Season of Martyrdom ENG

Samah Shahadeh

Samah Shahadeh

Uroub. Uroub.

That fortune-teller drove me insane with what she said about the dream I had the night before my husband Fawaz’s birthday party.

She said some obscure and frightening things. It is quite possible of course, though I doubt it, that she got information about me and my husband ahead of time. Information nowadays is readily available with the help of the Internet. All astrologists or fortune-tellers need is people’s names and they can easily find out their history and relationships, can find pictures of them in groups or individually – all before sitting down with them to discuss their past and future. We are living in the third millennium, a time in which fortune-tellers are in high demand, to the point where some leaders and heads of state seek their advice before making important decisions.

In spite of all this, some fortune-tellers elicit my curiosity and my anxiety, too, especially when something close to what they predict comes true. Or something related to their predictions, no matter how slight.

Uroub was nothing like the other fortune-tellers I had encountered.

Each fortune-teller has her own spiritual imprint. At least this was the impression I got whenever I met one.

First of all, Uroub was a beautiful woman, with an enviable liveliness. Usually fortune-tellers and palm readers are old and wrinkled with disheveled hair.

In my eye, Uroub was as bright and shiny as the little pearl bead attached to her left nostril, and her hair was pitch-black and curled in a style that flattered her face beautifully.

Uroub’s body was tight and toned; she didn’t look more than forty years old at most. It reminded me of my own ripening body back when I was forty years old.

The day after the party I told Fawaz that Uroub ought to be a dancer with that slender figure of hers, and her well-proportioned body, and her bewitching smile. Maybe she had been a dancer before becoming a fortune-teller.

He asked me if what I was saying was a compliment or an insult.

And second of all, Uroub had the ability to soothe one’s spirit and calm one’s nerves with that deep voice of hers that crept its way into my soul, silenced my tongue, and shattered my concentration.

I felt as though my soul had quieted down, gone limp, and was being held captive in her cage – despite all the noise of the guests – as if enveloped and cradled by her words and the tone of her voice.

Her voice emanated from a very deep place within her soul.

I got the feeling her inner self was a vast expanse full of never-ending distances.

Her fingers tickled the tips and edges of my fingers and fondled the palm of my hand, sending chills up and down my entire being. Things seemed like a puff of flimsy fluffed up wool; I felt weightless.

It was delightful.

It had been a very long time since I’d felt those sensations whose sweet wellsprings I thought, in my advanced age, had long since dried up.

I got Uroub’s personal phone number.

And third of all, she figured out that my husband is a Leo, not a Cancer as he had presumed.

I had told him once that I thought he was more like a Leo than a Cancer, but he didn’t react.

His date of birth was not really certain, because his father did not register it at the time of his birth via a neighborhood midwife. It was registered later on using a rough estimate.

That is what his late mother told me before she died of lung cancer nine years after we got married – may God rest her soul.