The Long Way Back Page 7

  “He must know they’re safe, living in their grandfather’s house with their mother and not wanting for anything,” said Abd al-Karim.

  “What do you mean, not wanting for anything? Please!” She looked at her husband. “Let’s stop talking about it. I’ll bring you some soup. Unless you’d like to eat it with us.”

  Midhat backed her up. “Yes, Karim, you must eat something. Just a few mouthfuls to keep us company” Then he added to his mother, “Mum, what did Adnan want coming here this morning? Did you see him?”

  “He didn’t want anything. I was in the kitchen when he came. There was nobody around. I opened the door to him. At first I didn’t recognize him. His face was red, his shirt open, and he didn’t look me in the eye. He asked for his Aunt Munira. No greeting. Just ‘Is my Aunt Munira there?’ What’s happened to young men these days? Not out sons though, dear. They’re different. But that one hasn’t been brought up properly.”

  She was talking unconcernedly. When she stopped, Midhat asked again, “Yes, but what did he want? Didn’t you find out what he wanted?”

  “I told you he didn’t want anything. Not from us at least. He wanted to talk to Munira and her mother. I heard him say to them, ‘Why don’t you come back to Baquba? They need Munira at the school.’”

  “What’s it got to do with him? Coming knocking on people’s doors like that! Why doesn’t he go and sort himself out first?”

  Safiya watched him talking with such unaccustomed heat, then his father said, “Don’t worry about it, Midhat. He’s just an impulsive young man who thought he was doing his relatives a kindness. Nuriya, are we going to have dinner soon? It’s getting hotter these days, and I want to go up to the roof in good time.”

  “I’ll go down now,” said Nuriya, getting to her feet. “Shall we eat here?”

  “Yes, dear,” Safiya butted in. “Where else would we eat? This is the best place. Call them to help you carry the food upstairs.”

  Nuriya didn’t look at her. It was as if she hadn’t heard her. When no one else said anything she went off down the stairs. The sky appeared black through the darkness in the house. Safiya could hear the muffled voices of the girls and Umm Hasan coming from the girls’ room as they watched television. They forgot everything when they were sitting in front of that little screen. Since the beginning of summer she had wanted to go up on the roof to sleep, but the stairs frightened het. She would expire halfway up. Midhat got to his feet and went off unhurriedly to his room. He was of average height and slim. He had strange preoccupations these days. He never usually asked who had called or what had happened at the house during his absence.

  “Don’t you have any plans to get Midhat married off?” she whispered to her brother.

  “Why do you ask? Have you heard something?”

  “Should I have?”

  “What then?”

  “I was just saying . . .”

  Voices calling from below interrupted her, then the light went on in the small gallery and Munira appeared, accompanied by the two little girls. As they ran laughing past the alcove, Munira glanced briefly at Abd al-Karim. Her eyes were bright, and her hair flowed over her shoulders. Abu Midhat cleared his throat a couple of times, then rose to his feet. “God bless you. You start to say something, then stop in the middle! I’m going to wash my hands.”

  She was glad he talked to her like this. She wanted to wash her hands too, but was afraid she’d miss seeing the food arrive. There was noise rising continuously from the yard, and the lights were on all over the house. Umm Hasan came into view at the far end of the small gallery and began her slow progress towards the alcove, holding on to the wooden balustrade. Safiya watched her as she made her way unsteadily along, then realized that Umm Hasan’s appearance on the scene meant dinner would be there any minute.

  Chapter

  Four

  Husayn opened his eyes, and they were assaulted by the bright light flooding through the window, He shut them firmly again, raised his left hand, and pressed it against them, then let his fingers relax and felt a throbbing under his fingertips. He was afraid to open his eyes again and abandoned himself to the darkness inside him. His heart, stomach, eyes, and head were all pounding and churning violently. He’d never felt such a trembling in his body before, although he hadn’t registered when it began. He wasn’t going to open his eyes. He would remain shut up inside himself. Yesterday he had got up after ten, and today he wasn’t even going to leave his bed. What had they been doing in Uwanis’s miserable bar last night? He groaned. That lunatic Adnan. He was an egomaniac. But he hadn’t registered that at the time either. Adnan had stood in the midst of them talking, and it had seemed as if he was dancing. The mischievous lock of hair on his forehead gave him a feminine beauty He hadn’t been saying anything in particular, and Husayn had felt drawn to him and exasperated by him at the same time. Shit. His head was throbbing. He sat up in bed. He hadn’t eaten anything yesterday and couldn’t remember who’d paid for the drinks. Perhaps the quarter dinar was still in his pocket. He would try and remember things more clearly after he had washed. He moved his hand down his face to wipe his mouth and nose, then opened his eyes. He was only wearing underpants and a thin vest. The hair on his thighs was thick and black and curly, and the flesh underneath looked dirty He felt his sprouting beard. When had he last shaved? His mind was a seething mass of unstable memories. He didn’t like this time of day: the waking up, the sense of defeat, the slide downwards. If only he could wash properly all over today. In a Turkish bath, despite the hot weather. In cold weather, in the past, he’d spent an hour or more enveloped in steam, his feet on the warm floor and the smell of Abu al-Hil soap in his nostrils. The smell of the soap as he sang Umm Kulthum’s song, “Ya habibi, ya habibi, O my love, O my love,” his eyes watering! They were the happiest times of his adolescence, without a doubt. Then he discovered masturbation and everything was hell. The delicious, deceptive hell of sex.

  Life’s biggest illusion. “O my love, O my love” didn’t work any more. Afterwards he used to draw in his limbs like a fetus and remain still, listening to the heavy silence of himself in a world with a wholly unfamiliar resonance. Then he poured the hot water over his legs and shoulders, and the dense steam rose and hid him from sight.

  He scratched the skin on his left thigh determinedly and examined the pieces of encrusted dirt that his fingernails dislodged. Protect the skin, avoid blocked pores with regular baths and massages and by softening the body, with steam naturally Steam was especially beneficial. He put one foot to the floor then stood up and leaned against the bed. The walls spun round and he closed his eyes. He waited a few moments, abandoning himself to the sudden vertigo. Every time his emotions reached crisis point, he closed the windows on the world and withdrew into the darkness inside himself. A temporary escape, or a short breathing space. He was caught off guard by a violent pain in his stomach. He clutched hold of it. His guts were writhing and contracting. He could reel his heart beat faster. He pressed his stomach, rubbed it, afraid he’d throw up. Shit. The storm was beginning somewhere in his intestines. Terrible hands were gripping them, pushing whatever remained there up to the surface. It was coming. There was no resisting it. Since childhood he’d been afraid of vomiting. He remembered once he’d flung his arms around his mother, begging her not to let him vomit, and then spewed the contents of his stomach over her black dress and rough abaya, and she had wept with him. His legs suddenly began to give way. He knelt down beside the bed. The first wave of nausea rose into his throat and he began swallowing and breathing heavily. A cold sweat was gathering on his forehead and chest. It was agony. How terrible it was to die! He felt a cool breeze from the window on his face. The arm pushed relentlessly towards his heart. He was curled up in a ball on the floor, gripping the bed. The fateful moment would come in a few seconds, a few years of torment. Then he let out a choking noise, a convulsive rattling from his mouth, nose, eyes and ears, and a bitter stream of liquid poured from his throat. He s
wallowed. The bitter liquid oozed out of the corners of his slack mouth and down his nostrils. He was panting, his eyes closed and the sweat running slowly down off his temples. Then his innards dropped back into place. A savage force had played havoc with him for a few moments and reduced him to a heap of flesh dripping with cold sweat. A gentle breeze blew over him, and he took a deep breath of fresh air. He felt a drop—a tear or something similar—descending hesitantly from his closed right eye. Then an unexpected shudder gripped him. He might be no more than a mound of cold flesh, but at least he was no longer suffering or about to die.

  This beautiful, strange-looking girl had gazed into his eyes. He had taken hold of her gentle fingers. People said she was a prostitute. Her hand was soft and innocent. They hadn’t had a lot to say to one another. There were thick clouds of steam around him in the baths as he sang, “O my love, O my love,” and poured warm water over his legs and shoulders. The delights of childhood and sex. The childhood of sex. Sex the child. The shuddering returned and he opened his eyes. The light in the room was appallingly bright. He rubbed his eyes and head, then pulled himself up on the edge of the bed and sat down on it, wiping his face again. It had been a sudden attack—that was where its power lay—and it had left him with trembling limbs and a thumping heart. His watch said half past ten. Nobody in the house had noticed him throwing up, and there was still time to shave and visit Midhat in his office. He looked out of the window at the wall opposite. The sun’s rays seemed brighter than usual. Perhaps it was the weakness of his body making the sun stronger!

  He got down off the bed and took a few steps and was seized by another wave of nausea. For a minute he couldn’t focus. He stopped and leaned against the wall. It would pass when he washed in cold water. This wasn’t the first time, but he had to confess it was one of the worst. He opened the door of his room. There wasn’t a sound from the floor below. Where had his miserable relatives gone—the Hajji and his old wife? He could hear the rumble of the street in the distance. He belched a couple of times and went off towards the bathroom.

  To wake up vomiting or vomit up your awakening. Take your pick. The point is that your mouth is full of the acids of your corroding insides. Lebanese lemons. And that you have to begin your bright shiny day like this.

  The alleyway is as muddy and twisted as the lives of its inhabitants. And you bob up and down as you walk along, you bastard. Al-salam alaykum, Hajji Wahib. Upon you be peace and God’s mercy. Shall I borrow some money from him? He’s looking at you as if you’re the devil or a naked woman. You go up and down and down and down, then up again. You must walk straight. Like that. Stick your chest out. That’s it. Up and down you go again, son of a bitch. And the quarter dinar? No trace of it. Pockets full of holes. You paid for the drinks. That must be it. The last few hours of the evening will always remain a blur. You’re walking as straight as the canon of Abu Khizama, without a penny in your pocket. But here’s the missing coin, bastard. What about the woman who pretended to forget my name for some reason? And she turns to look at him, the beautiful Kurd with smiling eyes, before she closes the door. You rush in after her, pull off all her clothes and hold her against you, smelling her and kissing her.

  He goes up and down, up and down. What can she say? You see her. She sees you. What does it mean? I understand. The fact that we’re here in front of you, gentlemen, is irrefutable proof of the prostitution of this woman. So she’s killed and revives and is killed again, and again. You cowardly farts. Tea is important only to those who have no importance. You sit down on the wooden seat, the bench actually, to give it its real name. So he comes towards you, undulating, preening, dipping to the right and the left in response to orders, Arzuqi the One-Eyed, waiter at the café. He’s all pride and vanity, never mind how filthy he is and how dreadful he smells. Make for the real depths, gentlemen. There you’ll find the genuine corpse. His tea is like him and like these respectable people sitting to the right and left of you, judging your actions with their prayer beads. Click click click. He stops, she stops. He walks on, she walks on. He follows her, she follows him. He does it with her, she does it with him. And what about us, the honorable people? Where should we stick out noses? Or rather that other part of us. Where should we stick it? Tell us. Tell the men of honor wrapped in their abayas, oozing foul sweat. Click click click. Isn’t it odd that Arzuqi the One-Eyed can despise you, look down on you? Throw a cup of tea down on the table so it slops into the saucer? He finds this normal, in keeping with his station, which he’s not allowed to forget. If you ask him why, he evades the question and weeps with his blind eye and accuses anyone, whether he knows them or not, of things he knows or doesn’t know. Why don’t you put the tea down properly? Don’t you want to? Why should I, he would say, his eyes full of bits and his chest covered in disgusting black hair exposed proudly to you. There’s the man of the future, in his faded damp trousers. There he is, the old aristocracy. The aristocracy of ideas and taste. His tea is worthy of him. And you, you old crow, what’s your involvement with these aristocratic cafe waiters?

  It’s enough to incline your head to this damp-trousered, half-blind man. Don’t waste your time on anything else. You’ve got a long journey ahead of you. It’s pointless to cut through the mosque. The schools are closed and it’s not possible to see the girls. Suha and Sana. Sana and Suha. The stupidity of families. Of everything, if you think about it. Bastards. Your children are like your own liver, so they say. Mine’s as hard as wax these days. So put them in a waxwork museum if they’re made of your ruined liver! Don’t argue. It’s purely a question of logic. A broad logic, and people bow to logic, just as they bow to Arzuqi. Therefore, without complicating things, logic is Arzuqi the One-Eyed. That’s it. Let’s go. To Muazzam. To my brother-in-law’s office,

  He’d tell him without preamble that he had to see his daughters. Wasn’t this the father’s right? Any father on the face of the globe, even in Iraq! All the laws in the world would confirm his visiting rights. But the problem—was there a problem? Go and see them whenever you want, says Midhat, damn him. Who’s trying to make you take responsibility? You’ve never paid a penny so far, my friend. Damn him. Let’s look at things on another level. The human level, where all values can be blurred or redefined. Everything: duties, obligations, rights, etc. That was the reasonable way to look at things, appropriate to someone of his age, culture, status. Let’s avoid the material twists and turns and the hot sun, and cross over to the objective side where there’s more shade. Then we can lay out out current situation on the dissecting table so we can take it apart and examine all its aspects. The father’s rights first, gentlemen,

  His assured and guaranteed rights. He’d done it all ways in order to produce his children. No, come on, no pornographic literature, please, Once these rights have been established, we can discuss the existence or non-existence of duties. Tell me your rights, and I’ll tell you who you are. Animal. Human being. Dinosaur. Insect. First-class horse. Third-class. yearling. The important thing is to establish your rights and exercise them. As for duties, who’s bothered about them round here? After me, duty! Après moi, le devoir!

  Good morning, Mr. Husayn. Good morning, my brother. I hope you’re well, God willing. Whose was this face from the past? How are you? Fine, thanks. How about you? He was wearing a jacket and a red tie in this blazing heat. What are you up to these days, Husayn? If you were asked a question like this, it meant people were interested in you. His eyelids flickered, as if he was embarrassed. But who was this? I was in Kuwait, brother, working. His jacket was carefully ironed; he satisfied his wife in bed. What are you doing now, brother? Company director. Shit. Wasn’t he mad, this company director, to stick his nose into what didn’t concern him? Excuse me, I have to go. Goodbye. Then the company director fled. Fled in every sense of the word, literal and metaphorical. Husayn still didn’t know who he was. Mean bastard. He comes up to you without being invited, betrays you like Judas Iscariot as soon as he senses you’re thinking of asking him
for a loan. Were his intentions written so clearly in his eyes? The only solution, my friends, is dark glasses. Then they won’t guess the secret before it’s revealed, anticipate the disaster before it occurs. You’ll be able to surprise them, both with your dark glasses and your demands for a loan, coming at them like bullets out of a gun. Quick, guaranteed loans. A quarter dinar. A half dinar. A quarter. A dinar. Half. Half. Half You’ll amass more and more money. A new economic theory: infinite borrowing. A loan covered by a loan covered by a loan covered by a loan and so on and so on. Why had you forgotten who this company director was? Wasn’t he the branch manager at the bank in 1959? An opportunist communist. Numan Sallum. A name which didn’t tell you for certain whether he was a Christian or a Muslim! An evident disguise or evidence of a disguise! Backstage types, who stick a hand or a foot out under the lights every now and then, and when they’ve warmed up a little draw them quickly back in so as not to attract attention. Company director, yes, branch manager, and if you want a more precise description of him: thick-skinned, indestructible, and a real shit. A person protected by the times. But strip him of his clothes, both the external material ones and the invisible trappings. First take away his jacket and his name, then his trousers and his job. Rip off his elegant shirt and confiscate his car. At this point, let’s stop for a break to laugh at the tragic results. But do you ever really hear of this kind of thing happening? Those would be pure, genuine acts. So what if you drink every day and you’re bankrupt and have no income whatsoever? The jacket, the trousers, the smart shirt: they’re the outer layers; the underpants and shoes are a different story Supposing Numan Sallum was a drunk who’d lost his home and his job, what would he do? But it was inconceivable he could ever sink to such depths. A complete coward.

  This sun’s unbearable, and you’re hurrying as if you’re going to meet a lover, you silly bastard. You and Numan Sallum are on different sides of the fence, but you’re walking the same road. You’re both scared. It’s terrifying, this life. You sat up in bed at daybreak once, ages ago, trembling with fear. You had no need to wake up at such a time. You’d only gone to sleep around two in the morning after pointless fighting, bitter words, rebuffs and abuse from Madiha, and you were tired and dejected. That was the third time you’d spent your entire salary days after getting it, without giving her a penny Permanent drunkenness, unquenchable thirst, gambling, sordid sex. You woke up before dawn, still tired. The first light didn’t penetrate the small room where you sat huddled on your single bed, alone and isolated, your heart beating. The room was almost bare. She’d driven you out of her room, and you were on your own like a counterfeit monk, when fear crept up on you. The fear of death, the fear that you were finished, that nothing was any use any more. Everything you did, anybody did, was futile. You shook, your sweat ran cold as you sat in bed alone, a traitor to yourself and your world. A sense of desolation welled up from all four corners of the room and encircled you, and from that day onwards you began to go gradually downhill.