“Allah bless your family with many happy years.” I hugged her tightly and kissed her cheeks. “I don’t know how to thank you for everything you’ve done. You’ve put me back on my feet and kept my children fed when you have a household of your own. Mahmood and I will never forget this.”
Raisa looked as if she had just taken a bite of something horrid and was waiting for the right moment to spit it out.
“Fereiba-jan, let us sit and talk,” Abdul Rahim said. “Saleem-jan, look after your sister for a bit, bachem.”
When Abdul Rahim, the gentle giant who lived next door, called Saleem my boy, I knew. Everything I needed to know was in that seemingly trivial endearment, the word he’d slipped in instinctively wanting to fill a sorry void. Abdul Rahim, a loving father, knew the needs of a young man. A young man needs someone to tousle his hair, to put a hand on his shoulder, to watch him fiddle with a broken watch.
A young man needs to be someone’s boy.
Bachem.
No wonder Mahmood had respected our neighbors the way he did. He’d seen the goodness in them long before they’d needed to show it.
My son was without a father. My children were without their father.
Saleem, my obedient boy, headed off to sit with Samira. I knew he would listen in and I did nothing about it. I couldn’t protect any of us from our reality. I sat down and let Abdul Rahim tell me what he needed to tell me.
“My brother works for the . . . two weeks ago . . . taken by Taliban . . . disagreed with their actions . . . man of ideals . . . brave . . . workers found a body . . . note in the pocket . . . forgive me for sharing this with you . . .”
Raisa wrapped her arms around me. She sobbed, her heavy bosom heaving. I’d known for weeks, but some truths need to be said out loud before they can be believed.
Mahmood would never come back. We’d had our final moment together just a few feet from where I sat. He’d told me everything he needed to in that last moment, his fate written on his face. He had known from the moment the men entered our home.
Saleem slipped back into the living room and walked over to Abdul Rahim who sat with shoulders slumped, his hands folded between his knees.
“Kaka-jan?” he said.
Abdul Rahim met his gaze.
“My father—he is not coming back?”
It was not a boy’s question. It was the question of a young man who needed to know what to expect of tomorrow and what tomorrow would expect of him.
CHAPTER 16
Fereiba
I HAD TO GET MY FAMILY OUT OF KABUL.
With Mahmood gone, there was nothing left for us. We would almost certainly starve once the money ran out. The imminent arrival of our third child complicated matters.
Samira had not spoken since the afternoon of Raisa and Abdul Rahim’s visit. She gave her answers in nods and gestures. I spoke softly with her, trying to coax the words from her lips, but Samira remained silent.
I found Saleem in our bedroom, staring at his father’s belongings. Unaware of my presence, he touched the pants, brought a shirt to his cheek, and laid the pieces out on the floor as if trying to imagine his father in it. He picked up Mahmood’s watch from the nightstand and turned it over in his hand. He slipped it on his wrist and pulled his sleeve over it. It was a private moment between father and son, so I snuck back down the hall before he realized I’d been watching.
My son thought I was too wrapped up in my own grief to know what he suffered, but I observed it all. I saw him kick the tree behind our house until he fell into a tearful heap, his toes so bruised and swollen that he winced with each step for a week. I held him when he allowed me, but if I started to speak, he would slip away. It was too soon.
If I thought of my last exchange with Mahmood, so did Saleem. I could see the remorse on his face as clearly as I felt it in my heart. We would have done things differently, Saleem and I. We would have had much more to say.