Джоха Альхарти - Celestial Bodies

When her belly was so enormously round that she could not sleep, Mayya said to Merchant Sulayman’s son, Listen here. I am not going to have this baby in this place with those midwives crowding around me. I want you to take me to Maskad—

He interrupted her. I’ve told you a thousand times, the name of the city is Muscat, not Maskad.

She went on as if she hadn’t heard him. I want to have the baby in the Saada Hospital.

You’d have my child slide out right into the hands of the Christians?

She didn’t answer. When her ninth month came, her husband took her to the home of his uncle in the old Muscat neighbourhood of Wadi Aday. In what the missionaries called their Felicity Hospital — the Saada — she had her baby, a scrawny infant. A girl.

Mayya opened her eyes to see her daughter cradled in her mother’s arms. She dropped off to sleep and when she opened her eyes again, the girl was sucking at her breast. When Merchant Sulayman’s son came to see the newborn, Mayya told him she’d named the baby girl London.

She’s exhausted, of course, he thought. She must have no idea what she’s saying. The next day Mayya, the baby girl, and her mother left the hospital for his uncle’s home. The baby’s name was London, she told his relatives. The wife of her husband’s uncle made fresh chicken broth, baked her the special wafer-thin bread known to be good for new mothers, and made her drink fenugreek with honey to strengthen her body. She helped Mayya to wash her hands and then sat down next to her bed.

Mayya, my dear girl...

Yes?

The woman patted her gently. Are you still set on giving the baby such an odd name? Does anyone name their daughter London ? This is the name of a place, my dear, a place that is very far away, in the land of the Christians. We are all very, very surprised! But never mind, we know you are weak and fragile right now, you’ve just had the baby, of course you’re not yourself and you need more time. Do think again about a good name for the girl. Call her after your mother. Call her Salima.

Mayya’s mother was in the room, and she wasn’t pleased. Laysh ya hibbat ayni! My dear woman, why would you want to name her for me when I’m still alive and now I’m blessed with a grandchild? I suppose you’re ready and waiting for me to die? That’s why you’d like the little girl to inherit my name? As God’s compensation. Oh dear me!

Hastily, the uncle’s wife tried to repair her error. God forbid I would ever think that! she babbled. Lots of folks name their children after their parents, when their mother and father are still strong and healthy. May no evil touch you, Salima! So then. Let’s see... well, name her Maryam, or Zaynab, or Safiya. Any name but this London .

Defiantly Mayya held the baby up in front of her. What’s wrong with London? There’s a woman in Jaalaan Town whose name is London.

The uncle’s wife was running out of patience. You know very well that’s not really her name! It’s just a nickname, something people call her because her skin is so pale. And this girl, well, really now...

Mayya lowered the baby to her lap. She may not have light skin like the merchant’s family does, but she’s still the daughter of this family. And her name is London.

Salima took things into her own hands. It was time for her daughter and granddaughter to return to the family home in al-Awafi. After all, a mother must recover in her family’s embrace. Every new mother knew the importance of the forty days following childbirth. Mayya would spend it in her mother’s home, under her mother’s watchful care.

Listen, son, Salima said to her daughter’s husband. Abdallah, listen — about your wife, here. She’s had her first child and it’s a girl. Girls are a blessing. A girl helps her mother and raises her younger brothers and sisters. What we need for this new mother are forty live chickens and a big jar of good pure mountain honey. Plus a pot of samna, the best country butter churned straight from a cow. When London is a week old I’ll shave her head and you will make an offering — as much silver as the little one’s hair weighs. It’ll be enough to buy a sheep, you’ll have it slaughtered and you’ll give out the meat to the poor.

Salima pronounced every letter in the name London slowly and distinctly. Abdallah’s face changed expression but he nodded. He took his small new family and his mother-in-law back to al-Awafi, their hometown.

The airplane hurtled forward, pitching into heavy clouds. I could not get my eyes to close even though I knew it would be hours before we reached Frankfurt. When women were just starting to have their babies in Felicity Hospital in Muscat, those black Singer sewing machines — which everyone called Farrashas because of the butterfly design stamped on their sleek black sides — had not yet reached Oman. So how could it be that Mayya had already been sewing clothes on a Farrasha? Come to think of it, electricity was only available in a few areas. Maybe it wasn’t the Felicity, perhaps there were other hospitals already operating when London was born. Yes, of course there were other hospitals. There was Mercy Hospital in Matrah, there was at least that one, and perhaps also the Nahda Hospital in Ruwi. So, why did Mayya insist on giving birth in the missionary hospital? I don’t remember... I can’t tie it all together, all these things that happened. Her mother, saying to me, Slaughter a cow for the sake of London, and give the meat away. Bring us twenty live chickens for your wife — she has some recovering to do. She said precisely twenty , I remember, and she said the word twenty with emphasis — though I was going to bring her thirty chickens, and a ewe as well... Then there was my uncle’s wife, in the house in Wadi Aday, standing up in the courtyard to scold me at the top of her voice: London? And you agreed to that? Don’t you have anything to say about your own daughter’s name?

That old house... I don’t know if they tore that house down or sold it. After my uncle died I only saw that aunt of mine once or twice. When London graduated from the Medical School at Sultan Qaboos University, she said, Papa, I want a BMW. And when we moved to our new house, Mayya moved the Farrasha into the storage room there. Why did she stop sewing? When did she stop? After Muhammad came along, surely. Right, he was born the same year I inherited Father’s business and we moved to Muscat. Mayya was very happy about the move. She didn’t want to remain under her mother’s control for the rest of her life, she said. And when she had Muhammad she stopped sewing.

I remember Mayya putting on an enormous feast to celebrate our move to the new house in Muscat. She invited all of her friends and she had to spread out a very long tablecloth to hold all of the food. Salim was in elementary school then, and Muhammad seemed a perfectly ordinary nursing baby. Mayya was happy and sparkling that night. After the party she slipped on her dark blue night shirt.

Do you love me, Mayya? I asked her, once everyone else was asleep. She was startled, I could see that. She said nothing and then she laughed. She laughed out loud, and the tone of it irritated me. Where did you pick up these TV-show words? she asked. Or maybe it’s the satellite dish out there. It’s the Egyptian films, have they eaten up your mind?

Muhammad, trying to stand up on my knees, and then tugging hard at my beard. Mayya slapped him, and he cried. I never dared shave off my beard until after my father died. And when they started literacy classes, Mayya entered the sixth year straight away, since she already knew how to read and write as well as having some basic maths. Mayya, I said to her, Muhammad is still tiny. Go to school when he is older. I want to learn English, she said. That was before we got the dish at home. And surely, when I asked my question — Mayya wearing the dark blue night shirt — when I asked whether she loved me, that dish hadn’t appeared yet, and I wasn’t following any TV programmes or watching any Egyptian films...