Salman’s apprenticeship wasn’t going so well. His bony fingers were in constant tremble, the burns of hard labor itched and his fingers swelled in a horrifying manner. I looked for signs of other discomforts, checked his eyes, his ears, but when I reached to pry open his mouth, my hands were slapped aside.
“Don’t take so much liberty.”
“Is it your teeth? If the gum is loose and bleeding, I’ll know what it is.”
“It’s none of your concern! I have to prove myself. How can I prove myself to my father with your constant shadow over me?”
I tried to reason with him, I’d been there for all of his brothers’ terms on similar ships, for each of their passing of this one true test their father had set.
“How can a slave understand! Your competition is just you. My brothers never faltered in their terms and here I a-” A strong cough caught him in the middle of his sentence, and I noticed his face tones going through a rapid change of color.
I grabbed his forearm to steady him and he tried to fight me violently away. I persisted though, knowing his weakened status would give me an easier upper hand.
The scuffle wouldn’t go unnoticed on a ship of this size I thought, and wondered who would only keep watch while a slave wrestled control over his charge. It would have to be done with speed, to save his dignity, and my life.
I dropped to my knees in front of him, hand still grasping his right forearm. I begged him to let me put some balm on his hands. My change in approach was effective in confusing him, and around us, sounds of rasping breathes and shuffle of caftan on wood were now audible.
Salman shook his hand free of mine, and placed it on my head. I went down further in a humble bow, giving up power for power. My will to his reputation.
“You have erred today. I will let you know the consequences of your actions after the day has left us.” He announced it to our audience, his composure back. I nodded once.
He didn’t lift his hand off my head, but slowly slid it down, in a gesture I was accustomed to bestowing on his much younger self.
When Salman left, there were jeers and laughs on my expense. There was murmur of doubt in the older crowd, whom I could only assume were not fooled by Salman’s display nor mine. But the beating of the sun with a midday strength, soon dispersed them all.
It was time to tell the captain what I’d saw.
“You’re sure it is scurvy?”
I nodded. “His hands are tired faster, he bruises easily, he makes mistakes because his body is tired. He would not let me see his teeth.”
The Nukhitha didn’t look taken aback, he had seen these cases many a times. “Watch him eat today, and tell Saleh what you’ve told me. His father is an important friend, we will make a stop for fruit.”
I left the room with a vicissitude of emotions. My hasty desire to please and do the accountable job which brought me here, singed against what I would be leaving behind.
I could not locate Adel, not without stepping in a bush of gathered friends. A place I would not belong to, and which he would know I couldn’t move into. I could not afford the exposure it would shed on me, so I set about completing my duty.
After so few bites of food, Salman dropped out of the round gathering. He indulged in a drink of water, but I could see that even that made his wince just a bit more pronounced. He’d let himself go in the sea.
It wasn’t uncommon, and family would educate about it well, but I knew Salman had panicked at being unable to breathe and blamed the food. His lack of judgment hurt him more because he had chosen to forgo further on the source of his malady, rather than make certain what he truly suffered from.
I waited for Saleh to be finished with his meal and call for a wash in the bowl. I stepped closer with it, murmuring my observations about my rambunctious charge, and seeking his help. He waved me off to fetch the young man.
Salman was about to turn in when I appeared in front of him, catching sight of my eyes, he turned his away.
It would not do for him to feel ashamed in front of one such as me. I pushed one knee to the floor and kept my head down until he would respond. He had to understand his position.
“Speak.”
“Saleh wants a word with you.”
“If this is what you had to say, I wish you had not spoken then.”
“I would rather your wrath, than your illness.”
“I would rather my death, than my father’s knowledge of this from his friends.”
“If you go to Saleh, I will divulge a secret only for your ears.”
“Would knowing the secret lessen my shame?”
I nodded at that, waiting to see which bait he’d take.
“Keep your secret, I will face this on my own. My shame I will erase by myself.” I stood and kissed the top of his small head. He’d grown into a man, and that was the last of my allowances with him.
***
There was very little to pack amongst his belongings, but I had to be ready to leave the boat in light of Salman’s diagnosis.
He was in a steadily advancing stage of illness, and the diet on the ship could no longer sustain him through it. We collected no wages, but the money we took with us from the start of our journey would keep us ahead of our needs. The Nukhitha no longer needed my listening ear for information, and Salman’s maturity was now reaching for appropriate taught reactions to me.
I gathered what I had, and waited for a figure with a name of justice to accost me, to leave with us, or to at least wave me away.
“You shouldn’t need to leave. You shouldn’t need to continue looking after this family.”
The anger on my behalf should have had me smiling. But there was that underlying insult about my choices, and lack of understanding about me. Against my will, I found the hurtful words were out.
“But you wouldn’t pay to buy me away. What could you offer to let me stay? Adel whose family awaits him with a bride. Adel who only speaks but does not do. What do you say?”
Adel’s face crumbled at my words. My own heart had turned into a heavy stone pulling my body down. There was very little that could be done to fix this, and I could not think of anything at all, save to take my life away so I could not see the hurt in his eyes.
Adel came closer and I expected the blow to knock me down. Sure he’d hit me for my admittance to this desire, for my thinking of a future and the obstacles to that future. I was sweating the last of my reserve of water, of sea and will, just hoping for that moment to end.
When I felt Adel’s body wrapped around mine, I went rigid. The space around my neck which had turned cold from my stiff stance, was enfolded in warm arms that were pushing away from a solid chest hidden in ragged clothing.
The skin I had never dared touch was within reach, and it felt like such a big landscape I couldn’t possibly cover it all, explore it all without spending years getting to know how I would need to leave it long enough to do that.
It was molded so carefully to mine, that I didn’t believe this was a coincidence, that we hadn’t practiced this stance in a dance or a partnership. I squeezed my eyes and just let my body experience a warmth that blazed hotter than the sun, but burned a different brand of pain on my skin.
“I’m leaving.” I gasped it out, breathing becoming a painful act. Adel rocked his body forward into mine one more time and I feared his imbalance to cause us to fall. I wrapped my arms around him now to steady him and he hitched a sob against my neck.
“I promise to get you back. But until then, all your zuhairiyat, all your songs should be about me. Promise me.”
“You delusional little boy, they already were.”
He was beginning to whine, and I knew others would find it unsightly that a man was crying, but I couldn’t. At that moment I wanted nothing than to indulge him in everything and anything he wanted to do. I pulled us apart, just far enough to truly see his unrestrained emotions. I kissed under one eye.
“The others wouldn’t understand. I’ll take you back to rest. This is my goodbye.”
Adel could always claim an infection from rubbed in dirt around his eyes had irritated them, and caused the puffiness of lids to develop.
I wasn’t sure exactly how he would explain the puffed and broken skin of his lips though.
I would always know, because I’d defiled them.
***
“We’re taking the next trading ship back home. Go and find us a place to stay.”
I consented, carrying luggage across streets and vendors, asking for a house for stay, a room for divers, fishers or sailors.
Salman had been quiet the entire time we’d been off the ship, and I was glad he was taking such a charged approach to his duties. It would become the last time he addressed me such.
I wouldn’t regret saving him, nor would I regret the fine man he’d become after we left the ship. In the years to come, his struggle and near death experience turned him into a fierce contender for his father’s affection, and consequently his fortune.
I spent 10 more years aging by the side of his family when he came to me one day with a decayed piece of paper.
“This was the first one.”
I looked at it and traced the writing. I felt the ache of bones stabbing into my whole body.
“I burned every sequential request from Adel after that.”
“What possessed you to bring it up now?”
“Remember on the ship?”
I nodded.
“I was afraid, not just of my father, but of you. A person who gave so much of his self. I was terrified of you. A word from you and my term was cut short. A move by you and an entire ship held me in awe, that I could tame and take charge of my father’s slave. I couldn’t consent to letting you go. Where would I get the strength to move out of the shadow of you?”
“You have always been a man of your own Salman.”
“Nonsense. I was a child, and you molded me into the man I am today. You tested me, you forced me to see that the only way to please my father, was to no longer hold any respect for you.”
“But you have not yet told me why.”
“His family has sent me word that he is ailing. An illness they say, that I have had before, but which he refuses to cure. They’ve asked how I could overcome mine, and I couldn’t. But you, you cured it for me.”
“What would be your fee? I cannot be loaned to help with no fee.”
“That you never come back here. For you to no longer leave a shade for me to rest in.”
I nodded, pain of exile, rejection, freedom, grief, all of it making a cripple out of me.
Salman leaned down towards me and kissed the top of my head.
“It is time for you too to grow up.”
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