Mothballs (19 page)

He turned and we turned with him. He pointed to one of the guards, and looked at his watch. He approached him politely, greeted him, and looked ahead: “Split them up now. The visit is over.”

My father gave orders but did not have to listen to them. He dragged his feet sluggishly. Minutes of goodbyes and the sound of kisses. Heads drew away from the circles and stood apart from one another, they turned and walked away, stopped, picked up their children, put on their cloaks, sobbing and praying. Leave-taking clogged the space between their noses and mouths.

The last of the women visitors left the courtyard, a poor, bent-over and tearful old woman who walked and stopped, turning around and ceaselessly praying: “God is good, my son. Yes, you are not the only one in prison.”

She reached the main gate and spat on the ground, wiped her mouth on her arm and repeated, “God is good.”

We followed her out. My father asked for the driver and the car. Adil clung to me. We turned to look back.

The courtyard was empty. Blowing dust sent crumpled leaves flying round us. The pebbles were not shiny, and the ground was dry. The sun was sinking quickly as we got into the car. My father sat in the front seat, with Adil and I in the back. I wiped away my sweat with my arm, and the cloak slipped down a little. I coughed and sneezed. I raised my arm again to my head and looked ahead. Sergeant Jasim was driving us to the holy shrine.

Farida primped every day, furtively, lest my grandmother know, summoning no one, alone in the cold room on the high roof filled with gloom and sorrow. The night gave her feelings of hatred and loathing. Months of days. Hours of bruises and slow, repressed rage. Every day she fed her beauty with bribes and great blessings, never leaving her bed of indifference. She wanted the appearance of the first scream: a man and a woman.

Grandmother taught her the obedience of the blood and the merit of waiting as a beautiful virgin. The white handkerchief was under the pillow, but she took it out and looked at it for a long time: “How I hate this colour.”

Her black dress covered her body; we saw her as she fled among us. She took it off when everyone was asleep and threw it on the floor, trod on it, and stamped on it, starting to scream, and the words mounted up before her: “When he comes, he'll find out who Farida is! Where will he go?” She felt the clothes with her hand, holding each one up as she stood naked before the mirror: “Even my beautiful skin has turned black. I hate black. I hate Munir. I swear to God Almighty, you are taboo to me until Judgement Day. You'll see.”

Munir had long been absent. She did not love him, but now she wanted him. Grandmother had lost her former authority and her calm. She had lost weight and looked emaciated, purer than before, yet with a resigned face. She bore a heavy load on her shoulders. She emerged from rooms and passed down the hallways, went to the kitchen and ascended to the roof. These two women never spoke or went near one another. She knelt and prayed, opened her arms, made incessant supplications, lamented all alone. She went to the Friday Mosque and stood with the poor people, crept in among them and addressed his spectre: “Why did you seal the contract on the Qu'ran? Why did you build the room and buy all those things? Munir, why don't you come? Farida will die and I'll die after her. Come, may God guide you and deliver us from this tribulation.”

The horizon of the neighbourhood took shape. Our neighbours and friends, women and young ladies, relations and acquaintances, waited behind their walls for the spurt of blood.

Farida learnt to talk to herself for hours. She looked at herself in the mirror, took a long knife and began to pass it by her neck.

Ready for the slaughter: “I'm the one who will slaughter you. You'll see.”

We waited before her, unafraid, not speaking to her or going near her roof. She wandered from room to room, lighting all the lamps to see all the gaps in the tiles, and leaving the lights on until dawn. Grandmother pushed us roughly when we wanted to go up the stairs. For the first time I saw Wafiqa's gruffness, and I kept silent. In Karbala, she had tied green scraps to the tomb of the Lord of Martyrs, had grasped our heads, Adil's and mine, and made him kneel on the holy ground, saying:

“I prayed to the Commander of the faithful, Imam Ali, for Jamil to have a son, and Adouli was born. Jamil said ‘We'll name him Adil.' He loved that name so much: Adil was the first son of his first wife. People began to call Jamil Abu Adil. When you came, I chose your name, Huda – “guidance” – because I said, perhaps God will guide her on the true path. Your father said, ‘You choose the girls' names.' Patient, reasonable Adouli, was a gift from our blessed Commander of the Faithful.”

This white dove stood to her full height in the holy shrine, and cried at the top of her voice:

“I beseech you, Abu Abdallah, lift this cloud from us all. God is most great. What has happened to us? Fine, Jamouli came, and I saw him before God takes me to His mercy.”

When Jamil came, she kissed him. They did not speak, but tears streamed down their faces.

I could not find Grandmother there. Whenever I opened my eyes I saw her telling her beads and watching the sick youths, crippled children, and black-draped women. All I saw were clear eyes looking out from a well of tears.

Their chests were familiar; I wanted to embrace one of them and sleep among their clothes. Their arms were strong; their forearms never wearied of clutching the grillwork windows of the tomb, cradling their children and weeping.

The smell of food cooking in the distant rooms wafted through the air to our nostrils, and I remembered my aunt's delicious cooking. I smacked my lips at the broiled Karbala meatballs and longed for Lord Hussein kebab. The fragrance penetrated the stink of sweat and the steam of anonymous bodies that reminded me of Umm Suturi.

Grandmother prayed for her and for Suturi to have success and divine guidance.

Loud weeping, muffled moans, the stifled supplications sometimes not heard; a chaos of sobbing as if drawn out upon the sinews of rope. Wherever I turned there were voices and more voices. Adil squatted like an angel pursued by devils. Farida said all her prayers and relaxed. She wiped her face and left her body uncovered by the cloak. A soft light radiated from the fabric of her skin. Grandmother turned round and round like Mahmoud's top. They called to her: “Who is Umm Jamil? Her son wants her outside.” Jamil was before her. She took him in her arms, a queen in her tears, and kissed him on his forehead and hand. He drew her to him and took her hand, bent to her chest and the middle of her belly, wanting to carry her among the women and children as they smiled and stared at us as hard as they could. Farida walked slowly, diffident and sleepy. He kissed her forehead and did not speak to her.

She let him have her head, kissing his hand and sobbing into his chest. “God rest her soul, sweet Jamil. God willing, you will never see adversity again.”

Iqbal was among us like the tomb. Munir was present here, like death over our heads. No one asked about Nuriya and the children. Nor did he invite us to his new house. There was a flurry of hand movements between Grandmother and Jamil; he produced some dinars and put them in her hand.

And … the months passed and the days crowded. Grandmother was at the market, Farida was on the roof, and we – Adil and I – cleaned the house.

We began in Grandmother's room, turned over the sheets and bed covers; it was the first time I was the lady of the house. I did not even think of Munir, or imagine Farida being poisoned and dying, or Munir being carried home drunk and dying alone. I started with the windows like my mother and issued orders to Adil.

“Oh, if Mahmoud saw me now!”

I had the keys to all the rooms in my hand. I opened them up and stood before the steps to the roof.

Like a prisoner, Adil stripped his bed and lifted the beds and chairs, rolled up the carpets and dusted underneath them; he looked me in the face, and smiled. He was wearing short trousers. His shoulders were broad. All of a sudden he was growing taller, but his pockets were still filled with raisins and dried apricots. Now he had to go to the barber Sayyid Abd al-Latif for a monthly haircut, where his ever longer and thicker locks of hair were cut off, so he looked like a boy whose beauty had been squandered on those around him.

This Iraqi brother, who was dumb with terror in my father's presence, changed as we crossed the ruined dirt dams. We hoisted our bodies and looked over to the other side of the street, towards the treelined corniche road lined with tall houses with spacious gardens full of lofty trees, with constantly sparkling windows complete with iron shutters. We stood for a long time and smelled the penetrating fragrance of citrus blossoms, moss, and roses immersed in the water of the Tigris.

There children played table tennis, badminton, or volley ball in special areas of the park. They went down to the river by the side paths of their houses, they swam and went home, always wearing new sandals, and draping snow-white towels over their slender bodies. The girls in some of these houses took private piano lessons, and big buses came to take them to their private schools run by nuns, or the Frank Ayni Jewish School. They never looked back much, and when they looked ahead their glance was a combination of indifference and annoyance at the rows of boys walking on foot and carrying their books in cheap linen bags. These boys kept dusty sweets in their pockets along with a few coins to be shared with their brothers and friends and they went along singing, laughing and whistling at the buses, houses, indeed the whole world around them. Adil gazed at Khulud and sighed: she was an arrogant girl, as beautiful as a foreign doll. If Adil disappeared for hours I knew where he had gone. He would be there; he knew her name and how many brothers she had. He picked flowers for her and he went down to the banks of the river, walking close by her huge house which practically smelled of money, good meals, and long vacations. He put the flowers on the garden wall, but waited for no one.

He went there every Monday and Thursday, walking slowly. He studied at night and flew his kite in the afternoon, writing her name on the biggest one before launching it into the sky. He saw her as a creature who had come from the sky, who had no time for citizens of the earth.

He stood in front of the bus at her school and watched her board as if she were going into the sky. He went from one class to the other, washed twice a week, and legions of sorrows collected in his eyes.

Suddenly the door opens and closes. We turned around and, and a single utterance choked both our throats: “Uncle Munir!” His bald head, his bright eyes, his face, now even darker. He coughed and cleared his throat. He looked at everything around him as if seeing it for the first time. There were more dark lines under his eyes, and I presumed, the same old talk behind his lips. He did not look at us or follow us. Adil did not hide from him, but kept watching him. I was silent. I held Adil's hand and stood before him, never taking my eyes from him. We exchanged looks. He was uglier than before. My hair was tousled and my dress was hiked up above my knees. I pushed it down. My face was dusty. I cursed this Munir, his father, his grandfather, and his sharp, penetrating voice: “Where is my uncle's wife?”

“She went out.”

“She went out? Odd. Where to?”

He did not look up. I took Adil into the bathroom: “Wash, and clean your body well.”

I closed the door behind Adil.

“Come here,” said Munir.

I went to him. He was wearing a wolf skin. I saw a jackal before me, loathsome and sinister. He sat on the mat in the middle of the house, lit his cigarette, and threw the match on the clean floor. I silently asked God's pardon as I brought him an ashtray.

“Don't you see how tidy the house is? You've come back and brought your orders with you. God must have been angry with us to have sent you here.”

He started to laugh, a slow, shameless laugh, then raised his voice: “By God, you've grown up. Now you're giving orders. What – didn't you want me to come back?”

“I didn't care whether you came back or not.”

“I came back for your sake, for all your sakes, especially you. You have a sharp tongue, and you're saucy and stubborn. I can raise you.”

“You have your wife in the house. Go up to her. Raise your voice with her.”

I got out of his way, leaving his wicked voice behind me: “Come here. The house is tidy, and Umm Jamil is not here. Were you waiting for me? Hah?” He laughed gloatingly and resumed, “Hah. Why don't you answer? Where has your grandmother gone?”

“I don't know.”

“And her?”

Oh; her.

I vanished without answering him. I looked for a voice to sting him; the Qu'ran on the radio gave me faith, and I lifted my voice high, chanting with it, moving before him. I went into one room and came out in another; he coughed but did not speak. He smoked, and lit one cigarette from another. I prepared Adil's clothes; his voice sounded from the bathroom as if scaling a lofty mountain.

“Huda, come.”

“What?”

“I'm out of cigarettes.”

“Go and buy some yourself.”

He rose from where he sat and came near me, stopping me in front of the door to my room. He took me by the hand and twisted my arm, and said, almost inaudibly: “If it had been Mahmoud at the door, you would have gone to buy them. Hah, I know everything about you – now you'll go and buy the cigarettes.”

“Ouch. Let go of my arm. I won't buy them. Even if you beat me to death. You go and buy them.”

“Don't raise your voice louder than mine. Do you understand? If you want, I'll make it clearer for you.” He twisted me and I turned with him to release my hand from between his clasped palms. For the first time we touched one another with such strength. “Fine! Ouch!” I shouted. He released my hand. I looked at him. I wanted to spit in his eyes, darkened by such thick eyelashes that even as he spoke he seemed to be asleep. He reached for his pocket and took out some money which he put in my hand. He left me alone and walked away from me into the house. I was frightened when I saw him in my room: “By God, you're getting religious like my uncle's wife. Now hurry up and go.” He looked around him, his hateful face, his eyes like a dog's. I went out, muttering, “You should have bought them before you came.”