Raid — Roleplayer Guild

Not in the house.

“I never should have sent your brother out,” Ayat confides to Deena. The eighteen month old has her fist in her mouth again. She reaches forward and touches the fat wrist. The skin soft and smooth and warm. Ayat only remembers her skin being that smooth for her wedding night and it took a hour to scrub a bucket of goat’s milk to create the same effect. Her fingers are blotchy from the different herbs and roots she used to smash and mash and boil. The rings on her fingers are scratched and could do with a polish. Captain Sharkas promised once they were settled in Sintra they would find a goldsmith and silversmith to fix them up. Sighing, Esra lays beside Deena on the narrow bunk.

Blankets were provided, but she doubts she will use them with it being so stifling inside. Boards buckle against each other where they don’t fit right. The floor is dry and the walls don’t show signs of much water stains. Esra hates getting wet. Othman enjoyed tell the men on the ships this. Who will tell these men about her aversion to clinging clothes and sticky skin from drying salt water? Othman’s father, her uncle, often complained about the lack of gender separation observed while they were at sea. When discussed with their imam in Rabat, he suggested that Esra simply stayed in the city and never took to the sea. They left for another voyage a week later. Despite their less than perfect adherence according to her uncle and imam, Othman declared that accordingly to the verse of the Qur’an they have obeyed Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, and his Prophet, sallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam. And it was true. Never in the years on a ship did she appear indecent in public. Not even during the dinner’s her family often had with Captain Sharkas and his first mate, a Jew from somewhere so far North East she not sure if she believed the stories he would tell. Sometimes she would go from place to place without an escort, but even in Rabat, that was normal. All the men knew to keep their distances and behave. Most of the Al-Qari’a’s crew were Muslim, too, so they understood what was proper.

She traces a circle in the palm of Deena’s hand and watches as she drifts asleep, her head pillowed on the arm of Samy who has been sleeping since Shahid left. “I should have never sent your brother out,” she repeats, thinking of the short, but terrifying foreigner who by orders of this Captain Emilio brought her below decks. The scars and skin is not what made her keep her eyes glued to the back of his ankles as she followed him below. It was his hair.

Below the bunk, Ahmad wedges himself between the floor and the bed, playing with whatever he finds in the shadows.

)o(
Someone whispers a story. Quiet and subtle like the creaking of the ship as waves rock into it and wind blow over. Esra cannot hear the story because the voices in her ears are those of a dead man and he drowns out all else. The baby presses down on her bladder. All the voices stop as she rises from the bunk to squat over the provided bucket. She leans against the wall, woozy.

“Mother,” her eldest son addresses her when she drops her skirts back down.

“Shahid,” she acknowledges him. He has no cloth or needle. She is not surprised. He kneels on the floor next to the edge of the bed. All three of his siblings are tucked beneath the shadows. Even little Deena and her soft skin. Her brothers must have moved her.

“Food is being served, but I am not allowed to food for everyone,” he says. She stares down into his round, chubby face with its thick long eyebrows drooping into his eye sockets. Stout, but not strong. That’s what type of man her son will be when he grows up. But smart, she thinks as she gathers up her head scarf and begins the process of tucking her black hair back so it’s hidden under the gray linen.

[b]“The Captain wouldn’t make an exception for you?” she presses. She knows her son is lying. A pin goes to deep and pricks her scalp. She readjusts and tries again, this time successfully weaving the metal between folds of fabric to keep her scarf in place.

Shahid says, “It has to do with rationing, mother.”

Even though it wasn’t the truth, it was a good explanation. She fusses with the excess of her scarf so it falls down her robe without pulling too much. Deena reaches up for her mother, neck craned so far back Esra can see the movement of her throat beneath the fat. Samy and Ahmad stand by the door, looking up at the latch. This door does not lock. “Then we must go claim our rations, must we?” Her hand remains pressed on the door for a moment too long because Ahmad calls out for her. She pretends as if her lapse never occurred. When she opens the door, she expects to see the slumping shoulders of her husband as he leans on his stick for support, waiting for his family. She expects Deena to reach out to pull on his skimpy beard, making it more difficult to carry her up the steps to the deck. But she remains tucked against her mother’s milk-engorged breasts.

Coming on to deck disorients her. This was not the Al-Qari’a and its lamps with colored glass so that everything glowed in greens, blues, and oranges. No Jewish first mate and his funny hats and dangling strings. No greetings. No bald head of Captain Sharkas with its scars. The languages too convoluted for her to understand. She steps forward. Samy and Ahmad already pushing themselves between the men for the cheese and fruit. Shahid speaks to the confused sailors, lips red from wine. He is apologizing she thinks, a twist of shame and anger pushing her hunger back down into the recesses of her mind. The people on the ship smell just as much like the sea as they do smoke. No-one has had the opportunity to wash off the stink of last night.

Do they even realize what’s happening? she thinks, keeping to the fringes of the crowd and away from those playing cards. Do you? Her twins run across the deck, rolls of fresh bread, not hardtack or dried fish, crushed in their hands. Ayat sits on the wooden cages of the chickens that will be accompanying them. A goat sticks its head between the bars of its cage, straws of hay sticking out as it mashes its food down to something digestible. Shahid hovers between the men. Sometimes talking, sometimes just listening. Esra wonders what he hears. Some of the Spanish spattered amongst the crowd is more familiar than the Portuguese. However, in her state (she keeps turning her head, looking for familiar faces), she doubts she could understand any properly if brought into a discussion. Deena stares at the goat, copying the movement of its jaw with her own. Esra stares to the East where the dark line of shore dips below the horizon. She’s forgetting something. What is it?

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The Way Out

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