Alligator and Other Stories

by Dima Alzayat

  ‘It’s hard to know,’ her aunt says. ‘Do you think he was?’

  Girl shrugs and flips back a few pages and points to one photo of a priest holding a baby, and then another. ‘Your cousins’ baptisms,’ her aunt says. Girl tries to not look confused, but she is, and she can tell her aunt knows, so she waits. ‘Listen,’ her aunt says. ‘Your grandfather was Christian. That made your uncle Christian. It made your father Christian. Do you understand? It passes through the father. It doesn’t matter who converted and who named who what.’ Girl does understand. She understands this is why her father and uncle didn’t speak. But what about my mother? she wants to ask. What did she believe? But she senses that her aunt, even if she knows, will not tell. ‘Tomorrow we’re taking you to church,’ her aunt says. ‘You might like it.’

  In church, the service is in Arabic and Girl understands nothing. Robed men and boys walk up and down the aisles, some of them slowly swinging chains attached to silver balls filled with smoke, and everyone looks tired.

  When the service ends and people rise to leave, Girl does too. ‘Wait,’ her uncle says. He loops his arm through hers and leads her to the back of the church, to a room with rows of chairs, a chalkboard and a group of kids half her age. He says something in Arabic to the only adult in the room – a man wearing glasses and itchy-looking wool – smiles at her and leaves. Girl is thinking about what it would feel like to follow him out, to scream and yell in the middle of that church, when a kid her age walks in. He tells her his name is Danny and that he’s fourteen. He also says he’d rather be shooting his BB gun, watching football or kissing girls. ‘My mom just found God though,’ he says.

  ‘Where was he hiding?’ Girl asks.

  ‘Everyone, be quiet, please,’ the man with the glasses says, then he opens a book and starts reading from it in Arabic. Girl looks up at the clock and calculates the hours until her flight. She thinks about the next day and school, about Mark and Anne, Lien and Marcy, Ryan and Isabelle, Mrs. Adler. About her dad, her grandfather and her uncles, her grandmother and her mother. Always her thoughts lead to her mother.

  **

  Girl’s dad was married to Mona when he met Girl’s mom. He was from Damascus and Girl’s mom was from Latakia, they met in Las Vegas, and she died soon after Girl was born. These are the things Girl knows. Each time she asked her dad for more he told her only stories about Damascus, her grandparents and uncles, other people she did not know. Many times, she tried to imagine what it was like when Mona found out, what it looked like when Girl’s dad came home with a baby in his arms. For a while, Girl wondered if at the beginning Mona had spoiled her, dressed her in skirts and bonnets and pushed her around the neighborhood in a stroller, if she had told people that Girl was, of course, her daughter. But Girl now knows that these things could not have happened. Because later, when Girl was older, many times she heard Mona tell Girl’s dad she would never forgive him. She would say it even if she saw Girl nearby, even if she knew she could hear her.

  When Girl’s dad died, Mona at last decided that Girl definitely was not her daughter. A social worker asked if Girl had family but neither Mona nor Girl knew where the uncles were, or if they were even still alive. All Girl could do was show the social worker the two photos of her mother and explain how thinking about both at once would make it easier to see the full face, to know what her mother really looked like. The social worker tried to reason with Mona, told her thoughts like hers were normal and that they soon would pass. But Girl knew they wouldn’t, because Mona continued to look at her the same way she’d always looked at her, like she was something heavy, that like plaque she would one day kill her heart too.

  **

  When Danny asks Girl if she wants to kiss she thinks about it and says ‘Yes.’ The two are alone in the rector’s office, waiting to be picked up, and he moves his chair closer to hers and leans over. Girl likes that his lips feel soft but his breath smells like onion rings and he’s not very good at moving his tongue. He pushes it into her mouth and shoves it against her cheeks and toward her throat, and she pulls away. ‘You’re making it hard to breathe,’ she says.

  ‘Sorry. Can I try again?’ She feels bad for him and says ‘Sure’ and this time it’s not much better and again she starts to pull away when the rector’s assistant walks in. He yells at them in Arabic until his face is bright red and they try to not laugh. Girl feels bad for him and tries to interrupt. ‘We don’t know what you’re saying,’ she says, but the assistant doesn’t hear or listen.

  On the way to the airport Girl’s uncle speaks only to quote the Bible and her aunt sits in the backseat, covering the kids’ ears. When they near the terminal, the aunt’s hand reaches from behind the passenger seat where Girl sits and squeezes her shoulder, and Girl wants to say she would like to stay, that she’ll go to any church or masjid, pagoda or fire temple, if they keep her. But the moment passes, and the aunt takes her hand back, and the uncle’s voice again fills the car. ‘Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never!’ On the plane a man asks to switch seats with Girl so he can sit next to his son. Girl turns to the seat he points to beside her and thinks about moving, but the kid looks nine or ten and he’s watching his iPad. He doesn’t care where his dad sits. When she says ‘No’ the man looks surprised and asks again, and this time, his question doesn’t sound like one. She wants to tell him she has to sit next to the window, that if she doesn’t her chest will get tight for no reason at all, that it’ll be his fault if she has a heart attack right there on the plane in the middle of the flight. Even a child’s heart can stop, she wants to say. But then the boy looks up at his dad and then at her, and their stares make it hard to think, so she gets up and lets them have it. ‘Thank you,’ they both say, but she pretends not to hear, sits in her new seat, takes out her book and reads.

  In The Witch of Blackbird Pond a bad illness kills off a lot of Puritans and it gets Kit in trouble. Girl is annoyed that even though Kit has nothing to do with the disease, she’s still blamed for it. But so many people are dying, and no one knows why, and they’ve spent so much time thinking about Kit and her dresses and how she can swim, and it all suddenly makes sense to them that she’s a witch and the reason behind all of their problems. Girl doesn’t like Kit enough to be sad if they kill her. But she wants someone to at least say, Listen, this is crazy, sure Kit wears fancy dresses and acts stuck-up and spends all of her time hanging out with a boring Quaker woman, but that doesn’t mean anything.

  In the baggage claim Girl expects to see Mark but instead it’s Anne and she looks nervous. Her hair is uncombed, and her eyes can’t focus. On the freeway she drives slowly and when a car honks, she doesn’t seem to notice. They don’t speak at all and when they’ve nearly reached the house Anne turns to Girl and tries to smile. ‘I’m glad you reunited with your family,’ she says.

  Girl nods so she doesn’t have to answer, and when they pull into the garage, and the door comes down, she says, ‘Why don’t you and Mark have children?’ For a while Anne sits and doesn’t answer, then she begins to cry. Girl wants to say she’s sorry, but it’s dark inside the car and the porch light coming in through the garage window shadows Anne’s face, and Girl pretends it’s her mother’s.

  In class the next day Mrs. Adler continues the discussion on World Religions and Girl does her best to pay attention. ‘Next up: Buddhism,’ Mrs. Adler says. ‘Lien, why don’t you tell us what you know about the dharma?’ The entire class turns to look at Lien. Marcy gives Girl a look to say, Here we go. Girl is tired and has felt sick all morning. Mrs. Adler’s voice scratches at her ears, and she feels her body grow hot.

  ‘So, we each have a body and a spirit, and the spirit can live in the body or not,’ Lien says. ‘And what happens to your spirit depends on your karma. Like if you help people you have good karma, but if you’ve been a big B, your karma’s definitely bad.’ A few kids laugh but Mrs. Adler nods along.
Girl wonders if she’s even listening. Lien takes a deep breath to go again, and Girl feels her gut twist like someone is wringing it out. ‘And the nirvana is connected to the dharma, because if your dharma is good then you can reach nirvana,’ Lien says.

  When Girl raises her hand, Lien stops speaking and Mrs. Adler looks at Girl but doesn’t call on her. ‘Go ahead, Lien,’ she says. But Lien doesn’t, and instead looks at Girl and nods.

  ‘She’s just saying words,’ Girl says. ‘Her mom’s Jewish, her dad’s an atheist, and she believes in UFOs. All that stuff is from an anime, about Jesus Christ and Buddha living together in an apartment in Japan.’

  ‘It’s a really good anime,’ Marcy says.

  ‘Girls!’ Mrs. Adler yells.

  ‘Also, Kit is a hypocrite,’ Girl says. She’s hot and dizzy and she doesn’t care what Mrs. Adler might do to her as long as she gets to speak. ‘I’ve been thinking about it. At the beginning of the book she’s sad because she has to leave her fancy plantation and live without slaves, and by the end of the book she’s learned that slavery is bad but she still calls Indians savages and I’m pretty sure she’d kill one if she had to, the same way the villagers wanted to kill her.’

  ‘What the hell?’ Lien says. ‘She can’t have slaves. She’s from Barbados. Marcy’s dad is from Barbados.’

  ‘Um, hello. She’s white,’ Marcy says.

  ‘I didn’t know there were white people in Barbados,’ Lien says.

  ‘Okay, enough!’ Mrs. Adler says. She points at Girl, then the door. ‘Principal’s office.’

  Sweat soaks the pits of Girl’s shirt and her stomach hurts, and the principal has five students to see before it’s her turn. She’s told to sit in the waiting area next to the nurse’s office and when she asks the nurse if she can use the bathroom he tells her to stay put where she is. It’s only when she threatens to puke right there, on desks and chairs and floor, that he hands her the key.

  Leaning over the toilet, she tries to throw up but can’t. All she wants is to lie down somewhere cool and quiet and without people. She pulls her pants down and sits but nothing happens, and the pain travels through her body in waves. It’s then she looks down and sees the blood fall one drop at a time and dissolve in the water. The waves grow stronger, crash against her insides, and she watches the blood drop more quickly until the drops connect and form a stream and she reaches out and touches it. It’s thicker than regular blood and sticks to her hand like glue. ‘You need to come out now,’ the nurse shouts through the door. Girl closes her eyes and tries to reach down, all the way down, past her dad’s voice and stories, to what he’s left out, the places between his words. To why Mona had to hate her and why her mother had to die, to why the men in her family died inside women, and why, when they did, it was the women who disappeared. She opens her eyes and stays there, sitting, as the nurse knocks, then pounds on the door. She thinks about cleaning herself up and asking to go home, about who will pick her up and where they’ll take her, about the kind of pain that comes with blood and the kind that doesn’t. She wipes her fingers and watches the blood dry on the toilet paper. This can be anyone’s, she thinks, not just mine or my mother’s. It could be Anne’s or Mrs. Adler’s. My aunt’s and grandmother’s. Mona’s even. She folds a long strip of toilet paper and holds it between her legs, pulls up her pants, and washes her hands.

  When she opens the door, the nurse stands in her way. He’s tall and heavy and his body fills the doorway. But she doesn’t care what he’s saying. She ignores his words and pushes her way through. ‘Shut up already,’ she says, and when she looks back, his face is red and his eyes surprised, and she doesn’t feel bad for him. She feels good. She feels okay.

  Acknowledgments

  This book was made possible by those who champion the short story and have supported my writing over the years. Thank you to the Bridport Prize, Bristol Short Story Prize, Northern Writers Awards, Enizagam Literary Awards, Society of Authors’ Awards and Deborah Rogers Foundation. Thank you to Kwame Dawes for valuable edits on ‘In the Land of Kan’an.’ Thank you to Lancaster University. To Jenn Ashworth, whose feedback and insights led to important edits. To Robert Alan Jamieson and Alice Thompson, who told me to keep writing.

  Thank you to my brilliant editor Ansa Khan at Picador for careful, thoughtful edits. To my U.S. editors Eric Obenauf and Eliza Wood-Obenauf at Two Dollar Radio for being dream collaborators. To my agent Juliet Pickering for finding and guiding me, as well as to Samuel Hodder and everyone at Blake Friedmann. To Kim Witherspoon and Maria Whelan at Inkwell. To Dr. Sarah Gualtieri, whose brilliant and necessary research in Between Arab and White directly inspired and informed the title story in this book.

  I am thankful, especially, to the women who have told me stories, and listened to mine: Rosie, Cait, Janelle and Jaclyn. To my nieces, Lola and Alana. To my siblings. And to my mother and grandmother, who helped me realize the stories we still need to tell.

  A special thank-you to the O’Gormans for their kindness and support. And to Alan, who makes the tea, and helped me find home.

  Alligator and Other Stories

  Dima Alzayat was born in Damascus, Syria, grew up in San Jose, California, and now lives in Manchester. She was the winner of the 2019 ALCS Tom-Gallon Trust Award, a 2018 Northern Writers’ Award, the 2017 Bristol Short Story Prize and the 2015 Bernice Slote Award. She was runner-up in the 2018 Deborah Rogers Award and the 2018 Zoetrope: All-Story Competition, and was Highly Commended in the 2013 Bridport Prize.

  First published 2020 by Picador

  This electronic edition published in 2020 by Picador

  an imprint of Pan Macmillan

  The Smithson, 6 Briset Street, London EC1M 5NR

  Associated companies throughout the world

  www.panmacmillan.com

  ISBN 978-1-5290-2992-5

  Copyright © Dima Alzayat 2020

  Cover Design by Stuart Wilson, Picador Art Department

  The right of Dima Alzayat to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Some of the stories in this book previously appeared in the following:

  ‘In the Land of Kan’an’ in Prairie Schooner; ‘Summer of the Shark’ in Enizagam;

  ‘Disappearance’ in Bridport Prize Anthology; and ‘Ghusl’ in Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology.

  You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damage.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Visit www.picador.com to read more about all our books and to buy them. You will also find features, author interviews and news of any author events, and you can sign up for e-newsletters so that you’re always first to hear about our new releases.