Dreams of Water

by Nada Awar Jarrar

  ‘No, we’re in the living room and the fire’s going already. Why don’t you go inside and I’ll bring the tea in?’

  It is Saturday afternoon and when Samir found out earlier that Aneesa was coming to visit, he had asked if he could stay. Now he is not so certain that it was the right thing to do.

  ‘Thank you, habibi,’ Salah says when Samir walks into the living room with the tea tray. ‘Ah, you forgot the biscuits, Samir. I’ll go and get them, shall I?’

  ‘You don’t take sugar, do you?’ Samir asks Aneesa as he pours the tea.

  She shakes her head. He hands her a cup, pours one for himself and sits back in the armchair by the sofa. The fire is big and warming and emits a pleasant burning scent whenever a wisp of smoke escapes into the room.

  ‘Do you remember yourself as a child?’ Aneesa asks him.

  Samir wonders what is taking his father so long.

  ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Aneesa shakes her head and snorts slightly.

  ‘What do you think you were like?’

  Fearful, shy and arrogant sometimes, as boys will be for no other reason than to hide their hurt pride. He had also been secretive, not in a sinister way but out of a desire to keep something for himself and from his ever-present parents.

  Samir shrugs and smiles at Aneesa just as Salah returns with the plate of biscuits.

  ‘Did your son keep secrets as a boy?’ Aneesa asks Salah. She is smiling and Samir feels a sudden irritation.

  Salah passes the plate first to Aneesa and then to Samir. ‘Stop teasing him, Aneesa,’ he says. ‘My son has a tendency to be easily hurt.’

  Samir looks at his father.

  ‘Me?’

  Salah bites into a biscuit.

  ‘I always wanted more children, you know,’ he says in a conversational tone so that Samir cannot tell if his father is speaking to him or to Aneesa. ‘Huda believed it was because I thought she and Samir were somehow not enough for me but it wasn’t like that at all.’

  Samir clears his throat loudly and hopes his father will not continue.

  ‘There were many things my poor wife never understood about me,’ Salah goes on.

  The day of the funeral is sunny and warm for autumn. Samir sits in the limousine that follows the hearse to the cemetery. The interior of the limousine is spacious but sombre and Samir is glad when they arrive and he can finally get out.

  It is more like a park than a cemetery, he thinks as he follows the pall-bearers to the grave. The trees are awash with colour: reds, yellows and golds; and dead leaves crunch beneath his feet as he walks. The air is also beautiful, clean and with only the suggestion of coolness in it. In the distance is a pond with ducks floating on it. This day is so perfect that there seems no place for grieving, Samir thinks to himself. He takes a deep breath. I wish you could see this, baba. You would love it here.

  When he gets home later that evening, Samir walks around for a few moments with the lights still off. He goes into the kitchen and opens the two windows opposite the counter very wide, just like Salah used to. Then he pulls at the refrigerator door and looks inside. He pulls out cheese, Arabic bread and two cucumbers that he washes under the tap. He takes out a knife and plate and sits at the work surface. From here, he can hear the night but it cannot see him. He cuts a piece of the cheese, wraps it in the bread and eats it noiselessly. Then he picks up a cucumber and takes a large bite of it.

  If Father were here … Samir begins. If I were Father, what would I do now? He puts down his sandwich and stands up, pushing his stool back. Then he walks back to the refrigerator and opens its door slightly so that the inside light shines through into the kitchen. He suddenly thinks of Aneesa, how he would often find her in the kitchen when he came home, chatting to Salah as he cooked, both of them seemingly content. He realizes once again that he should let her know of his father’s death. Perhaps I should wait until I go back home and see her, he finally decides

  Samir walks back to the stool and sits down. When he picks up his sandwich again, he realizes that the refrigerator light has followed him to his seat. He bites into his sandwich and sighs out loud.

  Beirut has never felt so familiar. Samir is as comfortable walking the streets here as he is wandering around his own home. He stops himself sometimes, in front of a shop on a commercial street or on the Corniche overlooking the sea, and wills himself to think of refuge elsewhere, the streets and byways of much larger cities perhaps, but he cannot. The variety of sounds and smells are recognizable now, he realizes, as are the faces that he sees, dark and well defined like his own. But it is a sameness that annoys him too, so empty is it of the possibility of standing out from the rest.

  He remembers walking down Hamra Street with his mother as a very young child and seeing a tall, blonde woman in a red dress approach from the other side. It seemed to him then that all the buildings and all the people around him had turned to black and white except for that woman whose vibrancy and colour were palpable. She was different from anyone he had ever seen and made his heart beat very fast. He had stopped suddenly, pulled down hard on his mother’s hand and let out a loud scream, so that Huda had to bend down and put her arm round his shoulders.

  ‘Shush, habibi,’ she whispered in his ear. ‘Don’t cry now. No one is going to hurt you.’

  The contrasts that he sees these days are only in his own mind: the noise, people and apparent confusion that now surround him compared to the calm that he has relinquished elsewhere; the extent to which he can distinguish himself here measured against the certain success he so willingly left behind. If he concentrates hard and asks himself what he has gained by returning, nothing comes immediately into his thoughts, only a measure of reticent optimism that there is more to come, that he is waiting to step further into an existence that will prove rewarding and less fearful.

  Just before going to bed every evening, Samir stands at the edge of the enclosed balcony of his flat and puts his head out of the window, closing his eyes and leaning slightly forward so that he is closer to the outside world than he would otherwise be. Then he lets the sensations associated with a Beirut night engulf him, wet sea breezes and exhaust fumes, distant lights and the clicking of feet on pavements and a certain confidence in the air that comes from being thrown into life with no forewarning and no chance for redress.

  He is lying down on the back seat of the car, listening to his parents talk about him. They have been to Tripoli in the north to visit the citadel there and are now on their way home. Samir had been happy climbing the ancient walls and running down the dirt paths between the ruins with his parents trailing behind. At one point, when they were well out of sight, he had been able to imagine he was all alone in a strange place seeking great adventure.

  He feels his mother reach for the small blanket she always keeps on the back seat and cover him with it.

  ‘He’s fast asleep,’ Huda says.

  The steady movement of the car is lulling him into closing his eyes but he wills himself awake.

  ‘I think he had a good time today, don’t you?’ Salah chuckles quietly.

  Samir waits for his mother to say something but she doesn’t.

  ‘We should have had another, you know.’

  He holds his breath and feels his body tense up.

  ‘Whatever for?’ Huda replies.

  When he lets his breath go, he does it slowly so that his parents do not hear him. He wishes he could sit up and look out of the window but snuggles further underneath the blanket instead.

  ‘I mean he would have had a brother or sister. Someone to be with him later on.’

  When they get home, Salah lifts him out of the car and carries him upstairs to his bed. Samir does not let his father undress him.

  ‘I want mama,’ he cries, remembering what his father had said in the car and pushing Salah away.

  Huda comes in and puts Samir’s pyjamas on, pushing his arms and legs
into them a little roughly. Salah remains in the doorway, a look of surprise on his face, and murmurs so Samir can hardly hear him.

  ‘He’s just tired, that’s all,’ Salah says. ‘Go to sleep, habibi. Go to sleep.’

  Aneesa tells him she is leaving. It is a cold day in winter with little light and people scurry around in thick coats and gloves. They are standing at the bar of a sandwich shop and looking out through a huge glass window at the world outside.

  He asks her why.

  ‘Because it’s time,’ she says, shrugging her shoulders and shifting slightly on her feet. ‘I’ve been away for too many years and I’ve never really belonged here anyway.’ She gestures at their surroundings. ‘The war has been over for a while, Samir. The future there seems hopeful now and many people have started going back.’

  She has on a black woollen jacket and a scarf that makes her neck disappear into its folds. She has taken off her gloves and placed them by her plate.

  Samir looks away for a moment and then back at Aneesa again.

  ‘What will you do there?’ he asks.

  ‘They need translators even more than they do here. I’ll find plenty of work.’

  Samir takes a sip of water and clears his throat. He feels brave.

  ‘I wasn’t talking about work.’

  Aneesa is aware of his discomfort and waits for him to continue.

  ‘I mean what about your life?’

  ‘There’s life there, Samir. There always was.’ She looks at him, her face suddenly clouded, and presses her lips together. ‘Why are you always so negative about home?’ she continues.

  There are many things that frighten Samir but home is not one of them. He knows he would not be prepared to face Beirut and his past again after all this time. She is brave, he thinks, and then feels uncertain about what to say next.

  ‘Your mother is there on her own?’ he asks quickly.

  Aneesa nods.

  ‘She’ll want you there with her, I suppose.’

  ‘Perhaps not. She thinks I’ve made a safer life for myself here.’

  ‘She’s not pushing you into moving back?’

  ‘You’re surprised that I should still choose to return anyway?’

  Samir puts his cup down and looks out at a grey street and darkening sky.

  ‘What about Salah?’ he finally asks.

  ‘He has you, doesn’t he?’ Aneesa’s tone is sharp.

  Samir feels a sudden anger and realizes it is not so much with Aneesa as with himself.

  ‘It’s not the same,’ he says quietly.

  ‘Then maybe it’s time you started taking care of him, Samir. Maybe you’re the one he really needs.’ Aneesa grabs her gloves and starts to put them on. ‘I have to go,’ she says.

  She turns away and does not see him wave goodbye to her as she walks.

  There is a café that he likes to go to, on the other end of the Corniche and close to the new lighthouse. It is perched on rocks that jut out into the sea and is nearly empty in the early mornings. At this time of the year, tables on the terrace are removed and Samir sits underneath a large green canopy with clear plastic around its edges. He looks out at the sea and two fisherman standing on rocks where the waves lap just beneath their feet.

  Sometimes he will sit for a couple of hours because there is so much to think about and the quiet here is a great comfort. When he signals to him, the waiter approaches with more hot water and a fresh teabag, but otherwise Samir is left entirely alone.

  He has come to think of this place as providing a necessary interlude from the questions that continue to haunt him, but still they come, unexpectedly and with a kind of intensity that he feels unable to handle.

  When and how exactly had he lost the people and places that once defined him? Samir wonders. I am so-and-so’s son; I live in such-and-such a place. Yet this moment, tea glistening in my cup and outside the persistence of a flailing sea, is all I have. He reaches for his sandwich and unfolds the flat bread so he can look inside. He smiles to himself: they have added the mint this time. He wraps the sandwich up again and takes a generous bite. The mint has a strong, refreshing taste and the labne is slightly salty, just as he has always liked it.

  When Samir looks towards the sea again, he sees one of the fishermen throw back his line. The man’s arms swing far behind him, and as he brings the line forward again, over his head and back into the water, Samir imagines he can see the arch it has made lingering in the air for just a moment, hesitating there, then splintering before finally falling into the waves below.

  Salah sits folding the laundry and putting it in neat piles on the kitchen table. He has combed back his hair so that, in profile, it looks to Samir like a white semi-circle that arches over his face; and as he leans forward, his lips pressed tightly together with concentration, the outline made by his back and his shoulders, which are hunched forward, creates another, equally poignant, curve.

  Samir walks up to his father and places a hand on his arm. Salah looks up.

  ‘Ah, you’re home, son. Did you have a good day at work?’

  ‘Why don’t you leave those for the housekeeper to do when she comes in tomorrow?’

  ‘She never does it properly, you know that. Besides, I enjoy folding things.’ Salah laughs and gestures to his son with a hand towel. ‘Let me get you something to eat.’

  ‘Not yet, baba. I’m not really hungry,’ he says. ‘I saw Aneesa today.’

  Salah looks up, his eyebrows slightly raised.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Did you know that she’s planning to leave?’

  ‘She’s going back home.’

  Samir looks closely at his father.

  ‘Aren’t you going to try to persuade her not to?’

  Salah begins to fold shirts, stacking them up on top of each other and patting each one before he starts on another.

  ‘I told her that if what she really wants to do is go back home, then she should definitely do it.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘We all have to one day, Samir.’

  ‘Have to what?’

  Salah pushes his chair back and stands up. He folds one arm close to his chest and begins placing the laundry in the crook of it. Then he picks up a pile of towels in his right hand.

  ‘When you were a boy,’ he begins, ‘you kept a small torch in the drawer of your bedside table. Your mother said you wanted it there to read after bedtime.’ Salah continues as he makes his way out of the kitchen and Samir strains to listen. ‘But I used to watch you light up the ceiling with it and hum yourself to sleep just when the night became too dark for comfort.’

  The sick room smells of disinfectant and talcum powder. Samir covers his father with an extra blanket and opens one of the windows. Then he decides to tidy up the bedside table, lining the bottles of medications against each other and taking the half-filled glass of water and a dirty teaspoon into the kitchen.

  When he returns, his father is still asleep, his bottom lip slightly open and his head to one side.

  Samir readjusts the pillow for Salah and sits by the bed to look out of the window. Although it is spring, the air is still cool and some of the trees in the park have not yet filled up with green shoots. He does not think his father will be up for a walk today. He has seemed more frail than usual lately.

  Samir leans forward and smooths the blanket over his father’s legs in the hope that it will wake him but he remains asleep.

  I am lonely without him, Samir realizes as he sits back in his chair.

  He watches for passing cars and listens to the even sound of Salah’s breath and, as he attempts to align it with his own, feels tears well up in his eyes and fall down his cheeks.

  It is raining so hard that the streets are flooded and cars and people must wade their way through the water. Stepping out into the street, Samir sees the rain slanting sideways with the strong wind; the palm trees on the Corniche are leaning too and the sea is a mass of turbulent waves.

  He is wearing a
long raincoat and an old hat of his father’s that he found in the flat but his shoes are flimsy and he must tread carefully as he crosses the wide, tree-lined road and steps on to the pavement above the water. He loves the smell of rain mixed with the musty scents of the sea and the cliffs that fall towards it. He walks quickly until he remembers that there is nowhere he must go.

  Samir has felt the connection between his father and himself as something unstoppable. Yet with Salah’s death there is a sudden fading around Samir, as if he was once bathed in light and is now falling into darkness, the lines of his features and body slowly dissolving into a gloom. He cannot see the truth in the old adage that those who die live on through the ones they leave behind. He continues instead with thoughts of his father into the future, wondering how Salah’s heart rejoices at being back home and seeing Salah standing on the enclosed balcony of their home watching his son as he walks.

  Samir senses the subtle motions of death, the end of touch or sidelong glances, and this unmistakable movement towards indecision brought on by his father’s absence. There is nothing and no one, it suddenly comes to him, that really ties me to this place, so that instead of freedom, he is now overcome with despair.

  He sits on one of the stone benches that line the wide pavement and stares out at the sea. The Raouche Rock juts out of the water in a huge grey arch covered with green moss. It appears, at first, to be moving, the lines and planes of its surfaces stretching into the air and everywhere around it or dropping down in one swift descent into the water. He wishes he could stand at the top of the rock and gesture towards the horizon like an undisguised prophet and for one moment thinks he sees himself there, the belt of his raincoat undone so that the hem of the garment reaches well below his knees, a small figure, hatless, his hair dripping with rain and behind him hints of an absent sun.

  Part Six

  Aneesa is sitting in a pavement café on Hamra Street. The white vinyl tables and orange plastic chairs remind her of a once vibrant Beirut. This is where the country’s thinkers and artists used to meet, enjoying a freedom so real it went unnoticed until it was unceremoniously taken away during the war and now in its aftermath. Today there are a journalist or two here and a novelist she recognizes whose pipe and halo-like hair give him the appearance of an eccentric.