In the Country of Men

14

The following morning Bu Nasser arrived and wouldn't let his finger off the doorbell. I opened the door and he walked in.

'They took my boy. Where's your mother?' When he saw Mama he said, 'The catastrophe has fallen. I called you yesterday to prevent it. Now it's too late.' He spoke the way some women do when they arrive at a funeral, swaying from side to side.

'Calm down and tell me what happened,' Mama told him.

'I looked everywhere, Nasser has vanished.'

Bu Nasser was much older than I expected, perhaps as old as my grandfather. Instead of opening the curtains in the reception room and letting in the heat, Mama put on the light. 'Suleiman,' she said, 'Fetch your uncle a glass of water.' I waited for him to do what all guests do when offered something, to refuse, but the old man didn't say a word, he must have been very thirsty. I stood outside of the entrance, listening.

'He was there, beside me, when I telephoned. He got upset at what I had told you. He always gets upset at what I say, said exactly what you told me, that he was old enough to make up his own mind. But,' whispering now, he added, 'Um Suleiman, this is a dangerous path. These people have no mercy.' He sighed, then said, 'I was only blessed with two, a boy and a girl. Nasser is from the Precious One, may God have mercy on her soul. The girl is from the second marriage, she's only nine, young enough to be Nasser 's daughter. He's our only shelter in the world.'

Throughout all of this Mama put in a few good wishes: 'May God reward you. May He bless them.'

Then a girl walked timidly into our house. The main door must have been left ajar after the old man walked in. She had long chestnut hair, her skin was cinnamon from the sun, and her lips slightly open and purple-pink. She must be Nasser 's sister, the one who is nine years old, I thought, exactly my age and therefore too old for me to marry. The acceptable age difference had to be at least three years. Baba had been my age when Mama was born, old enough to walk into her family home bearing flowers for the new arrival. He was twenty-three when he married her, she fourteen. With such a gap no one could object or say she would grow barren and old before he did. Because you had to think ahead. A woman had to be young and strong enough to bear children and serve the man well into his old age, so that her locks would remain black as coal when his head was bald as the moon. She looked at me and saw exactly what I was doing. She shut the door behind her, louder than was necessary.

'Who's there?' Mama said.

'Come. We are here,' the old man said. Then softly to Mama he added, 'It must be Siham, my daughter.'

Siham walked into the reception room.

'Didn't I tell you to wait in the car?' the old man said.

'But why?' Mama asked him, in a way to welcome the girl. 'Why sit out in the sun when she can be here with us. Come here, sit beside me. Mashaa Allah, Mashaa Allah. You are so pretty. What school…"

I ran to the kitchen. I giggled to myself for some reason.

'Slooma,' Mama called.

I ran there but just before I had reached the reception room I stopped and walked in slowly. 'Yes,' I said calmly, hearing my heart thump.

'Come say hello to Siham, she's Nasser 's sister. Slooma is so very fond of Nasser,' she told them. 'Aren't you, dear?' I felt my cheeks blush at her calling me 'Slooma' then 'dear' in front of them, in front of her, Siham, the one with the chestnut hair.

'What would our young bride like to drink?' Mama asked. Siham said nothing. She didn't seem embarrassed, more withdrawn. 'How about some Coca-Cola?'

'Speak up,' her father said, irritated.

'Yes, please,' Siham said. Her voice had a bodily pleasure, like the sun warming your skin after a swim in the cool and calm early-morning sea.

I left to bring her the Coca-Cola – I had completely forgotten about the old man's glass of water – but then her father ordered Siham to go with me. And so there I was, walking side by side with Siham along our hallway, feeling my chest glow with the excitement that moments ago had caused me to jump around the kitchen. I held the hallway swing-doors open for her, then followed her through.

'You were eavesdropping,' she said. These were the first words Siham had spoken to me. I made myself busy with the Coca-Cola. But then she rescued me. 'I too like to eavesdrop.'

'Would you like to see my workshop?'

She shrugged her shoulders. 'Is it far?' Her eyebrows rose slightly.

'No,' I said. 'It's on the roof. And it has shade too.' I handed her the glass of Coca-Cola, filled to the brim.

She brought her mouth to it and slurped. 'Aren't you going to pour one for Baba?'

I remembered that the old man wanted a glass of water, but I was too embarrassed to admit to her that I had forgotten, so I poured him Coca-Cola instead and walked quickly to the reception room.

I had often dreamed of this, but up until this point the girl in my dreams had only been the girl Mama once was, before what happened happened, before she was forced into marrying the man who was to become my father. It was an infinite longing, hideous and unbidden, beyond reason or fulfilment, like a sick dog gnawing at its own limbs. But this was sweet.

I handed the old man the glass. I had spilled some on the way, making my fingers and the glass sticky. 'Put it there,' Mama said, pointing at the coffee table. 'The line was tapped, so I didn't take his call. I thought it better this way. Better for him, I mean,' Mama said.

'He left in a hurry, annoyed at me, didn't even say goodbye. I am sure he went to that wretched flat on Martyrs' Square.'

The words caught my ear. I stopped outside the entrance.

'I went looking for him there. My heart shuddered when people told me they had seen a young man run across the square with a typewriter under his arm, chased by a group of Revolutionary Committee men.'

I felt dizzy, sick.

Once I had skipped school with this other boy. I don't even remember his name, we weren't friends, the only thing that had united us was the desire to skip school.

When I was caught and flogged with a bamboo stick on the front and back of my hands I lied and told them it was his idea. It didn't feel wrong at the time, but when he eventually was brought into the room and saw me I felt terrible. I had betrayed him. This felt the same. How could I ever marry her now when I had betrayed her brother, the man who was to be an uncle to my children?

I walked back to the kitchen, dragging my feet. She wasn't there. Her glass stood empty on the breakfast table. The door to the garden was open. I walked out and found her there. She looked irritated. 'Where have you been?' she said. 'It's this way,' I said, leading the way up the staircase to the roof, my head lowered. I hadn't imagined it to be like this. 'This is my workshop,' I said. The roof was ablaze with morning sunlight, my tools strewn beside the water tank now that my bucket was ruined.

'Baba says your father has brought ruin on my brother's head. I love my brother. Your father must not be a very nice person.'

' Nasser is like an older brother to me,' I lied. Her eyes kept squinting at the roof. 'I, too, love your brother.' The air was still. I put my arm round her shoulders and caught the smell of oranges. She turned away and ran down the steps.

When I reached the reception room I found her standing between her father's knees.

'What's the matter, darling?' Mama asked her. 'Who upset you?'

I stood at the mouth of the room, frozen, my skin itching with shame.

'Slooma, what did you do to Siham? Did you upset her?'

Siham said, 'I know who that is,' pointing at the huge picture of the Colonel. The shoulders of his military suit glittered with golden decorations. The sky behind him cloudless, the blue luminous and sweet like candy.

Mama suddenly excused herself I didn't want to be left alone with them. When Bu Nasser wasn't looking at me I watched him and his young daughter staring up at the photograph. He was too old. He will probably never see her marry; her children will probably never see their grandfather. I ran after Mama.

She was kneeling before the safe, dialling the code, mumbling the words Bu Nasser had told her: '"The catastrophe has fallen. I called you yesterday to prevent it." Why come, then? What do you expect me to do?' The safe didn't open. She was dialling it too fast. There is no margin for error: any slight variation on the secret code and the safe wouldn't open. She tried again, repeating what she had said before in front of me and Moosa, 'Children playing with fire.' The heavy steel door swung open, indifferent, mighty. She took out a stack of ten-dinar bank notes and rolled them up tightly into her fist.

They were still staring up into the photograph of the Colonel. But when we walked in the old man stood up and said, 'We must leave now.'

'Stay for lunch,' Mama said with such insincerity the man didn't even feel the need to reply. 'Honestly,' she said. 'Stay.' But the old man, holding Siham's hand, was already walking towards the door. 'Honestly,' Mama repeated, following them out. The old man shook his head and patted his chest. Siham mimicked him. Seeing her imitate such an old person's gesture saddened me. Then Mama quickly reached for the man's chest pocket. With amazing speed the old man clinched her wrist. His quick reflex was surprising, as if he had lived his whole life ready for attack. Then the usual argument ensued:

'I swear you must/

'No.'

'But for my sake.'

'There is no need.'

'OK, then, if not for my sake, for Siham's.'

Siham looked up at the two adults and, closing one eye against the sun, she patted her chest again. The gesture inappropriate now.

The man hesitated. Mama saw the opening and stabbed the money into his pocket. 'I swear by what you hold dearest…'

The old man froze for a moment, then, like a man defeated, he shook his head dejectedly.

'You have no idea how dear you all are to Bu Suleiman,' Mama told him.

He walked beside his daughter to their old black car. As they drove off they revealed the Revolutionary Committee man, Sharief, sitting in his white car, not minding the heat, loyal to his cause, his gun probably still occupying the passenger seat beside him. His confidence and youth were in stark contrast to the sad old man. Sharief seemed beyond age and need, a man calling for the world to keep up with him.

Mama pulled me back into the house. Every time I turned around she said, 'Come on, come on.' Before she closed the door, I caught Sharief waving at me. Mama turned the bolt twice.