The Sand Fish
Authors: Maha Gargash
A Novel from Dubai
To my parents
They’d arrived. The strangers who had come to her home…
In her mountains, at the tip of the Arabian Peninsula,…
They set out with the first arrow of light. Noora…
That was how it went when boys and girls, brothers…
She wanted the day to end.
She’d leaped to her feet like a hunted animal and…
Aow-wah! Aow-wah!”
Who was the man they were talking about? What were…
The boys of Nassayem were pretending to be an army.
Dur-Mamad clutched Sager’s wrist and led him in. Then he…
Sweet girl,” Moza called. “Come here.”
Moza consented with a nod and a yawn, after which…
They met at the cave every day at the same…
Early the next morning, news crept into Moza’s home on…
Noora clutched the scissors and held the tips at a…
She had to get away. Only then would the ache…
Noora stretched her arms over her head as she lay…
It’s time,” said Gulsom.
The jelbut glided smoothly out of the bay. Noora listened…
By the next day, the rocks softened into large, saffron…
With the memory of Jassem’s attack on the madman still…
Noora stood outside the doorway of Jassem’s room. In the…
If she stood very still, she might catch a waft…
For days, Noora felt a vigor she thought she had…
What? You got the habit again?” Lateefa shook her head…
Just three days was all it took for Shamsa’s prophecy…
Noora craned her neck out of her doorway. There was…
Noora sat in front of the three large trunks that…
They set out under the violet of the dawn sky.
In the desert, the sun seems much bigger and somehow…
The dunes sped along with her till she left them…
Early one morning Noora peeked through Lateefa’s barasti and saw…
They stopped to rest on the slope of a high…
A heightened vigor touched Noora as she poked through Lateefa’s…
Somewhere along their walk back to Om Al-Sanam, they stopped…
It seemed Lateefa had forgotten most of her important possessions…
Hamad’s shadow was breaking the light that spilled through Noora’s…
This is what they do with the nacre,” Jassem said,…
Noora woke up in a haze and tried to sit…
Noora broke half of a pomegranate and felt the sting…
It was one thing to decide what she had to…
How beautiful Jassem’s words were. Throughout that day and for…
Hamad did not try to see her again. He had…
The rain came and the rain went. It was quick,…
She should have jumped up, run across to Jassem’s room,…
Noora placed one more shell in a line along the…
Of course, Noora knew that that would not be the…
So that’s how it was to be: she and Lateefa…
She was stuck in a dream.
So quiet now. How quickly you calmed down.”
All the places and communities in this novel are of the author’s imagination but are based on the various societies that lived in the region that today makes up the United Arab Emirates and the Musandam Peninsula of Oman in the early 1950s. The author has chosen fictitious names for the towns, villages, and communities for two reasons. One is that some of these places and communities no longer exist. The other reason is that she wanted more liberty in bringing them to life.
T
hey’d arrived. The strangers who had come to her home to seal her future.
From inside the stone hut Noora could hear them clearly, clucking their complaints like chickens fighting for grain. They were tired and irritated; this much Noora knew. After all, they’d crossed her waterless mountains in a journey that must have lasted the better part of the day.
“Bags of brittle bones, Sakina, that’s what we are.”
“Yes, Gulsom, I’ve rattled so much on that donkey I still can’t stop shaking.”
There they were, the voices of the matchmakers. Gulsom’s was thick and hoarse, Sakina’s thinner, with a soft quiver that seemed eager to please.
Noora shuddered now as she listened to her brother’s voice, calming their exhaustion with an offer of water and dates. She would have liked to throw her arms in the air and scream, let
go in rib-shaking sobs. Instead, she made fists, let her nails dig deep at his betrayal. Her own brother, the playmate of her childhood: Sager, just a year younger than her seventeen, and half a head shorter—and he was giving her away. Just like that.
Noora hugged her chest and felt the ripeness of her breasts. Soon, a man, a stranger who would be her husband, would crush that softness. What else would he crush? She hunched her shoulders and curled back into the dimmest corner of the hut. On the outside she was a woman, but her insides screamed for the loving protection a child craves.
“Right, where is the girl?” Gulsom’s thunderous voice demanded.
Noora sat up straight and pulled her
shayla
, or head cover, low over her face. Through the transparent, black weave, she watched the matchmakers shuffle into the hut. After the customary greetings, they slumped heavily in front of her and introduced themselves as sisters who were talented in preparing brides for a married life.
“You’re a very lucky girl,” Gulsom said. “Not everyone gets the chance to please a man as rich and prominent as the one you’re about to marry.”
How easy it was for her to say that. She wasn’t the one who’d have to leave her home and sail to some distant village. She wasn’t the one who would have to share a stranger’s mattress. Noora could not join in Gulsom’s enthusiasm. So she stared ahead and waited silently for what was to come.
“Now, dear, I want you to stand and walk a little,” Gulsom instructed.
Noora rose and, wrapping her
shayla
tight around her chest, took a step toward the entrance.
“No, no, lift your dress. I want to see how your feet move.”
Noora pulled her dress up, revealing the loose
serwal
pants that tightened at the ankle, and continued with a few uncertain steps. She threw a glance over her shoulder, caught the sisters nodding their approval. With burkas covering most of their faces—forehead, nose, mouth—they looked like hawks about to peck the flesh off a kill.
“Very good.” Sakina’s voice quivered with glee. “
Masha’ Allah
, God protect—no limp, no ugly twists.”
“You can sit now,” Gulsom said, “right where you are, close to the doorway.”
“Keep your face to the light, dear.”
Noora sank to the ground as the matchmakers shifted toward her on pear-shaped behinds, creating a neat triangle. Gulsom took a deep breath and pulled up her sleeves. “Now, let’s look at you.” She tugged at the
shayla
and it slipped onto Noora’s shoulders.
The sisters slackened their necks and let loose an erratic dance of daring inspection. They jerked their heads from side to side, bobbed them up and down. Within the angular slits of their burkas, their eyes darted in dizzying directions, and under their silent gulps of scrutiny, Noora felt the heat rise to her face. That’s when she detected the crinkling bags underneath their eyes. They were smiling.
Sakina giggled and said, “The pomegranate has lifted to her cheeks, sister.”
“Another shy bride,” Gulsom said, reaching out for one of Noora’s auburn plaits, fingering the tips. “Soft but neglected. See, sister?”
“Yes, sister, but that’s all right,” Sakina said, stroking Noora’s broad fringe, which, according to the custom, was trimmed high to show her full forehead. “It’s good hair. See how this
bit shines. A little jasmine oil will nourish the rest.” Noora flinched as Sakina’s calloused fingers crawled down her face and traveled back up a cheek. She stopped at the ears for a firm tug—first one, then the other. “Fine, clean, nothing there.”
Gulsom’s hand reached for Noora’s chin, and as she yanked her face to the light, Noora narrowed her eyes. She knew what would happen when the light hit them. They would glow with the blaze of emeralds. That’s when they were their most attractive, and she hoped Gulsom would miss it. But Gulsom was bold and thorough. She plucked Noora’s eyelids open and took in all that shine, humming her approval before rubbing Noora’s cheeks with two of her thick fingers. “Skin is a bit rough,” she declared, “but a nice mixture of cardamom and milk will soften it. Humph.” Her grunt felt hot on Noora’s neck. “I don’t like that,” Gulsom said. “That scar under your chin. What happened?”
“I fell and hit a rock when I was small,” Noora said, surprised at how spiritless her voice sounded.
Gulsom’s tongue danced in a fountain of clicks. “Well, there’s nothing we can do about that, is there?” She inserted a thumb and two fingers to unfasten Noora’s lips and checked her teeth. “Solid, except for this chip here.”
“It’s from that same fall,” Noora said, hoping the handicap might somehow dishonor her, make them lose interest in her. But they had already moved to other parts of her body, kneading and handling her as if working a piece of dough to the right consistency. One pair of hands clutched the back of her neck; the other rubbed her back.
She flinched as Sakina’s lumpy fingers dug into her shoulder blades. Her touch was stronger than her voice. “She doesn’t have the fat of the pampered. Too bony.” A few presses later, she
concluded, “But her bones are strong,
masha’ Allah
, not sick. Good for housework.”
Gulsom pawed her midriff. “This is good, well rounded. Excellent for childbearing.” She circled her palms on a thigh and squeezed her way in rounded grips to the knee. “Hmm,” she sang with satisfaction, “the legs are solid, strong enough to carry the weight of a pregnancy.”
“So much work to be done,” Sakina trilled.
“Yes,” agreed Gulsom, “but we can prepare her. We’ll make her neat.” She scanned the interior of the hut, as if seeing it for the first time. “It’s good you keep a clean house, but do you know how to cook?”
“Yes,
khalti
, aunty,” Noora mumbled.
“Poor soul,” muttered Sakina, and for the first time Noora noticed some sadness in her eyes. “Stuck here with no mother and a gone-to-who-knows-where father.”
“No time to feel bad, sister,” said Gulsom, a confident flurry of excitement ruffling her husky voice. “We have a mission: to take this child and turn her into the respectable wife of an important man.” Turning to Noora, she added, “We’ll get you ready,
insha’ Allah
, God willing. We’ll take over the role of your mother and teach you all that you need to know.”
“And there are two of us.” Sakina giggled. “So you’re twice blessed.”
“There’s so much you need to know and very little time.”
“Women who have followed our advice have made the best wives,” said Sakina, her voice warbling with pride. “Not one husband has complained.”
It was then, when Noora watched the sisters beaming their silent congratulations to each other, that she understood. She had passed the test.
What followed was their knowledge, committed to memory through their many years as matchmakers. The sisters inhaled the blissful air of success before unraveling a list of instructions designed to ensure a happy husband.
“Remember, you are going to become a part of your husband’s home,” began Gulsom.
“Cooking and cleaning…,” said Sakina.
“Mind you, all the while looking beautiful.”
“And smelling nice: rose essence behind the ears, incensed clothes and body.”
“No more of your wild ways in these mountains,” Gulsom cautioned. “If he wanted someone like that, he would have chosen a savage from the jungles of Africa.”
“You have got to be demure now,” Sakina said, a soft quiver rattling her speech.
“For the first year, he mustn’t see you chew.”
“Just move your mouth like this.” At once, the sisters paused to demonstrate. Their mouths remained concealed behind the awkward shifts of their burkas. Little by little, Gulsom’s string attachment that held the burka in place loosened, and the burka tilted to one side, exposing the edge of a tiny nose that lifted in an elegant swoop. Noora raised her brows with surprise. That fine nose was a sharp contrast to Gulsom’s brusque temperament.
Gulsom cleared her throat and, adjusting her burka, continued, “One important piece of advice: when you spit the pit of a date into the tray, make sure it doesn’t make a sound.”
Noora wondered how that could be done.
Sakina laughed nervously. “No one believes it can be done, but it can.” She turned to her sister. “You remember that Al-
Miqbali girl, when she thought she couldn’t do it. And with a little practice,
masha’ Allah
, she managed to make the pit land on the tray with the softness of a grain of sand.”
Gulsom shook her sister’s lighter mood to one side. She hadn’t finished. “Don’t smile,” she warned Noora.
“If you have to, just look down and smile in your head,” Sakina explained. “No moving the mouth.”
“Don’t talk too much.”
“Ooh no, no,” Sakina squeaked. “Never, never talk too much. He’ll think you’re easy.”
The two women paused, even though Noora kept nodding them on. The quicker the inspection could finish the better.
Then Gulsom coughed—an important cough that cleared the air—and Noora guessed she was about to give out the most vital piece of information.
“Now,” said Gulsom, “what I am going to say next is for your benefit, and I advise you to follow it.”
Noora glanced at Sakina for some hint, but Sakina had cast her eyes down to the ground and was silently drumming her knees with her fingers.
“Look at me,” Gulsom ordered. “Word is that you’re headstrong, that you want to do everything your way. Is that true?”
“No,
khalti
.” Had Sager said that about her? She felt her eyes sting with the betrayal that her brother kept throwing at her. Where was he now? Was he listening from outside? Was there a smug grin on his face?
“You can’t afford to be proud, my girl,” continued Gulsom, her voice rumbling with meaning. “It’s not good. You are poor, but you will be getting the privilege of living well. Remember that and appreciate it. If your head grows big and you become
spoiled, your husband might throw you out. Out! And then you’ll have nowhere to go.”
Sakina’s voice trickled back into the conversation. “Poor girl,” she said, her eyes blinking rapidly. “We are very rough on her.”
“We’re telling her for her own good, sister!”
“We can’t even blame her,” Sakina said. The sadness had swallowed the chirp of her voice. “To think, all her life growing up alone, so far from other people. It’s not fair. What were your parents thinking, dear?”
“They should have married her off when her mind wasn’t formed yet,” Gulsom said.
“Yes, as soon as she’d ripened,” said Sakina. She was twittering again.
“Even earlier, just so that she could get used to her husband’s house for a little while before he could touch her,” Gulsom said. “But it’s no use thinking about what was. Now we have to concentrate on what will be. You’re a lucky girl. You got yourself a rich man. Be thankful.”
“Yes,” Sakina confirmed. “Thankful.”
The sisters continued to instill in Noora the necessity of modesty of her sex and the timidity that comes with poverty. Their voices thickened with every word as they wove their conjugal web of constraint, until Noora felt they had shred any strand of hope that lay hidden in her heart.
The matchmakers were entering her life with the force of a spiraling dust storm, leaving behind only the taste of grit in her mouth. And she had to swallow it. Now, as they rose to leave, Noora wondered what had happened to the eagle in her. When had the frail chick staggered to take its place?
She was too tired to fight. Too much had taken place in too
little time: the sting of betrayal, the hurt of false promises, the pain of loss. And now, as she sat alone in that hut of tightly packed stones, as she faced banishment, she tried to pinpoint when it had all begun. And almost at once, she remembered the sand fish.