Celestial Bodies

by Johka Alharthi

  The sharp crevices in my aunt’s face contrasted with Zarifa’s broad, flat face. She was the only one who treated Zarifa like any other slave and would never acknowledge her status – which everyone recognised even if no one ever said anything – as the person in charge of my father’s household, not to mention his long-time mistress. My aunt was determined, even throughout the long stretches when my father was very ill, to sit right outside his room, opposite the doorway, just so that her presence would prevent Zarifa from ever slipping in to see him.

  She and my father practised an elaborate ritual of mutual respect that was acutely embarrassing in its obvious artificiality. But for these long strings of greetings they exchanged, which followed exactly the same pattern every time, they never said a word to each other. Only when I was much older did I understand the extent to which their demonstrations of respect carried a profound contempt that extended to hatred. If she was directing a silent war against Zarifa, my father’s presence and the fact of their relationship enabled Zarifa to show her enmity toward my aunt in front of us: we little ones, all of the slaves, and indeed everyone in al-Awafi. Zarifa usually focused her disparagements of my aunt on her lack of luck with men: she had been divorced twice, by two brothers and, Zarifa said, that dry, sticklike body of hers was barren.

  But Zarifa could not completely conceal her fear of my aunt. Perhaps that’s why, soon after my father died, she left the Big House and went to join her son in Kuwait.

  Asma

  After a three-day shopping trip to Muscat with her prospective son-in-law and his mother, Salima returned to al-Awafi loaded down with Asma’s wedding things, which she had gotten from the shops in Matrah where you could find every conceivable wedding item. But, she confided to Muezzin-Wife, she wasn’t overjoyed with her purchases. There’s nicer things out there, she said, and Asma deserves them. But her father – may God ease his path – refused to set a dowry payment for the bridegroom.

  Is my daughter a piece of merchandise to be sold? That’s what he snapped at me when I asked. Her dowry will be the same as anyone else’s, he said to me. So her fiancé only paid two thousand riyals, since he wasn’t asked to come up with any more than that. His mama was silent the whole time. It seems that she’s been away from her home town too long to remember how we do things here.

  Still, Salima spread out the purchases for display, as they watched: Asma, Khawla, the muezzin’s wife, Judge Yusuf’s widow, Umm Nasir and three more women who lived nearby. Their outstretched hands competed to turn over and examine the shimmering silk fabric that Mayya would make into dishdashas and sirwals, all heavily embroidered, for the bride. Salima brought out the translucent head wrappings, green cloth embroidered along the edges in gold flowers, and others with sequins sewn into their borders.

  Though she did her best to resist, at least for a few minutes, Khawla had to reach for the shiny pair of high-heeled sandals: Salima levelled a warning glance at her as she tried them on. Once everyone had had her say about the fabrics, Salima opened the perfume chest: two bottles of French perfume that Salima had bought because the mother of the groom insisted, though she would have preferred to put the money into a third vial of pure oud perfume.

  Muezzin-Wife laughed. Salima, oud has turned your senses! Surely one bottle is enough for this bride.

  Salima answered earnestly. How can you have a bride without plenty of oud? Look at the incense, I bought two kinds for her: real, pure Cambodian aloes-wood oil and the best incense, from Salalah. Khawla, heat up some coals and we’ll try it out.

  Khawla jumped up and hurried toward the kitchen. Asma was muttering. Mama, incense chokes me. I wish you had bought me more perfume instead.

  Quiet, you don’t understand anything, Salima said, bringing out the chest that held the gold. Did you ever hear of a bride getting married without incense? What an awful scandal that would be!

  The women’s shining eyes replicated and doubled the gold’s lustre as they inspected it: a heavy link necklace, one with several thin strands, rings bearing a variety of stones, and a diamond ring, a gift from the groom’s mother. There were also thin bangles and one broad and heavy spiked bracelet.

  In our days the jewellery was silver, remarked one of the neighbours. Praise God – how times have changed.

  True, said another, it was silver, but at least we had anklets, enough to announce that one of us was coming with the ringing they made against each other, and the bracelets we wore high up on our arms. And the hair ornaments, too.

  Salima was clearly irritated. You know girls these days, they don’t like wearing anklets or our heavy armlets.

  Of course not, said Asma. I don’t want to wear things that are going to scratch up my legs and feet.

  She picked up her new jewellery, examining it with some curiosity. When she saw the gold bangle with the spikes she started giggling. She couldn’t help remembering the story of Judge Yusuf’s wife with an old-fashioned bracelet like this. At the time, bracelets were indeed silver or they might be plated thinly with gold. Maryam, Judge Yusuf’s widow, had told Asma the story herself.

  WAllahi, my dear, I wasn’t more than fourteen. My mother – God be merciful to her – came to me and said, Come on, Maryam, now praise your Lord and put on these new clothes of yours, and your new bracelets and silver amulets.

  Why, Mama?

  You are getting married to Judge Yusuf today.

  I cried so hard my eyes swelled up, but no one paid any attention to me. In the evening all the women of the neighbourhood swarmed in. They were singing and they picked me up and carried me to the judge, a whole procession of them. At the door my mother broke eggs over my feet and whispered to me: Listen, Maryam, watch out you don’t let that man find you too ready, like a ripe watermelon about to split open. You defend yourself, now, so we can hold our heads high. You just go at him with these bracelets on your wrist. Yes, hit him, that’s right, don’t be a juicy watermelon just waiting there for him.

  By God, my girl! Asma, I went for a whole month pounding him every night with those bracelets, bruising him up like my mother told me to do. He would say to me, Maryam, Maryuuuma dear, my Maryuumii, what do you want me to call you? Just tell me!

  I wouldn’t take those bracelets off my wrist for anything. I swung them right in front of his nose whenever he came near. God give you mercy, Abu Abd al-Rahman! What a man of learning he was! He read all the books of religion and knowledge and understanding, and he tried so hard to sweeten me up, the poor fellow! Maryuuma, he would say, I just want to talk to you. Why are you attacking me? Listen to me, talk to me! There’s no reason to scream at me, and to scratch me, every day and the next. If you hate me that much I’m not going to force myself on you. It would not be right for me to force you. Did your family force you to marry me, Maryam? Do you hate me, Maryuuma?

  Wallahi, my girl, Asma, I didn’t hate him at all, he was a lot better than my father or my brothers or anyone else. He was the protector of knowledge and faith, God grant him His lenience and make his grave as spacious as he made my world! My dear, I was just listening to my mama, only doing what she said to do. Trying not to be a soft watermelon.

  Asma was laughing. And so – what happened after a month, Umm Abd al-Rahman?

  Maryam smiled and waved the question away. Ahh, a month later, my girl, my Asma – what was written by the hand of fate happened. I told you he was careful to be understanding and gentle, and I was just a young girl, and the world has to move ahead. They were written for us, these seeds that made my belly swell. Abd al-Rahman and his brothers and sisters, God be merciful to their father, he was always patient with me, when every two or three days I’d get angry with him and go off to my family without any cause for it. He would say to me: You’re my wife, Maryuuma, in this world and the next, and you are as dear to me as Aisha, God be pleased with her, was dear to the Prophet, God’s prayers and blessings upon him. The judge died so young, my poor dear fellow. The good folks don’t stay with us long, Asma my dear, they le
ave us so quickly. But people just wouldn’t keep their mouths shut. You are young, Maryam, they would say. Marry again, the living stay with us longer than the dead. Allah! No, just imagine – marry again, after Judge Abu Abd al-Rahman? How could I do such a thing, since he used to say to me, You are my wife in this world and the next, Maryuuma. In this world and in the next.

  Khawla came out with the lit coals. Salima sprinkled incense over them and held the mixture in front of the neighbours, each in turn. They began teasing each other, since if the smoke of the incense could be seen rising from their garments, that meant Salima was truly fond of them, but if it got caught there and didn’t rise, it meant she didn’t like them much. As she made her rounds they started exclaiming, Heh! Look, the incense is coming out of the sleeves of Muezzin-Wife but no one else’s. We don’t get a share in what’s fair!

  Salima was occupied now in unrolling the hand-worked cushion covers for them to see, and measuring the lengths of the two carpets she had bought after a long quarrel with the Iranian shop owner. Khawla leaned toward Asma and whispered, A bride’s trousseau but no nightgowns or make-up – my poor sister! Asma winked at her. There’ll be some way to get them before the wedding, I know it.

  Salima described the mandus she had ordered to her specifications from the leading producer of wood wedding chests, whose manduses were more elaborate than any others around: the precise size she wanted, exactly what kinds of work she wanted on the wood and the brass fittings, and the shape of the brass handles. Khawla interrupted her. But houses these days have bedrooms, already with a bed and wardrobe and dressing table. At that, Muezzin-Wife exclaimed, Ask God’s forgiveness for what you just said! My goodness, nothing pleases girls these days – my girl, a bride without a mandus isn’t a bride. After all, that mandus of hers will keep her incense fresh for years.

  Before the neighbourly gathering broke up Salima gave each of them a head wrap from the hundred she had bought to hand out to the women of al-Awafi: neighbours, the poor, relatives and others who weren’t related to her, mistresses of the town’s households and the women of slave families.

  Abdallah

  Seconds after I hit Salim I was assailed by a terrible and overwhelming sense that I had just become my father’s twin. Two days later, Mayya made a point of mentioning that Salim had not been drunk at all. He had had a shock, while spending the evening – most of the night, really – with his friends in a café in upscale al-Qurm, where the music was probably very loud. Late in the evening, the patrons had dwindled. Sitting on his own, drinking lemonade with mint, he suddenly saw a hand landing on the table edge, pressing against it for support. It was impossible to ignore: the fingernails were painted a glittery silver. When Salim raised his head a young man was staring at him, as much as one could stare through half-closed eyes. He was dressed entirely in black – Versace shirt, Armani jeans – and now that Salim was looking at him, he spoke, his murmur more like a purr.

  One look, man, just one, slay me.

  Salim concentrated on the lemonade in his hands, but he couldn’t stop himself shivering when the youth bent closer over him, tossing a fancy card onto the table. A number but no name. Salim ignored him. Where had his friends disappeared to? Maybe they were somewhere at another table, playing cards?

  The young man didn’t leave. He stood nearby, sighing loudly. When Salim didn’t react, he made a show of putting the card down again on the table. Finally Salim had to speak.

  Go – go away off now. Right now.

  The youth whispered back. I know . . . I don’t deserve even the nails on your toes, I know that . . . I don’t deserve a glance . . . He leaned closer in to Salim. Allah Allah ya habibi, the fire inside me, it’s white hot, have some mercy.

  When Salim hurried to his car and shot away, the boy’s Porsche was right behind him, through the night-time streets of Muscat. Salim finally lost him in a side street and drove home. The clock said 2 am, and I was waiting for him in the sitting room. I hit him, my voice taut with anger. Out so late, are you? Just waiting to disobey me? Your father’s rules?

  Ankabuta

  On the 25th of September 1926, Ankabuta was roaming the sparse expanse outside of town, bending over to pick up the few branches she could find, when the first pangs came. As she saw to the birth of her own daughter, with a rusty knife to separate the baby’s life from her own, the men gathered in Geneva signed an accord. Their signatures abolished slavery and criminalised the slave trade. It was Ankabuta’s fifteenth birthday but she was as unaware of that as she was that the world held a place called Geneva.

  Ankabuta ripped her dusty head veil in half to make a wrapping for her newborn baby, and she stuffed the other half up herself to stop the blood. Barefoot, her face uncovered, she walked back to al-Awafi. At Shaykh Said’s house – which with the birth had just gained another slave-girl – the women helped her inside. Ankabuta lay down on the reed matting and witnessed her daughter’s date-feeding ritual. The women had crushed a date and put it gently in the newborn’s mouth, taking it out seconds later, just as women of the Prophet’s time, they’d always heard, had done. When they lay the baby down beside her, Ankabuta burst into tears at the sight of the tiny wrinkled body wrapped in half her head scarf. It was the only cloth she owned that hadn’t been ripped apart by the wood she had to gather. Yes, it was only a white one – not dyed indigo like her other one, which was nearly in shreds – but it was strongly woven and held its shape. If it hadn’t turned the colour of dust she would have said it was new, and now here she had lost it.

  A week later the shaykh announced that the newborn girl’s name was Zarifa. Unfortunately, because things had been so bad since the spoilage of the date harvest, he would not be in a position to slaughter a ritual animal. Sixteen years later he would sell the girl to Merchant Sulayman. She would become a slave worker and a concubine. She would be his beloved, and the only woman who was ever close to him, while he was the only man she would love and respect, and that until the day of her death. In him she saw her liberator from the insults of Shaykh Said’s sons, and the beloved who showed her the pleasures of the body, as the instigator of the game of harshness and jealousy. In the end, he was the elderly shaykh who returned to her embrace to die.

  Abdallah

  At first Zayid was coming back to al-Awafi every Friday, handing out fruit, even to his neighbours. He hardly ever took off his uniform, even when he was with Suwayd, listening to him play his oud. But when no one poured coffee for him at the wake after Zayd died, leaving him to pour it himself, he knew that the villagers would never see him as a real officer. In their eyes he would always be Zayid, the son of Maneen, the wretch who begged from folks. Al-Awafi’s people were firm believers in the past; they did not look to the future. Gradually Zayid stopped engaging in the life of the village. After he found an Indian maidservant for his father, his visits dwindled, until he was only making the obligatory appearances on the major holy feast days.

  Years after his father’s murder we heard suddenly that Zayid had got married. He did not come back to al-Awafi for the occasion. His bride – Hafiza’s second and prettiest daughter – became his wife with a celebration at the Muscat Sheraton. The wedding party he arranged there was not attended by anyone from their village except the bride, her two sisters and her mother.

  Hafiza couldn’t have been more than seventeen when she got pregnant for the first time. Her mother Saada seized her by her hair and started pummelling her, but the neighbour women winked and let Saada know what the word was in the neighbourhood. No surprises here, Saada, she’s cut from the same cloth! Before her, it was her father’s sister, the slut was always lolling in the streets, wasn’t she? So her mother left her alone. When the baby girl slipped out of her mama’s body, her skin several shades darker than her mother’s or grandmother’s, Saada asked Hafiza again. Who is this bastard’s father? Hafiza answered as she had before. I told you, Mama, if it wasn’t Zaatar then it was either Marhun or Habib. Her mother shook her head and left h
er to her own devices.

  When Hafiza emerged from her forty days of confinement Judge Yusuf sentenced her to a hundred lashes. Her mother stuffed a big canvas sack with whatever old rags and shirts she could find and tied it onto Hafiza’s back hoping she wouldn’t feel the lashes. I snuck in along with the other boys – we hid among the crowds that had collected to watch the punishment carried out. But not even two years later, Hafiza delivered her second daughter. This time, the baby had very pale skin. And the sentence changed. By then, Judge Yusuf was a magistrate under the jurisdiction of the Sultan, though earlier he had regarded himself as issuing his judgements under the last Imam Ghalib bin Ali’s authority, even after the Imam was defeated and had to leave Oman. The Sultan’s government did not prescribe the Sharia punishments for adultery, and so Judge Yusuf did not order the woman whipped. Some of the elders proposed that Hafiza be sent to prison but no one paid much attention any more. People whispered that the newborn looked a lot like Shaykh Said’s youngest son: she was his spitting image, in fact, they said. Yet again, though, Hafiza said she wasn’t certain who the father was. That’s when she got her nickname, Bas ish-Shaab, Everyone’s Bus. Three more years and her third daughter appeared. This one looked more or less like her own mother, and she was the last of the daughters. Soon after, someone steered Hafiza to birth control pills.