Alamut

  On all sides they were surrounded by high mountains. The sun bore down on the rocky slopes and illuminated the snow-covered peaks. She looked in the direction from which they had come. Between two slopes forming a gorge at the end of the valley there stood, as if dropped into place by design, an enormous rock resembling a mountain. On its peak stood a mighty fortress which shone white in the morning sun.

  “What is that?” she asked fearfully, pointing toward the walls with two tall towers rising up at either end.

  Her protector answered her. “There will be time enough for questions later. You’re tired, and first we need to get you a bath, feed you, and let you rest.”

  Gradually Halima lost her fear and began to observe her escorts carefully. Each of them struck her as more charmingly and beautifully dressed than the last. The silk of their broad trousers rustled as they walked. Practically each girl wore a unique color that suited her best. Close-fitting halters were sumptuously embroidered and decorated with gold clasps, into which gemstones had been set. Beneath these were brightly colored blouses of the finest silk. Each of them wore rich bracelets on her wrists and necklaces of pearl or coral. Some walked bareheaded, while others wore kerchiefs wrapped around their heads like small turbans. Their sandals had been artfully carved from colored leather. Halima looked at her own wretchedness and felt ashamed.

  Maybe this is why they were laughing at me before, she thought.

  They had approached the castle. It was round in shape and encircled by white stone staircases that led to its entrance. The roof was supported by numerous columns reminiscent of an ancient temple.

  An older woman emerged from the castle. She was long and thin as a pole and carried herself very upright and, it seemed, proudly. She was dark skinned with sunken cheeks. There was something intense in her big dark eyes, and her thin, compressed lips gave an impression of obduracy and strictness. From behind her some sort of yellowish cat came trotting out, extraordinarily big, with unusually long legs. It caught sight of Halima and gave a hostile hiss.

  Halima cried out in fright and pressed close to her protector, who tried to comfort her.

  “Don’t be afraid of our Ahriman. He may be a real leopard, but he’s as tame as a lamb and wouldn’t harm anyone. When he gets used to you, the two of you will become good friends.”

  She called the animal to come and took firm hold of it by the collar. She spoke to it until it stopped snarling and baring its teeth.

  “See, he tamed down right away. Once you get your clothes changed, he’ll treat you as family. Now pet him, so he can get used to you. Don’t be afraid, I’m holding onto him.”

  Halima fought back her instinctive fear. From a distance she reached forward, putting her left hand on her knee and, with her right, gently stroking the leopard’s back. The animal arched its back like a housecat and gave a contented growl. Halima jumped back, then laughed along with the other girls.

  “Who is this timid monkey, Miriam?” the old woman asked her protector, piercing Halima with her gaze.

  “Adi gave her to me, Apama. She’s still pretty frightened. Her name is Halima.”

  The old woman approached Halima, sized her up from head to foot, and inspected her like a horse trader inspects a horse’s parts.

  “Maybe she won’t be quite so useless. We’ll just need to fatten her up so she isn’t such a wisp.”

  Then she added with particular anger, “And you say that castrated Moorish animal gave her to you? So he had her in his hands? Oh, that miserable, twisted thing! How can Sayyiduna put so much trust in him?”

  “Adi was just doing his duty, Apama,” Miriam replied. “Now let’s go take care of this child.”

  She took Halima by one hand, while still holding onto the leopard’s collar with the other. She drew both of them up the steps to the building. The other girls followed.

  They entered a high-ceilinged corridor that led all around the building. Polished marble walls reflected images like mirrors. Rich carpets absorbed their footsteps. Miriam released the leopard at one of castle’s many exits. He leapt away on his long legs like a dog, turning his charming little cat’s head back curiously toward Halima, who was now finally relaxed.

  They turned into an intersecting corridor and entered a round room with a high, vaulted ceiling. Halima cried out in astonishment. Even in her dreams she had never seen this much beauty. Light poured through a glass ceiling composed of separate elements, each in a different color of the rainbow. Violet, blue, green, yellow, red and pale shafts of light filtered down into a circular pool where the water rippled gently, agitated by some unseen source. The many colors played on its surface, spilling out onto the floor until they came to a stop near the wall, on divans covered with artfully embroidered pillows.

  Halima stood at the entrance with her eyes and mouth wide open. Miriam looked at her and gently smiled. She bent down over the pool and put a hand in the water.

  “It’s nice and warm,” she said. She told the girls who had come in after them to prepare everything for a bath. Then she started to undress Halima.

  Halima felt ashamed in front of the girls. She hid behind Miriam and cast her eyes down. The girls examined her curiously, quietly giggling.

  “Get out, you nasty things,” said Miriam, chasing them away. They obeyed instantly and left.

  Miriam gathered Halima’s hair into a knot on the top of her head so that it wouldn’t get wet, then submerged her in the pool. She scrubbed and washed her vigorously. Then she drew her out of the water and rubbed her dry with a soft towel. She gave her a silk blouse and told her to put on the broad trousers brought by the girls. She handed her a pretty halter which turned out to be too big, and then had her put on a brightly colored jacket that reached down to her knees.

  “For today you’ll have to make do with these clothes,” she said. “But soon we’ll sew you new ones your size, and you’ll be happy with them, you’ll see.”

  She sat her down on a divan and piled up a bunch of pillows.

  “Rest here for a while, and I’ll go see what the girls have fixed for you to eat.”

  She stroked her cheek with her soft, rosy hand. At that instant they both sensed that they liked each other. Halima abruptly and instinctively kissed her protector’s fingers. Miriam made a show of scowling at her, but Halima could tell that she didn’t really mind. She grinned blissfully.

  Miriam was barely gone when Halima felt overcome with fatigue. She closed her eyes. For a while she resisted going to sleep, but soon she told herself, “I’ll get to see it all again in no time,” and then she was asleep.

  When she first awoke she didn’t know where she was or what had happened to her. She pushed aside a blanket which the girls had used to cover her while she slept and sat up on the edge of the divan. She rubbed her eyes, then stared at these young women’s kind faces, illuminated in the multicolored light. It was already late afternoon. Miriam crouched down on a pillow beside her and offered her a dish of cold milk, which she emptied greedily.

  Miriam poured more milk from a colorful jug, and Halima drank this down in one draft too.

  A dark-skinned girl carrying a gilt tray approached and offered her a variety of sweets made of flour, honey and fruit. Halima ate everything in front of her.

  “Look how hungry she is, the orphan,” one of the girls said.

  “And how pale,” another observed.

  “Let’s put some blush on her cheeks and lips,” a beautiful light-haired girl suggested.

  “The child has to eat first,” Miriam rebuffed them. She turned to the black girl with the gilt tray. “Peel her a banana or an orange, Sara.”

  Then she asked Halima, “Which fruit do you prefer, child?”

  “I don’t know either of them. I’d like to try them both.”

  The girls laughed. Halima smiled too when Sara brought her bananas and oranges.

  She soon felt overcome by so many delicious things. She licked her fingers and said, “Nothing has ever tasted this goo
d to me before.”

  The girls burst into uproarious laughter. Even the corners of Miriam’s mouth turned up in a smile as she tapped Halima on the cheek. Halima could feel the blood starting to beat in her veins again. Her eyes shone, her mood improved, and she began to speak openly.

  The girls sat around her, some doing embroidery, others sewing, and they began asking her questions. Meanwhile, Miriam had pressed a metal mirror into her hand and started painting her cheeks and lips with blush and her eyebrows and lashes with black dye.

  “So, your name is Halima,” said the light-haired girl, the one who had advised coloring her cheeks. “And I’m called Zainab.”

  “Zainab is a pretty name,” Halima acknowledged.

  They laughed again.

  “Where do you come from?” the black girl they called Sara asked her.

  “From Bukhara.”

  “I’m from there too,” said a beauty with a round, moon-shaped face and ample limbs. She had a delicate, rounded chin and warm, velvety eyes. “My name is Fatima. Who was your master before this?”

  Halima was about to answer, but Miriam, who was just then applying color to her lips, stopped her.

  “Hold on just a minute. And all of you … stop distracting her.”

  Halima swiftly kissed the tips of her fingers.

  “Stop that,” she scolded her. But her scowl wasn’t quite convincing, and Halima could clearly sense that she had won their general good will. She glowed with satisfaction.

  “Who was my master?” she repeated when Miriam had finished coloring her lips. She inspected herself in the mirror with obvious satisfaction and continued. “The merchant Ali, an old and good man.”

  “Why did he sell you if he was good?” Zainab asked.

  “He was penniless. He’d lost all his money. We didn’t even have anything left to eat. He had two daughters, but their suitors cheated him out of them. They didn’t pay him a thing. He had a son too, but he disappeared, probably killed by robbers or soldiers.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I was supposed to become his wife.”

  “Who were your parents?” Fatima asked.

  “I never knew them and I don’t know anything about them. As far back as I can remember, I lived in the house of the merchant Ali. As long as his son was still at home, we managed to get by. But then the bad times came. The master would moan, pull out his hair, and pray. His wife told him to take me to Bukhara and sell me there. He put me on a donkey and we went to Bukhara. He asked all the merchants where they’d take me and who they’d sell me to, until he met one who worked for your master. This one swore by the beard of the Prophet that I would live like a princess. Ali settled on a price, and when they took me away he started crying out loud. So did I. But now I can see that the merchant was right. I really do feel like a princess here.”

  Misty-eyed, the girls glanced at each other and smiled.

  “My master cried, too, when he sold me,” Zainab said. “I wasn’t born a slave. When I was little some Turks abducted me and took me to their grazing lands. I learned to ride and shoot with a bow and arrow like a boy. They were all curious because I had blue eyes and golden hair. People would come from far away to look at me. They said that if some powerful chieftain found out about me, he’d probably buy me. Then the sultan’s army came and my master was killed. I was about ten years old at the time. We were retreating from the sultan’s soldiers, and we lost a lot of people and livestock. The master’s son took over the leadership of the tribe. He fell in love with me and took me into his harem as a real wife. But the sultan took everything away from us, and my master went wild. He beat us every day, but he refused to submit to the sultan. Then the chieftains made peace. Merchants came and started to trade. One day an Armenian noticed me and started to dog my master about me. He offered him livestock and money. Finally the two of them came into the tent. When my master saw me, he pulled his dagger and tried to stab me, so that he couldn’t give in to the temptation of selling me. But the merchant held him back, and then they closed the deal. I thought I was going to die. The Armenian took me to Samarkand. He was revolting. It was there that he sold me to Sayyiduna. But all that is long past …”

  “Poor thing, you’ve endured a lot,” Halima said and stroked her cheek compassionately.

  Fatima asked, “Were you your master’s wife?”

  Halima blushed. “No. I mean, I don’t know. What do you mean?”

  “Don’t bother her with those questions, Fatima,” Miriam said. “Can’t you see she’s still a child?”

  “Oh, what happened to me was bad,” said Fatima, sighing. “My relatives sold both my mother and me to some peasant. I was barely ten years old when I had to become his wife. He had debts, and since he couldn’t pay them, he gave me as payment to his creditor, but he didn’t tell him that I’d already become his wife. So my new master called me all kinds of abusive names, beat me and tormented me, and screamed that the peasant and I had cheated him. He swore by all the martyrs that he would destroy us both. I didn’t understand any of it. The master was old and ugly, and I’d shake in his presence as though he were an evil spirit. He let both of his former wives beat me too. Then he found himself a fourth one and he was as sweet as honey with her, but he’d just beat the rest of us all that much more. Finally we were saved by the leader of one of Sayyiduna’s caravans, who bought me for these gardens.”

  Halima looked at her with teary eyes, then she smiled and said, “See, in the end you came here, and things are all right.”

  “Enough storytelling for now,” Miriam interrupted. “It will be dark soon, you’re tired, and we have work to do tomorrow. Take this stick and wash your teeth with it.”

  It was a thin little stick with tiny, brush-like fibers at one end. Halima quickly understood its function. They brought her a dish with water in it, and when she had finished this task, they took her to a bedroom.

  “Sara and Zainab will be your companions,” Miriam told her.

  “Good,” Halima replied.

  The bedroom floor was covered with soft, colorful carpets. Carpets covered the walls and were hung between the low-lying beds, which were covered with tastefully embroidered pillows. Beside each bed was an artfully carved dressing table with a large silver mirror affixed to it. A five-candled gilt candelabra with strange, twisted shapes hung from the ceiling.

  The girls dressed Halima in a long white gown of delicate silk. They tied a red cord around her waist and sat her down in front of the mirror. She could hear them whispering about how sweet and pretty she was. They’re right, she thought, I really am pretty. Like a real princess. She lay down on her bed and the girls put pillows under her head. They covered her with a feather quilt and left on tiptoe. She buried her head in the soft pillows and, in a state of fairy-tale happiness, fell blissfully to sleep.

  The first rays of daylight shining through the window awoke her. She opened her eyes and saw the designs on the wall hangings, woven in bright colors. At first she thought she was still with the caravan. On the wall she saw a lance-bearing hunter on horseback chasing an antelope. Beneath him a tiger and a buffalo faced off, while a black man carrying a shield shoved the point of his spear at a raging lion. Beside them a leopard stalked a gazelle. Then she remembered the previous day and realized where she was.

  “Good morning, sleepyhead,” Zainab, who had just propped herself up in bed, called to her.

  Halima looked at her and was astonished. Her hair poured over her shoulders in ample locks and shone in the sunlight like pure gold. She’s more beautiful than a fairy, she thought. Enraptured, she returned her greeting.

  She looked toward the other bed, where Sara was sleeping, half naked, her full dark limbs shining like ebony. The conversation woke her too, and she slowly began to open her eyes. They glinted like two dark, white-irradiated stars. She fixed them on Halima and smiled at her oddly. Then she lowered them again quickly, like a feline confused by a human stare. She got up, went over to Halima’s bed, and sat down on it.

>   “Last night when Zainab and I went to bed, you didn’t notice us,” she said. “We kissed you, but you just murmured something ill-tempered and turned your back.”

  Halima laughed, though she was almost frightened by the other’s gaze. She could also see the light down that covered her upper lip.

  “I didn’t hear you at all,” she replied.

  Sara devoured Halima with her eyes. She would have liked to hug her, but she didn’t dare. She glanced furtively toward Zainab.

  Zainab was already seated at her mirror, combing her hair. “We’re going to have to give yours a wash today,” Sara said to Halima. “Will you let me wash your hair?”

  “That would be fine.”

  She had to get up so her companions could lead her to a separate washroom.

  “Do all of you bathe every day?” she asked incredulously.

  “Of course!” the other two laughed. They immersed her in a wooden bathtub and splashed her playfully. She shrieked, dried herself with a towel, and then slid into her clothes with a pleasant, refreshed feeling.

  They ate breakfast in a long dining hall. Each of them had her own place, and Halima counted twenty-four in all, including herself. They sat her at the head of the table next to Miriam, who asked her, “So what do you know how to do?”

  “I can embroider and sew, and I know how to cook.”

  “What about reading and writing?”

  “I know how to read a little.”

  “We’re going to have to work on that. And what about verse making?”

  “I’ve never learned that.”

  “Right. You’re going to have to learn all that and quite a bit more around here.”

  “That’s fine,” Halima said happily. “I’ve always wanted to learn things.”

  “You should know that we enforce strict discipline when it comes to lessons. You will be no exception. And let me warn you about one other thing. Don’t ask questions about things that aren’t directly related to your studies.”