The Long Way Back Page 11

  Midhat was looking at him with interest. “Are you content, Husayn?”

  “What does that mean? I don’t have any plans, or a future. But I’m content in a way, maybe, because I don’t want to do anything else with my life. I don’t have the patience, my dear Midhat. The people in my life or, I should say, the people who’ve got out of it, must be thanking God. What’s a person doing in this world if he doesn’t have any character or powers of perseverance?” He noticed Midhat smiling and went on. “I’ve tried different things, that’s true. I’ve had experiences, as you say. I’ve wreaked havoc, gone hungry, slept rough. Lots of people have humiliated me. I’ve felt degraded and—lots of things. But do you know, Midhat, I don’t remember a thing when I get up in the morning. What should I make of that?”

  “What’s the matter? Why are you talking like this, Husayn?” Midhat was making fun of him.

  “You’re right,” agreed Husayn. “It’s not the time for such a conversation. You talk. Tell me how you get on with them all.”

  “Who?”

  “How do you get on with Munira? She’s an excellent girl.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Really. Pretty and intelligent. Perfect.”

  “Drop it, Husayn, please. I don’t want to think about it.”

  “Why? Do you have any choice? If only life was always like that. We’d all be in Paradise.”

  “Anyway,” Midhat looked at his watch. “Time to go. It’s late, and I’ve got to go to work tomorrow.”

  Husayn nodded and called Uwanis. Midhat paid for their drinks, and they stood up and went out. The street was empty and the breeze was almost cool. They walked a few paces towards Bab al-Sharqi. Husayn suddenly felt dizzy. His head hurt and his guts heaved. He stopped and leaned against the wall.

  “What’s wrong, Husayn? Don’t you feel well?” asked Midhat anxiously. He put an arm round his shoulders.

  “No, no, it’s nothing,” answered Husayn quickly. “It’s just the effect of the cold air.” He pressed a hand to his stomach, then raised it to wipe the cold sweat from his face. He felt a slight tremor in his body These were the signs of imminent collapse, like the powdery dust that falls shortly before a roof caves in. He walked on slowly. Midhat was close beside him. “You know, Midhat, maybe on a night like this, I’ll fall down on the pavement for the last time. I don’t know when it’ll be. Tomorrow or in two years’ time. But I don’t think I’ll die any other way”

  Midhat took his arm and squeezed it hard. “Do you think that’s a heroic way to die?” he said roughly. “Like a dog. A mangy dog.” A sudden harshness came into his voice. “Why do you want to live in this unnatural way, Husayn? Why do you think about death, instead of life? Or instead of going into a clinic and getting yourself cured? Why do you have to be a drunk and die on the pavement?” He let go of his arm and pushed it away with some violence. “I want you to tell me one thing. I don’t care about you just because you’re my sister’s husband. Maybe it’s because you’re my friend. Maybe. I want to know why you’re so feeble, why you give in so easily. I’m not talking about strength of will or love of life. I’ve no interest in such chat. But perseverance, Husayn. Determination. You don’t need to pretend your life has meaning. Life no longer has any meaning for us these days. But how can you bow to circumstances in this humiliating way? Why do you do it, Husayn?”

  Husayn didn’t answer, didn’t look in his direction. He continued walking disconsolately along beside him. He understood what he was saying perfectly. He always did. He was hungry, nauseous, weak. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Midhat light a cigarette and blow smoke into the air.

  “Goodbye,” he heard him saying. The sound of his footsteps resounded in Husayn’s ears as he walked off, taking another road back home. Husayn turned to look and could make out the shape of him and the glowing tip of his cigarette. He was hurrying, swinging his arms jerkily. Husayn didn’t hate him; he just hadn’t known how to answer him, that was all. The evening had been a failure, anyhow. So that Midhat wouldn’t think he harbored any malice towards him, he decided to visit him the next day or the day after.

  Chapter

  FIVE

  The janitor came to turn out the lights in Midhat’s office shortly before he left, then locked the door firmly after him. Midhat went along the dark, empty corridor. There was nobody around. He went out into the wide, bright square. The sun was gentle and the weather warm. He couldn’t see his father. He must have gone home before him. He hadn’t phoned. Or maybe he had, when Midhat was out of the office. He wouldn’t buy newspapers today or books. Mutanabbi Street. A long street when you were hungry. He wasn’t going to buy newspapers and books at all this week. A temporary period of abstinence. The town bus. A queue of faceless people waiting. He wouldn’t be home before four today. He walked on and turned into Amin Street. The sun was pleasantly warm on his back and neck. He crossed the square where Amin Street met Jumhuriya Street, and kept going. Ghazi Street. Kifah Street. Crowds everywhere. Featureless faces. People running and shoving, using their shoulders and hands. Like kids. He squashed himself into the front seat of an old taxi. The heat of the engine and the stink of the driver’s feet. God, what a stink! He blocked his nose with the tip of his forefinger. When he still couldn’t stand the smell, he held his breath several times. A few minutes and he’d be there. Nothing comes to an end if we focus on it too much. What a terrible smell! Then suddenly he saw it. First it was just the shining eyes. It was lying in the middle of the sunny street on the black crumbling tarmac: a decrepit old dog of no identifiable color. Its black eyes pulsated with a strange light, like nothing he’d ever seen before. Two liquid lumps of black crying out for help. The body was shattered, the blood still not dry on it, and it showed no signs of life. But the eyes kept shining, fighting for the animal’s last breath, pitying it in its suffering. The driver had noticed it at the same time and swerved towards the pavement to avoid running it over; then, cursing and swearing, he had swung the vehicle violently back on course. When they reached the crossroads of Kifah Street and Kilani Street, Midhat got out beside the café, inhaling the fresh air. He walked slowly. The dog’s eyes appeared in front of him once or twice, the final gutterings of a candle. He found the door of the house ajar, went in, and walked down the long passage. It was almost four o’clock. His mother spoke to him from the kitchen the moment she heard his footsteps in the courtyard. He went up to his room and lay down on the bed. An old dog crossing the street gets knocked down by a car. A dog is walking slowly and a speeding car hits it. The dog crosses the street, then suddenly its back is broken and it’s left to suffer, to watch itself die without a word, a cry, a shout for help, only the moist, lively eyes to express itself with in the middle of the street in front of everyone. He heard his mother calling. The twilight of life is unlikely to pass without suffering. A dog is squashed crossing the street, its limbs scattered here and there, then along comes the dustcart to pick up the pieces with the rest of the rubbish. Another dog goes by and into the slaughterhouse, and another and another. A chorus of black eves singing of suffering, saying farewell to life. His mother was calling insistently He went down to her. She asked where his father was, raising her white face to look at him. He gestured to indicate that he had no idea. Had he telephoned him? He hadn’t.Did Midhat want to eat alone? Why not? He washed his hands and face to remove the dirt and dust of the street. And what of the dust of the images and memories implanted in his heart? The suffering in the streets. The suffering of dogs. But he mustn’t mix unconnected subjects. His personal life was based on non-negotiable principles: honest self-esteem, controlled egoism. And therefore no agitation before a meal or during it, and, preferably, not after it either. Give me raisins soaked in water, my heart is worn out with love. The lover should not forget to fortify his heart. What about us, we who want to live a full life, without restrictions? We pilfer avidly and consume what doesn’t belong to us. What’s the point of all the fuss about private property? We come from dust,
and to dust we return. So everything belongs to us. We belong to it and it to us. Anyone who objects to this philosophy lacks judgment and intelligence, and should be told so. But what’s the point of statements? Action. Action. We loot and steal out of conviction. This is the age of honorable thieves, and we represent them because we understand their thinking. We’re their successors from necessity, so let’s cheat one another faithfully. Give up anarchy and concentrate on controlled egoism. Let it be your point of departure, your base. Keep going straight round all the bends. Be an infidel, but a pious, devout one. What’s the point of cheating, swindling, and fraud, if it’s not to keep to the law?

  His mother was sitting to one side, slightly behind him. In front of him was a meal of spinach and fried eggs, rice, salad, and bread. She was on his left hand side, slightly behind him. He could see the dark mass of her if he twisted his face round as he chewed his food, or if he sat back slightly in his chair.

  “Who came to see you? What did they want? Why didn’t your father phone you?”

  That was how the authorities and the law operated. They didn’t sit directly behind you, but to one side. Behind you, but to the side. He turned to her. Her white face, framed by the black scarf, formed a com plete circle, and he noticed the wrinkles under her eyes, on her cheeks, and around her mouth as she asked about everything in an anxious manner. Spinach, rice, fried eggs, and salad. The salad, then the rice and spinach and a bit of bread. What about the eyes of dogs and sweethearts? To hell with them. We eat therefore we are. Food for all. Let’s stuff ourselves. Let’s die of overeating, my brothers. Forget about everything else. Food for all. Beware of other things. Books and the like. Close the bookshops, gentlemen, and let’s open more restaurants! Kebab restaurants especially, if you want to know what I think. He heard his father’s footsteps, then he came in smiling in spite of his hunger and exhaustion. What a hero! He stands up, sits down, comes, and goes. Explanations and elucidations. Explanations of the elucidations, and elucidations of the explanations. Phone calls which didn’t happen, and others which happened in the mind. Then, as he turned to go into the kitchen, he whispered to Midhat, “I was in the café with Hajji Muhammad. I got a nice set of prayer beads out of him. Don’t tell your mother.”

  She was coming with the food. Another batch of explanations as to why he’d come home late, along with what amounted to an orderly retreat and a more profound gloss, backed up by quotes from the Quran and the Prophetic tradition.

  What people normally did—Midhat left his parents and went off across the courtyard—was to adopt a certain attitude to the world, maneuvering, retreating, negotiating, retreating again, then advancing a little. Towards a goal, naturally Midhat climbed the stairs slowly. He should adopt an attitude to his world. Now. However you interpreted that, being honest it meant dealing with the present. That was all you had to play with, to make something of. He was walking along the big gallery. The past was over. Let that be understood. Over. What was known as the future was only the present in the process of being constructed. As soon as that was understood, life could begin. Then the possibilities for change emerged, with all their constraints, constraints which science and philosophy helped you to recognize and overcome if possible. It was worth considering.

  He went into his room and began undressing, then stood in front of the mirror in his vest and pants. Thick hair, narrow chest, shining eyes. This was the world. Its beginning and end. He should take advantage of all that humanity had thought down the ages to help him live the best life possible. He was the center of the world. Nothing was demanded of him, no gift or talent extracted from him. Nobody approached the fortified castle. He was happy to be left to himself, with no commitments, no worries, empty of mind and spirit, jumping joyfully over the rocks on his desert island.

  He put on his pajamas and lay down on the bed. The dying dog was still on the tarred surface of the street, and he was lying in the dust beside it. Together they watched the cars rushing towards them to crush the dog’s bloody remains. Knowing that you’re dying. That it’s really you. Then someone says to you, “Forget the joke and let’s begin again, since death’s only a dream. Let’s begin again.”

  Each person is in a certain position regarding the world. Now, at this moment. I realize that. And this includes me. I have four hundred dinars in the bank, a checkbook, a civil service job. I’m twenty-seven years old and have a sex drive which shows no sign of abating. I don’t ask too many questions or demonstrate unjustified doubt or concern over what should and shouldn’t be.

  The family? It was based on weak foundations, but luckily it was close-knit and determined to stay that way: the best conditions for escaping its oppressive hold, without fuss or emotional confrontations. You had to free yourself by disappearing from their world, slipping out unscathed. Paid leave to study? Study with paid leave? It didn’t make any difference. The main thing was to put them, the family, where you wanted them, and they could help you stay where you were.

  He looked around at the small bookcase with its carelessly arranged books, the sparse furniture, the rug on the floor, the white unpainted walls, and faded, unironed curtains, and felt a pang of remorse, which astonished him. He heard nothing in the moments before he fell soundly asleep, and felt sad.

  At the beginning of a long road that looked familiar to him, he met someone and the two of them agreed that it was a European road outside a city He wanted to demonstrate to this person that he knew its name in different languages—autoroute, autostrada, motorway—but his shabbily-dressed companion kept repeating that there were a lot of dogs in the area. He was waiting for him to finish speaking so that he could ask him in English, “Why did we come here if the dogs die in the road here too?” Then he saw that the man understood what he wanted to say. The man made a helpless gesture and went to sit down on a park bench, so he sat next to him. He was heavy-hearted, and an overwhelming desire to cry took hold of him. He turned to his companion and found he was looking at him. The eyes of the dying dog shedding silent tears.

  The room was dark, except for the faint light coming in through the window Traces of tears in his heart and water rolling down from one eye. He breathed rapidly What a joke human beings were! The noise of the family below sounded as if it came from another world. He sat up in bed, wiping his eyes and nose. Here he was crying in his sleep about things he knew nothing of, obscure symbols, yet there were plenty who would not even shed a tear over their own mother and father!

  He got up and turned on the light. His figure in the mirror, pajamas unbuttoned to reveal his white underclothes. Human form distorted in a mirror. The title of a picture. He went out of the room, and the cool breeze caressed his face gently. He made for the sink nearby, washed and dried his face, and took several deep breaths. Abd al-Karim’s room was empty. He was always out. Broadening his horizons, as they say. Drink, political gossip, and whores. They were busy preparing dinner, and there were still streaks of light in the sky A clatter in the kitchen, and people calling from upstairs to downstairs and vice versa. The celebrations of the table. He heard light footsteps. Sana came up and squeezed herself in close to him.

  “Uncle, we’ve just seen Dad. He was walking along smoking a cigarette and coughing. Me and Bibi. He didn’t see us.”

  Husayn, that stupid chancer. What insane reason had brought him back to Iraq? Sana rushed off. His father came out of his room and went towards the stairs. The cries grew louder and more insistent, demanding dinner instantly. A forced commotion, an artificial celebration, a failed marriage, children, drunkenness, confusion, a non-future. Negation of the future, of time. Those courageous, happy-go-lucky people, drunks and beggars, who chose these goals! Could they achieve them without a struggle, without suffering? Husayn would be sure to visit him.

  He was walking in the long narrow part of the gallery away from their rooms, in the darkness. He usually came to this part of the house after the evening meal to be alone for a while. They hurried off to watch television, Madiha and he
r two daughters, his Aunt Safiya and his grandmother, once they’d finished washing the dishes, and they closed the door of Madiha’s room behind them. His mother was the last to come out of the kitchen and go upstairs. Her shoulders were slightly bowed, and she walked slowly. She passed the room she shared with his father and put her head round the door of his room, where the light blazed. He called out to her from his distant spot on the other side of the house, and she turned towards him. “Is that you?” she asked anxiously.

  “When will your troubles be over, you poor woman?” he wondered.

  She opened the door of Madiha’s room, and their voices could be heard, mingling with the sounds of the television. It was not unpleasantly cold. The floor of the gallery was uneven, and the sky and the walls around him were silent and black. The light was pouring out of the half-open door of his room, splitting the darkness before burying itself in the leaves of the olive tree. He caught sight of his father through the dark glass of his bedroom window, sitting in bed reading and telling his prayer beads. A tranquil life sentence. His father, and before him his mother, were the ones he had to break all emotional ties with. An interest in others and their world, God, destiny, was counterproductive. Such topics were surrounded by gratuitous questions, including thinking a great deal about the origins of existence and the past and future of mankind. Although there were situations when this sort of idle speculation could bring you fame and wealth, in which case it wasn’t such a waste of time. Then you could con whomever you chose, since you would be within your rights to do so.

  The cold caught him on the back of the neck, and he rubbed the spot a few times. If you kept looking hard at the sky, a few little stars appeared shining brightly Distant and solitary, they did not exist unless you could see them. What linked them—he in the belly of the darkness on the west side of the courtyard in their house in Bab al-Shaykh, and this little trembling star on the outer edge of the universe—was solitude, isolation, detachment from the world. This was the nearest to the truth you could get; it was not alienation or separation. It was to be at the center of the world, with nobody behind or in front of you, nothing preceding or succeeding you, to have your own laws which nobody but you could apply. I have nothing to do with the beggars and the unemployed who sell their principles, and sometimes even buy them, for a morsel of bread. The world begins and ends with me; I have to take my own spatial and temporal limits as my starting-point. This is not a sickness, but a healthy egotism. Rational, orderly The world is mine at any price. Being on your own, being an individual means you go into the world cautiously and absorb it, consume it incessantly, provided that you do not become part of it, as this might stop you achieving your aims. Strong people behave in this way Strong in the new sense of the word. They are not stupid or vicious, over-curious or easily embarrassed. They lie sincerely and are not shackled by morals or families or deep emotional attachments. There is nothing to stop them enjoying the good things of the world, which others have created with the sweat of their brows.