Dakakin Hamid

IN THOSE DAYS women used to crush grains and herbs in empty mortar shells that were referred to as bombs. Because they were long and hollow, they were ideal for this purpose since they didn’t allow the dust produced by the grinding process to fly every which way. We used them to crush the cloves that went into cosmetic preparations, as well as into the mixture that was applied to brides’ hair before their weddings. The job I’d been assigned in Fattouma’s wedding preparations was to carry bombs to wherever they were needed. Libya had been the target of plenty of bombs over the years, which was why we had so many of them around. But as time went by, they’d proved so useful for purposes that had nothing to do with war that we tended to forget the horrors they’d brought on us and our country.

Outside the room where Fattouma’s hair would be done there sat a bomb and, next to it, a long iron pestle stood propped against the clay wall. We were waiting for all the hairdressers to show up, as well as the bride’s maternal aunt, whose job was to bring the distilled oil, crush the cloves, and prepare the beauty mask. Once she arrived, the rituals involved in getting the bride ready could officially begin.

The aunt in question was a grouchy old woman who could keep the bride in line whenever she objected to having the lice picked out of her hair, being smeared with cloves, and being depilated and rubbed with distilled oil in preparation for her first encounter with a man. The marriage contract, which had been signed in the presence of several witnesses, contained a stipulation next to Hammad’s and Fattouma’s names that he would give her three sheep. However, only one of the three sheep would actually be slaughtered for the occasion. The other two would be cared for by the bride’s father in hopes of selling them as Eid al-Adha approached.

Fattouma was less than two years past puberty when some neighbors asked for her hand in marriage to their eldest son, Hammad. Hammad himself wasn’t even twenty years old yet when he found out that he was engaged to the girl next door. After finishing a term of service in the salt flats, he’d come home to spend the holiday with his mother and father. The minute he walked in, his mother started to weep and trill, and his father wrapped him in an emotional embrace, wiping his tears with the edge of his robe. Thinking that some relative must have died while he was away, Hammad took his mother into his arms and burst into loud sobs.

“Who is it, Mama? Who is it?” he repeated over and over.

When the neighbors heard the weeping and wailing, they started pouring into the house. With the taste of the couscous from the engagement feast still in their mouths, they set about trying to calm the situation.

“Don’t worry, Hammad,” they reassured the young man. “Nobody’s died! It’s just that your family’s found you a bride, and they’re happy for you!”

Smitten with a sudden awkwardness, Hammad stopped crying. Imagine that! His parents were happy, not grief-stricken. And they’d found him a suitable wife at an affordable price!

Adjusting to this new realization, Hammad was careful not to say a word about the chosen bride. He asked no questions about who she was or how they’d located her. By keeping quiet, he opened the way for his mother to tell him about the bride of her own accord. Being a woman herself, she would know how to say everything that needed to be said, and in the way it needed to be said. By playing this traditional mother’s role, she would spare her son the risk of broaching some overly sensitive topic, posing a question that might turn out to be embarrassing or inappropriate, or asking for information she didn’t have.

His mother set out the glasses and the utensils she’d need to prepare the tea, invited her son to sit next to her, and handed him an extra cushion to lean on as she warmed to her topic. Before saying more about the prospective bride, she asked him about his work in the salt flats and how much he’d been earning, and he assured her that he had a good income.

“Wonderful!” she said. “That will make it easier for us to marry you to Fattouma, Hajj Abdullah Abd Rabbuh’s daughter!”

Aha! So now Hammad knew who his children’s maternal uncles would be.

As she prepared the foam on top of the tea, his mother talked on and on about how nice their neighbors were, how easy they were to get along with, and how good they were at keeping feisty women in their place. She said Sakita, the neighbor girl’s mother, was as docile as they came. She was the sort of woman who’d believe whatever you said to her and do whatever you told her to do, and she’d raised her daughters so strictly that people used to describe her as a man. (They meant it as a compliment, the mother remarked, but Sakita used to take it as an insult!)

Hammad cleared his throat slightly, signaling his mother to get back to talking about the bride. Taking the hint, she drew her wrap demurely around her head so that he couldn’t see her face, and resumed talking about Fattouma. She described her in glowing terms, saying she was sure she’d have beautiful children, keep a clean house, be a wonderful mother and hostess, fatten up the livestock, and take good care of his blind, invalid grandmother, not to mention being a good seamstress who could bring in a generous income for the family.

Satisfied with his parents’ choice, Hammad figured Fattouma’s trousseau would include a sewing machine. But if he wanted to make sure he won her, he would have to face a test of virility that he didn’t dare fail.

He’d only seen Fattouma’s face a few times in the days before she was shut up in the house and forbidden to go with her father to the marketplace, and the only thing he could remember about her was her frizzy, wiry hair. But now his imagination went beyond this memory in search of some mysterious essence that a man looks for in a woman. As he convinced himself that he’d found his heart’s desire in his Fattouma, he suddenly realized how different his life would be with a woman in it. After all, once he’d been able to “sow” his new bride, he’d be a father even before he turned twenty years old, and that would prove his virility to his buddies and the other men and boys in the neighborhood.

That night, just as his dreams were beckoning him to bed, Hammad heard his father calling, so he got up to see what he needed. He found his father in the stable. In keeping with custom, father and son lowered their glances out of mutual respect.

“Son,” the father began, “why don’t you choose the best ram in our stable and take it as a holiday gift to your fiancée’s family? It would be a way of showing your goodwill toward your future in-laws. They’ve waived their request for one of the sheep the bride’s representative stipulated as part of her dowry, which was really nice of them, don’t you think?”

The next day, Hammad went out to the stable before the sundown prayer and looked around to see which of the rams would best suit Fattouma. He wanted one that was virile and fertile, the way he wanted her to see her husband-to-be. His glance fell on a reddish ram with curved horns that had been chasing a couple of ewes and had them trapped in a corner. After several unsuccessful forays across the stable, Hammad caught hold of the ram. The chase left him out of breath, his pores dilated, his knee bruised. When his father came in to take a look at his son’s animal of choice he said, “Not the red one, son.”

“Why’s that, Baba?” Hammad wanted to know.

“That’s the one I’m planning to slaughter for the holy day. I’ve already spoken to the butcher about him.”

“Take another one to the butcher.”

Trying to persuade his son, the elderly man said, “The red one would be too much for us. I realize it’s the only time we’ll be expected to give your in-laws a present like this. But don’t forget—the wedding will involve other expenses.”

Convinced by his father’s reasoning, Hammad started back into the stable to replace the red ram with another animal. After finding a white ram that would fill the bill, he lifted it onto his back and headed for their neighbors’ house.

He rapped on the door with his feet. “Who is it?” he heard a young woman’s voice ask. Hammad’s heart, which was already working overtime from chasing down his catch and from the suspicion that Fattouma was nearby, nearly pounded out of his chest. Disturbed by the sound of Hammad’s panting, the sheep began bleating so loudly that it drowned out his uncertain, quavering voice.

Through one of the numerous holes in the neighbor’s tinplate door, he caught a glimpse of an eye staring out at him, though he pretended not to have seen it. Stricken with a sudden fit of desert-boy shyness, he looked away, saying, “My father’s sent a sheep to Hajj Abdullah Abd Rabbuh.”

The girl replied that the Hajj was at the mosque and that there were no men at home to receive it.

“Well,” he suggested, “if you crack the door just a bit, I can put it inside.”

The door opened just enough to allow him to deliver the gift. He lowered the sheep off his back and nudged it through the narrow gap. As he did so, he glimpsed the girl’s feet and a bit of her dress. He realized she was probably his fiancée herself, and her nicely rounded leg mitigated the effect of thinking about her wiry hair. As he raised his head after setting the sheep down, he came eye to eye with the girl inside. Flustered now, he felt a warm rush sweep over him. But then, as if a bucket of cold water had suddenly been dumped on his head, he started with fright and took off running back to his house.

It was a hot, sticky night, and Hammad reeked of sheep urine. He went to the privy to wash up and, seeing that the water had run out, headed for the well, filled a pail, and took it to the kitchen to heat the water over the stove. As he waited for his water to get hot, he found a washcloth that made him think of the dress he’d seen Fattouma wearing. He held it to his nose, thinking it must have been made out of the same fabric. He figured she must have given the leftover cloth to his mother so that she could use it in her kitchen. With this thought, he sniffed himself into a state of ecstasy, despite the fact that the odor brought him closer to the vegetable market than it did to the girl next door.

He carried the pail to the outhouse, lowered the long gunnysack that served as its door, and started scrubbing himself down. Seeing a shadow moving against the house’s mud wall, his father wanted to go out to make sure the night visitor wasn’t a thief who was about to make off with some of their livestock. Certain that the shadow belonged to their son, his mother persuaded her husband to stay inside. All it took was a simple statement: “Your son’s become a man!”¹

After hearing his wife’s comment, the old man was quiet for a bit. Suddenly he flung himself in a heat of enthusiasm atop the nightie-clad figure beside him in a reminder that he wasn’t as old as he might seem, and that the wick still had plenty of oil left in it even though the years had passed and his son had “become a man.”

In the quiet hours of that sultry night, Hammad lay in bed trying to recall everything he knew about women so that he could be at his best with Fattouma. He fantasized about the plump thigh he’d seen, the curious gaze, and the tensely held breaths. But when his imagination reached her hair, he felt a twinge of aversion. His boyhood memories of that hair of hers weren’t pleasant ones. Truth be told, Fattouma had the worst hair of any girl in the neighborhood. It didn’t fall nicely over her shoulders the way his mother’s did. Not even her bangs would lie down flat. He concluded that he might have to set aside a special budget from his hard-earned pay to buy oil to treat his wife’s hair with. But the fact was, you could have poured the contents of all the olive oil presses in Zliten on her head and it wouldn’t have made a bit of difference.

So what was he to do? Could he overlook Fattouma’s top half for the sake of what other parts of her provided? He asked himself if he’d be able to settle for the “other” things as a consolation prize of sorts, though he had no choice but to answer in the affirmative. After all, it wouldn’t be right to go against the word his father had given in the presence of the neighborhood elders. Besides, why give up the chance to be related by marriage to Hajj Abdullah Abd Rabbuh on account of some hair his bride-to-be had inherited from her father’s whiskers through no fault of her own?

Hammad remembered the goodwill sheep and what it had done to his knee. It hurt to bend it now, and he groaned as he lay in bed trying to get some rest. Then again, his reward was the luscious thigh that would be the stuff of his dreams for nights to come. Holding the kitchen rag to his nose, he slept for the first time since learning of his engagement.

The next morning, Hammad tried to get his mother to tell him more about his wife-to-be. Holding the rag in his hand, he asked her if she liked the cloth it was made of as much as he did. If she did, he said, he would go to the market and buy some for her to make a dress for Fattouma.

Drawing her hand out of the bowl of bread dough in front of her and wiping it on the piece of cloth he’d been holding in his hand all night, she replied, “No, son, no need for that. It wouldn’t be proper for a mother and daughter to wear the same type of fabric!”

1. According to Islamic teachings, bodily secretions relating to sexual functions require both men and women to bathe in order to maintain the ritual purity required for the performance of the five daily prayers. The fact that Hammad was taking a bath at night was taken by his mother as a sign that he had had a seminal emission, which would mean he had “become a man.”