Djalila #2
We sit in silence for a while. I eat, for the food is good and I am hungry. My mind is mulling over what I have seen so far but as yet I have not understood why Djalila should be so thin, so fearful. I am drinking tea when I feel a wave of terror rise from her as a shadow falls over us. I look up.
“So, you are the healer,” says the man standing before us.
“I am,” I say.
“I am Djalila’s father,” he says.
I stay silent but, in my mind, something settles into still certainty.
“I am grateful for your concern,” he says. “But it will not be necessary for you to stay here. My daughter is well enough. It is her mother who thinks there is something wrong with her.”
I do not look at him, only sip my tea. When I set down the cup I speak. “I will be here as long as she has need of me,” I tell him.
“You will leave this house at once.”
I stand in one fluid movement and step towards him. We are so close I can smell his rotten breath. He towers over me but I do not break my gaze. “I will not,” I tell him.
He raises his hand. “You will leave my house, you interfering bitch,” he says.
“Do you wish me to explain to your wife why your daughter is like this?” I ask him. “Because I know.”
His hand stops, mid-air. “You—” he begins but he does not finish. He looks at Djalila and then back at me. His hand drops to his side.
I gesture to Djalila without looking at her. “We will return to your room,” I tell her.
She gets up quickly and scurries away from us both down the stairs. I look her father in the eyes. “If you wish to lay hands on some girl,” I tell him, “Go lie with a street woman who at least will be paid for her troubles. Do not touch your own daughter, you piece of filth.”
He stands in silence as I leave the roof terrace and from that day onwards, I barely see him. If we enter a room, he will quickly find some excuse why he must leave. In this way I am free to try and heal Djalila.
***
Day by day I entice her to eat. A little mouthful here, a scrap there.
I make my way to the kitchen where I tell the cook to serve fat-streaked meat and dainty pastries soaked in honey and oil.
Each mouthful she eats must be worth five.
The cook has known Djalila since she was a child, she sets to with a will, making her favourite meals and adding richness to them.
She serves them up in the tiny portions that are all Djalila will tolerate. She is my ally.
Slowly, slowly, Djalila recovers some flesh on her too-evident bones. I doubt she will ever attain rounded curves, but at least she does not look half-starved.
“You must marry,” I tell her, when I see her smile for the first time in the three months that I have been her handmaiden.
Her face goes pale. “I do not want to marry!”
“You need to leave this house,” I tell her. “You need to be the mistress of your own home or you will be forever looking over your shoulder, afraid your father is about to enter the room.”
“He would not dare touch me now you are here,” she tells me.
I shake my head. “Even if he never touches you again,” I say, “why would you want to live under the same roof as him? If you had a good man, you would be happy and free.”
She looks afraid. “How would I know he would be a good man?”
“I will find one,” I promise her. “But you need to leave this house.”
***
I tell her mother that Djalila should be married and Safa, encouraged by Djalila’s small improvements, calls on the matchmakers of the city to make it known that her daughter is ready for a husband.
There is no shortage of offers for the family is well-off and Djalila is beautiful.
Various suitors call on the family and with each of them I allow one fingertip to brush them as they pass me, I watch them as they meet with Djalila, who sits quiet and reserved in her still too-big robes.
Some are too passionate, too stricken with desire for her when they see her.
Their lust is too great, they will frighten her, remind her of the suffering she has undergone.
Others are too old, too much like her father and I can see for myself that she shrinks under their gaze.
Some are very young and although a few fall in love with her I shake my head.
Djalila needs a man who can be patient, who can woo her and bring her back to this world, who can bring her joy without demanding anything from her.
The man I choose for Djalila is named Ibrahim.
He is the eldest son of one of the best carpet makers and traders in the city, a good and even match.
Ibrahim himself is young, still in his twenties and although I can see his admiration for Djalila when he sets eyes on her, there is a softness, a sweetness to him that bodes well.
He speaks to her of simple things—of the spring flowers opening up around the city and of his family, of his mother’s fondness for cooking and his father’s rounded belly and Djalila even smiles a little, she watches him when he leaves.
When we are alone, I nod and Djalila, still uncertain, nods back.
I visit his family’s workshops without announcing myself, claiming that my unnamed mistress needs a new carpet for her rooms. Kairouan is renowned throughout the trading routes for its carpets. Ibrahim’s family make some of the very best that the city can boast.
The workshop I visit is a chattering place, where the women who knot the carpets gossip amongst themselves.
The looms sit before them, threaded in white.
Bright balls of thread sit above their heads, trailing their colours down towards the women whose hands knot over and over again in quick movements.
Each has a little knife to cut off a colour when she has no further use for it and reaches for another, barely glancing at the pattern as the carpets grow under their fingers, one thread, one knot, at a time.
It is delicate work suited to women and those who work here are grateful to have secured such an occupation, prized work undertaken in a clean bright space.
Not for them the dust of the potteries for women who paint the designs of pots, nor the close stench of the tanneries for the women whose families work in the leather trade.
Their ears do not ring to the heavy beating of copper pots like the workers in Djalila’s family business.
Here the women can talk while they work and their surroundings are perfumed with roses, for Ibrahim’s family believe in scenting the air so that their sought-after carpets will perfume the houses of their customers.
I run my hand over the fine wares, feigning interest in their patterns while I watch Ibrahim’s family members as they go about their business.
His father relies on his children’s labour now, contenting himself with sitting in a corner of the workshop, sipping mint tea and jovially teasing them.
“Look at your youngest brother, Ibrahim, there’s a way to sell a carpet to a woman, all sweet words and sidelong glances!”
Ibrahim laughs out loud. “He’s nothing but a scoundrel and you’d better find him a wife, Father, before one of those ladies claims him for her own!”
Ibrahim’s two sisters, as yet unmarried, look up from their work. They are elevated above the women who weave, for each has been taught how to design carpets and they sit musing over future creations, adding a swirl here or a flower there to satisfy their demanding eyes.
They giggle at the exchange and call to a servant to go and buy sweets from a nearby stall. “We can’t be working on empty bellies!”
“You work on honey, nuts and pastries,” reprimands their father with a grin. “And then turn your noses up at good home cooked food.”
“Honey makes the carpets prettier,” returns the elder daughter with a smirk, passing a few sweetmeats to the working women.
Something loosens inside me. These are good people.
They enjoy life and they relish one another’s company.
I am changing Djalila’s life for the better.
She will grow healthy in my care and perhaps her happiness will atone a little for Faheem’s lost life.
Perhaps she will be happy with a kind and gentle husband and slowly, slowly, I will be set free of the guilt that weighs me down so greatly that when I think of it, I can barely lift one foot in front of the other.
***
Djalila’s father catches me on the stairs.
“I forbid this marriage,” he hisses at me.
“On what grounds?” I ask him.
He does not answer.
“If you wish to forbid the marriage,” I say, “you had better announce your reasons for it before the whole family. And wait for me to have my say.”
He stands silently in the shadows as I walk away and no more is said.
Meanwhile her mother is delighted and in no time all manner of fine silks are flowing into the house and Djalila, for once, must wear robes that are more suited to her slender form.
When I see her dressed in a blue that rivals the sea, her long dark hair brushed loose as she tries on the golden headdress she will wear, there is a moment when I must look away from her beauty, which reminds me too much of Faheem.
She is resplendent on her wedding day. The bridal headdress shines atop her magnificent black hair, her large dark eyes are a little wary but also filled with something resembling hope.
Her father’s face is a thundercloud but I curse him in my mind.
The ceremony begins and she looks down in modesty but a little flush of colour rises on her cheeks and I follow her to Ibrahim’s new home with relief.
His parents have other sons and their families who live with them and so he has set up a home of his own close by to them where his bride will reign as mistress all alone, un-subjected to her in-laws, a rare freedom. I have chosen well.
***