One day my uncle called me in and began a long lecture about life, commitment, family and how he would soon die. As I had heard this lecture a thousand times, I pretended to listen carefully, until he reached a new sentence: "Fattoumeh… a lovely girl…"
A waterfall of cold sweat washed over me, and I suddenly came down with chronic diarrhoea. Because the problem is that the Fattoumeh in question is my uncle's daughter: my cousin.
My uncle taught me to drive a three-wheeled delivery cart, and helped me buy my own. He taught me the rules of the market and how to play the naive customer.
We grew up with my uncle's family since we were small. We went back and forth every day between our house and theirs, a distance of more than five metres. At one point I no longer knew who Fattoumeh's father was: my uncle or my dad?
Don't get me wrong. Fattoumeh is a wonderful person, but to me she's like an older brother: level-headed and cultured, she goes to the theatre and knows a poem by Nizar Qabbani by heart.
We have a special relationship. She keeps me on the right path: I'll never forget the day she nearly knocked my head off with her huge hand when I "borrowed" a sweet from the shopkeeper without paying. I think you understand why I see her as my big brother.
Fattoumeh, whom I helped to "catch" her classmate at university, and who helped me meet the prettiest, nicest girls. We understand each other in a special way.
Fattoumeh, for whom I used to buy some make-up, and whom I sometimes caught plucking the hair on her legs, which left me somewhere between disgust at the sight and pity for the poor man who would marry her.
When I tried to argue with my uncle, he said: "You don't understand this world. Let the grown-ups decide your life for you. Besides, this keeps the family together and united."
I never understood my uncle. He wants to keep his children even after they marry, and he worries about his money although all he has is an old cart he sold to his son. The only things we'll keep in the family are mental disabilities, heart disease and cancer.
The family ganged up on me. My mother was upset and threatened to stay angry until Judgement Day, my other uncle spat on me and my ideas, and our neighbour the grocer was furious…
Of course, I'm not as brave as you are. So here I am, sitting at the wedding next to Fattoumeh. Everyone is happy and dancing, except her and me. I'm sure she feels the same thing: strangeness.
Will we be left alone in a few hours? And how can we feel in one hour what a man feels for a woman and a woman for a man, when we haven't felt it for years?
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