From the living room, Roksana led Saleem down a narrow hallway and pointed at a door. “This is the washroom and here’s a towel. Shampoo and soap are there. I’ll wait for you in the other room, okay?”
It was more than okay. It was wonderful. The washroom was unlike any he had seen. Lemon yellow walls made the space bright and cheerful. The sink was a glass bowl anchored into the wall. A row of mint green miniature ceramic urns sat on a floating shelf, a wisp of baby’s breath propped in each. A frosted glass door slid open for the shower.
Saleem felt awkward and out of place in the most beautiful washroom he’d ever seen. He fumbled with the faucet. He took off his clothes and folded his knife and money sack into his jeans. He stepped into the shower and let hot water run over him, a murky swirl disappearing down the drain. Saleem scrubbed his body until the water ran clear, washed his hair three times, and then reluctantly turned the water off. He stood for a moment, the room steamy and warm.
Water, he thought with a new appreciation, is most certainly roshanee.
Saleem towel-dried, re-dressed, and stepped into the hallway. To his left, half-open French doors led to an office. In the center of the room was a heavily carved wooden desk. Three sides of the room were bookshelves made of the same cherry-colored wood. So many books! It reminded Saleem of the time his father had taken him to his office in the Ministry of Water and Electricity. They’d visited the ministry’s library and its stacks thick with texts, feathered pages, and dusty bindings. Saleem was keenly aware at the time that no other five-year-old would be allowed to wander through the rows, a fact that was more interesting than any of the books in the enormous room.
For years after, Saleem’s father would chuckle and remind him of the most memorable part of that day.
And then the chief engineer came in and asked if you would like to work in the same building one day and you said, “No, sir. My mother gets angry sometimes because she says Padar-jan gets lost in his books. I don’t want her angry with me too.”
Saleem wondered how Padar-jan had never tired of repeating such a simple childish comment. At the same time, part of him had never tired of hearing it either. With a sigh, he returned to the present.
This must be her father’s office, Saleem realized.
Saleem took three steps into the office to get a closer look at the shelves with books perfectly arranged by the height of their spines. He touched the glossy book jackets. Many of the books were in English, some in Greek. There were books about medicine and philosophy, from what Saleem could gather. He turned to the shelf behind the desk. On the bottom row, something caught his eye—Farsi lettering along the spines of one entire row of books.
Saleem hunched over to get a better look. Sure enough, the titles read, Afghanistan: A Nation’s History; Afghanistan: The Fallen Empire; and Collection of Afghan Poetry. Why would they have so many books on Afghanistan? Did Roksana’s father speak Dari?
Saleem thought back to days in Attiki when the guys would make snide and often lewd comments about her, the cold glares she would shoot their way, almost as if she understood. Saleem looked around the office, confused. On another shelf across the room sat a small statue, no taller than five inches. It was an eagle carved out of a brilliant chunk of lapis lazuli, a blue stone as unmistakably Afghan as the similarly colored burqas.
“You are finished?” Roksana was in the doorway.
Saleem turned around abruptly, ashamed to have overstepped his welcome.
“Sorry. I saw the books and I wanted to see . . . there are so many but . . . Roksana, your father, does he speak Dari?”
“What?” She stiffened visibly.
“There are many books on Afghanistan. And they are in Dari. And this bird, this stone is from Afghanistan. Why . . .” Saleem’s half-formed thoughts stumbled out as he tried to make sense of it all. “My mother. You talked to my mother? Do you speak Dari? Your father . . . did he work in Afghanistan?”