on the bus ride home from the doctor, the strangest thingwas happening to mariam. everywhere she looked, she sawbright colors: on the drab, gray concrete apartments, on thetin-roofed, open-fronted stores, in the muddy water flowing inthe gutters. it was as though a rainbow had melted into hereyes.
rasheed was drumming his gloved fingers and humming asong. every time the bus bucked over a pothole and jerkedforward, his hand shot protectively over her belly.
"what about zalmai?" he said. "it's a good pashtun name.""what if it's a girl?" mariam said.
"i think it's a boy. yes. a boy."a murmur was passing through the bus. some passengerswere pointing at something and other passengers were leaningacross seats to see.
"look," said rasheed, tapping a knuckle on the glass. he wassmiling. "there. see?"on the streets, mariam saw people stopping in their tracks. attraffic lights, faces emerged from the windows of cars, turnedupward toward the falling softness. what was it about aseason's first snowfall, mariam wondered, that was soentrancing? was it the chance to see something as yetunsoiled, untrodden? to catch the fleeting grace of a newseason, a lovely beginning, before it was trampled andcorrupted?
"if it's a girl," rasheed said, "and it isn't, but, if itis a girl,then you can choose whatever name you want."* * *mahiam awoke the next morning to the sound of sawing andhammering- she wrapped a shawl around her and went outinto the snowblown yard. the heavy snowfall of the previousnight had stopped. now only a scattering of light, swirling flakestickled her cheeks. the air was windless and smelled likeburning coal. kabul was eerily silent, quilted in white, tendrils ofsmoke snaking up here and there.
she found rasheed in the toolshed, pounding nails into aplank of wood. when he saw her, he removed a nail from thecorner of his mouth.
"it was going to be a surprise. he'll need a crib. you weren'tsupposed to see until it was done."mariam wished he wouldn't do that, hitch his hopes to itsbeing a boy. as happy as she was about this pregnancy, hisexpectation weighed on her. yesterday, rasheed had gone outand come home with a suede winter coat for a boy, linedinside with soft sheepskin, the sleeves embroidered with fine redand yellow silk thread.
rasheed lifted a long, narrow board. as he began to saw it inhalf, he said the stairs worried him. "something will have to bedone about them later, when he's old enough to climb." thestove worried him too, he said. the knives and forks wouldhave to be stowed somewhere out of reach. "you can't be toocareful boys are reckless creatures."mariam pulled the shawl around her against the chill.
* * *the next morning, rasheed said he wanted to invite hisfriends for dinner to celebrate. all morning, mariam cleanedlentils and moistened rice. she sliced eggplants forborani, andcooked leeks and ground beef foraushak. she swept the floor,beat the curtains, aired the house, despite the snow that hadstarted up again. she arranged mattresses and cushions alongthe walls of the living room, placed bowls of candy and roastedalmonds on the table.
she was in her room by early evening before the first of themen arrived. she lay in bed as the hoots and laughter andbantering voices downstairs began to mushroom. she couldn'tkeep her hands from drifting to her belly. she thought of whatwas growing there, and happiness rushed in like a gust ofwind blowing a door wide open. her eyes watered.
mariam thought of her six-hundred-and-fifty-kilometer bus tripwith rasheed, from herat in the west, near the border withiran, to kabul in the east. they had passed small towns andbig towns, and knots of little villages that kept springing up oneafter another. they had gone over mountains and acrossraw-burned deserts, from one province to the next. and hereshe was now, over those boulders and parched hills, with ahome of her own, a husband of her own, heading toward onefinal, cherished province: motherhood. how delectable it was tothink ofthis baby,her baby,their baby. how glorious it was to knowthat her love for it already dwarfed anything she had ever feltas a human being, to know that there was no need anylonger for pebble games.
downstairs, someone was tuning a harmonium. then theclanging of a hammer tuning a tabla. someone cleared histhroat. and then there was whistling and clapping and yippingand singing.
mariam stroked the softness of her belly.no bigger thanafingernail, the doctor had said.
i'm going to be a mother,she thought.
"i'm going to be a mother," she said. then she was laughingto herself, and saying it over and over, relishing the words.
when mariam thought of this baby, her heart swelled insideof her. it swelled and swelled until all the loss, all the grief, allthe loneliness and self-abasement of her life washed away. thiswas why god had brought her here, all the way across thecountry. she knew this now. she remembered a verse fromthe koran that mullah faizullah had taught her:and allah isthe east and the west, therefore wherever you turn there isallah's purpose … she laid down her prayer rug anddidnamaz. when she was done, she cupped her hands beforeher face and asked god not to let all this good fortune slipaway from her.
* * *it was rasheed's idea to go to thehamam. mariam had neverbeen to a bathhouse, but he said there was nothing finer thanstepping out and taking that first breath of cold air, to feel theheat rising from the skin.
in the women'shamam, shapes moved about in the steamaround mariam, a glimpse of a hip here, the contour of ashoulder there. the squeals of young girls, the grunts of oldwomen, and the trickling of bathwater echoed between thewalls as backs were scrubbed and hair soaped. mariam sat inthe far corner by herself, working on her heels with a pumicestone, insulated by a wall of steam from the passing shapes.
then there was blood and she was screaming.
the sound of feet now, slapping against the wet cobblestones.
faces peering at her through the steam. tongues clucking.
later that night, in bed, fariba told her husband that whenshe'd heard the cry and rushed over she'd found rasheed'swife shriveled into a corner, hugging her knees, a pool of bloodat her feet.
"you could hear the poor girl's teeth rattling, hakim, she wasshivering so hard."when mariam had seen her, fariba said, she had asked in ahigh, supplicating voice,it's normal, isn't it? isn't it? isn 'i itnormal?
* * *another bus ride with rasheed. snowing again. falling thickthis time. it was piling in heaps on sidewalks, on roofs,gathering in patches on the bark of straggly trees. mariamwatched the merchants plowing snow from their storefronts- agroup of boys was chasing a black dog. they waved sportivelyat the bus. mariam looked over to rasheed. his eyes wereclosed he wasn't humming. mariam reclined her head andclosed her eyes too. she wanted out of her cold socks, out ofthe damp wool sweater that was prickly against her skin. shewanted away from this bus.
at the house, rasheed covered her with a quilt when she layon the couch, but there was a stiff, perfunctory air about thisgesture.
"what kind of answer is that?" he said again. "that's what amullah is supposed to say. you pay a doctor his fee, you wanta better answer than 'god's will.'"mariam curled up her knees beneath the quilt and said heought to get some rest.
"god's will," he simmered.
he sat in his room smoking cigarettes all day.
mariam lay on the couch, hands tucked between her knees,watched the whirlpool of snow twisting and spinning outside thewindow. she remembered nana saying once that eachsnowflake was a sigh heaved by an aggrieved womansomewhere in the world. that all the sighs drifted up the sky,gathered into clouds, then broke into tiny pieces that fell silentlyon the people below.
as a reminder of how women like us suffer,she'd said.howquietly we endure all that falls upon us.
