Sisters torn apart by the fragility of the heart, how can love possibly hurt so much?
Hana Junaid decided two years ago, distance would make her younger sister Hanaan more independent but Hanaan's love and yearning for Hana during this time has drow...
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At one eleven am it starts to rain.
Sleepy and drowsy— Hana, Nashwa and I scramble to the nearest window to peer out at the fast falling water droplets as though the sky is shedding off a long overdue burden. Wind picks up sending a teasing spray towards us but the windows are sealed shut because the hospital is centrally air conditioned.
Also at one eleven am, a nurse comes over to us.
"Mubarak ho!" she gives glad tidings. "The baby and the mother are perfectly healthy. You can visit her now before we put them in recovery."
Nashwa catches the nurse's arm. "It's a boy, right?"
"No, actually. A girl."
"There must be a mistake."
"I can assure you, Ma'am—"
"—no, you can't. It has to be a boy. Go have another peek."
"I witnessed the genitals, Ma'am—"
"—you must have eyesight problems. How did they hire you as a nurse if you can't identify basic genitals correctly?"
"Nashwa, enough."
Nashwa lets go of the nurse's arm who hurries away. She winces, curling into her own self as she turns around slowly. It takes her a moment to gather her composure. As the clouds rumble in the distance, she squares her shoulders and narrows her eyes at the woman in front of her, ready to take her head on.
This is where I introduce you to Begum Aafat.
Begum Aafat— vaguely translating to Lady Torture — is a skeletal, stick straight woman with white hair tightly pulled back into a braid that could not consist of more than fifteen strands.
Her real name is Iffat and she's Haala Mami's mother.
When Nashwa was seven and threw a fit at Begum Aafat's house, shattering all six plates of her prestigious dinner set, Begum Aafat along with her three daughters, excluding Haala Mami, grabbed Nashwa by a hand or foot each, tied her up into a chair and then splattered her head with henna paste. They thought if they rubbed enough of it onto Nashwa's scalp, her hot head would cool down.
It didn't.
But the ladies were no less spiteful than Nashwa. They made it an annual ritual to do so until Nashwa's eleventh birthday when Haala Mami realised Nashwa wasn't just crying because she hated the women, she was crying because her hair was originally brown like her mother's and now there was no going back.
Haala Mami did not take it easy when Nashwa asked her in between sobs if Ahmad Mamu really had no problem with this. If Haala Mami owned a hunting rifle, my Mamu's stuffed head would be decorating a wall in her lounge today.
Haala Mami disowned her mother and sisters first. Next, she took Nashwa to the best salon she could afford. Haala Mami got Nashwa a full hair makeover. The salon ladies mixed some brown and red dyes to make her hair a rich auburn shade. Nashwa marvelled herself in the mirror, vowing: hot hair, hotter me.
