The Things I Would Tell You

by Sabrina Mahfouz

  FIFI: It stings. The flies will get me.

  JOSEPH: I will shoo them away. I will stay with you. Think happy thoughts so you can sleep. A new dress. Right? Crêpe de chine. Beige crêpe de chine? Wouldn’t you like that? Or a skirt evasée, very ladylike, very chic.

  FIFI: The crêpe de chine but not beige.

  JOSEPH: Why not?

  FIFI: Beige is a dull colour.

  JOSEPH: What colour then?

  FIFI: Oh.. Is that all you’re good for – swatting flies and talking about clothes?

  JOSEPH: That’s how you’ve always talked, Fifi…

  FIFI: But look at me now.

  Beat

  JOSEPH: Do you know the very big house next to the hammam?

  FIFI: Where the garden is?

  JOSEPH: One of my friends lodges there, with the family. They run the hammam. He says they always need help.

  FIFI: (Looking at him) Are you joking?

  JOSEPH: You could ask them.

  FIFI: The hammam.

  JOSEPH: Yes.

  FIFI: (Getting upset) Where no one would see me, you mean?

  JOSEPH: No…

  FIFI: Oh, but that’s what you want. Me, in a bloody smock, breaking my back—

  JOSEPH: To earn an honest franc. No one would hurt you—

  FIFI: It’s my fine luck to have you as a protector. When I’m the one who’s been looking after you.

  FATIMA: I didn’t tell him that. I didn’t.

  FIFI: I must have dozed off then. He watched over me. He couldn’t sleep.

  FATIMA: From the moment he saw me hurt, until that day on the beach, he never slept.

  20. The Hammam (NOW)

  FATIMA: Dear God Almighty, thank You for this warm water, for the breath I breathe without pain. There was a time when I was a sinner. There was a time when I was an outcast, when no respectable woman would sit next to me.

  FIFI: Thrown out of the hairdressers, my hair still in rollers. Pushed off the tram because I was the Frenchman’s whore.

  FATIMA: Now everyone around me is too young to remember.

  Where have they all gone, all those people who believed they were better than me? They’re ill at home, they’re senile and forgetful. I’ve outlived most of them. Is this a sign that You have washed my sins away? You changed the world so that I could walk with my head held high. I repented and you took me back. How can I be sure? I fell in love with You. Yes, love was the sign. At first there was just the remorse but now I’m not frightened… I just want You…

  FATIMA: I just want to love You and be loved by You.

  ATTENDANT: (calling out) Stop talking to yourself, Granny, you’re frightening the tourists.

  FATIMA: I’m sorry. It’s dark in here. I can hardly see.

  ATTENDANT: Never mind. The warmth is good for your bones.

  I’ll come and give you a scrub. Hang on. Then you can stretch out and relax on the bench.

  21. Yusuf’s room (NOW)

  They are very close together. They are smoking. Paul inhales.

  PAUL: So I’ve asked all the neighbours too, so they can’t complain.

  Yusuf laughs.

  And loads of people from work, and… all around basically, all sorts… and I’ve got a DJ sorted. I think.

  One, at least. So it should be good. We’re going to party all weekend.

  YUSUF: Sounds great.

  PAUL: So…?

  YUSUF: Oh—

  Yusuf jumps up. Gets out a plastic bag.

  YUSUF: Yes. Plenty here. Plenty. Smell how fresh this is. Paul stands. Stubs out joint. Gets out cash.

  PAUL: It’s good stuff.

  YUSUF: Only the healthiest hash for you.

  PAUL: (handing him the money) Here.

  YUSUF: This isn’t—

  PAUL: (taking the bag) Thanks, Joe.

  YUSUF: This isn’t what we agreed.

  PAUL: It’s what I’m paying.

  YUSUF: But I can’t – I already owe people.

  PAUL: That’s market rate, okay? You’re lucky I came. The new night porter made me a better offer. Home delivery too. (He slaps Yusuf’s thigh proprietorially, and makes to leave.) It’s been real.

  YUSUF: I’ll ring you.

  PAUL: I don’t think so.

  YUSUF: I don’t mind! I can come wherever you want.

  PAUL: (leaving) Let’s not do this Joe.

  YUSUF: I can get you anything. Monsieur Paul!

  Paul pauses at the door.

  YUSUF: My job.

  PAUL: Yes, Joe.

  YUSUF: Isn’t there anything… you know…

  PAUL: Anything I can do for you?

  YUSUF: Please.

  PAUL: I’ll tell you what I can do.

  YUSUF: Yes?

  PAUL: If you come near me again, I can tell them you stole from me too.

  22. (THEN)

  JOSEPH: On the beach I saw Raymond in the sunlight, face to face even clearer than that day on the tram. This man’s money had put food in my mouth. I stared at him. The sun on my blade pinched his eyes. He lunged at me first. I punched his forehead, and swiped at his arm. Red on his shirt, just like that, my knife didn’t let me down. It was easier than I thought. I wanted to kill him but my friends held me back.

  FIFI: You should have listened to them. You should have gone back to town with them.

  JOSEPH: But I slipped away. I went further along the beach. I lay down on the sand near the stream and that large rock. It was too hot.

  FIFI: Because you were in your boiler suit.

  JOSEPH: But I was content because I had hurt Raymond. I had seen the spicy fear in his eyes. (beat) Fifi, I stretched out on my sand, my sweet shade and the rhythmic sound of water. I turned my head and saw the chalet that we liked. It’s not perfect. There is a lot that’s wrong with it. Bits of the wood are broken and the two front legs that are sunk in the water, they’re rotten through with moss clinging to them. I could see them under the water. It needs days of work, that chalet, a lot of fixing to set it right. I closed my eyes and thought to myself. ‘The Frenchman is afraid of you, Joseph.’ I sure will have something to boast about in the next meeting.

  FIFI: Silly boy.

  JOSEPH: I’m a hero, Fifi.

  23. The hammam (NOW)

  FATIMA: I never spoke to him again.

  ATTENDANT: Granny?

  FATIMA: It all went wrong.

  ATTENDANT: Are you still sleeping?

  FATIMA: I dozed a little. I dreamt of my brother who died young. They say if you dream of the dead and they want something from you, it’s not a good sign.

  ATTENDANT: So did he want something from you?

  FATIMA: No. He just misses me.

  ATTENDANT: Oh well, ready for your scrub? Turn over for me.

  FATIMA: There was a house once right next to this hammam.

  ATTENDANT: Where the car park is?

  FATIMA: It was demolished after the war. It belonged to a decent family. Kind, religious people who helped me turn my life around. I lived with them and worked here in the hammam.

  ATTENDANT: You said.

  FATIMA: I did it so as to make an honest franc. We had francs then not dinars like now. The dinar came in 1964 after independence.

  ATTENDANT: You have a good memory.

  FATIMA: I memorise the Qur’an bit by bit. I practise every day.

  ATTENDANT: Good for you.

  FATIMA: (to herself) She wouldn’t imagine, would she, the red life I lived? The men, the wine, the clothes, the looseness of it all. That gun that killed my brother, that same gun was one I had known so well…

  FIFI: Raymond and I used to fool around with it in bed. The thrilling weight of it. I cleaned it one day. Then I put it in my mouth to make him laugh. Then I gripped it between my thighs.

  FATIMA: I thought I had forgotten his face but I can see it clearly now.

  24. Hammam (NOW)

  Fatima is remembering a time from the past in Raymond’s warehouse.

  RAYMOND: (distant, calling) Hello? />
  FATIMA: The warehouse is full of boxes. He is counting them and he looks up. And I see his face.

  RAYMOND: This is a surprise.

  FATIMA: I remember the dress I was wearing.

  FIFI: Black because I was still in mourning.

  FIFI: The décolletée adjusted to be even lower.

  FATIMA: Scent—

  FIFI: Behind my ears, between my breasts—

  FATIMA: Talcum powder—

  FIFI: Under my arms.

  FATIMA: But I was still sweating.

  RAYMOND: How did you get in?

  FIFI: You once showed me the side door.

  RAYMOND: You have a good memory.

  FIFI: And you said I would come back.

  RAYMOND: Did I?

  FIFI: I’m your chienne, remember?

  RAYMOND: (laughs) You are.

  FIFI: And you’re my maître.

  RAYMOND: I am. You’re good, Fifi. You’re good. You’ve come for more.

  He touches her. Very close.

  FIFI: I couldn’t stay away.

  RAYMOND: I told you.

  They embrace.

  FIFI: (intimately) And this.

  RAYMOND: What?

  FIFI: It’s my brother’s.

  She stabs him as they embrace. He cries out.

  FIFI: (kissing him) Shh. Shush, now.

  She stabs him again, her hand over his mouth. He falls. She makes for the door.

  FIFI: (locking the door) There’s no one here.

  Pause

  What?!

  REVOLUTIONARY: Your dress…

  FIFI: You think a dress matters? Get on with it.

  The Revolutionary walks around splashing petrol on the door. He stops.

  REVOLUTIONARY: What was that sound?

  FIFI: Nothing. Light the match. Hurry up.

  The match is struck. The goods catch fire.

  REVOLUTIONARY: They’ll soon see that. Come on.

  The fire starts to blaze.

  REVOLUTIONARY: (coming back) What’s the matter with you! Run, Fatima.

  He grabs her and they run out. Fire sounds merge with that of the hammam’s furnace.

  25. The Hammam (NOW)

  FATIMA: Straight away the weight of it. I wanted water.

  FIFI: I came here.

  The pouring of water

  FATIMA: Every day, dark, always dark, and warm with the water all around me, scrubbing other women, cleaning their dead skin from the floor. Preparing a bride and acting all jolly. I had to carry coal for the furnace, I had to carry buckets of cold water, hour after hour, month after month.

  ATTENDANT: There, nearly done. Stretch out your arm for me.

  FATIMA: It’s hard making an honest franc.

  ATTENDANT: Are you back to the francs again?

  FATIMA: Dinar.

  ATTENDANT: Right. Other arm.

  FATIMA: My brother bought me grilled corn with his first wage.

  ATTENDANT: Corn on the cob?

  FATIMA: Yes. It tasted so good. There was a blessing in it because it wasn’t from tainted money. Do you get me?

  ATTENDANT: Sure. (Splashes her with water) There you go.

  FATIMA: I’m done.

  ATTENDANT: Yes. All ready to dry up and get dressed again.

  FATIMA: Thank you.

  ATTENDANT: Remember me in your prayers, Granny.

  Shazea Quraishi

  Fallujah, Basrah

  Fallujah, Basrah

  A poem in four voices

  i. Rahim

  Oh my son

  Let my love

  cushion the weight of your head.

  Let me take your hurt

  I will hold it

  while you rest

  I will fold it into my body.

  Sleep, my angel,

  my flower, my brave, sweet boy.

  [Child with extreme hydrocephalus – deformity of face, body and ear – and defects of cerebral nerves.]

  ii. Sabir

  I dressed him in a long white shirt

  with a blue bird embroidered over the heart

  and placed tiny white mittens on his hands.

  Born with thick black hair

  like his father, he was almost

  so beautiful, almost perfect

  as we had imagined him.

  [Born without eyes]

  iii. Farrah

  Where is my baby girl,

  the one I dreamed?

  I long for sleep

  to return her.

  [Extreme hydrocephalus. The line running down the right side of the head would appear to show that potentially two heads were forming.]

  iv. Anah

  [It isn’t clear what has happened to this child.]

  Cousin

  You carry them on your back,

  your muffled parents and her

  soft, small children,

  as you carry your sister’s body

  wrapped in its white shroud

  over the bright, stony ground.

  Now the brown earth pillows

  her, holds her small body

  in its quiet lap,

  rocks her to sleep.

  You may have heard of me

  You may have heard of me

  My father was a bear.

  He carried me through forest, sky

  and over frozen sea. At night

  I lay along his back

  wrapped in fur and heat

  and while I slept, he ran,

  never stopping to rest, never

  letting me fall.

  He showed me how to be careful as stone

  sharp as thorn and quick

  as weather. When he hunted alone

  he’d leave me somewhere safe – high up a tree

  or deep within a cave.

  And then a day went on…

  he didn’t come.

  I looked and looked for him.

  The seasons changed and changed again.

  Sleep became my friend. It even brought my father back.

  The dark was like his fur,

  the sea’s breathing echoed his breathing.

  I left home behind, an empty skin.

  Alone, I walked taller, balanced better.

  So I came to the gates of this city

  – tall, black gates with teeth.

  Here you find me, keeping my mouth small, hiding

  pointed teeth and telling stories,

  concealing their truth as I conceal

  the thick black fur on my back.

  The Mummy of Hor

  In this cave-like room, lamp-lit,

  the Goddess Isis spreads her wings

  across Hor’s chest to protect him.

  But that’s not all:

  the four sons of Horus guard his entrails

  and the human-headed God Imset guards the liver

  while Ha’py, with a baboon head, guards the lungs.

  Duamutef, who has a jackal’s head, guards the stomach,

  Quebehsenuf, with a hawk’s head, guards the intestines

  and other Gods watch over his body

  while sacred symbols protect his soul.

  Hor’s body, wrapped in layers of linen

  and bound with black pitch

  is here

  and you are gone.

  I think of you

  on that country road

  when your heart stopped

  and your breath stopped…

  I think of you there alone.

  Gold

  I crossed the land with my small

  gold baby. I had only my skin

  which hung from me in folds, to wrap him in,

  only my hands to cover his miraculous feet.

  We came to a forest where the trees had faces;

  there was a loud ticking and the smell

  of waiting – dry, leafy.

  I thought of his soft heart, the blood like finest embroidery

  running through his body, and I was heavy

  with the knowledge
of animals in the forest –

  the claws and eyes, the beaky hunger.

  My baby stirred and the trees leaned closer.

  I walked till I came to a wall of grass

  reaching over my head. Then I heard

  a shushing that calmed me, though

  it could have been wings beating or knives

  slicing the air. The grass

  parted, like a sea parting

  and my baby’s breath on my skin

  was the wind in our sails.

  Steps

  Where I come from

  we don’t hang portraits of our beloved dead

  to comfort us in empty rooms,

  we hang their shoes, wrapped in gauze,

  sewn with surgical thread.

  In my hall I’ve hung

  my father’s shoes, their soft leather

  shaped by his strong

  brown feet shaped by his journey.

  I close my eyes and see my father

  walking towards me.

  As the day closes, I press my ear

  to the air around me,

  listening for his footsteps,

  his key in the door.

  Note: In Fallujah, Basrah, medical quotes come from Ross B. Mirkarimi of The Arms Control Research Centre in his May 1992 report The Environmental and Human Health Impacts of the Gulf Region with Special Reference to Iraq, commenting on photographs of extreme birth deformities experienced in Iraq and Afghanistan following bombing with DU incendiary devices. All names are fictional.

  The Mummy of Hor uses text from museum labels for the Mummy of Tem Hor in Swansea Museum.

  Shaista Aziz

  Blood and Broken Bodies

  The bludgeoning to death of twenty-five-year-old pregnant Farzana Parveen, by members of her family for defying them and marrying a man of her choice, has once again put Pakistan at centre stage regarding the treatment of women.

  It isn’t just the mob outside the court in Lahore who picked up bricks and sticks to break Farzana’s body that are responsible for her death. The blame also lies with a dominant toxic, patriarchal culture across large parts of Pakistan that deems women and girls as subhuman, property owned by men who can be discarded and tossed away in the blink of an eye and a ‘justice’ system that allows men to kill women with impunity.