in her master’s household. The servants come and go, each with a prescribed list of duties that they undertake like clockwork. She need not clean nor cook nor even wash herself – everything simply seems to happen without any effort on her part. A tray of food arrives twice a day. Jugs of scented water are delivered so she can be washed. There are clean clothes and a doe-eyed, tongue-tied negro girl combs and dresses Zena’s hair. She is a sidi slave who speaks neither Arabic nor her own Abyssinian tongue nor, indeed, any language at all it seems for, she never says a word to anyone, and will not indulge even in sign language, for Zena has tried. It seems to her that the slaves clean the furniture, make the bed, refill the lamps, sweep the floor, leave fresh water and jellies for the master’s delight and care for her in the same way that they look after everything else – there is for them, no distinction between their master’s inanimate objects and the girl who is confined to his room day after day. It is all very businesslike.
This must be what it feels like to be a pet, Zena thinks, and then she realises that in her experience, even a pet is shown some affection.
Meanwhile, each morning the master rises shortly after sunrise, prays and leaves. In the evenings he returns to the room with one of three or four slave boys, who are his favourites, and occasionally two of them at the same time. Zena spends almost all day at her seat by the window where she finds she can pass the hours simply watching the activities on the street. There are white jubbahed hawkers and earnest, serious-faced slaves going about their business, intriguing, covered litters carried by muscle-bound black bearers and keen-eyed messengers, stick thin from running errands and always keen to be on their way. Down the hill she catches glimpses of the azure sea, all the way across the bay and out to the Strait of Hormuz. At night, the stars are fascinating, though none of the shapes they make in the sky are familiar or at least appear in the location she expects them, as seen from the fragrant, lush vantage point of her grandmother’s compound where she used to sit and listen to the crickets in the darkness and trace shapes between the specks of bright fire above. In Muscat, Zena loves the sunsets and after the blazing sky settles into darkness she enjoys watching the bustle of so many far-off people moving indoors, eating with their family and feasting with friends as the city closes its shutters and lights its lamps.
When the master arrives back at his room it is always very late. Zena lights the naft in anticipation though when he swings briskly through the door he only dismisses her casually as soon as his slave boy arrives – just as he did the first night she met him. Lying in the hallway on the cool earthen tiles that line the floor, she hears a lewd cry or two from behind the thick, cedarwood door and falls asleep after midnight, staring at the low moon and waking only as the muezzin’s calls start when the first red line of dawn appears on the horizon. Prayer is better than sleep, they echo around the bay from minarets all over the city, summoning the men to the fajir and lending a rhythm to Zena’s day even if she does not pray when they call. As the music fades, the door to the room opens and the master’s boys step over her on their way back to their own quarters. Then she waits patiently, hovering outside for perhaps half an hour or more, listening to the household wake up – the sound of far-off doors opening and closing, a child’s voice and a woman’s laugh – before the master himself leaves and she can take her place, like some kind of ornamental doll, a place holder, on the cushions by the window.
The rhythm of the days numbs her and after the initial relief that she is fed and cared for, it does not take long until Zena is bored to distraction. In such a situation even a small change in routine can come as a shock so she finds herself taken back when one evening the master returns alone and in a fury. He slams the door and, flinging himself onto the cushions like a child in ill-humour, he pokes a smooth finger into the brass-bound box of rose jelly that is replenished daily. Then he takes a deep breath and sighs heavily. It is a dramatic sigh. The master is trying to communicate.
Zena hesitates. Her huge, black eyes flick towards the doorway. The slave boy will be here any minute. The master takes another deep breath and heaves it out again. This is quite the most interesting thing that has happened in the last fortnight. Zena decides to make a move. She crosses the room gracefully, her hips swaying beneath her blue jilbab. She presses her hands together in supplication, lowers her eyes modestly and bows down to the ground, prostrate at the master’s feet.
The master raises another rose jelly to his mouth, dropping a trail of powdered sugar across the velvet cushions. He stares openly at Zena’s long, curled hair splaying across the carpet towards him. He thinks it is like the surf on the shore, reaching towards him on the sands. He is tempted to kick but manages to restrain himself.
‘What they sent you for, I don’t know,’ he says.
Zena looks up and smiles. She is no fool and there is no measure in letting him treat her like one. ‘Oh, master, I think they have sent me hoping that I can tempt you. That is what you said yourself, is it not, the first day I arrived?’
‘Yes. Yes,’ he laughs. ‘You are right. That is exactly it.’ He makes a dismissive noise and waves his hand to demonstrate how ridiculous this notion is. ‘My father thinks because I like Aran and Sam and they are black like you … Galla. Pshaw! He is a fool! How dare he?’
Zena feels embarrassed. What can she say? That they have spent a fortune on her? That in the past many men have found her attractive? That three years ago her grandmother had an offer of two horses and a white peacock for her hand in marriage, if the Arab trader who made it could be assured that she was a virgin? That an imam promised a chest of gold but the old lady did not want to let her go with him for she believed Zena too young. The old lady protected her, she realises now, too much. ‘We will find a grand, Ethiopian prince for you, my love,’ she promised, ‘when the time is right. And you will bear a king for our own country.’
The master does not care about any of that. There is a moment’s hesitation and then what Zena finds she can say is this. ‘Shall I dance for you? I used to dance at my grandmother’s house.’
The master regards her. He stares into the distance, distracted by his fury at the situation that has brought her here. Then he gestures with his hand. ‘Dance then,’ he says curtly.
There is no music, not even a drum, but that doesn’t matter. Zena simply imagines Yari playing for her as he has a hundred times before. She imagines that Baba is still alive and she is dancing for the old lady’s guests after a magnificent feast. She raises her arms and starts to gyrate, easily finding a rhythm of her own and, lithe as a dyk dyk in the bush, she dances back to Abyssinia in her mind. Her hair falls in a curtain and she tosses it aside to the rhythm, she stamps her feet and sinuously moves her hips, she flutters her eyelashes and flashes her eyes. She is as smooth as a fast-flowing river and she dances, whirling like a dervish, tossing her hips like a girl for hire at the bazaar. She moves frantically as if all her days of inactivity can be kicked away in the rhythm. She dances until she is not even aware of the master anymore, and when the music in her head stops, her skin is flushed with delight and she is panting as she falls on the vivid cushions beside him with a wide smile.
He claps. He laughs.
‘If ever I was to …’ he starts, moved by the display momentarily before he catches hold of himself and suspends the sentence, hanging in the air. ‘You are very beautiful,’ he finishes. ‘For a woman.’
‘Do you think,’ Zena asks him, ‘that they will take me away if you don’t want to …?’
The master shrugs his shoulders. ‘I don’t know what they are going to do. All my slaves are employed elsewhere tonight so that I will come back to you here and we will be alone. I almost slept downstairs. They want me to marry, but if I do they fear I will disgrace the family. When there are no children a wife can insist on a divorce.’
There is an earnestness in his tone,
