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Ada Aharoni (Ph.D) is an internationally renowned poet and writer who has been called "The Poet of Love and Peace." She has published 25 books (amazon.com), and is recipient of several international prizes and awards, including the World Crown of Poetry, the British Council Poetry Award, and the Haifa and Bremen Literature Prize, and she has been elected one of the "Hundred World Heroines" (Rochester, New York). She is the Founder and International President of IFLAC PAVE PEACE Association: The International Forum for the Culture of Peace, and LENA: League of Jewish and Arab Women for Peace in the Middle East. She is the editor of 2 magazines: Galim (Waves), and the online IPRA magazine: Horizon, and is the head of the "PCC: Peace Through Culture and Communications Commission" of IPRA: The International Peace Research Association
The following work is copyright © 2011. All rights reserved. No distribution or reprinting in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
Mother of Salaam
I remember an incident which occurred in the spring of 1933 during my second year of work at the Jewish hospital in Alexandria. It often happened that the chief surgeon, Dr. Katz, was called to do some minor surgery at the palace of the well-known Pasha Amir. We usually took Massoud, our helper in the Surgical Department, with us to prepare a small operating room at the palace, in which Dr. Katz carried out the surgery. Often I had to stay with the patient for a few days after, in order to take care of him. Once we had to operate on Pasha Amir for a badly broken ankle, which happened while he was riding his horse in his gorgeous palace grounds. On that occasion I had to nurse him for three weeks.
Penicillin was then available only as a powder, and it had to be prepared for every injection. One day there was a short circuit in the main part of the palace, and I had to go to the kitchen, which was situated on the ground floor, in order to sterilize the syringe. Pasha Amir, with his straight, streaked gray hair, his high cheekbones, old gold skin, and almond eyes, looked more like a Pharaonic King than a Moslem Pasha. He warned me that Mohammed, the head cook, was a very hot-tempered man, and that they had been on bad terms for some time. I went down to the neat and clean kitchen adorned with expensive blue and white china on hazel nut shelves. I introduced myself to Mohammed and asked him politely for permission to sterilize the syringes for the pasha. The tall black haired and black eyed Mohammed, who was also the economist in charge of the storerooms, was civil, and he kindly put everything I needed, including the gas oven, at my disposal. As I had to stay there for about twenty minutes until the injection was sterilized, I started talking to him.
"I congratulate you for the wonderful meals you prepare for the pasha and for me," I said, "and for his many friends who come to pay him their respects." I paused, then added, "The pasha is very grateful for your kind services."
The cook looked at me in disbelief, and an angry look appeared in his eyes. I saw his muscles tensing but he didn't say a word.
"Why don't you come up one of these days and bring the meals to the pasha yourself and wish him a quick recovery?" I suggested.
"Why? Isn't he angry with me anymore?" he inquired in a surprised tone.
"No," I said, "he isn't angry at all. So why don't you come with me and say salam aleikum to him? It will do him good, and both of you can make up and live in peace."
"Tayeb, ya set. Okay, Miss," he said, rather reluctantly. He prepared a beautiful meal consisting of a delicious 'moloheya,' a green spinach like soup, baked chicken and potatoes, raisin and almond rice, and a basboussa cake as dessert, on a silver tray, and we both went up to the pasha's room. Then Mohammed suddenly tautly stopped at the door and looked blank, not daring to enter.
The pasha at first was a bit confused. He looked at the cook and at me, and then said, "Come in please, Mohammed. I want to thank you for the good meals you always prepare for me. Come in!"
Mohammed went in, kissed the hand of his employer, turned to me, and said, "Ya sistte, hoa ragel kwais, awi, awi, awi. "Sister, he is a very, very, very good man." Then he quickly left the room in confusion.
From then on Mohammed himself brought the meals to the pasha's room. He was proud that after working twenty years as a cook, the pasha finally raised his salary, congratulating him for his excellent meals and for keeping meticulous accounts. Weeks later Mohammed came to pay me a visit at the hospital and brought me a basket with various kinds of fruit, butter and eggs from his own small cottage. "Everything is all right, sistte," he said joyfully. "It is Allah himself who sent you to my kitchen, as an Om el Salam[1][1] in order to make peace between my master and me."
I smiled happily, marveling at the fact how the right words in the right place can sometimes do wonders. "Thank you very much, Mohammed, for all the good things you have brought us," I said. "And if in case, God forbid, you or somebody of your family becomes sick or needs our help, you will always be welcome at the hospital and will be treated like part of my own family. Now I'll go and bring this lovely fruit basket to the kitchen so that everybody can taste it."
"But the fruit basket is for you, Sistte Thea, not for everybody," he protested.
"Sharing things with people makes me much happier, Mohammed, than tasting fruit by myself," I explained gently to him.
"Allah yekhaliki!" "God bless you!" he replied, and smiled gratefully, that typical spontaneous genuine Egyptian smile which is so difficult to match and which never failed to warm my heart.
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