I hear the rain. It’s loud. So loud that I fear the window will break. The day the guards took her away was rainy too. So was the day they told me she was not going to be released. One of them said it might be years. Or she might be one of the unlucky ones, the ones that never return, the ones that are shot in the back of the head.
The children are silent. They look at me with intense eyes as if I am responsible for Maman’s disappearance. Maybe I am. Maybe I was too silent when she was still here. Maybe I was a fool to think that she would never leave. My daughter seems to understand but I can see the pain in her eyes. She is hiding her anger. She is taking the role of Maman. She is helping her little brother with homework. She is preparing breakfast, making tea, imitating her mother’s moves as she strides from the kitchen to the living room, holding a tray of teacups with meticulous care.
It is their silence that wounds my heart. It is their silence that weighs down on my chest like a rock. Sometimes when the pain is too much I retreat to the bathroom and knock my head against the wall. Three times, four times. Nothing changes.
I go back to where the children sit. They are busy with papers. Or they are trying to look busy.
It has been a month since they took her away. We are getting used to it. We tell ourselves to get used to it. I search for words in between my prayers to say to my girl, to her brothers. But there is nothing. In my prayers I beg God to find me words of comfort for them, for myself.
I hear the rain. My daughter joins me in prayer in her mother’s chador. She fumbles with the veil, struggling to adjust it to her height. She looks like her right now. She has the same posture. She has her mother’s hardheadedness. We pray and in our prayer we talk about our loss. And we no longer hear the rain. And it’s quiet again, so quiet that I can hear her heartbeat.