Honor killing?

In the aftermath of the Soviet invasion, an Afghan family moved to Pakistan as refugees. Years later in 1997, they migrated to Northern Virginia, arriving in the dead of winter, with no extended family to help. The small, tightly-knit Afghan community stepped up.

It’s true they were strangers to us and we to them. But that didn’t mean anything. Those of us who came before always tried to help the new ones any way we could. [..] We could never forget […] how it wasn’t like coming to a new country but to a whole new world, and coming to it like penniless deaf-mutes at that.

This debut novel from Patmeena Sabit, who also came to the US as an Afghan refugee, tells the story of the Sharaf family from multiple points of view. This is hardly an unusual approach among novelists these days, but Sabit tells the story entirely from the perspectives of the Afghan community members, the American friends and neighbours, and the Sharaf family lawyer. We never hear directly from the members of the Sharaf family who are at the center of the story.

It’s an interesting approach, and despite the plethora of voices — at least 20! — Sabit pulls it off quite well. There are indeed times when I was confused about who a particular speaker was, but it helped that the voices were consistent and the chapters were titled very clearly:

Noorya Siddiqi, Sharaf Family Friend

Tim Ashburn, Investigative Reporter, Fairfax County Register

An Mai, friend of Zorah Sharaf’s

The Sharaf family consists of Rahmat Sharaf, the father; Maryam, the mother; Omer, the firstborn son born in Afghanistan, Zorah, the daughter born in America. Later they had two more children who serve mostly as background. They lived in a small, one-bedroom apartment at first, with very little money. When Hamza is born, their friends are shocked at the poverty of their lives.

A woman not even three days after giving birth, and instead of sticky rice with lamb or a nice chicken soup, she was eating potatoes and potato skins. [..] they couldn’t even afford to buy a kilo of meat.

For many years, Rahmat Sharaf was an unsuccessful businessman, losing money at a host of different ventures. He worked hard, studying English, working late nights at a coffeeshop, and very conscious of success. In gatherings, he would rant about the success of the Indian and Chinese immigrants, and compare them to the Afghans.

And what have we Afghans done? Nothing. We’ve done nothing. Look at our boys with their greasy hair and clown clothes, walking looong looong with their trailing butts. [..] They’re real estate agents. Electricians. IT people. Feqat. And are our girls any better? Social workers. Teeth washers. Why not be the doctors themselves?

It took almost a decade, but eventually Sharaf bought a failing cleaning business, went door to door selling gutter cleaning services and eventually pressure washing and commercial cleaning. Then he sold the business and bought shopping centers and started an import business. Finally the Sharaf family were able to buy a fancy house in an upscale neighbourhood. His reputation and popularity in the community change.

All those who used to give back his salams on the tips of cold lips, or extend two limp fingers to him to shake […] sitting there in his mansion now from morning until night [..] laughing hrrr brahk hrrr brahk at his jokes with their mouths gone all the way to their ears.

As per a family friend, they adored their children.

You know, may of our people are so strict with their children. They think if the children are scared of them they’ll turn out right. But Maryam and Sharaf were more like friends with their kids.

Problems start appearing when the older children are in their teens. Omer is not an academic child and wants to make money buying and selling cars. Zorah, formerly a star student, starts failing classes. The shocking event hinted at in the earlier part of the book is detailed, thread by thread.

Were the Sharafs a model immigrant family or were there horrors behind closed doors? Was a crime committed? The investigative journalist suggests that it is, and the response of the police and the community brings in questions of racism, Muslim-hatred, and cultural biases.

The Afghan community changes its tune.

[Sharaf family friend] Everyone knew what that girl was.

[Another Sharaf family friend] Some of the best mothers and fathers come to raise the devil’s own seed.

[Another one] Ten thousand times we said, “Be careful, Maryam. You think she’s just a child now, so you laugh when she does wrong or talks back. But in a few more years […] just hold your ears and ask God for mercy.”

Readers who are looking for a clear tracing of events will not necessarily find that here; this is a novel of ambiguity. It becomes clear that the speakers are unreliable narrators, all with their own biases and opinions.

The structure of the novel, with its parallel timelines of one day in the present interspersed with years in the past, can be confusing and repetitive, since each detail of the tragedy is exposed in multiple ways. There were times when I was wondering if the speaker was talking in the post-tragedy period or in the past.

The Afghan speakers use a lot of colloquialisms, which are not explained but quite evident from the context.