“I’m a simple man,” the mullah said, his voice melancholy. “The people who come to me are suffering and it is my job to sit with them, to pray over them, and to help them find a path to healing. Their illnesses are burdens to them and to their families. It’s their collective suffering that I work to heal. This woman,” he said, looking at Zeba thoughtfully, “was in bad shape when she first arrived. She had been overcome by evil djinns. They controlled her thoughts and her actions. They were her arms and legs. Since your last visit I’ve prayed with her. I’ve prayed over her. She’s followed the diet that washes the toxins from her body. She’s exorcised the poison from her mind. I think she is much recovered, and, it is worth saying, she was able to do so in fewer than the usual forty days.”
“So you think she’s now of sound mental condition at this point,” Yusuf summarized.
“I think much has changed for her in these few days. I think she has a better understanding of many things.” His eyes were still trained on Zeba, who did not flinch at his description of her progress. She looked up at the mullah, and her lips parted slightly, as if she were about to speak, but no words came out. She clasped her hands together on her lap.
“Zeba Khanum, if you’re ready, then we should be going. Asma and the others are outside waiting on us.”
Zeba nodded again and pressed her palm to the carpet to support herself as she stood. She looked underweight but not deathly so. There was color in her cheeks and light in her eyes, even if she did move like an ungreased joint.
“Do you need help?” Yusuf reached out a hand instinctively, but she shook her head. The mullah watched carefully before he rose from the ground to walk them out.
“Young man,” he said, putting a hand on Yusuf’s forearm. Yusuf turned abruptly. The physical touch had been unexpected. “Fight for her, please. Do your best to defend her, and Allah will reward you. She does not deserve to be punished. She’s a good woman. I wish I could have helped her more.”
Zeba turned around and looked at the mullah. There was a sadness in her posture, not the anger Yusuf had seen when he’d left her.
“You’ve done the best you could,” Zeba said softly. She fixed the head scarf on her head, flipping the loose end over her shoulder gracefully. “I was . . . glad to meet you.”
“I will be praying for you,” he said to Zeba, standing just a foot from her. “Just as I prayed for you here, I will continue to pray for you when you leave. God is great. You know what He can do.”
Yusuf felt more like an interloper than Zeba’s counsel. Had Zeba become a believer in the mullah’s methods? Had his prayers affected her so profoundly in these few days? She’d been desperate, and it was quite possible that she grabbed onto his incantations as a drowning soul would reach for a life preserver. Yusuf noted a change in Zeba, a tranquility that hadn’t been there nineteen days ago. Could there be some unearthly potency in this shrine? He shook his head and wondered if he, too, were somehow falling under the mullah’s spell.
He walked out of the door and looked at Zeba expectantly.
“Mullah-sahib, thank you for all you’ve done,” Yusuf said because it was the right thing to say at that particular moment.
The mullah closed both eyes and nodded slightly, a tiny acknowledgment.
Zeba followed Yusuf with heavy steps.
They stood by the car until the guards, seeing them emerge from the house, began trudging back to the vehicle. The mullah leaned against the wooden door, his hands resting just above his belly, with fingers intertwined.
“Good-bye, Padar,” Zeba said softly, her eyes glistening in the sun.
Yusuf stopped short and looked at them both. His jaw went slack, and he cocked his head to the side.
“What did you say?” he asked Zeba, who stood at his side next to the car.
The mullah did not budge but kept his eyes on Zeba’s. With every second that the mullah and Zeba ignored him, Yusuf felt a burgeoning realization that these were not the same two people he’d seen three weeks prior.
“What did you call him, Khanum Zeba?” he asked again, his voice sharper.
“Father,” Zeba whispered, brushing a tear from her left cheek stoically. Any further explanation was cut short by the return of the guards. In a flash, they had all climbed into the silver Toyota, and its four doors were shut in succession.
Her father? Yusuf sat in the front seat, turning the words over in his mind. Did she mean her true father or had he completely brainwashed her into some kind of bizarre devotional relationship? Yusuf resisted the urge to swivel in his seat and press Zeba for an explanation. It was not a discussion he wanted to have with the current audience.
The engine turned over and they went back down the dirt road, the shrine and the mullah shrinking behind them.
CHAPTER 43
“SHE’S BACK! LADIES, LADIES, MALIKA ZEBA HAS COME BACK TO US!”
A prisoner in a black-and-green floral print dress stopped at the sight of Zeba and turned abruptly to shout down the hallway. They were just down the hall from the beauty salon.
Zeba blinked with surprise.
Three heads poked out of the doorway. One woman held a hairbrush, and another’s head was crowned with curlers. She yelped when she saw Yusuf and ducked back into the salon.
“Zeba-jan, you’re back! Malika Zeba, how are you?”
They were standing before her. More figures were appearing at the end of the hallway as news of Zeba’s return rushed like water flowing downstream. Two little girls were pointing from a distance.
“That’s the queen,” one whispered to the other. “That’s Malika Zeba. My mother told me about her.”
“I thought she’d look different. Where’s her crown?” the second girl said, giggling.
“What’s going on here?” Zeba’s words were breathy and low. She wasn’t exactly asking Yusuf. She was merely dumbfounded by the nickname she’d seemed to have been assigned and the energy around her return.
Yusuf leaned in and said sharply to Zeba, “I want to talk to you before you go back to your room.”
“Of course,” Zeba said, somewhat distracted by the commotion in the hallway. “I just . . .”
“We’ve missed you so much! I need to tell you what’s happened while you were gone. So much has changed, and there’s only you to thank for it,” a young woman said.
Zeba smiled wanly, unsure what to make of this welcome. The girl took Zeba’s hands and turned her palms upward, pressing her lips against them. Zeba pulled her hands back, made uncomfortable by a gesture that should have been reserved for the gray haired.
“You saved me!”
“I saved you?” Zeba repeated. Slowly, she remembered sitting with this woman and watching her two young boys fidget as she told the terrible story of how they’d been conceived.
“Yes! This taweez you gave me,” she said, pointing to the small bundle safety-pinned to the sleeve of her dress. “I’ve worn it every moment since you put it in my hands.”
“What’s happened?” Zeba asked.
“The shelter the boys were supposed to go to is full. They have no room for anyone else, and my family does not want to take them. They would have had nowhere to go, Zeba-jan. They would have been on the street, so easy for anyone to snatch up and sell for body parts or turn into slaves. I’ve imagined a million horrible things. But just two days ago, the director of the prison said they would have permission to stay for another two years. Two more years!”
Zeba’s eyes widened.
“That’s . . . that’s fantastic news!” she exclaimed softly.
“It is, and it is all thanks to you. So much has happened, Malika Zeba. We have been praying for your safe return so that we can thank you for everything you’ve done.” She snuck a bashful glance at Yusuf, whose curiosity had been piqued. “And just to show you that I will never forget your help . . . this is what I’ve done.”
She slid the sleeve up her right forearm, wincing slightly as it rolled over a fresh scar. Raised
green-black letters spelled out Zeba’s name. Zeba let out a gasp.
“What have you done?” she exclaimed. She touched the woman’s arm with one finger, grazing the letters with the pad of her fingertip and drawing back sharply to feel how real they were. She looked up, expecting to see the woman grimace, but she did not.
“I’ve printed your name on my body to match the print on my heart. What you’ve done for me, I will never forget.” She had her two hands pressed against her sternum, her head tilted to the side so that her bangs hung away from her kohl-lined eyes. “I will always be grateful for the time you’ve given me with my sons.”
“Oh, you foolish girl!” Zeba laughed. “What will your sons say?”
“My sons? They’re lucky I didn’t tattoo your name on them, too!” She glowed with relief, and Zeba felt her shoulders relax at this woman’s happiness. “They would cry every time I talked to them about going to the children’s shelter. You cannot imagine how happy they are to be staying with me now! Marzia is teaching the children numbers now, or they would be here to hug you themselves.”
“Malika Zeba!” called another woman’s voice. Her couplet echoed through the hallway, followed by a ripple of laughter:
“There is hope even for the rice ever burned
Since our Queen Malika has been returned!”
Four more women charged toward them with giddy smiles and eager faces. “Finally! I never had a chance to talk to you before. I’m so thankful you’re back. You’ve got to help me!”
Zeba was swept away by a wave of women, leaving Yusuf standing in the hallway of Chil Mahtab. Asma laughed at his slack-jawed expression and shrugged her shoulders.
“She’s got the women under her thumb with that jadu of hers. Last week, they had a tattooing session in the beauty parlor. Her name’s been written on a dozen body parts,” Asma whispered, scandalized.
Yusuf’s mobile phone chirped in his pocket. He took it out and looked at the number that had called him three times in the last week. Three times he’d ignored the calls because he’d been in the middle of a conversation with the judge or Aneesa or his mother. He pressed the green button to take the call, still thinking Zeba owed him an explanation. Was the mullah really her father? Did her mother know about this?
“Hello?”
“Yes, hello. Is this the phone of the lawyer for Khanum Zeba, the prisoner at Chil Mahtab?”
It was a woman’s voice. Yusuf wondered if it were someone from the office, though Aneesa hadn’t mentioned anyone would be calling.
“Yes. Who’s asking?” The last of the women disappeared around the far corner of the hallway. Asma followed, more out of curiosity than a need to control the swell of women around Zeba.
“I’m a reporter with Dawn News. My name is Sultana. I wanted to ask you a few questions about her case. I’m happy to chat with you on the phone or in person.”
She spoke quickly and concisely. She was polite, but there was an edge to her tone. When Qazi Najeeb had talked about the reporter, it had never crossed Yusuf’s mind that it might be a woman.
“Oh, so you’re the one looking for a story on Chil Mahtab?” Yusuf went to the interview room. He needed to write up a report of what had transpired at the shrine today and the mullah’s latest assessment of Zeba. He pulled the door closed, and the echo of the hallway disappeared. He threw his bag on the table and pulled back the chair.
“I am. Initially, I wanted to do a story on the crimes of immorality, but it seems that your client is a very interesting one and the charges against her are pretty serious. Do you know the women of the prison are entranced by her? She’s become something of a hero to them.”
“Yes, that’s pretty clear,” Yusuf agreed, the calls for “Malika Zeba” still ringing in his ears.
“And it seems she’s got an intriguing background. Her grandfather was a murshid and her mother is a bit of a character. How did Zeba come to be charged with such a gruesome crime? Has she truly confessed to killing her husband or do you assert that the signed statement recorded in her arrest registry is false?”
“How did you hear about that?”
“By asking questions. So is it her confession or was it fabricated?”
Yusuf was taken aback by her direct questions. They’d been on the phone for only a moment, and she was already pecking at the heart of the case.
“I’ve raised serious concern about the validity of the confession,” he said carefully. He’d already decided that he would use the press coverage in any way he could. If it meant pointing fingers at the muddied justice system, he would do just that.
“I see. And I’ve also heard that she was taken to a shrine to be treated for insanity. This is not at all standard procedure in a murder case. Was it your recommendation to take her to that shrine? How much longer will she be there?”
Yusuf undid the top button of his collar and peeled it away from the back of his neck, where beads of moisture made it cling to his skin.
“She’s not at a shrine,” he said simply. If Sultana wanted more information about the shrine, she would have to look for it elsewhere. He wasn’t about to paint his client as an insane person when it didn’t seem an insanity defense would get her anywhere.
“But she was at a shrine, a local one where a mullah engages in some fairly controversial treatment for the insane. Why was she taken there when we have medical facilities with trained professionals who could evaluate and treat her scientifically?”
“She is not at a shrine,” Yusuf repeated without elaborating.
“Where is she?” Sultana asked with great interest.
“She’s here at Chil Mahtab. We’re preparing our final statements for her case, and the judge should be issuing a ruling in the next two days.” Yusuf had been struggling with his final arguments, going through pages and pages of handwritten scrawl without satisfaction.
“And how do you think Qazi Najeeb will rule?”
“That’s a question for Qazi Najeeb,” Yusuf replied. “But my hope is that he will weigh all the factors in this complicated case and reach a fair conclusion for this mother of four young children. The sooner she can be returned to them, the better.”
“You maintain her innocence?”
“I do,” Yusuf affirmed.
“You’ve made a case that she is insane, from what I understand. Do you know that no one has ever been defended with an insanity plea in Afghanistan? This is quite unusual.”
“I’m aware, but the circumstances of this case are unusual and Qazi Najeeb has been careful about sticking closely to the procedural and penal codes of Afghanistan. We have followed the law precisely to be sure that Khanum Zeba is receiving a fair trial. Just because there’s no precedence doesn’t make it wrong. Lots of things are happening for the first time in our country.”
“You’re speaking to the only female journalist willing to cover this province. I don’t think you have to tell me that.”
Yusuf’s lips curled in a smile as he pulled at a stray thread on the strap of his messenger bag.
“When are you planning on printing this story?” he asked.
“When I feel I have enough to go on. As of right now, there’s a woman accused of murdering her husband and her American lawyer is making claims that she is not guilty because she’s insane. Not a bad lead, is it? Still, I want to include everything I can. Sometimes, crime in Afghanistan is more about rumor and gossip than anything else.”
“There’s a lot of truth to that.” Yusuf sighed.
“But I don’t want to be part of the gossip. Rumors can get a woman lynched in the streets. I want facts, and facts might just help your case,” she suggested. “Anything I print could potentially sway the courts to act on the right side of the law here. Our reports sometimes catch the attention of the foreign media. A few international eyes on your case, and the pressure is on.”
“Ah, so you’re really calling to do me a favor!” Yusuf chuckled.
“I don’t do favors. I just report the news
,” Sultana corrected. “Can you tell me about this woman’s husband? Do you have any idea why she or someone else may have wanted to kill him?”
“There are rumors, but nothing I can commit to. And again, I’m insisting on my client’s innocence. It’s unusual for a wife to kill her husband. It’s much more common the other way around.”
“Again,” Sultana said pointedly, “something an Afghan woman doesn’t need to be told.”
Yusuf felt a rising indignation in his chest. He didn’t appreciate being painted as the stereotypical Afghan man. He took a look at the blank forms on the table in front of him, picking up a notebook and using it to fan himself.
“Look, I’ve got to go. There’s nothing more I can tell you for now. Good luck with your story,” he said quickly.
“Yusuf, just one more thing to ask. Did Khanum Zeba ever—”
But Yusuf cut her off, pressing his thumb to the red button on the cell phone while her question dangled on the line.
CHAPTER 44
ZEBA’S CLOTHES, A SMALL STACK THAT BARELY USED UP ONE shelf of the metal locker in their cell, had been freshly washed and folded. The sheets of her bed were stiff with starch and neatly tucked under the corners of her mattress. There was a red silk carnation and a small prism keychain on her pillow. The prism had a red heart at its center and spread fractured light in every direction as Zeba turned it over in her palm.
She’d returned to Chil Mahtab two hours ago but was just getting to her room now. Swarmed by her fellow prisoners in the hallway, she sensed that this place had become a shrine unto itself. It unnerved her, the way the women smiled at her, the way they offered her trinkets, the way their fingertips touched her body as if she were some kind of mystic. And Asma was right. Several women had tattooed Zeba’s name on their arms or backs either because she had saved them or because they hoped that she would. Some believed that the four letters of her name inked into their skin was a talisman in itself. The anticipation of what she could do thrived and spread like vines through the stifling hallways of Chil Mahtab.