Nadia Hashimi - A House Without Windows

Zeba filled her lungs with the hot, night air and made a decision she was certain she would regret.

“I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO THINK,” HAKIMI SAID. HE WAS TRULY baffled. The man before him was the fifth person to come in for the same reason. And since when did people feel it necessary to report a neighbor’s crazy behavior? His own neighbor kept no fewer than twenty-five gray pigeons on his roof and had named each and every one. Hakimi had argued with him that it was impossible to tell one bird from another but the man insisted that he could recognize them just as well as Hakimi could recognize his children.

“It’s the truth,” the man said, rubbing his hands together and shrugging his shoulders. “I didn’t think anything of it at the time and I didn’t want to intrude into a family’s private life. But now. .”

“Yes, what makes you come here now to tell me this?” Hakimi asked, leaning across his desk to hear the man’s response.

“Well, now, it’s that so many things have been said and I’m not sure what’s true. I know the judge will want to know everything about her before he makes a decision, I suppose. Yes, and if he wants to make a decision, then he can only do that if he knows what I’ve seen.”

“Fine. Tell me what you’ve seen. I don’t know how much the qazi is going to care, but you can start by telling me. We’ll go from there.”

Hakimi pulled out a notebook and a ballpoint pen. He scribbled in the corner of the page, which produced only inkless depressions. He made an O with his lips and stuck the pen into the hollow of his mouth. He huffed hot air onto its tip, then licked it with the tip of his tongue before touching it to the page again. This time his scribble was visible, a reluctant, incomplete twirl of blue.

He turned to a fresh page. He’d kept a file of the other reports he’d recorded. Whether the judge would consider them in Zeba’s defense or toss them aside without reading was impossible to say. Hakimi didn’t really care either way. It felt good to be doing this, as if he were gathering evidence of his authority in this town instead of evidence related to the case.

“Now, tell me what it is you saw.”

“I. . er. . I didn’t know her name. We’re not related to the family, of course. But they lived close enough that I’d seen the wife a few times. I can’t recall what day it was, but there was a day when I was going to work and just as I stepped out into the street, I heard a noise. I turned around and there she was. Her head scarf had fallen away from her face so I could see who she was. As soon as she saw me she pulled it back over and looked away.”

“What was she doing?”

“She. . she was digging behind the door of a neighbor’s house — with her fingers. It was like. . it was like something really important to her was buried there. She looked like she wanted to get to it really fast.”

“Bizarre. Did she say anything to you?”

“No, she didn’t. She just. . she just looked at me the way a stray dog looks at a gang of schoolboys. She looked ready to claw at me if I got close to her. I didn’t.”

“Of course you didn’t.” Hakimi nodded. “Did you stay to watch her or did you leave her there?”

“I stayed for a bit. I mean, I actually asked her what she was doing and if she was all right. She looked wild. . not like a right person. She was digging at the earth with her fingers. When she didn’t respond to me, I asked her if her husband knew where she was. I assumed she had a family.”

“What did she say?”

“She. . uh. . she didn’t say much of anything. She just stuffed a handful of dirt into her mouth and ran off like she’d stolen something.”

“She stuffed dirt in her mouth?” Hakimi repeated incredulously. If only every day were like this. If only he could wake every morning to record crazy stories about people in his village, putting ink to the page to turn hearsay into official evidence. It was a powerful feeling, just as good as the glint of his badge or the weight of his pistol. “She didn’t just wipe her mouth with a dirty hand?”

“No, no. She took a mouthful as if it were. . as if it were rice.”

Hakimi eyes widened with interest.

“That is very concerning behavior. And you watched her run off?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Which direction did she run in?”

“I don’t remember.”

Hakimi inhaled through pursed lips. He leaned back in his chair and tapped his pen against the page.

“Well, if you don’t remember, then I don’t know if I can. .”

“Ah yes, she ran toward the shoemaker’s shop and away from the school. I remember now because I was going to work and had to pass the school.”

“I see,” Hakimi said slowly, as if this detail changed everything. He added a line to the record, his penmanship meticulous. He hadn’t quite graduated from high school but there were other ways, he’d realized, to feel like a learned man. He took pride in these details. One could tell by the way he shined his own shoes, not trusting his children to do a good enough job. It was a task beneath most men with any kind of position, but Hakimi believed the end result would more than make up for that.

“I’ll be sharing this information with the judge,” he said. “Now, unless you have something else that you haven’t yet mentioned. .”

“No, that’s all that I know. Just that she was definitely an afflicted person in the mind. And that was at least a couple of weeks before the man was killed.”

“Understood. Well, thank you for coming in—” Hakimi said, ripping the page off the notepad and paper-clipping it to a stack of similar sheets.

“ Sahib, if I could ask one question — out of curiosity. Have you had others comment about that woman’s husband? I didn’t know him really.”

“You mean the murdered man? God rest his soul. No, no one seems to have anything to say about him — not that I’ve been asking. If there’s one thing that’s clear in this case, it’s that he was the victim.”

“Of course,” Timur mumbled and before he could second-guess himself, he went on talking. It was unplanned and risky, but he was like a shaken soda bottle. In a small way, this was the moment he was uncapped. “But I’m surprised you didn’t hear the rumors about him.”

“Rumors? What rumors?” Hakimi said, with one eye squinted.

“I probably shouldn’t say anything. I didn’t witness it myself, but I heard from others. This was a few months ago, and it was so terrible that I didn’t want to believe it myself.”

“Tell me what you heard. It’s my job to sift truth from rumor.”

Timur said nothing, knowing Hakimi wasn’t capable of sifting rubies from desert sand.

“It was an ugly thing that I heard, so terrible that it hurts me to even repeat it.”

“Out with it, brother. I do have other work to do.” Hakimi was growing impatient.

“Of course. It was pretty well known that he was a man of sin and that he had, in a rage, set a page of the Holy Qur’an on fire.”

Hakimi abruptly sat up in his chair, both palms pressing onto the desk. This was shocking news, even if it were only a rumor.

“Set it on fire? God forbid! Why would he do such a thing?”

Timur shook his head. His palms were moist. He rubbed them on his pantaloons out of Hakimi’s view.

“I have no idea. As a man who loves the Qur’an with all his heart, I can’t imagine what would bring a man to do something so ghastly. I told you it was bad.”

“Bad? This is well beyond bad. This is the highest form of blasphemy! And he’s not even alive for us to inquire about this or to punish him. What am I supposed to do with this information? Who can confirm this?”