He would tell her. He wished she were talking to him now. He would share it with her and no one else. That is, if he decided to share what burned inside him with anyone. What would he say? What would she think of him when she knew he was illegitimate? What would her attitude be toward her father when she learned that he was the one who had killed Abdullah’s mother? Would she be ashamed? Angry? Would she apologize? Would she try to understand her father and make excuses for him? Or would she begin to hate her father, and would this hatred strengthen the love she and Abdullah felt for each other? But Abdullah didn’t hate. He despised hatred and found no meaning in it. Hatred was just another burden on the soul. He wanted peace, nothing more. Just peace.
Abdullah saw the first light of dawn stealing through the cracks in the shutters. He wiped his face with his hands and resolved to get rid of the military chest. He would take it, still locked just as it was, pour some oil on it, light it, and throw it, still burning, into the earth crack, along with everything inside. But he suddenly found himself changing his mind. He opened the lock, and as soon as he raised the lid, an ancient and dusty smell struck his nostrils. He reached inside: old baby clothes, dolls made from reeds, a silver necklace, handkerchiefs, and the cap with its three feathers and embroidery. He examined it with trembling hands, following every thread with his finger, and put it on his head. He felt as though the absent hand of his mother were touching him. He took it off and smelled it; he kissed it. He swept up everything from the chest into his hands and brought them to his face. There was an obscure smell, a mix of old clothes, dust, wood. And something human. He imagined what it was: a suckling baby, the milk it nursed on, a breast, a neck, fingers. The smell of a mother. The smell of his mother. Zakiya.
A need for tenderness flooded Abdullah’s soul: the need for a woman, for his mother; for a kind and compassionate human touch, for a hand and fingers, for the feel of living human skin, for a breast, rising and falling with each breath; for a person, for his mother; for crying, for weeping. Abdullah burst into tears and fell to the floor, sprawled out on the carpet. He buried his face in the pile of old baby clothes and handkerchiefs that carried his smell. He cried like a baby until he could cry no more. Utterly exhausted and lying there, he fell into a deep sleep that lasted two whole days.
CHAPTER 15
A Night of Tea over the Embers
Someone knocked on the door. Abdullah raised his head. It was dark outside, but inside the house the lights were on. More knocks on the door. Tariq’s voice was calling his name. He got up and shouted, “Yes, yes, just a minute!” He hastened to carry the scraps of his childhood, which he had been lying on like a pillow, to the bedroom, and threw them on the bed. Tariq was still knocking and calling. Abdullah came back and opened the door to find Tariq, with Ibrahim in tow, and he beckoned them both inside.
“What’s wrong with you, man? Sleeping? Only the chickens sleep at this hour! Are you actually a chicken?”
“Yes, I was sleeping. Please, have a seat. I’ll wash my face and be right out.”
Abdullah felt a deep sense of ease, an ease of a particular quality. He washed his entire head, dried off, and combed his hair and his beard in the mirror. He noticed that smiles came easier to his face; his eyes were wider and clearer. He went out to the other two and asked, “What time is it?”
“What time is it! It’s nine in the evening, my friend. Are you all right?”
“Yes. It seems I’ve slept for a long time. I’m a little hungry. Will you eat anything? Can I make you some tea?”
“Eat whatever you like, and afterward make us the tea. We ate at the funeral tent.”
“The funeral tent? Who died?”
Ibrahim turned to Tariq and said, “Didn’t I tell you he didn’t know? Otherwise he would have attended the burial for sure.”
Tariq addressed his words to Abdullah: “I’m so sorry for your loss. Hajja Zaynab passed away yesterday evening.”
“What?! I was with her for all of yesterday evening.”
“No, my friend. You were with her the day before yesterday. That’s what Abu Muhammad told us. He said she sent him with a chest for you. Is this the chest here?”
“Yes.” It was only then that Abdullah realized he had slept for two days.
The chest was still open in the middle of the room. Ibrahim lifted the cover and swung it into place. Surprised, he inspected the box from every angle.
“It’s a military chest! A crate for mortar shells. How—what is it doing here? How did it get here?”
Tariq asked, “What was in it?”
“Nothing important. Some things from my childhood. She had been storing them at her house. She said she took them for safekeeping during my absence, when she came to clean.”
Meanwhile, Ibrahim kept examining the box, feeling it over on every side as though it were a great discovery. “My God! But how?”
Abdullah brought the teapot and his empty, sticky cup to the kitchen. Meanwhile, Tariq told Ibrahim how the mayor traded weapons, and how his father had been the mayor’s business partner. They still had military chests and such things in their house too.
From inside the kitchen, where he made himself tea and nibbled at the piece of bread in his hand, Abdullah continued speaking with them through the open door. “The poor woman. She didn’t complain of anything. How did she die?”
“She died as all God’s creatures do. They say she went to bed in the usual way, and when she was late to appear in the morning, they tried to wake her but couldn’t. What were you two doing in the cemetery?”
“Nothing. It was just a visit. She said she hadn’t gone there for a long time. Neither had I, so we went together to spend time with the departed.”
“Glory be to God! It’s as though she knew her time was coming and went there to say goodbye. We buried her on the hill that will be the new cemetery from now on, just as she wanted.”
Ibrahim followed Tariq’s words by saying, “It’s often said that people can sense the approach of their death, and some even receive something like a message in their sleep, a foretelling. Especially the pure of heart, and she was a good woman. May she rest in peace.”
“She loved you very much, Abdullah. As though you were one of her own children. Ah, if you only knew how she cried during your absence and how often she asked about you!”
“Yes, I know.”
“She was good to everyone. As though she were a true native of the village. On top of that, she was the only woman who could put up with the mayor. Without her, the mayor might have been an entirely different beast, perhaps even the sort who eats human flesh and throws the bones to the dogs.”
When Abdullah returned from the kitchen, he found Ibrahim still squatting beside the chest, examining it, feeling it over, getting so close he might have been smelling it. He asked Abdullah, “What will you do with it?”
“I don’t know. Get rid of it. Smash it or burn it. I don’t want any military things in my house.”
“Yes, let’s burn it and make tea. The embers of this wood are amazing, the very best for cooking and making tea. We used to do that during our army days.”
This idea appealed to them all. They took the box out to the courtyard, smashed it, and gathered the wood into a shallow hole. They sprinkled some kerosene from one of the lanterns over the wood and set it on fire. Then they placed three medium-sized stones within the fire to form a tripod for the teapot. They brought out two small rugs to sit upon around the fire. In that atmosphere, surrounded by the still night with the glowing embers and the flames dancing between them, a kind of joy stole into their spirits.
Their conversation, guided by a sense of affection and human connection, as well as a feeling of security, touched on other people, themselves, their memories, and whatever topic their words led them to. Using tongs, Abdullah lifted embers from the fire to light his cigarettes. Ibrahim recalled the few good moments he had known during the war: soldiers from different villages and cities, exhausted and far from the
ir families, coming together to make tea and drink it slowly as they talked about the girls they loved, sometimes singing, dancing, and laughing together. That had been a rare and special pleasure.
They came back to Hajja Zaynab more than once, and from her they passed on to the mayor, and spoke of the intimate and special friendship between the mayor and Zahir. Tariq said to Ibrahim, “My father was also good friends with yours. They took part in the Palestine War together.”
“Yes, but they weren’t as close as Zahir was with the mayor.”
“As for your father, Abdullah, he was . . . he was not as close to them. A good man, a peaceful man. He spent his life going between his field, his house, and the mosque.”
For an instant, it occurred to Abdullah to tell them the truth he had learned. But he abandoned the idea. He thought it better to hide the matter and forget about it—perhaps forever. Having slept soundly for all that time, he felt a sense of tranquility, a pleasant lightness. He didn’t want to trouble his soul by going over that dark and painful history again.
Abdullah seemed less depressed and more cheerful. He even laughed out loud a few times, which made Tariq think to himself that this might be the moment to propose the idea that kept running through his head, namely, that Abdullah marry his sister Sameeha. Sameeha—together with her daughter—still lived with Tariq at home, silent and withdrawn, refusing all offers of marriage. She always seemed to be alone, no matter how many people bustled about her. Abdullah too, for his part, lived alone. Like her, he seemed silent, depressed, lonely. So why not let them be depressed together? It would be perfect if they came together, got married, and kept each other company—together with Sameeha’s daughter—for the rest of their allotted time. That way, Tariq would also be freeing up another room in his house, which he could offer to one of his ever-expanding brood. Or he could make some money by renting it out as storage space. And he’d free himself of the expenses associated with Sameeha and her daughter.
But the most important consideration was his wish to atone for something buried in his soul that had pained his conscience since youth: his secret role in persuading his father to refuse Abdullah’s marriage to his sister. Tariq was a grown man now. He had matured and changed, and his understanding of things was different. As a result, every time he thought about it, he felt guilt—shame, even, and a sense of his own stupidity, to recall his hidden motive for doing it, which he would never, ever be able to share with anyone. It was too embarrassing to think about even on his own! How could he admit that his refusal was down to seeing Abdullah’s massive, dark cock when they were adolescents and jerked off in front of each other to see who could come the fastest, in those days when they used to talk about sex, the village girls—their breasts, legs, asses, pussies—and what it might be like to marry each of them. It was intolerable even to imagine Abdullah doing with his sister all those things they talked about. That big dick going in and out of his sister’s . . . How could he tell anyone what had been in his head at that time? He justified it by telling himself that he had been young, just an adolescent, while now he was a different man.
Among the twisting threads of the conversation, Tariq tried twice—with Ibrahim’s support—to draw Abdullah onto the subject of marriage. But Abdullah quickly deflected the topic with vague comments that suggested a complete lack of desire, or else he would simply not respond and leave the issue hanging there. They read in his reaction more of a refusal than an acceptance, and given the way Abdullah changed the subject to ask about their own families, they concluded that the idea didn’t interest him much, that he didn’t want to talk or even think about it.
Tariq expressed his constant desire to marry again, even though he had no problems with his first wife. Something inside him from an early age made him feel the need to have more than one. Whenever he considered this urge, he remembered his father, who had married three times.
Ibrahim then shared the mounting troubles brought by his wife’s illness and the costs of her treatment, which were beginning to weigh him down. She could no longer help work the fields. Upon hearing that, Tariq mentioned that he would help him look for some source of income outside agriculture. He suggested there were jobs in the city suitable for Ibrahim’s handicap, which would allow him to avoid the costs of traveling there for the chemotherapy every twenty days. Tariq told him about a friend in Mosul whose brother was in the inner circle of the President of the Republic. This brother had helped many people find work, good stable jobs, both civilian and military. Tariq urged Ibrahim to bring him all his documents—his medical reports and so on—from the various hospitals, as well as all the papers that confirmed his participation in the two wars, the medal of valor he received, and documentation of losing a foot in the last war, along with a petition explaining his position as the breadwinner for a large family and the medical reports about his wife’s condition. Tariq would give these to his friend, who would then pass them to his brother. Perhaps he would provide a charitable disbursement from the government or else arrange a suitable job for Ibrahim, which would be even more profitable.
“Just give me all these documents, reports, and papers,” Tariq said in conclusion. “I’ll write the petition in my style. Hey, you know how eloquent I can be, don’t you? Then I’ll keep working on my friend until he brings your case to his brother. Well, what do you think?”
Ibrahim’s eyes were wide open with great interest, as though he were listening through them. He turned to Abdullah, trying to read his expression and get his thoughts on Tariq’s proposal. When he saw that Abdullah, for his part, remained silent and just kept smoking his cigarettes without giving anything away through his expression, Ibrahim asked him directly.
“And you, Abdullah? What do you think?”
As always, Abdullah hesitated a little before responding. He seemed either to be thinking it through or seeking the right way to frame his words. “I don’t know,” he replied in the end. “But personally, I always prefer to stay as far as possible from the head of the snake.”
Tariq went on enthusiastically supporting his suggestion, telling stories he had heard about people who had obtained work in the palace guard, or tilling the President’s fields, tending the gardens, shepherding the flocks, working in the kitchens or in construction, or as decorators, drivers, and so on. Tariq appeared to be absolutely delighted with his idea, and he kept trying to persuade them until he was persuaded himself. He finished by saying, “Let’s get it all ready tomorrow. I’m taking a trip to Mosul the day after that. A good deed quickly done is doubly good.”
That beautiful evening, as they conversed, reminisced, joked, laughed, and shared deeply around a teapot reheated many times over a bed of glowing embers kindled from the military chest, was the last time the three sons of the earth crack would gather together in this intimate way. Just as they had hoped, those embers made a truly special tea, and its flavor would remain in their memories for a long time.
CHAPTER 16
The First of the Gardens
Less than a week went by before Tariq the Befuddled returned, truly flabbergasted. In a hurry, he drove his car into the courtyard of Ibrahim’s house, never laying off the noisy—though occasionally melodic—car horn. Qisma hurried out to meet him as he got out, waving a paper in his hand and calling, “Is your father home?”
The question was barely out of his mouth before Ibrahim appeared in the door. Tariq rushed over and wrapped his arms around Ibrahim’s waist, lifting him off the ground in his delight and twirling him in a circle as though he were a child or a doll. It was what they used to do as children when celebrating some victory. “Congratulations,” Tariq kept saying. “Congratulations!”
He set Ibrahim back down and announced to those eagerly awaiting his news, “They’ve accepted you for the job in Baghdad! Next week, you’ll be in the Palace of the Republic, you hero! This is it! All your problems are solved! Your entire life will change!”
Indeed, Ibrahim’s life was utterly changed from tha
t day. As for his problems—there is no such thing as a life completely free of those.
Tariq helped his friend with the move to Baghdad. He rented a modest house for Ibrahim with two bedrooms, a sitting room, a kitchen, and a small yard. The unusual thing for them was that the bathroom was inside the house, not outside, the way it is done in villages to banish bodily smells and the embarrassment of hearing people fart.
Qisma, who had become a beautiful young woman, was the most excited about the move to the city. It was something she had long been dreaming about. Once they arrived, she enrolled in the Teachers’ Institute to continue her education. She had her own room in the house: she hung pictures of her favorite celebrities on the wall, she listened to the music she wanted, and she dreamed of freedom as she lay on the bed half-naked, something she could never do in the village amid a large family that didn’t allow space for any individuality, demanding everyone’s participation in a collective unit that shared all things and resembled each other in every way, as dictated by the established traditions of the unbending social structure.
Tariq departed a full three days later, having arranged everything for them—the rent, the shopping, Qisma’s enrollment in the institute, and a doctor for Umm Qisma’s checkups and ongoing treatment. He gave them the phone numbers of his acquaintances in Baghdad in case they needed anything, and now that they had a telephone, he promised he’d get in touch every time he went to Mosul or another city to make sure they were okay. They all thanked him deeply and sincerely. Qisma clung to him the hardest, expressing her gratitude with a hug and a kiss for this miracle she had longed for but never imagined would be realized so quickly or in this way.
The night before his appointment in the Palace of the Republic, Ibrahim was too anxious and excited to sleep. All through the night he kept reviewing the papers he would bring with him, checking again every ten minutes to make sure nothing was missing. On top of the stack, he put the most important one, the one on presidential stationery that stated he had been accepted for a job and detailed the time and place of his appointment. He kept staring at the eagle at the top—the seal of the Republic—in terror.
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