The Map of Salt and Stars

by Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar

  While al-Idrisi made his way to King Roger’s quarters each night with stacks of the king’s favorite books on geography and mathematics, Rawiya stayed up reading the notes al-Idrisi had amassed in the years before their adventure. Al-Idrisi had collected testimonies of merchants from the far corners of the world, tales of sailors who had set off across the Sea of Darkness and barely returned with their lives, descriptions of distant cities and strange beasts. There were more pages than Rawiya could ever read, for al-Idrisi had been gathering these accounts in preparation for King Roger’s task for more than a decade.

  But as the month of Shawwal dawned and al-Idrisi pressed toward completing his work, King Roger’s health began to fail again. Fits of coughing and numbness plagued him. Chest pains confined him to his bed for weeks.

  Time passed this way until early one morning, in the last days of Shawwal, when a messenger knocked at Rawiya’s door.

  Rawiya ducked through arched doorways, past hand-carved railings and vaulted, frescoed ceilings. She crossed the inner courtyard with its stacked balconies and found al-Idrisi and Khaldun in the royal workshop, bent over al-Idrisi’s drawing board. As Rawiya entered, Khaldun looked up, and the wisp of a smile crossed his face before he blushed and lowered his eyes again to his work.

  “Is it true?” Rawiya asked, approaching her friends. “Is it finished?”

  “My task has been fifteen years in the making,” al-Idrisi said. “Fifteen years of research, of careful planning”—he lifted his face to Rawiya and Khaldun—“and, of course, the long months of our journey.”

  “Can it be, after all this time,” Rawiya said, “that our journey is over?”

  “Somehow it is,” al-Idrisi said, “and now here we are in the month of Shawwal. I will never, as long as I live, forget the month of Shawwal.”

  “This is beautiful.” Rawiya stepped to the drawing board that held the finished map, admiring the curves of rivers, the blue lapis of the sea.

  “You have not seen a thing. Come.” Al-Idrisi turned to a thick book on the workshop table, bound with leather and lettered in gold. He opened the pages, revealing his delicate script and large, detailed maps.

  “Is this an atlas?” Khaldun brushed his fingers against the book’s velvet spine.

  “It was Roger’s request,” al-Idrisi said. “The book separates the map into seven regions of the world, or climates, each of which is broken up into ten sections. The book contains maps of each of these sections as well as detailed descriptions of them all. There are seventy maps altogether, each with a detailed account of its mountains, rivers, towns, trade, and weather—a comprehensive study of the inhabited world as has never been drawn up before.” Al-Idrisi smiled. “One need no longer travel thousands of leagues to reach distant lands,” he said. “In these pages, you hold the world itself in your hands.”

  Rawiya turned to the first map and followed the green rivers with her eyes, lingering on the jeweled twists of mountains in bright yellow, ruby, and purple.

  “I had no idea,” she said. Turning to the opening passages of the book, she read from al-Idrisi’s delicate hand: “ ‘The earth is round, like a sphere . . .’ Marvelous.”

  Al-Idrisi stepped away from the table, rubbing his back. He had grown hunched in the months after their journey, the weight of years pressing on his shoulders. He looked like he had grown suddenly old, like the journey itself had preserved his youth and now, at last, the years had caught up with him.

  “You have done it,” she said.

  Al-Idrisi gave his catlike smile. “The greatest of my accomplishments is the one I have yet to show you.”

  Rawiya and Khaldun followed him from the room. “The workers transferred everything to the silver?” Rawiya asked.

  “Everything. Roger will be pleased that we have accomplished what he asked for those long years ago.” But al-Idrisi looked away as he said it.

  Both Rawiya and Khaldun knew very well that al-Idrisi had hurried to complete his work so that his benefactor and longtime friend would live to see the fruits of their labor. Rawiya was sure the only thing keeping King Roger alive was the completion of his and al-Idrisi’s life’s work: the map, the book, and the silver planisphere.

  Al-Idrisi led them down a long hallway to a workroom where royal engravers had been toiling for months to transfer al-Idrisi’s map of mountains, seas, rivers, coasts, and towns to a great piece of silver.

  Al-Idrisi swept into the room with his palms open, his white turban and sirwal flashing in the candlelight. He asked, “Is the work complete?”

  An engraver looked up from polishing the huge silver disk. Speaking in low tones to his fellow workers, he rose from his task and bowed to al-Idrisi. “We have finished the engraving. The polishing is just now complete—to your specifications, of course.”

  The planisphere gleamed in the flickering workroom candles. “An exquisite work of craftsmanship,” Khaldun said.

  “It is.” Al-Idrisi circled the planisphere, his hands clasped behind his back. He dismissed the engravers, who took their leave with a bow.

  “I knew of the world map,” Rawiya said. “I knew of the book and its seventy sectional maps, and I knew that you had commissioned a translation into Latin. Those things would have been wondrous enough. No one has ever seen the world in its wholeness or mapped such distant places. But this is . . .”

  “Quite extraordinary, yes,” al-Idrisi said. “Roger ordered a disk of pure silver to be created, as large as possible.” Al-Idrisi ran his fingers over the cracks of the routes and rivers, the glittering letters. “It weighs four hundred Roman pounds and is made of solid silver. We were efficient, so only a third of Roger’s silver was used. The planisphere bears all seven climates, the shorelines, rivers, everything. Distances are accurate to the last league. So rich a treasure has never belonged to any king, not in all the world.

  “Once work began on the planisphere,” he went on, “I wrote the book to match it and the map. That was Roger’s wish.” A shadow passed over al-Idrisi’s face. “His vision was perfect.”

  Rawiya and Khaldun exchanged glances. “This illness surprised us all,” Rawiya said.

  Al-Idrisi straightened his garments and lifted his face with a firm smile. “Nothing could keep the lion of Palermo confined to his bed for more than a few weeks.”

  “Whatever happens,” Rawiya said, “you have done more than King Roger could ever have expected. You have made a wonder in his name.”

  “Let us go and see my old friend. I will have the planisphere brought to his bedside.” Al-Idrisi clapped his hands, and the workers returned. They picked up the planisphere and set it on a rolling pallet, breathing hard even after this short exertion. Though the planisphere could be lifted—with difficulty—by several people, it was far too heavy to be carried any distance by hand, even by three or four men.

  “Surely,” al-Idrisi said, leading the procession toward King Roger’s quarters, “the sight of the completed planisphere will lift his spirits and bring him back to health.”

  “God willing,” Rawiya said, and Khaldun nodded, but neither of them dared to believe it.

  King Roger was sleeping when they came in, his breaths rattling.

  “My friend and king,” al-Idrisi said. He kissed Roger’s hand.

  The king’s eyes opened slowly, cracking at their corners, yellow-white pus running along the wrinkles in his face. He smiled and reached to take al-Idrisi’s hand.

  “My friend,” he rumbled, and coughed. “My oldest and dearest of friends.” He clapped his other hand over al-Idrisi’s. “It has been a long time.”

  “Only a few days,” al-Idrisi said. “I had to oversee the work we set out to do so long ago.”

  King Roger laughed, a good-natured but rasping laugh, his chest full of water. “Fifteen years,” he said, “by my count. But no matter, if the task is at last complete.”

  The workers wheeled the silver planisphere into the room and set it beside the bed.

  “The map and
book are both complete,” al-Idrisi said. “I have been calling it The Book of Roger, though I leave the final title to Your Majesty’s discretion. Now this last part of our work, the silver planisphere, is also finished.” He bowed his head. “It has all been done in your name, my friend.”

  King Roger struggled to sit up in bed. “This beautiful thing,” he rasped, “this glorious object. Wonderful.” He coughed again, and a servant slipped a pillow under his shoulders. King Roger waved the man away. “This old lion will not live to see two such wonders.”

  “These fifteen years of labor,” al-Idrisi said, “have returned their due. Your guidance, your teachings, and your generosity were not for nothing. But as you know, I did not do it alone.” Al-Idrisi motioned for Rawiya and Khaldun, and they approached and bowed. “This moment belongs as much to my companions as it does to me.”

  “I commend them for what they have done.” King Roger dipped his head to his chest, coughing. A servant handed him a cloth to hold over his mouth. “Excuse me,” he said. “I cannot bow anymore. But I would bow to you if I could. This is my life’s work, my heart’s desire. You accompanied my friend and led this project to completion at his side. For your efforts, I thank you deeply. You will be handsomely rewarded.”

  At the movement of King Roger’s hand, servants came forward with chests of gold, carved signets of ruby, hundred-faceted emeralds, flaming opals, and daggers with pearl hilts. Al-Idrisi was given the remainder of the silver that had been set aside for the planisphere in addition to these other riches.

  “My lord,” Rawiya gasped, “you are too generous with your servants. For a poor widow’s daughter to see such kindness—it is too much, Your Majesty.”

  “Ah, Lady Rawiya, whom I once took for a young boy with much to learn.” King Roger smiled through his pain. “You once walked with me through the library among the spines of old friends. I see now that you were stronger and braver than ever I knew. Your courage saved the expedition more than once, from what I have heard. You have accomplished great and honorable deeds. Yes,” he said, lifting his eye to the three of them, “it is fitting that my treasures should be shared with my greatest friends.”

  “If I have been half the friend to you that you have been to me,” al-Idrisi said, “then I have accomplished something of value in this life.”

  KING ROGER PASSED away that night, his last breath rising to the constellation of the lion as the moon set. Al-Idrisi was at his bedside. His friend’s favorite book lay in his lap, and he held King Roger’s heavy hand to his forehead.

  Al-Idrisi’s tears speckled the leather cover of Ptolemy’s Geography, pale as stars.

  King Roger II of Sicily was buried in Palermo in a tomb of red porphyry, a prized purple-red stone, dressed in his royal finery and wearing a pearl crown. After the funeral, al-Idrisi, Rawiya, and Khaldun sat in front of the silver planisphere in the palace library for days, as silent as the workers who left them to their grim watch. The planisphere, the wonder of the world, the culmination of a glorious collaboration between the greatest Muslim scholar of his time and a wise Norman-Sicilian king, could not save the friend al-Idrisi had so dearly loved. Its mountains and seas would never glint in King Roger’s eye again.

  As the stars bore silent witness to their grief, Khaldun took Rawiya’s hand in his. There in the candlelight, Rawiya thought to herself that sometimes, no matter how hard you try to delay it, you have to say good-bye. Some things happen the only way they can happen, the way they have been set out to. Maktoub, she thought: It is written. And God knows all, while we know not.

  I SPIT WATER. Yellow salt sticks to my teeth. My eyes burn. I thrash, breathing in stinging blue, and break the surface. It’s red-dark, the part of the night that’s still day, when the sun bends around the horizon and bleeds. The moon has gotten fat again, a round eye.

  Black sounds roll like marbles in my throat. The water smacks my face. I’m pushed up by something buoyant under me, and the sea bucks like a carousel horse. I try to call out, but all I get out are garbled gasps. Fear roils up into my mouth.

  My hand hits something harder than seaweed, hard enough to bruise my knuckles. A rock. I reach out for it, my eyes still stinging. It’s sharp, but I cling to it anyway. Barnacles cut my shins and collarbones.

  I rub my eyes, and the water pushes me sideways. Shouts burst from a shore I can’t see. My ear scrapes the rocks.

  A sneaker pops out of the water, and it isn’t mine. I grab for it and miss. I get it on the second try, catching the laces. The white fabric is tinted green, the canvas dotted with sea lice.

  “Zahra.” Am I saying it or screaming? The water churns. I can’t help wondering if it’s full of bodies, if Abu Sayeed’s hand will come up from the deep. How many times can something that’s taken reappear before it’s put to rest? How many times can I see Baba’s toe on other people’s feet, his flesh in the kelp under the almost-moonlight?

  The water’s hand strikes my back, harder than granite. The wave knocks my head against the rocks, and I taste metal and salt.

  The current pulls me under. I open my mouth, not wanting to swallow but not able to do anything else, and the sea stings the insides of my nostrils and burns all the way down my throat.

  I open my eyes underwater, clawing for the rock. The water isn’t as murky as back in New York, but all I can see are bubbles and red, and for a terrifying second, I don’t know which way is up. I tumble with my feet above my head, my hands invisible behind the wall of wet light.

  I expect myself to panic. I expect the fact that I’m alone to punch me, but it doesn’t. Instead a small voice comes from far away, telling me calmly that no one is coming to help.

  But then the wave shoves me forward, and something tugs me up. My knees hit the rock, and I burst up into the light. I cough and spit, my eyes tearing against the sting. Salt for salt.

  I can’t focus my eyes right away. Through the blur, I make out boards lapping the shore. Corners of broken crates ride the surf, bits of metal and twisted rudder. Far off, people shout, tossing ropes to the bobbing heads of the ferry workers. The ferry sinks with a hole blown in its hull, the kind of jagged gash that only a shell or a rocket could make.

  Something waterlogged chafes against my shoulders, and that’s how I realize I’m still wearing my burlap backpack. Some air must still be in the shopping bag around the map. The air that lifted me up was Mama’s.

  Something hits my leg. I let go of the rocks and turn, my backpack banging into the stones. The sea is the color of soda through green glass, turquoise and silver and brown-purple. The sea is a many-colored thing.

  Something white rises toward me like a broad sand dollar, the water glassy between us. It’s a mirror of the moon. It’s a face.

  Just below the surface is a greenish disk of skin and fig-blue lips. Tiny bubbles dribble up from the mouth and press against the cellophane water. The water is so much warmer than at the beach in Rockaway.

  “Zahra.” Someone is saying it with my voice box but not my voice. I reach for Zahra’s face, tugging it back above water. I see just the edge of the root-brown rings of her irises, their amber flecks like Mama’s. Her hair runs over her lips, tangling in her eyelashes as she struggles. Zahra slips under the skin of green again, another beautiful ghost.

  The moon moans, rising, and for a moment I am back in Egypt. Would the Red Sea look red in this light? And how long will it take Abu Sayeed to settle to the bottom? When the wet season comes and the wadi fills with water, will the rain wash our tongues?

  The waves lap at us, twirling our legs, and the stones click like teeth. Water fills the cracks in the rocks. Different streams from the same river.

  Is any of this real?

  I force myself to grab the rock with one hand and Zahra’s sleeve with the other. That, at least, I can reach.

  She sags back on a wave, her head rolling like raw egg, the back of her scalp bouncing against sharp rock. I don’t see the blood until the sea pushes us together, lifting us up
and scraping us on the rock, where we hang like linen.

  The rising moon ducks behind a red cloud and out again. Zahra’s ripped sleeve uncurls like a white ribbon of kelp. I touch Zahra’s forehead. Red blooms in my palm, bright poppy.

  I blink away the stinging water. Behind my eyelids, I see blood on crushed ceiling tiles. Blood under a bandage. Blood in the sink. Blood on the seaweed.

  “Zahra.” I try to call her name, but I can’t. Shouts come from farther down the beach, surrounding the wreckage of the aid ferry like the bones of a beached whale. In the red light, the scorch marks shimmer like streaks of soot above a fireplace. I don’t need the sound of gunshots from the shore to tell me that it was a rocket that left these marks: these are the same streaks that tore through the garden tiles in Homs, lines of ash as if an angel ran his fingers along the bow of the boat. What was it Umm Yusuf said to Mama in Benghazi—that aid ferries might be mistaken for rebels?

  I knead the moon painted like Zahra’s face. Blood mists the water.

  “Up, Zahra.” I shake her at the shoulders. “Come on.”

  Zahra reaches up to touch my face. A swell shoves us. The water rips things from my pockets, bits of quartz and mica I collected. Abu Sayeed’s handkerchief slips thick and wet into the surf. The water spreads it, a ten-fingered hand.

  I grab the handkerchief from the water and stuff it back in my pocket, where it wraps itself around the half-stone. Yusuf’s pocketknife weighs down the other side of my shorts, pressing on my thigh.

  I pull Zahra from the water with my fingernails, slicing red into her skin. The water bears her weight until we climb the rocks. The moon glints off Zahra’s wet bracelet like a flat coin.