Amal Unbound(34)

“But it’s your family!” I bit my tongue. I shouldn’t have said anything, but how could she find time to go to Lahore for shopping trips and not have time to see her family who lived just ten minutes away?

“I want to see them,” she said quietly. “Used to go once a week when I first got married. But after a while, Khan Sahib thought it was best his wife not mingle with villagers, and I agreed. But he takes care of them. Makes sure they want for nothing . . .”

Nasreen Baji had a bedroom that was practically the size of my house and the finest food and clothing. But she couldn’t see the people she wanted to see the most.

Her cage was nicer than mine, but it was still a cage.

I cleared my throat. “I brought something for you.” I went into my room and returned with a box.

“What’s this?” She smiled.

“Laddus. I thought you might like them.”

“They look homemade!”

“My neighbor Fozia made it. Shaukat’s wife.” It felt strange saying Fozia’s name in this estate, remembering how frightened she had looked.

“I haven’t had a homemade laddu since I was a child.”

“She’s known for her sweets. Her daughter is one of my best friends.”

Nasreen Baji lifted a yellow confection from the box and took a bite. She closed her eyes.

“Do you like it?”

She fell silent for a few seconds. “It tastes like home,” she said.

A knock on the bedroom door interrupted us. Jawad Sahib stepped inside.

“He keeps calling me!” he said. He waved his phone at Nasreen Baji. “Five missed calls while I’m in the shower.”

“Jawad,” Nasreen Baji sighed.

“You’d think I have nothing else to do but cater to his demands!”

“Well, if you helped him with the center, he wouldn’t call so much,” Nasreen Baji said. “He needs you. This literacy center is going to get him more votes for the next election, but only if people attend it.”

“Why is that my problem? I have more than enough of my own things to deal with! And I have better things to do than force people to attend a ridiculous center.”

“Jawad, if a journalist comes snooping and finds no one there, it could hurt your father’s election campaign. And that affects all of us. The school can sit empty after the election for all it matters. If we don’t get at least one person there by next week, the teacher said he’s going to leave.”

Jawad Sahib exhaled loudly, and then his eyes settled on mine.

“What about her?”

“What do you mean?”

“She can go to the center.” He laughed at her astonished expression. “It’s not such a far-fetched idea,” he said. “We’ll send her once a week. The center will officially have a student, and the teacher will have something to do. Problem solved.”

“Jawad, it’s a literacy center for adults.”

“Better her than no one at all.”

Me? Attend a literacy center? That meant I could see a teacher again. Maybe they could show me how to write the poem I had wanted to write months earlier. Maybe they had books I could borrow. I studied Nasreen Baji, not daring to hope, but then— “Fine,” she said. “Until we can get some actual other people to start going, she can attend.”





Chapter 37





Ghulam dropped me off at the curb of the school. The bright yellow building with the green door was so different from the gray and brick structures I was accustomed to. I liked its color. It was the color of hope.

The interior smelled of fresh paint; soft overhead lights lent warmth to the space. A girl with two braids tied with ribbons sat at a desk in a reception area with a patchwork sofa and a coffee table scattered with magazines.

“Here for class?” the girl asked. She twirled a pencil between her fingers. She looked familiar—perhaps our paths had crossed at the market or she was the relative of a neighbor or a friend. Everyone here seemed to be connected in some way.

“Yes. My name is Amal.”

“Oh, right. We’re expecting you.” She stood up and led me down the hall to a classroom, where a young man greeted me.

“Ah, our first student!” he said. “My name is Asif. I’ll be your teacher.”

“It’s a big classroom,” I said, looking around a large room that held a few wooden tables and chairs.

“Well, hopefully it won’t seem so empty once we get more students,” he said.

“The way you talk,” I said. “It’s unusual.”

“My accent.” He laughed. “I went to college in the United States; I guess some sort of accent stuck. My wife teases me about it, but I thought she was joking until now.”

“Sorry to mention it,” I said, flustered. “It’s not bad. I like it.”

“Thanks.” He smiled and pushed the notebook toward me. “So today, we’re doing a diagnostic exam. It tells me what you know and what we can work on. Don’t worry about getting it all right—we use this to plan your lessons.”

I opened the notebook and picked up the freshly sharpened pencil. It smelled like math tests and poetry and all the dreams I once took for granted.