30
Having the cast removed felt like being liberated from a cage. Marjan’s leg was stiff and her skin flaky, but the doctor reassured
her that diligent stretching and walking would restore her strength and flexibility. Until then, she would walk with a bit
of a limp.
The Rasulis had agreed to start paying her a bit of pocket money, though nothing close to a salary. As soon as she had scraped
together a few bills, one day Marjan asked Zargul if she could wrap up her duties a bit early so that she could pay her daughter
a visit. Zargul had readily agreed. Marjan understood that Zargul didn’t care for her presence, though she seemed quite content
to have the housework off her shoulders. She’d let Marjan use her phone a couple of times to call the orphanage but always
hovered close by. Meanwhile, Hawa had become extremely agitated on the phone, and the staff at the orphanage suggested maybe
she needed some time to adjust before she could handle hearing her mother’s voice.
Marjan climbed into a rickshaw and gave the driver the name of the neighborhood where the orphanage was located. He asked
her a second time if she had money for the fare and only started down the road when she showed him a small fan of bills.
Marjan folded the end of her headscarf and pressed the doubled layers over her nose and mouth, but the bitter exhaust from the many cars on the road seeped through and caused her throat to itch.
Despite the concrete walls and veils and threats, this was an utterly permeable city.
Smoke. Resentment. Fear. Violence. Nothing could be contained.
Marjan wished Soraya could have been there with her. She and her mother had traveled to the provinces for a funeral. She had
left a week ago and wouldn’t return for another month. The distance made Marjan realize just how much she had come to treasure
Soraya as a friend. She found this both comforting and unnerving. Her friendships had all been brief, the goodbyes abrupt
and painful. She wondered if she should just tolerate the loneliness, if that would guard her from hurt. She pushed the thought
away. Maybe things would be different this time.
The air cleared as the rickshaw began to reach the city limits. There were fewer cars and shops. They passed a cemetery, a
hillside scattered with tombstones of all shapes, jagged edges and pointy tips. Children ran across the graves, dodging tombstones
as if they were players on a rival team. Their laughter floated down to the street, breaking through the rickshaw’s rumble.
The rickshaw driver’s phone didn’t have GPS, and Marjan did not have a phone, so they were reliant on the directions given
to Marjan by the orphanage director. The roads were haphazardly arranged in this district, and Marjan had to step out of the
rickshaw twice to ask someone on the street if they knew where the orphanage was located, but neither person could help. When
she asked to stop and ask a third person, the driver asked for his fare and sped away. Marjan stood for a moment, trying to
decide on a direction, when a woman came around the corner.
“The orphanage?” she said when Marjan stopped her. She pointed to a yellow structure peeking out from behind a privacy wall.
“If you were any closer, you might have tripped over a child.”
The building sat at the end of a street, announced only by a faded, wooden placard by the gate. Marjan knocked three times
on the door, then stepped back. She was so eager to see Hawa again, she worried her knees might buckle with anticipation.
The gate swung open, and Marjan was greeted by a woman wearing a cheery green headscarf and a bright smile. Marjan wondered if she’d been expecting someone else. Her expression did not change, though, upon seeing Marjan.
“Salaam! Can I help you?”
“Yes, please. My daughter, Hawa, is here. I’ve come to see her finally. I’ve been unable to come sooner,” Marjan said, embarrassed
by her absence. They all must have thought her a terrible mother.
“Oh, yes. Come, come! I’m Atefa. We spoke once on the phone,” she said, waving Marjan in and shutting the gate behind her.
Marjan entered the private yard of the building. A concrete walkway led to a two-story structure with large windows and two
fluted columns on either side of the entrance. On either side of the walkway were rosebushes dotted with pink blooms and sunflowers,
tall and vigilant guardians.
“I’m so glad you’re well enough to come. Hawa-jan is a brilliant child and she’s been thriving here. She’s made so many friends.
We’ve actually just gathered the girls for a birthday celebration and she helped set up the tables. She’s so mature, more
like a child twice her age!” Atefa boasted.
Marjan wanted to push past Atefa, to run down the hallway and toward the sound of children chattering and find her daughter.
“Here they are!” Atefa said, stopping at an open door on the right. Marjan saw a cluster of girls, some younger than Hawa
and some in their early teens, with paper plates in their hands. They were gathered around a folding table in the center of
the room, atop which sat a half-eaten sheet cake decorated with white and pink frosting.
“Hawa? Hawa, I’m here!” she called out. Half the girls turned to see who was calling one of the youngest among them. Marjan
stepped into the room, her eyes searching for and then finding her daughter.
From behind other girls, Hawa emerged like a sunflower leaning toward the light. She ran into her mother’s open arms. Throats
tight, sobs barely contained, they clung to each other while the other girls watched. Hawa had grown, Marjan marveled. Even
in these two months, she appeared taller, older. Marjan kissed her daughter’s cheek and brushed away tears that might have
been hers but also could have been Hawa’s.
“Let’s step into the next room,” Atefa suggested, aware of the audience.
Many of the other girls also had family members who would pay them visits, mothers who would come with small gifts and big kisses.
But emotional reunions could trigger others, even a girl who just missed her mother more on that given day.
Two doors down, Marjan and Hawa sat side by side on a round rug, the classroom walls around them painted sky blue, with geometric
shapes in pale green. The shapes were cartoon characters with angular limbs, round eyes, and smiles shaped like crescent moons.
A stack of plastic chairs was parked in the corner of the room.
“Why didn’t you come before? I’ve been here so long!” Hawa cried.
“I know, my love, and I’m so very sorry! If I could have come sooner, I would have. I had to stay in the hospital for a long
time to get better.”
Hawa looked her over then, as if searching for the wounds that would justify her mother’s absence. She could see nothing,
of course. That was the problem with healing. It was too easy for others to believe there’d never really been an injury.
“I’ve missed you so, so much. I’ve wanted nothing more than to hear your voice and put my arms around you,” Marjan said, cupping
her daughter’s face in her hands.
Hawa smiled, warmed by her mother’s attention and relieved that she’d not been abandoned. The orphanage staff hadn’t bothered
to tell Marjan that Hawa cried often, especially in the first few weeks. Or that she continued to wet the bed and sometimes
grew so frustrated that she tore through sheets of paper with angry scribbles, snapping crayons in half. These were normal
behaviors for children in an orphanage, after all. Every child went through an adjustment period, and it did no one any good
to dwell on it.
“I hear you’ve been doing so well here! My smart girl, I’m not the least bit surprised.”
“The teachers are nice,” Hawa said. “I like the songs.”
Marjan smiled. Singing was a sign of joy, wasn’t it? She couldn’t imagine a sad child singing.
“Will we go home now?” Hawa asked.
“Home?” Marjan asked, as if this wasn’t all she was thinking about too.
She had practiced this conversation with herself, the spurious excuse she would offer her daughter for why she would not take her home this very minute.
“I wish I could do just that, but we can’t go back to the apartment with Farrah and Wana.
They’ve left and won’t be coming back to Kabul.
I am staying somewhere that will not allow children.
I’m working very hard to earn enough money so that we can live somewhere together. ”
How much money did Marjan need to walk out of this building with her? Couldn’t she just take her daughter’s hand?
“Do you live in a hospital?” Hawa asked.
“No, not anymore. I live in a home. I have a small room to myself. I work at that home. That’s the only job I could find for
now.”
Hawa sat on her hands.
“It’s a home but not for children?”
“There’s only one baby there. My job is to help take care of the home and that baby. But no, they won’t allow any other children.
And believe me, I begged them.”
“You take care of a baby?” Hawa asked.
“I . . . I do,” Marjan confirmed, knowing that Hawa was hearing she was capable of being a mother, just not to her.
Marjan, flustered, tried to change the subject. She asked Hawa to show her some of her drawings or schoolwork. Hawa went to
the wall and retrieved a green folder. She handed the folder to Marjan, who opened it gingerly, extracting one page at a time
and lingering on each worksheet, marveling at each drawing. Marjan was astounded by how much Hawa was learning but also felt
her daughter’s eyes on her. She had a debt of attention to pay.
Atefa returned and asked Marjan if she wanted to see the rest of the orphanage. Hawa led the way this time, pointing out the
long rooms lined with metal-framed bunk beds. Her room was a patchwork of mismatched rugs, curtains, and blankets. Hawa pointed
out her bed. She pointed to the bed of another girl, a friend she had made.
An hour went by quickly. As did a second hour. The sun had dipped below the horizon, and Marjan knew she had to leave. Hawa saw her look at the clock on the wall.
“Don’t go. You can stay here,” Hawa offered.
“They won’t allow me,” Marjan said gently, Hawa’s small hands in her own.
“Can I go with you? Just for tonight?” Hawa asked.
Marjan was grateful for Atefa, who knew just when to intervene.
“You had a wonderful visit with your dear mother and she can come back soon, but it’s time to say goodbye. Dinnertime and
then bedtime.”
“You can stay here with me.”
“My love, if I could—” Marjan tried to hug Hawa, but as soon as she touched her daughter, Hawa stiffened. A switch flipped
in her.
“Mommy, don’t go! Don’t go don’t go don’t go!”
Marjan tried to calm her daughter; she tried to find the words that would make Hawa understand. She stammered. But even if
perfect words could have found their way into her mouth, it wouldn’t have mattered. Marjan was drowned out by Hawa’s cries,
by the crescendo of her anguish. Atefa knew what to do. She gave Marjan a nod and turned herself into an anchor, wrapped her
arms around a flailing Hawa, spoke into her ear, and held on tightly until Marjan was out the door, down the hallway, and
on the other side of the metal gate. Panting.
Marjan’s departure was swift. Cowardly. Had she just run away from her daughter? This was why she had stopped asking to speak
to Hawa when she called the orphanage, as well. Every conversation had triggered a storm of emotions in Hawa, and it took
the orphanage staff a couple of hours to settle her.
The skies had darkened. Every passing headlight seemed to shine directly onto Marjan’s face with the intensity of an interrogator’s
beam, revealing the truth of what she was and, most important, what she was not.