The President's Gardens

by Muhsin al-Ramli

  The lab did an ESR examination of her blood, coming back with a very high number of 120, which meant she had blood poisoning. The hospital took samples from the lymph nodes under her armpit and in her neck. When the lab performed an analysis, they discovered that she had cancer of the lymph nodes as well. And thus began the odyssey of her treatment. Every twenty-one days, Ibrahim would make her swallow a dose of chemicals with her food. During the examination that took place ten days after every dose, they would make another analysis of her blood. They observed that the ESR numbers measuring the contamination in her blood had dropped to between 60 and 70, and the doctor informed them that the chances of a successful treatment with a full cure were as high as 40 percent. Fearing death, Umm Qisma cried every night. “We’d continue the treatment even if the chances of recovery were one in a hundred,” Ibrahim told her.

  Umm Qisma was overcome by a wave of vomiting and diarrhea after every dose she took. The doctors ordered her to stop working and continue her treatment—despite the exorbitant costs, which required Ibrahim to work even harder in the fields. He also took care of some of the domestic duties of the household, with occasional help from Qisma. Ibrahim’s sisters, who were married and lived apart from them, took turns visiting to help with the chores and cheer up Umm Qisma.

  Life went on. Ibrahim adapted and got used to it just as he always did, with endurance, patience, and self-denial. Their hardship became a routine, a way of life that continued for years without any change—until it was interrupted by the return of Abdullah Kafka.

  CHAPTER 8

  Kafka’s Return from Captivity

  No one in the village would ever forget that scene. Everyone present laughed and cried for five minutes when Abdullah Kafka arrived and embraced Ibrahim the Fated and Tariq the Befuddled. Their three heads came together in the middle of the crowd as though they were whispering to one another, their arms circling around each other’s shoulders. Their hands alternated between patting and pulling the embrace tighter. The shoulders of this triad shook, one moment in laughter and the next in tears, and if one of the three lifted his head a little, it was only to kiss the others. All of the women present, and some of the men, wept to see it. They waited for this moving embrace to disentangle so they could take a turn at greeting the one who had returned from captivity after nearly twenty years.

  “Here they are,” someone observed. “The sons of the earth crack together again.”

  “The sons of the earth crack have come back to their own mothering earth,” said another.

  After the long embrace with his two friends dissolved, Abdullah was told that Zaynab, blind and walking with a cane, was on her way to see him, guided by one of her grandsons. Abdullah set off immediately, leaving everyone behind. A group led him down the path toward her, and there, in the middle of a narrow alley, they cried again to see Zaynab embrace Abdullah, the two of them weeping together.

  Zaynab inhaled deeply at his neck and chest, and her trembling fingers explored his entire body. She threw down her cane and held Abdullah’s face in her hands, crying out, “My son! My baby, my son! Oh, my sweet child, not a waking moment passed that I didn’t think of you and weep. I lost my sight since it did me no good in your absence.” Her fingers touched his beard. “Is it white?” she asked.

  Smiling, he supported her with one arm, pulling her head close with the other hand to kiss her brow. “Half and half,” Abdullah said. “White and black.”

  That evening, a great party was held in the courtyard of Abdullah’s house, bigger than any wedding and bigger than the party Salih and Maryam hosted when they found Abdullah as an infant. Two calves were slaughtered, donated by Ibrahim and Zaynab, along with a fat ram contributed by Tariq. All the women of the village took part in the cooking, and everyone was invited. Dozens of rugs and carpets were laid out in the courtyard. Abdullah sat in the middle with the two blind women, the oldest members of the community, either side of him. Umm Ibrahim and Hajja Zaynab didn’t stop touching and kissing him from one moment to the next. He reflected on the fact that sitting between two blind people was like sitting between the two darknesses of birth and death: Abdullah had become accustomed to finding symbols in everything.

  After everyone had finished eating and drinking tea, and the dishes and glasses had been cleared away, there was an outburst of clapping, trilling, and laughter.

  “What’s happening?” Zaynab asked Abdullah.

  Forcing himself to smile and clap along while he lit another cigarette from the one gripped between his teeth, Abdullah said, “It’s poor Isma’il, that good herdsman. He’s dancing in the middle with his staff as though he were mad, making everyone laugh at him.”

  As her eyes welled over with tears, Zaynab said, “Oh, dear God Almighty! Blood truly knows its own. The heart knows its own and yearns for it.”

  “I don’t understand, Aunt Zaynab.”

  She wrapped her arm around his neck and drew him so close her lips touched his ear. “I’m not your aunt. Isma’il is your real uncle. And me, I’m your grandmother.”

  Zaynab sensed Abdullah’s confusion and drew him close once more to add, “Don’t think I’ve gone senile in my old age. The only thing that has kept me alive this long, when everyone else from my generation has died, is that I was waiting to tell you the truth and find some peace. Listen, my son, come and find me as soon as you can, tomorrow or the day after, so I can tell you everything. Everything.”

  From Abdullah’s silence, Zaynab realized the shock her words had provoked. Perhaps they were rash, but she knew she could no longer endure in silence. She quickly changed the subject: “I tried every which way to find a wife for poor Isma’il, but no one would marry their daughters or sisters to him. They said he was dull-witted and could scarcely look after himself. In truth, he never thought about the matter himself. It never crossed his mind, and I don’t think he knew what marriage was until . . .”

  She fell silent for a moment and then said, “It’s you who must get married now. Sameeha is divorced, if you still love her. Otherwise, choose whomever you want.”

  “No, I don’t want to get married. I’m past all that, and it too has left me behind. I just want to rest. Only rest.”

  “Listen, my son. You are exhausted now, and you have tonight’s festivities ahead of you. I’m exhausted too and have to go home. Don’t forget to visit me as soon as you can. You absolutely must. I’ll tell you the truth—your truth—known only to me and the Lord of the Universe.”

  “Yes. Yes, I’ll be sure to.”

  “You know, I’ve just realized something. No one dies without wanting to or submitting to it deep down. You have to start accepting the idea of death, expecting it and waiting for it. I’m the proof of that. I decided not to die until I’d seen you again. And now you see that I am the last one alive of my generation.” She caught herself and added, “Ah, and this other old blind woman, good Umm Ibrahim, who comes next in age.”

  “The opposite is also true. Sometimes making the decision to die is a victory over the anxiety of waiting for it.” She didn’t hear him, and he went on, “For my part, I’ve realized that when you’re content with the meaninglessness of all things and the equality of all things, the equality of being alive or dead—that’s when the oppression and torments of life lose their power. Understanding that leads to freedom, and even if this freedom comes from the absence of life, it’s all the same to you.”

  “From your words, it’s as though I can see your face and your eyes. I see that you are speaking from fatigue and age.” And to make a joke as she struggled to get up, she said, “Look! I’m more spry than you!”

  He got up too, helping Zaynab to her feet and passing her the cane. They embraced, and suddenly, from between the legs of those crowded around, the young grandson stepped forward to lead her away.

  The noisy celebrations continued past four in the morning. They trilled and performed the dabka and other dances to the rhythm of drums, traditional flutes, tea, and laughter. On
e by one, they came up to Abdullah to shake his hand, exchange greetings, and congratulate him on his safe return. Some of them tried, more than once, to get him to join the dabka. They took him by the arm and pulled him into the circle. His protestations and reluctance were in vain, and he was forced to join in out of politeness. He would take a few steps and say, “As you can see, I don’t know how. But then, I’m a bit tired.”

  So he went back to sitting and smoking. He felt entirely estranged from this world and these people. He knew some of the faces, which he found had aged greatly, but most of them were unfamiliar. There were some he had last seen as children who were now adults, and dozens of children who had been born during his absence. He failed in most of his attempts to identify them, frequently mistaking sons for their fathers. He would say, “Isn’t this so-and-so?” And they would tell him, “You don’t know him? This is so-and-so’s son. Don’t you remember?”

  He appreciated these noisy celebrations on his behalf. He appreciated their goodness and generosity. But in truth, he didn’t want any of it, and nothing at all meant anything to him. He longed to be alone in some corner, or in some land free of people, all by himself. He was accustomed to silence and isolation and dead time, for even though his entire existence was contained within himself, time had no place there. There was no meaning to the movement of things. Things themselves held no meaning, nor did whatever produced the movement of time. He grudgingly endured this noisy goodness of theirs. He understood it. He had no choice, given that they, for their part, would never understand him—which is why he had to practice understanding them. Even if now and forever after, he would resolutely preserve for himself the privilege of returning to the private freedom of his depression.

  When they asked him to describe the years of his captivity in Iran, he made very clear his reluctance to do so and would only say, “To put it briefly, it was worse than the most horrible nightmare. The best thing to do is forget it and move on, don’t you agree?”

  And of course, the questioner, who was essentially kind and courteous, would confirm Abdullah’s words: “Yes. Yes, of course! It is better to forget. Forgetting is a great blessing from God. Consider it past and done. Begin a new life! The important thing is that it’s over, and that you’ve returned safe and sound, praise God!”

  That phrase, “praise God,” was repeated many times over. He had heard it so often during his years of captivity that its meaning was entirely lost to him.

  When the gathering began to disperse, everyone carried home what they had brought: rugs, carpets, pillows, dishes, spoons, glasses, and so on. Ibrahim and Tariq offered to spend the night with Abdullah, if he wished, but he thanked them and said, “You have done so much. You are both tired, and so am I. Go and get some rest. We have the coming days ahead of us. I’ll be going to sleep too.”

  But he wasn’t able to sleep, for as soon as he closed the door of the house behind him, he began looking around. He couldn’t find a single thing that had been moved from its place. It was just as he had left it, though things had become worn and faded: the curtains, the bedding, the pillows, and even the wood of the cabinets, doors, and shutters. Zaynab’s care, and after her Ibrahim’s and the tenants’, was evident: they had left everything clean and tidy, just as it had been.

  Abdullah found his body reinhabiting the landscape of memories he had ruminated upon through many long years of captivity. Here he had played when he was young. Here he hid. Here he slept on the lap of his mother, Maryam, as she stroked his hair in front of the warm stove. Here he played chess with his father, Salih. Here, here, and here . . .

  Abdullah put out the light and lay down on the bed without getting undressed. He lit a cigarette in the dark and listened to the empty silence inside himself. He smoked one cigarette after another, lighting each from the last and delighting in the abundance of cigarettes and the freedom to smoke so many, when for so long during the years of his captivity, it had been a struggle—marked by insults, humiliation, and robbery—to get just one. He wanted to fill the room with smoke, to transform it into one big cloud, or into a huge cigarette with him in the middle, such that normal breathing would become a kind of smoking.

  The silence outside. The smoke within. The emptiness in his mind. Nothing at all. Despite everything, Abdullah didn’t close his eyes but continued staring into the darkness. He kept staring until the darkness was cut by a line of dawn that crept between the two wooden panels of the shutters. He contemplated the waves of visible smoke along the slowly growing thread of light, the kind of light he remembered from so many sunrises under so many skies.

  It went on like this until he heard the sound of irregular footfalls in the courtyard outside. He got up and put an eye to the gap in the shutters. He looked outside and saw Ibrahim putting trash left behind from the night’s festivities into a bag he carried: cigarette butts, empty cans, bones, scraps of bread, napkins. Abdullah noticed that Ibrahim limped as he walked. One of his feet made a solid thud when it hit the ground while the other made no sound. Abdullah continued watching Ibrahim for a moment, comparing him to the image so often and longingly recalled during his captivity. Abdullah found him to be older, more tired, and his back had started hunching somewhat at the top. But in his face, Abdullah saw the same gentleness and kindness. It was as though his spirit were formed from a material that didn’t change with time. Abdullah felt a greater love for him, and the affection churning in his breast struck him so hard he nearly burst into tears. He took a deep breath to ease the pain in his heart and headed to the door to go out into the courtyard.

  “What are you doing, Ibrahim? Leave it, man!”

  “I’m so happy you’re back that I couldn’t sleep. So I came to be near you and started cleaning up to give myself something to do.”

  Abdullah took the bag and the broom out of his hands. He set them aside and led Ibrahim away. “Leave this for now, brother. I couldn’t sleep either. Come on, let’s make some tea.”

  Before they went inside, Abdullah asked, “Why are you limping?”

  “I lost my foot in the last war. This is an artificial foot.”

  “Ah, no!”

  “I’m fine. Thousands of others lost their lives.”

  As soon as they entered, the wave of smoke struck Ibrahim. “What’s going on? Is something burning?”

  Abdullah laughed. “No! No, this is the smoke from my cigarettes. I was taking revenge—or else compensating—for a smoking drought that lasted many years.”

  “No! Abdullah, you have to quit! It’s bad for your health. It’s deadly! It can cause throat cancer and lead to a painful death.”

  “I know, and I don’t care. Dying hasn’t frightened me for a long time. As far as I’m concerned, life and death are all the same.”

  “Fine. You make the tea, and I’ll keep cleaning. Then bring it to the courtyard and we’ll drink outside.”

  The kitchen was full of food from the night before. Abdullah took a piece of cheese, some butter, and two pitas, which he arranged on a large tray along with the pot of tea and two glasses. Then he brought a small rug from the living room and went out to join Ibrahim. They sat close to the earth crack, its mouth still gaping. It hadn’t changed at all except that its rough edges had become smooth.

  Ibrahim told his friend everything that had happened to him in his absence. He told him about the years of the Iraq-Iran War, about the war in Kuwait, about Ahmad al-Najafi, his new foot, his wife’s illness, the death of his brother Wadih, the death of his father. He went on to describe at length the suffering brought about by his father’s illness, emphasizing the coughing, the bloody spit, and the difficulty in swallowing and breathing. After every other sentence, he insisted again that Abdullah quit smoking.

  Once more Abdullah asked him to drop the subject—smoking was his only pastime and pleasure. He said he understood Ibrahim’s father, and if the same thing happened to him as had happened to Suhayl, he would adopt the very same stance, preferring to die in the company of cigaret
tes rather than preserve a life of illness and medicine at the cost of quitting. In an attempt to stem Ibrahim’s exhortations, Abdullah concluded, “On top of that, look at your wife. The poor woman doesn’t smoke, and cancer has struck her too.”

  “But that’s a different kind,” Ibrahim said. He fell silent.

  Abdullah tried to soften the impact of what he had said, resorting to his friend’s habitual style of persuading others: “Don’t you see, smoking had nothing to do with it. Everyone has his lot in life. Everything is fate and decree.”

  “Yes,” Ibrahim echoed. “Everything is fate and decree.”

  Then Ibrahim took a small cloth bag, stuffed full, out of his pocket. He opened it and carefully removed a stack of papers covered with schedules, numbers, and notes written in what Abdullah recognized as Ibrahim’s awful handwriting. When Ibrahim opened the bag to pull out a second stack of stamped receipts, Abdullah noticed the bag was also full of money. Ibrahim pushed it over to Abdullah, saying, “Speaking of our lot in life, this is yours. In these papers you’ll find everything recorded from the time I started working your land after your letter arrived. These are the receipts for buying the seed and the fertilizer and for selling the crops. Here are the receipts for renting out the house. And these—”

  Abdullah interrupted him as he took the stacks of papers and receipts from his hand. “Enough, Ibrahim! You don’t have to give me the details. There’s no need to document anything at all. You’re my brother, and I’m indebted to you beyond what I’m able to express.”