When Omar came back, Shafiq asked for the straight story. “What are the chances—really?”
He got a tense smile in return. “Good.”
Shafiq looked right into his best friend. “Just tell me everything, please. I know your brother wants to help. I know that. But what can he do?”
Omar sighed. “He’s a judicial clerk. When I got there he was interviewing a goat owner who didn’t pay the shepherd.”
“So no influence.”
“Not a lot.”
After a pause, Shafiq began to ask, “Did he—”
“He’s going to try everything, but the first judge he approached was useless.”
Of course this established old official would never care about a nameless Jew in Basra, Shafiq thought, anger rising at the discrimination.
“But he’s going to another one, Muhamad Jawdat—”
“Wait.” Shafiq had to know. “What did the first judge say?”
Omar just said it: “That the best way to help members of his community was to stay out of their affairs.”
“Members of…he’s Jewish?”
Omar nodded. And Shafiq was crestfallen. This heir to Salim’s heroes—the Jews who served the government of Iraq—was too busy protecting his own career to get an innocent man out of that massive, bricked-shut jail.
“What was the judge’s excuse?”
Omar looked like he didn’t want to answer, but Shafiq widened his own eyes as if to say, I’ll figure it out anyway. “Basically, he expressed sympathy but wouldn’t go near the case. Said, ‘There’s no use getting us both in trouble.’”
But who will get us out? wondered Shafiq.
Days stretched on with no news. The distance between Marcelle and the rest of the family could be measured by the fact that no one told her what had happened. Moshe’s dangerous game of blackmail seemed even more deadly now. “We are alone but for the people we trust,” Roobain had said. The family circle was closing in tighter.
Shafiq threw himself back into his studies. He tried to ease his constant worry by picturing Salim charming the guards and inmates.
No one is as resourceful as Salim, Shafiq told himself. No one makes as many friends. People just adore the guy. He’ll probably find all kinds of new clients in prison, and grow rich when he gets out. Alone with Leah in the courtyard, Shafiq tried his weak joke out loud. “He’s drumming up business in there, representing half the inmates by now.”
Leah just looked pained.
“Anwar is working on it,” he said, trying to console her. “Omar said he’s going to the top judge—”
“It’s all my fault!” she suddenly confessed.
“Leah, stop,” he protested.
“Marcelle can’t have a baby,” she said.
“What is all that? You sound like Nana. Don’t get all crazy now, please.”
“Nana’s right this time,” Leah said, and then she told him about the paper that Marcelle ate, her demand for a certain ring, the threat she left behind.
“That one piece of jewelry was special,” Leah said with a wistful sadness. “Marcelle knew it. Nana said it was lucky when she put it in my trousseau. I thought it was beautiful, with a pink stone and a twisted gold band—but I guess it wasn’t enough gold to stop Moshe,” she added ruefully.
“You think he actually did this?” There was no motivation—Moshe hadn’t made a demand first. And yet. It sounded just like him: ignorantly vindictive, randomly destructive.
“He probably told her to get more,” Leah said. “I’ve thought about it a million times. I think he expected Marcelle to come back with a ton of gold, everything we own, and maybe she lied and said we refused so that she would be safe. Why else would the police show up just a few days after she left?”
Shafiq turned the story over in his mind. “Moshe is dangerous,” he acknowledged.
“I know,” Leah said bitterly. “I should have seen this coming. I should have stopped it. If only I knew how serious he was.”
“Don’t blame yourself,” said Shafiq. “He’s responsible.”
One relative had done more harm to their family than all the rampaging mobs during the riots.
“I’m going over there,” he decided.
Although Shafiq should have stopped to think, to consult, to plan, he bolted out the door, afraid that if he hesitated, he would lose his nerve entirely. Obviously, Moshe was capable of the most dangerous behavior, and Shafiq might well end up following Salim to prison. But whatever Anwar was doing in Baghdad had not budged the situation in days, and even a failed attempt seemed better than the agony of this endless wait, watching his mother prepare supposedly protective concoctions of water and salt, seeing Leah smother Aziza with a frantic love, knowing Salim was alone somewhere behind those impenetrable walls.
In the street, a gang of boys played stickball unaware of the vagaries of the world, even unaware of their own bliss. Men shopped in the busy souk, cars rode over the rough streets, and vendors shouted to passing customers, but Shafiq was miles away.
Almost unconsciously, he headed toward Leah’s house. I’ll go see Kathmiya to find out if she knows any more, he told himself.
But really, he was thinking, in his overwrought, adolescent heart, And also, maybe, to say good-bye forever.
When she opened the door, he could see Kathmiya looked different. As though she wanted to hear his news but didn’t need to see him. Instead of being put off by this startling independence, Shafiq was mesmerized. As they walked inside, he indulged in the mad fantasy that this cozy house was their home. That they could go up to her room together and leave the rest of the world behind.
They sat on the living room couch as they never had before, perfectly alone.
In the silence, his eyes wandered to her small, rough feet, her arms with their dusting of black hair, the ringlets and curls that dripped down her shoulders. He deliberately avoided her eyes, which drew him in so inextricably he might never get out.
She seemed to know he was watching her without looking, seemed to almost welcome it.
Shafiq felt crushed by the pressure. Sitting across from this beauty in rags, he wanted to escape his family and their troubles, forget entirely about Moshe, and run off with Kathmiya. But he wrenched himself from this pointless daydream and spoke.
“Leah told me she gave a ring to Marcelle,” he began, relaying what he knew. “Did you hear anything about it?”
Kathmiya shared her side of the story, and then added a detail: “Marcelle came once after that, with the husband.” Her eyes flashed. “No one was home and your sister just plain ignored me.”
“Sorry…” Shafiq whispered.
“I could have been the chair to her. But the husband, he spoke.”
All the nerves from Shafiq’s wrists to his shoulders went taut. “What did he say?”
Her face disappeared behind her black curls as she looked down. “He claimed Salim had all the money.”
Shafiq was trying now to look into her eyes, but she wouldn’t meet his gaze. “What else?” he demanded, feeling the sweat rimming his hair.
“That’s all,” she said, glancing up at an angle, her light face shining through a mass of dark curls.
Softly this time, he asked again. “You can tell me.”
“That ‘Salim must be rich to have such a beautiful maid.’”
Shafiq’s anger burned so brightly he was momentarily blinded.
The greed, the jealousy, even the insult to Marcelle were nothing compared to the image of Moshe inside of Shafiq’s head, leering at the beauty he held so sacred, tossing off a comment that, instead of elevating her with honor, only reinforced her degradation.
Fear about confronting Moshe disappeared. Shafiq’s teeth were on edge. He couldn’t wait for this fight.
“I have to go,” he said, backing toward the door. “I’m going to make sure he never comes near you—ever.”
Shafiq had forgotten about Salim, about prison, about the reason he had set out to see Moshe in the first place. Nothing mattered but getting the slimy film off of himself.
Marcelle answered the door looking puffier than their petite mother, like a distorted version of Reema.
“Do you know what Moshe did?” Shafiq asked without a word of greeting, brushing past her into the living room.
Marcelle flinched. “It wasn’t him.”
This was as good as an admission of guilt. “So you know!” Shafiq roared. All this time, waiting, wondering, discussing, hoping, trying to find a way out, the family thought they’d been hiding their trouble from Marcelle, when she had a fat little hand in plotting it.
A flicker of vulnerability crossed her features. “How is Leah?” she asked, guiltily timid.
Shafiq was struck dumb. There were no words to justly describe the terrible fear and anguish that had consumed not only Leah but the whole family these past ten days. He thought of how his worn sister strained to hide her sadness in front of Aziza, how sometimes a tear would escape from her swollen eyes and she would brush it away quickly so her little girl wouldn’t notice, how her brave, pained smile fooled no one.
And then Moshe walked in, chest thrust out like he was the Big Man. “So, you’ve decided to come ask for my forgiveness,” he guessed.
That was the original plan, before Shafiq saw Kathmiya, back when he was ready to say—or pay—as much as it would take to get Moshe to recant the accusations that had landed Salim in prison. Revenge, Shafiq had thought, would have to wait until everyone was safe.
No way to be practical now, though, when just looking at the stringy-haired creep reminded Shafiq that he’d insulted both Marcelle and Kathmiya with his lecherous compliment. It was rash, probably insane, and would definitely only make everything worse, but Shafiq could not appease Moshe.
“I’ve come to warn you, actually,” Shafiq said, a cruel snarl on his lips. Warn you that I’m going to throw you to the dogs for calling Kathmiya beautiful when you’re married to my sister.
“Oh, really?” asked Moshe casually, though there was a note of defensiveness in his voice. “What can you do to me? I’m just a poor man trying to make an honest living.”
Shafiq recognized the tone; Moshe sounded like every swindler at the market trying to con an extra fils from a customer.
Shafiq had dealt with these types all his life, and he relaxed, starting by offering Moshe good wishes. “I hope you’re innocent. That will be very helpful for you, and for Marcelle, of course. Because we have a judge”—Shafiq knew next to nothing about Anwar’s efforts in Baghdad but went out on a dare—“the most powerful judge on the Supreme Court of the state of Iraq.”
Moshe’s already slouchy posture slumped more.
“His name,” Shafiq said, “is Muhamad Jawdat.” He flashed this detail like a policeman’s badge, never taking his eyes off of Moshe.
“And how do I know you’re telling the truth?”
“Don’t take my word for it,” replied Shafiq calmly, leaning back all indifferent like a shopper at the market who doesn’t want to buy. “You’ll see Salim released soon. And when you do, you’ll know how much influence we have. The power to get people out of prison—and to put them in.” Moshe looked unsure, so Shafiq added, “From what I hear, the only thing they hate more than a Zionist is a stooge who uses the system for personal revenge.”
Moshe fussed with his cuff. “Yes?”
“Yes,” Shafiq replied, amused at how simple it was, like walking away from the tangerine salesman to force down the price.
He was ahead. He should go. But thinking of Kathmiya, Shafiq couldn’t resist twisting the knife. “When he gets out, let’s hope that they don’t lock you up for false testimony.”
“I never actually said Salim was a Zionist,” Moshe protested stupidly, like a huge, brainless fly buzzing deeper into a little spider’s web.
“Let’s hope,” continued Shafiq with a smile, “that Muhamad Jawdat believes you.” He emphasized the name, enjoying how its specificity rattled Moshe.
By his side, Marcelle had tensed to stone. He still hadn’t answered her question about Leah, and he owed it to both his sisters to reveal the truth—but not in front of Moshe. “Marcelle,” he said, “I need to speak to you alone.”
A year or even a month before, Shafiq would never have dared send Moshe out of his own living room. But Naji was underground, and Salim was behind bars, and Ezra was nearly completely lost to his own infatuation with ideology, and it fell to Shafiq to act. “Please,” he added, gesturing to a curtained doorway leading to the back of the house.
Moshe, debased from practically admitting that he had sent an innocent man to jail, obeyed.
“Marcelle,” Shafiq said once her husband was gone. “Can I trust you?”
She nodded. He wondered. The bluff had worked, but could he take this chance? “It’s been very hard on Leah,” he began, trying to hedge his bets.
Marcelle looked down. “I guessed that,” she said quietly.
“Then how could you—?”
Through bow-shaped lips she sucked in her breath hard, as though if she let it out there would be a flood of tears. Shafiq thought of his parents and put a tentative hand on Marcelle’s shoulder. The tenderness punctured her defenses, and she began to weep. “Leah had everything. She got pregnant. And I’m still not.”
Shafiq remembered his mother ranting about Marcelle not having a baby. His unhinged mother who had never been the same since Naji left. But there was a grain of truth in her perception. Moshe hadn’t cooked up this plot on his own; it had simmered in Marcelle’s jealousy. For petty envy, she robbed Salim of his freedom, Leah of her peace of mind and Aziza of her father.
He wanted to hate her, but it was obvious from the dark half-moons under Marcelle’s eyes that her nights were haunted. “At first I didn’t believe in spirits and all of that,” she began, “but now I think I’m hurting myself by not believing.”
“You are killing your family, but they still love you,” he said. “We do, I mean.”
Marcelle’s face spread into a quivering smile. “I don’t want the ring anymore,” she said suddenly.
Another impulsive, superstitious decision. They all might as well trade their minds for amulets. “No, Marcelle.” Next she’d be grafting onto a political ideology or looting clothes off of dead criminals.
“It is cursing me—don’t you understand?” Again, that fanatical look. “I’ve made the lucky ring unlucky by my vindictiveness.”
Eyes shining with an overcharged gleam, Marcelle opened a small silk pouch and pulled out the delicate gold ring, which glowed rose from the oval pink stone at its center. “Here,” she insisted.
The trinket would never bring back Salim, but there was some logic to Marcelle’s contrition, and Shafiq wanted to accept. Still, he didn’t answer, just nodded toward the room where Moshe was waiting.
“I have,” Marcelle said, reading his thoughts, “a bit of money he doesn’t know about. If he ever asks, I’ll say I sold it and show him the cash. He’ll take it all from me someday anyway, but if I give this back, maybe Allah will forgive and bless me with a baby.”
She held the ring out to her brother.
He hesitated, thinking, If Salim is not released, Moshe will go after me next.
But he took the delicate band, feeling a contagious shiny hope that maybe, just maybe, Marcelle’s redemption would free them all.
The next day a pebble rolled off the cliff, the first sign of an avalanche.
Shafiq was sitting in his living room across from a portly brown-haired man he recognized as one of the attorneys Salim socialized with through the Lawyers Guild.
“They asked if he is a Zionist!” the guy’s belly shook while he laughed, but Shafiq’s family sat still as though posing for portraits; in Iraq, no one smiled in them. “I said, ‘this guy is no Zionist! He’s more patriotic than the flag.’”
If Naji were there he would have smiled. So Shafiq did it for him. The grin turned to a giggle, then a laugh, and soon everyone’s incredulous guffaws were swirling around the room. Salim was not free, but something had shifted.
Later, when Shafiq tried to give Leah the ring, she frowned. “I can’t take that,” she said, backing away as though it were a malarial mosquito. “I gave it to Marcelle with spite. That’s why we have all of these problems.”
Shafiq was fed up with the quack diagnoses. “Moshe is why we have these problems. And Marcelle regrets taking it from you,” he tried.
“It’s tainted by my anger as much as her greed.” Leah turned away.
“Please.” Shafiq had no more use for jewelry than the salt his mother sprinkled into his pockets whenever he wasn’t looking.
But Leah just pressed the warm gold ring into his hand. “If you heard how Nana talks about this you would understand. It won’t work for me or Marcelle—but it will for you. For your future wife, I guess.”
The thought was so far-fetched he knew he had to get rid of the supposedly lucky stone, and fast.
Shafiq counted on Omar to tell him what had really happened in Baghdad.
“Anwar told the judge he needed help,” he explained. “So the guy asks, ‘For whom?’ And Anwar says, ‘It’s my sister—her husband is in trouble.’ Suddenly the judge gets really mad. He nearly kicks my brother out of his office. ‘I’ll never give anyone special treatment just because they’re your relative,’ he screams. ‘That’s an abuse of power.’ So Anwar quickly confesses the truth: his ‘sister’ is really his neighbor, and her husband is in prison on false charges of supporting the Zionists.”
Shafiq remembered how the Jewish judge didn’t want to help. “Then what?”
“He said, ‘In that case, I can investigate.’ I guess he realized Anwar wasn’t trying to get a favor for his relative, but get justice for an innocent man.”
“Still…investigate?”
“Said he won’t act until he gets the facts,” Omar replied. Then he added tentatively, “Too soon to say, but the facts—”
Omar couldn’t contain his smile, and Shafiq couldn’t help but finish the sentence, “—are on our side.”
When the sun hit the top of the sky on Saturday, Kathmiya heard the familiar creak of the door and knew Salim was back.
Gaunt, gray and haggard, but home.
She hadn’t expected it, but she felt welling up an irrepressible feeling for him, this gruff man who barely spoke to her. Maybe she was relieved to learn that life didn’t always end in horror. Or maybe she was just glad not to be alone anymore.
“Where is everybody?” he asked. She could tell from a grain of defeat in his voice that Salim had lost more than weight in prison.
When he heard that the family was staying at his in-laws’ house, Salim ordered Kathmiya to go there with him. “We’ll be having a party and there will be plenty of work for you.”
As usual, her affection was returned with nothing. Less than that—with a demand. She didn’t begrudge him a party after surviving prison, but she had tried to get him out of there. She wished for once she might join the celebration, instead of just cleaning up the detritus of everyone else’s fun.
She knew better than to dream of a celebration with Shafiq or to think about wedding the one young man she cared for who could also set her free. But no matter how hard she tried to block it, the idea took hold on its own.
As soon as Salim came barreling through the large front door, the flood of relief that washed over the Soufayr home could have swelled the Tigris and the Euphrates and all of the marshes in Kathmiya’s village and beyond.
There were stretched smiles and tight hugs and raucous cheers and fine food and even better company. Salwa was at the center of the party, smiling like she hadn’t since Hajji Abdullah had died. The family also sang Omar’s praises for rushing to Baghdad. And they toasted Anwar above all.
“I’m naming my next child for that judge, Jawdat,” Salim declared.
“You always used to say your boy will be called Feisal, for the first king of Iraq,” Shafiq teased playfully.
“Iraq?” Salim repeated. He was squinting uncomfortably, like the light in the room was too bright. It was then that Shafiq noticed what Kathmiya had seen right away: Salim was back, but he would never be the same.
Shafiq took advantage of the general excitement to steal a trip to the kitchen. “Everything’s normal again,” he told Kathmiya with a smile.
“For you and your family, yes.” He could hear her disappointment and was desperate to empathize and make it right. “The future’s still pretty confusing,” he began tentatively.
She looked up. “I’ve been walking around a lot, and practicing my writing.”
“Me too!” he said, forgetting that her little pages full of longhand phrases were leaves on the tree of his formal schooling. Now that the very grave danger of Salim’s imprisonment had been resolved, Shafiq was free to address the much more ordinary concerns that had seemed too petty to contemplate for the past two weeks. “I’ve been studying, but the more I study, the more I wonder—what should I do? I don’t know if I’ll get into university in Baghdad. Ezra had no luck. So what’s the point of working so hard if the system is against me?”
Just then, Leah called Kathmiya, who turned sharply to leave. Shafiq didn’t notice her quiet fury. He was too busy contemplating what to do with his wide-open future now that prison was no longer a prospect.
This time, Leah didn’t ask Kathmiya about dishes or laundry. “Our auntie would like to meet you,” she said, pointing to the plump mother who had been at the center of the celebrations.
Kathmiya looked more closely, and then she recognized that face: kind, and worn like a favorite dress tattered from too many washings.
Salwa thanked Leah and put an arm around Kathmiya, guiding her to a small, scruffed bench in the hall where they sat alone.
“I remember you,” the two women said at once, and then both laughed.
“Are you okay?” Kathmiya asked.
“Allah is great,” Salwa replied. “But you…your mother…that problem…”
“Yes, that,” Kathmiya confessed, trusting Salwa wouldn’t judge her for skipping the euphemisms.
“I would do anything for your family,” Salwa said, gently taking Kathmiya’s palm as if to press this pledge onto her flesh. “Just tell me, how can I help?”
Since she could remember, Kathmiya had wished for the day when someone—Allah or the people who gave her the red barn book or the village sheikh—would ask that question. But now that the dream had finally come true, she went blank. Being unmarriageable was frightening enough, but not knowing why tortured her more. It was like watching a disease progress without ever having a diagnosis. Clearly, she was destined for loneliness, but without knowing the cause, she had no idea how to find a remedy.
Salwa broke the silence. “I live next door,” she said simply. “Anytime you need.” Kathmiya didn’t look up until she heard, “You or your kind mother, of course. She’s welcome in my home, and everything I own is hers.”
At the mention of her mother, Kathmiya finally let herself hope. Maybe I’m not so alone after all.
Shafiq had gone straight from the kitchen to Reema, who was on the upstairs balcony looking out at the city through shutters that were thrown wide open after two weeks of being sealed shut.
She smiled when he produced the small gold ring with its sparkling rose gemstone.
“Leah said she gave it to Marcelle in bitterness, and Marcelle said she accepted it in greed. So,” Shafiq lied, “they asked me to return it to you.”
He tried to hand his mother the ring but she pushed it back. It was like an invisible lasso kept pulling it to him. “This is the pink sapphire,” she said, as though that were an explanation.
“What do you mean, Nana? Pink or not, I don’t want it.”
“Sapphires are blue,” she continued in the entranced voice she used when talking about the magic of the world he never saw: the danger of jealous spirits or the jinn, the power of a pinch of salt or a gallnut charm, the fading ancient traditions that had to be upheld at all cost.
“You see,” she began, “it only becomes pink because it tries to be a ruby. It doesn’t succeed, but it doesn’t fail, either, because in the process it becomes even more rare and beautiful.”
Shafiq turned the ring gently to the side so that its facets sparkled in the light. He had only ever heard of blue sapphires. You tried to be like the others and failed—and along the way became more precious and more treasured. Despite his skepticism, the story reeled him in.
Reema was speaking in her usual breathy, enchanted voice, but for once Shafiq was listening. “It’s too special to be given to just anyone, and it will have no power—it could even have a bad influence—if it is given lightly or taken under threat.”
He nodded, for the first time transfixed by his mother’s old folk wisdom.
“You haven’t told me the whole story about your sisters, but I know you were trying to help. They were right to insist that you take it. So this is yours now. Give it away only with a pure heart. Then it will bring you even more happiness.”
Salim was free, and Shafiq could almost, almost, believe in magical gems.