The Moor's Account (5 page)

My father was resting his aching back, but in the half-light of the early morning, he looked like a pensive, earnest student. As my grandfather lowered the bronze chandelier and began to replace the candles, he struck up a conversation with the young scholar. He learned that my father studied shari'a, that he planned on becoming a notary, and, most interesting of all, that he was a boarder. For my grandfather, these details had an advantageous interpretation: Muhammad was ambitious, he would soon have an income, and, since he had no relatives in Fes, he would surely agree to live with his wife's family. My grandfather concluded that Muhammad was the perfect match for Heniya.

It was true that my father was tall and well built, but his appearance belied his true nature. As a child in Azemmur, he had barely survived the measles, and he had subsequently caught every other disease that swept through town. If he swam in the Umm er-Rbi' River, he caught a cold, even in the summer. If he raced with his friends through the alleyways of the medina, he was the one to fall and sprain his knee. If he walked around barefoot, his big toe was sure to find a stray nail. He came from a family of carpenters, but early on his father had decided that there was no point in training him, like his other children, into the craft. That was how Muhammad had ended up at the town school and, later, at the Qarawiyin. Studying seemed to be the only activity that caused him neither sickness nor injury.

When my father met Heniya's father, each saw in the other something
he desired. Muhammad had already heard about Heniya's legendary beauty and her many talents, so he was keen to satisfy his curiosity. My grandfather, meanwhile, thought that this handsome young man would finally break his unlucky daughter's curse. There followed an invitation to tea, a quick glimpse behind a curtain, and in short order my parents were married. After my father recovered from the shock of discovering that my mother was not Scheherazade, he tried to make the most of it. He finished his studies and, between bouts of cold, fever, or fatigue, he looked for work. That was when he noticed that Granadans were everywhere. Not only did they have credentials and experience, but they also had an exotic appeal my father could never match. With the fall of Melilla to the Crown of Castile, he decided to move back to Azemmur with my mother, now pregnant with me. This caused great consternation among his in-laws, who, incidentally, were also recovering from the shock of discovering that my father was not Antara on his steed.

When they set out on the long road to Azemmur—my father on foot, my mother on the black pannier-laden donkey that had been given to her as a wedding gift—dark clouds followed them all the way to the coast, so that it seemed to them they were being chased from one end of the country to the other. It was an early fall that year. The weather was cooler than usual and frequent showers impeded their progress. They did not reach the mouth of the Umm er-Rbi' River until late afternoon two days later. Across the water, the eleven minarets of Azemmur must have seemed to them like so many welcoming hosts. They must have been eager to get to my uncle's house, where they could have a bowl of hot soup while they warmed themselves by the side of the brazier. They sat under a cluster of fig trees to wait for the barge. My mother began to feel uncomfortable, but she did not want to alarm my father because, by her calculations, she was not due for another two months.

Ordinarily, the crossing of the river does not take much time at all, but on that particular day, after my father and the other travelers haggled about the price of their passage and loaded their belongings, it was almost dusk. Just as the barge was ready to depart, two Portuguese horsemen arrived, trailing a prisoner. The city of Azemmur had been under vassalage to Manuel the Fortunate for a few years already and none of the travelers, burdened by Portuguese taxes, could abide the sight of these two men of arms. Still less could they bear to see that the prisoner was
one of their own, a young woman whose veils had been removed and whose hands were bound by chains. Red, blistered strokes ran down her face and arms.

The two soldiers were tall and their helmets and armor looked heavy, perhaps too heavy for the current trip. The barge itself was not very large—the wooden platform built between two feluccas and towed from either side of the river could fit only a dozen passengers—and it soon became clear that one animal had to be let out if the soldiers and their horses were to get on board. The head ferryman asked the soldiers to wait until he returned, but they refused.

My father intervened; he was one of only two travelers with a donkey and, if anyone were to disembark, it might have to be him. Addressing the soldiers haltingly in their native language, he explained that he and my mother had been on the road since before dawn, that their luggage had already been loaded, and that it would not take long for the ferry to return. The soldiers replied that they were expected at their garrison and, in any case, they should have priority over civilians—vassals, at that.

The sun had begun to set now and the call for the evening prayer resonated from the minarets across the river. A cold wind blew. My father pulled the hood of his jellaba over his head. He was a soft-spoken man who was known for his ability to negotiate—after all, that was what his occupation often demanded—but on that day he suddenly and inexplicably opted for confrontation. Why should you have right of way? he demanded. He put his left hand on one of the horses' bridle as he spoke. His voice croaked, so unused was he to speaking to soldiers. And what has this poor girl done? Why do you have her in chains?

How dare you question me? one of the soldiers replied. He drew his sword and, despite cries of Wait, wait, from his companion, he struck my father on the shoulder.

All at once, my father fell to the ground, my mother ran off the barge screaming, and the soldier sheathed his sword. My mother dropped to her knees next to my father. Sidi Muhammad, she called. Sidi Muhammad, are your hurt?

On my father's gray jellaba, the neat hole made by the sword was blooming red. The travelers and ferrymen gathered around, giving advice, clucking their tongues, or elbowing each other for a better look.

He needs to be taken across the river right away.

Lift him up against that fig tree.

Take off his turban, it looks too tight.

Brother, give him some water to drink.

What good will water do? He is bleeding, not fasting.

At least I am offering advice, not just standing there like some people.

My mother pressed her palms on the wound and called for a candle from her basket so she could take a better look. My grandfather, may God have mercy on his soul, had sent her on the road with plenty of his stock. The Portuguese soldier calmly tethered his horse to a post and went to pull the donkey off the barge, but the poor animal twitched its long ears, turned its head sideways, and refused to move.

Come help me, the soldier said to his companion. The two men, each one with a strap in his hand, dragged the donkey forward, but the travelers held it back from its saddle. First, you kill a man, they said, and now you want to steal his donkey? Meanwhile, the head ferryman searched the donkey's panniers for the bundle of candles my mother needed.

The commotion must have flustered the animal, because it began to bray. Out of solidarity, the other donkey on the barge took up the call. Donkeys, as anyone who has owned one will tell you, are loud. They can be heard for leagues around. If you happen to be near a particularly vocal one, it can be very unpleasant, which is exactly what everyone on the eastern bank of the Umm er-Rbi' experienced on that fall evening of the year 903 of the Hegira. The deafening noise made everyone cover their ears, so no one heard my mother say that she was feeling the early contractions of labor.

One of the travelers, perhaps remembering the saying of our Messenger, as recorded by Abu Huraira—when you hear a cock crow, ask for God's blessing, for their sound indicates they have seen an angel, and when you hear a donkey bray, seek refuge in God for their sound indicates they have seen Satan—picked up a heavy stone and threw it at the soldiers. Others soon joined him, though it was dark by then and no one could see anything. The wind moaned, the horses heaved, the donkeys brayed, people shrieked.

At last, one of the ferrymen managed to light a candle. He lifted it up. The horses had somehow untethered themselves and ambled away, dragging their prisoner. The soldiers dropped the man they had been beating and ran after them. The travelers sat up, rubbing their heads or limbs
where the stones of fellow travelers had struck them. As for my father, he still lay where he had fallen, contemplating the scene with impotent fury.

The ferrymen told everyone to get back on the barge immediately, before the Portuguese soldiers returned. The travelers carried my father aboard, seating him gingerly next to his belongings. With difficulty, my mother walked on. Hurry, she told the ferryman, this child is on its way.

The anchor was hoisted, and the barge glided on the river, now as dark as olive oil in a jar. By then, my mother's pain had grown so intense that she settled herself on her knees and began to push. My father asked her whether she needed anything. I need to be home, she said.

So it was that she pushed me out into the world, on the barge that carried her from one bank to the other, my father bleeding by her side. She said that she did not cry, that the violence that had been visited on my father had silenced her pain.

When they arrived in Azemmur, a porter helped my mother, my father, and me onto his cart and took us home, while our belongings followed behind on the donkey. As they walked through the gate of the medina, my mother turned to my father and said, I want to name him Mustafa. My father did not reply; he had fainted.

All three of us—father, mother, and newborn child—were carried into our new home. My uncle Abdullah went to fetch the doctor while the neighbors on either side of the house came to help: the men lifted my father onto his bed, where he would be more comfortable; the women washed and dressed me, then handed me to my mother to nurse; the children moved our belongings out of the doorway and into the courtyard.

The doctor was a Jew, a man by the name of Benhaim al-Gharnati, whose reputation had extended throughout the city in just a few short years. (Knowing of my father's resentment of refugees, however, no one told him that his doctor was originally from Granada.) Benhaim wore the customary black and had a long beard, white save for a few strands of dark hair. Unwrapping the haik my mother had used to tie the wound, he cut through the jellaba and undershirt with scissors. The wound was very deep, the sword having gone through all the way to the other side, and strips of skin were floating in the puddle of blood. The doctor cleaned the wound and dressed it, but warned that my father was showing signs of disease. This muscle, he said, pointing to the shoulder, is becoming rigid. This is not a good sign. Not good at all.

It surprised neither of my uncles to hear this diagnosis. If there had been even a small chance of getting an infection, my father, they knew, would not miss it. In spite of the torrential rain, the doctor returned every day for a week to check on my father, the expression on his face getting grimmer each day.

On the seventh day after our return to Azemmur, our house filled with guests to celebrate my birth. The men gathered around my father, read verses from the Qur'an, and asked the Most High to bring His blessings upon me. The women gathered around my mother, painted her hands with henna, and brought her amulets to protect me against evil and injury. But the following morning, the doctor returned, this time to amputate my father's left arm. And so my mother spent the next few weeks attending to her men folk, both of them helpless and wholly dependent on her.

The first time my mother told me this, the Story of My Birth, I was only a boy of five, still prone to hide in the folds of her caftan, reluctant to leave her side and venture out alone into the streets of Azemmur. She said that I was born on a river, which could only mean that I was fearless then, and that I should be brave now. I should run to the stall around the corner and buy her the lamp oil she needed, even though it was getting dark.

But the second time she told me this story, it was many years later, when she had despaired of making me listen to reason, when she had lost hope that I would remain in Azemmur. She said I had been destined for a life of travel. But she could just as easily have prophesied that, having been born on the day my father stood up to the Portuguese soldiers, I had been destined for a life of war, or that, having endured a riot before my arrival, I had been destined for a life of survival, or that, having been born to a crippled father, I had been destined for a life of loss. If only I could see her now, I would tell her that all these destinies were mine in the end, and that God, in His bountiful mercy, had sent multiple signs, though in her desire to prepare herself and me for what was yet to come, she had noticed only two.

O
F THE TEN YEARS
that followed my birth, I can only say that they were happy, maybe even the happiest of my life. We lived with my uncle Abdullah and his family in an old house with whitewashed walls and a creaky blue door, down the street from the gates of the medina. The air
inside smelled of bread and wood, and it was full of a constant, comforting noise—someone was always calling out for a child, or grinding herbs in the mortar, or running up the stairs in slippered feet, or sharing a story around the evening brazier. My uncle Abdullah was older than my father by five years, though he treated my father with the deference and respect due to an older sibling. My uncle Omar, the middle brother, had recently gained admission into the carpentry guild and lived with us, too, occupying one of the four rooms around the center courtyard. He had never married, a fact that filled both my mother and my aunt Aisha with disquiet. They often wondered out loud what was wrong with him, why he had not taken a wife. It was true that he had a lazy eye, but that alone, they said, could not account for his reluctance. Later they clucked and argued with each other about whose turn it was to wash his clothes, mend his jellabas, or serve his meals. And later yet they felt only relief, because his bachelorhood meant fewer mouths to feed.