by Nomi Eve
A few weeks after Asaf sold the Torah, Edna told me she had heard that Binyamin Bashari had left for Palestine. She said that he had left the major’s employ and had won petition to enter the country.
“I hope he will be happy there.” I forced a smile, but I didn’t feel like smiling at the news.
“You are filled with regrets?”
“Mostly I regret that I treated him poorly. And I regret that I never said farewell. It is the second time in our lives that I did not bid him a proper farewell, though this time I am much to blame. The truth is that I don’t feel like I acted like myself with him.”
“Then who were you?”
An image flashed into my head—of the almost-finished Muslim bride dolly that Auntie Aminah had been sewing for Suri, one of Masudah’s children, when she died. After Aminah’s death, I completed the dress hem and gave the doll blushing rosettes for cheeks. When I presented her to little Suri, she jumped up and down with excitement and then pressed the dolly to her breast and hugged it as hard as she could. Suri had died with Masudah. I wondered what had happened to the doll.
“I think I wasn’t quite finished then,” I said to Edna.
“Whatever do you mean?”
“I mean not completed, as if I were a doll with incomplete stitching. Poor Binyamin got an Adela with a hem missing, or maybe a bit of my soul wasn’t fully adorned with stitches. When he courted me, I was pinned but not sewn properly. I hope that in Palestine he finds a girl whom a better seamstress has seen fit to finish. I wish him well, really I do.”
“Do you?”
Edna tenderly touched my hand. “It’s okay, Adela, tears can water a marriage. What do I mean? We make choices and choices make us. You and Asaf are cousins, friends, and now husband and wife. You have loved him since you were a little girl. All is as it should be.”
“He said the same thing.”
“Who?”
“Asaf. He said, ‘All is how it should be.’ ”
“Well, then it must be so.”
That night I had a horrible dream. It took place in Qaraah, in my cave. The chalk boy and girl came to life. They slayed brothers. Ruined sisters. Set the world on fire. Then they turned on each other. The girl was quicker. She reached out and smudged the boy—erasing him. Then she erased herself. And somewhere in the darkness someone was chanting scripture from the deerskin Torah. It began, “All was wild and waste” and ended, “They knew not their own names, nor their own faces.” When I woke up, I was surprised to see the Aden sunshine streaming through my window—that bone-white glare—and Asaf sleeping next to me. I hadn’t erased him after all.
Chapter 31
After my marriage, we women hennaed every three or four weeks. All the women in my life silently conspired to pretend that my marriage was a happy one. It was the easiest for everyone. After all, since I was planning to travel with Asaf, everyone wanted to believe that we were well suited and that our marriage would sustain us on the journey. Asaf played along too. He was as affectionate as any husband, which meant that he was not that affectionate at all, for other than Aunt Rahel and Uncle Barhun, it was not the custom for men and women to display their true feelings for the eyes of the world. During those days I usually wore a design that Hani had learned from an Eritrean woman in Crater market—a trail of canna flowers blooming up my wrists and on the tops of my feet. My cousins and sisters-in-law joked with me about it. Sultana said, “Adela, we all suspect that you chose this design because your husband is insatiable.”
Sultana added, “She must need the female fortitude imparted by the vulvic flowers in order to match his ardor in bed.” They cackled together at my expense.
I didn’t correct them. I didn’t tell them that when Asaf did climb on top of me at night, it was with no ardor at all, only a mechanical thrusting. I didn’t tell anyone that I chose the Eritrean henna not for its blooms but for its linking curlicue chains that trailed up and down my fingers and swirled around my wrists. Hamama had told me that the chains signified the entwining of souls, the linking of fates. I chose the pattern because I didn’t know how to speak to Asaf about these things—love and fate—and so I hoped to let the henna speak for me. When I lay awake at night, Asaf asleep next to me, I often thought back to our childhood and tried to remember how we spoke to each other or touched each other in my cave. It had seemed so easy then, so natural. Sometimes I wondered if everything I remembered about Qaraah was really just the pattern on some other girl’s skin, an application of lies, dreams, and shadows.
During these same months, Hani wore a henna with a Persian Eye of God on both palms and pomegranate fruits on the backs of her hands. She also insisted on dots, slashes, waves, and swirls in strictly numbered patterns. We all mistook this to mean that she and David were engaged in kabbalistic nighttime acrobatics—surely the numbers corresponded to scriptural verses and holy words? We teased her, saying, “Hani and David are tasting forbidden knowledge.” She smiled knowingly and looked away, her color rising in a coy blush. Unknown to all of us, she and David hadn’t lain together in many months. Their love had faded, and she was casting her spells on someone else.
* * *
Every day I cleaned up after our morning meal, tidied up the house, and did my marketing. Sometimes when I had a spare moment, I was drawn to the harbor, even though I was no longer waiting for Asaf. I didn’t wonder about the ships coming in; instead, it was the ones sailing away that my eyes followed. I wondered about Binyamin, and if his ship had safely landed in Jaffa. I tried not to question whether he hated me. Sometimes I imagined him walking through a city of golden stones, and sometimes I saw myself there with him. Usually I returned from the harbor in a dark mood, but Asaf never seemed to notice.
Often in the evenings we visited family. At Yerushalmit and Sultana’s house, Asaf played sheshbesh with my brother Mordechai and taught him how to play placoto, a game from Greece. Sometimes he sat with Sultana’s husband, my brother Menachem, and listened to him rail against the British for putting quotas on the refugee Jews who wanted to enter Palestine. Asaf liked to bait my brother. He would argue that the refugees should look to the West, not only to Palestine. He would say, “What does it matter if they can’t go to Palestine? As Jews in Aden we can travel anywhere in the Empire and be treated as citizens. It is a new day, a modern age. We Jews must learn to be more at home in the wider world.”
Menachem snorted, “The wider world? We are not wanted there either, cousin. Only a dreamer or a fool would think otherwise. Which are you? You don’t strike me as a dreamer, and my poor father, may his memory be a blessing, is crying in the World to Come at the thought that my sister has married a fool.”
Asaf laughed. “It’s all gloom and doom with you, Menachem, but a seasoned traveler like myself knows better than to believe that the doors of the world would shut in the face of a man with something to sell, and I will always have something to sell.”
Whenever we went to Hani and David’s, Mara climbed on “Uncle Asaf’s” lap. He tickled her, and told her stories from Africa. “Have I told you about the rhinoceros who stole my hat? No? Well, I was sleeping under stars in Abyssinia when I heard a noise. It was like a purr, but also like a frog’s croak. Like a croaking purr. Really, I am not lying. Like this, it sounds like this—” And he let out a sound that made Mara dissolve in laughter. Then he tickled her, and she clamored for more—“Again, Uncle Asaf, again!”
Every so often, I went with Asaf down to the docks. Everyone seemed to know him there, even though he had been in Aden only three months. When I remarked on it he said, “I was here before, remember. Many times, with my father.” But it still didn’t make sense to me. He hadn’t been back to Aden since he was a boy. And these were transient people. The dhow captain from Eritrea, the customs agent with the long mustache newly arrived in Aden, the coffee traders from Taiz, the bring-’em-in boys who waded out into the water to catch the junks or rafts. When they saw him they all yelled, “Asaf! Asaf!” and he flashed a big
smile and waved with a strong flip of the hand. How could they all know him so well?
When I remarked upon this to my cousins, they rolled their eyes. Edna said, “Don’t you know whom you married, Adela?”
Taken aback, I huffed, “What are you talking about?”
Nogema laid a hand on mine. “Your husband is the sort everyone wants to know, and so they feign familiarity, they learn his name from one another so as to appear important.”
“What are you saying? He is just, well, he’s just a boy. Not even a boy with his own shop.”
Hani retorted, “He was never a boy to you, Adela. And once you became a woman, you prayed to Elohim that he would come back and be your husband. He was always a man to you, the man you would marry. So why should he be a boy to anyone else?”
I felt my face go red. I flashed her the darkest eyes I could muster. I opened my mouth but was too furious to form any words. All I could think was, How dare she spill my old secret? Hani saw that she had crossed a line, and quickly she placated me. “Don’t get mad, Adela, I only meant to say that whatever you have always seen in him, others see too. My father already treats him like a favored son. Mr. Haza took him along that time when he had that meeting with Mr. Messa. And what about the horse? Asaf was the only one who could catch the creature. And now Commissioner Reilly wants him to ride in the Othman races. He would be the only Jewish jockey. For that alone Asaf deserves praise and notice.”
She was referring to something that had happened a week before our wedding. A prized chestnut thoroughbred filly had been brought in by caravan from Lahaj, a gift from one of the little sultans to Commissioner Reilly in Aden, but before she could be corralled, she slipped her halter and disappeared into the hills above the cisterns. A reward was offered, but for weeks, no one had so much as caught sight of her. And when they finally did see her, she was too fast, disappearing into the dunes before anyone could fit a bridle over her head. Asaf heard of the plight of the filly. Quietly he hired a Bedouin boy to take him to the environs where she had last been sighted. Two days after the Sabbath of Tazria, when our men read the portion concerning the affliction of leprosy, Asaf rode the filly bareback into town. The commissioner paid him a generous purse of rupees and had told him to come to the stables to ride one of his mares whenever he wanted.
“The Muslims in the market call him Zafir—‘Victorious,’ ” Hani said. “It is a good thing, Adela. Don’t begrudge your husband his popularity. This match that your mother made when you were children, she must hear all the dock boys calling his name from heaven, and smile.”
On the Sabbath we gathered together as a family, usually at Uncle Barhun and Aunt Rahel’s, for their house was the largest. On Friday eve, the men of the family came home from synagogue. We women served the jachnun, the men ate their fill and then relaxed at the table, singing pious songs. One Sabbath, as I was rinsing dishes, Aunt Rahel took me by the shoulders. “Don’t worry. Your belly is still flat? You were only just married. But if you are still bleeding by summer, I will give you something to put in your tea. No worries, my love. No worries.”
“No, Aunt Rahel, I don’t want a baby just yet.”
She looked shocked, but I explained that I had been using a pessary. That Asaf sometimes used a sheath when we lay together, and that I didn’t want to conceive until after our travels. I didn’t tell her that this had been Asaf’s idea. He had suggested it—“as a matter of convenience. After all,” he had said, “traveling with an infant is dangerous. There will be plenty of time for babies when we return.”
Aunt Rahel shook her head and said, “It is not wise for a girl to play with her menses before she has had a child. Better you delay your trip than waste the blood that Elohim gives you for sowing.”
“But I am not playing with my menses. I bleed as usual.”
“No”—she shook her head—“you bleed for naught.”
That night, Asaf tossed and turned in his sleep. I lay awake a long time, watching him. In the morning, I brushed the curls out of his eyes. His forehead was damp and he looked tired.
“You didn’t sleep well?”
“As well as can be expected in this heat.”
I nodded sleepily and murmured, “Aden has fire for air. It’s like the volcano is still erupting, no?”
At least once a week, I joined Hani in a lorry and we went together to Sheik Othman. With the aid of funds from the Jewish Agency, the British had built a camp there for the refugee Jews from all over Yemen—the hostel was no longer big enough to contain them. Aunt Rahel also went to the camp to help the nurses. Hani went to do henna, taking with her a full complement of supplies in a big red basket that she swung over her shoulder. They told us stories as we did their henna. They said things like, “I am from the crocodile swamps” or “I was born of a heron” or “I gave birth to my daughter through a wound in my thigh.” From their stories, we knew what designs to give them. We knew if it was a henna of solace or of sympathy that they needed. Or a henna of hope, of happiness, or forbearance. Every so often, Hani was called upon to do a bridal application. “Even refugees get married,” she said to me as we rounded the last bend of the lorry ride. “I skip the shaddar, of course. There is no time. But I do an elaborate cuff and anklet. I do the grains of wheat and sprigs or rue. For what bride can be married without the rue?”
I helped Hani with the henna. But usually I helped the teachers. The Jewish Agency wanted the girls as well as the boys in the camp to learn to read, “to prepare them for their lives in Palestine.” The classes were held in an open tent next to the tent where a doctor from New Zealand gave eye exams. I drew the letters in the earth and the children put their hands on my hand—, , , . “Aleph, bet, gimel, dalet . . .” One day I worked for hours with a girl with snarling lips and smiling eyes. I drew her name and she copied it ten times, each time worse than the one before. Her hand was shaky, her letters bloated. But still she persevered. My, how she tried. Looking up at me for approval. I clapped my hands. “Yes, yes, just like that.” I put my hand over hers, and helped her make the shapes that held meaning tucked up inside them, like Hani’s henna basket, full of scent, spice, and color.
Chapter 32
Tales of betrayal were always told in the henna house alongside stories of love, luck, and seduction. Ever since I received my first henna, after Aunt Rahel saved Sultana’s son Moshe, I’d listened to the girls and women in my life entertain one another with accounts of domestic conspiracies and legendary romantic triangles. But I never really gave much thought to the women whose fates were dark. Those brides who were betrayed, whose most prized blessings were stolen and spun into soft garments for others to wear . . . I rarely considered them. Why would I? Years later I came to see that I should have paid better attention.
* * *
Late afternoon, four months after my marriage, I was cooking dinner. I had already made the dough for the bread and was chopping the onions for the stew. I laid the knife down and wiped the sweat off my forehead, but then I stopped, holding my hand midway between my face and the board. I had noticed a little regiment of elements on the back of my left hand. Elements that seemed to be linked to form an abstract design, a tricky pattern reminiscent of a Sudanese Eye of God but not quite as formally structured. No, I had never really seen a design like this before. Hani had given me new henna just two days earlier. Why hadn’t I noticed it when she was working? I resumed chopping, and looked out the window. On the street, a lorry driver was passing by. Behind the lorry came a donkey cart laden with furniture. The cart driver was singing to his donkey in a loud comical voice. I looked back down at my hands. I was suddenly dizzy. A jolt of panic ran up my spine. Had the pessary failed? Was I expecting a baby? If I were pregnant, Asaf wouldn’t take me with him. No, that couldn’t be it. I had bled in accordance with my cycle. And we had barely lain together since. Maybe it was the heat. I was so hot. The windows were open, but there was no air in the little kitchen.
I poured a glass of juice and force
d myself to drink. But as I put the cup down, right before my eyes, the henna elements unbound themselves from my skin, stepped out of formation, and rolled around in my palm. There were three stacked waves, a diamond with a dot in it, a crescent moon, a sideways scroll. They played tricks in front of my eyes, sliding down onto my wrist and then climbing back up again, up and down. Then they lay back down, tidy on the perch of a perfectly executed border. I steadied myself at the cooking board. I forced myself to chop another onion. Then I put down my knife, went to my drawers, and fished underneath my undergarments for the old piece of paper. I sat down on the pallet. Unfurled my hand. Examined it. The rest of the henna faded away. Each element was a letter, the letters formed words.
A.
Let my Beloved come into his Garden and eat his pleasant fruits Thursday midmorning,
H.
From out of the past, the alphabetical correspondences revealed themselves. It was the code. Hani’s old code. Aleph was a gently sloping mountain, nun was a double circle, qof was a dotted triangle, dalet three little humps . . .
I dropped the piece of paper and curled up in a little ball. I stayed like that for a long time, unable to move. When I finally tried to get up, I felt the floor tip and the walls go crooked. Like a passenger on a storm-tossed boat, I grabbed at the wall for purchase and made my way slowly back to the kitchen. My head pounded and I had to keep swallowing to keep from retching. I got myself a cup of tea and sat down again at the kitchen table. As I forced myself to drink, I stared at the henna on my arm until I saw snakes writhing in the thicket of leaves Hani had drawn on my right forearm. I shut my eyes, rubbed them, and when I opened them again, my henna lay flat, but I wasn’t fooled. I felt the world dip and sway around me again, and it took all my strength to get my bearings before my husband came home expecting dinner. I said nothing to him that night. I hid my shame, and pretended that I wasn’t a character in one of the sadder sagas murmured in the henna house.