When the Apricots Bloom

by Gina Wilkinson

“We have to stand inside the circle,” she said. “Or else it’ll just be an ordinary promise, not a blood oath.”

  They stepped into the circle, grinning, and ran through their plan.

  “Today we vow to be blood sisters,” Rania intoned. “Closer than sisters from the same womb.”

  “Don’t forget about secrets,” said Huda. “We mustn’t keep secrets from each other.”

  Rania paused, then pressed her hand to her heart.

  “No secrets.”

  “If the blood oath is broken, then the penalty is sorrow.”

  “Sorrow?” Huda was unimpressed. “For how long? A day? A week? It’s got to be more than that.”

  Rania raised her chin.

  “Sorrow for the oath breaker,” she declared. “And for the generation that follows her.”

  Huda remembered pressing the dagger to Rania’s thumb, and how the blade cut deeper than she expected. The girls grabbed each other and locked eyes.

  “Sisters forever.” They held their bleeding thumbs together. “Or sorrow for us and the generation to come.”

  Immune to the gravity of the moment, a trio of ducks landed with a splash at the edge of the river, waddled up the bank, and quacked bossily, as if to say, Are you finished? The girls had giggled, as Huda pulled the banana leaf package from her pocket and dabbed the rust-colored salve across Rania’s wound.

  “What’s going on here?”

  Rania strode down the hallway, fists clenched at her sides. Huda’s memories of magic salves gave way to the present—where blood oath had become blackmail. She shrank against the plaster wall, feeling very small.

  “Look at this, Mom.” Hanan pointed to the photo of her and Khalid. “I was just showing—”

  “Huda, we must go.” Rania’s gaze could have cut glass. “We can’t be late.”

  “You’re going out?” said Hanan. “Can I come?”

  “Another time, my darling.” Rania hustled the girl toward the staircase. “Go to your bedroom and do your homework. While I’m gone, don’t open the gate. Not for anyone, you hear me? I’ll be back in a couple of hours, once I’ve finished my . . . business with Huda.”

  Hanan sighed. She glanced over her shoulder at Huda. “I hope you come again.”

  Huda nodded and smiled, then turned away before her guilt spilled out her eyes.

  “Shall I drive?” she asked Rania.

  “I’ll take my own car. That way, once we’re done, we can go our own ways. We’ll meet at the southern entrance to the spice bazaar. You know it?”

  Huda nodded, relieved she wouldn’t have to sit side by side with Rania in the close confines of the Corolla. That would be too intimate. She needed time alone to banish her girlish nostalgia, and forget about childhood friendships, magic salves, and blood oaths. She needed time alone to think of her dead brothers, time to rebuild the vengeful fire in her chest.

  * * *

  Beneath Shorja’s web of faded tarpaulins, the air was hazy with cinnamon, myrrh, and dust kicked up by a thousand feet. Blinking in the aromatic fog, the two women plunged into the narrow alleyways of the spice bazaar.

  “Try to keep up.” Rania glared at Huda, then she forged ahead, skirting past a vat of bright green capers bobbing in vinegar. Huda shot daggers at her back, and struggled through the shoppers seeking out purple sumac, yellow turmeric, and powdery chunks of indigo. Someone dropped a bag. It exploded like a cardamom cluster bomb.

  Vendors urged Rania to stop and taste a briny olive or sniff a sprig of sage. She sailed on, the crowd seeming to part before her, while Huda scurried in her wake, murmuring, “Excuse me, haji, perhaps next time.”

  Huda squeezed past bowls of henna powder in shades of red, brown, and green, and remembered her grandmother delivering the same potions and powders to the sheikh’s farm. She was thinking of those lost golden days when she walked into Rania’s back. Rania was holding a jar of twigs, like a little girl who’d just unwrapped a music box with a ballerina twirling inside.

  “Do you remember . . . ?” Rania trailed off.

  Without another word, she pushed the jar into the vendor’s hands and hurried on. Pain stabbed Huda’s side. Of course she remembered the twigs. One rainy day, she’d taught Rania how to shred a stick of arak and use it to brush her teeth. Afterward, Rania said it was better than Colgate. Had she told Hanan about that too?

  She followed Rania around a sharp corner. The dun-colored dome of an old hammam rose above the stalls. Tongues of steam twisted from its star-shaped vents.

  “Women’s hours are over for today.” The bath keeper perched on a stool by the entrance. “You’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

  The two women sidled into the shade of the hammam’s brick walls. A barefoot urchin with matted hair emerged from the crowd and tugged on Rania’s sleeve.

  “Madam, can you spare a coin for me?”

  As Rania fumbled with her handbag, Huda pulled a couple of dinar from her pocket.

  “Buy some flatbread or a pot of yogurt.” She pressed the purple bills into the boy’s palm. “Don’t waste it on sweets. They’ll rot your teeth.”

  The child raised his enormous eyes, and for a moment, Huda felt as if she were peering into a deep green well.

  “Listen to me,” he whispered. “Those you seek are waiting in the Khan Murjan.”

  “The old inn? It’s been boarded up for decades.”

  Rania leaned in. “What’s going on?”

  “You’ve got five minutes.” The boy kept his eyes on Huda’s. “Otherwise the door will be closed. They said there’s no second chance.”

  “But the Khan Murjan is on the other side of the souk.”

  “I know a shortcut.” The boy pulled her toward the farthest alleyway. “Trust me.”

  Huda held back, swamped by a sudden sense of déjà vu. She’d asked the same thing of Ally. Trust me, she said time and time again, to keep the girl close and the mukhabarat satisfied. The skin at the back of Huda’s neck prickled. Was the emerald-eyed boy a liar, just like her?

  “Let’s go.” Rania pushed Huda toward the thronging alley. “I want this over and done with.”

  The boy wove through the crowd. Huda and Rania struggled after him, dodging a man with a trolley full of clucking chickens. Two women blocked the path. As wide as they were tall, they haggled noisily over a consignment of nightshirts like they were negotiating the sale of their firstborn. Huda elbowed past them as the boy zigged and zagged through the houseware stalls. A boy sprawled motionless atop a huge mound of cheap dish towels, and Huda wondered, Could he really be sleeping amid this din, or was he dead?

  A small hand shot out from a gap in the wall. The boy pulled Huda into the shadows and thrust his finger to his lips. Rania was already there, back flattened against the rough bricks. Huda froze. Two beefy men in leather jackets bulldozed through the crowd. They were mukhabarat dispatched to monitor the souk, and to sniff out malcontents.

  Huda waited until they passed, counted slowly to ten, then poked her head into the alley. The urchin leaped past her. The two women staggered after him. In the grain bazaar, a donkey blocked the way, its cargo of bulging burlap sacks too wide for the narrow space. The crowd erupted into curses.

  “Get your mule out of here, you fool.” A shopper waved his fist in the air.

  The grain merchant dragged at his donkey’s reins. Huda hopped from foot to foot as the snarl of impatient marketgoers slowly cleared. She craned her neck and tried desperately to spot the boy’s matted hair. She guessed her heart must have done a thousand beats already. Surely that meant five minutes had passed.

  Rania pushed past and stood on her tiptoes.

  “There he is!” She grabbed Huda’s hand, and yelled, “Make way, please!”

  As it had earlier, the crowd parted on Rania’s command. Huda shook her head incredulously as the tall woman pulled her on. This time, instead of finding their passage jammed, the two of them were swept forward, like leaves floating on a stream. They sailed through the clo
thing market, past mountains of secondhand jeans, suit jackets, and baby bibs, until they were deposited at the entrance to Khan Murjan.

  The ancient inn was boarded up. Thick cobwebs coated the gate, and centuries of rust had fused the locks. Huda’s heart sank to the cobblestones.

  “No one’s been here for years. What a waste of time.” Rania turned on her heel and stalked off without a word of goodbye.

  Huda slumped against the caravan’s ocher wall. Defeat mixed with the sweat running down her spine. She patted her pocket and prayed the urchin hadn’t stolen her purse.

  “Huda!” Rania reappeared at the far corner of the inn. She crooked her finger, then disappeared again.

  Huda scurried after her and found a side door to the inn slightly ajar. Bullets had left one corner of the iron door cratered as the moon, but never managed to fully penetrate the ancient metal. Huda climbed the steps and peeked inside. The musty smell of mold scratched at her nose. She glanced back at the busy stalls. A vendor had dressed six mannequins in rainbow-colored housecoats. They were lined up against a wall like they were waiting for a firing squad.

  CHAPTER 13

  Inside the Khan Murjan, Rania stood with her back to the old metal door and waited for her eyes to adjust to the muted light. Somewhere, water dripped against stone. The sound echoed like a heartbeat through the great arches that formed the ribs of the old inn. She crept toward the cathedral-like central chamber, where columns of dust swirled below ancient skylights. The lights seemed to form a pattern, like the star charts used by travelers who once stopped here on their way to Mecca.

  “You’re late.” A man stepped from the gloom. Rania wondered how long he’d been there, watching her. “You were supposed to be here ten minutes ago.”

  “We didn’t have much time.” Rania did her best to appear unruffled, but she could hear the tremor in her voice. “And the crowds are thick today.”

  “She’s right,” said Huda. Rania startled as the woman slipped in behind her. A memory flashed through her mind, of a small girl stalking a grebe at the edge of a fast-slowing stream. Even when the bird was in Huda’s hand, it barely registered what had happened. It seemed she’d lost none of her stealth.

  “Even if your messenger delivered us on Aladdin’s carpet,” said Huda, “we would have struggled to make it on time.”

  Rania bit back a smile. Huda had kept her quick tongue too.

  The man drew closer. He was short in stature, with thick, bristly hair. Despite being magnified by black-rimmed spectacles, his eyes were small and squinty, reminding Rania of a mole emerging from its burrow.

  “Well, you’re here now.” He waved them toward a tall staircase. “So let’s carry on.”

  Rania felt a twist of self-loathing. No timid mole would have the courage to be here, in defiance of the regime. He led them to a balcony ringing the second floor, then paused near a low door set in a brick alcove. Scores of identical alcoves ran along the perimeter of the Khan Murjan, leading to dormitories that once sheltered travelers and students at the nearby mosque.

  “You look familiar,” said Rania. “Have we met before?”

  “For obvious reasons, I try to avoid giving out personal details. I usually ask people to call me Kareem.” He paused, his eyes probing hers. “But I believe you once knew my brother.”

  “You don’t mean . . .” Rania peered at him. Those eyes. That hair. “You’re not Ahmed’s brother, are you?”

  He nodded soberly. Rania bent her head.

  “I pray that Allah keeps him close.”

  He nodded and yanked on a thick bolt. The door opened a crack. The faint yellow light and oily stench of a kerosene lamp leaked into the hall.

  “Wait here,” said Kareem, before slipping inside and pulling the door shut behind him.

  Huda crossed her arms.

  “I’m sorry for the loss of his brother.” Her eyes were cold as the ancient stones. “But at least his mother has the comfort of one son left alive.”

  “That’s not fair. I—”

  The door groaned behind them. Kareem beckoned for them to enter.

  “We are ready for you.”

  We? thought Rania. How many people are waiting inside? She was struck by visions of an inquisition, with murderous judges seated in a row. Why had she allowed Huda to bully her into this? If she refused to continue, would Huda really make good on her threats? The young girl she’d first met on the riverbank wasn’t that cruel. She had honor, more than her share. But Rania knew honor was a two-bladed sword. Loyalty on one side. Revenge on the other.

  “Come on.” Huda nudged her forward. “They’re waiting for us.”

  There was no panel of judges inside in the claustrophobic room, just one man with the chubby cheeks and white beard of Santa Claus. Still, Rania couldn’t shake the feeling it was an inquisition. She wasn’t worried by the black turban that marked the man as a Shi‘a cleric, or the fat turquoise prayer beads looped around his wrist. It was the judgmental look in his eye, as if he had already decided she was a sinner.

  “Sit, sit.” Kareem waved the women toward two plastic stools, while he joined the cleric behind what appeared to be an old school desk. Gray smoke twisted from the kerosene lantern in the corner. “We don’t have much time, so please tell us what you need.”

  Huda coughed and cleared her throat.

  “I need a passport for my son,” she said. “Or the mukhabarat will put him in the fedayeen.”

  “Why have the mukhabarat taken such an interest in your son?” Kareem eyed her curiously, but the cleric kept his eyes focused on the wall just a few inches above the women’s heads. “What’s so special about him?”

  Huda blushed a painful red that spread from her cheeks down her neck and to her chest. She stared at the floor and mumbled that she was an informant spying on her boss’s wife, and the mukhabarat were using her son as leverage. A stitch of pity needled Rania’s ribs.

  “Why didn’t you simply tell them you couldn’t do it?” said Kareem.

  “Sir, you are a very educated man. From your accent, I can tell you come from a fine family. Probably like Rania, there is a boulevard with your surname.” Huda shifted on the stool. “I’ve no doubt you have suffered. Many great families have been pushed aside, and ignorant peasants from Tikrit have taken their place. Nonetheless, you are still someone. Someone who can say no and possibly live another day.”

  She sighed, a spluttering sound like a lantern being snuffed out.

  “I was not schooled abroad. My family never owned a library of books. If you don’t believe me, ask Rania. She’ll tell you, I’m a nobody.”

  Rania twisted about.

  “That’s not what I—”

  The cleric raised his hand for silence. It was the first time he’d moved, and the prayer beads clacked loudly at his wrist. He leaned toward Kareem and whispered in his ear. Kareem nodded.

  “Let’s move on,” he said. “First, practicalities. We need two passport photos of your son.”

  “Yes.” Huda nodded eagerly. “I have them.”

  “Also, his birth certificate.”

  “Yes.”

  “We will need a copy of your housing card with current address.”

  “I have a copy with me.”

  “A letter of authorization from his father.”

  Silence.

  “What about a letter from me, his mother?”

  “The government changed the law a few years ago,” said Kareem. “The father’s signature is now required. If he has passed on, an uncle or grandfather may sign.”

  The cleric’s lips twitched with approval. Rania tasted the kerosene fumes at the back of her throat.

  “Finally, for a passport, we will need seven hundred dollars from you. An exit visa is an extra two hundred dollars.”

  “Nine hundred dollars?” exclaimed Rania. “She’s just a secretary. It’ll take her years to find that sort of money.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Kareem. “The price is out of our control
.”

  “But she can’t—”

  “It’s all right.” Huda cut her off.

  Disbelief dragged at Rania’s jaw.

  “I will need some time,” said Huda. “But I will get your money. I have the papers and photos with me, and I have one hundred dollars too. I can bring the rest when I get the passport.”

  “It doesn’t work that way.” Kareem rapped his knuckles against the desk. “First, we are not the ones who will handle your documents. We will let you know the procedures for that later. Second, you need to supply the money in advance.”

  Huda sat up tall. She kept her eyes level with the men.

  “How do I know I can trust you?”

  Rania bit her lip. Huda had courage, that’s for sure. But then again, she always had.

  “Likewise, we also need to know you can be trusted,” said Kareem. “You say you are an unwilling informant for the mukhabarat, but how can we be sure?”

  The cleric shifted his eyes from the wall and trained them on Huda. When she blushed and looked away, his lips twitched with pleasure. The cleric whispered in Kareem’s ear, then sat back in his chair and rested his hands on his belly, like a man at the end of a feast.

  “You will need to keep us updated of your instructions from the mukhabarat,” said Kareem. “And we will let you know what you should tell them in return. For a start, tell them that the Australian woman you’re monitoring has been behaving suspiciously. Tell them that you think she’s hiding something.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Huda.

  “You don’t need to understand,” he said. “But if you want a passport for your son, you’ll do what we say. For the moment, that’s all we have to offer you.”

  Kareem ushered them toward the hall. Before they filed out, the cleric rose from the desk. He was taller than Rania expected, and his turban almost brushed against the damp ceiling.

  “If we meet again,” the cleric’s voice creaked like the old door, “make sure you cover your hair like respectable women.”

  * * *

  Blinking in the sunlight, the two women stumbled down the steps of Khan Murjan and into the crowd of shoppers.