Sofia
neared, wriggled tantalizingly away, neared, escaped, until at long last the two odalisques collapsed, moaning in each other’s arms.Safiye caught her echoing moan in her teeth and closed her eyes. As the music faded, she yearned for the release of sleep to bridge the time to the festival as quickly as possible.
XXXII
So Safiye opened her eyes on the day that would consummate in Id al-Adha. The henna paste, which had gone on cold, seemed—unlike the rose petals—incapable of absorbing her body’s heat. Even in the half-dreams before full waking, she felt the pattern of tendrils laid like a network of cold lead on her hands and feet. She wanted to peek under the bandages to watch the magic happening there, but she knew she must not or the effect would spoil. She wanted other things, too. She wanted, oh, so much to know what—! But everything, even desire, must not be peeked at vet. Not vet. Come evening...
Safiye must have been unconsciously avoiding the use of her hands even in sleep, for an uncomfortable stiffness pressed her shoulders back among the cushions where she’d slept with the rest of the harem tor company in the big main sitting room.
Now I am helpless, Safiye thought. I shall have to lie here forever.
But even as she thought it, Esmikhan and Fatima Sultan saw that she was awake and picked their way to her side with giggles that would not cease and baskets lull of more rose petals. With her silk-mittened hands, Safiye found it impossible to fend them off and so had to submit—and enjoy— another cool, scented shower followed by the warm hugs and kisses of the two girls. Other women entered then with breakfast on a tray which consisted mostly of Safiye’s favorite “little Turkish bonnets.”
“No, no!” Esmikhan cried. “You must not use your hands.”
And she and Fatima Sultan proceeded to feed their charge with tidbits until Safiye pleaded vehemently: “If I eat any more, I’ll burst!”
“There is so much to be done today,” Nur Banu hurried them. She betrayed her own nervousness by not eating at all. “Time cannot be taken for another meal. You must avoid meat, onions, leeks, and heavy spices in any case. Women who eat such things are bound to lose their attractiveness.”
Throughout the day, however, Safiye found that sweet-smelling fruits and pastries were never tar from her, and should she so much as look in the direction of the tray, there was always someone ready to pop another bit in her mouth.
So her attendants got her out of bed and, the whole harem following with more rose petals, laughter, and song, they led her to the citadel’s bath. Safiye had grown used to the ritual of steam and water. She had even grown to like it. Like any self-respecting Muslim woman, she, too, now felt the dirt if she failed to participate at least twice a week, particularly during the summer’s hottest days and after her bleeding time.
“A bride is bathed the day before her wedding, hennaed after.” While they progressed, Nur Banu explained this for Esmikhan and Fatima Sultan—girls who would be lawful brides—more for than Safiye. “But then a bride’s day is filled with the rites that make her consummation legal in the sight of the world. A slave’s purchase is the legality in this case. So we all bathe now for the feast to come while outside the men are busy with their prayers.
“First we had better see to those hands,” Nur Banu directed, interrupting the usual flow of the bath ritual when they had all undressed and reached the second room. “Should the stain remain too long, it will turn black and that would be a bad omen.”
So with great solemnity and flourish, Esmikhan unwound the bandages from first one hand and then the other. The gold coins dropped from Safiye’s palms into her lap.
“Keep them,” Nur Banu said. “They’re yours.”
The first that is really my own — in my life. Safiye pulled them as close as she could with neither hands nor feet to work for her. The first of so much more. If this is slavery, the institution has been greatly maligned.
Safiye forgot the good thoughts as she reacted at first with horror to what a quick flush of warm water discovered. The dried-on henna paste sloshed down the water channels about her pattened feet. Her hands were revealed, as veined and splotched as an old woman’s. Closer inspection, however, revealed the color was not brown but a brilliant, warm, rich orange, like sun-ripened fruit. The color formed a delicate pattern of tulips, dots, and tinted nails that Safiye joined all the others in admiring. When she moved her hands, Safiye noticed the butterfly-like flittings the design helped them to make. Her hands were the one part of her anatomy that might be exposed, even in a bazaar. But henna plunged those hands and all they touched into the perpetual mystery and allure of half-seen forms behind a lattice.
What might they so flittingly touch, come evening?
Her bathers made some attempt to avoid her hands and feet as they worked, but no matter what they did, the stain would remain vivid for a week or more. On every other part of her body, the scrubbing Safiye got was so vigorous that she feared she would be left quite raw. She discovered, however, that the skin she had left when they were finished was softer than a baby’s and glowed a delicate pink.
Then, from that tender skin, every vestige of hair had to be removed. A pair of women, expert at the task, cooked up the depilatory favored for brides because of its sweetness and because it tore the hair out below the skin. Made of two parts beet sugar to one of lemon, it was stirred constantly over a flame until a drop crystallized in water, then spread on the offending areas. When their experience judged the time was right, the women removed the hardened candy in quick, sharp