Guests of the Sheik: An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village (21 page)

me that among other tribesmen Moussa was often the butt of

jokes and an object of pity since he had no male heir. Yet,

although the subject was never mentioned directly, Bob said

he also sensed a grudging admiration and respect for the

women of the household. What they could do—sew, cook,

clean, make a man comfortable—they did better than anyone

else. Certainly among the women this was the case. Women

said, “It’s because they have no men that they work so hard,”

but Um Fatima and her daughters were almost universally

liked and admired.

The girls had long ago divided up the work, and in addition

each girl had developed her own specialty by which she

managed to earn extra money. Fatima made silk abayahs and

Sanaa crocheted the heavy black tatting which edged the

ashas. Nejla kept chickens and raised a pair of lambs every

spring to sell for wool and meat. Basima and Laila

embroidered bridal sheets and pillowcases; the three younger

girls went to school.

Um Fatima herself knew a good deal about poultices and

medicines. From the beams in her sitting room hung little

bunches of dried herbs, twigs and leaves which she would

pound up in a mortar and use to treat the eye infections, the

carbuncles, the dysentery and fevers which plagued her and

her neighbors’ ailing children. In addition she was considered

a pious woman, competent to give advice in religious matters.

All religious holidays were observed scrupulously; the house

was the site of many krayas each Ramadan and Muharram.

Bob testified that male guests were treated to delicious food,

and no visiting relative, male or female, had ever been turned

away without bed and board.

The nine sisters found room in their hearts even for me, and

one day, sitting in the sheik’s house, I realized from a remark

of Selma’s that Laila had chosen me as her friend.

There it was; it had happened; I had been partially accepted

and had not even been aware of it, though recently it had

seemed to me I had not been as neglected as before.

Mohammed had brought Sherifa to see me. Sheddir and her

daughter Sahura paused and drank tea with me after cutting

grass. But Laila was visiting me all the time. Her calls were

never announced in advance and were often inconvenient, but

I would put down whatever I was doing and sit and talk. At

first Laila would bolt out of the house like a frightened rabbit

as soon as she heard Bob’s step outside the door; after a time

she seemed to become less cautious, and even though Bob was

working or typing in one room, she would sit with me in the

other, cautioning me over and over and over again not to tell

that she had been there while Bob was around as it was
ayb

(great shame). She did not mind Mohammed’s presence, for

some reason, and talked to him quite informally, although of

course she wore her abayah whenever he was with us. Usually

she came alone, but Basima or one of the younger girls

sometimes accompanied her.

After a few weeks the family began to bring their female

guests to view the village Amerikiya. I opened my clothes

closets and food cabinets and one day I even delivered a short

lecture in Arabic on the theory of electricity (a subject I had

never understood in my own language) to a middle-aged

cousin of Laila’s who had ridden in four miles on horseback

with her husband to discuss the forthcoming marriage of her

son.

“My cousin doesn’t believe you have a machine that could

make ice,” said Basima, so we adjourned to the kitchen to

look at the refrigerator.

The blank white front of the refrigerator and even the ice

trays themselves elicited little response, but when the lady

actually felt the ice (to make certain we weren’t teasing her),

her face changed; it was a hot day and the woman’s face,

bound round like a coif with the black foota and asha, was

bathed in perspiration.

“How wonderful!” she said. “You must get one for Laila.”

She meant the ice tray, I think, but Laila apparently thought

she meant the machine, and hurriedly announced that her

father planned to buy one if the year’s crop was good. Then

she plunged into another topic to change the subject quickly

and began to explain the process of ice making in such false

minute detail that I was impelled to explain myself how the

hot electricity made such a thing take place. We finished the

afternoon with iced lemonade, but the visiting cousin refused

ice, saying it was too cold and hurt her teeth—the three or four

she had left, she said, opening her mouth to show me broken

stumps in her old gums.

News of the novelties which the Amerikiya could provide

for bored visitors must have spread throughout the settlement,

for one afternoon Mohammed came rushing in to say that the

sheik’s oldest daughter Alwiyah and two lady guests were on

their way to my house. “They’ll be here any minute,”

announced Mohammed, depositing on my table cigarettes and

pumpkin seeds in case we might not have a large enough

supply. Then he dashed out, as quickly as Mohammed ever

moved, for it wouldn’t be fitting, he felt, for him to be present

when the sheik’s women arrived. I hadn’t time to get nervous,

so the ladies and I spent a pleasant hour smoking, drinking tea

and eating seeds, splitting the husk with our teeth, removing

the kernel and spitting the husk out, all in one motion. Laila’s

little sister Rajat crept in with the group of heavily veiled

ladies and sat on my floor to watch the show. Laila herself

arrived soon after, slightly flustered; she insisted on passing

the seeds and cigarettes and tea and smiled the whole time,

like a stage mother whose child has just been given a lead in a

hit musical comedy.

When the women left, Laila stayed on.

“It’s not often the sheik’s women leave their house,” she

confided. “You should feel honored.”

“But what about Selma?” I insisted. “Why doesn’t she

come?”

“She will, in time,” said Laila, “but that’s not important;

someone from the sheik’s house has visited you, and that’s all

that matters.”

Mohammed brought water earlier than usual that evening; I

suspected him of overweening curiosity about the party, and it

is true he asked whether there were enough cigarettes left for

Bob. I said no, it would be better to bring some more from the

suq. When he saw the piles and piles of pumpkin-seed husks

overflowing the ash trays and spilling on the floor, he said that

the shopkeeper on the tribal side of the canal knew how to dry

pumpkin seeds properly and we should always buy from him.

One morning Laila brought a gaunt old woman who grinned at

me cheerfully, patted my cheek and sat down in my best

armchair without being asked. Laila announced, “Qanda has

business with you.”

“Ahlan wusahlan,”
I replied, wondering what on earth her

business could be. I offered candy, but the old woman refused.

“She wants a cigarette,” prompted Laila.

Qanda took two, lighting one and depositing the other

within the recesses of her black garments. I pressed the box of

cigarettes on her, and after a minimally polite refusal she took

two more. These also were stored away before she pushed her

abayah aside and leaned forward.

“Now,” she said, and began to speak very rapidly, gesturing

floridly in all directions. I was having difficulty understanding

and asked Laila to repeat for me in slower Arabic.

Qanda, it appeared, was the local beautician. She plucked

eyebrows, removed unwanted body hair (with a string or with

a sugar solution), pierced ears and noses, made up brides on

their wedding days, and, most important of all, she was an

accomplished tattooer. She stood up and yanked her black

dress above her knees to show me two full-blown roses

tattooed on the backs of her calves.

“Aren’t they lovely things?” she asked, rolling her eyes. “I

only charge a quarter of a pound for each.” I agreed that the

roses were very beautiful, but said I did not want to be

tattooed.

She eyed me a moment, then started a new tack. “It seems

expensive now, I know,” she said, “but a tattoo lasts a

lifetime, and by making you more attractive, it will help you

keep your husband.”

I smiled and said no, thank you.

Qanda muttered something to Laila, who giggled and

repeated it.

“Qanda says you are young and newly married and don’t

know much. She says you are so thin your husband will soon

grow tired of you, but if you will let her tattoo your backside

for half a pound, perhaps that will amuse him.” Qanda

interrupted Laila, who added, “Qanda is sure it will amuse

him, she can almost guarantee it, it works with all her

customers.” She broke down in uncontrollable laughter, and

Qanda and I joined her.

I explained that it was not our custom to tattoo and

therefore my husband would not find it attractive.

Qanda smiled sweetly. “You are just thinking of the

money,” she said calmly. “I can arrange for you to pay half

now and half when your husband is satisfied. Remember, I am

the best tattooer in El Nahra. I tattooed Abdulla’s wife when

she was a girl.”

I assured her I believed her workmanship excellent, but I

simply did not want to be tattooed. Qanda looked exasperated

and began to glower, until Laila broke in to explain patiently

that tattooing was considered old-fashioned nowadays, that

none of the young girls wanted to have it done except perhaps

one small tattoo “just for fun.” And, she concluded

triumphantly, the schoolteachers had told her that women in

Baghdad had not been tatooed for many years.

Qanda grunted, but she subsided, accepted still another

cigarette, lit it and inhaled deeply. After a moment she leaned

forward once more.

“At least you should have your ears pierced,” she said. “I

only charge 150 fils for that, and I will ask 125 from you as a

special favor to Laila.”

Actually I had been considering having my ears pierced, but

much as I enjoyed Qanda, I was not sure I wanted her to

undertake the operation. “All my earrings are from America

and are different,” I said, trying to demonstrate the difference

between screws and clips and hooks, but Qanda shook her

head in bewilderment.

“Show her,” suggested Laila, so I opened my jewelry box,

and at this Qanda leaned forward with real interest. I trotted

out my collection of costume jewelry, false pearls, and my

gold bracelet and gold earrings.

With the nose of a connoisseur, Qanda passed over the

imitation items and seized on the bracelet and the gold hoops.

Then she put them down.

“Is that all you have?” she asked.

I nodded.

She looked very puzzled indeed, glancing around the room

with its radio, clock, books, electric light and other symbols of

prosperity. She spoke to Laila, who said, “Qanda can’t

understand why you have all these things in your house and

yet no gold. Not even Sheddir has as little as that.”

I replied that I did have some gold in America which I had

left behind for fear of losing it on the long trip to Iraq.

“Wear it, wear it, you silly girl,” Qanda burst out. “What

good does it do lying in a box far away?” Then she launched

into a short, earnest sermon about the value of gold as

ornament, but secondly and most important, the necessity of

gold in every woman’s life as insurance in case her husband

should die or leave her or divorce her. I had not heard such an

eloquent statement of the “diamonds are a girl’s best friend”

theory in a long time.

Finally Qanda stood up, peered at herself closely in my wall

mirror, snorted, and announced that she must leave to prepare

a bride for marriage. “Is there a wedding today?” I asked.

“No, it’s tomorrow,” she said, “and from now on I shall be

very busy. This is the season, you know.” She started out the

door, turned and wagged her finger at me.

“You come with Laila to see the bride,” she said, “and

when you see what a good job I have done on her, you’ll

change your mind about tattoos and pierced ears. Maybe

you’ll even want to have your nose done, ha ha!”

I gasped out a sort of goodbye, and Laila, grinning and

nodding, winked at me outrageously as she followed the

skinny old woman, still laughing at her own joke, out of my

garden.

My partial acceptance into the society of the women was a

mysterious process, and I have often wondered what marked

the turning point in our relations and what prompted Laila to

single me out for friendship. Probably it was a combination of

particular circumstances, many of which I remained unaware,

plus the fact that people were just becoming used to our

presence. Also, as my Arabic improved I was able to

participate more fully in the half-joking, half-serious teasing

with which the women entertained each other. Now