The Pearl that Broke Its Shell

  “Are you going back to Kabul soon?”

  “In about three weeks. The parliament is meeting again. We have to vote on a couple of laws and there are some subjects up for discussion. Things you wouldn’t understand.”

  My massage must have relaxed her. She was falling into her old habits and boasting about her position. This was what had gotten her black and blue under Abdul Khaliq’s fist before she’d even taken the seat in the jirga.

  “It must be a lot of work for you to do while you’re there.”

  “Oh, it is. It’s a huge responsibility. And going back and forth from here to Kabul is exhausting. It’s not easy.”

  “You must be so tired.” My tongue felt heavy and awkward saying things I didn’t mean. Badriya hardly lifted a finger around the house and her children were mostly grown. They helped her with what little she had to do. And if she was so happy to have been elected to the seat in the jirga, then she should have been happy to travel to Kabul.

  “I am—I am so tired. Push harder here,” she said, pointing somewhere in her lower back.

  I told myself not to huff. My fingers started to cramp but I dug my palms in where she had pointed. I needed her cooperation for the plan that was starting to take shape in my mind. Khala Shaima had planted a seed.

  “You know, I was thinking, maybe I could help you in Kabul.”

  “You? Help me?” Badriya balked. I gritted my teeth. “You’re young, just a girl! You know nothing about the jirga or what goes on there. It’s government business, not child’s play.”

  It had been a long time since I’d had time for any kind of child’s play. And, as Khala Shaima had explained, Badriya had no experience or knowledge to qualify her to participate in the parliament. She was there only because Abdul Khaliq wanted her to be.

  “I just thought I could help you with some of the smaller things, like filling out any paperwork or reading through the Kabul newspapers . . .”

  Badriya’s breathing paused. I could feel her hips tense under my hands. “You . . . you wouldn’t mind that kind of thing? You can read?”

  “Sure.”

  “And you can write too?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you can do it well? Not just a couple letters here and there?”

  “Yes. I got high marks in school on writing and reading. Better than my classmates,” I said before reminding myself not to reminisce too long on that time of my life.

  “Hm. I’ll think about it. It’s a demanding job and I could use some help with it . . . but I wonder what Abdul Khaliq would say. You know he doesn’t like for us to be away from home. He made an exception for me,” she said with an arrogance that could not be contained.

  “He is different with you. I think it would be best if you would explain to him that I would be there for you, to make things easier on you. Because obviously he likes you best.”

  She looked satisfied with my reasoning. For a moment she forgot how often Abdul Khaliq called me to spend the night with him. As if the night was not bad enough, I always had Badriya’s bitterness to look forward to the following morning. Once she beat me with her sandal for breaking a plate when she had seen her son knock it from my hand. Everything was reported back to our mother-in-law, who took exceptional pride in reinforcing my punishments.

  “What about your son? Jahangir is still young. You would leave him behind? Bibi Gulalai is not going to like that idea.”

  She was seriously considering my proposition. I hadn’t thought my idea through so I spoke slowly, making it up as I went along.

  “I think I could bring him along. He’s not a difficult child so I don’t think he would disturb you much. I could look after him in Kabul and still help you out.” I stopped myself before I said anything about Bibi Gulalai. She hated everything I did anyway.

  “I don’t know if Abdul Khaliq wants his son traveling to Kabul.” She seemed skeptical but I felt an opening. I pushed it.

  “Just bring it up with him. Please. I think I could be useful to you.”

  “But why? Why do you want to do this?” She turned around to see my face. Her eyes narrowed to slits. I shifted and moved my hands to her shoulders, trying to divert her attention.

  “Because . . . because you have so much to do and I thought . . . well, I’ve always wanted to see Kabul. I thought this would be a good chance. As you said, Abdul Khaliq makes exceptions for you, so maybe if you discussed it with him, and told him that I could help you . . . maybe he would agree?”

  She closed her eyes and let out a sigh as I worked my way over to her shoulders. She liked the idea. Now we just had to work on our husband.

  I hoped she would be as convincing as I was.

  EVERY TIME I ASKED HER ABOUT IT, she shrugged me off. She either hadn’t had a chance to ask him or she had forgotten, or he wasn’t in the right mood to bring it up. Her next trip to Kabul was coming up soon. Two weeks away. One week away. I became discouraged. She didn’t have the nerve, even though I knew she liked the idea. A few days after I approached her, she’d asked me to read a few things around the house. I think she was testing me. Not that she could tell the difference but she seemed reassured that I actually could make sense of letters.

  When just two days remained Badriya finally approached Abdul Khaliq. The way Badriya told it, he wasn’t excited by the idea, but after much cajoling, she managed to get him to agree. I asked her again when I brought her the dresses she’d asked me to press.

  “Make no mistake, he wasn’t for the idea at all. And for all the reasons I had predicted. I really didn’t think that even I could get him to agree, but he did. So there you go. You got your wish. We’ll leave Sunday to be there in time for Monday’s session. You’d better make yourself very useful to me there or I’ll regret going to such trouble for you.”

  “You won’t regret it—you’ll see! Thank you so much! I’d better pack some things for me and Jahangir!”

  “Just you,” she said, and turned her back toward me. She put the clothes directly into a duffel bag. “You won’t need to pack anything for Jahangir.”

  “Why not?” I asked, confused.

  “He’s not going. Abdul Khaliq says he’s too young to travel. He said Jameela can take care of him while we’re away.”

  I became tense. I’d never been apart from Jahangir. The mention of leaving him made my heart fall. Should I insist? Should I stay behind?

  “Oh, I didn’t think . . . he said that? For sure?”

  “For sure? Do you think there’s any mistaking what Abdul Khaliq says? It’s always for sure, Rahima. Just pack a few clothes together. Jahangir will be fine with Jameela. She’s got a soft spot for little children.”

  I squirmed still. “How long would we be gone for?”

  “Rahima, enough with these idiotic questions. Parliament is in session for four months. I’ve been going back and forth to get things prepared and we get breaks.”

  “Breaks for what?”

  “Breaks are for us to come back to the areas we represent. To meet with people and get an idea of the issues at home.”

  “But you’ve never met with anyone.”

  “Do you think Abdul Khaliq would have me running around town talking with this and that one? Honestly, it doesn’t matter. No one is checking up on us and I don’t think any of the others actually go back to talk to constituents. Who needs to? I’m sure everyone in this region has the same issues we do.”

  “And what issues are those?”

  Badriya looked frustrated. “Maybe you don’t have enough to do around the house! Have you been sitting and thinking of nonsense to ask me? You won’t be talking with people in Kabul but you might be seen, so bring your nicer clothes. Not that ratty blue housedress you always wear.”

  The ratty blue housedress. I’d worn it so much I could almost see through the material, as Shahnaz had snickered and pointed out one day. I’d been embarrassed but it was hard retiring it. The navy blue reminded me of a pair of blue jeans I’d happily worn for a f
ew months. Denim. In denim, I had been free to run down the block, to walk with my best friend’s arm around my shoulder, to kick a soccer ball between the goalkeeper’s legs. That ratty blue housedress was my freedom flag, but no one else knew it.

  “How long would we be gone?” I was calculating. I knew Badriya had made several trips back and forth in the last session but I’d never paid attention to how often she came back for a break.

  “Two weeks, I think. Then we come back for a short break before heading back to Kabul . . . that’s the way it goes.”

  “Two weeks? Oh, wow. Two weeks . . . I suppose I could . . .”

  “You suppose? You brought this all up, so don’t be such a child about it.”

  She wants me to go with her, I realized, and nearly smiled. She needs me. It almost felt like I had a card to play.

  I learned later how things really worked. Badriya, like all the other parliamentarians, was given a stipend to hire one assistant, one driver and two personal security guards. So far, Abdul Khaliq had been garnering her stipend and salary since he’d already sent her with his own driver and guards. Unable to do any of her own paperwork, Badriya had been going to the director general’s office more often than any other member. They were tired of seeing her and had insisted that she find an assistant as soon as possible or they would take part of the stipend away.

  It was an empty threat but an assistant would make things easier for everyone.

  But I didn’t know how things worked at the time. I surely didn’t know that Abdul Khaliq and Badriya were doing what so many other parliamentarians were doing too. It seemed that no one in Kabul followed up on money. Or promises.

  All I could think was that I could do this. I trusted Jameela would take good care of my son. Maybe this would be good for Jahangir and me in the end. Anything had to be better than waiting on every person in this house.

  “All right,” I said in agreement, thinking this might be my crossroads, my naseeb.

  CHAPTER 38

  SHEKIB

  WHEN SHEKIB HAD FIRST ARRIVED at the palace, she could barely make eye contact with anyone she came across, even the women. She had been veiled for so long and had worked in homes where people wanted neither to hear nor see her. The first time she’d crossed paths with a soldier, her heart had nearly pounded out of her chest because he’d muttered some unintelligible greeting to her. The second time, it was a gardener. It took an hour for her hands to stop trembling and for her to get over the awkward eye contact they had made.

  It was hard for Shekib to believe that she could look directly at a stranger and speak. Instinctively, she wanted to run away. But as days passed and her legs grew more confident in their pants, she slowly became more accustomed to small interactions. She forced herself to speak with the other guards and listened when they spoke with each other.

  Some days, Shekib came across people who worked in the palace, not just outside it. Each time, it became the slightest bit easier for her to strike up a conversation. And inevitably, she would find a way to interject something about the long lineage of sons in her family. She wasn’t very deft about it, but that was of no concern to her.

  It had been a year since she had first arrived at the king’s palace. She walked the grounds with confidence. She knew more about each concubine than she had thought possible. She had watched their children, the king’s children, take their first steps, write their first words. Habibullah seemed to be a good king, according to the palace workers. He had expanded the network of roads across the country. He had founded a military academy and other schools.

  King Habibullah was gone for weeks at a time and occasionally returned with a new concubine, girls, doe-eyed and nervous. Shekib watched as the new consorts floundered until they settled into the harem.

  Everybody has a role in the palace.

  New concubines made older concubines purse their lips and reconsider their position. Sakina grew feistier, gave the newcomers facetious advice and stayed silent for days when King Habibullah passed her over for a fresh face. Benazir had given birth to a little girl. She had named her Mezhgan and lined her eyes with kohl, as Halima advised.

  Fatima had grown pale in the last few weeks. Her son had just turned a year old but spent a good deal of time with Halima, since she rarely had enough energy to keep up with him. Her illness unnamed, she was visited often by the harem’s physician, a British woman named Mrs. Brown. Kabul had only male doctors, which would not suit the king’s insecurities. Mrs. Brown had been brought in from abroad, a kind but firm woman who satisfied the monarch in both her competence as well as her demeanor. She stayed at the palace and traveled back to England infrequently. Mrs. Brown (“Khanum Behrowen,” as the women called her) placed her stethoscope on Fatima’s chest and back, her hands pressed into her belly. She would sigh and tap her forefinger against her lips, thoughtful.

  Despite its tensions, the harem was a family. The older women were mothers to the younger concubines, while the younger consorts had rivalries with each other like siblings with only one toy. King Habibullah visited when he chose, appearing sometimes in daylight and other times well into the night. He came with minimal fanfare but he made no secret of his visits. Unlike the other man.

  The other visitor, whoever he was, came rarely. The guards would almost believe he had tired of his mistress when he would make another appearance, always under the cloak of darkness. He must have known the guards had seen him and probably surmised that they felt powerless to stop him. Whoever he was, he boldly betrayed the king with the most sinful trespass and then returned to slumber in his palace.

  Shekib wondered who could be so brazen. And why.

  Amanullah stayed closer to the palace while his father ventured out into the country to check on the roads he had commissioned. He came to the harem’s courtyard from time to time, leaning over to pat his younger half siblings on the back, ruffle their hair and kick a stray ball back in their direction. Shekib watched him, her heart beating in odd tempos, wistful and hopeful. He would acknowledge her and give her a light smile, a formal nod. Like a secret handshake between them, Shekib thought.

  I probably look a bit older than him but I haven’t outgrown the possibility of marriage. I am young yet, able-bodied and strong. I hope the others have told him about me, how I help the gardeners replant shrubs, how I carry the children when they grow sleepy, how I bring trays of food into the ladies’ quarters. My back is as strong as that of any soldier in the palace, my arms solid and my mind rational. Think of me, Amanullah-jan, and I am certain I would not disappoint a man like you.

  Shekib was not the only one thinking of Amanullah’s naseeb.

  King Habibullah also believed it was time for his son to be given a bride. In his mind, there were a handful of contenders—daughters of the viziers or his closest advisers. In his own words, words Shekib overheard one day as she stood outside his suite in the harem, “I cannot force his hand. He will choose for himself, my boy. Amanullah is different than his brothers. He is more like me than the others. And so unlike me in other ways. I sometimes wonder how I would feel about him were he not my own son.”

  Shekib felt a clock ticking. Amanullah would choose a bride soon. She charged ahead with her humble efforts. She found a reason to speak to nearly anyone who crossed her path and made certain to mention that women in her family rarely bore anything but boys.

  She saw him again with Agha Baraan. They crossed the palace’s grounds, returning from a meeting at Dilkhosha Palace. Shekib dug her hands into her pockets and looked around. She floated in and out of genders easily now, aware of her flattened bosom and hidden curves only in Amanullah’s presence. She tingled for him. She hoped he knew.

  The men stopped at the bench. Agha Baraan plucked a red rose, breathed in its perfume and stuck it in his blazer pocket. Shekib was a good distance away but slowly and casually made her way toward them, pretending to inspect the shrubbery as she wandered over. Once seated, their view was blocked by the greens and they
were unaware of the woman-man guard at their side, eavesdropping and flirting.

  “So you have decided?”

  “I am ready, Agha Baraan. I think it is time for me to take a wife. I want to have a legacy of my own and I must start a family to do so. I want to have at my side a woman who is thoughtful and who will be as dedicated to Kabul as I am. I am confident in my decision. She is strong-willed and has undergone hardship; people have turned against her and yet she walks with her head held high. When I see her face, I see that she brings with her a gentle understanding because of what she has experienced.”

  Shekib froze. Her face? Could he be talking about my face? Yes, people have turned against me! Nearly everyone has turned against me! But I would work so hard for Kabul! I would do anything he needs! She did not move, terrified that she would give her presence away.

  Maybe Agha Baraan had told him about her? Maybe he had shared those morsels she had laid out for him and maybe they knew she was listening at this very moment.

  “And what will your father say? I mean, given where she comes from . . .”

  “I know that, but it was my father and this palace that introduced me to her.”

  Shekib’s eyes widened. Indeed, it was King Habibullah who had brought her to the palace and into his son’s life. She straightened her shoulders, wanting to comport herself as a palace woman would.

  “I will speak with him again tonight. I have brought this up before but he did not believe I was serious.”

  Baraan took a deep breath.

  Shekib said nothing to the other guards but for two days they shot each other looks, noticing a change in her. Ghafoor had to repeat herself three times before Shekib would notice she was talking. Karim and Qasim watched her meals go barely touched and shared her leftovers when she walked away. Tariq tried to approach her, to talk about her dreams of motherhood. Shekib blankly nodded and shook her head in a way that told Tariq she might as well have been talking to the pigeons.