The Jewel Of Medina (42 page)

“Then,” Ali continued, “the black man fumbled with his waist string and dropped his skirt. I was infuriated! ‘I’ll cut off your testicles for that insult,’ I said. But he bent over and pointed to his backside—and, by alLah! I saw that someone had already done the deed.”

Ali began to laugh so hard he almost dropped his sword. “
Yaa
cousin, you have nothing to worry about. Your concubine’s sheath is safe from the eunuch’s blade.”

A
N
H
EIR FOR THE
P
ROPHET

M
EDINA
, M
AY
629
S
IXTEEN YEARS OLD

Muhammad had accused me of jealousy toward Maryam, and, yes, I envied her blue-and-gold allure. More distressing, though, was his lack of desire for me after she’d arrived. To conceive his child I needed more than fond kisses and weary smiles.

With so many women, Muhammad should have sired enough heirs to form his own personal army. Sawdah was long past the childbearing age, but the rest of us made a tree full of ripe fruit waiting to be picked. In the
harim
we eyed one another’s bodies jealously, knowing that she who bore the Prophet an heir would enjoy a special place in Hijaz. And when Muhammad left for Paradise, his son would hold the
umma
in his hands, to guide and rule as his father had done, and his mother would live as a queen in this life and the next.

Stoked by competition, cruelties flared hotter than the cooking fire.

“I awoke this morning feeling lightheaded,” Saffiya announced, slanting her eyes. Laughter squawked, vulture-like, from Zaynab’s corner.

“That is no sign of pregnancy,” Raihana retorted. “You truly
are
light in the head.”

I, on the other hand, kept my symptoms to myself until I could be sure. Missing my monthly bleeding was hardly proof of pregnancy. My blood flow had ceased before, caused by hunger, Sawdah said. Yet after weeks of nausea and my second missed period, I began to nurture secret hopes.

Competitiveness aside, the
harim
was a busier, and happier, place these days as my sister-wives sewed, spun, tatted, embroidered, crushed flowers for dye, tried new lip colors and blended fragrances in anticipation of their first paying work as tire women. Sawdah had told Umm Ayman about the enterprise, and in only a few days the wife of the wealthy landowner Harun ibn Malik had hired them for her daughter’s wedding at a good price.

While my sister-wives worked and chattered about how they’d spend their earnings, I slipped off to Sawdah’s hut. When she opened her door to me, she gasped in delight.

“You waited long enough to come, by al-Lah!” she said. “Have our prayers been answered?”

She laid me on her bed and pressed her hands against my belly as if feeling a melon for ripeness.

“Mmm-hmm,” she said. “Just what I thought.”

She pulled my legs apart and peered between them as if she could see into my womb. “Yes,” she said. “Yes.”

She hefted my breasts.

“Filling up. A good sign.”

Then she examined my tongue, gazed into my eyes, and made the pronouncement I had not even dared speak in the mirror: I was pregnant with Muhammad’s child.

My heart seemed to take wing, lifting me in great, excited leaps. At last, a baby of my own to love, to play with, to sing to, to hold and cherish and to give me grandchildren in my old age! I skipped around the room like a joyous child. At last I’d escape my servitude to Zaynab! Bearing Muhammad’s heir would place me in charge of the
harim
, out of her control forever. I threw my arms around Sawdah’s neck and embraced her.

“Praise al-Lah, He has saved the best for the youngest,” she gushed, grinning hugely, when I finally let her go. Then, fingering her Evil-Eye amulet, she added, “May His will be done.”

I kissed her again, then ran across the courtyard to Hafsa’s hut.

“You’re not going to believe this!” I cried when she opened her door—but the wild gleam in her eyes and the flush in her cheeks stopped my burble of excitement like a hand clamped over my mouth.

“Have you come with a strange tale, A’isha? Ha, ha! I have tales of my own. Alas, they’re too sordid to repeat.”

She turned and disappeared into her hut. I followed and shut the door behind me. Her apartment was like mine, except darker—Hafsa hated the heat—and the walls and windowsills were bare. I smelled dust and a trace of musk—Maryam’s scent. As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I noticed bits of broken clay clinging to her walls and, on the floor, shards of pots and bowls.

“What happened?” I pointed to the piles of broken clay. Hafsa glared. “
Yaa
Hafsa, is there a body hidden somewhere?”

“By al-Lah, I wish there were two!” A tear trickled down her cheek, but she wiped it away. “
Yaa
A’isha, Muhammad has ordered me not to tell a soul, but I must talk to someone. Why should I keep his tawdry secrets? Let him divorce me. I don’t care! Then at least I wouldn’t have to share my bedroom with that Egyptian harlot.”

Then she told me: She’d spent the afternoon with a throbbing headache at her mother’s house, sipping sherbet and being fanned by servants.

“You know I can’t bear these stifling summer days,” she said. “But I had no idea how hot it was in this apartment.”

When she returned to the mosque, her face and hair damp with sweat, she headed to her hut for a nap.

“When I opened the door, I found Muhammad and Maryam lying on my bed, kissing and embracing.”

I gasped. “You walked in on them together?” Heat rushed through me as I tried to imagine the scene. “What did they do?”

“They didn’t even know I was here until I smashed a bowl into the wall over their heads. That got their attention, ha, ha!” Her laughing mouth was a gash of pain. “I threw another, and Maryam clutched her clothes to her breast and ran out the door. Muhammad begged me to calm down before I brought the entire
umma
running. That’s all he cared about, A’isha: his reputation! His desire to be king of Hijaz has made him forget his compassion and his good sense.”

A knock sounded at her door. “This hut has seen more visitors in one day than I’ve received all year,” Hafsa grumbled as she yanked it open. Muhammad stood in her doorway, his smile tentative.

“I have come to ask how you are feeling, Hafsa.”

“Why? Are you afraid I’ll tell my sister-wives how I found you making love to your concubine in my bedroom?”

“We were not making love. We were only embracing. May I come inside?”

So—Hafsa
had
caught Muhammad in her room with Maryam! This was the worst kind of insult. My temper spiked with hers.

“That was quite an embrace,” Hafsa snapped. “So intense, you had to lie down. Or is that how the Egyptians do it?”

“Maryam was feeling faint. That is why I brought her into your hut. I did not think you would mind.”

“What was she doing here? Doesn’t she have an entire house to herself?”

“Hafsa, I do not wish to have this conversation in the courtyard. May I please come inside?”

“Fulfill your desires,” Hafsa said. “As you always do.”

I greeted him with a glare, not bothering to hide my anger.

“I have come to speak with Hafsa in private,” Muhammad said to me. “Leave us, please.”

“Leave? Why? I already know everything. Except your excuse, of course.”

The vein between his eyes throbbed. “Did I not ask you to keep our conflict between us, Hafsa?”

“You had company in the committing of your deed,” she said. “Why should I suffer for it alone?”

Muhammad’s countenance darkened. “We did nothing! But you have betrayed my confidence. How can I live with a wife I cannot trust?”

“Did you ask this question before you married Abu Sufyan’s daughter?” I said.

“Keep out of this, A’isha. Did I not ask you to leave us?”

“Please remain.” Hafsa arched an eyebrow and looked down her long nose at Muhammad. “I would like a witness.”

“I was only kissing Maryam.” Muhammad’s tone was flat. “We were celebrating her good news.”

“Maryam’s going back to Egypt?” I said.

“She is not going anywhere,” Muhammad said. “She is bearing my child.”

I willed my fluttering pulse to calm down. Maryam, pregnant also? Just as Muhammad’s desire for me had been diluted by her, so, now, would his excitement at my news. Yet—my own joy would not be affected. A child was the one thing Maryam could not take away from me.

Hafsa cawed like a crow. Muhammad smiled at me as though his mouth were filled with sweet cream. He wanted a son more than anything.

“Congratulations, husband,” I said. “This is a special day for you. In truth, I’d say it’s doubly special. Because I discovered today that I’m pregnant, also.”

His smile disappeared. The vein on his forehead bulged. “By al-Lah, I never imagined such audacity, even from you,” he said. “Are you so desperate for my attention that you must fabricate tales?”

I reeled at the insult, but only for an instant. Within me beat the heart of my child, quickening my courage and my tongue.

“I follow your example, Prophet,” I said. “You have become quite adept at the art of fabrication.”

“When have I lied to you?”

“Not five minutes ago, you said you were only giving Maryam a kiss when Hafsa walked in. Yet, according to Hafsa, Maryam grabbed her clothes as she ran from the hut.”

“She was feeling faint,” Muhammad said. “She had removed her robe.”

“Also, you say you treat all your wives equally. Yet when have you done so? Your true wives wait for affection that rarely comes, while you sow your seed in a woman who refuses to marry you.”

“Enough!” Muhammad yelled. “You have said too much, as usual, A’isha.”

“Then I will speak,” Hafsa said. “We are tired of broken promises and empty beds.”

Muhammad glared at her. “Accustom yourself to an empty bed, Hafsa,” he said. “Since you have broken my confidence by telling A’isha what I asked you not to, I will respond by breaking my marriage contract with you. When I have spoken with Umar, you may take your belongings and rejoin your father in his home.”

Hafsa’s face turned so pale, I rushed over to catch her in case she should faint. “How could you speak of divorce when you’ve forbidden your wives to remarry?” I said, glaring at him.

“Al-Lah made that prohibition, not I.” His eyes held only darkness. “And the revelation spoke of my widows, not wives divorced from me. Any wife I release would be free to marry again.”

Bilal’s call from the roof of the mosque sent confusion across all our faces. Muhammad flung open Hafsa’s door and strode into the courtyard. I started to follow, but I remembered Hafsa and stopped to reassure her.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “He’s only angry. And that was just his first repudiation. He won’t make the other two.” For a man to divorce his wife, he had to declare the intention to her three times.

“No, you spoke the truth,” Hafsa said. “We women of Hijaz are like tail-wagging dogs compared to Muhammad’s exotic Egyptian feline of a mistress.” Tears streamed down her cheeks. “It’s impossible to compete.”

The contest was about to become more intense. Bilal’s cry had announced the arrival of that much-awaited caravan from Yemen, the one bringing a new wife for Muhammad. We trudged like stones rolling across the grass to see her. Neither the colorful silks adorning the camels nor the incense scenting the air could arouse even a comment from any of us.

Murmurs rustled through the crowd, heralding the bride-to-be. We watched her in silence at first, as though listening to a poem that told of high cheeks like figs, of eyelashes as long as a lover’s kiss, lips as full and dark as forbidden wine, skin like coffee, and a bosom like the twin hills of Mecca.

“Say good-bye to your husband, sister-wives,” Raihana finally said. “This new toy won’t lose its appeal anytime soon.”

“She is an exotic flower drawing every eye,” Saffiya complained.

“By al-Lah, another foreigner to make us all seem common,” Hafsa said. “Raihana speaks the truth. We’ll never see Muhammad again.”

“
Yaa
Hafsa, where is your spirit?” I stared at her. “You’ve never been so quick to submit.”

Hafsa’s face slumped. “Look at her, A’isha!”

I looked—and saw Muhammad help his new bride-to-be down from her camel. Her smile outdazzled the jewels dripping from her throat, ears, arms, and ankles—a smile that didn’t reach her eyes—but it was those
gently swelling breasts, rising like soft cushions from the scoop of her gown, that tugged at Muhammad’s gaze.

“Don’t be fooled by her suggestive clothing. She’s a complete innocent, with a father more strict than Umar,” I murmured to Hafsa and Saffiya. “She’s harmless.”

Then as Muhammad instructed her servants, I saw her eyes move to the face of her escort, a tall man in clothing of gold thread with a fine long nose and eyes that seemed to shoot daggers into the back of Muhammad’s neck. Fear contorted the woman’s face as if she were screaming and her lips moved beseechingly, but the man’s face hardened and his jaw ticced.