In the Country of Men

19

At first I thought I had woken up very early because the light from my window sparkled like early-morning light and I couldn't hear anyone in the house. I peed, enjoying the jet of my urine, the crystal froth it created. I went to see what time it was on the big clock in the hallway. Eleven-thirty. I felt a sinking dread at the thought that Mama and Baba had gone out without me. Their door was ajar. Through the gap I saw their forms buried in the sheets. The curtains were open, but the window was shut. I had never known them to sleep this late. I wanted to say, 'Wake up, sleepyheads,' but I didn't. I thought I could detect a strange smell coming from the room. The large mirror on Mama's dresser was also covered in a white sheet, and her small hand-mirror lay mute on its face. Why this hiding of mirrors, I wondered.

I went to the kitchen and sat at the breakfast table. It was almost noon. Will they ever wake up? What if they had both died in their sleep? I imagined my life without them and in imagining it I felt a flutter of excitement in my belly. Although I didn't understand it, nor ever dared or knew how to confess it, this wasn't unusual; I often fantasized about losing those I loved the most: imagining their funerals, the mourners, me being the remaining solitary orphaned figure in black. I went to see if they were alive.

I entered their bedroom. I was struck by how terrible the smell in there was. It reminded me of the stink of a dog the boys and I had found one day on our way back from school dead with a swarm of flies buzzing around its bloated belly. But then I saw Mama's back rise and fall with breath. Baba lay beside her entirely covered in the bed sheet.

I sat at the breakfast table again. After a few minutes I heard one of them enter the bathroom, then the flush of the toilet and the hiss of the cistern. When I heard the bathroom door open I lifted the chair beside me and let it drop. I hoped it was Baba. But Mama walked in squinting against the light. 'Good morning,' she said, opening the fridge, yawning. She pressed a bottle of water against her lips and I watched the liquid fatten her throat with every gulp. She took a big breath and, looking up into the ceiling, said, 'We survived the madness.'

'Is Baba still asleep?'

She nodded and kissed me on the head. I didn't kiss her hand. She filled the teapot with water and clicked the spark several times before the burner caught fire.

'He's very tired,' she said, yawning. 'We both sat up talking most of the night, slept just after it was light.'

'What did you talk about?'

'Nothing.'

'Where was he?'

'On business.'

I felt my throat tighten with anger.

'When will he wake up?'

'He'll wake up when he wakes up.'

I felt a rush of things come tumbling in my head before I heard myself scream, 'When will he wake up?' Then all the breath left me, sucked out by a world that had no air in it. I was shut out, my nails clawed at the wooden surface of the table.

'What's the matter? Calm down. Breathe. Look at me, look at me. That's it. Keep your eyes here. It's over. You're OK now. Breathe, habibi, breathe.'

She poured a glass of water and insisted I drink it.

'You always lie. I am not a child and you always lie.' When I looked at her she wasn't angry. She looked worried and tender. 'Don't ever ask me to practise my scales again. They killed Ustath Rashid. Is Baba dead, too?' She looked astonished by my question. 'Is that why I am not allowed to see him? Has he begun to rot, is that why your room stinks?'

'No. No.' Then she sighed and said, 'Wait here, I'll be back.'

After a short time I heard her call, 'Slooma, come, your father wants you.'

I went to her and stood at the entrance. I was immediately unsettled because the curtains were now drawn across and it was as dark as night in there. The stink of death was unbearable.

'Come in,' she said.

Entering the room felt like entering the sea. The only light came in from behind me and fell on the floor.

'Close the door behind you,' she said.

The darkness thickened. The mighty French velvet curtains kept the daylight out. 'Where are you?' I asked.

'We are here,' she said.

Baba, if he was there, if he was alive, was as quiet as stone.

'Where's Baba?' I wanted to switch on the light.

'I am here,' he said. His voice startled me. It was thick, deep and distorted by teeth and a blocked nose. But the scariest thing was that I could recognize him in it. It was Baba, Baba after he was no longer Baba, maybe even, I thought from within my fear and confusion, Baba after he ceased to be alive.

'Why can't I see him?' I asked, fear urging me to switch on the light or pull open the thick curtains.

'You can, habibi,' he said, 'But not now. Maybe tomorrow,' a wire of grief tearing at his voice.

'Why not now?'

'Because Baba has got a terrible headache and light bothers him,' Mama said quickly. I knew she was lying.

'Where did you go, Baba?'

'Don't pester your father with endless questions,' Mama said. 'I told you he has a headache.'

After a few silent seconds in the dark, Mama's cool, open palms fell on my eyes and lips. She turned me around and pushed me out.

She took me to the kitchen and said, 'See? Your father is fine.' She placed a hand on my cheek, 'Go now play in the garden, habibi,' and smiled as if I had done something good, as if I had just finished playing for her guests one of her favourite songs on the piano, something by Abd al-Wahab or Fareed al-Atrash.

The noon sun was vertical. As soon as it fell on my head I felt its pressure. Doubt, that the man in Baba's bed was Baba, also pressed on me, and I felt unable to escape it.

'But of course he's Baba.'

'How do you know?'

'Because he's in there and your mother says so.'

'But you know how she lies.'

'Don't say that. She keeps truths and she does it only for your own good.'

I walked under the trees in the shade, around the house. When I reached their bedroom window I saw the curtains open. 'But I thought the light bothered him,' I heard myself say. I couldn't see in because of the reflection on the glass. I came closer, cupped my hands around my eyes and saw a naked man sitting on the bed, his back criss-crossed in dark glistening lines, some oozing blood. Suddenly he turned towards me. His horrible face threw me back. I fell beneath the glue tree. His eyes were closed, full of air or water or blood, like split rotten tomatoes, and his lower lip was as fat and purple as a baby aubergine. I heard him shout in his horrible, bubbling voice, 'Najwa, Najwa, draw the curtains.' Mama appeared at the window. She watched me for a moment – my heart was pounding, I was still on the ground, gasping for breath – then with one stroke she pulled the curtains shut.

'You see?' I whispered to myself. 'He's not Baba.' I ran into the house. I was standing in front of their bedroom door. I knocked. 'Who's in there?' I screamed, my voice full of fear. They didn't answer. 'If you don't answer I swear I'll open the door,' I said and pushed the door open.

I ran to the curtains and pulled them open. The naked monster was under the covers again, pretending to be asleep, pretending to be Baba. And Mama was sitting on the bed beside it, looking at me. She seemed almost frightened. I wanted to tell her, 'Don't worry, everything will be all right.' I opened the window instead. Somehow I felt we, Mama and I, would be safer this way. The new air seemed to wash the room.

'Baba doesn't want you to see him like this,' Mama said.

Suddenly the figure under the sheets sat up on the edge of the bed, giving me its back, wrapping its body in the white bed sheet that was stained with thin lines of blood. Slowly I began to recognize him: his wavy black hair, the modest hills of his shoulders, the neck I massaged many times and many more times buried my face in to kiss and make the ticklish sound of a fart that always made him laugh. Tears choked me.

'Baba?' I tried to say.

He twitched. 'Take him away. Please.'

'It's no good now. He saw you.'

'Baba?'

'Yes,' he snapped, as if the effort to speak was punishing him. 'Take him away, he'll get nightmares.'

'I almost never get nightmares.'

After a few seconds, during which I thought I must leave or else the world wouldn't continue, Baba spoke. 'My eyes aren't working properly. I am… ill.' Then he shook his head and waved his hand behind his back. I thought of running to kiss it a thousand and one times. 'Najwa,' he said, the gesture of his hand finally making sense, 'please, take him away.'