The Jealous

by Laury Silvers

  “There is one other thing you can do for me, Doctor Judah,” Ammar replied. “Is the woman who helped with the Imam’s wife that night here? The corpse washer? I’d like to ask her a few questions.”

  Tein shot a look toward the back of the hospital looking for Saliha.

  Ibn Ali stepped in, “I must return to the pharmacy. I will look for her and send her out. She came in this morning.”

  Tein put his hand on his heart and bowed his head to Ibn Ali. “Thank you, sir.”

  Ibn Ali bowed his head to all three men and left.

  Judah thrust his thumbs in his zunnar belt, and began to add, “I’ve had some other thoughts…” when Saliha emerged.

  Tein noticed her first, and the other two men turned to follow his gaze. Judah fell silent. Her work wrap was wound on her waist like an apron. Its long end draped over her head and around her upper body, covering her, but also uncovering her, showing the perfect balance of her curves and leaving her beautiful face, with its broad smile and laughing eyes, for all to see. Her gaze rested on Tein for just a moment too long then turned resolutely to focus on Ammar.

  Tein could see that Saliha was enjoying the attention, and he smiled at her pleasure in it. There was not a twinge of jealousy in him as Ammar and Judah watched how she walked, swaying her hips, and he was relieved. If there was no jealousy, there was no wanting her for himself. But he could not help but notice that Judah’s face flashed lust, then anger, until finally settling into an expression more fitting a man who was not her husband. Tein became concerned for her sake. Look at her, keeping her eyes on Ammar alone. She hasn’t looked at the good doctor once. She’ll drive that pittance of a man out of his mind, and then she’ll feel the wrong end of it. Maybe I should just drag him into the street and get it over with. Make sure he knows he doesn’t have a hand over her.

  “Assalamu alaykum, Ghazi Ammar, How can I help?”

  Ammar bowed his head with his hand over his heart. “I have a few questions about the night that Imam Hashim died. Can you tell us what his wife said and did?”

  “There are things a woman sees that men do not.” Tein interjected, taking a step towards her and cutting Judah off, who was, then, forced to step to the side out of Tein’s way.

  Ammar looked at Tein, eyebrows raised.

  Saliha tipped her head in recognition to Tein, but answered Ammar, “Hanan was out of her mind with grief. She firmly believed that their slave had killed her husband with a talisman.”

  “Hanan’s grief was sincere?”

  Saliha gasped, “Oh, you suspect her!”

  “We suspect everyone until we have enough information.”

  Tein’s anger flashed. He had to wrestle himself back from reminding Ammar with the back of his hand exactly how he had failed this principle, putting Mu’mina’s life at risk. His anger escaped him as a suppressed grunt. If Ammar heard it, he didn’t show it. Saliha did, and looked at him questioningly.

  She turned back to Ammar, “At one point, she had mistakenly pushed against her husband’s chest to lift herself up and was horrified that she might have hurt him.”

  Tein interjected, “That doesn’t necessarily mean she didn’t want him dead. It could have been guilt over having killed him.”

  “Perhaps.” Saliha shrugged one shoulder suggestively.

  “How did she feel about Mu’mina?” Tein asked.

  Saliha held Tein’s gaze, again, just moments too long. “She hated her.”

  Ammar asked, “Why? What had the girl done?”

  Saliha’s eyes hardened, and the warmth of her face dropped away as she turned to answer Ammar. “Nothing. When a woman hates another woman like that, it’s the man between them who’s done something.”

  “Noted.” Ammar conceded.

  Tein inclined his head to Saliha. “Mu’mina suffered under both of them.”

  “Yes. I can imagine.” She looked at Tein again, her features softening.

  Judah broke in, “Do you remember anything else?”

  Tein glanced at Judah and shook his head at the doctor’s pathetic effort to get Saliha to look at him. Don’t work so hard, little man. Who she chooses will be her choice, not ours. He looked back at Saliha. She was watching him. Ours. He had thought, Ours. So he did want her for himself. The tremor of the realization moved through his muscles, sinews and bones. Suddenly, wanting her enveloped him, holding his heart and tugging at every cell in his body. She had not looked away. Her face was still, yet shimmering. She saw what he was feeling and he was not ashamed. He threw his shoulders back and opened his whole body to her. He heard her stifle a gasp.

  Ammar coughed, breaking the moment. “That’s enough. Thank you. We’ve got what we need.” He slapped Tein on the back and tugged his sleeve, forcing Tein to look at him.

  Judah stepped forward to break the tension between Tein and Saliha.

  Tein did not reply but shifted in his stance away from her. Saliha drew her wrap across her face and cast her eyes downward.

  Tein didn’t see that Judah had stepped forward again, making a move against him until Ammar had already stepped in front and around Tein, taking a firm grip on both of Judah’s shoulders. Tein held back a laugh. Ammar was trying to bring Judah back to where he was, in the hospital, and away from the street where Judah no doubt wanted to drag him to beat the life out of him.

  Tein nodded to Saliha and started to back away to give Judah space to calm down, when Saliha said, “Ghazi Ammar, just one thing. When her brother-in-law came in…” She paused, winking at Tein. “A woman notices these things.” Then continued to Ammar, “He seemed closer to her than he should be. He did not seem concerned for his brother at all. His attention was entirely focused on her.”

  “Do you remember anything he said?”

  “No. Just how he was with her.”

  Ammar nodded, one hand still gripping Judah’s shoulder. “Thank you. You have been very helpful.”

  Saliha bowed her head to the men and returned to the back of the hospital. Tein tipped his chin to Ammar, indicating he was going outside. He left without acknowledging Judah and walked through the courtyard, past the young guard, and into the street where he found a spot against a wall in the sun and took a deep breath. He looked up and down the road to see if there were a tavern nearby, out of habit, but also wanting a drink. He wasn’t sorry he didn’t see one.

  He pushed off the wall when he saw Ammar came out.

  Ammar grunted, then pointed his finger at him. “If we have to interview her again, you’re not coming.”

  Tein shrugged, then made his point, “Mu’mina would have admitted to giving him poison. You know it. She wasn’t ashamed of having killed him with the talisman. She had motive, and she had opportunity. But she didn’t do it. Why don’t you think more about the brother-in-law?”

  “I will give you that it complicates things. But you also heard what the pharmacist said about Turkmens using belladonna for trances.” He looked irritated. “I’ll interview the family again tomorrow. Alone. I don’t want you there with the way you are about this girl. You’re free to follow up on the poisons.” Ammar looked Tein in the eye. “I’ll give you the space you need to follow up this lead. I’ll deal with the butcher and whatever else comes up. You just better hope Mustafa can get this case delayed.”

  “You sound like you doubt her confession now.”

  “I don’t, Tein. I think she did it. I would have killed him too, if I were her. I want you to be sure as well so you can walk away from this when she’s executed.”

  Tein smiled in response, nodding in agreement.

  Ammar pulled back. “Is there something wrong with you?”

  “I’m going to prove you wrong. If it was poison, then the Imam had it the morning he died. It had to come from someone in his house. If he died from the beating he got from gambling debts, I’ll find that, too. You promise that you’ll question the family about the poison?”

  “Didn’t I just say that?”

  Ammar’s hea
rt sank at his friend’s confidence. This could end you. He was always on the edge of losing his way, turning up drunk or not turning up at all. He’d never come back to himself from her execution if he couldn’t see that she was guilty. She wanted the Imam dead. She had the means and opportunity to do it, and the cursewriter helped. He thought of the scars running across her face and shivered. If Sayyida Fatima were truly by her side, she’d not be in this situation. He looked up at the location of the sun in the sky and said, “Let’s go, or we’ll be late to take my mother to the mosque.”

  They crossed the Hospital Bridge in the direction of Baratha. The army encampment was ahead of them in the field just before the Ushnan Bridge. Defensive troops had been stationed there so long that the tents and outdoor cookhouses and latrines had been replaced little by little with permanent barracks. Men were sitting along its walls, resting in the sun, drinking from skins. Boys ran back and forth doing errands.

  Tein had told Ammar he was a boy like that, filling skins with water and wine for the men after his mother died. They would throw him a chink of coin and call him “little ghazi.” One showed him how to wield a sword. Tein laughed with pride when he described how he could lift it above his head with only one hand, and he was barely eleven years old, dreaming of nothing other than heading out to the frontier. Ammar looked over at Tein. He was still that boy, wanting to be a hero. My good friend, you are too good. God protect you from yourself.

  Steam and smoke swirled out of the cookhouses, and the smell of grilled meat reached them as they passed. Tein’s stomach growled loud enough for them both to hear. Ammar laughed. “Hold on. You’ll be at my mother’s table after the prayer.”

  “At least with you Shia, there’s no Friday prayer until a leader from the Prophet’s family rules the Muslims once more. No boring sermon to withstand.”

  “Can we not open that up? I have to listen to my parents fight about whether or not we’ve even got a living Imam. Keep your mouth shut when we get there.”

  “I swear,” Tein raised his hand in a solemn oath, ignoring Ammar, “But I would bear up under a Friday prayer and the worst sermon for a taste of your mother’s roasted goat and bread pudding. I would listen closely to that sermon just to smell that meat sizzling in the tannur and know its fat is dripping onto the pudding.”

  Ammar couldn’t help himself and laughed. “You are going to hell, friend. Does your sister’s friend know you don’t believe in God?”

  Tein shrugged. “Probably, those two have no secrets.”

  “It never bothered Ayzit?”

  Tein turned to look at him. “She was barely Muslim herself. She only ever talked about spirits to me.”

  Ammar asked, “But…”

  “The head man of her town said the shahada for all of them when the Muslims arrived. ‘Pay the poll tax or join up’. You know how it goes. So he joined them all up. Smart man, he saved them a lot of money.” He laughed. “She said they only found out they were Muslim when someone came to teach them to pray.”

  “But I saw Ayzit pray.”

  “She knew how to keep the other women in our camp happy. Why do you think she was so eager to marry a man like me, one who would not force her to believe in a god she had no feeling for?”

  Ammar shook his head. “I never thought about what happened to people after our troops secured the towns.”

  “You didn’t think,” Tein voice turned cold. “Did you think they sent preachers to the vanquished to recite the Qur’an and tell stories about the Prophet, and everyone was so moved that they converted on the spot?”

  Ammar felt ashamed, but he didn’t understand why. How could he have known? Why was Tein being so harsh with him about it? He changed the subject. “There’s the Ushnan Bridge.”

  “I can almost taste your mother’s judhaba.”

  Ammar joked, hoping Tein’s mood had passed. “You only love my mother for her food.”

  “No, not just that.” Tein jibed, “I love your mother mostly because every time we see her, she has a new girl ready for you to marry. There is no better entertainment than your discomfort with her efforts.”

  Ammar didn’t laugh. He knew Tein, and he wasn’t trying to be funny. Ammar pushed back at him, knowing how much he hated being called “Bilal,” as if all black men could be reduced to the Prophet’s companion. “You don’t mind her calling you ‘Bilal’ instead of Tein?”

  “Ha! Not your mother. She can call me whatever she likes. Be kind to her, Ammar,” resentment crept into his voice, “Your mother is alive. And your mother is good to you.”

  The reproach felt like a slap, but he said, “Alhamdulillah.”

  They crossed the bridge, leaving Karkh and entering the suburb of Baratha. They left the main road, winding their way past the larger homes, some grand with two stories, large courtyards within, and no shared walls, through the alleyways with narrow passageways leading to smaller homes, shared by several families, and on out to the edge of the city. If Ammar’s mother could not live near Imam Musa al-Kadhim’s grave, then she would live in imagined sight of the plain of Karbala. She forced his father to build their home here. Ammar had often found her outside the walls of their home, looking out into the far distance, wailing, “Ya Husayn!” He would join her, and they would weep together over the slaughter of Muhammad’s family. His grandson Husayn, so tragically betrayed, robbing the Muslims of his family’s noble rule to this day.

  Ammar pushed open the gate onto his family’s courtyard. The breeze picked up swirls of dust from the dry ground making small mounds of dirt against the bricks that lined the vegetable garden. Gourd vines were still growing on trellises nearly breaking under the weight of the fruit. Ammar’s mother had already pulled up and braided the onions and the garlic. She hung them up alongside the dried herbs in the storage room next to the stable, other vegetables would be stored in a cool spot dug underneath it or pickled in large jars lining its shelves. His brother had surely been by to tend to the goats. God knows his father hadn’t. Ammar had spent his childhood driving the goats into the plains beyond and watching masses of soldiers marching out across the great road that connected Baghdad to Kufa wishing for a way out.

  Ammar opened the new door to the family house. It was tightly fitted into the brick, and he took pride in the sturdy feel of it. He touched the plaster jammed into the cracks in the planks and smiled to himself. The workman he’d hired had done a good job.

  Tein put his hand on the wood as they walked through. “Was your father happy with you at last?”

  “He didn’t try to hit me, so I think that is a ‘Yes’.”

  “I do not smell meat roasting.”

  Ammar looked back at him. “She’ll have something in the pot. Stop it.”

  His mother ran toward them from the back of the house. “Ammar, Habibi! And my Bilal, your black face is as beautiful as ever. Your eyes shine like the light of the moon on a dark night! Mashallah! How is your sister? She never comes to visit me.”

  “She’s busy with work, Auntie. I hardly see her myself.”

  “Shameful not to see her brother, but even more shameful that she doesn’t visit me. You two without a mother and me without a daughter.” She put her hand on Ammar’s cheek. “This son, will he ever give me a daughter-in-law to love as my own and to help me around the house?”

  Ammar looked toward the back of the room where his father was lounging on a low couch, ignoring them. He looked down at his mother’s pleading face, and softened, saying, “Inshallah.”

  “Inshallah. He always says ‘God willing,’” she slapped his cheek lightly. “We know you do not mean if God wills, you mean if you will. God forgive you, you’ll put your mother in her grave without grandchildren.”

  “Mother, you have grandchildren. My brother has given you four. And I know that Tahirah comes and helps you around the house just as Muhsin comes and takes care of your goats along with his own. They live just next door.”

  “Muhsin was just here, alhamdulillah. But Muhs
in and Tahirah’s children are not your children, habibi. Not yours. Do not let your mother die unhappy.”

  “Auntie,” Tein said, “you must know of someone for him.”

  Ammar shot a look at Tein.

  He was busy trying to squirm out of his mother’s grasp when his father called across the room, “Get money from this son!”

  Not even a salam from the old man. Ammar went to his father, took his hand, and kissed it. “Assalamu alaykum, Father.”

  His father faced him when he spoke, but the words were yelled across the room to his mother, “Give your mother the money for the khums; I’m not paying tax to these people who say they speak to an Imam we can’t see.”

  “Do not say such things!” His mother screamed, nearly in tears.

  “You are above my command now that Lady Fatima speaks to you!”

  Ammar looked toward Tein and jerked his head to indicate to take his mother outside. Tein spoke to her quietly. She pulled her wrap off the peg on the wall and wound it around herself, ready to go to the mosque. Tein opened the door for her, and the two of them went outside to wait.

  Ammar looked back at his father. The few greasy straggling hairs left on the sides of his head curled back behind his ears. The old man’s robe had fallen open, and his fat belly pressed at his qamis. Ammar thought he could smell alcohol on him. His father slurred slightly, “Be a good son and give your mother the money.”

  “Will you come to the mosque today with us, Father?”

  He pointed to his foot, no more swollen than it ever had been, and said, “This old foot. I can’t do much with it anymore. You go on.”

  Ammar bowed to him and left, shutting the front door firmly behind him. Tein and his mother were waiting at the gate to the street. At the sound of the door closing, his mother stepped forward to face Ammar, pleading, “Habibi, you cannot do it!”

  “I’ll give you the money for the khums, mother, don’t worry.”

  “No. The girl.” She looked up at Tein, leaning on his arm, and asked, “Her name?”

  Tein bent down to her. “Mu’mina.”

  Now Ammar understood Tein’s mood. It was too much. Tein would get that meal in him, then he’d hear about this the whole way back to Baghdad. Using my mother against me! Ya Rabb!