The Jewel Of Medina (22 page)

M
EDINA
, J
ULY
626
T
HIRTEEN YEARS OLD

The loss of my friend Umm al-Masakin weighted my body like a great stone, pulling me down when I tried to get out of bed, stooping my back as I trudged from my hut to the cooking tent. In an attempt to cheer me up—and, probably, wanting to clean me up, since I’d lost interest in my appearance—Sawdah and Hafsa took me to the
hammam,
the public baths where Medina’s women gathered to wash, groom, and share stories.

Outside, the day was strangely cool and overcast, mirroring my gloomy mood. To my relief, the baths were not crowded; only a few women soaked in the large rectangular pools lined with stone, which were filled from a nearby spring using copper pipes. Others reclined on stone slabs beside the waters and towel-dried their skin, or sat upright, clothed and scented, while their daughters braided their hair. Musk and sandalwood, lavender and rose tinged the moist air, overpowering the burnt smell of oil from the lamps on the stone walls.

Umm Ayman, Sawdah’s sun-wrinkled friend and wife of Muhammad’s son Zayd, greeted us with brittle kisses and fevered questions as we entered.
Why, she wanted to know, didn’t the Prophet wear dark blue after the death of his dear wife?

“He says folks who mourn over dead Believers lack faith,” Sawdah told Umm Ayman as we undressed and lowered our bodies into the bath.
Zainab sits at the side of al-Lah this very day,
he’d said the morning of her funeral, and forbade the city’s wailing women to join our group as we walked to her grave site.

Why, Umm Ayman asked, did I look so bedraggled and red-eyed? Sawdah told her how fervently I grieved for my sister-wife.“Not because she isn’t faithful, by al-Lah, but because she misses Mother of the Poor. Those two did everything together.”

Their words fell like blows on my head, pushing me down under the water. I remained there as long as I could, away from my sister-wives’ dewy-eyed gazes. But, alas, I couldn’t hide forever from Umm Ayman, whose eyes gleamed as if she knew a secret about me.

“Poor A’isha. You and your sister-wife shared so much, isn’t that the truth? Including the Prophet,” she said, nodding. “But now, with her gone, you share a little less, hmm? You lost a sister-wife but gained a husband, hmm? Maybe al-Lah will bless you with a child now. Then you can put to rest all the wagging tongues in the
umma.
”

I looked down at my hands, not wanting to insult Sawdah’s friend with hateful looks.

“I would happily share Muhammad with Umm al-Masakin,” I said, “to have her back with me.”

Yet as my grief subsided, I began to see how shrewd Umm Ayman’s insights were. With one less wife in the
harim
, I saw more of Muhammad than I had in a year: sword-fighting in the courtyard, riding horses together in the desert, and sparring with our tongues as we each strived to outwit the other. Bolstered by his love, I began to feel more like a real
hatun
. But I made sure to keep my promise to Mother of the Poor and visit her beloved tent city from time to time.

At first, those visits were excruciating. Struggling to rise above my grief—and guilt—over Umm al-Masakin’s death, I had little solace for the tent-dwellers who mourned and keened for her and begged me to recount her final hours. How could I talk about her death when I’d been partly to blame? I’d thought of my own desires above her needs, and al-Lah had
taken her away. From now on, I’d strive to fill her place not only by caring for the tent-dwellers, but also by thinking more of others and less of myself.

That vow flew out of my head when, just three months after Mother of the Poor’s death, Muhammad asked me to ready her apartment for a new wife. Sawdah’s prediction was coming true: Ten months after the death of Muhammad’s milk-brother, his widow Umm Salama would join our
harim
.

“They say she is a haughty one,” Sawdah told me and Hafsa as we kneaded bread.

“Her story is the opposite of mine,” Hafsa said. “While my father’s friends declined to marry me because of my temper, they all wooed the lovely Umm Salama. My father and yours both proposed marriage to her, can you believe it, A’isha?”

My laugh was harsh, raising Hafsa’s magnificent eyebrows. “She must be special indeed for
abi
to take that risk. Marrying a twenty-eight year old from the Makhzum clan would turn his
harim
into a hornet’s nest.” Umm Salama hailed from a long line of wealthy Meccan aristocrats.

Like Qutailah, she was a jealous woman. That was why she’d turned down my father’s proposal, she’d said. To Umar she’d given no reason. She’d rejected Muhammad three times before he won her over.

“I am set in my ways, and my years are too advanced for me to change them,” she’d told him. “Also, I am hesitant to move my children into a home that may not be as loving as the one they had with their father. And, third, I am averse to sharing my husband with other women. Abdallah loved me alone. I would writhe in jealousy to see the man I married even look upon another with desire.”

But, unlike her other suitors, Muhammad persisted. He wooed her for months until she finally relented. “I am more advanced in years than you,” he’d said in answer to her concerns. “And I have known, and loved, your children since their births. As for your jealousy, it is no obstacle. I will ask al-Lah to remove it from you.”

Judging from her demeanor the day she arrived, his prayers had not been answered. Standing in the cooking tent with Muhammad, Umm Salama appraised me, Hafsa, and Sawdah with arrogant gray eyes that seemed to calculate our worth and find us all lacking. Jealousy shadowed her face even as she held herself erect. Were it not for the colors she
wore—a robe of white over a dark blue gown—she might have resembled a date-palm tree, so rigidly did she tower over us.

“Brrr! I feel a sudden chill,” Hafsa murmured, but I didn’t answer. I was watching Muhammad’s nostrils flare and his eyes gleam, as though he were a hungry lion and she his next meal. And I wondered: Could I, his Little Red, ever compare to this tall, elegant beauty?

With Umm Salama were four children: a baby sleeping in her arms, the sight of which made my heart pang with longing; two boys, one about fourteen, and one much younger, and a tall, quiet girl named Dorra, almost my age, who smiled at the pet goat I had tied to one of the tent stakes. I returned their smiles even as I felt my stomach writhe. How fertile was this new bride! Would it take long for her conceive an heir for Muhammad?

Of course, I’d had these same fears when Mother of the Poor had first married him. If she were alive, she’d be kissing the bride’s hands and welcoming her to her new home. I couldn’t go quite so far, but I reminded myself to treat our sister-wife with kindness until she proved unworthy.

“I will leave you all to acquaint yourselves while I attend to an urgent matter,” Muhammad said. “
Yaa
Umm Salama, when I return I will show you your new apartment.” His eyes flashed with a look I remembered from his first day with me.

“By al-Lah! He needs a handkerchief to catch all that drool,” Hafsa whispered. Umm Salama lowered her gaze to the sleeping baby in her arms and her cheeks blushed a delicate pink. She, I noticed, was not smiling.

Sawdah cooed and clucked over the babe while I looked on wistfully, wondering what it would be like to have a little one of my own. The children went out to play in the courtyard as I led Umm Salama to a cushion in the “nest,” as Hafsa had named the wives’ corner. I poured the new sister-wife a glass of date water, inhaling the scent of rose oil as I drew near to her.

I and Hafsa looked at our hands and sneaked glances at the new bride. She resembled an alabaster idol with that pale skin and those high cheekbones. No wonder so many men had courted her after her husband had died! And it was no wonder that Muhammad, the most prominent man of all, had persevered for so many months.

“She is not accustomed to
harim
life,” Muhammad had told me the night before. “You will need to explain everything to her.” I’d brayed like a donkey: After one and one-half years in Muhammad’s household, I only knew one thing for certain. I wouldn’t play “parrot” to anyone.

“A bowl of dates isn’t much of a wedding feast,” Sawdah said, grinning in apology. “We didn’t know you were coming today.”

“
Yaa
Sawdah, we have some clarified butter, also.
Samn
and dates are perfectly appropriate for a last-minute celebration.” I spoke with authority, to establish my status.

“We were hoping for a big feast, because then they’d kill a goat or a lamb,” Sawdah said. “We haven’t had meat for a long time.”

Umm Salama frowned. Judging from her perfume and the sheen of her silk, I guessed she was used to mealtime spreads of lamb and pomegranates, cucumbers and saffron-scented rice. Did she realize how different her life would be here? More important, did she realize who was in charge of this
harim?

“I am sorry to disappoint you,” she said in a quiet voice. “The Prophet offered me a feast, but I declined. These days I have little appetite for celebrations.”

A tear rolled down her cheek, dissolving the stiff mask she’d put on for us. I saw the face of heartbreak, and I forgot for a moment that she was my rival.

“Please forgive us,” I said. “We didn’t realize. You’re still grieving for Abdallah. Yet you married Muhammad. Why?”

She lifted her head on that stalk of a neck and looked at me as though I were a spider crawling across the floor, which she might crush at any time—but chose not to, out of pity. “If ever you have children, perhaps then you will understand,” she said.

Her baby began to cry, and Umm Salama turned to face the wall to nurse the child. I glared at her back.
If
I ever had children? Did she know that my marriage was unconsummated? My pulse beat frantic wings at the thought. In the eyes of the
umma,
an unconsummated bride was not a wife at all. And the only proper place for an unmarried virgin was in
purdah—
a place I’d avoid at almost any cost.

Yet even if Umm Salama hadn’t known I was a virgin, her remark about
if
I ever had children was a cutting one, and deliberately so. After
one and one-half years in Muhammad’s
harim
, I should be expecting a child. Eyebrows were raising over my failure, as Umm Ayman’s remarks in the
hammam
had made painfully clear. Some were speculating that I was barren, a shameful condition indicating the displeasure of the gods or, in our community, of al-Lah.

In a few moments, Muhammad came to the nest with a face as eager as though Umm Salama were a bowl of honey. He stretched out his hand to her and led her out of the tent. As she walked, with her baby in her arms, she held her head as still and erect as if she balanced a crown atop it.

“So why
did
she marry him?” I puzzled as soon as they were gone.

“Tut, A’isha, how is a woman going to take care of herself, and four young ones, too, if she does not marry?” Sawdah grinned. “Besides, you know how the Prophet can be when he wants something. As stubborn as a donkey.”

“Al-Lah only knows why he would want
her,
” Hafsa said. “A winter’s night is warmer. I should have given them a blanket as a wedding gift!”

Apparently, Muhammad tried very hard to warm his new bride. For seven days he closed himself up with her, not visiting the cooking tent, my apartment, or the mosque, except to lead the Friday prayer service. On the pulpit, he delivered his sermon with his mouth stretched tight and worry marching across his forehead like a funeral procession. When he arrived at my apartment the next day, I had strewn rose petals on the floor and in my hair, and I was ready to lift his spirits with a night of love—but he no longer needed cheering up. He swooped me into his arms and whirled me in a circle, then set me down, laughing, and sprinkled kisses on my nose and cheeks. He was acting very fatherly, but I didn’t mind. After tonight he’d think of me not only as a woman, but as his true wife and, I hoped, the mother of his child.

“How happy you are!” I said. “You must feel as pleased as I do to be together again.”

“I and Umm Salama have consummated the marriage at last,” he said with a broad smile. “After six nights of frustration.”

“Six nights?” He removed his turban and handed it to me. It was tied
in a new way—with a long strip of fabric trailing down his neck and shoulders, like a tail.
Her
handiwork, I supposed. “Why did she delay?”

“Her infant is young and needs constant nursing.” His color deepened. “Umm Salama had neither time nor energy for anything else.”

“So, the baby finally got its fill?” I tried to sound nonchalant, but my voice was as stiff as Umm Salama’s spine. “Or maybe Umm Salama’s arms grew tired of holding it to her breast. Either way, congratulations.” Hiding my flushing face, I turned away and pulled from my shelf the surprise I had made for him: a dish of
tharid,
Muhammad’s favorite meal, fragrant chunks of goat meat and broth ladled over broken-up pieces of bread. It was time to change the topic of conversation—to
me.