by Megan Bannen
The more who join in, the lovelier and more impressive are these prayers, these choreographed dances for their god. In the larger towns dotting our eastward escape route, I watch scores of men perform the ritual together. I don’t understand it, but it’s beautiful all the same.
I learn that the five daily prayers are called Salat. Khalaf’s day begins not at sunrise but when the sun sets, and he prays Maghrib. Between sunset and midnight is ’Isha. Fajr at sunrise, Zuhr at midday, ’Asr in the late afternoon, and the cycle begins all over again.
“That’s a lot of praying,” I tell him.
“If praying were a burden, I suppose one might see it that way. But praying is like food. If you don’t eat, your body starves. If you don’t pray, your soul starves. And so I pray to feed my soul.”
His soul must be a bottomless pool. One could live a lifetime and never fully explore the depths. Then again, time is something we have in infinite supply as we flee across the Il-Khanate, walking for days on end beside the camel herd, waiting for Hulegu Il-Khan to catch up to us.
“Are we still headed to the Chagatai Khanate to find your father’s ally, my lord?” I ask after watching Khalaf scan the horizon one morning. “What was his name again?”
Khalaf glances at me, midscan, and I wonder if he can sense my faux ignorance. “Qaidu,” he says, and after a long pause, he adds, “Yes, we’re going to find him.”
I don’t believe he’s lying to me exactly. I think he intends to chip away at his father’s resolve to return to the Kipchak Khanate until he’s won him over. So We’re going to ask Qaidu for help has a lot in common with We’re not going to sell the slave girl. That means I can rest assured that we’re going to make it to Samarkand at least, if we’re not caught by Hulegu Il-Khan first. After that, I’d better have a plan in place, because Samarkand is still hell and gone from Lin’an.
I’m lost in my own thoughts until I realize Khalaf is giving me that squint, the one that makes me incredibly nervous. I change the subject back to Hanyu verbs.
Little by little, Khalaf’s lessons expand until one day I find that I’m as much his student as his teacher. One moment, Khalaf is asking me to explain words like “soul” and “God” in Hanyu; the next, he’s relating my answer to a poem by a man named Attar:
Let love lead your soul.
Make it a place of refuge,
Like a monastic cave, a retreat
For the deepest core of your being.
Another day, when I’m teaching him the names of birds in Hanyu, he steers us toward the poet Rumi.
Yet with his call the fowler oft essays
To bring the errant hawk within his reach;
So, when men wander in life’s devious ways,
The Dervish too may utter human speech,
And in mere mortal words immortal truths may teach.
The following day we talk as much about Saadi as the grammatical rules of Hanyu. One poem in particular, “Guardians,” stands out. I’m sure Khalaf’s selection is random, but the meaning forms a painted backdrop to the play of my life that unfolds inevitably with each eastward step we take.
Lost is the difference of king and slave
At the approach of destiny’s decree;
Should one upturn the ashes of the grave,
Could he discern ’twixt wealth and poverty?
Nizami’s tragic Laili and Majnun takes us within sight of the Oxus River, the border between the Il-Khanate and the Chagatai Khanate.
And there, of different tribe and gentle mien
A lovely maid of tender years was seen
Her mental powers and early bloom displayed
Her peaceful form in simple garb arrayed
Bright as the morn, her cypress shape, and eyes
Dark as the stag’s, were viewed with fond surprise.
With each line he quotes, I marvel at the staggering breadth and scope of his mind. It’s like he reads something once and the words write themselves indelibly on his brain, ready to come forth at his command. He translates the verses into Mongolian and, sometimes, tries to translate them into Hanyu as well. And if I thought Khalaf’s voice was impressive in everyday speech, it becomes a thing of magic and wonder when it’s wrapped around verse.
I think he must miss learning as much as I miss home. So now I am his university. And he, I realize with a sick dread in my stomach, is my universe.
It happened in little fits and starts through the deserts of the Il-Khanate and then in an overwhelming rush as we near the Chagatai border, like water breaking through a dam. I’m drowning in a flood of Khalaf, and I don’t know what to do about it.
I’d like to recite the poems I know for him. I think Khalaf’s hungry mind would sop up Su Shi or Lu You. But it would probably seem odd that a slave girl could recite poetry, that she could write it beautifully with a brush on parchment. And yet the more I get to know Khalaf, the more I want him to know me, too. It’s a hard line to walk, wanting to be known while remaining unknowable.
Mostly I stick to songs, of which, thankfully, there are many. Li Qingzhao wrote verse after verse, full of beauty and longing, set to the songs even a peasant knows: “Cassia Flower” to the tune of “The Silk Washing Brook,” “Spring in the Women’s Quarters” to the tune of “Beautiful Nian Nu.” I sing one poem and then another from Li Qingzhao’s hand to my lips. At first, it’s awkward, walking alongside Khalaf and singing to the open sky, but I love the words, the sound of music in my throat. With each note, it becomes less awkward, until I’m no longer nervous but eager.
“Will you sing something today?” he asks.
It’s never a command. He never pushes.
“Would it please you to sing?”
Yes, it does please me.
The memory of my mother shaking her head at me, of her reminding me that a lady does not sing, the way she always scolded me—it all begins to fade. When I sing, I’m free of my past, and the present relinquishes its stranglehold on me, if only for the duration of the song.
The music has a similar effect on Khalaf. When I sing, he stops looking behind us every five minutes. When I sing, I think he forgets Hulegu Il-Khan, Turandokht, the riddles, his duty to his father and to his khanate, all his earthly responsibilities.
Creatures of the same species
Long for each other. But we
Are far apart and I have
Grown learned in sorrow.
Sometimes, when I finish a song, he rubs his lip, mulling over the words he’s managed to pick out before asking me for a better translation. Sometimes, he just watches me with brown eyes gone soft and glassy. Sometimes, the way his eyes settle on my face, tracing a line from my eyes to my lips, makes me long for things I shouldn’t want and can’t have.
Sometimes, I let myself suspect that his eyes linger on my lips for reasons that have nothing to do with music.
As we ride, I catch Timur inclining his head in our direction, trying to parse out what we’re saying to each other. He calls Khalaf to him from time to time. They argue, or I should say, Timur argues. Khalaf remains as unflappable as ever. Mazdak glances at them, too, but if he suspects anything, he doesn’t let on. When the arguments peter out, Khalaf always walks back to me, leaving his father’s frown deepening behind him.
14
IT’S BEEN EIGHT WEEKS SINCE WE started out from Ray. We’ve been following the west bank of the Oxus River northward for a couple of days toward Amul, where we should be able to cross into the Chagatai Khanate and breathe a sigh of relief.
Well, Khalaf and Timur can breathe a sigh of relief. My troubles are increasing with each step we take. I’m not close enough to Lin’an to run away. I can’t go to Khanbalik with Khalaf. And I won’t go back to the Kipchak Khanate with Timur.
I’m so focused on my own problems that I fail to notice when the Kipchaks send Mazdak and the camels ahead while Timur haggles over something with a local peasant. Both Timur and Khalaf stand so close to the water’s edge, they practically dangle t
heir toes in the water. Me? I hang back. And by “hang back” I mean that I’m standing a good twenty paces away. I’m not going anywhere near the water. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. Literally.
As I watch Mazdak grow smaller and smaller on his northward trek, I call, “My lord?” to Khalaf. He turns to look back at me, shielding his eyes from the midday sun with his hand. “What are we doing?” I ask.
“Mazdak’s taking the herd to cross at the bridge in Amul,” he calls back. “The three of us are going to ferry across here.”
Ferry.
As in, a boat.
In the water.
I catch sight of this “ferry,” a ramshackle fishing boat that looks like a toy floating in an ocean, and terror explodes within me.
“How much for three to cross?” Timur asks the peasant.
“Five dirhams,” the man answers.
“Too much. How much for two?”
“Three,” Khalaf insists.
Panic grabs hold of my lungs and won’t let go. I stagger away from the river in a jittery haze.
“Jinghua? Where are you going?” Khalaf calls behind me.
I find a tall thicket of shrubs and desert grass behind which I can cower. I cover my head with shaking hands and try like mad to breathe, but I can’t calm down.
I hear his feet swishing through the sand before he comes to sit beside me. “So, it would appear that you don’t like rivers,” he says.
His turban is off, and the wind blows bits of his hair against my arm. I scoot a few inches away from him.
“Is she coming or not?” Timur yells from the bank.
“She’s coming,” Khalaf calls back.
Like hell, I think.
“We can’t go over the bridge,” Khalaf explains to me. “We’re technically still in the Il-Khanate, and Hulegu may have guards posted on the bridge, even if he seems to have lost interest in hunting us down. If we ferry across, we’re less likely to be recognized or caught. And then we’ll be safe in the Chagatai Khanate.”
I start to cry into my kneecaps.
“You have to come,” he says.
“They won’t wait forever,” Timur shouts at us.
“You don’t understand,” I wheeze at Khalaf.
“You’re right. I don’t understand. So why don’t you help me?” His tone is gentle, but I’ve known him long enough now that I can hear the tinge of impatience in his voice, which makes me cry even harder.
“Jinghua,” he says, breathing out my name in an exhausted sigh, his stiff posture caving in. He changes positions to squat before me, cocking his head so that he can catch my eye. His face is as kind and earnest as that very first day we met, if a little exasperated. There are times when I resent the hell out of that kindness.
“I can’t,” I cry. Snot is dripping out of my nose and running down my tear-fattened lips.
“Why?”
I remember my mother’s face, blanched by fear, as she asked, Where’s the boat? I can still recall with perfect, terrifying clarity the way my body crashed through the water’s surface when I hit it. I shake my head at Khalaf. I can’t say it.
He reaches out a hand, hesitates, then touches my arm with his fingertips. The tenderness of the gesture cracks and breaks the wall of grief I’ve been building up inside myself for two years. I’m weeping torrents of misery, sinking in it, drowning in it. He curls his fingers around my forearm and squeezes gently as I cry like a baby. A moment later, he sits beside me again and wraps me up in his arms like the wailing child I am. I toss propriety out the window and press my face against the warmth of his chest, pouring my sorrow into him.
“My mother drowned,” I sob into the safe folds of his tunic. “And then I drowned, too. I drowned.”
I’ve never said it aloud, never told anyone what happened to me.
“Do you need an engraved invitation?” Timur calls from the riverbank.
“In a minute!” Khalaf shouts back angrily, adding, “My lord!” probably in the hopes of placating the old goat. To me, he says softly, “There are no words for this. I’m so sorry, Jinghua. But you didn’t drown. You’re still here. You’re still living.”
He doesn’t press for more, doesn’t ask for particulars, and for that I am eternally grateful. I finally muster enough dignity to pull myself away from him, missing his warmth as I soon as the air hits me. I’m sure my face is puffy and hideous.
“I can’t do this,” I tell him.
“I won’t let you fall in,” he promises me.
My fear begins to relent. Damn his brown eyes.
“LET’S GO!” Timur booms.
“I don’t even want to get wet. Please don’t let me get wet.” I hate the sound of my own voice.
He makes an exasperated face and nods his head from side to side as if he were haggling with a market vendor. “I’ll do my best,” he says, not very reassuringly.
“All right,” my mouth agrees while every other fiber of my being is screaming in protest.
I close my eyes and keep them shut tight as Khalaf guides me to the boat, which wobbles sickeningly under my feet as I get in. Fear grips me, and I squeal like a pig going to slaughter.
“Good God,” Timur says in disgust.
I sit between Timur and Khalaf as we float across the water. A fortress of musky male torso blocks my view of the river (and the banks and sky, for that matter), or at least it would if I could bring myself to open my eyes. Khalaf’s body is wrapped around me from the back, and Timur’s body is a solid wall in front of me. I can’t stand the man, but that doesn’t stop me from burying my face into his thick back, my head rising and falling with his breath. I can hear his heart, feel it thudding against my cheek.
“This is ridiculous,” the old goat mutters as we slide across the water. His deep voice vibrates my skull.
“Jinghua?” Khalaf whispers into my ear.
My entire body is shaking.
“Jinghua, what’s your favorite color?”
“I don’t know,” I tell Timur’s spine, wondering at Khalaf’s incredibly bad timing. What’s my favorite color? I’m facing death, and he wants to know my favorite color? What slave stops to ask herself, Hmm, what is my favorite color?
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he says. “Everyone has a favorite color.”
“I don’t,” Timur informs us over his shoulder.
“You’re kind of missing the point here, Father,” says Khalaf.
“You have a favorite color? Are you a man or are you five years old?”
“My favorite color is blue, for your information.”
“Why blue? What’s so great about blue?” Timur asks.
“It’s the color of the heavens, and so it is the color of peace.”
Timur growls in disgust from the back of his throat, a sound so similar to one my mother used to make when she was irritated that it makes me want to break down weeping all over again.
“Yellow,” I say, my voice muffled against Timur’s kaftan.
“What was that?” Khalaf asks me, his breath tickling my earlobe.
I pull my face just enough away from Timur’s body to answer, “Yellow,” before plunging my forehead back into the folds of the old man’s clothing.
“Good,” says Khalaf. “Yellow is the color of the sun, and what could be better than that? So I shall be the blue sky, and you shall be the sun in the heavens.”
Thankfully, I have my face pressed into Timur’s back so that no one can see the blush that paints itself across my face.
Khalaf announces, “You have chosen yellow, so I will tell you the story of ‘How Bahrâm Sat on a Sunday in the Yellow Dome’ and listened to ‘The Tale of the Greek King’s Daughter’ as recounted in the Haft Paykar by Nizami Ganjavi.”
“That’s a mouthful,” Timur mutters.
“And I’ve only just begun,” says Khalaf.
“Must you?” sighs his father.
“I’m afraid I must.”
With disarming cheerfulness, Khalaf begin
s to tell his tale.
Once upon a time in the land of Iraq, there lived a great king, a man whose brilliance of mind and body were like the sun, lighting up all the world. And yet he was lonely. When he was born, his horoscope dictated that should he ever marry, he would live in conflict and misery with his wife.
The simple solution to his problem was in the purchasing of slaves. He bought many lovely girls in the hope that he would find his soul mate among them. In each case, matters would begin well, but within a week, the girl would forget her place and put on fine airs and demand gifts of him.
It happened that a hunchbacked old witch worked in the king’s palace, a hag who would whisper poison in every girl’s ear so that each slave in turn would grow in pride and see herself as better than she was. Week after week, month after month, year after year, the old witch meddled and taught these slaves to disdain their master and shirk their duties.
Each girl for whom the king had woven love’s mantle had no love in her heart for him. He searched for his love so long, bought and sold so many girls, that the people began to call him the Slave Dealer. Eventually, he tired of his search and despaired. Since he could not marry, nor could he find a fitting mate to love, he gave up the fruitless endeavor.
“Are you listening, Jinghua?” Khalaf asks me.
“Yes,” I whisper, already missing the way his storytelling voice rumbles in his body and hums against the skin of my back.
“It’s not like you gave either of us a choice,” Timur points out.
“Do you like it so far?” Khalaf asks me, ignoring his father.
“I don’t know yet.”
The sound of the oars slapping against the water beneath us sets my alarm bells ringing.
“Then I had better keep going,” Khalaf says.
One day, a trader arrived from the east with a thousand slaves in his train, pure women from the farthest reaches of the world. The king, growing hopeful again, observed among these beauties the loveliest creature he had ever beheld, a girl with the face of an angel. But when he asked the slave trader to name his price, the merchant told him that despite the flames of passion she lit in men’s hearts, she refused to requite them. And so whoever bought her would return her the following day in bitter disappointment. The king, disregarding the slave merchant’s warning and following his heart, bought the slave anyway.
