When the Moon Is Low(29)

“Let him come to us, janem,” he said softly. I nodded, moving the rice on my plate aimlessly. I looked over at Samira. Her dark eyes twinkled at the sound of her brother’s footsteps.

Saleem entered the living room sheepishly.

“Salaam,” he mumbled.

Mahmood looked over, his face calm and composed.

“Saleem, go and wash up. You are covered in dirt. I hope your soccer game was worth making your mother worry.”

Saleem bowed his head. He put the bag of salt on the counter and muttered something close to an apology. By the time he returned, we’d cleared the dishes of everything but a small bowl of rice. Embarrassed but hungry, Saleem sat cross-legged at the tablecloth. Samira and I had cleared the other dishes. Mahmood sat in the armchair to read as was his nightly routine.

I peeked in and saw that Saleem had devoured his food in a breath. He stared blankly at the carpet. I felt his dread. The anticipation of a reprimanding was always worse than the reprimanding itself.

“Saleem, isn’t there something you’d like to say?” I blurted, drying my hands on a dishrag. Saleem’s head hung low, his body apologetic though he couldn’t bring his mouth to form the words.

Mahmood lowered his reading glasses and put his book on the nesting table to his right. He was reading the poetry of Ibrahim Khalil, the prolific Kabul poet who was beloved by many in the Waziri family. As university students, Mahmood and Hameed had taken a course taught by Khalil. While I loved his verses, I couldn’t help but think of Najiba’s husband when I heard them. That I’d once allowed my husband’s cousin to recite Khalil’s poems to me made me wildly embarrassed. He tried, from time to time, to engage me with a quatrain or two, but it was not something I could share with Mahmood. It felt dishonest.

“Look up, bachem,” Mahmood said.

Saleem sat cross-legged before his father and slowly lifted his head. Mahmood paused, reconsidering whatever it was he was about to say.

“Let me read something to you,” he said and picked Khalil’s book up from the table.

Know that your fortune is not polluted

As infant you nursed of milk undiluted

The labyrinth of woe behind which you are gated

From your own fancy, was borne and created

For punishment is not the Almighty’s intent

Nor does He disrupt, mislead or torment

Upon our shoulders, all malaise and grief

Are naught but the harvest we have chosen to reap

“Do you understand what these words mean?”

“Yes, Padar-jan.”

“Then tell me, Saleem-jan, what do they mean to you?”

“That I should not act like a child.”

“Saleem-jan, I’m sorry that when you wake up every morning, this is the world that you see around you. I’m sorry that this is the Kabul, the Afghanistan that you are seeing. I wish you could have learned to take your first steps without rockets firing over your head. This is no place for a child, but because of that, it’s all the more important for you to step up. You must find a way to make good of this situation—to reap a noble harvest.”

I could see the resentment on Saleem’s face. All he was ever told was no. This much he’d shared with me on more than one occasion. The things he could do were few; the things he couldn’t do were endless. But Saleem bit his tongue and did not protest the injustice that even Mahmood admitted.

“Saleem-jan, my son, now is the time to learn to look after your own actions. Your mother and I watch over you, but every day you are less and less of a boy.”

Sometimes I argued with Mahmood that he needed to be firmer with the children. Why they feared his punishments, I could not understand. He did little more than lecture them and give them disappointed looks. But the children respected him, as did I. So many nights the children and I nestled around him, vying for space to listen to his stories. His arms wrapped around us all, tying us together in one package.

I lost myself in those moments, loving my husband more than I’d ever imagined I could. I often missed Khala Zeba and wished I could have thanked her for putting me in his arms.

In the night, with the children breathing softly beside us, Mahmood rubbed the knot in my back.

“Saleem will be a great man—he has a lion’s spirit in his young eyes,” he whispered. “Before we know it, the day will come when he’ll be man of a house with little ones of his own. Do you know what I pray for, janem? I pray that day comes neither too early nor too late.”

I took Mahmood’s hands from my back and wrapped them around my waist.

“And I pray that it’s in my naseeb to see that day.”

“God willing, we’ll both see that day,” I managed to get out before the lump in my throat swelled.





CHAPTER 14


Fereiba


A MONTH LATER, WE MARKED THE HOLIDAY OF EID. DISTANT RELATIVES and friends had been dropping by to pay their customary visits despite the city’s somber mood. When we heard the knock at the gate, we thought nothing of it. Mahmood went to answer it, and I instinctively put a pot of water to boil for tea.

But the people at the door were neither friends nor family.

Gruff-looking men had barged into our courtyard and sauntered into the foyer.

“So this is the home of the engineer,” one sneered, his words thick with distaste.