Summer Nights

Triger warning: mention of domestic violence and rape.

I am lying on my back on the rooftop of Shahrazad’s house, in Morocco. The sky is clear, the stars are glittering and the smell of the incense (a substance that is burned for the sweet smell it produces, frequently use in Arab countries) is filling the air. My name is Khadija Hassan and I am a reporter from Lebanon, I came here on the request of my boss Gazzi something to investigate some peculiar incident that potentially happened thirty years ago. Before going on about what is the incident you must be informed about how I entered in an old woman's house?

If you asked the people here about Shahrazad, you would find two accounts on her. The first, she is the most generous and kind woman you would ever meet, very intellectual, memorizing many poems even at sixty years of age and always with a smile on her face, even if she is telling you off. The second account, is that she is an embodiment of the devil, she is cunning and malicious, she would cut you apples and them stapes you with the knife smiling. Apparently, the smile thing is the only thing that they agreed upon and I could prove it the day I got her.  

When I knocked on her door, I told her that I was mugged shortly after I left the airport and I needed a place to stay until I finish my papers at the embassy, she agreed readily. I sincerely thought that it would be hard to convince her, since she is an elderly woman living alone. I asked the neighbors before where could I stay for free, they laughed, I expected that, then if a house of only women would take me, they told me about Shahrazad. On both accounts: that she is very generous and she would love some fresh meat to chew on. I was planning to tell her that I asked many people before her so she won’t be so doubtful, but she never seemed suspicious, I began to think it was usual for her to have stranded women in her house all the time.

The cushions I am lying on are crimson, green and gold decorated with sequins and embroidery. I am wearing a loose Moroccan Djellaba (a traditional Moroccan clothing characterized by having large and loose hoods). I am wearing nothing underneath it and this summer dessert night is getting chilly, so I properly should go and grab a shawl.

Next moment I see Shahrazad coming out of the door that leads to the staircase with two blankets and a teapot, I felt at that moment a great regard to her that may mounted to love.

‘Take this dear’, she said and handled me a grey blanket.

 ‘The weather is remarkable today’, I simply nodded while drinking tea.

‘If you are going to be a boring guest I would have to throw you out’, she said smiling so I hoped she was joking. ‘The night is so calm I won’t venture to disturb it, don’t you think so?’

 ‘We must not interrupt the silence, I agree. The absence of speech doesn’t mean the absence of everything and therefore the void’

‘That is very profound’

‘I am a very deep person trust me’, she said as if she was joking and added, ‘we walk through air swearing its nothing, we tend to neglect the existence of what not sit on our shoulder like a vulture, but if we walk through void it would disseminate us’

‘That is very deep indeed’

‘Yes, yes, darling the void is voracious, but you must excuse its nothingness, it is horrifying’

‘Is that coming from wise age?’

‘This is coming from a rich life, rich and painful life’, and added jokingly, ‘sometimes I tend to count the day where I had to suffer twice as two, so you see I counted 109 years’

I smiled but said nothing

‘Void people, void people are the most corrupting’

She pointed at a corner in the roof where there are some dead plants.

‘I planted Kalanchoe, Zahra said it caused her allergies, I said: good, and then I let it die’

‘Weird, how come you didn’t grow more just to spite them?’

Shahrazad was lying on the ground as if she was a 15-year-old boy

‘I only put it there to look good, if people saw it and it caused them anxiety then it is kind of useless. I frankly thought she would get jealous and buy a couple for her roof and then Dalal and then Nouf and all the neighborhood, but instead lame Zahra had to fake a medical case’, she added after a pause, ‘I don’t like to be the only snob that has plants on her roof, I already have many cushions’

‘And then why leaving them dead?’

‘to ignite my spite, you see every time I have Zahra here, who properly forget about her allergy, and she talk about those poor plants and how I am cruel for letting them die, I gather what I love to call it “a glimpse of molarity”

I drew closer to her with anticipation ‘please elaborate’

‘Fine, you see every time I reproach myself for not doing enough good in this world there are some rules I have. How this good would be distributed? Whom is it benefits? And would the cycle begin again? When Zahra talks about how dead plants are making her sad even though she asked me to through them away, I begin to ask myself “do I act like this?” I question if I priorities making people the devil over making myself appear sympathetic, and I ask it frequently’   

She continued ‘The key is to never answer the questions that portray morality indefinitely, but to ask them every day for the rest of your life until God meets you’  

‘But Zahra’s is not that evil, I mean there is worse, families killing each other, men rapping women. You almost hear that every day’

‘I cannot see myself raping someone, I could say that with confident’ she said as if she was repressing a memory. ‘I would measure myself to Zahra because we are women and I would say that she won’t rape someone either, women learn to care, the only moral choice we take is who we choose to take care of. We are taught that guns are for “strong men” and when we grow and figure we can kill people too, we would have grown so bitter to think of using them’

‘When women want to wound someone they would let him cry on his pillow, unfortunately it is mostly toward other women’, I said trying to keep the conversation going.

‘Yes they do, but I am never so hurt by it. I would love for people to care about how they make me feel, even if they want me miserable’, then she held the teapot toward me smiling, ‘tea sweetie?’

‘Yes, please’

 She kept quiet for a while and I had to induce her to keep the subject. ‘No, I would prefer people to not care for me at all than wanting me miserable’

‘You wouldn’t want that. Let me give you some wisdom (she said mockingly). When people want you miserable they are aware that they are the sinister party and will not hold the act for too long. However, when people are not giving a damn about your feelings you would always be the sinister in their eyes’

I thought she stopped talking when she began. ‘My husband didn’t give a damn about what he did to me, I told him how I felt at first and he called me disobedient and ungrateful. I used to cry and he thought that I was possessed by a jin and took me to some swindler, who tried to hit me with some sticks to expel the jin and gave me some laxative herbs. Anyway, it didn’t work, I still cried and was still disobedient and ungrateful. So he declared many times that I was ill fated and crazy. You see he was completely in the dark.’ And she dropped her smile.

She mentioned her husband. That was it. I had the tip of the thread and I had only to pull.

It has been long saying that the accident that caused the death of Shahrazad’s husband was fabricated. Her husband was one of the richest merchants in Morocco even North Africa, trading in cars, medicines and many goods. People suspected many of his business partners but no one was convicted. It came to surface the last year that he was secretly married to another woman before the death of his wife, who left him with one daughter. The second secret wife is Shahrazad.

‘Did he hit you?’ I asked. Unintentionally, I was googling at her when she noticed and composed herself. ‘He did many thing’. I needed to apologize and persuade her to keep talking. ‘I didn’t mean to be intrusive, but I do understand how you feel’

She remained silent for a couple of minute, and then begin ‘He did hit me, but he thought he was disciplining me, it was something he surely believed (she said grunting her teeth). The thing was he believed that I was like a dog that if you poked it with a stick once it would stop biting the curtains. I had him sometimes. I knew more words, stories and poetry than he did and I loved nothing more than to tease him about it (she started to smile again). He would act as if he knew it before me, uninterested or he would hit me, but I stopped caring at that point, he was more easily hurt than I was.  

Jafar (Shahrazad’s husband) died in a car accident.

He was advised against driving; he had glaucoma in both eyes due to him having diabetes. He choose to drive with bad vision in a high road in the middle of the night, which led to his death.

‘Did you have children?’ I asked aware of the answer. ‘No’, she said the truth. I will induce her to talk about Sara his daughter. ‘I love children, their purity offers a promise of a better person’, she said.

‘And this promise is often broken’

‘Not all children, some keep their promise even when it bring them more harm than good’

‘Do you know any?’

She remained silent.

‘I don’t think me having children would have been a very good idea, I would have been self destructively protective with them, not a good thing as a mother. I believe.’

‘You seem like you would be a good mother’, I said. She started to seem agitated.

‘We wouldn’t know’. She shrugged.

‘Are you nice to kids?’ I asked smiling.

‘You should ask them’. She seemed as she wanted to end the conversation.

‘You know sad kids always break my heart. I love reckless kids. Sara seemed to be of the sad type’. Until my dumb ears catched what my stupide mouth said I completed my sentence as if nothing and then I gave a sudden halt. Even my breath ceased.   

‘SARA!’ she shouted. ‘From where you know here?’ her tone was sharp and she looked at me with narrowed eyes.

I couldn’t come up with anything. The fact that she was married to Jafar is concealed and her connection with Sara likewise. Among close relation, it was known that Shahrazad took care of Sara after her mother’s death.

Shahrazad stood up and said in anger ‘why are you here? Looking for money!? There is nothing in this house but old furniture’. ‘You should leave in the morning. Your papers should have been done by this time’

‘He didn’t leave you anything?’ I asked in disbelief, I think it was reckless for me to ask this question.

‘He did, I gave it all to his daughter’

‘Are you still in contact with her after her father’s death?’

‘No’ she screamed threatening. ‘And if you keep asking questions I would have to throw you out at this moment’. I did not care. ‘Why did he drive his car that night?’. ‘He was an idiot that’s why’, she shouted.

Shahrazad reaction to his death seamed suspicious to me. Why she seems so angry? Is she guilty of something?’

I needed to get a case. I don’t care if she throws me out in the middle of the night. ‘Was he abusive? Did he hit Sara too?’ To this question, she froze, her gaze fixed on the floor.

After a pause, she said, her voice quavering ‘no he only hit me’. She was shaking.

‘He had never hit her, she loved him and was sad he died’ she said in a more conforming tone.

‘But she stayed with you and you give her you money. You must had an intimate relationship with her. A relationship built on mutual suffering.’

She seemed paralyzed with my words.

‘No, Sara has nothing to do with this. No need to bring it up now. She is having a child in a couple months’ she said in a surprisingly calm voice.

Did something happen? I kept thinking. Why she doesn’t want me to talk to Sara.

She started talking again ‘he wasn’t supposed to drive that night, he was supposed to contact one of his assistant to drive him.’ She hesitated for a moment ‘I deleted his number before he went out. Thought it would piss him off. But he decided to drive on his own and died’

She waved her hands as if it was nothing but she had tears in her eyes.

‘So what are you going to do?’ she asked me, regaining her smile.

Lier I wanted to say, I didn’t. I gazed into the sky for a while without saying anything. She must love Sara enough to lie for her.