"Saying anything about what?"
"The scratches on your body are sign enough of the way I tried to resist your advances."
"That's sheer falsehood!"
"My story is much more plausible; by contrast yours seems implausible. And then, I'm only asking you for a fairly light touch; no need for greater involvement or whisperings. Just imagine that I'm your obedient servant-girl, and you're my wonderful doctor. That can be the pact between us until God chooses to set me free. What do you say?"
"I'll think about it when I can and let you know."
"Oh no, dear holy man of God! This pact is an act of kindness. As the old saying goes, the best kindness is rendered the quickest."
I had the bitter feeling that this young girl in my presence who was successfully confronting my faith and probity with her lures had been empowered by Satan himself in order to prevent me from embarking upon a deeper sense of God's unity through my marriage to a single person and to push me right back into my earlier phase of sheer frivolity and unfocused talk. I yelled at her to get out of my sight, but she paid absolutely no attention.
"No, no," she replied in a threatening tone. "If you give me a massage, then I'll say nothing about you and you can say nothing about me. But, if you refuse, I'm going to yell and scream out loud. And then it'll be the neighbors and police!"
It was obviously preferable to do what this flagrant girl demanded-if only to an extent-rather than risk a wholesale scandal.
So I went over and sat down beside her outstretched legs. She grabbed my hands and kissed them. Daubing my hands with a clammy cream, I took a deep breath. She meanwhile kept sighing as she watched what I was doing. I started rubbing the cream on her feet one by one all the way up to her ankles. When I tried to move my hands to her legs, she sighed again and stopped me. Just then I saw her insert one of her fingers between her thighs and start moving it. I turned away, wondering what she was doing as I heard her let out a series of moans, but then I realized. Stopping my massage, I was about to scold her for her scandalous behavior when she suddenly let out a shriek and ran to hide behind the door like a shot from a bow.
Purification and ablution, that's what I needed, and then reading the Sura of Joseph from the Qur'an before performing the morning prayers. Once that was done, I would be locking my doors and windows in the hope of getting my due of sleep.
However, when morning finally arrived and I opened my eyes, there was `Abla standing in front of me with a smile. I was amazed as she greeted me with a "good morning."
"How did you get in here," I asked, when I shut the door and window?"
"When it's the heart that is your guide," she replied, "you can't go wrong. The true lover has no problems finding the key to the locked door. While I was waiting for you to wake up, I've planted some gentle kisses on your face and prepared some food for you, all of it prepared and cooked by myself."
I looked at my table and saw that it was full of dishes for lunch. I realized that I had slept the entire morning. I thanked her for making my lunch and asked her to go back to her own quarters. She told me that her mistress would be coming back soon, news that made me smile in relief. I asked her when that would be.
"Not before noon tomorrow," she replied. "So, my beloved, we have the rest of today, tonight, and tomorrow morning entirely to ourselves."
"Listen, girl," I said as firmly as I could, "show some faith in God, or else I shall inform your mistress about your behavior."
"If you do that," she replied, "then the old saying will apply to you: `He beat me and cried, then went ahead of me and complained.' The scars on your body will be testimony against you on my behalf. There's no way out. You have to stick to our agreement."
I lowered my head in thought as I tried yet again to devise some means of escaping from this stubborn and crafty girl's nasty trap. I watched as she came toward me with her ewer and basin and sat down on the rug beside my bed.
"Do you deny me something that God has not forbidden?" she asked me gently when she saw how reluctant I was to go along with her plans. "How can you be so cold when I love you?"
"Enough of this nonsense, girl! You've lost all sense of reality."
"What am I supposed to do when, as you can tell, God has created me this way? My heart is what controls me; it is my sole guide."
Dear God, there is absolutely no point in arguing with this buxom virgin. So please come to my aid by controlling my passion so I can resist the girl whose illogical screams are her primary weapon. 0 Merciful and Compassionate One, should I respond to her suggestions and do things that are not part of my intention but are rather done under compulsion, then do not hold me to account!
I stretched my legs out to reach her basin and told her she could wash me as far as my ankles but no further. She undertook her task with consummate skill and obvious dedication, rubbing me with oil first and then massaging and washing. Once in a while she would reach up to my legs, but I would distract myself by letting my mind wander into the verdant pastures of memory or particularly thorny theoretical questions. What brought me back to the situation in which I found myself was the sound of her voice as she chanted parts of a muwashshah poem, the one, as I recall, by Ibn Baqi* from Spain:
She kept on finding appropriate lines to quote that reflected her own situation, this next set coming from a muwashshah by Ibn Zuhr*:
In my little garden with its plants and myrtle trees, even birds accompany my moments of pleasure with unwonted chirps and songs. It was only when I realized that I was taking a headlong plunge toward grave sin that I withdrew my feet and dried them with a towel. I then asked `Abla to stand up and leave. Looking at her face, I noticed that she had been crying so hard that her eyes were red.
"I've washed your feet with water and tears," she said as she stood up and headed for the door. "Wait for me tonight. Then it's my turn. If you refuse me, then so much the worse!"
Once again I leapt to my feet in order to rid myself of this enforced impurity and performed my ablutions in preparation for prayers and a plea for forgiveness. With that I kept myself to myself.
12
I NOW MADE A HUGE EFFORT to concentrate on the most valuable portions of the learning of the ancients, but it was all in vain. My mind was completely disoriented, and I found it impossible to focus on the texts, whether generalities or particulars. My entire consciousness was focused on this crafty female devil who was robbing me of my sanity and powers of concentration. I decided to spend the next night either in the mosque or else in a hotel. After that I would make my way to the city in the hope that my wife, Fayha', would return. Then I would have her protection and could live in peace and quiet.
Toward evening I slunk out of my prayer-cell and made for the door. It was closed and locked, so I went up to the roof door and found the same situation. I therefore had no option but to go back to my little room. Once there I started making preparations by locking the door and window and then barricading them both with furniture and other stuff. For a while I just sat there, waiting fearfully and using my weight to reinforce my bed, my boxes of books, and my papers. As night began to descend, I recited as many intercessions as I could. Then I heard 'Abla's voice, begging me to honor our pact and allow her to enter. I stood firm and remained silent. She now threatened to raise a hue and cry and vowed a dreadful outcome, but I still said nothing and stayed where I was. Indeed she did start letting out cries that sounded like moans, puny and feeble, coming from a wounded animal. All of a sudden she stopped, and there was a total silence, as before a violent storm. And that is exactly what happened. A few seconds went by, feeling as oppressive as a load of lead, seconds that I spent in almost total panic, and then the girl started yelling and screaming all over again. Using an axe or something like it, she started digging a hole in my front wall; it was soon large enough that you could see and reach through it. I ordered her to stop, and for a moment she paused to recover her breath, all the while staring at me with tearful, distracted eyes. With both her status and mine in mind, I begged her to show that she feared God. She retorted with the very same thought and went on to demand that I explain why her Creator was choosing to deprive her of her right to meet the one she loved; why was He depriving her of the joys of love and intercourse. I told her that her love of love was an empty qibla that could only ever be inhabited by a champion with neither beloved nor spouse, someone who longed to find a partner who could love and take care of him. `Abla now seemed to come to her senses, but not for long. Taking up the axe again, she started enlarging the hole till she was exhausted.