Burned alive (3 page)

If I had gotten married in my village, and had given birth to girls, Assad might have been given the order to strangle one of my daughters. I would have acted like all the other women and would have submitted without revolting. It’s unbearable to think and say such a thing here in my other life, but there, that’s the way it is. I now see things very differently because I “died” in my village and I was reborn in Europe. But I still love my brother. It is like the root of an olive tree that can’t be torn out, even if the tree has fallen.

The Green Tomato

I would clean out the stable every morning. It was very large and the odor was strong. When I had finished cleaning, I would leave the door open to air it out. It was very damp and with the heat of the sun the inside of the stable was steamy. The buckets would be filled with manure, and I would carry them on my head into the garden to dry. A portion of this manure from the horses was used for fertilizing the garden. My father said it was the best fertilizer. The sheep droppings were used for the bread oven. When they were thoroughly dried I would sit on the ground and work them by hand into little cakes that I would put in a pile for feeding the oven.

The sheep would be led into the fields early in the morning, and we would return to bring them back to the stable around eleven o’clock when the sun would be too hot. The sheep would eat and sleep. I would also go to the house to eat, some oil in a bowl, warm bread, some tea, olives and fruit. In the evening, there was chicken, lamb, or rabbit. We ate meat almost every day with rice and semolina that we made ourselves. All the vegetables came from the garden.

As long as the heat lasted in the garden, I would work in the house. I prepared the dough for the bread and also fed the smallest lambs. I would take them by the skin of their necks, the way you hold a cat, and I would bring them up to the mother’s udder for them to nurse. There were always several of them so I would take care of one after the other. When one had nursed enough I would put it back in its place until they had all been fed. Then I would go take care of the goats, which were kept separate in the stable. The two horses had their own corner and the cows, too. This stable was really immense and held a good sixty sheep and at least forty goats. The horses were always outside in the fields and were brought back in only at night. They were for the use of my father and brother to ride, never for us. When the stable work was finished, I could leave the door open for ventilation because there was a heavy wooden gate that kept the animals from going out.

When the sun was lower in the sky, I had to tend the garden. There were many tomatoes that had to be picked almost every day when they were ripe. Once, by mistake, I picked a green tomato. I haven’t forgotten it, that tomato! I often think about it now in my kitchen. It was half yellow and half red and was beginning to ripen. I had thought about hiding it when I brought it back to the house, but it was already too late, my father had already arrived. I knew that I shouldn’t have picked it but I was working too fast with both hands. Because I was expected to work very fast, my movements were mechanical, my fingers turned around the tomato plant, left right left right down to the bottom. And the last one, the one that had received the least sun, was in my hand before I knew it. And it was there, very visible in the basin. My father shouted: “You fool! You see what you’ve done? You picked a green tomato!
Majmouma!
” He struck me and then he crushed the tomato over my head and the seeds fell on me. “Now you’re going to eat it!” He crammed it into my mouth and he rubbed my face with the rest of the tomato. I’d thought that an unripe tomato might be eaten, but it was acid, very bitter, and smelled bad. I was forced to swallow it. I couldn’t eat anything after that because my stomach was upset. But he pushed my head into my plate and made me eat my meal, almost like a dog. He had me by the hair. I felt sick but I couldn’t move. My half sister made fun of me and laughed. She received such a slap that she spit out what she had in her mouth and started to cry. The more I said my head hurt the more he persisted in crushing my face into the semolina. He emptied the whole plate and made little balls of semolina that he forced into my mouth, he was that enraged. Then he wiped his hands on a napkin, threw it at my head, and went and calmly settled himself in the shade on the veranda. I wept as I cleaned off the platter. I had food all over my face, my hair, and in my eyes. And I swept up as I did every day to pick up the tiniest grain of semolina that had escaped my father’s hand.

Even though for years I forgot events as important as the disappearance of one of my sisters, I never forgot this green tomato, and the humiliation of being treated as less than a dog. And to see him there calmly sitting in the shade, napping like a king after my almost daily thrashing, was the worst of all. He was the symbol of an enslavement that was taken for granted, that I accepted, bending my back and lowering my head under the blows, like my sisters and my mother. But today I understand my hatred. I would have wished him to suffocate in his head scarf.

This was everyday life. Toward four o’clock, we brought out the sheep and the goats until sunset. My sister walked beside the ones at the head of the flock, and I always took the rear position with a cane to move the animals along and especially to scare the goats. They were always agitated, ready to take off anywhere. Once we were in the field there was a little tranquility because it was only us and the flock. I would take a watermelon and tap it on a stone to open it. We were afraid of being caught when we returned because our dresses were spotted with sugar juice. We would wash them on ourselves in the stable before our parents saw us. Since it wasn’t possible to take off the dresses, it was lucky they dried very fast.

The sun would take on a special yellow and then fade on the horizon, the sky changing from blue to gray. We would have to return before nightfall, and since night came very quickly, we had to move as fast as the sun, scurry close to the walls, and then the iron door would clang shut on us again.

When it was time to milk the cows and the sheep, a big milk can was put under the cow’s belly, and I sat on a stool almost at ground level. I would take a cow’s hoof and squeeze it between my legs so the animal wouldn’t move and so the milk wouldn’t go anywhere but into the bucket. If there was a puddle of milk on the ground, even a few drops, it would mean trouble for me! My father would slap me and shout at me that he’d lost a cheese! The cow’s tits were very big, very hard because they were swollen with milk, and my hands were small. My arms would hurt since I’d spent a lot of time pulling and I was exhausted. Once, when there were six cows in the stable, I fell asleep hanging on the bucket, the cow’s hoof between my legs. As luck had it my father arrived and shouted, “
Charmuta!
Whore!” He dragged me on the ground in the stable by the hair and I caught a whipping with a belt. I cursed this wide leather belt that he always wore around his waist with another smaller one. The small one jangled loudly. He would swing it around with force, holding it by one end like a rope. When he used the big one, he had to fold it in two, it was too heavy. I begged him and I cried in pain, but the more I said it hurt the more he struck me and called me a whore.

I would still be crying in the evening, when it was time for the meal. My mother could see that he had given me a bad beating that evening but if she tried to question me, he started to hit her, too, telling her it wasn’t any of her business, that she didn’t need to know why I’d been beaten because I knew the reason.

On an ordinary day in the house, there would be a slap or a kick on the pretext that I wasn’t working fast enough or that the water for the tea had taken too long to heat. Sometimes I succeeded in dodging the bang on the head but not often. I don’t remember if my sister Kainat was beaten as much as I was but I think so because she was every bit as afraid. I’ve kept this reflex of working very fast and walking fast, as if a belt were permanently waiting for me. A donkey is moved along the road by being rapped with a stick. It was the same for us, except that my father would strike us much harder than he would have struck a donkey. I have also been struck the next day, just on principle, so I shouldn’t forget the licking of the previous day. All that so I would continue to move along without falling asleep, like the donkey on the road.

Mention of a donkey makes me think of another memory concerning my mother. I can see myself taking the flock to graze as usual, and coming very quickly back to the house to clean the stable. My mother is with me and she hurries me because we have to go and pick figs. The crates had to be loaded onto the donkey’s back and we had to walk a long way beyond the village. I’m not able to place this story in time, except that this morning seems to me very close to the incident of the green tomato. It is the end of the season, because the fig tree we’re standing in front of is bare. I tie the donkey to the trunk of this fig tree to keep him from eating the fruit and the leaves that are scattered on the ground.

I begin to pick and my mother says to me: “Pay attention Souad, you stay here with the donkey, you pick up all the figs on the side of the road but you don’t go farther than this tree. You don’t move from here. If you see your father arrive with the white horse or your brother, or somebody else, you whistle and I’ll come quick.” She moves off a little on the road to join a man on a horse who is waiting for her. I know him by sight, his name is Fadel. He has a round head, and he’s small and strong. His horse is well cared for, very white with a black spot, the tail braided to the end. I don’t know if he’s married or not.

My mother is cheating on my father with him. I knew it as soon as she said to me:
If somebody else comes, you whistle.
The man on the horse disappears from my view, and my mother, too. I conscientiously pick the figs on the edge of the road. There aren’t too many in this spot but I’m not allowed to go looking any farther because if I did I wouldn’t be able to see my father or anyone else who might come along.

For some strange reason this story doesn’t surprise me. I don’t remember feeling afraid of anything. Perhaps because my mother had organized her plan so well. The donkey is tied to the trunk of a bare fig tree. He can’t reach anything to eat it, not leaves or fruit. So I don’t need to watch him as I would in the height of the season and I can work alone. I take ten steps in one direction, ten in the other, picking up the figs lying on the ground to put them in the crates. I have a good view of the road looking toward the village; I can see in the distance anyone who’d be approaching and whistle in time. I don’t see Fadel or my mother anymore but I guess they’re about fifty steps away, hidden somewhere in the field. So if someone were to arrive on the scene she could always make them believe that she went off for a moment for urgent personal business. A man, even my father or brother, would never ask an indecent question about such a thing. It would be shameful.

I’m not alone for very long. The crate doesn’t have much in it when they arrive separately. My mother comes out of the field. I see Fadel get back on his horse; he misses the saddle the first time because the horse is tall. He has a pretty wooden riding whip, very finely made, and he smiles at Mama before riding off. I pretend to have seen nothing. The whole thing happened very quickly. They made love somewhere in the field, sheltered by the grass, or they were simply talking together, I don’t want to know. It’s not my business to ask what they did, or look surprised. My mother will not confide in me. And she knows, too, that I won’t say anything, quite simply because I’m an accomplice, and I’d be beaten to death, too. My father only knows how to beat women and make them work to get money. So if my mother goes to make love with another man on the pretext of gathering figs, I’m not bothered by it. She has good reason.

Now we have to gather the figs very quickly so the crates will be full enough to justify the time we’ve spent here. Otherwise my father is going to ask: “You bring back empty crates. What were you doing all that time?” And I’ll get the belt. We are rather far from the village. My mother gets on the donkey, her legs straddling the animal’s neck, very close to his head so as not to crush the figs. I walk in front to guide the animal on the road and we set off with a heavy load.

We soon encounter an elderly woman, all alone with a donkey, who is also gathering figs. Since she is elderly, she can be out alone. As we catch up with her, my mother greets her and we continue on our way together. This road is very narrow and difficult, full of holes, bumps, and stones. In places it rises steeply and the donkey has trouble advancing with his load. At one point he stops dead at the top of a slope before a big snake and refuses to go on. My mother strikes him and encourages him but he wants no part of it. Instead he tries to move back, his nose trembling with fear, like me. I detest snakes. And because the incline is really very steep, the crate starts to dislodge on his back and almost overturns. Fortunately, the woman who is with us seems not at all afraid of the snake, however enormous it is. I don’t know how she does it, but I see it roll up and twist. She must have struck it with her walking stick, and the big snake slithers into the ditch. The donkey is then willing to move on.

There were a lot of snakes around the village, small ones and big ones. The snakes would even nest in the house, in the storeroom between the sacks of rice, or in the piles of hay in the stable. We would see them every day and we were very afraid of them the way we fear grenades. Ever since the war with the Jews, grenades were all over the place. You didn’t know if you were going to die when you put your foot down. In any case, I heard them talk about it at home, when my father’s father would come for a visit, or my uncle. My mother warned us about these grenades, they were almost invisible in the middle of pebbles and stones, and I watched constantly ahead of me for fear of coming across one. I don’t personally remember having seen one but I know that the danger was always there. It was better not to pick up a stone and to pay attention to where you stepped.

My father wasn’t there when we got home. It was a relief because we had lost time and it was already ten o’clock. At that hour the sun is high, the heat strong, and the figs at risk of shriveling and softening. They had to be in good condition and carefully prepared for my father to be able to sell them at the market. I liked preparing the crates of figs. I would choose beautiful fig leaves, big green ones to carpet the bottom of the crates. Then I would place the figs delicately, in neat rows like beautiful jewels, and put large leaves on top to protect them from the sun. It was the same preparation for the grapes: We cut them with a scissors and cleaned them carefully; there couldn’t remain a single damaged grape or a dirty leaf. I also lined these crates with vine leaves and covered them the same way as the figs so the grapes would stay fresh.