“It’s true,” Latifa insisted. She pushed Nafisa’s legs aside and stood. “Come on, Zeba. Tell this poor girl what she wants to hear. Give her the secret recipe and help her find her way back to a respectable life. Spare the world the shame of another harami baby, will you, please?”
Mezhgan bit her lip.
“Shut your ugly mouth, Latifa,” Nafisa shot back. There was much she could tolerate from Latifa, but she drew the line when her cellmate referred to an unborn child as a bastard. “Stop calling the poor girl’s baby harami! It’s not like you’ve got much to be proud of. Are you here because you were just too honorable for your family?”
The air was thick with tension. Mezhgan kept her gaze on Zeba’s bedsheet, fearful that anything she said would invite more insults. Nafisa looked down at Latifa from the top bunk, her arms folded across her chest defiantly.
Zeba broke the quiet with a couplet:
“Life’s made your heart as tense as a blister
Don’t spill its pus on your innocent sister.”
Latifa tapped her foot, annoyed.
“Fine, I won’t call him that,” she finally conceded, before her face broke into a smile. “And you’re right. My family’s not in the least proud of what I’ve done. But at least my belly’s not growing the evidence of my crime.”
Mezhgan smiled weakly and Nafisa’s shoulders relaxed. The banter between them filled the otherwise drab days.
“No, your belly is just growing, my chubby friend!”
Latifa chuckled and rubbed her belly as a gesture of truce. Heavyset to start with, she’d rounded considerably in her time in the prison. Her pumpkin-colored dress strained at the waist. Her face had grown fuller, like a waxing moon. At every meal, Latifa ate as if she’d received news that she would return to the world of scarcity tomorrow.
“Your friend is avoiding your question, Mezhgan. Looks like Khanum Zeba’s not interested in helping you,” Latifa teased.
Mezhgan sensed truth in Latifa’s words. She turned her attention back to Zeba.
“You will help me, won’t you? It would be the noble thing to do — to bring two families together with a respectable marriage. Think what a blessing it would be for this child. How could you possibly refuse?”
Zeba was nervous. These girls knew nothing about the jadu she’d learned from Gulnaz. They couldn’t possibly imagine the things she’d helped her mother do. Zeba felt ashamed to think of the concoctions she’d carried, the illnesses she’d delivered, the malice she’d stirred. Was it possible to use the tricks she’d learned without causing harm?
It must be possible, Zeba thought. She thought of the way her mother had stared off into the distance as they’d talked. She imagined how long her mother must have traveled just to slip two fingers through a metal fence. There was good in her that was surely not new. It was only that Zeba was seeing her mother in a new light. She had the darkness to thank for this new insight.
“My mother’s jadu is unmatched,” Zeba stated with confidence. “She’s started and ended love affairs. She’s pulled people out of their deathbeds and thrown others in. She’s made minds hot with anger and others soft with love. From the time I was a young girl, I stood at her side and learned every potion, every unfathomable combination, and I know better than anyone what her spells are capable of. You want to marry this boy, Mezhgan? A problem as simple as yours can be fixed in the time it takes to bring a pot of water to boil.”
Zeba exhaled sharply. There was pride in her voice, more than even she had expected to hear. The women in the cell listened carefully; she’d commanded their attention. They watched her eyes glisten, her cheeks draw in, and her neck straighten. Latifa was not snickering or mocking her. Mezhgan and Nafisa absorbed every word. Zeba could taste the respect in the air. She was reluctant to break the silence and spoil the moment.
Mezhgan spoke first.
“I believe it, Khanum Zeba,” she affirmed, her voice trembling with young hope. “I beg of you to help me. Tell me what I should do!”
“I don’t know if I should be getting mixed up in your troubles,” Zeba said quietly. It was true.
“Please, Zeba. I swear to you he’s my beloved and I am his. We are destined to be together. We need only someone to unlock our fates.”
Across the room, Nafisa’s eyebrows rose a degree.
Was I ever so naïve? Zeba wondered. She felt like Gulnaz, a seer amid the blind. But she couldn’t bring herself to disappoint the girl sitting before her, waiting for her help so earnestly it was heartbreaking. Zeba thought of the many hours between now and tomorrow. Then she thought of the many days ahead of her. She leaned back, her palms flat against the thin mattress of her prison bed.
My bed, Zeba thought. This is where I’ll be sleeping for God knows how many nights. Maybe all the nights of my life, however many that may be.
If she did not find a way to claim the cold walls around her, they would close in on her. Zeba looked around the room. The other women had hung up pictures, magazine cutouts, or family photos on the rectangular spaces above their beds. Nafisa had cross-stitched a geometric border in red thread on her white blanket. Latifa had set a vase of artificial roses at the foot of her bed.
To survive, they had to adapt. They could adapt themselves or they could adapt the space they occupied, Zeba realized. If she were to be a prisoner of Chil Mahtab, she would have to do the same. She looked at her cellmates. She could do it with their help. She could settle into this place if she could become someone here.
“Listen carefully,” Zeba began, knowing that the women would hang on every word that came out of her mouth. She knew, too, that this would be a test for them all. It would test their faith in Zeba and test the sorcery skills she’d inherited from her mother. It would test Mezhgan’s patience while she waited for the spell to sway her beloved’s parents.
Zeba shared with Mezhgan, in painstaking detail, how the hearts of her lover’s parents would be softened toward her. She told her about the string of red, about the seven knots and the three drops of blood. She described the cloth it would be folded in and how it would be thrown over the walls of her lover’s home, along with three feathers from a freshly killed chicken. She did not forget to tell Mezhgan about the thread that would be tied around her own wrist with the same seven knots to bind her to her lover.
Mezhgan listened intently, her fingers tying knots in an invisible thread even as Zeba spoke. She nodded with every instruction and dared not interrupt.
“That is all that needs to be done,” Zeba declared. “But it must be done quickly, before their resolve grows too hard for the spell to break it.”
“How long will it take to work?”
“I can’t tell you that,” Zeba said. “It depends on how precisely the instructions are carried out. Jadu is a fickle creature. You’re at its mercy once you call on it.”
Mezhgan threw her arms around Zeba’s neck. Zeba stood still, resting her hands on the young girl’s back hesitantly. Mezhgan’s embrace made Zeba’s eyes well with tears. Would her daughters one day be as foolish as this girl? She brushed the thought aside and enjoyed the weight of another person, even as it anchored her to the prison floor.
MEZHGAN’S DISGRACED MOTHER CAME TO VISIT HER DAUGHTER one week later. Mezhgan relayed to her Zeba’s very specific instructions. She impressed upon her mother the importance of following the road map precisely. Yes, the thread had to be red. No, the blood did not have to be fresh nor did it have to be Mezhgan’s. Yes, the tiny packet had to be thrown over the wall of her beloved’s home for the magic to be effective.