The Jewel Of Medina Page 33

  “Do not worry, A’isha. He will not only believe your tale, but his heart will soften toward you when he realizes what you have done for him—for all of us.”

  “What about Nu’man, abi? Do you have a plan?”

  He frowned. “Not yet, but I wonder—do you have a strategy for me to present?”

  I stared at him, not sure I’d heard correctly. My father, asking me for advice? Was he teasing me? But his face held only respect. The plan I had already formed in my head sprang readily to my lips.

  “I would send our scouts in all directions to find the Yemeni encampment. It has to be nearby,” I said. “Don’t you think so?

  He nodded. “By al-Lah, I do.”

  “Have Ali and Zayd and some of their best men sneak up on them tonight, before you leave on your journey. Then send Nu’man’s head on his sword to the Yemeni king.”

  With Muhammad and my father off to appease the Ghatafani, Umar took command of the umma. Normally we in the harim cringed at this arrangement. As much as Umar enjoyed devising new restrictions on Muhammad’s wives, he seemed to like enforcing them even more. But this time, with so many new converts in Medina, he was too busy arbitrating disputes, finding housing, and recruiting warriors to worry about the harim. At least for a while.

  As for us, we were busy with our new enterprise. The wedding of our first client, Ghazala, was less than two weeks away, and my sister-wives had a gown to sew and adorn, face paints to mix, fragrances to extract, henna to prepare. They tested their concoctions on one another, then refined them. This would be their first paying work, and they intended to make the bride’s mother faint at the sight of her daughter’s beauty. The praise she would spread afterward would send every bride in Medina to the Prophet’s wives.

  I didn’t help them much. I still felt queasy and tired from my pregnancy, and I spent much of my time in the tent city. Our three-year drought had only worsened the lives of the tent-dwellers. People died of hunger and disease, women and babies cried, men hung their heads in despair. How could I help any of them? Yet I kept trying. Every few days I’d lead Scimitar, loaded with barley and dates, across Medina to their sad enclave, where the people welcomed me as warmly as if I were one of their own.

  Each time I returned from my visits with Umm al-Masakin’s poor, my sister-wives would sit me in the cooking tent’s “nest” and display their accomplishments. Umm Salama would lift the veil from her face with a flourish, showing off her made-up eyes, or Zaynab would bare her arms to show Hafsa’s latest design. I’d never heard my sister-wives laugh so much, or talk so eagerly together. For the first time ever, I looked forward to going home.

  A few days before the client Ghazala’s wedding, I came home to a surprise: Raihana rattling her tambourine and Sawdah playing her tanbur while the gentle Juwairriyah danced in the bride’s gown, a confection of green and gold, her hands and arms adorned with peacocks whose tails seemed to shimmer with color. As she moved she wafted a perfume of cardamom and rose, Raihana’s invention; and then, to my delight, removed her wrapper to reveal her brass-colored hair wound in a shining series of coils, eyes so dramatically lined with kohl that they seemed to leap off her face, and lips not only stained a fetching red, but as moist and glimmering as if she’d been kissing dewdrops.

  “By al-Lah! I’m glad Muhammad isn’t here to see this vision of loveliness,” I said, laughing but only partly joking. My sister-wives laughed, also, and Hafsa leapt up to join Juwairriyah’s dance, twirling and flipping her hair and writhing her body like a serpent, surprising us all. In the next moment Zaynab was dancing and making up a song about dirhams and the new gowns they would buy, while Saffiya snapped her fingers and jerked her head from side to side, holding out her hands and beckoning me to join them.

  Exhausted by the demands of my pregnancy, I demurred, but Hafsa danced over and pulled me to my feet. Then Umm Salama stepped into the circle, and even Umm Habiba. Soon we were all dancing and laughing and clapping to Sawdah’s plinks and Raihana’s clinks, which grew faster and faster until I forgot my weariness and my sister-wives became a blur. We bumped into one another and shrieked and sang until the cooking tent must have looked as if a samoom whirled within.

  Immersed in clamor and joy, none of us heard Umar’s thunder. Sawdah must have spied him in the entryway, because her music was the first to cease. Raihana’s rattle stopped next, and then we all ceased dancing and turned to our musicians, perplexed. We followed their dread-filled gazes to Umar, his hands planted on his hips and his face curled into a sneer that told us we were doing something very bad.

  The room was silent for a moment and then, remembering the rule against seeing our faces, he commanded us all to cover ourselves. When we had done so, he entered the tent, picked up Sawdah’s tanbur, and broke it over his knee. Sawdah cried out, and some of us gasped, but no one spoke. The blustery Umar intimidated even me, especially now, when I carried a vulnerable child in my womb.

  “The Prophet would not like this music,” he said, his voice rough.

  He spoke the truth: The modest Muhammad enjoyed a private show, but he disapproved of public performance. Yet not all the sister-wives trembled in fear at Umar’s thunder.

  “It is fortunate for the Prophet, then, that he is not here,” Umm Salama retorted in a cold, clear voice. I stared at her: Was she possessed by a djinni? No one spoke back to Umar.

  “He will be here soon, and there will be trouble when he learns of this party you have put on!” Umar cried. Then his eyes took in the mortars and pestles and colored powders and inks, the bottles of fragrant oil, the scraps of cloth and cutting knives and thread, all scattered at his feet like lost hopes.

  “Where did you find the money for all these trinkets and frills?” He spied a purse of silver coins on the floor: Ghazala’s mother’s down-payment for supplies. Hafsa reached for it, but he grabbed it away from her.

  “Daughter, you did not get these dirhams from me! Did your mother give you this? If so, she stole it from me, and I am taking it back.”

  “I didn’t get it from ummi,” Hafsa said in an almost-whisper. “Nor does it belong to you.”

  “Who, then? Certainly not from the Prophet.”

  “The Prophet has no money to give, abi.”

  “Just tell me where you obtained it, by al-Lah!” He raised his fist. “Answer me, or—”

  “No!” I flung myself in front of her, shielding her with my body. “She’s not yours to strike, Umar, not anymore. And Muhammad doesn’t beat his wives.”

  “Move out of my way, A’isha.” Shadows gathered on his pocked face as he lifted his fist.

  I thrust my chin out at him, pretending not to be afraid even though my very breath trembled. “Would you strike me, and risk injuring the Prophet’s heir?” I challenged.

  Umar’s mouth opened. His eyes widened like full moons. I patted my stomach and smiled, and watched with satisfaction as he moved his hand slowly down to his side.

  “Yaa Umar, that money belongs to Umm Jibrail, the merchant’s wife,” Umm Salama said, stepping up to stand before him. “She has given it to us to buy these materials. We are going to be her daughter’s tire women.”

  The money pouch fell to the floor. Umm Salama’s hand dived to snatch it up.

  “The Prophet’s wives working for pay?” Umar frowned.

  “We are helping Muhammad by helping ourselves,” Zaynab said.

  “That cannot be.” He shook his head. “I forbid it.”

  I sucked in my breath. Hafsa stepped forward. “Abi, no! We’ve promised Umm Jibrail. We’ve already spent her money, see?”

  “You have wasted her money. I will talk with her husband today and tell him there has been a mistake.”

  “Then you will speak falsely,” Umm Salama said. “We have made no mistakes.”

  Umar’s laughter seemed to quake the sides of the tent. “You made a mistake when you planned this affair without consulting your husband,” he said. “By al-Lah! He has let his wives command the househ
old, instead of taking charge himself. But women will not rule as long as I am in control.”

  In my ears a door slammed, and I felt the hot whirr of caged wings in my chest. Helplessness filled my mouth like a fist.

  “An impressive display of power, Umar,” Raihana drawled. “As is that belly of yours. Tell me, gold-ringed one, what was your feast today? Lamb? Rice with saffron?”

  “We had barley mush,” Juwairriyah said. “And two dates each.”

  “Yaa Umar,” I said, finding my voice again, “if you’re going to stop us from buying food, you should at least share yours with us.”

  “And those nice gowns your wives possess,” Zaynab said. “That green one I saw Hafsa’s mother wearing last week would look stunning on me.”

  “Silence!” Umar waved his arms as if he would knock us all down. “You are the Prophet’s wives, not mine.”

  “You speak truly,” Umm Salama said. “And only Muhammad can forbid us to work for Umm Jibrail.”

  “By al-Lah, I say you will not leave this mosque! Whoever tries it will be whipped—in the middle of the market.”

  “Yaa Umar, they don’t mean to cause any scandals,” Sawdah said, fingering her Evil-Eye amulet and darting her glance from his face to the floor. “The girls are hungry, that is all. You know what a bad drought we are in. And the children here are all growing up. Without any babies to care for, there is not much for them to do.”

  “These are not my concerns,” Umar growled. “I said you will not leave the mosque, and I mean it. I will post guards outside the doors to ensure you obey me.”

  I laughed out loud, unable to believe his audacity. Standing before us in his rich tapestry of a robe, his breath smelling of lamb and cumin and honey, depriving us of a few measly pieces of silver! I looked about the cooking tent and saw the old, familiar lines pulling like harness ropes at my sister-wives’ mouths, felt the gaiety that had quickened our limbs and our hearts flee from the tent like frightened birds. A fierce protective urge rose within me.

  I pulled my dagger from my belt, wishing I could erase my sister-wives’ sorrows with my blade. “Don’t worry, sisters. I’ll deliver your gown and prepare the bride myself.”

  “I will have you bound and imprisoned first,” Umar said. As he advanced toward me, my sister-wives beat him back with their slaps, and soon the very heavens must have quaked from the cries of nine outraged women and one—Sawdah—shouting for peace, and one stomping, snorting, yelling man brandishing threats as empty as his heart.

  What a sight must have met Muhammad’s eyes when he walked into the cooking tent at that moment! I don’t know how long he stood there watching the melee before Saffiya cried out his name and broke from the crowd to flee into his arms. The sound of his murmuring to her, so quiet it was a miracle that it could be heard at all, silenced the tent as if he had uttered a magic spell.

  He stood in the slanted evening light with his hair splayed all about him, curling madly from his turban and fringed with gold to match his eyes. His smile looked eerie, out of place under the darkening vein on his brow. And yet—I wanted to shout, to cry—he was alive! Thank you, al-Lah, for guarding him from harm.

  “Afwan, Prophet,” Umar said, his face reddening. “Excuse me. I was trying to instill some discipline into this loose harim.”

  “Loose! He means ‘enterprising,’ husband.” Smiling proudly, I told him of my sister-wives’ business—but the vein between his eyes began to bulge and throb.

  “You cannot allow your wives to solicit money from the umma,” Umar said. “It will make you appear weak.”

  “By al-Lah! I suffer even now in my own esteem,” Muhammad said. “Have my wives planned this without consulting me?” His eyes were stern. “I thought you respected me more.”

  “Yaa Prophet, I feel disrespected when I put on my threadbare clothes,” Umm Salama said.

  “What’s so respectful about forcing me to wear the same gown for almost two years?” Raihana said. “I was a princess when I came to you, and now you make me live like a pauper.”

  “Do any of you wear holes in your clothing?” Muhammad said. “Are you cold or indecently covered?”

  “How do you define ‘indecent’?” Zaynab cried. “I have two gowns, both of them so faded that they drain the color from my face. I can’t bear to see myself in the mirror. By al-Lah! I would rather walk around without any clothes at all.”

  “Yaa Prophet, do you hear how your wives talk?” Umar’s face was as red as raw meat. “This impertinence begs for a whipping.”

  My blood surged at Umar’s cruelty. Here was the man who’d robbed me of my freedom by convincing Muhammad to make me cover my face, and who’d cheated me of my chance to fight for my umma. Now, because we weren’t as meek as he preferred, he wanted to scar our bodies with whips.

  “Yaa Umar, do you think the Prophet’s wives are animals?” I shot back. “First you cage us, and now you want to beat us.”

  Muhammad turned puzzled eyes to me. “You know al-Lah ordered your hijab, A’isha,” he said. “You witnessed His revelation to me in the courtyard.”

  I smirked, remembering that revelation all too well: How it had followed Muhammad’s scandalous wedding to Zaynab, how frustrated he’d been by the delay of his consummation. How his revelation, in essence confining us all to the harim, had closed in upon me like the dark, cold walls of a tomb, nearly driving me into another man’s arms.

  “Yes, I witnessed it,” I said. “I saw everything—including your transformation from a liberator of women into an oppressor of them. Yaa Prophet, was that also the work of al-Lah?”

  FACES OF HOPE

  MEDINA, JUNE 629

  As soon as I’d made my retort to Muhammad, I regretted it. Anger swarmed like hornets about his face, and his eyes told me there was nothing I could say or do to appease him.

  Despair made me want to bite off my tongue. I’d been waiting two weeks for him to return, hoping to see love and forgiveness in his eyes—and then I’d made things worse by opening my mouth. Why do I always have to have the final word? Muhammad, on the other hand, appeared to have no trouble keeping his thoughts to himself. Before I’d finished speaking, he’d turned and walked out of the tent, his only reply the stomping of his feet in the entryway as he kicked the dust off his sandals.

  I cried out to him, my voice a hollow thud. I ran to the tent entrance but he raised his hand as he retreated, signaling me to keep my distance. How I longed to fling myself around him the way the Yemeni beauty Alia had done! But I knew him too well to even try.

  My heart weighted my chest like a stone as I watched him stride to the date-palm tree and climb the rungs fastened to its trunk, up to his apartment in the attic over the mosque. He climbed nimbly and effortlessly as if he might keep going up and up, all the way to Paradise. But he stopped when, in a choked voice, I called out and asked him what he was doing.

  “I am going to contemplate the future,” he said. “You all would be wise to do the same.”

  Contemplate the future? Gathering behind me, my sister-wives urged me to ask him what he meant. But I didn’t dare. I feared I already knew the answer.

  “Yaa Muhammad, when can I talk to you?” I called.

  He continued climbing as if an invisible hand lifted him from rung to rung. “After I have finished my consultations with al-Lah.”

  “About our future?” Saffiya cried in a trembling voice. He stopped again and studied us with the eyes of a father about to discipline the child he loves.

  “About your future, yes,” he said. “And about my future also.”

  “Yaa Muhammad, for how long will you remain in your room?” Zaynab called out.

  “Today is the first day of the month,” he said. “On the last I will return and tell you my decision.”

  He placed his hands on the windowsill of his room, climbed inside, and was gone.

  “Decision?” Hafsa said. “What decision? Does he mean that he might not divorce me, after all?” In all the activi
ty of the past weeks Muhammad had not yet spoken to Umar about her.

  “You think he’s going up there to think about you? He’d be back in thirty minutes instead of thirty days,” Raihana said. “The Prophet isn’t shutting himself away to ponder his future with just one of us. In his eyes we’re all riding the same, lame camel.”

  “Raihana speaks truly,” Umm Salama said as we moved back into the tent. “If Muhammad divorces one of us, he will divorce us all.”

  A loud gasp, then a stifled sob interrupted our commentary—and Sawdah, red-faced and clutching her Evil-Eye amulet, fled from the tent.

  Umar, forgotten when Muhammad had walked in, raged past like a stampeding bull, knocking me aside.

  “By al-Lah, he will not divorce any of you, not if I can stop him.” He stamped to the tree and climbed its rungs much more slowly than Muhammad had done, and with a great deal more puffing and sweating.

  I lifted my eyebrows at Hafsa, who looked as startled as I felt. “Umar, defending us?” I said. “Will the moon and the sun change places next?”

  “Yaa A’isha, he is not defending us,” Umm Salama said. “He is defending the umma. If Muhammad divorces us, think of the consequences. Who would follow a man who could not command his own household?”

  Chills scuttled across my skin in the next few weeks whenever I imagined Muhammad’s coming down from his apartment and casting me out of his life. I thought of how his face would look, broken and full of shadows, like the stony ridge of Mount Subh at dusk, and a hole seemed to spread through my chest. He was the only husband I’d ever known, the only man I’d ever loved. My sister-wives moved like spirits about the harim, their eyes haunted, but their pain was nothing compared to mine. They were widows, some with children, all with memories of life before Muhammad, of some other love, perhaps. For me, life before him was a blot on the page, as inscrutable as the existence of my soul before birth. He had always been there, as my mother and father had been. And, for as long as I could remember, he had been my friend.