The Shadows of Ghadames

y father left on a trip early this morning.

This is our way of life in Ghadames. The men are often away on the desert tracks while the women wait for them on the rooftops.

But since this morning I can't stay still. I wander around the house, worried and tense, like an animal that senses a great windstorm is on the way.

Bilkisu woke me up before sunrise from a sound sleep. I had been rolled up in one of my mother's worn, soft and cuddly wool veils. I think I was dreaming of caravans….

“Hurry up, Malika, if you want to say goodbye to your father!” Bilkisu says.

It is dark but I make out Bilkisu's smile as she leans toward me, her heavy silver rings pulling on her earlobes. And, above all, I recognize her smell, so unlike my mother's, a blend of jasmine and peppery spices.

Bilkisu knows I have a superstitious fear of letting my father leave on a trip without saying goodbye to him. If I
fail in my duty today, something dreadful could befall him.

“Hurry up,” she says again more gently. “He's already in the kitchen, about to shut the grain storage container.”

I scramble to the stairway leading to our rooftop. It is as straight and narrow as a rope ladder. I am so used to its steep incline that I can climb up even in the dark without falling.

Upstairs, I shiver from the cold—the desert cold at the end of the night, when not a single cloud protects human beings from the immense black sky.

Fortunately my mother has already lit a fire and sparks are flying to the corner of the roof. I like our kitchen, with its palm trunk beams worn by the smoke of the cooking pots, and its earthenware jars, covered with basketwork lids, for preserving food. And the convenient holes in the wall next to the hearth for the salt brought by caravan, one hole for the coarse gray cooking salt, the other for the fine white table salt that squeaks when you rub it between your fingers.

But, most of all, I like the grain storage container built into the corner farthest away from the fire; it is reassuringly potbellied, with a small round opening like a belly button.

“Good morning, my child.”

My father greets me with a smile. His camel-hair burnoose is slung over his shoulders and his head is wrapped in a turban with the flaps floating around his neck. When it's time to leave, he will fold them over his mouth, as the Tuareg nomads do.

My mother does not look up. She is holding her measuring jar and counting in a low voice, taking out the amount of wheat and barley we will need for our meals during my father's absence. I hear the grain crackling as it rolls inside the wooden plates placed on the ground. Take exactly what's needed, that's our custom. We can feast and celebrate again only when the men return.

More than anyone else in Ghadames my mother, Meriem, insists on a strict adherence to traditional practices. I watch her in the glow of the fire as she divides up the grain and packs it down, with her fingers spread out. Her straight forehead, strong eyebrow line and delicate mouth are the features of a queen. She has bluish tattoos on her forehead and chin, and a mark in the shape of a star on each of her cheekbones. I know these tattoos have a magical significance, but I am not old enough yet for the women to explain it to me.

“Bilkisu,” my mother says, addressing my father's second wife, “you can pour the barley into the large jar in the pantry.”

Bilkisu picks up the plate. Though she never raises her voice, my mother has a commanding tone. Perhaps that's why I feel more at ease with Bilkisu, who treats me as though I were her own daughter. Bilkisu is tall and lithe, draped in indigo blue veils. She often laughs; when my father hears her, he can't help looking at her.

Her task accomplished, my mother lifts the plate filled with grains of wheat and holds it at arm's length. It is time
to hermetically seal our grain container. Before sealing the opening, my father removes any putrid fumes that may taint the grain by slipping a burning wick inside the container.

For a brief moment, the glow of the flame outlines his angular jaw and his aquiline nose, and I feel a violent pang in my heart. I realize how much I will miss him during this trip, more than ever before. He straightens up, throwing the thick pleats of his burnoose behind his shoulder. Then he looks at me, his intense gaze making me feel like a real person, not like a child whom people caress without seeing.

“Look after yourself, Malika, and take care of your mother.”

He has never spoken to me like this before.

When we come out of the kitchen, the rooftops of Ghadames are cast in a pink light, their pointy, whitewashed triangular corners jutting up in the sky. The slender crescent of the moon is barely visible, like a brushstroke in a lighter color above the palm grove.

“We live in a very ancient city,” says my father softly. “Don't ever forget that.”

I summon my courage. “Papa, please let me come with you to the entrance of the city. I really want to see the departure of the caravan. Up on the city walls you can hardly make out anything. It's too far away!”

“But you're just a girl! I am the one who gets to go
with our father,” comes a voice. “Your place is with the women.”

From behind us, Jasim's voice gives us a start. So he has finally gotten out of bed. He never leaves me in peace, always harping on the fact that I am “just a girl.” It's his favorite refrain, and he whistles it between his teeth with a mocking air as soon as our mothers are out of earshot. “I am going to travel, I am going to drive caravans, I'll be going to Kano and Timbuktu, and all the way to Mecca and Istanbul! While you, you're going to stay right here and never go anywhere!”

But I know how to make him mad too. I contort my face in various ways without saying a word until he runs away. He is terrified by my grimaces. You would think I was no longer his sister but a creature come out of the darkness, a ghoul, a horrible ogress who eats children. But here, in front of my father, I don't dare make faces. And this morning, Jasim looks too much like his mother, with his mischievous eyes and his high, prominent, dark forehead. How could I get mad at Bilkisu?

“Since you are the two children God has given me,” my father declares, “both of you will come.”

I hardly have time to jump for joy before my mother reprimands me. She heard my father's pronouncement and I know she doesn't approve. A slight frown, a crease in the corner of her mouth, tells me her thoughts.

“Go downstairs and get dressed, both of you. Malika, your hair is a mess,” she says.

I obey halfheartedly, and linger at the top of the stairs in the hope of hearing what she will say to my father. I know it's naughty, but I don't care….

“Do you think that's good for your daughter?” my mother asks calmly, with no trace of anger. “Malika will be twelve years old this coming Ramadan. Soon, much sooner than you think, she won't set foot in the street anymore; our rooftops will be the only country where she'll be allowed to travel. That's the way it has always been for the women of Ghadames and that's the way it will always be. We'll only be giving her false hopes and pointless regrets, if you agree to take her beyond the city walls this morning.”