The woman continues, “I like you, girl!” she says, slapping Lilla on the shoulder and laughing, “So you really came to kill the old mule! Brava! Of all the women he’s talked about you turn out to be the one with some guts.”
In a flurry of laughter she walks into the house leaving us in the middle of the garden. But then she turns around at the door and lets out another laugh and says, gesturing as if we are having a hard time understanding, “Sit, sit! I’ll be right back! Ha ha ha!”
“Shall we sit?” Amira asks Maryam, who seems on the verge of laughing. She raises an eyebrow to say she has no idea and rubs her lips. I start picking up overturned chairs. It is like we are spectators about to watch a play.
Lilla is still frozen, standing tall on her two feet. She still doesn’t want to believe the final scene she had in mind might be cut altogether. God knows what’s really running through her mind as she turns and says to us as if in a dream, “So a lion ate his leg.”
Maryam pulls over a chair for her. Lilla gives in and sits. She’s no longer the lead actor. Her shoulders slump. The woman returns with a motley mix of glasses and little jars and a bottle filled with a hazy liquid. She continues jabbering in the same teasing tone, “And you’re quite the looker, eh! Of course you’ve fallen to pieces, too, clearly, but you must have been a wild cat back in the day.”
She picks up the bowl of lentils, hurls it to the ground and puts down the two glasses and three little jars. She waves the bottle at Lilla, “We can throw one back, sweetie pants? It’d do you some good!”
Maryam tries a new direction, “Alia, my sweet, are you selling any of these cats?”
“Oh yeah, sister!” she says, her toothless grin and her beady eyes teasing. Nudging Lilla’s arm, “Your Jezim was once a tiger but now he’s just a little pussy cat! What do you say to that?”
She fills the glasses with homemade liquor and in one go she downs her glass. We pretend to drink, keeping the glass well away from our lips. Lilla still isn’t moving. “Jezim will be here soon. You can draw your gun and pot the wooden-legged bastard.”
Adopting the woman’s style, Maryam says, “Sister, I don’t think you’re getting this. This woman here has really come to kill your husband. Are you going to just let her do it?”
She realizes she’s finally been asked a question and opening her legs, her skirt drooping between them, she puts one hand on her knee and says, “It makes no difference to me any more, my pretty!”
In a rough street tone, Maryam laughs and says, “Really?” The woman now seems more relaxed. Lilla looks like a statue while Amira covers her mouth to stifle the laughter as the woman begins her story, “Now let me tell you, sister…”
*
“….But what beauty! I swear those circus owners would fight over me. ‘She dances like Nana, the legendary belly dancer, and with snakes!’ That’s what they’d always say. But I’m a real daredevil. So I insisted on having the lion. The Shah gave me one so how could I ever leave him? I told you that already, right? I did, I did. Anyway … I picked the lion up at Shah Rıza Pahlavi’s palace. They would have celebrations on the birthday of the King’s horse and they called me to dance. That’s when my first husband croaked. One of my pythons bit him on stage. The wretched drunk! He was blasted out of his brains and the bastard was bent on using my snakes in his magic act. Go for it, I said. Of course I knew the snake would get angry and bite him. Good riddance. I’m no walk in the park! Ha ha ha! So my husband’s dead and I’m a woman in mourning, right… Ha ha ha! Then the shah gives me this lion cub. I take the little guy with me to Istanbul. I buy a house with a garden. It’s me and the lion living together. I was really obsessed with him. Wasn’t so interested in the snakes any more. So I start teaching him tricks and training him. We go from one circus to another. Years go by. But the neighbours complain. Of course the guy grows and gets bigger and starts roaring, which means the whole neighbourhood is up in arms and the Beşiktaş newspaper declares war on me. They want to beat me up but there’s the lion and the shameless bastards are too scared. Anyway that’s when I get an offer to join a tour in Kenya. I get them to make a cage on the back of a Magirus truck and I set out with my lion. Of course we had our adventures on the road. In Egypt they wanted to cut his stomach open, thinking I was hiding drugs in there. Anyway we survived that but then we ran out of money on the road, shovelling out bribes here there at all the borders, and I end up in Sudan with nothing left. But God pulls through for me and I get this real sweet gig. You see the Masai have this crazy thing for lions. They used to be common, all over the place, but they were overhunted, and they never saw them anymore. For a dollar I showed them the lion. Oh, the money I earned back then. What money! With all that money we finally made it to Kenya. Back then it was a different place and we put together some great shows. I stayed there for a while and that’s when I fell in love with this Indian who said, ‘Let’s go to India.’ And so we set out. Of course with him the journey lasts for months. We’d stop, do a show, oh, we really loved each other. And then that year a man calls me from Istanbul and tells me that Saddam has a son who has a pet lion and he invites me to come and train it. So I set out for Iraq with the Indian. But he doesn’t want to come all the way. Fed up with him anyway I just leave him there. I get to Iraq only to find out that this Saddam’s a real maniac and his son is even crazier. And it turns out that war is about to break out. What do I know? I got there just when the war started and I had to find a way to get out with the lion. That’s when that disgraceful dog Anwar turns up. ‘Come,’ he says, ‘I’ll save you both.’ I had to save my skin so I agreed. I wish I hadn’t. The lowlife tricked me. Turns out he sold the lion behind my back and the bastards there were going to send him to America or England. I realized too late, the idiot I am. Seems the same men were supposed to get us out of Baghdad. They wouldn’t help us unless we gave them the lion. They came for the animal but he would only listen to me. ‘You bastard,’ I cried, ‘bite him and take his leg off!’ The lion broke free even though they had plugged him with a tranquilizer but before it worked he tore off Anwar’s leg. Well … if you’re going to tug on my mane I’m going to mess with your leg, Jezim Efendi! And we came here. What else was there to do? I had nowhere else to go, my lion was gone, and I had no other reason to live. I had nothing left but grimy Jezim. We’re together till one of us dies. You see this whip? Whenever I think of my lion I crack it over Jezim’s wooden leg. Gives him a real fright. The dirty bastard doesn’t have a leg but he still feels the pain. Now if I can just pawn off these cats, snakes and pigeons, I’ll have my teeth done right away. Look four missing in the front here… and then look seven missing here in the back. If I can get these done I won’t be half as ugly and I can hit the stage again. I’ll do it. That animal Jezim doesn’t believe me but I am going to do it. I still got more in me.”
That was the end of Alia’s story. She wiped away the white spittle that had collected in the corner of her mouth then looked at Madam, slapped her knee and laughed, “And? What did the animal do to you? Tell me all about it.”
In the face of this woman’s tawdry style Lilla’s queenly airs were starting to make her look more like an robot when all of a sudden, “Aliaaaa! Aliaaaaa! You crazy bitch! Where are you? Come and take these!
And there was Jezim Anwar. When he saw us he stopped at the door with birdcages in both hands. This was not the man Lilla had told us about. This was not even a rough draft of the man she had told us about. He didn’t look like someone who owned a golden lighter; he looked like a man who’d never seen one. He was nothing but a bag of skin and bones with a little head hammered so deeply into his body there was hardly any neck left. His trousers were too long and held up by a ragged old belt. The hat on the top of his head didn’t look like a sumptuous relic of times past but some old hand-me-down he had pinched from a street market. Jezim Anwar looked like an abandoned old flourmill in ruins.
All three of us stood up. We were ready to take any necessary precautions.
Alia was snickering as she stepped back towards the house. She was getting ready to sit back and enjoy watching whatever might happen to Anwar. Leaning over the table, Lilla slowly rose to her feet. “Madam!” was all Maryam said. But Lilla was beyond us. She was moving in slow motion. Her hand went to her waist and drew her gun. Standing like a statue she still hadn’t taken aim. Anwar narrowed his eyes and … he recognized her. “Esma,” he said and smiled, which made his face look like a collection of copper-coloured metal sheets and then there was fear and in his fear he recalled his old greasy charms and the metal sheets seem to crush down on his face.
It wasn’t easy for her to hear her name through those lips after so many years and she felt a tremor in her neck that coursed down through her body and her silks seemed to tremble. But her gun was entirely still. As she slowly raised the weapon, Anwar, a man who knew his crimes, raised his arms. The cages trembled with fear, trembled and shook and crashed to the ground. The pigeons were set free and the snotty cats pounced. They chased after the birds.
Alia chased after the cats and then there were more and more cats. Cracking her whip, she cried, “Pigeons born of swine! You bitches are riling up the cats are you? Idiot Jezim’s pigeons! The bastard’s birds!”
Suddenly there was chaos. Cats, pigeons, Alia, chickens and more chickens, Alia, pigeons, cats. They all raced about the garden. Lilla seemed to grow taller and the miserable wretch Anwar seemed to shrink, both in a cloud of dust while Alia cracked her whip, crack … then, bang, Anwar fell into the dust, the whip wrapped around his wooden leg.
Alia was shouting, “Dog spawn! Why did you let the pigeons go like that? You cowardly beast! Are you a fucking man!?”
Anwar lay still on the ground. His eyes locked on Lilla. It was a pathetic sight indeed. But this wouldn’t stop her. She clicked off the safety. Then in the twinkling of an eye, in a thin sliver of time, so slight … Jezim Anwar smiled. Trying to appear loveable or maybe charming, he grunted and in his ghastly appearance there wasn’t a trace of pride. He was nothing more than a weed that wanted to live. Lilla studied the look in his eye. To see if this was real. It was. There was a man lying there. A ruined windmill. A millstone grinding nothing but itself. The flour was full of worms. A mad woman. A wooden leg. In a filthy garden. Chickens grazing through cat shit, snotty cats, broken glasses, an old couple living like bugs, a finished story, missing teeth, a ragged piece of life, a man’s dirty wretched life … the gun in her hand slowly falls to one side.
Maryam jumped and took Lilla by the arm. Through the whirling of dust and the continuous clamour, she said, “Let’s go, Madam! This is no place for us. You’ll just get your clothes dirty…” Lilla looked down at her dress. A Siamese kitten was at her feet, a tiny little thing. It seemed she couldn’t move because of the kitten. It was like the kitten was keeping her from moving on.
Amira ran over and scooped up the animal that curled up in the palm of her hand. Taking Lilla by the hand, she said, “Let’s go Madam. This man is already dead!”
As if in a trance Lilla started walking. In a moment she would pass Jezim Anwar. She took a step and then one more, one more and just as she was about to pass, he said, “What’s that, Esma? Still don’t have the guts!?” and he laughed.
Bang, bang, bang!
We were frozen. But only for an instant. Maryam raced with Lilla towards the door. Alia was still darting about the garden, riling up all the animals as she screamed. Jezim Anwar watched us go. He wanted to die. But after Maryam had grabbed the gun from Lilla, she had aimed for the wooden leg. The leg he didn’t have … and I had left the cyanide on the garden table.
*
It was far easier getting a baby on the plane than a Siamese cat. We had to fill out a pile of paperwork for the animal. Lilla took a Xanax – you can find them anywhere in Beirut – and she slept until we got to Tunis. For two days after we had arrived in Tunis, Amira carried the baby in her lap; Maryam couldn’t even touch her. Whenever she did the baby started to cry. It took a few days until she finally took her in her arms. So we left them to work it out. On the night of the third day the baby cried and fell silent before Amira had the time to get up and that’s when we knew that Maryam had become a mother. She was awkward but she was trying and when she needed the compassion and the patience she would run to Amira right away. Lilla was more like the conductor of an orchestra. The moment she had arrived home that first night she decided the house had to be renovated. If this place was going to become a dance school it had to be done the best way possible and in fine style. And when it came to looking after a baby everything had to be perfectly crisp and clean. If Amira and Maryam were going to be staying for a while they were going to need their own rooms. And if she was going to surrender to Eyüp Bey…
*
“Welcome back,” said Eyüp Bey.
His head bowed he seemed to hold all his emotion in his one eye: he knew Lilla didn’t like over-the-top sentimentality. He had come to pick us up at the airport. Swiftly he helped Lilla with a bag she was holding and on the way to the car, Lilla said, “Eyüp Bey, could I take your arm?”
I’m convinced he grew ten centimetres in that moment. Without saying a word he looked at Lilla. He was a man who had waited years for this woman and now he wanted her to wait, if only a few seconds. One … two … and he couldn’t wait to three. He was probably afraid of ruining the moment because he wasn’t used to being loved. Calmly and as if they had done the same for years, “Of course, Esma.”
And he extended his arm. Not Madam, but Esma! And no other word was said on the matter. It was a pact. Years went by in a glance. When he saw the baby in Amira’s arms … he wouldn’t say a thing but with her arm in Eyüp Bey’s arm she smiled and said, “Life’s so strange, Eyüp Bey…”
Then she looked at the baby in the same way she had looked at her in Dar el-Amar. It was as if in that moment she was a grandmother and she had lived the life she had chosen not to live in an instant.
“How are things here?” she asked Eyüp Bey.
“Radical Islamists tried to burn down Carthage,” he answered and she pouted, “Then we have work to do.”
She was as calm as a Don Quixote waving his sword at real giants.
*
“Doesn’t Dar al-Amar mean Moon House?” I asked and no one answered. Amira quickly nodded to dodge the question. We were standing in front of a farmhouse. A house of women, a house of the moons. There was a warm aura surrounding it, which must have been because it was full of women seeking shelter. Every brick seemed molded out of mud with the care of little girls making meatballs, making a house to befit a fairytale so sweet that it must have been dreamt up in the dreams of other girls. The garden wasn’t very big but there were vegetables and strawberries in little plots divided by low wooden boards. The strawberries looked like tiny red jokes made by the earth. The garden was so delicate you felt like you had to tiptoe through it.
Amira, Madam Lilla and I got out of the car and started walking towards the house. Maryam was rooted to the spot. Standing next to the car. Madam Lilla looked over her shoulder. Her head lowered, she slowly went over to Maryam. She walked right up to her and stopped. Silence. She waited. Maryam’s heart was beating so violently she felt her chest might collapse. Lilla waited for the pounding to subside. With Maryam. Without making a sound. Then reaching out, Lilla said, “You know I can’t do it alone.”
The rising tension in Maryam’s chest rushed out in sobs and almost sounded like laughter. She put her arm in Lilla’s. Maryam looked older than her then. Ahead of us they went to the door and knocked. Maryam rested her hand on the frame. A little old Filipina opened the door. So small and so old you would think she might die of surprise. When she saw Maryam she let out a silent scream. She flung open her arms and Maryam’s tall, thin body crumpled and fell into the woman’s arms. She looked at us over Maryam’s shoulder. Weeping. Three times she said, “Welcome.” Each word meant something different. Every word a long sentence.
“I
knew you would come and you didn’t disappoint me … you are doing the right thing by coming for her … don’t be afraid, we won’t speak of the past.”
Freeing herself from the old woman’s bosom Maryam looked at us with misty eyes and said, “my nanny”. With both her hands the woman shook Lilla’s hand. She looked at all of us with gratitude in her eyes for bringing Maryam here. Taking Maryam’s arms she looked at her with pride and she said, “She’s sleeping…”
Then she put her arm in Maryam’s and gestured for us to follow. We came to a closed door. Maryam stopped. Quickly Lilla stepped up behind her and placed her hand on Maryam’s back. Only then did Maryam reach for the handle. As the door opened the sight of the sleeping baby fell over us. Maryam smiled like a little girl unaware of disappointment. The palm of Lilla’s hand was still resting on her back. She had lived such a very different life but now gazing at Maryam’s child it seemed that Madam Lilla was surrendering to a weakness she had always eluded. Mischievously, Amira said, “let’s wake her up,” and she was the first to take the baby in her arms. Maryam still didn’t have it in her. She felt inadequate, she felt afraid. Her palm still on Maryam’s back, Lilla said, “Don’t worry. Don’t worry. We’ll work it all out.”
It was the first time I saw that expression on Lilla’s face. As she relaxed she began to look more her age. She had accepted it. Felt the moment. Loved the moment.
*
When Eyüp Bey came to meet us at the airport, he definitely noticed the difference in Madam Lilla. And from then on he was as happy as he could be with just one eye. Now and then he even tried cracking jokes. They weren’t funny but he always laughed. And we indulged him. He worked like crazy. But most importantly he offered to make the sign for the dance school even though he had never done anything like that before. Amira agreed. And so he started painting the letters in oils.
Women Who Blow on Knots Page 44