Pillars of Light

by Jane Johnson

  I would cut open my heart

  with a knife, place you

  inside and seal up my wound,

  so that you could dwell there

  Even in the midst of her misery, she felt the rhythm of the words inside her.

  With only one good hand, Jamilla still manipulated her dough expertly, and she watched with a small smile Zohra’s frowning, fumbling efforts. “I wouldn’t mind the attentions of a handsome young man.” She chuckled.

  Now that Nathanael was no longer in Zohra’s life, it would have been a relief to confide in her cousin, but the situation had become so tragic it was impossible to talk about.

  “You’re welcome to him,” she said. “Perhaps you should bake him one of your special loaves.” She thumped her ball of dough with a vicious fist, sending a cloud of flour into the air.

  Jamilla had set her heart on Malek, and whenever he was home from combat or training she would make him one of her “special” loaves containing a love charm from the sorcerer’s market. But Malek showed interest in nothing but his duty to preserve the sultan and fight for Islam. And now that he was, for all practical purposes, head of the family, no one was likely to be arranging a betrothal for him.

  It was hard for a daughter with a withered arm in a city overflowing with marriageable girls to attract the attentions of a suitor. Years of war, even before this latest siege, had winnowed the young men: those left had their pick. Jamilla was not marrying anyone soon, let alone Malek. Reminding herself of Jamilla’s situation tempered Zohra’s irritation.

  “Your loaves are always a lot nicer than mine,” she said. “I don’t know why, but they are.” It was a tiny kindness, the only gift she could offer.

  “You don’t knock the air out of your dough properly. Look …”

  After ten minutes of strenuous kneading and instruction, both Zohra’s arms ached, but at least the subject had been changed.

  They walked down the street to the communal bread oven carrying their cloth-wrapped dough overhead. The line at the oven was longer than usual and included a number of women Zohra didn’t recognize. But Jamilla tapped one on the shoulder and they went into an awkward embrace, dipping to kiss each other’s cheeks without dropping their bowls of dough.

  “What are you doing here, Leila? Are you visiting your relatives?”

  The other woman had pale olive skin and lustrous dark eyes that reminded Zohra of Nathanael’s striking gaze. A keen jolt of warmth dizzied her: she did not realize she was being addressed until she suddenly became aware that her cousin and her acquaintance were staring at her.

  “Was anyone hurt?” Zohra asked, snatching at the threads of the exchange.

  Leila shook her head. “They said it was a lucky strike, a freak accident. It’s the first time one of the Franj machines has managed to send rocks right over the wall, but now they have the range … Well, we decided it was better to be safe than sorry. My sister’s house isn’t large, but it’s closer to the market and farther from the wall. We’ll move in with them when my husband comes back from his watch.”

  Zohra stared at her.

  “Didn’t you hear? The poor dear baker, two women and one of their children dead, one little girl fighting for her life, less than an hour ago. If it wasn’t for the Jewish doctor’s lad—”

  Zohra’s chest tightened. “Nathanael?”

  The woman’s eyes narrowed. “The son of the doctor from the Street of Tailors,” she confirmed with tight lips. “He was returning from seeing a sick woman over near the henna market and some rubble struck him—”

  “Was he badly hurt?” Zohra was beyond caution.

  Both women were looking at her oddly. Why was she more concerned by a small wound to a Jew than by the deaths of many good Muslims?

  “I don’t know how he is.” Leila turned her shoulder towards Zohra, physically blocking her from the conversation. The line shuffled forward as another batch of dough was taken by the baker, put onto his long shovel and placed on the hot stones inside the big clay oven.

  Zohra was seized by a fierce impatience. She must go to Nat, right now, and hang the consequences. But of course she couldn’t. She closed her eyes, overcome by the memory of the things they used to do together in the long, hot afternoons—his silken touch, the ridges of muscle bordering the line of black hair that led … Her knees felt weak.

  “Are you all right, cousin?”

  She opened her eyes and they were at the front of the line. Jamilla was reaching up, trying to take the tray of dough from her.

  “Here, here, I can do it.” Zohra handed the tray to the baker, a small, dark man with a dirty turban and a large moustache. He took the cloth off and handed it back to her. Annoyingly, some of the dough had stuck to it, leaving little craters.

  “Never mind,” Jamilla said. “At least you’ll be able to tell yours from the others when we come back for them.”

  Well of course I will, Zohra thought bitterly. Like everything else I try to do, it turns out ruined.

  Back home, Nathanael gritted his teeth as he soaked the last buried scrap of his sleeve, pulled it out of the wound and pressed hard to stem the fresh flow of blood. It would need stitches. He had managed to bandage and succour the other victims, hardly even noticing his own pain. The sight of the little boy with his head caved in had driven him into a different part of himself, one in which a cut on his own arm no longer existed. Now, though, examining the damage, he started to shake. Delayed shock—he had seen it before in others. It was as if once his body registered the damage through his eyes, the pain began to make itself known, throbbing and localized, then radiating in nauseating waves into the rest of his body.

  You are lucky to be alive, he told himself, and tried to believe it.

  He sewed up the wound, the needle biting through living flesh and the fine gut drawing and pulling like a thread of fire. The arm felt heavy and dead now, a lump of useless flesh. He knew he had crushed some nerves. Were they irreparably damaged, or just bruised? How he had managed to go about his work, tending to the other victims of the strike, he did not know. It was amazing how the body staved off shock when it had to. He had saved the life of one of the injured women, stemming the gush of blood from her head and making sure her breathing was steady. He had swiftly bound the wounds of three others, and had tended to the little girl who even now lay pale and unresponsive in the little salon off the courtyard. The others had been beyond help. The first boulder had crushed the oven, the baker and one of the women in a single impact; the second had carried the two women it struck several yards, causing such terrible injuries it was clear they would not survive. The other casualties, including the unfortunate boy, had, like himself, been struck by flying detritus from the smashed clay oven.

  He went to check on the girl. No one knew her name, or the name of her dead mother, and no one had taken responsibility for her. They all had too many mouths to feed and troubles enough of their own. One by one, the onlookers and survivors had sidled away. Amidst the wailing of the baker’s wife and those who had come out of their houses to gaze at the carnage, the little girl had lain peacefully with her hair spread out on the muddy ground and the rain pattering steadily onto her closed eyelids, as if the skies wept for her. Nathanael, checking for signs of life though he expected none, had touched her neck and been surprised to find a pulse. “She’s alive!” he’d called out. “Will someone help me with her?”

  No one stepped forward. Instead, they began to drift away, until he was left alone with the child. For long minutes, he had tried to lift her over his good shoulder, but with only one working arm his efforts had been pitiable. At last a big, quiet man in a dark robe and a faded green turban had stepped forward and offered his services. He bent and scooped the child up and followed Nat without a word through the winding streets of the medina.

  When this man had brought the girl in and laid her on the cushions in the shady salon, he said, “Your father eased my mother’s passing, God rest her soul. He is a good man, and
I can see he has taught you well. My name is Mohammed Azri and I have a smithy near the east gate. If ever you need me or my son, Saddiq, you will find us there. Bes’salama.” Then he had dipped his head, touched his hand to his heart and walked back out into the dreary day.

  The girl was still unconscious, though her breathing was regular. Nat laid a hand on her forehead, then on her neck, felt her heart beating steadily. He could find no obvious injury to her head or body. Perhaps the shock of what she had seen had rendered her insensible and she would come to in her own time. Poor little thing. In what sort of world did a child have to waken in a stranger’s house to the news that her mother was dead?

  When Yacub came home, he knelt down and brushed the girl’s hair from her forehead, but the child just lay there, her chest rising and falling. He levered himself upright with a grunt as his knees creaked, and looked at Nathanael. “She seems to be physically unharmed. Let us hope she will wake up in her own time. You, on the other hand …” He cocked his head. “Let me have a look at that arm.”

  Nat waved him away. “It’s fine, I’ve stitched it.”

  His father gave him a long, steady look. “You may be a doctor now, but you’re also my son.”

  Yacub unwound the bandage carefully and regarded the arm with a blank expression. The old doctor gently touched the inflamed skin around the wound, got his son to flex the arm; he touched each finger and manipulated the shoulder joint. Then he went away and came back some minutes later with a sweet-smelling ointment, and he offered Nat a cup of something so strong it made his eyes water.

  “Drink this.”

  “What’s in it?”

  “I’ll tell you when you’ve drunk it.”

  Nat knew what that meant. He also knew his father’s uncompromising tone. Reduced to being a child again, he took his medicine without complaint and let the poppy take its effect.

  The next day there was a knock at the door. Nat opened it and found Zohra Najib there, in a headscarf, reticent, with the rain pattering down around her. “I heard you’d been hurt,” she said, and then just stared at him.

  “It’s nothing. Much. I’m fine, really.”

  They stood apart as if a fence divided them. “Come in out of the rain,” Nathanael started, at exactly the same moment Zohra said, “Well, I must get on.”

  They both fell silent until Zohra dropped her amber gaze, mumbled something about the fish market and ran away down the alley, her basket bumping on her back.

  It was the first time they had been in one another’s company since that terrible day when they had found Nima Najib dead. He watched her go, and it was as if his heart were being dragged down the street after her, drawn through the mud and bashed against the walls. Then he went back inside, walked quickly past the kitchen where his mother was crushing chickpeas and sesame seeds with oil, out into the farthest corner of the courtyard under the shelter of the vines, where no one but the bees could see him weep as he had not done since he was a child of three.

  After that, he shut all his memories of Zohra away, sealed them off, just as his father had cauterized his wound.

  The little girl slept on. On the sixth day, Nathanael went out into the streets to see if he could find a clue to her identity. But no matter where he asked no one knew who she was, or the name of her dead mother. No one had heard of a family seeking a lost child.

  When he got home, he found the child was sitting up and that his mother was tempting her with some little pastries. He stopped in the doorway. It was like a small miracle.

  Crossing the room, Nat dropped to one knee before the girl. He took one of the cakes and held it out to the child. Honey dripped languorously from it to pool on the plate below. He watched the girl watching it. She glanced up as if questioning the gift, then slid her eyes away hastily. At last she reached out and popped the sweetmeat into her mouth and chewed solemnly, her regard rapturous.

  “Can you tell me your name?”

  The child shook her head.

  “We have to call you something. Zinab?”

  Another shake of the head.

  “Rachel?”

  The little girl glared at him.

  Nat ran through half a dozen more names, receiving blank looks or fierce head shakes and was about to give up when suddenly the child said, “Nima.”

  A prickle ran down his spine. The first word the girl had uttered and it had to be the name of Zohra’s dead mother. He caught his mother’s gaze over the top of the child’s head. Sara gave him a wavery smile. He knew exactly what she was thinking, what she wanted to say.

  He forced himself to a cheeriness he did not feel. “Nima? That’s your name?”

  The little brows drew together. Then the child stuck her finger into the pooled honey, raised it to her mouth and sucked thoughtfully. “Nima,” she said again.

  Nathanael swallowed. “Nima, can you remember your family name?”

  A look of consternation.

  “Your father’s name?”

  Tears began to well. He knew he could not mention the dead mother, her chest all crushed and ruined.

  “Nima, well that’s good, then,” Sara said brightly. “That’s a lovely name. Are you from Akka, sweet? Do you live in the city?”

  Nima shook her head.

  “Did you travel here by boat, on the sea?” Nat asked.

  “No.” A very emphatic denial. After a pause, she added, “A donkey. It was brown.”

  “Little dove, all donkeys are brown.”

  “Some are grey. It had kind eyes and it did this.” She shook her head in parody of an animal beset by flies.

  Nathanael laughed. “Did it do this?” Throwing his head back, he hee-hawed till both Nima and his mother were giggling uncontrollably.

  So that was the key, then.

  The next day Nat came back to the house with a tabby kitten—al-tabiya, for the markings on watered silk—and like silk its fur was cool and smooth and fragrant. Nima dubbed it Kiri. She buried her nose in its fur, and the little animal squirmed and purred, and from then on it was love and babbling and Kiri this and Kiri that until it was hard to believe the child had ever been mute, and Nat half wished she still was.

  Soon Nat was able to take up his duties again, administering medical aid to the garrison. It was hard work, and bloody, but it kept his mind away from his personal pain.

  One evening, after finishing his shift, he dropped into the tea house on what had once been called Templars Way but since the retaking of the city had been renamed Martyrs Avenue. Inside, old men sat or squatted, their hands cupped around glasses of hot tea. He took his usual seat just inside the awning and leaned back against the cool wall to watch the rain patter down into the muddy puddles outside.

  It was not long before he was recognized. His father was something of a local celebrity—he had brought innumerable children into the world, saved grandmothers and sons and tended to the odd infection picked up in the bordellos by the dock without a word of censure—and Nat had taken on a lot of Yacub’s work when he was not working on the wall, now that his father was so occupied at the citadel. It meant he rarely had to pay for his drinks.

  Three of the men brought their cushions closer, inquired after his injured arm. Hamsa Nasri, a grocer from close to the Friday Mosque, poured him out a fresh glass of the steaming tea. “Get it down you, lad—it’ll warm you through.”

  Tea was running short. Ships were reluctant to chance the double peril of the enemy fleet and bad weather. And it wasn’t just tea, either: sugar, fresh meat, fruit and vegetables were all scarce, for all the farmland beyond the walls had been enveloped and destroyed by the besieging army. Everyone’s diet was becoming monotonous.

  “What’s been going on up there today, then?” Nat nodded his head vaguely in the direction of the city walls.

  Younes the barber wore a patched-up version of the garrison uniform, though still with his white crocheted skullcap over his neatly cropped hair. Nat suspected he had volunteered because he liked being firs
t with the news and was missing the gossip from his barbershop. “Nothing much. They’re having a worse time of it than us, the Franj. Their trenches are full of water and shit, the mud is knee-deep and no one can be bothered to man the ballistas.”

  Driss leaned across the table. “I remember when we—”

  The rest of them groaned. “No more of your old war stories, Driss!”

  Driss was a veteran of the last campaign. A huge scar bisected his eyebrow and carried on, after the interruption of the orbit, down the cheek, to disappear into his grizzled beard. He shrugged. “Just giving the boy the benefit of my extensive knowledge.” He patted Nathanael on the shoulder. “You should come back with me, have a good home-cooked meal and let me tell you about Ramla. My Habiba makes a fine lentil soup. Why, you could even bring some of your meat ration, make a proper feast of it.”

  That got them all talking about the rationing. “I’ve had to close my stall,” Hamsa Nasri said with a sigh. “Now that most of the stock’s been commandeered by the citadel to stop all the panic-buying and profiteering, there’s just no point staying open. It’s bad luck for those of us who were selling at a fair price.”

  “Tahar the baker was grumbling away this morning,” Driss said. “The authorities have set a price on his loaves. He says it’s impossible to turn a decent profit. But I swear the loaves Habiba bought off him this morning were smaller than yesterday’s.”

  “Well, that’s one way of making money,” Hamsa said sourly.

  “How long can the bloody Franj keep this up?” Younes said. “Surely the sultan will chase them off before it gets much worse.”

  “They were there for the taking, the Christians. You could see they were in chaos,” said Younes. “Taki ad-Din had them on the run. Salah ad-Din should have pressed on when he had the chance.”