I wish I could have seen my two daughters side by side, Boba sometimes said. But she will never be far from our thoughts. I have picked a star in the night sky and imagine that is her in the heavens, forever our light.
With a kind of magic I didn’t fully appreciate as a child, my parents spun grief into gratitude. I knew my mother was thinking of my long-gone sister as she watched Faheem nestle close to me. We were, she never tired of telling us, the greatest comforts God could have given her. Being a child, I took this to mean we had suffered our allotted tragedy.
By the time I was ten years old, I did not curl in my father’s arms or seek kisses from my mother for every scrape as often as I had the year before. I did not chase their affections, believing that they, like sands in the desert, existed in infinite supply.
Chapter 2
When I could no longer hear my mother’s footsteps, I brought my hand out from under the bedsheet and tickled the tip of Faheem’s nose. He did not stir. I peeled back the sheet and slid one foot, then the other onto the floor. Faheem did not wake even as I tiptoed across the room and opened the door just wide enough to slip through. I stepped past the library and rounded the corner of the hallway, the clanging of aluminum pots and lids growing louder. To my left was a narrow set of stairs that led to the rear of a bustling kitchen as the palace staff prepared to serve dinner for the dignitaries. I continued down the hallway, my path dimly lit by small sconces.
At the sound of approaching footsteps, I froze. I held my breath and listened. I heard what sounded like a door close at the far end of the hall. When I was sure footsteps were not approaching, I put one foot in front of the other, stepping with my heel first. I’d not moved three steps when I paused again.
This time I was certain I’d heard something.
I pressed my spine against the wall and looked left and right, already knowing there was nowhere to hide here. My heart thumped loudly.
I inched farther along until I reached an arched cutout. Tucked into its rounded space was a half-moon table draped in embroidered silk. Atop the table was a vase of pale green onyx.
I paused, debating the chances of running into someone if I made a dash for the end of the hallway.
That’s when I felt someone—or something—grab my ankle. I gasped and fell forward. My arm grazed the table and braced my fall. I rolled onto my back and saw the vase teeter perilously on the table’s edge before coming to rest. Relieved, I looked to my left.
“Neelab!”
Crouched between the legs of the table was Neelab, with a bright and mischievous grin. She’d pulled the table cover to the side.
“You little sneak!” I hissed. “You nearly killed me!”
“Danger lurks around every corner,” Neelab whispered ominously. She emerged slowly from her secret nook, unfolding her lanky limbs.
I forgave her for scaring me and vowed to find an even better hiding spot for our next round. We crept quietly to the end of the hallway. A curved staircase led to the downstairs banquet room, and just to the side of the arched entrance was a serving station. With our backs pressed against the wall in the darkened stairway, we could stay out of sight and still have a pretty good view of the festivities.
The serving station boasted an array of glass bottles that I knew were not meant for children. My father did drink on occasion. It seemed to make him more playful, like the version of him that would crawl on the floor with Faheem and me. But I’d also seen some of his friends become terribly angry after a couple of glasses. At a party two months ago, one general scolded me for not greeting him formally. When I saw him vomiting in the bushes later that evening, I raced to the upstairs room where all the children had gathered, even waking the ones who had drifted to sleep. I brought them outside with the promise of Russian chocolates if they helped me surprise a general in need of cheer. The man was still hunched over with a handkerchief to his mouth when the little gang I’d assembled greeted him with a loud salute, their flat hands raised to their foreheads.
My father only pretended to chastise me for that one.
I spotted my mother on the far end of the room. She was standing with Neelab’s mother and grandmother, the first lady, as they spoke to a few foreign women. They could have been posing for a magazine cover with their small purses tucked primly under their arms, pleated skirts falling just below their knees, and tortoiseshell hair clips. I continued to scan the room.
“I see your grandfather,” I whispered. “But where’s the box?”
Surely the box wouldn’t be far from the president. I kept my eyes on Kaka Daoud, who stood beneath a wide tapestry depicting a team of buzkashi players on horses. The horses, thick-veined and muscular, seemed ready to leap out of the fabric. The players wore sheepskin coats and stretched their hands to the ground to capture the goat carcass and score a point. One player, a whip between his teeth, had the carcass in one hand and red reins in the other.
The president, a solidly built man with a high forehead, wore a simple black suit. He seemed to be looking at the floor, frowning, as he listened to a military officer I did not recognize. The officer, in an olive jacket with brass buttons, looked flustered. His hands moved frantically as he spoke, one of them landing on the president’s arm.
I hadn’t noticed my father approaching, and yet there he was, leaning in to whisper something in Daoud Khan’s ear. He issued a polite nod to the military officer and with a hand on the president’s back, guided him toward a Russian dignitary. His slim frame made the president’s paunch more prominent, and I found myself wishing our president would at least pull his shoulders back.
My father said something that made the Russian pivot so that both men stood with their backs to the rest of the room. I could see only slivers of their faces. Their stiff postures and firmly planted feet reminded me of ceramic dolls.
Their formation broke with handshakes and grim expressions. My father’s eyes followed the Russian man as he walked past the row of chafing dishes and exited the room. I had no idea what the men were discussing. I was more taken by the way my father always seemed to rearrange people and ideas with a meaningful look, a raised eyebrow, a tapping finger—and he wasn’t even president.
In the privacy of our home, when he was nothing more than our father, he had nicknames for me. I was his jewel, his doll, his butterfly. When I grew too big to be bounced on his knee, he would still treat me to ice cream. He would return from abroad with presents—nesting dolls from Kiev, a sandalwood jewelry box from Delhi, a hand-painted bowl from Istanbul—that made me hungry to see this great world with my own eyes. For Faheem, who was still too young to understand why Boba was gone for a week at a time, he brought a plastic revolver and a model jet. The best part was that he took the time to wrap the gifts in newspaper, giving us a few more seconds of delicious suspense.
Maybe that was why I sensed the energies shift downstairs. I noted that a cluster of guests had gathered around a high-topped marble table in the center of the room, necks craned and ears cocked.
“The box,” I said.
Neelab nodded in agreement.
Someone clinked a fork against a glass, and the buzz quieted. President Daoud peered at a wooden crate set on the table. The Russian man he’d been speaking with earlier extended his arms toward the guests and encouraged them to clear space. People obliged and took a half-step backward.