Vinegar on Oil
By Hasna’a Ibrahim
Translated by Mariam AlDoseri
Because a stubborn oil stain would not come off her dress, my mother had a nervous breakdown.
The stain looked like a semicolon; a jagged line followed by a small prick beneath, like the colorful splotches our art teacher scattered across her oil paintings. Ridiculous, meaningless. Bizarre. She never missed a chance to show them off, and my classmates and I never failed to mock them.
Our kitchen clock doesn’t have a second hand. While the other two made their way in silence, the absent tick of the third was replaced by violent scrubbing and anguished groans.
For hours, my mother bent over that stained dress, stopping only to wipe the sweat off her face or to tuck in a stray lock of hair. Whenever despair got the better of her, she would seek salvation in the detergents stored under the sink. As she rushed to open the cabinet, the smell of pine would flood the kitchen. It took me a moment, after the door was slammed shut, to recognize the familiar scent of our kitchen, which I had almost forgotten.
For all those hours, I stretched out on the hard tiled floor, listening to the buzz of the fridge and the hum of the ceiling fan. To distract myself from the pain in my butt, I followed an ant as it circled my splayed legs, carrying a breadcrumb twice its size on its back. Something about the way it looked annoyed me. I found myself moving my leg to block its way. Every time it tried to avoid me, I would shift to block its path. This seemed entertaining, and time didn’t move so slowly anymore. Immersed in my pursuit of the ant, I was a giant, while the ant was a wild, vicious creature caught under the threat of my foot.
The phone rang, interrupting my fantasies and forcing my mother to drop what was in her hands.
“Hello,” she answered fearfully, her eyes on the dress. Her right hand gripped the phone cord, as if she were afraid that, if she let go, she might collapse. Then the panic on her face gave way to defeat. It must be Aunt Hajer.
As she rested her back against a kitchen cabinet, my mother tried, in broken sentences, to recount her predicament. Then the caller took charge of the conversation, and my mother stood stunned, listening.
“I tried, Hajer. I swear to God, I did.” I can still remember how much those words hurt. “It’s not coming off.” The pain was palpable, as if the words had cut open my mother’s throat. “No matter how hard I try. It’s not coming off.”
She stared right at me, but she didn’t see me. I noticed a smudge of white detergent clinging to the inside of her left wrist, which almost hid the scar beneath.
Her gaze shifted to the floor; she didn’t seem to see that, either. The phone’s receiver was still close to her ear, but she didn’t seem to be listening. After a moment’s silence, she shook her head, put down the receiver, and rested the palms of her hands against the counter behind her. She lifted her head, eyes closed.
Then she pounced on the dress.
I felt a sudden wave of nausea, and I noticed the breadcrumb moving away. The creature beneath it, moving the crumb, was barely visible. I inched myself in its direction. Sensing my presence, it scuttled anxiously. My foot hung suspended in the air, my big toe aimed at the breadcrumb: focused, but not crushing.
I heard the tearing of fabric, and silence fell. I don’t know how long it went on. I didn’t raise my eyes to see what had happened. Instead, I watched the ant fleeing without its crumb.
That evening, around the dinner table at my grandfather’s house, I remembered my grandmother’s shout, and the strange timber of her voice when she shouted. It left no trace of her true voice—as if she’d been possessed by another creature.
“You either eat all of it or none of it.” My grandmother scolded Ismael, who was trying to pick the pieces of tomato out of his scrambled eggs as she sat at the sufra, her legs stretched out like an ancient mermaid.
“But I don’t like it.”
“No one said you had to like it.”
Ismael took one last sip of his laban before we both got up. We were about to leave the room when she asked, “Did your mother try vinegar?”
I didn’t understand what she was getting at.
“The stain,” she added impatiently. “Did your mother put vinegar on it?”
I shook my head.
“Idiot,” she said, as she moved to take a bite, in which she seemed to be avoiding the tomatoes. “Only vinegar will remove oil.”
Hasna’a Ibrahim is a writer from Bahrain.
Mariam AlDoseri is an academic, translator and editor based in Bahrain.