States of Passion

by Nihad Sirees

  I felt like I had fallen into a trap. I tried to understand how Ismail could hate the story so much that he would threaten to kill anyone who heard it. I felt incapable of making sense of it by way of the books in his library, since I had still only heard a portion of the old man’s tale. There had to be some connection between the story and the subject of dance, which Ismail read so much about. He seemed to mark the chapters that discussed dance. The copy of My Life by the dancer Isadora Duncan and published in the Fifties by the Arab Awakening Publishing House in Damascus, had been read more than any other. And why read so much about Egypt? Had the women in the story travelled there? It wouldn’t have been so strange since they were performers.

  Of course, there was the possibility that the library belonged to the old man, rather than Ismail. He clearly had a personal interest in those Khojahs, which could have led him to read widely about traditional song and dance. But this hypothesis fell apart since it was Ismail who was reading the book beside his bed. There were also those pages marked with ostrich feathers that dealt with dance and other rituals. Besides, if the library belonged to the old man, why wasn’t it in his room? Why was it in Ismail’s secret room?

  I was convinced the old man could read foreign languages because I had seen pictures of him in Paris; that would seem to confirm that the books were his, and that he had perhaps asked Ismail to move the library into his room so he would have space to decorate the walls of his bedroom with his pictures. But then why wouldn’t he have placed the books on the shelves in the living room instead of filling them with all those curios and the ceramics and china?

  All of a sudden I had a terrifying thought that gave me the urge to piss. What if the old man was part of this trap—a strange estate out in the middle of nowhere—and they could use his story to lure in strangers or people who got lost and took shelter with them until Ismail murdered them? I’d heard a peculiar story—I can’t remember where or from whom—that was very similar to the situation I found myself in, and which I’m now relating to you.

  Once there was a man driving along a mountain road in the middle of a heavy rainstorm. Quite a coincidence. It was after midnight and dark outside. The windscreen wipers were on the highest setting but the man was still having trouble seeing anything. Things suddenly took a turn for the worse as the car skidded off the asphalt and crashed into a boulder. The man was dazed. The place was isolated, it was pitch-black, and he decided to stay in the car and wait until another car passed so he could ask for help. A long time passed and he started feeling cold. He was wet and the engine was still on when he decided to get out and start walking through the darkness in search of shelter. After a while he saw some light through the trees. He set out in that direction, plunging into the forest. He made it to a house that had been designed by a mountain architect to resemble an ancient castle. He rang the doorbell and an elderly manservant opened the door. He asked if he could come in or use the phone to call his family for help. The butler showed him in and asked him to wait by the fire until his master could join him. The place was full of stuffed animals: heads of bears, deer and wolves hung on the walls. The place was creepy and the man felt uncomfortable. A few minutes later a middle-aged man came in, welcomed him, and invited him to stay the night, after which he would drive him in whichever direction he was travelling. The two of them sat by the fireplace, savouring the warmth and hot drinks the manservant offered them. The important thing is that the master suggested that they play a game to pass the time before going to bed. The guest warmly agreed.

  The master took out some playing cards and explained the rules of the game. It was like bridge, although the rules were somewhat vague, and the master had to repeatedly explain the possible moves to this man, who was not accustomed to playing cards. At first things proceeded smoothly and the man almost began to understand some of the rules, but the master mysteriously changed the rules so that his cards always beat those of his opponent. The man seemed to be constantly losing. He was always expected to wager whatever he had, no matter how meagre. He felt he should be gracious to his host, and went along with whatever he said, until finally the master won all of the man’s cards, which ended the game. At that point he declared that the rules of the game stipulated that when one player loses all of his cards he must do whatever the winner asks of him. The master’s request was for the guest to work in the house for an undisclosed period of time. If he wanted to win back his freedom he would have to play the same game with the master, with the same rules, until he was able to beat him. But if the man refused or tried to run away, the servant would shoot him. Just then the servant came out with a rifle aimed at the man.

  The story goes that the two men continued playing the game until one day the master again changed the rules. You might think that what happened to me wasn’t comparable to what happened to that other guy, but I find many things in common, including the fact that the man was the prisoner of a game whose rules went on changing, whereas I found myself the prisoner of a story that stretched on and on—and might never end.

  The sky was starting to darken when I heard footsteps. I turned around immediately, expecting to see the old man coming down from his room, but instead I saw Ismail, alone, and glaring at me with an alarmingly hateful look on his face. I suspected that he had discovered the rifle and bullets in my room, or at least knew I’d found the scorpion and squashed it. He stood in front of me for a long time, shrouded in inky darkness. I was standing by the window, and he could see me more clearly than I could see him. The lights hadn’t come on yet.

  “Now look at what you’ve done to the old man, you piece of shit,” he said to me, as if he were surprised I was still alive. “He’s exhausted and can’t come down.”

  “What’s the matter with him?”

  “It’s all your fault. Too much talking has worn him out. If anything happens to him, I’ll kill you right away. I told you to leave but you rudely refused. The problem now is that the old man is asking for you to go up to his room. We’ll figure something out. As friends, like I told you. Now get up there and talk to the old man.”

  “What should I say to him?”

  “Say whatever you want, you son of a bitch. Tell him a story. But don’t let him open his mouth. I don’t want you to hear any more. I’ll be right there to make sure my orders are carried out exactly. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  “You’re a bastard and a loser. I’ll be watching you tonight, too. Tomorrow morning I’m going to take you to the main road so you can get the hell out of here and never come back. I want you to erase from your mind everything you’ve heard here. If I ever find out that you talked about it, I swear to God I’ll track you down in Aleppo and kill you. Got it?”

  “I just want to ask: why must this kindly old man be denied kindness? You’re so insistent that I have to go. Apparently you were planning something for Dr Waleed Fares before I got here but then he ran away. Shame on you. The old man is just trying to enjoy himself.”

  “Did he tell you about the hunter?”

  “He did.”

  “Seems to me you’ve heard a lot already. It’s none of your business. Take a look at yourself. You’re healthy. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. You should live it. I’m not sure you’ve got nine lives left in you.”

  “Clearly you only want the best for me.”

  “Come on, go and tell him about your work at the Agricultural Bank. I’ll be along in a bit.”

  We could no longer see each other in the darkening gloom. He was standing by the door, and I had to pass him to go into the living room.

  “I don’t think I’ll have dinner tonight,” I said, pausing there. “I don’t feel like being poisoned. Don’t charge me for tonight’s meal.”

  I felt like he was smiling at me but I might have been mistaken. When I tried to get past him, he caught at my arm so violently, it felt like a hunter’s trap.

  “Calm down. Everything’s going to be fine, just as long as you do what
I tell you. But if I come up there and hear him telling you that story, I’m going to hurt you. If you refuse to leave in the morning, I’ll kill you. So you can be sure of my intentions, I encourage you to inspect your room. There might just happen to be a poisonous scorpion sitting between your sheets.”

  “Thanks for the heads up, but I already found and killed it.”

  I couldn’t see the look on his face as I pulled my arm away and left the living room, but I heard him snort. I walked up to the second floor and turned towards the old man’s room. I knocked on the door and heard his invitation to enter.

  He was leaning against the headboard, covered with a heavy sheet and a Spanish blanket. His face was yellow, and he was clasping his trembling hands. I felt affection for him and pity for his failing health, and I felt guilty for having exhausted him with storytelling. But the man seemed lonely whenever I wasn’t around. He needed me, and there I was in his room. I had come to entertain him, just as he had requested.

  The light in the room was weak, which only made his face look thinner. He was of a more advanced age than I had realised, perhaps ninety years old. He had begun to resemble my own father during his last days. He allowed me to stare at his face even as he struggled to control his shaking hands. He was gazing at the pictures hanging on the wall across from him, photos from his youth. I was totally convinced that his tale was a part of his life. I hurried over to the window where the photo of Widad at the train station hung behind the curtain. I took down the frame and moved back towards the light.

  I took a better look at her face, trying unsuccessfully to find some common features between Widad and the old man. But Widad’s face started to look more familiar to me. Where had I seen it before? Seriously, I started to feel as though I knew someone who looked like her, or maybe I knew the woman herself. Bullshit, I thought. It must simply be that I was seeing the picture for a second time, or maybe I had dreamt about it the night before. I put the photo down somewhere hidden, so Ismail wouldn’t see it if he came in all of a sudden. I looked back at the old man, who was waiting for me so he could continue the story. Maybe it wouldn’t be finished that day or the next. Ismail had ordered me to keep the old man silent. The house was full of mysteries, and it seemed the story might explain some of them. Perhaps it would only make them more mysterious. I couldn’t forget that Ismail had tried to kill me, or at least harm me and force me to leave. I found myself telling the old man honestly about my fears.

  “I can see that the story isn’t going to be over any time soon, but I’m afraid I’ll have to leave before I hear the end.”

  “I beg you not to go. I’ll try to finish within the next three days. Tomorrow you can go with Ismail to the nearest telephone and let your family know that you’re fine.”

  “But Ismail himself is the problem. He threatened me. He wants me to leave. He doesn’t want me to hear the rest of the story.”

  “Don’t worry about him. He’s like this with anyone who knocks on our door. The doctor also complained about Ismail’s threats before he left.”

  “Did he actually leave, or did he disappear? Personally, I think he disappeared.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I found a rifle hidden in the house.”

  “Ismail got that as a present the first day he arrived here. He received it in my presence. Ismail’s a good person. He just doesn’t want me to tell this to anyone, which is why we’re out here in the sticks, cut off from the world.”

  These last few words confused me, and I scrambled around in my warren of thoughts. So where was Dr Waleed, then? Was I to understand that Ismail was unwilling to kill him because he had been given the rifle as a present? It wasn’t true that Ismail was a good person. Maybe he was merciful because he hadn’t killed the old man yet. But what did he mean when he said that the two of them were isolated out there in the sticks because Ismail didn’t want him to tell anyone? That would mean that the servant had some kind of leverage over the old man, that he was able to keep him cut off from the world in this remote place.

  “Ismail tried to break into my room last night,” I told the old man. “He wanted to prove that he’s capable of hurting me. Then he tried to poison me. Apparently he put something in my food. And finally, I found a poisonous scorpion in my bed.”

  The old man didn’t react, just kept staring at the designs on his blanket. He was mulling over what I’d just told him. We stayed like that for a while. I stared at him and he stared at the blanket.

  “What would you say to going to the city with me?” I asked him. “I’ll take you away from here. I could carry you. You could finish telling me your story in Aleppo without anyone interrupting you.”

  He turned his face towards me and gazed into my eyes. It seemed he had already been thinking about the possibility of running away, because after a little while he started shaking his head to indicate he didn’t like the idea. Probably he was imagining being carried on my back as I helped him to escape. Just then I heard Ismail’s footsteps approaching the bedroom door.

  Before Ismail came in the old man warned me about something of the utmost importance.

  “There are poisonous plants out here in this part of the country. A person should take care not to…”

  The servant overheard some of what the old man was saying as he walked in. He glared at us, and I stared right back at him. He knew that our conversation had been about poisonous plants, but that could be the case whenever two men find themselves together in a cosy house on a rainy day. He shut the door and sat down on a rocking chair, his head hidden by the closet. All I could see of him was his jaw, his nose and his forehead. He had come to spy on us, to listen in on our conversation. The old man continued talking as if his servant weren’t there.

  “These plants are all around us. People come to think of them as familiar and they nurture them regularly, but they are poisonous, sometimes even lethal.”

  “I’m familiar with some of them,” I said. “Some of our colleagues at the Agricultural Bank are agricultural engineers and they’re always mentioning their Latin names, but I tend to quickly forget them. I’m better at remembering numbers and statistics and the value of loans given out to the peasants.

  “Haven’t you ever heard them talk about the oleander plant? It’s very common around Aleppo.”

  “Oleander, what else?”

  “Yes, Oleander nerium. Every part of it is poisonous. It’s a stimulant that causes vomiting and heart palpitations, paralysis in the respiratory system, and then death. You need to be careful. Its poison is extremely lethal. Once these hunters ate some birds that had been eating oleander branches.”

  “And what happened to them?”

  “Some of them were poisoned and died. A number of beautiful flowers are also thought to be poisonous, such as Sitt al-Husn or ‘Bella Donna’, which causes fever and hallucinations if ingested by a human being. It can result in sudden cardiac arrest. There are also Datura plants that are extremely poisonous to livestock and human beings alike. Consuming just seven grams of its leaves can lead to death. Flowers of the nightshade plant, also known as ‘the drunkard’, can provoke an accelerated heart rate. Consuming a large amount of it can cause insanity, even death. I could rattle off other names such as hyacinth, dieffenbachia, larkspur and the ricin found in castor beans.

  “How will I know if I’ve been poisoned by one of them?”

  “You’ve got to keep track of your pupils; most likely they’ll become dilated from the atropine.”

  I wanted to find out what Ismail had put in my food that had made me feel I’d been poisoned.

  “Once after eating I had intense diarrhoea and felt suspicious about what had happened to me,” I told the old man, staring at where Ismail was sitting.

  “Maybe you ate some poison ivy leaves. It can cause symptoms like that. If it had been a large quantity, your nerves would have violently seized up, and you would have had trouble breathing.”

  Had I seen poison ivy creeping along t
he side of the house? I had arrived at night and hadn’t noticed any branches climbing up the wall. I tried to remember: maybe there was some on the walls looking out on the back garden. In the long silence Ismail looked over at me. From his stare I became convinced that he had actually poisoned me with poison ivy.

  We stopped talking, the old man and I, because we weren’t very good at this game of trying to fool Ismail. Time was passing, and the silence was all-encompassing, except for the rain hitting the window and the sound of water gushing from the gutters outside. How was I going to trick Ismail into leaving us alone until it was time to go to sleep? I exhaled in growing frustration and stood up. I decided to do something. I apologised to the old man as if I were apologising to Ismail.

  “Excuse me, old man, I have to go to the bathroom. I’ll be back in five minutes.”

  The old man nodded permission, and I turned to see Ismail staring at me intently. As soon as I closed the old man’s bedroom door behind me, I could hear the servant starting a conversation, but I hurried to the bathroom instead of stopping to listen. I opened and then closed the door without going in, then tiptoed back to my room. I switched on the lights, lifted up the mattress and pulled out the rifle and ammunition. I flipped open the gun, loaded it with two bullets and closed it again, preparing to head back when something suddenly stopped me. A snake—black, shiny, and terrifying—was slithering out from under my bed. I stiffened and froze on the spot. It was headed right for me, its eyes big and beady, its body thick as a loaf cake. It slithered towards me and raised its head. As it got closer, I had to move or else it would strike me. In a surprising move—more surprising to me than to the snake, to be sure—I lowered the butt of the rifle and brought it down hard on the snake’s head. Its body writhed from side to side. Then I raised the rifle up high and brought it crashing down on it until its head was smashed. I didn’t wait for the rest of the body to stop quivering, but moved away and started trembling as the blood returned to my face, making me unbearably warm. Staring into the mirror, I saw my face turning red and my lips going blue. I switched off the light, gently closed the door, and hurried back towards the old man’s room. I knocked on the door and held the rifle up, ready to open fire. When I heard the weak voice of the old man calling out to me, I went inside. In a single bound I found myself face to face with Ismail, himself now frozen in shock.