When the Moon Is Low Read online

  DEDICATION

  For Zoran, who made me the luckiest girl in the world when he promised to always be my best friend

  EPIGRAPH

  The small man

  Builds cages for everyone

  He

  Knows.

  While the sage,

  Who has to duck his head

  When the moon is low,

  Keeps dropping keys all night long

  For the

  Beautiful

  Rowdy

  Prisoners.

  —“DROPPING KEYS” BY HAFIZ, A FOURTEENTH-CENTURY SUFI POET

  MAP

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Map

  Prologue: Fereiba

  Part One Chapter 1: Fereiba

  Chapter 2: Fereiba

  Chapter 3: Fereiba

  Chapter 4: Fereiba

  Chapter 5: Fereiba

  Chapter 6: Fereiba

  Chapter 7: Fereiba

  Chapter 8: Fereiba

  Chapter 9: Fereiba

  Chapter 10: Fereiba

  Chapter 11: Fereiba

  Chapter 12: Fereiba

  Chapter 13: Fereiba

  Chapter 14: Fereiba

  Chapter 15: Fereiba

  Chapter 16: Fereiba

  Chapter 17: Fereiba

  Chapter 18: Fereiba

  Chapter 19: Saleem

  Chapter 20: Saleem

  Chapter 21: Fereiba

  Chapter 22: Saleem

  Chapter 23: Saleem

  Chapter 24: Saleem

  Chapter 25: Saleem

  Chapter 26: Saleem

  Chapter 27: Saleem

  Chapter 28: Saleem

  Chapter 29: Saleem

  Part Two Chapter 30: Saleem

  Chapter 31: Fereiba

  Chapter 32: Saleem

  Chapter 33: Saleem

  Chapter 34: Saleem

  Chapter 35: Fereiba

  Chapter 36: Saleem

  Chapter 37: Saleem

  Chapter 38: Saleem

  Chapter 39: Fereiba

  Chapter 40: Saleem

  Chapter 41: Saleem

  Chapter 42: Saleem

  Chapter 43: Saleem

  Chapter 44: Saleem

  Chapter 45: Fereiba

  Chapter 46: Saleem

  Chapter 47: Saleem

  Chapter 48: Saleem

  Chapter 49: Saleem

  Chapter 50: Saleem

  Chapter 51: Saleem

  Chapter 52: Saleem

  Chapter 53: Saleem

  Chapter 54: Saleem

  Chapter 55: Fereiba

  Chapter 56: Saleem

  Acknowledgments

  Glossary

  About the Author

  Also by Nadia Hashimi

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  PROLOGUE

  Fereiba

  THOUGH I LOVE TO SEE MY CHILDREN RESTING SOUNDLY, IN THE quiet of their slumber my uneasy mind retraces our journey. How did I come to be here, with two of my three children curled on the bristly bedspread of a hotel room? So far from home, so far from voices I recognize.

  In my youth, Europe was the land of fashion and sophistication. Fragrant body creams, fine tailored jackets, renowned universities. Kabul admired the fair-complexioned imperialists beyond the Ural Mountains. We batted our eyelashes at them and blended their refinement with our tribal exoticism.

  When Kabul crumbled, so did the starry-eyed dreams of my generation. We no longer saw Europe’s frills. We could barely see beyond our own streets, so thick were the plumes of war. By the time my husband and I decided to flee our homeland, Europe’s allure had been reduced to its singular, sexiest quality—peace.

  I AM NO LONGER A NEW BRIDE OR A YOUNG WOMAN. I AM A mother, farther from Kabul than I have ever been. My children and I have crossed mountains, deserts, and oceans to reach this dank hotel room, utterly unsophisticated and unfragrant. This land is not what I expected. Good thing all that I coveted from a youthful distance is no longer important to me.

  Everything I see, hear, and touch is not my own. My senses burn with the foreignness of my days.

  I dare not disturb the children, as much as my heart wishes they would wake and interrupt my thoughts. I let them sleep because I know how exhausted they feel. We are a tired bunch, sometimes too tired to smile at one another. As much as I’d like to sleep, I feel obligated to stay awake and listen to the nervous banging in my head.

  I long to hear Saleem’s determined footsteps in the hallway.

  My wrist is bare. My gold bangles and their melancholy clink are gone. It was my plan to sell them. Our pockets are too empty for us to brave the rest of our journey. There is still a long road ahead before we reach our destination.

  Saleem is so eager to prove himself. He’s more like his father than his adolescent heart could realize. He thinks of himself as a man, and much of that may be my doing. Too many times I’ve given him reason to believe he is one. But he is not much more than a boy, and the unforgiving world is eager to remind him of it.

  I’m going, Madar-jan. If we hide in a room every time we are nervous, we will never make it to England.

  There was truth to what he said. I bit my tongue, but the gnawing feeling in my stomach condemns me for it. Until my son returns, I will stare at the sickly white walls, paintings of anchors, faded artificial flowers. I will wait for the walls to collapse, for the anchors to crash to the floor and the flowers to turn into dust. I need Saleem to come back.

  I think of my husband more now than I did in those days he stood by my side. What foolish and ungrateful hearts we have when we are young.

  I wait for the doorknob to turn, for my son to enter, boasting that he’s done for our family what I could not. I would give anything for him not to risk as much as he does. But I have nothing to barter for such a naïve wish. All I have is spread before me, two innocent souls lightly stirring in their own troubled dreams.

  I can touch them still, I remind myself. Saleem will return, God willing, and we will be as close to complete as we can hope to be. One day, we will not look over our shoulders in fear or sleep on borrowed land with one eye open or shudder at the sight of a uniform. One day we will have a place to call home. I will carry these children—my husband’s children—as far as I can and pray that we will reach that place where, in the quiet of their slumber, I, too, will rest.

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER 1

  Fereiba

  MY FATE WAS SEALED IN BLOOD ON THE DAY OF MY BIRTH. AS I struggled to enter this twisted world, my mother resigned it, taking with her my chances of being a true daughter. The midwife sliced through the cord and released my mother from any further obligation to me. Her body paled while mine pinked; her breaths ceased as I learned to cry. I was cleaned off, wrapped in a blanket, and brought out to meet my father, now a widower thanks to me. He fell to his knees, the color leached from his face. Padar-jan told me himself that it was three days before he could bring himself to hold the daughter who had taken his wife. I wish I couldn’t imagine what thoughts had crossed his mind, but I can. I’m fairly certain that had he been given the choice, he would have chosen my mother over me.

  My father did his best but he wasn’t built for the task. In his defense, it wasn’t easy in those days. Or in any days, for that matter. Padar-jan was the son of a vizier with local clout. People in town turned to my grandfather for counsel, mediation, and loans. My grandfather, Boba-jan, was even tempered, resolute, and sagacious. He made decisions easily and didn’t waver in the face of dissent. I don’t know if he was always right, but he spoke with such conviction that people believed he was.

  Soon after he was marr
ied, Boba-jan had come upon a substantial amount of land through a clever trade. The fruits of this land fed and housed generations of our family. My grandmother, Bibi-jan, who died two years before my tragic birth, had given him four sons, my father being the youngest. Her four sons had all grown up enjoying the privilege their father had secured for them. The family was respected in town, and each of my uncles had married well, inheriting a portion of the land on which they each started their own families.

  My father, too, owned land—an orchard, to be exact—and worked as a local official in our town, Kabul, the bustling capital of Afghanistan tucked away in the bosom of central Asia. The geography would become important to me only later in my life. Padar-jan was merely a faded carbon copy of my grandfather, not penned with enough pressure to imprint strong characters. He had Boba-jan’s good intentions but lacked his resolve.

  Padar-jan had inherited his piece of the family estate, the orchard, when he married my mother. He devoted himself to that orchard, tending to it morning and night, climbing its trees to pluck the choicest fruits and berries for my mother. On hot summer nights, he would sleep among the trees, intoxicated by the plush branches and the sweet scent of ripe peaches. He would barter part of the orchard’s yield for household staples and services and seemed satisfied with what he was able to garner in this way. He was content and didn’t seek much beyond his lot.

  My mother, from the bits and pieces I heard growing up, was a beautiful woman. Thick locks of ebony fell below her shoulders. She had warm eyes and regal cheekbones. She hummed while she worked, always wore a green pendant, and was well known for her mouthwatering aush, delicate noodles and spiced ground beef in a yogurt broth that warmed bellies in the harsh winter. My parents’ short-lived marriage had been a happy arrangement, judging by the way my father’s eyes would well up on the rare occasion he spoke of her. Though it took me almost a lifetime to do it, I put together what I knew of my mother and convinced myself that she had most likely forgiven my trespass against her. I would never see her, but I still needed to feel her love.

  About a year after their marriage, my mother gave birth to a healthy baby boy. My father took a first look at his son’s robust form and named him Asad, the lion. My grandfather whispered the azaan, or call to prayer, in Asad’s newborn ear, baptizing him as a Muslim. I doubt Asad was any different then. Most likely, he didn’t hear Boba-jan’s azaan, already distracted by mischief and ignoring the call to be righteous.

  Asad seemed to be born feeling he owned the world. He was, after all, my father’s first son, a source of immense pride for the family. He would carry our family name, inherit the land, and care for our parents in their golden years. As if he knew what was to be expected of him later in life, he consumed my mother and father. He nursed until my mother was raw and exhausted. My father scrambled to construct toys for his son to play with, planned for his education, and became even more intent that he bring home enough to keep his wife, a new mother, in good health and well nourished.

  My mother was proud to have given her husband a son, and a healthy one at that. Fearful that the neighbors or family members would be jealous and cast an evil eye on him, she sewed a small blue stone, an amulet, to the baby clothing her sister-in-law had given her to ward off the evil eye, or nazar. That wasn’t all she did. She had an arsenal of tricks to combat the many faces of nazar. If Asad felt heavier in her hands or if a visitor commented on his pink, fleshy cheeks, she would look to her nails. She punctuated their compliments with whispers of nam-e-khoda, praising God’s name. Arrogance attracted nazar with the ferocity of lightning on an open field.

  Day by day, Asad fattened off our mother’s milk, his face taking shape and his thighs thickening. Forty days after his birth, my mother breathed a sigh of relief that her son had survived the most dangerous time. My mother had seen a neighbor’s baby, two weeks after its birth, stiffen and shake desperately as if overcome by a wave of evil. The newborn’s spirit was taken before it could be named. I learned later that cutting an umbilical cord with a dirty knife probably seeded toxic bacteria in the baby’s blood. True or not, we Afghans are firm believers in not counting our chickens until forty days after they’ve hatched.

  Like so many mothers, Madar-jan called upon the powers of wild rue seeds, called espand. She let a handful of the black seeds smolder and pop over an open flame, the smoke wafting above Asad’s head as she sang

  It banishes the Evil eye, it is espand

  The blessing of King Naqshband

  Eye of nil, Eye of folks

  Eye of allies, Eye of foes

  Who ever wishes ill, let burn in these coals.

  The song traced back to the pre-Islamic religion of Zoroastrianism, though even Muslims trusted its powers. My father watched, pleased that his wife was taking such care to safeguard his progeny. And, oh, how it must have worked! My mother’s death didn’t affect my brother’s life the way it did mine. He was still my father’s firstborn, still managed to be successful in life, usually at the expense of others. His careless doings hurt those around him, often me, and yet he always seemed to emerge unscathed. In the two short years my mother nurtured him, he had gained enough strength to secure his place in the world.

  But my mother died before she could pin an amulet to my gown, before she could whisper nam-e-khoda, before she could look at her fingernails, and before she could lovingly waft the espand over my head. My life became a series of misfortunes, a product of unthwarted evil eyes. My birth was haunted by the death of my mother and, while Boba-jan mournfully whispered the azaan in my ear, a very different prayer was being said over my mother’s depleted body. The azaan, spoken in my grandfather’s voice, wove its way through to the fabric of my being, telling me to keep faith. My salvation was that I listened.

  My mother was buried in a newly dedicated cemetery near our home. I didn’t visit much, partly because no one would take me and partly because of my lingering guilt. I knew I had put her there and people would remind me of that.

  My father became a young widower with a two-year-old son and a newborn daughter. My brother, unruffled by our mother’s absence, crankily went about his toddler business, while I naïvely sought my mother’s bosom. With two children now in the nest, my father buried his bride and began looking for a new mother for his children.

  My grandfather hastened the process, knowing a newborn would not fare well in the unintuitive care of a man. As vizier, he was familiar with all the families in the neighborhood. He knew a local farmer who had five daughters, and the eldest was of marrying age. Boba-jan was sure the farmer, burdened with providing for five girls until they wed, would be agreeable to his son as a suitor.

  My grandfather went to the farmer’s home and, praising his son as a noble and trustworthy person who had the misfortune to be widowed early in life, he negotiated the engagement of the eldest daughter to my father. Gently emphasizing that the welfare of two small babes were to be taken into consideration, the process moved quickly. In months, Mahbuba entered our home where she was renamed, as most brides were, with a “house name.” It’s meant to be respectful, not calling a woman by her familiar name. I think it’s more than that, though. I think it’s a way of telling the bride not to look back. And sometimes that’s a good thing.

  KokoGul, as the eldest of five sisters, had cared for her younger siblings from an early age and was fully capable of tending to two children. She decided quickly not to live in my mother’s shadow. She rearranged the few decorative pieces in our home, discarded my mother’s clothing, and erased all evidence of her existence, save my brother and me. We were the only proof that she was not the first wife, an important distinction even if the first wife was dead.

  It was more common then for men to take on multiple wives, a practice that stemmed from times of war and the need to provide for widows, I’d been told. Practically speaking, this created a certain undercurrent of tension among the wives. The status of the first wife could not be matched by those that followed. Koko
Gul was robbed of the opportunity to be the first wife by a woman she never met, a woman she could not challenge. Instead, she was forced to rear the first wife’s children.

  KokoGul was not an evil woman. She did not starve me, beat me, or throw me out of the house. In fact, she fed me, bathed me, clothed me, and did all the things a mother should. When I stumbled upon language, I called her Mother. My first steps were toward her, the woman who nursed me through childhood fevers and scrapes.

  Yet all this was done at arm’s length. It didn’t take long for me to feel her resentment though it would be years before I could give it a name. My brother was the same but different. Within months, he transferred the title of “mother” to KokoGul and forgot that there had been another woman in her place. She tended to his needs with a bit more diligence, knowing that he was the key to my father’s heart. My complacent father, when at home, was satisfied that he had found his children a suitable mother. My grandfather, more astute with years, knew to watch over us. He was a constant presence.

  I wasn’t an orphan. I had parents and siblings, a warm home and enough food. I should have felt complete.

  But being without a mother is like being stripped naked and thrown into the snow. My biggest fear, the dread that grows alongside my love for my children, is that I may leave them in the same way.

  I wonder if that fear will ever pass.

  CHAPTER 2

  Fereiba

  KOKOGUL WAS A PLEASANT-LOOKING WOMAN, BUT SOMEONE YOU wouldn’t notice in a crowded room. She was nearly as tall as my father, with thick black hair that just grazed her shoulders. It was the kind of hair that would fall limp just minutes after the curlers came out. She was too buxom to look dainty and too thin to appear commanding. KokoGul had been painted with a palette of average colors.

  Two years after she married my father, KokoGul delivered her first child, a daughter, a disappointment she promptly blamed on my mother’s ghost. My half sister was named Najiba, after my deceased grandmother. Najiba had KokoGul’s round face, and dark eyes framed by thick, arched brows. KokoGul, following tradition, lined her daughter’s lids with kohl so she would have healthy eyesight and striking eyes. For the first two months, KokoGul spent hours trying to make some concoction of fennel seeds and herbs that would soothe Najiba’s colic and stop her howling. Until her temperament calmed, mother and daughter were a sleep-deprived, ornery duo.