Bone Ash Sky (74 page)

I find a cafe, sit at one of the outdoor tables. The pollution is unbearable. I move inside. The cigarette smoke drives me out again.

‘Staying?' The waiter chuckles.

I nod.

‘You seem pretty uncomfortable,' he says in English.

‘I'm sorry. I just need a bottle of mineral water, thank you.'

The Italian water arrives on a napkin. I wipe my face with the minuscule square, sit and look at the smears of dirt from my cheeks for a long time. A car backfiring jolts me out of my reverie. I take out the sheaf of adoption papers, booklets and official forms from my bag. It looks so easy. So easy for a Western woman to do. And what if I was poor, uneducated and Muslim?

I leave all the dotted lines blank but fill in details of marital status, age, rental income in US dollars, my dwindling savings in the bank, my assets, liabilities, references, place of residence. My pen hovers over the page at this last question, undecided. I don't know where I should live anymore. I need somebody's help with this. Inam needs some kind of father. I can't do it on my own. Or can I? It's really not about Sayed, or Chaim, I suppose. It's about helping Inam to rise above her prejudices – about trying to live what I teach her.

I haven't told Chaim about the adoption yet. Sometimes I think I'm only doing this to sabotage my relationship still further. It all seems so crazy. I'm in love with an Israeli and adopting a Palestinian. The butt of one of those mixed-race jokes. Any man would be confused by my decision, if not plain angry. Am I pushing him away by doing this? And if so, why? Is it because of Sayed? Or my father? In no way is Chaim anything like his distorted memory. Issa Ali? I've resolved that pain by now. Or at least enough to keep moving. Inam is not Issa, just as I am not Selim.

I pay for the water, stuff the papers into my bag, and punch Chaim's work number into the cafe payphone. Engaged. Breathing out, I shock myself by being glad for the reprieve.

A week later I stand before Chaim in my new apartment. It feels surreal: as though it is not me but someone else signing rental agreements, cleaning out cupboards, buying linen and crockery that may be discarded before this time next year. Inam is spending the day with Amal, and I've had the chance to ponder what I've done – and scare myself.

‘Please,' Chaim says. ‘Come and sit down. I even brought my own kitchen chairs for you.'

He tries to laugh, but the sound dies on his lips. He looks at my face and his eyes harden. I know how hurt he is that I'm not living with him anymore. But I can't smooth it over – there's nothing to absolve me. I place a pot of tea on a low table of hammered copper, clichéd scenes of oases and camels, the only piece of furniture I've bought so far. I bring out green olives from the bar fridge that came with the apartment, some bread, a pat of smooth white cheese.

‘I'm not that hungry,' he says. ‘But I'll pick. You eat. I never see you eat anymore.'

I come behind him where he sits, and put my hands on his shoulders. He closes his eyes, surrendering.

‘Come on, won't you eat something with me?' he asks.

‘You know I can't. My stomach.'

With his eyes still closed he takes an olive from the bowl on the table, reaches up and shoves it into my mouth. I spit it out, heaving, leaning over the sink.

‘You're a middle-aged man! Don't be so immature.'

‘And you waste no opportunity to remind me of it. What is this upset stomach? Surely by now you should be used to the food here. It's anxiety, isn't it? You're afraid. Admit it.'

‘Afraid of what?'

‘Me. Committing. Being open. Everything.'

‘Maybe. But I have every reason to be afraid. Of you, for a start.'

‘Come on, what's wrong with me? I thought you were in love, but now, in the past few weeks – this is pure indifference.'

‘How can you say that?' I spit back. ‘How do you know what goes on inside me? Of course I still love you.'

He shrugs. ‘You don't even know yourself. Please sit down, stop hovering.' I move closer, sit opposite. He passes the teapot, a glass. ‘Like I said, you do need to eat sometimes as well. You've got so thin since I first met you. Brittle.'

‘Chaim, listen to me. I've made arrangements to adopt her.'

‘What? You're joking.'

He puts his tea glass down, looks away as if he can't trust himself to speak.

‘Do you really think that's a good idea? I thought you would know better than that. And why didn't you tell me first?'

‘She has nobody to care for her now. She loves me. I love her.'

‘Yes, but why didn't you tell me first?'

‘I'm sorry. I knew you would disapprove.'

‘I do. And it's not that easy. You say you love her? What are you talking about? You hardly know the kid.'

‘I know her. I know she feels as abandoned as I was.'

‘So what? How about when she's a teenager? In only a couple of years? When she tells you she hates you? When she despises you for not being Palestinian, or Muslim? And why adopt her when you can have your own? You're so young. And I—I've not given up hope of a child of my own.'

‘That's not what I want right now. A baby. With you. Or anyone.'

‘Oh, so that's how it is, is it?'

‘At the moment I want to adopt Inam. Or foster her at least. It's my only chance to change things. To really help someone who needs me. To right those wrongs.'

‘
Right those wrongs.
Listen to yourself. Could you be any more self-satisfied? And what about me, in this ideal world of yours? Are you saying you and I won't be together?'

‘No. Of course not. Well, I don't know.' I stop, tracing the shape of the kitchen tile with the toe of my slipper. ‘I'm not sure.'

I watch his face, the soft lines of cheek and chin, the patrician mouth.

‘Chaim, I'm sorry. Chaim! Please look at me.'

‘Yes?'

His eyes are shining with unshed tears.

‘I care for you, Chaim. I love you.'

‘And you know I love you more than you love me. And I can't figure out why you're doing this to me now.'

‘I'm being insufferable. But—Inam needs me more than you do. And she loves me. I know it. And I love her, like a sister and a mother.'

‘How can you talk about love for a child you hardly know? So what now, are you going to take her back to the States? She's a refugee, Anoush. Remember? She can't even get a passport.'

‘I can help her, Chaim. And you can too, if you let yourself.'

‘For God's sake! Who do you think you are? Really?'

I wait, breathing hard.

‘Right then,' he says. ‘You want me to help. To right those fucking wrongs. And dammit, you know I'll do it, for your sake. Then hate myself for being such a pushover.'

‘I'm not asking you to, okay? I can do it without you.'

‘Look, Anoush. I don't want to force myself on you. Maybe— maybe you do need someone of your own age.'

‘That's not the issue—'

‘No – listen to me. For once, you need to be clear. I'm going away to Nabatiye for two weeks. Giving you space, time, all that crap. No pressure. Think about me … and that other guy. I'll help you a little with Inam when I come back, I'll give you that; but as for everything else, it's up to you.'

I stand up, put my hand out to him. He waves me away and gets up to go. Before he leaves, he turns at the door and takes my shoulders in both hands. His grip is tight, almost hurting me, but I don't say anything. I circle his waist with my arms and for the first time ever, he seems diminished instead of me.

BEIRUT, 1984

I
ssa's dead body was everywhere. When Sanaya went downstairs to hang washing on the line it was there, dangling among satin slips and nappies and underpants. He seemed to be beckoning her to him with the muteness of his expression. To where, she was not so eager to find out anymore. Much as she missed and longed for him, the pull of the present in her baby girl was too strong. She was moored to life now – a bloated, unsteady boat with its importunate cargo, unable to contemplate any change.

Yet when she woke in the morning Issa's corpse lay between her and their child, a dead, sweaty weight, and she had to shove it over to get out of bed. Most of all it was there at night, confronting her at three in the morning while she stood at the kitchen counter, baby in arms, making sage tea to keep herself awake as she breastfed, peering at her from the dark mirror of the window, in the new television screen behind smiling faces of presidents and military leaders, in the murky depths of the toilet before she sat down.

She was too immersed in her grief to take note of what she really wanted. Even sleep eluded her, as if that too was a surrendering of the body into death. The first tinge of dawn, with the sun split slowly open like a winter pomegranate, awoke in her a feeling of dread. Time passed; her desolation increased with it. How, like this, would she be able to suffer the rest of her life? Better to end it now. But her baby. Inam relied on her for everything. Yet how could she get through the next day and the next, and the night to follow? She looked in the bathroom mirror by the pale rays of the morning sun, and always expected to see a face grown old and desiccated by pain and fatigue. Yet she was shocked each time to see a woman looking younger than even a year ago, a little tired about the eyes perhaps, but untouched by Issa or Selim.

Rouba and Bilqis had moved into her apartment since heating had become so expensive this winter. The Druze family downstairs had managed to escape to Cyprus by boat and donated their TV and sofa bed, their tapestry quilts. Everyone crooned over the baby, covering her thin blue legs with more blankets and putting a finger in her constantly sucking mouth.

‘A house of four women,' Rouba said. ‘And little Inam rules us all.'

Islamic Jihad sent Bilqis food: hessian sacks of beans and lentils and two-litre tins of the finest Italian tomatoes. At first Sanaya had protested at accepting this blood bribery but, as the city's situation became more desperate and her milk ceased flowing for the baby, she relented and began using the powdered farina, olive oil, rice. The organisation even sent Bilqis a parcel of Issa's personal effects: three changes of underwear, dirty socks, those tight jeans that were still so stiff and new. Sanaya gasped when she saw a silver bracelet wrapped in a square of newspaper. It was so much like Selim's. She felt it in her hands, examining the large ropy links, the finely wrought crosses, wondering whether this meant he too was dead. There was an inscription on its side in strange characters she knew were Armenian. She didn't tell the other women what she suspected, merely released the bracelet to watch Bilqis fasten it on her own wrist. ‘To remind me of my boy,' she sobbed, and Sanaya could only stand aside and nod in sympathy.

The multinational force was finally gone, leaving the Lebanese to govern themselves. There were still more abductions of Westerners, pointless deaths under torture. The Israelis refused to leave the south then suddenly turned about and withdrew from Sidon, while fighting for every other square inch of land in its vicinity. Suicide bombers attacked Israeli positions in the southern villages. There was still no running water in the apartment block and electricity was intermittent at best. Even candles had gone up in price.

Inam celebrated her first birthday with an iced cake Rouba managed to make with no eggs or butter. The icing smelled suspiciously of glue. The fat white candle stuck into it was too large and made a gaping hole on the smooth pink surface when it was removed.

‘Don't look at me,' Rouba said. ‘Not my fault it looks so bad.'

‘Funeral candle,' Bilqis replied. ‘Christian candle. Bad omen.'

Rouba leered at her, hurt. She cut a large slice and bit into it.

‘Stop! Nobody move.'

Her mouth hung half-open with its morsel of cake, before she spluttered and spat it out onto the plate. Amid the laughter of Bilqis and Sanaya she yelled out from her position at the sink.

‘Don't eat it, it might kill you.'

The other women nibbled at the corners of their pieces of cake, tossing the rest to the stray dogs in the courtyard.

Inam grew and took her first faltering steps in her grandmother's hands. Issa's dead body lay draped on the divan, where he would often sit, reading the Koran.
God brought you out of your mother's wombs devoid
of all knowledge, and gave you ears and eyes and hearts, so that you may give
thanks.
His body lolled uncomfortably and Sanaya leaned forward and tried to straighten the bloated marionette legs.

‘I think I'm going mad,' she whispered.

The other women looked at her, clucked in sympathy.

‘Go to sleep,' Bilqis said. ‘You're worn out, that's what's wrong with you. We'll look after our darling girl till she asks for you.'

‘Can't any of you see? He's right there, watching us. I see him everywhere.'