Saleem was back in Kabul. He heard rockets, saw people burying young children and families crying after disappeared fathers. His breathing slowed, and his eyes grew blurry.
There was no escape. The bloodshed had tracked him down to Intikal. How na?ve he was to think he had left it all behind. It danced around him, taunting him and poking at his sides. It had followed him all along, waiting for him to grow complacent. Saleem had buried his head under a pillow as a young boy to muffle the sounds of the rockets. Now he put his hands over his ears to deaden the cries.
Saleem caught a glimpse of one of the victims, the bride’s father, his white shirt turned crimson. The color drained from his face as his daughter lay over him shrieking.
Everywhere he turned, Saleem saw his father.
CHAPTER 24
Saleem
HIS MOTHER BARELY STIRRED AS SALEEM CREPT INTO THE BEDROOM, his heart still pounding. He could hear Samira’s soft breathing. His eyes tried to adjust to the dark as he felt for his mattress on the floor.
“Thank God you’re home,” Madar-jan whispered. “It must be so late. Get some sleep, Saleem-jan.”
“Yes.” That was all Saleem could get out without his voice breaking.
He walked into the washroom and let out a trickle of water from the faucet. He let it run over his hands and between his fingers. He brought his palms to his face and held them there.
Get some sleep, Madar-jan had said. Get some sleep.
Saleem slipped out of his pants and shirt and slid under his bedsheet. He stared at the ceiling, traced its cracks in the dark, and tried to block out all he’d seen. But it all came back. The bride, her dress stained with her father’s blood. Her brother, shot in the leg but alive and yelling as they’d shoved him into a car to be taken to the hospital. Two others had been lucky, bullets just grazing their arms.
Lucky, Saleem thought, was relative.
It was forty-five minutes of chaos. A few cool heads had taken control and shouted out orders. Someone took the inconsolable bride into a back room. Her new husband, paralyzed with fear during the mayhem, felt his own body for bullet wounds that were not there. One of the shooters had aimed directly at him and fired, but the gun had jammed.
Lucky.
Saleem found himself whispering his prayers, as if his father’s hands were on his shoulders, turning him away from the windows and bringing him to the ground. He touched the lifeless watch on his wrist, absent of the soft ticking that once lulled him to sleep.
Kamal’s father had driven them home, filling them in on what had happened. Three men had burst into the house. They’d been recognized immediately as sons of the neighboring farm family—boys who had wanted this bride for their own clan. Slighted and incensed, they’d decided to exact their revenge on the young couple’s wedding night.
They directed their aim at the bride’s father, the groom, and then the bride’s brothers. Guests ran for cover, hiding under tables full of celebratory sweets and escaping into adjacent rooms.
They’d spared the bride, a punishment in itself.
Kamal had never seen more than a bloodied nose in a street fight.
Things are different outside the town’s limits. People take their own revenge when they feel they’ve been dishonored.
It was forever before the police officers arrived. They shook their heads and went from person to person, assessing the damage. They took notes, but it was unclear what they would do about the attackers. Kamal’s father decided to take the boys home. His mother was in another car with his aunts and cousins.
SALEEM HAD FALLEN ASLEEP THINKING OF WHAT KAMAL’S FATHER had said.
Grudges don’t die—people do.
Saleem woke abruptly to the sound of Madar-jan shrieking. She ripped the bedsheet off him. He bolted upright, his eyes bloodshot. Her hands were on him, touching his chest and face.
“What happened? Why is there blood on your clothes? Where are you hurt?”