by Tariq Ali
‘Peace be upon you, Father,’ muttered Zuhayr, trying desperately not to show his unease. ‘I was out with friends. An innocent evening, I assure you.’
Umar looked at his son and could not restrain a smile. The boy was such an unaccomplished liar. He had his mother’s light-brown eyes and, as he stood there facing him, Umar felt a strong charge of emotion. There was a time when they had been close. It was Umar who had taught Zuhayr to ride and hunt, Umar who had taken him to swim in the river. The boy had often accompanied his father to the court at the al-Hamra. Now he felt he had left the boy alone for far too long, especially since the birth of Yazid. How different they were and how he loved them both.
He slumped on to a large cushion. ‘Sit down, Zuhayr. Your mother tells me that you have made some plans. What are they?’
Zuhayr’s face became very serious. He suddenly looked much older than his years.
‘I’m leaving, Father. Early tomorrow morning. I wanted to bid farewell to all of you tonight, but Yazid is fast asleep and I could not leave without hugging him. I’m leaving for Gharnata. We can’t allow the monks to bury us alive. We must act now before it is too late. Plans for an insurrection are under way. It is a duel with Christianity, Father. Better to die fighting than live the life of a slave.’
Umar’s heart began to pound. He saw a vision. A clash with the Captain-General’s soldiers. Confusion. Swords are raised, shots are heard, and his Zuhayr lies on the grass with a hole in his head.
‘It is a crazy plan, my child. Most of these young men who rant in the baths of Gharnata will run at the first sight of the Castilians. Let me finish. I have no doubt that you will find a few hundred boys to fight on your side. History is full of young fools getting drunk on religion and rushing to do battle with the infidel. Far easier to drink poison underneath a tree by the river and die peacefully. But better still to live, my son.’
Zuhayr’s mind was not free of doubt, but he knew better than to admit that to his father. He truly did not wish to be talked out of the endeavour which he and his friends had been planning ever since the bonfire on the Bab al-Ramla. His face remained deadly serious.
‘Contrary to what you imagine, Father, I have no great hopes for the success of our uprising, but it is necessary.’
‘Why?’
‘So that things stay the same in our kingdom of Gharnata. It is bad, but better it should stay like this than be handed over to Torquemada’s animals, who they call priests and familiars. If our last Sultan, may God curse him, had not capitulated without a fight, things might have been different. Isabella treats us like whipped dogs. Our challenge will show them and others of our faith throughout this peninsula that we will die on our feet, not our knees; that there is still some life underneath the ruins of our civilization.’
‘Foolish, foolish boy!’
‘Ask Ibn Daud what he saw in Sarakusta and Balansiya on his way to Gharnata. Every Muslim who fled from the Christians has said the same.’
Despite himself, Umar felt an unusually strong sense of pride in his son. He had underestimated Zuhayr.
‘What are you talking about boy? You’re very unlike yourself. Talking in riddles.’
‘I’m talking about the looks on the faces of their priests as they depart to supervise the torture of innocents and the making of orphans in the dungeons of the Inquisition! Unless we fight now everything will die, Father. Everything!’
‘Perhaps everything will die in any case, whether you fight or not.’
‘Perhaps.’
Umar knew that Zuhayr, deep inside himself, was tormented by uncertainties. He sympathized with his son’s dilemma. Having spoken up at the mosque, and having boasted of victories that lay ahead in the company of his friends, the boy felt trapped. Umar determined to prevent his son’s departure.
‘You are still a young man, Zuhayr. At your age death appears to be an illusion. I will not let you throw your life away. Anything could happen to me, now that I have decided that conversion is impossible. Who would look after your mother and sisters? Yazid? They have taken power and authority away from us, but the estates are still intact. We can enjoy our wealth in peace and dignity. Why should al-Hudayl disturb the Castilians? Their eyes are on a new world, on its mountains of silver and gold. They have defeated us and resistance is futile. I forbid you to leave!’
Zuhayr had never fought in a real battle. His experience was limited to the intensive training he had received in the arts of war as a boy. He was an expert swordsman and his daredevil exploits on horseback were well known to all those who attended the tournaments in Gharnata on the Prophet’s birthday. But he could not forget that he had yet to cross swords with a real enemy.
As he looked into his father’s grim face, Zuhayr realized that this was his last opportunity to change his mind. He could simply inform his fellow conspirators that his father had forbidden him to leave the house. Umar was widely respected and they would all understand. Or would they? Zuhayr could not tolerate the thought that one of his friends might accuse him of cowardice. But that was not his only concern. Zuhayr did not believe that al-Hudayl would be safe as long as Ximenes held sway in Gharnata. That made him feel that Umar was dangerously out of tune with the times.
‘Abu,’ began Zuhayr plaintively, ‘nothing matters to me as much as the safety of our home and the estates. That is why I must go. My mind is set. If you instruct me to stay here against my will and my judgement, then of course I will not disobey, but I will be unhappy, and when I am unhappy, Abu, I think of death as a consolation.
‘Can you not see that the monks will destroy everything? Sooner or later they must reach al-Hudayl. They want to reduce al-Andalus to a desert. They want to burn our memory. How then can they permit even a single oasis to survive? Do not compel me to stay. You must understand that what I want to do is the one course that might save our home and our faith.’
Umar was unconvinced, and the argument continued, with Zuhayr growing ever more adamant as the hours went by. Finally Umar perceived that his son could not be kept at home against his will. His face softened. Zuhayr knew at once that he had won his first battle. He understood his father’s temperament. Once Umar agreed to something, he sat back and did not meddle.
The two men stood up. Umar hugged his son and kissed his cheeks. Then he walked to a large chest and from it removed a beautifully engraved silver scabbard which contained the sword of Ibn Farid. He drew the weapon and, holding it with both his hands, lifted it above Zuhayr’s head and handed it to him.
‘If fight you must, then best to do it with a weapon tried and tested in many battles.’
Zuhayr’s eyes became moist.
‘Come,’ said Umar bin Abdallah. ‘Let us go and break the news to your mother.’
As Zuhayr, proudly carrying the sword of his great-grandfather, followed his father through the inner courtyard, they ran into Miguel and Zahra. Four different voices resounded in unison.
‘Peace be upon you.’
Miguel and Zahra saw their father’s sword and understood everything.
‘God protect you, child,’ said Zahra, kissing his cheeks.
Zuhayr did not reply, but stared at the odd couple. The encounter had disturbed him. Then his father tapped him gently on the shoulder and they walked away. It had all lasted a few seconds. Zuhayr thought it was a bad omen.
‘Will Miguel ... ?’ he began to ask his father, but Umar shook his head.
‘Unthinkable,’ he whispered. ‘Your great-uncle Miguel would never put the Church before his own family.’
For a while Zahra and Miguel stood still, like sentinels on guard duty. Remnants of a generation which had ceased to exist. The sky above them was full of stars, but neither it nor the solitary lamp on the wall, just above the entrance to the bath-chamber, gave much light. In the night shadows, with their bent spines draped in thick woollen shawls, they resembled a pair of stunted, weatherbeaten pine trees. It was the Bishop who broke the silence.
‘I fear the wo
rst.’
Zahra was about to say something when Hind and Ibn Daud, followed by three maid-servants, entered the courtyard. None of them saw the old lady or Miguel. The young man bowed and was about to walk away to his room, till he heard a voice.
‘Ibn Daud!’
It was Hind who replied.
‘Wa Allah! You frightened me, Great-Uncle. Peace be upon you, Great-Aunt.’
‘Come,’ said Miguel to Ibn Daud, ‘you can walk me to my room, which is next to where you sleep. I never thought the day would come when I would stay in the chambers reserved for guests in this house.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Zahra. ‘Where else could they put you? In the stables? Hind, I need you to press me tonight. The cold is eating into my bones and I have been feeling a pain in my chest and shoulders.’
‘Yes, Great-Aunt,’ said Hind, dismissing the servants with a nod and looking longingly at the back of the young man with green eyes. Ibn Daud was escorting the Bishop through the corridor which linked the courtyard to a set of rooms which had been added to the house by Ibn Farid. There visiting Christian knights had been feasted and provided with nocturnal entertainments.
How strange, Zahra is thinking, that this child who I barely know and who has just reached her eighteenth year, reminds me so much of my own youth. Her father sees her still as a flower in bud. How wrong he is, how wrong all fathers are and will remain. She is in full bloom, like the orange-blossoms in spring. Those blossoms whose scent excites the senses. As if to make sure, Zahra lifted herself with the aid of a pillow-cushion and looked down on her great-niece, who was diligently but gently pressing the toes on her left foot. Even in the weak glow of the lamplight, Hind’s skin, normally the colour of wild honey, was flushed and animated. Her eyes were shining and her mind was elsewhere. They were familiar symptoms.
‘Does he love you as much?’
The suddenness of the question startled the girl.
‘Who could you be talking about, Great-Aunt?’
‘Come, child, it is not like you to be so coy. Everything is written on your face. Here I was thinking that you were excited by what happened this evening. Miguel told me what you shouted at him. He’s not really upset—admires you for it—but you’ve forgotten it all, haven’t you? Where have you been?’
Hind, unlike her calm and contented older sister Kulthum, was temperamentally incapable of dissimulation. At the age of nine she had shocked a religious scholar from Ishbiliya, who also happened to be her mother’s first cousin, by challenging his interpretation of the al-koran. The theologian had been denouncing every possible pastime in which Muslim nobles indulged as ‘forbidden,’ and had developed the argument to demonstrate how all this sensual irresponsibility had led to the decline of al-Andalus. Hind had interrupted him in mid-flow with a memorable intervention, still recalled with pleasure by the Dwarf and his friends in the village.
‘Uncle,’ the young girl had asked with a sweet smile, which was completely out of character. ‘Did not our Prophet, peace be upon him, once say in a hadith which has never been questioned, that the angels loved only three sports?’
The theologian, deceived by her smile and delighted that one so young could be so well versed in the scriptures, had stroked his beard and responded warmly.
‘And what were these, my young princess?’
‘Why horse-racing, shooting at a mark and copulation, of course!’
The uncle from Ishbiliya had choked on the meat which he had, till then, been consuming quite happily. Zuhayr had excused himself and collapsed with laughter in the kitchen. Zubayda had been unable to control a smile and Umar had been left to divert the conversation, which he had accomplished with some finesse. Kulthum alone had remained silent and offered her uncle a glass of water. For some reason this gesture had left a deep impact on the scholar. It was his son whom Kulthum was due to marry next month.
Zubayda had told the tale to Zahra. It had made the old woman laugh, and it was that memory which now caused her to smile at her great-niece.
‘My ears are getting impatient, child.’
Hind, who had so far not dared confide her secret to anyone except her favourite maid-servant, was desperate to unburden herself to a member of the family. She decided to tell Zahra the whole story. Her eyes began smiling again.
‘From the very first day it was, Great-Aunt. From the very first day I saw him I knew that I wanted no other man.’
Zahra smiled and nodded thoughtfully. ‘The first love may not be the best, but it is usually the deepest.’
‘The deepest and the best! It has to be the best!’
Hind’s eyes were burning like lamps. She described Ibn Daud’s arrival at al-Hudayl. The impression he had made on the whole family. Her father had taken an immediate liking to the young scholar and had immediately offered him a job as a private tutor to the family. They had all attended his first lecture. Ibn Daud had explained the philosophy of Ibn Khaldun as it was interpreted in al-Qahira. Zubayda had questioned him in some detail on how Ibn Khaldun’s theories could explain the tragedy of al-Andalus. ‘Loose stones,’ he had replied, ‘could never construct a stable city wall.’
‘Hind,’ pleaded Zahra. ‘I am too old to appreciate every detail. I accept without dispute that the boy is both intelligent and attractive, but if you go on like this I might not be alive to hear you finish your story! What happened tonight? After the meeting?’
‘Father was worried about Zuhayr, and before I realized the whole family had disappeared inside the house. I walked up to Ibn Daud, told him that I needed fresh air and asked him to take a walk by my side.’
‘You asked him?’
‘Yes, I asked him.’
Zahra threw back her head and laughed. Then she cupped Hind’s face with her withered hands and stroked her face.
‘Love can be a snake disguised as a necklace or a nightingale which refuses to stop her song. Please continue.’
And Hind described how a maid-servant had led the way with a lamp, while two others had followed them at a discreet distance till they had reached the pomegranate grove.
‘The pomegranate grove?’ asked Zahra faintly, trying to control her heartbeats. ‘The clump of trees just before the house is visible when you’re returning from the village? When you lie flat on the ground does it still feel as if one is underneath a tent of pomegranates with a round window at the top? And when you open your eyes and look through it, do the stars still dance in the sky?’
‘I do not know, Great-Aunt. I did not have the opportunity to lie down.’
The two women looked at each other and laughed.
‘We talked,’ continued Hind, ‘about our house, the village, the snow on the mountains, the coming spring, and after we had exhausted every possible formality, we fell silent and looked at each other. It seemed like a year before he spoke again. He took my hand and whispered that he loved me. At this point the maids began to cough loudly. I warned them that if they did that again I would send for the Inquisition to roast them alive. Then they could cough all the way to hell. I looked him straight in the eyes and confessed my love for him. I took his face between my hands and kissed him on the lips. He said he would ask Father for my hand in marriage tomorrow. I advised caution. Better that he let me prepare the path. On the way back I felt my body ache and realized that it was for want of him. I offered to go to his room tonight, but he nearly fainted at the thought. “I am your Father’s guest. Please do not even suggest that I abuse his hospitality and betray his trust. It would be a disgrace.” Thanks be to God that you are here, Great-Aunt Zahra. I could not have kept it to myself much longer.’
Zahra sat up in her bed and hugged Hind. Her own life flashed by and made her shiver. She did not want this girl, on the threshold of her life, to make the same mistakes, to be scarred by the same emotional wounds. She would talk to Umar and Zubayda on behalf of the young couple. The boy was clearly poor, but times had changed. To her great-niece she offered only words of encouragement.
&
nbsp; ‘If you are sure of him, then you must not let go. I do not want any talk a hundred years from now of a green-eyed youth who wandered round these mountains, desolate and heartbroken, confiding to the river his yearning for a woman named Hind.
‘Look at me, my child. A pain still oppresses my heart. I was burnt by love. It devoured my insides till there was nothing left at all and I began to open my legs to any caballero who wished to enter, not caring whether I enjoyed or disliked the experience. It was my way of destroying all that was sensitive in myself. It was when they found me naked on the tracks outside Qurtuba that they decided to send me to the maristan in Gharnata. Never make my mistakes. Far better that you run away with this boy and discover in six months that all he wanted was to feast on these two peaches than to accept a refusal from your parents. The first will cause you misery for perhaps a few months, even a year. The second will lead to despair, and despair gnaws at one’s soul. It is the worst thing in the world. I will talk to your mother and father. Times have changed and, in any case, your Ibn Daud is not the son of a servant in this house. Now go to your own room and dream of your future.’
‘I will, Great-Aunt, but there is a question which, with your permission, I must ask you.’
‘Ask!’
‘There is a story in the village about Great-Uncle Miguel ...’
‘Oh yes! That old business about the weaver’s daughter. It is not a secret. What of it?’
‘Nothing. It was never a secret in the first place. What I meant to ask is if what they say about Miguel and his mother, the Lady Asma, is true?’
Zahra shut her eyes very tight, hoping that darkness would obscure the memory of that pain, which Hind wanted her to relive. Slowly her face relaxed and her eyelids were raised.
‘I do not know the answer. I had already been expelled from this house and was living in Qurtuba at the time. We used to call Asma “Little Mother,” which made us all laugh, even Ibn Farid. I was very upset when I heard that Asma was dead. Meekal? Miguel?’ Zahra shrugged her shoulders.