The Lover

by Laury Silvers

  “I sleep in Zaytuna’s room. There’s not much space in there for the two of us. Most nights I sleep in the courtyard or go into the cemetery to stretch out.”

  “Look Tein, I could use some help now and again. These watchmen I have to take around with me, they’re not even worth the pittance they get paid. If they aren’t looking to rough up any likely victim, they’re half asleep or show up drunk. God protect us if there’s trouble, these fools couldn’t control a crowd or put down a fight to save their own lives. They’d only make things worse.”

  Tein picked up the bowl, drinking down the last of the tharid. He looked at Ammar from underneath raised eyebrows, “You really don’t arrest the likes of us?”

  “Only if they kill someone.”

  “Alright. But I have a hard time believing the Chief of Police is going to put me on the payroll because you want to do an old friend a favour.”

  “Look Tein, if I can direct payroll to snitches, I can put in a request for some muscle. No favours, you’ll work for it. I can put you in for five dirhams a pay period.

  “And what’s the pay period, twenty-eight days now, ninety days later when the Caliph’s mood changes, and a hundred and twenty days when he’s sick of us? I’ve lived this story before.”

  “We’re not paid out from the Caliph’s coffers. We garnish the districts we protect directly.”

  “You literally do work for the people!”

  “It’s not quite like that. But, look, it’ll be five dirhams for twenty-eight days, firm. I know it’s not much. Certainly, not what you’d make beating people up for a living, but it would mean a regular bed and regular food. No uncertainty. Us together again, it’d be like old times.”

  Tein looked into his empty bowl and did not speak.

  Ammar added, “I need the help.”

  Tein was skeptical, “Well, you let me know when they approve the request,” and changed the subject. “So what about women, Ammar. Have you found time to fall in love yet?”

  “I’m not a romantic like you, Tein. I’m fine on my own.”

  “Still contributing to the local economy, I see.”

  Ammar laughed, but said, “No, not anymore. Not since I found some piety somewhere.”

  “Ahhhh,” said Tein, smiling, “I understand now,” tapping Ammar’s right hand and tipping his chin towards it, “you are fine on your own.”

  Chapter Seven

  Zaytuna walked away from Salman’s shop, not knowing where she was going. She wove in and out of people in the crowded streets, through the alleyways, away from the centre of the neighbourhood towards the cemetery, seeing but not seeing. Her head was thick with self-recrimination and sorrow; her muscles clenched, her jaw tightened, shoulders turned in on her, her fingers twitched with every reminder that she, unlike her mother, could not see through to God’s love from the thick of all the misery of the world. She wanted to unwind the cloth from her head and wave it at God, a red flag, a scream for Him to come and get her, pull her out of this pain and confusion. Reaching the cemetery, she looked at the small camps set up by the poor who were forced to live there because they could afford nothing else. The people burrowed into its walls, their sleeping holes covered with small woven reed and palm frond lean-tos. And past them, beyond the stones, her mother’s grave. How could she be her mother’s daughter and not be lost in God’s love herself?

  She remained outside the cemetery, leaning against its wall, seeing herself within them, as a child, in her mother’s lap, as her mother leaned back against one of the gravestones, sitting among the poorest of the poor, answering their questions, weeping from joy, falling into ecstasy. Tein, as always, stayed away, moving to the edges of the crowd, watching them, as they pressed in on her and her mother. Zaytuna buried her face in her mother’s lap so she couldn’t see them. She wrapped her arms around her mother’s waist, shaking, holding on against the crush of bodies. Her mother would try to reassure her, holding Zaytuna closer to her, until the ecstasy was so overwhelming that she lost touch with Zaytuna’s fear, submerged into the oceanic waters of God’s presence rushing in around them. In those moments, she let go of Zaytuna, her back arched sharply, her head thrown upward, her arms outstretched as if to hold the entire world in the encompassing flood of the words that poured from her directly from God.

  This world and the hereafter have no pleasure,

  no pleasure except through my Lover,

  who has taken me at my asking.

  If you have stopped asking, then ask again,

  by contemplating His creation,

  by accepting His wisdom’s desire.

  Each glance beholds a blessing of God,

  be grateful if it falls on pleasure,

  be grateful if it falls on pain.

  Your eye will reach its boundary of joy,

  but do not be held back by this body,

  wander into the orchards of love.

  Lose yourself there, erased from existence,

  gone, into the arms of your Beloved,

  returned, to gaze on the face of God.

  Keep asking, there can be no losing Him,

  His gentleness turned to desolation,

  His punishment your daily bread.

  Hearing her words back then, Ahmad ibn Abu al-Husayn al-Nuri, whom she and Tein came to know as “Uncle,” would call out from the edges of the crowd, “Labayk Allah! Here I am, God!”

  When her mother finally became quiet, exhausted, soaked in sweat, a companion or two from the Baghdadi Sufi community would come forward and check on them, sometimes bringing a piece of candy to soothe her. Her mother would hold her then and look for Tein, smiling when she caught sight of him. Uncle Nuri would be playing at hunting down Tein among the gravestones, grabbing his ear when he caught him. Zaytuna didn’t know then that these people who came forward to care for them were among the greatest mystics of Baghdad. To her they were the only family she’d known.

  Her mother told them story upon story about her days wandering alone with God, in and out of ecstasy, through the countryside, cities, and towns, as she made her way from Nubia, east toward Mecca, then beyond. Zaytuna heard her mother’s longing to bring those days back. That sound of longing was lost when the stories shifted to the days of her pregnancy then, afterwards, wandering with her babies strapped to her, one at the front and one at the back. She told them how people took mercy on them, feeding her fatty meat and milk to fill her breasts, not the rinds and husks she barely subsisted on before.

  Her mother, herself, was surprised she could bear children at all. She barely bled anymore. Yet there they were. She was not pained or ashamed to tell them that the man who fathered them had raped her under an olive tree where she’d taken shelter in the middle of the day. She only asked God then, when it was clear to her that she was pregnant, what she had done to deserve children to distract her from her path. She struggled at first to accept that this was His will, that her path must be with her children. She told them it was only her lowest self that still longed to be alone with nothing to hold her down. Remembering those thoughts, she would mutter, “God forgive me,” and hold them to her, thanking God for giving her what she needed, not what she wanted.

  Her mother wandered with them, looking for a place to settle, sleeping in animal holds, in mosques, and sometimes in the homes of kind families. She washed clothes, mucked out animal dung, whatever work was thrown her way out of charity. But eventually, always, someone would be disturbed by her mother’s ecstatic states and push them on, or worse.

  Zaytuna knew there were long stretches of good days in those wandering years. She had shreds of memories that came and went: she and Tein playing kharaj with other children, Tein always guessing what they had hidden in their hands, bedding down out of the weather most nights, having full bellies, and old women whom they called “Auntie,” fretting over the two of them as if they were their own. Those days came to mind now and again. But Zaytuna’s body remembered other days. She would feel fleeting senses of fear
while walking down the streets of Baghdad with an uncertain memory of running away from a house. Her gut would clench, and she would see herself, then, hitting her stomach to stop the hunger pangs. Exhaustion would overtake her when she saw mud caking her sirwal and feet on days walking in the rain while the memory that invoked it would not show itself. These memories only became stronger over the years, overtaking her when a seemingly innocent sound or sight resonated at the perfect frequency, holding her in place, forcing her to remember, and barring her from the bridges people cross to reach each other.

  In the worst moments, with the worst memory, a curtain would come down before her, filling her vision with the light of the moon shining into a mosque, saturating her ears with the sounds of bodies struggling, and filling her nose with the stink of a fat man in a filthy black qamis pulled up exposing his bare legs, on top of her mother, pushing her down with his weight.

  Zaytuna lay perfectly still beside her, frozen, watching. The man grabbed at the end of her mother’s qamis with one hand, pulling it up, then pulling down her sirwal, while holding down one of her arms with the other. He pushed himself down onto her. Her mother finally screamed. Zaytuna saw Tein, sleeping by their feet, bolt upright, leap onto the man’s back, riding him like a bull, with his hands locked together, grunting, pulling up on the man’s throat and windpipe with all his strength. As big as Tein was, even then at just five, he seemed so small. A baby riding a raging bull. Her mother kicked at the bull’s legs trying to push him away. She clawed at his face with her free hand, her nails gouging him. Zaytuna watched drops of blood fall from his face onto her Mother, into her mouth and eyes.

  She saw the bull’s turban shift on his head in the struggle. She knew it was going to fall. She observed it, wondering at the stripes, some in thin rows and others thick. The way the turban wound around his head it seemed like the stripes were in braids. Then the turban fell off without unwinding, its cap still within. It tumbled onto her, and she lay without moving, staring at it sitting upright on her stomach, hearing her own voice screaming.

  Zaytuna saw the bull turn into a man and roll off her mother onto his back. Tein let go as the man rolled and scrambled out to his feet, kicking the man as hard as he could in the head as a thundering howl released from deep with him. She saw her mother turn toward Tein, away from her, and reach out to him, his cry becoming her own.

  The man brought his hand to his head, rolled onto his stomach, moaning, bleeding, protesting, finally got himself up and half ran, half staggered, for the doors of the mosque, leaving his turban behind. Zaytuna watched him flee past the inner door leading to the Imam’s family rooms attached to the mosque. The Imam standing in his doorway, holding a lamp, watching, doing nothing.

  Her mother rolled onto her left side pulling down her qamis as far as she could while putting her left hand between her legs, holding herself. Zaytuna sat up and leaned over onto her, looking. Her mother brought her hand out and they saw that there was blood. She pulled up her sirwal, turned back to Zaytuna and brought her in close, saying, “I have fixed what is between me and God, the sheep no longer fear the wolves.”

  Her mother let go of her and sat up, looking to Tein, saying, “You’ve hurt yourself. Sit down and let me see that foot.” Tein stood staring at them, trembling with rage and fear and would not move. She let him stand. Breathing deeply, consciously, her mother then took hold of the turban, saying to no one, “This will be of use.” She got up and went outside, leaving them alone, to wash the blood from her at the basin outside the mosque set aside for ritual ablutions. Returning, she unwound the turban, drying herself with it, then folded it over and over, putting it back on the ground for them to use as a pillow.

  She pulled Zaytuna to her again and lay down with her, holding her tightly, then looking at Tein, saying, “Now my baby, come here,” holding her other arm out to him. But he stood over them, for how long, Zaytuna did not know. Zaytuna buried her face in her mother’s chest and wept until she fell asleep. She found Tein in the morning, asleep at their feet, as always.

  It was not long after that they made their way into Baghdad. It was Uncle Nuri who found them first. He said years later he could feel her mother, her love of God coming to him like the call to prayer resonating to its people. He had walked until he found her, then sat nearby, falling into ecstasy himself along with her. But, as he said, winking, also keeping his own ecstatic state in check well enough to keep an eye open, making sure her mother was safe and she and Tein were alright. Afterwards, he led them to Abu al-Qasim Junayd’s home where the Baghdad Sufi community gathered every day and where they took them in as family.

  Zaytuna tried to shake off these thoughts, turning away from the cemetery, walking towards Tutha. She watched the people rushing through the streets to their business. Children dodged the adults walking around them, getting underfoot as the little ones carried baskets of goods for delivery, or bound reeds or thorn bush on their backs, without even sandals on their feet, and her heart sunk into the memory of Zayd running past her in the alleyway, barefooted, a boy like them, now dead.

  A young man in scholar’s robes with a pleasant face and proper beard saw her as she nearly bumped into people, not noticing. He called out to her, “Zaytuna!” She didn’t hear him. He walked to her through the streams of people and tugged lightly on the sleeve of her qamis, saying, “Zaytuna, are you all right?”

  Zaytuna came to herself and cried out in relief at her childhood friend, like a cousin to her, more a brother, standing before her, “Thank God, it’s you, Mustafa. I’ve been lost.”

  His kind eyes held her, “How could you be lost? These are your streets Zaytuna. You live here, you grew up here. This is where you found your family, where you slept at night, rested your days, and learned from your mother’s lap.”

  He brought her back to her old self and she laughed tenderly at him, “Listen to you, with your formal talk!”

  She tapped the white turban wound around and under his chin with a discernible twist, marking him as a scholar of hadith and a Hanbali, “You hold the blessed words of our Prophet for all of us.”

  “God forgive me, Zaytuna, you know better than to give a servant of God a compliment like that. My lower self is always hungry for fine words. All this could be lost in a moment, if God willed it.”

  She tsked at herself, “So serious, too, but right. God forgive me and protect you.”

  She looked down, and let out a deep breath.

  He looked up at her, searching her face, “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know where to begin.”

  “If something’s that hard, Zaytuna, maybe you should go see the shaykh?”

  “Maybe.” She asked, feeling like a child, “Would he even accept me after all this time?”

  “Zaytuna, you know better. He is your Uncle. He loves you. It’s so strange you don’t visit. Tein visits every week without fail. He stays a long time when Uncle Nuri is here.”

  “It’s different for him.”

  “How?”

  “He is just visiting family.”

  Mustafa asked, “How is your Uncle Abu al-Qasim not family?”

  Zaytuna answered frustrated with his thick-headedness, “You know. It’s that way for you too! Because he is also a shaykh, Mustafa, a spiritual guide. I know the rest of the aunts and uncles are too, but he pushes in a way the others do not.”

  Mustafa laughed, “You don’t know your brother. He takes advice from them. You should too. It’s all the more important you go see him now.”

  Zaytuna sighed, “When I’ve been avoiding him for so long? How?”

  “I’m free now, come with me.”

  She asked, “You’ll stay by me?”

  “Of course, my Zaytuna.”

  She nodded and turned with him, neither of them speaking on the short walk to Uncle Abu al-Qasim al-Junayd’s home.

  ***

  Mustafa was never one for chat even when they were children. Zaytuna always enjoyed his company. She cou
ld sit and brood with him and he would not disturb her. When Nuri brought them to Junayd’s home, she ran off to sit with the other children in the courtyard, and there he was, Mustafa, quiet, just off to one side, watching everyone. So intelligent, even then.

  She walked right up to him and introduced herself, “I am Zaytuna.”

  He made space for her to sit next to him, saying, “My mother’s name is Zaytuna, too. I am Mustafa. That’s my mother over there.”

  He pointed to a sturdy woman at the rear of the courtyard, her hair covered sensibly by a long multi-hued striped scarf tied at the back of her neck, and her wrap wound around her waist like an apron, the way men wore it. She had dragged the reed mats and sheepskins out into the sun. She had one sheepskin hanging over a narrow trestle, beating it with one of the wide spatulas with the long handles that Old Bakr used for the huge cooking pots in the kitchen in order to draw the dust out of them.

  “That’s my mother over there,” said Zaytuna pointing toward a long and slender African woman sitting at the feet of Junayd and Nuri. To Zaytuna, she was the most beautiful woman in the world. She had heard Mustafa’s mother say once she was as noble and beautiful as a “Pharaoh’s Queen.” She did not know what that was, but such a woman must surely own the world simply by her presence in it. Her qamis and blanket-shawl were made of rough dark wool, stained and patched over and over out of necessity. Her bare feet and hands were cracked and calloused. Her knuckles were ashen. And her beautiful, long twisted locks, decorated with colourful thick glass and stone beads, and one cowrie shell at her forehead, were a secret, tied up with a faded red muslin cloth wound round into a bulky knot at the nape of her neck. But nothing could hide the graciousness of her movements and the openness of her luminous face, burnished by years of wandering in the sun to a deeply golden russet brown.

  Mustafa replied matter of factly, and he was right, “I think our mothers will be great friends.” And so it was that she, Tein, and her mother moved into a room in the house where the elder Zaytuna and Mustafa lived. She had always thought that Mustafa’s mother in her generosity had taken them in, not learning until years later that Uncle Nuri had paid for everything.