Then Sarai said to Abram, “This is all your fault! I put my servant into your arms, but now that she’s pregnant she treats me with contempt. The Lord will show who’s wrong—you or me!” Abram replied, “Look, she is your servant, so deal with her as you see fit.” Then Sarai treated Hagar so harshly that she finally ran away.
—Book of Genesis 16:5-6
BY DUSK, THE CAMP REPOPULATES with the camels returning from grazing and men from their hunt. Nami runs happy circles about me. I kneel to embrace her, and she promptly begins washing the ear closest to her mouth. “Nami, it is clean!” I protest. “Cleaner than in many days.”
At the sound of a gruff snort, I look up at the man standing before me. I did not hear his approach. He wears the loose black trousers, robe, and headdress of the desert people. A leather sash studded with silver holds several knives, both straight and curved. His bearing marks him as the head of a family or possibly a clan.
“So,” he says, “you are recovered.”
“Yes, sir.”
He nods at Nami. “Your dog is a good hunter. Did you train her?”
“She trained herself,” I say and then amend. “Someone began her training before she became mine.”
His piercing eyes narrow. They are a light, almost translucent brown. “And how did she become yours?”
My breath catches. The carpet merchant in Sodom had been insulted I owned such an animal as Nami, who clearly was a desert-bred dog. Possible explanations fly through my mind as the man waits, but I decide upon truth. “My father’s caravan assistant won her in a gamble, and I bought her from him.”
The thick brows above his falcon eyes rise. “You bought her?”
I feel my mouth slide into a stubborn line. “With a she-goat.”
He rubs a hand over his own mouth. “I see.” He considers Nami, who now licks my other ear. “Well she is a fine dog, and there is no doubt she thinks you belong to her.”
My mouth relaxes into a smile.
“That is the important thing,” he says. “But I have been rude. You and your tall companion are my guests. You must come to my tent and eat with my family. The dogs have brought down a gazelle. We will feast.”
Pride swells my heart that Nami has done well, and my mouth waters at the thought of the gazelle. It seems a long time since Shem and the camel milk.
The man dips his head. “I am Yassib, the grandfather of this family.” A woman steps to his side. She is also clothed in black and wears a headband with bits of gold nuggets dangling from it. Gold and silver bracelets begin at her wrists and extend up both her arms. She wears more wealth than do many kings, I would wager. I have no doubt Yassib is a clan chief, perhaps even a tribal one. His arm extends to her. “This is my wife, Mana, who has born me many sons.”
The woman smiles down at me. “Be welcome in our tents—?” Her voice trails, and I realize they do not know our names.
“I am Adir, son of Zakiti,” I say out of habit, but in that moment I realize when I awoke in the tent of Yassib, it was as Adira, daughter of Zakiti. The time in the desert, grieving for my lost father and lost life, has changed everything. Like the butterfly, I am ready to shed my cocoon, but I do not know how to take back the words, to transform who I am in these people’s eyes. I know their ways are strict in regard to men and women, and I have slept alone with Mika and possibly with others on the men’s side of the tent. The desert people cherish their women, but kill them if their honor is questioned.
When he leads us back, I learn I have indeed slept in Yassib’s tent. The other woven mats belong to him, another son, and his grandson, Shem. I speak with the men and drink tea while the women roast the gazelle, trying not to show what torture the wafting smells evoke in my belly. One good thing about staying a boy—I can eat as much as I wish without criticism.
As Mana and her daughters serve us, I am thankful not to have been a girl raised in a desert tribe. Never do they meet my gaze, their heads downcast, although the youngest steals a frank stare when she thinks no one is looking. A girl child is almost an embarrassment, and some are even put to death as a burden on the family if times grow hard. Until a woman gives birth to a son, she is not truly recognized as a wife, although she has the power to divorce a man by simply turning the entrance of her tent. Yassib introduced Mana as the mother of his sons. The two daughters before me do not even exist in his eyes, or so their customs say. I wonder if he might truly love them, but by custom cannot acknowledge them.
It is not so in my tribe or in the cities. Sarai manages the household, and Abram listens to her counsel. My father never would have withheld his love or approval from me because I was a girl, though he chose to hide my gender to keep me safe and at his side. In the cities where the goddess is worshiped, in Egypt, and in the northern lands of the Hatti, women own land and businesses, and their wealth is passed to their children. Why do the ways of people differ so much?
For so long, I have not thought much about such things, but now anger rises in me. Why should a girl child be so unwelcome? Life in the desert is difficult, but without women, men would not be able to hunt. Women birth and care for children, prepare the food, and make the garments, the tents, the saddles, and the bags necessary for such a harsh life. Why are their contributions less worthy?
A cold worm of unease works its way into my chest to nestle with the anger. What will happen if my guise is uncovered among these people?
Finally, we feast on the gazelle cooked with dates soaked in camel’s milk. I think I can eat forever, but my belly is not used to so much food, and it rounds in protest. Mika is not much better, but I watch every bite that goes into his mouth until finally he turns to me in humorous protest.
“Adir, you not mother!”
I start at his words, and then my cheeks flush.
Yassib gives me a questioning look, and I translate. Everyone laughs. They think I am embarrassed because I am a young boy being called a woman and a mother. I relax and laugh with them.
“The desert,” Yassib says, tearing meat from a leg bone with his teeth, “is a cruel mother.”
It is a well-known saying, and the truth of it is now in my bones.
AS THE DAYS pass, Mika gains strength and begins to walk in the evening when it is cooler. At first, he can accomplish merely the distance from one tent to the other, but gradually his strength returns, though he still favors his leg. I always walk with him, worried about his being alone, stumbling onto another scorpion or a snake or pushing himself too hard and growing faint. Also, he needs me to translate for him.
“Why not they speak Akkadian?” he asked on one of our first walks beyond the tents, clearly annoyed after all his studying, he cannot speak to Yassib’s people or understand their words. “Is not that language of trade?”
“For many, yes, but Yassib’s people do not bother with the cities. They trade with other desert tribes for food the camels and goats cannot provide.”
“And how other tribes have those things?”
I smiled a bit at his ignorance of desert ways. “Not all of the tribes are nomads. Some choose to settle near low fields where rain water pools.”
“They grow here crops?” he sweeps his arm across the landscape, his brow raised in disbelief.
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Lentils, wheat, barley, even dates. Yassib’s people must wander to secure grazing for their animals, but they find plenty of trade for what they make from camel hair and leather.”
“Well, not be here long enough for learn another language.”
I know he wants to pursue Raph’s trail. But he is still very weak, and where would we go?
As he grows stronger, we have made it a habit to walk every evening after the meal to a rock-strewn dune and sit to let him rest before walking back. From here, we have a good view of the ragged, wild landscape, buff-colored hills, and valleys stretching as far as one can see.
Shem came with us the first few times, but quickly grew bored with our talk and found other things to amuse him. But Nami always accompanies us, and I am glad for her nose and sharp hearing, as many creatures come out to hunt in the evening cool.
Mika has insisted we continue working on his Akkadian, and he has become much more proficient. Only rarely do I have to correct him. He is not a man of many words in any language, but I hold him to his promise of answering my questions. I have asked him about his childhood and about Raph and told him of mine, except the part about my gender. I fear he might not understand that these people—who have saved our lives and treated us with such hospitality—might kill me for being a woman or for lying to them.
“Do not sit there,” I say, guiding him away from a cluster of saltbushes.
He looks around for signs of scorpions or snakes, a good habit he has acquired.
“That is a salt bush,” I say in explanation.
He pinches off the rounded leaf and puts it to his tongue. “So it is salty, why should I not sit near it?”
“If the sand flies bite you, it will leave an ugly round sore.”
“I have seen you sit near such bushes.”
I smile. “And I could show you the sore on my buttocks from it.”
He lifts an eyebrow, but moves to a flat stone a distance away.
“As can every member of this tribe,” I add.
“All on the buttocks?” he asks.
I can tell his healer curiosity is aroused. “Yes.”
“Sand flies only bite there?” The brow is arched higher in disbelief.
“They bite whatever they can reach, but a few days after its birth, every desert baby is wrapped with only its buttocks exposed and laid in the dust beneath a salt bush.”
“So the flies only bite the exposed flesh!”
“Yes. Otherwise, you might bear a scar on your face or other places more … sensitive.”
“I see, and once bitten, you do not get rashes anywhere again?”
I nod.
He rubs his chin through his thick red beard. “There are certain illnesses that once they strike a person, never repeat themselves.”
To change the subject to one more interesting to me, I settle beside him with Nami between us and ask to hear more about the connection between our tribes.
Mika lies on his back and cushions his head with an arm, his eyes full of the haze of bright stars that needle the fabric of sky. He takes a deep breath and expels it as a teller would before beginning a story. “Long ago, when the Watchers saw a star approached the world, they remembered.”
He pauses, and I think this a strange way to begin a story. “Remembered what?” I ask.
“Ancient time when star falling brought ruin to earth—great fires and floods. My people lived on island, and all knowledge almost destroyed. They worried of it happening again, and so seeded their knowing throughout world.”
Mika rolls over onto one elbow and plucks a small stone, tossing it at one of the rock-paved trenches that collects water from the hillside when it rains and deposits it onto the fields where the tribes graze their animals. The thrown pebble strikes the rocks with a sharp ping and tumbles down the shallow, dry channel.
“How?” I ask, experience having taught me Mika needed prodding. “How did they seed their knowledge?”
“They sought wise men to give it.” He looks up again at the stars. “Enoch was such a man.”
“Enoch? The ancestor of Abram and my people?”
“The same. The father’s father of Noah.”
As usual in conversations with Mika, my question has led to an answer that grows more questions. I do not know which to pursue. Finally, I ask, “What do you mean, ‘They saw a star approaching the world?’ ”
His forehead wrinkles. “Do you remember I told you of the stone temples built my people by?”
“Stone temples my people built,” I correct. “Yes, I remember.”
“These revealed time with—” he scowls, searching for the word he needs. “Openings framed with stone.”
“Portals?” I suggest.
“Yes. The stars rose through portals, and my people tracked them.”
I do not need Watchers and portals to tell me that the stars wheel across the sky in predictable patterns and that the location of star clusters in the bowl of night indicates the seasons. “Why do you need a temple when you can just look up in the sky?”
He smiles. “Seasons revealed by eye, but with time-keeper temples, Watchers saw future … predict seasons to the day and tell people when to plant and when to harvest. My homeland was rich with much rain, but winters harsh and long. If plant sprouted too soon, frost killed it. Such knowing meant life for them.”
Mika looks up again to the night sky. “Every star has its path.”
This is something my father also said when I whined I did not want to be a girl or ever leave him.
He points toward the north sky. “Look there!”
I follow his finger to catch a streak of light across the firmament. In a moment, it is gone. “Is that what the Watchers saw?”
“Yes, but saw it every night grow closer before it burned day sky.” He points to the spot where the light had disappeared. “That time only a moment. A star fell, but yet”—he waved his arm from horizon to horizon—“all still in place, no star fallen.” The awe of this mystery edged his voice.
“So what did we just see?”
“My people think a flaming rock, eaten by own fire. The sky has wept many flaming stones, and sometimes leaves black, pitted rocks, holy stones, on ground.”
“I have never seen such a stone,” I say, and then amend, “or if I have, I did not know it came from the sky.”
“They fall without warning, but twice in my people’s time, stars come in line with us. First time, Watchers tracked seven growing, night by night, until struck.”
Growing night by night. I say the words over to myself, trying to imagine it and what it could mean. I can feel my brows knit together. “A distant object grows larger as it approaches.”
He reaches out his free hand and taps my head with a knuckle. “Adir, you have makings of Watcher.”
My thoughts are afire. “And black rocks would not be visible in the night sky. They must have been burning.”
“Yes, they burned. Grew large as sun.”
I inhale sharply. “Did the seven strike the world?” A phrase from Enoch’s Telling rose in my mind though I did not say it aloud: “I saw there seven stars like great burning mountains. I saw many stars descend and cast themselves down from heaven.”
“Oh yes,” Mika says quietly. “So long ago, only memory now in the stories, but terrible memory. Water rose from deep; sea swallowed land and all on it.”
My hand seeks the warmth of Nami’s coat for comfort. “Like the great flood in Noah’s time?”
“Legend-memory in every tribe my people has met.”
Beneath my hand, the hairs of Nami’s back bristle, and a low growl issues from her throat. Mika and I glance at each other, and then we are both on our feet. Mika’s knife has found its way into his hand. Nami starts toward a large rock, but I lean down and grab her around the neck.
A trail of cloud veils the half moon. Wind nudges the cloud aside, and moonlight pricks white teeth from the dark. The shadows behind them resolve into a pointed muzzle, a round head with pointed ears and a bristling mane. The creature steps stiff-legged from shelter of boulders, revealing black stripes along its downward sloping torso.
Hyena.
“Stay, Nami,” I caution, my hand in her ruff. I do not want her to tangle with the carrion eater.
Mika’s hand tightens on his knife.
“It will not attack unless something is wrong with it,” I say quietly. “They are lone hunters and eat the kill of other animals.”
“In north, hunt in packs,” Mika says, keeping his knife at ready.
Though she is compliant to my restraint, Nami’s growl deepens into an unmistakable warning.
With a show of teeth, the hyena backs away into the gloom, eaten by the night.
Wisely, Mika moves so our backs are touching to prevent the hyena from slinking around behind us, but after a while, the ruff of Nami’s fur flattens, and I release her. “Do not speak of this,” I advise.
Mika slips his dagger back into the sash at his belt. “Why?”
“A bad sign to the desert people. A demon.”
“You believe so?” Mika asks.
“I do not know,” I say, but I cannot deny the cold that has speared my spine.