Tony Preedy - Mustafa's Last Well

Ali was, as usual, sleeping in what might have otherwise been the natural shade of a date palm while she gathered shells from the sand in front of the fort. It was winter, and the sun, hidden by cloud, did not now force them to spend their days sheltering in the harem. In there it was always dark, even by day, with shutters that blocked their world from men, closed behind the pierced teak screens that gave ventilation; screens through which the mosquitoes came, in search of blood, attracted by the scent of sleeping bodies; Screens through which she watched the stars and through which at night the cool breeze came, but not from the sea, for only the men slept on that side of the fort.

Behind her, where Ali now slept, two Indian servants were tending a fire that they had made in a pit. The Indians had three long-haired sheep, which they had brushed clean, tethered to the trunk of a palm, ready for slaughter. Ali had been with the al-Wyly family since, it was alleged, he was bought as a small child by Nahla’s grandfather in the Christian year of 1922, she had been told. No one, not even Ali himself, knew his origin. Layla told her the story that Ali had been castrated by her uncles, whatever that meant, to maintain the honour of the al-Wyly family when they found that her mother, second wife of her father, had been showing an interest in the then slave, who carried the water.

Layla had said, “More likely they did it because she was not interested in them whilst their brother was away studying with the British.”

Ali had been around to do her bidding for as long as Nahla could remember. She never knew her mother, who died very young at her birth. Ali said with great emotion once that her mother was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her father had not taken another wife after her because he had been impotent, Layla told her, ever since she had given birth to her brother Saif, but she did not explain what impotent was, and neither would Ali when Nahla asked him.

As well as Nahla and Layla, two other women lived in the harem of the fort; Shalma, who was the sister of her father and had depression, whatever that was. She had never been married but had once, in an attempt to restore relations with their neighbours, been offered by Nahla’s grandfather to, and subsequently fell in love with, someone of another tribe from the East. What Ali and the other women did not know was that Shalma, who was then only fourteen years old, had become pregnant. Salim was away in England, but the brothers who remained saw this as a terrible disgrace to their family and would have killed her, an act which would have been justified by such dishonour, but their father was compassionate. The traditional alternative story then used by families to justify a virgin birth was to claim impregnation by a Jinn whilst the girl was sleeping. In this case, the relationship was too obvious for this tactic to be acceptable. Her father, therefore, had Shalma confined to a cell in the basement of the fort to protect her from the brothers and ensure the secrecy of her condition. She gave birth to a boy, who was immediately taken from her and given to a woman of the neighbouring country who had lost her child. For the sake of honour, the brothers never mentioned this episode again, but if the question arose, they agreed to comply with the virgin birth mythology. When Salim returned, he insisted on Shalma’s release. Only Salim’s father knew that Ali was Shalma’s son, and that knowledge was passed to Salim with his father’s last breath and an oath of secrecy confirmed between them. The brothers ensured that the enmity between Naamlah and Haqum continued. Shalma now spent a lot of time in her room moping, and did not laugh with the other women. Then there was Fousia, a stepsister, born to Laylah after Shalma’s disgrace, who was still not too old for marriage but was only interested in Mariam, the Malay girl who shared her age of sixteen. To the annoyance of the other women, they had become friends with no regard for their mistress-servant relationship. They started referring to her as the mermaid after Ali told them that in the language of the English, her name translated to a woman of the sea. All of the women, except Shalma, looked like older versions of Nahla, with black hair in a long plait, black eyes, and light brown flawless skin. Each was said to be very beautiful by Ali, who appeared to be a good judge of such things.

Shalma was less attractive, because during her imprisonment the brothers declined to provide adequate food for her. A diet of dates and water had caused her teeth to decay and now she had only two in her mouth. She also looked older than her years, but her depression gave her no incentive to make herself attractive like the other ladies.

The revival of the potency of Nahla’s father was frequently a topic of conversation between the women, who had little else to spare them from an otherwise mundane and boring lifestyle, incarcerated in the hot south wing of the fort. Mariam, who had her Muslim upbringing diluted by a convent education in Johor Bahru, would read romantic books to them, whenever one could be found in the souk that was in Arabic with romantic content.

“Such books are very rare and came from Egypt, where the religious extremists had less influence,” Ali said. He added, “Once, the Malay girl brought a European Vogue magazine which they all, even Shalma, poured over, envious of the freedom of the models in their fashionable Western clothes.”

Ali was a mine of information and used to tell her of the old days when, as a child, he had been told of the tribes fighting each other over petty things like wells and grazing. Then the Persian built fort had been the stronghold of her grandfather, defended with cannons against the al-Jaboo and other tribes who wanted to replace the al-Wyly. The British had forced a truce, divided the countries at the West bank of the great wadi, and made the other tribes in Naamlah accept her grandfather as Emir. An incidental consequence was that the abandoned well of Mustafa now lay firmly in Haqum.

“A lot of gold was given to enforce the truce, but it failed to end the feud with the tribes of Haqum because of opposition by your uncles, who insisted custom required the feud to persist for another generation.” The Arabs had a tradition, Ali said, of perpetuating a feud through each generation, as though they were counted on the fingers. As long as a finger and thumb remained to hold a khanjar the desire for revenge would continue. Ali was popular with the servants, Malays and Indians, without whom, he joked, the Bedouin could only exist in tents. It was beneath their dignity and, some thought, against their religion to maintain a home or do manual work, as the holy book told that this was the duty of slaves. Nahla knew that the servants worked for a pittance and without holidays to make the Arabic ruling class comfortable.

Ali said, “Before the British came the foreigners would have been slaves, as I used to be.”

Always eager to learn, Ali absorbed information on history and world affairs by maintaining friendship with the foreigners. He was very clever, she thought, because he had taught himself to read and write when he was a young man and had picked up the English speech from the Indians. Nahla had heard Ali and Mariam talking to each other in that strange language when they had secrets from the women they served. Ali once said six tribes had claimed the impoverished and inhospitable land of sand and rock over which her father now ruled. Since the British inspired truce, based on their gunboat diplomacy, many of the sons of the tribes had abandoned their tents and used their gold to build palaces in which they kept many wives and concubines, “or whatever they were,” she thought. Some bought yachts and houses in more hospitable lands from which to gamble, dissipate and fornicate. Ali never explained what these words meant, but she thought they sounded wicked, and would rather not know.