Absent: A Novel

by Betool Khedairi

  “I’m not sure that there’s anything I wish to freeze for all eternity.”

  He ignores my objections and continues, “It depends on where you’ve positioned yourself. You’ll come to appreciate in your second lesson that photography is not merely a technical skill. You also need a little luck. You have to be in the right place at the right time. Capture the dove before it flies away, or all you’ll get will be the image of an empty nest.”

  I stand up. He follows my movements with his eyes, as if he can see me. “Uncle, why are you so insistent? I’ll write down for you what you want, and I won’t ask you for a fee; but I don’t want to become a photographer.”

  “So what will you do with your life then? Will you become a seamstress? Or a beekeeper?”

  “I’ll complete my education.”

  “A convenient escape.”

  “Getting an education isn’t an escape.”

  “Well said, but it won’t help you earn a living in these times. Do you really want to become a schoolteacher who takes home a salary that’s the equivalent of four U.S. dollars a month, like everybody else?”

  I gaze at the two mice rolling over each other. He says, “Your monthly salary won’t be enough to buy a tray of eggs.”

  He makes his way toward me; his gaze pierces through me. He places the camera in my hands. I can feel its weight.

  “Here now is the third lesson. Technical expertise and luck aren’t enough. The photographer must make his or her own decisions. You have to go out into the world and seek out that moment.”

  I touch the lens, and the other parts that bulge out from the camera. “Must, must, must. Uncle Sami, I’m weary of everyone in this building trying to teach me his or her profession. I’ll end up having learned several trades, but still no prospects.”

  “Dalal, my dear. Don’t be so pessimistic. Our entire life is but one brief moment. Enjoy it.”

  I walk down the stairs.

  I didn’t expect that very soon someone else would also be offering to teach me his profession. It was the new owner of the ground floor flat. His name was Saad.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  We have devastated this country, so its level of childhood mortality is now worse than that of Sudan.

  —Iraq Under Siege: The Deadly Impact of Sanctions and War,

  Anthony Arnove, ed., 36

  ILHAM’S ERECT POSTURE is molded onto her chair. She sighs. “I wish I could escape from the hospital, to get away from the image of the little ones when they die.”

  I hand her a lighter for her cigarette. She gazes at its glowing ember and says, “The children in the south play with leftover shrapnel from the bombing. They’re the victims of depleted uranium from the air raids over the areas extending from Basra to Kerbala, and as far as Baghdad.”

  She slips her hand into a paper bag and brings out the toy I have given her for the children’s ward, “You can have it back. He died. I’d become so attached to him. He didn’t even make it to his eighth birthday. He bled to death. I realized that was going to happen when the red spots started to appear on his cheeks. He bled into his gut. Other children sometimes bleed from their mouths, their ears, or their bottoms.”

  She clutches the rag doll in one hand and the cigarette in the other. My aunt’s husband had brought it back as a present for me from one of his trips abroad, long ago. She was called Raggedy Ann. She had a face made of cloth, her eyes were embroidered with a black thread: my aunt had plucked out the originals for her collection. She made them into buttons and sewed them onto an evening dress for one of her clients.

  Ilham appears exhausted. She fondles the toy. She chats to me and tugs at the black embroidered eyes making them smaller without realizing what she’s doing. Her voice is weary. “The work I did at the hospital in Basra two years ago has now started to bear fruit.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The unexpected ‘surprise fruit.’”

  She hands me the doll as she stands up. She lifts up her dress, exposing her chest. There is a red swelling on her right breast. She squeezes it. I move toward her with a handkerchief in my hand. I cry out, “My God, Ilham, what’s this?”

  She takes the handkerchief and wipes the red lump with it. Her tears roll down her cheeks. I move closer to her. “What are you doing?”

  “They told me at the hospital that it’s a boil.”

  “How did you get it?”

  She ignores me.

  “Did they think they could fool me by saying it was a boil?”

  “How can it be treated?”

  “There’s no treatment for it, Dalal; it’s cancer. I’ve seen it often enough to be able to tell the difference. It seems that it’s my turn now.”

  She puts her bra back on, and curses her mother. “I bet you, she’s sitting in a Parisian café right now sipping a hot chocolate.”

  I couldn’t make the association between what I was witnessing and a woman I didn’t know in France. I could only say, “Forget about her, come on, let’s go out for a little while.”

  Her tears don’t cease while she adjusts her dress. I suggest that we go for a walk. She follows me, not voicing any objections.

  We leave behind us a toy made of cloth, without a face.

  Our footsteps lead to Abu Nuwas Street, which runs alongside the riverfront by the Tigris. The muscles of Ilham’s lips contract and relax as she smokes in an angry rhythm: nightmare, reality, nightmare, reality. She inhales her diagnosis into her lungs as if trying to sieve out her predicament. We stop by the statue of Shahrazad just before sunset. The disk of the setting sun is melting into the palm of her extended hand. A copper hue is draped over the reclining body of Shahrayar who dozes off while listening to the tales recounted by his concubine. We sit on a wooden bench and gaze at the two statues glowing gently with a sleepy thyme-colored light.

  Ilham is quiet for a long time, then says, “I wish I was like her.”

  She points to the statue. “Actually, I’m like her in some ways: the hard solid exterior. Bronze on the outside, hollow on the inside.” She then adds, “Can you imagine how strange it feels to be a structure filled with emptiness? Just air going in, and air coming out.”

  I sit parallel to Shahrayar’s giant thigh. I don’t turn my head around to look, not wishing to interrupt her thoughts.

  “Yet at the same time, she’s lucky. If I had a man, maybe what has happened wouldn’t have happened.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I didn’t feel the lump while it was growing. It continued to enlarge while I was preoccupied with my work. It never occurred to me to examine my body looking for a tumor. I just didn’t have the time to prod myself.”

  She laughs in a sarcastic tone. “That’s the benefit of having a man.”

  She lifts up her arm, raising her shoulder, “Even when I bathed, I used a thick loofa. It obviously prevented any contact between my hand and the rest of my body.”

  She throws her head back, saying, “I’m sorry, Dalal, maybe you’re too young to be listening to this kind of talk. I’m aware that you haven’t started university yet, but I may not be around when you graduate.”

  “Don’t exaggerate now; and don’t worry.”

  She interrupts her contemplation of the sunset to look at me. “A tumor that’s four centimeters long and three centimeters wide is no exaggeration.”

  She puts her arm around my shoulder. A thin red smile finds its way to her pale face. “The main cause for my anxiety, my dear innocent neighbor, is the anticipation of the letter from the hospital administration. They’ll terminate my contract when the nature of my illness is revealed.”

  “Why would you get fired from your job?”

  “Because the disease will wear me out.”

  The sentence itself appears to be wearing her out.

  “The first step will be an operation.”

  “An operation?”

  “Of course. I know about the treatment of these illnesses in explicit deta
il. That will have to be followed by chemotherapy.”

  “Will you have to undergo that horrible treatment?”

  “It’s not a question of whether I have to take it or not. The question is where will I find the money for the operation and the medication?”

  She twists her long black curls with her fingers.

  “Anyway, how could I possibly go to work with no hair and no eyelashes?”

  I don’t have any answers to her questions.

  A fresh darkness starts to mingle with the leaves in the trees of the public gardens where we now sit. Ilham asks me, “As we’re talking about work, what plans have you made for your future?”

  “I’ll invent a talking garbage can.”

  She explodes into unexpected laughter. Her lips form a quivering circle made of stretched elastic, “What did you say?”

  I take out an article clipping of the magazine Worker’s Weekly from my pocket and read it to her: “A City Council in Northern England has announced plans to install a number of talking litter bins in various parts of the city which say ‘thank you’ every five minutes. Their aim is to encourage members of the public, especially children, to dispose of their litter in these bins. The tape recorders inside the bins are operated by a battery placed underneath them.”

  She takes the article from my hand; her mouth becomes more rubbery. I say, “I liked the idea.”

  “You’re an errant child.”

  “And what do you think of the equipment that’s being installed in some government offices in Europe that emits negative charges into the atmosphere to dispel any lassitude amongst their employees?”

  She looks across at me as she lights another cigarette. I say, “My favorite innovation though, is what I’ve called a ‘route finder.’ They’re computers that have been set up on the pavements in a number of large cities that tell you how to get to where you want to go. An illuminated map appears on the screen; the instructions are accompanied by a beautiful voice giving directions.”

  Ilham points toward a traffic light over the road that leans forward at a precarious angle. It casts its tricolored shadows onto a pavement that has disappeared under a pool of stagnant water. Three flavors of displaced sweets floated on the water: pomegranate, amber, and mint. She says, “Since you appear to be concerned with the city and its state, wouldn’t it be better if you could come up with solutions for sights like these first? Anyway, I know that you’re only joking, and you’ve succeeded in distracting my thoughts from my predicament. Thank you.”

  I repeat after her, “Thank you, and five minutes later, thank you, and five minutes later, thank you, then—”

  She interrupts me, “Dalal, the time has come for you to start taking things seriously. Enough of these magazines and articles about life in Europe.”

  “What? Don’t tell me that you too are going to suggest that I start learning how to do your job. Everybody else has already suggested that I learn theirs. Nursing?”

  “No.”

  The hard wood of the bench is starting to feel uncomfortable. She adjusts the way she is sitting. “I was going to suggest that you should learn French.”

  “Why? To go looking for your lost mother?”

  She laughs.

  “No you evil child. Listen to me. The time will come when the Western nations will return to our country to reconstruct it. In the near future, we’ll need a lot of interpreters and translators. You can prepare yourself for the task of translating the contracts that will be signed with foreign companies to rebuild our country’s infrastructure.”

  “And why does it have to specifically be French that I should be learning?”

  “Because it’ll be the electric grid that will take first priority. I’ve heard that there are several companies moving in that direction. Besides, tuition is still free in our government-run universities, in spite of the current circumstances; you must make good use of this opportunity. It’s also because you love to read, and because I can teach you the basics of that language, and help you in your studies.”

  She adds, “Pay attention to the team of United Nations inspectors looking for what they call ‘weapons of mass destruction.’ The United Nations Special Commission are the first group of foreigners who are going to need interpreters. The Security Police will not allow them to wander around on their own without an authorized local interpreter. You must learn all the scientific terms that are used in the fields of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.”

  “My aunt would be most upset; and her husband expects me to help him raise his bees; but I’ll give your suggestion some thought.”

  We stand up to leave. When we reach the leaning traffic light, I turn around and look back at the spot where we’d been sitting. The park gradually fades into dusk as day fizzles out along the waterfront where the fishermen used to gather in the Days of Plenty. A man was standing beside a row of fish being grilled around an open fire. The fish have been slit open at the back. Their insides are the color of strawberries. The fisherman looks back at me with eyes of deepest blue that have no pupils. His feet protrude from underneath his dishdasha. He has a right foot on the right side, and another right foot on the left! It seems to me that he will be stumbling forever.

  A few days later, Ilham asks me to accompany her on a visit to see Umm Mazin. She says, “She might have some natural calming remedies for me. My sleep has become very troubled.”

  In the waiting room, a woman sits, tightly clinging on to a bag; almost hugging it. A hyperactive child buzzes around her. The child takes pink chewing gum out of her mouth. She molds it into the shape of a flat square. She then smiles as she puts her finger into her mouth and pushes the chewing gum into a small gap over her gums to make it look like a pink tooth. The child stays in the room outside when we go in to see Umm Mazin.

  It isn’t a session with the coffee cups this time. The woman from the waiting room takes a white sheet out of her bag and spreads it out onto her lap. She says, “My daughter found this sheet hidden underneath my father’s bedspread.”

  “Where’s your mother?”

  “She’s separated from him and lives in another house.”

  “And who does he live with now?”

  “He lives with his new wife. I sent my daughter to visit them at his request. She is, after all, his only grandchild; and she came back with this sheet.”

  Umm Mazin starts to mutter as she examines the sheet, “When the reason is known, the mystery is solved.”

  A yellow donkey has been drawn on the sheet. It has a human head, with long droopy ears, and a mournful look. A beautiful woman sits on its back, her legs dangle down. Umm Mazim asks, “Excuse me for this, but I must ask, does this face resemble your father’s?”

  The woman lowers her eyes. “It’s an exact replica.”

  “And the woman?”

  “His new wife.”

  “A great booby trapper!”

  The sheet woman watches Umm Mazin analyzing.

  “It appears that she’s a malicious woman in control, or that she wants to become a woman who’s in control financially in order to dictate her husband’s destiny.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “This is a domination spell. It’s been painted with saffron water. An ounce of saffron costs four thousand dinars these days. Your father’s new wife knows her position well. This means that she controls your father the way a human being controls an animal; no offense intended.”

  “So that’s how she made him leave my mother in order to marry her?”

  “That’s quite likely. Anyway, I’ll provide you with a counter-spell made from the essential oils of flowers. It can’t be seen, and I’ll attach it to the back of this sheet. You must ask your daughter to return it to where she found it next time she goes to visit her grandfather. Light a candle for him one hour before dawn, then recite all the verses of Surat al-Baqara from the Qur’an seven times. After that, I want you to burn a handful of iodized salt over a low flame until it evaporates. Yo
u must then take the residue, and sprinkle it outside his house.”

  Umm Mazin raises her hand. “The most important thing is that his wife doesn’t find out what we’ve done, because she’s knowledgeable. Women like that can turn a handful of wheat grains into Persian ants, just by reciting a few lines in reverse order.”

  The woman appears terrified. Umm Mazin stands up with the sheet in her hand and heads toward the kitchen saying, “Excuse me, but I have to prepare some spells myself. Badriya can’t read or write. It took me a long time to teach her how to differentiate between the different herbs on the basis of their colors, their smells, and their texture.”

  She gathers her belly in her dishdasha as she goes on, “Her understanding is limited, she can’t even tell the time. She divides the day into five parts according to the five calls for prayer from the nearby mosque. But she’s an honest woman. I’ll be back in a moment.”

  While we wait, Badriya comes in with cardamom tea.

  Umm Mazin comes back. Before requesting some sedative herbs, Ilham asks her, “Umm Mazin, how did you learn all these things?”

  “Out of necessity.”

  She hands over the sheet to the other woman, receiving the money for the spell she had prepared. She then tells her, “Please take an ablution jug from Badriya in the kitchen. It’s a free gift from us, as the Holy Month of Ramadan is approaching. May God accept your fast.”

  The woman leaves with her sheet, the blue plastic water jug, and the child with the pink tooth.

  Umm Mazin turns toward us. We are now the only ones left in the room.

  “I was fifteen years old when my parents died. I had my younger brothers and sisters to look after, but I was fragile and inexperienced. My late mother used to work as a cook in one of the restaurants on Rasheed Street. One of the local traders who was a frequent customer there offered me a job. I told him, ‘I could never sell goods in the street’ but he said, ‘This is trade. God’s Prophet (Peace be upon him) blessed this profession.’ That was how he was able to convince me; and so I joined his profession.”