Veiled Women

At the corner of a lofty housetop overlooking a great part of Cairo, a woman stood with arms uplifted and solemnly addressed a crow which seemed about to settle. The bird, as if the meaning of the chant had reached him, turned in the air with clumsy flapping, and withdrew, rising to join the hundreds of his kind which circled high above the city bathed in early sunlight. The woman shook her fist at his receding shape, glass bracelets tinkling on her strong brown arm. She sighed, “The curse of God on thy religion, O thou faithless messenger!” then, with a laugh, turned round to join the group of slave-girls, her companions, sent up to lay out herbs to dry upon the roof. These had watched her invocation of the crow with knowing grins. But one, a young Circassian, who sat watching while the others worked, betrayed surprise and asked the meaning of the little ceremony.

At that there was much giggling.

“Knowest thou not, O flower? It is the woman’s secret!”

“Secret of secrets, all unknown of men!”

“By Allah, men know nothing of it. Inshallah, they will be astonished some day!”

“O Hind, relate the story! Our honey, our gazelle, Gulbeyzah, has not heard it.”

Thus urged, the one who had adjured the crow, a free servant of the house, obsequious towards the slaves, its pampered children, explained as she knelt down again to work:

“In the name of Allah, thus it is related: Know, O my sweet, that, in the days of our lord Noah (may God bless him), after the flood, the men and women were in equal numbers and on equal terms. What then? Why, naturally they began disputing which should have the right to choose in marriage and, as the race increased, enjoy more mates than one. The men gave judgment on their own behalf, as usual; and when the women made polite objection, turned and beat them. What was to be done? The case was thus: the men were stronger than the women, but there exists One stronger than the men—Allah Most High. The women sought recourse to Allah’s judgment; but—O calamity!—by ill advice they made the crow their messenger. The crow flew off towards Heaven, carrying their dear petition in his claws, and from that day to this he brings no answer. But God is everliving and most merciful; a thousand years with Him seem but an hour. Perhaps He does but hold our favour over, as might a son of Adam, till the evening for reflection, to grant it at the last. Inshallah!”

“Inshallah!” came the chorus of a dozen voices; followed by a general laugh when Gulbeyzah, the Circassian, yawned and sighed, “Four goodly husbands all my own! O Lord, give quickly!”

“That is the reason,” Hind concluded, “why good women have a word to say to crows who seek to settle. Any one of them may be the bearer of the blessed edict. The reason as related—Allah knows!”

“Good news and hopeful, by my maidenhood!—the best I ever heard!” chuckled Gulbeyzah, reposing with her back against the parapet. She then remained a long while silent, lost in daydreams.

The hour was after sunrise of a spring morning in the twelve hundred and eightieth year of the Hegirah, the second of the reign of Ismaîl. The house was that of Muhammad Pasha Sâlih, a Turk by origin but born and bred in Egypt, who held a high position in the government. The girls, their task accomplished, sat down on their heels, each with her tray of basketwork before her, and sniffed the breeze, in no haste to return indoors.

“Praise to Allah,” one exclaimed with fervour, “we escape for an hour from that Gehennum there below. Never have I seen the lady Fitnah so enraged. Her wrath is not so much because her son desires the English governess, as because the Pasha sees no hindrance to the match. I tremble every time I have to go to her, lest in her fury she should damage my desirability.”

“Praise be to Allah, I am not her property,” replied another, “but that of her durrah, the great lady. Yet I know her for a good and pious creature, not likely to be so enraged without rare cause. They say this foreign teacher has bewitched the young man. He is mad. He flung himself before her in the passage as she came from driving. She spurned him, and they bore him, senseless, to his chamber, where for two days he weeps and moans, refusing nourishment. It is enchantment, evidently, for the girl is ugly.”

“Nay, by Allah, she is white and nicely rounded. But shameless! But an infidel!”

“She can change her faith.”

“As easily as dung can change its odour!”

“Gulbeyzah here is whiter and more appetizing.”

“Well, God alone knows what she is or is not. This is sure: I have no itching to go down into the house while Fitnah Khânum rages.”

“Nor I!” “Nor I!” exclaimed the rest with feeling.

The morning clamour of the city came up to them as a soothing murmur. Minarets dreamed round them in the sun-haze which was rosy at its heart but in the distance pearly with a tinge of brown. On one hand open country might be seen, green fields and palm trees crowding to the desert wave on which three pyramids stood out, minute as ciphers; on the other, ending the long ridge of the Mucattam Hill, arose the Citadel in smoky shadow, its Turkish dome and minarets, its towers and ramparts, appearing like a city of the sky. Here and there among the housetops a small cloud of doves went up, fluttered a moment and subsided peacefully. Kites hovered, crows were circling, in the upper air. Gulbeyzah watched their evolutions dreamily.

“Allah defend us from the liberty of Frankish women!” she remarked at length. “I could not bear it. To meet the stare of all men were too dreadful. My maidenhood would flush my brain and kill me. O pure shame! And yet they choose what men they like, the fact is known. Inshallah, the great favour, when the crow does bring it, will not destroy our blessed privacy.”

“Inshallah, truly!” answered Hind, with vehemence. “Fear nothing, O beloved; God is greatest! Their freedom is from Satan, their liege lord—the curse of Allah on him! It is a travesty of God’s work, like all he does. Is it not known when Allah made the cow, he tried his best to do the same, but got no farther than the water-buffalo? All Heaven mocked him. Our charter, when it comes, will be perfection.”

“Talking of foreign women makes me curious to know how things are going, down below. Has the governess consented to give life to Yûsuf? Has the Pasha quieted the lady Fitnah?”

“Nothing could quiet her, unless it were the quick expulsion of the Englishwoman. Why did she ever have her children taught the lore of infidels? The fault is hers! She hoped to keep the Bey from honourable marriage, chaining his fancy with some slave-girl, her own creature.”

“With me, say plainly!” laughed Gulbeyzah, with a yawn. “I was brought into the house with that intention. Yet not her creature, for Murjânah Khânum is my mistress, and she would have seen to it that I was well respected. If the governess has pity on him—which I think not likely—as soon would the wild serpent wed the dove—my lady must provide me with a proper husband. I have no mind to wither as a fruit untasted.” She yawned again. “Will no one go into the house and bring me news?”

Up leapt a little Galla girl, a child as yet unveiled, all eyes and teeth with glee in the adventure.

“I go, O lady! I am not afraid. I will even enter the selamlik. I will find out everything.”

“Be very careful, O Fatûmah, lest old Fitnah seize thee. She would rip up thy belly and pluck out thy entrails did she catch thee spying!”

The little black girl laughed and made an impudent grimace.

“And then the eunuchs! They will surely beat thee.”

“By Allah, they must catch me first. Sawwâb adores me, and the others are too slow.”

“Good. Run, ere curiosity consume me!”

The little negress shot off like an arrow. Down dark, malodorous stairs, through empty corridors, she glanced, incarnate mischief. In a pleasure court of the harem, where orange trees in tubs grew round a pool, she stopped to listen for the voice of Fitnah. It came from an apartment on her right. Straight forward, where she wished to go, the coast seemed clear. Springing on tiptoe, she plucked a spray of blossom from the nearest tree; then ran on down a passage through the ornate screen, the boundary of the women’s quarters, where a eunuch tried in fun to stop her; and in sight of a great hall where men were lounging, knocked at a door.

The word had scarce been given ere she glided in and held out the sprig of orange-blossom to the English governess, with every muscle of her body fawning, smiling. Without a look, she read the stranger’s face, perceived she had been crying lately but now looked exultant, observed the order of the room, the foreign furniture; and then, before the Englishwoman could find words to thank her for the pretty offering, kissed a white hand which proved as hot as fire, and darted out as noiselessly as she had entered.

As she was flitting back across the garden-court, she heard a male voice cry:

“Be silent, woman; or, by the Prophet, I shall have to beat thee!”

Crouching behind a tub, she listened eagerly. But though a wrangle was in progress not far off between the Pasha and his wife, the lady Fitnah, she could glean no more than the main tenor of it from the voices, of which the man’s was irritated and the woman’s mad.

At last the Pasha shouted:

“It is finished. No word more. I go straight to the Consul. Appeal to the Qadi, I beseech thee; of thy kindness, do so! He will tell thee, just as I do, that thou art demented.”

Another minute and he crossed the court, wearing his best tarbush and his official garb of black frock-coat and narrow trousers—a thing unheard of at that early hour.

Having seen him pass to the selamlik, Fatûmah ran like lightning through the dim old house, till, breathless, she emerged in dazzling sunlight and flopped down on the roof again beside the others.

“Well, what news?” they clamoured.

“Great news!” Fatûmah panted. “Only listen! The English governess is going to marry Yûsuf Bey, and she has islamed!”

“Praise to Allah!” cried the others in amazement. “A Frankish woman convert! A great miracle!”

“The Pasha goes this minute to the English Consul, to confer with him and make arrangements for the ceremony.”

“Allahu akbar! Is it possible? But what says Fitnah?”

“What can she say, the poor one? The command is on her.”

“But, for the love of Allah, say, how didst thou learn all this?”

Fatûmah shut her lips tight, looking preternaturally cunning.

“Ha, ha!” was all she answered.

“Her tale is nonsense! She is making game of us,” exclaimed Gulbeyzah, breaking out in laughter. “She was not gone five minutes, that is known. Thou shalt be paid full measure, little poison-flower! Confess now that thy story is all lies!”

The marvel was that every word proved true.