The Storyteller

by Pierre Jarawan

  We left his office together, but he didn’t take my hand until we were outside.

  “I’m parked over there,” he said, pointing somewhere beyond the curtain of rain. He pulled me along; it was hard to keep up and I nearly tripped. Just before a mighty clap of thunder, I heard one of the gang from before say to the guy with the scar on his forehead, “Hey, guess what? You just offered Brahim’s son a smoke!”

  With Father in this kind of mood, it was hard to be positive. I’d never seen him like this. His dark moods were every bit as contagious as his cheerfulness could be. All of a sudden, the walls of our flat didn’t seem so white and bright anymore. And I began to notice little stains and flaws on the wooden floor where we scuffed it pulling chairs in and out from the dinner table. The shiny oval keyhole plate in the living-room door had ugly scratches I had never registered before, and if the autumn sunlight fell at the wrong angle, I could see how dirty our windows were. I went traipsing around our neighbourhood breaking branches off trees and crawling through waist-high wet grass in the hope that my torn, sodden clothes would grab Father’s attention.

  I missed his stories, how he’d sit on my bed in the evenings and spin yarns, his eyes shining. It was a tradition and a ritual, this story time. Something that created a bond between us. The stories allowed this invisible bond to grow, and I had assumed that it was so strong no one would be able to break it. The worlds Father created in these stories were realms only the two of us could enter, through secret doors to which we alone had the keys. If he came to my room with a new story to tell, he’d hop from one foot to the other, rub his hands furtively and exude such an air of childish excitement that I knew he could hardly wait. Then we’d shut the door so that Mother wouldn’t disturb us, dim the light, and dive into new worlds. The closed door was a signal to Mother to keep well away. She’d know that we were busy pursuing the adventures of the characters and creatures Father brought to life. I wanted my old father back, the one full of laughter, enthusiasm, and joie de vivre. My proud father, my patient father. Not the one who barely noticed me, no matter how hard I tried. Not the one who took my little sister in his arms and rocked her, but gave the impression that it was unbearably painful to look at her.

  I missed Yasmin too. I missed her sticking her curly head round the door and coming in. Without knocking, naturally, because our flat was her second home. She too had sensed the change in Father, and she stopped coming up to us so often after that. His strange behaviour had unsettled her as well.

  “What’s wrong with him?” she asked me, after he’d once again passed her on the stairs without a word. All I could do was shrug.

  The night after the slideshow, I lay in bed and heard my parents having a row, arguing the way parents do when they don’t want children to hear—behind closed doors, in intense, hushed voices. I pressed one ear against my pillow and pulled the duvet over the other, but it didn’t help much. I tried to focus instead on the blobs that seemed to float weightlessly in the lava lamp on my bedside table. They merged, separated, nudged against the glass, and formed new shapes all over again. But my parents’ voices still slid under the bedroom door like toxic smoke. They were in the kitchen, and I could not block out their voices.

  “But you promised,” said Mother.

  “I know.”

  “Do you realise what would have happened if they’d found it?”

  Silence.

  “Do you realise that we wouldn’t be here today?”

  Silence.

  “We could be dead, Brahim. Tossed in a grave or thrown into the sea like the others.”

  Still no response.

  “Why did you keep it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “No. That was ten years ago.”

  “Ten years in which we’ve created a life for ourselves. A life together.”

  Silence.

  “We came here so that our children might have a better chance. You were putting that at risk.”

  “We didn’t have any kids then.”

  “But surely you expected us to have kids eventually.”

  “It’s only a photo,” my father yelled, in a voice that carried all the way to my room.

  “It’s more than that,” my mother spat back. “I want you to throw it away. Even if it’s ten years too late.”

  “Rana,” he said, “that photo is of no interest to anyone in this place.”

  “I don’t care what you say.” Mother was furious. “Get rid of it once and for all!”

  “That photo means something to me,” he said.

  “I know,” she retorted angrily, “I know all too well what that photo means to you. That’s why I want you to get rid of it! You’re here now, with us. That should mean everything to you.” She was sobbing now. Then I heard footsteps in the corridor. She walked past my room into their bedroom and shut the door.

  I held my breath under the bedclothes. My teeth were clenched so tight that my jaw hurt. My ears were still pricked, but now all was quiet. Slowly, I pushed back the duvet, slid out of bed, and carefully opened the door. To my left, there was still light from the kitchen. Father was still in there. There was no sound from my parents’ room. I hitched up my pyjama bottoms so that I wouldn’t trip on the hems and tiptoed down the corridor to the living room.

  I wasn’t really thinking about what I did. The projector was still there on the table, in the dark. The slide was still in the slot. I withdrew it carefully. All I could make out in this light were vague shadows. I turned around and scurried silently back to my room.

  Seconds later, I heard Father heave a sigh and leave the kitchen. He went into the living room; I held my breath. Then I heard a rustling and pictured him searching through the slides spread out on the table. The rustling didn’t last long, though, because next thing he was coming towards my room. I closed my eyes, heard him open the door, and sensed him watching me from the doorway.

  “Samir?” he whispered.

  I didn’t react. My heart was in my throat. I had the slide clasped in one hand, and the hand shoved under my pillow. Father entered the room slowly; I could hear his breath as he leaned over. Then it went dark behind my eyelids. He had switched off my bedside light. With heavy steps, he made his way back to the door.

  “Goodnight, Samir,” he said, as if I was still awake.

  That’s when I knew that he knew.

  -

  7

  He never mentioned the subject, never took me to task. Not the next day, nor in the weeks that followed. It was as if it had never happened, that moment when he caught me but never said a word. As a result, I started to feel like we had a special bond again, a secret. But his mood changed very little. And the longer this strange behaviour continued, the more Mother suffered, despite her best efforts to hide it. If she caught me watching her while she was hanging up the washing, she’d try to whistle a cheerful tune. She never normally did that. One time I came into the kitchen when Father had just left the house.

  “Are you crying?” I asked.

  “No,” she said and smiled. “I’m chopping onions, see?”

  “Hakim says the trick is to hold your breath while you’re chopping them. Then they won’t make you cry.”

  “OK, but I can’t hold my breath for ever, Samir.”

  It hurt to see my father the way he was, but it was almost more painful to see my mother trying to hide the wounds inflicted by his behaviour. Few things in this world seem sadder than a fake smile. Perhaps her perception of our flat changed too, like my own, because she started cleaning it from top to bottom every day, even the bits that couldn’t possibly have got dirty again. She started cooking way more than we could eat too. Then she’d wrap the leftovers in tinfoil and have me take it round to friends and neighbours. If she was completely exhausted, I’d take my little sister from her, rock her in my ar
ms, and sing her to sleep. Many’s the time I found Mother asleep when I came back to the living room, curled up like a child on her side of the sofa, the left side. And if I went up close, I could make out traces of tears on her cheeks.

  One day not long after the time Hakim told the Syrian joke while he and Father were watching TV and discussing the new beginnings in Lebanon, the phone rang in the hall. It was one of those old telephones with a rotary dial and a heavy handset. Ours was mint green. I was nearby, so I answered the phone.

  “Hello. Samir el-Hourani speaking,” I said.

  Silence.

  “Hello?” I said, shrugging at Father, who gave me a surprised look. It was a bad line, lots of crackling. I could hear someone breathing at the other end, as if they were taking a deep breath.

  “Hello?” I said again.

  The person at the other end exhaled. Someone was singing in the background. Next thing, Father was standing beside me, taking the handset.

  “This is Brahim el-Hourani,” he said.

  I watched him and saw his eyes narrowing. Then he hung up.

  “The line was cut off,” he said brusquely. Then he turned on his heel, taking his jacket off the hook, fished a few coins from his pocket, and quickly worked out how much he had.

  “Are you going out?” I asked.

  “That was your grandmother,” he said. “I have to ring her back.”

  “What do you need your jacket for?”

  “I’m going to the phone box.”

  “But we have our own phone,” I said, pointing out the obvious.

  “I know, Samir. But it’s very expensive to ring Lebanon. I’ve been saving coins especially so that I can ring your grandmother from the phone box.”

  He knelt down to tie his shoes.

  “Can I go with you?”

  “No,” he said. “Wait here. Your mother will be back any minute with the shopping. I want you to help her carry it in.”

  With that, he left the flat.

  A few days later, the phone rang again and I answered. Again, no reply. Just more breathing. No singing in the background this time, but I thought I could make out engine noises. “Grandmother?” I said into the silence. No reply. Maybe the line was even worse at the other end? I listened for a little longer this time. Then the line went dead. I told Father about the phone call, and off he went again to return the call from the phone box. But before he left, he went down on his knees, put both hands on my shoulders, and looked me straight in the eye.

  “Samir,” he said insistently, “promise me you won’t tell your mother about the phone calls.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t want her to worry.”

  “But if Grandmother is sick, don’t you think she’d want to know?”

  His eyes narrowed.

  “Of course. But you know your mother. She’d get upset, and that wouldn’t be good.”

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  “Do you promise?”

  “Not to tell Mother?”

  “Not to tell anyone.”

  I promised. And I kept my promise too.

  Grandmother rang a third time, I think. Father answered the phone, said his name, hung up almost immediately and left the flat. This time, he didn’t even put on his jacket.

  Soon the weather turned colder. The leaves changed colour and cast our neighbourhood in a golden-red glow in the evening light. Then they turned brown and fell. A street in timelapse. The pretty autumn colours seemed to rub off on people too. I loved how the crisp air could bring a magic smile to rosy cheeks. Even the grown-ups were friendlier, out raking leaves on our street. Of course, I loved to kick up the piles of leaves again when no one was looking. For me, autumn was also full of things to look forward to. Winter—and the longed-for first snow of the season—was only round the corner. Then there were walnuts, which I loved not just because you could make little ships out of them, but because they tasted so good. And the dark evenings were great because it meant Mother would light candles and turn the heat up. Another reason I loved autumn was because it came with an image of my mother that has become one of my indelible memories of her. She’s sitting on the sofa with a rug tucked round her legs, steam rising from a cup of tea in front of her. She’s flicking through catalogues looking for inspiration for new dresses. Before turning the page, she briefly puts her left index finger to her lips to moisten it. I don’t think she was even aware of doing this.

  Eventually, the weather got so cold you could see your own breath outside. By then, the new Lebanese parliament was two months old, and it had quickly become clear that Rafiq Hariri, the prime minister, wasn’t going to hang about. The reconstruction plans had already been drawn up. The Syrians were still in the country, of course, and they wouldn’t be leaving in a hurry. But things were progressing that November. All that was missing was the first snow. Our snowsuits hadn’t come out of the wardrobe yet. On 10 November 1992, I turned eight.

  -

  8

  One day in the run-up to my birthday, Father drove out to our town’s industrial estate. That’s where the joinery was where Hakim worked. When he got back, he took a thick plank out of the boot. The timber was a pale but intense colour. I stood by the car and watched. He had gloves on and a warm jacket, and his breath came out in clouds as he wrestled with the board.

  “Here, smell this,” he said, holding the board under my nose.

  “I can’t smell anything.”

  “Exactly. This is dry cedar.”

  “What are you going to do with it?”

  “That’s a secret,” he said, giving me a wink.

  “Where did you get it?”

  “I ordered it through Hakim’s workshop. The boss there knows a wholesaler. It’s not easy to get cedar in Germany.”

  “I thought cedar smelt different.”

  He carried the board past me and nodded in the direction of the shed.

  “Come with me,” he said.

  I followed him, practically reeling with the euphoria of having some attention from him again after all these weeks. He leaned the plank up against the wall in the shed, took a small saw from his toolbox, and cut into the wood.

  “Smell that.”

  A powerfully aromatic, woody smell hit my nose.

  “That’s the essential oils in the resin,” he said. Then he put his own nose close to the fresh incision and inhaled the smell.

  “What are we going to do with the wood?”

  “We are not going to do anything. I am. And I might show it to you when it’s finished.”

  “You might?”

  “I might.”

  Then he straightened up, stroked my head, walked past me, and disappeared.

  He spent the following weekend in the old wooden shed. I also spotted Hakim going in there at various stages, reemerging later and beating sawdust off his clothes. Yasmin and I, bundled in our winter jackets, sat on the steps of our building keeping a keen eye on the shed and watching the white clouds of vapour drifting from our mouths.

  On my birthday, lots of neighbours came to my party. There were eight candles on the cake and everyone sang “Sana Helwa ya Gameel,” the Arabic version of “Happy Birthday.” I blew all the candles out in one go and everyone clapped. I got fabulous presents too. Khalil, the young man who had helped Father mount the satellite dish the day we moved in, gave me a diabolo. I’d often watched him on our street, spinning the double-cupped top on a string attached to two sticks. He could do amazing tricks with it, almost like at the circus. From Hakim I got a wooden sled he made himself, a really beautiful one with curved handles. It had a great smell of workshop and wax.

  “Don’t worry, the snow will come,” he said. “The longer it keeps you waiting, the more you’ll enjoy it.”

  Yasmin went as far as to give me a kiss on the cheek, which I brush
ed off rather sheepishly. All day long, my parents made obvious efforts not to let the strange atmosphere of recent weeks spoil my party. But there was an awkwardness to their attempts to play the perfect team; they kept bumping into each other, practically knocking each other down as they waited on the guests and put food on the table. And anyone who took a closer look couldn’t fail to see how they tried to avoid each other, passed each other with their heads down, only spoke to guests separately, and never looked each other in the eye.

  That evening, Yasmin and I tried out the diabolo. There wasn’t a soul on the street outside our building. The cold made it hard to hold the sticks, but we were too captivated to go in for our gloves. Over and over, we spun the rubber top into the air and caught it with the string, competing with each other to see who could throw it highest, who could keep it spinning longest.

  Soon the November evening fog descended, shrouding everything in grey until even the streetlights gave off no more than a dim glow. It crept over the nearby green and through the alleyways of our neighbourhood. Entire buildings vanished, their lit-up windows like ghostly eyes in the gloom. Eventually Hakim stuck his head out the window of their flat and called Yasmin in. It was late. She turned to me, her cheeks rosy, her eyes gleaming from the cold.

  “I hope you had a nice birthday,” she said, handing me the sticks.

  I nodded. Yasmin turned and disappeared into the fog; the only sound was her footsteps, then the front door closing. I stood there for a moment. Nothing but silence around me, and a strange sense of impenetrable loneliness. I looked up and saw the light from our living-room window. I didn’t really want to go back up.

  On my bedside table I found a little present wrapped in dark blue paper with a gold ribbon. It caught my eye the minute I entered the room. It was beside the lava lamp, which was on. I could hear Mother clattering in the kitchen as she washed the dishes. The TV was on in the living room. I’d seen the colours flickering on the hall floor when I came in, and judging by the theme tune, Father was watching the news on Al Jadeed. I’d taken off my jacket and shoes in the hall and put the diabolo in the corner.