Catching the sudden nervous energy in her voice, Saida and her daughter and Madam Lilla look over at us. Only when we start walking again do I ask, “Who’s that? Whose revenge?”
She looks at me. Like she is weighing my heart as well as the secret she is about to share. Shaking her lowered head, she says, “Muhammed. My Muhammed.” Before I can say, “Sister, just who is this Muhammed!” I bump into Saida.
We are standing at an open door of a one-storey building. We can hear singing inside. Children are coming and going. Girls are skipping with ropes on the street. This is a flurry of life in stark contrast to the war out in the desert. This little rundown school looks like a picture drawn by a happy child with a pure heart. If this village embodies the desert then this wobbly-looking school must be its oasis. The sounds of women and children seem to waver in a mirage. Water must be only one part of an oasis. A desert is made up of lost and withered men, and women are the watery heart that is the oasis.
Madam Lilla is holding Saida’s hand. Leaning close, she speaks softly but I overhear.
“Both your uncle and you … you know Saida … I loved you both. But people like me need to move on. You know that… Please help me. If there is any part of me in the woman you are today then help me, Saida.”
Placing her hand on Madam Lilla’s back like a quiet child forgiving her mother, Saida looks away. She nods. And, as if Madam Lilla never asked for help, she raises her head in a way that implies that the brief conversation is over and off the record and she announces in the voice of a school inspector.
“Yeees… So let’s see what the Amazigh women are up to? The daughters of al-Kahina!’
As we step through the front door a young girl runs over to us in a fit of joy. Shaking a camera in the air, she cries, “Saida! Did you see it, Saida? We made a recording, did you see it? We got all of it!”
11
“The series of events to unfold on this adventure, ladies, will leave you in a daze. Which is a good thing. For then your mind is muddy but your heart is clear. Free from what you must do you become the women you must be. Look around. You will see that life is in our breath.”
Amira and I are squeezed into a large ring of women seated on the ground, watching Madam Lilla hold forth. Boxes of sweets and little notes are moving both ways around the ring. In the heart of war we are all crouched down like this but Madam Lilla is still playing the lead role in her film. Having survived the latest whirlwind we are still not entirely sure how we ended up here.
*
We stood at the front of the school with the image of a mother goddess on the door. But when the girl with a camera came running over to Saida, letting out whoops of joy, the mood suddenly changed. Women stepped up and took us by the hand and led us to the other women inside. Quickly moving from room to room, they breathlessly explained so many different things. Bewildered, we suddenly found ourselves seated among a group of women working. Just a couple minutes ago I was keen to hear about Amira’s Muhammed. She was about to tell me. And now we were sitting cross-legged with a group of women, both young and old. We sat in silence, as if we had been sitting there since the beginning of time, and might stay there until the end. A young girl was softly singing. When she finished someone picked up where she left off. Their heads were bowed while other women continued working. Madam Lilla was merrily carrying on, not at all taken aback by this ring of women and the work that they were doing.
In one corner of the room a circle of seated women were mixing soft sweets and pastries on trays. Everything looked unusually small: they were these tiny little colourful sweets. The women kneaded them with the tips of their fingers and carved out designs with their fingernails. Other women in the ring lined the little sweets on a large tray. The trays were then passed to another part of the ring. There women divided the sweets into little packets. Beside them were seven young women writing on little pieces of paper. Sweets now in the little packets come from one part of the circle and the little notes come from another and meet where we are seated and are then placed together in little boxes wrapped in nylon. At first I tried reading the notes in Arabic but I slow down the pace of production because my Arabic is not good. Now and then Amira – if she felt inspired – would translate one for me. They were little poems penned on separate pieces of paper. Poems of love and freedom. Some of them were miniature letters, words of bravery and compassion not addressed to any particular person. These little boxes of sweets and words were then sent to the men fighting on the front line. The young girl who met at us at the door with such enthusiasm manages this elaborate production line. Saida has left us to her care. As leader of poetry and sweets, she eagerly collects the poems and brings them to the ring. She counts the trays, the poems and the boxes. She is responsible for sending a woman’s heart to every man at the front, a poem for every gun. She breathes out her work like a peal of laughter. Now and then she sets her camera on the ground, the same camera she showed Saida and us when we came into the school. When the activity slows down she goes back to watching her recordings. One recording shows her and seven women in the ring. Reading their poems to the camera. When repairs to the radio tower are finished the plan is to broadcast these poems. Like fairies in the middle of the desert. Tiny little things. Poetry blended with sweets sent to the front where human flesh meets steel. But the boxes hold more than just candy and a poem. In our ring sit two very old women. When the packets arrive they take each one in their hands and read a prayer through fluttering lips and then blow on each packet before placing them in cardboard boxes. Is it simply that everything here seems smaller than it really is in the light of a war that is always waged extra large? Maps, guns, planes and ships, they are all spoken of in terms of size.
“You will come to understand that life is in your breath. Nowhere else and in nothing else. You will make your life. You will breathe out … life… As far as your breath will go,” continues Madam Lilla. She speaks with a gravity that wavers between poetry and prayer. We are a little embarrassed by these theatrical flights that seem out of touch with reality. We try not to hear as we help the women packing. Swept away by her own lusty voice, Madam Lilla continues.
“In truth, ladies, women live in a world within the world. Into that world they blow their love and magic. Men are forever ravaging this world, destroying. Women lay the foundations for it with every new breath. And women breathe life into men. The sum of a man is the breath of a woman, nothing more.”
Amira leaned close to my ear and said, “I don’t think that’s how it is. Muhammed wasn’t like that.” But she left it there. Madam Lilla then elaborated on her thesis: “But there are a few. Every once and a while there comes a man who understands that his sole responsibility is expressing his admiration at a world made by the breath of women.” Amira nodded her head in agreement and sighed in even deeper agreement. Now that we had drifted away from the subjects of poems and candies and war I could ask: “I suppose that at some point you’re going to tell me who this Muhammed is?”
Amira looked at me and paused. Madam Lilla went on, now in a more vitriolic tone.
“Yet sadly those rare men also have something to race after. A war, a god, a story. Certainly something drags them away. And we are not the ones to wait for them!”
Looking long and hard into my eyes, Amira nodded at what Madam Lilla was saying. “Certainly,” Amira echoed. Madam Lilla then rose and silently sat down among the women blending sugar. I said to Amira, “You’re going to tell me.” When she nodded, I stood up.
I went into another room where they were teaching children Amazigh. There were reading cards on the wall and Amazigh letters on the blackboard. These people were working to free themselves of a language they had been forced to learn and to return to their mother tongue, and in the middle of a war. It must have been something like reading history backwards. I suppose they were trying to remember the forgotten words of their ancestors; and the more quickly these children remembered them the more quickly they would lea
rn the language. They were moving closer to their native tongue but Amira and Maryam and I were moving further away from ours. Yet we understood each other better than anyone could understand us in our own languages. This was a different language that had come to life the day we met. We couldn’t speak in any one mother tongue so we’d made a little English-speaking nest for the three of us. Far from the comfort of our native languages, we were wintering in a foreign language of limited vocabulary and purged of references, ornaments, intricacies and needless words. What remained was only that which could not be said through silence. And it was fun. The three of us had been exiled into a personalized, ragbag English. Amira would add words from Tunisian Arabic, Mayram from Egyptian Arabic and I would toss in Turkish. Words from the Muslim world like inşallah, maşallah, valla and bilahi jingled like beads in our English. These words opened new passages in English. In the icy London weather of English they were warm Middle Eastern arcades. And over a few days we’d developed our own unique language. A brand new English with Arabic almond paste, seasoned with Turkish rose jam. Sadly it was a language we could never teach. It was a language that came to life through us and that would melt into the sky when we went parted.
I go into the classroom that is now a war museum. In the middle of the room sits the base of an anti-aircraft gun. Broken Kalashnikovs lean up against it. On the walls are scenes of war drawn by adults with less talent than children. Not pictures but individual symbols. Though they are crudely drawn, I am sure they move the hearts of those who have actually been through such trauma. Anger must have driven them to collectively remember as a way to seek revenge. Maybe the wars that began in this part of the world would end this stage of human history. Maybe these primitive drawings would start a new era that might even include us.
Blood, cracked skulls, bodies strewn on the earth, bodies wrapped in funeral shrouds… Every sketched composition on the wall told the story of a moment before the war and during the war. Why would they show such things to children? To explain them? Is there nothing but blood that unites generations? Do people come together only to honour their fallen? The fate of humankind. Even the history of us three now carried a corpse, a bond of blood. No matter how you looked at it there was a bride whom Amira felt she had killed, and maybe she had. When I disappeared and decided to go on this trip, I felt half-dead. And who knows how many male bodies Madam Lilla had left behind? As for Maryam … honestly, why did she agree to come? A spark went off in my mind. When you pulled together all those loose ends… Shaving her head, her constant nausea, the sudden decision to leave with us… Maryam was sick. She was really sick. Oh my God! Why didn’t I get it? Does Amira know?
“Come over here!” Amira is calling me over from the door, a smile on her face. I go back into room where they are making sweets. A young man is standing at the door, keeping a cool air about him. He is wearing a T-shirt that says Free Libya and has a five-o’clock shadow that gives him this carefree attitude and that man-of-adventure look. He leans his Kalashnikov against the door. He cocks his eyebrows and flashes a Casanova smile. The young poets are all excited, fixing their headscarves and jumping to their feet. There’s a gauzy flicker in the air. The old women try to ignore this storm of infatuation that stirs up everything in the room but soon the skirts of the young girls are billowing and the young man’s hands are now eagerly gesturing as he tells stories of the front line. The old women don’t look because they know they will only make things worse. All the girls are now blushing. With a sly smile on his face and coolly leaning back, the young man speaks.
“Everything’s fine. God willing we’ll go back tonight. Everyone’s good. There were a couple of clashes but none of our men were hurt. And how are things here? I hope all is OK. Are the boxes ready?”
When he puts his hands on his hips you see that spoiled behaviour particular to Middle Eastern men that can be enticing to watch but only causes pain if you actually love the man. Oh, how he is so very pleased with himself. He sees himself as a gift to the world. Ah! He deserves it all. So you see if you are loved enough you turn out like this. It was like every part of his body was alluring in its own way and with every movement he was reminded of the fact. Who would be the lucky girl? It seemed like he was lazily mulling it over. Or would he simply deign to grace someone with his presence? He’s rubbing his belly and the girls are swooning. Telling arrogant jokes, he scratches his beard. And the girls are swooning. He hooks one finger in his back pocket like a tough guy. And the girls are swooning. Nothing but smiles all around. He is generating an overwhelming lust, as if he isn’t aware of it. He knows he will be loved all his life and never abandoned. There will always someone waiting for him, no one will ever try his limits. He’ll always be forgiven. And if he is ever asked for an ounce of love he’ll get terribly bored and restless and say so and leave. Then he’ll be rewarded by other loving women who think he deserves better. None of these dear girls will ever know what it’s like to be so easy. They will tell each other how bitter and sweet it is to love a man like that. “How cruel,” they say. He’s indulgent, self-centered, and the ultimate scoundrel but in the end he’s called a “man-child” and forgiven and loved again. He will take everything they have, give nothing back, then maybe – if you’re patient enough – he might smile at you again. Oops… and everything is laid out at his feet again. And this is precisely why he smiles like that because he is so sure that the same thing is going to happen all over again. It is the smile of a Middle Eastern man whose heart has never known malaria. It is the smile of a man who will test his strength on softhearted women who believe that they always have to try harder to be loved.
The girls began carrying boxes of sweets to the door. No direct eye contact was made but the young war hero who was still rooted to the spot received a volley of furtive glances that spoiled him like they would any other Arab man. Then came a brief and flirtatious scene. Girls with fingers graced with poetry and sweets giggled into their headscarves and the boy looked ashamed, as if he had been kissed, his lips aslant, stealing glances from under his eyebrows. The poet leader’s body suddenly grew taut as she handed a box to the young man. The scene went on. Away from the eyes of the old women, their fingertips touch behind the box. In that lay the meaning of war. In an instant. In that touch a wave went through them. Into that moment rushed an entire world. When it ended the box swayed in his arms. The carefully arranged sweets graced with a poem and breath suddenly shook in his arms. Jostling everything inside. In his arms compassion was thrown into disarray. The war front rattles anything it touches in the world of women. But the poet leader was not bothered. The intoxication of that momentary touch was worth it all. She could no longer see the box, blind to the fact that a crude touch, a thrill bereft of grace, had disturbed the consonance in the world of poetry and sweets that she had made. She must have felt it was worth it. Or she was still very young. In any event she could still breathe into the same world and with the same compassion, in the same rush of air, a powerful breath that would bring it to life again. In any event those poems could be written again and shaken hearts would come to rest and then blended into sweets that would be arranged anew in boxes. Madam Lilla was right, women were that way: they were the sum of their breath. And with the breath of women this world…
“It is enough if men show respect and admiration for the world of women. And that is the breath of men over women. Women will find the strength to rebuild a world in constant decay when they see this respect and admiration. This powerful magic will frighten men. Which is why they go on about the ‘sorcery of women’. When men understand that women can thrive without them at their side, that they can live on that magic… That’s when they begin calling us sorcerers. You will learn it. You will learn how not to fear this magic, learn how life is made of it.”
Madam Lilla whispered all this in my ear. It left me feeling frustrated. I was sick of this way of talking and how she imparted these life lessons, never leaving us alone. Especially after just witnessing
a man going on about everything he can do while doing absolutely nothing. And I was still thinking about Maryam. Without realizing it I found myself teasing Madam Lilla in Turkish when I said aloud: “Oh my God, just watch you go!” With her hands clasped on her stomach, she looked like a headmistress. Throwing her head back with an eyebrow raised she responded in Turkish: “No need to worry.”
I was stopped cold. The boy must have left because a sudden joyous clamour broke out in the room. The girls were now laughing and the older women were praying out loud in full breath after the young man who had just left the room, sending their magic with him to the front line. The girls surrounded the leader poet and made fun of her. One of them kicked off a song. It was sheer joy. Sure of herself, Madam Lilla swaggered over to the old ladies. Frozen, I kept my eyes on her. After making me wait for a good while she looked up and flashed me a playful smile. I hadn’t really done anything wrong but somehow her forgiving me like that felt good. I understood Saida and I thought again about how Madam Lilla was indeed a dangerous force of nature who could take a human heart in the palm of her hand and do whatever she wanted with it. I thought of how we’d set out on the journey of a lifetime and how everything we had left behind deserved to die. Of how I didn’t want to waste time explaining even to myself how everything had happened, how it was just a matter of getting swept away and how this journey was worth it. How life was happening precisely now in this moment and that I didn’t want to contact anyone. I only wanted to get lost because I knew it would be good. Everything that was happening was extraordinary and if I could slip out of the role of someone dashing off explanations to newspapers I could explain things as I saw them myself. I could push away the things I had to do and then I could be the person I needed to be so that everyone could “breathe over this world” by doing what they are meant to do. I could live only with truth and beyond explanation, knowing that this journey could take us to our true selves.
Women Who Blow on Knots Page 13