Nadia Hashimi - The Pearl that Broke Its Shell

The nearest hospital was not near at all. Her husband was not happy about being called back to the house to deal with the situation.

Somehow, they’d sent word to my parents.

Madar- jan must have been crazed with worry. Even Padar- jan, who had given us away for a bag of money, had been partial to his artistic daughter. The news must have shaken him. Khala Shaima had been at the house when they sent the message. She was on her way over to see me. I wanted to be with her but feared her reaction.

Please don’t make this worse, Khala Shaima .

But Khala Shaima was our voice. She said what others dared not say. I needed her. She arrived in the evening, out of breath and teary eyed.

“Oh, my dear girl. I heard what happened! This is just awful. I can’t believe it. That poor thing!”

She hugged me tight. I could feel her clavicles press into my face. I’d never realized just how little flesh she had on her frame.

“Why did she do this, Khala Shaima! I was going to go see her today but I didn’t. How could she do such a thing?”

I shuddered thinking of how painful it must have been, how horrifyingly painful.

“Sometimes women are pushed too far, kicked too hard, and there’s no escape for them. Maybe she thought this was her only way. Oh, my poor niece!”

We all need an escape. Khala Shaima was right.

“What did my niece say?” Khala Shaima demanded. “Tell me, was she talking when she was taken to the hospital?”

Tuba shook her head. It had been an ugly scene. The smell of burning flesh, agonizing moans, hysteria. She couldn’t bring herself to describe the horror to us.

“She wasn’t talking at all? Was she conscious?”

“She was… she was just lying very still but she was awake. I was talking to her,” Tuba explained. “She was listening to me but she just wasn’t saying anything.”

“She must have been in so much pain! Allah save her, that poor thing!”

“I’m sure they will give her medicines in the hospital, Shaima- jan . Allah is great and I’m sure he’s watching over her.”

I resisted the urge to spit at her. Pretending. She was pretending that things hadn’t been that bad. Parwin hadn’t been in that much pain. The hospital, which was a day’s journey away and itself in woeful condition, would patch her up in no time. Allah, who had let this happen in the first place, would fix everything. It was all a game of pretend, just as Parwin had pretended every time we’d seen her. There was no honesty in our lives.

Khala Shaima began to lament. I wished she would stop. The sound of her wails made my head spin.

“You people destroyed her,” she cried. “If she dies, her blood is on the hands of this family. Do you understand? This young girl’s blood will be on your hands!”

The women were silent. Tuba bit her lip and fought back tears. I wondered if she could be honest with me.

I asked Tuba, with one mournful whisper, if my sister would live.

Through tears, she told me that God was great and that the whole family was praying for Parwin and that she was on her way to the hospital, so they really were very hopeful.

I wanted to believe her. I wanted to believe that my sister would be okay.

Tuba’s eyes told me it wasn’t in her naseeb .

Parwin had stopped pretending.

After ten agonizing days, her peace finally came.

Her body was brought back and buried in the local cemetery. My father attended the burial, as did a few of my uncles and my grandfather.

At the fateha, I saw my mother again. The first time since my wedding day. Had I had a life more ordinary, I would not have been able to believe what she’d become.

“Rahima! Rahima, my daughter, oh God! Can you believe this? Allah has taken my daughter, my precious Parwin! So young! Oh, Rahima- jan, thank God she at least had you nearby!”

My mother’s hair was thin and stringy. Her words came out wet and lisped. She was missing a few teeth. Her skin sagged and she looked much older.

“Madar- jan !” I hugged her tightly, surprised at how much like Khala Shaima she felt. “Madar- jan, I’ve missed you so much!”

“I’ve missed you too, my daughter! I’ve missed all of you! This is your son? God bless my grandchild!”

“His name is Jahangir, Madar- jan . I wish… I wish you could have come to see him. He’s a sweet child.”

My son smiled, showing off his two bottom teeth. I waited for my mother to reach out to hold him. She didn’t. She touched his cheek with her trembling hand and then looked away. Jahangir looked as disappointed as I felt in her lack of interest.

“Oh, I’ve wanted to come and see you, Rahima- jan . Especially when I heard about my grandchild, but it’s not easy for me to get away from home, you know that. And your husband’s home is not very close. With two kids at home, it just hasn’t been possible.”

I bit my tongue, wondering why the distance wasn’t too much for Khala Shaima and knowing that she could have brought my sisters or left them with one of my uncles’ wives if she’d wanted to. My mother was weaker than I’d ever realized.

We women in mourning sat in a row, a wall of misery and tears. Women from our village came to pay their respects, whispering the same words of condolence to each of us one by one. Some even cried. I wondered why. So many of them had laughed to see my sister try to keep up with the other children, had called her Parwin -e-lang and had thanked God out loud that their own children weren’t similarly deformed. They had made her feel small and wrong. Today they pretended to share our pain. I despised the insincerity.

We prayed. The women sat in rows before us, rocking to the rhythm of the prayer, the gray haired in the group blowing their noses into handkerchiefs and shaking their heads. They cried for us, their hearts softened with age and they themselves one step closer to the grave than most others. In the last ten days, my eyes had dried up. I sat still, blankly watching the faces in front of me. Madar- jan reached over and held my hand.

Rohila and Sitara sat on my right. I shook my head. How wrong I was to think I wouldn’t have recognized my sisters! They had grown taller, more mature, but their faces were unchanged. They spoke sweetly and I hurt to think what home was like for them. Rohila grabbed me and wouldn’t let go.

“Rahima, is it true? Is Parwin really dead? That’s what Madar- jan told us but I can’t believe it!”

“I wish it weren’t true.” Nothing good came of pretending, I’d decided. “How are you, Rohila? How are things at home?”

“Can’t you come back home sometimes? It’s been so lonely since you all left!”

I believed her. I’d felt the same loneliness. I bet we all had, each in her corner of the world, separated by so many walls.

“Are you taking care of Sitara?”

“Yes.” Rohila nodded. It occurred to me that she was now the same age I’d been when I was married off. I looked at her and wondered if I’d looked just as young. I could see that her breasts were just starting to bud. Her shoulders were hunched forward, her chest pulled in. I recognized her posture. She was uncomfortable with her changing body. I wondered if Madar- jan had given her a bra yet.

Sitara was now almost nine years old and clung to Rohila more than she did to Madar- jan . She looked unsure around me, as if she didn’t trust anyone but Rohila.

“How’s Madar- jan been, Rohila?” I whispered. I knew I would draw looks for talking, even in a hushed voice, during the fateha but this was my only opportunity to see my sisters. What I saw worried me.