I catch his eyes falling on Clay and wonder if he assumes anything about us. A lifetime ago, Neelab teased that I could one day make us real sisters if I would just marry her brother. Seeing him now, I wonder what would have become of us if it hadn’t been for the coup. If we’d been allowed to grow up as children with parents and siblings in a childhood unscathed, what would our relationship have grown into?

He scratches the back of his head, and I note that he’s not wearing a wedding band. I wonder if his life has been a mirror image of mine. Now that he’s exhumed and reburied his family, does he feel any lighter?

I fight back the urge to reach over the seat and hold on to him for fear of losing the one soul who knew me as Sitara, a girl who smiled for the stars.

Chapter 61

When the driver pulls up to the outside gate of the Pol-e-charkhi prison compound, I see his eyes skate over the long wall running the length of the compound and the guard towers. Though I’ve paid him handsomely for waiting outside the embassy and driving us this far out of town, he tells us we’ll have to call another taxi to bring us back to the city. He’s eager to get away from this place.

I try to see Rostam’s face, but he keeps his eyes trained ahead. I don’t think he’s even looking at anything in particular. I touch his shoulder lightly.

“You can wait here,” I say.

I am the first person out of the car. An armed officer approaches me, his posture alert until he recognizes me from our last visit.

“I called your supervisor on our way here,” I explain. “He’s expecting us.”

The officer eyes me and the car with suspicion. He looks at the taxi driver, who shakes his head and points to us as if to say coming here was not his idea.

The officer walks to his station to make a call.

“Clay, can you work on him, please?” I say.

Clay nods, but then turns.

“Wait, what should I tell him?”

“Tell him to meet me out there,” I say as I slip away from the car and head off on my own.

It is a stretch to think I might know why they have not yet found the rest of the bodies. Maybe I’m reading too much into what the soldier told Shair about his mission that night. Maybe I’m trusting Shair’s memory more than I should. I won’t know until I’ve looked in that circle of trees I saw the last time I came here, when I stood over the place where the bodies of the president and his family had been uncovered.