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It began as a soft hiss. Not the least bit threatening. I got up and looked through the window, unable to tell whether the rain had stopped. I fogged up the glass with my breath. I traced a circle with my finger and wiped away the inside of it so I could see. The sky was gray, practically white, and whatever was falling from it was invisible. The air was unusually warm. I stuck my hand out the window and waited for a while before feeling the raindrops, as if it were some sort of mysterious water flowing in me. I returned to the sofa and stretched out on it. I stuck my legs up and rested them on the wall, making myself comfortable. The rain didn’t stop falling for more than two hours. Constant. I didn’t stop thinking about the rain, or about the mosque and the crack that had appeared in the ceiling. About Father. About the minaret. About other things as well. I left the house through the window as I had done ever since Rihane showed up. The wind was blowing at full strength now, howling mournfully. All other sounds disappeared. No water seller’s voice. No traveling salesmen’s calls. No children’s shouting. The wind’s howling would die down for a moment only to pick up again with even more strength. Sometimes it sounded like a thunderclap that could be heard everywhere. Things around me fell over and broke, even inside the houses. All of a sudden, the sky began to empty itself of all the water it had in one burst.
On the second day, the room darkened. At least this change brushed aside the crushing routine of the rain that had been persistently falling since yesterday. The rain didn’t stop all night. Violent and angry. Sometimes it sounded like something creeping along the ground—a light swishing like pebbles falling on sand. Then its rhythm changed. It started to reverberate. The rain that had begun like a light tapping on my window, like a passing hiss, had now, at dawn, settled above our heads, as violent as could be. Now horses were charging down, their hooves thundering clamorously. Drums pounded relentlessly. I hurried to the window, waiting for it to let up a bit, or come down a bit harder. Had it become more severe this morning? The asphalt sparkled with the raindrops hitting it. Water gathered in holes in the streets to form little puddles or thin rivulets flowing along the ruts left by carts that had been coming and going for decades. A short while before, when I looked out into the central courtyard of the house, the prevailing mood was almost normal, except for Mother’s glasses and the gray hair that had invaded both sides of the part in her hair. Then, while I was heading back to the kitchen, something seemed to change. They went to huddle together in a corner of the courtyard and stared at the ceiling, focused on a specific spot. What were they looking at? My sister Khadija was shaking. Her eyes darted around. Her nerves wouldn’t bother her because Abdullah was busy outside the house. Father was in his wheelchair. It didn’t seem like he was aware of what was happening around him. Perhaps he didn’t even realize that his mouth was sagging a bit. The light fixture above shook, then a drop of water that had been circling it fell. With a ringing sound, the second drop fell into a copper bucket. All eyes followed them as they fell. There was bread, oil, and tea on the table. No one walked toward the tray or reached a hand toward a glass. We were all together in the foyer, so close we were practically stuck to one another, intently following the drops as they fell into the bucket. Taf . . . taf . . . taf. Mother, Habiba, and Khadija. I was standing farthest away, as if they had already moved beyond anticipating disaster, and were prepared for the inevitable. Abdullah was at the mosque with the neighbors, reciting the Latif prayer and composing a letter to the royal court. Habiba said, “Good God, disasters only strike at night.” It was only then that we realized it was night, not having noticed before because of the black clouds that had blocked the sky. We had moved into nighttime all at once. Mother looked gloomier because of her glasses. She had aged. The glasses and the black abaya weighed her down with additional years. The lamp flickered for what seemed like a long time, and then its light dimmed, fading and fading and fading until it almost went out, and then the flame rose up again bit by bit, like something that’s dying but, with a last gasp, returns to life. Everyone’s eyes sparkled. They shone with a little bit of joy, albeit fleeting, because it wasn’t long before the flash came back. The rhythm of the water quickened as it dropped into the bucket—taf . . . taf . . . taf—becoming violent. It seemed like the first hints of horror had settled into our eyes. We looked anxiously at one another. Suddenly, the light went out. Now the night was even darker. A strange silence prevailed, as if we had never seen night in our lives. As if we didn’t know what darkness was. We all remained where we were, silent, as if waiting for the spirit to return to a broken body. Stupefied, scared. Waiting for the light to come back on. Then the confusion began. Things and bodies crashed into one another. When I went back into the bedroom, the light there was out too. I didn’t need a light. The streetlight was enough for how little I was moving. The crashing out in the courtyard went on for a little while and then the house returned to silence. From underneath the door, a faint blinking light appeared. They must have found half of a forgotten candle. Then a frightening scream rose up in the house. Water had begun to flow in under the door, flooding the foyer and threatening to rush into every corner. There was a lot of commotion in the surrounding houses, the neighbors’ houses. When dawn was about to break, we couldn’t see it because it was a dawn we could only imagine on account of the black clouds completely obscuring any light there might have been. One edge of the night folded into another, leaving us floating in an endless darkness.
We went up to the roof when the first floor of the house flooded, as did the rest of the neighbors. It took a long time to move Father in his chair, which we had to do before we could move anything else. The neighbors were also moving up those who were sick and their precious items. I could see them looking like ghosts on the adjacent roofs under the lamplight, or like shadow puppets on a screen, yelling to one another as they moved the expensive furniture before it got ruined. We huddled under a cloth cover my sister Khadija and I had thrown over our heads to protect ourselves from the rain, which had intensified. Mother stretched out on a mattress, a complete wreck after the previous night’s sleeplessness. She wondered again about the fate of her daughter Khadija, who had been deteriorating rapidly until Abdullah had started to pull her into his room. We all knew what Abdullah was doing with her in his room. Even Habiba knew, but she didn’t say a thing. Large raindrops fell hard on the cloth. It didn’t seem like it was ever going to stop. I couldn’t hear what our neighbor was saying on the roof facing us, nor could I make out clearly what he was doing. Was he pointing to me with his cane? Was he saying no to his children who wanted to go down into the street to swim in the water that had started to flow like a river? Was he threatening them with his cane so they’d stay where they were? He was pointing to the wall of our house, which had started to crack. I walked to the edge of the roof. I followed the line his cane was tracing and saw the crack. I wondered, as he did, whether our house would hold up until tomorrow. Now every family was staring at their own crack. I pointed to the wall of his house, which had the same crack. Neither we nor our neighbors knew whether we would leave our houses, or how.
It seemed that the rain, which had been falling nonstop through the night, had taken its time to seep into all the crevices there, helping the other houses that hadn’t yet fallen to quickly crack. As I swallowed my tears, the alleys I walked through seemed unfamiliar, as if I were walking there for the first time. The vendors’ carts where card players had sought shelter from the rain were upside down now, their wheels spinning in the air. The card players were gone. Furniture was piled up in front of those house walls that remained standing. And floating in the puddles were the gold frames and certificates of those who had contributed to the mosque. Children and cats were on top of mounds of garbage searching for loot that the mud had buried, or were sinking in it up to their necks. The awful smells wafting around them didn’t seem to shake their morale at all.
I didn’t hear it until the procession appeared from behind a hill of
garbage. To God we belong, and to Him we shall return. They were carrying three boards draped with green coverings, with Abdullah in front, even though he wasn’t contributing a dead child today. The three biers didn’t affect me as I walked behind them. Their small size didn’t affect me at all. It was as if they were going to the neighborhood oven with trays of bread dough on their heads. The sound of the voice didn’t affect me the way it had before, either, so full of sadness and pain when I first heard it in the middle of the night. It didn’t have same mournful tune or sad melody. The anger it held was overwhelming. A pitch-black voice, savage, a black that tore at the soul. In perfect harmony with the anger I was feeling. To God we belong, and to Him we shall return. A voice that left no room for light, for any rays of hope. A pure anger. Black clouds gathered behind them as if the door of return were being closed in the faces of the three small corpses, preventing them from returning to life if ever that possibility existed.
The procession came to a stop outside the walls on the narrow stone path. The National Department of Electricity employee was the one who stopped the procession right in front of the empty mosque, using improvised gestures to prevent the funeral procession from moving forward. He was stuffed into a green rubber outfit, wearing knee-high boots of the same green. Over the outfit he had on a dripping yellow raincoat. He was coming back from fishing. The National Department of Electricity employee was carrying his long pole and basket, which smelled strongly of the rotten sardines he used as bait. The procession paused for a moment before coming to a complete stop. Torrents of rain poured down all at once, as if it had been waiting for us to be standing out there in the open. A narrow stone path ran between the water and the mill. Neither standing completely still nor walking, we held onto one another so as not to fall into the water with what we were carrying. Large waves crashed down on the rocks, sending spray above our heads, and the wind was so strong it would have prevented the funeral procession from advancing even if it had wanted to; like the whistle of a runaway train that isn’t going anywhere. The mourners raised the funerary biers up high, as if they had found the appropriate talisman with which to face the employee and his threats. Then everyone recited the Fatiha out loud in order to strengthen their resolve. Glory be to thy Lord, the Lord of Glory. This was followed by spontaneous entreaties in one pure voice. “May God aid us in our lives. May God vanquish those who rule over us and punish traitors and thieves who steal our money. May God unify our word. Amen. And guide us and accept our prayers. Amen. And forgive us our sins. And destroy the houses of those who do not want the best for us, and who kill our children, and deny us respectable dwellings. And who watch our houses as they fall on top of our heads. Amen. May God disperse them.” Their enthusiasm was infectious, and I too began to yell all sorts of insults at the employee, insults that were swallowed up by the collective din before they could reach his ears. What would the National Department of Electricity employee say now? Would he get up on the low wall to tell them about the new homes the state was going to give them once they finished building the mosque, and explain to them the advantages of affordable housing? There was no low wall near him. Then we saw him remove a large, wet piece of paper from the pocket of his yellow raincoat and affix it to the wall of the mill in front of the mourners, in the rain, then wipe his face while looking at the faces around him. It was the plans for the new houses that the state was going to grant us. “Here they are, three hundred new apartments. Each apartment has three rooms, a kitchen, and a bathroom with a bathtub. The houses have been built for a while now and we’re just waiting for the work to be done on the mosque so their doors can be opened up to everyone. This is the park that’s located in the middle of all the houses. This is the school, and this green here, that’s the hospital.” They put the coffins down under the mill’s roof and gathered around the National Department of Electricity employee. “And this red part, what’s that?” “That’s the kindergarten where your children will play around while you’re rolling around in bed with your wives. But, because of the flooding . . .” He put the basket down on the ground, revealing the fish he had caught, and took out a bunch of keys. We all lost our bearings because of the jangling keys. The three small coffins disappeared among the crowd of mourners, who were no longer acting like mourners. They were on the verge of becoming new property owners. True owners. Three rooms, a kitchen, and a bathroom. Out of an excess of enthusiasm, some of us yelled, “Long live the king!” We walked over to the mill wall so we could see and confirm that it was true. The employee went back in front of the large piece of paper, asking us not to ruin it. He stood in front of the plans he had calmly affixed to the wall, pleased with himself, showing us his goodwill, generously looking out over our faces as if he were distributing his own properties to us. Not angry, because work on the mosque was stalled due to the floods. Not angry at all. He turned toward us like someone addressing his dear children. “Life will change once you take up residence in your new homes. Freestanding, and with everything you need—water, electricity, a bathroom, a salon for receiving guests. And television, especially for the children who love to watch cartoons. Family movies about mountains, the history of the Arabian Peninsula, sailboat building, agriculture, and animal husbandry. You’ll learn a great many things. Without electricity, your eyes will remain covered over and you won’t be able to see all these beautiful things I’m talking about. With electricity will come supermarkets like the ones in the fancy neighborhoods. There, you’ll be able to pick out what you want without ever seeing the shop’s owner. You’ll push a wheeled cart around the store, filling it to the brim without anyone watching over you, because everything is done with labels. In fact, I’m warning you, thieves. Don’t steal. There are security cameras there. And doors that open and close on their own. And do you think they use pens in these types of stores? Never. You pass your groceries in front of a screen that takes care of adding up the total. Tak tak tak. All by itself, without anyone else getting involved, because every label has the product’s name on it. Pass your label over the screen and it takes care of the rest, without any fuss at all. And all of this at low prices. No one will be overcome with anger anymore. Now the spirit of happy hunters that was rooted in your fathers will inhabit you too.” They started to joke around with the employee, asking him what kind of fish he had caught that morning. They looked into his basket. “Is it a cherghou bream or a sea bass?” They lifted the fish up high, pressing its skin to check its freshness and saying, “Tbarek Allah, blessed be God. How wonderful!” The National Department of Electricity employee, who in that moment had become their friend, as if he had just regained consciousness, with cool composure and eloquence that had betrayed him moments before, said, “Here, you see, you sons of devils? Here are the houses, new and waiting for you. And the mosque? Where is that?” He began to punch the wall. “Doesn’t the effort we’re putting in for you deserve some sacrifice in return? What are your useless mortal bodies worth?” But they weren’t listening to the employee. They were choosing the apartment that got the best light. They were listening to the strange, jangling sound—the jangling of new keys. Their hands were busy trying to find the right keys, before the apartments ran out. Three hundred apartments. The employee yelled shrilly, “You’ll see when all this hard work is done, when construction is complete and the mosque rises high and loftily into the clouds. You’ll stand in front of it, you and your children and your children’s children, so proud that you’ll all shout out, ‘There it is, our mark that will do us proud in lands far and wide until the Day of the Resurrection. So, blessed be God, Maker of all things. All countries will have risen up to share in the glory that awaits us, more or less. Except for you, you children of Iblis . . .” And all of us said, “Amen.”
33
On the third day, the water, black from the overflowing sewers, still flooded the alleys and submerged the doors and windows. A deadly river was flowing. Surging forward. Its current carrying vegetables, tables, armoires, and mice, as
well as cats that didn’t have the time to eat them. The flow swept them up so suddenly they didn’t have a chance to pounce. Now it seemed that they were moving alongside them. Sharing the same obscure fate. All of them moving toward the ocean along with some upside-down vendors’ carts. Three or four streets down there was a woman crying. Kika moved this way and that in order to gather up her belongings so that nothing would be left behind while she sat in front of the door crying. I asked Kika what she had lost that made her cry so hard. “She didn’t lose anything.” The woman said that it was an unexpectedly good thing that the rain had come when it did so as to hasten her move. If not for the rain, it would have been difficult for her to leave the neighborhood and part with these walls that had witnessed her birth and watched her neighbors grow up. There were no neighbors now. They’d all left. She cried even harder.
The neighbors were now living in new apartments by the edge of the forest. Lucky them. Only yesterday, they had been crammed into falling-down wrecks of houses, and today here they were, happily ensconced in three-room apartments with kitchens and bathrooms. Kika had his pants rolled up. His trousers and shirt were wet and muddy. Those who hadn’t yet left were now peering down from the rooftops. Their grim faces looked relieved. They were cracking jokes now and providing commentary on the baffling spectacle unfolding before their eyes—a large cage being dragged by the current with a rooster, rabbits, and a peacock riding on top of it. The peacock didn’t seem to realize what was going on as it spread its alluring, colorful feathers, turning around and haughtily searching for new admirers amid the tumult. Then came a man sitting on top of an armoire, rocking from side to side as if on a boat. The man was holding a large sign that had “Contribute to the mosque’s construction” written on it. As evening approached (an evening recognizable only by the changing colors), there was a crack of thunder nearby. Purple and red streaks poked through gaps in the black clouds that had been opened up by the continuous thunder, as if the world were preparing for the Day of the Resurrection. A human voice drew closer. This time the current had uprooted an enormous tree; some of its branches were being consumed by flames, while at the very top, a man sitting cross-legged, completely covered in black, was yelling, “Say, ‘He is God, the One and Only; God, the Eternal, Absolute,’” and raising his hands to the sky. “This is a glorious day; this is the Day of the Resurrection. A day on which neither wealth nor children will benefit.” The voice became stronger and more confident now that the hour had come. “Allahu akbar! God is great! There is no god but God!” A thick black beard covered his face. The night, which wasn’t really night at all, echoed his voice, which was transformed into a hoarse scream as he moved away. Then, after the painful silence that followed the man on the tree, a small child started screaming when the house in front of ours collapsed. I turned toward Kika and he looked at me, terrified. I think the same thought had occurred to him as well, that the child’s family might have forgotten him in the chaos of getting hold of the keys. We left the crying woman’s doorstep, him in front with me right behind him.
A Shimmering Red Fish Page 25