Why are they taking me away? They have nothing. Now they have nothing but a woman who doesn’t even see the bread she eats.
She felt him shift against the doorframe. “Perhaps,” she said softly, “having nothing is easier when you have someone to share the silence with.”
The following weeks were a slow awakening. At her father’s house, Zainab lived in a state of sensory deprivation, forced to remain still, silent, invisible. Yusha did the opposite. They became her eyes, but not with a simple description. She painted the world in her mind with the precision of a master.
“The sun isn’t just yellow today, Zainab,” she said as they sat by the river. “It’s the color of a peach before it gets bruised. It’s heavy. It feels like a warm coin in the palm of your hand.”
He taught her the language of the wind: the difference between the rustling of the poplars and the dry tinkling of the eucalyptus. He brought her wild herbs, guiding her fingers over the serrated leaves of mint and the velvety bark of sage. For the first time in her life, darkness was not 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 stopping at 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 Tuesday, encouraged by her newfound independence, Zainab carried a basket to the outskirts of town to gather vegetables. She knew the way: forty steps to the large rock, a sharp left turn when she smelled the tannery, and then onward until the air was refreshed by the stream water.
“Look here,” whispered a voice. It was a voice like broken glass. The queen of beggars went out for a walk.
Zainab stopped abruptly. “Aminah?”
Her sister invaded her personal space; the scent of the expensive rosewater was suffocating and oppressive. “You’re pathetic, Zainab. Seriously. To think you traded a mansion for a mud hut and a man who smells like sewage.”
“I’m happy,” said Zainab, her voice trembling but confident. “He treats me like gold. Something our father never understood.”
Aminah gave a sharp laugh that startled a nearby crow. “Gold? Oh, you poor, naive fool. Do you think he’s a beggar just because he’s poor? Do you think this is a tragic love story?”
Aminah leaned in, her warm breath against Zainab’s ear. “He’s not a beggar, Zainab. He’s a penitent. He’s the man who lost everything in a bet he couldn’t win. He doesn’t stay with you out of love. He stays with you because he’s hiding. He uses his blindness as a disguise.”
The world fell silent. The sounds of birds, water, wind… everything dissipated, replaced by a roar in Zainab’s ears. She staggered backward, her staff striking a root, almost collapsing.
“He’s a liar,” Aminah whispered. “Ask him about the Great Eastern Fire. Ask him why he can’t show up in the city.”
Zainab fled. She didn’t use a staff; she ran by instinct and agony, finding her way back to the hut with desperate steps. She sat in the dark for hours, the cold earth penetrating her bones.
When Yusha returned, the air felt different. The smell of wood smoke now smelled of burnt deceit.
“Zainab?” he asked, noticing the change. He left a small package on the table: perhaps bread or cheese. What happened?
“Have you always been a beggar, Yusha?” he asked. His voice was hollow, like a reed crackling in the wind.
The silence that followed was long and heavy, laden with things left unsaid.
“I already told you once,” he said, his voice devoid of any poetic warmth. Not always.
My sister found me today. She told me you’re a liar. She told me you’re hiding. That you’re using me—my darkness—to stay 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 floor with a dull thud. She took his hands in hers. They were trembling.
“I was a doctor,” he whispered.
See the continuation on the next page.
