Henna House (42 page)

“No, Aunt Rahel, I don't want a baby just yet.”

She looked shocked, but I explained that I had been using a pessary.
That Asaf sometimes used a sheath when we lay together, and that I didn't want to conceive until after our travels. I didn't tell her that this had been Asaf's idea. He had suggested it—“as a matter of convenience. After all,” he had said, “traveling with an infant is dangerous. There will be plenty of time for babies when we return.”

Aunt Rahel shook her head and said, “It is not wise for a girl to play with her menses before she has had a child. Better you delay your trip than waste the blood that Elohim gives you for sowing.”

“But I am not playing with my menses. I bleed as usual.”

“No”—she shook her head—“you bleed for naught.”

That night, Asaf tossed and turned in his sleep. I lay awake a long time, watching him. In the morning, I brushed the curls out of his eyes. His forehead was damp and he looked tired.

“You didn't sleep well?”

“As well as can be expected in this heat.”

I nodded sleepily and murmured, “Aden has fire for air. It's like the volcano is still erupting, no?”

At least once a week, I joined Hani in a lorry and we went together to Sheik Othman. With the aid of funds from the Jewish Agency, the British had built a camp there for the refugee Jews from all over Yemen—the hostel was no longer big enough to contain them. Aunt Rahel also went to the camp to help the nurses. Hani went to do henna, taking with her a full complement of supplies in a big red basket that she swung over her shoulder. They told us stories as we did their henna. They said things like, “I am from the crocodile swamps” or “I was born of a heron” or “I gave birth to my daughter through a wound in my thigh.” From their stories, we knew what designs to give them. We knew if it was a henna of solace or of sympathy that they needed. Or a henna of hope, of happiness, or forbearance. Every so often, Hani was called upon to do a bridal application. “Even refugees get married,” she said to me as we rounded the last bend of the lorry ride. “I skip the shaddar, of course. There is no time. But I do an elaborate cuff and anklet. I do the grains of wheat and sprigs or rue. For what bride can be married without the rue?”

I helped Hani with the henna. But usually I helped the teachers. The Jewish Agency wanted the girls as well as the boys in the camp to learn to read, “to prepare them for their lives in Palestine.” The classes were held in an open tent next to the tent where a doctor from New Zealand
gave eye exams. I drew the letters in the earth and the children put their hands on my hand—
,
,
,
. “
Aleph, bet, gimel, dalet
 . . .” One day I worked for hours with a girl with snarling lips and smiling eyes. I drew her name and she copied it ten times, each time worse than the one before. Her hand was shaky, her letters bloated. But still she persevered. My, how she tried. Looking up at me for approval. I clapped my hands. “Yes, yes, just like that.” I put my hand over hers, and helped her make the shapes that held meaning tucked up inside them, like Hani's henna basket, full of scent, spice, and color.

T
ales of betrayal were always told in the henna house alongside stories of love, luck, and seduction. Ever since I received my first henna, after Aunt Rahel saved Sultana's son Moshe, I'd listened to the girls and women in my life entertain one another with accounts of domestic conspiracies and legendary romantic triangles. But I never really gave much thought to the women whose fates were dark. Those brides who were betrayed, whose most prized blessings were stolen and spun into soft garments for others to wear . . . I rarely considered them. Why would I? Years later I came to see that I should have paid better attention.

*  *  *

Late afternoon, four months after my marriage, I was cooking dinner. I had already made the dough for the bread and was chopping the onions for the stew. I laid the knife down and wiped the sweat off my forehead, but then I stopped, holding my hand midway between my face and the board. I had noticed a little regiment of elements on the back of my left hand. Elements that seemed to be linked to form an abstract design, a tricky pattern reminiscent of a Sudanese Eye of God but not quite as formally structured. No, I had never really seen a design like this before. Hani had given me new henna just two days earlier. Why hadn't I noticed it when she was working? I resumed chopping, and looked out the window. On the street, a lorry driver was passing by. Behind the lorry came a donkey cart laden with furniture. The cart driver was singing to his donkey in a loud comical voice. I looked back down at my hands. I was suddenly dizzy. A jolt of panic ran up my spine. Had the pessary failed? Was I expecting a baby? If I were pregnant, Asaf wouldn't take me with him. No, that couldn't be it. I had bled in accordance with my cycle. And we had barely lain together since.
Maybe it was the heat. I was so hot. The windows were open, but there was no air in the little kitchen.

I poured a glass of juice and forced myself to drink. But as I put the cup down, right before my eyes, the henna elements unbound themselves from my skin, stepped out of formation, and rolled around in my palm. There were three stacked waves, a diamond with a dot in it, a crescent moon, a sideways scroll. They played tricks in front of my eyes, sliding down onto my wrist and then climbing back up again, up and down. Then they lay back down, tidy on the perch of a perfectly executed border. I steadied myself at the cooking board. I forced myself to chop another onion. Then I put down my knife, went to my drawers, and fished underneath my undergarments for the old piece of paper. I sat down on the pallet. Unfurled my hand. Examined it. The rest of the henna faded away. Each element was a letter, the letters formed words.

A.

Let my Beloved come into his Garden and eat his pleasant fruits Thursday midmorning,

H.

From out of the past, the alphabetical correspondences revealed themselves. It was the code. Hani's old code.
Aleph
was a gently sloping mountain,
nun
was a double circle,
qof
was a dotted triangle,
dalet
three little humps . . .

I dropped the piece of paper and curled up in a little ball. I stayed like that for a long time, unable to move. When I finally tried to get up, I felt the floor tip and the walls go crooked. Like a passenger on a storm-tossed boat, I grabbed at the wall for purchase and made my way slowly back to the kitchen. My head pounded and I had to keep swallowing to keep from retching. I got myself a cup of tea and sat down again at the kitchen table. As I forced myself to drink, I stared at the henna on my arm until I saw snakes writhing in the thicket of leaves Hani had drawn on my right forearm. I shut my eyes, rubbed them, and when I opened them again, my henna lay flat, but I wasn't fooled. I felt the world dip and sway around me again, and it took all my strength to get my bearings before my husband came home expecting dinner. I said
nothing to him that night. I hid my shame, and pretended that I wasn't a character in one of the sadder sagas murmured in the henna house.