To the esteemed Mr. “F,”
Greetings,
You humiliated me. You destroyed my life.
I once thought every day I was a happy woman... quiet and prudent. I never thought I was like this.
How does the story begin? Do you remember?
It started one day when I came back from work and was cooking...without thinking for a moment who I was and where I came from. I always work like this, mechanically. I am not very different from an incinerator. We both burn silently and are cold on the outside. I was starting to prepare the meal when something strange happened. Behind the kitchen cupboard… I swallowed my saliva in panic… food! Someone had eaten food and hidden the rest here. A man… probably. A thief in my house. He had eaten quietly, loftily. He had eaten only the white chicken meat…. He had left the rice and eaten the meat. I tried to ignore it…. My life went on for two more days. Then I remembered it again. Who did this? What does this mean… my husband… the maid… my children… I don’t know… I don’t know. I wished the food were the only problem but I began to hear strange noises. There was someone living in our house. My first reaction was to be convinced the house was haunted! This was the work of a genie who had taken up residence to mock me. To whom should I turn? I resorted to my brother. He would not be of any help, I knew, since I had never loved him, but I told him everything anyway. He was troubled, sighed, and left in silence. He came back the next day and whispered with difficulty: Yes... it is haunted… a woman desires your husband… she called upon genie... he is doing all this. Didn’t you notice your children cannot stand each other... and your husband...
I cut him off, if she wants my husband, let her have him. He is unbearable after all... But why does she torture me... Why? Everything in the house has changed, everything between us is hatred... All this because of my husband?
A new stage of my life began. Every day I finish work early. Then I breathed behind the antichrist since they all say the same thing... I tried and tried... Gradually the genie’s activity tapered off. I breathed a sigh of relief in fear of everything around me. Then he came back, fiercer and more severely. The genie came back and I started to beg him... for hours and hours and to cry.... Sometimes I cursed him and sometimes I entreated him... I will not let him kill me… I felt that everything was conspiring against me... all of them...the maid...my children... and him... that husband of mine. Every day, I found something different in my house. Every day I waited for the genie and his footsteps!
People started to think I was crazy. But I held my husband’s hand. I forced him to see the remains of the genie’s food with his own eyes. The food I did not cook. It had come with him from beneath the earth. My husband opened his mouth in astonishment and I screamed at him: Why does she want you? Doesn’t she know who you are? Doesn’t she know that I bear the burden? That you have done nothing but smash my dreams. I hate you! I never loved you, not even for one day!
He looked at me in astonishment. He wasn’t handsome and he wasn’t ugly. He was an average man, nothing special. I married him and no longer wanted him. I no longer wanted an average man.
What were those smashed dreams of mine? Had I ever had a dream? I no longer sleep. I hear his voice every moment... this genie... Mr. “F” as I call him. Nothing helps. I have to leave my husband and the apartment... where can I go with my children?
I quit my work... Mr. “F” has become all I can think about. He must answer me. Why is he hardening me like this? Isn’t it enough that I no longer want anything? I had to see him!
So the day came when I... I saw him. I was sitting beside the wall in despair... I felt a weight on my legs... I felt a little leg tickling me... killing me...
“Mouse! Mouse! Save me!”
It was a mouse so... a mouse. He destroyed something within me... the mouse made me act hysterically... I couldn’t rest until I saw his corpse before me! Lifeless! I will avenge this hardness. I will do it. My brother came with poison. Sorry Mr. “F” but you are cruel!
And thank you!
In his last moments Mr. F whispered, “My Miss, I am innocent,” and he died.
Nothing is as troubling as women, and my wife especially, nothing but hatred comes from her towards me … I know that. I saw the hatred in her eyes from thirty years ago, I still see it in her eyes, and I will still see it in the future. This woman hates me, then what?
She wants to eliminate me ... She will kill me sooner or later, she will, and she has chosen the right time. An old man like me at the age of sixty-six will not have the strength to resist.
Where are the days of my youth when I yelled in her face and her eyes would blink, and she would sweat and shrink and then remind me of my dish. The “kursha” full of sauce. I didn’t care, I never really cared.
Do not try to calm a crying woman, for she will take you to be a weak man. This woman she will kill me one day ... I see this in her eyes. Why did I marry her? Because her nose is petite. And why should a man marry a woman? Always because of her nose. After rheumatism devoured my back … and my arm and my legs, I became a wounded lion, and the hunter enjoys throwing arrows at a wounded lion, and this wife of mine wants to take advantage of my distress. I will not leave this chance to her. I told her repeatedly that the sound of the spoon gets on my nerves and here she stirs the tea indifferently, as if she doesn’t care about my stirring nerves. Cruel! She wants to avenge when I am senile!
“I hate you!” She often said this to me. And her recompense in the past used to be a strong blow in the face, like the blows in the old-time movies. After that she would weep in silence, so cruel that she wants to get rid of me now. And the way she stirs the tea with her spoon is not indifferent. The sound of the spoon deafens my ears.
“Enough of this!”
She didn’t hear me.
“Woman, this is enough!”
She smiled quietly, stirred the tea and then whispered: “I am stirring a cup of tea, didn’t you ask me for tea?”
She put poison in it ... I will call the police ... I will. Where are my children? Why they leave her get back at me? My hands trembled as they often do these days. Would my hands not tremble in front of her!
I clasped my trembling hands. She makes fun of me ... She heals in my weakness … She will pay the price. Will I kill her or not! Yes ... but how?
Burning maybe, and why not?
I will ask for something from her, anything, and then she would turn on the fire at the stove, then I take my action …
Sternly, I said: “I want French fries, now!”
She was astonished and then turned to the kitchen. She turned on the fire, put the pan on it and then the oil ... the sound of the oil hurts me just like the sound of my wife. The hour has come, I leaned on the stick ... I turned to the kitchen ... I saw the knife in her hands which she used to cut the potatoes and then she took them to the oil, and they twisted, burned ... I closed my eyes ... The fries smell wonderful.
I should not kill her now ... maybe after I eat the fries... isn’t it enough that I get back at her. I looked at the fries squirming out of pain. I will eat the French fries first, maybe I will let her eat with me, since I hate eating by myself. So let’s postpone the killing.
I smiled at her proudly and she smiled back.
I whispered to her: “You are not very cruel anyhow... all women are cruel. I am not going to blame you for things beyond your control ... When will we eat the fries?”
They say that he wants me for something important. Really a strange man. I barely even know him. I saw him once or twice as I gave private lessons to the son of his house manager in his. They say that a disaster has come upon him ... since all his fortunes were acquired through illegal acts. He will end up in prison ... whether he is a communist or a feudal lord, wealth shows through his stylish suit ... aristocratic, his father was Minister of Interior in the past, but landowner ... anyway, it is his voice what I like about him. He never shouts. His voice sounds like the letters of the typewriter, all of them come out equal. See why he wants me? I took out the mirror, stared at my hair parted in the middle ... I stared at my withered eyes, which started to show the trace of age. “Life deceived you and wrote thirty years off your age” no one tried to flirt with me for a long while. The problem is that I am not like the other girls ... idiot, I don’t know the twisted manners for women. I wonder why this man wants me.
Now five o’clock.
I sat waiting for the man ... he came in ... smiled at me chillingly, sat in front of me, then silence prevailed. His eyes were really strange as they were like carefully sharpened pencil head. He whispered to the maid: I want a pistachio dish then dinner.
The man is really crazy … Dinner? What? Does he think that I am one of them? So I talked, he did not answer. He looked around in the confusion of a child getting out from his innocent world to a world he does not know nor understand, then he said in sternness: You will not go today.
I swallowed my saliva in astonishment and said: “What?”
“Because if you go today … Miss. … Did you tell me what is your name? Excuse me as I forget quickly, this problem of mine, there are many things occupying me these days, I wanted you to make a deal with you.”
Then he continued: “What is your opinion about life?” (And I thought that luck finally smiled at me!)
I opened my mouth and he said quickly: “Have you had falafel dish before? How tasty …”
“Mr. …”
He cut me off: “I will make you taste the pistachio sauce today … Have you tried it before? I adore pistachios so much that’s why you always find me eating it at dinner ... rice with pistachios, salad with pistachios, sauce with pistachios, meat with pistachios, and pistachios! Did you tell me what is your name?”
I stood up silently to open the door and leave as the man seems crazy, but he held my hand with strange innocence and murmured in a delicate manner that I don’t understand: “Please do not go, I need you!”
I swallowed my saliva … a shiver came out of me then I smiled at myself … he loves me of course.
He turned around once more in confusion, he called the maid and asked: “Has the marriage authorizing officer arrived or not?”
She said in fear: “He came my sir.”
I found my limbs trembling and fell to my seat in astonishment ... Could it be that he loved me for a long time and I just didn’t know?
Sitting in front of me in a flare of enthusiasm and waving his hands nervously like a child wanting something, he said: “We are going to get married now ... Have you tried pistachio juice? It is nice!”
I said instinctively: “I don’t agree.”
“Why? Don’t you love me? Don’t tell me that you don’t love me ... I already saw love in your eyes ... I don’t forget anything that I saw…”
I opened my mouth and then closed it again. I closed my eyes, from where a bitter drop of tear came out, what a strange dream that is.
He approached me while whispering: “I know everything about you ... I love everything in you.”
I married him and I don’t know how I ate the pistachios and I am his wife, then I asked the maid to prepare a falafel dish for us. He stared innocently as I sat next to him and started to put food into his mouth, as if he was a little child. I did not know the power of affection, I was never affectionate even for a day but he is a strange man.
He smiled at me ... he made me feel strange, that “I” am introducing him to a world he doesn’t know ... that everything he does with me, even the taste of falafel is strange and new.
Then he gently whispered, holding my hands: “I have to tell you something important … we have to wake up tomorrow at seven in the morning!”
I said in astonishment as if he woke me up from a sweet dream: “Why? I mean ... I forgot ... I … I have to go now ... my mother …”
He cut me off, annoyed: “Don’t go now ... I need you.”
He got up quietly ... opened the drawer of his desk and took out two boxes ... he gave me one, then opened it, and I found an exquisite diamond ring, my hand shivered and I looked at him, and he said quickly: “You know how much it costs? Three hundred thousand Egyptian pounds ... Unfortunately I won’t be able to buy it for you ... I borrowed it today ... and I will return it tomorrow at seven!”
I looked at him in the same astonishment then I said, hesitantly: “I don’t understand.”
“You can wear it until seven ... What do you think Miss. .. Did you tell me what is your name? I am sorry about this forgetfulness ... Is it better to wear a beautiful diamond ring like this for only a few hours, or is it better to live all your life not knowing what a diamond is?”
I said quickly: “Of course it is better to wear it for a few hours!”
“Our life is like this my dear, a bundle of scattered hours, we borrow it then we return it, and I decided to return it at seven o’clock and you are with me.”
I smiled quietly: “We give back the ring.”
“We give back our life.”
He opened the second box, in which there is a small bottle, he smiled and whispered: “Poison ... I will kill myself at seven, for the upcoming few hours for me in this world will be without the ring so I have to finish it. Even the pistachios ran out. There are only few hours left and you are with me.”
I gasped in panic: “With you, where to?”
“I have chosen you.”
“For you to kill me? You are ... You are tired and desperate, suicide will not help ... in the morning …”
“In the morning I will enjoy the greatest of my victories, with my ability to control a human being. In the morning you will drink the poison with me at your own will, it’s enough of what I have achieved until now.”
A foolish and crazy person ... In the morning I will call the police to stop him, and if they wouldn’t stop him from doing this, then it would be enough for me to stay alive … Maybe I have to leave now, or why don’t I wait until the morning?
All what he’s doing will not work with me. His words are strange. His innocence is accompanied by the enthusiasm of a young man, the nerves of an old man, and the weakness of a child. All this will not work with me. When I return ... I will ... I will start a new life, for my old life was too tedious. Maybe I marry someone else ... Marriage was my dream and it came true and there will be no one like him ... I do not have to marry then. Do I love him? Do I call the police now? I will wait for two hours until seven o’clock. I will stay with him until seven o’clock as I might not see him anymore. His words are strange. I am about to lose my mind ... Is he a devil or what? What brought me here? We’ll wait until seven.
I stared in his eyes and he smiled confidently and whispered: “Are you afraid?”
I said in despair: “The time for fear is over because I drank the poison.”
“You have less than half an hour.”
I said in a state of torpor: “You promised me that I will not be in pain.”
“You can ask for help.”
I smiled indifferently and whispered bitterly: “Why did you do this to me?”
“Do you believe me if I told you I love you?”
“No I won’t trust you.”
“Do you believe me if I tell you I lied to you ... My father was a watch guard and falafel was our favorite dish … I was not an aristocrat. If I met you ten years ago you would be a princess for me.”
Starting to lose control of my mind, I said: “I won’t believe this either.”
He got up ... and kissed my forehead in keen respect, then sat and whispered: “You are a brave woman ... Did you tell me what is your name?”