‘Lily! Lily! What’s the matter?’ Her voice was gentle and amused.
With dire memories of a dozen seething romances each centred round the fate of innocent European girls lured into harems, Lily’s voice was shrill and apprehensive. ‘No one’s putting me in a harem! How dare you! Let go! Iskander can sort this out. If that bearded old barbarian – oh, my God, I’m sorry – he’s your husband, isn’t he?’
Halima looked puzzled. ‘Ramazad Khan? Yes, he is my husband. And you are his guest. As his guest you stay here.’
‘If he thinks he can shut me up with all the rest of his women, well, he can just think again! Any finger he lays on me gets broken! They can kill Rathmore if they like – I don’t care! Tell Iskander the deal’s off! I have rights! I’m an American citizen! You’re not to forget that!’
Halima laughed, saying patiently and slowly, seeking her words, ‘I have said this is harem, Lily. I explain. The word “harem” in our language means “sacred”. Women are sacred and in this place they live in safety. For you there is no safer place even among your own people. Here live all Ramazad’s female relations – his mother, his aunts, his sisters, cousins, nieces. And, of course, his wife. Me.’
‘Wife? Just the one?’
‘Of course! Now will you not come and have a bath and some food? I think you are very tired after your journey.’
To some degree reassured by the concern in the girl’s voice and allured by the idea of a bath, Lily decided to trust her and followed her up a staircase and into a long, airy room whose arcaded windows looked out on to the blossom-laden trees of an orchard. Lily stopped in the doorway and blinked. After the bleak strength of the exterior of the building the opulence of the interior was unexpected. The walls were hung with tapestries, the floor thickly carpeted and strewn with silken, tasselled cushions. The room was furnished with tables and chests of dark wood, intricately carved.
The six women who had been sitting by the window chatting and laughing turned, large-eyed, to look at her. Halima explained in Pushtu who Lily was and what she was doing in the fort. ‘I tell them that you are American princess,’ said Halima firmly, ‘and that you are honoured guest of Iskander and my husband.’ One by one the women, who ranged in age from very old to about sixteen, came forward, friendly and curious, to greet her and, though Lily was sure she would never remember them, Halima gave her each woman’s name and position in the family. The formalities at an end, Halima clapped her hands and two maidservants came hurrying into the room.
‘I will tell them to prepare your bath and then bring you back here to us where we will have food,’ said Halima.
With much cheerful giggling and chattering, the girls led Lily to an apartment at the end of the first floor corridor, part of which she was delighted to see was a bathroom. Nothing like a home-style bathroom but to travel-weary Lily it looked perfect. A large sunken, shallow stone tub lay ready for her. The maids went off and returned some minutes later with brass cans of hot water, mixed this with cold from stone jars standing by and poured a sweet-scented liquid into it from a tiny phial. A scatter of rose petals over the surface and all was ready.
Lily peeled off her dusty clothes to the fascinated comments of the girls who, she guessed, had never seen a Western girl or Western clothes before. They did not seem impressed. Lily tried to explain by mime that she wanted her things washed and returned to her. It took a tug of war to hang on to her boots but there was no way that the escape she had always in the forefront of her mind could be effected in the pair of backless gold-embroidered slippers she was being offered. In a puzzling world she thought her pioneering ancestors would applaud her forethought. At least she would allow herself to be put into one of the fancy costumes on offer until her own clothes were returned, she thought and looked in astonishment at the piles of colourful silks the girls had fetched. They seemed keen for her to choose a bright pink outfit shot through with gold thread but, with a vision of herself escaping through the hills looking like a stick of candy-floss, she turned it down, insisting on a green three-quarter length tunic over a pair of baggy trousers in the same fabric caught up at the ankle, and accepted, though she did not put it on, a gauzy yellow face-covering veil.
Her companions looked her up and down doubtfully and suggested alternatives and improvements. They brushed her hair for her and turned with great seriousness to make up her face with sticks of kohl and little palettes of this and that, ignoring her protests and holding up a silver mirror for her to admire herself, which – after a moment of shock to see herself transformed – she duly and sincerely did.