Aakifah turned to her mother and they had an animated conversation. “My mother says she will show you.” She turned and spoke rapidly to yet another young woman. “My sister will work the stall.”
“Great!” Lucy plucked off her sunglasses and followed Aakifah round the back of the roughly-built stall. “Thank you,” she smiled and nodded to the older woman who was already squatting beside a small stove, heating oil in a shallow pan.
She was soon on her haunches beside the other women, listening to Aakifah's translations of her mother’s descriptions of the spices and the meat and grains with which she used them. Soon, other women were grouped around them having heard that there was a ferenji in the market. Before long the old woman had served up a plate of food and urged Lucy to taste it.
Lucy took a mouthful, closed her eyes and sighed. “Fantastic!” She gestured her approval to the older woman who grinned widely.
“My mother asks that you show us what cooking you do, please.”
“I’d love to.”
Lucy bought a selection of ingredients with Aakifah's help and before long she was cooking a dish that had long been a favorite amongst the crews of the boats she’d worked on.
Spoonfuls were handed around to an appreciative audience.
“Mother said this is very good indeed. She especially likes the way you’ve used the lemon with the spices. But she wonders if your husband and children are accepting of the lack of goat meat.”
Lucy paused for a long moment suddenly aware of the wide gulf that divided them. “I have no husband or children.”
After Aakifah translated, there was a collective gasp and a murmur of disbelief rippled around the group.
“It’s normal in the West not to marry until you’re older,” Lucy continued, feeling a need to justify the behavior the others obviously saw as very strange. “Western women like to pursue a career, live an independent life.”
There was much shaking of heads and pitying looks.
“Mother says that it is a waste of beauty and skill to be a spinster.”
“Thank your mother for her compliments but please assure her I’m perfectly happy as I am.” Met with disbelieving looks, Lucy suddenly felt uncomfortable. She’d spent enough time in the souk; she needed to get back to the palace and she still hadn’t asked the question she needed to know the answer to. “I am looking for someone, Aakifah—my sister. I think she may be in Sitra. Do you see many westerners here? Have you heard of a very beautiful woman, tall, red hair, very pale skin?”
Aakifah frowned and spoke briefly to the small crowd who’d gathered around them. There was a jumble of worried responses but the plethora of shaking heads made Lucy’s heart sink. “If your sister is in Sitra she has not been through the city. We would have heard of such a person. She sounds like a jinn, a ghost.”
Lucy forced a disappointed smile to her face and stood up. “She’s no ghost. Perhaps, as you say, she’s not even here. Anyway, I have to go now. Please thank your mother. It's been great. Very kind. Very hospitable.”
The old woman obviously understood the meaning and nodded enthusiastically while talking in a stream of Arabic to her daughter. “She says you must come again.”
“I'd love to.”
Aakifah walked with Lucy to the edge of the market where they both stopped. As Lucy scanned the crowds for the guard, she was aware Aakifah was studying her, her eyebrows drawn together in a puzzled frown. “Where you stay in Sitra, L’cee?”
“At the palace. The person I worked for knows the King who has allowed me to stay there for a few weeks.”
Aakifah’s eyes widened. “The new King? You are very honored. But,” the woman bit her lip and glanced up under long dark lashes, “aren’t you frightened?”
Lucy frowned. “Frightened? Why should I be?”
“The new King is very stern. He makes big changes in our land. The elders believe his ways are too foreign; they do not like what he is doing.”
“But things have improved, haven’t they? There seems no shortage of food in the markets.”
“That is true. It is not like before. The poor people have more money, more food. Life is not so hard.”
“Then I think the fears of the elders must be that they’re losing their money to the poor.”
Aakifah’s brief look of shock turned to laughter as she embraced Lucy and they parted. “I hope you will visit us again, L’cee.”
“I hope so too.”
“Goodbye L’cee.”
The last syllable followed Lucy out into the street as if calling out to the sea that she so loved.