Voice Recording 03
Recorded: 22nd July Monday
Nǐn hǎo, Hana!
Are you irritated by my voice yet?
Well if you're still listening on, it must not be because you miss me too much but rather because you're searching for answers that you can't get from me directly and it just so happens that I recorded them for you because I think we all deserve answers, should not die yearning for them and this I learnt from a particular redhead close to us. So I'm recording it all here for you. I got this idea from Dadi who gave me her written will to safe keep about a year ago, she must have the reality of death clear in her mind.
I now have the reality of what I have done to you clear in my mind.
And yes, it is killing me.
So here's the thing, Nashwa had nothing to do with it.
Yes, she's always around, yes, she and I have been very much closer especially in these last two years and yes, she has some of the craziest, riskiest ideas up her sleeve like climbing the ledge on the side of our roof and grasping the mangoes on our neighbour's tree. But I'm not Nashwa's puppet and as naïve as I was on my own, I am my own person and mind yet still.
However so regretfully.
What I did, I did entirely on my own, I don't want you holding her accountable for this because Hana, while she resents you for being her father's sweet heart and you resent her for being so close to me, we're family, all three of us and Nashwa should not need to yearn to belong with us, she is one of us. If she wishes yet still, it means we have failed to make her feel belonged.
I know you don't like failing at anything.
I don't like to either even though I am a failure through and through.
And Nashwa didn't just lose her mother that night, she lost her father too. You'd think Ahmad Mamu would have held her closer to him after already losing the woman of his heart, he should have held onto their dear child but he didn't. Don't you think Nashwa wonders why he hates and avoids her so much? Don't you think Nashwa must question if she possibly had a role in her mother's death? Don't you think all this must make Nashwa hate herself too? Don't you think it kills her to live in a house she cannot call her own and look at us, so blessed with our privileges, our decorated room, our clothing brands, our cell phones, our happy rich lives and loving parents by our side while she could have so much from Ahmad Mamu's wallet but he does not even open his heart to her?
Go on, Hana.
I wonder if you bother these days, to look at the things I put on my wall but I recently put up a quote by Nikita Gill that says: Some people survive chaos and that is how they grow. And some people thrive in chaos, because chaos is all they know.
Don't you think Nashwa is broken, fragmented, shattered and scattered on the inside and that is what makes her so resentful, angry, catty and vehement to all those around her? She is chaos because chaos is all she knows.
I wonder if she wishes she had died and not her mother that night. Does that thought alone in her head not make you want to keep her close to you and tell her she is wanted, she is valued, she is cherished and needed?
It's not easy to love yourself, you know it too.
You battle with your body weight, I battle with my damaged brain, Nashwa battles with her survival. If you think as I do that I'm a walking tragedy with my CP, then you should know I am nothing compared to Nashwa's tragedy.
How do we learn to love ourselves despite our ugliness?
But we did, once upon a time. Do you remember and yes I know this is getting annoying, me bringing up old painful memories but this one is not painful, it's actually the happiest memory of us three when we were so proud of us, each one of us for our skills and talents, it was truly a moment we glowed.
You and Nashwa were in sixth grade, I was in third grade and we went to the same school and had a bake sale carnival so we set up a stall together with Dadi and we were the It stall of the day. The way these days you're the It Girl in the family.
We didn't want to be a conventional stall with fancy cupcakes, pizzas or donuts, we wanted to grab all the attention, all the spotlight, all the customers to ourselves only and we schemed it all with Dadi who found on Pinterest the perfect plan.
Fortune Cookies.
Of course the task was near to impossible but the seven year old girl who could bake a cake all by herself could surely now make fortune cookies too? So we set about it, I thought of happy fortunes people would like to read and Nashwa wrote them down. Dadi searched up Pinterest for ways we could decorate the stall and the perfect aesthetic for it too while you looked about for recipes.
It was tricky, the recipe, making a thin cookie, pulling it out while it was soft, putting the fortune paper slip in it and then folding it with a pinch before it hardened but you, Hana, you did it!
We baked some cupcakes too, together. You and Mama made the batter, Dadi, Nashwa and I decorated them with buttercream and sprinkles. We glazed our cookies pink and purple with white sprinkles on top.
They looked so pretty.
The house smelt lovely that day, as sweet as our correspondence. We dressed up Nashwa like a fortune teller, braiding the front strands of her red hair and putting beads in them, wrapping a handkerchief on her head so she looked like female Jack Sparrow with just the hat missing. We put purple nail paint on her fingers and robed her in a large purple dupatta that Haala Mami had with small coins attached to its borders. We added some blush to her cheeks, lined her eyes with kajal and put some glitter on her lids too. She did not need to be trained on how to act and call forth people, drama and theatrics are her expertise after all.
Come to the fortune teller! Let your fate be known!
Shall you pass this week's test or shall you fail miserably at love and life? Come to the fortune teller to let your fate be known!
Oye, little girl with so many lollipops! Is your destiny as sweet as these cupcakes that shall be sold? Come to the fortune teller to let your fate be known!
Girls and boys and parents and teachers they loved the sweetness of your treats, Hana, and yes they loved my fortune phrases too. They bit their lips like you do as they cracked the cookie and pulled out the slips reading with stars in their eyes:
True love shall be yours if you let yourself be true.
You will shine brighter than the stars if you help those around you find their light too.
The big fortune you seek is in another cookie, in fact go for two.
You are your parents' favourite child, but only ask when alone.
The beauty you seek is in your mirror.
To avoid a misbalanced fortune, have equal cookies in each hand.
Of course you're the fairest of them all but you'll be smarter if you buy another that which you hold.
We made so much money that day, Hana, and like little naïve girls, we let our parents take it all away but that night we were truly happy, you for the amazing cookies you baked, me for planning it all out, Nashwa for being the beloved fortune teller of the day and Dadi for her aesthetic helping us fulfil our dreams. It felt like we had done something and it felt like we could do so much more in our lives, conquer lands, build castles on mountains, walk on water even and beat all the sadness in our lives. There was no Hanaan's CP holding her back that day, there was no Ahmad Mamu plaguing your thoughts or irritating Nashwa's heart that day, we were a team, united we stood and victorious we came out.
Together we conquered the bake sale sales.
Haala Mami let Nashwa stay over that night and we had a Pirates of the Caribbean marathon. I hardly understood much but knew enough that while you doted on Will Turner, Nashwa was smitten on Jack Sparrow instead.
I think Barbossa was cool too. And his monkey, Jack.
I wonder if Dadi has a picture of us from that day saved in an album somewhere. Could we recreate this memory soon for old times' sake? But of course, nothing will ever be the same.
I will take credit for that.
But do you remember, Hana, you saved up some pocket money and brought it with you to the carnival and when in three hours only our entire stock ran out, you ran off to a hair accessories stall and quickly bought three matching scrunchies? They were themed white and dark blue with stars on one, stripes on another and constellations on one too. You didn't give them to us yet and I think you forgot about them too, I didn't. Rather, I found them a while back in a shoe box in your closet buried deep under old clothes. You must have hidden the scrunchies there when you must have remembered but didn't want to give them to us because we most definitely must have fought over some petty thing.
We used to quarrel a lot, I remember. Now there's none of that either.
There's nothing at all other than formality and it kills me even more. I'd rather you fight with me, argue with me, tell me you hate me.
But just be true with me, and just be you with me.
You could pull them out now, Hana, give it to us as a show of good hope and perhaps all this ice amongst us would melt away. I know you're not on the best of terms with Nashwa. I agree her past is understandable but that doesn't make her behaviour acceptable but you're Hana, you're compassionate, you're soft and there's bravery in being soft.
Had I not done what I have done to you now, I would have stepped forward for sure, I like to think so.
But you're clean, Hana. You're still clean.
Be brave please.
Don't give it to me, I don't deserve hope anymore, not after what I have done to you but do give it to Nashwa and recount the day you bought it to let her know she's capable of so much more now that she has grown up and perhaps it will help her heal and become whole again and help you survive through what I have brought upon you. She is a survivor after all.
Perhaps it will remind her she's worthy of self-love, so are you.
Just not me anymore.
Not me. At all.