Neither Muhammad nor Ali

SERVANTS ALWAYS ROSE much earlier than their masters. But if there was some special occasion in the offing, they hardly slept at all.

Tawida fell into bed exhausted beside her baby, and before long she was dead to the world. But little more than an hour after she’d closed her eyes, she heard an urgent knocking on the shack door, and Aida’s voice calling her.

“Tawida! Tawida! Get up!”

Springing out of bed, she ran to open the door, alarmed at the urgency of her friend’s voice.

“What’s going on? Who died?” she asked in a stupor. “You scared me!”

“No, no, nobody’s died,” Aida said. “But the cats have eaten the meat!”

Only then did Tawida realize her mistake.

“Oh my God!” she wailed, striking her forehead with the heel of her hand. “Oh my God! I forgot!”

“So what do we do now?”

“We’ve got to take care of it. What do we do?”

Just then Salem showed up from somewhere and greeted the women. Then, noticing their jaundiced faces, he asked, “What’s happened?”

Aida told him, and everybody was now in a state of dread over what would come next.

Right away Salem said, “We’ve got to get together enough money to buy another sheep now. Come on. Take a collection from the girls.”

“I know everybody’s situation,” Aida said hopelessly. “There’s no way we’ll have enough.”

“Quick! Who has a ring or something hidden away?”

Tawida collapsed in tears beside the cardboard box, whose little occupant woke up and wanted to nurse.

“Don’t nurse him now,” Aida said to her. “You’re upset and your milk won’t be good for him.”

“But he’s crying!”

“I’ll give him some sugar water.”

“He hasn’t nursed since yesterday.”

“It’s all right. It’s all right. I’ll take care of him.”

“What makes things even worse is that Muhammad isn’t here, and neither is Ali.”

“You’ve heard people speak of ‘a day without either Muhammad or Ali’? Well, this is the kind of day they were talking about!”¹ Aida quipped ruefully.

When it was clear that the servant women wouldn’t be able to come up with enough money to buy another sheep, Salem said, “I’ll be right back.” Then he took off in the direction from which he’d come. Running as fast as his legs would carry him, he kept going until he’d reached al-Figgi’s house. He knocked gently on the reception room window.

“Who is it?” asked a voice from inside.

“It’s Salem,” he whispered. “Open up.”

Hussein opened the window and, sounding surprised, asked, “Why are you back so soon? Did somebody see you?”

“No, no. But there’s an emergency.”

Hussein opened the reception room door and Salem tiptoed inside. After closing the door behind him, the boy asked, “What’s wrong, my little bird?”

“I need money to buy a sheep, and I need it right away.”

“A sheep?!”

“Yeah. Tawida forgot to hang up the meat they were going to cook for a banquet today, and the cats ate it. Now we’ve got to buy another sheep before the masters wake up.”

With a sudden twinge of jealousy, the boy asked, “And what do I care about Tawida?”

“Look. It isn’t Tawida asking for your help. It’s me. If they find out what happened, they’ll torture her and take her baby away from her, and they might even sell him. I can’t stand to see that happen to her.”

Getting Salem’s point, the boy fell into an apprehensive silence.

At last he said, “But I haven’t got any money on me.”

Sticking his face into Hussein’s, Salem said sternly, “Get the money. Quick.”

Hussein reached out and grasped Salem’s shirt from behind.

“Are you angry with me? Calm down now! I’ll borrow it from my dad.”

“I haven’t got much time. Now get us out of this mess.”

Angry himself now, Hussein snapped, “What do you care about her, anyway? It was her mistake, not yours!”

“Hassouna, what’s with you? Have you lost your mind? Don’t make me repeat myself.”

Grabbing Salem again, Hussein pleaded, “Don’t be mad! I’ll get some money from my mom. She’s nicer than my dad, anyway. Wait for me at the end of the alley, and I’ll meet you there.”

The boy glanced up and down the street before Salem stepped out. When the coast was clear, he gestured for him to leave fast.

As Salem scurried out the door, Hussein hissed, “I swear, just knowing you is a mess!”

If the cooking for a luncheon banquet hadn’t started by early in the morning, it meant either that the meat wasn’t ready or that the cooks hadn’t gotten up on time. On the morning of the luncheon, Lalla Uwayshina opened the window to her room and sniffed the air, expecting to smell something delicious simmering over a low flame, be it the usban, the soup, or the couscous with tagliya.² But her long, slightly hooked nose wasn’t picking up anything. The servants must have slept late, she thought. They need somebody to stand over them with a whip, damn it!

She called Ahbara, her favorite servant, who came running, and asked her if the women were up. Ahbara told her they were all in the kitchen.

“So why don’t I smell anything cooking?”

“I don’t know,” Ahbara replied with a shrug and a shake of the head.

Lifting her chin in the air, Lalla Uwayshina said, “Run down there and see what’s happening.”

Ahbara, who was well trained in spying out news and eavesdropping on conversations in hard-to-get-to places, sneaked up on the distraught gathering in the kitchen. As Ahbara stood listening in the shadows, Aida rushed in carrying Tawida’s baby and added something to the tense conversation. You could have read the entire situation in Tawida’s terrified demeanor. She was clearly the culprit, and unless Salem came back with a solution, all she could do was wait for the punishment to descend.

Hussein kept Salem waiting for a long time at the corner, as he’d been through quite an ordeal with his mother in order to get the money. He’d told her scores of lies that he’d made up on the spot, only to replace them with other ones that were no less impromptu. In the end his mother had relented, not because his lies had been so persuasive but because she was convinced that her son was keeping a certain thing hidden from her. She winked at him, as if to imply that she knew the kinds of fibs young men tell when they’ve hosted a prostitute in the family’s reception room. They might say, “I’ve got my buddy with me in the reception room, so could you serve us some supper?” For this reason, the roofed enclosure where the reception area was located was off-limits to the women of the household. The only person allowed to look in on the folks occupying that space—and then just once in the early evening—was the father. For purposes of camouflage, the door would usually be left ajar in those early evening hours, and the guest would be a man. Later, however, the situation would change.

As Hussein told his mother one tall tale after another, it hadn’t occurred to him that she would be ready with a story of her own that served his purposes perfectly—namely, that a woman had shared her teenage son’s supper and bed the night before, and that his urgent early morning request for cash was so that he could pay his lady friend’s fees.

Hussein was surprised by his mother’s fantasies, but he was happy to go along with them. It was in his interest for her to think some strange woman was to blame for wasting their money. After all, women were a convenient hat rack on which to hang all the world’s ills. Promising to pay the money back, Hussein bolted out the door and ran down the street to catch up with Salem.

Salem was delayed at the butcher’s, since all the butcher had on hand that day was an imported sheep and a billy goat from Malta, neither of which would work for a luncheon banquet. Finally, though, a ram was found and hurriedly butchered.

Salem went to work tearing into the meat alongside the butcher in order to finish the operation as quickly as possible. As he raced with the clock to stave off pending disaster, the sun continued its race with the night. Once he and the butcher had finished cutting the meat to the required specifications, Salem placed it in a cardboard box and hoisted it onto his head, perspiration dripping from his forehead into his eyes. Then he ran home with it as fast as his legs would carry him. His hands were dirty, and he reeked of a mixture of sweat and grease.

Despite his rapid sprint home, Salem’s delay at the butcher’s gave Ahbara time to gather enough information for her mistress’s ears. Now that the news was out, everyone else in the master’s household jumped out of bed and came rushing, curious, to the kitchen.

This is how the catastrophe unfolded: As Salem was racing down nearby alleyways, Master Imuhammad charged out of his room like an enraged bull, picked up his whip, and headed for the kitchen. As the lash approached, the servant women scattered out of its way. Those who didn’t manage to escape plastered themselves against the wall like lizards. The exception was Tawida, who fell into the master’s grip as she retreated into a corner, her arms raised in the air, begging for pardon.

But there was no escaping her fate.

“Forgive me, Master, forgive me!” she pleaded. “God curse the devil! I forgot. God keep you . . . no, no, no!”

As Salem drew nearer to the house, the whip drew nearer to Tawida. Then down it came: hard, hot, merciless. Her cry went up immediately and the last erstwhile defender vanished from the kitchen.

“Quick, close the door,” Lalla Uwayshina ordered Ahbara. “People will hear the screaming and they’ll know it’s coming from our house.” Ahbara did as her mistress had commanded.

Two of the female servants were so terrified they wet themselves as they hid next to a prickly pear hedge behind the kitchen. As she listened to Tawida’s cries for help, Lalla Uwayshina paced the house’s inner courtyard, at a loss as to how to salvage the banquet. It was an occasion of great moment for the notables who had been invited to it, and the family might not have the honor of arranging another one in the near future if the people currently occupying appointed positions in the Ottoman administration retained their titles.

When she heard Tawida’s screams and pleas for mercy, Fatima jumped terrified out of bed. She came running from her room, gathering her hair into her headscarf as she went.

“What’s going on in this house?” she asked her mother in alarm. “Why is Tawida screaming?”

“It’s a disaster! A disaster!” cried Lalla Uwayshina, clapping her hands together and readjusting her earrings again. “That good-for-nothing servant didn’t hang up the meat last night and the cats ate it all!”

“What!?”

Ahbara volunteered a detailed explanation without so much as a turn of the head from Fatima, who ran to the kitchen and, grabbing her father by the hand, tried in vain to make him stop the flogging. What good would it do, anyway?

“For the Prophet’s sake, Baba, leave her be!” she pleaded on bended knee. “She’s going to die! That’s enough! She’s a new mother!”

But the father’s response to his daughter was a violent one. He pushed her away with such force that she went rolling across the kitchen floor and her face veil came off.

“Get away from me!” he roared. “Or I’ll put you on top of her!”

Nothing would mitigate Tawida’s fate.

Fatima fled from before her father, who grabbed Tawida by the hair and started dragging her toward the bathroom. With a forceful yank, he pulled down the clothes line to tie her up with it. Then he addressed Ahbara, who was crouching nearby.

“Quick, bring her son,” he said, his breaths staccato.

At this point, Lalla Uwayshina intervened, afraid her husband might strangle either the servant or her baby.

“That’s enough, Hajj,” she murmured. “Don’t dirty your hands with them.”

Ahbara hurriedly brought the cardboard box that held the infant.

“Here he is, Master,” she mumbled fearfully.

“Put him inside.”

Ahbara watched Master Imuhammad as he bound a moaning, limp Tawida by the hands and hung her from the bathroom ceiling.

Oozing sweat and expletives, he growled, “If you’re hung up yourself like a slaughtered animal, maybe you’ll stop forgetting what job you’re supposed to do. This isn’t the first time, bitch!”

Then he locked her and her baby inside the small roofed enclosure that led to the bathroom and slipped the key into his pocket. “Anybody who tries to help her will end up in there with her!” he shouted menacingly.

Then he stormed off to his room in a fury, muttering, “That bitch is going to cause me a scandal.”

Moments later, Salem sneaked in through the back door, panting, with the box full of meat. Finding no one in the kitchen, he lowered the box from on top of his head and looked around. There was no sign of anybody but Tawida. Her sash was on the floor, and a bead necklace she wore had broken and lay scattered all over the kitchen.

Shocked and alarmed, he looked around for answers to the questions in his mind. Then he took off toward their shack.

Daybreak had descended all too quickly, bringing its hectic burdens with it. The kitchen servants would have to proceed with their work as if nothing had happened to their companion. They were expected to function normally despite the earthquake that had struck that morning, and Tawida’s absence from the group as she endured her torturous punishment. They would have to prepare a feast for more than fifteen men, who would be gathering to decide on a matter that concerned their trade, their taxes, their life in the city, and their relationship with the Ottoman governor.

A pall of gloom settled over the kitchen help, and no one spoke. They scurried about like ants, without chatting, joking, or singing. The only sound accompanying their labor was that of Tawida’s pitiful cries, which rang in their ears like a mournful slave hymn. She wept bitterly and cried out in pain, but there was no response.

Her baby was screaming to be fed, while she hung there helplessly, able to see and hear him, but unable to deliver him from his hunger and thirst.

“My little boy is hungry! He’s thirsty! Please, somebody, untie me just so I can nurse him! Have mercy, people!”

Milk rained from her nipples and wet her torn dress, mingling with her blood and her sweat as her cries for help mingled with the sound of the call to the Friday noon prayer.

By this time the infant was pitifully thirsty, so she tried shaking the rope so as to come closer to him and let her milk drip onto his face. His face was contorted and his body convulsed, like someone choking and gasping for air.

Her strength spent, she cried out, “Aida, sister, save me! Salem with the kind heart, where are you? My son is dying before my very eyes!”

Wanting desperately to come to her friend’s aid, Aida passed cautiously by the roofed enclosure outside the bathroom but she couldn’t see any way to help. So she retreated again into the kitchen, fighting back the tears so as not to let Ahbara see her crying. When the tears fell in spite of her, she stood wiping them away with her shirtsleeve as she stirred the pot.

Fatima tried to get her mother to speak to her father, hoping she could persuade him to untie Tawida for the baby’s sake at least. His screams had grown unbearable, and he obviously had nothing to do with his mother’s transgression. But all her mother had to say was, “I can’t. One more divorce pronouncement and I won’t be married anymore. Don’t bring ruin on my household, if you please.”

Salem was in a terrible way himself. Head bowed and despondent, he stood in front of the large guest reception area listening to the screaming, which was so loud that it drowned out the call to prayer whenever he went in to get something.

Tawida was crying for help, her son was crying from hunger, and only God knew how long the incarceration would go on. In his mind’s eye Salem conjured an image of the hungry child in his cardboard box. Then a voice inside him said: He’s hungry, Salem! Is it his fault that adults have made so many mistakes? Don’t you love him enough to save him? He’s a sinless little angel in this hellhole! So why are you standing here like a moron getting ready to feed a bunch of fools when an innocent soul is starving to death right next to you and you could do something to prevent it?

Before long, all Salem could think about was the baby boy. So, even as one of the sheikhs invited to the banquet had his hands outstretched for Salem to wash them, he put down the washtub in his hand and left. Passing through the kitchen, he snatched a cleaver and headed for the place where Tawida and her son were imprisoned. Thrusting the cleaver angrily into the lock, he started pounding on it repeatedly in an attempt to jar the door open, his eyes bugging out and his heart weeping. Following her ears to the source of the racket, Lalla Uwayshina rushed to the scene and tried to stop him. She knew that if Salem managed to rescue Tawida and the baby, the problem would just get bigger once word of it reached her husband. After all, Salem wasn’t just breaking through a locked door. He was breaking the word of the master who had locked it.

“Stop! I swear the hajj will kill you!”

But he didn’t stop.

Lalla Uwayshina started tugging at Salem’s shirt from behind, but to no avail.

“Quick,” she said to her daughter, “Call Amin and Abdussalam before things get completely out of hand.”

Whenever she warned him of her husband’s threat, Salem would say, “Let him kill me, then. I’d be better off. In fact, I wish he would.”

When, at long last, the first piece of iron in the lock shattered, the men were coming back from the noon prayer in groups in preparation to eat lunch. Everything and everyone was ready and waiting for them with the exception of Salem, who had left his post in a wave of black fury. Lalla Uwayshina didn’t know what to do about the guests, since it was obvious that the banging was coming from inside the house.

The hajj got wind of what was happening through his little boy, who said, “The slave’s got the bouri, Baba.”

Crazed at this show of insubordination, the master rushed inside in a rage. He picked up the whip again, poised to bring it down on Salem’s back. Undeterred by the blows that began raining down on him from behind, Salem went on pounding on the lock with ever increasing speed and fury. The more viciously he was beaten and chastised, the more determined he became.

“You worthless slave! Do you dare disobey me? Seize him!”

Letting the whip fall from his hand, the master punched the slave in the face. However, Salem was prepared to stop at nothing until he’d accomplished his mission.

Aware of what was happening outside her dark prison, Tawida had grown quiet. The baby had grown quiet too, as though he’d nursed his fill.

The inevitable had happened.

While the women tried to get the master to stop, his sons Amin and Abdussalam joined him in his assault to avenge their father. As they pulled the slave in opposite directions by his arms, the master bloodied him in the face with a hoe.

Wanting to postpone Salem’s punishment, at least until after the banquet, Lalla Uwayshina said, “You’ll get all dirty and sweaty this way. Besides, you don’t want to be in this state in front of your guests.”

By this time the door had opened and Salem had been forced inside to join what everyone assumed to be his wife and son. After being dragged through his own blood, he was thrown into the corner of the bathroom in a pitiful, half-conscious state.

His eyes glinting with fury, the master bent over him and, gripping his jaw in his hand, growled, “You dare disobey me, you piece of filth?! You haven’t seen anything yet!”

Battered, bloodied, and wheezing, Salem murmured in a voice that was barely audible, “The child that just died of hunger and thirst wasn’t mine. He was yours. And there’s an official birth certificate from al-Figgi to prove it.”

The slave’s words descended on the master with a force crueler than any lash or hoe. They stopped his heart and paralyzed his limbs, and his grip on the slave’s jaw suddenly loosened. In a moment of panic in which he didn’t believe his ears, he turned involuntarily toward the cardboard box. Looking strangely at the motionless infant, his eyes closed and his face spattered with his mother’s milk and blood, the master reached out and shook him frantically. He shook him again, harder this time, but his body fell limp, a tiny mass of lifeless flesh. Leaping over to the bathroom pail, he scooped up the water in it with his right hand and sprinkled it on the baby’s face. But there was no response. He had fallen asleep forever, never to waken.

The master exited the enclosure in a state far different from the one in which he had entered.

The price of a sheep that day was a baby in a cardboard box.

1. This is a local Libyan expression that hearkens back to the heroic figures of the Prophet Muhammad and his son-in-law, Ali Ibn Abi Talib, who once delivered the Prophet from mortal danger. When the Prophet got wind of the fact that his opponents from the tribe of Qureish were plotting to kill him, he fled by night, and Ali valiantly volunteered to sleep in the Prophet’s bed to deceive the Prophet’s enemies into thinking he was at home. A “day when neither Muhammad nor Ali comes” is thus an ill-fated day on which no protection is to be found.

2. Taqliya is a Libyan stew served over couscous made with lamb meat, sautéed onions, steamed onions and chickpeas, cinnamon, allspice, tomato paste, salt, pepper, and turmeric.