The second teacher taught math. He showed me tricks for adding and subtracting quickly in my head. Taught me to calculate percentages, taxes, and interest. Trained me in the mathematical formulas for determining how much grain filled a granary and how much wine filled a cask.
I loved math. All I had to do was apply the correct formula and calculate correctly. There was only one right answer. Not like writing, where there were too many ways to write something and too many ways to make mistakes.
I began to think Momma was preparing me to marry a king. Why else would I need to know how to calculate such vast sums? While I studied, Momma made baskets of exceptional size and intricacy. My education was costly, she explained. Expensive, but worth it. Every month a merchant stopped and bought all of Momma’s baskets.
“Why don’t you take them to market yourself?” I looked up from a vexing math problem with two unknown quantities. “You would make more money if you sold direct to the seller.”
“It’s not safe to leave you alone.”
I wrinkled my nose. “The teachers are old and feeble. This one naps while I do my calculations.”
Momma’s eyebrows shot up in dismay. “What?”
“I don’t think he knows he dozes off. His eyelids get heavy and his head bobs. I clear my throat when I’m done and his head springs up. He’s always amazed I did the calculation so quickly.”
Momma examined one of the baskets in her pile. “Mmmm… keeping all the profit would be nice.”
“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”
The next week, Momma took her baskets to market. She left before dawn to prevent any villager from seeing her speed and strength. She returned just after dark, her satchel bursting with coins. Momma went to market twice more before the old math teacher proclaimed he had taught me all he knew.
The next withered old man arrived. This one taught me about the heavens. I mapped the positions of constellations, studied the phases of the moon, and discovered the prophetic nature of shooting stars. Unlike my lessons with the other two teachers, who taught during the day, this subject matter required staying awake all night long.
By week’s end, I found my nocturnal rhythm. I delighted in night’s glowing serenity, hushed sounds, and endless sky. Night amplified everything. I could hear a mouse darting under a bush. Feel the slightest breeze across my cheek. Taste the dampness before a storm.
I slept until the noon meal, and each afternoon helped Momma gather palm fronds for her baskets. During one search near the village, I watched young men shed their clothes and wade into the storm-flooded wadi. My cunt tightened as their sinewy, wet bodies glistened in the sun. I ached for their touch, their mouths, their cocks, and . . .
“Those boys are not worth your time.” Momma stepped in front of me and blocked my view. Her pinched lips hovered inches from my gaping mouth. “They have no experience, no skill, and no future. They offer nothing but heartache and frustration. You are made for Greatness.”
“You have men all the time,” I sassed back.
“I am not you.” Momma’s fingernails dug into my chin. “The men I use are strangers just passing through. I never fuck a man from the village. A jealous woman is more dangerous than any warrior.”
“But you’re stronger and faster than anyone. No one can hurt you.” I pulled away and rubbed my chin. “Ouch.”
“A pinch hurts? A jealous woman will do more than that. And she won’t limit her rage to me, Bilqīs. She will come after you if she can’t get to me.”
I dropped my eyes.
“What do you think they would do if they discovered I was a jinni?”
“Tell the king,” I mumbled. According to Momma, kings were always trying to catch a jinni to make them do their bidding.
Momma put her hand on my shoulder. “One day you will need to tell people I am a jinni. But not now.”
“You make no sense.” I pushed away her hand and turned to stare at the young men. From this distance, their faces were indistinct, yet their strapping bodies were enough for me to feel lust’s tug.
“It will all make sense one day.” Momma’s voice was soft and tinged with sadness. “Stay away from the boys. And the girls.”
“I’m tired of this prophesy of Greatness.” My voice cracked with anger.
Momma laughed, an eerie, hollow sound that sounded like it came from a deep clay pot.
CHAPTER 6
The next teacher schooled me in the artistry and laws of architecture. I learned about wood, limestone, dry stone, mud brick, and waterproof cement qudad; the building blocks of construction. This was my favorite subject because it took form and function, beauty and math, to create a praiseworthy temple.
I wondered if my Great Destiny was to be a garbay, a master builder and mason of high status. My teacher praised my ideas and skills in applied mathematics, yet lamented the misfortune of my birth.
“Men are builders. Not women.” He shook his head, his gray stringy locks swishing like a cat’s tail. “It’s a pity your gift will go unused, but that is the way it has always been and will always be.”
The next teacher taught rhetoric, the art of clever persuasion. I enjoyed this as well. I practiced my new skills on Momma, who soon tired of my arguments.
Momma clapped her hands over her ears. “Enough, daughter. You win. But I still won’t fly you to the sea tonight.”
The last teacher taught religion. Not only did the shifty-eyed man go into extensive detail about the five main gods, Athtar, Almaqah, Hawbas, dhāt-Himyam, and dhāt-Ba’dan, he opined about lesser gods in other lands.
Momma could have taught this subject herself, her lengthy lifespan—she refused to tell me just how many generations she’d lived—giving her insight into all kinds of far-flung gods.
“Gods are unknowable, beyond our understanding,” said Momma one night when I asked why I felt closer to Almaqah than Athtar, the highest-ranking god. “A god is felt here.” Her hand pressed to her bosom. “Listen to your heart. It has the instinctual knowing of an animal. This,” she tapped her forehead, “often makes us chase our own tail.”
Despite enjoying the subject matter, I did not like the teacher. Something about him made my skin crawl. He was a middle-aged man with a dark beard, hooked nose, cruel dark eyes, and an unwavering stare that burned through my dress. I felt naked under his contemptuous scrutiny. I studied hard in hopes he would leave quickly.
“Do you have a cock?” he asked one afternoon before we stopped for the midday meal.
“What?” I recoiled.
“Do you have a cock?”
“Why would you ask such a thing?” My stomach twisted with panic. Today was market day. Momma was far away.
“Why else would your mother pay so much to educate a useless girl?”
I rose from the bench, straightened my shoulders. I have a Great Destiny I wanted to say, but did not. “You’re paid to teach, not ask questions about its purpose.”
One corner of his lip curled. “Your dress is shapeless. Do you hide a deformity?”
I stepped back. “No.”
“I don’t believe you. I think your body bares the cursed marks of a witch.”
Why did this teacher, of all teachers, not see my inner light, intelligence, beauty? All the others had. How odd that the one who taught religion did not recognize my exceptionality.