“Adi gave her to me, Apama. She’s still pretty frightened. Her name is Halima.”
The old woman approached Halima, sized her up from head to foot, and inspected her like a horse trader inspects a horse’s parts.
“Maybe she won’t be quite so useless. We’ll just need to fatten her up so she isn’t such a wisp.”
Then she added with particular anger, “And you say that castrated Moorish animal gave her to you? So he had her in his hands? Oh, that miserable, twisted thing! How can Sayyiduna put so much trust in him?”
“Adi was just doing his duty, Apama,” Miriam replied. “Now let’s go take care of this child.”
She took Halima by one hand, while still holding onto the leopard’s collar with the other. She drew both of them up the steps to the building. The other girls followed.
They entered a high-ceilinged corridor that led all around the building. Polished marble walls reflected images like mirrors. Rich carpets absorbed their footsteps. Miriam released the leopard at one of castle’s many exits. He leapt away on his long legs like a dog, turning his charming little cat’s head back curiously toward Halima, who was now finally relaxed.
They turned into an intersecting corridor and entered a round room with a high, vaulted ceiling. Halima cried out in astonishment. Even in her dreams she had never seen this much beauty. Light poured through a glass ceiling composed of separate elements, each in a different color of the rainbow. Violet, blue, green, yellow, red and pale shafts of light filtered down into a circular pool where the water rippled gently, agitated by some unseen source. The many colors played on its surface, spilling out onto the floor until they came to a stop near the wall, on divans covered with artfully embroidered pillows.
Halima stood at the entrance with her eyes and mouth wide open. Miriam looked at her and gently smiled. She bent down over the pool and put a hand in the water.
“It’s nice and warm,” she said. She told the girls who had come in after them to prepare everything for a bath. Then she started to undress Halima.
Halima felt ashamed in front of the girls. She hid behind Miriam and cast her eyes down. The girls examined her curiously, quietly giggling.
“Get out, you nasty things,” said Miriam, chasing them away. They obeyed instantly and left.
Miriam gathered Halima’s hair into a knot on the top of her head so that it wouldn’t get wet, then submerged her in the pool. She scrubbed and washed her vigorously. Then she drew her out of the water and rubbed her dry with a soft towel. She gave her a silk blouse and told her to put on the broad trousers brought by the girls. She handed her a pretty halter which turned out to be too big, and then had her put on a brightly colored jacket that reached down to her knees.
“For today you’ll have to make do with these clothes,” she said. “But soon we’ll sew you new ones your size, and you’ll be happy with them, you’ll see.”
She sat her down on a divan and piled up a bunch of pillows.
“Rest here for a while, and I’ll go see what the girls have fixed for you to eat.”
She stroked her cheek with her soft, rosy hand. At that instant they both sensed that they liked each other. Halima abruptly and instinctively kissed her protector’s fingers. Miriam made a show of scowling at her, but Halima could tell that she didn’t really mind. She grinned blissfully.
Miriam was barely gone when Halima felt overcome with fatigue. She closed her eyes. For a while she resisted going to sleep, but soon she told herself, “I’ll get to see it all again in no time,” and then she was asleep.
When she first awoke she didn’t know where she was or what had happened to her. She pushed aside a blanket which the girls had used to cover her while she slept and sat up on the edge of the divan. She rubbed her eyes, then stared at these young women’s kind faces, illuminated in the multicolored light. It was already late afternoon. Miriam crouched down on a pillow beside her and offered her a dish of cold milk, which she emptied greedily.
Miriam poured more milk from a colorful jug, and Halima drank this down in one draft too.
A dark-skinned girl carrying a gilt tray approached and offered her a variety of sweets made of flour, honey and fruit. Halima ate everything in front of her.
“Look how hungry she is, the orphan,” one of the girls said.
“And how pale,” another observed.
“Let’s put some blush on her cheeks and lips,” a beautiful light-haired girl suggested.
“The child has to eat first,” Miriam rebuffed them. She turned to the black girl with the gilt tray. “Peel her a banana or an orange, Sara.”
Then she asked Halima, “Which fruit do you prefer, child?”
“I don’t know either of them. I’d like to try them both.”
The girls laughed. Halima smiled too when Sara brought her bananas and oranges.
She soon felt overcome by so many delicious things. She licked her fingers and said, “Nothing has ever tasted this good to me before.”
The girls burst into uproarious laughter. Even the corners of Miriam’s mouth turned up in a smile as she tapped Halima on the cheek. Halima could feel the blood starting to beat in her veins again. Her eyes shone, her mood improved, and she began to speak openly.
The girls sat around her, some doing embroidery, others sewing, and they began asking her questions. Meanwhile, Miriam had pressed a metal mirror into her hand and started painting her cheeks and lips with blush and her eyebrows and lashes with black dye.
“So, your name is Halima,” said the light-haired girl, the one who had advised coloring her cheeks. “And I’m called Zainab.”
“Zainab is a pretty name,” Halima acknowledged.
They laughed again.
“Where do you come from?” the black girl they called Sara asked her.
“From Bukhara.”
“I’m from there too,” said a beauty with a round, moon-shaped face and ample limbs. She had a delicate, rounded chin and warm, velvety eyes. “My name is Fatima. Who was your master before this?”
Halima was about to answer, but Miriam, who was just then applying color to her lips, stopped her.
“Hold on just a minute. And all of you… stop distracting her.”
Halima swiftly kissed the tips of her fingers.
“Stop that,” she scolded her. But her scowl wasn’t quite convincing, and Halima could clearly sense that she had won their general good will. She glowed with satisfaction.
“Who was my master?” she repeated when Miriam had finished coloring her lips. She inspected herself in the mirror with obvious satisfaction and continued. “The merchant Ali, an old and good man.”
“Why did he sell you if he was good?” Zainab asked.
“He was penniless. He’d lost all his money. We didn’t even have anything left to eat. He had two daughters, but their suitors cheated him out of them. They didn’t pay him a thing. He had a son too, but he disappeared, probably killed by robbers or soldiers.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I was supposed to become his wife.”
“Who were your parents?” Fatima asked.
“I never knew them and I don’t know anything about them. As far back as I can remember, I lived in the house of the merchant Ali. As long as his son was still at home, we managed to get by. But then the bad times came. The master would moan, pull out his hair, and pray. His wife told him to take me to Bukhara and sell me there. He put me on a donkey and we went to Bukhara. He asked all the merchants where they’d take me and who they’d sell me to, until he met one who worked for your master. This one swore by the beard of the Prophet that I would live like a princess. Ali settled on a price, and when they took me away he started crying out loud. So did I. But now I can see that the merchant was right. I really do feel like a princess here.”