Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree

Chapter 10

‘THE ONLY TRUE NOBILITY I can accept is that conferred by talent. The worst thing in the world is ignorance. The preachers you seem to respect so much say that ignorance is a woman’s passport to paradise. I would rather the Creator banished me to hell.’

Hind was in the midst of a flaming argument with her lover-to-be, whose affectionate mocking tone had suddenly begun to irritate her. Ibn Daud was taking a special delight in tormenting her. He had begun by posing as an orthodox scholar from the al-Azhar university and had defended the prevalent theology, especially in its pronouncements on the duties and obligations of women believers.

Hind’s impassioned rejection of paradise was what he had really wanted to hear. The passionate Hudayl blood had surged up to her face as she stared at him with angry eyes. She was magnificent in her rage. Ibn Daud felt her power, for the first time. He took her hand and covered it with kisses. This spontaneous display of emotion delighted and excited Hind, but they were not alone in the pomegranate glade.

Ibn Daud’s daring produced a spate of coughing from behind the nearby bushes where three young maid-servants were in attendance. Hind knew them well.

‘Go and take a walk, all of you. Do you think I am deceived by all this nonsense? I know very well what happens when you first catch sight of the palm-tree that grows between the legs of your lovers. You begin to behave like a flock of hungry woodpeckers. Now go and take a walk for a few minutes and do not return until you hear me call! Is that clear?’

‘Yes Lady Hind,’ replied Umayma, ‘but Lady Zubayda…’

‘Have you told Lady Zubayda that my brother mounts you like a dog?’

Hind’s bold retort settled the matter. A staccato outburst of laughter from Umayma’s companions was the only response to this query. Fearing further indiscretions in front of the stranger, the maids moved away from the site. Hitherto their role had been to act as guardians of Hind’s chastity and protect her honour. They now reverted to playing a part more suited to their temperaments and became, once again, the accomplices of their young mistress, keeping watch and making sure that the couple was not surprised.

Unknown to them, Yazid was close by. Soon after Ibn Daud’s arrival at the house, Yazid had felt abandoned by his sister. He had also sensed the reason and, as a result, had begun to snub the newcomer with a ruthlessness only a child could deploy. He developed an irrational, but deep hatred for the stranger from al-Qahira.

At first Yazid had been fascinated by Ibn Daud’s stories of the old world. He had been eager to learn, desperate to know more about life in al-Qahira and Dimashk; intrigued and curious as to the difference in pronunciation and meaning of certain Arabic words as spoken and understood in al-Andalus and in the land of the Prophet’s birth.

The boy’s thirst for information had, in turn, stimulated Ibn Daud. It forced him to think hard in order to explain facts which he had hitherto taken for granted. Yazid, however, began to notice that Hind would change colour, avert her eyes whenever Ibn Daud was present and put on an act of ultra-modesty. Once Yazid had realized that it was the Qahirene who was responsible, he began to avoid Ibn Daud’s classes, or when compelled to attend them, made no attempt to conceal his displeasure and acted as if he were permanently bored.

He stopped questioning Ibn Daud. When the tutor asked him a question, Yazid either remained silent or restricted himself to monosyllabic replies. He even stopped playing chess with him. This was an enormous sacrifice, since Ibn Daud was new to the game and had not been able to defeat his pupil even once, till the point was reached when the latter had unilaterally broken off all personal relations.

When Hind asked him to explain his behaviour, Yazid sighed impatiently and stated in the coldest possible voice that he was not aware of any abnormality in his attitude to the hired teacher. This annoyed his sister and increased the tension that had built up between them. Hind, usually ultra-sensitive where Yazid was involved, was blinded by her love for Ibn Daud. And so it was her brother who suffered greatly. Zubayda, noticing the unhappiness on the face of her youngest child, understood the reason only too well. She resolved to settle the matter of Hind’s marriage as soon as possible and decided to postpone any discussion on the subject with Yazid till that time.

Unaware that they were being observed, Hind and Ibn Daud had now reached a stage where certain crucial decisions had to be made. His hands had wandered underneath her tunic and felt her breasts, but retreated immediately.

‘Two full moons upon a slender bough,’ he muttered in a voice which she imagined was choked with passion.

Hind was not to be outdone. Her hands found a path from above his waist to the unexplored regions below which were covered by baggy silk trousers. She felt him underneath the silk. She began to stroke his thighs. ‘Soft like dunes of sand, but where is the palm-tree?’ she whispered as her fingers gently brushed the dates and felt the rising of the sap.

If any further advances were made, they would undoubtedly pre-empt the rites of the first night. But, Hind thought, if we stop now, the frustration, not to mention the long wait till our passion is finally consummated, will make life unbearable. Hind did not wish to stop. She had discarded every sense of propriety. With all her being, she wanted to make love to this man. She had taken so much vicarious pleasure from the unending descriptions supplied by maid-servants and giggling cousins in Gharnata and Ishbiliya, but now she wanted to know the real thing.

It was Ibn Daud who, realizing this, organized a hasty retreat. He withdrew his hands from her body and gently removed hers from inside his trousers.

‘Why?’ she asked in a hoarse whisper.

‘I am your father’s guest, Hind!’ His voice sounded resigned and emotionless. ‘Tomorrow I will ask to see him alone and request his permission to make you my wife. Any other course would be dishonourable.’

Hind felt the passion draining away.

‘I felt I was on the edge of something. Something which is more than just pleasure. Something indefinably pure. Now I feel on the threshold of despair. I think I have misjudged you.’

A torrent of reassurances followed. Repeated declarations of his undying love. The high regard in which he held her intelligence. He had never met another woman like her, and all the while he was talking he was also kissing every toe on her feet and muttering a special endearment to each and every one.

She did not speak. It was a silence more expressive than anything she could have said, for the truth was that having lost her temporarily, he had won her back. And yet her instinct that she had misread him was not as remote from the truth as his gestures suggested.

Ibn Daud had never been with a woman before. His decision to disrupt the lovemaking was only partly explicable by his status in the household. He was surprised at how much Hind had succeeded in inflaming him, but the real reason he had pulled back was a fear of the unknown.

Till now there had been only one great passion in the life of Ibn Daud, and that was a fellow student in al-Qahira. Mansur was the son of a family of prosperous and long-established jewellers in the port-town of Iskanderiya. He had travelled so extensively and to so many cities, including a boat journey to Cochin in southern India, that his stories had Ibn Daud in a state of perpetual enchantment. Add to that the love they both felt for good poetry and the flute, and that each had striking features and a questioning mind, and the friendship which grew up between them seems inevitable. For three years the two men lived in close proximity. They shared a room in the riwaq overlooking the mosque of al-Azhar.

It soon became a triune relationship which concurrently fed their intellects, their religious emotions — they were disciples of the same Sufi shaykh — and, finally their sexual appetites. They had written poetry for each other in rhymed prose. This was composed in a language in which no pleasure was veiled from the other reader’s sight. During the summer months, when they were separated from each other by the necessity of spending time with their families, they both kept diaries in which they recorded every detail of their daily lives as well as the effects of sexual abstinence.

Mansur had died in a shipwreck while accompanying his father on a trading mission to Istanbul. The inconsolable survivor could not bear the thought of living in al-Qahira any longer. It was this, more than any desire to study the works of Ibn Khaldun, that had brought him to Gharnata. He was drawn intellectually to al-Zindiq, but after several conversations felt that, while the crafty old fox was full of genius and learning, there was a lack of scruple in the stratagems he employed to outwit an opponent. At the end of one discussion of the poetry of Ibn Hazm, Ibn Daud had remembered a similar talk with Mansur. The memory had overpowered him. He had given way to unfeigned emotion. Naturally, he had not told al-Zindiq everything, but the old man was no fool. He had guessed. It was this that was worrying Ibn Daud. Al-Zindiq was a friend of this family. What if he confided his suspicions to Hind’s parents?

As if guessing his thoughts, Hind fondled his hand and enquired innocently: ‘What was the name of the woman you loved in al-Qahira? I want to know everything about you.’

Ibn Daud was startled. Before he could reply there was a scream and shouts of laughter as the maid-servants pounced on a mortified Yazid and dragged him into the glade.

‘Look who we found, Lady Hind!’ said Umayma, grinning shamelessly.

‘Let me go!’ shouted Yazid, the tears pouring down his face.

Hind could not bear the sight of her brother upset in this fashion. She ran to Yazid and hugged him, but he kept his hands firmly at his side. Hind dried his tears with her hands and kissed his cheeks.

‘Why were you spying on me?’

Yazid wanted to embrace and kiss her, tell her of his fears and worries. He had heard how Great-Aunt Zahra had run away and never come back again. He did not want his Hind to do the same. If they had been alone he would have blurted all this out, but the smile on Ibn Daud’s face stopped him. He turned his back and ran to the house, leaving behind him a bemused and bewildered sister.

Slowly it was beginning to dawn on Hind that Yazid’s strange behaviour could only be explained in relation to her own state of mind. She had been so bewitched by those eyes, greener than the sea, that everything else had become secondary, even the voice of a lute. It was her carelessness that had upset her brother. She felt guilty. The intoxication of the embrace was all but forgotten.

The sight of a distraught Yazid reminded her of her own irritation with Ibn Daud.

‘The truth is,’ she told herself, ‘that his honourable behaviour was nothing more or less than a refusal to recognize the beauty of our passion.’

This annoyed her so much that she, who had almost burnt him with her flame, now resolved to teach Ibn Daud a few elementary lessons. He would soon discover that she could be colder than ice. She still wanted him, but on her terms. For the moment her main concern was to repair the breach with Yazid.

The subject of Hind’s thoughts was lying with his head buried in his mother’s lap. He had burst in on Zubayda with the words: ‘That man was playing with Hind’s breasts. I saw them.’ Yazid had thought his mother would be horrified. She would rush to the scene of the crime and instruct the male servants of the house to whip Ibn Daud. The upstart from al-Qahira would be sent home in disgrace, and on his way to the village to find transport to Gharnata he might even be attacked by wild dogs. Instead Zubayda smiled.

‘Your sister is a grown woman now, Ibn Umar. Soon she will be married and will have children and you will be their uncle.’

‘Married to him?’ Yazid was incredulous.

Zubayda nodded and stroked her son’s light brown hair.

‘But, but, he owns nothing. He is…’

‘A learned man, my Yazid, and what he owns is in his head. My father always used to say that the weight of a man’s brains is more important than the weight of his purse.’

‘Mother,’ said Yazid with a frown. His eyes were like unsheathed swords and his voice reminded her so much of her husband at his most official that she could barely keep a straight face. ‘Have you forgotten that we cannot harvest grapes from prickly pears?’

‘True my brother,’ said Hind, who had entered the room unseen just in time to hear Yazid’s last remark, ‘but you know as well as I that a rose is always accompanied by the thorn.’

Yazid hid his head behind his mother’s back, but Hind, laughing and very much her old self again, dragged him away and imprinted dozens of kisses on his head, neck, shoulders and cheeks.

‘I will always love you, Yazid and more than any man I happen to marry. It is my future husband who should worry. Not you.’

‘But for the last month…’ began Yazid.

‘I know, I know and I am truly very sorry. I did not realize that we had not spent time together, but all that is in the past. Let’s be friends again.’

Yazid’s arms went round her neck and she lifted him off the ground. His eyes were shining as she put him down.

‘Go and ask the Dwarf what he’s cooking for supper tonight,’ instructed Hind. ‘I must talk to our mother on my own.’

As Yazid scampered out of the room, mother and daughter smiled at each other.

‘How she takes after me,’ thought Zubayda. ‘I, too, was unhappy with love till I obtained permission to marry her father. In my case the delay was brought about by Umar’s mother, unsure of the blood that flowed through my veins. Hind must not go through all that just because the boy is an orphan.’

Hind appeared to have divined her mother’s thoughts. ‘I could never wait as long as you did, while they discussed the impurities in your blood. It is something else that worries me. Be truthful now. What do you make of him?’

‘A very handsome boy, with a brain. He is more than a match for you, my child. What more could you want? Why the doubt?’

Hind had always enjoyed a special relationship with her mother. The friendship that developed between them was due, in no small measure, to the relaxed atmosphere which prevailed in the house. Hind did not have to imagine what life could have been like had her father married again or kept the odd concubine in one of his houses in the village. She had visited her cousins in Qurtuba and Ishbiliya often enough to remember households in the grip of a permanently stifling atmosphere. Her cousins’ accounts of indiscriminate and casual lechery reminded her of descriptions of brothels; the accounts of infighting amongst the women filled her vision with images of a snake-pit. The contrast with life at al-Hudayl could not have been sharper.

As she grew older, Hind found herself drawn closer to her mother. Zubayda, whose own upbringing, thanks to a freethinking father, had been unorthodox, was determined that the younger of her two daughters should not be subjected to the straitjacket of superstition or made to conform to any strictly defined role in the household. Kulthum, from her infancy, had been a willing prisoner of tradition. Hind — and even her father had noticed this when she was only two years old — was an iconoclast. Despite Ama’s numerous forebodings and oft-repeated warnings, Zubayda encouraged this side, of her daughter.

Because of all this there was no doubt in Hind’s mind as to how she should respond to her mother’s question. She did not hesitate at all, but began to describe everything which had taken place that afternoon, making sure that not a single detail was excluded. When she had finished, her mother, who had been listening very intently, simply laughed. Yet the merriment masked a real concern. If Umar had been present he would at once have noticed the nervous edge to the laughter.

Zubayda did not wish to alarm her daughter. Uncharacteristically, she embarked on an emollient course.

‘You’re worried because he would not let the juice of his palm-tree water your garden. Am I correct?’

Hind nodded gravely.

‘Foolish girl! Ibn Daud behaved correctly. He is our guest, after all and seducing a daughter of the house while maidservants kept watch would not be a very dignified way of responding to your father’s kindness and hospitality.’

‘I know that! I know that!’ muttered Hind. ‘But there was something more which I can’t describe to you. Even when his hands were fondling me I felt the absence of passion in them. There was no urgency till I touched him. Even then he became frightened. Not of father, but of me. He has not known a woman before. That much is obvious. What I can’t understand is why. I mean when you and Abu defied his parents and went to…’

‘Your father was not Ibn Daud! He was a knight of the Banu Hudayl. And when we went to Qurtuba we had already been married for several hours. Go and lie in the bath and let me try and solve this puzzle.’

The sun was setting as Hind walked out into the courtyard. She stood still, hypnotized by the colours around her. The snow-covered peaks overlooking al-Hudayl were bathed in hues of light purple and orange; the small houses of the village looked as though they had been freshly painted. So engrossed was Hind by the beauty around her that her senses became oblivious to all else. A few moments ago she had felt cold and melancholy. Suddenly she was pleased to be alone.

‘Only yesterday,’ she thought, ‘if I had found myself like this in the sunset I would have pined for him, wanted him to be here by my side so that we could share the gifts of nature, yet today I am happy to be alone.’

She was so deeply absorbed in her own thoughts that, as she began to walk slowly to the hammam she did not hear the sounds of merriment emanating from the kitchen.

Yazid sat on a low stool as the Dwarf played the tambourine and sang a zajal. The servants had been drinking a potent brew which they had distilled from the leftovers in the casks near the al-Hudayl vineyards. The Dwarf was mildly drunk. His three assistants, and the two men whose sole task it was to transfer the food from the pots to the dishes and place it on the table, had imbibed too much of the devil’s piss. They were dancing in a circle while in the centre the Dwarf stood on a table and sang his song. Sitting on the steps outside the kitchen, a look of fierce disapproval on her face, was Ama. She had attempted to distract Yazid and drag him back to the house, but he was enjoying himself enormously and had refused to obey.

The Dwarf stopped playing. He was tired. But his admirers wanted the performance to continue.

‘One last time,’ they shouted, ‘the song of Ibn Quzman. Sing it for our young master.’

‘Yes please, Dwarf,’ Yazid found himself joining in the chants. ‘Just one more song.’

The Dwarf became very serious.

‘I will sing the ballad composed by Ibn Quzman over three hundred years ago, but I must insist that it is heard with the respect due a great master. There will never be a troubadour like him again. Any interruptions and I will pour this wine on your beards and set them alight. Is that clear, you boastful babblers?’

The kitchen, which only a few seconds ago had resembled the scene of a drunken riot, became silent. Only the bubbling of a giant pan containing the evening meal could be heard. The Dwarf nodded to his assistant. The twelve-year-old kitchen boy produced a lute and began to test the strings. Then he nodded to his master and the tiny chef began to sing the zajal of Ibn Quzman in a voice so deep that it was overpowering.

‘Come fill it high with a golden sea,

And hand the precious cup to me!

Let the old wine circle from guest to guest,

The bubbles gleaming like pearls on its breast,

It were as if night is of darkness dispossessed.

Wa Allah! Watch it foam and smile in a hundred jars!

’Tis drawn from the cluster of the stars.

Pass it, to the melting music’s sound,

Here on this flowery carpet round,

Where gentle dews refresh the ground

And bathe my limbs deliciously

In their cool and balmy fragrancy.

Alone with me in the garden green

A singing girl enchants the scene:

Her smile diffuses a radiant sheen,

I cast off shame, for no spy can see,

And ‘Wa Allah,’ I cry, ‘let us merry be!’

Everyone cheered, and Yazid the loudest of all.

‘Dwarf,’ he cried in an excited voice, ‘you should leave the kitchen and become a troubadour. Your voice is beautiful.’

The Dwarf hugged the boy and kissed his head.

‘It’s too late for all that, Yazid bin Umar. Too late for singing. Too late for everything. I think you had better return with the information the Lady Zubayda asked you to bring back from the kitchen.’

Yazid had forgotten all about his mother’s request.

‘What was it, Dwarf?’

‘You have already forgotten the contents of my sunset stew?’

Yazid frowned and scratched his head but he could not remember a single ingredient. Bewitched by the wine song, he had forgotten the reason for his visit to the kitchen. The Dwarf began to remind him, but this time he made sure that the young boy’s memory would retain the information and so he declaimed the recipe in a rhythm and intonation which was very familiar to Yazid. The Dwarf’s sonorous voice was mimicking a recitation of the al-koran.

‘Listen carefully all ye eaters of my food. Tonight I have prepared my favourite stew which can only be consumed after the sun has set. In it you will find twenty-five large potatoes, quartered and diced. Twenty turnips, cleaned and sliced. Ten dasheens skinned till they gleam and ten breasts of lamb which add to the sheen. Four spring chickens, drained of all their blood, a potful of yoghurt, herbs and spices, giving it the colour of mud. Add to this mixture a cup of molasses and, wa Allah, it is done. But young master Yazid, one thing you must remember! The meat and vegetables must be fried separately, then brought together in a pan full of water in which the vegetables have been boiled. Let it all bubble slowly while we sing and make merry. When we come to the end of our fun, wa Allah, the stew is done. The rice is ready. The radishes and carrots, chillies and tomatoes, onions and cucumbers all washed and impatiently waiting their turn to join the stew on your silver plates. Can you remember all this, Yazid bin Umar?’

‘Yes!’ shouted Yazid as he ran out of the kitchen trying desperately to memorize the words and their music.

The Dwarf watched the boy run through the garden to the house followed by Ama, and a sad smile appeared on his face.

‘What will be the future of this great-grandson of Ibn Farid?’ he asked no one in particular.

Yazid ran straight into his mother’s room and repeated the Dwarf’s words.

His father smiled. ‘If only you could learn the al-koran with the same facility, my child, you would make our villagers very happy. Go and clean yourself before we eat this sunset stew.’

As the boy scampered out of the room Zubayda’s eyes lit up.

‘He is happy again.’

Umar bin Abdallah and his wife had been discussing the fate of their younger daughter. Zubayda had provided her husband with a modified version of the events in the pomegranate glade. Not wishing to upset him, she had excluded all references to palm-trees, dates and other relevant fruits. Umar had been impressed by the account of Ibn Daud’s forbearance and sense of honour. This fact alone had decided him to give the young man permission to wed Hind. It was at this stage in the discussion that Zubayda had confided her fears.

‘Has it not occurred to you that Ibn Daud might only be interested in other men?’

‘Why? Simply because he rejected our daughter’s kind invitation to deprive her of her virginity?’

Not wishing to give away too much, Zubayda decided to proceed no further. ‘No,’ she said, ‘it was an instinct on my part. When you talk to him after we have eaten tonight it would help to set my mind at rest if you asked him.’

‘What?’ roared Umar. ‘Instead of talking to him about his feelings for our Hind, I should become an Inquisitor, questioning him as if he were a filthy monk who had abused his position in the confessional. Perhaps I should torture him as well? No! No! No! It is not worthy of you.’

‘Umar,’ retorted Zubayda, her eyes flashing with anger, ‘I will not let my daughter marry a man who will make her unhappy.’

‘What if your father had asked me that question before permitting our marriage?’

‘But there was no need, was there my husband? I did not have any doubts about you on that score.’ Zubayda was playing the coquette, which was so out of character that it made him laugh.

‘If you insist, woman, I will try to find a way of asking the young man without causing offence.’

‘No reason for him to be offended. What we are talking about is not uncommon.’

The young man under discussion was in his room getting dressed for the evening meal. A strange feeling, hard to put into words, had overcome him and he was plunged in sadness. He knew that he had disappointed Hind. He was reliving the events of the afternoon and the sense of fear was being replaced by an excitement new to him.

‘Can nothing drive her out of my head?’ he asked himself as he put on his tunic. ‘I do not wish to think of her and yet I cannot think of anything else. How can these images of her crawl into my mind against my will? I am a fool! I should have told her that the only lover I have known was a man. Why did I not do that? Because I want her so much. I do not want her to reject me. I want her as my wife. She is the first person I have loved since Mansur died. Other men have approached me, but I rejected their advances. It is Hind who has aroused me again, Hind who makes me tremble, but what did she read on my face?’

On his way to eat, Ibn Daud was surprised by Yazid.

‘Peace be upon you, Ibn Daud.’

‘And upon you, Yazid bin Umar.’

‘Should I tell you what the Dwarf has cooked for our meal?’

When Ibn Daud nodded, Yazid recited the list of ingredients in such a perfect copy of the Dwarf that his new tutor, not having heard the original, was genuinely impressed. They went into the dining-room together.

Ibn Daud was delighted by this renewal of friendship with his pupil. He felt it was a good omen. Everyone was extra kind to him during the meal. The Dwarf’s sunset stew had been a great success and Hind insisted on serving him a second helping.

Miguel had returned to Qurtuba. Zahra was dead. Zuhayr was in Gharnata. Kulthum was visiting her cousins and future in-laws in Ishbiliya. The family presence in the dining-chamber was unusually depleted. This made the circle of which Ibn Daud was a part more intimate than usual. Zubayda had noticed him gazing into Hind’s eyes with a smile, and this reassured her. Perhaps it had been a false alarm. Perhaps Umar’s instincts had been closer to reality than hers. She began to feel guilty and wanted to tell her husband not to ask the boy any embarrassing questions, but it was too late. Umar had already begun to speak.

‘Ibn Daud,’ said the master of the house, ‘would you care to take a short walk with me after you have finished your coffee?’

‘It would be an honour, sir.’

‘Can I join you too?’ asked Yazid in a matter-of-fact voice, trying to sound as adult as he possibly could. Since Zuhayr was away, he felt he should be present at such an occasion.

‘No,’ smiled Hind. ‘I want a game of chess. I think I am going to take your king in under ten moves.’

Yazid was torn, but his sister prevailed.

‘On reflection,’ he said to his father, ‘I will remain indoors. I think it is getting cold outside.’

‘A sensible decision,’ said Umar as he rose from the floor and walked towards the door leading to the terrace.

Ibn Daud bowed to Zubayda, and looked at Hind as if he was pleading with her not to judge him too harshly. He followed Umar out of the room.

‘Go to my room and lay the chess pieces on the cloth,’ Hind instructed her brother. ‘I will join you in a moment.’

‘I think we were wrong about Ibn Daud,’ said Zubayda the minute her son had left the room. ‘Did you observe him while we were eating? He had eyes only for you. He may be confused, but he is very attached to you.’

‘What you say may be true, but the uncontrollable passion which I felt for him is gone. I still like him. I may even love him in time, but without the intensity I felt before. The afternoon has left me with a dull headache.’

‘Not even our greatest physicians have been able to solve the riddles of the heart, Hind. Give yourself a chance. You are too much like me. Too impatient. Everything at once. I was like that with your father, and his parents mistook my simple desire for greed.’

‘Surely, Mother,’ said Hind in a very soft voice, ‘we do not know how much time there is left for any of us. When you were young the Sultan was in the al-Hamra palace and the world seemed safe. Today our lives are governed by uncertainties. Everyone in the village feels insecure. Even the false magic of dreams can offer consolation no longer. Our dreams have turned sour. Do you remember when Yazid was crying and clinging to Zuhayr, pleading with him not to go to Gharnata?’

‘Could any mother forget that scene?’

‘The sight of Yazid in such distress angered me and I whispered some rudeness in Zuhayr’s ear. Something stupid. Told him he had been selfish from birth. His face paled. He put Yazid down and took me to one side. Then he whispered fiercely in my ear: “There is nothing to be gained by becoming entangled in life and its daily routines. The only freedom left is to choose how we are to die, and you want to take even that away from me.”’

Zubayda hugged Hind and held her close. They did not speak any more. In the silence they could hear the wind outside. Their bodies transmitted signals to each other.

‘Hind! Hind!’ Yazid’s voice brought them back to the world in which they continued to live. ‘I’ve been waiting. Hurry up! I’ve planned my moves.’

The two women smiled. Some things would never change.

Outside in the dark blue night, Umar and Ibn Daud were walking round the walls of the house. They, too, had been discussing the state of their world, though in more philosophical terms. Now that they were beyond the hearing of the nightwatchmen who patrolled the perimeter of the house, Umar decided that no more time should be wasted.

‘I have heard that you went for a walk with Hind after lunch today. She is a very precious treasure. Her mother and I both love her very much. We do not wish to see her hurt or upset.’

‘I was very pleased when you asked me to come and walk with you. I love Hind. I wish to ask your permission to marry her.’

‘Remember one thing, Ibn Daud,’ said Umar in his most avuncular style. ‘Only a blind man dares to shit on the roof and thinks that he cannot be seen!’

Ibn Daud began to tremble. He was not sure how much Umar knew. Perhaps Yazid had told his mother. Perhaps the maidservants had talked. Perhaps…

‘What I mean, my dear friend, is that there is no excuse for somebody to fall into the same hole twice.’

Now he understood.

‘There is nothing I wish to hide from Hind and yourself or from the Lady Zubayda.’ Ibn Daud spoke with a tremor in his voice. ‘There was an incident some years ago. A fellow student. We loved each other. He died over a year ago. I have not been with any other man or woman. My love for Hind is stronger than it was for my friend. I would sooner die than harm her in any way. If, in your wisdom and with your experience, you and the Lady Zubayda feel that I am the wrong person for her, pray tell me so and I will pack my bag and leave your noble house tomorrow. Your judgement will be final.’

The wind had died, leaving behind a clear sky. Ibn Daud’s honesty had dispelled the gloom of the night and Umar’s heart had lightened. Zubayda’s suspicions, even though he would not admit it to her, had discomforted him. There were far too many family stories of women made unhappy by men who lived only for each other, women who lived on withered dreams. Their sole function, as far as their husbands were concerned, was procreation. Umar’s own grand-uncle, Ibn Farid’s younger brother, had flaunted his male lover in this very house, but he, at least, had never bothered to get married.

‘I am greatly impressed by your honesty. What you tell your future wife is between the pair of you.’

‘Then I have your permission?’ began Ibn Daud, but he was immediately interrupted.

‘You have more than my permission. You have my blessing. Hind will carry a handsome dowry.’

‘I assure you that the dowry is of no interest to me.’

‘Have you any wealth of your own?’

‘None whatsoever. Money has never played an important part in my life.’

Umar chuckled as they began to walk back to the house. The only thing to recommend poverty, he felt, was the way it ennobled some people with a dignity which wealth simply could not match.

‘Never mind, Ibn Daud. You shall have the dowry nonetheless. My grandchildren will thank me for my foresight. Tell me, have you decided on where you want to live? Will you go back to al-Qahira?’

‘No. That is the one place where I do not wish to live. I will naturally discuss all this with Lady Hind, but the Maghrebian town which pleases me the most is Fes. It is not unlike Gharnata, but without the presence of Archbishop Cisneros. Moreover Ibn Khaldun, if my grandmother is to be believed, commended it highly and wished to make it his permanent home.’

Whereas a few weeks ago the sight of Hind making eyes at Ibn Daud had only served to kindle Umar’s irritation with the Qahirene, he now began to feel a kind of admiration for this young man. He no longer found him irksome and too clever for his own good, and had begun to share his confidence that he could survive materially simply on the basis of his intellect. As they reached the inner courtyard Umar felt that he was one of the few men with whom Hind could be happy. He embraced Ibn Daud.

‘Peace be upon you and sleep well.’

‘Peace be upon you,’ responded the scholar from al-Qahira, his voice choked with emotions he was trying so hard to conceal.

When Umar entered his wife’s bed-chamber he found Hind massaging her mother’s legs and feet. Zubayda sat up the minute her husband entered the room.

‘Well?’

‘Who won at chess, Hind?’ was Umar’s only response, designed deliberately to provoke his wife.

‘Umar!’ demanded Zubayda. ‘What happened?’

Umar, looking as resigned and calm as he could, stared at her with a smile. ‘It was as I thought,’ he replied. ‘The boy truly loves our daughter. Of that I have not the slightest doubt. I gave him my permission. It is now up to Hind.’

‘My fears?’ pressed Zubayda. ‘Were they totally false?’

Umar shrugged his shoulders. ‘They were irrelevant.’

Zubayda smiled in satisfaction. ‘It is your choice and yours alone, my daughter. We are happy.’

Hind’s face had acquired a flush as she heard this conversation. Her heart had begun to beat faster. ‘I will think carefully about it tonight,’ she said in a matter-of-fact tone, ‘and tomorrow you shall all have my answer.’

She then kissed her parents in turn and, putting on her most dignified look, walked slowly out of the chamber.

Once she was in the safety of her own room, she began to laugh, first silently and then aloud. The laughter reflected her triumph, her joy, and there was also an element of hysteria. ‘I wish you were not dead, Great-Aunt Zahra.’ Hind was looking at a mirror and inspecting her own face, whose natural softness was enhanced by the light of the lamp. ‘I need to talk to you. I think I will marry him, but first I must convince myself that his love is genuine, and there is only one way to find out. You told me so yourself.’

Having convinced herself of the righteousness of what she was about to do, Hind extinguished the lamp in her room and tiptoed out into the courtyard. It was pitch-black. The clouds had returned and covered the stars. She waited till her eyes had adjusted to the dark and walked nervously to the guest chambers.

Outside Ibn Daud’s room she paused till she had stopped trembling. She looked around carefully. Everything was still. His light was still burning. She knocked gently on the door. Inside the room Ibn Daud was puzzled. He wrapped a sheet around him, got out of bed and unlatched the door.

‘Hind!’ His surprise was so great that he could barely hear his own voice. ‘Please come in.’

Hind marched into the room, trying hard not to laugh at the sight of this very proper young man trying to keep the sheet around him in place. She sat down on the bed.

‘My father says that he has given you permission to marry me.’

‘Only if you agree. Is that all your father said?’

‘Yes. What else did you say to him?’

‘Something I should have said to you many days ago. I was a fool, Hind. I think I must have been frightened of losing you.’

‘What are you talking about?’

Ibn Daud recounted the whole story of his love for the dead Mansur, including the details most likely to cause pain to her. He described how they had shared a room at the al-Azhar university, how they had found each other’s company the most stimulating and how, one night, their intellectual affinity had brought them together physically. He talked of their discovery of each other and then the death of Mansur.

‘You were the person who brought me back to life.’

‘I am glad of that. You have probably realized that I am one of those who prefer a heart pierced with anguish to a placid happiness, which is usually based on self-deception or deceit. The food of most marriages is a cold emptiness. Most of my cousins are married to brutes with the sensitivity of a log. Marriage for its own sake is something I could never accept. Can I ask you something?’

‘Whatever you wish.’ Ibn Daud’s voice sounded eager and relieved.

‘We could become great friends, write poetry together, join the hunt, discuss astronomy, but are you sure that when the sun sets you will desire a woman’s body in your arms?’

‘I have been yearning for you since the afternoon. I was confused and unsure, but the flow of your hands across my limbs was an experience I would happily repeat when the sun rises, never mind at night.’

As he stroked her face she felt moved again and embraced him, feeling his naked body underneath the sheet of pure cotton. When she felt his palm-tree stir she pulled the sheet off him and held him tight. Then she stepped back and shed her gown.

‘The noise of your heartbeats will wake up the whole household,’ she teased as she put out the lamp and fell with him on the bed.

‘Are you sure, Hind? Are you sure?’ he asked, incapable of further self-control.

She nodded. Gently he planted his tree in her garden. She felt the pain, which was transformed within seconds into pain-pleasure, and then she relaxed and joined him as their bodies began to heave in unison, reaching a climax together. All her cousins and the maid-servants had told Hind that the first time was the least pleasurable. She lay back and enjoyed the after-glow.

‘Now are you sure,’ he asked her, sitting up in bed and giving her a quizzical look.

‘Yes, my lover, now I am sure. Are you?’

‘What do you mean, you devil?’

‘I mean was it as nice as it used to be with Mansur?’

‘It is very different with you, my princess, and so it shall remain. A pomegranate can give as much pleasure as an oyster even though the taste of each is so completely different from the other. To compare them is to spoil both.’

‘I am warning you, Ibn Daud. Even before we are married. If you desert me for a pretty young boy selling figs, my revenge will be public and brutal.’

‘What will you do?’

In response she clasped his palm-tree.

‘I will remove these dates and have them pickled.’

This made both of them laugh. The flame mounted again. They made love many times that night. He fell asleep before she did. For a long time she watched his sleeping body and relived what she had just experienced. She stroked his hair, hoping that it might awaken him, but he did not stir. Her palate wanted to taste him again, but sleep, tired of waiting any longer, overpowered her desire.

Just before sunrise, Zubayda entered the room, knowing what she would find. She put her hand on her daughter’s mouth to prevent any startled screams which might embarrass her lover, then shook her vigorously till she opened her eyes. On seeing Zubayda she sat bolt-upright in the bed. Zubayda signalled that they should leave the room quietly.

‘I love him. I will marry him,’ whispered Hind drowsily as they crossed back into the inner courtyard.

‘I am truly glad to hear the news,’ replied her mother, ‘but I think you should marry him later this afternoon!’