Saba arrived in the area north of the camp. Hajj Ali’s daughter pastured their animals on the grass of the hill. His wife stirred a pot over a stove with one hand while shaking a goatskin bag tied between two logs with the other. Her eyes were half closed as if in deep contemplation.
The smell of butter hung in the air. Saba greeted the woman with narrow eyes, the woman whose own husband had described to her mother as empty of love. The woman, though, stood up and hugged Saba, pouring into her ear words that had aged with the milk she fermented in her travels: Love, my daughter, is the cradle in which our wisdom churns.
As Saba was about to leave with three eggs and a spoonful of butter that she paid for with her earnings at Eyob’s, Hajj Ali held her hand. And tell the idle businessman I will come soon to see him, he said.
She nodded, freeing her fingers from his grasp.
I am not sure a husband like him is capable of doing anything except taking evening walks, said the nomad, laughing. That’s not what a young woman needs.
Saba turned to look at his wife, who had again closed her eyes, returning to her daydream as her hands worked, rocking side to side, as if she was cradling her lonely heart.
Evening. Full moon. Twinkling stars. Music bellowed from a small radio outside Azyeb’s bar. Saba sat behind the shrub and peered through its leaves. The drinkers sat under a hanging oil lamp.
Tedros started another jar of tej against the pleas of Azyeb. You are going to kill yourself, the barwoman urged him. Stop.
Leave him, said the praise poet. His father asked him to be his best man at his wedding to Saba, his sweetheart.
How cruel, said the athlete. Fathers know children can’t say no to them.
Tedros took a piece of white cloth from his shirt pocket. Saba bowed and she thought of the night to come in a few days, when Tedros would pass this white cloth to his father before they entered their marital bedroom, a test of the bride’s virtue. Saba wondered if she had enough blood left inside her to mark the white cloth.
Forget Saba, the athlete said to Tedros. Go to Mariam. I heard, my dear gentlemen, that since her divorce she’s been giving it away for free.
We call her the aid centre, said the praise poet, laughing.
I think she married that man so she could get it over with, said the athlete. Now she no longer has her virginity to guard, she can live as she always wanted.
Actually, said the praise poet, her husband said she came to him spoiled.
How does he know? Azyeb asked.
Well, said the praise poet, the poor man couldn’t draw blood out of her.
Why are men so obsessed with a woman’s blood? said Azyeb. Not all women bleed the first time. I didn’t and nor did my sister. Or my cousin. Girls’ livelihoods are being destroyed because of your failure to understand.
A woman is too complex for a man, said Jamal. That’s why we reduce her to simple matters.
No, said Azyeb. It shows how much violence there is against women, if even love has to be equated with drawing blood from a woman.
Azyeb fanned her open furnace. The charcoal embers glowed. Saba squinted.
Haleeb haleeb haleeb.
The voice of Hajj Ali’s daughter, selling milk, rang out.
Tedros called the girl carrying a pot of milk on her head over to him.
Are you going to drink milk and beer? asked the athlete.
A man’s wounded heart needs a cocktail of extreme variety to survive a moment like this, said the praise poet.