Radwa Ashour - Granada

Whenever Naeem visited Umm Jaafar, she would bring him what food she had and sit beside him, fixing her eyes on him and pricking up her ears to listen to his stories. “Listen, Umm Jaafar, to this latest news that not a soul in Albaicin knows about. Juana, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, is stark raving mad!”

“There is no god but God!”

“I heard that she married a prince from another land known as Philip the Handsome.”

“Mercy me! And so then what happened?”

“His name is Philip the Handsome because he’s handsome, and any woman who lays eyes on him is immediately smitten with love for him.”

“And so?”

“And so, my lady, that doesn’t please Princess Juana, and jealousy devours her soul.”

“I don’t blame her!”

“When she expresses these feelings of jealousy to Philip the Handsome, he strikes her violently, but she still loves him. She’s caught between her love for him on the one hand and her jealousy and his abuse on the other, and as a result she loses her mind. After that, Philip the Handsome dies.”

“There is no power or strength save in God!”

“He dies, and so what do you think Juana does?”

“Naturally, she mourns for him even though he may have cheated on her, because she loves him.”

“That’s not the point.”

“What is the point?”

“Patience! I’ll tell you all the details. It seems that Queen Isabella’s mother was also demented, and she passed down her insanity to her granddaughter.”

“Praise the Lord! Have we reached the point where we’re all being ruled by a family of lunatics?”

“I heard all this from the priests while I was serving them dinner. They talked on as though I wasn’t there or as if I were a piece of furniture standing behind them. Anyway, Philip the Handsome died in the prime of life, and Juana went totally mad. She had his body exhumed from the grave and brought to her bedchamber as though he were still alive. And if the affairs of state required her to travel, she would take his corpse along with her. And since she couldn’t bear to let any woman come close to him, she had all her handmaidens replaced with butlers to clean her bedroom and serve her on her travels.”

“The corpse must have rotted and surely Juana died from the putrid odors.”

Naeem laughed before divulging the latest piece of gossip he was sure would shock Umm Jaafar and knock her off her chair like a bolt of lightning.

“In fact, Juana didn’t die at all but instead inherited the throne of Castile when her mother died and the throne of Aragon when her father died. And now she’s the ruler of both kingdoms.”

Just as Naeem expected, Umm Jaafar s mouth dropped and she stared at him incredulously. “Do you mean to tell me that the current queen, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, is that same madwoman?”

“She’s the very one. Father Miguel even said it himself, ‘Juana La Loca,’ which means ‘Crazy Juana.’ Just think, Umm Jaafar, we’re being ruled by a woman who’s out of her mind!”

Naeem grinned from ear to ear while Umm Jaafar roiled at the very thought that God punishes the wicked king and queen with the death or madness of their children, and still they rule over us, forcing us to reap the fruits of their insanity. How difficult it is, she thought, for anybody to understand God’s judgment, such a profoundly complicated mystery, much less for an old woman like herself.

When Naeem departed and after much thought, Umm Jaafar found an explanation to all these unjust laws in that whoever enacted them was a madman. What harm would be done to a person if someone else refrained from eating pork, or dyed her hands with henna, or conducted his daughter’s wedding ceremony inside a church or outside? And what threat would there be to a ruler if some of his subjects purchased books written in the language of the Arabs and not in somebody else’s language? And why should it anger him if someone like herself wore an Arab-style dress instead of a Castilian one, or laid a wreath at the tomb of her dearly departed husband?

She didn’t understand the wisdom of God in allowing a madwoman to rule over His subjects, but she came to realize that those strange and oppressive laws were the result of a deranged mind. Were it not for Naeem, God bless him! she wouldn’t have understood a thing. And were it not for his wonderful anecdotes, she would find herself passing her days and nights alone, talking to no one and no one talking to her. Saleema was up to her ears in jars and vials, and Umm Hasan was always in the kitchen cooking meals for the children. Maryama was constantly picking up after them, and the children were content to be left on their own to play and chatter among themselves. And when they tired from playing, they gathered around their mother who would tell them stories. Whenever Umm Jaafar called them to tell them a story, you could see a hint of mockery glimmer in their eyes because the sounds she made just weren’t the same since her teeth had fallen out and the words became garbled in her mouth. When Hasan came home exhausted after a hard day’s work, he occupied himself with his children and wife. So Umm Jaafar only had Saad to pour her attentions on, and she looked forward to Naeem s visits, which lifted her spirits as he entertained her with his stories.

She only had to take a quick glance at Naeem before Umm Jaafar knew he was bringing her a juicy bit of news. He would approach her, flashing a broad smile that he adjusted with pinpoint accuracy and control. But then he would lose control and the smile led to a shimmer in his eyes and the divulgence of his secrets.

“Best of mornings to you, Umm Jaafar,” he greeted resoundingly.

“Good morning to you, too. You brought me a strange and wonderful story, right?”

The smile gave way to a hearty laugh. He stretched out his hand to give her a needle and thread. “Could you thread this needle for me?” he asked.

Umm Jaafar was taken aback since it wasn’t in Naeem’s nature to mock her. She looked at it with an odd and reproving look. “Just try, Umm Jaafar, just give it a try,” he begged.

“What’s gotten into you, Naeem?” she asked with annoyance. “You know I can’t do that.”

“But you will thread this needle,” he insisted. He placed the needle in her left hand and the thread in the right. Umm Jaafar was at a loss to understand what was going on, but she yielded to Naeem expecting the worst. Naeem pulled out of his pocket a small envelope and opened it gently. He took out something quite odd and unfamiliar. It was two flat circular pieces of glass joined together and framed in a delicate gold wire rim, with a small slender handle attached to one of the pieces of glass.

“What’s that?”

Naeem held the handle and lifted the two circles of glass close to Umm Jaafar’s face until they reached her eyes. She shut them tight and asked, “What are you doing, Naeem?”

“Don’t be afraid, Umm Jaafar. Open your eyes and thread the needle.”

Umm Jaafar opened her eyes slowly as she muttered, “In the Name of God, the Most Compassionate and Merciful.” Then she uttered the same thing with exuberance when she looked through the pieces of glass and saw clearly the eye of the needle she had been unable to see for some years now. She tried to thread the needle a few times but couldn’t do it because her hands were trembling.

“Calm down, Umm Jaafar, and concentrate on threading the needle.”

“Have you taken up magic, Naeem?”

Again she tried and when she passed the thread through the eye of the needle she handed it to Naeem as she listened to the hard, fast pounding of her heart. Naeem lifted the glasses from her eyes and spoke joyously. “This instrument, Umm Jaafar, is used by people when their sight grows weak and they can’t see small things. It belongs to Father Miguel.”