The musicians warmed up their strings, tablas, and lutes in the marble dance hall, steps from the room where my maidservant Simran was finishing lacing the bodice of my silk dress. A sheer curtain separated us from view.
“Almost done?” I asked.
“With minutes to spare.” She knelt, clasping gold anklets around my ankles.
“And the emerald earrings?” I studied myself in the mirror, from the white jasmine threaded in my hair to the silk the color of pomegranate blossoms in full bloom that hugged my curves. “Do they complement the dress? They don’t, do they?”
“It is perfect, as are you. You will be the only thing they see, anyway.”
This was our routine. It had been, since she was presented to me when I first arrived to be Prince Kareem’s courtesan. For two years, she had drawn my bath. She’d prepared my meals. When I fretted, she comforted. Normally she soothed my nerves as predictably as the mustard canaries that perched on my balcony and cooed each morning. But today I frowned at my reflection.
“Is something the matter?” Simran asked.
“No. Nothing.”
Simran always kept my secrets, but I didn’t want to trouble her with my confused feelings today.
The lights brightened through the sheer curtains. The murmur of arriving guests echoed against the walls. The two kerosene lamps that lit this room were deliberately designed not to draw attention to my preparations behind the stage. They were meant to obscure me until the final moment.
“His guest is back,” Simran whispered as she adjusted the flowers in my hair. “I heard earlier today that the prince is quite anxious about him.”
I nodded, as I already knew this. Prince Kareem had whispered it to me this morning when we lay entwined beneath his canopy, the velvet curtains closed, shielding us from the world. This was no ordinary visitor, but an influential merchant with ties to trading routes the royal family needed to expand their empire.
“If I don’t resolve this matter before my father returns, it will be me he blames. My brothers are already conspiring to take away my place as the rightful heir,” he’d said.
I had soothed him, reminded him of his importance. I’d quoted Rumi’s words: move within but not the way fear makes you move.
He had smiled and his shoulders had relaxed, the anxiety shifting off his skin like steam.
“You will come with me to greet him?” he’d asked. “It is for you he agreed to come all this way to meet me in the first place.”
“Of course.” Not all were granted the honor of watching the girl who danced with feet that took flight. I had dressed in my finest silk frock with gold shimmering pajamas, feathered blush against my cheeks, and penciled my eyes before joining him to greet the guest at the palace doors. I’d smiled and bowed. I had shown the guest his room and brought his tea. He had glittering green eyes like Simran’s and golden brown hair like my father’s, the color of wheat. My stomach had tightened at the memory of my father’s broad shoulders and deep belly laugh. I’d poured the man’s tea and swirled in the sugar. It did no good to remember the past. It was best to focus on the reality I now lived.
This was not the first time I’d assisted Prince Kareem in charming his guests; it was part of being a courtesan. Nor was it the first time I had felt Prince Kareem’s eyes on me from a distance. When I’d glanced up, there he was in his royal-green kurta, his arms crossed, his lips pressed together into a thin, straight line, watching me from the parted door.
“Is something the matter?” I’d asked when I joined him afterward.
“You spoke to him quite comfortably,” he said, without meeting my gaze.
“I served him because you asked, my prince.”
He said nothing.
“I do what I do to please you.” I took a step forward and grasped his hands in mine.
“Do you?” His gaze burned steadily on mine.
“Yes.”
“Your heart belongs to me, then? To no other?”
“I belong to you, don’t I?”
He’d smiled at this and pulled me to him. The dark clouds that lingered over his expression vanished. I’d tried to push away the darkness settling over me, as well. I’d focused on his jokes, laughed at the right moments. I’d kissed him back when he reached for me. But was this how it would always be between the prince and me? A relationship I navigated with care, catering to his every whim while he stomped about the earth with no thought about how his jealousy affected me?
“I also heard something else.” Simran brought me back to the present. “Tarek said the prince is hoping your dance tonight will seal the merchant’s decision before his father returns.”
It wasn’t a boast to say I was the best dancer of my time. It was my dancing, after all, that had brought me to this palace. Just two years earlier I had attended a local festival that King Hamad had thrown to commemorate the birth of his newest child. I’d heard the lutes and the strings and seen the dancing girls in the distance. I’d breathed in the music that day, and as it often did, the music took me. A small crowd had gathered to watch me. They’d clapped and cheered when the music ended. I had laughed and bowed and went about the festival with my friends. I had not known the prince watched me from the alcove of his palace bedroom that day. I had not known he saw me stop at the poetry booth and took in my smile as I traced my hands over the scrolls. “Your smile was like a garden of jasmines in full bloom,” he told me later. That is why he named me Yasmine.
He did not force me to live here. I should make that clear. I was invited. The invitation—a gold embossed missive—arrived by messenger the day after the festival. But my parents did not know if one could refuse a prince, and so I came.
The thought of my parents and my sisters still stabbed at my heart. Many times I almost went to see them, but I had heard enough stories from the other courtesans, favorites of other princes in the palace, to know homecoming could be bittersweet. Arriving home to clay houses with gold on your arms and around your neck could make the deepest love waver, tinge the dearest eyes with envy. I was not yet ready to know if my heart would be broken. I belonged to the prince. This was my life. It was better to accept it instead of longing for all the paths that would never be mine.
In truth, I was happy enough. I was desired by a prince. I had dresses of any color I desired in silk, georgette, and chiffon, tailored to suit my body. I strolled through the carefully tended gardens and between marble pillars that seemed to reach for the heavens with diamonds tucked in my earlobes. The guards always heeded my requests because they knew to whom they would answer if I had any reason to complain. The first months after I arrived, Prince Kareem had courted me. He’d given me the keys to his walled library and the pick of any book I chose. He’d lent me scrolls of poetry and we’d walked under the sycamore trees in the palace courtyard, sharing stories and whispering secrets when the night was heavy and the scent of jasmines enveloped us both. It had been I who kissed him first.
Though I missed my old life, Prince Kareem cared for me. He loved me. And of all his brothers, he was the most just and best suited to be the future king. Tonight I would shake off the unsettling feeling pooling in my stomach and do my part for him and this empire. Tonight I would dance for this guest better than I had ever danced in my life. I would leave his heart soaring. He would have no choice but to say yes to anything Prince Kareem wanted.
As I moved to the curtain, Simran trailed behind me, fussing over the veil and then filling my pockets with the jasmine flowers that would flutter out with each pirouette, leaving a scent of jasmine in the air.
“Are you ready?” she asked. “Everyone is seated.”
I gazed at her. Simran and I were similar enough that people mistook us for each other when I first arrived. Her mother was one of the maidservants for the Queen. Simran had been raised entirely behind these walls. In the two years since I had arrived, I had never seen her leave. I often felt sorry for her, but we were the same, weren’t we? We both served the prince. We both belonged to someone else besides ourselves.
“Simran,” I asked her. “Do you ever feel trapped here?”
“Trapped?” she repeated. “But why?”
“Don’t you wonder what life would be like if we weren’t made to live within these walls?”
“My mother says our lot is a lucky one. The outside world is full of struggle. You fight to find food to eat, clothing to wear, shoes for your feet. Here, we have all our needs taken care of. We’re the lucky ones, you and I. And besides,” she said. “Tarek is here. I have no reason to leave these walls.”
The music rose outside. There was no more time for such thoughts. I stepped through the gauzy curtains and into the dance hall.
Instantly, the voices quieted. The crowd was all men today. They sat on tufted cushions surrounding my dance floor. Prince Kareem sat on his golden throne. His beard was closely trimmed, the golden crown with rubies on his head. Next to him sat the man of honor. The man’s eyes bored into me.
I bowed and pressed my hands together in salutation. Then the music began. The sitar first, then the tabla, and then the lute. I exhaled as the music quelled my troubled thoughts—the only thing that ever did. As it built to a crescendo, I began my dance. I swirled and pirouetted. I knelt and raised my hands to the heaven before I rose up again, spinning with the harmony of the lute. I smiled at my prince and regarded the man I needed to impress. He sat with his back straight, his arms crossed. And then I let the music take me. I no longer danced for these men, this guest, or even Prince Kareem. Instead, I soared for myself, for my mother, for the master trainer who had shown me what dance could do.
At last, the music wound down. I bowed, sneaking a glance at the crowd. As expected, the guest’s self-satisfied expression had vanished. His eyes were wide with admiration. He thumped the prince on the back and whispered in his ear.
Praise echoed against the walls. I pressed my hands together and bowed. Not one mistake. Not even the smallest sort that no one saw but that I would agonize over for days.
But Prince Kareem’s eyes narrowed. Instead of raising his hands in praise, he crossed them against his chest.
Instead of love, I saw hate.
And now that story ends and this one begins. Now you find me in this damp tower. Brought here by Tarek, the guard whom Simran loved. The one who yesterday pressed his rough hands around my wrists as he pulled me out of the dressing room and led me across the courtyard, depositing me here in the cold dead of night.
Water trickles against the edges of the tower; green specks of algae blossom along the cracks in the wall. The brick here is so old that every now and then it crumbles like dust from the ceiling onto my hair. The door is made of steel. Twenty-three different latches secure it shut. Where once I had gold bangles clinking against my wrists, I now wear shackles.
The tears have dried since last night; a numbness has taken its stead. I’ve had plenty of time to think, and all I can think is this: After everything we shared, after every whisper about how much I meant to him, nothing could merit his banishing me without explanation, no matter what misunderstanding took place.
Yet here I am.
The sole window in this tower has thick iron bars, but through them I can glimpse the rose-colored edge of the palace walls and the leaves of a sycamore tree. Sunlight filtered through this morning. Soon the sun will set and it will be dark.
I flinch at a sudden noise outside the tower. The workers are back. They grunt as they scrape and mix their clay. They have been hard at work outside since I arrived. Laying bricks, row after row, growing taller and taller. My father was a bricklayer. I know the sound.
The door creaks open. Tarek steps inside, in his dark armor. He holds a tray of lentils and bread. He places it near my feet and leans down to loosen my chains enough to allow me to eat.
“Tarek,” I plead. “Talk to me. Tell me. What have I done?”
He says nothing. He stands up to leave.
“Please!” I beg him. “For Simran’s sake, please tell me. What was it? What was my crime?”
“As if you don’t know.”
“I swear on my mother’s life.”
He studies me.
“Your smile.”
“My smile?”
“You gave him away. The merchant saw your smile and he saw Prince Kareem’s response. He read the story. He tried to use it to bargain with Prince Kareem. You know the prince. He never loses.” He nods to the window. “Those people outside? They build for you. Prince Kareem intends to bury you alive.”
“I see,” I say quietly.
“Better not to know, wasn’t it?” he asks. His voice softer now.
Tarek’s footsteps echo into the distance. A burning sensation splashes like scalding water over my heart. I had slept in Prince Kareem’s bed. I had soothed him with poetry. I’d greeted his guest. I had danced for him. The prince always said I belonged to him. I had thought this word protected me and kept me safe, but now I understood. Belonging meant he could place me wherever he liked, whether in his bed or in this dank tower. Belonging is not love. It never was.
I shift in my seat. The cement grows cold as evening approaches and the sun at last slips away. The bricklayers have finished their work and the iron around my ankles rests heavy. I’m certain, years from now when they recount my story, they will tell you how the other harem girls were envious of my status. How they coveted my silver and gold bracelets, my necklaces made of rubies, my earrings with delicate amethysts. But they will be wrong. Not even Simran envied me. Now I understand why: to be the most beloved means when love turns to hate, the hatred will burn as hot.
The door creaks open.
But it’s not Tarek who has returned to take away my uneaten food.
It’s Prince Kareem.
He rushes toward me in a royal-blue kamiz with gold embroidered along the edges. Finely tailored pants. His crown, as always, on his head.
“Yasmine.” He stares at the chains around my ankles, my arms, and my waist. Wordlessly, he pulls out his ring of keys and kneels before me. He turns the locks, unclenches the metal from around my body until at last it all falls to the floor. Angry red welts line my skin.
“Tarek will pay for this,” he says in a low voice. “Are you all right?”
“You did not order this?”
“Well, yes. I suppose I did.” He shakes his head. “But the command was for show. He should have understood my meaning.” He touches my wrist. I wince from the pain, but he doesn’t seem to notice.
“I wanted a chance to explain first, but everyone was watching. There was no time. He found out, Yasmine.”
“The smile.”
“Yes.” He runs a hand through my hair. “Your smile that leaves me unable to function or think. He saw you smile at me and knew you were not a mere dancing girl. It made him want what he had no business coveting. It made him want those smiles for himself.”
“And so for his desires, I die.”
“Die?” He stares at me for a moment, and then he laughs. “Let my beloved die? I let him see how far I will go to protect what is mine. He signed the agreement at once when he saw you wrenched away. In the morning I will publicly pardon you. My subjects will cheer my merciful nature, and you will be back in my arms by nightfall.”
He watches me. An expectant smile plays on his lips. What does he want me to say? Does he expect gratitude?
He draws me to him, his arm around my waist like a shackle. “The gall of that man’s request. I know you would rather be buried alive than to be with anyone other than me.”
I stare at the cement blocks of this tower. I say nothing.
“You can’t stay angry forever.” He kisses my forehead. “You love me too much for that.”
I look down at my palms caked with dirt.
“Do I?” I ask quietly.
“What?”
“Do I love you?” I look up at him.
His eyes widen as though I slapped him. I should hasten to apologize—my mother always told me men’s attentions are as fleeting as a cool breeze—but the truth is I don’t want to say I’m sorry. The truth is that, perhaps, it is only through his removing the gold bangles around my wrists and the anklets around my feet that I can see.
“You are in shock.” He shakes his head. “You love me. You do. You know me better than anyone else.”
“And you don’t know me at all.”
“Yasmine—”
“My name isn’t Yasmine. It’s Naseem Begum. The name my mother gave me when I was born. The name of my grandmother. I live in this palace because you saw me dance and plucked me like a flower for your vase. Everything I’ve done, every poem we’ve read, every kiss we’ve shared, is a result of your choices. I belong to you, yes. But love you? How can I love you when I am not free?”
“What is the matter with you?” He stares at me. “The brick grave outside is for you. Any one of my brothers would have sent their courtesans off without a second thought. I’m promising to pardon you and give you a life of comfort. You will never want for a thing. How many would wish to trade places with you and live the life I give you?”
“I did not say this is a bad life. I said I do not love you.”
“Is this about my father and what he would say if he found out about us?” he asks. “I was going to tell him about my feelings for you upon his return this month. I was going to tell him I want to make you my wife. I’ve never been happier than I have been since you entered my life.”
“You don’t understand.” I shook my head. “Whether you save my life, marry me, or send me into a brick grave while I still breathe, the choices are yours.”
“Do you know the risk I’m taking?” His face glows. “My father could threaten to disown me, and now you tell me your heart doesn’t belong to me?”
“As long as I live within these walls I am not free. My heart is all I have to freely give.”
He takes a step back, but I meet his fiery gaze. As if a rush of wind swept through him, his expression dims. The silence stretches between us. The water drips cold in the distance.
“Then be free,” he says flatly. “Tarek will be outside if you come to your senses before dawn.”
He turns toward the gated lock and taps on it once. It slides open.
He is gone.
Evening dips into nightfall. The stars glitter through the barred window. The metal door vibrates, the locks turning. Perhaps Tarek brings me a message from the prince. Or perhaps he is here to bring me my last meal.
It would be easy enough to soothe the prince and apologize. I must only say I was frenzied by my circumstances. He would forgive me.
But as the locks turn, I feel strangely at peace. If I am to die, as every living thing must, at least I leave the earth with my dignity.
The door opens.
Tarek steps inside. Behind him is Simran.
She’s in her sleeping tunic and hurries toward me.
Before I can say a word, she speaks.
“I’m going to get you out, but we must be quick.”
“Simran,” Tarek mutters. His arms are crossed, his expression terse. Simran gently presses his arm and smiles before turning toward me.
“Come.” She gestures for me to follow her to the far end. She presses the gray wall, and the wall parts— It’s a tunnel. A slim gray tunnel.
“The tunnels weave beneath the estate,” she says. “But I played in them as a child, and they end into a gully; it will take you out into the world.”
“Simran . . .” I trail off.
“You asked me last evening if I would leave if I could.” Her voice was gentle. “I can. I stay for my mother and”—she smiles at Tarek—“my life is here. I choose to stay. But you,” she looks at me, and her eyes glisten, “you can choose to leave.”
“And Tarek?” I glance at him. “Won’t you be in trouble?”
“Prince Kareem is the one who unchained you.” Tarek shrugs. “You found a tunnel I could not know existed.”
I stare into the darkness before me. It is easier to stay. I could simply speak to the prince. It’s not too late. Until yesterday I had never imagined leaving. What lies ahead?
What will the future hold?
I embrace Simran. I step into the tunnel.
I smile.