Nadia Hashimi - A House Without Windows

“Defending me? I assume you think there’s hope for me to leave this place.” Her head nodded in the direction of the wall.

“You don’t think so?” Yusuf leaned back in the chair — at least she was talking.

“I’m a woman. I was found with my husband’s blood on my hands. My husband’s body was behind our house and no one saw what happened to him. I do not know where you are from, sahib, but in my village, where I am from, forgiveness is not on the table. This. . this demands blood.”

“Blood.”

“Yes,” Zeba affirmed.

“But they didn’t kill you then. They sent you here.”

“Yes,” she agreed. The police chief had kept her in handcuffs and seen to her transfer. A husband killer was not someone he wanted to keep in his custody. Good old Hakimi had assigned his best officers to drive her to the prison that very evening, before Kamal’s family got wind of it. Hakimi knew how these things worked. If Kamal’s family was after her for vengeance, they would find a way to get it.

“And you think I know nothing about where you are from?” Yusuf said coolly.

“If you did, you wouldn’t be wasting your time here.”

“You have children who are without a mother or father right now. If you don’t think you deserve a chance at seeing them again, then, please, tell me to pack my briefcase and leave. Tell your brother he doesn’t have to worry about you anymore. Go on, save us all a lot of headache and just say it,” he dared.

Zeba pursed her lips. She said nothing. An Afghan who’d lived abroad was worse than a foreigner. They came back thinking they knew everything and were anxious to prove it.

Yusuf stuffed his notebook into his briefcase and snapped it closed before standing.

“All right then. It’s time to meet the judge. You’ve not said much to help me. All I ask is that you cooperate with me once we get in there. Don’t make this any harder than it is.”

He led her down the hallway and out the building to a smaller structure a few hundred feet from the prison. It was dark inside and smelled of stale ash.

When the judge opened the door and motioned them in, Yusuf gave her one last glare.

Zeba’s face remained blank. Her nerves were already frayed, and her lawyer seemed bent on pushing her over the edge.

The judge’s office was a narrow, windowless room with a scuffed oak desk at one end. At the other end was a small coffee table and a floral-patterned love seat. Zeba stood by the door while Yusuf took a seat on the sofa. The qazi, a thin-faced man in his sixties, frowned at Zeba as he thumbed his way through the beads of a tasbeh .

The prosecutor sat on an armchair across from Yusuf. He was in his early forties at least, judging by the flecks of gray in his hair. He looked distinctly more comfortable than Yusuf in the office, which gave Zeba a sinking feeling.

“You and your attorney have had time to consider the charges made against you,” the qazi said. I hope you appreciate the gravity of the crime here.”

Yusuf leaned forward, his haphazard notes in his lap, words connected by lines and circles.

“Your Honor, indeed we do appreciate the gravity of the charges, and it’s for that reason that I ask for more time with my client. I have had some challenges getting enough information to adequately represent her and the events of the day in question.”

The prosecutor laughed. There was a thin manila folder on the coffee table in front of him with Zeba’s name written on it. Zeba tried not to stare at it.

“Challenges? What challenges? You’ve been able to meet with her freely. Her husband’s family has done nothing to get in your way, from what I understand.”

The judge shook his head. He was unaccustomed to talk like Yusuf’s.

“Indeed, Your Honor, but my client has been understandably grief-stricken by her husband’s death and—”

“Grief-stricken?” The judge leaned forward, his eyes narrowing on Zeba and forcing hers to the floor. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

The prosecutor said nothing. By the way the judge was reacting, he didn’t need to.

“Yes, sir,” Yusuf continued, stealing a glance over his shoulder to make sure Zeba was behaving herself. “Respectfully, this woman has lost her husband and she’s been taken away from her children. I ask for an extension of thirty days as outlined in. .”

“That’s ridiculous,” the prosecutor declared. “There’s no need. There’s nothing you’re going to accomplish in thirty days that can refute what we have here in front of us now. Why would you want to waste our time? You know as well as the rest of us that she’s guilty. Do your job and ask for mercy.”

The judge’s eyes moved from Yusuf’s cleanly shaven face to the scribbling on his notebook and the knot of his tie.

“I’ve not met you before, young man. I don’t know where you think you are, but if you want to do this woman a favor, I suggest you get to know how things work around here. You’re supposed to help your client express remorse for what she’s done. I’ll have to agree with the prosecution. Haven’t you read the statement she made when the police brought her in? She’s guilty as guilty can be. We shouldn’t be wasting our time with nonsense.”

Yusuf bit his lip.

Yes, he’d read the statement, but it was an obvious sham. It had been written on her behalf by a police officer who claimed she was unable to write herself. At the bottom of the page had been Zeba’s blue thumbprint.

“Your Honor, there are problems with the statement.”

“What problems with the statement?”

“For one, it wasn’t written by this woman. It was written by a police officer when she’s literate enough that she should have written it herself.”

Zeba kept her gaze lowered, but she could feel the qazi ’s eyes on her. She focused on the side of the love seat, her eyes staring intently at the blue and gray flowers. The material had once been lustrous, she could tell. It was mostly worn now, its colors faded.

“So they wrote it for her. What difference does it make? Maybe she was too grief-stricken to pick up the pen herself,” the prosecutor suggested, as he uncrossed and recrossed his legs.

She’d been interviewed for an hour by the police on that first night. Two officers had pressed her with question after question, threatening to beat her or worse for being so uncooperative.

You killed him. Just tell us why.

You’re not going to get away with this. It’ll be easier on you if you tell the truth.

Your own husband. Your only hope for mercy is if you cooperate.

Zeba had refused to admit anything. She was too scared to say much and kept repeating the same few words.

I didn’t kill him.

By the time they slipped the paper in front of her and pressed her blue-inked thumb onto it, she was in tears and shaking. If they’d taken her behind the police station and shot her, she wouldn’t have been shocked.

“And second, she’s not expressed to me what’s written in that so-called confession. It’s not a valid statement, Your Honor, and shouldn’t be considered as part of the case against her.”

“It’s a signed confession! They clearly recorded that she said she decided to pick up the hatchet and strike her husband’s head because she wanted to kill him. Her thumbprint is on the bottom of the page.”

Zeba almost felt sorry for Yusuf, the way the judge spoke to him. It was starting to get to him. She could see it in the set of Yusuf’s jaw.

It was funny how she could pick up on something so subtle in a man she barely knew. Why hadn’t she detected more in her husband? Had she been always been so blind? What else was she blind to?