You Tell Me the Story

CROWDED AS USUAL, the Jarid Market was bustling with merchants, their male customers, and slaves of both sexes. It was considered improper for a free woman to go there. Even so, Atiga hazarded the venture with Miftah. After delivering her to her destination, he told her he would be nearby when she was ready for him to escort her home.

Clad in European attire that set her apart from the local women, she went in search of a merchant by the name of Ali Bin Shatwan. When he was informed that there was a woman asking for him, he dropped what he was doing and came running. He knew it had to be her. He looked different to her than he had the first time. Unlike the day he’d come to her house, he wasn’t wearing a jard. The most attractive thing about him was his gray-flecked hair, along with his towering height, his slender build, and his fair skin. He had handsome features, and his Arab attire was spotless. He had the look of the quintessential merchant.

When he saw her, he greeted her, but without extending his hand. Her coming to the market had made him a bit uncomfortable, since as far as he was concerned, it wasn’t a place fit for women of standing.

“Why did you come by yourself?” he asked. “Why didn’t you send for me?”

With a sardonic smile, she replied, “Don’t worry about what people will say. I’m not important enough for anybody else to care what I do. Nobody knows who I am. I’m hardly even recognized as ‘Atiga the nurse!’”

“Now don’t talk about yourself that way!” he chided solicitously.

He walked awkwardly ahead of her, clearing the way before her so that she could pass unhindered. He hadn’t wanted their relationship to start out with this glaring difference in status, a difference he was doing his best to conceal, and whose consequences he wanted to be rid of. After dismissing some laborers who had been organizing merchandise, he set a chair in the doorway to indicate that the store was closed.

He avoided having her sit across from the entrance so that she wouldn’t be visible to passersby.

He was happy to see her, and happy that she’d come. It was the first time he’d been able to get a more complete picture of her, and she was different from what he’d imagined her to be. Wanting to make their first visit as pleasant as possible, he ordered tea for her and opened the conversation by asking her general questions about her life. But when he noticed her curt replies and the long silences between them—as if she hadn’t come to talk, after all—he went silent too. As she checked out the shop with her eyes, he took the opportunity to get a good look at her. She was tall and slender, with a darkish complexion. She was pretty, too. In contrast to his general idea about women, she didn’t wear Arab dress, and worked outside the home in an institution.

Anxious to break the silence, he said, “This is my grandfather’s original store, where our business first got started.”

She nodded without saying anything.

“Your father worked here. But he didn’t sit behind the counter.”

“What? Where?” Atiga replied, as if she’d been thinking about something else.

“He used to sit right where you’re sitting now,” he said, pointing to her.

“Am I keeping you from some work you’re supposed to be doing?” she asked suddenly.

“No, no. You’re welcome here! I’m happy you came. You might not believe it, but I really am.”

A smile flickered on her lips, as though she were laughing to herself at the senselessness of what was going on around her. Then suddenly her features took on a serious look again.

“So, tell me . . . ,” she said.

After some hesitation, he asked, “What do you want me to tell you?”

Just then he had a sudden coughing spell. He went red in the face and his eyes teared up. She waited for him to catch his breath.

“Are you ill?” she asked.

“No, no! Don’t worry about me. You tell me a story.”

“What story? I don’t have any stories to tell.”

“Then tell me what you’d like to know. Or anything . . .”

“Why did you come looking for me?”

Her question seemed to surprise him.

“Well,” he said, “I had to look for you before I died.”

“Are you going to die soon?”

“We’re all going to die. Death is close to all of us. It could come at any moment. So please, help me set right whatever I can. I want to make you happy, to communicate with you. You’re my roots.”

At this point his tone of voice changed, and he really did seem like a sick man. She fixed her gaze on him as he spoke, as though he’d finally hit a tender spot in her heart.

“You might not believe me, of course. You might say, ‘So where have you been all these years?’ And my answer would be, ‘Unless I tell you things you don’t know, you won’t be able to picture what came before you.’ Even if you’d refused to see me again and this were the last time you came, I’d be happy I’d finally been able to meet you, and that I’d restored as much as I could of what’s due you and your mother. I’ve managed to establish your name and your lineage. And now that I’ve proved that you’re Muhammad’s daughter, I’m fighting for your inheritance rights too. You don’t realize what I’ve been doing for you in these distant parts of the family domain!”

“Thank you. But why do you talk about death so much? Don’t you think I’ve suffered enough losses already?”

“Because I really am sick.”

He sensed that, deep down, she sympathized with him.

“But I didn’t come to talk about an inheritance,” she clarified. “I came out of curiosity. I want to know what happened, and how it happened. In this crazy world I want to know my own story, the story that belongs to Atiga Bint Tawida. After all, my story is part of my ancestry. It’s an inheritance nobody can contest my right to.”

“That’s right,” Ali concurred, holding a handkerchief to his mouth. Then, as if in reconfirmation, he added, “That’s right. You’re the daughter of Tawida and Muhammad Bin Imuhammad Bin Abd al-Kabir Bin Shatwan—and my cousin!”

“Will you come to my house someday?” As she spoke, she hurriedly got up out of her chair.

“I’d be honored to know your family. I hear your husband is an educated, thoughtful man. And that you have children.”

When he said the word children, he smiled.

He went on, “I want to get to know them, and for them to know me as an uncle. I’ll definitely visit you. And I’ll keep coming around for as long as I live.”