Tariq Ali - The Stone Woman

Then he went with Uncle Kemal Pasha on a long journey to Japan. He returned a different man. Mariam had no idea what happened or what he experienced, but he became more like his old self. They began to entertain in their house again. Once she tried to speak with him about her mother. His face became lined with pain and he whispered that she had died a long time ago. Mariam never raised the subject again.

The aspect of this story that struck me as peculiar, Stone Woman, did not concern Hamid Bey. His feelings were natural. The only surprise in his case is that he never married again. What puzzled me was Mariam’s own reaction to her mother. In her tone there was always a mixture of anger and admiration. She had been abandoned. That made her angry. But her mother had put love and passion before all else and Mariam had forced herself to admire this side of her mother. I suppose it was the only way she could deal with the betrayal.

The thought that a woman who had done this to her only child was selfish beyond redemption was something that occurred to her but it was always put out of her mind. The result was a deep ambivalence in Mariam’s own character. She developed a real fear of commitment. The experience of losing her mother at a young age had wounded her deeply and the scars never disappeared. To me, who had never known a mother, it was incredible that in all our time together she never once evinced the slightest desire to see her mother again. I was more curious than she was and offered to take her to India, but she was angry with me for the suggestion. It would, she said, be an act of betraying her father and he had suffered more than enough in a single lifetime.

After a year and a half she had still not conceived and this made her very unhappy. She wanted children for more reasons than a normal woman in her position. Her own family and children would help her forget what her mother had done to her, and she became so desperate that it began to affect our relationship.

One day she said, “Perhaps it is your seed that is defective. I should find another man.” She would start crying after she made remarks of this nature, hug me warmly and plead forgiveness. I was not angry at that time, Stone Woman, just sad. To find a woman whom you love so much that she becomes part of your very being and you learn to share everything — joys, sorrows, victories, defeats, good times and bad — is this not rare for men as well as women?

She became pregnant in our third year together and then again the following year. I have rarely seen her so happy. She became absorbed in the children and would take them to visit Hamid Bey every week, sometimes spending the whole day in the big house. Her interest in me had diminished considerably. I remember on one occasion when Uncle Kemal was passing through Alexandria and stayed as our guest, she became extremely irrational when he kissed the children and gave them each a tiny little purse with a gold coin. It was when he began to speak to them with great affection and as a great-uncle that I first noticed her face. When Uncle Kemal said, “Your grandfather Iskander Baba will be so pleased to see you one day”, I saw Mariam’s face darken with anger and she left the room in a rage. I was genuinely amazed. It was inexplicable.

After Uncle Kemal left I tried to discuss her behaviour with her, but my remarks only provoked a tirade against my family. She spoke of why she did not want her children to be taken over by the Pashas of Istanbul; of how there was degeneration and madness in my family and she manufactured numerous other complaints. Given the extent of my own alienation from the family, I found her conduct pathetic and unreasonable.

Even at this stage I made excuses for her irrationality. I convinced myself that she was merely being extra possessive because having lost her mother, she was now fearful of losing the children. Who knows how long I would have continued deluding myself, Stone Woman? But fate took pity on me.

One day, while taking my afternoon walk by the sea, I was approached by a European woman dressed in black and wearing a hat with an attached veil. She was clearly distressed and asked if I was “Signor Salman Pasha, the son-in-law of Hamid Bey”. I acknowledged my identity, whereupon she insisted on speaking with me urgently and immediately. I asked her to accompany me to a less crowded section of the promenade. We sat down and she began to sob. The memory still upsets me and I will not dwell on it too long, but she told me the truth, Stone Woman, even though I only half-believed her at the time. I may sound calm now as I talk to you about all this, but at the time what she told me made me want to die. The sky and the sea went dark. The people walking in front of us became shadows. My mind became numb. The Italian lady told me that I was not the father of our children. Her husband was their real father. It emerged that she was married to the son of the furniture-maker who supplied the needs of the rich in Cairo and Alexandria. The furniture in Hamid Bey’s house had been made by them and I now remembered the young man, Marco, who had measured our villa and who visited our house often till the job was done.

His wife described in every painful detail how Mariam had seduced Marco away from her. She knew because she had taken her suspicions to her father-in-law, who had expressed amazement, but instructed an old carpenter to follow his son discreetly. They used to meet in the early afternoon in my little secret cove, where Mariam and I had first tasted each other. I screamed aloud on hearing this detail. She must have been far gone in her depravity that she took such a risk, knowing that I often went there to read and write. Was she hoping I would see her?

Marco’s father had forced him to confess this and every other detail. He had been sent first to the confessional and then despatched to work in his uncle’s shop in Genoa as a penance. His wife told me that she and her two young daughters were preparing to join him within a month. He now pretended to be remorseful and claimed it was Mariam who had taken the initiative and enchanted him. He had become a slave to her passion. He did not see her before he left, but he told his father that she wanted him to give her another child. Marco’s wife referred to Mariam as a loose and crazy woman and said she had come to me with the truth because she had heard that I was also suffering. I doubt that this was her real motive, but I took my leave of her and wished her well in the future.

I have no recollection of what I did after that encounter. When I reached home it was past midnight. I went into my room and sank on the bed. She was in her room but not asleep. Will it shock you, Stone Woman, if I say that my love for her was so strong that even at this stage I was prepared to forgive her? It was, after all, my seed that had failed to sprout. I told myself that if she was so desperate for children, what else could she have done? She came into my room wearing my old grey silk dressing gown and asked why I had been out so late. I looked at her face and found myself overcome with rage. I wanted to hit her, but I controlled my anger.

“Mariam, I knew we had employed the best furniture-makers in town to supply us with tables and chairs and beds. I had no idea that you had asked their carpenter, Marco, to furnish you with children as well.”

She was shaken, Stone Woman. Her face became pale and she began to tremble. I spoke to her again. “If only you could see your lying, hypocritical face in the mirror! Are you trembling with fear and guilt? Good! Before I finish with you…”

I stopped because she had begun to weep. The sight of her tears had always touched me deeply. I walked to her and began to stroke her face. She reacted to my touch as if I were a leper. Her face was transformed completely. I no longer recognised her as the woman I loved. A strange, scornful smile appeared on her face, a smile of triumph. She was actually pleased at the sight of my misery, glad that I had been humiliated and betrayed. She looked at me with real loathing and said, “My true feelings for you have long been those of disgust and contempt. It is not just that your seed was infertile, but your love had become a punishment for me. I needed to free myself from you and the restraints of this life.”