On the Weave of the Sun Page 4

  “Do you want to play? Wait, I’ll go first.”

  She would not fall for my dulcet tones to toss a coin, and would refuse determinedly, claiming that I always cheat and know how to make the coin come to my favor. She would conclude decisively,

  “Either I start or we don’t play.”

  I opened my eyes, and looked around to see my mother firing the oven in the back of our house. That comforted me a little, so I closed my eyes again, sinking in my thoughts: The first loaf would not be ready until half an hour from now. By then, the boys would finish playing and I would have no one to play with. It was then that Fatimah came back to my mind, but the problem was my aunt. If it were not for her, I would have continued playing with Fatimah like always. My cruel aunt banned me from playing with the girls, saying,

  “Girls’ route is thorny. Boys play with boys. You are a boy, and they are girls. Never get close to them.”

  The last time I played with girls was several months ago. The game we played was Bride and Groom. Fatima was my bride, and the girls were dancing and chanting around us. My aunt came from nowhere all of a sudden and charged at us like a mad woman. We all screamed, and blood rushed into Fatimah’s face, while the girls fled away scared. I had a fair share of kicks and slaps before I fled, too. My aunt’s words chased me,

  “I’ll eat you alive, you damned boy. You can run, but you can’t hide.”

  With frantic feet, I started beating rhythmically on the floor. My mother had just finished preparing the dough and started cutting it into small pieces that looked much like snowballs, which intrigued me to count them, contemplating the thought that one of them would be mine. Last winter, my hands were frostbitten, while building a snowman, but Fatimah nicked its head, saying it was very ugly and looked like an aged cow. Then, she ran away, leaving me with a heavy anger boiling in my chest. She disappeared for three days, and when she showed up on the fourth day, I had forgotten all about it, and the snow melted between us.

  I stopped beating the floor and yawned audibly, knowing that in a few minutes, that hot, delicious loaf would be in my hands. My mouth flowed with saliva. I swallowed it slowly, savoring the taste of the hot bread with fresh olive oil, a meal that topped the world to me. I was about to stand up when I felt a strong hand pulling me from the ear. I looked up, startled and in pain. The angry look on my aunt’s face was daunting,

  “I found you, tom girl. How many times have I warned you not to play with girls.”

  I screamed loudly, trying to free my ear from the iron clasp of her fingers, only to receive a slap on my face. I ran to my mother seeking refuge, but she cursed me, pushing my aunt to hit me more,

  “Hit him … gouge both of his eyes out.”

  My aunt continued beating me ferociously, so I screamed more loudly, begging for mercy, but she continued her assault on me. Suddenly, I reached up and pulled her hand down, grabbing her thumb with my teeth. As she shrieked loudly, I seized the moment to bolt out of the house in a flash, and started picking stones from the street and aiming them at her full figure. She hurried to close the door. I heard her threats reaching from behind the door, and I heard my mother calling me a mad boy.

  When I realized what I had done, I wiped my running nose with my sleeve, and walked toward the courtyard. A cold breeze stroked my face, and I thought to myself about why my aunt hated me and hit me for no reason. My aunt, the ogre, I will not let her touch me again. If only she had been seconds late, I would have enjoyed that hot loaf, and I would not have been hungry like this. The boys were still playing, so I hurried my pace to join them. I passed by Fatimah and her friends. It was still her turn and she looked at me with her joyful, kind eyes that looked nothing like my aunt’s.

  I reached where the boys were, found a place among them, and started playing with enthusiasm. In a few seconds, I forgot all about my aunt, my hunger, my lonely loaf of bread, and everything else!

  Less Than a Goodbye

  Written by:

  Hoida Saleh

  Her sister’s voice came as if she had just lost a heavy burden she had been carrying for a long time, despite her feeble attempt to sound completely unbiased,

  “Your mother died.”

  A stony silence seized her for a moment. Her sister on the other end of the line thought she was crying, so she echoed her allegedly unbiased voice again,

  “She is finally resting in peace. No one suffered like she did.”

  Quietly, she put down the telephone. Her husband, who was busy combing their little girl’s hair, glanced inquisitively at her. She collapsed next to him on the sofa, her hands hiding the pain in her face, but working out the last details of the shock on it. The little girl broke away from the stronghold of her father’s hands, to hold her mother’s hand. When she heard the girl cry, she looked at her and hugged her, and lost herself in the void of emptiness.

  Sitting confused, her husband was at a complete loss for words to comfort her. She had just arrived few hours before after spending eight days with her mother. She hesitantly told her father, standing shyly before him, that she was going home to extend her vacation and come back. Now, one question was haunting her: Couldn’t her mother stay alive for just a few more hours, so she could look into her eyes one last time, or hold her hand?

  She tucked some clothes for herself and her husband in a small bag. She decided to leave the little girl with her aunt, and walked amid the stunned neighbors who showed their compassion for her, but could not help gossiping about her!

  “Poor girl. Looks like she is in denial.”

  “My God, her mother was a saint.”

  “Oh God, they will have a rough time travelling in the middle of the night; transportation is a bitch in the countryside.”

  Her husband did not haggle much with the aged cab driver. He simply agreed to pay him the overly exaggerated fare, choosing to comfort himself in the back seat of the ramshackle car, reciting the Quran and whispering prayers, with her rapped in his arm. Every now and then, he would glance at her, to find her still awake, and continue humming. She was staring at the extended darkness wickedly tortured by the low beam of the car’s headlights. The silhouettes of the trees on the sides were swaying and swinging. All she was thinking of at that moment was her mother’s rapidly vanishing face. How could those features fade away so quickly? She tried to think of their moments together, but the memories were far and pale, and the pictures were like pieces of a giant jigsaw puzzle in a dark night.

  Her mother was a fragile and vulnerable woman, and their relationship had always been different and non-traditional. The image of her mother standing up for her when her father was about to slap her was all of a sudden brilliantly etched against the night, and her soft voice, trying to convince him not to force her to marry his nephew, was ringing in her ears. He wanted to protect her from the risks and myriad temptations of college life, the books she was always carrying around in her hand, and the complexity of unrestrained thoughts and ideals. When she graduated from high school at the top of her class, her father was very enthusiastic about her pursuing a higher education, but his brothers’ talk of the dangers and impact of expatriate life on single girls tormented him. All the while, her mother was adamant that he would accept the idea of them travelling and continuing their education.

  “Your children are good and well mannered.”

  Her husband patted her lightly on the shoulder, but she was running away toward the body she had just left a few hours before. The car was travelling on the unpaved road that seemed, to her, longer than usual. The first lights of dawn were violating the darkness of the night. The farmers were going out to their fields, their faces blurred in the morning mist. She could recognize some of them talking and walking along with their farm animals, while others had their names long removed from her memory. A young boy was standing in front of his house, rubbing his eyes, and staring at the car with empty looks. On their way to the marketplace or the fields, the women looked at her in awe, as she got close to her
mother’s neighborhood. She stepped out of the car, leaving the bag to her husband who was busy shaking hands with the driver, thanking him for the ride. The driver looked at the bill, and then put it in his pocket without a word. He got into his car, and looked at her walking with heavy, mechanical steps, and then said in a low voice,

  “My deep condolences, Madam.”

  Her steps grew much heavier. She looked back and saw the driver backing his car to make a turn, for the road was narrow. Her husband was frequently rushing her with hurrying looks and words,

  “Hurry up!”

  Scores of women got out of their houses, curiously standing with stretched hands to pay condolences. Wordless, she shook their hands, while still in denial. In a seemingly natural way, wistful smiles curving their lips, they indulged in sweet gossip,

  “Poor child, this is the dilemma of expat life.”

  “Did you know that her mother used to say she was afraid of dying without seeing her?”

  “She was a kind and religious woman!”

  Her cousin was standing in the middle of the mourning; her younger sister was frantically waving her hands, holding the tail of her black veil, wailing,

  “Your darling is here, mother. Come on, take her in your arms as usual. She is calling you.”

  Still in shock, she asked,

  “Was she ever conscious when I was gone?”

  She walked in, amid tens of wailing women who made room for her. She entered the house. Her husband went straight to the guest room, while she headed to her mother’s room. The body was covered with a red silk quilt. Gently she uncovered her mother’s face and was surprised to see the serene look on it. She always wished to die praying, but she had died, after eight days in a coma.

  None of your wishes were granted, mother, but one. You always said to your cruel husband who was afraid to reveal his emotions to you, “May God take my life before yours.” Your prayer was answered and your day came, Mother. Did you cry over her, Dad? Did you ever make up for your cruelty? Whenever she was late visiting her mother, he would pace in and out of the room, like an abandoned child, asking,

  “When is your mother coming back?”

  The three girls would answer in one voice,

  “She will come at dusk.”

  He would keep looking at his watch time and again. The girls would try hard to stifle their smiles. And when the food was served, he would not touch it, but would rather say with a shy and low voice,

  “I’ll eat when your mother arrives.”

  Now, so many dusks would pass him by, without her!

  “The washing lady is coming,” someone’s voice called her back to reality. The blind woman entered the house with her white cane, stumbling at the doorstep. She found herself rushing to her aid, taking her by the hand and helping her sit on the couch next to the bed. Then, she asked her sister to prepare warm water. The woman helped her put the lithe body in the washing basin. Afterward, the woman repeated some prayers in a low voice, and then versed her in what to say in the day of reckoning. She tilted the head toward the Qibla 1, and said,

  “Her body is like fresh dough, for her deeds were all good. Your mother was a kind woman, and was always there for the poor and the needy.”

  She was looking at the woman with no words to match her praise. She resolved to task herself with filling a cup with warm water and pouring it on her mother’s back. The woman resonated gracefully with her, caressing the body with a soap-soaked sponge. To her astonishment, although she fought hard to conceal it, when the woman finished washing the body, she folded the legs to the knees several times. But the woman was quick to say,

  “Just to remove the gas from her stomach, so she meets her God clean and pure.”

  Somehow, she was not surprised how the woman had been able to see the astonished look on her face, and told herself instead that blind people are gifted with special powers. She was about to let the woman know that there could be no gas in her body for she had been in a coma, but instead, she decided to give silence a chance at the last moment. So, she just stood in awe and silence by her mother’s soft body.

  After the blind woman finished her work, she enshrouded the body in white sheets and put cotton balls in the ears and the mouth. With the help of the woman, she carried the body, put her on the bed, and covered her with the red quilt. She sat down reciting Surat Yaseen 1 of the Quran, while the woman was unrolling her sleeves, tidying her clothes, and getting ready to leave.

  Clearing his throat, her cousin walked in, carrying the coffin on his shoulders. She automatically reached with her hand to cover her legs with her black dress. Her husband helped him lay the body in the coffin. At that moment, she bent over to pour the wash water in a large metal pot, and did not forget to put the sponge and the soap inside. She bit her lips, holding the pot atop her head, and walked tall underneath, while the women made way for her. One of the neighbors tried to help her carry the load, but she determinately insisted on carrying it alone, saying,

  “Nobody shall pour the wash water but me.”

  She headed toward the river, not quite able to recall the fable that advocated pouring the wash water in flowing water. All the same, she trusted her instincts and the Pharaonic body washing rituals. The long, heated road stretched eternally before her. Young kids were playing on both sides of the road. She felt the pot weighing down on her head and straining her back. Finally, the river arrived in her sight, and she stood right at its bank. Slowly, she put down the pot, poured the soapy wash water in the waveless river, and watched it make two winding trails, within the river, leading to the far horizon. At this instant, she felt that her mother had actually died, her soul merging with the flowing water, and disappearing into the unknown. She reached with her hand to wipe two lines of tears that slowly streaked down her cheeks, and returned back home.

  1 The direction of the Kaaba (in Makkah) toward which Muslims turn for their daily prayers.

  1 Chapter 36 of the Holy Quran.

  Mister Jumah

  Written by:

  Samir El-Feel

  I came to find Mister Jumah sitting as usual at the door of the grand mosque, facing the Souk 1. The shops had started their day early, while the houses were still in a deep sleep since the night had fed on men’s nectar. I had become aware of that early in my life. In the Souk, my eyes had opened up on the inconspicuous and the obscure, and I thought of practicing discretion as God had taught us. Divulging secrets of other people and exposing them is detestable and unsavoury, for there are secrets and things that must remain untold.

  Hajj 2 Khaleel Albitahi had a bunch of women who separately came to his shop to wipe off the tiredness of their feet after marching up and down the marketplace. I might have not personally seen them flirting or messing around with his mind. But he always scolded and shouted at his devoted wife, blaming her for giving birth to only one boy, while filling the house with girls who could not be effectively utilized in running his shop. Nevertheless, I maintained discretion over what the days had revealed of his shady relations and strange acts.

  Mister Jumah erected his work stall before the grand Mosque and gave me a look, which I completely understood. I would need to help him put the mat on the ground, fix it with bricks at the edges, and leave him with the task of centering the pole, two steps away from the sidewalk. He was the only credible cobbler in this neighborhood and his daughter Fawziyah would come just a little before the afternoon prayer with his lunch.

  He was more than a cobbler who mended old and worn-out shoes. He was their eternal savior from disgrace and humiliation. One might put on an old shirt to work, or don a pair of expired pants, but it would be impossible for one to wear shoes that had a hole the size of open hungry jaw, crowned with toes protruding for the amusement of people, through the torn socks!

  Also, Mister Jumah was considered as a cover or a haven for all the people in our neighborhood, and even other nearby neighborhoods. On top of that, he was a kind man, disregarding that he boug
ht me a cup of tea every Friday morning, and paid for it gratefully. In that space, he squatted with his back against the wall, waiting for the first customer, and then he would do miracles to save the life of the “dying pair.” To his side was a sack made of old cloth, but contained pieces of leather of various sizes. This was what his trade thrived on.

  A woman came from the countryside, handed him her right shoe, and then tightened the abaya 1 around her body and began to cry. The marketplace was still not busy with patrons yet when he cried out for me. I was afraid the Hajj would fire me if he came and found the shop unattended, so I signalled back to Mister Jumah that no one else was in the shop but me.

  I saw the woman sitting a bit far from him with her back facing him, yet I could see her trembling body and distinctively hear her whimper in the calmness of the seven a.m. He came to me and asked,

  “Did you sell anything?”

  I conveyed to him that it was up to God, for Friday customers usually came in the difficult time, which was an hour or two before the noon prayer, then disappeared suddenly, leaving us merchants to spend the day combating flies and stagnant air. City people would never go shopping on Friday, even if it were a matter of life or death, because they believed it brought bad luck and misfortune. On the contrary, people of the countryside seemed only to multiply on Friday. He nodded, while I was still mulling over these thoughts in my head!

  With a broken half smile, he told me,

  “I’ll sit in for you. I only have one pound. Please break it at the café.”

  I did not comment, but did what he asked of me. When I came back, he took the change, wrapped the mended pair of shoes in a paper bag, and gave them all to the woman who now had stopped whining. She refused to take the change, but he swore she should share it with him. With what’s left for him, he would have breakfast, buy cigarettes, and pay for my cup of tea. God is the great provider.