YingYue could hear Zaytuna greeting Hilal and Abdulghafur. She was so loud. Does she not realize the Shaykh can hear her? Zaytuna said something again. It sounded like she was teasing one of them about burning the hintiyya. Then Hilal’s voice came clear and strong across the courtyard, threatening to slap her with the kitchen paddle. Zaytuna said, “Shhhh!” There was even more laughter from within. Hilal never teased YingYue. To her he was always only ever polite. She never raised her eyes to him, nor the boy. If she had to go into the kitchen, she stopped and waited until they noticed that she was there and asked what she needed. Wasn’t that the right thing to do? Or did it make her a stranger? She didn’t want to cry, but the tears came anyway.
She heard her before she saw her. Zaytuna was there holding a small red clay bowl of dates in her hand, saying, irritated again, “What’s wrong?”
YingYue looked at her but did not answer. What could she say? Look at her. Her skin browned so deeply from the sun. She had heard her father was an Arab, and her mother an African. The mother was one of the great ones. An ecstatic lover of God. The aunties and uncles still related stories about her standing up to men in the street who dared to criticize her for preaching to the people. They still recited the poetry that flowed out of her when she dissolved in the divine ocean. YingYue could see her mother in her. Not her looks. No, she looked like an Arab. Her brother took after the mother. She blushed. God forgive me, she thought as her mind turned to Tein, he is a handsome man. No, she corrected herself, he is beautiful. The Prophet, God bless him and peace, said, “God is beautiful and He loves beauty.” The Beautiful shone Its divine light everywhere, even through a man who refused to worship Him. And this woman, not beautiful in her face, but beautiful in her devotion. She does not even try to keep her skin from darkening in the sun. She does not even care what she looks like. YingYue thought of her own small vanities. How she protected her skin from the sun. How she oiled her thick hair. How she loved the chance to have it braided into thin strands in the Turkmen style, each one tied off with the brightly coloured threads. Zaytuna would never fall into such petty worldliness. Who would dare cross her? She understood why Mustafa would love her, would likely always love her.
YingYue looked over the empty courtyard but imagined it being busy with people as it was most afternoons. The Sufis gathered together to talk. The children came each day for their lessons. Who was she? A spiritual child. A nobody who knew nothing and needed everything. Some of the Sufis were refined in their manners, some rough, some mad. But there was one thing they all shared; they were all tough like this woman before her. Even the most refined, you might cross them without knowing what you were doing, and they would forgive you, some may even try to guide you with hints and nudges or, recalling the year she and her father lived in Marv with her shaykh, Abu Bakr al-Wasiti, with a spiritual slap to the head. But nothing you could do would hurt them.
She shook her head at herself. Shaykh Abu al-Qasim had ordered her to tell Zaytuna her story, but she did not trust this woman enough to tell her. Nevertheless, she pulled herself around to his command and said, “I am different, not like the rest of you. I cannot do this.”
Zaytuna sat down next to her as she said it, grunting, and kept her eyes on the far side of the courtyard. YingYue searched her face, it showed nothing, but her words did. Zaytuna nearly spat them out, “What can’t you do?”
She cannot even hide that she does not like me. YingYue looked at Junayd, then said, “Belong to you. How do I belong to you all who have been on this path for so long?”
“Mustafa said you had come here all the way from Taraz. That is a long way. Why would you come?”
YingYue wondered why she asked. Maybe the Shaykh told her to ask about my story? Are we both forcing ourselves? She asked, “Do you truly want to know?”
She thought Zaytuna looked exasperated and readied herself for a “No,” but she replied, “Yes.”
Sitting up, she crossed her legs, and leaned in, looking at Zaytuna, searching her face to see if she was telling the truth. How do I speak to her?
“Yes. I want to hear,” Zaytuna pushed.
YingYue said it, “My father, he made me leave.” She paused, then said each word with great emphasis, “I fell in love.”
Zaytuna’s eyes opened just slightly at those last words. YingYue thought, She will listen. Then said, “When I was a child in Taraz something happened. My parents were not Muslim then. I was born healthy, but I became sick. I was only one year old, maybe a little more. I was hot and cold at the same time. I could not eat. I spit up my mother’s milk and grew thin. The doctor could not help. The healer could not help. The shaman could not help.”
“But you are still here.” Zaytuna said.
YingYue said, “Yes! You have good eyes!”
She saw Zaytuna hold back a laugh, and YingYue dropped her head in embarrassment, realizing Zaytuna thought her stupid rather than teasing. She made herself say, “My father took me to see QuanYin in the temple.”
Zaytuna interrupted, “Who?”
“Please listen. A goddess. She is like God’s name ar-Rahim. She is kind and compassionate. She is gentle and caring.”
Zaytuna’s head tucked back in shock. “You believe in her?”
YingYue held out a hand to stop her. “Please listen. Please.”
“Fine.” Zaytuna raised her eyebrows.
“I was just a baby. Father lifted me up to her so she would cure me. But I turned my face away from her. Father was angry with me. He pushed my face back to her. I turned away again. He held me up to her even closer. I squirmed out of his arms and fell down to the floor. He was afraid. Maybe I had angered the goddess and cursed myself. Maybe I would die. He said he scolded me, ‘What have you done!’ He said, then, I spoke my first word, ‘Allah’.”
Zaytuna leaned toward her, nearly reaching out. “Subhanallah! What did he do?”
YingYue’s heart expanded. She will hear me! “He went to the mosque. The imam said I was a Muslim. The imam whispered the shahada in my ear. I do not know how, but I remember it. I can feel his breath in my ear like it just happened. I can hear his whisper, There is no god but God and Muhammad is God’s messenger. My father saw me grow fat again before his eyes.”
“Right then and there?”
“Yes. Father said the shahada, too, right there for himself and our whole family. He brought me to my mother. She held her baby, fat again, and wept. It was a miracle. But she was angry about my father saying shahada. My brothers accepted becoming Muslim.”
Zaytuna sat forward. “Why wouldn’t she?”
“She hated Taraz. Father had a dream he would build a paper business there. Dream or not,” she said defensively, “it was a good decision because of the trade route. But she and my brothers had to leave everything behind. She never saw her family again. She was so lonely for them. She never even tried to speak Turkmen. I was born in Taraz, so it was easy for me. Chinese at home. Turkmen outside. Arabic at the mosque.”
“But who did you love?”
She did not answer the question directly, “I grew up in the mosque.”
Zaytuna audibly sighed.
YingYue flushed with embarrassment, started to get up, and knocked over the bowl of dates. “I am so sorry. I am talking too much.”
Zaytuna didn’t reply, but looked toward Junayd. He did not look back at her. She turned back to YingYue and said in kind words that sounded false, “I apologize. I wasn’t sighing at you, just something on my mind. I want to hear the rest of your story.”
Looking away, tears coming up again, she said, “Another time.”
Zaytuna reached out touching her on the knee. “You said you spent all your time in the mosque?”
YingYue knew how she must look. Her face would be flushed. Her eyes red-rimmed with tears. She took a breath and made herself speak, “I spent my days there because my mother abandoned me.”
Zaytuna did not reply immediately. She looked at Junayd again and replied unkindly,
“Oh, really?”
“Yes!” YingYue insisted.
Zaytuna closed her eyes. “Tell me, then.”
“God became my Companion. I memorized Qur’an and hadith in the mosque with the imam. I learned their meanings.” She reached out and took Zaytuna’s hand, so rough in her own. Zaytuna pulled her hand back. She looked at her empty hand, and said, “It was so peaceful at the mosque. My father’s paper and printing factory was so noisy. My brothers at home were so loud. And my mother yelled at me for every little thing. But at the mosque, I sat by the pillars and dreamt about God.” She looked up at Zaytuna. “The mosques are so different from here. They are enclosed but they feel open. The pillars are made of wood, wide at the top and smaller at the bottom. I don’t know the Arabic words to describe them. They are carved. The carvings were small. Careful.”
“Intricate. But there are pillars like that here, but only in al-Mansur’s Mosque.”
“Oh? I want to see them. But ‘intricate’, what does that mean?”
“What you said. Small details. All tied together.”
“Yes, the designs were intricate. I traced my fingers in the grooves. I rested my head against them. In my heart, I told my secrets to my Companion.”
“So what happened, why did you leave?”
“Something happened to me.”
Zaytuna exclaimed, “What! Get to the point!”
YingYue was stunned into silence. A few moments passed, then Zaytuna reached out to take her hand, but YingYue pulled it away. She said, “I don’t want to say it now.”
“Why bring it all up, then?” Zaytuna shot back.
YingYue looked across the courtyard. Abdulghafur was dragging one of the great pots used for the community meals out to the back. A few people had come in and were sitting against the wall after greeting the Shaykh briefly. Junayd and her father were still deep in conversation.
“My mother found my letters.”
Zaytuna was still unfriendly. “What letters, YingYue?”
“Love letters. I took scrap paper from my father’s warehouse and wrote letters. Many letters, so many every day. I wrote them in Arabic so my mother could not read them. I kept them in a box. Once a week I took the box to the river. I put the paper in the water until the ink was gone. My words of love…dissolved?” She looked at Zaytuna for confirmation, but she gave her nothing. YingYue went on anyway, “My words of love dissolved into the water. I wanted to dissolve in the water with the words and rush through the water with them.”
Zaytuna gasped.
YingYue thought, She understands me now. YingYue watched as Zaytuna grasped her hands in her lap, pressing her fingers hard together. Finally Zaytuna replied, “I see.”
“Mother found them and took them to the mosque. The imam read them to her, translating the words. He went straight to my father with them, mother right behind him. But father knew Whom I loved. He told them. They would not believe him. That night when father left, she beat me. I could not leave the house for a long time. I was broken,” she touched her ribs, “and my skin was purple.”
Zaytuna seemed angry now. “Bruised.”
“Purple from beating. Bruised?”
Zaytuna nodded. Her hands were still clenched in her lap, she looked down at them and said, “Your letters were to God.”
YingYue continued, “When my father came home, he beat my mother. She had no shame, so beating her did no good. The next day when he went to the factory, she covered herself like you all do. She had a big wrap. She covered her head and face. She hid the marks. She went to see the women in another Chinese family. My father said she asked them to take me away without him knowing and return me to her family in Lanzhou to marry one of my cousins.”
Zaytuna was still looking down. “I’m sorry.”
She reached out to Zaytuna, but Zaytuna only looked up at her and released her clenched hands and put them beside her, out of reach of YingYue’s touch. YingYue’s heart sank, she said quietly, “Father found out and he kept me with him at all times. He even slept on the floor of my room. Alhamdulillah, he had a dream. This is the dream. I was walking on a wide road. It was a great road between cities. He said there was a city ahead of me with high red brick walls. It was three cities, each one built over the last. Each one older than the other. There was a minaret at the centre of the third city that soared into the clouds. He said that I opened the great gates of the city with my own hands. I found the minaret and lay at its feet.”
“So you left for this city?”
“Yes. He told my brothers to take the business and watch over mother. He told her no man would ever marry me. He would only give me to God.”
Zaytuna looked up at her suddenly. “How old were you?”
“I was fifteen. I never saw my mother again.”
“Did you want to?”
“She is my mother.”
“So where did you go?”
“Marv.”
Zaytuna said, “The minaret in your dream was my Uncle Abu Bakr.”
YingYue’s eyes widened at the woman calling her shaykh, ‘uncle’. She said, “He was my teacher.”
“How is he?”
“He was hard on himself.”
Zaytuna said, her voice soft for a moment, “May God protect him. I miss him.”
YingYue said softly, “I miss him, too.”
“So what did he teach you?” Zaytuna sounded frustrated again.
“I was sad and forgot about God. I was thinking about my mother. I missed her.” She turned to Zaytuna, “She is my mother.”
Zaytuna looked at Junayd again and said plainly, “I understand.”
“I asked Shaykh Abu Bakr to help me find my Beloved again. So he told me that my feelings are not real. I should not be pushed by them this way and that way. My feelings cannot make me sad or happy.”
“Sounds like Uncle Abu Bakr.”
“He told me that all is One. There is no finding God. There is no losing God. I have not lost my mother. I have not lost my Beloved.”
“So do you think that, that your feelings are not real?”
“I feel them, but they are all from God. I kiss the face of each one because each one is my Lover.”
Zaytuna pushed off her knees and stood up. YingYue looked up at her. “Zaytuna, I am sorry. What did I do?”
She looked down at her, her words clipped, “Nothing. You sound like my mother. You could be my mother, the way you talk.”
YingYue looked up at her, asking, “Is that good?”
“For you, maybe.” Zaytuna looked toward the reception hall, then down at YingYue. “Why are you here?”
“My father, he walks Shaykh Abu al-Qasim to his store in the market. My father’s store is not much further. We come to get the Shaykh every day.”
“No here. In Baghdad. Why didn’t you stay with Uncle Abu Bakr?”
“He said he had taken me as far as he could, I had to come here for more.”
“As far as he could?”
“Yes.”
“What? What was that?”
“He scolded me that I will not leave myself behind for my Beloved. I will not dissolve in the river with my words of love.”
Zaytuna nodded.
YingYue thought, Of course this woman knew what it was to leave her self behind. To know that there is no self, only God, loving and loved, through His creation. YingYue said, “Shaykh Abu Bakr taught me to do that, but I am scared I will lose God if I let go.”
“Shaykh Abu al-Qasim will bring you there whether you like it or not.” Zaytuna seemed upset.
“Like he did your mother?”
Zaytuna jerked her head toward her, her eyes on fire. “My mother gave up herself to God from the beginning. Long before I was even born. Long before we came to Baghdad.”
YingYue folded in on herself from the force of her words. “Forgive me.”
Zaytuna took a deep breath. “YingYue.”
She did not lift herself up to look at her. “Yes?”
“
You said you were sad because you feel like you don’t belong?”
“Yes.”
Zaytuna said, her voice flat, “You belong.”
YingYue looked up, unfolding herself to her, but Zaytuna had turned away from her toward Junayd and had caught his eye, bowing to him with her hand over her heart. Then Zaytuna walked away, saying nothing, leaving her sitting on the floor with the bowl of dates uneaten, alone. YingYue wanted to cry, but she held her tears back, taking up, instead, a hand that no one could see but her, pressed it to her face and kissed it, saying, “My Love, my Love.”
Chapter Five
The call to the afternoon prayer had come and gone by the time Saliha got home. In the poorest parts in the neighbourhood of Tutha, most of the houses were nothing but a few small rooms opening onto a central courtyard, if that. Some were only single rooms, their entrances a passageway carved through other houses and found in narrow, winding alleys leading out of hard-packed dirt streets that sprawled from square to square. Saliha was grateful she had the light and air of the courtyard since they had no windows in their rooms, crowded in as they were on all sides. And grateful that she had her friends.
She was exhausted and hoped Zaytuna would be home, but more that if she were, that they would not end up arguing. They rarely worked together washing clothes anymore. When they did, Saliha only joined her to make up for having quit on Zaytuna to be a corpse washer. The truth of it was, she missed those days sometimes, as hard as the work was and as bad as the pay was, because she missed Zaytuna. It had been just the two of them, every day, washing and hanging laundry on the roofs of the wealthier homes in Karkh and knocking on doors to find new customers. There was always time to talk. Every little thing could be teased out together, examined, laughed over, and sometimes fought over, in their own time, at their own pace.
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