Sky Cloth of Timbuktu

Dawn rinsed Timbuktu in a wash of sandy gold. Heat had not yet found the alleys, and the walls of mud brick were cool to the palm. Zeinab balanced a tray of reed pens and shallow bowls of gum arabic as she stepped into the low room where her father worked. The smell of paper and soot ink greeted her, as familiar as the woven mat beneath her feet. Her father, Ibrahim, sat cross-legged on a cushion, a fine brush pinched between his fingers. He did not look up until she set the tray down.

'You woke with the swifts again,' he said, flexing his thumb. 'Good. The light is steady now.' He gestured to the low bench. 'Try the noon flourish. Let the pen breathe.'

Zeinab rolled her sleeves, dipped the reed. The first curve of the letter trembled, then steadied. She pressed, lifted, pressed again. Her breath matched the stroke. Outside, donkeys complained, and the call of a date seller floated in. The reed spoke softly over paper. Her father watched without speaking, then reached to adjust her grip.

'Here,' he murmured. 'Feel how the line wants to turn.'

She nodded and started again. The wall hung with patterns, each a memory of a lesson: tight rows of black on cream, curls like wind-blown sand. A thin draft carried the taste of dust. She loved the sound of dry pages turning, the hidden hush that lived in a library even when a market roared beyond.

When he was satisfied, Ibrahim slipped a small knife from his sash. The blade was dull from scraping mistakes. He set it beside her. 'Yours now,' he said. 'No more returning my knife with a bite gone.'

Zeinab laughed softly and took it. The knife felt weighty, a small tool but full of purpose. 'I promise,' she said.

Later, she carried a bound stack to the courtyard. A cat blinked from the shade. The air had warmed, and the first caravan bell trembled far off, a tinny chime carried through the alleys. Zeinab looked up to the flat rooftops and beyond, where the pale line of the desert trembled under the coming heat. She pictured the tall loads of salt, the calloused hands that tied them, the long hours of step after step. Inside the uneven bowl of the city, Djinguereber’s minaret lifted like a clay finger pointing to the open blue.

Her mother called from the doorway, a bowl of milk in hand. 'Drink, child,' Kadija said. 'Ink is not breakfast.'

Zeinab obeyed, sweet coolness on her tongue. Her fingers, stained with soot and gum, would not be truly clean for days. She did not mind. Words were work, and work stained you: that made them hers.