Bittersweet Song
The weeks that followed settled into a gentle routine for Zalika and her companions. The basket business remained brisk, although not as busy as it was on that first day. Zalika found a rhythm to her weaving that helped her work faster and more consistently, while she chatted with Wema. Jamaani and Abduljama prepared the reeds and sold the baskets. The four of them began to settle into a simple, comfortable, and ordinary life.
This isn’t to say everyone in town was happy about having two Jinn nearby, but most people were at least polite about it, and the novelty was beginning to wear off. Most of the town’s children had touched Jamaani’s fur, and some of the young women lingered a bit longer than necessary at the basket stall on market day.
Zalika was beginning to feel good about her life and how it was working out. She missed the life she had imagined as a child, but things were falling into place. Mostly, she missed her mother and wanted to ask for her advice. Without thinking much about it, she began to sing while she and Wema worked on their baskets. She was singing a poem her mother had taught her about parents and children growing up and growing old.
Zalika and her father had been working to translate it from her mother’s Tootsie into Arabic before her mother was killed. After the Dutch attack, translating the poem no longer felt as important. She had worked on it intermittently ever since, but with little enthusiasm or success.
Today, it simply flowed out of her, straight from her heart. Zalika could feel her mother in the room with her and knew she had her mother’s blessing for her relationship with Jamaani. When she stopped singing, Abduljama and Wema had both stopped what they were doing to listen to her sing, and they were both crying.
Wema spoke first, “I miss him so much. Your song brought him back. For just a moment, I could feel him here in this room with me, and that is more than I have had in a long time, thank you.” Wema dried her eyes and went back to weaving.
Abduljama said more to himself than to Zalika, “So this is the perfection of song called Tarab. Anwar says it can be heard all the way to paradise more clearly than prayers.” Then speaking to Zalika, “I will talk to him, but you must sing. I don’t know where yet, but you must sing.” Feeling the need to move, he walked out to the street. Mostly, he needed to come to grips with his feelings about his father’s early death.
On the street, a handful of men stood in silence, looking at Abduljama’s house. “If that is the magic of these Jinn, they will be welcome in my house. Please tell them that,” said one of his neighbors. Abdulazeze had lost his wife and child five years earlier. A few others briefly expressed thanks or blessings, but most of the small crowd simply nodded and moved on about their business.
When Abduljama returned home, he told everyone about their words as if nothing extraordinary had happened. “I will be back shortly. I must talk to Anwar about this.”
Wema added, “Perhaps Abida and Zalika could sing together. They both have such lovely voices.”
“You can’t be serious! You want me to sing with a jinni? Her magic will steal my voice, and I shall never sing again!” Abida was upset at the prospect of singing with Zalika, and she didn’t care who knew it.
“Is that how you think the Prophet would have you treat a believer? I am inclined to believe that they are, in fact, enchanted humans, but it matters not. The teaching is clear. They have accepted the teachings of the Prophet, peace be upon him, and must be treated with respect and kindness. You will sing, and you will choose a proper song!” Anwar rarely got angry with anyone else, but Abida could upset him quite easily. “In the meantime, you will spend the rest of the day with the Qur'an seeking the wisdom to accept others for who they are.”
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“Yes, father.” It was clear that Abida would try to find a loophole in what her father had said, and both of them knew it. She had four days to turn this to her advantage. She was known as the best singer in town, and she wanted to keep it that way.
“You look just fine. If there is anyone in town that everybody will recognize, it is you, so relax and hold still while I put this scarf on your head. I cut holes in it for your ears.” Wema fiddled with it for a while before giving up. “Your mane just is not going to cooperate with any scarf. I would have to cut it to get it to lie down.”
Zalika fixed one eye and one ear on Wema. “Please do not. I have some bad memories of sharp things in other people’s hands. Do we know what song Abida is singing?”
Relax, she said she selected it with you in mind. Let’s go; they will be waiting for us.
In the long formal robes of the Arabs, Jamaani looked particularly good with his bare feet and just the tip of his tail showing out the bottom. “You clean up well enough,” Abduljama admitted, “especially in my clothing. Now off with you. Wema and I will be in the crowd.”
Zalika felt overdressed in the black dress that covered everything below her neck and her arms. She had wanted a red dress but settled for a red shawl. Wema found two red scarves, one to tie around Zalika’s hips, but no one had figured out how to put a scarf on her head. Zalika carried it while they walked, as if a solution would just walk up and introduce itself.
At the mosque, Anwar met them to lead Jamaani and Zalika into a small room behind the altar. As he studied the scarf Zalika carried, his eyes lit up. “I have an idea. May I touch your hair?”
Seeing no reason to object, Zalika agreed, and Anwar began to braid the remaining red scarf into her main. He left enough in front to cover the top of her face and stopped braiding just past her ears to let the rest drape over her shoulder. “There, that will do nicely.”
The attention her father paid to Zalika did not go unnoticed by Abida, who had watched the whole thing from the doorway. “It is time, I chose a poem you may recognize. I will sing it through twice, join in whenever you feel ready.” Abida led Zalika through a small door and around the altar to stand in the space between the altar and the low fence. With just a moment’s pause, she began singing.
It took Zalika a while to recognize the poem. It was about a young man who was not happy with his lot in life. As he tried to change it, he fell on tough times. The harder he tried to be something he was not, the more grief it brought him. Only when he accepted his lot did he find happiness in the life Allah had set for him. She had never heard the poem all the way through, but she was familiar with the story from her father’s frequent references. As she listened to the rhythm, pitch, and meter of Abida’s song, Zalika had to admit that Abida was an exceptionally good singer. When she learned the melody, Zalika joined in with simple sounds to complement Abida’s voice.
Abida shot Zalika an annoyed glance and looked a bit less smug but continued to sing. With the second time through the song, Zalika harmonized with Abida on the refrains and continued to add emotional depth with her vocals, supporting the young woman.
After their duet, Abida sang a poem about the blessing of spring. Her performance was so beautiful that Zalika almost forgot she was supposed to sing next.
In her turn, Zalika sang a poem her father had taught her. A song about loss and how a new family can replace some of what is lost, but can never completely replace the first family.
When the singing was finished, Anwar climbed to the altar and led a very brief prayer of thanks for the evening, and people began to go home. On her way out the door, Abida ‘accidentally’ stepped on Zalika’s dress, upsetting her balance. In the fall, she struck her upper lip hard on the ground, disorienting her enough that she needed help standing.
“Other than the fall, today is one I will remember for a very long time. If I closed my eyes, I could imagine I had two ladies singing just for me.” Jamaani sighed before going on to say, “You see, I told you it would work out.”
“Who do you think you are kidding? You crazy cat, you will remember the fall even longer.” Zalika’s upper lip was beginning to return to normal, but it was still quite swollen. “Help me with this scarf and these braids. I will wash the dress in the morning and kick you between the ears if you comment on my lip.”
“As always, you have lovely and expressive lips.” Jamaani was never one to know when to stop talking.
In the morning, Zalika dressed in her daily clothes. She washed Wema’s dress and scarves, then set them out to dry as she collected reeds. The dress finished drying on the walk to Wema’s home for the day of weaving to come.
Zalika ended her day’s weaving early enough to go to the market while it was still open. She was tired of cooking in a basket and wanted an iron pot. Since she was going to cook in it, she was going to pick it out, with Jamaani accompanying her, of course. While in the market, Zalika spotted the man from the bluff. He was with another man, but neither of them seemed worried about being seen, and they made no effort to slip back into the crowd.
Jamaani whispered to Zalika, “I smell the man who investigated our camp that first night.”
I see the man from the bluff.
After a few minutes, the two men left without drawing any more attention to themselves. Aside from that, nothing of interest happened for the rest of the week.