Mothballs (6 page)

“Fine, my little Adouli, the sky was open, and he could read everything written there. He said your grandfather would die of drowning, and believe it or not – two years later the ship sank with six employees on board, in Basra. He said he would marry several times – he said that when I was running after him – I wanted to beat him. Oh, those days are gone. Only misery is left.” Her voice changed and trailed off, to the Shatt al-Arab, and her first nights of watching over her son. She took the ribbon from Adil's hand and continued:

“He was fifteen, and the things he said frightened even me. I began to be afraid of him, but the third week they brought him carried on their shoulders. He was unconscious. He was sallow, stricken, like someone shocked by electricity, neither sleeping nor dead. There was a little wound on the top of his head – the skin was broken and the flesh had opened, but there was not a single drop of blood coming out of it. He was different from that day onward. He entered a new phase. Even he was scared of his imaginings. You know your father married before your mother; his first wife was with him a year and then died in childbirth, she and her son.”

I asked her: “How did that happen? I don't understand you. You mean he went mad?”

She yanked my hair sharply.

“Oh, if only someone would cut off that gabby tongue of yours. No, he changed when his wife died, he changed completely. He used to stand around and lecture people, and curse the Regent and the English.

“And he learned how to drink. At first he drank secretly – he was afraid I'd find out and get cross with him. When I found out, he began to drink in his room or in the bar nearby. At night, the local men brought him home to the house.”

Adil moved off a little, leaning against the wall in front of us. My grandmother took the second ribbon and grasped my hair, and in a tone of voice I had not heard before, Adil asked: “Who gave him the pistol?”

“I asked him to enrol in the police academy. It only takes a few years, and they graduate you a police commissioner, then they promote you to assistant police director. He waited until the end of middle school. He was failing only the easy classes. Adouli, dear, everyone who goes to the police academy must have a pistol. Huda, sweetheart – ”

She took my head and turned it toward her. She held my face in her palms and looked into my eyes.

“He is ill, and your mother is ill. We are all ill. You hear the way your mother coughs at night and spits blood. God forbid if – God forgive my tongue! – I'm not afraid of death, God created us and he takes us back. But there is still some patience. Your mother will travel to Syria for a little rest and breathe some good air. Your father's sister is still young. We are all waiting for Munir Effendi. Abu Munir died and left him the farms and shops, and he's starting to fritter away the money. He has no brothers or sisters. He is lazy and idle, and the girl cannot marry a stranger. You and Adil are the apple of my eye – you're the children of that dear sweet woman who has never said an unkind word. Poor thing, Iqbal!”

She hugged me, her arms tight around me. I kissed her and hugged her, burying my head beneath her ribs. I felt her belly, her soft breasts, and her long, narrow neck. I raised my face to her calm, sorrowful, inspired face, which never scolded when I was bad, but which was always responsive when I was sorry.

She tamed us one after the other, without our shedding a single drop of blood. She shared her thoughts with everyone, trained us without threats and took us to her bosom without menace. She prayed over us when we were ill, and fetched us from the end of the road if we ran away. She stood guard at the gates to our souls when we erred. She changed us with every passing hour. She did not interrogate or cross-examine us, or get defeated by our young naughtiness. She always said:

“If you do a good deed for someone, don't talk about it. No matter what happens here at home, tell people ‘We don't know.' If someone tells you his secret, don't ever repeat it. A secret is like a treasure, and has to be hidden in a well.”

And so on and on. When she went to the market, all the shopowners opened up their secret rooms and new sacks of merchandise. They gave her the finest grains and the freshest vegetables, the whitest sugar, the purest rice, and shelled lentils. They put all her groceries in clean bags and sent them after her. She did not have to pay the price of all she bought, nor did they put her name on their list.

She paid on the first of every month. She was never late, and never haggled or procrastinated. She hated debt:

“God does not want any of us in debt to another. Debt shortens your life and blinds your eye.” At her breast I mixed her good with my evil.

I gave voice to all my sorrows and dreams, and never feared any punishment from her.

I might disguise myself in other clothes, but to her my bones did not lie; my soul could not deceive, and my head would not bow.

“Dear Huda, she just kisses you, and has never once told us ‘I love you.' ”

“No one knows my Huda as I do. God keep you and keep evil far away from you. Now come iron my clothes – tomorrow I'm going to the General Retirement Directorate.”

Idid not know what this end of the month would bring. But my grandmother, my father's sister, and my father knew very well. My grandmother dressed up in her best clothes and combed her hair carefully. We brought her a large basin of hot water and the wide wooden comb that she pulled through her fine, flowing locks.

“Every day a hair falls out of my head. That's all because of sorrow.” She switched her eyeglasses with the old black round frames for her gold-rimmed ones. We knew all these rituals from previous days. Everything was familiar; the new cloak came out of the bundle and was ironed, along with the only silk dress, with its design of graceful trees. It was ironed last. The high-heeled slippers were taken out of their box hidden in the bottom of the closet. That night my grandmother was transformed into a princess. Everyone was waiting for her blessings, her gifts and money. The General Retirement Directorate in the crowded Baghdad neighbourhood of Bab al Mu'azzam was waiting for her.

When we set out for school in the morning, we knew that the retirement pension had been distributed. There was a chicken in golden gravy and red rice, fried aubergine, and plates of radishes, cucumbers, mint and lettuce placed all over the serving platter. There was a tall pitcher of fresh laban. The delicious smell of the cooking made me raise my voice. In school I told Firdous, “We have chicken and red rice at our house. You love it – come and eat with us.”

We did not have one time for dinner and another for lunch. We ate when we were hungry. We knew that money was scarce. Our father gave a share, and our grandmother had to provide the rest. With this and that, we had curdled cream for breakfast every day. We had eggs once a week. My father's sister arranged all the vegetables on the platter, saying, “These vegetables purify the blood. Look at your face, how sallow it is.”

We wanted more blood, whether pure or foul. It was not important, knowing that my mother's blood was infected.

I was not afraid of my grandmother's stories about her. Despite her absences and coughing, to me she still seemed young and strong, and alittle older than my father's sister.

Whenever I asked my grandmother how old my mother was, she laughed and answered, “By God, I don't know. When she married your father she was in her twenties. She came from Aleppo with her brothers and her mother. Her father died when she was a girl. Her brother Shafiq was a doctor at the clinic in Karbala. He was quiet and gentle. Your grandmother did not let him enjoy life. She was strong, and had a sour disposition, God rest her soul. She always said, ‘My son is a doctor and I must marry him off to a woman with money.' God rest his soul, he listened to her and worried that she'd get upset with him. Shafiq died a sudden death, before he turned forty.” “And my Uncle Sami?”

“The day we had the betrothal to your mother, he shouted and cursed. He said the girl's marriage was a shame, but Shafiq, God rest his soul, he said, ‘Jamil is a nice boy from a good family.' Your grandmother died three years after he did. She suffered a lot – she thrashed about like a fish. She didn't die until God took her two months later. That left Sami, Widad, and Inam, and they stayed in the house as if they were his servants. He beat them and cursed. Your mother was the sweetest of all, like a rose. She spoke little. She was gentle and calm and never harmed an ant. Be merciful to her, dear God, most Merciful of all the merciful.”

My mother followed my father to her room. They were face to face. The air in the room boiled with his shouts. She was standing, worn and weary; if she approached a sensitive point she would get burnt, and if she retreated she would be choked. His words came in a torrent, like a tumultuous wave: “You've all turned my hair grey. That daughter of yours is going to drive me mad. Everything is against me. I'm alone in Karbala. In the morning my boss shouts at me, and in the afternoon there are the screams of the prisoners. At night I do the screaming alone. Listen. I am going to get married. I have no more patience for this situation. I want more children. You finished by having Adouli. I want a real woman. I've given you my best years and my heart's blood, but all in vain. Go back to your family. Go back where you came from.”

She said, between her tears, “Is this the truth, Jamouli? Are you really going to marry again? You are my family. Your mother is my mother, and you are the father of my children. How can you? Your children are living with their father's wife.”

She knelt before him and trembled so that her teeth chattered. She sobbed. She reached for his legs and grasped his boots. She removed them and placed them side my side. “A woman may fall ill and take medicine and get well but she should never be left. Good God, Jamouli. Is this my reward?”

She began to massage his toes and leg in order to rise up. She removed his socks and smelled them. “You always smell clean. Darling, really, are you going to marry again, Jamouli? Do you swear by your father's soul?”

He pushed her against her chest, and she fell backward. “Why do you want me to ask you for permission? You've been ill for years. All that medicine and all the expense, and you're still the same.”

He stood up and began to undo his leather belt. He held his pistol and pulled out the cartridge clip, and placed it at a distance in the middle of the table.

My mother was afraid of every sort of weapon. She did not look at him, but he bent over her and raised her head to him. They looked at one another. His face was calm. At that moment my mother was able to get close to him, and before he removed his trousers he knocked her to the floor and threw himself on top of her. Her tears flowed wordlessly. He checked to make sure she was not dead. She knew he could not wait.

Amidst her tears and his murmurs, she sobbed, “Don't marry, Jamouli, please, God bless you, for the sake of the children, and your dear mother, who was better than my mother.” He stifled his shout in her quiet breast, then stood up, preparing to leave.

“Now listen well, Iqbal. A few months ago I married a nurse from Karbala. She came with me to Baghdad, and she is pregnant. I don't like doing things illicitly. There are as many women as we have prisoners after me. They're young and pretty, and my boss had his fill of them. I swear to you, he even slept with the animals. Listen – don't shout and don't cry. You are going back to Syria, and I am going to stay at the prison by myself. You know the prison. Come there and see how it would drive you mad. Don't worry about the children. They will stay with my mother and my sister. Now get up and draw my bath.”

“But Jamil, what about later on? What if I get well? Jamouli, what will you do later on?”

“God is good. You will leave here and come back safely. Now get moving – I want to wash and eat.”

She burst into a fit of coughing such as we had never heard before. The sound of the wardrobe with the three doors erupted in its own fit of creaky coughing also. When we opened its warped doors we could not shut them again, unless someone pushed them up.

My father left it open, having taken out his large white towels and gone out.

This room was at the end of the hallway, far from us. It was the cleanest and warmest room, its walls painted a light blue. An iron bed stood in the middle, and the wardrobe took up most of the middle wall.

Also in the middle stood a mirror which had lost its quicksilver backing, and its wooden frame was worn at the edges. In one corner was an old chair and earth-coloured table where my father's shaving things were set out with a bottle of aftershave and one of rosewater. A Qu'ran rested on a small shelf covered with a cloth embroidered in white thread. In the other corner stood old shelves upon which books were arranged: Dar al-Hilal editions, the Reader's Digest in Arabic, and the stories of Jurji Zaidan, Taha Hussein, Tawfiq al-Hakim, al Manfaluti, and issues of Egyptian magazines such as
al-Musawwar
,
Akher Sa'a 
and
al-Kawakib. 
The only window, which looked out on the courtyard, was usually closed. When my father was in Karbala, its yellow curtains were open. The glass panes were always clean. In the summer, my mother wiped them with old newspapers, and in the winter she wiped the traces of rain away with a dry cloth. The floor was covered with a long old carpet folded in more than one place to make it fit the small room.

My mother wandered about, giving off a scent of defeat. She stood in the embrace of that heritage. The boot, the pistol, the madness of this rupture. Her first indifference came to an end. These changes had taken place behind her back. It was not important now that she change her name or blood type; nothing could bring back the past, the magic or her beauty or her serenity.

She paced the room, and I paced with her behind the window. She was agitated, facing all the objects and things, looking at everything around her as if seeing them for the first time. She walked unhurriedly, touching the Qu'ran, fondling it with her hand and saying, “They left me in your care. You beat me and cursed me.”