Homa’s stay. Zeeba helped carry Lalah’s suitcase to her room on the roof which would now be used for the first time. In spite of the pain in his knees, Khan walked out into the yard to make his grandson’s family welcome. Mixed with sadness and anguish that he shared with the rest of the family was a satisfaction at the wisdom of building those rooms. “You can stay here as long as you want,” he said pressing his hand on his cane, but standing straight, his chest pushed forward.
They waded through into the summer. With sunken eyes and a pale face, Homa was a ghost haunting the house. She got out of the bed in the middle of the night and cranked her way up, then climbed up the metal ladder onto the roof of Leyla’s room to crack open Lalah’s door and make sure she was in her bed. Both Ahmad and Lalah would wake from the cold drafts that blew in. During the day, Homa went to the high school and waited outside for her daughter to come out even though the school was closed for the summer. The janitor brought out a folding chair and umbrella, and a hot cup of tea for her. Under a bare plane tree she sat in cold rain or occasional snow. Then she would take the bus back to Khan’s going straight to check on Lalah. One day she went up the elevator and did not find Lalah in her room. She hurried down the ladder to Zeeba’s room and then down the elevator while shouting Lalah’s name, until Pooran rushed into the yard and told her the girl was out to buy bread. Homa ran all the way to the bakery and from that day, Lalah was forbidden to leave the house alone under any pretext. That was how the girl started to grow closer to Zeeba, who taught her how to weave a carpet. Sitting next to one another at the foot of the loom, the two girls tied and cut and combed the colorful yarns one graceful knot at a time. Midsummer snow thawed soft and sloshy, but it did not melt. The search had yielded no results and from that Ahmad concluded that either Colonel Delldaar was not connected to the intelligence service, as Ahmad had suspected, or was just a rat, not high on the organizational ladder; otherwise he would have exerted his influence to find his granddaughter.
* * *
—
POORAN WOKE ONE MORNING TO clattering and running water. She shuffled out of her room and found Homa in the kitchen. Homa turned to her with a weak smile. “I’m so hungry.” She prepared breakfast for the family and returned to her room to study and prepare for her second year at the university. Having known this day would come, Pooran was not shocked. She treated Homa’s reengagement in her work not as worthy of celebration or even mention, but as the continuation of the normal. When fall came, Pooran suggested she should take Lalah to school and back every day, and Homa accepted. The second year began with promise. Homa had surpassed everyone else in her class and after they taped the midterm exam grades on the wall in the corridor, she found herself answering more hellos and greeting more smiling faces. Soon things appeared to be working like the well-oiled cog wheels of a machine, except that at the heart of them was a hollow. The engine whirred fine but futile; it worked, but it was not going anywhere.
One early winter afternoon, Homa walked over to Ahmad’s desk, patted him on the shoulder, and when Ahmad raised his head from his papers said she was leaving. Where? Ahmad mouthed.
“Nowhere,” she answered, her face empty, “I’m leaving you.”
Ahmad shook his head calmly as if answering a question as simple as, Do we have any milk left? When Homa turned away to go, he leaned and grabbed her wrist. What are you saying? You can’t leave, he mouthed with the certainty of disbelief, looking into her face. Something was dead in Homa’s eyes. She tried to wrestle her wrist out of his hand, but she was not strong enough. “Let me go,” she said calmly. Ahmad mouthed things that Homa did not understand. Then she reached for the desk lamp and hurled it against the wall. Soon everyone was gathered in Agha’s room. Ahmad had gotten up from his desk, without letting go of Homa’s wrist.