The Map of Salt and Stars

by Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar

  It’s the man with the cane, the one who doesn’t look old enough for a cane. One of his knees is braced with plaster. The other leg—my stomach churns. Below the knee, his other leg is missing.

  Abu Sayeed translates for me. “His family had an olive grove near Halab.”

  I wonder if he’s a bad man. I think of Mama shaving my head. Just in case. Huda’s brown calves, the clank of a brass buckle on asphalt.

  But I try to reason that not everybody can be a bad man, and I want to know why he’s only got one leg. So I gather my courage and ask, “What does he do?”

  “Used to do,” the man says through Abu Sayeed. “That’s what you want to know. What I did before this.” He holds up the stump of his leg, wrapped in bandages.

  “Your leg is gone,” I say, and Abu Sayeed hesitates before he translates it.

  “I was a footballer,” the man says. “A striker. Now—” He stretches his shoulders and coughs with a smirk, which I guess is how he laughs. Abu Sayeed says the rest quietly: “Now I call it a good day if I can walk without pain to the bathroom.”

  I ask, “Why are you laughing?”

  The man shrugs. His Arabic is all brown edges compared to Abu Sayeed’s honey-yellow translation. “I left my tears behind when I left my home. It’s easier to laugh, since crying doesn’t fix a limp. And life continues just the same, doesn’t it, even with one leg?”

  I don’t know what to say to that, so I put my hands in my pockets. I knuckle something hard. A rock.

  I pull out the green-and-purple half-stone, cupping my hands so it doesn’t bounce over the side. “Look what I found, Abu Sayeed.”

  I offer it to him. He squints in the green-tinted moonlight, like a thirsty kid with a glass of water.

  “It looked green in the sun,” I say, “but shadows turn it purple. Just like you said.”

  Abu Sayeed curls my fingers over my palm, trapping the stone inside.

  The ridge of skin between my thumb and my first finger tingles with excitement. Hope stabs through me like a struck match. “Is it what I think it is?” I ask him. “The stone the jinni said to find?”

  Abu Sayeed smiles, slowly. “I think inside,” he says, “you know the truth.”

  I stuff the half-stone back in my pocket, and the pitching of the ferry knocks it around. “Is it real or not? I want to know what I’m looking for.”

  Abu Sayeed pats my hand and smiles, and for the first time, his shoulders seem a little sturdier, his eyes a little less sad. “Maybe if you give it time,” he says, “you will know.”

  I picture Rawiya, hearing her father’s voice. Sparrowling. What did Baba used to call me? I try and remember his voice: Ya baba, my sapling. My daughter is as strong as a new palm. The stone bulges in my pocket. What would I give to hear Baba’s voice again?

  “And if it’s real?” I say. “Do you want to try?”

  “Try what?” he asks.

  “To talk to your son.”

  The motor sputters, red and black and angry-sounding. We jolt in our seats. The stench of burning stings yellow and brown in my nose. I grab Mama’s arm. Acid sticks to my throat.

  The boat rocks and smokes, and Abu Sayeed and the one-legged man grab the railing. Somebody yells a word in Arabic I don’t understand, and Mama whispers, “Fire.” A cloud passes in front of the moon.

  Around us, people panic and shout. Men throw boxes and satchels into the water, grabbing for coils of extra rope and loose bits of wood. People pick up deck chairs with two sets of arms and toss them over the side. They run back and forth, looking for anything they can find. I hear them shouting in Arabic: Sinking—the weight—we’ll all drown.

  My hand is a claw. I can’t see land anywhere around us. Water sprays the deck. “Mama?”

  “There’s a fire,” Mama says, biting her lip. “The engine is failing.”

  My mouth seals itself up, my head heavy, my eyes burning. A man shouts and empties crates into the water. By now I understand him: We’re still too heavy. Even the one-legged man is up now, limping to the side, helping heave over a suitcase with one hand. The smoke gets thicker, stinging my eyes. I start to cough.

  “We’re taking on water.” Mama and Umm Yusuf heave our extra bag of clothes into the dark, and Abu Sayeed tosses over his geologist’s tools. Splashes explode on every side. There’s nothing left to throw into the sea. We’re still too heavy.

  “Abu Sayeed.” I catch hold of his sleeve, my eyes watering from the smoke. “What do we do?”

  Abu Sayeed tugs me up. Everyone clusters into a knot, pushing back against the wall of bodies. People shove and scream, hauling their luggage over their heads. Mama thumps a yellow life jacket into my hands, and Abu Sayeed helps me fasten it, his hands trembling.

  My fingers shake, tugging at the strap. “Where’s yours?”

  Abu Sayeed shakes his head. “There aren’t enough for everyone. The life jackets are for little ones only.” Then he darts away toward the railing, dragonfly-quick, and snakes his hands through the smoke. He’s a cough in the shadows. “Rafts!”

  We follow the sound of his voice. Inflatable life rafts are tied to the side of the ferry, and families pour into them. Next to us, somebody heaves on a rope, and a full raft jerks down into the dark.

  “Everybody in.” Mama and Abu Sayeed help Sitt Shadid climb in. They nudge Zahra, Huda, Yusuf, Umm Yusuf, and Rahila in after her. Then Mama lifts me up over the edge, putting her foot to the railing.

  We both jerk our heads when a rope snaps. The air goes out of all of us in one sharp yelp, and my arms pinwheel in the air. The raft rocks, one corner sagging. Smoke pours up from belowdecks, and the heat makes the rest of the ropes stretch and squeal like an oboe out of tune.

  The ferry tips to one side. Wooden benches go flying, slamming into the far railing. The raft bangs against the side of the ferry, bouncing and twisting on its remaining rope.

  “It won’t hold much longer,” Abu Sayeed says. “Go.” He helps Mama over the railing with me in her arms, clinging to her neck. We drop to the floor of the raft, Mama’s burlap bag swinging.

  The ropes twist and groan.

  I reach for Abu Sayeed. “In—get in!”

  But he turns from the railing, choking on smoke. The life rafts have all been lowered now but ours. They drift on the water under us, somewhere in the far dark. The last passengers plummet into the water and swim for the rafts, leaping from the flames.

  I follow Abu Sayeed’s eyes. Across the deck is the one-legged man, trapped under one of the overturned benches. His hip is wedged against the deck, and he can’t pull himself up with only his arms. Smoke curls around him, and he coughs, reaching toward us.

  Abu Sayeed turns back to check the ropes and holds up a finger: Wait here.

  I panic and grab for the railing, catching my fingernails on the hem of his sleeve. “It’s sinking. You have to come back.”

  “As quick as I can.” Then Abu Sayeed smiles. “I didn’t tell you,” he says, “but I don’t need it—an answer from the stone, from Allah. What I needed was you, little cloud. What is most important is already here.”

  He holds his smile, his shoulders squared and strong. In that moment, he looks like he did in Baba’s Polaroids in his orange shirt. Abu Sayeed looks young again.

  I reach for him, but he ducks away under the smoke and over to the one-legged man. While Abu Sayeed grunts and rolls the bench off him, flames hiss at the ropes above the raft. The wind jostles us. Abu Sayeed slips back through the smoke, helping the one-legged man over the railing and into the raft. The ropes stretch, licked by flames. Abu Sayeed starts to lift one foot over the rail.

  There’s a crackling sound and then a loud snap! The life raft hangs in the air, and for a second, I’m weightless.

  The flames above us rush away into the stars. The deck becomes a stripe of light and heat, as far up as a thunderhead. Everything goes dark. Then the raft smacks into the water, and the waves buck under us. I go flying.

  I reach out into the
air, sucking in breath, and the sheet of wet dark lunges toward me. Like Rawiya, I had thought the open water would be flat. Instead, it’s a hundred churning knives.

  But then there’s a weight at my ankle, and the water drops away from me. Instead of plunging headfirst into the gulf, my chest bounces against the rubber rim of the raft.

  I look back. The one-legged man has me by the foot, his hand the only thing keeping me in. He pulls me back from the waves, bracing his good leg against the rubber wall.

  Up above us, Abu Sayeed’s face appears through a fog of black smoke, choking and frantic. Mama yells to him that we’re okay.

  “I can’t see you.” Abu Sayeed waves smoke out of his eyes. The wind makes froth out of the water, and the waves tower up. The raft starts to drift away from the ferry, tossing and pitching us.

  Mama yells, “You have to jump.”

  Abu Sayeed climbs up on the rail, steadying himself on the edge with his hands. He straightens, coughing. Then he pushes up with his legs and jumps from the ferry. It feels like a whole minute he’s in the air, hanging between us and the stars, a big black orb-weaver spider blocking the moon.

  But he misses the raft. Abu Sayeed tumbles down into the cold dark, landing with a spray of salt.

  “Abu Sayeed!” I cry out. “He can’t swim!”

  The sea is rough and black. Mama scrambles for a flashlight at the back of the raft, and Umm Yusuf and Yusuf paddle with their hands. We can’t see Abu Sayeed. I am desperate, clawing at the raft’s rim, screaming into the salt. Abu Sayeed’s handkerchief flutters down from the deck, and I snatch it up before it falls into the waves.

  “Abu Sayeed!”

  I shout and paddle, fighting waves thick as fridges. Mama scans the froth with her flashlight. Green light stabs over the horizon, and I taste my own tears. The one-legged man buries his head in his palms.

  Rescue boats come, crisscrossing the waves with their spotlights. Abu Sayeed’s hand reaches up toward mine through the green, way down below us, and then his fingers wind away from me into the onyx black, and he’s gone.

  The Weight of Stones

  Ibn Hakim began to stir and groan, and the dye workers crept out of their hiding places. Rawiya tried to lift Bakr, but his body was too heavy. She squatted down with her back to him and hoisted him up onto her shoulders, walking bent under his weight.

  But Ibn Hakim lay between them and the door of the dye factory. Outside, a small crowd had gathered, murmuring. Rawiya knew she couldn’t get Bakr’s body up the ladder and out the second-floor window, but she was determined to give him a proper burial.

  The only way out was past Ibn Hakim. She grunted under Bakr’s weight, stepping carefully toward the door.

  Ibn Hakim’s hand twitched for his sword, and she jumped back.

  But the dye workers, who had seen everything and knew Ibn Hakim to be a cruel and corrupt man, scurried out from behind the dye vats and spools of silk. “We will stall him,” one of them said, pushing Rawiya toward the door. “We never much liked Ibn Hakim and his thugs, and we won’t help them. Go!”

  Rawiya thanked them and ducked out as Ibn Hakim moaned and touched his head. She hurried toward the city gates. Bakr’s bulk became heavier and heavier until she thought her bones would break from the weight.

  Khaldun and al-Idrisi had already joined the servants and loaded the camels, and everyone sat mounted and ready. When Rawiya arrived, huffing, Khaldun rushed to help her lower Bakr from her back. “Rami, is he . . . ?”

  But Rawiya shook her head as shouts grew louder behind them.

  Rawiya and Khaldun lashed Bakr’s body to his camel, and Rawiya led the animal by the reins. They galloped out through the gates. They fled across the fertile plain of the Nile Delta, following the great river.

  For days, they rode hard, stopping to sleep only when it was dark. They made no fires and ate stale bread. Only by the light of early dawn did al-Idrisi scratch away in his leather-bound book, sadly sketching the cone of the Nile Delta, his usual wide and looping script now tight and slipping downward.

  On the third day, when they were certain they were not being followed, they laid Bakr down at the river’s edge. They washed his body in the Nile as the sun set, massaging its coolness into his beard and his hair.

  Al-Idrisi handed the astrolabe to Rawiya. She determined the direction of the qibla, pointing wordlessly to the southeast, so they would know in which direction Bakr’s body should be buried. Then they wrapped him in clean linens and buried him beside the blue ribbon of the Nile, lying on his side facing the qibla. Rawiya gripped the astrolabe for a long time afterward, Nile mud under her fingernails. Khaldun gently pried it from her, folding his palms over the backs of her hands.

  The whole expedition prayed over the body. Rawiya tugged out her mother’s misbaha, counting its wooden beads. Bakr’s package wrapped in brown linen lay tucked inside her pack, as heavy as the thought of her own mother’s despair. The prayers brought little comfort. Rawiya smeared the last traces of grit and mud over her heart as though a gash might open in her own ribs, as though blood might fill her own lungs. On the opposite bank of the Nile, a crocodile slid one white eyelid shut.

  The next day, they broke with the river and headed northwest toward Alexandria. They skirted the city out of fear, for they knew the caliph must have been warned of them. Within two days, they reached the coastal road that connected Alexandria to the Bedu trade hub known to the Romans as Baranis, a seaside city midway between Alexandria and Barneek.

  As they left the green behind them, al-Idrisi painted the arrow of the Nile in his book, the bursting-open of the river at Cairo, the shadow of the Pyramids at Giza behind the palms of Fustat. Gradually, his letters grew larger and more even, his waw more rounded, his mim looping wide.

  The red-and-gray steppe plunged down to the sea, bordered to the south by a plateau with steep cliffs. They traveled two weeks, slowed by sharp winds from the south that swept down from the mountains, and their food and supplies ran low. The camels grew restless.

  One afternoon, with the port city of Baranis almost in sight, the winds rose from the south and howled against their teeth. Dust poured through the mountain passes like hair through a comb. The winds carried tufts of white down that were too big for an eagle’s and, every so often, a pale feather as long as Rawiya’s arm.

  Battered by the winds and fearing that the roc intended to make good on his promise of revenge, the expedition sought shelter under the cliffs. The roc did not come, but neither did the sandstorm lift. With every break in the dust, the landscape shifted. Whenever they left their shelter, they would find they had gone in circles or had changed direction, heading back toward Alexandria. Then the servants would curse the desert and murmur of jinn, whispering terrified prayers. Many times, Rawiya and her friends sat down and wept from frustration.

  Finally, al-Idrisi spotted a group of figures through the curtain of dust. They fought their way there, leading their groaning camels. When the dust fell away, they stood hunched before a group of men on horseback, hiding their faces with their turbans. The winds peeled back, curling around their feet like dried carob pods.

  “Hail, friends,” al-Idrisi said. “We need food, rest, and water for ourselves and our camels. We are at your service if you can help us.”

  But instead of returning al-Idrisi’s greeting, a man came toward them and unsheathed a pair of daggers. The rest of the men pulled out bows and scimitars, surrounding them with loud shouts. Their horses stamped and circled them. Flags unfurled above them, black-and-white checkers on a red field. Their leader wore a helmet wrapped with embroidered cloth, a scarlet robe, and a brown woolen cloak wrapped over his chest. His horse, black as ink, wore a matching scarlet mantle.

  “Stranger,” the leader called out, “we heard tell of Fatimid spies in this area. We are commanded to stomp out any threat to the Almohad Empire.” He eyed al-Idrisi’s saddle and their packs, the servants’ new tunics sewn from the traditional striped linen and wool of Ca
iro.

  Al-Idrisi replied, “We have not seen these unsavory characters. We ourselves are humble pilgrims, exploring God’s wonders.”

  But the leader of the Almohad troop, who had seen them approaching from the east, did not believe them. “Liars!” he snarled. “Confess your crimes at once, or it will be worse for you.”

  “Lies?” al-Idrisi said. “This is God’s truth, with not a speck of untruth in it.”

  But it was no use. Almohad scouts had seen the expedition heading west on the road from Alexandria to Baranis, and the leader was convinced of their treachery. He signaled to his men, who seized hold of their camels and pulled them from their saddles.

  The Almohad horsemen ripped open their packs and dug through the satchels of Nur ad-Din’s treasure. Ignoring the riches, they tore open al-Idrisi’s leather-bound book and his scrolls. It was not treasure they were after, but information.

  Rawiya knew right away that it was just as Ibn Hakim had warned them: she and her friends were the travelers the Almohads had been looking for.

  Indeed, the Almohad leader, a wizened old general named Mennad, had heard fantastic tales of a band of travelers led by a scholar and mapmaker, a man who was collecting all the knowledge of geography and culture from the Mashriq to the Maghreb. Mennad knew that these travelers must have maps of the Fatimid lands, information he could use to the advantage of his people. Mennad had long been planning an attack to push back the Fatimids, who wanted to regain control of the shores of the Gulf of Sidra and the city of Barneek from the Almohad forces.

  The Almohads shouted in triumph when they found al-Idrisi’s book of notes and sketch maps. Mennad snatched it up and snapped through its pages.

  Now, Mennad was experienced in the ways of war. He had fought many battles and earned long spools of scars down his face, his arms, and his ribs. He had defended his men in battle many times. But Mennad knew that the Fatimid armies were strong, and he needed an advantage. He was a shrewd man.