Chapter 1
They say parents choose names for their children as silent monuments fragments of dreams that died too soon, losses they never healed from, or ghosts of people they once loved. A name becomes a mute echo of everything they could not grasp, everything that slipped away. In my family, my name carried more than meaning. It carried a burden.
My mother named me Rahma, “mercy.”
A word she never tasted, not from life nor from those who inhabited it. Mercy had always been the wound she carried deepest: stripped of her womanhood, robbed of choices, denied even the simplest forms of tenderness. So she planted her last hope in me, like tossing a fragile seed into a storm, praying I might grow into something gentler, freer, luckier than she ever was.
Perhaps… perhaps my fate would be kinder than hers.
But as I would later learn, my mother was wrong. Terribly wrong.
Names do not shape destiny.
They are empty shells washed ashore—pretty, powerless, and indifferent to the storms that claim us.
I was born into a family where a girl’s voice didn’t just go unheard it was smothered. Expressing an opinion, or even daring to think the word “no,” was an unforgivable sin. The world I opened my eyes to insisted, from day one, that women were flawed creatures second class beings created to obey. Men, meanwhile, were elevated to near holiness, absolved of any fault by the simple virtue of being men. That word alone was their passport to every mistake, every cruelty, every privilege.
“No” did not exist in our dictionary.
It existed only in theirs. As for us, we were just women.
That phrase would stalk me through life, cling to my ribs like a curse. I first heard it when I was eleven years old, sitting among the village women as they whispered feverishly about someone named Tilila. She had become a source of fascination, a kind of living mystery that sparked both envy and curiosity.
Lalla Fatima, her hands submerged in steaming couscous, spoke with breathless excitement:
“It’s been only a month… Very short time... ”
I remember staring at her fingers, amazed at how the heat didn’t faze her. Only later did I understand: those hands had collected firewood at dawn in brutal cold, hauled heavy water barrels across long distances, and endured a lifetime of wounds without complaint. Heat, for her, was nothing. It was merely another small sting in a life built on silent endurance.
In our village, we had a yearly tradition called al-Ma‘rouf—a communal feast meant to celebrate unity and love. That was the story told aloud. But even as a child, I sensed another truth beneath the surface.
The men’s contribution?
Selling a few eggs or a chicken—raised, of course, by the women.
The women’s contribution?
Everything else.
Chopping vegetables with speed born from years of repetition.
Cleaning chickens with ruthless precision.
Rolling mountains of couscous with a skill passed down like an heirloom.
And while they worked, they talke passing along biases and judgments inherited through generations, treating these beliefs as destiny rather than a choice.
On the outside, al-Ma‘rouf was laughter and stories, shared plates and cheerful noise.
In reality, it was another reminder of who carried the weight… and who received the praise.
Lalla Zina stirred the enormous pot of chicken as she spoke, her voice laced with subtle bitterness:
“They say she wasn’t good at cooking.”
She added spices with a graceful hand, hiding the sting of her words behind the rising aroma.
In our world, a woman’s value was measured by the tenderness of her bread, the flavor of her broth, the neatness of her stitched hems.
Marriage was a transaction sealed long before the bride understood what marriage even meant.
Girls were trained not for life but for service groomed to endure, to sacrifice, to bend until they disappeared.
Most women never met their future husbands until the wedding night.
Men negotiated the deal.
Women lived its consequences.
And if a woman divorced, became widowed, or struggled with infertility—judgment fell on her instantly, harshly, without inquiry or mercy. The cruel irony?
The harshest judge was often another woman, perpetuating the cycle she herself was crushed by.
Hajja Rqiya cut in sharply:
“That’s not the real reason. Safia praised Tilila’s cooking so much of course she pushed for the marriage. Remember how proud she was? She wouldn’t stop admiring her.”
Lalla Fatima lifted an eyebrow, her silence heavy, as if she knew a truth no one else dared mention.
Lalla Zayna shook her head.
“Then why did her father take her back only two weeks after the wedding?”
Nadia’s voice broke into the circle, playful yet dangerous:
“Maybe the problem wasn’t Tilila. Maybe it was the man.”
Silence. Thick. Paralyzing.
Their hands froze mid-air.
It was as if time itself held its breath.
Nadia had thrown a stone into stagnant water, violating every unspoken law.
Women simply did not accuse men.
Not even in whispers.
Not even in imagination.
Lalla Fatima finally exhaled a bitter, broken laugh one that carried centuries of female pain:
“Oh, sweetheart… a man is never flawed.”
Her mocking smile trembled with resignation, shaped by a lifetime of wounds she could never name.
The gathering ended abruptly, without a word.
A verdict had been delivered in silence, so absolute it felt carved into the walls.
Everyone returned to their tasks, moving as though nothing had happened because in our world, nothing had happened.
This was normal.
This was a woman’s fate.
I didn’t know then small, wide eyed, sitting on the ground with couscous dust clinging to my dress—that this single sentence would shadow my entire life. That I would grow into a woman defined by invented flaws, scrutinized and blamed for simply existing. Judgment would follow me like a second skin, whispering the same merciless claim:
“You are just a woman.”
Yes.
I am a woman.
And what a curse it is to be born one in this world.
