Pleading

THE SLAVES came into the house carrying the two men’s suitcases and other things they had brought home with them. As soon as she heard of the travelers’ safe return, Fatima let forth with a loud trill. It wasn’t uncommon for ships to sink when exiting or entering the strait. Indeed, many a vessel had foundered on Benghazi’s rugged coastline, causing untold loss of life and cargo.

Fatima’s trills were followed by a shorter, softer trill by Lalla Uwayshina, who was engrossed in braiding her hair when one of the servants came and informed her of the two men’s arrival.

Beneath the show of jubilance, however, the women were awkward and flustered, their hearts racing in dread of the moment when the returning son learned of his child’s shocking death, and fearful of what would come in its wake.

Following the tragic incident, the baby’s grandfather had given a lot of thought to what he was going to do. He had even considered sending his son into a kind of voluntary exile by having him stay in Malta on business. But here he was home again.

“Where’s Tawida?” Muhammad asked his sister Fatima after hearing the news.

“She ran away after the incident.”

“Where did she go?”

“Nobody knows.”

“I don’t believe you,” Muhammad retorted. “You’ve agreed among yourselves not to talk, that’s all!”

After a pause, he asked, “And where’s Salem?”

“He’s sick, God help the poor man.”

“What’s wrong with him? Or do you not know anything about him, either?”

“He’s been bedridden ever since Baba beat him with the hoe. He doesn’t move a muscle.”

“Where is he?”

“In his corner. Other slaves are tending to him.”

Gripped by a sudden rage, Muhammad headed for Salem’s shack. His footsteps heavy on the ground, the fury in his voice was muted by suppressed tears. How could something so painful and tragic be real? The deaf slave woman, who had been sweeping in front of the shack as he approached, stopped and rested against the wall with her broom, stone-still except for her eyes as they darted fearfully back and forth.

He pushed the tinplate door open and went in. Freshly cleaned and swept, the place smelled of incense, and a tea kettle rested on the stove. The ailing man, asleep in the dark corner, lay beneath a pile of sheets and blankets. His face was swollen, and the hoe had left him with a fractured skull, a shattered nose, and a broken leg. When he sensed someone approaching, he opened his eyes a slit, thinking it was another servant, or Sakita, his favorite kitty. He was hardly eating, though he drank a lot.

He heard the visitor say, “Thank God you’re still in one piece.”

After some time, barely able to open his eyes, the slave murmured, “God bless you, Master.”

“Salem . . .” Muhammad began, choking on his tears. Then, in an entirely unexpected gesture, he bent down and kissed Salem’s hand, which hung limply off the bed. The slave quickly withdrew his hand and placed it on his master’s head.

“Forgive me for wronging you! Forgive me!” Muhammad blurted out. “You’re free now. Your writ of manumission will be in your hand this very day. And I’ll have you taken to the hospital.”

In reply, Salem murmured, “I’m a slave with nothing to give. I don’t even own myself.”

“On the contrary, I want you to forgive me the way a free man would forgive a slave. You’re free now, but I’m not.”

Salem said no more. He couldn’t thank his master for a freedom that had come at the price of blood, agony, and the death of a baby boy. As tears flowed out of his closed eyes and down the sides of his face, he mumbled through parched lips, “What is there for me to forgive you for? The little one didn’t make it.”

“But you did your duty, and more.”

Muhammad had a wagon readied to take Salem to the hospital. Then he sat down at the entrance to the slaves’ quarters and sobbed audibly. He cried with a voice that wasn’t ashamed to say: I may be a grown man in a world devoid of compassion that relegates tears to the realm of the feminine and reserves joy for the male of the species. But I still have the right to cry! I have the right to cry when I’m sad, and that’s that.

He was my son, Lord! I entrusted him and his mother into your care when I went away. So why didn’t you come to their defense? Why didn’t you send your mercy down into my parents’ hearts? Why did you give it to the weak and helpless and withhold it from those with the power to do what needed to be done? Why, Lord? Why??

As Salem was being trundled away, his white cat, Sakita, ran after him, and before the wagon turned off the long dirt road she managed to leap onto its back ledge and sit down at his head.