October Lambs

The tenth of October, the sky overcast, sultry with the storms
that leave the palm-lined street strewn with huge fronds, the
pale green Mediterranean roaring almost like a proper ocean,
its usual gentle swell lost in the winds that stir these nights with
thunderless heat lightning.  Everywhere, the fall's the time for
raking.  Only here it's unripe dates and fat fig leaves, brown and
curled like fists -- not the red and golden blaze of maples,
sycamore.  The rake looks strange beside my swim suit, flesh I
cover when I haul stuffed bags outside the gates, careful not to
shock the families headed for the beach, girls with their hair
wrapped in Muslim scarves, the maids from the richer houses
with their white safsaris draped on heads, knotted across a
work dress.  Some herder's descending Byrsa Hill with his
sheep and goats cropping whatever grows outside the walls
surrounding villas, in suburban Carthage, where the ruins of
Dido's city and the Romans who sowed her streets with salt
still sprout between the Arab homes.  I see lambs with the
ewes, new-born size, still suckling.  Lamps in October, the
seasons confusing as Arabic books printed back to front, in
this country I have never learned to read.

Sybil James