The scents of my mother

When she was sick and not doing well, disappearing into herself, curling up her body like a snail and hiding her head inside, I knew that we didn't have much time left. I would try to draw her out, to fish for a sign of the old Mummy inside this heaping woman I didn't recognize. I used to provoke arguments sometimes just so that we would fight like the old days. I would hurt her hoping she'd hit back and then I'd know she was still there. Other times I would come up close to her and stick myself against her body: I consciously wanted to store up her warmth and her smell. Even then, what I feared the most was forgetting the smell of my mother. When we did our daily, silent, ritual of bathing, I was conscious of how ominous it all was, of the uninvited guest hovering around our bathroom, possibly wagging his tongue at us. I tried to store up Mummy and have my fill of her. To remember the curves, the folds, the contours. The way her eyes smiled before her mouth, or indeed the way her eyes shouted before her tongue. I wanted to have the mark of Mummy on me, in me, for future reference as it were, when the original signifier wouldn't be there anymore... I believed I could store her inside somehow.

In The English Patient Ondaatje writes about something similar, although in a very differenct context:

“[w]e die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves. I wish for all this to be marked on my body when I am dead. I believe in such cartography — to be marked by nature, not just to label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. We are communal histories, communal books. We are not owned or monogamous in our taste or experience. All I desired was to walk upon such an earth that had no maps.”

I copied the quote and hung it on my wall. We will always be together, I told her. You will always be inside me.

Crap, mostly, yes. But sometimes when I'm alone I can feel her. I can almost speak to her. I argue with her yet. When I first came to England, she was with me. I was certain she was with me. And when I burned with the need to phone her and tell her all the new things that were going on and the things I was discovering, things like finally understanding the characters Dickens was describing - or the queues, my God the queues! - when the tears were flowing unnecessarily, I reminded myself that she probably knows, on some strange metaphysical level - maybe she knows.

I remember Mummy with scents like these:

1. Coffee. I first knew coffee from Mummy's breath in the morning. She would wake up before us, my father and I, and have her "alone time" in the balcony of our home. She would make a cup of instant coffee and drink it from her big, English, green mug. On Fridays we would go out together, that was our special time every week for shopping and errands. But there was always time for a special coffee and a snack. I'd have a hot chocolate or an orange juice. Later it was cappuccino at one of the few places in Cairo that served cappuccino in the 1990s. When she died, and the day after the 'aza was done and the aunts had returned to their provincial setups, I went to our latest coffee hangout: The Marriott Bakery. I sat and had my coffee. They were very nice, 'Abdo and the pretty woman who sat at the cashier. They didn't take my order, they just brought out the cappuccino, sans croissants that time. A few months before my mum was officially diagnosed, I went to the US for my first (and so far last) big conference. Chicago was great! And on Friday I made a point of having a proper coffee in a coffee shop on Lake Shore Drive if I remember correctly. I told her when she phoned to check on me, I said I went and had our coffee today. She said: I didn't, I waited for you. But I could tell she was glad I remembered. And in a way it was our pact. When I miss my mother, I go out for a cappuccino. It's one of my rituals of remembrance. Some people visit graves, I visit coffeeshops. Secretly I keep hoping this time she'll join.

2. Jergens and Vaseline Intensive Care. The classic lotion with almond oil or else the cream colored VIC in the bottle with a pump. This is what motherhood smells of. I spread a generous amount everyday after my shower of either of those lotions. When I walk into the room later, it's as if she were here. I don't know if I do it intentionally, but when I walk into the room later the familiar scent comforts and reassures.

3. Chicken soup. The smell of the pot of chicken soup simmering on the stove invariably reminds my of Mummy. That is even though she rarely cooked the chicken herself. But it was one of those things she directed at times of sickness and fever. She oversaw that chicken soup would be cooked and she made kishk out of the broth and she put it on a nice tray and brought it all to my bed. She would feel my temperature with her cool, lotion-soft, hands and somehow one knew that everything would be alright. In the long nights spent writing papers and studying for exams, she would prepare some special supper. Once she had to improvise with what she had in the fridge: there was left over chicken from lunch and white cheese and boom; the chicken and white cheese sandwich on baladi bread with cucumber on the side was invented! And it became the late-night-studying dish.

4. Baking. The smell of baking reminds me of my mother. Not because she baked. But because she loved the smell when I did. Perhaps it reminded her of Teta. She would be excited as a child when I decided to bake them a cake. She would lick the remaining batter out of the mixing bowl and eat it with the spatula. And she would come every few minutes to ask about the cake in the oven, is it done yet? When I bake a chocolate cake and the smell fills the house, I remember my mother.

5. Fresh printing. On newspapers and magazines and books. She was in publishing, my mother, and she respected the actual, physical newspaper. She would fold it neatly after she'd read it. And she was happiest being the first reader of anything. Unlike me, she couldn't really do second hand books. Fresh ink on paper is a smell she appreciated. I do too. I love books. Old ones and new ones. But the ink of fresh print on new books and new magazines is a pleasure unto its own. If I miss my mother, I pick up a magazine to read while drinking the coffee.


Not only sights and sounds, but scents, as well, carry their memories. And memory is definitely a grace from God on human beings. We live and we remember, we live as we remember, we live that we may remember, we live because we remember.

I remember. May you live and remember...