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najat el hachmi
talking like them now? As
if you were one of them?)
used to tattoo on the middle
of their foreheads, on the
middle of their chins down to
their necks, and, in the case
of the most daring, as far
as the start of their breasts.
They tattooed themselves
when they were happy,
illiterate Muslims who had
appropriated the religion of
Mohammed and transformed
it into something of their own,
an amalgam of pagan and
Muslim rites. They have now
stopped tattooing themselves
because the television pundits
said it was a sinful, forbidden
practice, haram. And now
not only have they stopped
tattooing themselves with
the last vestiges of a written
language that for centuries
has only been written on
their skins, some have even
undergone painful operations
to remove the patterns etched
when they were young. My
mother never had tattoos,
and I certainly didn’t, but I
can see that line quite clearly
running down me, from top
to bottom. Like a scar that
was formed at some stage
and made me the way I am,
with so much inside me that
only emerges in exceptional
circumstances. I sense that
at some point, years ago, it
was the other way round,
that this skin accompanied
me, protected me, wrapped
round me and was something
comforting that gave me
strength and drive to go out
into the world as if it were
all mine, and I alone could
embrace it. At some stage –
that I could never recall – this
skin had closed protectively
around me.
Once, and only once, did I feel
myself splitting in the right
place and I peeled it back to
reveal to A. everything I was