Chapter Ibrahim #3
I do not sleep that night. Ibrahim sleeps and I lie by his side and watch him.
I think of my vow and wonder whether I have atoned sufficiently.
After all, I think, I rescued Djalila from her father.
She has the kindest of husbands, a child, a good household.
What would change in her life? Better that I be her co-wife than who-knows-who, some younger, more beautiful woman to break her heart.
Perhaps we could grow closer, be as sisters.
The sky grows pale as dawn approaches and my heart lightens.
I think that perhaps this offer from Ibrahim is a sign from Allah, an acknowledgement that I have tried to fulfill my vow and that I am released from its bonds.
I look down at Ibrahim and smile. When he wakes, I will tell him that I will be his wife.
Screams suddenly echo throughout the house, followed by running footsteps from every part of the building and then Hayfa’s voice overlays the screams with shouts for help. She calls my name.
“Hela! Hela!”
I run down the stairs, half-dressed, my robes in disarray, my hair tumbling about my shoulders, not yet bound up for the day. In the house’s courtyard garden are gathered all the servants and slaves, so that I cannot see what is going on but as I approach Hayfa shoves them away.
“Get out of the way. Let her through!”
The youngest member of Hayfa’s team, a slave boy, is hurt.
He is barely ten, a scrawny dark-skinned thing my father would have turned his nose up at, but lively enough.
He runs errands for Hayfa in the souk, taking bread to the ovens or carrying heavy loads home for her through the twisting turning paths of the souk.
Now he lies just inside the courtyard’s door, one leg at an impossible angle, blood seeping from it, bruises already forming.
I catch a glimpse of white bone against his black skin, more sickening for the contrast.
“What happened?” I ask.
“We were buying pastries. A cart crushed him. The donkey was frightened by something, it went careering into him. His body was flung against a wall so hard he did not reply when I spoke to him,” says Hayfa, her face pale. “The wheel trapped his leg under it.”
I look down at the boy. Even as I do so he closes his eyes and his whole body shakes, only the whites of his eyes showing as his mouth opens and saliva flows down his chin.
One of the servant girls cries out that he is cursed and Hayfa slaps her so hard she falls to the ground.
The others draw back. At the back of the group, I catch a glimpse of Ibrahim and Djalila, drawn by the commotion.
“Help him,” says Hayfa to me.
“I cannot,” I say.
She looks at me as though I have spat in her face. “I said help him,” she tells me. “He is losing his wits and his leg is broken. How can you stand there and do nothing when you have healing skills?”
“What do you know of what I can do?” I ask.
“You saved the mistress,” says Hayfa.
“That was luck,” I say.
“It was the red cup,” says Hayfa with stubborn certainty.
I feel a thud in my belly as though she has punched me. “What did you say?” I ask.
The slave boy shakes under our hands.
“I asked about you around Kairouan,” says Hayfa. “You were the great healer. You used a magical red cup.”
I kneel. “Put your hands here,” I tell her. “Do not let his thigh move.”
“You—”
“Do it,” I say and she does what I tell her to do.
Bone grates on bone and one of the servant girls faints behind us.
My eyes are closed but I feel the bone as it turns, meets its rightful place and I grip his leg and tell the servants to bring cloths, so that I can wrap it tightly.
I use splints to hold the leg in place and tell Hayfa that I have done all I can.
“He must drink from the cup,” she says.
“I no longer use it,” I say.
“He must drink from it,” she insists.
I make a meaningless drink, something that will bring strength and I give it to Hayfa. “Hold it to his lips,” I say. I know that her desire to help him, transmitted through the cup, will do more than whatever I have mixed together.
She holds it as though it is a sacred vessel and ensures he drinks every drop.
“If you want him to live, he will have to stay in your kitchen without moving for more than two months,” I say. “He will not be able to run errands for you.”
“He never did much anyway,” she scoffs, her relief masked as disdain. “I daresay I can keep an eye on him.”
“He will always limp,” I warn her.
“What’s a limp?” she says, defensive. “Half of Kairouan limps with one malady or another.”
I stand up and walk away, past Djalila. Ibrahim follows me back to the rooftop. When we reach the terrace, I turn to him.
“I cannot,” I say.
“Why?”
I think of my dawn smile, of my foolish belief that I was released from my vow. It was not a release, it was a test and I failed it. The slave boy’s accident is my warning. I have not been faithful to the vow I made.
I say what I should have said long ago. “I cannot marry you, Ibrahim. And I can no longer lie with you.”
“If you cannot and Djalila will not,” he says, and I can hear hurt as well as a growing anger in his voice, “then what do you suggest?”
“Take another wife,” I say quickly, before I can unsay the words.
“You said before that Djalila—”
“Leave her to me,” I say.
“Very well,” he says, looking down at the ground. “I will find another wife. And may Allah help me choose better than I did the first time.”
“I will choose a wife for you,” I say.
“No,” he says.
“A young wife,” I say, words tumbling from me. “A healthy wife, a wife who will be good to you, kind to Zaynab. Who will not be afraid of Djalila’s ways.”
“If such a woman exists,” he snorts and turns away.
I stand alone on the rooftop and hold my robes closer against a chill only I can feel.
How will it be to have another woman here, a woman who will share Ibrahim’s bed?
How will I bear it? How will Djalila react?
I shake my head. I cannot ask myself such questions.
I have hurt too many lives already. I have been warned.
I must try harder. I will find a good woman to heal this household.