Wade Read online

  Chloe felt as if the jaws of a great bear trap had closed upon her. She developed migraine headaches so sickeningly painful that it seemed only cutting off her head could relieve their agony. She spent hours lying in her dim room. Sometimes she slept or gazed dully at the ceiling, but mostly she stared out a small hole scratched in the painted window at the barren landscape of ochre buildings, sun-scorched brown earth, vegetation gray-green with dryness and the encircling mountains blue-hazed with distance and dust. She didn’t go out because there was no place to go, seldom joined the others in the common room of the sprawling stone house because she had nothing to say to them. She lost weight, allowed her long hair that could not be cut for fear of reprisal to grow lank and tangled. Sometimes, while she lay awake listening to barking dogs and crowing roosters in the night, she thought of suicide since it seemed the only way out.

  It was Treena who saved her, meek Treena with her huge eyes, fade-away voice and constant attention to babies that were nursing, teething, walking or sickening with some childhood complaint. Treena, who concealed the courage of a lioness behind her submissive attitude. She had whispered to Chloe about the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, a group that had banded together originally to help oust the Soviets but were now circumventing the edicts of the Taliban. The RAWA had spread into Hazaristan along with the Taliban incursion. They were in desperate need of teachers to instruct the young girls who were being denied an education. Without knowledge these children would be forever consigned to the role of servants to men. Chloe’s mother had been a teacher. Why should she not follow in her footsteps?

  How long ago had it been, Chloe wondered, since she’d first heard of these brave women? Five years? Six or more? She couldn’t remember. Time had scant meaning when there was little to distinguish one day from another, or one year from the next. It seemed that she’d been teaching her secret classes of girls forever, that her dangerous forays into other women’s homes to present an hour or two of classes had been going on since she was a child. The lessons, the smiles of the girls, their hunger for knowledge, the intense friendships with the women who defied the Taliban—these things were what kept her sane. She sometimes thought it was what she was meant to do with her life, that fate had placed her in this place, at this time, where the knowledge she had gained in American schools and then from her mother would be most helpful. She was needed here, had found her true purpose and meaning. What could going away with a stranger offer her that might compare?

  The American’s presence, his daring in contacting her, had jeopardized her safety. To see him again could put at risk all she had achieved, might even create suspicion that could lead to discovery of her RAWA connection. Her friends, the women who had become like the most loving of sisters, would be in peril since their activity was considered a heinous crime. They could be sentenced to public torture followed by burning at the stake. Punishments had grown steadily more barbaric since the influx of Taliban from defeated Afghanistan.

  She could not meet the man. It would be madness to try. The bazaar was a public place where she was never permitted to go alone. Even if Ismael could be persuaded to escort her, it would be foolhardy. No chance of a private conversation with the American existed since he would be as conspicuous in the public market as a black cat on a white doorstep. He could know little of the conditions she faced, much less understand their implications, so his discretion was in doubt.

  No, she would not keep this appointment. Absolutely, she would not.

  It was later that evening, after they had returned to Ajzukabad and Chloe and Treena were putting the children to bed, that Treena spoke again of the stadium meeting. As she bathed her middle daughter, less than three years old, from a basin of water, she said, “I know the handsome foreign devil had something to say to you earlier. Are you going to tell me what it was or must I guess?”

  “Really, Treena, he only apologized.”

  “And for this you became as still as a statue? Come, now. Such men were most forward in the films I used to see. Was it something improper?”

  “Not at all.”

  “A compliment perhaps? They could be tender as well, these men.” Her stepsister’s eyes danced with laughter.

  “Of course not!” To hide the flush that rose unaccountably to her face at the idea, Chloe picked up Uma, the five-year-old who was the eldest of the three girls, and began to brush her long, soft brown curls.

  “He wanted you to meet him?”

  Chloe gave her a straight glance. “You did understand him then.”

  “A little,” Treena agreed. “You may as well tell me the rest, yes?”

  “It was stupid.”

  “But interesting enough to keep you silent all the way home. Please, Chloe. It’s so exciting that he actually spoke to you.”

  Treena would not stop until she had every detail, Chloe knew. And what reason was there to keep it from her when nothing would come of it? Paying careful attention to the braid she was making in Uma’s hair, she said, “He only told me that he’d been sent by my father.”

  “For what reason?”

  “To…to take me back to the States.”

  “Oh, Chloe.” Distress and sympathy were plain in Treena’s face.

  “I don’t believe it,” Chloe answered, her voice grim. “Why would my father send someone now when he never answered my letters?”

  “There are many reasons for things.”

  It was one of the obscure answers so common in this part of the world. They had once driven Chloe crazy, but that was before she’d come to see that they could be an invitation to explore a topic as well as an evasion. “Such as?”

  “Perhaps your letters have taken this long to reach your father?”

  “My country may be far away, but it’s hardly on another planet.”

  Treena gave her a wan smile over her shoulder as she kissed her daughter, then slipped a clean nightgown over her head. “You thought differently at one time.”

  “Experience is a useful thing,” she replied, since Hazaris weren’t the only ones who could be obscure. “I wish I knew if this American really has news of my father. To hear of him, where he is, what he does, would be wonderful.”

  “But I thought you had hardly seen him since you were a child, even before you left your country. You never speak of him. It has been as if you’d put him from your mind.”

  “No.”

  Chloe let that simple denial stand. She’d been her father’s tomboy princess. They had built birdhouses and tree houses together, ridden bikes together, gone fishing together and even spent the summer together when she was ten, at a fishing camp beside some lake in Louisiana. Sometimes, when the icy wind blew from the mountains, or when the sky was silver-white with heat and the rain would not fall, she dreamed of those endless summer days beside sparkling water. She longed in her dreams for the Louisiana air that was as warm and soft as silk, for the near-jungle of trees so green that they tinted the world with emerald light, for the lazy amble of passing days that were each a haven of peace and safety. Waking, she felt disoriented, as if she were in the wrong place. And she ached with memories of her dad, and how he had told her she was pretty, repeating it so often that she’d decided to believe it whether it was true or not. How could she ever forget him?

  “I’m sorry,” Treena said quietly.

  Chloe looked away to hide the sheen of moisture in her eyes. “I’ve wondered if my letters ever reached my father at all. If that was why I never heard from him, because he did not know where to write to me.”

  Her stepsister made no answer as she knelt, wiping dust from her young daughter’s legs and feet, murmuring soft nonsense to keep her still and entertained through the ritual. Something in the stiffness of her back caught at Chloe’s attention.

  “Treena?”

  “All things are possible.”

  Chloe frowned as she watched Ahmad’s sister gently press the child down on a pallet in a corner of the bedroom she sha
red with Ismael. “Are you saying,” she asked with slow control, “that they might have been intercepted?”

  Treena glanced at her from the corners of her eyes. “Oh, Chloe, must you always be so exact?”

  “Not always.” If she wanted answers she would have to play the Eastern game of allusions and suggestions that permitted the speaker to make things known without leaving room for an outright accusation of betrayal. “Might there be a reason why someone would want to prevent this contact?”

  “I can think of none.”

  Nor could Chloe, other than sheer malice. And the only person she knew who seemed capable of that lived in the same house. “It could have been easy if one had the task of mailing these letters.”

  “True.”

  The head of the household naturally handled correspondence, since it was assumed to be a male function. It was infuriating as well as painful to think that Ahmad had taken advantage of that to interfere so drastically. “I could kill him,” she whispered.

  Treena shook her head. “It may be that he thought it was for the best.”

  “You must be joking.”

  “So much anger. You must not let it eat at you like Ahmad, Chloe. To have one in our family so consumed is enough.”

  She gave a short laugh. “What reason has he to be angry? He always wins.”

  “Our father left us with our grandparents after our mother died. He abandoned us while he flew away to that far-off magic land called America. Our mother’s parents did their best, but they were not young and had stern views on many things. Our grandfather, in particular, had strong dependence on the old ways and ancient laws. He despised modern machines and ideas, and particularly American machines and ideas because they were most modern of all. It was he who sent my brother across the border to be educated by the mullahs in Kabul. When Ahmad returned from Afghanistan, he was changed. All the tenderness was gone from him. He had been forged into a sword of Islam.”

  “And you?”

  “I was younger and a mere girl, so my grandmother’s responsibility. In any case, I was unworthy of schooling. Sometimes, when I look at my brother, I think it was just as well.”

  The soft voice stopped abruptly, as if Treena could not go on. “Forgive me, sister of the heart,” Chloe said quickly. “I didn’t mean to speak of things that cause you pain.”

  “No. Still, I want you to understand. If our father had come home sooner, if he had not replaced our mother with a proud American woman who was more beautiful, more educated, stronger in every way than our dead mother, it might have been all right. If he had not brought home a new daughter in the same image that he obviously loved more than his own children…”

  “That isn’t true.”

  “Isn’t it? Ahmad saw it as the truth, and that was enough. It became the polish for the sharp blade of his wrath. That and many other things.”

  “What things?”

  “Oh, the intervention of foreigners, foreign government agents in our country and our politics.”

  “The CIA, you mean.” The stories were whispered everywhere of money sent to back one faction or another in the endless war that had decimated the region, but it was almost impossible to separate truth from fiction.

  “And the Soviets, the Chinese, the Pakistani, though these hardly matter. It’s the Americans that he has turned into demons who seek to control our country or to bomb it into ruins. I only speak in hope you will understand my brother’s actions, both past and future.”

  “Future?” Some shade of meaning in the other woman’s voice sent a shiver over Chloe in spite of the close room that still held the leftover heat of the day.

  “A friend spoke with Ahmad in the hajra two evenings ago, the young one known as Zahir.”

  “I heard him arrive.” She had not seen the man, of course. Women were not permitted in this special room while male guests were being entertained.

  “Just so. As I passed by the grill, they were talking in low voices. It caught my attention. As I listened, they spoke of money, of a dowry.”

  Chloe stared at her. “What are you saying?”

  “It cannot have been for Ahmad’s sake as he has sworn never to marry, and my Uma is too young yet to be a bride.” She reached out and touched her daughter’s cheek where she sat on Chloe’s lap.

  “But…you can’t mean me. I’m so old!” Shock left Chloe numb, unable to think clearly. She’d feared this for years, since her stepfather had first broached the subject, but when nothing came of it she had allowed herself to believe it would never happen.

  “This is true. But though a younger bride is preferred since she may be more easily trained, you are unusual with your fair skin and coloring. This is an attraction to many men.”

  “Ahmad wants to be rid of me.”

  “There is the bride-price.”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “Do not distress yourself, my dearest Chloe. Any husband chosen will come to love you, for how could it be otherwise? You are kind and good and will give him intelligent children. They will be fair to look upon as well, for you are beautiful with your eyes as blue as the mountains and yards of hair like shining brown silk.” She touched her abdomen, barely rounded since she was only four months or so into her pregnancy. “Your children shall be your consolation.”

  Children. Chloe tightened her arms around Uma and brushed her lips across the top of the small head as a slow surge of love moved through her for this child that she’d helped to bring into the world, tended daily and taught so many things already. She hadn’t let herself think of children of her own, didn’t dare even now. “I can’t,” she said, her voice aching in her throat. “I can’t do it.”

  Treena gazed at her in alarm for a second, then turned to take Uma from her and put her to bed, drawing up the sheet to cover her small legs. “You cannot refuse. You saw the consequences today.”

  “Ahmad made sure of that, didn’t he.”

  “Just so.”

  Treena leaned over the pallet to remove a cloth doll from too near the face of the nine-month-old baby girl who lay sprawled with a thumb in her mouth. Then she put a hand across the small forehead. A gray cast appeared under the darkness of her skin.

  “What is it?” Chloe asked sharply.

  “She’s hot, so very hot. Oh, I knew she should not be left with the poor, stupid housemaid while we were in Kashi. She only sits with her hands between her knees while my little Anashita crawls everywhere and puts filth in her mouth.”

  Chloe breathed a soft imprecation as she knelt beside her stepsister. The servant she spoke of was a widow who had come begging at the back door, offering herself as a servant in return for food and a pallet in a corner of a back room. Ahmad had agreed for the sake of the cheap labor and Treena out of pity, but the widow was barely able to function in her abject misery. Now it had come to this.

  In Chloe’s mind was the same terror that she’d heard in Treena’s voice. She could not stand the thought of losing any one of the little girls. Yet children died so easily here where there were no vaccinations against childhood diseases, few antibiotics to be had at any price, and almost no means available to fight the stomach viruses and infections that were an inevitable part of growing up. Women like her stepsister bore many children because birth control was prohibited, but also in hope that a few would live to adulthood. They bore them in spite of the pain and danger of primitive methods of childbirth or dismal infant mortality rates. Chloe sometimes thought their courage put that of men to shame.

  “A doctor,” she said. “Ismael must go.”

  Treena shook her head. “Ahmad will not permit it.”

  She should have known, would have if she’d stopped to think. With the corrosion of bitterness in her voice, she said, “Pray God the child you carry is a boy. Then he may think it worth a doctor’s fee.”

  “The old women have said it’s so.” A dismal attempt at a smile quivered the corners of Treena’s mouth as she touched her abdomen again.

&nbs
p; “We can always say he’s the sick one, then, so the girls can have medicine. For now, we must bring down the fever.”

  They roused the nursemaid and set her to boiling water. In the meantime, they put the child in a cool bath, splashing her again and again. When the water on the stove was sterile, they added salt, sugar and lemon juice and stirred it until it cooled. Then they took turns spooning minute amounts of the liquid between the baby’s pink lips. And all the time they worked, they prayed.

  In the emergency, the subject of marriage was pushed aside. Treena might have been wrong about what she’d overheard in any case, Chloe thought. Or failing that, the prospective groom might prove uninterested, negotiation of the bride-price could break down or Ahmad might change his mind in disgust. Nothing was really official until she was told it was to happen. She would wait until then to moan about her fate.

  2

  She couldn’t get the man who waited for her at the bazaar out of her mind on the following morning. She pictured him wandering through the stalls with their piles of multicolored spices, wilted vegetables, rugs, silver and hammered brass plates sheltered by windblown lengths of embroidered or handwoven cloth. He would stand head and shoulders above most men, so would be conspicuous even without his Western clothes, bare head and beardless face. If he ceased moving and stood back, leaning on some wall as he scanned the women in their burqas for her arrival, he still could not avoid notice. He would be stared at, whispered about, perhaps even harassed by the police.

  It was unlikely that he would linger. He would tire before long and stride away, back to his hotel and his life in the States. She gave him an hour at most. In her experience, men had no patience with waiting on women.