Dancing Fish And Ammonites: a Memoir
“There were millions of us, and for many the experience was hideous. I was growing up in Egypt, where I was born. For me, the Libyan desert campaign of the early 1940s was simply the state of the world, the way things were; it sent us for a while to Palestine, then it receded, vanished. War continued, of course, but more distantly; it rumbled on, it was a condition, no more and no less.
Children do not question their circumstances. You are you, in this place, at this time, with these people ...– how could it be otherwise? I was required to say my prayers, every night: “Please God, help me to be a good girl, and make the war end soon.” A mantra repeated without interest or conviction. War was a word; it was language, first and foremost, language that swirled around me, above my head, language that did indeed create the times, the place, that has lodged, that can still – just – turn then into now.
Tobruk. Benghazi. Mersa Matruh. Alamein.MoreLess
Children do not question their circumstances. You are you, in this place, at this time, with these people ...– how could it be otherwise? I was required to say my prayers, every night: “Please God, help me to be a good girl, and make the war end soon.” A mantra repeated without interest or conviction. War was a word; it was language, first and foremost, language that swirled around me, above my head, language that did indeed create the times, the place, that has lodged, that can still – just – turn then into now.
Tobruk. Benghazi. Mersa Matruh. Alamein.MoreLess
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