The Pact We Made

by Layla AlAmmar

  14

  Hunting for Teeth

  The reader’s palms were orange. Not ochre, or sienna, or some other quasi-romantic sounding tint. Orange. Like a particularly ginger orangutan. They were black where the henna had seeped into the cracks in her skin, like sticky tar or a fresh tattoo. And the smell of it. My God, the henna smell burst from her skin with each movement of her long, bony hands. Wafts of that cloying scent climbed up and into my nostrils to gather like a cloud at the front of my mind.

  An orange cloud, with black veins. Like the sky after the war when the oil fields were still burning.

  Zaina was speaking to the old woman, Um Dawood, in low, nearly reverent tones, but I wasn’t listening. Quranic verses lined the wall opposite me. Short verses, longer ones, all swirling lines and sharp accents. I recognized the more familiar ones, traced their letters in my mind, let them dance silently on my tongue. They were embroidered on tapestries, etched in mirrors, and burned into wood. It seemed nothing else was allowed on the walls. In the corner was an old TV set on a teetering glass and metal table that matched the coffee table before me.

  Um Dawood ignored Zaina, only giving the occasional insha’ Allah or nod in response to whatever was said. She spread a green cloth over the table; gold tassels dangled over the edge and tickled my knees. I should have worn a longer dress. I wondered if she found it offensive. Her smoky black eyes had passed over me benignly when we’d arrived, but they soon began darting little glances that pinched my bare legs.

  She smoothed the cloth, her fingers like withered carrots stretching my way, sending another wave of that oily scent. I turned my face, meeting Zaina’s eyes. She smiled, but it was tight and pinched, like she was the one about to get her future read. She had nothing to be nervous about. Her future was secure, a book whose last page she’d read several times over.

  ‘Ya Allah.’ Um Dawood sighed, reaching up to adjust the black hijab draped loosely over her head. The hair that peeked through was burgundy, with tell-tale henna stains in the part. The stench was overwhelming, poking at my gag reflex.

  As if on cue, a maid entered with a stainless steel tray that she set before us. On it were two handle-less coffee cups, small enough for a cupped palm. They and the saucers they sat on were a stained and dulled white with no embellishment or decor. They’d been used many times. I welcomed the strong scent of the Turkish brew as it overrode the henna, leaning in and taking a deep breath.

  She was not a woman of many words. Um Dawood only extended a hand to indicate I should begin drinking. I was surprised to find my hand shook; the fenjal rattled against the saucer, coffee threatening to spill over. I looked to Zaina again, but she was blowing on the surface of her own coffee. I pursed my lips to do the same, but Um Dawood stopped me with three rapid tsks of her tongue. When I looked up, she shook her head and motioned again that I should drink. I winced as the first sip seared me, the bitter coffee latching onto my tongue.

  ‘Shway shway,’ she said, shifting in her straight-backed chair. ‘Take your time.’

  I’m not a fan of Turkish coffee, but I could be obedient, so I sat quietly, letting my gaze wander around the room while I sipped the tarry liquid. The grounds were already coating my tongue, gritty and dry. Zaina tried again to engage Um Dawood in conversation, and the old woman was more receptive, lamenting the dry winter, recounting the number of girls in my ‘situation’ who’d come to her the past few months, boasting about her well-trained third eye.

  ‘I was eight when I read my first fenjal for Mama, Allah yer’hemha,’ she said, tapping an orange and black finger against the wooden arm of her chair and looking up at the ceiling. I followed her gaze, only half listening. ‘I saw a dust storm, huge clouds of dirt blowing towards the center.’ There was a mount in the ceiling for a chandelier, a white, circular eye with a pocket. Wires dangled from the hole, looking for something to illuminate. ‘Anything near the center means it will happen presently, insha’ Allah. “Shoofee, shoofee,” I said to her. “A storm is coming.” The next morning, bah!’ She swiped her palms across one another with a thwacking sound. ‘You could see nothing. Blinded by dust.’

  ‘My God,’ Zaina said, turning to me with an awed expression, though I didn’t think predicting a dust storm in Kuwait required much in the way of prescience.

  ‘Your predictions are very specific,’ I said, wanting to take a sip of water to wash down the grinds, but wary of getting another set of tsks.

  I got them anyway. Um Dawood sat forward and shot me a rapid half-dozen of them. ‘I make no predictions,’ she said, wagging a pruney finger. ‘I’m not a witch.’ She turned to Zaina, thin lips drooping into a frown, eyelids buckling over kohl-rimmed eyes. ‘Did Um Humoud say I deal in magic? There’s no magic here!’ She made that swiping motion again with her palms.

  ‘No, no, of course not,’ Zaina said, sending me an accusatory glance. I looked down into my coffee. ‘She said nothing of the kind. Of course not. Allah protect us from such devilry.’

  Um Dawood scrutinized us for a long moment, her glare darting between us like a ping-pong ball. Finally, she seemed satisfied and relaxed her face. I tipped my cup towards her, showing her that it was empty but for the soupy sediment at the bottom. She nodded and plucked the saucer from my lap, laying it on the rim of the fenjal. ‘Now, three times, at the chest,’ she said, demonstrating for me. I followed suit, holding the cup and saucer at my chest and moving it in three horizontal circles. I felt silly, but it would have been bad to laugh. When I was done, she took the items and flipped them over, setting them back down on the cloth to let the coffee grounds slide down the sides of the cup and into the saucer. She placed a large silver coin on the upturned bottom. I wasn’t sure why. Then, she leaned back in her seat with another sigh. Talking time was over.

  Tasseography. That’s what it’s called. And despite Um Dawood’s vehement denial, it is a form of divination. I’d looked it up the day before. I liked to be prepared. And so, I knew about dividing the cup into positive and negative halves; I knew certain practitioners didn’t believe the cups could divine things more than forty days into the future (perhaps Um Dawood was one of them); and I knew about the present and future sections she’d mentioned.

  She removed the coin, touching the sides of the fenjal to test its temperature. Satisfied, she turned the cup over, tipping it my way as she gazed into it. The coffee grounds had coated the sides in wavy lines – thick and thin, weaving up and down around the inside, like a Joy Division poster. Arches like domed crescents leapfrogged around the rim. Sediment remained at the bottom, murky and chocolate brown.

  Um Dawood shook her head with a clicking of her tongue. ‘So dark.’ Surely I couldn’t be blamed if the brand of coffee was too strong. I glanced at Zaina, but her attention was on the old woman. ‘If you keep looking, the lines will take shapes. They will tell you who you are, what your life is. Events can begin to make sense, perspective can be found.’

  I remained skeptical, but Zaina was enjoying the show, leaning forward, hands on knees as though the reading was for her.

  ‘Ah, see here now,’ Um Dawood said, pointing to the bottom of the cup. ‘Shapes are coming, triangles, maybe angels. Very good.’ She nodded, holding the fenjal steady. ‘Animals. Many animals. And ants!’ She pointed at an indistinct cluster of grounds. ‘Ants are hard workers, very determined.’ I glanced at Zaina again. No reaction. I should have brought Yousef; I’d have at least gotten an eye-roll off him. ‘Hmm,’ she continued, peering this way and that, examining the cup from all sides. ‘There are quarrels, I think. See these?’ She pointed at a section of lines that had oozed together into some globular shape. ‘Cats. Definitely the backs and tails of cats. Whiskers, too. There are quarrels in your life. Wavy lines indicate instability, uncertainty.’ Zaina glanced over at me, eyes popping. Um Dawood tsked again, shaking her head at the cup.

  ‘That looks like a horse,’ Zaina offered, pointing at the goopy bottom.

  ‘Many animals,’ the old woman repli
ed with a nod. She cackled, startling us. ‘Horses, cats, ants. You’ve given me a zoo!’ Zaina laughed a little nervously, but I only smiled, smothering an urge to apologize. ‘Horse; yes, there’s a horse. It means you are strong and independent, but it can get you in trouble. Look at these cats.’

  ‘There’s a bear,’ she added after a moment, eyes snapping up to meet mine. ‘Think carefully about what you’re planning to do.’

  ‘What are you planning to do?’ Zaina asked me with a confused look.

  I shook my head at the pair of them. ‘Nothing.’ Um Dawood was unconvinced, I saw that immediately.

  Her beady eyes narrowed into little black-rimmed marbles of scrutiny. ‘There will be trouble ahead. You must think carefully on your course of action.’ I wondered if she could see into me. If her third eye had popped clear open. I wondered if she could read my mind.

  ‘I thought you didn’t make predictions,’ I whispered, forcing my eyes to stay on hers. She said nothing, but a storm kicked up on her face, a cloud passing over her thin brows. She studied me for a long moment, the cup and its globs and lines forgotten in her hand.

  A door opened down the hall, and the melodic tone and elongated syllables of Quranic recitation spilled into the hall. Zaina and I jumped at the sudden sound. It was a man’s voice, a recording rather than someone reading live, I thought; but it was loud and shrill and Um Dawood withered a bit in its presence – almost like it reminded her of the nature of her work.

  She refocused on the fenjal. ‘There is a beetle, yes, indicative of a difficult task. Ants and the horse show you to be strong and determined; this may be of help to you. But I would beware the bear.’ She glanced up at me again, eyes hard and unforgiving. ‘These triangles may be the spokes of a wheel, indicating change or progress. Perhaps you will be successful in your plans.’ There was a note of finality there, and she returned the cup to the saucer, ignoring the mucky grounds that had pooled there.

  ‘All right,’ I said, unwilling to argue.

  ‘Is that all?’ Zaina asked.

  She spread her hands. ‘The cup says no more.’

  ‘All right,’ I repeated, turning to Zaina with a shrug. I made a move to stand. ‘Well … thank you. This was very … interesting.’

  The smile didn’t sit comfortably on Um Dawood’s face. It twitched like it was trying to run away. ‘Would you like to open your heart before you leave?’

  I slumped back in my seat. ‘Sorry?’

  She leaned forward and placed her right thumb in the goop left on the saucer and gave it a small clockwise turn. There was an impression left behind; a thumbprint, surely, but with spikes like fire sparks going off the end. ‘Do the same for the bottom of the fenjal,’ she said, ‘and I can tell you the feelings you have deep in your belly, the things you hide behind your heart, the things no one can see.’ Her voice was low, steady, and sure. It pierced me. I couldn’t breathe in that air.

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t think—’

  ‘Yella,’ Zaina interrupted, nudging my arm. ‘It’s the last thing, and we’re here so you might as well.’

  The twitchy smile returned to Um Dawood’s face. The reciter ended a verse and started a new one; I heard the turning of the page on the recording. Extending my arm, I dipped my right thumb into the mouth of the cup until I hit sediment, then quickly gave it a 90-degree turn. She stared at the resulting shape for a long time, all unwavering eyes and firm lines. To me the shape was as unremarkable and indistinct as the others. I saw nothing in it. I told myself I saw nothing in her. She was a fraud, as phony as everyone else.

  Finally, she looked up at me, eyes dark and confident. ‘Horses are strong and ants may be determined, but neither is known for its bravery.’

  ‘I mean, she basically called me a coward,’ I complained as we climbed into my car.

  It was dinnertime, the acidic rumbling in my stomach said so, and I resented Zaina for dragging me there. I hadn’t eaten much of anything that day – an orange, a couple of crackers, a spoon of rice and yoghurt – and the Turkish coffee wasn’t sitting well, churning in my gut. There was a bitter taste in my mouth and my tongue was dry.

  ‘I don’t think that’s what she was saying,’ Zaina murmured as she buckled her seatbelt.

  ‘Why are you defending her?’

  ‘I’m not.’

  I repeated what Um Dawood had said, that ridiculous thing about horses and ants, doing my best to mimic her gravelly whine. ‘What does that even mean? It’s a load of crap. I can’t believe you brought me to such a quack.’

  ‘She’s supposed to be really good,’ she mumbled, fiddling with the radio as I pulled into traffic.

  The highway was bumper to bumper. It was always bumper to bumper, giving plenty of time for in-car arguments and road rage-fueled venting. Zaina hit SEEK over and over, running through all the stations, and I gritted my teeth and fought the urge to slap her hand away.

  ‘So, you agree with her, then? I’m a coward.’ It didn’t matter that I may have thought it; I didn’t want to hear it confirmed.

  ‘She wasn’t saying that.’

  ‘My ears are connected to my brain, same as everyone else, and that’s exactly what she said, Zaina. And stop that, please!’

  She returned her hands to her lap, folding them primly over the smooth fabric of her skirt, and looked out the window. The cars were backed up all the way to our exit, at least half a kilometer away. Too long for us to remain silent. I felt an urge to argue, to assert something, to wrestle some sort of acquiescence from her. I tried to ignore it, to redirect my anger to Um Dawood where it rightly belonged. That old hag, with her henna palms and greasy hair and her fingers like rotting vegetables, sitting there talking about me like she knew me, like she knew anything about my life.

  ‘What are you planning to do?’ Zaina asked, her voice low under the heavy bass coming out of the radio.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘She said you were planning to do something – what is it?’

  I snorted and pressed SEEK until I got to a station with talking. ‘Was that the cats or a koala, maybe?’

  ‘It was the bear. She said it meant you were planning something.’ She turned to me, and I could feel her gaze.

  I darted my eyes to her then back to the road. ‘You don’t really believe her, do you? She’s a quack! Who knows what she was talking about?’

  ‘But she said you were planning something; that’s very specific.’

  ‘Is it?’ I scoffed. ‘Who isn’t planning something, Zaina? I’m thinking of going away to school, you’re planning to have another baby, Nadia’s planning a vacation. Everyone’s thinking about doing something.’

  ‘You were serious about that – about school, I mean?’

  ‘Maybe,’ I replied with a shrug. We’d barely moved and I tapped my fist on the horn impatiently. It wouldn’t make the cars go, but it would make me feel better. I told her about the talk with my parents and their reaction and how things had ended.

  ‘Wow,’ she said when I was done. Understatement of the century, I thought. ‘Well, they always say no at first; you can try again later.’

  I shrugged again, trying to move one lane over. I never drove in the Emergency lane; I hated it when people did that, but I was starving and mad and didn’t want to talk. The radio was on Voice of America, and there was a man talking about ISIS, the US response, video beheadings, and a world gone madder than usual. It was a crossfire-type show, the opposing side talking about how an Arab problem required an Arab solution. ‘Thousands are dying,’ the man said, ‘and you want to wait for the Arabs to agree on something?’ The other one, a conservative by the sound of it, was indignant, like they were talking about something terribly personal – ‘Why should our men and women continue to die while they sit around twiddling their thumbs?’

  It’s hard to argue with that.

  If Zaina and I started talking about it, she’d use it as a teaching moment. ‘Remember that picture I sent you of the dead kids?’ she�
��d say, a deep frown etched into her face, made deeper by the night and console lights and shadows. ‘Or the one with the children in school with the hole in their chalkboard from a bomb?’ I would nod even if I wasn’t sure exactly what picture she was talking about. ‘I mean, we’re so lucky. Imagine if I had to worry about that every time I sent my baby to school.’ She’d shake her head, twirl her wedding band around her finger, and murmur a quick Hamdilla or prayer to Allah to keep such catastrophes far, far away from us. I would nod through it all and agree with her, because how could you not? We were lucky. Our lives were stable.

  I was too young to remember the war as our family, like many others, had been on summer vacation at the time. But for years after the liberation, alarm sirens would blare out across the city. There would be a warning of an impending system test, but I didn’t always know about it. Still, even on those days when I hadn’t been told, I never took it seriously. For some reason I always assumed it was a test. I mean, Iraq was no longer a threat, and Saddam had been returned to the role of the crazy cousin at the barbecue that no one talks to. What was there to be afraid of? I remember once though, maybe ten years after the war had ended, I had been in bed sketching when the alarm wailed. It startled me and I lost control of my line, the pen zig-zagging to the edge of the page like an erratic, inky lightning bolt. I was still far too jumpy then, always sensing danger at the slightest sound or a shadow of movement. I felt the anxiety snowball as the siren screamed on, and I covered my head with my hands, like that brace position they show you on airplanes. On and on it went, louder then softer, closer then further. And I remember thinking, God help people who live like this every day.

  Yes, we were lucky, but if you weren’t supposed to feel sad because other people had it worse, then you couldn’t really be happy either, could you?

  My stomach let out a mighty roar, a plaintive cry that vibrated my insides.