The Bamboo Stalk by Saud Alsanousi Page B

couldn’t stop her. Although my aunt treated her daughter well, sometimes too well, and although she always tried to please her, Merla reacted in the opposite way and never treated her mother well.
    The way Merla mistreated Aida made me sympathise with my aunt. One evening I heard her complaining to my mother that Merla never called her ‘Mama’. From then on I started calling her ‘Mama Aida’. It had quite an effect on the way my aunt behaved.
    When someone ends up having two mothers, you can be sure they’re equally confused about their names, their country and their religion.
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    16
    I had my twelfth birthday in 2000 and I had to go to church to be confirmed.
    â€˜Josephine!’ Mama Aida said. ‘José is twelve now.’
    We were sitting around the dining table in the kitchen.
    â€˜You go smoke your poisons, Aida, and let José go his own way,’ Mother replied.
    â€˜I’ve given up smoking marijuana,’ Mama Aida retorted sharply.
    â€˜Since when?’ asked Mother with interest.
    â€˜From today,’ answered Mama Aida, without looking at my mother.
    Mother didn’t comment, but went to feed Adrian. Mama Aida continued, ‘We have to take José to church, Josephine.’
    Adrian automatically made the sign of the cross in the air as soon as Mama Aida mentioned the church.
    â€˜Sooner or later José will turn Muslim in his father’s country,’ Mother said. ‘If you’re such a believer . . .’ she resumed, then paused a moment. ‘Then your daughter is now sixteen. Make her behave properly, then take
her
to church, or to hell.’
    Mama Aida didn’t say a word.
    *   *   *
    My first visit to the Manila Cathedral was with Mama Aida, whoinsisted I be confirmed in the cathedral rather than just in the little parish church where I was baptised years earlier. Mama Aida asked Uncle Pedro and his wife to come and witness the rite and to join her as my sponsors. The two agreed, but my mother stuck to her position – ‘He’ll embrace Islam sooner or later’ – and she didn’t attend.
    We went through the big wooden door – Mama Aida, Pedro and his wife, and me. We stopped in front of the statue of an angel carrying a font of holy water. Everyone dipped the tips of their fingers into the water and made the sign of the cross, and I did likewise.
    The cathedral certainly gave me a sense of awe, but I wasn’t sure if that was because of faith. Maybe the candles, the statues and the icons played a part too.
    Mama Aida, Uncle Pedro and his wife sat down and started saying prayers, while I stood in the middle on a long red carpet, wooden pews on my left and right. I had a new sensation I hadn’t known before this visit – complete serenity. There was a decorated ceiling held up by eight marble columns, large crosses on the walls and stained-glass windows. The sunbeams threw the colours of the glass on to the marble floor, and a statue of the Virgin Mary, in a white dress and a blue cloak, stood above the altar, surrounded on all sides by bouquets of flowers.
    In the front seats there were lots of boys about my age, accompanied by their parents, waiting for the bishop to conduct the ceremony. Mama Aida’s excitement was a ritual in itself.
    We finished the confirmation ceremony and the bishop blessed us with holy water after we had answered ‘I do’ to his questions: ‘Do you reject Satan and all his works, and all his empty promises?’ ‘Do you believe in God the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth?’ ‘Do you believe in Jesus Christ, hisonly Son, our Lord?’ ‘Do you believe in the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting?’
    What difficult questions you ask, Father! And how easy it is to say, ‘I do, I do.’
    Lucky Adrian. These questions