The Lover

by Laury Silvers

  His dismay had so distracted him that he did not notice the Imam walking through an inner door to take his place. Mustafa looked up suddenly as all conversation stopped and saw the Imam taking his place. Imam Abu Abdelrahman was not wearing Mustafa’s turban. He struggled to collect himself. This small thing hurting him in a way he didn’t understand. He needed to see Zaytuna. He wanted to see her face. He needed to tell her about the forgery and to see her pleasure at him bringing her this news.

  The Imam said prayers opening their endeavour and began to recite the chain of narration of the first hadith: “Abu Abdelrahman al-Azdi, who heard it from Abu Ali al-Yamani, who heard it from Malik ibn Anas, who heard it from an-Nafi al-Madani, who heard it from Ibn Umar, who heard the Prophet Muhammad, God bless him and peace, say.…” They repeated the chain after him. The shaykh returned to the beginning and repeated it again. They took out their pens and began to write. Then he repeated it again. Then they checked their copy.

  Chapter Twenty

  The sun was already hot enough that morning that Tein’s freshly washed clothes were no longer soaking wet by the time he returned from the bathhouse. In the heat, the damp cloth felt good against his body. Saliha was long gone to knock on doors, looking for work. Zaytuna was taking the morning easy, waiting to go with Tein to meet Ammar. She didn’t have to meet up with Saliha for washing until nearly the afternoon prayer. She felt good. She couldn’t remember ever feeling like this. She had a sense all would be well and it worried her. She wondered when the feeling would pass, but it was more a worry of wanting to feel herself again.

  She slipped her arm into Tein’s and they made their way out of the passageway from her small courtyard house into the alley, and from there through the squares and streets of Tutha towards the Basra Gate High Road leading to the Gate itself at the Round City. They cut through the clustered neighbourhoods of the Karkh quarter to avoid the packed thoroughfares around the main marketplace, a district as large as some small cities, selling everything imaginable: brutishly thick iron gates made by Mandean blacksmiths as well as filigreed insets for windows. There were washa silks woven with golden thread, brightly-patterned and striped cottons and linens, felted and woven wool, from the fine to rough, and tailors to do the sewing for the rich and poor alike. Women lingered in front of the Jewish goldsmith shops, one after another. The butchers had their own section of the market, as did the grain sellers and those selling fruits and vegetables imported from the far edges of the Empire. Beggars and women selling curses and amulets sat by its gates. Pickpockets and con artists wandered through its streets looking for marks, while prostitutes tried to make eye contact with men from behind their niqabs and offer a discreet, but well-understood, cough.

  But even the smaller market places they passed on their way through neighbourhoods and estates of the Karkh Quarter were busy and Zaytuna’s eyes were on everything. She admired the intricately-patterned fine linen gowns and robes flicking out underneath the honey-coloured gossamer wraps worn by wealthy Jewish women who walked, heads together chatting, with their light-skinned slaves behind them, honey-yellow patches on the slaves’ qamises marking them as owned by non-Muslims, carrying the women’s goods. She wondered at herself, wishing out of nowhere that she could have one of those robes for herself, or one of their beautiful deep yellow wraps, although such a thing would be forbidden to her as a Muslim.

  She looked at Tein, but he walked steadily ahead. She tugged at his sleeve, “Let’s take the long way around so we can pass by the Birkat Zalzal. When was the last time we sat in the shade of its trees and cooled our feet in the pool?”

  He looked at her tenderly, remembering, but shook his head with a small laugh, “Not a chance.”

  The wide Basra Gate High Road opened up before them. The road was bordered by the high walls of estates on either side, broken only here and there by arched entrance ways leading to narrower side streets and the neighbourhoods beyond. Not too far ahead she could make out the road that led toward the Sharqiyya Mosque where Mustafa so often went to study Hadith.

  They walked behind a workman in a dusty sirwal and no shirt leading a donkey that pulled his tools in a cart, while two horse guardsman rode side by side beyond him, holding their staves high. The smell of dung hit her. She followed the scent and saw its collector napping by the roadside, in the shade of his cart, the bed already half full of dung from the morning’s riders. She thought that in this heat, once he was able to lay them out, his fuel would be ready to sell by the end of the day.

  Wealthy men in layers of delicate multi-hued fabrics and wearing weighty turbans firmly wound around their caps rode on elegant brown and black horses along the roadway. They were followed by their women in covered litters decorated with tassels and what looked like beading from where she was. One of the litters was carried by four dark-skinned servants or slaves, dressed more elaborately than their masters in heavily embroidered matching short cotton robes and sirwals with bright green and red sash belts around their waists and elaborately wound white turbans.

  She stared openly at one of them, his skin was so black, that it glittered with his perspiration as if it were the deepest purple gemstone, contrasting sublimely with the white silk of his turban. As if he could feel her looking at him, he turned in her direction. She sighed at his beauty. She looked to Tein to see if he had seen the man as well. He had. Tein nodded to him, a silent communication. She looked back, the man nodded in return to Tein then returned to balancing the litter. There was no nod for her, in truth because she was a woman, and more to the point, as far as the man knew, Tein’s woman. But she told herself it was because to him she would be just another Arab, or Persian maybe, not as-sawda, a black woman, not her mother’s daughter, not a woman this black man would call sister.

  As they came around the western curve of the road to head north to the Round City, the green dome of the Caliph’s reception palace came into view. They had not even crossed the canal of the poultry market yet, but the walls loomed so powerfully in the distance they could have been right before her. Any pleasure she felt from the walk slipped away at the sight of them. The police, the watchmen, and the caliph’s guardsman were beyond those walls, and jails and dungeons beneath them. She suddenly felt the morning heat press in on her and tasted the dust kicked up by the riders on the road. She leaned heavily onto Tein who looked at her, asking, “What’s wrong?”

  “What was I thinking coming here?”

  He replied, “You can turn back. I have to go in to work whether or not you come along. There’s no need to bring this story to him.”

  She nearly did turn around. She used the end of her wrap, draped loosely over her head and back, to wipe the sweat and dust from her face, looking to the sides of the road for someplace to sit where they could stop and breathe for a minute so she could reconsider. But there was nothing but estate walls and roadway at this stretch. She held her wrap out over her to offer a bit of shade and asked, “Couldn’t we just turn off for a bit, there’ll be an estate garden open in one of these neighbourhoods, a small market, a place to get something to drink.”

  “Zaytuna, I have to be there soon. You can come with me now or go.”

  She tried to look inward, to feel that warmth she had felt in prayer, the feeling that had led her to this act of trust in pursuing what had happened to Zayd. But all she felt was her heart clenching and the knot in her stomach. She held herself up and told herself sharply, Enough of this. Turn around in fear or live, woman!

  She didn’t say anything to Tein, she just kept putting one foot in front of the other. The great walls of the Round City grew before them to fill the horizon with each step. It stood in ruin in some places. But here it looked as it must have done when al-Mansur built it as a statement of his power. He was the centre of the world. She looked at Tein to see if the might of the city, the power of the caliphate, was affecting him as it was her. His face showed nothing. He looked like he could have been walking to any place.

  As th
ey neared the Gate House she could hear the waters of the moat slapping sharply against its cemented, brick lined walls as it flowed around the grand and fortified entrance. There was nothing on the banks of the moat to keep a person from falling in and being swept away in it. She felt a hot wind pick up and get such speed around the turrets and the dome of the Gate that it buffeted her this way and that, pushing her off-balance.

  The bridge to the Gate House crossed the moat at its side leading into a great arched entry. The last time she had been here, years ago, Mustafa had brought her to al-Mansur’s mosque to hear a hadith reciter. But men had crowded all the women out and they were forced to sit in the gardens surrounding the mosque. No repeaters were sent outside to them so that they too could hear. She fumed. They had walked home in silence that day. Today, she stepped from the bridge into the Gate House, making sure to go in right foot first, saying, “Bismillah” and a silent prayer this visit would only lead to the good.

  They turned left in the Gate House and another grand archway opened up onto another bridge. The hot wind howled through the archways pulling at her wrap, nearly blowing the long end off her head and shoulders and drying her sweat as it came up on her. The next bridge crossed a circular roadway as wide as the Basra Gate High Road to another interior fortified wall, taller and broader than the first. Whole armies could be housed in the ramparts of the second wall and had been in the past. If an invading army had made it over the first wall, they’d find themselves trapped between it and the next with arrows raining down on them.

  At the end of this bridge stood the Solomon Gates. She stopped and gaped at them. She imagined she would never fail to be humbled in fear by these great iron doors made by jinn for the Prophet Solomon himself. They stood open now, but it took over twenty men to close them. Tein tugged at her to keep going. They crossed through these gates, past another bridge, and another roadway past another smaller, but still fortified, wall.

  He said, “His office is in the arcades ahead. The police are in the first rooms on the left side.”

  “What do we do?”

  “We’ll talk to that guard up there and he’ll get Ammar for us. It’s my first day at work here, so they don’t know me. We’ll have to wait.”

  She looked down the arcades stretching on either side of the palace gate road, the road itself leading through further gates and fortifications to the inner part of the city where the great mosque and reception palace stood surrounded by gardens.

  She began to shake, asking him, “Are all the police here?”

  “No, the police and watchmen for each district have their offices and barracks by the gate nearest it. And that’s not the half of it.”

  He felt her shaking and leaned into her, pulling her closer, saying quietly, “Stop worrying, my sister. I have you.”

  She leaned back into him, letting out a breath she seemed to have been holding a long time. He laughed and pushed her away from him, “When has my sister ever been afraid of anything?”

  She managed to laugh a little in return, saying, “Often. But less than most, I suppose.”

  As they approached the guard, Tein took in his aggressive posture. He stood with his legs spread and shoulders back, his hand on his mace hanging by his side. This young fellow was either looking for an opportunity to prove himself or trying to avoid one. Tein couldn’t tell yet. He stopped several feet before him, giving him space, “Assalamu alaykum. We are here to see Ammar ibn at-Tabbani. He is expecting us. My name is Tein ibn al-Ashiqa as-Sawda al-Shuniziyya and this is my sister, Zaytuna.

  The young man laughed, “Wait, your name might as well be ‘Twat’ and you take your mother’s laqab instead of your father’s and it’s ‘The Black Lover’! You should make something up!” He shook his head, “And, what? You expect me to believe this woman is your sister, you’re nothing but a ‘crow’ and she looks like a fine Arab. She’s too skinny to be a whore, so who is she to you?”

  Tein listened to the young man’s reaction patiently. Tein had taken on his mother’s laqab himself when he went off on the long trek to the Frontier. He wanted to be known as his mother was known to others, and he liked how it provoked. He hadn’t been looking to prove himself like this fellow. He was proven from a young age. In those days, he was just angry and looking for a fight, any fight. He found them easily enough.

  Zaytuna sighed, expecting Tein to now approach the young man in such a way so as he would not know what was coming, disarm him, and have him up against a wall. She stepped to the side to get out of the way.

  Tein caught the sigh and the movement and turned to her saying quietly, “Not today, dear sister, we’re here for business. Soon I’ll be working for this young man’s boss and the look on his face when he sees that will be enough for me. But I would be happy to defend your honour if you like.”

  Zaytuna raised an eyebrow saying with mock gravity, “A true Muslim has no honour except in serving God.”

  Tein tipped his head to her, “Just so.”

  He turned to the young man, “I appreciate your thoughts on my name and our connection, but I assure you that Ibn at-Tabbani is expecting us.”

  The young man laughed at him and told him to wait. It wasn’t long before Ammar came out the door followed by the guard. He looked Tein up and down, happy with the change. He turned back to the guard saying, “Get to know this black face and hulking figure, Rashid, he’s working for me now. Whatever he wants, you help him.”

  Tein pretended to look down the arcade road to give Rashid a moment to get over any embarrassment, if he had any. What good would further humiliation do, especially if he ended up needing him in a fight. When he looked back, though, he saw Zaytuna staring at Rashid and grinning. Fair enough, he laughed to himself, the fellow did impugn her looks and mistake her profession.

  Ammar’s voice boomed across to Zaytuna, “Welcome! It has been a long time! I hope you’ve been in good health.”

  He gestured for Tein and Zaytuna to follow him. Once Rashid was out of earshot, Ammar leaned into his friend and took a long exaggerated sniff, “Like roses today, my brother, like roses.”

  Tein laughed and replied, “Is this a proposition? You know I’ve been lonely.”

  Offices were set into the arcade arches, some doors shut, others open. Zaytuna tried to look in at them as they walked quickly by. All of the rooms she could see had low couches with cushions to sit on and rugs on the floor. The rugs told her all she needed to know about who was important here. She slowed down at one room. It was double or triple the size of the others, maybe taking up three archways. It had a thick red carpet large enough to cover the entire floor area and she could just see a pattern of armed men on horses woven in around its edge. The low couches were backed by long pillows in coloured silk, deep reds, blues, and greens edged with embroidered vines. Tein looked back and pulled at her sleeve, gesturing with his head, “Let’s go.”

  Ammar turned into a small room, still far larger than the room that she lived in, maybe four times the size. It had a rug, too, but thin, flat woven, and old. Its colours were fading and its geometric patterns were worn through here and there. His couches had pillows, too, but only covered in rough, undyed linen.

  She sat on the couch, nearly falling into it, not feeling entirely comfortable with its give. It made her nervous. There was a raised writing desk set to one side near the couch on the far wall and a built-in cabinet for papers nearby it. Here it was. Zaytuna was not talking to Tein’s old friend, Ammar, but an official in the Baghdad police. Mustafa was right. This man would not protect the girl. Zaynab would be ruined whether or not the case required it. She wished desperately she hadn’t come. She looked out the door and wondered if she could just get up and walk through it.

  Ammar prompted her, his strong voice penetrating and making her uncomfortable, “Would you like to tell me what’s concerning you?”

  She remained silent.

  Ammar waited a moment longer, saying, “Zaytuna?” Then when there was no answer again
, he turned to Tein and gestured for him to speak to his sister.

  Tein saw the fear on Zaytuna’s face. He started for her, “It’s concerning the case you just closed. Zayd, the servant in Ibrahim as-Silafi’s household. Zaytuna believes she’s got evidence he was murdered.”

  Ammar sat up at that. “You’ll need to explain.”

  Zaytuna’s eyes widened, pleading with Tein to leave, but found she couldn’t stand.

  Tein prompted her, “Zaytuna? Ammar is an old friend, but let’s not waste his time.”

  An image came to her, fleeting, of Zayd in a sling, lying across her mother’s back, his head on her shoulder, sleeping, but she felt his weight herself. Her mother’s back was her own. The words came out, “Layla, one of Imam Ibrahim’s servants, came to me to say he’d been killed. She believed killed by the Imam himself because his daughter, Zaynab, had fallen in love with him.”

  Ammar spoke, “That’s a serious charge. I should tell you at the outset that I interviewed everyone in the household, examined the scene, and the body. There was no evidence for that. Further, the girl you mentioned, Layla, she works next door, not for Imam Ibrahim. She wasn’t there when Zayd died that night. Did she say how she knew?”

  Zaytuna was hit with shame and confusion. How did she not know that Layla was not a servant at Imam Ibrahim’s? She hadn’t asked. She just assumed. What else had she assumed? She said quietly, “No.”

  Tein took Zaytuna’s hand and said to Ammar, “There’s more.” Then, turning to Zaytuna, said, “Please just give it to him simply.”

  Zaytuna, held onto Tein, breathed deeply and spoke, “I’m concerned that Zaynab will come to some harm if all this comes out.”

  Ammar said, “Then maybe we should just end this here,” and he stood.

  She stood as well, grateful to end it, and Tein looking from one to the other, followed. But she felt heavy, not just the weight she felt across her back, but now a weight before her, as if a child were wrapped around her chest. Layla. She felt Layla’s legs wrapped around her waist, her arms thrown around her neck, holding her and begging her, “Take care of me.” Zaytuna fell back down sitting under the weight of the children bound to her.