In the Country of Men

5

When I woke up it was night. I felt disoriented. I could hear voices outside but couldn't locate where they were. There was a front half and a back half to our house, divided by the hallway swing-doors. In the front there were the formal rooms: the reception room where we received guests we didn't know very well and where I practised my piano, and opposite the hallway the dining room we never used. In the back there was the sitting room, where we kept the television, then the kitchen, and beyond them the bathroom and bedrooms.

My door was open, and through it I could see that the sitting-room light was on. Mama coughed and asked a question: 'Where is he?'

'I don't know. He's lying low until we see what happens to Rashid.'

That was Moosa. I loved it when Moosa was here.

'He didn't tell you where he is?'

'No. I have just come from Martyrs' Square, and he wasn't there.'

'I told him not to get involved with Rashid and his leaflets.'

'Don't worry, Rashid won't talk.'

'I am not a child. I know what these people are capable of

'I drove past the university. The students have taken over the entire campus, hanging banners from windows: We are not against the revolution, we are against the extremes of the revolution. Autonomy for the student union. Slogans inspired by our leaflets.'

I imagined Mama waving her hand beside her ear as she often did when she was hearing something she didn't agree with, because Moosa added, 'Urn Suleiman, don't be so cynical. These are exciting times. Everything can change.'

'Clouds,' she said. 'Only clouds. They gather then flit away. What are you people thinking: a few students colonizing the university will make a military dictatorship roll over? For God's sake, if it was that easy I would have done it myself. You saw what happened three years ago when those students dared to speak. They hanged them by their necks. And now we are condemned to witness the whole thing again. The foolish dreamers! And it's foolish and irresponsible to encourage them.'

'It's our obligation to call injustice by its name.'

'Go call it by its name in your country. Here it's either silence or exile, walk by the wall or leave. Go be a hero elsewhere.'

'Until when? How long must we bow our heads?'

'Until God rescues us. Nothing lasts for ever.'

I walked out of my bedroom and heard Moosa sigh, 'Indeed, God never forgets the faithful.' He saw me first and began clapping. 'O Champion! Welcome, welcome.'

Mama rose from the sofa. 'How are you feeling? Are you all right?'

'Yes,' I said because I knew she needed a quick answer, a quick good answer. I told her I felt good, that I had had the most restful sleep and the most beautiful dreams and when I said that, the part about the dreams, she asked me to sit down and tell her them.

Mama liked dreams and believed that in them lay secret messages foretelling the future or revealing the true nature of a person. She could tell you what a dream meant because every detail in a dream is a symbol. It's true. For example, a sea in a dream means life. If it's wild and raging you are going to have some hard times, but if it's calm your days will be calm and beautiful. Fish is greed. A girl is good luck and also means life. A boy is very bad luck. But the most important thing to remember about the meaning of dreams is how you feel when you wake up from them. If you have dreamed of a beautiful girl in white drowning in a raging sea and then you were surrounded by a gang of boys beating you with dead fish but you woke up happy, don't worry, don't be afraid, it's a good dream.

I quickly made up a dream where I was walking by a calm sea. Mama smiled and said it was a good omen.

'What else did you dream?' she said.

I thought quickly, but Moosa saved me. He stood up and put me on his shoulders.

Moosa was so tall he had to bow slightly to pass through a doorway. From his shoulders I could see the chandelier's crystals twinkle beside me as he began digging his fingers into my legs. 'He's well, he's well,' he said. 'There's nothing wrong with him. He's the Champion, our big Champion, and there's nothing wrong with him at all. Just look at him, look at his muscles. He's fine, just fine. We all just love to make a big fuss about our Champ.'

I had always loved Moosa's massages, but now my body was still stiff from sleep, and it hurt to have him dig his big fingers into my thighs and feet. I giggled.

'I am never invited to lunch parties any more,' Mama said. 'And if I invite my friends they won't come.'

'Cowards,' Moosa said.

'No, just sensible.'

I ran my fingers through the crystal beads of the chandelier. My hands were still red from the mulberries. They looked like a girl's palms hennaed for Eid.

'When was the last time my relatives visited, or his for that matter? And all for what?'

'You can't give people braver hearts.'

'No. Only you and my husband and Nasser and Rashid and the naive students you are dragging with you are the brave ones left in this country.' She sighed. 'Help me,' she said, her voice softening. 'Help me convince him to leave this wretched path.'

'I am not the best person to do that,' he said.

'But he listens to you.'

Moosa let go of one of my ankles and looked at his watch. The time was nine-ten.

'Who are the faithful?' I asked.

'Put him down,' Mama said, and like a crane Moosa arched over. She pressed her hand on my forehead, her skin cool and moist.

'How do you become one of the faithful? I bet their feet won't burn on the Bridge to Paradise.'

'He's still warm, but no fever. I will make us something to eat,' she said and left the room.

'Food, food, food; when we don't know what else to do, we eat,' Moosa said and laughed. Moosa's laugh made you laugh even if you didn't find what he was laughing about funny.

'The boy needs his strength,' she said from the kitchen.

He looked at me and smiled. I sat beside him on the sofa, on top of my hands. It was normal for me to do this because my hands were often as cold as 'ice-cubes'. That's what Mama called them. My feet too were often that cold. Whenever they touched hers she flinched, rubbed them or went to fetch a pair of thick winter socks.

'Did you like Lepcis?'

'Yes.'

'What did you like about it?'

'The sea-monsters. When will you take me to the circus? You promised.'

'Maybe tomorrow.'

'How do you become a faithful?'

'You pray that the devil won't find you.'

'Why is the devil looking for us?'

'It's his job.'

'I think mulberries are from Heaven.'

I was hoping he would take me into Baba's study and look up some fat book, and we would learn all there is to learn about mulberries.

When Moosa read you had to stop and listen, he wouldn't have it any other way. He would sit on the edge of his seat and put me opposite him. His hands would change with the words, sometimes quick and urgent and sometimes gentle and slow, and when he would reach a place he liked he would leave the book open on his lap, clap his hands and sing into the air above us, 'Allah! Praise be to Allah how sweet words can be,' or about the author, 'What's all of this light, this wonder, this spectacular majesty, this precision – absolute precision of language, I swear!' Then he would pick up the book and continue reading.

If it was poetry he would hold the book with one hand and with the other join index finger to thumb and speak – each – word – as – if – it – was – a – building -standing – alone, and when he found something he liked he didn't clap or shout praise for the author or the author's family – no – he would pick up his smoking cigarette and take a deep, slow drag while his eyes reread the lines, his leg rocking nervously, then say, with his eyes still on the page, 'Do you hear it, Suleiman, the action? The action is always in the words.' Then he would repeat the poem and ask me to notice the action this time because poetry, he used to always repeat, is words in action. I tried to understand this when he read from his favourite poet: his compatriot Salah Abd al-Sabur:

The sky reflects the earth;

the windows of the sick the bridge lights;

the eyes of the gendarme the blinking minarets.

I wasn't surprised when I didn't understand such passages. But I was unsettled whenever I recognized something familiar in a poem, something I thought I had experienced:

Noon, you fill my heart with fear and dread, showing me more than I want to see.

Or:

Now dusk, now a parting glance, from the sun leaning fatigued against the hills.

Now, blackness.

And sometimes what unsettled me was the fervour in Moosa's voice when he read lines like:

The precious robes we wear have been loaned to us by the Sultan with whom we have a friendship as deep and vast as an abyss.

Moosa was very fond of Salah Abd al-Sabur, and when, in 1981, the poet tragically died at the age of fifty, Moosa wore a black necktie every day for forty days.

Moosa infected me with his love of language. He did annoy me, though, when, reading prose, he skipped big chunks or added in his own bits. I could tell when he started adding because his eyes would leave the page and stare at me. If he wasn't inventing then where was he getting it from?

'The person who wrote this big fat book, Moosa, didn't write these words,' I would tell him. 'He didn't want them there or else he would have put them in himself. You can't put words in his mouth!'

He would smile to himself, jiggle his leg, then slap the book with the back of his hand. 'But he's going in circles.'

'Just read it as it is on the page,' I would plead.

'But he's fumbling all over the place. He crawls to say what he wants to say. I know what he's getting at, so let me bring it to you from the end.' Then, in a military fashion, he would say, 'Silence! Full attention!' and resume reading as soon as he was able to erase the smile from his face.

I was hoping now he would take me to Baba's study and read to me about mulberries. But when I told him that mulberries were from Heaven his response wasn't good. He simply said, 'They're a small, soft, stoneless fruit like any other fruit.'

'No they aren't. They are the angels' gift. They are a heavenly fruit never intended for this earth, but the angels went behind God's back even though they knew He's the Allknowing and they knew He's the Allseeing because they love us. They risked everything, Moosa, everything, to give us a taste of Heaven in this life. I thought you would know this.'

He rubbed his big hands together and raised his eyebrows and stared blankly at me. This was how he reacted when I had asked how babies were made. Then he said, 'It's an idea.'

Mama came in carrying a large tray which Moosa bounced up and took from her then placed on the floor. The three of us sat round the food in the centre of the room and ate. The bread was hot, and when I tore it steam billowed out in small clouds. The tea felt good going down my throat, warming my chest.

'Now, Suleiman,' Mama said, 'you must be careful of the sun. It's OK in the garden, under the trees, but on the naked roof it can kill you, habibi.'

My mouth was full so I nodded.

Moosa broke a big piece of bread, held it in between three fingers and scooped up a chunk of tuna; he then dipped it in the harisa and, before a drop could fall, threw it all into his mouth. He too nodded at what Mama had said then sipped noisily at his tea. 'The sun!' he finally said. 'Oh, the sun my boy could kill you.' His head swayed with his words and his finger, made red by the harisa, pointed towards the sky, and his big eyes stuck on me like two magnets until I could do nothing but look back into them. He suddenly picked up the small plate of olives and offered it to me. I took one. Then the doorbell rang. It was like a small explosion, for a moment it silenced everything.

Mama looked at Moosa. 'God willing it's him,' she said, stood up and ran to the door.

'Didn't I tell you, Um Suleiman?' Moosa yelled after her, 'God never forgets the faithful.'