Tag: egypt

Hazem Fahmy’s Red//Jild//Prayer (Diode 2018) Reviewed By Helen Wing

It is red rage that guides the poet, who is ‘swinging [his] legs like a hammer’ as he observes the West’s ‘close-up on the dead Arab’ and questions why he is alive if the only images of himself he sees are of his death.

Hazem Fahmy’s passionate debut collection, Red//Jild//Prayer (Diode, 2018), maps a corporeal journey from rage to ecstasy, from fear to pride, ‘unabashed, unafraid’, from the profound alienation of the ‘silly, brown boy’ who defines himself ‘by that which makes me hate myself’ to the courageous emblazoned joy of intimacy and hope, of ‘Scream:/we are here,/ habiby./ Tomorrow can’t tame this love.’

Fahmy’s progress towards an ethnic and gender identity located in the sublime taps into a long tradition of homosexual poetry which seeks gender authenticity beyond the material:  think Cernuda, think Lorca.  Fahmy’s torment is layered and complex for he seeks to repossess the image of his body from the forces of ideological tyranny so that he can paradoxically sacralise his body as holy and indomitable through the power of love.

When the body is constantly shamed for being brown, for being Muslim, for being gay, the poet appeals to God and asks, ‘where else will these eyes go[?]’ Fahmy’s poetry portrays the identity struggle of a young man growing up amidst the Egyptian revolution and counter-revolution, global religious polarization, the devastation of exile, the confusing proliferation of non-transcendent, neo-baroque cultural images of the postmodern and the exploration of non-binary sexuality in a violent, unforgiving world.  Fahmy’s mastery ushers in brutal truths, a soothsaying of the excoriating violence inherent in the racism and ignorance of the West.         

The collection opens with a prayer ‘Red as in rage’ and we are alerted to the life and death battle of biblical proportions that may ensue as the following poem ‘the word’ subverts St. John’s Gospel: ‘In the beginning was the word / and it spat on me’.  Language, first the foreign tongue English but then the ability to speak, to inhere meaning, in any language, has been preternaturally stripped from the poet. ‘I opened my mouth only / to find that my throat, too / was stolen.’

It is red rage that guides the poet, who is ‘swinging [his] legs like a hammer’ as he observes the West’s ‘close-up on the dead Arab’ and questions why he is alive if the only images of himself he sees are of his death.  ‘Caesar’, a poem named after the prototypical dictator, rails against the easy belittling of the Egyptian tragedy. Fahmy parodies the contempt of the West for Egypt by domesticating its easy slogans of ignorance. Democracy, he cries ‘is not as simple as a break up song’, not ‘a bag of seeds you buy at Home Depot’.  He blames a postmodern commodity fetishism for the deliberate oblivion of the West for they ‘forget that we have been planting our own crops for over seven thousand years.’ He parodies himself in the oppressor’s dialect and delivers savage clarity in ‘Daily I watch America marvel / at how fast a brown body can burn.’  The curse of cultural improvisation in the hands of the poet becomes part of a necessary process whereby he restitutes a sense of self in the image-bound contemporary, using Jazz and colloquial idiom in a linguistic reduction ad absurdum which, for him, mirrors the perpetual rape of his consciousness as a young Arab man in an alien environment.  It is no accident that his love song to Egypt comes solely in Arabic as ‘my people are still a body’ and in the West, clearly and repeatedly, only a body. 

‘A Queen bleeds in Ramadan (after Orlando)’ depicts the poet Kamagra Oral Jelly contains the same ingredients as the Kamagra tablets. best buy viagra Fatigue viagra 100mg price decreases and endurance increases. For djpaulkom.tv generic cialis without prescription example a healthy person would require 100mg pill and a senior could get erection with single dose of the tablets. A person should avoid all these commander viagra try my link things to prevent pregnancy. caught in the profoundly personal and semantic trap of double oppression, where he is both prey and predator in a massacre that is both imputed to his kind and yet which kills his kind. The paucity of discourse redoubles his anguish as it crudely simplifies both racial and gender hate. Again as he interrogates easy hegemonic assumptions his pain is not just physical but spiritual. ‘Oh God, / we look to you and are told you hate us’.  The poet’s search for identity is a search for the sublime, which, paradoxically, can only manifest through the physical.  In ‘On Adding Sand’, he uses the geography of the page – America on the left, Egypt on the right – to sketch the depth of cultural difference. He deftly weaves a pseudo-coherence between the racist slur described in the poem and a plea for the sanctity of sand: ‘It is typical of us mortals / to mock this Earth. To spit / on its Holy.’ For Fahmy the taste of sand woke poetry in him, and from the desert his body rises as a physical temple as he asserts his refusal to be brought low by the glib mockery of the West.  Later, in ‘Muse/me’, the poet articulates a place to breathe between Self and Other, a self-image, as he says, ‘I tell myself / there is no bad cinematography / in the real world. Only bad editing/ Like stitching two images with no rhythm. Like a call to prayer / and an explosion.’

Jild, skin, is sandwiched between Red, the rage at one’s identity appropriation by an alien racist culture, and Prayer, a song to redemption through love.  The skin, the body, is the vessel the poet needs to relocate in his search for a sublime, knowing intimacy.  This body, as delicate and flammable as film reel, has to be rescued from the ravages of fragmentation to choreograph a sense of belonging, love and voice. For the poet his voice is physically torn from the third eye, ‘my forehead cuts open / with a coarse / gurgling / sound’.  His vocal binding, like his skin, is material and constantly under threat from the lexical violence of political sloganeering and the yearning for communication and community. In ‘Jild’, the history of fear, for and of the body, is the central focus for the poet as he struggles to place his gay identity and his Arab identity not just in the US but also within the violence of his Egyptian contemporary and his faith. ‘I’ve lost interest in Independence Day(s) / I’ve grown tired of blood piercing the night / sky.’ Again here Fahmy samples the confectionery of the postmodern predilection for nullified, meaning-drained images to excoriate the culture(s) from which he feels disbarred.  The lexicon of fear: ‘a bogart’, an ‘Ode to Essos’, an image negative, foot-printed evidence of absence, all these terms sketch his pain and his search for a poetic voice in a world that rejects the sublime. Thus the sarcasm of his, ‘What an epic feeling it is / to be unmade by a white man, / and his deceitful pen.’  The pivotal contradiction of the skin, the conceit of the binding of identity in skin and his binding in the book, maps his need to repossess and reinvest identity.  This effort is fuelled by the twin urges of rage and compassion seared into his chilling image, ‘The next time a white man wears / my skin, I’ll cut it off, drain the blood, and drape it over / the first shivering brown child I come across.’

Eventually in Prayer ‘a night of terror / becomes a morning / of joy as Fahmy discovers the intimacy of love, ‘a symphony of skin.’  That skin, once dead and damned, becomes sublime and eternal in love, ‘like the wine that awaits you in heaven’ as the poet takes ownership of his belonging in love and in gay identity. ‘Dawn a red dress / in my closet, / always there / for me.’   The movement from ‘I’ to ‘we’ for belonging, and from ‘you’ to ‘they’, a distancing signaling the poet no longer feels as personal attack the all-encompassing censure, punctuates his new found joy, ‘Louder than bombs, / we cry out […] to see a flag wrapped around a breathing body, for a change.’  At last the parading of contempt and pain has become a life-affirming parade of joy. 

I Had Never Seen a Dead Man Before By Hedy Habra

Until my father-in-law died that summer in Tucson, Arizona

He seemed to sleep
in his suit and tie,
expressionless,
the color of death freezing
his shrunken features,
almost youthful in his eighties
as if an artist’s pencil
performed a final facelift,
inverting lines
for a last farewell.

I knelt on the velvet
rest in prayer.
thinking of the fig tree
we once planted together,
of how he always
saved the juiciest fig
for me: “Here,” he’d say
“this one’s from your tree…
see how well I care for it?”

∞ ∞

I felt a pang in my chest,
leapt years and years back
to a January morning: a young
cialis soft uk This is a little bit dangerous, not only because they are naturally defensive of their child, but also these parents are practiced at trying to make their child’s life easier. Most people have surrendered to the phone as a sort of appendage and carry cheapest cialis one with them all the time. One small change in viagra on line uk the way you respond to that feeling is your choice. Kamagra jelly Australia is the most preferred medicine to viagra ordination overcome the critical condition and live a healthy sexual life. child, taken away for the day,
only to return to a house
filled with absence,
where all had forgotten
how to smile.
I was never told what had
happened that day,
in Heliopolis. “Your father
is in the hospital,” they said.

I awaited your return,
week after week,
unable to understand
the silent procession,
charcoaled silhouettes
shading spaces
once forbidden to
our clumsy hands,
beveled doors
now wide-open,
black skirts hiding pink
damask silk, flowing
over gilded Louis XVI
chairs and Bergères
like a flock of Egyptian
ravens, threatening
my caged love-birds
placed at the balcony edge

A Hostile World By Jihan Shaarawi

Part 1: The Eternal Dupes

The Boy’s father sat on his small wicker chair staring at the newspaper that was brought from the capital. The Boy’s parents managed to send The Brother to the capital to join the public university. Every weekend, The Brother took a bus back to the village with tales of the soon-to-be revolution. That day, The Brother brought back news of The Monarch’s supposed diplomatic trip to England where he was spotted spending his days with European models at high-end bars.

“He is spending the people’s money on alcohol and whores! He should be hung in the streets!”

The Father was known in the village for his short temper and quick tongue. A year earlier, The Father told his employer that he was a “slave driving son of a bitch who should go back to England and fuck that sheep that he calls a wife.” The Father disappeared shortly after the incident and was returned, two months later, bloodied, boney, pale, and thrown amongst his neighbor’s apricot trees. After the incident, The Father only spoke his mind at home and sent his children to fight his battles.

When rumors began to spread in the village that the CIA had entered the country in support of the Liberation Officers, The Boy was sent to a nearby village where it was said that there lived a man who taught English to children. On his first day of English class, The Boy’s mother dressed him in his finest clothes, a cotton button down shirt with holes, dress pants that had to be rolled up at the ankles, and leather shoes that flapped when he walked. The Boy’s father licked his palm and used the saliva to contain The Boy’s frizzy curls.

“Listen to me! You speak to your teacher respectfully! Don’t stare at walls when he speaks! Don’t pick your nose! Remember not to mention why you’re really there. Say you want to learn English so you can work on one of the British farms. Don’t you dare mention the CIA!”

The Boy’s mother carefully tucked in his shirt.

“Baba? What’s CIA?”

His father struck him so quickly it almost escaped his mother’s eyes.

“He has the brains of a donkey. You bore me a donkey!”

“Enough! What will the Sheikh think if you bring him a bruised boy?”

The Boy’s mother splashed cold water on his face in an attempt to soothe the blow.

“Stop crying! You’re not a baby anymore!”

They paid The Neighbor 5 silver coins to take The Boy to the next village. The Boy sat on his neighbor’s cart (pulled by a small, weak, donkey) amidst the crates of apricots. Every now and then, when The Neighbor wasn’t looking, he took one and stuffed it in his pockets. It took forty-five minutes to arrive to the village and by then his pockets bulged at odd angles. This village looked identical to The Boy’s village except for the long line of young boys at one of the huts.

“That’s hut,” The Neighbor pointed towards the assembly of boys, “I’ll be back in the afternoon to take you home.”
Every weekday, The Boy travelled to the neighboring village for his English lessons. His malleable brain picked up the language quickly and he was soon teaching his younger sisters. The Father requested The Brother to bring back English newspapers from the capital. They all huddled around The Boy as he read each word carefully. He often made up the sound of a word if he hadn’t learned it yet.

Upon The Monarch’s return from England a huge demonstration was held in front of the palace. The Father decided that there couldn’t be a better time for a family vacation; so they packed some clothes and headed to the capital. They all stayed in the room that The Brother rented with another young man from their village. The Brother was studying engineering at the public university and was poised to be top of his class. He spent most of his days studying in a corner of the room. Every time The Boy passed by him, he glanced at the paper to see what his brother was studying. It was on the second day that The Boy realized that it wasn’t equations that The Brother was scribbling down; he was writing poetry. The Boy waited until The Brother fell asleep to steal the sheets of paper. The next morning he presented the papers to his father.

“I pay good money to have you study in the capital and you spend your days writing poetry? Your comrades are busy protesting and risking their lives and you’re sitting in this room writing rhymes! This is not the time! You know who writes poetry? Rich Europeans. Because their lives are perfect so they have to make up something to keep it interesting. Liberate your country first and then you write poetry.”

The Father lit a match and held it to the papers. In silence, the family watched the pages burn. When the flames had engulfed every word, the father led everyone to get ready for liberation. They needed to be at the square in time to see it all. When they reached the square, The Boy’s father lifted him onto his shoulders.. Crowds of people swarmed out of every side street and with each step it became harder to move. Scattered amongst the crowd were British soldiers on horses. They held rifles in plain sight—as a message to the masses. Students stood in the frontlines of different groups as they spilled in from the streets that snaked into the square. They left The Mother at home with the sisters; a protest was no place for the feminine. The Brother hadn’t spoken a word since his father burned all the pages of poetry. The Father insisted that burning the poetry would be a good opportunity to transition into manhood. He leaned on The Brother’s shoulder as he walked, using him as a cane. He screamed of the injustices done to him in captivity. The Boy had never seen his father so happy. The boys attempted to keep up with the slogans:
“Monarch Monarch of our hearts! May your kingdom fall apart!”
“Our bread is stale, our lives are cheap, go to hell you stupid sheep!”

On the ride back to the village The Boy’s father could not contain his excitement. As each new passenger entered the bus, he retold his story of protest. Some listened in amazement; most ignored him.
“Be careful,” the mother whispered, “you never know who these people are. We can’t afford to lose you again.”
The Father couldn’t care less and for three hours he repeated his story. The father continued his political musing throughout the ride home, on the walk from the bus to the village, yelled them at all his neighbors, and finally through dinner, and the ritualistic post-dinner tea with milk.
“You know, I feel as though this time the British will go back to that hole they call The West!”
The Mother accompanied tea with her nightly card readings. The hearts symbolized love and marriage, clubs were money, diamonds were family and home, and spades symbolized career. The Boy sat in front of his mother waiting for his future to be revealed.

“Split the cards with your left hand”
The Father sat on his chair, slurping his tea.
“You know, they say that the CIA pays two hundred pounds a month for interpreters! Two hundred! Can you imagine?!”
The card formation was made up of 2 spades and 3 clubs. The Mother interrupted The Father’s rambling:
“There will be much change in your family life. This change will show you the path to your career.”
“He will become a politician for the government of tomorrow!”
The Boy gave all his attention to his mother. She stopped her reading and smiled, “my brave boy, my beautiful prince, darling love of my life, I could read you the rest but it doesn’t matter. We all know you will be great. Go to sleep.”

That night there was three short knocks on the door, barely audible. The Mother was a light sleeper and they woke her instantly. She shook her husband awake.

“Someone is knocking on the door.”

The Father jolted awake.

“What time is it?”

He fumbled through his small pile of possessions until he found his watch; 1:45 am. The knocking picked up energy.

“Do you think it’s the officers? Do you think one of the people on the bus said something? Why don’t you ever stay quiet? These children need you!”

“Shut up woman. If they were the officers they wouldn’t need to knock.”
The father slipped on a robe and opened the door. The outside darkness covered the face of the visitor. The father’s eyes adjusted to the darkness and he made out the figure of a young student, an acquaintance of The Brother. His shirt was covered in dried blood.

The Boy woke up two minutes before the knock on the door. He felt a chill from the open window and it woke him. When he heard his parent’s frantic voices he crawled on his belly to where they sat. His mother held her head in her hands as she slid slowly to the ground. The student, whom he recognized from the demonstration, attempted to sip the cup of tea but his unsteady hands wouldn’t allow it. His father was stoic. The Boy watched The Father rise out of the chair, walk towards the open door, and out to the fields. The Boy abandoned his hiding place and ran after him. No one in the room noticed his presence. The Boy used his arms to protect himself from the cold as he observed his father, on his knees beside the wall separating his field from the neighbors. Rotten apricots fallen from the neighboring trees surrounded him. His father picked them up one by one and threw them as far as he could. Threw them towards the British plantation; threw them towards the capital.

Theme 2: Conspiracy

“Bend down and spread your cheeks”

The Lieutenant flipped the switch of his flashlight and aimed the light into the exposed anuses of the prospective cadets. The building was large and discolored. The plot of land once housed the most loyal of The Monarch’s followers, but upon The Liberator’s command it was torn down and turned into The Military Academy. In the eight years since The Monarch was overthrown, The Academy doubled in applications. The Liberator filled the youth with the hope of nationalism.

After his brother’s death, The Boy soon decided that he would abandon his father’s dreams of CIA and become The Cadet. His father died shortly after The Brother’s death. The people in the village whispered that, because of his inability to deal with the older brother’s death, he slowly killed himself by slipping poison into his own tea every night.

“Died of a broken heart,” his mother always said, followed with a sigh.

When he announced his decision to become a Cadet he was met with the approval of all but his mother.

“Nationalism is a tricky disease, my son.”

The Mother’s words couldn’t sway him. He made the decision the day his father labored through his last breath.

“Stand straight and put your pants back on.”

The Cadet did as he was told without hesitation. The Lieutenant walked in front of the line of recruits.

“If you’ve made it this far that means you are now Cadets in the esteemed Academy. Our Liberator tore down the symbols of oppression that plagued our beautiful country and built strong, new, and reliable walls. You are the generation who will keep our Liberator’s vision alive through the decades. In your hands lies the hope of the future. Never again will we let our nation fall into the hands of an oppressor and never again will we remain silent.”
The Lieutenant stopped in front of The Cadet.

“Lift your arms over your head.”
The Cadet did as he was told.
“You’re skinny. What does your father do?”
“He’s dead, sir.”
“What did he do before he died?”
“He was a farmer, sir.”
“Very good. Very good. Farmers are the souls of our nation. How did he die?”
“He died of a broken heart after the oppressors killed my brothers.”
“Yes. Tragic. Why are you here Cadet?
“To make sure the population of this wonderful nation is never oppressed again.”
“Perfect. I like your energy.”
The Cadet’s new routine woke him at 6:00 am. They ran for one hour, followed by two hours of standing in formation. Those who fainted or complained of the heat were forced to run for another hour. The Cadet never complained of the heat. The Lieutenant attributed it to his pure farmer blood. After formation, they were served breakfast. Usually beans but sometimes in winter they were given lentil soup. This was followed by General Command and Staff courses. They were served dinner at 7pm and given a free hour. At 8 pm all Cadets were expected to be in their bunks.
It was during the free hour between dinner and bunk time that The Cadet developed a new method of entertainment for his comrades. Using his mother’s technique of card reading, he would predict his fellow cadet’s futures. One evening The Cadet’s bunkmate, decided to test the truthfulness of The Cadet’s skills. The Cadet revealed a future full of love for his bunkmate.

“Alright, I’m slightly impressed. But if you really are as good as you say tell me what my girlfriend’s name is.”
The bunkmate was unaware that he had a tendency to whisper her name in his sleep.
The Cadet paused for moment, for dramatic effect and then spoke her name. This caused a stir in The Cadet’s unit and he soon became known as the master of cards. It was a few days later when one of The Lieutenant’s lower ranking officers came for him.

“Where is the cadet with the cards?!”

All fingers lead to The Cadet.
“Follow me, The Lieutenant wants to see you. ”
The Cadet raced through all the scenarios in his head. Since the ouster of The Monarch, gambling had been declared illegal. Perhaps, The Lieutenant thought he was encouraging the rise of gambling, thus calling for the disrespect and—ultimately—the rise against The Liberator! He knocked softly on the newly painted door.
“Come in!”

With a click of his heel and an exposed palm, he saluted The Lieutenant. The room was painted a dull grey-green and contained one brown desk, two wooden chairs for guests, one leather chair for The Lieutenant, and one portrait of the Liberator hanging high over The Lieutenant’s head. The Lieutenant fanned himself with a nationalist magazine, “The Capital Weekly”.

“Sit down.”

The Lieutenant waited until The Cadet was settled to continue talking.
“I hear stories that you’re quite the fortune teller.”
“We only do it for fun, sir. It’s nothing serious, sir.”
“No need to make excuses.”
The Lieutenant opened his desk drawer and revealed a deck of cards. He pushed them in front of The Cadet. In silence, The Cadet stared at the deck.
“Go on. Show me my future.”
The Cadet scanned The Lieutenant’s face for signs of sarcasm or anger. There were none.
“Ok. Please separate the deck into two piles using your left hand.”
The Lieutenant followed his orders.
“Pick out fifteen cards using your left hand.”
The Cadet laid out the cards in the formation his mother taught him. All the Aces were drawn.
“I see money. Lots of money. There’s money in every aspect of your life. You see, the club symbolizes money. It’s crossed here with the jack who could symbolize you or maybe a male relative. It’s also crossed here with the diamonds so there is money involved with your home and family.”
“Very good Cadet. Very good. Go back to work now. “
Two weeks later The Cadet was called back into the office. Before he could salute The Lieutenant interrupted him, “Come in. Close the door. Sit Down.”
Screening exams taught in educational programs often place too much importance on generic viagra purchase supine leg-length assessment in determining pelvic disorders. Sometimes it is also due to environmental or climatic reasons and even some other medical tadalafil uk problems and the remedies are also wide-ranging. In case, if he notices the dosages viagra canada overnight not working, consulting with your healthcare provider if they deal with such treatments. The spewhy not try these out bulk buy viagrat will adjust the treatment based on how your body responds to the initial treatment. The Cadet settled into one of the wooden chairs.
“What did you see in my cards last time you were here?”
“Money?”
“Do you know what happened to me?”
“No sir.”
“Last night someone broke into my house. They took everything. All my money. All my wife’s jewelry.”
“I’m- I’m sorry. I couldn’t tell if the money was coming in or out.”
The Lieutenant opened the drawer of his desk and pulled out the deck, “tell me what you see.”
It was from then on that The Lieutenant revealed his secrets to The Cadet. Confiding in his fortuneteller, he told him of all the plans. He told him of the foreign hands waiting to sabotage the nation. He told him of the former supporters of The Monarch who waited in small European towns for their chance to rise again.

Part 3: Forbidden Fruit

It was with The Lieutenant’s trust that The Cadet went on to become a Lieutenant himself, a First Lieutenant, Captain, a Lieutenant Colonel, and finally The Colonel of the ninth regiment. All this was achieved in the span of ten short years using minimal bribery and almost no torture. As the youngest of his rank, The Colonel compensated his age with seriousness and a large mustache.

The former Lieutenant, now The General Major, held his eighteenth annual “Liberator’s Officers Celebration of Freedom, the Nation, and Justice: in Honor of the Martyrs of the Liberator’s Liberation of the Nation from the Anti-liberation Tyrant” banquet. It was there that The Colonel managed to charm The Ministers of Interior, Exterior, and Culture into marrying his younger sisters. The Colonel’s family was thus promptly moved out of the village hut and into villas that once belonged to The Monarch’s aristocracy.

The eighteenth banquet marked the first year in which The Liberator could not attend. His wife claimed he was in “poor health”. The General Major laughed loudly, “Poor health! The man is an unstoppable machine! Not even the CIA could bring him down. Though, as we all know, they tried and failed.”
The guests sipped their imported alcohol and nodded knowingly. It was during this moment of great admiration for The Liberator (and his inability to die) that The Colonel entered, family in tow. The General Major beamed with joy.
“My boy! My cadet! My fortune-teller! Our honored and esteemed Colonel! Come! Come! Have a whiskey! Juice for the women of course.”

Ever the extrovert, The Minister of Interior left his wife’s side (without a hint of hesitation) in order to catch up with The Liberator’s cousin’s daughter. The Minister of Exterior, the more introverted of the group, rejected the whiskey and settled for water and a corner of the room with his wife silent by his side. The Minister of Culture was not present.

“My Dear! Where is your husband?! How I miss his gracious and cultured presence at my banquets!”

“I’m afraid there’s a soccer match today. He couldn’t miss it.”

The large room, covered in beige marble, surrounded by peeling wallpaper with a flowery pattern, was furnished entirely in Baroque style. Tassels hung from extravagant blue armchairs, a large dark wooden dining table stood in the center of the room with carved figures running down its leg, and a crystal chandelier with a lime green tint illuminated the grand hall of the mansion. The Colonel sat upright in one of the armchairs. He watched his sisters socialize with a world that was once exclusively his. His mother, whom he still lived with, was at the buffet table loading her plate with tiny sandwiches. He squirmed at the sight of her gluttony, at the thought of her cracked and overworked hands tainting the golden, fluffy, smooth surfaces of the miniature food. It was at that moment, as one sister scolded her husband’s wandering eye, another silently sipped her guava juice, the youngest flirted with the high-ranking Generals, and his mother filled her mouth to the brim with bread, when The Colonel began to feel that he needed a mate. He spent the last ten years living almost as a hermit, obsessed with rising in the ranks.
Twirling his mustache he surveyed the room. Most females in attendance were the wives and daughters of his colleagues, untouchables. The only remaining women were the embarrassing creatures he called his family. The whiskey warmed his insides and he began to doze off.

“Would you like more, sir?”

A young servant lowered her eyes as he snapped back to reality. She looked young. She couldn’t be older than twenty. The Colonel didn’t care much for age; all he could see were her eyes. They were blue. He had never seen a servant with blue eyes. He licked his mustache as he allowed himself to take in all of her body.

“Sir, another drink?”

The Colonel did something he hadn’t done in years: he smiled.

“Yes.”

The girl poured him a glass and with a quick smile she moved on to the next military man. The Colonel, reeling from the encounter, zigzagged to The General Major.
“Who is that servant girl?”
“She’s mine. I hired her after The Field Marshal’s wife found herself enraged with jealousy and kicked her out. Some peasant girl I believe.”
“I will marry her. Please arrange it.”

The General Major, in a fit of hysterical laughter, spilled the remains of his whiskey on The Younger Sister’s dress. The Younger Sister, who had been allowing The General Major to pour whiskey into her guava juice all night, giggled in ecstasy.

“My boy, she’s just a peasant girl. You’re too good for her.”

“You forget that I was once a peasant boy.”

“Different times my Colonel. Different times. But I suppose we could train her as we did you. The only problem would be her age.”

“Change the birth certificate?”

The General Major caressed the youngest sister’s arm and gazed with longing at her chest. He waved The Colonel off.
“Yes yes! Easily done! Come here tomorrow night and we’ll arrange it.”
The Colonel, in a drunken stupor of lust, searched for the servant girl amongst the guests. She reminded him of the girls he grew up with in his village. Their simplicity always attracted him. She was nowhere to be seen. The Colonel pushed through the crowd of Ministers and Generals until he reached the kitchen. At the counter stood the girl, her loose black outfit covered every inch of her body and a light black cloth hung loosely around her head allowing soft strands of her dark hair to fall out. At the sound of The Colonel’s entrance, she turned.

“More Whiskey?”

“No. You. I want you.’

“I’m sorry?”

“You’re coming home with me tonight.”

“Is The General Major exchanging me for another girl?”

“You’re my wife now.”

The Colonel lunged towards the counter in an attempt to wrap his arms around the helpless child. She screamed and ran towards the hall; he pursued. The sight of the hall stopped the lovers in their tracks. All the guests stood in silence, staring at the grand entrance. The Field Marshal was reading from a paper.
“ -It is with deepest regrets that we announce the death of our Liberator, our savior, and our nation’s father,”
The sisters screamed in despair and fainted into their husband’s arms, the youngest into The General Major’s. The Ministers and Generals began to silently pray into their whiskey glasses. The Colonel reached towards the servant girl as she tried to use this opportunity to escape. He pressed her head into his chest, she tried to pull away, but he pressed her head tighter against his chest.

Part 4: Disaffection

Report For the Beloved People of the Nation on National Salvation and the Incident of the Fundamentalist Attacks on the Beloved Nation:

We, the cabinet of the military council, hereby issue this report to clarify and create an honest and transparent account on what transpired on the 14th day of April.
Since the death of our beloved Liberator the nation has found itself infested by the disease of fundamentalism. These fundamentalists spoke in the name of religion when, in fact, they merely used religion to topple the pillar of the state. As we all know, the nature of their hate and violence began shortly after the death of The Liberator when they decried The Successor’s ascension to power. They used the Western ideal of ‘Democracy’ to accuse our dear Successor of being an unworthy father of our nation. They gathered in squares and chanted. This, being an innocent act, was allowed to flourish due to the kindness of The Successor’s heart. He, being aware that they were simply mourning the death of our most distinguished and revered Liberator. The events that took place are almost too tragic to write. However, it must be mentioned that these poor fundamentalists brought it upon themselves.
Who are these fundamentalists and how can you spot them?

They are usually in groups and disguise themselves as students or hardworking men and women. They claim to be thinkers and artists, yet are never seen at any of the national theatre events nor do they participate in the annual “Portrait of the Nation” award.

Why must we be wary of them?

Using the same rhetoric as the English who colonized our nation, these fundamentalists use ‘liberal’ ideals that go against this so-called “religion” they follow. If they were truly pious people they would understand that the Successor has been blessed by God’s will. How can these pious people not recognize salvation?
What happened?

The fundamentalists finally revealed their true nature and attempted to attack the state. Using concealed weapons and makeshift tear gas; they spontaneously attacked our brave young policemen. The state had no other option but to act quickly! Gunmen climbed on the roofs of civilian houses and were prepared to shoot anyone on the ground. So we were obligated to send the tanks in. They also had three bombs hidden in residential buildings! Thankfully the state was there to defuse them. Many have accused the state of using excessive force. However, I’m certain the judiciary will understand this need on the state’s part to maintain justice and liberty. Tragically fifty-three fundamentalists perished in the events that unfolded. Many were trampled in the stampede that their own colleagues created. Some were even used as human shields by their more cowardly counterparts! These deaths were not a result of the state’s violence, as some would suggest, but negligence on the part of the fundamentalists. The remaining threats were apprehended and sent to an undisclosed location. There, our young Lieutenants in training will interrogate them and, if God wills it, we shall have a safe and healthy state.

Thank you and May God and The Successor bless you,

The former Colonel of the ninth regiment, Interim Field Marshal.

Part 5: Charade of Doom

After the Incident report was signed, the former Field Marshal was asked to retire and The Colonel took over. They say this new Field Marshal is a man of integrity, not afraid to make decisions and take charge. When asked what should be done with protestors, the then Colonel’s answer was “make them disappear.” This gained the respect and admiration of all his colleagues and it was unanimous that he must be the new Field Marshal.

The Field Marshal leaned on his dark wooden desk. A portrait of The Successor hung above his head. It was only a year into his time as Field Marshal that the generals and ministers filed into his office one day. They locked the door behind them and all vowed secrecy. They filled him in on the plan, they told him the reasons, the necessity of it. In one short hour they planned the execution of The Successor, promising the Field Marshal that if he went along with their plan he would be named the new Leader of the nation.

The plan was executed quickly and flawlessly. The Field Marshal received the news from a young lieutenant.
“The Successor has been shot at the national parade. Fundamentalists have been apprehended.”
The Field Marshal stood, and with no hesitation, began walking down the hall. The young lieutenant (a nephew from the youngest sister) walked at his heel.

“Boy, you’re sweating on my boots. Go home to your mother and tell her to buy a pretty dress.”

The Field Marshal’s villa was larger than anything he could have imagined as a boy. The halls were surrounded with doors, all leading to dark rooms that smelled of dust and cleaning product. They only used half the rooms in the house. He passed the kitchen where his wife slaved away making meals, though he brought her dozens of servants. He climbed up the wooden stairs. He passed his daughter’s room, where once he found a boy with a hand under his daughter’s blouse. That boy was later sentenced to six months in prison for indecent exposure. He passed his son’s room where once he found a boy with his hand down his son’s pants. That boy was later sentenced to six years in jail for debauchery. He finally reached the room at the far end of the second floor hallway, his mother’s room.
His mother had gone deaf and blind in her old age. They say her blindness was caused by the venom of a snake that the CIA planted in her garden. They say she went deaf because the CIA planted a bug in her ear in order to spy on her son. They say The Field Marshal, ever the hero of the nation, stabbed her ears.
The Field Marshal opened the door to her room. It creaked. She sat in her usual spot in the middle of the king sized bed. His mother, who never adjusted to a life of luxury, threw out the furniture she didn’t need. All that remained was the bed, the side table and a closet. Every time The Field Marshal walked into the room he remembered her imperfection, his embarrassment at her peasant manners, her inability to change. Immobility and excessive card reading caused her to develop a hump. Yet, even her hump lacked perfection, it was slightly off center. Her hands ran over a deck of cards as she split them with her left hand. He moved slowly so he wouldn’t startle her. He sat near her; the mattress sank and creaked under his weight.

“Who’s there? Don’t hurt me! Don’t you know who my son is?”

The Field Marshal edged towards her and ran his fingers over hers, their signal that it was him and not a
fundamentalist. She smiled and felt his hands.

“My boy! My beautiful, powerful, wonderful boy! Let me read your fortune!”

“We had him murdered. Do you know what this means?”

“My delightful little Cadet! How I love you!”

“This means that I will be the new father of the nation. I can finally be what your husband could never dream to be.”
She ran her hands over the cards frantically.

“I feel hearts in these cards. You will find love! Love everywhere! It crosses over with diamonds! This love will give you wealth! Oh my brilliant Colonel! You will take over our amazing nation!”

The Field Marshal looked at the cards, there were no hearts to be seen. He stroked his mother’s hair.

“I can’t wait until you die. The last piece of my youth will die with you.”

“Oh my boy! My darling Cadet! My brave soldier! My adored Colonel! My revered Field Marshal! Our nation’s beloved Dictator!”

His mother wept for her love and devotion to her son and thus for her love and devotion to the nation. The Field Marshal picked up a bowl of soup left on the side table and fed his weeping mother.
They say the CIA filled the mother’s soup with miniscule amounts of arsenic until she finally died, taking his memories of innocent youth with her.

A Hostile World By Jihan Shaarawi

Part 1: The Eternal Dupes

The Boy’s father sat on his small wicker chair staring at the newspaper that was brought from the capital. The Boy’s parents managed to send The Brother to the capital to join the public university. Every weekend, The Brother took a bus back to the village with tales of the soon-to-be revolution. That day, The Brother brought back news of The Monarch’s supposed diplomatic trip to England where he was spotted spending his days with European models at high-end bars.

“He is spending the people’s money on alcohol and whores! He should be hung in the streets!”

The Father was known in the village for his short temper and quick tongue. A year earlier, The Father told his employer that he was a “slave driving son of a bitch who should go back to England and fuck that sheep that he calls a wife.” The Father disappeared shortly after the incident and was returned, two months later, bloodied, boney, pale, and thrown amongst his neighbor’s apricot trees. After the incident, The Father only spoke his mind at home and sent his children to fight his battles.

When rumors began to spread in the village that the CIA had entered the country in support of the Liberation Officers, The Boy was sent to a nearby village where it was said that there lived a man who taught English to children. On his first day of English class, The Boy’s mother dressed him in his finest clothes, a cotton button down shirt with holes, dress pants that had to be rolled up at the ankles, and leather shoes that flapped when he walked. The Boy’s father licked his palm and used the saliva to contain The Boy’s frizzy curls.

“Listen to me! You speak to your teacher respectfully! Don’t stare at walls when he speaks! Don’t pick your nose! Remember not to mention why you’re really there. Say you want to learn English so you can work on one of the British farms. Don’t you dare mention the CIA!”

The Boy’s mother carefully tucked in his shirt.

“Baba? What’s CIA?”

His father struck him so quickly it almost escaped his mother’s eyes.

“He has the brains of a donkey. You bore me a donkey!”

“Enough! What will the Sheikh think if you bring him a bruised boy?”

The Boy’s mother splashed cold water on his face in an attempt to soothe the blow.

“Stop crying! You’re not a baby anymore!”

They paid The Neighbor 5 silver coins to take The Boy to the next village. The Boy sat on his neighbor’s cart (pulled by a small, weak, donkey) amidst the crates of apricots. Every now and then, when The Neighbor wasn’t looking, he took one and stuffed it in his pockets. It took forty-five minutes to arrive to the village and by then his pockets bulged at odd angles. This village looked identical to The Boy’s village except for the long line of young boys at one of the huts.

“That’s hut,” The Neighbor pointed towards the assembly of boys, “I’ll be back in the afternoon to take you home.”

Every weekday, The Boy travelled to the neighboring village for his English lessons. His malleable brain picked up the language quickly and he was soon teaching his younger sisters. The Father requested The Brother to bring back English newspapers from the capital. They all huddled around The Boy as he read each word carefully. He often made up the sound of a word if he hadn’t learned it yet.

 

Upon The Monarch’s return from England a huge demonstration was held in front of the palace. The Father decided that there couldn’t be a better time for a family vacation; so they packed some clothes and headed to the capital. They all stayed in the room that The Brother rented with another young man from their village. The Brother was studying engineering at the public university and was poised to be top of his class. He spent most of his days studying in a corner of the room. Every time The Boy passed by him, he glanced at the paper to see what his brother was studying. It was on the second day that The Boy realized that it wasn’t equations that The Brother was scribbling down; he was writing poetry. The Boy waited until The Brother fell asleep to steal the sheets of paper. The next morning he presented the papers to his father.

“I pay good money to have you study in the capital and you spend your days writing poetry? Your comrades are busy protesting and risking their lives and you’re sitting in this room writing rhymes! This is not the time! You know who writes poetry? Rich Europeans. Because their lives are perfect so they have to make up something to keep it interesting. Liberate your country first and then you write poetry.”

The Father lit a match and held it to the papers. In silence, the family watched the pages burn. When the flames had engulfed every word, the father led everyone to get ready for liberation. They needed to be at the square in time to see it all. When they reached the square, The Boy’s father lifted him onto his shoulders.. Crowds of people swarmed out of every side street and with each step it became harder to move. Scattered amongst the crowd were British soldiers on horses. They held rifles in plain sight—as a message to the masses. Students stood in the frontlines of different groups as they spilled in from the streets that snaked into the square. They left The Mother at home with the sisters; a protest was no place for the feminine. The Brother hadn’t spoken a word since his father burned all the pages of poetry. The Father insisted that burning the poetry would be a good opportunity to transition into manhood. He leaned on The Brother’s shoulder as he walked, using him as a cane. He screamed of the injustices done to him in captivity. The Boy had never seen his father so happy. The boys attempted to keep up with the slogans:

“Monarch Monarch of our hearts! May your kingdom fall apart!”

“Our bread is stale, our lives are cheap, go to hell you stupid sheep!”

 

On the ride back to the village The Boy’s father could not contain his excitement. As each new passenger entered the bus, he retold his story of protest. Some listened in amazement; most ignored him.

“Be careful,” the mother whispered, “you never know who these people are. We can’t afford to lose you again.”

The Father couldn’t care less and for three hours he repeated his story. The father continued his political musing throughout the ride home, on the walk from the bus to the village, yelled them at all his neighbors, and finally through dinner, and the ritualistic post-dinner tea with milk.

“You know, I feel as though this time the British will go back to that hole they call The West!”

The Mother accompanied tea with her nightly card readings. The hearts symbolized love and marriage, clubs were money, diamonds were family and home, and spades symbolized career. The Boy sat in front of his mother waiting for his future to be revealed.

“Split the cards with your left hand”

The Father sat on his chair, slurping his tea.

“You know, they say that the CIA pays two hundred pounds a month for interpreters! Two hundred! Can you imagine?!”

The card formation was made up of 2 spades and 3 clubs. The Mother interrupted The Father’s rambling:

“There will be much change in your family life. This change will show you the path to your career.”

“He will become a politician for the government of tomorrow!”

The Boy gave all his attention to his mother. She stopped her reading and smiled, “my brave boy, my beautiful prince, darling love of my life, I could read you the rest but it doesn’t matter. We all know you will be great. Go to sleep.”

That night there was three short knocks on the door, barely audible. The Mother was a light sleeper and they woke her instantly. She shook her husband awake.

“Someone is knocking on the door.”

The Father jolted awake.

“What time is it?”

He fumbled through his small pile of possessions until he found his watch; 1:45 am. The knocking picked up energy.

“Do you think it’s the officers? Do you think one of the people on the bus said something? Why don’t you ever stay quiet? These children need you!”

“Shut up woman. If they were the officers they wouldn’t need to knock.”

The father slipped on a robe and opened the door. The outside darkness covered the face of the visitor. The father’s eyes adjusted to the darkness and he made out the figure of a young student, an acquaintance of The Brother. His shirt was covered in dried blood.

The Boy woke up two minutes before the knock on the door. He felt a chill from the open window and it woke him. When he heard his parent’s frantic voices he crawled on his belly to where they sat. His mother held her head in her hands as she slid slowly to the ground. The student, whom he recognized from the demonstration, attempted to sip the cup of tea but his unsteady hands wouldn’t allow it. His father was stoic. The Boy watched The Father rise out of the chair, walk towards the open door, and out to the fields. The Boy abandoned his hiding place and ran after him. No one in the room noticed his presence. The Boy used his arms to protect himself from the cold as he observed his father, on his knees beside the wall separating his field from the neighbors. Rotten apricots fallen from the neighboring trees surrounded him. His father picked them up one by one and threw them as far as he could. Threw them towards the British plantation; threw them towards the capital.

 

Theme 2: Conspiracy

Bend down and spread your cheeks”

The Lieutenant flipped the switch of his flashlight and aimed the light into the exposed anuses of the prospective cadets. The building was large and discolored. The plot of land once housed the most loyal of The Monarch’s followers, but upon The Liberator’s command it was torn down and turned into The Military Academy. In the eight years since The Monarch was overthrown, The Academy doubled in applications. The Liberator filled the youth with the hope of nationalism.

After his brother’s death, The Boy soon decided that he would abandon his father’s dreams of CIA and become The Cadet. His father died shortly after The Brother’s death. The people in the village whispered that, because of his inability to deal with the older brother’s death, he slowly killed himself by slipping poison into his own tea every night.

“Died of a broken heart,” his mother always said, followed with a sigh.

When he announced his decision to become a Cadet he was met with the approval of all but his mother.

“Nationalism is a tricky disease, my son.”

 

The Mother’s words couldn’t sway him. He made the decision the day his father labored through his last breath.

“Stand straight and put your pants back on.”

The Cadet did as he was told without hesitation. The Lieutenant walked in front of the line of recruits.

“If you’ve made it this far that means you are now Cadets in the esteemed Academy. Our Liberator tore down the symbols of oppression that plagued our beautiful country and built strong, new, and reliable walls. You are the generation who will keep our Liberator’s vision alive through the decades. In your hands lies the hope of the future. Never again will we let our nation fall into the hands of an oppressor and never again will we remain silent.”

The Lieutenant stopped in front of The Cadet.

“Lift your arms over your head.”

The Cadet did as he was told.

“You’re skinny. What does your father do?”

“He’s dead, sir.”

“What did he do before he died?”

“He was a farmer, sir.”

“Very good. Very good. Farmers are the souls of our nation. How did he die?”

“He died of a broken heart after the oppressors killed my brothers.”

“Yes. Tragic. Why are you here Cadet?

“To make sure the population of this wonderful nation is never oppressed again.”

“Perfect. I like your energy.”

The Cadet’s new routine woke him at 6:00 am. They ran for one hour, followed by two hours of standing in formation. Those who fainted or complained of the heat were forced to run for another hour. The Cadet never complained of the heat. The Lieutenant attributed it to his pure farmer blood. After formation, they were served breakfast. Usually beans but sometimes in winter they were given lentil soup. This was followed by General Command and Staff courses. They were served dinner at 7pm and given a free hour. At 8 pm all Cadets were expected to be in their bunks.

It was during the free hour between dinner and bunk time that The Cadet developed a new method of entertainment for his comrades. Using his mother’s technique of card reading, he would predict his fellow cadet’s futures. One evening The Cadet’s bunkmate, decided to test the truthfulness of The Cadet’s skills. The Cadet revealed a future full of love for his bunkmate.

“Alright, I’m slightly impressed. But if you really are as good as you say tell me what my girlfriend’s name is.”

The bunkmate was unaware that he had a tendency to whisper her name in his sleep.

The Cadet paused for moment, for dramatic effect and then spoke her name. This caused a stir in The Cadet’s unit and he soon became known as the master of cards. It was a few days later when one of The Lieutenant’s lower ranking officers came for him.

“Where is the cadet with the cards?!”

All fingers lead to The Cadet.

“Follow me, The Lieutenant wants to see you. ”

The Cadet raced through all the scenarios in his head. Since the ouster of The Monarch, gambling had been declared illegal. Perhaps, The Lieutenant thought he was encouraging the rise of gambling, thus calling for the disrespect and—ultimately—the rise against The Liberator! He knocked softly on the newly painted door.

“Come in!”

With a click of his heel and an exposed palm, he saluted The Lieutenant. The room was painted a dull grey-green and contained one brown desk, two wooden chairs for guests, one leather chair for The Lieutenant, and one portrait of the Liberator hanging high over The Lieutenant’s head. The Lieutenant fanned himself with a nationalist magazine, “The Capital Weekly”.

“Sit down.”

The Lieutenant waited until The Cadet was settled to continue talking.

“I hear stories that you’re quite the fortune teller.”

“We only do it for fun, sir. It’s nothing serious, sir.”

“No need to make excuses.”

The Lieutenant opened his desk drawer and revealed a deck of cards. He pushed them in front of The Cadet. In silence, The Cadet stared at the deck.

“Go on. Show me my future.”

The Cadet scanned The Lieutenant’s face for signs of sarcasm or anger. There were none.

“Ok. Please separate the deck into two piles using your left hand.”

The Lieutenant followed his orders.

“Pick out fifteen cards using your left hand.”

The Cadet laid out the cards in the formation his mother taught him. All the Aces were drawn.

Patient having history of smoking continue reading now generico levitra on line , alcohol use and exposure to industrial chemicals. Pre-event sports acquisition de viagra http://www.midwayfire.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Approved-Minutes-9-4-19.pdf massage can alleviate stiffness and improve relaxation in the massaged area. Now, with the advent of drastic web stores kamagra online pharmacy is just a click cialis online canada midwayfire.com away. This type of cialis uk and cialis both are available to take care of PCOS? Prior to considering operation, a number of medications like Kamagra that can cause the problems of depression, high blood pressure, bladder problems and high cholesterol. “I see money. Lots of money. There’s money in every aspect of your life. You see, the club symbolizes money. It’s crossed here with the jack who could symbolize you or maybe a male relative. It’s also crossed here with the diamonds so there is money involved with your home and family.”

“Very good Cadet. Very good. Go back to work now. “

Two weeks later The Cadet was called back into the office. Before he could salute The Lieutenant interrupted him, “Come in. Close the door. Sit Down.”

The Cadet settled into one of the wooden chairs.

“What did you see in my cards last time you were here?”

“Money?”

“Do you know what happened to me?”

“No sir.”

“Last night someone broke into my house. They took everything. All my money. All my wife’s jewelry.”

“I’m- I’m sorry. I couldn’t tell if the money was coming in or out.”

The Lieutenant opened the drawer of his desk and pulled out the deck, “tell me what you see.”

It was from then on that The Lieutenant revealed his secrets to The Cadet. Confiding in his fortuneteller, he told him of all the plans. He told him of the foreign hands waiting to sabotage the nation. He told him of the former supporters of The Monarch who waited in small European towns for their chance to rise again.

 

Part 3: Forbidden Fruit

It was with The Lieutenant’s trust that The Cadet went on to become a Lieutenant himself, a First Lieutenant, Captain, a Lieutenant Colonel, and finally The Colonel of the ninth regiment. All this was achieved in the span of ten short years using minimal bribery and almost no torture. As the youngest of his rank, The Colonel compensated his age with seriousness and a large mustache.

The former Lieutenant, now The General Major, held his eighteenth annual “Liberator’s Officers Celebration of Freedom, the Nation, and Justice: in Honor of the Martyrs of the Liberator’s Liberation of the Nation from the Anti-liberation Tyrant” banquet. It was there that The Colonel managed to charm The Ministers of Interior, Exterior, and Culture into marrying his younger sisters. The Colonel’s family was thus promptly moved out of the village hut and into villas that once belonged to The Monarch’s aristocracy.

The eighteenth banquet marked the first year in which The Liberator could not attend. His wife claimed he was in “poor health”. The General Major laughed loudly, “Poor health! The man is an unstoppable machine! Not even the CIA could bring him down. Though, as we all know, they tried and failed.”

The guests sipped their imported alcohol and nodded knowingly. It was during this moment of great admiration for The Liberator (and his inability to die) that The Colonel entered, family in tow. The General Major beamed with joy.

“My boy! My cadet! My fortune-teller! Our honored and esteemed Colonel! Come! Come! Have a whiskey! Juice for the women of course.”

Ever the extrovert, The Minister of Interior left his wife’s side (without a hint of hesitation) in order to catch up with The Liberator’s cousin’s daughter. The Minister of Exterior, the more introverted of the group, rejected the whiskey and settled for water and a corner of the room with his wife silent by his side. The Minister of Culture was not present.

“My Dear! Where is your husband?! How I miss his gracious and cultured presence at my banquets!”

“I’m afraid there’s a soccer match today. He couldn’t miss it.”

The large room, covered in beige marble, surrounded by peeling wallpaper with a flowery pattern, was furnished entirely in Baroque style. Tassels hung from extravagant blue armchairs, a large dark wooden dining table stood in the center of the room with carved figures running down its leg, and a crystal chandelier with a lime green tint illuminated the grand hall of the mansion. The Colonel sat upright in one of the armchairs. He watched his sisters socialize with a world that was once exclusively his. His mother, whom he still lived with, was at the buffet table loading her plate with tiny sandwiches. He squirmed at the sight of her gluttony, at the thought of her cracked and overworked hands tainting the golden, fluffy, smooth surfaces of the miniature food. It was at that moment, as one sister scolded her husband’s wandering eye, another silently sipped her guava juice, the youngest flirted with the high-ranking Generals, and his mother filled her mouth to the brim with bread, when The Colonel began to feel that he needed a mate. He spent the last ten years living almost as a hermit, obsessed with rising in the ranks.

Twirling his mustache he surveyed the room. Most females in attendance were the wives and daughters of his colleagues, untouchables. The only remaining women were the embarrassing creatures he called his family. The whiskey warmed his insides and he began to doze off.

“Would you like more, sir?”

A young servant lowered her eyes as he snapped back to reality. She looked young. She couldn’t be older than twenty. The Colonel didn’t care much for age; all he could see were her eyes. They were blue. He had never seen a servant with blue eyes. He licked his mustache as he allowed himself to take in all of her body.

“Sir, another drink?”

The Colonel did something he hadn’t done in years: he smiled.

“Yes.”

The girl poured him a glass and with a quick smile she moved on to the next military man. The Colonel, reeling from the encounter, zigzagged to The General Major.

“Who is that servant girl?”

“She’s mine. I hired her after The Field Marshal’s wife found herself enraged with jealousy and kicked her out. Some peasant girl I believe.”

“I will marry her. Please arrange it.”

The General Major, in a fit of hysterical laughter, spilled the remains of his whiskey on The Younger Sister’s dress. The Younger Sister, who had been allowing The General Major to pour whiskey into her guava juice all night, giggled in ecstasy.

“My boy, she’s just a peasant girl. You’re too good for her.”

“You forget that I was once a peasant boy.”

“Different times my Colonel. Different times. But I suppose we could train her as we did you. The only problem would be her age.”

“Change the birth certificate?”

The General Major caressed the youngest sister’s arm and gazed with longing at her chest. He waved The Colonel off.

“Yes yes! Easily done! Come here tomorrow night and we’ll arrange it.”

The Colonel, in a drunken stupor of lust, searched for the servant girl amongst the guests. She reminded him of the girls he grew up with in his village. Their simplicity always attracted him. She was nowhere to be seen. The Colonel pushed through the crowd of Ministers and Generals until he reached the kitchen. At the counter stood the girl, her loose black outfit covered every inch of her body and a light black cloth hung loosely around her head allowing soft strands of her dark hair to fall out. At the sound of The Colonel’s entrance, she turned.

“More Whiskey?”

“No. You. I want you.’

“I’m sorry?”

“You’re coming home with me tonight.”

“Is The General Major exchanging me for another girl?”

“You’re my wife now.”

The Colonel lunged towards the counter in an attempt to wrap his arms around the helpless child. She screamed and ran towards the hall; he pursued. The sight of the hall stopped the lovers in their tracks. All the guests stood in silence, staring at the grand entrance. The Field Marshal was reading from a paper.

“ -It is with deepest regrets that we announce the death of our Liberator, our savior, and our nation’s father,”

The sisters screamed in despair and fainted into their husband’s arms, the youngest into The General Major’s. The Ministers and Generals began to silently pray into their whiskey glasses. The Colonel reached towards the servant girl as she tried to use this opportunity to escape. He pressed her head into his chest, she tried to pull away, but he pressed her head tighter against his chest.

 

Part 4: Disaffection

 

Report For the Beloved People of the Nation on National Salvation and the Incident of the Fundamentalist Attacks on the Beloved Nation:

We, the cabinet of the military council, hereby issue this report to clarify and create an honest and transparent account on what transpired on the 14th day of April.

Since the death of our beloved Liberator the nation has found itself infested by the disease of fundamentalism. These fundamentalists spoke in the name of religion when, in fact, they merely used religion to topple the pillar of the state. As we all know, the nature of their hate and violence began shortly after the death of The Liberator when they decried The Successor’s ascension to power. They used the Western ideal of ‘Democracy’ to accuse our dear Successor of being an unworthy father of our nation. They gathered in squares and chanted. This, being an innocent act, was allowed to flourish due to the kindness of The Successor’s heart. He, being aware that they were simply mourning the death of our most distinguished and revered Liberator. The events that took place are almost too tragic to write. However, it must be mentioned that these poor fundamentalists brought it upon themselves.

Who are these fundamentalists and how can you spot them?

They are usually in groups and disguise themselves as students or hardworking men and women. They claim to be thinkers and artists, yet are never seen at any of the national theatre events nor do they participate in the annual “Portrait of the Nation” award.

Why must we be wary of them?

Using the same rhetoric as the English who colonized our nation, these fundamentalists use ‘liberal’ ideals that go against this so-called “religion” they follow. If they were truly pious people they would understand that the Successor has been blessed by God’s will. How can these pious people not recognize salvation?

What happened?

The fundamentalists finally revealed their true nature and attempted to attack the state. Using concealed weapons and makeshift tear gas; they spontaneously attacked our brave young policemen. The state had no other option but to act quickly! Gunmen climbed on the roofs of civilian houses and were prepared to shoot anyone on the ground. So we were obligated to send the tanks in. They also had three bombs hidden in residential buildings! Thankfully the state was there to defuse them. Many have accused the state of using excessive force. However, I’m certain the judiciary will understand this need on the state’s part to maintain justice and liberty. Tragically fifty-three fundamentalists perished in the events that unfolded. Many were trampled in the stampede that their own colleagues created. Some were even used as human shields by their more cowardly counterparts! These deaths were not a result of the state’s violence, as some would suggest, but negligence on the part of the fundamentalists. The remaining threats were apprehended and sent to an undisclosed location. There, our young Lieutenants in training will interrogate them and, if God wills it, we shall have a safe and healthy state.

 

Thank you and May God and The Successor bless you,

The former Colonel of the ninth regiment, Interim Field Marshal.

 

Part 5: Charade of Doom

After the Incident report was signed, the former Field Marshal was asked to retire and The Colonel took over. They say this new Field Marshal is a man of integrity, not afraid to make decisions and take charge. When asked what should be done with protestors, the then Colonel’s answer was “make them disappear.” This gained the respect and admiration of all his colleagues and it was unanimous that he must be the new Field Marshal.

The Field Marshal leaned on his dark wooden desk. A portrait of The Successor hung above his head. It was only a year into his time as Field Marshal that the generals and ministers filed into his office one day. They locked the door behind them and all vowed secrecy. They filled him in on the plan, they told him the reasons, the necessity of it. In one short hour they planned the execution of The Successor, promising the Field Marshal that if he went along with their plan he would be named the new Leader of the nation.

The plan was executed quickly and flawlessly. The Field Marshal received the news from a young lieutenant.

“The Successor has been shot at the national parade. Fundamentalists have been apprehended.”

The Field Marshal stood, and with no hesitation, began walking down the hall. The young lieutenant (a nephew from the youngest sister) walked at his heel.

“Boy, you’re sweating on my boots. Go home to your mother and tell her to buy a pretty dress.”

The Field Marshal’s villa was larger than anything he could have imagined as a boy. The halls were surrounded with doors, all leading to dark rooms that smelled of dust and cleaning product. They only used half the rooms in the house. He passed the kitchen where his wife slaved away making meals, though he brought her dozens of servants. He climbed up the wooden stairs. He passed his daughter’s room, where once he found a boy with a hand under his daughter’s blouse. That boy was later sentenced to six months in prison for indecent exposure. He passed his son’s room where once he found a boy with his hand down his son’s pants. That boy was later sentenced to six years in jail for debauchery. He finally reached the room at the far end of the second floor hallway, his mother’s room.

His mother had gone deaf and blind in her old age. They say her blindness was caused by the venom of a snake that the CIA planted in her garden. They say she went deaf because the CIA planted a bug in her ear in order to spy on her son. They say The Field Marshal, ever the hero of the nation, stabbed her ears.

The Field Marshal opened the door to her room. It creaked. She sat in her usual spot in the middle of the king sized bed. His mother, who never adjusted to a life of luxury, threw out the furniture she didn’t need. All that remained was the bed, the side table and a closet. Every time The Field Marshal walked into the room he remembered her imperfection, his embarrassment at her peasant manners, her inability to change. Immobility and excessive card reading caused her to develop a hump. Yet, even her hump lacked perfection, it was slightly off center. Her hands ran over a deck of cards as she split them with her left hand. He moved slowly so he wouldn’t startle her. He sat near her; the mattress sank and creaked under his weight.

“Who’s there? Don’t hurt me! Don’t you know who my son is?”

The Field Marshal edged towards her and ran his fingers over hers, their signal that it was him and not a fundamentalist. She smiled and felt his hands.

“My boy! My beautiful, powerful, wonderful boy! Let me read your fortune!”

“We had him murdered. Do you know what this means?”

“My delightful little Cadet! How I love you!”

“This means that I will be the new father of the nation. I can finally be what your husband could never dream to be.”

She ran her hands over the cards frantically.

“I feel hearts in these cards. You will find love! Love everywhere! It crosses over with diamonds! This love will give you wealth! Oh my brilliant Colonel! You will take over our amazing nation!”

The Field Marshal looked at the cards, there were no hearts to be seen. He stroked his mother’s hair.

“I can’t wait until you die. The last piece of my youth will die with you.”

“Oh my boy! My darling Cadet! My brave soldier! My adored Colonel! My revered Field Marshal! Our nation’s beloved Dictator!”

His mother wept for her love and devotion to her son and thus for her love and devotion to the nation. The Field Marshal picked up a bowl of soup left on the side table and fed his weeping mother.

They say the CIA filled the mother’s soup with miniscule amounts of arsenic until she finally died, taking his memories of innocent youth with her.

 

 

 

Caesar

By Hazem Fahmy

Dante’s Purgatorio, Canto 6, Line 112: Come, see your Rome who, widowed and alone, weeps bitterly; both day and night, she moans: “My Caesar, why are you not at my side?”

1
In the Middle East we have our own term for dictatorship. We call it: “الدولة العميقة”, the “Deep Nation”.

Deep as in a rotting root stretched throughout the soil that feeds you.

Deep as in a cancerous spine holding your diseased body together.

Deep as in poetry, like an ode to Stockholm Syndrome, to a father who lullabies you to bed before reaching under the covers.

Americans ask me why Arabs love dictators and I say abusive relationships are hard to get over.
When Mubarak fell back in 2011, Cairo couldn’t help but cry, sent him a text message: اسفين يا ريس. Please come back.

Virtually every Arab country has been under a brutal regime since the fifties.

My country has only known men who express their love with boot heels and batons. You try and imagine the trauma of a nation black-eyed from its own fist, the self-hate that comes with seeing your own body eat itself.

Forgiveness on a national scale is no easy feat.

It is realizing that your body cannot be blamed for what has been done to it. It is realizing that dictatorship is an STD that can’t be passed consensually.

It grows and blisters on the testicles of men who see the world as their oyster, men who fuck the oyster senseless, hand it lemons for its sores, tell it to make lemonade and move on, says there is no place here for terrorists when it tries to move on.

2
In Connecticut, I turn on the television and see Wolfe Blitzer’s wide eyes gazing in wonder at me, see Megyn Kelly flick her lustrous hair and ask me what’s wrong with my country.
As if we asked for it, as if every Arab nation got down on one knee with ring and bouquet, smiled at the bruises, laughed at the cigarette burns. As if this wasn’t an arranged marriage decades in the making.
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As if you weren’t a bored matchmaker who just wanted to see what would happen, a child playing with matches then gasping at the fire. Grows up to be a fireman. Has us pay to put out the flames. Marvels at how fast a brown body can burn, puts that shit on CNN. Tells you to look at how bad of an example these people are setting for their children.
Americans ask me why Arabs can’t just choose democracy and I tell them it is not as simple as a break up song.

Egypt will not wake up tomorrow and make a new Spotify playlist. Even if it does, you will not listen.

Even if you do, it will be in the background of a house party. You will drink your Miller High Life and toast to freedom, how intoxicating its taste is.

You will remind yourself that Muslims don’t drink alcohol. You will wonder why it is they shut themselves out of the world.

White Americans talk about democracy like it’s a bag of seeds you buy at Home Depot, sprinkle across your backyard before freedom grows fully bloomed from the soil, petals red and blue outstretched.

They talk like all soil is the same.

Like every seed comes with a 100% satisfaction sticker, guaranteed to give you a luscious plant.

They forget how one strain of unwanted plant can kill an entire farmland. They forget that some seeds give you strange fruit. They forget that we have been planting our own crops for over seven thousand years.

3
There’s a reason self-love is tied to revolution, it’s a two way street.

In the right context, the word radical can be applied to anything from an uprising to a selfie.

If nothing else, they both state: I am worth preserving.

Forgiveness is no easy feat.

The Middle East is still moaning. Cairo is still waiting for Caesar, still looking to the words of a dead white man for self-validation. But my people are still a body, which is to say, I am a white blood cell, which is to say, the virus has not yet won, which is to say: حلوة بلادى السمرة, بلادى الحرة. أنا على الربابة بغنى. مملكش غير إنى أغنى و أقول تعيشى يا مصر.

Dark Music

By Eman Elshaikh

they have been singing for so long,
with the resonance of truth and justice, sonorous,
that i didn’t really hear them beat the war drum,
in their own ways.
i missed the discordant notes.
but weren’t the stories always living
in that dissonance?

they sing, booming, stentorian.
but other things always have a way of rising, louder
and revealing the true consonance
beneath the noise
(if only for those who offer their hearing)
and for all their ballads,
their elegies for lost truth,
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the violence
of this view from nowhere
this sound without a chamber
ringing without ideology
goes unsung, without hymns to decry it.
perhaps our own propaganda was always harmonious
or, perhaps heard only
at undetectable frequencies.

empires always have the best orchestras
which can make art of cacophony,
insulate silences

give them their own register.

An excerpt from “Mona, a Camera, and Me”

By Christine Stoddard

The trolls thought I stopped modeling because I finally realized I am not “conventionally attractive.” I have the hips of an Amazon, the breasts of Peter Pan, and a face that is strange but charming. They wanted me to hate myself, to hang myself like my grandmother did when her husband left her for a woman shaped like an old-fashioned Coke bottle. But when I look in the mirror, the only thing I loathe is the hoard of trolls clacking away at their computers.

Kate Moss is no conventional beauty, either. She’s short with a broken nose and crooked teeth. Yet in those early Instagram days, I never saw Moss as my defense, only my inspiration. I never had this epiphany that I wasn’t Pretty Princess pretty. I always knew. I was beautifully odd and oddly beautiful and I had a talent for seeing into the soul of any camera. My loyal followers saw that. Mona, my only true friend and photographer, saw that.

I was one of two daughters born to two medical school professors originally from Egypt. They relocated to Richmond when my sister, Mayada, was three and shortly before I was born at the mammoth Medical College of Virginia downtown. There, my parents lectured amongst the buzz of waspish politicians and state government worker bees.

We lived in Jackson Ward, a historically black neighborhood within walking distance of the hospital and medical school. It was an imperfect fit, but where else were we supposed to live? Richmond had no ideal zip code for people like us because we had no place in the Capital of the Confederacy’s narrative of black and white. Yet as Arab atheists with olive complexions, we had to make our own home in the Bible Belt somehow. That was how we ended up in the nicest house on the block in a less-than-nice neighborhood. At least it seemed that way to uptight white suburbanites. But I can’t say the neighborhood made me any more nervous than I felt anywhere else. I had a female body and, even as a little girl, I knew that made me vulnerable no matter where I went.

We were gentrifies who lived in a renovated row house among abandoned buildings, dilapidated apartments that saw constant turnover, and once pristine addresses destroyed by partying college students. Though my family and I saw our share of small-time street corner drug deals, we never witnessed any violence. Since we had a car, we didn’t mind that the grocery store was in the next neighborhood over, either. We said hello to our neighbors and never told them to change a thing. We didn’t see why an upscale coffee shop or yoga studio should replace the barbershop or soul food café. There were enough people in town doing that already.

My parents did take issue with one aspect of where we lived, however, and that was the local public school system. Horrified by accounts of textbook shortages and gaping holes in hallway ceilings, my parents sent Mayada and me to the all-girls’ Catholic school across town. From kindergarten onward, it was a nightmare. Mayada and I were magnets for insults, invasive questions, and culturally clueless remarks. It only worsened as we got older. “I thought Egyptians worshipped cats like Cleopatra. What are you doing at a Catholic school? Are you trying to convert so you don’t burn in hell?”/“Aren’t your parents doctors? Why do you live in the ghetto?”/“Your English is really good. Do you still speak Egyptian at home?”

If you think a fifteen-year-old girl with a pleated skirt and ribbons in her hair can’t be intimidating or offensive, you are wrong. So very wrong. College prep only made everyone hungrier and more aggressive than teenage hormones alone ever could. On top of grappling with typical puberty woes, we had to grapple with the college admissions race. All but the most religiously observant girls fought for thick acceptance packets from Tier 1 colleges their senior year. That’s why our high school counselors funneled us into as many honors and Advanced Placement courses as we could handle. Most of the girls we knew considered bulldozing a few classmates’ self-esteem levels part of the process. They weren’t interested in becoming nuns or missionaries. They lusted after Smith College and Harvard Law.

That was the motivation for stunts like this one:

My freshman year, I found the word “Muslim” scrawled on my locker in glittery blood red nail polish. It did not matter that I wasn’t actually Muslim. It was the intent. I whipped out my phone and took a photo to text my sister, whose locker was on the other side of the building. She texted me a nearly identical photo of her similarly defaced property. We agreed to meet at the principal’s office in five minutes.

“How can I help you girls?” asked Mrs. Parkhurst, the principal’s secretary, as we stepped up to her desk.

“We’d like to report a hate crime,” said Mayada, without hesitation. I nodded, grateful to have such a confident older sister in moments like these.

Mrs. Parkhurst was a petite middle-aged woman with thin, naked lips and mousy brown hair. Her cardigan sweaters were all black or beige and she always wore flat, circular Mother of Pearl earrings with a matching Mother of Pearl cross necklace. Her Spartan desk contained her computer, a black Moleskine notebook, and a Virgin Mary statue that was about six inches tall. Mrs. Parkhurst’s fashion sense and desk had not changed since I was five years old. Even her pen—a gold ballpoint with the engraving “John 3:16”—was the same. She liked consistency and order and that was that.

So I should not have been surprised when Mrs. Parkhurst pursed her wormy little lips, cleared her throat, and said, “That’s not possible.” But I was.

“You haven’t even heard our story,” I snapped.

Mayada glared at me and apologized on my behalf. “You’ll have to excuse my sister, Mrs. Parkhurst. She’s upset. We’re both upset, and we need to talk to Sister Branch for that reason. Could we please see her now?”

“She is busy with the bishop,” said Mrs. Parkhurst after she cleared her throat again.

Mayada and I glanced at Sister Branch’s closed door. Before Mayada could issue her next diplomatic phase, I darted for the office and opened the door. Sister Branch was seated with the Catholic newspaper and a bowl of oatmeal.

“Good morning, Abra,” she said, raising an eyebrow for a beat before returning to her paper.

Mayada and Mrs. Parkhurst were behind me in the next split second, but neither one said anything. All of three of us stared at Sister Branch, who looked up again.

“Well, come in.”

“I tried to stop them, Sister Branch, but—”

“It’s fine. I wasn’t busy.”

Had I not been in a rush to tell Sister Branch what happened, I might’ve sneered at Mrs. Parkhurst. Instead, I took out my phone to pull up the photo as Mayada and I talked over each other.

“Oh, this is not good,” said Sister Branch.

My sister and I shook our heads.

“I’m very sorry this happened, girls. Could you email the photos to me? We’ll get to the bottom of this.”

That was the last we heard on the matter. The janitor scrubbed our lockers clean by the end of the day. When Mayada and I followed up in a week, Sister Branch said the school administration had not found a culprit.

“Besides,” said Sister Branch over her usual bowl of oatmeal, “the vandal did not employ a slur. It’s simply a descriptor.”

“Yes, but we aren’t Muslim,” said Mayada. “We’re Egyptian, but not all Egyptians are Muslim.”

“I see,” said Sister Branch. “What then is your family’s religion? Your parents did not identify as Catholic when they enrolled you.”

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“We’re in the process of converting,” I piped up. “Our hearts have been touched by Christ.”

Mayada looked down at her Mary Janes.

Sister Branch beamed. “I’m so pleased to hear that. You’ll have to let me know when your confirmation takes place.”

“Of course!” I said, a little too enthusiastically.

“Your parents are converting, too?”

“Yep!”

My sister remained silent even as we walked down the hallway back to our classrooms. I knew she was reeling, so I didn’t bother further provoking her with my questions. When we got home later that day, all she could muster was, “I can’t believe you did that. Now Sister Branch will care even less about finding out who wrote on our lockers.”

I shrugged and opened up my English textbook. I read for a minute or two and then complained about having to diagram sentences in an honors class. Mayada simply left the room.

Our frazzled parents didn’t have time to take action about the vandalism. Nor did they seem too concerned.

“It’s just a word, Abra,” my mother said one morning two weeks after the incident. I had complained about it again while she packed her briefcase. “It’s not even the right word,” she muttered. “Ignore those brats and focus on your studies.”

Whichever “brat” had done it was trying to distract Mayada and me from our studies. I was in the top ten in my class and Mayada was tied for valedictorian in hers. We had to turn the other cheek if we were going to keep our rank. We weren’t vying for spots at the Ivies, but we still sought a certain level of comfort and prestige. Or, should I say, our parents did.

Our parents expected us to go to Virginia Commonwealth University, which housed the medical school where they taught. To them, an American university was an American university. The nationality alone afforded prestige. They didn’t care that apart from a select number of programs, VCU’s undergraduate admissions were not particularly competitive. All the better, they reasoned. Mayada and I would be that much more likely to earn full-rides. Naturally, we would live at home while studying pre-med and steer clear of dating. During those four years, we would earn every fellowship and research grant possible. Then we would get accepted into the far more competitive Medical College of Virginia, also with scholarships. Once we completed our residencies, we would return to Egypt to marry accomplished Egyptian men—most likely fellow doctors. Religiously, we were not Muslim, but culturally, certain things were just ingrained. That included obtaining both higher degrees and parent-approved husbands.

Though my report cards matched my parents’ expectations, my own dreams did not. Hence the living within my mind. I daydreamed and doodled and wrote stories. Too often, I filled up my sketchbook while bored in class. In this way, I figured I could avoid as much of the snake-tongued gossip that tried to constrict my adolescence as possible. Muslim or not, I would not let my vicious classmates win. They could deface my locker however they wanted. I would continue drawing caricatures of them and writing poems about the merits of Egyptian coffee versus Starbucks.

Shortly after the locker incident occurred, I began modeling with Mona.

Mona was many things, including one of the most faithful Catholics I have ever met, but most people only ever saw her hemifacial microsomia. The syndrome is second only to cleft lips and palates in terms of common congenital deformities. Her face was warped, with a small, bent jaw and asymmetrical ears. I didn’t care. Mona was loyal and kind and a truly gifted photographer. Despite being friends since second grade, I wouldn’t discover that last bit until high school.

The modeling started freshman year when took our first elective. I chose Arabic because I thought it would be an easy A for me. Although, it turns out that occasionally speaking a language with your mom and dad doesn’t necessarily make you ace at conjugations or writing a whole other alphabet. Mona chose darkroom photography. She liked that it was an art form that was on its way out. “I better learn it before it goes extinct,” she said as we filled out our course forms during the last week of eighth grade. “Plus, missionary organizations are always looking for photographers.” When Mona grinned, she bared her snaggletooth, a feature that had endeared me for as long as I could remember.

Days before Mona was shipped off to summer camp in North Carolina, we submitted our forms to Mrs. Parkhurst, who pinned them under her Virgin Mary statue. Then we waited. I went to a day camp at the Science Museum of Virginia and wrote letters to Mona in the evening. In five consecutive letters, I mentioned my fear of getting placed in a second period of gym. Mona’s fear was getting placed in home economics. (“I’m pretty sure I don’t have to be Martha Stewart to live at a convent,” she wrote.) In the last week of July, we received our course schedules, which confirmed that our choices had been approved. I came home to the letter after spending all day dissecting owl pellets and reconstructing tiny rodents on cardboard. Mona, who had just returned from North Carolina, was able to read the letter herself.

“I’m so happy I won’t spend two semesters baking muffins,” she said when we met up for ice cream.

“Don’t worry—I’m pretty sure another nun at your convent will know how to do that.”

“Exactly. We’ll pool our God-given talents together. Mine will not involve cooking appliances.”

We took a break from talking to finish our ice cream cones.

“Do you think high school will be different?” I asked as the last of my chocolate ice cream dribbled down my chin.

Mona shook her head. “No, I mean, it’s the same school, the same girls,” she said. “We’ll probably get five new girls, ten at most. Otherwise, same gang.”

“I guess I just hoped they’d be nicer this year.”

“They won’t be. If anything, they’ll be meaner. Our class rank means a lot more now.”

“It doesn’t matter where I go to college. As long as I graduate with decent grades, a convent will want me. My faith counts for far more.”

“I still have to stay in the top ten if I want that scholarship.”

“You’ll do it. You’re very smart, Abra.”

“Thanks,” I said and wiped my chin with a napkin.

When Mona smiled at me, I felt her warmth envelop me. It was her spell and I didn’t mind falling under it.

Five poems by Donia Harhoor

the ides of august 2013

mood matching miles
when he sketches
spain, i pass
baba’s office en route

to supply closet’s
fresh paper. arabic
pulls my ear.
it is ahmed –

u.s. citizenship granted
just 30 minutes
ago as helicopters
rain fire on

ramses square. sky:
storming grey blues.
earth: davis/evans
album cover red.

masr moon

Kareema
always sits
on the stool
in the far corner
of my aunt’s big kitchen
while waiting to know what she
is expected to do next. rayon kerchief
covered head, sweat beads decorating full qamar face.
looks at her hands while smiling wide innocent to herself,
hugs me tight tight, smells like older womens’ worked dampness.
ten-year-old Kareema. eighteen-year-old me asks
about her whenever we call our cairo family.
surprise always clear on the hissing line.
she runs away at twelve – escapes
to home. aunt and uncle
shake heads, suck their
teeth. she chose
village over
villa.

our dear cousins never realize she was just a kid.

one version
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story
of immigrant’s
daughter: baba got no
fucks to give bout her diggin’ roots.

transplant.

Gaza Stripped
for Bilal Samir Eweda

Today
soldiers silenced
Bilal. Shot him while he
protested. The Prophet loved his
blessed voice.

Damascus Troilet

Rubble wedged between my toes when we stepped outside.
The night had been much too busy.
Next door, Mrs. Addem’s garden wall crushes two varieties of jasmine and herself alongside –
rubble wedged between her toes. When she stepped outside
to breathe fresher air sweet with night-blooming perfume, her pride
had swelled, such lushness had taken long care-filled hours. Her death, though fragrant, had not come quickly.
She felt the rubble wedge between her toes and everywhere. When we stepped outside
we could see – the night had been much too busy.

Tuya’s River

Prelude to the Great Tsunami of July 21, 365 A.D.

By Lukman Clark

Papa taught me to count in the Roman ways and told us to always speak Latin, in or out of the home, though it was Momma who gave us our Egyptian names.
True, day to day, it’s Roman things that get you by. Measures of weight, distance, money. Numbers of things possessed or wanted. Then there is time, with divisions of minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and so on. Each of these has a name; the name fixing it and making it more real somehow. And everyone knows the Latin words for such things.
Papa was always telling my sister and me that knowing numbers and the names of things is more valuable than anything else, especially if one day he could not be here with us. I did not, could not, know what he meant by that, but I think he was right about this. I mean, mostly Papa was right but other things are good to know, too. I’m pretty sure that even what is Roman has to be part of something bigger.
Besides numbers, Papa taught me a little how to read. Then I learned some more on my own. People in the marketplace have come to know I am good in this way. They ask for my help with reading and writing, despite my age.

My name is Tuya. My sister’s is Tem. Our Momma named us this way because she never wanted us to forget that we were Egyptians – that we are Egypt. The land. That’s what she told us when we got older.
Tem and I were born in the Year 70 A.D., anno Diocletiani∗.
Diocletian is dead now, along with a couple of other imperators that came after him. This is what Papa said around the time me and Tem turned eleven just a while ago. I remember he looked at each of us then with sad eyes below his short haircut and, with his voice breaking a little, said the world was changing too fast, but for me it seems time moves too slowly and I will never grow up and I will always be in this place where I remember having lived my whole life with my twin sister.
Oh, yes, my sister and I are twins. She came out of our Momma just a short time after me. Momma says Tem almost didn’t make it because she didn’t start breathing right away. Tem has that extra finger on her left hand though and the midwife told Momma maybe that’s what finally helped her, but that she should try to not let people know about it.
As though the midwife herself wouldn’t talk. I know she did because people stare and whisper. Even about me. Twins, you know. Or maybe it’s something else, but I don’t mind.
I’m glad I have my twin sister. Funny, even though we are twins, we have always been opposites of each other. I am lighter. She is darker. My hair is reddish brown. Hers is brownish black. I talk a lot. Tem is the quiet one. Those who know both of us say I am the more practical, too.
Over a month ago, like I said, we passed our first decem anni by one year more. Ten years plus one together. Me first. Then Tem. But together.
Many children do not get as far as us, I know. Women are always losing their babies here and it must be the same everywhere. Papa told me how he was the third baby his momma had had. One came out blue and dead; the other came out with too many arms and legs, so was taken at night to be left on a hilltop. That really made Papa the first, like me; the oldest brother, like I’m the older sister. But he had four more after him. Three sisters and one brother. I just have my sister Tem. I love her and am glad she was not left out on a hilltop – but I think she’s enough.

Papa says he is more than four tens old. Quadraguinta. That seems a really long time to me, but somehow I can’t think of Papa as old. I mean, he doesn’t seem old to me at all. I just wonder where he is though.

“Back before your mother and I met, I was just a foot soldier. The army came through our village in my father’s land of Macedonia – the birthplace of the Great Alexander – looking for conscripts. You remember where Macedonia is, right?”
“Across the big sea!”
“Yes, Tuya-miau, across the big, big sea. Mare Nostrum. Good girl. Well, then they shipped myself and another hundred or so conscripts off to serve under the Dux Aegypti. Tem-Tem, it’s your turn to tell me what that is.”
Tem only stared at the floor and didn’t say anything, so Papa continued his story. I don’t know how many times he had told it to us, but I never tired of hearing it.
“Well, Dux Aegypti is the Egypt Command. So, having never been at sea before, I got terribly ill –“
“And you barfed your guts out over the side but it was OK because it fed the hungry fishes, right?”
“Exactly right. Unfortunately, our sea passage was not without incident. A few men fell overboard but the ship’s pilot would not change course to find them. Then after the third sunset–”
“You all tried to take the ship and turn it back!”
“My Tuya, you know your Papa would never do something like that! Nor would most others. Nevertheless, the few experienced soldiers on board quickly got matters under control and the leaders of the rebellion were dealt with severely.”
“They were dragged behind the ship in the water so the sharks could eat them up! Right, Papa?”
By now, Tem was faking being asleep. She woke up soon enough though when Papa paused to drink from his cup, then jumped off his lap and ran to the kitchen where Momma was making preparations for tomorrow’s breakfast.
Papa continued.
“Things went smoothly after that trouble. No one dared try anything again. Once back on land in the port of Alexandria, I quickly recovered from my sea-sickness. Then, as luck would have it, I was marched here to Heliopolis with a detachment of other soldiers. All of us part of the 5th Macedonian Legion, mostly patrolling the streets and alleyways of the city. Just our being around usually keeps the peace during the day.
“Night patrol though always has been the worst. Drunken men and women in and out of the taverns brawling and screaming. People killing each other in the streets and on rooftops. Spouses who normally did not have to face each other by day, quarreled once both at home after dark – too often with evil effects for one or the other and too often for any children they might have.”
In anticipation, I stayed quiet. The best part was about to come.
“Thieves did what thieves always do, too; especially the bands of roving youths, brigands who as often as not would taunt and attack us soldiers. It was while dispatching one infamous gang cornered in a dead-end alley – something we had well thought out and planned as part of a night round-up – it was then that I found your mother.”

So, because of my smart soldier Papa – now optio, not just munifex — that’s how I know a lot of what I know. The rest I find out for myself.
I can keep track of how more than ten tens or so kinds of different birds live around our river parts. For each kind though, they number too many to count. I mean, if you could even count them when they all fly up so beautifully together. Their wings glint in the day sky like the stars do in the night sky. I think sometimes the way they group or cry must have some hidden meaning. Really, I think they do talk to us in their way. Some people say they are messengers and that we just need to learn how to listen or read their signs.
I try.
Tem says that birds are just birds.
Still, despite her crankiness, I try to follow what kinds of birds come and go with the seasons, wondering where they go and why they return. I watch for the long-legged ones like the diver birds, the Great Cormorants, the pink-backed pelicans and cranes that come in winter. Usually they don’t lay eggs here, but they come back with young birds, so they must make babies in the other places they go off to. Some kinds of geese and ducks, quail, kingfishers, shrikes and kestrels do all nest with us though. Some stay here all the time; others take their surviving children away across water or desert when seasons turn.
One bird, a dusky-shaded brown and green ibis, flies in to visit its cousin called Pharaoh’s Ibis with its striking, black-fringed wings. I like pretending that our stay-at-home ibis invites its distant relative in for lotos and beer in exchange for stories of far-away lands.
Like I said, many other birds stay here all the time, just like we do. The benu, egrets and bitterns; doves and pigeons; cuckoos, owls, crows and bats; black kites, Horus falcons, vulturinum – all seem to like it here well enough. But, like the ibis, they have winged cousins calling on them year-round, while no one ever comes by to see our family.
The way I remember the different kinds is like this. I might make one kind of nest for one kind – in my mind, of course – and another sort of nest for a different bird. Or I see them moving in a particular way in the sky in my mind’s eye, individually for some and in flocks for some others. Certain birds I remember by seeing them doing a showy mating dance, or challenging one another with puffed out chests and ruffled feathers, or fluting a few sad notes of a song, or swallowing a frog.
This is all useful because along with what Papa gets from the army, birds provide part of the livelihood of our family. Me and Tem have been coming out with throw sticks, hoop nets and small ground nets to catch them since we were old enough to sit quietly in boat or blind – first with Papa; later with Momma when Papa started getting called away more and more. Because Momma has other things to do, later it was just me and Tem going out on our own.
Other birders, either singly or in groups, hunt with arrows, javelins, slings, clap-nets and long net fences. Some use tethered bitterns with their eyelids sewn shut to trick curious apedu with the decoys’ pitiful cries.
I do well enough without such deceits.
I say this because in recent months, Tem has come out less and less. When I ask if she will accompany me in the reed boat that Papa made for us to cover more of the river bank, she stiffens her back and shoulders, saying she needs to stay home to help Momma. She says seeing that I am the one who likes sitting out under the hot sun with the flies, gnats and crocodiles, why don’t I just go by myself? Then she turns and walks away. I don’t know what has gotten into her, but if all she’s going to do is complain and scare the birds off, she can stay home sweeping the dust from the floor and washing down the walls with that nasty natron.
Speaking of crocodiles, I don’t know what Tem is so afraid of. They never have bothered me. It’s like they don’t even hear or smell me. I am less than a shadow to them, I think. Besides, there are a pair of hawks who always seem to fly low overhead as a kind of warning for me to get off the river and, sure enough, then something you don’t want ‘round comes around. One time, one of the hawks dove right down to the back of my skiff and took off again. It happened fast but when I turned to look all I could see was the hawk flying off with a cobra in its talons.
Another time I thought I heard something coming from the papyrus thickets and though both hawks tried to warn me away, I went in to have a look. What I found was dead bodies of people. I didn’t think animals had killed them, because no animal I know of puts heads on stakes. After this, I always listened to my hawk friends.

One day, as usual, I had been out since before dawn. That’s the very best time of day. I was on the alert and gliding downstream in the reed boat along the thick stands of papyrus growing down to the river’s bank and into its shallows. The boat is like a second home to me. Though small and narrow, I feel safe in it. Protected. So much so that I sometimes nap in it under the shade of the tall reeds. At such times I might dream that the river is a path snaking warmly through a shadowy forest like those Papa speaks of. I am very familiar with this path. Just as I am with the river that dreams along with me.
But, as much as I like to daydream, I do have things to do. Things like checking the simple traps I have learned to make and set from watching birds’ habits; putting up nets; trying to locate nests by the hungry cries of young birds.
Like I said, sunrise is the best of times to be out and about on the river. Life there is stretching, shaking the night off and getting ready for the new day. The birds are waking to sing praises to the sun. They are hungry from their night fast and tend not to pay much attention to a little inops-girl, quietly drifting with the current.
So, as the sun stretches its arms out, its hopeful rays warming the air and chasing away the river mists, I unwrap a piece of bread to chew on to quash my belly rumblings. From around a weedy sand bank, a coot family – the mother bird and seven grey, not fully fledged young – come up to my boat, curious, I think, about my breakfast. I break off a corner of bread and toss it on the water, whereupon the adult snatches it up. I throw several more pieces a little forward of my skiff, while slowly taking up the handle of my hoop net. By now the chicks have joined the fray for my bread, which gives me the chance to bring my net quickly over the lot.
I’m not fast enough due to nearly losing my balance. I succeed in catching only four of the young. The mother and the rest of her brood run across the water’s surface in a flash, beyond my reach, splashing and squawking noisily along the way. All that commotion puts an end to any sneakiness I may have enjoyed, so I quiet the little birds, stow them and turn about to pole back upriver toward home.
On the way, I think it’s too bad that I didn’t get the mother. Besides being plump, her black feathers seemed especially shiny and healthy. I could sell them to the clothiers to dress up their wares.
Or use them myself.
I collect feathers of different birds and have used these to make a cap that is formed tightly to my head. By gradually bending the longer feathers from falcons and the like, I can shape them to my head without breaking the spines. The way I wear the cap is with the notches to the front and the quills in the back. I use the smaller fluffy feathers to fill in and cover the quills like a fringe. Tem wants me to make her one, but says she wants one where the feathers stand up – not laying flat like mine.
The day is warming up quickly, so I need to unload my morning’s catch, which has grown with the addition of a huge, sharp-jawed turtle, a clutch of dozens of round, white turtle eggs, and three quail from my set traps. The heat will spoil both birds and turtle eggs, already attracting an army of flies to the basket where I have stored them – the seven birds with their necks wrung. Also, though the turtle hides in its shell when I rap it sharply with my pole, it keeps coming out to try to escape over the side of the boat, making it all the more necessary to hurry back.
Quayside at the town market, I climb the embankment and am happy to immediately sell the turtle for its meat and shell to a fish broiler my Papa knows by the name of Felix. As two of his helpers carry the creature from my boat and away to slaughter, he laughs with his hands on his hips, saying, “You must be a child of Anukis to be able to subdue such a beast without losing all your toes and fingers to its rapacious jaws!” I smile up at him, sweat dripping down along my nose, and reply, “My Momma prays to Dedwen to accompany me at market, so that I may be paid well for my work.”
I cock my head a little to one side and give Felix the Eye, just to see if this has any affect on him.
With that, he bursts out with a guffaw and puts a generous sum into my outstretched palm.

I slip the coins unobtrusively into the leather wallet held at my side by a rawhide string across my bare chest, just as Felix scrunches up his nose while looking down at my other hand holding the covered basket with the dead fowl. He raises his eyebrows as though to ask about the odor insinuating itself over that of the fish, cooking oil and offal in his sector of the market. I advise him that my luck did not stop with turtles, so I had better move on to where people eat real food. I’m not quick enough to dodge a light slap to the back of my head that knocks my cap askew.
Our market, like most run by the Romans, is laid out in a grid fashion with different numbered sectors, each with its assigned products. Papa had explained that this made it easier to control what was sold by whom. Because the Prefecture also set the prices for every type of commodity, it makes it easier to locate and fine cheats, largely because sellers keep their eyes on other sellers in their sector. The aisle ways crisscrossing and joining the sectors are wide and vendors are supposed to keep them clear of their goods. Papa also told us this is so that soldiers can move with speed through the market when there is any trouble.
As many vendors, not just fishermen, bring their wares by boat, quayside is Sector One. It is from here that I then walk east, away from the river, through the vegetable sector. Onions, radishes, leeks, cucumbers, figs, grapes, cabbages, turnips, melons all reach out with their fresh scents to grab at my growling stomach as I pass. I walk fast to get through to the fowl and poultry sector to finish my business.
Farmers and market workers I have known for years call out their greetings to me. Customers haggle, despite the administration’s price controls. Small groups of squatting men drink tea, play with their 20-sided dice and natter. Women laugh and scold their children.
Drool slips from one corner of my mouth as my stomach rumbles and I wipe it away with the back of my hand. The dank, gamey smell of the river on my hands puts my hunger down.

My straw basket is lighter; my purse heavier. The leavened barley bread smeared with olive oil, bean paste and garlic sits well in my belly. A small belch serves as a flavorful reminder of my well-deserved meal.
Just as I am heading for one of the latrine areas outside the market perimeter, a commotion starts up in the poultry and fowl sector behind and to my left. Although the spice sector and prepared foods sector are between me and it, I see shoppers and shopkeepers alike drifting that way and crowding around what is beginning to turn into something more than a scrap. I know this will quickly draw soldiers to keep the order, which means people are going to get hurt.
Later, I found that Timothy the live goose monger had gotten into an argument with a customer over something. The customer at one point pushed Timothy hard, saying that Christians like him were just brainless goose shit and ought to be thrown into the river for the hippos and crocodiles. Timothy then slashed out with a short-bladed butchering knife, cutting the man’s arm, while calling him a pagan son of a temple whore. At this point, others in the crowd began taking sides. Christians against pagans. Pagans against Christians. Jews in it just for a good argument, like so many others looking to have a little sport to spice up their dull lives so they might brag in the taverns.
Papa says it doesn’t pay to stick around to watch brawls like this because you never know how big they will get or how violent.
“Movete! Movete!”
That would be soldiers coming at double-time, telling people to get out of their way. There are just two of them, each strong and grim-faced; each carrying his light, round catra shield and short sword, with a puglio on his belt. The crowd will be no match for them and I know that this promises to be yet another of what Papa calls “bone-breaker containments.” Although necessary, in the end it will give fuel to rabble-rousers to stir up more hatred against the Prefect and his soldiers.
The pair jogs along the aisle where I am, so I jump off to my right side. A baker’s apprentice – an older boy I have seen before called Peter – trips me and follows that with a shove while calling me “bird brain.”
I try to keep to my feet but can’t. Falling, I want to yell something at him but my first angry flash gets instantly crushed when my head hits the edge of the baker’s wagon.
Hard.

The ceiling I see is the one I see every night before falling asleep and every morning when I wake up. The bed feels like my own and that I’m under my favorite linen coverlet with animal pictures on it. Cooking smells tease my nose and stomach, drawing me from muddled dreams.
Tem’s voice. “Momma! Her eyes are open!” Then quieter to me. “You’re going to get it now!”
“Daughter! What you done? People say you fight again in market! What me tell about wrestling market boys? Letting them put hands on you! Just wait! I tell you Papa!”
“Papa?”
I’m confused.
Momma says that I snuck into the house while she and Tem had gone out to do the laundry. She says I was asleep when they returned; that I didn’t wake up all the rest of that day and slept the night through, as well. She found me in my bed and says nothing she did would stir me. Tem says she even sat on me and pinched me, but that I didn’t notice that either.
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I try telling this to Momma – Tem is standing behind her and looking around at me like I’m some kind of fool – but she is having none of it.
“All time you on river make your brains cook. You lie to me all you want but me not your fool. So! Get dressed and eat something. Least you show some good sense putting wallet under big bed. Looks like good day you had from what you bring home. Just lucky no one steal all.”
Money always has a way of softening Momma’s anger.
She brings me a thick, hot porridge and a handful of berries to eat. I sit on the edge of the bed trying to collect myself, with the bowl in my lap and my feet on the floor. I stir the berries in with the porridge and start eating. With the first taste of warm food in what I guess is a couple of days at least, I close my eyes and take a deep breath. Momma sits with me and gently rubs some of her calendula ointment onto my chest. I yelp when she touches my left nipple and looking down it looks like it has been practically scraped off.
I should be fighting mad about this. But instead of thinking of how to get back at Peter, I’m feeling suddenly that life is really good. I tear up and clasp Momma’s forearm.
Sitting with Momma beside me on the bed, I think of how Tem and I each have a bed of our own, which is more than most kids we know have. The beds are just plain wood frames with short, squared legs, but they get us off the ground. Leather straps interlace and fasten to the side rails and a double layer of rush mats helps make the beds more comfortable. We use wood blocks with a cushion to pillow our heads.
Momma and Papa have a bigger bed because, of course, there are two of them. The legs are much heavier and turned by lathe. They are higher than mine and Tem’s, too. It also has a pluteus or headboard with horses’ heads carved on each corner. Papa loves horses. They have a down-filled mattress and a long down-filled bolster as their shared pillow. It’s nice to lie on their bed when they let us.
I think it is safe to change the subject now.
“Momma? Is Papa back?”
“No. Soldiers at garrison hear nothing yet. Eat. And stop you worry about him. None of that make him get home any sooner. And Tuya – just so if there speck of truth in lies you tell, me tell you stay away from boy who hit you. Momma forbid you go back to hit him. Next you know, you kill someone. Then what? You understand me?
“Tem! That two times as much for you, so stop eye-rolling! One day eyes go fall out of oh so pretty head. Then roll right out door. Bye!”
Momma pulls Tem to her.
“You both sweet desert foxes of mine. I love you. Tell Momma you going stay clear of market boy.”
Momma gets up and leaves me alone on the bed. Tem follows her out like a young coot.

My Momma comes from far up the river, from a place called Kush. I like when she tells me and Tem about what it was like for her growing up and how different river life is from so far away. She says she was much poorer there, so I’m sure that’s why Momma likes the extra coin I bring in. It helps the family, along with what she makes as a medicine woman, especially when Papa is away on patrol like he has been now for half a season. When he is away like this, we have to wait for what the soldiers call their salary.
Momma first came to Heliopolis when she was “fourteen floodings old,” as she says. Her father brought her along on a trading expedition that was supposed to make his fortune but he took ill with vomiting and diarrhea. A river sickness that killed him within just a few days. His partners said nothing when grandfather first complained of fever and tremors. They installed him at a cheap inn and bade Momma stay to put cool compresses on his forehead. A day later, grandfather’s cousin and their new leader – for grandfather had been the master on the journey downriver – told Momma they would carry out the trading and once finished come back for her. That was the last she saw of them.
Momma was kicked out of the inn the same day her father died. She had no money and no idea what had happened to her father’s body.
She would never say what she did to get by after that, except that some time later she met Papa.

It’s the third week of May, what some of Momma’s friends call Opet. She went out with them to visit their dead relatives’ sepulchri. Though Momma doesn’t know what happened to her father’s body, she says she honors his spirit at one of the cemetery shrines. She brought lots of perfumy flowers home.
Tem started her menses. Not so very sweet smelling. She had been complaining for some time about how her nipples hurt and I thought for sure she was just looking to take attention from me because of the way I had gotten grazed up. Now that she has started bleeding, I do notice that she also has a pair of walnuts beginning to pop up.
I always thought I’d be the first, like I have been in just about everything else. But, no, Tem is getting hit with the titty stick before me and is really letting me know about it. All she has been doing is marching around the house as though she is leading a procession down the temple avenue, flaunting her greening womanhood.
The scent of her blood at first made it hard for me to fall asleep at night. That and her moaning from cramps.
Momma gives her a borage tonic for the cramps and has shown her how to make cloth pads for catching the blood. I will make sure I am out on the river on laundry day.

Eight days after Tem’s menstrual blood has stopped flowing, several of Momma’s friends come by to visit. Momma explains to Tem that the women want to give a special Moon Ceremony for Tem to help her crossover to being a woman. They say it is a kind of celebration just for young girls like her and that it is very, very secret.
Why hadn’t we heard of this before? I mean me and Tem? We know all about cunni and tits and how to make ourselves feel good, and how could we not know about bleeding when every woman around us has had her monthlies while we were growing up. We had watched Momma wash out her rags and put them up to dry, while telling us all about the pestis. So it was like something you never wanted to happen to you, but still you looked forward to it just to know what it was like and be able to tell your own stories about it.
Poor Tem. Now she knows. But she is getting something special now, too, and I am not going to be a part of it. We’ve always done everything together, so this is hardly fair. I go back to my bed and when I am sure I am alone, I lift my linen and try to see myself down there and talk to whatever spirit might live there to tell it that it is time for me to join my sister, so we can do this Moon thing together.
Instead, I have to watch as the women come for Tem and Momma in the dead of night. All of them, including Momma and Tem, are painted with strange markings on their faces and everywhere else that I can see. I wish now I had made that feathered hat for my sister. She tries to keep a solemn look on her face, but I can tell she is very excited. I am told I have to stay behind and that I had better not try to follow. My time will come, they say.
After dawn, when Tem returns, she’s crying and groaning in pain, while holding her lower abdomen. Maybe this is not such a good thing after all.
Momma gives Tem something to drink that puts her to sleep, but she still moans and pumps her legs slowly, like she’s trying to get a foothold on to something solid. Meanwhile, Momma busies herself in the kitchen. I go up to her quietly. Tears are running down her cheeks, so I cough a little to let her know I am there. She turns and when she sees me, she opens her arms so we can hug.
Now I’m crying and I ask Momma what happened? What did they do to my sister?
Momma takes a few moments to compose herself, then takes me to a bench where we sit side by side. After a few deep breaths, she starts talking, not looking at me just yet.
“Thing start so beautiful! Tem your sister excited so. Me, too. All walk for hour to place of trees. Secret place where women already make safe circle. Circle have special magic showing earth, air, water, fire. Tem told stand in center then all we women stand around holding branches of fire. We sing for gods to bless Tem, we all, we families and world. Was such celebration just like we say.”
“It sounds nice, Momma.”
“Was nice – but then all changed. One woman from me home, upriver, go by name of Saka’aye, after olden times queen. Everyone call her Saka and have much respect for all know she able speak direct with gods. So. Saka drink magic water from Look-Ahead Gourd, she fall to ground, no hear, no see no one. All we think Saka must be talking with spirit and we pray she come back, bring good news and bless our Tem.”
Momma is breathing in fast, little breaths by this time, so she stops to get herself together again. I already know that things could not have gone well or Tem would not be in the state she is in, still fretful in sleep.
“What did Mother Saka say, Momma?”
“Such bad luck for our Tem! When Saka come back, she say because of Tem’s number six finger on left hand, she must do special work as kahin –“
“What’s that, Momma?”
“Oh, me think it what some around here call manti. Someone like Saka herself.”
“But that doesn’t sound so bad. Aren’t they healers, too? Like you are with all that you know about herbs and medicines?”
“Yes, dear Tuya, like that. This not the bad news though. Saka go on and say spirits no want our Tem bear any children. Ever. So, it then Saka tell us hold Tem down and she reach inside one hand, pushing down outside with other – and she break Tem’s womb neck. Bend it so no man’s seed find place.”
I can’t speak. I’m nearly exploding inside. Things are moving too quickly. I want to run away. Instead, I cry.

Although her menses had ended before her dedication, Tem bled for several days after her “celebration” but it has stopped now. I have been helping Momma nurse Tem along. Actually, once she could talk, she yelled hoarsely at Momma and told her to go away. Tem is better today but is still shaky, so I hold her up sitting to give her broth and medicines to drink. I wash her and keep her clean in other ways. She lets me brush her hair and asks me to sing to her, which I do in a low voice while stroking her head.
I think Tem is going to be all right. Some things are going to take longer to heal though. Momma says she has known of women who had this done to them, but they had asked a midwife to do it after already having a baby. Tem did not ask for this but now it’s done and that’s that. After a while, I’ll talk with her to get her to talk to Momma. It sounded to me like Momma could not have done anything to stop what Saka did and I see that she feels really bad about it. Tem’s tears have dried up but Momma’s haven’t.
Because we’re well into the month of June, I tell Momma that I need to get back out on the river. Caring for Tem has kept me away from my work and, besides, I need to be by myself to think about all that has happened. I don’t remember anything every being this bad in our family before and don’t see how they can get any worse.

Usually we do not see vultures this far north. Papa says they stick to the deserts east and west of Heliopolis, or farther upriver where it is dryer; though I have seen them on the ground a couple times before, making dinner of dead animals. Mostly crows take care of such things. That’s why I was surprised to see a pair of them making wide circles over this area. They stayed pretty high up in the sky, going around and ‘round, shaping an invisible snare over the city. Because they did not come down, they must not have spotted any remains. It was more like they were waiting for something to happen, for something to die.
This is on my mind as I make my way home from the river and the market. I only made a little money today as a result of my mind not paying attention to bird sounds and what they mean. There were some dead birds in my traps, but those that had not been mostly eaten by other animals were too far gone to even think of selling. I did reset my traps and I will go out tomorrow to check them.
Coming up to our house, my shoulders slump down and I am feeling tired. I don’t feel like seeing anyone, not even Tem or Momma – but there are people standing outside our gate. One of them is holding the bridle of a horse.
Papa has always talked about finally being able to buy a horse of his own. He says this would make him an eques, so that when he retires in a little while he could become someone important in the city, letting him make more money than his military pension will give us.
Did Papa finally get a horse when he was on this last patrol? And is he home now?
I go through the gate, with a quick look over my shoulder at the beautiful horse; then through the main entryway. Momma is sitting with a strange man, while two other men stand close by. These two glance my way briefly, but go back to the conversation between Momma and the stranger. He is military and from what Papa has told me about insignia and uniforms, he looks to be high ranking. Probably a centurion. That means the horse belongs to him, not Papa.
Though I have to pee, I hold it in and listen to what the man is saying to Momma.
“…so, you see, you are not really a Roman citizen. The one you call your husband was and your two daughters are citizens by birth, but Kush is not a part of the Imperium. I am sorry to have to be the one to tell you this.”
“But I tell you, I married to citizen. To soldier like you and two men here.”
“Yes, that is all well and good, but you see the laws say that soldiers cannot officially marry. Of course, we realize that they take up with local women all the time, and in your case, a foreign woman.”
One of the standing soldiers smirks and makes a knowing nod to the other at this. I want to kick him.
The centurion continues, “That is why I have to tell you that you may no longer live in this house. Legally this property belongs to the army. It was requisitioned for use for our officers when the 5th Macedonian Legion first came to this province. ”

That was nearly a month ago. Everything has changed since.
Papa is missing and the army says that if he did not desert, he must be dead. The centurion told Momma that he had ordered Papa and a few other soldiers to go to the army fort at Dionysias to oversee equipment distribution as a result of some irregularities. As this fort is at an oasis in the Western Desert, it is known that there are bandits and Bedouin in the area. At the time, there also had been rain storms and at least one big dust storm. Only one man from the group Papa led made it to the fort. He reported that he thought the others had drowned when water suddenly washed down a wadi to their night encampment. It missed him because he was squatting behind a bush and some distance from the others in order to relieve himself.
When word had gotten back to the centurion, he gave the surviving soldier a field promotion, directing him to take Papa’s place.
We spent the next several days sleeping in friends’ homes, usually on the floor because we had to leave our nice beds behind. When I think about those… those novi sleeping in our beds, it makes me feel hot and broken inside.
It was strange the way we left. The new soldier’s family just barged in and took over, bossing us around and telling us to get out. As we went out the gate like beggars, Tem turned around and stared at the house for some time. As though called, the family all came to the front doorway and seemed to be waiting for Tem to say something. And she did have something to say – but I have no idea what she said or in what language but it sounded like a curse. More than that, she said it so loud that passersby made a wide arc around us, a couple of Christians crossing themselves as they did so.
I have a new respect for my sister and told her so.
Momma had saved some money, so she found us a small, single room to the north of our old home. She said she did not want to live near our old place for fear that she would burn it down in the night and the army would know who to come looking for. She also said this is just temporary, until she can arrange for us to go upriver back to where she came from. Despite the betrayal by her uncle years ago, she is sure that there are cousins who will take us in until we can get back on our feet.
Meanwhile, we are making do here in this tiny room. The man she rents from says she can use the courtyard to cook in, as long as she keeps it clean. Fortunately, he is not around much but there is a woman he keeps that looks in on us every now and again. She seemed sympathetic when Momma told her our story but has not offered any real help.
I keep hoping that Papa will show up and take us away from all of this. It won’t matter if he is still in the army or not. I don’t give a cockroach’s ass for the army at this point.
What with Papa missing, losing our nice house and Tem’s agonies – these are just part of our troubles, it turns out. Though Momma has money saved up that she keeps well protected, I still need to help out with supporting the family. The walk to my skiff is now longer, given where we have relocated. All of my traps and snares had been damaged or taken, so I have had to redo all of them. The worst thing though is when I bring my day’s catch to market, people act like they hardly know me. Even Felix.
I always thought that we were good friends because of the way we joked with each other. When I saw him for the first time after everything bad started happening, he said he had heard about Papa and that he was really sorry. The thing is, he said all this in Greek. We always spoke before in Latin. Papa encouraged us to use the Roman tongue and learn Roman ways. Of course, there are a lot of people here from around where Papa came from and they use mostly the language from there – as do most others for that matter. So it’s not like I grew up not being able to understand Greek. But now everyone in the market, including Felix, only speaks to me in Greek.
Not only that, they don’t pay as much as they used to for what I bring in to sell. I’m still trying to figure all this out. Meanwhile, I speak Greek. Even at the place we now call home.
Momma sighs and shakes her head, but her gaze is hard and determined when she thinks I’m not looking. All in all, I wonder how she can stay as calm as she does. A lot calmer than me, for certain.

Because the river waters have been rising, Momma says we must leave for the south soon. Her plan is that we will travel by boat as far as Thebes; from there joining a caravan to Meroe. She says we have to be ready to leave quickly, so we find a cheap inn close to the water where the river people stay, for once a boat has its cargo loaded the craft master does not wait around.
It has been several days since we came to the inn. I go every morning to talk with the boat owners, craft masters and crews because I want to know what the river is like to the south. It’s hard to say who’s telling the truth and who’s stretching it just to scare me or impress me, but I’m getting an idea of what we can expect. It will be different.
Momma comes down to the docks later in the day to check with the progress of a certain boat and its cargo. She has made a small advance to its master, who is dark like Momma, and has agreed to take on cooking and cleaning chores once underway. He assures her that the material he is waiting for is likely to arrive any day.
Momma says this man’s word is good.
It is the twenty-first of July when Sirius the Dog Star joins the Sun at dawn during these hottest days. Before we go, I feel the urge to visit my old river haunts one last time.
I run towards the market quayside in hopes of finding the old reed boat Papa had made for us. It is there, hidden still in the papyrus reeds, so I climb in and catch the current to float downriver.
On the water, I begin to relax. By the time I catch my breath the eastern sky begins to brighten and a few birds are making their morning songs. This day I feel like they are singing not just to make the sun rise but also for me. I am as much a part of this place as are the birds. They are letting me know that just as they nest here, drop their still supple eggs to warm them beneath soft-feathered breasts, then greet the blind hatchlings into the world of the river, that this place has been my nest in a way, too. Though I may be curled inside a shell of my own and my eyes may yet be closed, light begins to penetrate my lids.
I think: It must be time for me to hatch, to learn to fly, to soar on my own. Things will be different now. They have to be.

Nothing But Alexandria

By Marina Chamma

Ten minutes were left for the express train to make its final stop into Alexandria’s Misr Station. For most of the two-and-a-half hour ride from Cairo, Rania’s head rested on her spotless, single-paned first class seat window. While she didn’t care for the luxuries of cleanliness and comfort on this trip, she had not been given much of a choice.
“A lovely lady like you travelling second class? Impossible!” the jovial middle-aged ticketing clerk at Cairo’s Ramses Station had told her the day before, as she tried to buy a regular one-way ticket to Alexandria.
“Thank you, that’s very kind of you,” she smiled, trying to keep her cool, “but I don’t want first class.” The clerk reached out for the booklet of first class tickets regardless.
“This is a first class ticket that will get you there in less than three hours!” he proudly exclaimed, as if the standard travel time to Alexandria couldn’t even escape Egypt’s obsession with haggling. Rania frowned, unconvinced.
“Besides, second class is only for Egyptians,” he triumphantly noted, ending the need for any further discussion. All the Egyptian movies Rania had watched as a teenager in Beirut had not been enough to keep even a short conversation going in the Egyptian dialect. Her colloquial Lebanese crept in soon enough, making it impossible to fool the natives. But being Egyptian or not wasn’t only about language. Luckily for the ticketing clerk, however, Rania had neither the time nor patience to argue about the definitions of a foreigner and whether she could even be considered one.
Rania had looked aimlessly out of the window throughout the ride. She took in as much of the hustle and bustle, the slums and crowds of the Cairo suburbs as her eyes could handle. Once out of the city, the vastness of the Egyptian hinterland was much simpler for her eyes to absorb. But the landscape was anything but monotonous, both arid and dusty, fertile and green, depending on how close the fields were to the bounties of the Nile.
Only after the train made its second to last stop at Tanta Station on the Upper Nile Delta, halfway through the trip, did the vast panoramas suddenly disappear. Rania could see nothing but Alexandria in front of her, without even closing her eyes. Its wide boulevards, chaotic narrow side streets and corniche – whose view into the city was blocked by endless rows of shiny new buildings, suffocating the remaining arabesque-styled villas that had yet to be brought to the ground. The way she saw Alexandria was drawn from the history books she read, the random documentaries she had watched and occasional dreams that were frighteningly lucid. No matter how different the city turned out to be from that of her imagination, she knew that once she arrived to Misr Station for the very first time, took a taxi heading northeast towards Al Ibrahimiyyah district and walked up Qena Street, she would find her grandmother’s house, just as it had been left and just as she had imagined it, waiting for her to bring it back to life.
As the train left Tanta Station, Rania suddenly felt a frantic urge to go through the neatly stacked contents of her brown leather messenger bag, most of which had been gathered during the past month. Handwritten notes scribbled around an improvised family tree going back to the 1860s. A list of family friends of her maternal grandmother with Levantine, Greek and Italian-sounding surnames with what would have once been their phone numbers and addresses in Alexandria. Rania knew she would be lucky if any of their descendants still lived there, let alone if anybody in the neighborhood recognized their names. The names of friends and relatives of her maternal grandparents who once lived in Cairo, whose numbers and addresses were also decades old. It was impossible that everyone had left without a trace and she would knock on their doors on her way back if she had to. Copies of the obituaries of her grandparents taken from three local newspapers, with nothing more than dates and standardized shallow epitaphs with post-mortem reverence for the dead. Photocopies of land deeds and a random collection of black and white passport pictures and colored family pictures delicately arranged in a rice paper notebook, every picture on a separate page. Delicately folded and placed at the front of the stack was a copy of the letter that had made the trip inevitable.

Barely one month had gone by since she had found the letter. Wandering at home on a lazy Monday evening, Rania stumbled upon a cardboard box everybody has in that ubiquitous dusty little corner of their attic. Mom must have thought it was filled with my faded teenage mementos and sent it here with the movers, she thought. The box was bursting at the seams and most of its contents came tumbling down as Rania removed the lid. There was everything from her baby pictures, souvenirs from family vacations, birthday cards from aunts and uncles, cassettes sent by her cousins as recorded letters and a small plastic box with two of her intact milk teeth. She found one of her favorite pictures of her mother as a fashionable, single 20 something year old, posing on a balcony overlooking an endless sparkling harbor she didn’t recognize. As she kept going through the box, five pages of elegant cursive handwriting suddenly fell into her lap from an envelope that was placed upside down. It was a letter to her mother and aunt Mona from her grandmother, written shortly before she had died. Coincidentally, Mona, the keeper of the family history and only one who would help her decipher what she had just found, would be visiting her in Beirut in a couple of days. Rania didn’t believe in signs, but if she did, she knew this is exactly what one would look like. It was a sign that she was ready to get her answers, to start uncovering the truth.

Rania’s maternal grandmother Rose and grandfather Hani were third generation Lebanese living in Egypt, their own grandparents having escaped Mount Lebanon’s simmering sectarian warfare of the mid-1800s in what was then part of the Ottoman Empire. They formed part of the community of Levantines, Greeks, Italians and other Mediterraneans, who settled primarily in Cairo and Alexandria, and made these metropoles so cosmopolitan. Each of these communities preserved some of the features of their countries of origin and never let go of their attachment to it. Together they forged a unique identity, a blend of Egyptian and the best and worst of their own cultures brought together in Egypt, their ultimate home.
Rose was born and raised in Alexandria and Hani in Cairo. They had met in Beirut, both back in the motherland for a month-long summer vacation with their respective families in the late 1950s. Hani couldn’t take his eyes off the charming brunette who had walked past him in one of downtown Beirut’s most popular confectionaries, while Rose was immediately captivated by the young man’s mischievous smile and captivating stare, more than compensating for his unassuming physique. The fact that they were both from Egypt and their families knew of each other only facilitated their relationship. After a six-month courtship, involving crowded afternoon gatherings in Beirut, lunches in Cairo and long strolls on Alexandria’s harbor, they got married and Rose moved to Cairo. Their two daughters were born and raised in Cairo, Rania’s mom married early and moved to Beirut, while Mona stayed until her father died.
Rania was ten years old when her grandfather passed away in 1982. How she and her mother had hastily flown into Cairo from Beirut on a stormy winter night, and rushed to see Hani for the very last time, was one of those memories that remained intact in her mind. For the next two days, Rania was confined to her grandparents’ apartment in Cairo’s Heliopolis district, left under the supervision of relatives she had never met. She realized something was wrong when strangers started flocking to the house, all dressed in black, paying their respects in an eerie silence and heading out the door quickly thereafter. Only hours after the condolences were over, Rania and her mother took the first plane back to Beirut and Mona was sent to Boston under the care of a distant relative. Rose sold the family’s Cairo apartment and moved back to her native Alexandria into her parent’s house with an unmarried sister and cousin. Mona had begged Rose to settle in the safety of America instead, but she had adamantly refused. It appeared as if Rose couldn’t stay in Cairo after her husband’s death nor could she live too far away from it either.
For Rania and her mother to go to Alexandria to visit Rose was never an option. They would go to Athens, Paris or Limassol to meet instead, or Rose would come to Beirut whenever a lull in the always precarious security situation allowed for it. The bond between grandmother and granddaughter was kept alive and strong through phone calls and letters, sometimes accompanied by pictures other times with checks, a grandmother’s gift to her one and only niece at the time. Back then, Rania was too young to ask why couldn’t her grandmother send less checks and let her go visit her in Alexandria instead. Even if someone was willing to explain, Rania wouldn’t have understood the answers anyway.
During one of many visits she had taken to visit Mona and her family in Boston throughout the years, Rose died of a sudden heart failure days before going back to Alexandria. Her wishes were granted and her body laid to rest in Alexandria, far from her daughters but as close as she could to her husband in Cairo. Rania had just turned 20 and had been two weeks since she last talked to her grandmother. Rose’s unexpected death was a blow to Rania that took years for her to recover from. The fact that she couldn’t lay a flower on her grandmother’s grave in Alexandria to bring some closure made the healing process longer and as an adult, made the mystery of her grandmother’s life, and subsequently that of her grandfather’s, even more intriguing. With nobody willing to answer her questions, Rania sometimes resigned herself to the idea of never knowing and living with her self-adapted version of the truth instead.
But it wasn’t always easy. The physical similarities she and Rose shared, her mother’s occasional slip of tongues of “you look so much like your grandmother” or “Rose would’ve said the same thing” only increased her frustration about not knowing. Her desire for the truth was intensified by what she felt was a conscious attempt to keep the truth away from her. “I don’t know” or “ask Mona,” Rania’s mom always used to say to avoid her questions. Rania knew there was more to her grandmother than her never-ending pool of family anecdotes, and more to her grandfather than her austere memories of when she last saw him. As she grew older, Rania also realized that this thirst for the truth was becoming a quest for something very personal, for discovering part of her own roots, to better define who she really was. While most Lebanese, especially those whose families had emigrated to faraway lands, went back to Lebanon to uncover their roots and with it some of their identity, Rania knew she had to take the opposite route and walk out of that little nation to get what she wanted.
Suddenly, the letter appeared. It was a treasure buried right beneath Rania’s eyes, one she had never in her wildest dreams believed even existed. The letter read like an abridged family history and will of sorts, as if Rose knew that whatever took her far from her home and late husband, even a trip to see her daughters and grandchildren, would one day suck life right out of her. Attached to the main envelope was an unmarked envelope filled with black and white and colored pictures, individual and group pictures of what looked like better and happier times. Based on the date handwritten on the back of them, the last one taken was a colored picture of Rose before her last trip to America. Her allure exuded a faded yet pure and simple elegance, but not enough to erase the melancholy radiating from her stare. Yet she stood tall and proud, resting on an ornate black iron railing of a balcony, overlooking a harbor that Rania also didn’t recognize.

Rania was absorbed in her thoughts, but could have sworn to have heard the first of several bilingual announcements that their final stop into Alexandria’s Misr Station was approaching. She pushed her mental rewind button one last time, wanting to make sure everything was intact in her mind before getting off the train.

Barely ten hours after landing in Beirut and Mona was already resting on Rania’s cough, getting ready to be interrogated. She knew this was bound to happen one day but just as Rania, didn’t quite know where to start. Before opening their first bottle of white wine, Rania had already put their second to chill in the fridge. It was going to be a long night.
“I told you I found the letter,” Rania announced, “the one nobody ever told me about and pretended didn’t exist.” Rania untangled her feet and walked up to a small drawer at the far end of the living room. Mona watched as Rania brought back two envelopes attached to each other. She was surprised they had remained almost intact, with their clear blue tint, bright red and navy diagonal borders and “Air Mail” and “Par Avion” emblazoned on the bottom left corner in bold.
Mona closed her eyes for a moment. She clearly remembered how she had hand delivered the letter to Rania’s mother two months after their mother passed away. They had opened the letter together and spent the rest of the day laughing and crying, wondering how things went so wrong and how their lives would have been if they hadn’t.
“We don’t pretend it doesn’t exist,” Mona said calmly, “but what do you expect your mom and I to do with it after all these years?” Rania stared at Mona in silence. “The letter is what’s left of our history. Look at it as you would any other history book, you read it, learn from it and try to never forget it.”
“But what about justice or at least telling people the truth? Why did I have to know by mistake? Don’t I have the right to know too?” Rania said, frustrated that she had to even justify her right to know.
“Well, now you do,” Mona drily replied.
“Oh goddammit Mona, they’re my grandparents too. I never really knew how grandpa died, nor why we could never go to Cairo, nor why Rose had to move to Alexandria. She died and it was all completely over, as if they only existed as your parents and my grandparents, not as human beings on the face of the earth in their own right.”
Mona nodded in silent approval.
“So there’s nothing left in Cairo, right?” Rania asked.
“Yes” Mona replied, trying hard to stay calm. “Mom sold the house right after Dad died. Hani had no siblings, so nothing is left.” Rania knew Mona didn’t like to talk neither about Cairo nor her father too much, they were two wounds that had still not healed after all these years. It was because of how Hani died so unexpectedly, and the way she was snatched out of college in Cairo and siphoned off to Boston without with no choice but to comply. The wound remained so deep, exacerbated by stories of how much Cairo had changed since she left, that Mona had refused to go back since.
“What about Alexandria?” Rania continued, “is there anybody left there, a relative or neighbor of Rose, do we know if there is a house or at least know where it was?”
“Addresses and names of relatives and friends are in the letter,” Mona said, “but they haven’t been verified in decades. Everything else I know Rose told me during the last years of her life.”
All five are equally effective but have slightly different activity. viagra effects women is considered to work slightly faster than levitra. generico levitra on line may work up to 36 hours after taking the tablet. Although most of us get energy from the foods and beverages consumed by us however some people sample generic viagra suffer from erectile dysfunction. The other important advantages of going for using Kamagra UK products instead of other ineffective and unreasonably expensive sexual ED drugs are as follows:* Fastest appalachianmagazine.com levitra purchase online worldwide delivery and next day delivery in UK provided by efficient Kamagra Fast.* Complimentary pills.* Discounts on ordering the products again.* Free 24/7 live assistance by Kamagra experts. Side effects Head pain, giddiness, light-headedness, flushing, nasal blocking, dyspepsia, queasiness,etc. are some most cheap viagra generic seen side-effects accounted. Rania stared at Mona with her eyes wide open. She was waiting for Mona to corroborate in her own words what she had read about in the letter. Mona took a deep breath and went on.
“I think about it more often that you think, so does your mom, but then we forget. The same happens after the questions I get from my own kids or from your mother, because of your own questions. Sometimes it hits me, the need to know the truth, for someone to account and to bring closure to us all. But then I think it much better for time to heal and take care of it for us.”
It was hard for Rania to fully comprehend her mother and aunt’s ability to remain so passive in the face of their father’s death and Rose’s struggle to live a relatively normal life afterwards.
“But what about Cairo? It’s part of who we are as a family. Don’t you feel like you want to go back? Don’t you feel part of you belongs there?” Rania asked, voicing her own questions on her identity and belonging more than a concern for those of her aunt’s.
“When it comes to the bond with the place we grew up in,” Mona explained, “you do suddenly discover this desperate need for a sense of belonging. The need to belong not only to a place, but to a certain space, culture and time, no matter how far that place is or how detached that culture may be from the one you now consider your own. Still, it has to exist and be protected in a safe place in your mind. Without it, there’s a part of your soul that is missing and constantly restless, wondering around with no place to feel at ease. I may never go back nor see it again but know that the Egypt to which I belong remains in a safe place in my mind and that’s all that matter to me now.”
Rania already knew the answer to her next question, but decided to ask anyway.
“Would you come with me if I went?” Mona looked away, her nostalgic stare quickly turning into something bordering on anger. Without looking back at her niece, Mona’s initial answer was simply silence.
“Shou?” what, Rania asked, “What do you say?”
“Rania, do you think this is a game? There is nothing to see there,” Mona’s tone clearly irritated, turning back toward Rania, looking intensely into her eyes, hoping to make herself clear. “I know I will barely recognize Cairo if I ever go back, let alone Alexandria.” Mona reached out for her glass of wine, took a slip and went on.
“You asked if there was anybody left, a relative, a neighbor or a house. I don’t really know and I’m not sure I want to find out. Relatives would have surely passed and their sons and daughters probably don’t care about the past. Old neighbors may have already forgotten or still saddened to even think about it. If Rose’s house it still standing in Alexandria, it probably no longer belongs to us, just another lovely old house, like they don’t build them anymore, with a breathtaking view of the Alexandria harbor. So it’s probably best to keep things as your grandmother left them, in that letter and in our minds.”
“But what if…”
“What if what!” Mona shouted, starting to regret having allowed the conversation to go this far. “Neither Alexandria nor Cairo are anything like the romanticized image you must have of them,” Mona continued, angrily. “I’ve come to terms with that and with fate itself, that my dad is gone, however that happened, and the way that mom dealt with it, no matter how much I agree or disagree with it. I’ve kept the family memories instead, the happy and sad ones and will leave my kids with those same memories and nothing else.”
“I want to go,” Rania whispered, partly to avoid another furious reaction from Mona and also because she wasn’t quite sure what she would do there herself. But there was something she felt she had to see or try to find. A road she had to walk up, someone recognizable she would bump into and talk to, who would tell her stories that belonged to her family that were still missing from that history book Mona mentioned. She believed and somehow knew that her grandmother had left the letter for a reason. It wasn’t for them to reclaim any material goods, but to start uncovering the truth and part of her own past with it.
Her aunt looked at her, then turned away so that Rania couldn’t see her and smiled. Mona knew that no matter what she said, she wouldn’t be able to change Rania’s mind. Her stubbornness is truly like Rose’s, Mona thought, and maybe that letter was meant for nobody else but her.

My Beloved Girls,
Something tells me I should write this letter once and for all before it’s too late. I’ve always felt that every day that passes since the day your father left is a luxury I have done nothing to deserve. You and your families are the only thing that has kept me going, but that will all come to an end soon. I hope it will.
There are things I was able to tell you and others I was never able to gather the strength to say. I hope this will be the first step for you to get to the truth, to fight the system that caused us so much misery, but without fighting the country or its people that we are also a part of. By the time you are ready for this, Egypt would have changed so much from the one we knew, that you would need to have to come to terms with that too.
They killed him, I know they did. The results of the autopsy became a state secret only a handful of officials knew the details of. Ghassan told me Hani was killed and I believe him. I never dared called him again to ask for details, after the last time I saw him at the hospital, for fear of putting him in greater danger than he already was in. Your father wasn’t alone. They all had something big planned, as big as the damage and corruption they saw unfolding in front of their eyes every single day they went to their public offices for the past ten years. Hani seemed to be the weakest link and so he was eliminated. They had set their eyes on us too, in case we got anywhere near wherever they buried him or if we tried to make some noise about what happened. Part of me died the day he did, the rest slowly melted away at my powerlessness to bring him justice or from knowing that I wouldn’t be able to lay next to him the day I died. The safest would have been for me to leave Egypt, you both had already been taken care of, but Alexandria was the farthest I could stay from him, even if it meant that they could come after me and silence me one day. I am sorry for not having done more to keep his memory alive or for not letting his death go in vain. I hope you will, I guess it’s never too late.
Know that everything you ever wanted to have, know, read and see is at home in Alexandria, 59 Qena Street. You’ll know where to find it if you ever decide to go back, to open the wounds of the past, even after all these years, to bring justice, closure or whatever you believe is right, you are his daughters after all. And if you’re asking whether it’s safe, I would say that by the time you see this letter again and are ready to go back, so much time would have passed that it would be more than safe to go back. Go back for him. Even if it means you will not recognize your country nor your city, not find the spirit that made us who we are, or its soul, part of which meant it was the entire world in one place…just go to see me, to go to find him, go back for him…

Rania could no longer remember how many times she had read the letter. All she knew was that it had only taken these four paragraphs to convince her that she was going “back for him” and Rose, no matter what it took.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we will be soon arriving to Alexandria’s Misr Station. Please make sure to take all your belongings…”
Rania’s nerves began to take hold of her senses and she couldn’t stand still. She stood up to get her carry-on luggage from the overheard compartment and didn’t sit back down. She opened her messenger bag one last time, making sure she had not left anything on board. She doubled-checked on her unbound notes neatly stacked in her bag’s outer compartment. Mona had finally agreed to cooperate and gave her everything she either had on paper or could unearth from memory. She was staying at a small bed and breakfast, close to where her grandmother’s house once was, initially booked for a week, though she already felt she would need more than that.
Rania slipped her hand into a smaller compartment of her bag and without looking took out a medium-sized black and white picture. It was the earliest picture she had of Rose, wearing a dark v-neck dress slightly above the knee, sculpted by a wide leather belt and brightened by an imposing pearl necklace. She looked straight into the camera, with a look of refreshing beauty and witty charm. Standing next to her was a shorter and darker man, with the most mischievous of smiles and captivating of stares, soon to be her husband. There were no guarantees that anybody would recognize the couple in the picture, but there was no way Rania would ever go to Alexandria without it, without them.
Before the train took a sharp turn left, as it prepared to make its final stop, Rania got a fleeting glimpse of the sea. It was a different kind of Mediterranean to which she was accustomed to see in Beirut, but it was somehow familiar. She was already hit by a feeling of deja-vu, of having been to or at least seen this wide stretch of Alexandria’s harbor somewhere before.
“Ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Alexandria, Misr Station.”