The Desert Road

I am on the road to Mecca. I hear the shuffle of sandals on the dirt track. It is still cool, still morning. I see the robes of my companions- hems dragging in dust, and hoods now thrown back to catch the sun's thin warmth. I imagine the curves of the womens' bodies as the hems of their robes sway gently with each step, and jewellry clinks softly in rythym. I see the long red scratch on my arm from my husband's advance- now dressed with a moist salve. I pray to Allah to be released from my suffering. Last night I remember the flames of our small cooking fire, and how the shadows looked like snakes. I remember the old rag used to handle the hot cooking vessels, tossed to the side, lifeless and crumpled, and how I thought it hid a mystery- a small animal or a sacred object. Then, when we'd eaten, some shadow of a servant scooped up the crumpled rag and flapped it twice, folded it and tucked it neatly away. With that, my magic disappeared. “Silly woman,” I chided myself.

Now I feel the heat of the morning rising. Waves of light distort the distant hills toward which we slowly move. The air seems to shimmer. I look at the hem of the robe of the woman walking in front of me: my huband's first wife. “Better to be fourth wife, or fifth wife than second wife,” I said to myself for the millionth time, “Second wife is shame; not good enough to be first wife, not good enough to be last wife. Second wife is nothing- just slave, just servant, just old.” Still, I am fed. I have food in my belly and a robe to wear. I must remember to be grateful for Allah's gifts.

The dirt track leads forward. All around me the earth seems now to boil like waves of water at a rocky shore. I can almost see fronds of green seaweed waving in the surf, if I soften my gaze and remember the colour of the amulet my mother wore at her heart. Sea green, she told me, was the colour. Sea green heals the heart and keeps it strong, she taught me. But I do not have that amulet; it went to my younger sister. I have no magic amulet to help my heart stay strong. I often feel it fluttering. Someday it will fail me.