Today, despite her lack of attention to her appearance, Fatima is still beautiful, but she failed to pass down that time-defying beauty of hers to her children. And with them, the genes for blue eyes and copper-colored hair will go into a period of dormancy. How long it will last, no one can guess.
The battle for my aunt had not been on account of a few dunums of land she inherited from her father, as she and my grandmother and even Aisha had believed. It was her beauty and her youthfulness that were the root cause.
Her husband made her tear up all the pictures of herself from her youth—because she hadn’t been wearing a hijab—and in so doing, if she were to die today, not a single piece of evidence of this treasure of hers would be left behind.
All her pictures got destroyed with the ex
