The Forty Thieves

by Christy Lenzi

  Saja’s eyes widen. “May Allah protect us!” she whispers.

  “Badi and Jamal might be more vinegar than honey, but they are our brothers, and I swear an oath I’ll find a way to stop them before they become common thieves, or … worse. First, I want to see these gangs myself. Tonight.”

  “But we can’t follow them. You know girls don’t go out at night. It’s too dangerous, even for slave girls.”

  I glance over my shoulder. My heart is a big fist, beating down a door. I stare hard at Saja and whisper, “Then we shall not be girls.”

  CHAPTER

  9

  I sit on my mat, strumming softly on my lute. I’ve finished my work for the evening and I am practicing a new song. Using the melody of my earlier song, I create a new piece from it, adding fluttering, rising notes, like the wings of birds soaring into the sky. I’ll teach Jamal the beat to go with it—the rhythm of a heart thumping ever faster.

  Jamal’s singing drifts through the open yard as he brings lamp oil into the kitchen from the storehouse. My fingers fumble over the strings, clashing the notes together. I breathe in deeply, trying to calm my nerves as I wait for Saja. The light’s fading fast. We won’t have much time to change clothes before Badi comes to fetch Jamal.

  As if my thoughts have summoned her, Saja’s wide eyes appear at the window. She opens the shutter screens and drops a basket over the sill. “Help me up!” she whispers. “Hurry, before someone sees me!”

  I help her over the ledge and wait for her to catch her breath. Saja’s cheeks are the color of roses, and her hair’s come loose in soft wispy curls on her forehead. She digs into her basket.

  “This is for you.” Saja hands me a tiny soapstone vial. “Essence of jasmine. It’s not much, but it’s very potent, so you only need to use a little at a time.”

  I don’t know what to say. “But you don’t owe me this.” I lift the vial to my nose and breathe in the strong sweet scent.

  Saja puts her hands on her hips. “You are the hardest person to give a gift to that I ever saw. Don’t you like it?

  “Yes, jasmine reminds me of my mother. It was her favorite flower.”

  “I’m glad you have it to remember her by.” Saja smiles. “Look, I brought these.” She draws two long pieces of linen from her basket. “To bind us down on top and make us flat as pan bread.”

  I laugh and raise an eyebrow. Saja’s my age, but even under a loose garment, her shapely figure is obvious. “The binding cloths will work for me, but I think it will take something a little more … powerful … to change you into pan bread!”

  Her face turns the color of a red apple.

  “I know just the thing.” I run out of the room and come back with a large leather waist girdle with fastening strings. “Mistress sometimes wears this. If it’s strong enough to flatten her middle, then it’s strong enough to flatten your top.”

  Saja takes off her qamis and sirwal and slips the girdle around her chest. I pull the strings together in the back for her.

  “Ow! I can’t breathe,” she cries. “I’d prefer not to die in order to become a boy. If you tighten it any more, I’ll pass out!”

  I tie the strings in place. “All right. But you still look … lumpy.”

  Saja rolls her eyes. “It will be dark. No one will notice.” She twirls the long strip of linen in the air and smirks. “Ha! Now it’s your turn, little pan-bread boy!”

  I wriggle out of my qamis and sirwal and lift my arms as Saja wraps the linen around my upper body. Like a dance, I twirl in the opposite direction as Saja winds the linen, until we come to the end of it. Her laugh is a bubbling pool; it makes me want to jump right in.

  “Absolutely non-lumpy,” Saja declares as she secures the cloth and sits down on my mat.

  Only one thing left. I slide a ribbon through the sheath of the silver knife that Mistress gave me and tie the ribbon around my thigh. I’ve slipped a sprig of jasmine into the hidden compartment in its hilt.

  The color drains from Saja’s face. “You’re taking a weapon?” She reaches out and runs a finger over the design on the silver handle. “Aren’t you afraid to use it?”

  “I might need it.” I hesitate, wondering how much I should say about how I feel. Saja has shared so much with me that it gives me the courage to open up to her, too. I take a deep breath and go on. “Saja, in your dream about the perfume shop, you are your own mistress; you’re free. I wish I were free, too. Having a knife makes me feel that I am. It reminds me of how I felt when I cut the ropes around my wrists and Jamal’s and escaped the Forty Thieves.

  “I’ve never met anyone like you.” Saja stands. “What makes you so brave?”

  I don’t know what to say. I don’t feel brave. I can barely talk about my own feelings without trembling. How can I be brave if the simple idea of trusting someone scares me more than anything else? I shrug, not knowing how to answer.

  “Well, I wish I could be that way.” She sighs.

  Saja’s not a fool, but she makes herself vulnerable—giving gifts, sharing secrets and dreams, not knowing for sure how she’ll be treated in return. If it isn’t foolishness, it must be some kind of courage that I don’t have. “You’re braver than you know.”

  Saja looks surprised. “How—”

  Someone runs past the outside window.

  “That’s Badi coming for Jamal,” I whisper.

  Saja nods, her breath coming fast. “We should hurry. We have to be ready to follow them when they leave.” She digs through her basket and tosses a wad of clothing to me. “When I did laundry, I smuggled these—the attendants wear them in the men’s bathhouse.”

  I struggle into the long qamis. The cut of the garments is trimmer than I’m used to. I grab my scarf off the floor and start wrapping it around my hair as Saja puts on her own headdress. When we look at each other in boys’ clothes and girls’ headdresses, we burst out laughing.

  But I cringe inside at the thought of leaving behind my headscarf. My thoughts usually flow freely onto my features, safely hidden behind the scarf if I choose to become invisible. Now I have to leave it behind.

  Saja’s grin falters. “I don’t know, Marjana. If we’re discovered, we could be beaten … or worse.”

  I squirm under the uncomfortable clothing. I force my voice to sound light. “No one will give us a second glance. It will be dark, like you said.” I rummage through the basket and pull out the turban cloths. We pin up our hair and wind the material around our heads as quickly as we can. When we finish, we stare at each other.

  Saja giggles. “We’re boys.” Her voice sounds tiny, like a small child’s.

  “Warriors,” I correct her. I clear my throat and speak in a deep voice. “And we must talk like this.” I swagger to the window. “And walk this way.”

  Saja laughs.

  “And say tough things to each other like ‘Get out of my way, you crusty piece of camel dung, or I’ll knock you in the—’”

  “Oh, hurry!” Saja squeaks. “I hear Badi outside!”

  My heart beats in double time as Saja and I crouch near the window and watch our younger brothers pass.

  “Let’s go, Marjana, or we’ll lose them!”

  Before we slip over the ledge into the falling dark, I grab Saja by the elbow. “Wait!”

  Her eyes grow round as melons. “What’s wrong?”

  I try to smile as I whisper, “Whatever you do tonight, Lumpy, don’t call me Marjana!”

  CHAPTER

  10

  Saja and I hurry after our brothers through the darkening streets of Baghdad. A purple streak lingers on the edge of the horizon, giving the streets a strange, smoky hue. The moon hangs like a great silver bowl in the sky. Snatches of light flicker from windows.

  I’ve never seen Baghdad after sunset prayers, when all proper females are safely tucked away in their homes for the night. My skin tingles with excitement.

  As Badi and Jamal near the bathhouse, they’re joined by a group of older boys wearing white qami
s like the ones we are wearing. They’re just young slaves like us, not warriors. But there’s an eagerness in their faces and a boldness in their steps that make them look less like slaves and more like soldiers. Even little Jamal carries himself differently. He holds his shoulders straight and his head high; he looks taller.

  We keep a safe distance from them. I want to see what our brothers are up to and protect them, but if the boys get a good look at our faces, all will be over. We slink around corners and linger in the shadows, trying to stay far enough behind to escape notice. When the boys pass through the empty marketplace and turn down an unfamiliar alley, I nudge Saja’s arm.

  “Hurry!”

  We race through the eerie, deserted market square. It looks lonely and naked in the moonlight. I trip over something huddled in my path. It’s the old storyteller who I saw a few days ago in the square. Now he’s sleeping against a stall. His small frame and ragged clothing had pulled at my heart that morning. By day, the homeless man recites ancient tales for a coin. I whisper in his ear, “As-salaam alaykum, sir. Forgive me.”

  The little man smells of cheap wine and dirty linen. His eyes remain shut, but he replies, “Wa alaykum as-salaam. ’Tis nothing, grand lady. Don’t you mind about me.” One runny eye pops open, and I jump. When he sees my turban and boy clothes, the storyteller’s eye narrows. “Ah! ’Tis a story there. I will dream on it. Looks like the jinn are busy tonight.” With that, his eye slides shut and he curls back into a ball and begins to snore.

  “Hurry, Marjana; we’re going to lose them!” Saja cries.

  But I don’t hurry. My eyes fix on the storyteller, all the warmth draining from my face. “Saja, if I’d made such a stupid mistake in front of anyone else, we’d be exposed. We have to remember to talk like boys. And we have to think of names—you can’t keep calling me Marjana.”

  “Marjana, come on!” Saja cries, too nervous to pay attention. She grabs my hand and pulls me across the square toward the dark alleyway where the boys disappeared. Something skitters across our path. Saja shrieks.

  “A rat,” I whisper, my heart fluttering. “It’s only a rat.” Except for the rodent, the alley appears empty.

  “Now what do we do?”

  “Let’s keep going. They’re probably not far ahead.”

  We hurry to the end of the alley, which opens onto a larger road with several side streets intersecting it. A flash of running figures catches my eye, and I race down the street with Saja after the group of boys who have just turned the corner near the mosque.

  I push my long legs to run faster. The night air on my face wakes up my heart, my limbs. The slap of the knife against my thigh urges me on. Saja gasps for breath behind me, but I can’t stop. I don’t want the exhilarating feeling to go away. I need to run. I barrel around the bend in the road, but the boys are lingering against the wall, around the corner, talking. When I skid to a stop right in front of them, Saja comes crashing into me from behind, and we fall in a heap at their feet.

  For an instant, the boys are caught off guard. Their eyes grow wide, and their mouths drop open as we get up and brush ourselves off. In that moment, I search their faces and realize that Badi and Jamal aren’t among them. This is a different group of boys. I hook Saja’s arm and turn to go in the opposite direction.

  By now, the boys recover from their surprise.

  “Hey, you!” one of them shouts. “This is our street. What gang do you fight with?”

  I make my voice sound deep. “We’re just looking for our brothers.” I keep walking with Saja, not daring to turn around.

  “You aren’t in a gang? Looks like you’re from the bathhouse. Come here!” The voice has something of a threat in it, and I hesitate, my heart pounding in my ears. Saja’s arm goes limp beside me. I make up my mind and turn around to face him.

  He’s a tall, wiry boy with ragged clothes and a chipped tooth. If he wasn’t so disheveled, he might almost be handsome, but he doesn’t wear a turban, and his curly hair looks like a bird’s nest, with bits of leaves woven in. He saunters over to us. I cringe as he squints at my eyes. I long for my scarf.

  “You’re bathies.” He isn’t asking, so much as telling us.

  I nod. “We’re from the bathhouse. But we’re new there. We don’t know anything about gangs.”

  The boy’s eyebrows rise, and his face eases into a grin. “Well, you’ve come to the right place. We’ll teach you all about it. You can be in our gang—we’re better than the bathies. There’s a big meeting tonight with all the gangs together, so we could use you. Red Beard will be there, too; he’s leader of all the gangs.”

  My mind races. If all the gangs are meeting together and we stay with this group, we can find the bathies. That’s the gang Badi and Jamal will be in.

  The boy chews on something tucked between his lower lip and his teeth. He turns to spit, and the black mess lands near Saja’s toe. She screws up her face, but doesn’t say a word, much to my relief.

  “Everybody calls me Stinger,” he says. “Because of this.” He shoves his fist toward my face, stopping just inches from my chin.

  I wince.

  He’s mounted a wildcat’s fang on a ring around his middle finger. It points directly at my nose. I swallow.

  “What are your names?” Stinger demands.

  I gesture toward Saja, trying not to look at the ring. “He’s, umm … he’s …” I grasp at the first word that pops into my head. “Lumpy. Everybody calls him that. Because … that’s … what he is.”

  The boy nods a greeting at Saja, who blushes and reaches for a curl to wind around her finger, forgetting she wears a turban.

  I almost kick her.

  Stinger doesn’t seem to notice Saja’s mistake and asks her, “So, what does everybody call him?” He jerks his head in my direction.

  Saja glances at me. “They call him Khubz,” she says in her best boy voice. It sounds like she’s swallowed a peach pit.

  At Saja’s words, I almost choke, trying to suppress a nervous laugh. Khubz is the name for flat pan bread.

  Stinger cracks another grin, and I would swear Saja’s blushing again. It looks as if she might even let out a giggle. If she does, it will all be over. Fortunately, Stinger doesn’t seem to notice her reactions.

  “We’re on our way to the dumping grounds.” He slips a mallet from his belt and twirls it in his fingers. “I hope you boys brought weapons.”

  CHAPTER

  11

  Saja and I follow Stinger and his gang through Baghdad’s labyrinth of streets and alleyways. The group is made up of about a dozen homeless boys, all skinny, ratty-haired creatures. I feel sorry for them—it isn’t easy scrounging for food on the streets and fighting for what clothing can be found. But I also envy them. They’re their own masters. They go wherever they want, whenever they feel like it. They belong to themselves. I can see why their way of life is so enticing to Jamal.

  The gang turns onto a steep, uphill road lined with jasmine into one of the wealthier neighborhoods. Stinger slows down, and the boys walk reverently over the jutting cobbled stones, gazing at the beautiful houses they pass. Some of the boys even peek through the cracks in the wooden shutters. The breezes sweep over the hill and pick up the heavy sweet scent of jasmine.

  As we go, the pretty streets gradually turn into shoddy lanes, full of rough spots and holes. Before long, dilapidated huts replace the fine houses lining the street. The smell of jasmine floating on the breeze turns to putrid garbage. It’s as if one world’s melting into another. Soon we reach the dumping grounds. Saja pinches her nose at the stench of the rubble.

  Stinger pauses on the edge of the grounds, scoping out the land. Other gangs stream down the slope into the maze of trash heaps, heading to the center, where a small fire burns. There, a group of boys in brilliant white qamis stand out like a string of pearls in a pile of dung. The bathhouse boys. Is Jamal in the group?

  “There he is!” Stinger points, and for a moment, I think he’s reading my mind. Sti
nger’s face is aglow. He grins so wide, the cracks on his lips start to bleed a little. He points at a large horse, ridden by a tall, thin man with darkened eyes and high cheekbones. His long beard is a striking red, and his flowing clothes and turban a garish orange. The leader of the child street gangs. Perched on the man’s saddle in front of him rides a young boy wearing a woven helmet.

  Saja leans in close. “I see Badi—he looks all right—but what on earth is Jamal doing up there?” Saja’s voice quivers and her breath tickles my ear.

  A coldness shivers through my bones as I watch Saja’s brother gazing up at the rider and the boy. I squint at the two figures on the horse and nearly cry out as if I’ve been pricked by a scorpion when I recognize the boy’s crooked grin. Jamal. “That little donkey!” I whisper.

  Stinger shakes his head, still staring at the leader. “Looks like Red Beard picked himself another lamb from the fold to be his little pet.” He laughs and nudges his friends. “We’ll see how long this one lasts.”

  What could that mean? My heart beats like a fist against my ribs. “Why, what’s going to happen to him?” I struggle to keep my voice calm.

  “Oh, everybody wants to ride with Red Beard. It means he thinks you might ride in his place one day. When he picks somebody, the boys have to see if he’s worthy, so we rough up the kid later to find out what he’s really made of.”

  My body tenses. “But he’s so little—this is mad!”

  “I know.” Stinger nods. “This one doesn’t stand a chance. Red Beard should choose someone stronger who can do the job properly.” He puffs out his chest. “Someone older—a gang leader that knows something about real fighting!”

  I glance at Saja, who heard the whole thing. She clears her throat and asks, “So what’s going to happen tonight? What’s the big meeting about?”

  Stinger’s face lights up. “Red Beard tells us which gangs are going to fight against each other tonight and which ones will break into the shops.”