Uru and the Purple Dye

Amaal was bursting with news, but she wanted to wait until the right moment to tell everyone. She wasn’t sure if the family gathered in the kitchen would believe that she had played her flute for the Princess. She could hardly believe it herself. Uru’s mother, Sappir, stirred the lentil stew over the kitchen fire while Hannu’s mother, Manu, brushed olive oil on freshly baked flat bread that she had just brought in from the oven in the yard.

            “Manu,” Sappir was saying, “have you discussed our plan with Hannu? You promised he would return to Tyre to take over the business.”

            “I know, Sappir, but things change. The boy has changed. He’s growing into a man.”

            “More to the point! It’s high time he made a living. You could hardly do better, Hannu. The fabric is—”

            “I know, I know,” Hannu complained. “It’s worth its weight in gold.”

            Uru took a shell from the windowsill and handed it to Amaal. It was a white, pronged spiral about the size of her fist. Uru explained as Hannu signed, “The dye comes from sea snails. Hundreds of them make one small pot of dye.”

            “And,” Hannu interrupted, “the whole process stinks!”

            “True,” Uru admitted, “everyone closes their shutters on dyeing day, but nobody complains because the color is very beautiful, it lasts forever, and it brings a lot of wealth to Tyre. Besides, we only boil the sea snails every couple of months.”

            “In a process that lasts for ten days,” Hannu said.

            “But,” Sappir said, “the fabric really is worth its weight in gold. A mina of purple fabric is worth a mina of gold.”

            “So, I could be stinking rich!” Hannu quipped.

            Uru rolled her eyes. “Inside each shell, there’s a pouch that contains the dye. Boiling is the stinky part. Next, we dip the fabric. The color comes out light blue in sunlight or violet blue in the dark, and there are many shades of purple and blue and red in-between.” Uru continued, gesturing forcefully, “I know more about dye than anyone else in the family. Even my mother will admit it. This is my family, too, and I want to run the business.”

            Hannu brightened. “Great idea!”

            “Hannu, she’s just a girl,” Sappir said.

            “So, she’s a girl. Don’t you see? It would be great! She can run the business here in Tyre, and I can handle the merchandise out on the road!”

            Uru nodded with excitement.

            “Hannu…” Sappir’s voice trailed off.

            Uru signed vigorously as Hannu spoke her words, “I know you doubt me, but I don’t need hearing to collect the sea snails. I don’t need hearing to dip fabric. Look at these hands!” She held up her purple arms as evidence. “Nobody in this city can do it better, and everyone knows it!”

            “Uru,” Sappir said, “nobody doubts that you’re capable…”

            But Uru wasn’t finished. “I don’t need hearing to buy fabric from the weaver. I don’t even need hearing to negotiate a contract. I can read and write better than Hannu—no offense, Hannu—and I can handle numbers better than he can, too!”

            The room fell quiet until Manu broke the silence, saying softly, “Let’s eat. We’ll finish this discussion later.”

            Uru stared into her bowl of stew. Amaal could see that the girl was fighting a lonely battle. The rejection at the Temple of Ashtart was bad enough, but the people gathered at the dinner table were the ones who loved her best, and even they were focused on her so-called imperfection. Amaal toned down her story when she told everyone about her visit to the temple, and she did not mention that she had played her flute for Princess Elishat.

            After dinner, she took Hannu aside. “You know the melody I’m supposed to play tomorrow?”

            “You forgot it.”

            “How did you know?”

            “Just a hunch.”

            Hannu whistled the hymn. Amaal felt as though she were hearing it for the first time. He took her flute and noodled around until he could produce a tone, then found the starting note and played through the melody—effortlessly. When he handed it back, Amaal had the feeling the flute was somehow less hers.

            “Why couldn’t you play the hymn at the ceremony?”

            “A boy can’t play the Hymn to Ashtart. It wouldn’t be right. I probably shouldn’t even be whistling it.”

            Annoyed, Amaal rushed through the tune, making a muddle of it.

            “Play it slowly,” Hannu said, heading for the kitchen, “then gradually faster when you’re sure of the notes.”    

            Amaal played slowly. With each mistake, and there were many, she growled and started over again. Her fingers simply refused to do what she wanted them to do. She spoke harshly to them, ordering this one up and that one down, but they seemed to have plans of their own, none of which involved mastering the hymn. She set the instrument in her lap. She was quiet for a long time wishing it would all just go away. She felt angry at Gader for pressing her into performing and resentment toward Hannu for playing the flute perfectly on the first try. Mostly, she felt powerless to learn the song. She stewed under that dark cloud for a while until she came to the conclusion that there was no way out of it. She picked up the flute and put it to her lips. Again and again, she plodded through the notes, slowly piecing together the melody until, gradually, her fingers started to remember what they were supposed to do, and she played the hymn two, three, four times without error.

            From the kitchen, Hannu called out, “You’ve got it!”

            She played it again, this time with a bit more confidence, and once more just to be sure. Relieved but exhausted, Amaal cleaned the flute and returned it to its case. The hymn played over and over in her head for the rest of the evening, but later, as everyone settled down for the night, she was gripped by a new fear.

            “Hannu,” she whispered in the dark after the oil lamps had been extinguished, “what if I forget the tune while I’m sleeping? What if I wake up in the morning and can’t remember it?”

            “You’ll remember. You’ve got it now. It’ll be great.”

            Easy for him to say, she thought, though she said nothing.

            She lay on her bed, afraid to let go of the day. She envisioned the marketplace filled with thousands of wedding guests all staring at her, and the gods listening from their front row seats in heaven. Then she remembered Elishat, not the high-bred princess surrounded by an entourage of royals but the ordinary woman, naked by the pool in the temple. Of all the calamities that could befall Amaal’s performance—her breath trembling out of control, her mouth turning to sand, her fingers refusing to obey—none compared with the mortal danger Princess Elishat faced from her own brother. Then, another picture came to mind: the look on Uru’s face as she argued ferociously, courageously for her rightful place in the family. Amaal felt a twinge of shame and with it, an inspiration. If the hymn could convince a goddess to protect the princess on her wedding day, she would do her best to play it well. She felt a tear roll down her cheek. No less afraid, but determined to succeed, she hummed the melody softly to herself until she fell asleep.

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