but welled-up eyes. When he saw the newborn, Homa’s Great Uncle abandoned his idea that a man had to earn what he possessed and gave Ahmad and Homa the present of a small house. Before the baby was a month old, Homa had rejected the landlady’s offer of a decreased rent five times. When the moving day came, she had to talk her away from the door with the promise of weekly visits.
“What about no rent?” the old woman whispered in Homa’s ear as they hugged.
The new house was not grand, but it was located in a calm neighborhood. The front door opened into a short corridor that led to a large living room. The kitchen could house a six-seat dining table and still leave Homa enough room to freely walk from the cabinet to the sink and the stove. The windows in the larger bedroom opened to the small but cozy yard. Homa bought all new pots and pans for the kitchen. She did not protest when her mother made the final decisions about where the furniture would go, or when she shook her head and decreed that the curtains Pooran had sewed for the new house would not go with the armchairs in the living room. With the baby so little and fragile, Homa could not bring herself to lose the little of her mother’s affection and interest that she had won after the birth of Leyla. Pooran was offended when she saw the orange curtains draping over the windows, but said nothing. The new house, the baby, and the constant visits from both her family and Ahmad’s brought a healthy rose to Homa’s cheeks within two months. Even the baby seemed to like the new house. Lying on her back in her bed, she gurgled and smiled at everyone.
One late night, at a time when visitors were not expected, the sound of a stifled knock wound through the house. Ahmad opened the door to Salman, who slipped in silently and gently closed the latch bolt behind him. He had a present in his hands. Homa opened the box and took out a pair of small red girl shoes. The three of them sat with the tacit agreement not to discuss the fugitive in the living room, but the friend who slapped his thigh and laughed when Homa told him how, when Ahmad had his fedora on, Leyla would cry in his arms, not recognizing him as her father, but broke into a hesitant smile when Ahmad took the hat off, only to pout again when the hat was back on.
Homa brought fruit in a basket and put on the kettle to make tea. Ten minutes later, before the tea was quite ready yet, a short high-pitched whistle sounded in the street. Salman sprang to his feet. “Goodbye ladybug,” he said to the sleeping baby in her room. “Grow up soon.” With a confident calm in his movements, Salman rose from by the crib, hugged Ahmad, congratulated Homa again, and climbed the stairs up to the roof of the house. That was the first time Ahmad and Homa had Salman in their home and the last time anyone called Leyla “ladybug.”
Khan was enamored with the baby. Even when no one was busy, he volunteered to look after her. He had a room built specifically for her on the roof next to Nana Shamsi’s. The baby and whoever looked after her would rest in those quarters, and when she grew up, she would know she always had her own private shelter no matter what. Parveen was so excited to have a cousin that when they told her she was too small to let the baby sleep on her legs, she offered to wash her dirty diapers.
Parveen would climb up an empty tin bin to reach the clothesline. After she was done, and when no one was in sight, her brother, Majeed, took the pins off and left the wet diapers to the mercy of the breeze. Later, Parveen picked the white pieces of cloth from the ground and branches of the trees, shook them, then washed them again.
“Do you want to play count the kitties?” Majeed asked Khan. Patting baby Leyla on the back while rocking her in the garden, the old man tousled the boy’s hair and sent him away.
“Some other time maybe. Have you done your homework?”
* * *
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MAJEED BECAME A WA NDERER. WHEN he found the opportunity, he would skip school and run to the movies