Epilogue #2
Marjan picks out a plum, slightly bruised but ripe enough that she can feel the juices ready to burst through the dark skin.
Most of the women are reluctant to talk. They’ve been so trained to be secretive that they spend a lot of time sitting in
silence. Many are still stunned that they made it here, to this country that managed to build a village for three thousand
in a matter of days. This country that spent twenty years in their homeland trying to do the same. The women share many questions.
Where will I live? How can I learn English? How will I take care of my children? How can I get my college credits accepted
here? What will happen to my family back home?
Sometimes they are tired of asking such heavy questions when they already know the answers will not satisfy. Instead, they
fill the silence with trite complaints.
The food here is terrible. The machines are too noisy. I’m getting back pain from these cots.
On a group chat, the other women from Marjan’s platoon share the same grievances. They are scattered across the United States,
sheltered at different military bases. They’ve been told that if they step foot off the base they will lose the help they’ve
been promised—finding housing, three months of rent, legal assistance. They are here on humanitarian “parole,” a word no one
in the platoon was familiar with. Marjan typed the word into the search box on her phone and a definition appeared.
The release of a prisoner temporarily or permanently before the completion of a sentence on the promise of good behavior.
I do feel like a prisoner here, Elaha admitted.
Good behavior? That might be hard for some of us, Zarifa replied. She added a wink emoji.
Oh, girl. What have you been planning for when you get off this base?
A lot, Zarifa says. I want to be a soldier here. Or maybe go to school and become a lawyer.
Jenna and the others have been rallying them, checking in often and promising to help them get settled once they are released
from the bases. Marjan and the others are grateful, ready. They are soldiers still, and will soon be forging ahead on their
individual missions, carrying out their own orders.
After hearing two women complain again about the food, Mina leans forward in her chair. Marjan recognizes the serious look
on her face. She is becoming her public self, the competent and unflappable persona.
“Sisters, sisters,” Mina calls out with authority. “Your complaints about this guesthouse are valid. Truly, the bread cannot
be called bread. But I’m reminded of a verse from Mawlana. If you’ll allow me? I may not remember it whole.”
The women nod and Mina begins, her eyes closed as she summons the lines.
This body is a guest house,
Every morning, a new visitor.
Do not bemoan the burden,
He will retreat into non-existence.
Welcome, entertain them!
They are guests from the unseen world.
Sorrow may spoil your joy,
Even as it sweeps your house clear
And readies the way for a new delight.
There is a moment of quiet deference for the poem. Mina waits a spell, then breaks the silence.
“But then again, Rumi didn’t have to eat this cardboard chicken or chase after five children,” she says, one eyebrow cocked.
There is laughter then, and it is hopeful, a splash of water in a desert.
Marjan whispers to Soraya sometimes, when no one is around.
She tells her how much she misses her, how empty this world is without her.
When she floundered as a mother, Soraya saved her.
She helped her survive the guilt and filled in the gaps, making sure Hawa felt beloved.
Soraya saved her a thousand times over, and yet Marjan failed her.
For this, she will never forgive herself.
Marjan wonders, those who knew her as a girl—her sisters, her mother, her aunt—what would they think of her now? She prays,
in her own way, for Shahla. For the people she’s loved and lost. She hopes she does not lose them all, though she feels the
grief of having lost everyone.
And what about Marjan? She thinks of her own being, considers herself as a guest house. She has been so many women in her
life. Will she ever be a soldier again? And if not, who will emerge? Who will she be from now on? The hardheaded girl? The
child bride? The nervous mother? The lionhearted survivor? The hopeful romantic?
All of them, she decides, because that is the only way to feel whole.
At the end of the hour, she and Mina walk back to the children’s room. Hawa looks up from her drawing, as if she has sensed
her mother’s eyes on her. She races to the door, her artwork flapping in her hands. It is a crayoned picture of a potted flower
sitting on a windowsill. Stems bending toward the light. It is clearly a child’s work, but Marjan can almost feel the petals,
soft as an infant’s cheek. She takes the drawing and trades it for the plum. Hawa giggles as juice runs down the corners of
her mouth, and Marjan laughs too. They walk back to their quarters, fingers sticky. Mouths sweetened.
Hawa takes one last bite of her plum and tosses the ridged pit into a metal bin. It lands with a clink, a solitary note to mark the end of the season of stone fruit.