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“Why have you come?” Marjan asks.
“Soraya told me you were coming here. She was worried about you. I didn’t want to risk communicating by phone. God alone knows
what they can and can’t track with all the new equipment they’ve inherited from the Americans. Well, God and the Pentagon,”
Mina grouses.
Kobra recognized Mina and was happy to turn her home over to her and Marjan so they could talk. She likes Mina’s penchant
for justice, her no-nonsense questions. So many police officers fattened their wallets with money the widows gave so that
the homes they built here would not be knocked down yet again, so that their city would not be turned to dust because of some
archaic ordinance. Kobra is with the other women now, reassuring them that even though another woman has entered Zanabad,
things are under control.
Kobra hopes this is true.
“I have never wanted to leave my homeland.” Mina sighs. She rubs her left temple, wills away a blooming headache. “Look what
they’ve done to us, these allies. People are watching us cling to the outside of airplanes and fall to our deaths. It’s humiliating.
Tragic. I wanted to stay and do the job I have been trained to do. The job I love doing. But I fear there’s no place for me
here. They’ll make sure of that.”
Marjan nods. She has seen what life is like in areas controlled by the Taliban.
They will not stomach a woman reporting on their activities.
Even this progressive city—one that loved Mina’s interjections of poetry, her scripture-supported feminism, her unflinching criticism of corrupt leaders—even the people of this city can turn quickly on a rogue woman.
The Taliban are radioactive. Their proximity causes small but fatal mutations in men and women.
There is nothing to see immediately, but before long, a cancerous cell will manifest and multiply.
Lives will be cut short and there will be no bullet to trace, no wounds to see.
“I want to leave with you,” Mina says.
Marjan nearly laughs. “I wish I could help you. I’ve tried and tried and failed each time. And this morning—”
Marjan stops abruptly.
Hawa shoots her a look, reminds her that the tie that binds them to this woman is Khala Soraya. Mina picks up on the glance.
“What happened this morning?” she asks.
“You know that Soraya-jan—I cannot bring myself to think of her gone—that Soraya-jan and I served together in the military.
You know, of course, that for this we have targets on our backs.”
Mina nods.
“But there’s more,” Marjan says. “You have reported on a warlord, one with a long history of dirty deeds.”
“That describes many. Be more specific.”
“Abdul Khaliq,” Marjan says.
“Ruthless, that one,” Mina recalls. “And clever. He pretended to be progressive and had manipulated an election to have his
wife in Parliament for a while as his proxy.”
Marjan takes a deep breath. “Badriya was one of his wives. I was another.”
Mina drops her headscarf and stares at Marjan.
“Soraya made no mention of this,” she says.
“I asked her not to. I couldn’t let anyone know.”
“I see,” Mina says, her mind calculating implications and reassessing risks. She extends her legs and fans herself with a
folded piece of paper she’s fished out of her purse.
“I ran away before Hawa was born,” Marjan explains. “He knows about her, though. I’ve secretly been in touch with my sister who is married to his relative. I think my nephew has betrayed us. And this morning, I spotted Abdul Khaliq at the airport. We escaped but he’ll be on the lookout for us.”
Mina knows enough about Abdul Khaliq to guess his intentions. Men like him don’t tolerate disobedience, especially from women.
Marjan will share Soraya’s fate, but not Hawa. Hawa will become a servant in her father’s household and live a life of penance
for her mother’s sins.
Mina has a full-blown headache now.
“We could try to cross a border,” she says. “But that means driving, and who knows how many checkpoints they’ve set up. We
would have to pay a smuggler, a driver. It’s risky. Our best hope is still the airport, before the last flight takes off.”
Marjan agrees with her assessment. “But how to get through?”
They talk about the various gates, the crowds, the heat, and the threat of another terrorist attack. Marjan recounts to her
their previous attempts, the checkpoints down the road, the trench they waded through, the hordes camped out on the periphery.
She tells her about the guidance from her American sister soldiers.
“We have to try something different,” Mina says.
“Different how? It’s the same airport. And now he knows I’m going to be there. He recognized me, after all this time. I waved
that stupid orange scarf around and caught his attention.”
“If he hadn’t been there, that orange scarf might have gotten the attention of the right people. Do not blame yourself,” Mina
admonishes. Marjan’s eyes brim with tears because it feels like Soraya’s voice is coming through her aunt. Marjan wipes her
tears brusquely.
“I don’t know if I can slip past him,” Marjan says.
“Probably best if he doesn’t see either of us,” Mina says, and sighs. “We could both throw on chadoris but that will keep
you from signaling the Americans guarding the gates. We need them to let us through.”
They meditate on this. In the background are the sounds of this city within a city.
The oomph of a deflated ball met by a child’s foot.
The clanging of a metal spoon against an aluminum pot.
The chirping of a child echoing her mother’s orders to her younger siblings. A petty quarrel over a clothesline.
“You escaped him years ago. How did you do it then?” Hawa asks, pulling her from her thoughts.
“I just ran,” Marjan says. Then Marjan sits straight up.
Mina’s skin prickles, as it does when she detects breaking news, a story worth telling.
You doubt yourself, my niece. But how do you think you got this far? It is her khala Shaima’s voice, a voice she has missed more than her own mother’s. Go on. Let your daughter see your lion heart.
“I have an idea. But we’ll need Hawa’s help. And it means tomorrow you’ll have to broadcast one more interview to your viewers,
Mina. Are you up for it?” Marjan asks.
“Always,” Mina says, with the unwavering commitment of a best friend. Maybe her presence here is Soraya’s doing, a gift from
an uncharted station. “But who am I interviewing?”
“Me,” Marjan replies.