The Healer's Warrior

by Lewin, Renee

  “I don’t know what to do, Bahja. I’ve screamed, cried and argued with him enough. I’m tired.”

  “You’ve been trying to shame him into releasing you but he’s already broken. Perhaps you should think back to a happier time with him. Something put a sparkle in his eyes. There’s something about you that he deeply appreciates. That thing is what you must use to motivate him to let you go.”

  Jem’ya’s brows wrinkled. “All I did was treat him like a friend.

  “For a young man of his station, a true friend is sacred.” Bahja smiled and pat Jem’ya’s hand. “Thank you for being a good woman that he could trust and believe in.”

  Jem’ya nodded, distracted by a memory.

  “I must go now and start on my usual work before someone gets suspicious.” Bahja used Jem’ya’s shoulder as a crutch as she stood. She gathered the broom and the wastebasket and locked Jem’ya in the room. Jem’ya remained seated on the floor before the gated door. Her eyes began to water. She let her lids fall closed and saw the starry night sky at her coastal home. She was remembering the first night she invited Tareq to view the stars with her. It was the night her heart surrendered.

  “Come with me to my private observatory,” Jem’ya smiled.

  “You’re an astronomer, too?” Tareq joked as he slipped down from the massage table. He allowed his lips to pull up a couple of centimeters into a smile.

  Jem’ya delighted in seeing Tareq’s smiles become more natural. She’d never met a person to whom playfulness and jest were so foreign. After three months of being his healer, she could see he’d become more relaxed. That he felt safe with her was a boost to her pride. She was soothing her handsome patient in a way she hadn’t foreseen. “Yes, I do occasionally astronomize. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. It’s perfectly natural.”

  Tareq chuckled. “Okay. I’ll meet you outside once I get dressed.”

  Jem’ya went outside. The fresh smell of the sea added to her excitement. She hadn’t invited anyone to her observatory before. With her big toe, she wrote Tareq’s name in the sand by the light of the moon. She erased her sloppy Arabic writing with a swipe of her foot as Tareq stepped out the front door in all-white cotton sleepwear. The pants and white short-sleeved shirt matted against his tall frame as the breeze from the water caught against the fabric. His hands were in his pockets. The light from the lamp inside the house outlined his muscular body with a yellow glow. Jem’ya’s heart was racing.

  “Is something the matter?” Tareq’s dark brows rose.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” she responded with a nervous laugh. “Um…This way.” Smoothing her eyebrow with her fingers as they walked, she led Tareq to the side of the house where the wooden ladder was lying in the shadow of the palm tree. Jem’ya crouched down and lifted the tall ladder. She struggled slightly to balance its weight as she aimed to lean it against the top of the roof. Tareq reached out and held a rung of the ladder to help her position it. Jem’ya blushed. Tareq’s strength made the ladder almost weightless. “I do this all the time, without any help,” she blurted.

  Tareq nodded with a straight face, but Jem’ya could see a hint of amusement in his hazel eyes.

  Jem’ya sighed. “Well, follow me to the observatory.” She climbed up the ladder and pulled herself onto the flat roof. Grinning, she stood up and peered down at Tareq as he started the climb. When she found herself admiring his dark curly hair, she stepped away from the edge and lie down in the middle of the roof to admire the sky instead. Tareq reached the roof. He scanned the area, saw Jem’ya lying with her ankles crossed and her arms crossed over her stomach, and glanced out at the ocean. Then he sat down beside Jem’ya to look up at the sky.

  “You have to lie down for the full effect,” she said.

  He shrugged. “The astronomer knows best.” He reclined until he was flat on his back with his hands under his head. The sound of the waves gently rushing onto the shore filled the silence between them as they were awed by a million pinpoints of white light glimmering in the black velvet sky.

  “Amazing,” Tareq finally said.

  “I bet it goes on forever.” Jem’ya looked over at Tareq.

  His eyes were closed. “Yeah,” he answered softly.

  She giggled. “You’re not even looking.”

  He glanced at her and then up at the night sky. “Sorry. It’s…”

  He trailed off into silence, but Jem’ya encouraged him to speak. It bothered her when he cut himself off. “Go on.”

  “It’s overwhelming…to look up at the expanse of the heavens. It makes one feel so insignificant.”

  “You shouldn’t feel that way. I like to think that the way we look up at the stars and see how beautiful they are, that’s how the Creator feels when looking down from the heavens at us. He sees a magnificent light in every person and living thing. He sees our potential for greatness, even when we don’t see it in ourselves or in the people around us. We are billions of beautiful lights, like a night sky.”

  “You have a wonderful way of seeing things, Mahsalom,” he smiled some, but the smile dropped suddenly once he realized what he’d said.

  “What did you say? Mahsalom? What does that word mean? My grasp of the Samician language is very poor and I’d love to learn more.”

  “It—It’s nothing. Just a… A silly nickname.” He exhaled.

  “A nickname?” she smiled, excited. “Well it can’t be any worse than the one my family gave me.”

  “What do they call you?”

  “ZeeZee, short for chimpanzee.”

  Tareq laughed. “You’re right. It isn’t any worse.”

  “Then please tell me what it means. What is mahsalom?”

  Tareq ran a hand through his dark curls, regretting what he was about to say. Jem’ya had a way of making him speak, as if his reserve would wound her. “In Samician it means ‘my peace’.”

  “How lovely,” she breathed. “Is that a popular nickname among Samhian people?”

  He chuckled and shook his head. His gaze didn’t leave the stars. “It’s only for you, Jem’ya.”

  “Oh.” She fell quiet. Her heartbeat quickened.

  Tareq closed his eyes again. “What you’ve created here, this healing place, is more incredible than you give yourself credit for. Until I came here, I’d never felt the peace I feel now. You and the sea… I never imagined this was possible.”

  Jem’ya pressed her trembling lips together and swallowed away the lump in her throat, but she wasn’t able to intervene against her tears. Patients showered her with thanks all the time, but they never said it the way he said it. They didn’t have Tareq’s voice. Jem’ya quickly wiped away her tears and deflected his gratitude as she always did with patients. “I’m just a stubborn girl who ran away from her problems. My family and my Creator are responsible for everything I’ve done right.”

  Tareq opened his eyes and studied her sad expression. “It takes courage to leave.”

  “Or stupidity. I put my life in danger repeatedly when I left my village in Middle Africa to reach this coast, and all because I was trying to prove something to a man.”

  “Who was he?”

  “He was the man I thought I would marry. He led me to believe that he wanted me to be his wife. His only wife. For two years he courted me, telling me lies and giving me empty promises so that he could control me. After wasting a couple years of my life, he decided to admit that he wanted multiple wives.”

  “What a self-centered fool,” Tareq grumbled.

  “Yeah. That’s why I punched him.”

  Tareq’s jaw dropped. “You hit him?”

  Jem’ya fought a smirk as she nodded.

  “Where?”

  Jem’ya winked her left eye shut.

  Tareq stared at her, in awe. She dared to strike a man. Unheard of! He was suddenly very amused that the sweet, comforting woman beside him had drawn her delicate hand into a fist and thumped a man in the eye. Hearty laughter burst from his mouth.

  Jem�
��ya smiled as she watched him truly laughing with her for the first time. He was even more handsome. His unrestrained mirth was pleasing to her and it reminded her of Kibwe’s reaction to the event.

  “So that’s why you don’t trust men,” Tareq said once he’d regained some composure. “I could tell you mistrusted me the first day I came here.”

  “Of course I didn’t trust you. You were a stranger. And a rude one, too.”

  “Rude?”

  “Yes! No smiles, no small talk, just demands.”

  “Okay, I was ornery. Only because I was in a lot of pain and I was skeptical. I’ve been to dozens of fakes and frauds over the years. I’d lost respect for anyone claiming to be a faith healer. I didn’t believe you could help me with my condition, and I was certain you’d be asking for money eventually, but you never did. I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Don’t take it personally when I’m cross. I’m ill-mannered like my father at times.”

  “I don’t take it to heart at all. If anything, I’m sympathetic, but mostly amused.”

  “Hmm. I shouldn’t worry about your fist, then?”

  She laughed. “Keep worrying. It’s a healthy fear that every man in my life should have.”

  Tareq chuckled. “Your gaze…It’s always so direct. That sobered me when I first met you.” Tareq studied her face in the moonlight. “You are not a woman that lowers her eyes. You’re different.”

  Jem’ya held his gaze, until Tareq’s eyes traced her lips. She turned her face upward to the sky. “Different?”

  “In a good way, I mean. I know that the truth is important to you and that you’re boldness doesn’t leave room for scheming. I, myself, do not trust women. So we’re even in that regard,” he sighed.

  Jem’ya narrowed her eyes at him. “What reason do you have not to trust women?”

  A few beats of silence passed before he answered. “Eventually they leave.”

  “That’s unfair,” she huffed. “Lots of women, most women, are interminably loyal.”

  “And there are men in existence who are not insatiable liars.”

  She sighed and shifted her shoulders to a more comfortable position on the coarse surface of the flat roof. “Fine. You’ve made your point. However, it’s safer, when dealing with most people, to prepare for the worst.”

  “Right.”

  “How interesting that we both have these suspicions against the other gender. Maybe we are to learn something from one another, you and me.”

  “I hope you prove my suspicions wrong.” He smiled at her.

  “I will,” she smiled back. Her voice took on an air of half playful determination. “Since I am your healer, your friend, and a woman, I shall prove you wrong. I will not lie to you and I will never abandon you. Whenever you need me, I will be here, on the Coast.”

  “Thanks,” he laughed, shyly.

  “Well? Aren’t you going to stand up for male-kind and prove me wrong?”

  “Oh. Yes. Um… As a man, and as your…friend, I…”

  Jem’ya grinned as Tareq found his words.

  “I will prove to you that not all men are the same. My eyes will not stray. I don’t need multiple healers to feel like a man. I will have only you, Mahsalom. You are more than enough for me.”

  Jem’ya’s heart filled with appreciation, swelling with bittersweet affection toward the edge of soreness. Her attachment to Tareq became permanent in that moment. She hardly knew him in the ordinary sense, but, in a mystical sense she couldn’t grasp, her heart knew his. Jem’ya smiled, doing her best to hide her infatuation and her nervousness. He’d won her regard so easily. What else could he take from her? “Thanks,” she answered softly.

  Tareq smiled at her, faintly, though his light eyes were intense with a caged sentiment.

  Jem’ya was captivated by his striking eyes. His black full lashes contrasted with his hazel eyes, conveying equally a bright sense of curiosity and a shadowy seductiveness.

  Soon Tareq was eyeing the stars again, quiet, his mouth relaxed into a pensive pout.

  Jem’ya wrestled with the urge for a moment, but finally reached her hand out for Tareq’s. His arm was lying at his side. She slid her palm into his and closed her fingers around his warm hand. She squeezed it in a friendly, gentle manner. Tareq jerked his hand away from her grasp so suddenly it frightened her. Jem’ya looked at him, her face burning with humiliation, her eyes full of questions, but he’d turned his face to hide the answers. She looked at the leaves of the tall palm tree at the side of her house but she didn’t see them. The leaves were a dark, fluttering blur with no meaning. Her mind was swarming with criticism. Why did you do that, Jem’ya? You’ve made a fool of yourself. He’s your patient. He’s a man. Know your boundaries, for your own safety.

  Her neurotic contemplation was muted abruptly when Tareq’s hand took hers. His hand was heavier and larger, and his fingers were thicker than hers but soft and very warm. Her body and her heart sighed, surrendered. His touch made the stars amongst the darkness above seem brighter. Jem’ya smiled and lightly squeezed his hand, ignoring her impulse to admire his face, afraid to lose the moment if the emotion in her gaze should scare him away again. Her sight remained on the sky while her attention was focused on appreciating the masculinity and strength of Tareq’s hand and recognizing the vulnerability in his gesture of reaching out to her after initially pulling away.

  The moment quickly became too much for Tareq. After fifteen seconds he had to release Jem’ya’s hand. He sat up and stood. “Good night, Jem’ya,” he said in a falsely empty voice just above a whisper as he walked across the roof to the ladder. He climbed down and went inside to sleep, hoping he would wake up in the morning and the intensity and complexity of his attraction to her would subside.

  On the roof, Jem’ya pressed her hand against her face, letting the heat Tareq had left in her palm warm her cooled cheek. She wanted things to be simplified into ‘Tareq warms the places that are cold’, but her feelings couldn’t be made simple, or even articulated. Beneath the surface of their rapport lie so much more. Yet it would always be less, because Tareq wouldn’t allow it to grow and because Jem’ya was never completely certain that Tareq felt as she felt.

  After the night on the roof, Tareq became more and more open, Bahja was right. He talked more often, was more playful, was flirtatious, and comfortable with Jem’ya. He touched her and kissed her in a friendly way, a kiss on the hand or a light squeeze of her shoulder, but that was a rare thing. Jem’ya remembered Tareq’s lips from yesterday’s kiss and the weight and strength of his arms around her waist. Month after month at the Coast she secretly wished for that kiss and that embrace. Shamefully, some days, her body outright screamed to join with his. Pride had stopped her from doing anything that could be considered seductive.

  She would ask herself: How can Tareq stand it if he feels the same way? Any other man would have stolen a kiss by now. The fact that he restrained himself was impressive, if he did desire her, but it was also frustrating. It didn’t matter, though. That’s what kept Jem’ya quiet. It didn’t matter that she wanted him. He was an Arab and a Muslim, he was from a wealthy family, she didn’t want to end up being his secret lover, marriage was preposterous, their families didn’t know each other, and she didn’t want to give up her life on the Coast. If Tareq ever decided to claim her as his, he’d want her to sacrifice her interests in order to be devoted to him, as most men required.

  When the months grew eventually into a year, Jem’ya had to accept that he would never claim her the way she hoped. Looking back, that explained why she had sobbed the day he left after giving her the earrings. No matter how beautiful his gifts were, her heart remained unfulfilled. He wasn’t going to go beyond their friendship to give her the gift of being loved. Now, suddenly, he had. He’d stepped over that boundary and held her, kissed her. She was spinning.

  Tareq had done the most horrible thing he could do to her and her family, committing an act that could ne
ver be righted. And then Tareq had given her a solace with his words and his caress that calmed her to the depths of her soul. It had been a harmony she’d never felt before with any other person. How it was possible to find such serenity with him despite the whirlwind of suffering that he’d caused her was something she couldn’t begin to fathom. Somehow during those seconds that she was in his arms, he gave her the gift of love for which she’d been yearning.

  Bahja had implied that Tareq was keeping Jem’ya imprisoned because he loved her. With the childhood Tareq had lived through, Jem’ya was convinced Tareq didn’t know what love was. Tareq himself had explained that the reason he was keeping her was due to his selfish desire to be forgiven. Guilt was his motivation, not love.

  She’d lost her brother. Her best friend. Maybe if she spoke with Tareq in a way that was not accusatory, in the benevolent way that she used to talk to him, she could convey what losing her only full-blood sibling felt like, and explain that if he wanted her forgiveness she needed the freedom to mourn with her family in Tikso, Rwuja.

  Tareq’s hands clenched the metal bar as he pulled his body upward. Sweat dripped down his temple and his chest as he challenged his muscles to bring his face above the bar for the fiftieth time. The palace gymnasium was quiet and empty. He was the only one who used it besides his combat trainer. Qadir had perused the gymnasium once or twice after Tareq’s badgering, but he was too pampered for exercise to be appealing to him. Tareq liked the privacy of the gymnasium most of the time. Other times, like this morning, it was ultimately lonely. That was the good and bad of Tareq’s reclusive disposition; he was untroubled, but he was alone.

  The thick muscles of Tareq’s misted arms, chest and back strained as he raised his chin to the height of his grip on the bar. His fair skin was reddening in places. A drop of sweat traveled down a curl of his black hair and stung his eye. He carefully let go of the bar and fell to his feet as he blinked and wiped at his eye to soothe it. The servant standing at the door took Tareq by surprise. It was his father’s assistant. The short, sloped-shouldered man with the deeply wrinkled forehead and a shock of gray and black hair stood there with his gaze on his feet, waiting to be acknowledged.