The Taste of Translation

by Anne Gambling

  Much later, when I had grown beyond a child, I remembered Father’s story of the unwise Roderick, a silly youth who destroyed a great inheritance. I also remembered the crack in the wall, the slim seam of light that had let the plague wink its wicked eye upon our sanctuary courtesy of a single merchant dangling an earring of death.

  I stood atop the Comares Tower that day, looked out upon the Vega and her rippling fields of wheat, and thought further how it takes only one rotten seed to poison a whole crop, for the ocean beneath my gaze to so easily turn sick and foul. And later, when I played chess with Esha after the bath, concentrating my strategy on a carefully placed pawn, I watched it become the catalyst, the spark from the flint, the lightning strike which sealed her king’s fate.

  It takes but one, I decided that day – a king, a merchant, a seed, a pawn. And if it be the will of Allah, then that one shall be the one from whom the destiny of all others is decided. Yes. I know. I have seen. It takes but one.

  Three

  An evening came when Father said: Soon it will be your eighth birthday. You must choose a gift, worthy of my giving, worthy of your receiving.

  Think about how we should spend the day too, Esha chimed in. We must celebrate your coming of age. There should be a party!

  With music, Mumu added. And dancing girls. He grinned.

  The week before my birthday, I asked permission to see Father during the day in his throne room.

  Sara was circumspect. I do not know if it will be allowed, but I will send for al-Khatib’s secretary and inform him of your wish.

  Diya al-Din came, shuffled his feet, took his time responding. Well, he said. I’m not sure –

  Father told me I must come when I had chosen my birthday gift. It is a secret, and so cannot be told in front of my sister and brother.

  He bowed. I will inform my master.

  As the sun crept toward the horizon, Sara accompanied me to the door of the Hall.

  Remove your slippers, she instructed. Fall to your knees and bow low. Wait here for al-Khatib. And she hurried away, her veil drawn close.

  Ah, said the voice of one I knew. Come, your father awaits.

  I followed him across the cool tiles, my hands placed one inside the other.

  None shall disturb us, Father called to the vizier as he took his leave, then threw open the jalousies the better to survey the landscape of his kingdom.

  The light was soft and golden beyond the white walls of the Albaicin to where the Vega stretched away, smudged into retreat by summer’s haze, and I ran and buried my face in his musky shoulder.

  So, little star, you have decided. And it is still some days before your birthday. You must be very certain of your wish!

  My heart was restless but Mother’s love stayed my nerves as I began: Father, I know it is my duty to learn the graces of the harem, not just to play at them as I have been allowed until now, but to perfect the dancing and singing and playing of instruments, the embroidery of beautiful cloths with silk threads of gold and red, the use of different scripts and inks, the arts of beauty and love … Of course I want to be skilled in these practices but –

  I looked up, took a deep breath –

  I also want to learn like the boys do. Of the Qur’an, the hadiths, the law. Philosophy, theology, astrology, astronomy, the use of the astrolabe, the mathematical treatises of our sages. Not to play at such lessons, but learn as a boy, so that when I am a woman become, I have the knowledge of a man.

  Ah, he said. So that is your wish.

  No. I shook my head. That is only preparation for my wish.

  Which is?

  I wish your gift to be – I hesitated, continued in a rush – that I am free to choose my own life.

  There. It was out now, the wish so oft-repeated at Mother’s graveside, hearing her encouragement from Paradise, over and over to get it right, so I would not stumble when at last the chance came to tell of my desire.

  Father sat back, scratched his beard. Mmmm, he said. What would this mean? Give me an example.

  I shuffled my feet, the hard part still to come. Drew breath afresh, said: I know it is expected that I be betrothed now, if not already, to someone of your choosing, not mine. I know it is expected that I marry whether I wish it or not. I know that is Esha’s fate, and for which she is ready. But if I am free to choose my life, I am free to choose my love, the one to spend all my days and nights with.

  Tears came, tears I tried to blink away. But it did not work. I wish to be like you and Mother, I said. I wish my Beloved to be as precious as your jewel. And if there is none, then my love is for Allah alone. For it is by his grace that I exist at all.

  Father sat at the window, his sight fixed on a vanishing horizon which deepened in colour with each weakening ray of the sun.

  I understand, he said, his voice a hoarse whisper. I am grateful to Allah that your life was spared.

  He turned to me and there was a long moment when we looked into each other’s souls. Solemn, this meeting.

  You have Butayna’s eyes, he said. Her green-black pools of love. The green-black of her hair shining in the moonlight, her voice lifted in song, her laugh’s afterglow. Yes, they are her eyes. I know she looks out at me through you.

  But, he sighed, retreating from reverie, I also know you have a will of your own. Indeed you have shown it with your birthday wish. He kissed my hair. Let us see how this can be arranged. It is unusual, yes, but not unknown for a woman to choose her path. If it is your wish for Allah to be your Beloved, there are enough strong and pious Sufi women of history to guide your star through the heavens.

  He gestured for Mahmoud, ever-present at a discrete distance, to return me to the harem where Esha was assembling gowns for my inspection.

  What shall you wear? she asked. You must decide so it can be prepared.

  Servants sat me down upon plumped cushions, laughed their white laughs, arranged pretty baubles at my throat and trailed lengths of cloth before me.

  Let us pretend it is already your day! Esha cried and spun like a dervish in her delight, dancing toward me with a veil of the finest lemon silk.

  We picnicked in the Rawda with Mother on my special day, a space of pure celebration. Large carpets were spread in the cypress grove around her grave and I sat with my hand on the cool marble of her burial stela, a slab flush with the ground edged in script, no headstone or polychromed colour to detract from her beauty.

  Happy birthday, she whispered on the breeze.

  Servants brought us rosewater for our cups and small roasted chickens for our feast. We dipped chunks of flat bread into a cold orchard soup from the Generalife gardens, and Father gave a grand speech.

  Hear now! This is the gift of a sultan to his daughter which all here are bound to uphold. Remember well that my little star kissed the lips of death and lived. She is here by the grace of Allah so heed well my gift! My daughter is free – free to choose her own life. If to marry, then to marry whom she loves. If to study, then to study what she will. If to devote herself to Allah, then so it shall be. She is of age and will learn the graces. But she is free to learn whatever else in this life she desires. Our histories tell of women who were as free of spirit and full of life as Laleima herself wishes to be. Let they be her guide and her inspiration.

  Daughter, he said, turning to me. You are free to choose your own life.

  All present bowed before we two while the cypresses swirled their skirts and a sudden gust of wind tugged at my new lemon veil, lifting it from my head to waft toward the sun.

  Four

  They say our Lord Abu-I-Hayay was murdered by a mad black slave while he prayed in the Grand Mosque. But Mahmoud was not mad. He had been Mother’s devoted servant and since her death had shadowed Father everywhere. Each day he witnessed his master’s grief as he knelt with him at prayer and heard his whispered beseech to Allah that he join her in Paradise. Father had no lust for living, picked at his food, refused concubines. His only enjoyment our nightl
y stories.

  I began to compose poetry, tiny paltry ghazals mimicked from the hand of Zamrak, the student who followed his master al-Khatib everywhere like a faithful hound. Such things they could learn at the madrasa! I begged Father to let me attend with the boy princes, Mumu and his half-brothers. But no. For all my desire, I was a girl and must study here in the palace. Yet al-Khatib himself taught me, and we would sit with the same words he recited to the boys and discuss their meaning.

  He said I was a quick learner. Already I could recite some of the easier Surahs of the Qur’an. My script and grammar was well-made, my singing sweet. With training he thought I could try some of Mother’s favoured compositions. My ghazals, meanwhile, were – interesting, he teased.

  For what is it to write of love if we know not of love? he said.

  But the love of which I know and write, of family, of Mother and Father, of bird and beast, of tree and sky – is that not worthy? I retorted, hot-headed and indignant, before stomping off to find Zamrak and learn more of the qasidas he wrote in the garden, the fountain murmuring at his knee.

  Oh yes, I pestered him constantly to check my grammar and rhyme so that perhaps, one day, I would be as famous as Wallada, the princess of the old Cordoban court who could write poetry the equal of any courtier in her father’s service. Or like the daughters of Granada from centuries past – Hafsa Bint or Nazhun Bint, their poetry part of my lessons – and I recited a verse of Nazhun’s to him:

  You’d be struck dumb by the sight of her anklets,

  With the full moon rising from her gown –

  Enclosing in its folds a slender bough.

  And one from Hafsa:

  Oh horseman, riding like the wind:

  Slow down a while, and let me tell

  A thing or two of what I feel for you.

  No-one has ever felt the torment that I feel;

  All I ask is that you’re satisfied – my only joy

  Is seeing you happy, and affectionate with me –

  And so I’ll strive, until the end of time.

  Zamrak sighed. Such beautiful lines from ones who knew much of love. But come, little star, what is this you have penned?

  This is called Cypress Tree, I told him:

  I see the beauty in your form

  Your slender rise of verdant green

  From ground to sky your cloak drawn close

  No wind shall lift your skirts.

  He laughed. I think we are ripe for another female court poet, and a princess at that! he said, tweaking my nose.

  Oh! What a proud boast that would be. And I worked even harder at his side.

  Life proceeds as it does. As snows melt and flowers bloom, as grain is sown and rain fallen, as fruits are plucked and harvests reaped, as leaves colour and fall to earth. No matter what we did, no matter how much he enjoyed our company, our antics, stories, and successes, each time he looked into our faces, he saw only his lost love and his bleeding soul reflected. Nothing relieved his sorrow from the time of her passing to the time of his deliverance.

  For delivered he was. Mahmoud took the will of Allah into his own hands and attacked him as he prayed for this, the last time, to join her in Paradise. A knife to the breast and he fell into the eunuch’s waiting arms, spent.

  Dear Mahmoud! Although we orphans understood your great sacrifice, Father’s guards did not share your compassion, and set upon you like wild dogs, the mezquita stained with your faithful blood before our father’s body had even lost its warmth.

  Thus came Muhammad V to the throne of our kingdom, our brother of sixteen years who would be known in his court as our Lord al-Gani. We sat close together, held hands, as the Lord Chamberlain Ridwan, Esha’s betrothed, and the Chief Vizier al-Khatib, my learned master, told how they would attend to the affairs of state – what would stay the same, what things would need to change.

  Please, Mumu whispered, eyes fixed on the soft markings of his hands. May I be allowed to choose what we have for dinner?

  Five

  Such joy – it is the season of the hunt! We shall move across the gorge to the summer palace of Generalife for the next weeks and be joined by princes, lords and governors of the shires for feasting, music and dance. Finally I am thirteen and am permitted to ride out each day with the other women, my own small dagger – a brother’s gift, a caliph’s gift – sheathed in my belt.

  All is activity, flurry, endeavour. Sara scolds too readily, but perhaps my whirl and skip of delight as she arranges gowns in trunks and jewels in ivory chests is a little too distracting. She must count, count and count again.

  Laleima – leave me if you cannot be still! I must have peace if I am to work!

  Esha and I ride across. The horses paw the ground as we dismount in the courtyard. They sense the excitement of saddles and bridles swiftly removed so they may run free in the pastures below.

  Their giddiness is infectious. Passing the fountain, I catch a handful of water and fling it at my sister’s back.

  Oh you! She spins, drenches me in turn and leaps away, up the steep steps, the familiar narrow passage with its sharp turn to the left.

  I am close at her heels. We pant, out of breath, laugh at our sport. Children again, at leisure, to plan each day as we wish – to picnic on a meadow or ride through flocks of sheep which crop the hillsides, racing our horses faster, faster still, till we see whose breath is drawn shortest. Before returning to await the men, their kill to be roasted in the cool of the evening. Whether boar or gazelle, partridge or grouse, chamois or goat, each feast is a celebration of the season.

  One morning, we let the ladies ride out without us, beckoned instead on a foray to collect mushrooms, we sisters two. Mansoor and Rasool, our eunuchs, as well as the guard Badri, accompany us into the forest. Dismounting, we begin to search – beneath bracken fronds, around tree roots, along the moss-hugged fringes of slim-hipped paths. And our oak crocks soon fill.

  It is nice here. Quiet, without the chatter of the women, I say to Rasool.

  He nods his agreement. A silent day serves all our hearts with gladness, Mistress.

  Mansoor leads the horses, Badri is ever close. But no danger lurks, we are safe within the treasury of Allah’s garden.

  Laleima walks on and away, leaves the path, enters a grove of massed poplars. The breeze has lifted her finger to trill colouring leaves. A beast is near – she hears the sound of shifting air and a snort to clear nostrils, the better to trace scent – and so moves slowly along a track soft-pitted by hoof prints till she sees the doe, watchful, muzzle lifted. She has sensed the girl’s presence and as Laleima steps out of the trees into a clearing at the centre of the grove, she turns.

  To the gazelle, the girl is an apparition in linen and silk, a soft lemon curtain lifting its wings to the breeze. Their eyes meet and they share a bow of respect. The doe gently paws the turf.

  Stay safe, the apparition whispers. Do not cross to the higher hills. I wish not to eat of the flesh of one I have greeted this day.

  al-Khatib and his ministers have arrived by the time we return.

  We wish to enjoy some days of leisure too, he smiles.

  Zamrak, will you write here? is my only question. Will you compose a qasida in celebration of the hunt?

  It is possible, little star, he shrugs. Have you been writing?

  No, I confess. I have neglected my words. But today in the forest I met the most beautiful gazelle. Perhaps she will inspire me.

  So let us sit with our inspiration and work.

  The sun shifts low in the sky, burnishing the walls of our red castle and setting the high Sierra snows aglow. My parchment and reed pen is ready, but the gazelle seems too precious, my concern for her safe passage too strong an emotion to commit to paper.

  Do you find that? I ask him. That sometimes a feeling so grips your heart that it is impossible to bring it up and out and into the known world? That it must stay hidden, protected, a truth untold, unrevealed, only acknowledged wit
hin?

  Yes, he admits. But most of what I write is of this world, not from that place where light seldom penetrates deep within the soul. Do not forget, small one, that this is my job. I am a court poet. And a court poet composes what he is instructed to compose.

  He turns from me to look out at the darkening sky. Yet I do understand this feeling. Sometimes it is difficult to speak aloud what is felt inside. A parchment cannot bear a hidden script. And our palace walls could never display an untold truth.

  He turns back to the mosaics in the mirador, looks about and says: This place deserves words to commemorate its beauty as well as the landscape onto which it looks. Perhaps this occupation will draw your mind away from the privacy of your gazelle. And he smiles, drawing a small slide-rule from his bag with which we begin to measure the lengths of the walls.

  We are still writing when the men return. I am trying to compose an ode to a robin seen earlier in the garden, his ruddy breast at odds with all else, himself, his landscape – the grey of his wing, the twig-thinness of his leg, the sharp thorn of his beak. All contrary to the plump cherry at his breast. And then to sit within an evergreen when he could have twinned with a birch or poplar in this, his personal season? I compare his breast with the walls of the Madinat, lament his inability to perceive his own beauty, implore Allah to give robins more sense, and confound myself with rhyme, simile and metaphor.

  So engaged, I hear the men return. For return they do, with the fury of a lance thrust into an open wound, the fury of lava spat from a molten mountain.

  No! my brother cries, striding the patio, smacking a riding glove against each pillar in turn. No! he fumes. It was deliberate. It was not chance!

  He turns to the captain of his personal guard, Pablo de Luca, a Christian and the younger brother of Sara, my nurse, my maid, my friend. A good man, loyal, silent, true.

  He meant to kill me! Mumu says to him. He meant to assassinate me!

  Pablo is circumspect, keeps his own counsel, bows and says only: Sire, we must discuss this with your ministers.