The Sand Fish (14 page)

I
f she stood very still, she might catch a waft of air. Noora crouched under the wind tower in the family room and waited. But no breeze funneled through. The cooler days had long since evaporated, and summer was announcing its sizzling arrival.

Noora hopped over the burn of the sand and crossed the courtyard to the inner door of the men’s
majlis
, the one that opened to the house’s interior. It was still early in the afternoon and Jassem’s daily visitors would not be there yet. The floor of the men’s
majlis
was high, reaching the base of the large outer windows, and with the wind tower, too, there was always a stronger breeze in this room.

The door was ajar, and she was surprised to hear voices coming from inside. She stole a look and spotted Hamad, a pot of coffee clutched in one hand and cups stacked in the other, standing between the seated Jassem and
noukhada
Hilal, the
skipper who had guided the vessel that had brought her to Leema. He was unfurling a whole list of niggling problems to do with the coming Big Dive.

“And the men,” the
noukhada
was saying, “they need money—cash advances—so that their families can manage till they get back from sea.”

“Of course they do,” Jassem grumbled, “like every year.”

Money! It had the power to warp Jassem’s face. Noora spotted the side of his mouth turning into a squiggle that lifted up to his nose. His eyes stayed hidden behind his spectacles, which were half-fogged with humidity.

Hamad poured a drop of coffee into the top cup of his stack and handed it to the
noukhada
. While he waited to refill it, he started leaning toward the wind tower. He, too, it seemed, was seeking that elusive breeze.

“How many need money this time?” Jassem asked.

“All of them,” the
noukhada
answered, and twiddled his empty cup back to Hamad.

“What?” Jassem removed his spectacles and wiped them on his dishdasha. Now Noora could see the frown and surprise in his eyes. “I knew some of them would need money, but all of them? How many are they altogether? Twenty divers, another twenty haulers? Most of them haven’t even covered last year’s advances. What do they think? That it’s easy to make money?” He groaned and squinted at the outer door, the one that opened to the sea, as if impatient for the arrival of his daily visitors, as if willing them to walk through and change the subject. But it was too early in the afternoon.

Noukhada
Hilal tried again. “You know,
arbab
, it hasn’t been good lately. It is getting harder and harder to find pearls. I really don’t know what’s happening.”

“Well, what do you want me to do? Put my own pearls in the oysters? You are losing your grip with the men.” His voice turned harsh. “You should be stricter. Ration those divers, man, ration them! Work them harder so that they can endure more. If you don’t push them to their full capacity, they will lose their strength, turn wobbly like old women. Let them stay down longer, so they have a longer breath the next time, and the time after that. Only then will they be able to look for more and more oysters.”

Noukhada
Hilal sighed. “Yes, I know what you are saying, but if I push them to dive more than the seventy or eighty times each day, they would just get sicker than they already are.”

“We are not here to nurse them!”

“Already, the sea is harsh with them, dimming their sight, troubling their ears, weakening their lungs, and the madness when that evil spirit enters them, sometimes I don’t—”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Jassem cut him off. “I hear what you are saying.” He grunted and set his spectacles back in place. “But I have to worry about stocking the boat and feeding them. Then, at the end of the trip, I get empty oysters? Would you say that’s fair?”

“No, I wouldn’t,” replied the
noukhada
. “But I know,
insha’ Allah
, with God’s will, this time it will be different. I am planning to look for new reefs.”

“New reefs? Is there such a thing?” Jassem fluffed the back of his dishdasha, trying to dry the moistness that wrapped the nape of his neck. “For hundreds of years we have collected the oysters from all over the gulf. I don’t think there are any secret reefs in these waters.”

Noora watched the
noukhada
nod and hoped that that would be the end of this conversation. She wanted them to leave. A
trickle of a breeze was ruffling a trailing piece of Hamad’s turbaned
ghitra
, and she wanted to sneak in and take his place. She heard Jassem’s belly let out a long lament. His digestion was starting to play, she knew that by now. If the talk continued along the same trail, he would start burping as well. And there were other transformations that she had become all too familiar with. Whenever he had to pay, Jassem would get irritable, lose patience over the smallest things, and pull a long face for days and days.

“There is the pearling boat, too,” said
noukhada
Hilal, his voice barely over a whisper.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“I mentioned it to you before. It needs some repair work.”

“Yes, yes, yes. How much work?”

“General maintenance, and there is a small leak in the hull, which is not that serious, but all the same I would feel safer repairing it before we set out.” He let the words out quickly, as if the speed would cushion Jassem’s distress.

“Everyone wants to dig into my pockets, take a piece of my generosity,” Jassem said.

“
Masha’ Allah
, you are all goodness.”

Jassem burped. “Look,” he said, “I’ll have to see how much I can give, check my account book. I’m not that rich, you know. And besides, I am making my own trip to India. That needs money, too.”

Noora’s jaw dropped. Her husband was traveling! It was the best news she had heard since her arrival at Wadeema. She would be left alone—at last.

F
or days, Noora felt a vigor she thought she had lost. She swept flat the sand of the courtyard and dusted the rooms, milked the goats and brewed the tea, kneaded the dough and lit the coffee hearth. Although Jassem had not announced it yet, she looked forward to the day of his departure.

Late one afternoon, she rolled out some pink cotton material one of the women villagers had dropped off. Thanks to Lateefa, who had spread the word on what she called “the merits of the new member of the family, our third wife–goodwife,” the whole village found out early about Noora’s talent. Lateefa had described Noora as an accomplished seamstress. It was a skill she had added to the other two “most important skills” every new wife should have: well-shaped hips for childbearing and long, soft hair.

It was quiet in the courtyard. Jassem still had not returned from his shop in Leema, and Shamsa and Lateefa were out vis
iting. Noora was about to start cutting the material when she heard the familiar bleats of the goats at the entrance of the house. They always came back at this time after having wandered through the village all day. She sauntered to the door and let them in, shooing them toward the wire enclosure by the men’s
majlis
. That’s where they spent the nights, along with the chickens.

“Food for you,” she said, surprised at the singsong that embellished her voice. She poured the water from the boiled rice from lunch into their tray and added some grasses.

“Come, come and look!”

Noora had forgotten about Yaqoota. “What is it?” she retorted, regretting immediately her impatience at Yaqoota’s brusque interruption. There was no need to snap at her like that. Yaqoota stood by her whenever she could. Despite Yaqoota’s loose tongue and unpredictable ways, Noora liked to think of her as a friend of sorts in this household of agony. “What is it?” she said, gently this time.

Yaqoota grabbed Noora’s palm and pulled her toward Jassem’s room, swung her to the side of the half-open door, and bonded her finger to her mouth. “Shh…”

Noora was surprised she had not heard his return. There he was, sitting on the carpet, which filled the room with its spectacular colors and patterns that curved into leaves and flowers. He had his back to them, settled cross-legged in front of his rosewood cupboard. How well Noora knew that large, three-door cupboard. She scrutinized its every detail whenever she dusted it. Branches of delicate blooms tumbled out and over the sides of two elaborately sculpted urns crowning it. That’s where he hid the keys to it.

She watched Jassem run his fingers over the cupboard’s
edges, along the delicate floral pattern with thin vines that entwined and blossomed into flowers of grace—roses, chrysanthemums, jasmine. He, too, seemed gripped by its loveliness, until he caught his reflection in its deep, brown luster. He leaned back and neatened his thinning hair. Then he stroked the stubble on his chin before letting his hands drop to his thighs.

Yaqoota shot a quick hiss of words: “He bought it in Bombay and nearly died trying to save it when a storm hit the boat that was carrying it.”

Noora tapped Yaqoota’s mouth shut, caught it before it could loosen into a trill of giggles.

Jassem touched the faceted crystal handle, unlocked the middle door, and pulled it open. At the bottom was a metal safe, which he clicked open.

“Let’s go,” Noora whispered.

“No, stay. I want you to see what’s inside,” Yaqoota murmured, her eyes deep with knowing.

Jassem tunneled his hand into the safe, pulled out two knotted cloths, and placed them on the floor. He took a deep breath and twiddled his fingers, as if about to touch a hot pot, before untying the larger bundle. The knot loosened and a cluster of pearls tumbled out. He sank his hand into the puddle of luminosity.

Light and shadow twirled on the pea-sized pearls as they raced off the tips of his fingers. Then he opened the second pouch and let roll his more precious pearls: ten large
danas
, which sat like refined queens, dwarfing the smaller pearls.

“Three of the
danas
belonged to his grandfather, and then were passed on to his father,” Yaqoota whispered. “After that, they were handed to him, the lucky fatty. The others he collected.”

Jassem picked up a
dana
and held it high. It released a discreet blush as the light seeping through the window fell on it. Noora’s mouth fell open. She could not look away from the multitude of polished shades. So gripped was Noora that she did not hear the creak of the entrance door, only felt Yaqoota yank her arm and pull her into Lateefa’s room. Someone was coming.

A line of drool snuck down the side of Noora’s mouth, which she quickly wiped away, as they watched Hamad cross the courtyard and enter Jassem’s room.

“Under the spell of the pearls, huh?” said Yaqoota.

“What nonsense,” said Noora, feeling foolish at the way she had been gaping all that time. “They are only pearls, pearls that men risk their lives to pluck from the deep of the sea, pearls that make men like Jassem rich.” Secretly, she wondered how much that
dana
was worth. Could she pocket it and buy herself another life?

“Don’t think you can touch them.” Yaqoota’s ominous warning sounded like the rumble of a thundercloud “It’s
haram
, forbidden, to steal.”

Noora threw her a fierce look. “Steal? Are you saying I’m a thief?” They were just thoughts like all those other drifting thoughts that floated in her head. How dare the slave accuse her?

Yaqoota answered with a wink and three deliberate sways of her hips.

That’s all they were good at, these darker people, moving like angels and speaking like devils. “I’m not a thief, you hear me?”

Yaqoota rolled her hip and lifted an eyebrow that drew squiggles on her broad forehead. And Noora had to grin. Yaqoota was just throwing words again.

Hamad was back, standing in the middle of the courtyard, staring at the
sidr
tree.

“Now what does he want it to do?” said Yaqoota. “Lean over and hand him some of its leaves?”

Noora was about to chuckle when Hamad punched the air and kicked up the sand. Even in the dwindling light, the red of his blood seeped clear through to his cheeks.

“What is wrong with him?” said Yaqoota.

“I don’t know,” Noora said.

The next day at breakfast Jassem made his announcement. He would be going to India, and Hamad would stay behind to take care of them.

Noora smiled into her chest. With Jassem’s departure, her mind could rest at night. She would be able to listen to the sizzle of the sea in her moon-drenched room. She knew she would still have to deal with Shamsa during the day. But those nights! What blissful nights they would be. She would be able to close her eyes and fall into a deep sleep.

After breakfast, Shamsa and Lateefa headed to their rooms (they always rested after a meal), and Jassem went to his shop. That was the routine, and Noora, too, had her habits. She would enter the men’s
majlis
and gaze at the sea through the outer window.

Hamad entered the house, carrying a sack of rice, as she crossed the courtyard. She caught the tiny shreds at the hem of his dishdasha and thought how easy it would be to repair them. All she had to do was open the hem and fold it in, hook it in place with a neat row of stitches. All he had to do was ask. But Hamad did not look at her, just walked straight to the kitchen with his mouth drawn tight.

She kneeled by the
majlis
window and stared out through the bars. Although it was still early in the morning, the air she breathed in was already warm and moist, as if it had been boiled over and over before being left to simmer. In front of her was the lifeless sky of summer, bleached by a sun that sat like a hazy blob. So much glare that she had to squint at the fishermen on the shore, repairing their nets, and the sailors bent over strips of canvas on the sand, shaping and sewing them into sails. Under an open-sided
barasti
that made up the Koran school sat the children, swaying back and forth as they recited a verse.

Noora joined them, whispering the verse into her chest. When they stalled, she did, too, until the teacher fed them a couple of words to set them back on track. It was just what her father used to do when he taught her and Sager the Holy Koran.

A lump expanded in her throat. How patient her father had been with her. Whenever she got stuck in her studies, he would give her a stern look and instruct her to concentrate harder. And yet, with Sager, Ibrahim had been different. He used a rough branch to punish him with a whack on his left palm. The few times Sager had objected with a child’s weak protest, Ibrahim had let loose another whack on Sager’s right palm.

Even at that young age of six or seven, Noora had felt her brother’s pain. After the lessons, she would follow him wherever he went. But Sager always shoved her away. In the end, she’d stay at a distance and watch him. He would always find some dark crevice he could curl into. And Noora would wait for him to finish nursing his hurt.

“You are the flower he waters and I am the weed he lashes!” Sager’s voice was always so full of spite. Could it be that that spite remained with him all along? Was that why he grew up
into an angry and sulky young man? More and more, Noora wondered about such things, whether he resented her so much as to send her away.

She sighed and let her eyes drift to the horizon. Somewhere out there were her mountains, those summits of another time and another life. She squinted hard and pretended she could see them, imagined their jagged outline. Where was her father? Was he alive? And her brothers—were they managing without her?

She was escaping to her mountains once more, as she often did. What was the point? She shook her head hard to chase away that other life, to return to the up and down of the children’s voices, to Wadeema’s sounds, which were always filled with the slush of waves and the howling of cats. Her eyes grew heavy and she yawned. This was going to be a day just like any other.

That night, something happened. Jassem stopped in the middle of his lovemaking to talk.

At first, Noora thought she had imagined his breathy whisper. After all, she was numb to the movement on top of her. She was in some other place, engrossed with the acrobatics of the lizards (there were three of them now), counting the clicks of the moths (more suicidal on this night).

“Not working.” That’s what he whispered, and tumbled off and onto his back. “You are not working hard enough.”

What did that mean? “I am, I am,” she said, with urgency. She imagined standing at the front door early the next day with what few possessions she owned, kicked out of the house for not having been able to fulfill her role as a wife.

Jassem clicked his tongue. “She said there was a child. She said that.”

Noora did not answer, did not watch his tummy rise and fall as he tried to control his breathing. She had turned to wood, a heavy log fixed to the bed. Who was he was talking about? Her fingers crawled to her dress and slid it down to her knees. Better not to stay too exposed.

Jassem rolled off the side of the bed and fluffed down his dishdasha. “Did she fool me? Now, what was it she said? Keep hope alive? How stupid.” He was walking around the bed to her side. “What hope is there if you’re not trying?” He picked up the lamp and held it over Noora’s head, stared deep into her eyes. “Be patient and you will get your dream,” he mumbled. “That is what she said.”

Noora cowered. Her head felt so heavy she feared it might sink right through the mattress. She wished he would just go away. She swallowed hard and found her voice. “Who?”

“That ugly witch of your mountains! So many sacrifices I had to make, so many instructions she gave me, and I followed them all. I sat with shriveled plants hanging over my head and listened to her in that smelly hut filled with bottles and bottles of…of…dead things.” He shivered. “In the end, what’s my reward? Nothing.”

“It’s all God’s will. He—”

But Jassem would not let her continue. He placed a fleshy finger over her lips and bowed his face closer to hers. When Noora closed her eyes, he ordered her to open them and stay still. She looked straight back at him but seemed confused. Finally he spoke. “I want the flame in your eyes that you hide from me.”

What did it mean? And what flame was he speaking of? He never said, and she never asked.

Instead, every night, he sat facing her on the bed, cross-legged, and unfurled all that was on his mind. He told her of his day at the shop: who came to visit, who he met at Leema. He asked her questions she didn’t have the knowledge to answer. Why did his stomach grumble whenever he was upset? Why did the villagers expect so much of him? Why was he bored of Shamsa? Why did Lateefa nag so much?

It was a side of Jassem reserved only for her. He would speak in low tones, probably to make sure his voice did not travel through the walls. Once he had said all that he wanted, he would stretch his arms over his head, crack his spine, and sigh with relief.

Night after night he became more eager to talk than to perform his duty, and that suited Noora well. So she nodded him along, smiled in the breaks of light stories, frowned whenever the subject turned serious, even held his hand whenever he looked pained.

One night he brought with him a thick, black book, worn with use. It was his account book, and in it he recorded all the particulars of his expenses. It contained his pearl sales and cash advances to the divers. He explained to Noora what the detailed scribbles meant, showed her how to write the numbers, and explained the mystery of sums.

Adding and taking away was easy. But Jassem told her there were other things she could do with numbers. She could make them bigger or smaller using the tiniest sign.

While the house slept, he taught her. Soon she was writing with chalk on a small slate that he had brought for her. All the while Jassem scrutinized her progress. He nodded his approval
when she made a correct calculation, groaned with good humor when she didn’t.