Part 1

The Dust — Part One

O listeners of the hchaya...

Tighten the agal and send blessings upon the Prophet, for the hchaya I tell is not one of those evening tales that end with the last finjan; this is a hchaya of blood, and when blood becomes a hchaya it is not forgotten and it is not to be forgotten.

It was in a land the tribe had walked since before people knew the meaning of borders, between palm groves that drank from al-Shatt and earth that began where the water ended, and in that land there was a mudhif with a high roof and lofty corner, on whose walls hung swords that had not been taken down since the grandfather's grandfather, and in which gahwa was poured from before dawn until after midnight, and at its sadr sat a woman... yes, a woman, in the place where before her none but men had sat, and none of them asked how she had come to sit there, for the answer was written in blood she had preserved, and in men she had turned back from a war that would have consumed half of al-Dirah.

Her name was Muzna bint Shallal, and her father Shallal had been a Sheikh who, when he spoke, the wind fell silent to listen, and he died eleven years ago and left no son in al-Dirah to bear the agal, so his daughter bore it, and from that day people began to say "Shaykha" after the Arabs had known nothing but "Sheikh."

And this is her hchaya, and the hchaya of her brother who returned.

---

It was a Thursday morning, and the mudhif was full. On the right sat the masters of the afkhadh, on the left those in need and the wronged, and in the middle Hammoud al-Qahwaji circled with his dalla pouring the finjan and flicking his wrist in a small shake that meant "enough" to him who had had his fill, and before the Shaykha stood two men quarreling over a share of water from the Eastern Canal, one of them angry, clutching the edge of his abaya as if he meant to throw it in his opponent's face.

"I watered my land first, ya Shaykha, and this liar watered after me and could not wait!"

"May God keep your tongue, ya Abu Aliwi," said Muzna, and her voice was calm like a river at the end of summer, neither rising nor falling, yet you heard it at the far end of the mudhif. "You say you watered your land three days ago?"

"Three days, by God Almighty."

"I passed by your land today and it was damp and glistening, and water does not stay in this soil for three days; it stays a day and a half if the sun is merciful. Send one of the men to look at it, and if my words are wrong I will compensate you for my suspicion, and if they are true then you know the answer before I speak it."

The man lowered his head, and his chest bent like a palm heavy with dates. And the people heard what was not said: that Abu Aliwi had watered his land the night before, from another's share, and that the Shaykha had known before he entered the mudhif. So those present sighed a single sigh, the sigh of those who know that right has found one to bear it, even if the bearer is a woman.

And to the right of the Shaykha, close to her as befitted her nearest kin, sat her paternal uncle Mutlak, a white-bearded man with quiet eyes, holding his misbaha without moving a single bead. When his brother's daughter passed judgment he would give a slight nod of his head, and you could not tell whether it was approval or calculation, and the tribe had grown accustomed to reading into that nod whatever it wished.

"Another case," said Muzna.

But it did not come.

---

A small boy came running into the mudhif, barefoot, and he did not enter as boys enter, but burst in as if bearing news of death, and stopped at the threshold with his chest rising and falling, dust on his head from the road.

"Ya Shaykha... ya Shaykha... the dust! Dust on the eastern road!"

"Dust rises every day, ya walad."

"Not this time. My mother told me to run... someone is coming, just one, on a horse."

One of those present gave a short laugh and it died away. For who comes to this land alone on a horse? Either a messenger of calamity, or a man who does not fear death, and both deserve to be received standing.

Muzna rose. She did not rise quickly, for a Shaykha does not hurry even for judgment, but she stood with weight and dignity, and the men rose with her one after another, and she walked to the door of the mudhif, and the whole place fell still, until even the dalla stopped in Hammoud's hand.

The dust was rising from the end of the road like a column of yellow smoke, drawing nearer, and beneath it the shadow of a horse and a man, and the sun behind them lengthened their shadows on the dirt as if they were larger than their true size. And the sound of hooves came ahead of the rider, a heavy, even tread, with no haste and no hesitation in it, the tread of one who knows the road though he has been away from it for years.

One of the men said in a low voice:

"I don't think he's a stranger."

And no one asked him: why?