On the fourth day, Jahangir’s belly was freckled with red spots. Jameela tried again to cool him with moist cloths on his forehead and sips of water. When Jahangir stopped whining and complaining about his belly, she thought he was finally getting better. She thought he needed a few days of rest and that by the time we returned he would be back to his usual self, just as I’d left him.
We were both crying. She paused her story two or three times, collecting herself and then looking at me. I nodded for her to continue. I needed to know.
By that afternoon, Jameela realized that Jahangir was delirious. He wasn’t answering her questions but he was mumbling and batting away something that wasn’t there. She called his name. His eyes were glassy. She called again for Abdul Khaliq, who had just returned from an overnight trip with his guards. Never before had she seen our husband so shaken, Jameela said. He took one look at his son, then flew out the door and summoned his driver and guards. He came back into the room and cradled Jahangir in his arms while he yelled for Jameela to pack some water and bread for the drive to the hospital. Before she knew it, Jameela was standing at the front gate, watching the tires of Abdul Khaliq’s black truck spin and screech as they tore off down the road.
She didn’t want to go on. I put my hand on hers. She looked tortured. She sighed and continued, trying to get her words out in one short burst.
They came back the next day, heavy, morose faces. Jameela ran out to meet them. Abdul Khaliq looked at her and shook his head.
“Crying,” she said. “I’ve never seen him looking like that. I never thought… the doctor wasn’t able to do anything for him. He was too weak and they think he had developed a terrible infection of his stomach. Horrible. Something that just took over, making his belly stone-hard when the doctor tried to touch it. He was in the hospital until morning and they were giving him serum but it didn’t work. I suppose… I suppose it was his naseeb,” she said, sobbing. “Rahima-jan, I’m so sorry. I don’t know how he got so sick so quickly! He felt better for a bit. He let me rub his stomach. I thought it was helping…”
“Why didn’t he take my son to the doctor sooner?” I knew she felt badly. At the moment, I didn’t care very much. I wanted to know if something could have been done. I wanted to know who to blame.
“Abdul Khaliq? He… he wanted to. Before he left for his meetings.”
“Then why didn’t he?”
Jameela shook her head in frustration. “Rahima-jan, what’s done is done now. It won’t help anything to ask so many questions. It’s best you think of your son, pray for him to be in peace.”
“I’m tired of praying, damn it. I want to know. What happened, Jameela?” I said insistently. She was glossing over something.
“Abdul Khaliq was going to take Jahangir to the hospital but… but Bibi Gulalai stopped him.”
“What? Why on earth would she do that?”
“She thought… she thought she could heal him with the teas and soups she was making for him.”
My heart sank. Bibi Gulalai was going to save him. I nearly laughed. Her concoctions had never saved anyone from anything. She had stood in the way of my son getting to the doctor. My husband had tried, I thought.
“He really did try,” Jameela echoed, as if she could read my thoughts.
I had a fresh hatred for Bibi Gulalai. She’d been the one to delay Jahangir’s treatment. She’d been yelling and carrying on about the absent mother being to blame. Now I knew why. Bibi Gulalai always boasted about the powers of her remedies. She claimed she could heal any ailment with her potent, homemade brews, and that she had. The family humored her. She wanted to look good, the grandmother who stepped in and cured her grandchild while his shameful mother played in Kabul.
One more question to ask, the question I dreaded because there was no good answer. It haunted me.
“Jameela-jan…,” I said, my voice breaking.
“Yes, janem,” she said gently.
I was looking over the edge of a cliff.
“Jameela-jan… did he… did he cry for me?”
Jameela, loving mother of six, had also given birth to two children who had been claimed by Allah before she could see their smiles. Jameela pulled me into her arms and kissed my forehead. She read my heart.
“My dear madar-ak”—little mother—she whispered, though I wasn’t one anymore. “What child doesn’t call out for his mother? What could be more comforting than a mother’s embrace? I believe, in his sleep, that’s where your little boy was, feeling your arms around him, janem.”
“But I wasn’t there!” I cried. “I wasn’t there to hold him, to wipe away his tears, to kiss him good-bye! He was just a baby! How scared he must have been!”
“I know, Rahima-jan, but he wasn’t alone. No one can replace you but at least his father was there with him. His father held him. And you know, Abdul Khaliq loved his little son very much.”
It wasn’t until weeks later that this conversation would bring me solace. For now, I stored her words, saving them for when my heart had healed enough to believe that my son had felt my embrace. That his father had held him lovingly in his last moments. That he did not feel as alone as I did now.
CHAPTER 55. SHEKIBA
Shekiba swept the floor of the living room, beating the dust from the rug section by section. She had breathed a huge sigh of relief after Aasif had left her room, thankful that he had not touched her as his wife. At least for now. He felt remorse for what he had done. And Shekiba could hear something in his voice that she hadn’t heard in a long time. Aasif sounded as if he cared about Benafsha. Maybe her first impression of him hadn’t been that far off. There was still a lot to learn about him but it seemed he had a heart.
Shekiba had spent the rest of the night replaying his words in her mind and trying to piece together how she had come to be his wife.
He could not stop her execution. So he stopped mine. How did he propose this deal to King Habibullah? Does Gulnaz know all this?
Shekiba wondered why the king bothered to agree to it. And another question still lingered. How had he come to know Benafsha? As a concubine, her activities were limited to the harem. It wasn’t as if she had been roaming around the palace grounds. Benafsha had originally been a guard before she had caught King Habibullah’s eye and he must have seen her then.
And Benafsha let him in? Willingly?
You wouldn’t understand, was all she had told Shekiba. She was right about that.
The canaries were singing — three yellow songbirds in a white wire cage suspended from a tree branch. They sang in the morning mostly, bright and melodic. Shekiba paused to listen to them, to decipher their chirps.
Two weeks had passed. Her back was healing. Her skin itched more and burned less, which was how she could tell it was better. With better days came better nights. She learned the routines of the house and found a way to fit in without being a nuisance. She knew from experience that she should not consider herself a permanent fixture in any man’s house, even if she was his wife.
Aasif now said a few more words to her, but their exchanges were still brief and polite. He looked past her face and made only fleeting eye contact. Gulnaz watched their interactions from the corner of her eye and seemed satisfied that the second wife was not her equal. She began to see Shekiba more as a housekeeper than a second wife.