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The Bahraini Pearls Book One A String of Dreams

By Denise P. Griffon

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PROLOGUE

But the pearls were accidents, and the finding of one was luck,
a little pat on the back by God or the gods or both.
~ John Steinbeck ~ (1902 – 1968)

1913

Eight-year-old Michel Balder anchored his bare toes into the bottom of the rough-hewed boat. The morning sun warmed his back as the ocean waves gently rolled the craft. As he struggled to open the oyster shell in his hand, the curved blade of the knife narrowly missed his pale, wrinkled flesh.
His eyes darted to the bronzed native men sorting their equipment. He exhaled with relief—they hadn’t noticed. What if his father had seen him almost slice off his thumb? He would banish him to the safe insides of the boat and strip him of the much-too-sharp knife. Raising his eyes heavenward in thanks, Michel resumed his task.
Far away in the broad center of the vessel hunched his father, Saul, his broad shoulders towering over the other men. Michel puffed up his tiny chest. Guess I’m grown-up enough to be at the end of the boat all by myself.
Michel chewed his lip with his loose front tooth and glanced his father’s way. The dark whiskers on his father’s face glistened with sand from the beach, like a brown sugar dusting. Saul was having trouble adjusting the brim of his straw hat and as the boat pitched and lurched, he struggled to keep his balance, but the next wave sent the hat toppling into the foam. He cursed in response.
Michel laughed. It’s all right, Papa. No one here speaks German, and the Rabbi isn’t with us.
The rocking boat didn’t bother Michel at all and he returned his attention to the slippery shells. If a pearl was inside, his grandfather could sell it at his jewelry shop back in Berlin. But shell after shell contained only slimy oysters—no pearls. His shoulders drooped.
He plopped the last unexceptional shell into the bucket and perched to watch the pearl divers preparing for their first dive of the day. This was the season of Al-raddah, the three weeks before the onset of winter. Michel had heard the natives say that in a few days the northwesterly winds would make it too dangerous for the divers to go into the ocean.
Among the divers was Michel’s new friend, Ali, a dark-skinned Bahraini child with gleaming black hair. Michel had met Ali only yesterday as he was exploring the sun-bleached shore. Ali was with a group of Bahraini children, each using his own miflacket, the curved knife, to separate the oyster shells in search of the highly valuable Bahraini pearl.
Michel and Ali, who didn’t share the same language, figured out by using hand motions that they would be on the same boat today—the same one Michel’s father had chartered through their Bombay guide. Ali invited Michel to meet his family. Michel had never imagined people could live in such a place. In the tiny grass hut, they ate a meal of dates while sitting on the straw floor. Ali’s family, like most of the island’s inhabitants, made their living from pearls and Michel knew they only had a few more days to find enough pearls to support them through the winter.
Now Ali, like the other divers, or ghoas, was getting ready to dive. They lowered the sail and worked the riggings as the captain barked out instructions. Their boat neared a pearl bank.
Michel waited until he caught his father’s attention. “How deep are the oysters? Can I dive for them, too?” He made a diving motion with his hand. He and Ali used mostly signals to communicate, and now gesturing had become a habit.
Michel’s father laughed. “How long can you hold your breath?” He shook his head while shielding his eyes with his hand. “The ghoas have trained many years to learn this work.”
Their hired guide from Bombay spat his tobacco into the water causing Michel to wrinkle his nose at the smell. “They dive down to twelve fathoms, boy.” He waved his whiskey flask toward the rolling waves. “Of course, you lose a few of these ghoas in the deep waters…but we have plenty to spare.” He threw his head back as he guffawed, and drops of liquid spewed from between his yellow teeth. “Never a shortage of ghoas—easy to replace.”
As Michel watched his father flinch, he tried to recall the meaning of the word “ghoas,” which he’d for the moment forgotten. Shuddering as he remembered the definition, he began for the first time since leaving shore to feel a sense of foreboding. The ghoas are replaceable? You lose them in the deep waters? Does he really mean the divers, this nasty, smelly man? Unsettled, he turned to focus on the waves as they became more energized, undulating the flimsy little boat as if it were an insubstantial, minuscule twig rolling on waves of liquid mercury.
The ghoas placed their fitaams, or nostril clips, onto their noses. Michel breathed in deeply, filling his lungs with salty air, as if he, too, would need to hold his breath. Next the divers placed leather khubaats over their fingers and thumbs to protect them from the sharp coral and shells below.
Finally, each diver checked his diving stone—the heavy stone attached to a rope that made the diver sink to the bottom quickly, giving him more time to collect the oysters.
Butterflies scampered in Michel’s stomach when pint-sized Ali slipped his left foot into the coconut fiber stirrup connected to the heavy stone. Once each diver’s first foot was tightly bound to the stirrup around the stone, he placed his other foot in the rim of a woven net basket that was suspended by a second rope. Every diver had a partner who would watch the two ropes while he was underwater.
One by one the divers inhaled large gulps of air into their lungs, then dove into the sea.
Michel clenched his fists as Ali disappeared under the surface. He knelt over the edge and watched the divers as they faded from view.
His father shouted to him from the now half-empty center of the boat. “Count to eighty slowly. Then watch for a tug on the lines.”
Please, may they find enough oysters with pearls. Grandfather Aaron is counting on Papa and me to bring back lots and lots of pearls for our jewelry store—and the divers need to find them for money and food.
Ali’s partner pulled him out of the water, sputtering and gasping. Michel unclenched his fists as his friend clambered over the edge of the boat and eagerly counted his shells. Little Ali turned away from his catch, his head bowed.
Michel winced. Was that a tear running down Ali’s cheek? Or was it salt water dripping from Ali’s hair?
Michel’s lip was now deeply indented from the loose tooth.
Ali’s father and brothers returned to the boat seconds behind Ali, and although they had twice as many oysters as Ali, their expressions were just as unhappy.
The captain, or nakhoda, ordered the boat moved from inlet to cove, but each time the men returned gasping and short of breath, disappointment shadowed on their tanned faces.
At midday, meager portions of bread and dates were distributed onshore, along with flasks of tepid water. The mood remained somber. Conversation was intermittent and hushed, with only Michel occasionally and quietly asking questions of his father. Even the normally animated Ali seemed subdued. As the afternoon wore on, the catch continued to be meager.
The sun began its stunning descent, tinting the sky orange above the turquoise sea. The waves increased their rhythm as night took hold. The men had time only for one last dive.
Ali jammed his foot into the stirrup attached to the heavy stone and planted his other foot into the basket. Squaring his shoulders, he wedged on his nosepiece. Taking in a great lungful of air, he dove headfirst into the sea.
Michel felt fear engulf him like an ominous cloud. He shivered more from worry than from the cooling breeze. He stared at the water, eagerly anticipating the jerk of the rope, but each second that passed seemed like a minute, as he waited for a sign of the young diver.
Ali’s partner bantered with the other men. Michel counted under his breath. As he reached sixty, he braced his body, leaning over the water, searching for some sign of Ali. Nothing. Only churning waves.
Saul looked at his son. “What is it, Michel?”
Michel pointed to the water, his heart pounding. His throat tightened.
Saul looked around. “Ali?”
Michel’s wide eyes met his father’s.
Saul grabbed the arm of Ali’s partner, who began to heave up the second rope. After what seemed like an eternity, the rope with the basket burst through the water—without the body of the small diver.
Saul hesitated not a moment longer. With a strong upward thrust of his body, he crashed headfirst into the swirling sea.
Seconds passed.
Michel noticed with each fleeting moment how the faces of the boat’s occupants darkened.
Michel’s heart pounded wildly. His father might die. Ali might die. Currents, sharks, poisonous jellyfish—all could kill in these waters. He felt the disgusting, slimy hands of the guide from Bombay on his shoulders. He shook them off, stepped up onto the edge of the boat, and cried as he dove into the waters. He sank deeper and deeper into the sea, his eyes stinging from the salty water.
Below him his father was soaring up toward the boat, kicking his legs with powerful strokes. Cradled in his arm, limp and lifeless, was Ali.
Michel struggled and kicked, trying to get to the surface, but he couldn’t swim. When he stopped struggling, he rose, managing to break through the surface of the water. It was then he glimpsed his father and the motionless little Ali, now in the boat. Greedily, he took in a mouthful of air but sank again, his slight frame no contest against the powerful waves.
Suffocating brine filled his nose and mouth. Thrashing, he fought his way up to the swells, only to be wrenched downward yet once more, sinking deeper and deeper into the depths.
A blur darkened the water above him. Strong muscular arms of a ghoa wrapped around Michel’s chest, and they rose together, closer to the light. Michel vaguely felt himself tossed over the side of the boat to lie atop a pile of oysters.
Shadows surrounded him.
As he struggled for consciousness, he heard the pealing of the brass chimes attached to the heavy oak door of his grandfather’s shop as his white-haired Grandfather Aaron closed the entrance. There! Michel could see him at Balder’s Jewelers back in Berlin as he locked the door, the streetlights illuminating the keyhole for Aaron’s cast-iron skeleton key.
How Michel loved the welcoming sound of those chimes and how he loved his Grandfather Aaron. Would he ever hear the merry chime of those bells again?
What would his grandfather do without him to sweep the polished wood floors and shine the glass cabinets? Who would help him wind the antique grandfather clock every week?
Who would share the kosher dill pickles Aaron loved so much, the leftover ones the neighboring delicatessen owner gave Michel every Saturday morning as thank you for sweeping his floors and sidewalks?
Then the chimes quieted.
Michel’s world hushed to silence.



Still unconscious, Michel dreamt of angels, their dazzling wings connecting like magnets with his hands, dancing him across a great expanse of animated music. The angels sang, their soothing lullaby filling him with utter peace. Their music made him feel weightless, as though gravity were nonexistent. He was puzzled—somehow their wings seemed woven into the music, but how, he didn’t know—then he smiled when he saw their wings were like the antique lace tablecloth that covered his mother’s Sabbath table on Jewish holidays, with holes that his busy fingers used to explore under the table until his mother noticed the damage he was doing.
In an instant he was cast right back to earth.
The sensation of a pounding fist, crashing hard against his bare chest brought tears to his closed eyes. He coughed weakly. All at once, his father picked him up, sobs racking against his hair.
“Papa...” whispered Michel. “Papa, it’s all right. I’m here.” His father rocked his drained body back and forth, crying inconsolably now, overcome with relief. Michel clung to him, grateful for his father’s cradling, grasping his neck with a fatigued hand.
Both shed unashamed tears as the boat was briskly rowed back to the beach. Without a word the occupants disembarked, together hauling the boat ashore. With gentle hands, his father laid Michel on the dry sand as several women approached them with water and a threadbare blanket.
Michel feebly waved goodbye to his angels, who had accompanied him back to earth, and they smiled their farewells. Their pure song continued to penetrate his ears as they faded from view.
His mind traveled to his last glimpse of Ali, still and motionless in Saul’s arms on the boat amid the panicked men. He jerked his head away from his father’s chest. “Papa, where is Ali? Is he alive?”
Saul closed his eyes and bowed his head.
Michel’s gaze darted to the mute natives surrounding them on the beach. He looked up at his father with wide eyes. “He wasn’t with the angels,” the boy announced solemnly. “He’s alive?”
Saul gently smoothed his son’s dark, wet hair, tears streaming even more down his bearded cheeks. “Michel, he isn’t awake. But he is alive.”
“Papa, I want to see him. I want to see him now,” cried Michel, his voice rising in volume and urgency.
“Michel, rest a while. Then I’ll take you to see him.” Saul touched his fingers to Michel’s chapped and sunburned lips.

As Saul wrapped the boy in a blanket and held him in his arms, the natives, with deft hands generated a fire from leaves and sticks. Michel fell into a deep, dreamless sleep, his breathing regular and shallow.
Together, Saul and the crew kept watch while the night enveloped the moon, leaving a moist chill on the sand. The only movement that evening was the dancing palm trees silhouetted against the cloudless sky. Even the typically vocal white-headed gulls and barabensis went soundless as the island natives waited, uncertain whether to mourn Ali or to cling to a bit of hope for his recovery.



The pearls that Ali’s father extended in his weathered hands were the most magnificent Saul had ever seen.
Matched perfectly in size and color were forty milky white, dazzling specimens of the largest size of the Bahraini pearl. Accompanying these in the center of the small straw basket were twelve slightly more yellow, faultlessly matched pearls, perhaps a millimeter larger than the others.
Ali’s father motioned for Saul to cup his hands together, then he carefully poured the gems into Saul’s grip. Shimmering in the jeweler’s palms, the pearls reflected the iridescent colors gifted by the sun’s rays as it held court across the vast, orient sky. Saul marveled at this trove of riches.
Watching the scene from the floor of his hut was Ali.
The boy’s eyes had opened only minutes before, after three days of rag-doll stillness. His chest was purple with bruises, much like that of Michel’s, but he was powerless to speak, his throat dry and burning, his breathing hoarse and raspy. Not able to lift his head, Ali had as his only nourishment for days the few occasional drops of coconut water dribbled into his mouth by his mother from a shell.
“Please, Sayed, keep. My thanks to you, my thanks. You great man to pound chest, save my son,” conveyed Ali’s father, mostly in pantomime. “Please, in secret, take these. Don’t tell authorities. They are yours.”
Saul shook his head, unwilling to accept the priceless reward. The incredible recoveries of both Ali and Michel he attributed only to happenstance, made possible by a German newspaper.
Saul had recently read in the Berlin daily newspaper of the American doctor, George Crile, who had successfully resuscitated a patient at his Cleveland Clinic hospital, using only his fist to rhythmically strike the patient’s chest. When young Ali was immobile, not breathing in the boat, Saul had conjured up that information and applied it to the child’s torso.
Initially, the ghoas were angry at what they perceived as abuse. But when Ali’s chest began to rise and fall, his color improving from the pale shades of death into a ruddier hue, they watched in amazement. Relief flooded Saul, but only for seconds. Much to his horror, he saw out of the corner of his eye, a native briskly pitch into the water and haul aboard his own little Michel, the child’s body an unnatural color of blue.
Saul again hadn’t hesitated. Simultaneously praying to God to save this child as well, he made a fist and pumped it against Michel’s chest. This time the child coughed and coughed, regaining consciousness almost immediately.
Now, although he was weak and barely awake, Ali too had survived.

Overwhelmed by the beauty of the pearls, Saul offered large sums of money in return for the generous gift. But the native and his island family refused all but a pittance.
To them, a miracle had occurred. Never before had they seen someone brought back, not just from the invincible waters, but also from a certain loss of life. To them, Ali’s recovery was magic of the nth degree, surely an act of Allah, combined with the wisdom of the white man.
The secret hoard of pearls had been gathered over many generations, accruing in number in a hidden place, reserved for a situation that had never formally been voiced. Each head of each family knew from a knee-high age that any pearl meeting the highest standards of the most-prized of the Bahraini pearls was to be saved, to be used for the greater good of all in a situation of emergency. In fact, little discussion was needed among the ghoas regarding the reward given to Saul.
Michel and Saul had remained in Bahrain for much longer than planned, spending additional days with the grateful divers, who felt privileged to honor their valued guests. Michel recovered quickly from his ordeal, eating the mangoes and bitter melon the villagers gave him, his skin turning bronze from the healing sun.
Saul continued to tend to fragile Ali, giving him wholesome food from his own packed supplies. Saul would prop Ali up in his arms and encourage him to breathe deep breaths in an effort to vanquish any infection and clear his debilitated lungs. Saul also gave whiskey to his patient in small increments, believing it might wipe out the germs attacking the withering, frail body.
But of all of the supplies that Saul had brought on this trip, he was most grateful for the bottle his father, Aaron, had clandestinely tucked into his trunk. And interestingly enough, the elderly Aaron’s rheumatism was itself responsible for keeping the Balder family in good supply of the bottle’s contents.
Aaron was a close friend of the father of the German chemist, Felix Hoffman. Hoffman had worked tirelessly in his laboratory in an effort to find a cure for his father’s crippling arthritis pains. In Ali’s case, the aspirin was what turned the corner on the pneumonia that threatened the young diver’s life. When his high fever had caused convulsions, Aaron’s supply of aspirin calmed and cooled the boy’s burning body. This, too, amazed the natives. Was there no end to the remarkable white man’s magic?
When young Michel and his father left Bahrain, they departed with a wealth each prized more greatly than they could ever value a collection of pearls; they left with an indestructible, forever-cherished father/son bond.
And the price dearly paid to Saul for Ali’s life were the Bahraini pearls, given to him by Ali’s father, though the diver knew the precious nuggets could never begin to repay the tremendous debt he owed the German man. Even if Ali’s father were as affluent as the Arab princes, he realized no gift would ever be of great enough worth to remunerate Saul.
No riches could compensate for the foreigner’s snatching his Ali from the clutches of death. The native had praised Allah for the miracle as he kneeled prostrate facing Mecca. As long as his youngest son lived, he and his family would survive, no matter how impoverished their daily lives.
No matter how scarce the pearls, he had his youngest son, and for that, he would be eternally grateful.

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