Dates on My Fingers: An Iraqi Novel (Modern Arabic Literature)

by Muhsin al-Ramli

  Rosa asked me, “Anything to drink?”

  “Nothing, thanks,” I said. “Not now. I’ll order something for myself in a bit.”

  My father was speaking with some of them in German, others in English. With the Spaniards he spoke a limited number of words, most of them curses. But whenever necessary, he got help from Fatima to translate, or from Rosa, with whom he spoke three languages: German, English, and a bit of Arabic. He held a glass in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Nevertheless, he never stopped using his hands while speaking, waving them around. He would often wrap the arm which ended in a cigarette around the necks of the others. But once he discarded the cigarette, his fingers would grab wherever they landed, pinching the skin of those standing around him, who were intoxicated by his noisy presence.

  New customers kept arriving, coming down across the black entryway with its red carpet, which looked like an outstretched tongue. It was like an open mouth vomiting out people, each of whom came to the circle around my father and started joking with him. Their circle grew larger and more crowded, and because most of them knew each other, little by little I found myself alone on the edge of the circle. I didn’t know anybody, and I didn’t find a way in. I felt incapable of joining in their jokes and matching their noisy laughter. So I took myself quietly away toward the bar and sat on a stool between the beer taps and the cash register, opposite the place where Fatima would always stand. I greeted her, and she smiled sweetly. Her hands didn’t stop wiping the glasses with a towel tied to the edge of the white work apron hanging from her neck like a cook’s apron.

  “What would you like: German beer or Spanish beer?” she asked.

  “Neither,” I replied. “I don’t drink beer or any alcoholic drinks. I’ll take a Diet Coke.”

  “You really don’t drink?! Oh my God, that’s great!” She showed her surprise, but I didn’t know how serious she was being.

  “And you?”

  “I don’t drink alcohol either. And if I sometimes have to, to be polite, I’ll drink a non-alcoholic beer.”

  “How long have you been in Spain?” I asked.

  “About four years.”

  “And how long have you worked here?”

  “For six months, ever since it opened.”

  “How? I mean, how did you find this job?”

  She leaned her head back and laughed, trading a dry glass for a wet one to wipe. “It was a coincidence. Or luck. I’m not sure which. I was passing by one morning, and I went into the Chinese shop across the way—do you know it? I wanted to buy some notebooks, pens, and so on. You know, school supplies for my sister. She’s young, fourteen years old, and I want her to finish school and not drop out like I did.”

  As the number of people coming in increased, so did the empty glasses that the other workers brought to Fatima from all corners of the club. They would also carry back orders. Fatima stopped talking with me in order to converse with them, taking the empties they brought back and pouring drinks to send out with them. I took advantage of the pause in our conversation to sip a little Coke and to observe Fatima more closely. I also looked around at the surroundings, over to where my father was hidden behind the crowd. I could only see his head with its colorful braid and hear him laughing. It resounded loudly and was echoed all around by the laughter of the others, interspersed with curses in every language.

  “The important thing,” Fatima resumed, “is that I found your friend, Mr. Noah, there. He was looking for things for the final renovations: screws, nails, brackets, shelves, and things like that. He bumped into me inside the shop and immediately said in Arabic, ‘Excuse me!’ I answered him in Arabic, ‘No problem!’ So he said to me, ‘You’re an Arab!’ And he began to ask me the Spanish names of the things that he wanted, which I helped him with. I stayed with him to translate until he had finished paying, and then he said, ‘Do you want a job?’ ‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘but in what?’ He led me here, where the decorators were just about to put on the finishing touches. And so it was that we began talking it over until we came to an agreement. But the surprising thing, which you might not believe, lies in the condition he imposed on me before we sealed the deal. Excuse me for just a minute.”

  A customer, perhaps Dutch, came up to her and ordered a cocktail. Given that he didn’t know what the drink was called in Spanish, she asked him if he could speak French. He said yes, and they began talking in French until she had made his drink and he went away, thanking her.

  She came back over to me with a sweet smile on her face that was obviously connected with what she would tell me: “The condition he gave was that I memorize the entire Cow Sura from the Qur’an before he would sign my contract!”

  I was shaken by surprise, and as I heard my father’s laughter booming out, I asked, “Seriously?!”

  “I swear to God Almighty! He gave me a copy of the Qur’an. I too was as surprised as you are.”

  “Huh! And then what happened?”

  “I took the Qur’an and told him to give me a week.”

  The crowd in the club was getting bigger, and four people came up to ask Fatima for drinks. At the same time, one of the waitresses brought in additional orders. Rosa came over and asked Fatima whether she needed someone to help her. She said no at first and then changed her mind after another customer came up with her boyfriend. I think it was the one who had been crying at the door when I came in. At Rosa’s command, one of the waitresses went around the far end of the bar to join Fatima.

  Rosa approached me and patted my shoulder in a friendly way. She said in the manner of a professional maître d’, “So, how is everything?”

  “Fine, thank you.”

  “Look at him! He’s as happy as can be.”

  “Yes, yes, I see him. Rather, barely: I only see his braid and hear the roar of his laughter.”

  She laughed then herself and went away to some other business. From all this, I realized that her role was to supervise things in general, and my father’s was to socialize with the clientele. Fatima’s job was to watch the cash register and to prepare glasses and drinks, with help from of one of the waitresses if it became very busy.

  Fatima smiled at me whenever she approached the register. I was sitting in front of it and leaning my arm against the edge. When there were only two customers left, the other girl took their order, and Fatima stood in front of me. She kept on working: recording the receipts, drying glasses, and preparing small dishes of olives and chips.

  I asked her, “And what happened?”

  “Naturally, I agreed. It was the opportunity that I had been waiting for. I would obtain a good contract for a stable job after having spent the previous years without a work contract, moving from cleaning houses, to caring for children and the elderly, to working in immigrant restaurants.”

  “And you memorized the entire Cow Sura?”

  “Yes! I went home and locked myself in like a student getting ready for her graduation exams. Before that, I had only memorized the short suras of the Qur’an. My sister helped me memorize it, though at the same time she laughed at me. She thought that I was like her, studying all over again. To a certain degree I found this condition strange, but it also gave me confidence in Mr. Noah.”

  “Do you still have it memorized?”

  “I do. Because he tests me on it at the end of every month before he hands over my salary, and he deducts one euro from me for every mistake. At the same time, he gives me a bonus of fifty euros on my salary if I don’t make any mistakes. That was our deal. He tests me without a book since he has the entire Qur’an memorized.”

  My eyes just bulged since I couldn’t find anything to say in reply. I felt a revival in my obscure hope that my father was, deep down, just as I knew him to be. At the same time, I became even more confused and surprised at this entirely different person that I saw in him now.

  “And what about the rest of the women working here? Did he give them any conditions?”

  “No, of course not. They are Span
iards and Christians, so it’s entirely different. Rosa is the one who picked them. I’m the only one that Mr. Noah hired. He was also taking me as his translator, as he put it to Rosa. And Rosa does not refuse his requests. She is madly in love with him. She says that she has never known a man like him in her life. Actually, I too have never known a man like him—with the strength of his personality, his big heart, his intelligence, and his vitality. You are also from his village in Iraq?”

  “Yes …. Yes.”

  “I like Iraqis. All of us Moroccans like Iraqis.”

  Then she went away to help the other girl. I stayed where I was, lighting one cigarette after another, sipping the Coke, and observing what went on around me. The noise increased as the club became more crowded with young people of various nationalities and lifestyles. I didn’t understand how hippies, tourists, blonds, blacks, immigrants, homosexuals, and racist skinheads all came together. Everyone was submersed in a cloud of smoke while the disco ball oscillated on the ceiling above the performance stage. The members of a Brazilian band mounted the stage and began taking their places with their musical instruments, checking them over. The dark-skinned singer adjusted her bra straps and tested the microphone.

  My father went up and got the party going with a comic monologue in a mix of languages, with Rosa sometimes translating. He joked throughout with some of the people standing nearby, and there was laughter and applause. Then the place ignited with Samba songs. The dancing bodies undulated, shaken by the drums, which were struck by a dark-skinned, muscle-bound percussionist dripping with sweat. Sometimes he bit his lip in concentration; other times he would let out a frenzied cry, which animated the gyrations of the dancers even more.

  I looked at my watch and saw the hour hand pointing at 2:00 a.m. I looked at Fatima and saw her moving quickly. She nearly flew from one side to another, filling orders like a bee going about its work lightly and skillfully. She never ceased to smile, despite the flood of noise that forced us to bring our faces close together and shout when we were talking.

  I asked her, “How is it that all these radically different people come together in one place?”

  She laughed and said, “Everyone asks the same question. It’s your friend, Noah. Because he does that, some of them call him president or teacher. Some of them call him the messiah since he brings together the wolf and the lamb and makes peace between them. But he refuses such titles and only goes by his own name, which some think suits him even better, given that the original Noah brought together all the different kinds of creatures into his single ark. According to Rosa, he loves his name very much and says that God is the one who chose it for him.”

  Suddenly, like a scene from a comedy, a violent commotion arose between two customers in the middle of the dance floor just when we were talking about his ability to reconcile the incompatible. An empty beer bottle flew through the air from that direction and shattered against the fingers of Fatima’s right hand, which had been holding the top of a tap, pouring a beer for someone. She cried out, and her blood mixed with the drink in the glass she was filling.

  The music stopped and my father burst out of the crowd, coming over to Fatima to comfort her and check her wound. There was a cut that ran along the back of her four fingers.

  “I’m sorry,” he said to her. “It will be okay.”

  He told me to put pressure on the wound and take care of her. Then he went back to the adversaries and raised his voice above everyone else’s in a rebuke. With the help of some others, he separated the adversaries and sat them down away from each other. The whole time he was cursing and scolding them amid everyone’s silence.

  During this time, I went behind the bar with Fatima. I took hold of her bleeding hand, washed it, and comforted her. She had actually calmed down already, though the surprise had frightened her a little. I began to dry her hand with the apron, which she had hurried to take off. I saw the size of her chest for the first time. It was small, but the two breasts were firm, set apart, and upright, like the newly developed breasts of a young woman. Rosa brought me gauze and a bandage, together with a bottle of iodine, which she had taken from a small first-aid box that was hanging in one of the dark corners. I sat Fatima down on a nearby chair and began wrapping her hand, going around the fingers on their own, then all together.

  My father angrily mounted the stage. In a style that ranged from serious to joking, he began addressing the assembly over the microphone, reminding them of the rules of the establishment and his rejection of violence in all its forms. After I had finished bandaging Fatima’s hand, I put my hand on her shoulder, and she stood up with me. We began to watch my father, who was speaking at that moment, giving his address in English, which he would translate himself into German, while Rosa next to him would translate it into Spanish.

  “This is a place for happiness, for coexistence, for tolerance, for getting to know each other, for love, for peace, for dancing, for life, for kissing.” (He kissed Rosa, and the crowd laughed.) “For the pleasure of caressing bodies and asses.” (He reached a hand over to Rosa’s butt, and they laughed and clapped.) “Violence is forbidden here, along with arrogance, racism, and calls for force and heroic deeds. Whoever among you wants violence, chivalry, and empty heroism, here’s my passport!” (He took his passport from his pocket and held it up.) “Let him take it and go to Iraq. I guarantee he’ll find violence there. They’ll teach him manners, they’ll put some muscles on his bones, and he’ll eat the shit he’s looking for!”

  Laughter and applause went up. He came down and reconciled the two adversaries, making them embrace each other and apologize. Then, to the one who had thrown the bottle that injured Fatima’s fingers, he indicated that he should apologize to her. A fat German came toward us and began apologizing to Fatima.

  My father said to him from behind, “Kiss her hand, you donkey! Just like respectable men do to respectable ladies.”

  The guy did so, smiling, and Fatima smiled while extending her hand. Everyone applauded, and my father called out to the music band, “Come, now! Let’s continue the party!”

  The din and the dancing started up all over again. Then my father came back to Fatima and embraced her, saying, “My dear Fatumi, how are you?”

  He examined her wrapped hand, and she said, “No, it’s nothing, just a light wound.”

  He said to her, “You can go home, or to my place, or even to Saleem’s, if you want.”

  “No,” she said. “I’m fine. I can stay here and take care of the receipts at least.”

  “Fine, just as you like. In that case, have a seat. And whenever you feel pain or want to leave, just go.”

  Then he spanked her on the butt and disappeared again into the middle of the crowd, his laughter rising above the noise.

  I said to Fatima, “Where do you live?”

  “In the Barajas district, near the airport.”

  “And how do you get there every night then?”

  “Sometimes I take a taxi, and if it’s late, I take the subway when the first train comes at six.”

  “And Mr. Noah’s house?”

  “It’s close to here, on the next street over.”

  “In any case, if you want to go to your house, his house, or even my house, I’m happy to walk you there.”

  “No, thanks. I’m fine.”

  I came out from behind the bar and sat back down in my place in front of her. After about an hour, I noticed that the atmosphere had come back to normal. The dancing and the drinking continued, and Fatima resumed punching in the receipts with her right hand, the smile never leaving her face. I wrote my address down for her on a paper napkin I took from the dispenser in front of me. Then I said goodbye to her and headed off for home.

  CHAPTER 8

  I couldn’t fall asleep until very late. I stayed up smoking and recalling what had happened, what I had learned that day about my father. So, he still had the Qur’an memorized. And he was proud to confess Grandfather’s method of naming in our family, w
hich he considered to be names chosen for us by God.

  He had made Fatima memorize the Cow Sura, yet he spanked her whenever she passed by him. And it was he who had raged like a bull and turned our entire life upside down on account of a guy grabbing my sister Istabraq’s butt.

  He took charge of this incompatible multitude, yet he, throughout his life, left the management of our family, and even of his very self, to Grandfather. He would obey Grandfather without discussion, without even looking him in the eyes.

  He now drank wine voraciously, yet he was the one who never left a prayer, a fast, or any religious duty unfulfilled. He lived with Rosa, and she wasn’t his wife. (And how exactly did he live with her after what the electric torture had done to his testicles?) His mouth poured out the coarsest of curses in all languages, yet he was the one who never uttered an offensive word in his life. He laughed the loudest of all those assembled, yet if he used to laugh, it wouldn’t be more than a smile because “if the upright believer laughs, he must not guffaw.”

  I was thinking that there were two people inside my father. The person that he revealed back there was hiding here; the person that he revealed here was hiding back there. But he didn’t abandon either of them for good. Sometimes he injected one of them into the other.

  And finally, what about the way Grandfather died!?

  It had been Grandfather’s dream to construct what might be called “The Ideal City,” or at least “The Ideal Village.” The clash with the government furnished a suitable opportunity to put this dream into effect. To a large degree, he succeeded during the first two years after we moved. It was an ideal place for isolation: a peninsula that the river encircled on three sides, with the mountain on the fourth. He made the mosque the center of the village and the biggest, most important, and most beautiful of its buildings, even though it was just a large hall with a prayer niche. He attached to it a small room and a bathroom. He fashioned the shelves of its library by himself out of branches from willow and tamarisk trees, stacking all his books on them. He didn’t have more than fifty books, most of them containing religious or historical material or popular legends. In their entirety, they formed the sum of my first reading: I read them all as I had a lot of free time during those years.