Crescent

by Diana Abu-Jaber

  Janet seemed more fretful and distracted when they met again in the summer of Han’s fourteenth year. Her husband was thinking of moving them to a new seasonal post—the political situation in Iraq was unstable. Janet and her friends whispered and looked preoccupied. Several of the other women hadn’t returned that summer and the mood at the pool was different. And Han had begun to change. He’d started to grow, and the full days of swimming had given him broad shoulders, a strong back, and a long, sinewy waist. He was beginning to look more like a man and less like a boy. He noticed the women watching him when he climbed out of the water—not just when he dove in. Some of them had started to wrap themselves with bathrobes when he walked by, while others uncovered their legs. He saw that his shadow was wider and longer, the flat wet imprint of his feet larger.

  Something was happening inside his head as well. He talked with Janet in their usual way—she lounged on her chaise, glistening with drops of baby oil, and he stretched long-legged on towels on the ground.

  But Janet’s eyes frequently looked soft and glossy, and she developed a habit of twirling a lock of hair around the tip of her finger as she talked with him, like a hypnotist swinging a watch on a chain. And Han found that when he left her in the evenings to go back to his family, he continued to think about her. He remembered her eyes as being wider and darker than they actually were. And instead of the pool, for some reason, he thought of the big green ocean, its roving peaks and white veins, its deep wells and silky waves and its faraway gaze.

  One afternoon late in the summer, Janet placed her painted fingertips on Han’s wrist and quietly asked if he would come back to the pool that evening. There was something important she had to speak to him about.

  He had never gone to the pool at night before and once again he had to invent a reason in order to get his parents’ permission to go out. They would never agree to his meeting with a woman after dark. So Han came up with another story—this time that his friend Sami was sick and Han wanted to go look in on him. His hands trembled as he spoke and he hid them behind his back. It was a reckless lie—easy to uncover. His mother raised one eyebrow and glanced at his father, but Han’s father merely nodded.

  So Han left in the evening just after dinner, when all the families were home together, the boys already in bed to prepare for their long hours in the fields and orchards. Han took his bike down the slanting blue corners and alleyways of Baghdad. He saw eyes blink in the darkness, the street lamps illuminating a single hand or mouth.

  He passed through the city night trembling, but soon he spotted the small opening in the hedge, dismounted his bike, and crept in.

  It took a moment for his eyes to adjust because, as dark and seamless as the night was around the pool, the water itself was glowing like a small planet. Lights placed around and inside the rim of the pool sent turquoise beams through the water. He instinctively looked toward Janet’s chaise lounge but it was empty and he thought for a moment that she had only been teasing him and hadn’t really meant to come at all.

  After a moment of standing alone and surveying the empty rows of chairs, however, Han had an intimation that crept over his shoulders and along the nape of his neck, as if someone had snuck up from behind and blown on his skin. Then he heard his name called out in a voice as golden and mellow as if the moon herself had spoken. He turned and there, arms adrift in the far end of the pool, was Janet, her hair loose, the ends trailing in the sapphire water.

  He had seen her in American-style bathing suits summer after summer, but never, in all that time, had he seen her in the water. He crouched at the edge of the pool, the two of them watching each other. Then, without warning, she dove under, and the sound of the ocean that he’d been hearing for weeks, perhaps for years, rose in his ears. And seemingly without any say in the matter, he dove in after her.

  He was fourteen years old. He swam to Janet—he had no idea what age she was—twenty-three, thirty, thirty-five? Their first kiss was under the water in the deceptive lights. Han burst to the surface, his heart and lungs hammering, dizzy with excitement. He swirled around her, encircling her with his arms, and she let him pull her off her feet, her arms tight around his ribs. It was hard to know if they were playing or serious, even when she untied the strings to her swimsuit so her white belly and small breasts flashed in his hands. Even while she was guiding him inside of her, still in the pool, showing him how and when, and he mistakenly whispered his feelings in Arabic and she shook her head and said, no, speak English—even then it all seemed a kind of play.

  Only afterward, when they laid sprawled on the chairs, his leg hooked over hers, her arm draped on his shoulder, did he look closely at her face and see that it had not been a game at all.

  Her husband was being transferred, she said. It wasn’t safe for them to remain in Baghdad—soon the monarchy would be overthrown and the American consul warned that the consulate couldn’t vouch for their safety. She didn’t know, she whispered, how much more time they had remaining in the city. Han looked around but all he could see was the perimeter of the fence, the dense shrubbery, and the porcelain moon. It was too soon for him to grasp her sadness; he was still electrified by lovemaking, his mind felt scorched, his body smoldering in the places where they’d touched. “Habeebti, my darling,” he said, but he felt as if he were just trying on the words he’d heard in songs. It seemed that he had no language at all for what had happened. He felt as if he might melt away, that air and rain could pass through his flesh. “I am so happy,” he finally managed to say.

  “Happy? But this wasn’t meant to happen!” she suddenly cried, sitting up.

  He lifted his head. “What do you mean? What wasn’t meant to happen?”

  “Oh God.” She covered her eyes with one hand. “Don’t you understand, Han?” she said. “I’m a happily married woman, and you—you’re just a boy.”

  He sat up. He stared at her.

  “But when I realized that I might never see you again, it’s—well, I couldn’t stand it. And then I saw you standing there by the side of the pool—you looked so tall and handsome, you reminded me of my husband when we first met. The two of us were barely older than you are now.”

  He wasn’t sure then if it was the night breeze sweeping his damp skin, but he began to shake. His teeth rattled. Janet’s unblinking eyes looked like smoke and her skin was so pale it didn’t seem like skin at all. She asked what was wrong with him as he slowly contracted, removing himself from her hands. She pushed up to one elbow as if her legs would not carry her and perhaps it was shock but there seemed to be a vague smile on her face. “Where are you going?” she asked, as if she couldn’t believe he was leaving.

  He was shaking so badly now he wasn’t sure he could get back through the hole in the hedge. He felt how the bicycle trembled, the wheels rasping, the handlebars loose; but when he got on, his shaking started to subside and the bike sailed him through the shadows.

  His father was disappointed to learn that the American’s language lessons had abruptly come to an end. Han told him that his student was now quite proficient in Arabic and had learned everything that he could teach her. His father was incredulous and protested that scholars had dedicated whole lifetimes and entire libraries to the study of Arabic. Han shrugged and said that he was the one who required more study, then. His mother, who’d had an uneasy feeling about this business right from the start, held out her arms and lowered her son’s head into her lap. She stroked his hair and said to his father, khullus, it’s finished with, and so much the better. We need him at home where he belongs.

  The next day and all the days after that, Han woke thinking of Janet and the pool, and then it would come back to him, her ghostly eyes and shattering words. Slowly the sound of the ocean surf receded from his consciousness until it was nothing more than a distant pulse.

  He would get up even before the early summer sun was out and pull on his work clothes and go out to the orchards. But every day as the sun climbed overhead and roasted t
he silvery leaves and dark olives, Han would eventually drift back indoors and creep into the kitchen, where his mother and sister sat with the neighbor women, patting dough at the table and preparing dinner, all of them laughing and telling stories. Leila’s face lit up when her brother appeared at the door and she shared her chair with him; the two of them were narrow enough that they could just manage it. The women’s voices soothed and comforted him.

  His father and mother knew that he was neglecting his duties, and without Han’s previous income he was needed in the fields. But again they allowed him some leeway—it was clear to them that he had been suffering from some sort of an internal wound ever since the end of the language lessons, something he could tell neither of them about.

  One night at the end of the summer the moon hung hot and round and orange in the sky. The family had just finished dinner but instead of picking up dishes, all of them stayed at the table talking. Their father was telling them the story of their uncle Amoon, who had walked halfway across the desert to Mecca, then gave up and decided to walk back. They heard the sound of winged insects chirring in the dark and a wildcat crying like a baby.

  Then there was a knock on the door. “I’ll get it,” Leila said.

  Their father said he would see who was there. It was too late for girls to be going to the door.

  It was a woman dressed completely in hejjab—a thick black scarf covered her head and face entirely, and a black coat cloaked her from her neck to her ankles; she wore white gloves and black boots as well. Han’s father invited her in and it was immediately clear that this was not an Arab woman—she was too tall and she didn’t move like an Arab. When she began speaking in English, Han realized that it was Janet.

  They sat her at the dinner table, glancing at each other, hastily clearing away dishes, asking if she would have something to eat or drink. But she refused all offers, her voice taut and urgent, and said she had a critical matter to discuss with them.

  Han sat frozen at the table, his knees weak and palms prickling with sweat. Although he knew little of how such things occurred, he wondered if she might be pregnant. Or perhaps she’d considered the meaning of their night together—as Han had, over and over—and decided…what? That she’d been violated or abandoned, even raped? Or perhaps she wanted him back again.

  His heart thudded as he listened to her speak. He was so anxious it was hard to hear what she was saying. But his parents only spoke a little English, so—feeling stunned with embarrassment—Han realized that he had to translate for her. And as she talked, he came to understand that she was there to make them some sort of offer.

  First she identified herself as the woman that Han had been tutoring.

  Han has a great mind, she said, he is a fine, noble teacher, he is unusual and his talents should not be overlooked.

  Han murmured these words in Arabic, blushing deeply while his parents nodded, pleased but unnerved by this amazing visitor. So, she went on behind her veil, she and her husband wanted to start a scholarship fund to send exemplary students like Han to the special private school in Cairo—a place where kings and diplomats sent their sons to learn about politics and society and to prepare them to attend the world’s great universities.

  Han’s hands squeezed the edge of his seat as he translated. His arms and back grew rigid. His mother put one gentle hand on his shoulder and his sister laid a hand on his arm.

  “Well,” his father finally said to Han in Arabic, “tell her this: You’ve certainly given us a lot to think about. We are overwhelmed by your generous offer, it goes without saying. But this is not a step to be taken lightly. Cairo is very far from here and Han is still young—he has never been away from home. There are many things to consider, not the least of which are Han’s own wishes in the matter.” Han translated all this with a bowed head and burning face.

  Then his mother smiled as if remembering something, looked up, and, also speaking Arabic, said directly to Janet, “Han tells us you’ve come to the end of his knowledge.” She paused a moment, as Han translated. Then she raised her eyebrows, leaned forward, and asked, very slowly and clearly, “How is your Arabic?”

  Han fell silent, not translating, holding his breath, teeth gritted together. Janet turned from Han to his mother and finally, cheerfully, asked in English, “What?”

  The family remained seated at the kitchen table while Han showed their guest out. He had no intention of accepting this strange offer and planned not to say anything more to her beyond a polite good evening. But when they reached the door she shuffled him outside and pulled the door shut behind them. Then she whispered, “My husband saw us in the pool.”

  Han’s chest flooded with air and his eyes opened wide. The night sky seemed to double in size, popping with huge, pointed white stars.

  “Don’t worry.” She touched his arm and an electric current ran through him; Han jerked away. “He was watching from one of the hotel windows and he wasn’t sure of what he saw. He thought that it was just two kids playing around in the water, but afterward I walked in wearing my wet bathing suit.”

  Han stared at her, enraged with himself for imagining something like a romance ever could have happened between the two of them. He was only fourteen years old but he felt at that moment as if he had lived a thousand years. He had an inkling that she had been using him, in some way, all along—though he didn’t understand how or why.

  “But he didn’t see your face,” Janet continued. “He could tell you were Iraqi, though. And this time he’s sworn to find out who it was—no matter what I tell him.”

  “This time?” The stars swirled in the sky, left long white tails.

  She smoothed out the seams of her hejjab. “Do you think it’s easy for me, living this way? Spending months and months all by myself in godforsaken places like this?” She looked around at the assortment of little village houses, the unlit street. “There’ve been other men in my life,” she said mildly. “And he knows it. But I’ve never seen him so upset before. Perhaps it’s because you’re an Arab,” she mused. “He’s been obsessed with finding out who you are. He could make a lot of trouble. And we hear things are going to be changing in this country. We hear—someone new is coming to power, another coup. It’s best that you go away from here for a while. Let me send you to the school—I’ve got plenty of money, that isn’t even a concern. Please.” She touched his hand and this time he didn’t manage to pull away. “This is something I want to do.”

  He said, “And you always get what you want, don’t you?” He turned to go, but she grabbed his hand with surprising force. “Han, please!” she begged. “The situation is more serious than you realize. What do you want? Just tell me what you want and I’ll do it.”

  “What I want?” He smiled as if this were a whimsical idea. “All right then, what I want is an answer. Tell me why—of all the men out there—and all the boys—did you have to do this to me?”

  She pushed back the hood of her veil and uncovered her face. In the shadows her eyes looked inky. She lifted one of his arms so the moonlight spilled over it. “Look at you,” she said in a weightless voice. She raised his arm as if it were a precious artifact, a dark wash of skin inside her curved white fingers. “Just look!”

  Sirine studies the curve of Han’s back in the early morning light as he sits facing away, fingers threaded through his hair. He’s fallen silent.

  “What happened?” she asks softly.

  “What happened…” He turns to her but she can’t make out his expression, just the rise and fall of his shoulders. “Nothing. The rest of my life.” He pauses. “In the end, my father decided for me and my mother stayed silent and my sister cried through the summer until the day I left. Things were changing, we knew. The Ba’athist Party was pushing to incorporate all aspects of our lives—from the media to the arts to the schools—the schools were especially under surveillance, and my father worried over what would happen to a young man like myself, fluent in other languages. I might have been impri
soned—more likely I would have been recruited into the party. The week after Janet’s visit, our mathematics instructor was removed—we heard rumors it was because his wife was a member of the Islamic Feminist Movement. He was replaced by a man who had no mathematics training, but was a staunch Ba’athist supporter.

  “So I went away to the private school, and that was my first escape from Iraq. My school was filled with children from wealthy families. I never felt like I had a choice in the matter,” he says, his voice suddenly dry. “Just like the night at the pool.”

  “How did you like it there?” She feels the brush of his fingers at her temples, then sifting through her hair.

  “It started everything for me. It wasn’t so much like or not like. It was more a sort of force of nature. Big and inevitable. The school had British and American faculty, classes were conducted in English, and the history classes were the history of the West, literature was the literature of America and Britain. I didn’t question any of it. I wasn’t from a rich family, but I felt much older and more worldly than any of those other children—they seemed so soft and formless. I think I was even a little jealous of their innocence. And I was ashamed of what had happened between Janet and me—I felt that somehow it had been my fault.”

  “Your fault! You were fourteen years old.”

  He seems to smile a bit. “I was trained to believe that men are always the seducers. Really I was shocked at myself—that I could have done such a thing, with a married woman, no less—and not felt any remorse. Once I got to school, I worked hard at my studies—I think it was my way of trying to repent. The teachers recognized my abilities and encouraged me. I guess I grew out of the curve of my family and home. Maybe I turned into something different than I was born to be. I don’t know. I’ve wondered about that.”

  Sirine tries to touch him. She reaches toward his face but he shifts and her fingers graze the air. “You seem just right to me,” she says.