Disturbed, Salaam asked, “And what tales has he been inventing?”
“He didn’t invent anything,” the director stated. “He swore that during every visit, you would offer him a gift for letting you go in to see Saleem. I did what was necessary and dismissed him from his position at the sanatorium.”
“I know direct contact with the patients is forbidden,” Salaam allowed. “But who would blame a sister for missing her brother and wanting to be with him and hug him for a while?”
“Just hugging?”
“I don’t understand the question.”
“What I mean,” the director said, “is that the attendant wasn’t stupid. He found it strange how the patients would calm down whenever you went in. So he decided to get to the bottom of it.”
“What do you mean?” Salaam asked.
“What I mean,” the director repeated, “is that the person in whom you put your trust has betrayed you and revealed your secret. What I mean is that the person you had bribed to let you in to Saleem would make you think he had left, but all the while he was standing nearby to watch what you were doing and how you would act out upon your brother the passion of your longing for him!”
“Lies!” Salaam screamed. “Everything you’ve said is a lie!”
“You accuse me of lying?” the director challenged. “Me?! You are the liar! For shame! You do forbidden things with your brother, your flesh and blood, your full-blooded sibling, and instead of being ashamed of yourself, you stare me down brazenly. Have you forgotten who you’re talking to?”
“No, I’ve never forgotten that I’m speaking to a respectable lady, who does things so disgraceful one’s hair stands on end.”
“Get out of my office this instant,” the director shouted. “If you don’t, I’ll expose your secret to everyone!”
“You’ll expose me?” Salaam exploded. “I’m the one who will expose you, you whore, you bitch, you shameless slut! I’ll tell everyone about all the things you used to do with Najeeb and how you used to force him to do the most outrageous and disgusting things in order to stay out of prison—”
The director could no longer endure Salaam’s tirade. She rushed over, slapped her on the face, and dragged her out of the office. There was nothing left for Salaam to do except fight back with every ounce of strength she had. She grabbed the director’s hair and twisted her neck back to pull her to the ground. Salaam threw herself upon her and hit, bit, scratched, kicked, and spat until the director’s strength was exhausted. She became calm underneath Salaam.
Salaam kept sitting on her as she caught her breath and thought about what she might do with Saleem, now that she had broken the jar and wouldn’t be able to put it back together again.
The director opened her eyes and pushed Salaam off. She got up calmly, arranged her clothes and her hair. Then she went to the office and opened the door. She turned to say goodbye with a smile that overflowed with sly malice and dirty insinuation.
That’s when she said, “I’m not surprised you rage like a she-devil like this...Najeeb truly is a stallion!”
--
Salaam threw Saleem’s things in the trunk. She opened the car’s back door and sat him inside. She got in the front and gripped the steering wheel, wrenching it back and forth and almost exploding with rage. She turned the key and set off down the mountain road for home.
What would she do with Saleem now? And what would Najeeb’s reaction be when he saw him? She had been expecting everything from the director except that she expel her brother from the sanatorium and force Salaam to take him back. It was all Salaam’s fault. If she had kept her mouth shut, it may have been possible to tempt the director with a sum of money. Most likely, that had been the director’s plan in sending for Salaam. And if she had stubbornly refused, Salaam would have sent Najeeb to arouse her and pressure her until she agreed.
No! That was something Salaam could not do. That was what she absolutely and positively rejected. It was more than she could possibly endure. Picturing her man between the thighs of another woman was liable to drive her stark raving mad.
She looked at Saleem in the rearview mirror and saw him leaning his head against the window. He wasn’t sleeping. No doubt it was the injection of morphine the attendant had given Saleem so that Salaam could bring him out and keep control of him until the two of them got home. She ought to stop by the pharmacy and buy the drugs the doctor had prescribed for him.
If she returned and found Najeeb in the house, how would she explain it to him? How would she justify it? What could she say? And if her brother did live with them, wouldn’t Najeeb leave her and disappear just as Luqman was going to do if she hadn’t agreed to put Saleem in the asylum?
This question continued to chip away like a chisel at the nerves in Salaam’s brain. It became more insistent every time she checked the road and saw the distance that separated her from Najeeb shortening.
What if she played down the matter with Najeeb and just put Saleem in one of the side rooms and locked him up? That way, Najeeb wouldn’t have to see Saleem, given that the house was so spacious and the rooms were separated from each other. That wouldn’t work at all, she was certain. What’s more, who would guarantee the results would be as she wanted? She couldn’t take that kind of risk.
Lurice! Why didn’t she make Saleem live with her and lock them both up? Of course, this was the ideal solution! She would put them together, and that way, she’d be able to care for them both at the same time, while she lived comfortably in her apartment with Najeeb. And Lurice, would she possibly accept a stranger moving in with her? But what stranger? She knew them both from when they were young, she and her brother, so why would she object? Wasn’t it better for her, she who had become an old, senile woman, to live with someone who would ease her loneliness at the end of her life? And Lurice’s relative, the guy who came to visit for the morning every Sunday, what would Salaam do about him? How would she justify Saleem’s presence and the fact that he was living not in his own apartment with her, his sister, but instead in a different apartment, with a neighbor who was going out of her mind?
Oh, God! What a horrid predicament! What a tragedy had fallen on her head that day! If only you were dead! If only Saleem had died as hundreds of young people had died! She would have been sad, she would have cried for him, her heart would have burst, perhaps, but in the end, she would have forgotten him. All people forget their dead after a time. After a period of mourning, they turn away from them to the preoccupations of life. Then they set aside a small memory in their hearts that makes them cry out from time to time.
As for Salaam, her tragedy, which was named Saleem, was a lamp always set before her eyes. She had gone around with it, walking, breathing, eating, drinking, putting on clothes, expending vast amounts of time and energy and effort, and…and here she was today. Her life would be ruined in the full meaning of the word. In the twinkling of an eye, it would put an end to the honeymoon she had enjoyed with Najeeb, which she thought would go on and transform her life—finally!—from a hell to heaven, from heartache to bliss.
What if she let him out of the car right now and set him free in the street? He would get lost, she would lose all track of him. Then she would cry over him just as so many people had cried over all those who had been kidnapped or gone missing. No, he would return to her—that was certain! Somebody would find him and bring him back to her. Or maybe he would come back on his own without anyone showing him the way.
Five minutes at most, and Salaam would be home. The sweat dripped off her profusely, as though a cloud laden with rain had come to a halt above her head and dumped its load of water all at once. She took her hands off the steering wheel and wiped her palms against her cotton shirt. She ought to stop for a while so she could think clearly. She pulled over to the side of the road, turned off the engine, and looked behind her.
Saleem had closed his eyes. From the rhythm of his breathing she understood he had sunk into a deep sleep. It was just like w
hen he was a little boy and would nod off as soon as he got into a car, or whenever she put him in a cradle and rocked him back and forth to sleep.
CHAPTER 15
Luqman rolled over in bed, luxuriating in the smooth feel of soft sheets on his dark, bare skin. It was the first time Shireen had let him sleep instead of waking him to have breakfast and leave the house together when she went to work.
He lifted his head a little and looked down at his crotch with a smile.
“Good morning, Partner. Well, how did you sleep? I slept like an angel, thanks to you! Yesterday you made your master very happy when he was with Shireen. By my honor, I swear you are my only friend in this world. You are a prince! See how you kept control of yourself and behaved as befits us both. You mastered your reactions until you overwhelmed her senses and made her weep from pleasure and love.”
He lifted his eyes and examined the room. He had memorized it like the back of his hand. He had memorized even the clothes, perfume, and other things she kept in her closet, given how long he would sit, watching her get ready after coming out of the shower. He would come to her in the evening after she finished work, and they would spend the night in her bed. Eventually, she had gotten used to his company and could no longer bear his absence, such that she would call if he stayed away for a day or two.
He turned towards the curtain that blocked out the day and guessed from the pale light that filtered through that the sky was still filled with many indecisive clouds. He wanted to open the curtain and look out at the sea, but he didn’t have it in him to get up. His glance fell on a piece of paper with a note in Shireen’s handwriting. He picked it up and read, “Leave the key with the doorman. If you don’t have work, come find me at my site at noon so we can have lunch together.”
He looked at his watch and saw that it was eleven o’clock. He ought to get up, take a shower, have some coffee, and then go to her. He shouldn’t refuse her invitation to lunch, even if he didn’t have any energy or desire to go.
Luqman went into the kitchen, his body and hair still wet from the shower. He walked around barefoot and naked in order to confirm for himself that he was in a familiar place, a place he possessed entirely, a place that didn’t make him feel like an intruder or a guest passing through. When a person walks around naked somewhere, he does it for two reasons: either he feels complete ownership and security or…what? Or because the Albino had gotten him!
He remembered the Albino and what he used to do when he subjected his victims to torture. Perhaps it was his small stature and his skinny body that gave him the idea of forcing them to strip off their clothes, take a shower, and remain naked. Certainly, if the Albino had had the body of a stallion like Luqman, then he wouldn’t have stripped them in order to enact his barbaric mastery upon them. Most likely, he put them in the bathroom in order to bring them back to the stage of childhood, to make them feel they were children, that he was the man in charge, the voice of complete authority.
How had this not occurred to Luqman before? Perhaps because the Albino used to speak like a prophet who plucked rotten fruit from the baskets of sinners, which he then threw into the fire to be burned in hell. That’s what he always used to say. But Luqman perceived now, suddenly, that the Albino’s barbarity was just the other side of the coin, hiding his fear, fragility, and feelings of inferiority. Otherwise, what was it that kept him from getting close to women? What made him fall in love with a woman like Salaam?
Luqman opened the cupboard to make his coffee—actually, Nescafé with milk, because Miss Shireen had become afraid that coffee would give him a stomach ulcer or ruin his nerves. He dissolved two sugar cubes in the cup and leaned against the sink, drinking and looking at what was in the pantry.
If she had let him sleep in today and turned the apartment key over to him, it was obviously the first step to him staying at her apartment for successively longer periods of time, until they reached days and maybe even weeks. If she proposed that, he’d resist and, in the end, refuse. It would not do for him to submit to her desires, otherwise they would fade and die over the course of time. If a sense of habit became established between them, he would start feeling familiar to her. And if he felt familiar, the stability in their relationship would displace the blaze of emotions that led her to make decisions that had no basis in deliberation and rational thinking. If Shireen actually reflected and thought about what she was doing, she’d become conscious of the enormous chasm that separated them, and she would realize she needed to break things off some day.
Luqman wouldn’t leave her alone to arrive at such a conclusion. He would continue to pursue the line he had followed with her from the beginning. Instead of watching and waiting, he would seize the initiative and attack. He would bring her fears and wonderings into the light so that they would appear outside of herself, as though they were inside him instead. That way, like the fiercest enemy, she herself would strive to fight them, rout them, and destroy them. That’s how he made her ask him to stay for dinner the first time. And that’s how he would push her to get rid of everything that held her back. She would drop, fully ripened, into the cauldron of his desire, entrusting herself to him completely.
--
Luqman stood on the Corniche and looked up and down the street, hoping a taxi would come soon. He knew he’d be late for lunch with Shireen.
Luqman shouted to an empty taxi, and it braked. He got in and informed the driver of the address. The driver was delighted at this unexpected fare. Then, to show his good mood, he asked Luqman, “Did the tremor wake you up last night, sir?”
“What tremor? When? Where? How?”
The driver explained, “The world is turned upside down, and it’s the talk of the town! At about two o’clock last night, my wife and I woke up, and the bed was shaking us as though someone had grabbed it and was jerking it back and forth with all his strength. The kids woke up too and were screaming in terror because the walls had begun to shake so much we imagined they would burst and fall in upon us...”
Luqman thought he hadn’t noticed any of this because he was in bed on top of Shireen. And maybe the firm foundations of the building had reduced the effect of the earthquake, such that none of the neighbors had felt it.
The driver continued. “After years of war, misery, the economic crisis, the chemical waste they dump into the sea, the rotten food they distribute in the markets, the last thing we needed to experience it all was an earthquake. This is the wrath of the Lord. The Lord does not strike you with a stone, but he tries his servants by indirect means, so they might repent and seek his help.”
The driver stopped for a passenger shouting out his destination and gestured for him to get in the back. After a few more yards, he did the same thing for another passenger flagging him down.
Luqman looked at the driver, astonished at this insolence of his. How is it that you take other passengers, he thought, when I’ve hired you as a taxi and reserved the entire car? But he checked his words, remembering that he was late and that he didn’t have the energy to initiate a quarrel.
The driver turned on the tape player. A singer’s voice boomed out, together with a noisy confusion that Luqman knew must be a wedding reception or something like that. There were children squealing, shouts of encouragement, and rapturous praise.
Proudly, the driver announced, “This is the voice of my nephew, and the party here is his wedding reception. He’s been trying to become a singer for so long. He even attempted suicide one night because his father refused that career.”
One of the passengers in the back interjected, “Your nephew has an excellent voice. But if you turned it down a bit, it would be much better.”
Luqman thanked the passenger silently and turned to look at him. He made a bet with himself that this passenger was one of those university students who only listened to rock music.
The driver gave a long blast on the car horn, which he accompanied with a stream of curses, abuse, gestures, and spit as the car joined a long
and snarled traffic jam.
A Sri Lankan housekeeper bent over and asked the driver if he was headed to a certain area. He asked her if she was going to pay the fare for an entire taxi. She shook her head, saying she would pay the fare for one seat, no more, no less. The driver exploded in her face, saying he wouldn’t take customers like her in his car and advising her to look for a helicopter if she wanted to reach that distant destination of hers within a week. He ended by saying that the Sri Lankans were behaving not as servants but as masters, and woe to him who fell into the clutches of a black slave, for arrogance was the hallmark of the damned blacks.
Luqman saw he had been right about that passenger in the back when the young man commented, “This is racism, uncle!”
The “uncle” turned on him instantly, sparks flashing from his eyes, and growled, “Uncle? May God strike you blind! Out of my car now!”
The young man got out, and the driver slammed the door shut behind him. The driver railed on, “Kids these days! By God, it’s like a turd coming from my ass to lecture me.”
After the car had been stuck in traffic for quite a while, Luqman peeled his back, wet with sweat, off the leather of the front seat. Perhaps a little air would get in there. If this weather continued, he thought, with the blazing heat and glowering clouds, it was liable to cause an enormous earthquake. He lifted a hand to shield his ear from the sun, which had been pouring heat on his head ever since he left the house and got into the taxi.
It occurred to him to get out and continue on his way by foot. But calculating the distance left, he saw it was still a long way off, much further than he had already gone in the taxi. He would wait a little longer. If the traffic continued to be frozen solid, he’d get out and go directly home. Then he would call Shireen and explain what had happened.
He didn’t know how she saw him, but the woman came running from far away, calling his name and waving to him. She leaned through the car window to give him a kiss. Given that the traffic still wasn’t going anywhere—moving with the speed of a tortoise, if at all—Luqman opened the door and got out to greet her.
Oh, Salaam! Page 10