Wanderlust by Elisabeth Eaves

her limit and burst into hysterical laughter. I smacked her on the back and pretended she was having a coughing fit. We were so convincing that the old woman then brought Mona a glass of water, which caused her to laugh harder. I thanked the old woman for the eggs and we retreated. On our way back to Taiz I held them carefully in my lap.

    I sensed initially that Hoda, Abu Bakr’s sister-in-law, disapproved of us; she hadn’t deigned to speak to us at all on the first day. Maybe she thought we aimed to marry one of the men, or maybe she thought we were a corrupting influence on Ismat, the newest inductee into the household, with all our talk of university and confusion over veils. Hoda seemed to be a much happier person, much better adapted to family life, than sullen Ismat. By Friday afternoon, though, she’d warmed up to us, and told me I looked pretty with my new Yemeni head scarf on, the one I’d picked up in the Taiz market. She promised that after dinner she would beautify us by hennaing our hands.

    There are many ways to color the skin with henna; the method here was to dye the palm of each hand rust-red. Hoda sat down in front of us in the diwan with a pot of mud, and ordered me to extend my left arm. She caked my fingertips and palm, then placed a ball of the red mud in my hand and had me close it in a fist. “You have to stay like this,” she said, then speedily wrapped my hand up in a swatch of silk and tied it at the wrist. By the time dismay could register, I was already bound. Mona, who was watching, asked with trepidation, “How long?”
    â€œThree hours,” Hoda said, and reached for my right hand. Mona went to brush her teeth before her opposable thumbs were rendered useless. Once the ends of our arms had been reduced to stumps, we settled ourselves into the cushions and Hoda tuned the television to an Egyptian movie. The family turned its eyes to the screen. Chubby-faced Shafa was there, with one of her cousins, Fatima. Ummi and Hoda were there, and two of Abu Bakr’s brothers were present, one with a child curled in his lap. Only Abu Bakr and Ismat were missing, and I found myself wondering how she was, and wondering, against my will, about the marital bed, whether it was happy or dreadful or somewhere in between. After a time I forgot that I had no use of my hands, and feeling sheltered and calm, let my eyes flutter shut.

    The next day, like free people, we left. We took a bus to Aden, didn’t much like it, and so, high on liberty, decided in an instant to head back north. I saw that I might never understand certain things. However far I went, I wouldn’t forget that I was a visitor. I couldn’t forget that I could walk away. However deeply I sank—into situations of my own devising, or even real trouble—I would be conscious
of an escape hatch, of the ability to call my embassy, my parents. Despite my great privilege, or maybe because of it, I couldn’t resist wandering out to the edge. It was like when I’d tried to get myself lost in all those Spanish campgrounds, just to feel my pulse race. I was still pursuing the excitement of disorientation.

chapter nine
    ON ADAPTATION
    M ona and I spread our recent purchases across our beds and looked at them. We were back in Sanaa with a day left in our trip, staying in our hotel on Ali Abd al-Mughni Street.
    We each had
    â€“a rectangular knit black scarf, about three feet long;
    â€“a shorter rectangle made of silk, black with a tie-dyed pattern of red and white circles;
    â€“a pair of voluminous pants that gathered at the ankles;
    â€“a cotton square, large enough to serve as a queen-sized bedspread, printed in red, yellow, blue, black, and green;
    â€“flip-flops;
    â€“safety pins.
    â€œSo,” Mona said.
    â€œSo,” I replied. We were daring each other again, psyching ourselves up. We were about to become deviants and fakes. We were going to go all the way.

    Strange