Translators Acknowledgments
I wish to thank Radwa Ashour for her encouragement and support for my translation of Granada, as well as for her many suggestions and explications. Also, a profusion of gratitude to Ayman El-Desouky and Sinan Antoon, who graciously read the text over and over and made important contributions to the polished version. In addition, I wish to thank Shawkat Toorawa, Ariel Blumenthal, Jonathan Smolin, and Laila Parsons for their input, and Michael Beard and Marilyn Booth for their expertise and support. To Maria Rosa Menocal a special thanks for her magnificent foreword, and finally to Mary Selden Evans of Syracuse University Press a symphony of praises for her wisdom, understanding, counsel, and good humor.
Granada
1
At the crack of dawn one day Abu Jaafar saw a naked woman walking down the hill and in his direction, as though she were coming deliberately to meet him. The closer she got to him the more convinced he became that she was neither impudent nor inebriated. She was a young woman of extraordinary beauty, slender and graceful, with breasts like small, smooth, perfectly shaped ivory vases. Her jet black hair cascaded over her shoulders, and a sadness made her wide eyes seem even wider on her intensely gaunt, pallid face.
The streets were still empty, the shops had not opened, and the light of day had not yet dissolved the violet haze of the early dawn. Abu Jaafar first thought that what he was seeing was a mere figment of his imagination. He then peered more closely, and he came to grips with his own utter amazement. He went toward the woman, took off his woolen cloak, and wrapped it around her body. He asked her her name and where she lived, but it seemed as though she could neither see nor hear him. He left her to continue on her way, and he watched her from behind as she walked on slowly, his eyes fixed on the jingling gold spangles that wrapped around her ankles caked with the mud of a road her two feet had been treading.
In spite of the wintry chill and the howling winds that shook the walnut trees lining both sides of the road, Abu Jaafar remained standing by the door of his shop until the sun released its pale yellow rays and exposed the street’s prominent features.
Inside the shop he exchanged a few words with Naeem and then went to a corner where he sat quietly. The boy couldn’t help but notice his patron’s silence, and he responded by suppressing his usual noisiness, as he began the day’s work with a desire to do a good job to please his patron and with a genuine concern for him, making Naeem sneak a peek at him every now and then.
“What’s your name, my boy?”
The man was very tall and somewhat frightening, looking no different from all those older men who intimidated him, who would no sooner stop him on the street than he would leap away like a scared jackrabbit. He lifted his gaze and glanced up over his towering body until he came to the eyes, blue and peaceful. He didn’t rush, and he answered in a soft voice: “Naeem.”
“Where is your family, Naeem?”
“They went away, or they died. I don’t know.”
Abu Jaafar stretched out his enormous hand and took hold of the boy’s hand, and the boy followed with the longest strides his two young feet allowed him to take in order to keep pace.
Abu Jaafar fed him, gave him shelter, and began to teach him all the tricks of his trade. He trained him in tanning and drying goat hides for binding. He taught him how to arrange the pages of a manuscript and bind them together. He allowed him to undertake every task save a couple he preferred to do himself. He instructed Naeem to follow him closely so that he could learn: to thread the twine into the awl, and slowly and carefully pass the awl and thread through the spine of the book, once, twice, a third and fourth time, back and forth until the stitching was tight; then he let him attach the spine to the cover and place the book under a press. Several days later, he would remove the book from underneath the press and Abu Jaafar would write the title and the name of the author, as well as the owner of the manuscript, in gold ink or something else that may have been requested. Finally, he would engrave the cover with intricate patterns.
Naeem became consumed by a desire to do all of that by himself, and when he persisted, Abu Jaafar handed him a piece of paper, smiling: “Here, write the opening chapter of the Quran on this.” He felt as though he had backed himself into a corner because his penmanship was as crooked as a long and winding mountain pass.
“Are you feeling ill, Abu Jaafar?”
Abu Jaafar didn’t respond, nor did he look in Naeem’s direction. He remained with his head bent down and his eyes lost in distraction. The day went on and the phantom of the young woman remained fixed in his mind. He was disturbed and saddened by it, but it was not until the following day when he heard the news of the meeting at the Alhambra that a foreboding unease took possession of him. Rumors were circulating about Ibn Abi Ghassan’s drowning in the River Genil. Could the naked woman then be a credible sign, he wondered, like a vision or an omen?
His pessimism grew steadily and entrenched itself deep in his heart when Naeem told him several days later the story of a woman whose naked corpse had been found drifting on the river.
“Was it the Darro or the Genil?”
“The Genil.”
“Then there’s no escape.”
Naeem stared at him inquisitively, but Abu Jaafar remained silent, explaining nothing of what he had just said. The river’s currents had swallowed up the last hope. The cord of the nation was severed and God’s children have been orphaned.
For three nights neither Granada nor Albaicin slept.[4] The people talked incessantly not of the peace treaty but of the disappearance of Mousa Ibn Abi Ghassan. They were swallowed up by rumors that swept in waves from the River Genil to the Ainadamar watercourse,[5] from the Najd Gate to the Sahl Ibn Malik cemetery. The news seeped onto the streets and throughout every neighborhood, as well as into all the public gardens. The waters of the Genil carried it from the outskirts of the city and brought it into the Darro where it crossed over to the west bank. From there it traveled to Sabika, Alhambra, and the Generalife. It reached the end of the east bank that connected to the old Casbah and Albaicin. It extended beyond the walls and gates of the city, past the towers and the fences of the vineyards, toward the Sierra Nevada from one side, and toward the Gibralfaro to the other.
Some claimed that Mousa Ibn Abi Ghassan had stormed out of the meeting at Alhambra resolved to fight the Castilians. He battled their troops single-handedly, but when they caught up with him and were on the verge of defeating him, he threw himself into the river. Others said that he was killed by the young King Muhammad who wanted to accomplish his goals without any conflict or opposition. The ill-fated chiquito handed over the country and sold whatever he could of it while Ibn Abi Ghassan lay in wait for him.
4
Albaicin is a suburb of Granada where the Muslims resided in the post-Reconquest. Its origin is most likely from the Arabic,
5
The Fuente Grande, known to the Muslims as Ainadamar, from the Arabic ‘