Shabana Stanekzai
The woman was waiting for the reluctant sun to rise. Her entire body was in pain and her tear burned her face like drops of acid. She closed her eyes and waiting for sunlight though she knew that closing her eyes would not ease the pain she felt in her heart. She remembered her husband yelling at her and beating her with the unforgettable handle of the shovel. Her tears had become as repetitive as her memories and years spent at her husband’s house. Saeda’s voice broke the chain of her thoughts.
“Mother, does it hurt?”
She felt her face high so that Saeda would not see her tears and with a strong voice she said, “No. It doesn’t hurt.”
“It won’t hurt even if it is bleeding?” The child was persistent.
The woman swallowed the ball stuck in her throat and said, “No. It doesn’t hurt.”
She looked at the sky and told herself, “I won’t wait for the light any longer.”
She covered her child in a coat and wrapped a scarf around her nose and mouth. Then she wore her burqa and left the house. The old wooden door opened the way for her with a whine. She did not close it. She was tired of closing old doors.
It was dark. Saeda was scared.
“Where are we going? It is still dark,” she said.
Wavering, the woman said, “to my father’s house.”
“We are going from my father’s house to your father’s house,” Saeda said with a childish smile.
Holding her daughter’s hand, the woman was fighting her stress. A wave of fear was overtaking her heart. What will people say? Maybe they will say, “Haji’s wife has gone to her father’s house.” They might say, “She wasn’t a good wife. She didn’t tolerate her husband’s house,” or “she must have had someone else…” The “what ifs,” were reproducing and strengthening in her head as she walked past one street into another.
She finally arrived where she had taken her first breaths. She knocked on the door. A few moments later her sister open the door. She left Saeda at the yard and began walking towards the main building.
In a few moments, hell began to explode. “What are you doing here, you immoral woman?” “A good woman will not speak even if she is deep fried in oil. Why have you left your husband’s house?” “I wish you had died under Haji’s feet and never dishonored us in this way!” “What were you thinking? Go back to your home before your neighbors realize you are gone!!”
The woman left her father’s house. Her family’s voices of anger followed her out. She shut the door to stop the voices.
She held Saeda’s hand. This time she was not afraid. She had lost all feelings, including fear.
“Where are we going?” asked Saeda.
“To our home, my own home,” she answered.
“Do women have their own homes?” a perplexed Saeda thought to herself.
The sky had brightened and the sun was following the woman and her daughter’s shadows.
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Read this piece in Persian here.