Sulha

by Malka Marom

  And then, one day, Tammam walks head on into the wind and Salim sees her stomach is not flat; she is pregnant. His father is not impotent. And suddenly it takes more strength than he has to control the rage and the pain that strikes a lover betrayed. By now he felt she was his territory, not his father’s. Lest he kill them both, he takes off. A month or two after he leaves home, whispers circulate in the desert that Abu Salim had not fathered a child since he fathered his son, Salim, and as soon as his new girl-wife swells up with child, his son, Salim, runs away from home and covers his tracks . . .

  Is that the way it happened? Or did it happen this way:

  Tammam, younger than Salim perhaps, but not by much, is of his generation. Both grew up in these mountains, bumped into each other when they were children tending goats. Tammam was probably a scrawny kid then, too young to wear veils, too young to shepherd goats. One goat escaped, giving Tammam chase to a deserted wadi; just as Tammam is about to catch her, the goat scrambles up a mountain crag. Salim, wearing a tattered old jalabeeya he outgrew months ago or a brand-new one that drags on the ground waits with Tammam until her escaped goat, thirsty at last, reappears. Nearly every day after that, or once a week, once a month, Salim and Tammam meet in the same deserted wadi. Child-boy and child-girl games they play, and secrets of secrets they whisper for hours, year in year out.

  Then, one day, they fall silent and avert their eyes from each other—and from a ram that is humping a goat. The she-goat shakes him off. They lock horns, back off, then lock horns again, turning round and round, round and round, kicking dust. Dizzy and winded, she climbs on top of him. He, steaming, sweating, climbs on top of her. Blindly, in heat, his erection searches for her opening. She, maddened by heat herself, trembles, resists, groans, moans; then her knees wobble and he enters her. They shiver and tremble . . .

  Next time Tammam and Salim meet Tammam is wearing a veil. Salim vows to marry her. Both are of Arab blood. So Salim asks his mother, Azzizah, to arrange his marriage to Tammam. Azzizah approves of his choice. She asks Abu Salim to discuss the bride-price with Tammam’s father. Abu Salim rides over to the compound of Tammam’s father, and naturally is invited to stay over for supper cooked-served by Tammam—and, like King David when he saw Bat-Sheba, Abu Salim falls in love with Tammam, the girl his Salim has vowed to marry, the girl his Salim has loved since they were children.

  Did Abu Salim invade his son’s territory? Did he fear that his son, raised to be a true real man, like a falcon, would kill any who invades his territory—even his own father? Did Abu Salim dispatch Salim on some smuggling mission, like King David did Bat-Sheba’s husband, before or after he married Tammam and brought her to this compound?

  Tammam is coaxing an empty tuna tin out of her infant’s hands. Azzizah stops sifting flour—holds her breath, it seems, as if all too often she has seen the slightest cut develop into an infection that couldn’t be cured by her remedies and spells. Veils jingle-jangle as Tammam assures Azzizah that little Salimeh isn’t bleeding, hasn’t cut herself. Only now does Azzizah go back to sifting flour. Tammam collects all the empty tins off the ground, places them on the sloping roof of her tent, near the tent pole where a section dips. I have yet to see a garbage can here. The ditch looks like a garbage dump.

  Was it to uphold Abu Salim’s reputation and to save her son’s life that Azzizah has spread the word that Tammam is pregnant? No way could the father of this child be her son Salim, right? No way could she be pregnant, Tammam had told me, “but swear you will not breathe a word of it to anyone.”

  Tammam has brought herbs and spices from her tent and as soon as she sprinkles them into the pot of rice boiling on the cooking fire, delectable fragrances drift over to this fire. The tea is now brewed here by Mutt and Jeff. These two feel at home here. They helped themselves to water, tea, and sugar—a couple of fistfuls Jeff dumps into the teapot for four or five glasses, if that. Mutt stirs the sugar in with a twig he has picked from a small heap of branches—chopped off a tree listed as an endangered species, no doubt. Hillel’s job is protecting such trees. Or maybe it’s just a coincidence that Hillel pops into Jeff’s head now, again.

  “Hilal told us that there are strangers who wonder if we Badu are true Muslemins,” says Jeff, “for they see no mosque in our Sinaa desert, except the one in the monastery, Santa Katerina, and they see but few Badu pray like true Muslemins five times a day, or even five times a week.”

  “Aywa, we Badu are Muslemin, humbled by poverty and ignorance, for that is our fate,” says Abu Salim. “We Badu cannot but submit to the will of Allah . . . Allah the compassionate, the merciful . . . Prayers and peace be upon the Last of the Messengers, Mohammad, the righteous Arab prophet.”

  “It was in Badu tents that the prophet Mohammad found shelter and hospitality,” says Jeff, sipping his sugary tea with much noise, like his grandfather, Abu Salim.

  “Aywa, that is what I heard my father’s father tell,” says Abu Salim.

  The fire is now a circle of ashes, smouldering, hissing, cracking, crumbling. The wind shifts and flames up a twig. So precious is firewood here that Abu Salim feeds this circle of ashes a twig at a time. It gives heat but hardly enough light to read, write.

  (I switched on my flashlight, tucked it into the top fold of my rolled-up sleeping bag. This improvised writing lamp tickled Mutt, but Jeff frowned as if it was a travesty and he couldn’t understand why Abu Salim and Tammam’s brother allowed it.)

  “Hilal told at the maq’ad today that Israel is pulling her troops out of our Sinaa desert to show Egypt that she means to sign the Camp David Peace Accord,” Abu Salim says to Tammam’s brother.

  “There will never be peace here,” says Tammam’s brother—no peace for him certainly, not since the rumour started.

  Was it at his father’s maq’ad that he first heard it? Or was it in Al-Arish, or in Dahab, at the Grill by the Red Sea, that Tammam’s brother was sipping Coca-Cola, watching a tourist-girl in a string bikini smoking pot or hash, and dancing to rock-’n’-roll. But then Tammam’s brother sees that all the Badu youths there at the Grill are watching him, not her. Round each table they huddle, whisper, pity or laughter in their eyes. He checks to see if his fly is open or if he has spilled Coca-Cola over his frock. Finds he is spotless, not exposed. Yet, everywhere he goes, the same thing happens. And whenever he demands an explanation, no one dares to offer him a word—the last one they would utter in this world, if Tammam didn’t exaggerate: deadly to badmouth a woman, deadly to spread such rumours. So, after a month or two, he takes his best friend aside and tells him that he thinks he is possessed by djinn-demons, wherever he goes he imagines he sees Badu huddling, whispering, their eyes laughing at him or sorry for him. And only now he hears from his best friend that the whole desert is buzzing with a rumour that his sister, Tammam, fucked her stepson, Salim, leaving her brother with no choice but to kill the rumour-spreader if the rumour is false, or his sister, Tammam, if the rumour proves true . . .

  “Never ever look at a man like you looked at Tammam’s brother,” Abu Salim snaps at me. “A woman modest-proper keeps her eyes downcast like you do when writing.”

  “Write-to-remember my brother’s name is Akram, meaning ‘generous and noble,’” mutters Tammam. She kneels by the cooking-fire at the maharama—the place of the women—“the kitchen”—cleaning trays for supper with a towel heavy with water, dust, and grains of sand. Abu Salim, in the “living room,” by this fire, holds her infant daughter—his infant daughter, or granddaughter?—on his lap. She wriggles out of his arms, and Tammam picks her up, telling her brother that my name is Nura.

  “Nura told us women that Tammam’s brother, Akram, looks like a prince from Saudia,” Azzizah, putting her words in my mouth, says to Abu Salim.

  “No prince in Saudia is of blood as noble as Akram’s and mine,” says Abu Salim, addressing me. “You strangers cannot see it, for you see only the dust on my abaiah—cloak.�
� He spits and covers it with a handful of sand. “The royal house of Saudia sends their sons to us Badu for to learn nobility-character-manners, but you strangers look down on us Badu, for you only see the dust on our abia. Now, write what I tell you. Are you ready?”

  Many years ago,” Abu Salim starts dictating, “many years ago there lived a man who had five sons. The first one, called Za’im, meaning ‘leader,’ went to dwell in Saudia. Many sons were born to him. All so arrogant like sheikhs who enter their guest-receiving-place only after it is full of men who have waited a week, a month, for a word of wisdom from their leader—their sheikh. Go to them, and they will give you not a word of wisdom-counsel-guidance, but only money, as if you were a beggar.”

  “Wallah, wallah—Allah-lah.” The mountains echo Mutt and Jeff.

  “Aywa,” says Abu Salim, then in the singsong voice of Badu legend telling, he goes on to dictate, “Now the second son, named Zak’am, meaning ‘light-headed,’ went to dwell in Egypt. Many sons were born to him. All love merriment and dancing. All will invite you to enjoy their merriment and their dancing. But you will die of hunger there.

  “And now the third son, named Jamil, meaning ‘handsome,’ went to dwell in Syria. Many sons were born to him. All so handsome and so graceful, Honour-upon-Honour they think they heap on you if they let you see them from afar. Go to them and you will die of hunger there also. You will also find no shelter there.

  “And now the fourth son was named Phaakar, meaning ‘poor.’ He and the fifth son—named Karam, which like, Akram—the name of Tammam’s brother—means ‘generous and noble’—went to dwell in no other place but this very desert, Sinaa. Many sons were born to them. All men of honour. Go to them and you will see poverty and dust on abia—cloaks. But no matter how poor, they are the ones who will offer you shelter and hospitality.

  “Aywa, the King of Saudia and his royal sons are enriched by oil. But rich or poor, with great delight the worms will eat us all.”

  “Rich or poor, fate visits us all,” says Tammam’s brother, Akram, in the voice in which Badu declaim poems, verse—pouring their hearts out, as Russell had put it. According to him, a Badu rarely, if ever, complains, tells what he really feels, fears, hopes, or thinks of you, except in poems or verse, old or new. And if you want to respond, you say it in verse, or in a comment about the poem or verse just declaimed.

  “Ghul—tell—yaa-Akram—Akram-ram-ram,” the circles within circles echo Abu Salim, Mutt, and Jeff.

  “Aywa,” says Tammam’s brother. “Be you a bird, an eagle soaring high between sky and star, fate will snare you wherever you are. The will of Allah shall be carried out.”

  “O, Allah!” the mountains thunder after Imsallam Suleman Abu Salim. “O, Allah! According to Your order, life is either wide or narrow. And if You decree life be wide, there shall be no wrong.”

  “Inshallah—Allah-lah.”

  Wide, infinite, the desert is now. All around the fire-circles, a dark void stretches as wide as the imagination, a dark void where time is poised and rushing past like a whirlwind, where far is near and near is far, where silence is not peace but a wild beast lying in wait for the kill. The salukis hear the howling, screeching, rustling silence, and are driven to patrol again and again the perimeter of the fire-circles. Abu Salim tells-orders the salukis to sit behind him. As soon as they obey, his camel—his Rolls Royce—and Akram’s, their front legs hobbled, make ungainly progress over the rim and park themselves closer to the fire-circle, where my face is burning hot and my back is shivering cold.

  “The camel saddles are only a few steps beyond the rim. Go get the sweaters we left in Abu Salim’s saddlebag,” Jeff whispers to his brother, Mutt.

  “You walk over to get them. I’m afraid,” Mutt whispers back.

  Jeff mutters a string of curses, and stays put.

  Akram gets up, steps over the rim, and disappears into the darkness. Time stretches like an elastic band about to snap until he reappears with a bundle of sweaters. Mutt and Jeff layer them on, one on top of the other.

  Abu Salim wears many layers under his abaiah mornings and evenings, the only times I see him, when the cold slices through to the bone.

  I am wearing a parka over a sweater, over a blouse, over a t-shirt, but still the void at my back steals the warmth, chilling through to the marrow, and the wind trades smoke for the air, stinging the eyes and choking the lungs. And yet it feels like sitting, legs folded on a magic carpet that floats above it all—a magic carpet that has conquered time again and again on a thousand and one Arabian nights.

  “Ana bagul—I wish to tell now,” says Jeff.

  “Ghul, yaa-walad—tell, my boy,” says Abu Salim.

  “Are you ready?” Jeff snaps at me. “You see the dust on my abaiah and you think I do not know that Hilal . . . Give me the package of cigarettes you keep in your pocket.” Jeff clearly suspects I have concealed in it a forbidden something or other that Hilal has smuggled to me.

  The magic carpet hits ground—

  “No. Do not give him the cigarettes,” Abu Salim says to me. “Do not reduce him more than he has reduced himself, his clan, his tribe—Aywa—yes,” Abu Salim turns to his grandson Jeff. “You did me proud, you thought, when you were shaming me, yourself, your clan, your tribe. For the measure of a Badu is his hospitality to friend and foe alike. Aywa, you are but a child, for you see the dust on her abaiah, and you fail to hear she speaks Arabic, not like El Bofessa, but like Hilal—meaning: She is of the Israeli Yahod, a warrior tribe so small in number that women, like men, had to battle the English, Wallah. Next, they battled all the armies of all the Arab nations. Then they trained their sons to be such warriors that in but a six-day war they wrestled from the Arab armies not only our holy city, Al-Quds—Jerusalem—but this our desert Sinaa. And only after this Yahodi victory did El Bofessa come to dwell in Israel from a land called Canada, where the Yahod, like the Saudis, give only lip service and money even to avenge blood and honour. But, unlike the Saudis, the Yahod are duty-bound to avenge the blood and the honour of six million sons and daughters, meaning a thousand times six thousand, yaa-Rabb.”

  “Is that what El Bofessa told you?” I ask Abu Salim.

  “No, El Bofessa never talks of Canada,” replies Abu Salim, as he rolls a Badu cigarette for himself.

  I pull the pack of cigarettes out of my pocket, take one, then put the pack on the ground.

  “Now you can take one cigarette,” Abu Salim says to Jeff.

  “Me too?” says Mutt.

  “Yes,” replies Abu Salim.

  Tammam’s brother, Akram, also lights a cigarette, from his own pack of Marlboros.

  “You see? Tammam’s brother, like the rest of our Badu youths, smokes American cigarettes,” says Abu Salim. “That makes them real true men of the world, men of tomorrow, our young men think. We of the older generation are men of days gone by, they think. Our Sinaa desert is a land of yesterday, they think. America is the land of tomorrow, they think, Canada also, for she borders on America, or so I heard. Not from El Bofessa. No, El Bofessa never talks of Canada. El Bofessa, I think, is ashamed of his parents. That is why I never pried. And only once I told him, ‘A bastard is he who denies his parents, be they even slaves, as you Yahod were in Egypt.’ But El Bofessa in response only asked me, ‘Were you Badu ever expelled from your lands? Is that why you Badu tie and untie—ya’ani—move from one place to another?’”

  “That is a good question,” I said.

  “No, it is not a good question,” says Abu Salim. “For only a Badu who spills the blood of a brother innocent is expelled from his tribal grounds. We Badu are driven to tie and untie only when this mountain or that wadi can no longer sustain our herds. Or when this waterhole or that runs dry. Or when our foreign rulers tell us we cannot pitch our tents here and there—ya’ani—near their army camps, air bases, oil rigs.”

  “No move is more sorrow
ful then when a Badawia marries,” mutters Azzizah, “for she is torn then from her father’s tent and she moves-follows her husband to his father’s dwelling-place. And if her husband divorces her, her children remain with him, his clan—his tribe. That is why the blood-kin of the bride never attend her wedding celebration.”

  “But,” says Abu Salim, motioning to his grandsons to sit by his side—in the place of honour, close to the fire but away from the smoke. “No matter who your daughter marries, or how far from her clan she moves, she remains the daughter of her clan, her tribe. And if her husband kills her brother, she is duty-bound to kill her husband to avenge her brother’s blood.”

  “See? I told you no story,” Tammam’s eyes say to mine.

  “Hilal wants to marry a Badawia,” says Jeff, unrolling the carpet that has been used as a bolster. He and Mutt drape it over their layers and layers of sweaters. They’ll still feel the cold if they don’t eat supper soon — those two must be starving.

  “Hilal only says he wants to marry a Badawia for he thinks it flatters us Badu,” says Tammam’s brother. “Just as the Badu of the coast think it flatters a stranger-woman to hear that a Badu is willing to pay a thousand camels for her bride-price. But, of course, the Badu of the coast offer this bride-price only to a stranger-woman who wears a gold ring on her finger, like Nura does. For only by this gold ring can they tell that a stranger-woman is already married and has no intention of divorcing her husband.”

  “Nura wears gold to ward off the evil eye of envy,” says Azzizah.

  “Laa—no,” says Akram. “Maybe the gold ring chained to her neck is for that. But the gold ring on her finger is for all to see she is a woman-married, of no intention to divorce her husband.”

  “For she is married to a Yahodi soldier-of-soldiers, are you not?” says Mutt, addressing me.