The Bamboo Stalk

by Saud Alsanousi

  I put my hand in the briefcase and pulled out a picture of my father. My arm shaking with anger, I waved it in front of them. ‘I’m the son of this man,’ I said.

  Their confidence threw me off balance. Nouriya was trying to disarm me with her look. Awatif shook her head and smiled sadly.

  ‘I’m Isa Rashid al-Tarouf,’ I said.

  ‘Rashid isn’t your father,’ Awatif said with the same smile. ‘You’ve no right to claim him as your father or use his name.’ Her self-confidence seemed to be slipping. ‘You’re a believer,’ she added, reminding me. ‘Illegitimate children take their mother’s name.’

  Nouriya cut in. ‘Yes, on that basis, you’re Isa Josephine.’

  What a lot of names I have! It’s time to settle on just one of them. I put my hand in my briefcase looking for the papers. My right hand took hold of a folded piece of paper. I opened it out. I knew it from the signatures of Walid and Ghassan.

  Nouriya took the initiative. ‘I expect you’re going to show me the marriage certificate of Rashid and Josephine. Don’t bother. Even if you are Rashid’s son under Kuwaiti law, you’re not his son by Islamic law,’ she said.

  Awatif joined in. ‘You are a believer,’ she said.

  I ignored her remark and looked defiantly into Nouriya’s eyes. I let her finish off what she wanted to say. ‘I think you know that your mother,’ she stopped and rephrased it, ‘that our maid Josephine was pregnant with you before this piece of paper was written, that is before the marriage.’ I let her continue as I looked through the papers. ‘Listen, Josephine’s son, you don’t have the right to use our name. You don’t have any inheritance rights. Under Islamic law that wouldn’t be allowed. And yet you insist on staying. Don’t you have any dignity?’ Nouriya said.

  ‘Or faith?’ added Awatif.

  I found the document I wanted. The marriage certificate was still in my right hand. ‘You’re right, Aunt Nouriya,’ I said. I emphasised the word ‘aunt’ to stress the relationship that existed whether she liked it or not. ‘My mother did get pregnant several months before this document was written,’ I said, waving the marriage certificate signed by Walid and Ghassan. ‘But a few hours after this document was written,’ I added, waving another piece of paper in my left hand.

  They looked at each other sceptically. With a confidence that she was trying her hardest to sustain, Nouriya said, ‘What is that document?’

  ‘This is a certificate of what they call common-law marriage,’ I said, with the same composed smile as Awatif.

  Nouriya exploded. She threatened, she menaced, she cursed, she snarled, she issued warnings in Arabic, in English and with hand gestures. Awatif took refuge in silence with a face that fluctuated between shock and sadness.

  Nouriya left my flat a defeated shark. Awatif covered her head with her black abaya. At the front door, before I closed it, she turned to me in tears. ‘Oh God,’ she said. ‘Oh God, I’m sorry.’ She wiped her face with part of her abaya and said, ‘You are Kuwaiti. You’re my nephew, Rashid’s son.’

  From the open lift Nouriya called her impatiently: ‘Awatif!’

  ‘Forgive me. God forgive me,’ Awatif added, before joining her sister.

  I faked a smile and said, ‘You are a believer’ and closed the door.

  16

  I didn’t tell Jabir what trouble he had caused me by telling his mother about me. I was angry with him but I suppressed my anger and didn’t tell him anything. I wasn’t so crazy as to lose one of the crazies.

  One evening Jabir and I were in the diwaniya while the others were out at an election meeting for Hind al-Tarouf, my aunt. The crazies were keen she should win, except for Abdullah, who didn’t want a woman to represent him in parliament. ‘Doesn’t Kuwait have any men left?’ was his view. He didn’t say that in front of me but Jabir told me about his attitude. ‘Abdullah thinks women can serve society in positions other than in parliament,’ he said.

  Jabir, who knew my aunt closely, spoke to me about her, her election programme, her vision for the future of Kuwait and her reputation for always standing on the side of human rights. ‘Do you expect her to win?’ I asked.

  He pursed his lips and said, ‘It’s not that easy. Women have only had political rights for three years. It’s still something new. She may win in the years to come.’ His mobile phone beeped to say a text message had arrived. He picked up his phone and read it. ‘It’s Turki saying You missed quite a scene. Massive turnout for the Tarouf meeting.’ He picked up his car keys. ‘Come on then, up you get,’ he said. I shook my head. He grabbed my arm. ‘Don’t be a coward. We’ll stay in the car, man,’ he said.

  * * *

  Hind’s election headquarters was in Qortuba, close to the front of the religious institute on Damascus Street, not far from the relay tower on my favourite spot. I couldn’t see inside the building. There were lots of cars in the car park of the religious institute, and other cars parked on or parallel to the pavement. My aunt’s voice was coming out of loudspeakers set up in various places. She was speaking in the same tone as when I heard her in television discussions. Turki, Mishaal and Mahdi were standing at the main entrance to the hall, giving out leaflets to people as they arrived. The children of Awatif and Nouriya were also at the door with badges hanging from their necks. All I could make out on the badge was a large number 3. ‘That’s the number of the constituency,’ said Jabir.

  Among the crowd outside I caught sight of Khawla wearing the same badge. I took out my mobile and called her. ‘Hello, what are you doing outside? Go into the hall,’ I said. I could see her from my place in the car.

  She looked around in the crowd. ‘Where are you, you crazy? Aunt Nouriya is here!’ she said.

  I put my arm out of the car window and waved to her. ‘I’m here,’ I said. She was still looking around. ‘Here, here, turn towards the street, to the right, to the right,’ I said. Jabir helped me by honking his horn three times. ‘Beep, beep, beeeeep.’

  Khawla waved her hand and ran towards the car with that smile that I loved. ‘As-salam aleekum, How are you, Isa?’ She bent down to look through the car window and looked at Jabir behind the wheel. She gave an even bigger smile. ‘How are you, Jabir?’ she asked. The tent behind her broke into applause. I had goosebumps and my heart began to pound. Involuntarily Khawla began to clap too.

  ‘How are things going?’ I asked her. She laced her fingers together over her chest and said, ‘If only Father were here, Isa, in the audience. He always called for women to be included in social development. I wish he could see his sister today.’ She stopped and bent down lower till her head was almost coming through the car window. She looked back and forth between me and Jabir with one eyebrow raised. ‘Our neighbour, a childhood friend, and my brother, both in the same car! How fate . . .’

  ‘Kuwait’s a small place,’ I broke in, putting out my hand and making the same gesture as Mishaal – as if holding an invisible ball.

  * * *

  Jabir and I went back to the diwaniya and found Abdullah waiting for us there. Turki, Mishaal and Mahdi soon came back too, after the election meeting was over, looking glum. They spoke to Jabir in Arabic and Jabir’s face soon changed too.

  ‘So, how did it go?’ I asked Turki. He didn’t answer.

  Mahdi stepped in: ‘It began perfectly.’

  ‘And then?’ I asked.

  ‘It ended really badly,’ replied Mishaal. They went back to talking in Arabic and I understood some words but not others.

  For the first time I found myself interrupting them. ‘Could you let me in on the conversation? Please,’ I said.

  They turned towards me. Turki nodded and said, ‘Your aunt is crazy.’

  ‘She’s lost the election,’ added Mahdi.

  ‘But the results haven’t come out yet. Today isn’t even voting day,’ I said in surprise. ‘We read the results on the faces of the people who walked out of the meeting,’ said Turki.

  ‘You shouldn’t say everything you know, even if i
t’s true. Your aunt is reckless,’ Mishaal concluded. Abdullah, who had been silent so far, spoke in English that I could hardly understand. His theme was that women are governed by their emotions, but I couldn’t work out if this was criticism or praise.

  * * *

  After Hind made her speech she had started to take questions from the audience. Everything was fine. She was confident, quick-witted, with an answer to every question. The last question, or what turned out to be the last question, came from an elderly woman who seemed eager to put Hind on the spot. ‘In the past we only heard about you in the context of what you call the rights of the bidoon. Their cause was one of your priorities,’ the woman said.

  ‘And it still is,’ Hind responded immediately.

  ‘Do all the bidoons deserve Kuwaiti nationality?’ the woman asked.

  ‘Yes, of course, in just the same way as other Kuwaitis,’ Hind replied, or blurted out, as they put it.

  The woman picked up her handbag and stood up. She shook her head in protest as she began to leave the hall. ‘God have mercy on Isa al-Tarouf,’ she said. The hall rang with applause as soon as the old woman mentioned my grandfather’s name. She walked out and many other members of the audience followed her out. The meeting broke up before my aunt had a chance to explain what she meant.

  I called Khawla to console her. She was shocked and sad. ‘People don’t want to listen. They didn’t give her a chance,’ she said bitterly. I asked how Hind was. ‘She’s fine, but Grandmother is very upset,’ she said, fighting back tears. ‘Grandmother’s in her room, with Awatif and Nouriya trying to calm her down.’

  ‘And you? How are you, Khawla?’ I said, speaking gently in response to her sadness.

  She gave a long sigh. ‘Me? I don’t know. I almost believe what Grandmother believes,’ she said. She started breathing rapidly. ‘Everything that happens to us is because of him. Ghassan is a curse,’ she added.

  17

  The elections took place on 17 May 2008. It was no surprise that Hind lost, especially after some newspapers reported what she had said at the meeting. One well-known newspaper had a banner headline reading: Casting Doubt on the Patriotism of Citizens: Hind al-Tarouf says Kuwaitis Don’t Deserve to Have Kuwaiti Citizenship.

  There was a mournful atmosphere in the diwaniya, given the reaction in the newspapers that attacked my aunt. The Boracay gang knew the result before it was declared. Hind’s defeat was no surprise to me: the real surprise was that Nouriya had carried out the threat she made when she came to visit. She had been telling the truth when she warned me and now she had done it. It wasn’t unexpected that Grandmother would stop paying me my allowance, but for Aunt Hind to do so too!

  I suddenly found that all I had was what I earned from working in the restaurant and the allowance from the government, and the two amounts would hardly cover the rent. I started spending from my savings, month after month. I worked out how much money I would need in the future and found that, if things continued as they were, I would be broke within a few months.

  The gang offered to help me financially. Jabir was the most enthusiastic, maybe because he felt guilty. Mishaal invited me to move into his flat on the eighth floor of my building. ‘I only need it at weekends,’ he said.

  ‘You can live temporarily in the diwaniya, until you find a place to live that suits you,’ offered Turki.

  Ibrahim Salam, although his place was small, didn’t hesitate to help. ‘My little room has made space for you before and it won’t hesitate to take you in again, my brother,’ he said. After much discussion back and forth, he reluctantly agreed to rent me space to sleep in his room for thirty dinars a month.

  * * *

  Only one week after I moved into Ibrahim’s room, the shift leader in the restaurant called me aside. ‘You’d better make some plans for the future. This is your last week working here.’ And the reason? No reason.

  I made up a reason of my own – Kuwait was spitting me out.

  Khawla called me a few days later. ‘Have you really been fired from your job?’ she asked. ‘Damn! Nouriya did that,’ she said.

  Disputes broke out in the Tarouf household. Hind and Awatif had a serious disagreement with Nouriya, who was behind me losing my job. ‘Leave the kid alone,’ they told her.

  Nouriya was furious with Hind because of what she had said in the election campaign and because she had lost. ‘If Isa al-Tarouf were still alive, you would have been the death of him,’ she said.

  Grandmother was in a bad way because of what was happening in the house. The sisters were at odds. Khawla left to live in her other grandmother’s house, saying the situation in Grandmother’s house was unbearable. ‘Grandmother slaps her thighs all day long in grief, and asks God to have mercy on her husband and on Rashid. She lifts her arms to heaven and says, “May God avenge you, Ghassan.”’

  ‘Khawla, I want to understand. Please. These are complicated things,’ I said.

  There was silence from the other end of the line. ‘Please, answer me,’ I said. Still silence. ‘Who’s the reason for all these problems?’ She still didn’t utter a word. I spoke louder. ‘Ghassan?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ she said faintly.

  I lowered my voice too, afraid of the most likely answer: ‘Me?’

  ‘No,’ she said, louder this time.

  I let out a sigh of relief – relief that I had been cleared of blame.

  ‘There’s no one else,’ she continued. I didn’t say anything. ‘It’s the Taroufs,’ she concluded.

  18

  I left a lettuce leaf in the middle of Ibrahim’s room while I waited for Inang Choleng. I’d forgotten to feed her for some time. She wasn’t in the habit of going without food for long. I was really anxious. I found her under the computer table, dried up inside her broken shell.

  Inang Choleng had died – that silent, patient creature that was so good at listening and never complained. That morning was so sad. O God, you alone know how much I wept. Who could console me? Who would understand why I was crying over her? When Ibrahim came back from work he saw the sadness on my face. I didn’t tell him about the tortoise when he asked me. What was the use of talking about something he wouldn’t understand? I left him in the main room and escaped to the bathroom. I turned on all the taps in the basin and the shower and burst out crying, unable to hold it back. Ibrahim knocked on the door when he heard me sobbing. ‘Brother! Are you all right?’ he said.

  I tried as hard as I could to make my voice sound normal. ‘Yes, I’m fine, but the water’s cold, brother,’ I said.

  How could a dead tortoise leave such a gap? She didn’t have a voice for me to miss, and wasn’t even a permanent presence since she spent much of her time under sofas, cut off from everything, hidden in her shell and oblivious to the world. By her death all I lost was my own presence and my voice, which I only heard when I spoke to her, and the lettuce leaves in the fridge.

  No one was better than Inang Choleng at putting up with my fickle moods – my sadness, my anger, my complaining – and now she was dead. My companion had died in Ibrahim’s room after sharing my wanderings – in the annex of Grandmother’s house and in my large flat in Jabriya.

  What loneliness! Kuwait was closing its last doors on me, just when I thought I was part of it. I suddenly felt that it wasn’t my place, that I must have been wrong when I thought that a bamboo stalk could take root anywhere.

  ‘He who does not know how to look back at where he came from will never get to his destination,’ Rizal once said. But apparently I had misread his remark. I believed in it as if it were a prophecy. I saw Kuwait as the place I had come from, since I was born there, and it was the place I had decided to return to after an absence, but when I looked behind me all I saw was the Philippines – Manila, Valenzuela, Mendoza’s land.

  Suddenly Kuwait felt claustrophobic, no bigger than Ibrahim Salam’s room. It felt even smaller, the size of a box of matches, and I was just one of the matches.

  I remembered that p
hrase they often used: ‘Kuwait’s a small place.’

  * * *

  It was a boring day, like all the other days. I balanced the laptop on my knees to check if there was a message from Merla, but there was nothing but messages from my mother and annoying adverts.

  Had Merla read my emails, I wondered. If only I knew.

  But I could find out.

  Suddenly I remembered something that hit me like a thunderbolt. Why hadn’t I thought of it all this time? Wasn’t it me who set up Merla’s email account in the first place? I had chosen the password. What if she had never changed it? In that case I could check myself.

  I opened the email page in the browser and put in Merla’s details – her username and the password I had chosen. Amazingly it took me straight to her inbox. My heart raced. Dozens of messages appeared on the list: my emails with the subject lines I had chosen, emails from Maria and many other messages. But the important thing was that the subject line for my emails and Maria’s emails were not in bold, which showed that someone had opened them to read them, unlike the other messages, which were still in bold. That meant Merla was still around.

  I felt a throbbing in my temples. With trembling fingers, pressing the keys hard down on the keyboard, I wrote her a message. I waited and then checked what happened to it. Within a few hours the subject line on the message had switched from bold to plain.

  I hadn’t cried when I thought that Merla had gone missing, but I cried buckets for joy when she reappeared. The tears poured out whenever the subject line changed, showing that Merla was there.

  Now it was fun. I would send a message, saying everything I wanted to say to my dear cousin, day after day. I could see someone was reading them. I felt more and more confident that she was somewhere, reading my confessions.

  19

  Ibrahim was busy going through the week’s newspapers looking for stories about the Philippines to translate and send to the Philippine newspapers. It was summer. The Boracay crazies were going round the world spreading their craziness. Maybe that summer they were operating in Spain, or London, France, Thailand or Malaysia. Maybe they would come across some half-Kuwaiti on the beach in one of those countries, God alone knows.