The Dwarf stopped playing. He was tired. But his admirers wanted the performance to continue.
‘One last time,’ they shouted, ‘the song of Ibn Quzman. Sing it for our young master.’
‘Yes please, Dwarf,’ Yazid found himself joining in the chants. ‘Just one more song.’
The Dwarf became very serious.
‘I will sing the ballad composed by Ibn Quzman over three hundred years ago, but I must insist that it is heard with the respect due a great master. There will never be a troubadour like him again. Any interruptions and I will pour this wine on your beards and set them alight. Is that clear, you boastful babblers?’
The kitchen, which only a few seconds ago had resembled the scene of a drunken riot, became silent. Only the bubbling of a giant pan containing the evening meal could be heard. The Dwarf nodded to his assistant. The twelve-year-old kitchen boy produced a lute and began to test the strings. Then he nodded to his master and the tiny chef began to sing the zajal of Ibn Quzman in a voice so deep that it was overpowering.
‘Come fill it high with a golden sea,
And hand the precious cup to me!
Let the old wine circle from guest to guest,
The bubbles gleaming like pearls on its breast,
It were as if night is of darkness dispossessed.
Wa Allah! Watch it foam and smile in a hundred jars!
’Tis drawn from the cluster of the stars.
Pass it, to the melting music’s sound,
Here on this flowery carpet round,
Where gentle dews refresh the ground
And bathe my limbs deliciously
In their cool and balmy fragrancy.
Alone with me in the garden green
A singing girl enchants the scene:
Her smile diffuses a radiant sheen,
I cast off shame, for no spy can see,
And ‘Wa Allah,’ I cry, ‘let us merry be!’
Everyone cheered, and Yazid the loudest of all.
‘Dwarf,’ he cried in an excited voice, ‘you should leave the kitchen and become a troubadour. Your voice is beautiful.’
The Dwarf hugged the boy and kissed his head.
‘It’s too late for all that, Yazid bin Umar. Too late for singing. Too late for everything. I think you had better return with the information the Lady Zubayda asked you to bring back from the kitchen.’
Yazid had forgotten all about his mother’s request.
‘What was it, Dwarf?’
‘You have already forgotten the contents of my sunset stew?’
Yazid frowned and scratched his head but he could not remember a single ingredient. Bewitched by the wine song, he had forgotten the reason for his visit to the kitchen. The Dwarf began to remind him, but this time he made sure that the young boy’s memory would retain the information and so he declaimed the recipe in a rhythm and intonation which was very familiar to Yazid. The Dwarf’s sonorous voice was mimicking a recitation of the al-koran.
‘Listen carefully all ye eaters of my food. Tonight I have prepared my favourite stew which can only be consumed after the sun has set. In it you will find twenty-five large potatoes, quartered and diced. Twenty turnips, cleaned and sliced. Ten dasheens skinned till they gleam and ten breasts of lamb which add to the sheen. Four spring chickens, drained of all their blood, a potful of yoghurt, herbs and spices, giving it the colour of mud. Add to this mixture a cup of molasses and, wa Allah, it is done. But young master Yazid, one thing you must remember! The meat and vegetables must be fried separately, then brought together in a pan full of water in which the vegetables have been boiled. Let it all bubble slowly while we sing and make merry. When we come to the end of our fun, wa Allah, the stew is done. The rice is ready. The radishes and carrots, chillies and tomatoes, onions and cucumbers all washed and impatiently waiting their turn to join the stew on your silver plates. Can you remember all this, Yazid bin Umar?’
‘Yes!’ shouted Yazid as he ran out of the kitchen trying desperately to memorize the words and their music.
The Dwarf watched the boy run through the garden to the house followed by Ama, and a sad smile appeared on his face.
‘What will be the future of this great-grandson of Ibn Farid?’ he asked no one in particular.
Yazid ran straight into his mother’s room and repeated the Dwarf’s words.
His father smiled. ‘If only you could learn the al-koran with the same facility, my child, you would make our villagers very happy. Go and clean yourself before we eat this sunset stew.’
As the boy scampered out of the room Zubayda’s eyes lit up.
‘He is happy again.’
Umar bin Abdallah and his wife had been discussing the fate of their younger daughter. Zubayda had provided her husband with a modified version of the events in the pomegranate glade. Not wishing to upset him, she had excluded all references to palm-trees, dates and other relevant fruits. Umar had been impressed by the account of Ibn Daud’s forbearance and sense of honour. This fact alone had decided him to give the young man permission to wed Hind. It was at this stage in the discussion that Zubayda had confided her fears.
‘Has it not occurred to you that Ibn Daud might only be interested in other men?’
‘Why? Simply because he rejected our daughter’s kind invitation to deprive her of her virginity?’
Not wishing to give away too much, Zubayda decided to proceed no further. ‘No,’ she said, ‘it was an instinct on my part. When you talk to him after we have eaten tonight it would help to set my mind at rest if you asked him.’
‘What?’ roared Umar. ‘Instead of talking to him about his feelings for our Hind, I should become an Inquisitor, questioning him as if he were a filthy monk who had abused his position in the confessional. Perhaps I should torture him as well? No! No! No! It is not worthy of you.’
‘Umar,’ retorted Zubayda, her eyes flashing with anger, ‘I will not let my daughter marry a man who will make her unhappy.’
‘What if your father had asked me that question before permitting our marriage?’
‘But there was no need, was there my husband? I did not have any doubts about you on that score.’ Zubayda was playing the coquette, which was so out of character that it made him laugh.
‘If you insist, woman, I will try to find a way of asking the young man without causing offence.’
‘No reason for him to be offended. What we are talking about is not uncommon.’
The young man under discussion was in his room getting dressed for the evening meal. A strange feeling, hard to put into words, had overcome him and he was plunged in sadness. He knew that he had disappointed Hind. He was reliving the events of the afternoon and the sense of fear was being replaced by an excitement new to him.
‘Can nothing drive her out of my head?’ he asked himself as he put on his tunic. ‘I do not wish to think of her and yet I cannot think of anything else. How can these images of her crawl into my mind against my will? I am a fool! I should have told her that the only lover I have known was a man. Why did I not do that? Because I want her so much. I do not want her to reject me. I want her as my wife. She is the first person I have loved since Mansur died. Other men have approached me, but I rejected their advances. It is Hind who has aroused me again, Hind who makes me tremble, but what did she read on my face?’