Nadia Hashimi - A House Without Windows

He’d left her after a moment of silence, whether it was because she had made perfect sense or none at all, Zeba did not care to guess. She’d said what was on her mind, which brought her some small peace.

The mullah moved on to his other wards, praying over each man and dispensing the daily dose of bread and pepper. He listened to their mental wanderings, to their weeping and to their angry rants. He spoke to them of peace, though he did not undo their shackles. He spent long days with them but returned to his home with his wife and children most evenings. It was then that the patients were left alone, with the mullah’s quarters empty and only the entombed patron of the shrine to watch over them.

Zeba drifted into a hum, her eyes growing heavy, and unable to remember the rest of the lyrics. The sting of black pepper lingered on her tongue. She would drink more water tomorrow, she decided. She’d not had enough today and regretted it. The night air was hot and stifling. Zeba felt the moisture in her armpits and her groin when she moved. She sat up with her back to the wall and stretched her legs out before her. A single bead of perspiration trickled down the nape of her neck and slid down her cotton dress.

“I saw him! I saw him! He’s coming for me!” The man was still crying out though his shouts were quieter. He sounded defeated. “Mullah- sahib, where are you? Help me!”

When Zeba was a young girl, her family would gather on festive nights — aunts and uncles, cousins and close friends. Her uncle had taught himself to play the harmonium. She could still feel the puff of air released from the holes on the back of the polished wooden box. Her uncle’s left hand would pull and release the bellows as the fingers of his right hand would tickle the forty-two black and white keys, coaxing songs out of those around him and filling in lyrics when they faltered. The synchrony of their voices disguised the truth that not one of them could carry a tune.

Zeba’s eldest cousin had learned to play the tabla, one stout drum and one taller drum, with bent fingers rapping against stretched goat skin. He would beat out rhythms that were thousands of years old. Zeba would watch his fingers fly, doing something she could not dream of doing. It excited her to see him thrum against the unblinking black eye on the tabla surface.

Zeba’s aunt played the daira, a tambourine twice as big as her head, with its tiny pairs of cymbals clapping along the round of the disc. The country was at war then, and the mujahideen had taken to the mountains to fight back the Russian soldiers and tanks. The soil of Afghanistan was slowly filling with martyrs. It made it all the more important to dance and laugh, knowing the war would touch them sometime soon. Her father smiled more on those nights than any other.

Sing, Zeba- jan ! Don’t be as grim-faced as your mother. Sing from your heart!

I don’t know the words to the song, Zeba had whispered to her father.

You know how to clap, don’t you? he’d replied with a twinkle. You don’t need much to make music.

She’d sat next to him and clapped until her palms were red and stinging, swaying side to side as the others did in a movement not unlike prayer. There wasn’t enough music in her head to bring about that kind of peace.

If I make it back to the prison, I will make the women sing. I will sit them in a circle and we’ll find ourselves a daira , even if it means skinning a goat myself to do it.

Zeba paused. Was that the sound of footsteps in the yard? She listened carefully and heard the crunch of dirt beneath a leather sandal. Solitude had sharpened her senses and she didn’t need to see to perceive her surroundings. It wasn’t the mullah. His step was slower, heavy with righteousness and conviction. It wasn’t one of the other prisoners, either. Their steps were timid and unsure — and it didn’t seem likely that any of the men could unshackle themselves from the chains around their ankles.

Picking up the pail in the corner of her cell, Zeba gripped its handle in her hands.

Two more steps, closer this time. This foot was lighter even. Zeba wondered if it was a small animal. Perhaps one of the fanged deer had come down from the mountain to see what mysterious creatures disturbed the silence of the night with their shrieks and moans.

“Go and never come back, Satan!” screamed the man meters away. Zeba’s heart pounded. His silence had been deceiving. He was still unnerved, probably because he hadn’t slept in days.

The footsteps had stopped. Had the man scared him off? Zeba didn’t know if she should be afraid or relieved.

She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, dragging hot, night air into her body and breathing it out even hotter. If only she could be alone again with her music, she thought wistfully.

When she opened her eyes, she gasped at the figure standing before her. Wreathed in moonlight, she could not make out his face. Still, she knew his shape well enough that she needed no other confirmation.

How insane, she thought, for even a crazy man to think this was Satan.

“You! What are you doing here?” she whispered frantically into the darkness.

“I HAD TO SEE YOU,” BASIR WHISPERED. HE WAS AT THE OPENING of her cell and, though there were no bars or doors between them, he looked hesitant to cross the invisible threshold.

“How did you get here?” Zeba asked. She inched closer to him, the clanging of her chains causing her to stop short. She hadn’t seen her son in months. Being apart from her children had brought her so much pain, despite the lengths she’d gone to to numb herself. She knew how wretched she must look, her hair unkempt and unwashed, her clothes filthy. She could not have imagined a more humiliating reunion.

“I found my way,” Basir said with a shrug of his shoulders.

“But it’s so late and so far from home!” Zeba lamented, thinking of what he must have done to travel from his aunt’s house to the shrine. “Did someone drive you here? The buses don’t come near this place. .”

“I’m here, Madar. Just leave it.”

There was an edge to his voice that made Zeba inclined to do just that.

“I’m sorry you have to see me like this.”

“Me too,” Basir agreed quietly. He hunched his back and stepped into her cell as moonlight lit on his face. Zeba could even see the whispers of hair on his upper lip. She leaned forward, forgetting the condition she was in.

“I’ve missed you so much,” she cried softly. “You and your sisters. Are they all right? Has something happened to them? Is that why you’re here?”

“Nothing’s happened to them. They’re fine.”

“Are you sure? You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?”

Basir’s face drew tight. Zeba winced to see him look at her in that way.

“What a thing to say, Madar.”

“I’m sorry.” Zeba shifted her legs. In eleven days, this was the most uncomfortable she’d been and it had nothing to do with the pebbly earth or the heat. Her son looked tired, but she had nothing to offer him. “My son, what a blessing to lay eyes on you.”

Basir looked away sharply.

When he looked up, his teary eyes glistened in the moonlight.

“We’ve missed you so much, Madar,” he said, his voice cracking. Basir fell into his mother’s arms. Zeba cried out, her hand covering her mouth to muffle the sound. She didn’t want the mullah coming out to find Basir with her, and her neighbors had already been restless tonight.

Basir’s arms were wrapped around his mother’s trunk, his head was buried in her stomach. Zeba touched his face with one hand and pressed her cheek so tightly against his back that she could feel the bones of his spine.