The Jealous

by Laury Silvers

  “You must tell us. How long has Imam Hashim owned you.”

  She felt the arms around her again, comforting her, and the voice, Tell him.

  She did as Lady Fatima instructed, saying through her teeth, “Two years, more.”

  He smiled. He should stop smiling. She nearly caught fire again, but Lady Fatima held on tight.

  “When were you captured?”

  She opened her eyes and answered on trust of Lady Fatima alone, “My parents are slaves.”

  “When were you sold away from them?”

  She hissed, “After I bled.”

  “To Imam Hashim.” He said it like it was a fact, as if he knew everything.

  Her voice was tight, “Wrong. My first master sold me to Imam Hisham when we were on hajj.” Her throat opened with the words, “God curse them both.”

  The Arab Master interrupted, “Are you Muslim?”

  Did she have to answer him, too?

  There was a touch and she heard her Lady answer, Yes.

  She burned up against her touch despite everything. The touch became a hand laid flat against her back over her heart. She cooled again, but not enough to answer him without loathing, “Yes. I follow Muhammad, Fatima and Ali, and their blessed children. God curse the ones who killed them.” She spat on the carpet. “None of you are any better than Yazid!”

  The Twat and his Master exchanged looks.

  “Are you Shia?” The Arab Master asked.

  The hand pressed against her back, the voice whispered, Tell him about when I first came to you.

  Shaking again, she said it unwillingly, “Lady Fatima came to me my first night away from my parents. She rocked me in her arms and told me that she was my mother now. She said I must say shahada and go on hajj.”

  The Twat asked softly, as if by speaking softly she would make the mistake of trusting him, “What did your master say to that?”

  The hand against her back pushed her lightly. She acquiesced, “I already said it in front of Lady Fatima. He made me say shahada again.” She couldn’t hold back; it shot out of her, “He was to be my witness! As if his witness were greater than the Prophet’s daughter, the blessed mother of Hasan and Husayn, the wife of Sayyidi Ali!” She pressed her mouth shut and dug her fingers into the couch. She heard Lady Fatima quieting her, Shhhh, Mwana, and felt her touch again.

  The Twat turned to the Arab and said, “Now what do you think?”

  The Arab asked her, “How did your first master treat you?”

  She spat back at him, “You mean, did he rape me? After I told him about Lady Fatima, he stopped. But he brought men to his house and made me stand in front of them and tell them my story.”

  The Twat asked, “Did you go on hajj, as the Lady directed?”

  She heard Lady Fatima say, Tell him everything. They must know.

  Why was her mother Fatima forcing her to tell another man her precious thing? “He waited almost three years. Two years ago, I walked around the Kaaba. My mother Fatima took my hand in hers. Everyone left us. I looked around me for the people who had been crowding me just before. But they were gone. My mother Fatima and I circled the Kaaba alone.”

  The Arab asked, “Did you tell your master?”

  Lady Fatima’s hand pressed against her. “He saw me, but he couldn’t see her.” She leaned forward and said, “His heart is dead, like yours.” She waited for him to cut her back, but his eyes were empty, like a man who has control of everything. “He asked whose hand I was holding so I told him. What did he say? Can you guess?”

  The Twat shook his head.

  “He thanked God for such a prize. A prize to have such a devoted slave. He told men all over Mecca what I had seen.” She mocked his voice, “Look at my slave who holds the hand of the Prophet’s beloved daughter!”

  The Arab leaned forward and put his head in his hands.

  “And Imam Hashim?” The Twat asked.

  “My master made me stand in front of him and tell him my story. Right there, he offered my master more money than anyone has ever paid for any slave. My master went back to Damascus without me and I came to Baghdad with Imam Hashim.”

  The Twat turned on the Arab, looking like he would kill him. She moved away from them, backing slowly to the far end of the couch, watching the door. Maybe this is what her Lady wanted. They fight. She runs. She readied herself, her muscles twitching.

  He demanded from the Arab, “And now? Is she worth saving to you?”

  The Arab lifted his head from his hands, sneering, “Are you joking? She worships Fatima, may God glorify her name, as if she were a Zanji god.”

  The Twat was standing over the Arab before she knew what was happening. She got up and walked slowly to the door, so that they wouldn’t notice. But the Arab looked at her and shook his head, and she stiffened, unable to sit back down or run for the door. Lady Fatima took her hand and tugged her down to the couch beside her. She fell to sitting on the end of the couch and stared at the two of them.

  The Arab did not stand to meet the Twat’s challenge. He leaned back against the cushions, relaxing in an exaggerated pose. “Yes?” The Arab turned to her, ignoring the Twat, who still stood before him, “He thinks I will save you now because I am Shia. He only wants to save you because he is black, he thinks like you.”

  She was desperate. What was this man doing? Save me from what? Save me in this world only to be punished for killing the Imam in the next! She reached out to Lady Fatima but could not feel her. She pleaded with her, Let me die for what I’ve done! She felt her again, her hand over her own, and the voice that only she could hear, God knows what atom’s weight of good or ill you have done. Do not suppose you know His justice. You must trust them.

  Looking at the Black One, she asked aloud without realizing it, “Can I trust him?” She felt Fatima’s cheek next to hers, nodding. Yes.

  The Arab answered her, “Tein is an Arab like me. He speaks Arabic. His Nubian mother was a woman of great stature. A noble woman before God. Not like you. He is a ghazi who fought beside me on the frontier against the Byzantines. He is no more African than you are Muslim.”

  The Twat stepped forward, his hands open, his muscles ready. She felt herself standing against her will. Lady Fatima said, Use his name.

  She heard herself saying, “Tein.”

  He turned to her. She saw that his hands were still ready to kill.

  She heard Lady Fatima’s voice through her own, asking, “Who was your mother?”

  He stared at her, not answering.

  She repeated, now in her own voice, her chest tight from fear, “Who was your mother?”

  He stepped back from the Arab and stood to face her, saying with barely contained anger, “I am my mother’s son, not my father’s. She was a noble woman. I carry her name. I am Tein ibn al-Ashiqa as-Sawda al-Shuniziyya.” He said, his hands softening, “You can trust me.”

  She nodded, but her body clenched at his words.

  Tein sat, facing her, and asked, “Will you tell me what happened?”

  The clenching gave over to trembling, her voice shook, “I killed Imam Hashim.”

  “What do you mean when you say, ‘I killed him’? How did you kill him?”

  “I bought a talisman to curse him.”

  “Where did you get the money for that?”

  Sickness overlaid her fear. “The Imam would give me coin when he was pleased with me.”

  “And you think the talisman worked?”

  “Why else would he be dead?”

  “Did you ask for anything specific in the talisman?”

  She looked at the Arab and found her anger, saying with quiet venom, “To shrivel his penis.”

  The Arab shrank back and touched the talisman at his neck.

  After a pause, Tein said, “So he would no longer have sex with you.”

  She turned back to Tein, directing her anger at him, “Yes.”

  “But that’s not a curse to kill. Why do you think he died?”

 
She looked at her hands. She could not hold them still. She wanted to slap these men. She wanted to scream. She laid her hands flat against her thighs. Lady Fatima placed a hand over her hands, holding them until the trembling stopped. She managed to say, “Her talismans are powerful.”

  The Arab asked, “Who is she and where does she sell her talismans?”

  She heard Lady Fatima say, Tell him. But she looked at Tein when she answered, “A Turkmen woman at the Fruit Seller’s Gate in the Karkh Great Market.”

  Tein looked at the Arab sharply, then asked her, “What do you think happened to Imam Hashim?”

  “An ifrit came to do the work of killing his manhood, then saw he was evil and took his case to a jinn court. They must have found him guilty. They have their own justice.”

  The Arab interrupted, saying to Tein, “If the jinn want to protect her, she’s made a pact with them.”

  She turned on him, “You think my mother Fatima would permit such a thing!”

  “How do you know that?” Tein broke in, “How do you know he was brought before a jinn court?”

  “That’s how things are. How stupid are you? After he wore my talisman, he was getting beatings. He was black and blue. He had broken bones. He did not know who gave them to him.”

  “The doctor who saw him at the hospital said some of those bruises could have come from an illness.”

  She replied quickly, without a shred of doubt, “No, an ifrit did them.” She asked, “Does a black eye and a bloody lip come from being sick?”

  “No. But maybe someone, someone real, beat him up?”

  “A real person!” She turned to the Arab despite herself, “He denies jinn!”

  The Arab shrugged.

  She lost touch with her Lady and said, burning with hatred, “He was an evil man. I cannot be the only one he forced himself on, and maybe she had someone beat him. He deserved it. Just like he deserved the ifrit who killed him.”

  Tein said, “He might have died from those beatings.”

  “You did not see that an ifrit had a hold of him.” She said with certainty.

  “You saw the ifrit?”

  “He could see it. He said there was an ifrit on him.”

  “Why didn’t you see it too? If your talisman called it? You don’t understand; it might have been a poison. A poison could cause him to see something that wasn’t there. Even a spider bite could do it.”

  “Made him see what was there.”

  The Arab turned to Tein and said, “You see?”

  “Let’s say a talisman did do the job. You didn’t intend to kill him.” Tein looked frustrated.

  She didn’t answer. She could not breathe to speak. No, she had not. The cursewriter had done it. But the blood was on her hands all the same.

  Tein rushed, “Don’t you see, the jinn did it, not you. You are not guilty.”

  She said it aloud, “The blood is on my hands.”

  He pleaded with her, “You are innocent.” He turned to the Arab, “Don’t you see, even if you believe a jinn did it, she did not do it. On your terms, Ammar. On your terms, she is not guilty. You can’t let that confession go through.”

  This man did not understand. No matter what, Imam Hashim died because of what she had done. She struggled to trust this man. She struggled to trust her Lady. Why wouldn’t she let this end? Why wouldn’t she let her just take her punishment in this world and return with her to find Paradise in the next? End all this? End her slavery? The Arab did not speak. He looked at her hard. She could see he wanted her to die. She pleaded with the Arab, “Tell him he is wrong.”

  The Arab ignored her. He stood. “Maybe I can get the confession back and reopen the case. That doesn’t make her innocent, Tein. It just weakens her confession.”

  Tein said eagerly, “But we can investigate.”

  The Arab went to the door, halfway in and halfway out. He said, “Let’s hope Ibn Marwan agrees with you. If we can’t investigate, all that happens is that she’ll rot under suspicion in the prison beneath us.” He left, shutting the door behind him.

  She found her voice, burning with helpless fury, “Stop!”

  “I want you to live.”

  “I will still be a slave, and I will not have paid for what I’ve done.”

  “His family won’t want you. They’ll sell you.”

  “Let me die.”

  “No. I believe you are innocent,” he said, like a master with the right to decide if she lived or died.

  She demanded, “Why are you doing this? Because you and I are African?”

  He paused, then said, “I don’t know.” Then he insisted, “I would do it for anyone.” He looked toward the door. “So would he, despite all this.”

  Her stomach churned and burned. Her head began to buzz so loudly she could not hear anything but its noise. She was slipping into darkness. A hand grasped her and pulled her up. Lady Fatima had her. She saw her. Her dress was made of folds of light. Her hair was bound up in silken light. Her wrap enfolded her in light. The Lady pulled her up and into her arms. She held her, rocking her, humming in her ear like a lullaby, Now, quiet, my daughter. They have what they need. You stay here with me. With nothing left, she let go in her arms.

  Tein rushed to the couch. He listened for her breath. She had fainted.

  Ammar opened the door. Tein saw his face and knew that Ibn Marwan had not changed his mind.

  “You’ve brought her confession into question but nothing more. We’re to bring her down the cells.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I told him if she did it, it was unintentional. She bought the talisman to unman him, not to kill him.”

  “Why didn’t you say she couldn’t have done it?”

  “Because she could have done it, Tein.”

  “Weren’t you…”

  “Stop. Ibn Marwan doesn’t accept that it was unintentional. Her first confession was certain. All he is giving me is putting the confession into doubt. He didn’t even want to do that. He did it only to get rid of me.”

  Mu’mina began to moan. Tein said to her, “You’ve fainted. Are you alright?”

  She opened her eyes, and tried to sit up, pulling away from him.

  Seeing she was afraid he pulled back, too, and asked Ammar, “So she sits in jail until we find out who really did it?”

  “No. Ibn Marwan had the scribe add at the bottom of her confession that there is doubt. He did it right in front of me, then he sent it with a messenger to the Police Chief’s office. He’s letting the Chief decide.”

  “Can we investigate until then? Do we have time to give the Chief more evidence?”

  “If there’s a backlog of cases at the court, you’ll have time.”

  “She didn’t do it. Not even unintentionally. I’ll prove it.”

  “Ibn Marwan is insisting we get to work on the butcher’s case. I’ll follow that up. For you, Tein, I’ll look the other way while you do this. For you, not for her sake,” he said, tipping his head toward Mu’mina.

  Tein stood stoically and touched her on the arm, saying to her, “Mu’mina, if you can, stand. I have to take you downstairs, to the holding cells.”

  She stood, unsteadily. Tein took her gently by the arm. “I will sort this out. Please trust me.”

  “Let me die.”

  Ammar said, mocking her, “You should ask your god, the one you call ‘Fatima’, for her help.”

  She said, still weak, “Her own children were attacked and slaughtered at Karbala. Those who lived were forced to walk across the plains in humiliation to submit to Yazid. I can only pray that she will let me die to pay for this.”

  Ammar shuddered, then shook it off, saying to her as he left, “If the Chief doesn’t think there is enough to decide on, he’ll just send you back to jail and you’ll be forgotten to die, little by little, under our feet.”

  Chapter Seven

  Zaytuna’s room was dark. Her woven fishskin mat crinkled under her feet as she bent her knees to break the stiff
ness in her legs from standing so long. She called the women back to mind, again, holding up to God the enslaved girl and the talisman maker Tansholpan. God help them. God bring them justice. If Mu’mina killed him, forgive her, and make her way to you painless. If not, bring the truth to light. But the slight girl kept turning into a long-boned woman, and Tansholpan’s Turkmen cap and grey braids kept transforming into her red scarf wrapped around her matted hair. Zaytuna punched the air with her voice, reciting part of the verse, Lord, do not blame us if we have forgotten or erred, so loudly that she heard Yulduz say, “Shush!” from across the silent courtyard.

  Zaytuna tried to collect herself, and then heard a sound from the passageway. It could not be Yulduz. She held her breath and listened, turning her head to the right, then to the left, closing out her prayer quickly, whispering to the angels on either side of her, “Assalamu alaykum.” She grabbed the thick stick Tein had got her for protection and listened still.

  Then, she heard the familiar gait, the slight drag in his step from his limp. Tein. She sighed in relief and put the stick down. But the relief gave way to desperate hope that he was coming to sleep there, like he used to, just the two of them. She suddenly wanted to cry. Stop it, woman! He won’t stay. He’s here to talk about the case. Alhamdulillah. That’s the answer to your prayers, not having that huge, stinking body taking up too much space. But she wanted him there, the way he used to sleep just outside her door, watching over her, like the dog of the Seven Sleepers. She started to cry and slapped her hand to make the tears stop. The sound rang out in the silence. Pulling aside her curtain, Tein stood framed by the moonlight and the arch of her door.

  She whispered, “Come, come. Alhamdulillah, you are here.”

  Tein stepped inside and reached out to her, stinking of the night. The curtain fell behind him and the room lost the little moonlight it had. He said too loudly, “My sister!”

  Yulduz yelled out from her room, “Quiet!”