Zaytuna stopped, her arms slack by her side as she realized the import of what Layla had said. They had never asked the midwife what was in the concoction to force an abortion! She turned back to the girl. Her eyes were wide and she could barely get the words out, “No, Layla. That’s it! You got it!” She took Layla in her arms and hugged her, then let her go, “I must run!”
Zaytuna didn’t hear Layla calling out behind her as she ran from the house. She barely saw the people in the street as she rushed past them. Then she stopped cold. Imam Hashim’s house. Where is it? For God’s sake, woman, you’re running without knowing where you are going! She put her palms over her eyes. Walla, I’m going to get this myself and bring it to Tein. Who mentioned where the Imam lived? Was it at the trial? Think! Then it came to her, Saliha had said that first day. Nahr Tabiq. Nahr Tabiq! The neighbourhood wasn’t far. She went straight to the mosque. Someone there would know which house.
She reached it breathless and looked within. The scholars were sitting at the pillars. Young men, and the odd woman, sat in clumps around them, listening to the instruction or asking questions. She sighed, she couldn’t just walk up to any pillar and interrupt them saying, “Does anyone know where Imam Hashim’s house is?”
Looking up and down the road, she didn’t see a man in a scholar’s turban or a student looking like they’d wished they had one. A sturdy woman carrying a basket walked past her giving her a hard look. Zaytuna huffed and shook her head at the woman, thinking, What could I have done to you?
As if the woman could hear her, she doubled back to face Zaytuna, demanding, “What’re you doing out in front of this mosque? There’s scholars within and you’re no student. Looking to flirt with one of those good men in there, are you? Did your mother teach you no shame?”
Zaytuna’s eyes were wide at this entirely unsolicited and unwarranted interference in her affairs. She nearly shot back that mosques belong to the people and what she did was none of her cursed business, when she realized that God had brought her the exact person who would know where Imam Hashim lived! She forced a smile, “Alhamdulillah, Auntie, maybe you can help me. I am to interview for a job at the late Imam Hashim al-Qatifi’s house, but I don’t know where it is. I thought someone here at the mosque could direct me. Do you know?”
“May God rest his soul, the wrong to done that man!”
Zaytuna bit back a retort to that, nodding instead.
“And now we hear that little temptress has got off without so much as a warning. I was there last year in court when that slut brought the case against him. When will women learn to hide their shame? Bring down a good man, would she? Now she’s been bought by some high-born woman who’s set her free. Well, she shouldn’t be too comfortable living under their roof.” She nodded to herself in satisfaction. “God gives people a bit of rope in this life to hang themselves with in the next.”
Zaytuna’s fingers itched to slap her.
Her silence taken as agreement, the woman went on, “You’ll be lucky to work there. His wife is a strong woman.”
Coughing first to recover a neutral tone of voice, Zaytuna said, “You knew the Imam well?”
She smiled, remembering. “God make his grave wide, he preached to us women especially. He’d come by the women’s side of the mosque after prayers and give us lessons about our duty to our men.” She nodded, “There were women in there who needed to hear that, let me tell you.”
Zaytuna wasn’t sure how much more of this she could take, “Do you know where they live?”
“Ajyad Road.” The woman pointed, “You’ll see a girl on the road ahead selling thorn bush and dung for fuel, turn left there, then right again.” She looked her up and down. “You’ll want the back entrance. Pass the houses and you’ll find a way back and around, wide enough for a donkey and its cart. It’s the third on the left. Green gate.”
“You keep an eye on this neighbourhood!”
“If we good folk don’t, who will?” She nodded firmly and began to walk away, saying as she left. “Watch out for that housekeeper.”
Zaytuna asked, “What do you mean?”
The woman laughed. “You’ll see.”
Almost running in the direction the woman had indicated, she quickly found the girl selling fuel on the corner. A couple of turns and she was at the green gate, knocking.
A boy no more than seven or eight years old opened the gate. He looked like all the street boys but clean. His clothes were good, mended over, but still good. The housekeeper took care of him. She thought of Maryam and wished Layla would stay with her at Imam Ibrahim’s. I’m not going to mend that girl’s clothes for her. But the Layla in her mind stood up in front of her and insisted that she already mended her own clothes, thank you very much. Zaytuna huffed, relenting, and reassured herself that even if she did not, she’d learn quickly enough.
The boy said, “How can I help you, Auntie?”
“Assalamu alaykum, I’m here to see the housekeeper.”
“I’ll get her.” The boy disappeared leaving the gate open. The back of the house was for the help, to be sure. She could see the latrine catchment around the corner of the far wall. But she couldn’t smell anything. It must be regularly cleaned. The tannur oven was on the other side of courtyard, away from the house. She could see ripples of heat still coming off it. The bread would have been long baked. Now the smell of meat roasting with garlic, onions, and something pungent she couldn’t place was thick in the cold morning air. Her stomach growled again. She pushed her fist in her gut to quiet it.
A large arbor was built over what she assumed was the kitchen door. Low couches strung with rope sat under it, but only one had a thin mattress laid out. The grape vines climbing the arbor were still green, only starting to yellow and brown, but the fruit had been harvested. Large and small flowerpots were set out. One was holding a large hibiscus that had not yet been cut back and covered to weather the cold. Neat rosemary shrubs grew against the walls. It would be a lovely spot in good weather. The housekeeper emerged from the kitchen door. She was short, wiry, and no nonsense.
Zaytuna realized in that moment she had not thought of a cover story to tease the truth out of her. What woman running any house would say anything against her employers? This garden, her life. Why would she threaten it? She thought, I’ll say I’m here about washing clothes. Then I’ll work my way around to it. But when the woman reached her, the truth came out instead, “Auntie, assalamu alaykum, I’m sorry to bother you. My brother is in the police investigating the death of Imam Hashim. I help them out now and again. His colleague came to speak to you all, but well,” she paused, “When I heard what you’d had to say, I felt like there was more.”
The woman looked her up and down and nodded sharply. She replied, “He was a fool, why would I answer him anyway? I work for the Imam’s brother-in-law, Mr. Isam. He pays me. He’s a good man. I won’t say a word against him. The other, well-dead.” Squinting one eye at Zaytuna, she added, “May God grant him the justice he deserves.”
Zaytuna nearly took a step back from the force of it. This was not a generalized curse for a man to be damned to hell out of anger or disgust, but much worse, a thoughtful prayer that God should not overlook one atom’s weight of harm he’s done when deciding his fate. “Where should we talk?”
The woman looked behind her and said, “Let me tell the boy to keep watch, I’ll step outside here with you. God knows they’ve never once walked into my kitchen or out that back door, but I’m not taking any chances. Wait here. You just give me a moment and I’ll tell you how he died.”
At those last words, she wanted to grab the woman to make her stay, but she had already turned back to the house. Zaytuna stepped away from the door and put her hand on the arched frame of the gate, picking at the fresh paint with her nail until a bit of green came off. The kitchen door opened again and she stood up and away from the gate, flicking the paint to the ground. The housekeeper hurried to her and closed the gate partway behind them but d
idn’t speak immediately.
Zaytuna couldn’t stand it. “Who killed him?”
The woman laughed. “You’d think it’d have been that girl. Mu’mina had enough fight in her to do it. Imagine, bringing a court case against the man who owns you for doing what he owns you for!”
Zaytuna bit her tongue.
The woman went on, adding as if it were nothing, “It was his wife who did it.”
Zaytuna stepped forward. “You think his wife killed him?”
She tipped her chin up. “I know it.”
There it was. But the thrill of finally knowing sank into her gut and turned sour. If she’d only said it sooner, a woman would not be dead. She asked, “Why didn’t you tell the police? A woman has been killed because they didn’t know.”
“Well, I didn’t know it then!” The woman looked her up and down, “That policeman never came back to ask me!”
“When did you find out?”
“Only after the police said Mu’mina was pregnant.”
“I’m sorry, of course you are right. Please tell me.”
The woman nodded, accepting the apology, but still prickled. “I would have told if anyone came back. You’re here now and now I’m telling.”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Madam Hanan used Mr. Isam’s medicine for his epilepsy to kill him. She knew what it’d do. Mr. Isam had too much of it once. He used to have only rue with dill seed, but then the doctor added a bit of belladonna to the mix. He’s more tired from it, but it’s helped. That belladonna is dangerous, so the pharmacist told us to keep it locked up. A stupid girl we had living here years ago put too much into the date mix. I never let anyone but me touch the mix after that.”
“What happened?”
“We make stuffed cookies for Mr. Isam. I fill them with ground nuts and dates with butter and a touch of camphor. It masks the taste. Herbalists will make them too, if you ask. We get our medicine from the pharmacist, so we make the cookies ourselves.” She said with pride, “The whole family dotes on my stuffed cookies, so I make some for him with the medicine in them.” She went on, “That one time he had too much medicine, Mr. Isam started seeing things. He saw his dead father before him. The old man was saying something awful to him by the way poor Mr. Isam was protesting. He turned bright red, and had a moment there with some trouble breathing, but he came back to us just fine.”
The Imam’s brother lied to Ammar. He said his medication was too weak to cause the symptoms his brother suffered! Zaytuna asked too eagerly, “And so his wife fed the Imam those same cookies?”
The woman’s eyes sparkled at Zaytuna’s tone. “The Imam came home late that morning from a night of gambling and who knows what else. The sun was long up. She met him at the door and brought him up to their room. I brought them up some sage tea. He likes sage tea after a night out drinking. She told me not to come near but to leave the tea on the table by the door, so I did. Then the boy and I had to rush off to Mr. Isam’s sister’s house. But I saw him eating the cookies. She sat up with him, served him the tea herself, and sat with him while he ate them.”
“But why would he eat them if he knew they were medicine?”
“Aren’t you listening? I make these cookies for the whole family. They’re a favourite. I make two batches of the same thing. I have presses to mould them. There is a different design for each. I know which is which.” She insisted, “But I keep Mr. Isam’s medicine and his cookies locked up in my kitchen. No one can get at them, but me. I’m the only one with a key. I told that to the policeman when he was here the first time.”
“But then how…”
“I’m telling you, aren’t I? After the police came and told her about the baby, she was so angry, I thought she’d die. Later I found her in my kitchen cabinet with my key in her hand. She demanded to know what we had that would make the girl lose her baby. She said she’d go down to the prison and feed it to her herself.”
“What?” Zaytuna didn’t know what to say first, object that she’d just said they never went into her kitchen, ask how the wife got a key, or confirm if the wife had poisoned Mu’mina. She decided, “Did she poison her?”
The housekeeper looked at Zaytuna as if she were stupid. “Of course not! What need would she have to do that when she could pay someone to do it for her?”
“Did she pay?”
“Who else would have done it to the girl?”
Zaytuna stared. “So how did she get your key?”
“I take them off my belt sometimes, don’t I? How was I to know she’d seen me leave the keys aside? She’s got no interest in how the house is run. She just wants it run right and I do it.” The woman poked Zaytuna in the arm, “The point here is that Madam Hanan knew what the cookies would do, and she knew how to get at them.”
Zaytuna said without meaning to, “If you’d only come forward…”
The housekeeper broke in, “I realized too late!” Her back was up again, “You don’t want to know what I think.”
Zaytuna put her hands out to assure her. “I do. Please.”
She considered for a moment. “I don’t think she meant to kill him. I think she meant to give him a scare. She just wanted him to see the ifrit that girl had brought on him and she thought the medicine would do it. Just like what happened to Mr. Isam. Then the Imam’d take that talisman off. Then he’d sell the girl. Walla, Madame Hanan is jealous of that one. You think he’d have enough with the prostitutes he’d visit, but he always had time for that slave.” She shook her head, “How could Madam Hanan know the ifrit would kill him?”
“And Mr. Isam, is he involved in this?”
The housekeeper stood up straight, “Never. He’s a good man. He’s a bit soft, but there’s no harm in that, I suppose.”
“How so?”
She laughed. “He loves Madam Hanan. They’re cousins through the father’s side. She was to be his by rights, he’s the eldest brother after all. He grew up thinking she’d be his. But because of his epilepsy, her parents refused it, his own father too. So the parents agreed to marry her to the younger brother, Imam Hashim instead.” She paused for effect, “Mr. Isam, he’s never stopped loving her.”
This woman didn’t want to speak ill of Isam yet here she was obviously implicating him, as well as the Imam’s wife. She began to have a better sense of the warning she received about her. She was a woman who liked to stir a pot. Zaytuna no longer had any idea if any part of what she was saying was true. None of this made any sense to her. Why would she risk it? If any of what she said got back to the family, she’d be on the street. Zaytuna pressed, “Why are you telling all this now?”
The woman said plainly, “Because I feel like telling. There’s nothing to be done now anyway. You can say all you like to that policeman; it won’t come back to me. I heard Madam Hanan and Mr. Isam talking. That policeman is in hard trouble over the mess of the trial. They know important people.” She nodded sharply, “Important people are going to have a word with his boss.”
Zaytuna started with fear for Ammar, then shook it off. Maybe this is what he deserves for what he’s done. God knows His justice.
The housekeeper went on, “At least now Mr. Isam has Madam Hanan to himself. Maybe they’ll marry. They’re old now. Who can stop them?”
Zaytuna was speechless.
The woman said, “Well, that’s enough. I’ve said what I liked.” She stepped back through the gate and shut it in Zaytuna’s face without warning.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Zaytuna walked away from the house wondering if she should try to find Tein now and tell him what the housekeeper had said. But she didn’t know where he was or what he was investigating today. The wife or brother-in-law had done it, or both of them. But the housekeeper was right, what did it matter? That woman would never pay for poisoning Mu’mina. And was there any need to see justice done for Imam Hashim? I’m glad he’s dead, she thought. As the thought came up, she quickly tried to hide it from herself and God. Then the thou
ght came back with force, defending itself, Why can’t we be glad the unjust are dead? Isn’t that God’s justice? She answered her own question with a “Thank God,” loud enough for all to hear as she walked away from Imam Hashim’s house. God destroyed the man and freed the girl. Mu’mina was free, truly free at last. Then she remembered Tansholpan’s death and her angry gratitude turned bitter. Where was the justice in that? Surely, she set all this in motion. But what did God get out of her dying that way? She felt cold water lapping at her toes. She ignored it. Her feelings suddenly turned against Ammar. What about Ammar? Is he being held responsible? Some part of her pointed to his crumpled form before her and Yulduz in the mosque. He was truly grieved. But she answered back to it that grief was not enough. She said, aloud, not caring who would hear, “God make him taste what he’s done.”
She walked in anger, her feet hitting the ground so hard, one of her slippers scuffed off a foot and flew ahead of her. “Allah!” She ran forward to get it, but an old woman had picked it up and held it in her hand. The woman was in a long and densely woven white wrap that had yellowed from long use. It was so thick it could not be tucked in on itself, so she had bound it to her waist with a rope. The wrap was so heavy over her head, and cut out the light so completely, it was as if she carried a nomad’s tent with her. Colourful beads of different sizes and shapes were woven into the braided fringe along the wrap’s edge and she seemed to be counting prayers on them with her fingers on one hand, while holding her slipper with the other. The woman’s craggy face was as worn and yellowed as her wrap. Zaytuna held her hand out for the slipper, but she did not give it to her. Zaytuna shook her head, remembering her manners, and said, “Thank you, Auntie, May God find for you what you have lost.”
The Jealous Page 37