She
An essential introduction so we can learn everything about our heroes,
their habits, and their problems before they set off for (Fantasia)...
1 - Be patient, (Aveline)!
Aveline Carter was a familiar figure...
It was as if everyone said the same thing about her... her mother... her sister...
Professor Mr. Harris... Sophia... Chloe...
And when all of them agree on one thing, it is
difficult to imagine that they might have misjudged her... And (Aveline)
herself knows this, and she is stunned by the extent to which she has reached
in terms of moral weakness and quick boredom..
At school.. on the street.. at home, she would see
faces etched with a mixture of pity and stern
resolve.. and hear them all say:
Be patient, (Aveline)!
She never let anyone know that she would lock herself in the bathroom,
go to the cheap mirror hanging there,
whose shiny surface was dotted with those ugly black spots
where the paint had peeled off the back...
And there, gazing at the shiny surface, she would contemplate her face...
contemplating the ugliest and harshest sight she had ever seen in her life...
It was hard for her to believe that this gaunt, dark-skinned woman
with prominent cheekbones, reflected on the other side, was
(Aveline)...
She would fluff her hair upward... smile tenderly...
She puts on an act of seriousness... painting a dreamy look
in her narrow eyes...
But the result is the same...
These attempts only added ugliness to ugliness...
She certainly doesn't look like those beautiful movie actresses,
and in any case, she doesn't resemble (Ghada) at all...
How will she ever know love? ... And how will she ever marry?
She isn't terrifying like a ghoul... but she needed
to see a more beautiful face and a slimmer body... Her spirit
needed this... She felt she was shrinking, that she
was fading away... And her youthful heart believes there is a kind of
beauty in everyone except her… She alone lives in
misery… She loathes the past and fears tomorrow…
Her mother told her she was still in the making, and that
the "women's beautician" would surely visit her and paint
a touch of beauty on her face…
In her impatience, she cried out:
"So when? … When?"
Her mother said with firm tenderness:
"Be patient, Aveline!"
Her home was in one of Ghamra's narrow alleys…
And there was always a pool of stagnant water in front of the door,
she never really knew where this eternal water came from, since there
was no rain, no faucet, and no open drain...
And she was bound to find the children, half-naked, fighting,
a mangy cat devouring the guts of a chicken thrown out by one of the neighbors
in front of the door...
And you enter the narrow doorway where a
musty smell wafts... You never knew its source, even though you've been smelling it for
seventeen years—your entire life...
You climb the worn-out stairs to the second floor where
you live...
The house is cramped, consisting of two rooms and a living room... Its furniture
is cheap and old, betraying terrible taste... and the walls have been
painted with yellow paint... and hung on them are those
cheap paintings that people imagine to be art... You know, of course,
that disgusting picture of the two children who are made of
gold and silver... and that ridiculous picture of the woman drinking
misery from her mouth… those pictures devoid of any artistry
that people hang without even liking them…
Then there are clippings from art magazines, featuring photos
of actors and singers… and a large poster of Walid Tawfiq,
which her sister glued to the wall…
And generally speaking, you can't find a bed in this house
that she hasn't fallen off, or a chair with intact legs, or rugs that haven't
been patched up…
The kitchen was as cramped as a tomb, with a small gas stove,
two pots in a basin filled with water… and a small refrigerator
that had gone bad months ago…
In the living room stood a small color TV that her
mother had bought on installment using her father's pension, after her son's
income began to improve from the plumbing supply store where he worked…
And through that TV, Aveline discovered a dazzling,
beautiful world that had nothing to do with what the books showed… She saw children whose faces were not
stained with mud, and girls whose bodies bore no
cuts from an old pocketknife, and girls whose heels were not
roughened by poverty into a layer
as hard as rock…
And in the evening, she would sit with her family watching
the daily soap opera, amusing herself by observing their faces as they
the colorful images, with a vacant, unconscious gaze… but they
watch on tirelessly…
Blood rushes to her head, and she wishes she could jump out of this
suffocating house…
And everyone tells her:
Be patient, Aveline!
A student at a technical high school...
She knows full well that her future is blocked, and that she will never
become an engineer or a doctor—and, worst of all—she will never
become a ballerina, as she had dreamed of since she was a little girl...
Look at the delicate butterflies fluttering around the light... how
she wished she could be one of them! But she knew that
this was impossible... even if she were as slender as they were... she
doesn't know the path one must take to become a
ballerina... but it is certainly not her path...
Her sorrows are drowned out by the tedious banter with her relatives,
and she snatches from them the cassette she brought
with her… and from them a photo of her fiancé, then finds calm as the
teacher enters the classroom…
and begins to speak… the tedious speech with no beginning and no end,
about Planck's constant and statics, and Cauchy's series,
which become mere definitions before a blind poet…
She was completely unable to focus her mind on what she was hearing…
She tried her best… She tried hard… But she failed… And that is why she failed twice
in the past… And perhaps it would have been three times, had she not
been able to place the saddle on the back of the horse of her dreams…
She loathed these damp, moldy walls and couldn't
help but feel she had no real friends—just a bunch of girls
she saw every day, who felt no affection for her… And if
a nuclear missile were to fall on this classroom and destroy
it, she wouldn't feel any sadness for her classmates, nor would she miss
a single one of them…
Her teachers believed she had a great deal of
intelligence… if only she were less bored, less distracted, more
ambitious, and more attentive…
Will this prison never end? …
Then the teacher says to her as she cleans the blackboard:
Be patient, Aveline!
The journey from home to school… the journey from school to home…
This has become an inescapable fate… like the migration of birds… something
of nature's immutable laws… a law stronger than
Newton's own laws…
At home, she puts on her nightgown and sits with her
small family—her mother, her sister, and her little brother—
as they devour rice and vegetables… Vegetables without meat, of course, except
on Thursdays… As for her older brother, his meal awaits him
upon his return from them, laden in the evening, from the
plumbing supply store… After lunch comes the cup of tea,
which she sips at the narrow window—which doesn't overlook anything
in reality—with her sister… Then she climbs into the narrow bed that
creaks…
and she reaches her slender hand toward two wooden shelves, which her brother
had mounted on the wall and tied together with ropes…
These two shelves hold everything she ever wanted from this
world… Dozens of worn-out books piled high on the shelves
awaiting her…