“Are you French?”
“Nearly. I was born here, but I emigrated with my father as a young girl as soon as the war broke out. This is the first time I’ve been back after being gone for twenty years.”
“But you speak Arabic very well.”
“Of course! It was my father, God bless his soul, who insisted on speaking to me in Arabic.”
“Are you happy to be back?”
She turned to him, thinking it over, and a hint of sadness came over her face. While putting a pot of water on the burner, she said, “I don’t know what to say, even though I’ve been here a few months. My father is the one who made me come back. I mean, I came back because of him in a certain sense. He dreamed his whole life of returning. Then he got sick and died a year before the end of the war.”
Shireen’s voice quivered, and Luqman noticed tears forming in her eyes that she tried to mask by going to the cupboard to get a couple cups.
“And you?” she asked. “What about you?”
Luqman was silent. A long, deep silence. He lowered his head and stared at the floor.
Shireen was embarrassed. “I didn’t mean it,” she said. She turned her head to look out the window as she sipped her cup of Nescafé.
Luqman wondered, What must she be thinking about me that she would feel this degree of guilt? She must be thinking I’m a victim of the war. That was it, no question. Me, a victim? If you only knew! Just a little while ago, after realizing that she was a secure fortress protected by a hundred walls, he had been wondering how he would ever get inside her. How nice that he hadn’t given up too quickly, seeing how she, just like that and without any effort at all, had revealed her secret and surrendered the keys.
Some moments passed, after which Luqman raised his head from the floor with a troubled look and said, “If you would show me now what the problem is, Miss Shireen.”
--
When Luqman left her place, he was a different man.
Of his entire history, he only kept his name. Luqman had been an only child when his parents died in the war. A car bomb exploded in front of their building, and they were among the victims. He had been away at the time, visiting one of his friends.
He left school and joined one of the factions. He fought for some years. Then, when he discovered that it was a war between interests, profiteers, and scoundrels, he left the militia. He tried to commit suicide numerous times, but luck hadn’t been on his side. Then he came back to his senses and decided to fight to stay alive. He worked various odd jobs. Later, when the war ended, he and his friends went in together and decided to set up a rat extermination company.
Luqman spoke about politics, about principles, about the roots of the conflict. He wrapped up his discourse with a long oration on the lack of morals and on decline. The fish, Shireen, nibbled the bait and was caught on his hook.
She would love him. Wasn’t he a victim of the war to which her father had also been a victim, too, in a certain sense? Of course. She would love him in spite of herself, if it came to that. He would do everything in his power to make her fall in love with him, to make it impossible to do without him. Shireen was the hand that would blot out his past with the stroke of a pen, opening wide the doors of the future. She needed him. He wanted her. He needed the title, the position, and the social recognition. Hell, maybe she would even provide him with another citizenship and residence in a foreign country. Didn’t she say she would be leaving after she finished her project here, that she’d return to her work in Paris? Paris! Oh, blessed and glorious day sent by God, Luqman thought. Do you hear that, Partner? She said Paris!
She talked about the problems and threats that her delegation had encountered during the excavations. She talked about the country’s wealth of antiquities, the corruption of the people in charge, and how little they felt responsible. All the while, Luqman was thinking about the type of bomb he would use to nail her heart. A swift and deadly blow that wouldn’t require many attempts. There was no time to lose. Just a few short months, and she would leave. Let him be optimistic and say, “Just a few short months, and they would leave.”
He had said to her, “If you would show me now what the problem is, Miss Shireen.”
She bent over and opened a cupboard in the kitchen to show him cans of food and some bags that had been torn open, their contents scattered everywhere and ruined. He came over and bent down himself to take a look and examine the size and type of droppings the mice had left behind.
She stood up when he did. The pencil fell from atop her head, and her thick, red hair tumbled down around her shoulders and face. A fragrance breathed out and penetrated Luqman’s nostrils. He looked at this woman standing so near. Her green eyes shone out from under her glasses, looking at him, embarrassed with the embarrassment of small kids. Luqman tore his eyes away from hers. He tried to make a movement that would make her believe he felt shy and flustered. Then he bent over to pick up the pencil and give it back to her. She thanked him, her face turning red, as she gathered the scattered locks of hair. He left her there and went back into the living room.
She said she didn’t want to kill the mice, and that she wanted, if he were able to do it, just to remove them. Oh, the horror! he thought. A woman as small as a mouse who feared mice!
Frowning, Luqman replied, “First, we have to make sure they aren’t rats.”
He sat at the table after asking for a piece of paper and a pen. He began posing questions to her, as though it were a doctor’s examination. She answered, and he recorded her observations until the time came for the diagnosis. He said they were small rats that had visited her by chance, and this meant there was a colony of them that would follow shortly thereafter, as soon as they got the news about the place with abundant food that had been discovered. That’s how rats worked. They sent out a scout to reconnoiter, and then the rest follow if the scout stumbles upon any rich game.
Shireen was alarmed. “What’s to be done?”
He reassured her. “We’ll put out food for them for several days and make it easy for them to get to it. They’ll forget their caution and come in large numbers. When they are feeling safe and comfortable, we’ll put poison in the food. That way, we’ll kill the greatest number of them. When they see all of their dead, they’ll become afraid and abandon this spot.”
Several weeks. That was the period Luqman would give himself for Shireen to take the bait and fall into his trap. He’d come to see her every day. He’d make her believe he was preparing a special kind of food, which was necessary to renew at least every twenty-four hours. If not, the rats would become disgusted with it, since they love what’s fresh and reject anything old. And maybe one day, he’d bring a rat or two along in his bag to release in the apartment so that she’d believe him. That way, his rats would eat her little mouse and create a situation that would have her eating out of his hand.
CHAPTER 11
“Where did I go wrong?”
Lurice tore her eyes from the sky. She walked towards the bedroom of her only son, Elias—or “the Albino.” She turned on the light, opened the wardrobe, and began taking out the clothes and piling them on the bed. She came across rolls and scraps of old fabric. She lifted them up, inhaling their scent as mothballs fell out and scattered on the old, decorated tile floor.
Lurice stood motionless, watching them bounce with a profound interest. When the small, white balls had come to rest, she frowned and turned around, trying to remember what she had been doing and what had made her pile up all these clothes. Of course! She had to sew an outfit for her little one. First, she would empty the wardrobe and throw out all these pants, shirts, and suits.
She gathered what she could in her arms and went over to the living-room window. She opened it and began throwing the load into the street. She leaned out to examine what had fallen and smiled while gazing down the narrow street.
She used to stand at that window to see him off with her own two eyes every day as he left for school, and then aga
in to welcome him home. She watched him grow, inch by inch, out of her lap and into the street, his shoulders broadening as he grew taller. She watched his sandals strike the asphalt, waiting for them to wear out just a little so that she could run to the shoemaker. It would not do for her little one to feel any deprivation or to feel different from his friends.
When his father, who had worked as an employee in the electric company, passed away, neither Lurice nor Elias had been sad. They sat together after his departure like a married couple. It was as though the departed was only a temporary guest who had left when it was time to go. The next day, life went on as though nothing had happened, as though things had finally been settled and gone back to normal.
She passed her days sewing, and he would sit across from her, engrossed in his books and notebooks. She would make supper, and they would sit together as he told her what he had done during his long school day. And if he came home and found customers who had come to the house to be measured, he greeted them with a soft voice and, without turning aside, headed immediately to his room until they went out. In this way, Lurice acquired two badges of honor: one for her proficiency as a seamstress and another for her mastery of the principles of child rearing.
Until that accursed day came. That’s how she saw it now, though at the time she hadn’t noticed anything, nor did she feel that what had happened called for any further attention.
Elias had overslept after staying up late to study. He was nervous because he was taking tests in all his subjects. Lurice had prepared a lunch for him, as usual. She wrapped it in a plastic bag, which she set on the table for him to put in his tote after drinking his glass of milk.
She kissed him, and he went out. She stood at the window to see him off, praying that he would have a clear mind and success on the exams. When he disappeared from sight, she closed the window and sat down at her sewing machine, just as she did every morning.
Lurice finished the dress she was working on. When the clock struck ten-thirty, she got up to go to the kitchen and made herself the cup of coffee she always drank during her morning break. That’s when she found it. A plastic bag, with the boy’s lunch inside!
Lurice went crazy. What would he eat for lunch? He’d go hungry. Maybe some dizziness would come over him and make him faint. Maybe he would die. Oh, God! She ran to the school after throwing on her overcoat inside out. It was a rainy day. Storm winds blew, and there was thunder and lightning. She arrived and implored the doorman to let her in. Then she implored the principal to permit her be the one to deliver herself what she was carrying.
After a long resistance, the doorman let her in. And after a long pleading and insistence, the principal allowed her to bring the bag to him in his class. She wanted to make certain he got his lunch. She feared the doorman would forget, and after him, the principal. She wanted to catch a glimpse of him, just for a moment, so that she’d be reassured and her heart would stop racing. So that she might see him in his school uniform, like a prince, sitting in the class with the rest of the students.
She knocked lightly on the door. The teacher came and opened it. Lurice leaned her head in to see him. And she did see him. His face went pale. Out of shyness, she thought. He actually was shy. She lifted the bag and waved it at him. He sank in his seat as though he wanted to disappear, as though he were not the one intended by those gestures of hers. He looked down and put his hands over his face. Lurice understood. She wouldn’t insist. She whispered his name to the teacher and gave her the bag. Then she left.
When he returned home at the end of the school day, exactly at four-thirty in the afternoon, she got up to go kiss him. He did not greet her, he did not kiss her, and he didn’t utter a word. He went directly to his room and locked the door behind him.
She waited. One hour, then two and three, until the clock struck seven-thirty. She knocked, calling him to come out for supper. He didn’t answer. She was afraid some accident had befallen him. She implored and called and pleaded until he uttered a single sentence, informing her that he had a lot of homework and studying to do. She didn’t say anything. She just put a tray of food on the floor in front of his door and went away.
Elias changed and was never again the same boy. He remained frowning and silent for days. When he did open his mouth, it was to quarrel, fight, complain, curse, and cry. His grades at school got worse.
“In the end, I picked myself up and went to his teacher to ask her if she had any explanation for what had happened to him and made him change like this.
“When I left her, I didn’t turn to look at anything. Tears filled my eyes. No! Tears flowed down my face as I talked to myself out loud and sobbed and repeated, ‘Lurice, your son is ashamed of you and claims that you are not his mother! She’s the maid, he had told them. Yes, the woman who had brought him the bag of sandwiches, me, I wasn’t Lurice. Rather, I was the servant his mother sent to bring him the meal. Lurice was one of the society ladies, rich, with an illustrious lineage. Just like the other mothers. The mothers of his friends. How could a seamstress of no account measure up to the kind of society in which Elias lived, the son of the electric company director!
“I didn’t tell his teacher he had lied. That he was inventing and pretending and being delusional. I nodded my head and cried while trying to find an excuse that would save him from punishment and allow him to preserve the respect of his instructors. Then I found it. I was the one who had raised him, I told her. I raised him and loved him so much that I sometimes made the mistake of considering him a son.
“And I never informed my little ‘master’ about my exchange with his teacher.
“And Elias grew up.
“And the war came.
“And things got bad.
“And the roads to his school were closed.
“And he transferred to another school only a quarter-mile from the neighborhood.
“And the boy was different.
“And he started coming home with his friends.
“And I was his mother once again.
“And I forgot.
“And he started going by ‘the Albino.’
“And I became the mother of the Albino, the leader of the neighborhood.”
The spool of thread on the sewing machine ran out, so Lurice got up to go to the bedroom to look for a replacement. She thought she would go down to the market the next day to stock up on the essentials she had run out of and the various things she needed. She looked at the alarm clock and saw it pointing at exactly a quarter to three. She ought to hurry to get dinner ready. Yes, and there was cake too. When he was hungry, he didn’t wait; whenever he waited, he lost his appetite.
She went back to the living room and exchanged the empty spool of thread with a full one. Not bad. The color was close, and the difference wasn’t obvious. She finished hemming the shirt quickly and lifted it up. She put it over the pants and stepped back a little to be able to see the two pieces together and check how well they went together.
When he arrived, but before he ate, she would ask him to try them on. This is a gift for you, she would say. And maybe she would add an envelope containing a bit of money for him to buy what he liked. She would kiss him and give him his gifts. She would light the candles and say, “Happy birthday, darling! You are ten years old today!”
The clock in the living room struck three o’clock. Lurice shrieked at it, “Oh my God! One more hour and the school day will be done, and he’ll be back!” She hurried to the kitchen.
The big clock kept turning slowly, as it had done for years. And if it had been able to respond, it would have said, “I struck three o’clock, Lurice, it’s true. Yet it’s not three in the afternoon, as you think, but three in the morning!”
CHAPTER 12
Luqman turned off the printing calculator. He rolled up the long strip of paper and threw it towards Salaam. It streamed out in flight and bounced to a rest on the floor.
Salaam smiled and bent over to pick it up, saying, “Luqman, if you co
ntinue your God-awful horsing around, I’ll hang this from your neck like a tail. Then I’ll make you a fez and label it ‘Mr. Devil’ in gold letters!”
Days had passed with her in this good mood. It was enough for Luqman to see the bruises on her neck, the cigarette burns on her arms, and the purplish lines on her thighs to understand the reason for her unusual happiness and this light mood of hers. Najeeb, it was God himself who sent you to save me from Salaam and her dreams of marriage.
When he returned that evening from Shireen’s place, he had found them eating dinner together. They asked him about the customer, and Luqman tried to put them off with his answer. He concluded by saying they hadn’t been able to agree on the price.
Luqman had sat down near them. He took Salaam’s head and kissed it, saying, “I didn’t mean anything by what I said. By God, you are dearer to me than my sister. You know how bad things are, and the stress and my frayed nerves.” He winked at her and added, “Forgive and forget?”
She laughed and nodded, saying, “Of course! Forgiven and forgotten, Luqman.”
He discovered the matter of her relationship with Najeeb later on, when he started noticing marks on her face and other traces left behind from the time she spent with Najeeb. At first, she would hide these signs of her newfound love with stylish scarves tied around her neck, with pants, which she seldom used to wear, or with long-sleeve shirts. When Luqman hinted he knew full well what was going on behind his back and that he wasn’t opposed, but on the contrary was delighted with how things were turning out between her and Najeeb, she relaxed and began taking pride in displaying the marks she bore, showing them off as badges of honor and decisive proof of her promotion in the ranks of love and relationships.
Salaam started coming to visit nearly every day, and it no longer pained or angered her when Luqman was gone for long hours. Indeed, she matched his absences with further generosity. No matter how badly the business was going, she didn’t seem to care about the additional spending money he started asking her for, pleading an unending stream of patently false excuses. In short, Salaam was showering money upon Luqman once again, and he was transformed into something that looked like a businessman.
Oh, Salaam! Page 8