Absent: A Novel

by Betool Khedairi

  “That it’s been painted on, that it’s a fake.”

  He takes a handkerchief and wipes away the artificial half of my mouth. “The person sitting in front of me is still the same person, before and after.” He squeezes my shoulders. “Dalool, don’t follow an illusion.”

  Suddenly, the small boy selling newspapers sticks his head through the door without any forewarning. He says, “Susu, have you got any old stuff for me?”

  “Not today, come back at the end of the month.”

  “Do you want a newspaper?”

  “No.”

  Hamada stares at my face. “Are you sure you don’t want a newspaper?”

  “I’m sure, and close the door when you leave.”

  Saad starts to prepare some coffee for us all. He tops up the coffee with some more water, so that we can have more cups of diluted coffee. The black hairs of his forelock tickle his left eyebrow. “Hamada is fascinated by old shoes.”

  I remember, “The teacher on the first floor often sells his old shoes.”

  He glances at me with a wicked smile. “So you know the story.”

  Ilham intervenes, “What story?”

  “Hamada is the teacher’s son, by the elderly widow.”

  I say to him, “We never knew that.”

  “That’s the back street gossip. Have you never noticed how much he resembles him?”

  I pause for a moment to compare their appearance in my mind, “Was he her lover before her husband died, or afterward?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  The coffee doesn’t taste as bland as I thought it would.

  “My compliments on the way you made this cup.”

  He says in a Lebanese accent, “In good health, multiplied by two.”

  Ilham asks him, “Why does he call you Susu?”

  “It’s my nickname.”

  “Would you like us to call you that?”

  “Some people call me Saaoudy. You can call me whatever you like. All names are blessed and honorable.”

  The coffee has moistened his voice. He says to her, “Did you know, I was the one who named that child Hamada?”

  Ilham starts on her second cup as he begins to tell the tale. “His father, I mean the teacher and not his deceased father, wanted to call him Hamid, but because I had helped his wife, well, his lover in this case, when she was having the baby, he asked me to name the boy.”

  “You attended the birth? He allowed you to do that?”

  “He had no choice. My previous salon was right next to her house. The phone lines were down, and he came running to me saying the woman was about to give birth at home. I grabbed the rubber gloves that I use when I’m dyeing customers’ hair and ran out after him. When we got there, we had to make do ourselves and pray for help from God.”

  “And how did things go?”

  “I caught the child’s head first, as they do in the movies, then cut the umbilical cord using a sterile shaving razor. I had no idea what to do after that. In the films, they never show you anything about delivering the placenta.”

  A moment later he adds, “I love children. I hope that I might be able to have a child someday.”

  I look at Ilham, who starts to react. “Whatever for? To add another individual to this tragedy?”

  “I’m not responsible for this tragedy. We must try to live in as normal a fashion as possible. We have to dream of the things that we’re entitled to hope for.”

  She puts out her cigarette to light up another one. “That only applies if you’re able to live in a dream.”

  “It seems to me that I’ve annoyed you. Was it something I said?”

  Ilham starts to grind her teeth. “Look at what’s happening outside your shop Saad—or Saaoudy. Those children aren’t going to school. Only one percent of the oil revenue now is allocated to education.”

  “I have no say in laying down those resolutions, Ilham.”

  Ilham is no longer enjoying her coffee. “What’s worse is that out of those who are lucky enough to be offered an education, seven children at least pass out every day because of hunger or lack of medication. If they have a stomach upset, they have to go home because school toilets don’t work.”

  He shrugs his shoulders. “I refuse to give up my dreams just because the toilets don’t work.”

  She becomes more animated. “And the less fortunate ones end up in my department.”

  I don’t know why, but he lowered his gaze. It may be because he is aware of how upset she is, or it may be simply that he wants to place the coffee cup on the tray. “I said what I said because I feel lonely. I was an only child.”

  I give him back the magazine, hoping to interrupt this flow between them, but Ilham persists, “Loneliness is spending your last days in a hospital where there’s no heating or cooling. Loneliness is biting your lip when you see the nurse forcing a used urine bag into you because there are no new ones; or staring at a dialysis machine that doesn’t work.”

  He has stopped arguing with her as her tone becomes more high-pitched. “Loneliness is putting up with the pain while you wait for your turn on the operating list. In the past we used to perform thirty operations a week. Nowadays, the most that we can manage is six.”

  She strikes the table with her fist. “That’s loneliness.”

  She stands up, full of emotion, but ends up throwing herself onto the couch and then bursts into tears. Saad runs toward her, unsure of what to do. He decides to go and get her a glass of water.

  When he returns she has left, leaving me behind to offer her apologies.

  I stand outside the salon for a few moments trying to decide where to go. Somebody behind me says, “Excuse us, Miss.” It is some laborers who are removing a number of boxes from outside the Alwiya Club. They place them in an open-topped vehicle. The club is selling the equipment that it no longer has any use for; the fax, telex, switchboard, and film projectors. I watch as they move past me soundlessly. They remove the memories of my childhood in big wooden boxes that contain metal chairs and loudspeakers. They are getting rid of the spools of film. They take away with them Hans Christian Andersen, Norman Wisdom, and the Arabic romance Amira My Love.

  I find her at Uncle Sami’s flat. She opens the door to let me in. “Did you apologize?”

  “And I drank the glass of water on your behalf.”

  Uncle Sami joins us. She says, “I’ll go over and apologize in person tomorrow.”

  “I don’t think you need to. He seems to be a sensitive and understanding person.”

  “Then I’ll get my hair done at his place.” She then adds, “Before I lose it.”

  Uncle Sami intervenes. “You won’t lose him just because of that. We all have the right to express ourselves in front of others.”

  “I meant, losing my hair, Uncle.”

  I love the way he embraces us. Today, he’s wearing an old pair of jeans, and a white shirt that has a few spots of dried blood on it from his last hospital visit. He must have had the misfortune of encountering a male nurse who wasn’t very skilled at taking blood. He smiles at me.

  “I know what you’re thinking.”

  “What?”

  “Santa Claus is on holiday.”

  I turn around to face Ilham. “You cruel tale-teller!”

  He says, “And why not, I like to be called Santa Claus. After all, he does bring happiness to children.”

  Ilham gives him a hug. “May God never deprive us of you.”

  I say, “Actually, I was thinking of Umm Mazin. If you went to see her dressed like that, she’d throw you out of her flat.”

  He picks up a ceramic crucifix that lies on the table beside the photograph of his wife. He lifts it up in front of his face and says, “She’d never receive me in the first place.”

  “Besides that, she’d throw you out because you’re wearing jeans.”

  “Why? Is it because they’re made in America?”

  “No, it’s because she calls them ‘tanned dog’s skin’ and c
onsiders them unclean. She says they spoil her spells.”

  Ilham makes her comments as she leafs through Umm Raid’s diary. “I see you’re biased against Umm Mazin.”

  “I can’t understand how she manages to mislead those foolish women with her hocus-pocus!”

  “Have mercy on her. She does know a lot about herbal remedies. At least her mixes are effective.”

  “But it’s the illiterate Badriya who makes up the concoctions. I’ve seen her place the herbs in at least fifty different containers that vary in shape, size, and seal, so that she can tell them apart. Some are marked with a color or a symbol so that she can recognize them.”

  “So what. At the end of the day, Umm Mazin dispenses some fabulous remedies.”

  “I have to disagree with you. She uses verses from the Qur’an to deceive people, and makes use of honey and herbs to convince them of the effectiveness of her spells. She also encourages women to wear the hijab, and insists that a woman’s religious duty is to stay at home. She says that a woman’s task is to serve her husband and devote herself to prayer.”

  “Are you implying that wearing the hijab is a sign of being backward?”

  “No, but if we stayed at home, how would we be able to earn a living?”

  I take Saad’s cup out of the plastic bag in my handbag and hand it over to her, “Since you, the nurse, are such a fan of her knowledge, you can take his cup for her to read.”

  “What’s wrong with you, Dalal? Don’t you remember how she dealt with that woman who thought she was sexually frigid?”

  “On the contrary, I remember it well. She told her, ‘Your problem my dear, is that since you were a child, you’ve been so used to hugging a pillow when you sleep at night. You must abandon this habit, the pillow has been your substitute, and you hug it instead of hugging your man. That’s why you think you’re frigid.’”

  Uncle Sami calmly adds his voice to the debate, “Excellent. This means that the woman has accepted Umm Mazin’s suggestion.”

  He senses I am staring at him, so he continues, “Dalal, a treatment is more likely to be successful if we believe in it. If we’re convinced that we’ve been cured, then the treatment has worked, regardless of whether or not other people believe in it.”

  “But this is trickery, Uncle!”

  “Every person needs to believe in something. Believing in trickery willingly is another form of faith.”

  He wipes his beard as he watches me. “Let’s change the subject. How are your aunt and her husband?”

  “When he starts selling his honey, he’ll regain the upper hand in the household. At the moment, she holds the balance, as it’s she who’s providing for our daily expenses.”

  Ilham comments, “So they’re still having problems.”

  “Their dispute still rumbles on. She has a strange philosophy: spend what you have in your pocket and the unknown will compensate you. She’s started stockpiling cloth and thread in every corner of the house. He insists that she’s an unenlightened consumer since the Days of Plenty. Then Abu Ghayeb comes up and says to her, ‘Don’t overextend yourself.’ He reminded her that there are no pesticides in the shops. She now lives in fear of a moth epidemic. All the cloth she’s bought could be ruined, and she worries about it constantly.”

  “A successful marriage has gone out of fashion.”

  I say, “The magazines say that the ratio is one divorce to every three marriages.”

  Uncle Sami says to her, “It’s marriage itself that has gone out of fashion.”

  She smiles. “Anyway, I bet you Umm Mazin has a remedy for moths.”

  She picks up her cigarettes. “What I don’t understand is why she charges more for revoking spells for residents abroad than for spells cast locally?”

  He explains, “Because the jinni needs a travel permit.” He then adds with a roar, “He’d have to be frisked and searched at the Rweishid Border checkpoint.”

  A moment later she adds, “Did you know that she’s now asking to be paid in dollars for reading her clients’ coffee cups?”

  CHAPTER TEN

  I WONDER WHAT the teacher from the first floor told Saad when he gave him a brief description of the people who lived in our building!

  Did he tell him that it was the building of self-sufficiency? Ilham provides us with the medicines that we can no longer get in the pharmacies. Uncle Sami provides us with Arabic and Western magazines through his acquaintances in Damascus. Umm Ghayeb refers clients she sews for to Umm Mazin, and in return, Umm Mazin sends her clients whose coffee cups she has read. Umm Mazin will send her patients to Saad, and he will generate publicity for her. Abu Ghayeb will sell his honey to everyone. As for me, I’ve decided that I will learn French.

  Ilham comes to return Saad’s cup to me. The coffee has dried up inside it. “Please return the cup to him.”

  “Why hasn’t it been washed?”

  “Umm Mazin refused to wash it in her house after she read it.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She described the owner of the cup by saying, ‘He cowardly threatens, like a woman, with a dagger like a cow’s tail.’”

  “And how am I supposed to understand that?”

  “I don’t know. She said she could see a man in the cup, not a woman.”

  “Did you tell her it was Saad’s cup?”

  “She knew that from the smell of the coffee dregs.”

  “So what should I tell him?”

  She thinks for a moment, then says, “Tell him that Ilham dropped the cup by mistake, and that it got broken.”

  Indeed, Umm Mazin does end up becoming the first buyer of Abu Ghayeb’s honey. She asks me to accompany her to the apiary so that she can see the site for herself. She gives me a preamble as she waddles beside me like a soft ball. As we go through the gate in the court’s fence, she says, “In my entire life, only one person has been able to fool me with impure honey. He only succeeded because he used an old dried out segment of wax. He moistened it, placed inside his fake honey, and sold it to me as the real thing.”

  Umm Mazin doesn’t shake hands with men because she says that would invalidate her cleanliness after her daily ritual washing, and it is almost time for her to perform her midday prayers. That would mean having to repeat the washing ritual. When my aunt’s husband presents her with the sample, she gingerly inserts her brown finger into the container, and then licks it slowly. She tastes it without closing her lips. She moves the mouthful of honey to the left and to the right before swallowing it. It is as if she is tasting a fine French wine. She gazes at Abu Ghayeb intently as she tries to read his thoughts. She attempts to determine his integrity, as she looks for evidence of dishonesty in his eyes. Suddenly, it seems like she has witnessed a miracle as she says, “First class.”

  In spite of his dislike for her, Abu Ghayeb plays the role of the amiable salesman. He says, “Your approval is an honor, Umm Mazin.” She doesn’t need to smile in return, her mouth has been set in smile mode since the day she was born. Her teeth have become more yellow in color since she has licked the honey. A moment later, she notes that one of the workmen’s sandals has been left upturned beside one of the honey vats. She nudges me with her elbow saying, “My dearest, turn over that sandal to its correct position. The sole of a sandal pointing upwards is an insult to the heavens. That would bring bad fortune.” I turn the sandal over and we leave. She takes away with her the first kilo of pure honey. As we walk back, she sings to herself, “My darling, how sweet the pomegranates are, when gathered in a cool breeze.”

  We leave the club behind us. Abu Ghayeb’s tennis court is gradually becoming a productive apiary. The second court remains as it is: abandoned.

  At the entrance to our building, I offer to carry the honey for her. The lift is still not working, and she is barely able to lift herself up the stairs. When we reach her flat, we find the door open, and we can hear the sound of women’s shrieks coming from inside the flat. Umm Mazin hurries in to find out what is going on. Sh
e is so shocked by the scene, her eyes shift with horror from horizontal to vertical slits, as in the folklore saying. Two women are engaged in a cockfight, or rather a hen fight. Badriya is in there, attempting to break up the conflict. She looks like a boxing referee wearing a nightdress. Her head shawl has come off. Streaks of gray are woven into her hennaed hair, which is coiled around itself like a smooth droopy serpent. The woman above is bearing down, and the woman below is pushing up.

  The woman on top shouts out, “You took him from me!”

  The woman below her shouts back, “You mean I got him back from you!”

  “But he loves me, and that’s why he left you.”

  “He used to love me before you cast the spell of blind obedience upon him.”

  They shake each other vigorously, “So what’re you going to do now? Cast a returning spell to get him back?”

  The situation reverses itself: the chicken on the top ends up at the mercy of the chicken who was underneath and who now clucks, “I’ll get my revenge, you shameless thing.”

  “He’ll never divorce me, in spite of your efforts, you fool.”

  Umm Mazin realizes that Hen A is the wife of the same man that Hen B was trying to seduce, with her help. She provided both of them with concoctions for those purposes recently. She quickly puts an end to their confrontation by pouring a bucket of cold water, conveniently sitting just by the kitchen door, over both of them. Petrified, Badriya screams at her, “Umm Mazin what have you done, that was a bucket of worms someone delivered while you were out!”

  After the storm, Umm Mazin refunds both women with the payment they’d given her in advance for her services, with an additional amount that she calls compensation for the damage that has been done. She curses the devil for the way he brought those two together to see her!

  A week later, Umm Mazin puts up a sign inside her flat that says in big bold letters FIGHTING AND HAIR-PULLING ARE FORBIDDEN.

  I submit my application forms to the university. At the registration department, where we go to hand in our applications, a colored poster pinned to the wall catches my attention. It reads, OUR ACHIEVEMENTS INCLUDE: NATIONALIZING OUR OIL, FREE EDUCATION, AND THE ERADICATION OF ILLITERACY. As I leave the office, I read another sign that has been stuck to the window where payments are made: ALL IRAQIS ARE BAATHISTS, EVEN THOSE WHO HAVE NOT JOINED THE PARTY.