Radwa Ashour - Granada

Hasan was convinced that the birth of this little girl was a promise of prosperity and a good omen. Only days after she was born, good news came to Albaicin that made the people’s hearts beat fast and their eyes flutter with hope. The sea commandos from the Moroccan ports launched an attack that broke the backs of the Spanish and rubbed their noses in the mud. Their ships anchored under cover of night, as was their custom, and succeeded in safely boarding six hundred emigrants. Then the Spanish armada surprised them at sea and engaged them in battle. Not only were the freedom fighters able to defend themselves, but they also launched a counteroffensive. They sunk some of the Spanish ships and surrounded others. They took prisoners, including their admirals and other high-ranking officers, and returned to Morocco safely.

The woman greeted the news with ululation. The women of Albaicin ululated in their hearts, while the wives and daughters of the freedom fighters ululated from the shores across the sea to their menfolk as their ships approached land.

“Aysha, daughter of Saad and Saleema, brings blessings and good tidings,” Hasan repeated as he held the little girl against his chest. He began each morning looking at her radiant face, and he never went to bed at night without planting a kiss on her forehead, whether she was sound asleep or screaming as newborns do. When it was time to register her name on the birth certificate, he wrote “Esperanza,” but they called her “Aysha.” But he, himself, gave her the nickname “Amal” for the hope she inspired.

Naeem sat in a corner of the room as he watched Father Miguel repeatedly dip his feather pen into the ink bottle and write slowly from left to right. Naeem was hoping his patron would stop working, if only for a few moments, so that he could engage him in conversation. But Father Miguel was much too absorbed in what he was writing.

By the light of the lantern, the priest appeared to him like a feeble old man, worn down by a long life. The dark clerical robe, the straight posture, and the self-assured gait that always gave him a youthful countenance were nowhere visible at this moment as he sat in his white nightgown with his head slightly bent forward, taking with it the smooth silver wisps of hair and his pale, wrinkled, round and puffy face. Naeem wondered if the priest was as tormented by nightmares as he was, even though he didn’t wake up screaming in the night, at least he had never heard him doing that. He never saw him cry, except for that one time he heard the sound and rushed to him. He saw him through the open door on his knees, with his forearms raised and his chin resting on his folded hands. He was praying and sobbing in a loud, defeated voice. On that day the two of them had witnessed the bodies of ten native women swinging from the ropes of gallows suspended onto a wooden structure high enough to leave space between the feet of the women and the ground to hang their children with the ropes that dangled from beneath their mothers’ feet.

The priest cried that night, but Naeem didn’t. Instead, he thought how gracious God was to the mothers in letting them be hanged before their children. Only a few days before, he had seen the horror of a baby’s murder in front of its mother’s eyes. She was a beautiful woman, robust and sweet, carrying her infant child of no more than seven or eight months old. He had his mother’s plumpness and moonlike face, as well as her dimples. What stroke of ill fortune brought her to that place at that time? he thought. She walked along casually, carrying her child without a care in the world. When the Castilian soldier caught her by surprise, she was startled, and her sudden shrieking scream failed to prevent the baby from being snatched away from her. In a moment’s flash, he had pounced on her and grabbed the infant from her arms and threw it on the ground between his feet and his hungry dog. It was a black hunting dog with a long snout, high haunches, and two big dangling ears like a goat. The dog took one leap at the baby and grabbed it by the teeth. The screams of the mother and the baby blended with the chortles of the Castilians who gathered around to watch. They were all laughing uproariously except for two of them, one of whom looked on and shook his head in disbelief, and the second who struggled to keep his arms around the woman to prevent her from getting to her child. The dog continued its meal, the men laughed, and the woman screamed until a shot rang out and she fell to the ground soaking in her own blood. Then everything became silent.

When the ships landed at port and Naeem arrived in this new world with his employer, he was more taken by the women than the lush greenness of the trees and the austere darkness of their imposing trunks. Naked women like the virgins of Paradise! He gaped at them, and his heart beat fast and his soul ignited with a scorching desire. One, two, three days, and then he saw the panting and voracity of the men as they hunted their prey until they prevailed, clawing at their flesh and raping them. He ran to Father Miguel in a panic and told him the story. The priest reassured him, “Tomorrow, I will meet with the governor and inform him. That is a sin, my boy, a mortal sin that angers our Lord. If such an action happens again, God will bring down a devastating punishment on all of us, those who committed the sin and those who denounced it.”

After a while, Naeem stopped running in a panic to tell about what he had just been witness to, for the priest came to realize that any meeting he had with the governor or his deputy would be to no avail, and writing letter after letter to the king or the court officials in Spain, or to the pope in Rome for that matter, would fall on deaf ears.

Naeem would pass by the bare breasts, the slender bodies, and those ravishing eyes without staring. He averted his eyes as though these women were members of his own family whose honor he could not violate. He was afraid to make eye contact lest the shame of their nakedness and his own weakness devour him.

If only Father Miguel would stop writing and talk to him. If only he could speak the language of the natives, he could come to know and befriend a number of them. He would see them working, cutting down trees, paving roads, lifting rocks, always under the vigilant eyes of the armed Castilians. He stared at them for a long time, guessing their natures and temperaments. He would say that this one is kind-hearted, and that one is less so, or that one is self-confident and kind to his people. He wished he could approach them and talk to them, to introduce himself to them. He wanted to tell them his stories and listen to theirs. But how could he do this not knowing their language? Besides, they most assuredly thought of him as one of those whom the sea washed ashore to inflict suffering on them.

Naeem closed his eyes and imagined the middle-aged man whom he saw time after time and who by now was as familiar with his face as he with his. Naeem would smile and wave his hand whenever he passed him by. At first the man just fixed his gaze on Naeem in wonder, but then he gradually began to smile and wave back exactly as Naeem had done, lifting his hand and touching the side of the forehead. If only he understood my language, Naeem pined, if only I understood his, I would say to him, “I’m not one of them! Did you think I was one of them? I’m from Granada!” He would speak to him at length, and the man would get to know him and like him, and then he would invite him to his house. And who knows, maybe he has a daughter as nice as himself, and he could ask to marry her. Surely, I’m a stranger and nearly forty years old, he would say, and I’m not as handsome as I used to be, but I have a kind heart and I would take care of my wife and I would lavish on her both love and children. So, what do you say, uncle?