by Malka Marom
“No! Tammam! You are not taking off my veil . . . You are not . . . No!”Azzizah, protesting and laughing, retreats from Tammam.
“Yes, I am.” Tammam, laughing, keeps advancing toward Azzizah, who keeps laughing-protesting-retreating in circles. You cannot help but sense now how these two Badawia co-wives trust and respect each other, how intimate their bond, how attuned one is to the other.
Tammam wouldn’t grab Azzizah until Azzizah allowed her to do so, and Tammam sensed that permission was indeed granted. Laughing, they both fell to the shaded ground. Tammam starts to tug at Azzizah’s face-veil—playful, as one would at a friend’s braid. Swift like a tiger cat, Azzizah grabs Tammam’s tugging hand. Tammam just as swiftly tugs with the other hand, and on they go—to little Salimeh’s delight; the child squeals as though having the time of her life—until Azzizah’s face-veil drops. Azzizah covers her face with both hands, laughing at her own inhibitions. Then Azzizah’s hands slip into Tammam’s, and the woman who is Azzizah appears.
Under her veil, Azzizah wears a silver nose-ring so heavy it elongates the slit in her nostril; blue tattoos surround her lips, and her smile reveals brown teeth like Abu Salim’s, quite a few missing. Her skin is creased by time and hardship, like her sandstone mountains assailed by the ever-blowing desert winds, yet tower in a precarious, misshapen, unique beauty, like Azzizah’s.
“Now you see how beautiful I am,” Azzizah says, her bloodshot eyes revealing she is not without vanity, vulnerability, and cunning.
“Aywa—yes,” I tell her. “I see you are endowed with beauty like your mountains, enduring. And, like your hospitality, noble, and ennobling those fortunate to see, enjoy it.”
“Wallah, how well put,” Tammam says.
“Put smooth like a man, not straight like a woman,” Azzizah mutters, half-frowning and half-loving every smooth, flattering word.
Now the Badawia co-wives secure Tammam’s face-veil by tying the tail ends of its band behind my head with a knot so tight that the veil dents the bridge of my nose and digs into my cheekbones. All the rows of coins and beads worked into the cloth block the air—the blessed desert breeze; with every breath, the cloth is sucked closer to your mouth, giving you the taste of Tammam’s salt, sweat, and saliva, the bitter nicotine she smokes, the over-sweet tea she drinks. I had no idea how this exquisite-looking veil shrinks the field of vision. This is how the Badawias eat, drink, even smoke a cigarette. For every morsel, sip, or puff, they have to tilt their heads down—as though bowing in deference. I turn my eyes upwards and see only the brim of the head veil. Looking downwards, of course, I can see the exquisite beadwork and coins. From the corners of my eyes, I can see not much farther than my elbows. So I swivel my head sideways, and the massive veils whirl centrifugally to my ear, revealing my face. That, for Tammam and Azzizah, is the equivalent of walking nude on Bloor Street, 5th Avenue, or any thoroughfare in Jerusalem. “Not proper, forbidden,” the Badawias tell me after they have a good laugh. “No part of your face is to be seen when you wear this veil.”
Do they know that I couldn’t begin to understand what they, my sisters, sense—feel—even superficially, until I got into their clothes; glimpsed into their lives from inside the veil—sister to sister—bridging the divide that has separated us since the days of Sarah and Hagar.
Now you tell me, why here in Sinai—in this remote forbidden compound—and not in The Land, Ahmed and I—his people and mine, Arabs and Jews, like Azzizah, Tammam, and me.
Three naïfs, Tal would say, no doubt. He can’t see an Arab, even an Arab child, without seeing an enemy. An Arab child led one of his friends straight to a minefield. Naïvety can kill you in this part of the world, Tal thinks, and he might be right.
We three naïfs nearly died laughing when I tried to lift my butt off the welcome-carpet. Folding your legs on the welcome carpet is relatively easy in the dresses and veils, but getting up—now, for that you need serious muscles. Abu Salim cannot get up from a welcome-carpet without hoisting his jalabeeya up to his knees. But that is forbidden for Azzizah and Tammam. They can’t reveal more than an inch or two of an ankle, and they—unlike their husband—are encumbered by face veils and back veils and shawls . . . I try rocking to gain momentum to take me up off the ground, and raise my hand like a Buddha over my head, imagining a rope is pulling me up. The Badawias, collapsing in laughter, offer me a hand, and I gladly accept.
They pull me up. Now, walking in these contraptions should be a cinch, I suppose, having seen how graceful the Badawias glide. But the back veil trailing behind me winds itself underfoot, yanking out the bobby-pins that secured it to the cone-shaped braid, that, in turn, yanked out the bobby-pins that held the unicorn horn-like braid, and the side braids which held the headband. The mass of tassels, beads, and coins came crashing to the ground, and the unicorn-horn braid flopped down over my nose. Azzizah and Tammam found each part of the chain reaction more hilarious than the last, and I, caught up in it all, clowned it up a bit.
“Not proper, forbidden,” I said imitating Azzizah and lifting the thowb—overdress—to cover my face, thereby revealing not only my ankles, but also my knees and thighs and my underpants.
The Badawias fell over, begging, “Stop . . . before we die laughing . . .”
Our laughter subsided, only to burst out again. The Badawias, wiping away laughter-tears, told me my ineptitude reminded them of the first day they had worn veils. Even after decades, Azzizah remembered that day, how constricting her veils, how cumbersome, yet how proud she felt, how eagerly she had awaited that day.
“And now, are you not encumbered by your veils?” I ask the Badawias.
“No, only some days, when I am overtired and there is no respite from the desert heat,” Azzizah replied, heaving a sigh to catch her breath in the wake of our laughter.
“We wear no veils when no men are around, and from now on we will wear no veil when you are with us,” said Tammam.
“No, forbidden,” muttered Azzizah.
“Do you cover your face with your blanket-carpet when you sleep because you do not want me to see your face unveiled?” I ask Tammam.
“No,” she replies. “I cover my face with my blanket-carpet because the torch-light by which you write to remember all night disturbs my sleep.”
“You should have told me.”
“I did.”
“True, on my first night because it was strange to you, I thought, the next night you said nothing, so I thought you did not mind it. Why didn’t you tell me it disturbed your sleep?”
“Because,” Tammam responds, “I could sense-see that you were writing to remember your loved ones—to be with them in the depth of night when sleeplessness is a torment.”
“Take the night as it comes, bit by bit,” Azzizah counsels me as she readjusts her cone-shaped braid. “Rest assured, yaa-Nura, my sister, rest assured one of your clanswomen is mothering your child-boy or child-girl.”
“The son I left at home is full grown,” I tell the Badawias.
“Cannot be,” says Azzizah.
“You cannot be more than five-seven years older than me,” says Tammam.
“How old are you?” I ask her.
“Seventeen or maybe sixteen or nineteen years old,” Tammam says. “You look twenty-three or twenty-five years old.”
“Shows you how deceiving looks are, for I am forty-one years old,” I respond.
“If you are forty-one years old than I am as old as Friday,” says Azzizah, cracking us all up.
“How old are you?” I ask Azzizah.
“Allah aref—God only knows. I lost count of the years,” Azzizah replies. “To tell you the truth, I did not menstruate for so many years because I was pregnant, or because I was breast-feeding, or because I was grieving over the loss of yet another child, or because of the drought or because of the overwork, that I do not know when I stopped menstruating bec
ause I was past my child-bearing years. Nor do I know when my teeth started to fall out because I was growing old; ya’ani—that is—past my child bearing years. For my teeth started to fall out when I was in my child bearing years . . . after I birthed my fourth or fifth child, I think it was. Or maybe after my second or third, as most women.”
“I heard people say that strangers have all sorts of potions to keep your teeth from falling,” says Tammam. Would her beautiful smile also be toothless after three or four pregnancies? There is hardly any calcium in her diet.
“Would you like to keep your teeth from falling out?” I ask Tammam.
“No, Wallah,” Tammam replies. “The more teeth you lose, the more teeth you gain.”
“True,” says Azzizah, tying her face veil back on. Then, in explanation she says, “It is only when a woman is past her child-bearing years that she has a voice—a voice almost like a man elder. A voice with teeth, ya’ani, a voice taken into consideration in matters small and big, like for example: where to tie and retie—move your encampment—when and if your waterhole runs dry.”
“And if she is seasoned wise, like Azzizah, elder men would come to her fire-circles, to take her voice into consideration.” says Tammam. “For it is forbidden for a woman, even past her child-bearing years, to sit in the maq’ad.”
“Aywa, that has been the order of things ever since anyone can remember,” says Azzizah.
“I mean no offense to your stranger-tribesmen, but I doubt it was a Badu man or woman, youth or maiden, who beat you up,” says Tammam, addressing me.
“It was neither a Badu nor a stranger but my own inexperience of desert travel by Jeep,” I tell the Badawias. “It was mostly by foot that I had travelled deserts until I first entered your tents three or four months ago.”
“Wallah, by foot, like us Badawias,” Tammam says, amazed.
“Does not amaze me to hear it,” Azzizah mutters. “Even when you first entered our encampment and stayed for but a brief moment or two, I knew you were a Badawia at heart.”
“At heart, perhaps, but not at cous—pussy,” mutters Tammam. Our laughter embraces little Salimeh, who laughs, glad to see us laughing. Laughter tears still springing from her eyes, Tammam goes on to explain: “Not at cous—pussy, because stranger-women are not circumcised. Therefore, stranger-women are ruled by their cous, not by their minds, or even their hearts . . . really. That is what my brother told me he had heard from the coastal Badu, who make love to stranger-women day and night.”
“But surely you were circumcised, yaa-Nura, like me and Tammam and my daughters and women the world over, when you were four-five years old, for I have seen you have been modest-proper, not brazen with Abu Salim,” says Azzizah.
“How were you circumcised?” I ask Azzizah.
The senior Badawia picks up little Salimeh, lifts her dress up, spreads her tiny legs apart, and, pointing to the infant’s clitoris, Azzizah replies, “This is the part that Tammam or I will circumcise when, Inshallah, little Salimeh will grow up to be four-five years old.”
“You mean, one of you will remove this part, cut it off, to circumcise little Salimeh?!” Damn the social scientists who observe female mutilation “objectively.” And if I am no better than the worst of the imperialists for imposing my sense of right and wrong on the local natives, fuck it.
“Surely that is not how you were circumcised,” Tammam says in reply, wincing from the thought of it.
“Surely, that part of your cous was but scratched with a shibriyya—a dagger—sharp and clean,” says Azzizah, “scratched to bleed off the drops of lust.”
“You mean, whoever circumcises little Salimeh will not bleed out of her the drops of love, and of her enjoyment of love-making?” I ask the Badawias.
“Ayb—shame. Wallah, what questions you ask,” Azzizah mutters. “Whoever be she who is to circumcise little Salimeh is bound to do it proper, so that little Salimeh’s horizon will not be as narrow as the narrow circumference of a she-goat cous in heat.”
“Still, even a scratch in this part must have been very painful. You were old enough to remember when you were circumcised, were you not?” I ask them.
“A boy’s circumcision is much more painful. That is why it is done when the boy is grown enough to withstand pain like a man,” says Azzizah.
“When is that?” I probe.
“When a boy is nine or ten years old, or eleven or twelve, or thirteen or fourteen, depending on the boy, and on when his clan can afford to invite everyone the desert over to the circumcision celebration,” replies the senior Badawia.
“Is a girl’s circumcision also celebrated like a boy’s?” I ask.
“You mean, your girls’ circumcisions are celebrated the same as your boys’?” Tammam asks in response.
“Cannot be,” decrees Azzizah. “Surely your circumcision was veiled.”
“Veiled?” I ask.
“Celebrated, but by only the women in your compound,” Azzizah explains, bending over the infant daughter of her junior co-wife, and the child, giggling, wiggles away from Azzizah’s kisses and kicks her ankles free of her grip. Off she crawled, sensing that the water Tammam and Azzizah were warming was not for tea, but for her bath. More playful than fearful, the child began to screech.
Then, in one well-practiced, well-coordinated move, Tammam grabbed the child and Azzizah dumped the water on her, and on Tammam as well. Both Badawias began to rub-rub-rub and tickle the child. Little Salimeh laughed and laughed, as they towelled her dry with their powerful hands.
Now, Tammam decides to take a bath. Quickly, before the bad winds get her, she takes off her jingle-jangle jewels and layers of shawls and dresses, steps on the sackcloth, and—
Splash! Azzizah empties a jerrican over Tammam, crouching on the wet sackcloth—naked now, no veils, and no pubic hair . . .
So, that’s why they had stared at my naked body, and whispered under their veils, “Yaa-salaam—good heavens . . .”
Good heavens, indeed. As if it is not enough that they circumcise—bleed the lusty woman out of themselves—and cover their womanhood in constricting veils and shawls, and don’t take a step out of their forbidden mountain-chains, but they also remove their pubic hair, as if, like Samson’s, their hair is the source of an extraordinary prowess.
Azzizah towels Tammam with her hands, rubbing-massaging this beautiful girl whom Abu Salim obviously loves. How could Azzizah not feel jealous, not show a trace of jealousy, in her eyes, in her hands. Tradition hasn’t prepared me for this: Azzizah’s foremother and mine, good old Sarah, was portrayed as a jealous bitch who bugged the life out of her husband, Abraham, until he relented to her demand that he cast Haggar into the desert, without any water and food; not only Haggar, the mother of his son Ishmael, but his son as well, when he was not much older than little Salimeh, and his son’s mother as young as Tammam.
Azzizah rolls away the wet sackcloth, squeezing it dry right, on the tent floor. Jingle-jangle—Tammam puts on the dresses and veils she loaned me. Does she have only two sets of clothes? She wouldn’t try on my clothes.
“It is forbidden,” Azzizah explained. “Your stranger-clothes are unbefitting a woman.”
“Wallah, I feel empowered by the qualities you invested in my clothes when you wore them,” Tammam exclaims, addressing me. She pins up the tent flaps with twigs like needles, and the cross breeze is heaven.
“I feel the qualities you invested in everything you gave me,” I said to her and Azzizah.
“That is why it is prudent to accept gifts only from a person of good qualities,” says Azzizah, helping Tammam comb, untangle, and braid her hair.
“Is it a custom of your clanswomen to remove their pubic hair?” I ask them. They burst out laughing, little Salimeh with them, like a monkey. I can’t open my mouth now without cracking them up. “Why are you laughing?” They howl anew. “Is it not a custo
m? Is it for beauty or health reasons that you remove your pubic hair? Is it only Tammam who removes it? How? With a razor? Wax? Burnt sugar? With what?”
Laughter.
“Do you bath once every two or three days or weeks now because of the drought?” I get off the subject of pubic hair, and now only Tammam giggles.
“Only once every two-three weeks you bathe-purify, or once every two-three days?” she asks me.
“Every day, when water is plentiful,” I reply.
“Every day you love your husband?” she asks, but good and surprised.
“Why? Do you bathe only before, and, or after you make love with your husband?” I ask, like an idiot, forgetting she shares her husband with Azzizah.
“Yaa-salaam—good heavens,” Azzizah mutters, then spits. But Tammam laughs under her veils.
“Even goats don’t love every day,” Tammam says, then bends forward, spits, and grabs a handful of sand to bury her spit like her husband does. “We Badu love proper-modest.”
“How is that?” I ask Tammam.
“Yaa-salaam—good heavens,” Azzizah mutters, then spits. But Tammam laughs.
“Did your husband tell you to bathe-purify for him tonight? Or did you wives decide that tonight will be Tammam’s turn to sleep with him?”
“Haraam, ayb—disgraceful, shameful talk. Bas—enough,” Azzizah snaps.
Silence.
My sister, a stranger . . .
“No sooner do you take off your veils, yaa-Badawias, yaa-my sisters, than you put them on again.”
“It is our veils, not our women’s talk or men’s talk, that reveal the Badawia behind the veil,” Azzizah says. “It is in our veils that you see the representation of the jewels and gems, the silver and the gold—of character, blood, bones, lineage, nobility, and other such blessed attributes, virtues, good fortune, and pepper a Badawia was blessed with—or wished she was blessed with—to spice up life, Wallah, to lift her up above the kharah—the shit, and the pubic hair.”