by Astrid Amara
They sat back after their meal contentedly, watching the color of the sky blush a brilliant pink, the humidity finally dropping to a warm balm. Jandu took out his sharpening stone and sharpened his sword, as Yudar unveiled the final pieces of the chess set he had spent the last ten months carving. Baram and Yudar huddled around the crudely drawn teak board as Suraya served warm milky tea and leaned against the hut wall, staring at her husbands.
“I’m pregnant.”
No one moved. Even the air around them seemed shocked—the gentle breeze died as soon as the words were out. The night filled with silence.
Suraya smiled at Baram, then at Jandu and Yudar.
Jandu held his sword in the air, like he would stab the roof of the hut.
Baram went to her. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” Suraya grinned widely. “I wasn’t sure until this week. But it’s been two months since I’ve had my menses. Baram, we’re going to have a child.”
Baram cried out in joy and lifted Suraya into the air as the two of them laughed. Yudar, once he overcame his initial shock, stood up as well and offered his congratulations.
Jandu carefully put his sword back in its sheath and joined them in a group embrace. But he smiled for an entirely different reason. His year with Suraya just got a whole lot shorter.
Jandu had watched the approach of August and his nuptial night with growing anxiety. He loved Suraya dearly, but he didn’t think of her in a sexual way. And while there were nights with the beetles on the hard floor of their hut that Jandu realized life could be better, in bed with Suraya, it seemed like a betrayal of Suraya’s trust, to sleep with her because he had to. It seemed wrong to not want to have sex with her, and yet to do it anyway.
And, after all, Suraya was his brother’s wife. Over the last year, through thick and thin, Suraya and Baram had suffered together. Suraya’s feelings towards Yudar seemed to have waned, but her love for Baram was stronger than ever. Jandu didn’t want to get in the way of that.
Suraya’s pregnancy offered a way to get out of sleeping with Suraya entirely.
“This is such wonderful news!” Jandu cried. He pounded on Baram’s shoulders affectionately. “Good going.” Jandu patted Yudar’s shoulder as well. “Better luck next time, champ.”
Baram and Suraya burst out laughing, but Yudar gave Jandu an icy stare.
Jandu took a deep breath. “I have a suggestion.”
Everyone turned to stare at him.
“I wonder… since she’s pregnant with your baby, Baram… perhaps your year should extend?” Jandu spoke quickly, his hands stroking the sheath of his sword nervously. “After all, it seems strange for Suraya and I to be together when she’s carrying your child.”
Baram nodded, looking deep in thought, but Yudar didn’t give it a moment’s consideration.
“No.” Yudar scowled. “No. We keep to the rules. It is the only way to maintain peace between us. Remember? We swore an oath when we married. It would be one year for each of us consecutively, regardless of circumstances.”
“But we didn’t address the issue of children...” Jandu started.
Yudar cut him off. “—Yes we did. We specifically talked about it. Weren’t you listening?”
Jandu scratched his head, pretending to look at the lake. Now that he remembered it, he was off flirting with Keshan when all of the big decisions were being made.
“We made rules,” Yudar stressed. He looked upset. “We’re living together in one shared hut, and we share a wife, for God’s sake! We have to maintain the rules, or else we will fail as a family!”
“It should be up to Suraya,” Baram said, his voice rising.
“I agree with Yudar,” Suraya said shyly. She smiled at Jandu. “We will have our year together, and nothing will change.” She blushed a furious red. “I mean, there will be some changes, but…”
Baram hugged Jandu tightly. Jandu groaned.
“Thanks for the thought, but it’s not fair to you,” Baram said. He had tears in his eyes, still glowing from the news of that he would be a father. “This will be our son, all of us together. ”
“Or daughter,” Suraya said quietly, but the brothers ignored her.
Jandu sighed. He couldn’t slip out of this so easily, then.
“Fine,” he said. “So it is.” Suraya and Baram hugged again.
Yudar sat back down at the chess board, watching the two of them with a frown. “How are we going to feed a baby?”
Baram and Suraya let go of each other and stared at him.
Yudar gestured to the bones of the bird they just consumed. “Suraya, you barely get enough to eat now. If you’re pregnant, you’ll have to eat more. And when the baby is born…” Yudar looked around them, at the forest which had provided them so little.
“We’ll move,” Baram said. “After Suraya has the baby, we’ll move to a city. Somewhere large where we can find work.”
Jandu closed his eyes. The idea of living in a city again seemed like a distant dream. “We’ll have to find somewhere we don’t know anyone well. Darvad has spies all over the country.”
“How do you know?” Suraya asked.
Jandu blushed. He knew this because Keshan had told him so in a letter. But none of his family knew of his correspondence.
He shrugged. “Druv Majeo is his friend; he has to have spies.”
Yudar nodded. “Jandu is right. We have to find a place that is not allied with Darvad. And if we can get work in a palace, we may be able to find a place to provide for the child and Suraya.”
Baram and Suraya were snuggling together, too in love to really participate in the conversation.
“Where do you suggest?” Jandu asked his brother.
“Afadi comes to mind,” Yudar said. “When I visited Afadi as Royal Judge, I noticed that Lord Indarel had a large staff at his palace. We could say we used to work for the Parans in Prasta, and get work there.”
“Brilliant,” Baram said. He touched Yudar’s head fondly.
“Afadi?” Suraya frowned. “It’s so far south. And neighboring Chandamar is Firdaus’ land.”
“No one will expect us to go to such a small kingdom, where we have no connections,” Yudar countered.
Suraya nodded. “It will be up to you. As long as we can provide what is best for the baby.” She rubbed her belly fondly.
The next morning, Jandu woke early and went to his private retreat, and saw that Chezek had come during the night to replace his box of letters with another scroll from Keshan. Even in the early light, the silver dowel was warm to the touch.
Jandu unrolled the scroll on the forest floor. This time, Keshan had rolled two cloths in with his existing message, to provide Jandu with something to write back on. He obviously tired of deciphering Jandu’s scrawl on birch bark.
Jandu no longer read the letter first. He scanned the end of the scroll to find the drawing. Both he and Keshan now devoutly drew each other small diagrams of what they were doing. Keshan couldn’t stop talking in his letters about how talented he thought Jandu was, how Jandu should have been an artist.
Jandu could not say the same for Keshan’s artwork, which was usually obscene and badly sketched with blotting ink. But it always made him laugh.
This time the large picture took up several rolls of the scroll. It showed a meeting in what appeared to be Tiwari’s reception hall. The man with the extravagant diadem was obviously Keshan. He sat on a large pile of letters. Other than the exaggerated erection he drew himself with, there was nothing very sexy about this drawing.
Jandu read the letter and found out the reason why. Darvad’s spies had heightened their efforts to find the Parans. Now that almost an entire year had passed and no sign of the Parans, Darvad increased the count of his bounty hunters and had infiltrated Tiwari with hundreds of spies. Darvad knew how fond Keshan was of Jandu. And he assumed that Jandu and his family would turn to Tiwari for aid.
Worse, Keshan informed him that even the Yashva kingdom was no longer s
afe. When Keshan tried to visit Jandu through the Yashva space, Firdaus’ cousins had been there, following him.
The news sobered Jandu, and he buried the letter quickly. He walked home in a daze, pondering the warnings of Keshan’s letter, and also the last lines, which Jandu assumed were meant to be romantic, and yet had somehow failed in their delivery: Your heart will split this world into a thousand pieces.
In his next letter, Jandu almost asked Keshan what he meant by the line. But then a sick feeling of self-doubt filled him. If it was another one of Keshan’s prophecies, Jandu decided he didn’t want to know.
Chapter 22
IN AUGUST, BARAM MOVED HIS SMALL COLLECTION OF POSSESSIONS out of the couple’s hut. Suraya spent the morning cleaning the room and preparing it for her nuptial night with Jandu.
Jandu spent the day hunting.
He swore to himself as he searched the forest vainly for food. The religious sages in the retreat had stripped the forest of game. The Parans’ food stores ran out the previous week, and now they were living off milk and whatever greens and fruit they could gather. Jandu realized they would have to start begging soon, if he didn’t have better luck finding deer.
Hunting kept his mind off the upcoming evening, at least.
His family, hunkered down in panicked hunger, was desperate to make the rest of their communal living pleasant. Baram and Yudar never fought anymore, and all of them enthusiastically supported this previously agreed-upon switching of marital partners in an attempt to keep everyone else content. Even though Jandu knew Baram and Suraya were truly in love with each other, both of them were willing to sacrifice their mutual happiness in the name of harmony with the family.
But now, on the eve of consummating his marriage, Jandu decided they were all fools. It had been fun to think of how close they had all grown, living together and depending upon one another in the wilderness, but it was unreasonable to expect that harmony to continue purely based on some ideas they had the day they had met Suraya. What was it about Yudar and his damned devotion to rules?
Jandu was angry at himself for not being more adamant about abdicating his year with Suraya. Now, in the name of family peace, Baram would stifle his jealousy and be torn from the woman he loved. Suraya would have her third sexual partner in as many years. And Jandu would sleep with someone he didn’t want to.
Jandu decided that he would not go through with it on the grounds that Suraya was pregnant with his niece or nephew. The mere thought left him chilly with horror. He had to make them understand.
But his courage faded as he returned home and ate dinner in silence. He didn’t want his brothers to suspect the real reason he didn’t want to sleep with Suraya. He didn’t want anyone doubting his masculinity.
Baram had boiled down milk to thicken it and added roasted barley to make a porridge, seasoned with tamarind. They drank whey. They remained hungry after their plates were cleared.
Baram’s attempts not to appear hurt or angry made dinner more uncomfortable. Jandu knew his brother too well. Baram kept skipping stones, a sure sign of his unhappiness. Yudar picked at his dinner. He looked sunken into himself, deep in thought.
Only Suraya seemed calm. She drifted between the backyard and the hut, gathering their leaf plates and throwing them into the fire, sweeping the inside of the hut, putting away the few food stores left. She showed no apprehension on her face, only a calm serenity. Jandu half-suspected she had secreted a bottle of wine somewhere and had drunk herself into a pleasant coma.
A bottle of wine was exactly what Jandu needed now. Anxiety washed over him in sweeping waves. He looked at Suraya’s body, which had grown thinner but was still voluptuous and curvy, her large, round breasts threatening to burst through her zahari top, and tried to focus on how sexy she was. But he had known her too long in too fraternal a fashion to conjure any lust.
Suraya casually picked up Jandu’s chest of personal belongings. She struggled with its weight.
“Jandu,” she said softly. “Can you help me carry your things into the other room?”
Jandu felt his face redden. “Sure.” He grabbed the chest from her, and followed her out of the hut into the other building.
He had spent little time in this separate room. Its coziness contrasted with the drafty hut he’d slept in for the past year. The sandalwood bed gave off a sweet scent. The mattress was small, made of cotton cloth stuffed with grass and leaves, and strewn with the furs Jandu tanned months ago. Suraya’s zaharis hung around the small space, serving as decoration as well as storage. The room had a feminine touch, and smelled sweetly of camphor and butter.
“Where should I put it?” Jandu asked. Suraya pointed to a bare corner of the room. Baram’s chest had lived there only a few hours ago. The thought brought a sheen of sweat to Jandu’s forehead.
Suraya sat on the edge of the bed, and looked to Jandu coyly.
Jandu put his chest down and then stiffly sat beside her.
“This is uncomfortable,” he admitted.
Suraya laughed. She put her arm around him. “Remember how you once comforted me when I became Baram’s wife?”
Jandu grinned down at her. “Yeah. You were scared out of your wits.”
“I’m not scared now,” Suraya whispered.
“No. But I am.”
Suraya laughed again. She hugged Jandu to her tightly.
Jandu hugged back, hoping she didn’t notice the tremor in his body. Their embrace felt nice. He always loved holding Suraya. If they could just do this, everything would be fine.
But Suraya slowly lowered Jandu’s body on the bed. She stared down at him.
“You don’t have to do this,” Jandu said quietly.
“I want to,” Suraya said.
“But Baram—”
Suraya broke his speech with a kiss.
Suraya had her eyes closed. Jandu stared at her. Keshan always stared back at Jandu when they made love.
Jandu quickly shut the thought out of his mind.
Suraya kept her lips on his, wanting more. Jandu’s skin crawled with revulsion. He didn’t want to stick his tongue in her mouth. But Suraya wasn’t giving up. She prodded his lips with her tongue, seeking entry. Jandu realized he would just have to go with it. He closed his eyes and thought of Keshan.
As his hands explored her body, the differences were too stark to let his imagination wander. Where Keshan’s muscles were firm, his arms tight, his flesh taut, Suraya was soft and curvy, smooth. Jandu preferred lying still, letting Suraya touch him, imagining her hands were Keshan’s.
Suraya reached the hem of Jandu’s trousers, and hesitated.
Jandu swallowed. He closed his eyes firmly, and then quickly undid the knot of his dejaru.
He turned quickly, crouching over Suraya. He kept his eyes closed, and blindly felt for the knot of her zahari. He untied it by feel. He opened his eyes and looked down at her face.
Suraya stared up at him, a look of fear on her face. Jandu realized he was going about this all wrong. He was rushing her, not taking his time, not kissing her or showing any affection at all. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He would go through the motions, but he was incapable of pretending to feel something he didn’t.
He reached down to open Suraya’s legs, and with clumsy anxiety, entered her. Suraya sucked the breath back into her throat. Jandu looked at her long enough to make sure she wasn’t crying, and then pushed inside of her, scrunching his eyes tight again, imagining the flesh was Keshan’s flesh, imagining he tasted Keshan’s skin, smelled his coconut clove scent, felt his muscles underneath his hands.
Jandu sped up his actions, and then, after intense concentration, he came quietly, stifling any moan he would normally make.
Jandu wasn’t sure if he should continue his actions or not, but he didn’t really think Suraya enjoyed this any more than he, so he stopped moving, pulling out of her quickly.
He rolled beside her and pulled up his dejaru quickly, retying the knot.
S
uraya retied her zahari and stared up at the ceiling. She looked pale and horrified.
Jandu burned with shame. He knew this had been a bad idea. Now Suraya would hate him for being such a terrible lover.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.
Suraya didn’t answer. She continued to stare at the ceiling, as if in shock.
“I don’t think this is a good idea.” Jandu rolled over on his side.
“What do you want to do, Jandu?” Suraya asked. There was pain in her voice, accusation. “You find me so disgusting, you can’t even look at me.”
Jandu’s eyes widened. “What? That’s not it at all!”
“You are the one who won me.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.” Suraya turned her back to him and curled up on herself, knees to her chest. “It just means that you’re the one I chose, and yet you’re the one who is most distant.”
“I won you because I wanted to win. I wasn’t trying to win you, especially.”
“How romantic.”
“I’m sorry,” Jandu said, “but I’m being honest.”
Suraya had tears in her eyes. She stared at him, heartbroken. “If it isn’t me, then, what is it?”
Jandu sighed. He reached out and brushed a stray lock of hair from her face. “Suraya, for the last two years that I’ve known you, you have been my sister. I think of you as my sister. You’re pregnant with my brother’s child. However depraved I may be, I am not a sister fucker.”
Suraya’s eyes grew wide at the expression.
Jandu swallowed. “The truth is, we’ve been friends for too long for me to think of you in any other way.”
Suraya studied Jandu’s face carefully. Color came back to her cheeks.
“I see.”
“I’m sorry about all of this,” Jandu said. “But it’s better to be honest.”
Suraya seemed to let out a thin breath she had been holding. She pulled the thin cotton sheet around her, and nodded. She tried smiling.
“Sister fucker, huh?” she said quietly.
Jandu laughed. “Yeah. That’s what I feel like.”
