New Short Fiction: ‘Fable of the Salt’

 

Fable of the Salt

By Tabarak al-Yasin

Translated by Victoria Issa

Umm Shihab still believes in superstitions. Not a day goes by without her burning incense, afraid that an old spell might have wandered in and entered her house by mistake, or that someone is blowing under the ashes of envy, trying to ignite a fire within her. The blue eyes around the house stare out at everyone’s faces, as if saying, We’re watching you, don’t even think about doing anything foolish.

Umm Shihab is my mother. She inherited her fear from her own mother, who used to light candles every night after losing her husband to another woman. My grandmother once said that she found a strand of another woman’s hair wrapped in yellow paper, tucked inside my grandfather’s clothes. She held the paper, tore it apart after failing to decipher the talismans and symbols, then burned it. But burning the paper didn’t stop my grandfather from disappearing, leaving behind nothing but a handful of dirt.

No one believed my grandmother except my mother, who hid the dirt in a bottle and placed it on the windowsill, hoping that, one day, her father might find his way back. But a cold wind slammed into the window, shattering the bottle and scattering the dirt. That day, my grandmother didn’t scream. She covered her mouth with a handkerchief and began to sob in silence. Even the tattoo on her face seemed to melt from the endless tears she shed each night. My grandmother was a masterful storyteller. Like a shadow, I wear the tapestry of her tales, woven with letters made of thyme.

I grew up. My grandmother died. Yet my shadow remained a child, chasing after Shatir Hassan in reflections, trailing my grandmother’s shadow, hoping she would tell a story once more. The story of my birth was the one told most often over the years—my mother would tell it, and my grandmother’s version was no different from hers or the neighbors’. I often begged to hear it, letting my imagination take flight, weaving a new tale of my own.

A dark corridor. Women draped in black. My mother at its heart. Then, a glow radiates from her—and I come into the world.

This was the story I told my friends at school. I avoided sharing the original. I cared less about the details and more about the vivid image that stayed with me whenever my grandmother recounted the tale:

That winter was bitterly cold. Your father was in tears. No one was with your mother when the pains of labor suddenly seized her. In terror, he rushed out, pounding on the neighbors’ doors. Soon, the house overflowed with women. I arrived. They began to recite the Quran to soothe your mother. Though I silently whispered Ayat al-Kursi, I saw their recitations as a harbinger of doom.

Your mother refused to set foot in a hospital. Just days before, she had lost a neighbor to a difficult childbirth. Fear gripped her, and she asked for the midwife—Umm Ahmad. But that woman was away on pilgrimage. Many went searching for another midwife, and, finally, one came from a nearby neighborhood. She delivered your mother from her agony—only to cast her into another.

An evil eye had latched onto her womb. It became a ravenous demon, devouring itself from within—until it claimed innocent souls, one after another. As well as your father.

My mother never was lucky. She carried misfortune like an heirloom from my grandmother. And so, after my mother lost my father one morning, my mother and grandmother remained alone. He was nowhere to be found. Everyone in the neighborhood knew he had abandoned her, but my mother insisted that he had melted away. Still, she said, he was there—in the cracks of the house, hiding in the walls. She stuffed every crevice with scraps of colorful paper, scrawled with cryptic spells, hoping that one day, the lost would return.

Everyone who disappeared from our neighborhood eventually returned—except my father. His absence remained, lodged in a crack in my mother’s bedroom wall.

The sight of a dead spider fills her with dread. To her, it’s a bad omen, a harbinger of disaster.

For my mother, death came too soon, first stealing away my little brother, Shihab.

She recites verses whenever glass shatters, fearing the kind spirits that guard us might shatter, too. Twenty years have passed since my brother’s picture fell. She mutters to the walls in vacant conversation, her eyes fixed on the rusty nails.

Twenty years ago, when the picture fell, glass shattered across the floor. My mother wasn’t afraid that the shards would wound us. She picked up the picture and kept waiting for my brother. For twenty years, she repeated: ‘Souls remain tethered to the images of their owners.’ Meanwhile, I grew up—still trying to pull the broken glass from my skin.

*

Before Eid, my mother unearthed our secrets, storming into our rooms under the pretext of deep cleaning. Anxiety flooded me—how would I explain his name, scrawled in nail polish behind the bed? My mother fretted over which cleaning product would erase these scribbles from my heart. Love had failed her, and she was certain it would fail me, too.

My mother roamed the house, carrying her heart in one hand, while, with the other, she sprinkled salt into the corners. She opened the windows wide and whispered: “Your grandmother used to say that butterflies are jinxed. They offer their bodies as sacrifices to the fire for another soul.” I didn’t believe my grandmother’s tale. I collected their burnt remains and scattered them in a flowerpot, until a flower bloomed. One day, the flower drove a thorn into my mother’s heart. The heart transformed into a caterpillar, then a butterfly that threw itself into the fire. And now, my mother’s body drifts through the house, without hands, and without salt.

Tabarak Al-Yasin is a Palestinian-Jordanian writer and visual artist known for her evocative narratives and striking prose. Her works span novels and short story collections, delving into themes of identity, desire, and the human condition. Her debut novel, The City Gasped the Secret (Jordanian Ministry of Culture, 2016), won the prize for best novel. She has since published Red Mold (Al Ahlia Publishing, 2018) and The Night of Balsamic (Ibn Rashiq Publishing, 2024) and YA novel Ibn Yaqdhan Surfs Google (Ibn Rashiq Publishing, 2024). Her short story collections include The Day I Was Resurrected and When Desire Was a Preposition (both by Al Hikmah Publishing, 2013), I Want to Scratch That Itch (Al Ahlia Publishing, 2016), and Death has Yellow Teeth (Jafra Publishing, 2022). In addition to her literary achievements, Tabarak’s work as a visual artist adds a rich, multidimensional layer to her storytelling.

Victoria Issa is a Jordanian writer and translator who works between Arabic and English, translating a wide range of genres. She is particularly passionate about children’s literature, poetry, and narratives on migration and women. Victoria is an alumna of the National Centre for Writing’s Emerging Translator Mentorships (2023/24) and the 2024 summer school at the British Centre for Literary Translation.

This short story originally appeared in the collection  للموت أسنان صفراء (Death has Yellow Teeth).