Mama Hissa's Mice

by Saud Alsanousi

  I became more reserved. More cautious. More anxious that any stray word from my mouth could end up with me facedown on the sidewalk, maybe with a bloody lip and missing another tooth. The grocery store was behind our houses, three streets away, parallel to Ali Bin Abi Talib Street, where we lived. I wonder if Fahd had, as a kid, ever asked about the name of our street: “Why Khalifa Ali Bin Abi Talib? Why not Khalifa Umar Bin Al Khattab?”

  Back in the courtyard, we hitched up our spring dishdashas, folded the hems, and wrapped them around our waists, making it easy for us to run toward Haydar the Iranian’s store to buy the tomato paste. What had happened at Hassan the optician’s a couple of days before was a harbinger of what was to come at the grocer’s. Fahd didn’t like Haydar because his son conspired with Fawzia to sell her sweets, and because he favored Sadiq. Only Sadiq would enjoy a free piece of candy or gum every time we frequented the store. “It’s because he’s one of them,” Fahd said.

  We passed under the balloons and the rainbow rubber balls hanging above the door. Haydar smiled widely, revealing his gold tooth and raising his unibrow—a long, stretched-out caterpillar perched above his eyes. As usual, he asked how Sadiq was in his Farsi-tinged Arabic, “Shlonak, Sadiq?”

  I don’t know what prompted Fahd to comment. “Sadiq, like all of your kind, isn’t as truthful as his name suggests.” We all wheeled around to him for clarification. I knew he wanted to say more. He went on unabashedly, “Just like Khomeini!” The passage of time has worn away many things in my life, but Haydar’s face that day isn’t one of them. His protruding eyes mirrored his alarm. His lower lip trembled. He preoccupied himself with adjusting the woolen hat that he wore in summer and winter alike. He turned around and came out from behind the sweets and mixed-nuts counter. He yanked Fahd by the collar of his dishdasha, dragged him to the door, and pushed him outside. Haydar stayed inside, the threshold dividing them.

  He raised his hand, warning, “You better not say that again!” I was shaking. Fahd glared straight back at him. “Say what you want about my mother, my father, but you better not say anything about . . . ,” Haydar threatened.

  After performing our prayers in Maryam Al Ghanem Mosque in Block 2, we were partaking in iftar. Mom let me stay behind at the neighbor’s so that I could go to the mosque with ’Am Saleh for the Maghreb and Isha prayers. ’Am Saleh’s hand crept among Mama Hissa’s and Um Taha’s dishes, skipping Bibi Zaynab’s culinary delights as usual, not going anywhere near them. Crabs and what ’Am Abbas had said the night we had gone for al qumbar popped into my head.

  “’Am Saleh, is eating crabs haram?”

  “Who said that?”

  “’Am Abbas,” I replied meekly.

  “He’s not your uncle, you blind bat,” he corrected. “They don’t even know halal from haram.”

  I remember Fahd then, pale, silent since before the sunset prayer when we came back from the grocery store. He held a spoon in his right hand and a glass of laban in his left.

  “Don’t drink with your left hand. Al Shaytan drinks with you then,” Mama Hissa scolded him. I looked at her, and then reminded her of how she said that all demons are bound up in the month of Ramadan. “But here you are with us!” she snapped without looking at me. She cackled. I giggled. ’Am Saleh, Khala Aisha, and Fawzia all joined in fits.

  Fahd sliced through our lighthearted moment. “Why doesn’t Saddam just butcher all the Iranians?”

  4:34 p.m.

  Present Day

  A cloud of misery hovers over me after Hawraa’s call and the disaster of Dhari’s personal ID being passed around through social media. My fingers mindlessly press against the air-conditioner control. The air coming through its vents melts away, mixing with the air blowing in through the glassless windshield. I’m worried. I try calling Dhari again. No answer. My fingers move, playing with the radio. Fuada’s Kids broadcasts Dhari’s voice speaking to his listeners. “The Prophet, p-peace be upon him, used to seek the protection of God from tempta-tations a lot, as quoted in Zayd Bin Thabit’s hadith about the P-Prophet. He said, ‘Seek refuge from God for the o-obvious temptations and the hidden ones.’”

  I find myself whispering, “The Prophet himself, peace be upon him, if anything aggrieved him, said, ‘O giver of life, O Guardian, by your mercy I ask for your help.’” I look up at the sky through the sunroof. Is now the time for the sky to fall on our heads? I text Dhari: “Time’s up, sheikh. Go home now!” I follow up my message with some other ones, telling him what Ayub shared with me: “A fatwa or something like it, both groups issued it, forcing people to boycott us, saying it’s okay to kill us. They’re saying that we’ve gone astray, that we’ve gotten mixed up with the Atheist Network.”

  The broadcast shifts to Islamic hymns. Dhari finds refuge in them during the breaks, avoiding music, which he doesn’t listen to at all. He calls me, laughing, reassuring as always. He says that he received a call from Ayub, who told him everything. He blames me, just like he blamed Ayub before me, for believing the hype. “Do you believe that the religious sch-scholars would a-actually say something like that?”

  Silence is my response.

  He goes on making light of it. “A-All that’s been said is just c-crazy-people talk and excitable t-teenagers babbling.”

  His response only compounds my worry. “Right now, there’s nothing more dangerous than those teenagers,” I say. He reassures me that there are a lot of moderate religious groups that support Fuada’s Kids.

  I borrow Ayub’s words. “The loudest voice has the majority!”

  Dhari stays silent. I waver on how to break the news to him. I finally tell him about the image of his ID card making the rounds. I beg him to stop his show and go back to Al Faiha as quick as possible. “M-My ID card? W-Where?” he asks me, his interest piqued. “The break’s over, g-gotta get back to the b-broadcast!” he says.

  His voice, accompanied by faint songs in the background, pulls his listeners back to attention. He picks up where he left off before the break. “M-My loved ones who f-follow God . . . and Ibn Abbas, may God b-be pleased with him, the Prophet, peace be upon him, s-said, ‘God brought me night, the most blessed and most high in the best of f-forms.’ The hadith goes on to say that God said, ‘O Muhammad, when you p-pray say: ‘O God, I ask You to help me to do good, to help me stop committing reprehensible acts, to love the poor, to p-pardon me, to have mercy on me, to forgive me and, if Your creation is about to be tempted, then p-pull me close to You before I am.’” The final clause that emerges from his tongue possesses a timorous quality. Dhari repeats it thrice. As if I can see him before me with his eyes closed, submitting to God. “P-Pull me close to You before I am, p-pull me close to You before I am, p-pull me close to You . . . before I am.” I feel bad for him whenever he stutters, certain words resisting him.

  I scour the rest of the radio stations, searching for more news.

  THE FIRST MOUSE: SPARK THE INHERITANCE OF FIRE

  THE NOVEL

  Chapter 11

  In the mornings at ’Am Saleh’s house, we would crowd around the Al Watan newspaper. We’d devour its pages. We would pore over the news about the first Peace and Friendship tournament. With a feverish eagerness not expected at our ages, spurred on by Fawzia, we’d read anything linked to the preparations: the statements by the head of the Olympic committee Sheikh Fahad Al Ahmad Al Jabir Al Sabah, the meetings between officials, pictures of the field equipment, students’ rehearsals for the opening ceremony, and news of the selected teams participating.

  It was a Friday—September 22, 1989, to be precise. I didn’t waste the opportunity to rib Fawzia when her song, “Kuwait and the Arabs . . . Family and Kinship,” came on TV. Groups of students who’d participated in the famous national operetta that took place ten months prior parroted the lines. I left everyone scrutinizing the newspaper on the ground and stood up almost reflexively. My silly moves harmonized with the rhythm of the song I was singing along to: “They are to Kuwait, the eyes and lashes.”
I bent over and shoved my face in Fawzia’s, my eyebrows wiggling above my crossed eyes.

  “May God strike you blind,” she said without cracking so much as a smile. I sat on the ground once more in the corner of the living room, next to Mama Hissa’s twin, between Sadiq, Fahd, and Fawzia. There was nothing of note in the news except for something that suddenly altered Sadiq’s mood. He snatched the newspaper and intently read the first few pages. The reddening of his ears pushed me to read what was on the front page: Charged for the bombings in Mecca, the Holy City. Below it, in bold font: Saudi Arabia executes 16 Kuwaitis and acquits 9. “Th-they’ve been wr-wronged! That’s not fair!” Sadiq stammered, directing his words at no one in particular. He left for home immediately, leaving me wondering, Who are they? I forgot all about it until forty days later when they were commemorated, and I realized that they belonged to the same sect as ’Am Abbas’s household, just as ’Am Saleh had said. Sadiq became wary when I asked him about it. I was frustrated with his answer. I felt that both of them, Sadiq and Fahd, understood more than me because of their fathers. They would mock me for my ignorance and endless questions, telling me to go back to playing with my wrestling dolls and collecting pictures of Hulk Hogan.

  The recent report in the newspaper reminded me of Sadiq’s outright resentment when he had asked me how ’Am Saleh viewed him and his family after the Great Mosque of Mecca had been stormed by armed men from our sect ten years before. And when I asked my mom about the Juhayman group that Sadiq had told me about, she responded, wagging her finger, “By God Almighty, I forbid you from hanging out with those two!” She swore at Sadiq and Fahd. I didn’t ask the question again. I remained a prisoner to my burgeoning jealousy. Why? Because my two friends seemed to know it all.

  Forty days after the death penalty had been carried out, ’Am Saleh preoccupied himself with taking out both of his cars and his wife’s car from the carport and parking them in front of his house. I couldn’t figure out why until Fahd explained his father’s reasoning, based on some news that one of the neighbors had relayed to ’Am Saleh that morning. ’Am Abbas was going to hold a commemoration, an Arba’eeniya, for those Kuwaitis executed in Saudi Arabia forty days ago: acquitted by one, and accused by another. It was the first time I’d heard the word Arba’eeniya.

  ’Am Saleh called my dad and the rest of the neighbors, asking them to also park their cars on the street so that ’Am Abbas’s guests, the mourners, wouldn’t crowd up the street by parking in the empty spaces in front of our houses. ’Am Saleh held an old grudge against his nemesis of a neighbor from back when ’Am Abbas had cordoned off the empty plot in front of his house with chains during ’Am Saleh’s father’s funeral. But, I mused, if ’Am Abbas hadn’t done that back then, would ’Am Saleh’s position really have been any different?

  A couple of the neighbors complied with ’Am Saleh’s request; in fact, most of them didn’t. Our informant neighbor called Fahd’s father back to correct the information he had passed on earlier that day. “Abbas is going to attend a memorial service at the Imam Hussein Mosque. What I told you in the morning was fake news.”

  The few cars by the sidewalk promptly went back under their canopies.

  4:42 p.m.

  Present Day

  I’m in traffic, trapped in my car—unable to get out of the area, hemmed in by the security forces. Kuwait National Radio broadcasts news of flights in and out of the international airport being suspended, without explanation. The BBC confirms in its news brief that the UN Security Council has agreed to double the number of peacekeeping forces stationed in Kuwait. One of the radio station guests responds to the news with disconcerting levity. “Two security officers are more than enough for Kuwait, instead of these peacekeeping forces!” he says before bursting out in laughter. Something within me lets out a howl of despair. For months now we’ve heard about the peacekeeping forces being sent, but so far there has been nothing to show for it, except for the forces surrounding the oil wells.

  A beep from my phone alerts me to a long text message from the publisher: “What’s happening? I’ve been following the news on TV . . . Tell me you’re okay . . .” I ignore the message. Pictures of the old Lebanon run through my mind, accompanied by a Mama Hissa voice-over, barking the epithet “Idiots!”—which she’d repeat whenever the newscaster alluded to one of the Lebanese warring factions during their first civil war. Ayub calls me, cutting short my reverie.

  “Things are getting worse. Clashes have increased on both the Yemeni and the Iraqi sides of the Saudi border. Unconfirmed reports I’ve heard say that Saudi authorities have decided to temporarily close down the border crossings between their country and Kuwait. Meaning that . . . we’re all stuck here.”

  I think of my parents, and then I answer him, “Whoever wanted to leave, left when the war broke out.”

  “Hundreds of cars are lined up bumper to bumper, unable to pass,” he confirms.

  “The northern borders are open for whoever wants to leave! Only a lunatic would flee this Kuwaiti fire, which has scarcely started burning, to the Iraqi cinders whose smoke we’ve been inhaling for years,” I comment dryly.

  “In which part of Iraq are they trying to seek refuge?”

  “Idiots.” The word slips out of my lips.

  He lets out a forced laugh. “I swear to God, there’s no safe place to hide or run to anymore.” His words remind me of Dhari.

  “Apparently, it’s still all unofficial,” Ayub reassures me. Before hanging up, he asks, “Aren’t you ever going to tell me what happened at dawn today?”

  “Later.” I end the call. I call Dhari repeatedly. No answer. I tune the radio to our station. I don’t get what’s happening! Dhari’s reading a poem—yes, a poem—he who doesn’t recite poetry. He who thinks poetry is inherently open to misinterpretation. What led him to do this now? And why did he backtrack on his original stance? His voice comes across as angry, which is unlike him; it is angry at everything: his state of being, our situation, and his stutter.

  “Explode

  O you banished anger from w-within, now outside

  O you f-fading brilliance

  In the s-strangled extent

  In the dust-sprinkled horizon.”

  He’s just recited “A Charm in the Time of Dying,” another Khalifa Al Waqayan poem. Does Ayub know? Does Dhari know what he’s reciting? Is now the best time for this? Or will it be better when we’re dead? His voice grows faint, quiet, as if he’s surrendered. The Islamic songs play quietly in the background as he goes on:

  “Explode

  If the earthworm c-creeps

  And the rabid baby locust

  Harvests your verdant field.”

  Why am I shedding tears for you, Dhari? You were the one who was reassuring me that it was going to be okay. What’s become of you now? The calmness with which you’re reciting the poem doesn’t dispel the state of confusion that I’m in. I search for a side street to turn down to escape the congestion and make my way to headquarters. Dhari’s voice flays me as it continues the recital with a delivery that doesn’t sound like his:

  “Explode

  If night is a m-murderer

  Folding up its expanse

  Grabbing the napes of the stars . . . and the full moon

  Giving a drink to the blade of the d-dagger

  It comes . . . it looks out

  In the so-called name of G-God

  God Almighty

  It advances to the pulpit.”

  “God is great!”

  THE FIRST MOUSE: SPARK THE INHERITANCE OF FIRE

  THE NOVEL

  Chapter 12

  October 30, 1989: it was the evening that we had all been eagerly awaiting. With his skinny frame, Fahd squeezed himself behind the wooden television console, fiddling with the antennae, clearing up the snowy image on the screen. Fawzia fed the VCR a tape. Before returning to the sofa, she pressed the button to record. It was a day of celebration, the opening day of the first Peace and Friendship
Cup; unbeknownst to anyone at the time, it would also be the last. The household’s members, Mama Hissa’s twin, Sadiq, and I sat gripped by the TV in the living room of the Al Bin Ya’qub household. Even Tina had taken up her usual seat nearby to observe our antics as we watched. We waited for the operetta marking the opening of the games to start. The atmosphere was electric. The TV volume was as high as it would go, as the air conditioner grumbled in the background, fighting off the last heat waves that marked the end of summer. Enthusiastic whooping from the audience on-screen; the aroma of saffron tea; milk with ginger; the sound of nuts being shelled, cracking between fingers and mouths around me; copious dollops of ice cream that we’d bought especially for this occasion from Abu Sameh the Palestinian before he went into hibernation during the winter months.

  Each of us had something that we were looking forward to before the games began. I wasn’t interested in any sport except for freestyle wrestling, and I definitely wasn’t concerned with the sportsmen who had come from forty-four Arab and Muslim nations to vie for victory. All that concerned me was two countries meeting for the first time after such a lengthy hiatus: Iraq and Iran. I was impatient for November 5, just a few days later, when their two soccer teams would go head-to-head. And meet they did. There was a roar from the stadium when both team captains shook hands and Sheikh Fahad Al Ahmad gifted both captains a copy of the Quran before the match. If only Sheikh Fahad would come to our street and gift both ’Am Saleh and ’Am Abbas a copy, I thought to myself. That idea quickly evaporated when the referee’s whistle signaled the beginning of the match and roused the commentator Khalid Al Harban into action, despite the eventual unsatisfying draw.

  On the opening day of the games, we were exchanging whispered words when Mama Hissa silenced us with a shush. Immediately, the announcer’s voice came to the fore. “We have been kindly obliged by His Excellency Sheikh Fahad Al Ahmad Al Jabir Al Sabah, the chairman of the Kuwait Olympic Committee, member of the International Olympic Committee . . .” Mama Hissa was delighted to see “the Man,” as she fawningly called him. After all, he was the prince, the man who had fought for years in the Palestine Liberation Organization’s ranks, among the resistance fighters against those “Jews” inside the occupied territories. She was a bit fuzzy on the details, as she didn’t know much about what had gone on out there. The man had fought against the Jews, and that was more than enough for a woman like her. Making his way up to the stage at that moment was the man himself, Abu Ahmad, to give a speech minutes before the opening of the games, whose soundtrack included his lyrics. The audience stirred—as did we—their enthusiasm stoked, in response to what Abu Ahmad said to his brother, the emir of Kuwait. “O Jaber Al Khair, the meeting point is here; all Muslim brothers are gathered here. This is my cousin, here is my brother, and this is our religion of forgiveness—Islam,” intoned Abu Ahmad. Spellbound, we watched. The emir officially opened the tournament. Groups of students erupted forth to the rhythm of national songs, wearing the traditional costumes of the participating countries, leading a parade of all the teams across the soccer field. I remember, as if I can hear it now, the brouhaha of the crowd—clapping, yelling, singing. Each of us in the Al Bin Ya’qub family household on that evening sang late into the night, enjoying the jamboree.