Empty Cages

It’s been wrapped In a integrative container and buried successful a drawer ever since I brought it present from nan aged location on pinch each my different alleged valuables. The tin is crammed afloat of aged poems—in blue, red, and greenish ballpoint connected heavy glossy paper—that I’d written erstwhile I was 12 aliases thir- teen and had been redeeming truthful that I’d person thing to laughter astatine erstwhile I sewage very old. Every clip I opened nan tin, nan words seemed fainter, but nan insubstantial remained heavy and glossy each over, isolated from for nan grooves near by nan pen. It didn’t make overmuch difference. Those poems—or what was near of them—hadn’t made maine laughter successful a very agelong time. For galore years, they brought a grin to my face, but complete time, I stopped caring. I wasn’t readying to re-read my puerility poems; they could slice distant for each I cared. With nan region of age, puerility appears unusual and tiresome, a changeless reminder of really overmuch clip has passed.

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I person nary thought why I felt for illustration getting nan tin retired tonight. The aged integrative container that I kept it successful was looking soiled and scuffed, truthful I sewage free of it and picked retired a caller one. There were immoderate aged papers and photographs successful location that I wanted to return a person look at, but I wasn’t successful nan temper for it conscionable then, truthful I group them aside. It was past that I realized nan tin nary longer closed flush. The rim was bent truthful nan 2 pins that held nan lid successful spot astatine nan backmost weren’t lining up. They were truthful acold from nan notches they were meant to slot into that nary matter really difficult I squeezed nan rim, I couldn’t get it to shut. Every accommodation I made caused different portion to crook retired of shape. After I yet managed to get nan tin half shut, I took nan 2 pins retired for safekeeping, afloat intending to get them fixed 1 day.

The tin laic location connected nan array successful beforehand of me. I don’t deliberation I’d ever looked astatine it very intimately earlier tonight.

*

“Cadbury’s Milk Tray Chocolates” ran elegantly from 1 area to nan different successful an embossed purple band. The remainder of nan tin was dressed up pinch illustrations of nan various types of chocolates that it had erstwhile contained, and successful nan bottommost right-hand corner, it read:

1 lb. net
including foils
454 grammes
٤٥٤ غرام

It struck maine arsenic funny that Cadbury’s was truthful precise that they’d gone to nan problem of noting really overmuch nan foil wrappers weighed, but had decided that Arabic readers didn’t request to cognize that information. The tin must person travel from abroad—probably Beirut, seeing that they’d spelled nan connection “gram” pinch a gh-. I examined nan tin for different clues, but nan silvery bottommost had rusted.

*

There was thing beautiful astir nan assortment of chocolates decorating nan lid. Rectangular, round, smooth, lumpy—bits of pistachio was my guess. The colors had faded a bit, but nan brownish was chocolatey capable that they still seemed real. I must person been sad erstwhile I ate nan past 1 because it wasn’t a very large tin to statesman with. I for illustration to image myself coiled up pinch nan tin and my feline Meesho nether a dense broad successful nan small sleeping nook successful our surviving room connected a wintertime night. That was wherever I slept erstwhile I was very young, earlier I had a chamber of my own. I’d astir apt eaten astir of it by myself. Meesho wasn’t a instrumentality of chocolate, and I tin only presume that my father, mother, and 2 older brothers each took 1 cocoa and near maine nan rest. They utilized to fto maine person each nan treats erstwhile I was that age. Even today, nan tin overflows pinch joy, and I presume that’s why we kept it for each those years. It mightiness moreover outlast me.

*

I was ne'er going to repair nan tin. Never going to get those pins backmost into their small slots truthful that nan lid would unopen arsenic snugly arsenic it erstwhile had. It would beryllium for illustration stifling it. Every clip I tried, I worried that if I really did get it to shut, I’d ne'er beryllium capable to unfastened it again. I’ll time off it arsenic it is— half-shut; I’ll conscionable beryllium observant not to fto everything autumn out.

I tried to retrieve really it sewage here, but I couldn’t. So it goes. My representation is afloat of holes, but it’s not for fixing either. The tin had been a gift—that’s for cer- tain—but not 1 of nan gifts that group brought erstwhile they came to sojourn my mother during her last bout of ill- ness. For one, it looked costly and it felt for illustration a portion of my childhood. The truth that we’d kept nan tin indicated arsenic much. Kept nan tin arsenic successful kept it empty, I mean. Unlike each nan different cocoa tins successful nan house, Mama hadn’t stuffed this 1 pinch spools of colored thread, thimbles, needles stabbed done achromatic paper and tinfoil. Nor had I stored her dentures successful it. I’d kept them of course, wrapped up successful a integrative container on pinch a brace of her glasses pinch 1 limb missing. Nor had I utilized it to shop immoderate of nan different things I’d inherited from her, for illustration a fastener of my grandma Fatma’s hair. Fatma, nan namesake whom I ne'er sewage to meet.

*

The joyousness wrong nan tin wasn’t nan only logic we’d held connected to it. Think of really often joyousness disappears without a trace. Pride had to person played a portion arsenic well. I tin still retrieve nan infinitesimal nan flashy car turned down our thoroughfare and each nan neighbors came retired to gawk astatine it and astatine nan 2 young, expensively perfumed women who sewage out. My begetter sat pinch nan women, legs crossed, laugh- ing, dressed successful pajamas and a heavy terry clothes that I continued to deterioration for years aft his decease arsenic though it had been my ain undisputed inheritance. It’s 1 of nan fewer times I tin retrieve my begetter laughing. I deliberation nan sojourn took spot successful 1969 and that was erstwhile nan imported tin of chocolates entered nan house. The young women laughed on pinch him and patted him affectionately.

I don’t retrieve my mother being there, but she was hardly nan suspicious type. My begetter liked to brag astir his Saudi students who came to sojourn him erstwhile he was unwell. I can’t beryllium wholly judge whether they’d been his students astatine nan Lycée—his post-retirement school job—or if he’d fixed them backstage lessons, which was uncommon and costly backmost successful those days.

It must person been them who brought america nan choc- olates. The joyful tin, glamorous visitors, neighbors watching from balconies—these were each reasons to consciousness special. Special successful nan measurement that only an eleven-year-old woman tin feel, and moreover now arsenic a female successful her sixties, she still remembers nan murky surviving room lit only by nan ray filtering successful from nan kitchen, her caput buried nether a blanket, feasting connected chocolate, cuddling her cat, Meesho, grabbing him whenever he tried to escape.

*

A agelong clip ago—a long, agelong clip ago—Ramzi woke maine up successful nan mediate of nan night. He was carrying thing wrapped up successful a tattered sheet, and I could show from nan look connected his look that it wasn’t a tin of chocolates. “Wake up. We person to spell hide Meesho,” he said done tears.

Meesho had been very sick successful nan days earlier his death. He’d been bitten by a snake while roaming successful nan godforsaken astir our house, and nan curen had grounded to cure him. Ramzi dug a sedate successful nan backmost plot straight nether nan model of nan chamber wherever we’d each return turns surviving successful nan years to come, and then, together, he and I laid Meesho’s dense assemblage down and covered it pinch soil. Standing earlier a woody grave-marker base nan sanction of our cat, we recited nan opening section of nan Quran pinch utmost solemnity. A fewer days later, nan grave-marker flew distant successful nan wind, but nary of america bothered to spell looking for it.

Years later, agelong aft my brothers had moved out, a small poppy works germinated successful that nonstop spot beneath nan chamber window. When nan neighbor, a young constabulary officer, warned my mother that we could get successful trou- ble for increasing poppies, she trim nan works down successful a panic, but it came backmost nan pursuing year. I taunted my mother erstwhile I saw nan gorgeous flowers had returned: “Allah gives blessings to whomever he wishes without limit!” That aforesaid morning, she poured an full vessel of kerosene onto nan works and group it connected fire. It didn’t turn backmost aft that. As pinch anything, if you stab it successful nan heart, it’s done for.

*

But was nan works dead? It lived connected successful nan funny communicative that I told each my friends, particularly my stoner friends. Later, galore years aft I stopped telling that story—after my mother’s death, to beryllium precise—I had to woody pinch her bandage and nan galabiyya she’d been wearing erstwhile she died, some of which were conscionable lying successful nan bathtub. The bandage was nan past point near of her, truthful 1 greeting I summoned nan courageousness to hide it extracurricular wherever nan poppy had germinated and wherever we’d buried Meesho. As if that spot successful nan plot had been designated a sedate backmost erstwhile I was a child. As I carried nan bandage pinch nan attraction and dignity I felt it deserved, I saw immoderate small achromatic things moving connected it, and past erstwhile I looked closer, I realized that they were maggots feeding connected what remained of my mother’s flesh. It felt for illustration I’d been electrocuted. I screamed hysterically for a while, but yet managed to cod myself capable to excavation a hole. I threw nan bandage wrong and quickly covered it up pinch ungraded earlier reciting nan opening chapter, this clip connected my own.

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From Empty Cages by Fatma Qandil (trans. Adam Talibv) published by Hoopoe, an imprint of The American University successful Cairo Press. Copyright © 2025 by Fatma Qandil. English translator copyright © 2025 by Adam Talib. Reproduced by permission.