A Girl Like That(54)

It was the shade that colored Rusi Uncle’s shiny bald head and narrow cheeks when he entered the apartment several minutes later, filling in the craters left by smallpox, giving the illusion of smoothness. “Khorshed,” he said breathlessly. “I was in a meeting. I left as soon as—”

“Finally,” she interrupted, and then laughed, high and strange. “Finally the lord of Lahm b’Ajin shows up at his humble abode.”

“I’m sorry, but—”

“Now.” She turned sideways and, for the first time, Rusi Uncle seemed to notice that he had an audience. He glanced quickly at me and then at Zarin, who was still wearing her abaya and scarf and clutching her schoolbag.

“Now maybe you will tell the truth.” Khorshed Aunty pointed at her husband, but kept her eyes on me. “Tell him! Tell him where you’ve been this whole time!”

Rusi Uncle fumbled with the bag in his hands before placing it on the sofa. “Khorshed, what is—”

“Ask him!” Khorshed Aunty shouted. A vein protruded from her temple and the side of her neck. “Ask this foolish boy how long it took him to bring her here after I called! Not that you would care, would you, Rusi? Busy, busy, always busy. So busy that you don’t even care that your own niece hasn’t come back home by the time she was supposed to.”

“Aunty, I was at work,” I pleaded. “I couldn’t leave for another half hour, forty-five minutes. When I reached the school she was waiting there with two other girls. The bus was late and—”

“Rubbish! The buses are always idling there! If you have to lie, at least do it properly.”

A cool draft of air breezed through my sticky shirt before the AC made a soft clicking noise and then shut off.

My hands fisted and for the first time I felt the scrapes on them. Fresh ones, some of them still red. I did not even remember how they had come about. Did not recall the shards of glass slicing my skin open after I threw the rock through Rizvi’s window and reached in with my arm to unlock the door. I had never even felt the pain. Zarin drew a curve in the carpet with her toe. Her hands shook the way I’d seen them before when she was craving a cigarette. A lump lodged in my throat.

“What happened to your hands?” Rusi Uncle’s gaze had moved from Zarin to me. His voice was full of suspicion.

“Accident at work. Happens sometimes.”

Next to me, I could feel Zarin shaking even more, even though she didn’t speak and kept her gaze lowered to the floor.

Rusi Uncle took a step toward her. “Zarin, dikra, what’s wrong? Come on, you can tell Rusi Masa.”

Maybe she would have if it had been just him. I’d always gotten the sense that Zarin’s relationship with her uncle would have been a lot better had it not been for the man’s wife.

Zarin stepped back, stumbled. I wrapped an arm around her out of instinct. The air around us smelled of barbecue sauce and sweat.

“Bathroom,” Zarin whispered. It was the first time she had spoken since we’d stepped into the house fifteen minutes before. She slipped out from under my arm and for a few seconds I continued standing there, clutching air.

“Why are you still wearing your abaya?” Khorshed Aunty shouted. “Hang it up in the cupboard, at least! And why are you taking your bag with you?”

Zarin looked back once and then dropped her bag in the corridor outside the bathroom with a thud. Seconds later, a strip of light peered from under the door, followed by the whir of the exhaust fan. I frowned, feeling anxiety creep in, the same sort that had congealed in my belly when her aunt first called me, but this time stronger, so strong that it felt like a stone.

Khorshed Aunty’s nails dug into my arm. “My niece stumbled out of your car like a drug addict and you tell me that she was at debate practice! Do you think I’m a fool? Do you think I did not notice the tear in her abaya?”

I resisted the urge to throw her off. It suddenly began to make perfect sense to me why Zarin hated this woman so much. Don’t you care? I wanted to shout. Don’t you care that she’s in pain?

“I swear to God, Aunty, she’s okay,” I said tightly. “She probably snagged it on something sharp and—”

“Lies!” The blood drained from Khorshed Aunty’s lips. “Lies you both are telling me!”

But then Rusi Uncle stepped up, carefully placed his hands on his wife’s shoulders, and pressed his thumbs into the flesh there. He murmured softly into her ear. Over and over, until her grip on my arm loosened. He pulled her arms back to her sides and gently rubbed. It wasn’t an unusual action; I remembered my father doing the same thing for my mother when she was angry, but the resignation on Rusi Uncle’s face told me that he had done this more times than he would have liked to.

Finally, he looked up at me. “If anything has happened to our niece, we have the right to know. You must tell us the truth, Porus. Was Zarin at debate practice?”

His voice was so kind that for a moment I faltered, almost telling him everything that I had seen. But then I remembered Zarin’s face and how terrified she had been.

“Yes,” I said. “Of course she was.”

His eyes hardened at my reply and for a second I thought he would hit me. But he continued stroking his wife’s trembling hands. “Don’t lie to me. Where was she, really? With a boy? You must tell the truth now, Porus.”