The Jewel Of Medina (47 page)

“We are helping Muhammad by helping ourselves,” Zaynab said.

“That cannot be.” He shook his head. “I forbid it.”

I sucked in my breath. Hafsa stepped forward. “
Abi
, no! We’ve promised Umm Jibrail. We’ve already spent her money, see?”

“You have wasted her money. I will talk with her husband today and tell him there has been a mistake.”

“Then you will speak falsely,” Umm Salama said. “We have made no mistakes.”

Umar’s laughter seemed to quake the sides of the tent. “You made a mistake when you planned this affair without consulting your husband,” he said. “By al-Lah! He has let his wives command the household, instead of taking charge himself. But women will not rule as long as I am in control.”

In my ears a door slammed, and I felt the hot whirr of caged wings in my chest. Helplessness filled my mouth like a fist.

“An impressive display of power, Umar,” Raihana drawled. “As is that belly of yours. Tell me, gold-ringed one, what was your feast today? Lamb? Rice with saffron?”

“We had barley mush,” Juwairriyah said. “And two dates each.”

“
Yaa
Umar,” I said, finding my voice again, “if you’re going to stop us from buying food, you should at least share yours with us.”

“And those nice gowns your wives possess,” Zaynab said. “That green one I saw Hafsa’s mother wearing last week would look stunning on me.”

“Silence!” Umar waved his arms as if he would knock us all down. “You are the Prophet’s wives, not mine.”

“You speak truly,” Umm Salama said. “And only Muhammad can forbid us to work for Umm Jibrail.”

“By al-Lah, I say you will not leave this mosque! Whoever tries it will be whipped—in the middle of the market.”

“
Yaa
Umar, they don’t mean to cause any scandals,” Sawdah said, fingering her Evil-Eye amulet and darting her glance from his face to the floor. “The girls are hungry, that is all. You know what a bad drought we are in. And the children here are all growing up. Without any babies to care for, there is not much for them to do.”

“These are not my concerns,” Umar growled. “I said you will not leave the mosque, and I mean it. I will post guards outside the doors to ensure you obey me.”

I laughed out loud, unable to believe his audacity. Standing before us in his rich tapestry of a robe, his breath smelling of lamb and cumin and honey, depriving us of a few measly pieces of silver! I looked about the cooking tent and saw the old, familiar lines pulling like harness ropes at my sister-wives’ mouths, felt the gaiety that had quickened our limbs and
our hearts flee from the tent like frightened birds. A fierce protective urge rose within me.

I pulled my dagger from my belt, wishing I could erase my sister-wives’ sorrows with my blade. “Don’t worry, sisters. I’ll deliver your gown and prepare the bride myself.”

“I will have you bound and imprisoned first,” Umar said. As he advanced toward me, my sister-wives beat him back with their slaps, and soon the very heavens must have quaked from the cries of nine outraged women and one—Sawdah—shouting for peace, and one stomping, snorting, yelling man brandishing threats as empty as his heart.

What a sight must have met Muhammad’s eyes when he walked into the cooking tent at that moment! I don’t know how long he stood there watching the melee before Saffiya cried out his name and broke from the crowd to flee into his arms. The sound of his murmuring to her, so quiet it was a miracle that it could be heard at all, silenced the tent as if he had uttered a magic spell.

He stood in the slanted evening light with his hair splayed all about him, curling madly from his turban and fringed with gold to match his eyes. His smile looked eerie, out of place under the darkening vein on his brow. And yet—I wanted to shout, to cry—he was alive!
Thank you, al-Lah, for guarding him from harm.

“
Afwan
, Prophet,” Umar said, his face reddening. “Excuse me. I was trying to instill some discipline into this loose
harim
.”

“Loose! He means ‘enterprising,’ husband.” Smiling proudly, I told him of my sister-wives’ business—but the vein between his eyes began to bulge and throb.

“You cannot allow your wives to solicit money from the
umma
,” Umar said. “It will make you appear weak.”

“By al-Lah! I suffer even now in my own esteem,” Muhammad said. “Have my wives planned this without consulting me?” His eyes were stern. “I thought you respected me more.”

“
Yaa
Prophet, I feel disrespected when I put on my threadbare clothes,” Umm Salama said.

“What’s so respectful about forcing me to wear the same gown for almost two years?” Raihana said. “I was a princess when I came to you, and now you make me live like a pauper.”

“Do any of you wear holes in your clothing?” Muhammad said. “Are you cold or indecently covered?”

“How do you define ‘indecent’?” Zaynab cried. “I have two gowns, both of them so faded that they drain the color from my face. I can’t bear to see myself in the mirror. By al-Lah! I would rather walk around without any clothes at all.”

“
Yaa
Prophet, do you hear how your wives talk?” Umar’s face was as red as raw meat. “This impertinence begs for a whipping.”

My blood surged at Umar’s cruelty. Here was the man who’d robbed me of my freedom by convincing Muhammad to make me cover my face, and who’d cheated me of my chance to fight for my
umma
. Now, because we weren’t as meek as he preferred, he wanted to scar our bodies with whips.

“
Yaa
Umar, do you think the Prophet’s wives are animals?” I shot back. “First you cage us, and now you want to beat us.”

Muhammad turned puzzled eyes to me. “You know al-Lah ordered your
hijab
, A’isha,” he said. “You witnessed His revelation to me in the courtyard.”

I smirked, remembering that revelation all too well: How it had followed Muhammad’s scandalous wedding to Zaynab, how frustrated he’d been by the delay of his consummation. How his revelation, in essence confining us all to the
harim
, had closed in upon me like the dark, cold walls of a tomb, nearly driving me into another man’s arms.

“Yes, I witnessed it,” I said. “I saw everything—including your transformation from a liberator of women into an oppressor of them.
Yaa
Prophet, was that also the work of al-Lah?”

F
ACES OF
H
OPE

M
EDINA
, J
UNE
629

As soon as I’d made my retort to Muhammad, I regretted it. Anger swarmed like hornets about his face, and his eyes told me there was nothing I could say or do to appease him.

Despair made me want to bite off my tongue. I’d been waiting two weeks for him to return, hoping to see love and forgiveness in his eyes—and then I’d made things worse by opening my mouth.
Why do I always have to have the final word?
Muhammad, on the other hand, appeared to have no trouble keeping his thoughts to himself. Before I’d finished speaking, he’d turned and walked out of the tent, his only reply the stomping of his feet in the entryway as he kicked the dust off his sandals.

I cried out to him, my voice a hollow thud. I ran to the tent entrance but he raised his hand as he retreated, signaling me to keep my distance. How I longed to fling myself around him the way the Yemeni beauty Alia had done! But I knew him too well to even try.

My heart weighted my chest like a stone as I watched him stride to the date-palm tree and climb the rungs fastened to its trunk, up to his apartment in the attic over the mosque. He climbed nimbly and effortlessly as
if he might keep going up and up, all the way to Paradise. But he stopped when, in a choked voice, I called out and asked him what he was doing.

“I am going to contemplate the future,” he said. “You all would be wise to do the same.”

Contemplate the future? Gathering behind me, my sister-wives urged me to ask him what he meant. But I didn’t dare. I feared I already knew the answer.

“
Yaa
Muhammad, when can I talk to you?” I called.

He continued climbing as if an invisible hand lifted him from rung to rung. “After I have finished my consultations with al-Lah.”

“About our future?” Saffiya cried in a trembling voice. He stopped again and studied us with the eyes of a father about to discipline the child he loves.

“About your future, yes,” he said. “And about my future also.”

“
Yaa
Muhammad, for how long will you remain in your room?” Zaynab called out.

“Today is the first day of the month,” he said. “On the last I will return and tell you my decision.”

He placed his hands on the windowsill of his room, climbed inside, and was gone.

“Decision?” Hafsa said. “What decision? Does he mean that he might not divorce me, after all?” In all the activity of the past weeks Muhammad had not yet spoken to Umar about her.

“You think he’s going up there to think about you? He’d be back in thirty minutes instead of thirty days,” Raihana said. “The Prophet isn’t shutting himself away to ponder his future with just one of us. In his eyes we’re all riding the same, lame camel.”

“Raihana speaks truly,” Umm Salama said as we moved back into the tent. “If Muhammad divorces one of us, he will divorce us all.”

A loud gasp, then a stifled sob interrupted our commentary—and Sawdah, red-faced and clutching her Evil-Eye amulet, fled from the tent.

Umar, forgotten when Muhammad had walked in, raged past like a stampeding bull, knocking me aside.

“By al-Lah, he will not divorce any of you, not if I can stop him.” He stamped to the tree and climbed its rungs much more slowly than Muhammad had done, and with a great deal more puffing and sweating.

I lifted my eyebrows at Hafsa, who looked as startled as I felt. “Umar, defending us?” I said. “Will the moon and the sun change places next?”

“
Yaa
A’isha, he is not defending us,” Umm Salama said. “He is defending the
umma
. If Muhammad divorces us, think of the consequences. Who would follow a man who could not command his own household?”

Chills scuttled across my skin in the next few weeks whenever I imagined Muhammad’s coming down from his apartment and casting me out of his life. I thought of how his face would look, broken and full of shadows, like the stony ridge of Mount Subh at dusk, and a hole seemed to spread through my chest. He was the only husband I’d ever known, the only man I’d ever loved. My sister-wives moved like spirits about the
harim
, their eyes haunted, but their pain was nothing compared to mine. They were widows, some with children, all with memories of life before Muhammad, of some other love, perhaps. For me, life before him was a blot on the page, as inscrutable as the existence of my soul before birth. He had always been there, as my mother and father had been. And, for as long as I could remember, he had been my friend.

If only I were a nightingale! I’d fly to the top of that date-palm and perch on those fronds and sing my song of repentance to him for the cruel way I’d treated Maryam, who carried his child also. I’d trill my long notes of thanks to al-Lah for the heir that would be ours, and I’d hold those notes until he believed me and until he joined me with his own throaty song. I’d sing and sing of my love for him, a love so deep and pure I could not fathom life without him, a love that so longed to protect him from harm that it kept me ever vigilant for spies and assassins, a love that had caused me to err, yes, but that had also saved his life.

But alas, I was no bird, and the only way to Muhammad was up that tree—a route Umar had made clear was forbidden to everyone. And with Believers and
ansari
crowding the base of the tree night and day to bend their necks and gape their mouths like baby birds in hopes of a glimpse of Muhammad’s turban, there was no chance for me to speak to him.

My feet carved a rut into my floor as I paced, agonizing, wondering what Muhammad was thinking, what decisions he might reach in his attic apartment with no one’s influence except that of Umar, who
brought him his daily meal. Would he truly divorce me? Panic rippled through me, making me jittery, depriving me of sleep. If Muhammad cast me aside, I’d lose my baby, for children belonged to their fathers. I clutched my pillow to my breast, remembering Umm Salama’s tale of mourning for her lost son, wrested from her arms by her husband’s family. I’d be alone for the rest of my life, for who in the
umma
would marry a woman scorned by the Prophet of God? Would I have to live with my parents again?