Henna House

by Nomi Eve

  Yerushalmit had gotten to her favorite part of the story. Her voice rose. “When the poor girl could take it no longer, she sat up in bed, then lay down again. She covered her eyes with her hand and murmured a prayer of thanks for her good fortune, and then begged Elohim for the strength to endure it. Her lover bowed over her. She reached out and traced his lips with the tip of her finger. Then he lowered himself again and wrote one more mystical name for God on her sanctified flesh. What did he write? Ein Sof, Without End, the name that refers to Elohim’s infinite presence. And her pleasure became that of the holy name: Without End, the infinite of all infinites. Forever and ever.”

  We all erupted in laughter. Hani was holding up her hands, blowing on the paste to help it dry. She was laughing too, and when our laughter died down she played the coquette, amusing us all with her alluring bravado.

  “Yerushalmit,” she purred, “promise me something—that you will sneak into David’s room at night and whisper this marvelous story in his ear as he sleeps. Do it in the third hour after midnight, when the angels open the soul to suggestion. Promise me. Yes? For what a waste it will be if only girlish ears hear it.”

  “Of course, my dear, of course.” Yerushalmit sat back and made a show of examining her own henna. She had a big smile on her face and it was clear to see that she was proud of her efforts. Masudah snorted, “Oh, Yerushalmit, how do you think of such things?”

  Yerushalmit winked. “When I am doing my most boring household tasks—shelling beans or darning socks—I let my mind wander.”

  “Such wandering, it’s a wonder you feed your husband and keep house.” Sultana chuckled. “Mordechai must appreciate his good fortune, when he gets home and finds that you’ve been daydreaming yourself into a state of readiness.”

  We laughed, enjoying ourselves and reveling in the celebration. “Who knows”—Masudah gestured at Hani—“maybe David will write the holy names on your wedding night.”

  Hani herself added a last word. “Or maybe he will write the Shem HaMephorash.”

  We all tittered. She was referring to the seventy-six-letter name for Elohim that the kabbalists use only on rare occasions to refer to the most secret mysteries of creation.

  “Seventy-six letters?” Yerushalmit cackled. “Show me a virgin bride who could bear such devotion!”

  That night I lay down to bed with the laughter of the women of my family echoing in my head. I smiled into the darkness. Hani, David, and Mr. Haza wouldn’t be leaving Qaraah for another six months, the delay having something to do with the commencement of David’s studies and the beginning of Mr. Haza’s contract with Fey and Absev. My uncle Barhun was still undecided as to whether or not he would accept Mr. Haza’s offer of partnership and return with Aunt Rahel to Aden. Six months seemed like a very long time. Their departure was still so far off in the distance as to seem unreal. I lay on my pallet suffused with optimism, happiness, and hope—as if some of their love had rubbed off on me, as if some of their luck was actually my own. And if it wasn’t, well, I still had Aunt Rahel’s satchel of herbs hidden away safely with Hani’s coded henna alphabet.

  Chapter 18

  Hani’s wedding was set for the fifth day of the week before the third Sabbath in the month of Sivan. This was June in the world outside the Kingdom, 1932. I was almost fourteen years old. We hadn’t had rain in many weeks and people feared that another drought was upon us. The daisies and mustard flowers weren’t blooming in the dunes, and our meals were meager, but our hearts were light with the prospect of the celebration. Sivan was the month when Elohim descended to Sinai to give the Torah to his people. This was considered an especially auspicious time for a marriage, because when God gave the Torah to the Jewish people, it was as if he married them too.

  * * *

  Three weeks before the wedding, Aunt Rahel was scheduled to travel to Sana’a to henna a Muslim bride. Hani had always traveled with her mother, but this time she couldn’t go, as it was too close to her own wedding. Aunt Rahel asked my parents to let me come as her helper. My mother balked, scoffing at the idea. I was pounding dough for lahuhua, so I heard it all, though I dared not look up from the board. I peeked out of the corner of my eye and watched Aunt Rahel make her case. She said, “Adela has never seen anything of the world. Let me take her with me; I will take care of her. We will return in just three days. One day for travel each way, one day in Sana’a.” My mother wiped her hands on her apron. Then she shook her head with a leering, almost laughing expression on her face. “No, sister,” she said, “you will not take my daughter to Sana’a.”

  I had never heard my mother call my aunt sister before, and while it would seem that the word conveyed warmth and connection, in my mother’s mouth it was sodden with the opposite: malice and scorn, like a sponge that had soaked up all her suspicions. “Adela will stay here with me.” I pressed the heel of my hand into the dough, grinding it so hard that my hand hit the board underneath and the dough splayed out on either side of my palm.

  Two days went by. I heard from Masudah that my mother told her she would just as soon send me to Sodom alone as send me to Sana’a with Aunt Rahel.

  Masudah offered advice. “Don’t be mad at your mother for denying you the opportunity to accompany your aunt,” she said, trying to make peace. “She is only trying to do what she thinks is best for you.” I had come storming into her house. I was so angry, I couldn’t sleep or eat. My anger loosened my tongue, and I heard myself speaking in an almost unrecognizable voice.

  “I don’t hate my mother, Masudah, but I don’t love her either.”

  “Sha, girl!” Masudah widened her eyes, signaling for me to bite my tongue. Her kitchen, as always, was filled with children. Remelia was shelling fava beans. Her younger sister, Tamar, was sitting right next to her. The two didn’t even pretend not to listen, staring at me with bald admiration.

  “So you think it is wise? Just? Fair? That my mother won’t even spare me for a few days to go and breathe the air on a different mountain?”

  Masudah came right up in front of me and took my face into her hands. “Adela, go home, make a little amulet box, and beg a scribe to write you a name for Elohim that no one has ever heard before. Put it in the box, and sleep with it under your pillow. Maybe in the morning you will forget your spite. I say this for your own good, not your mother’s. Spite will curdle a girl’s womb, and even though you aren’t yet wed, no good can come of the anger I see in your eyes.”

  I backed away from Masudah, took a deep showy breath, and then forced a smile. “Oh, Masudah, I am my own amulet box, and the name for Elohim is already written on the inside of my eyelids. I have already forgotten my anger, you see. Just speaking my ridiculous words aloud has caused me to remember to honor my mother. Don’t worry about me. I will be fine.”

  I wasn’t fine, but I was good at pretending. I left Masudah’s and went home, where I found Aunt Rahel sitting in the lap of the big frankincense tree with her traveling case between her legs. In the case were little baskets and boxes—some with lids, some open with little drawstring pouches inside. I could see that she had been sorting through the materials she brought with her when she was contracted to do henna.

  “Adela,” she said, looking up at me, “you are to come with me to Sana’a after all. Go inside and check that your clothes are clean. You must bring your new antari, and of course your leggings with the cowries and coral. You must look your best. We will leave in three days.”

  “But . . . ?”

  “Don’t worry. Just go. Ask for a bag. And then come to me. I must give you new henna. I will be waiting for you.”

  “But Aunt Rahel—”

  “Don’t fret. Just do as I say.”

  Was she defying my mother? I could never go without permission. Inside, my mother was at the table cutting a scrawny little onion. Though she rarely cried from this work, tears were running down her face. When she saw me, she wiped them away with the back of a weathered hand.

  “Aunt Rahel told m
e to—”

  She cut me off. “So,” she said, “so it is to be. Go, go to my lesser cupboard, pull out a bag, pack it with a change of clothes. And take my carnelian ring, wear it on your third or second finger, whichever fits. And make sure you wash yourself and your hair before you travel. You can’t go with hair that looks like a nest, can you?”

  Three days later she bid me farewell for the first time in my life. Uncle Barhun had hitched the donkeys to the carriage. They were swishing their tails with shut eyes, sleeping standing up. Aunt Rahel was helping him load her baskets of supplies. It was just before dawn, the sky a starless blue-black. My mother held me by the shoulders, hissed into my ear, “Don’t drink or eat in the henna house, not a bite or a sip. No matter how hungry or thirsty you may be. Swear it to me, Daughter, or I won’t let you go.”

  I nodded.

  “Eh?”

  I was wearing her carnelian bridal ring on the second finger of my right hand. I knew that my mother believed that this ring had special magical properties, as she had been wearing it on three separate occasions when she almost died—once from illness, once from childbirth, once from a falling roof in a storm. I knew that she wanted me to wear the ring because she was afraid I would be poisoned. She believed that Muslims were always trying to poison Jews, slit their throats, or smother them with a pillow. She didn’t believe this frivolously. Before the Imam came to power, it wasn’t unusual for minor disputes between Muslim and Jew to be resolved with the fatal slash of a knife or a dose of aconite slipped into a cup of coffee—administered while the Turkish functionary guard looked the other way. Those days were past but not forgotten in the Kingdom.

  “I promise, Mother,” I said. “Not a bite.”

  * * *

  Aunt Rahel put her arm on my shoulder. Her hands were covered with Hani’s magnificent star pattern. It seemed to me that the stars that weren’t in the sky that dusky morning were on her skin, as if my aunt had actually reached up and scooped out the very lights of heaven. I also had new henna. Aunt Rahel had given me a pattern called Eastern Fig and Western Lily. She had hennaed me all the way up to my elbows. The design was dense and elaborate. In the morning dark, it looked as though I were wearing gloves.

  “Don’t worry, Sulamita, we will keep her safe and return her to you without a bruise or blemish.”

  My mother stalked away before we were fully loaded and prepared to go. My father came out to the carriage to bid us farewell.

  “When you return, you will tell me all about the great city, eh, Daughter? You will sit with me in my stall, like when you were little, and tell me stories of your adventure.”

  “Of course I will, Father.” I went to hug him, but he pushed me away, and then coughed into the cloth that he kept in his sleeve pocket. Aunt Rahel pursed her lips, and said, “Brother, are you taking the tonic I gave you?”

  My father nodded. “Of course I am”—he coughed again—“but perhaps when you return you can brew me a fresh dose.”

  I flung myself on my father, despite his protestations. As I hugged him, I felt his bones rattle with another cough, and I thought of the little embroidered satchel of poison in my drawer. The old dread gripped my heart, and the long face of the Confiscator flashed through my head, bringing bitter bile up to my throat. I wondered if I would be burying my father and brewing my own tonic before Hani was even wed. I reluctantly let go of my father, climbed up on the carriage, and left Qaraah for the first time in my life.

  I did eventually learn why my mother relented and let me go with Aunt Rahel. From whom did I hear the truth? Maybe from a ghost—come back from her grave to speak truths that could not otherwise be spoken by the living. Maybe I heard it from out of the mouth of one of the many blue-green lizards that kept us company on our trek south when we finally left Qaraah for Aden. Or maybe I heard it in the henna house, in a voice that was many voices—that of all my sisters-in-law, who would spill secrets as they inscribed one another with pretty pictures and amulet words.

  The story goes like this: Before I was born, my mother and father traveled south to Aden to attend Barhun and Rahel’s wedding. At the Night of Henna, my mother drank too much date wine and let herself be taken behind the curtain by a friend of Rahel’s who liked women more than men. My mother lay with this woman of her own volition, and was heard to utter sighs of pleasure. And this is why my mother harbored such hatred for Aunt Rahel, because my aunt held the secret of my mother’s indiscretion like an asp to her breast. In all the time they were in Qaraah, Rahel never whispered a word of it—that is, until my mother refused to let me go to Sana’a. Then Rahel reminded my mother. She said, “Remember when we were young, Sulamita, and it wasn’t so difficult to distinguish pleasure from pain, pain from ordinary life, and ordinary life from the life that is to come?”

  “What are you talking about?” my mother asked.

  “My Night of Henna.” Then Rahel lowered her voice and whispered the other woman’s name—that of my mother’s lover. That is all she did, whisper it, but it was enough. My mother knew that Rahel Damari held her reputation in the palm of her hand. She let me go so that Rahel would speak of it no more.

  I was not astonished when I heard this story. I knew that my mother was neither the first nor the last woman to take her pleasure in the henna house. And I also knew enough about the ways of the world to pity my mother for having been shamed by matters of the flesh. But I was surprised that Aunt Rahel would spend the coin of my mother’s shame to pry me from Qaraah. It later occurred to me that I had very little to do with it. Perhaps Rahel was simply tired of having my mother lord her resentment over her. Maybe, after so many years, she wanted to let my mother know that she was growing weary of keeping her secret. And if the secret could purchase a little bit of freedom for me, well, my aunt was willing to speak the words that had long gone unspoken.

  Chapter 19

  We entered Sana’a late in the day through an arched gate in the city wall. What did I see there? Beggars in tattered black djellabas; decommissioned Turkish soldiers in fezzes and grimy uniforms sitting on overturned boxes playing sheshbesh; brown turbaned boys laughing and loitering in front of a mosque; old men spitting wads of khat onto the dirty street as our carriage rolled by. I watched with eyes “the size of little moons,” Aunt Rahel later told me, laughing. I saw toothless fortune-tellers squatting over pads of incense; wealthy-looking Muslim gentlemen in thobe skirts and dark suit jackets leaning into each other, and holding each other by the crook of the arm as they walked purposefully by the side of the road. I saw red- and orange- and vermilion-clad women swathed in abaya and sharshaf swaying through the throng, baskets filled with market goods flung over their shoulders, or balanced on their heads. And the buildings? Ocher-colored, with white arched windows. On all sides of us thousands and thousands of buildings rose up like the spires of a buried castle. They were so tall, I craned my neck but could not see the tops. Eight, nine, ten stories into the air, with red-brick and white-gypsum designs around domed windows and rooftop lattices. And so many mosques! Their domes and minarets gleamed in the sun. We passed by caravansaries with mules and donkeys braying in stalls. The city seemed a geometric puzzle assembling and reassembling itself before my eyes. The beseeching songs of the muezzin rising up from minarets; throaty men hawking rubber novelties; an angry soldier calling after a boy who had stolen a bag of nuts; the pitiful caw caw of a crow in a cage; the high-pitched complaining of three children stumbling after their mother as she disappeared through the muddy puddles of a dark narrow alley that smelled of shit and piss. I didn’t care if the place stank. I wanted to see everything, but as we made our way through town, I caught myself slouching down in the carriage, and suddenly I felt very small. Sana’a’s loudness and largeness made me feel like a miniature version of myself, as if I were tiny, a doll-sized girl who hailed from an earth of more modest proportions.

  We entered the Qu’al Yahud by the Al-Boonia gate. Inside the Jewish Quarter, the curled earlocks of the men and bo
ys and the black gargushim of the women and girls alerted me that I was once again among my own people. Houses were marked with Stars of David and were only four or five stories high compared to the nine- or ten-story towers in the rest of the city. Uncle Barhun clucked his tongue and urged the donkeys forward past a ritual bath, a synagogue, and a neat courtyard off which radiated lane after lane of bustling stalls and shops. We were to spend the night with the family of a locksmith Uncle Barhun knew, who would provide our lodging in return for a modest payment.

  * * *

  In the morning, we rose early. After we had checked our bags and seen that all our materials were in order, Auntie Rahel braided my hair and painted my face with black gall—giving me three dots on each cheek and a triangle on my chin. She put turmeric powder on my eyelids and a smear of indigo higher, under my eyebrows. Then she dabbed hyacinth perfume on my pulse points. She had brought big silver hoops for my ears, a beautiful lazem necklace with Maria Theresa thalers and rupees dangling from the red coral beads, and six silver bracelets—three for each wrist. I felt very grown-up in such finery.

  We made our way out of the Qu’al Yahud to the house of the parents of the bride. The celebrations for the Night of Henna were already well under way and had spilled outside. There were red-nosed musicians, rushing caterers, and neighbors who had already come to deliver their good wishes to the bride in the form of huge trays of candied sweets that filled the air with the allure of caramelized sugar and attracted so many bees that they seemed to be accompanying the music from the tabl drums with their syncopated hum and buzz. Even though we had eaten that morning, I felt almost faint with hunger, for it had been many weeks since I had eaten my fill. Now, everywhere I looked, I saw overflowing trays of fruits, sweets, and savories. I wondered if the drought hadn’t affected Sana’a, or if this bride was so wealthy that her family could afford to pay a premium on rare delicacies. Uncle Barhun helped us unload our baskets and then he left to attend to some business back in the Qu’al Yahud. Aunt Rahel and I were ushered into the ladies’ salon on the second floor. We were introduced to the women assembled there by the bride’s mother-in-law, and then led over to where the bride was sitting.