Page 10 of A String of Silver Beads (The Moroccan Empire #1)

“Have you seen a child come slithering out of its mother’s womb, covered in blood and slippery to the touch?

Have you heard its first cry and seen the joy in its mother’s eyes and the pride in its father’s?

Have you caught a dead child in your hands and seen its shriveled body fall limply without breath to the floor?

Have you seen the tears of its mother and the cold hurt of its father?

Have you seen the man of your dreams and heard him whisper your name?

Have you stood naked before a man and seen his face turn to yours?

Have you held a man in your arms and loved him throughout the night?

Have you held your dying father and wept your heart away as he leaves you alone and unprotected in this world?

Have you held your first child in your arms and prayed that every one of your days would be so happy?

” She turns, smiling, to face me. “I think not. I think you have seen a great deal and lived very little. I think you have been so busy seeing everything that you have not experienced the moment when every grain you grind is food for your child and brings warmth to your heart. I think your eyes have been so filled with the wonders made by man that you have not seen the glory of the sunset and sunrise, the rise and fall of the dunes, the tiny ant and the mighty wind. You have seen everything and nothing at all. That will change. But sometimes you must be very, very bored before you can see something wonderful that is right in front of you.” She gets to her feet, hands on the base of her back, stretching out her cramped muscles after many hours at the loom.

“Now finish those grains. A child of ten would have finished them by now and I need them for our evening meal. Tomorrow, I will take you to Tanemghurt.”

***

“Remember to call her Lalla ,” says my aunt in a whisper as we make our way to her tent, which is large and well situated, for she is held in great esteem.

Tanemghurt is our camp’s healer and wise woman. There is not a child here who was not born into her hands, as were most of the adults. Tanemghurt has lived longer than anyone can recall.

I roll my eyes. I am hardly in need of lessons on basic manners, of course I would use a term of respect for Tanemghurt. “Why am I going to her at all?” I ask ungraciously.

“She will teach you the uses of herbs,” says Aunt Tizemt.

I bite back my rejoinder: that I have seen more herbs and spices on my travels than Tanemghurt can ever have seen, since she has spent her whole life here, in a tent in the middle of the desert.

The tent flap draws back suddenly and Tanemghurt stands before us. Her face is a wrinkled mass of lines, but she stands erect, taller than I am by a good hand’s breadth.

“Tizemt,” she says to my aunt, nodding her head as though to an equal.

“ Lalla ,” says my aunt. “This is Kella.”

Tanemghurt turns her dark eyes on me and says nothing.

“ Lalla ,” I say.

She holds the tent flap aside. “Enter.”

I hesitate, then step inside, the flaps closing behind me on my aunt.

Tanemghurt’s tent is very different from my aunt’s, and I look around it with interest. I have not seen her tent inside, for few people are invited into it unless they have an ailment, and often Tanemghurt will choose to take her herbs and spells to the sick person’s tent.

It seems larger than most for it is family-sized, but Tanemghurt has never had either children or a husband, so it is for her alone.

The space that would have been set aside for her husband’s possessions is full of her little pouches and her mixing and measuring bowls, stacked by size and sometimes by colour.

She has spoons of every size, not just the big ones for stirring and the smaller ones for eating, but tiny ones for measuring small doses of the powerful herbs she uses.

Some are stained strange colours and some, I see, are kept apart from others.

They hang on small loops of string sewn onto the wall.

Below them and facing the wall is a large seat, something like a saddle but made for her to sit on, for Tanemghurt is now very old and she finds it hard to sit or squat low on the ground as the rest of us do.

The large seat has a small ledge on it where she can rest her mixing bowls or mortar and pestle when she prepares her medicines.

All around this seat are pots, many containing water, some containing strange substances that I cannot identify. The tent smells of herbs and perfumes.

“Do you miss the trading life?”

I turn towards Tanemghurt. No-one has ever asked this except for Amalu, and the question brings a sudden sting to my eyes. She stands, watching me.

I swallow. “I have no choice,” I say.

She lowers herself cautiously onto her seat, one bony arm supporting herself as she does so. “There is always a choice,” she says.

“What is my choice?” I ask, my tone disrespectful enough that Aunt Tizemt would cuff my head for it.

She smiles. “That is not for me to say. It is for you to make.”

“What would you do in my place?” I ask, my voice still too sharp.

“I would be honoured to learn women’s skills from a woman as accomplished as your aunt,” says Tanemghurt, unperturbed.

I stay silent.

“So,” says Tanemghurt. “You wish me to teach you about the uses of herbs?”

I nearly say I want no such thing, but even I know that would be going too far. “Yes, Lalla ,” I say.

And so, she teaches me the herbs to drink when I wish to bear a child as well as those to avoid bringing life to the womb.

She shows me how to deliver a child, should I ever be called upon to do so.

She tests me on my knowledge of the tinfinagh alphabet, which only women pass on.

She has me recite large tracts of our legends, our songs, the right ways to live.

I stay in her tent for many days, leaving only to relieve myself.

At night she shows me the stars and nods with approval when I can name the constellations and know how to navigate by them.

“We are done,” she announces one day.

I look at her.

“You may go,” she says, as though we have only been conversing a few moments.

I stand, awkward. “Thank you,” I manage, unsure of what else to say.

She nods. I turn towards the door of the tent.

“Kella.”

I turn back to her. “Yes, Lalla ?”

“Treasure your aunt. She has more to teach than I.”

“I have learnt what she had to teach,” I say, a little confused. “She said I should come to you.”

Tanemghurt looks at me. “Skills are not the only thing to learn,” she says. “Your aunt is both fierce and full of love. She lost her husband and yet still she has a great love within her, no matter what her life brings. Perhaps you still have something to learn.”

I try to think what to say in return, but Tanemghurt has turned away, looking through her herbs. I am dismissed.

***

I resent her words at first. But as the days come and go and the moon grows and wanes over and over again, I begin to take some small pride in my new life and the skills I am learning.

I grow accustomed to my new clothes and even sew myself some new ones, adding decorative panels to the red and orange lengths of cloth I wear, learning to tie my headdresses more elaborately and without help.

The blue dye fades from my skin, the rest of my face grows brown, and I begin to lose my former long, swaggering strides and take on a slower walk, my hips gently swaying.

“Keep walking like that and your friend Amalu will be falling off his camel when you go by. Perhaps a crack to the skull will bring his mind back,” jokes Aunt Tizemt. But she is proud of me and my new skills, developed under her tutelage.

I can cook a good meal now, for I have always had a fine palate for spices and herbs. I know the quality of spices from my time trading.

“Well, at least you learnt something useful in all those years,” my aunt teases when she sees how well I judge quality and quantity, allowing the subtle and strong tastes to emerge, scenting and spicing the food I make – the milk porridge sweetened with cinnamon, the kid meat rubbed with cumin.

I make fresh-smelling herbal teas, steeped mint for the evenings after a heavy meal, ground almonds for a sweet milk, a dipping sauce of rich argan oil and honey to scoop up with fresh flat breads cooked on a hot stone over the coals of the fire.

My aunt has seen how Amalu watches me walk by, follows my newly graceful walk with his eyes, then licks his lips when he smells the good food I make.

“Men love soft hips, but they love good food even more,” she says and laughs.

But still, I miss my freedom. Traders pass by sometimes.

I sit with an arm around Thiyya’s neck and watch them with envy when they leave, their camels swaying them onwards to other places, other worlds from here.

I wonder whether Amalu, if he does become a trader, would take me with him and my cheeks grow a little flushed at the thought, though I am still unsure whether it is Amalu or the trading that brings colour to them.

***

He does not wait long to make his move. “ Lalla ?”

My aunt looks up from her work. “What do you want, Amalu?”

“May your niece accompany me to the ahal ?”

Aunt Tizemt stops her work on the stretched-out goatskin.

She is rubbing it with a thick butter to soften it.

She sits back on her heels and considers the young man.

Nearby, I sit very upright, pretending all innocence.

My hands keep moving, carding thick matted wool into soft clouds that drift down onto the carpet where I sit.

My ears, meanwhile, strain to catch every word that passes between them.

“How many are going?”

“Perhaps a dozen of us.”

“She has never been before. I doubt she would know what to do.”

“There are other girls there, Lalla . They can show her.”

“I’m sure. Show her how to dance and sing and show off in front of you boys.”