I had never felt such excitement as Asma and I raced down the black hills toward the haze of chimney smoke that covered Mecca. The world felt reborn. The sky was bluer than I had ever noticed, and everywhere I looked, I saw hints of emerald beneath the rocks, as if a new spring had come to the deserts. Even the stones sparkled, their veins of quartz and calcite glittering under the blazing sun.
There were no welcoming crowds when we crossed the threshold of the city. The poor of the town had decided not to press their luck after demonstrating their unity and courage the day before. It made more sense to let the Muslims return and engage in the commerce of the city without further fanfare that might upset the Meccan lords and compel them to reconsider their magnanimity.
Asma and I walked hand in hand through the quiet streets as we headed home. I looked at her and smiled. She winked at me, and then I saw a hint of sadness in her eyes. I realized that returning to the city meant different things for us. She was now sixteen and unmarried, an old maid by the standards of our people. The past two years had been particularly hard on her and had taken away the youthful vibrancy that could have helped her attract a husband. Her curly hair was now a tangled mess of rushes, and I had a sudden image of her wearing a bird’s nest on her head that would have made me laugh if I were truly heartless. Her skin had suffered worse than mine in the unforgiving desert air, and there were unhealthy splotches of white across her sunburned face and neck that were never to disappear. Her breasts, once ripe and plump, were shrunken such that her bosom looked more like mine, and I was ten years her junior. Asma had never been beautiful, but now she looked utterly wretched and I suddenly felt sorry for her.
But your mother, Abdallah, was always strong, and if she suffered, she did so in silence. A smile played across her face as she recognized the orange and yellow facades of the stone huts that stood by the cobbled street leading to our house.
“Race you,” she said to me with a grin. Asma knew that I prided myself on my speed and I was immediately off and running to our home. She tried in vain to catch up, but I moved like a falcon, soaring with ease over the cracked stones and potholes that lined the route back to our personal sanctuary.
I laughed with delight as I rounded the corner that would lead to our gate. But when I saw our house, I stopped so suddenly that I almost lost my balance.
Our once-beautiful home, with its blue and green walls and lofty marble pillars, was a ruin. Angry vines rose from our weed-infested garden and wrapped themselves defiantly around the gates, which were rusted to an ugly orange. The windows that we had boarded against burglars had been torn open and I could see rats crawling on the sills, watching us approach, without trepidation.
The paint that my mother had so carefully renewed every year was faded and peeling. But there was new and unwelcome paint strewn across the walls by vandals, spelling out words of contempt for my family: Traitors…Gutter filth…Blasphemers…
My vision blurred as tears welled in my eyes. I heard Asma come up behind me, panting for breath, the laughter dying in her throat when she saw the building.
In that moment, I realized that Mecca was no longer our home. The ban may have been lifted, but the hate had not been vanquished, and like a stubborn disease, it would reassert itself inevitably. The hope of return to the past was an illusion, and we would now need to find a new home, a new hope. A new future.
That evening, as my family began the arduous process of cleaning and restoring the house to its former dignity, I had a nagging sense that we were wasting our time. Even as I slept for the first night in two years inside the delightfully cool walls, on a soft bed with cushions, my heart felt trapped. The house was no longer our haven but a prison holding us until the day of execution. We had to escape.
As the annihilation of sleep finally took me in its embrace, I had one last terrifying thought. An image, really, but one more vivid than any my childhood imagination had ever conjured.
A vision of Hind standing over me, looking down with a smile that was neither welcoming nor comforting. Then the gray walls were closing in on me until my bed was surrounded on all sides and I was trapped in a constricted space like a shallow grave. I felt my breathing become more desperate. In my mind’s eye, I saw Hind raise her long arms and the golden snakes that wrapped around her wrist came to life and slid down into the darkness with me. I could feel their slippery flesh gliding up my hips, their coldness wrapping around my waist as they slithered higher.
I wanted to move, but my legs were tied by the writhing snakes that squeezed as they climbed and wrapped themselves around my throat, cutting off the scream of horror that was struggling to burst free. And then darkness covered me and the steady stream of time dried up forever…
18
Death is always a catalyst, and it was death that finally forced the believers to face the truth that my young heart knew already. That we needed to leave the city, before the unsteady truce ended and the dogs of war were unleashed.
A few weeks after we had restored ourselves to the city, Talha ran breathlessly up to our home. “The exiles have returned!” he said, his voice quivering with delight. For a moment, I was confused. What was he talking about? We were the ones who had been exiled to the barren hills, and we had long since come back. And then I remembered.
Abyssinia. Nearly fifty of our people, mainly the weakest and the poorest of the believers who lacked clan protection, had escaped across the sea three years before and found refuge with the kindly Christian king known as the Negus. They included some of my favorite playmates, like Salma, the daughter of an unwed Bedouin woman who had worked the streets as a prostitute before she had embraced Islam. I had despaired of ever seeing them again, and when Talha’s words finally registered, a broad smile erupted on my face and I clapped with glee.
My mother immediately packed a shank of roast mutton she had been preparing for dinner into a leather sack and without another word raced out the door toward the house of the Messenger. Asma and I joined Talha on her heels.
The house of the Messenger was livelier than I had ever seen it. Word had spread through the city like a brushfire after a lightning storm and the main hall was packed with well-wishers seeking to welcome our long-lost brethren. I squeezed through the crowd and for a moment I had an uncomfortable understanding of the life of a chicken fighting its way through a coop to peck at a few seeds.
I finally crawled under a pair of stout legs and shimmied between two short women, twin sisters wearing olive-colored abaya s. I found myself near the center of the spacious room, where the Messenger was tearfully embracing his reclaimed brood.
I saw the Prophet hug a remarkably attractive young girl whom I did not recognize, and I felt a stab of jealousy that at the time did not make sense to me. I was confused, since the Prophet always maintained a respectful distance from his female followers, and I had never seen him touch a young girl so lovingly before.
And then I saw her intense dark eyes and I immediately realized that she was no stranger for whom the embrace would be a source of rumor and scandal. It was Ruqayya, the Prophet’s daughter, who had married the Meccan nobleman Uthman ibn Affan and had emigrated with him when he had been designated the leader of the Abyssinian exiles. The Prophet’s other daughters Zaynab and Umm Kulthum were both lovely creatures. Even his youngest child, Fatima, would have been considered pretty had she ever bothered to put on a little rouge or scent her hair like others. But Ruqayya was a woman from another world. She was then, and remains today, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Her skin was flawless, even paler than her father’s, and her auburn hair peeked out from beneath the modest silk scarf she wore over her head. She had the tiniest waist I had ever seen. Her aquamarine robes did nothing to hide the generous curve of her breasts, and she seemed to exude a natural scent of tangerine. Staring at her perfect poise and grace, I was reminded of the ancient Greek idol of Athena that stood in the Sanctuary, brought by an Arab trader who had found the goddess in ruins outside Byzantium and carted her back to be displayed by the Kaaba.