Beck: a fairy tale

by Nina Clare

  As she turned to return to the house she thought she heard a noise. She held her breath, listening hard. A scuffling noise, a snuffling noise. The noise of a horse. She followed the sound; she had not run many steps until she saw the horse, and standing next to it a second one. They were tied to a palm tree, their dark bodies hidden by the shadows. The strangers had returned. But where were they?

  She heard footsteps behind her, someone running towards her. She turned to see – it was one of the servant boys. He must have come from the city where he had been sent to call on the mourning musicians. They would come soon, with their bamboo flutes, their cora, their talking drums and their wailing and lamenting. She stepped into the shadows and waited till he had passed up towards the house. Then she lifted her gown and ran also.

  She skirted the house; she could run into Ibram at any time, he regularly walked about the grounds through the night. She saw a shape in the shadows ahead of her and stopped. It looked like the form of an animal – she stood still, her heart pounding, the sound of her blood in her ears – was it a cheetah? They often came into the gardens at night. The creature moved forward in a feline, loping movement. She froze. As it neared she nearly let out a cry – a cry of relief, for it was Keita coming towards her, lion-like, his eyes gleaming in the dark. If Keita was here, then Bibi was near by, and therefore so was Zinga.

  She saw the two men – Zinga had led them to the chicken house. Heaven bless Zinga! She reached the mud house just as they stepped inside.

  “Zinga, you have done well – but go back to the house now, I do not want you caught.”

  The stench from the house reached her nose, and she covered her face. She heard the men’s voices inside, speaking in that unknown tongue. She heard Felix moan and cry out. They came to the door. The white stranger reached for his sword when he saw her, but the look on her moonlit face told him she was no threat.

  The tall Ifrikan man carried Felix out of his prison. She gasped in horror when she saw the condition of Felix. He was bloodied, and unkempt with matted hair and his clothes as filthy rags.

  She took hold of one of his hands that hung limply at his side.

  “Felix,” she whispered. He looked at her. Her eyes filled with tears. She kissed his dirty hand.

  “Shula-Jane,” he whispered back. “Come with me. You cannot marry him. He is cruel.”

  “My father died tonight,” she said, tears streaming down. “I must bury my father.”

  “If I send for you, will you come to me later – come to Angliana?”

  “How would you send for me?”

  “I will send someone – will you wait for me and not marry him?”

  “What will I do in Angliana?”

  “You will be my wife.”

  She kissed his hand again.

  “I will wait for you. But I will be pressed into marriage, I can only hold him off for a year at most, will you send someone before a year has passed?”

  “I will. I promise.”

  The men stole away, keeping close to the shadow of the palmyra trees that lined the boundary of Abu Sabri’s land. Shula-Jane closed the latch on the chicken house and followed after them. How she wished she was not wearing pale yellow silk that night, she felt exposed to the light of the moon that lit up her silk gown and caused it to glow.

  She hurried on, almost running to keep up with the long, swift strides of the men. The white man had his sword drawn, and Shula-Jane knew by the look she had seen on his face that he would use it if anyone challenged them. She prayed that Ibram would not see them.

  As they passed the back of the house she thought she saw the figure of a man inside the arched shelter of the kitchens. She was certain she saw the dark shape of a man, and fear struck her, but the figure did not move. They passed the house, they were moving quickly down the path that led to the road. She could hear a noise approaching, the sound of wailing and the sound of the drums, the mourning singers were coming.

  The white man untied their horses, he supported Felix while the Ifrikan man mounted and Felix was half lifted, half pulled into the saddle before him. The white man mounted his horse and turned it round to face the direction of the city.

  “Wait until the singers have passed,” Shula-Jane urged.

  “I thank you for you help,” the white man said to her, speaking in Anglianese. “Was it you who wrote the letter?”

  “It was. And may heaven watch over you that you may get safely home.”

  “And you also, my lady.”

  The musicians and singers had passed up the entrance road to the house. Shula-Jane watched the riders set off, their horse’s hooves sounding hollow on the sandy road. She made no attempt to wipe away the stream of tears. Why should she on such a night? She watched until they had gone from sight, and then she followed the mourners up the path to the house.

  The figure she had seen near the kitchens now stood near the entrance to the house. She had known who it was; she knew well the figure of Ibram. He stepped forward to meet her. He had not stopped them when he had seen them, would he now betray her? He bowed his head to her in greeting.

  “Ibram?” she said, causing him to look at her. She studied his face by the light that now streamed out from the door of the house. “You have been watching that all is well in my father’s grounds?”

  “Yes, lady mistress. All is as your father would wish it.”

  Sorrows

  Shula-Jane’s suspicions that Toufik had intended to slowly starve Felix were confirmed by the fact that it was nearly three days before his escape was discovered. She considered the irony that it was Toufik’s cruelty that enabled Felix to have time enough to flee. She did not know if they had fled through the desert or had travelled to the river and escaped by ship. She hoped it was the latter, for the journey would be easier for him, and they would have covered a considerable distance by now. They would be too far away to be pursued.

  But she was not glad that Toufik vented his fury on Ibram. He was responsible for watching the house and grounds. He had failed. And Toufik had him beaten so severely he was unable to take part in the funeral rites for his master. It was nearly two weeks before Shula-Jane saw Ibram again.

  For the first weeks after her father’s death her Emmi and Toufik made little demand on her. She was the hostess for the steady stream of visitors who came to pay their respects to the memory of Abu Sabri. The king sent one of his personal attendants to convey his respects with an expensive gift of precious incense for his funeral.

  But when the visitors ceased to come, then her next sorrows began.

  Toufik demanded that a date be set for their wedding. Shula-Jane stood firm in refusing to settle on a day. She declared her father would not wish her to be hurried out of her mourning period. It was not expected that a woman should marry before a year of mourning had passed. Emmi Rashida insisted that a year of mourning only applied to a woman who had lost her husband. For a father, forty days was the usual period of mourning, and her late brother would have wished the marriage to take place quickly, so Shula-Jane would be comforted in having a husband now she was left an orphan.

  Shula-Jane had to clench her teeth very hard to stop herself from making a retort that she would regret at the thought of Toufik being of any comfort to her. She was only just fifteen, it was not unreasonable or unusual for a girl to wait till she was sixteen to marry. She would not marry before she was sixteen. Her father would never had wished her to, she insisted. Emmi Rashida declared that sixteen was far too long for a girl to wait to marry. The younger the girl was, the more pliable she was to be moulded by her husband into a wife who would please him. Shula-Jane should marry before the rains came that year.

  Toufik grew colder and harder in his looks and words. Sometimes Shula-Jane thought she saw a peculiar look in his eye when he looked at her; a look that reminded her of the fixed stare in the amber eyes of the young lion that had stepped in her path once. The look of a predator eyeing his prey without pity, without mercy, with only
one intent – to consume. She began to fear him. Even if he or Emmi Rashida should begin to beat her, as her Emmi often said she deserved for her stubbornness, even if they beat her she would not consent to marry him before she was of sixteen years. And by then, if God had mercy on her, Felix would keep his promise and send for her, and she would escape as he had done.

  Peace had fled the house with the spirit of Abu Sabri. Toufik ruled by fear.

  Shula-Jane was measuring the passing of time by the cycles of the moon and the passing of the seasons. Her only respite was the time she spent quietly with Zinga and Bibi hidden away in the gardens with Keita. She found some solace in sitting in the gardens that Felix had help her make. Her thoughts were with him night and day, wondering how he fared. Was he well? Had he made it safely home? Did he think of her? Would he remember his promise to her? The strong sun that drove her to shelter from its midday power – that same sun would be shining on Felix far away in Angliana. It would not have such strength, but it was some comfort to know that they shared the light of the sun and the moon, though there were many waters, deserts and lands between them. The feeling of connection they had felt – as though their souls had touched and intertwined – that connection surpassed time and distance. But it was in her body and her mind that her grief lay. That would not be relieved until she could be with him again. If she would ever be with him again in this world.

  The rains came, leaving streams of ochre flowing from the house, down to the road, and into the city. It would not be many moons until Shula-Jane’s sixteenth year came to pass.

  When a year had passed by since Felix had left, and no one had come for her, Shula-Jane’s spirit gave way. She sank into a darkness that she could find no relief from. The physician was sent for, and prescribed his tonics and his powders, and talked of dark spirits that only the witch doctor could deliver her from. She kept to her room and gave most of her meals to Keita. Bibi would sit by her and offer her stone as a comfort. Shula-Jane would take it, and feel strangely strengthened while she held it. Surely it was Bibi’s sweet face that helped her, she concluded. Such a dear, little face, with the wide eyes of a gazelle, eyes that seemed to have seen so much more than such a young child should ever have to see.

  Shula-Jane was passing through the house to the library where she sometimes liked to sit in her father’s seat and lose herself in memories for a time. She heard the shrill voice of her Emmi through the archway to the new rooms where Toufik now resided. She would have hurried on, but Emmi Rashida’s words caught her ear.

  “You can divorce her on the grounds of madness. The physician will write a certificate. She can be sent to the leper house as a madwoman. Why should you be burdened with such a wife? She has never been worthy of you, she was always a troublesome child, an ungrateful girl. I have done with her. You deserve better. Get the betrothal annulled before the court, I implore you. I know of a girl who will be a perfect wife for you, who will be worthy of you, Toufik, and she has an excellent dowry and family connections, you will raise the family name far higher if you marry her. I know her mother will be glad to arrange it. It will be an excellent match.”

  “But I want Shula,” Toufik said.

  “Why? She will not even look at you! Will not speak – what kind of a wife will she make you? What kind of a mother will she make? It is madness – you are as mad as she is if you persist in marrying her!”

  “When she is my wife she will have to look at me. She will have to speak to me. I will make her.”

  “You will not make her, my son. I have raised her since that white-faced mother of hers died, and I can tell you that if Shula does not wish to do something, all the jinn of the netherworld cannot make her. She has been ruined by her father, he let her have her own will in everything.”

  “I will find out how to bend her to my will. And it will pleasure me to do so. I want her.”

  She could not bear to listen to any more. Emmi Rashida’s voice grew sharper as her excitement mounted.

  So her Emmi, the sister of her father, she would have her dragged away to the colony of lepers and madmen where she would be shut up under lock and key and never see the light of day again. And the alternative to such a fate was no better to her mind – to be bent to the will of Toufik. As she sat on her father’s seat dwelling on what she had heard, something inside her stirred, as though the remembrance of her father moved her to remember who she was.

  She would not be a victim to Emmi Rashida or Toufik’s will. Her father had gifted her with wealth; she would make her own life. She would leave. She would travel to the land of her mother. Felix may never send for her. He may be dead, he may have forgotten her, though she was sure he was not dead. She was certain she could feel the connection of the soul between them still alive. But she must leave this house that was no longer her home.

  The thought was terrifying and dizzying in its majestic heights. She had never travelled further than the market place. Never travelled alone. The world was a dangerous place for a young woman. But she would rather perish trying than stay and wither away in this house day by day.

  But where would she find the courage? She would ask for a sign. May God grant her a sign that He would be with her, watch over her by day as the sun, and look upon her for her safety by night as the moon. All her soul and spirit united together in a pleading to the Great Divine. Her mother had told her God was a heavenly father, had taught her to pray to Him as such. Shula-Jane had known the kindness of an earthly father; she would appeal to the mercy of a heavenly one.

  The sign came.

  It came through Ibram.

  He sought her out while she was knelt down, thinning out one of the fire-lily beds that Felix had cleared for her. She was wearing a cotton robe; she had not worn silk since her father died. Her black hair was tied back and partly covered with a cotton scarf.

  “Lady mistress,” Ibram said, appearing between the date palms.

  “Yes, Ibram?” she did not look up, but kept working.

  “I was sent to the market this morning.”

  “Yes?”

  “I passed by the monthly slave-market.”

  “Yes?”

  Just those very words brought back a flood of memories to her. She paused from tugging out roots and sat back on her heels and looked at Ibram. Poor Ibram, her father’s most faithful of servants. Since his master’s death he seemed to have aged, to have grown thinner, his hair greying about the temples, though she was certain he was not above five and thirty years.

  “There was a redeemer there, speaking to all he saw. He was looking for two girls.”

  “Two girls?” Shula-Jane felt a bright flash of foresight in her soul. She knew what Ibram was going to say next.

  “Two sisters from Jinna, who would be of the ages of six and nine years now.”

  “Who is wanting to redeem them?” Her voice trembled.

  “Their brother. He has made money from trading. He wishes to provide a home for them.”

  “Their names?”

  She already knew the answer.

  “Nazinga and Olubibi.”

  Shula-Jane remained sat on her heels staring into the air. This was the sign she had prayed for. The one obstacle to her leaving was what she would do with her maids. She could not leave them behind. But she had felt a strong reluctance to taking them with her. She did not know what danger awaited her, and she felt somehow it would be wrong to take them to a strange kingdom. Somehow she knew they belonged in their native land.

  “Did you tell the redeemer that you knew where they were to be found?”

  “No, lady mistress.”

  “Please return to the market and find the redeemer. Tell him to come to the house.”

  “Yes, lady mistress.”

  When Zinga and Bibi returned with their baskets they found their mistress still kneeling before the lily beds, but with tears flowing down her light brown skin. Keita circled around her, sat down beside her and licked her tears. She hugged him, burying her face
in his great, muscular neck

  “Oh, Keita,” she whispered into his warm, tan body. “You have surely been heaven-sent. I thank you, and I have loved you.”

  Redeemer

  The redeemer was a short, lean man with black skin and a wide smile showing large white teeth. Teeth too big for his hollow face. He rode a donkey, and behind him on a second donkey rode a second man. A young man of perhaps twenty years, with closely shorn black hair and beard. He was well dressed in a gown of patterned linen.

  Shula-Jane watched them riding up the path to the house. When they drew close enough for her to see them clearly, when she could see the features of the second man, recognising the hair of Zinga and the large eyes of Bibi in the man coming towards her, she stepped towards the mimosa hedge, beyond which her maids were still at their work in her gardens, and she called to her maids.

  Zinga came first, her hands and gown streaked with ochre soil. “Yes, mistress?” she asked.

  Shula-Jane looked down into her face. She studied her near-black frizzy braids that lay as a halo about her dark face, her almond shaped eyes – bright with a look of mischief, except for when she was a griot, and then they had a look of wisdom beyond her years. Bibi now appeared, like a little bird, slight and delicate with a pretty mouth shaped like a bow. Bibi who had never spoken one word in all the time she had been with Shula-Jane.

  Shula-Jane pointed and the girls looked down the path. Zinga stared for a few moments. Then she gasped. Then she was flying down the path towards the young man on the donkey who had quickly dismounted at the sight of her.

  “Udo!” shrieked Zinga, flinging herself into her brother’s arms.

  Shula-Jane looked down at Bibi. She was stood transfixed, as though she could not understand what she was seeing. She looked up at Shula-Jane.