Nadia Hashimi - A House Without Windows

“Condolence?” Tamina scoffed. She rested her hands on her hips and shook her head. Her head scarf draped softly at the nape of her neck. “I don’t need your condolences. I need you to leave my home. I need for my neighbors not to see me entertaining you in my home. What will people say? My brother is freshly in the ground and I am serving tea to his killer’s mother in my home?”

“Tamina- jan, no one knows I’m here. Not a soul from my own family knows, not even my son. And your neighbors can’t see through walls.”

“Walls are as solid as tea bags,” Tamina blurted. “Do you know what’s happened in this town? Do you know what people are saying about my brother and what this has done to our family? They’re saying that he had committed the ultimate act of blasphemy — burning the Qur’an, Allah forbid!”

Tamina tugged at both her earlobes and looked to the sky, begging God for forgiveness for having uttered such terrible words.

Gulnaz was stunned. She’d heard nothing of the sort, though it had been over a week since she’d spoken to either Zeba or Yusuf. Was this true?

“I. . I hadn’t heard a word about. .”

“That’s what this village is saying. People are looking at me now as if I’d handed him the matches to do it. And I’ve never heard such an accusation about my brother! Whatever my brother was in his life, I never let his sins touch my children. Now I’m afraid to take my children out of the house. My family’s name is blackened! People will not speak to my husband, and my sister has been shamed in front of her in-laws. Our walls are covered in spit and curses. They hate us — as if I had anything to do with my brother’s insanity. What else do you want to do to me? What else?”

She was furious now, her rage loose and her breathing heavy enough that Gulnaz could see the rise and fall of her chest below her collarbones. Her hands were clenched in tight balls.

“I didn’t know,” Gulnaz mumbled, covering her face with her hands. Her handbag had fallen to the ground with a defeated thud. Her fingers made a triangle at her mouth. It was time to reconsider her plan. She was doing her grandchildren no favors by poking a stick at their keeper. “I was wrong to come.”

She lifted her bag from the ground, her back aching in protest.

“I’m feeding his children with whatever we have for our own family. Did you come here to thank me or check on what I’m doing? Leave and do not dare to come back! If you care about these children, you’ll leave them in peace!”

Gulnaz half expected to feel Tamina’s fists pummel her back as she fled the yard. She heard the door creak to a close behind her and walked to the end of the block without pausing to wipe the tears from her cheeks. When had she become so powerless? When had she lost control over everything in her life?

Gulnaz stood with her back flattened against a clay wall. The small street crossed a main road buzzing with shops and the rumble of car engines. A Toyota Corolla drove past, the driver slowing to get a better look at her as she lingered in the alley. Gulnaz pulled her head scarf over her nose and mouth and let out a long, soft moan that drowned in the town’s bustle.

She’d been so close to her grandchildren. Had she done right to leave without putting up more of a fight? Perhaps Tamina needed more time. Maybe when the rumors circulating about Kamal died down, so would her anger.

She could predict Zeba’s disappointment already. Gulnaz had wanted only to hug the children and bring them news that their mother thought of them every moment of the day. She knew what Zeba feared most was for her own daughters to look at her the way she’d looked at her mother — she desperately feared the day they would glare at her with icy eyes or refuse to open the door when she came calling on them — if she were ever able to call on them.

Zeba was still in the shrine. Gulnaz wondered what the mullah had told her after she’d left. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to face Zeba after she’d left his quarters. At least, though, he’d vowed to take good care of Zeba.

Gulnaz, consumed in her thoughts, did not hear the soft footsteps that crept behind her. When the hand touched her arm, she jerked backward and shrieked.

“Bibi- jan .”

A small gasp escaped Gulnaz’s lips. She stared at the boy’s face before reaching out to touch him. He stared back at her and waited for her to speak.

“Basir. .”

She could say nothing more than his name before her throat swelled so thickly that her breaths slowed. Hesitantly, she touched his shoulder. He blinked, slowly, but did not pull away. She drew him close to her with this small permission and held his face between her hands. He closed his eyes, and two rogue tears slipped through the mesh of his lashes.

“My sweet grandson.” Gulnaz pushed his hair back from his face. She brought her lips to the top of his head and kissed him, feeling his hairs bristle against her lips, the way Rafi’s once had.

In her life, she’d never been apart from her children. They’d been at her side always, especially once their father had disappeared. Sometimes she’d even told herself that his absence was a blessing because it gave her an undiluted relationship with Rafi and Zeba. There was no one to second-guess her decisions. There was no indulgent partner to make her appear severe in comparison. How relatively easy it seemed, in hindsight, to pull the curtains and shut the world out of their small world.

“Bibi- jan, I didn’t think you would come.”

Gulnaz shook her head.

“Of course I would come. I am your grandmother,” she said softly. “No matter what happens or where you are, I would not turn my back on you and your sisters. Your mother’s been so worried, too.”

“I know,” he said. “I. . I went to see her.”

“She told me.”

Basir looked up abruptly.

“You’ve gone to see her?”

“I have. And she was so happy to have at least seen you. It was a long way from here and a dangerous trip for a boy.”

He winced at being called a boy.

“I had to go.”

“I suppose you did,” she agreed. “You had questions for her, didn’t you? Were your questions answered?”

“I wish I hadn’t asked any questions,” Basir admitted reluctantly. He scratched at his head, not wanting to share what his mother had revealed to him. It felt like a personal shame, like his grandmother would slap him for his father’s sins. It was that shame that made Basir realize he believed every word his mother had told him even if he’d stormed away in anger that night.

“You’re right to ask questions and you’re right to be scared to death of the answers. But God gave you the parents you have, and nothing they’ve done is your fault,” Gulnaz said pointedly. She would not shame this boy by naming the sins of his father.

Basir nodded, not daring to look his grandmother in the eye.

“Your Ama Tamina is very angry with me for coming unannounced. She has a right to be angry after what’s happened to her family.”

“She cries a lot.”

Gulnaz let out a sigh.

“She’s lost her brother,” she said simply.

Basir looked up. His brow furrowed in disagreement.

“I don’t know if that’s why she cries. She says things when she’s upset. . she says. . she says my father never brought anything but problems to the family.”

“She’s a distraught woman. Hopefully, she has the heart not to take out her anger on you and the girls.”

“She’s mostly fine with us. I told my mother that, too.”

“Mostly?” Gulnaz was caught on that small word, and it tore her apart like chiffon on a nail.

“Yeah, she’s fine.”

“You said mostly.”