Mennad tucked al-Idrisi’s book into his robe and pulled down his turban. A long, pale scar split his face.
“Now,” he said, “you shall pay for your lies. But I expect to have your thanks, spy, before the day is over. I shall not take your life. Instead, for your treachery, you shall fight for the Almohad Empire in the great battle that is to come.”
“We will do no such thing,” al-Idrisi said, reaching for his scimitar. “Release us.”
But the Almohad horsemen snapped up their swords and daggers to al-Idrisi’s throat. Surrounded, al-Idrisi lowered his hand.
Mennad curled his mouth into a smirk. “You shall bend to my will as every proud man has done before,” he went on. “I am no green shoot, no foolhardy youth. Politics and pride mean nothing to the one who thirsts for truth and freedom. And when I have no further use of these maps and charts”—he smirked—“I will be sure that our enemies cannot use them against us. They will be burned.”
Al-Idrisi, knowing that without his maps all their journeys and hardships would be in vain, bent his head and wept.
Mennad and his men led the expedition in a long chain into the desert, posting guards in front, behind, and beside them. The Almohads led them west against the foot of the mountains until they came to a pass that led up to the plateau. The rise was very slow, a natural path over the cliffs. And although Mennad had taken al-Idrisi’s notes and maps, al-Idrisi still studied the pass and whispered to himself, calculating the angle of the slope in his head. “If we ever get out of this,” he said to Rawiya and Khaldun, “and I am able to complete my work, I will call this place Aqabat as-Salum.” The Graded Ascent.
Rawiya whispered to Khaldun, “He has not lost hope.”
They traveled for days. Beyond the plateau, the rocky steppe became true desert, a flat yellow stretch of sand like the sole of a foot. Rawiya realized now that no desert was like another. She understood: the desert was alive, a thing with blood and breath, a many-armed creature spreading its fingers.
The Almohads led the expedition to their encampment. There, a scout told Mennad that Fatimid warriors had gathered near the Gulf of Sidra between Ajdabiya and Barneek, less than a day’s journey away. In the confusion of the sandstorm, the expedition had wandered farther west than they had thought.
The Almohads shoved Rawiya and Khaldun into one tent and al-Idrisi into another, posting a guard outside. With the book in his possession, Mennad had no further use for Rawiya and her friends except to bolster his forces against the Fatimids—a clash they were not likely to survive.
Rawiya, unable to see any way out of the predicament they were in, strung and restrung her sling, counting her stones for the battle ahead.
“It is a shame,” Khaldun said, his head in his hands. “I would have loved to see al-Idrisi’s work completed. Instead, our journey comes to this. And Bakr’s death was for nothing.” He began to cry, crumpling to his knees.
Rawiya laid her hand on his shoulder. “We will find a way out of this. We will get the maps back somehow.”
“How will we do that, with only a poet, a scholar, and a young boy?” Khaldun looked away. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You have shown great courage, but . . .”
“No,” Rawiya said. “I should be apologizing, not you.” She tugged the cloth door shut and took a deep breath. Turning to Khaldun, she tried to memorize the kindness in his black eyes, the way the dying light fell across his face. Her feelings for this beautiful man, this gentle poet, had been doomed from the start, Rawiya knew. I must tell him, she thought, though he will never forgive me.
“If we must die tomorrow,” Rawiya said, “you should know that I was not honest when I joined al-Idrisi’s expedition. My name is not Rami.”
Khaldun’s frown softened. “Nobility is not important on the road.”
“It’s not that,” Rawiya said. She untied her turban. Over the last few months, her black hair had grown out in a tangle of curls. “Well? Didn’t you wonder why I never grew a beard?”
Khaldun stepped back. “I assumed you were a young boy,” he said, “not yet grown.”
“My name is Rawiya,” she said, “not Rami.” She paused, fighting the knot of anxiety in her stomach, and searched his face. “I’m a woman.”
Khaldun stood stiff as new leather, hands clenched as though praying. “I always knew you were special,” he said, “and I had a fondness for you that sometimes felt like we were more than brothers—” He shook his head, looking lost. “What will we tell al-Idrisi? You lied to him. When he sees the truth . . .”
“Khaldun—”
Khaldun knelt before her and lowered his face. “Whoever you are, I am at your service,” he said, “for saving my life and my honor. I only hope God will grant me the courage and the opportunity to return the favor. Man or woman, I have promised to follow you until the day I die, and I will keep my pledge.”
“Khaldun.” Rawiya pulled him up. “Don’t forget, you saved my life more than once. No one is at anyone’s service. Only together will we find a way.”
Khaldun returned her nervous smile. “Then what do we do?” he asked. “If tomorrow is our last day of life, what do we do while the moon weeps for us?”
Rawiya touched her hand to her pouch where half of the roc’s eye stone sat. That, at least, had not been stolen. Before Ibn Hakim had sliced it clean in half, the stone had shown Rawiya her father’s face, his voice. It had let her speak with the dead.
But on this night, Rawiya didn’t need its power to see what she wanted to remember: her mother that evening in the olive grove after her father had slipped into darkness, how she had sat Rawiya in her lap, the moon dappling the grass, the smell of the sea all around them. What had her mother said—those words that, ten years later, had made her cut her hair and pack for Fes, words that let her believe in a more beautiful world?
Rawiya closed her eyes and breathed in. “Let me tell you a story.”
THE RESCUE BOATS pick us out of the life rafts, and babies shriek like cats. Spray soaks me to the bones. Up in the boat, my teeth chatter, making it impossible for me to keep crying. I stare down into the green and remind myself of what I learned in the raft: no sea is flat.
The flashlight’s batteries die. Mama holds on to its metal husk like an extra rib while the sun comes up over the wreck of the ferry. It leans on its side, mostly sunk now. Bigger ships spray the fire with seawater, searching for survivors. Over the side, the sea is alive, churning with limbs. The water holds the dead.
The one-legged man is separated from us on the rescue boat. He coughs and heaves his chest, his chin black. He grips his leg. Only in the light can you see where the fire licked him, the stripes of black on the backs of his hands and his cheeks. The welts where the bench crushed him aren’t as obvious, but I can make out the red snakes of bruises where the wood cut into him, the splinters that stuck when Abu Sayeed pulled him free.
Through the crowd of people bringing water to the one-legged man and wrapping him in blankets, I make out the holes in his shirt and the red soccer jersey peeking out from underneath. He sees me but doesn’t smile. I stare into him, searching for the glassy look he had under the bench—the look of someone who has locked eyes with their own death. I was right, I guess—staring too long at death can mark a person.
But he only grips his bandaged knee and holds my gaze. People pass between us with water and thermal blankets, but neither of us looks away.
And then the one-legged man nods, like he knows we’ll never see each other after this, like he would still hold on to my ankle if he had to do it again.
THE RESCUE BOATS take us to Nuweiba, the first I’ve seen of Egypt. The police check everybody’s identification before we leave the terminal, snarls of bodies wrapped in blankets tugging out soaked passport booklets and visas. Soon we stumble out into the green sun.
The world is orange in that way things are after you’ve stared at the sea too long. Ships waddle in and out of the harbor. My feet don’t work right yet, still m
aking up for shifting waves that aren’t there. It feels like riding an invisible skateboard.
I lurch and trip and realize I’ve been leaking bits of me all this time. The ghost of me is still scattered across the road from Amman to Aqaba. Shreds of me wander the streets of Homs under the shop awnings. I have no voice, no anchor. How can I keep from ripping apart on the wind like dandelion seeds? How can I keep from floating away without Abu Sayeed and his stones to weigh me down?
When we lived in the city, I used to think the black circles of gum stuck to the sidewalk were gravity spots, that they made gravity. I thought somebody put them there to keep us from floating off into outer space. Because why not, right? If we jump too high, do we all just slide off the earth? If the city forgot it was heavy, would the whole thing lift off and crash into the moon?
I seize Mama’s hand and scan the sidewalk for stray gum spots. But there aren’t any, not the big black ones we had in New York. A startle of fear comes like a stubbed toe in the dark: there is nothing holding me down, nothing between me and the corkboard where God stuck the stars.
We dive away from the crowds outside the ferry terminal. We are a chain of people: Sitt Shadid shuffling her pumps, Umm Yusuf clutching Rahila to her, Zahra holding Yusuf’s hand. Since the fire started on the ferry, I don’t think she ever let go.
The town of Nuweiba is surrounded by high mountains that come almost out of the water, and the beachfront is scattered with blue fishing boats and straw umbrellas. It looks so wrong today, this oceanfront vacation town, the passing tourists in their sunglasses.
On the street, Mama unrolls her map, shaking it out in case it’s wet. But even though we lost all our clothes and my stuffed bird, we still have what was in her burlap bag—her rolled-up map and the dirty rug, a few cans of tuna, half-empty bottles of aspirin and tubes of toothpaste. Umm Yusuf and Mama whisper about where to go, Mama blinking her wet eyelashes.
I watch my feet and breathe. The pictures replay—Abu Sayeed bending his knees, tensing his elbows, his arms and legs wheeling through the smoky air. In my mind, he never hits the water.
I wait for my toes to lift up, wait to feel myself floating off into space.
I drop to my knees. I cling to the concrete with my fingernails. Cubes of basalt and drops of sugar-grainy marble clink in my left pocket. In my right, the green-and-purple half-stone turns, tied up in Abu Sayeed’s handkerchief.
I close my eyes. Is his voice waiting for me in there, waiting to call me little cloud?
I hear Huda say, “He saved us.”
I open my eyes and see the lines on Huda’s palm. She leans down and strokes my face.
“He’s the reason we got the life jackets on,” Huda says. “He’s the reason we got the rafts down before the ship rolled. We would have all drowned without him. He gave us everything.”
“Baba saved him.” When I raise a hand, the sidewalk leaves dents in my palm. “So he saved us.”
Huda nods and turns her face into her palm—that bitter look. The sidewalk bites into my shins. I want to convince myself that this pain is not senseless. I want these pictures of Abu Sayeed to mean something.
Huda wipes her cheek, collecting drops of water under her fingernails. “What are you doing?” she asks.
I look down at my knees on the concrete, at my hand flat on the ground. I say, “Praying.”
“Then so am I.” Huda pulls a half-empty water bottle from the bag and pours water over her hands. She’s performing wudu, washing up before prayer.
It isn’t long before everybody notices what Huda is doing, and Sitt Shadid, Umm Yusuf, and Yusuf join in. Sitt Shadid slides off her pumps and unrolls her knee-highs, rubbing water into the cracks on her heels. Yusuf runs his wet hands through his hair. Mama spreads out the dirty carpet on the sidewalk for us. We kneel on it, as many of us as we can fit, with Huda’s and my knees sticking off the carpet. The concrete grit eats our shins. Mama crosses herself. Each in our own way, we pray for Abu Sayeed’s soul.
But Abu Sayeed was right. Even though God listens, he doesn’t always give you answers.
Mama and Umm Yusuf stretch out their palms, accenting words with their chins and their fingertips. In Arabic, I catch Umm Yusuf’s words: We’ll head west—Libya—car or bus?
Mama frowns. We can’t afford a car.
I stand up, and the sky reaches for the top of my head. Nubs of concrete stick to the dents in my skin. The space between us stretches like an empty hand.
“I wish we never left home,” I say. “I wish we’d stayed in Homs. I wish we never came here.”
“Have you lost your mind?” Zahra thrusts out her hands. “Home is gone. It’s gone forever.”
“Things can be fixed,” I shoot back. “You don’t know.”
“It’s rubble,” Zahra says. “All that’s left is rubble. Or don’t you know what that is? It’s broken dishes, stupid. Drywall. Half a plate. The arms ripped out of stuffed animals. It’s black glass and plaster dust.”
I hold my breath, trying not to yell. “I’m not stupid.”
People on the street begin to stare.
Zahra plants her feet and holds her ground, her torn jeans damp with seawater. “No,” she shoots back. “You’re delusional. Abu Sayeed is gone. Do you understand that?”
Huda steps between us. “That’s enough.”
My hands close up into knobby stones, and something in me explodes.
“You’re a spoiled brat,” I shout. “All you care about is your jewelry and boys. You don’t care about your family. You don’t care about anything.”
Everyone goes quiet, even Zahra.
“Part of me is dead,” I say. The sun stings my pockmarked shins. “I never even knew it was alive.”
Zahra twists her bracelet. “Why do you think I wear it?” She turns on her heel and walks away.
“What?”
“The bracelet was from Baba,” Huda says, lowering her eyes. “It was her seventeenth birthday present.”
And then my anger drains away. The bracelet isn’t a bracelet to Zahra. It’s a gravity spot.
Zahra rounds a corner. I follow her black curls, matted with salt.
“Wait,” I call. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” I turn the corner and run smack into her back.
“Look at this.” Zahra runs her finger over the wall. A paper is posted over glossy graffiti. “It’s a bus schedule west,” she says. “There’s a bus to Benghazi this afternoon, with a transfer in Cairo.”
MAMA, UMM YUSUF, and Sitt Shadid pool their money and share the cost of our bus tickets. Mama chews the inside of her cheek when we pay for them. I can see her doing calculations in her head. She doesn’t think I noticed how much she took out, how every expense now is like a plague of locusts chewing holes into the little we have left.
Crowds follow us everywhere we go. People press onto the bus, children sitting in their mother’s laps, people crammed into the aisle. The earth seems like it’s overflowing with families from every country, not just our own. I see other wars everywhere—in the scar along a lady’s chin, or in the bruises on a boy’s ankle.
The bus is packed with grimy, tired people, but we can’t smell ourselves, not any of us. Families share bread, and the nutty smell of fava beans glides over the seats. I sit between Huda and Mama, careful to lean on Huda’s right shoulder. Men talk quietly behind us.
The bus takes us north along the mountains until we hit Taba and turn west. The road is an elbow between cone-shaped hills, striped red and yellow and bleeding sand. We pass shantytowns and acacia trees, places where sand is crusted on the road. Mama says the Sinai Peninsula’s got turquoise buried in it, veins of blue-green soaking the rock. She says they used to call it the land of turquoise.
I turn away and think, Abu Sayeed would have loved this.
The tunnel comes quick. I frown at a ship that rises up over the sand, water I can’t see. A whole string of ships stretches across the highway, and for a minute, I think we’re going to hit them. Then t
he road dips down under a bridge decorated with a mural with sailboats, mosques, and pyramids. The bus plunges into darkness.
“We’re in the Suez Tunnel,” Mama says, “under the canal.”
The bus chugs down, hugging the wall, and the lights flit past. Chug-cha-chug-cha-chug.
I ask, “We’re under it?”
Before Mama can answer, we’re out of the tunnel again. We see the smog before the city. The Nile Delta is a strip of green from this angle, a tooth pushing north out of a brown jumble of buildings.
“There used to be two cities here,” Mama says. “Next to Cairo, there was a city called Fustat. The ruins of ancient temples are still there.”
“What happened to the other city?” I ask.
Huda leans against the window and winces, shivering, before she closes her eyes. Her forehead is so hot that it fogs the air-conditioned glass.
Mama folds her hands in her lap, her veins taut and green. “The bigger city ate the smaller one,” she says.
WE TUMBLE OUT at Cairo’s Turgoman Station. The next bus, the one to Benghazi, isn’t for a few hours. The terminal looks more like a mall than a bus station: three floors, glass railings, polished linoleum floor tiles. The brown-red smell of bus brakes sticks to even the smoothest surfaces. The other passengers pour off the bus and scatter into the crowds, away from a bench where we’ve carved out a pocket of calm in the chaos.
“I need to sit for a minute.” Huda shuffles to the bench and lowers herself down, resting her head on her arm. Umm Yusuf sits next to her and flicks her eyes to meet Mama’s. Then she looks at me, so quick I almost don’t notice. Umm Yusuf has that look grown-ups get when they want to protect you, the look that says: Don’t let her see.
“I have to stretch my legs,” Mama says. “Nour will walk with me.”
“I will?”
We leave the terminal together. The heat unfurls over us like a curtain dropping. I blink in the sunshine. Behind us, the sun glare turns the terminal’s green and blue glass into daggers of light. A few families wander the plaza, and cars circle the entrance. The sidewalks seem strangely empty, especially now that Ramadan is over. I look back through the glass into the station, thinking I might be able to see straight through into the terminal and catch a glimpse of Huda, but the crowds and the sun glare shimmer in an unbroken mass. I can’t see her.
The Map of Salt and Stars: A Novel Page 19
