by Maha Gargash
“Time to ready the mattresses,” Moza said. She had a sleepy voice that always sounded as if it might lead to a yawn.
Noora blew her frustration into the air. A full week she had been staying at Moza’s hut, and still, Sager had not come to beg her to return home. The images flashed in her mind once more: Sager would find her missing; Sager would worry; Sager would search for her all over the mountains; Sager would not be able to find her; Sager would be sorry.
Moza extended her arms and, pushing her bottom into the air, bent over at half speed.
Yes, only when Sager saw that she was missing would he appreciate her. How would they manage, her father and brothers, without her? Who would mend their clothes? Who would cook and clean the huts? Who would haul the water? Hah! Yes, only then would they know her value.
Noora spotted Moza’s fingers twiddling the edges of the first mattress (preliminary attempts to the firm grip she needed) and sprung to her aid. “Here, I’ll do it,” she said, and grabbed the edges out of Moza’s fingers, which were still looking for that firm grip. Noora rolled one mattress out and then did the same with the other one. Once she shifted the mattresses next to each other into the middle of the room, she looked up. But Moza was not where she had left her.
With rare speed, the old woman had stepped to the other side of the room and was now sitting in front of the chest. She turned to Noora and crinkled her mouth into a smile. Her hand fumbled in her pocket and she pulled out a red strip of fabric, at the end of which hung a key.
“This key opens the lock,” Moza said.
It was a welcome diversion. “What is in it?”
“Oh, lots of nice things, all useless for an old woman like me,” she said, handing the key to Noora. “It’s full of things my husband brought back from his wanderings. Open it and take everything out, so you can see properly,” she insisted.
Noora clicked open the lock and pulled out a small knotted bundle from the top. She untied the knot, liberating a handful of colored silk threads. She cupped the bobbins, her eyes lighting up with the variety of colors.
Encouraged with her first find, Noora proceeded, removing the rest of the contents. Once she had piled them between her and Moza, the old woman looked proudly at her possessions: six pieces of cotton and silk fabric in typical strong colors for dresses and serwals and a piece of rigid, indigo-stained cotton for making burkas. There was a basket of smaller pieces of fabric to patch rips; a pair of blunt scissors; two bronze hand mirrors; a bottle of jasmine oil and another of amber essence; four wooden combs; and a dagger and two knives, their handles embellished with silver filigree.
“Masha’ Allah, this is quite a treasure,” said Noora.
Moza ran her hand over one of the thicker cotton fabrics, sky-blue with broad, emerald stripes. “Look at this piece. Why does my Sultan waste his money so? Every time he’d bring something, I would tell him I am too old for all this.” Her droopy eyelids turned taut. “I wonder what he will bring back with him this time.”
Noora grabbed the fabric and fluffed it open. “Why are you storing all these things?”
Moza swept her head toward Noora and pushed her ear out.
Noora spoke louder. “You shouldn’t store things. You should use them.”
“I can’t sew and I don’t like the way the village women…well, their stitching is so crude.”
“Why don’t you let me sew them into clothes for you? My stitching is clean.”
“Masha’ Allah.” Moza’s eyes rounded with surprise. “Who taught you?”
“My mother.”
Moza’s decision was quicker than her movements. “No longer than here for my dresses.” She pointed to just above her ankle. “Otherwise, I might trip on them. And don’t forget to put gussets along the length on both sides—so pretty that way. And not too much embroidery around the neck—it scratches me, you see.”
As for the serwals, they were to follow the traditional cut: baggy around the waist and tapering into tight ankle bands that could be fastened with cloth buttons that Noora had to make.
“As much embroidery as you want on the ankle bands,” Moza instructed. “Use all those colored threads, and choose any pattern you want: lines, squares, triangles, zigzags—whatever you like.” She paused and spread the fabric with emerald stripes on Noora’s chest. “Ah,” she said. “Exactly the same color as your eyes. You must take it.”
It was a generous gift. Noora tried to refuse—just a bit.
“No, no, no,” insisted Moza. “In my house, you must have a new dress.”
Creating the dresses filled Noora with enthusiasm. This new undertaking would fill the monotony of her empty day hours, and she wasted no time in starting. She snipped the fabric to the right size. And then her fingers sped along the seams, piercing the material, tugging the thread in quick, coordinated yanks. Within two days, Moza’s first dress was ready.
With the exception of the early morning hours, when she went to get water from the well, Noora spent her days in and around Moza’s hut, cooking the food, washing the clothes, brushing the layers of dust out of the rooms, and taking care of Moza. The rest of the time she sewed.
Later, with early evening, came the soft dance of small feet outside the hut. The children of Maazoolah snuck out of their homes to peer at her, the visitor in their midst, through tiny gaps between the stones of Moza’s hut. There they remained until their mothers’ stern voices called them back. For the first time in her life, Noora was living in a community. And yet she still felt like a stranger. The togetherness she had longed for weeks earlier was just not there.
As darkness wrapped the village, the wind carried the last noises of the night: a man clearing his throat, a baby sobbing its distress, the bleats of a goat or two from this side or that. Only when the soft crackle of the night crickets embraced the stillness of the village did the thoughts she had been ignoring all day trip over one another in her head.
Why hadn’t Sager come to get her? How much of that witch talk had he believed? And what about her father? Night after night, Noora lay next to Moza. And night after night, as Moza snored, Noora struggled to sleep.
A yawn swelled at the back of Noora’s throat. Was sleep coming? She closed her eyes and waited. Moza’s snore was taking shape once again: the light sniffle gained momentum, a sharp puff marking its peak. A croak gurgled deep in her chest and, bit by bit, grew into a husky roar.
It was no use. Noora curled toward the wall, bending her knees into a square. She stared at the moonbeams—cool, cobalt—falling in thin shafts through the gaps of the stone wall. Then something else: movement.
Three tiptoes and a flutter of fabric that broke a moonbeam.
Someone was outside.
She heard a sharp intake of air, as if pulled through clenched teeth. There was a hiss of pain in it, and she was sure that whoever was outside had stepped on a thorn. She waited for the muffled cry that would plausibly follow, but Moza’s steady snores filled the room once more. They were growing in confidence, with longer pauses in between: a thick drag, a gap, and a burst of air in the exhale. She imagined each pause getting longer than the one before. What if the old woman suddenly stopped breathing?
She heard the footsteps again. They were careful and anxious, the kind that tried hard to stay silent, but the crunch of the gravel stole away their discretion.
She rolled off the mattress and pressed her eyes to a tiny gap in the wall, but all she could see were the tapering terraces of the village, wrapped in the indigo of the moon. She knew the person was still there though, standing very close to the wall. She counted three cautious intakes of air before she heard a hesitant shifting of weight as the person slinked away.
Her visitor came the next night and the nights after that. By the fifth visit, Noora had found a loose slab of stone in the wall. By the sixth visit, she pulled it out. Through the oblong gap, she spotted the telltale sign of his dishdasha as it glided past her: it was a man.
She snapped the stone back
in place and, overcome with a peculiar shyness, tumbled back onto the mattress, her heart thumping with intrigue. Why did he linger outside Moza’s hut every night, standing so still so that all she could hear was the flow and pause of his breath? The sound of his breath was steady, but every now and then she detected a light tremor that further fueled her curiosity. Who was he?
The next night she decided she had to put a face to this man. As she stared out through the gap, she caught the moon’s gleam on the hump of a tiny beetle crawling close to a tree stump that was rooted next to the wall. Surely, she would be able to see more. From the sound of his breath, she could tell he was close and standing a little to the side of the gap. She felt the strain in her eyes as they grew larger and rounder. She heard her neck crack as she twisted it as far as it would go, but it was no use. The man remained wrapped in the shadows of the night as still as a rock, with only that touch of apprehension in an otherwise steady breath.
He must be someone from the village, she reasoned. Why did he come only at night while the village slept? Did he come for her or for some other reason? What did he want? She shook her head to erase the questions. There was time for them to linger in her mind later, once he had left and she was lying alone with soft tingles racing through her limbs and only her active mind as a companion.
There was a soft clatter of shifting pebbles and she assumed he was leaving, for he never stayed very long. But the footsteps grew louder. A hot panic rushed through Noora as she realized he was walking toward her. She glanced quickly at Moza, who remained deep in her rhythm of sleep. When she turned back, the man stood in front of her, not more than three steps away.
A half-moon hung behind him, bathing his shoulders with its calmness, but his face remained in the darkness. On this, his seventh visit, Noora could not hold back her curiosity any longer.
“Who are you?” she whispered.
“Someone,” he said.
“What’s your name?”
“I can’t tell you, Noora.”
“That’s not right.” What else could she say? “You know who I am. I need to know who you are.”
He crouched next to the wall, and she began tracing with her eyes the sharpness of his cheeks, the sure bridge of his nose. Something about him was familiar and she tried to see more, but the shadows lingered in the dips of his face.
“I feel bad for you,” he said.
“Why?” She could smell his breath, a warm mixture of earth and grass. It hung between them, heavy, holding the suspense of this very new experience.
“With what’s happened to your father and all.”
How did he know so much about her? “Well, don’t feel bad,” she said, her lips tight with disdain. “I’m all right.”
“No, no, I don’t mean to look down on you,” he said. “I am just saying you don’t deserve what you have gone through.”
He was probing her insecurities; she wanted the tangible, the facts: his name, age, family. Why was she accepting this stranger’s concerns? “I can’t talk to you unless you tell me your name,” Noora insisted.
“I just worry about you. I want to help you.”
Once again he had drifted onto another road, avoiding the important questions. She had to merge their paths. She was about to try again when a cough floated into the still air. It came from the village; someone was awake.
“I must go,” he said.
“But who are you?”
Alight breeze ruffled his dishdasha, scattering the moonbeams into puddles of luminous blue that caught his teeth glistening in a smile. Why did he look so familiar? He bent closer to her and whispered, “Rashid. That’s my name.” His palm inched its way into the opening, his fingers brushing her clutched knuckles. “Meet me at the far well tomorrow after lunch, when the village rests.”
She blurted the first concern that came to mind. “How?”
“Just say you want to go for a walk.”
“But…”
He smiled again. “You don’t need to be with the old woman all the time, you know. You can move about. It’s not a prison. No one will even notice.”
Noora felt the heavy weight of duty lift off her shoulders. In its place settled the anxiety about the taboo meeting he was suggesting, a meeting she already knew she would keep.
“Just go to the close well, the one we use. Then pass it, turning west. Keep going straight, and I’ll find you.”
It was all happening too fast. She needed to know more. What landmarks should she keep an eye open for? What should she say to anyone who saw her?
But Rashid had already risen, fading into the shadows of the slumbering village.
12
Moza consented with a nod and a yawn, after which she stretched out for her nap. Noora walked out of the hut and set off under a sky blanched by the early afternoon sun. At the well, she veered west, just as Rashid had instructed her to, and then crossed a flat plain on the top of a ridge: an easy walk, and yet she felt her pounding heart sink into the softness of her belly. She was walking to a meeting of uncertainty with a man she did not know.
Now the ridge began tapering downward, narrowing into a coarse path with massive boulders rising on each side. She heard the clatter of shifting stones down below as a speckled goat came into sight. Quickly, Noora slipped into a dent between two rising slabs of rock. Its owner could be close by.
She sat down, and, clasping her knees, waited, keeping watch over the goat as it tugged at a sumptuous fountain of grass growing at the base of a palm. Her ribs were beginning to shake with a renewed flood of anxiety.
Why was she following such a dangerous mission? She knew she would be disgraced if she were found out. She began wondering how the villagers might punish her. Would they lock her up? Would they beat her? Or would they simply send her back to her brother, let her carry her shame to her home? Naturally, nothing would happen to Rashid. It was always the woman who bore the humiliation.
Noora frowned at the risk she was taking. Yet she did not think of turning back. The more she imagined Rashid, the more she was intrigued. He had stood there, looking so strong under the moonlight. He had been so concerned about her well-being. Noora nodded. Yes, she was sure there was a special goodness in him that would shield her from any troubles that might come her way.
She scanned the valley of closely packed boulders. Every now and then, a draft grumbled its way through the gaps. She heard the sporadic bleats of more goats. Satisfied that she was quite alone, she let her shayla slide onto her shoulders and began raking the part in the middle of her hair as if, with all the anxiety she’d been carrying, it might have shifted to one side. That’s when she heard the flapping of fabric from somewhere above her.
“Up here.”
She pulled the shayla back onto her head and looked up. There was Rashid, once again in silhouette, towering on the edge of the ridge above her, the wind billowing his dishdasha.
“Come up here.”
There was no more time for reflection. She brushed the dust off her emerald-striped dress, just readied the day before, and clambered up to join him. By the time she reached the top, her face was flushed from both the climb and her nervousness. And there was Rashid, tall and composed, staring at her with almond-shaped eyes.
Noora did not know what to say. So she dropped her gaze to the ground and muttered a sentence he did not hear.
“What?” Rashid asked.
“There are goats down there,” she said, feeling silly as soon as the words dribbled out. Such a feeble attempt at crafting a fluid conversation!
Rashid nodded and said, “They’re mine, but they don’t matter.” His arm cut the air in a broad stroke. “What matters is that you’re here, with me, in this special place.”
Noora looked around her and wondered what was so special about the ridge they were standing on. There were no plants or trees and very little shade, just rocks and stones—a whole jumble piled behind him.
An awkward silence followed while she thought carefully
before uttering her next words. Finally, she asked, “What do you want from me?”
He started, as if awakened from an intense dream, and coughed. “It’s hot. Why don’t you come and rest here by these rocks?”
He dropped to one side of the heap and she sank to the other, trying to fit as much of her curled body in the thin sliver of shade. Down below, the goats plodded on and she wondered how long he had been watching her before he called out to her.
She snuck a peek at this person who had lured her to this meeting. She had never seen anyone with such long lashes. They rested in a thick arc just under his eyes as he looked down at the ground, picking up a twig and scraping the earth in front of him, drawing random squiggles that looked like baby snakes. His iqal, the black head rope, was tilted slightly over his ghitra, giving him the distinguished look of a young sheikh of a tribe.
He looked older than her brother (and certainly more handsome). His goatee gave him a certain maturity Sager did not possess. She was sitting next to a man, not a boy, and it was that thought that twitched her memory. It was Sager’s friend, the one who had joined the boys for breakfast with his back to her, outside Moza’s hut. The realization both excited and scared her.
Rashid let go of the twig and sprang up, expanding his chest into a stretch. The sudden movement jolted Noora, and she dropped her gaze onto the safety of the ground in front of her, wondering what he would do next.
“Come with me,” Rashid said, and he began to shift the clutter of stones between them to the side, unearthing a small opening that widened into a dark crevice, large enough to squeeze into when standing up. “I want to show you something.”
Noora hesitated. Was she ready to take this unusual adventure a step further?
“Don’t worry. My intentions are noble. I just think you will like what’s inside.”
Noora stood up and looked over her shoulder, as if searching for someone to tell her what to do. Only the goats answered her silent call, with bleats she could not translate. She looked back at Rashid, who stood patiently, his thick lashes fanning the pleas in his eyes.