Ramadan

“Do not tell a friend anything you would conceal from an enemy.”

-Arab proverb.

***

“There is, of course, the tale of the man who built a horse of ebony that flew through the air with its rider—”

“We’ve heard that one already. What about the tale of the three Sufi Qalandars who were each the sons of kings and also each blind in one eye?”

“That one was as old as a dried date when my father was a boy. If you want to hear a truly wondrous story, listen to me recount the tale of the rich man who bought a mermaid as his concubine only to discover—”

“No, I’ll tell the tale of the fisherman who caught a jinni in his net!”

“What about the tale of the Sultan, his Son, his Concubine, and the Seven Wise Viziers?”

“The tale of the man whose wife tricked him into sifting dirt!”

“No, the tale of how a drop of honey destroyed two great empires!”

Arram talked over all the others: “What about a story of Haroun al-Rashid?”

Everyone looked at him. Arram turned red at the scrutiny. He buried his face in his wine bowl, but the others wouldn’t let him back out now.

“You know a story about Haroun al-Rashid?” said the man sitting across from him, a merchant with a great black beard and an eye patch.

“Haroun al-Rashid, ruler of the city of Baghdad, Caliph of the Empire and Defender of the Faithful, May He Live for a Thousand Years, that Haroun al-Rashid?” said their host, a bald man who had once been a mamluk.

“Is there any other Haroun al-Rashid?” said Arram.

Everyone laughed, and Arram laughed loudest. He was not used to drinking strong wines, and he was not used to keeping the company of strangers late at night, but this was a special night, a night to celebrate, because after all, tonight he was in Baghdad, the shining jewel of all cities. Weeks ago, on his birthday, he decided that it was time to make his own way in the world, so he hid among the cargo of a slave ship bound for Tartus and there he escaped and joined a caravan traveling to Baghdad, City of Wonders. He’d arrived only hours ago and spent all day wandering the streets, staring at the great mosques with their soaring arches and jeweled minarets, at the crowds of exotic people crowding its spacious streets with their strange clothes and strange accents, and at the mighty waters of the flowing Tigris, once called the Idigna and the Palavi.

As night came on he fell in with this lot of travelers and traders whom the mamluk invited to his home to share food and wine. It was Ramadan, the holy month, and the Moslems of the city had abstained from repast all day. “It is only fitting,” said the mamluk, “that just as we fast during the day we should enjoy good food and good wine and good company that much more of the night.” So they sat in the belvedere of the mamluk’s home, relaxing on embroidered rugs and drinking spiced wine and telling stories. Arram, giddy from his day of adventures, wanted to tell a story of his own, but he felt shy in the midst of these older, more worldly men. Now that the wine had gone to his head he’d finally spoken up.

“Well,” he said, “my family line is Assyrian, but really I’m from Sicily, and even in Sicily we hear stories of the great caliph of Baghdad—”

“Do you hear that?” said the mamluk. “Even in Sicily they tell stories of our beloved caliph! Even in Sicily!”

The others muttered that yes, they had heard it, and the mamluk grinned as though he’d told them first. Arram continued:

“They say that on nights just like this the caliph disguises himself as a common man and walks among the people, talking to them and learning about them and finding wrongs to right.”

“That’s what they say in Sicily?” said the man on Arram’s right, a mercenary of some kind.

“Hogwash!” said the man on his left, a noted traveling physician. “The caliph would never leave the safety of the palace.”

“The caliph will do whatever he pleases,” said the merchant with the eye patch. “What would you know about his comings and goings?”

“I know that if I were the caliph, I would certainly never leave the palace,” said the doctor, and the others muttered their assent. “What if he were run over by a cart, or killed in a street brawl? Where would we be then, with our caliph dead in a gutter and no one even knows it, because which of us would even know the caliph if we saw him? I’ve only ever seen his face on coins or in murals, and that’s nothing to go by.”

“Well,” said the man with the eye patch, “the boy didn’t say that it was true, he said that it was a story, and I myself have heard such stories many times. For example, one night our beloved caliph, Haroun al-Rashid, Defender of the Faithful, May He Live For a Thousand Years, was traveling in disguise through the market along with his bodyguard, Masrur, and heard the tale of how a misunderstanding over a mere apple caused a man to most unjustly murder his wife…”

The man told his story and everyone ignored Arram, which was a relief. Then he saw the mamluk give him a signal, and he slipped away from the belvedere while the others were distracted with the merchant’s story. Following the instructions whispered to him by the mamluk when they first arrived, Arram went down the adjoining hall to the room with the silk curtain over the doorway cleared his throat twice. A lovely round arm with a hand dyed in henna parted the curtain and beckoned him in.

The mamluk didn’t just invite strangers into his home to entertain them with wine and stories during Ramadan; he also did it because he was the owner of the most beautiful slave girl in the entire city of Baghdad, maybe in the entire world (or so he said), and for a price he would sell her company for a night—because of course, being a mamluk he was also a eunuch, so her charms were wasted on him. Arram suspected that what he was paying for the privilege (nearly every dinar he had) was more than the mamluk would normally charge, but he didn’t care. The women of the shining city were as famous as its mosques and its rivers and its wines and its caliph, and Arram was not about to leave Baghdad without seeing for himself.

The room he came into was small and dark, but furnished with soft cushions and thick rugs, and it smelled of incense and perfumes that made his wine-addled head swim. A woman with great dark eyes behind a transparent gold veil sat him down on the softest cushion in the room. She looked at the floor when she addressed him, the picture of demure virtue, but then she looked into his eyes in a way that made Arram feel like he’d been struck by a thunderbolt. She said she was Dalila, and that for tonight she was his, and would be as loyal and steadfast as the caliph’s own concubine, at least until tomorrow morning. Arram was not sure this really made sense, but he wasn’t going to argue the point.

He said that, if she was his, then the first order of business was to remove her veil. “As you desire, oh prince of my life,” Dalila said, casting her veil aside and smiling. Arram’s breath left him.

“I hope my humble features are pleasant enough for you, protector of my heart. But if not, perhaps I can make up for my deficiency in other ways?”

Arram was about to say that she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, but he stopped himself when he wondered what she meant by making it up to him. Laying him back on the cushions, she anointed his temples with sweet-smelling oils and fed him sharbats of rose and sandalwood and sang with a sweet, mild voice while he admired her body. Somehow, and Arram was really not sure how, it ended up that Dalila was positioned between his legs, with her henna-colored hands splayed on his thighs.

“Is there anything else I can do for you, my sweet lord?” she said.

Arram’s tongue seemed to have stopped working. Dalila smiled wider.

“There’s no need to be embarrassed, beloved sovereign of my affections. You are the defender of my virtues as surely as you are the champion of my heart. I am certain that nothing you could will me to do would be inappropriate. Surely the only inappropriate thing would be for me to leave your just and proper desires unfulfilled? Sit back, oh sultan of my soul, and allow me to satisfy all of your wishes, those spoken both overtly and clandestinely.”

And with that she kissed him with honeyed lips while at the same time her hands slid up the inside of his thigh and cupped him, grinding her palm against his crotch. He gasped and his eyes widened. Dalila combed her fingers through his hair and painted his lips with sweet kisses, one after another. Arram could only lay back, slightly stunned, and then she began kissing his earlobes and neck. Whenever he gasped she giggled and flushed. Meanwhile, her hands were very, very busy, running up and down his body, her touch as light as feathers. He ended up shirtless without noticing, and the feeling of her warm, hennaed fingertips on his bare skin made him pant.

“You are a most miraculous man, oh dynast of my destiny,” she said.

“Um,” said Arram.

“There’s no need to talk, my incomparable inamorato,” she said. “Our hearts say more than our tongues ever could. Let us abandon these clumsy overtures and speak the true language we were both born to.”

And then, suddenly, she was half-naked, the flickering candlelight reflecting off of her full, rosy breasts, which she offered to Arram by arching her back and sitting up higher. He reached out, cupping them and squeezing, finding them soft and warm. Dalila gasped and her eyes rolled back.

“You are so gentle, sweet arbiter of my ardor. Your merest touch inflames in me a desire which I am too modest to speak.”

“Um,” said Arram, again.

“Please, oh heavenly lord, if you would not have this poor girl die of longing for you, grant me but the smallest kiss on each of my fair breasts, so that I will know something of paradise while still an inhabitant of this meager earth.”

And then she threw her arms around his neck and pushed her bosom into his face with such enthusiasm that Arram thought he might smother.