The Lover

by Laury Silvers

  “Tein and I argued last night and he left.”

  “I heard.”

  “I’m sorry. I thought we were quiet.”

  “I only heard because I was awake already. You didn’t wake anyone here.”

  As the morning light grew brighter, people in the courtyard began to stand and shake out their mats. Zaytuna nodded to old man Qambar. He was sitting against a wall of the courtyard murmuring the long supplication he made everyday after the morning prayer. Only he would get up to pray in the morning like she did. If it bothered Qambar that his wife, Yulduz, rarely performed the ritual prayer, he didn’t show it. He always looked at her with such a tender gaze of love that Zaytuna would blush for having intruded on them simply by seeing it. Zaytuna and the old man prayed together sometimes in the winter, when everyone slept in their rooms to stay warm and the courtyard was empty. The closest Shia mosque was too far for him to walk this early, so he prayed there and she followed him. What did she care that he was Shia? God is The Hearing of all prayers. Sometimes she would sit with him in the dark cool of the early morning as he recited the long supplication. She whispered “amin” after the sections that moved her most, especially, when things were most difficult, those verses where curses were invoked against the tyrants of this world. Qambar acknowledged her greeting and placed his hand over his heart as his lips continued to move, never missing a word.

  Saliha said to her, “You need to drink some water and wash that face,” She stepped inside Zaytuna’s room to grab her jug, leaving Zaytuna leaning against the doorway of her room.

  Zaytuna mumbled, exhausted, “The jug is empty.”

  Saliha turned back, going outside to get her own, but remembered there wasn’t much there either. She checked the shared basin. There was too little there. She squinted back at the neighbours. Saliha had been refilling this basin too often. Umm Farhad’s boy was old enough to start hauling water from the fountain. It was time his mother got him started. She was still hand feeding him as if he were a baby bird and as if they weren’t poor as dirt and didn’t need him to help out.

  She called back to Zaytuna, “Just stay there, I’ll be a second,” and took the leather bucket by the basin out into the street to get water from the fountain in the square.

  She turned out the door of their house onto the narrow passage that ran between the houses fronting their alleyway and there was Mustafa leaning against the wall, “Mustafa! How long have you been standing out here?”

  “Assalamu alaykum, Saliha. I’m sorry. Not long, I came after the morning prayer. Is Zaytuna ready for a visitor yet?”

  “You are family Mustafa. Go on. Everyone’s waking up.”

  Mustafa entered the courtyard and found Zaytuna standing where Saliha had left her, staring at the pounded earth floor of the courtyard. He took her hand, “I’ve been thinking about you.”

  She shifted to look at him and the exhaustion of it all hit her. The loss of the child, the pain of all these children, Tein and his troubles, especially what she’d been through with the shaykh, and not knowing what she should do, that she fell into his arms and wept. He held her, feeling her body trembling under his hands. He wanted to pull her closer, but took a small step back so there was some measurable distance between them. She had to choose it.

  He felt the trembling smooth out under his hands and all that was left was the sense of her thin flesh and bones under her qamis. He hated what she’d done to herself over the years. He pulled himself back to hold her face, wanting to say, “My love…”, and instead saying, “My sister... God knows our broken hearts.”

  She raised her hand to wipe the tears from her face and he dropped his hands to his side. She asked, “How was the burial?”

  “Alhamdulilah. Everyone he passed in the street lifted their hands in prayer for him. We stayed with him at the grave until he was in the hands of the angels.”

  “I should have followed.”

  “Some women came along, it would have been alright. No one was out ‘forbidding the wrong’, thank God.”

  “No, I meant, I was too busy talking to the housekeeper where Zayd worked and the Imam’s daughter. I don’t know why I bothered. Mustafa, what makes me think that I can make any difference in this world? It’s nothing but arrogance.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean, Zay. It was kind of you to speak with them. Of course you made a difference.”

  Saliha came around the corner into the courtyard leaning to one side to balance the weight of the bucket she was carrying. Mustafa hurried to her to take it from her. She pushed him off with her free hand, laughing, “Please, the wet laundry I lift is heavier than the books you carry.”

  Zaytuna went and got their jugs and they filled them part way. Mustafa took a few steps away and turned his back to them as they wet a rag to wipe their faces and necks. Saliha winked and tipped her head in Mustafa’s direction, whispering to Zaytuna, “So concerned for our modesty! When I walked out, you were in his arms.”

  Zaytuna shushed her, “Sal, he’s like my brother.”

  They finished washing up and Zaytuna filled the cup again, “Mustafa, come sit down.”

  Saliha raised her eyebrows and smiled and mouthed to Zaytuna, “...like your brother,” and carried her jug of water with her to her room to ready herself for work. Zaytuna and Mustafa sat with their backs against the wall in silence as they shared the cup of water. When she put the empty cup down, she said, “I spoke to Imam Ibrahim’s housekeeper and his daughter, Zaynab, about Zayd. Mustafa, the girl did love him. Layla wasn’t lying about it. Zaynab was distraught.”

  “Maybe she’s just a sensitive girl. It seems hard to believe.”

  “Layla’s story makes more sense now.” She proceeded carefully, not wanting to accuse someone in Mustafa’s presence just because she knew it to be true, “Maybe Imam Ibrahim had something to do with Zayd’s death.”

  “Well, it wouldn’t be the first time.” He shook his head, “God protect us all. If these men can’t find another way to control their families, they should let the scholars handle it. There are ways around these things. The Prophet himself tried to shield the culprits from punishment. It’s better to insist that nothing happened and let it go. Of course, everyone’s reputation will be ruined no matter the case, but better than a court-ordered flogging or, God preserve us from such evil, the family killing one or both of them then being executed for the murder they thought would set things right.”

  Zaytuna breathed sharply at him talking so blithely of men controlling their families and calling two innocent children in love, “culprits.” She closed her eyes and tried to keep her voice steady. She needed him to help and arguing as they were used to would not incline him to her cause. “Would you ask around about Imam Ibrahim for me? Is there anything people might be saying about him that would help us understand what happened?”

  “Zaytuna, I understand you feel like you want to do the boy’s life justice, but listen to yourself. Zayd is already dead. If what you say is true and it came out into the open, the girl would be ruined and her father executed for murder. The housekeeper, what would happen to her? This kind of questioning might make things worse for everyone. Whatever happened, it’s done. It happened in private. I am not going to go into people’s homes like those Hanbali imposters who try to right a wrong and ruin everyone’s lives. Frankly, I’m shocked you would consider doing the same or demand that I do.”

  She pulled back, objecting, “I’m not demanding. I’m asking. Mustafa, my heart is telling me…”

  “Your heart? Do you think that Uncle Abu al-Qasim would approve?”

  “No,” she admitted, “he would not. He would tell me not to get involved. Or maybe he would,” feeling the waves coming upon her, “I think he would.”

  “No,” he said, crossing his arms. “He would not.”

  “You can just ask in a general sense, nothing about his daughter.”

  “Zaytuna…,” Mustafa stood.

  She took hold of a bit of his r
obe and looked at him, “Please.”

  “Everyone suspects this man is corrupt for taking money from the Caliph’s people. No one respects him. But that doesn’t mean he is a murderer.”

  She stood up alongside him, “Would you ask?”

  “I will not. But tell me, what would you do if you did know anything of substance, meaning not what ‘your heart’ is telling you?”

  She winced. She had frustrated Mustafa before, but he had never derided her. She looked at him and decided to carry on, with or without him, “Insha’Allah, I’m going to be meeting with an investigator in the police later today.”

  Mustafa’s voice was firm, “Zaytuna, this must stop now. This is dangerous. The police won’t care whose lives are ruined if they begin investigating this matter. The police do not work with God’s mercy as their guiding principle. How can you trust them? We grew up under their thumb. Many here, under their boot.”

  “It’s not really the police, it’s an old friend of Tein. We’re just talking. Besides, he already determined it was an accident and closed the case.”

  “God help me, Zaytuna! So what do you hope to achieve?”

  He spoke so loudly, Umm Farhad stuck her head out of her room. Zaytuna smiled and waved, “Good morning Umm Farhad, it’s going to be a beautiful day.” The woman raised her eyebrows and ducked back into her room.

  Zaytuna turned to Mustafa, who now looked chastened for raising his voice, and said to him sarcastically, “I don’t know, Mustafa. I’m just trying to follow ‘my heart’.”

  Mustafa said, “Look, I’ve known you since you were five years old, Zay. I’ve seen you follow your heart before. It hasn’t always turned out as you thought.”

  “This is different.”

  Saliha came across to them, interrupting, “Okay Zaytuna, it’s time to get to work. We have laundry for two houses today and we need to knock on more doors.”

  Zaytuna objected, “But I told Tein I would meet him here, he’s going to take me to see Ammar. The man he works for in the police.”

  “Zay, I’m leaving to work. I need to work. So do you. Tein will find you. You two always find each other.”

  “I’m going to stay.”

  “But I need you. I cannot do two houses on time by myself.” She turned to Mustafa, “Talk some sense into her.”

  Mustafa raised both hands in resignation, as if one could tell Zaytuna anything.

  She paused only for a moment, “I’m sorry, Saliha.”

  “What is wrong with you? First you fight with Tein, then Mustafa, now you want to fight with me?”

  “No, I meant I’m sorry, I’m coming with you!”

  Zaytuna turned to Mustafa, “Will you ask around for me?”

  He sighed, “I have to go to work now, but I’m going to see Imam Abu Abdelrahman al-Azdi recite hadith at the Sharqiyya mosque later today. If I can, then. If it’s easy. And if it can be done without hurting anyone. Remember what the Prophet said ‘God conceals the faults of the Muslim who conceals the faults of others’.”

  She whisper yelled after him, as Saliha dragged her out of their house, “Murder is not a ‘fault’!”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Mustafa held his robe tight around his body against the crowd as he turned off the Basra Gate High Road toward the Sharqiyya Mosque. Book and paper sellers leaned across the street-side counters of their tiny shops looking for trouble coming their way, while customers took refuge inside, watching the crowd pass, from within, where it was safe and one could breathe. Other than a protest or a riot, only a renowned preacher or public recitation of hadith by one of the greats could pull this many Baghdadis out at once.

  Common menfolk along with scholars and students jostled for space in the cramped street. The men were packed in, held in by the walls, shoulder to shoulder, front to back. Mustafa worried about tripping, sometimes missing a step as the crowd lifted him, here and there, heaving forward inch by inch.

  He felt someone behind him tug on the tail of his turban, nearly shifting it off his cap underneath, then a strong hand landed on his shoulder and held on tight as a man pulled himself forward against him. Mustafa stiffened under the hand, inexplicably panicking, but managed to turned around enough to see who had grabbed hold of him.

  “Ho!” The man called out, laughing at the fear on his face, “It’s just me! Ya Mustafa! Were you expecting to be stabbed in this crowd? You hiding gold under that cloak?”

  Mustafa laughed to shake off the shudder of fear he felt, “Walla, Abdelmalik, don’t grab a person like that.”

  “I love this, Mustafa! Look at this crowd. Everyone wants to hear Imam Abu Abdelrahman recite Imam Malik’s eighty hadith with the Golden Chain!”

  He smiled at the thought of it. He never imagined he would have the chance to hear them from such a well-respected scholar, but more so from a student of one of Imam Malik’s closest followers. That made him, Mustafa ibn Zaytuna al-Jarrari, the Potter, the son of Zaytuna, a housecleaner, in the Golden Chain himself. Not officially. He wouldn’t have a certificate to teach them. But in his heart, he’d be in the Chain. He recited the new chain within himself: He, Mustafa, heard it from Abu Abdelrahman al-Azdi, who heard it from Abu Ali al-Yamani, who heard it from Imam Malik, who heard it from an-Nafi, who heard it from Ibn Umar, who heard it from the Prophet himself. He spoke over the din of the crowd to Abdelmalik, “It is wonderful.”

  Abdelmalik said, “I saw Burhan earlier today. He was boasting how he had heard them from three different scholars, each one closer to Imam Malik than the last!”

  “Yes, he never tires of telling everyone that sort of thing.”

  “It must be nice to have family, money, and connections.”

  “He’s on his way to becoming important, no doubt about it.”

  “He never tires of telling everyone that, either.” Abdelmalik laughed, “With great humility, of course.”

  Mustafa was drawn in despite himself, his voice tight with resentment, “When your father is a famous scholar, and you marry the daughter of a famous scholar, and you are sent off to study with all the famous scholars those famous scholars know, from one end of the Empire to the other, and you don’t have to waste any time making a living, your knowledge and authority are most humbly attained, no doubt about it.”

  He thought of Ahmed ibn Hanbal, who lived with the people of Baghdad, as one of them, who cared for the people of Baghdad, as one of them. His mind turned to Zayd, dead, and no one to care for him. Except Zaytuna. He turned his face back to Abdelmalik, “Do you think Imam Ibrahim will be there? You know one of his students, don’t you?”

  “Of course he’ll be there. You’ve never wanted to meet him before.” He teased Mustafa, “I thought you were a Hanbali purist, staying away from those who attach themselves to the caliph’s people.”

  “It’s not that...I…”

  “Look!” Abdelmalik pointed toward an opening onto an alleyway, “There’s Sharafuddin!”

  Mustafa was surprised to see him, “Wouldn’t Imam Abu Abdelrahman be with Sharafuddin’s father right now? What is Sharafuddin doing out here?”

  Abdelmalik shoved Mustafa through the crowd ahead of him toward Sharafuddin who was standing tucked into the side street watching the throng pass by. Sharafuddin caught sight of them and waved, “Brothers, get over here!”

  They broke through the crowd into the nearly empty side street with relief, laughing. Sharafuddin said, “This is surely God’s will! I was hoping to catch sight of you! Would you like to meet Imam Abu Abdelrahman before he recites? He’s sitting with my father now in our apartment. Come, please!”

  Mustafa’s heart nearly stopped at the thought of it, then the gratitude he felt for Sharafuddin for thinking of them sent a rush of heat up to his face. They would never have been able to meet such a man on their own in such intimate circumstances. He took Sharafuddin’s hand and pulled him into an embrace in thanks, “May I have the opportunity to do you such a good turn someday, my brother.”

  Sh
arafuddin blushed, his head bowed slightly, and said, “If God wills. I’m sorry I couldn’t invite you earlier, Father limited the guests since the Imam will only be here a short time.”

  Mustafa quickly checked his robe, making sure it had not ripped in the crowd. It was not new; it bore the marks of repairs, patches and little sewn over bits here and there. But he had no other. At least his turban was freshly washed. He thought of the man’s spit on it and felt sick. He adjusted his turban over his cap to make sure it was straight. They walked through the warren of alleyways that turned around the great mosque, passing corner shops, and house upon house, each two storeys, most with perforated clay screens in the windows for privacy, others with imported intricately carved screened wooden window boxes leaning out over the street.

  Sharafuddin said quietly, “Thank God the Caliph is not in the city or this would be even more impossible! His people would have to make an entrance, to be sure, to impress upon us all his great piety and attachment to the Prophet’s example.”

  Abdelmalik said, “If the Caliph were in the city, it would be in his mosque. So thank God, he’s not here.” He slapped Sharafuddin on the shoulder, “You’d not be sneaking us in the back way then!”