by Fadia Faqir
All that Hinna was forced to endure made her feel disdain for the instructions and advice her mother had given her before her marriage, and continued to give, concerning domestic matters, insisting that she should keep the house in perfect order. It was advice which she often wished she had the time to follow. Instead, the apartment had become more like a doss house than a comfortable family home.
She always tried to avoid looking exhausted or grubby when she did the housework. Anyone visiting the house noticed the strange discrepancy between the care she took over her grooming and personal cleanliness and the dirt which accumulated on the Belgian mirror with its beautiful, golden frame where the details of the fine engraving were masked by the layer of dust which had settled on it. Dust covered everything in the room, even the five peacock feathers in the Chinese vase which stood on the marble-topped table with golden inlay and golden cabriole legs. The kitchen had spiders on the ceiling and cockroaches lived in the cracks of the wooden cupboards, confident that they would not be disturbed by the invasion of some super rotating cleaner or deadly insecticides. Such facts testified to the lack of interest the mistress of the house showed in her home and the lack of priority she gave it, since her prime function in life was to make herself available to her husband and to provide the conditions in which he might pursue his habitual activities at any time he desired.
Hinna tried to the best of her ability to curb the exuberance of her husband’s libido through different devices. When her children were small she used to take them for extended visits to her mother’s house which lasted from morning till evening in the hope of snatching some time far away from her untameable stallion. But when he discovered that she was away from home for a whole morning it was more than he could bear and he followed her to her mother’s to fetch her home quickly. On one occasion he was too impatient to wait until they got home and took her to the bathroom in her mother’s house, locking the door behind them without the slightest feeling of shame despite the fact that his children were screaming outside, alarmed at the strange behaviour of their parents. Had her mother not been out of the house at the time Hinna would have felt deeply embarrassed. Another tactic, Hinna adopted was playing cards and backgammon in the evenings which he was so determined to spend with her at home, but this also failed miserably since all he desired was to pass the time playing his own favourite game. When the children grew up their financial needs increased to an extent which could no longer be met from his small salary, so Hinna bought a knitting machine and took refuge in her nightly occupation while he would be begging her to come to bed. However, he became exasperated by the attention she paid to the machine rather than him. Unfortunately the machine was not a sturdy ‘Singer’ but a shoddy Japanese make, one of many that had flooded the market, and when he hurled it to the floor in a rage, it broke.
Just as her plans for card games, backgammon and the knitting machine all failed, only to be replaced by the delights of tawdry sex magazines which gave her husband ideas for new positions to try with his beautiful but ageing wife, so Hinna’s attempts to restrict the number of times he had sex with her also failed. Once she put sleeping pills in the glass of warm milk and honey which he loved to drink in the evening, but although he lay like a corpse until the next morning, he had hardly awakened to the world around him and had not even opened his mouth, before his hand stretched out to touch her body and he descended on her, doubly refreshed after hours of deep sleep.
Only once did Hinna feel that her problems with this husband of hers might be resolved, when his work took him away to a coastal town several hours from Cairo by train. But after only a week, during which she was able to sleep calmly without sudden attacks, her husband paid a bribe to be posted back home. The bribe was half her savings, collected over two years to buy a television like the rest of the neighbours because she was the only one in the block who didn’t have one.
After that Hinna became convinced that there was nothing to be done and considered her husband’s nature to be a lost cause or rather her ordained fate, which had been inscribed on a tablet in heaven, even before the seed had been deposited in her mother’s womb. Indeed her mother had told her one day that God keeps a tablet for everyone on which is written all that is and all that will be for that person from birth until death. She even hoped for some miracle to happen which would make her husband fall ill and curb his over-developed zeal for his marital duties, or that he would suffer some permanent physical disability which would keep him away from her. However, at times she would console herself that her troubles might have been much worse had her husband been one of those men who attach themselves to other women. He was a petty official with a limited income; if she had not been able to budget and economize, then the family could not have survived. It was probable that had he sought the acquaintance of some other woman, he would have appropriated a portion of his salary to provide for this woman, to buy her gifts and take her around and about, all of which would have threatened the stability of her family life.
Eventually, Hinna gave up all hope and convinced herself that such problems would only be solved with time. But she reached the age of fifty only to be proved wrong. For although she was on the threshold of old age and her three children had married and left to set up their own homes, and although her own sexual desires had lessened, this was not the case as far as her husband was concerned. For him they increased, now that he was unburdened from the worries of children and was free to devote himself to his relationship with her. Moreover, he insisted that she use face powder and scent and that she wear skimpy nightdresses more suited to a girl on her wedding night. These he could afford thanks to the periodic rises in his pay and because the children had grown up and were beginning to be responsible for themselves. What particularly angered and exasperated Hinna were his persistent demands to let her hair hang loosely onto her shoulders, leaving a little fringe on her forehead to enhance her captivating cheeks, even though her hair had become thin as a result of pregnancies, breast-feeding and the passing of time as well as through all the dyeing and using of curlers ever since she was a young girl, engaged to be married. She tried to convince her husband that there was no need for the fringe and that it would be much better for her to have it cut it at the hairdressers in a way which was better suited to someone of her age, with hair in the condition it was, but he refused categorically, telling her he would buy her some oil to strengthen the roots of her hair from one of the largest and best-known perfume makers renowned for his skills. Moreover he refused absolutely to let her remove her false teeth, which had replaced her natural ones because of tooth decay and constant inflammation of the gums from which she had suffered since her childhood. Because this discerning husband declined to kiss a mouth without teeth, should the desire come upon him at any moment in the night, Hinna’s nights were interrupted by the fear that she would swallow one of her dentures while fast asleep. But the matter which continued to arouse her hatred and resentment was her husband’s insistence on having sex with her while she was completely naked, even on the coldest January nights. The most he would concede, after much pleading, was to allow her to wear some old socks to warm her toes which became dry and withered when it was very cold.
Hinna put up with her husband’s repugnant marital follies and constant harassments because she was at a loss as to what to do; moreover she was unable to speak about her problems to anyone at that time, being well aware of the first lesson of married life, that her mother had instilled in her before her marriage, which was that it was not permissible, under any circumstances, to speak about what goes on in the bedroom outside its walls, even to those who were closest to you, including your mother. For that reason, throughout her long married life, Hinna did not discuss her personal marital problems with a single soul, not even her two sisters or her mother. Instead she suffered the torment of backbiting and sarcastic comments from her daughters-in-law when they came to visit her and their eyes fell upon the red, flowered house-robe that she wa
s wearing or the flimsy silk gown, which was really a nightgown that revealed all her arms and much of her bosom. Despite the fact that they were in the prime of youth, they were content to wear simple cotton clothes which were practical and chosen for modesty and restraint.
Once Hinna reached sixty, she began to feel rebellious in the face of these demands from her husband which never let up. A civil servant or worker usually retires when he reaches this age – everyone has the right to live in peace and tranquillity at this advanced stage of his life when he can expect to receive a government pension. Hinna desired nothing more than to be left in peace and enjoy uninterrupted sleep throughout the night, and to be able to wear clothes of her choice which made her feel comfortable without being bound by his desires summer and winter, night and day. She wanted to feel comfortable in herself and to spare the old wrinkled skin of her face from make-up. Her hands, which had recently begun to tremble, were no longer able to apply the make-up evenly as they had done in the past in order to make her face more attractive and radiant. The increasing weakness in her sight complicated the procedure and the eyeliner she applied ended up far from the inner eye lid making her look strange and comical, until the wife of her eldest son drew her attention to this and advised her to desist from using make-up altogether, particularly eyeliner. But every time she discussed the matter with her husband he refused categorically to let her abandon what he considered a necessary preparation and one of the religious rights he was entitled to from her; on one occasion when she repeated her desire to stop using make-up, he came to the conclusion that this was a kind of coquettishness and ruse in order to gain more care and attention from him. Thus he began to shower her with perfume and house clothes and all those useless feminine things like nail varnish, hand and face creams and hair oils, all of which are usually coveted by young girls still in the first flush of their married life.
One time he bought her some of her favourite walnut Turkish delight in the hope that she would yield to him in bed. But she refused this resolutely and took a firm stand without going near the mouthwatering sweets, remaining instead in her place stretched out on the sitting-room sofa on a warm winter’s day. She would often point out to him that they had become grandparents to ten children, the progeny of their three sons’ wives, and that it was enough to look at one of them for one’s heart to overflow with happiness and joy. Would it not be more appropriate for someone of his age to draw near to God by praying and fasting and giving thanks for the happy, enjoyable years which he had lived and the abundant good health which he enjoyed and the blessed progeny he had been granted? Then she urged him to agree and behave decently, to ask God for an easy and chaste end and for a good resting place in the next world. But when the rash husband heard these words he was furious and told her that this kind of talk was wrecking his life, filling him with sadness and that it would send him to an early grave. He maintained that she was intent on denying him what he was entitled to by God; moreover she was ungrateful and unable to enjoy the blessing for which God had singled her out. For that reason she would certainly perish in hell-fire where she would suffer painful torment for her failure to obey him as God had ordained and for the way she rejected him, distancing herself from him and pursuing a path of viciousness and depravity.
Hinna however was resolute, refusing to concede to his demands to accompany him to bed, and she even began to threaten that she would take poison and kill herself if he tried to approach her. The truth was that the stength with which she refused to bow to his demands had physical causes since her body, always short and weak, had become even more so with advancing old age. She was no longer able to endure the weight of eighty-seven kilos of human bulk which is what her husband weighed at that time. When she faced him with this reality as well as everything else, his anger turned to bitter tears, and he accused her of hating him and insulting his body, calling him fat and obese when he had once been slender and strong like a bamboo stick. Then he began to lament his miserable luck at having a wife like her, with whom he had not even enjoyed a single happy day in his life, who was harsh, complicated, devoid of femininity and who should have joined a convent for life rather than marrying.
Every time Hinna became embroiled in quarrels of this sort she stood like an immovable rock refusing to go back on her resolute decision, not even weakening in the face of hot tears which were used as a new form of pressure against her. Her husband then started to complain to his sons saying that she had become an expert in tormenting him and that she had begun to neglect him and spent most of her time relaxing and sleeping. Naturally he omitted to touch on their personal relationship because, like Hinna, he had listened well to the lessons of his father on this matter. His sons would understand what was going on by reading between the lines but, in fact, they never understood what their father was on about because such concerns were far from their minds. They were barely capable of carrying out their own marital duties so far as sex was concerned because of the exhaustion they suffered, in common with most others, as users of public transport, and on account of the many other facets of everyday life which sap one’s strength. They returned home, at the end of each day, so tired that they only wanted to go to bed to sleep and rest their weary bodies. Furthermore, they believed that their father’s intimate life with their mother had stopped a long time ago.
After he had tried every means possible to make Hinna see reason and respond to his sexual demands, her husband at length concluded that it was pointless using peaceful methods when she slammed every door in his face. Once he had taken her to the zoo and another time to the national circus, which she had never seen in real life. Then he invited her to a meal at Hussein’s but after he had tried every possible way to make himself desirable to her, he was forced to resort to harshness, particularly since she had even ignored the great efforts he made to spruce himself up by dyeing his white hair black, grooming his beard and trimming his moustache. He had even taken to spraying himself liberally, each time he went out or came in, with ‘Three Fives’ cologne, made from alcohol so pure that it could be used as a disinfectant. When all these attempts failed he began to curse her and fly into a rage over simple things. For instance she had the habit of putting used matches back in the box and she insisted on drinking a cordial of boiled fenugreek while she sat in bed with the bedcover over her. Even if she was at fault, she didn’t deserve all these insults. It was true that he never hit her like many husbands do, but the insults he hurled at Hinna really began to hurt her feelings; they made her flare up and answer him back which she then felt unhappy about because one’s husband should be respected. However, it was when he mocked her about how short she was in front of the grandchildren that she felt her resentment would overflow. Once he told them the story of a short woman who had a short broom in her short hand, who had a bed with short legs surrounded by a small mosquito net and who had a tap with a short spout. One day the woman complained to the qadi who was sitting amongst the people giving judgement, about flies which annoyed her and fell in the plate of honey which she had laid out for eating. All he could do was to give her a flyswatter with a long handle and say to her, “Every time you see a fly, swat it.” As she sat watching him, she suddenly saw a fly settle on his great white turban; there was no alternative but to quickly lift the flyswatter and aim at his head. He was furious because she hurt him and everyone laughed at him so he ordered her to be put in the stocks to have twenty lashes on her feet so that she wouldn’t do it again and would be an example to others.
One thing Hinna never imagined her husband would do was accuse her of smiling and flirting with a man – in this case the man who sold cooked fuul beans in the street and with whom they had dealt for ages. He told her that he was certain the man was flirting with her and that she had responded with that sweet smile which he saw spread over her face. She explained to him that the man was telling her the story of a little boy who duped him and gave him Libyan money instead of ten Egyptian pennies and that she was smiling a
t the boy’s mischief and told the fuul seller to beg for compensation from God. But her husband didn’t believe her and swore to cut off her hand if he caught her having any further dealings with the fuul seller, whatever the circumstances. Following this incident he went to the extreme lengths of buying the fuul every morning from a restaurant miles away from their street.
After that he completely gave up buying the Turkish delight which Hinna loved, and cut off her personal allowance, considering her a disobedient and wanton wife without compassion or mercy towards him. This made it difficult for her to buy the cheap sweets and little presents which she used to buy for her grandchildren with the little she managed to save over the month. Then, in the two years leading up to his murder, her husband tried a new tactic with Hinna which could have resulted in her expulsion from the house: he began to look for another woman.
