Women of Sand and Myrrh

by Hanan al-Shaykh

  6

  I became irritated every time I was with my mother in a gathering of women, and could no longer bear sitting like a shepherd, frightened to close his eyes even for a second in case his flock should stray. Taj al-Arus could never resist telling the story of her life, and I’d threatened more than once not to accompany her over the threshold of a house.

  While she sat waiting for my aunt and me to come home, she would think in anguish how I was no longer a sheikh’s wife, remembering how my aunt Nasab had brought embroidered cloth back from Iran to make a nightdress for my wedding night, and how she herself had insisted that the cloth be cut in the shape of a big heart at the navel and a little heart at each breast, and then that there should be henna patterns in each of these openings.

  Taj al-Arus had been certain that this wedding nightdress would ensnare the sheikh’s heart for ever, for the Sudanese girl whom the Sultan had taken for his wife and kept as his wife for a long time, asking for her and no other every night, had once told them her secret. In front of them she put on her white wedding nightdress and showed them the hearts on it, some embroidered and some open to show off henna patterns on her skin. She told them that night that the Sultan used to open a jewel box and play with her for hours, trying to fit pieces of jewellery into each heart-shaped hole and, where he succeeded, giving the ring or trinket to her for her own.

  Taj al-Arus had heaved a sigh as she listened to this story, and thought that perhaps the man who’d been waiting in the room when Mauza pushed her through the door, and who’d lain on top of her and hurt her while she kept her eyes tightly shut, wasn’t the Sultan: he hadn’t played with her like that even though his room had been large, his bed gold, the carpet soft, and an air-conditioner had been humming in the room. She wanted to hear more and she felt envious of the Sudanese girl, although the others talked about what she’d said and called her a liar.

  Whenever she was in a gathering of women it always struck Taj that she might have been Sultana over them, and she found herself interrupting them and telling them her story however much she’d promised not to anger me in future, and not to open her mouth except to eat.

  She used to sing traditional Turkish songs in a gentle voice, and the kohl round her green eyes was washed away by her tears; these eyes were sometimes cloudy, sometimes clear, and her cheeks turned the colour of roses. Her long neck grew longer as she looked constantly at the ceiling or out to the horizon, never meeting the eyes fixed upon her. It was as if she were pursuing her memories, or as if they had been there with her constantly since the day she went bewildered to the train, and saw her father bending to kiss the Sultan’s hand and heard him saying in Turkish, ‘Taj al-Arus is your lawful right, as she is your wife, and your sister should you divorce her. She’s my youngest daughter and the apple of my eye.’ The Sultan pressed his hand, and he walked away gathering in the skirts of his abaya which were flying up in the wind. Her curiosity was directed at the prospect of travelling in a train, and she felt a simple pleasure at the thought of seeing another country, mixed with fear because she couldn’t understand the language which these men were speaking. ‘You’re a Sultana,’ her mother had said to her, as she searched her long red hair for lice, massaged it with black mud and poured rosewater over it. Then she rubbed her body all over with a loofah and olive oil soap, poured water over it and dried it, saying, ‘The Crown of the Bride has become a Crown of Kings.’

  Their house was the largest in the village, and her father was the village mayor. The Sultan had come from the desert with his retinue to take a water cure, and had been her father’s guest. In the time it takes to blink, Taj al-Arus, her seven brothers and sisters and their mother had been moved to her uncle’s house, the whole of which was transformed into a giant kitchen. The women and girls stuffed ducks, rolled up vine leaves, plucked and roasted sparrows, and impaled meat on skewers for kebabs. Her father, her brothers, her uncle and her cousins carried the trays of food. On the last night her father bowed so low that his head touched the ground, and the Sultan presented him with a gold watch with his picture on it, and a gold ring set with a diamond; her father found himself telling the Sultan that he was ready to give him his soul, and the most precious thing in the world to him was Taj al-Arus.

  One of them translated her name for the Sultan – ‘Crown of the Bride’ – and it pleased him and he said, ‘I accept her.’

  Before Taj boarded the train she turned to look behind her and saw all the people of her village waving brightly-coloured handkerchiefs; the women were trilling and the children running along beside them. As the train moved away and Taj’s heart sank, she stretched her long neck out of the window and saw all the village dogs chasing the train, barking wildly, and she felt a surge of affection for them and laughed out loud. As the train drew away the dogs were still running.

  When the train halted after many hours, Taj stuck her head out of the window again, and all she could see was sand. Then the men got down and she was left by herself. She wondered if they’d forgotten her but they came back for her and sat her in the back seat of a car, and the party set off again. After some time they stopped and got out and again she stayed where she was, wondering if they’d forgotten about her, until in the end one of them came back and pushed a black wrap at her, and an abaya, and indicated that she should put them round her: she was wearing a dress with trousers under it, and her head was covered by an embroidered scarf with little silver beads hanging from it.

  All she could see was sand and a few houses, and tents; they went into a courtyard without a single plant growing in it; there was sand here too and small stones and beyond it a large colourless building. She could hear noises of children and women’s voices, but saw no one. She didn’t move until the driver opened the door and signalled to her to follow him into the big building. When they were inside he shouted ‘Mauza!’ three times and disappeared. A woman emerged. Only her face was uncovered but Taj could see that she was tall and broad. She kissed Taj on both cheeks and took her by the hand. They passed through a large room with huge brightly-coloured sofas ranged around the walls, and into a corridor with numerous other rooms opening off it. Taj found it extremely hot. The woman opened a door at the end of a passage. The room turned out to be taken up almost entirely by a brass bed. Taj stood with her eyes downcast until the woman vanished, closing the door behind her. Taj had scarcely poised herself on the edge of the bed when the woman came back, handed her a towel and soap, and led her along the corridor to a bathroom; here she pointed to some water in a barrel and to the soap and then reached out a hand to Taj’s chest. Taj understood and began to wash, her eyes on the closed door, thinking uneasily that she would lose her way as soon as she went out of the room. But the woman was waiting for her; she took her back to her room and signed to her to undo her bundle of clothes.

  When Taj had done this, the woman looked through them and threw them aside. She went out of the room, and Taj al-Arus fingered her clothes and the things which her mother had collected for her from the neighbours and her female relatives, and thought about what the woman was doing. The woman returned with a long dress which she gave to Taj to put on. It was tight across the chest; Taj al-Arus held her breath and climbed into it, then sat back down on the bed. The door opened and the same woman entered with a tray with a glass of very sweet tea on it. Before she’d drunk it the woman handed her some dates, then poured a green fluid from a copper jug into a little cup. Taj ate the dates voraciously, but when she tasted what was in the little cup she moved it abruptly away from her lips.

  ‘That’s our coffee,’ said the woman. ‘You’ll have to get to like it. It’s nice.’ Taj al-Arus smiled at her, not understanding. The woman turned to leave and gestured to Taj to follow her. They passed through silent rooms, then through rooms noisy with shouting and boisterous laughter. Through the black cover which the woman had thrown around her face Taj saw a man’s face, and then another.

  It was difficult to walk with the black abaya wra
pped around her. All of a sudden she was met by a stinging heat like the heat she’d felt when she put her hand on the coals and glowing ashes in the copper stove at home. It didn’t leave her until she went inside again, this time into another building in the yard itself, and found out where the noise of children and the women’s cries were coming from. The woman took her into a long chamber where there was a table with chairs all round it, laid with a plastic cloth and trays of rice and meat. She thought it must be in her honour, but soon changed her mind, and turned away from the eyes which bored into her with scorn and hostility as their owners talked to the woman who’d brought her; then she heard laughter interspersed with words. When she reached out a hand to eat she found her plate heaped up with rice and pieces of meat. She sat for some time until the woman got to her feet, wiping her mouth on her sleeve, and signalled to Taj to get up and go with her. Again the heat struck her and seared into her until she reached the other building. Taj realized that it was the first building when the woman opened a door and she saw her bundle. The woman went away for a few moments and came back with a bottle of perfume in her hand. She sprinkled it over Taj and asked her, ‘Is that nice?’

  She went away again briefly and this time she came back with an incense burner which she placed near Taj, gesturing to her to fan the smoke about. When Taj clearly couldn’t understand what she had to do, then woman held the incense burner close to Taj’s chest, then she bent down to lift up Taj’s skirt and Taj felt warm smoke on her thighs. The woman raised her own dress and wafted the burner around her thighs, then set off in front of Taj still carrying the burner. She went up a short flight of stairs and knocked on the door at the top. When she heard the sound of a voice, or a throat being cleared, she pushed Taj al-Arus gently forward.

  The following day, the same woman came to her and gave her a Qur’an inlaid with diamonds and sapphires, gold bangles, and a pendant with ‘What God has willed’ inscribed on it. ‘From the Sultan,’ she told her. Taj was delighted with the jewellery which shone like nothing she’d ever seen in her life before.

  She found herself thinking of her family and her neighbours and friends for the first time since she’d arrived, and she pictured their eyes and their fingers pursuing the sparkling treasures, not believing that it all belonged to her. The woman took Taj down to the ground floor, across the yard, and into the other building which resembled a Turkish army barracks. The woman no longer summoned her to eat with her. Taj felt as if she was in the middle of a market: movement and noise; women, girls, and boys of every race, age and colour. She began imitating the others, sitting down to eat when they did, going out into the yard if they did, then attaching herself to groups of them, sitting as they sat, even beginning to drink the thread of green liquid when it was poured out into the tiny cups.

  The day after that Taj al-Arus began to learn how she should behave in the yard, in the gatherings of women and in the bedrooms. The noise no longer bothered her; she grew accustomed to the presence of large numbers of black and white children and their loud voices and their talk and laughter. She was no longer shy at table and she picked up the rice just like all the rest of them, gathering it together in her fingers and throwing it into her mouth. She tore the meat apart, remembering her sisters and brothers and how at home everybody had shared out the food together; now she was on her own.

  In the yard a fire was burning with a giant spoon resting on the coals containing green beans – coffee beans; she saw a woman roasting them for several minutes then pounding them until they looked like cracked wheat; then she stood close to the fire and watched the coffee powder and sugar and fat simmering together. She wished that she could take the old woman’s place at the fire; she wanted to know how she was going to live, what she was going to do: in Turkey she had been used to starting work at daybreak.

  Had she done something wrong when she’d gone into the vast room and the Sultan had approached her and lain on top of her? Even when it hurt her she hadn’t started to cry. At the sound of the muezzin she’d thought of her mother and father and brothers and sisters, and of the walnut tree, and how she used to pick a nut and rub its shell on her lips until they were stained red, turning to a deep dark brownish crimson after a few moments.

  She forgot about her family when she heard a loud voice echoing all round the building: ‘Prayers! Time for prayers!’ She had to hurry like the rest of them to do her ritual ablutions and pray with the other women in the large chamber, while the men had their own mosque. She copied the others and prayed humbly to God.

  That evening when she met the first woman’s eyes and she didn’t call her over, Taj wondered if she was expected to sleep in the Sultan’s room like the night before. Then she remembered her bundle of clothes and went off to try and find the way to the outside door. It was locked. She tried to ask a woman but she couldn’t understand a word she said and didn’t know how to get rid of her. She made her way back to where the other women were and smiled at them and searched for Mauza, the one who had looked after her on her arrival, afraid that there was nowhere for her to sleep. Taj slept in her clothes in an empty bed surrounded by four other empty beds, her hand on her brassière where she’d hidden the Sultan’s presents.

  In the morning she woke early and lay there taking in the room, which was bare except for big ceiling fans: the centralized air-conditioning wasn’t enough for all the rooms. She thought of the mirror at home which had pictures pinned all round its wooden frame. The bedrooms here were more or less empty except for beds, chests and cushions propped against the walls. When she bent down to get her shoes she noticed dust under the beds and all over the floor; in some places it had accumulated in little fluffy balls which looked to her like grey mice. How she wished she could swill water over everything and give it a thorough cleaning from top to bottom, but she remembered that she was a Sultana.

  She knew for sure that the Sultanas in this place were different from the Queens she’d heard about. Here a Sultana ate, drank, prayed, slept, danced, sang, and didn’t work, unlike a Queen in a story who sat on a throne with a crown on her head and a whip in her hand, ordering the sun to set and the moon to shine. And the Sultan didn’t sit counting his jewels: indeed, a lot of his time was spent travelling. When she came to think about the small children, of whom there were perhaps more than a hundred, her mind became confused.

  The place had a smell, incense and food; even the clamour, the running and movement from room to room, the lying on beds and on the floor had a smell. It was the women’s perfume floating out into the air. Strange perfumes; Taj didn’t know that they were Indian and desert perfumes, and that only the Sultan’s paramour wore European perfume. They rose up from the tinkling of the gold bangles and the belts and jewelled Qur’ans, smells of henna and oil and jasmine.

  She grew used to the comfortable noisy life, the mixture of sleeping and staying up late, sometimes till dawn. All the same she didn’t open her heart to a single one of them; the only points of similarity between them and the women from her village were their plump bodies and the gold in their teeth.

  She no longer thought of the language as the obstacle, as she had done previously. The reason she felt distant from them lay in what she saw at nights, the rustling and whispering which she heard; Fatima’s sighs and the creaking of her bed; the uproar around the door as Belkis clung to it. These things kept Taj awake for hours. After some time she found out why Fatima was sighing; one night another of the women who slept in the room crept up and whipped back Fatima’s covers while at the same time another switched on the light: her lower half was naked. The more she swore at them, the more they laughed and when she screamed at them they imitated her. Since she could do nothing against them she rolled herself up in a blanket and closed her eyes.

  After this episode Taj refused to eat for two days and was moved into another room. It was Mauza who arranged for her to move and she also brought her the bundle of clothes she’d carried from Turkey. The new room only had a few beds in it; th
e girls were beautiful and they were Taj’s age or slightly older, whereas Fatima and the others had been much older, and more than once one of them had tried to be affectionate to her by putting a hand on her chest: at first Taj had thought she was trying to steal her jewellery.

  The first night in the new room didn’t pass as peacefully as she had expected, and nor did the following nights. It agitated her the way Belkis stood waiting for so long, then leant against the locked door after Mauza had gone round locking all the rooms, turning out the lights and listening to the complaints.

  Taj al-Arus didn’t dare to ask Belkis what she was doing every night at the locked door, supporting herself against it with her hands held above her head, although she didn’t think she was trying to open it for she emitted faint noises as she stood there. By the time Taj al-Arus found out the reason she knew, despite the fact that she was only fourteen years old, a lot about men and women; she also knew the secret shared by all the women there, the young and old, the black and the light-skinned; she knew about the children, the Sultan, the Sultana, and about herself: she knew that she was waiting and they were all waiting with her, even the Sultan, for the end of the month. If she didn’t have a period, all the rest of them would envy her, and the Sultan would be told that he was expecting a son or a daughter from his red-haired Turkish bride; she would still be his wife and the contract which had been drawn up in the village between her father and one of the Sultan’s aides would remain valid. ‘Shall I become a Sultana?’ Taj al-Arus asked Mauza, who clearly knew all languages: Ethiopian, Somali, Syrian, Albanian, even a bit of Turkish. Mauza nodded her head: ‘A Sultana. He’ll give you an allowance, gold jewellery, dresses. You’ll have a room of your own, maybe even a palace. And the Sultan will come and see you and his offspring. Everyone will listen to what you say; in social gatherings they’ll bring the incense burner to you first and give you a leg of mutton and a cup of coffee before the other guests, and you’ll have two personal attendants.’ Because all the women wanted this for themselves Taj al-Arus wanted it too. Her eyes were aglow with the heat of her enthusiasm, and she looked upwards, supplicating God. For the first time she understood the secret of the eyes fixed on the ceiling: the young ones must have been praying to be pregnant, the old ones devoutly hoping for the opposite.