Henna House (34 page)

For the rest of that day, I thought of what Rosa said. And as I listened to my own voice and to the voices of my aunt and cousin and sisters-in-law and their children, I wondered what we would all sound like if Eve our Mother or Esther our Queen, or Miriam our Prophetess or Rosa the Habbani Jewess had been holding the stick that formed the
letters that made up
our
words. But I also thought of the legend of the Habbani warriors, fighting with words. I believed everything Auntie Aminah had ever told me. I wondered how I could form my letters so that they would come out of my mouth not as air but as blades or bullets. I wondered what it would feel like to speak a weapon, and to forge a word.

W
e approached Aden two weeks later, a month and a half after we first left Qaraah. It was the springtime of 1933. We went through the main pass, down through a deep gorge, past an old Jewish cemetery with graves facing north, to Zion. We descended slowly, and then made our way through streets choked with bulky lorries, imported British automobiles, their green and yellow and red bodies pale under gauzy layers of grime, and Indian army trucks with British or Indian soldiers or Aden Protectorate Levies shoving their boots out the back. I was shocked by all this, my first experience with the truly modern world. I felt overwhelmed by the cars and the iron lampposts and the paved roads. Sana'a had been a medieval circus compared to this panoply of twentieth-century life. And Qaraah? Qaraah was a dusty-winged moth pinned to the distant past. Here was modernity. Acrid exhaust like the taste of forge smoke coated my tongue. Heavy machinery rolled by us on the road. Camels, donkeys, and horses all shared the road in a jostle of metal and flesh and voices yelling “
yalla, yalla, yalla
,” everyone hurrying each other along.

During our journey, I'd asked Uncle Barhun to tell me about Aden. From him, I'd learned that Aden is the southernmost settlement on the Arabian Peninsula—the ancient terminus for all camel caravans traveling south through Arabia, as well as the deep harbor seaport through which ships traveling between Europe and the Far East—laden with heavy goods, mercenaries, and soldiers—had passed since Roman days. Equidistant from the Suez Canal, Bombay, and Zanzibar, Aden was perfectly located to ensure its international importance. By the time we arrived, its fortunes had risen and fallen many times but it was ascendant again, the busiest port in the entire British Empire. The Royal Marines had landed in Aden in 1839 to stop pirates from attacking
British ships en route to India. With the growing importance of India in the Empire, the British needed a safe and dependable coaling station en route to the Raj. Also, the opening of the Suez Canal made Aden a linchpin in British military communications. Before British rule, Aden had been occupied by the Portuguese, the Ottomans, and the Sultanate of Lahaj. My uncle explained that each of these rulers had left its mark. He said that like a coin minted by many masters, Aden was textured, and while it looked to the future, it was also mired deep in the past.

*  *  *

We rode past hotels with expansive verandas and official-looking buildings. Then we passed a hospital, a big synagogue, a ritual bath, a school, and rows and rows of little shops leaning into one another like companionable fellows. The light in Aden was neither the ruby-red haze of Qaraah or the yellow butter of Sana'a, but bone white, as if the air itself had been bleached by the sun. We continued past streets named with English letters and finally stopped in front of a three-story house. A young woman who looked like Hani, but older and tinier, came running out of it. Edna burst into tears and threw herself at her mother, Aunt Rahel. Only twenty years old, she was already mother to four girls and one dead boy. “Oh, Mother, oh, Mother.” She let out a high waterfall sound—a laugh that had a sob for a scar. “Oh, Mother, how I've missed you all.” Or was it a sob that had a laugh for a beating heart? Edna thrust her youngest child—a curly starry-eyed poem of a girl named Noemi—into Aunt Rahel's arms.

“Oh, darling, she is a perfect cherub!” Aunt Rahel smothered the baby with kisses while Uncle Barhun took Edna's face in his hands, squeezed her cheeks, kissed her forehead, and shook her husband's hand—then quickly gave up with such formalities and hugged him as he would a son.

“We have been long on the road, and too long gone from Aden. Feed us like cart horses and water us like plants. We are parched and hungry, and I fear that we have grown uncivilized on our journey and we will make a mess of your tables for lack of manners.”

“Oh, Father, we have been preparing for your arrival. Come in; I have three feasts waiting for you, each one more scrumptious than the next.”

Soon my new cousins were embracing me. I felt as though I knew them already, from Hani's stories, even though we were meeting for the very first time.

“Oh, look at her pretty hair.” This was Edna, who I knew cared the most about beauty, but was so kindhearted that she would never begrudge a girl (myself included) her lack of it, instead managing to see even the most homely of souls as beautiful in spite of themselves.

“When is your birthday, darling? And for whom were you named?” This was Nogema, who Hani had told me was always full of questions, the family historian.

“Tell me everything about you! Tell me now, right now!” This was Hamama, who always needed to know things, but also seemed already to know them before they even happened.

I let myself be petted and cooed over. They all knew of my recent loss of both mother and father and spoke the customary words of mourning. I thanked them for their blessing, and then found myself taking stock of these new wonderful creatures. Hamama was younger than Edna, but she was taller, had a fuller figure, and a chipped front tooth. I was to learn that the henna she wore always had some version of the Eye of God hidden in surprising places. Edna, the eldest, was the most petite. Her voice was also the highest, and I would soon learn that she was the best singer. She favored delicate little conch shells in her henna designs. Nogema was only thirteen months older than Hani, and looked most like her—both had full bosoms and generous hips, but weren't as tall or voluptuous as Hamama. Nogema was partial to interlocking laurel leaves in her henna, and her forearms were awash in them. She had an alluring birthmark below her left nostril, a broader face than Hani's, darker shadows under her eyes, and a sprinkling of freckles across her nose. Hani's hair was the curliest. Hamama's was the longest, reaching all the way down her back. Edna's was the lightest, with more gold and red than brown in it. These sisters were dressed in unremarkable Adeni clothes—black and gray trousers and white tunic shirts. They wore red and blue and yellow shimmering kerchiefs and their hair peeked out of the front and cascaded out the back, so that the magnificent scarves seemed to only caress their hair, not hold it at bay.

The men all helped unload our carriages. David Haza and Nogema's husband saw to the donkeys. Little Noemi was shy of her aunt, but Hani bent down and whispered something into her ear. Then Noemi reached up her arms and let out a little laugh. She let Hani pick her up. Aunt Rahel threaded her hand into Edna's. I walked behind them into the house. They spoke with their heads bent together. Before the day was
out, the entire other Damari clan went to visit the graves of their lost twins, Naama and Asisah. And after that Aunt Rahel went often to the old acacia tree, whose boughs were indeed stooped so low to the earth they seemed to be embracing the graves, not just shading them.

That night we ate a stew made of a white fish. I had never tasted fresh fish before, and did not much like the feel of it in my mouth, but I was hungry and ate my fill. Late that first night, I sat with all four sisters on the pillows in Hamama's house. Their children had long since fallen asleep, and were arrayed at our feet like so many sleeping doves. I was too tired and too dumbstruck by the twists and turns of the road to join in. I also didn't know the rhythm, the cadence of their connection; they had been weaving their voices together since before they could speak or toddle. So I was mostly quiet and lost myself in the tendrils of their henna. But then Hamama took my face in her hands, kissed me full on the lips, and brushed the hair out of my eyes.

“So what is this I hear? You were once engaged to be married to our cousin Asaf?”

Her voice was lower, huskier than Hani's. “And he left on a long journey? How many years ago? Four? Five? Well, no worries, little chick, he will come to Aden before you leave it.”

I felt a shock in my heart, and stammered, “How . . . how do you know?”

She shrugged and crinkled up her nose in a smile. “Some people have a good sense of time, others a good sense of direction. I was born with a good sense of the stories we live. Sometimes I see ends, sometimes I see beginnings, but usually I see flashes that don't fit in anywhere. But for you, my darling Adela, I see a boy making his way past the grave of Cain and I know that he is coming here to Aden, and that he is as much your cousin as you are mine.”

My face grew hot, and I blushed and turned away. If what she said was true, my deepest wish would be fulfilled, but perhaps Hamama spoke nonsense? How could I know if she was a true soothsayer, or if she was just clever and sly enough to say exactly what I wanted to hear?

I lay awake that night, tossing and turning, struggling with my own memories, desires, and prayers. Deep in the night, I thought I heard music. Aunt Rahel had told me the legend of Cain. She said that after Cain murdered Abel, he was cursed by God to wander the earth. When Cain stopped wandering, he founded Aden. In his shame and exile he
grew lonely. When the loneliness in his heart became unbearable, Satan appeared to Cain and gave him a reed instrument. Cain played on this little flute, and the shadows lifted from his heart. Cain's grave sat at the entrance to Aden, just above the narrow mountain pass through which we, like all travelers from the north, entered the city. That night, our first in Aden, the night Hamama prophesied
Asaf's return, it seemed to me that for reasons I could never fathom, Cain himself was serenading my dreams.

*  *  *

We were quickly situated. At the time I had no idea why we were so generously treated. Years later I learned that Mr. Haza was not only speaking the truth about the Fey and Absev Company but also had another source of income. He spied for the British in Aden and had been all over the midlands before coming to Qaraah. He had supplied the British with information concerning the Sultan of Lahaj's plotting to retake Aden for Yemen. Mr. Haza had been handsomely paid for his covert services. Together, Fey and Absev and the British government settled our entire family in Crater. Uncle Barhun, Aunt Rahel, Remelia, and I were given a little three-story house just next door to Edna and Hamama, who shared a house with their husbands. Yerushalmit's and Sultana's families shared a house around a southwest corner. Hani, David, and Mr. Haza moved into a house around another corner. We were all within five blocks of one another. Uncle Barhun became Mr. Haza's partner. They managed a warehouse for Fey and Absev in Steamer Point and did business down at the harbor—running the Red Sea dhow coffee trade for their bosses in Istanbul. David began his studies with the great scribe Rabbi Aryeh Ben Ari. He also undertook the repair of the deerskin Torah, which Rabbi Ben Ari had inspected and declared “a true treasure, most worthy of restoration.” My brothers all found work in their various trades, and we counted ourselves as lucky that we were not among the impoverished refugees from the north who bunked in big sweltering open rooms on the floor of the charity hostel and who begged in the streets of Crater, hands open for alms, eyes half-closed with the shame of it.

One thing I needed to grow accustomed to was the heat. In Qaraah, we had benefited from mountain breezes, but my first summer in Aden, I learned that the heat was unrelenting. Hot sandy winds from the north
called
shamal
taught me to walk through the streets with a scarf over my face. And then came the
kawi
—cauterizing sandstorms that blinded horses and clogged up carburetors, causing lorries to stall in the middle of the road. When I commented on the heat, Aunt Rahel teased me.

“Adela, don't you know? There is a furnace buried in the bowels of Mount Sirah, and on the Day of Judgment it will burst forth, scorching souls to hell.” I learned quickly that people liked to joke about the heat in Aden. And that they rarely spoke about it without slipping a noose of dark humor around their words. The only way to stay cool was to admit that the heat was a monstrous adversary, one that would ultimately win. Edna told me another legend of a man who sent a rope down a well in Aden.

“When he pulled it up, the end was scorched,” she said. “He sent it down again, this time with a bucket. When he pulled up the bucket, the water was steaming. But his thirst was so great he took a drink, boiling his guts.”

At night, we would all go up onto the flat roof and try to sleep. The house was only three stories, but it was sturdily built and had a little garden in the rear where onions, potatoes, squash, and clematis vines grew. I lay awake deep into the night, sweating from every pore in my body. Sometimes when I opened my eyes my vision was blurry from the sweat on my eyelids. Oh, had I ever been so hot? Remelia was breathing heavily next to me, little beads of sweat above her upper lip. My aunt and uncle slumbered a few yards away. I flipped over my pillow to get the cool side, and lay there for what seemed like hours, unable to sleep, staring at the stars. I no longer felt the fire of fear in my head; the Confiscator couldn't reach me here. But I did suffer from an ache in my heart that made me dull and sluggish. I was homesick for a blighted place. I missed the dusty prayers that sustained us when the wells ran dry. I missed Masudah and her many children. I missed the dye mistress. I missed those I had already lost for good—Auntie Aminah, my father, even my mother. Here in the new-old city, I was unmoored. It was as if I risked floating up and becoming a star myself, but one with little light to shed on the glories and wonders of old creation. When the sun rose, the city came to life. The muezzin called men to prayer. Cats ran behind fishmongers, mewling for scraps. Donkey carts creaked through the streets. Lorries belched on their route between Crater and Steamer Point. Women called to their children to get away from the sides of the rooftops.