Mina smiled again, and her blue eyes danced. “Oh, that will be good. Yosef will think we’re doing something important and scary, and tomorrow he’ll bring me a present from the Medah! He’s always bringing me things— flowers, fruits—he spoils me.”
Ishi laughed. “Lucky you,” she said. She gave the medicator instructions and then stood beside the exam bed, her hand on Mina’s wrist in conscious imitation of Zahra. Covertly, she watched the older girl. Mina’s cheeks were rounded and pink with health and the bloom of pregnancy. She was obviously perfectly content, even delighted, with her marriage, her coming baby, her life. Which is it, Ishi wondered, the baby, or the husband, who makes her so happy? Or could it be both?
Ishi’s own mother was timid and unforthcoming. She never spoke of her feelings about Ishi’s father. She had suffered when Ishi was ceded to Qadir, but those feelings, too, went unspoken.
When Mina and Yosef were safely on their way home, Ishi climbed the stairs feeling quite satisfied with herself and her work. Just like a real medicant. Just like Zahra.
Zahra was not in the bedroom. Still with Qadir, Ishi supposed. She hoped that was a good sign. Perhaps Qadir would make Zahra happy again. Perhaps tomorrow Zahra would be cheerful and energetic, moving with her quick steps through the clinic, ordering Ishi and Lili and Asa about in the old impatient way.
Ishi trailed her fingers over the photograph of Nura, her bony intelligent features barely visible through gauzy layers of veil. “I wish I’d known you,” she whispered. “I hope you’re watching over Zahra. And me, too.”
* * *
Jin-Li wanted time, time to think. A shuttle was due the next morning, and Onani would be calling, maybe interfere with her work again. She needed to think this through now, tonight.
She turned the cart toward the Medah, to the market square. She would visit the fish vendor, perhaps the leptokis seller, stroll in anonymity through the bustle. She would consider other options, invent something, some alternative to the thing Zahra had asked of her.
The fish vendor smiled, touching his heart, opening his fingers. “Kir, it’s been a while! Fish for you?”
Jin-Li nodded, and the man spoke through the curtain to his wife in back of the stall. The fish came, as always, hot and tender, salty and fragrant. But Jin-Li couldn’t eat it. After several small nibbles, it went back in its basket.
“Something wrong, kir?” the vendor asked, looking vexed. “Is the fish bad?”
“No, it’s fine,” Jin-Li said, dropping four drakm on the counter with a little shrug. “I’m sorry. I guess I wasn’t as hungry as I thought.”
“No charge, then,” the man said. He pushed the drakm back toward
Jin-Li with greasy fingers and took the basket in his hand. He gave it a little toss, making the golden fillets jump in their napkin, then thrust it back through the curtains into his wife’s hands. “Come again when you’re hungry, Earther.”
Jin-Li smiled at him. “Hard to make a profit that way, my friend.”
The vendor laughed. “It won’t go to waste! My wife hasn’t had her meal yet.”
Jin-Li’s smile froze. The fish seller’s face was untroubled as he turned to another customer, but there was no mistaking his words. His wife would be eating Jin-Li’s order, Jin-Li’s leftovers. The woman was laboring on her knees behind the curtain, her face wet with steam from the stove. And she was expected to eat fish rejected by a customer.
Jin-Li backed quickly away from the little kiosk. The four drakm, glimmering with drops of oil, still lay on the counter. At the very least, the woman’s dinner would be paid for, whether she knew it or not.
It was an ordinary evening in the square. Miners mingled with clerks and farmers and tradesmen. A few women trailed their escorts through the light crowd. The men called out to each other, ignoring the mute veiled figures. A family passed Jin-Li—a man in boots, a small woman in layers of beige silk, a boy of perhaps ten. As they walked by, Jin-Li heard the man snap at his wife, “Hurry, can’t you? I don’t want to be here all night!” The boy took huge strides to be able to walk by his father’s side. He looked back at his mother.
“You’re so slow! Why are you so slow, Mumma?” His tone perfectly replicated his father’s sarcasm. The woman had to trot to keep up, her shoes catching on her long skirts.
On an impulse, Jin-Li walked in the shadows behind the stalls. Women, many with a child in their arms or balanced on one hip, were just visible in the curtained cubicles, cooking food, wrapping parcels, sewing. They called to each other, laughing or complaining, asking questions, telling stories. They fell instantly silent if they caught sight of Jin-Li.
Jin-Li wound through the marketplace to a coffee stand. The vendor placed a cup of strong black brew on the counter, with honey and cinnamon for flavoring. The steam from the brewing scented the air around the kiosk with sharp musk.
“Delicious, kir,” Jin-Li said. “Do you make it yourself?”
The man shook his head. “My wife,” he said with some pride. “Her father’s a coffee grower. She really knows coffee.”
“It’s an art,” Jin-Li remarked.
The vendor nodded. “That it is.”
“You were fortunate in your wife, then,” Jin-Li ventured.
The vendor laughed and winked. “Smart I was, Earther,” he said. “I was in search of a trade after the mines, and the coffee grower had a daughter!” The man’s face softened. “A real jewel of Irustan, my wife. Praise be to the Maker.”
Jin-Li smiled, touched hand to heart, and walked slowly on, searching. Wild schemes and foolish ideas whirled together. They were all fantastic ploys, desperate plots to save Zahra and yet satisfy her need. Surely it wouldn’t be necessary to make it so easy for Onani! Zahra—when it was spoken, out in the open, who wouldn’t suspect her? They would never stop until they knew it all. Jin-Li really knew very little; but if Onani pursued the truth with Zahra, it would all come out, every detail, how she had . . . no, Jin-Li didn’t want to think of how. The why was clear enough.
Jin-Li gave up. No inspiration had come, no great redeeming idea had burst into being. Jin-Li turned toward the cart, and home.
At the end of the row of kiosks was a large, canopied stall lined with bolts of silk and fiber cloth. Jin-Li almost tripped over a little boy scrambling underfoot in chase of a multicolored ball that had bounced off a roll of cloth into the crowd. It ricocheted off someone’s legs, and the boy dove after it.
In the stall, behind the shelter of the counter and the canopy, a tiny veiled figure jumped up and down, arms waving. Jin-Li smiled to see how the child signed to the boy to throw her the ball, throw it her way. She jumped, her veiled head just showing over the counter, and then she jumped again, her arms flailing to get her brother’s attention. The boy, six or seven years old, stood near the counter on the outside, holding the ball above his head, laughing. “Come and get it,” he taunted the girl. “Come out and get it!”
The girl could take it no more. She tried to reach over the counter, to grab at the ball. The boy danced backward, holding it just out of her reach.
Jin-Li no longer smiled. The girl pounded on the counter with her small fist, a mute and tragic figure of utter and complete frustration. A moment later she burst into noisy tears, and at that, her father, the cloth vendor, seized her by the shoulders and bundled her into the back of the stall. Her wails soared above her mother’s murmurs of comfort.
The vendor saw Jin-Li and shrugged, spreading his hands. “Sorry, kir,” he said with a rueful chuckle. “She’s only just put on the veil this week. It’s hard for her.”
“Yes,” Jin-Li said quietly. “Very hard. I can see that.”
* * *
“Come with me, Zahra,” Qadir said. He drew her from the evening room, along the corridor to his bedroom.
There were neither wine nor glasses laid ready, nor was Qadir’s dressing gown spread out on the bed. His desk light was on, and papers stacked there. He had been working before dinner.
&nb
sp; Zahra took off her veil and dropped it on his dresser. He sat at his desk, and indicated with his hand that she should sit across from him. He put his elbows on the desk and leaned forward, looking into her face.
“I’ve made a decision, Zahra,” he said. “It’s about Ishi.”
Zahra felt her balance shift, as if her inner ear had suddenly failed her. She gripped the edge of the desk with white fingers. “Qadir!” she exclaimed. “You promised!”
He frowned. “What do you mean, promised? I promised she would always be properly looked after, and she will! You haven’t heard my decision yet.”
Zahra swallowed. The muscles of her thighs trembled as she tried to sit straight. She forced herself to wait in silence.
Qadir cleared his throat. “Of course, Ishi should finish her studies first,” he said, linking his fingers on the desk. “As you did.”
Zahra wished she hadn’t taken off her veil.
“And naturally her husband should be someone who understands the work of a medicant, its importance. He should be someone of education and position, as well. A difficult combination to find. In addition, 1 prefer that Ishi be ceded to someone who is not too old. I don’t hold with the practice of very young brides for men who are past middle age.”
Zahra knew Qadir was watching her closely. She tried with all her strength to appear normal, to hold up a veil of calmness behind which her heart pounded and her mind raged.
“I’m very fond of Ishi,” Qadir said, his eyes intent. “And since it’s high time for Diya to have his own home, I . .
Zahra found her mouth open and dry.
He went on, “I think Diya will understand that a medicant—”
Zahra’s voice scraped from her throat, high and painful. “Not—not Diya! You can’t mean Diya! Not for Ishi!”
Qadir frowned more deeply. “Zahra—why not Diya? He’s done his turn in the mines, he’s been a loyal and devoted help to me—he deserves his reward, as we all do!”
“You mean, as all of you do!” Zahra snapped. She stood up, her hands in fists by her sides, her body stiff with fury. Veins swelled in her throat, and blood rushed to her cheeks. “Diya, that sneak? That coward? Qadir, he doesn’t even like Ishi!”
Qadir rose swiftly. At sixty, he was almost as lithe as she. His face, too, darkened dangerously. “He does, Zahra! He asked for her particularly!”
“He’s nasty and critical. He’s too old! And he’s stupid!”
White patches showed around Qadir’s lips. “Enough,” he rapped. “Diya is no older than I was when you were ceded to me. He’s smart enough to be in line for a directorship. And I’ve promised him Ishi. That’s all.”
He turned away, and opened the door of his bedroom. “Go to your room, Zahra,” Qadir said smoothly. Just so, she supposed, he ran meetings of the directors of Irustan. “Calm yourself. Confer with Lili.”
Her head swiveled to follow him. “Lili?” she breathed.
Qadir’s smile was terrifying. “She’s your anah, isn’t she? And Ishi’s. Listen to her. She knows what’s best for you both.”
“Qadir, please ...”
The smile vanished as if a light had been put out. “I’m not going to discuss it, Zahra. And I warn you”—he lifted one finger—“not a word to Ishi. That honor is mine.”
Zahra found herself alone in the hallway without knowing how she got there. Moments later she was in her bedroom, though she couldn’t remember walking up the stairs. Ishi was already in bed, propped up with her reader glowing in her lap.
“Zahra? What’s wrong?”
Zahra caught sight of herself in the mirror above the dressing table. Her pupils were expanded with shock, and the irises of her eyes were so dark they were almost black. Two scarlet spots stained her cheekbones, but she was otherwise pale as moonlight. “I—I think perhaps I’m ill, Ishi,” she stammered. “I don’t know what ... I didn’t eat much . . .”
Ishi was out of bed in a flash, her arm around Zahra’s waist, one hand cool against Zahra’s burning cheek. “Here, now,” Ishi said firmly, softly. “Sit down. I’m going to help you off with your dress and tuck you into bed.” She did as she promised, and soon Zahra was being folded into her bed with surprising efficiency. Ishi smoothed Zahra’s hair back from her face, briefly touching the backs of her fingers to her forehead. It was a trick Zahra recognized as her own.“I don’t think you have a fever,” Ishi said. “Are you nauseated? Faint? Do you have any pain?”
Zahra managed a faint, trembling smile. She caught Ishi’s hand in both of hers, and kissed the slender fingers. “No, my Ishi. My own little medicant.” She lay back against her pillow and closed her eyes. “Just rest, I think.” Tears burned beneath her eyelids. She willed them away with the last of her strength.
“If you’re sure, then,” Ishi said. “I’ll turn out the light. If you need anything, promise you’ll wake me.”
“I promise,” Zahra said.
When the room was dark, Zahra opened her eyes and stared out the window. She was exhausted, physically, mentally, emotionally, but she gazed into the night sky, thinking, until the little chain of moons rose into view. By then her decision was made. There was one thing she could do, and one thing only.
With her resolve came a sense of relief. She turned on her side and closed her burning eyes, and slept soundly all through the night.
thirty-four
* * *
The undersigned assures and promises that this contract is entered into willingly and without coercion, and that agreement with all foregoing principles and requirements is voluntary.
—Offworld Port Force Terms of Employment
The Simah’s call to worship wailed from the parapet of the Doma as Jin-Li drove onto the landing field. The shuttle gleamed hotly in the blazing light. Other longshoremen, empty carts jouncing over the tarmac, wheeled out to the ship, racing each other. Jin-Li, cap pulled low, eyes grim and tired behind the wide glasses, drove more slowly.
Onani had said little this morning. A grunt, a brief thanks into the wavephone. But he understood. In concise phrases rehearsed throughout the night, Jin-Li had made it quite clear.
“The women are the connection, Mr. Onani. And the children. Binya Maris’s two young wives died under strange circumstances, and he was involved in the death of at least one other woman. Belen B’Neeli’s wife died of a beating. Leman Bezay’s son had psychological difficulties, and before Bezay’s death he was scheduled for the mines. Now he’s disappeared.”
“What about IhMullah, Director IhMullah? The first one?”
“His daughter was supposed to be ceded to Binya Maris. He died before the cession, and the contract was voided.”
Onani had been silent for a moment. Then, “So these deaths—they were deliberate? Vengeance?”
Jin-Li didn’t answer.
“That makes it terrorism,” Onani said flatly.
Jin-Li responded, “Matter of perspective.”
“Chung,” Onani said. “Find out who it is.”
“Not my job, Mr. Onani.”
There was another silence, and then Onani gave a dry chuckle. “Fair enough, Jin-Li. I’ll be in touch.”
“Mr. Onani ...”
“Yes?”
“It’s Doma Day. Can’t do anything today.”
“Right.” And the phone went dead.
Jin-Li faced a long, hot day of labor. Already the heat of the star baked the city and the port. The air was dry, burning in the lungs. The bitumen of the landing field burned even through thick-soled boots. Before the first dry carton was offloaded, Jin-Li’s body was wet with perspiration.
Rocky pulled up his dark glasses and looked at Jin-Li. “You okay, Johnnie?”
Jin-Li nodded.
“Onani giving you trouble?” Rocky persisted.
Jin-Li, startled, stopped in midstride with a carton on one shoulder. “What?”
“Onani,” Rocky repeated. “He called you off the job a while ago. Thought you might be in some trouble.”
“Oh,” Jin-Li said. “No. No trouble.”
“Well, good,” Rocky said. “That’s good, Johnnie. Tell me if you are. Don’t like my guys bothered by the suits.”
Jin-Li hoisted the carton onto one of the slatted shelves. Rocky’s concern was a surprise. Nothing in the foreman’s rough manner had ever hinted at kindness. Or anything like real friendship. But then, Jin-Li thought, I’ve kept my distance from Rocky, from all of them. Would I have noticed?
* * *
The Doma Day gathering was at Laila’s. Samir Hilel was just leaving as Zahra and Ishi and Lili arrived. Zahra inclined her head to him. He stared at her as if trying to see through her veil, to see something he hadn’t seen before. A thrill of danger went through her body. Be damned to him, she thought. To all of them. She turned her back on Samir and walked into the house and on to Laila’s dayroom. Ishi and Lili followed.
The children were already helping themselves from a laden table to one side of the room, chattering, laughing, rills open. Rabi was surrounded by the anahs, showing them a swatch of the fabric for her wedding dress. The women exclaimed over it, and over the shining necklace her husband-to-be had sent to her.
The corner where the women of the circle met was silent, an islet of cold and darkness in an otherwise vivid sea. Kalen looked angry, Idora frightened. As they all sat down, Zahra unbuttoned her rill and lifted her chin, looking around the circle, meeting their eyes.
It was Kalen who burst out, in a fierce whisper, “You did another one! You wouldn’t let me, but you did it yourself!”
Camilla said, “Hush, Kalen. Zahra had good reason.”
Idora’s full lips trembled in her round face, and her eyes filled with tears. “What reason? What reason could you have for doing it again? You promised! You said it was over!”
4 “Why wouldn’t you let me help?” Kalen shrilled. “I was the first, the very first! And now you shut me out!”
Camilla repeated, “Hush. You’ll frighten the children.”
The Terrorists of Irustan Page 30
