The Jealous

by Laury Silvers

  Ammar did not react, “Oh?”

  “Spoilt. Every one of them. But not my business. I run this house tight; that’s my only concern here, and no one gets into that cabinet.”

  “And who has the key?”

  She slapped her side. Keys jangled. She had belted her wrap, and the keys were hanging from it on a metal ring.

  “What do you do with the keys at night?”

  “They’re in my room with me. I’ve got a door, and I bolt it.”

  Ammar laughed bitterly. What female servant would not give to have a door with a bolt? He doubted that Mu’mina had been given one.

  “Other than Anat Hiia, are there any other female servants here?”

  “No.”

  “Anyone else?”

  She put her hands on her hips. “Come now, you saw the boy. There’s also a man who handles the private things for Mr. Isam and the Imam.”

  “And where is he?”

  “He is out getting Mr. Isam’s horse from the neighbourhood stable.”

  “Does Anat Hiia sleep here?”

  She said without flinching, understanding his question, “Anat Hiia is new, never met Imam Hashim. She’s taken up the work that Mu’mina left behind.”

  “Where do you get Mr. Isam’s herbs?”

  “From the pharmacist in the near market, a doctor ordered the mixture, and the pharmacist makes it up.” She looked him square in the face. “I give it exactly as prescribed.”

  “The Near Market?”

  She laughed at him. “The ‘near’ market, the one nearest here.”

  He took note of her attitude and the place. “Which stall is his?”

  “Our pharmacist is the one closest to the fresh flower stalls. A fat man, smells of garlic. Abdallah ibn Barik.”

  He nodded. “And how do you think Imam Hashim died?”

  “I wouldn’t know, sir.”

  She was a steady woman. He tried to push her off-balance just a bit to see what she would say. “Did you give something to him? Even by mistake?”

  She squared her feet. “I’m not the sort to kill.”

  “Everyone is the sort to kill when pushed hard enough.”

  “Well,” she said, “Then I’ve not been pushed hard enough.”

  “Not even to protect Mu’mina?”

  Ta’sin cackled. “That crow got what she was bought for. I don’t know what she thought she deserved. She had a very high attitude, that one. She cleaned well enough, but never at my command and only at her liking. I suppose that’s why the Imam favoured her. He liked some fight in a woman.”

  Wincing at her words, he stood. “That’ll be enough.”

  Ta’sin rose. “I’ll get Mr. Isam.”

  Ammar said to Isam when he returned, “I appreciate your patience. I’ve got everything I need for now.”

  Isam nodded and indicated that he would walk him out.

  Partway out the gate door to the street, Ammar said to him, “Inshallah, this will be resolved soon.”

  “God willing,” Isam replied, and shut the gate behind him.

  The Fourth Day

  Chapter Seventeen

  Tein prepared himself to make the same useless speech to yet another herbalist in the Great Market of Karkh. Everyone dodged his questions. Ammar had checked the market nearest to the Imam’s house after his interview with the family, but no one would admit to anything. The family’s pharmacist admitted to creating the prescribed mixture, nothing else. Who would admit to selling anyone poison to kill a man?

  At the next stall, a small copper-skinned man on a ladder was placing a jar back onto a sagging shelf. He was wearing an undyed wrap around his waist with a short qamis and wool shawl over it in the same natural colour and a brightly embroidered cap instead of a turban. The shelves were heaving with jars of every available item while dried up birds, bits of bone, beaks, hide, and fur hung in net bags from a thin rope strung from one wall to the other. Clay and brass pitchers were labelled in script he did not recognize. Tein put his hand on the thin strip of counter separating customer and shopkeeper and coughed to indicate he was there, then said, “Assalamu alaykum.”

  The man twisted around toward him, still on the ladder. He spoke with only a trace of an accent, “Wa alaykum assalam, what can I get for you?”

  “I need some help tracking down a person who may have bought herbs here.”

  The man climbed down the ladder and stood on a raised platform of bricks that served to bring him to average height, and asked, nodding to Tein’s black turban, “You are police?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is not about my goods? The Marketplace Inspector’s man has been by to check my weights and measures. Nothing is out of place here.”

  “You’ve done nothing wrong. And if we find the person we are looking for, you will still have done nothing wrong.”

  The man looked skeptical.

  “Even if the person bought the herbs from you.”

  The man leaned on the counter with one hand. “You have no way to guarantee that. The Marketplace Inspector, the Police, you all do what you like. You are fair when fairness suits you. What’s your word worth?”

  Tein had heard versions of the same objection all day, that is when people were willing to object rather than simply play stupid. He was exhausted by the game. “Nothing. My word is nothing. But an enslaved girl was raped by her master. Someone killed him, and she’s been arrested for it.”

  “Get a confession out of her and leave us alone.”

  “It’s just that, I don’t think she did it.”

  “Oh? Since when do the police care about solving crimes?”

  Tein said, “I do.”

  The man smiled. “I’ve heard stories about fair ones. But usually, they involve the Caliph, that bastard, dressing up in the clothes of the people, wandering the streets. He happens across some terrible crime and solves it through his incredible acumen.” The man started laughing. “Have you heard these?”

  “Yes.”

  The man kept laughing, far longer than he should have.

  Tein waited.

  He finally stopped, choking a bit on his words, “They pay the storytellers to ply us while we are simply trying to relax. We are forced to listen to this drivel about how his jealous eye is over all of us, making sure we keep on the straight and narrow. And so here you are, his representative. It’s true. He cares.” He started laughing again.

  Tein waited until he was quiet. “I’m going to save the life of this girl.”

  “And why do you care?”

  Tein considered him. Maybe telling him the truth was the only way, “She reminds me of my mother. She’s a fiery thing, backs down from nothing.”

  “She’s Zanji, black like you?”

  Tein didn’t bother to correct him that he was Nubian, “Yes.”

  “You stick together, I suppose. There’s a group of you Zanjis that sit outside Baraqan’s paper shop, another Zanji.”

  “You’re from Sind. Do you all stick together?”

  The man sucked his teeth. “We’re all Sindi here, no matter where we’re actually from.”

  “Just like we’re all Zanji.”

  The man laughed again. “Well-played. And, yes, we stick together, too.”

  “Stick together or not, I don’t believe she did it.”

  “A woman raped will kill.”

  Tein nodded. “True.”

  The man retreated from the counter and sat down on a bench along the far wall, putting his slippered feet up on a box facing Tein. He did not respond to the rudeness of the gesture. From his ill-mannered perch, the herbalist asked, “So what do you think happened?”

  “I think someone else in the household poisoned him and blamed it on her.”

  “Why couldn’t she have poisoned him?”

  “She could have, I guess you’ll tell me that. Has there been a Zanji girl with small scars, bumps across her nose and cheekbones, in here asking for belladonna?”

  “No.”
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  “Okay, has anyone come in here asking for it?”

  He replied, “I’ll need more than that.”

  “An Arab woman, in a black wrap and niqab.”

  The man laughed. “Really?”

  “She might have been alone, or with a housekeeper, or maybe the housekeeper came alone.” He repeated the description Ammar had given him, “Small Arab woman, older, wrinkled face, brown eyes.”

  He laughed again at the general description. “No.”

  “A tall man, wealthy, light-skinned Arab, thin nose, angular face.”

  “No.”

  There was no use. Tein slapped the counter. “Well, thanks for your help.”

  As Tein stepped away from the stall counter, his leg was struck hard from behind. He nearly buckled, catching himself with his good leg and turning. A boy was on the ground with his legs up in the air. Tein reached down without thinking and grabbed him, the boy’s ratty short robe nearly coming off his back as Tein lifted him up with one hand. “You alright?” Keeping a grip on the boy, he looked down the lane for whoever was chasing him. One of the Marketplace Inspector’s officers was running after him, out of breath.

  The officer stopped before them, breathing hard, hands on his knees. “Thanks. I’ll take him.”

  “What’s he done?”

  “He took a coin purse off a woman back there in the Fabric Seller’s Market. Just sitting there counting her coins and he stole the purse right out of her lap.”

  Tein looked down at the boy. He was terrified, looking back and forth between the two men. He imagined that the child did not know which of them presented a worse fate, but he would soon. Tugging on the boy’s arm, he said, “Not very smart of her to count her coins where someone could just grab them like that? Someone in need takes what they can get, right?”

  The boy was wide-eyed and didn’t speak.

  The officer said, “Okay, I’ve got my breath now. Let me have him.”

  “I’m police, I’ll have him.”

  “Come now, petty crime in the marketplace isn’t yours.”

  Tein looked past the officer’s shoulder and smiled. The officer tucked his head back and asked, as he turned, “What’re you looking at?”

  “Me, I think!” Saliha was suddenly standing right behind the officer, but her eyes were on Tein.

  Still holding onto the boy’s arm, Tein asked her, “What are you doing here?”

  She held up a sack. “Getting lotus leaves and camphor for the hospital. What are you doing here?”

  The officer interrupted, “I’m not only in charge of petty crime here, but I’m also in charge of what you two are doing. No lewd talk between men and women, so give me the boy and move on.”

  “What did the boy do?” Saliha asked.

  Tein answered, “He stole some coins from a woman who was not minding her purse.”

  “In the Karkh Market?” She laughed, turning to the officer, “Shouldn’t you fine the woman for being stupid?”

  The officer yelled, “We are here to stop this sort of thing, so the woman does not have to watch her purse! Now give him to me.”

  The boy began pulling away from Tein with all he had. Tein tipped his chin toward him and raised his eyebrows at Saliha, hoping she grasped what he meant. He said to the officer, “No harm done. I was just having some fun with you. A little inter-agency rivalry,” and held the boy out to him.

  Just as he did, Saliha stumbled forward and fell down in faint, bumping into the marketplace officer. Tein let go of the boy to catch her but missed. The boy fell to his back as Tein knelt down beside her. The officer had to push past them to grab the boy, just catching him by the edge of his robe. The boy kicked the officer in the face with his filthy foot, his heel catching the officer’s cheek and knocking his head back. The boy scrambled up and ran for his life. Tein watched him go, soon lost in the crowd.

  Two Persian women in face veils rushed to Saliha, one yelling at Tein, “Get back, you! Get your hands off her!”

  Tein stood up and checked on the officer. “You alright?”

  The officer touched his face.

  “No blood,” Tein said.

  The officer glared at him. “No thanks to you.”

  Tein stepped back while the officer stood. The women had propped Saliha up and were trying to make sure that she stayed properly covered. One had collected her bag so no one could run off with it.

  Tein asked from a respectable distance, “Are you alright?”

  Saliha was still moaning.

  One of the women demanded, “Who are you to her?”

  He tapped his turban and whispered menacingly, “Police.”

  The woman shut her mouth.

  Tein called out to the herbalist he’d just been questioning, “Can you give us some water?”

  The herbalist looked over his counter and shook his head, having seen the whole thing. “Get your own water. You’re blocking the way to my shop.”

  One of the women yelled at him, “What is wrong with you Sindis! Can’t you see the woman’s fainted?”

  The herbalist didn’t move.

  Brushing himself off, the marketplace officer said, “If you’d just given me the boy when I asked! What’s your name? I’m going to report you to the Inspector. He’ll speak to your boss.”

  Tein refused and laughed at him.

  “How many black men of that size do you think they have working for the police in Karkh.” The herbalist leaned on his counter. “Just describe him. He let that boy go, and I’ll swear to it.”

  “The woman fainted, what was I to do?” Tein objected.

  “I’m turning you in. And you be careful with that woman. We have eyes everywhere.” The officer turned on his heels and took off back to the Fabric Seller’s Market.

  Tein said to the two women helping Saliha, “I’ll take her from here.”

  They wouldn’t let go.

  Pointing to his turban again, he said, “Police.”

  The women helped her stand and handed her over to him unwillingly. Tein took the bag from one of the women, and Saliha by the arm. As they went on their way, they looked back to make sure all was well. He said to Saliha, “Let me walk you back to the hospital with this.”

  She pulled her wrap over her face so only he could hear her, “Oh no, I’m heading back home. I’ll take it to work tomorrow morning.”

  As they walked, he said, “You did good just then.”

  She smiled. “Why, thank you. And what were you up to?”

  “Getting nowhere interviewing herbalists about members of the Imam’s household who might have poisoned him. The pharmacists answer immediately but are no help. No one is getting anything that wasn’t prescribed.”

  “Household?”

  “The poison would work immediately, so it had to be given to him at home.”

  Saliha tipped her head, “It could be Mu’mina, then?”

  “But she’d admit to it. She wants to take the blame. So, no.”

  “Oh.” She began, “Tein, if no one is telling you anything, maybe you should…”

  Tein interrupted, “Ammar has already questioned everyone in the market by the Imam’s house. The rest of Karkh is up to me.”

  “You’ll be here all week! No need to walk me home.”

  He winked at her. “I’ll get back to the questioning soon enough.”

  They had not gone far when Tein’s gaze fell on a man crossing the market lane into an alleyway. Is that the pharmacist from the hospital? He asked, “Do you mind if we make a small detour?”

  Saliha pressed against his arm. “Not at all.”

  The narrow alleyway was lined with shops selling paper, ink and pens and was covered by sheets of woven reeds. Sunlight dotted the alleyway and walls of the shops. Ibn Ali turned in at the very end and sat down. As they got closer, Tein saw three black men, including the pharmacist, sitting on stools around a table, chatting.

  Ibn Ali caught sight of him, stood smiling, and called him over.

 
; Tein returned his greeting, but Saliha was tugging him in the opposite direction. She had pulled her wrap over her face so that only one eye was showing and had turned her face away from the men entirely. He realized suddenly that she couldn’t be recognized with an unrelated man in public and keep her job.

  “Please come and sit…” then seeing a woman was with him, Ibn Ali said, “I see you are busy. We won’t hold you. But my friends and I often come here to chat. Please come by sometime.”

  He was torn for just a second, wanting to send Saliha back on her own and stay and chat, but he bowed his head to Ibn Ali, promising, “I will.”

  Saliha kept her head down until they were back on the market lane, when she said, “I wonder if he recognized this wrap. I wear it to the hospital every day.”

  “Don’t worry.” But Tein had no doubt that every man at the hospital knew her and would recognize her wrap, even if her face were covered. “If Ibn Ali says anything, you were with me on police business about the murder you witnessed at the hospital.”

  Saliha nodded, not sure that Shatha would understand, but what else could she do at this point? She was not going to miss this chance to be alone with him. They turned the corner onto the main thoroughfare in the market, falling into the rhythm of the crowd. Every step they took together sparked with tension.

  She wondered if he was going to talk. He seemed to be considering what he should say, then came up with, “Is that a new wrap you are wearing? It’s very pretty.”

  Saliha nearly burst out laughing with pleasure. The awkwardness of the question was delightful. She quipped, “Zaytuna’s not very happy with it.”

  “What has your pretty wrap done to her?”

  “It’s a reminder to her that I have a new job without her.”

  “You know Zaytuna, quick to hold a grudge, long to let go of it.”

  She nudged him. “That’s not very encouraging!”

  “It’ll be fine.”

  His arm brushed against her own through her wrap. She held herself still inwardly, wondering if it was by accident or if he had intended to touch her. They fell back into an awkward silence. She looked up at him and smiled. He looked down at her, his eyes lighting up with a small smile, so different from the dull haze of pain he typically carried.