Radwa Ashour - Granada

Business was bustling at the inn, especially during the summer months. The rooms were always full, especially with traveling merchants, and many people stopped by for an evening of entertainment. The clientele were Arabs and non-Arabs. Some came from the villages surrounding Granada who needed to stay over a day or two to finalize a business deal. Some came from long distances, like Aragon and Valencia, or even as far away as the cities on the Italian coast, mostly merchants coming to buy or sell. During the day they would conduct their affairs, and at night they would sit and chat, or have dinner and drink. In the summer the guests stayed up late into the night, and the inn’s employees wouldn’t get to sleep until the wee hours of the morning.

Hasan was busy settling accounts with the chef when he heard Abu Mansour shouting. He jumped up and rushed out to the courtyard where he found him with a sullied face and fire raging in his eyes. Hasan put his arms over his shoulders and spoke to him in an attempt to lure him away and toward his room. “Everything’s fine, Abu Mansour. Tell me, what happened?”

Abu Mansour wouldn’t budge, so Hasan spoke to him in a stern, measured tone.

“Come with me inside to your room, and we’ll talk calmly about what’s bothering you.”

Abu Mansour paid no attention to Hasan, but yelled out and pointed his finger at one of the patrons: “May we be rid of your kind, you dog!”

The young man Abu Mansour was pointing at was strikingly handsome and impeccably groomed. He sneered at Abu Mansour and turned his head away in disgust.

“I beg you, for God’s sake, come with me,” Hasan shouted at Abu Mansour as he tried to push him inside.

“This boy is the son of Yaseen the stoker. His father, may God have mercy on his soul, used to work as a stoker in my bathhouse. I just heard him now with my own ears bragging that he’s a Castilian, born and bred, and that he’s of pure blood. Where in hell did you get pure blood when everything about you reeks of being a filthy sodomist?”

The young man jumped up from his seat and shouted at Hasan. “Are you going to allow this senile old goat to insult people? Since you manage the place, you’re responsible for making sure your guests are treated with respect.”

Before Hasan could even open his mouth to apologize for what had happened, Abu Mansour stretched out his hand to grab the man by the collar. But just in time, Hasan jumped between them and ranted at him furiously. “Abu Mansour, conduct yourself like a gentleman. I’ve had enough of what you’re doing to yourself and to other people!”

But Abu Mansour was like a raging bull as he tried to set himself free and charge at the young man. “Pure blood?” he repeated, “you son of a whore.”

In a panic, not knowing what to do, Hasan punched Abu Mansour in the stomach, which quieted him down. Silence prevailed for several moments before Abu Mansour spoke.

“Hasan, whom I carried in my arms as a baby, hits me. Don’t worry, son of Yaseen the stoker, you’re not the only son of a whore in this place.” All the clamor that had erupted in the courtyard in loud bursts ended in a whimper. Abu Mansour turned around and staggered in slow heavy steps until he vanished from sight.

Despite Hasan’s attempts to offer an apology to the guest and kiss his shoulder, making the excuse that Abu Mansour was an old man prone to excessive drinking, he found it difficult to forgive his own behavior. When he found himself alone in bed that night, he was tormented by what happened. Abu Mansour never dared to insult or harm him in any way, so why did he raise his voice and strike him in front of all those people? In the morning Hasan went to him and tried to apologize, but Abu Mansour couldn’t even look him in the eye. His face was crestfallen, and the only thing he could say was, “Go, Hasan, don’t make matters worse. Times are hard enough.”

Hasan went away, but came back to visit on the holidays. On both occasions Abu Mansour motioned to his wife to offer him whatever food or drink they had, but he sat without saying a word, as though he forgot how to talk. After that Hasan stopped visiting. He told himself that when Saad comes back he’ll patch things up between them. But Abu Mansour didn’t wait for Saad. When Hasan joined Abu Mansour’s funeral procession, he sobbed so profusely that the others berated him. “Control yourself, Hasan. It’s not right to weep like a woman.”

Saad came to the realization that going back to work with his comrades, the freedom fighters, was virtually impossible. What good would there be in a man who walks slowly and cautiously with the help of crutches? How could he climb up or come down from that village suspended in the highest rungs of the mountain, with its roads winding and unpaved? Even if they found him some other job or duty to fulfill, how would that suit him, especially since the court extended his sentence beyond the three years of prison by placing him on probation and house arrest in Granada, restricting his movements outside the home to attending mass on Sundays and holidays, including Christmas and Easter. He could not mingle with other people without wearing the sanbenito, the yellow vest with the red armband that called attention to his past sins.

If Saad could have chosen what to do upon his release from prison, he would not have gone directly to Granada. How could he go back to Hasan and Saleema and say to them, “Feed me and take care of me because I don’t have a job and the court won’t allow me to go and work.” How would he bear that look of pity or the suppressed gasp of dismay that reveals itself in the quiver of lips the moment the door opens and he see on their faces his own reflection, his impotence and his crutches?

He knocked on the door. When Umm Hasan opened it, she called out his name, and then yelled out, “Saleema!” and started to weep. It wasn’t what he was expecting. His immediate reaction was that something terrible had happened to Saleema. He was stunned by fear and his tongue and body froze. As he started to whisper something, Maryama came rushing out and greeted him. “Welcome back, Saad. Saleema is fine. She bore you a daughter, so beautiful and radiant. Come, Aysha, come and say hello to Saad, your father.”

He stared at a little girl of three years, with a bright face, and with his mother’s features and her big deep-black eyes. He was looking at her in such awe that it seemed as though he was witnessing a miracle and couldn’t believe his eyes. She was the exact age of his sister Nafeesa, and she had his mother’s name, Aysha. Just looking at her brought back their memories, as clear as though the years had never passed, or as if he traveled back in time.

“Her name is ‘Aysha’?”

“Yes, ‘Aysha’, but on paper her name is ‘Esperanza.’ But her uncle only calls her ‘Amal.’”

“Amal?”

Saad bent down to the extent his crutches would allow him. “Come here Aysha, come here, honey.” But the little girl was frightened and burst into tears.

Saad didn’t sleep a wink that night. He couldn’t even lie on his bed. He spent the night between staring at the little girl and rummaging through whatever remained of Saleema s things. In the morning and throughout the day, the little girl remained aloof from him. She stopped crying, and even though she sometimes stood still and gazed at him, she kept a safe distance just in case he tried to get close to her. But slowly her interest in him grew as she followed him with her eyes more and more. In the evening, Maryama picked her up and told her a story. When she dozed off, she put her in her mother’s bed and looked over to Saad and smiled.

“So that you can sleep next to her, Saad.”