I Sweep the Sun Off Rooftops (8 page)

She ignored Ingrid’s refusal and when she had poured the coffee she held the cup to Ingrid’s mouth. When Ingrid still refused to drink it, Souad tipped the coffee back into the jug and began moving the cup around and reading the grounds. “There’s a man standing here, saying something. It must be Mahyoub proposing to you.”

Before Ingrid could digest this surprise Souad launched into an emotional speech that made Ingrid feel embarrassed as well as increasingly irritated. Souad accompanied her tirade with expressive head and hand movements, and her long silver earrings also played their part. Ingrid didn’t understand every sentence, but deduced that Souad was saying that Mahyoub loved her and that while she was away he had fallen ill and turned the color of turmeric and weighed as little as a baby.

Ingrid shook her head and said nothing, but she felt somewhat mollified. Mahyoub must have been sincere and she wasn’t merely a way out to Europe for him. But Souad was demanding to know immediately if she would marry Mahyoub to relieve her of the burden her mother had placed on her. She had been left in charge of Mahyoub and she wanted her mother’s bones to rest in peace now instead of being curled up in a tense ball, rattling and shaking,
while Mahyoub walked this earth alone with no companion to bring him tea and coffee and wish him good morning at daybreak.

“But why me?” Ingrid repeated at intervals throughout Souad’s outburst, throwing small stones into the oncoming deluge with no effect. Finally she shouted at the top of her voice, drowning out Souad, “Why me? Why me?”

Without missing a beat Souad answered that it was because she was educated. She could read and write, and no Yemeni girl would be acceptable to Mahyoub because an educated Yemeni girl would demand a high bride price and on top of that would not expect to run a house and work and save. Then she took Ingrid by the hand and said, “You learn fast. You can bake bread in the oven, bless you, even though you burned it a few times, and you help me with the housework. Anyone would think you were born in these parts if it wasn’t for all the reading and writing you do.”

While Ingrid was looking for the right words to make it clear that there was absolutely no room for maneuver, without causing offense, Souad seized her hand again and kissed it first on one side, then on the other, like a butterfly uncertain where to alight. Then she tried to unfasten her necklace of cornelians with an English gold sovereign in the middle. She asked Ingrid to help, and Ingrid was on the point of obliging when she suddenly realized what the gesture meant—it was the giving gesture. If she refused some particular
dish on a social occasion, the lady of the house would be sure to present it to her on her way out. Or if, for example, she admired a woven wicker tray hanging on the wall, or even just asked what it was, her hostess would snatch it down and present it to her. So now Souad was giving her the most precious thing she owned as a pledge of her affection. She tried to explain to her that she had no thoughts of marriage, and if she had she wouldn’t do it like this, and anyway she thought of Mahyoub as a brother. But Souad wasn’t listening. She was still in full flood, talking of Mahyoub and Mahyoub’s heart until her eyes filled with tears and she began sobbing. Ingrid found herself shaking her, and she must have been doing it quite hard, as Souad suddenly went rigid; she hadn’t expected this behavior from Ingrid, who was so calm and controlled. But she didn’t pay any attention to what Ingrid was saying, since she had convinced herself in advance that she was going to persuade Ingrid to marry her brother, Ingrid who was good-hearted “to the point of naivete sometimes,” as people had been known to remark, taking every word anybody said to her seriously. So she recharged her speech with images to set the stream of words in motion again: “If you ascend to heaven and descend into the bowels of the earth, you’ll never find anyone who loves you like this. Foreign men have blond hair and light eyes like you, and you’ll always be in competition with other women for them.”

Souad stopped, struck by what she had just said, and turned her face to Ingrid with a big smile, then went on as if she were talking to herself: “They’ll come to us from the villages around about to look at you. You’ll become a famous sight: we’ll defeat our enemies and silence our critics the moment you let down your blond hair in front of them, and Mahyoub will be the most important person in the village. Women will come from all over the place to ask your advice about health problems or just to sit with you. They’ll give you all the best qat.”

Ingrid smiled back and let Souad chatter on. She was surprised how calm she felt all of a sudden. Souad talked away, repeating herself to make sure Ingrid hadn’t missed anything; it seemed that what Ingrid had said about not getting married now or in the future because she felt that the whole world was her family was of no concern to Souad. The older men whom Ingrid saw as fathers, the younger men who were her brothers, and her children, her mothers and her sisters all evaporated around the room like soap bubbles. She decided to return to Sanaa as soon as she could. The sense of harmony, which used to descend on her the moment she took off her shoes and sat on the floor with the village women, had vanished completely. Now she wanted to sit alone, looking down on her garden in Sanaa until the buzzing and jostling of her thoughts had abated.

She actually left the village with Mahyoub, as Souad
insisted that he should take her, rather than the truck driver who made strangers pay a fare. Souad literally pushed her into Mahyoub’s car and he didn’t open his mouth all the way, which made things awkward, for she had never wanted a war between them. She tried to start up a conversation, but the only sound that came from him was his heavy, uneasy breathing.

Ingrid sat on her chair in her house in Sanaa looking out over the road and sand and nothingness. When she had been sitting there for some time, she began to grow restless, for her head refused to clear; if anything, the turmoil in her mind increased, especially when she recalled the oppressive atmosphere in the car on the way back and Mahyoub’s sullen expression implying that it was all her fault, that she was evil, and dangled the keys to others’ happiness under their noses but never opened the doors for them. Ingrid had never been so unsure of herself before, or felt so weak. She almost felt that she had reached the end of her resources. She realized now that she had never experienced the kind of desperation that was so deep rooted in the hearts of those whom she had instructed to be patient in the face of adversity.

She remembered the camel she had gone to visit who was supposed to live in an ancient cave at the heart of the Sanaa market. She couldn’t find it and asked a man sitting among sacks of wheat by the flour mill if he knew where
the camel was. Realizing that she was foreign, the man had gone through a pantomime for her, tilting his head to one side, then resting it in his palm, before repeating, “He’s asleep. Tired.” He pointed to the mill. “He works the wheel. Now he’s tired. Very tired.”

She asked him why he didn’t change the camel for another. “He’d die if he didn’t work,” laughed the man. “He loves working. I blindfold him so he doesn’t get dizzy. So that he thinks he’s dreaming that he’s walking around. He works and sleeps. Sleeps and works.”

The image of the camel working and sleeping, sleeping and working, at his own speed, and the mill turning in a cave that was over four hundred years old gave her a feeling of calm, and she paced around in a circle like the camel with her eyes closed, trying to free her head of the tangle of confusion that reminded her of a heap of wires and cables she had seen lying in the street outside. Eventually she recovered her composure, holding tight to what she knew would unravel the tangle: facing up to the truth fairly and squarely. That was always the most important thing, the starting point for being honest with oneself. Only in the presence of honesty did the false pretexts collapse and everything appear convincing and as if it were spread out on a table, accessible to the hand and eye. She was to blame, and Mahyoub and Souad were right: she had behaved like the sun when it winks its eye for a moment and then vanishes
behind the clouds, reappearing for a little while, then veiling itself again by degrees, leaving a feeble light that only serves to draw attention to its absence. That was how she had been with them: insincere and cajoling. She had been afraid to show them what she wanted from them, in case she alienated them and her work faltered; then her visits would have come to an end and her conversations with them have served only to furnish material for village gossip. Gradually her anger turned into affection and understanding. She wanted to ask their forgiveness. She missed them and felt lost away from the village.

She rushed into her bedroom and knelt in front of the picture of the Virgin Mary as she had done when she first arrived; all those months ago she had asked her for forgiveness because she couldn’t reveal the truth, otherwise her mission would become impossible.

Ingrid was sitting
, in Souad’s room among the village women, who were packed together like kebabs on skewers made up of meat and vegetables of all shapes and sizes and colors. She looked different too, although she had tried her hardest to make them leave her alone. It was as if, despite all her efforts, she’d only touched the surface of the water and it had gone a little cloudy then reverted to normal.

As soon as Souad had announced the wedding, Ingrid had found herself sitting on cushions on the floor stretching out her hands and feet among the henna fumes, while the henna artist bent over them with a matchstick dipped in henna and drew beautiful delicate patterns. Ingrid had to stay awake all night to let them dry and make sure she didn’t smudge the fine lines. The next day she dressed in Souad’s wedding dress, which had been stored in a cloth bag. The women had insisted that she wear her hair loose. It almost reached her waist and had been covered up for so much of the time that it had grown streaky. The woman who had come to prepare her for the wedding had massaged it for ages, praising its length and thickness to the village women, who were seeing it for the first time and muttered, “In the name of God” as they touched it.

“A moon on two legs,” said Iftikar. She recounted how her brother had vowed he would never marry until he had found a fair-haired bride and how she had visited all the girls’ schools in the area pretending to be a government employee until she had found a suitable candidate.

“Her hair’s dyed,” screamed Kawkab. “There’s no such thing as a blond Yemeni.”

Iftikar swore by all the saints that her sister-in-law was a genuine blonde and threatened to storm out when they
disbelieved her, but Souad begged her not to spoil the wedding preparations.

The women couldn’t let this occasion go by without expressing to Ingrid the thoughts that raged in their hearts.

“You’ve abstained for so long,” said one. “And now you’re marrying a Yemeni. Don’t you know Yemeni men are mad?”

She waggled her head about and made her eyes bulge and stuck out her tongue.

“Listen, Amina,” advised another. “Have four children, then lock it up,” pointing between her legs, “and hide the key.”

“Hide it?” cried Iftikar. “You need to lock it and throw away the key, like I did.”

They placed the bridal crown on Ingrid’s head. It was made of brightly colored cloth. They perfumed her with musk and burned incense around her, then sat her on a high pile of mattresses. These activities were accompanied by waves of song as the women crowded around her and sang to the beat of the drum and the drummer’s song: “O bride, beautiful as the moon.”

Ingrid sat there, secure in her belief that this was what the Virgin Mary wanted from her. It was amazing how events had unfolded to produce just the right result. She was becoming one of them and so belief in her and consequently
in Jesus would automatically pervade their hearts; even without them being aware of it, it would be happening all the time with every glance, every word. She was like a contagious disease, spreading her belief in Jesus among them whether they wanted it or not. Her silent prayers would have their effect on places, faces, souls, especially as she had not been forced to give up her religion and embrace theirs.

Her dialogue with them would never be ended, that was the main thing. Her previous visits had been like a sudden cloudburst: they had gathered around in amazement to watch, but as soon as the rain stopped, off they went back to their normal lives, which revolved around cracking jokes, chewing qat, and discussing politics and the pros and cons of leaving the country in search of work.

Ingrid felt a peace of mind she had never known before. She was so happy she could have flown. What she had achieved, without being fully aware of what she was doing, had in retrospect taken on an irresistible allure, like a miracle. She had traveled through mists and across seas to this remote spot, following a vision that had come to her one evening. A voice had called, “Ingrid! Get up off your knees! These prayers of yours are no longer enough. Go to the ends of the earth, to a land where they haven’t seen me. Lift the darkness from their eyes. Tell them about me, then let them choose.”

The night Ingrid had decided to marry Mahyoub she had thrown herself down in front of the picture of the Virgin Mary, telling her what had happened, asking for her advice and confessing that she was in love with Mahyoub too. And lo and behold, the Virgin’s eyes had signaled their agreement.

The singing and dancing continued while in the kitchen Souad was mixing water with the Pepsi Mahyoub had bought. She was happy because the young woman with blue eyes who saw the world as she saw it with her brown eyes was going to be close at hand forever. Souad was distracted briefly as she wondered if Ingrid remembered the bet, even though it had been made in fun. Souad and the men had realized since the second visit that Ingrid was intending to spread her religion in the area, and the men had decided among themselves not to receive her in case the mere fact of listening to what she had to say interfered with their faith. Souad had nearly gone out of her mind at the thought that the happiness and anticipation she felt at Ingrid’s forthcoming visit might be snatched away, and they far surpassed the excitement generated by any village wedding or funeral. It was as if a breath of air from the world she saw sometimes on her brother’s television had materialized into a living being and prostrated itself before her, ready to do her bidding.