Chapter Kairouan #2
I have never been free. I was a child when I left my parents’ house.
Since then, I have been bound by an oath that has made me progressively more unhappy.
Now I sit on the warm back of a good-natured nut-brown camel and feel the breeze and the sun on my face.
Ahead, Moez rides his own camel, a strong beast taller than my own, a pale sandy colour.
Occasionally he looks back at me and when he does, I smile and his face lightens with joy.
There is little noise about us, the soft pad-pad of the camels’ steps, the rustle of tree leaves and birdsong.
Occasionally a farmer in his fields or a fellow merchant heading to Kairouan will call out a greeting.
In the hottest part of the day, we rest for a while under an olive tree and Moez offers me meat and bread, dates and almonds, fresh water.
I think that in all the years in Ibrahim’s house, where food is plentiful and elaborate, I have not eaten as well as this.
I chuckle a little at the thought of Hayfa’s face were I to tell her such a thing, she would take offence when her cooking is some of the best in Kairouan, her dainty sweetmeats and well-seasoned dishes of meat being dismissed for such simple fare.
“What makes you laugh?” asks Moez.
“I have been foolish,” I tell him. “I have waited too long to live my own life.”
He does not laugh. He only nods. “I waited too long to speak with you,” he says.
I shake my head. “I would not have heard your words before,” I tell him. “You spoke when I could hear you.”
We are silent for a while, the cool shade of the tree above us providing respite from the worst heat of the day. After a while Moez lays his head in my lap and I stroke his hair.
***
We go no further than this. Sometimes it is my head in his lap, sometimes his in mine.
We do not kiss; we only enjoy the quietness of our closeness.
I have not known this before, this trust and gentleness.
When the day comes to meet Moez’s mother, I kneel willingly before her to ask for a blessing and my smile is so broad that she laughs at me and tells Moez that he has waited too long to marry such a merry woman.
We stay away longer than the month I promised.
I do not want to leave this place, this tiny village, hidden in the fold of a valley, protected by the mountains all around us.
Perhaps Kairouan’s noise and smell, its boldness and greatness, has lost its magic for me.
I picture myself living here instead, a healer using only what herbs come to hand, of service to those who need my help, the red cup left behind in Ibrahim’s house, to grow dusty without use.
“We could stay here,” I say tentatively to Moez.
“You would not be bored?” he asks.
I shake my head.
He smiles. “I might have to travel away from you, to trade, from time to time,” he says.
“You would return to me,” I say.
“I would,” he says and it is a solemn promise.
We will have to return to Kairouan, of course, to make our farewells, to gather our belongings, to plan a new life together.
“But not yet,” I beg and he smiles.
***
It is a trader who brings the news that Kairouan has been attacked. He escaped the worst of it and fled here, to his family’s home village. Half his face is mottled with bruises.
“Attacked?” I ask. “What do you mean, attacked?”
“The Zirids shifted allegiance to Baghdad,” he begins.
“That happened months ago,” I say.
“The Fatimids’ Caliph sent the Bedouin tribes to humble Kairouan.”
“Humble it?” I think of the vastness of the city, of its power and wealth and cannot imagine what could humble it.
“They targeted the traders, the souks, the marketplace, for they are what makes Kairouan rich. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands of horsemen, each armed with long lances and sharp daggers. The fine leathers of the tanneries were slashed with knives, the carpets were burnt, the copper pots thrown into the furnaces to lose their beaten shapes and return them to a molten, useless mass.”
“Did no-one fight them?” I ask, outraged.
“Those who tried were killed. They were without mercy. Women hid in fear of their honour and their lives, even children were not safe. When night fell the city lay in darkness, all of us cowering in our homes, too afraid to light lanterns in case it drew unwanted attention.”
The man takes a shuddering breath and the villagers, gathered around, breath with him.
“And then?” I prompt him.
“We believed the destruction to be complete. They had killed so many, ruined so many livelihoods. Surely it was enough for the Caliph. But in the darkest part of the night certain parts of the city were set alight and many houses burnt to the ground. The smoke choked most of the inhabitants in their sleep.”
I feel the fear rising from him even as he speaks, can smell the stink of it even before tears begin to roll down his face. My own fear is so strong I am not even sure the smell of it is not coming from me, from my own body.
“The streets were filled with wailing and screams. Children wandered lost and afraid, animals bleated and brayed. In the shadows men turned on one another and fought, unsure if they were breaking the bones of a stranger or their neighbour, too afraid to pause to find out. By the dawn half the city was on fire and the warriors rode through the streets again, killing anyone they saw. Those who could, escaped the city. Some managed to make their way to a mosque and claim sanctuary, although I do not know if it will be granted once they leave its sacred space.”
His family lead the man away to rest, his shoulders heaving.
Moez sits down beside me and puts his arm about my waist. “I cannot believe this has happened,” he murmurs. “We will wait before we go there, until it is safe to do so. And we will return here, to live simply, as we planned.”
But I am shaking my head. “This is my fault,” I say, my face white, my hands cold.
Moez frowns. “What do you mean?”
“I broke my vow,” I whisper. “I made a vow to Allah when I was eighteen to atone for a sinful deed and I broke it. I was selfish, thinking only of my own happiness. And He has shown me his displeasure.”
Moez turns me to look at him. “Are you mad, Hela?” he asks. “You think breaking a vow you made when you were hardly more than a child has led to the destruction of Kairouan?”
I look into his eyes, his worried gaze. “Yes,” I say.
At first, he utterly refuses my request to return to Kairouan. “It is not safe, Hela, do you not understand this?” he asks, his usual soft voice rising almost to a shout at my stubborn insistence.
I kneel before his mother. “I ask for your forgiveness,” I say. “I am unworthy to be your son’s wife. I must go.”
“We must not be so proud as to believe that we are the only person of importance to Allah,” she says softly. “Hela, I do not know what your vow was, but this destruction—it is our rulers’ making, not yours.”
I bow my head to her, then rise and leave her home. “I will walk if you do not come with me,” I tell Moez.
He does not allow that, of course. We make our way back to Kairouan with only two camels, passing day by day the places where we were once happy. We eat but I do not taste it, we sleep but I toss and turn, then wake when it is still night and beg Moez to continue our journey even in the darkness.
***
At first, we see nothing out of the ordinary, after all we are many days’ travel from Kairouan.
But when only two days separate us from the city, we see the blackened fields where crops and even ancient olive trees have been burnt.
We see the city in the distance, smoke plumes still rising from it.
We meet more and more people heading away from the city walls, their belongings bundled on carts and camels, mules and donkeys, even on their backs if they have no other means.
Their faces are drawn in fear and they do not stop to talk, to tell us more than we already know.
We gather only that the warriors of the Banu Hilal and Banu Sulaym tribes still roam the streets, the sharp clatter of their horses’ hooves the only bold sound left in a city that cowers and creeps, that huddles in fear.
***
We leave the camels outside the city walls and make our way in through one of the minor gates.
We walk the silent streets, the smell of rotting flesh and smoke thick in our nostrils.
I hear Moez retch behind me when we pass a corpse but my eyes are fixed straight ahead.
We take care to stick to the side streets and even so we see the invaders pass by a few times, their white robes bright in the sun’s glare, their faces fierce.
We cower against the walls but they do not care about us, we are too abject to be worthy of their attention now that the city is on its knees before them.
***
Ibrahim’s workshops have been burnt to the ground, the wooden doors gone, with only metal hinges to show where they should hang. I walk through them, my feet sinking in ashes as little scraps of burnt paper patterns and wool float past on the wind.
“Why are we here?” asks Moez.
Because I am afraid to go to the house, I think. Because people may have escaped from their place of work, but from their own house? Because I am a coward. I do not speak, only walk away from the workshops and towards home.
***
The street is silent and the door that leads to Ibrahim’s house is gone, fallen into ash.
Moez grips my arm. “Enough,” he says. “I ask you not to enter.”
I turn to face him and I do not even need to speak.
He steps back from me. “I will be waiting,” he says. “Where my shop was, if it is still there—and even if it is not. I will wait for however long it takes.”
I do not answer him. I hear his footsteps fade away before I enter the courtyard, where there was once a fountain and a garden.