His eyes moved slowly over my features for a moment, concession entering his expression. He nodded once. “No,” he said. “Safety is important.”
And then he gathered me in his arms, and closed his eyes to sleep. But I still lay awake. A shiver of unease filtered through me. Safety is important. Yes. Of course it was. What could be more important than that?
Sleep had eluded me of late as I stared out the window into the night sky beyond. There were planets out there. Planets and galaxies, comets and dark black holes where the gravity pulled so hard, not even a particle of light could escape. Sometimes, Ahmad had told me, his eyes held to mine, that was what happened when a star began to die.
**********
“Have you seen Bibi?” Ahmad asked.
I looked up from my work of pitting olives and took in his blackened eye. My heart seized. “Ahmad,” I breathed, wiping my hands on a nearby cloth and reaching for his hand.
But he turned away, ignoring my attempt at comfort, using his cupped palm to shield his eyes from the sun. On the grass beyond, a rotund man with a booming laugh said something to another man who joined him in his hilarity. “I saw him a few hours ago, but not since.”
“I’m sure he’s searching for insects somewhere, or napping in the shade,” I suggested. Like me, Bibi found a way to enjoy the pleasures Sundara provided. Though lately . . . those pleasures hadn’t gratified me in the way they once had. “Let me finish up here and I’ll help you look.” I was almost done with the olives to be used in the dish that would be prepared for the guests visiting that weekend. The ones who watched had voracious appetites, not only for entertainment and cruelty, but for the food and wine Haziq provided in abundance.
But though Zakai and I searched along with Ahmad, we could not find the naughty little monkey who’d stolen all of our hearts, most especially mine.
Troubled, I wound the azure tunic around my body as Zakai slipped the same colored linen shirt over his head. We lined our eyes in kohl, used sweet almond oil in our black hair to scent it and make it shine, and rubbed pomegranate oil on our skin so it was plump and soft. We were two sides of the same star, separated, and brought back together. Only . . . did stars have sides? Or, like the sun, were they just fiery balls of light? My gaze met Zakai’s in the mirror and he smiled, but not before I’d seen what looked like sorrow in his eyes.
We walked across the grass, hand in hand, to join the others at dinner. This feast would be lavish and the offerings delectable, but I dreaded it all the same. I preferred the simple meals of lentils and bread eaten with Zakai and the rest of my family. In privacy. In peace. No narrowing gazes. No mouths stretched into wicked grins.
The ones who watched were already there, having obviously consumed a fair share of wine, if their glazed eyes and wandering hands were any indication. We were sometimes allowed a glass of wine as well, so I wasn’t surprised to see a goblet before each of our plates. I sat on the pillow next to Zakai. Across from me, Ahmad met my eyes and raised his glass. I could see by the troubled set of his mouth that Bibi was still unaccounted for and a stab of worry pierced my chest. The little monkey had disappeared for several hours before though, and had always been found, usually napping somewhere cool and comfortable.
Zakai tipped his glass, draining it in three long swallows. He set it back on the table, wiping his mouth with his arm and muttering bitterly, “If he gives us wine, at least he could let us drink our fill.”
I slid my full glass over to him and he thanked me with a nod and then downed that too.
I looked at Ahmad but his eyes were on Zakai, a worried frown on his lips. “Careful,” he told him softly. “Drink can turn on you.”
But before Zakai could respond, Haziq stood, towering over us all at the head of the low table and raising his glass. “Before we dine, I’d like to read an excerpt to you from one of my favorite books.”
I coughed on the sip of water I’d just swallowed, my gaze whipping in his direction as my limbs went cold. Books? Haziq did not own books. He’d certainly never quoted from one. A deep and heavy fear spread over me, like a black cloud ready to release its watery blast.
“‘When one of the judges of the city stood forth and said, ‘Speak to us of crime and punishment’," Haziq began, reading from the book I knew well, the one I had memorized, word for word. Haziq’s deep voice was like the rain that pommeled my skin and beat into my terrified mind. He knows. Oh God, he knows. “‘And he answered saying: It is when your spirit goes wandering upon the wind, that you, alone and unguarded, commit a wrong unto others and therefore unto yourself. And for that wrong committed must you knock and wait a while unheeded at the gate of the blessed. Like the ocean is your god-self; it remains forever undefiled. And like the ether it lifts but the winged. Even like the sun is your god-self. It knows not the ways of the mole nor seeks it the holes of the serpent. But your god-self does not dwell alone in your being. Much in you is still man, and much in you is not yet man, but a shapeless pigmy that walks asleep in the mist searching for its own awakening.’”
Haziq’s eyes met Ahmad’s, the little man as frozen as I was as he stared back in dread.
“‘And of the man in you would I now speak’,” Haziq hissed. “‘For it is he and not your god-self nor the pigmy in the mist, that knows crime and the punishment of crime.’” He turned toward the servers then, their arms laden with trays of food who, with his nod, approached the table. He lay down the book, though the poem was not finished. I understood, however, that it was not the words that were the point, but rather, his possession of the book. My hands trembled as I reached for Zakai, his hand finding mine and his thumb drawing slow circles on my skin that had always soothed me before. But not now. The terror in my gut was too great to console.
“I have a surprise for my guests,” Haziq said, taking his seat on the cushion and offering a smile, but one laced with venom. He gave a wave of his arm and the server who’d set the large silver platter in front of Ahmad, lifted the top with a flourish to expose the charred body of a beloved monkey circling slowly on a spit.
I let out a strangled sob and Zakai pulled me to him, burying my face in his chest. The guests laughed and cheered as Haziq ordered the meat he described as a great delicacy be sliced and lay upon the plates.
When I dared look up at Ahmad, my heart splintered into a thousand shards. I’d seen the aftermath of Ahmad’s humiliation, his pain made sport, but through it all, he’d held his small head higher than a giant. I’d never seen Ahmad cry. Not until now. Tears tracked slowly down his face and I could see that finally, he’d been broken, his spirit as flayed as the small carcass of the creature he had loved and adored, the one who he’d told me had once saved his soul.
A skinny man with hunched shoulders and a laugh like the hissing of a snake pointed his finger at Ahmad and began to snicker his nasally laugh. “Did you know him?” he asked, pointing to what was now no more than meat, hitting far closer to home than he could possibly know. Ahmad met the man’s eyes, but to me, they appeared as dead as Bibi’s.
My heart seized and rage began to blossom inside me, overtaking the anguish. My sadness was a flower upon the cacti, but my fury was the thorn, ready to slice and punish, and I preferred its sharpness. Slowly, I began to stand, but Zakai gave me a sharp tug, pulling me back down. “Later,” he hissed. I trembled with the need to do something, but I held myself still, gripping Zakai’s hand, digging my nails into my palm, enjoying that pain.