Apple is not married. She is almost forty years old, she has not married yet. The reason for her not getting married is not the color of her skin (many girls of her color have been married) or her name. Names are the least important thing in marriage. However, in the oasis, girls are sometimes named after fruits. Apple's friend Banana got married last year.
Fate? Accident? Or was it Apple's stubbornness that made her refuse to let the wedding flag fly on the roof and persist in this reluctance? Although it is the custom in the oasis to fly the wedding flag on the roof of the house as soon as a girl's first period begins, Apple refused to let it. She begged, cried, and said to her father, hiding her face, "Father, please don't do this. I don't want to." Her mother thought that Apple might be ashamed that everyone in the valley, old and young, would know that she had become a woman. So she nodded to her husband; The husband understood the gesture and left Apple alone.
A month later, when the matter had almost been forgotten, her father was preparing to plant a red flag in a clay pot. But Apple ran to him, tears welling up in her eyes, and said, “Father, I don’t want this.” Her father did not understand. With obvious confusion, he asked Apple, “You mean you don’t want to get married?”
When Apple answered her father’s question, her father did not understand what she meant, although he heard Apple say, “I want to get married, but I don’t want a flag.” Apple’s tears grew even more intense as she spoke.
Her father clapped his hands and said, “There is no power or strength except with God.” But why was Apple doing this? How could a marriage be possible without flying a flag? Apple’s grandmother, her mother, all her aunts and uncles, and every woman born in this oasis, had been married by flying a flag. None of them had been told the necessity of flying the flag, but they knew as well as they could that the flag was probably the only way to get married. In fact, this oasis was the only place that had not relied on a matchmaker for generations to marry their daughters. Not on the Hind, who had caused more separations than he had brought about, and who sang the praises of each bride at the wedding as if she were the embodiment of all virtues; who described each groom as the bright moon of his time, a horseman. The girl was described as a charming, dark-skinned, innocent bride, and the groom was said to own ten camels. The families of the oasis readily agreed with the matchmaker, and the Hind ghatak vehemently swore that it was true. Screams could be heard from outside on the wedding night. Besides, many strangers came to the oasis. They stop their caravan, let their camels drink water for a few hours. Of course, no one thinks of marriage in such a short time, but the flags flying over the rooftops of the valley tickle the hearts of men, tempting them to return to this oasis to get married.
Apple refused to fly the red flag for her wedding, even though her father tried to embed the flag in the sand of a tin can, the shiny body of which had rusted and become dull. He wanted to do it without telling Apple. But Apple did not let a single night pass without staying awake with the stars in the sky to guard her flag. She pulled down the flag her father was flying, then knelt down and kissed his feet, crying and saying, “I do not want to.” Her father did not understand the secret of her refusal, but he believed that a misfortune had chosen his daughter Apple as the ivory of this generation of the oasis.
Badnam tried to whisper in her mother’s ear, but how? Because, like all the other girls in the oasis, Apple never left her house, day or night. When these girls did leave their homes, they were covered in burqas, their faces were covered, and someone was with them. As the days passed, Apple helped her father dye sheepskin, fetch water from the well, sweep, and cook. Then she sat down at her loom and began to weave a thick carpet from camel hair. Apple thought to herself, wondering why she was refusing to get married and have a home of her own despite her strong desire. Besides, Apple loved children very much, and had always wanted to have many children. When Apple really asked herself the reason, she discovered that the answer was actually very simple: a flag and a wedding flag flying on the roof of her house, and thinking about it made her feel very angry. When she told her father this reason, her father's wrinkled face smoothed out, and hope began to rise in his heart. And without delay, he stood up and set off to fly the flag on the roof of the house of Apple's bachelor uncle. While leaving, he happily told his daughter, "Rejoice, don't worry, the flag will not fly on our roof, but the person who knocks on your uncle's door will be sent here." And to Apple's surprise, Apple found herself steadfastly refusing her father's proposal. In this way, due to one refusal after another, Apple's wedding flag was no longer flown. In recent days, the red flag, which is used for those under twenty, has passed by. Then comes the blue flag, which can be used for brides up to thirty, and then finally comes the yellow flag. Apple thought, "God willing, I will get married under the shade of the blue flag." But Apple did not do that. The days went by, saying they would never return. The blue flag also began to fade with Apple's age. She refused to let the flag fly on the roof. Whenever she passes by the mud houses of the oasis and sees the colorful flags playing with the wind, she laughs to herself, saying, ‘Crazy, stupid girls!’ But still, Apple envies that girl, when she puts henna on a girl’s hand for marriage, whenever she sees a girl sitting in a hall like a princess, everyone singing, dancing and surrounding her in her honor. Whenever she hears a newborn baby cry, she runs to that house, picks the baby up in her arms, paints kohl on the baby’s eyes, dabs it with oil, and wishes it were her own flesh and blood.
The red flag that could have flown with Apple’s wedding message has flown away; then the blue one has also been lost, when she has jumped over thirty. Although Apel shrugged as if she didn’t care at all, now she was beginning to understand and feel the depression. She had never seen herself resentful of helping her father and doing housework before. But now, when she sat at the loom, she wove with boredom and annoyance. She asked herself over and over, ‘Why don’t I agree to get married? I want a husband to be the crown of my head, children to walk around me. I have hidden the beautiful clothes, turquoise stones and heavy rugs for my wedding day.’ Apel turned her face and saw the shadow of a palm branch on the living room wall. She saw her mother’s dress, placed next to the prayer cloth. And suddenly, her heart softened with moisture for what she saw, she felt that now she had found the answer. She raised her voice and said, “I don’t want to leave this oasis.” She ran to her father, saying, “I don’t want to leave you or this oasis.”
The lines of worry that had been on her father’s face for so long disappeared after hearing her daughter’s words. He said, “Apel, may God have mercy on you, may you never leave my sight. If the man who comes to marry you is from outside our oasis, I will give him three camels and build a house for you in our oasis.”
Her father stood up, reached under the bed and pulled out a palm-leaf basket made of apples. When a piece of the yellow flag emerged from the basket, Apple ran to her father, kissed his hand, and she started crying and sobbing, her head almost ready to tear off from her body and hit the wall. He sighed and sobbed, because once again he had refused to hoist the flag. Because he could not break his stubbornness.
After a sleepless night, a day came. Apple forced herself to accept it, she ran to her father to tell him the news. Because the look of sadness and pain on her father's wrinkled face filled her with pity.
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Hanan Al-Sheikh
Hanan Al-Sheikh was born on November 12, 1945 in Beirut, Lebanon. In 1966, she graduated from the American College for Girls in Cairo, Egypt. She then worked for the prestigious Lebanese daily An-Nahar. When the Lebanese civil war broke out in 1975, she left Beirut for Saudi Arabia. The social and family situation of Arab women and the Lebanese civil war are among the topics of her writing.
‘The Girl Named Apple’ was written in light of the crisis of women’s lives in post-war Lebanese society and the contradictions of modernity. The story is recognized by international readers as an important work of feminist Arab literature.
Hanan Al-Sheikh currently lives in London with her family.
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