Keziah stared at her aunt, puzzled, wondering whether she should be offended. She was a black wolf and a princess, and she did not need kindness from anybody; certainly not from a child such as Amira.
“Ah, well,” Aunt Sofia said gently. “Even you may someday find you need a friend, Keziah. A black wolf friend, one who understands you better than we poor humans may ever understand you. Perhaps you will find this is so sooner than you might imagine. You are a woman now, young as you are.” She looked Keziah up and down: a close, direct look such as was insolence from a human to a black wolf, but there was no insolence in it. Only worry, and perhaps a shadow of the affection a human woman might bear for another; Keziah was not certain what she saw in her aunt at that moment.
Then Aunt Sofia said, “Your father has sent for you. He wishes to see you. You are to be presented to him before the afternoon meal.”
Fear crept on many little feet down Keziah’s spine. She raised her chin, refusing to flinch.
“Good,” said Aunt Sofia. “Also, not good. You must be brave, but not too brave—well, I am sure I need not explain this to a black wolf girl! Even so, if I may suggest...your hair. You may wish to take it down, to braid it simply, as a child might. Perhaps you may wish to braid it with a single strand of pearls. That is a charming style for a child. Possibly you may wish to change your clothing. I certainly would not suggest an abaya, though you are tall. No one will be there except relatives. I have a simple dress that I think will fit you. Very expensive, but also modest. Quite suitable for a girl still a child but nearing womanhood. I have laid it out in my room, if you should wish to consider it.”
“You are not very subtle,” Keziah said coldly. She spoke coldly because she wished to show she did not care whether her aunt advised her or not, and because she would not admit she was afraid.
Aunt Sofia shrugged, a complicated, graceful movement that began with her shoulders and ended with her fingertips. “Your father is not a subtle man, Keziah.”
This was true in some ways. Less true in others, and Keziah was not certain whether her aunt’s advice was good or bad, whether making herself look like a younger child was clever or foolish. Though Aunt Sofia had seldom been foolish, in Keziah’s experience. And she often gave good advice.
“Very well.” Keziah agreed graciously. “You may assist me to dress, so that I may look well when I present myself to my father and he may be pleased.”
“Good,” Aunt Sofia said softly, with no trace of irony. She looked Keziah up and down once more. “You are graceful as a willow, as Kalila was graceful; not heavy-figured as Youssef’s Russian cow. This is good.”
Keziah nodded her understanding. Uncle Youssef was like all the rest of Keziah’s father’s brothers: old and grim and strong and cruel. Sons he had indeed, one a year older than Keziah and one a year younger, both of whom he defended from the other black wolves of Riyadh with grim efficiency, both borne by a big-breasted yellow-haired Russian woman.
After the Soviet Empire had fallen, a decade or two before Keziah was born, many Russian women had been lured to Riyadh with the promise of work. Others had simply been stolen, taken by the procurers who supplied the sudden market for Slavic women. All of them had been made into slaves. “The very word ‘Slav’ means slave, for they are born to serve,” Aunt Sofia had explained to Keziah, not without pity. “They have always been so. Even the Turks took many Slavic women, and long ago the Persians. It does not matter. In Russia, many of them would have been slaves anyway, subject to The Dacha. Here they will bear strong sons for our men—and better they should be so used than we or our daughters.”
Keziah had barely understood any of this. She had never heard of the Russian black wolves of The Dacha; not then. And she knew nothing of Turks or Persians except what everyone knew: that the Turks were savages and the Persians much degenerated from their days of power. But she knew Uncle Youssef had bought one of those Russian women, a big-boned broad-faced woman with heavy breasts and hips made for bearing. This was the mother of his sons. He had not killed her yet, though she had borne him only human girls since: big-boned plain girls much like their mother, but Uncle Youssef protected them as well, though not with any great attention.
In time, of course, Uncle Youssef could barter his daughters for favor from some other, more powerful black wolf. Perhaps even a prince might be pleased to take one or another, big hipped compliant girls who ought to be able to bear easily. Then Youssef’s grandsons would carry royal blood. Keziah hoped so. She would enjoy seeing her father’s jealousy if that should be so.
“At least your father has waited for your twelfth year to come upon you,” observed Aunt Sofia. “You are young, but you are becoming a woman, that is plain. You are early to it, but I think it is often so for black wolf girls.” She paused and added more distantly, “My father gave my sister to our uncle when she was nine.”
Keziah was uncertain what response her aunt wished. “That is permitted under the law,” she said, though she knew her aunt knew this.
Aunt Sofia agreed without changing her soft tone. “Of course the law permits such a marriage, for the law was made by black wolf men and not for women. But it was not kind of my father to agree to my uncle’s request. Though we were not surprised that he did. Black wolves so rarely care for kindness. Certainly not in Riyadh. Certainly my father did not. Nor my uncle. My little sister did not quite live to be your age, Keziah.”
Keziah said nothing. The child Aunt Sofia remembered must have been another of Princess Kalila’s half-sisters, by one of her mother’s father’s other wives. Part of Keziah delighted in the thought of the terror and suffering of that child, her own half-aunt, who had died in misery—she had no doubt of the misery—before she quite turned twelve. But Keziah herself flinched from a sudden vivid image of her own little Amira being given to a brutal black wolf uncle. Her eyes went to the child hunting the lizard around the fountain, and she found she could after all find pity in her heart for the child who had been given to such a marriage.
In her mind and in her heart, Keziah deliberately turned her back on the part of her soul that reveled in the pain and fear of others. She shut a door between the two halves of her soul; not quite solid, that door, but enough of a barrier to help her distinguish her own self from her heavy shadow when its darkness became too invasive. She had discovered that trick for herself. It occurred to her now, for the first time, that she had not taught this to Amira, and that perhaps she should.
Aunt Sofia was watching her closely. “It takes a different manner of strength for a black wolf to be kind. It takes the strength that comes from the right-hand side of your soul rather than the left. You have that strength from your mother. Your father, being what he is, does not value kindness or generosity or compassion. Neither in himself, nor in his brothers, nor in his sons. It is a kind of strength he does not even see.” She meant, Because like my father, like all black wolf men, he is a monster. She did not say so, of course. She said instead, “Perhaps only a human mother can teach that kind of strength to her daughters. Perhaps it is too difficult for a black wolf girl to teach it to her sister.”
Keziah tilted her head. “You surely do not believe you are being subtle. Indeed, Aunt, you are not very subtle in anything today.”
Aunt Sofia only bowed her head meekly and murmured, “I don’t wish to speak where it is my place to keep silent. I know that for a black wolf, to be kind requires a strict and terrible discipline. It is different for other black wolves elsewhere, perhaps. One hears tales of Nurullah in Lebanon, of black wolf houses in Israel...perhaps it is different for them. But for us...”
“Kindness is no use for a black wolf,” Keziah said, interrupting. But though she made certain her tone was sharp, she was actually uncertain. She was trying to remember whether her mother had ever tried to teach her to be kind. It was hard to imagine. Surely no one would have formed any such ambition for a black wolf child.
Maybe Keziah had missed some point her aunt had me
ant to make. It was a woman’s art, to speak tangentially, around the edges of meaning, so that no one could truthfully claim to have heard her say anything disrespectful or disloyal. But sometimes that woman’s opacity was difficult for a girl to unravel. Even a black wolf girl carrying a heavy shadow.
But she did not ask. She said only, regally, “You may assist me to dress, Aunt, if you wish. But I will not wear white pearls, but black, as suits my mother’s daughter.”
“As you wish, of course,” murmured Aunt Sofia.
Keziah’s father did not comment about the color of the pearls. Nor did he ask after the younger of his daughters. Keziah had feared he might, but once she had come before him, he only studied her in silence for a few minutes without speaking a word. She did not look at him directly, but knelt before him with her head bowed—partly because she could tell he was much stronger than she and partly so that he would not see the hatred in her eyes. He would know she hated him, of course, for all black wolves hated those more powerful than they. But he would not care, so long as she came at his summons and knelt obediently at his feet.
Her father was not alone in his office. Her uncles were there also: Youssef and Rayan, Ahmed and Hamsa. This frightened Keziah, though she made sure she did not show her fear. Youssef was grim, Rayan smiling, Ahmed bored. And Hamsa, thin, half-ruined Hamsa, with his bitter eyes and scarred, twisted arm, was impossible to read at all through the density of his powerful shadow. If her father hadn’t used treacherous silver to destroy his right shoulder and arm, Hamsa would be master of this household, of the villa in Riyadh and the identical one in Taif where the household went to escape the heat of summer. If that had been so, Princess Kalila’s father would have given his daughter to Hamsa and everything would be…different. Better, worse, those words meant nothing. But different.
Except then whatever children Princess Kalila had borne to Hamsa, one of them would not have been Keziah and the other would not have been Amira.
But even then, those ghost-children, those might-have-been girls, they would have hated their father, just as Keziah hated hers.
All her uncles were all old, powerful, cruel, dangerous. Even Hamsa, especially Hamsa, who must give way to all his brothers and many of their sons. In his weakness, he was the cruelest of all.
If Keziah’s mother had borne a boy-child, would he someday have become like this? Kalila’s son would have been strong. Perhaps a rival would have driven a silver knife into his shoulder and cut the tendons of his arm, and then he would surely have become another such as Hamsa. Keziah had been certain she could make a little brother into a friend, but she found now that she was glad she had a little sister instead.
She wore the modest child’s dress, as Aunt Sofia had suggested. It fell straight from shoulder to ankle, with no suggestion of a woman’s shape. Aunt Sofia had made sure of that by binding Keziah’s small breasts and carefully padding her narrow waist to hide the recent swelling off her hips. Her hair fell across one shoulder in a single thick plait, reaching almost to the floor when she knelt and bowed her head.
“Pretty,” said Uncle Youssef, his tone bored.
“Young,” said Uncle Ahmed more judiciously. “Is she not twelve? It’s late for this bud to open.”
“Some men like to open a tight little bud,” said Uncle Rayan, his smile widening.
Uncle Hamsa did not speak at all, but Keziah could feel his eyes on her, hating her for her youth and sound limbs, despising her for being weaker than he. Someday she would be stronger, even though she was a girl, because she had the use of all her limbs. But even then Uncle Hamsa would be a master in this house and Keziah would be a slave. She did not meet his gaze.
Her father rose to his feet, and came forward, and took hold of Keziah’s braid to pull her head back. He looked into her face and she stared back, her dark shadow shuddering and trying to rise. She checked it, held it, her own heart wiser; she knew her father would kill her right now if she let her shadow up. It would try to fight him and he would kill her. She could not turn her face aside, not with his grip on her hair. All she could do was close her eyes and hope he let go before her control failed.
Her father grunted, released her hair, and turned away. “She’ll do,” he said. “If she were human, she’d do better. But she’ll do. If she’s bred to one of ibn Abdel’s human sons, my grandsons might be worth something after all.”
“A human is a good choice for her, sidi,” agreed Uncle Rayan. As the youngest brother, he was carefully respectful of the eldest. “So many human sons is ill luck. They can do nothing for a man but give him black wolf grandsons. But I fear ibn Abdel may not be so pleased if she guts one of his sons.”
Uncle Youssef laughed. “I’m sure any of the black wolves of ibn Abdel’s household would be pleased to help a human son tame her.”
“Or we could send her to ibn Abdel’s son already taught to yield to any man’s hand, even the hand of a human,” suggested Uncle Rayan. “He might even prefer that. Humans are such cowards.”
“Unacceptable,” her father snapped. “A human man might prefer it so, but we will not offend a man who may be an ally by offering even a human son of his used goods. If you want a toy, buy one in the Evening Market.”
“Ah, sidi, that is too expensive,” objected Uncle Rayan. “They don’t last long enough. Not like this girl.” His gaze ran up and down Keziah’s kneeling form while she trembled with rage and fought for control over her shadow.
“A human woman can last for many years, if you’re careful,” Uncle Youssef told Uncle Rayan.
“Who wishes to be careful?”
Uncle Ahmed warned them both, “I’m not advancing anyone anything on his allowance because he uses up a girl and can’t afford another.” Uncle Ahmed kept the family accounts, and was stingy enough with the women’s requests. Evidently with the men’s requests as well.
“I will propose the match to ibn Abdel and see whether the idea pleases him. If it does, she will be sent to her husband untouched, and not until she has become more womanly,” said Keziah’s father flatly. “Keziah, you may go.”
Keziah rose gracefully, not wishing to shame herself by letting them see she was afraid. She could feel all their eyes on her: her father possessive and Uncle Rayan greedy; Uncle Youssef scornful and Uncle Ahmed indifferent. She kept her own gaze on the floor, mostly. But when she couldn’t restrain a covert glance from beneath lowered lashes, it was Uncle Hansa’s eyes that caught hers. He was looking at her, really looking. His gaze flickered to her bound breasts and padded waist, and Keziah guessed he knew all of Aunt Sofia’s tricks, and hers.
She was terrified he would reveal her deceit to her father, to her other uncles. But he said nothing at all.
Instead, he came that night through the women’s courtyard to find Keziah in the room she shared with little Amira.
Keziah fought him. She was not strong enough to kill him; not strong enough to even mark him. He was more than forty and she was only twelve, but even so she would have tried her best to cripple his other arm. But Uncle Hamsa proved to have a power she had never guessed, for part of his strength was to force her dark shadow down deep within her and hold her to her human form.
“My father will kill you,” she snarled in his face, surrounded by the wreckage of her pallet, while Amira cowered in a corner and Uncle Hamsa pinned both her wrists with his one good hand. “I will kill you!”
He laughed at her, his breath stinking of sulfur and ash. The women of the household said he was beautiful, the most beautiful of a handsome family, but his face was like a hawk’s face or a knife’s edge, beautiful but cruel. His eyes were hot and yellow, the dark shadow riding close behind the man. He said, his voice scraped raw with the bloodlust of his shadow, “If your father discovers what you have done, he will kill you, little bud, for what use to him is an opened flower? You had better be careful he does not know anything.” Her own threat he ignored, for the threats of girls were less than the whisper of the breeze across the des
ert.
Keziah tried again to call up her own shadow and again she failed. His shadow pressed hers down and she could not shed her weak girl’s form.
Then Amira, no longer cowering, leaped upon Uncle Hamsa from behind.
The little girl had shifted, the first time in her life that her shadow had fully risen up, and so when she struck Uncle Hamsa, it was with a weight and violence impossible for so young a human child. He sprawled, cursing and spitting, losing his grip on Keziah’s wrists but not his grip on her shadow—she should have run, should have seized her chance and fled, out into the courtyard or farther still, into the crowded apartments where the human women slept. Someone would have started screaming, and maybe Uncle Hamsa would have changed his mind.
But she could not leave Amira to their uncle’s rage. So she caught up a chair and broke it over Uncle Hansa’s head instead.
He staggered and fell, but the blow he had aimed at Amira, that would otherwise have torn her in half, only raked across the child’s hip. But then he forced Amira into human form, so she cried in shock and fled, baby-chubby and helpless. And then he caught the remnants of the chair with a strength Keziah couldn’t match, tore the broken pieces out of Keziah’s hands, seized her by the throat, and flung her down.
Then he beat her, and did what he had come to do, and left her bleeding behind him.
Once he was gone, Keziah was finally able to shift. Girls were not allowed to take the other form save when the moon called up their shadows. At other times, they were punished when they were caught in that form. But Keziah shifted. She shook away the pain, the broken bones and the other injuries that might have killed a human girl. The dark shadow took her and she fled into the courtyard and leaped from there onto the roof where it was lowest, and though girls were not allowed to leave the women’s quarters and certainly not allowed to leave the house, she ran across the rooftops of the house so lightly that no one below could have heard her and fled into the desert.
Black Dog Short Stories II Page 2