Aicha

Chapter 5 #3

Aicha paused, unsure whether Naima wanted the answer, because usually people did not.

The idea of freedom was always more alluring than the knowledge of what was required to achieve it.

Your hands became coated in blood, your soul sullied, all in the name of liberation.

That hunger, that desperate need to release all the anger and resentment that had collected beneath her ribs had never faded away.

It coiled inside her, on the edge of bursting through her ribs, like it always did.

Sometimes, she feared Naima did not know the depths of that hunger for retribution that lived inside her, or would be horrified by it.

But Naima was not soft, nor naive. So she answered with candour.

“No, there is no line.” And there never would be.

Naima sighed, but did not express any disapproval.

“Screams will echo across the citadel when the siege comes. Whenever it comes.” She didn’t speak prophecy.

Naima never appeared animated or present when foreseeing the future.

Her eyes were always vacant, a solemnness in her posture.

Aicha imagined that every time she looked, every time she peeked through the door and felt the hands of the jinn who guided her, a piece of her was taken as payment.

The sadness that emanated from her was grief for every fraction of her spirit that was left behind there.

“If the siege is successful, will you stay?”

Naima looked thoughtful, grabbing her beads and beginning to roll them between her thumb and forefinger.

“This is my only home,” she said softly, looking at Aicha, and breathing in the scent of bakhoor softly. “But you and I both know that my kind would not be welcome under Islamic rule.”

“You are not welcome under Christian rule, either,” Aicha countered. Something akin to defensiveness sparked inside her.

Islam was not the only religion that forbade what she was.

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” Naima reasoned, reaching for Aicha’s hand.

“But Lala Ilham has spent decades forging mutually beneficial agreements with the settlers; you know as well as I do that we are treated a little better than the rest of the Maghrebis. I cannot guarantee she will be successful a second time,” she explained gently.

Lala Ilham was the founder of the Gardens, and adoptive mother of every gifted person that resided within the hacienda.

When Naima spoke of her, it was with adoration and affection.

A look reserved only for those you viewed as the beginning and end of your world.

Aicha supposed that for Naima, that was the truth.

She had taken in an orphaned Naima as a child, knew instantly of the gift she had, and raised her as her own.

Much like every other shawafa in the Gardens, they all had been fed, clothed and trained to understand their abilities.

To take ownership of what they had been gifted.

In a world where they had been turned away at every other door, Lala Ilham had left hers open.

Aicha’s irritation ebbed away, giving way to affection.

“Then who will keep me company on the eternally boring days to come after the siege?” Aicha found that it was easier to joke about their future, and ignore the bleak possibility that they would be separated, than to continue seriously discussing it.

They had been attached at the hip since their childhood—despite her baba’s wariness of shawafas.

A parent’s disapproval was no match for a child’s curiosity and eagerness to forge friendships.

A young Aicha didn’t care that Naima occasionally conversed with an invisible figure in the street, she just liked the fact that Naima had shared her small plate of chebakia with her.

Naima had ceased her conversation, took one look at Aicha’s fixated gaze on the sweet treat in her own hand, and then broke off a piece for Aicha.

After that, their friendship became as easy as breathing.

Naima’s presence was as familiar as Aicha’s own limbs, and the thought of living a life without her didn’t feel possible.

Without her, it would not be so easy slipping into a new life, and the realisation scared her.

The time it would take to recover from the war was unknown, even to her baba.

The hope of having freedom came wrapped in a fear of what freedom even meant, because none in the citadel knew.

She supposed that for Naima and the rest of her sisters it was a little more certain. And not in the way one would like.

Naima chuckled, and the soft melodic sound settled the anxiety that simmered in Aicha’s stomach. “I believe by then you will have married Rachid.”

“Being married does not mean my free hours will have dissolved. Rachid is well aware of that. I would rather be fed to the unforgiving waves than become a vessel for childbearing.” She sneered at the thought of what becoming a wife would entail.

Hidden beneath her distaste was fear, which she knew Naima had always been able to sense.

“You are fierce and brave. You would make a wonderful mother.” She crouched back down to the floor to touch Aicha’s ankle, the gesture bringing her comfort.

“If I survived the birth,” Aicha muttered, her tone bitter. “Regardless, Rachid accepts my lack of desire to bear his children. Having each other is enough.”

“You are not your mother, Aicha.” Naima’s voice was soft, like a soothing balm lathered onto broken skin.

Aicha leaned forward to take her friend’s hand from her ankle, and shuffled until she sat closer to her. The two held hands, and when Aicha next spoke her voice was as quiet as Naima’s.

“You do not know that. No one does.”

“Actually, if you did not have an aversion to the heat of Jahannam, I would be able to tell you.”

Aicha laughed, neglecting the spark of panic that she felt at Naima’s suggestion. “Astaghfirullah, you cannot jest like that.” The scold was not serious, as Naima did not hold any specific faith, but something became unsettled in Aicha’s mind whenever she said it.

Fouad had taught Aicha that any who dallied with jinn—as tellers of fortune or those seeking out said fortunes—were punished in the afterlife. All were acts deemed sinful, and Fouad never allowed Aicha to forget that even flirting with the concept could condemn you to Jahannam.

But no shawafa had ever appeared evil to Aicha.

None held odious intentions, nor appeared to take much joy in their gift.

To Aicha, they always seemed burdened, exhausted by the toll it took and simultaneously tortured when not using their gifts.

As if ignoring the jinn that surrounded them elicited anger and frustration from the demons, a loud demand to not be ignored that evoked a headache in them in the same way Aicha felt a headache when her baba nagged her for too long.

“I know my fate,” Naima said dismissively, pulling her hair over one shoulder and to the side, “and I will accept it when my time in this life has ended. Jesting will not alter it.”

Aicha fixed her with a look of curiosity, her eyes only marginally wider than usual.

“Does it really not bother you? That you know how you will die?”

Naima shook her head. “I’ve known since I was a child. It was an accident. Before I understood that I could commune with the other side. Anything negative I once felt about my end has vanished.”

“You don’t want to try to stop it?”

“Why would I do that? My fate is written.”

Aicha could not argue, for her own approach to life had been that if Allah willed it so, then it was meant to be.

A practised thought, taught by her baba.

To remain unknowing of where your life would end, to completely trust in Allah, was her lifeline.

When you lived the life that they did, death could claim you at any moment.

Grip onto you with its fingers, and snuff out any future you had hoped for.

Be thankful for what you were given, and trust in Allah’s plan for you.

That was what she had been taught, and the rigidity of the belief, the lack of room for wondering what if, had actually brought her comfort.

So much was uncertain in her life, but not that. It soothed Aicha.

“We should hurry, that fool outside is still waiting for you.”

As if she had forgotten the customer, Naima stood abruptly. “Of course.”

Aicha waited as Naima collected her belongings, fingers deftly weaving through her long hair to push it out of her way.

She followed Naima out of her quarters, standing behind her as she bent slowly to the soldier sitting on the floor.

His cheeks were stained red with the heat, eyes closed as Naima kissed him on both cheeks, the action soft and slow, almost maternal in nature but mesmerising to those who were the subject.

The soldier blinked, as if awoken by the action, then his eyes focused on Naima, and he looked to her as if she were the only woman in existence.

“Go home, my dear.”

He nodded, voice hoarse as he attempted words.

Aicha realised he was thanking Naima, gripping her soft, delicate hands and smothering her knuckles in kisses.

The mumblings fell from his lips as Aicha watched him stand, cupping Naima’s cheeks, and planting kisses that she laughed off as tears streamed down his face.

He didn’t seem to notice Aicha, before finally releasing Naima from his grip, and stumbling down the hall.

Aicha’s nose scrunched as he passed her, a whiff of something medicinal lingering on his skin and clothes.

“What did you do to him?”

Naima looked back at Aicha over her shoulder, and a rare, coy grin graced her lips. “I helped him forget for a few hours.”

So that medicinal scent was her doing.

“Forget what?”

Naima’s tone was less innocent, and soft—as was her nature—and instead it verged on sinister.

“Everything he has ever done, and everything he will do.”

As Naima said it, the scent clicked into place. Opium. She had fed the soldier opium in order to subdue the guilt and memories that ravaged his mind, forgetting—for a few hours—the horror he had inflicted on her people. Until Naima shook him awake. Somehow, Aicha did not find that to be a mercy.

“So, the remainder of Duarte’s men are emptying the cistern?” Aicha asked as they walked.

“Yes, but they only do so at night,” Naima replied. The wind blew behind, bringing with it the calls of the fishermen and of the birds that circled the sands beside the ocean.

Long ago, the cistern had been an underground barracks, built and maintained by the invading soldiers when they had first constructed the walls that surrounded the citadel.

It served as a space to stock gunpowder and weapons, food and rations, should—like now—the citadel’s occupants be barricaded in and running low on ammunition and sustenance.

Aicha and Naima walked along the docks, bustling in the early afternoon as boats began to dock and unload.

The stench of fish mingled with the salty air, and though any who had never lived in the citadel would despise the scent, Aicha found it comfortingly familiar.

“I wonder how much of their supplies remain,” Aicha mused, arm interlinked with Naima’s.

“I can find out,” Naima responded. “I believe I have a patrol guard visiting tonight. He begged for a few hours of dream-free slumber.”

“And he’s paying with secrets?”

Fortunes and spells for fertility and marriage were not the only services the shawafas provided; they also thrived on trading information. Rebels relied on them solely for it.

Classified information poured like water from a well: when the next raids would take place, whom they had tortured for information in the cells, whether the invaders knew how rebels were extracting weaponry and information for the Sultan’s forces far beyond the walls.

All was seen and heard by shawafas; it fetched a handsome price and Fouad was notoriously generous.

“I wonder if we could procure some of their weaponry.”

“If you are reckless enough, do so just after fajr. They retire to the barracks just before sunrise.” Their voices were low, drowned out by the shouts of men and merchants that surrounded them across the docks.

Smiles remained on their faces, implying a friendly and light conversation.

Aicha’s features softened as she turned briefly to her friend, noting how freely she always divulged the relevant information.

She chose to because she cared for Aicha.

“Naima,” Aicha said softly, halting in her steps to look at her friend, “I know you believe that you must follow your sisters when the citadel is taken, but I am also your sister. There is a home here for you, with me.” Naima smiled at her, green eyes shining brightly.

It was the hue of the ocean, when it reflected against the sun.

Lovers of Naima were lost in her eyes like a sailor to the sea.

She squeezed Aicha’s hands, which were callused and scarred against her soft palms. Aicha’s life had been swords, welding and brawls.

Naima’s had been hand-sewn gowns, darkened, plush rooms with bakhoor and harrowing encounters with jinn who visited her.

Neither life was soft. Still, they had been friends since before either could remember.

The memory of Naima was weaved into Aicha’s bone marrow.

She was not Naima’s only friend, but she was her most important one.

Her only friend that was not an inhabitant of the Gardens.

“I know that; I may yet take your offer.” She looked down at their joined hands, noticing the band that circled Aicha’s wrist. “This is new.”

Aicha’s face changed in a way that assured Naima she was thinking of Rachid. Her smile fought its way to her lips, a feigned eye-roll as if his actions were silly. Deep down, Aicha knew it was never so. She loved that man stupidly.

“He brought it back from his last trip. He made it.” She didn’t speak his name, and never did in public.

“A terrifying warrior and artistically gifted,” Naima said, amused. “It’s beautiful.”

In another life, Rachid would have been a weaver, a statement Aicha had always voiced whenever in his presence.

He sewed his own clothing, taught her to stitch, and he was creative in that regard.

The band that encircled her wrist was threaded with red and black thread, weaving a pattern of triangles before tying at the base of her palm.

She released her hands from Naima, beginning to untie it.

“Give me your hand,” Aicha said, wrapping the band around Naima’s slim wrist.

“But it was a gift!” she laughed.

“He can make me another one.” She completed the knot, gently tapping Naima’s knuckles. “This colour suits you far more than it does me, anyway.”