Fate Unites and Divides

A LONG NARROW dirt road was flanked on either side by rows of houses. Apart from their irregular heights, all of them looked more or less alike, their faded white paint peeling off in large chunks. The homes were interspersed with a number of small shops, most of them owned by neighborhood residents. At a spot where the road intersected with another thoroughfare stood a tiny pharmacy with no sign in front. The only pharmacy around, it was known as “Giuseppe’s Shop.” The owner didn’t like the name Giuseppe, but that’s what people called him when he wasn’t around.

In one of the houses a little boy said to his mother, “There’s an old man at the door who wants to talk to you.”

It struck the mother as odd that a man her son didn’t know had come to their house. Patients and strangers always went to her husband’s shop. It was a Sunday morning and she was busy in the kitchen, while her husband sat on the patio smoking his pipe and reading a book. From time to time he would put the book aside and play with a dark-skinned little girl who looked as though she must be his granddaughter.

Bypassing his father, the boy went straight to his mother to tell her about the visitor at the door.

“The man wants to see you,” the boy said. “He asked for you, not Baba.”

Wiping her hands on a cooking rag, she went out and told her husband about it. They were both surprised that somebody would come asking for the lady of the house rather than the man.

“Anyway,” her husband said, “go see what he wants. Maybe he was sent by the clinic or the mission.”

More bewildered than hesitant, she approached the front door, her head full of questions and her two children in tow. She peeked out from behind the curtain on the door to see who was there. A tall man dressed in a clean jard stood facing the street, his hands clasped behind his back.¹

When she saw how nicely groomed the visitor was, she thought: He must have come specially to see me. There’s no way his jard would be so white if it were the one he wears every day.

“Yes?” she said, his back still turned to her. “What can I do for you, sir?”

“Good day, ma’am,” the man replied, spinning quickly around.

As soon as he greeted her, he averted his gaze.

She returned the greeting, anxious to know who this was and what had brought him to her doorstep. It was hard for him to catch his breath or think of what to say. He couldn’t let himself look at her for very long, though at the same time he wanted to take her in. In those brief moments of encounter, he felt the need to rearrange his words again. He wanted to make sure they were persuasive enough that she wouldn’t shut the door in his face and refuse to talk to him. But what made him think she would do a thing like that? Her voice had been gentle and kind. Maybe he should quit speculating and just get on with things.

It wouldn’t be appropriate to say, “I’ve come to speak with Atiga, daughter of Tawida, servant to Hajj Imuhammad Bin Abd al-Kabir Bin Ali Bin Shatwan.” No, no, that wouldn’t do at all. He should avoid mentioning the word servant. On the other hand, he didn’t really have any other way of identifying Tawida—the reason for his visit and the person he’d come to talk about. After all, nobody had given this servant woman a name or description other than what slavery had made of her. He’d never known her in any other capacity, and he didn’t know exactly what to say to her daughter. He stood in opposition to the slave culture that had left its imprint on his whole society, and the challenge before him was to speak of a slave woman simply as a human being, without any reference to her lowly station.

So how was he supposed to go about this?

When she asked him who he was, the visitor replied that he wanted to speak with her in private. After all, he was going to be speaking with a woman he didn’t know and had never seen before, while she would be listening to a stranger who was about to introduce himself as her relative and offer to tell her things she didn’t know about herself and her mother, who’d been a servant of his family’s.

It was as though they had just been dispatched from another life in which they’d been something quite different from what they were now. What if she preferred to close her door, retreat to her kitchen, and go on with her life without hearing what he had to tell her? What if she wasn’t interested in knowing what had happened?

Part of him cringed at this possibility. But another part of him—the liberated, optimistic part—imagined him sitting in her house as an esteemed guest. Her hand on the doorknob, and the voice that had spoken a few brief words to him, were all he had experienced of her.

What would he say? How would he answer her when she asked, “Who are you and what have you come for?” Would she recognize his name, or would she never have heard of him before?

He adjusted his jard over his shoulder and fixed his eyes on the door. The words coming out of his throat in staccato fashion, he announced, “I’d like to speak to Atiga, daughter of Tawida.”

“And who might you be?”

The anticipated question had come. After a slight pause, he replied, “I’m Ali Bin Shatwan.”

“Who?” she asked somewhat shrilly, her tone a mixture of confusion and astonishment.

“Yes, ma’am. I’m Ali Bin Shatwan.”

“And what can I do for you?”

“Well, I’ve come to tell you something, but it can’t be discussed in the street. Might I come in?”

As if she suspected who he might be, she replied, “I don’t know you, and I don’t need to talk to you. It looks as though you’re the one who needs this conversation, not me. So leave me alone, and don’t cause me any more worries than I already have. Whatever you’ve got to say won’t do any good.”

“Please listen to me.”

“No.”

She pulled the child standing between them on the doorstep into the house and hurriedly closed the door.

For a few moments he stood frozen in place, not knowing what to do. Then he took a few steps forward and started to speak as though she were still behind the door and watching him through the cracks.

He said, “If you can hear me, I work in Al Funduq Al Baladi marketplace. If you decide you’d like to talk to me, send a servant there, and he’ll find me easily. Everybody there knows me. I’m going to put your birth certificate on the doorstep now, and you can take it even if you decide not to meet with me or talk to me. I had it written up specially for you. For your children’s sake, I just ask you to hear me out. Please.”

Out of a pocket in his farmala he brought a document that had been rolled up and tied with a string.² Slipping it under the door, he said, “God’s peace be with you, Atiga Bint Muhammad Bin Imuhammad Bin Abd al-Kabir Bin Ali Bin Shatwan. Your right has been restored to you. Please don’t refuse it.”

His eyes still fixed on the door, he stepped away.

Deep inside her were things Atiga didn’t know how to describe. Without a word, her almond eyes summed up the story of a wretched slave woman’s love for her master. With these eyes she had retreated into her work as the mission doctor’s assistant, most of her patients women and children. She rarely spoke with anyone. However, her outer silence was paralleled by an extended inner dialogue with herself about who she was, about the struggle to craft an identity out of two colors. What was she supposed to do with dark skin and almond eyes, and with a grief that belonged to no particular race or blood line?

Why are you reopening my wounds now, Hajj Ali? Why should stories surface when it’s too late to do anything about them? To correct their details? To apologize for their painful parts? Atiga wasn’t one to reveal her perspective to a stranger, even if he’d shown up in person at her house to acknowledge her identity and her long overdue rights. So she closed the door on him, content to keep her distance.

Like her mother, Atiga was long-suffering and silent, like a boulder that endures the pounding of the salty waves year in and year out without being eroded away. Even so, she gave in at last to the insistent urging of the dignified, elegant Ali, who stood apart from the family that had spurned both her appearance and her person. She told him stories and he listened. On the other side of blood and pedigree, he acknowledged her suffering, allowing her to voice her pain in his presence to the extent that she was able. He opened the doors that had been closed to her for so long, letting her choose where to situate herself in place, time, and perception. He embraced her life with all its complications, all its winding roads. He loved experiencing Muhammad through her. In her he saw Muhammad’s eyes, and a bit of the gap between his teeth when she smiled.

He loved and commiserated with her proud, dignified sorrow. He drew near to her without revealing his own secret. He came close to her through a silent embrace, realizing that there was no use in resisting fate. However much he wished he could reach out and touch her spirit, he knew he mustn’t try to come closer than the distance between them would allow.

1. A jard is a toga-like men’s garment, a traditional part of Libyan dress, and is usually white or off-white. The fabric is knotted in front of the left shoulder, from which it falls freely, with a large swathe draped over the right shoulder, and sometimes over the head.

2. A farmala is an ornate traditional Libyan vest.