“How could she have gotten it into her head that Suleiman was ever coming back?” Rokaya asked.
“She’s in love with him. He said he’d come back and she believes that. In her eyes he’s a greater prophet than Sayyiduna.”
This was how Fatima replied.
Meanwhile, the girls had managed to bring Halima to. Halima looked at the girls, perplexed. When she remembered the news, a deep blush came to her face. She got up and ran to her room to get ready.
“I’ll tell her everything,” Miriam said.
“She won’t believe you,” Zuleika replied. “I know her. She’s stubborn, and she’ll decide we’re keeping Suleiman from her.”
“But it will break her heart if she sees someone else in his place.”
“Let her get used to it, like we’ve had to,” Sara said.
“Halima is different. I’ll ask Sayyiduna.”
“No, Miriam,” Fatima said. “Let’s work with Halima, instead. Maybe she’ll adjust.”
They went into her bedroom.
Halima was sitting in front of the mirror, adorning herself and smiling. Her brow knit when she noticed her companions. It made her angry that they were interrupting her in the midst of such beautiful thoughts.
Seeing this made Miriam’s heart ache.
“You talk to her,” she whispered to Fatima.
“Are you looking forward to tonight’s visit?”
“Leave me alone. Don’t you see I have to get ready?”
“Listen, Halima,” Miriam said. “Every visitor comes to our gardens only once. Do you understand that?”
Ahriman came through the doorway and started sniffing around Halima.
“Chase them out of here, Ahriman. They’ve gotten mean.”
“What Miriam is saying is absolutely true,” Fatima said.
“Will you get out of here?”
“You’re bull-headed,” Sara said angrily.
They left her bedroom.
“She doesn’t believe it,” Zuleika said.
“No. She doesn’t believe you, Miriam,” Fatima added.
Apama arrived with a strict order from Sayyiduna for each of the girls to change or swap names. None of them could make a mistake this evening.
Miriam and Fatima began assigning the new names.
“Halima! Tonight your name is going to be Safiya instead of Halima. Do you understand? Keep repeating the name to yourself so that you get used to it.”
Halima smiled. “Do they really think he’s not going to recognize me?” she said to herself.
“Quit that smiling!” Miriam scolded her. “This is a serious matter. The assignments to the gardens are going to be different this time too.”
It was only now that Halima got really worried. “What does that mean?” she asked.
“I hope you understand at last what you’re facing,” Fatima said to her.
Tears welled up in Halima’s eyes.
“You’ve all become so mean to me.”
She ran off and hid in an isolated closet.
Sara followed her and pulled her out.
“You don’t know yet that Fatima and Zuleika are pregnant,” she told her. “I overheard them confiding in Miriam. So don’t tell anyone that I told you.”
“Why just the two of them?”
“Well, look at you! Don’t tell me you want one too?”
Halima stuck her tongue out at her and turned her back.
Late that afternoon Hasan summoned Miriam to one of the empty gardens. She told him what was happening with Halima and that she was expecting Suleiman to return that night.
Hasan looked at her grimly.
“Your job was to get her drinking wine at the right time, and I’ll hold you responsible if anything goes wrong.”
“Spare her this disappointment, for my sake.”
“Today it’s her, tomorrow another one, and yet another girl the day after that. For twenty years while I’ve been developing my plan, I’ve never given in to any weakness. And now you want me to buckle under.”
Miriam cast him a hateful look.
“At least let me take her place.”
Hasan again grew hard and unyielding.
“No, I won’t permit it. You’ve cooked this mess of porridge yourself. Now you’re going to have to eat it… This evening, when the time comes, return to this garden. We’ll wait for the outcome together. Have I made myself clear?”
Miriam gritted her teeth and left without saying good-bye.
When she was back with the girls, she immediately looked for Halima.
“Do you understand that Suleiman won’t be coming here tonight? Be careful you don’t do anything stupid. It could cost you your life.”
Halima stubbornly stomped her foot on the floor. Her face was still red from crying. “Why is everyone being so mean to me tonight?”
Obeida had taken careful note of everything the first three fedayeen reported about their visit to paradise. Given his natural skepticism, he had wondered even then what he would have done, had he been in their place. There were many things that hadn’t quite made sense, and which raised his doubts.
That evening, when he and his two comrades stepped before the supreme commander, he was consumed by curiosity as much as by fear, yet he managed to control himself perfectly. He answered Hasan’s questions clearly and confidently.
The grand dais were not present this time, nor did Hasan need them. The first and most difficult experiment was already behind him. Now everything functioned like a well-installed block and pulley.
Jafar and Abdul Ahman felt seized with the fear of God when they found themselves alone with Hasan in the same chambers from which he ruled and administered the Ismaili world. No doubts troubled them any longer. They were happy to be able to answer his questions and carry out his commands.
When they heard that he would be sending the three of them to paradise, too, their eyes beamed. They were utterly in his power.
Obeida’s face turned slightly blue. He decided to observe carefully everything that was going to happen to him, without giving himself away.
Hasan led them into the lift and showed them their cots. He gave them wine to drink and placed a pellet in each one’s mouth. Jafar and Abdur Ahman swallowed them eagerly, but Obeida let his inconspicuously roll out at the corner of his thick lips and drop into his upturned palm, then hid it under his cloak. He watched through a slit between his eyelids as his comrades moaned and thrashed, and then he imitated everything they did.
Abdur Ahman was the first to lose consciousness. For a while Jafar resisted. Finally he too succumbed, rolled over on his other side, and fell asleep, groaning.
Obeida became anxious and barely dared squint through his eyelids at what was happening around him. Hasan stood motionless, holding up the doorway curtain and letting the light stream in from his room. Apparently he was waiting for all three of them to pass out. But what would he do then?
Obeida groaned and turned over onto his other side, as he’d watched both his comrades do. Then he began to breathe evenly. It became totally dark. He could feel Hasan throwing a sheet over him.
A gong was struck.
Suddenly the room swayed and began to drop. It was all Obeida could do to keep from shouting out in fear. He clutched onto the sides of his cot and waited in terror for what was to come.
His brain was working furiously. His senses were on alert. Then he sensed they had come to a stop. A chill air wafted around him. Through the sheet he could make out the flicker of torchlight.
“Is everything ready?” he heard Hasan’s voice ask.
“Everything is ready, Sayyiduna.”
“Be ready, the same as last time.”
Hands clutched onto and lifted his cot. He could feel them carry him over a small bridge. Then they set him, still in the cot, into a boat which rowed off. When they landed, they carried him into some room, from which he could hear music and girls’ voices coming as they brought him in. Then they took him by the ankles and shoulders and lay him down on the soft floor. Then they left.