Honor (9781101606148) (22 page)

A Place near the River Euphrates, April 1978

The patient in the bed was burning up. Jamila checked his temperature by putting her lips to his forehead, the way she did with babies. She laid a gentle hand on his wrist, taking his pulse. It was both weak and rapid. Heartbeats were like drums heard from afar, like sounds of war. The human body was a mystery. It loved to fight. Though most people didn't realize this, the body was a warrior, and far more resilient than the soul. But, like all great warriors, it had an unexpected weakness. It was frightened of the unknown. It needed to understand its enemy so as to be able to resist, strike, deter and pulverize it. If it didn't recognize what it was fighting against, it couldn't prevail. That was where Jamila came in. Since time had begun, healers like her helped patients to regain their strength so that they could get to know their illness. She didn't cure them so much as enable them to cure themselves.

As she soaked a towel in distilled vinegar and placed it upon the smuggler's forehead, Jamila couldn't help but wonder, with the briefest of hesitations, what kind of a man she was nursing. There was no question in her mind that everyone deserved to live, but did everyone deserve to be brought back from death? It was a dilemma she contemplated every so often, arriving at no definitive conclusion. Were human beings born virtuous, and then grow to be corrupt? Or were they furnished with the seeds of vice even at the time of their conception? The Qur'an said we were all created from
a clot of blood
. How much of our present selves had been implanted in that droplet, Jamila wanted to know. A pearl, though pure and perfect, grew out of a speck of dirt that had penetrated the oyster shell by coincidence, if indeed there was such a thing. Even a bad seed could change into something exquisite. Yet there were also times when a smidgen of evil generated only more of the same. Some of the babies she had brought into this world would turn into swindlers, liars, thieves, rapists, even killers. If she possessed a way to predict how each and every child would develop, would she choose not to deliver some of them? Could she leave an infant in his mother's womb, comfortably entombed, so as to prevent him from bringing woe and misery into the world?

Each time she took a newborn into her arms, Jamila admired its little toes, the rosebud mouth, the button nose, and felt confident that nothing but good could come from a creature this perfect. But every now and then she also sensed that some babies were different. Right from the beginning. Not necessarily more insensitive or spiteful, but different. The mothers, too, might have detected this, had their intuition not been screened by a curtain of love. Not her, though. Jamila could
see
things. She just didn't know what to do with them afterwards.

Hard though it was to believe, there had been midwives who had killed the babies they had brought into this world. That was how the story of Abraham went – the story Jamila and Pembe had heard from their father.

One sunny day Berzo had taken his eight daughters to visit a consecrated pool in Urfa. Naze was about to give birth again, despite her age, and the family had gone there to pray for a son. The clouds were buffeting across the vast, generous sky. People were everywhere, a soft murmur of voices, like the faint rustling of leaves. Overwhelmed by everything they saw, the girls huddled together, timid but thrilled. They fed the fish. On the way back their father had told them the legend behind the place. Berzo was a different man on that day, his eyes not yet hard, his smile genuine. It was before everything had gone terribly wrong.

King Nimrod was a man of endless ambitions and cruelties. One day, his chief stargazer informed him that when a boy named Abraham was born his reign would come to an end. Not ready to let go of the throne, Nimrod ordered all the midwives in his empire to murder every newborn boy. Rich or poor, there would be no exceptions. Thus the midwives set to work. They first helped mothers to deliver babies, and if they turned out to be boys, then and there, they would strangle them. But Abraham's mother managed to escape the brutality. She gave birth on her own, in a cave in the mountains – dark, damp but otherwise safe.

When Abraham came of age he stood up against the cruelty of Nimrod. The patriarch was infuriated. He instructed everyone, old and young, to gather driftwood for a bonfire so huge that it would go on burning for days on end. Then he had Abraham thrust into the flames. But a while later the prophet walked out of the fire, unhurt except for a strand of his hair that had turned white. In an instant, God had turned the flames into water and the red-hot embers of wood into fish. Thus was born the sacred pool of Urfa.

Despite everything, Jamila didn't resent her life. After Pembe and Adem got married, she convinced her father to let her remain single and assist the midwives in the region. He had agreed, thinking it was a temporary wish. She had persevered. Today her only regret was not being able to become a doctor. If the circumstances had been different, that would have been her aim. To work in a large, clean hospital and wear a white coat with a tag that said ‘Doctor Jamila Yeter'.
Doctor Enough Beauty
.

*

Leaning a little closer, Jamila cut two onions into thick slices and placed the rings under the patient's feet, wrapping them with linen scarves. While the onions drew the fever from the head towards the lower parts of the body, she kept changing the wet towel on his brow every few minutes and did what she always did when there was nothing else to do: she prayed. By midnight the smuggler's temperature had dropped. Satisfied, Jamila fell asleep on the chair, tumbling into a disturbing dream.

She was in a city on fire, alone and heavily pregnant. She had to find a place to give birth but everywhere she turned there was turmoil. Buildings came crumbling down, people dashed left and right, dogs howled in fright. In the midst of the commotion Jamila saw a huge bed with thick carved posts and silky pillows. She lay there and gave birth to a baby girl. Someone inquired as to her daughter's name, and she said, ‘I shall call her Pembe after my dead twin.'

Jamila woke up, her heart racing. She checked the smuggler's temperature. It was now nearly back to normal. He had made it. Outside, the day had broken. Rubbing her aching limbs, Jamila downed a glass of cold water and tried not to think about the dream. Quietly, she lit the stove and started to prepare breakfast. She heated a chunk of butter and cracked three eggs, adding a pinch of salt and some rosemary. Cooking had never been her strength. Mostly she was content with simple dishes, and, as she had no one to care for, she had never felt the need to refine her culinary skills.

‘That smells good. What are you making?'

Jamila flinched, turning back. The smuggler was sitting up in bed, his hair unkempt, his stubble gold and brown. She said, ‘Oh, it's just eggs.'

He gave a grunt that might have been appreciation and might not. ‘And who on earth are you?'

‘I'm Jamila, the midwife.'

His expression grew reproachful. ‘Why am I here?'

‘You were shot. It's a miracle that you survived. You've been here for a week now. Here, have some tea.'

He took a sip and spat it out. ‘Yuck! What's this? It tastes like horse piss.'

‘It's a cure,' she said, trying not to feel offended. ‘You'd better drink it, and you'd better not spit in my house.'

‘Sorry,' he said in a coarse whisper. ‘I guess I have to thank you for saving my life.'

‘You should thank Allah, He's the one who saves lives.'

He pulled a face at the thought, and was silent for a while. ‘Hey, midwife, do you have a cigarette?'

‘You shouldn't smoke,' Jamila said.

‘Please,' he said. ‘Only a puff.'

Struggling through a range of emotions, Jamila produced a pouch of tobacco and some papers. As she began to roll a cigarette, he observed her hands, rough, red and chapped, sore from being washed thousands of times in cold water, the palms callused from chopping wood.

‘You're a strange woman,' he said.

‘So they say.'

‘How can you live here on your own? You need a man to protect you.'

‘Does your wife have a man to protect her now? I bet she's as lonely as I am. Some women are married and alone. Some, like me, are merely alone.'

The smuggler grinned, a half-humorous glint in his eyes. ‘I can marry you. My wife wouldn't mind. She'd be happy to have company.'

Jamila lit the cigarette, took a drag and blew out the smoke. She passed it to him, unwillingly, ignoring his hand brushing her fingertips ever so slightly. ‘That's very generous of you, but I'm happy the way I am.'

He gave her a judgemental look but made no comment. Then he spoke again, smoke streaming out of his nostrils, his voice trailing off, ‘There were four of us crossing the border. Did they tell you what happened to the other man?'

Jamila shook her head, not sure she wanted to hear this.

‘He stepped on a landmine. That's the worst, believe me. I'm not afraid of being shot or going to prison, only of landmines. It won't happen to me, though. I'll be buried intact. All my organs with me. No missing parts.' Not knowing how to respond, she asked, ‘Do you have any children?'

‘Three boys. One more on the way. He'll be a boy,
inshallah
.'

‘Any daughters?'

‘Yeah, four of them.' He bent forward, coughing up phlegm, his face twisted in pain. ‘I must go back. They need me.'

‘Well, they need you strong and healthy, not weak and wounded. You should get some rest first. Then you may leave.'

‘I've heard people talking about you. They say you have a
djinni
husband who visits you on moonless nights. He's the one who provides you with the secret cures, right?'

Jamila took out a round copper tray from the cupboard, on which she placed flat bread, tea and the pan with the sizzling eggs. Carefully, she carried it to him. ‘A
djinni
husband . . .' She smiled despite herself. ‘I'm afraid I'm just an ordinary human being, and my life is more boring than you think.'

As soon as she uttered these words she regretted them. It was better for her if the man thought she was an extraordinary creature, a woman like no other. She should not show him, or anyone else, her imperfections, her vulnerability, her humanness. If they knew you carried a heart of glass, they would break it.

London, May 1978

On the day the squatters were arrested, Tobiko, too, was taken into custody, but, unlike the others, she vanished shortly after being released. No one knew where she had gone. Worried, Yunus knocked on the door next to the squat. An old man opened it a crack and peeped from behind the security chain.

‘Sorry to disturb you, sir. I'm looking for my friend, a girl with black hair and tattoos. She used to live in the house over there.'

‘You mean where all the loonies live?'

‘Uh-hmmm,' Yunus said hesitantly.

‘Don't know any girl with black hair and tattoos. I hope they've bloody gone for good,' he said. ‘And good riddance too.' The door was slammed shut.

Yunus decided to search the town on his own. Pedalling his bicycle along street after street, running after every woman who even remotely resembled Tobiko, he looked round markets and supermarkets, launderettes and off-licences, but he still couldn't find her.

So on that day in early May when he turned the corner of Kingsland Road, just steps away from the Rio Cinema, his mind everywhere and nowhere, it was Tobiko he was hoping to find. His drowsy eyes fell upon a couple who were standing in front of a flower stall, their backs turned to him, choosing a pot of flowers. He didn't know what it was about the couple that drew him in, but somehow he couldn't take his eyes off them.

The man reached out and touched her wrist, caressing lightly, lovingly. Her slender body was tilted into him, as if at any moment she would put her head on his shoulder. Suddenly, Yunus felt an uncanny discomfort in his gut, a rushing in his ears. The familiarity of the woman's chestnut hair, the jade dress with capped sleeves and golden buttons, the shape of her waist and the gentle, graceful sweep of her arm . . . The boy's heart fluttered. His face went ashen, his lips became taut.

The man pulled the woman towards him and whispered something in her ear, touching her neck with his lips, a quick, short brush, perhaps an accident, innocent and unintended, a bashful exchange, after which she half turned and smiled, exposing a dimple in her right cheek.

Mum.

The boy turned his bike around, pedalling fast. Under the layer of shock and panic that had fallen upon him, he was thinking, or some part of his brain was thinking, that he had never seen his mother like this before. The woman he had just watched was Mum, and yet so unlike her. There was an aura of happiness about her, as bright as the flowers she was buying.

That evening Yunus came home looking like a boy made of wax – pale, insipid. Iskender and Esma teased him no end, saying he resembled one of the figures in Madame Tussauds. Pembe was worried that he might have stomach flu and tried to make him drink peppermint tea. But Yunus rejected their pleasantries, ignored the banter and insisted on going to sleep early.

That night he wet his bed.

A Place near the River Euphrates, May 1978

That day, late in the afternoon, Jamila went out to collect some wood. On the way back she sat on a rock, brooding. Tucked into her belt was a letter, which she took out and stared at through empty eyes, as though she had forgotten what it was. But, unlike the monsters in her dreams, the paper was real. It was as real as the mountains that surrounded her and just as portentous. She began to read it again.

Jamila my dear sister,

Throughout all these years I must have sent you hundreds of letters. There were good days and bad days. But this has been the most difficult letter to write. Sister, I've met someone. Please don't frown. Please don't judge me. Give me a chance to explain, though I'm not sure I understand it myself. I cannot confide in anyone but you. Nobody knows. I'm scared witless. But I'm also full of joy and hope. How can this be?

All this time I was convinced that my heart was dry. Like a piece of leather left in the sun for too long. Incapable of loving anyone, except you and my children. But never a man, I believed. When I met him, it was as if I had always known him. I couldn't put a word to this feeling. I tried hard to keep him out of my mind. I failed.

He's a cook. Like you, he knows the language of herbs and spices. Outside on the streets of London the young demonstrate. Everybody is furious at something, but not him. He says only patient people can cook. He is a man of many lands and many names, but no native soil. Perhaps he carries his hometown on his back, like an ageless turtle.

I know you must be appalled. I know what you're going to tell me: it's shaming. Mama's ghost will haunt me for ever. Papa's too. ‘I'd rather see the corpse of a daughter of mine in the Euphrates than have her bring me disgrace.' That's what he said after Hediye ran away, remember?

Tell me, if you teach someone the alphabet, how can you stop him from reading? When one has tasted the elixir of love, how can she not thirst for it? Once you have seen yourself through your beloved's eyes, you're not the same person any longer. I was blind all this time, and now that my eyes are open, I'm afraid of the light. But I don't want to live like a mole. Not any more.

My dear, do not forgive me if you don't find it in your heart to do so. But please love me. Now and always. I'll do the same too. For ever and ever . . .

 

Your adoring twin, Pembe

She must be drained, Jamila deduced. There was something debilitating about love, an obscure force that robbed you of your senses and strength. Adem might not care, but everyone else would rush to malign Pembe – friends and neighbours, relatives both here and there. Even if she managed to get an easy divorce, would this cook agree to marry her soon enough to silence the rumours – this man with a portable homeland, no sense of the past? He was an outsider, a Christian in all likelihood, which made matters worse. The more Jamila thought about it, the more she realized the impossibility of it all. She needed to get her sister out of London, out of harm's way. She had to protect Pembe from gossip and slander, and, if need be, from herself.

Thoughts racing through her mind, she reached her hut and walked in with a batch of dry sticks on her back. She put down her load by the fireplace, taking quick breaths. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed that the smuggler had left the sofa, after several weeks in her care, finally able to stand on his feet. She turned halfway towards him, smiling. That was when she noticed the rifle in his hand.

‘You strike me as being a secretive woman,' he said, pointing the weapon at her. ‘What are you hiding, I wonder.'

‘How can I have anything? I'm a midwife. I'm not even paid money.'

For a fleeting moment he seemed convinced, but then he said, ‘Well, we'll see. Take me to the cellar first.'

‘What?' Jamila faltered.
How did he know about the cellar?
‘But there's nothing there. Just old trinkets.'

‘Old trinkets are good,' he said. The veins on his temples were swollen, his eyes bloodshot. ‘Come on, show me the way.'

Her body, unused to receiving orders from anyone, grew taut, resistant.

‘Move or I'll blow your head off and feed you to the dogs,' he hissed. ‘Then I'll go to the cellar all the same.'

She slid the carpet aside, opened the trapdoor and took a step back so he could see what was down below.

‘No,' he said. ‘We're going together. You first. But wait . . .'

He threw her a rope and made her tie her hands together in the front, loose enough for her to be able to use them, but so tight that she wouldn't be able to open the knot easily.

‘I can't climb down like this.'

‘Oh, you're a smart woman. You'll figure it out.'

Balancing her weight with great difficulty, grasping the highest rung, Jamila inched her way down the ladder, step by step. He followed. She could sense he was in pain, his wounds still sore. Yet his greed was stronger.

‘Ugh, what's this stink?' he said, bending forward as if about to retch.

For the first time in many years Jamila noticed the smell – spicy and tangy, all pervasive.

‘Well, well, what have you made yourself here?' he exclaimed, looking around. He took a jar of mustard seeds and shook it suspiciously. ‘I knew it. You're a witch. So tell me what treasures are you hiding?'

‘Nothing. Herbs and medicines, as you can see. I prepare potions. One of them has healed you, remember?'

‘I thought you said only Allah could heal,' he retorted. ‘And, you know what, you were right. It was none other than God. He always saves me. Men who haven't gone through half of what I have are dead. In their graves. But I'm alive. I always survive.'

He jabbed at her with the end of the rifle. She lost her balance, almost falling. ‘I'm curious about how you taste,' he said, as he took a step closer and eyed her hips, her breasts. ‘So you've never known a man. Poor thing. Maybe after this I should give you a ride,
Virgin Midwife
.'

Half turning his back to her, he started to search the table. He poured out the contents of bottles, sniffed at jars, emptied containers and smashed a few things carelessly. Jamila's mind was spinning. The Amber Concubine was there on the shelf, in its mother-of-pearl box. ‘Let's go upstairs,' she said, her voice tense with the effort of concealing her unease.

‘What's upstairs?'

‘I'll cook for you, I'll wash your feet.'

The words cut the air like a knife. The smuggler stopped, his eyes searching. ‘Do you think I'm stupid?'

She panicked. ‘No, of course not. You're a clever man.'

‘Why are you buttering me up? Why the change of heart? You should be hating me,' he said and then added, ‘Where are you looking?'

Jamila realized her mistake. In her confusion, she had been glancing repeatedly towards the shelves behind him. His eyes followed hers. It didn't take him long to find the box. ‘O-hhh, you filthy sorceress! Look at this beauty! It must be worth a fortune. Where did you steal this from?'

‘It was a gift,' Jamila replied wearily.

‘Oh, yes? You expect me to believe that?' he asked, as he pocketed the diamond. ‘Come on, turn around. We're going up now. You first. And no tricks.'

As soon as Jamila made a move towards the stairs, he knocked her down with the end of his rifle. She lurched forward, her forehead hitting the iron rung, her body no longer hers, the world the colour of blood.

Hours later she woke up. Her head was spinning, her stomach churning, and the pain in her temples so excruciating she didn't dare to open her eyes. For a few minutes she moaned on the floor like a blind kitten. Then slowly, very slowly, she stood up, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dimness.

She found a blade and cut the rope around her wrists. The entire cellar was in disarray, as if it had been plundered by an army. She saw the mother-of-pearl box on the table. She hadn't had a chance to tell the smuggler about the legend. The diamond was cursed. It could only be given or received as a gift. It could not be confiscated, it could not be taken by force and it could not be sold.

She climbed up, wincing with every step. When she reached the upper floor, she saw that the main door was open, the valley silent, airless. Suddenly everything seemed intimidating. The land that had nurtured and protected her all these years now teemed with scorpions, snakes, poisonous plants, vicious intruders . . . traps that God had set for her. She started to cry, listening to herself wail as if overhearing a stranger, sobbing hard the way someone would who had forgotten how to cry and was only now beginning to remember. The rest of the day passed by agonizingly slowly. She didn't venture out. She didn't pray. She didn't eat. Nursing a cup of water on her lap, she sat on the sofa, numb to everything.

Then she heard sounds. Men. Horses. Dogs. She wiped her eyes with the palms of her hands, the calluses on her fingers hard against her skin. He must be coming back with his friends, she thought. What else could he want? Her body? Her life? She couldn't find her rifle. He had taken that too. She grabbed a dagger but her hands were trembling so hard she knew she'd never have the strength to use it. So she put it back and went to the door, determined to face her fate.

Out of the dusk came four riders. Only one of them jumped off his horse and approached her, his boots squishing as if walking in thick mud. Jamila recognized the chief of the smugglers. The man whose wife had given birth to the one-and-a-half baby; the same man who had left the wounded smuggler with her and caused her this misery.

‘Jamila . . . sister. May I come in?'

Wordlessly, she moved aside, letting him pass.

He saw the bruise on her forehead, the puffy eyes. ‘I'm not going to stay long. We've already caused you much pain. I came to apologize for what happened. He did not deserve your kindness.'

She knew she should say something, but the words didn't reach her lips.

‘I brought you things,' he said. ‘My gifts to you.'

Out of the pocket of his
shalwar
he produced two drawstring pouches in silk, one red, the other black. He reached out for her hands and held them for a moment while staring into her eyes. Then he put the red bundle on her left palm, on her right palm the black.

Finally finding her voice, she inquired, ‘Where is he now?'

‘He won't give you any more trouble, trust me.'

‘What was his name? I don't even know his name.'

‘His name was Haroun,' he said before he strode away back to his horse. ‘That's what we wrote on his stone.'

It took a moment for the words to register, and when they did she gave a gasp. Aghast, she opened the red bundle. Inside was the Amber Concubine, dazzling. Jamila then untied the second bundle. In it was a pair of ears. Sad, bloody. It was only then that she realized the two bundles were cut out of the same cloth, one having turned black with blood. In the end, though he had skirted the landmines, Haroun the smuggler was still buried with some parts missing.

On an impulse, Jamila dashed after the chief. For a second she feared he had vanished, another ghost in her life. But then she spotted the four horses down the rutted path. ‘Wait for me!' Jamila choked.

He pulled on his reins, and his men followed suit.

When she reached them, she hesitated, at a loss for words. Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she arranged her scarf. She pleaded, ‘I need your help, please.'

‘Tell me.'

‘I want to go to my sister in England. She's in trouble. She needs me.'

The men exchanged stares.

‘I don't have a passport or money. Nothing. It has to be your way, illegal.' Jamila opened her fist. ‘But I have the Amber Concubine and I'm allowed to give her to whomever I choose. And I choose you. You'll be a rich man and she won't bring you bad luck, trust me.'

‘You want to give me the diamond in return for arranging a trip abroad.'

‘That's correct.'

The chief smuggler furrowed his eyebrows, pulling the ends of his moustache, brooding. ‘That's not easy. It's not like crossing the border to Syria.'

‘I've heard there are men who arrange such things. I cannot find them, but you can. Remember Ahmad's younger son? Didn't he go like that? Which country was it? Switzerland? They hid him in a lorry, right? He made it somehow.'

Once she'd begun, the words gushed out of her like a river. She spoke from the depths of her soul with urgency and fervour, guided by a need she did not recognize, and possibly could not control.

He watched her, unmoving. In his deep-set eyes she saw several emotions at once: concern, understanding, loss and a secret admiration. ‘I'll do what I can. If God wants it to happen, it will happen.'

Dazed, cold, shaking, she raised her hands and opened her palms, the diamond catching the last rays of the setting sun. ‘Take her. May Allah bless you.'

He turned his face away, as if talking to the wind now, and said, thickly, ‘Keep it. You deserve it, Jamila.'

Then, with a faint nod and without a further word, he kicked the sides of his horse. His men followed. She watched them gallop away, the dust from the hooves surrounding her like a haunting memory.

***

Shrewsbury Prison, 1991

When I arrive back from solitary, there is someone new in Trippy's bunk. So soon. I guess I half expected they would give it a bit of time, but Shrewsbury is jam-packed. And every day there are new arrivals. The prison system reminds me of the factory where Dad used to work. Like biscuits on a conveyor belt, cons keep coming. The screws arrange them, store them, lock them up. Cluster after cluster. This place is filled to the top. There is no room to mourn anyone.

At first glance, my cellmate seems okay, pretty harmless. I don't ask him what he's in for and he doesn't volunteer it. Those things you don't raise. A wiry little man, he has a high forehead, angular jaw, chiselled face. His hair catches the overhead light, and for a split second I am struck by the kindness of his expression.