When the Grey Beetles Took Over Baghdad
Page 39
—Asmahan!
He hands me the vodka. I stretch out my hand. He withdraws his. Heavens, what is it he wants this time! He showers the mouth of the flask with wild noisy kisses. Has that previous swig of vodka intoxicated him? His tongue now snakes out, licking the glass mouth greedily like soft ice. Then he offers me the flask, so gravely you would think it was love potion. Not on your life, I shake my head. He pushes it into my hand. I shut it tight. He stops walking. The mule follows suit. The two stand still, on strike, waiting for me to give in. The moment Shuli steps out of sight, I grab the flask. Its mouth reeks of his saliva. The idea of putting it to my lips makes my stomach turn. I wipe it thoroughly with my glove, tell myself that mule plus master have resumed their walking, that the trip will not last long, that it is my last ordeal, that one sip will not kill me. My indignation finally soothed, I spit inside the flask, repeatedly, gratified with his shock growing from one spit to the next.
He takes the flask with his fingertips, with repugnance, like some used sanitary towel, hastens to pass it on to Shuli. The latter gulps unsuspectingly. The smuggler saunters over to my side, smirking with triumph. I find it hard not to snigger myself. It serves Shuli right for leaving me in the lurch, letting me handle this mad Romeo on my own.
—Asmahan!
The flat of his palm falls heavily on my foot. His fingers mount my shin, stroke my knee, momentarily nestle in the hollow underneath. His hunger is growing, I fear. It is time we reached our goal. The tapping of the hooves treading on frozen snow irks me. Our pace sounds hopelessly slow.
—How long is there still to go? I inquire.
—Don’t know. Half an hour perhaps …
—That’s impossible! Kaka J. said the whole journey would last less than thirty minutes!
He shrugs his shoulders indifferently.
—When will we reach Iran?
—This is Iran, he replies listlessly, his finger pointing to the ground.
—Since when?
—Since the stream.
—Which stream? When?
—The small white stream we crossed, a while ago.
There was no white stream. Was it frozen or hidden under the snow? He shrugs. I want to see the line of the frontier, I insist. It has haunted me for years, the red winding line on the map. He sniggers. His frontier line is sober, hard labour. I spell out my urge to trace our passage on the two sides of the stream. If only life had not mocked me. Without prior notice, it has shifted the high point of our journey from the future to the past, kept the frontier line intangible though we have physically trodden over it.
He is not listening.
The gates of our school will open in the morning. The smell of the scouring material is wafting from the mopped hallways. On the first floor, in the fifth form, the poster of the Periodic Table is hanging on the wall. Teachers will not lose their temper with my stammering today, the way they have recently. For the time it took me to reply to their questions was gradually increasing – owing to the growing number of words I had to renounce. My faltering would then trigger some fellow student to utter the forbidden word in my place, or offer this or that synonym – out of pity, or just for the sake of the joke. Today, it is my vacant seat which is unsettling the lesson. Is it rumour, is it news? – they whisper. Those who live in our neighbourhood might pedal past our house tonight. Not totally unlit, nor quite silent, they will have to figure out for themselves whether it is forsaken or not. The Lawy son might go one step further, ring. Tomorrow, Selma will take my seat, gloss over my flight with her own reluctant presence.
—Asmahan, he summons, shaking my foot.
—What now?
He looks up in surprise. It is the first time I have verbally responded to my fake name. Without forethought, I switch on kaka J.’s torch, point it straight into his irises. Yelping, he withdraws his hand from my leg to shield his face, snatches my torch with the other hand.
—But why!
—My torch, give me my torch or I’ll …
He hurls it forwards, nearly hitting Shuli’s shoulder. The latter swings round, reins up his mule, waits for me to ride near.
—What’s the matter? Anything wrong?
—No, just the torch, it’s no good.
—With your black abaya, you fit perfectly into the black and white landscape, you know that?
—Shuli, we’re in Iran, you know that?
—What!
—You were stargazing, weren’t you? Show me the stars you’ve found, I say, using no matter what pretext to stay next to him.
—Oh no, I wasn’t in the stars at all. I was brooding over earthly matters, like my relationship with Baba and all the quarrels we’ve had lately. For example, our argument last week, when an ambulance screeched through the streets and I said good news, they’re one man less, and Baba scowled and warned me against contaminating myself with hatred, and I stood my ground and said they deserved it, and he said but I didn’t deserve it, and I said he who can’t hit back must content himself with hatred, ’cause they’ve left us no other choice but to hate them, and then Baba got really upset and told me that I alone was responsible for my feelings – a statement I couldn’t deny – but I challenged him again and said I hadn’t harmed or killed anybody with my feelings, only rejoiced at counting their dead, and added that hate was nothing more than a spoonful of whipped cream to which I treated myself at tea time and which would slide out of my bowels the next morning, so what was all the fuss about? – and Baba replied that it wasn’t worth the fuss if, in fact, it ended in my bowels but he feared it was rising into my head and, sooner or later, would narrow my mind and blur my distinction between right and wrong, which was an insult to my intelligence so I struck back saying that I didn’t understand how he, who had been unemployed for over three years, could just sit in the living-room and rot in dignity.
—Well?
—Well, I think I owe him an apology, at least for the last sentence.
The smuggler walks quietly next to me, keeping his hand strictly to himself. I wonder if in the new world, too, girls need men to get rid of other men. Now that our journey is nearly over, the white landscape finally relaxes me, like one huge silk Persian rug spread over the mountains.
Good morning Iran!
The mules halt in succession. We get off the mules. The impact with the ground painfully stirs my frozen feet out of their numbness. The two young men have tightened their kaffiyahs up to their noses. One of them points out the hill in front of us, indicating the location of the Iranian frontier post. His muffled voice sounds unfamiliar. I study their outlines, unable to identify “my” smuggler.
—And the coded message?
—You won’t have it, Wedad firmly replies. Not before I get my trunks and carpets back.
—Your parents, Wedad! They won’t know what to think, mother says.
—I’ll wire them from Teheran. It’s a matter of two or three days. They’ll survive. Kaka J. should in no way get the rest of his fee unless he retrieves our luggage!
The smuggler gives his partner the signal to withdraw. They will pass Wedad’s terms to kaka J., he says. Father tips them one Iraqi pound per person. They leap on to their mules, gallop out of sight, the three other mules on their heels. We squelch up the hill, our feet plunging in the mud, gradually recovering their sensation. Two unarmed soldiers spot us from the top. They run towards us, shouting in Persian.
—Yahoud, Jews, father says, with utmost precision. Yahoud.
The word works like “Open Sesame” on this side of the frontier. Without interrupting their torrent of loud speech, the soldiers motion us to follow them up the hill. They lead us into the spacious hut, gesture us to stay, then go off.
—The door’s open! Shuli says, turning the handle. They didn’t lock us in.
Father, wrapped in kaka J.’s quilt, relaxes on the floor. In spite of his strain, he looks in good shape. Mother huddles herself up next to him. She removes her shoes, rubs her feet, grumbles over the f
ilthy floor, the smashed window. Father fishes out the Vick inhaler from his pocket, pokes it in his nostril. It occurs to me that the Vick is one of the few things father still owns.
—Look, it’s snowing outside, mother says. Thank God we’ve been spared the storm.
Her head resting on the wall, Wedad wipes her tears. Shuli squats next to her, offers her vodka thinned with my saliva. Too tired to feel, I remove my robe, spread it out on the tiled floor. Once I sprawl on it, my lids fall. I reopen them, searching for the Persian sign I have just glimpsed on the wall. I read the sentence, understand nothing. The floor is freezing, yet my heart is laughing. Foreigners! We have made it! We have finally fled to freedom. Flight. Freedom. For years we have reduced our lives to these two wishes. Now that we have realised the one, reached the other, I fail to grasp their meaning or understand their implications.
Flight. Freedom.
It is still night outside. Sleep will soon overcome me. Flight. Freedom. The two words repeat themselves, in the same order, until they freeze in my mind, together, the latter reliant on the former.
Flight-freedom.
It will take me twenty-five years to part them.
About the Author
MONA YAHIA was born in Baghdad in 1954 and escaped with her family to Israel in 1970. In 1985 she moved to Germany to study fine arts and has remained there ever since.
Copyright
This ebook published in Great Britain by
Halban Publishers Ltd
22 Golden Square
London W1F 9JW
2011
Originally published in Great Britain by Halban Publishers, 2000 Paperback 2003
www.halbanpublishers.com
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the Publishers.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 1 905559 33 6
Copyright © 2000 by Mona Yahia
Mona Yahia has asserted her right under the Copyright,
Design and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified
as the author of this work.
Cover design by Incept
Illustration by Anne Sassoon
Originally typeset by Computape Typesetting, North Yorkshire
Originally printed in Great Britain by Mackays of Chatham, CPI group