Останься, дочь / Stay, Daughter

Zain Marmee – Zain Marma’s wife whom we affectionately called by her husband’s name.

Maraliya, Hidaya and Nabeesa, my father’s nieces – his only sister’s daughters.

Mackiya Thatha – my mother’s second cousin. Thatha is an honorific meaning “elder sister.”

Rameesa Marmee – the daughter of one of my father’s half-brothers. Having married one of my mother’s younger brothers, she was both my cousin and aunt by marriage.

Shinnamatha – one of several poor women who made a living in the Galle Fort by cooking food and helping out in the better off families.

Kadija Marmee and Zubeida Marmee – two of my mother’s close relatives who regularly visited our home.

Penny – my childhood friend in the Galle Fort. A Christian of Dutch Burgher descent. Her mother and father were Aunty June and Uncle Quintus.

For my beloved sons Kalid, Siraj and Jehan And for my nephews and nieces Rashid, Ayesha, Naima, Laila and Amal

В В В В With much affection

Prologue

And stay in your houses, and do not display yourselves.

В В В В The Quran

We did not stay in our houses. Not in the way our grandmothers had, or our mothers. We went out a little more and veiled ourselves a little less.

Casting off the heavy black cloaks that had once shrouded females from head to toe, we covered ourselves, instead, in flimsy veils. Draped lightly around our heads, the silks and voiles fell casually from our shoulders, and in the minutes it took for us to get from front door to car, a stranger walking on the road could make out the features of our young faces, the curves of slender waists and hips.

Sometimes, such a stranger fixed his eyes on us. And sometimes we looked back. Mothers drew our veils closer and hurried us away; you shouldn’t allow yourselves to be seen like that, they told us.

Like girls from infidel families, we went to school, and stayed there even after we had become “big.

” And still more like them, but so unlike our mothers, some of us longed for more learning and dreamed about leaving home to get it. The elders shook their heads and cautioned: too much education could ruin a girl’s future.

The world outside was pressing in on us, and when I turned twelve, Wappah, thought it time to tell me a story.