The Book of Madness and Cures

CHAPTER 25





A Secret Accord

I fed my father twice daily in the granary and bathed him once a day. We tied him up to prevent harm. He gnawed himself, even through the cloth. He lunged at us and shook his matted gray hair like a wounded lion. Yousef was wary and wouldn’t go near him. “That man is no one’s father,” he told me one morning in the courtyard. “No, no,” he said, thoughtfully stroking his bristly white beard. “When a man loses himself but remains, we must leave him to the desert. Let the white vultures take him to God.”

“I don’t know what to do,” I muttered, half to him, half to myself, as I cradled my round belly (mostly hidden by loose robes) with my arms.

“Ask the woman, she will help you.”

“No, I must decide, and while I can’t, there’ll be no decision.”



When the moon waned thin as a fingernail, my father grew calmer. I brought him outside for a few days and fastened his rope to the well ring, where from time to time Malina tied up the goats. He ranged the courtyard like a leashed animal and sniffed the air as if he caught the scent of something familiar in this foreign place. Sometimes I brought him a small bowl of figs or olives, but mostly he just scattered them in the dirt, chewing the figs later with the grit stuck to them. He swallowed the olives whole with their pits. I had to take him back into the granary again as the moon waxed full.

I believe he knew me briefly at times.

One hot evening just after the sun had set and the air had begun to cool, he grew quiet and touched my face with his fingers, the way he once touched his books, with tender strokes smoothing the pages. We sat on the rounded edge of the well, and the water below us trembled as if in secret accord with our movements and words.

“Read me, Father…What do you see?”

He moved his lips as if searching for some word.

“It doesn’t matter. I am here. Gabi. I won’t leave you.”

Yousef watched us from his narrow window nervously. Then he called out, “Careful, Dottoressa, don’t let your guard down!”

Though I knew the danger, I held apprehension at bay, sensing a shift in my father as if the madness had momentarily loosened its grip. As I brought my hands to his ravaged face, he jerked back a little, but his dull eyes brightened and held mine with odd amusement. He laughed and I laughed with him at some unknown delight. He patted my cheek. We laughed until tears welled up, and then the luster in his eyes went out. He’d once told me that my first syllables as a baby were not words but little grunts of laughter. Now his sounds toward the end were the same. But then he fidgeted with his hands, turned away from me, inspected the surrounding area, and plucked a dusty black olive from the ground, swiftly popping it into his mouth. I sat at the well, soundlessly weeping, as my father fell to all fours and scavenged the earth.



I now agreed with Dr. Cardano that my father had suffered this malady in some form since I was a child. My mother must have known and borne the burden with confusion and shame, anger and impatience, patience. I recalled a night when I couldn’t sleep, went to my window, and observed my father, visible under the moon, prowling the courtyard, crunching the gravel pathway loudly beneath his trudging feet, pacing around and around our garden. I didn’t know what he was doing there, but it made my stomach twist. Then I saw my mother’s face dimly at their bedroom window, also watching. Then she withdrew. Later I thought that I’d dreamt it. But how had my father worsened to this point? I’d never know. The moon had hollowed him out.

After our meal on the day that my father and I had laughed together, Malina took me aside, removed her veil, and observed, “Daughter, I notice you do not bleed with the moon.” She waited for me to respond. Her mouth, rarely exposed, was set in a solemn expression.

“I will bear a child in a few months,” I said shyly, staring down at the rug.

“Ah, I thought so!” She broke into a large smile and clapped her hands. “Blessings on this house!”

Heartened by her response, I looked up. “Will you act as my midwife, then?”

“I would be glad,” she declared. “But may I ask, who is the father?”

“I believe he is here in Taradante.”

Now she frowned, puzzled. “Who is it, then?”

“He has been following me and yet keeping his distance.” I stopped, overcome by a sense of his loyalty.

“And does this bring sorrow?” she asked, mistaking my tears.

“No, it brings me joy I never thought I’d know.”

“Ah.” She leaned back as if to take in a broader view.

“His name is Hamish. He’s from the north.”

“But why doesn’t he come to you?”

“Because he discerns that I haven’t wanted him to approach me yet.”

“He is constant, then.”

“He is constant.”

“You must call him to you!”

“I will.” And my heart trembled like an instrument, an aeolian harp shaken by wind, its sound traveling all the way to the oasis and far into the open desert. “But he doesn’t know yet about the child, and I want to tell him myself,” I cautioned her, knowing how easily the village women conversed. The words I spoke at dusk would be in his tent just after nightfall—though the same good news would never reach my father a few feet away.