The Fortune Teller(41)
*
Caliph al-Ma’mun had dreamed that Aristotle visited his bedside. When he awoke he realized what it meant: that it was his duty to build the largest treasury of books yet so he could safeguard the knowledge of the world. This new center of learning, Bayt al-Hikmah, the House of Wisdom, would be both a library and an academy. He appointed Khalid to be one of the directors.
On the caliph’s orders, Khalid sent scholars to the four corners of the earth to bring back all the ancient texts they could find—the first expedition ever of its kind. For years Khalid oversaw the translations of lost and forgotten manuscripts from Greek, Persian, and Sanskrit into Arabic in an attempt to unify what distance had divided. As Rabka foresaw so many years before, Khalid became the most honored scholar in all of Baghdad. But his star ascended without her.
Even so, his spirit grew restless. Of Khalid’s three daughters, only the youngest, Maisara, noticed. One night after the servants had cleared the table, Khalid sat thinking, his mind so far away his body may as well have not been in the room. For twenty years he had been faithful to Caliph al-Ma’mun, helping him build his legacy with the House of Wisdom, but he no longer found solace in his work.
He saw his daughter watching him. “I am covered in dust, Maisara,” he said in a tired voice. He motioned toward his chest and his head. “This heart and mind are covered. Perhaps the time has come for me to go walk in the desert and brush off the sand.”
“What do you mean, Father?” Maisara asked, trying to understand.
Her father smiled and beckoned her to his study.
She followed with growing excitement for she had never been invited there before. She waited while he unlocked the cabinet where he kept his most treasured possessions. He pulled out a long scroll and unrolled the parchment.
“What is it?” Maisara whispered in awe. She had never seen anything like it.
“A map of the entire world,” Khalid said with satisfaction. Caliph al-Ma’mun had tasked geographers with traveling the globe and taking measurements to create the most accurate map of all time. Khalid possessed one of the few copies. They were priceless.
“Here is the circle of the city, the breadth of the empire, and all that lies beyond our borders.” He showed her how the oceans created one body of water. He showed her the seas, the great rivers, and the deserts.
She listened, almost afraid to breathe lest her father stop talking. He had never spoken to her of such things; in fact, he rarely spoke to her at all. But that night he showed her the vastness of the world.
“This is the journey I will make.” He traced the path to the desert with his finger.
Maisara made a silent promise that one day she would do the same.
*
Caliph al-Ma’mun died unexpectedly a month later. Khalid risked the dragon’s fire and told Rabka he was leaving for the Arabian Desert to follow the way of the Sufi. He needed to see beyond the constraints of earthly life.
Rabka erupted with the rage of a thousand storm demons. She screamed and called him the vilest names ever to cross a woman’s lips. But still Khalid left with only the robes he was wearing and a case the size of a scroll on his back. Maisara knew it surely held the map.
After Khalid had gone, Rabka grew silent, now a whirlwind without force. Her daughters were terrified. In an instant, their world had broken. Rabka sat down in Khalid’s chair at the head of the table and laughed so hard tears watered her eyes. She had seen everything but the ending.
They had no income and no male to protect them and, with the caliph’s passing, no relationship with the new ruler. Soon they would be destitute.
At first they survived by selling Khalid’s prized belongings. Rabka sold off his library. He had thousands of books and rare works, including copies of the Vedas Scripts from ancient India, alchemy books written by Babylonian priests, and original texts from the Chaldean and Median Empires.
Rabka wanted none of it. Her most important task was securing her daughters’ futures. With Asma, the eldest, Rabka worried there might be difficulty. The girl had ugly teeth, a wandering eye that could be disconcerting, and her father’s bulbous nose. After months trying to find her a husband, Rabka gave up in despair. Then a new opportunity presented itself.
One of the only female trades was the textile industry. Rabka found Asma employment as a fabric dyer and spinner in nearby Baqdara, working alongside other women and children.
“The wages will be poor,” she informed Asma, “but at least there are wages.”
“Please, please let me stay,” Asma begged.
Rabka turned deaf ears to her pleading and ordered her remaining daughters to sort through Asma’s belongings to see what could be sold at market. She didn’t think a fabric dyer needed much.
Rabka sold her own beloved gowns and jewels to pay their exorbitant taxes and buy food. No longer could they afford pears from Nahavand, figs from Hulwan, or limes from Egypt. They couldn’t serve grilled lamb with Rabka’s favorite pomegranate sauce, or grilled anything for that matter. Meat was too expensive. Olive oil from Syria and honey from Mosul soon became distant memories.
Baghdad had the most opulent cuisine in the world, and Rabka had been raised in the caliph’s court watching Harun taste thirty dishes a day with two servants standing beside him. One servant would hold thirty clean spoons so Harun could taste each dish, while the other servant waited to collect the dirty ones.