I can see myself in the mirror. There are soft curls falling to my shoulders, jewelled hair ornaments that catch the light if I move, beads that clink with every turn of my head. Only a soft, sheer veil separates me from the world. But it’s a small world.
There is a rustle of canvas as the tent flap lifts and Veda ushers in another prospective buyer. A richwoman, well-rounded, prosperous-looking, clad in silks and silver. I’m guessing a landowner, or perhaps a merchant. She’s trailed by a teenager. From the resemblance, I’d say daughter. The girl is about seventeen, the same age as me. Maybe her mother wants to buy me for her. I can hope.
One of Veda’s assistants lifts my veil so the richwoman and the girl may lean forward to study the goods.
I have had a week’s practice of blanking out at this point in the negotiations. Veda has never failed to find a buyer, but with just a day left before the fair winds up, I can see she’s a little jumpy.
She’s talking now in that deceptively low, soft voice she keeps for sales pitches.
‘ … fine bone structure … rare this side of the Tapakoor Mountains … infallible pedigree … ‘
She makes a little sign with her hands, and her helpers turn my head first this way and then that. I fix my gaze upon the twinkling lamp near the tent flap and concentrate on it. There’s a movement at my shoulder and a gasp escapes my lips as the cold strikes me. Veda’s assistant steps back, letting the robe drop to the floor in a silky rustle.
‘… strong limbs … good posture … straight back … fine breeding stock … ‘
‘I want to see the memory lace.’ The richwoman’s sharp voice cuts through Veda’s hard sell.
Veda beckons and a slender box appears in her hands. She opens it to reveal a velvet-lined interior on which lies a roll of fine white lace. I forget to breathe as the richwoman lifts it out and runs her fingers expertly over the intricate pattern. A shiver runs down my spine, but this time it has nothing to do with the chill air.
It’s the fact that she has my life in her hands and, clearly, she knows how to read it. I don’t know why they call it memory lace – it isn’t just about the past. I asked Veda once and she replied that the future is just memories we haven’t had yet.
I wonder what the richwoman reads about me. Does it say where I was born? Who my mother was? What my skills are? When I will die?
What would happen if I were to lean forward, snatch it up and throw it into the fire? Would that make me free? Or would I just stop existing?
Veda leads the richwoman to the table. The assistants pour drinks and serve sweets. The negotiations have begun.
A soft touch makes me start. It’s the daughter. She has picked up my robe from the floor and put it back around my shoulders. I’m so startled that I look around and catch her eye. Nobody has ever done this for me before.
She looks back at me, head tilted slightly upwards. Her eyes are frank, friendly. Not sizing me up, just looking. She smiles ever so slightly. Nobody has done that before either.
Her name is Fazal, the Grace of the Almighty. She is the richwoman’s oldest daughter and now she owns me. I suppose I am privileged.
It is only after the long journey to her home that I am formally presented to her. I stand in the centre of her day room as she approaches, and even though my head is bent down respectfully, I can see her coming closer in my peripheral vision. She puts a finger under my chin and lifts it. It is a curious gesture because I am taller than she is. It is difficult for me to keep my eyes modestly on my satin-sandalled feet.
For the second time in my life, I meet her eyes. The same open, genial look greets me.
‘Do you have a name?’ she asks.
I blush furiously. My sort don’t have names till we are given them by owners; she should know that. ‘I used to have a number,’ I say.
‘I see,’ she thinks for a while. ‘A number. I’ll call you Sifar – zero, the number that means nothing, yet is the most important of all.’
‘You’re too kind, Grace of the …’
She interrupts me. ‘When we are alone, you can call me Fazal.’
Then she bursts out laughing at my startled face. I can’t help smiling too, even though I don’t know what the joke is. I just feel like smiling.
‘Here.’ Fazal hands me a ball of yarn and a peculiar wooden implement, smooth and smaller than my palm. ‘This is a tatting shuttle. I want you to wind it for me.’
She shows me how. There are a couple of small slits on the two ends of the shuttle, each leading to a larger hole. I wind the yarn so it passes through the slits into the holes. Soon the middle of the shuttle is thick with yarn.
‘Like this?’
She examines it critically. ‘It’ll do. Come sit here, I’ll teach you how to use it.’
I gather the folds of my flowing garment and sit cross-legged beside her on the cushioned bench. She leans forward on the table to consult a number of thick books. ‘Can you read?’ she asks me.
‘A little,’ I reply, looking doubtfully at the massive tome she is holding.
‘All right, don’t worry, I’ll teach you.’
She shows me how to wrap the yarn around three fingers of my hand and hold it closed in a circle with my thumb and index finger. Next she teaches me how to take the trailing thread with the shuttle in my other hand and pass it over and through the ring, pull tight … I blank out a little bit till she says, ‘There, and that’s a double stitch. Now you try.’
I blanch. ‘I … can’t!’
‘Of course, you can. Even my little sisters can do it.’
Two hours later, it turns out I really can. We laugh as we make colourful chains and little loops that she says are called picots.
I might go to the devil for saying this, but I think Fazal and I are becoming friends. The summer goes by and the days become shorter and cooler. Every evening at dusk, we lie on the grass, our heads touching, looking up at the sky.
‘I read that there are machines that can take you up to the clouds,’ she says one day.
I laugh at the notion. ‘That would be flying. That’s impossible.’
‘You should learn to read properly,’ she responds. ‘Then you’ll be able to read the stories for yourself.’ She gets up and looks down at me. ‘We should start you on lessons.’
‘Then what about the tatting?’
She waves an arm carelessly. ‘You’re clever, you can handle both.’
I sit up. ‘Why are you doing all this?’ I ask her. ‘All this playing around with threads and reading? One day you will run your mother’s business empire. Don’t you want daughters of your own?’
She looks at me curiously. ‘Of course I do.’ She studies me for a while. ‘Or maybe I’ll have sons.’
She gets up and runs inside. Her choice of words baffles me. Why would she want sons? Sons can’t carry the family forward; they would be of no use to the business.
I meet Fazal’s youngest siblings the next day. They are back from visiting their aunts for the summer. We are having a reading lesson when the door bangs open and two whirlwinds rush in.
‘Sister! Where is it? Mother said we could meet … ‘
They come to a sudden halt in front of us. I can’t help smiling at the pair of them. They are about six years old, too young to go away to school like their other sisters. They are twins, though they don’t look much like each other. Their heads are shorn, like all girl-children of upper families, and they’re dressed in identical linen playsuits. Their eyes are green–brown, like their sister’s, and alive with mischief.
They study me with naked curiosity, as one nudges the other and says in a loud whisper. ‘Don’t say “it”. Mother says that’s rude.’
Fazal gets up and approaches them. They kiss her hand formally and then hug her tightly. I suddenly wonder if I ever had any sisters. Or brothers.
She puts an arm each around the two and turns towards me. ‘Sisters, this is Sifar.’ To me she says, ‘Meet Idraak, the Wisdom of the Ages, and Azaad, the Freedom of the Skies.’
I bow to them. ‘I’m very pleased to meet you, Wisdom and Freedom.’
‘Idi,’ says the Wisdom shyly. She points to her twin. ‘And that’s Aza.’
‘Sister, can we borrow your companion to play with?’ Idi bounces up and down on her toes.
‘No,’ says Fazal, catching the fidgety child by the shoulders. ‘We’re working. You can work with us. Do you want to practise your letters?’
Aza, apparently the quieter one, but not at all shy, has come up to me. She fingers the curls on my head. ‘I love your hair,’ she says and turns to Fazal. ‘Sister, do you think I could have curls when I grow up?’
Idi makes a face. ‘Curls are for boys.’
‘But I— ‘
‘Enough,’ Fazal cuts in. ‘Get your books if you want to work with us.’
One day Fazal asks me: ‘If you could have anything, do anything, what would you want?’
I think for a moment. ‘I want to fly – in those machines you mentioned that take you up in the sky.’ After a pause, I add, ‘And I want to wear trousers like you, instead of this ridiculous robe.’
That makes her laugh. I like how I can do that so easily. She takes away the intricate pattern I’m tatting and puts a new shuttle in my hands. ‘Hold on to those thoughts about flying and trousers, and make me something beautiful.’
That makes me laugh in turn. I can hardly hold the shuttle and yarn properly. It comes out uneven, but Fazal is inordinately pleased.
That night, after the evening meal, Fazal comes into my room. She holds a large parcel wrapped in brown paper, a smaller one covered in tissue, and a familiar wooden box. I have eyes only for the box.
I know that she owns my memory lace by rights, but I don’t want to be reminded of it.
She must read something in my expression, for she comes close to me, puts her hands on my shoulder and gently pulls me into a hug. ‘It’s all right,’ she says softly in my ear.
I take a deep breath and force myself to calm down. I want to pull away and yet I don’t.
After a few moments, she lets me go and hands me the larger package. ‘Open it.’
Inside I find a pair of linen trousers and a matching tunic. A wide grin splits my face.
‘Go on, try them on,’ Fazal says.
I do. They’re a perfect fit.
‘Can I wear them during the day?’ I ask hesitantly.
‘Of course. I’m having a couple of other sets made up so you have enough. Do you like them?’
‘I love them. Thank you so much. I …’
‘You don’t have to thank me,’ she says, smiling at me as I jump and swing my legs about. The freedom of trousers is amazing.
I’m so happy; I rush over and give her a hug. But then, over her shoulder, I spy the wooden box.
‘Why have you brought that?’ I ask, dropping my arms and stepping back.
She lets out a long breath and looks at me in that direct way of hers. Without a word, she opens the box and lifts out the folded lace from it carefully. She holds it out to me.
I shrink back. ‘No!’
‘It’s your life,’ she says.
I shake my head. ‘It belongs to you.’
She shakes her head back at me. ‘It belongs to you.’
I expect a bolt of lightning to come down from the sky, tear through the ceiling and strike her down for this blasphemous talk.
But the night is still as she lays the memory lace carefully on the bed. She then unwraps the smaller package. The messy lace that I made earlier in the day emerges from its folds. She takes it and places it in the purple-lined box in place of my memory lace.
‘What are you doing?’ My voice is raised in horror.
‘This morning,’ she says, ‘you wove your dreams into the lace you were making. That’s real memory lace. This,’ she waves her hand at the lace on my bed, ‘is just something someone like Veda made to convince you that you have no control of your life.’
For a few seconds I’m stupefied. ‘But … it’s written … ‘ I begin. Then it hits me and I fall silent again.
‘All these months,’ I say quietly, ‘that’s what you were teaching me? To weave … ‘ I couldn’t say the words, ‘it.’
‘Yes.’
‘But …’
‘Oh Sifar,’ Fazal sighs. She only says my name this way when she’s frustrated. ‘You won’t be the first boy that our family has freed. My father was a free man.’
‘But … there are no free men. All men are bound by the memory lace.’
‘All this palaver about memory lace – it’s rubbish. Destiny isn’t written. It’s made.’
A vice of fear grips me. ‘Are … are you sending me away?’
‘No. But you are free to go if want to. Or you can stay – if you want to – as my companion or as my friend.’
‘I’m supposed to give you daughters.’
‘You’re not supposed to,’ she corrects me. ‘It’s something that both of us will decide, but in time. There’s no hurry. There’s so much we can do together, Sifar. I want to see the world. I’ve heard of places where men are treated like people. Don’t you want to see that?’
My legs feel like noodles and I sit on the bed.
‘If I can be free, does that mean Aza can have curls in her hair?’
‘Yes.’ She pauses before adding, ‘he can.’