The Corpse Washer (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

by Antoon, Sinan

  Mr. Ismael walked around checking each drawing and making comments. When he got to my desk, he stood and looked for half a minute without saying anything. I’d finished drawing the table, bag, and apple and started to add the shades in the corners and some other tiny details, especially how the sun’s rays entered the classroom from the window next to the table and how the bag blocked some of the light, leaving the apple in the shade.

  I expected him to criticize me, but he said: “Well done, Jawad. Marvelous! Marvelous!” I was very happy with his approval and praise.

  He continued to walk around and announced that ten minutes had passed. Five minutes later, he asked us to stop and put our pencils down. Then he told us to get up and have a look at what the others had drawn without making noise. Of course there was some chatter and some students who pretended to be critics, pointing with their fingers and offering silly comments. I saw one drawing that I thought could compete with mine, but the others were quite ordinary or incomplete.

  After ten minutes the teacher asked us to go back to our seats. He asked what we had noticed. Hadi raised his hand.

  “Yes, Hadi.”

  Hadi said, “No one can draw.”

  Some laughed, but most protested loudly against this destructive criticism. The teacher clapped again to silence everyone and yelled: “Enough!” He reprimanded Hadi, saying: “Everything has its time, but I will not tolerate such disrespect. Each student has drawn the scene from his spot and the same scene appears slightly different from a different angle. Therefore, perspective is very important in drawing.”

  He asked us to pay attention to the proportionality and size of objects. We shouldn’t, for example, draw the bag very tiny and the apple very huge. He said he would show us the best drawing he’d seen. He came toward me and took my pad and returned to the middle of the classroom and stood there.

  He raised the pad and said: “Look at your colleague Jawad’s drawing. There is attention to proportion and accuracy in capturing details. Well done, Jawad! Marvelous!”

  I was filled with joy as everyone looked at me and he returned my pad. He said that he would tell us more the following week about light and shade and their relationship. Our homework assignment was to draw the TV at home.

  After class I went to thank him for the pad. He asked whether I’d studied art before. I said I hadn’t, but that it was a hobby and I had many notebooks filled with sketches. He said: “You have a strong hand and are talented.” I was happy and thanked him.

  Mr. Ismael’s class became my favorite that year. I waited all week for that one hour. In every class, he would choose one or two drawings and use them to demonstrate strengths and weaknesses. Despite his evenhandedness and the special attention he gave every student, I still felt that he praised me more often. This earned me the jealousy of some of the students. Hadi used to tease me and said once in front of all the students: “Mr. Ismael is a homo and he wants to fuck you!” I was very angry and told him that he was an idiot and was jealous, but he said: “Why, then, does he always talk to you after class?” He kept repeating: “Jawad is a faggot. Jawad is a faggot. Jawad is a faggot.” I was furious and we got into a fight, but other students separated us. I swore never to talk to him again and told my friends that they had to choose between being my friends or his. He used to say out loud right before arts class: “Your fucker is coming. Your fucker is coming.”

  Mr. Ismael noticed that I was sulking that day and asked me what was wrong, but I said nothing to him. I told Ammoury, who said that Hadi was jealous and I should just ignore him.

  Mr. Ismael organized several artistic activities at our school, and we were asked to work together in groups to design a wall newspaper, which included literary texts and artwork. We also organized an exhibition which featured the best drawings of the year. He selected two of mine. One was inspired by al-Sayyab’s poem “Rain Song,” the other was of my father holding his worry beads. The drawings were hung on a wall close to the principal’s office, and the names and sections of students were written under them. The exhibition went on for a month and I was happy to see my name in big letters next to my drawings and to see students and teachers standing before them.

  One day after class Mr. Ismael asked me: “What do you want to be when you grow up, Jawad?”

  Without hesitation I said: “Jawad Salim.”

  He laughed and patted my shoulder saying: “An artist. Why not? You can study at the academy, but you must keep to your drawing and never stop.”

  I answered: “Of course, Sir.”

  At the end of the year he asked me to go to his office after class and to bring my backpack along. The last part sounded odd. When I got there he asked me to sit down on the chair in front of his desk. He repeated what he’d told me throughout the year about my talent and unique eye. He said I was the best student in all of his classes, better even than those who were older. He added that talent was important, but it was not sufficient by itself and had to be augmented by constant practice and study.

  He opened the drawer and took out two pads of the same sort he had given us at the beginning of the year. He took a plastic sack out of his leather bag and put it on his desk. He asked me to take out what was inside. I did and there was a midsize box of watercolors with two brushes and a set of pastels. I was delighted by the surprise and a bit shy. I didn’t know what to say except a soft “thank you.” He said that it was a gift to encourage me to develop my abilities. I thanked him again and told him that his was my favorite class and that I’d learned so much.

  “You deserve much more, Jawad,” he said. “You will not be Jawad Salim, but you can be a fabulous Iraqi artist one day.” He looked at his watch and said that he had to go to another class. We shook hands warmly and I put his precious gift in my bag. I thanked him again and we said goodbye.

  After our last class before the summer break I waited for the other students to leave, especially Hadi, and then gave Mr. Ismael a gift. It was a profile of his face I’d worked on for weeks until I got the best version possible. I wrote on the back: To the best teacher ever. From your grateful student Jawad Kazim. He was very happy as he looked at it. He said he would cherish it and frame it. He shook my hands warmly and patted me on the shoulder. He reminded me to keep drawing and said that he was looking forward to seeing what I would draw during the summer.

  During the summer I filled the two pads with drawings after having practiced using watercolors on ordinary paper. I liked to draw with pastel too, but I focused on strengthening my hand with the brush. For the first time ever I found myself impatiently waiting for the break to end so I could show Mr. Ismael my new drawings.

  On the first day of school I looked at the rosters of students and teachers and at the schedules posted on the wall next to the administration offices. His name did not appear anywhere and there was an X instead of his name next to “Arts.” My heart sank and I asked the assistant principal about him. He said that Mr. Ismael had been called up for military service and that they’d assign a new teacher.

  When it was time for arts class on Thursday, the vice principal came into our classroom and said: “No arts. You can leave.” I inquired about the new teacher. He said: “There is no new teacher.” I asked why. He said: “No idea, son.”

  The arts class became a free hour during which students had fun playing and running around, but for me it was impossible to fill that void with anything. I never studied art with any other teacher after that and never had any further formal training until I entered the Academy of Fine Arts five years later. One month after the start of that academic year in 1980, the war with Iran started. I always wondered about Mr. Ismael’s fate as I watched the footage of fierce battles on TV. I asked other teachers whether they’d heard anything about him, but no one knew anything.

  NINE

  She was all in black. I was late for my art history class that morning because I had decided to sleep an extra fifteen minutes past the alarm. The professor was strict about attendanc
e and wouldn’t allow anyone who was more than ten minutes late to enter. Students called him “The Englishman” because of his obsession with time and because of the fluency and excessive—and somewhat pretentious—accuracy with which he pronounced various English terms. I was panting when I quietly opened the door to the lecture hall. I thought maybe he’d forgive me, but he shook his index finger and pointed to his watch and gestured to me to close the door. I did and walked to the kiosk outside the academy and bought a copy of al-Jumhuriyya. I read the headlines on my way to the cafeteria. Nothing new except military communiqués and constant victories over the enemy. I folded it and put it with my books. I went to the cafeteria, because I hadn’t had time to have breakfast at home. I bought a white cheese sandwich and a cup of tea.

  There were no seats inside but it was warm so I went outside and found an empty bench near the theater department. A group of theater students wearing black were sitting around a palm tree. I sat down and began to devour my sandwich while reading the sports page as usual. My favorite soccer team, al-Zawra’, had lost two of its stars because they were called to the national team, which was preparing for the Asia Tournament. Al-Zawra’s performance had started to decline, and it had lost the previous day’s away match against Najaf, even though Najaf’s team was in last place.

  I turned to the culture pages. There was a feeble poem about the war and under it an interview with an arts critic. I saw a long article about the Arabian Nights and the Arabic literary tradition and how both had influenced Latin American writers. I heard someone clap. It was one of the theater professors who was a famous experimental director. He had a cloud of white hair and was wearing jeans, a white shirt, and sunglasses. He asked the students around the palm tree to pay attention.

  I went back to the article. It was discussing Borges’s fascination with the East and a story he’d written about Averroes, but I couldn’t concentrate. I heard the professor again explaining the exercise they were about to begin. He asked three of the students to sit on the ground and imagine themselves on a sinking boat and to act out their predicament without words. He asked the others to watch. One of the students asked what kind of boat it should be and the professor answered: “Whatever you like, as long as it sinks.” Most of them laughed.

  I was intrigued, so I got up and sat on a closer bench to watch, but kept a reasonable distance so as not to be annoying. The professor called out three names and asked them to be the first to perform. Reem was one of them. She squatted on the ground and held her knees with her arms and looked to the professor awaiting his signal. She was wearing baggy black pants and a black cotton shirt with an open neck and long sleeves she’d folded back a few times so that her arms were showing. Her jet-black hair was tied back. The professor signaled for the sinking to begin.

  Later I saw her standing in line at the cafeteria. She’d changed and was wearing a gray skirt with a white shirt. I approached her and said, “I wanted to save you from drowning, but I can’t swim.”

  She turned toward me with a scowl and asked very seriously: “Excuse me. Come again?”

  “The exercise. This morning? Drowning … I was sitting there and saw you drowning.”

  She laughed and said: “Oh, yes. Thank you for your gallantry, but it’s useless if you can’t swim.”

  “Intentions don’t matter?”

  “Yes, of course. Intentions are crucial.”

  Then she introduced herself: “Reem, theater.”

  I said: “Delighted. Jawad. Arts.”

  Her eyes were pitch-black and gleamed with confidence as she spoke somewhat slowly. Her eyelashes were thick, her eyebrows carefully plucked. She was wearing light makeup. She bought crackers and a cup of tea with milk and offered to buy me something in appreciation of my noble intentions. I thanked her but I had to leave for a class. I noticed the gold ring on her left hand as she paid and felt a pang in my heart. Damn! She’s married. All this beauty for another man who waits for her at the end of the day.

  “Some other time then,” she said.

  We said goodbye and I headed to the door. We exchanged smiles. I could train myself, I determined, to be just friends with a woman.

  I saw her again a week later on the sidewalk outside the academy. She was getting into a beautiful blue car with tinted windows. The driver was a man, probably her husband, wearing sunglasses. I caught only his black moustache. Then she disappeared and I didn’t see her again that year. One day I saw a friend I’d seen her with and asked about Reem’s disappearance. She said that Reem had dropped out for personal reasons, but she refused to say more. I wondered whether Reem was ill. I asked other students in the theater department and heard a rumor that her husband had forced her to drop out.

  TEN

  I remembered how my father shook his head when he was certain that I wanted to make the Academy of Fine Arts my first choice. My average score in the countrywide baccalaureate exam was 87.7 percent. That would probably guarantee acceptance in the engineering departments at al-Mustansiriyya University and other universities in the provinces, or in fields such as literature or the sciences if I made these my top choices.

  He asked me sarcastically: “So what will you be after you finish? An arts teacher?”

  I answered: “Maybe. What’s wrong with that, anyway? Is teaching shameful? There are other types of work as well.”

  He handed back the list and repeated a favorite sentence: “One has to look out for one’s livelihood, son!” And after a heavy silence: “Even if you don’t want to work with me, at least study something useful for yourself and others. Something good!”

  I wasn’t surprised, but the episode saddened me. He never forgave me for straying from the path and favoring art over the useful profession he had inherited from his ancestors. I folded the sheet of paper without saying anything. Mother, who was sitting at the other end of the couch, tried, as usual, to lighten the mood: “Great things are awaiting Jawad and he deserves the best. Good luck, son.”

  Father gave her a silent look and then went back to nursing his cup of tea.

  ELEVEN

  “Pythagoras says that there is music in stone.”

  So began Professor Isam al-Janabi’s first lecture on the history of sculpture. I still remember the details clearly. He added that Goethe appropriated this idea and used it in a remark about architecture as frozen music. Professor Isam al-Janabi’s style in his lectures about art and life seemed like poetry to me. He was adept at using quotations to crystallize the subjects of his lectures or illustrate the ideas he was explaining to us. He once quoted Picasso: “Art is the lie that represents truth.” The images and slides he used gave his lectures an additional dimension and set them apart from the dry and boring styles of the other professors.

  He was almost fifty. He’d been to Italy a few years before, after completing his graduate studies. He was a famous artist, well known throughout the Arab world, and had had numerous exhibitions. He also published occasional critical essays in newspapers and journals about art history. His style of dress was stereotypically bohemian. His long curly hair was the longest among students and professors. He had a bushy moustache and long beard whose white fringes he used to stroke a lot.

  He asked for help closing the shades for the slide show. I was sitting in the back of the darkened lecture hall, one of thirty-some students. I took out my notebook and prepared to jot down notes. Speaking without notes, he took us on a panoramic journey through the history of sculpture.

  He was collecting his papers and putting them in his bag after class when I approached him to ask about Giacometti. He had showed us images of some of Giacometti’s works which fascinated me, especially one entitled Man Walking. He smiled as he put his bag over his shoulder and asked, “What in particular do you like about him?”

  I was a bit flustered, because I’d never reflected on my reasons for loving certain works of art. Beauty would simply and suddenly hit me in the gut. I hesitated, then said, “I don’t know exactly, but I fe
lt that the man he sculpted was sad and isolated.”

  Professor Isam al-Janabi smiled, and his eyes glittered. “Bravo. Many critics say that his works express an existentialist attitude toward the emptiness and meaninglessness of life.” He said the last sentence in standard Arabic and in a different tone. Then he added: “Remind me of your name again?”

  “Jawad,” I said.

  “Of course you loved him, Jawad. How could you not?”

  We left the lecture hall together and continued our conversation about Giacometti and abstract sculpture until we reached his office. He asked me to come in. Stacks of papers, books, and clippings were piled on his desk and chair. The shelves were piled to the ceiling with books. He put his bag on his desk, then gathered the pile of manuscripts and newspapers from a chair so I could sit. I looked at the books. Most of them were in Arabic and English, but there were some titles in Italian. A huge black-and-white poster of Giacometti covered what was left of the wall. In the picture, Giacometti was carrying one of his tiny statues and walking between two thin large ones. I was taken by the poster, and Professor Isam al-Janabi noticed my reaction.

  He looked at it as if seeing it for the first time: “Ah, here is your friend Giacometti in his studio.” Then he asked me about my background and interests, listening intently to everything I had to say. He, too, had come from a poor family. His father worked at a paper mill and wanted him to be an engineer, not an artist.

  I asked whether he’d met Giacometti. He said he hadn’t, because Giacometti died years before he had gone to Europe. He got out of his chair and looked for something on the shelves. After half a minute, he reached up and plucked a book from one of the top shelves. It was a big book with Giacometti’s name written in a big font on the cover. He blew the dust away and gave it to me, saying it contained all of Giacometti’s works and I could borrow it, provided I took good care of it. I was very happy. He looked at his watch and said that he had a lecture in a few minutes. I apologized and thanked him for his time. We shook hands and said goodbye.