A Boat to Lesbos E-Book

Nouri al-Jarrah

• Herausgeber: Banipal Books
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 227

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

A Boat to Lesbos is a powerful and compelling epic poem, written while thousands of Syrian refugees were enduring frightening journeys across the Mediterranean before arriving on the small island. Set out like a Greek tragedy, it is passionate and dramatic witness to the horrors and ravages suffered by Syrian families forced to flee their destroyed country, seen through the eye of history, the poetry of Sappho and the travels of Odysseus. Plus poems written while the poetry visited Lesbos during the refugee crisis.

Leseprobe

Huda Hamed

The Cinderellas

of Muscat

The Cinderellas of MusccatFirst published in English translationby Banipal Books, London, 2025

Arabic copyright © Huda Hamed

English translation copyright © Chip Rossetti 2024

Sandirillat Musqat was first published in Arabic in 2016

Original title

Published by Dar Al Adab, Beirut, Lebanon

The moral right of Huda Hamed to be identified as the author of this work and of Chip Rossetti as the translator of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher

A CIP record for this book is available in the British Library

ISBN 978-1-913043-45-2

E-book: ISBN: 978-1-913043-46-9

Front cover painting by Ghassan Fadhil

Banipal Books is an imprint of Banipal PublishingTypeset in Cardo

Printed and bound in Great Britainby Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A

“You must be very patient … First you will sit down at a little distance from me … I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me, every day.”

                                                   The Little Prince

                                                     Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The female jinn no longer come to Muscat as they did in the olden days, to drive away a little of reality’s oppressiveness. They are the jinn who fly, do somersaults, and change their shapes, and who keep people busy night and day with lots of things that would never have happened if not for them.

The female jinn abandoned Muscat ever since it was lit by electricity, and ever since people hardened in their cement houses, while the racket made by their air conditioners and the sounds from their television sets drowned out the voices of the jinn. To be precise, it happened after thoughtful attention to things died out and imagination perished.

One evening, one of them – I mean the jinn – collided with a satellite dish on the roof of someone’s house and died. Her death didn’t stir up any fuss worth mentioning.

The female jinn retreated to dark and distant mountains, and there they stayed, tallying up their losses. There was no longer any shady spot among the palm trees for them to hide in, and no winding irrigation channels for them to swim in. There were no longer any women going out to gather firewood from the desert, or walking at night near graveyards, praying and trembling. No longer was there a solitary woman fetching water from a distant well, or a woman getting up at dawn and heading to the animal pen before the muezzin woke for the dawn prayer, on the pretext it was the best time to milk her cow, when in reality she was waiting for a lover who would make passionate love to her.

Oh God … How happy it used to make the jinn when someone came across something mysterious and shouted out, “It must be a jinn!”

My Aunt Mazna, who used to say, “The day belongs to some people, and the night belongs to others,” came within a hair’s breadth – or even closer – of turning into a Cinderella.

My mother and father, and the doctor, offered different excuses why she couldn’t do it, but I was the only one who knew my aunt’s well of jinn had dried up. And it had dried up sooner than expected.

But even if we supposed for the sake of argument that the female jinn of Muscat had all died, or were hiding themselves in shame because no one turned to them for help any more, or gave any thought to their sufferings in their seclusion, then those extraordinary powers of transformation of theirs must inevitably exist somewhere.

Perhaps their powers have been released into the air, and all they need are beings capable of receiving them or, let’s say, beings ready to act on them.

That is just what happened to the Cinderellas: even if some of them deny it, I will declare it boldly now. We Cinderellas now enjoy the powers of the thwarted female jinn.

Zubayda

Every month, on a night like this, the Cinderellas escape from the loathsome drudgery of home and their demanding children and husbands. They head out, not caring about anyone, and especially unwilling to be late for this appointment. And although they realise that time will race by quickly, they sow the seeds of time and then water them so that they grow at a leisurely pace.

On a night exactly like this one, husbands will stop waiting up for them, and young children will stop crying and accept the toasted bread and potatoes their fathers will cook, leaving them raw at best; their surfaces giving it away that the salted potatoes went into the oil at the wrong time. But the children will eat them grudgingly, while telling themselves, “It’s not completely awful. This just isn’t our night.”

Some very devoted Cinderellas will cook dinner in the afternoon along with lunch, so the fathers don’t have to make any effort beyond warming it. But most of the Cinderellas don’t feel any twinge of conscience about that, because this is their night, and they don’t want to spoil it with a lot of work.

Fathers and children alike are incapable of imagining what happens with the Cinderellas during their “nights out”, because the Cinderellas themselves change so much. They change so much their families are no longer able to recognise them. The Cinderellas roam through Muscat until they settle in at that restaurant overlooking Mangrove Beach, its name magically transformed into “The Cinderellas Restaurant”.

The Cinderellas really do become transformed, even their individual fragrance changes; of course, that’s not due to the effect of perfumes, but is something related to the scents that their bodies, ready for tonight, give off. For some, pimples disappear from their faces; for others, bulging bellies slim down so that their dresses completely straighten out. In fact, for some of them, the grey that had stealthily crept into their black hair will all of a sudden seem sacred, more like a captivating, head-turning radiance. The truth is anyone passing by would have to say there wasn’t a single one of them who wasn’t graced with some measure of beauty. And not just to a certain extent: any man passing a Cinderella would be incapable of letting go of his curiosity. Even if he was in a hurry, or preoccupied, his head would turn involuntarily. Even those who don’t take an interest in women wouldn’t be able to hide their stupefied looks, and some – only a few, to be precise – would go overboard in their imaginings with fiery erotic dreams.

Even the quite average Cinderellas, the ones with bad luck, will tonight become other women, and when they stand in front of the mirror, this feeling will be confirmed, and one of them, without taking her eyes off the face in the reflection, will say to herself: “I just have to believe it.”

All the runaway Cinderellas are beautiful now, and say with a laugh, “It’s a good thing the jinn can still sprinkle stardust on our heads!”

The Cinderellas are not the same as they are at home. They’re not wearing dark pyjamas or have their hair coiled in buns smelling of hair products, and they’re not wearing aprons. Their fingernails aren’t broken: even if one of us dared to touch those hands now, she wouldn’t believe they handle plenty of housework – some even had scabs on them a few hours earlier. If we look more closely, we would discover the Cinderellas’ heels aren’t dry and cracked the way they usually are.

What’s more, you can’t imagine that their stomachs could have given birth: they’re not flabby and there are no unsightly dark lines near their navels. Stomachs are pulled taut to their straightened backs, as if the wheels of time hadn’t yet rolled over them. Full breasts don’t reveal the devastation left behind by young children sucking at the first source of gratification in their lives. In fact, these exceptional Cinderellas seem as if they just stepped off the covers of magazines.

They are beautiful and have enough time to take photos of themselves. Even the waiter never grumbles at their continual requests for him to take photos, and on several different phones, too. The waiter does it gladly now, even though he usually avoids doing it for other customers. It’s not part of his job and he doesn’t get paid for the time he spends taking photos of smiling faces that hardly glance in his direction to offer a small gesture of thanks or give a paltry tip on top of the final bill.

But he – I mean the waiter – for some reason he doesn’t understand, is incapable of ignoring the Cinderellas. They aren’t normal customers.

One night he told his manager, “They bring luck, sir!”

And so the manager didn’t hesitate, either, to greet them, on the pretext of asking about the level of service he could provide, but the Cinderellas pay no attention to anyone at all, not even him, as though there were a membrane separating their magical table from the ones nearby.

In fact, people walking past them – as well as those sitting near them – lower their voices, and are content just to watch these Cinderellas, who captivate everyone in Muscat, and avail themselves of charming niceties and tales from their secluded spot in the restaurant.

Women in love at the neighbouring tables and women out on dates feel no jealousy, fear, or apprehension; they don’t get angry and they don’t yank their lovers’ hair or pinch their ears, instead they prefer to look at the Cinderellas and listen devotedly to the stories they tell. It’s as if everyone has suddenly stepped into a magical movie.

The women in love are never afraid of the runaway Cinderellas, who are probably not out tonight looking for a prince. In spite of the vast differences among them – I mean the Cinderellas – they agree on one distinct thing: “Princes often bring misery, even if it seems like fun to dance with them,” so it’s best not to think about them tonight.

On this night, fathers will finish homework with the children, and most will do it half-heartedly, or three-quarters-heartedly at best, and the children will be glad since their fathers are more of a pushover than their mothers. The fathers will be preoccupied by television and phones, while the children split their attention between the fridge, the television, and books. On this night, the children will eat too many delicious sweets, and have extra helpings of fresh milk and cucumber slices.

The truth is, it was the fathers who brought the desserts home that afternoon, with the aim of storing them behind the plastic containers of milk in the fridge. But the children know by heart where the desserts are kept, and know the right time to eat them. For sure, the mothers notice this wicked shuffling around in the fridge, but when they turn into Cinderellas, it isn’t important any more. “So what if they eat too much chocolate and too many sweets tonight … what harm will it do?”

Generally, the fathers get what they want – the children eat the desserts and sit like meek lambs in front of television screens or PlayStations.

When they meet up on different occasions, they ask: “Why do our wives complain about the kids? They aren’t wild animals, except when their mothers are around.”

They praise each other, because that night passes without incident, as intended. None of the children gets sick or throws up, and none of them cries or misses their mother, even the babies don’t miss their mothers, and that night seems quite special to the fathers because they threw themselves into it and there were no tears.

Changing nappies is the worst and most unpleasant thing for the fathers with children still under the age of three, but they came up with an idea that never occurred to the mothers before.

The infernal idea that the fathers shared among themselves was: “Let the children go without.”

The fathers exchanged this bit of information in complete secrecy. “Letting children go without nappies is a good thing. They don’t urinate or defecate, and they next day, they wake up really clean.”

The mothers never try to change their traditional way of looking at things; they inherit very old expertise, and end up being quite miserable.

There they are, the fathers and children, equally capable of living happily without highly strung mothers, without milk, nappies, and excessive house rules about everything. “What if the children went to bed without brushing their teeth?” Is it possible that cavities will seize this opportunity and cause their teeth to decay, on tonight of all nights?

Little girls walk around with dishevelled hair. What will happen if their hair is a mess? Nothing at all.

The fathers say: “When we saw our wives running after their girls with hair oils and combs, with our ears hurting from the little ones’ screaming, we used to wonder what the point was of girls having neatly combed long hair. Here are our little girls, playing and enjoying themselves so well with their hair flying up from their laughing faces. In fact, it gives them a beauty that we, their fathers, understand. In fact, we must say that our girls are quite charming, except when they’re with their deluded mothers.”

“Our abilities appear to be better than we expected,” one of the fathers said in earnest.

“But in any case, we don’t want to change places with them for good,” another one replied.

“We’re not complaining about this little game,” said a third, enthusiastically. “We’re doing it perfectly, and we shouldn’t be surprised by the degree of discomfort that will ensue.”

A fourth one laughs. “The funny thing is that, after this splendid night, my wife will interrogate the kids, one by one, and she will explode with anger because it passed without any catastrophe to speak of.”

Anger really does creep in, because what the mothers do with a struggle, the fathers do with a smile. They don’t end up missing out on watching movies and important games, and they don’t grumble or disturb the Cinderellas’ night out with lots of phone calls.

Anger may sprout the next morning like poisonous mushrooms, but the mere memory of that night, blessed and wrapped in tales, when the Cinderellas are in a state of euphoria, dancing madly, and doing what is totally unexpected – the mere recollection of it all – will make such anger disappear and drive away unbearable nightmares.

* * *

Here they are now, sitting, having brought two tables together. Even though the restaurant doesn’t allow customers to go into the kitchen, the Cinderellas enter it together. The truth is, this no longer surprises the chefs since the Cinderellas rather liked talking to them. They give the chefs exact recipes for the food and drinks they want. At other times, the recipes combine strange and unexpected ingredients together. In fact, the head chef included on the menu, under the Cinderellas’ real names, some of the dishes they created after customers pointed to these dishes with their particular mouthwatering aroma, which sets their hearts racing and makes them drool saliva – spontaneously and suddenly from the corners of their mouths.

The customers wish they could order something similar. That aroma captivates them and lures them to a memory they just can’t seem to recall. They lose their appetite for conversation as they try, with enormous effort, to recall just what that aroma is telling them. It harks back to distant memories, to things forgotten or gone forever. As though a hidden hand had emerged and lit them up like candles, their spirits cry out, and some among them seem in an alarming state of intoxication. They grow drunk on the aroma, while an unimaginable, irrepressible bliss floats on the surface of time – a bliss no less than that felt by the Cinderellas.

But in any case, these customers at the neighbouring tables can do no more than observe from up close. They can only soak up the warmth of the Cinderellas’ bodies, which has begun to radiate through the air. Likewise, they can be no more than a frame for a group portrait of the Cinderellas, or take front-row seats at the foot of their enormous stage.

On this night in particular, no one can upstage the Cinderellas. No one important will die on this night; no woman will give birth to her first or most beloved child; no business will be robbed that could make front-page news; no one advocating in favour of obscure taboos will be executed; no pair of matched lovers will get married despite the constellations saying otherwise; and no hapless functionary will get a promotion.

This night, there will be no extraordinary occurrence, except in the stories the Cinderellas are busy engaged in telling. Tonight, nothing will happen outside the thoughts that they are thinking.

On this night, the Cinderellas open doors to secret rooms to tell the stories of everything that passes through the relatively sensitive filters of their lives. For secrets are the women’s café, their passion, and the mystery of their glow. No Cinderella can hold back her story tonight. “It would be bad luck!” Rayya declares, even though she’s the oldest and most secretive Cinderella of all. However, even she realized fairly recently she could no longer tolerate keeping her secret to herself, and so on an exceptional night like this, telling it can provoke a little joy.

Tahani raises a glass of apple juice to which she herself added blackberry and grape juices, along with slices of orange and green apple. She raises it high like a celebratory toast, and is about to say something to Fathiyya, who can’t resist primping herself now and again, while the fragrance grabs people’s attention and brings passing customers to a halt around the Cinderellas. Sara is in in her most splendid outfit and smiles as if she were on the red carpet of movie stars. As for Nawf, she maintains a neutral expression and doesn’t leave enough of an impression for anyone to stare at her. Rayya is the calmest and most serious Cinderella though her facial features betray her kind, sympathetic nature, while Rabi’a and Alya are standing beside each other, exchanging the occasional whisper. Rabi’a’s mouth is glued to Alya’s ear, and in no time at all, Alya’s mouth ends up glued to Rabi’a’s ear.

The head chef often felt disappointed, because in spite of all his hard work and his careful observation of what the Cinderellas get up to in the restaurant kitchen, he never prepared a dish exactly like the ones they did, with that same special aroma. Even though the customers devour his dishes with gusto and ask for more, he knew for certain in the depths of his soul that he couldn’t make anything as good as theirs, and couldn’t make anything out of the ordinary, as they do, nimbly and quickly.

In his moments of despair, the head chef wanted to leave his little kitchen looking out over Mangrove Beach and go back to his noisy city, but he learned something new every time, not the least of which was what Sara did with the chicken broth, that had bread steeped in it. He had carefully written down the steps, and recorded how long to fry the onion and just when to toss in the garlic, coriander, and other spices. Sara wasn’t exact, and would throw things in one after another. She gave no indication of expertise, it was as if she were doing it only out of instinct or habit, but the aroma always said otherwise. The head chef thoroughly enjoyed her broth, but there was pain in his soul. “The secret isn’t in the measurements, darling,” Sara told him with a laugh.

The head chef had been chasing their secret for months and months, ever since the Cinderellas became regulars at his restaurant, but he gave up hope of ever acquiring it. Alya upset him even more when she told him, “A little of you goes into your dish; that’s why your dish won’t be exactly like ours. Simply put: it’s because we are not the same as you.”

Despite the customers’ zeal in ordering his dishes, he was certain every time that his dishes were missing something, but he couldn’t believe it was because they needed another ingredient, whose constituents he had wasted his entire life trying to pin down, while learning recipes from books in different languages of the world. His methodical brain couldn’t believe what was happening before his eyes.

Fathiyya pays no attention to quantities either. Here she is, pouring in salt and black pepper like it’s no problem. She chops onions into uneven pieces and, in fact, puts the ingredients in the pot in no particular order. He shudders as her carefree actions throw him into confusion. He is puzzled by her inattention when she cooks pasta. Pasta can’t be cooked that way, but Fathiyya does it with remarkable speed.

The smell that comes from the pot sometimes drives the head chef to tears. In his inner depths, he understands clearly that his cooking pots will never be able to produce that same aroma which reels in passersby as well as people several metres away. He starts crying, and at that moment wishes he could be a young apprentice again, but the Cinderellas don’t have a position for him. His lessons happen only by chance, which upsets him even further. More than once, when he begged them for a short cooking lesson, they told him: “This is our only good chance to tell stories, and we’re not going to waste it on anything else.” They had come to tell stories that were long overdue. And the hands of the clock on that long and rare winter night would spin quickly.

No one can find any justification for the existence of these amazing Cinderellas, of different ages and from different villages – Cinderellas, dizzy with stories that are equally strange and unsettling. But on a night like this they are all alike, for as soon as you look them in the face, you will understand that they have no worries, no troubles.

In a state of delight, they descend to earth amid strains of laughter. They wink at each other, having a good deal of fun as they do so. It would be impossible for these eyes of theirs to have a memory: brand new in every respect, it’s as if they’re seeing things for the first time. These eyes retain an enormous passion for absorbing everything that crosses their path. Eyes that yearn and hearts that beat. At this very moment their hearts are beating faster than usual, even though this gathering takes place every month. But tonight, there’s a clear agreement, made earlier between the Cinderellas: they will not waste their time merely cooking, dancing, and singing when there is fun to be had, fun that’s thrilling but overdue, fun they have enjoyed before, but this time they want to devote all their time to it.

* * *

Just then, the head chef took off his apron and walked out of the kitchen. This time, he wasn’t wearing the bright white shirt with the wide collar and red cravat. He was wearing a yellow T-shirt that revealed his chest and arm muscles, and a pair of grey jeans. He seemed taller than they had previously thought, and his hair, unusually for him, wasn’t under his regulation hair net, but was tied back with a ribbon, something that made him look ten years younger. In fact, the light wrinkles beneath his eyes couldn’t conceal the captivating green of his eyes, and his untrimmed, haphazard beard added some gravity and dignity to his unexpected departure.

He walked past the patrons, not sure if anyone would pay any attention to his absence that night, even though the manager was in no position to try and stop him when he laid his letter of resignation on his desk. But Rayya’s eye couldn’t ignore that unnatural scene. She yelled out as the Cinderellas were beginning their overlapping conversation and laughter, “Look! Someone ruining our night.”

And so it was that the Cinderellas grew silent, so they could observe this unforeseen problem.

Rabi’a said angrily: “Nothing like that can happen tonight. It’s our night.”

People would never have thought that a minor event like that could stir up all that turmoil.

Fathiyya said, “Hey, chef …”

At that the chef came to a halt and turned round, his face dark with grief. He walked over to them, stopping just outside the enormous ring of light encircling them.

“This the first time anyone’s done something like this,” Nawf said. “Everyone knows the rules for tonight. You can leave tomorrow or the day after, but there’s no need to do this tonight.”

He shrugged his shoulders helplessly: “There’s no reason for me to stay here any longer.”

Alya expressed some sympathy: “What makes you say something like that? Look at the people around you. They’re happy tonight, on our night. They’ve been waiting eagerly for it, to wash away their misery, their despair, their feelings of disgust.”

Rayya stood up in alarm: “Now I remember. This head chef is the only person on our nights who stays miserable. I don’t ever recall seeing this man happy on one of our nights.”

“My God,” Tahani whispered, “That means our magic doesn’t work on him!”

The hubbub of overlapping chatter returned among the Cinderellas. “Why don’t we invite him to our table?” Sara asked. They all shouted at her, talking over each other, “Are you crazy? We’ve never allowed that before.”

At that moment, the head chef made his indifference clear by turning his back on them and heading towards the exit. With a nervousness that was inappropriate for that night, Nawf said, “He’s miserable. Nothing makes him happy. I wish we could talk to him.”

At that, they all fell silent until Rayya raised her voice: “Hey, chef … Can you please join us? There’s an empty seat here.”

The head chef turned, surprised, and tried to find something appropriate to say, since an offer like that had never been made in the entire history of the Cinderellas. Even the stupefied customers there were struck with a frisson of surprise when lo and behold the head chef replied, “But how can I pass through this enormous ring of light?”

Rabi’a smiled: “You have only to walk towards it to find yourself inside it.”

But before the head chef had taken a single step, he took a deep breath and reverted to his feelings of despair, saying, “It won’t make me change my mind. But there’s no harm in joining you.”