Read The Sweetness of Tears for Free Online Page A

woman would say, “Salawat!”
    On cue, the crowd of women, who by now sometimes numbered in excess of a hundred, would respond, in harmonious chorus, “Allahuma sale ala Muhammad w’ale Muhammad!”
    The marsia s would begin, the nasal chorus of long-suffering notes usually leading to an exodus, the few children present standing up to leave the room. At the gatherings held in my grandparents’ house, my cousin Jaffer would get up and gesture for me to follow him out. I never did, unhappy at the prospect of leaving my mother’s side. Once, I was brave enough to wander a few inches away from the comfort of her space, to stand at the window and look out at the large garden, where a group of children had collected themselves, following Jaffer as I had refused to do. They were my cousins, my mother whispered to me: first cousins, second cousins, and cousins removed to all numbers of degree. They charged about, playing baraf-paani —ice water or freeze tag—and “red light, green light,” running amok in the way that children do when their elders are otherwise occupied. Behind me, I heard another salawat, signaling the end of one marsia and the beginning of another. And then a multiple chorus of salawat s as the zakira took her place on the black-clothed chair set up for her in the corner to begin her sermon.
    Abbas reached the banks of the river safely, filling the water bag but refusing to drink himself, not while his brother and the children and women of the camp remained thirsty. Alas, on his way back to camp, the enemy soldiers who had failed to prevent him from reaching the river now surrounded him. Abbas, beloved brother of Husain, was attacked from all sides, his arms chopped off as he strove to keep hold of the water he carried. When the enemy pierced the bag of water, along with the precious water, all hope to save the children gushed and spilled on the sand.
    The zakira ’s emphatic voice rose and fell with the delivery of each sentence, exhorting her listeners loudly and angrily—about what, I could not yet understand. I watched the children tag each other outside for a long while until, suddenly, the zakira ’s volume increased dramatically, her voice, suddenly thicker, issuing forth from a throat heavy with emotion. And then the wailing started. Weeping sounds of misery, always disconcerting, no matter how expected.
    They were outnumbered by tens of thousands and slaughtered by Yazid’s army. Imam Husain lost all of his friends and all of the men in his family, seventy-two in all. His nephews, Qasim, Aun, and Muhammad. His son Ali Akbar, who looked just like the Prophet. Not even his infant son, Ali Asghar, was spared. While he had friends and relatives alive, no one would let him go forth and do battle. But in the end, he fought bravely. Alone. And when he took a break from the battle for the afternoon prayer, the commander of Yazid’s army sent Shimr after him. While Imam Husain prostrated himself, his forehead touching the hot sands of Karbala—wounded, hungry and thirsty, broken from the grief he had suffered throughout the day—Shimr mounted his back, ready to kill him. He leaned forward to hear the words of Husain’s prayers—and heard the Imam asking God for the forgiveness of those who would harm him. This made Shimr pause. But in the end, his heart was too hard, his belly too greedy for the riches that he was promised upon completion of his mission. He cut off Imam Husain’s head. And the battle of Karbala was over.
    The children outside heard the weeping, too. Their ears seemed to prick up as Jaffer shouted, “The masaib has started! Come on, let’s go!” loudly enough for me to barely hear him. The game was abandoned and I saw that my cousins were excited. They had been waiting for the sounds of bitter grief that were getting louder and my eyes followed them as they ran up the garden steps and back into the house, screeching to a halt at the entrance to the living room. There, they