Mustafa, my mother said.
I did not reply. I sat with my knees drawn into my chest and, after a moment, I lowered my forehead upon my knees. The scholar’s life, which my father worked so hard to provide for me, held neither the dangers nor the delights of the marketplace; I found no enjoyment in it. Worse: I felt guilty for not enjoying it. It seemed to me that I could never measure up to my father’s ambitions.
Mustafa, my mother said again.
I looked up. Her face had begun to show signs of middle age, but her eyes were still luminous and kind. My brother Yusuf, perhaps sensing my sadness, had crawled toward me and now he thrust up his stubby fingers in the air, begging to be picked up. I seated him on my knees. He was still teething, and I let him gnaw on one of my fingers.
Listen, my mother said. Once there was and there was not, in olden times, a poor slipper-mender whose wife died in childbirth, leaving him with two boys and an infant girl. The boys he took with him to his workshop, but the girl he placed with her aunt, who was an embroiderer. The aunt taught the girl everything she knew: how to choose fabric, how to select threads, how to marry colors, how to disguise an imperfect stitch behind a looped one. Best of all, she taught the girl all the embroidery patterns that had been passed down from generation to generation, patterns that could not be trusted to paper, but had to be committed to memory. By the time she was fourteen, the apprentice surpassed the mistress. She even began to invent new patterns. Her fame spread throughout our fortunate kingdom until, one day, a company of women musicians from the sultan’s court came to commission caftans from her.
The girl set to work immediately. She chose a dark blue silk, upon which she embroidered eight-pointed stars in silver thread, giving the fabric the appearance of a starry night sky. The caftans, she hoped, would look beautiful on the musicians. But the more she thought about the court, the more curious she became. What did the sultan’s palace look like? Was it true, as the musicians had said, that the marble in his courtyard was so clear that you would mistake it for a mirror? Had it really taken ninety-two artisans a year to decorate the ceilings of his reception rooms? Were there truly grapevines hanging over the walls of his courtyard, so that passing guests could eat from them?
To a girl who had spent her entire life bent over her embroidery scrolls, the musicians’ stories seemed too good to be true. But Satan, may he be cursed, continued to tempt her. She was so tormented by her curiosity that, surreptitiously, she made one additional caftan — this one for herself — and when the musicians came to pick up their garments, the girl donned the precious caftan and followed them into the palace.
How right the musicians had been! The palace was dazzling. Mouth agape, the girl stared at everything around her. The arched ceilings and colorful rugs were unlike anything she had ever seen in the city. Dozens of guests sat on the divans, attended to by servants who brought in platter after silver platter of succulent dishes. But, while the girl was still entranced by the riches around her, the sultan came in. With his dark turban and his long, green cloak, he was as imposing as a monarch could be. He sat down on the throne and, with a snap of the fingers, asked for wine and entertainment.
The musicians came forward. A hush fell on the assembly at the sight of the magnificent caftans, though the sultan barely took any notice. Then each of the ladies picked up her instrument — the flute, the guenbri, the kamanja. Hoping to keep up her deceit, the girl took up the lute. She knew nothing about music and could not have guessed that she had chosen the most difficult of all instruments. As soon as the company started performing, the sultan frowned. Who dared to play such discordant notes in his presence? The musicians themselves stopped and looked. And the girl, who had foolishly continued to pluck at her strings, was unmasked.
The sultan’s mekhazniya fell upon her and, beating her this way and that, threw her out of the palace. Caftan in tatters, feet bare, hands broken, the girl returned home, where her aunt tried to nurse her back to health. But the fractures did not heal properly and the girl’s precious fingers became deformed. She could no longer make the delicate patterns that had made her so famous.
My mother had come to the end of her story. Only then did I notice that she had finished shelling the beans and tossed them into the cooking pot. The smell of the meat stew now filled the kitchen. My brother had fallen asleep on my lap, his legs dangling on either side of my knees, his little hand still gripping my finger; now it was covered with baby spittle.
My mother had accustomed me to fairy tales in which it was easy for me to imagine myself, so I remained quiet as I thought about the Story of the Embroiderer and the Sultan. Was I the embroiderer, who should have been content with her gift and not sought out that which was beyond her reach? Or was the story about my father? Was he like the sultan, so enamored with his entertainment that he fails to notice the embroiderer’s talent? I could not be sure, but I knew better than to ask her, because my mother would have told me that stories are not riddles; they do not have a simple answer. All I knew was that the weight on my chest no longer felt as heavy, because my mother’s stories always entertained me, and, by so doing, soothed me.
You have a story for every occasion, I said. I meant it as a compliment, though I disguised it as a complaint.
Nothing new has ever happened to a son of Adam, she said. Everything has already been lived and everything has already been told. If only we listened to the stories.
Zainab washed the dough from her hands in a bowl of water. She took my brother Yusuf into her arms. The bread is ready, she told me.
But I was still trying to make sense of my mother’s story about the embroiderer. If I was like her, then what was my talent? Was it really to become a notary public or could it be something — anything — else?
Still, I picked up the bread tray and, swiftly pulling the hood of my jellaba over my head, went out into the street. The world outside was cloaked in darkness. The lamplighter’s rounds had not yet brought him to our street, but I managed to find my way by the glow of the oil lamps in the shops that were still open. A pair of Portuguese soldiers passed me, quarreling in their nasally tongue about something or other. In my pocket was the money my mother had given me, though I did not need it because I had convinced the baker to let me sweep his floors in exchange for baking our bread. With my mother’s coins, I thought, I could go to the souq on Tuesday.
IF MY FATHER WAS ASKED about the circumstances under which he lost an arm, he never failed to finish his story by saying he was not sorry to have spoken up about the Portuguese tax. He had reason to repeat this when, one summer afternoon in the year 919 of the Hegira, town criers announced that the governor of Azemmur had refused to pay the tribute to the Christians. Finally! my father said when I told him the news. He was sitting under the pomegranate tree in the courtyard, but even in the shade of its branches I could see his eyes glinting with delight. He drew on his pipe, savored the taste of his kif for a long moment, then tilted his head back to blow out the pale lavender smoke. It was rare for me to see my father display his pleasure in anything, let alone the physical pleasure of smoking. So I sat down across from him and, resting my back against the tiled wall, watched him.
Let me tell you, Mustafa, he said. He launched into the Story of How He Lost His Arm — an account of the events that had taken place on the day I was born and that in my mother’s telling I had come to know as the Story of My Birth. My father’s tale ended at the moment when his arm was being severed and he lost consciousness. Now he smiled grimly and pointed the stem of his pipe toward me. My son, he said, this country is besieged by Castilians in the north and Portuguese in the west. I tell you, I would give up my other arm if it would free our city from intruders.