Henna House (32 page)

“What is it, sweetie?”

She pointed over to the closest of the reed huts. Her mother was outside, looking in our direction. “My mother wants you.” She tugged again, but I needed no further invitation. As we walked together, she slipped her little hand into my own. The rings made her fingers heavy. I noticed her henna. It was an Eye of God, but not one I recognized. I hadn't noticed it the day before. It was such a strange and alluring pattern. I told myself that I would ask Hani to look at it. Perhaps she would know its origin. When the girl closed her hand, it seemed to be winking, and when she opened it, the diamond-shaped eye seemed to twinkle.

We had reached the little hut.

“What is it? Oh, the henna?” Rosa had seen me looking at her daughter's hands. “When she was just a year old, she survived a fall from a rock about as high as that one.” Rosa pointed to a cliffside overhang.

“She hit her head, and didn't wake up for a week. While she slept, a traveler gave her this henna. My Esther finally opened her eyes the very moment the henna had set. The traveler was a henna dyer from Lahaj. She had beautiful eyes. Eyes that looked like this.” Rosa pointed to the ultramarine stone on one of her bracelets. A vivid blue with tiny specks of gold throughout. “She was very skilled. She saved my daughter. And now I reapply this henna every month. It is her lucky charm. I can show you how to do it. The henna dyer taught me how to draw the eye so that it moves—she said, ‘Your girl is looking at the other side of the world, but this eye will look back at her, and lead her back to you.' And so it came to pass. Just as the henna set, Esther woke up, and suffered no
ill effects from her fall. Would you like me to show you? Yes? But you must give me something in return.”

“But I don't have anything to give—”

“Sha, you are rich enough. You have your own bounty. I will give you Esther's Eye if you give me
your letters
. Draw the aleph bet for me, and teach me the names of
all
the letters. Will you do that? An Eye for an alphabet, heh? I think that is a good trade.”

I smiled. “Of course.”

“Good. Let us start with the henna. It is a powerful charm. The henna dyer told me that for those who are sleeping, it wakes them up, and for those who are awake already, it sharpens their vision, though I must admit that my own eyes are poor—I have worn the special Eye many times, and my eyes are just as weak when I wear the charm as when I don't. But I don't question its power. Sometimes I think that the sharper vision is for the inner eye. I dream clearer when I wear it, and I have even had visions of the future, as if I can see beyond my own life span.”

She went into her little hut and came out with a henna pot and stylus. I put out my palm for her, and she put the stylus to my life line. But as it pricked, I hesitated, pulled back.

“Wait,” I said, “I have an idea. Would you wait for me? Please? I will be right back.” I ran over to our carriage and rummaged through my little bag of belongings. At the very bottom was the book I had made for myself when I made a book for Hani, using Masudah's paper. I returned to Rosa with my book. “Please draw it in here”—I opened to the first page—“not on my hand.”

She cocked her head sideways, squinted, and espied my book with a skeptical biting of her lips.

“Maybe, ummm . . .” I stalled. “Maybe my eyes are too sharp already. Or maybe I am afraid of what I will see. Don't be offended, Mrs. Rosa.” I put my hand over hers. Her bracelets had fallen all the way down to her wrist, and her rings were so thick on every finger that scarcely any skin showed through. With the other hand I thrust the book a little closer to her. One of her necklaces, with a cylindrical amulet box, brushed the edge of it. She drew back, as if she had touched something foul or hot.

“Please?”

She shook her head. “You are a silly girl. You want to keep henna
forever. But you can't trap henna. It is not the same on a piece of pulp. It belongs on a hand or a foot. On a girl or a woman. Not in a book. But don't worry. I will oblige you. I will draw it wherever you wish. Because I am an obliging woman and you are a nice decent girl . . . well, a nice decent
silly
girl. I can see that. And I can also see that you have no motives other than a search for knowledge. And knowledge is a blessing. But if the eyes stare at you funny, or glare, or ask you questions you can't answer, don't blame me. I can't be responsible for what the design will do when trapped on the dead animal flesh between the covers of your Torah.”

“It isn't a Torah—”

“Not yet, it isn't. But it will be. Don't fret. I won't tell anyone your secret.”

“But I don't have a secret.”

She smiled. “Here, give it to me, let us begin.”

She sat on one of the stones and traded the henna stylus for a quill with a black-gall nub. It didn't take her long to draw the design. When she was finished, it was easy to see the differences between our regular Eye of God and this one—hers had waves, where ours had straight lines. Hers had tiny triangles within triangles, where ours relied more on circles for the outer border. And the diamond eye in the center of hers was smaller and thicker-lined than the one Hani had taught me to make. Even so, these differences did not lend the Habbani woman's Eye of God its power. It was something else. Like Hani's constellation of stars, there were simply some patterns that had life and another dimension, other than color and form. Was it breath? Soul? Blood? Or some other essential additive that enlivened the henna, made it shimmer and talk and twinkle?

When she was finished, I put small rocks on the corners of the splayed pages and left the book open to dry. Then I went over to one of the thorny mimosas, bent down, and rummaged for a sharp fallen branch. I wrote the entire aleph bet in a straight row in the dirt, as it would appear on a page. When I was done, Rosa put her hands on her hips, squinted. “What can you tell me about them?”

“About whom?” I looked around.

“Them!” She pointed to the letters. “Pretend they are people and we are gossiping fools.
Tell me who they are
.”

“Oh, them.” I smiled at the thought of the letters as people, having
their own lives and personalities. Having faults and successes and domestic dramas. Things to gossip about. “Yes,” I said. “I can tell you what I know about
them
.”

“Good, and don't leave out any tidbits or scandals.”

“If I had tidbits and scandals, I would happily share them with you. But all I have are the tiniest stubs of stories.”

She shrugged. “Oh, just go on, go on already.”

I began to relate what Hani had told me about the aleph bet when she taught me how to read. How the form of each letter comes from an ancient picture. And how this picture itself came from an essential part of the lives of the people who first drew the letters.

“Aleph is the head of an ox.” Next to the
, I drew an ox head
, and I pointed out how with the addition or subtraction of a few lines, the letter derived from the picture. “
Bet
is a house”—
—“
Gimel
is a foot”—
—“
Vav
is a tent peg”—
—“and
zayin
is a plow”—
—and I showed her the shepherd's staff in
lamed
—
.