The Lebanese Dishwasher

by Sonia Saikaley

  Next time. I suppress a smile. He holds out his hand again and, after a while, I take it. And we glide along the ice in our boots. Fall once, twice. Laugh like elementary students on a field trip. We lie on the ice far too long and my back gets cold as I gaze up at the moon, then glance at the man next to me. He has thick eyebrows but nicely shaped as if he had them professionally waxed, and dimples when he grins. I begin to shiver. He sits up, then stands and extends his arm to me, helping me up. “Too cold?”

  I shake my head. We skate some more, his gloved hand still covering mine. Two Arabs on ice. Two Arabs on ice under a full moon. Two Arab men holding hands on ice under a full moon. What would my mother think? She’d think I’m trouble. We skate for a while and by the time we stop, the wind is blowing so hard in my face that my eyes tear. Rami reaches into his pocket and hands me a tissue. “For your eyes.”

  “Shukran.”

  We walk back to the main street. Cars zoom past us. At the lights, Rami says, “We should do this again.” He doesn’t speak in his halting English; his voice is strong in his mother tongue but there’s an innocence when he speaks in English. I can’t explain it. I long for him to say something in English again, and as if reading my thoughts, he says, “Let’s do again.”

  “Skate?”

  “Well, maybe no skate but meet. I have fun.”

  “Me too.”

  He raises his right hand in the phone symbol and says, now switching to Arabic, “Call me. But I guess I’ll see you next week for your birthday celebration, no?”

  I nod then say, “Yallah, bye.” We wave and go our separate ways.

  When I reach my house, the porch is dark and I fumble with my keys trying to find the lock. I tiptoe across the hardwood floor, up to my room, open the door and lock it behind me. Stripping off my clothes, I slip under the covers next to Denise and try not to wake her but she blinks her eyes open and caresses my face. “How was dinner?”

  “All right. Nothing special. Everyone was loud and speaking over each other. Typical Arab family.” I laugh and she laughs too. This is what I love most about her – her laughter. She laughs easily and often. Not so serious like my mother, who barely lifts her mouth in a grin.

  She sits up and says softly, “You must miss your family, Amir. Why don’t we plan a trip this summer to visit them? I’ve always wanted to go to the Middle East. And what a perfect opportunity to travel with a tour guide who knows the area so well.” She leans in and kisses me on the lips. We kiss for a long time before she strips off her clothes then mine. I move inside her gently and close my eyes. I see Rami’s face. Stubble on his square jaw, his large brown eyes emanating light when we skated on the lake and laughed as we fell on the ground together, lying side-by-side, close but not touching, even though I longed to. I suddenly stop thrusting and roll onto my side of the bed, stare at the ceiling and rub my forehead.

  Denise turns, touches my arm and whispers, “What’s wrong?”

  I say nothing.

  “What’s wrong?” she repeats, now sitting up, drawing her knees to her chest.

  “I’m sorry.” I turn and face her, clear my throat. “I’m just tired. Sorry. Would you mind if we just slept?”

  “No problem, my Arabian prince," she says, slipping her pyjamas back on and bending down to give me a goodnight kiss. “I completely understand. I tired you out from our earlier quickie, didn’t I?” She laughs and I can’t help but laugh too. I close my eyes and try not to think about Rami. But I can’t stop myself. I focus on Rami’s hand in my own and how we glided on the ice. Two Arabs on ice. Two Arab men on ice. Holding hands. I shake my head and close my eyes tight so the tears can’t escape. I turn and stare at Denise who is now fast asleep. A draft slips under the blankets, up my calves, thighs, past my groin and touches my belly. Bolting up, I rush out of the room and throw up in the bathroom. When I return to my room, I glance at Denise, her hair spread on the pillowcase, her thin lips slightly open. She doesn’t stir as I crawl back into bed.

  The next morning I wake up, shivering and sweaty. My sheets are drenched with perspiration. I turn to Denise’s side of the bed and realize she’s gone. With difficulty, I rise to my feet, put on a bathrobe and head to the shared bathroom. The door is closed but opens in a few seconds. Denise walks out. Her hair is damp and her blue eyes are red from shampooing. “Good morning, my Arabian prince!” she says cheerfully. “Sorry, I slipped out of your room but I have to work the early shift at the store. I’ll catch you later, okay?”

  “Sure.” I watch her walk down the hallway, her small hips swaying. When she turns, she catches me staring at her and looks down at my morning erection.

  She winks and says in a teasing manner, “Save that for later! You have to make up for last night!”

  I nod and slip into the bathroom. I lean into the mirror and wipe the steam from Denise’s shower. Then I beat my fists against it. The mirror doesn’t break but pain shoots through my hands. Another lousy day. Another eight hours of washing stupid dishes. I’ve been in Montreal for five years. Why didn’t I return to school? In those five years, I could’ve obtained another degree. A Canadian degree. Why didn’t I do something better with my life here? But I realize that I have no time to think about this. My lousy job awaits. I quickly shower then return to my room and dress.

  Nausea rises in my chest. I rush out of the kitchen and into the restaurant’s restroom. I throw up in the dirty toilet bowl and realize that I should’ve cleaned the toilets this morning before the breakfast crowd. The hell with it, I think. Why should I scrub shit from a toilet bowl? Who ever said a dishwasher had to wash toilets too? When I emerge from the stall, Salem is standing at the sink, glancing at me, a look of concern on his ragged face. “Are you all right, Amir?”

  “Yeah, just something I ate.”

  “Hopefully, not something my wife made last night," he says, frowning.

  “No, no. I had a chicken shawarma yesterday too.”

  “You should be careful where you eat. Some places don’t clean properly.”

  I glance back at the toilet stalls.

  “You know Rami couldn’t stop talking about you when he got home from his walk. He said you both went skating. Maybe you caught a chill.”

  My mouth opens but nothing comes out and my cheeks grow red. “He told you about that?”

  “We’re a close family. We’re Palestinian after all. Family is of the utmost importance to us. You should understand. You’re Lebanese.”

  I nod then hold the door open for Salem. “After you.”

  “Thanks. Hope you’re feeling better. Don’t work too hard.”

  Warm water and soapsuds on my hands. Piles of dirty dishes are in the sink. I stop shivering and think about what Rami had told his uncle. How could he have shared our skating escapade with his uncle, I think. This somehow makes the whole experience less intimate, less special. My throat tightens when I hear the cooks laugh about it.

  “Do you think your nephew is queer?” one of the cooks asks Salem.

  Salem answers quickly. “No, no, not possible, he likes girls too much. You should see all the women I bring to the house for him. Palestinian, Syrian, Lebanese. They all like him. He’s handsome like me!” he jokes, sticking out his chest.

  I glance up from the dishes and throw him a look of disgust.

  “But why was he skating with Amir?”

  Salem whispers, “I don’t know.” The conversation grows silent. I look away from them and scrub the dishes harder, water splashing onto my face.

  Six

  LIGHT RAIN SPLASHES ON Amir’s face as he wanders between alleys, staring up at the balconies of the adjacent apartment buildings and peeking into the lives of those in them. Some have potted plants and patio furniture crammed in the small space. A water-pipe or two appears on some, ashtrays full of leftover cigarette butts, remnants of the previous night. Other balconies are immaculate. No clutter, only order even in this chaotic place. Amir cranes his neck to have a better look and imagines the
residents being either high-ranking government officials, accountants or doctors because everything is spotless. He likes playing guessing games and imagining how many people live there and if there are children in these apartments. Sometimes there are small bicycles on the balconies and he knows these homes have some young lives in them. Other times he watches a woman undressing, her breasts and pubic hair exposed to him, and he doesn’t look away, or sees a man and woman embracing and he still doesn’t look away. But his glance always lingers on the naked man’s body longer than the woman’s. He sometimes forces himself to look at the woman and forget the man but his eyes always return to the man’s bulging biceps and the bush of hair down there.

  Now he rushes through the alley and sneaks past some vendors at the marketplace who sell trinkets from the Middle East: gold jewellery, hookahs, talismans of cedars. While he strolls past some stalls, sunlight sparkling on gold bangles, he spots a crucifix of Jesus Christ on a man’s hairy chest. The man winks at him but Amir turns shyly away and hurries across the road to the fish market. Slowing his pace, he stares at the open-eyed fish and thinks they look sad. The smell from them never bothers him but their eyes do. He wants to close them but knows he can’t, wants to cover them with a blanket or something. Now standing on the curbside, he watches a vendor pile the fish on top of one another, in a mound and thinks that at least they aren’t lonely. They might be dead, but other fish, maybe family, surround them, maybe friends they had swum with during their short stay in the sea. With his shoulders sagging, he looks away from the piles of dead fish and inhales and exhales the salty air. When he turns around, he bumps into a man and apologizes. He looks up and realizes the man is his neighbour Walid.

  “Ah, it’s the little prince! Have you read that book?” asks Walid, holding a plastic bag in his right hand.

  Amir glances at the bag and wishes he could see inside it and get a glimpse into his neighbour’s life. “Yes, I like that story.”

  “Me too.” Walid’s eyes dart between the fish vendor and Amir. Then he asks, “Do you like falafels?”

  Amir nods.

  “I know a great place that makes them. Yallah.” Walid motions with his shoulder. They walk past the fish that mesmerized Amir moments earlier, but now he ignores them and takes sideway glances at Walid, who walks with his shoulders straight as if he were a soldier like the ones Amir has seen at checkpoints. Machine guns clutched in the soldiers’ hands as they lean into an open car window and ask for identification.

  They walk for a few minutes, not talking, then turn down a quiet narrow street and, at first, panic rises up in Amir’s chest to his throat when he realizes that he shouldn’t be walking with Walid. Suddenly stopping, Amir says, his voice shaking, “I think I better go home.”

  Walid stops too. “Why? We’re almost there. We just have to walk down this street to reach the main intersection again. It’ll only take a few more minutes.”

  “I don’t know.” Amir glances back and forth. He sees a donkey pulling a cart filled with vegetables, an old woman trails behind it, clutching the wooden handles. Should he call out to her for help? he wonders. Could she help? She’s so old, he thinks. His face whitens.

  Walid kneels in front of him and touches his forearms. “What’s wrong, Amir? You look a little pale. Are you afraid? Don’t be. I won’t hurt you.”

  Walid’s voice is calm and reassuring and there is something comforting in the way his hands rub up and down Amir’s arms. He whispers, “I’m okay. Let’s go eat.”

  Standing up again, Walid claps his hands together, the bag in his one hand flips side-to-side. “You’re going to love these falafels! They’re the best in Beirut!”

  He’s right, Amir thinks, as he takes another bite of the falafel sandwich. He chews quickly while Walid tells him about his life: he used to work in his father’s bakery before a bomb made it crumble into nothing but crushed chocolate éclairs and baklava laced with broken glass and stones. When the bomb exploded, he had been delivering a wedding cake. His mother and father were inside the shop serving customers and baking, going about their usual workday. Amir looks away as Walid’s voice cracks. “My mother is still alive but severely burned. My father didn’t make it.” Fidgeting, Amir rolls his shoulders inward and can’t seem to stay still on his seat. “I’m sorry," Walid says. “I shouldn’t be sharing this sort of stuff with a kid. I’m making you uncomfortable.”

  Sitting up straight, pretending to be grown up, Amir declares, “I’m not a kid. I’m almost thirteen. A teenager.”

  Walid grins. “Yes, almost a teenager but not quite.”

  They finish their sandwiches in silence. Amir looks across at the people around them. This sandwich stand must be the best because the tables are crowded with several customers, mostly couples. There are many cafés on this beach strip. Looking around, Amir studies the cracked stucco and wonders if these cracks are bomb scars. Graffiti also paints the bumpy walls. He can’t remember a time in his short life where he didn’t see black streaks with Arabic words. Some challenge the government, curse neighbouring countries, pray for peace. Amir’s eyes now fall on the sea. Beyond the walls and the busy road with Mercedes zooming by, swerving past each other and passersby, the sea moves like it always does even when artillery shells plummet out of the sky, even when civilians with torn limbs shout for help in the aftermath of a car bomb or family members bury their loved ones in mass graves. The sea keeps moving, moving forward, forgetting the dead on its shore, and the living who can’t bear to witness the chaos anymore and end up plunging into its waves. Amir stares down at the wrapper in his hands then gets up and throws it in the trash can. When he returns to the table, Walid stands up and says he has somewhere else to go. “Can you get home on your own?”

  Amir looks around. The area is unfamiliar but he doesn’t want to admit this to Walid. He wants to be grown up, so he nods and says farewell.

  An hour later, wandering down various streets and alleys, he finally reaches his building. It is now dark out. The homes are lit up with the blueness of television screens and dim bulbs. Tonight is a good night, he thinks. The electricity is working. No blackouts, not yet. His heart sinks when he knows what sort of greeting awaits him. As soon as he enters the apartment, his mother yells, “Where have you been? It’s close to dinnertime. You always have your head in the clouds, Amir. You’re twelve now. You need to grow up. Get out of those smelly clothes!”

  Amir looks down at his shirt; some of the falafel is splattered on it. And when he takes a whiff, he can smell the garlic and, oddly enough, fish odour and for some reason he finds this funny. He begins to laugh.

  “Stop laughing! It’s not funny!” his mother snaps. “Get cleaned before dinner.”

  “What’s for dinner?”

  “Fish.”

  He bursts into laughter.

  His mother lunges at him and hits him across the head. “Enough!”

  And, rather than cry, he keeps laughing. His mother swings at him again but he ducks, runs past his father and brother, who are sitting in front of the TV, and slams his bedroom door. Falling onto the bed and burying his face in his pillow, he finally cries. He wishes he didn’t have to live here. Wishes he wasn’t her son. He wishes he could race down the hallway and live with Walid.

  Seven

  AFTER WORK, I RACE home, careful not to slip on the icy sidewalks. Every day, I walk quickly out of the restaurant with a big smile on my face, happy to be free from that lousy place and those fucking dishes that keep piling up no matter how fast I wash them. I look down at my ungloved hands and notice that the skin on my knuckles is cracked. Glancing at my watch, I realize that I’m ten minutes late for my date with Denise. When I unlock the door to my rooming house, Denise is standing in the hallway chatting with Ben, who is the other tenant. I say hello to Ben then usher Denise out the front door. “Why are you speaking with him?” I snap.

  “Well, hello Denise, how are you? How was your day?” Denise says sarcastically.

  “Sorr
y, I get grumpy from work. You know how much I love that place.”

  She pecks me on the cheek. “Why don’t you look for another job? I can see if my workplace has an opening for you.”

  “A retail job. I don’t think so.”

  She crosses her arms over her chest and says angrily, “What’s wrong with retail? It’s work. It pays the bills. Just because you hate your job doesn’t mean everyone does. I happen to like what I do and the people I work with.”

  “Good for you," I grumble.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Let’s just go. I’m starved.” We walk in silence until we reach the restaurant.

  When we are seated and have ordered, I look around the small Lebanese café. It’s a quaint place with a bar and a couple of tables covered with gold and red tablecloths. Photographs of towering cedars and the mountains of Lebanon hang on the cream-coloured walls while Fairouz’s rich voice plays on a cassette deck. Dishes of maza are in front of us; the smell of garlic and tahini from the hommus and baba ghanoush floats into my nose. Denise scoops some taboulleh with a tiny piece of pita bread and feeds it to me. “Does this taste like home?”

  “Hmm, yes.”

  “We should really plan a trip to Lebanon this summer. I want to see where you were born and raised. You hardly ever speak about it," Denise says, chewing on a piece of skewered meat.

  “Not much to say. I like to leave the past in the past. Talk about the present. How’s your mom doing?” I say, changing the subject.

  Sighing, Denise answers, “Not so good.”

  “I’m sorry.” I reach across and rest my hand on top of hers and squeeze it gently; it is so small that my entire hand covers it.

  We finish the meal in silence then leave and walk gingerly arm-in-arm down the snow-covered streets. I hold on tightly to her as if I’m afraid she’ll run away. Sometimes I think that we’ll get married, maybe even have children. I know it’s been only a short while since we met, but it seems it would be easier this way. Get married. Be faithful to this one woman. Forget about men. As we walk, we pass a gay couple; they are holding hands. “Fucking queers," I whisper to Denise.