This is the opening chapter of a work of fiction I’ve been working on. It has been titled many things but now is called Basha. It chronicles the life of one man, Hamid, in Egypt between 1800 and 1920.
I hope you like it
Zohra
Zohra bint Hisham looked like she grew out of the rich Delta silt. Some of the fellaheen point to a distant Arab ancestor who came from the Hijaz with Amr bin al-As and their tribal name was proof: Shawarbi, Abu Stait, Badrawi, Ashur, Lamlum, Foda, or Fawaid. Zohra’s family only pointed to a small piece of land. When asked, the head of the household could guide you five generations back: the proof needed for an unimpeachable claim. But he was at pains to say that every forefather, even the unnamed ones, lived by a code: Hold on to the land your father gave you. Try to make it bigger, but never at the risk of making it smaller.
That ethos, plus a particular method of inheritance, is how, from time immemorial, the family had held on to their plot. The English call it primogeniture. The family call it safeguarding. You could call it the felicity of the firstborn. No matter the name, the first-born male got everything. The men of Zohra’s family had rightful grievances. Other fathers split the land equally between sons according to the laws of the Prophet, Praise be Upon Him. For the women, it wasn’t much different than the situation for the rest of the village women. Even though the Quran said women should inherit an eighth, men did everything they could to stop that. The women had too many battles to fight to bare their teeth on this matter. It was more prudent to spend their energy lobbying their father for a good husband and their husband for a good son-in-law.
This family tradition was so firmly held that the secondary boys never fought their fate. There was no fratricide in Zohra’s family history. You did find that the younger boys were schemers, strivers, thinkers, tinkerers, and most of all travelers. One could not imagine how widely the blood of the family had spread in the land between Alexandria and Aswan. If you named a region, they had a relative there. Once they had the funds, they would leave Egypt for anywhere money could be made. But we are getting ahead of ourselves.
The family was lucky when the eldest vacated his position and a dynamic man became the head of the family. Since that usually meant death of the eldest, it was not prayed for, or even mentioned. It hadn’t happened in five generations and, as a result, the family was struggling.
Zohra’s father, Hisham, was the eldest son of Galal, who was the eldest son of Abdallah, who was the eldest son of Galal, who was the eldest son of Abdallah. It was an amazing string of luck, aided by the fierce protection of the mothers of the families, the Sitts. You had Sitt Aisha, Sitt Umayma, Sitt Khadija, and Sitt Amina. This unbroken string had stripped the family of any adventure and they had become so hidebound they could but grasp tightly to their fertile little piece. In truth, it had not been a bad strategy, there had been disease, death, and war in those generations. But that conservatism was not suited for the Egypt that Zohra was born into.
The Europeans would claim that Napoleon brought the light of civilization to Egypt when the French came in 1798. Egyptians did not need their civilization, but they didn’t mind taking their money. They also appreciated the crushing of the Ottomans and the Mamluks, two slave-soldier corps that had battled for control since the 16th century, because it opened pathways that had not existed before. It would be short lived, the British would come in 1882, realizing it was more profitable, and less dangerous to their racial superiority, to suppress and extract. But for that short time between 1798 and 1882, if they dared to have a plan, grift, or scheme, everyone, from the fields to the royal palace, could cash in.
Zohra loved the sound of the jars hitting the strapping on Dunya. The clicking, like a sufi ritual, helped the thoughts of present, past, and future slide away. When she was able to lose herself in the jars, she could shift between the feel of her calloused sandaled feet crunching against the dirt path, the weight and roughness of the lead in her hand, and the clopping of the Dunya’s hoofs with nary a thought between. When the jars could not serve as a centering point, their sound still triggered a little flutter in her stomach. They reminded her of the nervous excitement of buying and selling in the souk.
The contents of the jars were her key to the bustle. People came from well afar to buy her milk, the best in the municipality, and she was able to charge a pretty penny for it. Because her product was so good, she did not worry where she was able to set up her stand. Each Friday, as she leisurely walked, others rushed to stake out prime territory to sell their wares. When fully assembled, the market wasn’t a huge enterprise, but without the right location or the right product your sales could suffer. She knew of bigger markets, and her number one customer, Constantine, sold her milk at one, at a significant mark-up, but this one suited her. It was far enough from her home that she could be Zohra here, not the guarded flower she was treated as.
She was truly herself when haggling. Each customer had their story on why they could not pay a certain price, even though they had paid the sum the last week.
Her time in the market came at a price, gaining a faint odor in exchange for sweet, precious milk. As the youngest child, at least five years younger than her closest sibling, Anisa, she was relegated to sleeping with the animals; her family covered up every inch of the two-room hut. The hut was as unready for her birth as her family and it put them ever closer to ruin. Her mother did her best to convince Zohra otherwise, her siblings less so. They were never cruel, but they talked to Zohra with something between pity and aggravation.
And she would have remained that way, contented selling milk in her little market, if Constantine, after agreeing on a price had not alerted her to distant eyes ogling them. As a Greek, with a funny look and funnier accent, Constantine had a feeling for unwanted leering. It was a way to forestall issues that would arise from his unscrupulous dealings. He was especially on guard when he was rooting around in his pockets for money to pay for his purchases.
Zohra stole a glance up but did not see anyone.
“Are you sure, Khawaga Constantine?” asked Zohra.
“Yes, my dear,” he responded. “I saw him glaring at us from the corner of my eye. He is a rather tall fellow, with dark skin, prominent cheeks, and piercing eyes.”
“I do not see him,” Zohra said as she awkwardly tried to look without looking.
“He must have left,” Constantine noted as he turned around to survey the market. “But I swear by my life, I saw him.”
They finished their transaction and she decided to stroll around the market for a bit. She made her way over to the old jeweler, Harun. She never had the money to buy from him, but since the day he kindly made her aware of her undercharging and how it was upsetting the other milk seller, Hagga Safiyya, he had been something of a market father. She had known very little about Jews. From what her father had told her, some of Muhammad’s earliest enemies were the Jewish tribes of Medina and so she was surprised when he helped her. He introduced her to the many ladies of the market, and when stationed next to her, would provide tips on how to present her wares to make them the most appealing. He had even introduced her to Khawaga Constantine.
He had a daughter that was her sister Fatima’s age. When she asked why she was not in the market helping her father, he told of how she had married a handsome man, Kohane, who had taken her to Cairo. Kohane was not interested in spending time in a backwards village associating with the smelly and flea ridden. Most of Harun’s friends and relations had made their way to either Cairo or Alexandria, but he could not leave what had become his home. He was deeply afraid of the putrid air of the city and loved waking up to the call of the rooster and the muezzin echoing off the empty fields. Zohra knew the city only from others’ words and couldn’t say if he could find those things there. She did know he could not find his daughter, his only child, anywhere else.
“Oh, Bint Hisham, you enlighten my little stand with your presence,” he started. “How are you this day? Have you made your sales? Any surplus? How is your family? Is their health good? How is your health?”
“Khawaga Harun, how do you do today?” she dove into the required questions. “Does your leg still hurt? How’s your wife? You look healthy and strong. What news do you have for me today?”
As she talked, she couldn’t help but feel a presence nearby. She turned but saw no one. Spooked, she instinctively pulled her scarf over the exposed strands on her forehead and tried to shrink herself down, concealed by the body of Harun. She hoped throwing herself deeper into her conversation would ease her mind, but she could not shake the feeling of being watched.
Finally, she acquiesced to the gut-bubbling and ended her conversation with Harun. She walked over to Dunya, tied up and munching on nearby weeds. She had left her disassembled stand and empty jars next to the animal. Although her father would have scolded her for leaving the things open to greedy eyes, Zohra harbored no worry. Dunya was exceedingly unfriendly to strangers. Those who were unaware of her prickliness were liable to receive a strong bite or an even stronger kick.
The meticulous task of loading the donkey helped quiet some of her paranoia. As each piece was cinched, the fear weakened. By the time they were ready to go, Zohra had almost completely blocked out what had driven her from Harun. As she started back, and felt nothing behind her, her mind eased. It wouldn’t have been the first time her imagination had escaped and started to torture her. Once the clicking of the empty jars entered a pleasing rhythm, synced with the movement of Dunya, other thoughts started to dance out. She wondered what her mother and sister-in-law would be cooking. She was quite hungry. Perhaps her mother was making taro root, she loved that. She had picked some the other day.
Her thoughts were fractured by the sound of dirt being displaced behind her. She immediately scolded her excitableness and noted that it was a busy path, it could be anyone.
But if it was someone she knew, they would have announced it. Or sidled up to her. She dared not turn back, and so she picked up her pace and prodded Dunya. The donkey was in no mood and continued her plodding. She entertained leaving the donkey and running but feared the financial cost to her family.
She hoped that whatever came, it was quick and would leave her dead. She had heard of women who had fallen prey to men and lost their most precious gift. If that was not enough, they were then presented with the choice, by their fathers, to either die or marry the man. Fatima said it was a way for men to stake claim to a woman without the formality and expense of marriage. Tears started to run down her cheeks, and it took all her might to not fall right there.
From some divine reserve she was able to find the strength to soldier on. The blood pumped in her ears and flushed her face, and she did her best to assess the situation. She was in a particularly perilous spot. On her right was the village storehouse which blocked all observers, while on the left were planted fields as far as one could see. Her salvation was twenty feet away, the path turned a corner and joined a much bigger and more public thoroughfare. If she could only get there, she might see someone who’d prevent the impending disaster. She pulled again on Dunya’s lead and this time the damn donkey bowed its head to provide stronger counter force. Finally, after jerking as hard as she could, the donkey increased its speed to a canter. She could see her safety… it was only ten steps away.
She was planning her next move when she felt the warm and rough hand on her shoulder. Her mind raced with the numerous eventualities, all horrific, that stood behind her. In between visions of her violent future, she prayed to God. She sought not intercession, just a quick death.
Then she did the only thing she could think of. She swung the bottom of her fist at where the hand originated. She’d never thrown a punch before and didn’t hold much hope for this one landing, but she had to try. Maybe with enough of a fight, her hunter would have no choice but to kill her. Better to be brought to her father a corpse than shamed.
Looking forward to next installment. Also--wish you did not translate taro--personally I love the sound of the word qulqas.
I take it this is Hamid’s mother? Can’t wait to find out what happens next.