I Sweep the Sun Off Rooftops by Hanan Al-Shaykh

Author:Hanan Al-Shaykh [al-Shaykh, Hanan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9780307766625
Publisher: Anchor
Published: 1994-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

My fiancé Farid, insisted that I should go with him and his family to visit his grandmother’s grave on the eve of the feast. I had always thought this custom was for old or lonely people, who took comfort from sitting with their dead relatives. They say there’s nothing like visiting a cemetery for curing depression. I had not been aware of my own parents visiting family graves on special days, although once when I was little I prayed fervently that somebody I didn’t know in the family would die so that I could go inside one of the buildings people put up around their graves. I had gone with our cook to her house overlooking the cemetery—an occasion that must have remained imprinted on my mind—and from then on I’d pictured the dead people living in those burial chambers, like us in our houses, only different: perhaps they moved about without making any sound, or stayed in bed all the time.

In those days the tombs seemed strange to me, with their engraved cupolas, the color of sand. They stood among a few faded trees and mounds of sandy earth that were perfect for rolling down. When I heard dogs barking and cats yowling, I was sure they were the guardians of these tombs.

We called in at Farid’s parents’ house. As I made to reply to his father’s greeting, his mother appeared from nowhere and asked me disapprovingly why I wasn’t wearing the diamond earrings.

“Diamonds for the cemetery?” I asked.

“Why not?” She nodded. “Everyone’s going to be there, I know, and they’ll say he only gave you a ring when you were engaged.”

Then she vanished and returned with a brooch of precious stones and came toward me to pin it on my dress. I took a step backward, insisting as diplomatically as I could that I didn’t like brooches. Turning again toward her room she replied impatiently, “All right. Wear my marcasite earrings. But everybody will recognize them.”

I looked beseechingly at Farid and he said to her, “I don’t want her to wear any jewelry.”

Only then did she notice the bunch of white roses I was holding. She took them from me, smelling them and calling on the Prophet in her delight, then rushed to put them in a vase with some other flowers. The price of them had made me hesitate, but they had looked as if they were just waiting for someone to appreciate their fragrant beauty. I justified buying them on the grounds that they weren’t for me, and that anyway, from now on there was no need for me to feel a pang of conscience every time I bought something expensive, since I was going to marry a wealthy man. Farid told his mother that the flowers were for the grave. “What a shame. They’re lovely,” she replied, continuing to arrange them in the vase.

Farid signaled to me, and I understood that I shouldn’t pursue the subject of the flowers. I looked about me in an

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