{"id":35448,"date":"2024-12-06T10:08:31","date_gmt":"2024-12-06T08:08:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/?p=35448"},"modified":"2024-12-06T10:08:31","modified_gmt":"2024-12-06T08:08:31","slug":"envy-a-story-by-huda-hamed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/envy-a-story-by-huda-hamed\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Envy&#8221;\u2014a story by Huda Hamed"},"content":{"rendered":"<h5><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The ambivalence that leads to the break up of a decade-long marriage must first face a mother&#8217;s wrathful disappointment.<\/span><\/h5>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Huda Hamed<\/span><\/h4>\n<p><strong>Translated from Arabic by Zia Ahmed<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">My mother\u2019s slap left an unmistakable redness on my cheek. It wasn\u2019t a spiteful slap or reprimand, but rather a lifelong reflex that was triggered whenever she was surprised. She simply refused to understand that her daughter was now divorced from the man with whom she\u2019d lived for years. I lifted my face slightly, left cheek numb from the severity of the sting, fighting back tears to affirm what she\u2019d just heard from me.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cYes, it\u2019s true,\u201d I said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">My mother had always been fond of perfection, so naturally she had to insist that something was wrong in this case. She gathered the papers she\u2019d been grading and left the courtyard. A cold gust hit my face, almost blowing off my hijab, which I\u2019d forgotten as usual to fasten with pins. I held on to it with one hand, while clutching with the other a small bag in which I\u2019d packed a few clothes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">My mother went into the living room and put down her papers on a side table. I stood behind her, waiting for permission to sit like some stranger. Finally, we sat on the floor, leaning on patterned cushions atop rugs that she\u2019d kept spotlessly clean since my distant childhood. Heavy curtains kept the room dark all day long. My siblings had married and moved away, leaving her alone in the house since my father\u2019s death. She sat up straight, a deep sadness in her eyes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWhy are you so concerned that I stay with him?\u201d I asked.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Her hand twitched again. I turned my face away, but this time she only slapped her own shoulder. She went off to the kitchen to boil water for tea, leaving behind an uneasy tension. After a while, I heard the kettle whistle. I remained in place, quietly waiting for our conversation to resume. She returned and sat down. I leaned back against the pillows, tucking my folded legs under the striped blue-and-purple throw blanket. She poured the tea in silence, then handed me the cup without raising her eyes. She poured another cup for herself.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cCold night,\u201d I said, looking at her furtively while shivering a little.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cPeople used to tell me good things about the two of you all the time,\u201d she said firmly, as if I hadn\u2019t spoken. \u201cThe sensible girl and the good boy.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I put the tea aside, slipping my hands under the blanket to rub my cold legs. \u201cThat\u2019s just what people say.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">She held the hot teacup with both hands, drawing its heat without looking at me. \u201cThere never seemed to be anything wrong between the two of you. He\u2019s a good man.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I took a deep breath and hugged my body tighter. \u201cYes. But I didn\u2019t want to be with him anymore.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At last, she looked at me, eyes aflame. \u201cMy life with your father was also full of both sweet and bitter, but I stayed with him until the end.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I relaxed a little, gripping the teacup tightly with both hands without taking a sip. \u201cI can\u2019t be you.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">She got up and began to rummage around the room. In the closet, she found a portable electric heater and plugged it in. Slowly, it began to glow red. Her face was now clearer than ever. She calmed down a little, then raised her head to look directly at me in anticipation of my story. I was certain that the story, when told well, would erase all her objections. But I didn\u2019t know where to begin. Anything I could think of saying would seem trivial to her in light of the hardships she\u2019d endured with my father.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">She rescued us from an awkward silence, saying: \u201cYour father and I used to make people envious. Do you know anything about envy? I mean the good kind, that feeling of utter happiness in another person\u2019s good fortune. We would push people to see the possibility of a couple living together for their entire lives without fighting. Everyone was joyfully envious of the tenderness between us, hoping for a life like ours. We would turn to each other on noisy evenings, laughing to signal our understanding of the merest gesture. A nod would be enough for one to sense the other\u2019s meaning. One of us would leave food in the fridge because the other wasn\u2019t home by lunchtime. One would wait anxiously by the front door waiting for the other to come home. Do you know how much longing our relationship would provoke in others?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The room began to warm up, so I put aside the blanket and took off my socks. I pushed my hijab down over my shoulders, then pulled my hair up, twisting it neatly and fastening it with a hairpin. Just as I was beginning to relax, my mother\u2019s voice rose. \u201cHow will we tell people, especially your brothers?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I\u2019d opened the door to new problems without a good story to tell, something I\u2019d neglected when ridding myself of a miserable life partner.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">She continued: \u201cYou\u2019ve been married for more than ten years. Among my children, you\u2019re the only one who never complained about your spouse. You were always the most attached to your husband. I know that your sisters get into endless trouble, but you\u2026 never.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I should have summoned up the courage to say: \u201cMaybe because I saw you as an example. I always wanted to be like you. I used to deal with all my problems by summoning your face, channeling your ability to be a source of joyous envy for others. But this time I\u2019ve failed.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But I couldn\u2019t say any of this, at least not eloquently. Meanwhile, her voice got louder and her face became harsher.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWhat was it that you couldn\u2019t stand? What was so unacceptable for you? Did he cheat on you? Hit you? There must be a reason, however improbable, to reach this ending.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Until the moment my mother asked why everything was shattered, I\u2019d had no specific reason in mind for leaving my husband, no argument I could make that could convince her, for things had festered slowly in my marriage year after year, with tiny details that couldn\u2019t be put into a simple story. The warmth that filled the living room \u2014 in which I\u2019d slept so often in my early childhood, where I\u2019d always been a third party between my mother and father, where I\u2019d seen and heard what shouldn\u2019t be seen and heard \u2014 was awakening a forgotten longing within me, inexplicably making me feel safe during my life\u2019s most vulnerable moments. I\u2019d continued to sleep in this room until my brothers came and the house grew larger and its rooms multiplied. Nostalgia seized me, a transparent but expansive barrier that dulled my mother\u2019s angry voice.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cYou remember when he and I went to Iran?\u201d I said, feeling less tense than usual. For once I wasn\u2019t choking back tears \u2014 those unstoppable tears that inhibited the flow of words. I felt like it was the perfect moment for me to speak openly with her.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe brought back a Persian rug. I\u2019d chosen it with great care and I loved it very much. It had two woven fish hugging each other, one silver and one golden, on a light beige background. I put it in our bedroom so I could look at it every morning when I woke up. For some reason, those hugging fish evoked a special feeling in me, giving me the patience to figure out life with my husband. He loved it too, one of the few things that we\u2019d bought together without much debate. But he moved it into the hallway for guests to see. He was quite proud of his aesthetic sense. The very next day I moved it back to the bedroom. Two days later I found it in the hallway again. On the fifth day, we argued loudly over breakfast about the best place for the rug. And then, we said to each other things we\u2019d never said in all our years together.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">My mother stretched out her legs. In the cramped, now hot living room, her toes touched mine. It seemed that neither of us wanted to disturb the rare connection with the other. I thought she was about to cry. But when she moved closer to the heater to turn it down, the red glow on her face revealed tears already flowing down her prominent cheeks.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThen you had no real reason for divorce,\u201d she said, voice cracking. &#8220;You don\u2019t even have a good story to tell people.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A surge of words, much less organized than the thoughts in my head, rushed to my mouth. I said in a tone more casual than what I was feeling: \u201cYou and father believed what others imagined about you because you wanted it so badly. You\u2019d been fighting for years to keep people focused on your good reputation. That remarkable level of understanding between you, it wasn\u2019t quite perfect, was it, mother? I am your firstborn, I know very well.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">She shook her head wearily. \u201cDon\u2019t confuse my life with yours. Just don\u2019t. What do you know? Seriously, what do you know? You\u2019re ruining your life and the lives of your brothers for something petty. Yes, completely petty.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I couldn\u2019t find the right words to say. I couldn\u2019t find a good story for my divorce. But as my toes pressed harder against hers, I remembered the girls who\u2019d pass by when my husband and I were out on our evening walks, sighing softly in a desperate desire for a life like ours. I knew well that naive wish that everyone who\u2019d see us walking together should be drawn to the tenderness of our married life, that young men should stop pedaling their bicycles to let contentment seep into their hearts. Despite the proliferation of children\u2019s plates around us year after year, my husband and I always ate out of the same plate our whole lives together. Neither had a single meal that was exclusive to just one of us. We were doing it to arouse something in others around us, while involuntarily drawing nourishment from their compliments.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I was well aware that a single splash in the stagnant pool of our married life would reveal its inherent and extreme fragility, so both of us did our utmost to prevent even the tiniest pebble from hitting its glassy surface. Mostly, we succeeded, nurturing tranquility and gentleness between us for many years. But then, one of us wilfully let a very small pebble drop in the pool and watched in quiet desperation as the ripples from its splash expanded. The ripples grew into vortexes, but the other person failed to act, or perhaps secretly hoped to put the matter to rest, as if the task of preventing pebbles from infiltrating the heart of our life\u2019s pool was boring and ridiculous. Each watched the other closely, waiting, wondering who was more capable of ignoring the pebble that was tearing apart the illusory tranquility between us.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The pebbles multiplied and collided with each other. And when one vortex grew in the heart of another in the pool of our life, only then did people\u2019s envy for us disappear.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I said nothing to my mother about the thoughts swirling in my head. Darkness thickened around us. The sun must have set, but neither of us moved to turn on the lights. We lay across from each other with our backs against the patterned pillows. We hadn\u2019t come to a satisfactory agreement about what we would say to people, for there wasn\u2019t yet a good story to tell about my divorce. Only our toes continued to press gently together in rare harmony.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The ambivalence that leads to the break up of a decade-long marriage must first face a mother&#8217;s wrathful disappointment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":584,"featured_media":35563,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,2995,4052],"tags":[4080,2619,4081,3670,2401,4082],"coauthors":[3654,3649],"class_list":["post-35448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","category-short-stories","category-tmr-47-genre-fiction-double-winter-issue","tag-daughter","tag-divorce","tag-indifference","tag-mother","tag-oman","tag-persian-rug","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.8 (Yoast 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