One Hundred and One Nights (9780316191913)

by Buchholz, Benjamin

  Before I open the door I think to myself that Mahmoud on the bridge may have witnessed something, if indeed Layla has circled the shack and paused here, at the door, dreaming of a way to get inside. Mahmoud’s task, our personal contract, would seem to require him to note such a thing as a young girl staring at the door of my shop in the thieving hours before morning. Yet as the sun rises across the market, its warm light chasing the shadow of the previous evening down the light poles, down the roadway railings, down the edge of the embankment toward Mahmoud’s tent, he only now is wakening. He stretches. He emerges sleepily from his cot into the fresh day. He sees me and salutes. He watches me nervously for a moment. Then he begins to make himself tea.

  Of course, I think, he has seen nothing. I wonder if Layla was tempted to steal his Kalashnikov again, sneaking into his tent as she has snuck into the market—without so much as a single glance from any living creature.

  I unlock and open the side door. The footprints do not continue inside the shack. I look closely. The wooden floor might not show the prints as easily as the ground outside, but the floor is not perfectly clean, and unless she blew dust from her palm to cover her tracks on the way out, she truly did not step inside. The prints stop at the threshold. Though she left no mark of her presence in the shack, I see another little gift, a package very similar to yesterday’s gift: a plain box with a blue silk ribbon and an orange desert flower. The box rests squarely in the middle of my store, farther from the side door than Layla could reach, even if the doorway had been open for her to enter. Perhaps, I think, she grew wings, lifted so softly, so gently in the air as to not have disturbed the delicate dust prints she left outside. Perhaps she hovered for a moment in the middle of the shop. Somehow, she got in.

  I enter the shop and pick up the present. Then I look outside the door again, quickly, guiltily. Abd al-Rahim is nowhere to be seen. Only a few other shops have opened, owners and their hired men sliding shuttered windows apart, arranging chairs and tables and cushions under canopies where potential customers will sit in shelter from the heat, and hanging freshly plucked chickens from wires on the roof of Jaber’s open-air butcher shop just down the road. Among these industrious people Abd al-Rahim is nowhere to be seen. He will not arrive for at least an hour, certain as the rising and setting of the sun. This I know even after only a few days employing him. He is no early riser.

  I duck into my shack again. I haven’t opened my front window. That corrugated sheet remains firmly locked in place. Through the chinks around its edges the morning sun now shines, casting nearly horizontal rays that light the swimming dust I have disturbed in my motions about the room. As I open the package, I think about the last gift Layla left me, the blue silk that became in my dream a flowing scarf of water wreathing and haloing her dream form. I almost expect, by extending the illogic of the dream, that this package might contain water, nothing more than water, beaded up into a single teardrop of quicksilver, self-​contained and animated.

  The present, when I open it, is mundane in the extreme. Another length of cloth. Cotton, this time. White, finely woven Egyptian cotton. Good-quality stuff. I wonder briefly before I fold it and return it to its box and hide the box behind some mobile phones on the upper shelf of the store, I wonder where Layla obtained the money for these gifts. I wonder how she could afford such luxuries. I make no connection with my own gifts for Ulayya until very much later that day. Then, suddenly, I say to Abd al-Rahim, “Have you already delivered my second gift to the house of Ali ash-Shareefi?”

  “Certainly,” he says. “Just as you ordered.”

  “What was in it?” I ask.

  He looks puzzled. We’ve discussed the gifts so many times, how could I possibly forget the contents?

  “The cotton,” he says. “Just as we agreed: silk, cotton, linen, jewelry, crystal, clothes, and henna. The seven gifts I purchased on your behalf. One for each day. This being the second day, it is the cotton.”

  “And you’re sure that the gift was, indeed, delivered to the ash-Shareefi house? It wasn’t left lying about? It wasn’t accidentally forgotten? It wasn’t stolen? You didn’t rely on someone else to deliver the package, did you?”

  “I put it into the hands of the guard at the gate of the house myself. I did nothing between the time when you handed me the box,” he says, looking defensive, “and when I turned the box over to the care of the guard.”

  My relationship with Abd al-Rahim has taken a big step toward its proper form now. I continue to despise him while still seeing enough of myself in him to make me painfully aware of my own faults and failures, to make me aware of the pathways in my life I have left untaken. This is the proper attitude for a mentor, the type of mentor Sheikh Seyyed Abdullah expected I would become for this nephew of his. And now that Abd al-Rahim’s will has been bent by my pliers, my threatening pliers, he has assumed the necessary deference toward me that an apprentice should exhibit. All along, his efforts have been adequate, if not exactly skilled, but his conduct has been aloof, slouching, too cool by far, and casting a sneer of disapproval over everything pastoral, over everything here that in any way might be deemed inferior to Baghdad. Trust and blind obedience—from fear at first and then from the promise of material gain—that is the proper attitude for an apprentice of the type Seyyed Abdullah intends me to use to speed and ease my work.

  Indeed, the many things I must do this week will be impossible without an assistant. Most important, I must let nothing interrupt the rhythm of my life, my store’s life, my observations, my camouflage. So all the details of the wedding, and now also the execution of the minutiae associated with our planned bombing, all these details require an assistant.

  “We go to Bashar’s café for dinner tonight,” I tell Abd al-Rahim as the sun nears the point, low in the sky, where it is when habitually I close shop, where it is when habitually Layla makes her visits.

  Abd al-Rahim does not reply for some moments. He is busy sweeping the ground at the front of the shack, the sides of the shack, behind the shack. I mentioned the dust to him merely because it was on my mind, Layla’s footprints outside, the lack of her footprints inside. I said nothing to him about those footprints. I did not want to clue him in to the idea that she might visit this place alone, in the early morning darkness, a time when she would be defenseless against him. I merely mentioned the dust, and the reference gave me cause to daydream. Yet Abd al-Rahim, in his new deferential attitude, took the words as a reproach. He began cleaning, sweeping.

  After a few swishes of his broom, he asks, “Together?”

  “Yes,” I say. “That is the meaning of the word we. We will dine together at Bashar’s.”

  I can’t tell if he wants to dine with me or not. I can’t tell if the idea pleases him or if I have interrupted some other plans he may have made for the evening.

  To whet his appetite I add, “Before I finish my meal, when the evening has grown truly dark, you will leave the restaurant, go to my home, and retrieve the jack-in-the-box.”

  I hear him stop sweeping. He leans his broom against the wall of the shack with a soft tap, the wooden handle butting against the thin, cheap plywood wall.

  “Tonight already?” he asks.

  “Why not? No better time to start than now.” I discover that I am anxious, excited, like a child at play. I wait another moment for him to respond. He offers no advice, provides no commentary on the great and metropolitan methods of bombing and its associated martyrdom as practiced in Baghdad, Baghdad, Baghdad.

  “That okay with you?” I ask when he neither responds nor appears in person to look at me with the proper awe, wonder, approval, and worship. A few more moments pass. Still he does not reply. I wonder if he has gotten cold feet. I try again: “I want the jack. In truth, it is the jack that I want for tonight. The one you built, not mine.”

  Still no response. Annoyed, I turn around from my work arranging and rearranging the merchandise on my store shelves, being sure to keep the box containing Layla’s
latest gift of cotton well hidden. I turn around and lean out over the counter at the front of the shack.

  “I want the jack,” I say once again, this time louder and with a note of aggravation in my voice, just in case he needs a reminder of my capacity to get violent with him. I wish I had the pliers or the wire cutter from last night, a nice prop for the raised, threatening hand. “The jack, I say!”

  “What’s ‘the jack’?” says a new voice.

  I lean even farther over the edge of my counter and look around the side of my shop in the direction of downtown Safwan. I am startled at what I see: an interpreter who works for the Americans stands in the shadow just where Layla usually appears. Behind him I see several soldiers in a small group, fanning out in positions around my shop. The interpreter is a Kuwaiti man all of us merchants and townsfolk know, at least a little, for he has worked in Safwan since the beginning of this second American war. He has worked for lieutenant after lieutenant as the American units cycle home every few months to be replaced by new troops. He is their continuity in Safwan.

  Irritatingly, this man insists in speaking Fus’ha, the high Arabic of newscasts and professors. I think it makes him feel superior to us. To me, the sound of his voice recalls a particular professor from my time at Al-Mustansiriya University, before I went to America. That man had a long gray mustache, a drooping mouth, and perfect diction. His words came out in discrete little packages, like gunfire, like clear glass baubles floating in an aquarium. No living language sounds so clean. Yet that is the sound the voice of this Kuwaiti man recalls to my mind: glass baubles, droopy mustaches.

  The American lieutenant stands only a few feet away from his interpreter. After a moment, when he has seen to the dispersion of his troops, he, too, approaches me. Like all the soldiers and like the Kuwaiti interpreter, he wears a bulletproof vest, a helmet, and dark and shiny Oakley sunglasses. Two Humvees idle on either side of the road some distance from us. I marvel that I did not hear their engines, their approach.

  I look about me to see where Abd al-Rahim has gone, to determine why Abd al-Rahim hasn’t warned me. I see him at last, quite far off, walking away as quickly as he can through the blue-tiled arch and into the maze of streets in the older part of Safwan. He has lifted a fold of his dishdasha to partially conceal his face. He has fled. He has deserted me. Cold feet or too hot a situation, I cannot tell.

  “Surprised?” asks the interpreter. “We came from the town hall meeting and the lieutenant wanted to stop to see you. We’ve been watching you.”

  I have nothing to say to the man. He hasn’t even greeted me or wished me a good afternoon as is customary and proper. I turn back to the mobile phones on my shelf. I show him the same respect he shows me.

  “What did you mean when you said ‘the jack’?” he asks me again.

  I try to ignore him, but in my mind I fumble for an explanation:

  It is harmless…

  It is nothing…

  A toy, a game…

  A little entertainment for my nights alone…

  It’s just something I take apart and put back together, a neurosis…

  I try to find something harmless to say, but everything seems like a lie. Everything is a lie. The blood drains from my face as I feel the interpreter’s gaze fixed on the back of my head.

  Just then, though, the lieutenant pulls the interpreter aside. They have a short conversation together. I look around my store, hoping there might be some way to gracefully run away. A moment later their talk ends. Together they approach my store and lean even more casually over the counter. Their two heads are shaded by the canopy of my tin roof.

  The lieutenant speaks to me with the sort of slow exaggeration usually reserved for the aged and hard of hearing.

  “Dear Merchant, I Want To Ask You Something,” he says, looking at me and then motioning for the Kuwaiti to translate his English words into Arabic.

  The Kuwaiti says only: “Storekeeper, I want to know what this ‘jack’ you speak of is.”

  I have understood the lieutenant perfectly well. Most Iraqis know at least some English, so perhaps my slight startle of a reaction, when I hear the interpreter purposely ignore the words he was supposed to translate, is excusable.

  “My Problem Is Kind Of Difficult,” the lieutenant says. Again, he motions for the Kuwaiti to translate for me.

  “You will pretend,” says the interpreter, “that I translate correctly. That way you and I can have a real conversation while this American says whatever silly thoughts have inspired him to come here into your godforsaken market. If you don’t pretend well enough, if you don’t play along like a nice little boy, I have influence enough on the Kuwaiti side of the border to shut down your business and the businesses of your future father-in-law.”

  I nod to show that I understand. I look at the lieutenant and smile. He smiles back at me. His teeth are white. I wonder if they are fake. I wonder if they are robot teeth. I want to tap them with a chisel to see if the white enamel reveals a Terminator metallic alloy underneath. He is too clean-faced, too fair-haired, though he’s sweating a little so that his cheeks flush pink. His dark sunglasses seem like a shield for his youth and he holds himself in such a way that he seems to be compensating for his age, for his good looks, for his cleanliness—chest out, chin high, a wad of chewing tobacco protruding from his lower lip.

  The Kuwaiti approves of my conduct, my appearance of unworried greeting. He, too, smiles at me, an imperious smile. We all smile at each other.

  The lieutenant speaks again, at last more naturally, the smiles relaxing him: “I am sorry. Introductions before we go any further. My name is Boyer. I am in charge of the American patrols on the road to the west of Safwan. All the convoys that go north and south, my men protect them.”

  “Nod and smile in return,” says the interpreter, “and tell me a little about yourself. You are new here and different from the other store owners. You carry yourself differently. Are you from Basra Province?”

  “Tah-sharafna,” I say to the lieutenant. “Pleased to meet you.” And, to the interpreter, I say, “I sell mobile phones and subscriptions to satellite TV.”

  “Your name?” asks the interpreter.

  His question catches me off guard, the subtlety of it. I have forgotten in the days since I began my work here the importance of names. Everyone in Safwan accepts me as Abu Saheeh, an honorary name, a joking title, maybe, enough to be known and to do business in an illegal market without causing too much commotion, especially since my real name has at least some connection with the Shia and the southern people. But the name Abu Saheeh won’t work for this conversation. Presenting it would seem too glib and informal. The interpreter wants my family name. I put my hand over my heart again. I bow a little. I try to buy time as I scroll through a mental list, people I know, families I know. Something convincing. The interpreter has worked in Safwan a long while, so he knows all the families. He knows I am not ash-Shareefi. He knows I am not a member of Sheikh Seyyed Abdullah’s clan. He will also know my own clan, ash-Shumari, a name I will not give him. Perhaps the Americans, and through them this Kuwaiti interpreter, are concerned that one of their government officials has gone missing. Perhaps there has been a bulletin on me, a wanted man, throughout the country.

  On the other hand, perhaps they are lazy, careless, unaware, uninformed. Perhaps I am safe. Either way, I will not take the chance.

  I say, at last, “Bashar.”

  “That’s a first name,” says the interpreter. “Family name?”

  The lieutenant interrupts again, somewhat annoyed with the Kuwaiti. “If you’re done making friends with him already, can we get to business?”

  I steel myself for the tough questions that will follow. The interpreter knows I am getting married. He knows the business I run and the businesses Ali ash-Shareefi runs. What else does he know? The brown packages? The items smuggled across the border? Has he seen me with Layla?

  The lieutenant and the interpreter talk to each
other again. They argue. I can’t give them Bashar’s actual family name: Dulaimi, the former defense minister’s family. Though it is a big tribe, the name would be suspicious here. A Baathist name. I like the idea of a big tribe, though, the anonymity of it, the countless number of men named Ali or Kareem or Muhammad or Bashar within the ranks of such a tribe. I think of other large families. I think of Layla. Suddenly, spontaneously, a name occurs to me. I blurt it out, interrupting the conversation between the interpreter and his boss.

  “Al-Mulawwah,” I say.

  “Bashar al-Mulawwah,” says the interpreter to his boss.

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” says the lieutenant, an aside to the interpreter.

  Facing me again, the lieutenant puts a sheaf of about five papers on the counter in front of me.

  “I need you to sign these,” he says. “I want to adopt the little girl who told us stories in our mess hall during the night of the sandstorm. She told us you are her guardian, the only person responsible for her, and I need your permission to bring her back with me to the United States. She’ll go to a good school and have all the advantages of life in the USA. What do you think?”

  This further confuses me. My mind whirls. The Kuwaiti continues to ask me difficult questions as I ponder the paperwork the lieutenant has placed in front of me. I answer him somewhat at random. I look through the papers somewhat at random.

  Layla? Adopted? America?

  “Why do you talk to yourself?”

  Layla to become the daughter of this American man, this lieutenant?

  “I am married,” the lieutenant says. “I have a good family back in Illinois, which is a state in the very middle of the United States. The big city of Chicago. You may have heard of it?”

  “To which part of the family of al-Mulawwah do you belong? From which city? Are you Yemeni? Who are your relatives? Why have you moved here to Safwan?”