Muhammad by Deepak Chopra Read Free Book Online Page B

City women have babies, but they don’t give them the breast. It’s not because they’re lazy and pampered and don’t want sore nipples. They’re worried. Living in a city like Mecca, where breathing the air is the same as breathing in contagion, they had to be careful. So every spring we came in from the desert to offer our breasts. That was the custom and still is, although it’s on the decline. It’s a wonder the air in the city doesn’t kill all the babies before they take their first step.
    The newborns were put in baskets tied to the sides of the camels, and we took them back to the desert to nurse. In two years time we returned with them, and then the city women, overjoyed to have their children fat and healthy, showered us with coins and gifts. If you ever see a Bedouin woman with silk around her head, you know she’s nursed a baby, maybe twins if she is wearing gold earrings.
    I had my own boy baby to show them that spring, but times were bad. There had been no rain for months. Everyone’s breasts dried up. Mine were half the size they should have been, shrunk like dried dates. I wrapped my robe around myself and held my arms crossed so no one would notice. Who was I fooling? My own baby was shriveled and crying, desperate for the little milk I had. The spoiled rich women walked straight past me without a glance. I spent three days wandering from courtyard to courtyard, without luck. My husband told me to keep trying, but what was the use? We needed the money, of course.
    â€œMuhammad?” I couldn’t hear voices at the door and thought he might have slipped out.
    â€œJust here. Don’t worry.”
    He was by my side again. He pushed up my sleeves and began to wash my arms. We kept quiet. For a boy to do that, washing a woman’s arms…Some people would have frowned, even if I was his milk-mother.
    â€œOpen the shutters. It’s too hot. It’s like a tomb,” I said.
    â€œYou know I can’t do that. It would ruin everything.”
    The doctor with the smudge pots said that the room had to be kept closed and hot, to drive the fever out. I knew no better. In my delirium, I couldn’t even remember being taken to this room. It was small and close; it smelled foul. But Muhammad had no money. With both his parents gone, and now his uncle Abu Talib, he had no right to any fortune. He took what room they gave him for my sickroom.
    I wanted to grumble some more, just to hear his voice, but suddenly I was too exhausted. I let my head loll on the pillow while Muhammad finished my arms.
    His mother, Aminah, was the only one who didn’t shun me the year of my small breasts. The whole town knew about her. Her husband died in caravan, barely two days away from home. Strangers put him in the ground immediately. She never got to throw herself onto his body. I don’t think she would have. Her female cousins gathered at her gate to wail with her, but Aminah was a silent widow. No one had seen such a thing. A two-month bride robbed of the best husband in the city? She had to be in shock, they said.
    But Aminah could still think. She knew she was being stalked like soft prey. Fate had fixed its eyes upon her. Noneof the other Bedouin women would come to her house. She didn’t have a brass coin to pay for their breasts.
    A shadow appeared over me, and it was Aminah. “I have a new baby. Will you come in?” she said in a soft voice. I was squatting at her gate and was almost asleep from fatigue and thirst.
    We drank tea without a word. Why speak? We knew we needed each other. I wouldn’t beg, and neither would she.
    After a while she said politely, “You’re slender.”
    â€œIn our tribe, Banu Sa’d, we work too hard to get fat. Our men are used to it by now,” I replied.
    I knew what she meant. I loosened my robe and casually bent over the teapot, pretending to wonder if it had steeped too long. She could see for