Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree by Tariq Ali

Author:Tariq Ali [Ali, Tariq]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780701139445
Publisher: Chatto & Windus
Published: 1992-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

ZAHRA WAS BURIED THE very next day. Her body had been carefully and lovingly bathed by Ama long before the sun rose. As the early morning breezes danced to welcome the first rays of the sun, the job was finished.

‘Why did you want me to do this, Zahra? My last punishment? Or was it a final gesture of friendship? If it hadn’t been for you, my lady, I would have married that man on the mountain who now gives himself airs and calls himself al-Zindiq. Borne him three children. Perhaps four! Made him happy. I’m talking like an old fool. Forgive me. I suppose God meant us to live apart. There! You’re all ready now for the last journey. I’m so glad you came back here. In Gharnata they would have put you in a wooden box and stuck a cross over your grave. What would Ibn Farid have said when you met him in the first heaven? Eh?’

Dressed in a pure white shroud, Zahra’s body lay on the bed, waiting for burial. News of her demise had travelled to the village and, such had been her reputation amongst the weavers and peasants, who saw in her a noblewoman prepared to marry one of them for love, that they had rushed to the house, before they began their day’s work, to pay their last respects and help lay the old woman’s body to rest.

Slowly four pairs of hands lifted the bed and placed it gently on four sets of sturdy shoulders. Umar and Zuhayr lifted the head, while Ibn Daud and the Dwarf’s strapping twenty-year-old son brought up the rear. Al-Zindiq and Miguel were in the centre, too old to offer their shoulders, but too close to the dead woman to leave her exclusively to a younger generation. Yazid followed closely behind his father. He had liked the old woman, but since he barely knew her, he could not grieve like Hind.

The women had mourned earlier. Early that morning Ama’s wails as she sang the praises of Zahra had woken every section of the household. Streams of sorrow had poured out of Hind’s eyes as she sought the comfort of Zubayda’s lap. They had all spoken about her human qualities. How she had been as a child, a young woman, and then there had been silence. Nobody wished to discuss what had befallen her in Qurtuba, or to mention that the bulk of her life had been lived in the maristan in Gharnata.

The funeral procession was moving very slowly on purpose. The family cemetery was situated just outside the perimeter of the high stone walls which guarded the house. Zahra would be buried with her family. A space had been reserved for her next to her mother, Lady Najma, who had died sixty-nine years ago, a few days after Zahra’s birth. She lay buried underneath a palm-tree. On the other side of her was Ibn Farid, the father she had loved and hated so much. The hadiths had insisted

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