All around them, beyond the dim glow of the fire Parwana has stoked from shrubs and brittle-looking weeds, is the desolate, endless expanse of sand and mountains swallowed up by the dark. For nearly two days they have traveled through the scrubby terrain, heading toward Kabul, Parwana walking alongside the mule, Masooma strapped to the saddle, Parwana holding her hand. They have trudged along steep paths that curved and dipped and wound back and forth across rocky ridges, the ground at their feet dotted with ocher- and rust-colored weeds, etched with long spidery cracks creeping every which way.
Parwana stands near the fire now, looking at Masooma, who is a horizontal blanketed mound on the other side of the flames.
“What about Kabul?” Parwana says.
“Oh, you’re supposed to be the smart one.”
Parwana says, “You can’t ask me to do this.”
“I’m tired, Parwana. It’s not a life, what I have. My existence is a punishment to us both.”
“Let’s just go back,” Parwana says, her throat beginning to close. “I can’t do this. I can’t let you go.”
“You’re not.” Masooma is crying now. “I’m letting you go. I am releasing you.”
Parwana thinks of a long-ago night, Masooma up on the swing, she pushing her. She had watched as Masooma had straightened her legs and tipped her head all the way back at the peak of each upward swing, the long trails of her hair flapping like sheets on a clothesline. She remembers all the little dolls they had coaxed out of corn husks together, dressing them in wedding gowns made of shreds of old cloth.
“Tell me something, sister.”
Parwana blinks back the tears that are blurring her vision now and wipes her nose with the back of her hand.
“His boy, Abdullah. And the baby girl. Pari. You think you could love them as your own?”
“Masooma.”
“Could you?”
“I could try,” Parwana says.
“Good. Then marry Saboor. Look after his children. Have your own.”
“He loved you. He doesn’t love me.”
“He will, given time.”
“This is all my doing,” Parwana says. “My fault. All of it.”
“I don’t know what that means and I don’t want to. At this point, this is the only thing I want. People will understand, Parwana. Mullah Shekib will have told them. He’ll tell them that he gave me his blessing for this.”
Parwana raises her face to the darkened sky.
“Be happy, Parwana, please be happy. Do it for me.”
Parwana feels herself standing on the brink of telling her everything, telling Masooma how wrong she is, how little she knows the sister with whom she shared the womb, how for years now Parwana’s life has been one long unspoken apology. But to what end? Her own relief once again at Masooma’s expense? She bites down the words. She has inflicted enough pain on her sister.
“I want to smoke now,” Masooma says.
Parwana begins to protest, but Masooma cuts her off. “It’s time,” she says, harder now, with finality.
From the bag slung around the saddle’s tip, Parwana fetches the hookah. With trembling hands, she begins to prepare the usual mixture in the hookah’s bowl.
“More,” Masooma says. “Put in a lot more.”
Sniffling, her cheeks wet, Parwana adds another pinch, then another, and yet more again. She lights the coal and places the hookah next to her sister.
“Now,” Masooma says, the orange glow of the flames shimmering on her cheeks, in her eyes, “if you ever loved me, Parwana, if you were ever my true sister, then leave. No kisses. No good-byes. Don’t make me beg.”
Parwana begins to say something, but Masooma makes a pained, choking sound and rolls her head away.
Parwana slowly rises to her feet. She walks to the mule and tightens the saddle. She grabs the reins to the animal. She suddenly realizes that she may not know how to live without Masooma. She doesn’t know if she can. How will she bear the days when Masooma’s absence feels like a far heavier burden than her presence ever had? How will she learn to tread around the edges of the big gaping hole where Masooma had once been?
Have heart, she almost hears Masooma saying.
Parwana pulls the reins, turns the mule around, and begins to walk.
She walks, slicing the dark, as a cool night wind rips across her face. She keeps her head down. She turns around once only, later. Through the moisture in her eyes, the campfire is a distant, dim, tiny blur of yellow. She pictures her twin sister lying by the fire, alone in the dark. Soon, the fire will die, and Masooma will be cold. Her instinct is to go back, to cover her sister with a blanket and slip in next to her.
Parwana makes herself wheel around and resume walking once more.
And that is when she hears something. A faraway, muffled sound, like wailing. Parwana stops in her tracks. She tilts her head and hears it again. Her heart begins to ram in her chest. She wonders, with dread, if it’s Masooma calling her back, having had a change of heart. Or maybe it is nothing but a jackal or a desert fox howling somewhere in the dark. Parwana can’t be sure. She thinks it might be the wind.
Don’t leave me, sister. Come back.
The only way to know for sure is to go back the way she had come and Parwana begins to do just that; she turns around and takes a few steps in Masooma’s direction. Then she stops. Masooma was right. If she goes back now, she will not have the courage to do it when the sun rises. She will lose heart and end up staying. She will stay forever. This is her only chance.
Parwana shuts her eyes. The wind makes the scarf flap against her face.
No one has to know. No one would. It would be her secret, one she would share with the mountains only. The question is whether it is a secret she can live with, and Parwana thinks she knows the answer. She has lived with secrets all her life.
She hears the wailing again in the distance.
Everyone loved you, Masooma.
No one me.
And why, sister? What had I done?
Parwana stands motionless in the dark for a long time.
At last, she makes her choice. She turns around, drops her head, and walks toward a horizon she cannot see. After that, she does not look back anymore. She knows that if she does, she will weaken. She will lose what resolve she has because she will see an old bicycle speeding down a hill, bouncing on rocks and gravel, the metal pounding both their rears, clouds of dust kicked up with each sudden skid. She sits on the frame, and Masooma is the one on the saddle, she is the one who takes the hairpin turns at full speed, dropping the bike into a deep lean. But Parwana is not afraid. She knows that her sister will not send her flying over the handlebars, that she will not hurt her. The world melts into a whirligig blur of excitement, and the wind whooshes in their ears, and Parwana looks over her shoulder at her sister and her sister looks back, and they laugh together as stray dogs give chase.