Against the Loveless World

by Susan Abulhawa

  With Iraq out of Kuwait, the United States paraded its military through our streets. By then we had already heard enough of Kuwaiti rage against Palestinians to know that we were not welcome to join them in street celebrations—not that I wanted to welcome the Americans. But Mama did.

  In one way or another, Palestinians would have to pay, not only because some collaborated with Iraq, but also because we were a convenient proxy for vengeance against Saddam. Despite warnings from everyone, Jehad refused to leave or go into hiding. “I didn’t do anything,” he said. “What do I need to hide for? I wasn’t even in the country during the occupation. I’ve only been back a few weeks.”

  No matter what reason or evidence we presented, despite the stories of disappeared Palestinians, my brother’s belief in the essential goodness and fairness of human beings blinded him to danger.

  “Kuwaitis aren’t monsters. They’re not going to do anything to me. I can prove I wasn’t even here,” he insisted. “Come on! Iraq arrested five thousand Palestinians for joining the Kuwaiti resistance. They know the difference.”

  “How can you be so smart and so stupid at the same time?” I cried. I knew more about the nature of humans—of men, in particular.

  A day later, I saw from my window the police and a military jeep driving on our street. I ran to fetch my brother but by the time I reached the bottom of the stairwell, they already had him on the ground in handcuffs, beating and kicking him. I tried to intervene. An arm swung in front of my face against a black sky in the middle of the day. My heart throbbed. My cheeks pushed against glass. A car window? I bit my tongue. Then I lay stiff with pain on a plastic chair at the police station. I knew some time had passed, but only later understood it had been ten hours. I had no memory of being beaten, but my body bore the evidence. They gave me an injection and demanded to know where my sister Nahr was. But I—Yaqoot—swore I only had one brother. That is all I remember, except for the occasional faces that appear in my dreams reenacting disjointed versions of that day. When it was over, Kuwaiti authorities had my fingerprints, in lieu of a signature, on a document testifying that my brother had collaborated with Iraqi authorities during the occupation.

  Somewhere during that time at the police station, I awoke to the sound of men screaming in other rooms, and later to Mama crying, beseeching the police. Sounds are what fill those days in my memory. They echo through the facts, the images, the pain of a fractured rib, the desire to take my brother’s place in their torture dungeons, the anguish of unmistakable endings—the end of innocence, of a home, of health, of days with daydreams and nights without nightmares.

  They released me, but not my brother, and I returned to the police station the same day with Mama in the hope of talking them into releasing Jehad. The station walls were painted green. American military personnel milled about, and Kuwaiti police seemed to want to impress the Americans. They shooed us away. I yelled the Russian words I remembered: “Otva`li, mu`dak, b`lyad!”—Fuck off, you asshole, fuck!—hoping my brother could hear me to know that we were there.

  Policemen shoved us out, warning us not to return.

  “Please, my sons, may God’s mercy and His blessings fill your lives with success and joy,” my mother begged. “Please give him these.” Mama put several inhalers in one officer’s hands.

  As we left the police station, from the corner of my eyes I saw a hand drop the inhalers into a trash bin.

  Our landlord was waiting for us when we returned. We had three days to pay six months’ back rent or he would come with the police to evict us.

  “Most people in the country have been pardoned from paying their rent during the occupation,” I protested.

  “Not Palestinians. Your Iraqi friends gave you jobs. You have money to pay.”

  Mama tried to explain that we did not have work. But I stopped her. I could see it was no use. This was not about rent.

  Police barged into our apartment the next day. The landlord used his master key to open our door without knocking. I was on the phone, speaking with a lawyer about getting my brother out of jail. Mama was nervously smoking a cigarette and Sitti Wasfiyeh was praying the noon salat. I dropped the phone receiver and left it on the floor, afraid to bend down to pick it up. Mama was screaming.

  “We still have two days to pay rent!” I reminded the landlord, confused why they were there.

  The officer brushed his finger across my lips. “We don’t care about your rent. We are looking for traitors.”

  “There’s no one here but us,” I said.

  “Well, then. Maybe you’re the traitors.”

  When I think of that day, what I remember most is Sitti Wasfiyeh’s face. She looked up from her prayer mat at the stampede of soldiers and police searching our apartment, overturning furniture, spilling drawers, gutting cushions, and breaking things. My grandmother’s face was ashen, her mouth open, though no words came out. I rushed to her, worried she was having a heart attack, and when she felt my arms around her, she began to sob. My mother yelled, “We are not collaborators. You’re making a mistake. We’ve been in this country for twenty-five years. We love Kuwait.”

  It pained me to see my mother beg. I hated those men. Now I hated Kuwait. I hated their emirs and their people. I hated that I had pledged allegiance to them in school, danced for their Independence Day.

  “Look at this!” one of them shouted, holding up the bag of Chanel lipstick, reading the receipt. “They shop in London for expensive makeup.” The rest of them went to look at the bag.

  “Open this!” another barked, pointing to the safe. Mama and I looked at each other. I kissed Sitti Wasfiyeh and got up to open it.

  Most of what I had saved over the past year had already been deposited in our bank account for Jehad’s university, and just the day before I had used most of what was left in the safe to pay the lawyer. The police took what little remained, along with my gold shabka.

  “You clearly have plenty to be shopping in London for lipstick. You probably don’t need this,” an officer said, smiling as he took the bag of Chanel lipstick, tucking our money and gold into it. He picked up the few notes of Iraqi currency and balled them in his fist. “You can keep these,” he said, throwing them at me.

  My grandmother cried like I’d never seen. She looked so small, vulnerable and helpless, the creases on her face filling with tears, like small rivers. As the men were leaving, she said in a quivering, tired voice, “Why, my sons? Why did you do this? This is haram, my sons. It’s haram. Why do you treat us like this?”

  One of them, a young man who had seemed uncomfortable in his skin, turned to her, his eyes downcast. “I’m sorry, khala,” he said. I’m sorry, Auntie. But he was quickly shoved aside by the man who had confiscated our savings. “Go ask Yasser Arafat why!” He spat on our floor and left.

  The landlord stayed behind to remind us, “Two more days. Six months’ back rent. All of it or you’re out. No partial payment.”

  As the banks slowly unfroze accounts, hordes of people pushed and pried their way into the branches, and most ATMs were out of order or out of money. Remarkably, the restored Kuwaiti government announced that all bank accounts would be replenished to what they had been on August 2, the day time stood still, as if the past six months never happened. Some banks managed to get people to form lines, but mostly it was chaos. I waited five hours without success to access my account. The second day I camped outside the bank and managed to get a turn when it opened, but they would only allow me to withdraw a small amount, not enough to pay the landlord.

  I left the bank and went to ask Um Buraq for a loan.

  “Nahr,” she said. Um Buraq only called me by that name when she communicated grave matters. “I wish I could help. But I don’t know if I’m safe right now, and I need to hold on to every penny. My husband came this morning and made me give him all my gold jewelry. That cunt of a man wants to take a third wife, to ‘celebrate liberation’! He said he would turn me in to the police as a collaborator if I di
dn’t. The way things are right now, they’ll believe him, since I’m sure some of my cousins in Iraq have kids in the military. The government’s announcement to replenish accounts to what they were the day before the invasion means they will deposit back the money I gave to Deepa. But it’s going to take some time. I’ll give you whatever I can then, but for right now, I just can’t. But if I were you … I hate to say this … you should ask Abu Moathe for help. At a minimum, he could make sure you got all your money out of your bank account.”

  It sickened me to turn to Abu Moathe, but I was out of options.

  I called first to gauge his mood. If I didn’t get a good vibe, I planned to call Abu Nasser, the panty sniffer. But Abu Moathe seemed happy to hear from me and said to hurry over. He would tell the guards to let me into the bank.

  Two armed guards managed the throngs of people pulsing impatiently outside, allowing only a few in at a time. I shoved my way through to the guards, flashing my ID. “Abu Moathe is expecting me,” I said.

  Inside, I was shown to the manager’s office, where Abu Moathe walked around a large wooden desk to greet me.

  “Salaam, my friend. Your visit honors me,” he began with the customary flattery, then called on someone to bring us drinks. “What can I offer you?” he asked. “I recall you prefer tea to coffee.”

  “Tea would be lovely. Thank you very much, Abu Moathe,” I said, and he ordered the old woman standing timidly at the door to bring two glasses of tea.

  He walked around me to close the door, brushing his fingers across my shoulder. “To what do I owe the honor?” he asked.

  The old woman came in with the tray of hot tea and placed it on his desk as I explained that I needed to withdraw my money to pay our rent and to get my brother out of jail. I told him my brother was innocent, arrested even though he had been in Jordan studying during the occupation.

  “Then how could they arrest him if he was out of the country?”

  I stuttered, “He, he, he came back at the end of the first semester, a few weeks before the liberation war.”

  “You lied,” he said, smirking, offering me a cigarette. I declined, feeling like prey in a trap.

  “I didn’t lie, Abu Moathe. May God forgive you for saying that.”

  He lit a cigarette, saying to himself, “She dares to mention God.”

  “I’m sorry, Abu Moathe. I’ll just go.” I got up to leave.

  “Sit down!” he barked. “You must have forgotten who I am. I will tell you when you can go.”

  I did as he ordered, glancing around surreptitiously for something with which to protect myself. There was only a mess of papers and files on his desk. Some pens, an empty demitasse, and a paperweight—a drop of oil embedded in a glass cube, nothing that would harm him much. He reclined in his leather chair, smirking again, a cloud of smoke foaming from his mouth. His large belly protruded in front of him.

  “I always found it strange that a woman like you didn’t smoke.”

  “What do you mean, a woman like me?” I tried to gather the courage to walk out, at the same time noticing a bank card attached to a paper on his desk.

  “You know what I mean,” he said. “Anyway, I looked up your account after you called. It never occurred to me to look you up by the name Yaqoot. I never believed it was your real name.” He paused. “But I guess whores tell the truth sometimes.”

  I wiggled my toes inside my high heels, still mustering the will to get up. I tried not to glance at the paper with the attached bank card. When banks sent new account cards, they came with preset PIN codes, which could be reset at any ATM. It was probably his bank card with the code. The glass cube paperweight was next to it.

  “You got a nice amount of savings from this country, didn’t you?” he said, sipping from the glass of tea in his hand. He set it down, then stood and walked around the desk toward me.

  “Please, Abu Moathe …”

  “I’ll give you the money from your account. But what’s in it for me? Or do you just want to take and take and give nothing? That’s what Palestinians do. You eat, then bite the hand that fed you.” I thought better of reminding him of his Palestinian origins.

  I got up to leave, but he pulled me back by my hair. I remembered how much it used to give him pleasure to yank my hair. “Bend over and pull up your dress, whore.” He pushed me, warning me what would happen if I didn’t keep quiet.

  “I will toss you out of this door and yell for everyone to hear that you came in offering to suck my dick for money. And you’ll be in jail right next to your brother, the filthy dog son of a whore.”

  I steadied myself, lifted my dress, and lowered my panties. They were white with blue lace trim. I bent over the desk slowly, over the glass cube paperweight and bank card, which I could see now had his name. He pushed my legs apart. I curled my toes inside my shoes, my fingers around the paperweight in one palm, and my nails into the flesh of the other. He pushed himself inside me. I clenched my teeth, dug my nails deeper into my skin, and watched the ripples in the glass of tea as he panted behind me. “You fucking ungrateful Palestinians. Did you think that was it? That Saddam was going to rule Kuwait? You thought you could betray us like that? Here’s your reminder, bitch. This is what Palestinians are good for. Cheap labor and cheap whores. We buy and sell people like you here.”

  I loosened my fists, left one palm on the paperweight and grabbed the bank card with the other, memorized the PIN code printed in small numerals, and stuffed the card into my brassiere.

  “This is what you get now, whore.”

  I repeated the number in my head over and over, until he discharged himself inside me. I pulled up my white underpants with the blue lace trim. Pulled down my dress. Straightened myself and waited, plotting my revenge.

  He buzzed his assistant. “Bring Madam Yaqoot’s file.

  “Sit,” he told me. I sat, feeling his semen slip out of me. “And drink some of that tea,” he added. I picked up the glass, sipped the tea, repeating the PIN code to myself: 3254, 3254, 3254.

  A knock on the door was followed by a young woman with a file. I avoided looking at her. She waited while he opened the file, then handed it back to her. She gave me a few forms from the folder to sign. I handed her my ID, and she returned with the balance of my bank account. It wasn’t the restored value, as promised by the government, but I didn’t press for it, especially since Abu Moathe’s bank card was snuggled between my tits.

  I thanked Abu Moathe as if he had not just raped me. He told me I was welcome as if he had not just raped me.

  Walking into the crowd still waiting outside, I felt more semen trickle down my inner thighs and I imagined withdrawing all his fucking money from his fucking bank account with that fucking bank card tucked in my breasts. 3254, 3254.

  I made it home. But it wasn’t home. The apartment where I had lived most of my life was alien now. We had not been able to put it back together since the police turned it upside down. Mama had been busy caring for Sitti Wasfiyeh, who was taken to the hospital because her “head was exploding,” as she said. Her blood pressure was dangerously high. She would have had a stroke if Mama hadn’t gotten her to a doctor in time. But I had the money from my account, and it helped Mama and Sitti Wasfiyeh sleep that night, secure in knowing we would not be thrown out of our apartment, our possessions dumped in the street.

  Emptying my bank account gave us enough to pay the landlord, the lawyer, and bribes to whomever the lawyer suggested. “They know he wasn’t in the country,” the lawyer said. “But there’s no rule of law right now. We just have to convince them to let him go.”

  I wondered how much money Abu Moathe had in his account, and I began to panic thinking what might happen if he realized his card was gone. He could inform the authorities that I’d taken it. But I recalled how careless and disorganized he was. He probably didn’t remember the card was on his desk and would blame his secretary for misplacing it.

  The next day and for the following two weeks, Um Buraq and I drove
all around the country with Abu Moathe’s bank card, in search of available ATMs, where we began withdrawing as much as we could from each location, every day.

  Our lawyer enlisted the help of an international human rights organization, which was successful in getting Jehad transferred to a hospital. The combination of pressure from the media, bribes, and legal channels finally persuaded the authorities to release him.

  Mama and I got to work cleaning and putting the apartment back together in anticipation of Jehad’s return. We glued and nailed broken drawers and cabinets as best we could, refolded clothes, stacked belongings on shelves, and filled four bags of trash. We cleaned the windows, wiped the furniture, scrubbed the bathroom and kitchen, swept, mopped, beat and aired out the rugs, washed bedding, and did laundry. Sitti Wasfiyeh wanted to help. We put all our knickknacks and cutlery in front of her to wipe and shine. She had the most comfortable mattress and swore by God that her grandson must sleep on it until he was healed. “You’re welcome to take my bed,” I offered.

  “I’m not sleeping with you cows,” she said, waving me off. “Arrange me a bed on the floor next to my grandson.”

  Mama and I looked at each other. “No. That will not work. Your snoring will keep him up,” I said.

  She hesitated, moving her dentures around in her mouth with her tongue. “Okay. I didn’t think about that. I’ll sleep in your bed,” she said, and went back to shining a spoon.

  Exhausted that evening, we went to bed early. Sitti Wasfiyeh wanted to keep the clean sheets on her bed fresh for Jehad, so she had gotten a head start on her new sleeping arrangement in Mama’s and my bed. Still, she complained we hadn’t washed the sheets properly, had not fixed the bed comfortably enough, that the dinner we ate had been too greasy and, therefore, she probably wouldn’t be able to sleep, would get sick and not be able to go get her grandson from the hospital, all because of me. Or because of Mama. Or both of us. It was a conspiracy against her. She was sure of it, until she fell asleep.