The Shadows of Ghadames (9 page)

I also remember feeling that a door was forever closed within me. Perhaps now it is finally opening….

e, dress up as a woman? What about my dignity? It's out of the question, I'll never agree! I'd rather die.”

Abdelkarim has become livid. By contrast, the barely healed scar on his forehead looks darker. Bilkisu and I exchange glances in dismay.

As always when she is in Abdelkarim's presence, my mother stands back, her profile impassive. Not Bilkisu. I see her nostrils quiver and the upturned corner of her mouth. I know she is dying to make a caustic remark in reply. But it would be dangerous. It is wiser to try to convince the obstinate young man while there is still time.

“But there's really no other solution,” she pleads, containing her anger. “You can't stay here any longer. We were told by a traveler that Mahmud's caravan would be returning within two or three days. Have you thought of the consequences for us, who saved your life? Believe me, you won't lose your dignity just from covering your head with a woman's veil for a few hours.”

It was Aïshatou's idea and it was probably mixed with a bit of malice. The plan was to make the fugitive leave the city during one of the night ceremonies from which men are excluded. These are ceremonies that occasionaly take place in the palm grove. On those nights, no one is surprised to see female silhouettes sneak outside the city walls— certainly not the guardians posted at the city gates. Who would ever bother to count the women returning at daybreak from a festival celebrated since time immemorial far from the eyes of the indiscreet?

“And what if he refuses?” objected Bilkisu. I strained to follow their discussion, pressed against my mother's side. Their dark veils, turned down over their lowered foreheads, formed a dark little hiding place, muffling their whispered words.

“He'd better accept,” mumbled Aïshatou. “If he doesn't …”

She fell silent, alerted by Bilkisu's frown. I felt my mother shudder, and I looked at Aïshatou's hands and the heavy bracelets clasped around her wrists.

If he doesn't? Not one of us completed the sentence out loud, but my stomach was tied in knots from fear.

They leave me with him. Though they do not say anything, I know they are counting on me to make him change his mind. But I can't speak at all. I am too choked up.

When Abdelkarim first started giving me lessons, he did not foresee that we would progress so rapidly. We work in the morning, when it's still cool, and again in the afternoon, reviewing the morning lesson. Every day he is surprised at my resolve, and every day I am determined to forge ahead as I race toward a still invisible goal. When I reach it I will be saved. From what? All I know is I must keep racing ahead, which constantly reminds me of my footrace with Jasim. That evening, poised on the edge of the roof, I felt in less danger than now, when I am terrified of falling into a bottomless pit if I take just one step back …

Jasim often complained about his schoolmasters, who corrected students' mistakes by hitting them on their shaved heads with a stick. But Abdelkarim, with his great contempt for ignorant women, never gets annoyed when I forget to put in the accents, or when I mix up the forms of the letters at the beginning of a word with those that go in the middle or at the end. Oh, those letters that change completely with their position in a word, like dunes in the wind!

Once, he looked up from the writing board and smiled. “Before coming here, I saw myself inspiring crowds with the beauties of religion, and in my mind I saw crowds of men, only men,” he said. “But God tests our pride. It could be that I was sent to this city to teach the alphabet to a girl. Your perseverance is a sign.”

On another occasion, just once, he said to me, “You look like your mother.”

Yet he never looks at her. Well, hardly ever. I know because I always watch him out of the corner of my eye when she is near us, sitting at her loom— or grinding barley grains with a millstone until her hands are completely covered with a feathery, white dust that forms light-colored circles on her black veil.

Today Abdelkarim remains silent for a long time. Standing against the door, I wait for him to make up his mind.

“So, you think I should leave the city too?” he asks.

“What other solution is there? It's a great stroke of luck that the ceremony is taking place,” I answer. “That way you'll be able to leave without anyone noticing you. It will be better for us.”

“Have you ever been to this women's festival?” “Me? No. Until now, they never wanted to include me. All I know is, when they return, they always look happy. My father says it purges them of all their demons, and that men ought to find a way of doing the same!”

But soon something else worries him. “Those Tuaregs that Bilkisu mentioned, can they be trusted?” he asks.

I nod. “They are Iforhas. Their encampment is next to those tall stones that I am sure you know, stones so old that it is a mystery who put them there. Aïshatou sometimes goes there at daybreak and stretches out on the stones. She says they tell her secrets about the future. The Iforhas' blacksmiths have the same abilities as her. They know the language of the stones and formulas for curing people. And
they respect Aïshatou as one of their own. If she asks them to take you to a safe place, they won't betray you.”

He sighs. “When will we have to leave?”

“That depends on the moon. It could be tomorrow night.”

“So this will be our last lesson.”

With a heavy heart, I pick up the board propped against the wall and sit down next to him. We work nonstop, until the little room becomes dark and our eyes are so tired the lines blur. Then my teacher stands up and stretches his fingers. Mine are numb from so much writing. But we've gone through the entire alphabet.

“You've made enormous progress in a very short period of time. It's a shame we have to stop now. I hope you won't let your mind lie fallow.”

I am reminded of a family garden in the palm grove, left abandoned by the two brothers who owned it, because they did not get along anymore. Dry grass covers the land, the dates disintegrate into dust, the lower branches of the fruit trees droop to the ground. Even the birds have stopped singing. Is that what my poor brain will look like soon?

But I don't dare tell him about my fears, or mention the pit that haunts my dreams and that I am terrified of falling into. I say the first thing that comes to mind, just so I can stay with him a bit longer:

“Abdelkarim, does your family own much land in the palm grove?”

“They used to, but now I don't know. I am not very interested in agriculture. Does your father own much land?”

I shake my head. “Just enough to give us some fruit. My father prefers to put his money into his business, with associates whom he trusts in Kano and Istanbul. He says trade brings in more money. And also …”

I feel embarrassed.

“And also?” Abdelkarim prompts. “My father doesn't like the idea of owning slaves. Here, if you own a lot of land, you have to have slaves, for farming, for repairing the irrigation ditches which bring the springwater into the gardens, for picking up fertilizer, for performing all those tasks that the people of Ghadames consider beneath their dignity.”

Abdelkarim seems surprised. “So your father doesn't own slaves, unlike all the great families here?”

“No, he doesn't. Even my mother couldn't make him change his mind.” I feel I should explain. “He has often told us how he resolved never to own slaves during his first trip across the Sahara with his uncle. They found two skeletons at the edge of the road, whitened by the sun, two women whose hands were tied with rope. You could still see their earrings and their dresses in tatters. They must have been very young when they died because their teeth were in perfect condition, absolutely intact.

“My father was horrified. As a child he had become accustomed to seeing slaves in the streets and the gardens of Ghadames. But now, for the first time, he realized what it was like to be torn away from one's family, thrown on the roads, and taken to unknown lands with no hope of returning.
He vowed to himself never to be the cause of such misfortune and he has kept his word. He has never bought or sold a human being.”

Abdelkarim looks at me pensively. “You admire your father a lot.”

“Oh, yes! He has ideas that my uncles don't have. He is always interested in new things. And he talks to me as though I were a grown-up.”

Abdelkarim smiles. “But you'll soon be a grown-up.” Then his gaze darkens. “I wish I could meet your father. It's a pity I have to leave.”

The following day, they give me the task of bringing Abdelkarim a large, neatly folded piece of black cloth.

“This is an armor that will protect you from your enemies,” I say solemnly.

Abdelkarim looks at me, frowning. Is he already angry? Bilkisu lectured me at length: “Whatever you do, don't use the word
veil
. Avoid it like the plague! He must not feel insulted or think that you're making fun of him!” Bilkisu repeated this advice over and over again. I am doing my best. My jaws are aching from suppressing any semblance of a smile.

But to my astonishment, in the space of a night he has gotten used to an idea that infuriated him a day ago, and this morning he is as gentle as a lamb.