Nadia Hashimi - The Pearl that Broke Its Shell

“I won’t be long,” she said, lowered her burqa and headed out the back door.

She crossed the fields quickly, peering over her shoulder every thirty seconds or so to see if anyone was coming after her. After about twenty meters, she broke into a jog, hoping she didn’t attract attention. Her father’s home looked smaller than she remembered it. She felt her heart quicken as she neared the rusted gate.

For a second, she saw her father standing outside, his face to the sky as he wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. She heard her mother call out her brothers’ names. She saw Aqela’s songbird face in the front window, watching their father toil in the fields.

There should have been a word for what she felt, the way her stomach jumped with anticipation to be somewhere she missed so much, to be around people who missed her as much as she missed them. It was a feeling that started sweet and finished bitter, when she realized that she stood in the ashes of those perfect times, as short as they’d been.

No one had claimed the home yet but it looked as if someone were trying to fix it up. Cracks in the walls had been filled with clay. The splintered table outside had a new plank nailed to it. Inside, the two solid chairs were gone, as were the few blankets she’d left strewn about to make believe her parents and siblings still slept in the house with her.

Shekiba wondered which vulture had his eyes on the house but pushed the thought aside for now.

She needed to find the Qur’an. Her father’s books had not been touched. They still sat on the crooked shelf above where Padar- jan once slept. She looked out the window, half expecting to hear her uncles’ angry voices.

She blinked back tears and used a step stool to reach the top shelf. Her fingers reached over the ledge and sought blindly.

That’s it.

She pulled at a corner of fabric and the book slid toward her. She grabbed it with both hands and came down from the stool. The Qur’an was wrapped in a thin, emerald-green cloth embroidered with silver thread. This had been her mother’s dismol, or wedding cloth. Shekiba brushed the dust away and kissed the holy book, then touched it to her left and right eyes as her parents had taught her.

Why do we keep the Qur’an all the way up there, Madar- jan ? It is so hard to reach it there!

Because nothing is above the Qur’an. This is how we show our respect for the word of Allah.

Shekiba unfolded the cloth and opened the first page.

Tariq. Munis. Shekiba. Aqela.

Beside each name, Padar- jan had penciled in the month and year of their birth.

Shekiba flipped through the pages, the corners frayed. The book opened to the second sura . She recognized the line that her father often quoted. She traced the calligraphy with her finger and heard his voice.

It means that we treasure many things in this world, but there is even more awaiting us in paradise.

The paper fell into her hands. Yellowed parchment with two columns of ornate signatures. She recognized her grandfather’s name. This was the deed!

Shekiba’s senses heightened now that she had what she’d come looking for. She took a quick look around and tucked the deed back into the pages of the Qur’an. It was time to get back to the house before her escapade incited too much anger. She covered the Qur’an again with her mother’s dismol and tucked it irreverently under her shirt.

God, forgive me, she thought.

As she exited her rusted front door, she could see Kaka Sheeragha across the field.

Lazy, she thought, looking at her uncle. The others would have come after me .

Sheeragha met her at the door.

“What were you doing in that house?” he demanded.

“Praying.” Shekiba slipped past him and returned to the living room, hoping Azizullah was ready to leave.

“Where have you been? Bobo Shahgul said she had a pleasant but short visit with you.” Azizullah took one last sip from his teacup. “We should be going. We have taken up enough of your time.”

“Time with you is time well spent,” Zalmai said graciously while he eyed Shekiba with suspicion. Sheeragha nodded in tacit agreement. He was not blessed with the social graces of his brothers.

“You are very kind. Please pass my regards along to the rest of the family. I am sure I will see you in the masjid for Eid prayers next week.”

“Yes, of course you will.”

“Absolutely.”

Shekiba followed Azizullah through the courtyard and into the street. Her uncles watched them leave, mumbling to each other.

They put on a good show, she thought, knowing they were wondering what spurred her return to the family home.

“Of course he hit her again! Why did you have to say something like that to him? You know how he is!” Shahla was folding the laundry in the courtyard, her eyes moving back and forth between the clothes and Sitara, who was drawing circles in the dirt with a rock.

“I didn’t mean for that to happen. I was just… I only meant to…”

“Well, you should think before you say something. She couldn’t even lift her arm this morning. God knows what he did to her.”

I bit my lip. I had gone to my grandmother’s as my father instructed. I was hoping he would have left Madar- jan alone, but he hadn’t. His toxic anger never went away, not without his medicine. I wanted Shahla to stop telling me how awful he had been to our mother. But I needed to hear. I needed to know what had happened.

“You’ve ruined everything for all of us. You don’t think. You’re so busy being a boy that you’ve forgotten what can happen to a girl. Now we all have to pay for your selfish mistakes.”

“It has nothing to do with you. He was angry at Madar- jan so stop worrying about yourself.”

Shahla was fighting back tears. “You think it was all about Madar- jan ? You think everything stops there? Well, it doesn’t. What you do affects all of us.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know what we all are? We’re all dokhtar-ha-jawan . We’re all young women. Me, Parwin. Even you, Rahim . Even you.”

She was angry. I’d never seen Shahla so upset. Sitara looked up, sensing the tension.

“He hit her again. Parwin and I, we were scared to look but we could hear it. He went on yelling and screaming about how it wasn’t bad enough that she had failed him as a wife. Now she was failing as a mother.”

I remembered how she’d looked, cowering under him. His face had been red with anger, his eyes bulging.

“She must have fallen to the floor. Her shoulder’s hurt badly. I don’t know. She tried to get him to calm down but he was… well, you know how he can get. And then she said something to him that made him stop.”

“What did she say?” I asked quietly.

“She said she was taking care of all of us. She said it was a house full of dokhtar-ha-jawan and it wasn’t easy. All of a sudden, he got quiet. Then he started pacing the floor, saying his house was full of young women and that it wasn’t right.”

“What’s not right?”

“Don’t you know what people say? They say it’s not right to keep a dokhtar-e-jawan in your home.”

“What are you supposed to do with them?” I sensed the ugly turn this was taking.

“What do you think you’re supposed to do? You’re supposed to marry them off. That’s what’s in his head now. And it’s all because you don’t know what to do with yourself. You think just because you’re wearing pants and you strap your breasts down every morning that no one will care what you do. But you’re not a kid anymore. People won’t pretend anymore. You’re no different than me and Parwin.”