The Long Way Back Read online

  Afterwards, when he was walking ahead of me, I wanted to ask him what he had been going to say. As I watched him moving away from me, I felt a knot of guilt tightening round my heart. He stumbled and I called to him. He was walking parallel to the curb, his thin, upright form silhouetted against the yellow light and his steps unsure. I called to him again and saw him raise his right arm to show me he’d heard. Then he brought it down to his face. Was he crying? I hurried to catch him up but never made it. The car passed me first and in the next few moments the world exploded around us. He fell under the car wheels without warning. He didn’t slip, but he hadn’t wanted to die cither. How was it possible to justify or explain the event? I dragged him to the side of the road and cradled his head in my lap, then took his hand in a farewell gesture, the two of us alone together, isolated from the rest of the world. He was in great pain and it took him a few minutes to recognize me. A tear ran down his cheek, and he couldn’t speak. There are moments in a person’s life which loom so large and figure so profoundly that after them nothing is ever the same again. The world erupting with noise all around us was as far away as the stars in the sky. I watched his breathing become more and more difficult, and my heart was pounding. Our life together was not yet completed, and I didn’t want to lose him in the midst of my own personal crisis, so when he gave a faint gasp and his head lolled, this marked the beginning of my troubles. They extricated him from my arms and took him away somewhere. After that, sitting on the pavement with my arms empty, I didn’t know if I was crying for the face I would never see again, or in terror at the thought of the dreadful uncertainty that lay ahead.

  Husayn was surprised to see me sitting in a corner of the bus. He wanted to pay my fate but I beat him to it. I’d heard he was back from Kuwait but hadn’t seen him. He was unshaven, and his beard was black and greasy. His hair was unkempt, and his breath smelt of arak. I was on my way back from the university and it was nearly noon. I’d stopped to buy sesame pastries for my grandmother before I bumped into him on the bus. He asked me how I was, how my studies were going, how the family was, and was obviously skirting round the subject which most concerned him. It was an uncomfortable situation for us both, and I didn’t want us to move on to sensitive topics where I wouldn’t be able to give him my views. He told me he visited Midhat regularly in the office and on several occasions had been about to visit me when I was ill in bed. Even though it wasn’t that hot, he smelt terrible. I hoped I wouldn’t have to talk seriously about anything. I was still convalescing; going back to university had made me tired, and I was irritated by the way they had treated me there. As we talked I noticed his eyes wandering, and he looked out of the window and scoured the street names as they went slowly by He seemed conscious of all the complications involved in our interaction and out attitudes to one another. His pale face was visibly anxious. When I stood up to get off the bus he looked slightly taken aback, but then returned my goodbye with a great show of politeness.

  I bought some more cakes for my grandmother and aunt, then began to go back home along Kilani Street. I felt in a somber mood since seeing Husayn and wondered if the fact that he hadn’t asked me specifically about his daughters or Madiha meant he thought I wasn’t the right person to discuss such matters with.

  The sun was hot and the street long and empty of any welcome distraction. I didn’t see why the university wanted a doctor’s certificate confirming that I’d been ill and explaining my absence from courses. Although they’d been kind, they had made me feel stupid and isolated from the other students. I was sweating profusely and forgot to pass by my father’s office as my mother had made me promise to do. Going to the university hadn’t done anything to make me feel better. I was still cut off from other people, and because of my feeling of being rusted up inside and distant from everything round me, I had deliberately avoided two of my friends. My behavior perplexed me. A feeling, or perhaps it was an idea, or a mixture of both, would come to me when I was confronted by certain people or situations, making me want to explain aspects of them which were not immediately obvious. Did I have some characteristic that marked me out from my peers? An ability to read between the lines with some people—Munira, for example?

  Some evenings when Munira was sitting in the alcove near my bedroom, she would be holding her glass in her delicate fingertips and raise it slowly to her lips. Sometimes when she thought she had abstracted herself from us, the glass would stop just short of her mouth, and I’d watch her hazel eyes mist over, drifting on strange waters. Then she’d tilt her head to one side and fiddle with strands of her hair, which was tied back from her face, and down would go the glass without having touched her lips. Was she having private conversations with herself, or with creatures that did not exist?

  The courtyard was empty as I crossed it and went slowly towards the stairs. I could hear them all talking in my aunt’s room. I sat down on my bed, and it didn’t occur to me to take off my outdoor clothes. She was on my mind; I had often thought wearing pajamas round the house wasn’t decent and was particularly aware of it in her presence. I took the pastries to my aunt’s room, expecting to hear all the morning’s news. Munira was lying on her bed, with one arm flung across her forehead, and her mother was sitting on the floor beside her. Munira sat up and straightened her dress although I made my excuses and said I would leave. She gave me such a beaming smile that I had no choice but to go on standing there. My aunt and grandmother greeted the pastries with delight and fell on them greedily. Munira’s mother said nothing and looked unusually blank. I sat on the edge of Munira’s bed. She was dressed simply in dark colors, as she had been since they arrived. She asked me how I was, what it had been like at the university, whether it was very hot outside. I was aware of my aunt talking at the same time, demanding to know why I was late back. I told them about meeting Husayn, hoping that they would leave me in peace, but it didn’t have any effect. Munira looked pale and appeared to be lacking in energy. Her mother took hold of her hand a couple of times, but she drew it away slightly sharply. I asked about my sister Madiha and was told shed gone to the school to do some extra work and taken the two little girls with her. My aunt continued to fire questions at me, asking me why I’d been held up, what had happened at the university, whether I’d had an exam or been to any classes. Munira was silent throughout, like her mother, and for no obvious reason I had the feeling that my aunt’s talking was upsetting her. I tried to make pleasant conversation, asking her how her morning had been, and was aware of her mother sighing. My grandmother, Umm Hasan, rushed to reply for her and began telling me all about Adnan coming to our house that morning while I’d been away. As she spoke I looked warily at my aunt, and sure enough she interrupted her before long and told her to go and see when lunch would be ready, because she was famished. The situation annoyed me, and I didn’t understand the significance of my grandmother’s story, or know who Adnan was. I asked where my mother was, and when they said she was in the kitchen I stood up to leave, glad to escape the oppressive atmosphere. I smiled at Munira and noticed that she lay down again as I left the room.

  My mother was sitting in a dark corner of the kitchen, smoking a cigarette with an air of resignation. She didn’t brighten up much at the sight of me and repeated the same boring questions about how I was feeling, why I was back late and what had happened at the university Her fair-skinned face was heavily lined. I stood without talking for a few moments, then asked who had come while I was out. She gave me a surprisingly fierce look, then took a drag on her cigarette and blew it out through her mouth and nose, and said coldly that Maliha, Munira’s sister, had sent her son Adnan to tell his Aunt Munira that they wanted her back at the school and she should return to Baquba.

  I stood looking at her without understanding what she was trying to say. Adnan. Baquba. The school. What was I supposed to make of it? Although I waited, she didn’t give me any more hints, and I felt I wouldn’t be able to stand up for much longer. My limbs were shaky, and the heat in t
hat stuffy place was making my head throb. I didn’t care what she was talking about any more. The world and all its mysteries made me sick and I didn’t have the strength to carry on fighting it in this tortuous way. When my mother saw me keep wiping my forehead, she took my arm and sat me down on a chair. My stomach was churning, and a cold sweat broke out on my forehead. I buried my head in my hands and closed my eyes, a hollow reed shaken by nausea.

  I heard my mother walking rapidly away and felt a faint breeze. I took a few deep breaths, felt slightly calmer, and lifted my head from my hands. I was alone in the hot kitchen. I went over to the tap, washed my face, dried it on my handkerchief, and sat down again. I heard my mother calling, then the squeak of the heavy inner door and the little girl Sana shouting my name. I called her, and she came hesitantly into the kitchen, rosy-cheeked, her hair disheveled, telling me that an old man was looking for me. They’d met him at the end of the road and he’d asked where out house was, so they’d brought him along with them, she and her mother and sister. Madiha came in while her daughter was telling me her strange story in her childish voice, and said she thought it was Fuad’s father who had come to see me. I stared dumbly at her, my weary brain unwilling to take in what she was saying. She muttered that she could tell him I wasn’t at home. I heard my mother backing her up from a distance, begging her to say I wasn’t in. With a sudden feeling of alarm, I got up abruptly from the chair and hurried out of the kitchen down the long passage in a sort of dream. Wasn’t I the one who should have sought out such a meeting, looked for a final word from Fuad coming to me from beyond the grave like a burst of sunshine?

  I was caught up in a whirlpool of thoughts and emotions as I approached the big front door. He was standing some distance away, leaning against the wall, a slightly bowed figure nearing his seventies. I hadn’t remembered him looking like this at all. His face was lined and jowly, and his cheeks were covered in white stubble. His small eyes gazed into space, and he didn’t notice me standing in front of him for a few moments. I greeted him and woke him out of his trance. He advanced with short steps and held out his hand. It was big and blue-veined, and the skin was soft. I couldn’t take my eyes off his face. He could be the key to rebuilding my life. He asked me in a quavering voice if it was true that I was Abd al-Karim, his son Fuad’s friend. I nodded my head, flinching at the name, which he pronounced in a strange way and pictured that this broken-down old man had been sent by his son. I went on nodding my head until he began to speak again. He said he didn’t remember seeing me with Fuad.

  “Weren’t you with him when he died?” he asked me suddenly.

  I leaned back against the wall and said nothing. My mouth was dry I didn’t know what he wanted me to say I felt he was waiting for me to conjure up some more positive image for him by speaking about his son. He said he didn’t want to be a burden, but in the hospital they’d told him unbelievable things about how much Fuad had suffered. His eyes shone with tears as he looked into my face, waiting for an answer. He was clearly in agony himself but I remained silent, motionless, removed from him. I was sitting on the dusty pavement, cradling Fuad’s dear head in my lap. Then they took him from my arms in the middle of the night, under the stars, and everything went still and a black cloud enveloped me. I went back home, and life continued to run in my veins even though I screamed and shouted for days afterwards. I had embraced death and gone on living. He hadn’t died in agony. Such things weren’t allowed to happen to him. He had died in my arms, and it was like the light dying when the sun sets.

  The tears were streaming from the father’s pale eyes as he looked at my arms stretched out in front of me. I didn’t realize what I was doing or saying until he took hold of them. I shuddered as if I sensed death around me. His mouth contracted, and the tears ran down his wrinkled cheeks. He couldn’t speak, and he shut his eyes and shook his head a number of times as if he wanted to convey something. My limbs were like jelly. I had let my arms fall to my sides and stood watching him in silence. There was nothing I could do to comfort him.

  He loosened his hold on me, stepped back, and stood looking at me for a moment, then turned and walked away slowly, his back bent, staying close to the wall. I couldn’t stop trembling. I didn’t call out to him, but it crossed my mind that he didn’t know I’d been ill since the day Fuad died. I turned back into the house and walked unsteadily down the narrow passage. They told me afterwards that I’d reached the heavy door at the end and then collapsed. I didn’t remember feeling faint, but I knew for sure I didn’t want to carry on living as I was.

  Chapter

  Three

  Aunt Safiya was sitting up in her bed, which was a mattress on the floor. She watched Sana intently through the open windows as she came towards their room treading carefully, carrying a tray of breakfast. The birds were singing on the gaunt branches of the fig tree and the pigeons called intermittently. It was a little alter sunrise and the air was still cool. She wondered what Nuriya had sent her to eat. She had been plagued by hunger for an hour or more. It would be nice if there was cream cheese, apricot jam, warm bread. Sana stood in the doorway, looking inquiringly at her.

  “Come in, Sana,” she whispered. “Gently, now.”

  The little girl nodded and descended the high step. Aunt Safiya saw her looking over at the big bed where Munira lay. She had come down from the roof at dawn and was asleep under a light cover.

  “Don’t make a noise, Sana,” the girl’s great-aunt whispered again.

  Sana came towards her slowly and put the tray carefully down on the floor by the bed. On it were two glasses of tea, a flat disc of bread covering the plate and a little dish of black olives. She lifted the bread up quickly and saw slices of white cheese underneath it and some cucumber and tomatoes. Sana sat down on the edge of the bed. “Why are there two glasses?” asked Aunt Safiya.

  “One for you and one for Bibi Umm Hasan. Is she still asleep? Shall I wake her?”

  “No, dear. What for? It’s not as if there’s a great spread here. No meat, no patcha or harisa. Let me eat in peace.”

  She began stirring the glass of black tea. You had to eat what you were given here, otherwise you could easily die of hunger. She wrapped a slice of cheese and some salad in a piece of bread and bit off a chunk before addressing the little girl with her mouth full: “Have you eaten?”

  Sana nodded, and her great-aunt went on, “Has your r other gone out?”

  “No. We’re going out now. Mum and me and Suha.”

  “Where are you going, dear?”

  “To school.”

  “Why? Munira’s a teacher, and she’s come to Baghdad on holiday.”

  “Maybe Mum has to work.”

  “What work? It’s the holidays now.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What are you talking about, Sana dear?”

  As she prepared another mouthful for herself she looked across at Munira. Her hair was strewn over the pillow, and the curves of her body were visible under the cover. She and her mother had come to live with them several weeks before, quite out of the blue. They had only been in Baquba a few months, living with Munira’s older sister Maliha, who was married to a greengrocer who had grown rich mysteriously overnight.

  Safiya shifted the bread from one side of her mouth to the other. Munira had been appointed to a school in Baquba and she and her mother had moved there. They were supposed to have been there some time, according to her contract, but they’d cut short their stay and been with them in Baghdad for the last few weeks. They had no family in the capital except Nuriya, Munira’s aunt, because Munira’s brother Mustafa was in the North, and his wife and children were with the wife’s family.

  ‘Auntie, shall I wake Bibi Umm Hasan? You’re going to eat it all.”

  Safiya gestured dismissively and took a long drink of hot tea, then said, “Why do you keep on about her? Let her rest. Where’s your Uncle Karumi? I heard he’s going out today.”

  “Yes, Auntie. He’s going to the uni
versity. He’s shaving at the minute.”

  This was good news. She would ask him to buy her some sesame pastries from Sayyid’s patisserie. She’d give him the money to buy her nice fresh ones. She scrabbled around in a little purse she’d taken from under her pillow until she found two dirhams and put the purse back in its place.

  “Here’s a hundred fils, Sana, (live it to your Uncle Karim to buy some pastries from Sayyid’s. Hurry so you catch him before he goes out.”

  The little girl took the coins and slipped out of the room, and Safiya turned back to her breakfast. When all that remained were two puny bits of cheese and a burnt end of bread, she decided it would be wise to stop there. Umm Hasan was breathing noisily through her mouth as she lay fast asleep in an untidy heap on her bed. When she woke up she’d be certain to ask for more cheese, and her daughter, Nuriya, wouldn’t stint her, while Safiya’s own requests always went unheeded. She drank the rest of her tea and returned the glass to the tray, then, wiping her mouth, she shouted, “Umm Hasan! Umm Hasan! How is it you’re still asleep? You’re like one of the seven sleepers of Ephesus!”

  She noticed Sana hurrying back. As she came into the room she tripped and knocked against the door. Munira raised her head from the pillow, and Sana stopped dead in her tracks, shamefaced.

  “Sana. What’s wrong?” asked Munira.

  “Sorry, Auntie Munira. I tripped. Good morning.”

  Munira smiled at her. “Good morning.”

  She lay back down. Safiya indicated to Sana to come and sit on her bed. “Look where you’re going, Sana. Has your Uncle Karumi gone out yet or not?”

  “Not yet. He said he’s at your service.”

  She patted the child’s arm contentedly, then addressed Munira: “Munira dear.” Munira lifted her head again and half sat up, frowning inquiringly. “Where’s your mother gone?” continued Safiya.