“You have not lost your slipper, you have lost your footing on the path.”
Zaytuna’s eyes widened with shock, ice cold water seeping through her body, leaving her trembling.
The woman held out the slipper to her, “Should I give you your shoe and put you back on the path?”
She could not find her voice.
“No? Alright, then.” The woman walked away from Zaytuna, her slipper still in her hand.
Zaytuna ran after her, her unshod foot feeling every grain and stone in the street. She fell in beside the woman, who kept walking and did not turn to acknowledge her. “Auntie, please.”
“Please what?” The old woman said, walking and looking ahead.
“I don’t know.”
“No, you do not know. You remember that. Say it.”
“What do I say?”
The woman stopped and turned on Zaytuna, the beads in her fringe clicking against one another. “You fool. You do not know God’s will, yet you judge. You do not know the heart of another, yet you judge. You do not know your own wrongdoing, yet you judge. You have condemned everyone in existence but yourself. Subhanallah! You sit on God’s throne and see it all!”
Zaytuna’s knees came out from underneath her and she fell hard to the ground. She saw the woman’s tanned and calloused bare feet, her fallen arches, her toes spread out on the dirt road. The woman threw the shoe down in front of her and said, “There is no blessing in this world other than intimacy with God and agreement with the way He chooses to dispose of His own affairs.”
Zaytuna wrapped her arms around her to quell the shaking.
“Go see your Uncle Nuri. He is dying. Yet you sit here in the road rolling the dirt of this world around your tongue and calling it righteousness.”
Zaytuna’s head thrust up, saying, “Uncle Nuri!” Her slipper was lying in the road and the woman was gone. She looked frantically in every direction, she was nowhere to be seen. Shaking with fear, she pushed herself up off the ground slipping her foot out of her other slipper and taking them both up in her hands and ran straight to Tutha to Uncle Nuri’s house.
By the time she made it across the Thorn Bridge and turned off onto the street where Uncle Nuri’s family lived, she was long out of breath and walking as fast as she could. People were gathered outside. His house was small. It was his own, his family did not share it with anyone, but it was no larger than Zaytuna’s. She began to panic. How could she get in? All these people waiting to see him. He would die and she would not see him. She ran down to the house.
Mustafa broke out of the crowd, stopping her.
“Mustafa! Is it true?”
“Everyone should go to Uncle Junayd’s to wait on news.”
“But I must see him!”
He held his hands out to calm her, but kept his distance. “I know. It’s Juwayri. He told us not to strain the household. They are grieving, yet they’d have to serve us all. You must understand that. We have to leave.”
“I will not go!”
His eyes welled with tears, his voice tired, “Are you the only one of us who loves him?”
“What happened?”
He looked suddenly afraid.
“Can’t you tell me?”
He sighed. “Come, come to the house. Tein is here.”
“Has he been inside?”
“Yes, but I don’t know if he’s seen Uncle. Come, let’s find Tein.”
He directed her to the wall near the passageway leading back to Uncle Nuri’s home. “Let’s sit here, we can watch for Tein.” Mustafa sat and patted the ground next to him. Everyone she knew from the community was there, even Hilal stood waiting, not leaving despite Juwayri’s instruction. She would not leave, either.
She put her hand over her heart to those who greeted her and slid down the wall next to Mustafa.
“Uncle fell into a state of loving God. You know how he is. Like your mother. You know how he loses himself, Zaytuna.”
Her heart sank. Everything and everyone came to a halt around her. The air stopped moving. Sounds fell away. Mustafa’s voice slipped into the distance.
“He ran into the freshly cut reed bed. His feet, Zaytuna. The reeds are sharp as knives.” He began to cry, “You know. You know.”
She didn’t ask if a healer had come, if a doctor had been called, or if anyone was trying to save his life. This, she knew, was what he had prayed for months ago. And it was what she had, without wanting to, sealed with the word, “Amin.” She tasted dirt in her mouth and wanted to grab the dirt from the road and throw it on her head. The old woman’s words rang in her ears, “There is no blessing in this world other than intimacy with God and agreement with the way He chooses to dispose of His own affairs.” She said aloud, “Amin.” She threw her arms across her knees, put her head down, and sobbed, shuddering, saying, “Amin, amin, amin.”
Mustafa said softly, “Zaytuna.”
She took the end of her wrap and wiped her face with it before lifting her head. She looked up at Mustafa, smiling, her face mottled, holding the soaked end, and said, “Just like Layla.”
Mustafa shook his head not understanding.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Zaytuna, I’m sorry.”
She strangely felt grounded, heavy, but free somehow. Tears came again and she said from somewhere within her she always did her best to ignore, “Don’t be sorry. He is going to meet his Lover. This day is his wedding day. His death his wedding night.”
He smiled through his tears. “Amin.”
She suddenly realized that she had no urge to touch him and she felt nothing from him, unlike any other moment between them before. The braid of love that had bound them together since childhood had unravelled. She began to cry again for its loss. She wanted to pick up its ends and bind him to her once more, and say, I love you. But there was nothing for her hands to grasp.
“What I said to you at Ibn Salah’s house, I’m sorry.” He turned and looked away from her. “I heard Mu’mina say what he did to her. I could feel the slap of my mother’s hand on the back of my head for not having listened before.”
“That sounds like your mother.”
“I forgot myself among those men.”
She knew he realized it at the trial, but it was good to hear him say it. There was love and there was love. They would always have each other, just not in that way. She said softly, “You found yourself again.” Zaytuna saw some movement out of the corner of her eye, hoping it was Tein coming out of the house but saw YingYue emerge with her father instead. She nudged Mustafa. “YingYue. Go to her.”
At the mention of the girl’s name, he blushed so deeply that Zaytuna desperately wanted to touch his cheek. Sweet Mustafa. She nudged him again. “Go.”
He got up from beside her, bowed to her with his hand over his heart, and turned to meet YingYue and her father. YingYue saw him and smiled broadly, her cheeks bright and her eyes sparkling at the sight of him. Her father followed her gaze and his face turned hard at the sight of Mustafa.
She thought, What could he have against our Mustafa? Then she remembered YingYue saying that her father would never let her waste her love for God on a man. For the slightest moment she was satisfied. Then the thought tried to hide itself from her, but she snatched it by the ear and recited God’s words,
No disaster befalls this earth, or you,
without it being commanded by God,
from long before it was brought into being.
This is easy for God.
So do not grieve over what slips through your fingers,
nor gloat over what is in your grasp.
God does not love those who delude themselves,
and boast of what they imagine.”
The thought, chastened, sat down where she could keep an eye on it.
She looked back toward the passageway and saw Tein emerge from the knot of people crowding around it, a head taller than everyone else. She stood to meet him and he turned and looked at her. The k
not of friends came undone as he made his way to her. He took her in his arms briefly, then pushed her away, still holding her hands. “They’re telling us to leave.”
“If we have to sleep in the street, we’re staying.”
Muhammad al-Juwayri, Junayd’s closest companion, came out of the crowd toward them. She repeated to Tein, “We’re staying.”
Juwayri placed his hand over his heart, bowing his head. “Assalamu alaykum, your uncle would like to see you both upstairs. He has insisted that all his children come to him. One at a time, but he asked to see the two of you together. Come with me.”
Tein felt relief and desperation wash through him as he grabbed Zaytuna by the hand, pulling her behind him to follow Juwayri through the crowd. They came into the small courtyard. Despite Juwayri’s efforts to get people to leave, the courtyard was filled with people. The aunties were there, sitting in one line along the wall. Nuri’s daughter-in-law came out of a nearby door, looking at everyone. She looked exhausted, her eyes rimmed red from tears. A young woman from the community emerged from behind her, a tray of dates in her hands, and another woman behind her holding a tray of cups.
Tein wanted to clear everyone out for the family’s sake, but also wanted to stay. And he knew none of these people could leave Nuri, no matter what Juwayri said. Juwayri pushed aside the curtain to one of the rooms. They ducked in after him and there he was.
Uncle Nuri was seated on his bedroll, but pale. His feet were bound with bloody bandages and were obviously swollen. The bedding underneath them was stained red and brown. Tein could smell the infection starting in and wondered how it could come so fast, especially in cold weather.
He wanted to find who was responsible. “No one has washed your feet?”
Juwayri shot him a look that told him to be quiet, but he didn’t take orders from this man, this man who had joined Junayd’s community long after Uncle Nuri had taken him, Zaytuna, and their mother into the fold to care for them as if they were family. He gave Juwayri a look that said his throat would be slit in a moment if he did not step back.
Seeing it, Nuri laughed, saying, “Go,” to Juwayri who bowed and left. He said to Tein, “They’ve washed them. It’s God’s will.” Tein started to object about God’s will, but Nuri cut him off, teasing, “I’m dying, now is not the time to argue with me about God.”
He realized he’d been holding tight onto Zaytuna’s hand and let her go. She put her hand on his back and pushed him lightly. “Sit.”
He fell to his knees beside Nuri. He heard Zaytuna sit nearby and turned to her. Tears were streaming down her face, but she was smiling, looking at their uncle in an odd way. He didn’t recognize her. He nearly asked her what was wrong with her when Nuri interrupted.
“She knows Whom I’m going to meet. She wishes it for herself, but she doesn’t know it yet.”
The words hit Tein such that he leaned back, wanting to grab his sister by her wrap and pull her around to face him, but his arms would not move. He still had his voice and demanded of her, “You want to die like this? You want to follow God into a reed bed and leave me stranded here in this life without any of you?”
She edged toward him, so that she was right beside him, thigh to thigh, put her arm around his back, and laid her head on his shoulder saying quietly, “I love you.”
He did not shake her off as much as he wanted to shake them all off and stand and scream and ask what in this cursed world is wrong with the lot of them.
Nuri spoke, his words reaching around Tein and holding him in an embrace from which he could not break free, “Remember the day by the canal? Ithar? Nothing in this world belongs to you. None of it is under your control. Give, but give freely. Protect, but protect without recompense. Your conscience is your compass. It will be your guide.”
Tein tried to speak again but could not move his tongue, a grunt escaping his lips. Zaytuna’s arm pressed harder against him and he felt her fingers clutch at his robe. He heard her breathing, each breath trying to soothe him, but it only made him want to scream.
Nuri struggled and pushed himself up, leaning toward him. He demanded, “Look at me.”
Tein shut his eyes. He heard himself moaning in pain. His eyes opened against his will. Nuri was looking at him as he had when he was a boy, telling him to wrestle his anger down, to pin it and make it submit to him.
“No one belongs to you.” Then the tone of his voice shifted and changed in frequency such that Tein felt the room around him would somehow shatter from the force of it, “But all our love is yours.” He felt Zaytuna trembling against him and he fell into himself and was gone.
He felt the floor hard underneath his hip. He felt the frayed edges of the woven reed mat pressing against his face. He felt Zaytuna’s fingers brush his cheek. He heard her say, “Habibi, my brother.” He opened his eyes.
Nuri had taken hold of his hand, his uncle’s long fingers were cold and the tips had turned black. Tein slowly sat up. His turban had been knocked off his head when he fainted, but he didn’t bother looking for it. Pulling his uncle’s hand to his lips, he kissed his dying fingers, then raised Nuri’s hand to his forehead.
“Come to me,” Nuri said. Tein tried to lean over to him, his great body getting in his way, but he laid his head gently into Nuri’s lap as if he were a boy. Nuri embraced him, laughing lightly. It sounded to him like the humming of bees and felt warm like the flow of honey or the light of the sun warming his bones. Nuri whispered in Tein’s ear, “Goodbye, my son.”
Tein lifted himself from his uncle’s lap and realized that Zaytuna had not been able to embrace him. He moved back so she could find her way in, clumsily pushing against the mats on the floor. Zaytuna found her way through as he moved and held her uncle’s face, looking him in the eyes. He heard her say, “All the gaps in my soul that you have filled.”
Nuri took her hands into his own and kissed them, saying, “God is the one who filled them. God is The Eternal, The Caring. Turn to God,” then let her go.
He said to Tein, winking, “Tell Juwayri, that administrator of all things Junayd, to bring Mustafa to me.”
Tein burst out laughing, Zaytuna with him. The tension and hard grief fell from him. He began to softly weep again as they left the room, backing out, unwilling to leave the sight of him until they had no choice.
Juwayri was standing beside the door, just outside. He must have heard Nuri’s request, and the jibe, but showed no sign of it. Zaytuna said, “He would like to see Mustafa, now.”
Nuri’s daughter-in-law, so exhausted by grief, was now sitting in-between the Aunties, swaying with them and held by their love as young women in the community tended to the guests.
Once outside, they looked for Mustafa but didn’t see him.
Zaytuna saw Abdulghafur sitting against the wall opposite Nuri’s house. His face was puffy from weeping. She squeezed Tein’s hand and said to him, “Don’t go. I have to tell you something. I’ll walk with you wherever you are going. But give me a minute.”
She went to Abdulghafur. “Sweet one, have you been in to see him?”
He sniffed and said, “No. Jurayri told me to go back to the kitchens. I’d be needed there. All these people’ll need to eat.” He looked at her, his soft face resolute. “But Hilal told me not to move.”
She said, “Don’t you worry. He’s asking to see all his children. No one else is coming in. But you are one of Uncle’s children as surely as I am.”
Touching his knee to assure him, she stood up to find Hilal. He was in a crowd of men, talking. She caught his eye and gestured to Abdulghafur. He nodded and mouthed, “Don’t worry,” and pointed to Juwayri who was now out in the crowd looking for Mustafa. She did not see YingYue or her father, either. Zaytuna nodded to Hilal in thanks and went back to Tein, hoping that Mustafa would not miss his chance to say goodbye.
She put her arm in Tein’s and they walked slowly together out of the neighbourhood. As they turned the corner, Mustafa, YingYue, and her father came up on t
hem. They were holding sacks and a small tray from the market. They must have gone to get food for everyone. She felt a prick of jealousy that it had not been her, but YingYue, getting the food with Mustafa. She took hold of the part of herself that had pricked her and embraced it, saying softly, Shhh little one. You are loved. It quieted and found its place. Alhamdulillah, she thought, Those three will have the blessing of bringing the food.
Tein asked her, “Are you alright?”
She didn’t know what he meant, saying goodbye to their uncle or seeing Mustafa with YingYue like that. She answered both questions, “Yes.”
They walked in silence, arm in arm, and holding each other close, until they reached the Thorn Bridge. She pulled at him, letting him know she’d turn back there. “I went to question Imam Hashim’s housekeeper today.”
She could see he was too exhausted by grief to object, saying only, “There’s no more to be done. Ammar has to see Ibn Marwan today. He’ll be getting the dressing down of his life. He deserves it, but they won’t let this investigation carry on. They are done with it.” He looked across the bridge, “There are other cases, too. Work we’ve let go.”
“Let me tell you, so that you know for yourself.”
He nodded.
“The housekeeper was strange, Tein. I’ve got no idea if anything she says is trustworthy. But maybe there is something in it. She implicated both Isam, the brother-in-law, and Hanan, the wife. I can’t be sure what she was trying to do. She may have just been trying to spin me around. But she said that the day the Imam died he had come home late in the morning from a night of gambling and drinking. She said she saw Hanan, his wife, feeding him the medicinal cookies that the Imam’s brother takes for his epilepsy. Not only do they have belladonna in them, but they have enough in them to cause the Imam’s symptoms.”
She saw him come awake, “Why would he eat them?”
“She made plain and medicinal versions of the same cookie. These particular cookies are a household favourite and the Imam had to have them.”
The Jealous Page 38
