Nadia Hashimi - A House Without Windows

“I didn’t talk to the girl’s family, if that’s what you’re asking me.”

Zeba hoped, for the sake of the girl, that it was humanly possible to forget something so horrible and pretend it had never happened. She needed that to be true.

“Why don’t you want to let the judge know what happened? This girl could be the way for you to—”

Zeba’s face hardened. She stared directly at Yusuf and spoke with absolute clarity.

“She is just a girl and I won’t do that to her. Listen to what I’m saying, Yusuf. There was no girl.”

Yusuf lowered his voice. He understood, somewhat, that Zeba was trying to protect the girl, but he couldn’t let her sacrifice herself unnecessarily.

“I’m sure we can do this in a way that won’t bring attention to her or cause her any problems. We may not even need to talk to her. But we’ve got to share some of this information if we’re going to make any kind of reasonable defense for you. There’s no other way to get you out of here. A man was killed.”

Zeba scowled.

“Anything I say will ruin her. I don’t know if her family knows. What if they don’t know? What if she’s okay now? That possibility is everything to me. I know what they might do to her if they find out. You may not, but I do. Every woman in Chil Mahtab knows. Every woman and girl in Afghanistan knows!”

Yusuf bit his lip. Zeba was right about that. It was a truth he understood the moment his foot hit this soil. It was all about honor. Honor was a boulder that men placed on the shoulders of their daughters, their sisters, and their wives. The many stories in Chil Mahtab were evidence of that fact. This girl had lost her father’s honor in Zeba’s courtyard. If he knew that something had happened to her — the details hardly mattered — she might not be forgiven, even though she was an innocent child.

Whatever Kamal had done to that girl might have been just the beginning of her woes.

Zeba’s eyes drifted off. A guard was slowly walking past the interview room, with a step so heavy that it had to be deliberate. Zeba watched her, her eyes going glassy again. The path was simple to her. She looked utterly unconflicted in that moment.

“Do you think Kamal was the only person killed that day?” she asked in a hollow and monotonous voice. “He wasn’t. I was dead the moment his blood spilled. That girl was dead the moment she was alone with him. There were three dead bodies in my home, though only one had a decent burial and mourners to pray for his soul. They prayed for him. They are still praying for him. They have marked the fortieth day of his passing as if he were some decent soul to be missed. They will shake their heads and talk about what a shame it was to lose their brother, their cousin, their uncle. They don’t know what shame is, nor do they know that there are lots of ways to take a life.”

Yusuf was silent. The guard outside had disappeared around the corner for a few moments only to return. She glanced into the room and continued to stroll past them, stopping briefly to adjust the belt on her uniform.

Yusuf could not argue that defiled girls were worth very little. If something were to happen to that young girl, Yusuf did not want to be responsible either. But there was the possibility this girl’s family would be different.

“Did you hear about the nine-year-old girl who was raped by their local mullah about a year ago? Her parents were paying him to instruct her on how to read Qur’an. Her parents tied him to a chair and cut off his nose and ears. Then there was the case in Kunduz. That ten-year-old girl testified before a judge, and her rapist was sentenced to twenty years in prison. Not every family considers this a shame they can’t recover from. There can be justice.”

“You’re talking to me about two cases in a land of millions. How can I burden that girl with such a risk?”

Yusuf stood, frustrated. He walked the short length of the room and returned helplessly to his seat.

“I don’t know how else to defend you,” he admitted. He ran his fingers through his hair brusquely, feeling his professionalism slip away from him. Maybe Aneesa had been right to warn him against taking this case. He’d pushed it further than anyone else probably would have, and all that had gotten him was information he couldn’t use.

“I did nothing for too long,” Zeba whispered. “I lived with my eyes and ears closed when I should have been paying attention. I should have known sooner. But I was not vigilant. If I did nothing then, I can do nothing now. I will do nothing and I will say nothing. I refuse to bring any more shame to my children.”

Yusuf’s elbows sat on the table, the cuffs of his sleeves rolled back. She wouldn’t budge, he knew, but he wasn’t quite ready to give up on her altogether. Knowing about the girl only made him want to defend her more. He could only imagine what the little girl had been through. Too bad the world wouldn’t stand and applaud Zeba for what she’d done.

“Are you saying to me that you killed your husband?”

“Looks that way, doesn’t it? Why would you doubt it if everyone says it’s so? I’ve even confessed to it according to my arrest record. You should drop this case.”

“I won’t do that,” Yusuf said defiantly. “I’ve got to find a defense that will stand up to the prosecution’s case.”

“God is great and you are young, Yusuf- jan, ” Zeba said as she pushed her chair back and stood to leave. “There are plenty of innocent people to defend. Stop wasting your time on the guilty.”

“A DEFENDANT’S MOTHER HAS NEVER BEEN PRESENT FOR THESE proceedings,” the qazi said. He rubbed his palms on the end of his tunic and wondered why they were so sweaty. The prosecutor shot him a curious look.

Gulnaz sat with her back as straight as the chair itself. Her eyes were lightly lined in kohl, which made Qazi Najeeb want to touch her cheek as he stared into their green depths. He cleared his throat and reached for the tasbeh, the string of amber prayer beads on his desk.

“I am sure I am not the first mother to be concerned about her daughter’s case,” Gulnaz said as she set her purse on the floor next to her.

“No, you are not,” the prosecutor agreed, reaching for a biscuit from the table in the middle of the room. He bit in and felt the buttery cookie crumble in his mouth. By the nod of his head, Gulnaz could tell the taste of it agreed with him.

“These are delicious, Khanum,” the prosecutor declared.

“Yusuf- jan, you haven’t tried one yet, have you?” Gulnaz asked gently.

Yusuf shook his head.

“No, Khanum, I’ve just eaten, but thank you,” he said tightly. A plate full of biscuits was a far cry from bribery if that’s what Gulnaz was trying to accomplish.

“Maybe later then,” Gulnaz suggested.

“You don’t have to ask me,” Qazi Najeeb said before Gulnaz even offered the cookies. The prosecutor held the plate out and watched as the judge took two and placed them on a napkin before him. “When I was a boy, there was nothing I enjoyed more during Ramadan. Before the sun came up, my mother would make me a mug of sweet tea and cream and let me eat as many of her homemade biscuits as I could stuff into my stomach. Part of me looked forward to Ramadan for that very reason.”

“I made these for my family during Ramadan as well. They would tell me it would have been difficult to survive the hours without these.”

Gulnaz had asked for nothing more than to be present for the discussion, especially since it had become clear that Zeba could not be. Hearing of her recent collapse in the prison hallway, the judge had decided to leave her out of the proceedings.