Thoughts of Tein inevitably drew her back to Zaytuna. She sighed inwardly at Zaytuna’s insistence that her twin brother was no good for her. This job was no good for her. This, that, and the other thing was no good for her. Look at this woman, her hollow face. Zaytuna was not far off! She looked like death in life, nothing like her brother, who was life itself. Saliha suddenly felt guilty and scolded herself at comparing this dead woman’s face to Zaytuna’s own. It was rude, but walla, she did need to put more weight on. She was eating now, but not enough. Oh Zaytuna, she thought, you only have yourself to blame!
It was Zaytuna who had brought her to this work, by dragging her along in her investigation into the death of a young servant boy. Poor Zayd, may God have mercy on his soul. So, Zaytuna, she thought, I don’t want to hear any more of your complaints! Saliha finally did huff aloud, moving one of the basins too quickly sending it clattering against another, and shattering the peace of the room. She called herself to account, God protect me from evil things! Shatha’s quiet voice followed her thought. No one except her apprentice would know that Shatha’s tone, infinitesimally changed, was scolding, “Saliha, bring the camphor for rubbing.”
Saliha did not apologize; she knew better now than to speak unnecessarily. She brought Shatha the small jar of camphor. She knew her master in this work didn’t want apologies, only that she do her work properly. She watched as Shatha took a tiny amount of camphor on her finger and rubbed the woman’s forehead, her palms, her knees, and her feet, all the places where she would touch the ground in prostration during the ritual prayer. Saliha collected the basins and jugs, putting them in their places on the shelves by the tap. Then she went to the cabinet at the back of the room where they kept the stores of ground lotus, camphor, and the winding cloth for the shrouds and took out three long sections of cloth, placing them on a side table near Shatha.
The woman lay on the table before them now, washed and scented, covered to her shoulders by a piece of white sheeting. Shatha laid the woman’s long, brown hair out so it hung down from the edge of the table and gently combed it. It was wet but still held its wide, round curls. Her hair must have been glorious when dried and oiled, each curl perfectly defined. Saliha sighed. Shatha held each piece firmly near her head, so as not to tug on the woman’s scalp and cause her pain. Then she separated the woman’s hair into three pieces, then each piece into three again, and braided them, tying each off with thread. Each of the three braids was three fingers thick. So beautiful. Shatha gestured to her. They turned and lifted the woman again, over and to the side and back again, wrapping the winding cloth around her in three layers until they had her swaddled like a baby. Saliha thought, You are free of the pain now, my sister. She sighed aloud and Shatha twitched at the noise.
Shatha went out to let the family know their woman was ready for them to carry to the mosque for her funeral prayer. Sometimes the women of the family came in the room for the washing. Some even took turns pouring the water or holding the hand of their loved one while whispering soothing prayers in the ears of their mothers, daughters, sisters, and little children. Some stood to the side, watching and praying. Others sat on the bench outside the room waiting for the men in the family to carry out the wrapped body. But other times, no one was there to wait. Then orderlies would carry the body to a donkey cart, the driver alone accompanying it to the mosque for the funeral prayer.
Saliha moved to the side as four men came into the room with a pallet. Shatha directed them to lay the pallet on the second bench-table, and showed them how to lift the woman onto it, so that her body would not bend awkwardly, and so that they would not touch her in any way that was disrespectful.
They draped the body with the blanket they’d brought. It was clean but slightly moth-eaten with frayed edges. Such small holes, who would see? The little things caught her out and broke her. She knew it was likely their best from home. It would do until they could get to the mosque. There it would be switched out for a fine drape used to cover the believers first, for their funeral prayer and, then, for the walk to the graveyard carried on the shoulders of men.
The men would walk the streets with the body lifted on their shoulders, with family, friends, or maybe only strangers following behind. Saliha soothed herself with the thought that those they passed, as the body was carried through the streets and alleyways, might lift their hands and say a prayer for her. Then the men would lay her in her grave, on her side, with a brick for a pillow, facing Mecca, as they covered her with dirt and then left her alone with the angels to question her in her grave.
Chapter One
After the family had left with the woman’s body, Saliha shook off the tension from Shatha’s scolding for clanging the basins in her distraction and looked for signs that the old woman was not happy with her. Shatha unwound her thick linen wrap from under her arms and hung it on a peg by the door. Carefully taking her good wrap down, she pulled it over her shoulders and kerchiefed head so that it fell loosely around her, covering her completely. She took a wide, black sash off another peg, smoothed it out, and tied it around her thick waist to hold the wrap in place. She pulled the voluminous fabric just enough at her shoulder so she could easily tug it to cover her face as she walked in the street. Looking back before leaving, Shatha said, “You’ll have your own black sash to wear when I think you are ready.” Saliha let out a slow breath. She wasn’t angry with her. Alhamdulillah, the job is still mine.
The sash, though. She wouldn’t wear that every day, like Shatha did with such pride. Oh certainly, she would when they attended the funeral prayers of the women and children they had washed themselves. But a black sash around her waist marking her as a corpse washer would hardly impress potential lovers. Even so, she replied to Shatha, “Inshallah,” as she continued putting the room in order.
Judah ibn Isa didn’t seem to mind her being a corpse washer. But he was training to be a doctor, so she guessed he wouldn’t. She smiled, remembering how he had tried to impress her by saying he was studying under someone important, someone ar-Razi. She rolled her eyes with pleasure at his efforts. What did she care about that? There was never going to be a marriage, even if he became Muslim himself. No man would ever have a say over her again. And men having a say was at the heart of marriage. Tein wasn’t biting, despite Saliha’s efforts to charm him into her bed. She’d have to look elsewhere. She wiped down the table, swept the room, careful not to raise any dust, checked to make sure she had stored everything correctly and whether the lotus leaves or camphor needed restocking.
Satisfied, she took her wrap down from the peg. She held it out to the light, admiring the design. No one could mistake this for a rag pulled from the old clothes left for the washer women to take away. No, she had bought it with the good money she was earning now. Her neighbour, Yulduz, had picked it out with her, drawing Saliha into a shop piled high with fabrics from all over the empire and beyond.
Yulduz inspected the Turkmen prints, sucking her teeth at each folded length of cloth that the shopkeeper pulled down from his shelves. “We’ve better than these back home.” This would be the first new clothing Saliha had chosen for herself. Even her small trousseau from her marriage to Ayyub, God show him the justice he deserves, was picked out by his family and approved by her mother without her even seeing them. This. This would be hers.
When the shopkeeper had pulled down the brilliant blue and white wrap, bound-dyed like Yulduz’s precious red and purple robe, Saliha nearly leapt in pleasure. Yulduz had to tap her lightly to control herself. Saliha should know better than to tip her hand to the shopkeeper, really, but it was so beautiful. Yulduz clucked at him in her Turkmen-accented Arabic, rounding every vowel beyond recognition, and clipping her words like a Baghdadi street urchin. “Giv’er those Sindi ones.” The shopkeeper laid out several more, stunning in their intricacy. Tiny birds, peacock feathers, and flowers played across the fine cotton and silk wraps. “More like it,” Yulduz had said, her hand assessing the fabric as she went back
and forth with the shopkeeper until finally she got the man to accept what she was willing to pay for the “cheap rag” that was now Saliha’s dearest possession. It even had an embellished border of twisted brown threads sewn into curling vines around every edge, not just where it would cover her head.
Shatha had taken her off the unpaid apprenticeship period sooner than she had expected. As she pulled an edge of the wrap over her head across her deep blue kerchief, covering her thick, black braid hanging down to the small of her back, she felt pride in having impressed her master so quickly. She drew the wrap loosely around herself, so that it was open in front, suggestively showing too much of her long river-green qamis and sirwal, and let it hang over her arms like a great shawl. Her face, like most working women, went uncovered, and all to the good. What use was a niqab in drawing men except for prostitutes who plied their trade from behind face veils, using a discreet cough to identify themselves to potential customers? She wondered if she left work by way of the front of the hospital rather than the side door to the alleyway, she might run into Judah.
Saliha was tired, but still eager for a small flirtation to take home with her. She made her way through the passage past the surgery, oculist, pharmacy, then the bonesetters until she reached the airy main courtyard at the centre of the hospital that opened onto the arches of the wide front entrance. The leaves of the lemon and bitter orange trees clicked and hushed with the breeze, her wrap fluttering along with them. She took pleasure in how it must look but shivered from the cold. The change of season was coming. The weather was beginning to cool, although they’d likely see another spate of heat before the rain and cold weather settled in on them. There was time yet to save for quilted underclothes, maybe even a new woolen wrap. She glanced through the wide arched doorways of the wards as she passed, but she didn’t see Judah. He could be found sometimes sitting in the shade under one of the trees, taking a break, or instructing the medical students beneath him. He must be making rounds right now. She sighed. Another day, then.
As she reached the end of the courtyard, a woman’s low howl of pain echoed through the entrance hall. Without thinking, Saliha ran toward it, and then Judah, out of a men’s ward. Orderlies got to the woman first and were lifting a writhing man out of a donkey cart, then carrying him through the doors to the nearest bed. A woman, surely his wife, was now screaming in terror, “She’s killed him! She’s killed him!” The man was not dead. He was in great pain, but not dead. His face was twisted with terror staring at something that was not there, looking at the space just over his chest, grasping at his left arm as if to pull the grip of some unseen force off of it.
Saliha gasped, “A jinn! God protect us from evil things!”
Judah directed the orderlies to take the man into the nearest ward. He saw Saliha and indicated to her to take hold of the woman and get her out of the way. Saliha rushed forward to her and took her arm. “Auntie, quiet, the doctor has him now.”
The woman tried to pull her arm away. “Let me go to him! He’s dying! She’s killed him!”
Saliha held onto her more firmly and pulled her toward the courtyard. “The doctor has him now. We can see into the ward from here. Come.”
The woman’s eyes were wild, the delicate fabric of her niqab moving from the force of each word, “That whore of a slave! She’s cursed him! An ifrit has taken hold of him!”
Saliha felt real fear at the word ‘ifrit’. It was the worst sort of creature, a powerful jinn, who could kill or lead people to their worst selves so they did whatever ugly business the jinn had planned for them. She pulled the woman to sit and commanded her, “Tell me now what has happened. I must tell the doctor. This will affect your husband’s care.”
“His slave! Mu’mina, the slut! I saw her! She bought a talisman and forced him to wear it around his neck!”
“What happened? What did you see?”
“He was bruised but he didn’t know how it happened! His eye blackened, his rib broken, and he didn’t know how! He wouldn’t believe me that it was her and he wouldn’t take that cursed talisman off.” The woman choked on the words, “That talisman drew an ifrit into our household to kill him.”
“Can you sit here while I go speak to the doctor? Take a deep breath with me.”
The woman sucked in a breath with her, then another. She nodded and pushed Saliha to get up and go to the doctor.
At the doorway, she saw Judah and a medical student speaking calmly by the bed, paying no attention to their patient. She stopped short. The woman’s husband must be dead. She reached the bed and saw that the life that animated his body was gone. His skin was slack on his face, his mouth agape, one corner sagging down. Judah had closed his eyes, but one had come open again. One dead, milky eye staring.
She whispered, “The wife.”
Judah asked, “How is she?”
“She says his slave forced him to wear a talisman that called on an ifrit to kill him.”
A look of concern crossed his face, then settled into what looked like disappointment with her.
She retorted, “I’m telling you what she said.”
He shook his head. “That is what he said, too. He was able to tell us before he died. An ifrit was sitting on his chest and had him by the arm. He could see it. He did not know why we could not see it too.”
“She said there were bruises. It’d been beating him.”
“You can see for yourself,” he instructed. “There is a bruise nearly healed just below his eye.” He leaned over the man and pulled up his qamis slightly. There were old and new bruises, yellow, green, and purple, layered on each other, across his chest. Judah pressed his fingers flat against the man’s ribs feeling each carefully. “He has had at least one broken rib.”
A piercing scream came from behind them. They spun around. The woman stood staring at her dead husband, then sank heavily to the ground. An orderly got to her first. He picked the woman up just enough for Saliha to move in behind. The woman’s body fell against her, tugging Saliha’s wrap from her head and shoulders, pooling around her on the floor. Saliha knew exactly how it looked and she did not move to cover herself. Instead, she put an arm around the woman to hold her up against her chest, laying the woman’s head against her shoulder. Walla, she thought, she’s heavy like the dead.
Judah came and crouched before the woman, but first he stole a look at Saliha uncovered before him. She did not look away. She heard him gasp, then whisper, “You are so good.” She could sense that he wanted to pull her face to his own and kiss her full lips. He smiled at her, trembling, as if he had kissed her and lowered his eyes. “Thank you for caring for her.”
Saliha almost laughed but bit her lip to hold it back. What does he imagine I’m doing? Let him imagine, let him imagine whatever he likes. She felt her face flush, and the warmth spread throughout her body. She wanted nothing more than to prop this heavy, emotional woman against one of the cabinets along the wall and find a quiet place to be alone with this dark-eyed man.
Judah rocked back to put more space between them and turned his attention to the dead man’s wife. He lifted her niqab back over her head so that she could breathe more easily, muttering to himself, “She has lost her colour and she is in a cold sweat.” Then he felt for her pulse in the crook of her arm. He said to Saliha, looking at her openly now, without trembling, “Her pulse is quick and shallow.”
Saliha suppressed a smile, nearly teasing aloud, Mashallah, the expertise! As if fainting were some extraordinary state!
Judah called to one of the orderlies, “Go to the pharmacy and ask Firdaws ibn Ali for a cup of khaya senegalensis.”
Saliha felt her stir and flicked the woman’s niqab down over her face.
Judah nodded to her, then whispered, “I can get one of the female orderlies to replace you.”
She shook her head. “No, I’m fine.” It wasn’t that she wanted particularly to sit with the woman. She felt for her, of course, but she had never been a good mourner. Even as a young
girl she would escape the throngs of women who would gather around a grieving woman to wail with her. Inevitably, a cousin or her mother would drag her back in and prod her to cry. Uff! She thought, If Auntie Basma were here, she’d pinch me to make me cry. But she had always found a way to squirm out of their hands and run out into the walled courtyard of the woman’s house to hunt lizards until it was time to go. She and Zaytuna were the same on this, at least. They stood up under grief and hardship. How did so much noise make anything easier? She smiled, assuring him she would stay. Having Judah so close without inviting hospital gossip, this was an opportunity she would not miss.
The orderly returned with a glass. Saliha put her hand out. “Give it to me.” He looked at Judah, who nodded, and then gave it to her. She whispered in the woman’s ear, “Come now, Auntie, have a sip of this.”
The woman lifted her head, looking at Judah for help.
He said, “You’ve fainted. Saliha has a drink for you. When you feel you can, we will talk.”
Saliha asked quietly, “Can you take the glass?” The woman reached up but her hand was still trembling. Saliha brought the glass up to the woman’s mouth, easily flicking it under her short niqab with one finger and bringing it to her lips. The woman slowly sipped, her strength returning. Her body became less of a dead weight. She lifted herself, but at the sight of her husband, she began to moan and let herself slump back against Saliha. Afraid the woman would begin screaming again, and this time in her ear, Saliha comforted, “Shhhh, come now. We have to talk to the doctor.”
The woman only moaned louder to say that the time for wailing was not under her control. She called out, “Where is my family? Send for my family!”
“Auntie.” Saliha asked, “Where do you live? We’ll send someone there.”
“Go to Ajyad Road in Nahr Tabiq! Tell them Imam Hashim has died. Tell them that Hanan is here. Alone! Alone to bear up under this pain!”
The Jealous Page 2
