by Mona Yahia
It has taken me a moment to recognise her. Laila has powdered her face, made up her eyes with brown kuhul and rouged her lips in some radish pink. What is she doing at Selma’s party anyway? The two quarrel over every trifle and waste no opportunity to annoy each other. Last week, they had a row about who deserved to be class monitor. They must have told the teacher so many mean things about each other that she ended up punishing them both. They were assigned to write: “He who digs a pit for his brother will eventually fall into it” one hundred times.
Selma and I squeeze our way between the other children and make ourselves a place in front of Laila, who is collecting the cards from the table. She dryly acknowledges us while shuffling the cards, and starts dealing. Cards are laid face down, one for each player and one for the bank. Laila arranges them in two rows of five in the middle of the table, and puts two directly in front of us. Ignoring her hint, Selma stretches out her hand and places 10 fils on a card in the middle. I do the same. After each player has selected a card, Laila draws the remaining one towards her. She turns it up, and grins. The ten of clubs. The players groan and grumble. If your card ranks less than a ten, you must pay the bank double your bet. Most of the bankers allow the players to take care of their own cards. Not Laila. She would not have anybody touch anything, as if she owned the place. My two shining coins disappear in her mountain of a bank. Selma’s card is turned up last. The ace of clubs, the only ace in the round, spoils Laila’s fun.
The ace is worth three times the bet placed on it. Laila pitches three coins to Selma, as if she is doing her a favour.
—How come you invited her? I whisper in Selma’s ear.
—Mama said I had to. Just because she plays regularly with Laila’s mother at the same poker table …
Laila shuffles the cards, longer than last time. Again she lays out twelve cards, ten in the middle, and two under our noses. Again we ignore her hint. Selma selects the card closest to Laila, and draws it all the way across the table towards her. Laila glares at Selma in a way that makes me understand how gangsters in films overturn tables and shoot one another because of a card game. Laila turns up her card. The players cheer her seven of diamonds. One by one, she pays out the bets placed on cards higher than seven, and takes in the ones on cards ranking less. I get a dull 10 fils coin for my jack of clubs. Selma’s card is picked up last. Ace again! The ace of spades.
Selma receives another 30 fils. I wonder how much of her delight derives from piquing Laila, and how much from winning for its own sake. Laila puts on a poker face and shuffles the cards. But her hands shake as she flicks the knife-edged corners together. The pack is cut at last. Laila lays three rows of four cards in the middle. Selma places 10 fils on a random card. Laila turns up her card and clears her throat as she displays the ace of clubs. This time, she darts to Selma’s first.
The ace of diamonds catches Laila off guard. A player whistles in wonder.
—Hey Selma, you’re getting nothing but aces today, says another.
Laila blushes, her face as red as the diamond. What is the probability of getting an ace three successive times? I try to calculate while Laila and Selma stare for a long moment at each other. Their fists are resting on the table. Everyone has stopped talking, the way we did four years ago, when Laila, a golden crown on her head, was about to blow out her eight candles, and Selma sang Happy Birthday Dear Laila the Wolf.
I do not know what would have happened this time had Selma’s mother not called her at that very moment and asked her to fetch glasses from the kitchen.
—No luck today? Dudi says, putting his arm around my neck. Come, let me show you something.
I push his arm away, startled by his sudden presence at my side. Since when has he been looking over my shoulder? I let him drag me to the buffet to witness the unlimited capacities of his nose. As asked, I blindfold him with a table napkin. His hands behind his back, he stoops towards the buffet, while I seize the collar of his jumper to guide his nose between the dishes, keeping a hair’s breadth between the food and his nostrils.
—Cumin! I’m smelling cumin, and it’s wafting from cooked chickpeas … so that must be fried sambousak, right? You see! The next’s no problem either, it’s cheese sambousak. The smell of its baked dough with the smack of aniseed and caraway is filling the house. Tell me one thing, Selma’s parents aren’t that observant, are they? All right, there can be no doubt then that the allspice is coming from rice balls, yellow rice balls to be precise – stuffed with meat. Yes, I know that turmeric has no smell, but rice balls are yellow by definition, aren’t they? I’ve missed out the kubba! That’s a shame. I’ll try and sniff again. No, it’s of no use, let’s go on. Now what do we have here? Amba, mango pickles, and lemon pickles, and Persian garlic, and to top it all, mechallelah, red turnip pickles in brine. When it comes to mechallelah, believe me, I can even smell red. No, I’m serious, I sometimes do smell colour, I can prove it. What, I’ve passed over the burek rolls? Stop! This tartness is definitely tamarind, but damn it, what else is there? Yeees, a fragrance of cinnamon, and true, a tang of lemon juice too. No, don’t tell me, it’s on the tip of my tongue … it’s dolma, stuffed vine leaves, right? God, my nose is getting sharper every day. Nonsense, Lina, your hints have been minimal. Oh, now we’ve landed in another world, this is the smell of paradise after rain. All right, I’ll be more concrete, it’s rose water, but you have to tell me the rest. Zingula spirals? Goodness, my mouth is watering. You know I can’t resist sweets. Now that we’re by the pastry let me make one last guess. My nose must be right above malfouf, puff pastry fingers stuffed with ground almonds, right?
—Wrong! Selma says, and pushes Dudi’s head down.
His nose sinks into the man-al-samah dish, soft nougat cakes lying in flour. Selma and I laugh until we cry as he sneezes inside the dish, and flour spreads out all over the table. Dudi takes off the blindfold, sneezes again and runs to the bathroom, cursing us and sweeping the white dust off his face.
Selma and I pile our plates with a bit of everything.
—The buffet’s superb, Selma. Delicious.
—You should tell Mama. She’s been working on the savouries for the last three days.
Steam flows out of her mouth as she bites her kubba.
—Mama says that as a hostess I have to entertain all my guests, but I just can’t wait to return to the dossa table. It wouldn’t be proper to stand up the ace of hearts, would it?
—Selma, you won’t get it even if you played till tomorrow morning.
I repeat what I have retained from father’s introduction to the laws of probability. Selma agrees that the chances of getting an ace, any ace, from a deck of 52 cards is 52 divided by 4, and that is 1 in 13. It takes her some chewing and finger licking before she accepts the ensuing statement that the chances of getting an ace, any ace, in two successive rounds is 1:13 × 13, and in three successive rounds is 1:13 × 13 × 13, and that must be less than 1 in a thousand!
But hers were not just aces, Selma has drawn a different ace each round, which is a far less probable combination. How much? It needs pencil and paper to calculate; the chances must be 1 in 4/52 × 3/52 × 2/52, one in thousands I suppose. The figures hardly impress her. Selma halves a dried date lengthwise, replaces the stone with a walnut, and bites the tiny sandwich in the middle. Did she get my point at all, I wonder as she studies the rest of the date in her hand, and examines its stuffing as though she had not filled it herself a moment ago.
—Tell me, why all this headache when the actual outcome is in any case determined by chance? Selma finally says. And if chance has sent me three different aces successively, do you really think that it’s your calculations which are going to stop the fourth?
—It’s a chance of one in 4/52 × 3/52 × 2/52 × 1/52! It’s most unlikely to occur, don’t you understand?
Unimpressed, she replaces her empty plate on the buffet, and returns to the card table. Laila is suddenly all smiles. She passes Selma the deck, and politely explai
ns that she can no longer resist the sight and smells of the fabulous buffet. Selma cheerfully beckons me, rubbing her hands, eager to keep the bank. I go over to her side, puzzled by Laila’s abrupt retreat, and still more by her unusual friendliness. Selma takes off her sweater, empties her purse on the table, and shuffles the cards.
She has been perspiring, my nose tells me. But the smell is tart, as though of fermented sweat, an odour which Selma’s pores have never emanated before.
She has grown so tall lately, she has definitely overtaken her mother. Her buttocks are bulging out, about to burst her skirt, as if they have been raised by yeast. Her shoulders have widened and her breasts have swelled, so that they keep jiggling whenever she deals or collects the cards from the table. I bet she will be wearing a bra very soon.
I daresay she is menstruating already.
Her pile of a bank soon accumulates into a hill, not without the ample contribution of my shining coins. Nevertheless, neither the ace of hearts nor any other ace has appeared in any hand yet.
Selma suddenly stops shuffling and fans out the deck on the table, the cards turned face up.
—Some bitch has removed the aces from the deck! she snorts.
—A bitch or a wolf? I giggle.
—Lailaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa …
While Selma sets out to retrieve her aces, her whiff of ripe flesh remains in my nose. Dudi’s convulsive laughter erupts from the Liar Dice corner. Laila’s made-up face twists in anger. My stomach twinges, in anticipation of the impending loss of our childhood.
Tales Told by the Tigris
The wave washes my feet then recedes. My toes tickle as the sand pulls away from them. The sky is still dark blue. Hai tells me to remove the two last cork cubes from my waist. I untie the strings and hand him the life belt. Fortunately, the light is dim and the others are too sleepy to notice my excitement. Our swimming instructor casts my life-belt into the rowing-boat. With this unceremonial gesture, Hai has declared me a qualified swimmer.
I am seven years old.
The other children let out cries of hesitation, that moment of reluctance before letting go. I plunge in knee-deep, wade, and pause to feel the swiftness of the flow. The dark water gurgles and wafts a nocturnal smell, like that of sleep. Without a life-belt, the Tigris and I are meeting on equal terms at last. Hai shoves the boat into the deep water.
We set about our daily route across the river, heading to the west bank, swimming northwards in order not to drift downstream: Hai rows behind, corrects us, warns of riptides and unpredictable whirlpools, chats and argues and hardly stops talking.
—Jackie, your arms are caressing the water. No, now you’re flailing. You want to do the crawl, then listen to me boy, will you? I’d been doing it for forty years before you were born, so I can teach you something, right? Your arms should be working like oars. Stretch them forwards. Good, now pull them back through the water, that’s fine. Why are you lifting them so high in the air, who are you waving hello to? Selma, if you have to be the fastest, then you’ve got to use your legs properly. Kick girl, push yourself with all your might, like a frog springing with joy, madly in love. That’s it, that’s my Selma. Shame on you boys, to let a girl beat you just like that. Kids, what’s the matter with you, with a pace like yours we’ll never reach the west bank, where’s your energy this morning? At your age I used to cross the river twice a day, once at cockcrow and again at night. If you don’t believe me, ask your fathers. We were much stronger and healthier than you are nowadays. Dudi, if all you want to do is to float cosily on your back, then do me a favour and stay at home in your bath. Did I tell you to turn over? You may swim on your back son, if that’s the position you prefer, only show me your backstroke. Don’t close your eyes, with this current you’ll find yourself in Amara when you open them again. So what if I’m exaggerating, can one speak Arabic without exaggerating? Life’s so dull, children, you may spice it with some imagination without immediately being called a liar. Ronnie, your legs are suspended, are you swimming or are you walking? Don’t worry, you won’t sink, that’s what the cork is there for. Hey, you’re still wearing four cubes. It’s time we reduced them, you’ll manage with two, won’t you? Kids, did I tell you that ages ago, before the bridges were built, the two banks of the Tigris, Rasafa and Kerch, were connected by a bridge of boats? No, not like my rowing-boat, but with guffas. You don’t know what guffas are? Really, you’ve never seen one? My God, you make me feel like an old boy. Thirty years ago we still had guffas, round boats, a bit like bowls, half as big as this one, but they were made of woven palm branches. Now can you tell me how many of them you needed for a bridge? Come on, it’s not so hard to estimate, how wide is the Tigris? What, you can’t use your brains and your limbs at the same time? You’re a funny generation, you know? Go on, laugh at what I’m saying as if I were here just to amuse you. When I was your age … What, that’s right, two hundred guffas, very good Reuben. At least two hundred. Dudi, if you continue this way, I’ll remove your life-belt. You’re not lying in your bed, and I’m not ready to slow down all the time just for your sake. Children, now that we’ve got some light, you keep your eye on the date palm over there. Don’t be silly Dudi, of course it’s not fainting, it’s always been bent like that. Let’s see you stand straight in this heat, and you’re not half as tall nor half as old as it is. How old? How’d I know, it was there when I opened my eyes. How old am I? Hmm … no, no it’s no secret, it’s only that … well, if I told you that I didn’t know myself what year I was born, you’d laugh again. See! Now kids, be serious for a moment and listen, will you? This palm’s your guide. Remember, as long as you keep it in view and swim in its direction, you’ll never lose your way.
A sandy beach stretches along the opposite bank. It is broken by abrupt rows of old oriental houses, built directly on the water. Arbitrary date palms impose verticals on the flat skyline. Our palm crops up from some concealed spot on the shore, slightly slanting to the south. My arms and legs bend and stretch according to the rhythm of my breath. My head dips and emerges. The slanting palm vanishes and reappears accordingly. The pruned stubs of old leaf bases mark her stem with indentations. At last I understand why our drawing teacher taught us to outline the trunks of palms in a zigzag.
A man suddenly enters the picture and clambers up the palm. A dark belt binds him to the stem. How small he looks beside it, like Teddy-Pasha in my arms! His baggy trousers are rolled up to his knees. He uses the leaf stubs as hand-and-foot-holds. After a couple of steps, the belt falls to his buttocks. He adjusts it to waist height, and proceeds upwards.
Will I get to the shore before he reaches the crown?
Selma has caught up with me. I spurt forwards, but she does not fall back. There is no point in competing with her, Selma is robust, all limbs, and very long ones. She is overtaking me, splashing water all over my face. It’s at times like this that I ask myself whether I should still call her my best friend. I slow down and let her pass, tired of being washed by her used water.
The light is shifting from blue to purple. The voice of the muezzin, singing out Allahu akbar and calling the faithful to dawn prayer on the loudspeaker, must be resounding in our neighbourhood by now. The flies have raided our roof and are hovering with disappointment above my empty bed. Shuli is cursing God and His creation. His head is buried under the pillow, in a futile attempt to protect his sleep from daybreak.
The man is at the crown of the tree. He must be able to see the sunrise from up there. But certainly he has not scaled the palm for the love of nature. Supported by the belt, he leans backwards, pulls out a sickle and strikes at the dates, dangling under the crown. A bunch of what seems like hundreds of yellow and amber dates falls rapidly.
My foot hits the riverbed.
On the beach, Selma is digging a pit, large enough for her to fall into. The other children gradually emerge. Hai arrives last and moors his boat. His jerry-can of water passes from mouth to mouth. Hai does not say much when on dry land. Selma, Rut
hie, and I are silently counting the curls of grey hair on his brown chest. A golden medallion hangs from the chain around his neck. On it, two Hebrew letters are engraved. They read Hai.
Sixty-two, Selma whispers. Sixty-four, I challenge her. Sixty-seven, Ruthie insists. Hai turns to us.
—Hey … what kind of auction are you holding, girls?
The girls burst into laughter. Hai claps his hands.
—Yallah kids, our break’s over. Don’t grumble, look how fast the sun is rising, we’d better get back before the heat breaks out. You can start dreaming of the royal breakfast Mama’s preparing for you. And don’t forget to remind her that tomorrow’s the first day of the month, and that’s when Hai’s fees are due. And whenever she has a dish of salona in mind, she should call good old Hai and he’ll catch her a fat shabbut, fresh from the river. Laila my girl, your strokes are perfect, but you swallow too much water. I know you’ve had your vaccinations, but they still shouldn’t turn you into a water-buffalo, should they?
The sun is rising in the pale sky before us. Its rays are searing, preparing to flog another day to delirium.
Mother is watering the climbing plants in our front garden, while she keeps her eye on the street. She is waiting for a green Volkswagen Beetle to draw up, for Selma’s mother to drop me home after the swim. Mother has been doing this for the last five summers, since Hai removed the cork cubes from my waist. If it were up to her, she would girdle me with a life-belt all my life. It has nothing to do with trusting me or Hai, she claims. It is the Tigris which is not to be trusted.