Princess Sultana's Daughters

GANDHI
    Fatma’s face was distorted with an effort to
appear cheery as she bade us a good morning. She had been hard at
work in the kitchen when the family awakened and seemed distraught
at our abrupt announcement that we were departing Cairo and
traveling to Monte Carlo that very morning. There, on the French
Riviera, we would join three of my sisters and their families who
were on holiday in the small principality of Monaco.
    I had already imagined the scene of her
granddaughter’s circumcision and knew that the tragic evening did
not lend itself to words. Still, I maneuvered a quiet moment away
from my family to inquire about Alhaan’s safety.
    With clasped hands and a steely glint in her
eyes that reflected her lingering anger, Fatma said that the child
had not fared well. On her son-in-law’s instruction, the barber had
removed all of the girl’s clitoris, along with her labia minora.
Fatma said that special compresses had to be made to stop the flow
of blood.
    Feeling undeserved guilt that I had been
unable to prevent Alhaan’s brutalization, I asked in alarm, “Do you
fear further complications?”
    Fatma tried to relax her expression when she
saw that my eyes were filling with tears and realized that I was
becoming distraught.
    “Mistress”—she hugged my neck as she
spoke—”the deed is done. Now we must live with it. You did all that
you could. I bless you for your love of another who is not of your
own blood. Take comfort from my belief that Alhaan will
recover.”
    I could find no words to speak. Fatma turned
me loose and her eyes met mine. Our gazes stayed fixed on one
another for a long time. Neither of us looked away or moved, and I
felt a great love surging from Fatma to me.
    Fatma moistened her lips before she
continued. “Princess Sultana, you entered my dreams last evening,
and now I feel that I must convey the message of the dream.”
    I held my breath, afraid of what I might be
told, thinking that I had never fared well in supernatural
predictions.
    Fatma gazed at me with sad affection.
“Mistress, you are surrounded with life’s possessions, yet you
appear empty. This discontent comes from having the heart of a
child in the body of a woman. Such a combination will bring great
difficulties to one’s soul. Neither you nor any other child of God
can resolve all of mankind’s problems. I was told to tell you that
it is not shameful to bow to reality and that you should allow the
lust for conflict to cool in your veins.”
    My mother’s face appeared to me as a dark
dream of disconnected memories. There was no doubt in my mind that
my mother was using the form of the earthbound Fatma to communicate
with her youngest child. Fatma’s words were just the sort of advice
my mother had often given me in the days of my childhood. When I
was young, her words of wisdom were unclear and seemed to have no
connection to me. Now that I was an adult, that was no longer the
case.
    I had known then, even as a child, that when
my mother understood that she was dying, her only regret in passing
from earth was that she was leaving my un-tempered character
without a firm guide. Her fears had been that I would react to
adult controversy in the same hasty manner I had confronted
problems when I was a child, when I had no goal but success,
embroiling myself in one conflict after another.
    My beloved mother was communicating with
me!
    I felt a warm glow throughout my body and
felt calmer than I had in days. My memories were no longer obscure,
and I keenly felt my mother’s divine presence.
    I had no explanation to give for the sudden
whimpering I heard arise from my throat, or for the sobbing and
incoherent woman who threw herself into Fatma’s strong arms, a
woman who still felt as a child, longing with all her heart to have
but one short moment with the one who had given her life.
    I cried out to a sympathetic Fatma, “How
blessed are those who still have their mothers!”
    *
    When leaving the city of Cairo, I could not
help thinking of the gloomy fate awaiting many young girls in the
country of Egypt. I whispered to my son that such tragic events
make Egyptian life less bright and cheerful than is fitting in such
a country.
    Late that afternoon, our private plane landed
at the Nice-Cote International Airport in southern France. The
husbands of my three sisters had rented a large villa in the hills
above Monaco, which they had assured Kareem was a short drive from
the airport. Asad had arranged for