Zeba, p.10
Zeba, page 10
‘And the men? What about men who are persecuted?’ Zeba asked.
‘Only women are allowed inside the harem. But we help whoever we can. We help everyone.’
‘And the children born here?’
‘All children born in the harem are raised by collectively by us. The West Wing has nurseries, play pens, classrooms, activity areas, and an exhaustive library for young minds. The boys remain in the harem until puberty, after which they move into the King’s South Wing.’
Zeba was listening intently, and I continued, ‘With so many young boys with a potential claim to the throne, there is always a lot of rivalry and jealousy in the South Wing. They are constantly scrambling to be the Khan’s favourite son. But the Khan has chosen his heir. Bassam. His soul is as dark as the Khan’s …’ I paused, my mind flooded with thoughts.
In my opinion, the rightful heir to Khudir’s throne is our kind-hearted Sayed. What a beautiful empathetic boy he has grown up to be. He is not my son. But he is a joy to all of us in the harem. Generous, thoughtful, compassionate. He has not forgotten his mothers and sisters in the harem. If he becomes King, there will be no nation as great as Khudir. No people happier or better taken care of. We have to make that happen. Sayed must succeed to the throne. Bassam cannot be King.
So much to do. So much to share with this girl …
I look at Zeba. This is the first time she has truly met the women of the harem. Seen us for what we are—strong, smart, educated, independent-minded women with individual identities. We are more than just our veils. We may be spoken of as the invisible ones. But we have always been in plain sight. Behind our hijabs we are all fighters. Soldiers of a silent revolution, in our own way.
I tell her about our secret chant. Our silent pact. Our foundation that remains unbroken. No matter what.
I am your daughter. Your sister.
Together we fight.
Together we prevail.
She is quiet, impassive. Allah! This girl is a tough nut to crack.
‘Come. You have a visitor,’ I say. She nods, gesturing that I should proceed.
Zeba and I walk out to the secret garden beyond the office.
There, alone on a bench, sits Kherun, her optimistic smile making her face glow.
18
Miriam’s Grave
‘How do you know which one is my mother’s?’ asked Zeba.
Zeba and Kherun were walking in an old graveyard, and the long line of unmarked graves seemed endless.
‘I do not,’ said Kherun.
Zeba stopped in her tracks.
Kherun continued, ‘Honestly, I have forgotten. It has been so many years and her final resting place was not marked by a tombstone. But one night in a dream I saw you walk with me to a particular grave. And you put a single white lily on this grave and said, “This is my mother. My Ammi.” I came here the very next day, and knew instinctively that my vision, my dream, was correct. It was certainly Miriam’s final resting place.’
‘Great,’ said Zeba sarcastically. ‘You made me sneak out of the palace for a hunch based on a dream. Just great.’
‘I know you are finding much of what is happening difficult to believe. Unfathomable. But trust me, it is all …’
‘Of course, it’s all true. I was shooting killer water jets from my hands till a few days ago. And now my own father has put me in these,’—she gestures at her bonded wrists—‘these … golden handcuffs and my powers have just dried up. Unbelievable! Un-fucking-possible! Who am I kidding? I don’t even really know who I am. Daughter of an evil wizard? Bastard child of an abducted teenage mother? Freak? Who the fuck am I?’
Zeba’s voice echoed in the empty graveyard. An ancient owl stared at them from atop a lone tree.
Kherun said, ‘You are indeed all these things. And none of them. You are you. You are Zeba. You, dear girl, may be a product of your circumstances. But you are not their prisoner. The past is very clever, my child. It sneaks up on you and snares you. Do not let your past trap you.’
‘Just take me to … it. To her,’ Zeba said. She was clearly in no mood for conversation, much less a philosophical one.
The owl hooted knowingly as the two made their way to Miriam’s grave.
A strong gust of wind blew. Their black hijabs fluttered in the wind. Zeba was wearing a hijab for the first time in her life and she hated it. But she knew she had no choice. They had to be careful while sneaking out of the heavily guarded West Wing. These nondescript black hijabs, usually worn by female staff members of the harem, helped them move undetected. Zeba tugged at her hijab uncomfortably, muttering under her breath. Kherun shook her head but said nothing.
Kherun and the Sultana had waited for the longest time for Zeba to arrive in Khudir. After running this silent revolution for so many years, it had seemed to them that Zeba was their last remaining hope. But it worried them, how unprepared she seemed for such a big responsibility.
She had no idea what to do, or how to save herself, let alone all of Khudir. The lines on Kherun’s face deepened even as a thought flickered across her mind. Is Zeba really the saviour we have been waiting for? Allah reham.
Kherun knew that Zeba was feeling just as short-changed and unhappy as she was at this moment. They shared only a sense of misery as common ground. Kherun stopped beside an unmarked grave with weeds growing all over it and looked meaningfully at Zeba. She closed her eyes, cupped her hand and said a prayer for the departed.
Inna Illahi Wa Inna Ilayhi Raji’un
Then she stepped back, letting Zeba be alone.
Zeba looked at the grave. It was just a mound of dirt and weeds. But as she sat down next to it, her heart began pounding. Her knees felt weak. Her body went numb. She touched the cracked mud of the grave the way she would have liked to hold her mother’s hand. She caressed the weeds as if stroking her mother’s soft dark hair.
The sky grew darker and thunder rumbled in the distance, as it started to rain. Yet, Zeba remained still, sitting, her head bowed. Drenching herself in the rain. The sadness that had weighed her down her whole life hit her now like a tonne of bricks, a whole house collapsing on her head. Throughout her life, Zeba had never been able to cry. It didn’t matter how sad or upset or angry she felt, or how alone and heartbroken, not a single tear would emerge from her eyes. Non-functional tear glands—that’s all she ever heard. Today, as she sat alone next to her mother’s grave, rain pelting down on her, Zeba shed tears for the very first time. She cried, inconsolably, deep sobs racking her body. Then she lay down next to where her mother lay, curled up, like a child in the womb. She wept, and the heavens wept with her.
The women in the harem had taught Zeba a prayer—an old Arabic prayer for the soul of the departed. She muttered it now, forgetting half the words, mispronouncing many. But her intention was pure, and they say intention is nobler than memory.
Niyat.
So it didn’t really matter.
Finally, exhausted, she closed her eyes and drifted into a dream. A kind of a vision … Or did it really happen? We shall never know, but to Zeba it was every bit as real as anything had ever been.
She saw herself sitting on a beautiful green hill looking out at a pleasant sky. She saw a herd of goats being herded by a small boy with a long stick. The goats were peacefully grazing on the mountainside, while the boy sat nearby, bored, chewing on a piece of fruit. The green hill was littered with small pellet-like goat droppings.
‘He has another hour before the sun goes down and he takes his goats home,’ she heard someone say.
Zeba turned around. A young girl was standing behind her. She looked happy, dressed in a traditional dress made of a beautiful shimmery grey. She patted Zeba’s cheek and smiled. ‘Do you know who I am?’ she asked.
Zeba nodded, the answer coming to her instinctively. Miriam looked like a teenager. Barely a child. More than a decade younger than Zeba was now. Zeba wanted to say ‘Mother … Ammi …’ Something. Unable to find the words, she just nodded.
What would Miriam have liked to be called? What do you call your dead mother’s ghost? Zeba wasn’t sure. There was no precedent for it anywhere in the world.
Miriam kept talking. Her voice was of a young girl’s, but her words had the maturity of an old soul.
‘Do you know how I died? Kherun must have told you.’
Zeba nodded.
‘But you don’t know why …’
Zeba felt an anxiety growing within her. What does she mean, ‘why’?
‘I was a goatherd’s daughter. Plucked out of school, taken from my family. Unknown to me, I was made to participate in a dark magic ritual. The Blood Ritual. The Khan didn’t desire me. You see, his harem is not about lust. He was invoking a very old spell. Ancient magic. One that involved human sacrifice. All of it to access the power of Yazoo.’
Zeba was stunned.
‘I know you used to think that Yazoo is just a story. But perhaps now you have changed your mind? Magic is all around us. Even in everyday life. It’s always there, whether you want to see it or not. But dark magic is dangerous. It makes people do the worst deeds for power and glory. The Khan wanted to be the King of the World, and for that he was willing to go to any lengths. Nothing would stop him. He was ready to invoke the darkest force known to humanity: Yazoo, the messenger of Shaitan. The ultimate darkness. Yazoo had been banished millennia ago to the underbelly of the Earth. He lay there, dormant. To awaken this evil force, the Khan needed to do a special kind of ancient dark magic. One that needed human blood. The blood of one hundred and one virgins and their first-born children. An ancient and dangerous spell.
‘The Khan handpicked one hundred and one virgins from all over Khudir. He had to impregnate these young girls on the first moon of the month. He kidnapped the poor girls from their homes; took them away from their families. They were kept in the harem till they bore him a child. Then he took a vial of the blood of his hundred and one wives and their firstborns to complete his spell to invoke Yazoo.’
Zeba felt the horror of the King’s deeds. ‘He k-k-killed them all?’ she stammered.
‘Thankfully, no. He just needed some blood. A vial of it. After which, most of them were sent back to the streets. The infant boys were kept, of course. The infant girls were abandoned on sidewalks and street corners. Many of the harem girls never went back to their families after the Khan threw them out. They died of hunger or went mad or killed themselves. But as the spell progressed, the Khan became stronger and stronger. He was well on his way to being the most powerful man in the world. You, my Zeba, were the last one. You were the last child. With your blood, he would finally fulfil his dark desire. To rule the world.’
Miriam’s eyes lingered on Zeba, her expression a mix of nostalgia and pain. ‘But I overheard him talking to one of his trusted cronies. I knew that your blood was the last thing he needed for his evil plans to succeed. The night I started getting contractions prematurely, I knew you were coming. You were early by a month and a half. It was the will of Allah. Thankfully, the Khan was not in Khudir. I had to make a terrible choice. Save your life or save the world.’
Miriam paused. The she looked at Zeba and asked, ‘Do you think I did the right thing?’
After a long silence, Zeba said quietly, ‘Yes, you did the right thing.’
Miriam held her hand. ‘He already had my blood in his possession, but I could not let him get his hands on yours. I decided to sacrifice your life to save Khudir, to save all of humanity. You stopped the Khan. You stopped Yazoo. Your death made sure his evil plans never unfolded …’
Miriam broke down.
‘I know you must hate me. But what has happened has happened. There is no point in holding a grudge against a ghost.’
‘Are you a ghost?’
‘What do you think?’
‘I don’t think … you’re a … ghost.’
Miriam smiled.
‘And I don’t hate you. You are my mother …’
‘You are brave, my Zeba. Your whole life you have struggled with questions about why your parents abandoned you. Well, you finally have the truth. You were not rejected. You are, in fact, the chosen one. Chosen to make the ultimate sacrifice. To stop the evil Khan. You were chosen by the holy Zsa Zsa to be saved. You were always the chosen one, my child.’
‘Weren’t you scared … doing what you did?’ Zeba asked.
‘I had seen the Khan do such awful things that it shook my heart. After I died, he was never able to resurrect Yazoo, and it stopped him in his tracks. He tried many more times, with many other children, but it didn’t work. No other child’s blood would work because my blood had already been offered to Yazoo. It had to be yours. When the spell didn’t work, it made the Khan even more angry. He killed many innocents in his rage … even some of his own children. But it put an end to his larger evil design. Your life to save the world. That’s the choice … the sacrifice I had to make. But see the miracles of all miracles, Zsa Zsa saved you, kept you alive and safe, far away.’
‘But … why me?’
‘Because … I just told you … you were the child conceived last … the hundred and first …’
‘Nooo … why me? Why did Zsa Zsa save me?’
Miriam smiles kindly. ‘You may be the Khan’s daughter, but you are blessed with the power of your mother’s love, sacrifice and innocence. You have all of me. Zsa Zsa chose to save you to bring peace into this cruel and hateful world. Whenever darkness threatens to take over the world a saviour appears. To restore equilibrium. Now the choice is yours … what will you do? Now that you know everything. Now that you have seen it all.’
Zeba held her mother’s hand as tears flowed down her face. Miriam kissed her forehead gently.
Gestures often have unbelievable and undeniable powers unknown to us. And pure acts of love have the power to change the future of the world. This was that moment.
Her mother’s kiss caused the gold handcuffs on Zeba’s wrists to lose their power. They slid off, leaving her free.
Miracle #5 … or is it #4? Sorry, I’ve lost count, dear reader. Our story has quite a few of them.
That day, Zeba realized who she really was. That day, Miriam showed Zeba her true path: to save all of mankind from war and hatred. That day, the superpowers given to Zeba found a purpose. A meaning.
The rain stopped and the clouds parted. The sun smiled brightly again.
Zeba opened her eyes. A sudden gust of wind and her black hijab fluttered, majestically. Magically.
The hijab … it no longer felt oppressive and stifling to Zeba. In fact, it flew around her and flapped about with unmatched elegance. Zeba could feel this new hijab becoming her new identity. Forged out of her, for her. It gave her a sense of autonomy, safety, power and—most importantly for a superhero—the gift of anonymity.
Zeba felt the hijab become her shield against the world, the true expression of her superpowers, her superhero cape! She knew now that the fight was not against one man or to avenge one death. It was a fight for freedom. Not just for herself or for the Akhoon family. For to fight for mere personal gain or revenge would shame the sacrifices of all the women and men who came before her.
As she stood in all her might and glory, Zeba saw herself clearly: a warrior standing on the shoulders of the giants who came before her. People who put the greater good above their own interests. She must honour their sacrifice. Must fight.
And so, at her mother’s old unmarked grave, Zeba was introduced to her identity and purpose: To save the world from the Khan.
Music rises to thunderous crescendo OR
a Zeba theme music kicks in.
For future film costume departments attempting to create the 'Zeba Hijab Superhero Outfit', please make the black look slick. The vibe can become a bit too typical, attract attention. Look tacky in the wrong light. Let's find a balance between looking wholesome and fashionable. Reference, Chris Nolan's Batman costume. Gal Gadot's in Wonder Woman was good, too. A bit of sexiness never killed anyone. No skin, but modest chic perhaps? Good makeup ... strong highlighter and contours. Let the eyes do the talking.
19
The Khan Goes All In
Bitch! She thinks she can undo years of hard work, toil and planning?
I am the son of Zahid the Benevolent. I hail from the great unbroken line of the Akhoons, and she thinks she can walk in here and defeat me? She thinks she can learn dark magic in one day?
Hahaha!
I have worked hard and waited. Every single day.
I never gave up. Never.
Ever since my Blood Ritual spell backfired, I have not been able to fuck a woman in peace. It was all about getting my blood heir. I would have happily fucked every virginal bitch in Khudir till they gave me a child whose blood would invoke Yazoo. But it just did not happen.
Last time, my plan had failed. But not this time.
The Akhoons were the last keepers of the secrets of the dark world. I have studied these secrets for years. Now, this bitch has left me no option. I know what must be done.
I have to initiate the Last Spell.
Akhir.
It is the most difficult spell known to the Akhoons. Many have tried to erase even the memory of this spell. Because it is rumoured to be so evil.
Idiots.
Did they not know that trying to hide something makes it even more desirable? And true seekers like me always find ways to unearth forbidden things from the forgotten pages of history. I have found an old parchment from Antiquity that contains the spell to invoke Yazoo. At a supposedly terrible cost—the soul of the person casting the spell. There is no coming back from it. Once cast, Yazoo will rise and I will become a little less human. Have a little less of a soul.
My soul. My rooh.
Bah! So what? It may matter to some, but not to me. A small price to pay if you ask me.
I will be ruler of the world. What will I do with my soul? Kings have no need for that sort of stuff. In any case, magic is magic. It is meant to help one achieve one’s goal. There is no right or wrong in magic. I must give up something in order to get what I want. That is just how the world works. So, yes, I am happy to give up half of my soul to Yazoo to invoke him, to control the world. Bring back ORDER. Dismantle this disease called Democracy.
