Dreams of Water

by Nada Awar Jarrar

  ‘When your father collapsed at work, it was Bassam who told me about it,’ Waddad says, looking at Aneesa to make sure she is listening. ‘He was only fifteen. He came in carrying heavy shopping bags. I was just pleased at the time that he’d thought to get the groceries.

  ‘While I was emptying the bags in the kitchen, I found a bottle of flower water among the things. I couldn’t think why he’d bought it. I’d never known him ask for anything like that.’

  Waddad is sitting on Aneesa’s bed. She looks down and pulls at her nightgown. It is white and much too large for her small frame.

  ‘He seemed irritated when I asked him about it and said I should know that he liked it in his rice pudding.’ Waddad looks up at Aneesa again and blinks. ‘He always hated rice pudding, even as a child.’

  Aneesa leans against the headboard of her bed, her eyes half-closed with tiredness, and waits for her mother to continue.

  ‘Then I realized later, after Bassam told me about your father, when he poured the flower water on a handkerchief and placed it over my face to revive me, I realized that he’d bought it for me all along.’

  My mother’s search for Bassam began soon after my departure. It took her to distant corners of the city, through streets where the buildings rested close against one another, and the people moved shoulder to shoulder, jostling for space. She climbed up endless stairways, knocking on doors, sipping cups of coffee and waiting to hear a sign of recognition at her story.

  I wish I could help you, friends and strangers said. May Allah give you all the strength you need to endure this great sorrow.

  She heard about an organization set up by families of the missing and went to one of their meetings. They sat in a small room in an apartment not far from the city centre. There were many of them, men and women, young and old, all with the same anticipatory look in their eyes, as if their loved one might suddenly appear to hold and reassure them, as if the answer lay in talking to each other, in making words of their loss and weaving the uncertainty into the stories of their lives. When it was my mother’s turn to speak, she shook her head and stepped determinedly out of the room muttering under her breath, I am not one of them. This is not my place.

  She went to the police station in her area and asked to see the officer in charge. He gave her a cup of unsweetened coffee and listened politely until she finished speaking, then he opened a drawer in his dilapidated old desk and took out a ream of paper. I have here a list of all the people who have gone missing in this war, he said. Their families are all desperate for news, just like you, but all I can do is write names down and put them away again.

  It was then, dear Salah, that she noticed how tattered his uniform looked. The grey material was frayed at the edges and the buttons down the front of his jacket did not match.

  When she finally decided to go and and see the leader of the community, a politician, at his mountain palace, my mother had not yet given up hope.

  He looked younger than she had thought he would and kept shifting restlessly in the seat of his armchair. She confided in him her worst nightmare. I just want to know, Waddad said, I want to know what happened. Even if he’s never coming back, I need to know what happened to him.

  The man only shook his head and she sensed that he might be getting impatient with her.

  You must try to forget him, he declared, leaning forward and putting a hand on her arm. It all happened a long time ago. Why don’t you busy yourself with some charity work? If you like children, we’re always looking for help at our community centres.

  Once outside, Waddad walked into the palace courtyard and sat on one of the stone steps that surrounded it. She listened to the water from the garden fountain slapping against the marble slabs at its outer edge, wrapped her cardigan more tightly around her and whistled softly to herself.

  I imagine that my mother knew then that there was not much she could do about other people’s obstinacy except take it on her own shoulders. Maybe it was that moment in the palace courtyard when her anger had suddenly abandoned her and she felt so bereft that she realized she had been looking in all the wrong places and suddenly knew exactly what she must do.

  ‘Are you working, dear?’ Waddad asks.

  Aneesa is sitting at the dining table with a large Arabic–English dictionary and the document that she is attempting to translate before her.

  ‘I can’t seem to concentrate on work today,’ she says, looking up at her mother.

  Waddad is standing by the sofa, one hand against the back of it, and is running her fingers through her short hair with the other. She is dressed in her daily uniform of jeans and T-shirt.

  ‘Tell me, mama. What made you change your look so drastically?’

  Waddad gives a little grunt.

  ‘It’s more practical this way. No wasting time over hairdressers and dressmakers. Besides, you get used to it eventually.’

  Aneesa shakes her head.

  ‘But what possessed you to have your hair cut so short?’

  ‘You don’t like it?’

  Aneesa looks closely at the elfin face. It is long and tired-looking in places but seems self-contained and there is a certain fire in the eyes that she remembers seeing in Bassam’s face sometimes. Aneesa feels a shudder go through her body.

  ‘Yes, I do, mama,’ she says quietly, returning to her work. ‘I like it very much.’

  There are days when Aneesa thinks that if she could only concentrate hard enough she could make herself forget for hours at a time that there is a war raging around them. As it is, she can only manage a few moments of peacefulness before her mind interrupts it and she is aware of the presence of violence all around her.

  To her mother, and at moments like these, Aneesa speaks harshly and with impatience as if it were up to Waddad to change things, to bring Father back and get them out of the chaos in which they now find themselves.

  ‘At least take us up to the house in the village,’ Aneesa shouts at Waddad during a particularly vicious battle between militias a few streets away from their block of flats. ‘We’ll be safer there.’

  The two of them are sitting in the corner of the kitchen away from the main road.

  ‘I’m not leaving Bassam here in Beirut and you know there’s no way he would come up to the mountains,’ Waddad replies with determination in her voice.

  ‘So we have to put up with this because he’s foolish enough to want to stay here?’

  Aneesa stands up abruptly and moves her hand away when Waddad tries to pull her down again. Moments later there is a sudden lull in the fighting and they hear the front door being opened. Waddad stands up from her crouching position as Bassam walks into the kitchen.

  ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘Are you two all right?’ Bassam asks them and goes to Waddad. ‘Sit down, mama, please. The fighting has stopped for now. You too, Aneesa. Sit down.’

  Aneesa saw Bassam leaving the house hours before the fighting began while her mother was out getting the groceries. She knows he will not tell them where he really was no matter how persistent Waddad is in her questions. She decides to steer the conversation clear of any potential argument and reaches for her mother’s hand.

  ‘I’m sorry for shouting at you,’ Aneesa says quietly.

  ‘It’s all right, habibti. We were both afraid.’

  Waddad pats Aneesa’s hand but she is looking intently at Bassam. Her brother sits down.

  ‘Everything is going to be fine,’ he says. ‘We’ll be fine.’

  He puts a hand on Aneesa’s hair and smooths it back, then he sits back in his chair and sighs.

  A rush of wind follows him when he steps outside and Aneesa closes her eyes as he walks past. The front door slams firmly after him and she is left with an impression of a pair of startled eyes and a sense of anxiety. She takes a deep breath.

  Salah is standing beside her. His hand on her arm, he leads her inside. They walk slowly through the large house with windows long as doors and elaborate col
our schemes in every room.

  ‘Was that Samir?’ she finally asks.

  Salah nods.

  ‘I didn’t get a chance to introduce you,’ he says. ‘He couldn’t stay.’

  They sit on stools at an island in the middle of a kitchen painted in warm yellow. The colour makes Aneesa think of sunlight beaming through half-open doorways. A beautiful floral tea set is laid out on the counter. Salah pushes a plate filled with neatly cut squares of semolina cake towards her.

  ‘Thank you,’ Aneesa says, taking a piece of the cake and biting into it. ‘This is his house, isn’t it?’

  Salah begins to pour the tea.

  ‘My son brought me here from Beirut after his mother’s death. He said he didn’t want me to be on my own.’ He passes Aneesa a cup of tea. ‘You don’t take sugar, do you?’ Salah asks.

  Aneesa shakes her head and sips at the hot tea. It is strong and satisfying.

  ‘Maybe I’ll meet him next time I come,’ she says.

  ‘Sometimes, you know,’ Salah continues, ‘I think he’s lonelier than I am.’

  She wakes to dreaming, images, faint and gleaming, trailing before her, the colours of her childhood, shades of blues and greens and the warm, nascent yellows of hope. And as she closes her eyes once again, attempting to recapture the clarity of this sudden awareness, of the long journey into the self, she sees herself again and again in the company of those she has loved.

  The places they find themselves in are always familiar and magnificent: a sprawling Mediterranean villa in the sun; an old stone house surrounded by tall trees; or a grand home spread over dark red earth, dusty, mysterious and wonderful. The sensation that accompanies the dreams is the same every time: a kind of halting, surprised happiness that threatens to overwhelm her so that she turns to describe it to someone but finds herself suddenly alone.

  She wakes up bewildered, wondering where it is all coming from and it is only when she turns on the light by her bed and she realizes she is once again in Beirut that the ghosts of daylight return.

  My mother became certain she would find Bassam at the orphanage in the mountains. During her first visit, she asked the directress if she could do volunteer work with the children. After that, she went there twice a week in the afternoons and either supervised the younger ones in the playroom or helped the elementary school children during their study hour. She especially enjoyed the time in the playroom with the younger ones and brought along new toys from time to time. She spent many hours with the children on the floor playing with the farm animals or building high towers with multi-coloured bricks. Sometimes she had a particular project organized and asked all the children to participate in it. They did cardboard cut-outs of a mountain village, complete with houses, trees and prickly bushes, and used some of the animals they already had, placing them among the buildings and stones.

  Whenever she helped during study hour, Waddad had to remember to keep her eye out for the boy she wanted to find, always feeling that he was there ready to be discovered. Once or twice, she attended classes where the children were about the right age but nothing came of it. But she continued to look forward to her days at the orphanage, the bus drive up the mountain and back, and the hearts and minds of the little children that she found so compelling. And while she never forgot why she was really there, the urgency of her search had been quelled somewhat so that she was able to hide the visits from me until the day she found him.

  Salah, as I write this, my mother sleeps with a happiness I dare not dispel with my doubts. How, I imagine you saying, do you expect me to believe the inventions of a woman torn by grief? How should I read between the words of this story? How can I see, in the birth of an eight-year-old boy, the soul of a man killed at that very moment, moving from one body to another, skin to new skin, time suspended in that movement, transmigration, layers of memory embedded in a young heart and love transported too, as if by magic, burning, passionate and never-ending?

  Aneesa decides to buy Salah a pair of gloves for his birthday, something to go with the suede jacket Samir bought him and which he seems to love so much. She goes to a department store in town and finds a pair in tan leather that she knows would look good against the light brown of the jacket. The shop assistant wraps the gloves in two sheets of white tissue paper before placing them in a bag.

  When Aneesa hands Salah the gift as they stand waiting for the bus, he looks surprised.

  ‘I know your birthday isn’t for a few days yet, but I couldn’t wait,’ she says.

  Salah clings to the bag and looks away, in the direction of the traffic.

  ‘Don’t you want to know what it is?’

  He opens the bag and pulls out the tissue paper. Looking down at his hands as he attempts to undo the package, trembling, delicate hands with long, tapered fingers, Aneesa feels a rush of tenderness. She takes the parcel from Salah and helps him put the gloves on.

  ‘Do you like them?’

  ‘They’re beautiful. Thank you.’

  ‘They’re lined on the inside so your hands will stay warm.’

  He puts his hands together, interlacing his fingers, and smiles.

  Once on the upper deck of the bus, Salah takes off the gloves and places them on his lap, giving them a gentle pat.

  ‘They’re very soft,’ he says.

  The bus lurches forward. Then they both look straight ahead, through the window and towards their approaching destination.

  The first time my mother saw him, Ramzi was bouncing a ball in the orphanage playground. It was a cold day in winter and there were other children standing in a loose circle around him. She was overcome with a strong sense of recognition as she watched him toss his head back and smile at his audience. Waddad saw him glance at her and then turn away again. When she approached, she noticed tiny beads of sweat on his forehead where his black hair stuck in wet strips. He had brown eyes and fair skin and was only slightly shorter than she was.

  She asked him his name and then told him hers. Are you a teacher? Ramzi asked, the ball hugged tightly to his chest. No, she replied. Ramzi looked shyly up at her, and Waddad heard the children behind her giggle.

  Maybe it was his hair, the way it fell in a swirl from the top of his head and over his ears and forehead. He was also the right shape, small and intense, as though every part of his body radiated a singular energy. But most of all, it was the way he looked at her with easy recognition, his mouth breaking into a wide half-grin, half-grimace that had been so characteristic of her own son.

  She was beginning to like his name too. Ramzi. She said it out loud to herself at night and felt sure she could become accustomed to it. She was equally certain of her growing affection for the boy, for his disarming, hesitant manner.

  When Waddad asked the directress of the orphanage about him, she was told he had been brought in by his mother very recently, a woman with several children whose husband had abandoned her and who had been left to care for them on her own.

  Talking with Ramzi on her regular visits, Waddad thought she recognized bewilderment at what had happened to him in his manner, but he was too proud to speak of it to her. Once they were closer, when he trusted her more, Waddad decided she would tell him of their story, of the starry meeting of their souls.

  I am aghast, Salah, at my mother’s easy fall into dreaming. I had thought her stronger than this, but perhaps I did not realize the magnitude of her grief. I miss you, our conversations and comforting silences. I miss the slant of tree branches heavy with leaves above our heads as we walked, and the empty air, not quite expectant, but quietly stirring because it was ours alone.

  Yours, Aneesa

  ‘He had a girlfriend once, you know,’ Salah explains. ‘They lived here together for about a year.’ He hands Aneesa a wooden spoon and tells her to stir the brown mixture on the stove slowly. ‘Don’t stop, otherwise it will stick to the bottom of the pan.’

  Aneesa stirs the powdered rice and water again and again and sniffs at the fragrant spices that
waft up towards her.

  ‘Cinnamon and cardamom, right?’ she calls to Salah as he disappears into the larder. They are in the kitchen making mughli. Salah brings out almonds and walnuts which he then soaks in warm water in separate bowls.

  ‘We’ll need shredded coconut as well once the mughli has set,’ he says.

  ‘How long will it take?’

  ‘Oh, it should be ready in a couple of hours for after dinner.’

  Aneesa is reminded of the times she spent watching her mother preparing meals as a child.

  ‘So it didn’t work out?’ she asks.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Samir and his friend.’

  Salah shakes his head.

  ‘He phoned us one day and said she had left. We never found out what happened.’

  Aneesa lifts the spoon out of the pot and stares down at the mixture. She wonders what Samir’s girlfriend looked like but is too embarrassed to ask.

  ‘Keep stirring.’

  ‘My mother tried very hard to teach me how to cook,’ Aneesa says.

  ‘I only started doing it after Huda died, and now Samir enjoys having a hot meal when he gets home from work.’

  She pushes her lips tightly together before asking Salah a question.

  ‘Are you happy living here with him?’

  Salah stops what he is doing and looks at her.

  ‘I suppose we need each other so much more now,’ he says, shrugging his shoulders. He puts a hand into one of the bowls, takes out a handful of almonds and begins to peel them. He has folded his shirt cuffs back so that Aneesa can see his thin forearms and the blue veins on the inside of his wrists.

  ‘I wonder what my mother is doing now,’ she says.

  ‘Will he be up there?’ Aneesa asks her mother.