The Blizzard

A GOAT with patchy, balding hide was led out by an old woman into the wilderness while a distant crowd stood watching.

  “You know many people here pray to the sand,” she said dismissively. “It’s not like where you’re from, where they worship the water. Look at these people: they bring food, clothes… animals. They want to pay the desert for allowing them to live in its presence.”

  “People don’t really worship the water.” Jack replied, watching drama from the top of the dune. “It’s just some crazy people. They take drugs and it makes them see things.

  Sarah didn’t appear to engage with his remark but kept an unwavering eye on the animal as it wandered further into the sand, its attempts at turning back foiled each time by the woman and her stick.

  “In the morning it will be gone. If there is more water than normal in the moisture collectors, these people will take it as a sign. If there’s less, then another animal will be sent out.”

  “Crazy isn’t it?” Jack had little time for such beliefs.

  “But with all the changes that have taken place in the last few years – is their response to it all so strange?”

  The soft skin of her cheeks, her eyes dark eyes filled with water. The sun was sinking further into the faraway dunes. The brilliant disc had turned the colour of rust, but a stifling heat continued to radiate from the sand underneath, making Jack realise how well the clumsy streets and gullies of Sannam shielded its inhabitants from the brunt of the desert heat. The crowd was now disappearing into the slum town, leaving the animal to its fate. Jack’s own shadow stretched back towards the town as if trying to return him to the guesthouse. The whirligigs and turbines glinted in the dusklight.

  “What was your husband’s name again?”

  “Which one?”

  “Well... all of them I guess.”

  “Well let me see: there was Farrell, Khorum, Amadullah, Alexander, Stephen, and… John.”

  “Why did you marry them all if you knew they were going to die?”

  “I didn’t know they were going to die – at least not at first. You have to understand there’s no medical or scientific reason for it: they just die. Farrell, I loved very much. He was so different from me, so free. He had just won a big sponsorship deal and we met while I was studying in –”

  “Wait, Farrell Durdon?”

  “Yes.”

  “The chess player?”

  “Yes, that’s him. Have you heard of him?”

  “Of course, he was a huge star when I was growing up. Wait, you were married to him! You must have been all over the world – he played for Amsterdam, Oslo, all of the top cities. How did you end up… here?” He gestured to toward the slum town.

  “Because I wanted to get away! After Farrell, my family chose another husband for me. I agreed, thinking I must have done something wrong for Farrell to die… I was being punished for my selfish choice. But poor Khorum, I didn’t really know him but he was so gentle. We had not even left the wedding feast when he collapsed and did not recover. His mother later said weak hearts ran in the family.”

  “And what about the others?”

  “Amadullah was chosen for me by my uncles but this time I had little input on the matter – he was very well-connected. People said he was destined for politics but was simply a challenge as far as he was concerned. He was going to succeed where others had failed. I hated him and hated my family for choosing him. I was almost glad of what happened. Arrogant as he was, he wanted to take no chances so chose not to spend our first night of marriage with me. It was a crash that killed him… his driver had fallen asleep at the wheel… the traffic in Karachi.”

  The final strains of burning sunlight reflected in Saira’s eyes. Her cheeks flushed with the memory of her past. She continued: “Of course, you can imagine the scandal. Three marriages, all ending in death on the wedding night. We gave back the money and presents – but I had brought shame on my family. The police ruled there was no evidence to prosecute in any of them but Amadullah’s father would not let it go. It was safer for me to move back to Europe although my relatives there weren’t glad to see me. Even then, rumours of a ‘curse’ were already beginning. Sometimes I even doubted myself whether such a thing was true”

  “If you knew you could be cursed after that why did you marry husbands number four, five and six?”

  “I have an education. I went to university and learned that there’s no such thing as curses or magic. There’s science and facts that can be deduced by cause and effect and nothing else. I was just a victim of probability. Doctors could find no medical cause for the deaths, no link. Police detectives could find no evidence of poison or a murder weapon. I was just the unhappy plaything of a cruel universe. When I settled back in London, it was different place. The price of drugs, so many sick people. I thought I could make the best use of my skills at an apothecary; there was a huge demand for cheap, plant-based treatments.”

  She pointed to a withered crop of shrubs at the edge of the town, fighting against the incoming torrent of sand.

  “The plants that can grow here are amazing. They cling on despite everything.”

  “Like the people who live here.”

  “Yeah, I guess. But most people don’t appreciate how powerful they can be. We’ve developed all these synthetic drugs – or at least we’ve developed them for the rich. Drugs that can change our mood, drugs that can even change our physicality, making us stronger, need less sleep.”

  Jack nodded uncomfortably, not wishing to concede his own Nectar experiences. But he, too, knew about military and police corps being given pills to improve their performance and keep them alert.

  “Most of the time,” Sairah continued, “I was simply preparing plants and roots but was able to use some of the science I majored in. That’s where I met Alexander. I had vowed to never marry again and would find happiness on my own but he pursued me. I had no relatives in England and was desperately lonely. He was the only one I could talk to. Although I told him about the others, he asked lots of questions about disease and water-carried illnesses. He too believed my husbands’ deaths were natural, a Jackpot of Woe, he called it. When we married it was a small registry office in the outskirts, with an elderly neighbour acting as a witness. I refused to go to sleep that night – I watched him breathing easily. He was peaceful and calm. I tried to keep myself awake, dreading what would happen but I was not strong enough. In the morning, his body was cold beside mine.”

  She wiped a trickle from her cheek. “Again the police ruled out anything suspicious. Sudden heart death, the hospital said.

  “I’m surprised they weren’t more suspicious given your other husbands.”

  “I didn’t tell them about the deaths in Pakistan. I was too distraught and Alex had never shared this information with his family. But… I guess I did need to talk to someone about what was happening. Stephen was my therapist. I was still in London and working. Alex’s family could see I was falling apart, even though they didn’t fully know the reason why. They insisted I should seek help. The sessions were a great relief at first. He was friendly and very easy to talk with at first. But as we progressed, I began to sense something else. He looked at me suspiciously. I should have realised from his questions what ideas he was forming. On our final session, he presented his analysis. I had been driven mad by the revelation about my father and had killed each one of my husbands in turn using an undetectable poison procured through my knowledge of herbs and botany. A classic case of Artemis Syndrome, he called it.”

  “You mean like the goddess of hunting?” Jack had not been the best student. But stories about spiteful deities and the heroes of the past had caught his imagination.

  “I guess so. He thought, I was killing off my suitors, deluding myself into forgetting what I’d done. However much I denied it, the more he insisted it was true. Furthermore, he was now going to tell the police in London of his ‘findings’ and the de
ath of my other husbands.

  “Of course, this story was untrue; at least I thought it was. But I realised it had more than enough plausibility to jail me. Furthermore I had not told anyone other than Alex about my husbands in Pakistan, an omission which would appear as good as a confession to the police in London. But my therapist had an alternative proposal; he would refrain from contacting the police because he thought I could be “cured”. If I agreed to marry him that very day – he would remain awake and ensure I had no way of killing him. He believed I had developed two personalities: victim and killer. If we were to remain married for more than 24-hours, he claimed, then I would be forced to recognise the permanence of the ceremony and forgive my mother and accept that I had murdered my husbands.”

  “You didn’t try to warn him then?”

  “I begged with him, of course. I told him that I could not explain it – but I knew that marrying me would his life was in danger. But this only spurred him on and I was as good as dragged me to the nearest registry, where anticipating I would accept his ultimatum, he had already made an appointment. I tried but he dragged the vows out of me before throwing me into a carriage. We road back to his office and he tied me to his couch. I was too frightened to put up a fight. We stayed there all night. My throat was hoarse from crying and my skin raw where the knots dug into my wrists and feet. He sat at this desk shouting his theories at me: ‘You’ll soon be cured! Go to sleep – in a few hours you’ll understand everything. Fascinating case… absolutely fascinating.’ I must have dropped off in the early hours. It was daylight when I opened my eyes. Stephen was slumped over his desk with an almost empty bottle in front of him. I knew as soon as I saw him. I screamed for hours and hours before someone came to the door of the private office he rented. God knows what they thought. The psychologist dead at his desk, his patient tied up with tears streaming down her face. A wedding certificate in both their names with the ink not yet dry.”

  “But you were the victim,” Jack was absorbed in the story. “They couldn’t have suspected you.”

  “The police did not take long to find his notes on my case. I was interviewed under caution and warned not to leave the country. In short, it looked very bad for me. The worst thing was Alex’s family. The police wasted no time telling them their suspicions – they were such nice people and I tried to explain but only sounded like the disturbed killer they thought I was.”

  “And what about the final husband? After all of this, you married again?”

  “Detective Inspector John Melody lead the case against me. An ugly, red-faced brute. Horrible teeth. I heard he deliberately avoided brushing, so he could breathe in the face of his suspects during questioning. I was his biggest case yet. The Black Widow, they called me. I was responsible for five unsolved murders in two countries even though no proof, no cause of death or motive. Melody was determined to get a confession. I had no idea if he was capable of delivering on his threats. What were my husbands worth? Did I have any overseas accounts? What dangerous herbs did I work with in my job? Sometimes, I prayed for death. If this is life, then let me seek peace elsewhere. In my anger, I sought to prove to them the reality of my curse. I challenged the policeman, saying: ‘I have nothing to do with the deaths. If you don’t believe me, then why don’t you marry me yourself?’ To my surprise, the vicious beast seemed to ponder this for a while. He left the room and I was led back to my cell. Two hours later, Melody returned with a man in a grey suit who he said would oversee the ceremony. Knowing what I knew then, it was the moment I now regret the most. I should have backtracked and refused, signing whatever confession they wanted. But I was so angry with the world. I had done nothing wrong and wanted to prove once and for all that the deaths were beyond my control. I said the words that bound me and that evil man, knowing it would mean his death. Once completed, I was marched by two officers from my cell to the interview room and the recorder was prepared. I waited for Melody to appear but nothing happened. Eventually a sergeant bounded into the room. He grabbed me by the throat and shoved me against the wall. Melody had collapsed in the toilets and was being rushed to hospital. He was to die before he arrived. Rather than proving my innocence, I had insured by imprisonment. Melody’s deputy made it clear I would spend the rest of my life in jail, even if they had to fake evidence against me. Even the other prisoners – women who were genuine murderers – stayed clear of me. I struggled to sleep in that cell, the smells and the stains and the screaming.”

  “How long did they keep you before they realised the mistake?”

  “I would still be there now. On the fourth night, I fell into a deep sleep. In my dream, I heard a voice tell me not to despair; that I was not responsible for the deaths and would find happiness again. It told me to seek the desert and to record everything that I saw there. When I awoke, I was no longer in prison but in cold and quiet hospital with a tube up my nose. There were no guards and no nurses. I simply put on the clothes that were by the side of the bed and walked out onto the street a free woman. The only place I could think of was Media. In my despair I had put aside thoughts of finding my father but had discovered from a distant cousin his whereabouts in Sanaam. Although my bracelet would be tracked by police before I even got to an airfield, some strange fortune meant there was no trouble buying a ticket and in flying from London to Constantinople and then to Media. It took less than a week to find my father who welcomed me back with all the love in his heart. The slums simply grew and grew until he was surrounded. He could have left here but he chooses to stay. He likes the people; likes helping them repair their condensers. So like you Jack, I travelled here because I am not wanted anywhere.”

  Jack pointed to the band on his companion’s wrist. “Are they still looking for you?”

  “It is only in this slum that I can walk about freely without bracelet checks or police,” she sighed. “If I went into the city, I would be arrested and dragged back to Europe.”

  “So that’s why you spend so much time here in the desert?”

  “I was told in my dream to study the plants in the desert but there’s nothing out here really. A few measly cacti, some withered storm flower here and there. I tried to put my skills to good use. The sick, the dying… I have the skills to help if only I could find the right herbs to help them. If only they would let me help them but… Wait, what’s wrong?”

  Jack did not answer because he had just been stabbed in the heart. He clutched his chest in agony. His tongue was stuck and moving so slowly. He was gone.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN