Henna House (39 page)

If only that night had lasted forever. Could I have saved Hani and Asaf by staying true to Binyamin? Or would my beloved cousins have doomed themselves anyway? I search in the thicket of the past for answers that are always out of reach. In my dreams, I follow Binyamin back to his barracks, whispering frantically in his ear that we must consummate our love before daybreak. He takes me in his arms—but the dream dissolves, and my history of betrayal begets its own betrayal with the coming dawn.

A
saf came at Hanukkah time, when the windows of the houses of the Jews of Crater were filled with hanging oil lamps, lit to commemorate the miracle of the tiny drop of oil that blazed for eight days, resanctifying the soiled Temple.

I was sixteen and he was seventeen years old. Eight years had passed since our engagement. In one version of the story of my life, Asaf became a dove that flew through the window of Uncle Barhun's house, perched on my shoulder, and pecked my ear, drawing not blood but honey. In another version of the story, when he came to Uncle Barhun's house, knocking on the door, I didn't know who he was. I mistook him for a stranger, and refused to acknowledge that in another life, on a far-off mountain, we had played husband and wife. And in yet another version, I knew him immediately, and pretended to be overjoyed to see him, but in my heart I was distraught, for anyone could see that he had come too late, and that my heart now belonged to another.

Uncle Barhun was immediately fetched from the warehouse on Steamer Point. My uncle didn't recognize his nephew, as they had never before met. When he had gathered up his wits and realized that he was standing on one of the good latitudes of life—a spiritual line that demarks charm from curse, gifts from retributions—my uncle's face quivered. He flushed red as a beet, tears came to his eyes, and he sank to his knees, exclaiming with such loud joy that everyone in the street came running to see the commotion.

When he had sufficiently recovered, Barhun said, “You are my dear brother's son, and now you are my son too.”

Asaf was taller than Barhun, but Asaf tilted his head respectfully in a way that made it seem as if he were not looking down, but up, at his uncle. Soon everyone was crowding into our house—Aunt Rahel
and my brothers and sisters-in-law, my cousin, and their husbands and all the children—they all came to see Asaf, our very own Hanukkah miracle.

There was a resemblance between Asaf and Uncle Barhun. Aunt Rahel was the first to mention it. She said, “This boy is your mirror-child, Barhun,” shaking her head in wonder. “Coined as if from the mint of you.” It was true. Both had heart-shaped faces, high foreheads, curly black hair. Uncle Barhun's was thinning, but Asaf's tumbled out of his cap. I hadn't noticed the resemblance when Uncle Barhun first came to Qaraah, but of course the Asaf I remembered was a boy, and the Asaf now in front of me was a man. His face had grown into itself. I took an accounting. Their noses were crooked (Asaf's upturned nose had been broken in the intervening years, but now it was as roguishly charming as Barhun's), their lips were thin. Why, each even had a scar on his brow. It was as if they had weathered the same storms, even though they had only just met. But there was something else. Asaf, like my uncle, was unabashedly handsome.

The night Asaf arrived I was supposed to meet Binyamin for a walk in Steamer Point, but I sent word that I couldn't come because I was busy with household duties. The next day, I made another excuse—that I had to help Nogema, who was pregnant. On the third day, Asaf caught me looking wistfully out the window. We were alone in the house. Aunt Rahel was out back in the garden.

He bent toward me and asked, “What are you sorry about, Adela?”

“Nothing,” I lied. “I am sorry about nothing.”

“Your expression tells me otherwise.”

I didn't look at him when I asked, “Have you heard about the dance of the jambia?”

“No, I haven't.”

“A native custom, it's gruesome but impossible not to watch.”

He gently touched my chin, tenderly forcing me to look at him. “What makes you think about it?”

“My mind is just wandering, that's all.”

“You always were a dreamer, Adela.”

“What are you talking about?”

“In your cave, you would imagine whole worlds, wouldn't you?”

“No, I would imagine only this world, and the way I fit into it.”

“Do you remember, Adela, when we—”

I cut him off. “I remember nothing of those days, Asaf. How about you? Do you trust
your
memories?”

He didn't answer me. I let him kiss me, even though it wasn't the least bit proper. His lips were rough against my own and he smelled like his travels—spicy and foreign and improvised.

I was false to Binyamin. A coward, too. I broke off my connection to him by messenger. We were not yet engaged, so it was as simple as that. My brother Hassan went to him in the barracks in Ma'alla at my behest. Hassan did me an act of great kindness by sparing me the details of their exchange. After it had been accomplished, Hassan said, “The musician is an ugly man, Sister. A crude Esau to our Asaf's fair Jacob. You chose well. And our dear mother, may her memory be a blessing, would approve of your steadfastness. You do her a great honor by staying true to the old contract and marrying our cousin, which was, after all, her intention.”

Hani was the only one to question my choice. She took me aside, held me close by the shoulders, and spoke to me in urgent tones. “Are you sure, Adela? Is this really what you want?”

“Of course it is.”

“Don't lie to me.”

“I'm not.” I began to feel angry. “Hani,” I said, “I've always loved Asaf, before you ever knew me. He was there . . . he was there first.”

Then I almost told her that when we first met, Asaf was wearing a red cap and we were both missing our two front teeth. I almost told her about the first time I ever saw him riding Jamiya, and about how he had once played a valiant boy-Moses at our Passover seder. I wanted to tell Hani that Asaf and I had been innocents together and that it was our sweet innocence that filled my heart now and that bound me to him—not what came after. But none of these words reached my lips. Instead, I remained silent, and pulled away from her. Hurt and disapproval flashed across Hani's face; then some other unruly emotion that I couldn't quite recognize flickered in her eyes, but finally she took a deep breath, kissed my cheek, smiled, and purred, “Forgive me, Adela. I will never question your choice again. I promise.”

Why did I really agree to marry Asaf? Because for so long I had worn my engagement like armor, shielding me from the Confiscator's reach. And because my mother came to me in a dream. She pinched me under the arms, bared her gums, and railed at me, threatening me with all
manner of mortal punishments. She said, “Asaf Damari came back for you. He honored his commitment, and who are you to spit on the sacred promises of the past?”

*  *  *

How had it all transpired? I will pause in my story, because it is time for a full accounting. Here is what Asaf told me. He left Qaraah with his father in 1927, when I was nine and Asaf was ten. They went south by donkey, to Aden. From Aden they took a steamer to Port Salalah in Oman, and from Oman they sailed to Bombay. They traveled inland, and spent months on the continent collecting spices, unguents, and rare ingredients. They purchased the prized
choya nakh
essence in Uttar Pradesh, then turned around and began the long trek west. They took sail on the Sabbath of Miketz, when scripture tells us that Pharaoh had two dreams, and only our Father Joseph could interpret them. When they reached Aden, Asaf and his father sailed on a dhow for Eritrea. But in Eritrea misfortune struck, and Uncle Zecharia suffered an attack that left half his body paralyzed and killed him within a week. Asaf buried his father in Africa on land he purchased from a farmer for a small quantity of Red Sea coral. The farmer kept cows, and when Asaf was digging the grave, the cows kept him company, lowing softly as he pried the parched yellow earth loose from the rocky sediment below. Asaf continued the journey alone, trading some of his stores for passage on a felucca that sailed north on the Nile, through Egypt. Then he bought himself passage on a steamer to Palestine. He stayed in Jaffa for almost a month before sailing on a British ship to Cyprus, and from there to Turkey. He had with him, tucked in the folds of his cloak, several vials of precious
onycha
oil, distilled from Red Sea mollusks. This oil was a powerful aromatic fixative Asaf was delivering to a perfumer in Turkey, who would use it to make incense and unguents to be sold in an atelier in Paris. In Istanbul, the perfumer took a liking to Asaf and asked if he would like to stay and work in his shop. Weary of traveling, he accepted the offer, living in the back of the perfumer's shop, learning his craft. When he eventually left, he traveled even farther east, landing finally on the Greek island of Corfu, where he lived with the family of an olive farmer, bartering work in the groves for lodging and food. After a year on Corfu, he decided it was time to return for me. He regretted that he had not returned sooner, for he was possessed by wild fears and bad
dreams on his journey and was certain that his bride either belonged to another, or had already gone to the World to Come.

He reached Qaraah two years after my family and I left for Aden. What he found was wretched—my parents were both dead, Masudah was dead, my brother Dov, Masudah's husband, had lost his mind, and we were gone. The village itself was a dried-up husk of itself, a ghost-village with few inhabitants left. Asaf went through our empty house. He stood in the alcove where my pallet had been. He squatted in the place where we had taken our meals. He stood before the emptiness of my mother's big chest on the second floor—the chest that had held his father's Torah—and then he went outside and sat under the frankincense tree. Under the tree he lost himself, and cried out my name. The dye mistress heard him and gestured to him from her yard. She had stayed behind to care for her elderly father, who refused to leave Qaraah. She gave Asaf food and drink and told him where we had gone and when we had left. He went down the street to Auntie Aminah's old house. He walked past the old citrons and down the escarpment, over the culvert. He pushed back the henna bush, which had grown as big as a baby elephant, and ducked to enter the cave. When he saw my drawings, he let out a little sound, like an
ah
crossed with a moan. The chalk boy and girl on the wall heard his cry, and then told him their secrets, as if in a dream. With the back of his fingers, he caressed the cheek of the girl on the wall, and then bent and kissed her hennaed hands, which he later swore to me were warm, and not cold as stone should be.

He started for Aden that very day. His journey south took him just two weeks—much quicker than ours—because he wasn't traveling with children or women. According to scripture, Noah's flood ended in the Jewish month of Kislev. It was Kislev when Asaf reached Aden; in the secular calendar it was November of 1934. There were heavy rains in Aden that month, but the day Asaf's donkey cart passed the grave of Cain, the sky was as cloudless and clear as it must have been when the dove brought Noah an olive branch. I know because I felt the sun on my face as Asaf stood before me and once again claimed me as his own.

A
saf himself insisted that our wedding date be set as soon as possible. I didn't protest, and that is how my nuptials came to be planned for six weeks after he arrived. A few days before our wedding, Asaf and I—chaperoned by Sultana—rode a lorry to Steamer Point. In the center of Steamer Point was a crescent of shops. Behind the shops was a park, and in the center of the park stood a statue of Queen Victoria. The statue had been donated by Adeni merchants who had raised money for the purpose of building a hospital for women. Alas, they hadn't been able to raise enough, so the British officials prevailed on the leaders of the community to spend the money on a statue of the queen after her death. Since then, Victoria had reigned over Steamer Point, and all visiting dignitaries came to pay homage. I too liked to visit the statue, but for a different reason. The very first time I laid eyes on that statue, it reminded me of my mother, that monarch of joyless spite who had reigned over the country of my childhood. On a whim, I had asked Asaf to come with me to the statue, and I confessed to him that the statue reminded me of my mother.

When we reached the statue, a little yellow bird was dancing on Queen Victoria's lap. Another came. Sultana stood with us for a moment, but then went to a bench far enough away to leave us alone. Asaf picked up some pebbles and shooed the birds away. He gave a little bow and made a waving gesture. It looked to me as if he were preparing to perform some sort of foreign blessing. I opened my mouth and almost spoke, but couldn't. I had planned on saying, “Mother, here is Asaf; he came back for me after all.” I felt suddenly shy, speechless. I turned to Asaf. Who did my statue-mother see? A tall, handsome young man. Skin the color of fertile earth. Curly dark hair with long earlocks that fell below his chin and gleamed in the sun. Under his coat he wore black leggings
and on his head he had a dark, boxy felt cap wrapped around with a checkered black and gray cloth. His beard was already full enough for stroking.

Asaf broke our silence. “Adela, your mother was always slipping me candied nuts and extra legs of chicken, trying to fatten me up or keep me alive until we could marry, I suppose. And before I left with my father, she corralled me one night when the men were praying the Sanctification of the New Moon and I was hanging around your yard, shirking prayers. She grabbed my elbow, dug her fingers into my skin, and told me that I would come back for you. She said, ‘It is not a prophecy, but a fact that you are not a boy but a husband.' ”

“And are you?”