Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree

Chapter 8

AT A DISTANCE, ON the slopes of the mountain, the white houses of the village were no longer visible, but the flickering of the oil lamps which hung outside them was magical from where Yazid was seated. He knew the lights would not go out till the men and women around him returned home.

The outer courtyard of the house was overflowing with visitors. They were sitting in a large circle on thick carpets which had been placed on the grass. Occasionally, a tiny flame would light the face of al-Zindiq or Miguel, who were seated in the centre of the circle. The coal fires burning in the stoves kept them all warm. There had been over two hundred people present that night when the ‘debate’ had first started.

This family, which for centuries had not thought about anything more demanding than the pleasures of the hunt, the quality of the marinade used by the cooks on the roast lamb being grilled that day, or the new silks which had arrived in Gharnata from China, was tonight confronting history.

Miguel had dominated the evening. At first he had sounded bitter and cynical. The success of the Catholic Church, its practical superiority, he had argued, lay in the fact that it did not even attempt to sweeten the bitter taste of its medicine. It did not bother to deceive; it was not searching for popularity; it did not disguise its shape in order to please its followers. It was disgustingly frank. It shook Man by the shoulders, and shouted in his ear:

‘You were born in excrement and you will live in it, but we might forgive you for being so foul, so vile, so repulsive if you sink to your knees and pray every day for forgiveness. Your pitiful, pathetic existence must be borne with exemplary humility. Life is and will remain a torment. All you can do is to save your soul, and if you do that and keep your discontent well hidden, you might be redeemed. That and that alone will make your life on earth a mite less filthy than it was on the day you were born. Only the damned seek happiness in this world.’

Miguel had paused at this point and studied his audience. They appeared to be in a hypnotic trance and had stared back at him in amazement. In a soft, calm voice, he had taken them on a tour of their past, reminding them not just of the glories of Islam, but also of the defeats, the chaos, the palace despotisms, the internecine wars and the inevitable self-destruction.

‘If our Caliphs and Sultans had wanted things to stay the same, they should have changed the way they governed these lands. Do you think it gave me pleasure to shift religions? Even tonight, I have made some of my own family angry, as you have observed, but I have reached a stage in my life where I can no longer conceal the truth.

‘I love this house and this village. It is because I want them to remain and all of you to prosper that I ask you, once again, to think very seriously. It is already late, but if you do as I say we can still save you. In the end you will convert, but by then the Inquisition will be here and they will question all of you to determine which conversion is true and which is false. Since one of their aims is to confiscate your lands for the Church and the Crown, they will give themselves the benefit of the doubt. I cannot compel you, but those who are coming after me will not be so kind.’

Even though what he had to say was unpopular, it was felt by most of those present that he was nearer the truth than the hotheads who wanted to start a war, for underneath the detached calm which surrounded the seigneurial house, there was a great deal of tension.

Some of those with young children had drifted away after the opening speeches, but Yazid was still wide awake and enjoying every moment. He was sitting near his mother, sharing her large woollen cloak. Next to him was his sister Hind, who had, true to the Berber characteristics she had inherited from her mother’s side, displayed an exuberance which had amazed everyone, except Yazid. She had interrupted her great-uncle several times, laughed sarcastically at his attempted witticisms and muttered the odd obscenity under her breath, but the night air had carried her voice and the village women had applauded. Miguel had responded without anger, secretly admiring Hind’s courage, and publicly proclaiming that he loved her dearly. Her response to this avuncular declaration had been characteristic, but this time she had gone too far and isolated herself.

‘When a serpent says he loves me I wear him as a necklace.’

Ama had cackled loudly, which had surprised Yazid since he knew Ama disapproved strongly of Hind’s behaviour. But Ama had been alone. Even though Miguel was not universally popular, this sort of rudeness did not please the villagers, who felt it was a breach of hospitality to the son of Ibn Farid. The comparison to a snake had upset her great-uncle. His ears had been stung by the venom and he had been unable to prevent the telltale water from filling his eyes.

It was the sight of his uncle in tears that had in turn upset Umar, who had frowned at his wife from the other side of the stove. Zubayda deciphered the signal accurately. She whispered Hind to order, threatening her with marriage to Miguel’s son, simple Juan, unless she disciplined her tongue immediately. The blackmail worked brilliantly. Hind had sidled up to Miguel and apologized in his ear. He had smiled and stroked her head. Peace had returned. Coffee had been served.

Hind was not at all upset, since her own views had been made clear to the assembled company and, in particular, to the stranger who sat in its midst. Ibn Daud, the green-eyed jewel from al-Qahira and the object of her affections, was deep in thought. Ibn Daud had been struck by Hind even before Yazid had blurted out his sister’s secret. Her hot-tempered tongue and sharp, mischievous features had enchanted him, but tonight he was distracted by the debate. He had smiled at Hind’s cheeky assault on her great-uncle, but it was al-Zindiq’s sobering reflections which had become the centre of his preoccupations that evening.

Al-Zindiq had, in polar contrast to Miguel, savaged Christian beliefs and superstitions. He had mocked the old Church for its inability to resist pagan pressures. Why else make Isa a divinity and his mother an object of worship? The Prophet Mohammed, in contrast, had ultimately rejected the same pressures, resisted temptation and disavowed the worship of three female goddesses. That was as far as al-Zindiq was prepared to travel tonight with his co-religionists. He did not defend Islam with the intellectual vigour for which he was renowned, and which had been expected from him on this night. He was too honest a man to contradict those of Miguel’s assertions that he regarded as indisputable. Instead he tried to enthuse his audience by reminding them that a star which waned in one firmament could rise in another. He described the Muslim victories in Istanbul in such graphic detail that a shiver of collective pride shook his audience. As for the decline of al-Andalus, he did not give much credence to some of the more popular explanations.

‘Remember,’ he asked them, ‘the story of the Sultan of Tlemcen and the holy man? The Sultan was attired in his most extravagant clothes when he received Abu Abdallah al-Tunisi. “Is it lawful for me to pray in these fine clothes I am wearing?” he asked his learned visitor. Abu Abdallah laughed and explained his reaction in the following words. “I am laughing, O proud Sultan, at the feebleness of your intellect, your ignorance of yourself and your sorry spiritual state. For me you are like a dog sniffing around in the blood of a carcass and eating filth, but lifting its leg when it urinates lest the liquid soil its body. You ask me about your clothes when the sufferings of men are upon your head.” The Sultan began to weep. He renounced his position and became a follower of the Holy Man.’

Al-Zindiq finished his story amidst cries of ‘Wa Allah’ and the expression of sentiments supporting the thesis that if all the Muslim kings of al-Andalus had behaved in like fashion, the followers of the Prophet would not be in such a sad state at the moment. This was the reaction al-Zindiq expected, and he now confronted them very directly.

‘It sounds good, but would it have saved us? I don’t think so. No amount of religion can succeed in changing the ways of kings unless it is based on something more, on something which our great teacher Ibn Khaldun called solidarity. Our defeats are a result of our failure to preserve the unity of al-Andalus. We let the Caliphate collapse and in its place we let poisonous weeds grow, till they had covered every inch of our garden. The big lords pounced on al-Andalus and divided it amongst themselves. Each became a big fish in a tiny pond, whereas exactly the opposite process was reshaping the kingdoms of Christianity. We founded many dynasties, but failed to find a way of ruling our people according to the dictates of reason. We failed to establish political laws, which could have protected all our citizens against the whims of arbitrary rulers. We who led the rest of the world in the realms of science and architecture, medicine and music, literature and astronomy, we who were a privileged people, could not find the road to stability and a government based on reason. That was our weakness and the Christians of Europe have learnt from our mistakes. It is that and not the way our kings dressed which has been the curse of Islam in these lands. I know that some of you think help will come from the Sultan in Istanbul. I do not believe so, my friends. I think the Turks will take the East and leave us in peace to be devoured by the Christians.’

Umar had been greatly impressed by both Miguel and al-Zindiq, but he was tired. There were more urgent matters involving his family which were worrying him and had prevented his total concentration on the proceedings of the evening. He wanted to bring the event to an end, but some traditions had acquired a semi-religious status and become part of the rules of the debate. In a tone which suggested otherwise, Umar asked if any other person present wished to speak. To his great annoyance, an old weaver rose to his feet.

‘Peace be upon all of you and may God preserve you and your family, Umar bin Abdallah,’ began the weaver. ‘I have heard both His Excellency the Bishop of Qurtuba and Ibn Zaydun who calls himself al-Zindiq with great attention. I do not possess their knowledge, but I wish to make just one point. I think our defeat was settled within the first hundred years of Tarik ibn Ziyad landing on the rock which now bears his name. When two of our generals reached the mountains the Franks know as the Pyrenees, they stood on the summit and looked down on the land of the Gauls. Then they looked at each other. They did not utter a word, but both Generals were thinking the same thing. If they wanted to safeguard al-Andalus, they had to secure the country of the Franks. We tried. Yes, we tried. Many of the cities fell to us, but the most decisive conflict in our history was the confrontation between our armies and those of Charles Martel just outside the town they call Poitiers. We lost our chance to win the Frankish kingdom that day, but we also lost al-Andalus, though few of us still recognize this fact. The only way to have saved this land for our Prophet would have been to construct a mosque in Notre-Dame. That is all I wanted to say.’

Then Umar thanked him profusely for raising their sight to a more lofty understanding of their present impasse and bade everyone present a happy night.

As the congregation began to disperse, Ama took Yazid by the hand and led him into the house, but not before she had noticed that an unusually large number of men were shaking Miguel by the hand with unusual warmth. These included his natural brother Ibn Hasd and, as the two men stood together, Hind was once again struck by how alike they looked when seen in profile. Zubayda stood by her husband exchanging greetings with the men and women of the village as they said their farewells.

Unlike his father and grandfather, Umar’s relationships with the peasants and weavers whose families dominated Hudayl were cordial, even friendly. He attended their weddings and funerals, displaying a knowledge of their names and the number of children in each family which surprised and pleased them. ‘This lord is a lord,’ a weaver would say to his wife. ‘Of that there can be no doubt. He benefits from our labours just as his fathers did, but he is a decent lord.’

There was no time tonight for such niceties. Umar was in an impatient mood. He had not spoken a great deal during the discussion and he was now eager for them all to return to their homes. Zubayda had informed him during the evening meal, which had been taken early that day in order to accommodate the debate, that their first-born was engaged in an undertaking which was as rash as it was foolish and she feared for his life. Serving women from the village had informed her that Zuhayr was recruiting young men for ‘the battle.’ Zuhayr had not been present, and when enquiries had been made as to his whereabouts, the groom reported that he had saddled the young master’s favourite steed, but had been given no indication as to his destination. All he knew was that Zuhayr al-Fahl had taken two blankets with him. When the groom had left the room, Hind had been unable to control a smile. That was all Umar needed to make a deduction.

‘Discourteous dog! His great-uncle will debate his great friend Ibn Zaydun on matters of life and death for his family, his faith, our future, and where is our knight? Busy on some hillside impregnating a wretched maid-servant.’

From inside the house Zuhayr observed the departures, feeling regret that he had absented himself from this important occasion. He was feeling sated and tinged with disgust at his own lack of discipline and his affinities to the animal kingdom, but… but, he thought as he relived the experience, Umayma was so different from those painted whores in Gharnata, whose flesh was manhandled every hour of the day and night. Umayma made him feel irresponsible. She excited his sensuality. She neither expected nor demanded anything more. If he had not gone to her this evening he might never have seen her again. Within three months she would be married to Suleiman, the bald, cross-eyed weaver who spun the finest silk in the village, but who was hardly a match for him, Zuhayr al-Fahl, in the crafts which really mattered.

‘Well?’ said Umar, startling his son. ‘Where were you? Missing the meal was unimportant, but absenting yourself from the debate at such a time? Your absence was noted. Ibn Hasd and Suleiman the weaver were both enquiring after your health!’

‘Peace be upon you, Father,’ muttered Zuhayr, trying desperately not to show his unease. ‘I was out with friends. An innocent evening, I assure you.’

Umar looked at his son and could not restrain a smile. The boy was such an unaccomplished liar. He had his mother’s light-brown eyes and, as he stood there facing him, Umar felt a strong charge of emotion. There was a time when they had been close. It was Umar who had taught Zuhayr to ride and hunt, Umar who had taken him to swim in the river. The boy had often accompanied his father to the court at the al-Hamra. Now he felt he had left the boy alone for far too long, especially since the birth of Yazid. How different they were and how he loved them both.

He slumped on to a large cushion. ‘Sit down, Zuhayr. Your mother tells me that you have made some plans. What are they?’

Zuhayr’s face became very serious. He suddenly looked much older than his years.

‘I’m leaving, Father. Early tomorrow morning. I wanted to bid farewell to all of you tonight, but Yazid is fast asleep and I could not leave without hugging him. I’m leaving for Gharnata. We can’t allow the monks to bury us alive. We must act now before it is too late. Plans for an insurrection are under way. It is a duel with Christianity, Father. Better to die fighting than live the life of a slave.’

Umar’s heart began to pound. He saw a vision. A clash with the Captain-General’s soldiers. Confusion. Swords are raised, shots are heard, and his Zuhayr lies on the grass with a hole in his head.

‘It is a crazy plan, my child. Most of these young men who rant in the baths of Gharnata will run at the first sight of the Castilians. Let me finish. I have no doubt that you will find a few hundred boys to fight on your side. History is full of young fools getting drunk on religion and rushing to do battle with the infidel. Far easier to drink poison underneath a tree by the river and die peacefully. But better still to live, my son.’

Zuhayr’s mind was not free of doubt, but he knew better than to admit that to his father. He truly did not wish to be talked out of the endeavour which he and his friends had been planning ever since the bonfire on the Bab al-Ramla. His face remained deadly serious.

‘Contrary to what you imagine, Father, I have no great hopes for the success of our uprising, but it is necessary.’

‘Why?’

‘So that things stay the same in our kingdom of Gharnata. It is bad, but better it should stay like this than be handed over to Torquemada’s animals, who they call priests and familiars. If our last Sultan, may God curse him, had not capitulated without a fight, things might have been different. Isabella treats us like whipped dogs. Our challenge will show them and others of our faith throughout this peninsula that we will die on our feet, not our knees; that there is still some life underneath the ruins of our civilization.’

‘Foolish, foolish boy!’

‘Ask Ibn Daud what he saw in Sarakusta and Balansiya on his way to Gharnata. Every Muslim who fled from the Christians has said the same.’

Despite himself, Umar felt an unusually strong sense of pride in his son. He had underestimated Zuhayr.

‘What are you talking about boy? You’re very unlike yourself. Talking in riddles.’

‘I’m talking about the looks on the faces of their priests as they depart to supervise the torture of innocents and the making of orphans in the dungeons of the Inquisition! Unless we fight now everything will die, Father. Everything!’

‘Perhaps everything will die in any case, whether you fight or not.’

‘Perhaps.’

Umar knew that Zuhayr, deep inside himself, was tormented by uncertainties. He sympathized with his son’s dilemma. Having spoken up at the mosque, and having boasted of victories that lay ahead in the company of his friends, the boy felt trapped. Umar determined to prevent his son’s departure.

‘You are still a young man, Zuhayr. At your age death appears to be an illusion. I will not let you throw your life away. Anything could happen to me, now that I have decided that conversion is impossible. Who would look after your mother and sisters? Yazid? They have taken power and authority away from us, but the estates are still intact. We can enjoy our wealth in peace and dignity. Why should al-Hudayl disturb the Castilians? Their eyes are on a new world, on its mountains of silver and gold. They have defeated us and resistance is futile. I forbid you to leave!’

Zuhayr had never fought in a real battle. His experience was limited to the intensive training he had received in the arts of war as a boy. He was an expert swordsman and his daredevil exploits on horseback were well known to all those who attended the tournaments in Gharnata on the Prophet’s birthday. But he could not forget that he had yet to cross swords with a real enemy.

As he looked into his father’s grim face, Zuhayr realized that this was his last opportunity to change his mind. He could simply inform his fellow conspirators that his father had forbidden him to leave the house. Umar was widely respected and they would all understand. Or would they? Zuhayr could not tolerate the thought that one of his friends might accuse him of cowardice. But that was not his only concern. Zuhayr did not believe that al-Hudayl would be safe as long as Ximenes held sway in Gharnata. That made him feel that Umar was dangerously out of tune with the times.

‘Abu,’ began Zuhayr plaintively, ‘nothing matters to me as much as the safety of our home and the estates. That is why I must go. My mind is set. If you instruct me to stay here against my will and my judgement, then of course I will not disobey, but I will be unhappy, and when I am unhappy, Abu, I think of death as a consolation.

‘Can you not see that the monks will destroy everything? Sooner or later they must reach al-Hudayl. They want to reduce al-Andalus to a desert. They want to burn our memory. How then can they permit even a single oasis to survive? Do not compel me to stay. You must understand that what I want to do is the one course that might save our home and our faith.’

Umar was unconvinced, and the argument continued, with Zuhayr growing ever more adamant as the hours went by. Finally Umar perceived that his son could not be kept at home against his will. His face softened. Zuhayr knew at once that he had won his first battle. He understood his father’s temperament. Once Umar agreed to something, he sat back and did not meddle.

The two men stood up. Umar hugged his son and kissed his cheeks. Then he walked to a large chest and from it removed a beautifully engraved silver scabbard which contained the sword of Ibn Farid. He drew the weapon and, holding it with both his hands, lifted it above Zuhayr’s head and handed it to him.

‘If fight you must, then best to do it with a weapon tried and tested in many battles.’

Zuhayr’s eyes became moist.

‘Come,’ said Umar bin Abdallah. ‘Let us go and break the news to your mother.’

As Zuhayr, proudly carrying the sword of his great-grandfather, followed his father through the inner courtyard, they ran into Miguel and Zahra. Four different voices resounded in unison.

‘Peace be upon you.’

Miguel and Zahra saw their father’s sword and understood everything.

‘God protect you, child,’ said Zahra, kissing his cheeks.

Zuhayr did not reply, but stared at the odd couple. The encounter had disturbed him. Then his father tapped him gently on the shoulder and they walked away. It had all lasted a few seconds. Zuhayr thought it was a bad omen.

‘Will Miguel…?’ he began to ask his father, but Umar shook his head.

‘Unthinkable,’ he whispered. ‘Your great-uncle Miguel would never put the Church before his own family.’

For a while Zahra and Miguel stood still, like sentinels on guard duty. Remnants of a generation which had ceased to exist. The sky above them was full of stars, but neither it nor the solitary lamp on the wall, just above the entrance to the bath-chamber, gave much light. In the night shadows, with their bent spines draped in thick woollen shawls, they resembled a pair of stunted, weatherbeaten pine trees. It was the Bishop who broke the silence.

‘I fear the worst.’

Zahra was about to say something when Hind and Ibn Daud, followed by three maid-servants, entered the courtyard. None of them saw the old lady or Miguel. The young man bowed and was about to walk away to his room, till he heard a voice.

‘Ibn Daud!’

It was Hind who replied.

‘Wa Allah! You frightened me, Great-Uncle. Peace be upon you, Great-Aunt.’

‘Come,’ said Miguel to Ibn Daud, ‘you can walk me to my room, which is next to where you sleep. I never thought the day would come when I would stay in the chambers reserved for guests in this house.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Zahra. ‘Where else could they put you? In the stables? Hind, I need you to press me tonight. The cold is eating into my bones and I have been feeling a pain in my chest and shoulders.’

‘Yes, Great-Aunt,’ said Hind, dismissing the servants with a nod and looking longingly at the back of the young man with green eyes. Ibn Daud was escorting the Bishop through the corridor which linked the courtyard to a set of rooms which had been added to the house by Ibn Farid. There visiting Christian knights had been feasted and provided with nocturnal entertainments.

How strange, Zahra is thinking, that this child who I barely know and who has just reached her eighteenth year, reminds me so much of my own youth. Her father sees her still as a flower in bud. How wrong he is, how wrong all fathers are and will remain. She is in full bloom, like the orange-blossoms in spring. Those blossoms whose scent excites the senses. As if to make sure, Zahra lifted herself with the aid of a pillow-cushion and looked down on her great-niece, who was diligently but gently pressing the toes on her left foot. Even in the weak glow of the lamplight, Hind’s skin, normally the colour of wild honey, was flushed and animated. Her eyes were shining and her mind was elsewhere. They were familiar symptoms.

‘Does he love you as much?’

The suddenness of the question startled the girl.

‘Who could you be talking about, Great-Aunt?’

‘Come, child, it is not like you to be so coy. Everything is written on your face. Here I was thinking that you were excited by what happened this evening. Miguel told me what you shouted at him. He’s not really upset — admires you for it — but you’ve forgotten it all, haven’t you? Where have you been?’

Hind, unlike her calm and contented older sister Kulthum, was temperamentally incapable of dissimulation. At the age of nine she had shocked a religious scholar from Ishbiliya, who also happened to be her mother’s first cousin, by challenging his interpretation of the al-koran. The theologian had been denouncing every possible pastime in which Muslim nobles indulged as ‘forbidden,’ and had developed the argument to demonstrate how all this sensual irresponsibility had led to the decline of al-Andalus. Hind had interrupted him in mid-flow with a memorable intervention, still recalled with pleasure by the Dwarf and his friends in the village.

‘Uncle,’ the young girl had asked with a sweet smile, which was completely out of character. ‘Did not our Prophet, peace be upon him, once say in a hadith which has never been questioned, that the angels loved only three sports?’

The theologian, deceived by her smile and delighted that one so young could be so well versed in the scriptures, had stroked his beard and responded warmly.

‘And what were these, my young princess?’

‘Why horse-racing, shooting at a mark and copulation, of course!’

The uncle from Ishbiliya had choked on the meat which he had, till then, been consuming quite happily. Zuhayr had excused himself and collapsed with laughter in the kitchen. Zubayda had been unable to control a smile and Umar had been left to divert the conversation, which he had accomplished with some finesse. Kulthum alone had remained silent and offered her uncle a glass of water. For some reason this gesture had left a deep impact on the scholar. It was his son whom Kulthum was due to marry next month.

Zubayda had told the tale to Zahra. It had made the old woman laugh, and it was that memory which now caused her to smile at her great-niece.

‘My ears are getting impatient, child.’

Hind, who had so far not dared confide her secret to anyone except her favourite maid-servant, was desperate to unburden herself to a member of the family. She decided to tell Zahra the whole story. Her eyes began smiling again.

‘From the very first day it was, Great-Aunt. From the very first day I saw him I knew that I wanted no other man.’

Zahra smiled and nodded thoughtfully. ‘The first love may not be the best, but it is usually the deepest.’

‘The deepest and the best! It has to be the best!’

Hind’s eyes were burning like lamps. She described Ibn Daud’s arrival at al-Hudayl. The impression he had made on the whole family. Her father had taken an immediate liking to the young scholar and had immediately offered him a job as a private tutor to the family. They had all attended his first lecture. Ibn Daud had explained the philosophy of Ibn Khaldun as it was interpreted in al-Qahira. Zubayda had questioned him in some detail on how Ibn Khaldun’s theories could explain the tragedy of al-Andalus. ‘Loose stones,’ he had replied, ‘could never construct a stable city wall.’

‘Hind,’ pleaded Zahra. ‘I am too old to appreciate every detail. I accept without dispute that the boy is both intelligent and attractive, but if you go on like this I might not be alive to hear you finish your story! What happened tonight? After the meeting?’

‘Father was worried about Zuhayr, and before I realized the whole family had disappeared inside the house. I walked up to Ibn Daud, told him that I needed fresh air and asked him to take a walk by my side.’

‘You asked him?’

‘Yes, I asked him.’

Zahra threw back her head and laughed. Then she cupped Hind’s face with her withered hands and stroked her face.

‘Love can be a snake disguised as a necklace or a nightingale which refuses to stop her song. Please continue.’

And Hind described how a maid-servant had led the way with a lamp, while two others had followed them at a discreet distance till they had reached the pomegranate grove.

‘The pomegranate grove?’ asked Zahra faintly, trying to control her heartbeats. ‘The clump of trees just before the house is visible when you’re returning from the village? When you lie flat on the ground does it still feel as if one is underneath a tent of pomegranates with a round window at the top? And when you open your eyes and look through it, do the stars still dance in the sky?’

‘I do not know, Great-Aunt. I did not have the opportunity to lie down.’

The two women looked at each other and laughed.

‘We talked,’ continued Hind, ‘about our house, the village, the snow on the mountains, the coming spring, and after we had exhausted every possible formality, we fell silent and looked at each other. It seemed like a year before he spoke again. He took my hand and whispered that he loved me. At this point the maids began to cough loudly. I warned them that if they did that again I would send for the Inquisition to roast them alive. Then they could cough all the way to hell. I looked him straight in the eyes and confessed my love for him. I took his face between my hands and kissed him on the lips. He said he would ask Father for my hand in marriage tomorrow. I advised caution. Better that he let me prepare the path. On the way back I felt my body ache and realized that it was for want of him. I offered to go to his room tonight, but he nearly fainted at the thought. “I am your Father’s guest. Please do not even suggest that I abuse his hospitality and betray his trust. It would be a disgrace.” Thanks be to God that you are here, Great-Aunt Zahra. I could not have kept it to myself much longer.’

Zahra sat up in her bed and hugged Hind. Her own life flashed by and made her shiver. She did not want this girl, on the threshold of her life, to make the same mistakes, to be scarred by the same emotional wounds. She would talk to Umar and Zubayda on behalf of the young couple. The boy was clearly poor, but times had changed. To her great-niece she offered only words of encouragement.

‘If you are sure of him, then you must not let go. I do not want any talk a hundred years from now of a green-eyed youth who wandered round these mountains, desolate and heartbroken, confiding to the river his yearning for a woman named Hind.

‘Look at me, my child. A pain still oppresses my heart. I was burnt by love. It devoured my insides till there was nothing left at all and I began to open my legs to any caballero who wished to enter, not caring whether I enjoyed or disliked the experience. It was my way of destroying all that was sensitive in myself. It was when they found me naked on the tracks outside Qurtuba that they decided to send me to the maristan in Gharnata. Never make my mistakes. Far better that you run away with this boy and discover in six months that all he wanted was to feast on these two peaches than to accept a refusal from your parents. The first will cause you misery for perhaps a few months, even a year. The second will lead to despair, and despair gnaws at one’s soul. It is the worst thing in the world. I will talk to your mother and father. Times have changed and, in any case, your Ibn Daud is not the son of a servant in this house. Now go to your own room and dream of your future.’

‘I will, Great-Aunt, but there is a question which, with your permission, I must ask you.’

‘Ask!’

‘There is a story in the village about Great-Uncle Miguel…’

‘Oh yes! That old business about the weaver’s daughter. It is not a secret. What of it?’

‘Nothing. It was never a secret in the first place. What I meant to ask is if what they say about Miguel and his mother, the Lady Asma, is true?’

Zahra shut her eyes very tight, hoping that darkness would obscure the memory of that pain, which Hind wanted her to relive. Slowly her face relaxed and her eyelids were raised.

‘I do not know the answer. I had already been expelled from this house and was living in Qurtuba at the time. We used to call Asma “Little Mother,” which made us all laugh, even Ibn Farid. I was very upset when I heard that Asma was dead. Meekal? Miguel?’ Zahra shrugged her shoulders.

‘But Great-Aunt…’ began Hind.

The old woman silenced her with a gesture. ‘Listen to me carefully, Hind bint Zubayda. I never wanted to know. The details were of no interest. Asma, whom I loved like a sister, could not be brought back to life. Nor could Ibn Zaydun’s mother. Perhaps everything they say did take place, but the actual circumstances were known to only three people. Two of them are dead and I do not think that anyone has ever asked Meekal. Perhaps when he converted, he told the whole truth in the confessional, in which case a third person was taken into confidence. What difference does it make to anything now? When you grow up you will, no doubt, hear of similar tragedies which have befallen other families. Or other branches of our family. Do you remember that cousin of your mother from Ishbiliya?’

Hind’s face revealed her consternation.

‘You must remember! The very religious cousin from Ishbiliya who was shocked by your knowledge of the hadith?’

‘Him?’ said Hind with a grin. ‘Ibn Hanif. Kulthum’s future father-in-law! What about him?’

‘If ever they raise the business of poor Asma to try and humiliate our Kulthum, you can ask them the name of Ibn Hanif’s true father. It was certainly not Hanif.’

Every mischievous fibre in Hind’s body was now alert. This unexpected revelation had even relegated Ibn Daud for a few minutes.

‘Tell me please, Aunt! Please!’

‘I will, but you must never tell Kulthum, unless you feel she needs the information. Do you promise?’

Hind nodded eagerly.

‘Ibn Hanif’s father was also his mother’s father. Nobody in that family felt it necessary to take their own life. I do not think that Ibn Hanif is even aware of the fact. How could he be? His mother and father took the secret with them when they died. But the old servants in the house knew. Servants know everything. That is how the story travelled to this house.’

Hind was shaken by this information. In Asma’s case death had, at least, wiped the slate clean, but in Ishbiliya…

‘I am tired, child, and you need to sleep,’ said Zahra, signalling her dismissal from the room.

Hind, realizing that it was useless to pursue this matter, rose from the bed, bent down and kissed Zahra’s withered cheeks.

‘Peace be upon you, Great-Aunt. I hope you sleep well.’

After the girl had left, Zahra was assailed by the memories of her own youth. Hardly a day passed now without the magnification of some episode from the past in her thoughts. In the eerie calm of the maristan in Gharnata she had concentrated on the three or four good years in her life — these she would relive and even put down on paper. But three days before her return to the village of the Banu Hudayl, she had destroyed everything on a tiny replica of the bonfire lit by Ximenes in the market. She had done so in the belief that her life was not of any great interest to anyone except herself and she was about to die. It did not occur to her that in erasing what she regarded as the mummified memories of her own history she was also condemning a unique chronicle of a whole way of life to the obscurity of the flames.

She had been truly happy to return to her old home and find it inhabited by Umar and his family. For decades she had controlled her own emotions, deliberately depriving herself of contacts with the whole family, so that now she found herself overcome by a surfeit of affection. It was when she was on her own that she was haunted by the painful aspects of her life.

Take, for instance, the meeting with Ibn Zaydun at dinner tonight. Despite herself she had felt her heart flutter like a caged bird, just as when she first set eyes on him all those years ago. When the family had tactfully left them alone to sip their mint-flavoured tea, she had felt unable to communicate with him. Even when he had told her in that selfsame voice, which she had never stopped hearing and which had not changed, that he had written her a long letter every week since they had been parted, she had felt strangely unmoved. Was this the man for whom she had destroyed her whole life?

He had felt the emotion disappearing in her and had gone on his knees to declare that he had never stopped loving her, that he had never looked at another woman again, that every single day he had experienced an hour of pain. Zahra had been unaffected. She realized that her bitterness, her anger at his cowardice all those years ago when he had bowed to his status as the son of a house-slave and abandoned her to her class, had never left her. This resentment, displaced during her confinement by more pleasing images from the days of their turbulent and clandestine courtship, had nonetheless continued to grow and grow, so that now she felt nothing for him. This realization pleased her. Enslaved for so many years by the poison of love, she was free again. ‘I wonder,’ she thought to herself, ‘what might have happened if we had met again twenty years ago. Would I have got rid of him so easily?’

Ibn Zaydun knew that their phantom relationship was over and, as he wished her well and took his leave, he saw the coldness in her eyes, which made him feel empty and worse. ‘In this cursed house,’ he thought, ‘I am once again nothing but the son of my mother who worked for them and was killed for her pains.’ It was the first time that this sensation had overpowered him in her presence.

Zahra undid the clasps which held her snow-white hair. It unfolded like a python and reached halfway down her back. She had made a real effort to dress well tonight and the effect had stunned them all. She chuckled at the memory and undid the diamond brooch which held her shawl together. The diamond had been a gift from Asma. She had been told by some fool that worn close to the skin it cured every madness.

Lovely, ill-fated Asma. Zahra remembered the day her father’s party had returned from Qurtuba. She and Abdallah had not known what to expect as they had stood near the entrance to the house from the outer courtyard, holding tight to the hands of their mother’s sister, the replacement wife they believed had been grievously injured by Ibn Farid’s acquisition of a Christian concubine. Their first impression of Asma had been one of stunned astonishment. She looked so young and innocent. She was of medium height, but well built and generously proportioned. A virtuous face presided over a voluptuous body. Her skin was as smooth as milk but the colour of peaches, and her mouth looked as if it had been carefully painted with the juice of pomegranates. Underneath a mass of raven-black hair was a pair of shy, almost frightened brown eyes. They could all see how Ibn Farid had been bewitched by her.

‘How could you possibly love my father?’ Zahra had asked her some years later, just before Meekal was born and after they had become close friends. The old woman smiled as she remembered the peals of tinkling laughter which had greeted this question. Asma’s face, creased with dimples, had finally returned to its normal flawless posture. ‘Do you want to know how it was?’ she had asked. ‘Yes! Yes!’ Zahra had shouted, imagining some fantastically erotic description. ‘It was the way he farted. It reminded me of the kitchen where my mother worked. I felt I was at home again and loved him for that reason.’ Zahra’s shock had given way to incredulous laughter. Without realizing it, Asma had humanized the huge and brooding figure of Ibn Farid.

Zahra pulled the quilt, stuffed with sheep’s wool and covered with her favourite silk, over herself. Sleep would not come. It was as if the final act of expelling Ibn Zaydun from her memory had cleared some space for everyone else. Her father appeared before her now. Not in the guise of the haughty lord with a despotic temperament, ordering her to bend to his will and abandon her lover or suffer his punishment, but as a friendly giant, full of fun, teaching her to ride a horse so that she could race against Abdallah. How patient he had been and how she had worshipped him. In the same week he had taught her to shoot at a mark. Her shoulders had ached for a whole week after that, which had made him laugh. Then Miguel had come and Ibn Farid, delighted with the child of his love, had left Abdallah and Zahra to their own devices. Who knows, she thought, if he had not ignored us so completely, I might not have fallen under the spell of Ibn Zaydun and Abdallah might not have become so obsessed with racing horses.

Suddenly her mind pictures a young woman. Zahra does not remember her at all, but she is very familiar. She has Abdallah’s forehead and her own eyes. It must be their mother. Zahra screams to Death: ‘I have been waiting for you a long time. You’re going to come soon. Why not now? I can’t bear the agony of waiting much longer.’

‘Aunt Zahra! Aunt Zahra!’

She opened her eyes and saw Zubayda’s worried face.

‘Can I get you something?’

Zahra smiled weakly and shook her head. Then recalling something, she lifted her diamond brooch and handed it to Zubayda.

‘I am dying. This is for your daughter Hind. Make sure that boy from al-Qahira loves her. Then let them be wed. Tell Umar it was his dying aunt’s last wish.’

‘Should I fetch Uncle Miguel?’ asked Zubayda, wiping the tears off her face.

‘Let him sleep in peace. He would only try and give me the last rites, and I insist on dying a Muslim. Tell Amira to bathe me properly as she used to do in the old days.’

Zubayda was pressing Zahra’s legs and feet.

‘You’re not dying, Aunt Zahra. Your feet are as warm as burning embers. Whoever heard of anyone dying with warm feet?’

‘What a child you are, Zubayda,’ replied her aunt in a weak voice. ‘Have you never heard of the poor innocents who are being burnt at the stake?’

The shock on Zubayda’s face made Zahra laugh. The mirth was infectious and Zubayda joined her. Without warning the laughter disappeared and the life ebbed away from her. Zubayda clutched the old lady to her bosom and hugged her.

‘Not yet, Aunt Zahra. Do not leave us so soon.’

There was no reply.