Chapter Ibrahim
Ibrahim
All night I pace while the midwife attends to Djalila. Below, in the courtyard, Ibrahim matches my paces, step for step. He, perhaps, longs for a boy: I pray only that no harm comes to Djalila. Every cry she makes pierces me and I berate the midwife more than once.
“Give her something for the pain!” I shout at her at last, when Djalila’s screams grow so loud that they rock the household.
The midwife is an old hag who has done her work for a great deal longer than I have been alive and she almost laughs at me.
“She is well enough,” she says complacently. “The pain is normal.”
“Make her stop screaming,” I say through gritted teeth.
“You used to be a healer,” she says. “You give her something.”
I shake my head. “I do not use my skills,” I say.
“Why not?” she asks, her eyes sharp and bright on me.
“Mind your own business,” I tell her. “Make her stop screaming.”
“She’ll stop when the baby comes,” she says.
I curse her and walk away, to another room, but Djalila shrieks for me not to leave her and so, reluctantly, I return to her side, to feel wave after wave of fear, Djalila’s pain coursing through me so strongly that I nearly scream myself.
Time passes so slowly that I think there must be some trick being played on me. Surely the sun should rise, where is the dawn call to prayer? And still the night goes on.
At last, Djalila’s screams change and the midwife bestirs herself.
“The baby will come now,” she says with certainty and she makes Djalila kneel on the bed.
When the tiny slippery body emerges the midwife barely holds it before passing it to me, wrapped in a cloth. I hold the mewling, wriggling, still-wet body in my hands and stare down at it.
“Boy or girl?” asks the midwife.
I pull the cloth a little to one side. “Girl,” I say.
“Ah well, she is alive at least and has a strong cry,” sniffs the midwife. “It will be a boy next time, if Allah wills it.”
I offer the baby to Djalila but she is too weary. She holds the baby for only a moment and then passes her back to me and closes her eyes.
“Keep a watch on her,” says the midwife. “Any sign of a fever, send for me. And make the baby suckle.”
“How?” I ask but she is already gone.
Ibrahim stands outside the door, hovering tentatively. I give him the baby and he holds her as though she might break. He gazes down on the little body in delight.
“What will you name her?” I ask.
“Zaynab,” he says, as though he has had this name ready for a long time. “Flower of the desert. She is a little flower.” His voice is unsteady with tenderness.
I cannot help smiling at him and he returns the smile.
“I am sorry she is not a son,” I offer politely.
He shrugs. “It is only the first child,” he says, cheerful with relief. “There will be more and Allah will grant us a son.”
I nod and take back Zaynab. Her fists ball up and she wails.
“I think she needs feeding,” I say helplessly.
Ibrahim nods and backs away, leaving me alone with the baby and the sleeping Djalila.
Awkwardly I try to make the baby suckle but she does not seem to understand what to do. Gently I wake Djalila to help me, although since neither of us know how to encourage her, there is not much improvement.
“I am too tired,” says Djalila, her eyes closing again.
She sleeps for a long time, during which the baby sleeps a little but mostly wails. When I try to wake Djalila again, her skin feels hot. In a panic, I send a slave running for the midwife.
The woman shakes her head when she sees the sweat forming on Djalila’s skin. “You had better find a wet-nurse for the child,” she says bluntly.
“And Djalila? What should we do for her?”
She shakes her head. “Once there’s a fever they rarely recover,” she says.
I feel a coldness sink into me. “I cannot lose another,” I say in a whisper. “I swore.”
“What did you say?” says the old woman.
“Nothing,” I say.
I send a servant to find a wet nurse for Zaynab and leave her in the arms of the midwife, who sits by Djalila’s panting, shaking side.
I make my way to my room and kneel to open the chest I have rarely opened since I first went to serve Djalila’s family.
Slowly I lift the lid and remove the cloth that covers the contents.
The red cup lies there, its dull surface seeming like something broken or dead. I touch it, wondering if it still has powers. I feel nothing.
I set to work. I mix herbs to cool a fever, herbs to strengthen, herbs to make a womb healthy.
I am so frantic I forget half of what I know.
Even while I choose one herb and then another, I know that I do not believe that any of the ingredients I am using will offer a cure: I know that what I truly believe is that the cure will come from the cup itself, that it hardly matters what I put into it.
While I mix the medicine I pour all my prayers into it, my hope that it will cure Djalila, that she will not die.
If she dies then I will have failed in serving her, I will be guilty once more of allowing harm to come to Faheem’s family.
I am not gentle with Djalila. She coughs and splutters and moans but I slip my fingers between her teeth and hold her mouth open as though she were an animal, pouring the liquid down her throat while a good portion of it dribbles down her sweating chin and stains her blankets. The midwife watches me with interest.
“I thought you said you did not use your skills,” she says.
“Be quiet,” I tell her. “Look after the child, you’ve already half-killed her mother.”
“Not my fault,” she tells me. “I told you, once the fever starts a woman is as good as dead, whatever you’re giving her.”
I don’t answer her. I sit on Djalila’s bed, wiping the sweat off her clammy skin.
I am so focused on her that I am only dimly conscious of a wet-nurse arriving, a plump woman who has the baby suckling in moments.
The silence, after her constant cries, should be a relief but all it means is that I can hear Djalila’s panting breath more loudly.
I had thought the previous night long, but the day passes in a haze of exhaustion.
Again and again, I feel my head jerk upright.
Again and again, I force the brew I have made down Djalila and when the distant calls to prayer can be heard I kneel to beg for help and think that I will fall asleep even as I touch my head to the ground.
By nightfall the wet-nurse has been comfortably installed in the house and the midwife, shaking her head, has left us.
***
I sleep. I cannot stay awake. My body slumps by Djalila’s side, the cup still in my hand, the last dregs of the drink leaking onto the cold floor.
I dream of Faheem, see his red lips and hear a baby crying, see the heaving bodies of Ibrahim and Djalila and her red-rimmed eyes afterwards.
When I awake there is a thin pale light and my legs have lost all feeling.
I am stiff with cold and for a moment I forget why I am here and what I have been doing.
The room is silent and wearily I turn my head to look at Djalila, expecting her to be lifeless, for I cannot hear her panting.
Her skin is pale but no longer clammy. She is asleep, not dead. I have to touch her breast and feel her heartbeat before I am certain and I lift the sheets to see if there is blood but there is only a little. She is not dead, nor even dying.
I pick up the cup and walk slowly back to my own room. Along the way I catch sight of a slave girl.
“Take food and clean water for bathing to your mistress,” I tell her. “Tell the master she is safe. And make sure the wet-nurse is well fed.”
“Praise be to Allah,” says the girl. “Shall I bring you food and water also?”
“I am going to sleep,” I tell her.
***
I sleep for a day and a night and a day again. When I awake, I wash the cup before I wash myself, then I wrap it in a soft cloth and lock it away again. I wash the stink of sweat and fear from my body and dress before descending to eat.
“Praise be to Allah, Djalila has recovered,” says Ibrahim. “And I gather it was down to your care.”
I shake my head. I do not want to talk about the red cup nor what was in it. “I did nothing,” I say.
“The midwife said otherwise,” says Ibrahim earnestly. “And I thank you for what you did, whatever it was. Djalila will be able to bear more children, thanks to you.”
“No!” I say loudly and Ibrahim looks shocked at my outburst.
“No what?” he asks.
“She is not to have another child,” I tell him. “Not soon, not ever.”
“But …” he begins.
“No,” I tell him and my voice is cold. “She must not have another child. I saved her once; I cannot do it again.”
Ibrahim looks at me in disbelief. “What do you suggest?” he asks. “Another wife to share my bed and bring me sons?”
I shake my head. “Djalila would be crushed,” I tell him.
“So what do you suggest?” he asks me.
“Take me,” I say and I know as I say them that these words have been waiting all this time in my mouth, that as the months have passed, I have been wooed by Ibrahim without either of us knowing it.
That something in me has taken his learning, his soft words and the sight of his flesh pressed against Djalila’s and fashioned them into my own desire. “Take me.”
***
He refuses at first. Whether out of repugnance for me or love for Djalila, I do not know. But time goes by and I see him watching me. I see him look my way when Djalila goes to her bedchamber and I know he can only wait so long before his desires bring him to me.
***
I visit baby Zaynab in her nursery from time to time.
She learns to crawl, exploring the world around her, her chubby hands grasping at whatever she can reach, wondering at what she finds.
Her black hair fuzzes around her face, framing huge dark eyes and honey skin, along with tiny red lips, which close around anything she can get into her mouth before her wetnurse stops her.
She beams when she sees anyone, expecting only love.