Nadia Hashimi - A House Without Windows

“Precisely. Now let’s summarize before we go too far with this new information,” Qazi Najeeb said with more solemnity than he’d ever displayed. “This case has to be taken very seriously. In Zeba’s defense, there were no witnesses, but the circumstances were so clear-cut that witnesses really weren’t necessary. Yusuf has presented the argument that she may have been insane at the time the murder was committed. She has confessed to it in the arrest report and hasn’t really refuted any of it in a convincing way. It’s hard not to take that as an admission of guilt, then.”

Yusuf shook his head.

“I disagree with that. Since she’s been deemed insane by someone the judge feels is an expert opinion, then her arrest statement should be thrown out. How can an insane person write a true confession? You’ve seen her yourself, Your Honor. Do you think she would have been able to provide an accurate statement for the arresting officer to record? She was barely aware of what was happening even when they pressed her blue thumb to the page.”

“Enough, Yusuf,” Qazi Najbeen interrupted. “Let me speak. The prosecution has a strong case. I am trying to be very fair and open-minded about this case, but even if she’s now been deemed insane, that’s not enough to save her from being guilty of murder. Now, the only thing left to consider is this news about Kamal as a drunk who may have committed a horrible sacrilegious act.”

Yusuf sat forward suddenly.

“You know, the case of the woman murdered by the mob in Kabul was an interesting one. The men who killed her were initially sentenced to death, but then the judge lessened their sentences, even dismissing some,” the qazi added.

The prosecutor nodded.

“They were crazed. They heard someone had dared to burn Allah’s words and they went wild. They were defenders of God in their minds.”

“That’s no excuse for murder,” Yusuf shot back.

“Well, it seems people come up with all kinds of excuses for murder, don’t they?” the prosecutor asked pointedly.

Yusuf resisted the urge to put in eyedrops as he sat in the judge’s office. He rubbed at his sore eyes and knew he was only making matters worse. In a flash, he understood why it was that everyone in this country looked twenty years older than their actual age. He considered the street children who had swarmed him in Kabul — school-age boys and girls who would not have been allowed to cross the street in New York without an adult’s hand clamped over theirs. Yusuf had been fooled by many of the women in the prison, their bodies and children and weariness making twenty-two-year-olds pass for forty. The men, thin and weathered by jobs that made three days pass between two sunrises. Their lives were in fast-forward but, in other respects, they didn’t seem to be moving at all. Was this what his mother worried about — that Yusuf would spend the best years of his life toiling in a land that would give him nothing to show for it? It was possible, he had to admit, that she was right. But he still wasn’t ready to give up.

“What do you want to do then? Would you feel better if Zeba were executed tomorrow? Do you feel that her children would be better off? Does that feel like justice to you?”

The prosecutor shook his head.

“We can’t give a free pass to women who kill their husbands. I’m not heartless, my friend. I’m just doing my job — same as you.”

“I’m doing my job and I’m also doing what’s right.” Yusuf’s voice was thick and tense. He cleared his throat and began again. “I know that’s what you want, too. Let’s find a solution that will work for everyone. We’ve got someone’s attention now, and I don’t know if having a reporter following Zeba’s case is such a great thing.”

Actually, Yusuf was quite certain it was not in Zeba’s interests to have the case scrutinized by a reporter. The trial of the lynched woman’s murderers was still fresh on the minds of the people. College students were paying attention. Women’s rights organizations were poised to march behind banners. What would start off as a battered woman retaliating against her blasphemous husband would quickly disintegrate into a witch hunt. Yusuf pictured, without much stretch of his imagination, a mob dragging Zeba’s body down the street and taking turns beating her with sticks and bricks and car parts.

“What does the reporter want to cover exactly?” Yusuf asked. “Has he heard what people are saying about the husband?”

“I’m not sure,” Qazi Najeeb admitted. “But if he’s one of those pushy reporters from the city, he’ll be asking lots of questions and it’s possible that’ll come up. Hakimi was pretty surprised by the number of people who came forward in this mess.”

Yusuf’s fingertips rubbed circles at his temples, his elbows on his knees. It was hot today, and the buzzing electric fan in the judge’s office was fighting an uphill battle, swirling the same hot air in the small space between the three men. Yusuf could feel the dampness of his collar and underarms.

Something had happened in that village after his visit. It was as if people had been biting their tongues and waiting for a sign that it was okay to shout out Kamal’s sins.

“I’ll tell you how I feel,” Qazi Najeeb said, wiping his brow with a handkerchief. “I’m tired of the way things have been. People think just because I’m a judge that anything I have has come to me by way of bribes. I don’t blame them for thinking so. Everyone knows the economics of having a case dismissed or a person let out of prison. I’m not immune. I can say that much.”

The two lawyers shot each other uncomfortable glances. Qazi Najeeb seemed not to be speaking directly to them anyway. It sounded as if he’d rehearsed these lines in his mind and was using the lawyers as a live audience.

“You boys are young. Do you know what happens when you get old like me? You sleep more, you eat less, you choose your fights carefully, and you think about what people will say at your funeral. I want my time to leave a mark. Remember the shrine? Hazrat Rahman — that man left his mark and people are still thinking of his wisdom and praying over his tomb. I’m not asking for a shrine,” he said with a fleeting smile. “But I want to leave something people will remember.”

“Qazi- sahib, what exactly are you proposing?” asked Yusuf cautiously.

“We can make sure this case is handled better than the one in Kabul was — even if they are the capital. You know what they did in that case? When they vacated the convictions for some and lessened the sentences on others, they did not consult with the prosecution, nor did they notify the victim’s family. People noticed. People talked . I am not going to be that judge. If people notice or talk about me, I want it to be for good reason.”

“Okay, but if that’s the case,” Yusuf reasoned slowly, “then it would be best to remove Khanum Zeba from the shrine. If we want this case to set a good precedent, we can’t have our defendant starving in a thousand-year-old shrine. I’ve talked to the head of the local hospital, Qazi- sahib, and that’s not the way mental illness is handled here.”

The prosecutor nodded in rare agreement. Qazi Najeeb uncrossed his legs and leaned back in his chair. He thumbed through his prayer beads, getting halfway through the loop before addressing Yusuf’s argument.

“I know. Gentlemen, neither of you have seen the things I’ve seen — especially in the last twenty years. My job is not an easy one. I’m supposed to balance tradition against progress in a place where people are suspicious of everything. We hate things staying the same as much as we hate things changing. You know what the real problem with corruption is? It’s not the money that it costs to have your way. You can treat that as a living expense. The problem is that we’re all puppets. We all have strings on our heads and arms and someone else pulls them: the Russians, the Americans, the warlords, the mullahs, the Taliban. Who isn’t working for someone? You, Yusuf, you’ll be called the American spy, sent here to corrupt us with the laws of the West. They’ve stayed too long. They pulled out too early. They killed innocent people. They got rid of the Taliban. The entire mission was in vain. We people are not of one heart.”