The Taste of Translation

by Anne Gambling

  Father continued to join us in the salon each evening and brought slaves to entertain us. But even if there were ten girls as beautiful as the moon with their lutes and tambourines and voices pure and true, they did not touch our hearts. Mother’s space could not be filled. So he tried again, filled the silence with Scheherazade’s Jullanar of the Sea, a story of such length and wonder, such superlative enchantment, that after thirty nights, it was still not at end.

  Father, please! we cried. Tell us more!

  His smile thin now and wan, but his voice still as firm. No, he said. It is time for sleep. Tomorrow we will continue.

  Perhaps he thought he could stay her death with a never-ending tale as Scheherazade had done her own. Perhaps. And so continued each night to keep us from the pain unfolding in our midst with the magic of mist-filled palaces of the ancient world, weaving a web of fantasy so tight that our reality was merely illusion.

  I remember it was the thirty-ninth night when he did not come. The candles flared, the incense burned, the tables held a fine repast, the girls ready with their instruments while Mumu sat with his head in his hands and Esha cuddled me, stroked my hair. A whimper issued from somewhere deep inside her, but no tears stung her eyes.

  Finally Mahmoud arrived with our father’s vizier, Ibn al-Khatib, and we knelt before this great man, kissed the ground.

  He bade us rise, swept his hand before him. Please children, eat.

  Oh my Lord Vizier! Mumu cried. We do not have the will to eat knowing that Father … He stumbled over the pain in his heart.

  Yes. He is with your mother in her last hours, Ibn al-Khatib confirmed. But let me at least continue your story.

  He took up the tale at exactly the point where Father had left it the previous evening. Yet when he told of how King Badr had been turned into an ugly bird, placed in a cage and withheld food and water by the evil Queen Lab, we sat mute. And when the fava-bean seller whistled and a demon with four wings appeared to do his bidding, our eyes did not widen. Nor when Badr, restored, refused to marry any save Princess Jauhara, his true love, did giddy sighs part our lips. Alas, an unhappy gathering. The lutes were silent, the meal untouched. I cuddled into Esha, looked at no one and nothing, shook my head at any question asked or turned away if a morsel offered.

  al-Khatib called for Sara. She is tired, he said. Take her to her chamber.

  But after Sara, believing I slept, crept out of the room, I too found the will to leave.

  Shadows follow us, hug us to their embrace, yet they can also be our guides to hidden spaces, far from watchful eyes, leading us along passages, past pillars, down stairs. Bare feet are silent feet, gliding across marble as boats skim water. So I proceeded to where Mother convalesced, slipped into the room and crouched against a wall, hugging my knees tight. There, I saw Father weep, Mother silent on a mat.

  A smell swept the room, a sour note contrary to the jasmine water in the bowl by her head which the nurse used to wash her body. The drip, drip of cloth into bowl kept time with the tears which fell on Father’s robes as he held her lifeless hand, smoothed her swollen features.

  The nurse whispered. It was time to begin preparations for the burial shroud.

  He nodded, rose, left. And she too. Now I could be with Mother. And I crept forward. Closer, closer –

  If I close my eyes, I can see the all of it as if it were now and not then. I see her serenity, her face transformed back into the beauty I remember, a smile slightly parting rubied lips, the slender skein of grey amongst a thick curtain of hair.

  There is light, a golden light, and she turns. Mother turns, opens her eyes. And a rush of air meets the trapdoor of my throat.

  She beckons. Her hand rises from the mat, her fingers move. Come child, she says. It is alright. My suffering cannot touch you now. I have breathed my last.

  What is this thing they call death? I am seeing death and it is life? Oh yes, I have seen death. A hunting dog felled by a stray arrow, never again to run swift through a meadow. A bird caught in the jaws of a cat, limp though still warm in my trembling hand.

  As Mother so-wishes, I go to her side. Yet weeping, for I know she will never again rise from this palette, no matter what I have seen or heard. This new life she has gone to is in another world and I cannot help but cry. I feel her touch on my shoulder, feather-light and fragile.

  You are too small for such pain and sadness, she says. But do not despair. I will wait for you in the garden each day, and we will talk and play whatever games you like.

  Where, Mother, where?

  I will find you. Fear not. It is only a thin veil separating the now from the eternal. Whenever you call, I will come. If you believe it to be so, I will be at your side for I am ever in your heart.

  Mama, Laleima whispers.

  She is a baby again, kissed by bloodless lips, cuddled to a breathless breast, cradled, sung to sleep by the nightingale in whose arms she rests.

  The nurse’s shout of horror could not wake the two. She calls for Mahmoud and they carry the child to her father.

  The caliph lifts his head, quiets his grief to not disturb a daughter’s sleep.

  What is this, Mahmoud? What has passed?

  My Lord, answers the eunuch with hot tears on his cheeks. She was found with her mother, lying cuddled in the deathbed. He stumbles over what next to tell, shakes his head, bites his lip. He cannot speak.

  Yes?

  Sire, says the nurse. There was a smile on our Lady’s lips that was not there at the moment of her passing. And the child, in her sleep, I – I saw her reach over and kiss her mother before the slave took her up in his arms.

  Mahmoud nods, falls to one knee, sobs afresh.

  Go. Go now, says the king gently and places a jewelled hand on the eunuch’s head. We all suffer, but Allah’s will prevails.

  He hugs his daughter close. She is warm, soft, life itself.

  Should we not isolate her? the nurse asks.

  No, he says. If it is the will of Allah for us all to pass to the next world because of this, then so be it. My child shall not be banished from my sight.

  When you were small, and a girl child at that, you could not come to your father in his throne room, the Hall of the Ambassadors as it was called, a place of celebration, public office, high officialdom.

  But this is where they brought you this night. For in your father’s grief, it was here that he had come. No courtiers, no prying eyes, at night only shadows and memory, where he could sit upon his throne, surrounded by Qur’anic inscriptions, surrounded by the Nasrid motto:

  La ghalib ila Allah – There is no victor but God.

  Yes. Before you were brought to him, after he had left her cold and bruised flesh, he wept and lamented the cry of his ancestor. No one could cheat mortality, not even his Beloved.

  Now he weeps afresh when they say you kissed the lips of death, but holds you close and, soon enough, sleeps himself.

  Moonlight streams in through the high latticed windows to dapple your faces in shades of rose. Your journey through the passage of night this night is fringed by stars, stars set into the ceiling of a high domed hall, seven heavens on the path to Paradise – the first made of emeralds, the second of red pearls, the third of rubies, the fourth of white silver, the fifth of gold, the sixth of white pearls and the seventh of brilliant light. Crowned by Paradise itself, in which are buried the roots of the tree of life to sustain the stars and galaxies, the all of an infinite universe.

  You wake. It is dawn. Father’s beard has tickled your cheek and brought you up and out of your dreams of life to the reality of life.

  Dawn, and the sun rises, throws light into the hall, while in the dome, each of the heavens explodes in colour. The greens of the emerald heaven, the reds of the rubied, the clear light and gilt edges of the silver and gold. The sunlight grows more solid, insistent on entering. The room is alive with jewels amassed, mosaics splashed with shafts of joy. All shadows are banished, the dark of death
sent skating.

  All this you see as you wake from your dream – the colours, the sparkles, the twinkling stars, reflecting the glory of Allah’s kingdom, right here where you are. You wriggle and tug at Father’s beard, shake his shoulder in your excitement to bear witness, to share this new knowledge.

  Look Papa! Till he wakens to your bubbling joy. Look now! Mama has arrived in Paradise. She is greeting us from the kingdom of Allah!

  Two

  Evenings were our time with Father after his days ever-busy with the affairs of state, visits of ambassadors or delegations bearing gifts, matters of justice and law, or with his advisors and counsellors – policies, taxes, the minting of dinars, an endless list of tasks. But the evenings were ours.

  Let us eat! he would say. It was his favoured time of kingship, he would say.

  When I became sultan, he told, I was fifteen and knew nothing of matters of state so the viziers took care of the kingdom, but I could decide what to have for dinner!

  He grinned and winked at Mumu while we laughed and thanked Allah that for all the busyness of officialdom, Father still had time to choose – the fragrant lamb in its covered basket, spiced with almori and sprigs of rosemary, the minted julep to sip, or rosewater, as cool as petals on a flustered cheek, bowls of nuts and fruit, the freshest of salads, fried fish and meatballs, pastries filled with vegetables and more. All placed before us while we sat, nibbled, talked.

  Mumu and Esha asked Father questions, told stories of the day, gossip heard from the balconies above the patio or at the madrasa in the city. And all the while I listened.

  Oh, how I would listen! Learning to understand our place in the world, tracing the terrain of their words through a landscape of rice heaped on my plate. I grew from a child to a girl seated in the salon each evening, soft-lit by the glow of vast candles reaching up into the ceiling where stars carved in their wooden universe swam in celestial exuberance. All the while listening.

  Mumu told of his studies at the madrasa, the wisdoms he learned from the Sufi Ibn Marzuq, who had come all the way from the Maghreb to teach, as well as the practical schooling of our own Ibn al-Khatib. He also told of another student, some years his senior, Ibn Zamrak his name, very clever and literary.

  He is already composing ghazals for al-Khatib, he said. Can you imagine?

  Esha told of her disdain for the concubines of the harem and their constant fascination with painting henna on fingertips or kohl around their eyes.

  It takes but a minute if Sara holds the glass still. How can they waste a whole day so employed? She humphed. The stories of the eunuchs are so much better.

  At this I clapped my hands and launched into the wondrous tales they spun while fanning the air as we sat at our calligraphy.

  Father, I said. They have magic in their lands the like of which we have never heard! Women who turn into birds, birds who turn into serpents. Imagine!

  He laughed. Yes, imagine!

  One evening, though, our conversation walked a different path. It was summer and the sun’s golden light through the jalousies crowded on the salon’s walls among scripted verses and homilies to the Prophet’s earliest visitations. And into this tableau, Esha asked a question.

  She had taken the lid off a huge ceramic bowl to reveal its contents of fish and in so doing, realised it was too heavy. Two hands needed, one on the rim, the other the lid. There was the flurry of a servant coming to help, yet despite the melee, Esha asked:

  Father, how did we come here?

  He started. A question from nowhere when she had contemplated fish?

  He turned to his elder daughter, considered her age – soon he could marry her to her betrothed from birth, but was wistful at her loss, the loss of their family togetherness – and answered: You mean from the womb of your mother?

  No-no, she said and crinkled her nose, shook her head in a vigorous display of exasperation that he would assume she had any interest in the matter of baby-making.

  No, she repeated. I mean how did we come to this land, to al-Andalus? Our servants, our slaves are of a different hue. Mahmoud and his kin are black as ebony, their skin gleams in the moonlight. Sara and hers are white as lilies, even to the strands of hair that sneak from their veils. And we, she nibbled a dried fruit, have the colour of honeyed fig.

  But not as wrinkled surely! Mumu laughed and tossed a cushion at her.

  She poked out her tongue at his folly, turned back to await a response and saw Father’s hesitation over where to start in a tale which spanned many centuries, many harvests, many wars. And said: I know that once all al-Andalus was filled with our kind and that all kingdoms were the preserve of caliphs such as you. But now? If it is only us now, then how did we come here?

  Father nodded and settled himself more comfortably on the cushions of the divan. We each took a handful of almonds and did likewise, Mumu and Esha before him, and I into the cosy crook of his arm. The breeze skated its soft breath across the water of the pool into the salon. In the patio, a slave plucked a lute. And Father began:

  From the ancient times, this land belonged to the pale skins, the Christian kings, the ones they called the Goths. They say that once many centuries ago, one of these kings built a tower. And in it, he placed a secret. He sealed the tower with a mighty door, bolted, chained and fastened with a padlock. Convinced this secret must never be known, he laid upon his successors the obligation for each to add an extra padlock during his reign. Twenty-six kings came and went, and each respected this wish.

  Father paused and sighed with a knowledge of the ways of the world which we did not yet then behold. Along came the twenty-seventh king, he said. Young, rash, headstrong. His name was Roderick and he resolved to penetrate the tower’s secret.

  This is ridiculous! he fumed. I am king! I have a right to know what my ancestor thought so worthy of protection. And against the advice of all his counsellors, the numerous padlocks were opened, the chains torn from the door, the bolts drawn back.

  We held our breaths. What would the secret be?

  King Roderick entered the tower, Father continued, and climbed to the chamber at its top where he saw paintings on the walls – the warriors of our ancestors, horsemen from across the sea, scimitars at the ready, spears brandished, eyes glowing with an inner fire – to wipe out the seed of the Infidel.

  Mumu’s eyes shone bright. Esha and I gasped.

  King Roderick began to tremble and beheld a table of gold and silver, set with precious stones, which stood in the middle of the room. On the table was an urn which he bade his servant open. But the servant refused and fell to his knees, his face upturned toward heaven, his hands brought together in prayer.

  It was up to Roderick to open the urn and he steeled himself for what new secret would be revealed. As he placed his hand within, they say it shook so violently that the jewels on his fingers clattered against the edge and a tumultuous din was heard throughout the kingdom. But eventually he had the fortitude to grasp the scroll of parchment it contained and read:

  Whenever this chamber is violated, and the magic spell contained in this urn is broken, the people painted on these walls will invade Spain, overthrow its kings, and subdue the entire land. And this land they will name al-Andalus.

  As it was written, so it became, Father said. Our ancestors came to this land, and the prophecy, as stated, became truth. But only we have remained.

  We sat silent in our wonder, looking one to the other.

  Father smiled. So there was a time when, as you say, Esha, all al-Andalus belonged to our ancestors, we of the fig-honey skin. But seasons come and go, caliphs come and go, memories of what has been come and go, and with it the wisdom to do what is right and true. There have been caliphs no wiser than silly Roderick who brought the Christians their woes in the first place. Our kind has suffered in turn, and we are all who remain to stand fast and provide sanctuary to those who have been expelled from Christian lands.

  We are Nasrids, he tousled Mumu�
��s hair, and we will be remembered.

  But Father, what of the wars that have been fought to protect our lands? Do not the Christians want to take our kingdom from us? So asked Mumu.

  He nodded. There have been skirmishes but none of any consequence, simply practice for our armies. They know our horsemen are fast as the wind and highly skilled. They know I can damage more of theirs with fewer of mine. And laughed. We have been kind to the Christian kings, paid tribute, shared our bounty and good fortune in the arts and sciences. They are Peoples of the Book and we shall not harm them without just cause.

  The Black Death caught us equally in our beds, Father went on. Do not forget the Castilian king Don Pedro is a boy no older than you, his father taken by the plague. He has troubles of his own and many squabbles amongst those who even claim themselves loyal. He seeks no war beyond his borders. We will continue to live in peace.

  Father called for his lute, plucked its strings in a slow melody of repetition and circular memory, his eyes faraway, a low hum setting sail from his forest of beard.

  We began to chatter. Mumu said he would take his sabre and reclaim all al-Andalus for the Nasrids while we laughed and leapt into his fantasy – a cucumber a sword, a cushion a shield – until Father reminded us of the words of our house:

  La ghalib ila Allah – there is no victor but God.

  Allah has blessed us, he said. Our small kingdom is a rich and just reward for our devotion. We live in the midst of vast seas of wheat and fine vegetables, our fruits grow in splendid orchards, our forests are a delight of gentian and lavender, and the waters of the Sierra Nevada cool and sate us. Our city is filled with the noble and the learned, we attract the best teachers to our madrasa, our students are welcomed in the best halls of learning in the Maghreb and the East.

  He strummed the lute and said: One day, I will take you to visit the Moors of the Maghreb across the sea, our cousins in spirit if not in name. The kingdom of the Merinids will always provide us with aid when needed.

  He paused. Allah has blessed us, he repeated, and we stay humble in His presence.