Yasminah
Cairo, 1966

I planned to do it while everyone was at Mosque.

‘Mama,’ I said, stumbling into her office and clutching my stomach, ‘I can’t go to Friday prayers because I have my period.’

My mother put her policy papers into her drawer before looking at me. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again.

‘Stay home and rest, habibbti,’ Baba called out from the hall. Mama slammed her thick diary shut and sighed. She gazed out her small window onto the side street where we went for ice cream on days when the heat was the thickest. I could hear Baba coming towards us, reciting Abu Dawud’s hadith under his breath. He kissed my forehead before looking at my mother wide eyed and shrugging.

‘Yallah, Usman, Aziz!’ he called out, clapping his hands as he walked, rallying my brothers who were on the balcony that overlooked a hectic Heliopolis. My thoughts were as loud and fast as Osman Ibn Affan Street. I twiddled the door handle. My mother’s eyebrows rose, and her lips swished from side to side. I gulped and followed my father through the apartment and out onto the balcony. The sun was setting and squares of orange were interspersing with squares of grey, turning our large balcony into a chess board. Usman, the Knight, was in a section of shade, kicking his football against the dusty wall. Aziz, the Rook, was squinting, leaning on the balustrade, ogling the girls in the apartment below.

Watching my brothers both pursuing their passions, I sat on the wobbly wooden chair. It was the one that Uncle Jeddy broke last Eid and that Baba had done his best to fix. I tried to relax. They’d be out for hours after Mosque. Mama would go for coffee with Naila and reminisce about the ‘glory days’ at Bint Al Nil, and Baba would go for shisha with Naila’s husband, Dyab, and be thankful that the ‘glory days’ at Bint Al Nil were over.

‘Now that she is not protesting, she is cooking!’ Dyab would say, as if he hadn’t made the joke a thousand times.

Baba would laugh, slapping Dyab on the back, as if he hadn’t heard it a thousand times.

Usman would put his balcony practice to the test and play with his friends on the street. Meanwhile, Aziz would go to his nightclub to leer at more women. He was thankful that his latest entrepreneurial venture placated Mama and Baba, blurring the lines between business and pleasure. He’d end the night entwined between Maggie and Eleanor. No doubt not the only man in Cairo who enjoyed the aftermath of colonisation.

‘Alibi’s, habibbti, my club is called Alibi’s, you girls must come . . . How about tonight?’ Aziz shouted down to the sisters.

I could hear the girls giggling in response before their father, Mr Yaghoubi, in his deep, abrasive voice from years of tobacco smoking, called them in from his armchair.

Aziz tutted. He took a mirror out of his pocket and loudly spat on his hand before mopping his thick black hair and adjusting his jacket. I heard my mother’s boots striding into the living room. I turned around and the chair creaked and slid to the side, almost toppling me over. She had her headscarf on now and was putting her gloves on.

‘Yallah, Usman, Aziz . . . let’s go!’ Baba whistled.

I joined them, as we all walked towards Mama. She looked at me and my eyes wandered.

‘This is not the word of Aisha but the word of Abu Dawud, what did I tell you, some of the hadiths, the word of Mohammed, peace be upon him, is transcribed from unreliable narrators. Written by men with an agenda . . .’ she began.

‘Nashit nisayiyun . . .’ Baba hissed as she ranted, ‘. . . nashit nisayiyun . . . feminist,’ he whispered it as if it were a swear word. He made a face while tying his shoelaces.

‘It’s my belief, Mama, and Baba thinks it too,’ I said, ‘the hadith of Abu Dawud said that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) asked Aisha to give him something while he was at Mosque and she declined, saying that she was menstruating.’

My mother crossed her arms and bit her fat bottom lip. She tutted and walked towards the door. She knew I often used the Quran to my advantage. But then again, so did she.

‘Bismillah,’ Mama hissed to herself, looking me up and down one last time, as if scanning my body for clues of my deceit.

‘Usman, Aziz, Ali!’ Mama roared and pointed at the door. ‘Hey! What about Yasminah?’ Aziz grumbled.

My mother raised her brows at him, pushing her eyeballs almost cartoonishly out of their sockets. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘I am also on my period!’

Usman clutched a cushion to his stomach and fell onto the sofa laughing.

‘Wallahi!’ my mother shouted and her voice echoed above the high ceiling. All three of them flinched. Usman shot up from the sofa, Baba opened the door, mumbling to Aziz about respecting a woman’s monthly pain and Mama clipped her eldest most outspoken son over the head. The door slammed behind them.

‘Don’t be so childish, your sister is in pain!’ I heard Mama hiss as they galloped down the five flights of stairs. Each clip quieter than the last until there were only the sounds of cars beeping.

Alone, I sat in the armchair, turned the fan on beside the tele- phone and for a while I listened to its rhythmic beat somewhat subduing the traffic below. Then I turned the radio on. Umm Kulthum’s ‘Inta Omri’ was playing.

This is the song I told my best friend Mona we had danced to. I closed my eyes.

‘Let’s dance,’ he had said as he took my hand and kissed me. At first his lips felt like rose petals. Yet, later, all I could feel were the sharp thorns of his stubble as his head buried itself into my neck. It felt both tremendous and torturous, it was like someone was tickling me to death.

I switched the radio off and then the fan and walked towards the dining room. I opened Mama’s cabinet, where she now displayed her wine like trophies. When I was a little girl I used to find the bottles stashed away in her wardrobe, but the more Islamic poets she consumed, the bolder she grew.

‘Shall I spurn it, when Allah himself hasn’t and our own caliph shows its veneration?’ she would always utter as she opened the bottle, ‘. . . superlative wine, radiant and bright. Rivalling the sun’s scintillation. While we may not know Heaven in this life, still we have paradise’s libation.’ Then she’d say to Baba or whoever she felt might be judging her before taking the first sip, ‘The poetry of Abu Nawas, alhamdulillah.’

My fingers touched each bottle, making lines in the dust, recalling my mother’s ritual. I clicked the glass cabinet closed again and found my hands wandering to the wooden cupboard below, where she hid her spirits like dirty secrets. She was yet to find an Islamic poet who heralded the spiritual qualities of a gin and tonic.

I took an unopened bottle from Mama’s cupboard and brought it back into the living room. Was this all the medicine I needed to right someone else’s wrong? The girl at my school had warned me that it wasn’t guaranteed but it was at least worth a try. I sat back down again on the armchair and unscrewed the top. It cracked like the sound a pistol makes before a race. With sudden speed, I poured it down my throat. I could feel the sting attacking the parasite inside me. I drank some more. Tremendous and torturous. I flicked the radio on then flicked it off again before taking another big swig. This time I had taken more than I could swallow; my cheeks expanded, and I was forced to let some dribble out of my mouth and onto the fabric of the chair. I could feel my world blurring; looming over the coffee table, I saw a clock like the one I’d seen in a painting, melting in a desert, bending to the dimensions of time and space. I drank more, before bringing the bottle tightly to my chest. I was a child again, hugging my teddy bear, scared of the monster within. I drank again and again and again, each sip, swig, gulp, swallow less potent than the last. It was only when the spirit turned sweet that my hearing slowed and my vision sped. I fell onto the ceramic floor and I heard the bottle smashing like the crescendo of an orchestral piece before going quiet. The tiles underneath me were soft clouds and I dozed into a dream.

I lost parts of that night to the spirit. When I woke on the floor, I felt a warmness between my legs. I opened my eyes and yelped like a small dog being trod on. I saw the blood streaming down the floor. I followed it, flowing like the Nile. The blood river fusing into the smashed glass. The alcohol distilling the redness, turning an acrylic painting into a watercolour. I picked myself up, carelessly stepping over the tragic masterpiece.

Then I raided Mama’s cabinet for another bottle, as I heard the call to prayer.