The President's Gardens

by Muhsin al-Ramli

  “Meanwhile, poor Isma’il kept asking about Zakiya and looking for her, even after they told him about her marriage. He would go to the places where Zakiya used to play or sit, and he would wait there silently, lost in thought, for long periods. His body began wasting away out of extreme longing for her, and given that no one spoke to him about her, he was forced to repress the pain of her absence as he pretended to forget her. He became less cheerful. The first days of her disappearance were extremely trying for him. Then, little by little, he too accepted her absence in silence.

  “I spent all the time I could with Zakiya. I hardly left her alone except when she was sleeping. The only way to do that and still be seen in the outside world was to reverse day and night in her mind, which was possible since she could no longer tell them apart. So she would sleep during the day and wake up at night. For my part, I trained myself to steal a few hours of sleep at dusk and dawn.

  “I took her out of the cellar two or three times, just to the bedroom, not outside, and only when the mayor was away. It was when I found her in a panic, suffocating and sobbing. At those times, I let her walk around my room. She kept going in circles, taking big steps, relishing that movement as a rare blessing. Or else she would stretch out on the wide bed and roll around to feel its softness, happy like a duck in water.

  “She would tell me about her dreams and her nightmares. She would talk to me about Jalal with pleasure and longing, sharing details about their relationship—things I am embarrassed to recall—and what he would say to her. I sensed something in her. It was as though she loved him without knowing what that feeling was called. She didn’t have any idea about love in the way people understand it. But she certainly felt it, and she expressed it through the stories she told, in her gestures, and in the tears she shed, now distraught and now happy. I, in my turn, would talk to her about Jalal—about his childhood and everything I remembered.

  “In this way, I experienced again the deep longing I felt for Jalal, especially since no one apart from Zakiya would mention him in front of me. Some of the neighbors would ask me about him, and I would claim that the mayor kept in touch with him through messages and letters—he was doing well, was keeping up with his studies, things like that. I would answer in as few words as possible, most of them cryptic and evasive, and then quickly change the subject.

  “I didn’t talk to Zakiya at all about the outside world. Instead, I created a new world through stories, dreams, and dolls. When she asked me about her brother, Isma’il, I told her he was doing well and sent his greetings. I said he was very busy because the flock he tended was getting larger, with his share of sheep and goats increasing—he now had twenty ewes and twelve goats, all of them his own property. ‘And he says that after you give birth, you and your child will be his equal partners in this flock, and you’ll have lots of butter, wool, and milk.’

  “Fortunately, for both her and me, the birth was natural and easy. It happened at night. That is, during the day, as far as she knew it. I took care of everything myself, and when you let out your first cry, still covered in blood, I held you to my breast and wept, while she sank into a remarkably deep, long sleep.

  “The next day, when I put you, all clean, on her breast and taught her how to feed you, she gave an innocent gasp of delight, ‘Ohhh! This is my son! What’s his name?’ I said to her, ‘Give him whatever name you like.’ ‘Jalal!’ she said immediately, then followed that with, ‘No, no, Isma’il. Or Jalal. What do you think?’

  “She saw I wasn’t happy with either name. In truth I didn’t want her to honor the names of the two men who had hurt her—the mayor and his son—even though I knew she was referring to her brother, Isma’il. So she said, ‘What then?’

  “‘No,’ I said. ‘In my opinion, no. Because we have a Jalal, and we have two Isma’ils. The best thing would be for you to think up a new name for him because he is new too. A name all his own, I mean.’

  “She thought for a while, and then shouted, ‘Qamar!’

  “‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘That’s a beautiful name for a beautiful baby. Qamar, the moon—he is your Qamar and mine.’

  “As a child, she had loved staring at the moon, especially on summer nights when we slept outside, on the roof or in the courtyard. She keep gazing at it, sometimes talking to it and singing to it until she fell asleep. In this way, she had named her smallest doll, the one she loved the most, Qamar. She would talk to it, change its clothes, and choose her favorite dolls as its parents and siblings.

  “The mayor wasn’t one to ask about the details of our lives during the pregnancy, but with no questions asked, he did provide us with everything I requested—medicine, clothes, food, and anything unusual she developed a craving for—things like that. When I informed him about the birth, he asked nothing besides the sex of the child. I hastened to tell him it was a boy. He didn’t ask me his name. He kept swallowing painfully, in obvious distress. I know him, and I know the bitterness that passed through his mind, torn between compassion and longing on the one hand, and what he considered to be his inevitable duty on the other.

  “Your birth transformed our life in the cellar into a new world, a living world. A beautiful world, even. It was no longer stifling or boring like before. Indeed, we forgot the boundaries of our narrow walls. We forgot the problem that was the reason for our being there as we began talking to you and caring for you. We never stopped watching over you, staring at every movement you made. Zakiya’s happiness was more complete than mine, for whenever I paused to think, I remembered the reason we were there and what might happen afterward, at any moment. And when I remembered Jalal, my son, who didn’t know anything about his own son—just as I knew nothing about him—a sour, hot wave of sorrow would well up from my heart of hearts and catch in my throat. But it wouldn’t flow out as tears. Instead, I remained lost in a bitter silence until Zakiya shook me out of it by calling my name and pointing out some movement you made.

  “After ten days, the mayor asked me about Zakiya’s health. I informed him that she had recovered completely, and he said, ‘In that case, prepare to put a final end to this disaster.’

  “My heart trembled, my mouth dried up, and I asked in a stammer, ‘What? How? I mean, what have you come up with?’ He replied, ‘Sheikh Zahir and I have decided that she will receive her punishment for what she has done. As for the baby, it will proceed to its destiny since it has committed no sin.’

  “‘But she too has committed no sin! She’s mentally incompetent!’

  “‘The law does not protect the ignorant.’

  “‘What do you mean? What are you going to do?’

  “‘Listen, woman,’ he said in a tone of forceful rebuke. ‘You don’t understand these matters. They rely upon tradition, legal customs and principles, and religious law. It is for us men to decide them and take care of things with a minimum of scandal and damage. As for you, you just need to obey. And don’t you dare, don’t you dare open your month to utter a single word to anyone about this matter, for if you do, I’ll cut out your tongue! Do you hear me?’

  “There was nothing for me to do then but fall on his hand, kissing it, crying and begging him to put off the matter, if only for a few days at least, for the sake of Zakiya and me, and more so for the sake of the child who needed his mother. The mayor was silent for a long time, and I could tell that he had either been moved or was persuaded. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘I’ll consult with Sheikh Zahir.’ Then he went out.

  “When we saw each other the next day, he didn’t refer to the matter at all. Nor did I ask him about it, and when I saw that the days were passing without any sign of action, I told myself that they had put things off or had found some other solution and abandoned what they had agreed upon. I was torn between hope and anxiety.

  “More than once I was tempted to take Zakiya and the child with me and flee during the night. But how? And where? I thought of Kurdistan, from where I had come, but I didn’t actually have any immediate family members there, not e
ven one. My relationships and memories had all but faded away, seeing as I hadn’t ever returned after getting married as a young girl. Things had undoubtedly changed and they had surely forgotten me. My memory preserved only confused and scattered pictures about a hard childhood and brief moments of tenderness with my grandmother before she died. I no longer even knew how to get there. My entire life was here now, and it was as though I had been born in this village. At the same time, I was feeding my own hopes that things would take a different turn somehow, and I was inclined to abandon the idea of flight since it was no sure thing. Sometimes, I dreamed that Jalal had returned suddenly, having found his place in the world, and that after seeing his child, he found a solution—such as agreeing to marry Zakiya, if only as a second wife. That way, I would be with my son, my grandson, and Zakiya, who was also my daughter, for it was I who had caressed her as a baby.

  “After two weeks of silence from the mayor, I was growing more anxious each day. I found myself alone for a moment with Zahir when the mayor went to the toilet during one of their evenings together. I hurried to ask Zahir what they had agreed upon, and he replied, ‘We decided to delay the matter for a month. There’s only two weeks left, so fortify yourself, Umm Jalal, with wisdom and with patience.’

  “I immediately leaped to his side and began kissing his hand and interceding with him. Had I been in my right mind at that moment, I never would have been able to do it. My heart is what made my kisses and my tears leap out. I pleaded with him. I entreated him in the name of his children and his honor that he find a solution that didn’t harm Zakiya or her baby, and if he couldn’t, that he at least persuade the mayor to put things off for a second month after the end of the first. The man was surprised, disturbed, embarrassed, and he pulled back his hand from me in alarm. He was afraid the mayor would suddenly come in and find us like that. So without thinking, he immediately promised to do it. ‘Swear it, in God’s name!’ I said, and he took the oath.

  “They put off the matter until you were exactly two months and ten days old. That’s when the accursed night fell. By that time, Zakiya had learned many of the details of caring for a child, and her heart had opened up to love as far as humanly possible. I’ll never be able to forget her joy when she saw you smile for the first time. I was arranging the clothes in the chest when she cried out to me, ‘Aiii! Come quick! Come quick! Qamar just smiled! My God, I saw him smile!’ These smiles were unintentional, the involuntary kind that every baby makes. But she clapped and wept in the depths of her joy.

  “At first, she would press her entire breast against your face so that she nearly suffocated you. I taught her how to suckle you from the side. Things like that. You were her whole life. She sometimes asked me about Jalal, and I told her what we told everyone, that he went away to study. I embellished my lie, saying, ‘He’ll return when he gets the news we sent him.’

  “Once when I came into her room she said, ‘I want the three most beautiful feathers from the tail of the most beautiful rooster.’ I didn’t ask her why but just brought them to her the next day. Two days later, she showed me a beautiful cap she had made for you by cutting off the corner of one of the cloth bags and embroidering it. She attached threads on either side to tie it under your chin. On the peak, she had attached the three feathers, and over the forehead, she had hung her silver necklace, which she inherited from her mother. You looked stunning wearing that cap, like a royal peacock. When you turned your head, the necklace jangled and the feathers were a bundle of colors floating in the air like a rainbow. Every day, she kept adding a new detail and more beautiful embroidery, as though the cap were a never-ending work of art. It is the most important thing I’ve kept in the box till this day. If you’d like, I’ll give it to you, together with the box. Tonight, as soon as we get back.”

  Zaynab fell silent. She sighed deeply and continued: “Ah, my God! I never thought I would reveal the events of that night to anyone. That night, which has suffused with pain all the nights that followed. I didn’t imagine I would even tell you—but I will. You are now a man and have seen horrible things. This is the first and last time I’ll narrate those scenes, etched in my mind and heart like open wounds.

  “It was perhaps three in the morning when the mayor came to me. He was more tense and brusque than I’d ever seen him. ‘Listen carefully,’ he ordered in a sharp and frightening tone. ‘Put a veil and a blindfold on Zakiya and bring her immediately. Tell her we are taking her to a delightful surprise, and that she must do everything we say. Do you understand?’

  “I realized that the moment I had been dreading had now arrived, and that no word or action on my part could do any good. Even if I could find some way to resist, the mayor, when he was in that state, wouldn’t hesitate to strike me, or even kill me.

  “Somehow, in some indirect way, I started trying to do or say something to distract him. I didn’t know what exactly, whatever I could to keep him talking for as long as possible. So I stammered, ‘And the child? She’ll refuse to go anywhere without him, not even for a single moment. She’s desperately attached to him.’

  “‘Well, fine. Bring him too. Absolutely nothing else.’

  “‘And me,’ I said. ‘I have to go with you too because if she is veiled, the child might fall from her hands, or it might cry, or she might ask for me or need me for something.’

  “The mayor was silent for a moment. Then he said, ‘The important thing now is that you do as you’re told. Bring her to the car quickly and without any commotion, and then we’ll see. Sheikh Zahir and I will be waiting for you. Come, come quickly.’ And he went out.

  “I knew he would seek his friend’s advice on the question of my accompanying them. When we got to the door of the house, the open door of a car was only a step away. The mayor motioned with his hand that we should get in the back seat quickly. I guided Zakiya and sat her in the car. I put the child in her lap and then pointed at my chest to say, ‘Do I get in?’ He gave a sign that I should, so I did. The mayor reached out and closed the door without a sound, giving it a strong push to confirm it was latched. The windows were shut, and Zahir was behind the wheel. The car started moving.

  “The moon was full in the sky above. If only Zakiya could have seen it! She kept silent, just as I had advised her, holding you in her arms and squeezing you to her chest. Her leg was pressed up against mine to be sure I was beside her, just as I’m doing now with you, as though I want to make sure you are there.

  “The village was still. A strange calm had settled on everything, giving the crunch of the car wheels an almost tangible presence. The pebbles and earth grinding together was like fingernails scratching paper. I felt it on my skin and shivered, the hairs on my arm standing on end. Outside the village, the universe was empty, like a hollow chasm. Nothing but the high, climbing moon, with darkness all around it and around us. Little by little, under its light, the scene resembled the dawn as the black outlines of the trees became visible on both sides of the path. But beyond, the blackness stretched out until it gripped the far horizon, and the horizon beyond that.

  “Zahir broke the silence by asking Zakiya how she was. ‘I’m fine, uncle,’ she replied. ‘Repeat after me everything I say,’ Zahir instructed. Then he began reciting prayers, confessions, Qur’anic passages, and religious expressions like the declaration of belief in God, contrition before him, and an affirmation of the inevitability of death, while she repeated everything he said. Then I found he was giving her the words that were dictated to someone at death’s door or who had already died, and an even sharper pain made my breaths come short. My voice choked within me, and I couldn’t speak. It went on like this until I noticed the car was climbing the cemetery hill. It stopped at the top, here beside the sea urchin, which was much smaller at that time than it is now.

  “They got out and told us to do the same. The mayor opened the trunk and took out what I thought at first were two crutches and a box. I later realized that the box was a pillow and the two crutches were a rifle a
nd a shovel. Zahir led us forward a few steps until I saw a long trench, this very one here, next to the grave of the water martyr. ‘Put her in,’ he said.

  “I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t believe what was happening, telling myself it was just a nightmare that would end at any moment. Or that if it were real, then it was a dervish ritual or some magical treatment, for I had often heard stories of insane people being cured in cemeteries. Zahir led Zakiya over and made her step down, directing her in a calming tone, gentle and pious. ‘Turn like so,’ he directed. ‘Stop here.’

  “He made her stand in the middle of the grave, and he took out a piece of white cloth from under his arm. When he unfolded it, it was in the shape of a white bag—a funeral shroud, which he put over her head. She looked like a ghost standing in the center of the grave. Suddenly, he wrapped a rope around her body. The mayor helped him tighten it. Zakiya became frightened when she felt how tight her bonds were. She began to squirm, trying to free herself, but the mayor shouted in her face to stop moving, which she did. She stood there, panting and sobbing, and Zahir said to her, ‘Be brave, my daughter. We’re doing this for your own sake, for the sake of your soul. It will only take a few moments, and then it will all be over, and you’ll find yourself in a more peaceful world.’