Return to the desert E-Book

Elise Tykkyläinen

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 260

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

Return to the desert is a sequel to the book “The seed of new life”. On this book a child faces her father and this child’s mother has to face her past. They have to go for a journey to Egypt in order to remain their connection with their Egyptian family. "I have come to visit Cairo. Now I have come back. Over three years have passed since I moved away from Egypt with my little baby Mona. Over two years have passed since the last time I had visited in Egypt with my daughter. I have come to face my fears. I have come to size up my strength. I have come to find out, what kind of attitude the relatives have towards me, and whether it is still possible for Mona to keep in touch with them. I have come to realize that I have been blind."

Leseprobe

Contents

PREFACE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

SPECULATION

ABOUT MARRIAGES

ABOUT THE FEEDBACK OF MY PREVIOUS BOOK

RISK

FEAR TAKES PLACE

LATE AUTUMN AND WINTER 2003, HANKO

REUNION - FRIDAY, 16

TH

FEBRUARY 2007 – EARLY MORNING IN CAIRO

ALMOST A SKELETON

WINTER 2003-2004, IN HANKO

CHAINS OF THE FINNISH SYSTEM

ALLAH-HO-AKBAR

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 15

TH

HELSINKI RAILWAYSTATION – FEAR

PLANS OF AUNT “CABBAGE”

RETURN TO THE CENTER OF CAIRO

WINTER 2006, IN TURKU – A BLINDFOLDED WOMAN

SILENT REQUEST FOR HELP, DOWNTOWN CAIRO

DINNER AT THE AFTER EIGHT RESTAURANT

SATURDAY FEBRUARY 17

TH

– SEEING EL BOSTAN “BEHIND A CURTAIN”

OSAMA AND THE FORESKIN

SATURDAY FEBRUARY 17

TH

– VISIT IN KHAN AL KHALILI

FATHER AND DAUGHTER

SUNDAY FEBRUARY 18

TH

– VISITING THE EMBASSY

SIXTH SENSE IN THE SUBWAY TUNNEL

EARLY SPRING 2004, IN HANKO – CLOSE TO BECOME A WIDOW

COURTSHIP IN THE LIVING ROOM

MONDAY FEBRUARY 19

TH

– RETURN TO THE VILLAGE OF CAPTIVITY

SALLY

ESCAPING ROOM

SCHOOL AND SUPERMARKET

ARROWS AND HEARTS

APPLE EVENING

TUESDAY, 20TH FEBRUARY 2007 – TRIP TO THE ZOO

POLICE CHIEF STANDS UP

MANGOS AND PEPPER

WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 21

ST

– SMILING IN A TAXI

TO KHAN AL-KHALILI FOR THE SECOND TIME

A TOUR AROUND THE PYRAMIDS

VOLCANO ERUPTS

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 22

ND

– AGONIZING WAIT

FREEDOM - HOREIA

EARLY MORNING, FEBRUARY 23

RD

– TOWARDS NORTH

SUNRISE

EPILOGUE

INSTRUCTIONS FOR LIFE FROM CHANNELING

CURSED CLITORISES

PITY

SHAKING LEAVES AND CANDLE FLAMES

OMENS

IMAGINATION

POEM: GROWTH OF A SEED

PREFACE

This book is a sequel to my first book “The seed of new life”. In this book, the characters are mostly the same as in my first book. Thus, it is easier to understand the background, if you have read “The seed of new life” first.

I tell about my experiences on two “levels”: some chapters are about our lives in Finland, after we had moved back to Finland from Egypt. Some chapters tell about our trip to Egypt in 2007, when I decided to go with my daughter to meet my daughter's family in Egypt, even though we had already settled in Finland permanently.

I'm telling about my life in Hanko (my old hometown) where I lived with my little baby-Mona and also briefly about my life in Turku, where we moved later.

We had a life in Turku which could be described as a “Finnish family idyll”. This contained cohabitation with a peaceful and calm Finnish man. We had just bought a house and it was located in a beautiful and quiet area. I was enormously afraid of losing all that, but I had a great need to travel to Egypt. Simply, according to my moral point of view, a child should know her background and who her biological father was. A child should have a chance to contact with both of her parents’ relatives. I also wanted to offer Methad, Mona's father, a chance to be my friend and to keep in touch with his child.

The life in Turku was to me a pacifying and harmonious experience after the wild years of my youth. The time when I lived in Egypt was very wild time and living in Turku healed my wounds. That is why I did everything I could to return to Finland from a trip, which became a nightmare. On that trip I counted off the days, eventually hours, from the first day, to our flight back to Finland. Our destiny was about to change completely during those days.

(Some names of the characters on this book have been changed to protect privacy.)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I want to thank all those friends, family members, acquaintances, colleagues and relatives who helped me to cover the printing expenses of my first published book “The seed of new life”, by buying it. Thanks to you, my book was published. I deeply thank you for your support on self-published art.

For me, writing was and still is an important way to unleash my experiences about Egypt and thus I’m putting them into covers. In this way they will remain as only a legend, which I don’t have to go through again.

I would also like to encourage all those writers, whose texts the major publishers have refused to publish, and thus may have made them feel as they would be worthless as writers. I’m saying: “Dear writers! Do not ‘bury’ your texts in your desks. Use small publishers; consider the possibility of self-publishing. There is always a way for a book to get published. Major publisher’s negative response does not necessarily mean that the text would be bad. Modern digital printing houses offer many new opportunities for new writers. Use them!”

SPECULATION

ABOUT MARRIAGES

Was I married? What is marriage? Is it a real one if the magistrate’s judge has not confirmed it? Is it a real one if there is no priest's blessing on it? Was I married with Methad? What, after all, is considered to be a marriage?

My friend, who comes from North Africa, is familiar with the habits of Arabs. He said to me: "Elise, yes you were married. I know that. This is based on the thing what Abess did to you. When he took your hand in his hand and said all that litany and prayers. Don’t you understand that it was a symbolic gesture?" (Saying this, my friend meant a certain chapter in my first book, in which Abess grabbed my hand and interpreted the figures of my hands so that he thought I had a good heart.) I was surprised about my friend’s opinion, but he was convinced that this gesture meant an approval of a daughter-in-law to the local people of Egypt.

There was never any priest’s blessing on my relationship with Methad, and we didn’t even sign a "quick-marriage certificate", which was in common use among the tourists, in order to get to the same hotel room with Egyptian man. Mona was our “proof” of marriage and in the hotels, we just showed some papers from the embassy; some of which were in English. Some officers could not even read those, but pretended to understand. When we lived in Dahab we had a marriage certificate that was from Methad’s former marriage with Alice. The Egyptian police officers probably could not have seen the difference between “Elise” and “Alice”, if they had asked us about the marriage certificate.

But what did our cohabitation mean? Was it my first marriage? I have always said that I have never been married. At the age of 16, my dream had been a Finnish man and two small children who I would play with; as a homelike housewife I would be crawling on the floors with my babies. Instead of my dreams I got a quicktempered Bedouin man and an uncontrolled flow of life that I could not change. Nothing went as planned, or in controlled way. The flow of life brought me to live beside the Nile, where I stayed and I was almost to stay for good.

I lived like an Egyptian wife. I took care of my child in an Egyptian family in my husband's family’s house. I washed the laundry and dishes by hands, and heated my baby’s bathwater with a gas flame. I was rebellious, but Methad extinguished the flame of rebellion little by little and I knew that if the flame would be blown out it would be dark.

ABOUT THE FEEDBACK OF MY PREVIOUS BOOK

*This concerns the feedback I have received from Finnish people (about my first book, The Seed of New Life, which was originally published in 2011).

As the previous book contained some philosophical reflection, I have been called a renegade, pagan and a pagan of a child-raiser. In some narrow-minded religious groups some people have wondered and criticized my decision to sign myself out of the membership of the Church.

Why should anyone read a book that makes him feel bad? Why anyone should read texts that are written by a person, whose logic or feelings he can’t understand? I believe the book has found its way to the hands of those who are most interested in it. My thoughts are meant for open-minded people; not narrow-minded. The most common feedback that I have received was about the fact that the book was so exciting that one would read it really fast. This feedback was given by people who described the book as “compelling”. I believe those people liked my book and to those I’m writing this sequel.

I have been told that I repeated a lot of things related with depression. I noticed this myself afterwards. I had emphasized this maybe a little too much. But why I did so? Depression has a big influence on person’s communication. It is like looking at people through a “veil”. Therefore, it also effects on how a person experiences other people and social relations. In depression, a person is sort of looking at the world through this “veil”, in isolation from the rest of the world, even if there would be a lot of people around him. A depressed person’s experiences and feelings are different. Relationships change. Depression is often an explanation for why a person starts doing irrational things. Also, cynicism appears often because of depression.

I felt that I had to write about the depression in my book, so that one would understand the book better; with its weird experiences and relationships.

I often wonder if I had travelled at all if I had not fallen ill with depression. I travelled simply because I felt that my life in Finland had failed. I could not concentrate on my studies, all my relationships seemed difficult, and I did not know what I would have done. Everything had changed. I had come to a “dead end” in my life, from where to run away, I had to jump into the unknown. That's why I left. I felt that there was no choice. If I wanted to continue my life, I had to leave.

There is a diagnosis called bipolar disorder. It used to be called manic depression, which with all due respect, sounded less scary. (In Finnish language this new word for “bipolar disorder” has a hint of something that could be described as two different personalities or personality disorder, which is why I don’t like the word). I do not claim I would be suffering from this myself, but I have noticed during my life that my moods have fluctuated sharply.

In manic states of mind a depressed person releases himself. “Chained” dreams and emotions come to life and then this person is often called as megalomaniac. In this point one releases his emotions and does unexpected things.

A person can try to find a way out of his cage by starting trips that do not have a destination. One can get to know other people that he would never become friends with in his “normal” state of mind.

Nowadays, there are diagnoses and medications for all of these phenomena. But does anyone think that this could be an important lesson of life for someone? Such events, journeys and encounters in life of a depressed or manic person may result in something good as well. These kinds of things may drive a person to do an adventure or journey that is necessary for him. The soul finds a way to release itself.

RISK

I remember my aunt once said: “For her children one would give her life." I fully understand what she meant. I would give anything for Mona’s sake. I would even walk through hell for her.

Before our journey my father said to me: "Elise, you well know that you have to sacrifice your whole life, if something happens and you would have to stay there, don’t you?" I knew what he meant, and it was a self-evident matter for me, of course. Alternative did not even exist to me, and it felt a little cruel, that my father said so. Did he actually think that I would not stay in Egypt if my daughter would be forced to stay there? I was ready to sacrifice the rest of my life, if that would be necessary. I would never leave Egypt without Mona. It was certain. If she would stay, I would stay.

We once talked with my friend Annukka about issues related to Egypt. Annukka had also been many times in Egypt – in practice, it was as if she had lived there. Annukka said that there is strongly affecting energy in Egypt, which can be seen when something starts to go wrong. Then things really go wrong and they do so fast.

And Egypt showed me my worst fear: “What would happen if you lost your daughter? What would happen if she would not be a part of your life anymore? Once you said you wanted to be in Egypt forever. What if you would stay here? Watch what you say, because words have power in Egypt.”

FEAR TAKES PLACE

The aircraft rolls on the runway of Cairo. It is slowly approaching the terminal, and I feel the familiar fear waking. It sweeps over my shoulders and pushes my feet heavily against the ground. It slows down my movements and my heart rate. It makes my body limp and makes me feel powerless.

I have come to visit Cairo. Now I have come back. Over three years have passed since I moved away from Egypt. Little over two years have passed since the last time I had visited in Egypt with my daughter. At that time the trip went fine. But this time, I will have to face with something entirely different. I have brought my daughter to this country to visit her relatives who have lost their faith in me. I have brought my daughter here to meet her biological father, whose intentions towards me are not good. To him I’m a liar and a child-kidnapper. I’m a betrayer.

I have come to face my fears. I have come to size up my strength. I have come to find out, what kind of attitude the relatives have towards me, and whether it is still possible for Mona to keep in touch with them. I have come to realize that I have been blind.

--------------

LATE AUTUMN AND WINTER 2003, HANKO

I arrived in my childhood’s home – insofar as if the time after parent’s divorce can still be called “childhood” – for I had already turned ten back in those times, and in many cases I was very independent: forced to take responsibility.

My mother still lived in that row house, where she had moved after divorcing my father. There she had collected baby -clothes in her bedroom. Some of our friends had brought those for Mona. There were rompers, shirts and pants; all kinds of things that were necessary in Finland, as we had to prepare ourselves for the cold winter, since it was already October. But I was not worried at all.

Everything around me felt like freedom. I got a baby stroller too; one could only dream of those in Egypt. And actually one could not even use those in Egypt, as on the city areas the street edges were high and in the countryside the streets were bumpy sand roads where the desert sand would softly whirl. On those kinds of streets the stroller’s wheels would have sunk on the soft sand. In Egypt babies were wrapped in a blanket if they needed to be carried and usually people didn’t even think about using a stroller. But now I was in Finland, and I was able to take a walk with a stroller at any time.

Apart from a small town’s common curiosity, no one would be surprised about a young mother pushing wagons. Nobody would be pointing at me on the street, and no one would laugh at the stroller. I was also able to call my friends and meet them. I could go to the store and buy whatever I wanted to eat.

I was able to decide about my own things myself. Someone could get confused about something like that because if one has lived a long time under the control of another, he does not necessarily know how to react positively to freedom. For me, it was self-evident: I had been the “bird in a cage”, who would not have even thought of anything else but to fly away from the cage door that had been opened at last. Sometimes it is said that one can get used to a prison and the control. For example, for the people who have lived in institutions, it can be difficult to settle back to normal life and get used to the freedom if they have lived many years under the control of someone else. Perhaps I had lived for so little time in the small village under the control of Methad’s family. Or maybe I just loved freedom and independence so much it didn’t cause me any problems to be free again. I was in charge of my own life again and I loved that feeling. I did not hesitate for a minute to be able to take care of my baby while living in Finland.

My friend told me that her mother had said that she was sure I was doing well. "Well, I’m sure Elise will make it. After all, she has moved away from home at so young age and she did fine then too while she was living alone back in her high school times.” Those words were music to my ears and I was extremely grateful for that gesture of trust. And it’s not like I had an option either; once you have had a child, she needs to be taken care of. Life had to go on, whatever the situation was. And now I had to manage as a mother.

I enjoyed my freedom. I lived with my mother only two months and then I moved into a small rental apartment nearby the center of Hanko. Even that felt like a luxury apartment after living in Egypt, even though one of my cousins said: "Ugh Elise, yes, this apartment would need some overhaul."

I was just amused about what my cousin said and it still makes me laugh. My cousin had no idea what kind of nest of cockroaches was our toilet in Egypt and how poor village I had lived in. Now I had continuous electricity without power cuts, constant warm running water, clean food and drink. My stomach got better and my weight began to rise. Along with the breast milk I had little bit, Mona got milk substitute which was made with clean drinking water.

The supermarket’s shelves were filled with ready baby food jars and high-quality diapers. I collected them excitedly to the shopping cart and smiled with satisfaction.

"Elise, who are you talking to when you are moving here inside the shop?" Asked once an acquaintance of mine, who was a shop assistant in that shop.

"I'm explaining to my daughter inside the stroller, what we will buy today," I replied, and this woman looked at me like I was a freak. Perhaps I had spoken too loudly. I could not hold back the joy that was bubbling inside me when I got to walk freely in a big shop and choose the products on the shelves to Mona and me. It all felt like a luxury and everything was so clean and fresh.

After visiting the supermarket I was able to use the internet connection provided by the public library of Hanko, instead of begging from Methad to go to an internet cafe and paying for the use of it. I was able to keep in touch with my friends and relatives and read my e-mails.

After visiting the library and the shops we took a nap and slept so well in my new lovely and cozy apartment, where I so much felt like home. I could plan the day's schedule myself, and no one interfered too much in our lives. I discovered that the joy of life was returning as it felt good to wake up in the morning. I was waiting enthusiastically that I could get up from the bed and drink coffee. I could downright feel it in my stomach, when I was thinking of the simple fact that I could make some coffee in the morning. And then after the coffee we could go to the shop and the library. Oh, how simple things one could be happy about!

I did not have to kill time, but I was able to enjoy it. As in Meth-ad’s home village Arab Abou Tamma I had often been bored. I was not able to meet my friends and small thing as going to the suburb of Helwan to an Internet café were like big projects, because Methad did not want to use the public transport. Even for all the small things we always had to rent a car, which we often could not afford. Methad’s jeep, which we had used in Dahab to transport tourists, was often broken. My friend Josh had it repaired when he visited in Egypt, and Methad promised me then that I would get my freedom if his jeep was working. Then he promised that he would take me for a ride more often. But when the jeep was repaired, it worked for a few days and then something else was wrong with it and it was always idle in the yard. Only a few times Methad managed to take me for a ride, until the jeep was eventually sold.

Once Sally persuaded me to say to Methad that I was too lonely in the village where we lived with Methad’s parents. She said it to me as if it was a simple question: “Do you feel lonely here?” which I could not answer other than "yes." Then Sally went to her mother and, apparently, talked about the subject as if I had started to talk about it. Methad’s mother came up to me and started a huge outpouring, and said that I had offended her. I tried to explain it with my halting Arabic but I could not get her to understand what had been the case. Methad’s mother said she was very sad and Sally made things even worse by talking about her own opinions. In the end, the matter grew into a huge conflict and Methad heard about it later in the evening and he got upset at me and started to ask me what I was imagining and what money could we use for living, for example, in Helwan suburb (from where I would have had only a metro ride into town to meet my friends.) I knew that we could not afford our own apartment, and I hadn’t even wanted to speak for that subject in the first place. I had to explain it to Methad quite a few times so that we were able to end the argument. Although the village felt like a prison it was still better for my own and Mona's safety that we lived in Meth-ad’s parents' house. For there we always had people around us and they were able to stop our arguments and tear Methad’s hands off me, if he got violent.

Thus was the village of Arab About Tamma our home, and there we lived until I finally got to Finland. Everything I had in Hanko, reminded me every day to be thankful for my freedom: My luxury apartment, which in the eyes of the Finns was just a modest little room. Shopping and visiting in the library, which was something the Finns took for granted. Visiting friends, having a clock, telephone, television and magazines. All those everyday things were marvelous to me. They seem amazing when a person has lived without them a year.

Even in Hanko the sea was rushing all around me, just as it had done in Dahab. The time when we lived in Dahab had perhaps been a little happier than the time we spent in Arab Abou Tamma. The sea was something that connected Hanko and Dahab, although the Baltic Sea was cold and foggy.

REUNION - FRIDAY, 16TH FEBRUARY 2007 – EARLY MORNING IN CAIRO

The flight number KL 0553 from Amsterdam arrived in Cairo. We had changed our flight in the middle of the night in Netherlands and traveled altogether about 14 hours including the connecting flight. Mona was crying when we were landing in Cairo. I had to wake her up from her deep sleep. Changing the flight at night and waking up early in the morning in Cairo was too much for a little, soon to be four years old, girl. Exhaustion made her cry as the aircraft landed, and my little girl didn’t know what was waiting for her. I didn’t either.

Now it was too late to go back. Methad was waiting for me at the airport and had already threatened me on the phone before we had left Finland. My heart had begun to throb while talking on the phone with him and the fear had begun to arouse. Small questions had begun to whisper in my mind: What if he takes Mona away from me? What if he decides that it is better for Mona to live in Egypt? What if, what if, what if…

“If I find out that you are in Cairo, unless you inform me of your arrival, I will put you in big trouble. I will take my daughter away from you! Do you understand?”

I had already bought the tickets before that phone call. I had already decided to go to Egypt. Fear came over telephone lines from Egypt to Turku, Finland, and I held the phone with sweaty hands. I tried to calm him down by saying that he could very well come to pick us up with his relatives.

Our travelling was overshadowed by fear and I felt that it would have been easier to arrive in Egypt if no one would be waiting for us at the airport. I had suggested this to Methad on the phone; they would not have to come. I had hoped that we could have arrived in the terminal alone with Mona and then take a taxi to Downtown areas of Cairo. But now it seemed it was not good to defy Methad’s will.

Methad had an uncle who, according to my knowledge that time, worked as a police chief at the airport. Methad had a lot of acquaintances, who spent time in the cafes in downtown Cairo. There had been a question in my mind: could he be informed about my arrival if we would come to Cairo and spend some time there to meet my friends, without telling him that we had arrived? I had a great longing to meet my friends, who I had got to know even before I met Methad. I was hoping that I could have spent some time in Cairo before I would meet Methad or his family. From there, I could feel the situation more and arrange a meeting in a public place in the center of Cairo. But Methad did not agree with me on this idea. Of course not: that would have been fully against his family’s manners and culture.

I decided to face the relatives at the airport and go straight to the heart of the matter. I did not dare to take the risk that we would go on our own to downtown Cairo, as Methad had very clearly stated that it would cause me problems.

Methad still held me in his grip in some way. His calls to Finland had always made my heart to throb and gotten my pulse high. My mind wanted to accommodate itself in the old way and my instinctive reaction was just to try to calm him down. One cannot just like that escape from a mental manipulation if one has lived a long time in a violent relationship. Methad was mentally above me; that was a fact. If his intention was that the family would come to pick us up, I absolutely had to agree with it, and I dared not to think of anything else, even when I was in Finland.

I dialed Methad’s number on my cell phone while we were waiting on the line for the passport control. He answered the phone sounding irritated and wondered already where we were. I replied that we would come as soon as possible, but there was a line to the passport control and we needed to get the visas too. Methad did not understand, but cried out in anger, that we should come immediately. After all, how would he know that one cannot just walk out of the airport just like that? Visas needed to be applied and the luggage had to be picked. And there was a line to all of those places. Methad had never traveled outside of Egypt, and he had never even been on an airplane. In Cairo airport, he was like a farmer in the city.

Fear had my body in its grip and the thoughts of terror were flying in my mind: "What if this was a mistake? Why Methad sounded so anxious? What will happen to us now? Can we still escape? "

After I had picked our luggage we had to wait for Methad and his brother Mohammed at the airport as it turned out that Methad had guided his chauffeur to drive to the older section of the airport, where he thought our plane was going to land. We agreed that we would wait at the airport for Methad and the chauffeur to move the car to the right place.

My heart was beating with excitement, fear and strange feelings having to do with seeing Methad and the relatives again. "Now, it would still be possible to escape," I thought. But I did not escape. We went to a cafe and I held Mona on my arms. She was tired. “Mango juice, please. We would like one glass, please.”

“That would be ten euros, thank you.”

“Oh listen now”, I said in Arabic. “I am not an ordinary tourist. I have lived here and I know the Egyptians prices. I would never pay such a price for one glass of juice.”