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A Mother and Teenager Under Male Domination
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Obada Takla-Al Thara
6-6-2011
"My childhood and adolescence are linked with two stories and two people I can't forget," he said while taking a puff of his cigarette, looking through the smoke with pain in his eyes.
"The heroine of the first story was our neighbor, Um Silah, who passed away a year and a half ago.
I was there at her funeral, despite even though the village was far away. I must say this woman deserves to have a statue built in her honor.
I remember seeing her kind smile for the first time when I was five years old. I also recall her long suffering at the hands of her terrifying husband; the man was a shepherd and treated his wife the way he treated his sheep.
Whenever we came to look at the sheep, we used to catch a glimpse of him pulling her around by her hair. He would then lock the door and begin to beat her. I still recall the sound of her screams barely distinguishable from the bleating of the sheep.
Once she told my mother she could no longer bear it but was only staying for the sake of her seven children. When my mother told her to ask her brothers to talk to her husband, she fell silent and claimed they had been reluctant to get involved out of fear. Instead they advised her to be patient, and she was, until her husband's death when she moved in with her eldest son. And while he and I disagree on many matters, I respect his devotion to his mother, which allowed her to live out the rest of her life in dignity."
He lit another cigarette as he segued to the second story whose hero was the son of the neighbors.
"His father couldn't handle the fact that I was a better student than his son, and he wouldn't allow him to tell anybody that he had failed middle school. Later his father transferred him to a different school.
Two years later I visited them in the village, but the son was not there. His father told me the boy was spending the night at his fiancée's family's house. When the son returned in the morning, he took me to one of the restaurants. It was clear he had something to get off his chest.
'Listen and don't interrupt. I failed 9th grade two years ago and left school. Afterwards my father forced me to join the army. The story about my engagement is not real, just an attempt by my father to prove I'm superior to you, at any cost. Actually I was on duty in the barracks.'
His eyes filled with tears, and he confided his desperation to the point of wanting to commit suicide. Two days after I returned to Damascus I received the news of his death. His father claimed he had been playing with his gun, and it went off and killed him. However, I am sure that he chose this way simply to escape from his domineering father."
obadatakla@hotmail.com
Thara E- Magazine No. 283 ,6/6/2011
Reproduction permitted with appropriate citation |
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