Women of Sand and Myrrh Read Online Free PDF Page A

call it a room. We were astounded to see a man clad only in underpants stretched out there, his eyes fixed on the ceiling, while Sita bent over him massaging his body. We automatically turned our faces away and retreated a few steps. Before we’d had time to think what to do next we heard Sita’s voice: ‘Hallo. Just a minute until I’ve finished with this poor creature.’ We laughed to start with, then Ingrid asked me in amazement how this could be happening here, and I answered her seriously, ‘Why not? Sita’s a doctor.’
    We heard a series of shrieks that even seemed to startle the goat who’d been lying there chewing and twisting her head around from time to time to keep the flies off. A few minutes passed. Then the man came out with his clothes on, not looking in our direction. We went in to Sita. She was rubbing her hands in the ashes and explained, looking up at us, ‘It sterilises the hands.’ When I asked what was wrong with the man, she said, ‘A cough and asthma.’
    There was an odd smell. Sita put out the little stove, picked up the iron, and then dropped it because it was so hot; if she hadn’t said, ‘It’s the old man’s flesh burning,’ we wouldn’t have believed that she’d actually put the hot iron on his skin. She took hold of it again with the edge of her dress then picked up a rag from the ground and wiped it, repeating, ‘It’s the old man’s flesh burning. Like when someone’s burning the hair off sheep’s trotters.’ She added, elucidating, ‘The man’s chest is weak. It gurgles and rattles like the beads of a rosary. Creams and herbs don’t work. I said to him I’ve worked on both your shoulder joints and I’ve cauterized you. I felt for all the joints in his body. There are people whose hip joints are hard to get hold of, and the joints in their calves. No two fingers are alike.’ The strange smell persisted and Sita, still rubbing at the iron, remarked, ‘The flesh is still sticking to it. It doesn’t want to come off. The old fellow’s skin must be like cured meat.’
    Then it seemed to strike her that we hadn’t yet mentioned why we’d come, although she didn’t look at us. She threw the iron on to a brass tray covered in verdigris, smoothed down her black head shawl and adjusted the veil that she wore on the lower half of her face. Then she pulled it down slightly and wiped her nose and upper lip on the edge of her sleeve. She was wearing a dress so remarkable that I thought if the most famous designer in the world could have seen it he would have gasped in admiration and wished that he’d thought of it first: it was patterned with purple flowers the colour of indigo plants, and with the sun and grass on a whitebackground; its shoulders and sleeves were embroidered in purple and fuschia-coloured thread, and the sleeves and the hem were trimmed with silver rings. Medicaments and dried herbs were all about the room and oils and creams in bottles and jars were arranged under sheets of old newspaper on the table, watched over by the stuffed peacock with gold-sequined feathers, who looked ready to weep.
    Sita was manifestily irritated at our silence and she fidgeted and patted her dress, straightening it. When I said, ‘Your dress is nice,’ she gave a grudging smile and asked briskly, ‘Which one of you is ill?’
    ‘Neither of us, but my friend would like to write about you for a German magazine.’
    Sita put her hand over her face: ‘God forbid. No television.’ I realized I ought not to have broached the subject directly, so quickly as if to cancel out the previous sentence, I said ‘My head hurts.’ And I wasn’t really lying. I got a headache every afternoon. Sita reached out her two hands and grabbed hold of my head forcefully, asking, ‘Where’s the pain, daughter?’ She scared me and I moved my head away abruptly: ‘Not my head, I mean it could be anyone’s head.’ Frowning she replied, ‘Have you come here to find out my secrets?’ and