From behind his veil, he watched the merchant with interest but interrupted at this juncture: “Your aria about commerce has moved me, inspiring me to dream up a deal. Ha, ha. . would you imagine that the jenny master would dare engage in commerce by offering a deal to the master merchant?”
The chief merchant smiled a salesman’s cunning leer and then replied, “Why not? A contract lies hidden in everyone’s pocket. In the heart of each creature sleeps a wish that can be converted into a contract. The innards of any individual conceal a contract. A woman is pregnant with a fetus; a man is burdened with a contract. From cradle to grave, our entire life is a contract. Some succeed in fulfilling it early; others only execute it successfully later on, but woe to anyone who fails to conclude a contract, because our contract, master, is our life.”
“Actually my contract will prove equally significant, since you think the only true contract is one that provides deliverance for us, because every deliverance is a life.”
“Yes, every contract is a deliverance and every deliverance is a life.”
“I’d like to sell you glad tidings, cheap.”
“Cheap, glad tidings?”
“You’ll trade me barley, dates, and dried meat for the antidote.”
“Antidote?”
“In my pocket I have an antidote to treat the epidemic threatening the bellies of your women.”
“Are you joking?”
“Would we dare joke about a condition that threatens people with annihilation?”
“What do you mean?”
They halted within sight of the crowd, facing each other. The man offering the glad tidings said, “You can try out the antidote on your wife. If it fails, I’ll pay the cost of your goods plus my camels. You can send your vassals to Danbaba, where they will recognize my camels by my mark, which the tribes ridicule, claiming that it was not inherited from our ancestors. No pictures of hares or donkeys were incised on the rocks, since these two wicked creatures were considered ill-omened. Tribesmen have even cast doubt on my mark, which — branded on my camels’ flanks — is shaped like two long ears, for they deem the design an innovation that violates the Law. Hee, hee, hee. . ”
He nearly choked on his offensive laughter, and so the master of commerce assumed the reins of speech: “I don’t think I’ll need to send my men to take possession of your camels in Danbaba. I would never have become chief of the merchants in this oasis had I not trusted people. Trust is the law of commerce. My own law is to be less troubled by the loss of some goods than by loss of confidence in another person. So how does one test the efficacy of your antidote?”
He moved a step closer to his companion and gazed into the man’s soul from concealed eyes. He seemed to have stopped breathing altogether before he asked in a hoarse voice, “Does it hurt you a lot not to bring children into the world?”
Amghar lowered his gaze. He sighed. He exhaled audibly. Then he whispered, as if to match his speech to his companion’s: “What are we without children? Do you believe that we really live when we don’t live on through our children? Everything we do is in vain if we don’t bring children into this world. Even my commercial transactions are in vain if I can’t pass them along to my children as a trust.”
The master of the glad tidings remained silent for a time. Without ceasing to stare his companion in the eye, he said, “You know I don’t visit other men’s homes.”
“I know.”
“You know that charms must be recited before a medication can be administered.”
“I know.”
“You know that an antidote is a prophecy and that a prophecy will flourish only in private.”
“I know.”
“You also know that idle chatter is the helpmeet of miscarriage and that the tribes do not know the success of a matter that has not been cloaked in silence.”
“I know.”
“Send your wife to me tonight. You will see the results in a few weeks.”
3 Tafarat
She lost the fetus, and a woman without a fetus is not a woman. She lost a treasure on which she had counted even more than her spouse imagined, because a child to its father is nothing more than a toy, but a child to its mother is the world. For this reason, oral histories of the tribes have passed down tales of ancient women, who threw themselves down pits or into flooded ravines when their sterility was confirmed, in response to the traditional assumption that a woman’s life is pointless if the fullness of time proves her barren. She had nourished doubts about herself and whispered suggestions had shredded her heart after she spent a year with her husband without feeling a fetus twitch inside her. Then she rushed to the blind sorceress to beg for deliverance. The wily scoundrel subjected her to a taxing examination, messing about with her internal organs. Then she gave her a potion that upset her digestion so terribly that she almost spat out her guts. Next, from straps of camel hide that had been soaked in water, she made her client a vicious girdle that became a stifling corset as it dried, almost arresting her respiration. She left her victim imprisoned by this corset for three days. On the fourth day she freed her and sent her — heavily laden with herbal concoctions, her neck encircled by amulets — back to her husband. Within only a few weeks, she felt nauseous and experienced the first symptoms of pregnancy. Her happiness, however, like all other sorts of bliss, did not last long, for something descended on the languid oasis that carried away women’s offspring and tore embryos from the bellies of their mothers. She suffered a miscarriage too. She would have been able to keep up her hopes and to regain her strength preparatory to becoming pregnant once more — like all the other women — had the sorceress not acknowledged the difficulty of mounting a counteroffensive. This was what so terrified her, rekindling memories of the ancient tales about a barren woman’s destiny, that she twice slipped off secretly to the spring to check the depth of the pool in preparation for the day when she would decide to imitate the example of those ancient women.
In the past, prior to her calamity, she had recalled her escapade on her wedding night to laugh at her own antics, which the oasis considered disrespectful of the customs the tribes had passed down from one generation to the next. After the affliction, however, tears burnt her eyes whenever she remembered that first night, when she had fled to hide in the groves, as the Law dictates, and the women had gone out to search for her, but she — instead of playing this game to its conclusion — had decided to trick the women and to slip into the isolated tent — near the fields — where her bridegroom sat. She had not done that out of any disrespect for the Law, as the oasis thought, or because she longed to throw herself into her man’s embrace. She had violated ancient customs out of a longing to obtain something else, which not even all women would really comprehend, since not every woman is a woman and not every mother is the type of mother who fondles offspring in her heart as her sole dream.
She did not reveal her secret even to her sisters, because she was sure they would not believe her. So, rather than bare her heart to them, she preferred to let them call her “Tenekert,” because even if they had believed her, they would have rightfully disapproved of her disrespect for inherited custom, since she knew they did not bear in their hearts the same whispering and did not share her thirst for offspring.
Now, as he broached the topic of the antidote with her, she remembered his astonishment the moment she had come to him on their wedding night. He had tried to disguise it with silence at first but had suddenly abandoned his gravity to guffaw so loudly he ended up losing his balance. He had continued squirming on his earthen throne for a long time as he attempted to stifle his laughter. She waited for him to stop laughing, curious to hear what he would say, because anyone who initiates a surprise always anticipates reactions rather than some new action. After his bout of laughter subsided that night, he grasped her wrist to offer his interpretation: “You know? I didn’t acquire my fortune until I had paid for it with my life. I did not imagine that I would acquire a creature who would revive my lost life gratis. Hee, hee, hee. . ”