Dido speaks of Phoenicia. Of the orange-tree orchards, the rosebuds and how we boarded the ship. It seems Aeneas is listening, as if listening to the words of the gods. Then he stops. Dido hesitates. Her voice quivering, she does not know if she should carry on. Before she gives up, he says, “Tell me a little more, Dido, light comes trippingly off your tongue.” Her voice finds strength again only to see once that the eyes of Aeneas drift away. She is lightheaded. Just before her heart breaks, Aeneas takes her hands. “Tell me Dido, your voice is the sun breaking through cloud.” Dido is weary. She grows old in the face of his madness. To soothe her doubt she asks questions to take his truth by the throat. Aeneas is silent. And in the silence she begins to tremble with fear. She wants him to break the silence, even with lies. Dido is now afraid of defeating Aeneas.
When we return to the palace the feast awaits. Dido wants Aeneas to get drunk and she will drink, too. She wants all of Carthage to be drunk, for no one to see the truth. The ladies and foreign soldiers sup wine from each other’s mouths. Aeneas calls the women musicians and he raises his arms up in the air. He moves to the fire and dances there. Dido gazes at his arms and his chest. She is burning with desire. He never stops. Dido catches him and tries to make him look at her. He doesn’t stop. Dido rises and takes Aeneas by the arm. She is standing there helpless. All of Carthage watches this prey throw herself into the hunter’s arms.
That night in hope that the manhood of Aeneas would not satisfy Dido I sacrifice animals to the gods. Till dawn I brew magic spells in the cauldrons. I listen at Dido’s door. Now the fate of Carthage lies between the legs of a rogue. I curse the gods of the seas who brought that ship here.
In the morning Dido steps out onto her balcony. Her white silks flutter in the breeze. She looks at her arms. From my balcony I can see the bruises on her arms. Aeneas has left his mark on Elissa. Smiling, Dido looks down at her arms. Then she calls for me and gives me an order.
“Quick, Penelope, bring me the ointments and let us use cream to cover my arms. Have the girls find golden bracelets to cover these bruises. I want to be ready for Aeneas this evening.”
Dido’s arms are in pain but she is joyful. I don’t know what becomes of a queen who loves her wounds.
I am Penelope and this is how I decided to play a game with Aeneas to devastate Elissa’s soul before he had broken Dido’s heart. Let the knife of Penelope slit her throat before she became the hunter’s wasted prey, tossed aside after the kill. The queen can heal a wound inflicted by her own dagger. Just let not Carthage kneel down before Aeneas.
*
I am Penelope and I have learned that I can bear the sight of Dido fading. But my heart cannot agree to the queen’s defeat. When Aeneas leaves, Dido’s feather will fall out; let it fall. The birds of Dido will fall silent when she sees the monster that lives in Aeneas; let them go silent. When she comes to realize that Aeneas does not love her, her heart will rot, and so let it. Only make it so that Carthage does not crumble upon the queen. Let not my sister, my queen, my soul be ashamed of herself. I am Penelope and I have asked so much from the gods. And so that is how I began to set the trap that would bleed my own sister’s heart.
First I chose those girls with the liveliest breasts, the tautest bellies, the shapeliest legs and the sweetest inner thighs! And the most playful! I made them ready with my own hands. I molded them until each one was a mermaid and I rubbed them with scents, poured drops of syrup onto their lips, rubbed their feet with almond oil, their breasts with jasmine oil and their thighs with orange blossom essence. When each was her own flower garden, her own den of sin, I spoke with them. I told them to go to Aeneas in the morning. Before he was fully awake. They would meet him when his sword was already hard. That hairy beast would be shocked and think he was making love to fairies in a dream. He would surrender his wild soul and his feverish body to those fingers. I laid a trap for him made up of heavenly flowers. Two days and two nights had passed when Aeneas fell asleep alone and that morning he was caught in our web. That morning the most beautiful girls in Carthage opened their legs to save the queen. When Aeneas embraced them they screamed and moaned and wailed. Our girls cried out with all their might so that the betrayal would ring in the deaf ears of Dido. Let her hear that Aeneas is undiscerning; may it be Dido’s flesh or the flesh of another; his heart cannot know the difference.
Dido laughed and she cried. Her mouth watered and then her lips went dry. Dido’s chest split open and her belly grew. Dido died and came back to life. Swallows flew from her hair, rosebuds shot out of her neck and the gold on her wrists went pale. She had revealed her garden to Aeneas, which she had never done before, and now it was full of snakes. And they were strangling her. And Dido did not say one word. She gave herself up like an adolescent slave and she bore her pain like an ancient queen. And like that, one by one, she locked all her doors. The walls turned to copper and the locks were as strong as diamonds. And that is how we won our war that we waged against the heartless Aeneas. Carthage was saved. In gratitude I offered up my sacrifices to the gods.
I am Penelope and I say this to all of our girls of future generations. I am Penelope, a slave who has seen the devastation of a queen. Oh listen to what I have to say, beautiful young girls! It is with great sadness that I say to you that we cannot defeat those glossy-haired hunters so captivating and so cruel, who, like Aeneas, feed their souls on flesh. Pray to the gods to keep Aeneas at bay. Give sacrifices so that such people do not fall to you. Because, I, Penelope, am a poor slave who falsely believed that we had succeeded. I assumed that Dido would have his head. But that accursed evening he was allowed to see the queen; the base animal that did not esteem his conquest at all wanted the unconditional surrender of that country. As if he truly loved her, Aeneas fell to his knees before the throne. And he said not a word. This ill-starred sailor knew that his words would no longer deceive her. Taking out his blade he held it in the moonlight. “Forgive me, Dido,” he said. “I am your slave!” And slowly he began to cut his manhood. Oh! Dido Oh! I saw the queen and she could not bear to see it happen. I saw how she killed herself instead of killing a scoundrel. She raced over to him and kneeled. And there they made love. Blood dripped from his manhood. He was willing to shed his own blood to capture his prey. Carthage would fall because that is what the gods had decreed.
*
Years before Dido had said to us, to all the girls, with all the stars in the sky reflected in her eyes, “Put yourselves first.” On the steps of the palace that she founded, on the first day in Carthage, she had said, “If you can bear your own strength you can bear anything.” She had said, “Do not be afraid my daughters. Do not be afraid of yourselves. And do not…” She raised her hand in the air, her thumb and forefinger touching:
“Do not underestimate yourselves. That is when the hunter will find you. The eye of a hunter knows your limit and he will find you. You become prey.”
And now as we chisel these words on the stone with our scribes we shed tears. Last of all Dido taught us how a queen can long for defeat. Oh Dido! You were once our queen. Even when you chose to become the slave, the prey, the spoils of a rogue, you were beautiful. Oh, Dido! We are your daughters. Your hands between our breasts. Elissa, Oh! Your flesh on our flesh and your heart upon our hearts. We know that you fell willingly.
I am Penelope, and to the young girls to come after us I will whisper in their ears the fate of Dido’s secret.
One morning with tears in his eyes, Aeneas said, “I must leave.” He spoke of wars, his soul, waves, honour and kings. He spoke as if he could deceive a queen with magnificence and not with a compassionate heart. Dido looked at him like a goat might look at a stone, an eagle at a lamb, an elephant at an ant. Then she gave up. The girls of Carthage watched and Dido relented. “Go,” she said and twirling in her silks she went into the palace. Aeneas was still speaking when Dido shut the doors of the palace. Festivals were held there until his sails were unfurled; Aeneas was not invited. When he left with th
e rising sun the candles in the palace were put out and Dido fell silent. The Prophetesses said that she was ‘beyond repair,’ and they quickly made ready charms of opium as a cure. And the women of Carthage hid the daggers and swords to keep Dido from cutting her jugular vein. For seven days and seven nights the city waited for the queen to fall. I am Penelope and I watched how the queen stared at the ceiling for seven days and seven nights. And one morning Dido sat up in bed. She got out of bed like the day she rose to found Carthage. She said, “Make ready the camels. I am leaving this place.” Dido wiped the tears from her glassy eyes. Taking my cheeks in her hands, she said, “To you, Penelope, I entrust Carthage to you. You will look after the palace and the harbour with our girls. I am going Penelope because I am with child. I must give birth to a daughter so that I may leave this ruin, from my hips I must give forth a heart that will bring me back from the dead. To heal I must start life anew. I need a wise woman who knows these lands and her healing herbs, which can keep me on the right path, and as companions I need the two strongest women here. I will set out on a journey. I will go to Ithaca where I will start a life with a new name. The palace has crumbled and I cannot remain beneath the rubble. A lifetime has come to an end on these shores and I cannot watch my own demise. If there is new life in my loins then I must follow where this leads because here I can only wait. I will set out Penelope. Everything left behind you will put down in the annals.
Concoct a story for them Penelope. Such a story that only the girls that come after me will know the truth. Let no others ever know the true story of Dido. Say that she took her own life. Say that she was beaten. Tell the story in such a way that only the girls who live by their breath and the wind will know the truth.
I am a queen, Penelope, and though I might have fallen into a heartless trap I will not allow myself to be defeated by my own hand. I might lose at war but I will never bow to pain. I will not kneel before the shadow of a mortal that I have made with my own breath. If I fall out of favour before my own eyes I will never rise to my feet again. Now I must walk, Penelope, and if I stop I will lose this breath. The soldiers will not follow. Only you! No one else will know that I have left. You are my sister, Penelope. For my sake write the wrong historyfor the mortals and the gods. Fool them, Penelope, so that no one will come after me. Now go and choose those who will travel with me. And do not shed tears. This road is the harbinger of victory. Do not cry, Penelope, for the legend of Dido begins again. And if no one knows that now then all the better.”
And with that Dido left. And I, Penelope, did as I was told and told no other person her true story apart from the two who left with her. I did not cry. Because if there is something I know it is that the queens who founded Carthage by breathing can rebuild palaces of glasseven when no eyes will ever gaze upon them. With Dido’s departure I understood that a queen must follow her breath more than anything else. Once upon a time Dido said the ones who are brave enough to write their own stories should not wait for mercy.
Once upon a time, as Dido said, we should not wait for the mercy of those brave enough to write our own stories. A queen must not forget that the essence of a dream is always in her possession. Our girls must know that in their hearts lies the essence of a queen.
I am Penelope and Carthage was entrusted to me. I am Penelope, sister of Dido. Now I must come up with a story that will satisfy the curious eyes. I will tell them that Dido took her own life. Luckily the stories of queens who have killed themselves for love would surely satisfy the hungry souls. But the story shall be written in a way that only our wise daughters will be brave enough to uncover the secret. I am Penelope, sister of Dido. I will most certainly find a way. Now I shall bury these tablets seven layers deep in the earth. To find them and the truth those seeking them will have to breathe to lift those seven layers. The truth shall be known only to our girls who deserve so much.
*
Muhammed’s Sixth Letter
Sweetie, it wasn’t the gun I levelled on you but the lie I told you. I know that’s what struck you. You can pull a bullet out of flesh but the scar left behind by such a lie will never go away. I know. I am leaving because I know this. There’s only one thing that you don’t know about me, and my crime, and I wanted to talk to you about it before I left. What I am trying to say is that there was something I didn’t know.
Years ago when I came to the club where you danced I was an ignorant and savage man. And like all the other ignorant and savage men around me I had been made to believe by men like me that I wasn’t really like that. Amira, we were going to burn down all the dens of iniquity. We were a bunch of fools that took belief to be a bloody calculus. I am not asking your forgiveness, I am asking you to understand: we were kids who thought to smash was to touch, to break was to love and to be angry was to believe. All the love in the world couldn’t fix us.
When we put on those ski masks and burst into that club to gun down sinful women like you that we called abhorrent witches, we thought we were heroic bouncers for God and we were ready to wash our souls in blood. We weren’t in the state of mind to know that those who are silly adolescents in the eyes of women can take no refuge in God. And when you called out to our ragged bunch, “Brothers! For the love of God stop!” I tried to convince myself that you were the most beautiful devil spinning lies. Later, still dressed in your dancing clothes, you shouted out those verses from the Ğaşiye sura:
“Let them look up at the sky to marvel at how it was raised/ Let them look up at the mountains to marvel at how they stand/Let them look to the earth to see how it unfolds/Then remind them, you are but the messenger/For you are not an imposing tyrant.”
I felt like I couldn’t breathe under my mask. I was ashamed. Not of you. I was ashamed how our ragged band had strove to something that the Holy Prophet Muhammed, may God grant him peace and prosperity, would not even deign to consider. Like I said, to have faith is to primp in the face of the Prophet’s belief that men can be virtuous. That night my heart went out. And I have never recovered.
That dictator Ben Ali threw me in the dungeon. And I felt better. I deserved so much pain for breaking the neck of a beautiful black swan like you. When I got out I was a new man. In that cell I sometimes prayed for you and I prayed to God to forgive you if you ever sinned. And I prayed for the grace of God and I prayed to remain human…
When I got out of jail I was the one who found you, Amira. It wasn’t a coincidence. I cherished every detail. And later you believed me and then that night you gave yourself to me… It was the first time I touched a woman… Oh how we laughed, sweetie, didn’t we? To make you laugh I played up my ignorance. After it was all over and we lay in bed… Oh God I’m so ashamed to think of it … how I got up and pretended to be an astronaut, saying, “A small step for humankind but one large step for a man.” And the way you laughed and laughed, peals of laughter… That’s when I assumed I had been forgiven. That was the day you told me how the night we stormed the club your dad had beaten you and your mom watched as you lay there broken… When I held you in my arms and I read to you, read to you, read to you… You thought that I was trying to heal you. But sweetie, I was licking my own wounds. Honey, how abominable one can be – I learned so much from myself. I could see myself in the space you opened up for me. In you I was challenged. I saw the evil in my heart. That night I wanted to tell you I was the one that broke you. I wanted to tell you that I was the one who pointed my gun at you, revealing where you secretly danced and provoking your father to beat you… But I couldn’t. I couldn’t exchange your love for suicide. People are so weak… People can house so many satanic verses. You cannot protect that sweet soul from yourself if there is a chance it can be yours.
One day you said to me, “If a man is treated well enough he turns out to be a scoundrel. Why not you?” You were afraid. It was like you felt there was a secret in the source of such goodness, love and grace. That day I wanted to tell you. I wanted to go down on my knees and ask for your forgiveness. It didn’t
happen. You heard nothing from me. I don’t know how you learned my secret and I don’t want to know. Like I said, I don’t wish for forgiveness, I only wish to be an ordinary person in your life you can’t even remember where you first met. And how you met.
The last time I saw you, you said, “My heart no longer beats. It’s cold.” I curse myself for having done such a thing to someone with such a rain forest of a heart. But I know that someone as pitiful as me could never really break you. Life will spring out of you again. You will breathe magic again into the world. Stop breathing for me and breathe into life. Life will give you back everything I know you deserve, all the angels. Amira, we need a book that tells us how to love women. Otherwise we’ll forever remain dried-up fools. We need a book that will teach us to expand the breath of women and to unfurl our sails in its strong winds. Otherwise all the love in the world won’t fix us.
I dream of you in a freshly watered garden in the setting sun. You are wearing a white dress fluttering in the breeze. The birds are swirling about your hair, circling butterflies. Your soul like sweet water rising to the surface, cool and clean. You are walking barefoot. Blue beads dangle from the branches. I don’t know why but I hear a child’s voice coming from somewhere, so cheerful. There is a house in the garden. It is a beautiful mid-afternoon. You see a purple bug of extraordinary beauty and, bending over, you push your hair behind your ear. You smile at the bug. Your heart flutters. Amira, you are always so happy in my dreams. You seem to have a heart that was never hurt. Like a little girl who’s never been disappointed, you twirl in your skirt. You don’t even remember me. This is what I wish for you. I am praying for that day, Amira.
Women Who Blow on Knots Page 31
