GULNAZ KNEW HE’D SEEN HER COMING UP THE HILL. HIS CHAIR was positioned under the shade of the chinar tree, a position that put him right in the way of visitors to the shrine. The ziyarat, tall and majestic, loomed over his humble desk, a slab of wood on a crate. When she got close enough that he could be sure his eyes were not deceiving him, he put his teacup down, interested. He’d expected her to walk past his open-air studio without a pause in her step.
Jawad watched her careful steps, her generous head scarf hiding her hair and delicate shoulders. The rest of the world could decay and crumble, and much of it had, but time dared not touch Gulnaz.
Gulnaz was still a beautiful woman, even with her fifty-some years. Jawad’s chest tightened to think of her milk white complexion and bewitching green eyes. He shook his head and, for the thousandth time in his life, regretted that he lacked the power to make his own wishes come true.
Jawad pulled three tiny squares of paper from his leather pouch. Just like the others, Gulnaz was seeking something.
“Salaam-ulaikum,” she said, trying not to sound as breathless as she was. Her back was straight and confident, but her kohl-rimmed eyes darted behind her occasionally. No doubt, her son had no idea where she was.
“Wa-alaikum al-salaam,” he replied. Gulnaz hadn’t called on his services in years. Jawad was curious what dilemma might have brought in the town’s most beguiling widow. The breeze teased wisps of jet black hair out from beneath her head scarf.
It was midmorning, a time between prayers. A few people wandered through the arched porticoes and coiled pilasters. No one noticed Gulnaz, daughter of their beloved spiritual leader. Jawad knew the murshid well and was one of the few people in town not utterly devoted to him. He smiled to think what the great Safatullah would say to see his daughter calling on him.
“What can I do for you, Khanum?”
The turquoise tiles of the mosque glimmered in the sunlight. Gulnaz shielded her eyes from the glare. She pretended not to notice the way Jawad looked at her.
“I have come to ask for something.”
“Of course. Tell this simple man how he can be of help to you.”
Gulnaz tried to sound formal, as if this were their first conversation.
“I am in need of a taweez,” she said carefully. She didn’t want to stray from the script she’d rehearsed on her way up the hill.
“And what kind of taweez do you need exactly?” Jawad was the town’s most notable talisman maker. He had crafted a talisman for nearly every villager at some point or another, not to mention the visitors who came to pray at the ziyarat. The hope that a taweez offered was hard to resist, and his were known well beyond the town’s borders for their potency. That was why, after so many years, Gulnaz was again standing before him, in a place so holy people said every seventh pigeon carried a spirit and that gray pigeons would turn white within forty days of joining the flock.
“Protection.”
Jawad paused.
“Protection,” he repeated. Jawad was intrigued. He squinted up at Gulnaz, his wrinkled face tanned from years of hilltop sun. He was somewhere between sixty and sixty-five years old but had not a single gray hair. He’d been writing taweez for as long as he could remember and had clashed with Safatullah on more than one occasion.
Safatullah Kazimi was the most renowned murshid of their province. Safatullah had, from a young age, garnered attention for his mystic devotion to Allah, for his ability to lift the prayers of those around him to Allah’s ears. By the age of twenty-five, his hair had turned completely white, which everyone took as a testament to his divinity and wisdom.
Safatullah’s family lived a kilometer away from the edge of the ziyarat, the tomb of a beloved mystic. Maybe it was the hallowed ground or maybe it was the flocks of devout travelers—but something made Safatullah into a figure larger than life. His reputation grew as he saved children from fatal illnesses, restored sight to the blind, and gave barren families precious babies. He took no money for his work though people brought him whatever gifts they could. Even when wishes weren’t granted, people left with solace and understanding. He steadied their spirits and affirmed their beliefs.
The work Jawad did was similar. For a fee, he offered people recourse when prayers weren’t enough. His skills weren’t mentioned in the Qur’an, and though nearly everyone sought him out, no one talked about their taweez. It was something private, between the seeker and Jawad, who would carefully etch the letters and numbers on the tiny squares of paper.
On more than one occasion, Safatullah had advised his followers against using Jawad’s services. There was nothing that a talisman could say better than a devoted heart. He didn’t like that Jawad charged a fee for his service and felt Jawad wasn’t pious enough to be writing amulets. Jawad had said, loudly enough for his words to reach Safatullah’s ears, that charging a small fee was more honest than expecting a lamb from the poorest family.
Jawad had also accused Safatullah of following in his father’s footsteps and serving as a spy for the British. The previous murshid, Safatullah’s father, was rumored to have helped overthrow King Amanullah, the monarch who sought to free Afghanistan from Britain’s reins. Though Safatullah was still in diapers when King Amanullah had been forced to abdicate, it was a suspicion that stuck with him like the smell of garlic on fingers.
Then again, Safatullah, as the son of a grand murshid, was part of the light, part of the righteous, and Jawad was outside of Islam, a purveyor of the secrets and tricks people used when their faith became sullied with desperation.
“Protection, Jawad-jan. No family is above misfortune. As you said, our family is very much respected. There are eyes of every color upon us, and I have to look after the ones I love. I need to protect them.”
“I understand. And what does Safatullah-sahib say on the matter?” Jawad took out three pens, green, black, and red. He held them up and examined their tips and then looked past them, refocusing on Gulnaz’s stoic face. She was not going to feed the feud between these two men.
“I have come for a taweez, Jawad-jan. Nothing else.”
Jawad chuckled. Jawad-jan, she’d called him. Was that out of respect or affection?
“Good,” he said, flattening the first paper square with his fingertip. “Who exactly is it that is being threatened?”
“Make me a good taweez so you and the rest of the village can never know.”
He paused for a moment, his eyes closed and his head bowed. As bewitching as she was, not every man could stomach a woman like Gulnaz. She was a bit too bold and much too clever for most. Maybe that was why her husband had disappeared. The village had a hundred stories to explain his vanishing. Jawad’s position outside the masjid put him in earshot of both the town’s synchronized prayers as well as their unsynchronized rumors. Folks couldn’t even settle on whether he was alive or dead. Jawad was relieved when he heard the first person refer to Gulnaz as a widow. It was easier on his soul to lust after the wife of a dead man.
That Gulnaz was too clever for most only excited Jawad. His life’s work, after all, had been overcoming obstacles. With his fingertip still on the square, he dragged the bit of paper to the center of the table. “I must concentrate.”
Gulnaz watched him choose the green pen. The colors of the ink were critical as were the other details that only Jawad knew. This was part of what people came for—the focus, the deliberately placed letters, the undecipherable method by which Jawad filled the tiny squares with a verse, a symbol, or a set of numbers. There was method to his magic.
Fifteen minutes later, Gulnaz, daughter to a man who despised amulets, handed a folded stack of bills to Jawad and accepted the taweez he’d written for her daughter. She tucked it into the pocket of her dress and nodded in appreciation. She felt Jawad’s smug eyes following her hips as she made her way down the hill and smiled to think she could still, after all these years, make a man look at her in that way. The hour of prayer was nearing. Gulnaz quickened her step. She hoped Safatullah wouldn’t hear about this, though she realized there was a possibility he might.
A mother can take no chances, she told herself.