Ana was escorted to an austere room in which only a portrait of President Marmeluke and a crucifix decorated the bare walls. The only furniture was a wide table with a chair on either side. The nun beckoned her to sit on one of the chairs and left her alone. Moments later, the door opened and Mezyana entered wearing a long dark gown and a hood over her head. She smiled at Ana, and sat wordlessly on the chair opposite her. She pulled back her hood and revealed a thin freckled face and a head that was totally shaved.

“Good morning, Ana,” Mezyana said, looking at her inquisitively. “You’re a friend of Binta’s, I gather, come to see how I am. Is that right, or have I been misinformed?”

“No, that’s quite right. Binta hasn’t seen or heard from you, and she’s interested in your welfare.”

“So, my letters to her have been intercepted and she’s not received them!” sighed Mezyana. “I thought it would have been considered sufficient punishment imprisoning us like this. Has she written to me?”

“I don’t know,” Ana admitted. “She hasn’t told me.”

“And you must work in the Brothel too, otherwise you wouldn’t have got to know her. How is she? Is she well?”

“Very well. She doesn’t enjoy working at the Brothel, though. She loathes it. She detests her clients. She despises the work she has to do. And she hates not being allowed to leave.”

“I can’t say that surprises me. What surprises me more is that she opted for it. She could have gone to prison. I had wondered whether it was because she liked sex so much and she thought she’d enjoy having more of it. Why did she choose the Brothel?”

“It was either that or prison. And she heard that prison was very unpleasant.”

“So having sex with strange men every day is somehow better. I really don’t understand Binta. She so often said she would never contemplate it. In fact, she told me many times that she would never dream of making love to anyone other than me. She’s so fickle! She just couldn’t wait till after her sentence, I suppose.” Mezyana looked quite bitter. She glanced down at the crucifix dangling over the front of her gown, and then looked up at Ana. “I daresay that she’s not quite forgotten me, if she’s chosen to send her new girlfriend to see me. I take it you are her girlfriend? And by that I do mean girlfriend as the word might be used in a love affair.”

“I am,” admitted Ana, blushing and feeling guilty. “I’m very much in love with her.”

Mezyana steadily examined Ana’s thin face, and smiled reluctantly. “I suppose she could have found worse than you. So much for her undying and eternal love for me. At least in God I have found someone who will never be so fickle. Are you a prostitute like her?”

“No, not at all. I work as a secretary.”

Mezyana frowned slightly disbelievingly. “A secretary? So, you’re not a whore. That’s something I suppose. I was very worried that she would have a love affair with someone stained by frequent loveless sex. As she must be herself. It pains me to think that she is being ... that strange men - and so many of them - are ... that her precious body is daily violated in such a gross and immoral way. A secretary you say? At the Brothel?”

“Yes, I work in the Director’s office.”

“And you’re not a prostitute at all? Not even for some of the time?”

“No, never! Never! I wouldn’t dream of ... I just couldn’t ... It’s such a horrid idea!”

“But you still make love to Binta, don’t you? Like I did for so many years. Loving her. And she loving you, I suppose. I so hoped that she would stay faithful. I so wanted her to love me forever. To be there when I finish my sentence.”

“She says she still loves you,” Ana protested.

“So much so that she will also love you!” Mezyana sighed bitterly. She smiled bravely at Ana. “Well, it’s not your fault. Binta isn’t the sort of girl who’d be content to wait. She always wanted more from the here and now. She’ll always opt for ephemeral distractions. Like Azhnia. But I must forgive her, I suppose, however much I still long for her, and however much faith I invested in her love for me. The Lord God teaches us to forgive all sinners. And I mustn’t blame you. She is beautiful and it’s inevitable that another person should fall in love with her. And seduce her.”

“I didn’t seduce her!” Ana protested.

Mezyana steadily explored Ana’s face. The pale freckles round her nose wrinkled slightly as she screwed up her face in the pain of the implications of Ana’s reply. “So, if you didn’t seduce her, she must have seduced you. Have you ever had a relationship with a woman before?”

“No, not at all. Nor with a man.”

Mezyana nodded her head and bit her lower lip with her teeth. “You poor girl. It’s you who are most wronged by this, not my beloved Binta. I should have realised, of course. I knew Binta so well. Or so I thought. She got to know you and eventually, when she’d established that you were a lesbian ... well, perhaps not a lesbian, but someone attracted to women like her - and like me, despite my service to the Lord, - ... she simply extended her friendship from the platonic to the physical. Is that so?”

Ana nodded unhappily. She and Mezyana stared at each other. Ana felt very uncomfortable. She hadn’t known what to expect from meeting Binta’s former lover, but she’d somehow hoped for some kind of support. She was in desperate need for some endorsement, or encouragement, or for someone to say that, yes, her love for Binta was good and wholesome. Someone to make her feel that her love wasn’t a perversion and was as genuine and tender as she felt it to be. A small tear welled up in her eye and trickled slowly out of its corner.

“I’m so in love with Binta! She’s all I live for! She’s all I want! She fills my every waking thought. I love her so much it hurts to be parted for just a moment.”

Mezyana smiled sympathetically. “So perhaps you can understand how I feel, Ana. But I mustn’t berate you. The Lord beseeches us to forgive and to understand. And that I must do. But please forgive me for resenting you for taking the only love for me - the only love of mine not dedicated to the Lord and my family - away from me, and leaving me here bereft of ... abandoned by Binta.” She lowered her head, overcome by the intensity of her own love.

There was an uneasy silence between the two of them. Mezyana bent her head down to study the table and ran a hand over the grey stubble of her scalp. Ana felt that her meeting was a disaster: but what did she expect? While time had moved on for Binta, it had clearly frozen for Mezyana, who still thought in terms of the love she and Binta had shared before their arrest.

“What’s it like living in the Convent?” Ana asked after a while, more to break the tension than from a genuine desire to find out.

“The Convent?” Mezyana repeated, frowning. “What is it like for me living here? Amongst all these holy women with shaven heads who think I am a sinner to be more pitied than loved, and to be avoided at all costs lest I should rape or molest them. In the shadow of these dark forbidding walls and no license to wander the streets of Blad like my sinless sisters. In the worship and adulation of the Lord God Our Father. It’s incredibly boring, that’s what it is!”

“Do you hate living here like Binta hates working at the Brothel?”

“You misunderstand me. I don’t hate living here at all - even if it is lonely and monotonous. I feel that it is duty to the Lord that I am serving by circumstance rather than choice. It is not the way I would like to have served the Lord, but I am happy to do so. It is undoubtedly preferable to prison. And service in the Brothel is just an option I would not contemplate.”

Ana nodded in agreement with Mezyana’s remarks. “Will you serve in the church when you have finished your sentence?”

Mezyana frowned. “Before I came here, I would have answered yes. By serving my sentence as a novice, I could eventually graduate and become a more active member in the service of the church. But I will never be able to clear myself of the stigma of my criminal conviction, and there will never be a long or prosperous career for me in Alif. What I do when I finish here, I really don’t know, but at least in the world beyond, my sentence could be excused as a period of devotion. Perhaps, when I leave I’ll become a secretary.” She smiled wryly at Ana, who in the relief of the slight levity felt a great weight suddenly lift from her chest. “Who knows? Anyway, in many ways, it is not an unpleasant way of life, living here.”

“How is that?”

“Well, it is certainly peaceful and restful. Nothing happens and nothing is ever likely to happen. It is strange to be relieved of the anxiety of wondering what to do or of ever making a significant decision. If I were here by choice and not known as a notorious sex criminal, I would no doubt have made many friends, like the other nuns.”

“Would you like to return home to Jebel when you finish your sentence?”

“Oh, I’d like to! I’d love to return to those craggy hills and the beautiful valleys. But I won’t. The villagers would treat me as a pariah. I would be shunned and regarded as a pervert. I’ll probably take my chance on starting life again in Blad. Why do you ask? Have you ever been to Jebel?”

“No. But Binta’s told me ever so much about it!”

“She has, has she? I suppose she would. Neither she nor I had ever been anywhere else in our lives before. And beyond the small glimpse I get through the window, I don’t even know what the city is like. She probably has the same lack of freedom. Jebel is undoubtedly beautiful, though. Where do you come from? Are you a Blad girl?”

“No. I come from Rif .”

“ Rif ? A country girl, like Binta and me. You’d recognise life in Jebel then. I can’t imagine it’s much different in Rif . Binta and I had a strange childhood. We were so obsessed with one other we hardly had any other friends at all. My only other friends at all were the children and teachers at the Sunday School. We missed so much of a normal childhood and adolescence I think. And now I wonder, what for? Where’s Binta now? I loved her. And I thought she loved me. I always thought it was a mistake when our friendship became more physical - but Binta was so irrepressible. And when we’d started touching each other, Binta just couldn’t stop. Wherever and whenever she could she would touch me and persuade me to touch her. I can’t deny that I enjoyed it, and I loved the pleasure it gave her, but I knew it was bad and dangerous. But she was so persistent, and I couldn’t help thinking that something that felt so good must therefore be good.”

Mezyana paused, and Ana again felt uncomfortable. What could she say that could comfort Binta’s former lover? And what could be said that would make her feel less desolate herself? Mezyana smiled bravely at Ana.

“So, tell me. How is Binta? I imagine her dressed in thick makeup and parading around the Brothel in suggestive clothes. Is that so?”

“Binta doesn’t wear any clothes at the Brothel. In fact, I’ve never seen her dressed at all.”

“She doesn’t wear clothes?”

“She doesn’t have to. She’s a certified naturist.”

“Is that so? She never was in Jebel, at least not when she was with anyone other than me. But then she was always a bit of a show-off! Is it her kind of rebellion against the Brothel?”

“I think it must be. Most of the other girls wear blatant lipstick, mascara and eyeliner, and a lot of underwear. Binta doesn’t dress like that at all.”

Mezyana laughed, relatively gaily. “Binta the nudist! What a strange thought. Are you one as well?”

“No, not at all! I wouldn’t want all those men looking at me in that horrid way they do. I’d hate that.”

“So, you wouldn’t contemplate prostitution at all?” Ana nodded shyly in assent. “Do you just hate men or do you just hate prostitution?”

“I don’t hate men. Not really. But I don’t like my boss, the Director. He’s so crude and basic. Everything he says sounds like it’s meant to make me feel like just so much meat! I think all he sees in me and all the other women are merely objects for his sexual desire.”

“Isn’t that just like all men!” sniffed Mezyana disdainfully. “And now you are Binta’s lover? Not me. You! It’s difficult for me to accept. I always believed I was the only one in Binta’s life, and she was always so for me. And now it’s all changed! Instead it’s you! Did Binta send you to torture me?”

Ana sighed deeply. “Surely not. She says she wants to see how you are. She says she worries about you every day.”

“Clearly not as much as I worry about her. But I should be less selfish. I’m sure God would wish that I were more generous and wished all joy and happiness to you and Binta. But it’s not what I feel. I look at you. And I think of Binta’s beautiful naked body. And I think of the two of you together. Cuddled together. Kissing each other. Making love together. And I think: it should be me there enjoying it. It should be me! Fate is so cruel!”

Ana stared unhappily and dejectedly at the table. This interview was so painful. She felt even more guilty for her love for Binta. Not only was she committing a criminal act, she was also the innocent party to her lover’s infidelity. It made her love seem tarnished and vulgar. Tears welled up unprompted in her eyes and a small droplet eased itself from the corner and etched itself on her cheek.

“I’m sorry I’ve caused you so much pain!”

Mezyana looked at Ana steadily and sympathetically. “Don’t feel guilty. Don’t feel so bad. It isn’t your fault! If it hadn’t been you, it would probably have been someone else. Binta’s love for women is clearly not reserved for me alone. It’s my pain that I’m expressing. It’s not one that you should share. Perhaps I should thank God that Binta’s new lover is not a prostitute and who shares my abhorrence for it. You are, at least, very pretty. And from what little I’ve seen, relatively virtuous and kind-hearted.”

Ana could see that Mezyana herself was crying as she struggled to restrain her deep disappointment and feeling of loss. She bent her shaven head down and for several minutes cupped her face in the palms of her hands. Her shoulders shuddered, and she broke into a single agonised sob. She then abruptly stood up: her face a mess of misery and tears. She brushed the back of her hand over her eyes, and turned around.

“I better go now. You better leave too!” Mezyana sobbed, running to the door. “Tell Binta that I love her! Tell her that I’ll always love her! Tell her that ... that ... I understand. Tell her she can consider herself released. Tell her I love her! I love her so much!”

She pulled open the door to the cell and ran out leaving Ana alone, unhappy and disconsolate, in the emptiness of the room. She remained for several more minutes reflecting on her encounter and watching the drip drip of her tears fall onto the table in front of her.