Aida Belongs to Jaballah, and Tawida Belongs to Salem
JABALLAH HAD BEEN on the lookout for a moment when his master was especially pleased with him, such as when he was carrying him home on his back from one of his wild nights out. On one such occasion, he hinted at his wish to marry his fellow slave Aida.
“So,” the master wanted to know, “do slaves get married?”
Craning his thick neck to look back at his master, the slave replied, “Yes, they do, Master.”
“You mean they really get married?”
“Yes, yes, they really do, Master.”
“So they have feelings the way we do?”
When Jaballah made no reply, the master gave him a gentle slap on the face. “Answer me, you good-for-nothing slave!” he snapped impatiently.
“God forbid, Master,” Jaballah replied at last.
At this, the master gave a guffaw so loud that he nearly fell off Jaballah’s back. Holding the master’s cane and hat in his hand, Jaballah slipped the drunk man’s shoes into the pocket of his farmala.
“Ha!” the master continued. “Do you think I don’t know what tricks you’re up to?!”
“Pardon me, Master—what tricks?”
“So are you saying you like slave women, too?”
“We’re home, Master,” Jaballah said, evading the question. “I’ll have to set you down while I get the key to the courtyard gate.”
“Aha! So you’re learning how to think, are you? You’re the slave that’s dearest to my heart. Did you know that?”
“Yes, I do, Master—may God grant you a long life. That’s a blessing to me.”
“You’re a kindhearted, gallant man. I’m nothing like you.”
To avoid being seen, the slave let his master in through the back entrance, which wasn’t visible from the street where the market was located.
“Don’t you dare let Auntie know I was at Fatima Turilli’s house.”
“Of course not, Master. When have you ever heard me say anything to her or anybody else?”
The slave women were awake when the master arrived home. When they heard Jaballah bringing him in, they helped him bring the master’s pallet and lay him on it. Then they carried him with Jaballah to his bedroom. Jaballah was always the one who put the master to bed when he was drunk. After telling Jaballah to lock the door behind him, Lalla Uwayshina grilled him about where his master had been.
“Just like always, Auntie, he was with friends at Hajj Mousa’s house,” Jaballah replied, his head bowed.
“Were there any singers there?” she asked, turning slightly and fixing her eyes on Jaballah.
“Oh, no, ma’am. I didn’t see any at all.”
“Tell me the truth now, Jaballah.”
“I am telling you the truth, Auntie. I saw Abdul Jalil, Sharef, Saheli, Hajj Mousa, and Sayyala, and they were talking and joking.”
“Do they drink?”
“Well, Sharef does, but Hajj Mousa doesn’t.”
“All right, you can go now.”
Jaballah had expected his mistress to ask him which wagon they’d ridden in so that she could guess where they had come from. When she didn’t, he lumbered hurriedly away, locking the doors behind him before she could think of some other question to ask him and call him back. When he passed the women’s quarters, he called to Aida in a whisper. She’d been waiting for him. She had changed her clothes, perfumed herself, and taken the kerchief out of her hair. Jaballah loved to see Aida this way: with her nappy hair wild and free, and her ebony skin exposed to his touch. He loved to take in her scent and listen to her furtive whispers.
He told her he had spoken to his master about her because he couldn’t bear to live without her anymore. With a glint in his eye and his heart racing, Jaballah reached out and touched Aida, and when she didn’t push him away, he invited her to the livestock pen. She accepted, and they were there till daybreak.
As his wife was helping him put on his farmala the next morning, Master Imuhammad remarked, “If I’m not mistaken, Jaballah talked to me about Aida recently!”
“Aida?” she asked, surprised. “When? And what does he want from her?”
“When, you ask? Yesterday! As for what he wants from her, let me think . . .”
“Yesterday!” his wife exclaimed.
His wife suspected that her husband had been so drunk the night before that he only imagined hearing the question he’d just reported. Angered by his wife’s suspicions, which might lead to an interrogation about where he had been, and with whom, he suddenly changed his tone.
“Well,” he retorted with a note of finality, “even if I did just imagine it, Jaballah’s going to marry Aida. And that’s that!”
Then he left the room shouting at the top of his lungs, “Aida! Aida! Aida!”
Abandoning the dough she’d been preparing, Aida came running, alarmed by the urgency in her master’s voice. Lalla Uwayshina stood next to her husband under the grape trellis, not knowing what he was going to do.
“Yes, master,” Aida said breathlessly.
“What day is today?” the master asked, his cane under his arm.
“It’s Thursday, Master.”
“All right, then. Next Thursday I’m going to marry you to Jaballah. So prepare yourself. I’ll inform him as well.”
That said, he looked over at his wife, tapping the end of his cane as if to tell her before he left that Master Imuhammad’s wish was reality’s command!
Taking advantage of the situation, Lalla Uwayshina rushed to add, “That’s right! You’ll belong to Jaballah and Tawida will belong to Salem. Let’s celebrate both weddings at the same time!”
Perhaps what moved Master Imuhammad to insist on marrying Aida and Jaballah over his wife’s objections was his desire to ensure a steady supply of new slaves for the family through the children that would be produced by their union. This, at least, was how Aida explained why the master had consented so readily to Jaballah’s request. What he didn’t know was that these two servants had already exchanged more than a few furtive glances and conversations, and had even professed their passionate devotion to each other.
After filching some peanuts from Master Imuhammad during one of his nights out carousing, Jaballah hid them for Aida in his farmala pocket. As for her, she set aside some of the asida she had made for her mistress and her friends for the celebration of the Prophet’s birthday. Then she placed it on a tray and hid it for him in the manger so that none of the other slave women would see it and snitch on her.
The asida was warm and smothered in date syrup and homemade ghee, its delicious aroma announcing its presence in the stable the moment he walked in. Aida looked around cautiously as she handed Jaballah the tray. Her eyelids heavy with arousal, it was clear that she had thought about him as she prepared it, and that she had been anxious to give it to him. Delighted by her gesture, he dipped her rough black fingers into the dish and licked them. Then he licked them some more, and some more, and some more. From that day onward, their physical affection needed no occasion but love alone. Aida went back to the kitchen trembling, wiping the smell of the ghee and the date syrup off her hands with the hem of her dress. She wanted to get rid of the smell of the food, but not of the effects of the licking, which lingered in her body and her memory. When she saw Tawida, she told her she was ready to give Jaballah her heart. Tawida hugged her, rejoicing in the love that had found its way to them even in their stifling prison of an existence.
When Aida heard Master Imuhammad’s announcement, she was bowled over by the surprise. Just the day before, the foundations of a new closeness to Jaballah had been laid after they’d been apart for some time, and now the door was being opened for her to enter this new life without fear. After Master Imuhammad left the house—luckily without being interrogated—Aida stood in a daze until Lalla Uwayshina jolted her out of her trance.
“Hey, girl,” she said. “What’s happened to you?”
Aida wiped her hands on her dress in disbelief, still without saying a word. Then she bowed her head before her mistress, who didn’t really care about the answer to her question. Lalla Uwayshina saw the wisdom in her husband’s decision to have the two slaves wed, since they stood to gain a generous supply of slaves this way. Marriages of this sort would save his family the expense of buying and training new slaves when the parent slaves grew old and weak.
Aida didn’t let on to Lalla Uwayshina why she was agreeing to the marriage, and Lalla Uwayshina likewise concealed what was going through her mind. However, she did ask Aida duplicitously, “Do you like Jaballah, or would you rather have Salem instead?”
Caught off guard by the question, Aida replied, “That’s up to my master. This is what he thought best, and we mustn’t go against his wishes.”
With a bawdy laugh, the mistress winked at her and said, “Come on, now. I know you like him. In fact, it’s obvious that you’ve tried him out! Now get out of here, you naughty girl!”
Again Aida bowed her head before her mistress, who issued instructions for a small party to be arranged. Food would be served to the poor and they’d try out a new darabukka player. It would also be a bloodless way of getting rid of Tawida.
Lalla Uwayshina was a big fan of marskawi music performed by black women with their throaty, melodious voices, and she would invent excuses to bring them to her house.
Thursday came all too slowly for Aida and Jaballah, the secret lovers longing to be united. But come it did, with a celebration complete with masterful marskawi performances:
Servant girl, I’m sending you out
To bring news of my love long gone.
With your eyes so black and your earrings so round.
I send you with this sad song:
My heart is heavy when you’re not here,
I’m too weak to bear my own weight.
Longing burns hot in my breast
As your tidings I anxiously await.
Neighbor girl, I’m sending you forth,
With my heart sore aflame.
Such pain do I suffer from his absence
that I hardly remember my name!
Like a thunderbolt the news of his leaving
descended upon my soul.
The blaze in my heart will never be quenched
till his presence makes me whole.
They say he’s sick and tired,
so my heart knows no rest.
Servant girl, I’m sending you out
To bring me news of the best!