The Long Way Back

by Fuad al-Takarli

  She interrupted sharply, her cheeks on fire. “No, no. That’s not what I was saying.”

  “That’s roughly what you were thinking though—that I read too much, have an odd philosophy of life, take no interest in the world around me!”

  She raised a delicate finger in protest. “No, Karim. Please ...”

  “Just a minute, Munira. First of all, I don’t read that much. Hardly at all, in fact. Secondly, these ideas—I myself don’t know where they come from. Perhaps it’s quite natural to have them. They’re not structured or logical. They just come and go. I’m influenced by them a bit more than I ought to be, that’s all.”

  Her eyes clouded over briefly, and a few small wrinkles appeared underneath them. She raised her finger in protest again. “Look, Karim. I don’t think you understand me. I really respect your ideas and opinions. But I want you to take more interest in your personal affairs and sort out your studies. I mean your future is important, and this wouldn’t be in conflict with—philosophy, would it? And anyhow, philosophers don’t care about anybody. They’re spongers.”

  “Spongers? Who do they sponge on?” I was interested by these new ideas of hers.

  She smiled. “Us, of course. Why are they concerned about us? Why don’t they leave us in peace? As Midhat said, they don’t have proper jobs, so they spend their time chattering. People want to get on with their lives, so God lets these philosophers do all the talking.”

  I smiled back at her, at her animated, flushed face and sparkling eyes; at the sweet life she embodied. I shook my head. “I don’t know which philosophers you’re talking about, but you know, there are people who don’t talk rubbish, who understand life, or at least some parts of it, and write about it. They’re not parasites. Perhaps we’re the parasites. Sometimes we can’t survive without some help. Life wears us down without us realizing it. I know that only too well. We burn up in the air. Believe me, I know. The hot air kills us sometimes.”

  I hadn’t intended to talk like this, or for my words to have this peculiar emotional ring to them, but all of a sudden my thoughts had been filled with an image of Fuad and his life, his love, his efforts to confront his problems, and his death. I was talking to myself more than to her.

  “Sorry, Karim,” she said. “I wasn’t meaning anything specific. I was joking. And you must be tired; you probably want to read and I don’t even know what the time is.” And to my consternation she made to get up.

  “Where are you going, Munira?” I said quickly. “It’s not late.”

  “What time is it?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Tell me about the film. Which cinema did you go to?”

  “You don’t want to study. That’s what this is all about.”

  “I’m not trying to avoid working. I had an exam today. It should have been me who went to the cinema, not you. Especially since you don’t even seem to know the name of the film.”

  She looked at me in astonishment. “Of course I know its name. But I didn’t have the chance to take it in. On the one hand Sana wanted to know about everything in the film in advance. And Midhat—God bless him ... I don’t know . . . They wouldn’t let me follow it. The cinema was new—it was beautiful. The Nasr cinema. But the film—as you say I didn’t have a clue what was going on in it.”

  We both laughed.

  The house was silent, as if everyone had gone to bed, and Munira was in front of me, laughing. Sharing a joke with me. Some color had risen to her cheeks. I could see her upper arm, smooth and golden brown where the sleeve of her green dress ended, and her white teeth, and hear her voice. I forgot about death. I had a sense that she possessed some knowledge which was relevant to me and which I had to hear from her lips.

  “How was it at school?” I asked.

  “Fine. But it’s a bit far for me to travel. If we go on living here, I mean.”

  “What do you mean, if? Where would you go?”

  Her hazel eyes clouded over again, and she grimaced slightly. “Look, Karim,” she said after a pause, “everything has its cost. It’s not right for us to go on staying like this. We’re a burden.” She raised her hand, anticipating my objections. “I know. I know what you’re going to say. But, all the same, I’m going to write to my brother Mustafa and see what he thinks. Of course we don’t want to live on our own—my mother and I. Our situation doesn’t help. You know, out financial situation—and other things, but . . .”

  Very slowly, she bowed her head and was transformed into a different creature. She stretched out her arms and put a hand on each knee, then her hair fell forward around her face, and she seemed to have been transported to another world within moments. All I could see of her was the parting in her hair, her eyebrows and eyelashes, and the tip of her nose, as if I was looking at a slave kneeling at my feet. She was turned in on herself, absorbed in something deep inside her. She reminded me of how she had looked that dawn several months before when she had stood in the pale flood of light in her blue nightclothes, communing with the invisible, and listening with her whole being to the silence. Then, as now, she had left out world, the uninterrupted sequence of life going on around her, and moved into a private world of her own,

  I tried to bring her back, speaking slowly: “You know my friend Fuad, Munira?”

  Her face didn’t change. She said nothing. She hadn’t heard me.

  “He was a very dear friend to me,” I whispered. “He died a few months ago.”

  She frowned. “Died?” Then she went on quickly. “Yes, yes. I remember. Your mother told me about him. An only child. You were with him when . . .”

  “That’s not important,” I interrupted. “But Munira, why do you ...”

  A vague look of anxiety began to spread over her face, beginning in her eyes, which were a little damp, and reaching her mouth. She tensed her lips.

  “Why do you remind me of Fuad?” I concluded.

  She went on looking at me. In place of the worried expression there was one of indifference or resignation. “I remind you of your friend— who died?” she asked coldly.

  Then she paused and blinked several times. I nodded my head and she looked away and said, “Look, Karim, I don’t feel very strong at the moment, I mean psychologically as well as physically. Today at the cinema I hat. a shock, and now you’re . . .”

  “Sorry, Munira. I was just thinking, I mean when you love people, even if they’re different, you see strange similarities between them. Wouldn’t you say so?”

  She looked at me again, her eyes clear and sparkling. “You mean you can see death—on my face?”

  She was teasing me, but she scared me. “No, no,” I said hurriedly “Why do you twist my words?”

  She stood up. It seemed unexpected and I stood up, too.

  “What?” I said enquiringly.

  She was smoothing down her dress from just below her breasts to the top of her thighs. She repeated the exercise several times, gazing abstractedly at the floor. Then she spoke. “It’s late, Karim, and this kind of talk is never-ending. I’m a bit tired today.”

  “Another day then,” I said quickly.

  She smiled with affection and understanding. Her lips were parted, her oval face framed by wild clouds of hair, and her hazel eyes shone with love and happiness.

  Then she left me, quickly and gracefully, wishing me good night. Her smile lingered in the air: a tremor, an ethereal image, an invisible rainbow Something that I couldn’t pin down made me intoxicated for hours afterwards. I couldn’t sleep or read, but lay on the bed in the darkness listening to the night sounds: a bird asleep on a dry branch; a vague tapping in the kitchen; the distant howling of dogs; the sound of light footsteps coming and going with the breezes; the subdued sounds of myself; and the morning which had not vet broken.

  My mother insisted on bringing me up a cup of coffee. She stood in the kitchen doorway and called me as I sat in the big gallery by the alcove, concentrating on the book which lay open in front of me. I’d heard her and her mother talking in t
he kitchen for a while, but not been able to make out what they were saying. The sky was clear, an autumn sky, and the noisy members of the house were all out. The two women’s conversation was like the murmur of water simmering on the stove. Then my mother appeared. I said I could easily come down. I wasn’t particularly keen on having coffee; I’d slept for a few hours before dawn and felt greatly refreshed. But she insisted. She was smiling broadly, and her plump, pale face conveyed her pleasure. She asked me how I’d slept last night, how my studying was going, how I felt. As if she hadn’t seen me at breakfast!

  Then she sat down beside me. A long time seemed to pass before she spoke. The olive tree was still, bathed in the sun’s golden rays, and the sky was very blue. Her words were not preceded by any unusual sound or gesture. The house was quiet—the things in it and its inhabitants—and so was the world and the whole of existence, even the sky.

  “Karim dear,” she said, “Midhat wants Munira. He spoke to her at the cinema yesterday. That little devil Sana heard him and told her mother and Madiha told me, As if it was nothing to do with me. I had to find it out from your sister.”

  I could see a few white hairs in her eyebrows and small folds of skin underneath her eyes. I remained calm, apart from the rapid beating of my heart.

  “She didn’t give him an answer,” continued my mother. “So now her mother’s all confused and doesn’t know what to say. I don’t know. Did Munira mention it to you last night?”

  I shook my head. The house was still quiet, an absolute theatre of indifference. I shook my head. So this was it. I told her I knew nothing. But she guessed my unspoken questions, perhaps from some vague aura I was giving off, and answered them.

  “He’s your older brother, Karumi dear. He’s a graduate with a job and some money. And you—what I’m saying is, the world’s not going to end, is it? You’re all young, my dear, and God willing you’ll all live to see your grandchildren.”

  She seemed to be bearing the guilt for other people’s crimes, and I felt somehow that I was a victim, that it was up to me to make sacrifices again. I shut my book and with it all thoughts of the future. I turned to my mother. The sun was reflected on the wall in the distance to my right, its light bisected vertically by the wooden columns supporting the roof. My grandmother appeared in the doorway of her room.

  “You know I’m fond of Munira, Mother,” I said, “and Midhat, too. But neither of them has told me anything. And I don’t know how you can believe ... I mean why you trust the stories that little girl tells you.”

  “My dear, she’s little but she’s a devil. She hears every single thing that goes on in this house. But you’re right. Somebody should ask.” She stared into the distance. “But ask who? The subjects Midhat is prepared to discuss can be counted on the fingers of one hand. I don’t know, but perhaps you, Karumi, my dear ... What I mean is... she might talk to you if you ask her.” She paused. “There’s your grandmother. What does she want at this time of day? She’s had breakfast, and it’s not nearly time for lunch vet.”

  She got up to go and see.

  The book was lying closed on the table in front of me with a pen beside it. I picked up the pen and opened the book. I noticed that I hadn’t touched my coffee. Had Munira wanted to tell me something yesterday evening? She hadn’t looked for a moment like a girl who’d received an offer of marriage a few hours before. And my future and whether I succeeded in my studies—since I was to be deprived of her, why had she bothered asking all those questions about them?

  I wanted to write something, a name on the page. Then I changed my mind. I felt somewhat anxious, as if I was in a void. Ill-defined thoughts kept coming to my mind. I hadn’t seen her that morning, but the image of her luminous skin, the shadow of her green dress on her upper arm, and the reflection of the color on the delicate fold of flesh came and enveloped me as I sat looking at the open book, holding the pen.

  I shut the book again and put the pen down.

  Chapter

  Eight

  H er daughter Sana woke her from the deep sleep that comes around dawn.

  “Mum, Mum,” she whispered in her ear. “The jinn’s in the kitchen washing the dishes. Mum. I’m scared. Please, Mum. The jinn.”

  Sana’s voice came from a bottomless cave. Her mother gathered her bemused senses. “What? What’s wrong?” she asked. “What jinn? What dishes? Why are you awake?”

  “Mum. He’s in the courtyard washing the dishes. Listen!”

  She sat up in bed, straining to hear. The milky light of the sky flooded in through the open door, and from down in the courtyard came an inexplicable, irregular knocking sound, as if the hard ground was being hit with a hollow metal pipe. One, two, three knocks, then silence, then three more knocks. She felt Sana gripping her arm.

  “Can you hear it, Mum? Can you?”

  “Shh. Be quiet.”

  Two rapid knocks, then another, followed by silence. She was afraid; she felt her scalp tingle. It didn’t make sense. Not even jinns talked like this! She swung her legs down from the big bed, stood up, and put her feet into her sandals. For some reason she asked Sana where her sister Suha was, and Sana replied that she was snoring her head off in bed. Madiha went apprehensively towards the door. The pale blue sky and the olive tree appeared in front of her. The morning birds had not yet begun their song. The banging came from below, heavy, irregular. She stood hesitantly in the doorway and stuck her head out. As the cool breeze touched her face, she felt her daughter’s trembling fingers clinging to her arm. It was barely light in the courtyard, and she had trouble making out the ground. She wanted to cross the small gallery and look over the balustrade, but was afraid of what she might see. It could be something that a human being like her ought not to know about: the world of jinns or some other creatures who had no desire to be spied on by a wretched mortal.

  Her heart beat more powerfully as she continued to stand in the doorway, her reluctance fuelled by all the fairy stories and tales of jinns she had heard in childhood. Sana was clinging desperately on to her from behind. She was about to go back inside, shut the door, and return to bed, when she heard a movement from Aunt Safiya’s room to their right. She looked round and saw her aunt leaning on the door post, her hennaed hair disheveled; she was looking vacantly in the direction of the courtyard.

  “God keep you, Umm Hasan,” she was saying irritably. “Do you think my eyesight is good enough to see dragons and monsters? Strong, healthy people sleep on full stomachs. But I’m starving, so my vision’s blurred. God heals all. God bless you, Umm Hasan. You’ve woken me up and it’s not even daylight.”

  She was talking quietly to herself, as if she wanted no one else to hear. But Madiha was reassured to see her aunt.

  “Auntie, what are you doing standing there?”

  Her aunt turned towards her, shading her eyes with her left hand. “Good heavens. Is that you, Madiha? Something odd’s happening down in the yard. Bang bang all night, from the evening prayer till now. Can’t you tell them . . .” she stopped and gesticulated towards the courtyard. “Talk to them nicely Why are they washing their hair all this time? There’s no more water in the pipes. Talk to them, Madiha, please. Nicely. Don’t be cross with them.”

  Madiha breathed easily again as she listened to her aunt’s raving interspersed with the strange knocking, which continued unabated. Hesitantly, she approached the balustrade. The sky, the high walls, and the top of the olive tree were bathed in the dawn light. She looked down. There was another thud, then silence, followed by a weak, muffled groaning which she hadn’t heard before. The courtyard was like a mirage, the things on the ground indistinguishable from one another. She squinted, trying to see, feeling a prickle down her spine. Nothing. Then she heard Sana whispering to her: “There, Mum. There, beside the pond. What is it?”

  The thing was moving, a shadow lost in the shadows, a smudge of black in the blackness. She couldn’t make out a specific shape, just a dark, truncated blob turned to the right. There was anothe
r of the mysterious bangs, then the blob turned slowly to the left, accompanied by the moaning sound. She was more surprised than frightened by what she saw.

  “Please, Madiha,” said her aunt in a low voice. “Recite ‘God is One’ and put the light on beside you. You don’t know whether you’re going to die of hunger or fright around here. Recite, my dear. Recite the Quran.”

  Madiha felt a movement behind her as Sana put the light on and its reddish glow flooded the yard, driving the shadows away. She tried to follow the movement beside the pond, but couldn’t make out what was happening. There was a short tail and four short legs, but no head.

  Sana let out a yell. “It’s the tomcat! Its head’s stuck in the kettle. The stupid thing. It scared me, Mum.”

  The cat was swinging its head slowly from side to side, weighed down by its strange helmet, producing the cacophony of sounds which had interrupted their sleep. Madiha continued to observe the scene with some annoyance, feeling her tension draining away.

  “What cat? What are you talking about, Sana?” demanded Aunt Safiya. “Why didn’t you recite ‘God is One’ before you put the light on? See how the jinn’s turned himself into a cat to make fun of us.”

  “Auntie dear, it’s the white cat that ate your kebab the other day”

  “Curse it! See how God’s punishing it! It’s no more than it deserves.”

  Madiha moved heavily away along the small gallery towards the stairs. She was thinking about what she would have to do, since she was the one responsible for putting right any such disruption to the domestic order. She passed her sleeping brothers’ rooms, and when she was almost halfway along the big gallery, her mother looked out of her room, her round, pale face still bearing traces of sleep.