A week later, Jamīla entered the apartment to find Chehra entertaining guests. Whilst she was still loath to leave the apartment, Chehra now allowed Jamīla to open the windows, and she entertained guests, no more than three at a time, on the ayvān. Such gatherings had often devolved into rows. Chehra would order people out or else orchestrate a screaming match, which she always won. Usually the other participants would give up, a pitying gaze on their faces as they backed out of her apartment. Chehra was always pleased that the liars knew better than to challenge her, but Jamīla suspected these victories were actually quite pyrrhic. After all, she once reminded Chehra, she would do well to retain allies rather than make enemies. Chehra disliked such a line of critique, and Jamīla was whipped once more.
Jamīla was thus surprised when she saw cushions laid out on the ayvān. ‘Who let Chehra receive guests?’ she hissed when she found Gul in the kitchen. Gul stared at her for a moment, her mouth agape. Then, in silence, they hurried to Chehra’s bedroom and stared at the veranda outside. There was Chehra, surrounded by cushions, laughing away with Raem Khaanoum, who was drinking a doogh, and Mahin, a new young wife, who was sitting stiffly.
‘We need to find who let them in!’ Gul said emphatically and Jamīla agreed. Neither of them moved from the window as they watched the conversation unfold.
‘I heard he is angry with her,’ Raem was saying, and her eyes glittered as she gazed at Chehra.
‘Well, good—,’ Chehra rushed, and Mahin interrupted with a 258question, ‘Where did you hear this?’
‘I could not say.’ Raem lifted her chin. ‘I do not gossip. I—’
‘Why is he angry?’ Chehra demanded.
‘Her son – well, their son was sick on one of his paintings.’
‘A valuable one?’ Chehra gasped.
‘One he painted. So…invaluable, because it was the great Shāh of Shāhs.’
‘It would have been cleaned,’ Mahin said. ‘There are some great domestics – they can clean anything.’
‘Well,’ Raem frowned and sipped her doogh, ‘he has not seen her or his son since.’
‘Oh?’ Chehra sighed and shook her head.
‘How long is “since”?’
‘A long while,’ Raem snapped.
‘A month?’
‘Mahin, why must you doubt what I say?’
‘I am not doubting, Raem.’ A smile flickered across Mahin’s face. ‘I am adding clarity.’
‘She does not lie, Mahin,’ Chehra said suddenly; the other women were still.
Raem sipped her doogh. Mahin lit a cigarette.
‘Do you think she lies?’
Neither woman replied.
‘Raem, she has called you a liar!’
Mahin offered Raem her cigarette. Raem handed her the doogh.
‘I think you lie, Mahin,’ Chehra said.
Raem looked up at Chehra, her eyes alight. ‘Does she?’
Mahin stared at Raem in what looked like shock, but morphed into recognition.
Gul and Jamīla looked at each other.
‘Yes. I trust you, Raem,’ Chehra asserted, looking behind the 259cushions for her drink.
‘Your eunuch can make you another, Chehra,’ Mahin said with a smile. Raem glimmered back, amused.
‘Mahin, you are new,’ Chehra said, replacing the cushions and facing her. ‘You know very little. Raem has been here a long time – Raem has been a favourite of the Shāh. She has also been,’ Chehra continued, oblivious to the other women’s smirks, ‘rejected by the Shāh, never to gain his favour again. So she does know, better than you, what is happening to Yasmin.’
Raem’s smile slid from her face. Mahin looked at Raem, but her expression was unclear. Something twitched about her lips, a thought perhaps, a realisation.
‘Raem was rejected?’ Mahin smiled, stretching on a cushion.
‘Yes – it was about her son too, was it not, Raem?’
Raem’s face grew gaunt. She staggered to her feet. ‘My son was dead at birth. He was dead in my arms.’
Mahin looked horrified. She stared at Chehra, then Raem, and glanced towards the windows, seeking help. Jamīla and Gul had their faces pressed against it. Mahin’s expression paralysed them. Jamīla wanted to flee, but Mahin’s face twisted as they started to leave.
Chehra stared at Raem. ‘Yes. This angered the Shāh, did it not?’
Jamīla dragged Chehra in as Raem began screaming. She left Gul to see the two princesses out.
Sanaa turned up shortly after. Gul, alarmed at the slew of guests turning up uninvited, stood blocking the entry. Wives she could not bar, but a concubine could at least be questioned.
‘Gul.’ Jamīla hurried over. ‘Sanaa is here to help with Chehra Khaanoum’s request.’
‘Right…’
‘Perhaps you were not informed.’ Sanaa turned to Gul as she 260entered the hallway. ‘You do run this household, do you not?’ And she broke into her luminous smile.
Chehra, hearing the arrival of a new guest, hurried out of her room. She spotted Sanaa and clapped her hands together. ‘Marvellous, marvellous, what a delight! Jamīla, bring our guest a drink!’
Jamīla was stunned. But she gritted her teeth and headed to the kitchen.
‘Sanaa has solved my problem,’ Chehra all but yelped, taking the drinks and handing one to Sanaa. They were seated on the veranda, on the very cushions the two princesses had vacated. Sanaa smiled with empty-eyed brevity and, as she raised her glass to her face, she inched away from Chehra. ‘The physician who attended to the Shāh is said to be in need of a wife. He is obviously the Shāh’s favourite, and Sanaa here will put in a good word!’
‘With the physician?’ Gul asked, surprised.
‘No,’ Sanaa replied. ‘I will speak with Omid Khaanoum, who recommended Yekta to the Shāh.’
‘Everything is resolved!’ Chehra looked like she might burst with joy.
‘Well…’ Sanaa paused and then sipped her drink.
‘Speak.’ Gul’s eyes were narrowed.
‘From what I understand, this physician is quite young.’
‘So…?’
‘So, he has…modest means.’
‘Chehra Khaanoum is not after a fortune.’ Gul’s tone was haughty. Her mouth twitched. ‘She would stay here if she was.’
Chehra was not listening. She was staring at Sanaa, her eyes following the slave’s every movement – her arm’s fluidity as she raised her glass, her shoulders jostling as she leaned forward, 261the slight curl of her tongue as she spoke.
Sanaa ignored Gul. ‘His modest means will not accommodate all the slaves who live in this apartment.’
Gul turned to Chehra but did not speak.
Chehra did not quite answer. Instead she leaned closer to Sanaa and asked, ‘What would happen to my slaves?’
‘Most would be left behind, assuming there was work available here. You could, of course, ask your husband to accommodate them.’
‘Hmmm,’ Chehra demurred. ‘I think I would want to begin again.’
‘Yes, that sounds smart,’ Sanaa agreed, breaking into one of her beatific smiles. Chehra smiled back, elated. Jamīla watched on in horror as Sanaa added, ‘You do not want to risk angering a future spouse by bringing an army of individuals to be fed and maintained.’
‘Well,’ Chehra said, glancing at Laleh before basking in Sanaa’s brilliant smile. ‘Perhaps one or two. A lady must be attended to, after all.’
Jamīla felt a burst of panic. She was being excised from her own household. They were erasing her. It was as if she did not exist.
Sanaa followed Chehra’s gaze and looked at Laleh too. ‘Well, yes, a little girl to grow up with you. And perhaps an older one to show her the ropes.’
Chehra ordered Jamīla to walk Sanaa out. Sanaa strode beside Jamīla, unperturbed by the silence. Once out of Chehra’s sight, Jamīla stopped. Sanaa turned back to look at her, and Jamīla knew she should speak. She couldn’t. Without a word, Sanaa faced forward and continued her unflappable glide. Jamīla felt that, for the first time, she had experienced a true betrayal.