Chapter 3

Binta swung round and sat on the edge of the bed facing Ana, her feet trailing on to the red nylon carpet.

"I may be a lesbian but in my heart I know that it is for love not vice that I've been condemned. The fact that my love is for a woman is not material. My love is what I imagine the love of a man must be for most women. My love is a passionate love. A romantic love. A true love. As real as any love."

Binta's passionate pleas comforted Ana. She felt great sympathy for anyone's love for another person, and she reasoned that it was probably just odd that it should be for a woman rather than a man.

"Who were you in love with?"

"Am in love with!" Binta emphatically corrected. Her eyes wandered around the room, briefly resting on her reflection in the mirror and then back to Ana, her face expressing sadness and almost tragedy. "Her name is Mezyana. To me she is the most beautiful girl in the world. She has - or had - long brown hair, almost as long as mine. She's a bit thinner than me. And I've known her all my life. We were schoolfriends long before we were lovers. We never imagined we were that horrid thing known as lesbians when we first declared our love for each other."

Binta looked down at her hands clasped together over her knees and let her hair flop down to cover her face. Ana felt quite uncomfortable. She had only just met this girl and now she was acting as her confidante.

"Mezyana's quite different from me," continued Binta, raising her head and pushing a stubborn lock of hair away from her face. "She's much more moral in many ways. Ethical, you could say. She's got very strong religious and moral beliefs. Whilst I never go to Church, she goes - or used to go - every Sunday without fail. She even worked voluntarily as a Sunday School teacher. I could never see the point of it myself, but she finds comfort in it and I've always respected that. She would join in the singing, the prayers and all the other things you do in a Church. How she never finds it boring, I'll never know. But naturally it's quite difficult to be religious in this country if you're also a lesbian."

"Doesn't the Bible have some rather harsh things to say about homosexuality?"

"I really don't know," Binta admitted. "But it can't be too severe because there are plenty of countries where homosexuality is allowed with the Church's blessing. But it's not easy to be homosexual in this country. Mezyana would say that God made her a lesbian to test her faith. I'm not sure she meant that she had been tempted by love of a woman and had failed the test, or if it was some other more subtle test she was undergoing. But she did say - or she said it once or twice - that the love we felt for each other was so strong and so good, that it must be blessed by God!"

Binta paused again and Ana felt sure she saw a glint of moisture in her eyes. Her voice had become quieter, less confident and somehow a little distant. Ana wanted to comfort her, but was afraid of doing so by touching her in a reassuring way.

"We were schoolfriends, Mezyana and I. From such an early age. We were best friends. We sat next to each other in all the classes. We walked home together after school. We played games with each other at school and at home. We would always be visiting each other and staying the night at each others' homes. It was a friendship between two school-girls no different to any other. Perhaps stronger than most, but not unusually so. The games we played, like Doctors and Nurses, Mothers and Fathers, and so on, were just the innocent games that girls always play. My parents and Mezyana's parents were ordinary people: caring, helpful, friendly. There was no history of sexual or drug abuse. In Jebel, our families were considered respectable and unremarkable.

"I don't know how it evolved into a love affair. There certainly wasn't a day when I said to Mezyana 'Let's be lovers.' And I'd certainly never have said 'Let's be lesbians.' As children we declared our undying love for each other: but that was quite innocent. It wasn't sexual love at all. It was simply an expression of the strength of our feelings as best friends. It was expressed as love, because other words never seemed strong enough. And anyway we were always encouraged to declare our love for our parents and, in Mezyana's case, for God. But we recognised from a very early age that we loved each other."

Binta paused again, looking not at Ana but at her reflection, seemingly lost in thought. Ana recalled her own best friends at school. She had never declared love for any of them, but she acutely remembered the strong bonds that tied them together.

"Mezyana was a Church-goer from the beginning. Her parents went to Church regularly, and she continued going, even when she no longer had any compulsion to do so. I'm sure they would have understood if Mezyana had decided not to. Mezyana's religious passion still continues, of course. She's opted to serve her sentence as a novice in a Convent rather than in a jail, you know. She'd never contemplate serving it in a Brothel, however harsh life might be in a prison. Religion and Ethics were the only big differences between Mezyana and me. But as children these didn't matter at all. I'd never had a religious upbringing, and Sunday mornings and sometimes Sunday evenings were just times I couldn't come out to play with my best friend.

"We were always together the rest of the time, however. And that's how our love developed. We held hands, we kissed each other tenderly and innocently, and when we came to puberty we played with our bodies in the way children do. We explored each other in detail, with especial fascination for our developing mounds of bosom, the changing shape of our bodies and the area between our thighs. It was so innocent though. Nothing remotely sexual at all. Sensual, maybe. But not sexual."

Ana again reflected on her past. There were no times that her closest friends had ever seen her naked body, except in the school changing-room showers. She had no memories of exploring her friends' bodies, but Ana accepted that different people had different childhood experiences and this was one way in which Binta's differed from hers.

"At some stage, our innocent probings of each other must have evolved into something more physical and sexual. Maybe it was when we were eleven. Maybe it was much later, when we were fourteen and our bodies were much more mature. I don't know. I'm sure only someone who can exactly define how a sexual act differs from any other could pinpoint it. At some time, however, the sexual aspect of our friendship was unavoidable. We were no longer just best friends. We were also lovers. It took a very long time for us to recognise the fact, and even longer to actually believe it or to be aware of its implications. But by that time - which must have been when we first realised that lesbianism was not a foreign condition but a word that described our love for each other - our passionate love was far too committed for us to break it off. But the realisation changed our relationship forever.

"Now that we knew that we were engaged in a lesbian love affair, we also knew that we had to keep it secret. It would change other people's attitude towards us. It would upset our parents. It would upset our friends. And we also, rather belatedly, became aware that it was illegal. That came as a great shock to me, but when I told Mezyana she surprised me by telling me that she already knew. In fact, it was she who comforted me as I cried and cried about it. I felt so miserable. It also surprised me that Mezyana, who attached such great store in religious law, could have such a detached attitude towards criminal law.

"It was not at all easy to keep our love a secret. People must have thought it strange the way we whispered in corners and the frequency with which we felt obliged to touch each other. Our lovemaking became quite clandestine, although as best friends nobody thought it strange when we spent the night at each other's home. At first we were horribly frightened. We were so nervous taking our clothes off together, in case we should be seen. Our relationship seemed soiled and anxious. But we gradually came to accept it and simply made elaborate precautions before making love together.

"It was also very romantic, of course. Secretly holding hands in public places. Kissing each other passionately when we were sure nobody was looking. Holding one another close and feeling our bodies together, perhaps through our clothes, and knowing that we were carrying the secret of a love that could condemn us to imprisonment. And this danger was undeniably exciting and erotic. It added great spice to our love." Binta paused again, swept along by her recollections and now beached by the intensity of her feelings. "I'm not boring you, I hope?"

Ana shook her head.

"Jebel is a very good place for a clandestine love affair. It's quite hilly and craggy. And some parts are rather remote and quiet. It was never too difficult to find secluded spots in the hills where nobody could see us before we saw them, and where we could fling off our clothes and make love together. The search for such places became obsessive. We would walk in our school holidays or at weekends with the express purpose of finding another secret spot where we would never be found. We may have insects in our pubic hairs and our bodies might be covered in grass or dust, but it gave us the joy and freedom we needed.