“Sahima!” She heard her name shouted from the roadside. “Suyo!” She didn’t need to look up to know that it was Sheiji. She would recognize his voice anywhere. But she could not go to him. She could not return to the palace. Sheiji had told her to leave. Her pride would not let her go back, though her heart broke.
Sahima bent her head and fought back the tears. She threw herself into her work, moving faster and faster until Nanami, the old woman beside her, scolded her for damaging the seedlings in her haste.
“Do you know him, child?” Nanami asked her in a quiet voice.
“No,” Sahima replied. Nanami was the only person she would speak to.
“He seems to know you,” Nanami argued.
“He must mistake me for someone else,” Sahima retorted. “Look, he’s leaving now.”
“But sadly. Child, why do you hide from him?”
“I hide from no one, especially not him!” Sahima said.
“Child, I have not grown ancient without learning a thing or two. You hide from him. Why?” Nanami asked. “Tell me the truth, child.”
“He told me to leave.”
“Oh?”
“Well, he was angry…with me,” Sahima corrected herself. “I spoke rudely to a good friend of his. He said I could be civil or leave, so I left.”
“And by hiding from him, you intend to punish him?” Nanami asked.
“I don’t like him,” Sahima said unconvincingly.
“Mmm hmm.”
“He’s probably only come to find me so he can scold me again,” Sahima said angrily.
“Child, am I right in thinking that he has felt your anger much more often than you have felt his?” Nanami guessed.
“Yes,” Sahima replied reluctantly.
“And when you grew angry with him, did he run from you and nurse his pride?”
“No.”
“What did he do?” Nanami asked.
“He left me alone to cool off and then he came back and apologized. Then we made up,” Sahima answered.
“If you intend to punish him by staying away, you hurt yourself more,” Nanami told her.
Sahima remained silent.
“You must do what you think is best. Do what your heart tells you. I can tell you what to do, but only you can decide whether to do it or not,” Nanami told her.
Sahima paused in her planting and looked thoughtfully at the baby rice plants. Then she threw her arms around Nanami and hugged her tightly, “Thank you for everything, Nanami. I’m leaving you now, but thank you for everything. You won’t go unrewarded. Thank you.”
“Go on, child.”
“Nanami, you asked me a while ago what my name was. I told you I didn’t have one. But I do. It’s Sahima,” she told Nanami.
Nanami smiled, “So I heard. Now, if you run, you can still catch up with them.”
Laughing and weeping, Sahima waded through the mud as fast as she could go. She didn’t care that she was trampling a row of seedlings. Her only thought was to get to the road and find Sheiji before it was too late. Reaching the edge of the patty, Sahima scrambled up the side and stepped onto the road. She began to run. Her bare, muddy feet pounded against the hard-packed dirt.
It was difficult to run in a skirt and, working in the rice patties, she had never had the opportunity to practice that skill. She stopped, quickly tied her skirt into trousers and began to run again. People stopped and stared at the muddy, bedraggled girl who ran as if a tiger was after her, but Sahima didn’t care. As she drew near the city, the crowd thickened and Sahima began to fear that she would never find Sheiji and the strange man who was with him.
Then, up ahead, she saw the familiar face. She ran faster, shoving and elbowing her way through the crowd until she was within shouting distance. “Kitu!” she cried.
Sheiji stopped and turned, his eyes searching desperately through the crowd for the voice who had spoken his name—his peasant name. He could not see her. She had been swallowed up in the crowd. With hands raised to his forehead, he sheilded his eyes from the sun and continued to search the faces.
Suddenly, a pair of arms circled his waist from behind. Sheiji turned and looked into the face of a grinning girl. “Sahima!” Sheiji cried, drawing her close. They stood for a long time, weeping in each other’s arms while Jihaad looked away. At last, though, Sheiji said they must go on and they continued on their way, holding hands. Jihaad walked behind them with his hand on his sword to guard them.