by Elif Shafak
Jamila took out a round copper tray from the cupboard, on which she placed flat bread, tea and the pan with the sizzling eggs. Carefully, she carried it to him. ‘A djinni husband . . .’ She smiled despite herself. ‘I’m afraid I’m just an ordinary human being, and my life is more boring than you think.’
As soon as she uttered these words she regretted them. It was better for her if the man thought she was an extraordinary creature, a woman like no other. She should not show him, or anyone else, her imperfections, her vulnerability, her humanness. If they knew you carried a heart of glass, they would break it.
A Boy Made of Wax
London, May 1978
On the day the squatters were arrested, Tobiko, too, was taken into custody, but, unlike the others, she vanished shortly after being released. No one knew where she had gone. Worried, Yunus knocked on the door next to the squat. An old man opened it a crack and peeped from behind the security chain.
‘Sorry to disturb you, sir. I’m looking for my friend, a girl with black hair and tattoos. She used to live in the house over there.’
‘You mean where all the loonies live?’
‘Uh-hmmm,’ Yunus said hesitantly.
‘Don’t know any girl with black hair and tattoos. I hope they’ve bloody gone for good,’ he said. ‘And good riddance too.’ The door was slammed shut.
Yunus decided to search the town on his own. Pedalling his bicycle along street after street, running after every woman who even remotely resembled Tobiko, he looked round markets and supermarkets, launderettes and off-licences, but he still couldn’t find her.
So on that day in early May when he turned the corner of Kingsland Road, just steps away from the Rio Cinema, his mind everywhere and nowhere, it was Tobiko he was hoping to find. His drowsy eyes fell upon a couple who were standing in front of a flower stall, their backs turned to him, choosing a pot of flowers. He didn’t know what it was about the couple that drew him in, but somehow he couldn’t take his eyes off them.
The man reached out and touched her wrist, caressing lightly, lovingly. Her slender body was tilted into him, as if at any moment she would put her head on his shoulder. Suddenly, Yunus felt an uncanny discomfort in his gut, a rushing in his ears. The familiarity of the woman’s chestnut hair, the jade dress with capped sleeves and golden buttons, the shape of her waist and the gentle, graceful sweep of her arm . . . The boy’s heart fluttered. His face went ashen, his lips became taut.
The man pulled the woman towards him and whispered something in her ear, touching her neck with his lips, a quick, short brush, perhaps an accident, innocent and unintended, a bashful exchange, after which she half turned and smiled, exposing a dimple in her right cheek.
Mum.
The boy turned his bike around, pedalling fast. Under the layer of shock and panic that had fallen upon him, he was thinking, or some part of his brain was thinking, that he had never seen his mother like this before. The woman he had just watched was Mum, and yet so unlike her. There was an aura of happiness about her, as bright as the flowers she was buying.
That evening Yunus came home looking like a boy made of wax – pale, insipid. Iskender and Esma teased him no end, saying he resembled one of the figures in Madame Tussauds. Pembe was worried that he might have stomach flu and tried to make him drink peppermint tea. But Yunus rejected their pleasantries, ignored the banter and insisted on going to sleep early.
That night he wet his bed.
Haroun the Smuggler
A Place near the River Euphrates, May 1978
That day, late in the afternoon, Jamila went out to collect some wood. On the way back she sat on a rock, brooding. Tucked into her belt was a letter, which she took out and stared at through empty eyes, as though she had forgotten what it was. But, unlike the monsters in her dreams, the paper was real. It was as real as the mountains that surrounded her and just as portentous. She began to read it again.
Jamila my dear sister,
Throughout all these years I must have sent you hundreds of letters. There were good days and bad days. But this has been the most difficult letter to write. Sister, I’ve met someone. Please don’t frown. Please don’t judge me. Give me a chance to explain, though I’m not sure I understand it myself. I cannot confide in anyone but you. Nobody knows. I’m scared witless. But I’m also full of joy and hope. How can this be?
All this time I was convinced that my heart was dry. Like a piece of leather left in the sun for too long. Incapable of loving anyone, except you and my children. But never a man, I believed. When I met him, it was as if I had always known him. I couldn’t put a word to this feeling. I tried hard to keep him out of my mind. I failed.
He’s a cook. Like you, he knows the language of herbs and spices. Outside on the streets of London the young demonstrate. Everybody is furious at something, but not him. He says only patient people can cook. He is a man of many lands and many names, but no native soil. Perhaps he carries his hometown on his back, like an ageless turtle.
I know you must be appalled. I know what you’re going to tell me: it’s shaming. Mama’s ghost will haunt me for ever. Papa’s too. ‘I’d rather see the corpse of a daughter of mine in the Euphrates than have her bring me disgrace.’ That’s what he said after Hediye ran away, remember?
Tell me, if you teach someone the alphabet, how can you stop him from reading? When one has tasted the elixir of love, how can she not thirst for it? Once you have seen yourself through your beloved’s eyes, you’re not the same person any longer. I was blind all this time, and now that my eyes are open, I’m afraid of the light. But I don’t want to live like a mole. Not any more.
My dear, do not forgive me if you don’t find it in your heart to do so. But please love me. Now and always. I’ll do the same too. For ever and ever . . .
Your adoring twin, Pembe
She must be drained, Jamila deduced. There was something debilitating about love, an obscure force that robbed you of your senses and strength. Adem might not care, but everyone else would rush to malign Pembe – friends and neighbours, relatives both here and there. Even if she managed to get an easy divorce, would this cook agree to marry her soon enough to silence the rumours – this man with a portable homeland, no sense of the past? He was an outsider, a Christian in all likelihood, which made matters worse. The more Jamila thought about it, the more she realized the impossibility of it all. She needed to get her sister out of London, out of harm’s way. She had to protect Pembe from gossip and slander, and, if need be, from herself.
Thoughts racing through her mind, she reached her hut and walked in with a batch of dry sticks on her back. She put down her load by the fireplace, taking quick breaths. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed that the smuggler had left the sofa, after several weeks in her care, finally able to stand on his feet. She turned halfway towards him, smiling. That was when she noticed the rifle in his hand.
‘You strike me as being a secretive woman,’ he said, pointing the weapon at her. ‘What are you hiding, I wonder.’
‘How can I have anything? I’m a midwife. I’m not even paid money.’
For a fleeting moment he seemed convinced, but then he said, ‘Well, we’ll see. Take me to the cellar first.’
‘What?’ Jamila faltered. How did he know about the cellar? ‘But there’s nothing there. Just old trinkets.’
‘Old trinkets are good,’ he said. The veins on his temples were swollen, his eyes bloodshot. ‘Come on, show me the way.’
Her body, unused to receiving orders from anyone, grew taut, resistant.
‘Move or I’ll blow your head off and feed you to the dogs,’ he hissed. ‘Then I’ll go to the cellar all the same.’
She slid the carpet aside, opened the trapdoor and took a step back so he could see what was down below.
‘No,’ he said. ‘We’re going together. You first. But wait . . .’
He threw her a rope and made her tie her hands together in the front, loose enough for her to be able to use them, but so tight that she wouldn’t be able to open the knot easily.
‘I can’t climb down like this.’
‘Oh, you’re a smart woman. You’ll figure it out.’
Balancing her weight with great difficulty, grasping the highest rung, Jamila inched her way down the ladder, step by step. He followed. She could sense he was in pain, his wounds still sore. Yet his greed was stronger.
‘Ugh, what’s this stink?’ he said, bending forward as if about to retch.
For the first time in many years Jamila noticed the smell – spicy and tangy, all pervasive.
‘Well, well, what have you made yourself here?’ he exclaimed, looking around. He took a jar of mustard seeds and shook it suspiciously. ‘I knew it. You’re a witch. So tell me what treasures are you hiding?’
‘Nothing. Herbs and medicines, as you can see. I prepare potions. One of them has healed you, remember?’
‘I thought you said only Allah could heal,’ he retorted. ‘And, you know what, you were right. It was none other than God. He always saves me. Men who haven’t gone through half of what I have are dead. In their graves. But I’m alive. I always survive.’
He jabbed at her with the end of the rifle. She lost her balance, almost falling. ‘I’m curious about how you taste,’ he said, as he took a step closer and eyed her hips, her breasts. ‘So you’ve never known a man. Poor thing. Maybe after this I should give you a ride, Virgin Midwife.’
Half turning his back to her, he started to search the table. He poured out the contents of bottles, sniffed at jars, emptied containers and smashed a few things carelessly. Jamila’s mind was spinning. The Amber Concubine was there on the shelf, in its mother-of-pearl box. ‘Let’s go upstairs,’ she said, her voice tense with the effort of concealing her unease.
‘What’s upstairs?’
‘I’ll cook for you, I’ll wash your feet.’
The words cut the air like a knife. The smuggler stopped, his eyes searching. ‘Do you think I’m stupid?’
She panicked. ‘No, of course not. You’re a clever man.’
‘Why are you buttering me up? Why the change of heart? You should be hating me,’ he said and then added, ‘Where are you looking?’
Jamila realized her mistake. In her confusion, she had been glancing repeatedly towards the shelves behind him. His eyes followed hers. It didn’t take him long to find the box. ‘O-hhh, you filthy sorceress! Look at this beauty! It must be worth a fortune. Where did you steal this from?’
‘It was a gift,’ Jamila replied wearily.
‘Oh, yes? You expect me to believe that?’ he asked, as he pocketed the diamond. ‘Come on, turn around. We’re going up now. You first. And no tricks.’
As soon as Jamila made a move towards the stairs, he knocked her down with the end of his rifle. She lurched forward, her forehead hitting the iron rung, her body no longer hers, the world the colour of blood.
Hours later she woke up. Her head was spinning, her stomach churning, and the pain in her temples so excruciating she didn’t dare to open her eyes. For a few minutes she moaned on the floor like a blind kitten. Then slowly, very slowly, she stood up, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dimness.
She found a blade and cut the rope around her wrists. The entire cellar was in disarray, as if it had been plundered by an army. She saw the mother-of-pearl box on the table. She hadn’t had a chance to tell the smuggler about the legend. The diamond was cursed. It could only be given or received as a gift. It could not be confiscated, it could not be taken by force and it could not be sold.
She climbed up, wincing with every step. When she reached the upper floor, she saw that the main door was open, the valley silent, airless. Suddenly everything seemed intimidating. The land that had nurtured and protected her all these years now teemed with scorpions, snakes, poisonous plants, vicious intruders . . . traps that God had set for her. She started to cry, listening to herself wail as if overhearing a stranger, sobbing hard the way someone would who had forgotten how to cry and was only now beginning to remember. The rest of the day passed by agonizingly slowly. She didn’t venture out. She didn’t pray. She didn’t eat. Nursing a cup of water on her lap, she sat on the sofa, numb to everything.
Then she heard sounds. Men. Horses. Dogs. She wiped her eyes with the palms of her hands, the calluses on her fingers hard against her skin. He must be coming back with his friends, she thought. What else could he want? Her body? Her life? She couldn’t find her rifle. He had taken that too. She grabbed a dagger but her hands were trembling so hard she knew she’d never have the strength to use it. So she put it back and went to the door, determined to face her fate.
Out of the dusk came four riders. Only one of them jumped off his horse and approached her, his boots squishing as if walking in thick mud. Jamila recognized the chief of the smugglers. The man whose wife had given birth to the one-and-a-half baby; the same man who had left the wounded smuggler with her and caused her this misery.
‘Jamila . . . sister. May I come in?’
Wordlessly, she moved aside, letting him pass.
He saw the bruise on her forehead, the puffy eyes. ‘I’m not going to stay long. We’ve already caused you much pain. I came to apologize for what happened. He did not deserve your kindness.’
She knew she should say something, but the words didn’t reach her lips.
‘I brought you things,’ he said. ‘My gifts to you.’
Out of the pocket of his shalwar he produced two drawstring pouches in silk, one red, the other black. He reached out for her hands and held them for a moment while staring into her eyes. Then he put the red bundle on her left palm, on her right palm the black.
Finally finding her voice, she inquired, ‘Where is he now?’
‘He won’t give you any more trouble, trust me.’
‘What was his name? I don’t even know his name.’
‘His name was Haroun,’ he said before he strode away back to his horse. ‘That’s what we wrote on his stone.’
It took a moment for the words to register, and when they did she gave a gasp. Aghast, she opened the red bundle. Inside was the Amber Concubine, dazzling. Jamila then untied the second bundle. In it was a pair of ears. Sad, bloody. It was only then that she realized the two bundles were cut out of the same cloth, one having turned black with blood. In the end, though he had skirted the landmines, Haroun the smuggler was still buried with some parts missing.
On an impulse, Jamila dashed after the chief. For a second she feared he had vanished, another ghost in her life. But then she spotted the four horses down the rutted path. ‘Wait for me!’ Jamila choked.
He pulled on his reins, and his men followed suit.
When she reached them, she hesitated, at a loss for words. Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she arranged her scarf. She pleaded, ‘I need your help, please.’
‘Tell me.’
‘I want to go to my sister in England. She’s in trouble. She needs me.’
The men exchanged stares.
‘I don’t have a passport or money. Nothing. It has to be your way, illegal.’ Jamila opened her fist. ‘But I have the Amber Concubine and I’m allowed to give her to whomever I choose. And I choose you. You’ll be a rich man and she won’t bring you bad luck, trust me.’
‘You want to give me the diamond in return for arranging a trip abroad.’
‘That’s correct.’
The chief smuggler furrowed his eyebrows, pulling the ends of his moustache, brooding. ‘That’s not easy. It’s not like crossing the border to Syria.’
‘I’ve heard there are men who arrange such things. I cannot find them, but you can. Remember Ahmad’s younger son? Didn’t he go like that? Which country was it? Switzerland? They hid him in a lorry,
right? He made it somehow.’
Once she’d begun, the words gushed out of her like a river. She spoke from the depths of her soul with urgency and fervour, guided by a need she did not recognize, and possibly could not control.
He watched her, unmoving. In his deep-set eyes she saw several emotions at once: concern, understanding, loss and a secret admiration. ‘I’ll do what I can. If God wants it to happen, it will happen.’
Dazed, cold, shaking, she raised her hands and opened her palms, the diamond catching the last rays of the setting sun. ‘Take her. May Allah bless you.’
He turned his face away, as if talking to the wind now, and said, thickly, ‘Keep it. You deserve it, Jamila.’
Then, with a faint nod and without a further word, he kicked the sides of his horse. His men followed. She watched them gallop away, the dust from the hooves surrounding her like a haunting memory.
***
Shrewsbury Prison, 1991
When I arrive back from solitary, there is someone new in Trippy’s bunk. So soon. I guess I half expected they would give it a bit of time, but Shrewsbury is jam-packed. And every day there are new arrivals. The prison system reminds me of the factory where Dad used to work. Like biscuits on a conveyor belt, cons keep coming. The screws arrange them, store them, lock them up. Cluster after cluster. This place is filled to the top. There is no room to mourn anyone.
At first glance, my cellmate seems okay, pretty harmless. I don’t ask him what he’s in for and he doesn’t volunteer it. Those things you don’t raise. A wiry little man, he has a high forehead, angular jaw, chiselled face. His hair catches the overhead light, and for a split second I am struck by the kindness of his expression.
Bowing slightly, he says, ‘My name is Zeeshan.’
He pauses, as if expecting me to introduce myself. I cross my arms and frown at him, zipping my lips.