Ayouni
BY SARAH SASSOON
I have two grandmothers, two eyes.
Two ways of seeing:
sorrow and safety, joy and daring.
Ayin ha’ra, ayin tov—
the bad eye, and the good eye.
I grew up wanting only one:
the good eye, to see blessings
and light.
But, you need both to survive.
***
My paternal grandmother called me ayouni,
“You are my eyes,”
a Judeo-Arabic endearment,
you are as precious as sight itself.
One of her eyes was clouded, blinded by trachoma—
the disease of dust and flies that plagued Jewish
children in Iraq.
It only takes a speck of infection to steal the light.
I didn’t know, as a child,
that she had a damaged eye.
She saw more in me than I thought possible.
She taught me ayin tov, the good eye,
to see the fragility of people
underneath badness is sadness.
She shook her head up and down
like a grandmother doll. A nod seeing deeper.
The ayin ha’ra, the bad eye.
That people with such eyes are dangerous, ill wishing.
“Jealous, jealous,” she’d mutter, shaking her head.
“Why would anyone be jealous of me?” I’d think.
Pin garlic wrapped in foil to your baby’s cot.
Put salt in your son’s pockets.
Pin to the swaddling blanket an amulet of gall nuts
enveloped with gold strands shaped like breasts,
linked to a small gold hand hanging in between,
a hamsa with a blue sky stone.
Hamsa, Hamsa, Hamsa.
This is how you survive.
***
My grandfather believed the evil eye killed
his sister, Latifa.
She was twelve.
The day it brushed her, she wore a pink
dress embroidered with a butterfly,
a classmate's father knocked on the door.
When Latifa answered,
he looked at her with jealousy,
mumbled something sadly.
By nightfall, she burned with fever.
She died. My grandfather never recovered.
Perhaps the evil eye causes depression.
In Iraq, you do not call a child beautiful.
You call her ugly,
a shield against curses.
My father called me ugly often.
I didn't understand how protection
can also be a wound.
It’s better for one’s house to have no windows,
so no one can see in. What cannot be seen cannot be hurt.
***
Two grandmothers, and two sides of my birth chart.
A split sky, planets pulling apart, the middle a fog.
See the shape of your birth.
Mars right above a bright star, close to Saturn, all visible.
Jupiter glows, Pluto is hidden. Neptune has risen.
The moon, swelling, almost a full pupil.
One grandmother believed in light:
she lit candles, baked cheese sambusek,
and always said, Be happy.
The other grandmother was a shadow
behind closed blinds and doors
her beautiful sultry movie star brown eyes
were wide shut as she slept most of the day
so she couldn’t hear the rooster crow
or see the children play.
She was my scary grandmother
She only spoke Judeo-Arabic.
Silence speaks loudest of all.
I don’t remember her lighting one candle.
Sometimes in the darkness you see more.
Pull the blinds lower I say when I learn of her son.
He died in the ma’abara refugee tent camp.
She never spoke his name.
Lo kayam,
my grandfather’s ID papers read.
Does not exist.
When something dies it cannot be reborn.
Two girls do not equal a first son.
Seal the blinds so not a crack
of light shines through.
***
My grandmother of light,
clung to her children,
baked pinwheel cookies, a recipe
she learned from a Libyan Jewish neighbor
in the refugee camp.
The chocolate was the best bit.
My pinwheel cookie grandmother
taught me how to sauté onions, ginger and garlic,
the heady foundation of every stew.
My bitter chocolate grandmother knotted
a silk orange scarf under her chin
and took me with her to the market.
I don’t remember holding her hand.
She smiled as she held the oval white industrial bread
before slipping it into the bag,
I held onto her smile all the way home.
Don’t lift the blinds. Don’t wake her up.
Is it too late?
***
I have two eyes.
One good, one damaged.
I have learned to see, the firing of Jewish civil servants,
See, the quotas for Jewish students.
See, the boycotts of jewish businesses.
See, Shafiq Ades, lynched in Basra.
See with which eye?
Why they left.
To lose a child
is to lose your mind.
***
See there is sugar to sweeten hard bread.
See the margarine imagine it is butter.
See the children playing ball, not the bundle of rags.
See the wild cyclamens, after the first rains
even refugee tents grow flowers.
What you see
you receive.
***
Be beautiful my blessed grandmother said.
She said I am beautiful.
See enough to teach a child
how to see this world
with two eyes.
***
The time is to open blinds.
See the cock crow.
Hear the sunrise.
Put salt in my son’s pocket.
Hang a necklace of garlic around his neck
if he would let me. Light candles,
an extra one for those who can’t.
***
My grandmothers taught me this:
you are what you see.
Memory is both mud and flame.
What is it to see only good
at the cost of forgetting?
To see only bad at the cost
of humanity?
I hold up my two hands
for protection for blessing.
Don’t only see good at the cost of forgetting.
Don’t only see bad at the cost of humanity.
With two eyes,
we inherit it all.
Sarah Sassoon is an Australian born, Iraqi Jewish writer, poet, and educator. She is the author of the children’s picture books Shoham’s Bangle and This is Not a Cholent, and a micro-chapbook, This is Why We Don’t Look Back. She is an editorial advisor for Distinctions: a Sephardi and Mizrahi Journal, and serves as an advisor on Yad Mizrah’s advisory board.