Blue Lorries by Radwa Ashour

Author:Radwa Ashour
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing
Published: 2014-05-18T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter fourteen

My aunt

I never had the chance to get really close to my grandmother. You could count on the fingers of one hand the number of days at a time that we ever spent together. I remember her at our home, when she visited us there in the company of my aunt early in 1959, when I was not yet five years old. And I remember her the day we went to the village in mourning for my grandfather (the day of the translation problem). I also remember when she came to our home bringing great baskets, hampers, and sacks laden with the delicacies she had prepared for us, to celebrate my father’s return. Perhaps I met her on one or two other occasions, but I can’t put my finger on where or when – whether at our home in Cairo or at hers in the village. I am unable to remember her appearance, except by looking at some pictures that were taken of us together. I stare at an image, trying to recall her face and its expressions. Her voice, though – the rhythm of her speech and her distinctive way of speaking – these I remember relatively well. She had a loud voice, and she enunciated her words clearly, her speech rich in imagery, as well as in its cadences and its diction. Her way of speaking had a kind of presence, whose differences and distinct qualities did not escape my notice when I was a child, even while it was beyond my capacity to grasp their significance fully, or to appreciate the sources of her expressiveness.

My grandmother died some months after the death of my father. I rang my aunt and let her know that I would not be able to travel and join her in the ritual observations, because the twins were down with fever, and because in just a matter of days I was to take my final examinations for the year. She heard me out, without comment. Years later, however, she chastised me roundly for my conduct. ‘Auntie,’ I told her, ‘I loved and respected my grandmother very much – you know how much you all mean to me!’ The truth is, I don’t know whether what I said was sincere, or a mixture of sincerity and flattery, for I had surprised myself with my own words.

I rarely see my aunt, and we have spent only the odd week here and there under the same roof – which does not explain the closeness that draws us together, which is rather like a secret understanding, something that goes without saying. Maybe the reason for it is the strength of our mutual attachment to the same man, perhaps a shared, tacit admiration. We go for years without meeting; then we get together and the talk flows freely, as if we were picking up where we’d left off on a conversation already begun. I move familiarly around her house, sleep peacefully at night, and awake surrounded by a calm that amazes me.

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