Alligator and Other Stories

by Dima Alzayat

  In the office, Max sits in his chair, his back stiff and upright, and stares out into the Pen. The old man on my phone has hung up. I take off my headset and stand. On the TV they’re replaying footage of the second plane. No one speaks and the phones are silent.

  The shot is again replayed, once, twice. On the third time Lora lifts a hand to her mouth and her voice breaks the silence. ‘Dios mío, Dios mío,’ she repeats over and over, and something about how she says it, the way each word climbs over the one before, reaching for a peak, sounds like a sinister guarantee of a void on the other side.

  ONCE WE WERE SYRIANS

  There used to be a time when our names mattered, when being Syrian meant something else. Turn that off. They count us like grains of rice. I cannot bear it. Come closer. Listen. We used to be given things on our name alone. We would go to Abu Saadi’s, my oldest brother, your grandfather, leading the way, and pick out whatever pastries we wanted. Abu Saadi’s son would wrap them in red boxes and tie the boxes with white ribbons. He would write our name in a thick book his father kept next to the register. Sometimes he gave us pieces of fresh nougat, maybe with pistachios, maybe almonds. He came out from behind the counter and leaned over to hand me mine because I was the youngest. We paid with our name, you see, and my father took care of what we owed. He was an important man. His was a heavy name. People left their shops to greet him when he walked by. I tell you, they offered to drive him even when they saw him standing near his own car. He was in charge of the country’s border guards. More than a thousand men worked under him. Nothing came into the country and nothing left unless he knew about it. Tall, tall he was, taller than most men, and neat. He liked everything neat. My mother washed our clothes by hand but his uniform she sent out at the end of each week to be cleaned and ironed with starch. Turn that off, I beg you. Their words cut like knives. God keep you. Listen. I read what you wrote in that essay.

  Your father showed me.

  Don’t be upset with him. He did not want me to see. He was crying while he read it and I asked him what it was.

  I don’t know why he cried. Maybe he will tell you. He seemed proud, he said it was a good grade. Is that why you showed him?

  Stop that. There is no reason to be mad. I thought you made many good points, God keep you. You wrote it makes you sad that people are dying, that the country might be no more. I agree with you. These things make me sad too. But you used so many words and none of them mentioned any names. How can you say what was lost without them? Our names mattered, I tell you. Without them you cannot understand the whole of it.

  I don’t want to upset you.

  Please don’t go.

  God protect you, listen. Don’t be mad at your father. When your grandparents moved here he was still young, younger than you are now. He was much smaller than the other boys. I knew he had a hard time. It would be even harder for a child like him now. My heart would not bear it. Back then it was only his size. He learned English in less than a year and no one noticed him doing it. Don’t be mad. You can write what you like, of course. Sit with me a while longer.

  God bless you. I want to tell you so you might understand, it’s no small thing to lose a name. Listen, I had six brothers and sisters. Did you know that? My mother had seven brothers and sisters, my father was one of nine. We had so many cousins, so many wives of uncles and husbands of aunts. Everywhere we went were people who knew us, had grown up with our father, or gone to school with our mother, put a new roof on our house, built our furniture. Even strangers, if they asked what street I lived on, would know our neighbors. They offered us cups of tea in their shops because of it. My brothers and sisters and I spent our summers on the streets with other kids. We played football and hide-and-seek. We chased and raced each other until it got too hot to breathe. I know I am saying too much, forgive me. I know you have heard these stories, from your grandfather, from your grandmother. But maybe they were not the right ones. I will try again. We were children. We were safe.

  Yes, I read the entire thing.

  The end too, yes. Listen, I read what you wrote about me. This is why you ask. I am not upset. Maybe you were right to write about it, what I did. I am not proud of the way I treated that woman. But also you do not understand.

  Don’t be like that, God keep you. Of course I think you are smart. But this is not that kind of learning. There are some things you cannot understand from books. You were young, and I did not think you would remember her, when she came to our door with her children, when she asked for money. People we knew had sent her our way and I sent her on hers. I will not repeat the words I called her. But I tell you there was no respect for us in how she asked. I could say things were different then or I did not know better but I will not. I did forget though and you remembered. Listen, you will understand. Do you remember Damascus?

  Yes, you were very young. We took you twice during Eid and both times you were still in your mother’s arms. That is all right, I will remember for you. In Damascus, Eid was the best time of the year. People left their homes in the morning and filled the streets. They talked and laughed and visited people they had not seen in many months. We bought gifts and handed out sweets. We gave our good wishes to neighbors and shop owners. Every family we knew paid Muhanad the butcher to slaughter at least one sheep in its name. A third of the meat they gave to their neighbors, a third to the poor. Children dressed in new clothes and collected money from their aunts and uncles, from their grandparents. Carnivals came to town and we waited in line to go on the carousel.

  It was nice, yes, and it was not nice. It was like all places. Listen. Even before and after Eid our door was open. My mother was always boiling tea and coffee, putting out sweets and fruit. People came from all over the city to see us, sometimes only to visit, other times to ask for my father’s help. That was the weight of our name. Enough to forgive a debt, marry a son, maybe even save his life. Many of those who came we knew. If the visitors brought their children, we would play with them. Sometimes we were allowed to invite our own friends.

  I did not have many, no. But the ones I had were close.

  Yara and Lamia. And Ziad. My dearest friend.

  I tell you, he was beautiful! He had a pointy chin and long eyelashes like a girl. Everyone loved him. Listen, you’ll like this, the story of his birth. Everyone knew it. Ziad came out of his mother with the cord wrapped around his neck. He almost died as soon as he was born. The doctor was young and did not know what to do. He watched the poor baby turn purple. If it was not for Ziad’s grandmother, he would not have lived. She took him from the doctor’s hands and cut the cord so he could breathe. She told people that even after she cut it, it still moved, one last time. Can you believe it?

  It is what was said, so it is what I know. But this is not the story. Listen. No one came to our house as much as Nader. He came from an old family, not as old as ours, but a good name. He was the deputy under my father, so when my father was promoted, so was Nader. This is important, always he was one position below him. It was known that Nader filled his house with things from the border, things he took for himself from searches. Televisions, radios, very expensive rugs. Of course many of the guards did the same. For fifteen years my father and Nader worked together. He was my father’s closest friend. And almost every night he came to our house and drank beers and smoked argileh in our garden. I remember he had a big belly and thick fingers. He would blow rings of smoke with his nostrils to make us laugh. We liked him because he was good at telling funny stories, and before we were sent to bed we would sit with him until he told us one. I liked his voice, like music. His stories, like songs.

  Who?

  No, his name was Ziad. Say it like this: Zee-yad.

  Very good. God protect you.

  There is not more to say.

  Well. Ziad’s name was a heavy name, heavier than ours. His family had the biggest house on our street. My brother, your grandfather, was in the same class as Ziad’s brother and sometimes he took me wit
h him to their house. Many of the older sisters and brothers had left to be married by then. So it was a quiet house, much quieter than ours.

  No, he was a year younger than me.

  Rami, and he was older than Ziad. It was only Rami and Ziad left in that house. And a sister.

  Her name does not matter.

  She befriended me even though I was years younger.

  It does not matter, I tell you.

  Her hair was straight and black, her eyelashes thick like Ziad’s. What else is there to say?

  I don’t know what she was like. She hated playing outside. She said the sun hurt her eyes, the heat made her dizzy. I was different. I loved running from one end of the street to the other and I would beg one of my brothers or sisters to use a watch to time me. I liked playing football, too, and scoring goals against the boys who would not have me on their teams.

  Enough about her. She was Ziad’s sister. That was all.

  Not how you think, but yes, I did like him very much. I liked how easily he laughed. He was younger so we were in different classes but in the morning everyone came together for assemblies, outside on the playground, and I would see him then. I would catch him watching me and I would make my eyes bulge or wag my tongue. But I had to make sure no teacher saw. It would be two slaps on your hand with a wooden ruler if they caught you. One of them liked to yank your ear until it turned red. Ziad would try so hard to not laugh. It was funny to see, I tell you! His eyes disappeared. They became straight lines and his entire body would shake trying to keep it in.

  Yes. We stood in our lines, in our uniforms, and we turned our heads toward the front. Hand on your heart you swore your loyalty and duty to the flag, to the cardboard posters with eyes that looked back at you, followed you no matter where on the playground you stood. First the father’s, now the son’s. Sometimes an older student sang the anthem or read a poem but no one listened to the words.

  Again you ask me how we stood silent and obeyed. Why did we not shout and scream? It was not only that we were afraid. That is not the whole of it. It never once occurred to us! How do I explain to you? It would have been like shouting at the sun for its heat, at the ocean for its depth. This is what I am trying to say. Listen. Nader had only daughters. Six of them. Each year his wife tried for a boy and each year another girl with curly hair came out. Nader joked they were his punishment for the girls he had chased as a young man. He would say, ‘Now I will have as many women as I tried to escape,’ and then he would laugh his big belly laugh. Sometimes, one or two of his daughters came with him to visit. They were too young to play with us but still they were sent to our rooms after tea. We gave them toys to keep them busy but soon we forgot about them. We spoke openly near them. I spoke openly near them. They were only children, do you see? That was my mistake.

  Whose name?

  Why mention her again?

  She was Ziad’s sister. Her name is not important, I tell you.

  Yes, I’m fine.

  She did as she liked.

  I am, I tell you.

  Like if their maid was in the kitchen, she ordered her out. She liked to mix ingredients and put everything in the oven to see what would happen. What else? Her mother had a new sewing machine. So when she was out, Ziad’s sister would go on it. She taught me how to make clothes for my dolls, for myself. I enjoyed doing that. You see, in my house I was never allowed to touch the sewing machine, or to enter the kitchen unless it was for a glass of water and even then my mother lifted the jug and filled my glass. But at Ziad’s house there was no one to watch what we did, how she played. She would make a list of things for me to do. Wash her dolls and comb their hair, help her pick a dress to wear the next day. Sometimes she would mess up her bed just so I could fix it again. Even on sunny days she kept me inside. We are playing house, she would say.

  What you think. She would be the dad, Ziad our son. I would pretend to cook meals, clean the house, other things I did not want to do. But enough about that.

  Enough, I tell you!

  I am fine. But no more about her. I want to tell you something else. Listen. Sometimes my father and Nader would be sent to the border and there they would stay for days, even weeks.

  I did. I missed his height and smell but I also liked our house without him. It was louder. My sisters argued about who was wearing which dress to what friend’s birthday party. My brothers put on loud battles in the living room and pretended to kill each other with plastic guns and fake grenades. Like always, my mother stayed busy cleaning everything in the house. But sometimes she came into our rooms and watched us play, or if we were outside, she changed out of her house dress and stood on our street chatting with the neighbors. Instead of full meals we ate bread and cheese, olive oil and za’atar. My mother bought whole roasted chickens and let us eat them with our fingers.

  She was, very kind. God have mercy on her. I miss her still.

  His way was different. He was strict.

  With his hands he would measure our skirts. My brothers were never allowed to grow their hair past their ears. But he made sure we had everything we wanted. If one of my sisters pointed to a dress in a magazine, or my brothers mentioned a Lego set they had seen, all they had to do was wait. With time he came home with a package and he would smile when he handed it to us. What we got was never exactly what we had asked for, but it was close enough. We didn’t ask where the packages came from or why sometimes they had on them other people’s names. When he hit us it was because we had done something bad. My oldest brother got slapped across the face for cheating on an exam. My sister had her hair pulled when she cursed in the street. He grabbed her braids with his fingers, like this, and walked the whole of the living room, dragging her, repeating her curses until our ears went numb.

  Don’t be upset. It was what he knew.

  Don’t be upset, I tell you. God have mercy on him too.

  No, he did not hit her. My mother he loved most of all. He brought her clothes with French labels, crocodile handbags, heavy perfumes and lace underclothes she stored in the back of her armoire. When we were home alone my sisters would take them out and try them on while I sat on the bed and watched. I was too young then to understand what clothing like that was meant to do. You might be a young woman but I bet you still don’t know.

  Don’t laugh. It will take you many years to understand.

  Her? My mother I remember like one remembers a memory. I am not sure which parts I made up. She smelled like oranges. The skin on her hands was thin, the veins in her legs bright. All day she washed and cooked and scrubbed.

  Yes, all day, I tell you. I don’t know how her veins did not burst, how the water did not dissolve her skin. But this is not what I want to say. Listen, so you might know. My father was gone for weeks before I noticed how our neighbors no longer looked us directly in the eyes. Still I asked my mother nothing. None of us did. Instead a quiet filled our home, so heavy I wish it not even on the dead. We ate without making a sound. We became full with silence. Each day that summer I sat by the window that looked down on our street and watched the corner where it crossed the main road. I tried to make him appear, you see? I promised myself if I held my breath for ten seconds longer or didn’t blink for fifteen counts more, I would see him come around the corner in his uniform. I imagined him walking to the house and lifting his hand to wave at me. I still did not know then the mistake I had made.

  How do I explain to you? In our homes things were thought instead of spoken. Our neighbors, who we laughed with, who we had over for lunch, exchanged desserts with after dinner, whose youngest children we helped feed on our laps, were separated from us by walls we could see and walls we could not. We did not know who would speak, what stories about us real or made up they would tell to gain what they could. Or worse, because they had no other choice, because maybe it meant their lives instead. Once, when I was seven, maybe eight, my friend Yara came over and I began to tell her about a trip to the coast my family had taken, a weekend in Latakia. I
told her how the sun burned my shoulders, how I had to put yogurt on my skin and spend the rest of my time under a parasol. But as soon as I began to tell her where we stayed, who we visited, my mother appeared in the doorway. I saw her face and somehow I knew to stop. I turned to Yara and asked her if she preferred to paint or draw. That time, I knew to stop. Are you beginning to understand?

  Good. God bless you. God protect you. Do you know I saw her again? Nine, ten years ago. But she did not remember me.

  No, no. Not Yara. Ziad’s sister. I saw Ziad’s sister at a wedding, Muhsain and Jumana’s wedding. I never told anyone. You were there but very young, too young to remember how she reached out and touched your hair. She petted you like a mouse. My hand shook when she took it. She introduced herself, as if I did not know who she was! Even my name made her remember nothing. During the dinner I sat where I could see the back of her head. Her hair was still thick and black. Mine was already gray by then. Only when the dancing ended and the music stopped and I saw her stand up I approached her again. I pretended I had only just remembered. I named our street and all our neighbors, asked about Ziad and the rest of her family. She stared at me with her blue eyes and shook her head. ‘I am sorry,’ she said, ‘I do not remember.’ I cannot imagine what my face must have looked like, I tell you, because one of Jumana’s cousins came to me then and apologized. ‘Oh, she had an accident after her marriage,’ the cousin said. ‘Her memory is not good.’ I wanted to ask about the accident, where the husband was, but I stayed quiet and she walked away.

  No, no. I am not upset. But she should have remembered.

  I am not upset, I tell you.

  Enough! I beg you. I was telling a different story. Why remember her? I am becoming an old lady telling stories this way. God give you patience. Where was I?