But that wasn’t why he was in Afghanistan. He hadn’t come this far from home because he wanted to be privy to the sordid details of people’s lives here. People had equally sordid lives in New York or Washington. His friends, his cousins, his parents, his colleagues—a hundred voices had echoed the very same question as soon as he’d booked his tickets to Afghanistan.
Why do you want to work there?
“Madar-jan, this is where I can do something real. The country needs a real justice system if it’s going to survive as a society. I want to be part of that. It’s rebuilding a nation and not just any nation—our nation. How shameful is it to leave it all for foreigners to do?”
“I’m proud of you, Yusuf. We’re all proud of you. You should hear the way your father talks about you with his friends or with your uncles. Just last weekend we went to a wedding and he ran into an old classmate from high school. ‘My boy is a hero.’ That’s what he said, honestly.”
Yusuf’s throat tightened. He rubbed his forehead and admitted to himself that he really missed home. He missed the smell of fabric softener on his undershirts and the feel of a gas pedal under his foot. He missed the paved roads and complicated parking signs detailing street cleaning schedules.
He missed Elena. He thought she might reach out to him even after they’d broken up. She never did, even when she knew he’d be leaving for Afghanistan. It was as if she’d agreed with him that they were too different to think they could be together. He’d not regretted his decision. He’d only regretted that he’d let things get as far as they had because it had caused them both unnecessary pain.
Sitting in the terminal at JFK airport waiting for his flight to Dubai, Yusuf had taken out his cell phone and deactivated his Facebook account. It was a sharp-edged moment, dulled only slightly by the number of people who passed him without noticing the bright young lawyer who had just disconnected himself from that world. Maybe it wasn’t such a monumental decision after all. He deleted the app from his phone. He would immerse himself in his work, he’d resolved, and it would be best not to be distracted by pictures of his former classmates clinking glasses in dimly lit lounges in the East Village of New York City or biking through Rock Creek Park in D.C.
“I’m not going to stay here forever, Madar-jan. I’ll be home once I feel like I’ve accomplished something here.”
He could hear her tired exhalation, the acquiescence to her son’s whims.
“I know that country better than you do,” she said. “You’ll accomplish a lot there, but the second you step away, it’ll seem that you’ve accomplished nothing at all. You’ll be the poor ant who drags grains of dirt three times his size to build a home only to have it trampled over with one person’s careless footstep. It’ll break your heart, and that’s what I’m most worried about.”
When he hung up, Yusuf felt the weight of quiet in the room. He rose from the bed and went to the radio on the dresser, flipping it on and turning the dial to scan through the stations. At the sound of a young man’s voice, his fingers paused.
“You’ve called Radio Sabaa,” the host announced. “Go ahead and speak whatever is in your heart.”
“This is the first time I’m calling.” The voice was nervous and Yusuf closed his eyes. He could picture the caller, a young man in dark denim and sneakers, a polo shirt with Coca-Cola embroidered on the pocket. He was on his cell phone, ducking into a side room of his home so his sisters and parents would not overhear his confession. “I’ve been in love with a girl since I was a boy. I love everything about her. The shape of her eyebrows, the sound of her voice, the way she smiles. I used to follow her whenever she left her home, just so she’d know how much I cared about her. When she noticed, she looked back and smiled at me and it was as if . . . as if in that moment our hearts became stitched to each other.”
“Ah, young love.” The host sighed. “Please go on.”
“In the last two years, we’ve talked nearly every day. We talk about our studies and our families and our hopes for the future. I want, God willing, to own a business one day, maybe a restaurant or a furniture store.”
Yusuf smiled to himself, let go of the dial, and wandered back to the bed.
“I can only imagine doing all this if she’s with me, by my side. I can’t imagine life without her. I’ve never loved anyone else. I’ve never even looked at another girl the way I look at her.”
“It sounds like she loves you as well. Is something standing in the way of your being together?” the host nudged, his voice thick with sympathy.
“There is a big problem. Her family has recently engaged her to another, a boy she does not love. He is in Germany and will be coming in two weeks for a wedding. After that, it’s only a matter of time before she leaves to join him in Europe. She doesn’t want to go. She told me that, but her family is insisting.”
“How very heartbreaking!”
“It is. I cannot sleep. I have no appetite. I can barely do my job. If she leaves, I’m sure I’ll be alone for the rest of my life. Nothing could fill the hole in my heart.”
“Beautifully said, my young friend,” said the host. He whispered something barely off air and cleared his throat. “I hope that if you and this young woman are destined for each other, nothing will stand in the way of your devotion. This is Night of the Hearts on Radio Sabaa. We’re going to take another caller now . . .”
Yusuf chuckled softly to himself, thinking of a boy and girl who spent stolen moments talking on mobile phones, shooting each other lustful glances and thinking they knew true love. Then again, who was Yusuf to judge? He had chosen to walk away from Elena and had been more hurt that she had not put up a fight. She’d called him an idiot for wasting her time and moved on—just like that. He thought of the women in Chil Mahtab, the women who dared run off with men even though they were risking their freedom or their lives to do so. What love could possibly be that compelling?
CHAPTER 38
“WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY MOTHER?” ZEBA DEMANDED ANGRILY. “Tell me!”
The mullah answered her through tight lips.
“I’ve done nothing to your mother. We spoke about your situation. Zeba-jan, I want you to be safe,” he said in an oddly conspiratorial whisper. “Your lawyer says madness can be used to get you leniency in your case. I . . . I think it’s important for you to spend some time here so that there is no question to your madness. I’ve promised your mother that I would watch over you. I’m going to keep that promise.”
“God will never forgive you,” she growled. “You can spend a million years praying and He will still condemn you for whatever it is that you’ve done to my mother.”
She’d spat at his feet with whatever saliva she could muster, sick at the memory of the way he’d put his hands on Gulnaz.
The mullah rubbed at his temples.
“We’re each haunted by our own sins, Zeba, but the ultimate judgment is left to Allah for a reason. With only five senses, we are limited in our ability to understand. Your mother will return today. You can ask her yourself.”
Zeba turned her back to him and didn’t move again until she was certain he’d left.
The other patients knew of her presence now and sometimes called out to her, “the woman.” Zeba did not answer. There were too many ways for this situation to get worse for her. The best she could do was to maintain the solitude she sought. The nights should have been easy respites, but madness seemed to sparkle to its zenith under moonlight.
She was restless and unable to sleep. She needed to know that her mother was all right. She needed to know what the mullah had done to her and already reeled with guilt so poisonous that she almost wished Kamal back to life. That was how desperate she’d become. She did not question her mother’s reasons for not lashing out at the mullah or turning on her heels. She understood now that everything Gulnaz had done, every bizarre behavior or act of madness, was a demonstration of love.
When the sun reached its highest point in the sky, Zeba felt her skin pr
ickle. She sat perfectly still and understood, with the intuition of a woman who had endured much in the past few weeks, that she was moments away from another tectonic shift in her life. She focused on keeping her breathing even and pressed her back flat against the clay wall.
There had been a certain comfort to the shrine, Zeba admitted, before the mullah had shamelessly led her mother into his quarters. The small of her back ached. She pushed her shoulders back and felt the sharp pangs of protest in her muscles.
CHAPTER 39
“GENTLEMEN,” SAID QAZI NAJEEB SLOWLY. “I’VE RECEIVED SOME interesting information related to the case of Khanum Zeba. I think we have to be very cautious with what I’m going to share with you. It could be a very ugly situation and would have been, no doubt, if her husband Kamal were not already dead and buried.”
Yusuf listened carefully. The judge had called this meeting abruptly, and he half expected to hear that Zeba had starved to death at the shrine. Yusuf was already feeling guilt-ridden for not finding her a way out of there.
“I received a call from the police chief, Hakimi, if you remember his name from the arrest report. He’s been approached by several people in the village who report that Kamal had been seen burning a page of the holy Qur’an a few months back. He wasn’t sure exactly when or under what circumstances.”
“Dear God, toba, toba . . .” the prosecutor groaned, shaking his head.
Yusuf bit his bottom lip and his brows lowered. Burning a page of the holy book was an unforgivable transgression. Yusuf couldn’t put blasphemy past Kamal, after everything he’d learned about him. Still, his body tightened with unease.
“I don’t want to have this weigh too heavily into the case, but I’m afraid we can’t ignore it either. It’s got to be considered.”
At that statement, the prosecutor’s ears perked.
“Murder is murder.”
Qazi Najeeb leaned over his desk and peered over the rims of his scratched lenses.
“You know as well as I do that murder is not murder.”
The prosecutor nodded in agreement. It was a truth the three men could agree upon.
“What else did Hakimi say?” Yusuf asked. He wished the police chief would have called him directly so he could ask these questions himself.
“Hakimi has been interviewing half the town, and it seems that lots of people have heard this story. He says it’s hard to imagine how it could not be true with the sheer number of people who nod their heads when he asks if they’ve heard of this.”
Yusuf could imagine it. A rumor started by one person, passed to two others, and then ten more when Hakimi began to ask his questions. Hakimi’s questions, he knew, had likely added fuel to the rumor or truth, whichever it was. He’d seen the same happen in the past. Simply asking about Kamal burning a page of the Qur’an would have made it a possibility. A bit of attention from villagers and the possibility would take root. Soon its roots would spread through the ground, the seed breaking open and through the earth into the light of day.
“It’s a surprising number of people who reported to Hakimi that they had heard the same story from others. One man said he saw Kamal smoking a cigarette in the evening a few months ago and that his hands had been blackened with ash, likely from Kamal wiping away the evidence of his sin. Another man said he heard Kamal saying he had no time or patience for prayers. And, worst of all, quite a few people said they had known Kamal to be a drinking man. He consumed alcohol regularly though no one would say where he might have gotten the drink from.”
Yusuf put a hand over his mouth. He was afraid he would break into a grin, not because he felt good about Zeba’s defense but because it was amazing how much things could change based on a rumor. He kept his eyes on his notebook so they wouldn’t betray him.
“In other news, I heard from a guard that there’s a reporter who is asking questions about this case. It seems this reporter has been to Chil Mahtab inquiring about the women in prison . . . you know how these young reporters are. That reporter got wind of Zeba’s case, so I wouldn’t be surprised if either of you receive phone calls about this. I want you to be warned, especially with what we’re now hearing about Kamal and the story of that woman in Kabul who was murdered by the mob. This could get very ugly.”
“People hear this kind of blasphemy and they want blood, but it’s hard to get blood out of a dead man,” the prosecutor mused.
“Precisely. Now let’s summarize before we go too far with this new information,” Qazi Najeeb said with more solemnity than he’d ever displayed. “This case has to be taken very seriously. In Zeba’s defense, there were no witnesses, but the circumstances were so clear-cut that witnesses really weren’t necessary. Yusuf has presented the argument that she may have been insane at the time the murder was committed. She has confessed to it in the arrest report and hasn’t really refuted any of it in a convincing way. It’s hard not to take that as an admission of guilt, then.”
Yusuf shook his head.
“I disagree with that. Since she’s been deemed insane by someone the judge feels is an expert opinion, then her arrest statement should be thrown out. How can an insane person write a true confession? You’ve seen her yourself, Your Honor. Do you think she would have been able to provide an accurate statement for the arresting officer to record? She was barely aware of what was happening even when they pressed her blue thumb to the page.”
“Enough, Yusuf,” Qazi Najbeen interrupted. “Let me speak. The prosecution has a strong case. I am trying to be very fair and open-minded about this case, but even if she’s now been deemed insane, that’s not enough to save her from being guilty of murder. Now, the only thing left to consider is this news about Kamal as a drunk who may have committed a horrible sacrilegious act.”
Yusuf sat forward suddenly.
“You know, the case of the woman murdered by the mob in Kabul was an interesting one. The men who killed her were initially sentenced to death, but then the judge lessened their sentences, even dismissing some,” the qazi added.
The prosecutor nodded.
“They were crazed. They heard someone had dared to burn Allah’s words and they went wild. They were defenders of God in their minds.”
“That’s no excuse for murder,” Yusuf shot back.
“Well, it seems people come up with all kinds of excuses for murder, don’t they?” the prosecutor asked pointedly.
Yusuf resisted the urge to put in eyedrops as he sat in the judge’s office. He rubbed at his sore eyes and knew he was only making matters worse. In a flash, he understood why it was that everyone in this country looked twenty years older than their actual age. He considered the street children who had swarmed him in Kabul—school-age boys and girls who would not have been allowed to cross the street in New York without an adult’s hand clamped over theirs. Yusuf had been fooled by many of the women in the prison, their bodies and children and weariness making twenty-two-year-olds pass for forty. The men, thin and weathered by jobs that made three days pass between two sunrises. Their lives were in fast-forward but, in other respects, they didn’t seem to be moving at all. Was this what his mother worried about—that Yusuf would spend the best years of his life toiling in a land that would give him nothing to show for it? It was possible, he had to admit, that she was right. But he still wasn’t ready to give up.
“What do you want to do then? Would you feel better if Zeba were executed tomorrow? Do you feel that her children would be better off? Does that feel like justice to you?”
The prosecutor shook his head.
“We can’t give a free pass to women who kill their husbands. I’m not heartless, my friend. I’m just doing my job—same as you.”
“I’m doing my job and I’m also doing what’s right.” Yusuf’s voice was thick and tense. He cleared his throat and began again. “I know that’s what you want, too. Let’s find a solution that will work for everyone. We’ve got someone’s attention now, and I don’t know if having a reporter following Zeba?
??s case is such a great thing.”
Actually, Yusuf was quite certain it was not in Zeba’s interests to have the case scrutinized by a reporter. The trial of the lynched woman’s murderers was still fresh on the minds of the people. College students were paying attention. Women’s rights organizations were poised to march behind banners. What would start off as a battered woman retaliating against her blasphemous husband would quickly disintegrate into a witch hunt. Yusuf pictured, without much stretch of his imagination, a mob dragging Zeba’s body down the street and taking turns beating her with sticks and bricks and car parts.
“What does the reporter want to cover exactly?” Yusuf asked. “Has he heard what people are saying about the husband?”
“I’m not sure,” Qazi Najeeb admitted. “But if he’s one of those pushy reporters from the city, he’ll be asking lots of questions and it’s possible that’ll come up. Hakimi was pretty surprised by the number of people who came forward in this mess.”
Yusuf’s fingertips rubbed circles at his temples, his elbows on his knees. It was hot today, and the buzzing electric fan in the judge’s office was fighting an uphill battle, swirling the same hot air in the small space between the three men. Yusuf could feel the dampness of his collar and underarms.
Something had happened in that village after his visit. It was as if people had been biting their tongues and waiting for a sign that it was okay to shout out Kamal’s sins.
“I’ll tell you how I feel,” Qazi Najeeb said, wiping his brow with a handkerchief. “I’m tired of the way things have been. People think just because I’m a judge that anything I have has come to me by way of bribes. I don’t blame them for thinking so. Everyone knows the economics of having a case dismissed or a person let out of prison. I’m not immune. I can say that much.”
The two lawyers shot each other uncomfortable glances. Qazi Najeeb seemed not to be speaking directly to them anyway. It sounded as if he’d rehearsed these lines in his mind and was using the lawyers as a live audience.