Chapter Imen #2
Even the servants change. They cannot wait to please their new mistress.
They do not wait to be commanded, instead they hurry to serve her, to receive her gentle smiles and soft words of thanks.
The house seems to become merry. New planters of flowers are brought into the courtyard; a larger fountain is built.
The table is laid with new dishes, made to please Imen’s appetite.
I see changes in the bedrooms, where decorative flourishes are ordered by Ibrahim: more beautiful rugs from his workshops, finer blankets with brighter colours, new carvings and paintings commissioned for the doors and ceilings.
Only Djalila stays locked in her cold world, her fearful place.
I think perhaps she could be made to love Imen but she is afraid.
She fears Imen’s openness as others would fear the sun shining in their eyes—a dazzling light too far away from her own capabilities.
She cannot see a way to bridge so great a distance and so she hides away.
And perhaps somewhere inside she loved Ibrahim and something in her warmed to his gaze, his touch, but she had locked herself away so tightly she did not know how to open up to him and now she sees she has missed her chance.
***
It does not take long before Imen finds out something of my past.
“The servants say you are a great healer,” she says.
I almost drop the cup of water I am holding. “Who told you that?”
“All of them,” smiles Imen.
I shake my head. “I do not practice now,” I tell her. “That was a long time ago.”
She looks surprised. “You are not that old,” she giggles. “Why do you no longer use your skills?”
“I found a new way to serve,” I say to her.
“I thought you might give me something,” she says, confidingly. “Something to bring me a child.”
“A child?”
She laughs. “Why so surprised? Of course, a child. For Ibrahim, he would be so happy.”
“You are young,” I stumble over my words. “You—you will not need anyone’s help to conceive a child.”
“A little help never hurt,” she smiles at me.
I offer her the red cup at arm’s length. I try not to think, nor feel, while I mix what will bring a child. Let her own desire work on it, not my own.
I see her with Zaynab, giggling over the antics of a cat, peering over the rooftops while they munch on sweet pastries and drink fresh juices.
I see Zaynab’s little heart open up to this, the first person to show her real love and kindness, day after day.
It makes my heart sting. I love you too, I want to say to her, I love you, but I am afraid to let it show, I am afraid of what I do to those around me.
I swallow and look away when I see them happy together.
I wish I could join them, hold Zaynab’s warm little body and hug her to me, laugh with Imen over nonsense, relish the warm sun on my skin in the company of people who have some faith in life.
Instead, I lower my eyes and return to the silence of Djalila’s rooms where I continue to shield her from a world that means her no harm but which she has designated her enemy.
***
It is dark when I hear her retch. I listen again but I do not need to hear that sound a second time. I turn my face to the wall, pull the blanket over my face and weep.
Imen’s belly swells in the sun, a ripening that foretells happiness for her, for Ibrahim, even for Zaynab who is enchanted with the idea of a sibling.
I see the growing curve beneath her robes and look away, conscious only of a gathering storm.
There is a darkness growing even as the light comes, its equal and opposite shadow.
I know that Djalila is unhappy, the red weals on her skin emerge with ever greater regularity and not all my pleading will turn her from what gives her relief.
Meanwhile Imen drinks daily from the red cup and beams at me, certain that it is I who have helped her fall with child.
It is night when I hear a scraping sound from Djalila’s rooms. I make my way to her in the shadows, my feet stepping according to memory rather than sight. I reach out one hand and push at the door, remain in the doorway while I watch her.
She kneels in the pool of light cast by a lantern. Her arms are red with weals from wrist to armpit. One hand works frantically, grinding a substance, the other holds the red cup still.
“The cup is mine,” I tell her.
“I have need of it,” she says.
“For yourself?”
She keeps grinding.
“You do not know what it does,” I tell her. “You cannot use it.”
“You put a child in her belly,” she tells me, her words emerging in little pants.
“Ibrahim put a child in her belly, whether you wish to hear it or not,” I say.
She shakes her head but does not stop grinding. A drop of sweat trickles down her face but she does not wipe it away.
For the second time in my life, I throw the cup.
Even while it is in the air I pray for it to break, but it does not.
Its dark wood is too sturdy, the hard sound it makes as it hits the tiled floor echoes around us and I leave the room so that I do not have to hear Djalila’s sobs, nor stifle my own.
***
But I should have taken the cup and cast it in the sea, thrown it into the desert’s sands, buried it in some dark place.
I waken to Hayfa’s rough grasp on my shoulder, my whole body shaking under her desperation.
“What,” I begin but she has half-pulled me to my feet before I am ready to stand. I stagger.
“The master calls for you,” she says.
“It is still dark,” I protest.
“The young mistress is bleeding,” pants Hayfa.
I run.
***
I try. I try the cup, but my fear is so great when I set it to Imen’s lips that I think all she receives from me is more fear to add to her own.
I try to change her position while all around me the whole household kneels in silent prayer.
In the silence I watch her life leave and know that Ibrahim’s son goes with her.
***
Darkness falls over our house. Ibrahim’s arms are empty. Djalila’s heart has been shown to be broken past repair. I dare not love. And Zaynab is growing, growing ever more like her mother in beauty, but without a mother’s love.
***
And five long years pass.