The Shadows of Ghadames Read online

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  y father left on a trip early this morning.

  This is our way of life in Ghadames. The men are often away on the desert tracks while the women wait for them on the rooftops.

  But since this morning I can't stay still. I wander around the house, worried and tense, like an animal that senses a great windstorm is on the way.

  Bilkisu woke me up before sunrise from a sound sleep. I had been rolled up in one of my mother's worn, soft and cuddly wool veils. I think I was dreaming of caravans….

  “Hurry up, Malika, if you want to say goodbye to your father!” Bilkisu says.

  It is dark but I make out Bilkisu's smile as she leans toward me, her heavy silver rings pulling on her earlobes. And, above all, I recognize her smell, so unlike my mother's, a blend of jasmine and peppery spices.

  Bilkisu knows I have a superstitious fear of letting my father leave on a trip without saying goodbye to him. If I fail in my duty today, something dreadful could befall him.

  “Hurry up,” she says again more gently. “He's already in the kitchen, about to shut the grain storage container.”

  I scramble to the stairway leading to our rooftop. It is as straight and narrow as a rope ladder. I am so used to its steep incline that I can climb up even in the dark without falling.

  Upstairs, I shiver from the cold—the desert cold at the end of the night, when not a single cloud protects human beings from the immense black sky.

  Fortunately my mother has already lit a fire and sparks are flying to the corner of the roof. I like our kitchen, with its palm trunk beams worn by the smoke of the cooking pots, and its earthenware jars, covered with basketwork lids, for preserving food. And the convenient holes in the wall next to the hearth for the salt brought by caravan, one hole for the coarse gray cooking salt, the other for the fine white table salt that squeaks when you rub it between your fingers.

  But, most of all, I like the grain storage container built into the corner farthest away from the fire; it is reassuringly potbellied, with a small round opening like a belly button.

  “Good morning, my child.”

  My father greets me with a smile. His camel-hair burnoose is slung over his shoulders and his head is wrapped in a turban with the flaps floating around his neck. When it's time to leave, he will fold them over his mouth, as the Tuareg nomads do.

  My mother does not look up. She is holding her measuring jar and counting in a low voice, taking out the amount of wheat and barley we will need for our meals during my father's absence. I hear the grain crackling as it rolls inside the wooden plates placed on the ground. Take exactly what's needed, that's our custom. We can feast and celebrate again only when the men return.

  More than anyone else in Ghadames my mother, Meriem, insists on a strict adherence to traditional practices. I watch her in the glow of the fire as she divides up the grain and packs it down, with her fingers spread out. Her straight forehead, strong eyebrow line and delicate mouth are the features of a queen. She has bluish tattoos on her forehead and chin, and a mark in the shape of a star on each of her cheekbones. I know these tattoos have a magical significance, but I am not old enough yet for the women to explain it to me.

  “Bilkisu,” my mother says, addressing my father's second wife, “you can pour the barley into the large jar in the pantry.”

  Bilkisu picks up the plate. Though she never raises her voice, my mother has a commanding tone. Perhaps that's why I feel more at ease with Bilkisu, who treats me as though I were her own daughter. Bilkisu is tall and lithe, draped in indigo blue veils. She often laughs; when my father hears her, he can't help looking at her.

  Her task accomplished, my mother lifts the plate filled with grains of wheat and holds it at arm's length. It is time to hermetically seal our grain container. Before sealing the opening, my father removes any putrid fumes that may taint the grain by slipping a burning wick inside the container.

  For a brief moment, the glow of the flame outlines his angular jaw and his aquiline nose, and I feel a violent pang in my heart. I realize how much I will miss him during this trip, more than ever before. He straightens up, throwing the thick pleats of his burnoose behind his shoulder. Then he looks at me, his intense gaze making me feel like a real person, not like a child whom people caress without seeing.

  “Look after yourself, Malika, and take care of your mother.”

  He has never spoken to me like this before.

  When we come out of the kitchen, the rooftops of Ghadames are cast in a pink light, their pointy, whitewashed triangular corners jutting up in the sky. The slender crescent of the moon is barely visible, like a brushstroke in a lighter color above the palm grove.

  “We live in a very ancient city,” says my father softly. “Don't ever forget that.”

  I summon my courage. “Papa, please let me come with you to the entrance of the city. I really want to see the departure of the caravan. Up on the city walls you can hardly make out anything. It's too far away!”

  “But you're just a girl! I am the one who gets to go with our father,” comes a voice. “Your place is with the women.”

  From behind us, Jasim's voice gives us a start. So he has finally gotten out of bed. He never leaves me in peace, always harping on the fact that I am “just a girl.” It's his favorite refrain, and he whistles it between his teeth with a mocking air as soon as our mothers are out of earshot. “I am going to travel, I am going to drive caravans, I'll be going to Kano and Timbuktu, and all the way to Mecca and Istanbul! While you, you're going to stay right here and never go anywhere!”

  But I know how to make him mad too. I contort my face in various ways without saying a word until he runs away. He is terrified by my grimaces. You would think I was no longer his sister but a creature come out of the darkness, a ghoul, a horrible ogress who eats children. But here, in front of my father, I don't dare make faces. And this morning, Jasim looks too much like his mother, with his mischievous eyes and his high, prominent, dark forehead. How could I get mad at Bilkisu?

  “Since you are the two children God has given me,” my father declares, “both of you will come.”

  I hardly have time to jump for joy before my mother reprimands me. She heard my father's pronouncement and I know she doesn't approve. A slight frown, a crease in the corner of her mouth, tells me her thoughts.

  “Go downstairs and get dressed, both of you. Malika, your hair is a mess,” she says.

  I obey halfheartedly, and linger at the top of the stairs in the hope of hearing what she will say to my father. I know it's naughty, but I don't care….

  “Do you think that's good for your daughter?” my mother asks calmly, with no trace of anger. “Malika will be twelve years old this coming Ramadan. Soon, much sooner than you think, she won't set foot in the street anymore; our rooftops will be
the only country where she'll be allowed to travel. That's the way it has always been for the women of Ghadames and that's the way it will always be. We'll only be giving her false hopes and pointless regrets, if you agree to take her beyond the city walls this morning.”

  I have never heard my mother speak at such length. My father is silent. Then he sighs.

  “You're probably right. Twelve years old, already.” He lowers his voice. “At that age, weren't you almost married, Meriem, to my great joy?”

  I see my mother look up at him, smiling, and I go down the stairs quickly, my throat tightening as I hold back tears.

  Bilkisu immediately understands. She is waiting for me, with a big wooden comb and a small jar of oil to use on my thick, curly mop of hair.

  “Don't worry, Malika. You'll learn that we have our own way of traveling, and that it takes us much farther than the desert tracks.”

  “How is it possible to travel far without horses or camels, and without leaving the city?” I reply sharply.

  Her eyes shine and she brings one of her long fingers up to her mouth. “It's a secret. Soon you'll know it. In the meantime, we'll still go to the edge of the city walls to see the caravan. Using the women's road.”

  I accompany my father down the stairs to the narrow entryway that gives out into the street. Jasim, glowing with pride, helps my father with his two large saddlebags. My mother and Bilkisu stand side by side. They have taken off their jewelry. Their bare faces, one lightly tanned, the other dark, blend with the design of red palm trees and flowers— the magnificent garden that all the women of Ghadames paint in red, on the walls of their houses, to protect them against misfortune.

  Papa has been careful to place the oil lamp pointing inward in the niche. This way, if a visitor looks in through the hole in the door, he will immediately know that my father is off on a trip. Placed another way, or unlit, the lamp conveys a completely different message. For example, The master is in the palm grove. Or, There has been a death in the house. The men know not to knock at the door when, thanks to the little lamp in the entryway, they see that the women are alone in the house.

  Before going out, Papa leans toward me and holds me tight.

  “I'll bring you back a gift,” he whispers, infuriating Jasim, who thinks our father spoils me far too much since I am “just a girl.”

  Then they both slip away in the dark alleyway.

  Mother does not want to come with us to the city walls. She is convinced that nothing bad can happen to my father as long as she is watching over the house at the precise moment when the caravan sets off. But Bilkisu doesn't share the same superstitions, and she is just as eager as I am to break up the monotony of our reclusive existence. So here we are jumping like goats over the small walls on the rooftops, our heads covered, but our dresses held above our ankles, so that we can walk faster and be the first to arrive by the women's road.

  The rooftops of Ghadames are like a city above the city, an open, sunny town for women only, where they walk about, lead their own lives, visit one another, and never talk to men. Twenty feet below, the men walk in the cool shade of the alleyways, conduct business, and never talk to women.

  These two worlds, my mother often says, are as necessary and different as the sun and the moon. And the sun and the moon never meet, except at the beginning and end of the night.

  We almost break our necks during our wild stampede, but finally we reach the northwest wall, with its tall fortifications and square tower. Here, outside the city walls, the Iforhas— the tribe of Tuareg nomads who escort the tradesmen of Ghadames to the far ends of the Sahara—have their encampment. The camel drivers have been waiting since dawn with at least twenty animals, all loaded with packsaddles and saddles, their forelegs hobbled, their mouths scornful.

  At that instant I see my father's silhouette, with his honey-colored burnoose, and the blue djellaba that Jasim is sporting for the occasion. It's maddening that they're so far away from me! How can my father possibly recognize me among the identical veiled creatures perched on the city walls like a row of black birds?

  I try to attract his attention by waving my hand, but he is too busy securing the saddlebags on the back of his camel. Gently, he makes the animal kneel down, then he eases himself onto the saddle, seizing its prominent pommel. Now comes the tricky moment—when the camel rises to its feet. As the animal stretches its front legs, one must be careful not to fall backward; then as the hind legs are raised, there's danger of sliding frontward, over the camel's neck! But for my father, all of this is second nature.

  This will be his last caravan before the intense summer heat. He must go all the way to Tripoli, a twelve-day trek to the north, if he is to make a profit selling the ivory, gold dust and fine leatherwear that he brought back from Kano two months ago. It is already too late to travel south: the sun burns the men and their mounts, and the oases along the road are teeming with snakes and scorpions that were sleeping deep in the sand but have now awakened from their winter slumber.

  Jasim hands my father the long rifle with the silver butt, and the bags of gunpowder and bullets. Occasionally the men have to defend themselves against robbers. After a final check to make sure that everyone is ready, and that no bundles have been forgotten or left on the ground, the camels set off.

  I keep my eyes fixed on the disappearing caravan for a very long time, until it is no more than a dancing point in a halo of dust.

  “Jaaasim!”

  Bilkisu stands at the edge of the roof. Her cry plunges into the shade of the alleyway, bounces along the walls, and reaches the tiny square where my brother so enjoys playing with his friends. This concert of mothers—a symphony of male names called out in strident voices from the four corners of the sky—can be heard echoing from all the roofs of the city.

  This is the hour when the sun turns red, the men prepare for the evening prayer, and the boys must come home. Bilkisu and our servant, the elderly Ladi, bustle about the kitchen preparing the evening meal. They were both born in Kano, the large city beyond the desert where the houses, like ours, have little horns—pointy triangular corners on the rooftops. Though they are completely fluent in our Berber dialect, when they are together they like to speak in their soft-sounding Hausa language.

  Ever since this morning I've been going around in circles with no purpose, irritated by everything I see. The rooftop, with its view of the horizon that I will never reach, I find loathsome. And our entire house—with its palm trees painted on the walls in unreal colors, its imbedded mirrors that capture every bit of light coming from the outside, and its prints that my father brought back from countries that I will never see —seems like a cage, embellished so that the birds no longer want to fly away.

  “What's wrong with you today?” Ladi asks me, puzzled upon seeing me so agitated.

  But I avoid her gaze and dodge her dark-skinned hand, callused by work, as she tries to touch my forehead, cheeks and stomach to see if I am physically ill.

  “I don't hurt anywhere, Ladi!” I say. “It's just that I wish I were somewhere else. I'm tired of having to stay here all the time.”

  She sighs. “Well, you can't do anything about that, nor can I.”

  I decide to open one of the cupboards, the one with green, yellow and red designs on its doors. We put away our food and clothes in cupboards because our bedrooms are so small there is only space for a few pillows.

  But this cupboard isn't like the others. A freshly painted, white rectangle is concealed behind its doors. Here, using a piece of charcoal, my brother does his writing exercises with Bilkisu's help. Afterward you just whiten the wall and start all over again as often as you want.

  I hate these lessons. My mother declared that I did not need any and my father did not dare challenge her. When Jasim reviews his morning recitation from school, I escape to the rooftop and don't come down. Sometimes, I sit on the top step and try to follow my brother's lip movements and the shapes his hand traces on the wall. But I get the signs mud
dled when I look at them, as if a door I don't want to open anymore has been shut inside me.

  When he comes home, Jasim finds me in front of the writing cupboard and I can't help blushing. He looks at me with a mocking little smile. I am about to retaliate with one of my deadly grimaces when, to my great astonishment, he makes a suggestion.

  “Want to race on the edge of the rooftop?” he asks. Well, that's quite an event! It's been at least two years since Jasim has completely stopped playing with me. He is interested only in his friends, and he lets me know it at every opportunity. Maybe he thinks I've forgotten how to run without falling? Or he hopes I'll fall, so I'll feel humiliated.

  “All right,” I say, “but if I win …”

  My brother grins. “If you win …”

  “… you'll give me the board and stylus you use in Koranic school.”

  “And what would you do with them? You don't even know how to read.”

  “I am asking for them, that's all.”

  “Fine. Anyway, I am sure to beat you.”

  He dashes to the stairway ahead of me. By the time I join him, he's already perched on the low wall waiting for me. Naturally, he's chosen the easier, lower side that runs along the rooftop of the neighboring house. He left me the more dangerous side.

  I am choking with rage. Maybe he thinks I'll beg for mercy! Without saying anything, I take off my embroidered slippers, so that I can better feel the top of the wall under my bare feet. I leap up and, like him, get my balance, but at the opposite corner. No one is paying attention to us. Aren't the children of Ghadames accustomed to walking on the edge of the rooftops from early childhood?

  Vertigo makes my legs wobbly when I look down. On my left is a vertical drop of the wall. The street is two stories below. In front of me, the top of the wall is barely wider than the sole of my foot. Fortunately, the most dangerous section isn't very long. I bite my tongue hard to rid myself of any fear, then I remove my linen belt and tie it over my eyes like a blindfold. I fondle the dangling moon crescents on my earrings with my fingertips and whisper a short prayer culled from oblivion: “Oh help me, great goddess Tanit.”