Sulha

by Malka Marom

  Everyone in the household seemed to know Russell. A hefty Badawia—the mistress of the house, the sheikh’s wife, an Egyptian aristocrat, according to Russell, offers a string of blessings before she invites me to join the women, who are preparing a turkey for supper in a very dimly lit kitchen. Crouching on the floor, they are lighting a newspaper to singe the tiny fine feathers, just like my mother used to. There is much cooking to do in the sheikh’s household, the Badawias say; always visitors.

  The sheikh’s daughter—fourteen years old, she said—wearing jeans and no veils, gave me a tour of the house. The rooms are huge: Riva’s whole apartment could fit into the living room alone. Russell fell asleep on the couch; frangi—stranger’s—furniture: couches, armchairs and coffee tables in the living room. That’s where the sheikh receives his frangi guests, his daughter told me. She calls him “the sheikh” when she speaks of him, and “Father” only when she addresses him. The carpets in all the rooms except the Sheik’s guest receiving room – his maq’ad —are factory-made, she told me with pride. The ceiling is very high and there is only one bulb in the brass light fixture. It’s dark as there are no windows in the guest receiving room, and it’s cold, even though briquettes are smouldering in three braziers. You can’t smell the coal for the aroma of spices and herbs drifting from the kitchen. There is a huge colour TV set in the empty family room —but no sign of telephone.

  The sheikh has no telephone because guests cannot take their shoes off in deference to the sheikh when they visit the sheikh on the telephone, the sheikh’s daughter explained.

  The entrance hall is carpeted in shoes, wall to wall.

  Forty wives, or forty-two, or maybe thirty-seven, the sheikh has married so far to seal alliances and cement the tribe, his daughter said. He was married to her mother for only one night, and, in keeping with Badu law, her father has custody of all his children. She, like all the sheikh’s daughters, lived with her mother until she was six or seven years old, then, as Badu law dictates, she came to live with her father. With his permission, she can visit her mother whenever she wants.

  What to read in that teenager’s hesitation?

  Your guess is as good as mine.

  I dignified her hesitation with silence, and she, breaking the silence went on to reveal that the sheikh, when he is not travelling the world over, stays most of the time with this, his Egyptian wife, “for she is good,” the sheikh’s daughter went on to explain: “good to all his children, grandchildren, daughters-in-law, and visitors, some of whom have stayed for years. This wife is also a good cook, and the school near her house is a good school,” added the girl. “But ever since the peace talks started, soldiers in a command car have had to escort me and my brothers to and from school, because the sheikh is for peace, and the Arabs who are against peace with Israel keep threatening to kill us the Sheikh’s children . . . But soon, Inshallah, we’ll be moving to a new school—not because of the threats,” she said, to let me know she was not afraid, it seemed, but because soon they will be moving to a new house in their new tribal town.

  She is the first of the sheikh’s daughters to go to school, and the only one not to wear a veil. Her stepmother—the sheikh’s wife—told her to do her homework in the living room by the brazier as it is too cold everywhere else.

  If she only knew how cold the nights were in Awaad’s compound, would her goodness extend to Awaad’s clan? Would she persuade her husband to bend, if Russell and I fail?

  The above, scribbled by the sheikh’s daughter to show me she knows how to write English and Hebrew, as well as Arabic.

  When her father walked, his wife pointed to Russell, sleeping. He was not feeling well, I whispered to the sheikh, as I followed the example of the other women in the room and stood up in deference to him. The sheikh invites us with a worn-out gesture of fist to sit, tells his wife to fetch him tea, folds his legs on the carpet next to the brazier. He plays a cassette, holding the machine close to his ear in order not to disturb his guest’s sleep.

  The sheikh is listening to messages taped far away, his daughter whispers, her stomach rumbling with hunger.

  j

  The men and women dined in the living room, but in separate circles. The food, served on round trays on the carpet, didn’t taste as good as it smelled.

  “No, no. You sit-dine with us,” the sheikh told me when I was about to join the women’s dinner circle. “Klow, kol, koli—eat, eat,” he urged his guests, just like Abu Salim. Unlike Abu Salim, the sheikh ate with his guests, as did his sons. After dinner, his sons, the teenagers, rolled cigarettes, and the sheikh pulled out a Marlboro.

  “Ghul, ghul—tell, tell.” The sheikh is urging Russell to state the purpose of his visit in the voice Badu reserve for encouraging a storyteller—because he thinks Awaad’s grievance is but a tale?

  “Many years ago I went to the great big city, Al-Arish, and there I heard a story told by an old man. He and others say the story is true,” Russell begins, presenting Awaad’s case as a legend or a tale.

  “A true story,” the sheikh echoes Russell, as Badu do to spur on the storyteller, but cracking a glittering gold grin. His sons observe to learn— one of them will be the next sheikh. The jingle-jangle from the women’s circle falls silent. Wallah, how Badu can’t resist a story. The children switch the TV off and form into huddle now in the doorway to the living room. The little ones crawl over to the women’s circle, at the corner of the huge living room, nearest to the men’s circle.

  Silence.

  “Aywa—yes, it is a true story. Or so I heard some people say,” Russell says in his Badu-legend-telling voice and pauses, as if he is waiting for the mountain echo to settle down, to find a home. “In those days, before the clinics and the schools,” Russell continues, “before the roads and the helicopters, before the oil wealth and the no-peace-of-mind, there lived a poor man. The only money he had, he made by packing sacks with wheat or tabin—hay—and loading them upon a camel or a horse under the rider. He was a poor and a complaining man . . . Even to his Creator, the poor man complained, ‘You who created us and then robbed us, you are the one who owes us, and not we who owe you’—like this the poor Badu complained to his Creator, until Allah revealed himself to him in a dream, and showed him a wadi, and in the wadi many springs.”

  “Many springs in the wadi,” mutters the sheikh, like Badu listeners the desert over, to let the storyteller know they are with him and to add punch to the storytelling rhythm.

  “Aywa,” says Russell, “some springs gushing up, and some hardly dripping a drop, and men were drinking—some near the gushing springs, drinking much with no effort; and some by the barely dripping springs, drinking little with much effort. And there was a man, kabir—big, big man—guarding the springs. And he, the kabir, told the poor man, ‘This is your spring,’ pointing to a spring that was dripping a drop and a half a minute. And now, when the poor man saw this spring, he knew that he would never receive more than the lira and a half he had earned for a day, but this small little sum—this lira and a half—he will receive all his life. That is why, the next day, he felt happy when he stuffed sacks with hay or with wheat and he sang: I have seen with my own eyes; no man had told me . . . That is what he sang. And there, not far, stood a palace of some sheikh, or some officer from the authorities. No one knows exactly—”

  “Meaning, it is the same thing,” one of the sheikh’s sons muttered.

  “Perhaps,” Russell replied. “But his daughter used to steal away in the night and make love with a man not her husband, so I think the palace was of some officer from the authorities, not of a sheikh . . .

  “Have you heard this story told before?” Russell asked the sheikh, meaning is it all right to tell this story in present company.

  “Ghul, ghul,” the sheikh muttered. “Go on, tell your tale.”

  “Aywa—yes.” Russell complied. “Now, she from the palace heard the poor man’s
song and thought he meant nothing else but that he had seen her making love and he knew everything. That is why, before the sun was high, she prepared and sent to him a haidiah—a present—a partridge roasted and stuffed with rice and with a gold dinar; so that he would know, understand, and shut up. But just then, someone passed by—one, Abu Ali or Abu Daud—who was hungry, and so he asked the poor man if he would sell him the roast. And the poor man said to himself: Since I am already accustomed to my pita and a half, I will be content with my pita and a half today also. And so he sold him the roast for five liras.”

  “Yaa-salaam,” exclaimed the sheikh’s children. “Haraam—what a shame.”

  “But five liras was more than he earned for three days packing and loading,” says Russell, “and so, next day, the poor man was even more happy, and he sang his song even more loudly: I have seen with my own eyes; no man had told me . . .

  She from the palace heard and feared even more. And so, this time, she sent him, not a partridge, but a roasted goat—and inside, not one gold dinar, but two. And he who passed by—Abu Ali or Abu Daud—did not continue on his way. Having the day before found the gold dinar, he had returned to try his luck once more. So, once more, he asked, and once more the poor man sold, not for five liras but for ten. That is why, next day—”

  “The poor man was even happier,” cried out the sheikh’s children.

  “Aywa,” confirmed Russell. “He sang in a louder voice than ever. And she from the palace, afraid for her head, sent him, not a goat but a sheep, and inside, not two but five gold dinars. And the passer-by—Abu Ali or Abu Daud—was already thinking to settle in that place. He came and bought with twenty liras—”

  “And so next day, the poor man was even happier,” a child-boy bubbled from the huddle at the doorway, cracking everyone up except Russell and the sheikh.

  “Laa—No,” Russell said. “That night, she from the palace was so afraid, she could not sleep. And thinking there was no other way to silence the poor man but to expel him from there, she ordered him brought to the palace, where he fell to his knees. But she said: Kill him on the spot.”

  “Yaa-Allah,” exclaimed the sheikh’s children.

  “Aywa,” said Russell, “and he, right away, started to beg mercy for his life. So she told him: ‘Get up and tell what your eyes have seen.’ And the poor man opened and told of his life from beginning to end, of his family, and of his dream, ya’ani—that is—of the dripping spring that was promised to him never to deceive. Now her mind was at ease. But she was not altogether certain yet. That is why she asked: ‘Is that all you dreamt and no more?’ ‘No more,’ he replied. She believed him, she said. Nevertheless he had to leave his work and his place, she said; if he disobeyed he would die, and if he obeyed, she would fill his vessels with gold. No sooner said than she filled his saddlebags with gold, the like of which he had never seen in his life or dreams.

  “And what was he to do? If he will not take, she will kill him on the spot. He will take, and perhaps Allah will not see—or perhaps Allah will see and punish. But thinking what to do, he became confused, and he grabbed the bag and ran out. But Allah, of course, knows and sees everything, and recognizes daimann—forever—and so when the poor man reached the exit, he was met by the Angel of Death, the one who collects in his fist the souls of all men. And there, at the exit, the maid found him and told her mistress. And there was nothing else to do then, but to call the officer from the authorities—and the darwish also. They all came and examined the man, but failed to understand, for his body showed no sign of injury or ill health, and he was not all that old. They failed to understand, so Allah sent the angel Gabriel to talk with them, and this is what the angel Gabriel said: We have made him modest, so that he be true. And you have bribed him, so that he be false like you. We, today, have killed him. And you, if you are able, revive him to be as he was—true.”

  Silence. Uncomfortable silence. Russell had gone too far, making it all too explicit. “False like you—” you don’t say to any host, let alone a sheikh, in front of his sons, daughter and wife. But no Badu would endow a stranger with the power to stain his reputation, especially a sheikh born to a dynasty of sheikhs going back five hundred years. His eyes and demeanor show nothing but that. And yet, he makes Russell sweat.

  “You mean to say her highness had, in fact, killed the poor man?” one of the sheikh’s sons—a teenager wearing a sort of après-ski outfit—asked Russell.

  Here is Russell’s chance to make amends . . . Give, yaa-Russell, and Awaad’s clan shall receive. Bend. Come on.

  Silence.

  I don’t understand why the sheikh received Russell like a VIP in the living room, and for dinner, when he knew the purpose of Russell’s visit—even if the sheikh, like Badu the desert over, held Russell in high regard, for his effort to conserve Badu culture and way of life—for telling the story that will remain when all else dies.

  “I also heard this old man’s tale in the souk, but with a different ending,” the sheikh said, breaking the silence—to return story for story? Is Awaad’s fate going to be decided by a story contest? A thousand and one Arabian nights, yaa-Rabb.

  “Ghul, ghul—tell, tell on.”

  “Altogether different was the ending of the story I heard in the souk.” The sheikh waits for me to press the Record button and then he starts. “In the story I heard in the souk,” continues the sheikh, “the poor man grabs the gold and runs out of the palace to the souk. There first he buys a thoroughbred she-camel, then he buys a tasselled saddlebag fit for a wedding, then in this saddlebag he packs all his new-found fortune, and away to the city he went—”

  “To Al-Arish,” a little one pipes up.

  “Aywa,” the sheikh says, “to El-Arish. But in those days, before the clinics and the schools, before the oil wealth and the airplanes, before the cars and the roads, danger lurked around every bend of every wadi, bandits and robbers and raiders. And the poor man, dreaming of city pleasures awaiting him, fell into an ambush.”

  “Yaa-salaam,” exclaims a child-boy. “An ambush.”

  “Aywa,” continues the sheikh. “Yes, the poor man fell into an ambush. He was robbed of all his fortune, all his gold, and all his clothes. The poor man was left with only his camel, and he thought he had no choice but to head back to his tent—”

  “Naked?”

  “Aywa.”

  “Yaa-salaam.”

  “And back to his tent the poor man went, his new-found fortune gone, his clothes gone, his dream of the city gone. And there, sitting by the side of his tent, looking at his thoroughbred she-camel, the poor man saw the rope that binds the camel’s front legs together, so that the camel will not wander too far from the tent, and not too far for him to fetch back. ‘Now, this rope,’ the poor man said to himself, ‘next time, Inshalla, when I venture off to Al-Arish, I will take this rope, and I will bind it fast around my head so that my thinking will not travel ahead of me to city pleasures, but with me, my thinking will stay, to watch my surroundings, so that I will not fall into an ambush again.’ And ever since then, we Badu wear a black or white aqaal—rope—on our kaffiyye—headdress.

  “That is what I tell my tourist-guests, El Bofessa, and do you know what they tell me? They tell me they travel all the way to the desert, sit in Badu tents, roll in dust and goat shit, to learn from us Badu how to bind thinking, so that their thinking will not travel ahead of them.

  “Aywa, here and now, the tourists call roped thinking when roped thinking kept us Badu there and then—backward, Wallah, poor, weak and sick. Like caged monkeys we are for camera-clicking tourists, and a field day we are to stranger-scholars—not you, El Bofessa; you, I consider to be a true Badu historian. She, with you, is collecting for you to write-record true Badu history, like a woman collects wood for fire.

  “You know, El Bofessa, your Canadian friends came to visit me, the other day. With a translator they came, for
they are not schooled in Arabic like you, and astonished they were when the translator translated true, my saying words like history and even zaman—time. Aywa, even an everyday Badu word like zaman—time. Astonished they were to see a Badu sheikh thinking not roped, to hear Badu words not limited to hot-cold, sun-shade, and the hungry howling of a coyote in the night.

  “Not full-grown, but like children we Badu are, the tourists think, like infants . . . Aywa, it is because we Badu remember like infant-children that the tourists travel all the way to Badu tents. That is what my son who studies in California told me. And I can understand. I know how powerful is the longing to long for innocent child-days, and to recapture sand shifting, shimmering like water, dream water. As powerful as the longing to love, Wallah. For a moment passed is a moment passed to the domain of dreams—a shimmering blue domain without dust, disappointment, sweat and pain. A shimmering blue domain impossible to recapture—in life.

  “Only in what is called Art, I have heard it said, man can capture and recapture, and even reverse, the flow of time. Perhaps, in what they call Art. But not in life, Wallah—for loss is inherent in life—aywa, no one knows it better than you Yahod. That is why you Yahod direct your longing, not backward, but forward to what you call the days of redemption.

  “Like the desert, we Badu are a domain that lies beyond the boundaries of zaman—time—that is what your friends have told me. We Badu are like Art, they think, no doubt, for they visit-stay a day, two, three, and then they leave. And if they stay a month or two, they think they are adventurous and brave, and maybe even ennobled and nazif—purified. For they think Badu like Awaad’s clan are noble, true and pure as desert sand. When, in fact, as you and I know, El Bofessa, Awaad’s way of life is as purifying and ennobling as suffering, backwardness, and poverty—which, as you know, El Bofessa, stink, corrupt, degrade, debilitate, rope your thinking, your remembering, even your imagining.

  “Aywa, yes, my son who studies in England told me how poor and limited are the best Badu storytellers of the Negev compared to best storytellers like Homer and Shakespeare who lived in old, gone-by days, not in backwardness, illiteracy, poverty, and suffering. But in a palace like the teller of a thousand and one Arabian nights.