Herstory: Wounds That Can Never Heal

by Jeanie Sisinni Fitchen

        My finger was poised to hit the stop button when the heavy sough of a sigh belonging to my Lebanese mother escaped from the machine. That was as good as The End, finis, or merci au revoir. There would be no more questions, no more fishing expeditions, and no more startling revelations. The project was finished.

        Eighty-five years a visitor on this earth condensed to a pithy capsule of incidental vignettes. Was this really all I’d been able to eke out, wheedle, and browbeat from my characteristically outgoing mother? And I thought it would be a project she’d revel in, reminiscing about her early life in Brooklyn, her gutsy Arabic family, their decisive emigration to Florida.  What had started out as a simple assignment for my college oral history seminar had morphed into a veritable scourge, and my constant carping—I’d prefer to think of it as reinforcement—had become nothing short of torment for her and for me. Why, I just couldn’t fathom.

        The machine was an old portable cassette recorder, one that was straight forward, easy to operate with no bells or whistles. But at first glance my technophobic mother had glared at the rectangular box as though it might chew her up at any moment.

        “Look, Mama. You just hit the record and play buttons together to start the recording and then this silver button over here to stop. That’s all there is to it!” I eased it slowly across the table to within a few inches of her face. She was unmoved. “Okay . . . let me demonstrate. Ahem . . . testing one, two, three. Let’s see . . . uh, life . . . doesn’t come with a manual, it comes with a mother.” At least that drew a smile from her otherwise despairing face.  And when I played back the short clip, she was quietly impressed. “So, let’s keep the machine right here on the table,” I said, “and each day before or after dinner, or in the afternoon when you want to relax a bit, just turn it on and talk.” I mean, really, how hard can that be?

        Imagine my disappointment when I returned the following week to find the machine had been assigned to a junk drawer in the kitchen. Nothing had been recorded; not one attempt had been made to turn it on. Her excuses were piddling. “Oh, I’m sorry, honey . . . it’s been such a hectic week with doctor appointments. I just kept forgetting, and then I had the quilting ladies over and the machine was in the way . . . you know.”

        “Mama, seriously, I need you to do this . . . and soon.”

        “How soon?”

        “Very soon,” I fibbed. The assignment wasn’t actually due for weeks.

        “Why don’t you bother your father with your project? God knows he’s got plenty to say about everything!” Mama had just removed from the oven three pans of sfeehas, savory little triangular-shaped meat pies, and was ready to collapse from exhaustion. She wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of a hand as she stood at the sink washing up. “He’s got all the time in the world! Go, you’ll find him in the bathroom . . . as usual.”

        “I’ll record Daddy another time, and certainly not while he’s in the bathroom.”

        “Why not? It would be your best opportunity . . . that is if he’s not sleeping. He keeps the door locked you know.”

        “Daddy’s a very private person.”

        “Ridiculously so. Did you know the urologist asked me . . . me about your father’s left testicle—when it had disappeared—I think the term he used was atrophied. I, of course, had no idea. I can’t remember the last time I’d been allowed to see your father’s biology . . . oh, I’m embarrassing you, honey. Forgive me.”

        “Mama, please, the recording.”

        “Right, sorry. But you really should include him in this. By the way,” she whispered, as if he might hear from across the house, “I know a quick and easy way to get him out of the bathroom.”

        “Oh yeah? Well what might that be?” I stared sideways at my mother. Just for the fun of it, I had to know what was on her mind, what new torture she’d invented for my poor father.

        “Just stand at the door and ask him . . . if he’s playing with himself.”

        “What? I couldn’t. You didn’t!”

        “I sure did, and he came flying out of there faster than a startled cockroach.”

        “Oh, Mama. Come on, you gotta give Daddy his peace, or you’ll drive yourself crazy.” And it’s your history I want now, not his.

        Truth be told, it was probably too late to obtain my father’s oral history. He had lost his spirit some time ago, living day in and day out with a spouse who constantly belittled him for not living up to his potential, or more appropriately, her expectations. His current rants had evolved into never-ending declamations of regrets and obsessions converted to delusion: how my mother’s brothers had bullied him, written bad checks, and cheated him in business or how if he were still in Brooklyn, he’d be rich . . . blah, blah, blah . . . I long suspected that his daily bathroom sojourns were simply reprieves from Mama’s constant dogging and had nothing to do with chronic constipation, abdominal distress or intermittent snoozes.

        “Mama,” I cleared my throat loudly for emphasis. “This is about you and the good old days. Can we please focus on that?”

        “What if there weren’t any?”

        Silence. My God, I would have asked that same question, realizing my own memories of the good old days were sketchy at best. I ignored her question and continued. “So, let’s just start at the beginning and see what happens, okay?” Please . . . just begin!

        “Okay, I promise I’ll get to it this week . . . for sure.”

        But when I returned the following Sunday, I could see right away that the machine had not been touched. Mama’s remorse was palpable. “It’s just, it’s just that I can’t seem to get started. And . . . I can’t talk to a machine about . . . these things.”

        “These things, Mama? What things? Look, you come from extraordinary lineage . . . your family leaving Greater Syria, crossing the Atlantic, coming through Ellis Island with next to nothing. Such bravery and determination gives me chills. You had to blend cultures, religions, languages, and food ways. It’s a compelling story that needs to be told.”

         “Well, listen to you, honey. You’ve got yourself all worked up. Maybe you’re the one who should tell it.”

        “Mama, you’re acting like a petulant child.” I felt like turning her over my knee. “You’ve always been so proud of your heritage. I just don’t understand your reluctance here!”

        It was time to invoke the “guilt” factor. God only knows the number of times she had used it on me over the years. “Your grands and great grands need to have this oral history. Don’t you see that? Do you want them to grow up without knowing who they are . . . where they came from?”

        This was good. My mother was about to cave, I could feel it.

        “I suppose I can do this for you.”

        “Not just for me, Mama. Remember that. Please.”

        I retrieved a blank sheet of paper from my mother’s writing desk and prepared a very basic questionnaire that would most likely evoke yawns. It could, however, be the catalyst for something great. That was my wish. “I’ll be back next weekend, Mama.”

* * *

        Judging from the smug look on my mother’s face, I was certain that something substantial had occurred during my week away. Tantalized by the prospect and by the intense aroma of onions caramelizing on the stove, I gave Mama a powerful hug. How fortunate for me that she still had the dedication and endurance for preparing so many of the laborious Arabic dishes I grew up with. I yearned for them constantly, but had neither the desire nor mastery to tackle them on my own.

        “Come sit with me, Mama, and we’ll listen together.”

        “No, you just listen by yourself. I have to finish the mujadara.”

* * *

        My hand was shaking when I reached for the rewind button on the machine and could see that the tape had actually advanced. This was huge! I waited breathlessly for the first vocalizations to emerge.

        “My name is Salma Bakir Dawoud. I am the daughter of Naila and Habib Bakir, who immigrated from Syria in 1920 along with my grandmother, Jida Farah Habib and Auntie Isabel Bakir. They settled in Brooklyn, New York, where I was born in 1923. I am the oldest of six children: Omar, Saad, Jamal, Xavier and Maryam. In 1940, I met and married Pasquale Bianchi. We emigrated to Florida in 1944 and raised four children: Diana Concetta, Pasquale Jr., Eugenia Mary, and Cynthia Patrice.” Mama took a long breath and cleared her throat.

        Thank God we’d finished with the vital statistics. Now the real story will begin. So I thought. There was nothing else on the tape, and when I realized Mama was watching for my reaction, I wiped the frown from my face, marched into the kitchen and gave her another hug, less powerful this time. “Well done,” I said. “A good beginning. Now, let’s continue!”

        “No, eat first. The mujadara will get cold if you wait. The olive oil will congeal.”

        “I’ll go get Daddy; he won’t want to miss this.”

        “Leave him be. Heaven forbid he should come out before his bowels are empty. And, believe me, you won’t want him too either.”

        “Not a chance, Mama.”

        My mother’s mujadara, brown lentils and rice smothered with olive oil-infused onions, seasoned with allspice and just the right amount of salt to meld all the flavors together, trumped my desire to continue recording for the time being and enticed my father—begrudgingly so—from his roost in the bathroom. Forty minutes later, dishes done, food put away, I directed Mama to her favorite chair in the living room, where she resumed her daily handwork making yo-yos for a king-sized bed quilt that was destined to become mine. Daddy was already asleep in his Lazy-Boy recliner, oblivious to our intrusion.

         “So, let’s begin again, Mama.” I turned on the machine. “Tell me about your childhood.”

        “What do you want to know?”

        “What do you remember most?”

        Mama’s eyes focused entirely on the blank television screen in the corner of the room as if she were looking into the past, a dark one at that. “Getting pummeled by my brothers.”

        “What?” I half laughed. She was serious! “What are you saying?”

        “They would beat me with their fists . . . just like this.” Stonefaced, Mama demonstrated by whacking her chest over and over with both fists. “When hunger and anger collide . . . well, someone has to take the brunt. Every day the boys would come home from school starving, practically frothing at the mouth for a bowl of oatmeal, which they expected me to have ready for them . . . as if I had nothing else to do.”

        “Where was your mother?”

        “I actually don’t recall. I don’t think she was even aware of it. Sometimes, we just kept things to ourselves . . .”

        Please, Mama, do not sink into the emotional morass you’ve begun to create. “Okay, aside from school and cooking oatmeal for your brothers, how did you fill your days? What did you do for fun?”

        “Music. My brothers and I would make up plays and songs and perform for anyone in the neighborhood. On Saturday afternoons, I would sit alone by the radio and listen to the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts.” Mama closed her eyes, smiled, and began to hum ‘Un bel di, vedremo’ from Madama Butterfly. “I used to dream about singing there one day.” She laughed witheringly, then continued stitching the perimeter of her current yo-yo. “Ha, I must have been crazy.”

        “Why do you say that, Mama? You had—have an amazing voice and if you’d been in the right place at the right time, who knows what might have happened.”

        “I was in the right place at the right time . . . when I sang at Carnegie Hall,” Mama snapped.

        “You mean the Carnegie Hall? Tell me about that, please.” Mama’s eyes focused again on the television screen.

        “When I was twelve, I represented my school in a choral production at Carnegie Hall. It was a sensational experience! And mortifying just the same.”

        “How do you mean?”

        “It was the height of the Depression. God, we were so poor . . . and my shoes were falling apart, but . . . I just had to make do. My teacher had helped me glue the heels—they were coming loose from the soles.” Mama swallowed hard. “They called my name, and I began what felt like a death march to the front of the auditorium. The glue had failed on one of my shoes, and the heel began to flop loudly against the tile floor with every . . . single . . . step. I wanted to turn around and run away . . . far away forever.”

        “But you didn’t, did you?”

        “I could hear the whispering all around me as I moved forward . . . slowly, like a prisoner heading to the gallows. I finally made it to the stage area . . . I don’t know how. I ascended the steps, rushed to the microphone, and . . . when the piano accompaniment began, I just froze. My mouth opened, but the holy terror gripped my throat like a vice. There were hundreds of people staring at me . . . anticipating something sensational. I couldn’t breathe. The pianist started again with the introduction, louder the second time as if it might make a difference . . . jolt me out of my temporary paralysis. It worked. I was so amazed to hear my voice amplified, that I completely forgot about my rotten shoes and my humiliation. It was sensational!”

        “Do you remember what you sang?”

        “Gounod’s ‘Ave Maria.’” Mama’s blissful flashback quickly turned sour. “Someone from the Juliard School was in the audience. That night they showed up unannounced at our apartment to offer poor, ragged, unattractive me a partial scholarship. Can you imagine that?” Mama was stroking her clenched fists absentmindedly. “They said I had great potential and with the proper training . . . I could . . .”

        “What?”

        “My father was sick in bed and had no idea what was happening. My mother, your Jida, put the kibosh on the proposition right away. She laughed out loud, intimating that I was too ugly for the stage! It would all be a waste of time and money because I could never be successful as an opera singer.”

        I gasped. How could a mother say such things to her daughter?

        “The truth was she needed me at home to care for my brothers. No matter anyway,” continued Mama crisply. “Partial scholarship? What good would that be? I would have needed a full scholarship and then some . . . new clothes, new shoes, yadda, yadda, yadda.”

        “Oh, Mama, I’m so sorry you had to experience that. It just wasn’t the right time in your life.” I squeezed her hand gently. We needed to move on quickly. “Tell me more about the things in your daily life that made you happy.”

        “I loved to read. Anything . . . anything I could get my hands on—magazines, newspapers, the Sears catalog even. Your Jida wasn’t too keen about my wasting valuable time reading. No one was, so I would have to hide my books until bedtime. There under the sheets, I’d use a flashlight to read long into the night. Reading was my escape.”

        “From what?” Oops, this question apparently set off some kind of alarm. My mother shook her head and rose abruptly from the chair.

        “Nevermind, that’s enough.”

        “But Mama, we’re just getting started . . .” Something had struck a nerve. Her icy scowl preempted any further argument on my part. It was clear that I would have to wait another week for the next chapter.

        When I arrived the following Sunday, I found my mother in the kitchen madly baking small irregular rounds of pita bread for the freezer, her neighbors, her quilting ladies, her mailman, her cardiologist, her internist probably and me, of course. The kitchen was sweltering, both ovens working hard, heated to very high temperatures in order to puff up the rounds like little balloons. The recording project was put on hold until all the dough had been used up, the kitchen cleaned, and Mama had had a chance to catch her breath with a cup of tea. By that time I was exhausted too.

        “Okay, shall we pick up where we left off last week, Mama?”

        “No, let’s move on to something else, if you don’t mind.” She clicked her tongue. “I know there are just so many things from my early life that I . . . don’t even remember.”

        “Or maybe you just don’t want to remember?”

        “Nonsense! What else do you want to know?”

        “Well, tell me about your mother and father.”

        Mama took a deep breath. “Theirs was an arranged marriage, you know. My mother was young and beautiful and so unequipped to be poor in a strange country. My father was a tailor and much older than my mother. He died when I was twelve years old.”

        “Tell me about that.”

        “Well, I’m not sure what he died from . . . maybe TB, lung cancer? I went to see him in the hospital.”

        “By yourself?”

        “With my mother. She had just given birth to my third brother, your Uncle Jamal and wanted to present the newborn to my father.”

        “That must have brought him some pleasure,” I said innocently enough.

        Mama scoffed. “No, not at all. He yelled at her, loud enough for everyone to hear, ‘That’s not my son!’”

        “What did he mean by that?” Here was a family story I had not been privy to.

        My mother smiled coolly. “He was telling the truth.”

        “I don’t understand.”

        “Of course you do. Think about what I just revealed! Your Uncle Jamal . . . had a different father.”

        I stopped the tape recorder to fully absorb this new information. My grandmother had given birth to another man’s son. I hit the record buttons again. “Go on, please.”

        “Your Jida was so beautiful. Too beautiful perhaps. She was stuck in a loveless marriage and . . .”

        “And what? Mama, go on, please.”

        “And countless pregnancies and abortions, one after another. Her life was tortuous, waiting hand and foot on an imperious husband, subjected to his continuous advances, struggling to keep my brothers and me fed. No wonder she looked for comfort elsewhere.”

        “You knew?”

        “Of course I knew. I wasn’t blind. Neither was my father. Poor man . . . he died shortly afterward, and we were forced to move in with Auntie Isabel and her husband. But they had their own problems. Everything was difficult in those days.”

        “How long did you live with Auntie Isabel?”

        Mama slowed down and her voice softened. “I loved your Jida so much . . . she just couldn’t return that love the way a mother should. She tried, but her children just weren’t enough. Well, it wasn’t long before she married again . . . you know, Nasir. They sent my brothers Saad and Omar to live on a farm in New Jersey . . . and then moved to Florida with little Jamal, who subsequently became big stepbrother to both Maryam and Xavier.”

        “You were so young, Mama. How could they leave you behind so easily?”

        Mama shrugged. “It was a difficult time for everyone. I remained with Auntie Isabel until I met your father. And the rest you know. That’s it in a nutshell. So, there you have our story. And there it shall remain for future generations.”

        “Mama, really. There is so much more. We’re not done.”

        “No, I’m done. I mean it. No more questions! You can take it away now.” Mama closed her eyes, and rested her head against the chair back.

        “What if I leave the machine here for one more week? I’ll rewind it right now; you listen to the entire recording and . . . and if you’re satisfied that you have nothing more to share, I will honor your decision. However, if you feel that it’s lacking, that you need to tell more . . . then have at it! It’s all up to you.”

        With a subtle snort Mama’s mouth fell open, exposing her unseated dentures.

        “Mama!”

        She bolted upright. “I’m awake. I heard every word. You can leave that damn machine here for one more week. And that’s it. I mean it! Now please go, so I can have a nap.”

* * *

        I had absolutely no idea if Mama had added anything to the recording when I arrived the following week, for she had boxed it up along with a container of tabouli and rolled grape leaves, plus a ziplock bag filled with meat pies pulled from the freezer. And next to it was a large gift bag containing layers of recycled, iron-pressed tissue paper and the completed 486 multicolored rosette yoyo quilt with my name on it. Gratified to be liberated from the apparent albatross I had saddled her with these past few weeks, Mama appeared to be in high spirits, almost giddy to the point of inanity. I couldn’t remember when I had last witnessed such ebullience from my mother. Had divulging certain unspeakable family secrets acted as a catharsis? Who knew?

        Back home alone in my apartment, I poured myself a glass of wine and pressed the rewind button. I listened from the beginning, wondering which, if any of the segments could be used for my project. It appeared that nothing had been added beyond our last session together. Why was I not surprised?  Like rolling credits at the end of a movie, the long closing silence spoke to me, followed by that rush of air, Mama’s sigh, the terminal point.

        Suddenly, I heard . . . a voice. Strange, watery, trembling with emotion, a voice that was familiar yet curious, spine chilling.

        “Mothers . . . this is a warning. You must keep an eagle eye out for your daughters or something terrible will happen.”

        Wha . . . what is this? I turned up the volume and pulled the machine even closer.

        “If you don’t look out for them . . . no one else will, and no one else will know what vile deeds can take place.”

        “Mama, is that you?” I spoke aloud as if she could hear and respond. Her presence filled the room.

        “There are men . . . lecherous, immoral men whom you mustn’t allow your daughters near. Do not allow your daughters to sit on their laps or wrestle with them or go for rides alone in their cars. Don’t . . . don’t let your daughters lose their innocence to these . . . these predators you think are trustworthy. They are not! Do you hear me? They are not! Your daughters will carry the shame with them the rest of their shattered lives. It will consume their very beings, eat them up from inside out like a hookworm, a parasite they can never defeat. I’m telling you . . . remain forever vigilant. Your daughters are not safe!”

        The dialogue terminated as quickly as it had begun.

* * *

        “Why are you calling so late? Is everything all right?”

        “Mama,” I whispered. “I understand now.” Silence. “I just wish you hadn’t kept it to yourself all these years—all the pain—God, there’s so much pain.”

        Once again, Mama’s voice began to tremble. “I . . . I couldn’t take it to my grave, you see. I had to speak out now . . . for all the children.”

        Silence.

        “Eugenia, are you still there?”

        “Mama, Mama,” I sobbed shamelessly. “You weren’t there when I needed you, Mama. Why weren’t you there?”

© 2024 Jeanie Sisinni Fitchen  All rights reserved.

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