Never in her life had Barakah seen so many strange old women. There
were always four or five of them within her chamber, squatting on mats
along the wall, conversing in low tones, ready at a breath to rearrange
her pillows, or fetch some posset that was ordered for her. They were
all of apelike ugliness, and, going barefoot, moved as noiselessly as
ghosts.
The Frankish doctor--an Italian--had pronounced her much too frail
to nurse her baby--a decision which excited such dependants of the
house as were eligible for the post of foster-mother. This was a great
prize, kinship by milk, among the Muslims, being esteemed as genuine
and binding as by blood. The wet-nurse thus became a near relation of
the family, and all her race had claims upon its bounty. Barakah felt
jealous of the woman who usurped her function, till she heard from
Fitnah Khânum that the choice had fallen on the wife of her old friend
Ghandûr. The girl, a former slave of the harîm, was then presented
to her, the baby in her arms; and won her heart by her excessive
gratitude. She was touched, too, by the transports of Ghandûr, who
sang thanksgiving to her lattice in his simple way. His chant was
something in this manner:
“The sun is in my eyes! O happy day!
I grope as one half-blind. Behold the bounty of my lord!
I, the poor slave of Allah,
Am now the father of his son Abdallah,
My wife the mother of his son, by leave of Allah,
My little boy the brother of a child most blest, in sh´Allah!
The gracious consort of my lord, istaghfar Allah!
Has granted to our lowliness a share in her good gift from Allah.
May Allah bless my lord and lady in their noble offspring, and
preserve his life to be the luminary of our future days.”
She liked to hear him, his voice so near at hand produced a sense of
true devotion and security. Missing his chant upon the following day,
she inquired what had become of him. She was informed that, consequent
upon his wife’s preferment, he had been appointed to a small position
in the Government. It made her sad.
Her son was given over to the harîm midwives to fulfil no end of
ceremonies destined to frustrate the powers of evil. For a week he was
not left alone or in the dark a single second. They carried him in a
procession through the house, his future kingdom, and as each door was
opened, sprinkled salt mixed with the seven seeds to exorcize the jinn
who lurked within. Soon after birth his face had been defiled with
certain powders, which Barakah could not persuade the women to wash
off. It was a necessary precaution, they assured her, against jealous
powers of darkness who, if they had an inkling of his beauty, would
destroy him. Chief among these was the discarded wife of Adam, alluded
to as El Carînah (the companion), the cause of man’s first fall, who
hates Eve’s daughters and resents their great fertility. Where a child
seems lovely and the mother shows delight in its appearance, she
attacks them both; if, on the contrary, she sees it ugly and hears
words of disappointment, she lets it live to spite the seed of Adam.
For one so powerful, she must be very stupid to be taken in by such
pretences, Barakah remarked; but they cried out that such was not the
case, but Allah in His mercy had set limits to her sight and hearing.
Each day the infant was the central figure in some ancient rite
believed essential to its welfare.
As Barakah lay in bed and watched the pattern of the lattice, her whole
existence passing like a dream before her, she sought to reconcile her
former English with her present Eastern life. Her son was a fine boy,
they all assured her. It saddened her that she had no relations of her
own to take a pride in him. In this mood she asked Yûsuf to write a
little note to Mrs. Cameron entreating her to come one day and see the
baby. He did so, and the answer was that she would come with pleasure.
Elated by the prospect of this visit, Barakah wished to have her
offspring made presentable; but when she gave command to wash his face
and wrap him in nice clothes, the goodies screamed aloud, and fetched
the lady Fitnah to remonstrate with her. She gave way, perforce; and
Mrs. Cameron beheld the infant at his worst.
The visitor was very kind in her address to Barakah; but, when she held
the baby for a minute, looking down at it, the latter, watching keenly,
saw upon her face a quiver of extreme disfavour mixed with pity. The
whiteness of her hands and face showed the child yellow; Barakah had
thought him white as snow till then. A flush of anger and humiliation
reached her brain.
“His face is dirty, the poor little one! Our Lord preserve him!” the
visitor remarked in Arabic as she returned the baby to his nurse; at
which there was an outburst of applause from the onlookers. They called
down blessings on the lady’s head, desiring she might have herself a
thousand children, not like this one, puny and unpleasant, but most
beautiful.
Barakah, consumed with rage, murmured hoarsely in response to Mrs.
Cameron’s farewell. The moment she was gone she burst out weeping.
“She did not like the child! She scorned my son, because he is not
altogether white as she is.”
“Thou mistakest, O my dear! Be comforted!” cried Fitnah Khânum, while
the other women round her exchanged pitying glances.
“Thou art not yet perfect in our prudent customs; but thy friend,
though not a Muslimah, has learnt them, having been much longer in the
land. Hast thou forgotten my instructions touching El Carînah? Nor
is she alone to be redoubted, since Allah Himself abhors a boastful
spirit, and dishonours those who make too much of any creature....”
“O Lord! I know all that!” wailed Barakah. “But she disliked my child,
despised him! I--I saw it!”
Conviction that the portion of the human race from which she sprang
beheld her son as little better than a monkey, tortured Barakah.
She had looked upon him as a mediator, but now sought revenge. Hot,
feverish dreams of hate disturbed her rest; and when a spell of khamsîn
weather robbed the world of energy she grew as weak and fretful as her
thoughts were wild.
Already Barakah had kept her bed a fortnight longer than any Eastern
woman would have dreamt of doing after childbirth. The lady Fitnah,
seeing she did not gain strength, believed that some debilitating vile
afrît was in her. The Frankish doctor said there was no cause for
fear. She called him fool and worse, in her own circle; since by his
disregard or ignorance of pious formulas he had left the door ajar for
evil spirits. Resolved to stop the mischief, when no man was by she
hung a plant of garlic in the room, burnt potent odours till its air
grew suffocating, and dosed the patient with a paste compounded of the
dust of mummies mixed with human milk. When these means failed to drive
away the enemy, she sat down in despair among her cronies, and braced
herself to try the last resort of all.
This was the “zâr”--a very awful ceremony, of which she was exceedingly
afraid. Her wish to hold it in the house--risking the Pasha’s favour,
and her life through terror--was proof of her devoted love for Barakah.
The dear one must be healed at any price.
Accordingly, she summoned negresses of those who hold familiar
intercourse with demons, bought a kid and several fowls alive, and made
arrangements to secure the sick-room to herself and her confederates
for two good hours upon a certain afternoon.
Barakah was roused out of a troubled sleep by women moving out the
furniture from both bedchamber and salon, and covering the floor
with worn-out linen and the cheapest matting. They went, and she
lay wondering, when Fitnah Khânum came and bade her have no fear.
The ceremony she was going to witness was a potent medicine, well
calculated to restore her health completely. Many servants, female
children, and familiars of the household trooped in with noiseless
feet and squatted down along the wall. Then came a group of half a
dozen negresses, fantastically dressed in rags of finery, with ringing
anklets; one of whom embraced a struggling little goat, while the
others bore live chickens by the feet. Bold-eyed and with a swaggering
gait, they marched up to the bed, and seemed to offer up the fowls and
kid to Barakah, who could not understand the words they uttered in
a screeching chant. They then danced back to the adjoining room, of
which the door stood open. Upon the threshold madness seemed to seize
them. They fell upon the kid with cries of glee. The creature, bleating
piteously, was flung into an earthen bowl placed there in readiness.
Amid mad laughter knives were brandished and brought down, hands
helping to extract the creature’s life. The fowls were likewise gashed
and torn asunder; the matting round grew foul with steaming entrails.
Another minute and the slayers reappeared, their black arms purpled
to the elbow, dripping blood, their faces and their lips defiled with
it; and then began a devilish dance of self-abandonment, all the more
horrible for its approach to beauty. The sleek skin of the dancers
caught blue lights; their fixed eyes gleamed enormous, like those
painted on the lids of mummies. Barakah believed herself in hell, for
ever lost; it was as if an iron hand compressed her throat. Her heart
beat wildly. One of the women, the most shameless, lurched towards
her, stretching out a blood-stained hand. Her heart gave one tremendous
beat and then stood still.
When she recovered consciousness it was to find the lady Fitnah bending
over her. The negresses had gone, the room was cleansed, the furniture
replaced exactly as before. She might have thought she had been
dreaming had not Yûsuf’s mother whispered eagerly:
“Breathe not a word to Yûsuf or our lord the Pasha. Deny by Allah
that thou sawest anything. If not, the afrît which we have with pains
extracted will return and kill thee.”
In her weak state of mind, oppressed with dreadful and disgusting
images, Barakah believed the words and shuddered. She was ill for
weeks.