hey sat across from her, Jalil and his wives, at a long, dark brown table. Between them,
in the center of the table, was a crystal vase of fresh marigolds and a sweating pitcher
of water. The red haired woman who had introduced herself as Niloufar's mother, Afsoon,
was sitting on Jalil's right. The other two, Khadija and Nargis, were on his left. The wives
each had on a flimsy black scarf, which they wore not on their heads but tied loosely
around the neck like an afterthought. Mariam, who could not imagine that they would wear
black for Nana, pictured one of them suggesting it, or maybe Jalil, just before she'd been
summoned.
Afsoon poured water from the pitcher and put the glass before Mariam on a checkered
cloth coaster. "Only spring and it's warm already," she said. She made a fanning motion
with her hand.
"Have you been comfortable?" Nargis, who had a small chin and curly black hair, asked.
"We hope you've been comfortable. This... ordeal...must be very hard for you. So
difficult."
The other two nodded. Mariam took in their plucked eyebrows, the thin, tolerant smiles
they were giving her. There was an unpleasant hum in Mariam's head. Her throat burned.
She drank some of the water.
Through the wide window behind Jalil, Mariam could see a row of flowering apple trees.
On the wall beside the window stood a dark wooden cabinet. In it was a clock, and a
framed photograph of Jalil and three young boys holding a fish. The sun caught the sparkle
in the fish's scales. Jalil and the boys were grinning.
"Well," Afsoon began. "I--that is, we--have brought you here because we have some very
good news to give you."
Mariam looked up.
She caught a quick exchange of glances between the women over Jalil, who slouched in
his chair looking unseeingly at the pitcher on the table. It was Khadija, the oldest looking of
the three, who turned her gaze to Mariam, and Mariam had the impression that this duty too
had been discussed, agreed upon, before they had called for her.
"You have a suitor," Khadija said.
Mariam's stomach fell. "A what?" she said through suddenly numb lips.
"A khasiegar. A suitor. His name is Rasheed," Khadija went on. "He is a friend of a
business acquaintance of your father's. He's a Pashtun, from Kandahar originally, but he
lives in Kabul, in the Deh Mazang district, in a two-story house that he owns."
Afsoon was nodding. "And he does speak Farsi, like us, like you. So you won't have to