Mother of All Pigs

by Malu Halasa

  “Life,” he intones, “is not a struggle between good and evil. It’s a tooth-and-claw fight to the death between enterprise and stagnation.” With his ire up, Abu Za’atar is getting ready to argue for hours. His determination to never give in—not one iota—blows everything out of proportion and, like an expanding hot-air balloon, obscures the real reason he snuck into the house in the first place.

  13

  Samira has never seen her brother take charge. It is as though the drunken fool at last night’s dinner has been replaced by someone alert and decisive. He ushered the young man he introduced as Mustafa straight into the house and ordered Samira to retrieve a change of clothes, a fresh razor blade, and scissors from a chest of drawers in the bedroom. Once their guest was installed in the bathroom and his knapsack stowed on the back terrace, Hussein took Samira and Fadhma aside and told them that only their discretion would help a lost soldier reach home.

  Samira thinks she has enough time and returns to the terrace but stops short of touching the knapsack. She could understand if this were happening with Syrian activists; strangers were always showing up unexpectedly. But nothing like this ever takes place in her brother’s home. She makes sure she is waiting by the door when Mustafa emerges from the bathroom, his face raw from the razor.

  “You look good.” Samira keeps her voice low.

  In Hussein’s clean cotton jersey and jeans, Mustafa shyly returns the compliment: “So do you.”

  It’s a throwaway comment that means nothing, but Samira still blushes. Self-consciously she takes his folded old clothes. Carrying his heavy-duty boots, he follows her in socks.

  Mother Fadhma welcomes the dazed young man to the kitchen. Samira would have liked to have stayed and listened to them both, but she quickly puts down Mustafa’s clothes and retraces her steps. In the bathroom everything is in order. The towel has been hung up to dry, the sink rinsed and wiped. Wherever he’s from he has good manners. She almost leaves without taking out the trash, then remembers Zeinab’s advice: it is the details she needs to pay attention to. In the kitchen, Samira throws away the evidence. As she places the soldier’s old clothes into a black plastic bag, her mother comes in from the terrace and ties back the curtain. Samira soon joins Mustafa outside with a glass of water on a tray.

  “Home tastes good,” he says quietly, looking up from a plate of tabbouleh in his lap.

  “I bet we’re a lot like your own family.” She wants to draw him out, get him talking more about himself.

  Mustafa again regards her intently. He has brown eyes and hair, and his skin is dark from the sun. But his face is open and clear. “Better,” he states.

  It is that shy smile she ignores as she probes again: “When were you last there?”

  “Too long ago.”

  Samira changes tact. “Hussein didn’t say where your family’s living. I assumed the capital.” she doesn’t want him to think she has been considering it too deeply. “You look like you’ve been traveling for a while.” Her reticent brother wouldn’t have given so much away, but her nosy uncle had said as much.

  “Yes.” Mustafa takes the water from her tray.

  “You can go as far away as you like, but it’s not hard to know what’s going on.”

  “When I crossed the border yesterday, I saw refugees trying to get in.” He puts down the glass.

  Samira checks the kitchen to see if Fadhma’s around; she’s not. “I’ve waited by the fence by al-Zaatari refugee camp. Much of what you hear about the camps is that they are hellholes—and they are—but people survive. They get married, have children, and you know the Syrians; they’re good at business. Despite all that’s gone wrong, some life continues.”

  “Syria’s a mess—too much fighting for too long.”

  Clean-shaven, in normal clothes, the soldier’s appearance doesn’t give much away, but that’s the point, isn’t it? Samira decides she has no other choice but to rely on what came before. “That certainly doesn’t help matters any. Unless you think a sharia state will solve all of our problems.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  Loath to waste any more of his time or hers, Samira asks straight out, “Where were you, exactly?”

  “Afghanistan,” he finally admits quietly. “My brother went to fight there and I went to bring him back, but he didn’t make it. You could say he had been brainwashed, and for a time I was too.”

  “And now?”

  When he doesn’t answer, Samira tries making light of the situation. “That’s what our families have in common: we’ve all been brainwashed to some extent.” Mustafa is staring, not at her but at the floor. She continues, somewhat chastened, “Someone with your experience, working with the right people, could make a difference.” She doesn’t have to wait long for his response.

  “To be honest, I am no longer useful, not even to myself.”

  His apparent helplessness upsets her. “You mean,” she whispers sharply, “it’s our duty to fight the Americans and the Israelis, but when Arabs are slaughtering Arabs we stand by and do nothing?”

  “Who’s fighting? Ugly Americans again?” Muna comes out onto the terrace with a tray of hot tea, which she puts down. From the look on Samira’s and Mustafa’s faces, she pointedly closes the terrace curtains behind her.

  “He has”—Samira motions—“in Afghanistan.”

  Muna is so astonished she forgets to offer the soldier a glass of tea. “You’re really a jihadist?”

  “An occasional one,” Samira answers for him.

  The soldier looks askance at his hosts and says nothing.

  “I can be arrested in the US just for talking to you,” reveals Muna.

  “Doesn’t that say something about your country’s freedom of speech,” observes Mustafa somberly.

  Remembering her manners, Muna offers him and Samira tea. “Some people say it’s impossible to protect certain freedoms, especially for those intent on murdering you.” Then she declares mischievously, “I get it, you want to kill me because I’m American. But we’re the good guys now. The US is bombing ISIS in Syria. I mean, it’s not like the government ever consults me about US foreign policy. So how can I be held responsible?”

  Mustafa grunts. “That’s my problem. I don’t want to kill anyone.” He reaches for his boots and puts them on.

  “That’s what I mean,” Samira joins in. “It’s all wrong. Why kill Americans when there are those fuckers across the border?”

  Mustafa regards Samira again. “And what took you to al-Zaatari? I don’t think a refugee camp is a place your brother would want you to go.”

  Now she is really annoyed. If Samira doesn’t allow her own family to dictate her movements, she certainly isn’t going to listen to an occasional jihadist. “Going to fight in Afghanistan is probably not something your mother would have wanted you or your brother to do,” she lashes out before deeply regretting it. The soldier’s grief-stricken face makes her feel immediately sorry and she explains more gently, “I do political work.” She is addressing Muna as well. “I’m proud to help people who need me.” As a proviso she adds, “I don’t believe in slaughtering innocent civilians for religion,” then challenges Mustafa again. “What about you?”

  It is a question he doesn’t answer as Hussein pushes through the curtain. “Mustafa, imshee, let’s go!” He tells Samira and Muna, “Mother Fadhma needs you. Guests have arrived.” He can’t believe it himself, “Abu Za’atar is right, we have so many we don’t know what to do with them.” Something else is on his mind and he instructs his sister, “If anyone asks about the van, say it broke down and the mechanic will pick it up more than likely when the guests are here—so they won’t miss it on their way out.” He turns to Mustafa: “We leave from the back so the whole town won’t know your business.” Hussein almost looks as though he is enjoying himself.

  As Mustafa collects his knapsack, Muna says in parting, “Don’t think so badly of all Americans that you want to kill us.” She flashes another brilliant sm
ile and then goes to her grandmother’s aid.

  In the kitchen Samira is waiting with his bag of clothes, which she presses in his hands as she says good-bye. She doesn’t want to pester him but can’t stop herself from saying, “Think about it. There are people who demand your help and others too traumatized to ask for it. Where do you stand?”

  Her words frighten him off and he follows Hussein out the back door.

  At the front door, Abu Za’atar is already greeting two mustached men, one in a suit and tie, the other in farmer’s overalls. “Good to see you. Please come in.” When the girls join him, he warmly makes the introductions: “This is Abd’s daughter. Muna, Abu Omar and Abu Salih are your father’s friends from boyhood. Abu Salih went with Abd to America. Abu Omar stayed with us here at home and became like a son to us.”

  Why does her uncle always exaggerate? Samira leads the visitors through the new house past the living room and into the reception room.

  Outside on the steps is a woman in her sixties, Umm Omar, Abu Omar’s wife. She has brought along her two grandchildren. Mother Fadhma welcomes them. “Everyone looks well, Umm Omar.”

  “Our land is not giving us much. But there’s gold on Jebel Musa if you know where to look.” Umm Omar hands Fadhma a bag of fresh green leaves.

  Fadhma crushes the soft leaves and buds of za’atar thyme between her fingers. With a childish delight she deeply inhales, then trails her scented fingertips underneath Abu Za’atar’s elegant proboscis. Revelling in this rare example of shared intimacy, he proclaims out loud, “Delicious—reminds us all of home and a certain emporium.”

  The children are led to the living room, where they can play undisturbed. Samira returns from the reception room, but before she can greet Umm Omar properly, the older woman glowers at her. “Don’t say anything bad about Assad.”

  Her hostility is shocking, but it doesn’t prevent Samira from blurting out, “The man’s a butcher.”

  “Kuss umek—fuck your mother’s cunt,” exclaims the farmer’s wife out of earshot of the men.

  Muna, witnessing the exchange, cocks her head and makes a discreet V sign with her two fingers. “See, no matter war, dictatorship, even food poisoning—really, whose fault is it?” She and her cousin start giggling. One look from Mother Fadhma quiets them.

  “Please, brother.” Fadhma offers Abu Za’atar a seat.

  As he triumphantly settles in, he murmurs to her, “For a long time no one would talk to us. Now look at them, clamoring to get in. My goodness, ukhti, you are really something! Turning adversity into a blessing is a family trait you must have learned from me!”

  Fadhma raises an eyebrow at her daughter. “This will keep the old feather duster happy. And our friend?”

  Mother and daughter peer up the hallway and through the still-open front door. Hussein’s van, which has rolled quietly away, with its engine off, jerks into gear and starts picking up speed. Despite the intrigue, Samira knows better than to neglect her duties and checks on the water heating on the kitchen stove.

  When she returns, Abu Salih is telling Muna about the early days in America with her father. He remembers bringing her milk when she was very tiny and her parents were poor graduate students. Samira places an enormous silver tray laden with Laila’s best coffee set, a plate of sweets, and a bowl of fruit onto the long, low marble table and begins pouring the coffee.

  Umm Omar has been quizzing Muna. “It must have been difficult for your father to send you to Jordan when everything is so unsettled. This Arab Awakening has been a descent into madness. We should have left the dictators in place.”

  “Dad didn’t send me.” Muna stops and begins again, more politely, “Some people think it’s not the best time to come but that didn’t stop me. The 2011 uprisings were the only worthy political movement to come out of the Middle East for decades.”

  Abu Za’atar, fanning himself with his hand, apologizes to the guests on her behalf. “You must forgive the young. They think they are the first ones to rebel. But many communists, leftists, socialists, Trotskyites, pan-Arabists, belonging to an assortment of movements named after every day of the week, the Eighth of March, the Fourteenth of March… have been there before. If they didn’t die tortured in prison they faced the poverty, depression, and loneliness of exile, all for the sake of a glorious ideal: to change the system. And when this much-vaunted change does take place, the new charismatic leader—no doubt thoroughly dedicated in the service of his people—is worse than the one before. So all we can do is live with the instability, and to be honest”—he regards his audience thoughtfully—“it hasn’t been so bad for business.”

  Samira can tell her uncle is making an effort or he would have droned on. Abu Omar perches stiffly on the edge of Laila’s impossibly opulent sofa, ill at ease in the formal setting of the reception room. He had come directly from the fields with bits of plant and dirt still clinging to his overalls. Beside him, his wife has taken enough offense for the both of them.

  “In the past,” she observes, “we looked to America or Russia as great countries; we respected them. Now we see that they are not only inept but dangerous. Better to make our own way alone without their interference. It’s Daesh we should worry about.”

  “But we have always had marauders who killed and looted. Who are the Crushers,” Mother Fadhma says, calling them by her name, “but criminals—plain and simple. This isn’t about religion but power. Granted they appear more bloodthirsty—”

  “And better at scaring us,” the farmer’s wife interjects. “The video of the pilot burned alive was horrifying. It’s bad enough we have the refugees, but now we have to worry about terrorists hiding among them.” She turns to Muna. “I’m sure you weren’t thinking about this as you planned your holiday.”

  Abu Za’atar hasn’t been following the conversation and suddenly lurches forward in his seat. “Hussein?” His good eye bounces from face to face in the reception room.

  “There, there.” Mother Fadhma pats him as she would a startled pygmy parrot. She hushes him by saying, “Abu Salih is telling a story.”

  “When the refugees first arrived in the town they were selling walnuts; they had carried the harvest with them from home. Another man sold apples, and he told me that even though they were unable to stay in their village because of the shelling, they returned every night and watered their orchards. After the apples and walnuts ran out, the children started begging. The Eastern Quarter has become a Little Damascus. Eventually these people will be forced to go back to Assad.”

  “I keep asking myself”—it is Umm Omar again—“why Bashar al-Assad spent ten years building his country to destroy it. I blame those dirty Saudis and Qataris who have been paying the Islamic terrorists. Now look at the results.”

  Samira doesn’t need Umm Omar to tell her to look. She has seen the videos of the bombed charred remains of Homs and ancient Aleppo and the wounded children in makeshift field hospitals. While Fadhma’s guests drink their coffee, cluster bombs rain down on an opposition village or on starving people waiting for deliveries of UN food aid that never get through. Umm Omar should be ashamed of herself. But Samira knows that any criticism on her part would appall her mother. Instead she offers everyone a napkin, a plate, and a piece of baklava. As she serves Muna, she whispers in a voice that only her cousin can hear, “Blah blah blah.”

  Of course Samira feels sympathy for those frightened by the conflict. And of course everyone wants things to go back to normal, as though all those hundreds of thousands of people never died. And the nearly five million Syrian refugees in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, and Iraq, and the more than one million asylum seekers who fled to Europe, of course, they should all be forced back to their country to live with their killers. Arabs always live with their killers and torturers; the Syrian state knows this all to well. Zeinab told Samira about the chilling phone calls she and others like her have already been receiving from the country’s secret police. “All is forgiven,” a soft-spoken male voice
at the end of the line soothingly informs her. “Time to come home and rebuild your country.”

  And Fadhma’s guests believe that there’s no need for change? If these are the people who have been ostracizing the family because of Umm al-Khanaazeer, better that they stay away. Samira feels nothing but contempt. Luckily the empty coffeepot provides her with the perfect excuse. She gathers up her tray as unobtrusively as possible and withdraws to the kitchen, where she places more water on to boil but keeps the flame deliberately low. She wants to take as long as possible and checks on Fuad, who has followed the older children outside into the backyard. All three are absorbed in a game that involves rolling pebbles into a dip in the ground. Samira stands looking out the back door and watches them play.

  Bored, she returns to the back terrace and sits among the cushions. There has been too much excitement as of late: Muna’s arrival, a restless night, the water tanker, and the appearance of Mustafa and then her uncle, topped off by her mother’s tomfoolery. It is uncharacteristic for Fadhma to do anything deceptive—Samira smiles remembering the two of them watching Hussein and the soldier drive off. If she is being truthful with herself, she could have spent more time with Mustafa. He didn’t seem inherently bad, despite the fact he tried to tell her what to do. She yawns and the afternoon heat closes around her like a comforting blanket. As the faintest breath of wind stirs the dust in the yard and causes the wind chimes hanging at the end of the terrace to tinkle softly, she lies back, and her eyes slowly shut.

  Nose, brain, belly, and backside—all informed her that a momentous change was taking place the night she was removed from the house and taken away. When the butcher’s van finally stopped and its back doors swung open, she didn’t wait for the new man in charge, the sad one who smelled of alcohol or bad cologne—she didn’t know him well enough to distinguish which. Before she could be stopped, she leaped from the van, squealing, and ran straight into the dark.