Fariba must have recognized her, walking in burqa beside Rasheed. She waved, and called
out, "Eidmubarak!"
From inside the burqa, Mariam gave her a ghost of a nod.
"So you know that woman, the teacher's wife?" Rasheed said
Mariam said she didn't.
"Best you stay away. She's a nosy gossiper, that one. And the husband fancies himself
some kind of educated intellectual But he's a mouse. Look at him. Doesn't he look like a
mouse?"
They went to Shar-e-Nau, where kids romped about in new shirts and beaded, brightly
colored vests and compared Eid gifts. Women brandished platters of sweets. Mariam saw
festive lanterns hanging from shop windows, heard music blaring from loudspeakers.
Strangers called out "Eidmubarak" to her as they passed.
That night they went to Chaman, and, standing behind Rasheed, Mariam watched
fireworks light up the sky, in flashes of green, pink, and yellow. She missed sitting with
Mullah Faizullah outside the kolba, watching the fireworks explode over Herat in the
distance, the sudden bursts of color reflected in her tutor's soft, cataract riddled eyes. But,
mostly, she missed Nana. Mariam wished her mother were alive to see this. To seeher,
amid all of it. To see at last that contentment and beauty were not unattainable things. Even
for the likes of them.
They had Eid visitors at the house. They were all men, friends of Rasheed's. When a
knock came, Mariam knew to go upstairs to her room and close the door. She stayed there,
as the men sipped tea downstairs with Rasheed, smoked, chatted. Rasheed had told Mariam
that she was not to come down until the visitors had left
Mariam didn't mind. In truth, she was even flattered. Rasheed saw sanctity in what they
had together. Her honor, her namoos, was something worth guarding to him. She felt prized
by his protectiveness. Treasured and significant.
On the third and last day of Eid, Rasheed went to visit some friends. Mariam, who'd had a
queasy stomach all night, boiled some water and made herself a cup of green tea sprinkled
with crushed cardamom. In the living room, she took in the aftermath of the previous
night's Eid visits: the overturned cups, the half chewed pumpkin seeds stashed between
mattresses, the plates crusted with the outline of last night's meal. Mariam set about
cleaning up the mess, marveling at how energetically lazy men could be.
She didn't mean to go into Rasheed's room. But the cleaning took her from the living room
to the stairs, and then to the hallway upstairs and to his door, and, the next thing she knew,
she was in his room for the first time, sitting on his bed, feeling like a trespasser.