I smiled. ‘After an occupation that lasted more than three centuries,’ I said with pride.
She looked at me with no less pride than I felt. ‘And for eight centuries Spain was under the control of us Muslims, many years before they occupied you,’ she said.
The part of my patriotism that belonged to the Philippines was in full sway, running strong. ‘We threw them out in the end,’ I said.
Khawla was about to say something but she stopped and seemed to be thinking.
‘Why have you stopped talking?’ I asked.
She bowed her head and acted shy. ‘We threw them out in the end!’ she said.
I burst out laughing and looked at her defiantly.
‘Don’t be smug,’ she said. ‘If the Muslims had stayed there longer, the Spanish would never have got to the Philippines.’
When the conversation was about Islam, I could hardly tell who I was speaking to – Khawla or Ibrahim Salam.
7
A feeling like an electric shock hit me whenever I remembered Merla. When Mama Aida pressed Maria for news of her, Maria said, ‘She’s fine but she doesn’t want to talk to anyone.’ Mama Aida was reassured but I was sure Maria was hiding the truth. Merla didn’t answer my emails. I had sent dozens of messages, but it was no use. My last message went:
Merla, you are reading this message from me. You must be. The idea that you never open your email inbox terrifies me. Please answer me, if only with an empty message.
I was unusually frank with Merla, perhaps because I fully believed she had carried out what she had hinted at and couldn’t read what I was writing, or maybe because I believed she was somewhere reading my messages. I ended up saying things I had never said before, such as the feelings I had had towards her since early adolescence. I revealed to my cousin everything I used to conceal out of embarrassment. It was just an attempt to confess:
Merla, you may not know how I feel about you deep down. Or maybe you think that your admission to me one day that you weren’t attracted to the opposite sex might deter me from coming too close. Mama Aida tried but failed to make me stop thinking about you when she told me, when I was young, that the Church wouldn’t allow us to have a relationship. When you made your admission in one of the caves at Biak-no-Bato, you too failed to make me forget you. You are still the dream that visits me in my sleep and when I’m awake. Many of the girls I walk past every day here move something inside me but they fall short as soon as, unintentionally, I compare them to you.
I stopped writing to read what I had written on the screen. I didn’t know what to think. She wouldn’t read my confession, so I might as well say more.
Merla, did you know I felt jealous of José Rizal because he had such a strong influence on you? Although I admire him, I get upset when I read references to him in your messages. But in one of your messages you said something that stopped me feeling jealous. I felt very self-confident when you wrote, ‘You’re the only man I don’t feel hostile towards.’ When I read that I wanted to hug the laptop screen.
I had an overwhelming desire to hug her. I remembered her face in our last conversation by webcam. She looked tired but she was still Merla, the woman who came to me in my dreams to make me feel like a man. I would confess everything to her. She would read my confession. I had to say more.
Merla, I don’t know whether dead people read emails. But you’re not dead, are you? If you’re reading what I’m writing, please come back so that I can tell you something I’ve long wanted to say. I love you.
José Mendoza
* * *
Absence is a form of presence. Some people may be absent but they are present in our thoughts more often than when they are present in our lives. Merla’s absence was a constant presence. She visited me in my dreams to tell me things and for me to tell her things. When I woke up, I would continue our conversations awake. When I went back to sleep, in my dreams we would do rather more than just talk.
Death is powerless against the desire to meet, even if the meeting is of a different kind, in another world. We are loyal to the dead only because we hope to meet them again and believe that somewhere they are watching us and waiting.
I never lost hope of seeing Merla again. If I had lost that hope, I would have given up living shortly after she disappeared, just as Inang Choleng died after the death of the hope for which she had lived such a long life – my grandfather, Mendoza.
I didn’t reread what I had written in the last part of my message. I clicked on the ‘send’ button. I closed the email page and folded the laptop screen on to the keyboard. Behind the laptop there was the bottle with soil from my father’s grave. A question came to my mind: if I had to choose which one of them to bring back to life, my father or Merla, who would I choose?
I would choose my father.
Because Merla, a voice in the back of my head told me, was still alive.
* * *
For many days I didn’t open my email. I was confident, almost certain, that one message among the dozens of adverts would be from Merla.
I no longer thought about her being dead, as long as the hope inside me was still alive and kicking. I set about looking for a job. I would live in Kuwait like any other Filipino expatriate struggling to fulfil his dreams. In the Philippines I expected to fulfil my dream in Kuwait; in Kuwait a new dream started to take shape in my mind, a distant dream.
The fact that I hadn’t finished secondary school made it impossible to find a job in a private-sector company, as Khawla had hoped. After a gruelling search, with help from someone from the flat next door, I got a job in a well-known fast-food restaurant close to where I lived in Jabriya. My Filipino neighbour was working in the same restaurant. Khawla was disappointed when I told her about the job. ‘You don’t know what you’re worth, Isa. You’re Isa al-Tarouf! Grandmother will be shocked if she finds out that Rashid’s son is working in—’
I interrupted her. ‘But I was going to serve the guests at Umm Jabir’s place, with her blessing. Have you forgotten?’
‘But,’ said Khawla. She had nothing to add.
8
My work was in the kitchen, which was just behind the counter where they took the orders, and I was paid 170 dinars a month plus the National Workforce Subsidy that the government paid to Kuwaitis working in the private sector. I wore special clothes, like all the other staff. We kitchen staff were different from the others in that we had to wear hairnets and plastic gloves. On ordinary days the work wasn’t hard, but at the weekends it was. I worked like a robot, dipping chips in oil, cutting up lettuce leaves and onions and tomatoes, and taking the thin sheets of plastic off the slices of cheese while the pieces of meat were cooking, neatly arranged on the grill.
All the workers in the restaurant were from the Philippines except for two or three from India. The atmosphere at work was cheerful. One day when I was really busy, my colleague, who was also my neighbour, asked me why I had agreed to work there. ‘Kuwaitis don’t do this!’ he said.
‘You’re right. They don’t need to do this kind of work,’ I replied. ‘But they’re missing a great pleasure,’ I added in a mumble. I’m not sure I was being serious when I said this.
Some of the customers, many of them in fact, had really bad manners. I didn’t like the way they behaved at all, but at the same time I didn’t like what the restaurant staff did in response to the bad treatment they received from some people. Some people make themselves look bad by the way they treat others. I often heard someone shouting and swearing over something trivial, for example if the server had given them the wrong size of soft drink, or forgotten to add a slice of cheese to their burger. The server would apologise for making a mistake and replace the order, but unfortunately the angry customers had no idea they were about to devour something they never imagined. We kitchen staff would often hear people insulting and shouting at the staff who took the orders. The staff would quickly apologise, wheel around to face the kitchen and, red-faced in anger, shout, ‘One chick
en burger with cheese special,’ for example. The word ‘special’ meant something quite different from what the customer imagined. ‘Special?’ the kitchen staff would repeat before starting on the order. The server would nod, wink and say ‘special’ again. There’s no need to go into the details of how the special burgers differed from the usual burgers the restaurant served. When the mistake was corrected by removing a slice of tomato or adding slices of cheese, other ingredients might be added to the meal.
On the first days there I felt sick, but as time passed and the process was repeated – the shouting, the apologising, the making special meals, I got used to the situation. ‘Bastards taking revenge on bastards,’ I said to myself in justification.
* * *
My work helped me get over my loneliness. I was in contact with Kuwaitis every day, even if it was limited to observing them from a distance. Although I was busy in the kitchen, I had a chance to observe the Kuwaiti customers, especially the young ones. They seemed friendly towards each other. They were always smiling, provided the smiles stayed within their own circle. Another thing about Kuwaitis in general caught my attention. Staring at other people seemed to be part of the culture of their society. People stared at each other in a strange way. They would look away into the distance if they made eye contact, then quickly go back to examining each other. I had thought that staring into someone’s face sent a message of some kind: a sign of admiration, or disapproval, or curiosity. But here it was none of that. I rarely came across someone who didn’t stare into people’s faces. I’m not claiming that I didn’t do it when I was in the Philippines, but I was discreet. Perhaps I inherited this habit in my genes and it found expression after I came back to Kuwait.
When I told Khawla I had noticed this habit, she smiled. ‘No one does this more than us, and no one is more critical of the habit either,’ she replied. People are not unaware that it’s wrong. They know, just as they know what’s right. But they have no scruples about practising their vices knowingly. ‘Do you realise why the women here use so much more make-up than women in other parts of the world?’ Khawla asked me one day. I looked to her for the answer. ‘It’s not that women in other places are more confident about their appearance. It’s just that no one stares at their faces and counts the number of spots they have, like many people here do,’ she said. ‘It’s not just staring at other people’s faces,’ she added with a laugh. ‘If people moved their ears when they were eavesdropping, then you’d see ears flapping like wings when it’s crowded.’ I laughed out loud at the idea.
I started staring insensitively into people’s faces when I noticed that everyone else was doing it. I was looking for something I didn’t know. But I gave up the habit after it led to an incident I’ll never forget. I saw a man in his mid or late forties who looked rather odd. His white headdress was tattered and his long hair showed underneath. He had a bushy moustache and dark yellow teeth. His beard wasn’t fully shaved and there were some grey hairs in it. Despite his strange appearance he was staring at the people around him. I was also staring at people. As soon as our eyes met he winked at me and gave me a knowing smile. I looked away and pretended to be busy working. I didn’t look towards the counter, where the customers were lined up to order. I didn’t foresee what would happen at the end of the day. When my shift ended I left work and there was the man waiting in his car in the small car park outside the restaurant. I pretended not to notice him. I walked towards my flat, as I did every day.
The car came up alongside me and the man rolled down the window. ‘Would you like a lift?’ he said.
I shook my head and said, ‘Thank you, sir, I live close by.’ I kept walking, without looking towards him. I was so frightened of the man that I walked along the main road instead of taking a short cut through the minor streets and lanes, which were quieter. The man drove off and I breathed a sigh of relief. Reassured, I walked on, but my peace of mind disappeared when I saw the man’s car at the turn at the end of the street. He was driving back along the street that ran parallel to the road I was on. He drove past me, going in the opposite direction. He looked back. My heart sank when I saw the car making another turn and coming back towards me. I gave up the idea of going back to my flat in case this suspicious character worked out where it was. He slowed down, leaving some distance between himself and me. I decided to go to Ibrahim’s place in the hope he might know how I could shake the man off. I called him on the phone but he was far away in some desert part of Kuwait with some Kuwaiti friends, organising a camp for new converts to Islam. When I hung up, my only concern was to get somewhere other than my own flat. The man was still lying in wait for me. My heart was racing. Why was the man following me? I didn’t look like one of those effeminate types, though many of my compatriots were. I thought of heading for Grandmother’s house in Qortuba. I’d have to cover quite a distance, from Jabriya to al-Surra across the flyover that connects the two areas and then on to Qortuba. I wasn’t going to risk going all that way when I wasn’t sure what was going on in the head of the man who was following me. I crossed the street by standing on the central reservation and waiting for a gap between the speeding cars so that I could cross to the other side where there were some houses. I turned towards the man’s car. It was speeding towards the turn again to reach the other road that I was about to cross. My heart was pounding. ‘Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar, get him out of my way,’ I said. I crossed the road by running between the cars and headed towards Ghassan’s flat. Why Ghassan’s?
Because he was the first person in Kuwait who made me feel safe, maybe.
It took me about ten minutes of running and panting to reach his flat. Although I’d gone down some narrow lanes, the man was still following me. Sometimes he would disappear, only to reappear ahead of me in his car.
I reached the building. The man looked crazier than ever. He got out of the car. I hurried to the lift. He followed me in. I pressed the button for the fourth floor, where Ghassan lived. The man didn’t press any button. He put his arm on my shoulder. ‘Shloonak, how are you?’ the man asked.
‘Sein,’ I replied.
The man burst out laughing and his breath smelled of alcohol. ‘It’s zein, not sein,’ he said, correcting my Arabic.
‘Zein,’ I said, nodding my head. The lift door opened and I went out. The man followed me. Before ringing the doorbell I remembered that I had a key to the flat on my keyring. I looked back. ‘What do you want?’ I said.
‘To give you an Arabic lesson,’ he said with an evil smile.
I turned the key in the lock and swung the door open. Before I could close it, the man was pushing from the other side. With all the strength I could muster I managed to close it and lock it with the key. The man started pounding on the door with his fists. From the sitting room I heard the sound of Ghassan’s voice. ‘Who is it?’ he said, rushing into the little corridor. He had a cigarette in his hand and looked surprised. ‘Isa!’ he said. ‘Why are you wearing those clothes?’ he asked, before I had time to explain.
I pointed to the door, postponing any answer to his question. ‘There’s a madman following me,’ I said.
He patted me on the shoulder. ‘OK, OK, calm down,’ he said. He handed me his cigarette. ‘Hold this,’ he said. From the expression on his face, I had a better idea of what a sorry sight I must have been. He pulled the door wide open and faced up to the man. The man was taken aback. They had a conversation and voices were raised. The man laughed. Ghassan shouted at him and gave him a push. The man withdrew to the lift with his headdress on his shoulder and clutching his black head ring in his hand. Ghassan closed the door. He put out his hand, two fingers splayed like a pair of scissors. ‘My cigarette,’ he said. I gave him what was left of it. He took it between his fingers disapprovingly. Blowing smoke out of his nostrils, he looked at me and burst out laughing.
He went back to the sitting room, saying that the man was a drunk. ‘Why were you laughing?’ I asked.
He shook his head and said, �
�The man was saying I had good taste.’ I followed him into the room. He sat behind his desk and I sat on the sofa opposite.
‘What did you say to him before you pushed him?’ I asked. Ghassan looked right into my eyes. ‘I said . . .’ He paused a moment and looked away. ‘I said “You’ve been following my son, you . . . .”’ He used a word that was apparently a Kuwaiti insult that I didn’t understand. He then pretended to be busy with the papers on his desk.
What about me? I too needed something I could pretend to be doing, to distract me from what he had said. As he tidied up his papers, he asked me what I’d like to drink. I ignored his question, although I was thirsty and my throat was dry.
‘Ghassan?’ I said, to call his attention. He looked up at me. I hesitated before continuing. ‘Did you bring me to Kuwait to get revenge on my family?’
He smiled. ‘I see you’ve become Kuwaiti sooner than I expected,’ he said. I knitted my eyebrows in puzzlement. Ghassan continued: ‘Suspicion, mistrusting others. In Kuwait the trust that used to exist is no longer there.’ He didn’t elaborate. He said no more.
‘I misjudged you,’ I said. He still said nothing. ‘Why didn’t you explain, defend yourself, complain?’
He pulled another cigarette from the packet on his desk. When Ghassan lit the cigarette I prepared to hear something interesting. He took a long drag. Then the words came out from deep inside him, along with the smoke. ‘Over many years I’ve suffered various injustices and I haven’t complained.’ My eyes filled with tears. ‘So why should I hold it against you when you misjudge me in this way?’ I didn’t say a word. ‘I don’t have time for that, my friend,’ he said with a smile.
‘Your friend?’ I said, irritated by the word. He was puzzled by my question. ‘I was your son just now, at the door,’ I explained.
The Bamboo Stalk Page 25