LITMIR.BIZ

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stupid notes.’ He twisted, raising his head to look at me. His childish eyes were full of reproach. ‘Saeed said they were nothing. He said it was all right.’

      I swallowed hard. The blood on his back was coming away in dried flecks as he moved. It smelt of gunmetal. His face crumpled and he started to cry again, snot running from his nose in long stretchy strings to the cot.

      I couldn’t look Marva in the eye. I carried on dabbing at Adnan’s cuts while she comforted him. If Hamid Uncle knew about my disgrace and had done this to his own son, what might he and Baba do to Saeed? When I went to squeeze out the cloth, my own face appeared in the water, my eyes wide and afraid.

      After some time, Adnan’s crying subsided and I carried the dirty pail outside to empty it. The men had gathered in the courtyard to smoke and talk. I had the feeling, as I poured away the water, that someone was watching me. I glanced round at the men. They were bending forwards and talking in low voices, not paying me any heed. I twisted towards the house.

      There was a woman there, standing back from the window so the shadows half-concealed her. Was it Mama? Did she know what had happened? I narrowed my eyes and looked more closely. No. Not Mama. The face swam into focus as I stared. A sad, plain face. And, seeing it, I knew at once who had betrayed me. Who had spied on me and Saeed and seen our notes and taken the chance to stop them. Jamila Auntie.

      Chapter 7

      Jamila crouched in the shade of the orchard wall. The burqa was tight round her head, driving its seams into her skull. She was trying to think but it made her head ache. It was nonsense. Never had the women of Mutaire been forced to wear the burqa. It was not their culture.

      She peered through the small grid over her face. On the other side of the orchard, too far away to notice her, old men climbed heavily on the ladders, their bones creaking as much as the wood. She tutted to herself. Now that women were banned from working in the orchards and fields, many of the peaches, plums and apricots would spoil.

      Hamid had finally given her permission to visit her relatives across the village. On the way, she was stealing a chance to breathe the smell of the fruit trees. She shifted her weight and a brittle twig cracked. The earth beneath her sandals was dry and tired, beaten by the sun for too many months.

      Love the land like a husband, her father used to say when she was a little girl, playing around him in the fields, digging holes and poking insects with sticks. It will always be true to you. It has always been true to our people. She had crouched in the dust at his feet, listening, as her father’s broad body blotted out the sun. The land is wise, he’d told her. The land never forgets.

      But people forget, she thought now. The young are foolish. They think they know everything but understand nothing. She sighed. Layla’s anger weighed her down. This nonsense with the peasant boy was dangerous. It had to be stamped out before people’s tongues wagged and the family’s honour was tainted. The girl didn’t understand the risks. She was headstrong, spoiled by Ibrahim, her baba, who was so desperate for a son that he treated his daughter like one. She blinked. I wanted to give you ten sons, Ibrahim. If I had, you wouldn’t have pushed me aside for a second wife. But it was not Allah’s will.

      A light breeze blew through the trees. The peaches swayed, plump and heavy on the branches. Jamila looked again at the old men on their ladders, clawing at the fruit. They wouldn’t see her. She lifted the front of the burqa, throwing it back in a rush to expose her face. Cool air swept in and wiped her hot cheeks, dried off her forehead. She closed her eyes.

      After some time, she scratched up dirt and twigs and leaves in her palms and buried her face in it. It pressed itself into the softness under her nails. She rubbed it into her skin, tasting it, filling her senses with its rich, vital scent. ‘You are our land,’ she whispered as she squeezed it between her fingers and watched it fall, powdery, to the ground. ‘Our history. No one will have you from us.’

      Jamila reached her old family compound late in the afternoon. One of her relatives, a young boy, peered round the gate when she knocked. How these times are changing us, she thought. Everyone is afraid.

      He ran ahead of her across the courtyard as she lifted off the burqa. Old Auntie’s great-granddaughter, Syma, came skipping across the yard to meet her, calling and waving her arms. Her hair stuck up in wild tufts above her forehead. Out of habit, Jamila reached out her fingers to smooth it down but it sprang back at once.

      ‘Salaam, little one. Why aren’t you helping your mama?’

      The girl was quiet for a moment, ignoring the question, then she grabbed hold of Jamila’s hand. She swung her arm back and forth as they walked, pumping a smile.

      ‘The boys brought a basket of plums yesterday and when we washed them, there was a frog.’

      ‘A frog?’

      ‘A tiny one.’ She took her fingers back to show the size, then reached for Jamila’s hand again.

      ‘Where is it?’

      She looked round at the yard hopefully. ‘I don’t know. It went hopping off. I tried to catch it.’

      ‘And how is your mama?’

      She shrugged. ‘OK.’ She thought for a moment. ‘I want to pick the plums myself but Baba won’t let me go.’

      ‘Your baba is right. You must listen to him and do what he tells you, like a good girl.’

      The girl sighed. Her hand was small and firm inside Jamila’s. If Allah had allowed me a girl, she thought, she might have been such a child as this.

      ‘Go and play quietly,’ she said at last as they approached the house. She bent to the child and kissed her forehead. ‘Hush now. Don’t disturb your great-grandmother. Look, she’s sleeping.’

      Syma turned and skipped carefully away to the other side of the yard, humming to herself.

      Old Auntie was sitting outside the house, wrapped in a blanket. Her face was turned to the dying sun, her eyes closed. The mellow light was teasing her skin, smoothing out the hollows, pockets and wrinkles.

      Jamila crouched on the ground and simply watched. Finally the old eyes flicked open. Jamila went forwards to greet her, kissing her cheek. ‘Salaam Alaikum, Auntie. How is your health?’

      The old lady inclined her head. ‘I’m still alive, thanks be to Allah.’

      No one knew exactly what age Old Auntie had reached. On some days, she said she was eighty-five. On others, she shook her head and said: Did you know I am almost a hundred? There was no one left of her own generation to disagree.

      Jamila took her hand between her own. Although the day was warm, the skin was dry and cool. The fingers were shrivelling to bone, a handful of fleshless twigs.

      ‘Are you quite well?’

      Old Auntie shrugged. ‘At my age,’ she said, ‘there is only dead and alive. Not well.’

      She closed her eyes again and seemed to drift away. Jamila stroked the back of the papery hand. The blood, sluggish, disappeared from the vein where she touched it, then crept slowly back.

      ‘Fetch me water. My mouth is dry.’

      Jamila went into the house where Old Auntie’s granddaughter-in-law was cooking. Her stout baby was crawling on the floor beside her.

      ‘They won’t let us fetch water from the well,’ the young woman said, as Jamila filled a metal cup. ‘Only the boys can go.’

      Jamila shook her head. The baby lifted its head to stare at her.

      ‘I wouldn’t mind but they spill half of it. You know what boys are.’

      Outside, Jamila held the cup to Old Auntie’s lips and waited as she sipped. The water seeped from the corners of her mouth and ran down her chin. When she had finished, Jamila wiped off Old Auntie’s mouth.

      ‘When I was a child, my grandmother used to tell me stories,’

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