The Map of Salt and Stars by Zeyn Joukhadar

Author:Zeyn Joukhadar
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria
Published: 2018-05-01T00:00:00+00:00

The Weight of Stones

Ibn Hakim began to stir and groan, and the dye workers crept out of their hiding places. Rawiya tried to lift Bakr, but his body was too heavy. She squatted down with her back to him and hoisted him up onto her shoulders, walking bent under his weight.

But Ibn Hakim lay between them and the door of the dye factory. Outside, a small crowd had gathered, murmuring. Rawiya knew she couldn’t get Bakr’s body up the ladder and out the second-floor window, but she was determined to give him a proper burial.

The only way out was past Ibn Hakim. She grunted under Bakr’s weight, stepping carefully toward the door.

Ibn Hakim’s hand twitched for his sword, and she jumped back.

But the dye workers, who had seen everything and knew Ibn Hakim to be a cruel and corrupt man, scurried out from behind the dye vats and spools of silk. “We will stall him,” one of them said, pushing Rawiya toward the door. “We never much liked Ibn Hakim and his thugs, and we won’t help them. Go!”

Rawiya thanked them and ducked out as Ibn Hakim moaned and touched his head. She hurried toward the city gates. Bakr’s bulk became heavier and heavier until she thought her bones would break from the weight.

Khaldun and al-Idrisi had already joined the servants and loaded the camels, and everyone sat mounted and ready. When Rawiya arrived, huffing, Khaldun rushed to help her lower Bakr from her back. “Rami, is he . . . ?”

But Rawiya shook her head as shouts grew louder behind them.

Rawiya and Khaldun lashed Bakr’s body to his camel, and Rawiya led the animal by the reins. They galloped out through the gates. They fled across the fertile plain of the Nile Delta, following the great river.

For days, they rode hard, stopping to sleep only when it was dark. They made no fires and ate stale bread. Only by the light of early dawn did al-Idrisi scratch away in his leather-bound book, sadly sketching the cone of the Nile Delta, his usual wide and looping script now tight and slipping downward.

On the third day, when they were certain they were not being followed, they laid Bakr down at the river’s edge. They washed his body in the Nile as the sun set, massaging its coolness into his beard and his hair.

Al-Idrisi handed the astrolabe to Rawiya. She determined the direction of the qibla, pointing wordlessly to the southeast, so they would know in which direction Bakr’s body should be buried. Then they wrapped him in clean linens and buried him beside the blue ribbon of the Nile, lying on his side facing the qibla. Rawiya gripped the astrolabe for a long time afterward, Nile mud under her fingernails. Khaldun gently pried it from her, folding his palms over the backs of her hands.

The whole expedition prayed over the body. Rawiya tugged out her mother’s misbaha, counting its wooden beads. Bakr’s package wrapped in brown linen lay tucked inside her pack, as heavy as the thought of her own mother’s despair.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.