Equal of the Sun A Novel - By Anita Amirrezvani Page 0,171

if I hadn’t served her, I would never have received the mill.

“I am glad it is ours,” she replied. “Is that why you were able to bring me to Qazveen?”

“It is part of the reason,” I said. “Before you were invited to the palace, it was helpful to know that I had a means of supporting you.”

Her eyes looked pained, and I wished I hadn’t put it that way. She had probably been told all her life what a burden she was.

“I am grateful for all you have done,” she said. “But is there nothing I can do for you? Nothing at all?”

A tear of pride welled up in one of her eyes, which she brushed away almost angrily. I saw the loneliness of an orphan there, and her uncrushable spirit, too. I realized what I needed to do.

“Manager!” I called out. He came forward to greet me, wished blessings upon me and my family, and reported that the mill had been doing even more business than usual.

“That is good news,” I replied. “Even better news is that my sister is now living in Qazveen. Please fetch a bag of your best flour for her.”

Jalileh’s smile beamed as bright as the moon on a dark night. Quietly we walked back to the palace, the bag of flour between us.

The day after delivering Jalileh into the care of one of the ladies at the entrance to the harem, I sought her out in her new quarters. She had been assigned a modest room shared with five other young women-in-training in a large dormitory, and when I appeared early that morning, she looked perplexed at the sight of me within the harem grounds. I invited her for a walk in the gardens. Outside, when she asked what I was doing in the harem, I took a breath and blurted out that I had become a eunuch in order to clear our family name. Her eyes flicked to the middle of my robe, then away. For a moment, she looked as if she could not grab her next breath. She asked to sit down. I led her to a bench in one of the outdoor pavilions and we sat on it side by side, staring at the blooming peach trees. When Jalileh finally looked at me again, I expected to see horror in her eyes. Instead she slipped to the ground, wrapped her arms around my ankles, and laid her cheek on top of my feet.

“What you have paid in flesh, I will pay in devotion. I swear it!”

I tried to help her up, but she refused to budge. As her warm tears slid over the tops of my feet, it was as if the deepest rips in my heart were being mended with her tenderness. I lifted her to her feet and embraced her, and the tears in her eyes were matched by those in my own.

Every day from then on, I visited Jalileh to check on her progress. On Mahd-e-Olya’s orders, she began a rigorous program of apprenticeship to learn how to serve the ladies. Her days began early with lessons on how to greet women of different ranks and in the daily and seasonal rhythms of the palace. I was gratified when the ladies commended her on her handwriting, her quickness, her desire to please, and her ability to face difficult situations with good cheer.

On our occasional days of leisure, Jalileh made me bread in one of the smaller kitchens in the harem; we ate it together with sheep’s cheese and walnuts, just as we used to do when we were children. It was as if I had never eaten bread before, so great was my satisfaction in sitting beside her and tasting with pride what she had baked. Little by little, we told each other the story of our lives, and with every story a new understanding grew between us. Until we began sharing our histories, I had not realized how utterly alone I had felt.

Others could argue with a sibling or an uncle and still have more blood relatives to turn to; they could engage in petty fights and avoid speaking for years, relishing their anger while still being embraced by other family members. But Jalileh and I had no one else, and that knowledge made us treasure each other like priceless pearls plucked from the stormy depths of the Persian Gulf.

While Jalileh labored to master palace protocol, my work continued at the scribes’ office in a routine