by Tamim Ansary
Boornus cocked his head, a slight smile playing on his lips. “Give me an example of this singing—just the words, if you wish.”
Ibrahim cast back for a memorized couplet or two and recited the first lines that came to mind. “‘The music is already there. It needs the lyre only to be heard. Air is the merest emptiness to you …not so to the bird.’”
Boornus nodded. Ibrahim saw something in his eyes that might have been appreciation, and his heart filled with hope. The foreigner bent over his notes again. Then he said, “Well, I think I can recommend your release, and I’m sorry for the inconvenience.” He scribbled something on a page of his notebook, tore it out, and handed it to Ibrahim. “Give this to the guards at the outer gates.”
“Wait! Do you mean—?” Was this an order for the malang’s release? If so, then the beating, the strange night, his throbbing arm—all were worth it!
Before Boornus could answer, some half-dozen other Engrayzees came trooping into the interrogation room, clamoring about something. Boornus quickly ushered Ibrahim past them. His voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, he said, “Go without a fuss just now, but come to my house in Shor Bazaar a week from next Thursday, about mid-morning. Anyone can direct you. Just ask where Sekander Burnes lives. I may be able to help your malang. Will you remember my name? Sekandar Burnes. Al-Iskandar, some may say. Boornus. A week from Thursday: we’ll talk further.”
Dizzy with joy, Ibrahim let the guards take him to the outer gate. There he submitted the sheet of paper from Boornus. The captain studied it and said, “Wait here.” After a moment in the guard house, he came back and said, “Open your hand.” He poured a handful of coins onto Ibrahim’s palm. “Compensation for your troubles, villager.”
Compensation for his troubles? Ibrahim stared at the money. Compensation for leaving the malang behind? For failing Khadija, for returning to the Grand Bazaar humiliated and beaten? He flung the coins away and wiped his palms against his shirt, turning to protest, but two burly guards already had him by the arms and another had a lance poked against the small of his back. The men hurried him down the broad road and gave him a rude push, toward the city.
35
The season’s first snow had fallen on Char Bagh, and still no word had come from the men. It was just a light sprinkle, this first snow, like ash that a broom might have swept from the sky, but it kept falling until a blanket of flakes had built up, and then the temperature plunged and the blanket froze so hard, children could walk on it. Khadija woke up on the second cold morning thinking about Soraya.
She had visited the old compound a few times after the men left, but once the leaves fell and autumn put a snap in the air, she had too much to do getting her own compound ready for winter. Making charcoal, for example. Stacking dried dung where it would stay dry, for she would need the fuel after her wood and charcoal ran out. Burying onions and potatoes in the storeroom so they wouldn’t freeze. Boiling buckets of fat and straining it so she would have clear oil for lamplight in the dark days ahead. Pounding dried mulberries and walnuts into a paste to make the sweet fruit-leather that would stretch her stores of barley and turnips. Oh, there was so much to do.
One of Soraya’s nieces moved in with her to help out. Asad’s boys came up every day or two to bring her wood and freshly-ground flour and other small necessities, but Khadija recruited two of her own nephews from Sorkhab to come live in her compound as well. She needed males around to do the rough work, the digging and pounding and climbing, and they had to be close relatives so the village tongues wouldn’t wag.
If nothing else, she needed the distraction of their company during those desolate days. Anxiety would not release its clutch on her, the anxious memory of that last day with Ibrahim. She tired easily and took unwholesome naps in the late mornings when she should have been working. She napped and dreamed about Ibrahim and the malang, and in her dreams she was lying between them, Ibrahim in front and the malang in back, although neither one seemed to notice she was even there. They talked through her, to each other, earnestly on and on, about God and death, about time and the world. She jumped out of these troubling dreams in a sweat, more tired than when she fell asleep. Loneliness became indistinguishable from grief, and in time, grief from illness, particularly when she was cooking, for it was then, somehow, that memories of happier times twisted her up with a particular intensity.
One day, Asad’s three eldest sons came up with a load of dried juniper stalks for making charcoal. After they had delivered their load, she served them tea with a bit of sweet bread for their troubles and then, as she went about her chores, she overheard them chattering about the excellent lunch they would soon be wolfing down at Malik Ibrahim’s house. “No, no, boys, you’re staying here for lunch” she informed them. “I need you to repair my chicken coop this afternoon.”
“Awww! Auntieee…” the boys whined. “You only have bread and turnips!”
“Rude louts! What do you expect to get down there at Soraya’s?”
“Goat stew!” the youngest boy readily piped. His voice had not fully changed, but even he was half a head taller than Khadija. He washed his hands reluctantly over a large pan with water that his brother poured from a pewter vase, but he really didn’t want to stay here and miss the lunch down there.
“Goat stew!” Khadija exclaimed. “What makes you think they’ll have goat stew?”
“They slaughtered the goat with the broken horn,” the boy reported casually. “It wasn’t giving milk anymore. Auntie said if it won’t give milk, let’s have its meat.”
This didn’t sound like Soraya. “Why did it stop giving milk? Our best milk goat!”
“Guess djinns got to it. They said to bring back onions, ‘cuz you have good’uns.”
“What’s wrong with their own?”
“Buncha’ them froze the day it got cold.”
“They weren’t buried?” Khadija frowned. How could Soraya have been so careless? “Are the potatoes okay, at least?”
“Potatoes!” The boys snickered at the idea that important male persons like themselves should give a damn about potatoes. One poked the other and said, “Did you forget to bury the potatoes, girlie?”
“It’s your job! You’re the girl!”
“Wait’ll I cram a potato up your butt, we’ll see who’s the girl.”
“You filthy-mouthed ghouls!” barked Khadija. “How dare you?”
“But Auntiee! He called me a girl—”
Suddenly brother number one socked brother number two hard enough to bang him against the wall. Those two boys fell to wrestling all over Khadija’s floor. The third one dove into the pile, shrieking and laughing. Khadija dumped a pan of cold wastewater over them to stop the fighting. The boys sat up, spluttering indignantly. “Why’d’you do that!?”
“Why do you think? Rolling all over my house breaking things. Cretins! You’re all staying here for lunch, for dinner, and for the night. Forget about goat stew. You buckle down because you’re not going anywhere. You’ve got work to do right here!”
Later, over turnip soup and bread, Khadija asked the sullen boys about Soraya. “How is she managing with that big household to run now? Is her mother helping?”
“Sure, yop. Her ma and heaps of others.”
“What ‘heaps’ of others?” Khadija squinted at the boys.
“All them as feels sorry for her. My mama goes there every day.”
“Does she.” People called the mother of these boys Bibi Girang: Lady Heavyweight. Nailed to the floor by her own immensity, she rarely visited her own yard, much less other compounds. What could tempt her next door? Khadija could think of only one attraction. “Does Soraya feed her ‘helpers’ well?”
“Oh! Mighty good feeding over there, yop!” one of the louts assured her. He tore a hunk from the flat loaf. “Auntie Khushdil’s one damn good cook, she is.”
“Khushdil has moved in there?”
“Sure. She’s needed. Agha Lala kicks up such a ruckus these days.
He’s always yelling how he wants to walk to Baghlan. People have to hold him down. It takes two or three, believe me! Once? He got out of the house? They called on us for help, hee hee! He was out the door with his bundle and walking stick. We had to drag him back, and how he fought—oh! You’d never believe an old geezer like him would put up such a fight.”
“He’s a biter,” the youngest boy noted.
“Only two teeth but he bites like a parrot,” the middle brother declared, shaking his head in admiration at the biting power of the senile old man.
“Have they at least made mulberry paste for the winter?”
The boys laughed at that question. “Who knows? We never go in the storeroom over there anymore. Mama says djinns might get us.”
“Djinns! Why do you keep talking about djinns?”
“’Cuz there’s lots of ‘em now. They’ve come looking for Auntie Soraya. She’s taken bad these days. Howling and eating mud and such. It’s creepy.”
“She’s eating mud again?” This news truly disturbed Khadija. Here she was in her fort, proud as any princess, wanting the whole village to know she needed no help, and all along, she was never the one in danger. It was always Soraya who couldn’t cope. Even though she lived in a compound crawling with people, she was more alone than Khadija had ever been. And now that Khushdil had moved in, Soraya might find herself reduced to servant status in her own compound. Khadija had to go down there and defend her.
The next morning, she put on her heavy woolen socks, her sandals, her cloak, and her body veil, and followed Asad’s boys down to the village. She banged into the compound that used to be her own. The moment she got inside, she could feel the beehive fullness of it. At least twenty women were lolling and lounging in the various rooms, none of them working, all of them lazing about, munching snacks, drinking tea, chatting. Khadija noticed at once that the mattresses looked flat. No one had unpacked them and re-fluffed the cotton, a standard preparation for winter. The onion bin outside the storeroom was still full of onions. Some had frozen, then thawed, and were now showing hints of rot. The rest could be saved if they were buried at once but it had to be at once, for the ground itself would soon freeze too hard to crack with any spade.
She found Khushdil with Soraya’s mother in the kitchen. Soraya was sitting in there too, at the end of the bench, her arms clutched around her thin body, hugging herself for warmth and rocking in place. The other two women were swishing rice around in cold water, their sleeves rolled up to their elbows, rinsing the starch off so the rice would cook up into nice, plump separate grains imbued with flavorful spiced oil.
Khadija greeted the women affably, received their cheerful responses, and accepted their invitation to sit down and join the storytelling. She listened to ten or fifteen minutes of physical and social complaints, the usual prolog to any conversation among the women. It was not news nor even gossip so much as ritual. But then, as the conversation settled to earth, she could no longer hold her tongue.
Keeping her voice sweet, she addressed Soraya. “Why are we cooking rice today, my dear? For the noon meal, no less! We must have something great to celebrate! Has news come from the men? I’m breathless to know.”
“No. It’s because—it’s just—you know. It’s hard to explain.” Soraya’s teeth chattered. The question agitated her. She shook her fingers as if shaking off water. “You tell, Khushdil. You’re good at explaining.”
“Khushdil? Was this your decision?” Khadija turned icy eyes on the pudgy intruder.
“Who are you to ask?” Khushdil retorted. “Don’t you live up in the crags now, with your famous husband? I’m here to help poor, dear Soraya-jan. Whatever she wants, it’s her household. Anyway, why not rice? Ibrahim is a rich man, God be praised. You kept it from us all these years, you scrimping hoarder! We never knew!”
“Winter has just started,” Khadija shot back. “That’s why the storerooms are overflowing. We still have months to get through. Soraya-jan, what if the men come home and there is no rice to celebrate their homecoming?”
“And when will that be?” Khushdil scoffed. “The snows have started.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Soraya fretted. “It’s not what I want—” she groaned.
“Look! Look how you’ve upset her,” Soraya’s mother scolded. “You troublemaker! You walk in and right away you’re giving orders? This is not your house anymore! You’re not even clan, not even blood! Have you lost all shame, living with that malang?”
“Are you disrespecting Malang-sahib?” Khadija demanded.
Another sharp groan cut her off. At the end of the bench, Soraya was rocking harder than ever, twisting her head from side to side. at the end of the bench. “There!” She pointing to the corner with a stabbing gesture. “See it?” Her eyes had gone wide with fear. Then her irises rolled up until half of each orb disappeared under her eyelids.
Shock pulled Khadija to her feet. Even as she approached Soraya, she felt prickles rising all over her body. Soraya was still pointing at the corner, and Khadija knew it would be empty there, but she looked.
“Don’t you see it?” Soraya cried out “Right there! A great big one!”
The corner was dark and the darkness might itself be a shape. Khushdil had withdrawn from Soraya, shrinking into her own fat. She too was staring at the corner in horror. “What is it?” The words came gritting out between clenched teeth.
“Djinns, you dummy! She sees djinns,” whispered Soraya’s mother. “W’allah, they’re right here in the room with us! Get back from her, Khushdil. Get back before one of them slips into you.”
Saliva was bubbling from Soraya’s slack lips, her slack mouth. Her eyes had gone almost completely white. The minimal crescents still to be seen had moved close to her nose. She was no longer seeing anything. She began to twitch.
Khushdil scrambled out the door, and Soraya’s mother inched along the perimeter of the room to follow her. They were planning to abandon Soraya “She’s your daughter!” Khadija raged, but the old woman gave her a distracted glance and bolted.
Khadija didn’t have Soraya’s ability to see djinns, but she could sense them. She knew that at least one djinn was in the room, knew it from the clamminess of her palms and the dread that kept rising. She could even tell roughly where it was. The djinn was reeling toward her. Then it veered decisively toward Soraya, intending to take possession of the easier body. But another of the creatures was already inside Soraya—it was plain from the involuntary jerking violence of her body, the vacancy in her eyes, the way her head flopped around, like a rag ball attached to her body by a mere string of neck.
Khadija forced herself to Soraya’s side. Almost weeping with horror, she put her arms around that slender body. Soraya felt as cold as a corpse under her dress, and just as rigid. That’s what djinns did when they took possession of you. They were creatures made of smokeless fire, yet they turned a body cold and stiff. It would be awful to abandon Soraya. She was still inside that body somewhere, frightened to death and lost to the world, but still alive in there. Khadija clutched the girl closer. Where they pressed together, Khadija could barely feel her own skin, as if they were two other people pressed together. This was so risky! At any moment, the djinn might seep through where they were touching, might enter Khadija. What’s more, that second djinn was still creeping about nearby. In the old days djinns infested the village like roaches. The eldest elders knew this from stories their own grandparents had told them, but no living person had witnessed a possession like this one. No living person. The djinns had more or less forgotten about Char Bagh for generations, but they must have noticed it again when the malang came to town—as a place they must never visit; then when he was dragged away, the news must have spread among the djinns, and so they had come creeping in from all directions: and of course they headed straight for Soraya, the one person in the village with that rare, unhappy ability to see them.
At that moment, Soraya’s body went soft again under Khadija’s fingers.
Khadija pressed her cheeks to the girl’s face and found it warm and wet. Soraya’s eyes were open and streaming tears. She kept biting her delicate lips and picking at herself as if plucking ants off her skin. “Khadi—Khadija?” she stammered. “Khadija-jan?”
“I’m with you. Are they gone?”
“They were here,” Soraya whimpered. “Did you see them?” The words blew out of her in gusty gulps.
“Yes,” Khadija lied. Surely Soraya wanted to hear this lie. Nobody wants to be the only one of anything. “I saw them too.”
“Thank God,” Soraya burst out gratefully. “We both saw them.”
“Two of them,” Khadija offered.
“Oh, yes! So you did see them!” Soraya clapped her hands. “A big one and a little one. Say namaz with me, Khadija-jan, they might come back. One of them was right inside me! You can’t know how it feels.”
“It must be awful,” Khadija shuddered. “Awful!”
“They’re slithery and cold. You can feel their nasty little fingers scraping at you from inside. Cold horrid little fingers!”
“Bismillah,” Khadija murmured. In God’s name! “Stand up now. Can you walk? Let’s purify ourselves for namaz.”
“Wasn’t my mama here?”
“She had to leave.”
“What about Khushdil?”
“They both—”
“Did they see the djinns? Were they frightened away by them?”
“They left just before,” Khadija lied again. Soraya could not want to hear that her mother had abandoned her. “Come along, let’s do our ablutions and say namaz.”
The women made their way to the windowless chamber where people washed their hands, feet, and faces before prayers. It was next to the kitchen, and smoke from the oven ran under it before venting out the chimney on the other side. In the morning, therefore, when bread was baking, the oven warmed the ablution-room, but at this time of day the room was terribly cold, which was good: the cold would slap Soraya back to her senses.
