The Pearl that Broke Its Shell (32 page)

S
hekib and Tariq entered their sleeping quarters when daylight broke. They had neither seen nor heard anything else throughout the night. The soldiers were walking about now and the servants looked hurried. The king was likely expecting a visitor.

Ghafoor was awake, her arms stretched over her head as she yawned. The others rubbed their eyes.

“Tariq? You’re up already? Did you not sleep last night?” Ghafoor asked, puzzled.

“Something happened last night,” Shekib said softly. “Something you all need to know about.”

Her words, rare as they were, got everyone’s attention.

“We saw someone leaving the harem through the side door, which should have been locked. It looked like a man. He ran off toward the palace but in the dark we couldn’t make out his face.”

“It must have been the king. You know his urges come at odd hours.”

Tariq shook her head. “It wasn’t the king, trust me. I know his shape. This man was leaner, taller. And the king doesn’t sneak in and out of the side door. He comes and goes as he pleases, even when the hour is late. This was someone else.”

Ghafoor and Karim leaned forward; they were just now making the realization that Shekib and Tariq had made last night. Qasim looked at her sister’s concerned face.

“Did you hear anything inside? Was anyone awake?” Karim asked.

“Nothing. I walked through the hallways and heard nothing at all, saw no one. Whoever it was that let him in was not making a sound,” Shekib said, her tone flat and serious.

“Of course not,” Ghafoor said. “But if this has happened once, then it has probably happened twice and three times and more. We have a serious problem on our hands, guards. If the king learns that someone has been sneaking past us and paying secret visits to his private harem, we can start saying our final prayers.”

“Should we tell someone in the palace?” Qasim asked nervously. “No, absolutely not!” Ghafoor cried. “We have to find out what we can on our own and stop this from exploding on us.”

Karim and Tariq nodded in agreement. Shekib stood in silence. Ghafoor was taking charge now.

“First of all, we need to speak with the concubines, privately, one at a time, and see if anyone can give us any information.”

“You think whoever brought him in is going to tell us?” Qasim asked.

“No, she won’t tell us anything, I’m sure. But if this has been happening, someone must have heard something and I’m sure that someone
else
will be willing to talk about it. You know how these women are with each other. They can’t wait for a chance to rip the others to shreds.”

“I can’t believe we haven’t already heard about this,” Tariq said.

“This was bound to happen. It was just a matter of time. There are just too many women in one house. One of them was going to invite trouble.” Ghafoor spoke confidently, as if she had predicted this months ago.

Shekib and Tariq lay down to get some rest. The others assumed their posts, rotating to cover Tariq’s position as well so that she could close her reddened eyes for a few hours. The situation had given Ghafoor new energy. Her face was serious and her tone urgent. She gave orders as if she were a palace general commanding her soldiers.

Karim and Qasim shot each other looks but let her be.

Shekib could not sleep. From the moment she had seen that shadowy figure, a feeling had taken root in her stomach. Something would come from this. She lay on her side, looking at the cracks and crevices of the stone wall. She was not in her village now. She was not even in Azizullah’s house. She was in the king’s palace. Bigger people meant bigger problems.

Sleep claimed her finally but briefly. In the afternoon, she rose and dressed. She found Karim in the bathhouse. Five women soaked in the pool. Shekib looked up and saw the balcony was empty.

“Have you heard anything?”

Karim shook her head. “Ghafoor says she has her suspicions but no one is talking yet. I’ve asked two of the women, Parisa and Benazir, if they heard anything odd last night but they said they hadn’t. We have only asked those women who have children since it’s unlikely young ones would sleep through a visitor in the dark.”

Shekib nodded. The reasoning made sense.

“But it is best not to create too much of a stir since one of the women might actually tell King Habibullah what we’ve been asking.” Karim sighed heavily. “There are just so many ways for this to turn on us.”

“That’s how things are. There always has to be someone to blame,” Shekib said. She could still see Bobo Shahgul’s crooked finger pointing at her, her beady eyes filled with hatred.

The next week brought no revelations, no clues as to who had come to visit the harem. The only proof that Shekib and Tariq had not imagined the whole thing was that the visitor had returned. Just five days after the first sighting, he was seen again leaving the house. This time it had been Qasim’s turn for night duty.

Qasim’s description seconded what Shekib and Tariq had described.

“Did you go after him? Did you see his face?” Ghafoor had demanded.

“No… I only saw—”

“You just stood there? We’re trying to find out who this is and you just stand there? Great job
guarding
the harem!” She threw her arms up in exasperation.

“He was walking so fast. I didn’t think I should…”

“Forget it. It’s fine. There’s no point chasing this man down. He probably already knows that we’ve seen him and obviously he doesn’t care. He’s only concerned about getting caught by the palace. He knows we cannot do anything,” Karim said with annoyance.

“What are you talking about? If Qasim would have had half a nerve, she could have—”

“Then you can take her night duty and you can chase him down yourself!” Karim shouted. She was tired of hearing Ghafoor’s complaints. Ghafoor pursed her lips but was silenced.

The bickering had seeped through the harem and into the guards’ quarters. Their small troupe now felt the pressure and it was straining the thin friendships that had formed among them. Shekib watched as the cracks grew, week by week.

The man visited the harem about once a week and though we posted a guard at the side door, we were somehow unable to confront or identify him. By Ghafoor’s account, he never appeared on her overnight shifts but the others doubted this. More likely, she was turning a blind eye since she too did not want to be the one to chase him down in the middle of the night. Better to find out from the woman and put a stop to it there.

In the meantime, Shekib decided to continue laying the groundwork for her own plans. She approached a few women with two purposes in mind. She asked if they had heard anything, any strange noises in the night. And she found ways to make mention of her own family. She awkwardly and clumsily told a story about them, about the string of boys her mother had borne, her aunts had borne, her grandmother had borne.

Women in our family have many sons. I was the only daughter.

Curious looks. The women were not sure why the disfigured guard was sharing such information but they nodded politely and moved on. Or they shooed her off and crossed their brows. But Shekib persisted.

Something told her she did not have much time.

CHAPTER 34

“S
he looked terrible, Khala-
jan
,” I said. “I just never thought I would see my mother looking like that. Shahla would have been in tears to see her!”

It occurred to me, though, that Shahla too had likely changed. None of us were what we had been three years ago. Shahla now had two children. I thought of her when I looked at Shahnaz. I wondered how her new family was treating her. I prayed she was faring better than Parwin had.

“Rohila is a smart girl. I just wish they would send them to school.” She sighed. “That’s all I wanted for each of you. A bit of education that you could carry with you through life.”

“What good did it do me?” I asked in frustration. “I went to school for a few years and it did absolutely nothing to change where I am now.”

“You’ll see later in life. Every bit does some good. Look at me. I’m lucky I know how to read. It’s a candle in a dark room. What I don’t know, I can find out for myself. It’s easier to fool someone who can’t figure things out on his own.”

I bit my tongue. I still didn’t see what use it was. Khala Shaima had been the only one of her sisters to make it to the eighth grade, since no suitors had come for her. Other than her being able to read a newspaper or a book here and there, I didn’t see how her life was any better. She hadn’t been able to stop anything from happening to my sisters or me.

“Your mother will be all right,” Khala Shaima said, misreading the doubtful expression on my face. “The human spirit, you know what they say about the human spirit? It is harder than a rock and more delicate than a flower petal.”

“Sure.”

“Your mother is protecting herself. She’s protecting her spirit, making the delicate petal as hard as rock with the medicine your father brings home because it’s the only way she knows to survive. You should do the same, in a different way, of course. Don’t forget that you are part flower petal and part rock too.”

She sighed.

“That damn medicine. Now that Abdul Khaliq is your father’s
damaat,
he can get as much as he wants. There was just too much of it for your mother to resist.”

“They made out well in this whole arrangement,” I said with more cynicism than I’d intended. Sometimes I saw my mother as a victim. Other times I thought of her as my father’s coconspirator. Either way, my sisters were the ones who suffered. I looked at Jahangir and swore never to do the same to him.

“You can blame your mother but it won’t do any good. You don’t know what it was like to be in her position. In an ant colony, dew is a flood.”

“But you said it too! You were the one telling her that she shouldn’t give us away. I remember you arguing with her!”

Khala Shaima sighed and looked away, frustrated. “Of course I told her all those things! And she tried. She tried to talk to your father but he’s—”

“I know what he is.”

Khala Shaima quieted. She bit her lip. It was time to change the subject. “How has Abdul Khaliq been with you lately?”

“He’s so busy with his own affairs that he’s hardly around the house at all.”

“Good. Busy with what?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I’m not sure exactly but I heard him talking with his advisers and guards the other day. Something about his soldiers doing what the foreign soldiers can’t do.”

“Or don’t want to do. He’s got a good racket. These other countries come in here and throw a few bombs around. Friends today with yesterday’s enemies. They just change their hats and all of a sudden, they’re allies to these western countries. No one cares what Abdul Khaliq was doing for the past few years.”

“What was he doing?”

Khala Shaima’s lips pursed together. “He’s your husband, Rahima, so I would have thought you’d have a better idea by now. How do you think he got to be so rich and powerful? Off the blood of our own people, that’s how. By ransoming, stealing, killing and then washing up and looking pretty for the westerners who either don’t know any better or pretend not to. Your husband is not the only one and he’s probably not even one of the worst. You were too young to really know how things worked and no one in your house would talk about it since your father was fighting under him.” Khala Shaima’s voice was a cautious whisper.

I remembered how Shahnaz had come to be Abdul Khaliq’s wife—pillaged from her home as if she were a piece of jewelry or silver serving tray.

“You should know these things, Rahima, since you’re living here in this house. As his wife, no less. But don’t speak of them, ever. Not even with his other wives. Understand me?”

I nodded. Her warning was unnecessary. I already knew how loose the lips in this house were.

“His advisers were telling him he should have one of his wives run for parliament,” I said, thinking of the conversation I’d overheard. “It sounds like such a crazy idea.”

“Run for parliament? Those conniving bastards!”

“They really want him to. That would be a big change for him, Khala Shaima, wouldn’t it? Imagine, one of his wives in the parliament.”

“To hell it’s a big change! It’s a charade. There’s a rule that a certain number of seats have to be filled by women. They made this rule part of the constitution because otherwise no one would give any woman the time of day. But he’ll put one of his wives in and tell her exactly what to say, how to vote, who to talk to. It’s no different than Abdul Khaliq taking the seat himself!” Her words were bitter, underscored by the way she spat some letters out.

I hadn’t thought of the situation that way but Khala Shaima’s reasoning made sense. And it explained why Abdul Khaliq was even considering the option. It was as his adviser had said—this might be the only way to keep control over the region.

“Did he say which wife he wanted to have run?”

“No, they didn’t.” I had wondered the same thing myself.

“Probably Badriya.”

“Why Badriya?”

“Because Jameela is too pretty. He won’t want men’s eyes on her. And you and Shahnaz are too young.”