A Sister to Honor (20 page)

“Afia?”

“It is . . . it is enemies in Pakistan, I think.”

“Which is where Shahid means to send you, tomorrow.”

Afia felt herself snagged in her half truths. If she had lost Shahid, she had lost everything.
I am the walking dead
, she wanted to say to Coach Hayes.
Let me go to the police and tell them it was me who lit a fuse at Gus's garage
.

“Okay, then.” The wood in the stove had caught fire. Coach closed the door and stood. She was taller than Baba, Afia thought, maybe taller even than Shahid. “Can you make burgers?”

Afia remembered eating with Gus at Local Burger. She'd wolfed the hot sandwich, along with a steaming pile of French fries. Though she had thought she would be sick after, she had kept it all down. But she had never cooked a burger. Now the slimy worms of fat-marbled meat repulsed her. She tried to form them into patties without touching them, using the rusted spoons and spatula she found in a drawer next to the stove. She found matches, got the pilot to sputter to life, and lit two burners. The blue flames, dry and gassy, began to lessen the cold. She found a skillet and swabbed it out with a rag dabbed wet with bottled water, and when it was hot she lifted her ill-formed cakes of meat and dropped them to hiss and spit on the hot iron. She fished heavy stoneware plates from the bottom of the stack in the cupboard, figuring them to be cleaner. In the shopping bag she found a bottle of red wine with a screw top. She filled a tumbler for the coach. Then, pressing her lips together, she filled one for herself.

Her patties fell apart as soon as she tried to nudge them from the skillet. Still, seated at the rickety round table with two lit candle stubs, Coach pronounced them delicious. She also popped open the bag of chips, sour cream and onion, that she'd bought in Hadley. “There's instant coffee for breakfast,” Coach said, “and, God help me, Pop-Tarts.”

Afia didn't know what a Pop-Tart was, but she nodded. The wine tasted like rotten fruit laced with formaldehyde; she swallowed it and clenched her teeth. Gingerly she ate a chip, the sides of her tongue tasting the artificial flavors. “In living room,” she said. “Your husband's family?”

Coach took a bite of her hamburger. “Two sisters. We take turns using the camp. Though no one's been up here recently. They're both married to guys in the city, busy down there.”

Afia nodded. “Is the same with us.”

“What, your family has a summer place no one uses anymore?”

“No. I mean, when a girl marries. We call it a
gham
. A sorrow,” she explained when Coach looked puzzled. “Because your family, they lose you forever. You belong now with your husband. His family.”

Coach glanced out at the living room, where the glass frames of the pictures reflected the flames dancing in the woodstove. “I'm from the Midwest,” she said. “My mother died when I was twelve.”

“Oh. I am sorry.”

“Thank you. But I mean I don't have much sense of my own family. And we don't see much of Ethan's. Maybe we should, but it doesn't work out much. Anyway, I don't feel as though I belong to them. I guess Ethan and I just belong to each other.”

Coach gave a short laugh, as if she knew how silly and forlorn that sounded. The fire in the woodstove had infused the air with warmth. “We should tend to your wounds,” Afia said when they had eaten.

“They're hardly wounds.”

“They are very much wounds. Where is brightest light?”

They tried the bathroom, but the bulb had blown out. Bringing a candle, Afia managed to find two wrapped sterile pads and a roll of tape in the medicine chest. She positioned Coach Hayes on the edge of the bed, under the floor lamp. She took what seemed like a clean cloth from the closet, doused it with peroxide, and gently dabbed and stroked the woman's face and the back of her head until the smoke stain and newly formed scabs sloughed off. The head would heal on its own, but the cheek now showed two inches of raw skin that gently oozed blood. Coach Hayes held still, wincing only as the peroxide came near her eye. For all her height and toughness, Afia realized as she set about fitting gauze and tape to the cheek, the coach was a lovely woman, with sculpted cheekbones and the sort of firm, wide jaw Pashtun men admired.

“Tomorrow you should change the dressing,” Afia said when she'd finished.

“Thank you.”

They stood. “I made up the bed,” Afia said, glancing at it. “About other rooms, I don't know—”

“Oh, I'm not staying,” said Coach. She looked at herself in the cloudy oval mirror that hung on the wall. “I need to be home with my family. I'll say I dropped you in Northampton. What happened to you after, I have no idea. I can't believe I'll lie to them,” she said as she moved out into the sitting room. “I never lie.”

“I never have sleep alone, in a house before.” Following her, Afia said this almost to herself. She could not bother Coach Hayes further. If Coach was lying, it was Afia's fault. Everything was her fault. But she trembled. She stood in the doorway to the bedroom. “I will not sleep,” she said.

Coach turned. The light of the woodstove flickered. “You were alone at Gus's place.”

“There were the animals.” Saying this, the awfulness of it came thundering through her. Pearl, her body white as an intestine. Voltaire, the iguana, with his throat that fluttered like a leaf in the breeze. Percy, the rat who shared the cage with Voltaire, whom Gus liked to tease her with, by wearing Percy on his head like a beady-eyed cap. And the fish, their radiant colors and translucent bellies, the tiny organs tucked inside, and their eyes round, all-seeing. They were Gus's family, and they were gone, blasted away, like the bodies in the Peshawar bazaar. The morning of one attack, Tayyab had come back early from shopping, his clothes in smoky tatters, his cheeks hollow with fear.
A hand
, he'd said,
there was a hand, and then a head, the head was rolling
.

“Look, I'll call after practice tomorrow,” Coach said. “That should give you some time to think over your situation. I doubt there's cell service here, but there's a landline.” She nodded toward the wall by the unplugged refrigerator, where an ancient black phone hung with its tangled cord. “The number's unlisted, so no one else will be trying it. You can go to the river for water or melt some snow, to wash your face. Jugs are for drinking. If you pee in the toilet, don't flush it. Don't go far, because I'll be calling you.” As she crouched before the woodstove, her voice gentled. “You should plan on speaking to the police tomorrow. They can protect you, Afia.”

“But you will not say anything to Shahid. Will you?”

Coach poked the embers and shoved in two more thick, damp branches. “You ever been on a team, Afia?”

“No. But I know there is no
I
in
team
.”

“A team”—Coach smiled as she shut the door—“is about honor. Honor as loyalty, as respect, as honesty. I have always respected your brother. I am trying to be loyal to him, honest with him. And you. But you both make it very, very difficult.”

“Coach, I—”

“It's all right. I made a choice. But I had to say that. Your people are not the only ones concerned with honor. Now try to sleep. When the fire dies down in the stove, shove some more wood in it.”

“Thank you,” Afia said.

But Coach had stepped away, was gathering her things, was out the door and starting the car. Afia watched the red taillights disappear down the road. Then she switched off the electric light.

Now she watched flames dance behind the glass door of the woodstove. They were a miniature version, she thought, of the flames that had raged through Gus's house. One set of flames warmed, the other destroyed. Someone would have woken Gus, at the hospital, to tell him of the catastrophe at his garage. He might have rung her. No such call had come, but she was in a dead zone; Coach had said so.

Tomorrow, if she kept her promise to Coach Hayes, she would have to call the police. But call them to say what? That she had not set the bomb, that she had no idea how to make a bomb? That she had run because of fear? Fear of what? The police would guess, soon enough. They would arrest Shahid, who had no idea how to make a bomb either—but this one hadn't worked properly, it had not killed her. They would find evidence and try Shahid, sentence him. They might execute him here, or they might deport him to Pakistan, where Khalid would take him up on his pledge and kill him.

No, she couldn't go to the Devon police. Coach would, eventually, but not until Afia had figured out where to flee, how to disappear. How to find some money, maybe, and cut or dye her hair. Hitchhike onto the highways of America. Send a message to Gus that she would always love him and she was sorry, sorry, so very sorry. And then—she thought as the fire settled and winter's chill retook the room—let Shahid track her down.

L
issy had always been competitive. It was one of the first things Ethan noticed about her, on their third or fourth date after they'd met on the PATH train, he headed to Northern State Prison, she headed to her assistant A.D. job at Rutgers. She had just finished telling him about the injury that had ended her squash career at the Cleveland Classic. She was one competitive lady, Ethan had remarked with a lopsided grin.

Well, she competed, didn't she? To compete without being competitive—that would be like painting without being artistic.

Like talking without speaking, he'd said. Like hearing without listening. And then he'd launched into Simon & Garfunkel. He had a good tenor, even though he was just being silly. She'd thrown a napkin at him.

Still, outside sports,
competitive
was a dirty word. Like
ambitious
. If she'd grown up with a mother, maybe she would have softened her edge, learned to deny herself the thrill of clutching the trophy high over her head. If she had grown up in the world her American players inhabited, full of country clubs and etiquette, maybe she'd have sated her hunger to train harder, practice longer, nail the shots her opponents missed. Maybe, if she'd been introduced early on to pure beauty, or pure affection, she wouldn't have relished the purity of competition—same rules for all, same starting spot, same ineluctable goal—as much as she did. But she had grown up on the scrappy north side of St. Louis, with five brothers and a dad working nights, and one of her last memories of her mother was the glow on her face, her bald head obscured by a blue scarf, as Lissy tore past the hundred-yard finish line ten paces ahead of the closest boy.

Even her choice of sport—squash, claustrophobic and un-American—was etched with ambition. Squash was what they didn't play, on the north side. There were a couple of old courts at the back of the community center and a retired pro who let kids hit for free. But what she wanted was to beat the kids at the private schools, with their clean lines and vaulted ceilings—and when she did, her brothers exploded in whoops and her dad's face came as close to a grin as he could ever manage.

So yes, she told Ethan, she was competitive. Insatiable, rivalrous. She'd come by her ambition honestly, and she wasn't going to be ashamed of it, no matter how crude or unladylike she appeared. But she never cheated, she never lied. And when she came home, she left the competition outside. Those had been her promises.

But now. As she exited the Pike toward Devon she felt the messiness of what she was doing, the impurity of it. The police—she ought to go to the police, tell them where the girl was, help them discover what the hell had happened. Whatever Afia had claimed, Lissy knew what she thought: that Shahid had set a trap for her, had tried to kill her with a bomb at her boyfriend's place. Ethan would think the same. What had he said, about these honor crimes?
It's often the brother doing the meting out.

But Ethan didn't know everything, and neither did Afia. She, Lissy, knew Shahid inside and out. She had struggled with him through tough matches; she'd watched him find his place on the team and let go, one by one, of his defenses until he became the muscles and sinews of the squad itself. She knew he loved his sister more than life. Honor or no honor, he wouldn't let her come to harm.

So go to the police. If Shahid was innocent, their investigation would pass him by. He'd make his next counseling appointment and then play Harvard. Would beat Harvard, and go on to a brilliant career, coaching or on Wall Street, whatever he chose, the world his oyster.

Except for the girl. Goddammit, the girl. Afia was terrified, and somewhere in her gut Lissy felt certain that her terror would derail Shahid. Would cast suspicion on him, would stir up—what? Trouble, of a kind Lissy sensed faintly but couldn't name. Someone had set that bomb. For now, Gus was in the hospital, safe. Afia was at the camp, also safe. And there were less than five days until the Harvard match that meant everything to her best, her noblest player.

What harm would it do, really, just to wait a little while? To let the girl come to her senses?
All right
, she said to the world as she passed through the sleeping town,
so I want victory. So shoot me
.

At the top of Winter Drive she felt the left side of her cheek tightening and remembered how she looked. Pulling the car over, she flipped up the visor and checked herself out in the mirror—the bandage, the singed hair, the soot. She looked like a blind person's attempt at blackface. She had to clean up and come clean, at least to Ethan.

•   •   •

O
h, baby.” He came to sit next to her on the couch when she'd finished describing the explosion. Chloe, thankfully, was asleep. In the kitchen was the Valentine she'd made for Lissy that afternoon. Lissy held a bag of frozen peas to the lump on the back of her head. Ethan pulled her to his shoulder. “You could've been killed.”

He smelled wonderfully familiar, the warm musk of his skin. “I'm lucky,” Lissy admitted. “Afia cleaned up the one bad spot. I'll have a doozy of a headache in the morning, but—”

“What about Afia? Is she all right? Where is she?”

Lissy lifted her head and adjusted the bag of peas. She hadn't thought what to say. From the beginning, she and Ethan had told each other everything. Old love affairs. Grudges they couldn't let go of. All the stale fantasies that turned them on—she would pretend to be a call girl, he that they were strangers on a cruise. Now she felt honesty slipping away from her, like snow melting off a bank. The camp in Hadley was the best place she could think of, four hours ago, but it wasn't her place. It was Ethan's, and he'd hung on to it over the objections of his sisters, who wanted to sell. It was the place of his happiest memories, he'd told Lissy once, and the place he wanted to pass down to Chloe. Could Lissy inform him that she'd secreted a girl there, a witness to a bombing, a girl who could be at risk from her own brother? He wouldn't share her lurking, inchoate fear. He'd see only her ambition, her determination to push Shahid to a win and get her precious fitness center built.

“And why,” Ethan went on while she tried to phrase an answer, “didn't you call the cops?”

Lissy leaned back. She met his worried eyes. “Afia,” she said slowly, “seemed more frightened of the police than of the blast. She was talking crazy, Ethan. Like—like someone would be after her, if we went to the police. When I kept on at her about it, she said she'd tell them
she
set a bomb.”

“So now she's—”

“Hiding. Somewhere safe. And I don't want to tell you where, honey. Please.”

Ethan rose. She heard the clink of ice as he fixed them both a vodka tonic. “Can you tell me,” he asked when he came back, “what happened this afternoon?”

“Sure,” Lissy said. She described the conversation with Shahid, Afia's willingness to return to Pakistan, her own outrage, Afia asking for Lissy to bring her back to Smith.

“So when you called me to say you were in Northampton,” Ethan said—swirling his drink, looking into the fire—“you were lying.”

“I'm sorry, honey. I was panicked. I thought somebody could be after her and—”

“You mean you thought Shahid could be after her.”

There they were, already, at the place she'd feared. “That doesn't make any sense,” she insisted. “Afia agreed to go back to Pakistan. Shahid won.”

“Winning's not everything, Liss.”

“You know what I mean. He loves her.”

Ethan removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “We've got a lot of
if
s here,” he said. “A freak accident—we don't even know it's a crime. Could have been all sorts of stuff stored in that garage. Things combust. What about your player, Gus? His brakes gave out last week, right? Does he have enemies?”

Lissy shook her head, startled. “I don't think so.”

“Well, we'll find out quicker,” Ethan said, “if you and Afia talk to the police.”

“And we will. Let's just give her a couple of days.”

Ethan was silent a long time. A log cracked, in the fireplace. He crossed his arms over his chest. Finally he said, very quietly, “You need Shahid. You need him for the Harvard match.”

No point in denying it. “I do.”

“And you need him not to be facing a bunch of accusations about his sister.”

“Ethan, Shahid would not do this. And you know how Muslims get treated, when there's violence. If he and Afia were deported—”

“Tell me where she is, Liss.”

The Hadley camp. Why had she been so impulsive? He would never let the girl stay there, if he knew. But just a few days. He didn't have to know, now or ever. Meeting his eyes, she couldn't lie. She could only be stubborn. “Please, Ethan. You've got to trust me on this.”

“No, I don't. I've got to be honest with you. And you're making a lousy decision. You're doing it because you care about your player. I know that. And his sister. You care, Liss, but you're wrong. Thank God you didn't come to real harm. But I won't help you if this gets messy. Do not count on me for that.”

He unlocked his arms. He put them around her and kissed her ashy hair.

•   •   •

S
omehow the next day proceeded. At Enright, Lissy explained her injuries with a story of a fall on the ice in the dark, a crack of her head against stone steps. No one seemed to doubt her, even as the place buzzed with news of the explosion at Gus Schneider's garage. A cat had been rescued; the place was sealed off, police at the scene. At noon, a meeting with university officers about the capital campaign. Don Shears was jolly. Charles Horton, he announced, was coming up from the city for the squash match against Harvard. Depending on the outcome, he would pledge whatever it took to complete a state-of-the art fitness center.

“How much do we figure that would be?” asked Penny DuBois, the faculty dean.

They turned to the comptroller, a spare coffee-skinned guy named Roy Jones. “Counting the initial pledge from Jeff Stubnick and a few other small donations, I'd say it'd take about eight hundred grand to put us over the top,” Jones said.

“Pretty nice premium, for a squash match.” Don winked at Lissy. “Now, if we could just get Coach Hayes's fund-raising muscle for the new chem labs, we might gain a notch in our academic rankings.”

When the meeting broke up, he walked Lissy out. “You got the chops for that Harvard match?” he asked.

“Can't say, Don. Harvard's tough.”

“If the injured player—”

“Gus? He plays second string. We'll be fine without him.”

Don said, “Poor kid,” and Lissy agreed. Turning away, she felt a lump in her throat, as big as the one swelling her cheekbone.

That afternoon, calling the hospital, she learned Gus was discharged. He would know about his garage by now. The other players did. Through the afternoon they streamed into her office—Carlos, Afran, Yanik, Jamil, a few of the girls. Had she heard, they wanted to know. Wasn't it crazy? Carlos had gone by the garage, “And it was a war zone, man, like something on TV.” Yanik had talked to Gus, but couldn't get much out of him, the dude was too upset. They had all heard about the rescued cat. Had Coach gotten a call from the police? Because Afran had, also Carlos. They were carpooling down to Gus's mom's place.

No Shahid, Lissy noted. Perhaps he wasn't a good enough liar to come forward.
Not possible
, she fired back at herself. He loved Afia. You couldn't kill what you loved. She didn't give a shit about cultural difference. You couldn't do it and be human.

She was relieved when the phone rang and it was George Bradley from Harvard, calling to talk squash. “I got a tape of your boys against Trinity,” he said. “They're eating their Wheaties.”

“Working hard,” said Lissy. A little pouch of breath that had been trapped in her lungs let go. Coaches, even rival coaches, were the easiest people to talk to.

“Didn't see your main guy. That mean you're cutting us a break?”

“Shahid?” Another pouch of breath caught in a lower lobe, which clamped tight. “He's back now.”

“Hope so. I want a good look at him. And I've got a couple of recruits for you. South Africa and Argentina. I'll bring their folders to the match. Consolation prizes.”

Lissy hung up.
Hope you've got the chops
, Shears had said,
for that match
. Only with Shahid did Enright have such chops.

Doubts she'd dismissed the night before festered as the day went on. Who was she protecting—Afia, or Shahid? Or herself? The words she used when she lectured her players echoed in her head.
When you're loyal to something that's rotten, it rots your loyalty.
Had Shahid gone rotten? He was her best, her best-loved player. And if she turned Afia over to the police, they would surely finger him. Just a few days, Lissy needed. To know what to do. To beat Harvard in front of Charles Horton. To watch Shahid and understand him, better than she ever had before, so she could bring Afia back to him in safety. A few days, which after all . . . what did they matter? Gus's place was gone, Gus's animals were dead, and no amount of confession would bring them back. And the marriage awaiting Afia in Pakistan—that could wait, too. She reached for her phone and dialed the camp.