Chapter 7.

They sat across from her, Jalil and his wives, at a long, darkbrown table. Between them, in the center of the table, was acrystal vase of fresh marigolds and a sweating pitcher¹ of water.
The red-haired woman who had introduced herself as Niloufar'smother, Afsoon, was sitting on Jalil's right. The other two,Khadija and Nargis, were on his left. The wives each had on aflimsy black scarf, which they wore not on their heads but tiedloosely around the neck like an afterthought. Mariam, whocould not imagine that they would wear black for Nana,pictured one of them suggesting it, or maybe Jalil, just beforeshe'd been summoned.
Afsoon poured water from the pitcher and put the glassbefore Mariam on a checkered² cloth coaster. "Only spring andit's warm already," she said. She made a fanning motion withher hand.
"Have you been comfortable?" Nargis, who had a small chinand curly black hair, asked. "We hope you've been comfortable.
This… ordeal…must be very hard for you. So difficult."The other two nodded. Mariam took in their pluckedeyebrows, the thin, tolerant smiles they were giving her. Therewas an unpleasant hum in Mariam's head. Her throat burned.
She drank some of the water.
Through the wide window behind Jalil, Mariam could see arow of flowering apple trees. On the wall beside the windowstood a dark wooden cabinet. In it was a clock, and a framedphotograph of Jalil and three young boys holding a fish. Thesun caught the sparkle in the fish's scales. Jalil and the boyswere grinning.
"Well," Afsoon began. "I-that is, we-have brought you herebecause we have some very good news to give you."Mariam looked up.
She caught a quick exchange of glances between the womenover Jalil, who slouched in his chair looking unseeingly at thepitcher on the table. It was Khadija, the oldest-looking of thethree, who turned her gaze to Mariam, and Mariam had theimpression that this duty too had been discussed, agreed upon,before they had called for her.
"You have a suitor," Khadija said.
Mariam's stomach fell. "A what?" she said through suddenlynumb lips.
"Akhasiegar. A suitor. His name is Rasheed," Khadija went on.
"He is a friend of a business acquaintance of your father's.
He's a Pashtun, from Kandahar originally, but he lives in Kabul,in the Deh-Mazang district, in a two-story house that he owns."Afsoon was nodding. "And he does speak Farsi, like us, likeyou. So you won't have to learn Pashto."Mariam's chest was tightening³. The room was reeling up anddown, the ground shifting beneath her feet.
"He's a shoemaker," Khadija was saying now. "But not somekind of ordinary street-sidemoochi, no, no. He has his ownshop, and he is one of the most sought-after shoemakers inKabul He makes them for diplomats⁴, members of thepresidential family-that class of people. So you see, he will haveno trouble providing for you."Mariam fixed⁵ her eyes on Jalil, her heart somersaulting in herchest. "Is this true? What she's saying, is it true?"But Jalil wouldn't look at her. He went on chewing the cornerof his lower lip and staring at the pitcher.
"Now heis a little older than you," Afsoon chimed in. "But hecan't be more than…forty. Forty-five at the most. Wouldn't yousay,Nargis?""Yes. But I've seen nine-year-old girls given to men twentyyears older than your suitor, Mariam. We all have. What areyou, fifteen? That's a good, solid marrying age for a girl."There was enthusiastic nodding at this. It did not escapeMariam that no mention was made of her half sisters Saidehor Naheed, both her own age, both students in the MehriSchool in Herat, both with plans to enroll⁶ in Kabul University.
Fifteen, evidently, was not a good, solid marrying age for them.
"What's more," Nargis went on, "he too has had a great lossin his life. His wife, we hear, died during childbirth ten yearsago. And then, three years ago, his son drowned in a lake.""It's very sad, yes. He's been looking for a bride the last fewyears but hasn't found anyone suitable.""I don't want to," Mariam said. She looked at Jalil. "I don'twant this. Don't make me." She hated the sniffling, pleadingtone of her voice but could not help it.
"Now, be reasonable, Mariam," one of the wives said.
Mariam was no longer keeping track of who was saying what.
She went on staring at Jalil, waiting for him to speak up, tosay that none of this was true.
"You can't spend the rest of your life here.""Don't you want a family of your own?""Yes. A home, children of your own?""You have to move on.""True that it would be preferable that you marry a local, aTajik, but Rasheed is healthy, and interested in you. He has ahome and a job. That's all that really matters, isn't it? AndKabul is a beautiful and exciting city. You may not get anotheropportunity this good."Mariam turned her attention to the wives.
"I'll live with Mullah Faizullah," she said. "He'll take me in. Iknow he will.""That's no good," Khadija said. "He's old and so…" Shesearched for the right word, and Mariam knew then that whatshe really wanted to say wasHef s so close. She understoodwhat they meant to do.You may not get another opportunitythis good And neither would they. They had been disgraced byher birth, and this was their chance to erase⁷, once and for all,the last trace of their husband's scandalous mistake. She wasbeing sent away because she was the walking, breathingembodiment of their shame.
"He's so old and weak," Khadija eventually said. "And whatwill you do when he's gone? You'd be a burden to his family."As you are now to us.Mariam almostsaw the unspoken wordsexit Khadija's mouth, like foggy breath on a cold day.
Mariam pictured herself in Kabul, a big, strange, crowded citythat, Jalil had once told her, was some six hundred and fiftykilometers to the east of Herat.Six hundred and fifty kilometers.
The farthest she'd ever been from thekolba was thetwo-kilometer walk she'd made to Jalil's house. She picturedherself living there, in Kabul, at the other end of thatunimaginable distance, living in a stranger's house where shewould have to concede to his moods and his issued demands.
She would have to clean after this man, Rasheed, cook forhim, wash his clothes. And there would be other chores aswell-Nana had told her what husbands did to their wives. Itwas the thought of these intimacies⁸ in particular, which sheimagined as painful acts of perversity⁹, that filled her with dreadand made her break out in a sweat.
She turned to Jalil again. "Tell them. Tell them you won't letthem do this.""Actually, your father has already given Rasheed his answer,"Afsoon said. "Rasheed is here, in Herat; he has come all theway from Kabul. Thenikka will be tomorrow morning, and thenthere is a bus leaving for Kabul at noon.""Tell them!" Mariam criedThe women grew quiet now. Mariam sensed that they werewatching him too. Waiting. A silence fell over the room. Jalilkept twirling his wedding band, with a bruised¹⁰, helpless look onhis face. From inside the cabinet, the clock ticked on and on.
"Jalil jo?" one of the women said at last.
Mil's eyes lifted slowly, met Mariam's, lingered for a moment,then dropped. He opened his mouth, but all that came forthwas a single, pained groan¹¹.
"Say something," Mariam said.
Then Jalil did, in a thin, threadbare voice. "Goddamn it,Mariam, don't do this to me," he said as though he was theone to whom something was being done.
And, with that, Mariam felt the tension vanish from the room.
As JaliPs wives began a new-and more sprightly-round ofreassuring, Mariam looked down at the table. Her eyes tracedthe sleek¹² shape of the table's legs, the sinuous¹³ curves of itscorners, the gleam of its reflective, dark brown surface. Shenoticed that every time she breathed out, the surface fogged,and she disappeared from her father's table.
Afsoon escorted her back to the room upstairs. When Afsoonclosed the door, Mariam heard the rattling¹⁴ of a key as itturned in the lock.

1 pitcher   

n.(有嘴和柄的)大水罐；(棒球)投手

参考例句：

• He poured the milk out of the pitcher.他从大罐中倒出牛奶。
• Any pitcher is liable to crack during a tight game.任何投手在紧张的比赛中都可能会失常。

2 checkered   

adj.有方格图案的

参考例句：

• The ground under the trees was checkered with sunlight and shade.林地光影交错。
• He’d had a checkered past in the government.他过去在政界浮沉。

3 tightening   

上紧，固定，紧密

参考例句：

• Make sure the washer is firmly seated before tightening the pipe. 旋紧水管之前，检查一下洗衣机是否已牢牢地固定在底座上了。
• It needs tightening up a little. 它还需要再收紧些。

4 diplomats   

n.外交官( diplomat的名词复数 )；有手腕的人，善于交际的人

参考例句：

• These events led to the expulsion of senior diplomats from the country. 这些事件导致一些高级外交官被驱逐出境。
• The court has no jurisdiction over foreign diplomats living in this country. 法院对驻本国的外交官无裁判权。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 fixed   

adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的

参考例句：

• Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗？
• Once the aim is fixed,we should not change it arbitrarily.目标一旦确定，我们就不应该随意改变。

6 enroll   

v.招收；登记；入学；参军；成为会员（英)enrol

参考例句：

• I should like to enroll all my children in the swimming class.我愿意让我的孩子们都参加游泳班。
• They enroll him as a member of the club.他们吸收他为俱乐部会员。

7 erase   

v.擦掉；消除某事物的痕迹

参考例句：

• He tried to erase the idea from his mind.他试图从头脑中抹掉这个想法。
• Please erase my name from the list.请把我的名字从名单上擦去。

8 intimacies   

亲密( intimacy的名词复数 )； 密切； 亲昵的言行； 性行为

参考例句：

• He is exchanging intimacies with his friends. 他正在和密友们亲切地交谈。
• The stiffness of the meeting soon gave way before their popular manners and more diffused intimacies. 他们的洒脱不羁和亲密气氛的增加很快驱散了会场上的拘谨。

9 perversity   

n.任性；刚愎自用

参考例句：

• She's marrying him out of sheer perversity.她嫁给他纯粹是任性。
• The best of us have a spice of perversity in us.在我们最出色的人身上都有任性的一面。

10 bruised   

[医]青肿的，瘀紫的

参考例句：

• his bruised and bloodied nose 他沾满血的青肿的鼻子
• She had slipped and badly bruised her face. 她滑了一跤，摔得鼻青脸肿。

11 groan   

vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音

参考例句：

• The wounded man uttered a groan.那个受伤的人发出呻吟。
• The people groan under the burden of taxes.人民在重税下痛苦呻吟。

12 sleek   

adj.光滑的，井然有序的；v.使光滑，梳拢

参考例句：

• Women preferred sleek,shiny hair with little decoration.女士们更喜欢略加修饰的光滑闪亮型秀发。
• The horse's coat was sleek and glossy.这匹马全身润泽有光。

13 sinuous   

adj.蜿蜒的，迂回的

参考例句：

• The river wound its sinuous way across the plain.这条河蜿蜒曲折地流过平原。
• We moved along the sinuous gravel walks,with the great concourse of girls and boys.我们沿着曲折的石径,随着男孩女孩汇成的巨流一路走去。

14 rattling   

adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词

参考例句：

• This book is a rattling good read. 这是一本非常好的读物。
• At that same instant,a deafening explosion set the windows rattling. 正在这时，一声震耳欲聋的爆炸突然袭来，把窗玻璃震得当当地响。