by Fadia Faqir
After asking for protection from Satan, Umm Abdel Aziz stood up and performed the ritual ablution before prayer and prayed extremely devoutly, asking God’s pardon for what she had just done because she had not intended to oppose his wishes. She spent the night awake until the stars had disappeared from the sky, reading verses and invocations to comfort her dead son in his grave and to console his relatives in the world of the living.
While all this was going on, Aziza was in her solitary cell, next door to the ward for the weak where these events took place. After hearing the commotion, especially the screaming and the impassioned lamentation, she was gazing at the ceiling and thought again about Umm Abdel Aziz’s condition and the bitter torment which she had seldom expressed since she came to prison. As she extinguished her cigarette butt in an old can, which used to contain qaha fig jam, she felt a twinge of conscience because she had taken the wrong view over whether to allow this unfortunate old woman to join the golden chariot going to heaven. She got up and went to the window; resting her head between two iron bars she said in low voice, tinged with remorse:
“My mistake! You must go before Shafiqa!”
8
Melody of the Heavenly Ascent
No one ever knew what Aziza the Alexandrian did while she remained alone in her solitary cell for fourteen hours each day – after the door had been locked from the outside at about five in the afternoon until it was opened by the duty warder at seven o’clock the next morning. The prisoners in the ward for the weak next door could hear her footsteps for most of the night as she paced anxiously up and down, rarely stopping. Nothing else could be heard from her cell as she carried on extended conversations with her mother, the murdered husband, herself and those selected to ascend in the magical, golden chariot with wings, taking them to the other beautiful world in the sky. These conversations remained an everlasting secret to all except the spiders on the ceiling of her cell which shared her nightly vigil, hunting for any available small insects, dazzled by the light coming from the ward at night. The crickets in the field also kept this solitary woman company, sending friendly greetings to her as she sat sipping her imaginary wine. The sound of their chirping reached the cell through the open window from their habitat in the fields by the river bank, not far from the prison.
Aziza was allowed to stay in the women’s prison for many years instead of being moved to the psychiatric hospital because the doctors were mystified by her condition and could find no evidence to justify placing her amongst the band of those who had lost their reason and strayed from the commonly accepted boundaries of the human herd. As to the rare minor outbursts which escaped from her during her time in prison, the investigation took the view that if the angels themselves had been exposed to these conditions they would have borne evil Satanic fangs and sharp nails to oppose those who sought to triumph over them and provoke them. As far as provocative behaviour was concerned, Aziza usually contented herself with a small bite, like the one she gave Lula the hairdresser because she was insolent, or with pulling someone’s hair or perhaps hitting her adversary on the chest and nose as she did once with the troublesome warder. This warder had a pale gloomy face, like one of the thieves of death who dig up graves and had now made Jamalat the target of her evil doings, picking on her for the slightest thing because the girl had once refused to wash her clothes for her after burning her hand with hot oil when she was frying potatoes. Apart from minor incidents like this Aziza did nothing else which attracted attention or pointed to her madness except perhaps for the way she talked to herself – sometimes in the presence of others – which is something which happens to nearly everyone. The only difference was that Aziza did it in an audible voice and gossiped about whatever and whoever she liked, irrespective of whether it was true or not or whether it was appropriate. She called a spade a spade, which was precisely what people often wanted to do but held back through cowardice.
Aziza’s condition and the audible conversations she had with herself in the prison courtyard or in the long corridor which her cell and others overlooked, never caused anxiety to anyone. This included the prison administration itself whose decision to place her in the solitary cell was a precaution against incidents which could give rise to unneccessary problems.
When she was in her cell Aziza often thought about the notion of prison as a system of punishment which society had collectively chosen and she realized that the idea behind punishment, which made one person an example for others, could not be applied in her case. She could never be an example to anyone else since her life had been unique – a life no other woman could have experienced. Only a mermaid, which can sink itself far, far into the depths of the sea without fear or dread, would be able to endure such a life, because she knows the secrets hidden in the sea and knows about the raging waves just as Aziza knew about the sea of passion and knew its horrors and pains. Besides, Aziza had not killed out of a desire for murder or for revenge, nor was she motivated by anger and hatred. She killed for the sake of preserving her unique passionate love and she only lived so that its tree should for ever mature and flourish. The person she killed was another person who resembled him. She had decided to get rid of him after he had taken on the guise of her mother’s husband and only so that she could protect what she had cherished throughout her life. He stole the eternal flame of her passionate love and uprooted the tree of life from its very depths.
Not for one moment did Aziza regret carrying out the murder. Nor did she regret burning the house by pouring kerosene in every corner which had witnessed a single detail of their love and moment of intense passion. These were secrets known only to this house, set in the heart of its magnificent garden, the house which resounded with a secret life of the kind unexperienced by anyone before. Equally she never regretted leading a life like a pious Sufi, praying in the niche of her mad passion. However, there was one thing she did bitterly regret: that she allowed her worshipped lover to attach himself to another and that he should have reached the point of marriage to the one he loved. Aziza bit her fingers with regret because she had allowed the matter to start like a little abrasion and that the purity of her beautiful love had become soiled. She had failed to stop the saga in its early stages; she had lacked the courage to do what she did later, the moment her heart sank in fear and terror as she caught the look her chosen idol gave Nadira – the look she never imagined he would direct to anyone but her. From that moment she felt that the love and passion filling her heart no longer belonged to her and that she must act without further delay; she could not bet on the hope that what had taken place was only a passing summer cloud which would go of its own accord without flooding the secret little island of love whose delights she had feasted on, where she had lived and where she had so often wished she could remain for all eternity.
Many a night Aziza spent hours conversing with the lover she thought was eternally hers, all the while believing she had been created only to love him and had lived only because the breath of his soul was coursing through her blood making her a unique woman, devoted to this venerated loved one. She wanted him to see her in a state of constantly renewed freshness as if she were a beautiful phoenix which would never die nor quench its thirst from the water of life. Many a time would she chat with him during her nights, imagining sweet wine when she was only intoxicated by the memories of her life which flowed out of her, from behind the high prison walls, far from her beloved city by the sea. Frequently a longing surfaced for her mother, her friend and soul-mate, partner of the same body and companion of days past who had been carried away by time. She was the fresh flower of the house who always blessed the support and kindness between her husband and daughter and nurtured the tree of her love through the support of her own compassion and love. She never tried to listen or use her other senses to detect what her eyes failed to distinguish – the silent cries which revealed the passionate relationship between her beloved husband and her only little girl, always preoccupied with her passion in that old
house which witnessed both moments of birth and painful moments of death.
As Aziza sat on her own in her cell she decided that her mother must have discovered the truth about the relationship between her daughter and husband and approved of it, preferring to keep silent for many reasons. Perhaps she had considered it a source of happiness for the treasure of her heart and the light of her life, through which she, who was denied the light in her eyes, could see. She had been quite happy for them to go out together on the many days and nights they spent having fun and staying up late. It was she who had encouraged her husband to accompany her daughter to the capital which was called the ‘Mother of the World’ and to show her around. What was more she had urged her daughter to care for him and look after his interests, making her personally responsible for laying out his clothes when he was going out and preparing his food for him when he stayed home for the evening; she had suckled her with his love and passion just as she had suckled her with the milk from her breast and perhaps she had known that this sympathy and kindness could grow and mature into what was beyond … to the limits of passion and love.
However what caused Aziza pain and anxiety, and even made her feel ashamed, was that she never would have been so accommodating to her mother if she had been in her place nor would she have allowed her daughter to be her husband’s lover and flirt with the man that she loved passionately and was also married to. Her feelings of shame and anxiety stemmed from self-recrimination over her cruelty and, more important still, her extreme ingratitude towards this kind mother who had been tolerant, generous-hearted and never for a moment ceased to surround her with love and affection.
As these painful thoughts passed through Aziza’s mind, an uncontrollable anger took hold of her … anger which was turned against herself because she had never been a dutiful daughter. She had been ungrateful and selfish, taking what she would deny her mother who was solely responsible for introducing her to the man she loved so much, with whom she experienced such beautiful times. Aziza felt a violent pain rage within her which shook her very being, invading her tormented spirit in which the owl and wind had long set up their lamenting moan. She suddenly stood up and paced up and down between the four high walls. As her pain reached a climax she went to the window, touched the rusty iron bars and shook them as if all her pain and anger were concentrated in the grip of her hand. It was as if she wanted to smash them and push herself through to reach outside, far away, high up in the sky. It was then that the prisoners in the ward for the weak heard a sound coming from Aziza’s room next door, which they thought was the cats who kept jumping through the window into her cell. Umm Abdel Aziz believed that Aziza was in league with the Jinn which came to her at night in the form of cats because, if these cats had been like the other stray cats which slipped into the wards at night to steal food, regardless of who they belonged to, Aziza would have chased them away. When Umm Abdel Aziz discussed the matter of these nocturnal cats with Aziza one morning, she categorically denied that any cats visited her during the night. The elderly Hajja, who believed that the veil of God’s mysterious world had been lifted before her in prison, wanted to glean some information on this subject from Aziza. She was keen to enlarge her knowledge of the unknown and to sanctify it for the purpose of her new activity which had proved successful through her experience in prison and which she decided to pursue and refine after she left to lead a normal life.
Aziza was unable to break the bars and hurt her hands so much that she had no energy left to push away this barrier impeding the release of her torment and the ascent to where she wanted to go. She was forced to return to her mattress on the floor, dragging her body, drained through all the suffering. She sat, a heap of humanity, destroyed by life and mocked by time, her grey hair and the finely engraved lines around her eyes had lost the lustre of life leaving a sleepy, arrogant look, a faint reminder of what she used to look like in the past. As soon as she had thrown herself onto the thin sponge mattress, she lit another cigarette and drank a glass of her ‘wine’ in quick gulps to repress the burning pain and to concentrate her thoughts sufficiently to ensure that the golden chariot would make the ascent to heaven in the highest state of readiness.
Aziza wanted the passengers of her golden chariot to look as beautiful as humanly possible for their ascent from earth to heaven. She believed that this was the minumum required and befitted those chosen. For that reason she spent long nights discussing with Sonia the Armenian, formerly the most renowned dressmaker in Alexandria, who had often made the most beautiful garments for Aziza and her mother according to the latest fashion. Aziza invited Sonia from France where she had recently emigrated to join her sons who had opened a Middle Eastern restaurant there. She discussed every little detail with Sonia concerning the kind of cloth, the colour and the suitability of all kinds of garments which she would be making for her and the friends chosen to accompany her on the golden chariot. Then she saw each of the prisoners who would be joining the chariot in turn, so that she could take their measurements and decide on the most suitable style for them. Throughout this procedure, she consulted Zaynab Mansur who sat next to her and, with the benefit of her fine aristocratic taste, supervised every detail concerning the dresses, selecting the most magnificent cloth in glorious colours of the best taste to make them look like angels, no less beautiful and splendid than the angels in the sky. They were to be long, full-waisted dresses made from crêpe de chine, fine chiffon, shantung silk and duchesse satin, lace and tulle, embroidered with gold and silver thread and sequins, sparkling with all the colours of the rainbow, just like the necks of the local pigeons, fit to meet the angels in. For each of them Aziza choose golden crowns set with jewels and precious stones which were breathtakingly magical. She wanted these crowns to resemble the crown Farida wore on the night of her marriage to King Farouk. Aziza detested him because he divorced Farida and married Nariman, but God, who always puts things right, toppled him from his throne a short time after when the Revolution broke out and he left the country disgraced, abandoning everything. Meanwhile the picture of Farida, in her splendid long wedding dress and her crown on her head, hung on the wall next to Aziza’s bed. She had been in the habit of feasting her eyes on it from time to time until one particularly violent day, one of the days when the Nuwwa wind blows in from the sea, the window, which had no secure catch, was blown wide open and the picture flew away. All trace of the picture was lost, washed away by the rain which poured down on it in the garden.
As to the shoes, they would match the clothes perfectly. Aziza chose black satin or fine leather mixed with a few bits of drawn thread work and smooth chamois velvet. All of them would have plain heels, not very high, except for Hinna’s which would be seven centimetres high. Azima, the female mourner, would have completely flat shoes but they would be embroidered with beautiful silver thread and she would make her sit at the end of the chariot so as not to block the view of those sitting in front of her. She would arrange this tactfully without hurting her feelings as people had done in the past. Azima had told her one day, in a sad tone, that because she was so tall she was made to clean the ceilings in her father’s house in order to save him buying one of the long, wooden-handled brushes used for this purpose. And that one of their neighbours would send her young daughter to fetch Azima so that she could get something down from one of the high old cupboards which she could not reach herself. This made Azima extremely annoyed because she hated anything which reminded her of her unusual height.
Aziza decided to put Adli, the hairdresser, in charge of the women’s hair because he was an artist who specialized in dressing women’s hair and whose golden fingers would be able to transform their heads into something resembling the magic mermaids. He was the hairdresser from her city who had so often skilfully arranged her hair, always in ways which won the admiration of her lover and dazzled him because he made her look even more beautiful and enchanting. Aziza decided, after thinking extremely hard, to include the tormented prison cat amo
ngst the passengers as well as another black cat which she often saw around the prison. It sometimes sat next to the prison cat in the corridor, part of which Aziza could see from the other window in her room. She noticed how they meowed together in utter contentment, and never fought with each other, even over the food which was thrown to them during the night.
Despite all the planning Aziza did to ensure that the ascent should be as well prepared as possible, there were some minor obstacles to overcome. There was the problem of Mahrousa, the warder, who loathed Umm Ragab because she spied on the prisoners for the prison authorities. This role caused Mahrousa considerable anguish; she was accused of colluding with some of the prisoners although, as far as she was concerned, she was simply helping them out of kindness. On one occasion, Umm El-Khayr made a life-size rag doll for Aida, the Saïdi girl, so that she could hug it when she went to sleep as if it were her little boy but Umm Ragab stole it. When Mahrousa reproached her for this, she took revenge on her and informed the prison authorities that Mahrousa had allowed Jamalat to leave her own ward and spend a night with Huda in the scabies ward. Huda had tempted her with an invitation to an evening of singing and dancing, celebrating the release of a prisoner due to take place the following day. The order for her release had been given because the charge of having two husbands could not be substantiated. The court discovered that her first husband, who had left the country seven years ago, had died and that during his absence she had neither seen nor heard anything of him. She had moved to a town in the Saïd and married a pedlar selling molasses, with whom she had three children, but the mother of her first husband took legal action against her to try and land her in prison.