Nadia Hashimi - When the Moon Is Low

Padar- jan was hungry so I summoned my siblings and set the table, wondering if KokoGul would make it back before we started to eat. Cumin steam swirled from the platter of hot rice I was carrying when she swept into the room. KokoGul threw her chador onto the back of a chair with a huff. Her voice boomed in the small space.

“Ooohhh God, our merciful Allah! What horrible news!” Her head swayed from side to side as she sat next to my father. “What tragic and unexpected events have befallen us. . I still cannot believe such a thing would happen!”

Padar- jan furrowed his brow, impatient with her dramatic prelude.

“Just say what it is, KokoGul. What happened?”

KokoGul ignored his frustration and went on with her story at her own pace.

“I was home today making sure these girls were doing their homework and on top of that there was a lot of laundry and cooking to do and I had my hands full, as usual,” she added. Padar- jan sighed heavily and I wondered when KokoGul had last washed so much as a sock or stirred a pot.

“Habiba- jan came knocking on our door to borrow some flour — sometimes I think we could make a healthy living supplying her with all the ingredients she’s forgotten to pick up from the sundries store — anyway, I gave that foolish woman what she needed and she started to chatter about the unfortunate family arranging for a fateha in two days for their young son and what a sad story it was. I asked her who it was that had lost a son and she told me that it was that wealthy family from across town, Agha Firooz.”

My fingers gripped the edge of the table tightly. I could feel the blood drain from my face. I waited for her to continue.

“When she said that, my head spun and I just about fainted right there at her feet but I pulled myself together and asked her if she knew which of their boys it was and how it had happened. She was more interested in getting home with the flour and she didn’t know much else anyway so I told her to run along. I went to Fatana- jan ’s house since her brother-in-law lives next door to Agha Firooz’s family.

“Fatana’s better informed than the KGB and she told me everything! My God, how this changes things for us! Just two days ago. .”

“Dear God, wife, please! Just say what happened!”

“Unbelievable, truly unbelievable! The whole story is just unimaginable! Agha Firooz’s boy was walking from the movie theater to home with his friends. You know, they said he was studying engineering, but Fatana tells me he hadn’t been to any classes since high school and he wouldn’t have even graduated from there had his father not breathed heavily over a few shoulders.”

Tragic or not, KokoGul would not leave out a single detail of this savory story. This was her first time telling it, a rehearsal of sorts as she would certainly be repeating it again and again.

“He was on his way home with his friends when they stopped to get some nakhod from one of the vendors in the bazaar. Boys like that cannot go five meters without a snack! They each got a pocketful of roasted chickpeas and went along their way when he started to scratch at some red bumps on his arms. By the time they’d turned the corner, he was in worse shape, coughing and straggling behind the others. The boys had no idea what had happened to him and decided to take him back to his house. He could barely walk by then and they put him on the living room sofa.

“His poor mother was home. She came into the room, took one look at her son, and realized what had happened. When he was young, he would get the same red bumps when he’d eaten walnuts. She yelled for his friends to help her get him to the doctor, but the boys had already taken off. Fatana thinks they were up to something and got scared that they’d be in trouble. By the time she called her servant to help and managed to get him to the doctor he’d stopped breathing. He was finished!”

KokoGul covered her face in her hands, took a deep breath, and put her palms flat against the table. Her voice was mournful.

“They are just beside themselves with grief and shock. As we speak, they’re making arrangements for the burial when they should have been making plans for his wedding.”

Padar- jan leaned back, his mouth slightly open. My sisters looked pointedly at me. I kept my face as still as I could, unsure what I was feeling and not wanting my expression to betray my thoughts.

“Allah forgive his sins! To lose a son, a young man. .” Padar- jan shook his head. He kept his eyes on KokoGul, glancing over just once to gauge my reaction.

“Such a shame. Such a shame. Just when we were getting to know their family better! They seemed like such nice people, with good business sense and obviously better off than most in Kabul. They have another son but he’s married already! Now we’ve lost our chance with them.” KokoGul could not conceal her true disappointment.

Padar- jan looked at her and sighed. He had long ago accepted KokoGul for what she was, but that didn’t stop him from hoping, day after day, that she wouldn’t make every little event revolve around her. He cleared his throat. “I will find out more tomorrow about the jenaaza and the fateha . We’ll pay our respects to the family. For now, let’s have the meal that Fereiba’s prepared for us. It shouldn’t go to waste.” He grew pensive. “We’ll send some food for them.”

“Send food? They already have a cook who prepares food for them. It’s hard enough for us to feed the mouths we have here!”

“We will send food and pay our respects. We’ve marked happy days with them and shouldn’t shy from their sorrow,” Padar- jan said slowly and deliberately, his eyes narrowed at KokoGul. She sulked at his admonishment.

As a family grieved its son, I was ashamed to admit that I felt relieved, as if a yoke had been removed from my neck. But the weight of the misery I’d escaped was replaced by heavy thoughts.

I sat stone-faced while we ate. My jaw moved but I tasted nothing.

It could not have been coincidence.

I kept my face lowered, my thoughts so loud I feared my family would hear me and realize what I was. I was not invisible any longer.

In the orchard, I’d cupped my hands, raised my face to the sun, and prayed to God. When my neighbor finished his fateful prayer, I’d whispered Ameen . I’d pushed his words to Allah, as if I had any business praying with a stranger. His words, our words, echoed in my mind.

Please, Allah, bring a solution to my neighbor’s situation. Please help her avoid the path that others are choosing for her and this suitor. She’s not been able to take a peaceful breath in these weeks and surely things would only be worse with this suitor, as You know better than any.

A peaceful breath. A solution.

Please do not let anyone hold her back from her goals.

KokoGul was too distressed to eat. I hid behind her heavy sighs. My sisters gave one another curious looks, eager to get away from the eerie silence of our meal and share their thoughts where my father wouldn’t hear.

A quiet panic raced through me. It was entirely possible that I’d been complicit in this boy’s demise. It was also possible that I was more than merely complicit. I might have been wholly responsible for God taking his life.

I chewed carefully, afraid I would choke. Allah was in a fickle mood.

I wondered if my neighbor had heard the news. The thought of him sent my mind reeling in a whole other direction. I questioned his intentions and the meaning of the words he’d sent into the heavens.

I fought the urge to run out of the house and into the orchard, to call on him to explain what had happened.