Occasionally, he would take his highlanders off, for laughs, and wave them at us in class, using them to point to a Lambda on the whiteboard or a Mole on the chalkboard at the other end. Then he would drop them to the floor and flick them the right side up using his toe. It became something of a ritual.
‘If he keeps this up, I’m going to have to ship him back to England,’ said Ms Iman.
‘Really?’ asked my mother.
‘He’s managed to convince the biology teacher that it is her duty to cover that chapter on evolution, even though it wasn’t included in the official curriculum.’
‘He seems like an alright pastor to me,’ said my father, putting his hands together.
‘He’s not a pastor,’ said Ms Iman. ‘He’s a teacher.’
*
The biology teacher, Ms Mayssa, was a woman on a mission. Like Sabah, and my great-grandmother Fadia, she had been married a number of times. The first two died of a stroke and a sniper’s bullet, respectively. The last one was mayor of Jib Janine, a town in the south with a population of nine thousand. He resigned and left the town in the safe hands of the other eight thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine inhabitants, to live with her in Beirut. When they separated, he went back to Jib Janine and no one heard from him again. The Don called her ‘the Black Widow’.
‘So you’re saying we’re all monkeys,’ said Basil, before giving me a wink.
Basil and I would sit next to one another in Ms Mayssa’s class because she was the only teacher, apart from Mr Aston, who did not mind our side talks.
‘No, that’s not what I said,’ she replied.
‘We share a common ancestor with monkeys,’ said Estelle, in an attempt to clarify.
‘So you’re saying my grandfather’s a monkey,’ said Basil, giving me another wink.
‘In a sense, yes,’ said Ms Mayssa, tucking her hair behind her ear. She was older than Ms Iman, but shorter and whiter, with freckles.
‘Cut it out, Wednesday,’ I whispered. Estelle and I had taken to calling him after that particular day of the week because we all agreed that it always came out of nowhere, like ‘August rain’.
‘Your grandfather may be a monkey, Ms Mayssa, but mine isn’t,’ said a Mohammad, in the corner.
‘You misunderstand,’ she said.
‘If anyone’s grandfather is a monkey, Mohammad, it’s yours,’ said Basil, turning around to face him.
Mohammad imitated the cry of a sheep. The conversation then went in the direction of grandparents as farm animals, featuring an amalgam of animal sounds. When the class was quiet, you could hear the hum of the overhead fan. It was synonymous with exams because that was the only time when the class was quiet. Ms Mayssa leaned against the wall, by the whiteboard. She never used the chalkboard at the other end of the class. The walls were not really walls, they were Gipson boards. We would knock on them and hear someone from the adjacent class knock back, occasionally forming a ballad across the wall.
‘Maybe this was a mistake,’ she said aloud, ‘I did not think this through.’
‘That poor mayor of Jib Janine,’ said Estelle, looking from Basil to me.
‘What?’
‘Can you imagine being on the receiving end of that line?’
‘What’s on that floppy disk, Ms Mayssa?’ asked Nadine, who looked twice her age.
I expected Basil to make a joke about Mohammad’s floppy disk, but he didn’t. He sat still and narrowed his eyes.
‘Pictures of monkeys,’ said Ms Mayssa, ‘and humans.’
‘Dear God,’ I said. But in my mind I said Jesus- Mohammad-Christ.
Then Ms Mayssa displayed the slides of monkeys, apes, humans and everything in between on the whiteboard. For the majority of the slides, I could hear the hum of the overhead fan. The last slide was a picture of the Earth from the moon and imprinted upon it were the words of Neil Armstrong: ‘I put my thumb up and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet earth. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.’
When the slides were over, Ms Mayssa looked at me. I smiled, meekly.
‘Yu-ri Ga-ga-rin,’ chanted Basil, clapping his hands at every syllable. He was joined by Mohammad, who had tired of making animal noises, and Estelle, who raised her eyebrows as she did so. Soon the entire class was singing Yuri Gagarin’s name. Basil gave me wink.
My father sat on the comfortable couch in the living room watching La Yumal, another comedy sketch show, which translates to ‘Never a Boring Moment’. In the corner of the living room, the paint on the ceiling had begun to peel off again. Every other summer we would repaint it and it would peel off by winter. My father gave up on the whole matter and resigned himself to the fact that this corner of the ceiling will never fully be painted. In the eighties, an RPG rocket had landed in that corner of the living room, tearing through the ceiling as it did so. My father hired a local carpenter, Mehdi, to patch up the ceiling because he was the only man available and willing at the time. To the man’s credit, he admitted that he was not a professional and that this would have to be a temporary solution. Mehdi said that he would come back with his cousin to fix the ceiling for good. Mehdi disappeared during the war. He was kidnapped, or killed, or immigrated to Montreal with his wife and son. My father would say that he spent half his life waiting for my mother, and the other half waiting for Mehdi.
‘God damn you, Mehdi, wherever you are, and your cousin,’ said my father, wiping the plaster off his shoulders, ‘and your mother, and your father, and your grandfather and your grandmother and your wife, Ward, and her lover, Majid, and that godawful son of yours, Karim. I hope, to God, he is Majid’s.’
My father believed in God most, not when he was in trouble, but when he wanted trouble inflicted upon others.
‘Leave the boy out of it,’ said my mother. ‘It’s your own fault for not hiring a professional to begin with.’
It was a game my parents were fond of playing. They pretended that he was lazy and she irritated when it came to matters of home improvement. This was the greatest trick that my parents ever pulled on us. Most of the time, we did not even know that there was no money to mend the ceiling or buy a new car or fix the leaking fridge.
‘I’m bored,’ said my sister.
Basmet ElWatan was not on that night.
‘The class chanted my name today,’ I told my mother, spotting an opening.
‘Why would they do that?’ asked my father, still watching La Yumal.
I filled my father in on the details of Ms Mayssa’s class on evolution and her slides of monkeys. Then I told them about the final slide and Ms Mayssa’s Armstrong quote. A war of ants erupted on the TV screen and the noise filled the room. My father got up to adjust the antenna. My sister stood on the dining room chair and held one antenna in different directions while my father fiddled with the other one.
‘The American astronaut?’ asked my mother.
‘Not this again,’ said my father, grabbing the other antenna from my sister’s hand and pushing it backward. ‘What’s he doing in a class on evolution, anyway?’
‘A testament to how far we’ve come since our tree climbing days,’ I said.
I had prepared the answer ahead of time.
‘Some people say it didn’t actually happen,’ said my father.
‘Who?’ asked my sister, now balancing her right arm up on her left one.
‘Some people.’
‘Why would they say that?’
‘Because they believe it, why else?’ said my father. He banged the palm of his hand against the TV set.
‘It doesn’t make sense.’
‘Something to do with the American flag blowing in the wind.’
‘What’s wrong with that?’ I asked.
‘There’s no wind on the moon.’
‘Who said?’
‘Jesus-Mohammad-Christ said, that’s who.’
‘That’s not true,’ said Basil, the next day as he, Estelle and I sat outside class during break.
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The portrait of the president hung above us. The glass casing had gone missing. There was a rumour going around that someone had drawn a penis on it. Whoever it was had chosen not to draw a penis on the actual portrait and instead settled for adding the letter ‘F’ before the signature at the bottom which read ‘Art of Metis and Sons’.
‘Of course it isn’t. The moon landing happened,’ said Estelle, holding The Prince of Tides to her chest.
‘Where else do you think America gets its oil?’ asked Basil.
‘Iraq?’ said Estelle.
Estelle’s thumb and index finger twitched as if she were pinching the air.
‘Nonsense.’
‘Why else would they bomb Iraq?’
‘To rid the world of an evil dictator.’
‘Whom they installed in the first place,’ said Estelle, placing her index finger on the dimple in her chin. ‘You’re an idiot.’
‘They made a mistake. And they admitted it, alright. It takes courage to do that.’
‘He even speaks like an American,’ I said.
The sun was out and I could see the sweat under Basil’s armpits. Estelle wiped her chest.
‘Besides, there were never dinosaurs on the moon to decompose. Where would the oil come from?’
‘Aliens,’ said Basil.
SHAWKI AND ESTELLE
The Arabic teacher whose classes were always the last of the day often complained that we lacked focus, determination and motivation, holding up two chubby fingers and a thumb. Everything about Mr Malik was round. His fingers were round, his glasses were round, his face was round, his mouth was round and when he puffed out smoke from his lit cigarette, it too was round. He had fought during the war for the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, a secular party, with a shady past, that ran their own militia. Imprinted on his face was a permanent scowl and his left eye always narrowed more than his right when he was looking at you. We suspected that he was a sniper at one point. Mr Malik had us memorise entire poems and recite them in class. It was a different poet every week. He would give us the name of the poet and we would go off in search of stanza or two to satisfy him. It was mostly the boys who recited the poems while the girls looked on.
‘O moon of the darkened bedroom
I kissed him once, just once
as he slept, half hoping half fearing he might wake up O silksoft moon
his pyjamas held such softness
Ah how I’d like a real live kiss
how I’d like to be offered
what’s under the covers’
Basil stood in front of the class and recited Abu Nawas’ ‘Ode to the moon’. As he did so, his right eye twitched. I believe he was restraining himself from winking. Mr Malik had explained that Abu Nawas was an eighth-century Arab poet with a knack for the controversial. That was only partially true as Basil pointed out to me on the day.
‘He’s part Persian. His mother sold him to an Arab. Can you imagine being sold by your own mother to an Arab?’ asked Basil.
‘No wonder he’s a paedophile,’ said the white, freckled Mohammad.
‘And a drunkard,’ added Basil.
‘Maybe he was reaching back to his lost childhood,’ said Estelle. ‘Trying to find something in those boys that he hadn’t found in himself as a child.’
‘Or he just likes little boys,’ said Basil. ‘Look at Round Malik over there, his mother never sold him to an Arab and he can’t keep his eyes off me.’
‘Nothing wrong with looking,’ I said, coughing.
‘Besides, you’re hardly a child,’ said Estelle.
‘Good,’ said Mr Malik, when Basil had finished reciting the poem. Normally, he would ask us to explain the stanza, or ‘put it into context’, before we returned to our seats. He didn’t this time. And Basil stood in his place, unsure of whether to make his way to his desk.
‘I’d like to put the poem into context,’ said Basil.
‘No need,’ said Mr Malik.
‘I think it’s important.’
I raised my hand.
‘What do you want, Najjar?’
‘I think it’s important too, sir.’
‘Make it brief,’ said Mr Malik, staring at Basil.
‘Abu Nawas was sold into slavery by his mother. He liked to touch little boys in their private places.’
Basil and I sat in the black leather chairs of Ms Iman’s office. She hadn’t arrived yet. We had been ushered in by Mr Malik. I pointed out the Persian carpets.
‘Abu Nawas would have liked these,’ said Basil, nodding his head.
Ms Iman walked in with her glasses in her hands. Her eyes flickered back and forth before settling on me.
‘I think we can resolve this without my parents,’ I said, joining my hands together and placing them on my stomach.
She leaned against her desk in front of us. As we gave Ms Iman our version of events in Mr Malik’s class, she leaned more heavily on the desk. Her skirt rose above her knees, exposing her thighs.
‘Is that all?’ she asked when we were done.
‘And we all know, Mr Malik is a paedophile himself,’ said Basil, shrugging.
‘I will not allow you to speak of another teacher like that in my office,’ said Ms Iman, now standing straight.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it,’ said Basil. ‘He just is, that’s all.’
‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’
On the off chance that Basil said he wanted to be a lawyer, I could not see Ms Iman explaining to him that his accusation was slanderous and that he would require more proof to make it with certainty.
‘A good man,’ said Basil, because it didn’t really matter what he said. That was the answer she always heard.
‘And do you think good men go around spreading nasty and harmful rumours about one another?’
‘They’re not rumours if they’re true,’ said Basil.
Ms Iman told us that we would have to apologise to Mr Malik for calling him a paedophile, which we had not done to his face up to that point. She called Mr Malik in and ordered us to stand outside the office while she spoke to him inside. The slamming of lockers and the sound of hundreds of students walking through the hall, prevented us from hearing the conversation inside Ms Iman’s office.
‘Why did you insist he was a paedophile? She was going to let us off with a warning,’ I said, smacking Basil on the back of the head.
‘Because he is.’
‘You don’t know that for sure.’
‘I do.’
Then we heard Mr Malik from inside Ms Iman’s office. The whole school heard him.
‘You would rather believe those two dipshits outside over the word of one of your instructors?’ shouted Mr Malik. ‘I never thought you were good enough to be principal. This entire pimp’s school will be remembered as a footnote at the bottom of one of my books.’
‘I didn’t say that you are a paedophile, Mr Malik, please compose yourself. I only want you to be aware of the rumours.’
‘I am. Is that all?’
‘The boys are waiting outside for you. They want to apologise.’
Basil and I shared a quick, worried glance.
‘They can stuff their apology,’ he said, as he pushed the door open. He stormed past us, turned around briefly to give us a round stare, then walked on like his legs were two hands of a maths compass. The left leg went first then the right leg circled it and so on.
‘He’s either going to eat us or fuck us,’ said Basil.
‘Ms Iman’s thighs are no match for Ms Kristina’s,’ said Mohammad, when we told him about Ms Iman’s rising skirt.
We nodded in agreement. Estelle pinched our necks.
The maths teacher was in her early twenties and half Greek. She would often walk in to find the boys in class doing the Zorba. This she laughed off for the first few times then one boy, Youssef, brought a dinner plate to class and broke it against the floor. She sent him to Ms Iman’s office and the whole thing was calle
d off. After that, the only time she allowed us a short-lived Zorba was when she mentioned a Greek mathematician in class. Pythagoras was popular for a time.
Ms Kristina came to class dressed in shorts and a very thin top, even in the winter. She would walk in and start drawing figures on the board. But she did not stand still as she did this. She would move around, twist and turn, and by the end of it there would be shapes and geometrical figures of all sizes on the board. A circle would contain about four triangles and three squares, and none of us could tell you how it had happened.
‘Which one is the equilateral triangle again?’ asked Mohammad.
‘The one with the three equal sides, Mohammad, you know this.’
She crossed her legs when one of her students let her down.
‘What about the Isosceles triangle?’
‘Two equal sides,’ said Wael, a tall, thin Christian boy with an ability to calculate large numbers in a short space of time which astounded the teachers.
‘Five hundred and twelve times six hundred and twenty-seven,’ said Basil.
‘Three hundred twenty-one thousand and twenty-four,’ said Wael.
She uncrossed her legs. Basil led a round of applause. The school had been an all-boys one up until the end of the civil war. The fairly recent influx of girls was encouraged but the girls were finding their place in what was still a boy’s world.
Mr Malik’s head popped in. He was holding the doorknob and leaning forward. He asked to speak to Basil and me, privately.
‘You’re going to get it up the ass,’ whispered Mohammad.
‘If we do we’re coming back for you,’ said Basil, ‘and I hope he’s got AIDS.’
Mr Malik filled his office. It was smaller than Ms Iman’s. There were no leather armchairs or Persian carpets. There were only books. I could see Birds of September and The Miserly on the rusting, metal bookshelf to my left. Behind him, pinned to the board was Mahmoud Darwiche’s poem.
Write down!
Between Beirut and the Moon Page 8