Veil of Silence Read Free Page B

little prayer.  To Allah, to Yahweh, to God…whoever might be listening.  All she said was, “Thanks,” but that was all that was needed as she bowed her head and then got into bed with her children.  Her robe felt warm under the smooth sheets, but she wouldn’t sleep naked with her children.  It took mere minutes for her to fall into a dreamless sleep.
     
    CHAPTER TWO
     
    Marsha woke to the sounds of her children laughing, not an uncommon occurrence.  She hoped they weren’t too loud or Zabi would…it was at that moment she realized she wasn’t in the cave that Zabi and his people called home.  She wasn’t even in the earth-colored tent that they used during the summer months as they traveled nomadically.  She wasn’t on the ground on the compact mattress that constituted their bed, she was in the American embassy in Kabul.  She had made it!  Her dream for all those years was accomplished.  She had escaped!
    Marsha looked up and around to see the source of the children’s laughter.  Linda was in the room with them and was showing them coloring books, demonstrating how to color with the magic markers she had brought.  The bright colors delighted the two provincial children.  She smiled at their wonderment.  Neither of her children had ever seen a coloring book, much less a magic marker.  There was so much for them to see and to learn.
    “Good morning,” Linda called cheerfully as she noticed Marsha’s scrutiny.
    “Good morning,” Marsha repeated back in a sleep-roughened voice, and actually meant it.  It was odd.  She could finally say it, in English, and mean it.  The women of the village had often said it, but it had never felt real to Marsha.  She shuddered at the memories.  No more would she hear the disparaging Mahsa that they had called her.  She knew it meant like the moon, but they said it with such vehemence that she knew it was spat at her as an insult.  Instead of trying to use her real name of Marsha, Zabi had given her an Afghan name of Mahsa.  She supposed he meant it kindly, in his own way, but she didn’t feel it.  His first wife, Malekah, which meant queen, made sure that she knew she wasn’t welcome.  It wasn’t like Marsha had any choice in the matter.
    “I brought them some toys too, but I suppose they don’t know…” Linda began.
    “Do you know if my family has been informed of…” she left off, not sure how to describe it.  Oh gawd, she’d thought of her family so much over the years.  Had they moved on without her?
    “I don’t know,” Linda admitted.  “Are you hungry?”  She glanced at the tight-fitting robe and realized how pregnant Marsha really was.  “Are you okay?” she asked as the brunette awkwardly got out of the bed.  She was stiff from their trip, unused to the fine bed she had just slept in.  The children seemed to have already bounced back from their harrowing journey.  She smiled at their good morning greetings, heartfelt, and in the local Afghan dialect called Tajik.  It was one of the forty languages spoken in Afghanistan, which had over two hundred dialects. 
    “English now, my babies,” she corrected them gently.
    “I’m fine.  Just a bit stiff from the journey,” she admitted to Linda.  She got up in a typically pregnant woman’s manner, the stomach protruding before her, looking enormous and making her feel awkward at the same time.
    “Are you hungry?” Linda asked again.
    “Yes, starved,” she admitted.  While they hadn’t eaten all the offerings Linda had brought them the previous evening, she could see her children had helped themselves to the leftovers.  She could see the finger prints in the congealed gravy, her mind as a mother shuddered at that, but was grateful that both children appeared to be clean.
    Linda must have surmised what Marsha was thinking.  “I showed them the bathroom and explained what the toilet was for,” she explained.  “They were both hopping a little,” she