don’t have to come with me. I know you have friends you usually play with.”
“I’ll stay with you,” my sister says firmly. “I won’t leave you alone.”
“Hey, you!”
Alia begins to turn, but I tug at her elbow.
“Let’s just keep moving.”
“Alia!”
“What did she say her name was? Obayda!”
“Yeah, that’s it. Obayda! We want to talk to you.”
I can feel their eyes on my back. I steal a quick glance over my shoulder. I am expecting to see two or three girls. My stomach drops. There are at least sixteen girls by my quick count.
“Get back here! We know what you were!”
“It’s not a secret! We all know!”
I squeeze my sister’s arm so hard she grimaces. If it weren’t for the mob of dresses behind us, she might have hit me. I can see she’s as nervous as I am. What do they want from me? Are they going to tear off my head scarf? Are they going to circle around me and poke at me to figure out what I am now?
“Hurry, Alia!” I break into a jog. There are a few trees at the end of the schoolyard and then a small road. I know the school day isn’t over, but I want nothing more than to run, run, run, as far as possible.
“Obayda, where are we going?”
“Home! I just want to go home!” When I hear my own voice shouting, I realize I’m crying, and that makes me so angry. What good is it to cry now? It’s a sign of weakness, and I can’t afford to look weak with a gang of feisty schoolgirls closing in on me.
I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand, but that makes everything even blurrier.
It’s easy to run in pants, especially when surrounded by friends and laughing. Running in a skirt while crying and being chased by an angry mob—that doesn’t work as well. My foot catches on a rock that I will hate for the rest of my life, and I stumble to the ground.
When I look up, the sun has disappeared. But it’s not really gone. It’s blocked by the heads of sixteen looming schoolgirls.
Thirty-Four
“Get away from me!” I yell and swing my arm in an arc. I wonder where Alia is. The girls have formed a tight circle around me and I feel completely trapped.
“Why are you running? We just want to talk to you.”
I get on my feet and spin around, looking for an opening. The circle takes a collective step outward, widening enough for me to see Alia standing just behind another girl. She looks like she’s trying to shoulder her way toward me.
“I’m running because you’re chasing me! Why are you chasing me?”
One girl with a red barrette holding her head scarf in place puts both her hands on her hips and lets out a huff.
“We weren’t chasing you. We wanted to
talk to you. You’re the one who started running.”
My breathing slows. My eyes focus.
The girls around me are staring at me, but not in a scary way. They almost look like they’ve stumbled upon something dangerously exciting, like a forbidden movie, and are trying to see how close they can get without risking serious trouble.
“Why do you want to talk to me?”
The girl with the red barrette leans in. She seems to be the spokesperson of the group.
“We know what you were,” she says softly.
I do a quick scan of the circle. All the girls are wide-eyed and motionless, as if someone pressed pause on their video player. I get a strange feeling in my chest and wait for her to go on. I’m still not sure what they want to do to me.
“Tell us.”
“Tell . . . tell you what?” I stutter. Then I put my hands on my hips too, so that I match her pose. I need to not look like an easy target. “I’m not telling you anything!”
“Come on, you have to tell us!” pleads a girl with pistachio-colored eyes.
Alia pops out between two girls and takes a stand in the center of the circle along with me.
“She’s got nothing to tell you! Leave my sister alone!” she shouts, then drops her voice to a gravelly warning. “Or you’ll be very, very sorry.”
The circle widens a bit as everyone takes a half step back. They’re a little unnerved by Alia’s theatrical voice but not completely scared off. I’m glad my sister’s here, but I also don’t want her to defend me. I can’t help but think of Rahima when I’m on this playground. She would never let herself feel cornered by a gang of girls.
“Now get away! All of you!” I yell and wave my arms around to shoo them off.
The circle of heads turn left and right, looking at one another for a cue. They shake their heads and the girl with pistachio eyes looks at me, confused.
“Why do you want to be so terrible to us? If I’d been a bacha posh like you, I’d be happy to talk about it. I’d want all the girls to know what it’s like. Alia, you were wondering along with us just a few days ago.”
Alia’s brows furrow. “Is that what you want with Obayda?”