Regrettably Asya was not blessed with even a wee bit of faith. She was too mordant to have confidence in the flow of time. She was a burning fire inside without the slightest faith in the righteousness of the divine order. In that respect too, she greatly resembled no one but her mother. With this kind of moral fiber and in this mood, there was no way she could be patient and faithful, waiting for the day life would turn her body to her advantage. At this point in time, Auntie Zeliha could clearly see that the knowledge of her physical dullness, among other things, was pricking at her daughter's young heart. If only she could tell her that the beauties would only attract the worst guys. If only she could make her understand how lucky she was not to be born too beautiful; that in fact both men and women would be more benevolent to her, and that her life would be better off, yes, much better off without the exquisiteness she now so craved.
Still without a word Auntie Zeliha walked toward the dresser, fetched the slipper, and placed the now united pair in front of Asya's naked feet. She stood up before her mutinous daughter, who instantly lifted her chin and straightened her back in the posture of a proud prisoner of war who had surrendered arms but certainly not his dignity.
"Let's go!" Auntie Zeliha commanded. Mutely, mother and daughter convoyed toward the living room. The folding table was long set for breakfast. Despite her grump iness Asya couldn't help noticing that when the table was festooned like this, it fit perfectly, almost picturesquely, with the huge, firebrick rug underneath, glowing in its intricate floral patterns within a handsome coral border. Just like the rug, the table above looked ornamented. There were black olives, red pepper-stuffed green olives, white cheese, braided cheese, goat cheese, boiled eggs, honeycombs, buffalo cream, homemade apricot marmalade, homemade raspberry jam, and olive-oil-soaked minted tomatoes in china bowls. The delectable smell of newly baked borek wafted from the kitchen: white cheese, spinach, butter, and parsley melting into one another amid thin layers of phyllo pastry.
Now ninety-six years old, Petite-Ma was sitting at the far end of the table, holding a teacup even thinner than herself. With an engrossed and somewhat befuddled look on her face, she was watching the canary twittering in the cage by the balcony door, as if she had only now noticed the bird. Perhaps she had. Having entered the fifth stage of Alzheimer's, she had started to muddle up the most familiar faces and facts of her life.
Last week, for instance, toward the end of the afternoon prayer, as soon as she had bent down and put her forehead on her little rug for the stage of sajda, she had forgotten what to do next. The words of the prayer she had to utter had all of a sudden fastened together into an elongated chain of letters and walked away in tandem, like a black, hairy caterpillar with too many feet to count. After a while, the caterpillar had stopped, turned around, and waved at Petite-Ma from a distance, as if surrounded by glass walls, so clearly visible yet unreachable. Lost and confused, Petite-Ma had just sat there facing the Qibla, glued on her rug with a prayer scarf on her head and the string of amber prayer beads in her hand, motionless and soundless, until someone noticed the situation and lifted her up.
"What was the rest of it?" Petite-Ma had asked in panic when they made her lie on the sofa and put soft cushions under her head. "In the sajda you must say Subhana rabbiyal-ala. You must say it at least thrice. I did. I said it three times. Subhana rabbiyal-ala, Subhana rabbiyal-ala, Subhana rabbiyal-ala," she twirped the words repeatedly, as if in a frenzy. "And then what? What is next?"
As luck would have it, it was Auntie Zeliha who happened to be by her side when Petite-Ma raised this question. Having no practice in namaz, or in any religious duty for that matter, she had absolutely no idea what her grandmother might be talking about. But she wanted to help, to soothe the old woman's anguish in any way she could. Thus she fetched the Holy Qur'an, and skimmed through the pages until she came across a resemblance of solace in some verse: "Look what it says. Whenn the call is sounded for prayer on Fridays, hasten to the remembrance of God… but when the prayer is ended, disperse abroad in the land and seek of God's grace and remember God, that you may be successful" (62:9-10).
"What do you mean?" Petite-Ma blinked her eyes, now more lost than ever.
"I mean, now that the prayer has ended in one way or another, you can stop thinking about it. That's what it says here, right? Come on Petite-Ma, disperse abroad in the land… and have supper with us."
It had worked. Petite-Ma had stopped worrying about the forgotten line and had dined with them peacefully. Nonetheless, incidences like this had lately started to occur with an alarming frequency. Often subdued and withdrawn, there were times in which she forgot the simplest things, including where she was, which day of the week it was, or who these strangers were with whom she sat at the same table. And yet there were also times it was hard to believe she was ill, as her mind seemed as clear as newly polished Venetian glass. This morning it was hard to tell. Too early to tell.
"Good morning, Petite-Ma!" Asya exclaimed as she shuffled her lavender feet toward the table, having finally washed her face and brushed her teeth. She leaned over the old woman and gave her a sloppy kiss on both cheeks.
Ever since she was a little girl, of all the women in her family, Petite-Ma retained a most special place in Asya's heart. She loved her dearly. Unlike some others in the family, Petite-Ma had always been capable of loving without suffocating. Shewould never nag or nitpick or sting. Her protectiveness was not possessive. From time to time she secretly put grains of wheat sanctified with prayers into Asya's pockets to save her from the evil eye. Other than crusading against the evil eye, laughing was the thing she did best and mostthat is, until the day her illness escalated. Back in the past, she and Asya used to laugh together a lot: Petite-Ma, a lengthy stream of mellifluous chuckles; Asya, a sudden spurt of rich, resonant tones. Nowadays, though deeply worried about her great-grandmother's well-being, Asya was also respectful of the autonomous realm of amnesia that she drifted into, being constantly denied autonomy herself. And the more the old woman digressed from them, the closer she felt to her.
"Good morning my pretty great-granddaughter," Petite-Ma replied, impressing everyone with the clarity of her memory.
Sitting there with a remote control in her hand, Auntie Feride chirped without looking at her. "At last, the grumpy princess is awake." She sounded jovial despite the tinge of harangue in her voice. Just this morning she had dyed her hair, turning it to a light blond, almost ashen. By now Asya knew too well that a radical change in hairstyle was a sign of a radical change in mood. She inspected Auntie Feride for traces of insanity. Other than that she seemed to be absorbed in the TV, watching with delight a terribly untalented pop singer spinning around in a dance too ridiculous to be real, Asya couldn't find any.