She staggered down the slope; where was the strength now to walk six miles back to the car? A shot rang out. Close enough to make her freeze. She stepped away from the path and crouched down next to the rocks. She could now hear what must be the faint gallop of the wounded deer, the last sprints before the final collapse. Flooded with fatigue, she stretched out on the grass and looked up at the sky. She watched the cloud formations. Peace. The kind without thoughts or voices, neither images nor words.
She continued lying until the ground became uncomfortable for her back, the grass damp through her clothes. She pushed herself up and received the shot that was intended for her.
‘I died,’ she said to Moni and Iman in the car park. ‘Then I felt better for it. It was easy to walk back.’
They had heard the gunshots and were relieved that she was here in the car, that she was safe, sane and strong. They were relieved that she would now be able to drive them back home.
Iman sat in the front seat next to her. Her queries about the ‘help wanted’ sign at the hostel had come to nothing but making the attempt had felt like the first small step towards independence. She could be herself without hating the femininity she had been born with. She could still learn even if she hadn’t finished school. She could be Salma’s best friend and nobody’s pet.
Moni, clean now, was comfortable and soothed, ready to go back. She had walked much further than she could ever have imagined, exceeded her own limits. Given another chance, perhaps, just perhaps, she would do it all over again and succeed. She handed Salma a bottle of water.
‘Did you remember to take a selfie at the grave?’ asked Iman.
‘No. And no one can ever prove that you two weren’t there with me.’
This made them all laugh, and Moni said the prayer for the return journey.
Author’s Note
In my favourite verses of the Qur’an, a woman reads out loud, to a gathering of men, or mostly men, a letter she has just received. The woman is Bilqis, the Queen of Sheba; she is addressing her royal court and the letter she holds in her hand was written by King Solomon and delivered by his special messenger, the Hoopoe bird. Bilqis reads the letter without omitting the heading. ‘Nobles,’ she says. ‘A distinguished letter has been delivered to me. It is from Solomon and it says, In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful, do not rise against me and come to me in submission to God.’ In the background, the Hoopoe hovers, awaiting the answer it will carry back, Bilqis’s response.
It was the Hoopoe who had first alerted Solomon to the existence of Bilqis. More than a courier, it is King Solomon’s intimate, a scout and an explorer, a fearless traveller and a trustworthy source. In Sheba, the Hoopoe had found a woman sitting on a magnificent throne, ruling a prosperous nation. But she and her people worship the sun instead of God, the Hoopoe tells Solomon. ‘Should they not bow down to Allah who brings to light what is hidden in the heavens and earth and knows what you conceal and reveal?’ This verse is one of fifteen instances in the Qur’an when the reciter is required to stop reading and respond to the words by bowing down in prostration. It is always a stirring experience. Instead of continuing to read, there is a pause, a space to interact, a physical reply to the Hoopoe’s rhetorical question. The only species of bird mentioned in the Qur’an, the Hoopoe has opinions, insight and a voice that rings eternally in the sacred text.
The 12th century Persian poet, Attar, places the Hoopoe at the centre of his masterpiece The Conference of the Birds. In this allegorical tale, the birds of the world gather together and, led by the Hoopoe, decide to embark on a journey to seek their king. Attar’s Hoopoe is grand and confident, in line with the Sufi tradition which casts the bird as a spiritual guide and metaphor for the perfect man. Its golden crest is a crown bestowed on him as a reward for the correspondence he had carried back and forth between Bilqis and Solomon. Its double row of orange feathers tipped with black is the gown of the learned seeker. ‘I am in tune with the Great Almighty,’ Attar’s Hoopoe says to the gathered birds, ‘schooled in the ways of great mysteries.’ The birds confer and make excuses not to embark on the journey. It is too dangerous, and they are held back by their weaknesses and avarice, their pride and ambitions. Then there is false humility and misguided longings: the parrot would rather sit tight in a corner of its cage and the peacock is content with thoughts of Heaven. The Hoopoe urges them to set out, ‘Cast off the shame of narcissism . . . Surrender your ego and step into the Path, cross that threshold dancing.’
Salma, Moni and Iman in Bird Summons are also weighed down by their egos, though it may not seem apparent to them at first and there is enough justification for them to feel complacent in their positions. I wanted to explore the extent to which a journey could change them. The Hoopoe in the novel comes with stories. Stories by the Sufi mystic poet Rumi and the Sanskrit animal fables of Kalila and Dimna. Having now reached the Scottish Highlands, the Hoopoe is also well versed in the fables of selkies and shape-shifters that originate from the folk tales of Aberdeenshire and the surrounding areas. He is familiar with The Pilgrim’s Progress and the fantasy worlds of George MacDonald. For the women in Bird Summons, the
