The Lady from Tel Aviv

by Raba'i al-Madhoun

  In the last bachelor pad, Umm Walid spends the night with no one to keep her company. She tosses and turns in bed for hours, and the hours toss and turn with her. Just before midnight, Emad, the last of them to go to sleep, hears her voice as he walks by the apartment door—and it makes him freeze where he is standing. ‘Abu Nasreen, may God keep you safe tomorrow morning when you go to pick up Walid at the Erez crossing. Please let them leave us in peace. Just for a little bit. My heart’s been full of worry ever since he went away. I want my heart to be as clean and bright tomorrow as the laundry I washed for him the day he left.’

  Emad closes the apartment door behind him. In silent obedience to Umm Walid’s wishes, he takes his leave.

  She shuts eyes heavy with images of the past. Shadows from that last day come rushing back to the surface.

  Departure

  His mother had finished washing the clothes he would take with him back to Cairo. She was getting ready to hang them on the clothesline when her question halted him in his tracks: ‘Walid, where you going this morning?’

  His whole body tensed and a sudden sense of dread made him stop at the front door. God—what does she want from me this morning? The subtext of her question would always come out, eventually.

  ‘If you’re going out, boy, why don’t you take a couple of rabbits with you to sell at the market?’

  He hated rabbits. He hated buying rabbits and he hated selling them. He hated slaughtering them and he hated eating their meat, even when it was served, Egyptian-style, in mulukhiyya soup. Most of all, he hated this question: ‘Walid, where you going this morning?’ He thought of that day, not so long ago, when his mother had sprung that same question, only it was a different time of day. ‘Walid, where you going this evening?’ He stood there then, as he stood there now, waiting. That night she had not hesitated for a moment to ask him to come with her to visit the family of another relative, Amin Dahman, who had just passed away. She wanted them to offer their condolences to his many children and grandchildren, even though they needed no consoling. That night, Walid listened to what was said—what had already been said hundreds of times at other services. ‘He was—may God have mercy on him—a such and such kind of man. He did all this, and he did all that …’ However, Amin Dahman was not a person about whom anything good could be said. The man was a total cheapskate—stingy and spiteful until his dying breath. He was a pathological liar. He lied more often than the average Arab leader, especially the kind who claimed he would stop at nothing to liberate Palestine. He was the kind of man to whom no one should show mercy when he died. The kind of man about whom you might say, ‘God, please send the old fart straight to hell!’

  Despite all this, men thronged to offer their condolences when Amin Dahman died. On the way to the service, they began revising the scripts they were reading from and whispering among themselves that the dearly departed deserved the compassionate thoughts of one and all. They prayed that he would be granted forgiveness and mercy in the hereafter.

  Umm Walid offered her condolences to the departed’s womenfolk: a handful of sobs pouring into a lake of tears shed by other women. These were women who wept in genuine grief when others suffered loss.

  That day, Walid vowed to himself never to attend the funeral of his own father when he died. It would be enough for him to offer and receive his own private condolences. He did not want to have to hear hollow platitudes about his father. When his father did die, he remembered none of these promises. For three straight days, Walid sat submissively listening to every nice word that was said about his father.

  Walid turned to face his mother. ‘Mama—I’m not going anywhere.’

  A smile appeared on Umm Walid’s face. She knew that he would not leave the house before listening to what she had to say.

  She bent over the laundry tub, taking a big cotton towel in her hands and wringing it out. A scented cloud of lye detergent wafted up through the house. From a cotton bag, she took out two wooden clothes pegs, putting one in her mouth while throwing the towel onto the clothesline. She put the other peg on one edge of the towel. With her tongue stuck behind her teeth, she said, ‘Yefteyay, uh fawhhh youyy faffer imm a drumm.’

  He laughed at the sound of her tongue tripping over the clothes peg. She snatched it out of her mouth and clipped it onto the other edge of the towel. ‘Yesterday, I saw your father in a dream. God bless the man. You know, he was asking about you.’

  Thank God my father hasn’t forgotten me, Walid whispered to himself.

  ‘He asked about you three times.’

  Walid tried to shift the subject away from the dream. ‘Did you tell him it’s my last year in college and that I’m going to graduate?’

  But she would not be diverted. ‘You should go tell him that yourself. Go visit him and recite the Fatiha over his grave—he’ll help you find your reward.’

  Recklessly—in a mere two words—he took up the challenge, muttering, ‘Won’t/Dontwanna.’ He turned to go, then paused when he thought of the dusty old dictionary where she kept her curses. He could already imagine her saying, ‘He won’t/dontwanna? I’ll dontwanna, boy!’ He does not know which won’t/dontwanna she would use on him—but he knows that when she starts to won’t/dontwanna him, he is going to lose all feeling in his body.

  The fear he felt toward his mother’s won’t/dontwanna made him revise his words. ‘Mama, the morning’s still young. I’ll make sure to go to his grave later.’

  ‘Does the memory of your father mean so little to you?’

  ‘Mama, Father’s dead, God have mercy on him. I have to go right now. I have to go to the market to buy some things for my trip.’

  ‘If you don’t go visit your father’s grave now, the whole day will come and go—and you’ll have lost your chance.’

  She bent over the laundry tub again. She took out a dress shirt and, in her agitation, threw it roughly on the line. ‘Go see him right now. Go.’

  ‘OK. I’m going.’ He muttered to himself, As long as my father’s asking after me, I will go and ask after him.

  Walid closed the door behind him. He walked along, intending to go just about anywhere or do just about anything other than start his day with a morning visit to the city’s dead. He had only taken a few steps when his mother’s voice caught up with him: ‘Listen to your mother, Walid.’

  *

  Walid thought about going to the market. But his thoughts were sidetracked by the familiar spectre of the barber Said Dahman, with his skinny lamppost frame and unruly curls flying in the wind. Using water infused with lime leaves, Said was washing down the cement bench in front of his barbershop. By the time the barber had finished carefully arranging the cushions on the bench, the air was saturated with the fragrance of spring and the place had taken on the appearance of a tourist spa. Said sat down and lit himself a cigarette, and let the resort appeal of the place do the work of pulling in customers from the main street.

  The scene pulled Walid in. He drifted toward the shop where he knew his friend—and cousin—would welcome him warmly. ‘May your day be nothing but jasmine! All blessings on you, my magnificent friend!’ He would then start to tell Walid a great new story that would, like the fingers of dawn touching a flower, gently pry open his heart. And Said would assure him, as he always did, that he has never told this story to anyone else before. Then he would make Walid promise not to repeat it, since he might need to tell it again sometime, in the event he ran out of stories.

  Walid referred to him as ‘Bard of the Camp’, and Said responded enthusiastically to the grandiose title. He gathered the stories of the camp from the lips of his customers and from others. He washed some of the sentimentality out of them to distil the essence of the words. Then he would add his secret blend of salacious innuendo. When it finally came out as a story told to his customers, it was always presented as brand new. Said would swear a thousand times over that it had never been told before.

  Walid remembered that he’d already promised to me
et Said in the evening. Their mutual friend Fawzi Ashour would be joining them too, and that was a sure sign they’d hear a newly minted fable. Or, if not exactly new, it would be one that had at least been cleaned and pressed in Said’s inimitable fashion. When Walid remembered all this, he changed his mind about going over to see him now. It’s not possible, he thought to himself, it’s not possible to listen to Said’s banter twice in one day, not even if it’s juiced up with irony and outrageous exaggerations. The thought gave him comfort and he turned away.

  Suddenly, there was his mother’s voice again: ‘Listen to your mother, Walid.’ It occurred to him that he might try tricking his way out of the visit to his father’s grave with some brazen lying: ‘Oh yeah, Mama. I went to visit Dad today, and recited the Fatiha over his grave … He seems to be in excellent shape, by the way. He was wearing his old navy blue suit—the one with the grey pinstripes. Oh, and another thing: he gave me my allowance, right from his own pocket. He told me to say a big hello.’

  What if she believed it and asked him to tell her more? ‘Don’t hide anything from your mother, Walid! What advice did your father give you?’

  He would tell her, ‘Sparks were shooting out of his eyes and he asked me: “Has your mother remarried since my death, Walid?”’ The woman would lose the last bits of sanity she still had.

  Yet, in that moment, his mother would not miss a beat. No, she’d reach into a store of curses so rare she only pulled them out on special occasions like this. ‘Want your mother wed? You’ll soon be good and dead. You’ll be buried before I’m married, boy. Go bury yourself next to your father and give me a break.’

  The image in his mind made him laugh out loud. My mother is unbelievable—and so is that big bag of words she carries around. If you say, ‘Wedlock,’ she might reply, ‘Gets you in a headlock.’ Say, ‘I’m going …’ and she might reply, ‘To hell in a handbasket?’ Say, ‘We’re off …’ and she might answer, ‘To choke on your own drool?’ Say, ‘I’m falling asleep, I’m going to bed,’ and she might declare, ‘Hope the wall falls asleep on top of you!’ And do not say, ‘Mama, I’m on my way …’ because she will definitely quip: ‘To your funeral? Let’s go together!’

  But when your mother is happy with you, her words turn from lead to gold. Say, ‘I’m going …’ and she’ll reply, ‘To be happy and secure in life!’ Say, ‘I’m going to go …’ and she will say, ‘To Heaven, my dear?’ ‘I’m on my way …’ becomes ‘To your wedding? We’ll go together—and I’ll sing for you, the happy groom!’

  Fine. And when your mother asks you about the others you saw paying their respects at the graveyard? You are going to have to lie once or twice at the very least. And if you don’t get the story straight, you’ll get whacked by your mother’s bag of words!

  Walid thought it over gloomily before he finally decided, Forget it, Walid. A visit to your father will spare you a visit from your mother’s tongue.

  He continued walking until he reached the main street. When he got to the seed market, he leaned up against a wall and lit a Rothmans’ cigarette. He began to watch the scene in front of him through clouds of smoke.

  He was about to leave. But when Mona suddenly appeared, he froze. Mona’s real name was Abdelhamid Awed. The city and its camps refused to recognize him as a gay man. Instead, they talked about him as a her. Mona was carrying one of the old black radio batteries on his left shoulder while walking, as people did, to the gas station at the roundabout. That was the only place where you could get batteries recharged.

  Walid trembled. A deluge of old shame washed over his body. Why is Mona here, now? Why is that faggot so determined to damage my reputation? It only happened once, and that was a mistake. What does he want from me now?

  He took a deep drag from the cigarette trembling in his fingers, and then exhaled it like a heavy load of remorse. Why did you have to mess with him, Walid? You used to hate the boys who talked dirt, and you used to keep your distance from the kids in the alley. Your father used to call out to you from his room while you were playing in the street. He would yell: ‘Don’t play with those dirty kids, Walid!’ Your father’s words were sacred. He did not have to yell more than once for you to listen. What would you say to your father if he came back from the grave and heard what was going around? Do you want to kill your father all over again, Walid?

  It had happened one stormy autumn evening. Gusts of wind blew the pedestrians and loiterers off the streets and alleys. They swept off all the chickens, cats and dogs too. As soon as Walid was sure that no one would see him, he had hurried along, his hands gripping the edges of his open wool jacket while the wind grabbed and played with it. He’d set off behind Mona at a short distance without ever taking his eyes off him. Walid had watched the man walking with the coquettish saunter of a peasant girl carrying a clay water jar on her head. His hips swayed back and forth as he walked. Meanwhile, Walid trembled, unsure of himself. More than once he thought about going back. In the end, it was not Walid, but desire that finally made the decision, and dragged him beyond risk. When, at last, they got to the culvert down by the fields, Walid could not restrain himself any longer. He gave in, and let himself be drawn to Mona’s neck. There, where the empty water pipe was nearly one metre deep beneath the train tracks, four hundred metres down from the Khan Yunis train station, the sound of Walid’s heaving breath was lost in the whistling of the winds. The trembling of his body melted in the shadows of the pipes.

  Walid’s eyes filled with tears as he trembled again, apologizing to his father.

  *

  Walid threw his cigarette butt down on the ground and continued on his way to the graveyard. Within minutes, he was standing in front of his father’s grave, silently declaring his submission to the sovereignty of death. In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful…

  This mound of cement is the resting place of Ahmad Nimr Dahman.

  This is my father. An exact replica of myself, only older. His medium height, his slight build, his complexion, his piercing eyes (which people say that I also have, though I do not believe it). His temper, a tension in the body that you could almost smell. The way he walked, like he was marching in a military parade. I inherited all this from him. Anyone who knew my father would look at me twice and say, ‘This must be Ahmad Dahman’s son.’

  My mother used to say, ‘You’re the spitting image of your father. Your hair, your eyes, your nose, even that chin of yours, dimpled like a Palestinian penny. The spitting image. When you get mad, your face turns red like his did and you start to rant and rave until none of us can understand a word you’re saying. But the way your throat tightens when you get mad—that part comes from me. You know, Walid, if one day you were to leave me and go away and not come back until you’d grown as old as he was—God have mercy on him—you know what? I’d probably say, “This is Ahmad, not Walid.”’

  God have mercy on the man.

  Ahmad Nimr Dahman had been an employee at the UNRWA distribution centre. In his youth, he had been a handsome, educated and gentle man. Wherever he went, people loved him.

  On that July day when it was too hot to even talk, some of Ahmad’s co-workers had accused him of stealing clothes from the depot and smuggling them out via friends of his on the staff. The matter was brought to the attention of the director, Khamis al-Sawafiri, who promptly ignored it, saying that what had gone missing was not worth the bother of an investigation. But the thefts continued. When containers of food started to disappear every day, new accusations were born.

  At the end of a week filled with more thefts and finger pointing, the director decided to put an end to it all. He sent a hand-written letter to Ahmad Dahman, accusing him of the thefts, and notifying him to stay home from work until they had completed an investigation into the matter.

  Ahmad fired off a volley of complaints to the head of UNRWA in Gaza City. All of these memos were forwarded to his former boss—and became part of the file. In less than two weeks, Ahmad joined the unemployed,
where he was warmly embraced by the prospect of life without sustenance. On the rasp-like tongues of the camp, the ‘Respectable Family of Abu Walid’ became the ‘Detestable Family of All Thieves’.

  After losing his job and the respect of all, he did not survive for even a month. It was an eternity for him. Then something happened that took everyone by surprise. One morning, as he went off to Café Mansour in the city centre, he was followed by the spectre of death. Death chased after Ahmad Dahman as if it were hustling through a jam-packed schedule of appointments and interviews. It did not come for the man before he left his house in the morning. Nor did it wait for him to come home. It did not even wait for the poor man to finish drinking the mint tea he had ordered when he got to the café. No, Death arrived right then in the form of a massive heart attack that twisted his arteries before wringing them out again. When it happened, Abu Walid’s body shot up rigid, his right hand clutching at his left arm. He screamed in pain as he collapsed back into the bamboo chair. All the customers crowded round him, as did all those drawn to the scene by his shrieks. Ahmad Dahman breathed his last and died while his cup of tea was still piping hot. Carried on mint-laced wafts of steam, the man’s soul rose into the air and evaporated for ever.

  After his death, Umm Walid became increasingly agitated and forgetful. Sometimes she would lose all consciousness of what was happening around her. She would sit in silence at the door to her bedroom for hours on end. Sometimes she would bring the chickens out from their cages, calling out, ‘Ta-ta-ta-ta-taaa,’ while she threw handfuls of barley on the ground. The chickens would race to snatch up the grains. She would sit and watch as they wiped their beaks on the ground and turned to beg for more. She would talk to them as if she were talking to neighbourhood women and confiding all her secrets: ‘They killed him. Those thieving sons of bitches murdered him. They were the ones stealing bags of food and splitting them up among themselves. Abu Walid must have been standing in their way, threatening to go public. Then they decided to get rid of him. God damn those sons of …!’