by Nafiza Azad
She watches the poor of Noor celebrating out on the streets. Dressed in their best clothes, they spill out of their houses and into the night. Girls gather in groups, bright as the colors of a peacock’s tail, and boys, majnuns all of them, stare after them, entranced. A group of boys sitting on dusty steps play the dholak, the beat of the drums reminding people they are alive and breathing. Some girls dance to much laughter and catcalling. Bhavya wonders how these people who have so little look so much happier than she, who has so much more.
“Are you sure the Emir is going to be at Sushila Mausi’s party?” she asks Ruchika, interrupting her unkind recounting of the events at a party the week past.
Ruchika gets an evasive look on her face, and Bhavya feels the first prickle of unease. But the other girl smiles brightly. “Sushila Mausi is an important person. Surely the Emir wouldn’t refuse her invitation.”
Bhavya reaches for all the power her royal lineage grants her and says softly, “For your sake, Ruchika, he had better not have.” She looks away from the older girl and outside. The carriage is passing the maidaan where the poorest of Noor have gathered to celebrate.
The initial plan had been to walk to the maidaan, but the sari complicates things. Fortunately, there are many oxen-pulled carts doing brisk business ferrying people to and from the venue. Fatima and the Alif sisters find themselves deposited outside the western entrance of the maidaan after a particularly bumpy ride. They brush themselves off—the carts aren’t particularly clean—and look around. This is not the first time they have been to the maidaan, obviously, but it is the first time they are here unaccompanied by an adult. Ali, the Alif sisters’ father, is away with a caravan train transporting rice and other materials to an oasis in the desert. Their mother, Asma, is not feeling well; rather than make her daughters pay the cost for her ill health, she gave them permission to join the festivities under the condition they return home before ten.
“Do you think heaven looks something like this?” Azizah asks, her brown eyes full of wonder at the spectacle in front of them.
“No, I think heaven has more trees,” Amirah replies. Her eyes are just as wide.
“Are you ladies going to continue gawking or shall we go in?” Adila smirks at their starstruck expressions.
Fatima, laughing at their blissful faces, leads them inside the space enclosed by a wooden fence. This year, Ifrit soldiers stand on either side of the entrance, their postures straight and their hands on their swords. Fatima gives them nervous looks, but the soldiers let them enter the maidaan without stopping them.
Once inside, they take a moment to look around. The maidaan is lit by torches and an array of lamps. Fires burning in carefully monitored pits all around the maidaan provide more light. Stalls, set up around the circumference of the maidaan, sell food and other items. On one side of the maidaan are places that sell firecrackers and on the other are stations for assembling paper lanterns that are usually used in the festivals of the Kinh and Han people but have slowly been adopted by the Hindu community in Noor to celebrate Deepavali. Benches and chairs have been placed in an area obviously designated for eating. On a sizable platform some distance from the eating area, a group of musicians are setting up their instruments. Yet another area has been cordoned off for anyone who wants to create rangoli.
“Obviously we are going to eat first, right?” Adila asks. She nudges Fatima, who nods emphatically.
“So obvious you don’t need to ask,” Azizah replies solemnly.
“That’s like asking if it rains during monsoon,” Amirah adds.
“Or if Azizah likes Bilal.” Fatima grins.
“Hey! I resent that! I’m still somewhat mysterious about the direction in which my affections lie.” Azizah finds herself under the censure of three pairs of eyes and amends her statement. “All right, maybe I’m not, but you could let me pretend!”
Fatima and the Alif sisters pool their resources and descend upon the food vendors. They return triumphant twenty minutes later, find an unoccupied slice of mat-covered ground, and claim it as theirs. Fatima wishes for the umpteenth time that she had insisted on wearing a shalwar kameez. Sitting on the ground in a sari is an art form she hasn’t yet perfected. They spread their edible haul in the middle and take a moment to appreciate its splendor.
“I wish life was like jalebiyaan,” Amirah says, picking up one piece of the dessert.
“You want a fried life?” Adila asks skeptically. She reaches for the box containing the samosas.
“No, I mean, if life was like a jalebi, I’d take one bite of it and sweetness would spill out.” Amirah demonstrates.
“Only fresh jalebi spills sweetness, Api,” Azizah says. “Stale jalebiyaan are soggy things that are simply sugary dough … hey, so maybe life is more like jalebiyaan than I thought!”
“She is sixteen and talking like a grandmother,” Adila mutters, chewing her samosas.
Fatima listens to the sisters bantering and takes comfort in their undemanding company. The constant stream of people passing by their seats contains many familiar faces that Fatima acknowledges with a smile or a wave. More Ifrit soldiers than is normal are present in the crowd. What strikes Fatima as suspicious is the way they’re dressed not in the uniform of Ifrit soldiers but in the tunic and shalwar common to the men of Taaj Gul. Fatima wonders if their disguise is to prevent anxiety among the humans. None of the other people apart from Fatima seem to be aware of the stronger Ifrit presence. It is like the Ifrit emit a heat that only she, among the humans, can feel, that only she can identify. To everyone else, the only Ifrit present are the soldiers in their uniforms.
Fatima turns her head and sees an unexpected sight. “Oh look, there’s Bilal,” she says to Azizah, who freezes, a skewer of kebab halfway to her mouth. Fatima smiles widely and takes a big bite of stir-fried noodles.
“Is … is …” Azizah squeaks.
“Attend to your sister, Adila. She may be broken,” Fatima says, laughing merrily at Azizah’s panic.
“No, he’s not looking over, Azizah. I don’t think he knows we exist. If you don’t want that kebab, I’ll eat it,” Adila says calmly.
“Of course I will eat it,” Azizah says with injured dignity. “I enjoy looking at Bilal, but his beauty won’t fill my stomach. Api, will you stop eating the jalebiyaan! I want some too.” Despite her words, she turns and looks at the young muezzin, who is standing with his friends some distance away. They seem to be conferring on something.
“I wonder what you see in him,” Fatima muses.
“Apart from his excellent muezzin abilities, you mean?” Adila says.
“The symmetry of his face moves me.” Azizah sniffs.
“I think she wrote a poem about it.” Amirah giggles helplessly.
A half hour later, they are done eating and have thrown away the detritus of their meal. “What shall we do now?” Amirah asks, rubbing her stomach.
“Fatima, Sunaina Baji said she’d be at the eastern gate at half past seven,” Adila says to Fatima, pulling on her arm. “I’m sorry I forgot to tell you.”
“What time is it now?’ ”
“Quarter after.”
“Why don’t you stay here and enjoy the view?” Fatima smiles, and her dimples make an appearance. “I will go and bring Didi here.”
“Shouldn’t I come with you?” Adila looks unsure. They look at the younger girls, who are standing together, offering their best smiles to the night.
“Azizah will kick up a fuss if we move from here while she can still see Bilal. Besides, do you want to leave them by themselves?”
“No,” Adila replies immediately.
Fatima laughs. “Don’t worry. I will be back soon.”
Fatima slips into the crowd, losing herself among the colorfully dressed inhabitants of the poorer bits of Noor. The sari should hinder her movements—indeed, only an hour or so earlier it did—but now it pronounces her grace. Fatima navigates a path that keeps her from getting too close to any Ifrit soldier whe
ther in disguise or in uniform, wary of them after the incident at the bookstore. She finally reaches the eastern gate of the maidaan, which strangely enough seems to have less traffic through it than the western gate. When Fatima looks around, she cannot see Sunaina anywhere near or around the gate, and after a few minutes pass, she grows concerned. It finally occurs to her that Sunaina may be waiting outside with Niral, so she makes her way through the gate.
Fatima expects the gate to be guarded by more Ifrit soldiers, but none of them are around. She peers into the darkness that is broken at intervals by large oil lamps placed high on posts. Her efforts pay off when she spies her sister’s two friends, Ruka, the daughter of a tea shop owner, and Anjum, a maid who works with Sunaina. They are gathered around a third figure, who seems to be crying. Fatima identifies her as Sunaina and walks forward, anxious to know why her sister is upset. Before she can reach Sunaina, however, she hears her name and stops in her tracks.
“Why don’t you simply talk to Fatima?” Ruka is saying. “Surely if you tell her that Niral wants to marry you but cannot afford to keep both of you, she will find other lodgings.”
“You don’t understand,” Fatima hears Sunaina saying. “I am all she has.”
“So what? You are going to throw away your happiness for her? Look, you don’t owe her anything, Sunaina. If anything, she owes you and your family for taking her in! If not for your father’s generosity, she would have starved to death in the desert!” Anjum says hotly. Fatima doesn’t know the girl at all, so the animosity surprises her. “Don’t you want to marry Niral?”
“Of course I do!” Sunaina replies immediately. “And I would if only Fatima wasn’t in the way! She is a burden I promised to bear!”
Fatima must have made some sound, a wordless protest, because the women turn. Sunaina’s face drains of color while the other two look horrified.
Fatima takes a deep breath and then another. She remembers Firdaus and the sense of belonging she feels with him, the kinship. She thinks of the Alif sisters, who are more family than friends. She is not alone. She will be all right. Not right now but later, when it hurts a bit less, she will be all right.
At this moment, though, Fatima doesn’t know what to do. Does she turn around and go find the Alif sisters? Or is she supposed to wait for her sister? Cry? Pretend that she didn’t overhear that conversation? What do you do in situations like these where your heart and your mind are two separate things and both of them have been crushed?
Fatima makes up her mind to leave, when suddenly something moves in the darkness. She smells something foul, something wrong, senses it stir in the shadows just beyond the puddle of light in which Sunaina and her friends stand.
A growl, low and guttural, comes from the darkness and even those unaware of the malice freeze. Fear blooms fully on the faces of the people, including Sunaina and her friends, closest to the shadows.
It rained the day the Shayateen massacred the city of Noor. Fatima remembers the strangely metallic smell of it. A smell filled with anticipation. Tense, as the air before a conversation. Fatima and her sister were home by themselves, waiting for their parents to return with food from the market. It was a Friday, and Fridays meant masala dosa from their favorite vendor in the market.
When someone banged on the door, Fatima and Sunaina looked at each other. Fatima remembers her sister squaring her shoulders, perhaps to convey her courage, and pulling the door open, not knowing who waited on the other side—their parents wouldn’t have knocked.
They hadn’t recognized the old woman standing on the doorstep. They hadn’t known what to make of her wide eyes, wild hair, and dirty sari. The old woman hadn’t waited for an invite, just barged into the house and slammed the door shut behind her.
When Sunaina protested, the old woman hissed, “Quiet, they’re coming!”
Before they could ask who, the screaming started. Fatima has spent the last eight years trying to forget the screaming.
When their door was broken down, Fatima screamed too. The monster that came through the door was beautiful. He had lifted his sword, wet with someone’s blood, and brought it down. Fatima, closest to the door, was attacked first. She protected her face instinctually, and her arms were sliced.
The monster had grabbed Fatima’s arm and licked her blood. A minute later, he was ash. Another monster came after him and he, too, suffered the same fate. Fatima bled, so she, her sister, and the old woman they would later call Laali would be able to live. They spent hours, covered in her blood, listening to the screams of first the citizens of Noor and later of the Shayateen who had killed them and who, themselves, were killed by the Ifrit.
Eight years have passed since then. Eight long years full of nightmares and unexpected pockets of grief.
The growl sounds again, and a creature emerges from the darkness. Whatever this creature is, it is neither Ifrit nor Shayateen, as it is only vaguely human in appearance. It has a too-wide mouth full of sharp teeth, orange eyes full of flames, and hair matted with dirt and leaves. Tattered clothes hide its groin but little else. Claws extend from its triple-jointed fingers. The creature turns its head toward Sunaina and her friends, sniffs the air, and slobbers.
Fatima’s heart thuds in her chest. Her breaths become shallow. Eight years have passed, and yet, it is as though someone has reached out and scrubbed them all away. She is in that house again, facing yet another monster.
“Ghul!” a man screams, and terror breaks upon the people in the maidaan. Fatima stands frozen for one second before instinct takes over. She rips out a pin from her hair and slices her right arm. Blood immediately wells, and the creature, its nose twitching, turns in her direction. Fatima’s breath shudders out of her. She reaches for courage.
The creatures takes two steps in her direction before it stills, head suddenly tilted as if hearing a sound everyone is deaf to. It makes a sound of frustration and leaps off into the night. Not a moment later, the Ifrit who had terrorized Fatima in Firdaus’s bookstore earlier that day arrives on the back of a white horse. His gaze tangles with Fatima’s, and she holds up a hand almost unconsciously, pointing in the direction in which the creature fled. He nods once and is gone.
The night explodes into sound and movement. Fatima stumbles, and someone places an arm around her waist. Fatima turns her head to meet the muezzin’s opaque eyes. He nods again and moves to give way to Adila, who wraps her arm around Fatima’s shoulders, supporting her weight. Sunaina walks over with ashen cheeks and bright eyes.
Fatima looks unseeing at her. She cannot move out of that day eight years ago, cannot stop hearing those screams.
“You’re bleeding,” Sunaina says. Amirah and Azizah immediately start taking off their dupatta to use as makeshift bandages. Fatima begins shaking. She cannot stop hearing the screams. She is conscious of the world around her, but the past overlays it. The screams. The blood. The bodies.
“Fatima!” Sunaina shakes her.
“They won’t stop screaming, Adila,” Fatima says to her friend. “They won’t stop screaming!”
The Alif sisters gather Fatima close to them, and she closes her eyes and cries.
When the past finally loosens its hold on Fatima, she finds herself with the Alif sisters and Sunaina on the back of a cart on the way home. The night has lost its sparkle. The last time she had one of these fits had been more than a year ago. Adila had screamed at a spider in front of her and sent her spiraling into the past.
“We were on our way to the eastern gate to get you and Sunaina Baji because we wanted to buy paper lamps from the stalls there,” Amirah says suddenly, her voice lacking its usual verve. “Api heard of the Ghul and wanted to leave us behind while she came to check on you.” She sounds outraged at the idea.
“As if we would let her,” Azizah grumbles.
Adila says nothing. She is holding on tightly to Fatima’s uninjured arm. Sunaina has her arms wrapped around herself and sits quietly with her face averted from Fatima.
The driv
er of the cart drops them off at the front door, shaking away their attempts to pay him. They walk up the stairs in silence. Some of the apartment doors are open; the sound of voices talking and the smell of food cooking follow them up to the seventh floor. Adila sends Amirah and Azizah home; they live on the ninth floor. Sunaina unlocks the front door and the women enter the apartment.
Sunaina lights two lamps and a candle, and the apartment is illuminated in golden light.
An uncertain silence holds them in its thrall before Adila says briskly, “Let’s get your arm bandaged.”
Fatima feels her sister looking at her, but she keeps her face averted. Sunaina opens a drawer and pulls out a clean strip of cloth. Adila cleans the cut with cotton wool dipped in water while Fatima sits in a chair and allows Adila to fuss over her. When Sunaina tries to wrap the bandage around her arm, Fatima pulls away and stands up.
“Adila, can I spend the night at your place?” she asks, still not looking at her sister.
“Of course,” Adila replies. She notices the flush in Sunaina’s cheeks and the evenness of Fatima’s voice and doesn’t question further.
Sunaina opens her mouth as if to protest but ultimately chooses to retreat to the kitchen area. Fatima disappears inside the bedroom only to emerge a few minutes later dressed in a shalwar kameez with a change of clothes under one arm and her oud slung over her shoulder.
“Let’s go.” Without waiting for a response or saying a farewell, Fatima walks out of the apartment. Adila mutters a goodbye and follows her.
After Isha prayers, Adila and Fatima spread a mat out on the open roof and pile it with cushions. The sounds of revelry drift up to them; the people of Noor will wring all the celebration out of the night before they relegate it to the past. Fatima lies back on the cushions and stares up at the star-filled sky. The sharp scent of a mandarin fills the air. Adila pops a piece in her mouth and offers one to Fatima. The juice is both sweet and tart.