This was the beginning of happy days for Fatima. After that first morning, she went daily to the English house with Zenib. Lalla Christabel had been right about the little fingers, which soon learned to hold the round embroidery-frame and to put in dainty stitches with the bright-colored silks.
Besides the needlework, the girls were taught to read and to write in Arabic. Not the learned language of the books, but the simple speech of the home and streets. Sidi Abd-er-Rahman was greatly delighted when little Fatima, after a few weeks of teaching, was able to name every letter of the alphabet, and also to write it on a slate.
“It is well, O my daughter,” he said, patting her on the head. “If I had sent you to the French school, you would have learned to read and write only in French, and not in your own language.”
But the thing that Fatima liked best of all at the House of the English was the Bible talk which Lalla Christabel gave every morning in the “Arab” room.
The little girls sat on red cushions in a half circle in front of her, and she told them stories so beautifully, and drew such clever pictures on the blackboard with colored chalks that no one could help listening and looking.
These stories were different from any that Fatima had ever heard. There was never anything about djinn (spirits) in them, such as used to frighten her sometimes on the country roads, coming back from a visit to some saint’s. Nor were they mischief-making tales about one’s neighbors, and the wrong or foolish things that they had done or were supposed to have done, like the tales told by the Arab women who used to come and visit Fatima’s mother. The people in these Bible stories were all dead long ago, and yet they seemed as real when Lalla Christabel talked about them, as the people living in the same street, and having the same joys and sorrows as herself.
I said the people in these stories were all dead long ago. But there was one wonderful Person who had not only died, but had risen from the tomb, never to die again, and who was the Friend of all the children of men, big and little, rich and poor, sinful and holy.
And as the days went on, it was the story of this One that most took hold of little Fatima’s mind, and it was for this One that her heart began to long, that He would take her into His arms, and bless her, as He had blessed the children long ago.
Now, as you have seen, Fatima was her father’s darling, and she had always been accustomed to run to him and tell him anything that pleased her. So it was natural that she should want to tell him over again the stories that had so delighted her at the House of the English.
But soon a sad thing happened. One evening, they were sitting together as usual on their cushions beside the low round table, the supper having just been cleared away. Fatima, nestling in her father’s arm, began to tell him in a low, clear little voice the story of the cross. But when she came to the words “Jesus died,” suddenly her father took away his arm, and placing the child in front of him almost roughly, and holding her there: “Understand,” he said, “O Fatima, that Sidna Isa (our Lord Jesus) did not die, on the cross or anywhere else.”
Little Fatima, surprised but not frightened, looked at him with great grave eyes.
“O, father, this is the truth! Lalla Christabel told us, and she always tells the truth.”
“Don’t talk to me,” and Fatima saw her father’s face darken, as it had darkened once before at the name of Jesus. “They lie who say that Sidna Isa died. As for Lalla Christabel, she believes what her father told her. What have I to do with him?”
“What’s the matter, what’s the matter?” asked Zubeida, coming towards them with a cooking-pot in her hand. She had been sitting in a sort of heap, at the far end of the room, washing the supper things in a weary manner. Poor Zubeida was nearly always tired.
“That’s my business, O woman, and not yours,” said Sidi Abd-er-Rahman gruffly. “Go and finish washing your pots.”
It was not surprising that after this Fatima stopped telling her father the sweet story of Jesus. But her childish faith was not at all disturbed by his denial of the death of the Savior. She knew that the people around her, her father included, did not worry about telling a lie when they thought it would serve their purpose. On the other hand, she felt quite sure, though she could not have explained why, that Lalla Christabel’s word was entirely to be trusted.
It was beyond Fatima’s powers, however, to understand why her father should have been so angry at the idea of the Lord having died. Did not all men die? The really wonderful thing, which it might have been harder to believe, was that He had risen from the grave.
She did not yet know that the Moslems, out of respect for the sinless character of Jesus Christ, reject with horror the idea that God should have given Him over to such a terrible death, and that their religion teaches that, almost at the last, He was lifted up to heaven, and that another (some say Judas) was made to take His place on the cross.
One night, as she was lying nearly asleep on her little mattress on the floor of the inner room, Fatima heard herself and her prospects being discussed by her father and her uncle, her mother’s brother, and, raising herself on her elbow, she tipped her head carefully on one side to hear what they were saying.
Fatima’s uncle, whose name was Saleh, was a strict Moslem, and he was shocked to find that his little niece was receiving Christian teaching.
“Why do you allow it, Abd-er-Rahman?” he was saying. “When the child is a little older, she will change her religion and become a Christian, and there is nothing more troublesome than a woman who does such a thing.”
Sidi Abd-er-Rahman laughed scornfully. “No woman does such a thing,” he replied.
“I assure you,” said Saleh with warmth, “that in our country only last month, three women cut themselves off from Islam, and were baptized in the name of the prophet Jesus.”
His brother-in-law exclaimed with horror, “And where were their husbands that these women could disgrace themselves in such a manner?”
“One was a widow,” Saleh replied, “and she had been living for some time with the Christians. Another was married, but her husband, curse him, had been bewitched after the same fashion, and went into the water with her. The third was their daughter, a girl only a few years older than Fatima. And who will marry her now, I should like to know? He will never get a husband for her.”
“Fatima is my daughter, and she will never dare to disobey me.” The little listener heard him breathlessly, and noted the pride and strength of will in his deep voice. But she was of the same determined nature, and something like defiance began to grow in her soul.
“Now listen to me, Saleh,” continued her father, “I am not such a fool that I cannot control my own daughter. I am keeping my eyes open, and as soon as Fatima has learned what I mean her to learn, I will take her away and get her other teachers. What do you suppose a child of nine can know about religion? Do you want to know why I send her every day to Lalla Christabel?”
“Why, to embroider, of course, and to read and write the spoken Arabic. Embroidery is all very well; it keeps a girl out of mischief, till she has her own husband and children to look after; but what is the use of that sort of reading? She can’t read the Holy Koran, even if there were any reason why she should! If I were in your place, I should hire a sheikh and have her taught properly.”
“Not so fast, my brother, not so fast,” replied Sidi Abd-er-Rahman. “As I told you before, I am not such a fool after all. Of course, I could get Lalla Yamina to teach her embroidery. I should have to pay her for the lessons, but what is that to me? And I could hire a sheikh to teach her to read the Koran. But Lalla Yamina is a wicked old gossip and I will not have Fatima learn her bad ways. And as for the Koran, I know it as well as you, brother, and I tell you this, it is very well for men like you and me, but it is no book for women and children.
“On the contrary, the books that are read at the English house, though they contain some lies-but what story does not?-these books are good books, and the people at the English house are good people, and will bring up the child well. No, no, don’t talk to me. I know what I am doing with my daughter.”
“And what,” sneered Saleh, “do you understand by bringing up a child well?”
“I want Fatima,” replied her father, “to be obedient to me; to be honest, and industrious in the house; not to use bad words or scream at her neighbors; and when she is married, to look after her husband and children, and not to play the fool with other men. All this they teach them at the house of the English.”
Saleh was silent for a moment. Then he said, “I must admit that I have not noticed the same thing in my town. And, no doubt, if the women were really to walk in these ways, it would save us a lot of trouble.”
“I never saw such a woman as Lalla Christabel,” said Abd-er-Rahman. “I don’t believe she ever screamed at anyone in her life. And she is a great taleba too. Oh, yes, the Christians’ lives are better than ours. If only they would say the Shahadda (creed) they would get to heaven sooner than we! I should like Fatima to be like Lalla Christabel. In short, brother, I want her to have a Christian character, but not to be a Christian.”
After this, the two men became silent, and in a few moments Fatima was asleep.
One day Lalla Christabel sent to bring Fatima to her study, a quiet, bright room built on the flat roof, the walls of which were lined with books, pictures, and maps of North Africa.
Lalla Christabel was seated at her writing-table with a letter in front of her, and in her hand was a small miniature painting in a mother-of-pearl frame.
“See, Fatima,” she said, “this is a picture of my very dear friend in England.”
Little Fatima looked at it a long time with her grave eyes. “She is a beautiful lady,” she said at last.
It was certainly a sweet face that looked at her out of the faintly-colored picture. The blue eyes in particular charmed Fatima, accustomed as she was to the brown ones of Africa. They were not quite smiling, she thought, but looked ready to do so.
“This lady,” said her friend, “who loves you, Fatima, and prays for you too, is longing to know, as she writes in her letter today, that you have trusted in the Lord Jesus as your Savior and given your heart to Him.”
There was a pause, then the child said simply, “Yes, I have.”
Lalla Christabel hugged her tightly. “Hamdullah,” she murmured, kissing the soft cheek, “Hamdullah!” which is the sweet-sounding Arabic for “Praise God.”
Then, to Fatima’s surprise, she placed in her hands a tiny packet. “It is her gift,” she explained, “to be given to you when you could say the words that I have now heard from your lips. Open it, Fatima.”
With trembling fingers, Fatima did so. Inside was a tiny golden heart on a chain.
For a moment, she was speechless with surprise and pleasure. That this beautiful lady should have sent to her, an unknown one, such an undoubted token of love!
“This little heart for you, O Fatima,” said Lalla Christabel, “is a picture, isn’t it, of your little heart for Jesus? That is the meaning of my friend in giving you this gift.”
“I will wear it always, always,” cried the child, as Lalla Christabel clasped it round her neck.