Women Who Blow on Knots

by Ece Temelkuran

  She caresses Amira’s hair and Amira rests her head on her chest. She pats her affectionately a couple times on the back but keeps a distance to prevent her from falling apart altogether. She’s playing the mother role perfectly. Maryam doesn’t see any of this as she goes and sits down in the back of the car. Her arms crossed, she has given up. The eagle turns south and disappears.

  The sun slowly sinks below the horizon. Our faces are crimson in the car. The desert is purple. If you stay out long enough you disappear, or so the desert says, in strips and strands it says nothing. Making you so light you are hardly even there. Nothing left to be explained. Purging you of words, it is that beautiful. You could die here with a peaceful heart. Which is why you can live there with a peaceful heart. We’re going…

  “Did you know they filmed Star Wars here?” says Amira. Just when I think no one’s in a mood to respond, Maryam says, “Oh! OK! Why don’t you just come out and say it’s the perfect place for a moon walk!”

  Maryam and I burst out laughing. Laughter cascades through us against our will. Madam Lilla joins us. And still staring out the window with her finger between her lips, Amira starts laughing, too. Even Eyüp Bey might be laughing.

  We stop an hour later. Night is falling. Only after a careful look around can we make out a desert camp of yellow tents off to the right. I look at the gate and read the sign: The United Nations. A refugee camp. My head is finally up and running again. Libya, the war, refugees pouring over the border into Tunisia…

  “How are we going to get in here, Madam Lilla? This is a refugee camp,” says Maryam. No longer a frail woman afflicted with rheumatoid arthritis, Madam Lilla looks like a war commander who has just hopped off her horse to draw up a battle plan.

  “It was checked out. – Who checked it out? – Security in the camp is really light so we’ll be safe. – Oh my God! – They don’t even keep tabs on who comes and goes. – Oh! That’s really rich. – The other week three people were killed and no one blinked. – Oh! – Which is why we’ll just park the car inside and sleep in a tent. Eyüp Bey will pitch it for us. In the morning we’ll get up early and hit the road.”

  “And what if the hungry Libyan refugees slit our throats in the middle of the night, Madam Lilla?” said Maryam.

  Like a general evaluating the concerns of a ranking officer, she answered gravely.

  “There aren’t any Libyans in this camp. Just people from all over Africa. Ethiopians, Nigerians, Somalis…”

  “Great,” said Amira, “they’ll eat us whole.”

  “Ugh!” I said, springing to my senses, the racist comment serving as shock therapy. But Amira and Maryam ignored me because they were Africans. “You wait here,” said Madam Lilla. And without giving us the chance to rebel, she brazenly walked off in a cloud of dust. Eyüp Bey went after her. She went into the closest tent. Leaning against the car, we waited. One by one the stars flickered into the night sky. It was getting cooler. Maryam was running the tip of her boot through the sand. I took a handful of the stuff. Lost in thought. It was as fine as silk. Unlike dust this wasn’t hiding a thing. Every grain was nothing but the whisper of people dying millions of years ago. Flecks of nothing, as light as air. Of course such a land would have such a god…”

  “Just look at us… It’s all your fault,” said Maryam.

  “It’s too late,” said Amira. “No reason to grumble about it now. It’s night and we’re in the middle of the desert. Don’t make this any more difficult.”

  That’s as far as it went. Half an hour later Madam Lilla, Eyüp Bey and two large black men come over to the car. Without even looking at us the men fling open the boot, pull out a yellow tent and start pitching it near the camp gate. The sound of rock against the metal spikes echo over Africa as thin dark shadows of all different sizes come out of the other tents. Men and women and children come out and line up outside the tents. No one says a word to us, in fact no one says anything at all. When they had finished pitching our tent the dark shadows slipped back into their tents as if nothing had happened. Everything was done. Like a dream you want to keep dreaming and then it slips through your fingers. Eyüp Bey sat down at the front of the tent with the two men. We lay down and started to roll into sleep. Just as I was drifting off, I said, and I don’t know why this came to mind: “Is erguvan an Arabic word?” As if she had been expecting the random question, Amira quickly answered, “No. And nearly no one in this county knows the Arabic name for erguvan.”

  She let out a strange sound, like someone trying to laugh through her tears. Then we were silent again. The sound of our breathing blended into a soothing magical lullaby or maybe we were entranced by the concern that everything was just a dream. In my dream that night we were surrounded by centipedes, scorpions and snakes. Circling around but never touching us. I think all three of us slept soundly until dawn. In the morning we woke to Madam Lilla caressing our hair. Then like a commander up at the crack of dawn, she said, “We’re off!”

  When we finally really woke up we found ourselves in a village coffeehouse sipping coffees and nibbling on croissants with sour expressions on our faces. ‘Colonialism is such a strange thing,’ I thought to myself as I looked down at my croissant. Why in the world were we eating croissants in the middle of the desert? Surely these people had their own bread before the French showed up. How could they forsake such a thing? And when? If you could do that wouldn’t you forget your own gods, just a little? If you consider a bread crumb a godly thing… Then my wandering mind slipped into focus.

  “What did you give those men to get them to look out for us last night?” I asked Madam Lilla.

  “A few telephone numbers, a few names,” she said. Faking a light cough, Maryam leaned into my ear and said, “I’m telling you the woman’s an agent. If she’s not crazy she’s a spy! For sure.”

  I pushed her. “What phone numbers?”

  “Friends’ numbers. Old friends who work at the United Nations. When Somalis are next in line, Nigerian refugees can’t get permission to cross into a third country. People in the West rate their success stories against the tragedies of people like us. Now the Somalis are all the rage so nobody is interested in the Nigerians. I gave them numbers of people who can make things easier for them if they just pass on my regards.”

  “And they believed it?” I said.

  “And you don’t, mademoiselle?” she said. It was the first time since we had left that she sounded so defiant.

  “How do you know these people, Madam Lilla?” asked Maryam, pushing her for more answers. Madam Lilla answered briefly, “A woman on her own must have people whom she can trust,” and she changed the topic.

  “We’re late now. We need to get over the border.”

  Putting her arm in Amira’s, she walked over to the car.

  No one bothered to ask, ‘late for what?’ Eyüp Bey looked despondent, tears welling up in his eye. And the moment we all got in the car we learned why.

  “Eyüp Bey won’t be coming with us. He’ll drop us off at the border and we’ll walk across. He’s turning around.”

  Although Madam Lilla had said to this to us it seemed like she had repeated herself to help Eyüp Bey accept the grim reality. Without looking at him, she went on, “Eyüp Bey, once you are back home please do exactly what I have told you to do. In particular those matters to do with Egypt. They can be sure that we’ll arrive on time. And they need to be there if everything is to go as planned.”

  Eyüp Bey didn’t so much as nod. The two of them looked like a picture from an ancient schoolbook on Social Graces. I thought of the old bickering couple in the café in Sidi Busaid. If they were photographed they might be the negative to this image of Madam Lilla and Eyüp Bey. They were as fresh as a topic that had been sealed shut for years.

  “Now pull over and we’ll get dressed.”

  “Excuse me but just what are we going to wear?” Maryam said brusquely.

  Madam Lilla answered sternly: “I felt it would be prudent for us to w
ear chadors during our crossing into Libya.”

  As Maryam looked at me for support, I asked, “And why do we need to wear chadors?”

  “Ladies,” Madam Lilla began, leaning back in her seat. She was about to say something even more severe when I suppose she realized that we had not crossed the border and that she still needed to keep us with her.

  “Just until we meet up with friends. For a couple hours or so. I don’t suppose you want the militia to detain you at the border where they can give you a good look over.”

  “It goes against my principles,” said Maryam. “It’s just two hours, Maryam,” said Amira. “Please.” I was only concerned with how I was going to walk in a chador without tripping and tumbling to the ground. Now that would be a disaster. We drove on until we saw a crowd in the distance and then finally the sign at the border. Hundreds of luxury cars were lined up waiting to cross into Tunisia. No one was crossing in the other direction. We seemed to be the only ones enthusiastic about entering a Libya where people were rising up against Gaddafi. We stopped. We went to the back of the car as Eyüp Bey took out the chadors. In a single swoosh more skillful than a matador, Madam Lilla slipped into her chador that was the colour of an eggplant. Ours were all the same: the colour of the desert. They could have left us there in the desert and no one would have noticed. This was more like camouflage than a chador. Though chadors are already a sort of camouflage… What a great word, I thought to myself, camouflage. It’s got its own charm. It’s been like this since yesterday. My mind was in the moment but it kept slipping away to escape the reality of what I was experiencing. I wondered if everything from this part of the world would be left behind after crossing the border? I was losing my mind and maybe it would be better if I never got it back.

  “Let’s walk,” said Madam Lilla. We walked ahead. I looked over my shoulder to see her stuff an envelope in Eyüp Bey’s hand. Amira asked her what it was. With a deep sigh, she replied, “My will. But don’t worry, you’re in it. And so is the dance school.” Amira missed a step then kept walking. I looked back again to see Eyüp Bey leaning against the car, waiting, as if speaking with God. As Madam Lilla passed us she seemed to be endowed with the spirit of the last relative to the Romanov family. An eggplant-coloured woman in the desert, the three of us stumbling after her, our heads bowed, looking only at the ground beneath our feet. I heard Maryam praying, full of nervous energy. When we reached the checkpoint everything came to a halt, on both sides of the border, everyone stopped. Naturally they stopped to look at four women who had just emerged from the desert. We were about to present our passports when…

  “Call your commanding officer,” said Lilla. There was no doubt she had an incredible power over people. But the cinematic effect of four women walking right out of the desert was what really made the difference this time. We looked as helpless as we looked mysterious and, dressed in chadors, we were legitimate and entirely submissive, and, for whatever reason, this had an effect on the men the likes of which I had never seen or felt before. The militia greeted us as women in need of help. The chador isn’t all that bad then, I thought. Creates an effect you could never get from jeans. At least in a desert.

  The commander arrives. Madam Lilla begins spinning a story that leaves us flabbergasted and our jaws drop (it’s a good thing we’re all completely covered).

  “My husband has gone to the bosom of God, commander! My son and my sons-in-law crossed the border to Libya and did not come back. Poor as we are we have no passports. We need only to cross into Libya…”

  Peppering her story with compliments and winks, Madam Lilla proceeds to tell the commander all kinds of elaborate, made-up, indeed entirely far-fetched stories. And so dressed as downcast women, it takes us a grand total of seven minutes to make the crossing. We walk towards the run-down border gate where Libyan militia stands guard. We cross into Libya. Madam Lilla stops in the middle of the road. The militia are staring at us and so are the Tunisian soldiers. Everyone in the convoy desperate to get the hell out of Libya is watching this strange film. In that moment Madam Lilla is suddenly above all the lies she has been spinning and entirely sure of how we will interact with the militia, and, taking Maryam by the arm, she speaks calmly.

  “Young lady, you will take yourself seriously. Neither you nor your principles nor the secrets you keep from all of us are important. And if you think so the day will come when you will take your own life…” Looking at us all closely, she softens her voice: “Trust me. You’re setting out on the journey of a lifetime. Enjoy it while you can.”

  Ten minutes later Madam Lilla is chatting away with the Libyan militia in perfect Libyan Arabic, Amira is sipping tea and Maryam and I are looking at the modest war installation the militia have constructed at the border. Bomb fuses, broken Kalashnikovs, anti-aircraft ramps, nostalgic photographs pinned to a sign that reads Bienvenue Free Libya… The militia has been stuck here for months, and they are bored out of their minds. They pretend to question us but they really couldn’t care less about what we have to say. One is a former teacher, another an engineer and the rest are clearly down-and-out types with no work. The teacher and the engineer are just young kids. Initially they try putting on grave soldier faces but they can’t contain their joy: they have the chance to talk to someone new. They have no idea about the civil war raging in their country. The Internet is down, which is really depressing. The computers are hardly working and they can’t play video games. So we end up shooting the breeze in the middle of the desert. Madam Lilla cooks up problems to fit the character she’s now playing. And we throw into the mix whatever God gives us. Me and Amira play Lilla’s daughters and Maryam is the family bride. We are suffering, oh yes we are. Our brothers are all fighting in the civil war. Oh and we have no idea where they are. Gaddafi has brought such evil upon us… Madam Lilla’s husband is Libyan and we escaped years ago, which is why we only speak English. But when the revolution broke out… Oh because you see there is nothing like a homeland. Long live free Libya! Madam Lilla invents all the names. And when she voices them there is suddenly such love for the person, longing, she fears for them, asks after them.

  “Have you ever heard of them?”

  She asks with such sadness that we grieve with the militia. I see that Amira is deep in her role, seated with her head in her hands. If Lilla takes this any further she might cry.

  It is the first time our stories, hidden beneath these covers, are beginning to crystallize. We are on a journey with an old woman who is tracking down a man in some distant land, a man she once loved, and she is close to dying. But now she is alive and we are simply following. She is chasing someone and we are running away from something. It’s good our faces are covered: there isn’t a trace of this woman’s lust for life in any of our expressions.

  Later we see a strange, busted-up jeep covered in “Free Libya” slogans in both Arabic and English, kicking up a crazy cloud of dust. “Here at last,” says Lilla. A woman hops out of the jeep and suddenly everything that has happened until then seems as interesting as a phone bill with a detailed call list. From a distance the strange driver calls out to Madam Lilla, “Welcome, Thirina!”

  Libya

  ThreeTuareg are standing as still as statues. The helicopter above is blowing sand all over the place, whipping hair across our faces. Madam Lilla shouts:

  “Fire! Fire!”

  How did we end up here? What in the world were we doing in such a situation? Once you cross a border you have no idea how many more you keep crossing. But the desert you get lost in is the one that finds you…

  10

  “Forgive me, Thirina, I’m late. The English wouldn’t stop talking,” she said, throwing an eagle-eye over her shoulder to see Maryam to my right, Amira to my left, and me in the middle, sticking to our three-person grouping in the back seat. She asked, “Who are they?”

  “My girls,” said Lilla, wiggling out of her chador. Then, laughing, “I gave birth to them this morning and they bloomed right away!�
��

  We were racing along in a black jeep at over two-hundred kilometres an hour when Madam Lilla introduced us to the fierce warrior in the driver’s seat, whose headscarf looked like desert camouflage, she was like some kind of desert cowboy.

  “Ladies, allow me to introduce to you to Saida, the most brave-hearted of the Amazigh women. A true warrior. A woman who radiates all the beauty of her forty years. And mother to a daughter, who must be ten now, no?”

  Saida proudly nodded, her eyes fixed on the road. She was a tall, sturdy woman but her delicately defined dark face concealed all her emotions – she was that kind of woman. The palm of her dark mother-of-pearl hand only barely touched the steering wheel when she turned and although she was tall we could only see her forehead in the rearview mirror because she drove like a man, leaning back with one hand on the wheel. She probably hardly ever even looked back when she was driving. Sitting up a little she caught our eyes for a moment and greeted us with a nod. Then we heard something rumble in back of the truck. She slammed on the brakes and adjusting her headscarf like it was a cap she hopped out and walked to the back. Crawling in under the green tarp, she rummaged about pushing and shoving, her hips up in the air before she marched back to the driver’s seat. “Always the same old Kalashnikovs, Thirina. Some things never change.”

  Madam Lilla smiled at her like a cold-blooded killer.

  “Ah, that’s my girl, Saida!”

  They smiled at each other like old war buddies, alluding to a mysterious partnership. As if the word Kalashnikov was a sweet breeze from the past, Lilla twirled her hand in the air. All this would have sounded very different the night before but now the word Kalashnikov seemed a natural part of her lexicon. Turning to us, she said:

  “Ladies, you can take off those chadors. We are in our country now.”

  Our country?

  She looked at us and her face seemed a reflection of the exalted word. “Amazigh country!”