Naphtalene. Alia Mamdouh

to the Omnipotent Deity. You learned about the first of the devils—Potipher’s wife—from her. That wanderer, seduced and exposed, became my premonition. There my gaze fell on her for the first time. I saw her, named her, and compared her with the other women, dividing up what she had among all: your aunt Farida, your mother’s and father’s sisters. But what remained was still abundant.

      The day I read the Qur’an, I read the Sura of Joseph. It opened before me new territories for questions and battles.

      With one blow I tore up all the tombstones, as if going into darkness with everyone.

      You continued seeking lazy mornings when you did not have to go to school, for vast distances in which you exhaust your anger and love of questions. You did what you were asked in a different way. You wished you had Mahmoud’s muscles, Hubi’s fingers, and your father’s legs. Your head was dizzy from being hit. They had stuffed it with slaps and commandments. You took the remains of sins and stayed that way, peeping through the cracks in the doors and windowpanes at Potipher’s first wife—Aunt Farida—and your mother’s two sisters. They were in one another’s arms, their flesh trembling, liquids and lapses coming from their lips, new truths from their heads.

      When your grandmother went up to the high roof, she took her prayer carpet in one hand and the Qur’an in the other. She murmured prayers to protect us all. She did not look down or turn around. At that time the two beloved aunts came in and went down. They left arm in arm, their cloaks slipping and revealing their yearning. The whole of the small room seemed in a trance. They whispered, sighed, made promises and talked of streets and people. Drops flew off them: “Kill me, dear Bahija, kill me, my dear.”

      Some went this way, as if it were fate. If your grandmother stayed away, it was because this match was between her and another entity: her soul. And if your mother was absent, it was because she accepted her only destiny: your father.

      But these women were descending into Paradise, not waiting to be lifted or wait for a sura to be recited. They were arm in arm, legs entwined. The flowing channels of the body freed things that were pent-up. Aunt Farida stood behind these boundaries, waiting, ready, trained to be ready. Her training was done from the onset of first awareness; when the hour came she did not delay a second. Women, women were all around you, recorded in the maps of cities, desired until the Last Judgment; they rose, they proceeded slowly, marching, listening to rumors, walking carefully around the forbidden area: men.

      Whenever you crossed a step, the soul went out of the circle and swept away with it this sedate, divided universe, the man and the woman, the boys and the girls, into thousands of pieces and thousands of sighs.

      When you confronted your aunt, face to face, she took you with her to the street for visits. Your hand was in hers, and her black cloak defined her new and mysterious figure as she passed by the shops and the coffeehouses. Her swinging walk in her high-heeled slippers filled their heads with fantasies. She slowed down and paused, walking as if dancing. The children moved aside slightly so that we could pass. The young men let out low whistles and the men sighed with admiration, but she looked at no one. When we were well beyond them, they called out: “You’re killing me!”

      I hid inside my old clothes and my excessive thinness. My rage mounted and fell on me, making my head hurt, so I pinched my aunt’s hand. I slipped away from her, and walked far in front of her, not looking back.

      Look and stop there: for after your two aunts left the room, Aunt Farida was sure a frenzy would overcome her. She went in and turned on the light, smelled the odors, looked at the ground, and handled everything slowly. She approached the cushions slowly. Everything was tidy and orderly. She leaned over and inspected it carefully. She opened the chest of her body and spread it on the floor, and a feeling of ecstasy began within her.

      Your aunt left school after elementary level. She sat in the house waiting for Mr. Munir. Your father gave her a monthly allowance, and your grandmother too.

      From there she rotated between the public bath and the neighbors’ houses and your grandfather’s house. At these places her physical vitality bulged, and any disruption in this meant slow death or a huge scandal.

      The long-awaited Mr. Munir—patient, blessed, a cousin, old, rich, unemployed, ugly—hesitated to propose to her, but if he came he would find her worthy, an existing oasis, and attractive as well.

      Your aunt was the most beautiful woman in the house and the whole neighborhood. She wanted to break some hearts. The fear of her was compounded when she applied kohl to her eyelids. Her body was in excellent health; her round thighs swelled and floated in the tight clothes selected by Rachel, the Jewish seamstress. Her hips were high, her legs full and her bosom taut. Heavy and erect, her neck was long, and she had high cheekbones like your father.

      On her lower lip, a small mole, which we call a “Baghdad mark,” made her even more alluring. A beauty spot on her left cheek convinced all men and women of the power of the desire within her. Her eyes, sculpted with a sharp chisel, were black and almond-shaped, and her eyebrows were thick and rarely trimmed.

      Her face changed, from the haughtiness of a princess to the remorse of an adulteress. Her hair, coal-black, was now invaded by white wisps. When she laughed, you could see her dimples. When she was silent, the air she gave off had a hoarse hiss. Your aunt sang, too. Her voice, singing folk songs or mad love songs, climbed and flashed with everlasting Iraqi pain. She lowered herself to the ground, sniffing the delightful smell of grilling meat. She loved the smell of other people’s bodies, their sweat and pungency. Her tongue wanders before it moves; her mouth was dry. The bones of her chest tingled. The arteries in her thighs sang, and she was penetrated by thousands of passions; she trembled and her fingers reached down to her belly. She felt within herself, within the circle of her region—secret sex but tumultuous sex. She wet her lips with saliva, breathing one heavy sigh after another, looking down at her rosy nipples, her pores open, crushing the ribs of this frenzy. She undulated like a firehose, not covering herself. You were behind the window watching her. Her hair was loose like a gypsy’s. No one called you away; no one paid attention to you. Your two aunts were content, one of them sprawled on the mat, her face turned to the glass ceiling, the other rolling a fresh cigarette, sealing it with saliva and lighting two cigarettes. She offered one to the sleeping woman. They took the first puff, and Aunt Najia coughed. “I only like Ghazi cigarettes.” Cough. “I don’t know why I listen to you.”

      Your grandmother came down from the roof on tiptoe. The voice of the muezzin called the evening prayer, and the two aunts roused themselves to go to the bath, and after washing they stood with my grandmother to pray. The whole neighborhood was transfixed in awe. Grandmother sought protection from Satan. Her breathing was quick with supplications, the holy names of God. For the first time, Adil’s voice rang out: “I’m going up to fly a kite.” Your mother sought refuge in her room, Aunt Farida pulled her clothing over her thighs, and grandmother stood before all: “Lord, forgive us in this world and the next.”

      Adil was already on the roof. This was Wednesday, and your father comes on Thursday.

3

      Thursday was the day of the public bath. Your mother prepared a bundle of clothes for you: a clean vest, an old dress, cotton panties with an elastic waist, dark ribbons for your hair, the comb with the wide, broken teeth, your open-toed sandals, a cotton-lined ribbed cardigan, a square scarf with a pattern of circles and squares, a loofah, and soap. You tied up the bundle and stood in front of it.

      This was Aunt Farida’s day. She would put into the palm leaf bag a bottle of water, some pears, a small melon, the black pumice stone, a box of depilatory cream, the black glove, her blue perfume bottle, clean clothes, and a cake of cardamom perfumed soap.

      Your grandmother whose asthma had troubled her lately, your mother, ill in her chest, and Adil, who had grown up a little, would all stay at home. The bath at home was old and broken down, but was being repaired. Your father painted it first, replaced the old punctured barrel and paved the floor