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“It’s the third time this week, I wonder where she goes off to after school…"
“Come now dear, cut her some slack. You know she won’t get into trouble…”
“It isn’t her getting into trouble that I’m worried about, Rashid! Whatever will the neighbours think of our family when news of her going out to the Hazara encampment gets to town?”
“The Hazara are people too, Mira, just like you or me..”
“And just what do YOU know about our country’s customs, Rashid? You, who grew up in London??” lunndon, she stressed the word, envious of his upbringing and of her daughter’s. “Our families were the most respected in the region, still are. And that is only because our’s is the purest bloodline in all of Afghanistan, undiluted by the ages. And now? Now you let your daughter wreak havoc on the family's honour by letting her mix with those Hazara scum! Those.., those bastard sons of the land who aren’t worth the time of day!”
“Those Hazara are the ones who work our lands, the ones who knit our clothes, wash them, they tend to our cattle, their eagerness to work for a living is the reason this area didn’t succumb to the drought.”
“Hmph.! Say what you may, but we’ll see what you do when your daughter turns up one day, carrying the child of some Hazara youth in her womb.”
“She is your daughter too, Mira..”, sighed Rashid, turning towards the golden glow of the sunset, watching the single footpath that lead to the western encampments of the refugees. His face lit up when he saw a small figure run towards his house, kicking up the dust in her wake, running as though the Djinns of the desert were after her. He ran out to gather his child into his arms, this beautiful raven haired vixen who had him twisted around her finger, Noor, he called her, for her eyes that sparkled like diamonds when she laughed. He kissed her eyes and she squealed when he tickled her, he carried her into the house, nuzzling her neck to make her squeal some more.
“Uff! enough with these antics of yours.! Dinner’s ready go eat, now.” The child smiled at her mother’s cold glare, unafraid, through dinner she sat that way, smiling.
“I’ll put her to bed, Mira, you get some rest”, said Rashid, carrying the child up to her room. he sung her a lullaby as he tucked her into bed. And she, for her part, looked him with those eyes of hers that enchanted him, smiling as sleep carried her away.
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“Off to school with you, love”, said Rashid after he finished reading an excerpt of the Qu’ran to Noor the next morning before walking her out the door. He then brought a tray of breakfast to Mira, who still was in bed, She coughed spasmodically when through breakfast, spitting into her handkerchief every now and then.
“It isn’t her fault Salim died, Mira.”
Mira didn’t respond, which wasn’t anything new, but he kept talking nonetheless, “When are you ever going to forgive yourself, Mira? Allah loved him, which is why he was taken away, it wasn’t your fault he died, and definitely not Noor’s.”
“You will never understand, Rashid.., nine months, I carried him within me, eight years, without. You loved him too., didn’t you? You used to bring him sweets from the bazaar everyday after work. How can you just forget him and move on Rashid? Wasn’t he your blood too?”
“I have not forgotten him, Mira, I have not moved on, either. I love Noor as much as I did Salim, why can’t you bring yourself to do the same?”
“I can’t Rashid, I just can’t. if only she hadn’t crawled out onto the road…” the words choked in her throat and tears flowed down her face, a steady stream of clear salty tears.
“If Salim’s death was anybody’s fault, it was the Mujahideen, Mira. It was their..” Someone knocked on the front door, and Rashid left the sentence hanging.
It was an old Farsi man who lived down the street, he wanted to know if Rashid and Mira would be able to come to his house for dinner that night, Rashid answered in the affirmative and returned to his wife’s bed.
He took her her medicine and a glass of hot water with sugar. “Mira, here’s your pill, and honey. Take it and come sit with me”, he implored. When she didn’t respond, he sat down beside her and took her hand in his. It was clammy with sweat. Wet. He wiped it with his handkerchief, looking at her eyes, “she has your eyes, Mira, and your mouth, she is as beautiful as you are, why won’t you accept her as she is?”
He wiped the single tear that had run to the bridge of his nose, and drew back at the increasingly familiar metallic smell. His handkerchief, the white silk dyed red by blood. Only then did he notice the knife in her lifeless hand, clasped loosely, bloody, evil.
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He arranged for someone to take care of the house as he left to bring Noor home from school, not a single tear shed. People gathered about his house, wearing the traditional mourning garb, as he walked up their street with his daughter’s hand in his.
“Mira had always been sick since Salim died in the land mine explosion, and Noor had to take the brunt of her anger, the poor thing” said Mira’s cousin, Afia. “Yes, and to think she had lost her hearing completely in the blast as well..”, replied her sister, Nazmin, “but now with Mira gone, Rashid will need help taking care of Noor. Do you think that he will take me to be his wife?”, she added, voicing both of their thoughts.
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