by Joelle Stolz
“Malika, what are you doing?” my brother yells, alarmed.
“I am going to show you that I can walk on the wall even with my eyes closed!” I shout back.
“You're crazy! You might kill yourself!”
But I am already moving my right foot forward on the top of the wall and feeling its tiny bumps. I concentrate fully on the sensation of my bare feet stepping flat against the rough, warm, dried mud surface. I no longer have any fear of falling, as though invisible wings had suddenly sprouted on my back. Taking small steps, balancing myself with my arms spread out, I advance toward my goal. That's it, I've reached the other low wall, and am almost home safe. Just a few more steps … I am running now, until I hit the pointy, whitewashed triangular corner that marks the end of my route.
Tearing off my blindfold, I find that Jasim has stayed rooted where he was, paralyzed with terror at the thought that I might plummet. His dark skin has turned gray. As for me, my knees start to shake from fear after the fact.
Just then Bilkisu emerges from the stairway. One glance and she guesses that something unusual has happened. She runs up to Jasim, who tells her in a few words, then she comes up to me, knitting her brows, and hugs me. I feel the slightly sweet taste of blood and the painful burn where I bit my tongue.
I look up. “Bilkisu, who is Tanit?”
She steps back slowly. “Where have you heard that name?”
“I don't know. I must have heard it, but I don't know who she is.”
“Tanit is a goddess from ancient times, I think, from before Islam,” Bilkisu says. “Come along now, both of you, and don't you dare do that again! At your age you shouldn't be playing these kinds of games. You're too big now.”
My brother said nothing more. But after dinner, he comes to my little room and hands me the board and the stylus.
“Take them. Anyway I no longer need them. Maybe one day you too will learn how to read and write.”
omething woke me from the depths of sleep. A cry? A call? Sitting up on the thin mattress that serves as my bed, I listen closely. Nothing. Nothing but the silence of the house and the inky darkness of night.
Then why have I woken with this oppressive sensation? Bilkisu and my mother are asleep in their rooms, each separated from the common room by a curtain. Jasim is sleeping in the alcove, which is comfortably lined with woven mats and pillows and which we call the newlyweds' room. As for me, I got permission from my father to sleep in the little room where he keeps his books. It is located a bit higher than the others, up a stairway, and light comes in by a narrow window giving out on the street. Maybe the noise came from outside?
But, now, there is no noise. It must have been a bad dream, as I sometimes have when my father is away. He said he would certainly be back before the next full moon. Every night, from our rooftop, I watch the slim crescent grow in size and despair at its slowness.
Resting my head on my elbow, I drift off to sleep again, but suddenly a cry startles me. This time I know for sure it is coming from the street. Bilkisu has heard it too, for her room is close to mine. She joins me by the windowsill, without making any sound. We can't see very much through the wroughtiron grille, except for some shadows in a haze of smoke from burnt-out torches. But we hear a stampede of bare feet treading the hard mud ground, as well as increasingly loud calls and swearwords. Someone is being pursued in the night. Is it a thief — a looter who has succeeded in entering our city in spite of the watchmen posted at the gates?
“Ahhh!” comes another cry, a cry of pain.
“They've wounded him,” whispers Bilkisu. “Or else …”
“Or else?”
“He tried to escape by the unlit passageway and knocked his head against the beam!”
The hidden beam— a perverse trap invented by the people of Ghadames to catch their enemies. Some of the very dark alleyways are deliberately left unlit, and, at the level of a man's forehead, carpenters have placed a palm crosspiece under the low vaulting. The residents of the neighboring houses instinctively lower their heads, but a stranger who doesn't know the area can seriously hurt himself, especially if he is running.
Both Bilkisu and I are holding our breath, trying to guess what is going on down below. Have they caught him? The group of pursuers is still stampeding, then the men seem to hesitate and retrace their steps. We hear muffled exclamations and deliberations. They set off in the opposite direction and the echo of their steps grows faint. Bit by bit silence returns.
“I am going out to look,” Bilkisu whispers to me.
“In the street? In the middle of the night?”
“I don't care. I have to know what happened. Be very careful not to wake the others!”
She has such a light step that often I am only aware of her presence from her smell. On this occasion she has made herself as supple and silent as a black cat in the night. My mother and Jasim are still sleeping peacefully, or so I assume, when I hear the faint squeaking of the door hinges. What a scandal if our neighbors were to see Bilkisu in the street, her head uncovered!
Intensely worried, I tiptoe down the steps of the staircase and stop in the entryway lit by the oil lamp in the niche. Suddenly, Bilkisu pushes the door open. Someone is with her, a man she has to support so that he won't fall.
“Shhh!” whispers Bilkisu. “I found him on the ground in the passageway. He must be hurt.”
I don't have time to protest. She puts her hand over my mouth, then opens the door of the shed where my father keeps his saddles, empty bags and tools. The room is always cool because it is at street level. Panting from the effort, Bilkisu manages to drag the wounded stranger inside and place him more or less comfortably on a pile of bags. As for me, I look on, unable to move.
“Bring the lamp!” she orders.
The light of the lamp is dim at the end of the night, when its supply of oil is nearly used up. But, still, we can see the dark clot of coagulated blood on the man's forehead. Bilkisu has obviously guessed right: he must have crashed headlong into the beam in the passageway.
“This nasty wound has to be cleaned,” she says in a low voice.
“But, Bilkisu, what are we going to do with him? He may be a criminal.”
“It's not much of a risk for us given the state he's in at the moment. I am going to clean his wound as best I can and tomorrow Meriem and I will decide what to do next.”
“What about Jasim?”
Bilkisu is silent as she considers that problem.
“He is going to his uncle's early in the morning and there's no reason for him to enter the shed before then. By the time he gets back, we'll have found a solution.” Then she adds, “In these matters, it's better to trust only women.”
So here I am, the keeper of a secret only the women know. I am momentarily overcome with a guilty conscience at the thought of my father and it occurs to me that if he had been here, it would not have been up to us to act. He would have made the decision. Yet I feel vaguely proud of the coolheadedness shown by my brother's mother, her defiance of all the rules of decency requiring women to remain passive and obedient, and in their husband's shadow. But how will my mother react, she who is so exacting with regard to custom? This will be a terrible blow for her!
While I am mulling over these thoughts, Bilkisu has had time to fetch some clean water and a bit of olive oil to rekindle the lamp. With better lighting, she can now dab the stranger's forehead with the tip of a piece of cloth. The white fabric darkens immediately and the man moans softly.
“This is a good sign,” Bilkisu whispers. “He hasn't fallen into the deep sleep that often brings you to death's door.”
With small, gentle gestures, she cleans the wound on the forehead, massages it briefly with oil, and covers it with a strip of clean cloth to keep out the dust. We can't see the stranger's face very well, but we see that he is young and has a dark beard. His eyes remain shut during the entire operation. Finally Bilkisu stands up again and spreads a blanket over the wounded man.
; “Go back upstairs to bed. The sun isn't up yet.”
I feel myself collapsing with exhaustion, my eyes prickling from the strain of making out her barely visible gestures in the half-light.
“And what about you?” I ask.
“I'll stay awhile and watch over him, then I'll go upstairs and light the fire in the kitchen. Don't worry and try to get some sleep. You were of great help to me.”
Everything happened just as Bilkisu predicted. I went back to sleep, exhausted, and Jasim left at daybreak without noticing anything unusual. The most difficult thing still remained: facing my mother. How could she ever accept sheltering a stranger in her house in my father's absence? Worse still, a man whom the city residents had pursued, no doubt for good reason?
Bilkisu must have decided that it was best not to conceal the presence of the stranger in our shed for too long. She took the precaution of waiting for Ladi's arrival, and for her own peace of mind, immediately sent the servant to fetch water at the spring. Then she woke me up.
“Come. It is time to tell Meriem.”
My mother is preparing tea and looks impassive as always.
“What's wrong with you two?” she asks. “What happened last night?”
“So you heard?”
“I thought someone opened the front door. But then I thought it might be a dream.”
While Bilkisu describes the events of the night, I see my mother's cheeks turn pale and her mouth become tense.
“You're crazy,” she murmurs. “Crazy. The family's punishment will be horrendous. We may both be disowned.”
“Is it a crime to come to the aid of a wounded person?” says Bilkisu. “Mahmud wouldn't send us away for that.”
My mother sighs. “No, maybe not. But he will be mad at us for dishonoring him in front of everyone.”
“Madame Meriem, we'll make sure that no man in the city finds out about it.”
“But how? If he dies here …” “Then we'll carry his corpse, at night, back to the passageway where he was knocked out. Who would ever see a link between this stranger's corpse and our house? If he survives, he'll walk out of here on his own two feet and we'll find some way of getting him out of the city.”
My mother looks at her in a kind of horrified admiration. “You're so self-confident, Bilkisu. Where did you learn these things?”
“Instinct tells me that this is how we must act or else we're lost.”
To my great surprise, my mother stands up and adjusts her veil. “You're right,” she says. “First we must see if this man is still alive. Let's go downstairs.”
He is still alive. In the semidarkness of the shed, where the half-open shutter lets in a ray of grayish light, we can see the wounded man's chest slowly rising and falling. He seems to be asleep, but occasionally his hand stirs, and he clutches his bloodstained gandourah. He looks like one of our people.
After having looked at him, my mother gathers her courage.
“We can't leave him here,” she says. “We must carry him up to the rooftop, to the storeroom next to the kitchen. And call Aïshatou; she will know how to nurse him. The sooner he heals, the sooner we'll be rid of him.”
Aïshatou is a tall woman, with very dark skin, who is reputed to know many secrets. Some people say she is a bit of a witch, but we often call on her to treat wounds or illnesses. I am frightened at the thought of letting her come into our house.
At that very moment Ladi knocks at the front door. Two knocks of the door knocker always means a woman, and the woman can only be our servant since the other visitors always use the rooftops. Bilkisu hurries to relieve her of the heavy earthenware jar she is carrying on her head. My mother has prudently pulled the door of the shed closed to hide the wounded man. Ladi doesn't seem surprised to find all three of us on the ground floor, though we usually remain in the upper stories of the house. She is much too excited.
“Strange things happened in our city during the night! It was the main subject of conversation at the spring,” she says. “The men of the Aïssaouïa brotherhood chased a man, hoping to drive him out of Ghadames. They say he is the son of a local family who went to study in the northeast and has returned to preach for a new brotherhood that is very powerful over there. But our people do not want to hear about it. They ordered him to leave or obey tradition. We have enough religious groups in this city, they say, with no need to create another one.”
Bilkisu interrupts her impatiently: “What happened to the man they were chasing? Did they catch him?”
“That's the most extraordinary part!” exclaims Ladi. “They did not catch him! He disappeared into thin air … as if he went through a wall. Perhaps he was a genie, a ghostly spirit who took on the appearance of a human being to deceive us?”
My mother, who is afraid of jinn, or spirits, turns white. She exchanges looks with Bilkisu.
“Come,” says Bilkisu to Ladi, taking her by the arm. “I have something to tell you …”
She continues in their own language. From Ladi's exclamations and her alarmed glances in the direction of the shed, I see that she doesn't approve of Bilkisu's boldness. But what is the point of challenging her mistresses' decision? She will not betray us. Ladi belongs to another brotherhood, which has many followers among the women of Ghadames, and there is no reason why she would want to help the Aïssaouïa, which admits only men.
Carrying the wounded man to the rooftop, up those steep and narrow stairs, is not easy, but between the four of us we succeed. He can't walk at all anymore, his bandaged head rolls from side to side, and he groans every time we pull him by the shoulders to hoist him up.
Finally when we manage to lay him down in a corner of our pantry, Ladi removes two large baskets of dates so that we can make a bed for him on the ground. The room isn't large, but it is well ventilated thanks to two small skylight windows fitted with wooden shutters. Bilkisu immediately sets off to find Aïshatou, who lives in another neighborhood, north of the city.
As for me, I stay near the man. My mother has taken a seat outside the doorway and has started to grind today's portion of barley, for here we say that grinding flour ahead of time brings bad luck. She is crushing the grains between two stones, making a squeaky noise. It is one of the many sounds that punctuate our daily life, like the hammering of the big wooden pestles with which the servants reduce date pits to a powder fed as gruel to the goats.
Occasionally she looks up from her work and glances boldly at our wounded man. Now we can finally see him in daylight: he is a very pale young man, with well-etched features. We can't see the color of his eyes, but his beard, hair and eyebrows are jet black. I can't help finding him handsome and I wonder whether my mother would agree. But I once heard her get indignant when she heard a woman talk about a man's beauty, so I decide to keep my thoughts to myself.
Suddenly, there is a shadow at the doorstep. It is Aïshatou!
She is even taller than I remember and as broad as a tower. Her skin is so dark that it looks bluish around the temples. Whether she is young or old, it is impossible to tell. She has hardly any wrinkles on her forehead, and her eyes are a surprising light brown— the golden color of certain leathers—but she knows so many things that she could easily be a hundred years old. She is wearing big silver bracelets that fit snugly around her wrists and make her powerful hands, with their nimble fingers, look even bigger. Her hands are the hands of a healer or a killer, I think with terror.
The tall woman greets my mother, then bows as she crosses the threshold to the pantry. Instinctively, I step back against the wall.
“Don't be scared,” she says, smiling. “I don't eat children. At least, not yet.”
Her smile broadens. She is making fun of me! Furious, I decide that from now on, I won't show any sign of fear in front of her. I will remain impassive, come what may.
“In fact you're no longer a child,” she adds, looking me over with a penetrating glance. “If you don't mind please go stand on the rooftop, because I take up a lot of space and t
he poor man will have trouble breathing with both of us present.”
I back out of the room, putting on my most dignified air, the queenly air that so irritates my mother. But Aïshatou isn't the least impressed; she has already turned her back on me and is leaning over the wounded man. With expert gestures, she raises one of his eyelids, feels his neck, and checks his heartbeat in the inside fold of his elbow. Finally, she removes the bandage from his forehead. First she inspects his wound very carefully, then the color of the cloth that was covering it.
“Bring me fresh water,” she says without turning around.
When I return with a brass ewer and basin, she extracts a small leather pouch, softened from years of use, from her ample dress, and takes out a faded cloth sachet. The sachet contains a brownish powder that she pours into the palm of one hand. Then, with her free hand, she traces mysterious signs into the powder. So it is true that she is a witch? In spite of my resolutions, I prefer to sneak away and join my mother, who is waiting for the diagnosis in silence, sitting very straight in her blue-black veil.
She draws me to her bosom, and I recognize her fragrance in the folds of her dress, a blend of honey and warm biscuit. Now I remember! One day, a long time ago, as I was snuggled against my mother, I could smell her very distinctly, and I recall a tall woman next to us who was tracing signs with her finger in some flour on the ground, muttering incomprehensible words.
Tanit! The mysterious name that had popped into my head while I had been racing on the edge of the rooftop— I am certain I heard it then. And the tall woman was Aïshatou.
Finally here she is, coming out on the rooftop, bending down. Even when she sits cross-legged, like us, she towers above us majestically.
“I don't think he has fractured his skull,” she says, “but at this point I can't guarantee that he will live. I've administered a powder on the wound that will prevent the flesh from becoming infected. If he wakes up before this evening, you should have him drink two cupfuls of the medicine I prepared in the brass pot.”