To survive, they had to adapt. They could adapt themselves or they could adapt the space they occupied, Zeba realized. If she were to be a prisoner of Chil Mahtab, she would have to do the same. She looked at her cellmates. She could do it with their help. She could settle into this place if she could become someone here.
“Listen carefully,” Zeba began, knowing that the women would hang on every word that came out of her mouth. She knew, too, that this would be a test for them all. It would test their faith in Zeba and test the sorcery skills she’d inherited from her mother. It would test Mezhgan’s patience while she waited for the spell to sway her beloved’s parents.
Zeba shared with Mezhgan, in painstaking detail, how the hearts of her lover’s parents would be softened toward her. She told her about the string of red, about the seven knots and the three drops of blood. She described the cloth it would be folded in and how it would be thrown over the walls of her lover’s home, along with three feathers from a freshly killed chicken. She did not forget to tell Mezhgan about the thread that would be tied around her own wrist with the same seven knots to bind her to her lover.
Mezhgan listened intently, her fingers tying knots in an invisible thread even as Zeba spoke. She nodded with every instruction and dared not interrupt.
“That is all that needs to be done,” Zeba declared. “But it must be done quickly, before their resolve grows too hard for the spell to break it.”
“How long will it take to work?”
“I can’t tell you that,” Zeba said. “It depends on how precisely the instructions are carried out. Jadu is a fickle creature. You’re at its mercy once you call on it.”
Mezhgan threw her arms around Zeba’s neck. Zeba stood still, resting her hands on the young girl’s back hesitantly. Mezhgan’s embrace made Zeba’s eyes well with tears. Would her daughters one day be as foolish as this girl? She brushed the thought aside and enjoyed the weight of another person, even as it anchored her to the prison floor.
MEZHGAN’S DISGRACED MOTHER CAME TO VISIT HER DAUGHTER one week later. Mezhgan relayed to her Zeba’s very specific instructions. She impressed upon her mother the importance of following the road map precisely. Yes, the thread had to be red. No, the blood did not have to be fresh nor did it have to be Mezhgan’s. Yes, the tiny packet had to be thrown over the wall of her beloved’s home for the magic to be effective.
Mezhgan’s mother listened, doubtful, but willing to try anything to lift the dishonor her doe-eyed daughter had brought upon their family. Mezhgan’s father hadn’t left the house in three weeks, too ashamed to meet his neighbors’ eyes. It made for a very tense home.
The mother made the long walk back to her home, stopping on the way and buying a spool of red wool thread from the seamstress. By the light of an oil lantern, her knobby fingers knotted the thread. She whispered a prayer over it too, for good measure. When she’d carried out all the directions, she returned to her living room and clutched a cup of freshly steeped tea in her hands. She held the cup to her chin, letting the steam mist her skin. Her husband did not lift his head to ask where she’d been, a small blessing.
Either this magic would work, she thought, or her daughter had made a fool out of her for a second time.
ELEVEN DAYS LATER, MEZHGAN’S MOTHER RETURNED TO THE prison.
Mezhgan’s fingers gripped the metal rings of the fence so tightly they turned white. Her cellmates watched from enough distance to feign privacy.
Though they could not hear a single word, they could see the excitement pass through the latticework of the fence. Mezhgan’s head fell back in elation. She clapped her hands once, twice, three times and twirled on her foot. She drew her shoulders up and covered her grin with her cupped hands. Her mother wiped away a tear of joy.
“Either her head lice spread to the rest of her body or she’s gotten some good news,” Latifa quipped. She stole a sidelong glance at Zeba.
Nafisa could not take her eyes off Mezhgan. Her buoyant mood was infectious, even across the dismal prison yard.
Mezhgan came running over, the ends of her lilac head scarf dancing in the breeze. Zeba braced herself. Until this very moment, she still harbored doubts as to what she could do on her own; it had been so many years since she’d last toyed with Gulnaz’s craft.
“Zeba-jan, you did it! His mother’s come to ask for my hand in marriage! I knew he loved me. You unlocked my naseeb. How can I possibly thank you for bringing my darling to me?”
Mezhgan, with her hands clasped together, shot Latifa a coy look.
“Latifa, you were wrong to poke fun! Zeba’s spell worked faster and cost far less than buying off a hardheaded judge!”
Mezhgan crouched down to kiss Zeba’s hands in gratitude. Zeba’s eyes fluttered in surprise, and she pulled her hands away.
“That’s not necessary,” she said abruptly. “I’m glad the boy’s family has come around. For you and your baby.”
Mezhgan’s eyes twinkled. From behind the fence, her mother called her name and waved her over. She shook her head at her daughter’s giddiness. There was much that still needed to happen. There had to be a formal nikkah. Until her daughter was married in the eyes of Islam, she should not rejoice. A premature celebration would only invite misfortune.
Mezhgan wasted no time. Her mother left the prison that day with even stricter instructions directed, this time, by her own daughter. She needed a proper wedding dress. The clothes she’d been wearing in the prison would not do for such a momentous occasion. When she and her lover, Haroon, visited the judge to update him on the status of their relationship, she pushed closer to him, whispering honey-coated words of devotion.
“I knew we were meant to be together. I’ve been thinking of nothing but you,” she cooed. “And now we need to plan our engagement.”
Her shackled fiancé was sent off with a list of supplies needed to mark this momentous occasion behind bars. He would need to relay the list to his parents, who should deliver the items as promptly as possible so that Mezhgan could make plans. She handed him a folded sheet of notebook paper that bore her childish scrawl: chocolates for the guests, sugared almonds, pink lipstick, and money to her mother for any other expenses.
Mezhgan walked with the confidence of a woman adorned in gold. Latifa looked bored. The promise of a nikkah took all the sport out of their banter.
Haroon’s mother and father, along with Mezhgan’s anxious parents, arrived on the day the young couple were to sign their nikkah. They nodded at one another briefly but said nothing else. Mezhgan’s father was still too angry and ashamed to string more than two words together, and her mother was afraid she would be confronted for what she’d done with the thread and the feather. She pulled at her sleeves, a nervous twitch.
The parents, bride, and groom were led into a small courtroom with three rows of wooden chairs. The groom, wearing white pantaloons and a tunic, was escorted by two guards with distinctly unfestive handguns on their hips. Mezhgan, early in her second trimester, beamed in a silver brocade head scarf and a billowy emerald dress that she’d cinched at her still delicate waist. The hem of the dress fell to her calves and covered her ivory, satin pantaloons. She smiled coyly at her new fiancé. Her reluctant mother-in-law turned away. She’d agreed to this arrangement but only because she’d not wanted her son to serve the remaining eighteen months of his sentence.
How disappointed she was to have raised a fool for a son.
The young couple had their handcuffs released so that they could sign their names on the nikkah contract that bound him and Mezhgan as husband and wife. It was the most important piece of paper Mezhgan had ever touched, and she took her time penning the curves and dashes of her name. Before he was led away by the guards, Mezhgan dreamily exclaimed they would have a beautiful wedding party once they were released. He shook his head and sighed with amusement. Her eyebrows shot up as he was led away. His dainty bride had not been joking.
IN THE PRISON, NEWS OF MEZHGAN’S NIKKAH BROUGHT A BUZZ OF
activity. It passed from cell to cell in whispers, nods, and exaggerated stories. Some scoffed, some giggled, and some were just a bit fearful. But each and every woman behind those locked doors wondered if the rumors of a sorceress among them might just be true. Soon they were lining up at the dented door of Zeba’s cell, their newly found hope stoking the wildfire she’d set off within the cold walls of Chil Mahtab.
CHAPTER 21
GULNAZ STOOD BY THE FRONT DOOR OF THE PRISON AND watched as a young man slid his legs out of the backseat of a taxi, struggling to keep the strap of a bag on his shoulder as he slipped the driver a few bills.
He was in a rush to get to the prison—as if his hurrying would save something more than a moment of time. He pushed the taxi door closed and raised his hand in thanks to the driver who had already turned his attention back to the radio dial.
Oh, Rafi. Did you find a lawyer to defend your sister or a playmate for your sons?
Gulnaz wished she’d paid closer attention to Rafi when he was younger. He meant well, but his efforts were childish.
The man was walking quickly, his messenger bag bouncing playfully against his hip. He checked his watch, and Gulnaz sighed with renewed disappointment.
Time is not the problem, child. Time is all we have.
This was the baby-faced lawyer Zeba had told her about—the one whose expensive cologne and crisp clothes could not mask the scent of inexperience. Zeba had been right to hang her head.
When he reached the shaded entrance, Gulnaz took a step forward. Yusuf put a hand on his chest and nodded in respectful greeting. He reached for the door’s handle.
“You are my daughter’s lawyer,” Gulnaz declared.
Yusuf paused, caught off guard.
“Excuse me?”
“You are Zeba’s lawyer.”
“Yes, I am,” he said cautiously, his hand still resting on the metal handle. “I’m very sorry. You are . . .”
“Mother of the prisoner.”
He stopped abruptly, retreating a step and turning to face Gulnaz. He felt himself pulled by the crystalline green of her eyes.
How exotic, he thought, feeling fully Western as it occurred to him. These were the kinds of eyes that foreign photographers would plaster on magazine covers. His Afghan senses returned, and the sparkle of Gulnaz’s eyes also brought a chill to his bones.
Bewitching. His mother would have been muttering prayers under her breath if she were caught under the gaze of such eyes.
Yusuf reined in his thoughts.
“Pleasure to meet you. You’re here to visit your daughter?”
“I sat with her for a time.”
“How is she doing today?” It felt like the right thing to ask though he wasn’t clear why he was spending time with pleasantries. Surely there were more pressing things to ask Zeba’s mother.
Gulnaz must have agreed. She ignored his question and asked a more relevant one.
“Has she spoken much with you?”
“Well, she’s been reluctant to say much of anything so far,” Yusuf replied slowly. The family wasn’t paying a lot for his services, but they were paying something. He had disappointingly little to show for the case thus far.
“She knows better,” her mother confirmed. “My son-in-law’s body was found in his home. That means only that he’s dead—not that she killed him. Tell me your plans.”
Yusuf shifted his weight and moved the strap of his bag to his left shoulder.
“Well, for one, I’m going to be traveling to her village. I need to speak with the neighbors, people who knew her and her husband. I’ve got to see where it happened, especially since she’s not saying much. I’m going to do my job, Khanum. Your daughter seems to think she’s a lost cause, but I don’t see it that way. There’s always a way to . . .”
“People don’t speak badly of the dead. Do you really think you’ll find the truth there?”
“It is a starting point.”
“You don’t have a plan,” Gulnaz surmised.
“This is a complicated case, mostly because of how uncomplicated it looks. It’s not going to be simple to argue for her innocence.” Yusuf sounded defensive and he knew it.
“Innocence is a luxury not everyone can afford.”
Whether Gulnaz was referring to prisoners bribing their way out of convictions or her daughter’s role in Kamal’s death, Yusuf could not tell.
Gulnaz lifted the ends of her black-and-green head scarf, crossed them in front of her, and let them drape over her shoulders in one fluid motion.
“I need you to do something for me,” she said as the sound of a diesel engine rumbled past the prison. “I need you to tell the qazi that Safatullah’s daughter wishes to see him.”
“I see. May I ask, who is Safatullah?”
“My father.”
“I’m sorry I don’t recognize your father’s name. Should I?”
“No,” Gulnaz said without elaborating.
Yusuf’s eyebrows lifted slightly.
“Do you know this judge?”
“I have no business knowing judges here,” Gulnaz replied flatly.
“No, I suppose you wouldn’t.”
They weighed each other’s words for a moment.
“I’ll speak to the qazi,” Yusuf offered. “But how about you and I sit down and speak for a moment? Maybe we could go inside and find a place to talk.”
“I prefer not to be in a prison. We can speak here.” Gulnaz took a few steps away from the building. Yusuf had no choice but to follow. “What is it you want to speak about?”
“In order to defend Zeba, I’ve got to understand her. I need to know what kind of person she is. I need to know what kind of mother she is. I need to know about her relationship with her husband.”
Gulnaz had never been one to speak of private matters. The daughter of the murshid had been raised in a world of discretion. People could not know how the murshid knew the things he seemed to know. They could not find out that the family compound was a network of observers, scouts, runners, and messengers. Safatullah was the murshid, but without his family, he would have been deaf and blind and impotent.
Discretion served Gulnaz well later in her life, too. People asked lots of uncomfortable questions when Gulnaz’s husband disappeared.
She didn’t tell anyone, not even their children, that she’d watched him fill a flask with tea and tuck a rusted gun into the coiled hat on his head. In a small bag, he’d packed one of Gulnaz’s old housedresses and a few sets of clothing. He’d kissed his wife on the cheek and told her the entire world had turned into a battlefield.
The determination on his face told Gulnaz it would not be useful to argue.
He went off to end the war, she maintained over the years, wondering if maybe that weren’t some form of the truth.
“MY DAUGHTER DOES NOT SPEAK TO ME ABOUT HER HUSBAND. She never has.” Why should she? Zeba had matched her mother’s reticence in the last few years. It was a punishment.
“Tell me what she was like when she was younger,” Yusuf suggested. There had to be some kind of useful information she could offer.
Gulnaz looked back toward the prison, squinting in the midday sun. Zeba as a girl. Nothing brought Gulnaz as much joy as thinking about her daughter as a child. Before she could stop herself, she was reminiscing.
“Zeba twinkled like a star. She laughed often and followed her brother around everywhere he went. I kept her close at my side and taught her everything I could about managing a household. We were a pious home and Zeba grew up saying her prayers, honoring her family. She was a good girl, always obedient.”
“What was her relationship like with her father?” Yusuf asked gently.
“She was in his arms from the moment she was born. He would pick her up and toss her into the air. They were very close up until he was gone.”
“Gone?”
“He went off to fight the Russians,” Gulnaz continued with rehearsed ease. “He never came back.”
Yusuf s
ighed empathetically.
“A brave man. You’ve not heard from him since then?”
“Not a word, not a letter.”
“How did Zeba react to his absence? It must have been hard on her.”
“It was hard on all of us. That was not a time that passed easily.” Gulnaz turned her gaze back to Yusuf. “She was only six years old then. She cried. She asked for him often. But people move on and Zeba did too. He was not a warrior. I knew she would never see him again. My husband’s family, they wanted to hold on to hope. They wanted to believe he would walk through the front door at any moment and tell grand stories of war.”
“You didn’t think there was even a chance he would return?”
“If he could have returned, he would have. But he didn’t, which is how I knew he was dead.”
“I see. Of course.”
He couldn’t possibly see, Gulnaz thought. Every family was a mystery to outsiders. There was no way to understand a father and his children or a husband and wife by sitting with them and asking a few questions.
“Tell me about her marriage.”
“It was meant to be a happy marriage.”
“Aren’t they all,” Yusuf said, chuckling, though Gulnaz thought it an odd thing for someone so young to say.
“Kamal’s grandfather was an army general, a very respected man. He was good friends with my father. They sat together one day and, over a cup of tea, decided that Zeba and Kamal should be husband and wife. They tied themselves to each other through their grandchildren.”
“Did you approve of the match?”
“No one bothered to ask me.”
“Did you object?”
Gulnaz shot him an impatient look.
“It was much bigger than me.”
Yusuf thought of his sister. His parents had always imagined her marrying the son of their good friend, but she’d foiled their plans by falling in love with their neighbor. He was young when she was married, but he remembered the shouting, his sister slamming her door so hard it rattled the walls of their apartment. Would Yusuf have stood up for his sister if they’d insisted she follow their wishes or would her problems have been bigger than him, too?