What?
“There’s no need to make a fuss, you’ll pick it up in half an hour.”
Allah, Allah!
“You’ll be a bit tired afterwards but then you can have a rest. I’ll be waiting outside.”
Without giving me the chance to get a word in the conversation was finished. Then Maryam appeared at the door. Madam Lilla called out to her.
“Good morning, mademoiselle. Get ready, you’re going to learn the art of camel riding.”
“OK,” she said, excited. It was said with an enthusiasm I couldn’t quite pinpoint. Madam Lilla looked at me questioningly and said quietly, “There’s something strange about this woman.”
I felt the same. I told Maryam about the TV program on Libya and then Amira, emphasizing how disgusting it all was. It was strange how the two of them weren’t equally disturbed. “This is Libya after all,” said Maryam and Amira added, “Certainly not Tunisia, and not Egypt either.”
Allah, Allah…
*
Our lesson with camels made everything seem strange. Was it the sun or the camel or Madam Lilla’s enigmatic words that made our heads spin? We were so terribly tired by evening that before going to bed I couldn’t even muster the strength to ask Madam Lilla, who was pacing about the room, what had she meant about my inner garden? All I remember is hearing her warning as I drifted off to sleep:
“You will have a dream tonight. After riding a camel for the first time you always have a desert dream. Pay attention to it. It will tell you something about the lies you tell yourself.”
We fell asleep right after sunset and slept straight through till morning. But we weren’t really awake until we heard Saida’s daughter crying and Saida’s show with the gun at the coffeehouse and only when those boxes brought by the old blue-faced man were opened. We had to wait for the blue man to go until we could get back to this matter of the dream. Yet we should have known by then that Madam Lilla’s stories would be more than our questions.
16
“It was the night before I saw the three of you tipsy on the hotel terrace in your white nightgowns. Ah! Maybe I shouldn’t tell you this but I am going to anyway. (Laughter.) Even if you wanted to there’s no turning back now. In any event I believed in you because I saw you that night, like I’d seen some kind of sign. If you ask me even then I already knew we’d be setting out on this journey together. That night you saw me, it was sort of linked to the big dinner the night before. As they say in English, I was feeling blue. For the first time in years I was drinking alone. That’s why I played Walla Zaman for you. All those years and no love. Oh, sister Warda. What a woman she was! In any case… The night before I’d hosted a large dinner party. I sat everyone down at the table… (laughter) All the men of my love life. All of them! Around the same table. They came from all over the world, some from very far away (laughter that took your breath away). Oh how they had aged. But not me, oh no (clasping her hands and placing them in her lap, she inspected her manicured nails). I’m a lucky woman. You see I can call and have dinner with all those people who would normally end up as a photograph in an album. That night was like going through everything in my album before burning it. I made all of them their favorite food, which truly surprised them to say the least. Only one person didn’t come. He was the old man you saw this morning, (then, turning to me) the one you call the man with the blue face. Perhaps you don’t know why he’s blue. I’ll tell you. He merely sent me a short note, explaining how he loved me too much to come to such a dinner and so on. And he sent me these earrings. (The same ones she had shown to the blue man that morning in the coffeehouse.) With the same symbol on the necklaces he gave to you. (Again looking at me.) The blue-faced man didn’t come to the dinner because he loved me while I was entangled in a passionate affair with Saida’s uncle. But he wanted me. So they arranged for an elaborate duel in the middle of the desert. On camel back. He doesn’t use that cane just because he’s old: it’s because he wounded his leg that day and it never fully healed. He used to call me Tin Abutut. And you see, he still does. (Smiling she quickly turned to the mirror and looked.) In the Tuareg language those words mean, ‘the woman with a vast shore’. At the same time it was also the ancient name for Timbuktu. He loved me and he suffered dearly for it … so much. (She held back a growing smile to show she wasn’t all that cruel.) After all those years and everything that has happened, he still does whatever he wants. He is a gentlemen and well-respected among the nomadic tribes. We cannot pass through the desert without his permission. I didn’t want to say all this in front of Saida because she still believes I left because of the duel. That is the story of the earrings and the old blue man. Truth is I was surprised to see him come and curious that he was willing to help us. I thought he despised me. This means he still loves me. (Again she stared down at her hands in admiration for some time.) As for why we came to Yafran…”
Yes, this was the story we had been waiting for since morning. Waiting since we’d left the coffeehouse in Saida’s jeep and set out for Yafran. When we were finally settled in that strange hotel room, Madam Lilla, dressed in her purple nightgown, told us everything. We had waited for this since Maryam had cried out in the car “Alright then but why do we need to go to Yafran!”
*
Maryam might very well have been in a sleep-addled daze or unnerved by Saida’s armed parking operation and the dramatic encounter with the blue man, but her attention was still fixed on all the mundane details of our impending journey. As we left the coffeehouse and made for Yafran, she asked Saida for a map of Libya. When she finally managed to unroll the map and pinpoint Yafran, she protested.
“Fine, but why Yafran? It’s not even on the way! It’s north of here. Aren’t we travelling south? And on top of that there are still skirmishes flaring up in the north. I’m getting the feeling you’re trying to get us killed, Madam Lilla!”
Madam Lilla was clearly irritated by this interrogation to do with such trivial details as north and south, war and death. Amira and I had left the matter in the hands of God but it wasn’t going to be easy to convince Maryam. Madam Lilla pretended not to hear as Maryam shouted in her ear, “Fine then, but why Yafran?”
Raising an eyebrow, Madam Lilla turned slightly but with no intention of answering Maryam’s question, and, as if speaking to a void, “I thought it would be a good idea to go to Yafran. There is a house there that I think you might like to see.”
Then as if she hadn’t heard her previous question and as if she’d just noticed Maryam was leaning over her:
“Especially you, Maryam Hanım. I think it might be a very good idea for you to visit Dido’s home.”
Her eyes wide open in surprise, Maryam responded like a robot, right on cue
“Which Dido?”
“Aren’t you a professor on the subject? I’m talking about the Dido,” said Madam Lilla.
Ruffled by a scrap of unknown information to do with her area of interest, Maryam was suddenly the classic academic caught off guard, and, fumbling about like a child, she said:
“Huh? Um … hmm … Dido doesn’t have a house there. I mean, there’s nothing like that in Yafran. There shouldn’t be.”
Madam Lilla responded, “Hmm,” flashed half a smile and then added, “My dear Maryam, the house you are going to sleep in tonight is none other than the house of Dido. You can be sure of that.”
Maryam slowly let go of the seat in front of her and as she leaned back a strange expression came over her face. Amira and I were holding back our laughter – you could see it in the twisted expressions on our faces. My forehead was scrunched up into a number eight and I couldn’t help but say: “Weren’t you researching Dido, my dear Maryam?” Making a face, she looked at me. Forcing back her laughter, Amira answered for her.
“She’s also known as Elissa!”
Maryam was still mumbling:
“There couldn’t be such a place there. Absolutely no way.”
“I spoke to Eyüp Bey this morning,
” said Madam Lilla. “And I made a point of bringing up this matter regarding the hamam.” She was clearly addressing Amira. “We need to wait a little longer. But it seems Eyüp Bey will be able to settle everything.”
“Settle what?” asked Amira.
“It’s still too early to say. But I can give you a definite answer in a week or two. For now we can only wait.” And with that she left Amira hanging on a thread, her curiosity aroused. She looked over at us.
“So we’ll be on the road for a week or two or more, is that it?” said Maryam, slightly on edge. In a sweetly teasing tone of voice, Madam Lilla struck back.
“Is that so bad? Some of us are learning something new every day!”
Amira and I laughed and Saida joined in. Of course Maryam looked at me and Amira and said, ‘Ha ha ha!’ She was not prepared to relinquish her bad mood.
Madam Lilla had been putting on airs all morning. She was already in a different mood when we left Jadu and even when she spoke of reaching the open sea, she had found the poet leader among the girls who were seeing us off. In a flat tone of voice this is what she said.
“What you have in your heart will always be with you. It has nothing to do with anyone else and won’t have in the future. Love had nothing to do with him and won’t have anything to do with him. Someone else will come to take his place, and love will always stay with you. Make space for what is to come.”
Like a robot, just like a robot. Sometimes you wanted to kill the woman. And just when you thought you might actually do it she would come up with some new trick and… It wasn’t love or warmth you felt for this woman but fascination. And because you were so eager to hear the rest of her story you couldn’t risk giving up on her – she was that kind of woman. Not someone out of a dreamy art film about Scheherazade. Our Madam Lilla was a documentary in herself: entirely real.
The poet leader didn’t say a word. She only looked as if she might curse us. Madam Lilla wasn’t bothered by the look in the slightest. Taking Amira by the arm, she said, “It’s time to get going,” and then she whispered, “When the pain passes those are the only words she’ll remember.”
Once again Madam Lilla was the captain and commander. When she was in her stride she looked at least twenty years younger. It was something to see. And that’s how we set out together. As we travelled further and further I couldn’t stop thinking about the poet leader’s stony face. As if someone very similar to me was born in the desert. They had grown and blossomed but now a branch was broken off by the war.
“What will happen to the poet?” I asked Saida without giving it much thought. Just like that. She looked to the left and to the right, fiddled with the rearview mirror and finally pushed a CD into the player, thinking she could just pretend she hadn’t heard me. I felt really down. What was the deal with these guerilla leaders and their butch style? I’d asked a simple question. And as I was brooding over the dumb tourist treatment I was receiving, the song kicked in:
And I go back to black…
I curse out of joy. Amy Winehouse’s voice can cover all of the earth. We are barrelling along. Amy is singing in the middle of the desert. Saida is gravely thumping out the rhythm on the wheel, humming along to the chorus. The three of us are sitting in the back in a mild state of shock, befuddled expressions on our faces. Madam Lilla is nodding her head, lost in thought. Is she thinking about the poet leader or is she trying to make sense of Amy Winehouse, who is the outcome of this age of ours? All of a sudden she says, “The poet leader will learn that her gift will not end with someone’s death. And that love belongs to her. This poor girl, for example (referring to Amy Winehouse)… she can’t handle what she’s been given. You can tell from her voice. Just like Billie Holiday. And then… What was that poor girl’s name… Janis Joplin…”
How can this woman be so sure?
“It’s always the same story. They can’t pull themselves together. They can’t protect themselves; they can’t possess what is given to them; they are like colourful birds that can’t fly. And someone is bound to shoot them. Tell me who shot this girl because she carries such pain in her voice?”
Our mouths open in surprise; none of us have an answer. Then Saida said, “Her husband. Or I should say the man she married. A good-for-nothing shit.”
Nodding her head as she tapped out the rhythm of the song on the window, Madam Lilla seemed to be saying, of course. She went on speaking with Back to Black in the background.
“Now I’m talking about you two in particular (she meant me and Amira). You need to believe in your ability to use the talent you’ve been given. Because such talent … sadly this is the world we live in … my dear Amira, you’re listening to me, right? With the talent you have they are going to try to destroy you instead of protecting and caring for you. They will try to convince you that you are worthless. To beat them you must believe that something or someone loves you deeply. That is why you need to believe in a god or a goddess. You can’t just love yourself out of the blue. You can love yourself only if you believe that a god loves you, that someone loves you. You must believe this or else you’ll lose your mind. Look, this poor girl lost hers. She’ll take her own life. Or did she already?”
Saida nodded and let a sarcastic grumble out of the corner of her mouth. It was like a bullet had lodged in her flesh and ached. “Alright Thirina,” she said, “go ahead and tell them, when no one is willing to love them and they are all alone with their gifts, like you promised…”
She couldn’t finish. Though she sounded tough, she left the sentence in mid-air, her voice trembling.
“Is this what you’re trying to say, dear Saida? ‘That you will always be with them like you promised?’ I think that might be it…”
Saida’s eyes flashed angrily in the rearview mirror. Madam Lilla’s voice was completely flat, the same voice she used while speaking to the poet leader:
“No, I will not. I will do everything to help these people as much as I can. Not with compassion but with a road map. I am nobody’s mother. If I wanted to be a mother…”
Saida was tough but Madam Lilla was a rock. If her voice so much as trembled you’d think there’d been an earthquake and not a tremor. She had taken up her position. Saida only shook her head as if to say, let’s drop it. Clearly this was an old scar and she didn’t want to pick at it now. And so we listened to Amy Winehouse songs over and over again. The third time through Maryam lit a cigarette during ‘I Cheated Myself’, without asking Madam Lilla, even though Maryam knew she was uncomfortable with smoke in the car, although she occasionally had a cigarette too. I followed her example. Then Amira. Then Saida jumped in and lit up even though she never smoked, thinking what the hell let’s burn.
“So this blue-faced man…” Maryam suddenly said, drawing out the words. Saida shivered even before the question was finished. Madam Lilla seemed ever so slightly on edge. Then before Maryam could finish, she said, “later” making it clear the conversation was closed. Taut as a bow, Saida turned to Madam Lilla.
“Anyway,” said Madam Lilla. “We’re now in the lands of al-Kahina. But I suppose you already know that.”
She looked at me again because I was the most ignorant of the group. But thanks to Maryam I already had this particular piece of information, which she’d explained to me when we talked about Dido in Tunisia. She was the woman ruler who retreated to the desert and ordered her people to leave the fields barren at the expense of decimating her own army, and who refused to be taken as a slave and eventually risked mass suicide with her army when the Umayyads were taking control of northern Africa.
Madam Lilla turned to Saida.
“I know this is going to make you angry but don’t be, Saida. I will make this clear. You are losing. You are losing because you are winning. You are losing because your victory has come to you too easily. If your uncle were here … I wish things had worked as he said they would. If only the dream would come true with your victory. But now it’s only drawing the Americans and the En
glish in, who have wriggled out from under their sins as if they have done nothing wrong. Everyone is more excited than they should be. Especially the youth… They don’t understand. In the end they will be…”
For the first time Saida spoke with real sincerity in her voice.
“Madam Lilla, you aren’t here anymore. Times have changed. This is a different country. Forget about the magic, and your belief in fairy tales. You’re getting old. You don’t know anything anymore. The life you’re talking about never even existed, nothing is the way you imagine it to be. That goes for people and for life… You’re … smothering everything in a magic blanket. And when you pull it back you don’t like what you see, no? Well welcome to the world, Madam Lilla, where everything is more flat, ugly and ordinary than you ever thought. None of us are worthy of you. None of us can match your flights of fancy. None of us are good enough. You’ll die before you can accept the world for what it is. And the thing is you’re doing such a good job of deceiving yourself that you always find new adoring fans that love to watch.” She motioned at us before continuing. “But they’ll see the truth as well. They will grow tired of your lies. When this hippy craze is over they’ll see that you always leave!”
We were like ice. It was like a wrecking ball had just smashed into one of the supporting pillars of La Scala. A second passed in icy silence and then unexpectedly Maryam shouted, “Pull yourself together, Saida Hanım. Watch what you’re saying!” And she didn’t stop there. “Or I will do it for you!”
For the next hour we only stared out of the windows.
“At last,” said Madam Lilla as we pull into a little village. Yafran. We stop in front of a green garden that stands out against a background of dirty yellow. An old plump woman with a smile on her face is standing in front of the garden gate with her hands clasped. As if there is a motor in her hips powered by joy, she begins shuffling over to us the moment she sees us, letting out sharp exhalations, shifting her weight from one hip to the other as she makes for the jeep. This is the sheer joy that is particular to people who live far from others and fill a garden with flowers. Next to her there is a middle-aged woman and a younger woman with a little girl tugging on her dress. They all had similar faces. Madam Lilla got quickly out of the car. And the old woman spoke to Madam Lilla as if she were reciting a prayer of joy.
Women Who Blow on Knots Page 20