resolute. "Tell my brother his house is waiting for him," Mary whispered to me at the end – such an honor, to be the one to deliver her message! While she continues walking, meeting others, passing into other hands the blood-red necklaces by which the ogres are known.
There will be no end to this catalogue. The ogres are everywhere. Number thirteen: Alibhai M. Moosajee of Mombasa.
The porters lift their loads with unaccustomed verve. They set off, singing. "See, Alibhai!" my employer exclaims in delight. "They're made for it! Natural workers!"
"O, yes sir! Indeed, sir!"
The sky is tranquil, the dust saturated with light. Everything conspires to make me glad.
Soon, I believe, I shall enter into the mansion of the ogres, and stretch my limbs on the doorstep of Rakakabe.]
Art by Janet Chui
The Oud
by Thoraiya Dyer
----
1633
The Shouf, Ottoman Empire
My dead husband’s demons are seeking to sink into my daughter’s bones.
Inside our stone hut, Ghalya is yet to wake. Outside it, the pine forest also. Sunrise catches dewdrops hanging from dark needles. Gazelles slip through shadows and wildcats settle silently in tree forks to sleep.
But pebbles roll where there are no feet, human or animal, to disturb them. Cracked shapes shift, breaking free of their concealment against scale-patterned bark.
The morning steals the feeling from my fingers as I pluck the strings of my oud with a risha of smooth bone. The music of grief emerges, keeping the demons at bay. Legend says that the ribcage-like shape of the instrument was inspired by the bleached, hanging bones of a grandson of Adam. The dead boy’s father constructed the wooden skeleton of the oud in imitation of the terrible source of his mourning.
I have not worn mourning colours, for the Christian villagers must not know that my husband has died. They would send another family to take my place in this part of the wood. That family would collect the unopened cones of the wild pines, extracting the nuts when the dried cones open, cutting the dead wood to keep the forest healthy. It is food, it is income, it is safety for a larger family than mine – now just Ghalya and me – but they do not know of the dozen others I must feed and keep hidden.
They do not know that the secret cave where a Druze leader died is now a refuge for his defeated son.
At last, the demons lie still. Rays of light touch the tree bark and it is only bark, again. I hold the instrument in the moment of quiet before the birds swoop in, to quarrel and to sing, now that the sense of unease that warns them of demons is lifted from their thin, feathery skins.
I can keep no tame fowl in the forest. The goats, in contrast, never shrink from looking a demon in the eye. I pack the oud away in its leather case and sling it across my shoulder as I move to unlatch the gate of the goat pen. As time goes by, as my grief fades, the song becomes less powerful. Sometime soon, maybe even now, it will not last a full day.
The oud must be within arm’s reach when that time comes.
Inside the hut, bags of straining yoghurt make the same milky
drip, drip, drip
as the limestone daggers of the cave. It makes me shiver in foreboding but I cannot falter. I pack my hand cart with flat loaves of bread, pastries stuffed with goat meat and pine nuts, soft cheeses, cucumbers, sesame seeds, and olive oil.
When the Janissaries raid the village, they take great casks of wine. Those elite infantrymen serve the Ottoman Sultan, Murad IV. I do not take wine with me, to the place where I am going.
“Time to wake, little squirrel,” I whisper into the soap-soft scent of my sleeping child. Ghalya frowns and tries to turn her back, but I shake her shoulder until she’s awake enough to ride on my back without falling, her five-year-old fingers knotted around my neck.
We set off with the goats trailing after us. If any early risers from the village of Bkassin see us, they will think we go to the base of the terrible north-facing
There will be no end to this catalogue. The ogres are everywhere. Number thirteen: Alibhai M. Moosajee of Mombasa.
The porters lift their loads with unaccustomed verve. They set off, singing. "See, Alibhai!" my employer exclaims in delight. "They're made for it! Natural workers!"
"O, yes sir! Indeed, sir!"
The sky is tranquil, the dust saturated with light. Everything conspires to make me glad.
Soon, I believe, I shall enter into the mansion of the ogres, and stretch my limbs on the doorstep of Rakakabe.]
Art by Janet Chui
The Oud
by Thoraiya Dyer
----
1633
The Shouf, Ottoman Empire
My dead husband’s demons are seeking to sink into my daughter’s bones.
Inside our stone hut, Ghalya is yet to wake. Outside it, the pine forest also. Sunrise catches dewdrops hanging from dark needles. Gazelles slip through shadows and wildcats settle silently in tree forks to sleep.
But pebbles roll where there are no feet, human or animal, to disturb them. Cracked shapes shift, breaking free of their concealment against scale-patterned bark.
The morning steals the feeling from my fingers as I pluck the strings of my oud with a risha of smooth bone. The music of grief emerges, keeping the demons at bay. Legend says that the ribcage-like shape of the instrument was inspired by the bleached, hanging bones of a grandson of Adam. The dead boy’s father constructed the wooden skeleton of the oud in imitation of the terrible source of his mourning.
I have not worn mourning colours, for the Christian villagers must not know that my husband has died. They would send another family to take my place in this part of the wood. That family would collect the unopened cones of the wild pines, extracting the nuts when the dried cones open, cutting the dead wood to keep the forest healthy. It is food, it is income, it is safety for a larger family than mine – now just Ghalya and me – but they do not know of the dozen others I must feed and keep hidden.
They do not know that the secret cave where a Druze leader died is now a refuge for his defeated son.
At last, the demons lie still. Rays of light touch the tree bark and it is only bark, again. I hold the instrument in the moment of quiet before the birds swoop in, to quarrel and to sing, now that the sense of unease that warns them of demons is lifted from their thin, feathery skins.
I can keep no tame fowl in the forest. The goats, in contrast, never shrink from looking a demon in the eye. I pack the oud away in its leather case and sling it across my shoulder as I move to unlatch the gate of the goat pen. As time goes by, as my grief fades, the song becomes less powerful. Sometime soon, maybe even now, it will not last a full day.
The oud must be within arm’s reach when that time comes.
Inside the hut, bags of straining yoghurt make the same milky
drip, drip, drip
as the limestone daggers of the cave. It makes me shiver in foreboding but I cannot falter. I pack my hand cart with flat loaves of bread, pastries stuffed with goat meat and pine nuts, soft cheeses, cucumbers, sesame seeds, and olive oil.
When the Janissaries raid the village, they take great casks of wine. Those elite infantrymen serve the Ottoman Sultan, Murad IV. I do not take wine with me, to the place where I am going.
“Time to wake, little squirrel,” I whisper into the soap-soft scent of my sleeping child. Ghalya frowns and tries to turn her back, but I shake her shoulder until she’s awake enough to ride on my back without falling, her five-year-old fingers knotted around my neck.
We set off with the goats trailing after us. If any early risers from the village of Bkassin see us, they will think we go to the base of the terrible north-facing
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