The Terrorists of Irustan (21 page)

“Come over here, Eva, sit down on this barrel. Your arm is all right? You’re all right?”

“Oh, yes,” the woman said with a shrug. “Well enough.”

“You’re very thin.”

“Always have been,” Eva said. She smiled at Zahra. “Medicant, I owe you a favor, and I want to repay you. But the longer I’m here, the greater the risk. Tell me what you need.”

Zahra spread her hands. “You’re not going to like it, Eva.”

Eva chuckled, but there was no humor in her eyes. “It doesn’t usually matter much. Soon I’ll be too old for my kind of work. Then my daughter will have to start, or we’ll starve. I don’t like that, but there’s nothing else for her to do.”

“Oh, no,” Zahra said. “No. If you can help me, we’ll arrange something else for your daughter. I promise.”

Eva’s eyes narrowed. Zahra understood that hope could be a dangerous emotion. She seized the other woman’s hand.

“Eva,” she said. “I can’t change much in your life. I wish I could. But I can offer your daughter a place, a home, right here. We’ll take her as a maid, if she’s willing to do the work. She doesn’t need to—to take off her veil.” Zahra used the most tactful phrase she knew to describe Eva’s profession.

Breathlessly, Eva said, “Really, Medicant? Is that possible? Will you? I’ll do anything for you!”

“Oh, you don’t have to do so much, Eva,” Zahra said lightly. “Just let me join you one night.”

“What—why, what do you mean, Medicant? Join me?”

“I want to come to the market square.”

“Oh, Medicant, no! You don’t want to go there! Not someone like you, you don’t know what it’s like. . . .”

Zahra held Eva’s hand tighter. “I think I do, Eva. And I need to go there. There’s someone I have to find.”

“Medicant,” Eva said. “Take my daughter into your house, and let me find this person for you. I’ll do what needs doing. Just tell me!”

“No,” Zahra said, coming to her feet. “This is something I have to do myself. Please say yes. Trust me.”

“It’s not a question of trust. This is dangerous.”

“Yes.” Zahra pulled Eva to her feet. “It’s very dangerous. Too dangerous to put off on you.”

Eva shook her head as she pulled up her worn veil. “All right, Medicant. If you say so. But I don’t like it.”

“Can you part with your daughter now, Eva? Tomorrow?”

Eva’s eyes above her verge reddened with quick tears. “Yes!”

“Good. What’s her name?”

“Ritsa. She’s sixteen.”

“Bring Ritsa to us tomorrow evening, then. And wait for me on the south side of the square. I’ll meet you there.”

Eva’s eyes overflowed. She took Zahra’s hand to her face, and kissed it through her veil. “Thank you,” she murmured, her voice breaking. “Thank you.”

twenty-four

*   *   *

Set an example to your sons. Treat their mother with tenderness, their teachers with admiration, their friends with respect, and their wives with kindness. Thus will you do your part to preserve the perfect order of the One.

—Eighth Homily,
The Book of the Second Prophet

T
he call
came during dinner at the end of Doma Day. Qadir, Zahra, and Ishi were at the table in the evening room. Asa took the call on the wavephone and came hobbling into the evening room. He turned to Qadir with a look of apology. Qadir nodded permission, and Asa spoke to Zahra in a low tone.

“Medicant, it’s Kira Bezay,” he said. “Her anah says she’s very sick. She’s too ill to come to you, Mari says. She’s—”

Asa broke off, his eyes sliding to Qadir. Qadir sat with a stern expression directed at his knife and fork. Diya stood at the door with his arms folded and his eyes cast up at the stars shining through the skyroof. Ishi and Zahra both put down their utensils and gave Asa their full attention.

“Her anah is very worried,” Asa finished.

Qadir said, “You’d better go, then, Zahra. Diya can drive you.” Diya sniffed.

“I’ll go, too,” Ishi said.

Zahra put down her napkin and stood. “Diya hasn’t had his dinner yet. Why not just call a car? Asa can come as escort.”

She saw the flicker of Diya’s eyelids in her direction, and Qadir did too. His look at Zahra was sympathetic. “If you don’t mind a hired car, Zahra? Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” she said. “But it would be better in that case if Ishi stays with you.”

“But—” Ishi began, pushing her chair back from the table.

“Zahra’s quite right, Ishi,” Qadir said firmly. “I don’t want you in a hired car late at night. We don’t know how long this call might be.” Ishi’s cheeks flushed and she put down her fork with a clatter.

“Ishi!” Lili exclaimed. “Do as the chief director says!”

Ishi drew breath instantly to argue. Qadir smiled at her as he shook his head. “No more,” he said. “You can hear all about it later. Diya, call a car for the medicant, please.”

“Never mind, Diya. Asa can do that from the clinic,” Zahra said brusquely, pulling up her verge and buttoning it. “I’ll get some things together while he makes the call.”

Zahra and Asa hurried from the evening room, forestalling other interference. In the clinic, Asa made his call while Zahra threw an assortment of unrelated supplies into her bag. At the very bottom, secure in an ice wrap, was the small bottle of nab’t she had taken from the pantry and smuggled out under her veil. Its stopper had been removed, its contents amended, and the bottle resealed with great care. A change of clothes was already stowed in the bag, a black dress and veil Zahra had worked on with a pair of scissors until they resembled Eva’s clothes.

The car arrived, and Asa gave instructions. The driver, knowing the house and who his passenger must be, was reasonably courteous to Asa, and deferential to Zahra. He drove swiftly and smoothly to the house of Camilla’s brother, who had taken in Camilla and Alekos, along with Camilla’s anah and two of the staff from their old home. Asa told the driver not to wait, that the medicant expected to be busy for some time, and they would call another car when her work was done.

Camilla’s anah, wet-cheeked, met them at the door. “Oh, Medicant,” she sobbed. “Thank the Maker! She won’t let me see her, she’s locked in her room, I can hear her vomiting and vomiting! How can it go on so long? She hasn’t eaten in hours, and I’m so afraid—since the director had the leptokis disease!” She broke off with a wail, and covered her eyes with her drape.

Alekos stood, uncertain and frightened, in the tiny foyer of his uncle’s house. Zahra tried to reassure him. “Alekos, don’t worry. I’m sure your mother will be all right. It can’t be the leptokis disease, truly it can’t. She must have picked up some germ or other. I’ll figure it out. Hush, now, Mari,” she said to the anah, taking her arm. “Show me Camilla’s room.” Over her shoulder, she said, “Alekos, can you take Asa to the kitchen, get him something to drink perhaps? A place to wait?”

Alekos murmured assent and led Asa away, casting an uneasy glance at Zahra over his shoulder. Zahra followed Mari as she passed a small dayroom, and went down a narrow corridor. The house was all on one floor. It must be crowded now, with Camilla and her son and their servants added to the family, but Zahra saw no one. They were afraid of the disease, of course. Every door was closed. The anah trotted to one and knocked.

“Camilla? Camilla, open the door! The medicant’s here!” To Zahra the anah shrilled, “She won’t open, you see? She could be dying!”

“I’m sure she’s not,” Zahra said quietly. “Calm yourself. Knock again.” The door opened before the anah could lift her hand. The room beyond was dark, only the light of the moons revealing a narrow bed and glinting in a wall mirror. Camilla, in shadows, leaned her forehead against the door. Her voice was breathy and hoarse. “Thanks be to the One! Zahra!” She gasped, then retched with a tearing sound like the ripping of silk.

The anah cried out and moved to go into the room, but Zahra stopped her with a firm hand on her shoulder. “You go and deal with Alekos,” she said. “He’s frightened. I’ll take care of Camilla now. I promise, if I need you, I’ll find you.”

The anah resisted, but from the darkened room Camilla choked out, “Please, just Zahra. Only Zahra.” Zahra patted the anahs shoulder and slipped past her. She shut the door and locked it.

Camilla immediately put on the lights and grinned. “Poor Mari. She thinks I’m about to win my way to Paradise.”

Zahra was already pulling off her dress and rummaging in her bag for the ruined one. “Listen, Camilla, this is a risk for you. Be careful! When I’m gone, don’t unlock your door for anything or anyone. I’m surprised Mari wasn’t too scared to come in. Certainly none of the men will come anywhere near you.” Camilla’s grin faded. “True enough,” she said. She sat on the edge of the bed. “Alekos—he won’t even come to my door.”

Zahra pulled the torn veil over her head now, and changed her light sandals for heavier ones. “They can’t help it. It’s bred in them, that fear. It doesn’t mean Alekos doesn’t care.”

“I know,” Camilla answered. “Still, it bothers me.” She got up and peered at Zahra through the dark, ragged veil. “Zahra, are you sure about doing this?” “Don’t you think he deserves it?”

“I do think so! But if you’re caught, or if he hurts you . . .”

Zahra took Camilla’s hands between hers. They were warm, while her own felt cold, so cold. Everything about her was icy—her hands, her mind, her heart, her very bones. The only warmth she had felt in weeks was for Ishi, the sight of her, the nearness of her in the clinic, the feel of her skin when she kissed her good night. But now Zahra felt as cold as sculpted stone, impervious even to the warmth of Camilla’s concern.

“For three hundred years,” she said, “the women of Irustan have tolerated the abuses of such men. No matter how many sons we bear, how much work we do, how faithful we are in our prayers, we have no power, no control over our lives, no way to protect ourselves or our children or our sisters. I can’t bear it anymore, Camilla. The day we buried Leman was the day I found that out. I can’t live with it.”

“But if anything should happen to you—we love you, Zahra!” Camilla cried.

“And I love you, Camilla, and Idora and Laila and Kalen. And Ishi. Especially Ishi. And I swear, Ishi and Rabi and Alekos will not inherit the same world we were born into!”

“I just wish there were another way, a safer way.”

“We’ve been over this already. This is the only way.”

“Aren’t you terrified?”

Zahra gave a brittle laugh. “I’m often terrified, Camilla. I don’t know if I’m more afraid tonight or not.” She picked up the tiny purse she had brought and put the nab’t bottle in it. She belted the purse about her waist, beneath her verge. “I’d better go,” she said swiftly. “Or he’ll meet someone else.” Camilla watched, her hands to her mouth, as Zahra turned out the lights again, opened the window and put one of her long legs over the sill. “Be careful!” Camilla said.

“I will.” Zahra put her other leg over the sill and dropped to the soft ground below. She waited a moment, scanning the narrow street for people. Then, picking up her skirts, she set out on the long walk to the market square.

*   *   *

Asa had acquired a map that Zahra had studied secretly and carefully. The dark streets were strange to her, and the signs that marked them difficult to read. She didn’t dare stand under a streetlamp to peer at the numbers and letters. As it was, cars and cycles were still about, carrying people home for their dinners. When one approached, Zahra stepped into the shadows, sidled into unlit doorways, hid behind met-olives. Once she crouched under a scratchy mock rose. Another time, as she looked around a corner, trying to remember her direction from the map, she saw a half-veiled face look out at her from a curtained window. The woman drew back immediately, and Zahra blessed her silently for her discretion. No doubt the woman thought Zahra was a prostitute making her way to the market square. What other woman would be about, unescorted, hiding in shadows?

Zahra took one wrong turn, and had to backtrack when she realized she was headed south instead of east. She hurried where she could, crept where she had to. She felt naked and exposed. She had never, in all her life, walked the city streets alone.

Even now she didn’t actually walk on the sidewalks. Her feet crunched on the gravel of rock gardens, picked their way through tangled met-olive roots, stepped gingerly over the rough pavement of dark unwindowed alleyways. The freshness of the warm evening air soon stifled under her veil, and she perspired freely, from exercise and from wariness.

Only once did she fear she might be stopped. A hired car turned in her direction and rolled toward her. She put her back to the wall of a house, hardly breathing, catching her already ragged skirt on the rough sandrite. Light streamed from the windows, but she had found a pool of darkness beneath a met-olive. Her dark clothes blended with the shade of the tree. The car slowed as it approached the house. Zahra’s heart pounded furiously. The car pulled up before the front door, and two men, one very old and white-haired, the other middle-aged, climbed out. The younger one paid the driver, and the car pulled away. Perspiration dripped down Zahra’s ribs. The two men, talking, moved slowly up the walk to the house, which opened to admit them. Zahra waited for the sound of the door closing, and then waited longer. When she judged it safe, she dashed across the street, holding her skirts up around her calves.

She had judged the distance to the market square to be about three kilometers, guessing it might take an hour to cover the distance. It seemed after all to take somewhat longer because of the delays and the wrong turn. At times she was tempted to give it up, to turn back. Her bone-deep, icy anger drove her on. The streets grew narrower and darker, easier to pass through, as she neared the center of the city. At last she glimpsed the lights of the square between the buildings ahead, and she breathed easier. Her goal was at hand.

Zahra approached the square from the west and circled to the south side, still hugging the shadows. An anxious Eva spotted her uncertain steps and flew to meet her. She peered through the black veil to be certain it was Zahra and then gripped her hands. Zahra felt a rush of relief at recognizing a familiar face.

“Oh, Medicant, I’ve been so frightened for you!”

“No need,” Zahra whispered quickly. “And no names, please. I’m just one of you tonight.”

“Not really one of us, Medi—I mean, not really!”

Zahra shook her head. She looked around the dark alleyway. Barely seen women haunted the doorways, leaned into corners, waited beneath balconies. They wore dark dresses and veils, like hers. Though Eva’s rill was undone, she left hers buttoned. She wasn’t ready, not yet. Her heart beat quickly, but not too much so. She was surprised to find she was no more afraid, now that she was here, than she had been in planning this. She lifted her head, feeling her icy resolve stiffen her spine, jut her chin.

She answered Eva, “No, not really. There’s only one. One person I came to find."

“Can you tell me who it is?” Eva breathed. Zahra sensed her excitement at the intrigue.

“No, sister,” Zahra murmured. “He may not come tonight, in any case. But I’ve heard he comes often, and almost always on Doma Day. Where can I wait, and watch for him?”

Eva frowned, thinking, then pointed to a small alcove just at the side of the square. “If you wait there, just in the shadow of the wall, you can see all the men who come. We usually meet them here, on this side, or just over there. Most of them eat at the market stalls first, and drink nab’t. Tonight they’ll come early, since no one sells nab’t on Doma Day.”

“And where can I go if I find this person?”

Eva took Zahra by the hand and led her back up the narrow street to a doorway. It was shrouded in darkness. Eva guided Zahra’s fingers to the doorknob. “There, sister,” Eva said. “Go up the stairs, and at the top, take the first room to the right.”

“Thank you,” Zahra said softly.

“I warn you,” Eva added. “I made it as clean as I could, but it’s nothing like you’re used to.”

Zahra laughed softly. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. She touched Eva’s shoulder, and moved back up the street to the alcove, where she pressed herself against the wall until she was certain no light could reach her and reveal her presence. She lowered her rill then, and waited.

The market square was brightly lit, the Doma Day crowds lively with talk and laughter. Zahra could see perhaps half a dozen unveiled women in the semi-darkness of the alleyways. As she watched, the first of the evening’s customers walked with feigned casualness to the last stalls of the market, then on into the shadows at the edge of the square.

Zahra saw how the woman sidled close to the man. She couldn’t hear what was said, but she knew the phrases the unveiled ones used. Asa had coached her in them, between reminders of the dangers of the streets, of the men, of being caught unveiled. She watched, fascinated and repelled, as the man and woman moved away down the alley and disappeared.