A Fistful of Dust

by Nasser Hashmi

  8.

  How could have I been so stupid not to see it? As if I needed confirmation, Ayesha left the room almost as soon as she had walked in. She didn’t give me a chance to probe further because – like a good woman in this neck of the woods – she obediently disappeared just as I was about to pop some difficult questions her way. The most pressing of these queries was how did a beautiful girl like her hook up with that brainwashed grandson of mine? It was bewildering to me that any of this had been going on because I felt Abbie was running a tight jihadi ship with all the crew concentrating on the war in hand. Obviously that wasn’t the case. Did Abbie know about this? What did he think about it? All these questions were running through my head as I listened to Ayesha’s footsteps fade away down the corridor. I immediately turned to Wasim, who continued to lie on the bed with his eyes fixed on the ceiling fan. I walked towards the bed and sat down. I reached out and tried to touch his hand but he moved it away.

  ‘I’m going to marry her, whatever you say.’

  The definitive tone in his voice was wearing me out. My mind wandered to a 14–year–old lad I once knew called Cammy Eastwell, who was a real prospect in the Under–18 side as a raw fast bowler. He used to appeal for leg before nearly every over – and I rejected his appeal the same amount of times. On one occasion, he confronted me in the pavilion after the match and said I was a ‘daft codger’ and, worse, that I didn’t understand young people. It really stung so I offered him a lift home one night which he rejected. The friction, on his side, continued until I deliberately brought in a batch of John Player League match programmes from the late seventies and eighties and browsed through them at change of innings and close of play. Cammy only had one ambition, to play for Lancashire as a quick, and he finally approached me to ask why the players weren’t wearing coloured clothing for a limited overs game? It was a great feeling when I realised I was getting through to him. He was a broody, reclusive boy but his eyes widened and his face lit up. There was warmth and respect between us. Somehow, I knew Wasim wouldn’t buckle so easily.

  ‘How long have you known her?’ I asked.

  ‘Go away, I’m knackered. I need some sleep.’

  He rolled over to his right side so his back was facing me. He curled up tight and slipped his hand between his thighs. I watched him try to get comfortable and then crossed my hands on my lap to get in a similar mode.

  ‘I’m not going away; we were nearly killed out there.’ I said. ‘Why is a woman here anyway? I thought you lot didn’t like women…’

  I heard a heavy sigh and he readjusted his head on the bulky black pillow.

  ‘…What does Abbie think about this arrangement anyway? Does he know? Have you told him?’

  Wasim raised his head and smacked it down on the pillow again.

  ‘So was it love at first sight or did it take a while?’

  Wasim grabbed the pillow from under his head and flung it across the room. He pivoted around and gave me a vicious look. He brushed me to the side and sprung up off the bed like a gymnast. He tucked his t–shirt into his tracksuit bottoms and then bent down to grab his Puma trainers from under the bed.

  ‘Have you met her parents?’

  Wasim slowed down his frantic movements. He glanced up at me as he eased the trainers towards him from under the bed. He sighed and looked up at the ceiling.

  ‘I’ve known her for a couple of months, okay? Abbie helped out her parents after their house had been flattened. Her uncle and brother–in–law were injured so she wanted to do something about it. So she joined up with us. Satisfied now?’

  ‘And you think two months is long enough to propose marriage, do you?’

  ‘FUCKIN’ HELL! LEAVE ME ALONE.’

  He haphazardly slipped on his trainers without doing the laces up and walked to the door. He stopped for a moment as though he’d remembered something.

  ‘Mum says you got married to nani jee when she was 33. I don’t want to wait that long.’

  He whizzed out of the room before I could answer. I digested what he’d said for a moment and then got up off the bed to pick up the pillow he’d thrown across the room. I carefully placed it on the bed and lay down, resting my heavy, throbbing head on it as delicately as possible. I placed my hands on my chest and thought of the 21 years I had known Fareeda until we actually got married. I met her for the first time sitting beside a tiny stream as she battered the wet clothes violently on the black rock to dry them. She was only 12 and I didn’t have the courage to approach her. We did eventually develop a friendship, through sheer adolescent loneliness and sharing of work duties including pumping water, wood gathering and fruit–picking, but it was put on hold because I was sent to Faisalabad to work. I thought of marriage there and then – I was 16 and she was 20 – but it felt too rushed and too soon, even though I was desperate to get back at my father who was sending me away. Luckily, I came back and things worked out for me – and Fareeda. Wasim, however, had only known Ayesha for two months. In my eyes, that wasn’t enough time to hold hands. I had a duty to ensure my grandson didn’t throw his life away by getting into something he may regret for the rest of his life. He had already been indoctrinated once: another head–over–heels belief would be a step too far.

  The distant sound of water splashing off someone’s face onto the floor woke me up. I looked at my watch and realised I had slept for a stunning seven and a half hours. I got up and waited for a few moments until I knew the bathroom was empty. Washing my face was a big problem because there was no mirror and the tiny, damp towel was inadequate to do any sort of drying. In the end, the sleeves on my jumper did an emergency wiping job and I had to wait five minutes before my itchy face returned to normal. When I did leave, however, I sensed the mood of the ‘house’ had been transformed. I walked down the corridor and could already hear loud voices, jovial banter and wild laughing. What on earth was going on? Weren’t these people involved in a vicious firefight earlier on in the day? I took a deep breath as I looked at the green blanket in front of me. I tried to clear my throat but it was impossible so I offered a tiddly, sorry excuse for a cough. I pulled the blanket to one side and walked through into the main room. There was complete silence and the gawping faces of the people sat on the floor with their dark, piercing eyes sent a shudder up my spine and, inevitably, set me off on a rapid round of vocal tics. The tics, throat–clearing and coughing were now in full swing and I thought about turning back because of the embarrassment. But my eyes caught sight of the bewildering amount of food on the floor and, eventually, the annoying tics eased off. The colourful bounty strewn across the hastily–laid blue blanket had soothed my cough and had a therapeutic effect. I counted at least five dishes, all lying on miniature versions of Wimbledon’s silver salvers; pity there weren’t any women in the room to share them. There was a lamb salad number, a curious chick–pea and potato concoction, a ghastly–looking aubergine and tomato dish, a mince meat and vegetable mountain and, finally, a blood–red chicken pile–up with walnuts. Five exotic dishes and all I could smell was dried mint! The dishes had steaming plates of white rice by the side of them as well as side bowls of pomegranates, mangoes and water melons. Only the plastic red glasses and huge jug of water let the side down in terms of scale and impression. I looked up again and most of the people had got back to filling their bellies rather than staring at me. I spotted Abbie with his back against the wall laughing and chatting to another man, who was wearing a neat black turban and a tent–like white robe. I thought about leaving the room but it didn’t matter because Abbie spotted me and ushered me over. I slipped off my shoes and placed them along with a few others in one corner. I walked forward tentatively, carefully sidestepping the dishes and praying I didn’t crush a pomegranate under foot. I stopped in front of Abbie and expected him to look up at me but he didn’t, he continued to talk to the man next to him. I glanced around the room, looking and feeling embarrassed. I had decided at that moment that Wasim and I would leave as soon as possib
le. I wasn’t going to take this anymore and if Wasim didn’t like it then, tough, I was his grandfather and he had to listen. Where the hell was he anyway? Everyone else was in the room, even Shami whose arm was in a sling and Saad who was slumped against the wall, looking dazed and distant. Ayesha, of course, was in her ‘own space’, the poor girl. After a couple of minutes of humiliation, Abbie finally looked me in the eye again. I could have moved away in that time but the harsh fact of an empty stomach kept me where I was.

  ‘Grandfather, you’re here,’ he said, checking his ear for an imaginary wound. ‘This is Doctor Al–Brahmi. I brought him here especially for you. Come on, sit down here and join us. You hungry?’

  I couldn’t lie. The dish closest to me was the mince meat and vegetable mountain and I had been eyeing it up since Abbie’s initial snub. So I sat down awkwardly between the doctor and Abbie. My crooked back was uncomfortable resting against the wall but once I tucked into the food it no longer mattered. It took about ten minutes to finish the meal although the accompanying naan breads were so rich and tangy that I wanted to carry on.

  ‘Doctor Al–Brahmi will cure you tonight,’ said Abbie.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with me,’ I said, leaning back and enjoying a succulent slice of mango. ‘He’s wasting his time.’

  Abbie looked at Doctor Al–Brahmi and smiled. He picked up a handful of pistachio nuts from a bowl. He cracked open one of the nuts and threw it into his mouth. He then turned towards me and handed me a couple of nuts. I took them but wasn’t going to eat them: they would interfere with the mangoes.

  ‘You cough a lot and can’t get that shit out of your lungs. He will help you.’

  ‘Some things can’t be cured…’

  ‘If Allah wills it, anything is possible.’

  I examined Abbie’s face in a little more detail; it was the first time I’d seen him without the keffiyah wrapped around his face. He may have been older than I first thought and his full cheeks, moustache and firm chin gave him an experience and authority that I hadn’t fully absorbed. He was extremely relaxed too, slightly slumped against the wall with his left foot perched on his right thigh. It was a big change from the screaming brute I’d suffered earlier in the day.

  Abbie lowered his hand into the bowl and picked up another few pistachio nuts. He showed me the palm of his hand. ‘His pills were this big and they still killed him.’

  ‘Sorry, who are you talking about?’

  ‘About three years ago, my father hired a solicitor to help with the sale of our house because he didn’t want to live in Baghdad anymore,’ said Abbie. ‘This solicitor took pills for everything and said he couldn’t live without them. One morning, after coming out of the toilet, he had such a bad reaction that his face had turned blue and he wasn’t responding. So my father drove him as fast as he could to hospital to get him some emergency attention. But when he got to the hospital, there was no room for him because it was overflowing with Shaheed victims and other civilian casualties. He died there and then. Where was his medical help? Where were the people he believed in?’

  ‘Each case is different.’

  ‘Only if you have no faith,’ he said. ‘Enough of kufr solicitors anyway. Dr Al–Brahmi will now take over and solve your problems.’

  ‘…Just got to go the bathroom.’

  Abbie laughed and grabbed hold of my shoulder. ‘You’ve just been.’

  ‘I have to go every hour on some days.’

  Abbie moved closer towards me and now had both of his hands on my shoulders. He looked at me directly and the relaxed, slightly jovial, demeanour changed into a harsher, abrasive one.

  ‘Do you want to get better?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Get up then.’

  I got up with difficulty because my stomach was bloated. I knew I had eaten too fast which was something I found hard to control in the last few years.

  ‘Stand there,’ said Abbie, pointing to a few feet in front of Dr Al–Brahmi.

  I did what I was told. What was the worst that could happen? That some crackpot cleric chanted a few verses and tried to ‘cleanse my soul’? It might even be fun.

  Abbie asked Dr Al–Brahmi to get up too. He was a small man, barely over five three, but the stature came from the thin spectacles, well–groomed beard and pale, creamy features. He had a shiny black beaded necklace in his hand and his fingers were flicking over the beads like an anxious shopkeeper counting his notes. He walked up to me and stopped less than a foot away. He examined my face and then nodded as though he’d found the secret to my tortured existence. He put the beaded necklace away in his pocket and cupped his hands to say a prayer. He closed his eyes and recited a few familiar verses from the Quran; I watched his supple lips move in extraordinary ways as the textured, twangy words rocketed from his mouth. Slowly but surely, I began to feel queasy, although this may have been more to do with the richness of the lamb dish than the good doctor’s initiation. He stopped reciting and opened his eyes. He walked up to me and looked into my eyes. He blew across my face three times. It was pleasant enough: I always needed reminding I was still around. But then he moved his mouth closer to my ear and I felt a little more uncomfortable. He recited the same verses but with more aggression and fervour. The sound of his voice pierced through my ears and increased the trembling in my shoulders. He then glanced to his left and right and ushered someone to help him. Abbie grabbed one of my shoulders and, another man – a tall, skinny fellow with a pointy chin – grabbed the other.

  ‘He’s carrying the weight of a thousand people,’ said Dr Al–Brahmi. ‘Get him down.’

  I tried to resist but the tall man’s sharp fingernails were digging painfully into the back of the neck: I had to go down to relieve the pressure. Two more men came rushing over, as if they were disappointed to be left out, and pinned my legs down. One of the blighters had his mouth inches away from my nose and, for a second, I thought his garlic breath had revived my blocked sinuses. The doctor moved closer and stopped with his feet inches away from my head. He towered over me giving the impression his head was almost touching the ceiling. He reached into the side pocket and pulled out a tiny bottle. What was in it? Sand? He poured it onto the palm of his hand – and clenched his fist.

  ‘This fistful of dust,’ he said, sprinkling it over my head. ‘Comes straight from the holy land…’

  ‘I’ve got a lifetime of dust in here already,’ I said, thumping my chest.

  Dr Al–Brahmi sprinkled the whole bottle over me – but he was only warming up. He threw away that bottle and took another small green one out of his pocket. He opened it and sniffed it – it had a small amount of water in it. He closed his eyes as he revelled in the scent.

  ‘This is the tonic for the djinn,’ said Abbie, with a smile.

  ‘GET OFF ME NOW, YOU ANIMALS! I DON’T HAVE ANY OF YOUR STUPID DJINN.’

  ‘That’s what they all say,’ said Abbie.

  Dr Al–Brahmi opened his eyes after his lengthy bottle–sniffing exercise. He looked at me and then crouched down with the bottle raised in his hand. He started talking faster, repeating the same line.

  ‘Prophet’s peace be upon you…Prophet’s peace be upon you…’

  He raised the bottle as high as his arm would go and then sprinkled it rapidly across my body and face. I closed my eyes but felt the splashes on my lips and ears.

  ‘LEAVE ME ALONE! YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING…’

  A splash from the bottle stung my eyeball but I made a mistake in shouting so loud. It set off a coughing spree which rapidly escalated into a rough, tortuous burst that was impossible to stop. I gasped for air and felt as though my lungs were about to burst. I flailed my arms and legs with all the power I could summon but it was futile: the men were too powerful. Even worse, I could feel my attention–seeking bladder giving way at any moment and moistening my trousers with some poor decoration. That would have been hard to take so I tried to hold on for as long as possible. After 94 seconds, I go
t a reprieve. The sprinkling stopped and Dr Al–Brahmi stopped talking. Was it over? I opened my eyes slowly and saw Dr Al–Brahmi’s face up close to mine. He examined me for a moment and then, suddenly, slapped me across the face with his short, stubby hand.

  ‘Is Allah within you?’

  ‘Er, what?’

  ‘Is Allah within you?’

  He drew back his hand, a bit higher, and slapped me again with more ferocity. My eyes watered as the tip of my nose caught part of the blow.

  ‘Is Allah within you?’

  I tried to answer but my energy levels were depleting by the second. He hit me again but I hardly felt it because a terrible warmth accelerated throughout my body. I could feel the front of my trousers moistening and the trickle down my right thigh became a glorious flood. The relief was incredible and immediate. I hadn’t suffered a fly slip for 66 years: this was something worth waiting for.

  The tall man, who had hold of my legs, instantly took his hands off me and stood up. He held his nose and checked his hands for urine. He gave Abbie a startled look and then raced haphazardly towards the toilet. He nearly barged into a distant figure coming into the room with a huge tray of teacups. I strained to try and see who it was but I couldn’t turn my neck any further. I smiled at Abbie as he let go of my shoulder.

  ‘Dirty British like to piss on our land,’ he said.

  Dr Al–Brahmi moved back and looked down at my trousers. He shook his head and then offered Abbie a handshake. Abbie looked surprised by his gesture but accepted. Dr Al–Brahmi gave me a final disapproving glance and walked off hurriedly. As he disappeared, the white teacups with gold rims came into view. The soft hands carrying them were Ayesha’s. She stopped by my side as the steam from the cups illuminated her face.

  ‘What’s going on here?’ she asked. ‘Who was that man?’

  ‘A good man,’ said Abbie, getting up and picking up one of the teacups from the tray. ‘Great food, Ashi, you did a top job.’ He took a sip, got up and started to walk away. ‘How does your mother cook so much?’