of soldiers had brought a lady into the courtyard in a palanquin. When Khalil Khan ordered her to come out, she cursed him and refused. He reached inside, took hold of her legs most disgracefully, and pulled her out. Her curses filled the air. Two of his men grabbed her body and forced her inside the house. She was yelling all the while, but soon after they closed the door behind them, the house grew deadly silent. No one wished to know what was happening. After only a few minutes, the soldiers departed. Khalil Khan gave orders that no one should enter that room, and no one dared. By the time I returned from shopping, the house was as quiet as the grave. After the master retired for his afternoon rest, I slipped inside.”
Here she paused and put her hand against the mud wall to steady herself.
“Is she alive?” I asked, feeling the breath freeze in my throat.
“No,” she replied. “Her eyes were open and staring at the ceiling. Her neck was bruised and bloodied, and the cord they had used to strangle her was still wrapped around it as if she were nothing more than chattel. Her forehead was creased with agony and her teeth were bared, as if she wished to maul those who had murdered her.”
“Say no more,” I said. “No more.”
“I wish you had never asked me to look. What I saw will haunt me until the end of my days. No amount of money could be worth such a sight.”
Nonetheless she stretched out her hand. I steadied myself against the wall and fished out the coin.
“You have received the better deal,” she said, turning to go. “May God be with you.”
My heart felt as if it had turned to shards of ice. I grabbed at the wall behind me for support, but it crumbled in my hands. I drew the dirt on my fingers over my face and head as if it were the dirt of my grave. Pari dead? It could not be. It could not be!
Racked with sorrow, I stumbled through the streets, drawing stares.
“Agha!” an older man called as I passed. “What pains you? Are you all right?”
I don’t know how long I walked, or where. All I know is that I ended up at a tavern in a low part of town, which stank of men’s feet. I sat on a cushion covered with a tattered, stained cotton cloth. A few men welcomed me as their new drinking companion. I called for spirits, and after a few glasses of a foul cinnamon-flavored concoction, I switched to bang. It was very strong. Whatever was put before me, I drank, and then I consumed some more.
Before long, I lay on the floor of the tavern and began speaking to the angel who was ministering to me. She appeared in a blaze of light, her long hair like a comet whose tail turned into sparks. As I spoke, she hovered over me, her eyes filled with compassion. I told her the story of my life, starting with how my father had been killed and how I had been chopped at the middle. Then I described Pari and our times together.
“I don’t have royal blood,” I told her, “but we two could have been twins. It was as if we swam in the same fluids in our mother’s womb, so that some of my maleness became hers and some of her femaleness mine. That made us strange in the eyes of the world, which does not care for in-between beings. We have both taken blows because of it. She was protean, as am I. She was fierce and affectionate and smart and unpredictable. That is why I loved her . . . that is why!”
I told the angel what had happened in the streets. When I reached the part about Khalil Khan, I could barely speak. “She pushed me out of the palanquin. She wouldn’t let me try to save her!”
The angel hovered over me, and I felt wrapped in a heavenly embrace. “My child,” she said, “don’t you see? She pushed you out so that you wouldn’t come to harm. She loved you, too.”
God be praised! Pari loved me, too. Tears flowed from my eyes. I pulled out a handkerchief to wipe them away. Its perfume bore the pungent scent of pine—her scent, which I would smell no more. I wept so loudly that the tavern grew silent for a moment and my fellow