The Horse Healer

by Gonzalo Giner

  Galib and Kabirma made faces that indicated their ignorance.

  “You must be the only ones who don’t know what happened with the fortress Salvatierra. …”

  The man’s cheeks reddened to the point of exploding.

  “A few days back, my brother-in-law Ahmed and my sister Layla had to flee from there, just like all the other brothers of the faith who were defending it. The most beautiful fortress, the greatest, was attacked and captured by that order of friars and soldiers from Castile, the Calatravans.” He shook his head in disgust and asked Allah for advice, yelling.

  They all stopped eating, alarmed by his expression.

  “Salvatierra!” He began to wave his arms like a man possessed. “Doom is near!” he screamed again, now beating his chest with both hands, as if trying to expel his pain. “With this conquest, the infidels have shot an arrow into the heart of Al-Andalus. Now they are much closer to our homes, our women, and they will fight to destroy our faith; the faith revealed to our Prophet Muhammad.”

  His reference to the Calatravans and their invasions provoked Diego to ask a question: “Excuse me, sir, did you see the Battle of Alarcos?”

  Galib and Kabirma looked at him, immediately disapproving of his insolence.

  “By Allah the Magnificent, of course I was there. That was already three years back. I remember a great deal about it but more than anything, the humiliating and harried retreat of that ambitious and petulant Castilian king. Yes, sir, a victory, unprecedented, on the open field!”

  With those words, his face lit up with a broad smile.

  “Do you know what happened to the Christians captured over the following days?”

  Diego’s question sounded as bad as it was inopportune, but there was nothing to be done. Altair sat there staring at him, not knowing quite what he was after.

  Kabirma came to his aid.

  “Our friend Fadil …”—that was the name they had decided to call Diego so that no one would discover his Christian origins—“has had the idea of getting hold of a couple of slaves for some time. He heard people say that was one of the biggest hauls in terms of quantity and quality that has ever been conquered.”

  “Now that you say it, it’s true. Many, and some very pretty. In fact, I myself still have two very beautiful ones.” He slapped the boy’s back on being informed of his carnal intentions.

  “They’re sisters, now that I think of it, they must be very thankful to me, since I’ve kept them together.”

  Diego couldn’t contain himself and Benazir saw it. He seemed to be close to asking after them without any restraint. If he did, his interest could seem excessive and it might compromise the security of the rest of them. To avoid that, she intervened.

  “I object!” she raised her voice.

  Everyone looked at her, perplexed.

  “To speak of the beauty of Christian women offends both Allah and his daughters, and I am proud to count myself one of those. Does the Prophet not say we were created the most beautiful, the best, the most fertile?”

  Altair was embarrassed. He begged pardon, full of praise for the most perfect of all creations, and tried to justify himself.

  “You are right, ma’am. Besides, mine are not so pretty. … If you have paid attention, they are the ones who have served the dinner.”

  Immediately, things grew calmer in the courtyard. Diego looked at Benazir thankfully. She returned his expression with a sly wink.

  “The best among those women, and all those younger than twenty,” Altair continued, “were sent to Marrakesh, to the court of the caliph, to form part of his great harem.”

  “All?”

  “That’s what they say. The caliph prefers them young.”

  Full of rage, Diego held back his tears and continued talking as though none of this had affected him.

  When dinner was over, in the darkness of the stable and over a rough bed of dry straw, Diego cried like a child while he remembered his sisters’ faces. To imagine them in that place was almost worse than to imagine them dead.

  Though it was hard for him to sleep, a little noise awoke him as soon as he did. When he opened his eyes, he saw Fatima’s sweet smile. She lay down next to him and curled up to his body.

  “You’re crazy! If your father finds out, he’ll kill us.”

  “I couldn’t sleep. I imagined you were feeling bad because of your sisters, and I felt bad that you were alone.”

  She stroked his cheek.

  “When they took them, Estela was only thirteen and Blanca a year older than me, fifteen. I can’t think of how much suffering they must be going though if what that man said is true. I feel so guilty.”

  His tears flowed again.

  “I didn’t do what I should have. … I left them alone.”

  “Diego, don’t torture yourself more. You’ll find them.”

  “I won’t find them, Fatima. They are too far. … How am I going to get to Marrakesh?”

  “And if they aren’t in Marrakesh?”

  “They’re there. They were young and Altair told us himself. They must be there. I don’t know what to do.”

  Diego stayed quiet. Fatima didn’t know what to say to him or how to console him. Maybe he was right. She didn’t know of any slave who had been rescued from the territories of Al-Andalus, and even if Diego proposed it, it seemed like an almost impossible task.

  The girl searched for him with her lips. She wanted to erase his tears, for him not to be sad. She kissed his eyelids and stroked his hair. He wanted to say something, but she stopped him, pressing her lips against his. Diego savored them, and again felt her body rub against his, as in the river before. Her hair fell over his face and with it, he breathed in the aroma of her desire, at once contained and intense.

  “Fatima, listen … I don’t know if this …” He pushed her from him and they looked in each other’s eyes. He needed to be sincere with himself and with her especially, but once again he felt awkward and incapable of expressing what he really thought. He knew he didn’t love her, but he wanted her passionately in that moment.

  “Don’t speak, don’t think, don’t breathe, and don’t plan, either; just enjoy.” She went for his mouth again and offered him her breasts.

  They didn’t know it, but someone was watching them in the darkness, nearly suffocating. It was Benazir. Like Fatima, she too had come up with the same idea of consoling him, never imagining what she would find.

  She watched them, stunned and confused.

  She felt a pang of remorse.

  Galib was her reality and she loved him, but if she thought of Diego, the idea of making him hers was almost overwhelming. When he was by her side, she felt more alive. If she thought about him, her imagination would travel through worlds much more exciting than those where she passed her anodyne day-to-day life.

  That night, Benazir felt the complicity of the two adolescents. Every one of their kisses was a distressing reality, a shattering of her hopes.

  But her martyrdom didn’t last long.

  She heard Diego ask Fatima to leave and she saw the girl take leave of him with one last kiss.

  There, hidden behind a thick door, Benazir felt, as though pierced with a dagger, the flicker of joy that Fatima bore on passing so close by her.

  When they left Cazalla the next day, they had dismissed the thought of taking the route through Seville, convinced that it would be pointless for Diego’s purposes, and decided on another that would lead directly to the valley of the Guadalquivir River, passing over the basin of the Guadiamar.

  Galib directed the group, since he was more familiar with the territory than Kabirma, because the latter’s business had never taken him this far south.

  Diego was at his side, freighted with worries.

  Undoubtedly he had his concerns, but Galib felt more at ease. Seville would have put
him at grave personal risk. In any case, he felt sorry for Diego, he understood his disappointment and wanted to give him hope.

  “I would do whatever it took to help you, to take away that pain you’re carrying around inside. I can see you are happy in your work, and I think in our company as well, but at the same time, I understand that you won’t reach true peace until you’re reunited with them. … It’s logical.”

  “Galib, you’ve given me much, everything, but … my father …”

  “I know, Diego. One day, I don’t know when, your moment will come, you’ll see. Then you’ll be ready to do what your father asked. You shouldn’t go on blaming yourself for what happened. You have to look ahead with your head high. You are intelligent, intuitive, and tenacious. I’m sure that one day you will reunite them at your side.”

  Diego embraced Galib. He felt comforted by his words and also knew he was right. In life, things came when they were supposed to. He would wait until his time arrived.

  Without hearing what they were talking about, Benazir was pensive beneath her veil. She felt bad for her attitude the night before, but it also hurt her to see how her fidelity to Galib was crumbling away bit by bit.

  As they left behind the last hill of the Sierra, she looked for Diego and gazed at his lips, dreaming of them. Far from her intentions, Diego still remembered Fatima’s kisses, without knowing what to think. The sweetness of his friend caused him to speed up, and yet something inside him told him that it wasn’t good to lead her on, since he didn’t love her.

  The dawn of the next day surprised everyone half asleep, still on their horses’ backs. After resting one night in the house of Altair, they had passed another night riding, taking advantage of the energy they had gained in that brief respite to push on ahead.

  The first ray of sun that appeared over the horizon called the attention of the group. They looked toward it and Galib, with immense satisfaction, was the first one who saw them.

  “There they are!” he shouted.

  The light reflected in thousands of points along the immense wetlands. For mid-May, the heat was more like that of summer. And yet the abundance of flowers, millions of them, extended in multicolored sheets amid the earthen walls that separated one pond from another, told of the presence of spring.

  From the beginning, Galib made them go in single file so they wouldn’t get lost in one of the bogs where the horses could encounter serious problems. His face showed pure joy; they had arrived in a corner of the world, the most beautiful of all, that had to be the garden promised by Allah to all his believers, Galib thought, absorbing in his memory for all time every corner that came into his view.

  The rest went on, overwhelmed by that extraordinary beauty, grand and also aromatic. The silence of that region seemed to reject their very voices; it only allowed for the soft click of the hooves against the earth, or the crackling of some tree, and perhaps, the breathing of the horses.

  They plunged into a pine forest scattered with gentle hills of sand. Without stopping, they reached a summit free of trees. On the opposite edge, there awaited them an incredible spectacle as hard to imagine as it was grandiose. They made out an extensive plain sprinkled with thousands of lakes of the most varied colors, spanning green and blue. And throughout, stopped, grazing, galloping, lying down, or splashing about in the water, in groups or alone, there were thousands of beautiful horses.

  There was the herd of the former Caliph Abderrahman III, the famed Yeguada de Las Marismas.

  XX.

  All of her body was one beautiful tattoo.

  Her name was Najla, “she of the large and lovely eyes,” and she was the daughter of Caliph Yusuf.

  For ten years, Najla had lived in Seville to receive the best education at the feet of the best professors, artists, and poets of Andalusia.

  Normally, once a year, she would go back to Marrakesh, but it had been three years that she hadn’t done so, the same years that Estela and Blanca had spent in the harem. And now that she had come back to set foot in her palace, she heard of them, found out they were her same age, Castilian, and with red hair, and she wanted to meet them without delay.

  Princess Najla was prohibited from speaking with the concubines, from entering their chambers, asking questions, showing her face, walking alone, singing, looking at men, letting them look at her, choosing what to talk about … In reality, she suffered from a never-ending list of limitations that made her life one long restriction. For that reason, tired of being imprisoned, she decided to trick her guard, one of those severe Imesebelen, one night, and after hiding, she ran down those interminable hallways toward the chambers where the Castilian women stayed. Ardah, her servant, came with her, though she reproached her continuously for her craziness from the moment they left her rooms.

  “Wake up.”

  A soft and quiet voice interrupted Blanca’s sleep.

  When she opened her eyes, she saw a girl with dark hair, a bluish gaze, and a kindly smile, with her face painted all over, so much so that it was hard to tell her true skin color. Reflexively, Blanca hid herself beneath the sheets. She was afraid of some new abuse, or to have to repeat the experience of lying with that repugnant man, which she’d already done too many times.

  “Don’t be afraid. I won’t do anything to you. I’m Princess Najla.” Her generous smile exuded trustworthiness. “Get up quietly and follow me. We’ll go to a secret room on the other side of the sewing room. There I’ll explain to you.”

  Blanca didn’t understand what all that meant, but she felt she was in danger and woke Estela. Together, the three of them left the small room where twenty women normally slept, some on top of others.

  Najla seemed very sure of herself, but at the same time very nervous. She spoke perfect Romanic although too fast, and she changed from one theme to another, almost without reason.

  “The painting that’s covering up my pale skin is called henna. The pigment comes from a plant that is very common in these parts. Ardah, my slave…”—the coppery woman bent forward respectfully, concealing the profound contempt in which she held her mistress, because she treated her indifferently and punished her terribly—“is my nekasha. She is a little lazy but she tattoos much better than the rest. She drew this for me.”

  She showed them her hands. There was a large sun in the center of each palm, and rays like fingers emerged from it, twisting into volutes and flowers on her fingertips.

  “You have precious but strange hair; it seems like the color of clay.” She came close to study it. Estela’s interested her more because it was curly.

  “Do you like poetry?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “I do. I have been able to listen to the best poets in Córdoba. And bazaars? I love them, but they don’t usually let me go. When I manage to escape my guardians I look at everything, I search, dig around, ask questions … They really excite me.”

  She stayed there pensive for a moment, without resting long, and then leapt into another topic.

  “I like perfumes, especially the ones with rose essence. I hate the scent of mosques, and I love horses. When I ride them, I feel so free.”

  The two sisters stayed sitting there on comfortable cushions without understanding what was happening there. Since they’d entered she hadn’t stopped talking as if they were old friends.

  “Can you tell us why you’ve had us come here this early in the morning?”

  The princess was frozen by the words and her face turned sad.

  “I just returned from Seville, far from the court and my family, but still, I feel captive.”

  “You’re not the only one,” Estela immediately remarked.

  “My confinement is different. I’ve always had permission to go out, to talk. I’m respected in the court because I’m the caliph’s daughter, but I hardly know him or my mother. When I’m allowed to laugh, I have to do it carefully, and if I need to cry, I have to do
it alone. I’ve never decided what I eat or when I go to sleep. They choose my clothes and dress me. Someone else decides how often I need to bathe. … And you would still have done all this without asking anyone, right? You must even know what love consists of. … I don’t. I’ve only lived the little I’ve been allowed.”

  Ardah insisted that she talk more softly, because too much could be heard.

  “I want to know your religion. I want to hear what Castile is like, understand the people there. I need you to tell me. Half my blood comes from your land, because my mother was Castilian, but she’s never talked to me about it. I need to know. … I’m itching to know all that has been hidden from me since my birth.” Her eyes expressed sincerity. “What I want from you, the reason I’ve gotten you up, is just …” Najla slowed down her waterfall of words and looked elsewhere. She felt overwhelmed. “What I’m trying is … I’m just trying to be friends with you.”

  “Are you kidding?” Blanca was indignant. “Do you think you make friends by ordering people around? The same way they do with our bodies? Do I have to remind you that we are here as slaves and concubines? Or do you not know who it is that abuses us day after day?”

  “Don’t get angry, please. You live in a harem. You shouldn’t be surprised when that happens.” Her expression was natural. “My father feeds and protects you, he dresses you and takes care of you. He also enjoys you. Can that be evil?”

  “That’s a strange way to look at it,” Estela said.

  “Does the same not happen in Castile? Are there not harems there?”

  “In our land, a man has only one wife,” she answered.

  “They don’t buy slaves there?”

  “No … Well, yes … Some do.”

  “And they don’t make use of them?” Najla couldn’t believe what they were saying.

  “Maybe, but it’s not the right thing to do.”

  “Then they do the same thing as we do, but they lie about it. Our laws and codes say that the woman is at the man’s service and only lives for him. She gives him pleasure whenever he wants it and she receives it as well in exchange. It doesn’t bother us if our husbands enjoy other bodies so long as they respect the order of the women and protect the privileges of the favorites, the ones who provide heirs. The rest, the same as with you two right now, owe him for his hospitality. I just see it as him taking payment the best way he can.”