The Sand Fish (16 page)

Yaqoota reached out to pick something out of the sand and said, “This is the place to find them, not dig them out of the wall.” She handed Noora a shell that was shaped like a beetle, its surface smooth, its color a pale pink with leopard spots. Noora placed it in the middle of her open palm and stared at it before raising her eyes to the rolling waves, which ended with soft slaps on the shore. She felt the distance between her past and present spread as wide as the sea before her. She began stroking the shell with her index finger and thought of Sager and the pebbles he used to collect for her. And it made her sad. It made her want to talk about her feelings.

“I hate him,” said Noora. She meant Jassem but was thinking of Sager. “He makes me feel like I am his dog, to be ordered around. I hate the way he touches me, gropes me like—”

“Shh!” Yaqoota plugged her ears. “You can’t be telling me these things. I’m unmarried, never been touched. If I listen to you telling me all these touchy-touchy things, you will make me lose my purity.”

What was she thinking, trying to open her heart to this woman with a child’s brain, to this woman who had just made fun of the shape of a stranger’s head by performing a chicken dance? Such matters should not be shared with Yaqoota. In fact, they should not be talked about at all. Noora fell silent and stared at the sea once more, vowing to speak only of simple things.

“You know,” she said, “I wasn’t always this quiet. I used to have a voice louder than yours.”

“Louder than mine?” Yaqoota said. “Not possible.”

“Well, maybe not louder, but as loud. Whenever my brother bossed me, I would fight back. And my father always agreed with me. I did what I wanted. No one could force me into anything. Once, I got so angry at my brother Sager that I left him—just like that. And the poor troubled thing, I think he must have climbed every single mountain to find me.”

“Hahh!” Yaqoota exclaimed.

Noora could tell Yaqoota wanted to know more of her true side, which no one in Wadeema appreciated. “Actually, I went and stayed at this village, high up on the mountain, with this kind old woman. The village was called Maazoolah, and by the time you climbed up the mountain to get to it, you could not feel your legs.”

“Ooh!”

With Yaqoota’s interest, Noora felt her worth grow. “Yes,” she said, drawing up new memories as she continued, “I bet my brother almost died with worry when I disappeared on him, but I did not care. Everyone in Maazoolah valued me. I sewed for them, for the whole village. They loved me, and when I wanted to leave, they begged me to stay, especially this man, who…” Here, her voice trailed to a halt. Should she go on?

“A man? Who was he?”

“No one,” Noora said, remembering Yaqoota’s chicken dance again. “Just an old man whose dishdasha was in need of a lot of repair.”

Reckless! That’s the thought that sprang into Noora’s head. Why did she have this urge to reveal so much? Perhaps it was Yaqoota’s carefree ways and all that splashing in the water that was creating this need to unburden a load so big, a load that she would have to carry always. She must remember discretion.
Lateefa often commented that trying to understand Yaqoota and her erratic ways was a waste of time, that Yaqoota’s mind worked differently. Noora always listened with skepticism. But now she wondered how much truth was there.

“Old men!” said Yaqoota. “Who wants to hear about old men?”

“You are right. No one wants to hear about old men.”

“Let us speak of young men,” Yaqoota said, shifting her eyes toward Noora in a conspiratorial look. “By the way, Hamad wants to talk to you.”

It was a strange request for a man to ask to see a woman who was not his wife. And yet Noora felt indifferent. She had gotten used to seeing Hamad. He walked in and out of the house so often that he had become more invisible than the mist that the sea spread over the house every night.

“Let him come,” she said.

N
oora craned her neck out of her doorway. There was a plume of incense spiraling out of Shamsa’s room. It cut through the bars of her window and out into the courtyard, where it hung like a cloud in the still air. These were the lazy hours of the day, when the sun cast its strongest rays and it was still early enough to be smelling nice, but Shamsa was wasting no time in preparing for the night. And that’s how it had become. The
arbab
had swapped quarters, switched favorites, shifted his visits to Shamsa.

Noora heard footsteps—she was coming—and pulled back into the dimness of her room. She sank to the floor and held her breath. From under the window, she could see the
sidr
tree, thirsty under the glaring sun. And then Shamsa sauntered past, made sure to stop by the window and throw a sidelong glance of achievement, just in case Noora was looking. And Noora was.

It was a brief stop, but it served its purpose: “I have him and
you don’t!” Noora could almost see the words form on her lips, rosy with self-confidence. “I have him and you don’t.” It was a simple truth that terrified Noora. Later, as on every night, Noora would toss and fidget on her bed, wonder whether it was the heat lingering in her palms that kept her up or the noise coming from the other side of the wall. She would hop off the bed and run her hands along the crumbly gypsum, hoping to feel some dryness trapped in its surface. But it was always moist, the scent of chalk heavy in it. What was the use of it? It didn’t trap the coolness, nor did it keep the noise out. All those whispers and stifled giggles were the sounds that made Noora’s heart beat with dread.

Shamsa turned and walked back to her room, and Noora rested her head on her folded knees. Was she so naïve, so brainless, to believe that things would stay the same with the
arbab
forever? He was a man, after all. And he had to do what men were supposed to do: keep his true feelings locked away. For a man to speak of his desires or insecurities was a weakness. That much, she knew. Hadn’t Sager behaved in the same way? Kept his feelings bottled up always? Not a tear had trickled from his eyes as he gave her away.

And Rashid, too! Noora tried to think of some breeze of an emotion that had settled on his face. He always spoke of his feelings, but now, she finally understood that all that talk was not real. Only words—sweet words, big words, but empty words—mouthed so that he could touch her. And how foolish she had been to let him.

Noora sighed. The words of men, none of them meant anything. Now Jassem was showing her that he could control his feelings like a man, too, keep them inside. Only her father did not act that way. He had let his passions snap like an old piece
of rope tired of tying things in place. But then, he was mad. That’s why.

She hugged her knees and began rocking. Every time she dipped forward she felt her thoughts twist into a tangle. She remembered the matchmakers. They had insisted she keep her husband happy. “If he doesn’t want you, he can kick you out,” Gulsom had warned. Where did that leave her? What if Jassem decided he did not want her anymore, took her room away and sent her to wander the streets? Would the Bedouins from the distant sands kidnap her and turn her into a slave?

Yaqoota had gone into detailed descriptions of how they chose their victims. “First, they check if you’re all alone. Then they wait for you in the shadows.” At this point, Yaqoota’s eyes always pulsed with trepidation. “And then, when you don’t expect it, three men surround you and stuff you in a sack. You don’t have a chance of escape because you’ll faint even before you can scream.”

Every time she swayed back, Noora felt her head touch the wall,
tap, tap, tap
. But she would not stop. Her mind was choking with that fearful thought. There was her head, held tight in that sack. She could smell the stink of stale dust and old sweat rubbing off its rough yarn. No one would miss her if the Bedouins kidnapped her. After all, she had no family to protect her, to ask after her, to search for her if she disappeared.
Tap, tap, tap
. And another sound, too.

The knock on her door was light. Still, it jolted her. Was it Jassem coming to tell her to pack her things and go? She hurried to the door and opened it, saw Hamad standing in the glare, his arms clasped behind him. “What do you want?” she snapped. “Don’t you know everyone is asleep?”

“Shh,” he said, stepping back and looking around nervously. “Not so loud.” His arms fell to his side, and she saw the white garment in his hand. “This suit will protect my father from jellyfish stings when he goes for the Big Dive. They say your stitches are strong, and I need to make sure the seams don’t come undone.” He spoke quickly, urgently.

“And how do you know I can do that?” She was annoyed at his intrusion. She was trying to think of a way of escape once those Bedouins abducted her, and before she could do that she had to pass through all that fear, with her head held so tight she could not loosen it from the sack. Now she would have to start all over, from the beginning, when she gets kidnapped.

“All of Wadeema knows you sew the best,” Hamad said. “But if you can’t do it, just tell me.”

She expected him to turn around and leave. But he did not. How cheeky he was! She drew her
shayla
tight over her nose to embarrass him. Still he would not budge, and he kept staring at her under a sun that cast a straw-colored halo around his loosely turbaned head.

“Don’t you know you are not supposed to come in here,” Noora said. “Look at you, tiptoeing to my door, like a thief, to talk to me. What if someone sees you here?”

“I know, I know, but look, all the shutters and doors are closed. Everyone is asleep. I just need you to sew this.”

“Yes but—”

“I’m not being sneaky coming at this time. It’s the only time I can ask you to do this. If Jassem knew, or even Lateefa, they would refuse. They’d tell me to take it to the tailor.” He shuffled on his feet. “I promised my father I would get this done. But I don’t have the money to take it to a tailor.”

Noora eased her grip on the
shayla
but kept watching him closely. Was he telling the truth? His hair was a mass of strings
hugging his neck from under his
ghitra
. He had an ancient scar that cut a clean gap on the corner of his right eyebrow. And there was another scar, too, just like hers, under the left side of the chin. She was surprised she had never noticed either of them before. One on the right, one on the left. Strangely, they seemed to balance his face.

“You see,” Hamad said. “My mother…well, her knuckles don’t bend. They’re as hard as a goat’s hoof.” He fiddled with the garment. “She just can’t make a strong stitch anymore.”

Finally he was showing some hesitation, and Noora pulled the garment out of his hands. It was faded by the sun and eaten by the sea. “Even if I stitch all those rips, there will be more,” she said, rubbing the fabric between her fingers. She pointed at the area that was to cover the back of the legs. “This doesn’t just need strong stitching at the seams. It needs big patches to cover these faded bits.” Under the arms, the fabric was sadder than her flowered red dress of the mountains. “And here, look.”

“You can’t do it.”

Noora watched the blood crawl into his ears, paint them so red under the sun that they looked as if they might pop. Now she was sure he was embarrassed, regretting having asked in the first place. She watched his head lower, only slightly. But his eyes remained fixed to her face, full of that same desperation she remembered seeing on the boat, all those months ago, when the wind had lifted that sheet.

He was about to leave. As he reached out for the garment, Noora held it tight. “It’s all right,” she said. “I’ll do it.”

Noora snuck her arms under the mattress, pulled out the bodysuit, and fluffed it open. She smiled at her handiwork. Not only
had she repaired the rips and strengthened the seams, but she had replaced large sections of it, using the extra white bits of cotton fabric she had collected from the dresses she’d made for all those village women. And now the bodysuit looked set, reinforced with shining new triangles and squares.
No jellyfish stings can get through it
, she thought.

It had taken her a whole week to stitch and patch the bodysuit. She had kept it hidden and had stolen the moments for sewing, when she was sure she would not be disturbed. If Shamsa saw what she was doing, she would surely make a big, embarrassing problem, and that was the last thing Noora needed at this point.

She had even kept Hamad’s visit a secret from Yaqoota, who had asked her the day before whether Hamad had come to see her. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Yaqoota, but her voice was so loud. And Noora had told her as much, which had upset her, too.

Walls had ears, and Yaqoota still hadn’t learned to lower her voice when she spoke. “Why didn’t he come to see you?”

“I don’t know why and I don’t care,” Noora had whispered, hoping Yaqoota would do the same.

Instead, Yaqoota’s voice came out in a blast. “But he told me he wanted to see you, to talk to you about something.”

“And why do you care?” Noora hissed.

Yaqoota shrugged but would not speak softly. “I am just asking. And what’s wrong with you, anyway? Why are you suddenly chomping your insides?”

Noora raised her hands. “Look, forget me. Just don’t talk so loud.”

“Loud?”

A shriek! Yaqoota’s up-and-down voice was exasperating. Why couldn’t she learn to speak softly, like everyone else? “Yes, loud.”

“And why are you acting so snotty,” Yaqoota said, “as if you’re the favorite of the house?” Yaqoota pointed her nose up. “Snotty, snotty, snotty.” Then, with demure steps, she tiptoed out of the room.

From that time, Yaqoota had stopped talking to Noora. But Noora wasn’t too concerned.
A few days of sulking and she will be all right
, she thought. She lay the bodysuit on the bed and ran her palm along the creases to flatten them, frowning at the bits of the old fabric that snuck their tired threads here and there. It was not as perfect as she would have liked; it wasn’t one clean piece of newness. Still, it could not be helped.

How would Hamad’s eyes look when she handed it to him? Would they sparkle with silent approval? Would he notice? Ever since she had decided to fix the bodysuit, he seemed to be in the house more often, delivering this, picking up that. She had even spotted his shadow outside her window during the resting hours. Twice!

Whenever they came face-to-face, crossing the courtyard or in some other part of the house, they would both let their eyes look to the ground—at least she did. And somehow, she saw him in her mind, and she always wondered whether he saw her, too, in his own mind. Or maybe he opened his eyes when she looked down. And those were the thoughts that circled in her head, like mischievous fish, chasing one another’s tails. The thoughts would not stop until she shook them away, slapped her cheeks for being so silly. She was acting as if she were committed to some guilty secret.

Noora drew lines with her fingers on the bodysuit and folded it into a neat square. Then she smoothed it again. Another week or two and the divers would be sailing away. And Jassem, too, off to India for trade. Deep inside, she felt some relief, but not enough to wipe away her anxiety at her shaky position in the household. She lifted the mattress and slid the folded garment under it. Later, she would try to send a silent message to Hamad, let him know that the bodysuit was ready.