Authors: Raḍwá ʻĀshūr
"I held her in my arms and I caressed her against my breast, and I said to you, Umm Hasan, 'May God grant me a life long enough to bathe her on her wedding day!' Do you remember?"
She didn't, but answered, "Of course, I remember."
The woman sat Saleema down in front of her and untied her braids, and with a scoop she dipped into the hot water and poured it over her head. As the other women began to ululate once again, one of them took the tambourine and started to sing the customary wedding songs that were frequently interrupted by exclamations of wishes for a long life and healthy offspring. The children danced in excitement despite their mothers' warnings against breaking an arm or a leg on the slippery floors.
When the neighbor finished scrubbing, depilating, and perfuming Saleema's body and lathering and rinsing her hair, she asked her to stand up in order to inspect her work. She removed the towel that was wrapped around Saleema's waist, and Saleema found herself as naked as the day she was born in front of all the women. She blushed, and in her confusion she started to grab the towel to cover herself, but not wanting to appear childish she stood motionless, embarrassed but too proud to show it.
"May the Creator be praised," one of the women cheered. "I swear to God, your groom is indeed a fortunate man."
Drops of water and beads of sweat trickled down Saleema's neck that was covered by her thick, wavy black hair. Her olive-skinned body glistened from the scrubbing of the loofah and the hot water. Her breasts were young and firm, her waist slender, her buttocks ample, and her legs perfectly chiseled. "May He who gave you shape be praised," exclaimed one woman as another pulled her to
ward her to remove her pubic hair. The singing continued as some of the women washed their own children, or busied themselves washing one another. A few of them participated in the more exhausting ritual that was taking place in the stall out of view of the others. Umm Jaafar and Umm Hasan decided to take their baths after the lunch. Umm Hasan prepared the henna in a bowl large enough for everyone, while Umm Jaafar prepared to serve the lunch. As usual, she fretted about not having enough food to feed the crowd, and Umm Hasan reminded her this was not the first feast she had ever prepared. "There's no food more delicious or more plentiful than what you serve," she said praisingly. But Umm Jaafar would only rest assured after all the women had eaten, and the food had been scrumptious, and there had been more than enough for everyone to have her fill. She watched the women as they ate, walking around and through them and the children, prodding this one or that one to a second or third helping. She herself didn't touch the food and was only satisfied when her guests were sated and she was certain that her duty as a hostess had been fulfilled in the most perfect manner.
After lunch the women rested awhile before returning to the tubs to finish their baths. Umm Jaafar declared resoundingly, "I will bathe Saleema." She soaped her head three times, lathered her body over and over again before rinsing her with hot water. Then she dried her off, greased her hair with almond oil, and rubbed musk and olive oil over her body. While her hands were occupied, her face radiated and then suddenly changed expression. Her eyes gleamed one moment and were bathed in tears the next, as her thoughts moved from the little bundle of flesh she carried as a newborn infant to this magnificent young woman, the precious daughter of her precious son. She could see Abu Jaafar and she held on to the image like a little girl frightened by the phantom of someone she could never stare at without feeling her soul abandoning her. Her spirit withdrew, and she felt as though she were going to die.
"Why aren't you singing, Umm Jaafar?"
"I'm singing. I'll sing," she replied as she joined in with a quivering voice.
"Pass me the henna, Umm Hasan."
"I'll henna her hair," shouted one of the neighbors.
She went over to the large bowl and scooped out a handful of the smooth, moist mixture. "Stand up, Saleema." Saleema stood up and the woman sat down next to her on crossed legs. She took a small bit of the henna with the tip of her right index finger and meticulously drew a squiggly line above her ankle. Then she took more henna and continued her pattern until she formed a beautiful design in the shape of flowered branches in a deep dark red that embellished her anklebone and the top of her foot. "Sit down, Saleema." Saleema obeyed and the woman applied the henna to her heels and the bottom of her feet. Then she set to work on her palms. All the women followed suit by taking a bit of the henna, while the older ones took more to dye their hair.
Saleema remained seated without moving a muscle as her arms and legs were stretched out to let the henna dry. She glanced all around her and thought about herself and how little she understood of all of this. She wished she could be with her gazelle, to pat her head or watch her sprint and prance about in the privacy and confinement of their house.
The wedding night was boisterous and generated more than the usual excitement for such occasions. The news of the uprisings and the success of the rebels at Alpujarra
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in attacking the Castilians and regaining control over some of the fortresses along the coast had unlocked the doors of hope that were now wide open. They might be able to reach Murcia from where the uprising could spread and thus reclaim Granada; or, reinforcements could come from Egypt or
North Africa, and the freedom fighters and exiles coming aboard the ships could unite with their brothers who were fighting on land.
3. Alpujarra or
al-Basharrat
in Arabic, a mountainous region east of Gr
anada, was the site of fierce Arab resistance to the Spanish Reconquest.
The incessant talk of the uprising became the people's daily wine of which they imbibed ravenously, making them giddy with delight. They never tired of repeating the details or listening to the same stories over and over again as though they were strummings on a lute or the chanting of love poems that gave increasing pleasure the more they were heard.
The Castilians had sent their cavalry up the mountain road with their heads swelling with arrogance and confidence as if victory were already in hand. All they needed to do, they thought, was strike their heels on the sides of their horses that would neigh thunderously and dash to the prize at the top of the mountain. But a torrent of rocks came pelting from above and onto their heads. They fell with their horses and tumbled down the deep ravine, calling for help with no one to help them. The people all laughed with joy as one recited Quranic verses with a smile that never left his lips:"Have you not seen how your Lord dealt with the people of the elephant? Did He not make their plan go wrong, and sent hordes of chargers flying against them, while you were pelting them with stones of porphyritic lava, and turn them into pastured fields of corn?"
4
The devious Count Tendilla had launched a military campaign on the mountain. As he sat smugly in his castle, awaiting the news of the attack on the villages, the waterfalls were drowning his horsemen with the water from the canals that the rebels opened from the top of the mountain, as though the flood was unleashed against them from God who sent them neither a Noah nor an Ark.
Their hearty and boisterous guffaws mixed with the women's singing and the rolling of drums. Hasan and Naeem helped Umm Jaafar and Umm Hasan set up the patio for the male guests and lay
down carpets for them to sit on. Then they accompanied Saad to the bathhouse with Abu Mansour who insisted on bathing the groom himself. "This is the bath of all baths, my boy," he said as he scrubbed the back of his neck and back, laughing and embracing life and people as though the uprising of Alpujarra had brought him back to his old affable and pleasant self.
4. Quran 105:1-5. This chapter, "The Elephants," recounts the Battle of Abraha in 571 when the Christian viceroy of Sana' marched against Mecca with elephants and a large army to destroy the Kaaba. See Ahmed Aly's translation, Princeton, 1993.
On the wedding night Abu Mansour danced to the rhythms of the lute and kept beat to the applause of the guests. He shook his shoulders and stretched out his arms, then he stiffened his back and swayed his body while flexing the muscles of his belly. He laughed and all the guests laughed with him. He danced with wild animation and his face flushed in ecstasy as though he were the groom. He then grabbed Saad and made him dance, but in utter embarrassment the groom was unable to keep up with the old man nor could he compete with his fine movements and subtle gesticulations. He stumbled as he danced and he felt the blood rushing to his head like a young girl forced to dance in front of a group of men.
Saad sat down, so too did Abu Mansour, and a group of men jumped to their feet to join in the singing and dancing. Some of them hoisted sticks in the air, and as one man raised the stick horizontally over his head, his partner would cross it with a strike of his stick in the middle. Or one would swing a stick around in circles while another would leap high in the air over it. They danced in such a frenzy until their bodies were drenched in sweat.
Naeem jumped up all of a sudden and asked that they clear the floor for him. "I want to dance alone," he announced, winking to Saad as a reminder of what he had promised him ages ago. He stretched out his arms as far as they would go and straightened his back. He tapped his toes on the ground and lifted his left foot, and in rapid motions he spun around several times and lifted himself off the ground as the contours of his spinning body were blurred as he spun. Then suddenly he stopped, and the crowd cheered and applauded wildly at his astonishing prelude. With slow, delicate, and deliberate movements he started up again, and as in a solo recital he gyrated back and forth to the rhythmic beat of the applause. His
arms lifted, his back straightened, and his body swayed very slightly, as though he weren't moving at all. Then he tapped his foot on the ground, lowered his arms to the side without touching his body, and his chest protruded like the arch of a tightly strung bow, and suddenly he pumped his legs and thighs over and over again, as the eyes of the crowd followed his movements and their breaths panted to the beat. It was as though there was eloquence in his dancing, and magic in its eloquence.
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B
efore Saad and Saleema awoke, Umm Jaafar and Umm Hasan had prepared everything. They heated the water for their baths, kneaded the dough and made fresh bread, and left two plump chickens simmering in a savory sauce over a fire for the newlyweds' lunch. There was also an array of deserts that Umm Jaafar had prepared before the wedding, not to mention the many different sweets some of the neighbors sent over the night before.
As soon as Saleema came out of her room, Umm Jaafar shot her a quick and inspecting glance. Her face was flushed a rosy red and her features revealed no particular expression. Umm Jaafar's heart beat easily, said "Good Morning" to her granddaughter, and gave her a kiss before going back to her chores. The next two days confirmed what Umm Jaafar had observed. She commented that the peaceful and glowing couple looked like a pair of lovebirds. Even Umm Hasan smiled and joked to Saleema, "Had I known that marriage would make you this content, I would have married you off as soon as you learned to talk."
But things started to change soon thereafter. It was Umm Jaafar who first noticed Saleema's pale complexion and puffy eyes as though she had been crying. It's natural for newlyweds to disagree, she thought, but so soon after the wedding? She confided to Umm Hasan about what was bothering her, and they thought long and hard about what possibly could be wrong. Either they had a quarrel, or perhaps he put demands on her that were just too difficult, or
maybe he was unable to fulfill her needs in some way. If she hadn't known Saad, she would have guessed that he insulted her or mistreated her the way some husbands do early in the marriage in order to assert their authority and assure absolute obedience from their wives. But Saad seemed as perplexed as Saleema. His face grew gaunt, and he avoided looking them straight in the eye whenever he spoke. In her need to know, Umm Hasan asked Saleema what was the matter.
"There's nothing wrong!"
"Did Saad mistreat you?"
"Saad?"
"Did he quarrel with you?"
"What are you talking about, Mother? Of course he didn't quarrel with me."
Umm Jaafar and Umm Hasan took turns fretting over what needed to be done. They toyed with the idea of bringing the matter to Hasan's attention but decided against it. After giving it careful thought, they devised a plan both of them would carry out. When the couple closed the door to their bedroom, Umm Jaafar would stand guard behind it and listen in on what's going on between them until her eyes and ears grew heavy with drowsiness. Then Umm Hasan would relieve her and take her place standing guard.
As agreed the two women executed their plan and spent the first night, each one taking her turn with ears glued to the newlyweds' door, straining every muscle in her body to hear what was going on. When Umm Jaafar awoke the following morning, she got up quickly and went out to join her daughter-in-law who was still standing outside Saad and Saleema's bedroom door, and the two women crept away slowly and quietly to exchange information on what they were able to gather during their watches. As the older of the two, Umm Jaafar spoke first and began to recount her sequence of events.
"I stood as long as my feet held out, but nothing at all happened."
"What do you mean, nothing at all happened?"
"They didn't quarrel. I didn't hear Saad raise his voice or repri
mand her in any way, nor did I hear her snap the way she always does whenever somebody scolds her."
"They were totally silent?"
"Not exactly. They were whispering as though one of them was revealing a secret to the other. That's what it seemed like to me although I wasn't able to make out what they were saying. And I couldn't tell if it was because the door was too thick or because my ears are too feeble."
"You didn't hear any other noise?"
"Not at all, as though he never approached her the way a husband approaches his wife."
"I didn't hear anything of that sort either," responded Umm Hasan, as an expression of bewilderment came over her face. "I said to myself, what happened must have happened at the beginning of the night and Umm Jaafar must have heard it. But now they've made up, passing the night whispering gently in each other's ear. This is something I cannot keep silent about!"
Umm Hasan decided to bring up the matter to her son in the hope that he would deal with this young man whom he married off to his sister. Despite Umm Jaafar s attempts to stop her, she made up her mind and headed straight to his bedroom. She sat down at the foot of his bed and waited for him to wake up to tell him what she had come to be certain of after a night's vigil. But when she finished telling him everything, he scolded her and told her that what she was saying was no better than the idle gossip of crazy old women. "Why don't you leave Saad and Saleema alone to start their life the way they see fit?" he added. But his words of rebuke only left her seething in anger.
Had someone told Saleema two days before Saad's wedding gift arrived that she would have a gazelle that she would love as much as her mother, grandmother, and brother, she would have laughed in his face and thought him insane. But she was taken totally by sur
prise at how much this little creature crept into her heart and lodged herself securely in it as though it had always been her natural habitat. Every night she tied her on the eastern portico and no sooner would morning break than she would unleash her, and she and Saad would feed her, play with her, and take turns holding her. When Saad went to work, she would do those chores her mother insisted she do, quickly and carelessly, rushing through them to leave herself free time to spend with the gazelle or to read. She would take a book and go out to the courtyard, sit cross-legged on a carpet, read for awhile, and then lift up her eyes to watch the gazelle prancing about or standing still. Sometimes she would come on her own and stretch herself out at Saleema's feet while she read, holding the book with one hand and gently stroking the submissive gazelle with the other.