by Fadia Faqir
This incident was not the only reason which made Aziza change her mind about excluding Umm Ragab from the golden chariot. There were other aspects which made Aziza decide on the matter irrevocably. Even though Umm Ragab was a professional pickpocket, as she later admitted to Aziza, she had never stolen unless she was desperate. After her husband left her she had tried to find any work which would earn enough to stave off her hunger and that of her daughter. One time she worked in a leather tannery where she had to clean the buffalo and calf skins of hair and for her hard labour, which went on throughout the day, she was paid a paltry sum – hardly enough for them to live on. In addition, the disease which she contracted, mycosis, would not have been difficult to cure if only Umm Ragab could have afforded to buy the ointment which would cure this cursed fungus. Another time she bought packets of candy floss from a wholesaler and sold it to children for a small profit. But the problem was that she was compelled to eat what was left over at the end of the day since her feet were tired from doing the rounds and her empty stomach was racked with hunger. Then she sold balloons and roasted corn and worked for a long time as a porter in the vegetable souk, lugging heavy sacks of potatoes and tomatoes until one day she suffered a slipped disc which prevented her from working. If it hadn’t been for a few potatoes which she occasionally stole from the big sacks, she and her daughter would have perished from hunger like animals and it was for this reason that she finally took to picking pockets as a profession, even though it happened quite by chance. One day she was standing in front of the crowded co-op trying to buy a packet of rice when she caught sight of the open handbag belonging to a woman standing in front of her in the queue, probably one of the government employees who do their shopping at the end of their working day. The bag had a little leather purse in it and Umm Ragab stretched out her thin hands, calmly snatched it and slipped it down the front of her dress as she slid away from the queue. It was true that she only found three pounds in it but the joy it gave her knew no bounds since on the very same day she bought a tin of sesame halva, half of which she ate with her child, a kilo of tangerines, and a kilo of macaroni all of which gave her the strength to face another day or two. For Umm Ragab the three pounds provided an unforeseen opening to the world of picking pockets. She remained an independent agent during her professional life, refusing to join any of the associations which specialized in the trade and which are widespread in some parts of the city. After they started talking to each other, Umm Ragab confessed to Aziza that she weakened on one occasion and almost joined a gang which pursued their activities on a large scale in buses transporting passengers between Cairo and other districts. But she changed her mind after she thought hard and realized that picking pockets on her own was infinitely preferable because if one of the gang fell into the hands of the police, it was probable that he would give the rest of them away. However, this decision to go it alone frequently cost Umm Ragab dearly because she was forced to be on the alert at all times, not only to the gangs which often stole from the areas in which she operated, but also to the scrutiny of the police. Then she told Aziza how one time she was nearly killed by some members of a gang who, when they discovered that she was practising her trade on territory mapped out for them according to an agreement with the other gangs, resented her persistent refusal to join them. This gang then kidnapped her and took her to a deserted spot far from the city. Some of them began throttling her but she begged them so piteously to let her return to her only daughter who was completely dependent on her that they contented themselves with giving her a violent beating. This left a scar above her left eyebrow but it was hardly visible because of the many wrinkles on her face.
Aziza had learned all the details of the tragic end which landed Umm Ragab in prison after a period of reconciliation between them, and this was the factor which finally outweighed all others in deciding to include her in the group of people to go in the heavenly golden chariot. Aziza, who knew about fate from experience and understood the games it plays, realized, after much thought and close examination of Umm Ragab’s case, that it had played these games only to ensure that she would be included with those who were going to heaven. Because despite the precision with which Umm Ragab carried out her work and her extreme caution and amazing talent as a pickpocket, nevertheless, the government caught her in a way that could only be described as fateful. One day she was working on the underground in Masr Jadida, which she considered one of the most lucrative sites for withdrawing money from the pockets of the long-suffering passengers who were slow to start in the morning. She succeeded in removing a colourful pearl-studded purse – the kind made in Taiwan, which women are mad about and which became widespread after Egyptians went to the Gulf where these sort of goods are ten a penny, like the artificial silk blouse appliqued with pearls which the young owner of the purse was wearing. But she wasn’t paying attention to her handbag and, while the young woman was busy arranging the loose strands of her hair with her painted fingernails, Umm Ragab opened it with the utmost facility and skill gained from practising her trade for more than thirty years. The operation was successful. Umm Ragab turned round after quickly hiding the purse in a plastic bag containing some vegetables and bread, but while she was preparing to get off safely at the next stop, a suckling baby, in all innocence, got hold of the bread with its tiny fingers, exposing the purse which was underneath it. It was Umm Ragab’s bad luck that the owner caught sight of it immediately since she had just turned round to stand behind Umm Ragab in order to get off at the same stop.
A pile of cigarette ends had gathered in front of Aziza. One of her headaches, which afflicted her from time to time because she suffered from high blood pressure, started again. She had thought enough and had turned the question of Umm Ragab over thoroughly in her mind. She got up to walk a little and to prepare something to eat because she had begun to feel hungry. Looking up at the high ceiling of her room where spiders had installed themselves in every corner she raised her hand to say good evening to one of them, adding that it was better off than her because it had come to this place of its own free will. Then she asked it to do a simple, but extremely important, favour for her which was to go quietly to Umm Ragab and whisper in her ear saying: “Aziza told me to tell you … Alright …She’s going to take you up there if she’s around to do it, God willing.”
2
The Heart of the Matter: the Meeting of Opposites
The real, hidden reasons behind old Hinna’s killing of her husband, who was about four years older than her, remained a secret which she kept from everyone including her three children and the judges. Hinna stuck to her first statement before the prosecution – adding nothing to it. She claimed that she had forgotten about the container of water she had placed on the gas stove which had boiled dry after she and her husband had gone to sleep that evening. She added that when she woke up the next morning she found herself in a drugged state, unable to move or even breathe normally, and when she called her husband to help her get out of bed he didn’t answer, even though she called him repeatedly. She became aware of a strong smell of gas all over the house and it was then that she remembered the container which she had placed on the burner before she went to sleep. She pulled herself together and rushed to the kitchen to discover gas escaping from the burner which had gone out all that time ago. However the judges and prosecution received Hinna’s testimony with complete scorn and derision; the many gaps in her statement and the numerous clues and corroboration arising from the investigation, to which the prosecution had access, in their view merely established premeditation. As a result she went down for ten years for premeditated murder despite the strenuous efforts made by the lawyer hired by her children to defend her. He had urged her to say that her husband beat and tormented her and was stingy towards her, driving her to her wit’s end, and that she had been treated unjustly by everyone. He wanted her to tell them that she killed him in a moment of rage and that she now bitterly regretted the terrible deed she had committed
against the person closest to her, and to beg the judges to look on her case with sympathy and mercy because she had confessed to her crime and was full of remorse and grief which was crushing her spirit. However Hinna stuck to her first statement and closed her ears to the lawyer’s advice considering his interference in this matter as a sort of dim-wittedness, also ignoring the entreaties of her children who, she felt, had spent money recklessly on the lawyer’s fee. She pursed her thin lips resolutely, drawing them into a hollow into which the fine wrinkles in the area surrounding them disappeared. This transformation made the judge, who yawned with boredom throughout the long drawn-out speeches on behalf of the defence and the prosecution, decide on a sentence which seemed quite lenient, given that he didn’t condemn her to life imprisonment or to death as is common in such cases. He justified this on the basis that she was old and suffered from a heart condition and high blood pressure, as confirmed by the medical report which her lawyer had submitted as evidence on her behalf. Since there was every indication that her death was not far off he decided to leave the matter to Azrael, the angel of death. In fact fate was to determine the opposite since Hinna lived to serve out half her time and came out into the world once again after the Government declared an amnesty on the occasion of the celebration of the Revolution in which she and other prisoners were included. The feeling of optimism she felt at the moment she heard her sentence may have been behind the faint smile playing on her lips which occasioned the irritation of prosecuting counsel; he had described her, at an earlier stage, in the most unpleasant and debased terms.
It happened that Hinna’s place in the women’s prison, in the communal ward for the old and weak, was next door to the single cell allocated to Aziza the Alexandrian. Hinna won Aziza’s love and approval soon after she met her. The day after Hinna was brought to prison she was in the bathroom by the hand basin, jumping up and trying to reach the tap to turn it on. But because it was high up and she was so short she found it an impossible task. Aziza offered to help her by turning on the tap and, thanking her, Hinna laughingly referred to her shortness which had so often brought her trouble in her dealings with people and continually made her the subject of jokes. Her husband had even refused to walk by her side when they went out together – he was rather tall – and forced her to walk a few steps behind him until they reached their destination.
Aziza really liked Hinna and invited her to eat breakfast with her in her solitary cell. The two women sat down to eat what was available – the macaroni left over from the day before which Jamalat, the thief, had cooked for Aziza after she had stolen a small tin of sauce from the prison kitchen. As they shovelled bits of macaroni into their mouths with spoons and nibbled a green onion which she had washed, Jamalat stood in a corner of the room waiting for the water to boil. She had poured this into a small clay jug on the cheap electric cooking element with spiral wires so that she could make some of the strong sweet Kushary tea which Aziza preferred and which was the only thing that helped her morning headaches. While they were eating with relish Hinna related to Aziza simply and fluently, as if she were telling the story of a good film she had recently seen, the really peculiar story of life with her husband which led her, in the end, to the women’s prison. She told it without a hint of anger or apparent regret; as she recounted the details of the story she appeared to be extremely happy since she would smile from time to time, showing her teeth which were beautifully white for no other reason than they were false. Her youngest son had paid to have them made by one of the most famous specialists in the whole Republic. Hinna was able to draw Aziza to her exciting story and Jamalat also listened to her with ardent zeal because in the first place the tale was well worth listening to and secondly because she wanted to memorize the details and tell it to her friends in the scabies ward to pass the time and relieve the boredom. Jamalat was so intent on Hinna’s words and distracted by them that she didn’t notice the water was boiling furiously until it spilled over onto the little heating element. The thin coil had become red hot and made a loud sizzling noise as the water touched it and evaporated immediately.
As Hinna narrated her story to Aziza, the first person to hear it since she killed her husband, she discovered a truth which she hadn’t thought of during all the long years of her life: that she had to free herself from the husband with whom she had lived for about forty-five years before she had dared to kill him. Perhaps it was a stroke of good luck that she recognized this truth after she had grown old because if she had killed him when she was much younger than she was now, the court, which had been concerned by her age and state of health, might not have entrusted her fate to Azrael and would have handed down the usual punishment for such a crime – the death penalty, or at the very least a life sentence.
Hinna was prepared to tell her story, not only to Aziza, but to any other prisoner who asked her. Even if she wasn’t close to them or naturally at ease with them she tried to get to know them, as she did with Aziza. However, she was never prepared to discuss this matter with any man, however close he was to her, even with one of her sons. The same had applied to her own lawyer or the judge himself, even if he should have decided to pass sentence to have her cut into tiny pieces and thrown to the dogs in the street, because it was impossible for someone like her, blessed with a correct and refined upbringing, to talk about personal matters concerning what goes on between men and women in the bedroom. Even among women, before she carried out the murder, she had not been prepared to speak about a matter of this nature, however much anger and exasperation she had suffered as a result and however great the desire to unburden the feelings which rose within her. When all was said and done, everyone must accept his lot in life: her husband had met his end as ordained by God, and she had taken up residence in the strange world of the women’s prison. As matters stood, she no longer cared and nothing prevented her from narrating her story, from start to finish, to anyone who asked, because she felt no shame or embarrassment in the presence of another woman who had the same body as her, shared similar feelings to her, and was able to understand, feel and evaluate all she had suffered in her life and had been unable to express when she lived with her late husband.
Hinna told Aziza about her husband’s insatiable appetite for the opposite sex, which she had discovered that day, long ago when she was married off to him. The insane urge which impelled him to have sex with her on their wedding night no less than nine times, despite the terrible pain that she suffered and which made her beg him to desist from the painful act that made her feel as though she was going to die. But instead of responding to her tormented pleas, he persisted in violating her over and over again until daybreak, by which time she was in such agony that she spent a whole hour sitting in a tub filled with warm water, with half a spoonful of salt added to it, until the pain had subsided a little. While she sat in the tub, a desperate desire to sleep overcame her; her head dropped onto her chest and she fell into a deep slumber.
At noon the next day, when her mother and father came, accompanied by her younger sister, to congratulate her on the first morning of her life in her happy marital home, she wished she could spit on them all and hit her mother whom she considered, at that moment, primarily responsible for the greatest crime ever – for it was her mother who had been behind her marriage to that stallion, that amazingly potent man who required, not only one woman, but a huge number of females, to jump on them all the time like a cock amidst the hens in the pen. She might have lashed out, spitting and hitting, under the influence of the glass of wine suddenly forced on her by her husband as an antidote to the wounds he had inflicted upon her and which still traumatised her. However, instead of behaving in any of these rather discourteous ways towards her family, who were as close to her as anyone could be – especially her mother who had carried her in her womb for nine months – she composed herself and forced back her anger. Without forgiving them, she painted a false smile of joy on her lips as befits a bride on the first day after her marriage. Sh
e was convinced that the axe had fallen on her head and that in everyone’s eyes, including the eyes of the State and those of her parents, she had become the wife of this man whose face overflowed with happiness as he welcomed her family warmly, the husband of their daughter who was receiving them in his marital home for the first time.
Hinna braced herself and prepared the table for the lunch which her mother had cooked and brought with her in an endeavour to please her and to avoid inconveniencing the new husband. But while they were all listening to one of the excellent radio shows which were being broadcast at the time, the husband stood up and went into the bedroom. He then called Hinna to come and when she joined him he locked the door behind them and caught her unawares with a quick bout, taking advantage of the fact that the guests still had their ears glued to the radio. However, the guests soon became aware of the absence of the married couple and, feeling their presence had become an imposition, called out their best wishes to the happy couple, placing some money as a token for the lovebirds in a small envelope on top of the radio – which they forgot to turn off – and left for home.
Since that far off time, and throughout the long years, Hinna had been her husband’s mare, at his disposal day and night. Sometimes he surprised her by returning from work earlier than usual and she would then have to drop anything she was doing in the house to go to bed. For that reason the food, which she was preparing for lunch, often burnt in the little pot on the stove and in spite of herself, much to her embarrassment she would drop the washing which she was folding or hanging out on the line to join him in bed. Despite the fact that she soon bore him three children, who were enough to gladden any melancholy heart, he was not deflected from his sexual desire for Hinna’s weakened body; she even had to leave her screaming suckling child while she attended to his father’s sexual needs. The whole business became a problem which took up hours of Hinna’s day; she adopted the boy scouts motto: “Be prepared!” to be ever alert for these marital demands. She would bathe, put kohl on her eyes, powder on her cheeks. She would expose as much as possible of her arms and breasts over which he liked her to let her beautiful black hair hang loosely, like a frisky young filly. In this way she would appear, as he always wanted her, like a tart in one of those nightclubs which had spread all over the city and not like a wife from a good family or an exemplary mother who never took her eyes off her children except when compelled to attend to the needs of her troublesome husband.