Rachaya el-Foukhar Pottery | فخار راشيا الفخار
"She throws pottery in Lebanon's last traditional pottery village. He's the museum curator who wants her work for permanent collection. Between wheel and wall, they shape something lasting. 'Inti el sigheh el tamm' (أنتِ الصيغة التامة)."
Rachaya el-Foukhar Pottery
فخار راشيا الفخار
Clay speaks through hands.
I learned this truth in Rachaya el-Foukhar, where my family has made pottery for generations. I'm the last.
Then the curator arrives, wanting to preserve what's dying.
I'm Marwa.
Fifty-four, potter, hands permanently stained. My body is soft; my vessels are harder.
Antoine Keyrouz collects for Beirut's national museum.
"Your work should be preserved."
"My work is meant to be used."
"It's too precious for use."
"Then it's not pottery. It's artifact."
He's fifty-six.
Museum curator, cultural preservation his mission. He sees endings; I see continuity. We clash.
"If you don't let me preserve this—"
"I'm not stopping. I'm working until I can't."
"Then let me document while you work."
Documentation becomes participation.
He learns to wedge clay, center, pull. His hands are clumsy; his interest is genuine.
"Why do you care so much?" I ask.
"Because Lebanon keeps losing things. I'm tired of empty cases."
"Cases can't hold living traditions."
"No. But they can remember."
He returns weekly.
Learns more than pottery—learns me. My rhythms, my isolation, my dedication to dying craft.
"Are you happy?"
"I'm useful. Different thing."
"Could you be both?"
"What are you asking?"
"I'm asking if a curator could fit into a potter's life." He steadies my wheel. "Inti el sigheh el tamm." You're the complete form.
"I'm incomplete. That's why I keep making."
"Maybe making together completes both of us."
The kiss happens at the wheel.
Clay-covered hands, spinning center, mouths meeting. Perfect balance.
"Antoine—"
"Don't stop spinning. Just add me to the work."
We make love in my studio.
Among vessels I've made and will make. He lays me on drop cloths.
"Mashallah." He breathes. "You're—"
"Clay-covered. Old—"
"Perfectly formed."
He worships me like craft.
Every curve admired. Mouth on my neck, my breasts, lower—
"Antoine—"
"Let me throw something beautiful with you."
His tongue between my thighs.
I grip kiln bricks, crying out. Pleasure shaping like clay under pressure.
"Ya Allah—"
"Perfect. You're perfect."
When he enters me, I feel centered.
We move together with wheel rhythm—his body and mine, spinning together.
"Aktar—"
"Aiwa—"
The climax is finished piece.
We cry out together—kiln-ready, complete. Then we lie among pottery, shaped.
Three years later
My work is in the museum.
But I still throw in Rachaya, still teach. Antoine commutes between collection and creation.
"Worth preserving?" I ask.
"Everything about you is." He kisses my clay-stained hands. "Especially this."
Alhamdulillah.
For villages that remember.
For curators who participate.
For potters who accept preservation.
The End.