Lie Girl

Chapter18

In the morning, I walked down from my hill and spent the day exploring the residential neighborhoods of Zone One. By the end of the day, my legs ached and my stomach growled from hunger, but I found my uncle Ahmad's house. I couldn't just walk up to the door and knock, which would be putting the entire family in jeopardy. Ahmad left for work every weekday before any of the family or neighbors got up. I would come back at dawn.

On the trek back to my hill, I bought an orange and a bag of Oorbis, spicy corn rings, which were gone before I reached my campsite. On this night, no kind woman brought me a plate of lamb.

I rose before the horizon reddened, eating my orange as I strode back to Zone One and my uncle's street. In the dim light, I waited on the corner where Ahmad turned at a stop sign from his quiet street onto the thoroughfare. As the sun lit the world, uncle's car came toward me. As the car braked for the stop sign, I lurched from the curb to signal him, but stumbled, bumping into front fender, which pushed me forward several yards. The driver's door opened, and Ahmad jumped out.

"Were you trying to kill yourself, boy?" Ahmad shouted, his face flushed, eyes bulging. But as he stared at this foolish boy, his eyes drew back and narrowed. He may not have recognized me, but the face he saw was not a stranger's.

I stepped toward him. "It's me, Uncle Ahmad."

We were only a quarter mile from his home. I didn't want to be closer, nor say my name aloud. A stupid boy stepping out in front of Ahmad's car as he pulled up to a stop sign. If the boy got in the car, Ahmad could have been taking him to emergency. Without my saying another word, my cousin seemed to understand the need to act swiftly.

"Get in the car," ordered Ahmad, returning himself to the driver's seat an unlocking the passenger door.

I dropped to the passenger's seat, pulling the seatbelt around me, now a child of caution. He drove another few blocks without saying a word. I sensed he didn't want me to speak either. We turned onto a thoroughfare, busy with workday traffic.

"We thought you were dead," said Ahmad.

"I'm sorry."

"Or worse." Ahmad's knuckles were white. He made a fist, banged the steering wheel, then glanced at me. "What is this costume?"

"It's the reason I'm still alive and free."

"Free," he repeated as if spitting out the word. "Do you think a woman can ever run away from her husband and remain alive?"

"I'm alive," I muttered.

"At the expense of other lives. Do you think it's only yourself?"

My insides were coiled tight. "I thought if I contacted my family in any way, it would be over." In the distance were office buildings and in a separate lane a long, red bus ran alongside of us. "Are they?. . ."

"Sameer's anger is focused on you. He hasn't harmed them . . . yet."

If Ahmad had told me something different, I would have opened the car door and stepped in front of the next red bus. Yet.

"So, after the wedding you ran away and all this time you have hidden in Islamabad. I don't know how Sameer let you get away. He must have been sleeping."

"No, I—" Oh, god, Ahmad didn't know, nor, I was certain, did my family. They knew only that I ran from Sameer, not that I had cracked his head and put him to sleep. No, he couldn't allow that a fourteen—thirteen—year-old girl had done that and escaped him. "Yes, uncle. I have lived as a boy on the streets."

"Where do you sleep?"

I nodded. "I have a friend."

"Oh, my God."

"It is a young woman. But now she is gone."

"You can't stay with us. I'm sorry, Sinela, but it is impossible."

"I know, Uncle." I set my hands on the satchel. "It's good that Sameer didn't hurt them, but are my mother and father well? What of my sister and brother?"

"They are all sick with worry and fear.

"I don't want that."

"You can't outrun your fate, my cousin."

"So, I should have accepted my marriage with Sameer."

"I don't know. Your father tried to make it different."

"He wanted me to leave the country."

We stopped for a light, and on our left a car pulled alongside us. My cousin groaned. He rolled down his window and called out a greeting. Out the corner of my eye, I saw the driver, clean-shaven man of fifty, lean across his seat, and say something to Ahmad, who laughed and waved goodbye. The light changed and the other driver accelerated.

"Bad luck," said my cousin.

"I am just a boy."

"Mahood is a co-worker. I have only girls."

"But you can tell him about the accident—"

"What accident? Don't be foolish. I will have to make up something different." He exhaled loudly and again banged the steering wheel. "It never stops with one lie. They increase like a spider web, but I am not the spider."

Was it time to jump out of Ahmad's car again? Did he still think the best thing to do was to take me back to my family . . . and Sameer? I held my tongue and prayed he soften toward me.

"What do you want?"

I nodded. "I was going to leave the country. Go to Mumbai, then to London. My father sent you the money. It was his plan. Just help me follow my father's wishes."

"I returned the money."

My heart sank. "Oh, then—"

"That is of no matter. I will take care of it. I don't want you communicating with your family. You have your passport, yes?"

If I told him the truth, would he stop the car and tell me to get out. "To buy my ticket will you need my passport?"

"Not to buy, but—what? Have you lost your papers?"

"I have a passport."

"A passport?"

"I must travel under another's name."

"Impossible. Where is your passport?"

"Stolen."

"You must recover it."

I had slept on rocky earth, and not slept well. I was stiff, sore, and tired. The car's cushiony seat helped, but to just to stretch out on Umair's couch . . . Well, that was gone, never to return. My friend Niya, too. My weight doubled, as though I'd been turned into lead, though if lead, I would have weighed a half-ton, if gold, a full ton. Density. Mass per unit volume. "So, Mr. Snowe, if you push more leaves into a backyard stove, the mass will increase?" Such classroom thoughts. Sitting at our neatly spaced desks, pencils in hand. Sunlight on my fingers. I sunk into the fabric.

Ahmad glanced at me and shook his head dismally. "Tell me I am dreaming. I am not speaking with my thirteen-year-old cousin Sinela."

"Fourteen."

"You aren't thirteen or fourteen.

Not that many months had passed since my cousin saw me, but when he glanced at me now, it was with wonder, though not a happy wonder. I had gone beyond what he expected, expectations that his cousin would graduate high-school, be introduced to a suitable young man and settle into marriage and family. My will had upset the applecart. "Uncle Ahmad, Neither am I Sinela. I am Niya Jangari."

A light turned yellow. Ahmad braked hard. The tires squealed. I had already opened my satchel. I snatched up the passport and held it up toward the mirror.

"Do you see?"

My cousin stared at the passport, then at me. Someone honked before he put his foot on the accelerator.

"It's impossible," said Chacha Jan.