The Shadows of Ghadames (8 page)

The wounded man gazes at her with a worried look while she expertly removes his bandage and feels his pulse.

“The wound is healing well,” Aïshatou says. “But you still need a few days' rest.”

Abdelkarim sighs. “I am beginning to feel cramped, locked up in this cupboard like a goat in a pen,” he complains.

“But it's your only hope of escaping your pursuers. Be patient. Within ten days, we will get you safely out of this house and out of the city.”

“I don't want to leave this city,” Abdelkarim says sullenly. “I've been given an important mission that must be successfully completed!”

“Haven't you ever heard the proverb, ‘No man is a prophet in his own country'? Words of wisdom. Someone
else will come to Ghadames to preach for the brotherhood that sent you. I have soothsaying powers, and that's what I read in the coffee dregs.”

Abdelkarim sniffs contemptuously.

“I am not like you and your sort,” he says. “You think you can see the future in the bottom of a coffee cup. Perhaps those predictions apply to women and their small, narrow world. God owns our destiny, but he leaves men free to shape it. He is the master of the future, but he also gives us the strength to spell out our own. Contrary to what you think, we are not his puppets.”

Aïshatou looks down on him scornfully from her great height.

“No doubt you are right,” she says. “But are women free? You'll soon have the opportunity to learn about their small, narrow world. Tomorrow, the women's market will take place on this and the neighbor's rooftop. The Ghadames houses take turns welcoming the market. We won't change what was planned, because we don't want anyone to think that Meriem has something to hide.”

“But the women might see me!” Abdelkarim exclaims, suddenly alarmed.

“We will lock the door,” Aïshatou announces with an ironic smile. “That way you will be condemned to hear us. That's a privilege very few men will ever have.”

The women's market is one of the most entertaining daily events in Ghadames. It takes place on the rooftops in the
morning, before it gets too hot. It's a treat for little children. They are fastened to their mothers' backs or skirts and stare at everything wide-eyed as their mothers move around the stalls—really just mats spread out on the ground.

The brouhaha is unbelievable, each saleswoman trying to attract attention to her merchandise, and every one exchanging the most varied news in a loud voice. I feel like laughing at the thought that this morning, Abdelkarim, hidden in the pantry, can hear what they are saying. At times, I even blush …

“Here are earrings shaped like crescent moons. Who will have them? Come and look at this beautiful coral necklace! Look at the color! Drops of dawn from the bottom of the sea. If only you knew what the sea is like, you desert girls.”

“Soap made with the best olive oil, from Gharyā.n, the mountains in the north! Soap that will make your skin nice and soft, ladies!”

“Do you know that my cousin Nejma had a baby last night?”

“I heard the cries announcing a birth early this morning, but I was too far away to understand the message. Girl or boy?”

“A fourth girl. May God protect her from her husband's wrath! But Aïshatou predicted that her next child would be a boy. Let's hope she's not just saying that to cheer her up.”

“Taste these lovely dried figs. They're like honey.”

“Alas, you know, I don't have very much money since
my husband died, nor do I have anything to give you in exchange.”

“It doesn't matter. Take half of them for your children, you'll pay me when you can. Who knows what the future will bring?”

“Fatima! Why don't you keep an eye on your son? He just spilled a whole box of kohl, the little devil!”

“Doesn't anyone want to buy this fresh milk before it turns sour? I milked the goat myself at dawn.”

“Meriem, your daughter is becoming very pretty. It looks like her breasts are growing. And what eyes! Soon it will be time to plan her wedding, won't it? I have a nephew who is looking for a wife, I'll speak to him discreetly.”

“Don't be in such a rush. She still has to mature—”

“Like a lovely little fig on the branch—ha, ha!”

“Here, Zohr, take this portion of flour, I am in debt to you for the favor you did me the last time.”

“What favor?”

“You don't remember? I know times are hard when one is disowned and one must return to one's parents' house. You're still young, you'll find another husband, God willing!”

Each woman gives whatever she can today, generously and taking care not to humiliate, but also as a precaution. Who knows if she herself won't experience poverty tomorrow? Who knows what tragedies life has in store for her? Ever since I was little, I've seen our women stock up on solidarity,
like ants that tirelessly carry on their backs what they'll need to survive the bad season.

Protecting themselves from misfortune, that is their prime concern. Our women's bodies are covered with tattoos, guarding them like an armor against mysterious enemies. At the market, I watch them closely and with curiosity. Knowing that no men are looking at them, they throw their veils back so that they can be freer in their movements; they uncover their arms, necks and ankles, adorned with geometrically shaped bluish marks. They have other marks, hidden in secret places and visible only at the baths. Women's bodies are like books; you have to know how to decipher them.

For the first time I dare to question my mother.

“Mama, what's that broken line you all have above the ankle?”

My mother hesitates. But she must have decided that now I am old enough to know.

“We call it the sickle. It's meant to give us many children and good harvests.”

“And the little strokes on a line?” I press. “The comb, because women must take good care of their hair. This one, which looks similar but has a kind of handle underneath it, is the comb for weaving, because every self-respecting woman knows the art of weaving.”

She explains the complicated motifs that crisscross on the back of her hands, from the top of her wrists to her
nails: the saber, the saw, the reed leaves. But I get mixed up very quickly. What I am most interested in are the animals. Their shapes are so simplified that I couldn't possibly identify them if Mama did not show them to me, whispering as though the designs themselves are actually dangerous.

“Look, here's the snake that brings fertility, the scorpion that bites evildoers. And those four intersecting straight lines there are the paws of the tarantula, a spider that will inflict a painful bite on our rivals.”

Examining these tattoos on smooth skin or skin wrinkled with age—tattoos whose meanings have long been concealed from me—makes me pensive. I no longer know what to think. So women can be kind and help one another. But they can also be the worst enemies, jealous rivals in secret, with a wish to harm one another. Do they sometimes ask Aïshatou for potions to take revenge? For poisons that kill?

When all the women are gone, we go to free Abdelkarim, who is still locked up in the pantry. Bilkisu opens the door. Abdelkarim looks at us reproachfully and takes the cake I hand him without saying a word.

“Have you stopped speaking to us?” asks Bilkisu. “Why are you in such a foul mood?”

Since he doesn't deign to answer, Bilkisu shrugs and heads toward the door.

“Wait,” he says. “Since I have to spend another nine days here, there is one thing that would amuse me.”

“Your wish is our command,” Bilkisu says ironically. “State your wish.”

“I'd like to teach Malika how to read. Would her father take offense?”

Bilkisu seems surprised. She drops her ironic tone and becomes very serious.

“No, he wouldn't. He wanted his daughter to learn Arabic, and he taught it to me. Meriem is the one you have to persuade.”

“Then I would like to talk to her about it.”

As soon as Bilkisu has turned on her heels to warn my mother, I question Abdelkarim anxiously. I want to be sure I understood correctly. Does he really want to give me lessons —me, even though I am just a girl?

For the first time today, he allows himself to smile. He is handsome when he smiles.

“Girls deserve to be taught just as much as boys. It's because they aren't taught anything that they wallow in all that foolish nonsense, all that magic stuff and coffee dregs.”

My mother comes in, tightly wrapped in an austere veil baring only her face. She stops at the threshold, as though afraid of something, then gestures to me to sit farther off on the rooftop, but facing the cupboard door, which remains open. I understand that she wants a witness to this meeting, that she needs eyes steadily on her, to testify nothing improper has happened between the two of them.

Abdelkarim has backed into the room as much as possible. He is sitting under one of the small skylights. An
oblique ray of afternoon sunlight is shining down from it. If my mother occupies the place he has made for her, her face will be lit up while his features will blend into the darkness. She hesitates, but finally steps forward.

I now see both of them in profile. My mother is staring at him with no fear or shame, her eyes wide open. I am trembling, for I know what my mother's gaze is like—a burning black ray of light beamed from under eyebrows that are almost joined together. I predict that he— not she— will lower his eyes.

I can't hear what Abdelkarim is saying, but now and again he turns his face my way. My mother doesn't move. She looks at him steadily. From time to time, he tilts his head while she is speaking. Her voice is very gentle and she never speaks for long. Her gaze is sufficiently eloquent. I watch their duel from a distance but I can't guess who the winner will be.

Oh, if only he could convince her! But she is so strong, so inflexible. I have a powerful urge to finally see her weak and defeated; I wish she were an ordinary woman made of clay instead of pure metal. I immediately blame myself for this sacrilegious thought. If she knew, she wouldn't love me anymore. I bury this desire deep within me and keep it well hidden. In the end, I don't dare breathe or even think. I clench my teeth for fear that if my breath escapes from my lips, it might tilt the scales against me.

Abdelkarim has still not lowered his eyes. Suddenly, from the way my mother bows her neck slightly, and draws
in her shoulders, I know she has surrendered and acquiesced. She opens the palms of her hands, looks at them pensively, and raises them toward the sky in acceptance of God's will. My heart is filled with joy, almost painfully so. He has won.

That night, in the little room above the stairway, I find it hard to fall asleep. I feel my father's books around me, like a living presence pursuing me even in my dreams.

The following day, as soon as my brother has left for our uncle's store, I start studying the alphabet with Abdelkarim. Early in the morning it is still cool in the pantry, and that first lesson will always be associated in my mind with the smell of honey and the dust of dry figs—figs strung up on cords and piled up in a large straw basket at the far end of the room.

Abdelkarim is surprised that I brought a board and stylus with me. I explain how I won them in my race with Jasim on the rooftops. As I tell him about it, I experience everything all over again: the vertigo paralyzing my legs, the joy of daring to challenge my brother, and the satisfaction of triumphing over fear.

He looks at me, even more surprised. “You must truly have wanted to learn to read and write, risking your life like that,” he says.

“At the time, I did not even think about it,” I answer. “I just wanted to annoy Jasim. He had made me mad.”

“This means you'll be a good student,” Abdelkarim says,
smiling. “People who remain indifferent or too submissive never learn much. Whatever they're taught is like water off a duck's back. Their brains never really absorb anything. Sometimes it's good to get mad.”

As Abdelkarim says this, he can't help glancing at my mother, who is sitting by her loom, impassive. They have agreed that she will be present at each lesson, sitting not too far away, but not too close either, so as not to disturb us. She looks our way very infrequently, but we hear the dry, reassuring sound of the curved reed she uses to space the warp yarns evenly.

First my teacher prepares the ink, mixing black powder and water in a glass flask. Then he carefully writes out the twenty-eight Arabic letters from right to left, pronouncing each one of them clearly and making me repeat them. The letters have strange shapes. Some resemble reeds bending in the wind; others, birds with flexible necks and folded wings; still others, gondolas, those flat, lightweight, cradle-like boats I once saw when my father took me to a small lake a halfday's walk from Ghadames. Some of the letters are very easy; one line is enough. Others require such complicated squiggles that I would be afraid of getting muddled recopying them.

But on that first day, Abdelkarim teaches me only one word:
bâ-boun
, the door, until I can write it perfectly. He is pleased with me; his eyes are twinkling.

“That's enough for today,” he says, propping the board, ink and stylus against the wall.

I feel so happy that I start singing as I go down the stairway. Ladi, who is in the large room busily polishing our brass vases, looks up with a mocking air.

“No one thought of teaching me how to read,” she says. “Ladi, once I've learned, I'll teach you.” “That's what you say now, because you're happy, but you'll always have better things to do than to bother about me.”

She is right. I am already obsessed with just one thing— looking at my father's books. He doesn't have very many, only about four or five, but he truly values them. “They allow me to see other things,” he always says when I ask him what he finds in these yellowed pages.

I wonder if I will find things in them that I never saw before. I touch their bindings, their rounded backs, the faded gold lettering stamped on dark leather, but I don't dare open them. They have a distinctive smell that I've always liked, a smell of dusty leather and cooled sand that reminds me of my father's smell. Isn't that letter on the cover a
bâ
, and that other one a
boun
? I remember Bilkisu going over my brother's lessons with him, and my despair at not being able to understand a thing.