“Of course. If I were in your place, I’d make the same decision.”
“Doesn’t it make you sad that I’m leaving?” suggested Shireen.
“It makes me sad that I thought there was something more between us,” he acknowledged.
“Luqman, please don’t think you were just a rebound relationship. But I don’t know what’s happened to me. It is as though I’ve suddenly realized I’m thirty years old. That life is slipping away from me, or spinning away to some other, inaccessible place. Do you understand? I don’t want to end up as an old woman, alone and lonely in an empty house.”
Luqman didn’t respond, and his heart began to beat faster. Was this a life preserver she was throwing him just before he went under? Or—just the opposite—was she pronouncing a final sentence of death against him and informing him she couldn’t revoke it?
Luqman said, “I hope you find a man who will make you happy. You deserve the best in life.”
“You haven’t asked me to stay. Don’t you love me?”
“It’s because I love you more than you imagine that I don’t ask you to stay.”
Luqman stood up, frowning. He announced to Shireen that he couldn’t handle anymore discussion on this and had to go. Shireen followed him to the living room. She grabbed his hand and begged him to stay a little longer. He gave in and sat on the sofa. She sat down beside him.
We’re ruined! That’s what was running through his mind. And what an utter loss, Partner! Goddamn women! Deceitful, complicated, good for nothing! Look at Marina. She ended up in jail after falling in love with a drug dealer who had enticed her with marriage so he could put her to work. Salaam no longer had eyes for anything but Najeeb and his sadomasochistic sessions. As for Miss Shireen, she intended to travel to Paris alone because she suddenly discovered she was thirty!
A desert mirage, that what’s you are! A scarecrow, a ghost, a dog, a nothing. You’ve been humiliated enough. Come on, Partner. Let’s go back to our world. We’ll disappear into it and never emerge until the day of resurrection. Forget Paris and your dream of escaping this absurd reality.
Goddamn this country! Destructive and murderous, it wraps you up like a spider’s web, blocking you in as it squeezes. Death doesn’t come all at once, but instead you are bled slowly, for years, for a lifetime. Goddamn this country, which only sides with the powerful and destroys the weak. Tyrannous, burning, with no limit to its harms. Killing, torturing, exterminating, and then marching in the funeral procession to demand retribution and insist on vengeance. If only the fire had consumed it! If only the flood had come over it, submerged it, and wiped it from the face of the earth, leaving no one behind to speak of what had been!
It’s all the war’s fault. If it hadn’t ended, we wouldn’t be ruined now, destined to beg and plead for the compassion of women. Certain people ignited the conflagration, and then they put it out, as though the war were a game. As though we were animals, stones, insects. And me? Us? How will we live now in this rabid age, the era of peace, decline, disgust, corruption, plunder, betrayal, lies, tricks, appearances—
“What are you thinking about?” Shireen interrupted.
Luqman sighed deeply. “Nothing. I’m thinking about this life here.”
“I don’t understand how you can stand it all. Don’t you ever think about moving away?”
Luqman tensed up. “Even if that had occurred to me, do you think...In any case, how is it your problem? Just forget it. Let’s talk about something else.”
Shireen turned her head to look at the sea, biting her nails and thinking. After a few moments of silence, she said in a trembling voice, “Do you know there isn’t a sea in Paris?”
Luqman turned to her, uncertain, and she went on, “The people there are cold, the loneliness is deadly, and the weather is bleak. I work all day, and I only come home in the evening. Do you think you could endure all that?”
Luqman answered her suddenly and hurriedly, “I would learn French, and I would look for work, and I would take care of you, and I would keep you warm, and I would wait for you not just for the day but for an entire life, Shireen. How could you think to ask me if I could endure life with the single person who has given my life meaning, and without whom I would rather die?”
“And we’ll get married, and you’ll give me children?” Shireen said.
She said it! She uttered it! She pronounced the words! We—will—get—married! Oh, God! What joy, what luck! What is wrong with you, Partner, that you are as lifeless as a prepubescent donkey? Come on, get up! Let’s take Miss Shireen in our embrace, kiss her, and squeeze her between our arms.
CHAPTER 19
Luqman came to a stop in the house, thinking about what he should do now after having finished everything necessary. It was still too early for him to go to bed, and he was tense as he waited for the time to pass.
He went to the bedroom and brought out two suitcases. He set them in the entryway near the door. That was the last of his preparations for the following day. All he had left to do was take a shower, put on new clothes, drink his coffee, and call a taxi to take him to the airport.
Who would have believed a happy ending was coming after so much waiting and suffering, and that so many happy surprises would come his way, surpassing his wildest imagination? Here he was, having signed the marriage certificate with Shireen in the French embassy. She had gone ahead to Paris while he stayed behind to finish some paperwork and business transactions.
Tomorrow, we’ll catch up with her, Partner, and we’ll bid farewell to this disgusting country and its mangy life. We’ve lost our fight in the civil war, yet we have won something much harder: the decisive campaign in our war with peace. If the war had continued full steam ahead, would you have gotten to know—or even dreamed of getting to know—Miss Shireen? You would have won power, money, and women as spoils, but on the other hand, you would have lost out on the name, the social status, and the Parisian future. What’s more, would you have enjoyed with anyone else all the respect and prestige that your union with Shireen will bestow upon you?
From now on, Partner, I’ll be called “Monsieur Luqman.” And you and I, we’ll get to know as many monsieurs and madames as hairs on my head or stars in the sky. Maybe I’ll even trade in your cheap peasant’s name after acquiring another citizenship, and I’ll call you “Monsieur Alan,” “Monsieur Patrick,” or “Monsieur François.”
Dear God! When will tomorrow come, when the airplane takes us up to the seventh heaven, and we never look back! We’ll peel off our old, worn-out skin and be born anew as someone with no history, but just a future, like any newborn baby.
Luqman put his hand in his shirt pocket and took out his new passport. He opened it and looked closely at the visa stamp he had acquired that morning. He put it up to his nose to smell it. The ink was still fresh. And the date was clear, not open to any doubt.
When he had gotten back to the house, he had seen the doorman and wished him a good morning, which he didn’t usually do. He wasn’t bothered by the doorman’s weird accent or the racket his kids made, racing like rats through the different floors of the building. Why should he care ever again that the doorman resembled a security guard, a policeman, or a spy? Why should he care that the doorman had a weird accent, was arrogant, and was backed up by the state or the army? What did he care that there was a choking economic crisis, that the poor got poorer, that the roads were crowded, or that a sudden earthquake might wreak complete havoc and wipe out everything? What did it matter, as long as Luqman was leaving on a one-way ticket, heading out with the intention to never look back?
Indeed, Luqman was no longer part of this country, not since he married Shireen and became a legal French citizen with all the ensuing rights and obligations. The new Luqman no longer had a place in his heart for hatred or spite after being taken over by Miss Shireen—and by the fruits of the future riches she was preparing for him, which were dropping into his hands with only the slightest effort on his part. The Luqma
n who was traveling the next morning was a person as beautiful on the outside as his heart was pure on the inside. If he had wanted, he could even have shed a tear at the sight of a beautiful flower, a sparrow, or a small child.
You, too, Partner. You ought to repent your sins and forget the days of the Albino, Najeeb, and Salaam. Poor guys, they’ll remain here, living in this giant trash can. Neither the rats nor their prayers will save them. How will they explain your disappearance, and what might they say when they notice that you’ve left? For that matter, who knows what they are blaming right now for your having cut them off and stayed away so long?
Luqman felt a longing for Salaam’s neighborhood. What if he went to visit her and passed the time with her as he waited for nightfall? That way, he would have seen her, her and Najeeb. He would have reassured them and satisfied his own conscience that he had done his duty towards them as a friend. He wouldn’t tell them about his travel plans, of course, but maybe later on he would send them a postcard letting them know how things were going and how he had made it overseas.
Luqman grabbed his jacket from the hook, put it on, and took the elevator down. When he went out the front door of the building, the doorman called after him, “Goodbye, Mr. Luqman! I hope you know we are at your service, and that you won’t hesitate to ask if there’s anything you need.”
Luqman thanked him, wished him a good evening, and went out smiling.
CHAPTER 20
The light was on inside, which is why Luqman kept knocking on the door. When he thought about leaving, it occurred to him to go up to Lurice’s and look for Salaam there, but he changed his mind when he remembered that Salaam seldom left the house, even for a moment, without turning off the lights. What if he went around the house and tried to enter from the kitchen balcony?
He jumped over the low wall when he saw the kitchen door was open. He stopped, flabbergasted by the amount of dirty dishes piled up in the sink, the garbage strewn about the floor, and the remains of food. The place was crawling with rats and cockroaches. He called out to Salaam, then Najeeb, but there was no answer. In the end, he went inside and found her in the living room.
Salaam’s hair was disheveled, and she looked like an entirely different person. She had lost a lot of weight. Her skin was pale, her eyes were sunken, and, dressed in a baggy nightgown spotted with grease, she seemed half the woman she used to be. He looked around at the chaos piling up on all sides. Her hands were playing with something, and from a distance, he tried to make out what was absorbing her so completely that she hadn’t noticed his repeated knocking on the door or the fact that he was standing in front of her that very moment.
He greeted her, but she didn’t respond. He addressed her again, but she didn’t even lift her eyes. Instead, she went on, all her attention engrossed in what she was doing. Luqman came closer and saw she was pulling the small cotton pills from the fabric of her nightgown. She finally noticed him when he shook her. She looked up at him, perplexed, as though waiting for him to ask the question that made him tear her away from what she had been doing.
“Where’s Najeeb?”
“What?”
“Salaam! I asked you where Najeeb is.”
“Najeeb? He’s sleeping.”
Luqman left her and went to the bedroom. He opened the door and flipped the light switch, but it didn’t turn on. He took a step inside. A vile odor struck his nostrils and was soon sticking in his throat. The odor penetrated to his stomach and turned it over violently before beginning to pull, as if to drag his insides out through his mouth.
He lifted the edge of his shirt to cover his nose. He took the lighter out of his pocket and ignited it. He saw Najeeb stretched out on the bed. Najeeb’s corpse had already begun decomposing. His face, his hands and feet, and his bloated belly were swimming in a yellow liquid mixed with excrement. His eyes were a pasture of worms.
Luqman ran to open the window. He leaned out, desperate for fresh air. He vomited everything in his intestines. He kept vomiting until he thought he would choke then and there, or that his eyes would pop out of their sockets. Finally, he rushed out of the room, heading for the bathroom. He scrubbed himself with soap and water to settle the nausea in his stomach and lungs.
Luqman went back to Salaam and found her just as she had been, bent over her lap, lost in the act of pulling elusive threads out of her cotton nightgown. Luqman sat nearby. He looked closely at her face, thinking about how to get through to her and draw her out in conversation. After a few moments of silence, he said, “I found Najeeb sleeping in his bed.”
“Of course. It’s better for us to let him sleep. He’s very tired.”
“What’s the matter with him, Salaam?”
“He’s sick! That’s what the doctor told me: ‘Your husband is very sick, Mrs. Salaam.’ Do you hear that, Luqman? He thought Najeeb was my husband! But as long as he is resting well, I told him, he will recover and feel better.”
“And how did the doctor know he was sick, Salaam?”
“What kind of question is that, Luqman? I was the one who sent for him, naturally!”
“I mean, why did you send for him if Najeeb was only complaining of a minor fatigue?”
“Minor fatigue? He was wasting away! He would spend all day, every day, in his laboratory, and I barely saw him. Recently, he began spending most of the night in there too. I kept telling him he would get sick if he kept on in that way, but he would just reply that he was testing a new method after his chemical experiments had failed, and that he was pursuing other ways that relied on biological warfare...If you had seen him, Luqman, you would have brought him to the hospital immediately and hooked up his IV yourself. The important thing is that on the night I left Saleem, after he decided to go live with his parents—”
“Najeeb decided to live with his parents?”
“No, Saleem!”
“Saleem? What’s he doing here?”
“Just wait! I left Saleem underground with his parents. Then I came up to the house and prayed and went to sleep.”
“You buried Saleem underground?”
“What are you talking about? Are you trying to drive me crazy, Luqman? I said I left him underground—in the cellar! Quit interrupting me, or I’ll stop talking!”
“Fine, Salaam, go on. I won’t interrupt you again.”
“I said goodbye to Saleem, and I dozed off. But Najeeb began tossing and turning in his sleep. In the end, his cries woke me up. He had become delirious. I got up and felt his forehead, and I saw he was burning up. I gave him the all medicine I had, and I started putting cold compresses on his forehead, hoping his temperature would go down. But it kept going up until it reached 104 degrees...”
Salaam lost her train of thought for a few moments. Luqman didn’t say anything, waiting for her to continue. But she got up and moved away. He stopped her by asking where she was going.
“To make some coffee,” she replied.
Luqman thanked her, insisting he didn’t want anything, that he had eaten dinner and drunk a whole pot of coffee just before coming to see her.
Salaam smiled and sat down again. She said, “Here you are, coming to see me, Luqman, and I was meaning to call you.”
“Why?”
“I want you to talk to Najeeb about me. I mean, I want you to ask him if he intends to marry me, or whether the thought has at least crossed his mind.”
“No problem, Salaam. I promise I’ll bring the matter up with him as soon as he gets better. But he’s sick now, and we ought to get him better as soon as possible. Hey, you haven’t told me whether the temperature came down afterwards.”
“Of course. After appearing feeble and sick, without any strength to move, life suddenly came back to him, and once again he was irritable, nervous, tense, and he would get angry at the smallest things.”
“He got better then?”
“No. The doctor said those were symptoms of the illness, and that Najeeb ought to get to the hospital right away.”
; “And what was the illness, Salaam?”
“So I pleaded with the doctor to leave him with me. I gave him money, and I swore that if he went on like that, I would take care of bringing him in myself. I was certain his condition was not serious and didn’t call for notifying the authorities and the Ministry of Health.”
“Notify them of what?”
“And then his eyes became bloodshot. After that, his tongued started swelling up, and recurring bouts of vomiting got him up several times a day. When I bribed the doctor, he had told me, ‘I’ll leave you alone for now and come back after five days.’ That was the time he set for the illness to subside and for Najeeb to begin the road to recovery.”
“And did the doctor come back?”
“Of course he did.”
“And what did he do?”
“Nothing. I made him think I had gone and taken Najeeb to the clinic. I left him a note on the door, thanking him for everything that he had done, and letting him know that ‘my husband’ was recovering.”
“And how long ago was that visit from the doctor, Salaam?”
“About two weeks.”
“And why did you make him think Najeeb was getting better when he was still sick?”
“Because he claimed that Najeeb was afflicted! Because he was going to tell on him and put him in quarantine for forty days!”
“Afflicted with what, Salaam? With what?”
“‘With what, Salaam, with what?’” Salaam mimicked. “With the plague, Luqman, the plague!” She burst into laughter.
Luqman could only jump up, aghast, feeling every hair on his body standing on end. He quickly edged away toward the door to get out of this polluted, contaminated place. She followed, hanging onto him and imploring him to stay until Najeeb woke up so he could talk to him about her and persuade him he had to marry her.
Luqman tried to get away by promising to return the following morning, no matter what. But she wouldn’t let him go, wrapping her arms around him and clinging to him even as he tried to keep her away. When she started getting aggressive, he pushed her so hard that she fell to the floor. He shot like an arrow out of the apartment, not turning aside for anything.
Oh, Salaam! Page 13