The Map of Salt and Stars: A Novel

by Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar

  Al-Idrisi charged the next guard, parrying the man’s scimitar away from him. The sword skidded across the floor. Khaldun grabbed it, brandishing both scimitars. He belted out a battle song and came at the remaining guards, spinning with his blades in his hands.

  Rawiya hit one of the two guards with a stone. The other surprised Khaldun with a blow to his knees and knocked him down. Al-Idrisi rushed the guard, giving Khaldun a chance to scramble back. Rawiya set another stone in her sling.

  But one man was unaccounted for. Ibn Hakim dove at al-Idrisi from behind, his sword drawn.

  Rawiya loosed her stone, hitting Ibn Hakim in the hand. His sword clattered away, and he cried out. Al-Idrisi ducked behind a boiling vat of yellow dye.

  When al-Idrisi was safely behind her, Rawiya kicked at the vat, sending the boiling dye splashing over Ibn Hakim’s men. They screamed and rolled themselves in wool to dry the scalding liquid.

  Rawiya, Khaldun, and al-Idrisi started up the wooden ladder to the loft with its single window. Ibn Hakim leapt after them.

  Khaldun and al-Idrisi climbed up with Rawiya behind them. As Ibn Hakim reached for the hem of her sirwal, Rawiya grabbed a beam of wood from the loft and shattered it on top of Ibn Hakim’s head. He fell to the ground, shaking himself.

  Khaldun helped Rawiya up the ladder. But they soon realized that Bakr was still below them, his scimitar locked with the blade of one of the guards. Ibn Hakim marched toward Bakr, pale wrath burning on his face.

  “Go,” Rawiya said. “Take al-Idrisi to the servants. I’ll meet you at the gates.”

  Khaldun reached for her. “Rami—”

  “Go!” Rawiya set another stone in her sling and aimed for the guard. Khaldun grabbed a protesting al-Idrisi and pushed him out the window onto the balcony.

  Rawiya’s stone hit the guard between the eyes, sending him crashing into a spool of silk. It unwound around him, coating the ground in slippery cloth, and he lost his footing.

  Ibn Hakim raised his scimitar. Bakr blocked it.

  “Rami!” Bakr cried out. Ibn Hakim shoved Bakr with his blade, and Bakr swung his scimitar. He missed. “I can’t best him on my own.”

  Rawiya leapt down the ladder and charged at Ibn Hakim. She struck him in the small of his back with the butt of her sling, sending him sprawling. He lifted his sword and sliced at her, making her jump back. She hopped over the fallen cauldron and struggled to aim a stone, but she was too slow. Although Ibn Hakim was blind with haughty rage, he was too talented a swordsman for her to escape.

  Ibn Hakim’s scimitar cut the air above Rawiya’s head, aiming for her neck.

  Bakr lunged at Ibn Hakim from the side, throwing him off. Ibn Hakim turned toward him, thrusting his blade. He buried his scimitar in Bakr’s chest.

  “Bakr!”

  Bakr collapsed on the factory floor. Rawiya loosed a stone that hit Ibn Hakim hard in the forehead. He dropped to the ground, his eyes rolling back in his head.

  Rawiya lifted Bakr into her lap. He coughed blood onto her wrists and her tunic. He reached under his cloak and tugged out a package wrapped neatly in brown linen.

  “If you ever get home,” he said, “give this to your mother.”

  “No.” Rawiya wiped the blood from his jaw with her sleeve. “We’ll get help.”

  Bakr’s tunic was a mess of sticky clots like purple honey. He pressed the package to her chest. “So she knows you didn’t abandon her,” he said.

  A stone’s throw away, Ibn Hakim stirred.

  THE BENT MOON comes up and the sun goes down, and Abu Sayeed finds a shop still open where we can buy a canister of cooking gas. Umm Yusuf parks the van off a side street near the harbor so we can watch for the ferry. The afternoon heat never wears off, not even in the dark, so I stay away from the gas cylinder.

  Umm Yusuf and Sitt Shadid bring out a dented pot and half a bag of rice. The pot sits on top of the canister, on a round bar sort of like we had on our gas stove in the city. Mama cuts the goat’s meat into little pieces. Sitt Shadid has some spices she saved in an old jam jar, so she sprinkles them over the meat. That smell fills everything, the smell of fat and oil like we haven’t smelled in weeks. My jaw pricks and tingles, making me lick my lips. The tough meat is the only fresh thing we have, and there isn’t enough of it to fill everybody’s belly. But just the smell of cooking fat and spices beats a meal of plain rice and lentils any day.

  While Mama cooks, Abu Sayeed, Umm Yusuf, Sitt Shadid, and Huda say their prayers, all huddled on our dusty carpet. Zahra hovers nearby, looking unsure. Yusuf kneels by himself, whispering too quietly to be heard.

  I don’t know how to thank God while my head keeps playing back the boys’ fists holding clumps of Huda’s skirt. But Baba used to say you should pray the most when you can’t see the good in the world. And I know I should say a prayer because, after all, God is God, and today is a day we should thank him.

  So I try to remember the prayers Baba used to whisper in our old apartment, and the prayers Mama said when she took me to Mass, and then I add my own because I know that God listens, even if you don’t get the words exactly right.

  Mama lifts the pot’s lid, and the perfume of meat and spices spills out. Each of us takes a little bread in our hands, the flat kind Baba would have called Syrian bread, not pita.

  “Make it last,” Mama tells us. “We won’t be eating meat again for a good while.”

  But Sitt Shadid only rubs my shoulders and motions for me to eat. “Sahtein, ya ayni,” she says with a smile, wishing me two healths.

  When our bread runs out, we scoop the meat and rice with our hands. It tastes like laughing and warm blankets and dry socks and bedtime stories. For a little while, I forget about everything else, closing off the dark places that have formed in me like cavities.

  I think everybody else must feel the same way, because before long, Sitt Shadid claps her hands and lifts them up, and then she starts to sing. It’s a folk song I’ve never heard before, but Mama seems to remember the tune, if not the words. And then the words don’t matter, because pretty soon everybody else is humming or singing too. We all get up and clap around the gas canister and the pot, and then we link our hands and dance. On my left, Abu Sayeed kicks out his feet and slaps his knees through the tears in his linen pants. On my right, even Huda takes hold of her long skirt so it doesn’t drag in the dirt when she shuffles her feet to the music. And I know this dance is for everybody at once, and for God, and that even though I probably got my prayers wrong, I hope he still knows we’re grateful that we’re together, and he’s glad.

  AFTER WE EAT, we sit in the van at the dock, waiting. The Jordanian flag wags in the dark. That silvery water sound laps at the bumper, and the yellow smell of salt comes through the vents. When I was little and Baba used to tell me stories, the dark used to be full of possibilities. Now it just feels menacing, waiting under the pressure of all the words nobody wants to say.

  I jiggle my leg to break the endless string of breaths. Zahra snaps at me to stop. In the front, Mama and Abu Sayeed whisper to each other. Mama clenches her map through the bag, then relaxes her fingers. They think because they’re speaking in Arabic that I don’t understand them, but I catch words and phrases. Abu Sayeed asks, When are you going to tell them? Pieces of Mama’s answer float to me in the backseat: If the wrong person finds out who is waiting—people are kidnapped for less. Mama adds in English, under her breath, “And I don’t want to get their hopes up.”

  “Mama.” She doesn’t answer. “Mama.”

  “Nour.” Mama’s voice is clipped red again. She folds down the sun visor mirror, using the visor’s little light to tug an eyelash out of her eye. Her fingers shake. She tries again.

  “When is the ferry coming?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The green-and-purple stone is heavy in my shorts. “But is it coming soon?”

  “Hayati, I don’t know.”

  “But—”

  “Please!” Mama slaps the visor shut and folds
her arms around her chest, and in the reflection in the window, I think I see her crying. “We have to wait,” Mama says, her voice uneven. “What do you want me to do?”

  I don’t know. The night is closing in like a hundred invisible hands. I fidget and curl my toes. I start to breathe too fast, too hard. It feels like the van’s roof might fall down on me, like the dark might clap shut around me.

  “Let me out.” I fight with the door handle, but the child lock is on. “Let me out!”

  “What’s wrong?” Huda releases the child lock and follows me out.

  “I’m scared.” I bury my face in her skirt. I’m afraid to touch her, as if what those boys tried to do opened a wound that I’m widening.

  “It’s okay.” Huda blankets me with her arms and her scarf. “Huppy is here.”

  How do I tell her I couldn’t save her, that I tried to be brave and I wasn’t? How do I get the boys’ blood out from under my fingernails, the disgusting smell of their sweat out of my nose? I don’t know how to say those things. I don’t know how to tell her I’m sorry or ask her how close the boys got to what they wanted before Abu Sayeed chased them away. I don’t know how to tell her what I saw in their eyes—that to them, she was only a can of soda to be stolen.

  Instead I turn my head and say, “I can’t call you Huppy anymore. You’re so grown-up now.”

  “You’re wrong.” Huda kneels and presses her forehead to mine. “I’ll always be your Huppy.”

  I hold on to her while the breeze passes over us, trying to memorize the feeling of safety in her smell.

  After a while, Huda says, “The ferry is slow, but it’s cheap, and it will get us to Nuweiba. I bet the drive to Cairo is pretty. Maybe we can see the Sphinx.”

  “Will we ever be safe again?” My words are so heavy they pop open the night. “Huppy—are there any safe places anymore?”

  Huda wraps her arms around my neck. “Ya Nouri,” she says, “listen.”

  She’s the only one who calls me Nouri, a word that in Arabic means both my Nour and my light.

  Her voice is hoarse and low, each word delicate. “No one sees the future,” she says. “No one knows what’s planned. But safety is not about never having bad things happen to you. It’s about knowing that the bad things can’t separate us from each other. Okay? No matter what happens. Your family still loves you, and you can get through anything if you know that. You’re safe with me. With Mama. With God. Nothing can take that away.” She runs her thumb across my cheek and offers me the hem of her hijab. “Now dry your tears.”

  I touch the roses. The linen barely smells like rose water anymore, that smell I love that looks to me like lavender-colored curls. “It’s too pretty. I’ll ruin it.”

  “Come on,” she says. “I’ll wash it on the other side. It’s just snot, after all.”

  She smiles and offers it to me again. This time, I blow.

  THE FERRY IS an hour late, and the car deck is filled up with the vehicles of people who have already got tickets. There’s no room for the van.

  Umm Yusuf mutters and slams the door. We pack up Abu Sayeed’s tools and our spare clothes and leave the van behind. We grab our bags and line up along the dock.

  It’s almost as hot as yesterday afternoon, and it’s humid by the water. On nights like this, Baba and I used to lie awake on the rug in the apartment and tell stories. I used to wear my favorite nightgown, the one with satin flowers on it. I wonder what happened to it, if I brought it with me to Amman. But then I remember that all my clothes are torn up in my old room, ripped out of the dresser. I wonder if my nightgown has holes burned in it. I wonder if my sneakers are missing their tongues, hanging from the window glass by their shoelaces.

  People crowd up, shuffling their feet across the dark. I stare at a man leaning on a cane. He looks younger than Abu Sayeed. Another family comes up loaded with duffel bags and backpacks, as though they are hauling their lives on their shoulders. The crowds grow, bottlenecking near the entrance, and the conversation drowns out the roar of the waves. Egyptian Arabic is so different from the way Mama talks; the dialect reminds me of the old Arabic movies Mama and Baba used to watch. But some of the kids around us use slang I heard in Homs instead. I start to wonder like I always do: Who are they? Did they come from where we came from? And where are all these people going?

  I turn away and swallow thick spit. We haven’t got any water, and I’m thirsty from the goat’s meat. All this water around, and all of it salt. My stomach tries to drink my spine.

  The wind screeches around us, a tight orange voice, and tears through the palm trees like a train. It scratches at the sea until it bleeds white.

  We board the ferry at one in the morning, walking up a wooden ramp that bangs wherever you step. The water smacks into the metal hull below my feet. It’s got to be at least eighty degrees, but I shiver from my nerves and the height. I know there’s no way off a ship except into the water, and I don’t know how to swim.

  We find a seat on the upper deck near one of the lights, in the wind. As the families board, we crunch in to make room. People press against the railings, holding their purses or their hand luggage. Abu Sayeed sits next to me, Mama on my other side, and Huda and Zahra across from us. Umm Yusuf, Sitt Shadid, and Yusuf cluster close by, Rahila on her mama’s lap. I chew on my fingers while the ramp is pulled away from the ferry.

  “Are you scared?” Abu Sayeed asks. Sitting next to him makes me feel safe, but then the wind comes at us again, and the big horn goes off on the boat.

  I nod, my eyes big, the warm wind tearing them. I’ve got to be careful, or I’ll start crying.

  “If it makes you feel better,” he says quietly so Mama doesn’t hear, “I’m scared too.”

  “What?” I don’t believe him. I study his sloping shoulders, his leathery cheeks bristling with curly beard, his broad hands with their carved knuckles. I can’t imagine Abu Sayeed being scared of anything.

  He fidgets, curving his shoulders over his lap, and glances around. “I can’t swim,” he says, as if it’s a confession.

  “Me either. I was supposed to take lessons at the pool where Baba went, in the city. But we never did it.” Heat builds up again behind my eyes. “And he promised.”

  “I wanted my son to learn,” Abu Sayeed says. “I never had the chance to take him. Your baba wanted to go with you. I’m sure of that.”

  I tug on my sneakers. “Mama told me Sayeed left.”

  Abu Sayeed rests his hands on his thighs. For the first time since we got on the ferry, his fingers don’t move. The ship groans out of the harbor and into the gulf.

  “Sayeed wanted something he couldn’t find,” Abu Sayeed says. “Something I couldn’t give him. After his mother died, he wasn’t the same. He had to go, he said, to put things behind him. I was angry. I had already lost one, but to lose both? I didn’t say good-bye, thinking he would come back. I never saw him again.”

  The waves snarl against the boat. I think of Baba’s Polaroids, how Baba’s parents took Abu Sayeed in when he lost his own, how Abu Sayeed’s son ran away from the only parent he had left.

  I say, “He turned his back on the thing you didn’t get to have.”

  Abu Sayeed lowers his head, studying his fingernails. “I forgave him for that a long time ago,” he says.

  I rub the green-and-purple half-stone through my pocket. “So you look for stones to hear about your son?”

  “Stones can’t speak that way,” Abu Sayeed says. “But I believe our Maker can speak through them.” He interlocks his fingers, and his creased knuckles line up like a chain of brown mountains. “Some prayers go unanswered many years,” he says. “The heart knows this.”

  “But even if God does hear our questions,” I say, “what if we can’t understand the answers?”

  “Sure, some questions have answers we don’t understand,” Abu Sayeed says. “But you can understand more than you think, if you are willing to wait for the knowing.”

  “What do you mean, wa
it for it?” I say. “You mean like with math homework, how some problems make sense after you think about them for a few days?”

  Abu Sayeed says, “Sometimes it takes years to understand what Allah wants us to know.”

  I try to raise an eyebrow, but both go up. “And he just expects us to wait?”

  Abu Sayeed smiles. “Little cloud,” he says, “that’s what faith is.”

  The boat lumbers into open water where the sea rolls black as the center of a tulip. I wonder what creatures are under us, whispering secrets to each other while our shadow passes.

  “Then what do you have in your pockets?” I ask. “I saw you take stones with you when we left. What did you bring?”

  Abu Sayeed’s smile is sad and crooked. “I brought just one,” he says. “A special one.” He pulls out his dusty handkerchief and digs inside while the ship jerks. He shows me a flat coin of a pebble the size of a quarter.

  “What is that?” It looks good for skipping but not for collecting.

  “Sayeed found it when he was your age,” he says. “It was the first stone out of the ground when we planted the olive grove. I thought he would bring it with him when he left, but I found it in his things. Out of everything, I thought he would have taken that stone.”

  “You planted the olive grove outside the city?” I study the stiff brown skin on Abu Sayeed’s cheeks and forehead. The sun must have toughened his face while he and Sayeed tilled the olive grove, while he spent his afternoons digging in the fields, teaching the stones’ names to his son.

  Abu Sayeed turns to the water. “I should have given it back to the earth,” he says, “but I didn’t have the heart.”

  The man across from us must have heard part of what we said, because he says something to Abu Sayeed. I catch zeitoun—olive. The man leans forward under the lights.