The Shadows of Ghadames (7 page)

“She must have been sad when she saw you,” I say. “Oh, it was dreadful for both of us! I was expecting your brother, and after three unsuccessful years Meriem had given up all hope of ever having her own child. I thought she would break down before my eyes. But she gritted her teeth and welcomed me in her house. Your father was very attentive to her and spent a lot of time talking to her. She hardly spoke. She just listened. I stayed in my room and tried to make myself as inconspicuous as possible. It was my turn to be jealous. I thought of going back home, but the idea of the long trip in the desert with a child frightened me. We were like three wounded creatures who try not to move so as not to arouse pain. And then a miracle occurred: Meriem became pregnant as well. Another child was going to be born in our house! This changed everything. We prepared Jasim's arrival together, then yours. It was like an ongoing celebration.

“Now you understand,” Bilkisu adds with a tender smile, “why you are as dear to my heart as any daughter of mine would be.”

Suddenly, I respond with the gesture I usually reserve
for my mother: I kiss Bilkisu's hand. She jumps up as though I had burned her.

“The husband will already be wearing his red turban if we continue dallying like this!” she says.

I suddenly remember my mother's words. This will be my last Arous, the last one I will be allowed to attend. Afterward I will be confined to the rooftops, like the other women, and never come back down again.

So I open my eyes wide because I don't want to miss anything: the streaked shadow of the palm trees and the pale green of the apricot trees; the flight of the birds as they squabble in the branches; the footprint on the earth of an embankment, toes spread wide apart …

We come out on the threshing floor, which is always located in full sunlight and exposed to the most favorable winds. When it is time to winnow the grains, the wind does half the work. Barley matures earlier than wheat. The swathes have been lying in a dry spot for days, protected from the birds by palm tree branches and mats of esparto grass.

I see many people this morning around the threshing floor: women servants; slaves tending the gardens; slave masters accompanied by their children who are bubbling with excitement on this eventful day. Even my uncle is here and, next to him, Jasim, looking his conceited self in his sky blue gandourah carefully chosen to show his dark skin to advantage. Of course, on seeing me, all he can do is
stick out his tongue! I would gladly stick mine out in response, except Bilkisu pushes me in the direction of the women before I have time.

Facing east, toward Islam's holy places, the laborers have started threshing the sheaves that are arranged in a circle. Each one is holding a
kerna
, the wide, hard base of a palm tree branch, and is beating the stalks to separate the grain. Their clothes are soon covered with straw debris, sweat runs down their temples, and their backs are soaked. Every once in a while, they drink from the jug that one of us hands them. Their work is sacred to everyone here. We reserve wheat semolina for pastries and holiday dishes, but we eat
bazina
, the thick porridge of barley flour, every day. It's perfect for filling hungry stomachs.

Finally, the great moment has arrived. The grains are gathered into a round heap and covered again with a mat. An elderly man traces Solomon's seal in the dust with his finger so as to protect the precious harvest from evil spirits.

“Youyouyouyououou!”

The sound of ululation arises from the women's throats, a singsong wail that makes men shiver when they hear it. I would like to join in but my voice isn't strong enough yet and I am afraid of making a fool of myself in front of my brother. In the midst of the wailing, two women carry in a kind of doll they have made with bound palm twigs. This is Earth's husband, the Arous, and he will watch over the grain, wearing a fine red cloth turban.

The women's wailing grows louder for they must attract
the
baraka
on him, the benediction from heaven. Their call courses through me, from head to foot, and now I start wailing too, eyes shut, my throat vibrating almost painfully, as if my voice had to chart a new pathway through my body. I feel as though I am suddenly exposing myself fully.

Bilkisu takes me by the shoulders and kisses me. “Bravo, you have the voice of a grown woman. It will soon be time to fill the bride's pitcher for you, from which you'll drink after your wedding night.”

But the thought of a groom makes me dreadfully embarrassed and I bury my face in the folds of her veil.

When we return, I notice the look my mother and Bilkisu exchange when Bilkisu tells her about my vocal feats during the Arous ceremony. This means the end for me: from now on, like them, I'll have to be satisfied with the palm grove on the horizon and hearing the stories my father and brother bring back from their travels.

My mother does not say anything. But she spends a long time combing my hair and then, to see how it will look, she adorns my forehead with a heavy diadem of several rows of gold coins, the work of goldsmiths in faraway Timbuktu, which all the women in Ghadames wear at their marriage. She also lends me her favorite earrings. Then she leads me to the imbedded mirror above the door to the stairway.

I do not recognize myself. A strange girl peers at me from the clouded depths of the mirror, a girl whose eyes are ringed with bluish kohl, whose forehead is laden with
gold, and who wears coral drops that quiver against her cheeks.

“See how lovely you are,” my mother whispers.

She gently wipes a shiny teardrop from my cheek with the tip of her finger.

“Mama,” I ask in a timid voice, “don't you miss going for walks in the palm grove? Aren't you tired of the red garden painted on the walls of the house?”

I see her smile slowly in the mirror, her eyes on my reflected image.

“No. For me, the red garden is more beautiful than the real one.”

ife is taking its course, with its countless household tasks — weaving, cooking, cleaning — and its little distractions. The wounded man is recovering his strength and I am spending more and more time in the pantry with him. Often he seems to forget that I am just a girl and he speaks to me as though I were a sensible grown-up worthy of interest. On these occasions I think of my father and wonder if he would like Abdelkarim.

Then I remember that my father is never ever supposed to find out that we have given shelter to a man in his absence.

One evening when I bring Abdelkarim his dinner, my mother starts singing and accompanying herself on the oud, the lute my father brought her from Tripoli.

She interrupts herself, leaving the poem unfinished. The young man waits, but the next part never comes. The last rays of the sun shine through the half-open skylight and shed a golden light on his face.

“That's a beautiful song,” he says regretfully. “It's the ‘Song of the Husband's Return.' Don't you know it?”

“I haven't been married. No one has sung it for me.” He falls silent for a moment. The sun must have descended below the rooftops, for everything darkens. Then, in an undertone, in a deep, low voice that isn't his usual timbre, he declaims in Arabic:

“That's very beautiful,” I say. “But I do not understand everything. I don't know Arabic very well.”

“It's the sura of the nascent dawn, a chapter of the Koran. Don't you know the Koran?”

“A bit,” I answer. “I don't know how to read.” I feel I should explain. “I'd like to learn, but my mother says that
women shouldn't know the same things as men, for men and women belong to two different worlds that hardly ever meet, like the sun and the moon.”

“Oh, is that what your mother says? Yet the Koran is for everyone. It's the word of God,” Abdelkarim says.

“Tell me, what does that mean, ‘the women who blow on the knots'?” I ask.

“I think it's a reference to evil women who cast spells.” I shudder, thinking of Aïshatou. Is she one of those evil women? I pick up the empty dish at my feet. It is now almost impossible to see anything in the little room.

“Thank you for taking care of me, Malika. You're very kind, you know.”

I look at him. I can make out his bright smile in the dark. For the first time, he no longer seems angry.

The following day, Aïshatou stops by to see him. To ward off any suspicions from our neighbors, with their dreaded eagle eyes, the tall black woman has come to read my mother's fortune in her coffee cup. Healer, witch, seer, midwife, she has the reputation of being all these things; and because of her varied talents, there are many reasons why she is in demand on the rooftops. For one woman, she'll predict whether she'll have a girl or a boy; for another, she'll prescribe a potion to reawaken the love of her apathetic husband. She can console a woman who has lost a very young child; help put a new mother back on her feet or increase her flow of milk. She knows all
about bodily sufferings, and even more about those of the mind.

The reason all the women trust Aïshatou is because of her discretion. She never betrays a secret. She has buried many sorrows, and occasional passions as well, in the folds of her large black dress— between the worn leather pouches where she keeps her talismans and her medicinal powders.

My mother has prepared the coffee with great care. She has ground it very fine and mixed in some sugar, letting it boil very briefly in a brass pot with a long handle. Then you have to wait for the black foam to settle, pour the burning hot beverage into tiny cups, and add a drop of cold water to make the dregs sink to the bottom faster. Coffee should be savored with your eyes shut, so that its subtle perfume spreads in your mouth and rises up to your nostrils.

I'll only be allowed to taste a tiny bit. Coffee is a luxury for us; it comes from very far away, from the mountains of Yemen and Arabia. Part of our pleasure in drinking it derives from the long journey the caravans must make to bring it here. They cross landscapes so different from ours, and bivouac for weeks under the stars, the men sleeping on top of the sand-covered embers of the campfire to protect themselves against the cold desert nights. All these aspects of the journey are contained in those few black drops.

Aïshatou bends down and looks into my mother's empty cup. She turns it slowly between her fingers, taking care not
to move the muddy black deposits on the bottom. This is because the barely visible mountains, the minuscule valleys, and the miniature rivers shimmering in the coffee dregs are all signs that foretell the future.

Aïshatou sets the cup down.

“There, you see,” she whispers to my mother, who is now bending down too. “The stranger … your daughter … the jinn … your husband …” I can only catch bits and pieces of what she says. My mother's eyelids are half-closed. And what if all this were a lullaby, or like a nursery rhyme for children? Aïshatou stands up finally, makes sure no one is watching her from the surrounding rooftops, and steps calmly into the pantry signaling for me to follow.