DEDICATION
To my precious daughter, Zayla. To our precious daughters.
EPIGRAPH
Seawater begs the pearl
To break its shell
—FROM THE ECSTATIC POEM
“SOME KISS WE WANT,”
BY JALAL AD-DIN MOHAMMAD RUMI,
THIRTEENTH-CENTURY PERSIAN POET
CONTENTS
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter 1. Rahima
Chapter 2. Shekiba
Chapter 3. Rahima
Chapter 4. Shekiba
Chapter 5. Rahima
Chapter 6. Shekiba
Chapter 7. Rahima
Chapter 8. Shekiba
Chapter 9. Shekiba
Chapter 10. Rahima
Chapter 11. Shekiba
Chapter 12. Rahima
Chapter 13. Shekiba
Chapter 14. Rahima
Chapter 15. Shekiba
Chapter 16. Rahima
Chapter 17. Shekiba
Chapter 18. Rahima
Chapter 19. Rahima
Chapter 20. Shekiba
Chapter 21. Rahima
Chapter 22. Shekiba
Chapter 23. Rahima
Chapter 24. Rahima
Chapter 25. Rahima
Chapter 26. Rahima
Chapter 27. Rahima
Chapter 28. Shekib
Chapter 29. Shekib
Chapter 30. Rahima
Chapter 31. Rahima
Chapter 32. Shekib
Chapter 33. Shekib
Chapter 34. Rahima
Chapter 35. Rahima
Chapter 36. Shekib
Chapter 37. Rahima
Chapter 38. Shekib
Chapter 39. Rahima
Chapter 40. Shekib
Chapter 41. Shekib
Chapter 42. Shekib
Chapter 43. Rahima
Chapter 44. Rahima
Chapter 45. Rahima
Chapter 46. Shekib
Chapter 47. Shekiba
Chapter 48. Rahima
Chapter 49. Shekiba
Chapter 50. Rahima
Chapter 51. Rahima
Chapter 52. Shekiba
Chapter 53. Rahima
Chapter 54. Rahima
Chapter 55. Shekiba
Chapter 56. Shekiba
Chapter 57. Rahima
Chapter 58. Shekiba
Chapter 59. Shekiba
Chapter 60. Shekiba
Chapter 61. Rahima
Chapter 62. Rahima
Chapter 63. Rahima
Chapter 64. Shekiba
Chapter 65. Shekiba
Chapter 66. Rahima
Chapter 67. Rahima
Chapter 68. Rahima
Chapter 69. Rahima
Excerpt from When the Moon is Low
Chapter 1. Fereiba
Chapter 2. Fereiba
Acknowledgments
P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*
About the author
About the book
Read on
Copyright
About the Publisher
CHAPTER 1
RAHIMA
SHAHLA STOOD BY OUR FRONT DOOR, the bright green metal rusting on the edges. She craned her neck. Parwin and I rounded the corner and saw the relief in her eyes. We couldn’t be late again.
Parwin shot me a look and we picked up our hurried pace. We did the best we could without running. Rubber soles slapped against the road and raised puffs of dusty smoke. The hems of our skirts flapped against our ankles. My head scarf clung to beads of sweat on my forehead. I guessed Parwin’s was doing the same, since it hadn’t yet blown away.
Damn them. It was their fault! Those boys with their shameless grins and tattered pants! This wasn’t the first time they’d made us late.
We ran past the doors, blue, purple, burgundy. Spots of color on a clay canvas.
Shahla waved us toward her.
“Hurry!” she hissed frantically.
Panting, we followed her through the front door. Metal clanged against the door frame.
“Parwin! What did you do that for?”
“Sorry, sorry! I didn’t think it would be that loud.”
Shahla rolled her eyes, as did I. Parwin always let the door slam.
“What took you so long? Didn’t you take the street behind the bakery?”
“We couldn’t, Shahla! That’s where he was standing!”
We had gone the long way around the marketplace, avoiding the bakery where the boys loitered, their shoulders hunched and their eyes scouting the khaki jungle that was our village.
Besides pickup games of street soccer, this was the main sport for school-age boys—watching girls. They hung around waiting for us to come out of our classrooms. Once off school grounds, a boy might dart between cars and pedestrians to tail the girl who’d caught his eye. Following her helped him stake his claim. This is my girl, it told the others, and there’s only room for one shadow here. Today, my twelve-year-old sister, Shahla, was the magnet for unwanted attention.
The boys meant it to be flattering. But it frightened the girl since people would have loved to assume that she’d sought out the attention. There just weren’t many ways for the boys to entertain themselves.
“Shahla, where is Rohila?” I whispered. My heart was pounding as we tiptoed around to the back of the house.
“She’s taken some food to the neighbor’s house. Madar-jan cooked some eggplant for them. I think someone died.”
Died? My stomach tightened and I turned my attention back to following Shahla’s footsteps.
“Where’s Madar-jan?” Parwin said, her voice a nervous hush.
“She’s putting the baby to sleep,” Shahla said, turning toward us. “So you better not make too much noise or she’ll know you’re just coming home now.”
Parwin and I froze. Shahla’s face fell as she looked at our widened eyes. She whipped around to see Madar-jan standing behind her. She had come out of the back door and was standing in the small paved courtyard behind the house.
“Your mother is very much aware of exactly when you girls have gotten home and she is also very much aware of what kind of example your older sister is setting for you.” Her arms were folded tightly across her chest.
Shahla’s head hung in shame. Parwin and I tried to avoid Madar-jan’s glare.
“Where have you been?”
How badly I wanted to tell her the truth!
A boy, lucky enough to have a bicycle, had followed Shahla, riding past us and then circling back and forth. Shahla paid no attention to him. When I whispered that he was looking at her, she hushed me, as if speaking it would make it true. On his third pass, he got too close.
He looped ahead of us and came back in our direction. He raced down the dirt street, slowing down as he neared us. Shahla kept her eyes averted and tried to look angry.
“Parwin, watch out!”
Before I could push her out of the way, the cycling stalker’s front wheel rolled over a metal can in the street; he veered left and right, then swerved to avoid a stray dog. The bicycle came straight at us. The boy’s eyebrows were raised, his mouth open as he struggled to regain balance. He swiped Parwin before toppling over on the front steps of a dried-goods shop.
“Oh my God,” Parwin exclaimed, her voice loud and giddy. “Look at him! Knocked off his feet!”
“Do you think he’s hurt?” Shahla said. She had her hand over her mouth, as if she had never seen a sight so tragic.
“Parwin, your skirt!” My eyes had moved from Shahla’s concerned face to the torn hem of Parwin’s skirt. The jagged wires holding the spokes of the bicycle together had snagged P
arwin’s dress.
It was her new school uniform and instantly Parwin began to weep. We knew if Madar-jan told our father, he would keep us home instead of sending us to school. It had happened before.
“Why are you all silent only when I ask you something? Do you have nothing to say for yourselves? You come home late and look like you were chasing dogs in the street!”
Shahla had spoken on our behalf plenty of times and looked exasperated. Parwin was a basket of nerves, always, and could do nothing but fidget. I heard my voice before I knew what I was saying.
“Madar-jan, it wasn’t our fault! There was this boy on a bicycle and we ignored him but he kept coming back and I even yelled at him. I told him he was an idiot if he didn’t know his way home.”
Parwin let out an inadvertent giggle. Madar-jan shot her a look.
“Did he come near you?” she asked, turning to Shahla.
“No, Madar-jan. I mean, he was a few meters behind us. He didn’t say anything.”
Madar-jan sighed and brought her hands to her temples.
“Fine. Get inside and start your homework assignments. Let’s see what your father says about this.”
“You’re going to tell him?” I cried out.
“Of course I am going to tell him,” she answered, and spanked my backside as I walked past her into the house. “We are not in the habit of keeping things from your father!”
We whispered about what Padar-jan would say when he came home while we dug our pencils into our notebooks. Parwin had some ideas.
“I think we should tell Padar that our teachers know about those boys and that they have already gotten in trouble so they won’t be bothering us anymore,” Parwin suggested eagerly.
“Parwin, that’s not going to work. What are you going to say when Madar asks Khanum Behduri about it?” Shahla, the voice of reason.
“Well, then we could tell him that the boy said he was sorry and promised not to bother us again. Or that we are going to find another way to get to school.”
“Fine, Parwin. You tell him. I’m tired of talking for all of you anyway.”
“Parwin’s not going to say anything. She only talks when no one’s listening,” I said.
“Very funny, Rahima. You’re so brave, aren’t you? Let’s see how brave you are when Padar-jan comes home,” Parwin said, pouting.
Granted, I wasn’t a very brave nine-year-old when it came time to face Padar-jan. I kept my thoughts bottled behind my pursed lips. In the end, Padar-jan decided to pull us out of school again.
We begged and pleaded with Padar-jan to let us return to school. One of Parwin’s teachers, a childhood friend of Madar-jan, even showed up at the house and tried to reason with our parents. Padar-jan had relented in the past but this time was different. He wanted us to go to school but struggled with how to make that happen safely. How would it look for his daughters to be chased by local boys for all to see? Awful.
“If I had a son this would not be happening! Goddamn it! Why do we have a house full of girls! Not one, not two—but five of them!” he would yell. Madar-jan would busy herself with housework, feeling the weight of disappointment on her shoulders.
His temper was worse these days. Madar-jan would tell us to hush and be respectful. She told us too many bad things had happened to Padar-jan and it had made him an angry man. She said if we all behaved then he would go back to being his normal self soon. But it was getting harder and harder to remember a time when Padar-jan wasn’t angry and loud.
Now that we were home, I was given the extra chore of bringing the groceries from the store. My older sisters were quarantined since they were older and noticeable. I was, thus far, invisible to boys and not a risk.
Every two days I stuffed a few bills from Madar-jan in the pouch that she had sewn into my dress pocket so I would have no excuse for losing them. I would wind my way through the narrow streets and walk thirty minutes to reach the market I loved. The stores were bustling with activity. Women looked different now than they had a few years ago. Some wore long blue burqas and others wore long skirts and modest head scarves. The men all dressed like my father, long tunics with billowing pantaloons—colors as drab as our landscape. Little boys wore ornate caps with small round mirrors and gold scrolling. By the time I got there, my shoes were again dusty and I would resort to using my head scarf as a filter for the clouds of dirt the hundreds of cars left in their wake. It was as if the khaki-colored landscape were dissolving into the air of our village.
Two weeks into our expulsion from school, the shop owners had gotten to know me. There were not many nine-year-old girls who would walk determinedly from shop to shop. And having watched my parents haggle prices down, I thought I could do the same. I would argue with the baker who tried to charge me double what I had seen him charge my mother. I bickered with the grocer trying to tell me that the flour I wanted was imported and, thus, subject to a surcharge. I pointed out that I could just as easily buy the same fancy flour from Agha Mirwais down the block and scoffed at the price he quoted. He gritted his teeth and put the flour in the bag along with the other groceries, muttering words under his breath that no child should hear.
Madar-jan was pleased to have my help with the market. She was busy enough with Sitara, who was just taking her first steps. Madar-jan had Parwin look after Sitara while she and Shahla took care of the household chores of dusting, sweeping and preparing the night’s meal. In the afternoons, Madar-jan made us all sit down with our books and notebooks and complete the homework she assigned us.
For Shahla, the days were isolating and difficult. She longed to see her friends and talk with her teachers. Shahla’s strengths were her intuition and her intelligence. She wasn’t at the very top of her class, but she usually charmed her teachers just enough to push her onto the short list of star pupils. She was average looking but put extra care into her appearance. She would spend at least five minutes brushing her hair every night, since someone told her it would make her locks grow longer. Shahla’s face was what people would call pleasant, not beautiful or memorable. But her personality made her glow. People looked at her and couldn’t help but smile. Polite and proper, she was a favorite in school. She had a way of looking at you and making you feel important. In front of family and friends, Shahla made Madar-jan proud as she would speak maturely and inquire after each member of the family.
“How is Farzana-jan doing? It’s been so long since I’ve seen her! Please do tell her that I was asking about her,” she would say. Grandmothers would nod in approval, praising Madar-jan for raising such a respectable girl.
Parwin was another story. She was striking. Her eyes were not the mud-brown color the rest of us had. Instead, hers were a hazel-gray blend that made you forget what it was that you were going to say. Her hair hung around her face in wavy locks with a natural luster. She was undeniably the best-looking girl in our whole extended family.
But she was completely lacking in social skills. If Madar-jan’s friends stopped by, Parwin would shrink into a corner, busying herself with folding and refolding a tablecloth. If she could manage to escape before company made it into the room, even better. Nothing was more of a relief to her than avoiding the traditional three-kiss greeting. She kept her answers brief and all the while kept her eyes on the nearest escape route.
“Parwin, please! Khala Lailoma is asking you a question. Can you please turn around? Those plants do not need to be watered at this very moment!”
What Parwin lacked in social skill, she more than made up for in artistic ability. She was masterful with pencil and paper. Graphite turned into visual energy in her hands. Wrinkled faces, an injured dog, a house too damaged to repair. She had a gift, an ability to show you what you did not see, even though your eyes graced the same sights as hers. She could sketch a masterpiece in minutes but washing the dishes could take hours.
“Parwin is from another world,” Madar-jan would say. “She is a different kind of girl.”
“What good is that
going to do her? She’s going to have to survive and make her way through this world,” Padar-jan would retort, but he loved her drawings and kept a pile of them at his bedside to flip through from time to time.
The other problem with Parwin was that she’d been born with a bad hip. Someone had told Madar-jan she must have been lying on her side too much when she was pregnant. From the time Parwin started to crawl, it was obvious something was off. It took her much longer to learn to walk and to this day she hasn’t lost her limp. Padar-jan had taken her to a doctor when she was five or six but they said it was too late.
Then there was me. I didn’t mind the expulsion as much as my sisters. I suppose this was because it gave me opportunity to venture out on my own, without two older sisters to chastise me or insist I hold their hands as we crossed the street. Finally, I had freedom—even more than my sisters!
Madar-jan needed help with the errands and lately it was impossible to depend on Padar-jan for anything. She would ask him to pick up some things from the market on his way home and inevitably he would forget, then curse her for having an empty pantry. But if she went to the bazaar by herself, he went into an even worse rage. From time to time, Madar-jan asked the neighbors to pick up an item or two for her but she tried not to do that too often, knowing they already whispered about the peculiar way Padar-jan had of walking up and down our small street, his hands gesturing wildly as he explained something to the birds. My sisters and I wondered about his behavior too, but Madar-jan told us our father needed to take a special medicine and that was why he sometimes acted strangely.
At home, I could not help but talk about my adventures in the outside world. It bothered Shahla more than Parwin, who was content with her pencils and paper.
“I think tomorrow I’ll pick up some roasted chickpeas from the market. I have a few coins. If you like, I could bring you some, Shahla.”
Shahla sighed and shifted Sitara from one hip to another. She looked like a young exasperated mother.
“Forget it. I don’t want any. Just go and finish the chores, Rahima. I’m sure you’re just dawdling out there. In no rush to come home, I bet.”
“I’m not dawdling. I go and do the errands that Madar-jan tells me to do. But never mind. I’ll see you later.”
The Pearl that Broke Its Shell Page 1
