The Twentieth Wife Read Free Page B

this for a long time. Asmat could not feed the child because her milk had dried up, and at every cry her heart broke, for her child cried for milk, and she had none. They were feeding Mehrunnisa sugar water, into which they dipped a clean cloth and gave it to her to suck on, but it was not enough. She had lost weight at an alarming rate and was now much smaller than she had been at birth. Ghias was deeply ashamed that he could not take care of hisfamily, that he had brought them to this. And he was terrified about this decision. But in his mind, it had to be done. He could not watch as Mehrunnisa became weaker and weaker each day. If he left her for someone else to find, they would bring her up and look after her. Others had done this, Ghias knew. Others had found children on the wayside and brought them into their homes as their own children. He picked up the baby and an oil lantern. She had fallen asleep again, a fretful sleep of hunger. When he came out of the tent he said to Asmat, “I should do so now, when she is asleep.”
    Leaving Asmat with silent tears running down her face, he walked away from the camp. When he had reached the outskirts of the village, he wrapped his shawl around the sleeping baby and laid her down at the base of a tree on the main highway. Then he turned the wick of the lantern up high and set it near her. Surely someone would chance upon the baby soon, for it was not dark yet, and this was a well-traveled road. With a prayer on his lips, Ghias turned toward the village, which straggled up the mountainside. A sharp gust of wind brought the aroma of wood smoke from the village chimneys. Perhaps someone from the village, please Allah, someone with a kind heart. He looked down at the baby again. She was so small, so slight; her breathing hardly made a dent in the shawl.
    Ghias turned to go. As he did a small whimper came from the bundle on the road. He went back to the baby and smoothed her cheek with his finger. “Sleep, precious one,” he murmured in Persian. The baby sighed, soothed by his voice and his touch, and went back to sleep.
    Ghias glanced down at Mehrunnisa, then swiftly walked away. Once, just once, shivering now in the cold, at a bend in the road he turned back to look. The light from the lantern flickered in the approaching darkness; the tree loomed over, gnarled arms stretching in winter bareness. Mehrunnisa, wrapped in a bundle, he could barely distinguish.
    •   •   •
    A S DUSK SETTLED , the mountains took on purple hues in anticipation of the coming night. The white of the snow gleamed briefly and then dulled, and silence laid its gentle folds over the camp. Voices were tempered with fatigue. The campfires spit bits of wood and ash in sparkles. A wind from the north picked up tempo, whistling through the barren trees. A musket shot reverberated through the mountains and faltered in soft echoes. Just as the last sound died, a sharp wail filled the air.
    The hunting party stopped in surprise, and Malik Masud held up his hand for quiet. They were near the camp, and for a moment the only sound they heard was from the crackling campfires. Then they heard it again.
    Masud turned to one of his men. “Go see what that is.”
    The servant kicked his heels into his horse’s flanks and rode toward the cries. In a short while he came back, holding Mehrunnisa in his arms. “I found a baby, Sahib.”
    Masud looked down into the bawling face of the child. He thought he recognized her; then he was sure. The shawl she was wrapped in belonged to Ghias Beg; he had given it as a gift to the young man.
    He frowned. How could Ghias abandon such a beautiful child? As the hunting party returned to camp his expression became meditative. He thought back to his first meeting with Ghias. He had judged the young man quickly, as he had other men all his life, but correctly as usual. Looking beyond the young man’s torn clothes and grimy face, Masud had seen intelligence and education—two