Yusuf chuckled lightly. Zeba and her mother had made quite an impression on the prisoners, it seemed. He feigned mild surprise.
“I’m here to deal with other issues,” he said lightly.
“Oh, you’re wrong to laugh this off, mister,” Latifa chided, her hands resting on her wide hips. It was at this moment that Yusuf realized she was wearing a butter-yellow Pinocchio T-shirt. While Latifa wondered if he was gawking at her heavy chest, Yusuf noted the elongated wooden nose, faded to a splintered memory. This cartoon fibber, a gentle warning to children not to lie, struck him as particularly odd plastered across a prisoner’s body. “The worst thing you can do is doubt a jadugar. You tell Zeba that the women of Chil Mahtab are waiting for Malika Zeba.”
“Malika Zeba?” Yusuf repeated, scratching at his head. “You’ve named her a queen?”
“Just tell her,” Latifa whispered, shaking her head with a sly smile. “The women will be on fire to hear she’s coming back.”
Asma walked in just as Latifa was turning to leave. Asma’s red hair curled around her forehead, moist with beads of sweat. She straightened her jacket and shot Latifa an expectant look, but Latifa had already backed her way out of the interview room with a bowed head.
“Godspeed to you both! May your trip be quick and successful,” she shouted as she made her way down the hall, her hands cupped around her mouth. Her words echoed against the alphabet-covered walls. “Ladies, good news! They’re bringing back the queen of Chil Mahtab!”
Asma looked at Yusuf expectantly. She did not seem the least bit surprised by Latifa’s booming announcement.
“Ready?” she asked with a quick nod toward the door.
THE SOUNDS OF THE PRISON CAR’S ENGINE DID NOT INSPIRE confidence, nor did the lack of air-conditioning. The fan purred but blew only hot air into the car. Yusuf sat with his head nearly out the passenger-side window to catch the dusty breeze. He kept his eyes shut. He was down to his last bottle of eyedrops and was unconvinced he would find anything decent in the local pharmacies. The midnight blue upholstery was heavy with the smell of old tobacco and scarred with tears and holes. The driver, a male prison guard, drove with two hands on the wheel, his fingers drumming as he hummed to himself. Asma and another guard sat in the backseat.
Yusuf was not sure what to expect. Qazi Najeeb had called his friend, the mullah, to let him know that they were going to be bringing Zeba back. The mullah hadn’t made much of an argument, apparently, which surprised Yusuf. When the driver pulled up on the parking brake in front of the mullah’s quarters, Yusuf saw a curtain pull back slightly. By the height, he could tell it was the mullah’s son. He stepped out of the car and shook his legs, feeling the sweat on the backs of his thighs. It had been wise to wear black slacks today.
The mullah did not emerge until they were all out of the car. The wooden door opened slowly, and he stepped out calmly to meet them. The guards were the first to speak, the male guard putting a hand over his heart in respect. The mullah nodded and looked to Yusuf.
“Quite a caravan to accompany one woman. I did not expect so many of you,” he said without smiling.
Yusuf shielded his eyes from the sun.
“The warden thought it necessary.”
The mullah nodded.
“How has she been?” Yusuf asked. He looked over to the row of cells in the distance. Two men sat cross-legged in the open space, under the dappled shade of a tree thirsty for rain. There was no sign of Zeba, which should not have made Yusuf uneasy but it did. He’d hoped to find her sitting in the plastic chair outside the mullah’s door, just as he’d left her.
“She’s been well,” Mullah Habibullah replied. “She has a strong spirit, but you knew that already, I’m sure.”
“Absolutely.”
“I’d like to speak to you for a moment,” the mullah said.
“Of course, Mullah-sahib,” Yusuf replied respectfully. “And then we’ll be glad to take Khanum Zeba off your hands and get her back to Chil Mahtab. The judge has given me specific instructions. I’m sure you understand.”
“A moment, young man.”
Asma and the other female guard exchanged a quick look before walking over to the metal fence of the shrine where devotees had tied pieces of multicolored ribbon and even some strips of tattered paper. The guard who had driven them took out his cell phone and began dialing. The mullah led Yusuf back into his quarters. Yusuf’s stomach sank a bit, anxious to leave. He’d brought a bag of chips, a chicken kebab rolled in flatbread, and a bottle of water for Zeba, anticipating that she might be very seriously malnourished.
It had not been a full forty days. The mullah was likely not happy that his treatment was being cut short, and whatever protests he had not lodged with the judge were sure to come Yusuf’s way now. He wondered if he could count on the guards to help him forcibly take Zeba back into custody if push came to shove.
Yusuf stepped into the room and prepared a rebuttal for the mullah’s argument. He was so distracted by his thoughts that he almost didn’t notice Zeba sitting on the floor cushion where he had sat on that first day at the shrine. In front of her was a steaming cup of black tea and two ceramic bowls, one of pine nuts and the other of green raisins.
“Zeba! You’re. . you’re here.” Yusuf’s eyes darted from his client to the mullah who had already taken a seat on another floor cushion. He sat just a few feet away from her, close enough that if he stretched his arm out, his fingertips would touch her. She could have been mistaken for a houseguest.
Yusuf had imagined he would find Zeba starved and unkempt, weakened by exposure. He had counted every day that she had spent in this shrine as a personal failure. He’d thought of her Spartan cell with every forkful of rice he’d brought to his mouth. He’d braced himself, in these nineteen days, for word that she had succumbed to hunger or that she’d descended into a new depth of madness.
“Are you all right?”
Zeba nodded.
“I’ve come to take you back to Chil Mahtab.”
“I know,” she said, stealing a glance at the mullah. “I was told yesterday. I’m ready to leave.”
The mullah cleared his throat and absently thumbed the onyx beads of a tasbeh. He sat with one leg bent and the other stretched straight. He wore a gray cotton tunic and pantaloons. Yusuf noticed, for the first time, his thick salt-and-pepper sideburns, curly patches that thickened along his jaw and gathered in a short beard at his chin. He wondered what this man would look like with a shave and change of clothes.
“Before you go, I want to know what will become of her.”
Yusuf turned his gaze to the carpet. Was there a polite way of telling the mullah it wasn’t any of his business?
“Her case is yet to be decided by the judge,” he answered. “Now if you could tell me what you think of her condition today as compared to her first day here, I’ll gladly take that information back to Qazi Najeeb.”
“I’m a simple man,” the mullah said, his voice melancholy. “The people who come to me are suffering and it is my job to sit with them, to pray over them, and to help them find a path to healing. Their illnesses are burdens to them and to their families. It’s their collective suffering that I work to heal. This woman,” he said, looking at Zeba thoughtfully, “was in bad shape when she first arrived. She had been overcome by evil djinns. They controlled her thoughts and her actions. They were her arms and legs. Since your last visit I’ve prayed with her. I’ve prayed over her. She’s followed the diet that washes the toxins from her body. She’s exorcised the poison from her mind. I think she is much recovered, and, it is worth saying, she was able to do so in fewer than the usual forty days.”