A House Without Windows (3 page)

It was immature, he realized, but he had decided, after listening to his parents rant about his older brother's diverse parade of girlfriends, that he would find someone his parents would adore. He wanted someone who could speak Dari with them, who would raise bilingual children with him, who would understand both American and Afghan culture. It was the practical and respectable thing to do.

Then he'd met Elena—beautiful and irresistible Elena who had immigrated to the United States with her family at a very young age from Peru. She had chocolate brown hair and her cheeks dimpled when she smiled, which she did often. She was a friend of a colleague and stopped when she spotted them drinking beers at a sidewalk café. She was making her way home from her job at an accounting firm, wearing a white peplum top and smartly creased, navy blue pencil pants.

She was sweet and smart and, importantly, did not flinch when Yusuf told her his family had come from Afghanistan. On their first date, they went to see a free Peruvian music concert in Central Park. On their second date, they ate artisanal ice cream in the East Village. Yusuf couldn't resist slipping his arms around Elena's waist and pull
ing her close when he was with her. She was five inches shorter than him, and when they embraced, Yusuf breathed in the sweet, tropical scent of her shampoo. She clung to him just enough that he felt adored and not so much that he felt trapped. She could talk about the implications of a trade agreement and the latest One Direction song in the same breath. Yusuf's friends raised their eyebrows and beer mugs in approval. Elena was a catch.

When Yusuf met her, he'd already made plans to move to Washington, D.C., to work with a nonprofit that focused on crimes against humanity. He convinced himself they both understood things would come to an end once he left. Elena didn't fit into his plans. And yet, Yusuf found immense happiness in a hundred quiet things: the way her nose crinkled when she laughed, the way she slipped a playful finger into his collar, the urge he felt to call or text her a moment after they'd kissed good night.

The fact that they had so little in common seemed to draw them to each other. Language, religion, professional fields—they studied each other with almost academic interest.

Elena listened to Yusuf talk about the headlines that pulled his attention: the unearthing of thousands of Muslim corpses, men and boys who'd been executed in the Bosnian genocide, the flogging of a dissident journalist in Saudi Arabia, the disappearance of a Malaysian passenger plane. Elbows propped on the table and eyes focused, she filled in with details she'd read in online news reports. She made Yusuf question his plan. Maybe he shouldn't limit himself to women from his own background. Maybe a common culture and language wasn't everything.

Maybe Elena was everything.

They were on their way to the subway station after a dinner with friends when Elena and Yusuf paused at a crosswalk. He turned to her and adjusted the paisley scarf knotted around her neck. It was fall and the evenings were brisk.

My niece's baptism is this weekend. You'll come with me, right?

The red hand turned into a white stick figure, prompting them to move forward. Yusuf didn't immediately obey. Elena had to tug at his elbow.

Maybe,
he had said
. Let me see how much I get done with work this week.

They'd settled into two empty seats on the 7 train, New York's version of the Silk Road. Elena would get off soon after they entered Queens, before the neighborhoods turned distinctly Asian. Yusuf had another nine stops to go before he got to Flushing.

You know, I already miss you, baby,
Elena had said to him as the torque of the subway car nudged them closer together.
I'm going to want to visit you every weekend in D.C.

Yusuf had kissed her squarely on the lips, long enough that Elena interpreted it to mean he would miss her equally. But something in Yusuf was rattled by the expectation that he would go to something as alien as a baptism, and, as their lips parted, Yusuf withdrew. When the conductor announced her stop, Elena smiled at him and walked off the train. He was already sorry for what he would have to do, but it could be no other way. Yusuf no longer saw all that Elena was—he only saw what she was not.

A REMORSEFUL YUSUF TRAVELED TO WASHINGTON, D.C., AND
spent a year with a team of lawyers putting together a case against militia officers accused of genocide in Africa. He did his best not to think about Elena. When he missed her, as he often did, he busied himself with research or called his mother, which reminded him how Elena would not fit in with his family. Conversations with his mother were, by this point, fairly predictable. She would fill him in on the latest happenings with his siblings and gossip from his cousins. Inevitably, her attention would circle back to Yusuf.

You've finished school, you have a job. It's time to get married. Are you waiting for all the good girls to be taken by boys that don't even have a quarter of your looks or smarts?

Yusuf ducked out of the conversations. He missed having
someone
at his side, but he could not imagine taking a wife now. He could not imagine someone waiting for him to come home each night, asking him why he worked so late. He could not be bothered with a second set of parents and cousins and uncles. He had no desire to become a father. He made false promises to his parents that he would be better prepared for commitment next year.

But Yusuf had other plans. He would sacrifice, he believed, so that he could follow the path he was meant to follow. And he'd had no choice but to walk away from Elena.

Turning away from Elena would have been harder had he not felt a strange twinge in his chest.

It came from the land of clay and mountains. It was as if a siren had appeared in his dreams, begging him to save her from herself. He heard her name on the talk radio stations; he saw her face on magazine covers. The Internet screamed her sorrows, telling the story of the unjust blood shed on her land, the imprisoned and the persecuted. Each injustice called to him as if he were the only hope.

Afghanistan.

Yusuf picked up the phone. He sent painstakingly constructed e-mails. If he did not answer her call, who would? His resolve hardened.

On a bustling sidewalk, Yusuf realized he could not remember the last time he'd woken in a cold sweat. He smiled to himself, growing stronger just by thinking about her. Hurt and beautiful, she was home.

“HER HUSBAND'S BEEN MURDERED! THIS IS NO TIME TO ASK RIDIC
ULOUS
questions! Where's your honor? This man needs to be washed and prepared for burial. His parents, his family—has anyone spoken to them?”

Zeba clenched her hands together. If only they would stop shaking, maybe then she could understand what had happened. Maybe then she could explain. Her head was in a vise. There was too much talking. Kamal's body was still by the outhouse. Certainly the flies must have noticed by now.

“This man was killed in his own home! We need to know what happened here!”

Basir and the girls were in the second bedroom. Kareema and Shabnam, eight and nine years old, were trying to be brave. They'd run to their mother when she finally came into the house, but the look in her eyes and the way her knotted hands trembled had unnerved them. They retreated, turning back to Basir who had tasked them with looking after Rima.

“Please, everyone, dear neighbors and friends, please understand that my mother, my family has suffered today. I have to get word to my uncles, the rest of the family.”

“But the police, they have to be called.”

“They've been sent for already.”

“Who called?”

“It doesn't matter. The chief will be here shortly and he can decide what will be done.”

The screaming had cracked the neighborhood doors open, one by one. Scandal was an irresistible temptress. It was unclear who had been shrieking, and now neither Basir nor Zeba was sharing any information. Basir stood in the front courtyard biting his cheek. He fought back tears and kept his gaze to the ground. The men and women had gathered, word spreading through the mud-walled neighborhood like a drop of ink in water. Basir stole glances at the faces he'd known all his life. Women pinched their head scarves primly under their chins and clucked their tongues softly. The men shook their heads and shrugged their shoulders.

“Someone should call the mullah.”

“Yes, call the mullah!”

“And for God's sake, someone needs to send word to his family! Rafiqi-
sahib,
send your son.”

Basir's eyes darted to his mother.

“But why isn't she talking? What happened here, Khanum? Did you kill your husband?”

“Of course she did! There's a hatchet in the back of his neck! Do you think he killed himself?”

Zeba and Basir both winced at the mention of the hatchet. Basir crouched down next to his mother who sat with her side against the clay wall of their home.

His voice cracked in a nervous whisper.

“Madar, I don't know what to . . . can you tell them what happened? Did someone come in here?”

Zeba's eyes pleaded with her son. She said nothing.

Basir pressed his palms against his closed eyes, the pressure making the world go black for only a split second. He still saw blood.

“What are we to do now?”

Basir cried silently. Zeba pulled her head scarf across her face. Eyes
were watching her, sentencing her. Her three daughters cowered in the room behind this wall. Zeba inhaled sharply and forced a deep breath.

“Basir,
bachem,
please go inside and look after your sisters. They must be so frightened.”

Eyes narrowed. Ears cocked to the side—the grieving widow was speaking. They waited for a confession. Basir didn't move. He stayed at his mother's side, angrily wiping tears away with the back of his hand.

What else will she say?
he wondered.

“Dear God, what have you brought upon us? What did we do to deserve such a fate? What are we to do?” Zeba moaned, loud enough to elicit sympathetic head shaking. “How could this have happened here . . . in our own home?”

The women looked at the men around them. They looked at one another. Zeba was as close to death as any woman could be. And then they began to echo her laments.

“This poor woman—without a husband—may Allah protect her and her dear children!”

THE CHIEF OF POLICE, AGHA HAKIMI, WAS IN HIS EARLY FORTIES.
He was the grandson of a warlord who'd been conquered by another warlord with more men, more guns, and more money. Hakimi was the living legacy of impotence and failure. The village treated him as such.

When Hakimi entered the courtyard, he was immediately led to the back of the house. At the sight of Kamal's body, he shook his head and narrowed his eyes, hoping to look more pensive than disgusted. The flesh of Kamal's neck had been torn apart. Chunks of bone, puddles of blood, and bits of brain—a spray of pink, red, and white scattered just behind the dead man.

The police chief was updated in a series of interrupted accounts, his eyes darting from the morbid debris to the widow slumped against the wall and then to the many faces staring at him expectantly.

Zeba was moaning softly, mournfully.

Hakimi stared hard at the woman before him. Her eyes were glazed, her hands still trembled. When he spoke to her, she looked at him blankly, as if he spoke a foreign tongue. Exasperated, Hakimi turned to the crowd.

“No one knows what happened back there? God have mercy. What happened to Kamal? You were his neighbors? Did no one hear anything?”

Then Hakimi raised a hand for silence. He turned to Rafiqi. Agha Rafiqi had the grayest beard present, and his home abutted Zeba's on one side.

“Agha Rafiqi, you share a wall with this family. You have known them for years. What did you hear?”

Over the years, Agha Rafiqi had heard plenty—not the same sound that had drawn Zeba into the yard, but other sounds that were easier to name. He looked at the woman slumped on the ground, trembling like a bird caught in a net.

“I . . . I have known them for years, indeed. Kamal-
jan,
may Allah forgive his sins, gave me no trouble. He looked after his family, he was . . . oh, what can I say? His widow now sits here. She has four children to look after. My wife knows her well. I cannot believe she would commit such a heinous crime.”

There were groans and shouts and fists pumping in the air.

“Enough!” Hakimi cried, feeling a trickle of sweat trace his spine. He felt his breath catch to think how the gathering mob would react to any plan he might propose. They hated him, he knew. Why oh why had he agreed to take on this job?

“I want to hear what Agha Rafiqi has to say.” He turned again to Agha Rafiqi, who looked more than a little uncomfortable with the power vested in him.

Agha Rafiqi cleared his throat and started cautiously.

“I am no judge but . . . I . . . I would say, as a matter of decency, that she should be allowed to stay here and tend to her children until these matters can be sorted out.”

The women buzzed in agreement.

Hakimi nodded authoritatively. People respected Rafiqi and wouldn't question their neighborhood elder. The accusing shouts fell to a grumble. Hakimi cleared his throat, fidgeted with his police belt, and took a step away from Zeba.

“Very well, then I suppose there's the issue of the body . . .”

“We will wrap his body and move it closer to the back door of the house. His family can tend to his washing there,” one of the men called out.

Basir felt his stomach settle a bit. Hakimi looked all around, peered into every corner of their home, and examined their courtyard one square foot at a time. He had two officers with him, young boys barely older than Basir, bushy haired and smooth faced.

Someone pulled a bedsheet off the clothesline. Hakimi, hands on his hips, thanked them for helping with a nod. He avoided Zeba's eyes.

Basir could see the neighbors were more than a little interested in the gory scene. The women filed out in respect but found reason to linger in the street, necks craning as they hoped for a glimpse. Was it really as bad as people had said?

It all might have ended there had Fareed not stormed in, breathless and enraged. Fareed, Kamal's young cousin. A man who could curse and exchange pleasantries in the same breath. Fareed's tunic hung from his body, and his face was flushed. Agha Hakimi was startled and nearly dropped his pocket pad.

“What happened here? Where's my cousin?”

Fareed's eyes fell upon the four men carrying the rolled bedsheet. The pale floral pattern was darkened with splotchy red stains.

“So it's true? Is that him? Let me see my cousin! What happened to him?”

He pushed his way closer, but three men held him back, muttering words of condolence.

“Somebody tell me what happened here!” Fareed roared.

All faces turned to Hakimi. The police chief straightened his shoulders and summarized what he'd learned thus far.

“Your cousin was found in the courtyard. We are not sure who killed him at this moment. No one heard anything until Khanum Zeba came out screaming. We believe she'd found her husband's body. So while we investigate this further, we'll leave Zeba to look after the children for tonight.”

Fareed looked at his cousin's wife, whose shaking had worsened since he entered the gate. She was rocking with eyes half closed. Fareed turned to stare at the circle of onlookers, some shifting under his grief with a guilt they could not explain. His nostrils flared and his brow knotted with fury.

“Have you lost your minds—all of you?” The men looked at one another.

Fareed did not wait for an answer. In that second, he pounced on Zeba, and before anyone could stop him, his hands closed around her neck.