Once We Were Starlight

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“Have you seen Bibi?” Ahmad asked.

I looked up from my work of pitting olives and took in his blackened eye. My heart seized. “Ahmad,” I breathed, wiping my hands on a nearby cloth and reaching for his hand.

But he turned away, ignoring my attempt at comfort, using his cupped palm to shield his eyes from the sun. On the grass beyond, a rotund man with a booming laugh said something to another man who joined him in his hilarity. “I saw him a few hours ago, but not since.”

“I’m sure he’s searching for insects somewhere, or napping in the shade,” I suggested. Like me, Bibi found a way to enjoy the pleasures Sundara provided. Though lately . . . those pleasures hadn’t gratified me in the way they once had. “Let me finish up here and I’ll help you look.” I was almost done with the olives to be used in the dish that would be prepared for the guests visiting that weekend. The ones who watched had voracious appetites, not only for entertainment and cruelty, but for the food and wine Haziq provided in abundance.

But though Zakai and I searched along with Ahmad, we could not find the naughty little monkey who’d stolen all of our hearts, most especially mine.

Troubled, I wound the azure tunic around my body as Zakai slipped the same colored linen shirt over his head. We lined our eyes in kohl, used sweet almond oil in our black hair to scent it and make it shine, and rubbed pomegranate oil on our skin so it was plump and soft. We were two sides of the same star, separated, and brought back together. Only . . . did stars have sides? Or, like the sun, were they just fiery balls of light? My gaze met Zakai’s in the mirror and he smiled, but not before I’d seen what looked like sorrow in his eyes.

We walked across the grass, hand in hand, to join the others at dinner. This feast would be lavish and the offerings delectable, but I dreaded it all the same. I preferred the simple meals of lentils and bread eaten with Zakai and the rest of my family. In privacy. In peace. No narrowing gazes. No mouths stretched into wicked grins.

The ones who watched were already there, having obviously consumed a fair share of wine, if their glazed eyes and wandering hands were any indication. We were sometimes allowed a glass of wine as well, so I wasn’t surprised to see a goblet before each of our plates. I sat on the pillow next to Zakai. Across from me, Ahmad met my eyes and raised his glass. I could see by the troubled set of his mouth that Bibi was still unaccounted for and a stab of worry pierced my chest. The little monkey had disappeared for several hours before though, and had always been found, usually napping somewhere cool and comfortable.

Zakai tipped his glass, draining it in three long swallows. He set it back on the table, wiping his mouth with his arm and muttering bitterly, “If he gives us wine, at least he could let us drink our fill.”

I slid my full glass over to him and he thanked me with a nod and then downed that too.

I looked at Ahmad but his eyes were on Zakai, a worried frown on his lips. “Careful,” he told him softly. “Drink can turn on you.”

But before Zakai could respond, Haziq stood, towering over us all at the head of the low table and raising his glass. “Before we dine, I’d like to read an excerpt to you from one of my favorite books.”

I coughed on the sip of water I’d just swallowed, my gaze whipping in his direction as my limbs went cold. Books? Haziq did not own books. He’d certainly never quoted from one. A deep and heavy fear spread over me, like a black cloud ready to release its watery blast.

“‘When one of the judges of the city stood forth and said, ‘Speak to us of crime and punishment’," Haziq began, reading from the book I knew well, the one I had memorized, word for word. Haziq’s deep voice was like the rain that pommeled my skin and beat into my terrified mind. He knows. Oh God, he knows. “‘And he answered saying: It is when your spirit goes wandering upon the wind, that you, alone and unguarded, commit a wrong unto others and therefore unto yourself. And for that wrong committed must you knock and wait a while unheeded at the gate of the blessed. Like the ocean is your god-self; it remains forever undefiled. And like the ether it lifts but the winged. Even like the sun is your god-self. It knows not the ways of the mole nor seeks it the holes of the serpent. But your god-self does not dwell alone in your being. Much in you is still man, and much in you is not yet man, but a shapeless pigmy that walks asleep in the mist searching for its own awakening.’”