For an indeterminate number of years, Ms. Fleabag, as she was rather disrespectfully known, lived on her wits and with her surviving progeny on the streets in one of the less fashionable quarters of Jeddah. One among many of her street-dwelling sisters, in the Arab News newsroom we came to know her as a unique individual. When not pressed by the many demands on her time, she would pay us a visit.
She was fascinated by the automatic front door of the building and would stand for minutes staring at it and then with decisive steps, walk directly at the glass door. After it opened and she passed through, she would turn, shake her head slowly in mystification and sit, just looking at it. Sometimes, she would go back to see if they opened again. They always did.
Without a home and often with several offspring scampering around her, she was constantly occupied with survival. Living at street level, the pursuit of food and shelter occupied almost all her waking hours. Not for her quiet contemplation of the eternal verities or other luxuries only available to those with full bellies. There were occasions though when she would stare at some point far away, sitting completely motionless; recuperation perhaps? She would sit for many minutes, regarding the un-regarded. Relaxation came in the few moments between sorties to the next skip and was marked only by the briefest of washes and a languid stretching of her pitifully thin limbs in some shady spot.
Where she came from and how she arrived in Jeddah, she didn’t know. The street was where she had her first conscious memory and the street was her last. As for a name, she never had one and so the matter of identity was of little interest to her. Getting through the next day, however, well — there was a challenge.
Many looked at her and didn’t see her, so much part of the landscape was she. Had the passers-by seen her and looked closely, they may have been embarrassed by her starved appearance. Maybe not; there are so many. “The poor will always be with us...” but they still don’t eat cake.
Able to appear and disappear at will into the scattered skips and garbage strewn streets that were the mountain and littoral of her world, she was perfectly adapted to her environment. Not that she chose to be there; never having been introduced to the idea of choice, she had no knowledge of alternatives. Where she was comprised her entire life, her personal universe, bounded by waking at dawn and blessed unconsciousness at night.
Often reviled and frequently persecuted by sleeker well-fed citizens — most of whom had the opportunity for contemplation but who often chose the Way of the Gourmand instead — she lived in an uneasy symbiosis with her more fortunate beings. What they discarded, she utilized. What they could not eat, she nimbly retrieved from the street and shared with her young.
Yet she survived for years. Of love she knew nothing, but of care for her young she had the maternal instinct that transcends creed, nation and even species. Perhaps that was love, although she didn’t know the word. Sometimes there were friends. Occasionally people paid her some attention and noticed her. For her, this was a moment to be savored and she responded with immediate and open good nature and enormous grace and dignity. She would move with a feline grace and hold her head high and, with her one remaining eye — the other having been lost is a ferocious fight over territory — fix you and positively beam with good nature in response to a kind touch or word. For those few moments she was clearly happy and radiated a totally unexpected natural beauty.
Now she has gone. Age may have slowed her down to the point where her agility to where even her ageless street wisdom was not enough to save her from a speeding car. Perhaps her old body had finally had enough and simply stopped. Or she may be decomposing quietly beside a road somewhere close by, as invisible as ever, finally at peace. We’ll never know.
Just in case, we have left out the usual bowl of milk and scrap of chicken by the automatic door.