by Fadia Faqir
Aziza also remembered her visit to the pyramids and the sphinx and especially her visit to the Pharaonic Museum which had left an indelible mark. As she sat in her cell she tried to call up scenes from her past life and unravel the pattern of threads woven in the recesses of her memory.
Her head was full of all the trips she made with her lover when they walked hand in hand like any couple who have been openly in love for a long time. Aziza conjured up the statue of a huge woman, with an ample, fertile body and the head of a cow whose face was kind and gentle. She was hugging a little baby and the image rose up strongly from the recesses of Aziza’s memory, taking shape before her eyes just as she saw it all that time ago. She remembered questioning her lover at the time about the statue, and the reply he gave her as he hugged her to him: “It’s an ancient goddess, Hathur, dedicated to beauty and fertility, who was worshipped for many years. She is showing compassion for the little holy god she is carrying, Hurus.”
Aziza gazed at what she had drawn on the wall which had brought to her the memory of the ancient statue and told her story to Umm El-Khayr as if she were in front of her in the cell. She told her how she remembered standing at that moment trying to make sense of the confusion she felt as she touched her breasts with her hand, searching inside her for the meaning of the word “fertility” which she had heard for the first time in her life from the lips of her lover.
Aziza had never been able to imagine that she could ever be like that kindly human cow which embraced children with its care and compassion. She always believed that she had been created for something else, which proved to be the case. It was as if she had mapped out her destiny on that distant day when she decided that she would not be like that statue in the shape of a cow. Yet now she discovered that the image she had drawn on the wall resembled that statue buried in her memory. Furthermore she had conjured up Umm El-Khayr to sit before her that night replete with all the mothering instincts she possessed which engulfed everyone around her, including Aziza. Umm El-Khayr treated all the women she came into contact with in the prison as her daughters, including those amongst them who were older than she was; her maternal instinct even extended to the pampered prison cat. Aziza had never known the meaning of this feeling since she had never experienced it first hand. From that day in her distant childhood she had decided that she had been created for passion rather than fertility – a passion she was to dedicate herself to and which would lead to murder and madness.
Until Aziza encountered Umm El-Khayr’s overflowing maternal love she had been completely unaware of such qualities, having never experienced this kind of love, even from her mother, who was more like an older sister to her. Her feelings towards her mother were not unlike those of a young girl who looks up to her older, more experienced friend. It was a unique relationship blessed with harmony and linked by a fine thread which placed them on an equal footing – a thread personified in the stepfather, the one man they both loved without any sign of strife or conflict, who gave equally to each of them. His generosity included presents, magnificent clothes, and evening expeditions to the most splendid shops in Alexandria, at a time when it was still a city known as “the heart of the world”, which attracted people from all over and where the prosperous élite of the country lived. Last but not least the man they shared never stinted either of them with his body. As a result Aziza had never thought of this woman as a mother since they took and gave equally. Even though Aziza enjoyed the sexual and other favours granted by her stepfather, this did not inhibit her mother’s enjoyments of the same. Nor did the mother regard her daughter as the source of joy and solace in her life. Deprived, though she was, of the blessing of sight she did not seek to compensate for this by using her daughter’s eyes.
However this person sitting in front of her, Umm El-Khayr, was the true mother goddess, at this moment visible only to Aziza through her imagination which was now weary and impaired through years of painful seclusion. She was maternal love personified, who gave unconditionally, nurturing everyone through her love, particularly her beloved sons. Through the rings of smoke rising in front of her, the image of Umm El-Khayr took on the form of that huge old statue of the woman cow-goddess whose name Aziza had for the moment completely forgotten despite her repeated attempts to extract it from the torn web of her memories, full of sadness and scattered moments of joy which shone like a light through mellowed wine. The difference between the real statue and the woman of flesh and blood was in that milk which gushed out from her nipples and which would soon cover her until it flowed profusely across the floor between her feet, forming a small stream which Aziza saw stretching beyond the door of the cell, forging a path along the long tiled corridor, leading to the other cells. Aziza bent down to the floor to lap it up. It intoxicated her more than any wine she had drunk in the past, and she craved it as never before. When her tongue licked the old tiled floor of the cell and she felt the rough cracks against her tongue, hot tears began to fall and she did not lift her head until she had released all the pent-up pain and suffering which had accumulated inside her.
Since that unforgettable evening full of sadness and after she had become accustomed to the long nights in prison, Aziza was convinced that Umm El-Khayr was none other than one of those ancient revered goddesses who had fallen from heaven into the women’s prison in order to save the lost souls tormented by loneliness, banishment and exile and to comfort them with her overflowing compassion. This cherished view was reinforced by the relationship, which Aziza considered supernatural, between the prison cat, which after all was a dumb animal, and Umm El-Khayr. She decided that it could only exist because Umm El-Khayr was a goddess. The cat slept most days with her nose resting next to Umm El-Khayr’s face without being rebuffed; Aziza often heard her chatting to the cat and delivering words of comfort when the male cats ate her young ones in their nightly raids on the wards while she was out searching for something to eat to replenish the milk in her teats for her young. Most of the prisoners showed tenderness towards this cat, perhaps because they were deprived of the chance to express their feelings towards their loved ones and they enjoyed the affection the cat showed in return when it brushed against their legs and miaowed softly, especially when they threw her a few of their meagre left-overs or stroked her back gently. But Aziza noticed that the cat singled out Umm El-Khayr for special affection, that secret kind which Aziza immediately recognized, and which could only be granted to goddesses. This apricot-coloured cat, with her dark eyes and her tail which had lost a few inches after a violent fight that took place one night with a vicious old cat and lasted until dawn, liked to spend every night in Umm El-Khayr’s bed under her feet. She watched over Umm El-Khayr and kept guard over her as she slept, like a guardian angel. One night she caught a naïve, unsuspecting mouse which had slipped into the cardboard box which Umm El-Khayr used to store her possessions; on another occasion she pulled out a huge poisonous spider from one of her plastic shoes, a recent invention to guard against going bare foot as people have done for seven thousand years, just as Umm El-Khayr was about to slip her foot, with its cracked sole worn from treading the rough soil, into the shoe.
The secret relationship between the cat and Umm El-Khayr was only one of the extraordinary, superhuman aspects that Aziza discovered about this peasant-goddess. She also possessed amazing patience, which might only be compared to the endurance of a very old cactus tree, and which was particularly noticeable in her dealings with that wretched young Saïdi woman, Aida. Everyone in prison recognized that Aida suffered from a strange neurosis which had made her suddenly lose her memory and which sometimes caused her mind to wander for several hours or even days. Her forgetfulness reached the point where she did not even remember her name and was unable to recognize those around her. Nor could she cope with everyday things, which brought her many problems and made her an object of ridicule for some of the prisoners who found her condition a fertile source of jokes and laughter, particularly when she did eccentric things. One
time she slept with a small plastic bowl, turned upside down, under her head instead of a pillow; on another occasion she made tea for Mahrousa, the warden, when she came to sit with her on her bed in the ward, but instead of adding sugar she put two spoonfuls of black pepper in it. Were it not for Mahrousa’s good nature and her sympathy for Aida’s condition, she would have slapped her hard on her face, like any other warder who would have considered such behaviour from a prisoner as insolent.
Aziza understood the full extent of Umm El-Khayr’s patience and the untiring compassion she showed towards the prisoners on the day she asked Umm El-Khayr about Aida’s story. Umm El-Khayr told her that Aida was a poor, miserable young girl who had experienced unimaginable traumas and horrors which had left her an orphan although she still had close relations. After she lost everything she lived without hope and perhaps the proverb that described her situation best was the saying: “When the flood comes stand on your children’s shoulders.” When the origin of this proverb and how it applied to Aida the Saïdi was made clear to Aziza, her mind turned to the heavenly voyage and she made a secret decision to include Aida. Umm El-Khayr sighed and asked Aziza to bless the Prophet – peace and blessings be upon Him – and when this had been done and repeated a second time at Umm El-Khayr’s request, the wise peasant began to tell the story. She said: “Once upon a time in a certain field, a rabbit lived with his sons in a burrow under a tall sycamore tree at the edge of the field. One day the rabbit asked one of his children to go out and keep watch on the path and the field and, once he was sure that the coast was clear and that there were no humans around, he should come back quickly to inform his father so that he could go with him and his brothers to the field to feed and play with them happily without fear. When the little rabbit went out and looked around the field he saw no living creature apart from an old fox roaming around looking for prey. When the little rabbit saw him, he thought it would be better to ask him if he had seen anyone in the field or anywhere near so that he could reassure his father when he went back. So the rabbit said hello to the fox and told him why he was there and asked if there were any humans around. The fox had decided to kill him as soon as he set eyes on him because he was extremely hungry and was longing to gobble him up but he held back because he thought that the rabbit must have a burrow close to the field where he lived with his brothers. It would be wiser to find out where it was so that he could slink up to it every night and seize one of the rabbits for his dinner, thereby saving himself the effort of searching for prey. He resolved to follow a crafty plan in his dealings with the little rabbit, telling him that although he hadn’t seen anyone since dawn, he feared that on his way back to his father he might meet a human who would harm him, perhaps even kill him, and that this would cause his father terrible worry and grief. Thus he offered to accompany the rabbit to his burrow to make sure that he got back safely.
So the fox set off with the little rabbit, who was extremely happy with this arrangement. On the way, the fox chatted with him and told him the story of the gullible black duck who lived in a barn with lots of geese, cocks and hens. She noticed how white the geese were and how red the hens were and she noticed the magnificent colours of the ornamental cocks, and this made her feel discontented because she was pitch-black and life had denied her the luck of being colourful like the others. One day she saw a dog which was showing considerable interest in the animals as they came out of the barn into the courtyard of the house; he was also guarding the geese as they came to have a swim. He asked the duck why she was troubled and annoyed and when she told him he advised her to slip into the storehouse and dip herself secretly into the flour basket; once she was covered with flour she would emerge pure white like milk. These words pacified the duck who went back to the barn full of joy.
The next day, the duck went to the storehouse and buried herself in the flour basket. She exhausted herself through the huge effort she made to make sure that her head and all her feathers were smothered with fine particles of flour. When she returned to the barn, the owner of the house opened the door for the geese to go to the river nearby and the duck rushed to catch up with the geese. She wanted to swim with them and to enjoy washing herself in the cold water so that she could be clean and beautiful like them. When she reached the river and saw the white geese swimming she looked at herself with satisfaction; with her true blackness concealed by the fine white grains she felt beautiful like the geese. But when she got into the water, the white flour sticking to her began to dissolve revealing the original blackness of her feathers. Once the duck realized what had happened she got out of the river and went back to the barn, mortified. The furious owner of the house was waiting for her with a knife in her hand since she had decided to slaughter the duck for dinner after discovering that she had gone into the flour basket and ruined all the flour the owner had stored to use for baking.
When the rabbit and fox reached the burrow beneath the tree, the rabbit said goodbye to him and entered the burrow while the fox remained hidden outside by a tree, watching the burrow for any activity. The little rabbit, meanwhile, was telling his father what had happened with the fox and when his father heard the story and understood its significance, his heart sank because he knew that danger was near and that disaster was about to befall them; the fox would undoubtedly attack the burrow from every side and devour them. He began to think frantically and then he looked at his son sadly and told him: “Go out of the burrow again and you will find the fox waiting for you. Tell him as soon as you see him that you didn’t find your father and brothers in the burrow and that they have probably gone to another burrow somewhere far away from the field. Then ask him to go with you there, just as he came here with you, and when you are well on your way, leave him and come back quickly and we will be waiting for you.”
As the little rabbit went out of the burrow his father was in no doubt that he was doomed. He saw the fox racing towards the far off burrow which they would never find and knew that when the fox discovered the trick he would be furious and gobble up the little rabbit. So as soon as the fox and the rabbit had disappeared from view, the old rabbit ran off with all his children and escaped with them from the burrow and field to a far away place out of range of the fox. Knowing that he had sacrificed the little rabbit he said to himself: “If the flood comes, stand on your child’s shoulders.”
At the end of this story, Umm El-Khayr said to Aziza: “What happened to the little rabbit, is what happened to the poor Saïdi girl, Aida. Consider the wisdom of God because what happens in the world of animals can also happen in the world of humans.” Then she went on to tell Aziza what, exactly, had happened to Aida. She sat with her back against the wall of the adjacent ward, basking in the sun and amusing herself by playing ball with little pieces of brick to distract herself from the boredom which inevitably arose from being shut up and enclosed. Mishmisha, the cat, stretched out peacefully next to her on top of the most recent line in winter fashion illustrated on the woman’s page of the weekly edition of Al-Ahram, following the little ball as it was juggled in the air. Then Umm El-Khayr told how she heard a strange sound which resembled the pained wailing of an Armant dog in labour. She knew that there were no dogs in the prison because, unlike cats, they were unable to leap far enough to get over the high walls or get through the main door which was within the earshot and scrutiny of the guards. Nevertheless she had got up from her seat on the floor thinking that perhaps there really was a dog somewhere in the prison which had given birth. Her amazement grew after she had gone only a few steps and found Aida, sitting in front of a basin staring vacantly and making the noise of a bitch wailing. She was gnawing a piece of dark prison soap with a degree of violence that expressed the pain felt by a bitch expelling a litter of seven puppies from her womb.
Umm El-Khayr described how she ran quickly to Aida to remove the soap from her mouth before she swallowed it. She pressed her thin cheeks with her strong hands, the hands which had so often gripped a hoe to break up the soil
and till it, until she was able to force Aida to spit out all the soap in her mouth. When she was sure that all that remained in Aida’s mouth were those few teeth separated by gaps and the small, dry tongue which caused her to stammer, Umm El-Khayr released her from her grip gently telling her to scream with all her might to expel all the sadness and pain suppressed within her. Before she fainted, Aida let out a cry which built up to a crescendo of pain and sorrow and which, had anyone been around to take any notice of her at the time, which of course they weren’t, might have made them think she was something to do with the opera.
The same evening she was moved to sleep temporarily in the ward for the disabled, in an area specially designated as the prison hospital. Aida, who remained in shock, remembered nothing of the day’s events and had lost her appetite, but told her story to Umm El-Khayr who had remained constantly by her side, handing her some sweetened lemon to drink to refresh her and rubbing the palms of her hands and the soles of her feet to make the blood circulate after they had turned blue and cold as ice. Aida only spoke after Umm El-Khayr had convinced her that the suppression of her pain would lead to insanity. Umm El-Khayr urged her to trust and lean on her as a mother, whose support for her child outweighs any other consideration. When Aida heard these words they touched the secret wound in her heart and the floodgates opened, rivalling any performance given by the Egyptian actress, Amina Razaq, who was the queen of tears. Aida threw herself into Umm El-Khayr’s arms, just as a daughter would do with her real mother, and unburdened herself. In a theatrical scene that verged on tragedy she shouted that she had never had a mother, a revelation which made Umm ElKhayr cry out in torment and draw Aida closely to her.
