This creature, as white as a turnip heart, who was so thin that half of her seemed to be missing, was the bewildered young girl known by everyone in the women’s prison as “Silent Shafiqa”. Her origins and the sequence of events which brought her to the women’s prison were a complete mystery to everyone. Neither did anyone know who her parents were, nor the name they had originally given her.
One day she arrived at the prison on a charge of begging and thereafter returned to the prison repeatedly on the same charge, as one of its many short-term prisoners. Anyone with the slightest intelligence would have noticed Shafiqa’s confused state of mind, except for the doctors, that is, who insisted that she was was perfectly sane, thus denying her the honour of entering the state psychiatric hospital. This institution, which had long been one of the landmarks in the country, was a stopping place for those who couldn’t bear the inconsistencies and futility of life, but to enter that institution was merely to jump out of the frying pan into the fire. Perhaps the psychiatrists were justified in their assessment of Shafiqa, since she was an extremely calm person who never quarelled and would never harm a living creature, not even a little ant which could be crushed under her feet as it crossed her path. Above all she was always smiling. It is true to say that she never spoke and never replied to any question put to her, but isn’t silence in a world raging with nonsense a sign of ultimate sanity rather than madness?
It was quite normal for everyone to find acceptance in the women’s prison, especially a case like Shafiqa who caused few problems apart from the concern and anguish she aroused in others. The other prisoners, who were bewildered by her and sympathetic towards her condition, felt frustrated by their failed attempts to rehabilitate her by getting her to eat and dress normally. She rarely had a bath or took off her shift which she always wore close to her skin, with nothing under or over it. She never asked or shouted out for food, whether it was for bread or for something which was rare in prison like meat, and if one of the prisoners didn’t take it upon herself to fetch her something to eat or drink, she would remain for long periods, sometimes days, eating hardly anything at all. She was often seen throwing her daily ration, which was three flat loaves of stale, brown bread, to the stray cats in the prison courtyard or breaking the bread into crumbs which she left on the window ledge of the cell for the little birds which occasionally flew in from the trees close to the prison.
Sometimes Silent Shafiqa would be seen bending over on the prayer rug on the floor for long periods, as if she was doing yoga, while at other times she could be seen lifting her frail little hand with its thin worm-like fingers to face the rays of the sun so that she could examine the intersecting lines of her palm. This would go on for long periods without her showing any sign of restlessness; she seemed more like a statue carved out of rock and for that reason she was named “Silent” and lived amongst the other prisoners without quarrelling with them or showing any trace of malice towards them.
Despite Shafiqa’s state of mind she was perfectly aware of what had happened to her and still suffered from the terrible torment which had made her mute. She chose to cut herself off from the world and renounce communication with other people, despite all attempts to encourage her to talk. The psychiatrists and neurologists, the ear, nose and throat specialists and the speech therapists had all confirmed that her vocal apparatus and hearing mechanisms were in good order and that there was no reason why she should not speak. When they eventually gave up they were inclined to think that her inability to speak was the result of some trauma she had suffered and the story behind her condition remained a secret to all except her. Only she lived through its every detail, moment by moment, suffering unimagined torment. Perhaps this was behind her enigmatic smile, which mystified everyone, and broke from her thin, tightlyclosed lips when a deaf and dumb specialist was brought to try and get through to her during the court investigation, in order to take her statement in the official hearing. It may also have influenced their decision to convict her since this smile, which appeared every time the expert did sign language in an attempt to communicate with her, was tinged with scorn, not for the abortive attempt to reintegrate her into the world but for all the falsehood and evil around her which she discovered through her suffering and which made her resolve never to communicate with others, however much they tried and however important it might be for her.
The strange thing was that Shafiqa had never, for a single day, been a beggar. She never begged from anyone and never walked the streets with her hand outstretched, asking favours from people, be it money or something to eat or drink. She would simply sit against the wall of the mosque, sleep under a tree in one of the public gardens or walk along the edge of the river until her bare feet were so tired that she would crouch down on the pavement, resting her hands in her lap, completely sapped of strength.
On such occasions, her pitiful appearance would move the hearts of passers-by, some of whom threw her a few coins or a piece of the semolina cake that lovers eat as they walk along the river bank at sunset. Even though she made no use of the money, except to slip it into a bag made from paper discarded in the street, the officer who led her to the police station considered the paper bag of money evidence that she was a professional beggar who exploited people’s sympathy and this was duly recorded at the investigation.
The profound grief which Shafiqa continued to suffer was the sum of all that she felt in life and was evident to anyone who had eyes by simply looking at her face. To look at her was to sense the tears flowing continually from her widely-set eyes with their noble, mournful expression, although these tears were never visible. Perhaps this look explained the gentle treatment she received instead of the coarseness, violence and attempted assault which someone in her position could usually expect – the verbal assaults of mockery and rude words or bodily assaults to which a young girl without any protection is exposed. She was probably also saved by her filthy appearance and the fact that she had often spent her nights in dark, deserted places or amongst ruins, all of which added to her estrangement.
Before her life of vagrancy and solitude, Shafiqa had lived like any ordinary lower middle class girl from a peaceful home. Deprived of their mother, the family was cared for by her widowed sister who was about eight years older than her. She carried out her role as caring mother efficiently and was also an affectionate sister to Shafiqa and her two brothers, one of whom was older and the other who was four years younger. This arrangement meant that their father, who valued the unity of his family and its continued success, decided against marrying again after his wife died, despite his worries and the constant loneliness which made him anxious and nervous. He would lose his temper for the slightest reason and was extremely strict with his family, especially the daughters, for fear that they would run wild without a mother to watch over them. As a true man from the Saïd, who upheld values and traditions stretching back several thousand years, he was determined to preserve the reputation of his family which he placed above any other consideration in life.
Shafiqa’s widowed sister was very feminine and beautiful. Her features bore clear Circassian traces, a testimony to the fact that the Ottoman authorities of the Sublime Porte had once passed through. These features had attracted proposals of marriage since the time she was fifteen, eventually leading there when she was seventeen. Her husband was a prosperous army officer who left home early one Thursday morning in 1967, never to return, leaving her with three children, the youngest of whom was still sucking at her breast. He was recognized as a martyr and the grieving widow was accordingly entitled to all the distinctions due to the families of martyrs.
The fatwa issued on her husband’s death, officially recognized this beautiful woman as a widow in the state records, a status she maintained until the last moment Silent Shafiqa saw her. After her husband disappeared and she lost all hope of his ever returning, she resolved to never repeat the experience and lived for many years without any desire to enter into family life with another man. However, the laws of nature, which are well known, brought her into the arena once more but with one fundamental difference: the new experience was an affair of passion which could never develop into marriage because of the different religious backgrounds of the two lovers. This forced her to shroud their relationship in total secrecy for fear that her father and the rest of her family, particularly her brothers, would discover the affair. This fastidious and conscientious sister, who also worked as a teacher, always used the private lessons she gave to young male and female students as a pretext to meet with her lover out of official working hours. When she returned she would hasten to conceal any trace which might disclose her relationship with him, like the little presents he gave her from time to time. These were nothing more than bracelets or silver rings or a bottle of perfume called ‘Destiny’ which was locally made. The imported perfumes were not well-known at the time due to the economic boycott of the West which had been applied more stringently since the defeat of 5th June but ended like a storm in a tea cup by the mere implementation of Sadat’s new economic policy. She had recently begun to offer these simple gifts to her younger sister as a token of her love and esteem and the strong attachment she felt towards her. Shafiqa was increasingly influenced by her sister and behind the esteem and admiration she felt for her was the surrogate role of mother she performed in absence of the real mother whose womb she came from. But her beauty and her striking femininity made Shafiqa feel she was a young girl lacking in femininity, whose beauty had already faded, and she dreamed of being like her elder sister who was everything that was marvellous and honourable. This widow and lover remained faithful to her love, which became more inflamed with each day that passed, because of her lover’s oath of eternal devotion. He vowed that he would never end the relationship, whatever happened and whatever the pressure from his old mother who arrived every day, crying and kissing his hand, beseeching him to marry as soon as possible because, according to family tradition, his younger brother would never be able to marry unless his elder brother married first. In the zoological garden under a huge tree, which might have been planted as far back as the time of Khedive Ismail, the two lovers swore to be faithful. They carved out the first letters of their two names with a nail file, sealing their secret in a frame which, far from the Pharaonic, was in the shape of a heart, pierced by an arrow. They swore that only death, which destroys sensual pleasure and separates people – as Scheherezade said in the Thousand and One Nights – could stand between them and disrupt the communion of love which extended between their two hearts.
The unfortunate lover, who suppressed her feelings and anxieties over a long period, fearing discovery of her affair, was under terrible strain because she was beautiful and attractive to men. She turned down many marriage proposals from suitors prepared to take on her children. When she refused, she always adhered firmly to the excuse that she would never relinquish the upbringing of her children to anyone and would continue to care for her father and brothers and sisters. In an attempt to conceal some of her beautiful features and to avoid attracting attention, she wore a veil which covered the lovely coal-black hair adorning her head and her white face, with its perfectly proportioned features. In this way she hoped to give the impression that she was virtuous, just as any young widow from a conservative Saïdi family who is mindful of her martyred husband’s reputation and faithful to her sons might do. However, one day, despite all her efforts, her affair became public knowledge when one of her relations put two and two together. He had been passionately in love with her for a long time, going back to the days before her marriage. At that time he hadn’t dared ask for her hand because he owned a small shop, selling cigarettes, candy and Needlers multi-flavoured boiled sweets which were cheap and popular with several generations of children before the appearance of Chicaboom, Chiclets and other products from the Sima sweet factory. But the flourishing tourist industry improved his circumstances greatly, especially after he converted his shop into a tourist restaurant for fast food, removing its familiar emblem – a kerosene lamp with the number five placed on the glass counter to illuminate the cigarettes on sale. A partner provided the capital for the restaurant which was called ‘The Well-Garnished Table’. His partner had earned several thousand dollars after years of working on an oil station in Saudi Arabia and the shopkeeper’s improved financial status reawakened the amorous feelings which had remained dormant during all the years his loved one had been married and borne three children. For these reasons he made her an offer of marriage on terms which were extremely advantageous, considering the lack of activity in the marriage market at the time. But the bewildered widow rejected the tempting proposal using the same pretext which earned her the increasing respect of her father and brothers – feigning eternal fidelity to her dead husband. She maintained she had a symbolic role to keep the memory of her deceased husband alive and wished to sacrifice herself entirely to the welfare and happiness of her children.
The shopkeeper, who had begun to call himself a business man since transforming his shop into a restaurant, was able to dabble in other investments because of the profit he made from selling cheap traditional food which the tourists and the foreigners found distinctively eastern. But he still clung to the hope that he might win over the woman he had desired for so long. Indeed his desire had become even more ardent since she had matured, like a tasty fruit ready to be plucked. His determination to marry her was also an attempt to restore his peace of mind and regain confidence the lack of which had discouraged him from proposing when he owned the confectionery shop. But the strongest factor behind his determination was his increasing conviction, formed since entering the jungle of business, that money could buy everything. Indeed he considered money the only source of a meaningful existence in life. Thus the man of business tried every means possible to approach the widow who was passionately in love with someone else. Unable to give her presents directly since she would merely have refused them, he successfully ingratiated himself with her sons and family by giving them presents instead. He also did them favours which, for a family in their circumstances, would have been difficult to obtain elsewhere. He found her eldest brother a job in a tourist agency and presented her father with a hearing aid imported from Switzerland. This was to relieve him from the voices which echoed constantly in his right ear, like the sound coming from the bottom of a deep well. But despite all these attempts the wife he aspired to not only sent him packing without hope but she did it with tight-lipped contempt and a look of utter disdain. It was absolutely unthinkable that someone who was growing balder by the day, with a paunch that swelled as he grew more prosperous, could ever have the same place in her heart as the lover whose face was beautiful enough to be one of the famous Fayoum icons. She was justified in believing that this business man would only treat her sons well and be affectionate with them at the time of his proposal and that his behaviour towards them would change after they were married.
As a merchant, who had a wide experience of life and of dealing with many different types of people, men and women, the persistent suitor guessed there was something mysterious about the whole affair – that there must be another man involved – since it was inconceivable that a woman, like this beautiful widow, would not want a relationship with someone of the male sex. This was confirmed by the small details which gave her away, despite all her attempts to conceal her desire. She would watch the television soaps and sentimental films with passionate intensity; sometimes he would interrupt one of these sessions by making a surprise visit to her home and she would delay going to prepare tea or coffee for him because she was loath to miss any of the serial. He also noticed that even though she wore a veil, she put on make up and perfume when she went out to give her private lessons. She was also extremely punctual with her appointments, like a soldier going to join his military unit. He tried to entice her away from the numerous private lessons she gave by offering her a new pupil, the son of a wealthy Arab, who would pay twice what she earned for just one lesson a week in addition to chauffeur-driven transport in a limousine. But she absolutely refused, using the pretext that she was frightened of going to the homes of Arabs from the Gulf, even if the wife and children were there, because she was mindful of her reputation.
After that he was left with no alternative but to search for the reason behind her decision to refuse him, despite his wealth which was enough to attract a young virgin like the shining moon, in the bloom of youth and ripeness, or a spinster who dreamed of marriage let alone a widow with three children. And this reluctant lover realized full well that he was right in thinking he could have all the young and beautiful women he wanted because most young men were unable to marry and shoulder the cost of furnishing the marital home. The era of middle men had destroyed all possibility of realizing the dreams and ambitions of a better life through job opportunities: from the needle to the spaceship the slogan “industrialize!” had crashed. Without paying anything he could also have married a signora of his choice from amongst the foreign girls blown into his restaurant by the winds of tourism. He decided to spy on the widow’s movements when she was out, especially in the afternoons when she went off to give her private lessons. He would sometimes come to visit a short while before the time of her class on the pretext that he had some work to see to in their house. He then insisted on giving her a lift in his private car to her supposed lesson in order to follow her afterwards. Naturally it didn’t take long before he discovered her secret lover; he followed her to her rendezvous in one of those dimly lit, discreet places usually frequented by lovers who prefer to conduct their passionate exchanges in such romantic settings and where the waiters whisper as they serve their whispering customers.
Unfortunately Shafiqa’s sister didn’t notice the intruder who took a good look at her and perhaps the matter would have ended there if only she could have brought herself to accept his proposal. She knew perfectly well that should her father ever discover her affair, she would die. But because she did not see him she unwittingly sealed her own miserable fate when the business man carried out a shameless act of revenge. He weighed up the pros and cons and came to the conclusion that she would continue to reject his proposal because of the other man, who in his view was a pig who had obstructed him, inflicting a terrible wound to his pride, now scarred for life. Thus he took it upon himself to inform the father that he had seen her sitting with a strange man in Abu Manjal’s, a coffee house of ill repute, mainly known as a retreat for lovers. She was seen sitting with her legs crossed, hand in hand with the man who had his other arm around her, whispering words full of love and passion.
When the father learned of his daughter’s behaviour, he considered it the height of shame and depravity and unthinkable for a woman who had been given the best possible conservative upbringing according to the tradition of the Saïd. To make matters worse, and as her brother confirmed through his own investigations, the man she was seen with was from a different religion. On a cold winter’s night following this revelation, the austere old man calmly took his momentous decision. He consulted first with his son who was no less angry and took a similar hard line towards the behaviour of his widowed sister who, in his view, had sullied the family’s honour. One day after sunset, the brother tricked his sister into accompanying him on one of the shopping expeditions they often went on together, suggesting they should go and choose him a shirt and some socks. After she had quietened her three young children, who were screaming because they wanted to go with her, and had promised to bring them back a carton of their favourite fruit juice, she kissed them goodbye and her brother whisked her off in his car. This was the same sister who had so often held him by the hand after her mother died, washed his clothes for him and had even suckled him at her little breast devoid of any milk. She attempted to give him the security of his mother’s breast which he had been denied during the critical nights immediately following her death – nights in which the silence was broken by the baby’s heart-rending screams for his mother’s milk. The brother did not take her as expected to Umr Effendi’s shops, recently renovated to suit the mood of the times, and which had started selling the most magnificent shirts instead of the cheaper clothes made from winceyette, coarse cotton and poplin. Instead he took her to her destined fate in an area of remote desert, a few kilometres from the city and its suburbs. Waiting for her there, under the cover of darkness, was a hired assassin with whom the father had previously made an agreement. Her brother cruelly dismissed all her entreaties and pleas to spare her for the sake of her little children who at that moment were longing for the cartons of juice she had promised to bring them when she returned.
The son returned to the solemn house and with a heart as hard as stone and a cold and deathly look in his eyes, like that of the assassin himself, he announced the successful completion of his mission to his father who was sitting, waiting impatiently for news of the outcome of his plan. He was reassured that he had been cleansed of his shame as soon as the announcement, which soothed his heart, had been delivered. He called the younger sister, who was none other than Silent Shafiqa and told her, as he lay stretched out on his bed, what had happened to her sister, the children’s mother, threatening her on pain of death if she so much as breathed a single word on the matter to anyone.
That night Shafiqa, whose name up to that moment was Taghrid, lay stretched out on her bed like a stiff corpse waiting to be washed, eyes wide open, weakened by the mad burning force which rose from within her and incapable of making the smallest movement, even closing her eyelids. By the time the sun rose, she had lost eight kilos in weight as if she were a small piece of butter which had melted one hot night. When the children of her deceived sister woke up to find their mother was not by their side at home, they began to cry bitterly. She could not think what to say to them except that their mother had gone to stay with her aged paternal aunt who was very ill. But as evening set in, the suddenly bereaved young girl was totally unable to face up to the situation and was transformed into an oddity only a metre and a half tall and weighing just forty-five kilos. At around midnight, when she was sure that everyone was asleep, including her father and brother, the wretched young girl tiptoed out to the front door of the apartment and opened it cautiously and quietly. Her father was snoring and only discovered her escape when he was awakened later by the sound of a metal saucepan lid falling on the floor. A stray cat had knocked over the saucepan while trying to remove its lid.
The girl, who from this moment became known as Silent Shafiqa, ran and ran as if propelled by the headstrong will of a young filly. Finally, running on and on in an attempt to erase the image haunting her mind, she collapsed against a wall, exhausted. It was one of the high brick walls outside schools, a relic from the time of the colonial missionaries in the last century. She remained in this position until just before daybreak when she was noticed by someone on his way to seek additional blessing from God at the morning prayer in the mosque, close to the school. As soon as he caught sight of her he begged God’s protection from the Devil because in all the sixty years of his life, he had never witnessed a human being so thin and with such eyes, staring blankly into the distance, at this time of the night when most people were asleep. When he returned with some fellow worshippers immediately after the end of the prayers to show them the sight he had just witnessed, the terrifying creature had fled. He was mocked by his companions who told him that what he had seen must have been a figment of his imagination.
From the time she spent her last night in her father’s house, Shafiqa never uttered another word. Day and night she wandered aimlessly about, scrounging from rubbish dumps and sleeping against any wall she could find, even if it was a graveyard wall. She spent most of her time on the move in an attempt to avoid attracting people’s attention, never returning to the same place, cutting through the streets and alleyways from one end of the city to the other. Only a few months had passed before her features were transformed into those of another, bearing no resemblance whatever to her old self. After she was told about her sister’s murder, her hair had turned white overnight and she took on the appearance of someone at least twenty-five years older than she really was.
A few months later, Shafiqa was convicted for begging, a sentence she was to receive repeatedly in the future until she became one of the permanent inmates of the prison.
Aziza only decided to include Silent Shafiqa amongst the troop of women going on the golden chariot to heaven because she felt so sorry for her. She was moved by the terrible degree of wretchedness and pain which was evident from her appearance as well as her austere demeanour, denying herself, in the way that the Sufi mystics do, all earthly things which people usually covet in life. Aziza was particularly attracted by the tenderness she showed towards the little sparrows and the gentle way she fed them by placing bits of bread for them on the window ledge. If Aziza had known Shafiqa’s story she would have placed her directly and without any doubt or hesitation at the top of the list of passengers in the chariot. And for the sake of Shafiqa, Aziza decided to include Hajja Umm Abdel Aziz in the chariot, not because Aziza felt Umm Abdel Aziz was pitiable and did not deserve to be imprisoned nor because she was one of the victims of life whom fate had tossed into this dreadful place, just as the waves of the sea toss the corpses of the drowned onto the deserted shores. Aziza was neither swayed by the prayer rituals she performed day and night and her incessant reading of righteous verses nor, for that matter, by the long periods she spent tuned into the station which broadcasts the Glorious Qur’an on a small transistor radio stuck close to her ear. This radio was made by Telemasr, a testimony to Egypt’s failed attempt to enter the field of manufacturing and become self-reliant in the days when there was tumultuous propaganda about the rocket known as Qahir and its brother Zafir, both of which failed to secure any kind of victory in the 1967 war. The reason Aziza decided to admit her to the chariot was because of the compassion she constantly and generously showed towards Silent Shafiqa and the tenderness and concern she displayed for her condition. She also took charge of Shafiqa’s ration of food, handing it to her herself and had it not been for her perseverance in watching over her, this wretched creature would have perished long ago.
Umm Abdel Aziz tried to keep an eye on Silent Shafiqa, especially when she had sudden attacks of nervous convulsions which took her by surprise from time to time. On these occasions the skinny young girl was transformed into a rigid block of wood; sometimes she threw herself on the ground and her unfocused eyes would bulge in a frightening way as she turned her head like a young calf about to be slaughtered, the white froth trickling from her mouth in a thin stream. All the prisoners and warders who came across this spectacle by chance were at a loss as to what to do at which point Umm Abdel Aziz would approach muttering the two Qur’anic formulae followed by the verse, “Say, I take refuge with the Lord of men”. She would bend down to the girl who had thrown herself on the floor, and with her mouth close to her right ear, call her to prayer in a beautiful voice. This would be followed by a recitation of some of the ninety-nine names attributed to God which came to her mind. She would ask the Prophet’s forgiveness for the girl – Peace be upon Him – and would stay with her until the life returned to her body. Hugging her to her large breast which could have accommodated another besides the tiny Shafiqa, she would hasten to give her a drink of water and soothe her tenderly as the girl’s hot tears flowed onto her cheek.
Shafiqa reminded Umm Abdel Aziz of her son who was martyred in the 1973 war, because of their strong physical resemblance, especially her thick arched eyebrows and wide-set eyes and the gap they both had between their front teeth which is meant to bring good luck – although time had already disproved this maxim. The wretched girl’s luck had only landed her in prison; as for the apple of Umm Abdel Aziz’s eye, his luck had landed him under the ground. Because she did not even know the whereabouts of his grave she was unable to go and visit it and honour him, as a martyr of the Sinai war, by erecting a headstone to immortalize his name. The bitterness and perpetual grief she suffered from being separated from him would never diminish. Following his recognition as a martyr, she received a considerable amount of money in compensation. After selling a pair of gold snakes left over from her wedding jewellery, she was able to add two floors onto her old house, but not before paying the municipal officials to give her the necessary authorization – a violation of the law although not the one which landed her in prison. She was convicted for the money she received from renting out private rooms when the profit she made from her combined building and renting transactions jumped to at least 300%. The exploited people who were renting from her were civil servants on meagre salaries who could only pay their deposit to Hajja Umm Abdel Aziz with great difficulty, after tightening their belts and setting aside the necessary monthly sum from their salary to participate with their colleagues in the self-styled cooperatives or associations. These provided them with the deposit each one had to pay. The civil servants brought a complaint concerning the money Umm Abdel Aziz had extracted from them and the law considered she had committed a serious crime. But this did nothing to help the tenants with their problem which came to a head when the flats were sold off privately instead of being rented out. Umm Abdel Aziz was duly sent to prison, but she did not object because she was given a short sentence. The judge who passed sentence took compassion on her because of her age and the esteem he had for her as the mother of a martyr in the war.
Umm Abdel Aziz was a model prisoner in every sense. She was intelligent, self-possessed, well turned out. She kept a civil tongue and showed consideration for the lowly over the exalted. The prisoners and warders had a certain respect for the kind of offence she had been charged with since, in their view, it was not without distinction and didn’t in any way put them off being her friends. Her only fault was her continual snoring which started as soon as her head touched the pillow and sounded like water dripping from a leaking tap. The combined snoring of Umm Ragab and Umm El-Khayr formed a deafening symphony when added to that of Umm Abdel Aziz who slept in the same ward. Apart from this Umm Abdel Aziz commanded a position of respect, especially since many of the inmates had formed the view that she was a pious woman, one of those who had attained spiritual communion with God. She prayed a great deal and fasted every Monday and Thursday, as well as during the month of Ramadan, the six days which follow it, the first of Ragab, the middle of Sha‘ban and the first days of the holy months. Likewise she was respected for the obvious blessing that had been bestowed on her and her ability to restore Silent Shafiqa to her former self. She would bend over her right ear to call her to prayer when she was overcome by fits of devilish madness, believed to be no more than severe epileptic fits which had never been treated. As a result of the trust and belief the prisoners as well as the warders placed in Umm Abdel Aziz, she spent hours making amulets for the prisoners, commiserating with them, stroking their heads and reading them verses from the Qur’an to soothe them when they were afflicted by severe headaches which they could not cure with any of the array from Bayer or Swiss Pharma pills which claimed to alleviate pain. The real cause of their problems was the increasing weakness in their eyesight due to lack of vitamin A in the food, as well as the chronic constipation they suffered because of a lack of roughage in the prison meals. The faith which Umm Abdel Aziz inspired grew to such an extent that she was encouraged to start interpreting dreams, usually with a group of prisoners collected around her who considered this activity a kind of delicious scandal. Umm Abdel Aziz’s ability to interpret dreams correctly and precisely was established when she told Mahrousa, the warder, that she had a daughter who would soon marry against her wishes. One morning Mahrousa had told her about a dream in which one of her daughters, who was the most beautiful, was eating a large banana. She tried to stop her eating it by convincing her that it was poisonous and might harm her. When the young girl insisted, Mahrousa screamed and cried for help at which point she was awakened by the voice of the fuul seller who was calling out in the alley. She awoke from her sleep, terrified, and went to the kitchen to fetch the Istanbuli porcelain bowl which she had got in exchange for some old trousers which belonged to her son, and went out to buy some fuul. When she returned home that afternoon at the end of her day’s work in the prison, her daughter, who in her opinion was a flighty girl and deserved to have her neck broken, declared that she both desired and intended to marry an electrician.
The strange thing is that, with time, Umm Abdel Aziz, began to really believe in her special powers to remove the veil from dreams. She extended her prayer routine while continuing to recite parts of the Qur’an in addition to the five prescribed prayers and the prayers invoking God. She also recited from the cheap religious booklets handed to her by Mahrousa, who never tired of having her dreams interpreted. Mahrousa bought the books especially for her from the sellers who lined the wall of the Sayyida Zaynab mosque and the wall of the Hussein mosque, may God bless them. But one night, while Umm Abdel Aziz was sitting on her bed singing God’s praises with her old rosary made from ambergris, bought from the Khan Al-Khalili souk, she was finally convinced that the veil had been removed from her and the path which led directly to God had opened before her. The pampered prison cat was next to her, purring peacefully, when she felt engulfed by a surge of love and longing to see her only martyred son who had been taken away from her. It affected her so strongly that her heart beat quickened, she felt an abnormal rush of blood to her head and her fingers were no longer able to move the rosary beads easily. At the time there was a terrible racket going on in the ward for the old and weak because of a quarrel which had broken out between Umm Ragab and Lula the hairdresser. A box of matches had gone missing which Lula had accused Umm Ragab of stealing. The din was augmented by voices from other quarters which had joined in to try and settle the dispute. But despite all this distraction, Umm Abdel Aziz actually witnessed, with her own eyes, her dearest elder son, Abdel Aziz, with his beautiful features which greatly resembled those of Silent Shafiqa, coming towards her in his military uniform. Then he sat down next to her on the edge of the bed and stroked the head of the cat which enjoyed it greatly, lifting its head a little for him to scratch its neck and chin which were troubling it because of flea bites. Umm Abdel Aziz even heard his voice with her own ears, which despite her age were sharp enough to hear ants crawling. He asked her gently:
“Do you want anything, Hajja, before I return?”
Barely a second later he disappeared and the bereaved mother had to open and shut her eyes vigorously several times to convince herself that what she had witnessed was real and not a dream. When she felt the place where he had been sitting on the bed and found that it was warm, as if someone had just left, she was convinced it was not a dream and let out a piercing scream, beating her chest with her hands, calling her beloved son. All this commotion caused astonishment in the ward and halted the quarrel between Umm Ragab and Lula, who gave the cat a strong kick with her foot when it jumped down with fright at Umm Abdel Aziz’s scream and tripped her up.
After slapping her face and lamenting for some time the grieving mother eventually regained her composure. She was joined by Azima the professional mourner and Umm Ragab, who saw it as a good opportunity to lament her daughter. Hinna expended extraordinary efforts in quietening and calming her, stroking her face with a piece of cotton cloth, soaked in rose water, and wrapping her hair in a different handkerchief to the one she had removed to hold while eulogizing over the moral and various other qualities of her son, now destroyed by treacherous death and swallowed up by the earth. When Umm Abdel Aziz had completely exhausted her strength and emotions and was no longer capable of releasing any more grief, she remained silent and grave-faced, ignoring all questions aimed at discovering what had made her scream and wail in this uncharacteristic way. No one had ever seen her in such a terrible state of collapse and grief before; she had always shown patience and was constantly reading the Qur’an. Even when Hinna asked her a direct question about what had happened, Umm Abdel Aziz chose to keep the secret to herself and hide the matter from everyone. She considered the vision of her dead son, which she had seen with her own eyes, a token of compassion and generosity which God had bestowed upon her and which called for inward thanks, praise and self-restraint.
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!”