The Sand Fish by Maha Gargash Page B

continue. The laugh that followed sounded strained.
    He was trying to lighten the mood by teasing her. “Don’t joke,” Noora said. “I am serious.”
    “Why do you worry so much?”
    She wondered whether that was true. “I don’t know why.”
    “Well, you can’t help it I suppose.” He sniffed. “You have had a lot to worry about in your life, living all alone, like a savage out there.”
    She yanked her hand out of his and slapped him repeatedly on his arm with the back of her palm. “Savage?” she cried.
    “No, no,” he said, with obvious glee. “I meant living so far from people. Being isolated all your life in faraway mountains, that’s what makes your ways rough.” He lifted his hands to protect his face. “Don’t injure me, angry woman, strong woman! I can’t defend myself.”
    It was an invitation to use both hands, and Noora attacked him with her full heart in loving slaps and punches to his chest and stomach. He curled into a ball and she tried to roll him over to expose his more tender parts, but he was too heavy. Shifting her weight to her thighs, she shoved him using her full body, uprooting him with the first thrust, surprised at her own strength. He tumbled onto his back.
    With the speed of a hungry dog, she punched the cavity, feeling her fist rupture the softness of his belly. His gasp reverberated in the hollow of the cavern. She had hit him too hard.
    Rashid was quick to react. His arms coiled to his chest and shot out. She felt the thump ram the air out of her chest.
    Noora landed at the pool’s edge, half in, half out of the water. Her shayla slipped onto her shoulders and spread around her, sucked in the water and went limp. She sat awkwardly, armslodged behind her, her bent legs wobbling as she tried to regain some poise. She blinked away the tears that were welling in her eyes and watched him rise, shake the dirt off his dishdasha, and blend with the darkness.
    Noora coughed to test her voice before speaking. “There’s no need to be so rough.”
    “You started it.”
    “But I am only a girl. You’re a man. Much stronger than I am.”
    “If you can’t handle the joking, you shouldn’t joke.”
    “That push wasn’t a joke,” she mumbled. She pulled the shayla back onto her head and crept toward the middle of the pool. The deepest point reached just below her chest. She closed her eyes and, holding her nose, dipped her head, immersing her hurt into its darkness.
    She held her breath for as long as she could. Then, resurfacing, she gulped the air. Her eyes wandered to the hurricane lamp. It remained in the same place, but Rashid was not in its light. She stood very still and waited to hear his footsteps, but only the sound of trickling water, as it slid off her head and into the pond, filled the cave. She remained frozen in place for a long time, till those same trickles weakened and collected to form individual drops. With each plop, she felt her brooding anger dissolve, and just as she was about to move, she spotted him.
    Rashid emerged from the shadows like a lost ghost. He waded into the pool, setting off ripples that lapped her chest. Noora felt her heart quicken, and she was suddenly aware of the way her clothes were clinging to her skin. Even though she knew that it was too dark for Rashid to be able to see her properly, she felt exposed. She started tugging at the fabric tocreate air pockets that could hide her sodden outline. Wet pops echoed in the cave, and that made her more conscious of the strange desire that was seeping out of her.
    He stopped in front of her, his face a hand’s distance away, and pulled the shayla onto her shoulders. Even though she felt more exposed with her head uncovered, she did not resist.
    “I didn’t mean to be so rough,” he whispered. “It just happened. You hit me so hard, I just pushed without thinking.”
    Noora crossed her arms tight over her chest to squash the swell of it, and smiled. “It’s over now.”
    “Forgive