“What do you mean she is not here?” her uncle was saying, his tone the one that usually meant a tirade was on its way.
“Like I have told you, Uncle, the lady of the house is out of the country. I do not know exactly when she will return.”
“So she went to Oman, am I right?”
Sabra could not hear the maid’s response.
“What, marrying that rich, lazy Arab and moving to this big home in the big city wasn’t enough for her? She thinks she is now so important, so much better than the rest of us? How I would welcome the chance to remind her of who is important.”
At the sharp crack of her uncle’s words, Sabra stepped noiselessly back into the entryway, leaving the front door open a slice. Though she hadn’t seen the man for more than a year, since that day Tariq moved the sisters away from the village and into the flat in Stone Town, she wasn’t too anxious to greet him now. Her life under his roof had been tolerable, thanks to Miza, but Sabra had resented being treated like a servant. Her aunt expected an exhausting amount of work from her—sweeping, washing, helping with her younger cousins—leaving precious little time for anything fun, let alone the energy to tackle even the simple lessons the village school offered. But it was the way her sister behaved around the man that made her own skin squirm whenever he was within earshot. She could almost picture the way Miza’s back would stiffen, her muscles becoming firm and unyielding, her mouth setting into a stark slash crossing her broad face. It was as if she were a wild horse being backed into a barn.
“But surely she must have left money in the house,” her uncle continued.
“Of course she left us with grocery money. However, that is all.” Sabra could hear the fear gathering in Hoda’s voice.
“Don’t lie to me!”
“But Uncle, I am not lying. Come and see for yourself.” Sabra heard the kitchen drawer opening, the sounds of utensils being rattled around.
“This?” her uncle roared. “This is not even a half of the amount that is owed to me. You must call my niece immediately and ask her where it is, the month’s payment for that useless girl. That was our deal.”
“But I have no phone!” Hoda protested. “The phone is with the child, Sabra.”
Her uncle seemed to hesitate for a moment. “And where is she, our little Sabra?”
“She is at school, of course!”
Sabra pushed the door closed with a hush, but her uncle must have heard, for the next thing she knew the door was flying back open and her uncle was towering over her, the shillings from the kitchen drawer still clutched in his hand.
“What’s the matter, toto? Aren’t you happy to see your baba?”
Sabra nodded shyly.
“Your baba, who came so far just to check to see how you are doing here, left alone by your selfish sister?”
The girl lowered her eyes to the ground.
“Well don’t just stand there.” He pulled her inside and pointed to a chair. “Tell me, how are you doing here in the city? Are you happy?”
“Yes,” she said in a whisper as she sat, her thighs tense against the edge of the seat.
“What was that? I did not hear you.”
“Yes, I am happy,” she repeated, louder this time.
“That is good.” Her uncle paced as he spoke, his fingers drumming against one another in a rhythm only he could hear. “But tell me, toto, how is it that you can be happy when your dear sister has left you behind to go off to another country? How is that?”
“I’m fine here. Hoda takes good care of me.”
“Yes, I’m sure she does. But what happens when Miza does not come back? Hoda cannot stay with you forever, you know.”
“But she is coming back. She is coming back as soon as the baby comes.”
“Baby?” Her uncle stopped directly in front of her. “Oh, I see. So Miza has gone to Oman to have a new family. Now I understand. That is what they all do, you know, those who get the money. They leave our country and they go to Oman, and they do not come back.”
“Miza will be back!” Sabra spat out defiantly, ready to accept whatever rage her uncle might deliver. But he simply nodded his head and began to turn slowly, taking in the room around him, his eyes circling from the high-beamed ceilings above to the soft rugs blanketing the floors below.
“She promised me!”
Now her uncle laughed, a harsh bark that stung even more than his shouting.
“Please don’t laugh,” Sabra protested with tears pooling in her eyes. Through the blur she could see Hoda nervously twisting her hands.
“Okay, so there is nothing funny. You are right, Sabra. It is not funny at all that your sister left you here like this. So, in fact, you are coming with me.”
Sabra leaped from the chair.
“What, you don’t want to come for a visit with your baba? And your poor auntie, who misses you so? Go get your things.” He clapped his thick hands together twice. “Harakaka, harakaka! Hurry, hurry!”
But Sabra refused to move. It wasn’t until her uncle grabbed her bony wrist between his lumpy fingers that Hoda stepped in. “Let her be,” she insisted in a voice that shook like jelly. “I have been told to watch over her, and it is my job to do so.”
Her uncle dropped Sabra’s arm and whirled around toward the cowering maid, the back of his hand poised to strike. “You keep your mouth shut, woman! This child is my property. It is the law. And now I am taking back what is rightfully mine. No money?” His arms and his eyebrows lifted in unison. “No deal. Do you understand how that works?”
“But we must talk to the mama. We must tell Sabra’s sister.”
“You will tell her nothing!” he shouted in a voice so loud it seemed to echo across the room.
“But I am responsible—”
“This is family business, and you are not family. In fact, why don’t you just get your belongings and get out of this house now. And if I hear of you saying even one word about this to anyone, trust me, I will do everything in my power to bring bad fortune to you and all your family. An ocean of bad fortune, worse than you can ever imagine.”
Sabra watched Hoda retreat from the force of the man, just as she had seen so many others do in the village where he ruled. She backed down the hallway and returned with a satchel, and was out the door before Sabra could even say goodbye.
“And now you.” Her uncle pushed Sabra gently toward her bedroom. “Gather your things, and we will be off.” Sabra’s eyes darted to the still open front door. Perhaps she could outrun the man if she tried. She slowly turned as if heading toward her room, and then lunged for the door. In a flash she felt both feet lifting from the ground, her uncle’s arm circling her waist like a cobra, his hold so tight she could barely breathe.
“I said gather your things!” he shouted, dropping her onto the bedroom floor as her phone fell from her uniform pocket and skidded across the floor. “I will take that,” he said, scooping the device into his hand. “And not one word out of you, or I will show you exactly what happens to those who dare disobey my wishes.”
Sabra clawed through the clothes in her armoire as he stood guard in the doorway, searching through her tears for the one thing she knew she could not leave behind. She could hear her uncle behind her, his breath hissing through the gaps between his scattered yellow teeth. Finally, beneath a pile of scarves, she spied the blue border of the kanga, her half of the special square of fabric she shared with her sister, a thin piece of cloth that Miza had promised would bind them together forever.
9
“It is five hundred rials that must be paid if you hit one.” Adil slowed as a bedraggled camel teetered on the side of the two-lane highway. “For the owner,” he explained. “To make up for his loss. But actually? We have insurance for that.” The camel safely behind them, Adil stepped hard on the gas to pass a slow-moving truck. Rachel reached for the plastic bottle nestled in the pouch behind the seat in front of her, the water inside already hot as tea from the midday sun. She had been hoping
to get an early start, but apparently Ariana didn’t do mornings so well. When she had finally appeared in the lobby, in full makeup and a freshly ironed floral print blouse with perfectly matching coral-colored palazzo pants, Rachel wanted to laugh. Ariana looked as if she had stepped off the cover of Hamptons magazine. “We are going to the desert today, correct? For a shoot with the Bedouin women?”
“Of course we are!” Ariana smiled and took Rachel’s arm. “Our driver should be waiting right outside.”
And he had been. “Hello, my friends,” Adil had greeted them. “Welcome to my car.” Rachel had wondered at the Desert Adventures logo on the front door of the 4x4, but Adil spoke decent English and seemed pretty knowledgeable about the area. Now he honked and waved as he passed the rickety truck. “We say Salaam alaikum to make peace to each other,” he explained to Rachel, who had to smile. Everyone was so damn nice in this country. Adil had already told her how it was against the law to show anger or frustration, to even gesture with impatience. Rachel wouldn’t last here a day if she were left on her own. And clean! She marveled at the spotless roadside, at the freshly painted white houses dotting the brown hills in the distance. And not a dirt-streaked car in sight because, of course, there was a law against that as well.
“Achoo!” she sneezed loudly, the powerful brew of car air freshener and Adil’s cologne prickling the inside of her nose.
“Blessed you,” he said as he veered off onto the tight curl of an exit ramp. “Actually? In our country it is the person who sneezes who says Alhamdulillah, praise be to Allah. Then the others respond Yarhamuk Allah, may Allah have mercy on you. You see, it is believed that sneezing lightens the mind and gives comfort. So it is something good, and one should glorify Allah for it.”
“Perfume allergy,” Rachel explained.
“But if you yawn,” Adil continued without missing a beat, “that is different. That is a sign of sloth and heaviness, and is considered an act that pleases only the shaytan, the devil. That is why the Prophet commanded us to stop a yawn either by closing our mouth or by putting our hand over it.”
Ariana looked up from her texting. “Are we going the right way?”
“All the roads take us to Rome,” Adil assured her, his eyes reflected in the rear-view mirror. “Actually? I think you will be hungry now. My friends. I will take us to have lunch, if that is what you want.”
Rachel sighed, but Ariana chimed in before she could object. “Oh, that would be lovely, wouldn’t it, Rachel?”
The restaurant was empty save for Rachel, who sat down alone to peruse the plastic menu with its pictures of platters piled high with hummus and kebabs and rice and tomatoes. Her stomach growled as she waited for both Adil and Ariana to return from the little mosque attached to the restaurant’s restrooms, where she had seen the row of faucets lined up below illustrated instructions on the proper way to wash before prayer. Her mother would have had no patience with this “BS” (as she would have put it), thought Rachel, as she remembered the day her mother told her she’d joined the atheist club at her retirement community. “What do you talk about?” Rachel had asked at the time. “Everything you don’t believe in?” Rachel liked to think she had a bit more tolerance than her mother, though her own tendencies leaned toward not believing as well. After all the suffering and injustice she had witnessed in the world, how could she think otherwise?
Ariana and Adil took their places at the table, each, like Rachel, seated high atop two chairs stacked one upon the other, as if that made the plastic dining furniture appear more classy. The food came quickly, and after checking to make sure everyone got what they wanted, Adil rolled the sleeves of his dishdasha up to his elbows and popped a cube of chicken into his mouth.
“Delicious,” Ariana said as she swallowed a forkful of salad. Rachel dug into her hummus platter, scooping the thick, smooth paste up from the plate and into her mouth with a triangle of crisp pita. She felt Adil’s eyes upon her as she started for more.
“What?” she asked, her hand halting midway as she looked back and forth between her two dining companions. Adil lowered his eyes sheepishly. “What’s the matter?” Rachel repeated.
“You’re a leftie,” Ariana explained.
“Ah, right. Shit. I’m sorry. I knew about the whole left-handed thing in Islam. But nobody’s actually ever explained the rationale to me.” She crunched down on the pita and waited for an answer.
“Well,” Ariana offered, “traditionally you never use your left hand to eat or drink, as that is what the shaytan does.”
Rachel continued to dip. “Seriously? So what if someone’s born left-handed?”
Adil paused before answering. “Usually? We try to change them.” He paused to pull another piece of chicken off the thin stick on his plate.
“So you know there are all sorts of actions that you’re supposed to start on the right,” Ariana added. “Like putting on your pants and shoes or clipping your nails? And there are some things as well for which you are only supposed to use your left hand. Like blowing your nose or cleaning yourself.”
“Actually, most things are started from right to left, just like the way we read the Koran,” Adil added. “There is a system. For example in the mosque, we enter with the right foot, to show respect. In houses, too. In any good and clean place. The left is considered dirty.” He sat back and rested his forearms on the table. “But the restrooms, they are places of jinn. So we enter with the left foot first, and exit with the right foot. With the left, it is an insult to the jinn.”
“Jinn?” Rachel asked.
“You know,” Ariana said, “as in genies. Aladdin and his magic lamp? Genie in a bottle? Spirits.”
“You guys believe in those things?”
Ariana and Adil looked at each other and then turned back to Rachel. “Doesn’t everybody?” Adil asked.
“Not me.” Rachel shrugged.
“Adil means that in Islam, it’s a part of our culture,” Ariana explained. “From the stories we’ve heard from our parents and grandparents, and from the things we’ve seen ourselves.”
“Everyone has had some experience with the jinn,” Adil added.
“You?” Rachel asked.
“I think maybe I have a good jinn.” Adil laughed. “He makes sure I wake up on time for morning prayers when I am sleepy.”
“So there are good and bad ones?”
“Of course there are,” Ariana said. “But you never know who’s who or what’s what, so it’s best just to keep your distance. Would you like some of my salad, Rachel?”
Once back in the car, Rachel pressed them to hurry to the desert. She had already missed the morning light, and was anxious to get her shots of the mask-makers before the shadows became too harsh. Adil stepped on the gas, the car beeping relentlessly like a hospital monitor. “What is that god-awful noise?” she asked.
“Actually? It is when I am going more than the speed limit. In fact, all of our automobiles do this.” Adil slowed until the dashboard showed 119, and the car became quiet.
Rachel stared out the window as they whipped by clusters of new housing developments, uniform two-story white homes shining like neon cubes against the dull brown rock that stretched out in all directions around them. Not a soul stirred in the blasting afternoon heat. Even the roadside flagmen there to warn of construction ahead stood as still as statues, which in fact they kind of were, as Rachel saw when she took a closer look. Work clothes stiff with stuffing, like scarecrows. The only living things brave—or stupid—enough to be out were the goats that seemed to have taken over the land as their own. They were everywhere: standing like hood ornaments on parked cars, grazing on impossibly vertical surfaces, and coming way too close to the edge of the highway, she realized as Adil swerved and flipped on his hazard lights—too late—as a warning to the driver behind them. Rachel squeezed her eyes shut as she heard the thud of goat against bumper.
“It is fine,” Adil assured her. “The goat has run away.”
When th
ey finally pulled off the highway, Rachel was relieved, until Adil turned into the driveway of an auto repair shop. Sale of Tire & Repairing, the sign read in English underneath some blue Arabic letters. “Is there something wrong with the car?” she asked, truly not wanting to believe her luck could be so bad.
“Nothing wrong, inshallah.”
Rachel looked out at the lineup of white 4x4s, identical to theirs right down to the company logos displayed on the front doors.
“Actually, we must get out some air from our tires to drive in the sand.” Adil jumped out of the car and greeted the attendant, their arms touching gently above the wrists.
Rachel turned to Ariana, who was busy with her phone. “You have got to be fucking kidding me. We are literally going to drive through the desert to look for the Bedouins? I thought we had something set up. I thought you told me this guy knew what he was doing.”
“He came highly recommended as a desert guide.” Ariana smiled apologetically.
Their tires half-flattened, Adil was back behind the wheel, peeling out of the parking lot toward the distant sands ahead. When the asphalt suddenly came to an end, he stopped the car, gave a two-thumbs-up and flashed a smile into the rear-view. “It is okay, my friends? Seatbelts are tight?” And they were off, bouncing across the copper sand toward the dunes looming ominously before them, the soft wavy surface interrupted only by tire tracks left by the dozens of other 4x4s corkscrewing around like little kids on a giant water slide.
The engine roared as Adil veered sharply to the left and surged straight up a vertical wall of sand, the tires fighting to keep their grip on the fickle terrain. Suddenly, with a spin of the steering wheel, they were skidding sideways back down again, the light outside obliterated by the thick spray of sand kicked up by the tires, the 4x4 teetering at a perilous angle. And then he did it again, sending the car hurtling and plunging through the deep craters as if he were trying to tame a bucking bronco. Ariana squealed with delight. Rachel’s left hand braced the camera against her chest while the right gripped the plastic strap above the window, her knuckles yellow from lack of blood. She could feel her lunch coming back up to greet her as the car tossed and pivoted through the sand.