csua.org/u/78x -> www.canada.com/ottawa/ottawacitizen/news/archives/story.html?id=8033a7e7-ab3e-4d44-aefb-92860b723f5e
I smelt the petrol and ran, the hem of my dress getting in the way. Was he waiting for me to fall so he could watch me go up in flames? My story began almost 25 years ago in my native village in the West Bank, a tiny place, in a region then occupied by the Israelis. If I named my village, I could be in danger, even though I am now thousands of miles away. A woman must walk fast, head down, as if counting the number of steps she's taking. She may never stray from her path or look up, for if a man catches her eye, the whole village labels her a charmuta, prostitute. A girl must be married before she can raise her eyes and look straight ahead, or go into a shop, or pluck her eyebrows and wear jewellery. If a girl is still unmarried by that age, the village begins to make fun of her. But a girl must wait her turn in the family to be married. There were also two half-sisters, by our father's second wife, who were still children. The one male child of the family, who was born in glory among all these daughters, was our brother, Assad. I'd hardly been further than a few kilometres beyond the last house on the dirt road. I knew there were cities further away, but I had never seen them. What I did know was that we had to hate the Jews, who had taken our land; We were forbidden to go near them for fear of becoming pigs like them. Where I come from, being born a girl is a curse: a wife must first produce a son -- at least one -- and if she gives birth only to girls, she is mocked. At most, only two or three girls are needed to help with the housework, to work on the land and tend the animals. Our stone house was big, and surrounded by a wall with a large door of grey iron. Once we were inside, it closed on us to prevent us going out. You could enter by this door from the outside, but you could not go out again. Once he tied up my sister Kainat and me, our hands behind our backs, our legs bound, and a scarf over our mouths to stop us screaming. We stayed like that all night, tied to a gate in the stable. The girls and women in the other houses were beaten regularly, too. My sister was beaten by her husband and she brought shame on our family when she came home to complain. We came back from the fields, and found my mother lying on the floor on a sheepskin. She was giving birth, and my aunt, Salima, was with her. Very quickly my mother took the sheepskin and smothered the baby. I saw my mother do it this first time, then a second time. I'm not sure I was present for the third, but I knew about it. From then on I hid and cried every time my father killed a sheep or a chicken. As long as I lived with my parents, I feared I would die suddenly. I was afraid of going up a ladder when my father was below. I was afraid of the hatchet used for chopping the wood, afraid of the well when I went for water. Sometimes she tried to intervene when my father hit us especially viciously, and then he'd turn on her, knocking her down and pulling out her hair. She was dreamy and never very attentive to what was said to her. When she came to help us pick olives, she worked and moved slowly. Hanan was sitting on the floor, arms and legs flailing, and Assad was leaning over her, strangling her with the telephone cord. We pressed ourselves against the wall to make ourselves disappear. Assad must have heard us come in because he yelled "Rouhi! I saw her crying, but I know now she was just pretending: I've come to understand how things happen to girls in my land. It is decided at a family meeting, and on the fatal day the parents are never present. Only the one who has been chosen to do the killing is with the intended victim. It doesn't take much for everyone to see a girl as a charmuta who has brought shame to the family and must die to restore their honour -- as well as that of the entire village. As I grew up, I waited hopefully for a marriage proposal. I was 18 by then and had grown to hate village weddings because all the girls made fun of me. I found this terribly depressing, because I had to wait until Kainat was married before I could take a husband. Then I discovered that a neighbour, Faiez, had asked for me. Sometimes I caught sight of him from the terrace where I laid out the laundry to dry. He must have had a good job in the city because he didn't dress like a labourer. He always wore a suit, and he carried a briefcase and he had a car. I imagined that we were married, that he'd come back from work at sunset and I'd remove his shoes and, on my knees, I'd wash his feet as my mother did for my father. Maybe I'd even be able to put on make-up, get into his car with him, and go into town to the shops. I decided to do everything I could to speak to him, at the risk of being beaten or stoned to death. One morning I heard his footsteps on the gravel outside his house. I shook my wool rug over the edge of the terrace and he looked up. He saw me and I knew he understood, although he made no sign and not a word was spoken. So I let him do what he wanted -- without quite knowing what was going to happen to me. One morning, in the stable, I suddenly felt very strange. And later, as I prepared the meal, the mutton made me feel ill. If I was pregnant, my father would smother me in the sheepskin blanket. I was hopeful all the same, every evening, of seeing him appear out of nowhere, as he had before, to the left or right of the ravine where I hid. Three or four months later, my stomach began to get larger. It was my father who came toward me, on a washing day, his cane striking the ground of the courtyard. Later, I pleaded with my mother, assuring her that I had had my period. There was a family meeting, which of course I wasn't allowed to attend: my parents, Noura and my brother-in-law Hussein. Hussein told her to wait, then confirmed arrangements with my parents: "You'll go out. Maybe they would let me have the child then kill me afterwards? The next day my mother told me that she was going to the city with my father. It was encircled by a wall, and all around on top of the wall were iron spikes. In one corner, the metallic grey door, smooth on the courtyard side, without a lock or key, and only a handle on the outside. Twenty-five years later, I see these images again as if time has stopped. There were women, I remember, two of them, so I must have climbed over the garden wall and into the street. I felt the cold water running on me and I cried out with pain because it burnt me too. Later, on a hospital bed, I was curled up in a ball under a sheet. She pulled roughly on the fabric and the pain jolted me. I slept, my head still stuck to my chest, as it was when I was on fire. My arms were extended out from my body and both were paralysed. I wanted to scratch myself, to rip off my skin to stop the pain. When I woke again I saw two bare feet, a long black dress, a small form like mine, thin, almost skinny. Her two plaits were smoothed with olive oil, her black scarf, that strange forehead, a bulge between her eyebrows over the nose, a profile like a bird of prey. She sat on a stool with her black bag and started to weep, her head rocking back and forth. Never will I forget that big glass she filled to the top with a transparent liquid, like water. Suddenly a young doctor -- one of the few members of staff who had treated me kindly -- came into the room. He grabbed the glass from her hand and banged it down on the windowsill. He took my mother by the arm and made her leave the room. I knew they were letting me die because it was forbidden to intervene in a case like mine. I would endure the fate of all women who sully the honour of men. They kept me there because it was a hospital where I was supposed to die without creating more problems for my parents and the village. Hussein had botched the job: he had let me run away in flames. One night I felt a strange pain, like a knife stuck into my stomach. He leant over and took the baby away, without showing it to me. Later he told me that I had given birth at six months to a tiny boy, but that he was alive and being cared for. I heard vaguely what he was saying to me, but my ears had been burned and hurt so terribly. Someone came...
|
http://csua.com/feed/