The sound of whistling carried through the breeze. I smiled to myself and breathed it in. It was him. I cleared my throat to announce my arrival. He noticed.
“
Salaam,
” he said.
“Salaam.”
“How are you today?”
“I’m well. And you?” I was growing bolder in my conversations with him.
“Fine.”
Sunlight filtered through the mulberry branches, warming my face. I squinted but stayed where I was. The radiance soothed my nerves. I wondered if he felt the same.
“I saw your suitor this morning.”
He caught my attention with those few words.
“You did? How did that happen?”
“By the bakery. I’d taken some dough for my mother. He was walking nearby with friends, passing time in the way they usually do.” His words were measured, cautious. His tone said what his words left out. “It’s fortunate you started your schooling when you did. Nothing the teachers said could rein him in. I heard they all celebrated when he finally left.”
He knew about my schooling. How did he know so much about me when I knew nothing about him?
“You seem to know my story well. And I know nothing about you, except that you like to spy on your neighbors and read poems in the trees.”
He chuckled.
“The height gives me perspective. But you’re probably right. What would you like to know about me?”
“What are you studying?” I plucked at blades of grass, trying to imagine his face.
“Engineering. I’m nearly done with my university studies. Maybe that’s why I like to sit where the birds sit. From a distance it’s easier to see how things work, how water flows from high to low.”
“You sound like you enjoy it very much.”
“I do, yes.”
“I would like to go to university too.”
“What would you like to study?”
Months ago, I’d been giving that very question a good deal of thought, though I hadn’t come up with an answer. It occurred to me that in the last few weeks, I’d stopped imagining my tomorrows. I’d stopped thinking about what I wanted to do. Boba-
jan
would have been disappointed. My angel from the orchard, if he’d really existed, would have shaken his head. What did I want to do?
An answer rolled off my tongue as if I had made up my mind years ago. And it was the most natural decision.
“Teaching. I think there is nothing more important than teaching. Of course, engineering is important too, but even engineers need teachers.”
“You are right. Teachers are the yeast that makes the dough rise. You would be a great teacher.”
“I don’t know if I’ll have the chance,” I said, my voice lowered.
“Has your family said anything about it yet?”
“No. I don’t think I’ll hear anything until it’s already been decided. I almost feel like I’m already not part of this family. My mother and my sisters, they’re so wrapped up in guests and gifts and celebrations. It’s all happening around me and I’m invisible, the girl who used to live in this house.” My voice cracked with my last sentence.
“You’re not invisible. I can close my eyes and picture you. I can be alone and hear your voice. You’re anything but invisible.”
In those words, the voice made a declaration that could not be misinterpreted. His was the only voice I wanted to hear, the only person who spoke to me about me. It was as if he’d scaled the clay wall between us and let my head rest on his shoulder.
“You shouldn’t say such things,” I said quietly. My reaction was reflexive, protective.
He understood.
“Let’s do something then, shall we? Maybe we should say a prayer? What do you think?”
I was no stranger to prayer. When the
azaan
beckoned from the nearest minaret, I felt a calm. Five times a day, I had a chance to share my thoughts with God. I had a chance to ask for forgiveness and pray that Allah keep my mother and grandfather in His peaceful gardens. Maybe God would hear two voices together better than mine alone.
“Okay,” I agreed. I let him start.
“Bismillah al Rahman al Raheem . . .”
“Bismillah al Rahman al Raheem . . .”
He recited a simple prayer and I echoed the words softly, my eyes closed. He closed with a simple plea.
“Please, Allah, bring a solution to my neighbor’s situation. Please help her avoid the path that others are choosing for her and this suitor. She’s not been able to take a peaceful breath in these weeks and surely things would only be worse with this suitor, as You know better than any. Please find a way to bring her to a home that will not take her for granted. Please find a way to give her a hand in making this choice for herself and help her family to make the decision that is in her best interests. Please free her to pursue her studies in teaching so that she can, in turn, help others. Please do not let anyone hold her back from her goals.”
He paused.
“And please help me to achieve my goals, both in school and in life. Please bring us both a brighter future.”
If I could have seen into the future and known just how our prayers would be answered, I wonder if I still would have prayed along. I wonder if he would still have uttered those words. It frightened me to think that we would have. It frightened me more to think of what might have happened had we not done so.
MY HEAD ON MY PILLOW THAT NIGHT, I THOUGHT OF RABIA
Balkhi, Afghanistan’s legendary poetess from the tenth century. Rabia, a true princess, lived lavishly in a palace with servants at her feet. When her father died, her brother became her guardian. Rabia lived in extravagant solitude, filling her empty days with verses of her own creation.
But love can grow even in a place where there is hardly air to breathe, and Rabia fell in love with a handsome young man, Baktash. Their affair, a hidden exchange of love letters and poems, was discovered by Rabia’s brother, who ordered his sister to be taken to the bathhouse. Her wrists were slashed as she lay in the steamy waters.
Rabia, in her own blood, wrote her last poem on the walls of the bathhouse and declared her undying love for Baktash.
Love was not something we could talk about. We explored the phenomenon only in poems and song lyrics or imported Bollywood movies, where as the story became more tragic and the lovers more star-crossed, the love between them became more profound. This was what we were taught, though only incidentally. The dead mother, the unwanted suitor, the boy in the orchard—the requisite elements were coming together to make my life an epic love tale. My adolescent heart churned with the nervous anticipation of tomorrow.
With eyes tightly closed, I tried to recall Rabia’s final poem but could only remember the last two lines:
When you see things hideous, fancy them neat.
Eat poison, but taste sugar sweet.
KOKOGUL WAS AT THE FRONT DOOR WHEN I CAME OUT OF MY
room. Her voice carried through the hallway, her volume rising. Within seconds, she’d reached a frantic pitch.
She ran past me. I reached over to steady the teacups she’d sent rattling on the glass nesting table.
“Stay here. Watch your sisters and pray that this news is not true! I am going out to make sense of this. I’ve never heard such a story . . . if this is a lie, I’ll curse that busybody. Dear God, this cannot be!”
She threw her
chador
over her head and whipped the end over her shoulder. The door slammed behind her before I could ask where she was going or what the terrible news was. I went about my chores with an uneasy feeling in my gut. My sisters were busy with their school lessons and would know nothing more than I’d already overheard. I would have to wait for KokoGul to return.
When two hours passed, I grew more apprehensive. I went through the courtyard and opened our front gate. Our quiet street offered no clues. A few children chased a feeble mutt, pelting it with scraps of
trash. An older man walked by with a cane. Nothing looked out of the ordinary.
Padar-
jan
came home earlier than usual and found me beating the dust from the pillows in the living room. I couldn’t sit still.
“Where is your mother? Don’t tell me she’s gone out to the market again.”
“No, Padar-
jan,
she went to call upon a friend, I think. She didn’t say much—just that she’d heard some terrible news that she hoped wasn’t true.”
“Terrible news?” He looked alarmed, both by KokoGul’s sudden departure and by the anxiety in my voice. “Did she say what the news was?”
I shook my head.
“She was in a hurry. She flew out the door without explaining.”
My father sighed heavily and asked if I’d prepared dinner. He decided we would not get worked up before we knew what we were talking about. My father would swallow a spoon of salt smiling if it meant keeping the house in peace.
Padar-
jan
was hungry so I summoned my siblings and set the table, wondering if KokoGul would make it back before we started to eat. Cumin steam swirled from the platter of hot rice I was carrying when she swept into the room. KokoGul threw her
chador
onto the back of a chair with a huff. Her voice boomed in the small space.
“Ooohhh God, our merciful Allah! What horrible news!” Her head swayed from side to side as she sat next to my father. “What tragic and unexpected events have befallen us . . . I still cannot believe such a thing would happen!”
Padar-
jan
furrowed his brow, impatient with her dramatic prelude.
“Just say what it is, KokoGul. What happened?”
KokoGul ignored his frustration and went on with her story at her own pace.
“I was home today making sure these girls were doing their homework and on top of that there was a lot of laundry and cooking to do
and I had my hands full, as usual,” she added. Padar-
jan
sighed heavily and I wondered when KokoGul had last washed so much as a sock or stirred a pot.
“Habiba-
jan
came knocking on our door to borrow some flour—sometimes I think we could make a healthy living supplying her with all the ingredients she’s forgotten to pick up from the sundries store—anyway, I gave that foolish woman what she needed and she started to chatter about the unfortunate family arranging for a
fateha
in two days for their young son and what a sad story it was. I asked her who it was that had lost a son and she told me that it was that wealthy family from across town, Agha Firooz.”
My fingers gripped the edge of the table tightly. I could feel the blood drain from my face. I waited for her to continue.
“When she said that, my head spun and I just about fainted right there at her feet but I pulled myself together and asked her if she knew which of their boys it was and how it had happened. She was more interested in getting home with the flour and she didn’t know much else anyway so I told her to run along. I went to Fatana-
jan
’s house since her brother-in-law lives next door to Agha Firooz’s family.
“Fatana’s better informed than the KGB and she told me everything! My God, how this changes things for us! Just two days ago . . .”
“Dear God, wife, please! Just say what happened!”
“Unbelievable, truly unbelievable! The whole story is just unimaginable! Agha Firooz’s boy was walking from the movie theater to home with his friends. You know, they said he was studying engineering, but Fatana tells me he hadn’t been to any classes since high school and he wouldn’t have even graduated from there had his father not breathed heavily over a few shoulders.”
Tragic or not, KokoGul would not leave out a single detail of this savory story. This was her first time telling it, a rehearsal of sorts as she would certainly be repeating it again and again.
“He was on his way home with his friends when they stopped to get some
nakhod
from one of the vendors in the bazaar. Boys like that
cannot go five meters without a snack! They each got a pocketful of roasted chickpeas and went along their way when he started to scratch at some red bumps on his arms. By the time they’d turned the corner, he was in worse shape, coughing and straggling behind the others. The boys had no idea what had happened to him and decided to take him back to his house. He could barely walk by then and they put him on the living room sofa.
“His poor mother was home. She came into the room, took one look at her son, and realized what had happened. When he was young, he would get the same red bumps when he’d eaten walnuts. She yelled for his friends to help her get him to the doctor, but the boys had already taken off. Fatana thinks they were up to something and got scared that they’d be in trouble. By the time she called her servant to help and managed to get him to the doctor he’d stopped breathing. He was finished!”
KokoGul covered her face in her hands, took a deep breath, and put her palms flat against the table. Her voice was mournful.
“They are just beside themselves with grief and shock. As we speak, they’re making arrangements for the burial when they should have been making plans for his wedding.”
Padar-
jan
leaned back, his mouth slightly open. My sisters looked pointedly at me. I kept my face as still as I could, unsure what I was feeling and not wanting my expression to betray my thoughts.
“Allah forgive his sins! To lose a son, a young man . . .” Padar-
jan
shook his head. He kept his eyes on KokoGul, glancing over just once to gauge my reaction.
“Such a shame. Such a shame. Just when we were getting to know their family better! They seemed like such nice people, with good business sense and obviously better off than most in Kabul. They have another son but he’s married already! Now we’ve lost our chance with them.” KokoGul could not conceal her true disappointment.
Padar-
jan
looked at her and sighed. He had long ago accepted KokoGul for what she was, but that didn’t stop him from hoping,
day after day, that she wouldn’t make every little event revolve around her. He cleared his throat. “I will find out more tomorrow about the
jenaaza
and the
fateha
. We’ll pay our respects to the family. For now, let’s have the meal that Fereiba’s prepared for us. It shouldn’t go to waste.” He grew pensive. “We’ll send some food for them.”