The Bamboo Stalk

by Saud Alsanousi

  13

  One day Khawla knocked on the door of my room in the annex. She said Raju had told Grandmother I was often talking to the servants, and so she was very angry. ‘How can I avoid them when I eat in the kitchen?’ I asked.

  ’You mustn’t mix with them,’ she said with a smile. ‘So Grandmother’s decided you’ll eat with us inside.’

  I gave her a big smile. Thank God you’re such a snitch, Raju, I thought to myself.

  Raju was mad about this and asked the other servants why I was in the house, but they pretended to be as ignorant about me as he was.

  At my first lunch with Grandmother, Hind and Khawla, I found I couldn’t put anything in my mouth. Khawla was offering me dishes, serving yellow rice from a large bowl and putting it on my plate. She gave me a piece of chicken, tomato sauce, salad, little triangles stuffed with cheese and vegetables and meat, something like mashed rice coloured orange, and various other dishes. Grandmother never looked in my direction. It was as if I didn’t exist. She was rolling the rice into balls with the tips of her fingers and eating in silence. I was daydreaming about Mama Aida, my mother and Adrian, white rice, soy sauce, grilled bananas and crispy chicken’s feet. Poor people’s food is delicious because it’s salted and spiced by the good cheer and warmth that bring you together around it. Rich people’s food has no flavour when they sit there with silent faces. Hind brought me down to earth: ‘Why aren’t you eating?’ she asked.

  I was flustered. I had been asking myself the same question: what was stopping me from eating when I was starving? ‘I don’t feel hungry, Auntie,’ I said. This was the first time I had spoken in the presence of Grandmother. Without looking at me, Grandmother opened her eyes wide and took her hand off the bowl of rice in front of her. I thought she must have seen an insect in her bowl. She put her elbows on the table, locked her hands together and rested her forehead on her hands. I didn’t know what to make of it. Khawla and Hind looked at me. ‘I hope I didn’t say something that upset her,’ I said.

  As soon as I spoke, Grandmother grabbed the end of the shawl thrown carelessly round her neck and covered her face with it. She began to cry silently. Her body was shaking violently. Hind pushed her chair back, stood up, put a hand on Grandmother’s shoulder and spoke to her gently. Grandmother answered her between sobs, still covering her face with the shawl. Hind smiled, kissed Grandmother’s head and patted her on the back. Khawla was smiling and wiping her tears away with the back of her hand. Hind looked towards me: her nose was red and her eyes were glistening with tears. ‘My mother says you have your father’s voice,’ she said.

  Khawla deliberately spoke to me so that I would answer her and Grandmother could hear Rashid’s voice in my own voice. Grandmother picked up the glass of water to drink as she listened, but she didn’t look towards me and she didn’t understand what I was saying in English. She stared into space, or maybe she was looking at the face of her only son in her imagination. The glass of water was still in her hand. She shook her head sadly, with a bitter look on her face, and with her left hand she began to wipe away her tears. She wiped everything away except the sobs she tried to suppress.

  Everyone but me finished eating. Grandmother went off to the sitting room, leaning on Hind’s arm. She sat on her sofa in the corner and put her legs on her footstool. Now I started eating and I found that the food tasted completely different. It was delicious. I was watching Grandmother in her corner. ‘Why does she put her legs on the stool like that?’ I asked Khawla.

  ‘Poor Grandma,’ she said. ‘She has arthritis and problems with her knee joints.’

  When I went back to my room after lunch, I asked Lakshmi to bring me two small towels and a bowl of hot water. About half an hour after lunch I called Khawla and asked her to tell Grandmother that I wanted to see her about something. Khawla opened the glass door for me and I found myself standing in front of her with the bowl of hot water and towels in my hands. ‘If you want to wash the car, it’s under the awning over there,’ she said. Khawla was crazy, quick-witted, smart and full of fun. I asked her to bring me some oil. ‘What do you want to do, Isa?’ she said in surprise.

  ‘You’ll find out later,’ I replied.

  She was looking at me suspiciously. ‘Where would I find you some oil?’ she asked, then paused a moment. ‘Would cooking oil do?’ I looked at her in disappointment, and she had second thoughts. ‘Olive oil?’ she asked. I agreed to her last suggestion. Khawla called the maid: ‘Luza, Luza!!!’ and from the other end of the sitting room, near the main entrance, came the sound of the parrot. As soon as it heard the maid’s name, it cried out the word that it always attached to Luza’s name.

  ‘Grandmother and the parrot always shout the same word after they call Luzviminda,’ I said to Khawla. ‘But what does that word mean?’

  Khawla blushed. She put her hand behind her head and scowled. Still blushing, she said, ‘It’s himara. It means donkey.’ I repeated the word as she said it in Arabic: himara.

  ‘Yes, madam?’ Luzviminda said from behind me, asking Khawla what she needed. She asked her to bring the bottle of olive oil from the kitchen.

  * * *

  Grandmother refused at first but Khawla insisted. She accepted reluctantly. She stretched out her legs on the stool. I sat on the ground near her knees. I soaked the towels in hot water, then wrapped them around her legs. I began to press with both hands on top of the towels. She was looking at me uncomfortably. I asked Khawla to put one of the cushions behind Grandmother’s head and ask her to lean back and close her eyes. I kept squeezing until the last drop of water dripped from the towels. I removed the stool, put one of her feet on my knees and the other one on my shoulder like a grenade launcher. Grandmother took hold of the end of her shawl and covered her face with it. ‘Grandmother’s embarrassed,’ Khawla whispered in my ear, suppressing her giggles. I took the bottle of oil out of the bowl of hot water. I poured just enough of it on to the leg that was on my shoulder. I laced my fingers together and wrapped my hands around her leg, pressing gently, starting with her ankle, then her calf and then her arthritic knee. I massaged it gently with my fingertips. I took her leg off my shoulder and put it on my knee. I took hold of her foot with my hands, pressing the sole with my thumbs. I put my fingers between her toes. I gripped tight and kept pressing. Grandmother started to snore gently. I pulled the stool towards me and rested her leg on it. The snoring stopped. She said something I didn’t understand. I looked at Khawla for an explanation. ‘Grandmother says don’t forget her other leg,’ she said.

  I nodded happily. ‘Of course, of course,’ I said. If massaging her legs could have brought me closer to her, I would have spent my whole life doing it.

  14

  On 20 June 2006, Ghassan called me and asked me to go somewhere with him. ‘Get changed. I’ll come and pick you up in a few minutes,’ he said. I got changed quickly and waited for him to come to my room. He didn’t take long. I got in the car and he drove off towards the place he wanted to take me. ‘Do you remember that Abu Faris that I told you about?’ he asked me on the way. I remembered the name immediately. He was the poet who was captured during the Iraqi occupation because of the poems and songs he wrote urging people to resist. Ghassan told me he was going to say his last farewells to Abu Faris, whose remains had been found in a mass grave near Karbala in Iraq and were now going to be buried in Kuwait. I couldn’t see any reason why this called for Ghassan to take me along with him. Why? I didn’t ask him, but he answered my unspoken question himself anyway. ‘I want you to see how your father was given a hero’s welcome a few months ago. It will also be a chance to visit his tomb,’ he said.

  I felt a tightness in my chest. Why did I have to keep hanging on to memories of this man? Why did I have to love him more than I did already? Why now, when he was no longer here? Why was I tormenting myself over a man I had seen only in the days before I remembered anything? Of course I was proud of him, but my sadness overwhelmed all other feelings.

  The
place was similar to the place where I had seen large crowds on television for the funeral of the Emir on the day after I arrived in Kuwait. It was where they buried the remains of people who had been captured by the Iraqis and had died in captivity. A large sandy area, with gravestones arranged in horizontal lines. Many people had come to say farewell to their loved ones. They were all men in military uniform, with not a woman among them. There were some prominent people, apparently – the ones in traditional dress with cloaks of various colours – black, brown, grey – all edged in gold cloth. The remains of the dead were covered with the Kuwaiti flag, as the Emir had been the day I arrived. I asked Ghassan if my father’s remains had been covered with the Kuwaiti flag like them and he nodded. I liked the flag and from that moment I felt that the Kuwaiti flag was my flag too.

  Ghassan’s face was sad enough already, but when he cried it was even sadder and the sadness spread to me like an infection. Lots of people were looking at me and whispering to each other, apparently surprised that I was there. Damn my face! I had so many names but my face stayed unchanged, alarming the people around me.

  One of them held out his hand to shake hands with Ghassan. One of them kissed it. One of them hugged him, his body trembling as he tried to hold back his tears. Do they really cry for their dead after all those years?

  The burial ceremonies ended and the men dispersed one by one. Ghassan pointed to a place not far off. ‘Rashid will be pleased to meet you. I swear he can hear our footsteps now as we approach,’ he said. I shivered. I felt as if ants were crawling on me, from my neck up to my forehead. We walked towards my father’s grave with heavy steps. At the grave Ghassan crouched and prayed. When he’d finished he said, ‘I’ll drive over to visit the grave of my mother and father. I won’t be long.’

  Suddenly I was alone in my father’s presence. I looked back to see Ghassan stepping carefully between the graves towards his car. Of course he looked sad when all those he loved were in their graves.

  I sat on the ground next to the grave. I put my hand down and picked up a handful of soil. ‘Papa,’ I said. If I hadn’t started like that, I would have burst out crying. I was choking on my words. All the pictures of him I had seen – in Ghassan’s drawer and in my mother’s briefcase – passed through my mind. I thought of all the happiness, all the fun, all the love and bravery that lay buried in that grave. My lips trembled. ‘Papa,’ I repeated, and because I have my father’s voice, I unintentionally answered myself: ‘Is that you, Isa?’ Tearfully I nodded. ‘Yes, it’s me. I’ve come back to Kuwait, Papa,’ I said. ‘I’m lying in peace now, my son.’ Tears poured from my eyes and I wiped them away with my dusty hand. The tears turned to mud on my face. I was crying so much I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t say anything. I didn’t tell him that I loved him and needed him, that I was an outcast, that my grandmother didn’t know what to do with me, that my aunts didn’t want to recognise that I existed, that I was alone and weak. I wasn’t able to say all that or, since he couldn’t do anything about it, to say I wanted him just to rest in peace.

  Ghassan’s beloved car called and I got to my feet. I turned my back on the grave and headed to the car without looking back. On the way I tried in vain to control my sobbing. Ghassan didn’t say anything until we were close to Grandmother’s house. ‘Are you OK?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, I’m fine,’ I replied.

  He looked down at my hand. ‘Why are you clenching your fist like that?’ he said.

  I opened my hand. ‘A handful of my father’s dust,’ I said.

  Ghassan stroked my head as if I were a pet dog.

  15

  ‘Isa, Isa, Isa.’

  The calls came almost every day. They came from the window of Grandmother’s room on the upper floor, then crossed the courtyard and filtered into my room. Grandmother had become more accepting of me than at first. The change apparently began from below, from her feet, and then moved up her legs to her knees. That’s good, to some extent, I told myself. Soon I would move past her knees and reach her heart. If only I could massage that, maybe it would soften. I didn’t want anything more than that. I had plenty of money, plenty. My grandmother had decided to give me a monthly allowance of 200 dinars. That was apart from the money I received from Hind through the servants. I started to send my mother and Mama Aida money every month. I bought my mother a computer to make it easier to stay in touch with her through emails and chats and webcam conversations. Grandmother was generous, lavishing money on me without me asking.

  Grandmother had another personality that she didn’t usually display. One day, by chance and without her noticing I was there, I saw an aspect of her that I will never forget. This severe, overbearing woman, who never let a smile cross her lips, had a strange passion for music. Not the music that I’m familiar with, but a kind of folk music called something like samurai. Khawla told me about it one day. She laughed when I asked her if it was Japanese and she made fun of my ignorance. ‘You don’t understand anything!’ she said, the very same expression Merla used to use whenever I asked her about anything I didn’t know. It was actually called Samiri, and it involved poetry as well as music.

  I was walking past the glass door on my way to the kitchen. The door was half-open and through the gap I saw Grandmother behaving strangely. I went up to the door and peaked through. The television was broadcasting one of these songs. There was an old man sitting cross-legged on the floor, which was spread with red carpets. His face was smooth and soft and he was wearing a white headdress held in place with a thin black ring and a bright blue jacket over the traditional white thobe. He was holding an oud. He was wearing dark glasses although he was indoors in a studio. To his right there was a man playing the fiddle and to his left a man playing an instrument that looked like a guzheng. Around him sat men in white thobes and women wearing strange-looking dresses, each one a different colour but all of them with gold embroidery across the bodice. There were other women wearing black abayas like the ones Grandmother wore when she went out. The musicians played and the chorus sang. Some of them were clapping, while others were singing behind the man in the blue jacket and others were holding strange-looking drums. Grandmother was completely carried away by the song. She was holding her black shawl between her fingers to cover the lower half of her face. Her upper body was swaying rhythmically in time with the song, while her lower half was immobile. Her legs were stretched out on the footstool as always. Her head was bent forwards and swaying in time with her shoulders. She leaned her torso to one side, then slowly reversed and leaned it to the other side, completely enthralled by the song, like a cobra by the flute of a snake-charmer. An extraordinary woman. Even when she danced, she had an awesome presence. All I could do was hold my breath and watch her perform her ritual.

  * * *

  At first I could only go into the sitting room and the dining room, which opened on to the sitting room, but now I started going into Grandmother’s room every day. She covered her face with her black shawl and lay down on her bed, leaving me to massage her legs. I would spend up to an hour there. Then she would start snoring and I withdrew. I spent the rest of the time in the sitting room with Khawla.

  Once I was at the top of the stairs and about to go down. Khawla was lying in the sitting room and I could hear her talking on the phone in English, as usual when she spoke to her friends. I went downstairs quietly and as soon as I stepped foot on the ground floor Khawla realised I was there. She screamed. She picked up a cushion that was next to her on the sofa and covered her head with it. ‘Isa! Wait, wait!’ she shouted. I turned away as if I had invaded her bedroom when she was changing. ‘OK, you can come now,’ she said after putting on her hijab. It was the first time I had seen her long black hair uncovered. My sister was beautiful and looked very much like Hind. I sat down next to her on the sofa. ‘Does Islam say I can’t see you with your head uncovered?’ I asked her.

  She locked her fingers together and started to wave her legs in the air like a child. ‘In fact Islam
doesn’t say that in the case of a mahram,’ she said.

  ‘A mahram?’

  ‘Yes, a mahram. The husband or people that the woman wouldn’t be able to marry – her father, her grandfather, her brother, her son and some special cases,’ she said.

  I locked my fingers together and started waving my legs in the air like her. ‘Well then! There’s no need for this hijab, because I’m your brother,’ I said.

  She stopped waving her legs and pursed her lips. ‘Not yet,’ she said. ‘It’s still too early for me to feel we’re brother and sister.’

  I stopped waving my legs. She turned to me and continued, ‘Even if Father were still alive, he’d need time to accept you as his son.’

  I was annoyed by what she said. ‘That’s not true,’ I said.

  She nodded assertively. ‘Marquez says people don’t love their children because they’re their children but because of the friendship that develops when they bring them up.’

  I looked at her like an idiot.

  ‘Who’s Marquez?’ I asked.

  She opened her eyes wide and, as usual, made fun of my ignorance. ‘You don’t understand anything,’ she said.

  * * *

  When I was young, I learned a lot from Merla and I put that down to the fact that she was four years older than me. But now that I had grown up, how come I was learning from Khawla, who was two years younger than me? Was I really so slow at understanding things? When I liked the things she said or her answers to my questions, I would say, ‘Khawla! Where do you get these answers from?’ She would point to Father’s study. ‘From there,’ she would say confidently.

  ‘If only I could read Arabic!’ I said sadly.

  Her mobile phone rang. She put it to her ear and started speaking in English. When she’d finished her conversation, I asked her why she’d been speaking English. ‘I like it for conversation, more than Arabic,’ she replied immediately.