Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 16 - 22 November 2000 Issue No.508
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

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Holding in the tears

By Fayza Hassan

My father was a nationalist. He thought it was his duty to rid his country of the occupation. On another level, however, he admired the British, especially those who did not actively participate in the imperialistic project. He envied their discipline and from an early age learned to rein in his emotions. He often told us that, as a boy, he had been prone to shed tears or fly into a rage at the slightest provocation, a trait he intensely disliked in himself. Extreme reactions were a sign of weakness signaling to others that they could safely exercise their natural aggression, he explained.

My father was also a great believer in the improvement of mankind through the observation and emulation of appropriate examples. He himself had learned to drive by watching his brother and repeating the sequence of actions over and over in his head. Since we were much too young to take the family car for a spin on our own, he did not press this point too frequently, but concentrated instead on building us into strong-minded youngsters. By today's standards, his methods would be considered controversial and their results rather problematic. He was convinced nevertheless that a stiff upper lip was at least as important as sound dental hygiene, and laboured to make us acquire both.

I was the original crybaby and found myself very quickly singled out for some extra and unforgettable lessons in self-control. On one occasion, a small dog who had taken to following us home as we returned from our daily constitutional with our mother was run over by a truck before my eyes. My hysterical screams roused my father, who came out of the house, took one look at the scene and dashed back inside. As my mother gathered the dog in her arms, hoping against hope to rush it to a veterinarian in time, my father called out to me. Howling and shaking, I turned around. Even in my grief, I remembered that not answering when addressed was a cardinal crime in our family. I gasped then, as the icy water hit my face and trickled down my neck into my shirt. My father was refilling the glass from the bottle he had brought out of the refrigerator, just in case I had not got his message the first time. The shock had completely muted my screams. I knew that the dog was beyond saving and that I was totally helpless. I never asked my mother if she had made it to the vet, nor did I ever mention the incident, but I remember finding it extremely difficult to talk to people that summer. I silently talked a great deal to myself, on the other hand.

Another of my father's interventions took place one night in 1948, when I was awakened by the wails of the sirens. Although too young really to remember Cairo in the war, I was immediately visited by an impression of déjà vu and knew that I had good cause to be afraid. I became inordinately alarmed by the noise of the bombardment, imagining that our house was in the process of falling down. Pulled out of bed, I developed acute colic and needed to use the bathroom urgently, but my father, who was ordering us to head for the basement at once, decided otherwise. "Get a hold of yourself now and move, unless you want us to leave you here alone," he growled, pushing me before him. Again, we never spoke of what happened, nor of my shameful behaviour; the event apparently left me with no permanent scars, except for the brief moment of utter panic I experience to this day whenever someone suddenly decides to depart, leaving me behind, even briefly.

In the same spirit, I was taught never to complain, voice disappointment or a pressing need; never to show more than socially acceptable sorrow. Reacting emotionally in public was akin to committing a sin and crying while watching a tear-jerking film invariably brought my father's wrath upon my head. To win his approval, I eventually developed alternative, formal reactions, becoming quieter and quieter as a deep feeling of depression silently overtook me. I never thought of questioning the necessity of keeping my mouth shut and my eyes dry at any cost, though.

Becoming older and wiser, I have learned in time to avoid, whenever at all possible, any occurrence that might induce unhappiness. I shun visits to the ailing, condolences, or movies and books featuring killings, the terminally ill, challenged children, and endangered animals. I block my eyes and ears to painful sights and bad news, pretending to myself that none of it is real. I aspire -- and often manage -- to live in a kind of no man's land where there are neither great joys nor great pain. Sometimes, I am even led to believe that I am finally in control.

I was however completely taken by surprise the other day, in the garden of the Rare Books Library, during the presentation of the prize-winning, AUC Press English translation of I Saw Ramallah. I listened to the acceptance speech by the author of the book, Murid Barghouti, as he diverged momentarily from the topic at hand and asked Israel's arm providers to remember to build smaller tanks -- more suitable, he said, for the killing of the young stone-throwing children of his country. He proceeded soberly to describe Palestinian mothers carefully detaching the bullet-riddled schoolbags from the bodies of their dead sons before laying them to rest. I was, as usual, fighting emotion and practicing the stiff upper lip when suddenly, just as I was congratulating myself on my perfect composure, and in full view of all these people I did not know, I felt tears well in my eyes and run irrepressibly down my face.

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