world by storm. She was the most notorious singer of her time, known for a voice so powerful that it would break microphones if she stood too close to them. ‘You see how far away the microphone is on the stage? That’s so it doesn’t break.’ Her performance on TV was transcendentally majestic, and the response of her audience would make a Gaga concert look like an episode of Countdown. I watched with fascination as grown Arab men, dressed in traditional Islamic gear, broke their patriarchal stoicism and wept in front of their wives, who themselves stood up and ululated at Umm Kulthum. This feminine deity had the power to crumble the strict gendered behavioural rules that governed our communities. A fuzzy, comforting feeling started to circulate in my bloodstream. Hope.
And so I lay my head on Mama’s silky lap, as her indigo-manicured hands brushed my hair with the delicacy of a feather. But as I closed my eyes, the velvety bass timbre of Umm Kulthum’s voice gradually became the shadowy echo of an Islamic call to prayer. The shift in mood woke me from my hypnagogic dozing, and I realised that it was the male voice of an Imam interrupting the TV broadcast, as happened five times a day on Muslim networks. I fell asleep with ease that night, thinking that even though I had missed my prayer that evening, my sofa time with both the elephant’s mother and my own was its own kind of religious experience.
Umm Kulthum was a matriarchal version of the Middle East I wished I knew more of. During Islam lessons, as our teachers reminded us of our inevitable damnation, I would close my eyes and think of Umm Kulthum, the true ruler of Arabia.
Part of Islam class involved learning verses in the Quran – surahs – off by heart, so that we could recite them during prayer. The importance of our knowing these by memory was impressed upon us with severity; we could be called at random to recite a surah in front of the class, and detention awaited us if we weren’t able to. I’ve had the fortune of a photographic memory my whole life, so was always able to have these surahs down. And learning an Umm Kulthum song was not dissimilar to learning an Islamic surah. Umm Kulthum’s songs were similar in form to Islamic prayer – they felt more like incantations with no fixed melody, were often thirty minutes long, and the concerts they resulted in were practically spaces of worship.
I asked my mother to buy me some Umm Kulthum CDs to play in my Discman – remember how even the slightest movement would jolt the music in those? – and her voice would hypnotise me until I fell asleep. Umm Kulthum chanting in my ear was an anaesthetic against DR. ABC, as if all the water in the River Nile ran through me, calming every one of my demons with its soporific embrace. And after my week with Umm Kulthum (the coming-of-age Arab sequel to Simon Curtis’s My Week with Marilyn?) I had learnt one of her fifteen-minute songs off by heart. When my father was away with work one week, I woke my mother up in the middle of the night and sang it to her note by note. With a smile that could thaw even Putin’s cold, dead heart, she watched my solo performance, and invited me back into bed with her once I had finished the song. This time, I was sure not to suggest we find ourselves a condom.
Holding onto Mama was the only way I could feel safe in a culture and faith that was really starting to scare me. The idea that we might ever be separated was a thought too horrifying to entertain, and I had to do whatever possible to keep her close. This took quite a literal turn when I became obsessed with grabbing my mother’s thighs. Whenever Mama and I were separated for longer than I was used to – if, say, it was my father whose car I was in for the weekend, or if she was late from work, and Islam class had been particularly terrifying that day – one of the first things I would do was beg to play with her thighs; more specifically, the bit that jiggled on the inside of her legs. This might sound slightly sordid, but I assure you it was completely innocent and utterly calming. When Mama emerged from her bedroom in one of her airy silk dressing gowns, she would sit on the couch to watch TV and smoke, allowing me, if no one else was there, to shake the loose bit of muscle on the inside of her thigh. I found its soft, buoyant texture deeply calming, as if her flesh were like a stress ball that could assuage any anxieties about my status as a sinner. Enveloping myself in her flesh was like burying my face in a silk pillow, a site of utter relaxation and peace from the terrors of the world outside. This activity was such a habitual remedy that when Mama could sense I was having a particularly bad day, she would open up her dressing gown and present her leg to me, the calming cushion to all my fears.
My father was clearly insecure about the unashamed preference I had for Mama, so one evening he took Ramy and me out to dinner for ‘a boys’ night’. I dreaded the evening to my core. Not because I didn’t want to be with them, but because I didn’t want to be apart from Mama. To be honest, I can’t remember much of the evening, except one quite alarming moment. As I excused myself to go to the toilet for the eighth time during the main course, I glimpsed the back of Mama’s head at a table in the smoking section of the restaurant (a smoking section – how vintage!). I felt suddenly elated that my time in the boys’ corner might be over sooner than I expected. I sprinted over to her and wrapped my arms around her neck as if we were two conjoined swans, burrowing myself into her hair. She jumped up in shock and turned around, severing me from her embrace as she did so. When I looked up at her … she was not my mother. She was just another Arab woman of my mother’s age (who potentially used the same hairdresser). I apologised, and drooped back to Baba and Ramy, embarrassed and upset. All I wanted was to be with Mama. I was all about my mother.
When it was just me and Mama, we created a pocket of ‘camp’ that only we were privy too. And it was in this special fortress that my love of performance was born. Now, Dubai and Bahrain had no culture of theatre – literally, none – and so my only access was a VHS tape of CATS on the West End that I received as a gift from some cousins in London. Until I was a teenager, I thought CATS was the pinnacle of Britain’s rich theatrical history. In truth, I believed that it was the only real bit of theatre that mattered. The first time I watched it, I was struck by the way male bodies were celebrated for their balletic curves, how they flaunted chic feline poses with utter pride, sitting side by side with the female performers without any shame. Now, my homosexual desires hadn’t quite taken shape when I was nine, and sexual desire was not a concept anyone articulated (in fact, one of my Muslim cousins only learnt that pregnancy was the result of sex, rather than marriage, at the age of sixteen); but the way that the musculature of the male performers was embellished by their spandex costumes sparked a feeling in me that had been lying dormant until that moment. All I have to do is get to London, and then I’ll be able to roll around with the spandex male cats. This became a definitive, serious ambition of mine, and I told my mother that I wanted to be a performer so that I could be in CATS in the West End one day.
Because Bahrain was so bereft of theatre, Mama turned into Miss Marple in her quest to find me a stage – no doubt my midnight impersonation of Umm Kulthum had convinced her of my chops. Her investigative efforts led her to discover that the British Council often held a Christmas pantomime as a way to preserve the cultural tradition. She called them up and explained that her young son was desperate for a part – but they said this was more a production for British citizens living in the Middle East. My brother and I had British passports; when we were yet unborn in our mother’s tummy, she and my dad had left Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq and we were born in Camden, thus granting us immediate British citizenship (Theresa May wasn’t in the Home Office yet). But then they told Mama that there were no roles for children in the pantomime. Undeterred, with the might of Umm Kulthum, and the tenacity of Erin Brockovich, Mama marched me into the British Council building the next day, and demanded they give me a part. But in this amateur production of Cinderella, there just wasn’t a part for a child. And so we were forced to drive home, tears running down my face, in a melodramatic tableau I wish had been filmed for posterity.
The next evening, as I mourned my non-existent pantomime career on the sofa in front of the TV, Mama came running from the kitchen, excitement all over her face as if she’d just won the lottery. ‘Amoura! Pick up the house phone – there’s someone on the line.’ Was it Baba, wanting to know if I’d join him and Ramy at the kebab shop for the umpteenth time? I had an excuse pursed on my lips, but I was caught completely by surprise – it was the director of the pantomime! He said he was so impressed with my
