Why are they taking me away? They have nothing. Now they have nothing, except a woman who can’t even see the bread she eats.
She felt him shift against the doorframe. “Maybe,” he said softly, “having nothing is easier when you have someone to share the silence with.”
Learn more
food
Food
The next few weeks were a slow awakening. At her father’s house, Zainab had lived in a state of sensory deprivation, forced to stay still, silent, invisible. Yusha did the opposite. They became her eyes, but not with a simple description. He painted the world in her mind with the precision of a master.
“The sun isn’t just yellow today, Zainab,” he said as they sat by the river. “It’s the color of a peach just before it bruises. It’s heavy. It’s the feeling of a warm coin in the palm of your hand.”
He taught her the language of the wind: the difference between the rustling of poplars and the dry tinkle of eucalyptus. He brought her wild herbs, guiding her fingers over the serrated mint leaves and the velvety skin of sage. For the first time in her life, the darkness wasn’t a prison; it was a canvas.
She found herself listening to the rhythm of his return each night. She found herself reaching out to touch the rough fabric of his robe, her fingers pausing in the steady beat of his heart. She was falling in love with a ghost, a man defined by his poverty and his kindness.
But shadows always lengthen before they disappear.
On Tuesdays, encouraged by her newfound independence, Zainab carried a basket to the outskirts of town to gather vegetables. She knew the way: forty paces to the large stone, a sharp left when she smelled the tannery, and then straight on until the air cooled by the stream.
“Look here,” a voice whispered. It was a voice like broken glass. The queen of beggars went for a walk.
Zainab froze. “Aminah?”
Her sister invaded her personal space; the scent of expensive rose water was suffocating and stifling. “You sound pathetic, Zainab. Really. To think you traded a mansion for a mud hut and a man who smells like sewers.”
“I’m happy,” Zainab said, her voice trembling but confident. He treats me like I’m gold. Something our father never understood.
Learn more
Food
food
Aminah laughed, a high, high-pitched laugh that startled a nearby crow. “Gold? Oh, you poor, naive blind man. Do you think he’s a beggar because he’s poor? Do you think this is a tragic love story?”
Aminah leaned in, her breath hot against Zainab’s ear. “He is not a beggar, Zainab. It is a penance. He is the man who lost everything in a gamble he could not win. He does not stay with you out of love. He stays with you because he hides. He uses your blindness as a cloak.”
The world fell silent. The sounds of birds, water, wind… everything faded, replaced by a roar in Zainab’s ears. She staggered back, her staff hitting a root, nearly collapsing her.
“He is a liar,” Aminah whispered. Ask him about the Great Fire of the East. Ask him why he cannot appear in the city.
Zainab fled. She did not use her staff; she ran on instinct and agony, finding her way back to the cabin with desperate feet. She sat in the dark for hours, the cold earth seeping into her bones.
When Yusha returned, the air seemed different. Its woodsmoke smell now smelled of burned deception.
“Zainab?” he asked, sensing the change. He left a small package on the table: bread, perhaps, or some cheese. What happened?
Learn more
Food
food
“Have you always been a beggar, Yusha?” he asked. His voice was hollow, like a reed snapping in the wind.
The silence that followed was long and heavy, heavy with things left unsaid.
“I told you once,” he said, his voice devoid of poetic warmth. Not always.
My sister found me today. She told me you were a lie. She told me you were hiding. That you were using me—my darkness—to keep yourself in the shadows. Tell me the truth. Who are you? And why are you in this cabin with a woman they paid you to take away?
She felt him move. Not away, but closer. She knelt at his feet, her knees hitting the hard earth with a dull thud. He took her hands in his. They were shaking.
“I was a doctor,” he whispered.
See continued on next page
ADVERTISEMENT
