Fountain of Youth
Guardians of the fairer sex
Her story has been cooked under a fire so low, it’s brittle in its tenderness. Comes apart between your fingers, like it was meant to be a sweet crumble pie but salt and sugar look the same under dim lights. Touch her hands, feel the muscles beneath mottled skin, somehow still young, holding in the wasted years like a plucked string, tense, aching to let go but never able to. Resentment like a throbbing fountain of youth, safeguarding her heart from the relief of death. Grudge the secret potion of immortality.
Fatma’s father was a character. Humorous man, but people often laughed before he cracked a joke. His face had a funny way of crumpling when he thought of something clever to say, his bushy eyebrows burying his beady eyes in feathery snow. You couldn’t quite spot the twitch in his eyes when he spoke, slightly shifty, always desperate to please a bearded friend. When he married his daughter off, he never imagined that she would one day be cast to the streets or that her eyes would sink as deep as his. Fatma’s father was a pious man, and as the spirit of piety dictated, he was a strict believer in the inferiority of the fairer sex.
They were after all, lacking in religion and brain.
He believed that wholeheartedly. Until his whole heart stopped and his body was buried. Twenty five years after, his daughter’s answered prayers echoed in his grave like broken glass. Piety sounded especially feminine underground.
Fatma’s father married her to a man with unkempt hair sprouting from just about every imaginable stretch of skin. The hairs were wiry and they scratched Fatma’s cheeks whenever he bent to kiss her, or asked her to kiss him.
But Fatma thought he was the most handsome man. He was tall and smelled musky, like scented smoke.
So she happily hung her Marketing degree on the wall in the room that soon became a storage space, and forever forgot to dust it a few days after. Fatma’s husband was a pious man, and as the spirit of piety dictated, strictly believed women should stay home and raise the kids and care for their husbands. So Fatma embraced being a housewife and loved being pregnant so much she gave birth to four sons and three daughters.
For twenty four years, Fatma’s husband asked her to trim the hairs of his nose and massage his feet nightly, closing his eyes to the pleasure of her touch. For twenty four years, he enjoyed never being told no by the mother of his children.
Until the twenty fifth year of his marriage when he realized her grip during his nightly foot massages was not quite the same. He noticed the hairs of his nose were more wiry than ever, and the thought of the eldest daughter of his friend who recently married his fourth wife made him feel young again.
Then Fatma began to annoy him. She walked slow, squinted hard, and tired quick. Her voice was nasally, her breathing loud. Her kids were growing up noisy and demanding.
He no longer wanted to be around Fatma. She couldn’t even raise her kids right. What a waste her years in college were.
A man at his age is supposed to relax. Enjoy life. Enjoy his woman. Not be stressed out night and day.
Fatma’s husband decided enough was enough.
So one morning he told her all this. He said the damning sentence thrice, divorcing her irrevocably. He was no longer Fatma’s husband, and Fatma’s dad turned in his grave as his daughter became a divorced mother of 7 at 50 years old.
***
Fatma’s lawyer was a man of many meaningless words and few coherent sentences. As he drafted her case to the primary court, his inability to communicate did not contribute to the weakness of the paper. She had no assets in her name and the best she could get was a monthly stipend for her children until they turned eighteen. As she came to his office distraught, Fatma’s lawyer admired all the sacrifices she had undertaken for her ex-husband and children. He reassured her that there is a grand place for her in heaven.
“Don’t worry, he is obligated to house you and your children until he doesn’t have to house you.”
“What do you mean?” her voice shook.
“When your children grow up he won’t have to help you grow them. He won’t have to pay for them to grow.”
He watched her do the math. Her youngest daughter was ten, which gave her 8 years of security.
“And then…?” she asked him.
“Maybe you can get into some money making situation.”
She started crying, shaking her head, raising her hands towards him, palms up.
Fatma’s lawyer felt slightly irritated at her show of helplessness but tried to smile reassuringly. “You have your sons. They will take care of you when they grow up.”
