Hot Spot

by Jim Carroll

  Thirty minutes later, the doctor came out to the small waiting room, and said the baby boy was fine. My worry stopped for a moment. Then, to my father he said, “I can’t get the bleeding stopped unless we operate.” Since it was my father’s place, as the Arab man, to make the choice of life or death for my mother, the doctor asked his permission to remove the uterus.

  But events moved too fast. My father ran into the operating theater with the doctor. Was it too late? Thirty minutes later my father summoned us all into the room with its bright lights, two IV bags with clear fluids, and one with a thick red liquid, which I guessed was blood, and shiny steel tools still open next to my mother. Her skin was like a clean white bed sheet. She spoke to my father only, but we all heard, “Yacoub, you and the children must take this land.” Then she recited Psalm 63:1: “O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and parched land where there is no water.” She slipped away right in front of us. Just like that – our mother was gone. Why, Lord, did you take her so soon? A thirteen-year-old should not see this.

  I couldn’t bear it. I was seeing adult events, and I wasn’t ready.

  An hour later, Divina took us again into the hospital room to see our mother one last time. We went in together, Papa following, head bowed. The tubes and IVs had been removed, her hands were folded over her abdomen and outside the cover, and she looked as if she slept quietly. Her peaceful expression gave me a moment of hope, but hope for what? I wasn’t sure. I just wanted everything to be the same again.

  My father stated joylessly that the baby’s name would Binya-min. I could only ask, “Why Binya-min?” All Arab names are selected for their meaning. My father intended one of the ancient meanings of the name: “the son of my old age.”

  My father requested the ward attendants to care for her body, and two female attendants hurried into my mother’s room, both anxious to serve our rich family. Divina remembered there was a Christian cemetery in Fahaheel near Ahmadi, and asked the nurses to get the body ready for transfer to the funeral home there. “We’ll take her to the Fahaheel Christian Cemetery.”

  The nurses proceeded at first as we requested, but a few minutes later, a tall man strode in with his hands on his hips. His long beard and shorter than usual dishdasha were indicative of the most conservative Islamic views, supposedly an emulation of the dress of the Prophet. “We have firm rules about burial for Muslims. As hospital administrator, I must see those rules observed. As a Muslim, she must be buried according to Sharia.” He nodded with an order to Divina. “Please proceed now with the washing of the body.”

  Divina paled. My father turned to face the man and block the way. They saw my own stunned expression. Too old to cry in front of strangers, I turned to my father, “Papa, what’s happening? Mama’s not a Muslim. She teaches me the psalms. She loves Jesus.” The secret spilled out.

  Two long-bearded hospital guards appeared at the door. The administrator looked at me as he glanced back at the clock. “Mr. Al-Tamimi, please control your family. If not, I’ll summon the proper authorities from the Ministry of Islamic Affairs. Your wife was an Arab woman born here in Kuwait. She is therefore Muslim. We must follow Sharia. She cannot be buried like a kefer (unbeliever).” The guards pushed Hibah and me out the door and into the lobby.

  I resisted, “You must let us take my mother. She’s already with Jesus. You can’t have her.”

  Divina had no choice. She must have done as they instructed, because when we were allowed back into the room, momma was wrapped in the kafan for burial provided by the hospital. Victorious, the administrator presented a kinder demeanor. “I’m sorry for your loss. We know you’re confused. We’ll take care of the body for you. I trust you’ll gather your family for the Salat al-Janazah (the prayers for forgiveness of the dead).”

  I spoke again out of turn, “Mama’s already forgiven. Your prayers are for those not forgiven.” The administrator glared at me, as if I was a disobedient child. My father was too stricken to respond. I stiffened. Would this man hit me?

  The guards ushered us out to our car, and no choice was offered to us. Divina carried little Binyamin wrapped in a blue hospital blanket. The rest of us couldn’t look at him. We were told our mother’s body would be taken to the Muslim cemetery at Sulaibikhat and that she would be buried within twenty-four hours according to Islamic tradition. Hibah was silent and stone-faced. I wanted only my youthful sense of justice satisfied. “They’ve stolen Mother’s body. Papa, what are you going to do?” The silent answer was nothing. We had no rights in the matter.

  I balled up my fists in recognition of our weakness. My father made no attempt to explain or argue with me. My adolescent views counted for nothing, and they were worth nothing. After all, what could a teen do about the imminent mistreatment of his mother’s body? Except for my innocent, lonely jeremiad, everyone was silent on the drive back to Ahmadi, but I resolved that I would fight this, perhaps not now, but later.

  I had never observed my mother to fear death, but she did fear leaving us to our own devices, and probably for good reason. Many times I’d heard that from her in some form or another. I encouraged myself with the fact that she was taking Muslim ground for her grave as a down payment on the rest of the land.

  After we arrived home in Ahmadi, Divina assumed an authoritative role. As we entered the door, she gave orders for our duties. And as if God wanted to make it worse, a dust storm arose, stinging sand following us into the house. “Yusef, go to your room and make your bed. Hibah, sit with your father on his lap for now.” My father sat with a face like ice, no tears, and no arms around Hibah, who looked down and stared at the floor.

  Father was unable to function in any role for several weeks, and Binyamin received little attention from us in the beginning. We relegated him to Divina’s arms, as if to comfort him would be betrayal of our dead mother. We blamed him for taking her from us. Even my father seemed not to see the little one. Binyamin’s cries were heeded only by Divina. I still couldn’t look at him; he was only the instrument of my mother’s demise to me.

  I ignored my playmates and even Hibah and Father for months after Mama’s death. I blamed everyone, including myself. My dreams increased in frequency and variety. I had dreams about my own death, visions of future successes, and of being pursued by nameless enemies, but I was afraid to imagine their possible meaning, if they had any meaning at all. “Divina,” I would say, “sometimes in the morning I can’t move for hours.” Knowing my condition better now, this length of time was impossible. I excused my own deficiencies because my father said he experienced the same thing: an odd dream paralysis state. All this simply provided an excuse for morning laziness, for which I was grateful. Anything to avoid the sight of Binyamin. I also dreamed of the future, my own role in the Gulf, one that seemed absurd: that I would be the conqueror of this system that had taken my mother and that I could be a leader in this confused place.

  Through the Lord’s help what was left of our family slowly recovered from our loss. Our dinner conversations grew and piece by piece we put together the puzzle of our bereavement. Slowly, we turned to daily events – school, wayward playmates, even Kuwaiti politics. I couldn’t have managed without Divina’s help. She was a constant source of consolation and order in our home, making sure that we were nurtured and offering stability when we felt rudderless and lost.

  Over the years, I kept thinking and rethinking my mother’s particular, even peculiar and frequent references to the book of Romans. She would say, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28): This verse was a recurrent stumbling block for me. How could this be true? How could her death work for our good? I came to see I couldn’t know the answers to these questions. I eventually realized the only course was to trust the goodness of God. Even so, I kept thinking of “my” purpose, not His.

  We settled with the absence of my
mother to the best extent possible. But I would never be the same without her. She had been the joy of my life, and that joy was gone. Now there was no one to guide me well as a Christian, and my spiritual growth remained stunted.

  Mama had filled our home, not with the physical trappings of life which were ample, but with life from a spiritual source, one I had not yet incorporated. But I recognized its absence. Before her death she had forced me, yes, literally forced me, to complete the memorization of the entire book of Psalms. She afforded me no escape from the task. She was easy with Hibah but not with me. I think she knew my need for the Psalms would be greater than Hibah’s. Even though I viewed the book of Psalms as a plague, the Lord faithfully preserved His Word in my mind. However, it would be a long time before it came to fruition in my heart, and never as a finished work, not in this life.

  As mentioned before, I was also gifted athletically, particularly in soccer. As I grew older, I was praised often by a larger group. My stride was long and smooth, and I thought I was superb at the sport. But my God-given insight lagged.

  My success in academics and sports continued – team leadership and many goals. The experience confirmed what my father told me, and I saw myself through his eyes, captivated by his praise. Of course, I believed him, “Yusef, you’re going to be amazing. You’re so graceful on the pitch.” Surely I’d be a professional soccer player. Soccer was like everything else in my young life: successful. But the truth was that I really wasn’t that good at the sport.

  Following my self-proclaimed success in schoolyard soccer I moved on to consider what lay beyond high school. My mother would have said I was reaching beyond what the Lord intended. Maybe I should have been content to just stay home and attend Kuwait University like Hibah.

  Along the way there was another blessing. Binyamin announced his personality, which was vibrant and outgoing, more than any of the rest of us. Despite our earlier, frank distaste for the little guy, he blossomed anyway, thanks to the love of Divina. By the age of five he searched my high school math books for problems. Was he a genius? Whenever I sat on the couch, he was there, on my lap, and I couldn’t resist him.

  By age sixteen, my default posture was one of prideful superiority as I waited for everyone to catch up with my ambition and plans for the future. I couldn’t wait to draw the geographic and economic map of my future. Strange for an adolescent, but there it was. My hope to defeat those religious fanatics that had assaulted my mother’s body after her death still preyed on my young mind. My juvenile solution was money: Where would I have the greatest chance for financial success?

  What was the answer to my fervent question? My analysis, and I far exceeded my peers in such investigations, indicated to me it would not be on the western side of the Gulf.

  CHAPTER 2

  I LEARN OF ESAU

  In May 2005 a Kuwaiti court sentenced twenty people to jail for having links to al-Qaeda. In September Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, supporter and conservative hard-liner, won a landslide victory in Iran’s presidential election. The Middle East was a jumble, and despite my brittle youthfulness, I looked to the future.

  But the nearby grabbed prominence.

  In the fall of 2006 I was sixteen when he took his job as new headmaster of the Kuwait English School. His name was Esau Allison, or Dr. Allison. On the morning of his first day, I heard the loudspeaker summons, “Yusef Al-Tamimi, report to the Headmaster’s office.” No one else was asked to report among the 600 students in our school. I knew enough Bible stories to be put off by the name Esau, and no one ever went to any headmaster’s office for a good reason. As I left my first period calculus class, my mind was a muddle of possibilities: a bad grade of which I wasn’t yet aware, surely a mistake, perhaps my standardized tests scores had fallen, quite unlikely, or some personal misstep, surely not.

  The bespectacled secretary, an Indian woman with no head covering, told me to knock and enter his office. The window of the door was opaque, obscuring my view. Shaking and hoping it was not evident, I entered, disappointed by my own gloomy outlook. Sweat trickled down my back. Dr. Allison had his chair turned away from the door and toward the window and the light of the schoolyard with its white stone wall, marking the boundary. His chair creaked as he turned to face me, and placed his hairy hands palms down on his desk. His red hair and muscular forearms surprised me. Esau’s biblical description immediately popped into my mind. He swung his large frame toward me and leaned forward at the waist, bringing his face as close to mine as the desk allowed. His lips were formed into a tight line, definitely not turned up at the corners in a smile. He didn’t invite me to sit while he looked me up and down, a disconcerting welcome. He wore a dress suit, no dishdasha. Another American here in our country for our money, I thought. That should be no problem for me.

  Surprisingly he spoke Arabic well. “So you’re Yusef Al-Tamimi, son of Yacoub Al-Tamimi. Now I know what you look like. I see from your record you’re doing very well here at my school.” Already, his school. He smiled slightly. “For now,” he stopped, letting that threatening phrase sink in, and then continued, “Well, never mind. Please return to your class.” I focused on a bottle on his desk – the label said “sertraline.” He picked it up, put it in the upper drawer of his desk, and locked it with a key. Turning his chair back to the window, he spoke no more.

  Was I really dismissed? Just like that? How odd. Relieved but puzzled, I went back to class. Perhaps the doctor simply wanted to meet the better students and put faces to their names, so all day I expected others among the better students to be called to the office too. I was the best, and it was natural I would be asked first. But the day passed and no more names were announced.

  Over dinner I began, “Papa, I met the new headmaster today. But it was strange. He didn’t seem polite, or perhaps he didn’t like me. His name is odd for an American: Esau, Esau Allison.”

  My father put down his fork (we now ate like the English) and didn’t look at me; his color paled from its rich brown. “I know him, but it’s not your concern. Did he have a Quran on his desk?”

  He did, but so did a number of the faculty. That observation had no significance for me.

  My father retired to his study without displaying his usual interest in my school day that night. I saw him open the side drawer of his oak desk and pull out a stack of rubber-banded letters with yellowed, frayed envelopes. Holding them in his hand, he glanced up at me and hastened to close the door. What did this mean?

  The next day, I saw my father walk up the gravel pathway into the school grounds and enter the Headmaster’s office in the break between my calculus and economics classes. I hurried to speak to him but he walked faster and turned away, avoiding me. Why? Before I could reach him, he was in the office. After class, I saw my father’s black Mercedes spin up gravel as he departed. He usually drove with more care. Their meeting had apparently required the full hour. My father had never bothered to come to my school on other occasions. In view of my academic status, there was no need, so that evening I challenged my father.

  “Why did you go see Dr. Allison?”

  My father was short with me, but certainly it was my business. Why, Father? “I’ve spoken with Esau. I think I’ve secured the means so he won’t trouble you further. This is not your concern.” That’s all he would say to my persistent questions. Why did he use the headmaster’s first name: Esau? Dr. Allison had not really troubled me, so I had no reason to expect otherwise, but I didn’t like my father’s tone. He knew more than he was sharing. I did not like being shut out. I was not a child, and it was my school. How odd it is that teens think of themselves as adults. How is it that, in looking back when you thought you were a man, you realize in later years you weren’t?

  I soon got to see more of Dr. Allison. As a computer expert with a PhD in computer science from Stanford, he took over as instructor for my computer class. He allowed me to flourish for the first month, and even permitted me to teach the lesson several times.
Then came the assignment to write a simple program using Visual Basic.NET. I finished long before the others, those who could manage it at all. The assignment was too advanced for the class, and I suspected he had given it to shame us. I leaned back in my seat, waiting for the others to give up, arms folded, smug and self-important in my bearing. Dr. Allison looked directly at me while the others worked, smiled vaguely, and made several keystrokes. Suddenly, my computer screen began flashing with error messages.

  “Yusef, please come to the front of the class and stand by my desk.” He rose, stood by my side, and put his hand on my shoulder – his touch made me shiver. “Students, you see here in front of you a young man who believes he’s better than you, but he only succeeds by cheating.” I looked up at him. My mouth hung open, and my stomach contracted. “The program he just produced is an exact copy of one already written, which means he stole someone else’s work. I just found his work in one of my old books. I can show you the two identical programs on the class screen.”

  Two programs popped up side by side on the class screen. The classroom erupted with scattered moans and nervous laughter. But I had not copied the program. How had this man done this to me with such efficiency? In retrospect I shouldn’t have been so amazed.

  “Students, in your handbooks you’ve seen the penalty for cheating, in this case blatant plagiarism. Immediate suspension. Mr. Al-Tamimi, get your things. I will phone your father to come and fetch you.”

  The shocked students stared, doubting my excellence for the first time, startled that the one they thought excellent was really a disgraceful fraud. A few looked confused. They had known me for a long time. Used to my arrogant manner, they now wondered. It was clear to me though that I had been tricked, and my face tingled with fear or anger, I wasn’t sure which. I had not cheated or plagiarized. The doctor’s act was intentional and, for reasons I didn’t know, vindictive. I gathered my books and computer and left the classroom, slamming the door behind me as hard as I could. The classroom computer screen shook with the jolt. There was no benefit now in showing respect.