“Marina! What a happy surprise! Since when do you get up so early in the morning to walk the streets?”
By means of a peculiar language consisting of many pantomimed gestures and a few Arabic words she had mastered in the months she had been there, Luqman understood that she had left some time ago the nightclub where she had been working, and that she was engaged or married, and Luqman could no longer understand when she began jabbering in English without pausing to take a breath.
The second passenger in the back, who was sitting by the window, offered, “She’s telling you she got engaged to a guy from the countryside and that she’s about to travel with him there to perform the civil marriage ceremony and then go on a honeymoon.”
Luqman turned towards him and found the man looking at Marina with a smile, encouraging her to go on after having autonomously appointed himself intermediary.
“Where are you traveling?” the passenger asked her. She replied, and he translated for Luqman. “She is going to Europe, and her first stop will be Paris.”
Luqman laughed. “Paris all at once, Marina? My goodness!”
The passenger continued speaking English with Marina. Then he directed his words to Luqman. “She says he works as a businessman, that his financial situation is excellent, and that he is young and good-looking.”
Luqman looked at the passenger. He knit his brows as if to say, “What place is it of yours to interfere and pose questions on your own accord?” But when his tongue moved, different words came out of his mouth: “Thanks for your help. We’ve imposed on you.”
The passenger didn’t take the hint. Instead, he opened the door and got out of the car to stand with them and continue talking to Marina. She had begun responding to him, believing him to be one of Luqman’s friends.
Luqman looked at him, not believing his eyes. He got close and put his hand on the man’s chest, giving him a little push. “I thanked you, and our business together was done. What’s your problem that you keep butting in?”
“I’m talking to her, not you!” the passenger responded. Then he said something in English that made Marina burst out laughing while looking at Luqman and shaking her head.
The blood rushed to Luqman’s face when he saw the man mocking him. He grabbed his shoulders, shoved him against the car, and began throwing punches at his head.
The driver honked for them to get in because the traffic was stirring and the cars in front were moving away. Meanwhile, those behind began blasting their horns to urge them forward. There was nothing for the driver to do but get out himself and yell, “If you want to fight, do it, but not on my dime. Pay first, and then kill each other if you want to!”
The street became packed again as people gathered around Luqman and the passenger, trying to separate them. Meanwhile, Marina, who had finally understood what was going on, was yelling and hitting the passenger in the head with her purse.
Pedestrians passing by got between them. They pushed Luqman into the car and gave the driver the fare they took from the bloodied passenger. The driver drove off quickly as people pounded on the roof of the car to speed him on his way.
--
From a distance, Luqman saw her standing in a group of young people. He noticed they were all dressed in jeans and wearing hats. What was this strange profession that forced people to dig up the ground under the burning sun in the middle of this immense quantity of dust? And why? To bring out rocks, bones, shards of pottery, and utensils eaten away by rust and dirt. Dear Lord, sometimes you just didn’t know what makes people tick!
Luqman greeted Shireen and saw she was frowning, which was unlike her. He thought she was mad because he was late, but as soon as he opened his mouth to explain what happened, she interrupted him, apologizing for not being able to go to lunch with him because something had come up that she and her colleagues had to discuss. He told her he wasn’t in a hurry and that he had plenty of time to wait for her. She shook her head irritably and went back to join the debate.
A young man was saying, “They’ve exploited the anxiety of the people and the media over the earthquake to send in excavators and bulldozers.”
A girl agreed, “It’s not enough for them to uproot foundations from the Hellenic period and the walls of the Roman baths, but they parked their equipment on top of the site we discovered a few days ago, where the Phoenician cemetery extends!”
“I’ll call the people in charge,” declared Shireen.
The young man looked at her in disbelief. “What’s wrong with you, Miss Shireen? Who do you think sent the excavators and gave the orders to bulldoze it all?”
“What about the newspapers?” Shireen asked.
A man wearing glasses explained, “It was because of the campaign waged by the press that the officials promised publicly in the newspapers and magazines, to allow a process of taking everything apart for numbering and photographing. That way, the stones could be transported and reassembled. And the result? They just bulldozed it all, even before we were able to number a single stone!”
The young man: “What do they care about antiquities? What concern is it of theirs if something thousands of years old is destroyed? What’s necessary is to finish the reconstruction of the city’s commercial center so money can be invested and profits returned to them as soon as possible.”
The girl: “After excavations revealed the city was founded approximately five thousand BC, after preliminary drilling discovered eighty thousand square meters of archaeological sites revealing successive layers of civilizations—Canaanite, Phoenician, Hellenic, Byzantine, Roman, Mamluk, and Ottoman—Parliament and the Ministry of Culture signed an agreement with UNESCO establishing the need to protect all these antiquities. But it was only a matter of weeks before Parliament itself, without batting an eyelash, issued an order to fill in one of the most important excavations. They covered over unique ruins and entire Roman columns in order to replace them with flowers and a clock tower.”
The young man: “Or don’t you know, Miss Shireen, about what one of the officials said in response to a journalist’s question: ‘We’ll bury the antiquities in sand and plastic bags in order to preserve them, and we’ll plant flowers in their place to project a civilized appearance.’ A civilized appearance! And regarding the fate of the agreement made with UNESCO, he replied, ‘The project costs money, and we don’t want to pay. The world is on one path, and you are on another. The country is in a squalid condition, and we all have to tighten our belts.’”
The man with the glasses: “And the archeological site they filled just to make a parking lot? And—”
The girl: “Of course, they talk about a squalid condition as long as it’s connected to a project that’s in the interest of the country! As for the scandal of theft, plundering, and embezzlement on the part of government officials, there’s no talk of squalor and account books.”
The young man: “We’re finished! What good does talking do? What do you all expect from a country that doesn’t respect its history—”
The girl: “Rather, a country that has lost its memory to the point of having no roots at all! Enough! I’m sick of it! Wouldn’t it have been better for me to have majored in something other than archeology?”
The young man: “Business, for example, or the service industry...”
The group broke up. They went their separate ways with heads bowed and feet dragging like a vanquished army unit.
Shireen turned to Luqman. She looked at him with dejection. “Tell me, what is it that made my father conceive me here, and what did I come looking for in this country?”
CHAPTER 16
Salaam was uneasy when she reached the front of the line and someone was standing behind her, waiting for his turn after hers. She had wanted to be alone in order to take her time as she spoke. But the pharmacist was staring at her with dwindling patience, so she asked him for a gauze bandage, which she paid for and left.
Where would she come across an empty pharmacy, without any other
customers? A pharmacy with an agreeable owner, who wouldn’t ask too many questions, and who didn’t live near her neighborhood, such that it would be unlikely for her to run into him?
Salaam started the car and took a quick look at the time. It wouldn’t do for her to be late. Saleem hadn’t eaten dinner yet, and Najeeb would be home before long.
She remembered an old pharmacist on the other side of the city, whom she had used to go to because he had remained open during the war, even though his pharmacy was situated right on the front lines. She used to go there because his supplies rarely ran out, and Lurice needed an enormous quantity of sleeping pills and sedatives.
He was standing behind the cash register, staring through his thick glasses at medicine bottles and punching in their prices with his gnarled, trembling fingers. Salaam took a deep breath. Now he was speaking to a customer who appeared to be about to leave. She went in and greeted them. Then she stood, waiting for him to finish his conversation.
“Xanax isn’t a sleeping pill,” the pharmacist insisted. “It’s a drug for anxiety and panic attacks. It has harmful side effects if you continue taking it a long time, or if you stop all at once.”
“But it relaxed me more than Prozac did,” objected the customer. “And my neighbor has been taking it for years, and it hasn’t hurt her at all, just the opposite—”
Irritated, the pharmacist interrupted her. “Are you going to teach me my profession, ma’am? Then you can take your business elsewhere. I don’t sell medication that constitutes a health risk...I gave you ten milligram tablets of Tranxene, which calms the nerves and helps for sleeping too. Come back with a prescription from your doctor, and I’ll give you Xanax, Prozac, and even poison if you want to kill yourself!”
The customer threw the bag of medication she had bought a moment earlier. “Give me my money back!” she yelled. “I don’t want this anymore!”
The pharmacist gave her the money back, and she went on to say as she was heading for the door, “In any case, what’s it to you, mister? Are you my brother, my father, my husband, or my nephew that you fear for my health more than I do myself? I’m free to take whatever medicine I want! Shouldn’t you have just said from the beginning that you didn’t want to sell?”
The pharmacist took off his thick glasses. He took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his forehead and his moist eyes. He put his glasses back on and took a deep breath to suppress his exasperation. Then he turned to Salaam and asked her what she needed.
Salaam smiled and thought about how she might comment on what had just happened in front of her. She was hoping to win some additional time to find how best to broach her subject. So she said, “Everybody these days is suffering from a nervous disorder.”
The old pharmacist shook his head as if to say, “It would be better to avoid talking about it.” Then he repeated his question a second time. “Excuse me, but you didn’t tell me what you were looking for.”
“It seems you don’t recognize me, Mr. Tawfiq. I’m Salaam. I came here so many times during the war to buy medicine for Mrs. Lurice. Don’t you remember?”
The pharmacist hit his forehead with his hand. “Of course! Forgive me! It’s no doubt my age and the cataracts in my eye. I’ve truly become senile, and my memory has started playing tricks on me.”
“And why shouldn’t you hand over the work to your children and have a rest? Haven’t you exerted yourself enough?”
“My children?” replied the pharmacist dismissively. “God forbid! They have all left the country. At first, I was angry with them for leaving me alone when I was an old man. Today, every time one of them calls me, I convince him that he needs to stay where he is and not look back...In any case, how are you, and how is the health of Mrs. Lurice?”
“I’m fine, praise God. But Lurice...”
Salaam’s voice trembled and then fell abruptly silent as a lump got caught in her throat and prevented her from continuing.
The pharmacist hurried to bring her a cup of water. He sat her on a chair and tried to calm her down, using traditional phrases about being patient and arming oneself with faith. When Salaam appeared to have calmed down, the pharmacist asked her to tell him what was wrong: she’d feel a release from her grief, and he might see if there was anything he could do to extend a helping hand.
“I swear to God, Lurice is like my mother. But I can’t take it anymore,” Salaam confessed.
“Does she still suffer from the loss of her son after all these years?”
“If only! But just when she began to forget her loss and regain a capacity for living, she started to complain about bouts of atrocious pain in her head. There wasn’t a doctor I didn’t bring her to. There was nothing I didn’t try for her, and you know, Mr. Tawfiq, the hassle of dealing with doctors and the costs of appointments, medication, and hospitals these days. The important thing is that they discovered she had a malignant tumor in her brain. We had an operation done on her, after which she lost her vision. But the bouts of pain keep coming back and leave her bedridden.”
The pharmacist sighed. “There is no power and no strength except with God. But look, he has deprived her of her son and her eyesight, yet he has provided her with a most respectable daughter. May God reward you, Mrs. Salaam! For people like you—humane, honorable, and merciful—have become a rare coin these days. Well, just tell me what I can do to help with this heavy burden.”
A swindler’s flash glittered in Salaam’s eyes. “Every time Lurice needs a shot of morphine to ease her pain, I have to go to the doctor for him to write me a new prescription. And every time, he makes me pay the entire bill for a checkup.”
“Morals have gone to hell when doctors become businessmen!” the pharmacist averred.
“So here I am. I’ve left her at home alone, crying out in her pain. I told myself I’d come find you, and maybe your heart would feel pity, and you would give me the morphine without a doctor’s prescription.”
The pharmacist was silent, thinking. Then he looked at Salaam, uncertain as to how to answer.
There was nothing for Salaam to do but stand up and say, “It’s okay. I see you are in a difficult position, and I know that you are an upstanding man who doesn’t like to play around with the law. Forgive me, I’ve taken up too much of your time, and I ought to go home now. If I’m late, I’m afraid there’ll be an accident and something bad will happen to Lurice.”
The old pharmacist didn’t let her leave. With the beads of sweat dripping off him, he decided to sell her what she came for. Indeed, he added an open invitation for her to come back whenever she needed more.
Salaam paid for the morphine, needles, tape, and disinfectant she needed. Then she left, thanking the pharmacist and praying for his health and long life.
CHAPTER 17
Salaam tucked the pharmacy bag under her arm and picked up the tray of food. She slowly went down the five small steps that separated the front door from the basement. She set the tray on the ground, took the key out of her pocket, and opened the door.
Just like it always did, the smell of dampness and mold surprised her. She closed the door behind her and remained fixed in place, waiting for her eyes to adjust a little to the pitch blackness before feeling her way to the candle amid the boxes and other things piled everywhere.
May you rest in peace, Albino! Here you were, stealing all this stuff and storing it up, yet you didn’t benefit from it at all when you departed this life. Why didn’t Salaam sell it for a pretty penny? Lurice would go crazy. Salaam hadn’t even dared ask her for the key to the basement after bringing Saleem home from the asylum. She just kept searching for hours until she found it. She got lucky and came across it by chance, hidden under Lurice’s pillow. If she hadn’t, she would have been forced to bring her brother to live in the house, and Najeeb would have figured out by now what was going on.
Salaam lit a match, but it went out. She lit another, and the candle’s wick took the flame and began to dance, casting strange shadows on t
he walls. She went over to Saleem and found him with his eyes open, lying on a blanket on the floor. She peeled the tape off his mouth, taking care not to hurt him, and he lifted his hands to indicate that she untie the rope that bound his hands and feet.
Salaam undid Saleem’s bonds. Then she began rubbing the rope marks on his wrists and ankles so that the blood would circulate. After sitting him up and leaning his back against the wall, she lifted the tray onto his lap for him to eat. Saleem put the tray back on the floor. Frowning and with brows knit, he stared at the floor with a pout.
Salaam sank the spoon into the bowl. She lifted the spoon to push it into his mouth, but he swung his hand up to knock it away. The spoon’s contents fell onto Salaam’s shirt. Saleem looked at her, afraid she would punish him with a blow, but she didn’t. Instead, she just put the tray aside and lay down on the ground next to him.
Saleem stretched out beside her. He began licking the food that had landed on her chest. Salaam closed her eyes and let him pull away the fabric that came between him and her breast. She would let him do that for a while. Then she would reach her hand slowly to the bag, take out a needle of morphine, and inject it into his arm. That way, he would sleep soundly all night. She would tie him up again, lest he wake up too early or make some noise, alerting Najeeb that he was down in the basement.
It was good the pharmacist had believed her ruse and had given her what she requested, with a promise to supply everything she needed later on. Otherwise, how could she have controlled Saleem? And how could she have kept people from discovering her secret, that he was living with her? Here she was, feeding him, washing him, and taking care of him. As long as she kept him on morphine, it didn’t hurt him to live in the dark or to be gagged, with hands and feet tied. He just slept all the time, not feeling a thing.
She ought not be gone much longer. She had told Najeeb she was bringing dinner to Lurice and would stay with her for a little before coming back to him. She had left Najeeb in the laboratory, surrounded by his plants and his rats, and went out slowly, aware he wasn’t paying any attention to what she said. He didn’t snap out of it and talk to her except when he was hungry. He would call her, she would prepare food, and they would eat. Then he would leave her alone for another hour or two until he got tired, when he would come into her bed to requite her for taking care of him and letting him work in peace.
Oh, Salaam! Page 11