The Sand Fish

by Maha Gargash

  “I didn’t go.”

  “Why?”

  “Because there’s no point. It’s just not possible.”

  “Why is it not possible? What about us? We were to marry.”

  He threw his excuses at her: “Duty…the proper thing to do…can’t break my mother’s wishes.”

  Noora protested with all the strength she could muster. So stunned was she by his hasty submission that she forgot to scold him for having disappeared on her, for having lied to her. The emotions in her rumbled so violently that they clogged her throat.

  She swallowed and heard him repeat what she did not want to hear: “Duty…the proper thing to do…can’t break my mother’s wishes.”

  What ridiculous words! She wanted to break them, destroy their meaning. She wanted to grab his shoulders and shake the passion back into him. But her limbs went numb, and the tears snuck out of the corners of her eyes. “What about me?” she managed to whisper. “How can you leave me like this?”

  That’s when she caught the rustle of his dishdasha as he stepped away into the dark. And then she stared at the nothing in front of her. For that was what she was left with: nothing.

  16

  She had to get away. Only then would the ache that throbbed in her dissolve.

  With the next dawn, Noora peered out through Moza’s doorway. She extended her arm, but all she could see were her fingertips, floating in the milky opaqueness of fog. When had this curtain drawn? She shook her head with disbelief. Of all the days, it had to be this one.

  With all those sudden drops along the way, the mist would make her journey treacherous. The landmarks she relied on would be impossible to use—all those bizarre-shaped boulders, deep ridges, and shaggy trees would be concealed under the thick fog. She would have to rein in all her directional talent and intuition.

  “You’ll just lose your way,” she heard Moza’s sleepy mumble. “Why don’t you wait a little, till the sun comes up?” The old woman remained burrowed under her blanket.

  “I can’t, khalti Moza. I’ve stayed so long already,” said Noora, gathering her few belongings into a bundle. “I know they need me back home, and the sooner I go, the faster my mind will settle.”

  “But alone, my dear?”

  “I’ve walked everywhere alone, all my life.” There was nothing else she could do. She had to leave immediately.

  “At least take the lantern with you,” said Moza, shuffling onto her elbows as she prepared to rise.

  Noora struck a match, lit the hurricane lamp, and was kneeling next to Moza just as the old woman staggered to sit up. Move on! It was the only thought that filled Noora’s head as she bade Moza farewell with a warm hug. “If khalti Hessa asks, it’s over there,” she mumbled. There was no contempt, no satisfaction in what she had done, only a cheerless numbness at the thought of all those beautiful fabrics that she had destroyed.

  “What did you say?”

  “The bridal gifts,” she said. “They are wrapped and ready. I put them in the corner.” Shame washed over her, but Noora did not dwell on it. She had to hurry away.

  Once she set off, she let the slopes and dips, twists and turns, of the mountains take up all her attention. It was a slow trek. Even so, she slipped on the crumbly surface a few times and bumped her elbow on the jutting arm of a rock. More than once, she wondered whether she had walked too far. How many hills had she crossed? Still, she continued. Was she going the right way? She questioned her keen sense of direction. At one point, she wasn’t sure of anything except that her eyes were bulging out so much she would have to rub them hard to ease them back into place.

  It was only when she found herself in the middle of a broad wadi that the mist eased. Noora paused to get her bearings. A damp breeze nipped her ears, and as she pulled the shayla tight around her head, she looked up, finally spotting the moon. It sat on a slumbering peak: a struggling, silver scar in the clotted sky. It sent its last glimmer before a veil of fog swallowed it whole. And then the mist rushed into a roll and whiffed its blanketing form in fast-moving patches, which appeared and disappeared.

  A smack of pride jolted a quiver of a smile to her face. She wasn’t lost after all. She recognized this wadi, strewn with so many ghaff trees. It was halfway to her home. It would be an easy walk now. Everything would be all right.

  With a flash of confidence, Noora sat on a rock to slacken the strain out of her limbs, to rub her eyeballs back in place. And that’s when the ache of Rashid’s rejection washed over her once more. How to deal with it? This hurt was like nothing she had ever felt. It began with a sting, poking and jabbing, sharp as a needle thrust deep into her skin. And then it dulled, turning into a maddening hole of nothingness that was impossible to fill.

  “Move on, move on,” Noora mumbled into her chest as she felt her head slump. She jumped up and hastened along the valley, swinging her lantern, kicking the curling mist off the wadi bed.

  Just keep moving and all that hurt will disappear! That’s what she kept thinking. After all, wasn’t that the way of things? Wasn’t her life (just like everyone else’s in the Hararees) so full of uncertainty and deprivation that she could overcome anything just by moving on?

  The moon had vanished, the mist had lifted, and the first rays of light punctured the last weary threads of fog clinging to the peaks. There were the huts, looking so familiar, like some long-lost friends. She yearned for the predictability of her routine at home. Only then would she feel fine again. Only then would she find peace of mind.

  But none of that happened. There was no normalcy, and certainly no peace. After a quick and nervous greeting, her brothers let her know the bad news. Their father had gone missing soon after she and Sager had left to see Zobaida. Just like Moza’s husband, he had wandered off into the mountains and hadn’t come back. Although her brothers had searched and searched, eventually they had given up.

  All that shame and pain that she had chased away on her walk came crashing down on her. Rashid and her father: both gone! It was just too much. She wanted to snuggle up in the corner of her hut and sleep, sleep, sleep. And that’s what she did—for the next three days.

  She hardly ate the food her brothers prepared. How kind they were, rooted in a circle of worry around her, with tender pleas for her to take a bite of the bread they had baked, sip some of the broth they had cooked. How could she explain that all she felt was the numbness of loss? By the fourth day, she unfurled from the corner of her hut, driven by guilt at not helping out with the chores. Still, she remained listless as a wispy cloud as she roamed from one task to the next.

  It was only a day later that the anger snapped into her with the sharpness of a brittle twig—and all because of Sager.

  He called her in the late afternoon and softened her with tender words of reassurance. “It will pass; time will make it pass.” They sat by the store and the afternoon sun cast an amber glow that fell on his shoulders.

  How encouraging he was. She felt the green of her eyes lighten with the affection he was showing her. How kind he was. It was only when he showered her with his gifts that the claws of suspicion gripped her insides.

  “A new shayla?”

  “Well,” he said. “The other one is so old it’s not black anymore. Look at it. It’s the same color as gunpowder.”

  She slipped on the leather slippers (her first pair), a little short on her feet. “Where did you get all these things?”

  “From a passing merchant at Nassayem.”

  She slid the three thin rings (designed to be worn together), a little loose, on her middle finger. “But this is gold.”

  “Well, you know, you are my sister, and if I can’t spoil you, who can I spoil?” he said with a smile.

  She opened the tiny bottle of amber essence and sniffed. “Well, that’s nice, but where did you get the money?”

  “Well, let’s just say that when you do the right thing, better things come your way. We saved Zobaida’s son, and so, she helped us in return.”


  “Ah, that greedy fake,” said Noora.

  He frowned. “I think you are too harsh on her, too suspicious of her.”

  “Next, you’ll be telling me that she gave you the money.” She mocked him, but Sager would not smile. She watched his brows knot and stiffen into an expression of genuine hurt. And Noora began to feel a dread settle in her stomach the way mud stuck to the bottom of the ponds that formed after the rains. Fish could slither in it and toads could kick it up, but in the end it just sank back, firm and sticky.

  “Well, in a way, she is the reason I was able to afford all this,” he said. “You see, there’s a man, a rich pearl merchant who’s come to see her. And Zobaida’s hidden sources told her what she had to do.”

  “Invisible sources? You must stop believing her rubbish talk. The jinn said this, the jinn said that!” She raised her arms and made claws out her fingers. “Whooo!”

  “They do communicate with her, you know. The jinn told her to arrange a match for the pearl merchant. Of course, being so rich, he would have to pay a handsome bride-wealth.

  “And naturally, she would take some of that—for her services and arrangements?”

  “Of course.”

  Triumph lit Noora’s eyes. “You see? That act: the rolling eyeballs, the shaking. In the end, all she wants is money. So what did she do, give you some of that money for saving her son?”

  “No, no,” said Sager. “You see, it was the first time anyone had helped her son. Zobaida was so happy that she gave me…well, gave us…another gift.” He paused. “She gave us the gift of a better life—for you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you. I have been thinking. This is no life for you, stuck with us men in the middle of nowhere. You deserve better.”

  What was he talking about? She wanted to stay where she was. She wanted to fetch the water, milk the goats, cook the food, collect the wood. She wanted everything to return to normal—especially now.

  “Finally, you can have your own home with your own family. And the man is rich. So rich you don’t need to struggle anymore.”

  “What man? What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying, the match is you.”

  He might as well have thrown sand in her face or punched her in the belly, because all she managed was to spit and gasp. When she tried to speak, her tongue would not move. It sat in her mouth, dry as a thick piece of leather.

  “Zobaida thinks you are worthy of such a special match. I think that’s something, don’t you?” He nodded and his ringlets bounced along from under his ghitra with his enthusiasm. “I mean, she’s sending her matchmakers to approve you and turn you into a praiseworthy bride.” He paused. “And she’s even paying them from her fee.”

  When did it happen? When had Sager and Zobaida conspired against her? Was it just after she had stormed out of Zobaida’s hut or later? Had Sager stayed longer at Nassayem and met the witch again and again?

  “His name is Jassem Saeed Bin-Mattar, and he lives in a big house. He has got two other wives, but don’t worry, it will be good because they’ll be like caring sisters to you. They’ll guide you in all those womanly things you were deprived of living here in this nowhere place with us, your ugly brothers.” He managed a nervous titter. “Then, when your blessed children arrive, they would turn into additional mothers. First sisters, then mothers.”

  There he was acting like a thoughtful brother, pretending he worried about her. Finally, Noora found her voice. “Since when do you care about me? I disappeared and you didn’t even bother to find me.”

  “I knew where you were,” he said. “You’d gone to khalti Moza’s. Where else would you have gone? And I didn’t come to get you because I thought it would be good for you to be with other women for a bit. You know, learn their ways and all.”

  “How could you go and plan my life behind my back?” she yelled, punching her anger into the air with her fists. “You are so easy to fool. That witch played with your head, and you let her. All she wants is money. Don’t you see?”

  But Sager did not see, would not see. “The witch, as you call her, also said that you would need to curb that spiky tongue of yours. No man wants a wife like that.”

  Noora took a deep breath and mustered all her strength to control her rage. “Well, you can speak and plan all you want, but don’t expect me to be that bride you’re talking about.”

  17

  Noora stretched her arms over her head as she lay on a slab of rock a little way down the slope of her home. A light draft of cool, early-morning air caressed her face and rustled the bushes around her. She rolled her head lazily to one side, spotting a gecko with vivid, silver stripes. It hopped onto the smooth edge of a boulder and lapped an eye with its tongue. Then, with a quick bob of the head, it dipped into a crack below. At least it knows where it’s going, she thought.

  Where was she going? Somewhere uncertain, somewhere faraway. Sager had described it differently. “Somewhere better,” he had said, “where you will live like a princess.”

  How quickly he had mapped her life. And now, just a month after her return from Maazoolah, the plan was about to take effect.

  Noora bit her lower lip. The betrayal! First Rashid’s weakness and lies, now her brother’s.

  She had tried everything to make Sager change his mind. When reasoning failed, she’d incited quarrels that went round and round in heated circles.

  “But I don’t want to go away,” she had yelled. “I want to stay here, with you, and Aboud and Hamoud.”

  “Is that the thanks I get for thinking of you? You are so ungrateful.”

  “Well, I’m not marrying him and I’m not going away. I am staying right here where I am.”

  “I can’t allow that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t want you getting old between these rocks with no children and no future.”

  “But you’re staying here, and Aboud and Hamoud, too.”

  “We are men. It’s different.”

  After a while, he had ignored her, only waving her arguments to the side with a curt statement. “I’m responsible for you. I decide.”

  She had cried and bawled tantrums and, like a spoiled child, threatened to run away, even though she knew there was nowhere she could go.

  When everything failed, she had turned down his gifts and sulked. For a long time, her lips fell like dejected petals on a forlorn face she carried everywhere she went. Still Sager would not back down. “I have given my word,” he’d said. “It would be dishonorable to break it.”

  Now, as she lay on the rock, bathed in the morning glow of the sun, she wished her father were here. He would have protected her. Even with his madness, he would have wanted to keep her close. He might have even asked her what she wanted to do. Her opinion might have meant something.

  She heard Aboud and Hamoud and looked up. She had even tried to convince them that they needed her, but somehow, while she was in Maazoolah, they had grown into small men, mindful of the decision-making powers their sex granted them. There they were, farther down the valley, a little past the ruins. They no longer hopped as boys did. Instead, they strode over the rocks, carrying frowns of importance. Every now and then, they swung the canes they carried, slicing a bush or scattering a clump of earth.

  There was nothing more she could say. There was nothing more she could do. Noora dangled her legs off the edge of the stone and squinted up at the sky: big, blue, brilliant. The matchmakers would be here soon to seal the arrangement. With sharpened senses, they would scrutinize how clean her home was, whether she had two eyes or three. Noora sneered at the thought and yawned away what little resistance she had left.

  18

  It’s time,” said Gulsom.

  For seven days, Gulsom and Sakina had prepared Noora for her new life: they had bathed her; lined her eyes with kohl; softened her hair and body with jasmine oil; scented her with an incense of ood peelings, amber and musk; perfumed her with rose and sandal essences; and smoothed
henna on her palms and on the bottoms of her feet. And now, she was ready.

  Sandwiched between the matchmakers, Noora stepped out of their home layered in clothing. Covering her dress was the silk bridal thoub, a transparent bottle green, festooned with a splash of silver embroidery, and on her head sat her shayla and the abaya body cover. A toddler jumped into her vision, wailing his protests at a goat that had just snatched his piece of bread. She had not seen him coming and nearly tripped out of the too-short slippers Sager had gotten her, because the burka blocked the sides of her face. It was one more confinement she had to get used to. Now that she was a married woman, she had to wear it in public. It trapped her face like a moist, second skin.

  The formal agreement had taken place just the day before. Early in the morning, Faraj’s father, Sheikh Khaled, who was Nassayem’s religious authority, had entered the hut along with Sager, two witnesses, and Noora’s future husband, Jassem. Normally, her curiosity would have prompted her to steal glances from behind the veil at the man who was soon to become her husband. But some shyness and an odd sense of obligation kept her eyes fixed to the ground. Sheikh Khaled had asked her if she accepted Jassem as a husband and she gave her verbal consent. The process was straightforward. “The girl agrees,” Sheikh Khaled declared. There was no fuss, and as the men retreated from the hut, Noora had remained frozen in place, both numbed and astonished that she had lost the courage to refuse.

  As they walked through Nassayem’s tight-winding streets, Gulsom released a meat-and-rice burp. Its pungent smell curled under Noora’s burka and stayed there. Then Gulsom’s voice boomed, “Don’t crowd the bride!”

  But there was no crowd at Nassayem, just a few girls who paused in hanging their washing on the flat-roofed homes to watch the three women shuffle by. Where had the villagers gone? Where was the commotion of the night before when Jassem had ordered the slaughter of fifteen goats for the special bridal feast? Her feast—the feast she only heard of on the excited tongues of the women, the feast she could not attend because, as a bride, she had to remain hidden till her husband took her.