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I’m shaking all over. I stare at my father and realise I have no idea who he is. I’ve been wrong all this time and Zahir’s been right. Again and again, I’ve thrown my father’s innocence at him, begged him to be nicer to the man who was part of a group that killed his own beloved father. How he must have hated that. Hated me?
My skin flushes with unbearable heat. “I can’t believe this. I have to go.”
“Listen to me.” Despite his revelations, his voice still has the power to bring me to a stop. “He asked me not to tell you this. He believed it would be too hard for you to hear, too hard for you to face this truth, but I needed you to know it. I am everything he believes me to be. At least, I was. And I’m sorry. I let you down, and I let your mother down. I gambled our lives on a fanciful, stupid political game. I have regretted my actions every day of my life.”
I sob, because I do believe him. But it’s too late, too much has happened, too much has been lost.
“I have to go.” I leave and I don’t look back, because finally I realise: looking back is the root of all evil.
“You should have told me.” I slam the door behind me, stalking across his office, ignoring the presence of two security officers by the door. Zahir dismisses them with a small wave of his hand.
“Told you what?” He’s guarded, staring at me as though he doesn’t know everything my dad just revealed.
“Damn it, I know,” I say, shaking my head, no idea how pale I am, how wild I look. “Dad told me everything.”
Zahir swore under his breath. “Still unable to be trusted.”
“Don’t. Don’t do that. I’m not excusing any of his choices back then, not by a longshot, but this is different. How dare you keep this from me? How dare you let me go on defending him to you after what he did?” My voice softens, anguish flooding me. “Zahir, how have you been able to go through with this?”
“I told you that we should not discuss him. I thought it was best.”
“I find that arrogant and condescending,” I snap, brushing it aside. “I deserved to know the truth as much as you did.”
His eyes spark with mine, and I feel a rush of awareness, an understanding that even when at loggerheads, our bodies arc with an uncontrollable electrical current.
“Why? To what end? So you could hate him too?”
I flinch at that and I shake my head. “I don’t know.”
“Nothing good comes from you knowing. It changes nothing about the past, nothing about the future. It just saddens you and I didn’t need that.”
“I’m a big girl; I deserved the truth.”
“I told you I had my facts straight.”
“You didn’t tell me anything about what they did to your father,” I whisper.
His expression tightens. “Your father was not involved in that.”
“He knew about it.”
“Not at the time.”
Zahir’s knowledge of the facts is incredible. I cannot believe he kept all this from me. I have spent our entire marriage falling in love with this man and he’s been holding so much information back from me, deciding what I should and shouldn’t know. I feel infantilised and mistrusted.
“So they killed him? This group my father was a member of?”
“Your father was the reason for the group – they wanted a Hassan ruler. As for my father, he was gradually poisoned, yes.”
“Oh, God. I can’t believe this.” I reach around for a chair, feeling like my knees are about to give way. Zahir moves quickly, coming to me and putting an arm around my waist.
“I did not want you to know this.”
“Well, I do.”
“I am furious that he told you.”
“And I’m furious that you didn’t,” I say angrily. “I’m your wife, damn it. What kind of marriage can we have if you keep this sort of thing from me? I married you to bring my father to Qabid – a man who was complicit in the death of your own father. How the hell could you keep this from me?”
