There are certain memories that can only be called haunting. These are the memories that won’t easily leave us; the ones we can’t lightly put aside and dust off when it suits us to think of them. I have one such memory that comes to visit with me. It settles and gnaws and tightens its grip reminding me of lives that were, and lives that might have been.
It has been many years since my trip to Egypt. My husband traveled much in his youth and had many friends in Cairo. We took a trip to visit them just a few years after we were married. We had our young son in tow, he was still an infant, but he was a good traveler. We were tall, fair-haired, light skinned Americans visiting the common neighborhoods in the sprawling suburbs of the capitol city. Our physical differences made us stand out and we attracted much attention just walking down the street. But, the Egyptians were so kind and generous. It was quite amazing how they would almost literally bend over backward to make us feel at home.
One day we went to visit the family of a good friend. They lived in a sprawling apartment on the first and second floor of a multiple complex building near the center of downtown Cairo. Several members of the extended family all lived together in that apartment. It was set up in a series of small rooms that all opened up to a central sitting room. The interesting thing about the apartments of that era was that the rooms were very small and the furniture was very big. Sometimes while sitting in one of those overcrowded dining rooms I would feel a bit like Alice in Wonderland with her growing potion, only it was the furniture that had started growing and would soon pop out of the confines of the tiny room. Another odd characteristic was the lack of adornment or decorations on the walls. Because the walls were concrete they could not take hooks or nails. Without pictures or decorations the rooms often felt cave-like and oppressive.
It was in a room like this that I met Laila. I had been sitting with Mona, the wife of our host. My small son was just settling down on my lap to sleep. The men had been gathered around us talking animatedly in Arabic, but their attention had been diverted and they had all left the room en-masse. Almost like a flash, Laila bounded in. She was a big girl with dark hair that was wound around her head in a pleasing arrangement. Her face was wide, inquisitive and open as if she wore all her secrets there. She had huge brown eyes that were so dark and deep they could have been black. She plopped herself down next to me, touched my shoulder in greeting and proceeded to coo over the baby.
Mona let out a little laugh and said something in Arabic. It was probably something like “Hello! Where did you come from?” They exchanged a bit of conversation and then Mona turned to me and said, “Her name is Laila. She was waiting to meet you. She was not allowed to come into the room when the men were here.”
“What?” I said incredulously. “Why?” I turned to Laila to enquire and I saw her face looking at me in a pleading way.
“It is my husband. He is not like other husbands. He doesn’t let me out of the house. He doesn’t allow me to be in the company of men not in my family.” Mona translated for us. My eyes opened wide and my mouth probably did too.
“I can’t believe such a cruel thing.” I looked at Laila in sympathy. “I am sorry.” I said, “So sorry.”
Laila continued, “I can’t even go shopping. He has to shop for me. I can’t leave the house.” She shook her head. I felt her eyes pleading with me. I thought I could hear her saying, “Save me,” as if her eyes were actually speaking with mine. I felt myself recoil. I looked down. I patted my baby. I looked at Mona and then back to Laila’s eyes. I couldn’t speak. I could only stare. The despair I found there was incredible. Laila looked down and continued her story.
She didn’t know that her husband was so religiously fanatic when she married him. Her father was not that strict with her when she was growing up. She did love her husband’s mother and was glad for her company, but she missed the streets and the outdoors. No one agreed with how her husband treated her, but it was his right and who could argue with God?
Laila was close to my age and had been married about as long as my husband and I had been married. She desperately wanted a baby. She cooed over my son and sang him a little song. It was a haunting, sad song full the sounds of longing and love. As she sang to the baby, she looked straight at me. In that moment I felt the very sad plight of women all over the world. Laila was so beautiful and so strong. She began chatting about babies and cooking and asking what it was like living in America. She was fun and chatty and very lively with such an inquisitive nature. She asked me many questions. I could understand how hard it would be for her not to be allowed to be social and out in the world.
At one point in the conversation we were interrupted by the sound of a loud shriek wafting in through the open window. It was a woman’s sad scream ending in a long wailing moan. Mona and I looked startled and Laila explained, “Oh, that’s just our neighbor Heba. She has gone mad, crazy.” Laila took her hand and shook it in a circular motion around her ear demonstrating the international sign for insane. “Ya’ anni” I said, using my limited knowledge of the Egyptian slang meaning “poor thing.” The women laughed. At the time I thought how wonderful that the insane are not institutionalized in Egypt. They are kept close to their families for care. But on later inspection I wondered if Heba might have been a woman who had been driven mad by being imprisoned in her own home.
We chatted, spending a lovely afternoon, three women enjoying each other’s company. But Laila’s eyes kept coming back to mine. Her stories were funny or tender, but her eyes were pleading and sad. I wanted to tell her, “I want so badly to help you. I don’t know what I could do or how I could change the nature of a society that allows women to be treated so unfairly.”
Laila’s eyes have haunted me all these years later. I still think about her and realize there are so many women the world over who suffer at the hands of men who still follow ancient traditions in some misguided fundamentalist belief that hiding women away will keep them pure and will elevate the men in the eyes of God. A few years after our visit to Egypt I asked after Laila. How was she? Did she have her babies? Did she move out of her mother-in-law’s home? The answer to my questions left me breathless. Laila had failed to conceive. She couldn’t have children so her husband had married another in order to grow a family. Laila had killed herself shortly thereafter. I cried. I cried for the injustice done to this beautiful soul who wanted to shine, but was born into the wrong culture. Some might say she died of disappointment or sorrow or loneliness. But I say she died of neglect. It was the neglect of the world that allows women to be mistreated, forgotten and abused. It was my neglect for not speaking out in the face of this terrible wrong.
I was much younger, much less wise all those years ago. I was a tourist in a country I didn’t know. I was a woman spending time getting to know other women. At the conclusion of our afternoon conversation those many years ago, the men came to get us. It was time to go. I can’t remember my last words to Laila or if I said a proper fare well. There was much commotion as we wandered to the front door of the house, shaking hands with the various family members, saying our thank yous and good byes. At the door, we were surrounded by a great mass of friendly people wishing us well. I searched their faces looking for the one that I now felt I could call my friend, but Laila was conspicuously absent.