HAL ’ANT BIKHAYR?”
I blink hard against the sun and turn to the auntie who just asked after my welfare. “I’m fine,” I say quickly, not wanting to draw too much attention to myself. “I… I lost my train of thought. I must have been daydreaming.”
Al-Kawkaw is my city. I know the market, its beating heart, like I know the lines etched into my palm. My claim to her as my own is as valid as any girl born here, even though I was not. As its adopted daughter I know when I am being fleeced. I shake my head at the woman in front of me.
“It’s too high a price, even for cloth so fine,” I say, and turn the corner of the linen over with my hand. Iyin’s ring, a half-moon agate set in gold, catches the light.
“Fine ring,” she says, testing the waters to see if I have stolen it. I meet her gaze head-on. Yes, a slave has no use for fine jewelry, but neither does a girl whose fingers have grown too thin to wear it. It was a gift, but I don’t owe this woman that story.
“Your mistress, daughter of an old family, a respected family, can’t be seen in rags,” the old woman says as she smooths the fabric with her wrinkled hand. I can only see her eyes, but they hold mischief. She could do this all day. I don’t have even five minutes to spare.
I give her a short, dry laugh. “Rags? Is that what your competitors peddle?” I wave my hand at the stall at the end of the lane, where a man is hanging out some of the finest linen I’ve seen brought in since the last rains. The quality is not as good as what she has to offer, but the possibility of losing a sale is enough to make her bend.
“One week. I will have it ready for you,” she says begrudgingly.
“That long?” I reply, and feel a twinge of guilt as the old woman’s movements grow stiff with disappointment at her haggling skills. Iyin would have been fine with paying twice the price we have settled upon, but with the better deal, I can purchase food for the week, and food is worth more than envy. While Iyin is well versed in the price fluctuations of silks and linens, she couldn’t tell you how much you’d need to purchase six eggs.
“I know cowrie is the expected payment, but I have been to every corner of the market today, and I might have been a bit impulsive. Will you take a trade? I purchased this scroll of poetry for my mistress, but now I’m sure she already owns the piece.…”
She nearly snatches the scroll from my hand. “Tomorrow,” she says again, this time with more enthusiasm. She knows she’s gotten the better end of the deal.
“Poetry, Khala Farheen? Had I known I could get away with paying in pretty words, I would have sung you all the ballads of Gobir,” a young man interjects in an odd accent, plucking the scroll from her fingers and raising his eyebrows in flirtation. The old woman laughs.
“What do you know of poetry? All you soldiers understand is blood and war,” she replies.
The soldier straightens his back, clears his throat, and takes a step further into her tent, his arm raised toward her… in a flourish.
“ ‘All through eternity / Beauty unveils His exquisite form / in the solitude of nothingness; / He holds a mirror to His Face / and beholds His own beauty. / He is the knower and the known, / the seer and the seen.’ ”
The candlemaker in the adjacent stall claps.
“You know Rumi,” I say, astonished that a soldier would know anything besides the price of wine.
“All he knows is death and gambling, girl,” the old woman says with a sigh. “Ignore him. This place will be free of his kind soon enough.”
“Oh, but I will miss you the most, Auntie. And who would I give my winnings to? Will you tell this girl that cloth is not all that you sell?” he says, his eyes dancing.
The woman throws up her hands and lets loose a monsoon of Idoma that I can’t quite follow. Other than market visits, I am not allowed to talk with anyone outside the household, let alone travel to Enugu to pick up enough Idoma for conversation. While they joke and argue, I step away. I’ve still got to renegotiate the price of our weekly millet order, visit the midwife for an adjustment to Iyin’s prescription of herbs, and hopefully find someone who can sell me a bit of that lemon-scented honey she loves from Timbuktu. I know of one peddler, but being the zealot he is, he refuses to sell to a girl shopping on her own. I tried to explain there were no sons in our household, but he wouldn’t budge. So why give our coins to such a rude man anyway?
I smell my way, as much as I walk from memory, toward the fishmongers closer to the River Niger’s edge. The newer stalls are more likely to be set up here. With the arrival of Mansa Musa’s retinue, there’s always something new to see, even if it is a bit more crowded. A sharp voice spooks a horse tied to a stall on my left, and a cart of melons spills to the ground from its flailing front legs. In a blink I’m off-balance and heel over head with no control over my body, bound for certain disaster. But in the next heartbeat strong arms cradle me and set me on my feet again.
“You must have a lot on your mind if you did not see that coming,” the arms say as they spin me around. The Rumi soldier.
My first thought is to check my hair. It’s wedding season, and Iyin was so generous as to allow me to have my hair styled along with hers. Braids no wider than flower stems bloom from the crown of my head and loop again and again, finally gathering in a lush ball at the back of my neck. Glass beads that flash green and gold dangle from their strategic homes on each braid and could easily slip out of place, but I needn’t have worried. He caught me like it was his job to catch—a fisher of silly girls. His hands squeeze the flesh of my arms in a way that sends a shiver across my skin, followed by an internal desire I’ve never felt before. I snatch my arms loose. If he’s offended, his smile doesn’t show it.
I clear my throat, afraid the pitch in my voice might give away the nervousness churning in my belly. I have never been this close to a man I do not know, and I most certainly have never been touched by one. “Thank you,” I rush, almost forgetting my manners.
“My pleasure. I am here to serve,” he says and bows his head low.
I look around me to see if anyone is watching, prying eyes that might send a word to Iyin or her father about my inappropriate behavior. They would be lies, but it wouldn’t be the first time. Thankfully, everyone is preoccupied with calming down the horse and the river of melons rolling down the street.
“Tamar! Are you all right?” a woman’s voice cries close to my ear.
“Yaa, Adaku,” I reply, and, seeing that I’m telling the truth, the midwife’s daughter takes the opportunity to share the life story of her cousin who was once kicked in the head by one of the sultan’s horses and never recovered. I have to squeeze her arm to stop her.
“Ndo, sorry. Who was that man?” she asks.
I turn my head. I expect the young man to introduce himself, but he’s gone. “Nobody, just a soldier,” I say, and loop my arm in hers so she can lead me to the midwife. Hoping with each step that I can shake the feeling of being in the soldier’s arms.