Pillars of Light (15 page)

“Zohra is run off her feet—you only have to look at her. She’s worn out trying to run the household with no help—”

“What would you know about it? You’ve been away for two years. Zohra is doing a fine job, and the boys, they help as much as they can.”

Zohra wanted to go in, but at the same time she wanted to hear the discussion.

“Besides,” Baltasar went on, “your mother is far too sick to be moved now.”

“She would have a better chance of recovery in Damascus. I could arrange a litter to carry her, with guards to accompany you all and a doctor for the journey. The cousins will pack up the house here and keep it safe while you’re away. Until she’s better. Or, if you decide to stay in Damascus they’ll arrange to send everything to you in the city.”

Baltasar’s face darkened. “You spoke about this without my permission?”

“Do I need your permission to speak to my own cousins?”

“I am still the head of this household, cripple or no!”

There was a long, charged pause. Then Malek said, “There’s another reason. The Pisan navy has joined the siege of Tyre and is blockading the port.”

His father snorted. “Conrad’s no fool. He’s reinforced Tyre’s defences and he’ll not give the city up. The king with no kingdom will be made to sit outside the walls till his army starves
itself to death and his brigand Pisans desert.” He shook his head. “Salah ad-Din should have cut the head off the man when he had the chance.”

Malek sighed. “Having offered the King of Jerusalem hospitality, that would have been a dishonourable act. It’s easy to judge the actions of the past. But Guy will need a port as a beachhead for his forces and supplies. If he decides to give up on Tyre—”

“He will come for Akka next? Is that what you mean? Spit it out, boy.”

Wearily, Malek acceded.

“Well, he won’t take it. With the arsenal and treasury here, the eunuch has made the city near impregnable. I’ll take my chances against the cur and his band of snapping dogs. We are staying put—here, in this house—and there’s an end to it.”

Into the heavy silence that followed this pronouncement Zohra stepped. Malek, looking defeated, got to his feet and took the tray.

“Thank you, sister. It’s very good of you.”

“I heard what you said. About moving to Damascus.”

“You were listening outside the door?”

“You were shouting to high heaven. It did not take much spying! I’m not sure we can move Ummi. She’s very weak. It would be a great upheaval.”

The two men exchanged a long look. The argument was brewing again, so Zohra left them to it.

Later, Zohra was sitting with her mother, some mending lying idle in her lap, not quite dozing, when Malek came in. Her head snapped up.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you.” He watched his mother for several long moments. Then he said, “Is there nothing you can do to persuade him to move to Damascus?”

Terror stirred again. “He’s a very proud man. He can’t bear
anyone to say he can’t take care of his own family, that he needs help. He chased Jamilla and Khalida out of the house when they came bringing food for us when Ummi first fell sick. Honestly, he roared at them like a lion. But it’s true what I said: I don’t think she can be moved. Well, you’ve seen her, how weak she is. And it’s a long way, Damascus.”

She watched as he set his jaw. “Zohra, it’s not only Ummi I’m thinking about. I have to go back in a few days. It’ll be harder if I have to worry about you here. Look, I’ve spoken to Rachid and Tariq. They’ll assemble an escort and a litter for Ummi, and Uncle Omar will find a reputable doctor to accompany you. The family in Damascus will have everything else you need. But if there’s anything you need sent, Uncle Omar will arrange to have it sent on.”

“But, Baba—”

“He must choose to come or stay as he will. He’s head of the family, but, Zohra, he’s not in his right mind. Pain and grief are fogging his judgment. I must act for him. How could I ever forgive myself if anything were to happen to you?”

Zohra felt her mouth go dry. She had been sure Baba would have the last word, that Malek would bow his head to his decision. It was not her place to make her opinion heard—but what if she did not? She wet her lips. “Just look at her. Does she look like a woman who can survive even two miles in a litter?” When it seemed as if he might still press on, she said quickly, “And you know Baba will never leave. He has his pigeons. And Aisa and Kamal have their friends, and their studies—”

“Kamal’s ‘friends’ are one of the reasons I urge you to go to Damascus. Bashar’s brother joined the
hashshashin
last year, got himself killed in Aleppo in some crazy assassination attempt. Bashar was talking about joining them and carrying on where his brother left off. I don’t want Kamal around him. He’s too impressionable. He needs a firm hand, or he’ll take a wrong turn. I fear for him, Zohra.”

“I do my best!” she cried defensively.

“I know you do, but he needs good men around him. The cousins in Damascus will take him under their wing, teach him the business, set him on the right path. And you will have help with Ummi, and can share the chores with the girls. And Ummi can receive proper medical care. Baba too, if he will only let someone help him.”

Zohra knew Malek had the best of intentions, but suddenly she could bear this no longer. “If you can’t persuade Baba to move to Damascus, I don’t know how I can, as a mere woman! And now I have a woman’s chores to see to, so please excuse me.” She stood up, dropped the unmended robe down on the clothes chest, dusted her hands down her skirts and gave him a firm look.

Malek sighed. “If you need me, I’ll be with Tariq and Rachid.” He looked down at his sleeping mother. “Goodbye, Ummi. May Allah grant you peace.” He kissed her forehead, then turned and left the room without looking back.

Zohra watched him go, seeing how his back was rigid with tension, and was assailed not only by guilt but also the overwhelming feeling that she would never see him again.

T
hat afternoon, Nathanael lay with Zohra in his arms, dozing sweetly with the air from the open window drying their sweat.

She sighed. “I wish we could do this all the time.”

“You would kill me within a fortnight, little wildcat!”

A lazy smile. “More like a contented butcher’s cat. I wish … I wish there were just the two of us in a house of our own and all the time in the world to be together. And I would make it beautiful and always clean because it would be my pleasure and no chore. And I would cook for you—oh, what I would cook! Capons stuffed with almonds and coriander; lamb roasted with honey and garlic; tarts of goat’s cheese and onions cooked in sugar cane; bread studded with olives; parcels of saffron chicken; fruit poached with cinnamon and cloves—”

“And then when I was so fat I could no longer move, you would roast me whole and eat me up!”

“I would never want to eat you.” She turned and caught Nat’s eye, gleaming provocatively. “Well, there is eating and eating!”

“Wicked girl: I am your slave.” He had never felt like this before. Her amber glances pierced him like knives. Any absence of more than a day felt like a physical pain.

“Well then, lie still and let me eat you up, slave.” Zohra grabbed his hand and started to nibble at his fingers, and they fought and rolled like beasts in the tangle of fabrics until Nathanael managed to straddle her with a knee on each wrist to keep the marauding hands at bay.

His face became solemn. “I want you to promise me that if we are ever starving and likely to die that you will eat me.” And as Zohra began to protest, “No, I mean it.”

Zohra screwed up her face in disgust. “You are gruesome. I expect it’s what comes of being a doctor’s son and having to deal with death and bodies all the time.”

“I am a doctor myself. For a year in Jerusalem and a year back here, in case you’d forgotten,” he chided. “Anyway, they say that human flesh tastes no worse than pork.”

“And how would you know about that?”

“I have tried a little pork. I believe in trying everything once. How else are we to truly know the world?”

Zohra flung him off at last. “Ugh, to eat a pig! You are atrocious. Whatever made you bring up such a horrible subject anyway?”

He hesitated, not wanting to tell her of the unsettling dream he’d had. She would think him strange. It would cast a shadow. Instead, he tried for briskness. “Come now. Get up, lazy lump, and show me you have retained what I taught you the last time you were here—no, not that, little wanton!”

They were laughing so hard they never heard the first knock at the door. Then Nat put a hand over Zohra’s mouth. “Shh … shh. Stay. Be quiet.”

The knock came again. Crawling across the divan with the patchwork cover pulled over his loins, he peered through the jalousie, then drew back swiftly. “It’s a boy. He must be looking for my father. Maybe I should go down in case it’s something urgent.”

“If it’s urgent he’ll knock again.”

They waited, and through the wooden blind Nathanael saw him move away. He sat back on the divan, but the spell was broken now.

“Come on. Your letters. I am beginning to wonder whether you ever actually wanted me to teach you how to read and write, or if it was just some ploy to keep coming here for other reasons.”

Zohra chewed her lip as she dressed. “My father believes only boys need to be educated. Ummi took my side and even talked with the
ma’alema
to give me lessons, but she’s been too ill this past year to take an interest in anything so trivial.”

“There’s nothing trivial about education,” Nat said fervently. “It’s the only way anyone develops their own thoughts, becomes a real person, not just some reflection of their little world. And no woman will ever be independent without some learning, unless she’s as wealthy as the Queen of Sheba.”

“Well, I’m never going to be that.” Zohra unwrapped the little leather-bound book and set it on the table, then shook the inkpot and dipped a sharpened reed pen in it. After much deliberation, she formed a long row of markings upon a new piece of paper.

It had thrilled Nat to teach her the connection between the sound of a word spoken or chanted and the shape made to represent it with ink, to see what a revelation it had been to her. Although she had in the beginning found it difficult to memorize the Arabic characters, now her struggle was more in the form of the exercise, making them flow elegantly across the page without constantly having to lift the pen and chew the end and think hard. He was surprised by how profound a pleasure it gave him to be able to give her something so intangible, yet with such infinite value.

He watched her for several minutes as she concentrated, frowning slightly over her letters. The choice of exercise had been deliberate: to copy a love poem by Ibn Hazm, that great classical Arabic poet. But he rather suspected she had not taken in the import of the lovely words, being so caught up in the difficulty of the transcription.

Nat waited till she lifted the reed-pen then pulled the paper towards him. “You’ll never make a calligrapher: your hand is uncommonly poor, and your spelling, too! ‘I would cut open my …’ What on earth does that say?” He pointed to a formless squiggle.

“ ‘Heart.’ It’s quite clear to me.” Zohra threw the pen down, much put out. “You can read what it says, can’t you? Isn’t that all that matters?”

“What, are you only going to write little love notes to me all your life?” He tousled her hair.

Zohra smoothed it down again. “It’s not a little love note to you, it’s just a poem by some man in some other time that I’m copying as an exercise. I’m no scholar. I just want to be able to understand writing and to make myself understood.” She yawned and stretched. “I should go back. I’ve been longer than I should. It’s not fair on the twins.”

Nathanael felt a little affronted. Was she punishing him for his criticism? Did she realize she held such power? “You’re always complaining they don’t do their fair share. Still, I expect Abi will be back from the citadel soon, and if he catches you here you’ll never get away.” The equanimity with which his parents had accepted Zohra’s frequent presence had at first disturbed him. Were they being deliberately dense? He wondered at first, but then one day he had heard them talking quietly in the salon when they’d thought him upstairs.

“I’m thinking of Zohra. If her father finds out there will be hell to pay. And he’d be within his rights to denounce Nat to the judge.” His mother’s voice.

“If the qadi comes we will talk to him. He will see we are decent people, not out to cause trouble. There are worse matches to be made. Look at the two of us.” There had been a smile in Yacub’s voice. Sara, Nat’s mother, had also been born to a Muslim family and given the name Zohra. When she converted she took the Jewish version of the name.

“You think everyone is as accepting as my family were?” she said. “It’s only because my mother and her sisters were romantics to the bone that I was not killed on the spot.” This was not the full truth. The family ran a farm. For Zohra to marry a doctor—Jew or no—was a huge step up the economic ladder, and they all knew it.