Short story : The Whore

 

The Whore 

A story from the book Love or disease 

They say that a person's personality is shaped during childhood, and their psychological state is linked to events that occurred during their childhood. I, however, believe that a person is born with their personality and psyche predetermined from above.

I was born into a natural and normal environment, with a stable family. I didn't suffer from any illness.

 My parents disciplining me occasionally like any other young child. Nothing out of the ordinary happened in my childhood. Yet, I was overwhelmed by intense sadness, as if the weight of the world was inside my head. I was silent, moody, and reserved. As I grew older, the sadness and mood swings grew with me until the age of ten, my mood swings and sadness worsened, and I couldn't sleep at night anymore. I would scream and cry all night for no reason, as if there was someone inside me suffering from something, and I didn't know what, so I screamed to let it out. My parents thought I was possessed or that there was a demon inside me. I spent most of my childhood with religious scholars. They recited the Quran for me, but nothing changed. Until a man from the family saw me and advised my father to take me to a psychiatrist.

I was fourteen when I went for the first time to a psychiatrist at Sidi Hsayen Hospital. I didn't know the difference between a mentally ill patient and a mad patient. I panicked when I entered the doctor's wing. A small garden, an office, and a large hall closed with an iron door. In the garden, there were mad patients in a stable condition. And in the windows of the large hall, there were mad patients screaming and asking for a cigarette, or saying incomprehensible things. Beside the doctor's office, people were waiting their turn. My mother and I sat, I was observing the people and the place while waiting for my turn. Everything was terrifying, a strange place, strange people. Two nurses entered the doctor’s office and escorted out a person who was resisting being taken to the large hall. He was screaming and pushing forcefully, while his mother cried. That's when I started to feel more panicked. My turn came. I entered with my mother into the office. A doctor in his fifties with harsh features, thick hair, and cigarette butts beside him. If he wasn’t wearing that white coat, I would have thought he was also mad. He asked me some questions, touched my head, gave me some pills, and wrote down on a paper the medications I should buy. He told me to come back in two weeks. When I saw all this, I thought I was mad, or that I would become mad.

 

 

 

That's how I started visiting the doctor, once every two weeks. My mother warned me not to tell anyone that I was visiting a psychiatrist. I asked her if I was mad. She clarified to me that I was mentally ill and not mad, and that there is a difference between mental illness and mental retardation. But until now, I still don’t understand why the psychiatric unit is the same as the mental health unit. This would make any child like me or anyone else believe that they are mad and not mentally ill.

While waiting for my turn to see the doctor, I observed the place. That’s where I met Aisha, sitting quietly and silently in the garden, on the ground, hugging her knees and looking at the ground. She looked like a painted picture. I was in front of her and I observed her. She raised her gaze slowly. She looked at me and returned her gaze to the ground casually. As if she was used to people watching her. She raised her gaze again :

-What are you doing here?

-I'm ill. I'm waiting for my turn to see the doctor.

She moved her head as she looked at me.

-Are you mad?

A faint smile appeared on her face at my question :

- They say that.

She doesn’t look mad. Not like the others. She seems intelligent and aware of everything.

My turn came. I said goodbye to her and entered the doctor's office. As usual, some questions and some talk, and then I left. In every visit, I sat with Aisha. Sometimes she wouldn’t pay any attention to me. She would look at the ground as if I didn't exist. And sometimes she’d talk to me as if I were an adult even though I was only fourteen.

But I was mentally older than my age. I told her about what was happening to me. She touched my head affectionately.

I asked her :

-Why are you here? I mean, why do they think you're mad?

She was silent for a while, looking at the ground. As if she was remembering the reasons why she was here. Then she smiled at me and said:

 

-I'll tell you one day. Go now. Your mother is calling you.

 

I left while eagerly waiting for the two weeks to pass so that I could know the reason for her madness. During my wait, I asked myself if she was also like me in her childhood, Will I also become mad like her, Why do they think she's mad when she's not, What is the reason behind her sad expression and her excessive distraction, These were the questions I asked myself throughout the two weeks until they ended. I went to her eagerly :

- Tell me now why are you here?

She smiled at my eagerness and remained silent again as she though t:

I opened my eyes in a village in the countryside of Ouarzazate. I didn't find my mother beside me. I found my stepmother and four brothers. We were living in harsh conditions. My father didn’t work and my stepmother was authoritarian, she beat me and starved me. She practiced all kinds of torture that you can imagine on me and my brothers. They forced me to work while I was still a child. I didn't know anything called love or affection. I was fifteen when a man proposed to me. I didn't know him and he was much older than me. I didn't want to marry him but my father gave me to him. And my sister told me ‘marriage is better for you than this life’. So I married him to escape from poverty and from the tyranny of my stepmother to another hell. I was young and didn't know anything, and my husband's mother screamed at me and beat me too. And my husband didn't say anything, he also beat me and treated me like a fly. He satisfied his desires and I served him like a slave. I gave birth to a daughter from him but I couldn't live with him anymore, so I ran away to my older sister. We decided to divorce, and as I gathered the divorce papers, I found no one standing with me. My father was indifferent and my brothers worked outside the village. I found a family friend who worked in the village council who took me to the city. I told him about my hardship and he sympathized with me and started helping me with divorce matters. Just like that, he started taking me and helping me until a relationship formed between us. I felt something I had never felt before, which is love. After months, I found myself pregnant from him. He was married and I hadn't divorced yet. If our affair was revealed, we would go to jail. I ran away to my sister in the city. I lived with her until I gave birth. He arranged for the birth of my child. He said he would take the child and that we would find a solution. After my divorce, he took the child and disappeared. I found him after that and I asked him about our child. He said he was in a safe place and that it was better for him to stay there. So I gave up my child because of fear of my family and what people would say. I went to Marrakech. I worked in houses. Thinking every day about my miserable life, about the child I saw for only a few hours, and about my girl who didn't grow up with me. After three years, I met a man and experienced love for the second time. He asked me to marry him but he knew that I was only divorced and I didn't tell him about my other child. He would think I'm not honorable if I told him this. I kept it a secret. We got married and had two children. I felt happiness and stability with them that I never felt in my life, until a woman appeared one wednesday morning.

 She asked me if I was Aisha, and she said she was a responsible in the association for abandoned children and was responsible for my child and I that I must meet with him and get to know him. My husband listened to the conversation without understanding anything, and I was stunned not knowing what to say or do.

Should I deny my child whom I haven't seen since birth? Or should I confess to my husband everything and lose him and lose with him two children? I tried to win both of them.

Confessing to my husband and explaining to him my reasons hoping he would forgive me and  going to see my child. But none of this happened. My husband abandoned me and my child didn't want to talk to me because I abandoned him. And thus I became an outcast everywhere. I have four children and they all hate me, and my family and people call me a whore. Without me choosing this trait. Life gave it to me and my fate is like this, miserable and wretched…I couldn't bear it and I screamed. I didn't remember anything afterwards until I opened my eyes here.

My condition stabilized and I stopped visiting the doctor. I no longer saw Aisha. I met her after two years in Mohammed V Street. She was sitting under a tree in a pitiful state. Now she looks mad in every sense of the word. I approached her:

-Aisha!

She looked at me:

-I'm not Aisha. I'm the whore.

 

 Translated by : Nada Farsi