The Wanting

by Michael Lavigne

  Today I was lucky. She lay with her eyes closed, the book splayed upon her chest, the ashtray upon her knee, the toes hanging over the edge of the bed, and I was happy. Then she stirred, placed the ashtray on the blanket, lay the open book beside it, let her feet come together on the floor, and pushed herself up. She stood with her back to me, yawned, extended her bare arms above her head, fingers spread out like dancing puppets. She disappeared behind the curtains that led to the toilet. I counted the seconds, stretched my ears to hear the slightest intimation of sound, any little crinkle, echo, swoosh, anything coming from her secret body, or even from her feet scraping along the floor, or, especially, the slap of her belt buckle as she reset it on her waist, or a sigh, or the gritty clang of the chain that would tell me what’s what, that my wait was over and I missed the whole thing. The heart in my stomach cried out: to see you in every way possible! I would give anything. I would give anything. Instead, I heard someone come into the yard, a heavy, lethargic step. Abu-Mahmed! Again! He was like a shadow on the face of the sun, following me like the cat you once fed out of pity and now wouldn’t let you alone. Why did I ever say hello to him, anyway? He was almost blind and practically retarded. Who else said hello to him? Only Amir. I decided I wouldn’t even look at him. My eyes would be two stones aimed at the curtain behind which Nadirah was—

  “What? You think I don’t know you’re there? Come out of there! You want to see me? Here I am!”

  My ears went crazy, and I didn’t know where to look.

  “You think I can’t see you? I can see you right through the bushes, you moron. Come out.”

  It was Nadirah, her arms folded like a locked gate.

  “Well?” she said.

  I climbed out of the mulberry bush. “What is it?” I answered. “What do you want? I’m busy.”

  “You’re busy?” She held up her magazine to protect her hair from the rain, exposing the underside of her arm.

  “I lost something. I lost Cat,” I said.

  “Cat?”

  “Cat is the name of my cat, in case you don’t remember.”

  She placed her other hand on her hip and leaned on one leg, the way she did when she scolded Fadi. “Do you lose this ‘Cat’ every day?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “He runs away all the time,” I explained.

  “He must not like you very much. Maybe because you never bothered to give him a real name.”

  “Cat is a real name.”

  “So is Amir the Peeper.”

  “Who’s peeping? Who cares about you? You’re so conceited!”

  “All right. Come in. You’re wet all through. It’s time to talk.”

  “I have to look for Cat.”

  “Come in anyway,” she said.

  “I’m too busy.”

  “Amir, enough.” She reached out, and there was nothing in the world more beautiful or more frightening than this hand extended toward me, the tendrils of darkness in the folds of her knuckles, the sand-hued palm that was suddenly, impatiently, turned upward, the beckoning, rain-dappled, iridescent fingers with bright orange nails. The lids of her eyes were lowered ever so briefly. I was unsure of their meaning, only that I could not resist the pressure of that lowering, as if her lashes had slipped under my feet to scoop me up and set me down in her kitchen. Then, abruptly, she turned and walked back to the house. I followed her, chained to her eyelids, and also to her footprints in the soppy ground, which I copied step for step.

  “Stand there,” she said.

  She had placed herself on her chair at the small green table they used to cut up vegetables. In a plate on the table was a half-eaten pear. The bite marks had left its flesh browned. She shifted her body sideways so that she was facing the window through which I had been gazing for what now seemed to me my entire life. Her eyes hardened upon me, and even in the chill of December, with my clothes soaked and my shoes leaking, my neck felt as hot as if the sun were bearing down on it.

  She said, “What’s the matter with you?”

  At that moment, as far as I could tell, the whole world had gone to sleep except for what was happening in this room.

  “Why are you just standing there,” she said.

  I took one step toward her, but then took it back.

  “Take your hands out of your pockets,” she commanded like a schoolmaster. “Are you deaf? Take your hands out of your pockets. I’m not going to bite you. You can come a little closer. That’s enough. Now, this is no time for lies, Amir. If you lie, it is all over. Do you understand? I will know if you lie.”

  I glued my hands to my knees.

  “You were looking in my window today, weren’t you, Amir? Only the truth. No truth, we’re done forever.”

  The nodding of my head felt strange to me. My head was an object I controlled only tenuously, as if with a rubber band.

  “And this is not the first time, is it?”

  By now my head felt more like a balloon, wanting to fly off.

  “You have done it time and time again.”

  I nodded again.

  “And what have you seen? Amir, tell me.”

  “You,” I said.

  “How?”

  “Just you.”

  “No lies today, Amir.”

  “Drinking your Coca-Cola!” I blurted. “Dancing to ABBA. Eating hummus. Smoking cigarettes. Talking to Jala Idris. Making tea with tea bags. Tying your hair with ribbons and letting it out again. Kicking off your shoes. Losing your lighter over and over again. Writing in your notebook. Never finding your pen. Practicing balancing on one toe. Washing the clothes.”

  “You mean my underwear.”

  “Yes,” I answered with pride. “Blabbing with Adeela. Reading your romantic books. Crying for no reason. Breaking eggs in the frying pan. Stacking things. Eating … your pear. Mopping the floor.”

  She looked at me a very long time and said, “I don’t read romantic books. It’s literature. Sahar Khalifa. Have you heard of this writer? You’re not too young to read her anymore. You just act young. When I’m done with it, I’ll give it to you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “ ‘Thank you,’ ” she repeated, rolling the words around in her mouth as if they were made of syrup. Then she said, “Amir, what do you want of me?”

  And it just came out of my mouth: “I want to kiss you.”

  Suddenly she bit her lower lip and smiled.

  She stood up, walked over to me, one step, then two, then three, until the space between us was so small that if you put an olive leaf between her breast and mine, it would not fall.

  She placed her hands on my hips, locking her fingers upon them so I could not move one way or another. She looked straight at me, straight into my eyes. But then she looked down. A strange smile appeared on her lips. And with sudden horror I understood what she was looking at, even though I had been praying that she would not notice, or if she happened to glance, it would not show, but it was showing—a pole holding out my pants like a tent.

  Why did I never have money for blue jeans like everyone else? Why did I have to always wear these stupid loose trousers? The tighter she held my hips, the worse it grew, but I couldn’t help it. I almost didn’t want to help it. But my knees were sand giving way beneath the weight of this enormity, and the whole of me was one massive, inexplicably pleasant humiliation.

  “Why are you trembling?” She laughed. “Are you hungry? Do you need a bottle of milk?” She shook my hips. “Look at it bounce! No! Don’t you dare pull back!” Her laughter was like a blade clenched between her teeth. “Amir! Amir! How will you ever dance with a girl if you do this with your thing all the time? Don’t you know she’ll be disgusted? You’ll never even get to the dance floor. Everyone will laugh at you. Look, it still won’t go away. You can’t make it go away! Ha! Can’t you see how disgusting it is? You’re pathetic, Amir. You’re … you’re … so”—she searched her mind and finally exploded with delight—�
�gauche. Do you even know what that word means?” It was obvious I did not. She laughed again and said something else, but by now everything she said was all gibberish anyway. The whole world was gibberish, swirling, drunk. But I had never been so close to her, and the smell of her, the heat of her.…

  She pushed me away and spit. “You want to dishonor me? In my own house? In the house of your brother? In the house my father made for me?”

  She jabbed me with her sharp, hard fingers. “Who are you, you little pig, to speak to me at all? Look! Allah be praised! It’s still there! Go sell it to Grandmother Fatma! She’ll eat it up! Yum, yum, yum, yum!”

  She jabbed me again, even harder.

  I tumbled backward, slipping on the concrete floor.

  She howled with delight. Ha ha ha ha ha!

  She couldn’t stop. She laughed louder and louder.

  “I’m telling!” I cried.

  “What?”

  “I’m telling.”

  “Telling what, for God’s sake?”

  She narrowed her eyes, but there was no understanding in them. I myself did not quite know what was coming into my mind.

  “I’m telling Fadi you kissed me. He has the right to know.”

  “Liar! No one kissed you. Who would kiss that mouth? Not me in a million years.”

  “I’m telling Fadi! You’ll be punished! You know what happens to whores!”

  I stood up, brushed the dust and bits of bread crumbs off my arms, ran my hand down my pant leg to smooth it out, tucked in my shirt, wiped something—her spit, I think—from my eye.

  “Are you crazy?” she shouted, but I placed my right forefinger on the lower eyelid of my right eye, to say to her, You see? I’ve taken a solemn oath. It is upon my own head that I must do this.

  “Are you crazy?” she shouted once more, but I was already out the door and into the yard and through the archway and into the alley and out onto the street.

  Before I knew it, I was on Palestine Street. The rain had stopped, and the sun was trying to shine again. Have you seen Fadi? I asked. No, answered Ismail Sahlah, go look for him at Bouran’s. I went down to Bouran’s, and a couple of guys were there, drinking coffee and eating baklava, and Souri Hafez said, I think he’s with his guys, try over at the cultural center, so I ran over to the cultural center, but Walid hadn’t seen him all day. Maybe check the football field, they play rain or shine, he reminded me, and if no one’s there, you know, everybody has gone into Jabal, I’m just staying here because Kouri would fire me if I left, not that he ever comes around until after dinner. I swung by the football field, it was a graveyard of broken nets and December mud, and, just in case, I went by the basketball court, and then the market, which was finished anyway, and the place where they usually stood around and smoked all day, and finally I gave up and headed toward Jabal. In Jabal, of course, you could get anything, because there were millions of people all crowded in there, but every big place is also just many small places put together, and it didn’t take anything to find Fadi’s pal Awad, who looked strangely perturbed when I asked him, but he waved me on, just down there, down there, he told me, straight, straight, and I followed the line of his finger, still running, not even out of breath, and a few blocks later I reached the corner he had mentioned, Hebron Street. Now, all the buildings in this part of Jabal were very big, six, eight, ten stories, and people were running back and forth all over the place, even more than usual, and even louder than usual. Sirens, cars, yelling. Honestly, I didn’t want to be there. But in that moment of my life (they say Allah, Great and Loving, forgives everything, if only you submit!), finding Fadi was the entire purpose of my soul.

  Several boys, flush-faced, rounded the corner and almost knocked me off my feet as if I were invisible. Crying to one another in excited voices, they gathered themselves into a circle, spewed out a barrage of fabulous obscenities, patted one another on the back, bent down, hands on knees, caught their breaths, and whispered commands to one another. Obviously, a football game was going on, but who had time for this? Fadi was just around that very corner. I wouldn’t even wait for a break in the game; I’d just call him out and tell him about Nadirah. I imagined how Fadi would wave me off—Why are you bothering me? I’m playing! But I would insist and call him out again, and again if need be, until finally he would have to declare time out and trot over to me, irritated but also concerned—What happened? Did something happen? Nadirah? My father, my mother? My sister, Hafaz? I would force myself to speak. My voice, my eyes, my entire face overwhelmed with sadness, outrage, shock, empathy (for him!), grief, anger, compassion (for her!)—but even as I saw this playing out in my mind, instead of leaping onto Hebron Street, I found myself warily peering around the building’s edge.

  O Allah! Most Merciful! I am dead, what good can these visitations do?

  There was no football. Instead, I saw a squadron of soldiers at the end of the block and, opposite them, a gang of shouting boys had formed a rough line, one, two, or three deep, not a line even, just an undulation of boys lurching forward a few steps, then falling tentatively back, then rushing forward again and letting go slings filled with stones or tossing bottles or pieces of rubber, whole sides of corrugated aluminum, a tire iron; whatever they could throw, they threw. The Jewish soldiers hid like babies behind their jeeps and armored cars and shot in the air, and everyone ran into some doorway or around some corner. But when they saw none of their comrades had fallen, the boys emerged from their holes, reloaded their slings, and surged forward again. I saw some kid running with nothing more than a cardboard box that landed at his feet when he finally unleashed it. Fires dotted the avenue where boys had doused tires with kerosene, while others were busy building barricades of junk, shouting, “Victory! Victory! Victory over Israel and America!” and “Remember Karameh! Revolution! Revolution until victory!” Music was blaring from portable players, In Sabra a wound is bleeding! In Shattilla the rose is plucked! You will never live in my land! You will never fly in my sky! and the announcer cried out, “Come, my brothers and sisters! To Hebron Street! To Amman Square! The revolution has begun!”

  Through all the smoke and madness I could barely see, but one boy screamed, “Damn you bastard sons of whores! Lick my dick! A thousand dicks in your mother’s cunt!”

  “Fadi! Fadi!” I called to him. “Fadi!”

  The soldiers fired in the air once again. I grabbed my ears, fell to my knees. But the boys laughed from their hiding places. Now they flowed once more from the doorways and alleys, their pockets heavy with stones and bottles. Yowling like young jackals, one by one they cast their missiles, shook their fists, shouted their slogans. Fadi—his black shirt, his black pants, his black shoes, his black headband, his face black with soot, flung his stones and howled with glee. A soldier fell! The other boys yelped in joy, ran up, flung more bottles; the soldiers buried their heads in their arms—another down! Screams of happiness!

  “Fadi! Fadi!” I rose to my feet. “Fadi! Over here! Fadi!”

  And now, pressing a stone into his sling, he turned.

  He narrowed, studied, blinked, and then a smile of sunlight burst through the soot of his face—“Amir!”

  Smiling, he dropped to one knee and then to the ground.

  All the boys scattered again. But Fadi remained on the pavement, his legs crushed beneath him, his eyes facing Heaven, and his fingers tangled up in his sling. Only then did I hear the shots ring out.

  • • •

  Now the guns have gone quiet. The boys no longer rush forward. I have moved a little from my corner, not much, just a little, inching toward my beloved Fadi as if his open eyes are two great magnets. Unconsciously, unwittingly, I reach out my hand and, driven by the deep confusion in my heart, shove my head forward. Now I am standing on Hebron Street, looking down at Fadi. It is just Fadi and I, the burning tires, the overturned Opel; and at the end of the block, an Israeli soldier also stands and focuses the wrath of his rifle upon me. I look at him, this Jewish soldier, not in hate o
r anger, but in bewilderment, in wonder, in awe, and at the gun he has pointed at me. I look at him, and I see he is looking at me, also without anger, and with the same bewilderment, wonder, and awe. Yet in his eyes I see something else that I myself am not feeling, and that is hopelessness. He lowers his gun and waits for me to retreat behind the corner wall. Fadi is still breathing, but I know that this is my only chance, and the soldier has given it to me for a purpose neither of us can quite fathom, and so I do retreat, cover my eyes, and begin to weep.

  And in this new silence, I hear a cry. I turn. It is Nadirah. Falling to her knees, she tears her precious blue jeans and curses the land to which she was born.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “YOU WILL THINK IT STRANGE,” ABDUL-LATIF SAID to me, “that we take care of a Jew.”

  “Yes.”

  “Lie still. Drink water. In the old days, I had Jewish customers.”

  “Yes.”

  “Someone you know was kind to remember me. Please, lie still.”

  I tried to tell him it was insane of me to come here, but all that came out was a kind of whimper.

  “The boys in the town, they are angry. The intifada is over, nothing is accomplished, except that Arafat has returned, but what did he have to do with it? It was all the boys. And now … now … well. So you see, you are not welcome here anymore. Not like in the old days.” He seemed to look around the room for something but couldn’t find it. “The girls will bring you some food. It’s not much. They don’t know how to cook. My wife. She’s not here.”