Radwa Ashour - Granada

When Naeem withdrew from inside of her, he cuddled up next to her, holding on to her in embrace. He was unaware that tears were flowing from his eyes until he felt her wiping them off with her fingertips and saying something to him he didn’t understand.

The sun dipped toward the horizon and then disappeared. The moonlight lit up the skies as Naeem held her hands. When the priest asks him where he has been, he’ll respond by telling him to go to hell. And to hell with Saad. Don’t ever tell me I don’t know life and how to live. Damn you, Saad. When he heard himself thinking all this he started to laugh at himself, and Maya laughed as well. He looked into her eyes, then jumped up.

“Now, I’m going to give you a present.”

It wasn’t important that she didn’t understand at first. Now she would.

Under the light of the moon at the edge of the stream that reflected its light, in the presence of Maya, the most beautiful of women, Naeem lifted up his arms, moved his shoulders, and leaned over, first to the left and then to the right. He stiffened his body, clapped his hands, and tapped his heels on the ground. He jumped high in the air as though he were about to fly away. He landed on the ground cross-legged and shook his thighs in consecutive motions. He jumped up and stood clapping his hands, bending and twisting his body in circles, leaping up and down. He moved over to Maya as she was watching him and he wrapped his arms around her waist. He spun her around until they both got dizzy and fell to the ground. They laughed for a long time before Maya leaned over and kissed him on the mouth.

Naeem was unable to concoct a new story every day to explain his absence at a given time. His imagination couldn’t come up with enough alibis that would be convincing and not arouse the slightest suspicion. Besides, one hour was no longer enough time to be together, neither to make love nor to learn each other’s languages, nor to communicate so little with so many hand gestures and simple phrases, or words he was able to pick up of her language. If only God would bless him to be able to go to sleep one night and miraculously wake up the next day speaking her language fluently. He wanted to tell her a thousand things and hear as much from her, She was his woman, so how could she not know who he was and where he came from. He wondered if Father Miguel would be happy with his story and allow him to marry her. Father Miguel was a kind man but he was Castilian, and the Castilians have strange habits he found difficult to understand. He decided that it would be best not to tell him. He would learn her language and then go to her father and address him as “Sir,” as would be appropriate. He would tell him his story and explain to him that he was not one of those Spaniards who kill the inhabitants of his land or brutally rape the women. Her father would surely take a liking to him and welcome him into the family. Perhaps he would learn Arabic from him because they’ll be relatives. And who knows, perhaps God would enable him to take Maya back to Granada. “God have mercy on your soul, Umm Jaafar,” he prayed to himself. “If only God had granted you a longer life, I would have brought you a daughter-in-law the likes of which you never imagined. I can hear you saying, ‘She looks strange and her language is stranger.’ But I would respond that she’s a good woman, kind-hearted and beautiful.”

“What’s gotten into you, Naeem?” asked Father Miguel.

“Do you see something wrong with me, Father?”

“You look so sullen, and sometimes you talk to yourself. You go on like that oblivious to my presence.”

“Do I really talk to myself?”

“Yes, you do. I caught you several times, and I’m thinking it may have something to do with your repeated visits to the slaves’ huts. Those people practice witchcraft, and they could have put a spell on you.”

“I swear to God, Father, those people are very kind and they like me a lot. But now, I remember, did you hear me speaking to myself in Arabic? The truth is, Father, I miss Granada and my friends I left back home. Sometimes I find myself talking to them. Do you realize, Father, that there’s only one other person of Arab origin in all this region, and he’s the carpenter who works on the other side of the settlement, and I only run into him once in a blue moon. Since there’s no one to speak Arabic with, I speak it out loud, imagining that I’m talking to one of my friends back home.”

“You should refrain from doing that, or else you’ll be stricken with madness,” commented the priest in all seriousness. “Also, the devil could creep into your soul at any moment and turn your words into his favor since what you’re saying is not directed to anyone in front of you. If you miss Arabic, then you should read the prayer book I gave you that was translated into Arabic. Didn’t you bring it with you?”

“Sorry, Father, I forgot to bring it with me from Granada.”

“How negligent can you be!” he said with a reproaching look on his face.

“I’m sorry, Father. I promise I won’t talk to myself any more.”

Naeem only spoke with Maya in these daily conversations. His desire to speak to her couldn’t wait until they mastered each other’s language. Even at night in bed, he spoke to her. During the day, while he cleaned the house, prepared the meals, or did the laundry, he spoke to her. He talked to her incessantly, telling her everything about his life, from the time Abu Jaafar stretched out his hand to him and asked him his name until the moment he first saw her while he was bathing by the stream and dove into the water to cover his shame.

Somehow, Naeem communicated to Maya that he wanted to marry her, to meet her family and ask their permission for her hand. She tried to explain to him that her family lived far away, but he wasn’t sure whether or not he understood what she was telling him. He asked her repeatedly, but her response was no different from what he understood. After two whole days of painstaking and interrupted conversations, the matter became clear to him. She had come to this region with her husband who had since died. She was left alone. Going back to her family would require a horse, or several weeks of traveling by foot, in either case exposing her to problems with the Spaniards. He thought about asking Father Miguel to give him his horse, but then he would have to tell him the whole story. He may or may not agree. Most likely he wouldn’t, Naeem thought. But he had to act.

Naeem cleaned the house from top to bottom, washed Father Miguel’s clothes, waited for them to dry and then folded them, and cooked enough food to last the priest three or four days. After that, he went outside the house, picked a bunch of wildflowers, put some of them in a vase with water, and set them in Father Miguel’s library. He tied a bow around the remaining few flowers, and packed them up with a small Quran, a few provisions for the road, and a straw-colored hat he had made secretly and was intending to give to Father Miguel for a Christmas present, but decided instead to give to his bride’s father. He certainly couldn’t go to him empty-handed.

Just before sunrise, Naeem crept out of the house quietly. He mounted his master’s horse and rode it to the stream where Maya was waiting. He mounted her on the horse behind him, and they rode off into the distance.

It dawned on Hasan as he lay in bed huddled under the covers trying to get warm that his life was much better now. The storm that Maryama raised had calmed down, and their life together had gotten back on course. Her family was released from prison. Her mother was declared innocent of all charges, although her brothers were sentenced to pay a substantial fine that they could not afford. When the Castilians confiscated Abu Ibrahim’s house in lieu of payment, Maryama suggested to Hasan that her mother and brothers come and live with them.