Chapter 5 #2
The younger shawafa’s legs were crossed, her djilaba a pretty pale peach.
The fabric dipped in the space between her thighs, weighted by an egg and a dark, folded shirt.
Opposite her sat a young woman Aicha did not recognise, hair red and an earnest look in her eye.
Bakhoor wafted around them from the small bowl by the shawafa’s feet and the guest—a settler, if Aicha’s assumption of her finely woven garment and jewellery were any good—leaned forward, her fingers woven tightly together on her lap.
The scent of oil-soaked sandalwood wrapped itself around Aicha, easing her limbs into something more relaxed, pliable.
Enough to make her want to crouch to the floor and lie down right there, in the middle of the hallway.
She shook her head, pushing the urge away.
It was an effect the Shawafas had perfected, easing their clients into fabricated reality of happiness, a dream state that helped the most troubled of souls forget what plagued their thoughts.
Moving forward, Aicha watched, in fascination, as the shawafa handed the guest the egg. “Keep this close to your heart.”
She then lifted the bakhoor, smoke circling the garment on her lap, and urged the woman to stand.
Aicha knew what came next, she would place the bakhoor between the lady’s legs, the burning oils and wood would seep into her clothing, and up her legs.
Even Aicha knew what its intention was, every woman on their side of the citadel knew.
It would help attract the object of their client’s desire.
It was as close to bewitching a person as you could get.
Despite the heat, Aicha felt a cold chill ascend her spine, settling on her shoulder as if it were a hand. Her body froze, fear enveloping her as quickly as the darkness consumed any and all brightness. The small flame that kept the bakhoor burning simmered, before petering out. On its own.
“Three days from now, tap your husband’s shoulder thrice,” the shawafa instructed, and the guest nodded fast. So fast that Aicha was certain it would elicit whiplash.
“And it will work? Will he stop seeing his mistress? He will love me, only me?”
Aicha didn’t linger to hear the answer; nervousness clogged her throat at having witnessed so much already.
When she reached Naima’s room, her dark eyes caught onto the hunched figure by the door.
The man was dressed in a soldier’s uniform, buttons undone, red and white fabric dirtied and stained with sweat.
He rested his forearms on his knees, and Aicha couldn’t make out whatever words he was muttering beneath his breath.
She leaned towards him, a brow rising when he didn’t even shift to look at her.
His head remained still, gaze focused on the blue and green tiled floor.
Were those tears streaming down his face?
The realisation dawned on her later than it should have, but in fairness, his face was soaked with sweat, evidently overheated by the afternoon humidity.
He was weathered, old enough that his skin looked leathery.
If Aicha had to guess, he was probably the same age as her father, streaks of grey littering his black hair.
Aicha waved a hand in front of his face, expecting him to at least blink and lean away from her. Yet he did neither of those things, and just continued his mumblings.
Aicha had no desire to get closer to him, to hear whatever chantings he repeated. So she pulled back, and she pushed Naima’s door open without announcement or knocking.
“You have a particularly ugly man waiting outside for you.” Aicha sat down on Naima’s sidari with ease, ignoring the talismans littered across it.
“He’s still bewitched; I must wait a little while before dismissing him,” Naima said, lighting some more bakhoor.
Her back was to Aicha, long black hair flowing past her waist. In the darkness, her hair made her terrifying, formidable—billowing around her as if lifted by spirits.
Aicha often joked that it made her appear as a marrid.
In the light, however, she was ethereal.
She possessed a beauty that could not have been natural, but Aicha did not care if it were not.
Shawafas were forbidden. Their ability to liaise with the dead and jinn, to look into what lay in the future, was a blasphemy in Islam.
They were desired, sought after and feared.
Soldiers determined to know that their fate was not in death, but in glory.
Women from the invaders’ land, and from the homeland, eager to know a prosperous marriage lay ahead of them or that those who had wronged them would suffer.
They offered a glimpse, spoke with beings whose intentions were not as sinister as many believed.
But opening that door meant it never closed, and so they worked with meticulous rigidity.
“That does not explain why he is so ugly.”
A chuckle escaped Naima as she turned, lifting the small pot of bakhoor to circle the room. Its scent settled into the back of Aicha’s throat, thick and simultaneously soothing.
“He had a particularly horrifying stench, too.” Aicha almost asked what he had sought Naima out for, why he had been there, but fear kept her tongue at bay.
To enquire was to invite jinn, and her father’s words were etched too heavily inside her.
She had already strayed too close to it by lingering long enough in the hallway to witness a shawafa at work.
But there had been something familiar about the coldness that had crawled up her spine while there, hints of something that had greeted her in all her dreams. That cold, pressing hand on her shoulder was almost identical to one she had felt in the nightmares that plagued her sleep.
It was as familiar as the voice that had taken residence inside her, emerging when her emotions unravelled beyond her control.
It was the hand of an unwanted guest, but she supposed that all jinn were unwanted guests.
Demons that were trapped between the land of the living and the dead, destined to teeter on both edges yet never fully grasp either.
To see jinn was to be gifted a sight not by Allah, but by something far more nefarious.
Lala Ilham and her cohort were not Muslim, nor were they Christians.
They existed on the borders of both, never acknowledged in the open, but sought after in the shadows.
Aicha often wondered how much favour she had curried with their invaders to be allowed to exist.
Aicha’s baba insisted what they were was the work of shaytan, choosing vessels to do his bidding.
But sometimes, when the terror of a nightmare lingered after waking, Aicha wondered if anything was that deliberate.
Were the tall, dark shadows—with a scent reminiscent of a fire—that hovered in the corner of her room in her waking moments and dreams truly gravitating towards her because of the shaytan, or something much older than the former beloved angel of Allah?
She didn’t wish to know. The possibility that it was exactly what she feared: a sentencing to an afterlife in the depths of Jahannam—and without her family—had Aicha stamping it down, deep into the darkest crevices of her mind.
“Are you done? I want to take a walk by the port. Baba said that some of the soldiers have begun loading, preparing for their leave.”
Naima placed the bakhoor on the floor, sitting beside it and crossing her legs.
“What has he heard?” she pressed, bright green eyes eager as she leaned forward.
“Lala Ilham has remained quiet and tells us not to worry, but Mina did hear some rumours from a drunk lieutenant. He said they have been evacuating.”
Aicha moved to the floor, mirroring Naima as she leaned closer, voice low.
“He tells us that they received word of the Sultan reclaiming the port of Mugadur. The King’s men abandoned the citadel and fled back to Portugal.”
Naima blinked, her eyes wide as if surprised by the news, but to Aicha it had always seemed inevitable.
“If the rumours are true,” Aicha continued, “then we are the only port left under their rule.”
Despite the hangings, and the theft of homes, the blood that had been shed and Maghrebis martyred, Baba had always believed that this would come, like his father before him, and his father before him.
“Our citadel is the last standing?”
Aicha nodded. “Samira’s messenger confirmed that the Sultan will reach the citadel soon, with seventy thousand men. He believes the siege is imminent, though there is debate between the invaders.”
“I suppose Duarte is adamant that he’ll stay and cling on to control? Our rations of cured meats and wines lessen with each passing day, the girls are growing hungry. We were even denied a day’s worth of water this morning. Lala Ilham had to step in.”
A bitter chuckle left Aicha’s lips. “He refuses to relinquish and run like the other port commanders, and it’s to the detriment of everyone left in the citadel. Baba says even the King could not force his return.” She shrugged. “No matter, remaining only means that we will be at his end.”
“You speak of death and killing far too trivially,” Naima mumbled. “The men who come through my door are haunted by what they have done.”
“They chose to come to our land and kill for their king.”
“I know that,” Naima replied, moving to stand as she began to clear up her talismans from the small, low table beside her. “But I worry for you, and where this path will lead you. I have seen how war stays with the invaders. I do not want you to be haunted by the same horrors.”
“They are haunted by the killing and taking of things that do not belong to them.” Aicha waved her off. “That will not happen to me; killing to free ourselves from them is not the same. I do not do it in the name of conquering and greed. This is our home.”
“Is there any line that you will not cross for our freedom?”