Women of Sand and Myrrh by Hanan Al-Shaykh

Author:Hanan Al-Shaykh [al-Shaykh, Hanan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9780385423588
Publisher: Anchor
Published: 2012-12-05T05:00:00+00:00

7

The noise lessened with the departure of most of the women. When my cousin and my son Muhammad came I went down with my mother and we sat in the car and waited for my aunt. The two Filipino girls stood in the middle of the street, happiness written all over their faces; this was one of the few times they’d been able to go out into the street, see the night and breathe air which was hot and sticky but at least wasn’t manufactured by the air-conditioner. They helped lift my aunt into the car and when they’d gone inside I got out of the car and locked the shop door behind them. I called out good night but didn’t hear them reply.

I closed my eyes as the car sped along with us, wondering why they were so annoyed at not going out. How could I let them go out when the men here were like traps set ready for them? I felt happier as I began to think about renting a second flat now that there was no longer room for my clients, in spite of the objections raised daily by my son. My aunt remarked suddenly. ‘Congratulations, Tamr, and God willing we’ll be able to congratulate you on finding a new husband before long.’

Once in the past she’d given me the names of three highly eligible men and urged me to speak to all three of them on the telephone and choose one of them. I insisted that I should meet them: I would only marry a man whom I’d seen and talked to. The past was no longer clear, or painful. I felt tired and turned to my mother. Her eyes were closed and there was a half-smile on her face: she must have been dreaming of her homeland.

Later that same night everyone in the house was asleep except Taj al-Arus. She was afraid that if she closed her eyes an angel or a devil would whisk her away to Turkey, and the smell of the gaseous springs for which her village was famous would penetrate her mind, used by now to the smell of humidity and sand and the noise of air-conditioners, and make her lose it.

Taj al-Arus opened her eyes in terror and recited, ‘In the Name of God the Compassionate, the Merciful.’ She stared in front of her for a long time and could see nothing. The darkness had swallowed everything up. ‘Tamr. Tamr. Rashid. Batul,’ she screamed. She screamed until she saw the three of us bending over her; she didn’t know why these faces looked scared and asked them what was wrong. Our hands shook her and our fingers brought water up to her lips and one face was crying: my face. When we were all gathered around her she could see everything she was used to seeing each day in the distorted mirror: heaps of bags and clothes in one corner, the cracks in the walls, a cord hanging from the ceiling with a bulb on the end of it; the room had no window.

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