Nadia Hashimi - The Pearl that Broke Its Shell

I had a fresh hatred for Bibi Gulalai. She’d been the one to delay Jahangir’s treatment. She’d been yelling and carrying on about the absent mother being to blame. Now I knew why. Bibi Gulalai always boasted about the powers of her remedies. She claimed she could heal any ailment with her potent, homemade brews, and that she had. The family humored her. She wanted to look good, the grandmother who stepped in and cured her grandchild while his shameful mother played in Kabul.

One more question to ask, the question I dreaded because there was no good answer. It haunted me.

“Jameela- jan …,” I said, my voice breaking.

“Yes, janem, ” she said gently.

I was looking over the edge of a cliff.

“Jameela- jan … did he… did he cry for me?”

Jameela, loving mother of six, had also given birth to two children who had been claimed by Allah before she could see their smiles. Jameela pulled me into her arms and kissed my forehead. She read my heart.

“My dear madar-ak ”— little mother —she whispered, though I wasn’t one anymore. “What child doesn’t call out for his mother? What could be more comforting than a mother’s embrace? I believe, in his sleep, that’s where your little boy was, feeling your arms around him, janem .”

“But I wasn’t there!” I cried. “I wasn’t there to hold him, to wipe away his tears, to kiss him good-bye! He was just a baby! How scared he must have been!”

“I know, Rahima- jan, but he wasn’t alone. No one can replace you but at least his father was there with him. His father held him. And you know, Abdul Khaliq loved his little son very much.”

It wasn’t until weeks later that this conversation would bring me solace. For now, I stored her words, saving them for when my heart had healed enough to believe that my son had felt my embrace. That his father had held him lovingly in his last moments. That he did not feel as alone as I did now.

Shekiba swept the floor of the living room, beating the dust from the rug section by section. She had breathed a huge sigh of relief after Aasif had left her room, thankful that he had not touched her as his wife. At least for now. He felt remorse for what he had done. And Shekiba could hear something in his voice that she hadn’t heard in a long time. Aasif sounded as if he cared about Benafsha. Maybe her first impression of him hadn’t been that far off. There was still a lot to learn about him but it seemed he had a heart.

Shekiba had spent the rest of the night replaying his words in her mind and trying to piece together how she had come to be his wife.

He could not stop her execution. So he stopped mine. How did he propose this deal to King Habibullah? Does Gulnaz know all this?

Shekiba wondered why the king bothered to agree to it. And another question still lingered. How had he come to know Benafsha? As a concubine, her activities were limited to the harem. It wasn’t as if she had been roaming around the palace grounds. Benafsha had originally been a guard before she had caught King Habibullah’s eye and he must have seen her then.

And Benafsha let him in? Willingly?

You wouldn’t understand, was all she had told Shekiba. She was right about that.

The canaries were singing — three yellow songbirds in a white wire cage suspended from a tree branch. They sang in the morning mostly, bright and melodic. Shekiba paused to listen to them, to decipher their chirps.

Two weeks had passed. Her back was healing. Her skin itched more and burned less, which was how she could tell it was better. With better days came better nights. She learned the routines of the house and found a way to fit in without being a nuisance. She knew from experience that she should not consider herself a permanent fixture in any man’s house, even if she was his wife.

Aasif now said a few more words to her, but their exchanges were still brief and polite. He looked past her face and made only fleeting eye contact. Gulnaz watched their interactions from the corner of her eye and seemed satisfied that the second wife was not her equal. She began to see Shekiba more as a housekeeper than a second wife.

Through the window she could see one of the canaries pecking at the other’s head. The two others tried to retreat. Peck, peck, peck. They tried to fly from one side of the cage to the other but hadn’t enough room to flap their wings more than once before they crossed the cage. Contained. Three caged canaries singing.

Aasif came home that night. Shekiba kept her door open to listen in on their conversation.

“There will be a wedding in three months’ time. The palace is preparing for a monumental event.”

“I wonder how many people they will invite.”

“Plenty. And it will be all the most important families of Kabul. His fiancé’s family is well respected and they carry a great deal of clout. They could not have chosen better for Amanullah.”

“What is her first name? I know her aunt, Aalia Tarzi. I have seen her in the market from time to time and she is a friend of my cousin Sohaila. Aalia- jan speaks very highly of her niece. She was educated while they lived in Syria. I wonder what kind of queen she will be.”

“It’s a powerful match, Amanullah and Soraya Tarzi, although I know Habibullah is not thrilled that his son is taking Agha Tarzi’s daughter.”

“Why is that?” Gulnaz asked.

“Tarzi writes what he thinks. And what Tarzi thinks is not always what Habibullah thinks. But the problem is Tarzi thinks Habibullah is not doing enough to bring Afghanistan to modern times. He thinks we should look to Europe and learn from them.”

“But we are a different people. We are a Muslim country. Why should we learn from them?”

“Because they are making progress and we are not. Habibullah has made some roads but not much else. Tarzi wants science, education — and not just the religious kind. But Amanullah, his ears are open to Tarzi’s ideas.”

“But, Aasif- jan , he is not king.”

“He will be. I don’t see his brothers taking the position. Amanullah has been groomed for this since a young age. He’ll make a much finer king than his father, who spends his days quail hunting and riding around the countryside for attention.”

Gulnaz sighed. Her husband detested the king and she feared his dislike would eventually be the subject of gossip. If it did, he could expect no mercy. And he had already done enough to jeopardize them. He didn’t talk about it and Gulnaz wasn’t sure if her suspicions were true. She’d heard things from others. A stoning. One of the king’s concubines. She would not ask him about the girl. She did not want to know more.

Aasif saw his wife’s eyes turn away. He knew her burdens were his doing.

“Anyway, I’m busy with my own work. I don’t have time to be Amanullah’s counselor anymore.” His way of saying he would stay away from the palace.

Gulnaz looked at the door, pictured the hallway and the scarred woman hiding in the far room, her husband’s other wife. She wondered if her husband’s plan would work or if he had only added another barren wife to his home.

Shekiba listened carefully to every word. Amanullah was to marry Agha Tarzi’s daughter. She marveled at her own naïveté.

Why should he look at me? I’m no one. I have no father or mother, no family name. I am a half woman with a half face. How stupid I was to believe anything else!

Shekiba waited till Aasif had gone out before she went to the kitchen to fix herself some food. The spinach and rice she had made earlier had cooled but she didn’t care. She took a piece of bread and retreated to her room. She moved about so quietly that Gulnaz almost didn’t hear her from the living room.