He laughed. I remember my knees going weak. He had this eerie power and you had to shake yourself to keep from falling for the charm. He listened to me all through the night. For the first time a man listened to my own stories as if I was giving away a country’s secrets. I couldn’t stop. Comical tales, tragedies, tales of woe, I probably told them all. He didn’t say a thing. Only this, ‘I go to war, mademoiselle, I go to zoos in countries ravaged by war. From there I collect the abandoned animals and sell them in other countries. I seize animals from the heart of Africa, put them in cages and send them to zoos in civilized countries. That’s my line of work. People who want to find me need only follow the wars.’
Maybe he said more but I don’t remember. That night I listened to my own words. I listened to a part of me I’d never heard before. There was nothing for him to say or ask. We went to bed together. He loved me like a wild animal that night. He tamed me. For a week we didn’t set foot outside the Saint George. Oh, I was madly in love! And then one morning he was gone. For a year I looked for him. He left without a trace and I really did wonder if I’d dreamed it all. I thought maybe I’d lost my mind. To forget him I travelled far and wide and I gave myself to all kinds of men. I travelled to many countries and finally one day he greeted me with open arms as I was walking into the Paris Ritz. As if we had agreed to meet there, as if he’d never disappeared, as if he was still love with me, as if he had been searching for me over the past year, too, and was mad with desire. But this time I was bent on defeating the bastard. I would get my revenge. But love overwhelms and revenge looks like a snotty child. I’d already forgiven him before the night was out. Desire for belief is stronger than belief itself. We stayed together at the Ritz for a week and we went to all the music halls in Paris and drank in all the bistros. And later, of course, one morning Jezim Anwar vanished again. This time I was set on accepting the situation and forgetting him. But the second defeat was nothing like the first. The second defeat leaves the deepest scar. Because there you understand how you longed for defeat and you cannot forgive yourself for that. Loathing, love, grief and passion … when these are all wrapped together it’s tough, and those are the feelings that were surging through my veins. Maybe if it had all happened earlier it wouldn’t have seemed so important, I would’ve got over it. But if a woman falls victim to both love and time, there is no hope. All the men and the wonderful tales have amounted to nothing more than a tiny pebble to fill the chasm he left in my heart. The rest of my life has slipped into the void he left behind.
You asked me if it was true – the story about the baby bear and the pelican that I told you the first night. I worked all the connections I had in those days. During the Gulf War I went to Baghdad. As you’d expect the zoos were abandoned. The animals had either died or had been set free by hooligans. I learned that no transport trucks had arrived which meant that Jezim Anwar wasn’t there. There was only a baby bear left in a cage. The poor thing was hungry, thirsty and nearly out of his mind from loneliness. His mother lay dead beside him. The little bear was bashing his head up against the bars. A bloody head. And a pelican, wandering among the cages, his wings caked in mud, one broken, which he dragged behind him. He seemed to be standing there at the cage watching the cub go crazy. Completely still that pelican watched for hours. Then he wandered through the garden, dragging his broken wing, as if he was looking for help, and then he came back to the cage to watch again. Two animals, one caged, the other free, both on the brink of madness. It was a mad idea. I must have been mad with love and anger. I knew that Jezim would come. I was sure he was in Baghdad. If I could just take the animals somewhere else… It was crazy, I told you, but then I would have something he would want from me. Seeing that he never wanted anything from me I had no other choice but to take what he wanted. Now don’t go and get the wrong idea… I don’t know how to love. And I know absolutely nothing about losing in love. So I did what I knew how to do: I fought. One night I opened the cage and lured out the bear with meat and kibble. After I finally got the two animals to follow me I would take them to a nearby park where I had a cage ready. But I didn’t notice the soldiers were on to me. And when I did it was too late. The bear and the pelican were scared and we all took off running. I lost my shoes and banged up my toes. I was scared. Then finally we were up against a wall… That’s where they caught me and the pelican and the bear. I must have been even more crazed than they were. I don’t even remember the stories I told them to get myself out of there. But things are always easier when you’re a middle-aged woman who’s a little bonkers. They took the bear, shot the pelican and left me there. I sat down on the ground… and cried so much I could barely see. When the sun came up I was shoeless and half blind. Without even the strength to take my own life when I got back to the hotel and saw Jezim’s black patent leather shoes… And ladies, the very same lighter…”
She paused. The ruins in her face had just suffered another bombing. She shuddered like a dead animal given a jolt of electricity. With a bluish shade her secret’s curtain rose and fell before her eyes. Her narrative was cut short. In that moment she seemed to have changed a detail in the story before she went on.
“He lit a very young woman’s cigarette with the very same lighter. He gave me a look. I was a mud-splattered, broken-winged pelican, a crazed bear cub. Jezim looked at me like he was looking at a wall. He walked over. He stuffed his hands in my pocket: the lighter was there. His lips twisted into something like a smile… And he left. That’s all… And I didn’t say a word. Nothing…
“Ladies, for the last twenty years I’ve thought about that moment. That moment I didn’t speak. For the last twenty years I play the role of Madam Lilla in the daytime. And in the evening, I sit and wait for him in a chair opposite the door, turning jasmine over in the palm of my hand until they are brown. How did this happen, how could this happen? That’s what I keep thinking. Whenever there’s knock on the door I race over so quickly the jasmine falls beside the door. ‘Those flowers grew all by themselves,’ I once said. But they didn’t, ladies. They came into leaf through sadness. And so after it all, ladies, I am going to kill that man. The tyrant must pay. There should be a price for destroying a garden created by a woman on her own, who built herself a palace out of garbage and in the face of so many hardships; there should be a price for destroying a desert Judas tree.For once, ladies, they should pay the price. Tell me that, have you never thought of killing someone? Or have you never loved someone that badly? Or did you not build yourself – like I did – stone by stone? Tell me that, don’t the men who have devastated you, and who have devastated so many other women in the same way, don’t they deserve to die? Ladies, these Judas Trees don’t grow easily in a desert. Only the blood of our oppressors will cool our hearts? For heaven’s sakes come out with it – have you never wanted to put a gun to his head and ask ‘why?’”
Now this was not about her story or the fires of love or loathing. For the first time Madam Lilla was really asking us for something. She was begging for our help. Which is why it was the first time she had let herself go. We had seen the ruins, indeed the whole truth. And even her buttons on her gown which were out of order. And so, for us, yes, that man, Jezim Anwar, had to die. To protect the beautiful – sometimes it was the branch of a Judas Tree, sometimes Madam Lilla as a palace made of brushwood – yes, you had to learn how to kill. Amira and I were convinced. Yet Maryam, even after redoing Madam Lilla’s buttons, said as she was drifting off to sleep, “There’s something else. There’s something she’s not telling us.” Amira said, “You’re just being cruel. You know nothing about betrayal.” Most likely she meant Muhammed. And she buried her head in her pillow. Maryam was silent. If she could dare to be cruel we would ask Madam Lilla more questions. And maybe then we never would have taken someone’s life.
19
Madam Lilla and Nana Fatima were in the garden pavilion. Dawn was just breaking. I watched them from a distance. Madam Lilla was lying on a divan while Nana Fatima
pressed her broomstick against her belly. Lilla’s head was tilted to one side so I couldn’t see her face. When Nana Fatima finished she pulled the stick away and ran her fingers through Madam Lilla’s hair:
“Go back to him and lay down your arms, Thirina. He learned to wait for you patiently not from the wrath of a camel but from the stubbornness of the butterfly. Your light comes from him, and now it is time you surrendered to him.”
I was dumbstruck, struggling to make sense of what Nana Fatima had just said when Madam Lilla suddenly turned and looked straight at me. I was caught. She sat up on the divan and shouted, “Put on your necklaces. They are coming to pick us up any minute now.”
Like a child I raced inside.
“And a very gracious morning to you, madam!”
Standing opposite me was a woman dressed in khaki cargo pants, a safari shirt, hiking boots the size of tankers and a pair of Ray bans – a WOMAN JOURNALIST! Picture this: I was in my nightgown, Amira’s sweater draped over my shoulders, my hair down over my face and my heels sticking out of Maryam’s boots. As for the WOMAN JOURNALIST, she was right out of a war movie with all the buddy-I-was-there-on-my-own-when-the-shit-went-down-bluster but the way she talked oh… it was like she was issuing fatwas from Cairo’s Al-Azhar University, that sort of lingo.
“Good morning,” I said in a normal tone of voice.
She was olive-skinned; clearly the seed (her father) or the field (her mother) came from the lower hemisphere. But she only spoke classical Arabic, which people read and never speak, and on top of that she spoke it with a dreadful American accent. Imagine Christiane Amanpour reciting an Islamic ceremonial prayer, it sounded that ridiculous. Yes, this was Arabic, but her insistence and her enthusiasm were the perfect embodiment of an associated American journalist. Breathlessly she went on.
“Gracious to meet you. I am Allison Abou Chaar of CNN International.”
The way she dragged out her name ‘eeleeseen’ and then emphasized every syllable of the word ‘een-teer-nash-ee-nul’ made you want to say, ‘sit down, zero points.’ Playing dumb a la Turca, I said, ‘Ah…’ and I didn’t give her my name. Based on the name and surname, I took the mademoiselle for an American with Arab roots. But she was such the model woman journalist she could have been the cover girl for Vogue if the magazine did a feature on them. Squinting my eyes I must have looked like a real moron. She went on.
“The reason for my presence in these regions is known: the war in Libya.”
If this were happening in Iran or Iraq she would have certainly pronounced the names ‘Ay-raq’ and ‘Ay-ran.’ That was the kind of voice she had. I wanted to laugh but I couldn’t. I was going to say, “just switch to English, love, no need to bend over backwards,” but she was giving it such a fighting try, and classical Arabic with an American accent was just so funny that I couldn’t. There really had to be a way to punish these ubiquitous American journalists who hopped around in the morning like jackrabbits nibbling away at people and their lives.
With a sweet look on my face, I listened.
“I and my travel partner Jack (pronounced Jeek) are out here reporting on the war. And your excellency? What matters are you in engaged in, perchance?”
While I am waiting for Maryam and Amira to come out and save me, Madam Lilla comes up behind me. I don’t know what just happened in the pavilion but she storms out with her skirt billowing. Seizing the opportunity I dash off to my room, leaving Eeleeseen with her. Maryam and Amira are just up on their feet and I say, “Listen.” We press our ears up against the door. As if just speaking in that American-accented classical Arabic wasn’t enough the journalist was now hammering out every syllable because she was talking to an old woman…
“Was it Thirina Hanım? Oh, a Hanımefendı?”
The Madam was silent. Imagining her face made the situation even more sweet.
“From what I have gleaned from the women innkeepers you are indeed an esteemed personality. But the matter I fail to grasp is this: what would be your considerations of the Free Libya Resistance? Do you pen your name as the Illustrious Thirina or is it Tirina?”
Madam Lilla was still drawing out her silence.
I say, “I’m telling you, Lilla is going to be in the headline tomorrow in the New York Times: ‘A traitorous attack on the American press by an old Gaddafi fanatic!’ Laughing, Amira throws herself on her bed. Maryam gestures with her hand to say, ‘who is that?’ In the same drawling accent, I say, “Allison Abou Chaar! CNN een-teer-nash-inal!”
Madam Lilla must have known we were listening because she also started speaking in classical Arabic:
“Ah! My gracious mademoiselle! I am so very delighted to make your esteemed acquaintance! We were expecting someone like you, an exceptional personality, who might remedy all our woes. If you knew just how desperate we are for freedom. Starved for democracy!”
After a pause we realize she’s going to change her tactic: the silence doesn’t bode well for the American – an idiot who may know journalism but nothing about real people. And pumped full of enthusiasm, she sticks to her trade.
“As you must be aware, this is why we have the honour to be here. Has your excellency made the acquaintance with the Gaddafi family? Are you a resident of Libya? Or are you one of those poor souls subjected to his oppression? In short what is the reason for your presence in these environs? Or have you been in flight for all these years?”
We could tell from Madam Lilla’s rising breath that a story was on the way.
“Ah! Don’t ask, Mademoiselle. We are in the midst of endless misfortune. If you only knew for what reasons we have come to these dwellings… For the story behind our visitation to this miserable place is filled with sadness. I can only expect that you have marshalled the facts pertaining to the war. Is this true?”
The girl jumped.
“But of course, of course!”
Madam Lilla was writing the play and playing the star role at the same time.
“Then you know that Gaddafi’s son, the accursed Saif al-Islam is on the run.”
“Yes, yes?”
She was as excited as a medical student taking blood for the first time and finding the vein.
Madam Lilla was now laying it on thick.
“Ah! The scoundrel! The ingrate! The miserable wretch!”
The girl was speechless. She was probably thinking that in just fifteen minutes she’d be doing an interview with Saif al-Islam, the most wanted man in the world.
Nearly out of breath, she said, “Yes?”
“Well, you see, the vile cretin…”
She stopped and we held our breath behind the door. Suddenly she said, “Have you met my daughters?”
She had us pinned there behind the door, and in a piercing voice she called out to us as if she were calling her kids to come have lunch in the garden.
“Şerfifeeee, Hanifeee, Mebrukeeee!”
Maryam and I had to swallow our laughter. Momentarily holding back her giggles, Amira called out, “Coming mother!”
Jaw-dropped and wide-eyed, Maryam and I whispered, “What?”Amira whispered, “Get into your chadors!”
“But I’m a terrible actor,” said Maryam, making a run for it. Amira grabbed her and pushed her towards the door. So we all slipped into our chadors and walked onto the stage.
When Madam Lilla was just about to reveal the tastiest bit of news, her show cut to a commercial break and Allison the Journalist nearly lost it – she thought she had the big fish by the tail. Now she is willing to spend time with these three covered women but only if they can be of some use to her; she must be already counting how many minutes, even seconds, of them she’ll have to bear. When all she really wanted to do was throw Madam Lilla to the ground and wrench the information out of her like she was pulling teeth. Madam Lilla turned to me and said, “So Mebruke hanım, I was just telling this writer here that words will not suffice to describe what Saif al-Islam did to our family.”
I nodded my head under the chador. T
hat was all from me. Glancing at the front door to the house I could see Samira giggling. Clearly she was the one who got us into this mess in the first place. Seeing I had no flair for this sort of thing, Madam Lilla quickly turned to Amira, “You tell us about the rascal, Saif.”
Heaving a terribly troubled sigh and in a mysterious tone of voice that alluded to the horrors we had supposedly suffered at the hand of the scoundrel Saif al-Islam, she said, “But mother is it right for us to share something so secret with a journalist?”
Madam Lilla was pleased to see the game had moved up a level. And as we all turned to her, Allison said with the sheer incompetence of an impatient glutton, “Of course, sweetie, if you can’t convey such information to me then who else can you convey it to?”
Now Maryam had the ball. She wanted to raise the stakes, “Alright then, mother, but are we really going to disclose his current location?”
Any minute now the young reporter would keel over from overexcitement. Madam Lilla knew how to stoke the fire. Thinking for a moment she mumbles and grumbles. And finally to keep the girl alive to suffer even more torture she says, “yes”.
Amira takes the ball and runs, “Ah, my dear lady, our family has been in league with the British for years.”
Clasping her hands together Madam Lilla stirs her on.
“But of course. We adore the English.”
Women Who Blow on Knots Page 25