Mothballs (14 page)

All your aunts, the women, everyone you knew was in the hallways, in the kitchen. They sat on the stairs. The bride had removed her tiara but kept her wedding dress on. She sat, her legs open, and began to clap. Grandmother leaned her back against the wall, a Qu'ran in her hand. Umm Suturi stood in the middle of the house, in the middle of them all, like a slaughtered bird, her cloak belted around her waist, her head uncovered; her kerchief had fallen off. Her hair was a mingling of dusty red and faded black. The smell of black henna mingled with sweat and animal fat. Her shoulder-length hair was loose and fanned out, and covered her face and eyes. She wailed and lamented, striking her chest.

Her voice shook the house. My aunts stood in the middle, the breasts of their dresses open, their hair loose, their voices splitting the air as they repeated after Umm Suturi. They beat their chests, faces, heads, cheeks and foreheads, with their hands, which rose and fell as one, up and down, as if connected by an invisible thread. The circle grew, and they put Adil and me in the middle. We got down on the floor. They got down in front of us, striking themselves and shouting in our faces. Umm Mahmoud was in front of me. Aunt La'iqa did not weep, but struck her face; her large breasts heaved up and down. Her pelvis ground back and forth in front of me. All the women on their feet twirled around one another, striking their faces in front of one another. They were afraid Aunt Najiya had stopped breathing. She moved her head, but her hand could not reach her open bosom. The women of the neighbourhood were lined up in the hall, crying and covering their heads with their cloaks. Umm Suturi was the toughest of all: she did not cry, but stood and drew us to her voice, which changed and overflowed with sadness. The sobbing intensified as she screamed:

“Don't think I've forgotten you

My notebook's in my heart and I'll write to you

We were forced to part with you.”

Their ribs broke, and they all inhaled as one. Everyone repeated, “Alas! Alas!” My grandmother said nothing. She prayed softly, as if standing in the desert seeing my mother before her. She turned the pages calmly. Her face seemed whiter. Unshed tears shone behind her spectacles. Her hand did not tremble. Her chest rose and fell. Her asthma came back whenever there was a wedding or funeral. She coughed and choked. They brought her water and medicine, and she quietened down and her voice sounded as though she were addressing herself: “Lord, You are all-knowing. You are the protector. Oh Lord, take her from my heart as You have taken her from my path. Every day You test me, Lord. Almighty God, I do not oppose Your will. God is great! She is already one week buried. Jamouli knows that but he won't say it. Why? Why? Dear Iqbal, this too is a test. God is constantly testing His servants. Rest there in the gardens of grace. I prayed the Sura of Ya Sin forty times for you, and it will do you some good there in Heaven. It will relieve you of some of the pain of this dirty world. A thousand mercies to your soul!” Whenever she closed the Qu'ran she kissed it, rose slowly, seeing no one, even though their shouts tore the air.

Suddenly she pushed the bodies aside, seized us, pulled us, shoved us before her. No one stood in her way. We stumbled among the cloaks and shoes. She headed upstairs and pushed us out to the roof. She opened the door and stood face to face with the sky. She walked on, with us beside her, holding us tightly. We were trembling all over. She removed her spectacles and placed them on top of the mud wall, then looked at us and pulled us in wordlessly. She took us to her bosom and hugged us, and we buried our faces in her belly, sobbing and hiccupping. Her voice blotted out the whole sky: “We'll cry here – I am with you. Cry for your precious mother. Cry your tears out here. When we go downstairs I don't want to see any tears in your eyes. This is the way the world is. We come and we go. Others come and carry on. No one remains. Even the Prophet, the beloved of God, was taken, to be with Him. Only Almighty God remains.”

She took our hands and sat us down before her, crying from the bottom of her heart and lamenting:

“Alas for her who locked the door

And cast away its keys.

Who left; from whom we'll hear no more.”

“Little dove of mine, where have you gone?” You have left.

The sounds of the dove mourning on the domes of the mosques and the distant, lofty treetops where it settled. Coming from far away, distorted, they reached my ears, and I repeated their song after it. We were alone; when we felt lonely we stood on the walls of the roofs, between our house and Mahmoud's. He moved his beak to the rhythm of a nocturnal flute. He murmured when he realized he was still alone. I arched my back, pulled in my stomach, and moved my head and arms, then my fingers, and we shouted aloud together.

When he heard the sound, he began to flutter his short, ruffled wings as they beat against one another and in the sound of flapping grief was gently stirred. It moaned, and I choked back my tears.

My grandmother coughed as she turned on her mattress, then got up and walked to the roof. She looked at our beds and lifted her face to the sky. She murmured, and emitted a hacking, staccato cough. She turned to me but did not see me. After several breaths, she began coughing harder, then tossed away her cigarette and stepped on it.

We came up here, Adil and I, every long, hot summer month. We carried our thick mats up from the little room, aired the sheets and pillows, swept the floor, and sprinkled it with water. The dirt smoothed out, sending up a pale yellow dust that made us sneeze for a long time. We ran around and played, flexed our arms, bent our fingers back. We put out the old chairs and the broken bricks and stood on them to catch a glimpse inside the homes, the roofs of the houses, the dove nests, the bathrooms and their chimneys, and at the colours of the cars and trucks passing by at a distance.

Adil rode the iron beds, jumped up and down on this one and ran circles around another. He looked up at the sky. He jumped in front of me, the pillows in his hand, throwing them at my head one after another and shouting, “Look at the sky! It's the same colour as our grandmother's face. I don't like winter – water leaks through the roof. We can't play in the street because of the mud, and the cold makes Grandmother ill. Look at those birds – when they fly high, they might want us to wait for them. Huda, don't you like birds?”

Grandmother was now standing over me. I looked into her eyes but she could not see me in the dark: I took her hand, and she took mine: “Huda, when did you get up?”

“Whenever you move I hear you. I haven't slept like you.”

She sat on the edge of my bed, and laid her hand on my head and face. I kissed her and hugged her hand: “May God give us all patience. My tears are dry – grief will blind me. Today we'll be travelling. In a little while we'll go to the cemetery and then we'll go to Karbala.”

“Why Karbala?”

“Today is a holy day. Have you forgotten? We are travelling to see the absent ones – God, I do not oppose your will.” She burst into a fit of slow sobs, and then I did as well. She resumed in a grief-choked voice: “Iqbal is gone, and Jamil has forgotten us. He has forgotten his mother, his sister, and his children. God is good.” She wiped her tears and went on. “Yes, we will go. I want to weep in the presence of the Lord of Martyrs, Hussein, may God honour his face. We will ask him to soften Jamil's heart and heal him, and I will ask him for patience. If there is enough time, we'll visit Najaf as well.” She stood up, repeating, “Lord, strengthen my faith and help me not to complain too much. You are our helper and our protector. Help me to need no one – not Jamil, not Munir. Lord, may I not seek help from any but You. Take me before my strength and sight are gone.” I rose and stood before her; she took me in her arms and stroked my hair.

“Who will go with us?”

“All of us are going.”

“Even Uncle Munir?”

“Munir is gone. No one knows where he is. He did not ask, or drop in. And he didn't listen to what people say about his uncle's daughter.”

She left me and went away. I saw her like a tidy angel, ill and utterly encircled.

Dawn had begun to pierce the skin of the night sky. The doves fell silent, and the open-eyed crows came. My grandmother always dropped by when we were going to sleep on the roof: “If a crow settles near you head, and caws, it's a bad omen.”

Our sky was a dwelling place for all the crows. They nested near our houses, and competed in cawing. They flew so close to my head that I could hear their wings beating. They shrieked and flew higher, and I began to shudder. The crows did not come until Iqbal had gone; only the doves could be heard venturing out of their nests. They began singing to us as soon as we opened our eyes: “Mother, my sweet, my comfort.”

“Little dove of mine, where have you gone?”

Farida woke up gloomy, muttering, her voice heavy. She did not say good morning to anyone. I got Adil out of bed and took his hand, and we went downstairs; he was still sleepy. We splashed water on our faces and put on our old clothes. It was still dark. The family left the house. Adil grasped my hand but I slipped away from him. The women of our grandfather's big house were looking out at the edge of the neighbourhood, and the winds from the cloaks newly come from the dyeworks reached our noses. The mothers of Mahmoud, Suturi, Hashim, and Iman were utterly silent. Dawn in Baghdad was like the foam in Umm Suturi's tub: the clouds were enormous, as if wearing grey and black cloaks.

Great Imam Street was quiet. The coffee-houses were locked up, the lanes were secretive, and the rubbish caught my attention. I saw only bags strewn around in front of the steps of the houses and closed shops. Skinny dogs stood bewitched before the steam rising from the bags. Big she-cats fought and licked their wounds, and scattered the whole mess, violated by their claws and spittle, pulling remnants from it into the corners. Grandmother coughed timidly. Her asthma came and went with the rhythm of a pendulum, never varying by an hour.

The dim street-lights made the shadows bigger and longer before us, so that Adil stopped shouting at me as he ran behind me:

“You're quiet like them. Aren't you afraid of the dark? Say something!”

“Keep walking and be quiet.”

“Who are we going to see there?”

“No one.”

“This is the first time I've gone with you. Is everybody quiet when they go the cemetery? Fine – what if a genie comes at us?”

“We're all with you, don't worry.”

“You talk and I'll be quiet.”

The walls of the mosque were surrounded by standing figures. Women and men with their arms outstretched. Their sleepy voices rose in prayer. A light, cool breeze brushed my head and rippled the pores of my skin combining with the shaking of Adil's fingers as they gripped my hand:

“Do you remember when you took me to the cemetery? We were young and we played round the tombs. It was hot and sunny, and there were people about, and I laughed to myself and said ‘Huda will be afraid and take me home. But, God, we kept on playing. We didn't eat or sleep, we just played. It was fine even if she scared me.' Huda, I'm telling you the truth, don't be cross. That time I wasn't afraid. I wanted to see your fear. Huda, aren't you afraid?”

“You can't stop talking today! Pretty soon the sun will come up and we won't be afraid.”

“When either one of us goes quiet, my fear comes back. When people die they go quiet.” He trembled more, pulling at my hand. We stopped together and I hugged him, but he did not hug me back. His hand was still gripping mine and his body was shaking, though his tears did not fall.

Men came out of the lanes and intersections, clearing their throats and spitting on the ground as they walked by.

I heard everyone coughing as if they were tuning their vocal cords before entering.

As soon as we set foot in the cemetery we heard verses from the Qu'ran. The reciters sat among the tombs on bamboo chairs. The tombs of people from the other streets brought the reciters. People from the little culs-de-sac recited for themselves, and wept.

The women of our neighbourhood were before me, their eyelids open, gazing at the writings covered with rainwater, soil, and oblivion. Every woman prayed and wailed at the low, compact, covered grave. The young men collected around the graves, looking at their weeping mothers, and wept with them.

The cloaks opened to reveal vast sweaty bodies. Sighs coursed from their chests to their throats. The soil crumbled between their fingers. Persian anthills, large and small, black and red, opened their caves and crept out among our fingers.

The war of lamentation began.

Grandmother's voice gathered strength, bit by bit, as she paced and then sprawled out on the ground. Her tears glistened like stars hoarded in a cave. She prayed, though all we heard were the ends of the words. Then her tears started, quietly and decorously; she wept until the whole grave was covered with tears. She passed through Aleppo and Mecca; she pronounced the Prophet's name as if washing herself with it. She felt her pain light the incense for him, and distributed it equally among all. She did not forget us, who stood round her:

“Pray the
fatiha
. Huda, breathe on your mother's soul. Adil, my boy, don't make any mistakes as you pray; send them to her pure soul. The soul can hear, and feel, and get upset as well. This is where we will all be buried.”

In front of the tomb of our grandfather, Ahmad Maarouf, she bowed, murmured, and prayed. No one stood near her in her journey. She looked at the ground as if she wanted to rip it open with her bare hands. We saw the trembling of her fingers, the tapping of her palm and an anonymous lamentation depart from her chest, going with the movement of the waves of the Shatt al-Arab. Their sound seeped into the crevices of the boulders and buoyed the small boats moored to the shore. She passed by the small boats. She was stung as she pursued the large ships. She passed the clumps of palms. She exchanged glances with the upright fronds. There she curled up every day among the soil of the walled gardens, densely packed with trees, hoarse and spent. She cursed calamity and the crows, and waited for the blessing of the water as it spoke to her. She prayed the dawn prayer facing the shore. She picked up some of the salt with her tongue as she trembled in the night. She smoked fifty cigarettes and camped on the riverbank and allowed no one near her. Alone, she opened the line of sand and waited for the man's tie in case he should come up to the roof or a wedding ring should appear on her hand.