Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi

Author:Jokha Alharthi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2019-07-14T16:00:00+00:00

Azzan and Qamar

Azzan’s head lay in Qamar’s lap, his eyes fixed on the stars glittering in the soft clear desert sky. She was gliding her fingertips along his lashes and brows and flicking off the grains of sand clinging there, putting them in her mouth. He was accustomed to this gesture of hers now, so it no longer startled him. He floated in the ecstasy of her words, captured by her intensity which never seemed to lessen, her zealous attention to house, camels, work and brother. When she suddenly went silent he rubbed his cheek against her hand. Keep talking, I love your voice. She lay down next to him in the sand. Fingers interlaced beneath their heads, together they gazed at the constellation Ursa Minor which was unmistakeable at this time of year.

You speak, whispered Qamar. You hardly ever say anything.

Azzan sighed. But a moment later he did begin speaking. He told her about a long-ago wound that was still alive. His son Hamad.

From birth, Hamad had been a weak and wan-looking baby. His mother expected him to die at any moment, as had her first baby, Muhammad, who had died before he was even two months old. She had Hamad wearing every kind of amulet that she could get a shaykh to prescribe. Azzan lost the hopes he had had for the boy.

But Hamad lived. His tiny body fought hard, resisting the fate of his brother, and he made his way in life – and what life there was in him! So constantly in motion was the boy that he could barely eat or sleep. It was almost impossible to see him still or quiet. He was always scampering around or chattering away.

Azzan began to let himself hope. This boy would be his successor. This boy would carry his father’s legacy – his name and property. This was the boy on whom he would depend in his old age. Hamad’s mother left his hair alone to grow long like a girl’s, hoping to fool the jinn, to evade the destructive envy that might target her son. The leather and silver amulets were still there, concealed under his clothing, until he reached the age of eight and died.

He couldn’t dodge fate, as his parents had always worried and silently suspected. But death took its time. Death gave their hearts time to swell, years enough to grow heavy with love for him, and only then it took him.

Qamar swallowed. What happened to him?

Azzan smiled slowly and closed his eyes. What happened to him was what happened to the Range Rover.

Range Rover? You mean, a car?

Azzan’s thin smile turned to a bitter smirk. Yes, the green Range Rover.

When the fever struck Hamad down and it was no longer any use to rub herbal preparations onto his burning body, Salima walked to her uncle’s house. Shaykh Said had grown old by then but he had not grown soft enough that his heart would melt at her entreaties. She pleaded with him to remember his brother Shaykh Masoud, her father.

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