healed her.
HE PULLED THE dress over her head and said, “From this night you will be White Nuba Woman in all ways.”
He picked her up and carried her to the bed. The mosquito net fell over them, creating an illusion of perfect privacy. Behind its veil, they embraced and kissed and drank in each other’s musky scents. She caressed him, and with his finger he drew circles around both her breasts, then a line between them, and made random patterns on her stomach. Now he plucked at her skin, following the designs he’d traced, circles and loops, straight lines and lines like a child’s depiction of ocean waves.
She didn’t ask what he was doing, fearful that one word from her would break the spell.
He laid a palm below her navel and whispered, “If you were a Nuba girl, you would be tattooed three times, the first time here, when you are ten years. You go high up into the rocks with only women present, and the tattooist smooths your belly with oil, like this”—he rubbed her there—“and then draws in the oil the designs you choose, like this.” He penciled another motif with his fingertip, his touch lambent and warm, like a paraffin flame. “And the final thing she does is to lift up the flesh with a thorn and make a cut with a small knife.” He pinched her repeatedly, just hard enough for her to feel it. “When the cuts heal, they make the tattoos. The next time is when you have passed from girl to woman. Again, you go to the secret place high in the rocks, again the tattooist rubs the part of your body where the marks will be with oil, here and here.” He massaged her ribs and her stomach just beneath her bosom. “And again—” pinching—“the thorn, the knife . . .
“You are beautiful, Quinette, and I am making you more beautiful.” He clasped her ribs and turned her resistless body face-down and knelt over her. “The third time is after you have borne your first child. It’s always done to the back. It’s the most painful tattooing, it takes two days to complete. Also the most expensive. Your husband has paid the tattooist with goats and chickens and money, he has supplied the oil that is rubbed into you from here to here on the first day.” He stroked the nape of her neck, her shoulder blades, her spine down to her hips, his finger sketched curves and slashes, his pinches were harder than before, bringing a light sting. “Many cuts are made, hundreds, that’s why this is the most painful, but now a powder is applied, made of herbs and sorghum flour and the ash of burned acacia to ease the pain and stop the bleeding and make the marks stand out from the skin when the cuts heal, because those that stand out are the most beautiful.” As he kneaded her back again, she felt as if her bones had turned to gelatin. “On the second day, you are beautified here and here. Here and here the oil is rubbed in.” He dug into her buttocks, the backs of her thighs. There she felt his fingertip making spiral imprints before he pinched her, still harder, squeezing her flesh between his nails. He asked if it hurt and she nodded and he told her she mustn’t make a sound, a Nuba woman was brave and never made a sound when the tattooist’s thorn and knife pricked her. “Imagine you are lying on the warm, smooth rocks, high in the mountains, I am the tattooist, I am now soothing the cuts with the powder of ash and herbs and flour.” In an almost drugged state, she accepted the pressure of his hands, moving over her bottom, down along her legs and up again. “Now you are fully a Nuba woman, very beautiful, admired by all in your village.” His voice seemed to cover her as he parted her thighs. He reached under her to touch her, and she felt how damp she was there when he embraced her at the waist and pulled her toward him. She rose to her knees in a feline crouch, sighed through clenched teeth as he penetrated her to his whole length so that his bristling hairs scratched her. They worked each other into a swift orgasm, and when it came, in a quivering rush, her ass slapping his belly, she felt that their joined selves were