by Malka Marom
Wallah, the two wives had to muster all their courage even just to urge the intruding woman-stranger, “Quick-fast, give your breast to the infant-girl. Let the infant suck your nipple once-twice. For that is all that is required of a woman to become the infant’s mother third-removed,” they explained. “The infant’s mother is first-removed, the first wife is second-removed, and now, Inshallah, you will be third-removed. Quick-fast now, give your breast to the girl-infant, for no stranger is allowed to be here.”
The woman-stranger understood not a word the two wives said. Or so it appeared.
“You have to feed words to a stranger wahada-wahada—one by one,” the child-boy said. That was what El Bofessa had told him, said the boy.
But even when the two wives fed their words to the woman-stranger wahada-wahada, she did not seem to understand. She would not uncover her breasts.
“Perhaps she has no breasts. Wallah, woe to us if this stranger is a man,” the first wife said. Then, just as she reached over to tear open her shirt, the woman-stranger withdrew, looking startled, even afraid, and as if the woman-stranger thought the Badawia wives to be monster-demons.
And so to assure the woman-stranger that they meant no harm—and to show her what was required, for her own good as well as for theirs—first, the girl-wife gave her breast to her infant-girl; then, the older wife; and then they passed the infant-girl to the woman-stranger. And wahada-wahada, they told the woman-stranger to do the very same thing.
Now finally the woman-stranger understood, or so she said. But in the strangest way of speaking: the woman-stranger laughed. Then she explained that she could not help but laugh because she was familiar with all sorts of greetings: shaking hands, kissing, and even rubbing noses, she had heard of, and of greetings like passing a pipe. But never of a greeting like passing an infant from breast to breast.
Let her think it is the way we Badu greet, the two wives decided. Later on, Inshallah, they would correct her thinking. It did not surprise the two wives that the infant-girl would not take to the breasts of the woman-stranger, for the woman-stranger’s smell was fragrant yet repulsive. Still, the infant was coaxed to suck the nipple once, twice, if not three times—which was more than was required for her to be the infant’s mother, third-removed. And so the two wives said, “Bas—enough,” and they took the infant from the lap of the converted woman-stranger.
“Mabrouka! Mabrouka!—May you be blessed!” the two wives and the Badu child-boy kept repeating, for they thought Allah was not accustomed to blessing strangers. And also not accustomed yet to her—the woman-stranger—being a close member of the family, the clan.
To welcome her into the clan now, the wives brewed only tea, for the last of the coffee to brew Honour was down in the maq’ad. And she, the stranger-no-stranger, said El Bofessa would think she had lost her way in the mountains if she did not return to the maq’ad soon. So there was not enough time to prepare for her a feast.
Quick-fast Abu Salim’s wives began to brew the tea. And to their amazement, just as quick and fast, the stranger-no-stranger began to heap upon them questions, the likes of which the two wives had never heard, questions like: How do two wives and one husband make love? Three at once, or two and one watching, or withdrawing to the other tent? . . .
“Ayb—shameful, not proper,” said the older wife, Azzizah.
So now the stranger-no-stranger asked: How do two wives divide the household chores? Does each wife have equal standing, or does the first wife rule over the second, or is it the other way around? And does your husband favour one wife over the other? Does he have enough to satisfy both your needs? Are you not jealous of each other? Did you, yourselves, sew, bead, embroider your beautiful veils, dresses, jewellery? Where do you buy the cloth, the beads, your food? . . .
“It is not proper to ask questions,” the first wife replied to all her prying.
Such ignorance the Badawia woman had never seen. Even more than the child-boy, the woman-stranger-no-stranger lacked manners and discretion. The poor woman, the first wife thought, the poor woman would soon be divorced, if she is not divorced already. For surely not even a stranger-man would remain married to a woman so ignorant, unmannered, indiscreet, immodest, unruly, and . . . lazy. The senior wife had never seen a woman with such lazy-looking hands. The skin of her hands was almost as soft as the infant’s. This woman-stranger-no-stranger was obviously too lazy to even carry water and gather wood, the first wife thought, the burden of her workload fell, no doubt, on a kinswoman who took pity on her, for obviously she was ill-fated—until today.
It was all the work of Fate, the older wife was convinced of that now. Just as the child-boy was fated to be possessed by demons, the woman-stranger-no-stranger was fated to be where she was, and who she was—deficient, lacking in everything but bounty in her inner eyes. And so the senior wife told her, “It was the dictate of almighty Fate, Wallah, that compelled you to enter our tents, which is very fortunate for us, as well as for you and El Bofessa. For our men would have been bound to punish us all had there been anything any mortal could do but submit to Fate.”
“How would your men have punished you, me, and El Bofessa?” said the woman-stranger-no-stranger.
“You will see, yaa-Rabb, if you disclose to anyone even the shape of my bracelet,” the Badawia replied. “Swear on the life of the rain that for as long as you live you will not reveal to anyone what you see here and what you have seen, what you hear and what you have heard, and not even what you smell or sense—now, before, and until you leave—not unless or until you are permitted to do so by my husband, my brother, my son, or his son’s son.”
“Why?” the woman-stranger-no-stranger was still at her questions.
“Swear!” the first wife demanded in a voice so alarming that the stranger-no-stranger’s voice trembled when she said, “I swear.”
“On the life of the rain,” said the first wife.
“On the life of the rain,” repeated the woman-stranger-no-stranger, her voice trembling still.
“But surely the woman-stranger-no-stranger can reveal that she is invited to visit-stay in our tents whenever she so desires,” said the girl-wife, for she was as curious about the woman-stranger-no-stranger as the woman-stranger-no-stranger was about her.
Abu Salim’s first wife thought it was only proper to invite the woman-stranger-no-stranger now. And so she told the stranger-no-stranger, “You must come and visit-stay with us for a week, a month, even a year. And this you can reveal to anyone you wish, but only this invitation, not who invited you. And if El Bofessa asks you, Where is the Badu child? tell him: Safe and sound in Abu Salim’s tents.”
The mountains echoed the tooting of the horn just then. And the girl-wife said, “Children must be playing in the maq’ad with El Bofessa’s Land-Rover.” For the girl-wife wished the woman-stranger-no-stranger would not leave as yet, and the first wife also wished she would stay. But the two wives knew the woman-stranger-no-stranger was right when she said El Bofessa was sounding a direction for her to return to.
And so, while the first wife pinned onto the shirt of the woman-stranger-no-stranger an amulet to ward off the evil eye, the girl-wife picked from the fire a twig burning at one end only. Then with her fingers the girl-wife rubbed the glowing ashes at that end—rubbed and rubbed until that end came to a fine point. She then dipped the fine point into a vial of kohl dust and said to the woman-stranger-no-stranger, “Give me your eyes, your inner eyes.”
The first wife, afraid the fine point would harm the woman’s inner eyes, held steady the stranger-no-stranger’s face with both hands. And now the woman-stranger-no-stranger, groaning in pain, tried to wrestle her face free. But the first wife, not realizing how strong her hands were, and how rough and hard from hard work, released her hold and said, “You do not trust me, I see.”
“Oh, you mean this is a ritual of trust—or of parting? In greeting, you women p
ass an infant from breast to breast, and in parting you kohl eyes?” said the woman-stranger-no-stranger.
Abu Salim’s wives laughed and laughed.
Professor Russell tooted the horn of his Land-Rover as soon as he returned to the maq’ad after searching high and low for Abu Salim—only to find there neither Nura nor the Badu child.
Their blood would be on his head if any harm were to befall them, Russell knew. Frantic now, he went to look for them. Again he searched and searched. And when he could not find them, he tooted and tooted, until Leora reappeared—without the Badu child-boy.
“What happened to the boy? Where is the Badu child-boy?” asked Russell.
“The child-boy is safe in Abu Salim’s tents,” Leora replied.
“What?! The forbidden tents?! The women’s tents?!” Professor Russell was livid. For all the way to Abu Salim’s maq’ad, he had told Leora how they, and even their descendants for five generations, would be punished if Leora were to enter these tents that the mountain Badu forbid all strangers to enter. “Where is your brain! Your ears! Why did you not listen to me?” Russell asked Leora, more angry and afraid than ever in his life.
“I cannot tell unless I am granted permission by Abu Salim, his sons, or his sons’ sons,” Nura replied. And not another word would she tell Professor Russell about the forbidden tents.
As soon as Abu Salim and the men returned to the tents, the child-boy told them everything—just as the wives had thought he would.
BOOK I
The Desert
CHAPTER 1
August 14, 1978
Kfar Sabba, Israel
“Who is it? Who is it?” my mother answered when I rang the bell. Her voice was full of sleep; my parents start their nap earlier with each advancing year.
“It’s me, Leora.”
“Wake up . . . The girl-child is here . . . Quick-fast . . . Come on,” I hear her saying to my father in the bedroom. As if every second is precious when the “girl-child” makes a flying visit.
“The girl-child is here alone,” I tell them. But still they keep me waiting outside their front door; they don’t want me to see them without their teeth. I return my key to the holdall and wait—outside the same door, in the same corner where I had first kissed Arik in such heat of love, branded my passion just under his jaw. For days I walked around blushing while Arik, beaming, craned his neck for all to see how crazy about him was the girl he was courting . . . Feels like a lifetime has passed since then; yet, at the same time, it feels like only a month has gone by since that evening.
My parents have yet to open the door, and already being back home warps time. Mind you, if I were to count the days I’ve actually been here since I left home, nearly a quarter of a century ago, they would probably add up to no more than one or two years, three maximum.
I manage to sneak a good hug before my parents pull away from my embrace. And right away, as if the world is on fire, my father brews tea in the old aluminium feenjon and my mother pulls from the pantry the old Frumin cookie tin. As soon as she opens the lid, the apartment is permeated with the primal feel of home; of life first lived.
“Go get the cups, my child,” I can almost hear my mother saying, just like she used to in the dilapidated one-room farm house in Kfar Sabba—my childhood home. So, I go to get the cups, but as I approach the cupboard, my mother tells me, “Sit down, my child. You are a guest.”
One by one, she sets on the table the mismatched remnants of the old special-occasion set of dishes. Then she gives me a quick appraisal. I must look terrific if she spits behind her back to ward off the evil eye of envy.
“What do you think of that, Arik?” my father says inside. I see the glint in his eye as he turns to look at the all-too-enlarged and grainy old photo that’s been hanging on the wall for the past twenty years—of Arik, forever smiling, forever young, framed in mourning-black.
Below it—pressed under glass on top of the credenza—Arik, forever happy in the faded photos, is surrounded by snapshots of the whole family, a few friends, and one of our old neighbours, pointing to the havoc the Tommies wreaked on our shack the night they stormed in to search for the skeleton children and grownups who had escaped from There.
Illegal immigrants, the Tommies called them, but my parents called them uncles, aunts, cousins. “Even if they visit only for an hour, keep it secret,” my parents told me, so I kept it secret, locked it deep inside, even though my parents hadn’t hidden anyone from the Tommies that night—except their guns, secreted in the hollow legs of the kitchen table. That table is the only thing the Tommies didn’t tear apart.
“A Goiyishe copp,” my mother said in Yiddish, after the Tommies left that night.
“Don’t be smug,” my father told her in Hebrew. “Woe to the smug of Zion.”
“What means ‘Goiyishe copp’?” I asked my parents.
“You see what you are teaching the child,” my father said to my mother. Still angry, he advised me, “Don’t ever underestimate the Goiyim—the Gentiles—or you will end up like The Millions There.”
So, the next time the Tommies stormed into our house, I didn’t underestimate them. I am trembling only because the Tommies search and destroy late at night, and I awaken to their smashing, tearing, and shouting. And my father is not at home—now, during the curfew, of all times. The Tommies know my father is in the Underground. They’ll hang him on the gallows, I think, and I tremble even more.
My glance goes to my mother. She is pretending that the illegal uncle hiding in our house is my father. So I also pretend. And when she plops me on his knee, I snuggle up to him as if he were my father. I can’t tell if it’s his fear or mine that trembles through his knees, his chest, his arms.
Yet my mother says to the Tommies, “Look at how you are frightening the child.”
The Tommies don’t understand Hebrew, but they do understand trembling and shaking. They look at me as if I am afraid of them. That’s what they like to see—a Jew scared shitless. Every child in The Land knows that. How can my mother reduce me to that, I think, and now I pretend there is a valve in my throat. I close it and it blocks my tears—but not my trembling.
So now the Tommies suspect that the illegal uncle is not my father, and they bark, “Papers! Papers!” which, in English, means a card that says who you are.
I don’t know why the Tommies grab him and my mother. The valve in my throat bursts open, so I hide my tears in my mother’s dress, and with all my might I cling to her. But the Tommies tear me away from her with such force that my head hits the cupboard, stars pop into my eyes, and waves roar in my ears as if a couple of conch shells are clamped to them.
“You killed my girl-child! Murderers! Nazis!” my mother shouts over the waves.
“Shurrup! You bloody bitch! You bloody Jew!” shout the Tommies.
“Nazis! . . . Nazis! . . .” my mother yells from very far away.
Next thing I know, I’m in my neighbour’s house, lying on a cot, a compress on my forehead. The neighbour’s face looks troubled, sad, worried.
“The Tommies took my mother to There, the ghettos, the death trains, the death camps, didn’t they? It’s all my fault, my fault,” I say.
“No. No. Hush. Hush,” says the neighbour. She is even a better mother than my mother. Her puddings are better and she hides no illegal uncles, or guns . . .
The only thing my mother tries to hide this afternoon is how incapacitating she finds the pain caused by the arthritis in her knees. Try as she might, though, she can’t get up from the chair as she does on her better days—by pressing her hands on the table top and hoisting herself, sort of like a push up. My father has to help her today. But no matter what toll the years exact on her, in my eyes she is the fearless heroic giant she was even the night the Tommies dragged her to prison—the night the neighbour who took me in had served a pudding better than my mother’s . . .
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When this neighbour went out to work, she took me over to another neighbour, whose puddings were even better, and song after song she sang, much better than my mother. All the neighbours were so much better mothers than my mother. I want to stay with them. But when my father came home from work, he said we should give our neighbours a rest.
Before I sleep, I wish: Let the Tommies detain my mother for another day at least. Then I hide under the blanket so that God will not find me and strike me dead, not just for that wish but for meeting Ahmed in the meadow as well—the meadow that rolls between his Arab hometown, Qalqiliya, and my Jewish hometown, Kfar Sabba.
“I have no grandfather—and not a grandmother also,” I once told Ahmed in that meadow. “We Yahodi children have no grandparents.”
“Everyone has one grandfather and one grandmother, and many—even bastards—have two of each,” said Ahmed.
“You mean picture grandparents, not real grandparents,” said I.
“What means ‘picture grandparents’?” asks Ahmed.
“‘Picture grandparents,’” I explain, “means ‘grandparents who hang on the wall, and even when framed in silver or gold, they make your mother very sad and your father very angry with God.’ It will kill him, my mother says; ‘Have faith,’ she tells him; so, with faith, he goes to check the lists, but—”
“What means ‘lists’?”
“Names, one under the other, all from There,” I say, which is not even the half of what “lists” means, but Ahmed doesn’t even know what “There” means.
“Where?” he asks me. And I try to explain, but every second word he asks me, “What means . . . ?” and I cannot explain even half of what each word means, so these words are only words to him. Meaningless.
A train is a train to Ahmed, but not to me. To me it is There, and Here, and deep inside myself in a locked compartment that shakes and shakes, especially when my father comes home after work and says to my mother, “Nothing . . .” Again he could find no one in the lists; I know, every night after work he goes to check the lists, every night he comes home and tells my mother, “Nothing.” Then he gets angry with God, so angry it will kill him.