Chapter 2 #2
so thick it was nigh impossible to hear anything beyond them. Despite the hammer in my hand, I briefly considered the blessed
iron blade at my waist as I re-covered my hair.
He is gone, I told myself. Gone. You buried him with your own hands. Trying to ignore the dread curdling in my gut, I pressed an ear to the barred wooden door.
Whoever was on the other side chose that moment to knock so loud I jumped. But it wasn’t the pounding of soldiers preparing
to break through. A small band of travelers had simply knocked at my door, a perfectly normal thing to do. I was the one being
paranoid.
Keeping the hammer concealed behind my back, I opened the door. “ Yes? ”
Two men stood there, one with his hand raised as if to knock a second time. Slowly his eyes trailed up to meet mine and his
mouth opened in a small o of surprise. Whether it was my height or my rudeness that took him aback, I did not know. Hopefully one or the other would
convince him to leave.
“I... peace be upon you,” he stammered. “Is this the home of Fatima the Perfumer?”
It was indeed, “the Perfumer” being one of my mother’s many attributes.
When my family resettled in this land, my mother and brother were anonymous enough to keep their identities.
I could not, though it didn’t matter. Few people wanted to speak to Umm Marjana, the giant, eccentric widow who rarely left home and prowled the hills like a caged lion.
“My mistress is not in.” I was covered in twigs and sweat; perhaps the guise of a gruff, unhelpful servant would make them
leave. “I can take a message.”
Before the man could reply, the palanquin’s curtain was pulled open to reveal its sole inhabitant: a woman swathed in a purple
silk jilbab embroidered with delicate opal beads I could tell from a single glance would pay for a new roof. Enough gold bangles
to buy another roof and likely all the land I was squatting on ringed her wrists. Though she remained partially hidden in
the shadow of the palanquin, she appeared elderly. Her face was veiled, but the hair between her temple and pearled headband
was white, her eyes wrinkled with crow’s-feet.
Her gaze went from my feet to my head before settling on my face with what looked like satisfaction, as though she had been
considering options at the butcher and found a choice sheep. It was a profoundly irritating look and followed up by worse—she
began to disembark from the palanquin.
“A message will not do,” she announced. Her bearers helped her to her feet.
I moved to block the way. “You should stay in your carriage. The damp air—”
“I find it refreshing.” She cocked her head, staring up at me. “My, you are tall.”
“I—yes,” I stammered, uncharacteristically lost for words. The old woman took advantage of my uncertainty to sweep past me
and through the door as though she were a sultana entering her own salon. Were it one of her men, I would have slammed their
head into the wall and put my blade to their throat for such audacity, but before a frail old woman, I was powerless.
“Sayyida,” I tried again. “My lady, please. There has been a mis—”
“You may call me Salima,” she called over her shoulder. “And I would be much obliged if you could fetch me a cup of water.
Do you mind if my bearers rest in your courtyard?”
I did mind. I minded quite a bit. And yet I could not fathom kicking them out in a way that did not make the situation more
suspicious. Guest right was sacred in our land. The moment I saw an old woman stuffed in a cramped palanquin, I should have
urged her to come into my home and take respite. Her men were visibly exhausted, with sweat pouring down their faces. An innocent
person—a servant, no less—would be falling over themselves to offer relief.
There was also the possibility they would be more vulnerable to attack while resting. I plastered a gracious smile on my face.
“Of course not. Please make yourselves comfortable.”
It took time to get them settled. I showed the men our well and left them to the shade of the overgrown trees in the courtyard
before escorting Salima to our small, sad excuse for a reception room. As we actively avoided entertaining guests, it was
not a welcoming place. A steady drip from the leaking roof pinged loudly in a metal tin, and the only light came from a single
dusty window. I cleared away sacks of rice and lentils, making a stack of cushions for her to sit upon, and then left to retrieve
water and refreshments.
When I returned, Salima had removed her face veil and set aside her jilbab.
She appeared about my mother’s age, her silvery hair untouched by henna.
Though her delicate features were now well lined and flush with exertion, there was no hiding that she must have been a beauty in her youth.
She wore a deep blue gown patterned with copper birds and yellow trousers whose ankle hems were so thick with needlework it must have taken a seamstress a year to complete.
More gold jewelry, beautifully worked, hung around her neck with ruby ornaments dangling from her ears.
From the cut of her clothes to the way she commanded the small room with her presence, everything about this woman spoke of wealth and power far beyond anything I knew.
And far beyond anything that should lead her to seeking out my mother. Granted, in our years here, my mother had cultivated
a circle of friends—she always did. She was a survivor, accustomed to her life being hastily uprooted, and she could mend
your clothes, paint your hands, and brew up fragrance with a skill that had kept food in my belly since I was small. But we
were not remotely in the class of this Salima, who, if she had been inquiring after my mother’s skills, would have sent a
servant. I set down fruit and water with a lowered head, resisting the urge to study her further.
Salima took the cup, murmuring thanks to God. “When do you expect your mistress back?” she asked after she had slaked her
thirst.
“I do not know, Sayyida. It may be very late.”
“Is there anyone else in the home?”
My skin prickled. “No. As I said, I am happy to convey a message.”
Salima shrugged. “Perhaps later. For now, I prefer your company.”
It was not a request I could deny if I wanted to keep up my servile front. “You honor me,” I said demurely, cursing internally
as I sank to the floor. Even upon her stack of cushions, Salima was still dwarfed by me. I had slipped the hammer into my
waistband, the metal head poking reassuringly into the small of my back.
She pulled a small fan from her sleeve and waved it in front of her face. “Muggy day. I was promised that this part of the
coast looked like a mirror of Paradise during the khareef, but the humidity .”
“Where are you coming from?” I asked.
“Aden.”
Aden. The most prominent—and notoriously law-abiding—port in the region. “I have heard that Aden puts even our worst heat
to shame. Has your family been there long?”
“Nearly thirty years. We are from Iraq originally, but there was more opportunity here.” She sighed. “I fear with politics as they are, soon enough my homeland’s splendor will live on only in the storytellers of Baghdad.”
I clucked my tongue in sympathy. Though I did not intend to confide such a thing to Salima, I suspected my family’s maritime
history sprouted from similar glory days. My father used to rhapsodize about the splendor of early Baghdad and its Abbasid
rulers, when sailors like us would journey from Basrah all the way to China to bring back the silks, books, and spices of
a new world, of unknown lands our faith had just started to explore.
But that was long ago. Baghdad was no longer the heart of our world, the city of legend that drew traders and travelers from
every distant corner of the ummah. Or perhaps it never had been; the land of my birth had always looked to the sea first,
and that sea was vast . So vast that it had become uncommon for Arab and Persian sailors to journey beyond India—we did not need to. There were
merchants already there, many now Muslim as well, who knew the waters and lands better than us.
Salima motioned to hand her cup back but stumbled. I reached forward to help, and she grabbed my wrist.
“Take care.” I gestured to the platter of fruit. “Why don’t you eat something?”
“I suppose the journey affected me more than I realized.” Salima was still holding my wrist. “Oh my. That must have been a
nasty injury.”
I followed her gaze. My sleeve had ridden up, revealing the mottled scar that covered much of my right forearm.
“Cooking accident,” I lied.
We returned to our seats. But Salima was still staring at me.
I could hardly blame her, I present quite a sight.
Like many of my class, I have the blood of nearly all who have sailed upon the Indian Ocean.
My father’s father was an Arab, an orphan who traded pearl-diving for piracy when he stole his first ship, and my father’s mother a Gujarati poet-singer who stole his heart, then his purse.
My mother’s family, though not as scandalous, was no less global, her island of Pemba known for welcoming lost travelers including a number of Chinese mariners, among them her grandfather, who decided taking the shahada and starting a family in a gentle land was better than risking the journey home.
I have a mix of their features and speak enough of their languages that I should have been able to blend in a great many lands.
Except I do not blend. Anywhere. I have traveled to more countries than I can remember, yet have never met another woman approaching
my height and only a bare handful of men who can best my strength. I may have been retired, but I did what I could to maintain
a formidable form—trading sparring and rowing for beating the land into orchards and swimming against the waves every morning.
Salima popped a slice of coconut into her mouth. “Your father must have been a giant. I suspect you could likely bear my palanquin
all on your own.”