People assume that little girls spend their whole time talking about boyfriends when in fact they also dream of the brother they long for or the brother they would turn into a toad without a second thought. That was true of us. We had boyfriends and we did talk about them, but only to say they were dumb and boring. Little girls also think about the sister they desperately miss or the one they would happily see burn in hell, but rarely talk about them. This too was true of us: we avoided the subject since Louiza was determined that none of the little witches should be spared and I was furious at the idea she would consign her adorable little sister to the flames.
At sixteen, the beautiful Louiza was married off to a pauper from some distant, utterly benighted suburb. He gave her a string of daughters and not a single son. In genetics, it’s either one thing or the other. Poor darling Louiza always got the opposite of what she wished for. She was the youngest of the family and no one listened to her. The wedding was a leper’s funeral. Beneath the tattered rags of an inoffensive city tramp, her husband turned out to be a dangerous fanatic hostile to joy and to fantasy. His lips flecked with spittle, he harangued us with verses ripped from the Qur’an and baleful threats from the terrorists’ handbook. Since the situation called for spinelessness, the other men puffed out their chests and began spouting suras like suicide bombers. Ever since, I’ve been traumatised, I keep asking myself: does Islam produce true believers, craven cowards or just terrorists? There is no easy answer since all three are talented actors. And besides, it turns out that Islam these days is both a performance and a powerful weapon in the hands of grave-robbers. The girls suppressed their rebellious ways, gave up the fight and quietly stared at each other all night, huddled behind their grandmother’s skirts. It would have been good to cry, but the philistines had all but forbidden us from breathing. In the distance, as night enfolded the city like a shroud, we could hear bitter rumblings and shameful silences. I never saw my beloved Louiza again. What mortuary does she live in now? What little news I have of her seems to come from beyond the grave.
Time flew by and I found myself alone. As I stumbled on, I stockpiled sorrows: university, the dreariness of college work, the pettiness of fellow students, the endless betrayals and setbacks, the scrabble to find a job — any job — the self-seeking recommendations and those that led nowhere. All this takes time, takes years, and leaves its scars. Then, finally, a stroke of luck, a smile sent from heaven: I happened to be at the Parnet clinic when the consultant paediatrician tossed his white coat at the feet of the hospital administrator, a cousin of the Minister for Health and a nephew of the Pasha. He was exultant, brandishing a visa offering him refugee status in Canada; from seven thousand miles away Lady Luck had smiled on him. His luck was also mine. That same day, I donned my white coat. The hospital administrator thought it best to prove he was a man and act quickly before the rumour mill started. ‘Go to hell, you little queer,’ he spat, grabbing his crotch. ‘The next person I come across gets your job!’ I was there, I heard him. For better or worse, I signed up. The salary didn’t exactly break the bank, but it pays enough to eat and I’ve learned to make the best of leftovers, potluck stews and ratatouille. That day I learned all there was to know about the Arab-Islamic economy: at work just like at home, the men chat and the women toil and there’s no rest on Sunday for anyone. My married colleagues, mothers with children, daughters-in-law with mothers-in-law, work a forty-eight-hour day, with twelve hours in arrears that count double as soon as the grandchildren arrive, so I’ve got nothing to complain about, my time is my own. Allah’s sun shines on some and not on others. How to deflect its orbit is a prickly question, one I no longer think about.