by Nina Clare
“So the little songbird flew down to the river bank and she sang a lovely song.
“Little Songbird,” said the crocodile, “I cannot hear you so far away on the river bank. Come and sit on my long nose and sing me a song.”
“So the little songbird flew to the crocodile and sat on its long nose and sang a lovely song. But while she was still singing, the crocodile opened its mouth and snap went the crocodile’s mouth to eat the little songbird.
“But the crocodile only ate a tail feather, for the little songbird flew up in the air just in time.
“But the little songbird had been given such a fright by the crocodile, that now she found she could not sing. She opened her pretty little beak, but nothing came out. The crocodile had eaten her voice.
“The little songbird was very sad that she could not sing any more. She flew away from her pleasant home in the mango-berry tree and she sat in an old spiney-bush feeling very sad.
“One day a big lion-dog walked past the spiney-bush and he saw the little songbird sitting among the horrible spines looking very sad.
“How is it that a little songbird is sitting in a spiney-bush with no song?” The lion-dog asked the little songbird. But she could not answer him, because she had no voice.
“Would you like to have your song back, Little Songbird?” asked the lion-dog.
“The little songbird nodded her pretty head, but she could not answer him.
“Then suddenly – there was a noise and a bright light as though a thundercloud had burst in front of the spiney-bush, and instead of a lion-dog there stood a beautiful lady with a robe made of flowing water.
“I am the fairy lady of the river,” the beautiful lady said. “I have seen what that wicked crocodile has done to you, little songbird, and I have sent him far away and taken back your song from him. And she opened her hand and something like a shining star was in her hand, and she touched the little songbird’s beak with the shining star and the little songbird opened her mouth and she sang the most beautiful song she had ever sung.
“Thank you, fairy lady of the river!” sang the little songbird. “Thank you for giving me my song back!”
“And the little songbird flew back to her home in the mango-berry tree and all the day long she sang a song of thanks to the fairy lady of the river. And she was very happy, and everyone who heard her sing said that it was the most beautiful song they had ever heard a songbird sing.”
Bibi gave a tiny smile and tucked the little stone she always carried back inside the cotton band around her waist before she fell asleep.
Disgrace
Shula-Jane was feeling a growing anxiety every morning when she awoke. The new rooms and gardens were nearing completion. It would not be more than two or three new moons before all was finished, and then Toufik would be pressing her father for a wedding date.
Her second anxiety was that her father did not seem himself these days. For many weeks she had noticed little changes in him. She had noticed the tiredness in his eyes and in his limbs; the new lines that seemed to spring up like jasmine tendrils over his face; a weakening in his voice as though talking took too much effort some evenings; a slowing in his step; a lessening of his appetite. Even Emmi Rashida had not noticed these things, but Shula-Jane had.
So when her father collapsed at court, was carried home on a litter, and attended to by the royal physician, though her Emmi was surprised, Shula-Jane was not.
He had seemed to recover in not many days, and had brushed off the bout of illness as having been due to being out in the midday heat too long the previous day of his collapse. But Shula-Jane was not fooled. Though he returned to his work at the palace, the tiredness in his eyes, the new fine lines in his face, and the slowness of his step did not improve. It worsened.
Felix found her weeping in the hidden alcove behind the phoenix trees one afternoon.
He hesitated, not sure if he should approach her and try to comfort her, or if he ought to slip away before she noticed he was there, but she lifted her head and saw him. She did not signal him to leave, so he moved to the stone bench beneath the trees and sat down beside her.
She was wearing silk today, for the gardening work was nearly completed. Felix had another small area to clear before Shula-Jane could finish the last of the planting.
He did not know what to say to comfort her, but he instinctively took her hand, the way he would have taken Cicely’s hand should he have found her weeping. Dear Rosie. Dear, poor Rosie. How strange that he should find himself many kingdoms away from home sitting beside another young woman who was grieving over her father’s choice of husband for her.
Shula-Jane gave a startled glance up at him when he took her hand in his rough, calloused one. No man except her father had ever taken her hand, had ever touched her. But he had such a kind and sorrowful look in his eyes, as though he wanted to communicate through the gentle pressure of his fingers upon hers that he shared in her pain. He knew grief and suffering and he was a fellow partaker with her.
“It is not for myself that I weep,” she told him. “It is not because of Toufik. It is for my father.”
“Because your father has been unwell?”
“He is still unwell. But he won’t admit it. But I see it. I see him growing weaker as the weeks pass, and I fear that he...that he will...leave me.”
She could not say the word “die”.
“I suppose I am weeping for myself. For what would I do without Papa? He is everything to me. What will my life be like without his love? Without his protection?”
“I am sure he will be well,” was all Felix could say, with a squeeze of her slender fingers.
They sat side by side for some time. It felt strangely right to be there, hand in hand. As though they were kindred spirits – two souls passing through the trials of life, but able to reach out and comfort one another with friendship. With love.
But the feeling of rightness and comfort was shattered into countless shards of jagged, piercing fragments. Shattered by the sudden appearance and raised voice of Toufik, who had silently approached the hidden stone seat where they sat, and now came upon them – his betrothed wife and the pale-skinned slave sitting hand in hand as though they were equals, as though they were lovers.
And the jealous fury of Toufik burst forth like an enraged lion.
That day was dreadful. The only day in her life that Shula-Jane had ever known that was as bad as that day was the day her mother had died.
Felix had been dragged away, bound and shut up in the windowless stone storeroom where the chickens were herded into every evening to protect them from the jackals.
Shula-Jane was confined to her sleeping room. Emmi Rashida watched over her. Not even Zinga and Bibi were permitted to attend upon her. Only her father could help her. May he return home soon! But what grief of heart awaited him when he did return? Shula-Jane felt as though the world had turned dark about her, as though she had been plunged into a nightmare.
Emmi Rashida’s disapproving face appeared in the archway to her room. Her voice was tight and shrill.
“You will come, Shula. Your father is home.”
Shula-Jane smoothed down her yellow silk robe and straightened the silk scarf about her black hair. She stood tall with her shoulders back; she was not going to slink past Emmi as though she were guilty. She had done no wrong; she had given and received friendship. Yes, it was not usual for such a friendship between a mistress and a servant. But it had come to her at a time of sadness, and she would not be ashamed, for it came from a pure heart.
Emmi Rashida followed her close behind. Shula-Jane could feel the burning glare of disapproval between her shoulders as she walked.
Her courage almost fled when she entered the room where her father was seated. The look on Toufik’s face – a hard, sharp look of disgust that emanated from the black glitter of his adamantine eyes, it seemed to fill the room like a foul spirit ready to judge and condemn her in her father’s eyes, and punish her f
orever.
She did not care what Toufik thought of her, but if her father thought ill of her – if his utter trust in her goodness was broken by the accusations of the man he called his son – then Shula-Jane’s spirit would fail and she would never know another happy day on this earth. She would live as one accursed.
She did not speak. She knelt before her father as she always did each evening, and she took his hand and kissed it in greeting as she always did. She said the words she always said.
“I am happy you are home, Papa. How was your work today?”
She was relieved that her father did not pull his hand away from her. He looked searchingly into her eyes, and she did not flinch from his gaze. She would not show guilt. She would not speak in her own defence before he asked her to.
“I am happy to see you, my daughter,” was her father’s familiar reply. She noted the fatigue in his eyes. She saw that he was troubled. She waited for him to speak again.
“Toufik was distressed today,” he began. “He believed that he had seen you,” he broke off, and seemed to be having a momentary struggle to breathe properly. Shula-Jane gripped his hand in her concern. He patted it in reply and continued. “Believed he had seen you sitting with one of the servant boys in a way that displeased him.”
He leaned back against the carved wooden back of his chair as though it had emptied him of something to say the words.
“Yes it displeased me!” cried Toufik. “Displeased me to see my betrothed wife sitting next to a servant and holding his hand!”
Abu Sabri shuddered at his words. Shula-Jane squeezed her father’s hand again.
“Papa,” she began, unable to keep her voice from quivering, it was life and death to her whether she could make her father believe her voice above Toufik’s.
“It is true that I was speaking with the servant that we bought last year. We speak often because we understand Anglianese and it makes me feel the memory of my mother closer when I hear her language spoken. And it is true that when we spoke today I was very grieved, and he showed goodness to me in trying to comfort me in the way that the Anglianese show comfort to one another, which is to take one’s hand and speak words of kindness. And that is what Toufik saw today.”
Her father looked at her with such a weary look that it was bitter to her soul.
“What were you grieved about?” he asked.
She dropped her head and said quietly, “I was grieved about you, Papa.”
“Me?”
“Yes, Papa. I fear that you are not well. That each day that passes you grow weaker in spirit and more tired in body. I fear and I grieve that I will lose you, and then my heart will be utterly broken.”
She could not stop the tears from dropping from her bent head onto her father’s hand. She heard him sigh deeply. She felt him place his hand upon her bowed head.
“You have heard,” Abu Sabri said quietly to Toufik. “My daughter has done no wrong. It is a misunderstanding.”
“Done no wrong!” came the angry retort. “To act as she did with a servant! With a slave!” He was pacing about the room in his anger. Shula-Jane kept her head bent and her eyes squeezed shut.
“It is a misunderstanding,” repeated her father. “My daughter is too pure, too innocent in her ways to understand what she did. You will take the servant to the slave market and sell him. And then we will never speak of this again.”
“He ought to be flayed alive for his transgression!” snarled Toufik. “He ought to be whipped at the very least. No slave should ever lay one finger upon a mistress of the house.”
“He is a foreigner. He does not understand our ways,” said Abu Sabri. “It was my error in not ensuring he was properly trained before I let him serve my daughter. The fault rests on me. It rests on my sister also.”
Shula-Jane heard Emmi Rashida gasp at her brother’s words.
“My fault?”
“I left my daughter under your care, Rashida, under your eye. Shula-Jane should have been able to take her concerns to you, and not seek comfort elsewhere.”
Shula-Jane could not see her Emmi, for she stood behind where she sat at her father’s feet, but she knew her well enough to know that she would be bristling with anger and humiliation at her brother’s words of rebuke.
“We have all a part to play in this unfortunate day,” said Abu Sabri. “But I will have no violence under my roof – the house of Abu Sabri is a house of peace. Toufik, you will sell the boy at the next slave market and then we will speak no more of this. We will never speak of this again.”
He spoke with finality. Shula-Jane heard Toufik’s heavy footfall as he stormed out of the room. She heard the rustle of Emmi Rashida’s robe and the patter of her footsteps as she hurried out after her son. She lifted her head and kissed her father’s hand again in gratitude to him for his mercy to her and to Felix. He looked sorrowfully back at her.
“This is a bitter lesson for us, my daughter. It is a bitter day that may have ramifications for your future. Your husband may not see you as he ought after this day, and that grieves me greatly.”
Moonrise
Shula-Jane felt an urgent compulsion to go to Felix and see that he had food and water, and was not in despair. But how could she? An atmosphere of cold suspicion and judgement had settled upon her home. She heard it in her Emmi’s voice when she spoke to her; she felt it in the air when Toufik entered the house; she was certain she saw it in the faces of the servants, caught a trace of it lingering in the air from their hushed conversations when she passed them by. Only her father still showed her the same warmth and love he had always done, but the weariness in his eyes and the lines upon his face were greatly deepened. She was certain she had worsened her father’s ill health, and that was by far the worst punishment she could have suffered.
She spent her days in the quiet, private places of her garden. She would only permit Zinga and Bibi to be near her and to wait upon her; she shunned everyone else. Emmi Rashida did not seek her out. She was utterly disgraced in her Emmi’s eyes.
She took her beading work to the garden, sitting under the phoenix trees on mats of woven palm leaves. Zinga was growing quite adept at sewing the beads into fringing. Bibi made patterns on the mat with the beads; always she arranged her patterns around the piece of rock that she carried about with her. Keita lay close by, appearing to sleep, but his ears pricked at every sound.
“Is Bibi’s stone important?” Shula-Jane asked Zinga, looking at the patterns Bibi was making.
“Mmhm.” Zinga nodded her head of tight braids.
“Why?”
“The white man gave it her in the slave market. He said it was a magic stone.”
“Felix gave it to her? How do you know he said it was magic?”
Zinga shrugged her thin shoulders, her head to one side. “I saw that it was a magic stone.”
Shula-Jane resumed her beadwork. Zinga was full of fancies.
“The magic stone wants to go back to its owner,” said Zinga.
Shula-Jane glanced up again, wondering if this idea in Zinga’s imaginative mind was about to be spun into a new story. Bibi was listening closely and fingering the stone. Shula-Jane decided to humour Zinga.
“Does the stone say it wants to back to Felix?”
Zinga shrugged again. “The stone does not tell me anything. The magic tells me.”
“And how does the magic tell you?”
“The magic is in the air. It tells me if I listen carefully.”
“What else does it say?”
Zinga tilted her head further to the side so that her short plaits dropped down like seedpods hanging from a tree. She had an intense look on her face as thought she were indeed listening hard.
“The magic says strange men are coming.”
“Coming here?”
Zinga nodded.
“Why are they coming?”
I don’t know. The magic never says why.”
Shula-Jane did not ask any more questions. Zinga’s answ
ers would only grow more obtuse and nonsensical.
“I miss Felix,” Shula-Jane said, not realising she had voiced the words out loud until Zinga’s plaits bobbed up and down with a nod of agreement.
“Keita misses him too. He likes him,” Zinga said.
“Did Keita tell you that?”
Zinga rolled her dark brown eyes. “Keita is a dog – he does not speak.”
“Poor Felix,” said Shula-Jane, dropping her beadwork as a familiar wave of sorrow passed over her. Felix had not been seen in the days since Toufik had locked him into the hen house. She had seen a servant boy carry a cup of water and a palm leaf of food out to the house. But it was a very small portion of water and food for one the size of Felix.
She knew the monthly slave market would be held on the next new moon. It would not be many days till he was released from his captivity. But what future awaited him? The thought that she would never see him again filled her with grief. She had not many friends in this world. Apart from her father and the childish companionship of Zinga, she had no friend in this world.
“I wish I could see him to know how he is,” she said, speaking her thoughts aloud again.
“Go to him when the sun has set, before the moon rises high,” said Zinga. “No one will see you.”
“Ibram keeps watch at night,” said Shula-Jane.
“Not until the moon rises. I hear him go out and come in. He does not go out until there is moonlight.”
Shula-Jane thought this over. Would she dare? Should she? If she were caught it would be a terrible disgrace. Her father would not, could not, show such leniency a second time at her indiscretion. But Ibram would not betray her, would he? He had watched over her since she was a child. A great struggle began inside her.
The struggle reached its zenith as Shula-Jane watched the last rays of crimson melt from the horizon. She would go that night. It was partly her fault Felix was suffering such a fate, being shut up for days, half-starved, and in the dark. What kind of a friend would she be if she did not try to comfort him in his distress? And she longed to see him. It was unthinkable that he would soon be gone – sold and sent who knew where throughout the kingdom or beyond. There had been a meeting of two young, troubled souls between them. She could not stay away from him.