Mothballs

by Alia Mamadouh

  “If you do a good deed for someone, don’t talk about it. No matter what happens here at home, tell people ‘We don’t know.’ If someone tells you his secret, don’t ever repeat it. A secret is like a treasure, and has to be hidden in a well.”

  And so on and on. When she went to the market, all the shopowners opened up their secret rooms and new sacks of merchandise. They gave her the finest grains and the freshest vegetables, the whitest sugar, the purest rice, and shelled lentils. They put all her groceries in clean bags and sent them after her. She did not have to pay the price of all she bought, nor did they put her name on their list.

  She paid on the first of every month. She was never late, and never haggled or procrastinated. She hated debt:

  “God does not want any of us in debt to another. Debt shortens your life and blinds your eye.” At her breast I mixed her good with my evil.

  I gave voice to all my sorrows and dreams, and never feared any punishment from her.

  I might disguise myself in other clothes, but to her my bones did not lie; my soul could not deceive, and my head would not bow.

  “Dear Huda, she just kisses you, and has never once told us ‘I love you.’ ”

  “No one knows my Huda as I do. God keep you and keep evil far away from you. Now come iron my clothes – tomorrow I’m going to the General Retirement Directorate.”

  Idid not know what this end of the month would bring. But my grandmother, my father’s sister, and my father knew very well. My grandmother dressed up in her best clothes and combed her hair carefully. We brought her a large basin of hot water and the wide wooden comb that she pulled through her fine, flowing locks.

  “Every day a hair falls out of my head. That’s all because of sorrow.” She switched her eyeglasses with the old black round frames for her gold-rimmed ones. We knew all these rituals from previous days. Everything was familiar; the new cloak came out of the bundle and was ironed, along with the only silk dress, with its design of graceful trees. It was ironed last. The high-heeled slippers were taken out of their box hidden in the bottom of the closet. That night my grandmother was transformed into a princess. Everyone was waiting for her blessings, her gifts and money. The General Retirement Directorate in the crowded Baghdad neighbourhood of Bab al Mu’azzam was waiting for her.

  When we set out for school in the morning, we knew that the retirement pension had been distributed. There was a chicken in golden gravy and red rice, fried aubergine, and plates of radishes, cucumbers, mint and lettuce placed all over the serving platter. There was a tall pitcher of fresh laban. The delicious smell of the cooking made me raise my voice. In school I told Firdous, “We have chicken and red rice at our house. You love it – come and eat with us.”

  We did not have one time for dinner and another for lunch. We ate when we were hungry. We knew that money was scarce. Our father gave a share, and our grandmother had to provide the rest. With this and that, we had curdled cream for breakfast every day. We had eggs once a week. My father’s sister arranged all the vegetables on the platter, saying, “These vegetables purify the blood. Look at your face, how sallow it is.”

  We wanted more blood, whether pure or foul. It was not important, knowing that my mother’s blood was infected.

  I was not afraid of my grandmother’s stories about her. Despite her absences and coughing, to me she still seemed young and strong, and alittle older than my father’s sister.

  Whenever I asked my grandmother how old my mother was, she laughed and answered, “By God, I don’t know. When she married your father she was in her twenties. She came from Aleppo with her brothers and her mother. Her father died when she was a girl. Her brother Shafiq was a doctor at the clinic in Karbala. He was quiet and gentle. Your grandmother did not let him enjoy life. She was strong, and had a sour disposition, God rest her soul. She always said, ‘My son is a doctor and I must marry him off to a woman with money.’ God rest his soul, he listened to her and worried that she’d get upset with him. Shafiq died a sudden death, before he turned forty.” “And my Uncle Sami?”

  “The day we had the betrothal to your mother, he shouted and cursed. He said the girl’s marriage was a shame, but Shafiq, God rest his soul, he said, ‘Jamil is a nice boy from a good family.’ Your grandmother died three years after he did. She suffered a lot – she thrashed about like a fish. She didn’t die until God took her two months later. That left Sami, Widad, and Inam, and they stayed in the house as if they were his servants. He beat them and cursed. Your mother was the sweetest of all, like a rose. She spoke little. She was gentle and calm and never harmed an ant. Be merciful to her, dear God, most Merciful of all the merciful.”

  Chapter 5

  My mother followed my father to her room. They were face to face. The air in the room boiled with his shouts. She was standing, worn and weary; if she approached a sensitive point she would get burnt, and if she retreated she would be choked. His words came in a torrent, like a tumultuous wave: “You’ve all turned my hair grey. That daughter of yours is going to drive me mad. Everything is against me. I’m alone in Karbala. In the morning my boss shouts at me, and in the afternoon there are the screams of the prisoners. At night I do the screaming alone. Listen. I am going to get married. I have no more patience for this situation. I want more children. You finished by having Adouli. I want a real woman. I’ve given you my best years and my heart’s blood, but all in vain. Go back to your family. Go back where you came from.”

  She said, between her tears, “Is this the truth, Jamouli? Are you really going to marry again? You are my family. Your mother is my mother, and you are the father of my children. How can you? Your children are living with their father’s wife.”

  She knelt before him and trembled so that her teeth chattered. She sobbed. She reached for his legs and grasped his boots. She removed them and placed them side my side. “A woman may fall ill and take medicine and get well but she should never be left. Good God, Jamouli. Is this my reward?”

  She began to massage his toes and leg in order to rise up. She removed his socks and smelled them. “You always smell clean. Darling, really, are you going to marry again, Jamouli? Do you swear by your father’s soul?”

  He pushed her against her chest, and she fell backward. “Why do you want me to ask you for permission? You’ve been ill for years. All that medicine and all the expense, and you’re still the same.”

  He stood up and began to undo his leather belt. He held his pistol and pulled out the cartridge clip, and placed it at a distance in the middle of the table.

  My mother was afraid of every sort of weapon. She did not look at him, but he bent over her and raised her head to him. They looked at one another. His face was calm. At that moment my mother was able to get close to him, and before he removed his trousers he knocked her to the floor and threw himself on top of her. Her tears flowed wordlessly. He checked to make sure she was not dead. She knew he could not wait.

  Amidst her tears and his murmurs, she sobbed, “Don’t marry, Jamouli, please, God bless you, for the sake of the children, and your dear mother, who was better than my mother.” He stifled his shout in her quiet breast, then stood up, preparing to leave.

  “Now listen well, Iqbal. A few months ago I married a nurse from Karbala. She came with me to Baghdad, and she is pregnant. I don’t like doing things illicitly. There are as many women as we have prisoners after me. They’re young and pretty, and my boss had his fill of them. I swear to you, he even slept with the animals. Listen – don’t shout and don’t cry. You are going back to Syria, and I am going to stay at the prison by myself. You know the prison. Come there and see how it would drive you mad. Don’t worry about the children. They will stay with my mother and my sister. Now get up and draw my bath.”

  “But Jamil, what about later on? What if I get well? Jamouli, what will you do later on?”

  “God is good. You will leave here and come back safely. Now get moving – I want to wash and eat.”

  She burst in
to a fit of coughing such as we had never heard before. The sound of the wardrobe with the three doors erupted in its own fit of creaky coughing also. When we opened its warped doors we could not shut them again, unless someone pushed them up.

  My father left it open, having taken out his large white towels and gone out.

  This room was at the end of the hallway, far from us. It was the cleanest and warmest room, its walls painted a light blue. An iron bed stood in the middle, and the wardrobe took up most of the middle wall.

  Also in the middle stood a mirror which had lost its quicksilver backing, and its wooden frame was worn at the edges. In one corner was an old chair and earth-coloured table where my father’s shaving things were set out with a bottle of aftershave and one of rosewater. A Qu’ran rested on a small shelf covered with a cloth embroidered in white thread. In the other corner stood old shelves upon which books were arranged: Dar al-Hilal editions, the Reader’s Digest in Arabic, and the stories of Jurji Zaidan, Taha Hussein, Tawfiq al-Hakim, al Manfaluti, and issues of Egyptian magazines such as al-Musawwar, Akher Sa’a and al-Kawakib. The only window, which looked out on the courtyard, was usually closed. When my father was in Karbala, its yellow curtains were open. The glass panes were always clean. In the summer, my mother wiped them with old newspapers, and in the winter she wiped the traces of rain away with a dry cloth. The floor was covered with a long old carpet folded in more than one place to make it fit the small room.

  My mother wandered about, giving off a scent of defeat. She stood in the embrace of that heritage. The boot, the pistol, the madness of this rupture. Her first indifference came to an end. These changes had taken place behind her back. It was not important now that she change her name or blood type; nothing could bring back the past, the magic or her beauty or her serenity.

  She paced the room, and I paced with her behind the window. She was agitated, facing all the objects and things, looking at everything around her as if seeing them for the first time. She walked unhurriedly, touching the Qu’ran, fondling it with her hand and saying, “They left me in your care. You beat me and cursed me.”

  She staggered, looked at the carpet and the open wardrobe. She fingered the bookshelves and her muscles contracted. She snatched the books and threw them to the ground, shivered and sweated; her face grew paler and the familiar objects became masses of hidden meanings. She knocked them to the left and the right, and stood in front of the mirror, advanced slowly and opened her mouth in an obscene movement, lifted her hair up and then let it fall on her face, moved her arms. Her eyes bulged, as if she were emptying her bowels. She let out a cry and put her hand over her mouth, slapped her face and tore at her hair, and caught her breath sharply before the mirror: “Is it true what Jamouli said? My face looks frightful. My God, I’m afraid of seeing it in the mirror. I’ve been afraid of that face for so long. I certainly was the most beautiful girl. Oh. God forgive me. Where is my mind? Mama, come and look at Iqbal now. Jamouli is married, Mama. God Almighty. He married her and she is pregnant as well.”

  She smacked the surface of the mirror and dropped to the floor. She opened her legs and beat on them. She raised her nightgown from her slender thighs and scratched them. I could only see her undulating movement as she shook and hugged herself, as she raised and bowed her head and back before me.

  “What do I have left? I will never see the children again. Mama, come look at me now. No, no, let me come to you instead. I would love to travel there. I will see you and my brother Shafiq. I will be able to tell truth from falsehood. Poor Iqbal, humans get ill and are stricken and rise again. They must pick themselves up and stand tall. Death is an attitude. Why, Jamouli, why? Is she better than I am? I am the mother of your children, the mother of precious Adouli. Oh, Mama, who will wash Adouli’s head and prepare sweets for him? Where will I go now? Jamouli is trying to drive me mad before I die, and I swear to God his dear mother is the only reason I have stayed.”

  I heard my father’s loud voice:

  “Iqbal, come rub my back.”

  She jumped up suddenly as if stung. Her voice was inaudible, smothered by tears. She opened all the doors of the wardrobe and started there. She took out my father’s clothes, his new uniforms, his ironed shirts, his hanging ties. She threw one uniform after another onto the floor, scattered the shirts, and hurled down the ties, like a genie the hot earth had produced, or who had flown out of an oven.

  She shrieked and crawled. She snatched the clothes and threw them away from her. She turned and curled up on the ground, then stood up. She turned about, flushed with anger. These were the clothes of the long nights of waiting.

  These were the shirts of the only man who had ever known her pure embrace and sunk his beak down to the ailing roots. She had pulled him away with her hand, rubbed his back, chest, and hips, his thighs, legs, and feet. She had seized him by the arms and gone up to his head.

  She had whetted his appetite for sleep and snoring. She had covered him and gazed at him. She had sat at the end of the bed until he awoke, and when he called to her she went to him, bruised but radiant.

  This was the bed where she had learned he was a man, that he was the ruler, the father, and the chosen one. She trod and leapt and wailed. She pulled out the white undershirts and held them to her face, smelling and kissing them. She held his underpants, his white and blue handkerchiefs, and his socks, and moaned, “Jamouli is married and he’s got her pregnant! Oh, no! What shall I do now?” This was the first time I heard my mother’s voice torn out of her like a rope lowered to all of us. It cut through the walls and our ears. It was nothing like our voices or our daily quarrels.

  The voice started and awakened, stopped and then rolled on, carrying a banner high, stopping before me in the window.

  She did not see me but I saw her. She screamed in my face: “Go! Get me the scissors.”

  This was my father’s precious inheritance, his bed, his clothing, his bloody receptacles, his insides, his madness, the emblems of his police work, the conditions of his good looks and elegance.

  My father spent most of his wages on clothes. In winter he wore grey and black, and in the summer blue and beige. He glittered and shone as he stood in front of the mirror treating his glossy hair with a special white hair cream. He covered his face with cologne. On his body his clothes became like wings – he seemed to fly out to the street, and his mouth watered when he saw himself in the eyes of the neighbourhood women. He shivered as he placed his watch with Roman numerals – it had been a gift from his grandfather in the days of the British – on its gold chain and hung it from his waistcoat, letting the chain gleam and flash across his stomach.

  He left the house alone, walking like a king – he had trained himself in this walk. He never bumped into anyone or greeted anyone with any hand movement. His fingers were in his pocket, his leather belt, the opening of his collar, his crisp trousers. He never took a step out of his way. He never lost a button or dropped a handkerchief. When he boarded a bus, he rarely took a seat, though when he did he made a great show of positioning his arms and legs. He held his breath, his arms folded tightly against his ribs, his skeleton perfectly erect. He took his uniforms to Abu Ghanim’s ironing shop himself; Abu Ghanim ironed the clothes of the rich families at the far end of the neighbourhood. He picked them up himself too, felt, sorted, folded them, and hung them up in the wardrobe himself. He ordered my mother, “Wash them separately, and spread them to dry in the shade so they won’t fade.” We never dared touch them.

  He called out, “Where are you, Iqbal? Come wash my back.”

  I did not move; my head was splitting with her screams and sobs.

  She paced around the room, bent over, straightening up and taking whatever was in front of her, tearing it with her teeth and throwing it on the floor. She hiccupped: “I won’t die twice, and if I die now, I’ll die contented.”

  Iwept in the courtyard. My grandmother, aunt, and Adil were walking in front of me. They went in to her, and now her voice wa
s louder than my father’s. “Your son is married, Mama, Umm Jamil! Jamouli is married and the woman is pregnant! That’s your reward. But now he’ll see who Iqbal is.”

  His voice, our voices, her voice – all had drunk from the same river of madness and grown in the same house of utter ruin. Adil was squatting in a corner, watching and crying. My aunt picked up the clothes and books; now the room was starting to resemble the messy room high up on the flat roof.

  Farida wailed: “God protect us from this day! God will kill you, Jamil. Huda, come help me clean up before he comes in here or blood will flow tonight.”

  Alone, I watched, and watched, and watched, and stumbled and bent over. My grandmother cradled my mother and hugged her tightly, prayed over her, and pulled her by the arm. “God is great, my daughter Iqbal, God protect you, God bless you, now let’s go, let’s get out of here before – ”

  My mother screamed at the top of her lungs. “What will happen now? He’ll kill me for tearing his clothes. I don’t care! I’m dead! I don’t even have any blood left! Jamil is married. Huda, your father is married! Come, Adouli, you have brothers! Adouli and Huda, come and see, today we will have this out. I want him to come here, in front of me. Come out of the bath, Jamouli, come here and see how Iqbal isn’t afraid any more. Mama, everything is gone now.”

  She coughed, and for the first time I saw her blood. I cried out, and so did Adil and my grandmother, and for the first time I saw my grandmother’s tears.

  My father’s voice: “What’s going on? Iqbal, Huda, Adouli, Farida – where are you?”

  His voice approached and my grandmother dragged herself and my mother by her arms. My mother resisted and tried to squirm away, ablaze with rage. Her voice split the air: “I won’t leave! I want to stay here and see him. I want to die today. Adouli, Huda, come near me. What more can happen to me? Can it be worse? Where do you want to take me? This is my house and this is where I’ll die!”