Cinnamon (12 page)

The bride was of medium build and full-bodied. Eight years older than Hanan, she visited their house frequently with her mother, Hajja Husniya al-Miwalidi, and always wearing a black
aba
. Yet that morning, the bride was sitting beside the large stone basin while two of the female attendants rubbed her back and her mother roamed the room with a censer. The incense fused with the scents of the women's bodies, the bay soap and olive hair treatment, as the figures moved like ghosts through the thick steam. Naked, the women were like divine creations, their hair flowing down as they called out to each other coquettishly with little screams and shouts, taking furtive glances at the bride's body to quench their curiosity. Their observations would be the basis of much discussion on future Damascus mornings: how round were her buttocks? Were her hips wide enough to bear healthy infants? Were her breasts full or flaccid? What about the feel of her skin, was it soft? Were her thighs strong and in proportion? Did she smell sweet?

Each body has its own odour, and it was down to the groom's mother to take the bride in her arms and capture her scent time and again. The fact that most women with Damascene origins had similar looks – pale skin and curvaceous figures – meant nothing to the family members of a prospective bride, who would bring their sixteen-year-old daughter to the bathhouse, her soft white body not yet fully developed. There the girl would provide a spectacle for the onlookers and the women would pinch every part of her body, winking at her and paying compliments. Eyes would follow the girl as she moved about slowly and seductively, while the women would imagine what she would be like in the groom's bed. That day, Hanan was amongst the girls whose role it was to accompany the bride as she bathed for the last time before her wedding night, the night of consummation.

At the bathhouse, Hanan was alarmed by her own nakedness. She tried to copy her mother, who was busy smoking
narghile
with some of the other women in the busy inner courtyard. In that moment, Hanan too became captivated by the bride, following her every move as she considered the meaning of the women's words and the glimmer in their eyes. When she stepped out of the inner chamber, the women teased Hanan, beckoning her to sit next to the bride. Anxious, Hanan looked over from the edge of the room towards her mother, who motioned to her from afar to return inside, laughing from her spot in the centre of the women, where she sat as if she were their queen. Hanan returned to sit beside the bride, who ordered a cup of cinnamon tea.

She remembered how the women had laughed at the bride's request, and how the bride had blushed with embarrassment, asking the women to back away a little and to pay attention, since their nails had left marks on her body. Later in life, Hanan would learn that sticks of cinnamon, like those which her mother put in the kettle when she made tea for the family, worked magic on a bride, giving her greater strength to bear the man's desires in their marriage bed. At this pre-nuptial bathing ceremony, the bride became aware that her request was a cause for embarrassment, as she recalled the reputation of cinnamon. The fuss was not about to die down peacefully and the bride sought refuge in a corner of the bathhouse, far from the women's stealthy glances. Barely opening her eyes, the bride asked Hanan to stay by her side. She took her by the hand and gently stroked her back, before lifting her onto her lap. The girl laughed, telling Hanan that she was a mischievous little thing. She spoke to her sweetly about the trips their families had taken together to Ghouta and about the devilish tricks of the boys hiding behind the apricot trees. Then she released her, letting her slip into the stone tub, where she began massaging her body with a strange, perfumed mud.

When the cup of tea arrived, the two girls laughed and the scent of cinnamon filled the air. From her spot below, Hanan peered at the large woman who had brought the tea. She couldn't make out her head; all she saw was a great lump of flesh dangling over her. When the woman turned around, her buttocks shook. The little girl stared at her greedily as the bride laughed out loud.

‘Mount Qasyoun's moving,' whispered the bride in the little girl's ear. Hanan giggled shyly as the bride pulled her closer, covering her back with mud as she shouted for a second cup of tea.

‘Delicious with the steam. Tea is nothing without cinnamon,' she whispered, her eyes fixed on Hanan, who had started to shiver.

The bride sipped her tea slowly, taking in the scent – the cinnamon fragrance blended with the steam and hot water, the laurel oil and the mud covering her body. Hanan wanted to go to sleep; she felt as though everything was calling her to take a little nap amongst the brouhaha. When the bride realised that the neighbour's daughter had started to nod off she slipped down to the side of the stone tub and started to splash the girl's body with the warm water, rubbing her thighs. The glimmer in Hanan's eyes grew stronger and she clung to the bride, wrapping her arms around her, startled by the abrupt awakening. Hanan began to sense a white shadow creeping into view. The bride pulled Hanan's trembling hand away from her waist and placed it over her right breast. A large pink nipple lay between the little fingers. Hanan's fingers remained frozen in place. She wanted to scream, not understanding anything that was happening. She must be dreaming, she thought, until the bride's moans told her she was awake. The head of the moving flesh mountain was peering down above her. The matron put the warm cup of tea next to the basin and left. The bride picked it up and brought it to Hanan's trembling lips, pulling the girl swiftly towards her. As she did so, Hanan caught a glimpse of the bride's deepest spot – the part that women are supposed to keep hidden, to guard more closely than their own life. As her mother would often say:

‘A girl holds her life in one hand, and this in the other...'

Could she recall what her mother used to say about how that triangular space where her legs met her body was both a blessing and a curse? It could be the rope used to hang her or the lasso she used to capture a man. The triangle nestling between the bride's legs seemed perfectly shaped, toy-like. Hanan closed her eyes but the bride pulled her towards her, to sit in her lap. All of a sudden, the bride stopped and scooped Hanan up briskly. Hanan gave a faint yelp, feeling fire burning in her veins and a stinging pain where the bride was pressing. The bride grabbed her by her buttocks, pulling her thighs apart as she moved her about violently. A suppressed moan issued from the bride's lips and in that instant Hanan felt a tremor take over her body. The potent scent rising from the warm cup stole her away from the world and Hanan fell onto the stone floor unconscious.

When she woke up, Hanan was unsure what had happened. The bride was occupied with plucking the remaining fine hairs from her stomach and the women had gone to rub their bodies with strange oils and mud. Everything had returned to how it had been before, except that Hanan was wrapped up in towels, trembling with fear as she lay stretched out on the stone bench beside her mother, who was peering at her worriedly as she continued to exhale smoke. The women spattered Hanan's body with a vile, pungent perfume which made her cough. Hanan searched the air for that newly discovered scent. Later she would come to know it as her first scent and her last.

That evening, Hanan walked beside the bride in an embroidered white skirt. She felt as though what had happened in the bathhouse was pulling her irrationally towards the bride, but Hanan's attempts to attract her attention were futile and her distress brought her to tears.

Hanan tried to recall the morning she had spent with that mysterious creation Aliyah. The scent of bitter orange, of roses and jasmine, which had once cloaked all the ugly things, no longer filled the air but wafted from her memory. Hanan grabbed Aliyah's hand on the way to the women's bathhouse and it was as though time had stood still. Other than the alterations to the shop fronts and the trading stalls dotted along the pavements, the alleyways were just as they had been then, but now the river had run dry and the city wall of Damascus with its seven doors seemed different.

Aliyah walked on without letting go of Hanan's fingers. She unclenched her fist to reveal a pitch-black palm with so many creases it looked like the hand of a fifty-year-old. Hanan took out a handkerchief and placed it in the girl's hand, then carried on walking until she reached the bathhouse – that same place where she had once sat beneath the domed roof. This time, Hanan noticed things that had escaped her attention as a nine-year-old: the walls were decorated with blue drawings, enamel roses and tree branches; in the centre of the room was a small pool, inlayed with marble and coloured mother-of-pearl, with a great water fountain springing up in the middle. On the sides of the pool were rows of potted plants – carnations, gillyflowers and snapdragons. Raised stone benches ran along the sides of the walls, covered with wide cushions and scattered with pillows, like a royal chamber.
Narghile
pipes made of blue Damascene glass were placed along the platforms, surrounded by stones on which the women could sit to smoke after bathing, their torsos wrapped in towels.

The woman who ran the bathhouse sat in the centre of the room behind a wide table, where she monitored what was happening, shouting orders and welcoming her customers as the women led their girls in for the others to examine, hoping to find them a husband once the women started their analysis of the girls during the bathing session.

The girls lined up with their mothers and sisters, choosing a stone basin which they shared between two, each massaging the other and taking turns to cover their partner's body with a soft clay that strengthened the skin. In the corner of the room, the masseuses waited to rub the women's backs with a coarse, black mitt which would remove the dirt and open the pores of their skin.

Everybody was naked. Hanan had discovered that women were all more beautiful without their clothes than they were in their black
jilbabs
. Often, the masseuses would speak foully as they exfoliated the women's bodies. Some of the women enjoyed listening silently to the masseuses' bawdy conversations among the cloud of steam and the clamour of voices. From the warm basin, Hanan observed what was happening around her. It was as if she were dreaming, her hand leading Aliyah's fingers left and right, over her nipples, and down below her stomach.

 

That scent – the one she had locked away in her heart for decades – had returned with the little servant girl, who had overturned her authority and thrown her into torment.

Hanan observed her own image in the mirror, putting a hand to her mouth just as Aliyah used to do. She ran down to the bedroom on the ground floor and quietly pushed open the door. Her husband was there in his pyjamas, his death-like scent filling the air. Hanan crept towards him on the tips of her toes. As she stared into his face, she felt a fading hatred. Then she left the room, her heart pounding like a drum.

‘She betrayed me with a decrepit crocodile.'

Hanan spoke the words clearly, hearing the sound of her own voice as she watched her tears. Now, for the first time in her life, she had discovered the taste of betrayal.

Aliyah's steps grew heavier as she continued along the wide road. Even though the sun had risen, she still hadn't spotted a single person; nobody to make her feel safe. The place was empty but for the barking of dogs from behind the villa walls and the anguished howls of other frightened strays.

Tiredness had worn her down and the bag had started to feel even heavier now. Every few minutes she looked behind her, catching a glimpse of the few remaining shadows; nothing but emptiness. She combatted her fear with the taste of victory, contemplating how bitterness had assailed her mistress like a storm.

Aliyah felt the prick of needles slowly piercing her skin, from her knees to the tips of her fingers. She turned towards the nearest villa, which was surrounded by tall, dark-green cypress trees. Choosing a spot clear of fresh grass, she threw down her bag, collapsed beneath the tree and took off her heels, flinging them away in disgust. She stretched out her legs and leant her head back, hitting it against a tree root. Aliyah winced and closed her eyes. Her body was like a sticky mass suspended in the air, she thought. Her eyes burned and her fingers were fading away. She felt her heart leave her chest and slip from her body through her fingers.

Aliyah still couldn't quite believe that the mistress had sent her away. For a long time, she had been convinced that the mistress's love for her was so strong that she couldn't possibly live without her. She was certain that the tears she had seen in her eyes were genuine, that her mistress was still sensitive to her kisses, to the touch of her fingers as they caressed her or bathed her body, as they washed her hair or lingered between her thighs, massaging her with oil and dousing her with perfume. She would brush her mistress's hair, kissing her eyes as she held her in her arms. The nights when she left her mistress's room limping from the pain in her hips, her face swollen where she'd been bitten, were over. Aliyah found it hard to swallow. She was pleased with what she had done to her mistress; a sense of delight would come over her whenever she sensed her mistress's desire for her. She had imagined the feeling would last forever.