Women of Sand and Myrrh

by Hanan al-Shaykh

  I undid the bolt and pushed the door but it didn’t open, so I lay down on the floor far from the bed with my face touching the wood of the door and my arms hugging my chest. I don’t know whether I slept at all: I remember staring into the darkness in the direction of the bed and feeling reassured. The gold chain and belt were in my way but I didn’t want to take them off; they were protecting me. When I heard the dawn call to prayer I pushed the door with all my might and found out that I was also pushing a table wedged against the other side of it. Once I was through, I ran off to my mother’s room.

  After that, a pattern of events developed which repeated itself every night: when the door wouldn’t open, I screamed and screamed and bit his hand and my hand and any flesh I could reach with my teeth. At this the youth lost patience and opened the door and let me escape.

  When I’d escaped, I ran straight into another trap: all the doors were locked from the inside, including the kitchen and the bathroom, and the only one that opened was the outside door. I opened it and stepped out into the street, then went back in again, closing it behind me.

  It was my aunt who made me change my mind; she sprinkled cold water on my face, heated up some milk for me and fed me with sweets and chewing gum while she sat with me in the kitchen. She asked me if I remembered the girl who’d been tied up to the palm tree. I remembered her without hesitation, as I remembered in detail anything which happened to interrupt the daily routine: weddings, funerals, births, swarms of locusts, riding in a car, riding a camel, my gold dress, my mother’s quarrel with Najeeya and Jauhar, and the story of the Little Fish. I remembered the girl tied to the palm tree; she was there till she and the tree looked like Siamese twins. My aunt and my mother had taken me and Awatef in the car to visit one of my aunt’s relations. There were women and children standing between the houses and on one side of a big open piece of ground, and there were men on the other side of it. My mother didn’t like the idea of stopping to watch with the women, in spite of my aunt’s entreaties, and she forced the relation to come into her house with us. Inside the house, the women began to take turns at the window, while Awatef and I tried to squeeze our heads between the grown-ups’ bodies. My aunt’s relation said, ‘The girl’s been without food and drink for three days.’ Then she pointed out the girl’s mother; she was with the other women, circling around the girl, shouting and singing, weeping and laughing. The women were touching her and striking her, wiping the sand off her forehead then throwing it at her. Her mother replaited her hair and struck her face with her plait again, held her dress together where it had been torn and then started to tear it again. The women swarmed around the girl like hungry locusts.

  ‘What’s the girl done?’ I asked excitedly.

  ‘She hasn’t bled this month,’ replied my aunt, ‘and her stomach’s grown. Listen to me, Tamr and Awatef. When you become women, you have to bleed every month; if you don’t, dig yourself into the sand like cats do. Lie down and stay quiet and never get up again. That girl didn’t find any blood and yet she didn’t dig herself into the sand and lie low.’

  Awatef, who had sometimes seen spots of blood on her mother’s dress, said, ‘Why didn’t the girl bleed?’ The women laughed loudly and my aunt answered, ‘Someone who was playing with her must have left his stick behind in her.’ Before Awatef could ask her what she meant, the relation addressed my aunt and my mother: ‘The slut. She swore on the Qur’an that she and another girl were playing around and what had happened was a miracle. Her mother and all the rest of the women told her not to tell lies.’ But an old woman called Watfa couldn’t stand it and shouted, ‘A girl with another girl is like two hands.’ And she pressed her palms together with all the fingers touching, and the thumbs, so that the two hands became one, and gasped, ‘Is that possible?’

  We all moved away from the window to eat. In the morning of the next day when we left the place we saw the girl still tied tightly to the tree. She was dozing with her eyes closed and her black hair was touching the ground. Two days later her cries rent the air. The knife had descended on her lower abdomen. There was a woman called Aleeya Tattoo, because she’d punctured the hands and faces of so many young girls with her needles to draw black tattoos on their flesh. When they screamed she swore that she would stick needles in them and leave them there if she heard another sound. She was the first to meet newborn children, the first to see the dead and bury them or help bury them. This woman was muttering there, almost raving to herself, the knife in her hand along with a small piece of the flesh which had been in direct contact with the other forbidden flesh. She screamed as she tried to force open the mouth of the girl tied to the palm tree: ‘Open your mouth and eat this. Chew it up.’ She brought the knife down again rapidly as she did when she was slaughtering a young lamb on a feast night. She shouted as she tried to feed the girl with the piece of flesh; and the girl, as if finding relief from her pain, bit Aleeya Tattoo’s fingers, which were as dry as a billy goat’s horns. Perhaps sinking her teeth into something helped her bear the wound which must have been oozing blood by then. It extended up to her stomach and the pain around there grew, and the girl screamed and screamed. The sand seemed to be joined up to the sky, and it was as if little grains of salt were covering her wound. ‘Eat this. Open your mouth. Chew it up.’ This time it came forcefully, for Aleeya Tattoo felt the teeth digging into her fingers. The girl moved her head away, to the left, to the right; the palm tree hurt her face. When she tasted the blood and the flesh she closed her eyes and vomited, and was no longer aware of anything.

  I was twelve years old and I was jumping around on the roof of my husband’s family house with the neighbours’ daughters. I rushed down into the house to see the white dust come rumbling from the ceiling, then went back up to the roof. This was the only time when I forgot that I was married and playing in a strange house. I played only for two days, in the time after lunch when my husband’s family were sound asleep. The noise I made woke them up and they found out what I was doing. My husband’s mother, Reehan, disapproved of my game and frowned into the faces of the little neighbours who had been delighted with the young bride. They no longer came to amuse her because of that, and because their mothers told them the bride had begun to know about other things and might unsettle their minds. The days began to grow interminably long in the new house. The burning heat of the sun made its way inside in spite of the fans constantly revolving. The only things I liked about it were the designs carved on the ceiling and the wooden doors, because they were more beautiful than the carvings in my aunt’s house, and their colours were not the same, but after a few days they no longer interested me. Silence hung over this house. There was no laughter and noise in it as there had been in my aunt’s house. Reehan and her daughter wore stiff expressions and I didn’t once see them laughing. Even seeds and chewing gum were in short supply, and when I asked about this one day, Reehan replied, ‘We don’t have small children in the house.’ I wanted to tell her that even my aunt and my mother like seeds and gum, and I used to stock up with them whenever I visited my family or my mother and my aunt came to see me. I hid them in the bottom of the chest in my jewel box between the nose ring and the other rings, just as I had earlier hidden two photographs, one of me dressed up for a feast day, and the other of me and my mother holding palm leaves. As the days went by I became certain that Reehan didn’t like me or my mother or my aunt. She shouted at me when I fidgeted as the dressmaker fitted me for a dress: ‘Stand absolutely still or you won’t have any dresses to wear.’ Stubbornly I replied, ‘I’ve got some other dresses. My mother and my aunt’ll bring them for me.’ ‘Do you mean those rags?’ she asked sarcastically.

  I started to cry, defending my aunt and my mother. I decided that I would tell them as soon as I saw them. I realized too that I didn’t like Reehan and that I was bored: I wanted to play and run and learn about the fish and the animals which I’d seen in my cousins’ books, and I longed to be with my mother and my aunt all the time, not just fo
r the one day in the week when I regularly visited them to share in the hustle and bustle of the house and listen to songs all day long. Going back to Reehan’s house was always hard. Just before it was time for the servant Khaizuran to collect me I used to pray ‘O God, please don’t let me see Khaizuran,’ but her tall thin shape would always loom into view. I would fly to her inviting her to have a cup of tea, some sweets, to delay her for as long as possible, but Khaizuran would remain – like her name which means bamboo – as dry and unyielding as a bamboo cane.

  I thought of running away from the new house whose floor was unwelcoming to my jumping step, and whose walls rebuffed my laughter. Then one morning I felt blood on the inside of my thighs and knew that I’d grown up. I remembered what I’d said when I wanted them all to have pity on me and change their minds about making me get married: ‘Are you going to marry me off when I’m not even a woman yet?’ My aunt had answered, ‘God willing you won’t become a woman before he’s been in you! As well as marrying Tawi’s daughter, he’s getting you when you’re still a little girl so you can grow up at his house and he can raise you.’ I asked Khaizuran for a piece of cloth, refusing to tell her what it was for. Then I began to cry. I wanted to go home for an hour, but Reehan refused to let me, insisting that there were three days to go before I was due to visit my family.

  Khaizuran discovered that Ibrahim had fewer and fewer headcloths with every day that passed, and that some of the family’s sheets had had strips torn off them. Then Reehan found bits of sheet, headcloths and even underclothes with bloodstains on them, tied up in a dress and hanging in a bundle on the back of the bathroom door.

  Every time I woke to the sound of the dawn call to prayer, I thought of my mother and my aunt listening to the same call without me there; all that separated me from them was two streets and a few houses, and I sat sadly, unable to understand why they didn’t love me, and why they’d sent me away, since I hadn’t been greedy or made my clothes dirty. And why did I have to take Reehan as my new mother and aunt combined, and listen to her and sit with her relations and her neighbours instead of with my family?

  I cried every time I visited them, refusing to go back to Reehan’s house with Khaizuran, and when my mother and my aunt visited me and brought Awatef with them I was overjoyed and my courage came back to me. I walked about the house with firmer footsteps; even my voice changed: there was a ring to it; and I felt secure and happy as if I knew that Reehan couldn’t criticize me or tell me off in front of my own people. I took Awatef into my room. She tried on my eight gold rings and the silver one off my thumb, then my gold dress, and said enviously, ‘You are lucky!’ She asked about Ibrahim and what we did when we were in bed. I pushed my hair back off my forehead and didn’t answer.

  When my mother heard that I was pregnant she trilled for joy, kissed me on the cheek and put out a hand to feel my stomach. She closed her eyes and even though Reehan had come in and was standing waiting for my mother, Taj al-Arus, to open her eyes, she said, ‘God willing, your child will be in your womb for nine months and not a day longer; God willing your child will come out with thick eyebrows and curtains of hair in his eyes, and with hair on his head and on his stomach and between his legs.’ I wished my mother would be quiet: I didn’t want Reehan and her daughter, or even Khaizuran, to hear this talk. I didn’t know that the details of my birth and the story of my mother’s four-year pregnancy were known near and far. To my surprise Reehan adjusted her veil and remarked ‘That’s just talk, Taj. Fairy tales. The Almighty doesn’t make mistakes, and He has power over all things.’

  My mother was nonplussed for a moment, not knowing how to answer Reehan who’d just accused her of lying. She was visiting us alone; for the first time she’d come without my aunt, who was unwell. She wanted to speak up for herself but she was afraid that Reehan would be angry and take it out on me. She changed the subject: ‘O Tamr, my precious, O Tamr, my love. Perhaps you’re tired and you ought to lie down?’ ‘No, mother,’ I replied eagerly, then after a pause I added boldly, ‘But I want to go with you and visit my aunt.’

  There was a general silence broken by my mother who said, ‘And leave your husband Ibrahim at night? You shouldn’t do that, my daughter. The day after tomorrow you can visit us and your aunt will be better.’

  I began to cry and found that I was shaking. I would have liked to throw myself into my mother’s arms and hold on to her and ask her to tell me the story of the Little Fish. I didn’t feel married or pregnant, even if Ibrahim had lain on top of me and jiggled up and down and made a sticky liquid come out, and now my stomach had swollen out. I cried louder, picturing myself left alone with Reehan, and my mother Taj al-Arus rebuked me: ‘No, Tamr. I don’t like the way you’re behaving. How can you cry when you’re at home with your family?’ Later on she told me that she’d been thinking something quite different: ‘Their coffee’s like hot water and so’s their tea; there’s no taste to them. And the dates aren’t easy on the teeth or sweet to the tongue.’ She said that she’d been wishing she could have seen me living like a sheikh’s wife, with dresses which shone as bright as stars and my hair smelling of jasmine, henna patterns on my hands and dozens of maids in attendance bearing trays of tea and coffee and dates. Then she’d heard me shouting, ‘I want to go home. I don’t like this house.’

  I didn’t come back to life properly until the next time I visited my family. My aunt was bent on taking me and all the women of the house on a trip, once she’d persuaded Rashid. We climbed merrily into the car, which was to take us wherever we wished: into the desert, to the streets where the only shops were, to the hill always known as the mountain, and to the seaside. She made the car stop so that we could look out of the window. We pointed to some beautiful birds and cried out in wonder, ‘Glory be to God.’ My mother put out a hand to cover my eyes. ‘Don’t look,’ she ordered. ‘Don’t admire them. If you gasp in wonder and say that those birds are beautiful, the child in your womb might grow feathers.’ The return trip to my aunt’s house was another excursion in itself, and when we arrived there was drumming and singing and dancing all the afternoon and into the night. ‘You’re pregnant. Don’t dance,’ they told me, proud of me. They swung their long hair about; my mother danced, and Batul danced a dance which was different from the others except for the swinging hair. They all sang to me and smiled at me. I sat with my hands resting on my stomach and counted the days to my next visit.

  When my mother left Reehan’s house, Reehan ignored my bad mood, perhaps because my mother had entreated her to remember that I was still young and ignorant. But she did remark, ‘I’ve never known your poor mother Taj to hold a conversation before. She’s quite normal.’ I didn’t make any comment, but I felt angry. I couldn’t defend my mother; everybody knew the story of Taj al-Arus, and nobody – child, girl or woman – left my mother without having heard her life history.

  When I felt the labour pains starting I fled to my aunt’s house. I didn’t want to be in pain and to push and strain in front of Reehan. To my mind she didn’t deserve to be there even at this special event.

  They fetched Aleeya Tattoo to me; she forbade me to make a noise then she shouted herself as she pulled and pushed, as if she were the one giving birth. ‘It’s a boy! It’s a boy!’ she cried as she pulled him out. ‘Glory be to the Creator! His eyes are dark, he’s as beautiful as the moon, and he’s got a big prick: he’ll only have male children. His chest’s powerful. You can see the breeding in him. Naturally, since his mother’s descended from sheikhs and his father from merchants.’ She was lying: we weren’t descended from sheikhs! Then she turned to Nasab and Taj al-Arus, screaming, ‘Cover her eyes! She mustn’t see the afterbirth. Go and dig deep, deep and bury the afterbirth deep, deep, because the dogs are always hungry.’

  Once again I fled from Reehan’s house and my son Muhammad was in my arms. It was an ordinary afternoon, the same as all the rest, and as usual Awatef had slipped in to see me when everyone in the house was asleep and the fans and
air-conditioners were going full blast. We laughed a lot and chewed gum and cracked seeds between our teeth, tried on rings and imitated Reehan’s glowering expressions and Khaizuran’s walk, and Awatef snored, imitating the sounds rising up from Reehan’s bedroom and the sitting-room where Ibrahim and his father had stretched out directly after the meal. Awatef wanted to scribble in Ibrahim’s school books but I stopped her.

  We padded cat-like to the kitchen. The smell of onions and garlic and the recent meal pervaded it. We began opening the cupboards, poking around for nothing in particular. Awatef took two sticks of incense and hid them in her pocket and I took a packet of sugar candy. We went on opening more cupboards until we heard someone clearing his or her throat.

  Muhammad was still in his bed. I picked him up and he went on sleeping. I said to Awatef, ‘He’s my child and they don’t even let me hold him. I want to take him and leave. Yesterday Reehan boiled a piece of lead to protect him from the evil eye and it shot out of the pot and grazed his forehead.’