21
Living with Farrah and Wana felt like freedom to Marjan, felt more like a life she might have dreamed up. One semester ended,
another began. She was living with two women close to her age, two women who had become the circle Samia had encouraged her
to find. She knew, though, that Wana and Farrah needed quiet and peace to study. To keep them from growing resentful of Hawa’s
many questions, her playful antics, she made a habit of taking Hawa out in the early evenings, when it was just dark enough
to see the moon.
“It looks like a balloon!” Hawa exclaimed.
“She’s full again. That means another month has gone by,” she explained to Hawa as they walked back toward the apartment.
“Remember when there was just a wink of light, so skinny we could hardly see it? Look at her now, letting her whole face glow.”
Marjan was beginning to feel a kinship with the moon in that way. She was beginning to recognize that she went through phases
as well, those quiet revolutions. She understood the waning moon. There were times she wanted to hide from the world, to curl
up into a silent ball. And then there were times when she walked along the high walls that surrounded the university with
her daughter by her side that she felt so full of light, she might fill the sky.
She bore witness to the waning, but she was buoyed by the waxing.
She was in that phase of lunar replenishment the week the temperature dropped.
Before long, she would need a winter jacket for Hawa.
Wana had found her work with a local seamstress, adding embroidered patterns onto sleeves and necklines.
To prove herself, Marjan was asked to copy an embroidery pattern onto a swatch of cotton.
Marjan stitched carefully, checking and rechecking her work against the colored sketch the seamstress had given her.
She ripped out more stitches than she put in for the first hour, unsure of herself.
But her finished product won her the job, so she dedicated her early mornings, while Hawa was still asleep, to stitching.
She thought of Aneesa often and wondered how she was faring.
Though Farrah and Wana were gracious about looking after Hawa while she worked, Marjan did her best to keep out of their way
when they were home. She stayed in the confines of the room as much as possible and kept Hawa occupied with coloring books
and crayons she purchased in the market. She taught her to count to ten on her fingers and made her repeat the letters of
the alphabet after her. Marjan hadn’t had much schooling, but her literacy had made all the difference in her world. Without
it, she might still be living under Abdul Khaliq’s roof, enduring his abuses. Without it, she wouldn’t be able to read the
newspaper or signs in store windows. Marjan was determined to teach Hawa everything she knew. She could hardly wait for the
day that she could walk Hawa to school and watch her enter the gates with other children. She wanted her daughter to feel
at home in a classroom, to impress the teachers with her handwriting and knowledge.
Of this, Marjan was certain. By her third birthday, Hawa could recite the alphabet and knew the sounds each letter made. Marjan
would trace simple words onto her palm—“water,” “give,” “dog,” “rain,” “milk”—and she would recognize “water,” “give,” “dog,”
“rain.”
On this day, Marjan thought she would try something new.
H-A-W-A, she traced onto the soft flesh of her daughter’s hand.
“Hawa!” she cried, delighted to recognize her own name. “Another one!”
M-A-D-A-R, she spelled next.
“Maaa . . . maaa . . .”
“Madar,” Marjan filled in. And as she reviewed the sounds the letters made, she closed Hawa’s fingers over the invisible letters
so that she could linger there in the warmth of her daughter’s hand.
Hawa stood in front of the television. It was the hour of her favorite programming, a music show with a rotation of the country’s
best vocalists performing against an electric backdrop of bright purple and green lights. A neon Pepsi sign hung prominently
in the corner. Today’s singer was a man in his early twenties, maybe. He sported a trendy goatee and wore a burgundy velvet
blazer with a black lapel over dark-washed jeans. He held the final note of the verse, his chin pointed to the spotlights
above the stage. He pointed to the keyboard player, whose fingers danced over the white and black keys. The singer adjusted
his aviator sunglasses and swaggered across the stage, his feet in step with the song’s upbeat tempo.
Hawa burst into applause.
“He’s her favorite,” Wana noted.
“He’s your favorite,” Farrah said, which made Wana blush. “She’s only clapping to be polite. This man is a walking disco ball. Are his
shoes made of gold? His watch is so big, I can tell the time from here.”
Marjan watched Hawa bend down to pick up a yellow barrette she’d spotted on the rug. She tried to press it onto her head with
so much force that her whole body leaned to the right.
“Come, let me help you with that,” Marjan said, smiling. Hawa walked to her mother, who noticed that her leggings no longer
reached her ankles. Were the pants shrinking or had she grown that much already? She was thriving in this life, with regular
meals and fewer roommates and her mother teaching her words and numbers. Marjan clipped her bangs to the side and planted
a kiss on her daughter’s head.
“Okay, lovely people. Time for me to go deliver my paper to my dictator of a professor,” Farrah complained.
“He gave us less than a week for this assignment and I absolutely cannot have this class bring down my grades. If I get anything less, my father will demand I return home. I had to beg to be here and they only let me come because they knew I would be living with this saint of a woman, our theologian. Little do they know . . .”
“Farrah, you’re impossible,” Wana complained.
Farrah cut her eyes at her cousin. “You’re the most dangerous kind of woman, Wana, and I love you for it. A woman who knows
the scripture better than the mullahs. She’ll have them tearing their beards out soon enough. Inshallah!”
Hawa laughed at the image.
“What about you, Marjan?” Wana asked. “Have you considered enrolling in university studies?”
Marjan felt her neck grow warm. She had told her roommates that she’d been married off young but hadn’t been precise, nor
had she mentioned how early she’d been forced to abandon school. Would Wana still think Marjan could survive a university
class if she knew she’d never even been to high school?
“Maybe someday,” Marjan said bashfully. She stole a glance at Hawa, her honey-colored strands sparkling in the slant of autumn
light falling through the window.
“Come visit the campus with me,” Farrah said. “It will inspire you to feel like a student again.”
Marjan looked at the digital clock on the side table.
“I have to leave for work in forty minutes,” she said. Elyas had given her so much grace, she did not want to be late for
work.
“We’ll just walk through,” Farrah said. “I’m not asking you to sit in a class with me. And Hawa’s busy with her favorite show
anyway. Is that okay with you, Wana?”
Wana had already retreated to her usual position, her feet curled under her, a textbook on her lap and a yellow highlighter
in her hand like a spear in the grip of a hunter.
“Go on, it’s no problem at all. I’m going to let her dance until she falls asleep,” Wana said. Marjan thanked her and went
to her room to grab her purse, before kissing Hawa goodbye.
Farrah opened the door and led the way. Marjan had walked all around the university campus, the street lined with pine trees that stood guard like straight-backed soldiers, painted white from the waist down to protect their bark from pests and the scorching sun.
Farrah talked about the research she had done for this global business class, and Marjan pretended to understand the technical terms she used.
As they approached the main gate, Marjan stayed close to Farrah, half expecting someone to call her out for trespassing.
Surely, she thought, everyone could see that she did not belong here.
But nothing happened. They walked through the open gates and entered a world thrumming with activity. Students walked along
the wide cement paths, some alone and some in groups of three or four. There were postures unique to this world—the asymmetry
of a student weighed down on one side by a bag full of texts and notebooks, the forward lean of a student late for class,
and the tilted head of a student caught up in a stimulating conversation. A bicycle chimed and laughter echoed behind Marjan
as she took in the size of the buildings. Each discipline, Farrah explained, had its own space on campus.
The air felt different here, suffused with purpose and optimism. Marjan had trouble focusing on what Farrah was saying. She
was intoxicated.
“This is where the department of economics holds most of its classes. Do you see those last two windows there?” Farrah asked,
pointing to the end of the building looming before them with tall, rectangular windows on the facade. “That’s where my professor’s
office is. Come, let’s go.”
“I could just wait for you by those benches,” Marjan demurred. She wouldn’t mind a chance to be still and take in the surroundings,
the students crisscrossing the lawn. Marjan’s mind was moving forward and backward at the same time, remembering what it felt
like to sit in a classroom as a child and wondering what it might feel like to walk through those heavy doors.
“Don’t be silly. Come with me,” Farrah said, pulling Marjan by the elbow and leaving her with no option but to follow. They
entered the building and went up a flight of stairs. “I hope he’s in his office.”