The Others (34 page)

I went to Umar, sitting on the edge of the bed, and stood between his legs. He wrapped his hands around my waist. I withdrew his right hand, put the necklace in his palm, and folded his fingers over it.

Take me, Umar. Take all of me!

And he did. Not as Dai did in all of our scrabbles in bed, nor in the state of lightness I had gone through with Dareen, nor in the fear and shame I had felt having a strong and forceful heel pressing down on my body for years. Now and then, out of an extreme of desire or love, I would be on the point of saying, Don’t stay outside of me! Don’t steal your children from me! But I held back, afraid that such big words would frighten him.

And my virginity, which had never meant anything to me, not since some woman came to our home one day when I had not yet changed out of my blue school uniform, and I did not let my mother see the white ribbon knotted into a flower shape that the teacher had attached to my collar in recognition of my excellent work. I sensed a strange aroma in my mother’s behavior. She was enticing me toward something I knew was frightening and terrible, except that I didn’t know what it was. Enticement gave way to the chase, and when they seized hold of me, the strange woman cooperated with my mother to strip me naked, pull my legs apart and disfigure me with her fingernail scratches before stuffing a piece of my flesh in a handkerchief and throwing it into the waste can in the bathroom. I had not yet begun my periods but now I saw the first sign of blood. I understood then that everything my mother said about modesty and covering the body and the privacy of its parts was meaningless. She would warn me, Don’t let anyone put his hand on you! to the point where I would no longer put my own hands on my body, but it was all meaningless. In my feverish, reckless play, I didn’t care about my virginity, except in the narrow limits within which I had to remain sealed. And now, at the beginning of things with Umar, I wanted to say to him, Take it! I don’t want it, take it! Then he kissed me and asked me, Do you love me? and I answered, More than you can possibly imagine, Umar. I wanted to say to him, I want you to put your children in their home, come! but I knew it was not in his power to do so.

We spent ourselves and he dozed off immediately on my belly. I could not believe that Umar would sleep the minute his desire was met. I don’t know why, but I could not believe it, even though I had heard so many bizarre stories that by comparison this was ordinary. After all, he did not eat an apple after making love, nor was he addicted to yogurt.

As I restrained my breathing to not disturb his sleep, his features were calm. If I had the power to spy on his dreams, if I could intervene and change their colors and smells and venues, if I could simply live in his eyes, and open them slowly, drinking in his face, and his eyes drink in the light … he opened them, and smiled. His smile kills me, and he knows it.

You miss a lot here, when you’re sleeping.

Since you aren’t being unfaithful to me I am not missing anything.

How do you know?

You can’t be unfaithful when I’m asleep on your body.

He reminded me of a saying: Go to sleep on my body, and implore God that daylight not come! I don’t know where I picked that one up, among the many Internet sites I’ve visited. Although I am certain that my supplication to God will not be answered, I will not stop trying. There is one difference, though. It is not daytime that I want to keep from arriving, but rather the night.

Tell me, what did I miss?

Seeing yourself asleep.

My eyebrows are like this and my mouth is like that.

He was crooking his fingers over his eyes, and stretching out his lips in a laughable way.

You are so good to be true
! I said in English. Maybe my English wasn’t perfect but the sentiment was real.

Did I please you?

I could praise you all the way until tomorrow, but you will not judge yourself or base your self-esteem on my opinion.

Don’t go back to being pedantic.

You know you pleased me.

And do you still love me?

Even more.

What didn’t please you? Don’t make a fool of me and say, Nothing! I won’t believe you.

You have to let me try you out again so I can judge.

Let me try you again!

I thought, we might not be here again, Umar, we might not meet, Umar, I might not see your eyes again, Umar, and you might not smile in my face, Umar, and I might not be able to cling to you and say, Save me! And …

Umar?

Yes?

I love you.

I feel like I’m hearing, “I love you, but …”

Like a night of firecrackers, things I had read with Umar flared and exploded in my mind, leaving behind a smoky film and the terror of loss. They were sayings like,

My hands open the curtains of your existence.

I love you to exhaustion.

Someone who looks like me greeted me and passed on, leaving me here on earth alone, isolated, and broken-hearted.

Soon the full moon will come out and every one of us will lose our chance to remain alone, and our need for regret.

If only love were a matter of words. My nearness to your body creates a language.

The windows will fall one after another and what will remain is a building of wind with its thousand floors.

My scattered thoughts ended with the memory of a poem I had read to Umar. He had imagined that behind the emptiness of my voice lay a story called “All of Those I Love Change!” I pressed up against him.

Umar, don’t leave me! And don’t—

I won’t. Trust me.

And you won’t die! I don’t love those who die. Say that you won’t die.