Chapter Ibrahim #2
I dare not love her. I fear all my passions, how they grow out of nothing into such desires that they threaten those around me.
And so, when I wish to clasp her in my arms and stroke her soft black curls, when I want to hide my face behind my hands and then playfully show myself to her again to make her laugh I do not.
Instead, I retreat, turn my face away when she smiles at me and return to Djalila’s rooms. Ibrahim does not spend much time with Zaynab, perhaps he thinks it is a woman’s task, perhaps she reminds him of the sons he will not have.
Djalila, despite my urgings, does not visit Zaynab much.
Perhaps she reminds her of her own shortcomings as a wife.
And so Zaynab grows, clutching at chests and beds until she takes her own unsteady steps surrounded only by servants, unaided by those people who should offer her love, her own parents and myself, each of us too tightly wrapped in our own fears and desires.
***
More than a year passes before a night comes when the heat is too great for anyone in the city to sleep.
Djalila tosses and turns in the room next to me and I hear Zaynab wail more than once, her nursemaid shushing her with some old lullaby and a fan.
The maids splash one another with water as darkness falls and then retreat to their own room, giggling between themselves at the names of this boy or that, their empty imaginations running riot.
I hear Ibrahim’s footsteps come up the stairs and pause, first outside Djalila’s room and then outside of mine.
I hold my breath for a moment and hear the thudding of my heart before his footsteps turn away.
I hear him climb the stairs to the roof terrace, perhaps the only place where the night air might bring the hope of coolness.
I rise, then, and follow the echo of his steps. When I reach the rooftop, he is standing with his hands on the perimeter wall, looking out over the night city. Here and there lanterns flicker, above us stars cover the sky in a pale glow.
“I have treated her with kindness,” he says without turning.
“Yes,” I say.
“I have not forced myself upon her.”
“No,” I say.
“I have made her mistress of her own home and all has been done to her satisfaction, to her command. She has but to say the word and she is obeyed. She has everything a woman may desire.”
“Yes,” I say.
“But she is not happy. She will not lie with me of her own desire. I have only one child by her and now no hope of any others.”
“No,” I say.
He is silent for a moment and far away we hear carts rattling through the streets, the clip-clop of hooves going by in the alleyways outside, traders readying themselves for the dawn.
“Have I done something wrong?” he asks.
“No,” I say.
“I need more than Yes and No,” he says. “I need to know what is wrong.”
“She is damaged,” I tell him.
“By what?”
“Things that happened to her as a child,” I say. “I cannot tell you of them.”
“And she will never recover, is that it? I chose a wife who had a hidden flaw in her, one that I could not see beneath her beauty and now there is no way to heal her?”
“If I knew a way I would do it,” I say.
He is silent again and I step forward, take up a place beside him, look out at what he can see, the dark rooftops and the stars above.
“I am at fault,” I say and the words come fast because it is a relief to me not to hold them in. “I chose you as her husband.”
“What?”
“She had many suitors. I chose you.”
“Who were you to choose?”
“Her handmaiden,” I say. “Her companion. I made her as well as I could and I thought she should marry. I thought if she found a kind man, a man who would help her to be happy, if she had a house of her own and could be its mistress, that it would heal her.”
“Why me?”
“You were a good man,” I say. “I saw it in you. I—I felt it in you. When I met you, I felt your kindness, your patience. She would not have to live with elder members of a family; she could have the freedom of being her own mistress at once. And—and you did not just lust after her, you cared for her.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw it in your eyes,” I say. “And the day of the gift giving. You brought all the traditional things—the sheep, the fruits, the jewellery—but you brought her flowers as well, the ones she wore in her hair the first time you ever saw her. And so I knew you had thought of her.”
He shrugs. “I thought we would be happy together,” he says. “Now it seems that will never be possible.”
“It is my fault,” I say. “I have made you miserable even though I meant for the two of you to be happy.”
“Why do you serve her?” he asks.
“I hurt her family a long time ago,” I say. “I swore to serve them until I die.”
He shakes his head. “That sound like a child’s promise.”
“Perhaps it was,” I say. “But I made a vow and I will keep it.”
“And what do you propose I do now?” he asks.
I swallow and keep my eyes on the stars. “Lie with me,” I half-whisper into the darkness.
“And Djalila?”
“She will not know,” I say. “I will never tell her.”
“And in this way, you seek to make us both happy?”
“Yes,” I say.
“And will you be happy?” he asks.
Yes, I think. Yes. “I will be content,” I say and even as I speak his arms are around me.
***
I keep my promise. Djalila may wonder a little at Ibrahim’s no longer coming to her rooms, but the relief she feels stops her from enquiring further.
She grows a little happier. She still stays mostly in her own rooms but she allows me to open the shutters more often, she lets the sun touch her skin, sometimes she will even watch people go by outside her windows.
She sends me to buy songbirds in the souk and they fill her rooms with a semblance of life that has been missing until now, their chirps and bright feathers even make her smile a little.
By day I manage the household while Ibrahim is in the workshops, Zaynab toddles about the courtyard garden and Djalila, perhaps, begins to heal a little.
Once or twice a month she may even call for Zaynab and spend a little time with her, though she is awkward in the child’s presence, unable to think what to say or do.
I try to encourage her, buying little sweets for her to give the child or suggesting that she encourages Zaynab to play with the birds but Djalila is so stilted in making such offers that Zaynab senses her discomfort and grows awkward herself, shrinking away from possible caresses and eventually retreating behind her nursemaid’s legs.
Yet when Ibrahim’s sisters come, they squeeze her and ignore her shrieks, poking her till she giggles, stuffing her mouth with dripping honey cakes and she submits to their round-bellied, double-chinned embraces, feigning a desire to escape but returning to them over and over again as she runs about the house.
***
I visit Zaynab in her nursery sometimes.
The nursemaid I have chosen for her, Myriam, is a plump young woman, full of chatter, the opposite of Djalila and indeed myself.
She feeds Zaynab plentifully, she occasionally hugs her for no reason, she berates her for many small reasons, loudly and without malice so that Zaynab pays little attention.
She is almost four now, a real little girl rather than a waddling baby.
Her hair is dark and curly, her lips are red, her skin is honeyed perfection.
She runs about the house, noisy and curious.
Often, I will see her dark eyes peeping from behind a hanging or a door and I try to smile at her but she flits away, frightened.
I know the servants tell tales about me, casting me as the all-powerful handmaiden to their unstable mistress.
***
By night I make my way to the rooftop. I hold Ibrahim to me and revel in a man’s desire, feel his lips on my skin and look up into the thousand thousand stars that shine above me.
On moonlit nights I watch the play of our limbs as our skins shine in the darkness and I feel love begin to grow in me.
I attempt to keep it at bay. I keep my mind only on my own pleasure, I do not think how to please him, I hold back from caressing him when he lies spent by my side.
I do not speak; I do not whisper such words as come to mind when we are together.
I do not let him speak either, for I am afraid of what he would say and of my own response.
I do not allow his lips to touch mine, for to kiss seems too close to love.
Each day I drink the herbs that will stop a child from growing in my womb, even though it tastes bitter to me.
But I am not able to hold back my feelings.
A year comes and goes and then another. And I find myself thinking of Ibrahim, I find myself waiting for his return from the workshops.
I order meals that will please him. I wear robes that will be soft on his hands when he undresses me.
I smooth my skin with oils for his pleasure.
The night comes when his lips brush against mine and I do not turn my face away.
And I grow afraid. I drink the bitter herbs and they taste sweet in my mouth.
I am afraid of what the cup may do, how it might turn the bitterness to something else and allow a child to grow because I wish for it even while I drink the herbs that guard against it.
I stop using the cup for myself but even when I use another cup, still I wonder if my own desires will turn against me.
“Marry me,” says Ibrahim one night as the stars begin to shine above us.
Something in me twists. In one moment, I think of marriage to Ibrahim. Of happiness, of a child perhaps. Of being free to love. To love Ibrahim, to love Zaynab. But I see Djalila’s face, her red lips.
“I cannot,” I say.
“Do not be so hasty,” he says. “Think of it again.”
I bow my head in silence.
***