Granada

by Raḍwá ʻĀshūr

  On another day he would either follow exactly the same route, or he would begin by paying a visit to his son and his parents at the Sahl Ibn Malik Cemetery. He would recite the opening chapter of the Quran, and then cross one end of the quarter to the other to visit the Potters' Cemetery and speak with a friend of his who was buried there. Abu Jaafar always kept a vigilant eye on Granada's buildings, its schools, mosques, hospices, shrines, and public gardens, as though he had been commissioned to draw detailed sketches of them. He would leave the house and come back without talking to a soul, and when it was absolutely necessary to do so, he said only what had to be said.

  There wasn't much work in the shop since business became scarce with people emigrating, and those who remained couldn't afford the luxury of even thinking about binding expensive manuscripts. His wife blamed his silence on their financial difficulties and tried to help solve their problems, but every time she raised the subject, he cut her off.

  "Sell the house at Ainadamar."

  "It belongs to Hasan. I bequeathed it to his father, and now it's his to inherit."

  "What about the manuscripts?"

  "Those must remain for Hasan and Saleema. It's all I have left to give them."

  "You could let Saad and Naeem go."

  "They don't deserve that. Besides, shall I throw them out into the streets?"

  "There's really no need to send the children to school."

  "Saleema loves to learn, and Hasan has to!" Abu Jaafar acted as though the situation was under control and that nothing at all had changed.

  "How will we manage, Abu Jaafar?"

  "I've got little left of this life, so let me do as I please."

  The anxieties that gnawed away at the hearts of the adults and sent many of them to an early grave had little effect on the young men who sprouted to maturity with hearts palpitating in the presence of young girls with kohl-lined eyes and safely concealed firm young breasts that toyed with their steaming imaginations.

  Saad and Naeem laughed whenever they reminisced about the time they first met, when Saad would say that Naeem was arrogant for someone who had the size and color of a mouse, while Naeem complained that Abu Jaafar inflicted on him an insufferable, ill-tempered coworker. They were no longer merely colleagues who spent their young lives sharing a room in the same shop where they worked, but intimate friends who knew each other s life story as if it were their own. They were never apart, and the inhabitants of the Paper Makers' Quarter referred to them as "two fannies in one pair of drawers."1 They were always seen together in their comings and goings, dressed in the same clothes that they shared, although Saad's clothes always seemed a bit too baggy for Naeem and Naeem's a tad tight for Saad. Saad was a year older than Naeem. He had an olive complexion and a smooth face with a sullen and stern look. He grew a mustache that camouflaged his big nose and thick lips. His big black eyes that used to arouse attention only a few years ago now appeared less conspicuous as his eyebrows grew thicker. But that was the most distinguished feature of his face, the depth of his black eyes and a sullen, gaunt look that eclipsed his other features. He was of medium height and build with broad shoulders. Naeem was much thinner than his friend although they were practically the same height. He had a complexion that bordered on the yellowish, with finer features and silky, chestnut hair. There was a faint shadow of blond fuzz above his upper lip that he longed to see fully grown, but that hadn't yet. His soft features and his honey-colored eyes that sparkled with a gleam of intelligence added sweetness and elegance to his face.

  1. This is the literal translation of an Arabic expression that is the functional equivalent of two peas in a pod."

  Naeem still looked like a young boy although he was now fourteen. And besides, he was one who fell in love easily, head over heels, living in a world of perpetual passion. He would see a girl whose beauty captivated him and his heart would beat a mile a minute. His face would beam, and like a madman he would inquire about her name, family, and where she lived. His feet would drag him each day to her neighborhood in the hopes of getting a glimpse of her. He would repeat her name and write it on a small amulet he kept around his neck for two, three, or four weeks, until another object of his affection would take her place in his heart and in his amulet.

  Saad laughed and made fun of Naeem, which angered him, and they would end up quarreling practically all day long. But at night, when they closed the door of the shop, Naeem longed to stop his bickering and confront Saad:"You hurt my feelings!"

  "Sorry, I was only kidding."

  What started out as mutual teasing and ended up in playful banter always got them laughing, as they repeated their verbal jabs like some exotic but familiar ritual that provoked an eruption of restrained speech that gushed forth in strong, loud spurts.

  It fell to Saleema to convince her grandfather to let her and her brother go. Abu Jaafar insisted that it was a parade like any other, and that he didn't see any special reason why they should go.

  "I beg you, Grandfather, please let us go."

  "I don't see why I should," he responded.

  But Saleema wouldn't give up and persisted throughout the following day, this time with the help of her grandmother who took the position that she saw no reason at all not to let them go if it meant so much to them and made them so excited. She pulled Abu Jaafar aside and whispered in his ear: "Abu Jaafar, they're just children. They shouldn't be mourning, and they're impatient. Let them go, at least for my sake."

  Whenever Saleema got an idea in her head, she would become so obsessed with it that no one individual nor the whole family in unison could sway her from it. If she wanted something, she held her ground and persisted in asking, never flinching or backing down one bit, nor would she let anyone rest in peace until she got what she wanted. Her mother would say of her, "Saleema has the qualities of a gnat, constantly droning, and useless in the house!" Umm Jaafar would laugh and say that Saleema was like the queen of Sheba, who wanted to give orders and be obeyed and not take orders from anyone else. She even nicknamed her "Sheba."Yet despite all the joking, Umm Jaafar was concerned that her granddaughter didn't even know how to fry an egg, and unlike other girls of her age from the neighborhood, she didn't help her mother at all with the housework. Rather, it was her brother, two years her junior and more active and experienced than she, who was sent to the town's public ovens, carried the trays offish and flat loaves of bread, who waited and paid the oven attendants and returned with the cooked food.

  Abu Jaafar on the other hand wasn't concerned about any of this in the least. He was all too aware of the fact that the girl's laziness was completely compensated for by something else. Her mind was as sharp as a razor, and she never stopped poking around, observing, studying, and asking questions. She was only nine but had already learned by heart a third of the Quran and could recite it effortlessly and write in a clear and elegant hand. Her teacher marveled at how quickly she understood and readily grasped the complexities of Arabic grammar. As he watched her, it would touch his heart deeply to see how much his granddaughter, who had inherited his own blue eyes, had her father's bright, attentive look, his intelligence and vivaciousness.

  These days Saleema was totally absorbed by what was constantly being said about the discovery of a new world.

  "Why is it new?" she asked.

  "Because it was recently discovered. Before now, we didn't know that it existed."

  "But that doesn't make it new, Grandfather. When I first heard the expression I thought that God created it only recently, and I imagined its trees were little trees and that all the creatures in it were tiny newborns." She laughed at her own words, and then said, "How stupid of me!"

  In the end Abu Jaafar gave in and allowed Saleema and Hasan to go to the parade but only on condition that Saad and Naeem accompany them. He warned Hasan, "Watch out for your sister. There may be Castilian boys who don't respect girls from good families. Be careful, and make sure you hold her hand. Don't take your eyes off of her for one sec
ond."

  Two days later, the four of them set out to the town where the parade was to take place.

  Although there was a cold breeze, the sky was clear, and the rays of the sun beamed on the river and warmed up the air, making it a pleasant spring morning. They chatted and chuckled with laughter, excited by the journey on which they were embarking and the wonderful parade that they couldn't wait to see. As they approached the parade site, the crowd grew dense and the roads swarmed with people. Even the balconies, window ledges, and rooftops that looked onto both sides of the streets were overflowing with spectators. Everyone seemed highly animated, talking, laughing, calling out to one another, or buying something for the children from the vendors who sold fresh almonds, dried figs, or honey-soaked cakes. Then, suddenly, the crowd calmed down and the voices lowered, as necks began to stretch and eyes peered up ahead toward the top of the road. They could make out the rolling of the drums and the blowing of the bugles as the rifles and the bells rang out. These sounds magnified as they got closer, while the crowds drew to a near silence. People opened their eyes as wide as they could in the hopes of seeing as much as possible. The flag bearers appeared waving colorful flags, followed by the members of the band dressed in Castilian uniforms with their form-fitting trousers that came to the waist, their embroidered jackets, and caps. A man yelled out in Spanish, "Here he is! Look!" He was pointing to a horseman mounted on a magnificent white stallion trotting gracefully and rhythmically as though taken by its own beauty.

  "Long live Christopher Columbus! Long live Christopher Columbus!"

  The bearded horseman raised his black cap and with it waved to greet the crowds. He flashed a broad smile as though he were a king of kings. Saleema shouted, consumed by excitement, "They say that the land he discovered is full of gold and silver, and that he's now on his way to Barcelona to offer the king and queen the treasures he found."

  "Why doesn't he keep the treasures for himself?" Hasan asked.

  "They don't belong to him."

  "Why not?" Hasan asked.

  She answered, "The king and queen gave him the money he needed for the trip. It's as if they lent it to him to make the trip. Look, Saad, look!"

  When the battalion of horsemen following the admiral passed, there appeared rows of men carrying large cages of magnificent birds of the most extraordinary colors. Some of the birds were as small as sparrows, others the size of parrots, and some were as large as geese. There were birds with gigantic talons the likes of which no one had ever seen. Some had exquisite crests that looked like crowns. Then next in the parade came men bearing glass chests through which you could see exotic creatures: huge spiders, giant snakes, and gruesome reptiles that made you frightened at the mere sight of them. The people followed the procession awestruck, riveted by something between excitement and fear of the strange new world that this grand knight had discovered.

  And then, as though the organizers of the parade wanted the spectators to hold their breath, a group of men carrying all sorts of plants and vegetation marched, and soon the streets were adorned with palm leaves, not those of the familiar kinds, but branches of trees of unknown species. There were fruits in a brown shell that looked like wool, and some with peels as though they were cut from the trunk of a palm tree. Next came men carrying glass chests similar to those that passed by not too long before and through which you could see as plain as day what was inside, shimmering in the sunlight and dazzling to the eye. A woman shouted out, "It's gold, pure gold!" The shout was repeated as the people stood speechless, with hearts pounding anxiously and eyes widening to get a better look at the chests that encased the pure gold. Sand of gold, whole slabs of solid gold, large ingots no one could have ever possibly imagined in his or her wildest dreams.

  "Long live Christopher Columbus," a woman cried out. This time the cry was repeated but not as enthusiastically as it had been before, perhaps because the surprise and excitement had sapped much of the people's bodily strength.

  "It's not a new world," Saleema cried out to her companions, "it s just a different world, and that's all there is to it."

  The parade's amazing attractions were not quite over. As the procession continued, the captives appeared, and whispers spread rapidly through the rows of spectators. "It's the natives, there they are, the inhabitants of the new world!" They walked along slowly, hands tied behind their backs while the guards surrounded them on both sides. They had delicate features and slender, fragile bodies. The men, like the women, had long, flowing jet-black hair that came down to the shoulders. Yet underneath the Castilian clothing they were made to wear, their differentness was all too obvious, not only in their physical features and the look in their eyes, but also in the colored feathers that stuck out of the bands they wore around their heads. Although strange indeed, they were not at all repulsive to look at. On the contrary, they were attractive in their refined faces and their graceful physiques, or perhaps in something else about them. Many of the Spaniards were laughing. Saleema turned to Saad and asked, "What are they laughing about?"

  "I don't know." The laughter also took Saad by surprise. At first it baffled him, and then it made him angry.

  "Saad, do you see that girl?" Naeem asked.

  "Which one?"

  "The prisoner who's wearing the white robe?" Naeem pointed to a young woman thin as a rail who had stumbled and fallen down, but when one of the guards rushed forward and tried to help her get up, she pushed him away with her shoulder and regained her balance, standing up by herself although her hands were chained, and continued to walk.

  "I wonder what her name is?"

  "How should I know?"

  "If only I knew her name!"

  The procession went forth immersed in a cacophony of rattling tambourines and beating drums, while the whistling of flutes mixed with the roar of discharging artillery and the boisterous guffaws of the masses. But the four youngsters were dumbfounded by the fact that all the cheer that was bursting in their hearts had mysteriously disappeared. They hadn't noticed that it slipped away and was now replaced with a melancholy that seemed to overtake the entire parade. They watched in silence the cuffed hands behind the backs of the captives, the slow, deliberate pace, the bowed heads, and those sudden, furtive looks that stared them right in the eye whenever a captive looked at them and they at him.

  "Why don't we go home?" Saleema suggested.

  "Let's go. Where's Naeem?"

  They stood there for a while and waited for him to come back. But the longer they waited, the more anxious they became. Saad wanted to go and look for him but felt constrained by the promise he made to Abu Jaafar not to leave the children alone, not even for a blink of the eye. They waited some more and then Saad decided that they should go back.

  "Let's go back to Albaicin. Hopefully Naeem will have already gotten there before us." Saad didn't reveal to them, however, his intention to come back and look for his friend. On the way home, Hasan and Saleema kept assuring themselves that Naeem had gone back into town, and Saad was quick to agree with them that was most likely what had happened. But deep down he didn't believe a word of it, and his heart grew heavy with worry.

  Silently they walked through the mountain passes as the sun went down and the colors of the hills faded, giving way to the impending night. Saad was thinking about the procession of captives that had come and gone. He wondered whether they attacked them by land and sea the way they did to the people of Malaga. Did they starve them to the point of forcing them to eat their own horses? Or did they raze their homes and pounce on them before taking them away as prisoners?

  At the beginning of the summer, the warm weather follows the copious rains that bring to the land the scent of fresh wet grass. The grown-ups say, "The Malaga Palace has fallen and the Castilians are coming." The grown-ups say, "They arrived and pitched camp outside the walls of the city. They dug trenches and they built towers and wooden bridges. They set up Italian artillery posts. King Ferdinand arrived, and then Queen Isabella came fr
om Cordova."His father says that Hamid al-Thaghri, who led a heroic defense of the town of Ronda, was asked immediately after its fall to become leader of the garrison at the fortress of Gibralfaro, which overlooks Malaga. His father says that al-Thaghri came down from the fortress with his troops, removed the governor of Malaga who intended to surrender it, and set up a blockade around the city. That's the only thing that the grown-ups talk about. They hear the words and sometimes they understand, and at other times they don't. In either case, they repeat what they hear in playful imitation.

  Racing through the neighborhoods, playing hide-and-go-seek behind the trees, and stealing sour grapes from the neighbors' vineyards all came to an end with the onslaught of the new pastime: they give each other roles and then get into disputes and wage battles with one another. Everyone wants to be al-Thaghri or, at least, one of his soldiers, and then, in the end, settle for the part of King Ferdinand or one of his senior officers, or perhaps a knight. They have everything they need,for there is an abundance of things to choose from, either from home or in the streets. Someone sneaks out a clay vessel and uses it as Ferdinand's crown by turning it upside down and placing it on top of the head; by becoming taller he turns into a king. Or the branches of the trees are made into ready-made swords, while small pebbles turn into gold dinars and stones become precious gems. An old garment is wrapped around one child's head, thus becoming an awesome turban, transforming him into a prosperous and powerful merchant.

  With the clay vessel towering above the others, King Ferdinand summons three of his knights and commands them to go to Malaga. "Tell them to surrender the city. "The knights bow before him, kiss his small hand, and turn around and head out to convey his message to the other side. "King Ferdinand orders you to surrender. "The turbaned heads draw close and huddle in consultation. The merchant speaks: "If we don't surrender, he will destroy us."