Absent: A Novel
Page 4
My aunt isn’t concerned with what’s happening in the street, or at the entrance to our apartment block. All her attention is now focused on the new occupants of the flat upstairs. She suggests, “Why don’t we go and visit our new neighbors?”
Before we leave our flat, I straighten a painting that has tilted noticeably to the right. I often straighten out the paintings and restore them to their horizontal position after my aunt has been cleaning them. She never manages to hang them up correctly. Sometimes she hangs up a painting where another one should be. That upsets her husband who insists that each painting belongs in its own special niche. He treats the paintings as though they were his children. When he hangs them up himself, he places each one in its appropriate nest.
Abu Ghayeb will start snoring soon when he sinks into his deep afternoon sleep.
Badriya, Umm Mazin’s servant, answers the door. She doesn’t seem surprised that we have come to visit; it is as though she is expecting us. The hues of her complexion are inconsistent. Her forehead is darker than the rest of her face. Underneath her eyes are two weary crescents of wrinkles like ground Basra lime. Either her body is thin or her dishdasha is very wide. She says, “Welcome,” and takes us through to the sitting room.
There is another woman waiting; we sit down and wait with her. The woman is sitting directly in front of me, her hair the same brown as the frame of the painting behind her. It is a landscape in watercolors. Her dress matches the green of the field in the painting. It is dark and crushed in its lower half; lighter and more dewy higher up. The woman is nodding off in her seat, unaware of our presence. Her hand is curled up into a fist as it supports her fleshy cheek. Her head rests on its strut for a few moments, immobile.
The woman is startled from her sleep by the sound of Badriya’s voice announcing that the lady of the house will join us after midday prayers. Her ring has left an impression on her cheek. The woman says, “How do you do?” with sleepy eyes and a cheek embossed with the imprint of the stone in her ring.
A little later, she asks, “Is this your first visit?”
My aunt answers, “Yes.”
The woman releases the abaya from around her shoulders. “I’m sure you’ll be satisfied with her services. Umm Mazin is a wise woman, and her prices are reasonable.”
I exchange glances with my aunt. The woman continues, “What’s your problem? I hope you’re not having problems with your husband, like me?”
Her questions intrigue us, but she continues, regardless, “Anyway, there are no secrets here in Umm Mazin’s house. We like the way she does things. She lets all the women listen in to the tales of the others. We sit in a circle around her while she tells each woman’s fortune from the patterns in her coffee cup. The others will be here.”
She has barely finished her sentence when the doorbell rings twice. The room is soon full of women who seem to know each other, or at least, each other’s problems.
One of the women, Umm Ali, asks another, also called Umm Ali, “Umm Ali my dear, what’s wrong?”
“You can’t imagine, Umm Ali! They’ve all been vaporized.”
“What’s been vaporized, Umm Ali?”
“More than four hundred souls: women, men, children. They bombed the Amiriya shelter, Umm Ali, at four-thirty in the morning. A laser bomb blew up the metal gates that weigh six tons. The explosion generated temperatures of several thousand degrees, and the people inside were just vaporized.”
The first Umm Ali covers her gasp with her hand and moves toward the door. The second Umm Ali calls out to her, “Umm Ali, where are you going?”
“To Amiriya, I have relatives living in that vicinity.”
We are amazed. My aunt turns to a woman who seems calm in the face of this exchange, and asks her, “Excuse me, why are those two women talking about the bombing of the shelter in Amiriya that took place many years ago, as though it happened only yesterday?”
She answers, “You must forgive them. They both lost loved ones in that tragedy, and it made them lose their minds. They now come here every month to relive that trauma, unaware of what they’re doing. One of them still thinks that if she hurries there, she might be able to save some of those who were in the shelter. It’s pitiful; their illness is like a tape being replayed again and again.”
Umm Mazin makes her entrance. She will probably have to abandon some of her weight at the earliest opportunity, lest life abandons her. She says, “May peace be upon you” her greeting fills the room. Her flat is the same size as ours, but her walls are totally bare except for the painting. In our apartment, the walls of Abu Ghayeb’s home are almost completely covered by oil paintings.
Her face is surrounded by a fouta that overheats and stifles her. It’s made of brocade that she’s pinned underneath her chin with a fake diamond brooch. Her brown-skinned face is centered around her distinctive big mouth that has a character of its own. It’s molded into an everlasting smile, her large yellowed teeth protruding forward. It’s almost as if someone’s hand had tried to pull them out, then decided against it. She has a reduced number of teeth, an increased number of gaps, and her purple gums bulge out.
She glances toward us saying, “Welcome to our first-time guests. Let us prepare for the session.”
She calls out to Badriya, “Bring us the coffee, Bidour.”
We don’t interrupt her; we sit down on the floor with the other women, wrapped in their abayas.
It appears that she is not really looking at anyone, but she gazes intently at each woman’s face as she speaks. Her voice rasps like burnt wood, “I use my abilities to help people. I’m not a fortune-teller or a soothsayer. I wasn’t trained by gypsies, and what I say isn’t set in stone. What I possess is a gift from God. I can sense other people’s problems, but I don’t interfere with them. I do, however, have the cure for the tired soul and the drowning inner self.”
She adjusts the way she’s sitting, as though she’s rearranging the folds of fat she sits on. “My sister Ghaziya also had this gift, but unfortunately, she abused it. She woke up one morning with an imprint on her hand of a star and a crescent the color of apricot jam. She should’ve used that blessing to heal the sick. Instead, she was so delighted with it, she started talking about it and showing it off to all her visitors.”
One of the women interrupts her, “Who said this was a miracle? She could have used henna to draw the star and crescent on her palm.”
Umm Mazin continues her tale, “A month later, hair started growing within the star on her right palm. God Almighty was providing her with confirmation. The poor fool was overjoyed; she continued to display it proudly until all the hair gradually disappeared, then the star itself faded away completely. It was then that my sister regretted her actions. By declaring it, she failed to preserve her gift. That’s why we must operate in total secrecy. No one must know about our work, otherwise all will be lost.”
Over by the door, Badriya tells another servant who has come along to accompany her mistress, “Have you heard?”
“What?”
“Basra has been bombed. A hospital, a nightclub, a coffee shop, a clinic, and a lawyer’s office have been razed to the ground. The employment agency nearby for maids had its windows blown out, but is still standing.”
The servant replies, “Thank God for that, my cousin is looking for a job.”
Umm Mazin notes that my aunt and I are exchanging glances. She calls out for us all to be served coffee. We wait our turn with the other women.
At this moment, one of the other women leaves the circle without seeking permission. She starts to make preparations to pray on her own, aside from the group. Umm Mazin glances at her briefly through her small slitlike eyes. Her entire eye appears to be just one narrow, turbid pupil.
The lady is about to pray without a prayer mat; she takes a piece of double-layered tissue paper and separates the two halves by blowing onto it. She places one of the two pieces on the floor in front of her so that she may lay her head on it when she
kneels down to pray; the other half she saves in her pocket for tomorrow, just in case there’s no tissue paper to be found.
She starts praying, just as Umm Mazin is about to start telling someone’s fortune by reading the first coffee cup.
She asks the lady to blow into her coffee cup, then to whisper into it the problem for which she seeks help. Umm Mazin places her hand over the cup to trap the woman’s whispers inside it. The cup disappears beneath her chubby hand. The dimples between the knuckles make it look more like a fat teenager’s hand.
She opens her mouth, “The cup tells me that you’re weary. You’re troubled by a problem that relates to your husband. He no longer comes to you or approaches you, is that right?”
The woman answers promptly, “It’s true. What can I do?”
“You must be patient. This isn’t the first time that your husband has rejected you.”
The woman becomes agitated, “But he was wonderful with me until our situation worsened with the blockade. After that he started to ignore me completely, turning his head to the other side.”
Umm Mazin asks her in a serious tone, “Have you tried a love spell?”
“Of course, but it was useless.”
“You mustn’t discuss the spell, nor when it was cast. If you do, its effect will be lost.”
“I know that, so I never mentioned it to anyone.”
“Fine, so did you try a passion potion?”
“I did, I made my husband drink it without his knowledge, but it made no difference at all.”
“Do your neighbors have a pretty daughter?”
“No.”
Umm Mazin’s diamond falls from her veil into the coffee cup. Her questioning stops for a few moments as she reclasps the veil to cover the short white beard underneath her fatty double chin.
She continues, “Your problem is very simple; you don’t need to go knocking on the charlatans’ doors. Your coffee cup has revealed a bowl of stale tea and a few drops of soured milk. This is the smell of your breath. When was the last time you brushed your teeth?”
The woman bows her head in shame, “Toothpaste has become so expensive, Umm Mazin. Imported brands are impossible to get hold of, and local brands taste like car-repairing putty.”
“I have a solution for you.”
Umm Mazin offers the woman a tube of imported toothpaste in exchange for a bag of disposable Bic razorblades. Probably she uses them to shave her little beard.
After that day, we never saw the woman with the ring imprinted on her cheek.
I wonder if Umm Mazin can read the news in the coffee cups? Did they tell her about the bombing of the baby milk factory? Can she see a red cross and hungry children sucking their thumbs in vain?
The second woman approaches Umm Mazin, her face displaying obvious signs of distress. Her fingers tremble as she offers up the empty cup into which she has whispered her dilemma. Umm Mazin starts to analyze the situation. She peers into the woman’s face; the tremor in the woman’s hand worsens.
Umm Mazin tells her with confidence, “It appears to me that you’re here on somebody’s behalf. The woman concerned has problems and great sorrow. She’s suffering from something and is greatly affected by it, yet she’s fearful that she’ll be blamed for it, or that other people might gloat at her misfortune. I can also see a water fountain and a pretty young girl.”
The woman breaks down, saying, “Yes, yes Hijjia, the girl is my daughter; the water fountain was the way she lost her virginity while still in the first flush of youth. She’s my only child. I raised her alone with my sweat and my tears after her father was killed in the war.”
She wipes her dripping nose with the cuff of her dress and resumes her tale, “We’d gone out to visit some friends; my daughter needed to use the toilet. Moments later we heard her screaming and rushed in to find blood flowing from her. She hadn’t known how to use their western-style toilet so she mistakenly used the bidet. The jet of water gushed out at full strength and she lost her virginity in their toilet. What can I do Hijjia, what can I do?”
Umm Mazin sighs heavily, reflecting at length; she only glances at the cup briefly. I recall a long forgotten lesson in mathematics. The variable x (Umm Mazin’s breathing) is directly proportional to the variable y (Umm Mazin’s reflection); and since the variable y is also proportional to the variable z (Umm Mazin’s reading of the cups), then x must be proportional to z. That’s how Umm Mazin operates; her behavior conforms to the laws of transgression in modern mathematics.
She pierces me with her hazy eyes, willing me not to cross her path while she’s thinking.
The black stone in her ring reminds me of the man who sold me a few books yesterday. His ring looked like hers. I was cruising through Sarai Market looking for some novels. I came across this gentleman, this ‘uncle,’ in the street of booksellers that’s gradually becoming a greengrocers’ market. Nowadays, books are sold by the meter. They’re arranged horizontally, measured, and offered at wholesale prices. I gazed at him for a few moments from afar, wishing that one of Abu Ghayeb’s artist friends would sketch him in charcoal.
He was the classic image of an elderly man sipping tea in one of Baghdad’s markets. He sits on a wooden box, his feet set slightly apart. His back is gradually curving into a slight hump as he extends his head forward to sip his tea. He has poured the tea from the beaker into its saucer to let it cool. His lips tremble forward as he draws in the cooled tea from the saucer. His head is covered by a charawiya and he wears the jacket from a suit over his dishdasha. His beard is white; he’s thinking of nothing other than the taste of the tea.
When I got home, I found a dedication on the first page of each book I’d bought. “To my beloved daughter, Samia,” “To my dearest friend, Najwa,” “To Father, with my love.”
My conscience troubled me. How could I have bought other people’s treasured possessions when they’d fallen on hard times and were selling their books on the pavement?
Umm Mazin asks the distressed woman, “How old is your daughter?”
“Twenty.”
“Then give her this potion of gazelle’s corn and ginger twenty times to calm her soul. When a groom comes forward seeking her hand in marriage, take her to a cousin of mine who lives in Irkheita. He’ll perform a simple operation on her. You must be discreet. Can you keep this a secret?”
“Of course Hijjia.”
“I can’t give you his real name, but we call him ‘The Night Bat.’ You must not go to visit him till after dark. He’ll be able to reconstruct your daughter’s virginity. He was a capable doctor who’s now retired. He’ll replace her hymen with the membrane from a bat’s wing.”
“May God bless you with a longer life.”
“By the way, you and your daughter needn’t fear the numerous cages by the entrance to his house where he keeps his bats. He only uses them for his operations. But don’t delay the wedding night more than a week after your daughter’s operation. Do you understand?”
“I understand.”
“May God be with you. You can pay Badriya in the kitchen on your way out.”
Umm Mazin starts writing down the doctor’s address for her, while continuing to involve, in a spiral motion, the other women in social chitchat, “In 1912, my father used to write using a reed pen. The ink he used was a mixture of pomegranate peel soaked with rusty nails, and soot generated by burning a candle underneath a metal plate. He’d write on the metal casing of kerosene cans; when he made a mistake, he had to lick the wrong words off with his tongue because there were no erasers in those days. His handwriting, however, was amazing. He could stun a bird in flight with one fell swoop of his pen.”
She shakes her head to the right and to the left as she adds, “Today, I find our circumstances ridiculous. The whole world tries to prevent us from acquiring pencils for our schoolchildren because they claim that they could be used to make weapons! I may soon have to sell the secret of my father’s ink mixture to the people of this country.”
She then asks with enthusiasm, “Umm Mazin, can I ask you how you acquired this ability to find out about people’s problems from their coffee cups?”
“I was eight years old when I started reading fortunes for grown-ups from coffee cups. I see writing in them instead of coffee dregs. Drinking the coffee is just an excuse. When I start assessing a cup I recite to myself, ‘In the Name of God and His Prophet; Peace be upon Him.’”
The women repeat after her like an echo, “Peace be upon Him.”
Umm Mazin resumes her tale. “I then see phrases and images that indicate to me their owner’s problems. Spells and magic are something totally different. I only operate with good intentions and do not deal with evil. I use readings from the Qur’an in my work, and I forbid the use of any other means. I derive great satisfaction from helping those who’ve lost their way, the victims, and those who’ve suffered in this world for whatever reason. I have a special affinity for women who’ve lost their husbands as a result of evil magic cast by others.”
Another woman asks her, “How do you do that?”
“I annul their spells by casting a white light on them. It’s the power of true faith that overcomes evil. They employ the jinn, and we battle against their evil acts. And of course, as God tells us in the Qur’an, ‘Everything was created for a reason.’”
The women repeat after her, “Verily spoke God Almighty.”
Umm Mazin adds, “The world revolves my dear. If you’ve been a wealthy person all your life, then you won’t know the tragedy of poverty. And if all the world was full of just kindness and love, then we wouldn’t know how to fight evil when we encounter it. Isn’t that so?”