Jaafar of Arabia by Patrick Sean Lee (best classic literature txt) 📖

A hundred meters up from the peaceful waters of the Tigris, beneath a sky black as an Ethiopian prince and speckled with the white of a hundred million stars; beneath the multi-hued linen canopy that fluttered at its ends in the soft desert breeze, Jaafar al Rashid died.

No one inside the Kaveh Kanes—the market coffee house—knew who Jaafar al Rashid really was, save one.

Sanna bint Abbas knelt silently before Rashid clasping his cheeks, his blood staining her hands. Her dark eyes moved at intervals from the night sky beyond the canopy to his eyes. Back and forth, as though between the distance his soul might be seen flying. Rashid’s eyes were fixed on hers, clear and aware of the gravity of this moment, and he recalled his love for her.

                                           ***

Each afternoon since his arrival with his brother Yahia, sent together from Baghdad to administer the law, art, and commerce of the small city of Beit el Farik, Jaafar had shed his layered robes and princely turban of white, dressed in gray, and then entered the city’s center of discourse and culture.

Sitting beyond the canopy and the tawny stone entry hall lay a garden-like courtyard, protected from the midday sun by larger, heavier linen canopies that looked like the sails of ships encircling the patrons below. At night, veiled maidens danced beneath torches set in iron holders, while merchants from faraway lands spoke of commerce, and paid the dancers in silver and gold as they drank the strong, aromatic brew. Rashid entered on a balmy evening that first night alone and seated himself at a table. As quickly as he had taken his seat on the sturdy stool and adjusted the folds of his tunic, a young, veiled woman approached him and bowed, as was the custom. She spoke but one word, very low.

“Sir?”

Rashid ordered a tiny cup of coffee, and then the woman bowed again and left. Twenty feet away, the sound of a long-necked flute suddenly quieted the din of conversations and laughter. The notes came quickly, shockingly pitched at first, followed by another woman dressed in a gown of reds and purples and greens. She moved like a whirlwind of sand, crossing the open space between the tables until she arrived in the center of the courtyard, and there she bowed, crossing her arms in front of and above her head. The storm abated. The tempo of the flute slowed, whether by her actions, or commands from the heavens. She rose slowly, twisting seductively, and let her braceleted ankles and sure feet guide the remainder of her body. Heavy sighs filled the courtyard, and there was not a man among the crowd who would not have taken her for his wife; to bear him children by the score.

Three men dressed in black robes entered through the archway, stopping only a few feet from Rashid. Beneath the folds of their tunics scimitars were visible, ebony handled and tucked into their sheathes. The tallest among them with a dense beard and eyes like glowing agates looked the crowd over cursorily, glanced at the woman as briefly, and then brought his gaze to rest on Rashid.

                                      *

He remembered Yahia’s laughter as he balanced himself against the failure of his strength to counteract his collapse. Sanna bint Abbas looked down at him through the tears in her eyes, watching as his smile grew, but his eyelids began to droop.

He saw himself standing beneath the orange tree, giggling. Behind the stone wall, a few feet above him hidden in the foliage, Yahia laughed uncontrollably. Beyond the wall, the miller, an ancient man with filthy robes and a belly of bale-size, cursed the boy. Yahia, quick as a fox, tossed another overripe piece of fruit at the old man, and then laughed harder. Their father, Yahya, chief administrator to the Caliph, watched from the doorway of the large home in the center of Baghdad, laughing low himself, and then summoned the boy with mock-anger in his voice.

“Down from there, you little demon! Into the house where by the grace of Allah I will instruct you with the rod!”

Rashid’s vision blurred like a candle’s flame eating at the last of the wick, and with it, the laughter-gone-silent from Yahia’s throat. Sanna bint Abbas’ white robe was scarlet as she pulled his head closer to her breasts, yet Rashid saw only growing darkness with a pinprick of brightness at its rear, and heard her mourning cries so far, far away. He felt more gladness than distress as the thought of her softness comforted him in his leaving.

                                          *

Sanna bint Abbas returned to Rashid’s table several moments after the three men in black robes had continued on to seat themselves not far away. She took note that his cup was nearly empty, and bowed slightly once again before addressing him, this time looking more deeply into his eyes. Through her lace face veil Rashid beheld lips the color of Rubies that smiled out at him.

“Sir, another?”

“A thousand more, so that my days and nights are filled with your presence each moment until I leave this mortal body, though sad I shall be outside your star’s radiance.”

“Ah, my lord…you are a poet, then?”

Rashid did not hesitate in answering. “I am. But my voice fails my heart miserably in this moment, loveliest daughter of Allah.”

“Take care, my lord poet, that you do not blaspheme our one, true God with such haughty words! A piteous creature am I, and not worthy to be in the Creator’s stable of swine, let alone seat myself at his table to sup with his thousand children.”

“Indeed! From the throat of one so fair come the sweetest notes these ears have yet heard. What progeny, if not divine, fashioned a throat so pure, and a tongue so fine as to mold this music I hear? Surely you are not a child of any man.”

“I must leave. I’ll return with your cup. Speak no more of this, I beg you.”

Sanna bint Abbas turned to leave, not bowing, the veil covering her nose and mouth and cheeks aflame with sacrilegious delight. Rashid smiled. Beyond him the grave stare of the man in the company of two others lingered after the scene.

He drank the dark coffee, ate slices of black bread with goats’ meat and pomegranate that Sanna bint Abbas brought to him for the remainder of the long evening, but she did not linger with each trip long enough to receive his poetic admirations, though he burned to give them, and she burned the more fiercely to receive them. Rashid could not help but notice late into the evening the same man who hours earlier had stood behind him staring—though he could not have known this—speaking to her in a harsh glint of soundless words and blazing, furrowed eyes. She returned the malice with inaudible words, and then went her way to other patrons, carrying herself as though she had been beaten. Later still, when the flautist set his instrument down, and the dancer had collected the last of her silver and gold, Rashid rose and left.

                                                 *

It was his urge to allow his muscles to give way, but then the buttress of her soft body and the scent of her Persian perfume would give way as well. He forced himself to focus—one last time, for a single moment, before the inevitable fall into eternity overcame him. Voices like wind through the date palm groves called to him, but he forced his eyes to fix themselves on this woman weeping and covered in blood. Her fingertips played on the skin of his face, and this brought joy to him. The searing pain in his stomach was gone, now, and in its place a curious sense of wholeness overwhelmed him. He was joyful, looking into her eyes again, though reason admonished him for the foolishness of that feeling. He was going to die, and Sanna bint Abbas would be left behind in that short beginning of his entire, eternal existence.

                                                  *

Rashid spent three nights in the Kaveh Kanes, listening to the flute player, watching the dancer mesmerize the groups of men, drinking the strong brew slowly, speaking in melodic words to Sanna bint Abbas whenever she neared. Three nights the men shadowed him. The tallest of them, the one who had said something bitter to Sanna bint Abbas the first night, left his companions and followed Rashid each evening when he left the coffee house to return to his quarters and the weight of his duties the following morning. On that third night, Sanna bint Abbas slipped out of the courtyard unnoticed and followed Rashid to the end of the building.

“Sir,” she said when she neared him. “You have forgotten these.” Sanna bint Abbas held out her hand and opened her palm. Three coins sparkled in the moonlight. “Your change.”

Rashid glanced down at the coins, very pleased by the ruse. He looked into her eyes, tilting his head slightly as though a game had been initiated, which in fact one had.

“Allah be praised. An honest woman…but then would he sire anything less than this?”

“Blaspheme not, sir. I merely brought…”

“You know well the coins do not belong to me. Even had they, is it not customary to leave a few as a token of appreciation for excellent service rendered? Look up at me, woman. Your eyes make the stars rush away in envy. Let me marvel in their beauty.” He put a finger beneath her veil-covered chin and raised her head.

“Sir…”

“Rashid al Jaafar.”

“…Sir, take these, please. Say no more. I must return. May Allah forgive me.”

“May Allah forgive us both, then, for I shall deny my soul if I must, that I might gaze upon your un-veiled face and press my lips to yours.” Rashid gently undid the veil of modesty, unimpeded by Sanna bint Abbas. She closed her eyes, shivering slightly at his touch. Rashid leaned forward and kissed her softly, and for a moment that seemed to endure forever, their hearts beat together at a furious pace.

She bolted from his grasp.

“I must return.” And with that Sanna bint Abbas turned and fled, pulling the veil back into place as she ran. From the shadows a lone figure watched, his fists clenched.

A smile crept onto his face as Sanna bint Abbas hurried beneath the canopy, back to her duties inside the Kaveh Kanes. Rashid’s mouth tingled as she ran, and after several moments of experiencing frozenness and fierce heat all at once, he left to return to his home, knowing with certainty that high above him almighty Allah was smiling.

The end was set. The defiling of the sacred law had been witnessed. The assassination could now be accomplished in the guise of morality instead of political expediency. Sanna bint Abbas was the niece of the watcher, Muhammad al-Tafar.

Rashid slept well and long that night under a pure white linen coverlet. Outside his open window a pair of nesting doves cooed in an olive tree inside the perimeter wall, sending their notes through the quiet peace of the night. A half-kilometer away above the Kaveh Kanes, Sanna bint Abbas lay on her bed adrift in daydreams, the music of doves murmuring in her spinning head.

The next evening came, though much too slowly for Rashid and Sanna bint Abbas. She busied herself with the throng of customers who spoke of the rising cost of spices from the