The Map of Salt and Stars

In her search for Khaldun, Rawiya finds a man burning a book of Ptolemy’s Geography. The man taunts her, saying that she cannot be a warrior and a woman at the same time. However, Rawiya uses her might to scatter the men. She calls out for Khaldun, while an attacker insists that Khaldun was lost to the fire. Rawiya is devastated because Khaldun, more than anyone, has come to give her a sense of home.

Nour and Zahra travel with the Amazigh nomads, taking refuge in their tents. The sisters trust the nomadic family enough to tell them the truth of their mission. The family tell the sisters they can ride hidden in fruit trucks from Ouargla which are bound for Ceuta, and that the family will travel westwards with them on their camels to reach the truck. They traverse the desert with the family for a week. When Nour explains to Itto, the family matriarch, that she is from New York, Itto says that she is “still Syrian” as “a person can be two things at the same time […] the land where your parents were born will always be in you. Words survive. Borders are nothing to words and blood” (298).

While the nomads were historically called Berbers, signaling barbarian, they call themselves the Amazigh, which means free people, as “no one can take our land or our name from our hearts” (298). Nour considers that language, maps, or stories can all give or take a voice away from people: “Only our own words can guide us home” (299). When they reach the city of Ouargla, the sisters must sneak into a refrigerated fruit truck en route to Ceuta.

Rawiya and al-Idrisi recover both Ptolemy’s book and the book al-Idrisi prepared for King Roger. Rawiya is devastated to think she lost Khaldun, but then she finds that Bauza, her horse, survived the fires and that Khaldun also survived. Rawiya pledges her love and promises to marry him because he is “the only home I have” (306). They also find the planisphere and hide it in Ustica, an island in Northern Sicily. However, the three of them decide to go to Ceuta, because it is al-Idrisi’s home as well as Rawiya’s.

Nour and Zahra ride hidden in the refrigerated fruit truck heading to Ceuta, and the cold temperature induces hypothermic delusions. When they finally arrive days later, the man unloading the truck spots them and calls the border guards, who then drive the sisters across Ceuta to a refugee camp. A woman at the camp tells them that their uncle Ma’mun will have to come and collect them.

Nour opens her mother’s map and scratches her fingernail over the acrylic paint until she finds the Arabic writing underneath—and she is delighted to discover that she can read it. The writings, which link sentiments such as “beloved, I am blind” to places like Jordan and Egypt, express their mother’s feelings (314). Nour considers that “it’s a map of us” (314). While Zahra feels content to have survived thus far, Nour is dissatisfied without her mother and other sister. Nour grasps the necklace given to her by her mother, and she feels the blue and white tile, remembering the fountain at Ceuta. Nour feels they have to go to this fountain. Meanwhile, she also started her first period.

Rawiya and Khaldun visit al-Idrisi’s ancestral home in Ceuta, before finding Rawiya’s mother. At first they find the house empty and assume that Rawiya’s mother and her sea-faring merchant brother are dead. When her mother and brother appear, Rawiya’s reunion with them is joyous, and she offers them her share of Nur ad-Din’s treasure; they will never again live in poverty. Rawiya’s mother is delighted at her daughter’s valor and accepts Khaldun warmly into the family.

At the refugee camp, Nour insists Zahra accompanies her to find Uncle Ma’mun and is convinced that the fountain on the map is the location they must find. However, Zahra goes off alone and the camp personnel restrain Nour. Then Nour spots Yusuf and escapes through the forest. She learns from Yusuf that his mother, grandfather, and little sister Rahila are in the refugee camp canteen. They find Zahra in town, and Yusuf says that he loves her and wants them to be a family. They find the house and a garden with a fountain. It is the same house her parents stayed in when they first married and that they later sold to Uncle Ma’mun.

Uncle Ma’mun is here, as are Nour’s mother and Huda. When Nour tells her mother that she deciphered and followed the map, her mother replies, “you didn’t need a map to tell you that […] you have the map of that inside you” (342). Nour also learns that Huda had her infected arm amputated and that she and her mother crossed the desert with abusive smugglers. Still, the family are grateful for their reunion.

When Rawiya and Khaldun go to al-Idrisi’s house, they find that the fountain was restored. They contemplate their adventures with al-Idrisi, and Khaldun reveals that “the death of the roc, the greatest of the eagles, was foretold hundreds of years ago. He has vanished from the earth now, leaving only the white eagles in his wake” (347). When Rawiya wonders what the world’s chaos and brokenness mean, al-Idrisi questions the need for a singular “lesson” and responds that the “story simply goes on […] the generations of men, some kind and some cruel, go on and on beneath the stars” (348).

Nour’s family lives at Uncle Ma’mun’s, and Uncle Ma’mun helps refugees apply for asylum. Zahra and Yusuf are on the verge of engagement. Nour performs the ritual of dropping the green and purple stone into the sea as she and her sisters contemplate the meaning of maps. Nour wonders whether “we’re maps too. Our whole bodies” (350). With Huda’s help, she places her mother’s map about her bed and fills in the missing space with a pen.