Turkey
“Oh it’s so pretty!” Abal exclaimed. Sumayyah giggled at her little sister, she was seventeen and delighted by the smallest things. Her innocence was so precious that Sumayyah could not help but just hug her. Abal made Sumayyah smile everyday. Sumayyah stood up on her tip toes and hung the lamp where the light would catch it. She sat on the pillow closest to her and gestured for Abal to come sit with her. They waited for the sunset in the west facing room. The stained glass window was open and a cool breeze floated in smelling of sand and date palms. It was their favorite room in the house, it was all dark wood and plush carpets and gigantic pillows. When they were younger they always played in the room. When their older brother still lived at home it was his study and when he left the girls turned into their own hiding place. It would be an english man’s castle or a chinese ship. Their father was a merchant who always came home with stories of the people he had met. Their brother wanted to travel but not to sell things so he went exploring with the spaniards. Just that morning father “Abu” had returned from Morocco with the lamp. It was stained glass and the metal workings were so intricate that there was no way of following the pattern without ending up going in a million circles. Abal had used her fingers to feel her way around it. The little grooves that turned into lavish swirls and then into angular patterns so effortlessly it was like watching leaves being blown into a dance while caught in the wind. Abu walked in then and sat down with his daughters. He told them that they could not light it until dark so they hung it in the window to see what happened when the sunlight hit it. They were clever.
Abu kissed Abal’s forehead. She was his brave girl, his strong girl. She was sensitive but she was most like him. She wanted to believe that everyone was good. She was compassionate but vengeful. She could not be outsmarted and there would never be a time when she went against her family.
She had that sparkle in her eye, it was just like she was four again and he was letting her ride a camel for the first time. She was enchanted with the animal. She had been amazed at the fact that the camel had a heart and a brain just as she did. The sun sank lower as Umm brought tea to her family. The smell of green tea mixed with the incense burning at some other end of the house.
The family all wondered at the lamp in their own ways. Umm thought of how pretty the colors made the room seem. How something so small could change the entire room. Abu thought about the illusion that can be cast so easily. He was looking at his hand, it normally was a russet colour from all the time he spent in the sun but the blue of the lamp had turned him a whole color. Sumayyah wondered about light and the sun and how light seemed to control everything. She had decided a long time ago that light was her favorite thing. Abal sat and stared at the lamp. She wondered about who made it and if he knew it could make someone so happy. She wondered how many people had touched it and who they were. She wondered if perhaps there was some way that the man who made the lamp had known it was for her and made it her favorite colors. Abal loved color. She kissed her father’s bearded cheek and leaned into him. She whispered thanks and told him how much she had missed him.
“I love you, Abu.”
“I love you too, Abal.” He replied. He then took a deep breath and rose. The sun was going down so he needed to pray. He roused his family to perform wudhu. Adam, the servant boy, brought a bucket of water and one by one the members of the Ibn Nafis family washed their hands then their faces and heads and washed their feet. The women went to get their prayer garments and all the members of the household stood together in lines. Each member stood shoulder to shoulder as Abu started the prayer by calling out ‘ God is the greatest’.
