The Jewel Of Medina Page 35

  “Nothing.” In truth, that was the problem, but I didn’t feel like talking about Muhammad. Would he blame me for the loss of our child? In a way, it had been my fault. If I’d heeded his command to leave him in peace, I wouldn’t have fallen from the tree. How could I bear his blame? I would shatter like a rock under the hammer’s blow.

  “Watching Muhammad mourn will only make me feel worse,” I said. I smiled at the women crowded around me. “And I have all of you here, my sisters. Who could be more comforting?”

  They tended to me every moment for days, feeding me, bathing me, telling me stories, helping me heal. At night they left me alone to rest—but in truth, I slept very little. My lost child filled my dreams: the bubbling laughter I would never hear, the milky fat face I would never kiss. Early one morning I awoke in tears and remembered Muhammad. The month was nearly over. Tomorrow he would come down from the attic and reveal his decision. What would he say? Would he be sorry to learn that I really had been carrying his child? Or would he be relieved that I had lost it, freeing him to divorce me?

  How one moment, one slip, had changed my world so completely! Against the bleak landscape of my baby’s death, the possibility of divorce now seemed less terrible to me than it had before.

  I considered my options. If Muhammad divorced me, I could marry someone else—Talha, perhaps, who’d bragged at Zaynab’s wedding feast that he would make me his wife someday. With another husband, I’d contend with three other wives, at most, since the limit was four for ordinary men. And I’d be free to roam with my face unveiled.

  Maybe, with a different husband, I could conceive again. My little man, gone! My stomach knotted at the thought of my baby’s death. I sank to my knees, intending to pray, but I doubled over and wept, instead. Conceiving a child with Muhammad had taken so long, with his energies divided among ten women and his stamina diminished by age. If he kept me, would I ever bear him a son?

  I heard a man’s shout and stood to yank my curtain shut. Not yet time for the morning prayer, and already neck-craners were gathering in the courtyard! But no. In the slow blooming dawn I saw Muhammad trudging toward my hut, practically glowing in his white gown. The light in his copper eyes was subdued, like stars behind clouds, and the lines in his face pulled at his skin. He looked for all the world like a messenger bearing bad news, and my first impulse was to hide from him, or to run into the mosque and out the door. I’d had all the sorrow I could withstand.

  But a true warrior doesn’t flee, and in spite of the restrictions against my fighting I still considered myself a warrior. So I walked to my door and flung it open, facing my destiny with my chin thrust forward. Here came the man who’d ignored my pleas for his love and sent me, sobbing, down the date-palm tree. Hadn’t he caused the tears that had sent me hurtling to the ground? Nothing he could do now would hurt me more than that.

  “Ahlan, yaa Prophet,” I said. “What a surprise to see you here today! You said you’d return in a month, but it has only been twenty-nine days.”

  The clouds parted from his eyes for a moment, revealing a glimmer. “This month, A’isha, has twenty-nine days only.”

  I refused him the smile he sought, as he’d refused to acknowledge me in his attic apartment. Holding my back as stiff as an arrow, I turned and walked inside as though I didn’t care whether he followed me or not. I heard the door whoosh shut and turned around to face him. To face my destiny, which he held in his hands, because nothing of mine belonged to me.

  His eyes searched mine, as if he were the one with the questions. His hair in damp ringlets, his sweet, fresh-bathed fragrance. His hands reaching out as if to hold me.

  “You look pale, A’isha. Have you been ill?”

  I closed my eyes. Summoning my strength.

  “I thought you would have heard,” I said.

  “Didn’t Umar tell you?”

  “I have spoken to no one except al-Lah this month. I vowed on my first day to listen to Him only.”

  “Is that why you ignored me when I came to see you?”

  “You ignored my request to be left alone.”

  My sob surprised me, sharp and sudden as breaking glass. “You ignored my request to talk with you before you left. I had so many things to tell you! But now it’s too late.”

  He stepped close to me and laid his hands on my shoulders. “Too late for what, habibati?”

  I jerked away from his touch as if his hands were flames. How I’d longed for his solace these past days, as I’d grieved for our lost child! Now, though, as he stood before me with divorce on his mind, I had no desire for his comfort. His kindness would only make me cry, and I didn’t want my eyes to be wet when he told me his decision. I was A’isha bint Abi Bakr, and I groveled before no one. No matter how much I loved him.

  “Your son is dead, Muhammad.”

  He clutched at his beard. “Maryam—”

  “No, not Maryam!” I took a deep breath, and when I spoke again it was in a calm, quiet voice. “Not Maryam. Me. I had an—accident, and I lost our child.” In spite of myself, I began to cry. “He was almost three months old, and I loved him so much, and now he’s gone and I have no one. He would have been so wonderful, Muhammad. He would have been ours.”

  I pressed my hands to my face, capturing my tears and hiding my shame, hoping he wouldn’t ask me how it had happened. If I told him I’d fallen from the date-palm tree, he’d know it was my fault that our baby had died.

  I felt his arms slide around my shoulders, and I buried my face in his beard, breathing in sandalwood and miswak, relishing the comfort I’d missed and would never, after this morning, feel again.

  “A’isha, I am sorry,” Muhammad said. His voice tore like cloth on a thorn tree, and I looked up to see his eyes spilling tears. “I should have been there. I should not have left you.”

  “Except you didn’t believe I was pregnant. Why would you? I’d been acting like a child until then, accusing Maryam of having a lover, calling Umm Habiba a spy, fighting assassins to show what a warrior I am.”

  “You saved my life.” His eyes were luminous. “Your courage continues to astound me. And now I know how brave you have always been. Being married to me was more difficult for you than I imagined.”

  His resigned tone sent a shudder through my blood, but I managed to give him a faint smile. “Why do you speak in the past tense, habib?” I said, keeping my voice light. “Aren’t we still married?”

  He gave me a long, quiet look. I held my smile up like a shield.

  “That depends on you,” he said.

  “On me?” I forced a laugh. “You’re mistaken about that, husband. Our marriage contract doesn’t give me the power to divorce, only you.”

  “I am giving you that power now.”

  Pressed against him, I could feel his heartbeat like pounding fists against his chest. I looked up into his pooling eyes and saw my own open-mouthed reflection.

  “The decision is yours to make, A’isha.” My heart thrummed like powerful wings. I saw that his tears were gone, and that his face had stiffened as if he wore a mask.

  “What decision?” I said.

  “You can choose me and this life, or you can divorce me and marry someone else.”

  My stomach writhed. What strange game was this? His face was such a blank, I couldn’t read his emotions. I pulled away from him and walked to my window. Outside, the sun lifted its face to the new day.

  “I don’t understand your game. If you want to divorce me, husband, please say so.”

  “It is no game, A’isha. I had vowed to listen only to al-Lah, but He opened my ears to your words the other night. When you left I wept tears of anger for my own ignorance. How little I have known of you! I did not know how miserable those years in purdah were for you.”

  “And you restricted my freedom later,” I said. “It hardly seems fair, when I’m as good with a sword as anyone.”

  “The umma watches my every move, and so do my enemies. They watch you also.”


  “Let them watch! I’ve never cared what anyone else thinks.”

  “As the favored wife of al-Lah’s Messenger, you must learn to care. I love your spirit, habibati, but others do not.” In a few strides he’d closed the distance between us and stood before me at the window. “A’isha, as long as you are my wife you will have to hide yourself away, out of the glare of gossip and away from the threats of my enemies. I cannot afford the distractions or the added dangers.”

  “And I can’t live like a bird in a cage,” I said.

  “No one is caging you. You are free to fly away now, if you wish. It was never my desire that you, or any woman, should be forced to marry me.”

  “Did you think I chose you at age six?” I huffed, impatient with his naivety. “Did you think I could even make a choice at that age?”

  “I did not think about it at all, I am sorry to say. Your words from the date-palm tree showed me many things I had not known. Without the freedom to choose your own destiny, you are nothing more than a slave, A’isha. And you know I do not keep slaves.”

  “What are you saying?” My voice snagged in my throat.

  “You are free, A’isha. To choose.” He stepped to the cushions in the corner and settled himself, waiting.

  As thoughts and emotions collided in me I turned again to the window, trying to make sense of Muhammad’s offer. I, choose my destiny? That was like giving a camel the choice of which pasture to graze in. The morning breeze carried the fragrance of lavender, and I breathed it in, remembering my girlhood days wandering the hills and picking flowers. Divorced from Muhammad, I could do so again, without hiding behind a screen in my own home and without having to hold my wrapper over my face. As a free woman I could marry again if I chose or I could remain single.

  Safwan still watched me with haunted eyes whenever I ventured out. He’d eagerly marry me—but he’d be even stricter than Muhammad. Talha would be a kind and respectful husband, and I could be happy with him. But how happy? Would I bubble with laughter and song at the thought of seeing him, as I did with Muhammad? Would my skin zing with lightning at his touch, or my body quiver from a single kiss?

  I turned to Muhammad, who sat with crossed legs and eyes closed, his brow lined with worry, his mouth a thin line. Here was the man I had loved all my life, the man who’d taught me to fight, who’d shown me the ways of passion, who’d fathered the child I’d lost because of my love for him. With Muhammad, I was truly free—to speak, to dream, to make mistakes, to be myself. I might not be the queen of his harim, but I was the Great Lady of his heart. And now he’d given me the freedom and the power to choose my own destiny, the greatest gift anyone had ever given to me. In doing so, he had made me completely, utterly his own.

  I knelt before him and removed the turban from his head. His eyes opened, and I saw fear race through them like a cold fire. I lifted his hand and pressed it to my cheek, and the fire went out, quenched by his tears.

  “I choose you,” I said.

  He lowered his mouth to mine, and we drank each other deeply as if our love were the rain we’d been praying for these past years. I pressed my head to his heart, hearing it beat for me, feeling my pulse keep time with the murmurs and sighs that were his own love’s song.

  “A’isha,” he murmured. “My beloved.”

  He kissed me one last, lingering time. It was a kiss that promised many more in the days and years to come. Then, too soon, he untangled himself from my arms and reached for his turban.

  “Don’t go yet, habibi,” I begged. “Tarry with me awhile.”

  His eyes brimmed with love. “I will return,” he said. “Very soon.”

  I felt a stab of jealousy until I realized that his smile was a grim one. I knew he didn’t want to leave me but that he had a duty to perform. I remembered my sister-wives’ tears as they’d nursed me and fretted over their futures, and fear for them sprang me to my feet to stop him.

  “Muhammad, wait!” I said. He turned to me, and I clasped his hands. “Are you going to divorce your other wives?”

  The vein on his forehead darkened. “That is what you desire, is it not?”

  I lowered my gaze, ashamed of the person he thought I was. “At one time, it might have been. But not now. My sister-wives—they’re all so frightened.” I told him what I’d heard as they’d nursed me, how their lives would be as dust if he cast them aside. “They need you, Muhammad.” I swallowed my own fear and met his gaze. “Even more than I do.”

  The vein on his brow disappeared in the tracks of his broad smile. “My A’isha,” he said. “A woman at last.” His words spread a warm glow from my heart to my fingertips, and I pulled myself a little taller.

  He turned to leave again, but I halted him with a touch.

  “Please don’t tell my sister-wives what I’ve said about them. They spoke privately, among women, and they may not want you to know their fears.”

  His nod was curt. “On the other hand,” he said, “they may be pleased to hear how you spoke on their behalf. And this is one pleasure I would not want to withhold from them.”

  I waited for an hour, pacing more trenches in my floor. When Muhammad returned to me, would he bring good news or bad? Some said it would save the umma if he divorced us all, that it would stop the speculation that he was weak where women were concerned. Others said it would destroy islam by breaking the ties Muhammad had built with his marriages. As for me, I knew only that losing Muhammad would destroy my sister-wives.

  The knock on my door made me jump. I raced to answer it—my heart throwing itself against my chest. In the doorway stood Muhammad, his face grave—and, clustered behind him, all the women of the harim, their eyes spilling tears. Sorrow covered me like dirt over a grave, and I cried out, knowing they were lost.

  Zaynab stepped forward, her plump arms outstretched, her gold eyes flashing. “We have heard how you pled for us to our husband,” she said. “Now—” a sob caught in her throat, snagging her words, “—we have come to thank you, and to make you our hatun.”

  I opened my mouth, but, in my astonishment, no words would come. Then, in one motion, my sister-wives joined Zaynab in stretching out their arms to me, then folding themselves in a deep bow. Muhammad stood in their center, his wild hair flying, his smile leaping like light from his face before he whisked off his turban and bowed nearly all the way to the ground.

  TEN THOUSAND FIRES

  MEDINA, THEN MECCA, FEBRUARY 630

  SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD

  Each day was an unfinished thought. Night was a secret bursting to be told. People spoke in hushed tones. Questions marked all our faces.

  Our invasion of Mecca was close at hand, and as eagerly anticipated as the next rains. Why does the Prophet delay? my sister-wives would ask me. I’d shrug, pretending I knew nothing. In truth, Muhammad had kept our departure date a secret even from me. He planned to surprise the Meccans with our army. Yet I could guess why we tarried, for I saw the answer in Muhammad’s eyes when he laid his hand on Maryam’s swollen belly. He was waiting—we all waited—for a child.

  I wasn’t jealous. I had nothing to fear now from this child or from my sister-wives. Since they’d made me the hatun, no one could take my status away, not even the mother of Muhammad’s heir. Nor should anyone want to, for I governed the harim fairly, forgoing the revenge I’d vowed against Zaynab, whom I hated no more. My sister-wives had honored me. Would I treat them dishonorably in return?

  In truth, I admired Zaynab for giving up the position. She’d resisted at first, Hafsa said, but then, after meditating and praying, agreed—and convinced Umm Salama to support the change. It is a small gesture, compared to the effort A’isha has made on our behalf, Zaynab had said.

  We were no longer enemies, but my troubles were far from over. Now that I was the hatun, Ali criticized me more than ever, commenting on the chaos in the cooking tent as if it were new, spitting out the food I cooked and claiming it tasted like poison, and following me to the market like a persistent shadow in
hopes of catching me in some sin that would degrade me and my father in Muhammad’s eyes.

  Muhammad took little notice of Ali. His only thoughts were for the baby. “He’s patient, like his father,” I teased Muhammad, who fretted constantly about the lateness of the birth.

  “Babies have been being born since Eve had her first young one,” Sawdah told him. “It will come in al-Lah’s time, not ours.”

  Time stretched thin and quivering, ready with a birth of its own. A group of horses escaped from their pens and galloped into the mosque, where they injured a praying man with their flailing hooves. Meanwhile, Maryam, unconcerned with our impending invasion, sang and laughed as though each day were the first of spring. I and Sawdah walked every morning to her home, fretting over another battle with Quraysh and worrying over our loved ones in Mecca until the whitewashed bricks of Maryam’s house came into sight. Like everyone else in the harim, I’d been glad to see her exiled to the country, but now I envied her. Here she tended her own flower garden; through her window she could view the craggy orange-black cliffs ringing Medina. Here she could rest her mind, away from the demands of the burgeoning umma.

  Every day in Medina brought more mouths to feed. Muhammad’s influence was spreading like sunlight across a land darkened by ignorance. Converts to islam poured into Medina, few of them with knowledge of farming. These new umma members suffered as we had at first, from the Medina fever and, most of all, from empty purses.

  As Muhammad’s hatun, I was supposed to provide their first meal. Under my direction, barley simmered constantly, and servants presented bowls of it to as many as fifty people a day. We wives ground the meal, hauled water, made bread and milked goats as we wore the new veils Umm Salama had fashioned to free our hands.

  The tributes to Muhammad from foreign leaders had dwindled, for there were only so many kings in our world. Muhammad sent Zayd and a few others to invite the Byzantine emperor to accept islam, but they were mocked and jeered out of Constantinople. Then, in the desert, tragedy struck. The emperor’s warriors pursued our men and killed them all. Zayd’s death haunted the umma, causing even Zaynab to cry copious tears. Umm Ayman carried her grief like a flag, stumbling glassy-eyed through the streets and shrieking Zayd’s name as though a djinni tormented her.