Nadia Hashimi - A House Without Windows

DOES SHE REMEMBER ME? WOULD IT BE TOO PRESUMPTIVE OF ME TO think she might?

“Thank you for agreeing to see me,” Gulnaz said. Her tone was perfunctory. There was no room for reminiscing or wistfulness.

“I don’t usually speak privately with mothers of the accused.” This was only partly true and came out sounding much more scandalous than Qazi Najeeb had meant it to. The judge took his seat as Gulnaz took hers. He poured a cup of tea and placed it on the nesting table before her. “I cannot offer you anything much. A judge’s quarters are not known for their lavishness.”

“That depends on the judge,” Gulnaz said, plopping a sugar cube into her cup and watching it sink to the bottom. Qazi Najeeb stared at her downcast eyes, the graceful arches of her cheekbones.

Dear God, he thought. Now, that’s how a woman should age .

“Very true,” he agreed. “You did not bring Yusuf with you. Why?”

“He had his turn to speak with you. This is mine.”

“I see,” the judge nodded.

“Qazi- sahib, ” she began. “I am here because of my daughter. You are the judge presiding over her case. Since I’m the one who gave her her first breath, I thought it only fitting I should speak with the man who might sentence her to death. You and I share a connection, in that respect, that is undeniable. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Qazi Najeeb’s eyebrows pulled together in surprise.

“Well, indeed, though that is certainly an odd way of looking at the situation.”

“It’s an odd situation to look at.”

“Well, not as much as you would think. She’s not the only woman in Chil Mahtab to have killed her husband. Men have to watch their backs these days.”

“How awful,” Gulnaz said glibly.

The judge leaned back, preoccupied with thoughts of long ago.

Did you save my brother’s life? Because I think you did. Oh, I’ve been wanting to ask this question for years.

“Qazi- sahib .”

“Yes?” Najeeb cleared his throat and took a sip from his teacup. He heard she’d been widowed while her children were still young and wondered what had happened to her husband.

“As I was saying, my daughter is not a murderer. I’m asking that you show mercy on her. She is a pious woman and a devoted mother. Her children need her.”

“Did she kill him?”

Gulnaz blinked twice. Slow, deliberate blinks meant to give him time to regret his question.

“Okay, a simpler question. I notice that you said nothing about what kind of wife she was. Was she a good wife to him?”

A man would ask such a stupid question, thought Gulnaz.

“I’m her mother, Qazi- sahib . What makes you think my answer to that question would be at all useful to you? I was not there to see what happened. And if I had been, for the sake of this discussion, and I had seen Zeba kill her husband with her own hands, I’m only one woman. As far as I know, there isn’t another woman who will come forward and complete my testimony.”

It was true, and the judge nodded in agreement. A woman’s account carried only half the weight of that of a man’s. That was not his decision. It was how they’d always measured a woman’s word.

“A moot point, Khanum, as I know you were not there at the time her husband was killed.”

“Nor was anyone else, though the world is ready to condemn her.”

“We have to look at the situation. She was at the house with him and was found with blood on her hands and clothes.”

“He was her husband. She could have held him as he died.”

“Which still leaves the question of who killed him.”

“I can tell you one thing, Qazi Najeeb, since you are a God-fearing person. If you’d known the man, you might have killed him yourself.”

“Why?” Qazi Najeeb leaned forward. “Why do you say that?”

Gulnaz shook her head.

“My daughter had not been well in the months before her husband died. I’d been to see her a few times, but she would barely open the door for me.”

“For her own mother?”

“The truth is, Qazi Najeeb, that while tradition states a woman’s word is only worth half a man’s, a mother’s word is the full story. I am telling you that Zeba was deeply troubled, and that man had everything to do with it.”

“What do you think is wrong with her?”

“It is hard to say. But I am afraid that he may have caused her to be unwell in her mind.”

“I see,” the judge said, leaning back in his seat. “A deranged woman kills her husband? Is that what you think happened?”

“I don’t think she killed him, nor did I say that. I want for her situation to be investigated. I ask that you take into consideration what kind of husband he was to her. I can tell you I did not see her often, but when I did, I could tell she feared for her life.”

Najeeb nodded.

“How about some more tea?” he suggested, pointing to the nickel-plated kettle on the red-coiled electric burner beside his chair.

Gulnaz laid her hand over her untouched cup.

There was a pause. Each waited for the other to speak.

It was Qazi Najeeb who broke the silence. His wife would have cursed him if she’d been here to see the way he behaved. At this age, it was admittedly shameful.

“Any information we receive will be discussed when the trial comes together formally. But even if he’d raised his hand against his wife, that still doesn’t justify murdering him and her village knows that. Those people, her neighbors and Kamal’s family, are surely anxious to see a verdict.”

“Of course they are. The man’s body may be cold and buried, but his family is alive and well. I’m sure they’re filling my grandchildren’s heads with hateful lies.”

“Khanum, I may be nothing but a man in your eyes, but I know a few truths, too, and here’s one I will share with you: children always forgive their mothers. That’s the way God’s designed them. He gives them two arms, two legs, and a heart that will cry ‘mother’ until the day it stops beating. Your daughter can grow horns on her head, but her children will think it’s a crown.”

Gulnaz looked at the judge; her skin prickled. What did he know of forgiveness? She remembered Zeba’s face, meshed by prison fencing. She thought of the way her fingers had reached through the metal rings to touch Gulnaz. Was that forgiveness or desperation? Had she sought her mother’s touch only because she was in Chil Mahtab?

“With all due respect, Qazi, plenty of children are born without arms or legs.”

The judge chuckled.

“Very true. But none are born without a heart. I stand by what I’ve said. A mother is a mother until the very end.”

Gulnaz straightened her back. She hadn’t noticed that a half-raised nail in the chair was digging into her leg. She shifted, but it seemed to follow her.

When Gulnaz stood to leave, Najeeb told himself to look away as she turned toward the door. He was acting like a schoolboy. Then again, he hadn’t asked her to saunter into his office asking him for private favors. What kind of women dared be so bold, anyway?

“Khanum Gulnaz,” he began, feeling as if the boundaries of propriety had already been blurred. “It’s been a pleasure speaking with you. I’m glad you asked your lawyer to arrange for this.”

Gulnaz looked at him, the same fearless stare that she’d given him when they’d been face-to-face in Safatullah’s decorated courtyard.

“I came for the sake of justice,” Gulnaz explained pointedly. “True justice, which is as rare as a seashell in this country. I can only hope you’ll come to see that she’s not responsible for Kamal’s death, just as she was not responsible for his life.”