Mirage

by Somaiya Daud

  “I want to,” I said softly. “Have the stomach for it.”

  Naimah stilled and her grip on my chin tightened just a little. I wasn’t overstepping—I knew Maram now, knew how she felt. She wanted to be able to do the right thing, she wanted her mother’s family to love her. She was only afraid.

  I knew if Maram had a chance, if she gave her mother’s family a chance, they would love her. And their love and her hope might shape her into a queen the Andalaans didn’t have to fear or hate.

  “Change takes bravery, yabnati,” she said, quietly enough that those around us couldn’t hear. “You are brave. Like your mother. I can see that. Visit more often.”

  I nodded in response to her request and at last she let me go. I returned to my seat, heart pounding, but could feel her eyes on me for the rest of the evening. When I looked up there was a strange turn to her gaze—fixed and nearly hopeful, as if she were looking at someone altogether different. As if she were seeing Najat instead of Maram, and it gave her hope.

  * * *

  The party seemed to last an eternity. Khaltou Naimah kept me on the platform with her, and when she got tired of speaking in Vathekaar, enlisted the younger girl beside me to translate Kushaila. It was strange to pretend I didn’t understand while I was being spoken to. I caught myself at least once, mouth open, before she’d finished speaking and had to bite my tongue. By the time I was free to return to the suites I shared with Idris, I felt as though I’d been wrung dry.

  Idris stood in front of the large window in the sitting area, outlined by the glow of the setting sun.

  “Where did you get off to?” I asked, closing the door behind me. “Your aunt kept a close watch on me the whole party.”

  He laughed a little. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to abandon you to her.”

  “You didn’t answer my question,” I teased, and laid a hand on his arm.

  “Oh,” he said, and I frowned.

  “Are you alright?”

  “I went to the mausoleum,” he said after a moment. “My parents and siblings are buried there.”

  I paused. He’d never spoken of his siblings—all I knew about them I’d heard from Tala when she’d told me about the night of the Purge. “Idris—”

  At last he looked at me and gave me a faint smile. “It was easier this year,” he said. His hand came to rest on mine. “It’s never easy, but—it was easier this year. With you here.”

  I smiled. “How are your cousins?”

  “As well as they can be.” He let go of my hand. “The younger ones keep asking when I’ll stay for good.”

  There was nothing I could say to that. Not that perhaps one day he might be able to, to be certain. I imagined for Idris such a future didn’t exist. Instead, I kissed his cheek, then went to take off my jewelry and change into something more comfortable. When I returned, Idris had shed his jacket and shoes, and was sitting in an alcove by the window. There was a slender folio volume beside him.

  “I found this,” he said when I sat next to him. “Ever since you corrected my horrible translation I’ve been thinking of this. I want you to have it.”

  I stared blankly at the volume he held out to me. I could see it was in Kushaila from the writing on the spine, and that it was very old, too. Nearly as old as the folio Husnain had given me so many months ago.

  “It was my mother’s,” Idris added.

  My eyes jerked up to meet his. “What?”

  I couldn’t take it. He knew I couldn’t keep something that belonged to his mother. No matter how much I wanted it, no matter how much it meant to him or the both of us. Idris didn’t know about the folio Husnain gave me on my majority night; he couldn’t guess how much I would cherish a second volume of poetry.

  “What is it?” I found myself asking.

  He grinned. “A collection of Kushaila poetry. She and my father loved to read it to one another.”

  “Idris,” I breathed, and reached out for it. I couldn’t. I shouldn’t. It was dangerous to have, tangible proof of what Idris and I felt for one another.

  “Furat said that you must love the old poetry if you knew it, that it’s … it’s hard to come by now.”

  I tore my eyes away from the cover and looked at him. He was grinning, and he watched me as if seeing how much I wanted the folio gave him joy. As if my happiness made him happy.

  “You can’t give me this,” I tried again.

  “It’s a gift,” he replied and folded my hands over it. “It would be rude to refuse.”

  I kissed him, furtive and quick, then pulled the book against my chest. His grin widened and he bent his head to mine and pressed a firmer kiss against my mouth.

  “Thank you,” I whispered.

  “May it bring you much joy, Amani.”

  * * *

  The next morning we went down to the stables where two horses were waiting for us. I ignored his look of surprise when I pulled myself up into the saddle, bypassing his outstretched hand.

  “You’re full of surprises,” he told me, getting on his own horse.

  “Hardly,” I replied, and smiled. “How do you think I got around before the Ziyaana?”

  There were no guards, though I’d seen him pack a phaser. He led us through the city, and then past its limits into the desert. I’d never seen pictures of Al Hoceima before the occupation, so I had nothing to compare it against, but I could imagine its splendor. The high walls of the city still stood with its four gates, though they were run-down and covered in desert sand. In the center of the city was not the Salihi stronghold, but the Dihyan temple and its zaouia. The streets were narrow and tight, and I couldn’t imagine trying to get a carriage through them. Wherever I looked was evidence that the city had stood for at least a thousand years and meant to stand for a thousand more. Faded mosaic tiles inlaid in entryways, empty fountains engraved with desert flowers in the style of antiquity, and so on.

  Despite the end of summer, the air was still hot and dry, and there was no water anywhere to make it less so. The desert seemed to stretch out in front of us for miles, an unchanging sea of orange and gold.

  “Are you sure we’re safe without guards?”

  “There’s no one around the city,” he promised. “Not for miles. The water supply is halved—they go elsewhere now.”

  We continued on, mostly silent. It wasn’t a long trek. Before the hour was up I could see palm trees outlined against the horizon, and a small shepherd’s hut leaning just a little. There was a decaying post we tied our horses to, and beneath the shade of the trees, I could see the oasis’s pool, half dried up.

  “My eldest brother, Ishaq, used to bring me here,” he said, taking my hand. “My parents wanted to hire an instructor to teach me to swim and ride. Ishaq refused—our father had taught him and he would teach me.”

  “He was so much older?”

  “Twelve years. Herders would come through and see the prince of Al Hoceima teaching his younger brother.” He smiled. “They liked him for that, little good it did him in the end.”

  I squeezed his hand and lay my head on his arm. “He sounds very kind.”

  “He was. I worshiped him, trailed behind him whenever I could get away with it. He would make room on his chair during council meetings and share his plate with me.” He shut his eyes. “They took him first, when they came.”

  This, then, was the legacy of the Vath. I’d never thought much about how the makhzen had survived their regime—I think few of us had time to spare to those above us. But the grief on Idris’s face was as real as the grief I saw in my parents when they thought of their siblings.

  “Thank you for coming with me,” he said at last. I didn’t smile, but pressed a kiss against his shoulder.

  “Of course.”

  * * *

  We journeyed back to the stronghold soon after. Everyone had retired to nap through the heat and so the palace was hushed and quiet. We returned to our chambers and Idris moved around the room easily, closing shutters to keep
out the sun.

  I stretched out on one of the couches, and a moment later he joined me with a carafe of water and cups. The water was set on a table, while Idris rested his head in my lap, eyes closed. I could not rest—what he’d said, and how he lay now, made me restless. I could imagine him young, a small boy on a large horse, with full faith that his brother would catch him if he fell. I didn’t want to think what it was like for him, having that taken away in front of him.

  His gift lay beside the water carafe, taunting me. There was an inscription on the opening page:

  From Itimad—may this fill you with unrelenting thoughts of me.

  I frowned as I began to flip through the book. Itimad was his mother, not his father. It was a collection of romantic poetry, some from antiquity, some more recent. Nearly all of it made me flush. I’d never read such words, nor could I imagine gifting a collection like this to anyone. But I couldn’t put the book down. Much of the poetry was written in the classical style, and overflowed with passion.

  A part of me felt like a child, suddenly confronted with the reality of what women thought. How young I felt, thinking of my kiss with Idris. How young were my clumsy attempts at articulating what I’d felt. I couldn’t imagine myself penning such words, or sending them to anyone as many of these women had done. But the rest of me, the part aware of Idris’s head resting in my lap, the part that needed reminding to not touch him as if he belonged to me—that part could not close the slender volume.

  When night falls, come and visit me,

  For I have seen night keeps secrets best.

  And another:

  I urge you to come on feet faster than the wind,

  Come and rise over my breast and take root in me and plough me.

  And no matter what befalls you while we’re entwined,

  Don’t let me go until you’ve flushed me thrice.

  I hissed in surprise when Idris hooked his hand around the back of my neck. I dropped the book, and stared at him wide eyed as he drew my face down to his. He swiped a thumb over my cheek, slow and deliberate, and smiled.

  “You’re blushing,” he said.

  “The heat,” I said. I felt—I had felt like this before. Flushed skin so hot it felt too tight, my heart beating quicker, a strange and thrilling twist behind my ribs. I could feel breath coming too fast, as if I’d run to get here. But I’d never had such words or phrases to apply to it. I was all too aware that even if Idris had no idea what I’d read, he would recognize what I was feeling.

  “Amani,” he murmured and sat up.

  “It wasn’t—your father didn’t give this to your mother,” I said, looking away. “She gave it to him.”

  When I looked up again, he was grinning. With his hair in disarray from sleep, he looked more boyish than I’d ever seen him, as though he were itching for trouble.

  “Is that why you’re flushing?”

  “No,” I said, too quickly. “Yes.”

  “Oh?” He’d leaned in again. “What’s in the book?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Amani,” he said, this time in a cajoling tone.

  “Poetry,” I said at last.

  His expression went from confused to comprehending in a moment. “Ah,” he said, and leaned his forehead against mine.

  “We shouldn’t—” I started.

  “We haven’t done anything,” he said. “You won’t read any to me? Not even in Kushaila? Poetry is meant to be read out loud.”

  “Not even if your life depended on it,” I replied.

  I could feel his laugh, vibrating under my palm in his chest, and puffing over my cheeks. One of his hands had come to rest against my ribs, and the thumb swept small arcs. He hadn’t moved, and when I blinked my lashes brushed his cheeks.

  The verses echoed in my head, inescapable, on the tip of my tongue. I’d never been filled with such sharp want, tantalizing the palms of my hands. I should not have—my hands rose from his chest to his cheeks, and the wooden frame of the couch dug into my back. He was over me, blocking out the world, his face angled in such a way—

  “Amani.”

  His hand tightened against my ribs. The look in his eyes made my toes curl, the flush deepen, the twisting thrill sharpen against my breastbone. I wanted it to end, wanted the poetry forgotten or consumed with something else.

  “Tell me,” he said. “Tell me what you want.”

  I shook my head, unable to speak. I had never felt the stranglehold of my want so strongly. I wanted—Dihya, I wanted everything, as I always did. My skin, the palms of my hands, my mouth—all of it was pricked with want, with the need to press as close to Idris as I could, to pull desire from him as he would pull it from me.

  He sat up and came to lay beside me.

  The difference between every touch before and every touch today was the leisurely way it seemed to unfold. I’d not forgotten the sharp twist of desire in my blood, nor had it faded away. But it had the time now to figure out the best way to heat, and where best to entrench itself inside me. When Idris drew me down to his side I felt a soft tremor and a deepening flush everywhere. Idris was unchanged, but I was aware of more of him; aware of the lazy thumb tracing shapes on my arm, of his broad shoulders. And I could see him watching me, noticing where my eyes wandered before looking away.

  “My father used to recite poetry whenever my mother was upset with him,” he said. He’d leaned back just a little so that there was space between us. “My mother used to say to him that if he used it more sparingly, it would be more effective.”

  “She was upset with him often?”

  Likely not, if Idris’s smile was anything to go by.

  “No,” he replied. “Or at least, not as often as he would recite the verses he liked best.”

  I didn’t expect Idris to recite them himself. My hand pressed just over his heart as the words tumbled out, rough and beautiful.

  “I thought you couldn’t speak Kushaila.”

  “It was my mother tongue until I was ten, Amani,” he replied, looking up at me. “I have forgotten how to speak it. Most days, I’ve forgotten how to hear it, too. But I remember those lines. I just can’t remember what they mean.”

  “She sways and pearls dance at her throat, she steps and anklets cut her delicate skin,” I began softly. “The sun nursed her beauty, though she walked veiled and hidden from its light. And her cheek seemed a talisman, a mirror to heaven, beautiful and shining.”

  “Now, how did you translate that so quickly?”

  I lowered my gaze. “It’s a popular love poem. That’s only a piece of it.”

  He sat up just enough that our eyes were level with one another. He could not read Kushaila, of that I was certain, not enough to understand the poetry in his mother’s collection. He didn’t need to, I thought. He only needed to see what it had wrought on my face, to lean forward and let the slow-burning fire spread. His kiss was gentle, questioning, as though I might pull away at any moment. My hands didn’t move, and when he pulled away I thought he might stop.

  And when I am with you …

  I drew him to me with a sigh, my hands on his shoulders, fingers bunched up in his shirt. I didn’t need words. A hundred women had already spoken for me.

  Would that the sun never rise nor the moon set …

  A frisson of shock went through me. We’d never given in, I realized, not truly. Every step, every touch, every breath had been watched and measured and reined in. I’d never let my hands roam over his shoulders and arms, nor had I pushed back or demanded anything from him. Here, now, I did and I did and he gave as much as he took.

  Had Itimad seduced her husband thus? Had she filled his blood with the words of bygone women and claimed him when she knew he would be unable to resist? Had she waited for the air to thin in his lungs, for the world to seem strange, for every touch to set fire to his skin as Idris did to mine?

  Would that the stars remain fixed in heaven …

  I wanted Idris, and the feeling of featherlight touch
trailing over my throat and his hands on my waist. I wanted the stars to keep this secret, as they had kept the poetesses’, to protect us against those who wanted us apart. I pulled him down with me and watched the sunlight play in his hair, saw the broken-up reflection of a girl flushed to the brim in his eyes.

  This was not a half life, I thought when he kissed me again. I belonged to him and he belonged to me—we had made the choice. Nothing had felt as real as this since I’d come to the Ziyaana. All choices had been taken from us, and still we’d found a way to forge paths independent of what our masters wanted.

  He pressed his forehead against mine and breathed. My eyes closed, and my hands looped around his neck. Outside the world continued, but for now there was only the two of us and what we felt for one another.

  “Amani.”

  I hummed in response.

  “I can’t marry Maram,” he said.

  My eyes flew open in shock and I scrambled to sit up. “What?”

  “I love you,” he said.

  Joy surged through me, overwhelming my shock. “What?” I said again.

  He smiled and covered my hands with his. “I love you,” he repeated. I didn’t realize how fiercely I grinned until he leaned forward to kiss me again and I felt the shape of my mouth try to change and fail.

  “I want to be yours,” he said against my mouth. “And no one else’s.”

  I cradled his face, afraid to believe him. “Really?”

  “Yes. Really.” I felt like a different person when I kissed him again, as if my joy and desire had twined around one another and transformed me. I wanted, and not just Idris, but everything. Everything those words promised, everything he wanted to give me. A life outside of what we were trapped in. I didn’t know how, and in that moment it didn’t matter. We had promised ourselves to each other, and there was no one who could unmake that promise.

  “Do you love me?” he asked, pressing me into the cushions.

  “Yes,” I murmured, echoing his promise from the beginning. “Yes.”

  32

  The palace was silent in the middle of the night. The noises I’d expected—desert creatures, a large family settling into sleep, were largely absent. There was the whistle of wind, the crackle of fire in the sitting room, and the soft whisper of fabric as I dressed. I drew the gray mantle over my shoulders and the hood over my hair. The data packet was safely hidden in the folds of my qaftan. I covered my face and froze when I caught my reflection in the mirror. I hardly recognized the girl looking out from under the shadow of her hood. A rebel. A spy. The farmer’s daughter from a backwater moon and the body double couldn’t have been more different.