Henna House (27 page)

“I am wondering about your little ‘toy,' and if the real groom is as
well endowed as the groom of clay that the bride was so eager to fondle.” Aunt Rahel's eyes flashed in a conspiratorial smile. “Oh
reeeeally
?” She giggled. “I had thought you weren't paying attention.”

*  *  *

When we returned, my father was faring better and coughed only at night when he lay in bed. During the day, he seemed full of a careless vigor, but also half out of step with himself, as if a younger version of himself had climbed into his skin, making him clumsy from the inside out. But no one paid much attention. The bustle of Hani's wedding preparations occupied us all. We made marvelous concoctions out of our meager stores. We women cleaned and sewed and darned and baked. By the time of Hani's Night of Henna, all of us were exhausted. Even my mother contributed. She generously gave of her stored beans, coffee, and honey sugar, and opened her larder to let Aunt Rahel take a precious jar of stewed persimmons for the wedding feast. And on the day before the Night of Henna, she lent Hani a pair of tomb bracelets, which had been part of her own dowry. Tomb bracelets, named for the little tomb-sized protrusions all the way around, were an essential part of any wedding outfit, and were supposed to help scare away the evil eye by shielding the bride with opposite tokens of grim fate. Hani kissed my mother for the bracelets, and my mother let herself receive a hug, stiff under the embrace. In her own queer bitter way, my mother had forgiven Hani for the idols, and joined in the festivities and preparations with no hesitation, as if Hani were a favored daughter, and not a niece of whom she had always been suspicious.

Hani's Night of Henna? Aunt Rahel came in with the pot of henna on the candle tray and swung her hips to the music. She approached Hani, resplendent in her bridal gargush. She danced in front of her for a few moments, swaying her hips so that the candles on the tray cast jumping shadows on the walls. Then Aunt Rahel smeared a single dab of henna at the center of each of Hani's palms. We all rubbed henna on her forearms and I joined in, spreading the musky paste over her shins and feet as Aunt Rahel danced with the other women, our neighbors and friends, who had gathered to see Hani become a bride. When the paste had set, we wrapped Hani in mehani cloths, and then began to feast. We ate and drank and danced until well after dark.

The next day, after we had unwrapped the cloths, Hani entertained
us all with songs and jokes. She was a laughing, chatty bride on her throne in her white shift, her orange and gold leggings. The henna house was different that night. The colors of the women's dresses were brighter, the sounds of the shinshilla cymbals and the khallool were louder, the food was both sweeter and spicier. Yerushalmit told stories. Masudah plaited Hani's hair. I took my turn with the tabl drum and heard myself thrumming out a strong, sure beat. And Aunt Rahel's art? When she finished decorating her youngest daughter, and we rubbed the shaddar off her skin, Hani was revealed to us as the most beautiful bride anyone had ever seen. Aunt Rahel hadn't just given her an ordinary decoration, she had improvised at every point; every petal had a hundred tiny petals inside of it, tendrils never ended, paisleys held within them miniature worlds, and whimsical flourishes were Eyes of God in disguise. Hani held out her hands and laughed with delight. She and David were married the next day. I stood on tiptoe trying to get a glimpse of them under the bridal canopy. I couldn't hear David as he said, “With this ring I make thee holy unto me,” but I heard him stomp the glass to scare away ghosts and demons, and then we all raised our voices in celebration of the sanctification of their union.

O
ur little town, Qaraah, was nestled like a bird in the winged embrace of the Naquum Mountains and, being so high up, escaped most of the cursed plagues that were such scourges to the lower-lying villages and towns. At least that is what we all liked to believe, that we were safer. That the mountain breezes coming south from Amran or west from Marib swept cholera and typhus germs west to the Red Sea or south all the way to the Gulf of Aden before they could settle in and destroy whole families. But the breezes betrayed us that year, for we were afflicted by all manner of pestilence. Illnesses no one had ever seen before ravaged whole families. Overnight, in one of those acts of nature that cause men to believe that the world is not as it seems, the Little Lyre river dried up. The big and little wells ran dry. An attempt was made by the men of the community to dig a new well on the eastern edge of town, and the effort commenced with gusto. But even as the men worked, we all knew that the well wouldn't water our fields or make the millet and sorghum sprout. We began to feel the effects of the drought. Our family suffered losses just like everyone else's. Masudah lost a son—four-year-old Binny. Yerushalmit, who had never before been pregnant, now suffered a miraculous pregnancy, and a tragic birth. She vomited every day until she delivered. She grew so skinny, she looked like a skeleton with a little melon between her hips. Her front teeth fell out in her fifth month, and then she lost twins, two little boys. When she got up from her sickbed, she would speak only with her hand in front of her mouth, and her eyes had receded so far in her head that she could barely see. And that wasn't all. Sultana's mother and sister died, and she fell into despair, temporarily unable to care for Moshe. In those dark days, we ate sparingly, paid many visits to houses of mourning, and grew even skinnier. I often went to bed hungry, and dreamed of the days when
we had so much food that I could steal some away and make feasts for myself and Asaf in my cave and no one was the wiser.

Our sorrows only multiplied. Auntie Aminah died in late autumn. Masudah found her, collapsed in a corner of her kitchen, when she went to help her dip Sabbath candles. She said, “Auntie Aminah died with a dolly in her hand.” I ran to her house when I heard, but I was too late to kiss her on the lips before she was taken to be cleaned and prepared for the World to Come. Left behind on the floor was the Muslim bride dolly she had been making for one of Masudah's many children. It wore a red and yellow polka-dotted kerchief and orange glass beads for necklaces, but the pink brocade dress was only half-finished. The doll had little black bead eyes and a sewn-on mouth. I sat in the corner hugging it and crying. When I gathered myself up, I took the doll with me, swearing I would finish the stitching myself.

A few weeks later, my mother's friend Devorah suffered an attack in the ritual bath, lost control of her bowels, and soiled the pure water with a gush of foul sickness. After that, no woman could cleanse herself from the impurity of her menses, and if they couldn't cleanse themselves, they couldn't lie with their husbands, and if they couldn't lie with their husbands, well, everyone knows what misfortune comes from a husband who is not sated, let alone scores of them. People lamented that such a misfortune would besmirch our town for years to come. My mother's old friend Devorah died three days into her sickness. My mother went to help dress her in her
lulwi
dress. When she came back from dressing Devorah and saying psalms over her corpse, my mother stripped out of her antari. Her eyes were red, and she cried big gulping tears as I rubbed her naked body with mint soap that we moistened in boiled cooking water. Then I patted her down with rosewater. I had never given my mother a standing bath before, and she showed absolutely no modesty as I touched and rubbed to rid her of the stink of the death house. When we were finished, she donned a clean dress and trousers and put the soiled garments in a closed sack in the storeroom for washing when there was more water.

Other deaths followed. The tinsmith's wife, the slaughterer's son, the young daughter of a teacher in the Talmud Torah, the wife of the couple who had moved into Auntie Aminah's house, a lampmaker, a harnessmaker, and the eldest daughter of the glassblower—all succumbed to a malady of the belly that came from drinking bad water.
The new well was blamed, but what were we supposed to do? The other wells were almost dry.

After Devorah's death, during that foul gray midwinter, my mother fell into an ill temper. From my parents' nightly arguing, I understood that ever since I went to Sana'a with Aunt Rahel, my mother had refused to lie with my father. Their arguments grew more bitter. I buried my head in my pillow as my mother hissed at Father to stop pawing at her. But, as I shared a corner of their room, I heard everything.

My mother growled, “Pleasure yourself like a dog, rut up against a tree, coat your member with samneh and have one of the donkeys lick you until you spurt. But don't come close to me or I will cut off your hand before you grab again for my tits.”

In the morning, my parents continued their fight. My mother declared her intention to leave us. “I'll leave you and go to Taiz, and stay with my sister and her husband. Then we will be rid of each other.” My father didn't seem to care very much about this threat, for his mind was on more pressing business.

“Just tonight, Suli,” he said, “lie with me tonight, and then I won't bother you anymore.” My mother pulled herself up to her full height. She flared her nostrils, and stretched her lips, her gums a gray purple, her voice coming out in a combination of a croak and a shout. “You paw at me in the night again, and I will cut off more than your hands. Come close to me no more. I am not your wife anymore. I am done with the burden of you. Done!”

What happened to my mother? Sometimes I dream that she made good on her threat. That she left Qaraah and traveled south to her sister, carrying nothing but a single basket of provisions slung over her shoulder. In my dream, I watch her but I don't call after her. Not because the cry wasn't in my throat, but because I knew she wouldn't turn her head, and that she was leaving me perhaps even more than she was leaving my father.

Other times I dream that I was the one who found her, that I rolled over on my pallet and saw her dead face staring at me, and since it was a dream, I dreamed that I tried to wake her up, over and over, but that she wouldn't wake up, and I was trapped in an existence in which all I had to do was to keep trying to rouse her from the clutches of the demon who tempts sinners to offer themselves willingly to the World to Come.

But really it was Aunt Rahel who found her. She came across my
mother by the frankincense tree, her limbs twisted in a thick rigor that shaped her into the form of gimel,
, the third letter of the alphabet, a contortion that made her death both strange and legible. Rahel let out an anguished shriek. I had been at the market and was on my way home, close by already, when I heard my aunt yelling. Hani had been in the little house with the red roof, and the dye mistress was in her yard, dipping cloth. They both came too. When I reached the yard, the other women tried to prevent me from stepping forward, but I saw my own dark fortune written on their faces and refused to let them stop me. I dropped to my knees by my mother's side. I watched myself reaching out, straightening her gargush, which had slipped down over one eye. Her flesh was cold and tacky. She was a fierce woman, and it was clear that she had wrestled with death. The expression on her stilled face was one of outrage and disappointment, as if death had proven itself to be a craven foe, yet one who prevailed despite her obvious moral superiority. I had been crouching beside her on my haunches, but I felt arms under my armpits, pulling me up. I was still wearing my mother's carnelian ring. After my trip to Sana'a with Aunt Rahel, she had never asked for it back. As my cousin and sisters-in-law pulled me to standing, I closed my fingers in a fist and stroked the stone with my thumb. I must have swayed. Hani steadied me. Then Aunt Rahel reeled me into her bosom, and stroked my hair as I cried in front of everyone—big heaving sobs that left me spent and light-headed. When I pried myself loose of her, I saw confused faces. Somehow the others had appeared. My father, my brothers, my cousin, and sisters-in-law. They looked at me as if I were half a stranger. And I was just as confused as the rest. Who knew I would cry for her like that? Wiping my eyes on the sleeve of my antari, I blushed, turned my head, and hid in the shoulder folds of my gargush.

My father and brothers buried my mother under a broad, thorny acacia tree down in the graveyard below the escarpment, in view of my cave. My brothers joined my father in the obligation of saying the Prayer for Sanctification three times a day. We were all treated with solemn respect by the rest of our family. My cousin, sisters-in-law, and aunt cooked for us and watched over us. Throughout the seven days of our shiva, I sat under the frankincense tree, in the very spot where my mother had passed from this world into the World to Come. My tears mingled with the fragrant resin tears of the tree. I felt as if the tree had become one of my idols, a huge Anath or Asherah come to keep me
company. I cried in fits and starts, and wasn't sure if I was crying for the mother I had just lost, or for the mother I had never really had.