Chaos of the Senses

by Ahlem Mosteghanemi

  That particular year I expected the need for alms distribution to be greater than ever. The price of a single sheep came to over 10,000 dinars, which meant that an animal purchased as a sacrifice for the holiday was now worth more than a human being, who could be slaughtered for the price of a bullet.

  I called my husband to wish him a happy holiday. I sensed that he was surprised by my call, and maybe even pleased. When I asked him if he’d sent anything to Uncle Ahmad’s house, he said he’d been so busy he’d forgotten, so I told him I’d take care of it. Before I could say anything else, another telephone rang in his office and our conversation was cut short.

  I asked the driver to take half a sheep’s carcass to the poor man’s house. Then, when he was about to leave, I ran after him and asked him to take me to the cemetery first.

  Only rarely have I visited my father’s grave on the morning of Eid al-Adha. I’ve always preferred to go there alone, the way one goes to a love tryst.

  I don’t like to visit him on social occasions, maybe because of all the times I’ve had to share him with others. Often, when I’ve crossed a street or passed a school named after him, I’ve been stricken with a sense of orphanhood so overwhelming that it’s nearly drowned out the pride I feel in bearing his name.

  Between me and the man resting beneath that marble headstone there’d been a kind of tacit understanding. After he died, I’d built a little shrine to him inside of me that had nothing to do with the prestige attached to the standing he’d enjoyed in our society. It was a shrine that grew in size with every passing year with the result that, in his absence, he became larger than life, and larger by far than the living who surrounded me.

  Every now and then I would sit at that shrine the way some women sit at the shrine of a saint, telling him their woes and asking for his blessing and for strength to cope with life’s tribulations.

  Sometimes I’d close the door to my room and, opening my memory chest, tell him about all the things that grieved me and the mistakes I had made. I’d invite him to sit on the edge of my bed and tell him things that had happened to me. I’d ask for his advice, expecting him to answer me, and when his picture didn’t say anything in reply I’d burst into tears.

  I’d be afraid that I’d told him too much about myself. I’d be afraid I’d lost his approval. After all, there’s nothing more difficult than to remain in the good graces of the dead.

  Now, too, like all the times when destiny had caused me anguish and life had let me down, my steps led me to that same patch of ground, where I went digging for answers to my endless questions.

  But this time I found no answers. All I found was Nasser, who was about to leave the cemetery. What made it even more surprising to see him there was that it had never been his custom to visit our father’s grave on holidays. In fact, my mother had once told me that he’d given her a legal ruling according to which visiting graves and shrines was objectionable.

  As usual, I didn’t argue with him about his beliefs or ask him why he’d come. Instead I simply expressed my surprise at finding him there, and told him how happy I was to see him. However, as I kissed him, I couldn’t help but comment on the fact that he looked different somehow, although I couldn’t put my finger on what it was that had changed.

  With a touch of sarcasm he replied, ‘I’ve lost a lot of weight lately.’

  Then he added, ‘. . . so that I wouldn’t lose my beliefs!’

  Not understanding what he meant, I said brightly, ‘Well, that’s better. You look younger this way.’

  In the same sarcastic tone he said, ‘And what’s so great about looking younger?’

  So here he was again, drawing me into a conversation about something that wasn’t going to be easy to talk about. It reminded me of the time, a few years earlier, when I’d asked him to take the wall clock to get it fixed because it was losing a few minutes every week or so.

  In a mocking sort of tone, he’d said to me, ‘Come on, you! We’re a whole century behind the rest of the world, and you’re sitting in front of a clock counting minutes? If we took it to the repairman, he’d die laughing. After all, people in this country only bring him clocks when they’re about to go to jail!’

  I wanted to avoid getting into an argument I knew he was sure to win. He responded to my way of thinking about life with his way of coexisting with it, so he always had right on his side.

  ‘I’ve been on a trip,’ I said apologetically. ‘I just got back a couple of days ago. I called you this morning to wish you a happy holiday, but you weren’t home.’

  ‘I’m not staying in the house,’ he replied. ‘As you can see, we’re all on a trip. The dead are the only ones with permanent addresses now!’

  Then, after a slight pause, he went on, ‘That’s because they don’t have anything to worry about any more, and nothing to be afraid of.’

  ‘So what are you afraid of ?’ I asked.

  ‘Of God! And God alone!’ he shot back confidently, as if I’d been accusing him.

  ‘We’re all afraid of God,’ I said.

  ‘How can somebody who obeys his enemies claim to fear God?’

  I kept my mouth shut, not because I didn’t have a reply to what he’d said, but because as far as I was concerned, arguing at a graveside on a religious holiday was nothing short of madness. After all, we hadn’t come here to fight. We’d come to recite the Fatihah over our deceased father’s grave. But politics seemed to haunt us wherever we went: in our beds, in our notebooks, even in cemeteries.

  Finally I said, ‘Nasser, dear brother, people come together today to wish each other a happy holiday, to make up, to forgive each other. But I’ve barely said hello to you before you blow up in my face. Can’t you please just be my brother, if only on this holiday?’

  ‘What holiday?’ he said, Scrooge-like. ‘Look around you at these graves. They’re all new, fresh. Every day this cemetery receives a new batch of innocents.’

  ‘And what fault is that of mine?’

  ‘Your fault is that you share a bed and a house with the Devil!’

  I said, ‘I don’t know whether this man is an angel or a devil. As far as I can see, the only difference between him and others is that he’s a high-ranking officer who’s responsible for defending the homeland, and I believe in the homeland more than I believe in either angels or devils.’

  ‘Doesn’t it bother you to be held by somebody with blood on his hands? On his orders innocent people are thrown in prison and these graves are filled to overflowing. What’s the use of all you’ve learned about people’s freedom to choose their destiny?’

  ‘What I’ve learned hasn’t done me any good. I don’t know how to choose my own destiny, much less anybody else’s. There are more than sixty officially recognized parties whose job it is to represent the people and defend their choices. But I don’t have a party to defend me. Even you, you’ve never asked me my opinion on anything. So why are you so surprised that I don’t have an opinion now?’

  He kept quiet at first, as though he didn’t know what to say, or didn’t see any use in talking.

  Then, his voice tender as though he were whispering a farewell, he said, ‘I’m afraid for you, Hayat.’

  ‘Afraid of what?’ I murmured.

  ‘Of everything.’

  With the same tenderness I replied, ‘You’ve always worried about me.’

  ‘But this time,’ he said, ‘I know what I’m talking about. Leave that man. Since you don’t have any children by him, ask for a divorce.’

  I smiled. Then I laughed out loud at what he’d said.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ he demanded.

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I was just thinking about Ma. If she heard you say what you just said, she’d blow her top. My being married to this man is the biggest feather in her cap!’

  ‘Don’t worry about our mother. Her whole life revolves around one thing: what other people think. But the wall she’s leaning on for support is just one big illusion. Lean on God in all you
r decisions, and He won’t let you down.’

  ‘I’ve always leaned on Him,’ I said, ‘and on the person lying in this grave. And this is what’s led me to where I am. I would have liked you to be my support, too. You’re all I’ve got in this world. But here we are, bumping into each other in a cemetery by coincidence like strangers. You don’t call and you don’t come to see me. And when I come to see you, you’re not around.’

  ‘One of these days,’ he interrupted me ruefully, ‘you won’t have any trouble finding me. I’ll have a permanent address right here.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I cried. ‘Are you out of your mind?’

  ‘Death is closer than you think,’ he broke in. ‘Would you like to see the grave of a friend of mine who was murdered a few days ago for no reason? He was near a policeman, and they got suspicious of him because he put his hand in his pocket and looked as though he was about to take something out of it. So they shot him. Then they discovered that he hadn’t had anything in his pocket. Imagine: You could die not because of some crime you committed, but because, if you happen to look a certain way when you’re in a certain place at a certain time, you’re assumed to be a criminal. In other words, we’re all potential suspects. All it takes for them to convict us is for time, place and appearance to work against us!’

  I said, ‘I don’t think people want to hurt each other or commit murders just for the fun of it. But everybody thinks it’s either kill or be killed. We don’t trust each other any more. We’re living in a time when evil’s pull is stronger than ever, and we’ve got to resist being swept along with the tide. Life is good, Nasser. Believe me. We’ve just got to put a little love into it.’

  Nasser was quiet for a while. Then he put his arms around me and said, ‘Sometimes I wish I were like you.’

  ‘I always wish I were like you. Life has pulled us apart sometimes, but nothing will ever separate us. Isn’t that right?’

  ‘Right. We’ll never let that happen.’

  He started to walk away. Then he came back as though he’d remembered something, or as though he’d decided to tell me something he’d been hesitating to mention. He whispered, ‘Try to come to the house in the next couple of days. Ma’s due back from the pilgrimage the day after tomorrow. Once she’s back, I’ll be leaving, and I want to say goodbye to you.’

  ‘You’re leaving?’ I asked, astonished. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I’ll tell you later. Don’t say anything about this to anybody.’

  As soon as he’d disappeared, I collapsed at the foot of the grave, and before I knew it, I was in tears.

  What kind of a time was this, when a brother and sister would meet up by chance in a cemetery on Eid al-Adha morning, fight and make up within ear’s range of the dead, then part, not knowing when they’d be seeing each other again, or in which world?

  * * *

  I, who had gone that day looking for answers, came back with more questions than ever. I’d spent half my day consoling Uncle Ahmad’s family, and the other half consoling myself over men who came just to leave again, who greeted me just to say goodbye, and who couldn’t seem to talk to me without introducing death as a third party to our conversations.

  I couldn’t help but wonder whether there was some contagion going around among the men of the country that made them all say the same thing, and dream of nothing but leaving!

  That evening I sat down to supper with my husband out of politeness. Actually, I’d already decided not to eat the meat of those poor sheep, whose heads had been bobbing for several days from the seasickness that had stricken them during the month and a half they’d spent crammed into a ship’s hull.

  My husband for his part was so exhausted that he didn’t notice my lack of appetite. We exchanged ordinary chit-chat about nothing in particular, and the minute he finished eating, I saw him head for the bedroom and take off his clothes as though he were casting off a burden he’d been carrying around all day long. Then he flung himself on the bed.

  As I hung his clothes up for him, I said, ‘I’d been hoping you’d spend the day with me. I don’t understand why it is that you have to spend every day in your office, even holidays.’

  He replied, ‘If I spent the holiday with you, who would guarantee security in a city whose smallest university has a student population of over 23,000? And then there are the mosques. God knows many there are in the city, and new ones are springing up every day.’

  ‘What I meant was that we don’t see each other at all any more. Even your days off, we spend apart.’

  Our conversation reminded me of Nasser, and I thought back on my conversation with him. I kept his travel plans to myself. However, without thinking I found myself telling my husband about seeing him that morning at the cemetery. In general my husband avoided talking about Nasser, as though he reciprocated my brother’s dislike for him.

  But to my surprise, he said approvingly, ‘It’s nice that you saw him.’

  Then he added, ‘How did he seem to you?’

  A bit startled by his question, I said, ‘He was his usual self. He might have lost a little weight, but he was in good health.’

  ‘Didn’t he tell you anything?’ my husband asked.

  His question flustered me, and my mind started going in a million directions.

  Did he know about Nasser’s travel plans? Had somebody been eavesdropping on us at the cemetery? I hadn’t seen anyone. And what if he was trying to find out things he didn’t know?

  Finally I said, ‘No, he didn’t tell me anything except for the fact that my mother will be back from the pilgrimage the day after tomorrow.’

  Shifting on the bed, he asked, ‘Didn’t he tell you he’d been arrested?’

  ‘Arrested!’ I cried. ‘Why? When did this happen?’

  ‘I didn’t tell you about it when you were away so as not to worry you.’

  In a daze, I wondered: Is he involved in some dangerous organization? Did they find documents or arms in his possession? Whatever the case, they must not have found enough evidence to condemn him. Otherwise they wouldn’t have released him.

  ‘What did he do?’ I wanted to know.

  ‘A good deal of suspicion hovers around him because of his ties to fundamentalist groups.’

  ‘But,’ I said testily, ‘just because he sympathizes with them doesn’t mean he’s a terrorist! Nasser would never take up arms to kill anybody. I know my brother.’

  His voice stern, my husband interrupted, ‘Your brother talks too much. If it weren’t for his big mouth, he would have saved both me and himself a lot of trouble. He thinks his family name gives him some sort of immunity, and that it entitles him to badmouth the authorities and incite others to do the same. I intervened this time to get him released. But I can’t do that all the time. We’ve got a tense security situation on our hands, and exceptions shouldn’t be made even for the people closest to us. You’d better explain this to him!’

  I hadn’t expected the news of Nasser’s detention to put me in such a muddle, and I had no idea what I was supposed to explain to him.

  In any case, I said nothing as my husband flexed his muscles in front of me, metaphorically speaking, and reminded me how much I owed him. I had no desire to get into any arguments. Nor was I prepared to end the holiday by squabbling with my husband after having started it off with a spat with my brother.

  Suddenly I saw him fall fast asleep. All I could do at that point was to slip into bed beside him, feeling helpless and confused, and try to get some sleep myself.

  I don’t know how my rage died, but only then did I realize that it had died, and that I’d lost that marvellous spark that had so often set my pen ablaze and set me ablaze in confrontation with others.

  When you’ve lost the ability, and even the desire, to get angry, it means either that you’ve got old, or that those inward conflagrations have burned out, one disappointment after another, to the point where you don’t have the passion to argue about anything any more, not e
ven about issues that once seemed so earthshaking, and ideals that you held so dear that you would have been willing to die for them!

  All that mattered to me now was my mother’s homecoming. I didn’t know exactly what had made me so anxious to see her: the fact that I’d missed her, my need for her, or my desire to see Nasser and find out what surprises he had for me.

  Since I was used to my mother going on pilgrimage and coming back again, it didn’t surprise me to see her sitting in the living room in her white pilgrim’s garb and her white head covering. What surprised me was to find her, for once, without the usual entourage of women who came either to see her off or welcome her home.

  I was happy for the chance to be alone with her and get up close to her. I guess I wanted to soak up some of her spiritual blessings before she went back to being an ordinary woman again.

  The minute she saw me she said, ‘You don’t look good. Is something wrong?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Your trip to the capital didn’t do you a bit of good. You’re paler than ever! Maybe the sea doesn’t agree with you.’

  ‘It agrees with me just fine,’ I said. ‘It’s this city that tires me out.’

  Once she’d reassured herself that there hadn’t been any problems while she was gone, she went on to talk about her trip. She talked about the unbearable heat in Mecca, the pilgrims who’d been trampled to death, the collapse of the Algerian dinar, and the rise in gold prices.

  ‘Ma,’ I said after a while, ‘did you pray for me when you were there?’

  ‘Of course, sweetheart,’ she replied, taken aback. ‘I always do!’

  I felt an overwhelming urge to cry, as if I’d just been waiting for her to come back so that I could break down. But I fought it off and went on listening to her talk while I cried on the inside.