Footprints in the Desert

by Maha Akhtar

  She went to turn the little sign on the door to read “Open.” She cleared away her shawl behind the bar and put her apron over her black dress.

  “Rania!” The doorbell jingled. “Where have you been? We came by earlier …” Saydeh’s voice sounded behind her.

  Rania turned and smiled, smoothing her apron down over her dress.

  “Oh!” Saydeh stopped, her hand going to her mouth as soon as she saw the black dress. “Oh habibti! I’m so sorry. I forgot the day. It slipped my mind.” She went over and hugged Rania.

  “Thank you, Tante Saydeh,” Rania bent down to embrace her. “But there’s no reason for you to remember.”

  “I’m a bit disoriented these days,” Saydeh said, “with everything going on.”

  “Noura has officially moved in.” She turned to Noura who was standing politely behind her. “So she is now part of the neighborhood.”

  “Ahlan wa sahlan, Noura,” Rania smiled. “I’m so happy you are here.”

  “Today is a sad day for Rania,” Saydeh explained to Noura. “It is the day she received news that she had lost her husband.”

  “I am so sorry, Rania,” Noura said, her own grief rising as Khaled came to her mind. “I can understand.”

  “If anyone can, it is Noura,” Saydeh squeezed her hand. “She lost her husband in May. He was one of the men Ahmad Jemmal executed.”

  “Oh no! I am so sorry, Noura.”

  “Thank you. And I am sorry for you, Rania.”

  Rania nodded her thanks.

  “Are you happy you came here?” Rania changed the subject.

  Noura nodded eagerly.

  “I am,” she said. “Now, of course, I also have to see how to get my business going.”

  “That will happen … ,” Saydeh said.

  “What if … ,” Rania began. “What if, well, I’m not sure how it would work, but you know there are announcements in the newspapers?”

  “Announcements?” Saydeh said.

  “Maybe we can put one in the newspaper?” Rania suggested.

  “People in the souk don’t read the newspaper … it’s word of mouth … it’s been like that since this souk began,” Saydeh said.

  “You are right,” Rania said. “In that case, why don’t we tell the lady next door? Her sons are in the Expeditionary Force. They are home for a couple of weeks and have to go back to the Sinai. I bet they have repair work on their uniforms.”

  “Wait! Military uniforms … ,” Saydeh said excitedly. “That’s a great idea. There are a few people I can tell, too …”

  As they sat pondering other ideas on how to best spread the word about Noura, the doorbell jingled and Yvonne walked in wearing a long black abaya, followed by Takla a few minutes later. Holding her abaya tightly around her, she walked to the long table in the middle.

  “Marhaba, Madame Yvonne,” Rania welcomed her from behind the bar.

  Yvonne waved at her.

  “Marhaba, ladies,” Yvonne cheerily greeted her friends. “How is everyone this morning?”

  No one knew quite how to respond to Yvonne’s sudden cheerfulness or her abaya.

  “What happened to you this morning?” Saydeh asked, guardedly.

  “What do you mean?” Yvonne immediately shot back.

  “I mean why are you being so pleasant? And why are you dressed in an abaya? Did you convert?”

  “Very funny.” Yvonne made a little face at Saydeh.

  “Maybe she got lucky,” Takla suggested sarcastically, looking around at the little group. “And a little hammimi went on this morning!” she added.

  “You should be ashamed of yourself talking like that!” Yvonne admonished. “You sound like an eighteen-year-old boy.”

  “Oh for goodness’ sake …”

  “It’s not as if you have any luck … ,” Yvonne started.

  “That’s because I am a widow,” Takla retorted.

  “Ladies!” Rania intervened before it deteriorated into a fight. “Enough!”

  “Madame Yvonne, I’ll be right back to take your order.” She swept past with a tray of coffee and small plates piled high with baklava.

  “So, Yvonne … ,” Saydeh looked her up and down, “did you really convert to Islam?”

  “What?” Yvonne frowned in irritation.

  “You’re completely covered up,” Saydeh said.

  “Yes!” Takla interjected. “What’s with the abaya?”

  “Yih!” Yvonne’s angry expression cleared and she broke into a small smile. “This is what I came in to show you.” She took off the abaya and twirled around. She was wearing the new dress Noura had made for her. Fatmeh’s mouth fell open. Takla and Saydeh stared wide-eyed at Yvonne and Noura smiled happily. She’d been right. The dress looked perfect on Yvonne. It was simple with lines that suited her figure and flattered it. Even the dusky gold color looked much better on her than Noura had thought.

  Noura looked around her. Yes, everything is going to be all right. For the first time since Khaled’s death, she felt she could breathe.

  Suddenly, the door flung open and Fatmeh came in, panting and out of breath. “Rania!” she cried. “Where’s Rania?”

  “In the kitchen …”

  “Fatmeh!” Rania said, surprised when she saw the young woman stumble into the kitchen. “Fatmeh, what’s wrong?”

  “Rania,” Fatmeh gasped. “He’s going to kill me.”

  “Who?” Rania put her arms on Fatmeh’s shoulders.

  “Walid … my husband.”

  “But … but why?”

  “He found my notebook of love poems.” Fatmeh was terrified. “And he is convinced I am having an affair.” She began crying.

  “I told him that the poems were about him, but he didn’t believe me,” she sobbed. “He claims that I cannot possibly write about love without having firsthand experience,” she declared.

  “Well, you are recently married … ,” Rania said.

  “But the man I write about in my poems is not my husband, Rania.” Fatmeh collapsed on a chair. “And he knows I don’t write about him. He knows the way he treats me …”

  “Oh God, Fatmeh … you’re having an affair?”

  Fatmeh didn’t answer.

  “Rania … please help me … I’m so scared,” Fatmeh’s tears began again. “He’s probably looking for me right now. He was so angry when I ran out of the house.”

  “Did he hurt you, Fatmeh?” Rania crouched down on her heels and looked at Fatmeh in the eye.

  “He tried to choke me,” Fatmeh took off her headscarf.

  Rania drew in a sharp, short breath when she saw the purple bruise marks on her neck.

  “Where is she?” a man’s angry voice rang out in the café. “Where is that whore I have the misfortune to have married?”

  “Quickly, Fatmeh!” Rania pushed her. “Into the cellar!” she ordered.

  “She has to be here!” He strode around. “Where’s the owner?”

  “Are you looking for me?” Rania drew the curtain and stepped out into the café.

  “Where is my wife?” Walid stood with his hands across his belly, his face contorted with anger. “Where are you hiding her?”

  God certainly missed this one, Rania thought as she confronted him.

  Indeed, Walid El Askar had not been blessed with looks or brains. He clearly enjoyed being domineering and listening to the sound of his own voice. He was not a tall man and was very round … everywhere. Without his tunic, he probably looked like a ball stuck on two sticks.

  “She is not here.” Rania faced him defiantly.

  “Come on, brother!” one of the shopkeepers said. “A little respect.”

  “Shut up! Don’t talk to me about respect!” Walid turned on the shopkeeper.

  “Where is she? Where is that two-timing little bitch?”

  “Would you stop talking like that?” the shopkeeper stood up and faced Walid. “There are ladies present.”

  “Ladies?” Walid sneered. “You call these ladies?”
>
  The rest of the shopkeepers got up.

  “It’s time you left, brother.” One of the men squared up to Walid.

  “Not until I find my wife.”

  “Well she’s not here.”

  “Yeah! We haven’t seen Madame Fatmeh in days.”

  “Don’t you dare take Fatmeh’s name, you filthy pig!” Walid lunged at the man.

  “Are you calling me a pig?” the shopkeeper said, angrily pointing to himself.

  He was the only shopkeeper who was still sitting and suddenly he got up. He was big. He came menacingly close to Walid.

  “Come on!” The burly shopkeeper gestured for Walid to come closer. “Take your best shot! Come on, you coward!”

  Walid attacked him first, swiping at him, hitting him on his chin. Caught off guard, the shopkeeper fell backwards on a chair that collapsed in pieces. Reaching for a stool that one of the other men had just vacated, he swung it at Walid. He missed and the stool crashed on the floor. Meanwhile, Walid picked up a chair and tried to hit the shopkeeper with it. The shopkeeper ducked and Walid slammed the chair into one of the tables, causing it to break in half. Coffee cups and plates smashed into smithereens on the stone floor. The other men joined in the fray. More tables and chairs broke as the fight broadened and tempers flared even hotter.

  “Ya Allah! They are going to destroy my café!” Rania cried, her hands covering her ears. “Tante Takla … please, can you go get Salah?”

  Takla nodded and ran out.

  “Oh!” Yvonne’s hand went to her heaving chest as a saucer went flying over her head.

  “Come, Yvonne!” Saydeh held out her hand and the two women ducked and wove their way to the bar, crouching down behind it just as one of the men came flying across the room, his fall broken by the bar itself.

  “Allah! My furniture!” Rania cried, wringing her hands.

  She stepped in.

  “Stop it!” she shouted as loudly as she could, standing on the farmhouse table in the middle. “Khalas! Stop it you animals!”

  Suddenly, they all stopped and stared at her.

  “What is wrong with all of you?” she shouted. “If you want to kill each other, do it outside, in the street … but not in here. This is my café, my home. So either you behave like human beings or don’t ever come back here again.

  “And you!” she went up to Walid. “You are a revolting man … you have a foul tongue and a filthy temper.”

  Rania breathed heavily, the anger and adrenaline coursing through her veins.

  “Get out now and don’t you ever come back here,” she told Walid in a low voice. “Because if you do, I will call the police and I will have you arrested.”

  Walid stared at her in anger.

  “You have no respect for anyone … Get out!” Rania screamed.

  Walid stuck his chin out belligerently, but finally left.

  “And the rest of you, go on! Khalas! Out.”

  “Sorry, Madame Rania.” The shopkeepers started walking out in single file, each one looking guilty, staring down at their shoes, unable to look her in the eye. “Be’tezeer, Madame Rania.”

  After they had all left, Rania turned and sat down on the bench, her head in her hands. She was shaking.

  Slowly, Saydeh and Madame Yvonne emerged from behind the bar.

  “Well, no wonder Fatmeh never talked about her husband,” Saydeh said, crawling out.

  “I have to get back to make lunch, but tomorrow I want to hear all the details of Fatmeh’s story,” Saydeh said.

  Rania nodded.

  “See you tomorrow.” Madame Yvonne took her leave as well.

  “Fatmeh …?” Rania opened the cellar.

  Fatmeh came out. Her hand went to her mouth. “Rania, I am so sorry. Look at this place! I will pay for the damage … somehow, I will pay it all back to you.”

  “They didn’t destroy the whole place … luckily.” Rania looked around. “It’s only a couple of chairs and a table and some crockery.”

  “I’m just so sorry,” Fatmeh repeated.

  “Now, you want to tell me what’s really going on?”

  “I don’t know where to begin.” Fatmeh played with the sleeve of her abaya.

  Rania waited patiently. While Fatmeh gathered herself, she got up and got a couple of glasses of sweet lime juice.

  “So,” she said, sitting back down on the bench next to Fatmeh, “are you going to tell me or not?”

  “Rania … please don’t judge me or think ill of me,” Fatmeh began.

  “Fatmeh,” Rania put her hand over Fatmeh’s, “that is God’s job, not mine.”

  “But I don’t want you to think I am a whore.”

  “I know you’re not.”

  “I’m in love with a man who is not my husband.”

  “Yes, well I thought so,” Rania said gently. “Who is he?”

  “Rania,” Fatmeh hesitated, “he’s … well … he’s a foreigner.”

  “What?” Rania’s eyes opened wide. “Who?”

  “Well, half a foreigner.” Fatmeh let out an embarrassed giggle.

  “Who is he? And how on earth did you meet a foreigner?”

  “Right here in the souk.”

  “But … how?” Rania scratched her head.

  “I had just bought some fruit from Magdi and I was walking home,” Fatmeh began. “And in front of Tante Saydeh’s house, down the alley here,” Fatmeh pointed south, “I slipped on one of the cobblestones and fell and my basket went flying.

  “I looked around quickly to see if anyone had seen me,” she continued. “I was so embarrassed. Anyway, I didn’t even see him. I don’t know where he came from, but as I tried to get to my feet, trying to gather this abaya that had ballooned out, I saw a hand. I didn’t dare look at him, but I accepted his help and he heaved me up.”

  As she told Rania what happened, Fatmeh’s mind wandered back to that day a few weeks prior.

  “Are you hurt, Madame?” he asked.

  Fatmeh shook her head.

  “I am sorry for your fall,” he said. “Some of these stones can be slippery.”

  Fatmeh tried to glance at him from under her lowered eyelashes. But she couldn’t see past his knees. All she could tell was that he was wearing a red and white striped galabiyya and smart black leather shoes.

  “Here you go, Madame.” He handed her the basket. “I tried to recover all the fruit I could, but I’m afraid you might have lost a few plums.”

  Fatmeh felt herself blushing.

  “Thank you,” she managed.

  “Now, are you quite sure you’re not hurt?” he asked again.

  Fatmeh nodded. She looked up only when she saw him walking away. He was tall, and at least from behind looked like he had broad shoulders.

  “A couple of days later,” Fatmeh continued her tale, “I went to my father’s dispensary to pick up some bandages and ointments for Rabih. When I went in, there was a man in the waiting room. I remember getting the feeling that I knew him from somewhere. My father was busy with an emergency and asked me to help out until his nurse arrived. I did. I put on a nurse’s apron and went out into the waiting room and asked the man if I could help him.

  “I came to get some aspirin, please,” he said.

  “Of course. Please come this way,” Fatmeh said, leading the way into the office.

  “What do you need this for?” she asked as she measured out the tablets.

  “A headache,” he replied.

  Fatmeh nodded, wrote out a label, and put it on a small glass vial. “Now remember,” she looked up at him, “take two every six hours and no more than four per day.”

  “Yes, Madame,” the man replied, “thank you.”

  His voice sounds so familiar, she thought. But who is he? Fatmeh wracked her brain trying to remember where she might have seen him. He was really quite handsome. Tall and well built, he had very tanned skin, deep, brown eyes, dark hair, and a trim beard and moustache. Fatmeh shrugged, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she kn
ew him from somewhere.

  “Have you been to the dispensary before?” she asked him, handing him the vial.

  “No,” he replied.

  “Tayeb … now if the headache gets worse, then come back and we can prescribe something stronger,” she told him and came out from behind the desk, looking him up and down.

  Suddenly, she stopped. He was wearing the same smart black leather shoes. She took in a short, sharp breath.

  “It’s you!” she stared wide-eyed.

  He smiled.

  “Isn’t it?” Fatmeh said. “You’re the one who helped me the other day, when I fell?”

  “Yes.” He nodded, smiling.

  No wonder he looked familiar. Fatmeh was suddenly overcome by shyness.

  “There were no repercussions of your fall?” he asked politely.

  Fatmeh shook her head.

  “And after that, I kept bumping into him, Rania,” Fatmeh continued. “Everywhere I went, he was there … I would go to Magdi’s and somehow he would appear, or at the vegetable man … or the general store.”

  “You said he was a foreigner, though,” Rania said.

  “He’s half English and half Lebanese. He works for the British Army.”

  “Fatmeh …” Rania began cautiously. “Has anything happened between the two of you? Anything intimate?”

  “Not yet,” Fatmeh sighed wistfully. “He knows I am married and he is always very polite and courteous.”

  “How do you know you’re in love with him and he with you?”

  “I know, Rania … I just know,” Fatmeh replied, “the look in his eyes, the tenderness, the kindness …”

  “What do you do? Where do you meet?”

  “We’ve only met a few times … in my father’s dispensary. Somehow he always knows when I’m there and he has come in to ask for some aspirin and we’ve begun to talk.

  “Just being with him makes me feel alive,” Fatmeh continued. “The other day his hand brushed mine and I felt as though my hand was on fire.”

  Rania smiled.

  “I am dying for him to touch me, but I am so scared of betraying my husband,” Fatmeh said. “At least for the moment, while I feel guilty, I can still truthfully say that I have not been with another man.”

  Rania put her hand over Fatmeh’s and squeezed it.