The Sand Fish

by Maha Gargash

  Noora did not answer, did not watch his tummy rise and fall as he tried to control his breathing. She had turned to wood, a heavy log fixed to the bed. Who was he was talking about? Her fingers crawled to her dress and slid it down to her knees. Better not to stay too exposed.

  Jassem rolled off the side of the bed and fluffed down his dishdasha. “Did she fool me? Now, what was it she said? Keep hope alive? How stupid.” He was walking around the bed to her side. “What hope is there if you’re not trying?” He picked up the lamp and held it over Noora’s head, stared deep into her eyes. “Be patient and you will get your dream,” he mumbled. “That is what she said.”

  Noora cowered. Her head felt so heavy she feared it might sink right through the mattress. She wished he would just go away. She swallowed hard and found her voice. “Who?”

  “That ugly witch of your mountains! So many sacrifices I had to make, so many instructions she gave me, and I followed them all. I sat with shriveled plants hanging over my head and listened to her in that smelly hut filled with bottles and bottles of…of…dead things.” He shivered. “In the end, what’s my reward? Nothing.”

  “It’s all God’s will. He—”

  But Jassem would not let her continue. He placed a fleshy finger over her lips and bowed his face closer to hers. When Noora closed her eyes, he ordered her to open them and stay still. She looked straight back at him but seemed confused. Finally he spoke. “I want the flame in your eyes that you hide from me.”

  What did it mean? And what flame was he speaking of? He never said, and she never asked.

  Instead, every night, he sat facing her on the bed, cross-legged, and unfurled all that was on his mind. He told her of his day at the shop: who came to visit, who he met at Leema. He asked her questions she didn’t have the knowledge to answer. Why did his stomach grumble whenever he was upset? Why did the villagers expect so much of him? Why was he bored of Shamsa? Why did Lateefa nag so much?

  It was a side of Jassem reserved only for her. He would speak in low tones, probably to make sure his voice did not travel through the walls. Once he had said all that he wanted, he would stretch his arms over his head, crack his spine, and sigh with relief.

  Night after night he became more eager to talk than to perform his duty, and that suited Noora well. So she nodded him along, smiled in the breaks of light stories, frowned whenever the subject turned serious, even held his hand whenever he looked pained.

  One night he brought with him a thick, black book, worn with use. It was his account book, and in it he recorded all the particulars of his expenses. It contained his pearl sales and cash advances to the divers. He explained to Noora what the detailed scribbles meant, showed her how to write the numbers, and explained the mystery of sums.

  Adding and taking away was easy. But Jassem told her there were other things she could do with numbers. She could make them bigger or smaller using the tiniest sign.

  While the house slept, he taught her. Soon she was writing with chalk on a small slate that he had brought for her. All the while Jassem scrutinized her progress. He nodded his approval when she made a correct calculation, groaned with good humor when she didn’t.

  It was only in the darkness that Noora saw her husband’s nurturing side. Once the sun kissed the courtyard, under the scrutiny of the other wives, Jassem’s stern face reemerged.

  25

  What? You got the habit again?” Lateefa shook her head with disbelief.

  Noora sighed and shrugged, let her glance drift to the corner of the room to try to catch Yaqoota’s eye as she paused in sweeping the floor. Only Yaqoota had the nerve to speak out, but right now the slave girl was too occupied, inspecting an army of red ants clustered around a crack in the floor.

  “That’s not good, not good at all,” Lateefa continued, and lifted her head to catch some air. They were sitting under the wind tower of the family majlis. “Why did you get the habit?”

  “I don’t know,” said Noora.

  Yaqoota flexed her foot, took aim with her heel, and squished the ants in one go. Only then did she look over her shoulder at them. “That’s why they call it the habit, Ommi Lateefa,” she said. “It’s used to coming for a visit, once every month.”

  How Noora had grown to love that voice, a high-pitched brew of innocence and abandon with a sprinkling of stinging sarcasm. Noora wanted to cheer her on, throw in a clever comment, but she wasn’t quick enough.

  Lateefa snapped at Yaqoota, “You hold your tongue before I cut it off!” With a force and speed that made her earrings jingle, she grabbed her slipper and hurled it at the slave girl. It slapped Yaqoota’s chin and tumbled off her shoulder. Yaqoota yelped. “And if you continue in this way,” said Lateeefa, “I’ll throw you out to wander the nights in Leema. See if you can survive! See if someone doesn’t pick you up and carry you off to the desert. See if you like being someone else’s slave!”

  It was a serious threat and Yaqoota’s biggest fear. She had often told Noora of the Bedouins who came from the deep sands to steal other peoples’ slaves, to sell them somewhere else. Yaqoota was not about to argue. She squeaked and ran out of the room, bumping into Shamsa in the doorway.

  “What’s wrong with that silly girl?” said Shamsa.” Always screeching with that rat voice of hers.”

  Lateefa did not answer. The pockets under her eyes were quivering with rage, and some other passion expanded the dark in them. Noora lowered her gaze. This was not the moaning Ommi Lateefa, not the mother to hope, not the gentle guide she always reminded them she was. This was someone else: an explosive Ommi Lateefa, whose patience seemed to have reached a boil.

  As if it wasn’t already hot enough. Noora felt the dots of perspiration tickle her upper lip as she dropped the corners of her mouth, tried to look affected by her failure so that Lateefa could return to that familiar, fault-finding grumbler.

  “I’ll tell you why the habit came again,” Lateefa said to Noora. “Because you are not pregnant.” She cupped Noora’s chin and fixed her eyes, pulsing with urgency, to Noora’s. “Jassem is leaving soon. He must plant the seeds before he goes.” The crescents under her eyes slackened and she shut her eyes. For a long time she remained so, breathing deep, as she sifted through a stream of tangled thoughts.

  They waited, both she and Shamsa, knowing that Lateefa always blocked her sight when serious matters needed sorting out. Then, with her first twitch, Shamsa was quick to drop to her side. She bent over and hugged the older woman’s shoulders to show that they were united in their distress.

  “I think Ommi Lateefa is right to be concerned about you, Noora,” she said. “Where is that baby? What is taking you so long?”

  Lateefa let out the sigh of the exhausted and reached over to the ankle band of her serwal, began fiddling with a thread that had loosened and coiled.

  “Well,” Noora said, “I have been completely cooperative. I have never said no.”

  “Completely cooperative?” Shamsa raised her hand to her chest. Today, she was wearing a necklace of thick, gold beads hanging on a red cotton cord. She began to twirl them, one bead at a time, as she held Noora in a defiant stare. “As if you have any choice!” she mocked. She was smiling now, waiting for Noora to avert her gaze (as she always did).

  How much did they know? Noora thought, as the wilt washed over her. Her head felt heavy, her eyelids were beginning to close, making her lose focus on that shimmering necklace. Did they know that for over a month now Jassem was spending more time talking to her and teaching her numbers than planting his seeds? He thought her worthy of that. She was valuable to him. Did they know that she was beginning to enjoy his visits?

  No! She would not look down. Noora snapped her head back up and stared at Shamsa, at those droopy eyes choked with kohl. Suddenly they were not as attractive as they used to be. They reminded her of a stupid camel. “Why are you always blaming me?” Noora said. “These things are in God’s hands.”

  The thread broke and Lateefa looked up.


  “And why are you picking on me,” Noora continued, “as if you are so perfect? You haven’t given him a baby, either.”

  “I could have,” Shamsa said, “but he never tried as hard with me as he’s doing with you.” She was stuttering. Her mouth quivered at the edges, and for a moment Noora thought she might cry. She looked forward to that kohl melting with the tears and streaking black the white of her skin. But Shamsa didn’t. Instead, she snorted and slapped the floor. “He eats with you and lets us wait. We have to eat after the two of you are belching your meals away. Is that fair? Is that what Islam says? Doesn’t the prophet say that each wife should be treated equally? Jassem treats you like a princess when all you are is a cat-eyed pauper from the mountains.”

  “It’s not true. I come from a tribe, the Al-Salmi tribe,” Noora said. She remembered her father, how proud he was of their tribe, until that Ahmad Al-Salmi led them astray. “It was a strong tribe and honorable. Just because they didn’t live in houses like this one does not mean they weren’t important.”

  Shamsa pointed a shaking finger at Noora. “You, you…He visits you every night and ignores the rest of us, as if we were picked off the street.”

  “I never told him to ignore you.”

  Shamsa scoffed at Noora. “Oh? We have power over the arbab, do we?”

  Noora watched the corners of Shamsa’s lips twist down, and just like that, Shamsa’s lucid complexion lost its beauty. Instead of the luminous ivory, Noora saw the pasty white of the sick. “No, not power,” she said. “Just sense.”

  Shamsa’s jaw clamped and her voice turned into a hiss. “Let me remind you who I am. I am the daughter of the most prominent merchant in Leema, richer than our husband.” She freed a generous sweep of the arm. “I lived in a house two times larger than this one. I was fed milk when I was growing, pure milk from fat cows. I ate dates all my life of the finest quality from Basra.” She rotated her tongue in her mouth and swallowed, mimicking the sugary taste of Basra dates.

  “Dates are dates,” said Noora.

  “No they’re not.”

  “Yes they are.”

  “You will never know what the dates I grew up on tasted like,” Shamsa insisted. “All I am going to tell you is that they were nothing like the dates you were fed, full of sand and grit.” She turned up her nose and sniffed. “You know which ones I am talking about, the ones you munched while you were running around with your starved herds.”

  Lateefa pulled another loose thread from her serwal with a snap and flashed the two women a sharp look. Using her first wife’s privilege, she commanded them to stop.

  “It’s not my fault, Ommi Lateefa,” Shamsa sang. “You can hear it for yourself. The mountain goat has a voice now. And she plans to use it.”

  Noora narrowed her eyes and was about to tell her that Jassem was teaching her numbers when Lateefa interrupted. “Not now!” she scolded. “You can lay blame on each other all day when you are alone. Now I want some peace and quiet.” She flapped her hands in front of her face, tried to shift some air her way. “Why don’t you two act the way you should, like sisters?”

  She could have kept quiet, ended it right there and then, but Noora’s mouth was watering with smugness. The wind of her mountains, so filled with support, was blowing. Jassem made the rules. He held the key to their fates. And right now, she was his favorite. She crossed her arms and let out her demand. “Shamsa should guide me wisely, not throw insults at me. I’m the younger one. It’s not my fault that our husband wants to be with me. He sets the rules.”

  Shamsa yawned and stretched her arms. “Nothing stays the same forever. Enjoy what you have.” She pulled her dress up slightly and twiddled her toes. There were her toe rings, sitting flat like shields with dainty loops, on both big toes. “Imagine, when he gets bored of you,” she said, sighing with mock pity. “What will happen then? I can only pray that he does not throw you out. I mean, where would you go?”

  “Hah,” said Noora. “He’ll never get bored of me.” Shamsa didn’t understand the intimacy she and Jassem shared. Shamsa did not hear what went on in the black of night, didn’t know that whenever she and Jassem were alone, his feelings expanded like a bloated wadi. He whispered his worries and insecurities into her ears. Her ears only! And yet, the vulnerability seeped through. What if he did get bored of her?

  26

  Just three days was all it took for Shamsa’s prophecy to materialize. Like a thick fog, Shamsa’s warning crawled into Noora’s room and stifled Jassem’s murmurs of intimacy.

  That night, as the house slept, Jassem arrived in high spirits and told her the story about his first trip to India. His father had taken him aboard a British steamer. “Ten days it took. We were booked on deck class, a cost of nine rupiahs. We took our food, pots, and bedding, and slept on deck.” He chuckled. “Every morning the deck cleaner would wake us up, force us to move so that he could clean the deck. Ah.” He sighed. “British India Steam Navigation, that’s what it was called.”

  “Britishin stim nashun?”

  Instead of correcting her, he smiled and leaned toward her. She now knew not to be afraid of him. She giggled and asked, “What’s wrong? What kind of name is that anyway? Can I help it if those Inglesi people choose stupid names for their boats?”

  Jassem laughed. “You of all people should be able to pronounce it. After all, with all those strange twists and clicks of the tongue, you mountain people should be able to pronounce anything.” He opened his arms and let his warmth gush out as he wrapped her in a hearty hug. How protected she felt! She was sure he had never hugged Shamsa or Lateefa that way. With a hug like that, she was sure no one could force her to leave the house. No one could harm her.

  But then he didn’t let go. And the hug of protection began to feel more like restraint. Surely she was imagining it. She tried to slip out of his grip. When that failed, she wriggled, just enough for him to understand that he could now let her go. But Jassem would not. He kept his arms clamped firmly around her.

  He began to shiver. It wasn’t the shiver of feeling cold. This was a silent quake that was locked away somewhere deep inside—and it was coming out, vibrating in waves she could not explain.

  “Are you feeling sick?” Noora asked, but he didn’t reply, only sucked in the air with a hiss. Noora persisted. “Do you want some water?”

  She felt his breath hot on her neck. And then he released her, pushed her away so hard that she bumped her elbow on the bed’s poster.

  “What weakness!” he exclaimed, and bounced off the bed. “You are playing with my mind, trying to make sure it melts whenever I am with you.”

  Noora rubbed her elbow and looked up at him. He was smoothing out the creases of his dishdasha, his arms zipped along its length in agitated strokes. What had she said? When his dishdasha could not get any neater, he began pacing the room. Noora watched his spectacles slip down the bridge of his nose with each step, until they clung to the little wings. Those nostrils that had stayed calm for so long now flapped with a blinding speed.

  “When the heart takes you away, you do stupid things,” Jassem said. He seemed to be talking to himself as he paced the six steps to one wall and back again. “You talk, say things you don’t want to say.” He stopped in the middle of the room and pointed his finger at Noora. “From now on, when I look at you, I want you to close your eyes. You have got witch’s brew in them.”

  “I…” She was about to tell him it wasn’t true, when he yanked off his spectacles. He had never done that before (even when he was performing his duty). She watched him squint and draw closer to her. His shadow loomed high above him. She must have been a blur to him, but to Noora his face was as transparent as the steam of simmering water. The warmth of their nights had evaporated just like that.

  “I rescued you from poverty. Never forget that,” he said. “I have given you so much that you should be kissing my feet, not making me speak worthless talk.”

  “I don’t. I—”

 
“That witch said there would be a child. But there is nothing. Lateefa was right. What have you given me? What is your worth in the end?”

  The cats were howling once more, and Lateefa scrunched her eyes and sniffed abruptly, as if catching their scent. Then she wiggled her foot away from Noora’s kneading fingers. “You’re useless,” she said. “I can’t feel a thing.” She tapped the bottom of her calf. “Here, press here.”

  Noora dug her thumb into a tender spot.

  Lateefa yelped. “What’s wrong with you? Either too soft or too hard. Can’t you do anything right?”

  That voice! It hovered between the thick whine of a pained dog and the raspy bray of a mule. Lateefa grunted and rose to leave Noora’s room. As she turned, Noora stuck out her tongue at her.

  It was her fault! Her security was gone and it was Lateefa’s fault. The only way she could get back at her was to frustrate her by making sure her much-loved rubs felt as torturous as possible. Every day for the past week Noora pretended she had lost her healing touch. She poked butterfly flutters on the hard skin and burrowed her fingers with full strength wherever she thought it would hurt most. And yet the older woman kept coming back.

  Noora shuffled to the far corner of her room and began raking the wall, peeling away large sections of the gypsum till she reached the shells lodged in the coral-stone base. There was nothing else to do since Jassem had taken away her slate and chalk, so she tackled a plump shell with faded pink stripes that reminded her of the pebbles her brother used to collect for her.

  “You will be living like a princess.” That’s what Sager had said. She grunted and dug at the wall with her fingers. Other shells, looking more like old toenails, tumbled to the ground, but the shells she wanted would not budge. Sager was convinced she’d be better off with the rich pearl merchant, far from the hardship and deprivation of their lives. How little he knew!

  Her resentment toward Sager turned to bitterness, and soon she was lashing at the wall with such intensity that every poke and scrape was turning into an attack on her brother. How could he sell her off to some stranger like that? They were poor in the mountains, but all their worries were to do with things they could touch—food, water. Here, the worries were different and so complicated. She was always on her guard. In this house of rich people, you never knew what the next day might bring. Two of her fingernails tore. She yelped and shoved them into her mouth.