Radwa Ashour - Granada

On that day he inquired about her and made up his mind. Then he went with Saad to her father’s house, and when the father gave his consent they recited the opening chapter of the Quran, and Naeem was the first to congratulate himself on his new bride and the end of this bout of misfortune. Then the father of the bride came to him and said, “The Castilians are making life more difficult for us and imposing great financial burdens on us. My brother in Fez tells me to go there, for work is plentiful and life is prosperous.” Naeem responded, “No need to worry! I will take good care of your daughter and treat her with respect. May you have a safe journey, and when God solves things here, come back!”

“Why don’t you travel with us, so that God’s blessings will be complete,” he added.

Naeem declined the offer to leave Granada, and the man took his daughter and departed.

Naeem confided in Umm Jaafar about his feelings of anxiety.

“I’ll find you a bride more beautiful than her.”

“More beautiful, more ugly, I don’t care! I just want a nice girl to be my wife. I feel old and useless, Umm Jaafar, and the years pass me by and I’ll find myself an old man with no wife or children.”

“Leave the matter to me,” laughs Umm Jaafar. “I’ll marry you off to a young girl as radiant as the full moon.”

Umm Jaafar set out in search for the right bride for Naeem. She found one and told him all about her, her height, size, face, hair, personality, and temperament. Naeem paid a call on the girl’s father, accompanied by Saad and Hasan. A day before the signing of the marriage contract, the mother of the bride came to visit Umm Jaafar and with tear-soaked eyes told her that her husband had decided to convert to Christianity after the Castilians announced an edict banning contacts between the Muslims of Granada and the inhabitants of the other Castilian cities.

“He’s a muleteer and we all live off of the loads he transports from one place to another. Now we must all convert, I mean the entire family. If Naeem wants to marry our daughter, he too must convert.”

Umm Jaafar relayed the bad news to Naeem.

“The truth of the matter is that she was crying, and even though I scolded her for her husband’s decision, my heart went out to her. She left after I told her that Naeem would never do such a thing even if they put a knife to his throat. Isn’t that so, Naeem?”

“Of course, Umm Jaafar.”

At that very moment Naeem realized that he was ill-fated and that misfortune would be sure to follow him until his back grew humped and his teeth fell out.

“It’s true that you’re late getting married, but you’re still only twenty.”

“I’m twenty-two, Umm Jaafar.”

He held back telling her that he had become the target of an evil eye, and that when he was thirteen he fell in love with a different girl every week. With a sigh of sorrow, he thought. He wondered who it was who cast the evil spell on him. If only he knew, he would beg that person to redirect his aim toward the Castilians and strike them a fatal blow. Now that Saad had gotten married, their daily encounters had dwindled to a solitary once a week. He was busy with his wife, and now she’s expecting their first child. Tomorrow there’ll be children and he will be all the more preoccupied. Hasan, too, is married and his wife keeps him busy as well. But what about him? He only has the sandals that he works on all day long to occupy him, and at night he wanders about the streets or sits outside the door of his shop, brooding over the evil eye that has befallen him.

Naeem was sitting outside his shop, depressed, when he suddenly saw Saad coming toward him. It wasn’t the usual day of the week when they met. He sprang to his feet and shouted out a joyous greeting to his friend. He dashed into the shop and emerged with a bunch of grapes, five ripe figs, and a fistful of fresh almonds. He set them down in front of Saad as he beamed with pride. “I bought them just today. It was as if my heart was telling me that you’d be coming to visit. Here, help yourself.”

As he stared into Saad’s face Naeem sensed that something was wrong. “What’s come over you?”

“Saleema’s giving birth in two months.”

“I know!”

“I may have made a mistake in marrying her.”

Naeem’s eyes widened in amazement. With a subtle smirk on his face, he asked, “Have you been tapping into Abu Mansour’s wine?”

“I have not been drinking!”

“Did you quarrel with Saleema?”

“Not at all.”

“Well, then what happened?”

“What’s the use of getting married when a man can’t take proper care of his family?”

“Did Umm Hasan say anything to offend you?”

“They came today and closed down Abu Mansour’s bathhouse. In fact, they closed down all the bathhouses in Albaicin.”

Naeem froze in shock, his mouth agape, unable to comprehend what Saad was saying.

“Are you sure of this?”

“I’m telling you, they closed it down. Some soldiers came and they threw everyone out and closed it down. They said from this day forward anyone who opened a bathhouse or worked in one would suffer the severest of punishments.”

“Why is that?”

A scornful, bitter smiled flashed across Saad’s face. “They say that bathhouses are unsanitary, and that it’s an evil Arab custom with no useful purpose.”

“So then where should people bathe?”

“Why should they bathe? Do their Castilian lords bathe?”

“And what does all of this have to do with Saleema? Did you quarrel over the bathhouse closing down?”

“O, Naeem, please! I didn’t fight with Saleema, nor she with me. It’s just that I’m now without a job. Isn’t it enough that I live in Hasan’s house? Must I now tell him to take care of me, my wife, and the child we’re expecting?”

“Hasan’s a brother to you, and so am I. You’ll find another job.”

Several moments of dead silence passed before Naeem broke it and spoke as though he were talking to himself. “Sons of bitches, they closed down the bathhouses. So where are we to bathe now?”

They grew silent once again, both lost in their innermost thoughts. Then Naeem picked a grape from the bunch and popped it into his mouth and spoke. “Tomorrow, come by my place at the crack of dawn. I’ll teach you some of the things I do here. After three or four days, you’ll learn everything you need to know, and I’ll ask my boss to give you a job. He’ll be furious to learn that they closed down the bathhouses, and his heart will go out to you and he’ll give you a job. Of course, he’ll ask if you have any experience in shoe making. Just tell him that you worked for a cobbler for several years before working at Abu Mansour’s bathhouse. He’ll ask you where and when. Tell him in Malaga. And when he asks you to show him how to do something, do what I taught you. What do you think of that?”

When Saad left, Naeem sat pondering the strange matter of closing the bathhouses. To wage battle against your enemy is understandable, but what is the wisdom of closing a bathhouse or coercing someone to change his religion? Those Castilians are indeed a strange people and apparently deranged. But what causes them to be so irrational? Did not their mothers give birth to them like normal, healthy human beings? How can their minds be so corrupted and their behavior so erratic? Naeem thought about all of this but was at a loss to find a logical explanation. Maybe it was the intense cold of the north that froze part of their brains, stopping the blood from flowing there, making them die or go insane. Or perhaps it was their excessive consumption of pork that made them dimwitted. Yet despite the closing of the bathhouse and Saad losing his job, Naeem couldn’t help but feel happy at the prospect of them working together at the shop. He was a little embarrassed to think of the utter joy he would feel if the two friends went back to working together, meeting every day and talking nonstop, as they used to do.