The Jealous

by Laury Silvers

  The women around them all murmured in agreement, but Zaytuna thought, Why turn on her? What has she been driven to do by these men?

  The Judge spoke to Mu’mina, “I must assume the claim of the midwife is true for your safety and the safety of the late Imam’s child, although the court will confirm this matter. Thus, you will be protected until your pregnancy is resolved. You will return to my home, not a cell, and remain under the care of a trusted personal servant. If the child does not come to term, though, you will be sold at market and the proceeds will be given to the Imam’s inheritors.”

  Mu’mina pushed herself up off the ground and was standing over the Judge before anyone could stop her. She screamed in the Judge’s face, “And me! And me! I am to burn in hell for not paying for his death with my life and live only to be raped again!” A guard rushed forward to grab her, but Ammar stood quickly and pulled her back as she screamed, “Execute me!”

  The judge raised his voice, “Stop now, girl. It is not for you to say what will be done with you.”

  She fought Ammar’s grasp, glaring at the Judge, but Ammar had her firmly in hand. The Judge turned to Ibn Salah and said harshly, “Control her!”

  Ibn Salah spoke to her. Her eyes widened and she spat in his face.

  Ibn Salah wiped the spit from his face with his sleeve and turned to the Judge. “With your permission, Qadi, I offer to protect this slave during her pregnancy. But if she does not carry the child to term,” he looked at Mu’mina, “I will buy her from Imam Hashim’s inheritors. I would like to swear an oath, and have it written in the documents of these proceedings. By God, I will never use this slave for sex, nor will anyone in my household.”

  Without knowing what she was doing, Zaytuna started to push herself up to stand and tell all who could hear, Release her! Why must you own her at all! But Yulduz grabbed hold of her and kept her where she was, throwing her weight against her. Zaytuna struggled against her and looked across the court to Mustafa. She knew that face. He had heard Mu’mina. He believed her. His eyes were on fire. Not in anger, she knew, but with pride and love that she would dare to challenge the court for Mu’mina’s sake, to speak out against the wrong done her. The man she knew her whole life was before her again. She fell back against Yulduz’s arms and was silent.

  Then the voice of a woman behind them, “I will purchase her now and release her now. She will become our mawla, a dependent of our family! She will be under our protection!”

  Zaytuna and Yulduz turned around. My God, Ibn Salah’s sister! Zaytuna grasped Yulduz’s hand. A guard moved in to remove her, but the women crowded in around her, creating a barrier he could not pass.

  Ibn Salah said to the Judge, “It is my sister!”

  Mu’mina looked back and forth between them in utter fury.

  The Judge said to him, “Your sister is not permitted to speak in this court. But I see the benefit in selling her to your family. It is my right, based on the facts of the case, to enforce the sale of the slave to you. Should you choose to release her, that is your business. You may have use of my scribe to complete this sale immediately.”

  Burhan looked back at his father, but he had turned his face away from his son.

  Ibn Salah’s sister looked down at the women around her, holding her safely, and she recited in a voice that cut through every word and gesture, silencing the court.

  As for the orphan

  do not oppress him.

  And one who asks,

  do not turn him away.

  And the grace of your Lord,

  proclaim.

  Zaytuna’s heart widened and opened to embrace her at these words, these verses, that had only just come to her before when she was praying. Subhanallah!

  At a nod from the Judge, the Chamberlain called out, “Guards, clear the court of this disturbance!”

  The guards fanned out to surround the women, getting them up, then trying to herd them out the door, but the women would not move. The guards resorted to yanking them out, one by one, taking each to the main door of the mosque then going back to get another. In the confusion, Zaytuna scrambled forward on her hands and knees to Tansholpan, Yulduz right behind her. Tansholpan turned around. The guard standing beside Tansholpan took her roughly by the arm pulling her in the direction of the door leading out of the court. Her eyes fell on Yulduz. She called out to her, “Yulduz! Be good! I will see you in Paradise, my friend!”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The court guard brought Tansholpan to the door and pushed her through into the wide hallway beyond. The mosque library was on the right. Once the door to the mosque fell shut behind them, the guard grabbed her wrist, and bent her arm up behind her back with a jerk. She snapped at him in pain, “What are you doing? Where am I going to run to?”

  “You aren’t running anywhere. You’re going to get yours for consorting with the jinn and cursing others.”

  She looked around in a rising panic. Now that the moment had come, she was not so accepting. The door to the library was open. A man was within, his head buried in a book, pen in hand, she yelled, “Help me!”

  The man looked up from his book, saw her state and stood up in a rush, knocking over the desk before him, spilling ink on his robes. She saw it all happen slowly and she wondered at how time could move this way, until he was before her so quickly that she felt she had never seen him coming. He demanded of the guard, “What are you doing with this woman?”

  The court guard said, “Don’t listen to her. She’s just trying to escape. I’m taking her back to the police holding cell.”

  “Go into the mosque!” Tansholpan yelled, “Find someone. He’s going to kill me!”

  “She’s trying to trick you. That’s what got her arrested in the first place.”

  The scholar looked at him, then raised his finger in the air. “Truly, do you have to handle her so?”

  She pushed herself toward him despite the pain in her arm. “Help me!” She began to squirm, bending her body around to break his hold. He laughed at her attempt and twisted her arm up higher until she bent over and begged him, “Stop!”

  He grunted from the effort of controlling her and told the man, “She just wants a chance to bolt and run. More of my men are outside. We’ll get her where she is going safely.”

  “I’m going into the mosque to see about this, please wait here.” The scholar left them, the mosque door shutting behind him.

  The court guard loosened her arm but pulled her up and put a hand over her mouth with his other arm around her. She called after the scholar, her voice muffled, “Come back!”

  She tried to loosen herself from him as best she could but the pain in her arm was too much. The guard dragged her out the door, hissing in her ear, “Just move.” He continued to pull her down one alley and then another. Where is he taking me?

  Around the next corner she saw him, the young guard, the boy from the countryside with the innocent face from the Judge’s cell, was waiting for them. A donkey was behind him, twitching its nose. The young guard gestured to the court guard, showing him he had a long length of rope. “Bring her hands around front, Parzan, so I can tie them!”

  She tried to twist away as the court guard brought her arms around in front of her. There was no escape. As the young guard wound the rope around her wrists she knew the moment had come. She had seen this moment, months ago, when she had played the kobyz for a woman looking for a curse. The woman’s husband had taken a second wife and she wanted the woman to lose her beauty. So Tansholpan played her kobyz and left her body, flying over Baghdad until she found the two together. She alighted in the room beside their bed and cupped her hands on his back, blowing a prayer into his heart that he lose his attachments to this world, find peace in God, divorce this woman kindly, and serve his first wife and children. She rubbed the prayer across his back saying, “Amin,” then pushed away from him her arms out like wings, cupping the air.

  As she flew back over Baghdad to tell the woman the curse was do
ne, she saw a woman lying dead in the street, her wrists bound with rope, wearing the same red robe as her own. She drew closer, hovering over the body. It was herself! Pulling back in horror at the sight, she dropped from the sky, her arms wrapped around her, her knees pulled in. She tumbled down, uncontrolled, falling hard back into her body slumped over a cushion in her room, her kobyz beside her and the woman staring at her wide-eyed. She returned to her place knowing that she had seen her own death. She did not sleep that night. By morning she accepted it. But since then she had looked around every corner, asking if this was the day.

  Parzan commanded, “Tightly, Naz. Make it so she can’t move.”

  The young guard completed the binding and gave it a jerk to make sure the knot was tight. The rope abraded her skin, then cut into her. She leaned back, trying to break their grip and screamed. She felt an explosive impact on the side of her head, saw stars, then lost consciousness to nothing.

  A sharp pain cut through her ear and stung her cheek like a thousand needles. She had fallen to her side, her head was thick and buzzing, her ears ringing. She half-opened her eyes, but she couldn’t focus. Her eyes closed on her again and her head lolled to the ground. Then she remembered the two guards. She wanted to find a way to her hands and knees so that she could crawl away from them, but could not make her limbs do it. Hands grabbed her by the arms and pulled her in one jerking motion, throwing her backwards against the soft back of the donkey. She could feel it move behind her, the softness of its flesh give in here, the hard edge of its rib bones cut in there. The two guards grabbed her and tried to lift her up.

  Naz complained, “God help us, she’s heavy!”

  They dropped her feet back to the ground, then took a firmer grip, turning her around and heaving her up and over the donkey so she was slumped over it. Her legs were out one side and her head and arms hung over the other. The donkey moved, her stomach pressed against its backbone, her head and arms swayed, and the buzzing and pain in her head overwhelmed her. She threw up, the vomit catching inside her nose, and dripping over her shut eyes and hair.

  One of the guards laughed. “Look at this!”

  Finally the donkey stopped. She heard a third man’s voice, “Parzan, move her around to sitting!”

  The guards pulled her off the donkey and held her standing, her back against it. Naz grabbed her chin, pressing hard against her cheek with the flat of his hand. It was rough against her skin. “Curse this!”

  She managed to pull one eye open. A hand slapped against her other cheek, smearing it and the rest of her face with bits of something black. Her eye shut as the stink of fresh dung bit at her nose and she threw up again. The hand on her chin pulled away.

  Naz said, “You bitch!” Warm vomit ran down her neck and onto her chest and she heard his voice again, laughing, “Slut of the jinn.”

  She forced her eyes open and tried to turn her head to see where she was but the sharp ringing and thick buzzing in her head only got worse with the movement. She looked down. A young boy was there. She knew him and came fully awake. That stinking boy from the Fruit Seller’s Gate. The boy with his ratty scrap of turban and filthy robe tied up with rope who was always watching them. The boy who threw stones at them when no one was around to drive him off. One of his stones finally hit its mark. She pulled her head back and up to look at the men. The young guard pushed the flat of his hand against her face again, slapping more dung across her forehead and smeared it down across her eyes, nose, and chin. She drew a breath in shock and tiny bits of dung were sucked into her throat. She convulsed with coughing.

  That man’s voice again, irritated, “Come on, get her back on the donkey!”

  She turned towards the voice. A young man in a white turban twisted under the chin like the Hanbalis with nothing but a few hairs for a beard, and a long sword tied at his waist, stood near the rear end of the donkey. He was joined by the ratty boy who walked over to him, both looking at Tansholpan with grim satisfaction. The two guards pushed and pulled at her until they got her up, straddling the donkey, facing backwards. A red-hennaed hand print was stained into the donkey’s coat on both hinds. The animal’s backbone cut into her. One guard was on either side, holding her in place, hands on her thighs, while the boy ran around to pick up the end of the rope tying her hands. It was so tight, she could not feel them anymore and her wrists were bleeding. The man in the white turban with only three beard hairs to his name seemed pleased. “It will all go easier on you if you just stay sitting upright.”

  She was finally able to look around without vomiting, but she saw it was just an alleyway she did not recognize. What good would it do to know where she was, anyway. The man in the white turban walked out of her sight, coming around the front. She felt the donkey move. He must have the reins. The sudden movement caused her to retch again.

  She fell inside herself into prayer and called out to God. The world around her disappeared, the rope untied from her wrists, the filth on her gone, her legs free. She traveled over the city, following the curve of the Tigris, glittering below her. There was a house on the river’s edge. She alighted on its balcony ledge, then made her way into the room.

  There she was, in the Judge’s cell, lying on the floor in that luxurious room. Standing over herself, she watched as her body moved without her control, her eyes jerking in their sockets, and her mouth moving with unheard words. On the other side of the room the midwife cared for Mu’mina. She thought, She’s safe now, then turned her attention back to herself and leaned in to hear what she was whispering. “My time for hers. My time for hers. My time for hers.”

  And then she understood that God had answered her prayer, as He answered all her prayers. Tansholpan had given her allotted days in this world for the girl’s sake. Instead of the girl dying from poison, she, Tansholpan, would die. Alhamdulillah. Placing her hand on her body’s forehead said, “Dear one, you’ll be with God before long.” The convulsing soothed and slowed and she fell into a deep sleep. Tansholpan pulled herself up out of the room, back into the world and onto the donkey.

  The men had got her onto a main road, near enough a marketplace, so that there were plenty of people to jeer her as she was paraded in shame before them.

  Naz called out, “Here is the Turkmen sorceress, Tansholpan! Guilty of killing a man with curses and consorting with jinn! Here is the Turkmen sorceress, Tansholpan! Guilty of killing a man with curses and consorting with jinn!”

  A young man came out of a shop and watched her as the donkey passed. Without taking a moment to consider it, he stepped out of one of his sandals, bent over, took it in hand, and threw it at her as hard as he could. The sandal hit her on the chest, and she jerked back from it. Another sandal followed, this one just hitting her on the side of her head. She ducked away, tucking her head as low as she could, pulling at the rope holding her hands to raise them to protect herself, but could not. Sucking in a breath, she said aloud to herself, “Woman, go in peace!” She laid her hands down, despite her fear, and stopped fighting.

  Looking down at the people yelling at her, she asked herself, Which of you will it be?

  An old woman caught her eye, and shrunk back in fear. “God protect me from evil things! Don’t you look at me!”

  There was another voice behind her, “You black-faced whore of Satan! God banish you to hell!” Then she heard it more than felt it, a sharp crack, then nothing.

  The court guard, Parzan, got to her first. She had fallen over the back of the donkey, blood was coming from scalp. Parzan tried to keep her from sliding off its back, yelling to the young guard, “Naz, help. She’s knocked out!”

  The young guard ran around, but she slid down to the ground in a slump, nearly under the donkey’s back legs. Naz yelled to the man in the white turban, “Jahar, stop the donkey!”

  The donkey jerked back suddenly, kicking one of its hind legs, its hoof coming down hard on her head, cracking it into pieces.

  Parzan heard a scream behind him.

  Naz
yelled, “Run!”

  But Parzan couldn’t run. Everything slowed down and his ears were ringing. He turned to see Naz grab the boy by the neck of his robe and pull him away, Jahar in his white turban far ahead of them already. He pulled himself back to where he was and looked at the people. Some pushed back to get away against those who pushed in to get closer. He saw their mouths moving, yelling, but he couldn’t hear it. Then another push, people moved to the side. There before him was a short man in a leather cuirass and a black turban, his sword drawn.

  Parzan came to himself, hearing the din and cry so loudly he wanted to put his hands over his ears. People rushed past him to get away from the man with the sword. And all in one movement, he came to himself and pulled his own sword out while stepping over the body of the woman and slapping the hind of the donkey so that it would get out of the way of the fight.

  He was taller and larger by half than the policeman standing before him, but he could see the man was skilled from his stance, the look on his face, the way he held his sword. But then the policeman made a mistake. In a single moment he looked down at the crumpled body of the woman on the road. Parzan lunged at him with a straight forward thrust. The policeman had no time to see his sword coming, yet somehow had lifted his own to deflect it to the side. The policeman took another step forward and before Parzan could pull his sword arm back and step out of his way, the policeman had slipped his arm over and around his elbow, hooking it. With his arm tightly trapped, the policeman braced his hand against Parzan’s body and threw his weight on an angle against him. Parzan heard the sickening crack of his bone more than he felt it. Then the pain washed through him. His sword fell to the ground and he followed it down in a fetal position, cradling his arm and hearing his own guttural moans.

  Ammar stood over the court guard, then called back to a watchman hurrying through the crowd to him, “Come here!” As the watchman leaned down to pull the court guard to his feet, Ammar said, “Take him to the cells for the Karkh Police and make sure they get a bonesetter in to see him.”