The Sand Fish Read online

  She was too tired to fight. Too much had taken place in too little time: the sting of betrayal, the hurt of false promises, the pain of loss. And now, as she sat alone in that hut of tightly packed stones, as she faced banishment, she tried to pinpoint when it had all begun. And almost at once, she remembered the sand fish.

  2

  In her mountains, at the tip of the Arabian Peninsula, the earth was more often thirsty than not.

  Noora Al-Salmi climbed to the top of the ridge that rose above her home and walked to its edge. She ran her eyes along the barren cluster of fractured peaks. In the west, the same clouds she’d spotted every day for the past week were gathering once more, taunting her from afar. On this dawn, they were darker and she could tell there was rain in them.

  She licked her lips and swallowed the dryness in her mouth. She was desperate for the rain they carried. This heat, the heat of 1950, had lasted a full nine months, the longest she could ever remember. The sky had dried at the same time as her mother’s death through a mysterious illness, which ate up her strength and shrank her to skin and bone. Now, the water in their well tasted brackish. And soon it would dry up completely.

  Noora sighed and turned away. And just then a sudden gust blew her shayla off. She chased it as it danced and twirled in the air, rushing with the wind that carried it, feeling that hope was running along with them, too. That wind could blow those bloated clouds over her home. It could build up into a mighty storm, and the rain that fell out of them would somehow find its way into her family’s well.

  Her shayla floated along the side of the ridge and landed on the tangle of branches of a lone acacia tree. It was then, just as she plucked it off the tree’s thorns and placed it on her head, that she spotted the skink, basking on the gravel to one side of the tree.

  She thought she’d seen every creature in her mountains, but this one was different. More snake than lizard, it had no pronounced neck, only a thinning of the body at both ends: a long wedge-shaped snout with eyes on the side and a short tail that tapered to a fine point.

  “Sager,” she called, and when her brother did not answer, she called him again.

  He arrived just in time to catch it slither onto a small rock that rose between the acacia and the ridge. It moved like a snake, too. “It’s a sand fish,” he said.

  “A sand fish?” said Noora, rounding her eyes at him with a slight jealousy at his knowledge. “What kind of name is that?”

  When he did not answer her, she turned back and examined the skink again. It was slightly larger than her hand, its body covered with smooth, shiny scales. Even in the muted dawn light, its back shone a brilliant yellow, with black-brown bands along its length.

  “I don’t know what it’s doing here,” said Sager.

  “Warming itself, of course.”

  “No, you don’t understand. There are no sand fish here. They live in the desert.”

  Noora snorted. “Sand fish, what names you make up.”

  “They’re called that because they leap in the sand and swim in it,” he said, making moving humps with his hand. “Wait, I’ll show you.”

  “Don’t…”

  But it was too late. Sager was already stooped under the acacia. His ghitra, turbaned so neatly, got caught in the tree. Out tumbled his curls—and they got caught, too. Those fine ringlets: more and more, they became the only softness she could see in him. He was built as solid as a boulder. His skin was coarse and had none of the gold that lightened Noora’s complexion. Instead, what gold he had speckled his eyes, just like their father’s. But the tiny dots in Sager’s eyes were mostly hidden in the shadow of his protruding forehead.

  Noora began giggling as she watched him spit curses at the acacia. The more he twisted and wrestled, the tighter the tree embraced him. “Sand fish, really.”

  “Why am I even bothering?” he said, finally managing to free his hair. As he crawled out, his mouth curved into a squiggle that pulled with it the fine line of wispy hair that was waiting to turn into a mustache. “Why am I wasting my time with you when I have so many responsibilities?”

  Again, that big word. That manly word. Responsibilities: how important it made him feel! More and more, he liked to throw it at her, like a spear aimed to pierce her throat so she could not answer back. “There’s still our father,” she said. “He is still the head.”

  “Not always,” Sager said, tightening his ghitra back onto his head and brushing the dust off his dishdasha, the loose-flowing robe men wore. “Now that his mind is more out of this world than in it, I have to think for this family. I have to make all the important decisions.”

  She was about to answer back when another blast of wind blew into them. It shook the tree and startled the skink. The sand fish dove into the wall of the ridge and hit its snout.

  Noora gasped, and suddenly she and her brother were making a dash to either side of the acacia to see what they could do, which only made the sand fish panic more. Again and again, it tried to escape in the only way it knew how. Stuck in a place it shouldn’t be, again and again it smashed its nose—and Noora felt its pain: a dull pinch just below her navel, in the deep of her belly.

  “We’ve got to do something,” Noora called to him.

  “It won’t make it,” Sager called back. “There’s nothing we can do.”

  There were ribbons of blood, fine as silk thread, streaking its nose and a gash in the shimmer of its yellow back. Noora was sure it would lose its tiny toes as she watched it scrape the hard rock. It was trying to swim through!

  “Do something!” she ordered.

  Sager pushed his arm between the tree and ridge and tried to grab it. Once, twice, his hand closed on it, but it slithered out of his fingers, and finally the sand fish dove into the acacia.

  Noora shrieked. It was twisting in midair, unable to land—trapped—its tail pierced by one of the tree’s thick needles. Sager thrust his arm through and finally caught it.

  “There, there, there.” Noora cried, pointing him farther up the valley, where the earth was crumbly, easier to sink into. “Take it there.”

  But the wriggling, bloody sand fish would not stay still. It slipped out of Sager’s grasp and clambered onto his chest, taking a leap in the air in what Noora was sure would be its last. She cupped her mouth to stifle her squeal.

  In the air, it spun and twisted. On the gravel, it landed with a smack. The impact ripped off a section of its tail, which flew to one side and started to slice the air blindly.

  But the sand fish was alive. The sand fish was hobbling up the mountain.

  “Come on, let’s go,” Sager said. “We have to go get the water.”

  After the trauma it had been through, Noora wanted to make sure the sand fish reached the softer earth. “Let’s just see…”

  “Look,” Sager said. “As long as we’re around, it’ll try to escape, try to hide in that same way. It’ll ram its head till it kills itself. Let’s just go.”

  3

  They set out with the first arrow of light. Noora was carrying a goatskin bucket with a long rope attached to its handle, and just like her brother, she had slung two water skins over her shoulders. They flapped against her waist as she led the way up the gentle slope of their mountain. All the while, she tried to spot the sand fish.

  “How do you think it got here?” she asked once they’d reached the broad, flat plain at the top.

  “I don’t know,” Sager said, remaining a few steps behind her.

  She stopped and turned to face him. “I mean, the desert is so far from here.”

  “It’s not important,” he said, his face as rigid as stone—a young face trying so hard to look old. “And who cares anyway.”

  He did care though. She had seen the anguish on his face as he’d tried to save that wretched creature. His features had crumpled as if he had squeezed the juice of a bitter lime into his mouth. But now he was putting on another face, one that could hide his emotions, one that would prove him a man.


  Noora watched the loose stones tumble under his feet as he stomped past her. That march, so determined, was telling her he was leaving his boyhood frivolity behind.

  He’s so serious with me nowadays, thought Noora, as she followed him. She understood that Sager worried about their family, his sense of duty, now that their father was slipping into another world. But why he was pushing her away, she could not understand.

  “We are so alone, so isolated,” she muttered to herself. “That should be enough to keep us always close.”

  “What?” he said, throwing a cool glance at her over his shoulder.

  “Nothing.”

  They stopped at a sharp decline, which overlooked a cluster of desert acacias. There, behind the trees, was their hidden water source: an ancient cistern hollowed out of the rock.

  Sager pulled his dishdasha just over his knees and knotted it at the waist before zigzagging his way down. Then Noora did the same with her dress and prepared to descend sideways. It was the safest way.

  As she stretched her leg down, her serwal ripped, exposing her knee and shin. She twitched her brows into a scowl, as if her tightened face might somehow pull together the gash, make whole the little, pink flowers that sat on the washed-out blue fabric. It was then that she spotted Sager’s disapproving look.

  “Hide your legs,” he ordered.

  “It’s a rip,” she cried. “I’ll fix it when I get back, but I’m not pulling my dress down. It might get stuck under my feet. Then I’ll trip and fall.” She started to mimic the irritation in his voice. “And anyway, why are you looking at my legs, being disrespectful like that? Just turn away. Don’t look.” She caught the rush of blood to his cheeks before he dropped his eyes to the ground—and Noora snorted her joy at having ended his bullying. Sager turned to the trees, but she hadn’t finished yet. She slid down the crumbly bits of gravel at the end of the descent and slammed into her brother’s back.

  Sager stumbled and fell, his head just missing the thorny limbs of the acacias. Noora gasped and slapped her mouth. She hadn’t intended that. It was meant to be a playful shove. When she bent over to help him up, he elbowed her away.

  “The problem is you don’t know when to joke and when not to, what you should take seriously and what you shouldn’t,” Sager said, as he got up.

  “I didn’t mean to push you like that.”

  “It doesn’t’ matter. This…this…the way you are, it just won’t do.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Look at you…,” he began, waving all five fingers at her. Then he paused and the pout of his mouth was filled with mortification, a shamed aversion to what he was about to say. “You’ve got curves,” he blurted. “Everywhere!” He swung his arms in the air. “You’re not a girl anymore; you’re a woman. Those curves are there to remind you to stop running and jumping, for you to slow down and turn domestic. So start acting like a woman.”

  Noora gaped at him. “And if I am a woman, what does that mean? What happens now?” She pulled her shayla over her face and let it drop to reveal only her eyes. She knew Sager would not see the humor in her exaggerated act of vulnerability, but she continued anyway. She fluttered her lashes, slowing the movement till it turned into a demure glance at the ground.

  “You see? I can’t even talk to you,” he said. “You look a mess. You don’t even comb your hair in the morning. You’re like a savage that fell in mud.”

  Noora felt her ribs shake with the rattle in them. The first light of day was quickly turning into a dawn of confrontation. “Well, what do you want me to do then?”

  “Stay at home more,” he said. “Do all the things women are meant to do; leave the hard work for us men.”

  “So,” she said, her eyes narrowing, “what are you saying? Are you saying you’d rather carry four water skins filled with heavy water all the way back, instead of two? Are you strong enough?”

  “I’m saying you should change your ways. This drifting all over the mountains like a tribesman, it has to stop.”

  “Why?”

  “Because…because it has to. You’ve got to start carrying yourself properly. You don’t want people seeing you and thinking you’re a crazed woman.”

  “What people?” She looked up at the violet tips of the mountains. “Do you see anyone?” Noora knew they were quite alone. The closest community lived a full morning’s walk away, in Maazoolah. As for passing caravans, she would have spotted the flickering stars of their fires on her walk up, and if it were the rare, lone traveler who happened to venture into the uncertainty of her mountains, he would have followed the unwritten laws of peaceful intentions by quickly making his presence clear: arriving when there was light and setting up camp in an exposed part of the mountain. That was the best way of avoiding a surprise attack, which could take place at any time and from any one of the many isolated tribes of the Hararees, the name loosely given to the mountains which likened the rugged tips to silent sentinels.

  Few persons traversed the hostile peaks they lived in the middle of, preferring to take a more roundabout way on their journeys from desert to coast and back. They dreaded coming face-to-face with the ancient residents of the Hararees. The approach of strangers was discouraged through long howls that reverberated, bouncing off the sides of the sheer cliff faces, to give the desired impression of an aggressive army ready to attack from hidden positions. Little did the traveler realize that the mountain men had only one dread, a dread born through the need to protect their water.

  Sager snarled and grabbed the water skins and the bucket. “I’m not going to waste my breath on you,” he said.

  “You don’t have a right to tell me anything,” she said. “I am older than you.”

  He didn’t answer, only squatted under the umbrella crowns of the acacias to make his way through.

  “Only abbah can tell me what to do,” she called after him, the defiance in her rising the farther away he got. “He’s our father, the leader of this family.”

  She heard Sager snicker before disappearing into the darkness of the hollowed rock face.

  “I’ll carry myself the way I want,” she shouted at him. “I’ll walk the way I please and sit any way I like.” And with that, she slumped to the ground and, supporting her weight on her palms, kicked her legs out in front of her. It wasn’t very feminine, but she didn’t care.

  She heard her brother grunt, and she knew he was shoving the large stone that covered the cistern. They always pushed that stone together, but this time Noora was not going to help him. “Let him do it on his own, the big, strong man,” she muttered.

  Why did Sager care so much about the way she looked or carried herself? With the exception of his recent rebukes, no one else bothered. Her home was a paradise of informality with no rules and no society to draw that fine line that separates acceptability from shame.

  She heard the thud as the stone shifted, and then the crackle of the smaller rubble under its bulk. And her fury rose. He was managing without her. “And besides,” she shouted at him again, “I’ve tried. You know I’ve tried, and it didn’t work.”

  Sager didn’t answer.

  She was nodding to herself forcefully. It was true. She really had tried.

  Once, many years ago, when she had first shown signs of womanhood, her mother had tried to instill in her some of the softness and modesty of women thought desirable by society. Fatma had told Noora to take smaller steps when she walked, to talk in a gentle voice, and, rather than laugh, to look down and giggle discreetly. Fatma had explained that when, one day, Noora got married, she would have to follow the rules of her husband’s household.

  Noora had found her mother’s list of advice fascinating, and for a while, she had put her heart into her walk and her voice, preparing for her future matrimonial life. When she fetched the water, she would lift a corner of her dress and proceed with tiny steps up the mountain. The journey took her twice as long to complete. Then she had tried to call her brothers for lunch with her most del
icate voice, but they never heard her. And so, she would twist that same little corner of her dress and tiptoe down to find them. That took longer than usual as well. Finally, there was the laugh. She practiced averting her glance to the ground and letting out a shy giggle. But by looking down, she missed all the funny expressions her father made, which left her frustrated and angry. These women must be angry all the time, she had thought.

  And then, her mother introduced another set of instructions, concerning Noora’s looks. Noora was to undo her plaits three times a day to comb her hair and keep herself neat and dust-free.

  “But it doesn’t need so much care, ammah,” Noora had objected.

  “Yes it does,” her mother had answered. “You take care of your eyes, don’t you, lining them with kohl like the rest of us. So why not your hair, too? You don’t want it falling off, do you? To keep it strong, you must take care of it, rub sesame oil in it.”

  “And what am I supposed to do about the dust? It is all around me.”

  “Make sure you shake it off your clothes more often.”

  And so, Noora had combed her hair, drenched in sesame oil, every morning, noon, and evening. In between, she wiggled in her dress to shake the dust off. All the while, she felt the silly walk, soft voice, pitiful giggle, flyaway hair, and treacherous dust made her life more complicated than it needed to be. To make matters worse, her efforts fell on blind eyes. She received no praise or encouragement from her father or brothers.

  Finally Noora gave up and returned to her old ways. She decided she would follow the rules of modesty when the new husband came along. Till then, she was content in knowing what needed to be done. Fatma seemed satisfied as well. She had done her duty as a mother, and now she could forget the subject altogether. Like Noora, it seemed she had decided there were more important concerns.

  Yes, she had tried.

  Noora yawned. She was calming down now. She felt another rip as she stretched her arms above her head. This one was smaller, a mere hole along the seam just under the arm of her flowered red dress. She sighed. The only part of her mother’s lessons of womanly ways that proved useful and that she excelled in was sewing. Her fingers moved quickly and precisely when she sewed, leaving behind a strong line of stitches neater than a trail of marching ants.