Jamil Jan Kochai Reads “The Twice-Widowed Khala Helai”

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2:55This is The Writer's Voice, new fiction from The New Yorker. I'm Deborah Treisman, fiction editor at The New Yorker. On this episode of The Writer's Voice, we'll hear Jameel Jan Kochai read his story, The Twice-Widowed Hala Hile, from the June 8, 2026 fiction issue of the magazine. Kochai is the author of the novel 99 Nights in Logar and the story collection The Haunting of Haji Hotak and Other Stories, which was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2022 and won the 2023 Aspen Awards Literary Prize. Now here's Jamil Jan Kochai.

3:38Jamil Jan Kochai:The Twice Widowed Kala Hile We were two hours late but on time, and our husbands had been pacing since six in the kitchen and in the living room and out on the porch, and even as they drove quietly fuming past rivers or fields or stoplights, we noticed them pacing inside their own heads, back and forth and back and forth, half here, half there, and that other time, their eyes scanning streetlights and road signs and cul-de-sacs and the salvaged Honda Civics parked in front of Marty John's house, where, breathlessly, in our heels or slippers, we hiked up the driveway, through the garage, past the bathroom already occupied, and into a living room immediately bustling with a dozen conversations at once.

4:25On the other side of the house, our men were already complaining,

4:29Jamil Jan Kochai:oh well, you should see how much my wife, behind a golden curtain, meant to partition us in case we joked, we glanced their way, and fell in love again. In the living room, we tiptoed over the plastic tubes for Bibi Rangina's oxygen tank, and the Kandari girls all scrolling on their phones, huddled behind the worn sectional, which Marijan must have rearranged just for tonight, one end facing the TV above the fake fireplace, while the other looked out onto a back garden that was more of a jungle, fruit trees and vegetable plots scattered about with no apparent logic, so that even the stone pathway led into a circle like a trap, like an ambush on the village roads or in the alleyways back home.

5:12Jamil Jan Kochai:We said our salaams quickly from a distance or with much relish, cheek to cheek, beginning, of course, with the Bibi Hajis, huddled in their corner of Marijan's old sectional, reunited finally with Khala Hilei, who, three months earlier, shortly after her husband's death, poor Rasul had succumbed to lung cancer after a lifetime of scorching pizzas in an illegal coal oven, had suddenly up and left for Afghanistan. Her daughters claimed that she had gone to visit Rasul's family, to pay her respects, but everyone knew, or soon learned, that Rasul had almost no family left in Afghanistan, just a second cousin or two, and that his nearest relation, a half-sister stricken with Alzheimer's, lived in Australia of all places.

5:56Jamil Jan Kochai:We hovered near the BBs for longer than usual, questioning Hilei, but every time we got her to say something about her trip, one of the other BBs would interrupt to make some vague complaint about nothing, until, exasperated, we took our seats. By the fake fireplace, Ariana seesawed between Halima and Mostara, who ran competing fabric shops in South Sacramento, asking how much they would pay for hand-sewn dresses brought wholesale from Kabul. Fifty, Ariana said to Halima, per dress fifty, as in five and zero, as in five times ten. Fifty, Halima Jan, I'm all for bargaining, but for the love of God, let's be serious here.

6:37Jamil Jan Kochai:Across from Ariana, Khalagulapa and Mina were already pressed together in their matching Punjabi outfits, having become so inseparable in the wake of their husbands' debts that they had sold their homes and moved into a small apartment complex in Arden, which, apparently, had been overrun by new Afghan arrivals on special immigrant visas, who gathered every evening to chatter like chickens deep into the night, reminding Mina of the good old days before their husbands die, before their children went away, before they had money and passports and houses so big you could hear your own thoughts bouncing off the walls.

7:12Jamil Jan Kochai:It's like they're living out our lives again, Mina said, but they're still in the good part. Several seats over, Rafia, a recent arrival, was explaining to friends, our apartment is a fourth of the size, my husband works twice the hours, my eldest gives us all his paychecks, and we still can't afford our rent, not really, because it goes up every six months on the dot, no matter how many cockroaches or shootings or gas leaks there are. By the window overlooking the garden, lawyer Musca offered free immigration advice. The visa has more steps, she said, but the green card takes longer. And Dr. Nassidi offered physical exams, pulling a stethoscope from her purse and shining her phone light on our ears.

7:54Jamil Jan Kochai:And Professor Kakar offered history lessons. It's stupidly simple, she said. Every terrible thing that has happened will happen again. The unimaginably rich will murder millions and die of old age, and the desperately poor will be ravaged by hunger and disease and secret police, and the rest of us will sit in our homes and drink green tea and try not to rot too quickly. Meanwhile, nestled in their corner, our Bibi Hajis offered up their miseries, Bibi Rangina is shackled to an oxygen tank in her downstairs bedroom, and Bibi Shirini on the phone listening to his sister slowly die in Peshawar and Khalahi Lehi dreaming of her husband, her first husband, who, we learned, had disappeared during the Soviet war.

8:39Jamil Jan Kochai:Khalahi Lehi was the youngest of our Bibi's and had been reluctant at first to join the others. She preferred the company of youth, the newly married and the mothers. A Bay Area transplant, she had been among us only a few years but had quickly become a favorite. She was one of those sprightly old women, still plucked her eyebrows and stayed up late for parties, who are incapable of aging gracefully. She always wore too much blush, folded a delicate white hijab over her black hair, and talked constantly of anything, everything. And yet, to the best of our knowledge, Hilei had never once mentioned her first husband.

9:15Jamil Jan Kochai:We were married for two years before the war, Khala Hilei recounted, sort of abruptly, speaking over Bibi Shirini, who had been repeating the same story about her sister's cancer diagnosis for so long that we could recite the first phone call by heart. And we never had any children, thank God. But of course, his mother blamed me for our childlessness, called me barren and used up and all that. Years later, after I married Rasul and had Khatara and her brothers and they all turned out to be healthy and strong, I was so tempted to call my mother-in-law and give her an update. Some days, despite everything, I wanted to make up with her just so I could gloat.

9:55Jamil Jan Kochai:She began to laugh, but thought better of it, and let Shirini finish her story. And the whole time, Bibi Shirini was saying, she kept pulling the speaker away from her mouth, so she could gasp for breath, and I tried to hint at the fact that I knew she was not at home, that she didn't need to hide her illness, but then I realized that maybe the pretending helped her, that maybe, while lying to me, she was lying to herself and was able to forget, for even a few seconds, the state of her hopeless body.

10:28Jamil Jan Kochai:In the kitchen, Marijan stirred and scooped rice with such focus that she hardly noticed us entering, and though she was still a handsome woman, she had lost the impossible grace of her youth when we would doubt her age and the number of her children. Now, on her haunches, on the linoleum floor, she was sweating so profusely that we offered our salaams and our assistance, which she promptly refused, of course. Still, it wasn't until her husband appeared with a platter of teacups muttering, Burhan is going to be late again, that we retreated into the living room and heard Khala Zurghuna being accosted by three of Kukugula's eight daughters, who had gone up to her unprompted and asked, in English, what had happened to her face.

11:10Jamil Jan Kochai:Before Zurghuna could explain away the bruise sprouting beneath her right eye, Khwaga, a policewoman, offered to murder Zurghuna's husband for cheap, which we thought was a joke at first. But when a few of us chuckled awkwardly, Khwaga turned and asked what was so funny, and why shouldn't she kill him, and how many more times could Zurghuna lie about the bruises and the broken bones before he hit her too hard or in the wrong spot. Fortunately, just then, Marijan entered the living room with her hair smoothed down and her makeup reapplied, wearing a hand-stitched abaya from Mecca. She circled the room and greeted each of her guests again, beginning, of course, with the Bibi Hajis, who had been arguing for a while about which one of them would have the most trouble staying alive until Ramadan.

11:59Jamil Jan Kochai:Bibi Rangina claimed that she couldn't take more than a few steps before she started gasping for air, as she had on the day that a Soviet bomb had buried her in a cocoon of rubble, held together by such an impossible arrangement of dirt and wood and stone that Rangina could not help but feel that God must love her and that he had kept her alive for a reason. But Khala Hile argued that God having kept her alive was no sign of his favor because God most esteemed those whom he returned to himself through martyrdom, which was why she, after years of waiting for her first husband, years of watching the red iron gate through which he would return home, years of listening for his pattering knock at her bedroom door, had finally stopped praying for him to return, and instead prayed to God that her first husband was dead, that he had died long ago, shot in a cell perhaps, and buried in some mass grave.

12:54But Bibi Rangina resented the suggestion that her survival had merely been a matter of chance, and argued that she had experienced a bona fide miracle in the perfect arrangement of the rubble that should have crushed her. And although she seemed to have more to say, she was out of breath again.

13:11Jamil Jan Kochai:In and hold and out, Dr. Nisiri told her, pressing Bibi Rangina's wrist and counting her breaths. Through your nose, yes, very good, and press your lips for me, that's right, as if you're blowing out a candle. By the fake fireplace, Ariana explained to Mastura that all her dresses were hand-sewn by young widows in Kabul who had been mending clothes for pennies since they were children. They call me mother, she said, and I give them half the profit from every sale. Why half? Mastura asked, as in, we thought, why only half? Why not? Ariana replied. I like to spoil my girls. Every other day, Rafia was still complaining to her friends.

13:55Jamil Jan Kochai:I leave two of my kids with one neighbor and the other two with a different neighbor, and I take the bus to wash dishes for six hours at Mahdias, who docks my check for every plate I break, even though the busboys stack dishes so high that it's practically impossible not to topple them. I actually used to work in a garment factory, Khala Hile told the other BBs. The Chalki got me the job in Kabul after I fled Logar. For three years I lived in a tiny, run-down apartment subsidized by some communist women's program. And even though two of my roommates had also been widowed by Khad, we all told the program organizers that our husbands, faithful communists, had been killed in Mujahideen car bombings or ambushes, and so, as honorable widows, we were granted housing and employment in baggy gray outfits stinking of turpentine.

14:46Jamil Jan Kochai:We spent seven-hour days mending the uniforms of dead soldiers, and that left us with so much free time in the evenings that I joined a women's embroidery club. At first, I would ask the other women if they had any idea what had happened to our men, but even those with abducted brothers or fathers or husbands always replied, God, where's the food? Bibi Rangina interrupted, and we were so hungry by then that we couldn't fault her. In fact, we carried her question along from guest to guest, from couch to kitchen, until it reached Marijan, who tiptoed past the Kandari girls who were still scrolling on their phones, not even texting or posting, just watching 30-second clips of car crashes and makeup tutorials and Israeli snipers shooting Palestinian children on mute, and told Rangina that the food was ready but that they were still waiting on Sheikh Burhan.

15:39Jamil Jan Kochai:Call his wife, Bibi Rangina said. I don't think his wife is coming, Marijan replied. Of course Marina is coming, Bibi Rangina said. That woman lives for free food. But half an hour later, when Burhan arrived with an uninvited entourage of former Taliban and translators and convicts and communists and Mujahideen guerrillas, we realized that he really had left Marina at home, that he'd punished her, or us, for spreading the news about him taking a second wife in Karachi. How many are with him? Marijan shouted from the kitchen, already tearing off her good hijab. And after we told her that there were nine, maybe ten new guests, her face filled with such grief that a few of us joined her by the kitchen counter, where, without waiting for permission, we redistributed the chicken and the kebabs to feed the extra men.

16:29But still short, Marijan called for her husband once, twice, three or four times. Husband, I need you, husband.

16:37Jamil Jan Kochai:When he finally burst into the kitchen, red-faced and furious, he pulled Marijan aside and mumbled a few stale phrases about respect and dignity and very quickly worked himself up into a fervor, lecturing louder and louder until, to prove some point he hadn't made, he recalled for Marijan their wedding day, when, on her way to the bridal stage, she had collapsed to the floor and sobbed so wretchedly that he'd nearly called the whole thing off and would have, had it not been for his soon-to-be mother-in-law, who, after a few minutes of consoling her daughter, pulled him aside and explained that when Marijan was eight years old, she had got into a terrible rock fight with her neighbor in Logar, a little girl named Samya, which had left both of them bloodied and bruised and wishing death upon the other.

17:25But when death really came in the night, nestled in the belly of a Soviet bomber, Marijan woke up to find that Samya's entire compound had been demolished, and in the haze of the lamplights floating back and forth across the wreckage, she watched as Samya's body was pulled from the rubble by a skinny teenager she hadn't recognized until, a whole decade later, she found that same boy, worn and bearded and lathered in white flowers, standing on her bridal stage. But before he had a chance to explain why he was telling this story, how it related to Marijan's current predicament with the food,

18:04Jamil Jan Kochai:the doorbell chirped again, calling him back to the men's side of the khatam. In the end, Marijan didn't eat. After the men got their share, we tried our best to save Marijan and her daughters a plate or two, but she caught on to our plans and wound up redistributing her food to the Bibi Hajis. Rangina took her chicken. Shirini accepted Shola, but Hilei refused a second helping of spinach, which was all she had eaten, and assured Marijan that there was nothing to be ashamed of. We ran out of food at my own wedding, Khalahi Hilei recalled from the couch, her plate on a tray table. You see, my father had been offered such a large dowry by my first husband's family, after he had denied them six or seven times in a row, that he felt compelled to accept.

18:52But in punishment for their having strong-armed him, my father bled my in-laws dry, demanding gold and livestock and extravagant dresses for all my aunts and cousins. He invited so many guests to the wedding that my in-laws had to slaughter ten sheep and three steers and a hundred and fifty chickens. But even then, as the courtyard kept overflowing with new neighbors and distant relatives, food began to dwindle. And the more it dwindled, the more panicked everyone became. Our guests started shoving in line, and suddenly my wedding had turned into a brawl. And I remember crying and crying, she said, laughing and laughing.

19:30But now it seems so funny, because when the brawl got really bad and reached my husband in me in our arbor, he pushed away anyone who came near us, until someone knocked him in the mouth, and he fell backward into my arms. And when he saw that he'd bled onto my dress, he apologized. And it was his apology, as much as anything, that made me realize that I would be one of those lucky girls everyone hates because she has what everyone wants. And I was one of those girls, for a few years and a few months, until God disappeared my husband, and my brother-in-law started coming by my room after dark, intending to force me into marrying him.

20:08But bless her soul, every night my mother-in-law, Bubugul, would sleep by my side to protect me, her son's wife. You see, she never believed that he was dead. And even years after he disappeared, a decade nearly, when she learned of my engagement to Rasul, she told me to my face that her son was still alive, and that I was committing adultery by remarrying, and that my life would be cursed by God. But, you know, the funny thing is, my life has gone relatively well since the day Bubugul cursed me. My second husband was a good man, a hard worker, and a loving father, and none of my children have died or gone mad.

20:49And so I can't help but think that my mother-in-law was wrong about her son, and that he had died long before, and that her faith in his life was… And here, Khalahile raised a hand to her lips, as the rest of us just stared, hardly eating, until she continued not looking at anyone. On the night of my first wedding, I remember I was so afraid of the act of consummation, I stumbled on my great skirt while climbing the stairs to my husband's bedroom, and I tore my dress and wept shamelessly because I thought these were such bad omens for our marriage, and even the wildflowers he had scattered on our bed made me break out in hives, so that my poor husband had to rush out into the night to find me an ointment, and by the time he returned I was such a mess of snot and tears that he let me sleep in his bed on my own, and in the morning at Fajr I found him writing at his desk by the window, and he looked so focused, so immersed in his poems that it went to distract him.

21:52And the whole time, through his little window, I could see his brothers and sisters in the courtyard. I could see their red iron gate in a dirt road leading away from the red iron gate. I could see a donkey-drawn cart stacked with dead fish. I could see songbirds flittering from the trees to our window. And I could see his mother, Bubugol, kneeling in the Tanur Khana, with all this smoke billowing up around her as she muttered prayers or incantations and tossed God knows what into the fire. Maybe my hair. We laughed, startling her for a moment, but she kept going. From then on, I spent more time with Bubugul than I did with my husband, who woke up every fudger for the long bus ride to Kabul and returned only after Maghrib, his corduroy suit and tie stinking of the city.

22:42But even when he was home, Bubugul would invent some tasks to keep me away from her son. And I used to tease my husband that if it wasn't a sin, his mother would have just married him herself. And he would laugh a little, but then get quiet and say, She has suffered very much in life, and I am the only one who treats her well. Which was true, to be honest, because her husband was taking a second wife, and her other sons were strange, heartless men, and her daughters were all dying to leave her. Whereas my husband would bring her fruits or flowers from Kabul, or he would escort her to the clinic when she complained of fatigue, or he would rub her feet at night before I asked him to stop.

23:22And I knew she knew it was me who stopped him, because one day, out of the blue, she told me that heaven lies beneath the mother's feet, and that no one, that nothing, could come between them. And I realize now that she always doubted my love, and that the news of my second marriage must have been like a confirmation of all her doubts. And as upset as she was, she must also have been secretly satisfied. But what could she say to me now? In death, what doesn't she know? Fifty years and I dream of him still. Fifty years and every story, every joke, every bit of news or gossip leads back to him still.

24:02But the funny thing is, as much as I think of him, I think of her. And now that I'm approaching the age she was when we parted, I remember the fights we had in those days, and I find myself siding with her more and more. And I try to resist it, and I try to keep hating her, but it's been so long I can hardly feel the pain of those years anymore. And it distresses me, you know, because I think, how is it that, after all these years, God makes it so that, on top of everything else, I must long for the pain of another time? How is it that even now, near the end, God finds new ways to surprise me with his miseries?

24:45Toward the end of the Khatam, after eating and praying and rising for our last goodbyes, a few of us caught up with Khalahi Lay on the front lawn, where, while sitting on her walker, atop a bed of wet grass, mist-clouding her bare feet, she waited for her daughter. She's already on her way, she said when we offered a ride. Three or four times, Marijan urged her to come back out of the cold, but Hilei insisted on taking in the cool night air. So, we waited with her. And as a reward, maybe, for waiting, she told us about her trip to Kabul. It happened that, during Rasul's funeral,

25:24Jamil Jan Kochai:Khala Hilei had run into her first husband's youngest sister, who had arrived in the U.S. shortly after the fall of Kabul, and only a week prior had learned that Hile lived so close by. They chatted for a few minutes in the graveyard as the guests were all flocking to Burhan's mosque for the Fatih. And Hile learned then that Bubugul was still alive, that she lived with her son at the Mokurian apartments in Kabul, and that she had been asking about Hile for years. A month or so later, as soon as guests had stopped visiting every other day to offer food and prayers, Hilei booked a flight to Kabul without telling her children, and when she got to the Makiriyan apartments, she spent an entire day wandering through shops and courtyards, asking strangers for directions, until, near Asar, she found Bubugul's own granddaughter coming home from school.

26:18It turned out that Bubugul now lived with the same son who had attempted to rape Khala Hilei all those years ago. He was the only one of her husband's brothers who was still alive. His youngest daughter, a 13-year-old chatterbox named Saba, led Khalah Hilei through the old Soviet apartment block, asking a hundred questions about her past life. We keep a photo of uncle in the prayer room, Saba said, guiding Hilei up the stairway to their apartment. I've heard so many stories about uncle. I feel like I know him. Everyone says he was very smart and very kind with hardly an enemy in the world. Father mourns him to this day.