“For today, just know that the news of your suitor distresses me. Come tomorrow so we can think of how we may be able to change matters. God is merciful.” I heard his footsteps as he walked away, pictured the grass bending under his leather sandals. My eyes stayed fixed on the wall between us, the barrier that kept us apart but not as much as it kept us together, for without it, I would have fled in shame long ago. The wall was my purdah, my cover.
My father came home that evening and saw me in the kitchen, peeling purple carrots he’d harvested from his garden. I stood up and said hello to him, kissed his cheek. He nodded quietly. He looked conflicted, as if there were much he wanted to say but couldn’t.
“Where is KokoGul? Has she gone to rest?”
“She went into the market with Najiba and Sultana. I think they’ll be back soon.”
He took two steps out of the kitchen, hesitated, and turned back.
“And you, how are you?” He sounded concerned.
“Me, Padar-jan? I am well.”
“You are?”
“Yes,” I said meekly. From the tone of his voice, I knew there was more he was asking me. I knew he loved me as much as he loved my siblings. Had I not taken my mother from him, he may have loved me more.
“You know, you are a great help to everyone in this home. You have always worked very hard.”
I listened, my head bowed respectfully.
“Allah keep you alive and well, my daughter.”
“And you too, Padar-jan.”
“Every day, you have more of her in you. Every day.” Like the words I’d left suspended in the orchard, these words hung in the air. They’d been unsaid in each conversation with my father, implied every time he looked at my face as if it hurt him to do so. These were the kind of tender words KokoGul would scream to hear.
If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought it would be hard to grieve a stranger. I would never have thought it was something I could do my entire life.
How I wished I could pull up a chair and beg my father to go on, to tell me every detail of my mother so I could at least know the woman I mourned. I wanted him to tell me about the first time he saw her, the sound of her voice, her favorite foods, and the shape of her fingers. I wanted to close my eyes and have her appear before me, to hear her call my name just once. But trying to conjure my mother was like trying to hum a song I’d never heard.
Padar-jan walked away quickly, as if he knew what I would ask if he lingered. I heard his hurried footsteps go into the next room as I stared blankly at my hands, stained a despondent violet by the carrots that my father had nurtured from seedlings.
Certainly, KokoGul had talked to my father about Agha Firooz’s son but, from his actions, I could not decipher how he felt. I didn’t expect my father to speak to me directly about the courtship—such matters were not discussed between fathers and daughters. Mothers were liaisons in these purposes, shuttling information back and forth and coloring it to fit their needs. In my case, KokoGul had been singing the praises of Agha Firooz’s son as if she were his mother.
Did Padar-jan want me to be married off? Was there a chance he might reject their proposal?
I was left to wonder.
I returned to the conversation in the orchard. I’d been unnerved to hear the voice speak my name. The anonymity of the orchard had been lost. I was left feeling excited but exposed. I wanted to know him.
I RETURNED TO THE MULBERRY TREES THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON. I felt my face flush even before my feet touched the grass. I was playing a dangerous game. But we were no guiltier of flirting than two kites whose strings were crossed by a wayward wind, were we?
The sound of whistling carried through the breeze. I smiled to myself and breathed it in. It was him. I cleared my throat to announce my arrival. He noticed.
“Salaam,” he said.
“Salaam.”
“How are you today?”
“I’m well. And you?” I was growing bolder in my conversations with him.
“Fine.”
Sunlight filtered through the mulberry branches, warming my face. I squinted but stayed where I was. The radiance soothed my nerves. I wondered if he felt the same.
“I saw your suitor this morning.”
He caught my attention with those few words.