“Go and leave this by your father’s bed.”
She dried her eyes. She didn’t want to cry here, at the door of his room. Taking Suha’s hand, she followed her brother. Sana caught up with them a few moments later. As Madiha went carefully down the stairs and out of the dark house, she felt she was leaving Husayn in his grave.
There was a cold, foul-smelling breeze blowing in the deserted, poorly lit alleys. She hid her tears under her black abaya and choked back the sobs. Luckily it wasn’t far to her father’s house.
Chapter
Nine
I was half-sitting, half-lying on my bed in the old people’s room, reading a novel. It had seemed interesting at first but I was beginning to think the writer had lost his way when my mother spoke to me. She didn’t like seeing me absorbed in something she couldn’t understand.
“Munira, my daughter. You should write to your brother, Mustafa. He might talk to his friend about getting you transferred to Baghdad more quickly.”
She was smoking a long cigarette and chewing her words like gum, an ugly habit I hadn’t managed to break her of. I turned a page of my book in silence, knowing that she wouldn’t leave me alone. We were by ourselves in the room, as Aunt Safiya and my grandmother Umm Hasan had both gone to the bathroom or somewhere. The heat was pretty bad, but it hadn’t given me a headache as it used to before. Perhaps I was happier in myself here, or God in His grace had cured me at last.
“These people have a thousand things on their minds, my girl. If you don’t look out for yourself, no one else is going to do it for you. And you know your brother!”
“Why don’t you talk properly, Mum? Keep your tongue still while you’re speaking. I’ve told you before, I’m not writing to Mustafa again, so why do you keep going on about it? I’ve written to him once, and he understands how things are. I’m not writing to him again.”
“People are only interested in their own troubles. I should know.”
I put my book aside and looked through the wooden window shutters. I wasn’t tired of reading, but it was time for tea and so I had stopped concentrating. My mother’s talk, always in the same vein, was not about to provoke a strong reaction from me. Since out arrival I had quickly learned to disregard the hidden meanings in words. I was concerned not to be miserable all the time; it seemed sensible, now that we had found this bolt-hole, not to torment ourselves about the past. The best thing we could do was to lick out wounds and take stock.
They were making tea somewhere in the house, and I felt incapable of talking to my mother, who was squatting silently beside the bed. With a hand to her forehead, which was wrapped in a shiny black bandeau, she was smoking, enveloped in a mass of white, evil-smelling smoke. When she spoke she didn’t make the slightest gesture, but just sat there on the floor with her voice coming out of her in a continuous stream of malformed words. “What makes you think people want to help us in our troubles, my daughter? I swear by all the imams that that there’s not a living soul who cares whether we live or die. If you don’t look after yourself, no one else will.”
Then suddenly the stream of words came to a halt, as if she had dozed off or a particularly gloomy thought had stopped her in her tracks. As I lay beside my closed book, I had the urge to tell her that I agreed with her. However, I had recently decided that she was actually more optimistic about life than I was and that my black view of things was of a different order from hers. If I responded now, she would keep repeating the same inanities even more enthusiastically and give me a headache. Besides, as I said before, in my aunt’s old-fashioned house with her children and granddaughters, I was helping myself to forget and so I was on my guard, keeping my wound hidden and hoping that life could go back to normal.
“What a wonderful year we spent in Kirkuk,” my mother was saying, “like a dream! With your brother Mustafa and his children, Ahmad and Saman, and his wife Bilqis, God bless her! It was like a dream. Eating and sleeping, being with the family It was lovely!”
“You were the one who wanted to come to Baghdad. You went on and on about it to me and Mustafa.”
“So, what’s wrong with that? We’re from Baghdad, and we wanted to go back to where we belonged. All out relatives are here. But delightful Baquba—or rather dreadful Baquba—how did that come into the picture?” So saying, my mother struck her mouth twice with the flat of her hand.
I had hated this gesture since the first time I’d seen her doing it. It was not only vulgar and crude, but the way she did it repeatedly made it seem dubious and shameful. Eventually it had begun to trigger off vague ominous fears in me.
However, I said nothing this time. Even with her I was no longer open these days. I stifled every impulse to be outgoing and was trying to learn to withdraw from life. All this was against my nature, but it suited my recent habits. So I picked up my book again in silence to continue my search for soothing oblivion—an activity I had not yet mastered. I heard a lot of noise downstairs and an exchange of words between Suha and her mother and sister. Perhaps the tea was coming at last. I wasn’t able to read. I looked surreptitiously at the sky the clear sky of a summer’s afternoon. There was more noise from the ground floor and someone calling my name. I put the book down.
“I don’t know why they have to shout like that,” said my mother.
Suha appeared in the doorway. “Auntie Munira. You’re wanted downstairs.”
I stood up.
“I hope everything’s all right,” remarked my mother. “May those who have forgotten their Lord remember Him.”
As I walked along the gallery, Madiha called up to me that someone had come with my official transfer papers from Baquba. This seemed odd. My heart started beating, and I ran towards the staircase. Sana was standing by the middle door, so I held out my hand to her and took her along with me. I was always scared of the dark in the long passage. We walked towards the outer door in silence, and it occurred to me as we were about halfway along to go back indoors and let Madiha or my mother see who was at the door. Perhaps there was some mistake, which I wouldn’t be able to deal with. But it could be the Baquba school janitor—I had heard them talking about a transfer order or something like that—and Sana was gripping my hand as if she was more afraid of the dark in the passage than I was! So I kept going, now that the effort seemed justified.
The door was ajar, and I stopped behind it. Fear can generate such strange notions. I Holding on to the latch, I peered out. The faint light fell on the opposite wall, and I couldn’t distinguish the features of the tall figure on the doorstep. I asked him some question, who he was, I think. He was looking away from me, and when I spoke he turned round. It I hadn’t spoken, he wouldn’t have turned round. I was asking him innocently who he was, not realizing that I was walking along a precipice. He faced me, and in spite of the dark I recognized the eyes, the long black moustache, the square jaw.
The only thing which is important about people is the history of their relationships, and for this reason they carry with them the terror and cruelty of the past. This face had a history a sharp, cold knife that plunged into my entrails. I pushed the door shut and cowered behind it, but this was an illogical reaction, as I wasn’t frightened so much as distressed. My limbs were jelly-like, and I could barely focus on him hammering at the door and shouting indistinctly. I seemed to lack the strength to run back into the house and continued to stare foolishly at a sheet of paper which Sana and I had trodden underfoot. However, I was not in a bad enough state to lose consciousness, although I think Sana thought I had passed out where I stood. He would soon go away. He wouldn’t dare force his way in. He wouldn’t date do anything but leave. Noticing the door wasn’t properly shut, I summoned my strength, gave it a good bang, and slid the bolt across. Then I leaned against it, my heart thudding. He began knocking more violently As I held Sana’s hot hand, his muffled tones drummed in my ears. Then the door shook violently as he appeared to kick it, repeatedly and I found my breath suddenly becoming more labored as if a terrib
le heavy stone had been lowered on to my chest. My heartbeats grew slower and slower, and the rasping voice stopped my breath. I felt my self-control ebbing away rapidly as I stood leaning against the door, looking up at the sky, a chink of it, a luminous pathway far up above the two towering walls. The slow pounding of my heart diminished as I squeezed Sana’s hand and felt my reserves collapsing bit by bit.
She was with him in the car speeding madly along the winding road which was lined with orange trees in blossom, whose perfume filled her nose and her soul as she moved her head in time to the sentimental song playing gently on the radio. He talked to her, laughing, but she didn’t listen, so he began shouting but still she didn’t listen. She opened the car window, and the warm spring air rushed in and her hair blew around her face. She was drunk with the smell of life on the blossom-laden breezes, glad to forget the irritations of the morning in her sister Maliha’s house—the screaming children, the stupid behavior of their father, the complaints of her own mother. She had not imagined that deliverance would come so easily when she whispered to Adnan that she was bored and asked if they could go to his father’s orchard on the banks of the river Diyala. It was a Friday, and as they slipped out of the house, the sun was singing in a diaphanous blue sky. He drove off down the narrow streets at this crazy speed, making people jump out of his way, until they reached the outskirts of Baquba. On the green-fringed country road, the song and the scent of orange blossom in the warm air had combined to intoxicate her; she could no longer hear what he said and answered him with happy laughter.
This was her second spring in Baquba. She had come there several years before, but only staved a few days, and the vivid memory of the visit was always associated with the smell of orange blossom in her mind. Now she was hack again to stay, as she had been transferred to a school there. She had had no idea what to expect before she and her mother arrived at her sister’s house one dull evening the previous September. She knew vaguely that there were a lot of difficulties in the family, but didn’t bother to go into them, agreeing with her mother and brother that the move to Baquba was the only solution for the coming school year, but hoping that it would be temporary. Her brother promised to talk to someone he knew in Kirkuk who could pull strings to have her transferred to Baghdad.
Adnan switched off the radio. She turned to him, and he switched it on again, laughing. He was a well-developed young man, only just eighteen, tall, with thick black hair and moustache, and fierce dark eyes. Because he was held in awe at home by his mother, brothers, sisters, and, to some extent, even his father, and because he had some ideas, not very clearly thought out, for subverting things, she felt drawn to him and was glad that she was his aunt and could remember his childhood and adolescence and have long, affectionate conversations with him. He grabbed hold of her flying hair and pulled it, and she pinched his hand gently. The trees rushed past on either side like unstoppable columns of mad soldiers. She was not the least bit afraid. She was used to his driving after all their lightning excursions to Baghdad. They would hear of a new film showing in one of the city’s cinemas, slip out of the confines of the family circle, jump in the car, and fly like the wind. They came back after dark, not much bothered by anything her sister or brother-in-law might say Deep down, Adnan’s parents were scared of him, and Munira always wondered why. Was it his party affiliations, their concern for his future, or his unrestrained temper? When they complained about the cost of the petrol he used for these trips, they appeared satisfied by his joking reply that it was no more than the cost of one crate of tomatoes from his father’s store.
He swerved sharply, and she was flung against the door. She screamed in fright, while he continued to sing. Bouncing in their seats, and leaving a cloud of dust behind them, they turned up a narrow dirt track in the bright sunshine.
She had noticed his rebellious personality when she first arrived. He was completely different from the rest of his family. His mother, her sister, told her that he had left school a year or two before when he was only in second year and had seemed quite capable of continuing with his studies. He had given up a few days after the attempt on the life of Abd al-Karim Qasim, come home, and never thought about school again. He worked with his father in his greengrocery business and began spending his time driving around in the car, sitting in cafés, or attending mysterious meetings. He had a revolver hidden somewhere, he had told his mother, and could get hold of a machine gun if he needed to.
Munira had once talked to him about politics and had been unable to dismiss his ideas as childish. For some reason this had annoyed her, and she had pulled his hair hard in mock aggravation, without knowing why. He had smiled at her with exaggerated kindness, and their friendship was consolidated. He seemed to admire her beauty and enjoy walking with her in the streets of Baquba, or accompanying her to the school, the shops, the cinema, or the railway station, where they used to watch the train leaving for Baghdad at sunset.
At home he was bad-tempered with his brothers and sisters, sometimes hitting them for no reason, looked down on his mother, and refused to acknowledge his father’s authority over him, As time passed, he only seemed interested in her, and this pleased her and flattered her pride. She was aware of her power over this violent creature and enjoyed reprimanding him, sometimes intervening when he threatened to hit one of his little sisters. One day his mother had called her to come and help, and she had run down from her room and seized hold of his arm to restrain him. He had stood there, red in the face, like a wild animal about to pounce, looking at her with blazing eyes. His little sister had been in tears in front of him, but he had just stared at the hand on his arm, then walked off without a word. Later on, he had begged her not to come near him when he was in this state, Chewing on his lip, he had told her that he didn’t always know what he might be capable of and that she should restrict herself to shouting at him from a distance. She had pulled his carefully groomed hair and for the first time he had responded in a similar vein and twisted her arm. She had felt his strong, rough, warm hand on her and cried out in pain. They had been in the kitchen together, making tea for the family one afternoon two or three months after Munira and her mother’s arrival.
He stopped the car by a big gate at the end of the track and jumped out. She followed him, helped him unlock the gate, and they raced off into the orchard. The sun was hot, the damp air refreshing; it was just after eleven o’clock. She ran ahead of him up a dusty path, her body feeling lighter than usual, as if she was about to take off, lightly skimming the treetops which swayed in the breeze, letting her whole being fill up with sun and life.
In those days she didn’t feel constrained or ill at ease with him. She was fond of him and unselfconscious in his company. She did not take herself to task regarding her relationship to him and behaved as if she was immune, so she saw no particular significance in the repeated contact between their bodies, their growing mutual affection, or his excessive admiration for her. There were enough prohibitions to do with kinship, tradition, age, and respect to make her feel safe and disregard the signs of veiled desire in his hands, his words, his glances.
She bounded uninhibitedly towards a little copse. She was wearing a light blue blouse and gray skirt which she had picked out for no special reason as far as she could remember. The skirt was tight and short, and her blonde hair was loose on her shoulders. She ran and jumped over the narrow streams, for the pleasure of filling her lungs with the pure, perfumed air, and batted the trees with her hand as she passed.
He followed her in silence, and when she stopped, exhausted, under an orange tree covered in white flowers, he came rapidly towards her. He was red in the face, his black hair flopping on to his forehead, and he carried his jacket over his arm, but she didn’t notice anything unusual about him. As she laughed and tried to catch her breath, he threw his jacket playfully over her head. She made to fend it off before it reached her, but it was covering her face as she felt his arms go round her. Hurriedly she pushed it out of the
way, and his face was right next to hers, his breath on her, as hot as the sun. Still panting from her exertions, she looked inquiringly at him, then blew in his face to tease him. Her mind was completely blank. He squeezed her tight against him. She shouted at him and blew in his face again. A long time went by. Their bodies were touching; she felt her chest pressing against his, and her rapid breathing pushed her breasts up hard against him. At last she asked him to let her go. She was exhausted, her body and emotions in turmoil. She begged him not to bother her any more and to let her go. He held her tighter and tried to enclose her body within his broad thighs; she couldn’t believe what was happening, was reluctant to acknowledge the reality. He tried to kiss her and she moved her mouth away; immediately in another part of her body she felt an instinctive movement from him, which told her clearly what he had in mind. She was a little surprised, but not afraid; another word from her would bring him to his senses. She wanted to get free of him and cut this dreadful current passing between them, and she pushed him away. She pushed him gently, somewhat disgusted at the idea which had come to her mind, but her resistance brought their bodies closer and he moved more urgently on the lower part of her stomach. Her limbs were tense, and her weary heart thudded with abnormal force. Her head turned involuntarily for a moment and she was staring straight into his burning eyes and up his broad nostrils, smelling the sweat on his fiery body. She took hold of his shoulders, trying again to break free from him, and felt his body bend towards her violently and his mouth clamp on to hers.
She shuddered, then took in a mouthful of air to avoid suffocating. At that moment she became fully aware of what was happening to her. The events fell rapidly into place in her mind and the sudden horror of the realization made her shake uncontrollably. She shouted something which she couldn’t remember afterwards, then collapsed beneath his weight. While he was leaning against her, he had managed to draw one of her legs towards him and keep hold of it. She felt no pain as she hit the ground but as she became aware of her naked thighs she realized the extent of her humiliation. She was being treated like a dirty animal and had this overwhelming desire to cry with sorrow and anger and shame. He was pushing up her skirt, and she clenched her legs together, then she aimed her fist at his head which was buried in her neck. He recoiled slightly and she saw his face, his crazed expression as he fought to hang on to his prey. He slapped her, then punched her in the jaw. Her body went slack momentarily as she reeled from the impact of the blow. Her legs opened and he pulled off the rest of her clothes. For a split second she had a profound sense of what was happening to her: she was on the edge of the abyss, contemplating her end. Her whole life was concentrated in these few moments when her nakedness, her virginity, and the cruel vertigo within her merged, and she submitted. The fear came belatedly, fear of everything: the distant shadows, the hot earth under her buttocks, the sun, the knife piercing her entrails, the shuddering sighs and the blood which stained the trembling flesh.
The Long Way Back Page 20