Read Online Sweetness in the Belly by Camilla Gibb - Free Book Online

down.
    “She wants a party, like her little friends in the neighborhood,” Gishta elaborated, squatting down with us. “So people will come and say, Oh, aren’t you a good girl, here, have some sweeties, here is some money, have some more honey.”
    For her birthday? I wondered, though no one seemed to know exactly how old they were. Maybe I am this many years, they would say with a shrug. What does it matter? Or, Four droughts have passed in my lifetime.
    “But Nouria is right, this party is very expensive,” Gishta explained. “You have to kill some chickens, maybe even a goat, and feed everybody. And then, of course, you have to pay the midwife.”
    “Why the midwife?” I asked.
    “Because she makes the party happen, Lilly!” Gishta shouted, incredulous. “It’s not a party without the midwife. Don’t you know anything? She doesn’t know anything, Nouria!”
    “Well, I’m not her mother!” Nouria hissed.
    Had my mother not taught me anything? She’d shown me how to do simple crocheting and how to join my letters together. She’d taught me card games, including strip poker, telling me that nakedness was not cause for shame. I’d wondered about that at the time, though, because while they lay about with little or nothing on smoking marijuana and giving each other sponge baths, the rest of the world had been very much dressed.
    She’d taught me where babies came from but not where they go when they die. It was the Great Abdal who taught me about heaven.
    Both of the women were staring at me.
    “What?” I demanded.
    “You know that you must always cover your hair outside the compound,” Gishta said.
    “And that you must never be alone with a man, because the devil will be your third companion,” Nouria added, the first in her arsenal of Arabic proverbs, most of which seemed to concern relations between men and women.
    “And you know that when you have the monthly blood, you must never visit the mosque or prepare food, for this is a hurt and a pollution,” Gishta said gravely.
    I didn’t know what any of this had to do with Rahile’s party, but I wanted to help, and so I later pressed a small amount of money into Nouria’s hand.
    Nouria smiled at me for perhaps the first time and said: “For both Rahile and Bortucan. You cannot do one and not the other.”

    R ahile boasted about the forthcoming party for weeks, telling anyone who would listen. People on the street patted her on the head and told her she was a good girl. Even Bortucan appeared to bubble with anticipation.
    Gishta had matching dresses made for the girls for the occasion, and even though Bortucan had managed to rub dirt into the front of hers within half an hour of putting it on, they both looked uncharacteristically neat. And happy.
    Rahile perched herself on a small wooden bench that had been moved into the courtyard, sitting straight backed and waving her legs with excitement as women from the neighborhood flooded in through the parted fence. The women had marigolds and aromatic herbs tucked behind their ears and they carried shiny packages of sweets that they placed on the ground before sitting themselves down in a circle around Rahile. Gishta passed around a tray with small clay cups of tea made from coffee husks boiled in milk and water.
    Most of the women ignored me as I hung back by the kitchen, keeping an eye on another pot of milk and water about to boil on the fire. Two sisters from down the road, who clearly found me amusing, shouted: “Tell us, what new Harari words have you learned lately?”
    “Absuma gar,” I replied plainly, wanting to keep the attention on Rahile, who was looking a little put out.
    They roared and raised their hands above their heads.
    “Absuma gar! Allahu akbar!” cried one.
    “Allahu akbar!” repeated the others one after another, until the ripple of a whisper threaded its way through the crowd and the women fell silent. A large elderly woman with drooping eyelids and deep lines etched