Chapter 8
By Sahar Elmougy
Translated by Karim Zidan
Translator’s note
Winner of the Sawiris Prize for Arabic Fiction, Musk of the Hill (2019) is a novel that takes several beloved female characters across literary history and shifts them between the modern world and a fantastical society where space and time seem irrelevant. Through subtle touches of magical realism, the critically acclaimed work raise profound existential questions about life, death, individuality, and the complex relationships that define us as humans, all while breathing new life in several widely beloved classic novels.
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The cemetery—Amina (!)
Mariam mumbled these words in her head, but she didn’t speak.
Amina opened the front door to the house, with its slivers of iron and opaque glass, while the old, wooden wall clock ticked 5:45 a.m. She looked at the staircase to make sure the doorman had wiped it off since she had scolded him: “Don’t cut corners, Am Mihny!” At the time, he dramatically swore that he cleaned the stairs twice a day, and that cats and naughty children were behind the mess.
Amina took out the bag of pastries she had baked in Mariam’s gas oven, especially for their trip. She divided the treats into a number of smaller bags, and to each bag she added a handful of dates. Catherine picked up the bags and headed out the door.
As for Mariam, she tried to manage the disgust and surprise she felt as she dragged her body out of bed, dumbfounded by waking up at 4:30 a.m. after sleeping no more than two hours. What was this absurd desire that possessed Amina? Why the insistence? If the tomb they were about to visit hadn’t belonged to Mariam’s family, she would not have agreed to visit.
Be thankful that Amina still lives with you in the house. The lesser evil is to visit the cemetery!
The taxi arrived in Al-Basateen. Catherine said it was a poetic name for a cemetery, which made Mariam consider it for the first time. The driver circled the narrow streets until he arrived at the right entrance. Above the “Salama Family” sign, several letters had been broken from Quranic verse: (O you serene soul, return to your Lord well-pleased and well-pleasing.)
A group of children ran toward them, speaking in loud voices that could have woken the dead. Catherine looked at them with curiosity while Mariam turned her face in dismay. Amina opened the bag and distributed some of the contents. Within minutes, ‘Am Eid arrived after being summoned by one of the children. He did not hide his surprise at Dr. Mariam’s visit— she had come here for the hanim’s burial about two years ago, and he had not seen her since—but he did not hesitate to welcome her, and also to complain about the graves of His Excellency the Doctor, his brother, and their father, where the paint had peeled, where water had seeped in.
Amina interrupted: “Why do the plants look so thirsty, ‘Am Eid? Go now—may God protect you—and quickly fetch some water!”
The man’s tongue froze as he looked, dumbstruck, at Amina. He left and returned with a bucket of water while the torrent of reprimand continued, “Is this a soul, or isn’t it, ‘Am Eid? The doctor will take care of the repairs, but does she have to water the trees as well?”
The scene was complete with the appearance of Sheikh Hassanein, as though he had been hiding in one of the graves. He sat down and began to recite verses from Surat al-Baqara. Catherine listened, attending to the tone as well as the sound of the elongated letters.
(And he conveyed to those who believe and do good deeds that theirs are paradise gardens underneath which rivers flow; whenever they shall be given a portion of the fruit thereof, they shall say: This is what was given to us before; and they shall be given the like of it, and they shall have pure mates in them, and in them, they shall abide.)
Catherine smiled to herself as she thought about all the charming myths made by humans. Christ the Savior. God the All-Seeing, All-Knowing. The omniscient Buddha. She would never forget the panic that befell Amina when she told her that humans had invented God in order to calm their fears and explain the mystery of death. We have to believe that there is someone to talk to, someone who will listen to us and promise us salvation and eternal paradise in exchange for our patience in the face of hardships. Amina’s face had gone pale. She had shaken her head and raised a hand as she asked God’s forgiveness on Catherine’s behalf and proclaimed that such talk was forbidden. Forbidden, Caty!
(God does not place upon a soul a burden greater than it can bear.)
Mariam’s chest began to contract while her neck throbbed with pain. Despite having decided, on the day she had buried her mother in mid-December, 2008, that she would never approach this cemetery again, she had returned here, of her own free will, on her own two feet.
(O our Sustainer! Take us not to task if we forget or unwittingly do wrong! O Lord, Lay not upon us a burden such as Thou didst lay upon those who lived before us! O Lord, make us not bear burdens which we have no strength to bear! And efface Thou our sins, and grant us forgiveness, and bestow Thy mercy upon us! Thou art our Protector: Help us against those who stand against faith!)
“God Almighty has spoken the truth,” Amina said. “May our Lord bless you, Sheikh Hassanein.”
Amina conducted herself as though she were the lady of the house. She thanked the man and gave him pastries, dates, and some money that she had taken from Mariam. She walked with him to the door of the tomb and returned to sit beside Mariam and Catherine. Meanwhile, ‘Am Eid brought them cups of hot tea, and Amina opened another bag of pastries and passed it along to Catherine and Mariam.
The air was crisp in those early hours of the morning as Catherine relaxed with her head leaning against the peeling wall. Mariam, on the other hand, was agitated. It seemed to her that Catherine had visited this tomb a thousand times, in contrast to Mariam’s miserable state, which worsened when she realized that she had forgotten to bring her blood pressure and migraine medication. God damn you, Mariam!
She noticed Amina’s hand touching her shoulder, which brought her back from her thoughts.
“I’m tired, Amina. I don’t know it’s from a lack of sleep, or from being inches away from my mother, or because you and Catherine are here,” she said, shocked as words emerged from her mouth before she could think. “I can’t believe that two characters born from novels have been living with me for the last five weeks! The scary thing is a part of me actually believes it. And this can only mean one thing…that I’ve gone crazy!”
Mariam felt her chest heave and contract, as though she had run for miles, and her head was filled with fiery thoughts. Beads of sweat collected across her forehead and down the folds of her back.
Amina looked at her sympathetically, then turned toward the tombstone and said, calmly, “I know you’re asking where we came from. Do you think I haven’t asked myself a thousand questions? I might appear calm, but sometimes my head feels like a record on repeat: I’m really here! But how? A voice inside me laughs at my stupidity and says: ‘It’s not as though this is the first time this has happened, Amina!’ I told you that Caty and I were in a house filled with nothing but other women. When you asked me where it was, I didn’t answer. Do you know why, Mariam?”
Mariam stared at her in silence.
“Because we have no idea!”
One day, Amina awoke from what seemed to be a long, deep sleep. She opened her eyes in a bed not her own and a house that did not belong to her. She got up and wandered around, as though in a dream. She soon realized that she was in a house standing on a rocky hill amidst an endless space. That was the strangest moment in her life. If she had seen a hundred ifrits — God forbid — it would have been better. She had touched her body while muttering, “I…I am Amina, daughter of Sheikh Abdelsalam Al Hadeiry…alive!”
Days and weeks passed, and Amina realized she was not in a dream. She had no choice but to get to know the place, this house filled with women of every kind, color, and tongue—none of whom were surprised by her presence. It was as though she had always been there. She, alone, asked questions.
Who are they?
Where am I?
Amina smiled as she observed ‘Am Eid place the coffee and cups of cold water in front of them before lifting the tea tray and walking off. She rested her head against the stone wall and looked up at the sky.
Mariam was starting to forget her neck pain and piercing headache.
Amina didn’t know where to start, for the house was not just any house. It was a luxurious palace that rivalled Saraya Abdeen.Amina laughed as she explained to Mariam that she had never gone in, but had heard the stories and seen the pictures. The house—a structure made of grey, bulky stone with seven towers looming above it—stood alone on the edge of the towering hill, as though it were part of the rock itself. Inside were endless rooms, and those didn’t include the magical ones. Of those, there was a room beneath the large wooden staircase and another at the end of the second-floor hallway. That was the one that Aziza discovered only by chance, because its handle-less door was the same grey color as the wall.
The ground floor featured several living rooms, a library, and a kitchen that was as big as a paddock where horses could gallop. There was also a basement that Amina feared. Who knew what jinn or blue afrits roamed inside?
The eastern side of the house formed a straight line with the tip of the high hill. If, for example, it so happened that a woman dropped something from her window, its return was in God’s hands. As for the western side, it opened out onto a vast garden that would take half a day to walk across. In the heart of the garden was an alabaster fountain, which Amina stumbled on by chance under a small mound of wild weeds. A long time after her arrival, Amina had cleaned it, repaired the cracks, and washed the pipes of rust, and the fountain had returned to its original state, like a bride on her wedding day. There was also a stone staircase eroded by time and by the rainwater streaming down the hill.
Where am I?
Little did Amina know that this simple question would remain unanswered until this exact moment, when she sat in the tomb belonging to Mariam’s family. Yet she approached each of the house’s residents one by one.
“Ophelia, my dear, as you say, you’ve been here far longer than I have. Don’t you know which of God’s countries we’re in right now?”
Ophelia had smiled with her wandering eyes, grabbed Amina’s shoulders with frosty hands, and spoke to her as though she were trying to fool a child: “What is this silly question? Would it change anything if you knew? Why are we intentionally seeking out misery?” Her voice rose in reproach. “Do you know, Amina, you are like Hamlet, whose questions never stop—much ado about nothing?” She had turned and walked away without hesitation.
“Much ado about nothing.” She laughed.
Amina should have known she would not get a clear answer from her.
After days—no—weeks of wallowing in confusion, Amina had gone out into the garden next to the kitchen to pick a few tomatoes. She had paused for a moment and looked at the fruit in her hand, the red color of which glowed in the sunlight. She had run her fingertips over the smooth, tight skin, almost bursting with life.
“Thank God.”
She’d said the words and looked around as though she were seeing the place for the first time. What is all this green? As if it were the virgin land of God. The hills stretched out around them until they met the sky, while the sky was unlike anything Amina had seen before, as though it were a human breathing, his facial expressions shifting with each passing moment. The magnificent trees had appeared as though they had been there since time immemorial, while the vast expanse seemed endless. Amina saw no trace of a human; nothing but birds in the sky, a flock of sheep scattered over the grass, and wild horses trotting between the hills, as though the land was their own.
“Oh, Allah!”
Amina’s heart and lips had gone on chanting the word ceaselessly.
Is this the paradise that the Prophet described when he said: “It is what no eye has seen before, no ear has heard before, and no human heart could have felt”? And yet, she was possessed with bewilderment. Are there houses like ours in heaven, even if they are houses like Saraya Abdeen? Do people there communicate with different languages yet understand each other? Why are there no men here? Is there a library in heaven?
The library was itself quite a story. Her feet had led her easily to the Arabic section. Amina did not know how the knowledge of what she had learned as a child returned to her. After a short while, she had begun to devour the books, as though a magical world had revealed itself before her. She had read Al-Jabarti, Taha Hussein, and al-Manfaluti; she had devoured everything on Orabi Pasha, the memoirs of Sa’ad Zaghloul and Tawfik al-Hakim, Yusuf Idris and Radwa Ashour. The list was too long for Amina to remember now.
After a few years, she had learned English and had started exploring a new part of the library. She was no longer surprised by her desire to finish her kitchen chores as early as possible in order to return to her current book. Even during the spring and summer, when she went out into the woods with the other women, she had taken a book with her.
“Until the difficult day arrived, Mariam.”
“Difficult?”
Amina fell silent, catching her breath. She drank deeply from her glass of water as she looked at Catherine, who smiled back at her, before turning back to Mariam. “On that day, there was rain and thunder from the early morning. By noon, the sky remained dark. My eyes were moving between The Lamp of Umm Hashim, which I was reading, and the storm, which I could see from the library’s glass doors. My tongue begged for the Egyptian sun and for my seat among the ivy on the rooftop.
“I finished the book and started looking for the next one. My hand fell on a book that I don’t know how I missed in the first place. Even its title should have drawn me in. There, inside the pages of Palace Walk was my story. What is this? It’s me! And this is the family home. And the children, the English, Sa’ad Pasha, the protests, and…!”
Amina had read on while the questions rang in her head like a hammer from the Al-Nahhasin neighborhood. Who wrote my story? Was it one of Kamal’s friends, or Kamal himself? He had nothing in his life save for books!
And the book…the book said she was dead! And yet here she was, breathing, eating, drinking, and dreaming of the family home, the children, and the smell of fresh bread. What is death? Is this heaven? She had called out for Catherine, who came running.
“What’s wrong, Amina?” she asked, a little disturbed.
Trembling from head to toe and still holding the book, Amina had explained everything. Catherine had taken her calmly by the hand and brought down another book from the shelf: Wuthering Heights. She had placed the old, yellowing copy that bore the first edition date of 1847 in Amina’s hand and said, “In here, I died when I was 19 years old. But I remained a ghost wandering aimlessly around the Heights for another 20 years.” Then she’d laughed before adding that all the women in the House of Sirens had their stories reflected in books.
Amina stared at Catherine in shock, “And what exactly are these Sirens?”
Catherine had smiled and said that the Sirens were women. Women, Amina. Her face had grown grim, warning Amina to be wary of them: Do not dare listen to any songs you may hear in the midday air, or during a new moon!
Amina hadn’t understood any of what Catherine was saying. The ground had seemed to shift under her feet.
What is this place? Who brought all these women here? What is this nonsense Catherine is saying? Is it possible, Amina, that this place is not real? Or are these women nothing more than the faces of ghosts wandering in the void?
Were she and Catherine and Lucy and Ophelia and all the others nothing more than stories?
Amina had left the books behind and had wandered the house like a madwoman. She had touched the walls, the paintings, the sofas, the piano, and the body of the harp. She had pinched her arm and felt a twinge of pain and the bruising of her skin. She had stepped out into the garden, gone to the oak tree, and pressed her face to the huge trunk as if seeking shelter. She had turned to the house behind her, which stood looking at her with indifference. Catherine stood by the fountain, watching over her with pity.
Amina rested her head against the tomb wall and breathed. Mariam’s eyes remained fixed on her. She felt as though she were descending into the depths of an abyss. She could neither float up nor touch solid ground.
“You know, from the moment I met you, I felt there were so many differences between you and the Amina from Palace Walk that you might as well have been someone else,” Mariam said.
Amina smiled with her honey-colored eyes. “Someone else?”
“You are not as naive as the woman in the novel.”
Amina laughed. “Do you know how many years separate me from that Amina? Sixty-six, since it’s now 2010. I lived from the time I was born until God recalled me, a year before the war. And the time I spent in the Sirens’ House would take more than a trilogy to recount. It is enough to tell you that, when I decided to learn English, I felt as though I were betraying Fahmy. It took some time to understand the difference between the Englishmen who shot my son and the ones who wrote the books I read.”
“And you and Catherine, it’s clear you two were friends there.”
“Friends!” Amina laughed. “I used to take care of her when she got sick. But so long as she was healthy, you’d find her wandering around all day. Just like you see her doing here.”
Catherine nodded toward Amina and flashed a smile Mariam did not understand.
God is great…God is great…I swear that…
The call to afternoon prayer grew louder, drowning out Amina’s voice and Mariam’s questions.
Outside the cemetery door, ‘Am Eid sat, wondering at such a long visit. He considered leaving his place and going to pray, but he was afraid that the Lady might need him. And if she did not find him, she might leave without giving him a tip. He decided to pray later.
Eventually, the call to prayer came to an end, and ‘Am Eid got up and quietly approached the entrance. He pushed the old iron door and found it light. There was none of the usual creaking. Inside, cold gusts of wind blew against his face, as though it were the middle of January, carrying with it the scent of musk. His eyes sought out the three women.
He found the tomb courtyard awash with extraordinary colors: large trees with bright green leaves towering over the walls and swaying against the wind, and bushes thick with red and white flowers, more than ‘Am Eid had seen over the course of his long life. The blue sky revealed white clouds surrounded by an orange halo. His eyes returned to the courtyard, which was now crowded with countless women. Oh, glory to God! They were talking and laughing while holding cups filled with pink, transparent, or deep-red liquid. The red was the color of deer blood!
‘Am Eid felt the ground violently spin beneath his feet. He closed his eyes and opened them again. His heart pounded against his ribcage, as though he had seen an ifrit. Suddenly, he noticed Dr. Mariam and the foreign lady passing through the door to the outside world, trailed by Amina. She handed the man some money, saying, “Take care of the plants, ‘Am Eid. We’ll be back to check on things once in a while. Good day.”
This translation first appeared in the Winter 2020 volume of ArabLit Quarterly, entitled Dreams, which is available for purchase here.
