The Lioness of Morocco

by Julia Drosten

  “I don’t know,” Emily muttered.

  André put his arm around her. “Understanding is at least a good beginning.”

  She squeezed him. “Father?”

  “Yes?”

  “Did you love Mother?”

  He cleared his throat. “Yes, I did.”

  Emily thought of Aynur, and of her sister, Malika, who was a mere six weeks younger than she.

  “Then why did you . . . ?”

  Her father’s face went blank, his eyes staring back into a time she did not know. She regretted having brought up the past.

  “Please don’t be upset, Father. It’s none of my business.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Mogador, October 1861

  Firyal was dreaming that she was eating couscous. She had almost finished, but she was still hungry, so she scraped the bottom of the bowl impatiently with her spoon until the noise awakened her.

  It took her a few seconds to realize she’d been dreaming. Then she became aware that the scraping sound had not stopped. She sat up in bed and listened. It was coming from the inner courtyard. She carefully slipped out of bed, tiptoed to the door, and peered around the door she always left ajar to let fresh air in.

  The moon was high, full and round, and its silvery light illuminated the courtyard, the leaves on the olive tree, the swing hanging immobile from the sturdy branch, and the bronze hinges on the sundial that had been her master’s pride and joy. Directly in front of the foundation that the master had built, not ten yards away from Firyal, she saw something that made her hair stand on end.

  A black shadow was crouched on the ground. At first it was perfectly still, then it suddenly teetered back and forth, up and down, before sinking onto the ground. All the while it whimpered so ghoulishly that Firyal’s heart almost stopped.

  “A djinn!” she screamed. “A demon! God help this house!”

  The shadow spun around and stared in Firyal’s direction. She slammed the door shut, locked it, and went to take refuge in bed. But she stumbled over a stool and cut open both knees. When she at last made it to her bed, she wrapped herself in the blanket, clutched the amulet she wore around her neck, and began to recite the Koran in a quivering voice: “There is no true god but God! The Ever-Living, the Eternal Master of all. Neither drowsiness nor sleep overtakes Him. His is all that is in the heavens and all that is on earth—”

  There was rumbling, crashing, and noise throughout the house, and she again screamed in fear. The doors on the second floor, where the masters lived, were flung open, and footsteps echoed. Then Firyal heard her mistress’s voice.

  “Thanks be to God! We’re saved!” she whispered and broke into tears.

  “An evil spirit? Nonsense! There are neither good nor evil spirits!” John stood in front of Firyal’s room shaking his head. His hair rumpled, barefoot, and wearing a long white nightshirt, he almost looked like a ghost himself. Victoria stood behind him looking over his shoulder. She was holding a flickering lamp. Her long hair had come out from under her nightcap. Her eyes wide with fright, she watched Sibylla and Nadira as they sat next to Firyal on her bed and tried to calm her. The servant was sobbing loudly and, upstairs, Charlotte and Selwyn had awakened and were howling just as piercingly.

  “I’m going to look after them,” Victoria said, and disappeared.

  “Can you show me where you saw the ghost?” Sibylla asked Firyal. The servant only looked at her in horror and shook her head.

  Sibylla placed her hand on her arm. “Have no fear. We’re here with you. No one is going to hurt you.”

  “Yes, my lady.” Firyal rose and went to the door of her chamber. “There,” she said, pointing to the sundial. “That’s where he was.”

  Sibylla stared at her. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, my lady.” Firyal nodded emphatically. “Over there by the sundial is where the demon was and where he performed his horrific dance.”

  Sibylla stepped outside and squinted into the darkness. At first glance, the place looked the same as always. What if Firyal had just had a bad dream?

  At that moment, the gatekeeper came around the corner, followed closely by the cook. “My lady, master, there was a burglar in the house. Someone broke in through the kitchen door. I found this on the floor.” Hamid showed Sibylla and John a crowbar.

  “So it was a burglar, and he used this to break open the door!” John took the crowbar and turned it over in his hands. “Damn it all, what good are you?” he shouted at Hamid.

  “Hamid’s chamber is on the other side of the house, next to the front door. He couldn’t have heard the burglar any more easily than we,” Sibylla said. “The burglar probably fled when Firyal screamed.” She was trying her best to appear calm, but she was deeply troubled by the incident. Nocturnal burglaries were infrequent in Mogador because the city gates were firmly bolted and carefully watched—although, she supposed, a determined burglar could easily slit the throats of the watchmen. “Don’t you find it strange that he went to the courtyard?” she asked her son. “Why didn’t he go after the valuables in the rooms?”

  “That’s a good point,” John answered. “I’m going to look through everything with Hamid. Perhaps something is missing. I’ll send Victoria down with the children. It’s safer if you all stay together. You’ll be responsible for the women and children.” He pointed to the cook.

  Sibylla went over to the sundial and looked at the ground with a furrowed brow. There was no doubt. Someone had begun to uncover parts of the foundation. But why? Something flashed in the moonlight. She kneeled down and discovered a small shovel that the intruder had left behind. As she looked at it, she realized that the intruder had been looking for something specific and had known exactly where to find it. She had the feeling of an icy hand brushing against her back, of falling into a bottomless abyss.

  This cannot be, she thought. I’m the only one who knows what was buried here, and I have not told a soul. The person who buried the gold, the only other person aside from me who knows about it, is dead!

  But the uprooted soil and forgotten shovel said otherwise. Sibylla scanned the garden, squinting into dark corners, up the wall to the flat roof, while a voice inside her insisted, How can you be so sure that Benjamin is dead? Did you see his body? Did you bury him?

  She looked over at the small group of frightened people in front of Firyal’s chamber. She cared about these people. They were her family and she wanted to protect them from this unidentified danger that had crept into her house.

  Be sensible, she told herself. Stay calm! You saw with your own eyes that the fortress on the Island of Mogador burned down to the foundation walls after the bombardment. No one could have survived such an inferno.

  She pensively stroked the cold, shiny blade of the shovel with her finger. Who had trespassed into her home? Who, except she and Benjamin, knew about the slave gold?

  Mogador, November 1861

  Sibylla watched as the pale veils of steam gathered under the blue, white, and green tiles of the dome and floated away through the vents in the walls. It was an honor to bathe with the wives of Qaid Samir el Tawfiq in their hamam. She enjoyed the scent of frankincense, cloves, and sandalwood wafting from the coal pans, the warmth of the heated marble bench on which she sat, the women’s voices that rippled like a soft melody through the room, and the muffled clatter of their clogs on the stone floor. Not far from her, there were three young concubines splashing in a large, round water basin, naked as the day they were born. Despite their nakedness, all the women here moved about without any shame, and they all looked beautiful in their own way. It did not matter if they were young and slender like gazelles, or whether their bodies showed the signs of age or numerous pregnancies, whether their breasts were like round little apples or like big, heavy pears. Only the slaves, who tended to, washed, and cared for their mistresses, were wrapped in thin cotton robes.

  One of them sat behind Sibylla and massaged a paste made of salt and fragrant honey into her b
ack.

  “Ouch, that hurts!” she complained.

  “Pardon me, Sayyida, but your back is harder than the bench I’m sitting on. You have too many worries,” the slave explained as she kneaded Sibylla’s muscles with expert hands.

  “That may well be,” she mumbled, thinking about the mysterious break-in three weeks earlier. She and John had made inquiries, but to no avail, and the uncertainty was weighing on her.

  “Just let her do her job, Mrs. Hopkins,” Lalla Jasira, sitting on an adjacent bench, interjected. “She will help you feel better. After all, a visit to the hamam should enhance not just one’s beauty but one’s health as well.”

  “I don’t know how I ever lived without this pleasure,” Sibylla agreed. “It is like heaven on earth.”

  “And the perfect way to end a successful business transaction, don’t you think?” Lalla Jasira added with satisfaction.

  She had sold Sibylla a consignment of silk pillowcases for a very nice commission. Her nephew Sultan Sidi Mohammed’s three hundred wives had embroidered them with pearls and gold cords using ancient techniques.

  Sibylla had been delighted when Lalla Jasira had shown her the samples. She was sure to get an excellent price for this charming work.

  More than a public bath for women, the harem hamam represented a world of seclusion. The only way a little bit of light could enter was through the solitary window in the dome. Sibylla, Lalla Jasira, and all the concubines and wives, small children, and slaves melted like shadows in the warm, foggy steam.

  The slave standing behind Lalla Jasira was holding a thin loop of thread she used to swiftly pluck her mistress’s eyebrows into gently curved wings. Meanwhile, the slave tending to Sibylla had filled a wooden bucket with warm water, and began to rinse her back in gentle, even motions.

  Sibylla looked up when a eunuch opened the door leading to the antechamber of the hamam, where the women undressed. Wahida came in with a very young, strikingly beautiful woman. As soon as she clapped her hands, two slaves rushed over to her.

  “Here, cleanse and wash this kitten from top to bottom and in all orifices. I want my son to discover a fragrant flower in his bed!” Her shy young companion cast her eyes down as Wahida pushed her forward.

  Wahida had been emancipated ever since the death of Qaid Hash-Hash and, as the mother of the reigning governor, was the highest-ranking woman in his harem. She took her role very seriously and controlled not only her son’s love life but also his wives and concubines.

  “We have heard you and will obey, Umm Walad.” The slaves took the young woman to lie upon a large oven, the top of which was covered in smooth marble and overlain with sparkling quartz stones. They got out a bowl with fragrant lather and sponges made of palm fibers and began lathering the concubine from top to bottom.

  “That’s Bahar, our lord’s new favorite,” Lalla Jasira informed Sibylla in a low voice. “For three weeks, he has wanted only her in his bed. That worries some of the others, especially Sukalina, the mother of Rami, his favorite son.” She sighed. “I thank God that those days are behind me. It was stressful, having to contend for the lord’s favor all the time. And I don’t envy Wahida for being in charge of the harem. I appreciate my peace, my poetry collection, and my business. Oh, here comes Sukalina with little Rami. Just look at her face, how she resents Wahida devoting her attention to the new favorite and no longer to her!”

  Sukalina strode into the room like a queen, followed by her entourage of slaves and allies. Her jewel-studded clogs clacked provocatively. Throwing an angry look at Bahar, she slid her sublime body on the warm oven top and snapped her fingers. A slave rushed to her side.

  “Where is the soap?” Sukalina hissed. “Why do I have to wait?”

  The slave stammered an excuse and scurried away. Sukalina’s son, three-year-old Rami, toddled up to Wahida with a happy squeal. She bowed down to him and smiled. “Hello, my little prince, have you come to see your grandmother?”

  “Rami, come here!” Sukalina commanded from the other side of the oven.

  “That sounds very familiar,” Sibylla muttered. “Wahida has my deepest sympathy.”

  A slave came over with a tray full of colorful glasses containing an ice-cold delicacy called sorbet, a mixture of pureed fruit and crushed ice. Lalla took two glasses from the tray and handed one to Sibylla. “What aggrieves you, my honorable friend? Certainly not the conclusion of our business, I trust?” she inquired with a smile.

  “Oh, goodness, no. Please don’t worry.” Sibylla gloomily poked at her sorbet. She had been thinking of Emily again. She missed her terribly. It was almost a year since they’d seen each other. Was she well? Did she miss her mother sometimes? And most of all: When was she coming home?

  “Lalla Jasira.” Sibylla turned to the other woman. “May I ask you a question?”

  “But of course.” Lalla Jasira signaled the two slaves, who had begun combing their hair, to leave them alone. “Now we are undisturbed, my friend.”

  Sibylla took a deep breath, struggling to find the words. “Am I a woman who cannot forgive?”

  Lalla Jasira pensively ran her fingers through her long silver hair. “I am not in a position to judge that. What I do know is that we are all capable of change—perhaps from a person who does not forgive to one who does.”

  “But are there certain things that are too grave to be forgiven?” Sibylla probed.

  Lalla Jasira looked at her with her dark, kind eyes. “Only God can decide how grave a transgression is. Only He knows the innermost nature of all human beings and their deeds.” She tapped her pearl-studded wooden clogs. “I can sense that your heart is weeping, honorable friend. If you will allow me, I will tell you a story about forgiveness.”

  “Ouch! By all the saints!” Bahar’s scream shattered the air. Qaid Samir’s favorite concubine was completely washed and rinsed and lying on a silk rug. A slave had spread a paste of sugar and lemon juice all around her genitalia. Once it had dried, the slave pulled off the crust together with the undesirable pubic hair.

  Sibylla could sympathize. She remembered all too well the burning pain of her first hair removal. Back then, she had been in Morocco only a short time and had had no idea of what went on in a hamam. She had been horrified when the hamam worker had busied herself with her most intimate body parts—a ritual that she now would not do without.

  “Now, now!” Wahida calmed the young concubine. “You must be able to suffer a little pain. After all, you don’t want to go before your lord like a hairy bear!” She sat next to Bahar and sniffed at the different perfume bottles being offered on a silver tray. “Musk,” she decided. “We’ll take musk for Bahar. My son is like the Prophet: he loves prayer, women, and fragrance.”

  Sibylla turned to Lalla Jasira again. “I would very much like to hear your story, Princess. Please tell it!”

  Lalla Jasira placed her sorbet glass next to her on the marble bench. “Many years ago, two young women lived in the harem of a powerful man. One was a noblewoman from the ruler’s house, raised in luxury and wealth and destined to become the man’s chief wife. The other was a poor slave, kidnapped and forced to leave behind her family and her faith. Both women were beautiful and both were determined to win their master’s favor. Initially, the man was just. He divided his attention between them and summoned them to his bed an equal number of times. Before long, the slave became pregnant. The man was overjoyed. Over the years, she bore him more sons and daughters and he loved her more for each child she gave him.

  “But the chief wife’s womb remained empty. She sought the advice of doctors, sages, and witches, made pilgrimages—all to no avail. She became sad and embittered. The angrier she became, the less frequently the lord summoned her, until, at last, he ignored her altogether. In her sorrow, she became angry with God for trying her so severely, and slowly her bitterness turned to hatred. Hatred against herself, her husband, and against the slave who had risen to become the lord’s favorite wife and who had everything she herself
desired.

  “When she had lost all self-respect, God took pity on her. He came to her in a dream and said, ‘If too much pressure is exerted on you, you become hard like dry wood that splinters and breaks. Be like a reed that gently sways in the wind and you will regain your happiness. Follow my example, for I, the Eternal One, am also forgiveness and reconciliation.’”

  Lalla Jasira fell silent and her gaze was lost in the bath’s twilight. Sibylla looked over to the two slaves who had begun making up Bahar’s eyes with crushed green malachite and black kohl. Sukalina sat glowering on the opposite side of the hamam, smoking a water pipe.

  Sibylla thought about Emily and André, about Victoria and Sara Willshire. The number of people she resented had grown over the years. And for the first time, she began to consider the possibility that there were, likewise, a good many people whose forgiveness she needed. She sighed. “Thank you for telling me this wonderful story. It’s quite complicated, isn’t it?”

  Lalla Jasira looked at her in surprise. “Did not your prophet Isa ibn Maryam, whom you call Jesus Christ, also preach love and forgiveness? I want to tell you how the story continues after the powerful man’s chief wife accepted that it was her fate never to bear children. She forgave herself and thus found peace. And in doing so, she regained the respect of the women in the harem as well as that of her lord. He did not take her to his bedchamber very often, but he valued her wisdom and her kind heart more than he had ever valued her body, and he sought her advice more and more frequently.”

  “And that is the end?”

  Lalla Jasira gave her a dreamy little smile. “The story of love and forgiveness never ends, does it, my honorable friend?”

  “Good evening, Mother. Do forgive me for making you wait. I simply had so much to do. It wasn’t until Aladdin reminded me that I remembered my promise to pick you up.” John leaned forward to kiss Sibylla on the cheek.

  “Not at all, darling. I had a wonderful afternoon.” She returned her son’s kiss.