The Zanzibar Wife

  Rachel rolled up her pants and waded in, the memory of another sea, another time, another Rachel propelling her toward the horizon and the women busy at their work.

  Nobody seemed to notice her splashing through the shallow water past the pair of fishing boats marooned by the tide, listing to one side like a couple of beached whales. It wasn’t until she was about halfway out to the seaweed women that one of them, set a distance apart from the others, finally stood, her hands held against her broad back as she slowly rose.

  Rachel picked up her pace and called out from behind the woman. “Jambo! Hello! I am looking for someone named Bi-Zena. Do you know where she is?”

  The woman continued to stretch as she faced out to sea, her thick body draped with long, clumpy strands of slimy seaweed fresh from the muck.

  “Excuse me!” Rachel shouted. “Bi-Zena. Do you know her?”

  The woman began to turn, water dripping from the hems of her skirts. “I am Bi-Zena,” the woman said, her hands coming to rest on two hips as wide as the ocean itself.

  “My name is Rachel,” she said, her eyes cast cautiously downward as she picked her way through the sharp shells that seemed to be multiplying underfoot. “Miza sent me.” She held out the kanga as if it were a calling card.

  “I know who you are,” the woman said in a voice that Rachel could swear she’d heard before. And when she looked up, she found herself face to face with the old woman with the goat. Except with no goat. And with about three times as much heft on her body, and with skin as black as the nighttime sky. On second look it seemed as though the only thing the two old women really shared was that one cloudy eye.

  “But—”

  Bi-Zena held up a finger. “There is no time for questions. You have a job to do.”

  Rachel wiped the sweat from her brow. “Sabra. Where is she?”

  The seaweed woman pointed to an orange speck in the distance. “She is working. She is safe here, in the ocean.”

  “Thank goodness,” Rachel sighed.

  “But that does not mean she is not living in danger. You must take her with you, back to her sister. Take her to Oman. It is the only way. Her uncle is planning to sell her, just like a goat at auction.”

  At those words Rachel’s eyes flew to meet the woman’s own, expecting some sort of sign of recognition at last. But there was none, just one milky eye that looked nowhere and a clear eye that had turned its focus back to the girl in the distance. Rachel turned to Kanu, who was just where she had left him, resting under the palms. “Okay,” she answered Bi-Zena slowly. “We will come back. Tomorrow. I can take her with me then.”

  “No!” the woman barked. “It must be today! There is no time to waste. Her uncle is a fast-moving evil, one that waits for nothing. You must take her today.”

  “Today?” Rachel took a deep breath. “Today. Okay. Let me go try to arrange for a car. I’ll be back. I swear.”

  “Wait!” the woman commanded. “It is not so easy. The people of our village,” she said, pointing to the other women still hard at work, “they are all wanting to get into the uncle’s good favor. They are gossips, with tongues as quick as wildfire. I can see them already wondering why I am speaking with you. They cannot know, they cannot witness, what will happen. You must find a way to make the girl disappear.”

  “Disappear?” Rachel was tempted to laugh, but under the woman’s stern watch didn’t dare.

  “I mean you must get her away in secret. Without the others knowing. And quickly, please.”

  The sun had dropped halfway toward the horizon by the time Rachel arrived back at the beach with her plan fully in place. The women were finishing up their workday, hauling the seaweed toward the shore, dragging their bundles behind them like the train of a wedding dress. Bi-Zena was leading the way, her large breasts swinging under her seaweed boa.

  Rachel stood in the white sand among the empty coconut shells, between the crude wooden drying racks made from sticks and twine. For now the structures were serving as a playground for the village children freed from a day spent in school, who jumped and ran and skipped along the shore before heading home for the day. She tugged at the camera around her neck and headed into the shallow surf.

  “Jambo!” she called out as she neared the women. “Photos?” Bi-Zena shook her head theatrically and wagged a finger in Rachel’s face. The other women all scowled and shook their heads as well, some covering their faces behind their damp arms.

  Rachel waited for Bi-Zena to pass before reaching out with a fistful of bills toward the other women. One peered into Rachel’s hand and raised her eyebrows. The next did the same, looking to her friends for support. But then came a bony young woman who gladly pocketed the cash, holding up her heavy bundle toward Rachel’s lens like a trophy.

  Others soon followed, suddenly cured of their camera shyness by Rachel’s bottomless pockets. She clicked away as the crowd grew around her. Through the throng of women clamoring for her attention, Rachel struggled to catch sight of Bi-Zena abandoning her harvest on the shore and heading back out to sea for the girl in orange.

  By now the seaweed women were competing with poses straight out of Vogue. After taking what seemed like a thousand photos, Rachel doled out the last of her bills and held her empty hands up in a sign of surrender.

  As the women went back to their bundles of seaweed, she turned toward the white smoke billowing from the village square. But before leaving the beach, Rachel let out a piercing whistle in the direction of the playing children, holding a bag of candy above her head as a lure. They came running. “Yes!” she said to herself as she tossed a handful of sweets over her shoulder.

  The parade behind her grew as she made her way up the gravelly road, the shouts and squeals of delighted children bringing others from their homes to take part in the tourist bounty. Even some old men, and mothers cradling babies in their arms, turned to watch the joyful free-for-all, a scene that had become exactly the distraction that Rachel had hoped it would be, enough to keep prying eyes off the large woman and the tall, skinny girl also scurrying toward the village square.

  The candy rained down in a steady stream onto the children’s heads as they scrambled to keep up. As they neared the tiny mosque, Rachel turned from the crush to see a taxi parked behind a cluster of palm trees, with Kanu behind the wheel. With the screaming and scrambling keeping the chaos alive, she slipped away to help shuffle Sabra into the back seat and under the half of the kanga Rachel had been wearing around her neck.

  Once the girl was safely tucked away, Rachel turned to Bi-Zena, standing tall and proud with her arms folded on her chest. “Thank you,” Rachel said as the woman’s mouth broke into a wide, toothless grin.

  “No, it is you who is to be thanked, Lil’ Cherry Bomb,” she answered.

  And with that the woman turned and headed back toward the sea.

  36

  The warmth of her sister’s hand pressed against her own was as comforting as a blanket to a baby. Sabra shifted her weight from a cross-legged position on the floor and leaned her shoulder against the arm of Miza’s chair. The atmosphere in Tariq’s hospital room was giddy, almost as if there were a party going on. Sabra lowered her head to cover a yawn. Though exhausted from everything that had happened the day before, she did not want to miss a word.

  Tariq looked good to her, though perhaps thinner and paler than the last time she had seen him in Zanzibar. He seemed so hungry to hear about everything that had gone on while he was in his long sleep. How strange it must have been, to be there but not, to be on the earth as it turned yet know nothing beyond your own mind—a thought that made her wonder. “Did you have dreams while you were asleep?” she asked.

  Tariq hesitated for a moment. “I suppose they were dreams. I can remember hearing some voices. Maybe it was nurses, maybe not. Sometimes I felt as though I was watching myself in this bed, as if I were somebody else, but I would see the whole thing from under the water, like being in the ocean, but in the sky.” He laughed a l
ittle. “I know it makes no sense. I’m sorry.”

  Sabra closed her eyes for a second, just to see what it would feel like to be in a state like that. But all that she felt was her sleepiness trying to lure her into its soft clutches. She jarred herself awake and tried to catch up with the conversation swirling around her.

  Tariq’s friend Hani was very handsome. She admired the way he remained so calm, so attentive to everyone else’s needs, like how he seemed to appear with tea or water or something to eat before you even said you were thirsty or hungry. It was almost as if he could read your mind. And his friend! At first Sabra had assumed the dark-haired woman was his wife, the way they were always looking at each other, making little comments that nobody else could hear. But when Sabra had said something to Ariana about her husband, the woman blushed and quickly corrected Sabra’s mistake with a giggle that nevertheless made it clear that having Hani as a husband was something she’d delight in.

  She loved Ariana’s look, so glamorous yet so real at the same time. As the others talked, she made a quick study of the woman’s style—makeup but not too much makeup, eyebrows strong and neat, lipstick that was not too shiny, small earrings that glimmered through the strands of her thick dark hair. She reminded Sabra of those girls in the music videos that Miza didn’t like her to watch. And those eyelashes! She could capture a fly in those things. But more than her beauty, what Sabra liked most about Ariana was her kindness, and her generosity. When she had noticed Sabra looking at her bracelet, made of heavy blue and gold beads, she immediately took it off of her own wrist and placed it on Sabra’s. And when she heard that they had left Zanzibar in too much of a rush to pack a proper bag for Sabra, Ariana had darted out of the hospital and returned with a bag full of everything she might need: a toothbrush and hairbrush, some clean undergarments, and even a small tube of pink lip gloss, which had made Miza frown.

  And then there was Rachel. Unable to sleep from the excitement of being on an airplane for the first time, and anxious to practice her English, Sabra had peppered Rachel with questions all the way from Zanzibar City to Muscat. How many cities have you been to? How many languages do you speak? Have you seen the pyramids? Were you ever in an avalanche? This woman had done everything. She had lived history, instead of just reading about it in boring schoolbooks. And the people she must have met, so many different faces and customs and beliefs.

  Sabra could not wait to finish her studies and become a famous photographer, just like Rachel. But she would make sure to dress better for the job, she now thought as she eyed the woman in her rumpled pants and thick, heavy boots. Rachel could be so pretty if only she tried to be a little more like her friend Ariana.

  Now she heard Rachel talking about what happened when they got to Stone Town. They had already shared with everybody the details of how they made their escape from the beach, Rachel describing how the seaweed women had closed in around her like a swirling cyclone, and Sabra telling how she had dashed from the ocean straight to the taxi with its motor going. She had even made them laugh with her description of Bi-Zena running alongside her, her breasts flopping up and down like two fat fish out of water, and her massive shadow providing as much cover as a canopy.

  It all seemed so very long ago now. They had rushed back to Zanzibar City, determined to catch the last flight of the day to Muscat, to put as much distance between Sabra and her uncle as possible before anything more could happen.

  But a stop at the apartment in Stone Town was necessary, as Sabra would not be allowed out of the country without the proper paperwork. Fortunately Miza had secured a passport and visa for her months before, when she had been unsure about leaving her sister behind. And luckily, Sabra knew exactly where her sister would have put them, in the bedroom closet on the highest shelf with all the other important papers.

  “So there we were,” Rachel was saying. “The main front door to the building was open a little, so I ran up while Kanu waited in the taxi with Sabra, still hidden under the kanga, just in case. Just before I got to the second landing, I heard steps coming down toward me. These two shady looking guys shoved their way past me, as if I weren’t there.”

  “The men who were to pay my uncle for me,” Sabra added with a scowl.

  Rachel continued with her story. “The key to the flat was just where Sabra knew it would be, under the doormat.”

  “We must find a better hiding place, Mi-mi,” Tariq said, frowning.

  “Anyway,” Rachel continued, “just as I stood to insert the key in the lock, the door swung open, and there I was, face to face with the meanest looking son of a bitch I’ve ever laid eyes on. And I’ve seen a lot of mean sons of bitches in my life, trust me.”

  “My uncle,” Miza murmured.

  “I figured. So I just slid the key into my palm and pretended to be lost, confused about which apartment I was looking for. Then I wandered up the hallway until I was sure he was down the stairs and out the front door, and scrambled in to get the papers.”

  “And I had just come up for some air when I heard the big wood door slam,” said Sabra. “I screamed, and Kanu took one look at my uncle and stepped on the gas! I am lucky he was in a hurry and did not see me.”

  “Yeah,” Rachel added. “And imagine me coming out to find nobody there. Thank god Kanu had only driven around the block and back.” She gulped at a bottle of water. “So what went on around here while I was gone?”

  Sabra saw a look pass between Ariana and Hani. “Not much,” they answered in unison. Ariana began to slide a pendant back and forth along the chain around her neck, a pendant that Sabra recognized as the lucky coin her sister had worn for as long as she could remember.

  Rachel cast a worried glance at Miza. “And what about Maryam?” she asked, her whole face scrunching up as if she did not really want to hear the answer.

  “Oh, Hani’s father took care of her, and good!”

  Sabra saw Rachel’s eyes widen at Ariana’s words.

  “What do you mean ‘took care of her’?” the American asked.

  “Oh, please, Rachel. It wasn’t like that at all. He simply told her off.” Ariana laughed. “And then kind of scared the shit out of her a little.”

  Rachel’s head shook quickly back and forth, as if she were trying to rid her mind of something. She took another gulp from the water bottle. “So she’s out of the picture, or okay about all this, or what?”

  “We shall see,” Tariq said with a shrug. “I am thinking it will be all right. Whatever happens, I am going to live in Zanzibar now, all of the time.” Sabra felt her sister give her hand a tight squeeze. “And I am hoping that when I assure Maryam that she will have the money she wants, that will be enough for her to be content. It is a small price for me to pay, as I have all of my riches right here.”

  “You must all come visit!” Miza said with a smile.

  “Oh.” Rachel grabbed the straps of her backpack and slid it toward her. “I almost forgot.” She pulled the wrinkled half of the kanga from inside.

  Miza shook her head. “No. You must keep it.”

  “But—”

  “I insist. Do you know what the words mean?” Miza asked, pointing to the faded letters barely visible across the blue border of the cloth.

  Rachel shook her head.

  “It is something our mother wanted us to remember, to make us strong as girls growing into women. It says, every bird flies with its own wings.”

  “That’s beautiful, Miza. But I couldn’t—”

  “Do you know what, though?” Miza continued. “I do not think it is right. Because I have seen how some birds fly together in lines, taking turns being the one in the front, falling back when they get tired, every bird flying a little above the one ahead to help shelter it from the wind, each one making it easier for the next so that they can all go farther.” Miza gestured toward the kanga. “And so you understand why you must keep it. It is yours now.” Miza’s one hand remained clasped with Sabra’s as she reached out for Rachel’s with the othe
r. “You are our sister now.”

  37

  “Are you sure you’ve got everything in there?” Ariana eyed Rachel’s backpack with wonder. “Need water, or tissues, or something to read on the plane?”

  “I’m good.” They stood together near the curb as others sped past them pushing carts heaped with luggage and cartons and bags, looking as though they were moving entire households across the globe. It was well past midnight, and the Muscat airport was as busy as if it were midday.

  “How long is your flight?” Ariana asked.

  “I don’t know. I think about seventeen hours or so. I’ll be back home tomorrow, with the transfer in Doha and the time difference and all.”

  “Ugh. Sounds awful. But I guess you’re used to it.”

  “Yeah. No biggie.” Rachel shifted her backpack to the other shoulder. “It’s okay, you know. I’m fine here. Hani’s waiting for you.” She pointed to the car parked across the road.

  “I know. I’m just not very fond of goodbyes.”

  Rachel looked down at the ground. “Yeah. Me neither.”

  Ariana yawned and checked her watch.

  “So when are you headed back to Dubai?” Rachel asked.

  “I’m not sure. I’m at least going to stick around until Miza has the baby, and until Tariq is back on his feet. Maybe I’ll even try to make friends with Hani’s mother,” she said with a laugh. “Who knows?”

  “I’m betting on you in that match.”

  “Thanks. And you?”

  “I’ve got to get back to work. Actually, I guess I want to get back to work.”

  “That’s good. Very good. I’m sort of anxious to get back to work as well, though I’m thinking of doing something quite different this time around. I’ve got my mind set on something a bit more meaningful.” She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “Will I be seeing you again?”