August 21, 1181
Imran had helped Zaahir to the couch after the others had left, but he too was gone too soon to stoke the flames. Isidro didn't mind, though. If he had to watch the flames, then he didn't have to look at his grandfather, and not looking was easier than the alternative, at least while he was still trying to puzzle this out. Now that he'd seen him--just a frail, sickly old man, seemingly more concerned with the comfort of his guests than that of himself--he was even less sure of what to think. The towering monster he'd always imagined would have made for a less trying ordeal."I did read your mother's letters." The tired voice barely carried over the crackle of the fire. "I have no excuse for my lack of response, as I then lived in the mindset of a young fool who had yet to sort out his priorities, but to my credit I did read them, though many a peer advised otherwise. I know it's a small comfort, but I did light a candle for each of your siblings when I learned of their deaths, and several for your mother. I reread your letter every night that month."
Isidro pushed one log off of another and watched the sparks fly. And here I thought you hadn't read it once. "That letter was more for myself than for you.""What letter isn't? What better release for the bubbling stores of pent-up feelings than the quill, and who can claim a greater excess of crippling emotions than a motherless child? My children lost their own mother when they were young, you know. Amani and Imran never even knew her." The old man sighed, the rasp of his illness ever obvious in a longer breath. His children would lose their father soon too. At least they were old enough now that the cruelty of the world was no longer surprising. "I hope your children never know such anguish. You do have children, do you not?"
"Four." Another log fell to the touch of the poker. Another flame flared and withdrew. "Three girls. One boy."
"I see. Any chance of any more?"
Isidro straightened. Nato was young enough that he and Riona had yet to discuss another one, and it didn't feel right, giving a concrete answer on her behalf. Four was enough for him. It might have been enough for her, but she might have wanted more, and he needed to know first if she did. He never wanted to be the sort of man whose wife had babies and stopped having babies at his own unquestioned whim. "I suppose it's not impossible.""I should hope not. A little boy ought to have a brother."
Perhaps Zaahir had never heard about the original Fortunato, who would have been alive and well today had he not had a brother.
"His sisters are as good as any brothers."
"I did not mean to imply otherwise. Forgive me."
People did misspeak, but it couldn't have been wise to respond in the same terms. He may have been a paranoid wreck, but he didn't want to chance that it may have been bait, a primer for some greater pardon he was not ready to give. "May I ask why you wanted to see me?"
"Mostly just to meet you, but partly to apologize." A gesture toward the empty side of the couch was the first thing Isidro noticed upon putting down the poker and turning around; he tried to imagine that Riona was still in the room as he took it.
"I consider myself to be a devout Muslim. I have striven all my life to be a righteous and godly man, but it was only after Shahira died that I realized that the path to any God is not mapped by man-made dogma. Like many of any faith, I accepted what was said to be sacred without question, any scrutinous thought waved as blasphemy. I lived my life by what I had always believed to be true, and treated others accordingly."When your mother was attacked... well, the blame was place with the wrong person. When she failed to bleed, word got out and she was branded a harlot, shunned by the community. I was told by so-called Muslims and so-called Christians and so-called Jews alike that I ought to stone her, but I knew I could never do that to my daughter, even if my then-beliefs about what had happened shame me now. I know you will think me cruel, but in my heart, I truly thought that wedding her to your father was a mercy.
"Your letter all those years later brought both tragedy and epiphany. My beloved daughter was gone, the thought of a hell unknown more appealing than that of the one she was already living. For years I hated the God I had once loved, cursing him for my blindness and her suffering both." His head turned, candle glow shifting on his silver hair. "Did you ever come to believe in God, Isidro?"
Isidro bit his lip. He'd been too inherently Christian for his Muslim mother, too inherently Muslim for his Christian father. Those like him, so he'd learned, had no business with any god. "It's not something I often think about."
"Then that is your choice and I shall let you have it. But I will tell you that the God I serve is not cruel. He is not the sadistic monster your father's priest warned you about, lurking in every shadow, eager to damn you for the slightest misstep. God--my Muslim God, the Christian God, the Jewish God--any god worthy of the name--is love. He is peace. He is compassion and acceptance. I eventually came to realize this, though not soon enough for you and your mother. Had I known then what I know to be true now, I would have protected her, and you. I would have kept her here with me and challenged anyone who dared shame her, and I would have raised you like any loving grandfather would raise a fatherless child."And perhaps, on the surface, it was a beautiful thought. It didn't change anything. "The community wouldn't have treated either of us any better."
"Sadly, you're probably right. God and all accounts of Him are often twisted for the vilest of purposes--to attack to the most defenseless of us all, for little more than the preservation of ways that perhaps ought not to be preserved at all." The old man shivered, arms crossed over his silk nightshirt in spite of the warm hearth. "Even if that weren't the case, my daughter would have been haunted by the assault until the day she died. It came across in her letters, the poor girl, even when she tried to keep them mundane. The letter announcing your birth..."
He stopped. Isidro cursed himself for caring, but already the masochistic curiosity had begun to mount. "What did it say?"
His grandfather frowned, no doubt regretting he'd said anything at all. "Are you sure you want to know?"Isidro nodded. "You're not the only who could use the closure."
"All right. Well..." Dark eyes fixed themselves on the fire, no doubt so they didn't have to look at Isidro. Not looking was always easier. "It was a difficult birth. You didn't seem to want to leave her womb, no matter how hard she pushed or what the midwives gave her. Nearly two days and you finally emerged. Most babies cry upon being born, as I'm sure you know now, but you didn't make a sound. Your mother thought you were dead, and she wrote..." He took a minute in attempt to mince the words, but it soon became apparent that he couldn't. "...that she felt guilty for praying you would be."
So that was it, then. He'd long suspected she'd never loved him. Now he knew for sure, and the worst of it was that he felt nothing. That part of his heart was long dead. "I see."
"You mustn't fault her for that. She feared you'd be a monster like your father. But after they'd cleaned you up, and they gave you to her, you just looked up at her, sad and serious as no baby has any business being. She said she thought you were apologizing to her--apologizing for your mere existence. I don't think she ever knew what to do with you after that."
And why should she have figured it out? He'd never been worth the trouble. "She never liked to look at me.""She rarely wrote about you either, I'm afraid, but I believe that her feelings for you were more complex than you give her credit for. Your mother never hated you, Isidro. Hate is not complex. It is simple, and it is easy, and that is why it is a coward's way."
And it had been so easy to pen the word in his nine-year-old hand. I hate everyone. "You must not have thought highly of me when you read my letter."
"You were a little boy who had lost his mother under the cruelest of circumstances. You had every reason to hate everyone." The old man unfolded his arms and let them fall to his sides, not quite at peace but perhaps close enough. "But I see now that you also love. And love is the first step to overcoming hate."NEXT CHAPTER:
