Naphtalene

by Alia Mamdouh

  Abu Adil leaned his chair against the wall, spread his legs, drank and drank, nibbled one end of a cucumber. He drooped sleeping on Adil’s plump legs.

  “God bless you, Adouli, rub my head. My head always aches when I come here and when I go to Karbala. I feel as if there is a voice calling me. Every day I hear the voice, and every day the voice changes. It sounds like a voice I’ve heard before. I know it from afar and it frightens me. Adouli, everything tires me out—even sleeping makes me tired. Ah, that’s where it aches, there, behind my ear. Dear God, you know when I hit your sister, I cry later in the train. In prison I remember your tears and her tears when I hear the prisoners screaming and crying. You know, Adouli, sometimes I think you should come to see me, there, in the prison, so you can see how I live. Dirt and black death, flies and lice. Locusts and rats are my only friends there.

  “Ah. Every time I want to drink until I’m drunk, but every time I wake up more sober than before. Your grandmother says arak is a sin. Yes, there’s a lot of sin in this world, but if she tasted arak just once she’d get used to it like me. Don’t be afraid of me, Adouli. I don’t frighten anyone. I’m always afraid, but I don’t want you to be afraid of anyone. Even God Almighty himself doesn’t want just our fear. Adouli? Is it true, that I’m not frightening? Tell the truth. Don’t be afraid.”

  He got up and leaned against the wall. Adil was silent, rubbing his fingers together and then raising them to his mouth. He chewed his nails and swallowed them. “Have you had supper?” He nodded yes.

  “Go finish your homework. Come here and let me kiss you.”

  The call to evening prayer dispersed the voices, and you were consumed by weeping. You cried alone, and your tears made you laugh. The stars were unruly, and this whole horizon was a lie.

  The floor was stained, warped, and uneven. When it rained, the rainwater seeped into the cracks, holes, and hollows in the roof of your room. You put out the buckets and heard the water plopping down.

  This frayed laundry rope, that scattered and chaotic room, dusty and deserted, the door scorched, and everything in it old: pillows, blankets, broken chairs, boxes broken apart, copper and silver utensils, spoons, and dishes. This was your grandmother’s first dowry. She was in love with anything old; every year she came up here, spread out the contents, and began to clean, rub, and polish them. My mother was with her. We all came up here to see our grandmother’s secrets; everyone in the family had a share of this heritage.

  Open the boxes and look. Objects that have never been insulted, never been whipped with a lash. They are united in their dust, sleeping where they lie. They are rusty and faded, yet they cling to their silence and passion. They began to address me, to talk to me, and I asked them to confess. They are more beautiful than the others: my father, his sister, Rasmiya’s husband, and Uncle Munir.

  Things had this tremendous quality, of becoming pleasure; sleeping between the palms of my hands. My grandmother’s silver spoon, the one she ate from on the day of her first wedding.

  Your father would impose his tyranny on you if he knew you were up here. Your aunt, his sister, would hit you, your grandmother would be silent; your mother would not come.

  Search and search well, and restore safety to all these things. Organize the converging paths and clear the way for seeking the pardon of all that remains before you.

  You were here, and the only window, with its dusty glass, was before you. The neighbors’ clothes were strung along the clotheslines on their roof, cheap and dragged down by their wetness, touching the ground. The clothes were like people being hanged, and I was waiting for my father to guillotine me.

  My father and I had the same constitution. Our fear of one another had no mask. He could not bear the loss of me, and it was the same with me. We attacked each other’s walls, and did not confuse anything that passed between us. We plotted together, and publicly: the arena, that place of rancor and celebration, all this sameness. We spread out there and waited for one another.

  They said, “Huda was suckled by Satan.”

  My mother had nursed me only a few days. I drained her milk and drank only khishkhash. As a result she began to beat me longer and harder. They agreed that one of them should take me over to my father, but I stood my ground like a highwayman, and succeeded in thwarting them.

  Night raised up its new inflection. This roof trained me to count the moths that entered my dreams. They entered the bodies and ate away at everything, as I removed one after the other: first of all my father.

  The pistol threatened everyone. He carried it and went up behind me. When his fear exploded, we went limp with fear.

  He did not pull the trigger. We encircled his footprint and went up to his waist. He was not heavy but he was tall; his shoulders waited for me and his face changed, he changed, smoothing all the paths for me so I might move toward him. Perspiration gathered between his fine, delicate nose and his pendent lips behind which his saliva was gathering. He sprayed it in my face and spat it out in the air between us, as Umm Suturi did in the baths. Then we touched, and at that moment hugged each other, and I pressed my face against his stomach. I clung to him with both arms, though I could not reach all the way around him. This time he was the one who kicked.

  I tried to make him stay put. I held him and pulled him to me. I turned my head up to him, overcoming his first attempts to pull free. But he ended up by being drawn toward me.

  He knew my braids perfectly. My hair ribbons did not defend me. The neighbors came up to the roof, growling. Mahmoud was silently weeping; Adil saw my grandmother not uttering a word, approaching, not resisting, but ready. If he overstepped, she would unleash her voice and her hand. The pistol was in his hand, and he was tapping it on your head. You did not cry. Your eyelids shone, your eyes were clear, and your eyelashes were dry. Curses were aimed at your back, and your head was lifted to the sky—the Baghdad sky seemed to belong to a bygone age. The world was like a round table on which your body was sprawled. Father started with the shoulders and descended to the restive arms, to the belly and buttocks. He brandished his pistol: “I swear to God, if you come here again, I’ll kill you!”

  At ten you confronted the first policeman in your life, your father. You summoned up all the sins of ten, the rashness and recklessness, the lies and tempting dreams, the yearning to get sunburned in order to shine more: get all this out of your rib cage and celebrate like the feast of Muharram. There I celebrated with the police and summoned to me the insects, black and red ants, and unknown things. The cavities of the locked boxes, I cut the strings of every fact in two, to see, and see, and see. There I opened up to him a fountain of the spirit and did not consent to kill him. If I killed him, who would straighten out my skull? If he died, who would I fight? If he went mad, who would quarrel with me?

  Alone, he followed me to learn that I had surpassed him.

  My father.

  I turned and turned, and six legs stood observing me, eyes bulging out of their sockets without meaning, without hope, without grace, neither mourning nor laughing, nor shouting.

  Under that sky my father took me to the gate of hell; the future was a flaming ball exhaling hostility, its pores covered with blood, dirt, and fear. His voice soared, frightening enough to remove the hair dye from the neighbors’ heads.

  “You whore! What are you doing on the roof at night? Making dates with the neighborhood boys? Shitty Mahmoud? Suturi the pigeon boy? Cross-eyed Hashim? Speak!”

  Speak, Huda, don’t delay. Defile him, hunt him with your wickedness—you have no prey bigger than he.

  Between the stairs you used to threaten him. None of them knew him as you did. He was the first inspiration in your life. Open your eyes and look at him well. Hold his breath, and share with him nothing but plans for murder.

  For what was the celebration of the scuffle except to make your claws scratch more, your teeth bite more, your muscles attack more?

  Steal the food that was hidden for him, sweets and fruit. Damage hi
s books and magazines, read them and scatter their thoughts on him first. Pour out on him this glory from your strong little heart. Go to your mother on your bended knee, open the gates for her and seat her as the queen of death and life; weep for her, for she is dying.

  I dried my face, fixed my hair with my hands and pulled it back, looked at my appearance, and watched Mahmoud at the opening of the street. You were in the street again, and the children brought me back into their authority.

  “Listen, I’m a boy as well. No, I’m not a boy, but I can be like a boy.”

  “But I want you to keep on being a girl,” replied Mahmoud.

  You hated this admission of his, but loved it too. It was clear from the beginning—you were always this way. But I loved rebellion and the friendship of boys.

  I knew that if Mahmoud and I pooled our strength we could utterly convulse this neighborhood of ours.

  “My mother says you’re like the devil.”

  “Listen, you give me a headache with everything your mother says.”

  I laughed, and he looked directly at me: “You’re prettier when you laugh.”

  I look at him, still laughing: “I don’t know anything about the devil, but listen. You’re with me, so that means you’re with the devil. Agreed?”

  7

  “In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful, open the way.”

  “Dear Abu Hashim, put the bag down there in the courtyard. God give you rest. Yes, here.”

  He raised his head a little but did not look around. He swung the large bag down from his back. My aunt stood at the window of our room. Adil and I were in the middle of the courtyard.

  “Now smoke a good cigarette. This is first-rate Abu Nuri tobacco.”

  “Listen, as soon as I finish rolling them, I’ll send you a dozen that will do you all summer. You deserve it, Abu Hashim.”

  “God bless you in this life and in the hereafter. All the shopowners say that Umm Jamil is a fine woman, a religious woman without fanaticism. If she prays over a wound, it heals. May God make more like you, Umm Jamil.”

  He said that and walked by the door to the courtyard. Uncle Munir stood behind the threshold.

  “Welcome, Uncle Munir.”

  He did not look or respond. He entered. Adil disappeared from his path for a few moments, my grandmother turned her back to him, and I stared at him. He knew his way. He went into my aunt’s room and stood in the middle of it: “Always at the window—don’t you get bored? Every day the same lampposts and the same view. I’m here in front of you now, and you’re waiting for me. Everything will be fine.”

  She did not turn or respond. She moved from in front of him, and before she passed him he pulled her to him: “Where are you going? Are you upset with me or just being spoiled?”

  “Huda, my girl, bring me the chair and a tray, and you and Adouli come and help me a little.”

  She pushed him away and stood between us.

  This was the tobacco season. The pure tobacco was the color of the smoked sun, sifted and milled. Each season my grandmother prepared her cigarette-making tools. We brought her the low chair and the round copper tray, and made her a place to sit, with cushions behind her back and a blanket over her lap that reached to cover her feet. She had bags of paper to her left and a sack of tobacco to her right. When she scooped the tobacco, the thin, fresh white paper was ready, cut into shape to roll into cigarettes. The fragrance filled the house, and the tobacco dust filled our throats. She had a fit of coughing, but her fingers worked, folding, rolling, and twisting each cigarette, then she licked them sealed and counted. Every so often she removed her spectacles, polished them with the hem of her nightgown, then replaced them on her nose.

  “If God would only have mercy on me and let me stop smoking. My chest is swollen and my breath is short, but I love cigarettes, God curse them and the day I first tried one!”

  “What do they taste like, Grandma?” I asked.

  Uncle Munir let out a bark and said, “What is it with these homemade cigarettes? I tell Umm Jamil, why don’t you try Craven A?”

  He removed his shoes and turned to us; he was sitting beside our aunt on the carpet.

  “I don’t like the English or their cigarettes. God damn them in this life and the hereafter,” she said.

  He let out a loud laugh and began to ruffle Adil’s hair. Abruptly Adil ran away from him. “Nowadays the English are dominant. You’ve started to talk about politics—aren’t you afraid? That isn’t your way.” She coughed and tapped on the tray in her hands to gather the tobacco together and measure it. She looked up at Adil, pulled him close to her, and said: “Good. Five hundred cigarettes. Every time my dears come, they help me. Today they left me alone.” Munir lit a cigarette and blew the smoke out on Adil’s back.

  “Why don’t you answer, Umm Jamil?”

  Our aunt was silent. Adil walked past grandmother, measured with her, and threw the thick strings tight over every bunch. I sat in front of them all and watched my uncle. Today he was wearing a dark blue suit and a tie as yellow as ground cumin. His shirt was clean and his socks were black. He had a mysterious smell, and his laughter was thick. It was afternoon. The sun shone behind the glass panes like a ghost.

  Our aunt used her anger to have the upper hand. He was slow in proposing marriage to her, and held off, and maneuvered, and advanced, and she, sitting or standing, sleeping or awake, was waiting for a gesture of his hand or movement of his tongue: “I say, Umm Jamil, when will my cousin come?”

  Grandmother did not look at him. She was that way; she knew from the vibrations, from the skeleton of each person who came in or went out, who was in front of her, whether he raised his voice or lowered it. She besieged him with her silence and indifference, and he stumbled as she had planned he would.

  She knew this Munir well, when he mocked or stalled, for all questions and answers were clear: “Do you have anything new to say? Say it.”

  Adil stumbled after counting one hundred cigarettes, and his voice sounded high. He sneezed, blowing snot. “Grandma, haven’t we done enough? I’m going to choke from the tobacco smell.”

  Grandmother smiled and raised her head to look at him. After your father, this was her king: young, cute, sneezing from the tobacco, sleeping when he was ill, falling silent when strangers arrived—he did not like this Munir following him up to the roof or in the street. When he slept, and when he awoke.

  “Isn’t there any tea? God, give her peace and bring her back safely, Umm Adouli. As soon as I’d come in she’d set the tea tray in front of me. I say—what is her news now?” Adil and I are hurt. For a long time we have not dared ask about her. What was whispered was still whispered, and what was humiliating was still sealed in the rooms and our mouths. The day our mother’s sister Widad came, they made us go outdoors. She kissed us and gave us each a squeeze, muffled her sobs in our presence, and looked long into our eyes without crying or speaking. She did not talk, nor did we ask questions. Everything pulled itself away from us, the absent woman, and traveling woman, the ailing woman, and the birth of our new brother, whose father named him Saad: happiness.

  He came one day and felt assured that when the people saw him they would know that he had sired another son. He walked into the house and knew that everyone would maintain silence, our silence in the face of the newborn baby, and the long absence of Iqbal. Given all this, there was no one to mediate between grandmother and Mr. Jamil. Until the decision by the prison warden to promote him, saying: “This new star on your shoulder is a gift for Saad.”

  That sparkling yellow star brought us from threat to fulfillment.

  Grandmother did not take a step toward him, and he did not move away from her. She did not deny his marriage and she did not give it her blessing. She did not reject his new fatherhood or oppose it. Now he took long absences from Baghdad and from our house in al-A‘dhamiyya. He sent his monthly salary by courier. His wife sent sacks of luscious Karbala dates in summer and baskets of oranges in wint
er, chickens and cheese, loaves of bread fresh from the oven, and we all ate it—except grandmother.

  Our aunt arose lazily and went into the kitchen. We heard the sound of water, the glasses, the low murmuring as Uncle Munir got up behind her: “Munir, wait a little, Farida’s coming back. So what have you decided?” He sat and grumbled, bumping into the tray and knocking down the bundles of cigarettes. Looking him right in the eye, I heard my voice say, “Be careful! Your eyes are open but you can’t see. Good God!” He laughed and restrained himself. “Today I’ll let that pass, but I’ll cut out that nasty tongue of yours, not now—when I come to live here.”

  “You know, Uncle Munir, when you get cross you make me laugh. I swear.”

  Adil and I laughed.

  “Grandma, why does Uncle Munir want to come and live with us?”

  “We’ll see when he comes and lives with us. My father never agreed to any stranger living with us.”

  “My dears, your uncle is not a stranger.”

  “Living with us”—these are new words that even grandmother was using.

  “Listen, Umm Jamil, I’m going to build a new room on the roof, and renovate both rooms, and paint them. Next week the workers will come. The first Thursday of the month we’ll have the wedding. I’m tired of being lonely and alone. My house will be too big for us. I’ll live with you. I can keep an eye on the children if Abu Adouli is away. I’ll live on the prayers you say for us all. Is this a bad idea or a good one? If you have different ideas, tell me.” For the first time she lifted her head and looked at him. His face displayed every contradiction. This was Munir; he took my grandmother by the hand and led her up to the high roof. She stood there, her head tilted up to the sky, shy and radiant, as beautiful as a fairy. Her dream was before her and relief was drawing near; her joy, though, was postponed for one month.