by Dean Hughes
Hadi also looked down. He noticed a twisted break in the sidewalk, the crack filled with dirt and cigarette butts. He wondered why everything had to be so dirty, so broken apart. “My mother has a toothache,” he said. “Baba can’t afford to take her to a dentist. He asks my mother every day if she can wait a little longer, and she always says she can. But she’s in pain all the time. She doesn’t complain, but she’s turned silent, like she’s not even with us anymore.”
“Does she take care of your little brothers and sisters?”
“Yes. But my sisters make her crazy with all their noise. Mama doesn’t even try to stop them anymore. One of my sisters—Aliya—causes trouble on purpose. She gets louder when Mama asks her to be quiet. And she gets my other sisters in trouble.”
“Doesn’t Aliya understand about your mother’s toothache?”
“I guess she does. But my sisters and my little brothers are in that room all day every day. There’s no place to play outside, and the neighborhood is dangerous. Our electricity goes off a lot, so everyone’s in the dark about half the time.”
“It’s kind of the same for my little brothers and sisters. They have nowhere to go, nothing to do. They end up fighting with each other.”
Hadi looked up from the sidewalk into Malek’s eyes. “So anyway, things are kind of the same for both of us.”
“Yes.” Malek was nodding, but he was quick to add, “Hadi, my father was a different man back in Syria. He was happy, not angry.”
“And in Syria, Mama was fun. She was brave, even during bombing raids. We would go to the basement and she would get us all to sing old Syrian songs. And before the siege, we used to go to her village and see my grandparents and all my uncles and aunts and cousins. Everyone would laugh together—and eat and eat and eat. All that’s gone now. She has nothing to hope for.”
“It’s my father who has changed the most,” Malek said. “He brought money with him from Syria, and he built up savings when he was working here. But now he’s lost his strong hands. He’s scared as he watches our money get used up.”
Hadi couldn’t think of anything to say.
“It wasn’t Kamal who hit me,” Malek said.
“Pardon me?”
“It was my father. Kamal said I wasn’t working hard. But he wasn’t the one who hit me. After Kamal left, my father meant to slap me with the back of his hand, but his wristwatch dug into my ear. He was sorry, afterward.”
Hadi understood. The two stood a little longer, even though the rain was falling harder now.
“We can’t give up,” Malek said. “We have to do what we can, keep trying, and somehow things will get better.”
Hadi didn’t really believe that things would get better. But he didn’t say that.
“Hadi, you still might have to work on the other side of the street. I made good money today, but it feels like the rain is coming back. I might do worse tomorrow. Kamal might get really angry if he finds out you’re still working on the corner with me.”
Hadi knew he couldn’t put Malek in danger. He took a breath and then said, “All right. I’ll cross the street tomorrow.”
“But if you leave the corner, don’t leave the intersection, and bring a book if you can. Or something else you can learn some words from.”
“All right.” But Hadi felt sick. He didn’t think he could do well on the other side of the street and he hated to think that Kamal had won.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” Malek said.
It was what he had said each night as the two had parted ways, but it felt different this time. The boys seemed to have a new understanding of each other. Hadi gave Malek a pat on the back, and then he watched as Malek crossed the street and headed down the narrow side street that was crowded with parked cars on the sidewalks.
Hadi continued his long walk toward the Dora intersection. Light rain had begun to fall and the air felt colder, but Hadi liked the busyness of Bourj Hammoud, with all its stores along the streets. There were shops selling jewelry, clothing, hardware—everything—and street vendors selling pastries, ice cream, falafel sandwiches. And, of course, there was Garo’s fruit and vegetable stand, where Hadi stopped every night. He was always glad to see the old man, and Garo seemed to like seeing him. “How are you today, Garo?” Hadi asked when he reached the stand.
Garo smiled, his big white mustache arching upward over brown teeth. “I’m cold,” he said. “Too cold. I was never cold when I was young like you. Now I’m always cold—even in summer.” He nodded, laughed, pulled an old gray baseball cap down a little tighter on his head. He was under a canvas cover, where the rain didn’t hit him. He was a hefty, round man who stayed in his seat most of the time and usually told customers to gather up what they wanted and bring everything to him. Hadi was sure that Garo didn’t like to pull himself out of the chair any more often than he had to. “Step in, Hadi,” he said. “Don’t stand there and get wet.”
Hadi did step closer. “Do you have anything I can buy from you today?”
“Yes, of course.”
Garo had some apples ready again today, bagged up, and he told Hadi, “I have some bananas that are a little too ripe, a nice big cabbage you could strip the outer leaves from, or lots of potatoes that are getting too old to sell.”
“I’ll take the apples and the potatoes,” Hadi said. He knew that potatoes filled up stomachs about as well as anything.
Hadi tried to give Garo two five-hundred-pound coins, but Garo took only one. And he said, “I’m putting three pomegranates in your net. I think your brothers and sisters will like that.”
“Oh no, Garo, you can’t—”
“Don’t tell me what I can do and can’t do. They’re a gift. Enjoy them.”
Hadi was actually thrilled. That meant Hadi had lots of food to take home and he still had 14,500 pounds for his day. That was good, even though he had had a few better days lately.
“Thank you,” Hadi said. “Allah yehmik.”
“Yes, thank you, my friend. I’ll take my blessings where I can get them. I don’t suppose Allah minds blessing a Christian now and then.”
Hadi laughed. Sometimes he wondered about God. He knew there were lots of Christians in this part of the city, and some of his friends in Syria had also been Christians, but he didn’t understand exactly what the difference was between them and Muslims, or why some people in one religion hated those in another. But Garo wasn’t like that. What Hadi knew was that Garo liked him. And he liked Garo.
Hadi shook hands with Garo, thanked him again, and he felt happy as he walked away.
By the time Hadi reached his father, the rain was falling harder and the streets were gleaming with the reflecting lights from the cars’ headlights. He found his father under an awning. “You’re late, Hadi,” Baba said. “I was worried about you.”
“I talked to Malek after work for a few minutes, and I stopped to buy some things from Garo.”
“That’s good. How much money do you have for us today?”
“Fourteen thousand, five hundred. But also apples, potatoes, and three pomegranates.”
“That’s good. The children will like that.” Hadi liked seeing the satisfaction in his father’s face. “I took in a little more than you, but not as much profit. People take one look at these umbrellas and know they aren’t worth much. They all want to bargain with me.”
Baba sold lots of different things. He went to the back room of a shop each morning and bought items he thought people might want. In summer it was sunglasses or covers for steering wheels. Now, in winter, he sold umbrellas or rain hats, or sometimes gloves. He often ended up with little to show for his day’s work. But people wouldn’t buy gum from a grown man. He had to offer something that people actually wanted to have. Besides, Hadi knew that Baba couldn’t stay home and send him out on the streets. He was always hoping for a real job, but he had to do whatever he could.
“Are things still all right on your corner?” Baba asked. “You’ve heard nothing fro
m the street gang?”
“Nothing so far. I think Kamal gets angry sometimes, and then he forgets about me again. I told Malek I would cross the street tomorrow and work by the cabstand.”
Hadi saw the concern in his father’s face. But Baba only said, “I hope that’s good enough for Kamal. If he threatens you again, you’ll have to leave.” He considered for a moment and then added, “Let’s cross over to our bus stop. We need to get home. We’ll talk on the bus.”
So they walked together. Hadi didn’t like hearing his father sound so fearful. Baba was not old, not like Garo, but it bothered Hadi that he seemed to be aging, especially this winter. The cold outside—and the cold in their apartment—seemed to be taking something out of him. Or maybe it was the worry about paying the rent. Baba was not a big man, but he had always seemed strong to Hadi. He had muscular arms and hands, could always lift almost anything, but some of the firmness, the confidence had gone out of his eyes, and he had stopped shaving. His beard grew in weak clumps, and gray was filling up his hair. Lines were forming around his eyes. The worst part was, his face always seemed serious, even somber, now. Hadi remembered when he had liked to joke with Hadi and his siblings, but now he rarely smiled.
They waited on a corner of the big roundabout intersection while rain beat down on them and they turned their backs to the wind. A bus—one with a deep, rusty scratch down the side—finally stopped, and Hadi and Baba got on. They each paid 1,000 pounds, and now Hadi had only 13,500 for his day. It was the same every day, but this was the cheapest kind of bus, and it took a long way around to get to their part of town.
They sat next to each other, toward the front, on plastic seats that were worn and cracked. The bus rattled and swayed, and the noise of the engine was like a pump that hadn’t been greased, squealing and surging.
“Hadi,” Baba said, keeping his voice low, “Kamal’s gang is taking this side of Beirut. Everyone’s talking about it, and now I see it for sure. These people are not afraid to kill. And the police do nothing about it. I think it’s time for you to find a corner that the gang doesn’t want.”
Hadi was sitting by the window. He looked out to the busy street, the mass of cars, none of them staying in lanes. The drivers were all pressing in on one another, edging left or right, trying to force their way ahead any way they could. And everyone was honking. It was the same every night at this time, but it was always worse when it rained. The whole mess out there made Hadi tired. It would be late before they got home.
“If I work on the other side of the street, maybe everything will be okay.”
“Maybe it’s not worth it, Hadi. Maybe we should look for another corner for you tomorrow—one closer to me.”
But Hadi didn’t want to do that. “I’ll go back in the morning and I’ll work on the other side of the street. A lot of the same people come by over there—just at different times of the day.”
“All right. But if this Kamal guy comes around, you’ll have to clear out. Don’t talk back to him.”
“Okay.” But Hadi told himself he wasn’t going to leave unless he had no other choice. He didn’t say it to Baba, but Hadi wanted to talk to Malek as often as he could. He thought maybe he could cross the street a time or two each day, at least long enough to learn a few new words.
The bus gradually worked its way through the worst of the traffic and crawled toward the southwest side of Beirut. Hadi could see the downtown area, the last of the sun making silhouettes of the tall buildings. He could see lights in many of the windows and knew that people must still be there, up on those high floors. Baba had told him that some of the buildings were apartment houses and some were hotels. But others were office buildings, where people had good jobs. It was never entirely clear to him what people in offices did all day, but he knew to get jobs like that, people had to be good readers. Hadi wasn’t sure that Malek was right, that the two of them could do all the things they imagined themselves doing, but for now he felt sure the one thing he could do was improve his reading. And if he left the intersection in Bauchrieh and couldn’t spend any time with Malek, he didn’t know how he could manage it.
As the bus passed by businesses, he tried to read the signs. When he saw what kind of store it was and then looked at the Arabic letters, he usually realized what the word must be. But many of the signs were in English, and some probably in French, and he didn’t know those letters. That was something else he would have to learn.
It was late again when Baba and Hadi reached home. When they walked in, all the children jumped up. At least Hadi had apples again, and that was something they could eat immediately. It was the potatoes that would have to fill them, but it was the apples they loved. He held back the pomegranates for the moment, knowing how happy they would make everyone.
5
That night Hadi and his family ate the same as usual: potatoes and bread. But the pomegranates had been a great surprise. The girls loved pulling the fruit apart and savoring the sour, sweet seeds one at a time. Mama liked the taste of them too; she even smiled at Hadi as she thanked him.
Mama had fed the family better in Syria. Hadi remembered tabbouleh, kibbeh, fattoush, falafel, and above all, the creamy, rich hummus and baba ghanoush they had eaten with their bread. He remembered roasted meat, especially lamb, but his brothers and sisters had no recollection of such food. They had been too young—or not yet born.
Hadi knew that it hurt his mother not to have good food to prepare. She tried to make the best of things by adding a few spices to bland foods, but all this winter, with Baba and Hadi’s income more limited, she had stopped asking for cumin or za’atar. Or maybe she had realized that no one noticed what she did with the food. They were all too hungry to care.
Baba had also given up on some of the things he had done in Syria. He didn’t pray very often, rarely went to the mosque, usually worked on Friday. He still fasted during Ramadan, but that had become his usual way anyway, to eat only two meals a day, one early, one late. He still spoke of God, still told Mama and the children that things would get better, “inshallah,” but Hadi heard a difference in his voice. It was harder and harder to trust in God when everything kept getting worse, not better.
By the time dinner was over, the electricity had gone off. In the dark, the children quarreled about the scattered blankets. “That’s my blanket,” Aliya kept saying. “Give it to me.”
But Rabia wouldn’t listen. “Find another one,” she shouted.
Hadi hated to hear such ugliness between his sisters. When his siblings had been babies, he had loved holding them and then playing with them as they began to recognize him. He had cared for the older ones each time new babies had been born, and he had been especially close to his three cute little dark-eyed sisters. But that was all before he had gone to the streets with Baba. It pained him now to watch Aliya become so unkind, so belligerent, and to watch the other girls fight back against her bossiness. And poor Aram was so little that he knew nothing but this room, this darkness, this gloom.
The girls quieted after a time, even hugged together for warmth, their angry fight forgotten. Hadi rolled up in a corner with just one blanket, his feet cold. But he fell asleep quickly.
* * *
Early in the morning he was aware that he had awakened many times, each time trying to wrap his blanket tighter around him. All the same, he longed to stay in his corner all day. He pulled the blanket closer and slept a little more.
But then, only a few minutes later, Baba was there, shaking his shoulder even though there was not yet any light coming in from outside. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but we have to get up and get ready.” Hadi struggled to his feet. He walked down the hallway to the smelly toilet, and then he came back and ate some rice they had saved from the night before. He tried to leave most of it for the little ones. He would get by. Maybe the foreigners would bring him a shawarma sandwich again.
Hadi and his father rode the bus silently that morning. It bounced and rattled, and Hadi let himse
lf sway from side to side as he tried to sleep. When he and his father got off at the Dora intersection, Baba said, “Hadi, don’t take any chances today. If Malek thinks you have to leave, just do it.”
“But we need to earn all we can. Mama needs—”
“I know. I have to find a way to get some help for her.” He put his hand on Hadi’s shoulder and waited until Hadi looked up at him. “But I have to think of you, too. You’re young, son, and I’m asking too much of you as it is. You can’t sacrifice yourself. Promise me you’ll leave if you see any sign of danger.”
“All right. I promise.”
They were standing on a corner, the cars locked in a struggle to get through the big roundabout, many of the drivers honking, shouting, with pedestrians cutting through the mash of traffic and scooters winding their way between the cars. It was the usual thing and yet more bothersome this morning. Hadi didn’t really feel awake yet, but he had taken a last look at Mama as he had left—and at Khaled. They had both seemed lost. Hopeless.
Hadi didn’t want to spend the day looking for a new corner. He would not only lose a day’s earnings; he would end up someplace where he would surely bring in less money. He also wanted to be with Malek. So he tried to think of some other answer. “Maybe Khaled should come with us now,” Hadi told his father in spite of what he had told his brother. “He could help us a little.”
“Not until you know what’s going to happen. When Khaled starts, I want him to start with you, but we can’t add another boy to your intersection with this Kamal already trying to push you away.”
Hadi nodded. He knew that was true.
“It’s not raining,” Baba said. “Maybe we’ll do better.” And then he added, as always, “Inshallah.”