The Sand Fish

by Maha Gargash

  Noora went limp as a thirsty flower. Her tongue felt thick, as if it were weighed down in a mouth full of clay. Would she be able to speak?

  “Sit with me a little and tell me all about it.”

  Her knees wobbled as she sank onto crossed legs. The silence that followed did not help, and she felt the rush of tiny tremors along the length of her arms.

  “You’re shivering,” Lateefa observed. “You must be exhausted with that long walk.” And then Lateefa did exactly what Noora feared. Lateefa reached out to touch her head, flung the horse’s tail out of Noora’s eyes, and settled her prying eyes on the bruise. “What happened to your head?” she asked.

  Noora gulped and mumbled, “Knocked it.”

  “Yes, yes, knocked it. A little accident, I think.” Lateefa nodded with knowledge. “On the door, I think.”

  “Mmm, yes, the door.”

  “So easy to do that. It has happened to me, so many times.”

  Noora looked down and twiddled her fingers in her lap, tried to remember when she last saw the careful older woman bump into a door or knock herself on any other piece of furniture. There was a studied consistency to Lateefa’s movements, from her calculated slides off the bed in the mornings to the way she leaned so thoroughly onto her knees whenever she got up. She even plucked her dress up to her shins before taking those tiny footsteps that carried her from one part of the house to the other. No! Lateefa could never knock her head on the door!

  Noora looked back up at Lateefa, an unruffled queen, her eyes half-closed with self-assurance. There was a calmness that varnished her lids. And her silence! Why wasn’t she asking more questions? Lateefa’s silence disturbed Noora the most.

  That night the moon was a mighty ball of light. It seeped through the gaps in the palm-frond walls and spat patterns on the ground, distorted squares and jagged lines that Noora broke as she hopped in silent agitation from one end of the hut to the other. A doomed chicken running away from the ax, that’s what she thought of. A panicked chicken, unable to reason, in an aimless flutter. That’s what she was.

  She paused over Yaqoota, sleeping hard and heavy even though it was an airless night. Yaqoota’s hums of inhalations and groans of exhalations made Noora’s mouth curl with scorn. Yaqoota had none of her worries.

  Her tongue felt heavy in her mouth in the stillness of the night, and she began to walk up and down again. Had Lateefa smelled the scent of lovemaking on her skin? Noora had been thorough in washing it away. She had emptied three earthen jars over her head, made sure the water ran the length of her body, under her arms, behind her knees, and in that most secret of places.

  She stopped pacing once more and the palm-frond wall rustled as she leaned on it. She thought of Hamad, and the details of what had happened swam in her head like spiraling tadpoles in a pond.

  Hamad had pulled away after that kiss to her forehead, as if waiting for her to slap him or storm out of the room. Instead, she had remained passive, feeling her eyes turn into bottomless pools on which floated a silent willingness.

  He had hugged her awkwardly, and then leaned away once more.

  And that’s when she should have stopped him. After all, he was giving her a chance to change her mind. When she didn’t, everything else had followed. It had felt so right, even though she knew it was wrong.

  There was no clumsiness in his next embrace. Hamad had seized her back into his arms and held her tight. She could not move, and yet she did not feel trapped. She had felt safe as he molded his body to hers with his head burrowed in the nest of her neck. No man had ever held her that way. And the shivers of desire had swallowed her whole.

  Noora let the palm-frond wall grate her back as she slid to the ground. She had to give him up! With that thought the thuds in her ribs grew forceful. She gasped to swallow air that was growing so thick it seemed intent on choking her. She turned her head and glued her face to a gap in the palm-frond wall, breathing deeply. There was the moon, a silver face, radiant with serenity.

  She yearned to have him near her, to feel his touch. A tremor of fear ran along the length of her spine. Even though she knew it was wrong, she wanted him again.

  36

  It seemed Lateefa had forgotten most of her important possessions at Wadeema. Noora grew accustomed to seeing her delve into her travel chest, every few days, in search of this or that. Then Lateefa would puff into her burka and shake her head with disbelief. “Now, why didn’t I bring that orange thoub with me? It’s so light, so cool for this weather,” or “I don’t know why my kohl is burning my eyes. I think it’s gone bad.” And then she would send Hamad and Noora to pick up whatever it was that she urgently needed. “You must go. You must go right away,” she would insist. This time Lateefa had accidentally spilled her henna in the sand.

  “How much henna does she need?” Hamad asked as he watched Noora empty the greenish powder into a small bottle.

  “I don’t know,” Noora said. “At least two handfuls to make sure she can cover all those white roots, to make sure she gets her hair nice and red.”

  “Maybe you had better put four handfuls, just to make sure she doesn’t send us back.”

  “I’m sure she will find something else she has misplaced,” Noora said, frowning. “Why do you think she keeps missing things and sending us to get them?”

  Hamad shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess she is becoming forgetful.” He leaned back on a takya, stretched his arms over his head, and yawned. “When they get old, they begin to forget.”

  “She’s not that old,” Noora said, shaking her head. “No, there’s something else. She has become so nice to me, bringing me milk before I sleep, sitting with me to chat, letting me use her perfumes. Saffron, amber, sandalwood, rose, all those essences, I mean, they are so expensive.” She paused. “It’s just not like her.”

  Hamad yawned again. “Why do you always worry so much? We are together, aren’t we? That’s all that matters.”

  She stopped pouring the henna and looked up at him. “Is it?” she asked. He seemed so unconcerned, stretched on the takya like that. So at ease. Seeing him that way brewed a rumble in her chest. “Is that all you can think of, that we are together? Don’t you think of my position? I know I can’t stop thinking of it. Soon, Jassem will be back. Then what will you do?” Her voice was shaking now. “What will we do?”

  He was by her side within moments. “Easy, easy,” he cooed, stroking her head gently. “Let me take care of us.” He began nibbling on her neck. “Come on,” he mumbled, “finish pouring the henna so I can hold you.”

  “No!” Noora elbowed him away.

  “Why?”

  “I’m not comfortable.”

  Hamad pulled back and let out a defeated sigh.

  “Look,” she explained. “I am very worried. Something doesn’t feel right. Maybe it’s better if we finish this now.”

  Hamad’s jaw dropped. “Finish what?”

  “Us! Finish us. There’s no point.”

  “What are you talking about? I want to be with you always.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really. Divorce Jassem and marry me.”

  There was sincerity in his eyes, but Noora shook her head at the impossibility of his suggestion. How simple he was.

  “It can happen, really happen,” he insisted.

  “Divorce Jassem? And who said he would agree?”

  “We’ll think of something. We’ll make him agree.”

  “We, we, we, we,” Noora mocked the earnestness in his voice before letting out a hopeless groan. “As if we matter, as if we can pick what we want.” Her voice had turned shrill, and she paused to swallow some control back into it. Then, with a forced patience, she continued, “I am a woman—a married woman—and you are a man—a poor man. We are not in a position to make choices. Don’t you agree?”

  “Don’t you agree?” Hamad mimicked the adult-speaking-to-children tone she had used. Then he stared deep into her eyes and said, “I have plans, you know.
I do think and plan. I’m not stupid.” He paused. “I am planning to dive again.”

  Noora’s eyes fluttered with disbelief. “Dive?”

  “Dive, you know, dive. I think I can do it. I know there is a special pearl down there for me to find. I know it.”

  “But you have tried it, and it didn’t work.” She crossed her arms. “And what about your ears?”

  “Don’t worry about that. I can bear the pain.”

  His head was bobbing up and down, so eager, so determined, that Noora felt sorry for the desperation that was overtaking him. Still, she had to shake the silliness out of him. He was speaking nonsense. “Wake up, Hamad, wake up,” she said.

  “I can do it, I tell you.”

  “Wake up,” Noora repeated. “There won’t be any more dives.” She flung her arms into the air, shouted, “No more! This is the last dive!”

  Noora drummed her fingers on her thigh and stared at the henna, poured into three small bottles and wrapped into a knotted bundle, ready to be delivered to Lateefa. Hamad was outside in the courtyard. She could hear him, marching back and forth from one end of the house to the other.

  Why did she have to open her big mouth? Why couldn’t she have let him find out from someone else? She heard the slaps of his feet at the door—he was back—and his breath, too. Exhausted wheezes, as if he had just run to Leema and back.

  She patted the mat she was sitting on. Like an obedient child, he entered and slumped next to her. She ran her hand up his spine, along the line of perspiration on his dishdasha, till her fingers cupped his neck and pulled his head to rest on the flat of her chest. It felt like a rock that was heavy with age, so old it was ready to crumble.

  Noora clasped his hand, a limp piece of flesh that could be molded into any shape. Lifeless! So she pinched it with her fingers and rubbed it with her palms, squeezed it hard and stroked it with her thumb. She had to keep touching him, touch some soul back into him. Slowly, his passion returned and he wrapped her in his arms, holding her so tight she felt an overpowering desire to throw away all her modesty.

  She had never gone bare. It was an unnecessary embarrassment, a not-done thing she was always grateful for whenever she was with Jassem. Having before been too shy with Hamad, she now yearned for the feeling of skin on skin. He must have felt the same, for he loosened his embrace and they lifted their clothes up together. She watched his dishdasha fly to one side as she wriggled out of her serwal and peeled off her dress and rolled it into a bundle, which she dropped just behind her head.

  Before she had time to dwell on her nakedness, he had eased her onto the mat and taken her whole. She belonged to him, every little bit of her. She clamped her lips and shut her eyes tight for fear of losing control. But the tears slipped out and snuck down her cheeks. And the whimpers of passion squeezed out of her throat anyway: tiny twitters of some morning bird, as she trembled with rapture.

  It was only when Hamad rolled onto his side that she became aware of her rapid breathing. She did not try to pacify her pounding heart. Nor did she wipe away the film of perspiration that clung to her face; she just crossed her arms over her chest and grinned at the ceiling, seeing nothing till the flicker of a lizard’s tail slid into her view. It had been there all along, and she had not noticed it. Noora wondered whether it was the same lizard that used to cling to the ceiling when she was under Jassem, whether it had somehow scuttled across the courtyard into Lateefa’s room to watch another kind of lovemaking. Did it recognize her as the same person?

  The chill of a sharp puff of air blew through the open doorway. Noora reached behind her head and lifted her dress, fluffed it over her chest. Next to her, Hamad moaned. She rolled her head toward him and watched him as he lay on his back, fast asleep. Peace had softened the clamp of anxiety that had gripped his jaw earlier. There was a glimmer of his front teeth through his parted lips. He seemed as vulnerable as a child, and a gush of tenderness soaked her eyes, and tremors of guilt dried her throat, remorse at having upset him earlier, hurting him like that.

  It was getting late. “Come on, wake up,” she said, prodding Hamad on his arm.

  He started. “Hmm? What happened?”

  “Come on, get up. We have to go.”

  She wanted to get back to Om Al-Sanam so that she could unfurl all that had just taken place. Never had she felt such an outpouring of passion. She wanted to recall every discreet touch and caress, every mighty shudder and release. She wanted to take every small detail of their intimacy and think about it on her own. Until the next time.

  37

  Hamad’s shadow was breaking the light that spilled through Noora’s window. He was like a spirit lost in someone else’s world, unable to touch her, aggravated in its own existence. And so, this spirit, Hamad’s spirit in that shadow, hovered and tried to remain as close to her as it could.

  Of course, there were always the fleeting glances that trapped her eyes whenever she came face-to-face with him. His eyes seemed to have stared at the sun for so long that they had swallowed its burn. She was sure he couldn’t sleep. How could he, when he knew she was sharing her bed with Jassem?

  It had been a full sixteen days and nights since they had returned to Wadeema, and Jassem visited her on most evenings with renewed passion. And under his weight, she would mourn the joy she had lost. And her eyes would water. And Jassem’s vigor would rise at the emotion she was showing.

  “There’s no need to cry,” he would gasp. “I am back now.”

  That angered her, and she felt frustrated at having lost the brief happiness she had shared with Hamad.

  Noora heard the rooster crow and propped herself up on her elbows. Still dark outside, still quiet, and yet her heart throbbed with anxiety as she wondered whether she would feel all right on this day. But then the dizziness drifted to her head like a thick haze and settled between her ears. She fell back onto the mattress and closed her eyes, breathed deep, and tried to ignore the familiar pinch of nausea that dried her mouth.

  It was no use. She tumbled off the bed and staggered to the washroom. She coughed quietly and whispered under her breath, “It’ll go, it’ll go.” She hoped no one could hear her retch. After all, the nausea hit her only once a day, always just before dawn. As she crawled back to the bed, Noora tried to count the number of times she had been sick: seven times in as many days.

  It was by late morning that Noora’s dizziness began to subside, only to be replaced by a weakness that settled in her joints. It was a particularly sticky day, and as the household hushed after lunch, Noora crossed over to the men’s majlis to chase away her fatigue. The breeze came from the sea just after the summer, and it was the wind tower in the men’s majlis that caught it best.

  She lay on the mat under the wind tower and raised her legs into a tent. She could hear the pigeons roosted on the beams in the hollow of the wind tower. Their shuddering coos and flutters calmed her, and she rested her palms on her stomach, rubbed them in circles as her eyes grew heavy and she drifted into slumber.

  She was not sure how long she had been asleep when she became aware that someone was standing over her. Heavy, heavy head—she refused to open her eyes, as that would just chase the sleep away. She covered her face with her shayla and rolled toward the wall. “Whatever you want can wait till later,” she mumbled, guessing it was Yaqoota. “Leave me to sleep for now.”

  “It’s me,” said Hamad.

  Noora pulled off her shayla and sat up. “What are you doing? The house isn’t empty, you know. Everyone’s here.”

  “I must talk to you.” Although he spoke calmly, there was a warble of urgency in his voice. “We haven’t talked since we got back.”

  “Talk?” Her eyes were still blurry with sleep. Yet her gaze drifted to the open inner doorway and immediately a panic seized her. He hadn’t even bothered to close the door. Anyone could have spotted him entering. “What are you doing?” she hissed. “Why is the door open?” All those times when they had roamed the house as if they were hus
band and wife, all those times and they hadn’t been caught. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t be discovered now. She jumped up, startling the roosting pigeons into flaps of alarm, and swung the door closed, leaving just a tiny crack from which she could look through to the courtyard.

  “It’s all right,” Hamad whispered. “They are all asleep.” He yanked her hand to his lips and kissed it.

  Noora would not turn to face him, keeping her eyes glued to the gap. The kitchen door was ajar, and she squinted, trying to pick up any movement in its dimness. Only when she was sure they were safe did she turn to scold him. “What were you thinking, sneaking in like this?”

  “I have a plan.”

  “What plan?” she asked, looking back through the gap. She had to be absolutely sure.

  “Look at me,” Hamad said, and twisted her shoulders so that she was finally facing him. He placed his lips on her forehead. “I miss you so much, and I haven’t seen you alone, and when I think of that ugly, fat Jass—”

  “What plan?” she insisted. She was anxious to send him out again.

  “Don’t you miss me?” he asked.

  She watched those eyes, watery with hope, and sighed. “Of course I do, but we both knew it would not last.” She did not want to encourage him.

  “But we were so happy. Why wouldn’t you want it to last?”

  Hamad the dreamer, she thought. Her lips curled into a half-smile and she shook her head. “You can’t be always happy. That’s not how the world works.” She felt they were someone else’s words, but she continued anyway. “We were lucky we got a chance at being happy, and even luckier that no one caught us.” She sighed. “Now, well…we have the memory. We will have to live with that.”

  “I didn’t know you would give up so quickly.”

  “It is not about giving up.”

  “It is.”

  “It’s not.”