Nadia Hashimi - A House Without Windows

“Wow,” Nafisa marveled without looking up from her contraband mobile phone. She had just texted a message to her beloved widower and was waiting for a response. “I wouldn’t think that just looking at her. Wonder what he did to make her so crazy.”

“Maybe he beat her once too often,” Latifa offered. “Maybe she caught him with another woman. There’s a lot a man can do to deserve something like that.”

Mezhgan and Nafisa sighed, thinking dreamily of their lovers, the kind of gallant men who would never deserve a hatchet to the head.

The young women had settled on Latifa’s theory that Zeba’s husband had somehow deserved his fate, but there were times when they wondered if maybe Zeba was nothing more than a cold-blooded killer. Those thoughts made it difficult to sleep some nights, especially since their mysterious cellmate barely said a word. They shifted uncomfortably when Zeba looked their way. If they dared to return her stare, Zeba’s eyes slinked away.

When they did sleep, Zeba stayed awake. The flickering bulbs of Chil Mahtab’s hallways cast grotesque shadows across the cell, and the rise and fall of her sleeping cellmates’ silhouettes seemed ghostly and strange.

They shared communal meals in their cell. When the others would finish, Zeba would make her way to the cloth spread on the green carpet and pick at the food. She ate enough that her belly did not growl but not so much that she ever felt sated. The food was always cold by the time she got to it, which suited her just fine. She was not here to feast.

She had been told she would meet with her lawyer in a few days. From what the other women in prison said about their attorneys, she had no reason to expect much. But when her thoughts turned to her children, she prayed that God would give her a decent lawyer, for she knew she was in serious trouble.

Her girls. Kareema and Shabnam.

What did he do? She had begged them to answer. You would have told me, wouldn’t you?

Madar, what has happened? they’d sobbed in bewilderment. Zeba was a gruesome sight, her head scarf crumpled in her hands — hands that looked, at first glance, like they’d been dipped in raw henna. Rima, the baby, was perched on Shabnam’s hip. Shabnam bounced her instinctively and kissed her sister’s cheek as she’d seen her mother do a thousand times. Rima’s petulant cheeks were still flushed from being left alone in the house. Her hands were balled into fists and she had shot her mother alternating looks of resentment and longing.

Basir — how commanding he’d sounded when he spoke with the neighbors. And yet, he’d cringed when she’d touched him. Her chest tightened to remember it, the muscles of his forearm, every fiber hardening into a knot to repel her, his own mother. She’d never seen that look before, at least not on her son’s face.

What were they thinking? What did they believe about their mother?

Her arms were empty — there was nothing to hold. Her head spun and her heart pounded.

Rima would be hungry. Zeba wished she could have nursed her once more before she’d been taken away.

Zeba felt her nipples sting. In her first week at Chil Mahtab, she’d stuffed her bra with balled tissues to catch the milk-tears her breasts kept leaking. Her chest had burned and ached until the milk flow dried up.

The girls.

Basir will take care of them. He always does.

It was hard to think of her children and even harder not to. It was hard to block out a cell of women and their inane crimes.

“Your absolute favorite Ahmad Zahir song — what is it?” Latifa asked with the seriousness of a prosecutor.

“That’s an easy one.” Nafisa laughed. She sang two lines of the song with eyes closed, her upper body swaying in rhythm. “ The taste of your lips lingers on mine, the waves of your passion make my heartbeat sublime. ”

“You shameless thing!” Latifa howled. “Mezhgan, your turn.”

“I don’t really know his songs that well,” she mumbled. She was not the type of girl to answer any question the first time it was asked, believing that would make her seem too outspoken.

“Liar,” Nafisa teased. “What did you do in all that time you spent with your boyfriend? He must have sung some love songs to you. How else could he have sweet-talked his way under your dress?”

Mezhgan groaned. She was used to Nafisa’s teasing by now.

“My father used to sing those songs,” Mezhgan said. Her father was a generation closer to the long-dead pop singer, a man who had set a whole country of broken hearts to song. “I guess I do remember a few of them.”

“Let’s hear it,” Latifa said, clapping.

Mezhgan’s voice was high and thin, a shallow echo against the cell walls. “If this is love that burns within, surely it must be a sin . . elaaahi elaahahi!”

“Well done, you harlot!” Nafisa cheered.

“I’ve got one for both of you,” Latifa announced, clearing her throat as she launched into the verse. “Watch out, my heart, because I have fallen; a gift of heartache has come calling.”

“You’re just terrible, Latifa,” Nafisa whined. “Wait until you fall in love. You won’t be so pessimistic about it then.”

“Yes, every night I pray that God curses me with the same affliction you both have.”

“At least it gives us hope of getting out of here. A proper marriage and we can appeal to the judge for mercy.”

Mezhgan felt pity for Latifa.

“I’m sure there’s a way for Latifa to appeal too. You haven’t even tried. Maybe you should ask for a lawyer. Why did you refuse one anyway?”

“Because if they sent me back to my family I’d be back here in days charged with murder. I’m doing them a favor by refusing.”

Zeba was careful not to react, and the moment passed without her cellmates turning the conversation to her.

Love. Marriage. Freedom.

Zeba’s mind floated between melancholy and angry thoughts, a host of colors. A soft melody drifted through the cell, filling the quiet. It was Zeba’s voice.

“Alone and free of angst and sorrow

I’ve bled enough for today and tomorrow

Now it is time for my bud to bloom

I’m a sparrow in love with solitude

All my secrets contained within me

I sing aloud — I’m alone, finally!”

The women howled with delight to hear their cellmate’s voice lift in song. They would only realize later the distinct lack of romance in her lyrics and the peculiar mirth with which Zeba sang them.

ZEBA LEANED HER HEAD AGAINST THE COLD WALL, CHIPS OF paint lifting from the corners and edges. She picked at the flakes with the insouciance of someone destroying a thing already ruined. In four days, she’d done nothing but contribute to the slow undoing of these walls, disappointing the curious women around her. A web of whispers laced through the prison, and with every hushed voice, the account of what Zeba had done changed, sometimes merely by degrees, but sometimes by great leaps.

You know she killed her lover — so that her husband wouldn’t. Can you imagine that kind of passion?

It wasn’t her lover, it was her sister’s husband. He was trying to fool around with her while his wife and her husband weren’t looking.

If she killed him, it must have been for good reason.

You’re such gossips. Besides, I heard she cut off his head and ran through the village with it.

Zeba had never gushed or blushed over Kamal before they were married. She’d never even seen him before their engagement. At her grandfather’s recommendation, her mother and brother had given her away when she was seventeen. She’d had no say in the arrangement, a decision made between her grandfather, Safatullah, and Kamal’s grandfather five years before their wedding date. Safatullah was a well-known murshid in their village, and her mother went along with the decision since Kamal’s grandfather was a respected army general. The two grandfathers were good friends who’d played chess together, prayed together, and despised the same people.