Angels at the Gate (18 page)

Despite my fear, my heart warms at Mika's brave words. He towers over Yassib, but he still favors his leg, while the desert man is no doubt swift and his blade at hand. I glance about the fire at the young men watching the drama. All are armed, most with more than one weapon. These are men hardened by a harsh land. They seem confident in Yassib, but should Mika harm their grandfather and leader, I have no doubt there would be many knives and swords at his throat in an instant. Everything depends on what words I put in Mika's mouth.

“My customs,” I say, “are not as yours, yet I ask you to stay your hand and let me answer you.” Despite the recent tang of fermented milk, my throat is dry as dirt. When did the girl see me relieving myself? Why have I not prepared for this moment and thought of some explanation?

“Answer then,” Yassib says, and I hear nothing but death in his voice.

Mika needs no further prompting from me. “I come from distant land.…”

I do not pay attention to his words, only to the cadence. When he stops, Yassib flicks his eyes toward me, indicating I have permission to translate. I have ceased to exist to him as a human being. I am only a woman, a woman who has deceived him and violated his customs.

“Men seek our lives,” I say with sudden inspiration. “Powerful men. They have stolen my brother and now they pursue me and my wife.”

Yassib's knife lowers slightly. “Your wife?”

I look to Mika, and he babbles on about rivers and green hills on an island across the sea.

“Yes. These men look for me and my wife. That is why you found us alone in the wasteland with no provisions. We had to flee. I instructed her to wear a man's clothing to confuse them when they ask if we have been seen. She is obedient to my wishes.”

For a long moment, Yassib stands where he is, breathing slowly, as if to regain control of himself. Finally, he slips the dagger back into its elaborately decorated sheath. “Why did you not tell me this?”

Mika's posture relaxes slightly, but he keeps his position. “By goddess, I wish I knew what is happening, but I suppose my part is just keep talking. You seem to be handling it, Adir.”

I clear my parched throat and speak formally to remind Yassib of his obligations. “Excellent host who has granted us the hospitality of his tent and his protection, I did not wish to bring danger to you and your family
and so I kept this from you. I ask your forgiveness and that you allow us to continue to deceive our enemies.”

Yassib takes a deep breath and extends his arms. “You are my guests. Forgive me for my anger. Your enemies are my enemies.”

Mika allows himself to be embraced and does fairly well at keeping the bewilderment from his expression.

Uriel, the holy angel who was with me, who is their guide, showed me, and he showed me all their laws exactly as they are.

—Book of Enoch

P
ERHAPS IN PENANCE FOR DRAWING
a knife on his guest, Yassib allows me to continue to wear a boy's clothing and sleep on the men's side, but my mat is moved between Mika and the divider weaving. At the first opportunity, Mika asks me, “What happened in the tent? I only understood a few words.”

I open my mouth to tell him, but what emerges surprises me. “I made an error and insulted Yassib.”

“How?”

“It was a language issue. Not intended.” Where did I learn to lie so glibly? Perhaps when my father first caught me sneaking out of the tent to ride Dune?

“Is this why you moved sleeping position?”

“Well, I did not do that. I think Yassib had Mana do it. I gather he wants me further away from him. He has not completely forgiven me.”

“I notice he avoids you now.”

I nod.

“This is not good. Adir, you must be careful.”

Oh, how many times had my father said those words? “Yes, I promise. I will.”

Why do I not tell him the truth?

I am not certain of the answer. I desire to shed the persona of a boy, but now I am trapped. I cannot dress as a woman because of the story I gave Yassib that dangerous men pursue us. So now I am pariah—both the men and the women avoid me as if I am diseased. Everyone but Shem.

“Are you really a girl?” he asks me, peering at my chest to see if there are breasts hidden behind the folds of cloth.

“Yes-yes,” I say, and he smiles, recognizing his own favorite phrase coming back to him.

The smile at once transforms into a frown as another thought occurs to him. “Then I am not supposed to talk to you.”

I frown too. “I think you have another year or two before that is a problem.”

He looks affronted and then relieved. “Good, because I like you.”

“I like you too, Shem.”

W
E BEGIN THE
trek northward for the summer. We camp only long enough to graze and rest the herds. The sheep and goats and people need the rest more than the camels. A camel is at home in the desert, storing food in its hump and able to go for days without water.

Gradually, my status has changed to one of tentative acceptance. Everyone seems to find comfort in forgetting I am there, or I am a woman, or alternately, a boy, depending on where I am and who I am with. I live as both boy and girl with the tribe of Yassib. As Adir, I help watch the camels, sitting with Shem and the other boys, listening to their tales of heroes and how they will grow up richer and more powerful than any before them.

Shem has his own small bow and practices daily. Yassib has told him he must bring down game before he can fly a hunting bird. He teaches me the hunting signals for Nami, for which I am very grateful, and she is excited that I am now “saying” things she can understand. Shem tries to teach me to use the bow, but I am clumsy with weapons. Perhaps I should have hidden my distaste for Chiram and let him teach me about knives.

As Adira, I sit with Mana and the other women, and they show me
how to weave on the flat looms that sit just above the ground. I have always had an eye for texture and pattern, but never imagined I would have the patience to work the threads. At first, I chafe at it, but I am determined, and when my fingers finally learn their task well enough, I find it soothing.

Rarely do the women work in silence. Their talk is a constant flow, though I am not included. How can I be? I do not know the dilemma of what to do with a childless bride, whose daughter needs to be wed, or the finer details of how personalities tangle a disagreement.

On a day I feel I have finally mastered the weaving knot and can keep up with at least the slowest, when Mana's oldest daughter, Petra, looks my way with a cock of her head. “And how did you marry, Adir? Were you both bride and groom?”

My fingers freeze over the loom. The other women fall silent. I snatch a breath. This is the first overture … or insult. For the most part, the woman have ignored me. I look directly at Petra. “Indeed, I gave myself a bride price.”

There is a shared pause, and then the tent rocks with laughter. The sound washes warmth over me. I am a part of something I have never experienced before—the bonding of women. Women, I have learned, speak of their lives, sharing details and feelings that men do not. And now, I am one of them, despite my clothing and the fact I sleep on the man's side of the tent.

The women are the physical manifestation of the nomad tribes' honor. They bear this burden with easy acceptance. For a girl to violate tribal custom, even if forced upon her, would bring dishonor on the clan and tribe, and that would be intolerable.

At first I believed all the power rested in the hands of the men, but listening carefully, I begin to recognize that many opinions or decisions I hear as Adir in the company of the men originate around the looms and cook fires. The elder women hold the future of the tribe in their hands, for they are the ones who discuss and determine who should marry whom.

I tell Mika I sit with the women to learn more about the art of weaving to increase my knowledge of cloth and my acumen as a merchant. He shrugs and says I do not have to answer to him as to what interests me. In turn, he spends much of his free time with the shaman who knows a little
trade Akkadian, filling in with gestures when the shaman's knowledge of the language fails him.

Sometimes I interpret. The shaman never inquires as to our status or mentions the fact I am a woman. And Mika never belittles the shaman's beliefs or ways, seeking instead the common threads in their practice of medicine and religion. Through our conversations, I have concluded it was not the beliefs of Sodom that bothered Mika, but the fact that the populace emulated the holy rites, and he suspected the intention of all was not to engage in a holy act, but to take advantage of the custom. Or perhaps his time in the desert has altered him and caused him to judge less harshly.

Here, with the shaman, he finds a culture that, similar to his, looks to the stars for guidance, and the morning star is a goddess to both peoples.

This seems right to me. El is the god of my people and the creator of all, the highest god, yet every people my father and I encountered have their own gods and spirits. Who am I to say they do not exist, merely because they are not mine?

D
URING THE MATING
season of the camels, I am especially glad to have the reprieve of weaving. I am used to the stench of goats at such times, but that fades in comparison to male camels in rut. Mika is particularly offended, having little experience with camels. “What is that terrible smell?” he asks, holding the edge of his headdress over his nose.

I point to the bulbous, swelling neck glands on the bulls' necks. “What is wrong?” I tease. “The female camels, the cows, find it irresistible.”

He scowls at me.

Another source of the stench comes from the bulls beating their manhoods with their tails and then flicking the scent onto their backs. When they do this, they become aggressive, attacking other bulls for supremacy. Shem and I have to pull Mika back the first time he sees them wrestling, each wrapping his long neck around another's until one is forced to the ground. It is an amazing sight, and I understand Mika not thinking about the danger. In this, he reminds me of myself, but at least I know better than to approach wrestling bulls!

W
E ARE SOON
to reach the refuge of the cooler highlands where we will spend the remainder of the summer. I busy myself on the morning of one of our last traveling days, helping to take down the tents, a woman's job. Mana appears apprehensive about something. Finally, I ask Shem what he thinks is wrong with his grandmother.

“She is good with the weather. Perhaps a storm comes.”

I look up into the turquoise pan of sky. Not even a wisp of cloud is visible.

He shrugs.

On travel days, meals are quick affairs of flatbread and the milk-butter curd. By late morning, everything is ready to load onto the camels and to begin the trek to the next waterhole. The beasts are milling just outside the camp, and I go to watch them, Nami at my side. Shem trails a measured distance behind me, so it looks as if he just happens to be going in the same direction as I, and not actually following a girl.

I sit on a stone a little distance from the herd and watch them, a breeze wafting their scent to me. Nami does not sit, a trait I have observed in the tribe's salukis. She plops on the ground, her head on her paws. The camels move with graceful deliberation, lifting their noble heads on occasion to check for predators. There are none that would attack a healthy camel, though a lynx or lion might stalk a calf.

As they mill about, my mind wanders.

Mika is doing well now. He has healed. I am no longer bound to stay with him or to stay here where, despite my progress with the women, I am more tolerated by the men than wanted, and I do not know where to search for Raph. It is time to honor my pledge to my father and return to Sarai. She will find a place for me among her household. I can learn to be a woman. Perhaps another will take Raph's place in my affections. I am young yet. I will wed and bear children. I glance over at Shem who sits several feet away, busy not looking at me.

Children
.

I have never thought about having children of my own. It is a concept full of mystery. How can men think women weak when they have within them the power to create life?

I consider what I have learned of the desert people, even in this short time. I wonder if their way of ignoring a girl until she marries and bears children is a way to pressure her into such a fate. Perhaps the customs that
seem to estrange women are born of a secret acknowledgement of their power and necessity.

I cradle my belly with my hand. A baby could grow there. A baby with potential to be … anything. When I die, I will have left the world something precious that will live on, perhaps bearing his or her own child, and they the same, far into the misty future. That seems a gift worthy of giving and would honor my father.

It is settled then; I will return to Mamre. Now, the only question that remains is how? I must have supplies. I eye the camels. I have the means to buy a camel, no doubt, from what my father has left me, but no access to it. Would Yassib take my word in lieu of payment for a camel, food, and water? And what about protection from raiders? How am I to manage that?