Radwa Ashour - Granada

Umm Jaafar, on the other hand, reacted in a different manner, accepting what Saleema was doing, however grudgingly. She wasn’t at all convinced, but she accepted it. Perhaps she was too old to engage in such a battle. In her heart of hearts, it wasn’t so much what Saleema was doing that bothered her as it was her neglecting Saad. She could see him dejected and withdrawn, and so she treated him tenderly and showered him with affection, insisting on inviting Naeem to the house, knowing that he could lift Saad’s spirits and ease his pain in these trying times. Saleema’s rejection tormented Saad, and he complained to his friend of his misery.

“Whop her,” suggested Naeem. “Give her a good whopping until she comes to her senses.”

Then he changed his mind. “Treat her kindly, Saad. The poor thing is grief-stricken over the loss of her baby. She needs sympathy and understanding.”

Finally, he gave a third piece of advice. “Get up right now and smash all the jars and vials she fills with those strange brews she’s concocting. Tear up those books that are poisoning her mind and throw out all those women who come seeking her advice and cures.”

Naeem’s suggestions were both numerous and contradictory, but Saad wasn’t able to act on any of them. He was too emotionally tied to her, and he longed to be close to her as though she were his mother and had rejected him. She sat absorbed in this new occupation that seemed to have befallen her like the plague. But he was patient, speaking kind words to her, trying to catch her attention with a question, an observation, or a piece of news, only to have her keep her distance, beyond the reach of anyone, as the sadness of an abandoned orphan overwhelmed him and the tears swelled in his eyes until sleep would bestow mercy on him.

One day it happened that Saad’s long-suffering patience reached its limit. Umm Jaafar heard his voice rise in utter anger and Saleema replying with equal vehemence. The quarrel erupted in explosion, and when Umm Hasan heard it from the kitchen she came rushing out to find out what was the matter. “Let them fight it out a little, and then they’ll make up,” cautioned Umm Jaafar.

Umm Hasan couldn’t take her mother-in-law’s advice, especially when the shouting reached such a pitch and it appeared that Saad was striking Saleema. Umm Hasan shouted furiously, “This is the last straw. We take him off the street and put a roof over his head, and he mistreats our daughter and beats her!”

She rushed toward Saleema s room and Umm Jaafar followed her frantically and out of breath. “Your daughter deserves everything she’s getting, Zaynab. Saad isn’t the first nor the last husband to strike his wife to keep her in line. Keep your composure, Zaynab.”

Umm Hasan stormed into the room, adding her screams to those of Saad and Saleema. Umm Jaafar couldn’t make out exactly what was going on when she was suddenly stunned by Saad rushing out of the house with his clothes in a bundle. Saleema stood stone-faced and grating her teeth but without a tear in her eye. When Maryama came home, Umm Jaafar asked her to go and sit with Saleema and calm her down. Later when Hasan returned, she asked him to go look for Saad and win him back. He agreed, but before he left the house he went into Saleema’s room, cursed and slapped her. Maryama started to cry, as did Umm Jaafar, as well as Umm Hasan and all the children. Then Hasan stormed out, cursing mindless women, burdensome children, and the jackass of a man who thinks of getting married and raising a family. Umm Jaafar was convinced that an evil eye had cast its spell on the household, and she asked Maryama to go out and fetch her the best incense she could find to ward it off.

As he anticipated, Hasan found Saad at Naeem’s. He tried to convince him to go back with him to the house. When Saad refused, Hasan swore that he would divorce his own wife if Saad didn’t return with him.

For the next three days, Saad and Saleema didn’t exchange a word. Then Saleema broke the silence. “You were wrong to strike me, Saad. You struck me and then Hasan did the same. No one has ever raised a hand to me in my life, neither my father nor my grandfather.” She remained silent for a short while and continued, “But I too was wrong when I insulted you and said that this is my house, and that if you didn’t like it, you could leave. It was a hurtful thing to say and I said it in a moment of anger.” She was looking at him directly as she spoke, and he could see in her blues eyes the light that had bewitched him several years ago. He took a deep breath with great difficulty and spoke.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you. But these ointments and brews you concoct day and night are driving me insane. I can’t bear the fumes, and they’re giving me nightmares.” He gulped and then added, “Nightmares upon nightmares.”

“If you want, I’ll move them somewhere else, Saad, but I beg you not to ask me to give it up. I need to do this and I need the books you’re making such a fuss about. I must have them.”

Saad sensed the tears swelling in her eyes and the determination lurking behind them. He knew then that he could never stand in her way. It wasn’t only that he couldn’t break her determination, but that he really didn’t want to.

As Umm Jaafar made her way through the twilight years of her life, she drew closer to Naeem. She actually counted the days that separated his visits. She had known him since he was a boy and followed him as he grew up, often guiding and sometimes scolding him in the process. But the closeness that had developed between them during the past few years had grown into a deeper intimacy, and she gave him her full attention whenever he spoke to her. His stories carried a certain warmth and colors that shattered the forlornness of leafless trees, cloudy skies, and the occasional chill of the winter of life that settles into the bones. Their talks began ever since the day he told her that King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella were cursed in their offspring.

“How so?”

Naeem was working in the service of a learned Castilian priest. He helped with household chores and manged his library by collating and binding manuscripts. What he didn’t hear directly from the priest he learned from the priest’s conversations with visitors, and that’s how he came to learn what he told Umm Jaafar.

“I heard from Father Miguel that before they died the king and queen lost their oldest child, Prince Don Juan. Then his younger sister, Princess Isabella, followed. She had been married to a Portuguese prince who died himself only several months after the wedding.”

“Then God really did punish them. For what good is winning wars and expanding one’s kingdom only to suffer the loss of one’s own flesh and blood?”

The story Naeem related to Umm Jaafar gladdened her soul not out of vengeance against the king and queen, who forced all the people of Granada to taste the bitterness of defeat, but because she finally found the divine justice that had eluded her and filled her with a doubt that at times briefly appeared to her in the voice of Abu Jaafar after the burning of the books. But then she would ask God to forgive her. God in His exaltation was wise and just, and so He punished the king and queen in their own lifetimes for the sins they had committed. A defeat in war was not harsher than the loss of a child. Truth had shown its face, and in that she found some inner tranquility. And so whenever Naeem came to visit her, she wanted to hear more of his stories.

“They were cursed, Umm Jaafar, and God did not lighten their punishment, nor did He wait until the Day of Judgment. He handed down their sentence in this world, and now that they have departed, He will inflict eternal punishment upon them.”