Nadia Hashimi - The Pearl that Broke Its Shell

My father, my grandfather and my uncles were silent. My mother and I felt our stomachs drop, knowing they could not resist what Abdul Khaliq was offering — more money than our family had ever seen and the promise of a steady opium supply. I covered my face with my hands and pressed my head against the wall.

I slipped out of Madar- jan ’s clutching fingers and left her standing there, stunned. Three daughters. Turning me into a boy hadn’t protected me at all. In fact, it had put me right in front of this warlord who now demanded my hand in marriage. Barely a teenager, I was to be wed to this gray-haired fighter with bags of money and armed men to do his bidding.

My sisters looked at me, already crying. Shahla was trembling.

“It’s terrible, Shahla!” I sobbed. “I’m so sorry, I’m so very sorry! It’s so awful!”

“They’re really agreeing to it?”

“It’s… it’s just like you said… there’s too many… they’re giving Padar so much money…”

I couldn’t bring myself to form the words. Shahla understood though. I saw her eyes well up and her lip stiffen before she turned her back to me. She was angry.

“God help us,” she said.

I wanted to be outside with Abdullah. I wished I could be chasing stray dogs with him or kicking a ball down the street. I wondered what he would say if he knew I was to be married.

That night, I dreamed of Abdul Khaliq. He had come for me. He towered over me with a stick in his hand, laughing. He was pulling me by the arm. He was strong and I couldn’t get away. The streets were empty but as I walked past the houses, gates opened one by one. My mother. Khala Shaima. Shahla. Bibi Shekiba. Abdullah. Each one stood in a doorway and watched me walk by; they all shook their heads.

I looked at their faces. They were sad.

“Why aren’t you helping me?” I cried. “Don’t you see what’s happening? Please, can’t you do something? Madar- jan ! Khala Shaima! Bibi- jan ! I’m sorry! Shahla, I’m sorry!”

“Allah has chosen this as your naseeb, ” they each called out in turn. “This is your naseeb, Rahima.”

Abdul Khaliq Khan was a clever man. A clever man with many guns. He knew all the right buttons to push. My father had never seen so much money and would choose opium over food even if he hadn’t eaten for days. What good were his daughters anyway?

We were young but not that young. Shahla was fifteen years old, Parwin was fourteen and I was thirteen. We were flower buds that had just started to open. It was time for us to be taken to our new homes, just like Bibi Shekiba.

My father had come into our room and ordered my mother to make a shirnee, something sweet he could put before the guests to show our family agreed to the arrangement. We didn’t have much so Madar- jan gave him a small bowl of sugar, wet with tears, which he took and laid before Abdul Khaliq’s father. The men embraced each other in congratulations. We girls huddled around my mother, looking to each other for comfort.

The arrangements moved quickly. Abdul Sharif was a rugged-looking man in his thirties and his brother Abdul Haidar was probably a few years older. Abdul Sharif had one other wife at home but was content to take on a second, especially since the bride price had been covered by his cousin. Abdul Haidar already had two wives at home. Parwin would be his third.

Come back in two weeks for the nikkah, Padar- jan had said, his eyes darting back and forth from the guests to the black bag on the floor.

Shahla was so angry that she did not speak to me for four days.

I tried to talk to her but she wouldn’t look at me.

“Why did you have to make Padar so angry? I don’t want to go with that man! Parwin doesn’t want this either! We were fine! Leave me alone. Go and be with Abdullah now!”

I was stunned. My sister was right, though. I had pushed the situation without thinking about anyone else. I wanted to be allowed to wrestle with Abdullah, to walk to school with him and feel his arm around my shoulder. This was my doing.

“I’m sorry, Shahla. I’m really sorry! I didn’t mean for any of this to happen! Please believe me!”

Shahla wiped her cheeks and blew her nose.

Parwin watched us, her mouth in a tight pout.

“One by one, the birds flew off…,” she said quietly. I looked at her, her left leg tucked under her and her right stretched before her. I wondered how her husband would treat a wife with a lame leg. I could see in Shahla’s eyes, she was thinking the same thing.

Shahla blamed me. If I hadn’t pushed Padar- jan that day, then he and Madar- jan would not have had that argument. And we would not have been betrothed to Abdul Khaliq’s family.

I wondered if it would have made a difference. I wondered if one small difference in the sequence of events would have altered the paths we ended up on. If I hadn’t let Abdullah, sweet, strong Abdullah, pin me down in the street for my mother to see, we wouldn’t have argued. I would have eaten dinner with the family. My father would have gone on smoking his own paltry opium supply and he would not have thought to complain to Abdul Khaliq that he needed to marry his daughters off.

Maybe I could have stayed a boy, running alongside Abdullah, making faces behind Moallim-sahib ’s back and having my father ruffle my hair when I walked by. As if he wanted me around.

But that wasn’t my naseeb .

“It’s all in Allah’s hands, my girls. God has a plan for you. Whatever is in your naseeb will happen,” my mother had sobbed.

I wondered if Allah hadn’t meant for us to choose our naseeb .

With my father standing over her shoulder, my mother reluctantly made three baskets of shirnee . She covered a cone-shaped block of sugar and loose candies from Agha Barakzai’s shop with a layer of tulle she’d purchased with some of the bride price. She cut swatches from her nicest dress and edged the sides with some lace she’d been given as a gift. Three large squares, one for each basket. These were our dismols, as important as the sweets. My father nodded in approval. My mother avoided his eyes. I looked at them and wondered if that was how it would be for each of us with our husbands. Or if they would be more like Kaka Jameel, who never seemed to raise his voice and whose wife smiled more than any woman in our family.

I wondered why they were different.

Padar hardly noticed what was happening at home. He didn’t even notice that Madar- jan slept in our room with us, instead of at his side. He was busy counting bills and smoking opium at least twice a day. Abdul Khaliq had made good on his promise and my father was enjoying his end of the bargain.

“I’ve brought home a chicken, Raisa! Make sure you send some to my mother, and not just the bones, mind you! And if the meat is dry and tough like last time, you’ll have no more tomorrows.”

My mother hadn’t eaten more than a couple of bites since the suitors had left and her eyes looked heavy. She was civil with my father, afraid to rile his anger and risk losing her youngest daughters too.

In the meantime, Madar- jan had to undo what she had done to me. She gave me one of Parwin’s dresses and a chador to hide my boyish hair. She gave my pants and tunics to my uncle’s wife for her boys.

“You are Rahima. You are a girl and you need to remember to carry yourself like one. Watch how you walk and how you sit. Don’t look people, men, in the eye and keep your voice low.” She looked like she wanted to say more but stopped short, her voice breaking.