Dreams of Water

by Nada Awar Jarrar

  The only time his mother has come to visit since she first brought him here, Ramzi showed her around the dormitory, pointing to his made-up bed and the neatly arranged clothes in the cupboard, and waited for her praise. But she only nodded and looked distractedly around her.

  I wish they’d agreed to take one of your brothers as well, she said, shaking her head. They’re uncontrollable now that both you and your father are gone.

  Ramzi has felt afraid ever since that she would be back with a younger brother for him to take care of, or that she might even decide to take Ramzi away with her to be the man of the house again, just as he had been when Father left home. But it’s not fear that puts him on his best behaviour; Ramzi knows that these things, eating and sleeping well, school and other children and the sojourns in the orphanage playground, all these are the closest he’ll ever get to an ordered life, and that is all he wants.

  Salah, Salah, what my mother does not know is that I came back not to find Bassam but myself.

  Salah is at the door with a large package under one arm. It is his first visit to Aneesa’s flat.

  ‘Come in,’ Aneesa says. ‘Come in. I’m sorry everything is such a mess.’

  She has been packing and behind her he can see clothes and objects all over the floor and covering all available surfaces.

  He steps inside and, before taking off his coat, hands her the package.

  ‘What is this?’

  ‘It’s for you to take home with you.’

  She tears off the brown paper and stares at the painting.

  ‘This is the one you brought with you from Beirut, isn’t it?’

  He nods.

  ‘I can’t take it from you, Salah.’

  The painting has a narrow gilt frame. Beneath the glass, a wedge of beige cardboard in a rectangular shape surrounds a dark but indistinct figure whose edges trickle into the colours beyond it in bold upwards strokes of yellow, white and light brown. Through the blurriness of it, in the undetermined shapes that surround the figure in the painting, Aneesa sees a circle of wings: two, three or four, she cannot be sure, but feathery and marvellous nonetheless. She touches the angel through the glass with the tips of her fingers.

  Salah reaches for her hand.

  ‘It would really make me happy if you took this with you, Aneesa. Please.’

  ‘I’ll think of you every time I look at it,’ she finally says.

  She puts the painting down and takes his coat.

  The windows are grimy and grey and the plaid coat she’s worn so often on their outings together is thrown on the floor in one corner of the room. Salah bends down, picks it up and looks at it for a moment before laying it neatly against the back of a chair. He looks up at Aneesa.

  ‘I shall miss you, my dear,’ he says quietly. ‘It won’t be the same without you here.’

  Aneesa begins to cry.

  The bird clings to its perch. It is nervous and its feathers, green and white, are ruffled so that its head has sunk deep into its chest. Aneesa lifts the cage gently off the passenger seat next to her to look inside and then puts it down again. The car suddenly lurches forward. The bird begins to fly from one end of the cage to the other, hitting its body against the bars.

  ‘Shush, little darling,’ Aneesa calls out in a singing voice. ‘We’ll soon be there. Settle down now.’

  She looks at the bird and thinks for a moment that she can see its heart beating in its little chest. Whatever possessed me to do this? she wonders. She remembers her parents giving her and Bassam a pair of green parakeets when they were very young. Neither of the birds had survived very long. This one is blue. Hopefully it will fare better.

  At the orphanage, Aneesa makes her way to the main office and asks to see the directress. She is shown into a bizarrely furnished oblong room with long French windows on one side and a row of green velvet sofas on the other. She places the cage on the floor.

  ‘Welcome.’ A short woman with a bouffant hairstyle and high heels walks into the room and shakes Aneesa’s hand. ‘Please sit down.’ The woman glances at the cage and then turns her attention back to Aneesa. ‘Your mother is doing wonderful work here, you know,’ she says.

  ‘She gets a great deal of satisfaction from being with the children and I am grateful to you for that,’ Aneesa says.

  The directress’s teeth protrude slightly so that when she smiles, her closed lips stretch outwards as well as to either side of her small face, and her eyes, which are small and brown, narrow into slits. Aneesa feels a sudden affection for the woman.

  ‘You know, of course, that my mother has taken a special interest in young Ramzi?’

  The directress nods but says nothing.

  ‘It doesn’t concern you unduly?’ Aneesa continues. ‘He already has a family of his own, doesn’t he?’

  The directress does not reply immediately.

  ‘How do you like your coffee?’ she asks Aneesa.

  ‘I’m fine, thank you.’

  ‘The fact is, Ramzi’s family can’t take care of him right now,’ the directress says. She lifts a hand to the collar of her dress before continuing. ‘Besides, what’s wrong with your mother and that child taking comfort in one another’s company?’

  Aneesa hears the hushed sound of the flutter of wings coming from the cage beside her.

  ‘But it’s just not true,’ she protests. ‘What she thinks is simply not true.’

  The directress stands up and points to the cage.

  ‘Is that for Ramzi?’ she asks.

  Aneesa looks down at the bird. It has moved to the middle of its perch and is looking around with quick, jerking movements of its head. She nods.

  I understand Ramzi better now, Salah. He knows he is not alone in this world but there are times when he is suddenly aware of just how long he has been living at the orphanage, sleeping in his narrow bed by the window, the bird in his cage on the ledge, the breathing of other boys so close that he waits to synchronize it with his own, into a rhythm that finally puts him to sleep.

  His mother’s visits are infrequent. She has gone away across the border, to the mountain of the Druze where her family is from and has promised Ramzi she will come back for him one day soon. But he has long stopped standing nonchalantly by the orphanage gate on Sundays, waving the other children goodbye and pretending he was waiting for no one. Instead, he spends his day taking care of the bird or exploring the woods that surround the orphanage, stealing away for an hour or two into a copse of trees to lie on his back in the dirt, pine needles pricking him through his clothes, and to watch the movement of blue and grey sky between the branches.

  When the idea comes to him, Ramzi is sitting at breakfast early in the morning. The dining room is full and noisy, just as he likes it, and he is eating fried eggs and dipping his bread into a mixture of dried thyme, sesame seeds and olive oil. Just as he breaks off a piece of the thin mountain bread, folding it carefully into a cone-like shape to scoop up a piece of egg, Ramzi realizes what he must do. He eats quickly, sneaks out of the dining room and makes his way to the main office. It is too early for the directress to be there, so he asks the secretary if he can make an urgent telephone call. He slips her a piece of paper and she dials the number for him. Ramzi turns his back to the young woman at the desk as he listens to the ring tone. He puts a hand on his heart and feels it beating very fast.

  ‘Who is that?’ he asks.

  ‘Ramzi, it’s me, Aneesa. Is everything all right?’

  ‘I want to speak to Waddad.’

  I hear disappointment in his voice.

  ‘Can’t you tell me about it, Ramzi? Maybe I can help.’

  ‘I … I just wanted to let her know that I’ve made my decision.’

  ‘What decision?’

  He clears his throat and I tighten my hand around the receiver.

  ‘Just tell her that I will come and live with her. There’s no need to wait any longer. I will come and be her son.’

  After all the boxes have been pack
ed and sent away, Aneesa takes her only suitcase out of the cupboard in the hallway and places it on her bed. Inside, there are a couple of empty plastic bags and a small padlock with its keys attached to it. She takes the things out and turns to her wardrobe, pulling out dresses, trousers and tops, thick jumpers, scarves, shoes and jackets and packing them away until the only things left hanging are the things she will wear on her flight back home. She zips up the suitcase, ties a luggage belt around it and fits the padlock into the two holes at each end of the zip. When she pulls the padlock shut, it makes a tiny clicking sound. She straightens up and takes a deep breath.

  Later that day, sitting in the armchair in the living room with one leg bent underneath her, Aneesa takes a writing pad and pen and begins to write.

  My darling mother and sister,

  I hope you haven’t been unduly worried. It’s been months since I was last able to write. I’ve been moved, along with the other prisoners, and again I’m not quite certain where I am. I only know that we are too far away to make our way home. They have put me to work in the fields. I enjoy being outdoors for much of the day, and sometimes even manage to forget that I have lost my freedom. I hope that you are both well, that you are also happy in your lives. I am certain that you have taken good care of each other over the years. This thought has been a great comfort to me. I love you both very much and pray that we will one day find one another again.

  Bassam

  Aneesa lifts the pen off the page and rereads what she has written. The letter is shorter than the previous ones she has written and does not really sound like Bassam. She wipes a tear from her cheek, folds the paper and places it inside a white envelope. Then she puts on her cloak and goes out.

  Now that spring is here, Aneesa and Waddad have their morning coffee on the narrow balcony outside the sitting room. There are four chairs around an old table that once belonged in the kitchen of their mountain home. They sit in their dressing gowns, sipping their coffee and looking out at the noisy thoroughfare that leads to a rocky cliff and down to the sea.

  ‘Are you going out somewhere, mama?’ Aneesa asks as she comes out on to the balcony one early morning.

  Waddad is dressed in a black trouser suit and her hair is brushed back to reveal a well-scrubbed face. She pours Aneesa a cup of coffee.

  ‘I’ve got lots to do today before I go to the orphanage.’

  Aneesa sits down, picks up her cup and notices a pile of official-looking papers on the table. Waddad folds the papers and puts them in her handbag.

  ‘It’s just some business that I have to take care of, that’s all,’ she says.

  ‘But maybe I can help you with it.’

  Waddad takes a deep breath and looks anxiously at her daughter.

  ‘I have to do this myself, Aneesa.’

  ‘Will you tell me about it, please?’

  ‘I read about it in the paper yesterday,’ Waddad begins.

  ‘What is it? What’s happened?’

  ‘They’ve passed the new law.’

  Tears begin to fall down Waddad’s face. Aneesa leans towards her but the older woman shakes her head.

  ‘The one that gives the relatives of the missing the right to have them declared dead if they’ve been gone for more than seven years.’

  Waddad sniffs loudly and pulls a tissue from beneath her sleeve cuff. Aneesa watches closely.

  ‘Are you sure you want to do this? You do know what it means, mama?’

  ‘It’s been a long time now, habibti, nearly nine years.’

  Is that why you’re wearing black today, Aneesa wants to ask? It makes you look even smaller, almost like a child in adult’s clothing.

  Aneesa gazes at her mother, at the lines in her face and coarse, short hair and feels her own pain shift to another part of her body, to a permanent, deeper place.

  ‘Just give me half an hour,’ Aneesa says getting up. ‘I’ll dress and come with you.’

  Ramzi tries at first to teach the bird to speak, simple words like marhaba or habibi or even his own name. But the bird just looks at him vacantly, its head jerking nervously from side to side, as if to say, You’re asking too much of me. So Ramzi takes to whistling to it instead, tunes he has heard on the radio that plays in the orphanage kitchen during mealtimes and which he repeats again and again to the bird, or songs he remembers from home. He whistles, takes deep breaths, and looks into the cage at the tiny creature, at its curved beak and the neat fold of its wings.

  Soon, Ramzi begins to notice recognition in the bird’s eyes as he approaches, something in the way it suddenly starts to flit along the length of its perch and the hint of excitement in its insistent chirping. Until one day, as he dresses to go down to breakfast, Ramzi hears his own song coming from the cage on the windowsill, four notes repeated again and again as if to call him nearer. He peers into the cage and sings back to the bird in a low voice. La, la, la, la, la.

  Salah, whenever I think he is not looking, I observe Ramzi closely but all I see is a sorry child adrift in loneliness and misguided hope. Our elders here tell us that in the forward movement of our souls is certain salvation, limitless opportunities to stand nearer to the true nature of our selves and to a forgiving god.

  The village is very much as Aneesa remembers it: old stone houses alongside grey, concrete structures with balconies and rusty clothes-lines hanging from their balustrades. But the roads are better maintained and the umbrella pine forests are there on the outskirts of the village, visible and beautiful still.

  She drives into the souq and stops the car by the village spring.

  ‘I’m getting us some water,’ she says. ‘Would either of you like anything else?’

  Waddad shakes her head.

  ‘Can I come with you?’ Ramzi asks from the back seat.

  ‘All right, come on.’

  The spring water comes out of the spout in a thin murky rope. A lone woman bends down in front of it, filling a large blue plastic canister. Aneesa and Ramzi step into a musty-smelling, dark shop.

  ‘Ahlan,’ says a man from behind the counter.

  ‘It’s difficult to see in here.’

  ‘The electricity’s been cut off again,’ says the man. ‘Happens almost every day now.’

  ‘I’ll have three small bottles of water,’ Aneesa says. ‘Ramzi, why don’t you get yourself some sweets?’

  Ramzi absently reaches for a bar of chocolate and hands it to her.

  ‘Is that all you want?’

  He nods.

  Aneesa grabs a handful of chocolates and several sticks of chewing gum.

  ‘I think I’ll get some for myself as well.’

  Once outside, she takes two bars of chocolate out of the plastic bag and gives one to Ramzi. They busy themselves with opening the wrappers.

  ‘Is this where you grew up, Aneesa?’

  She shakes her head.

  ‘No, I only came here in the summer as a child. It’s my father’s village. The rest of the year we lived in Beirut.’

  ‘Your brother too?’

  ‘Yes, Bassam did too. He didn’t much like it here.’

  They begin to make their way to the car.

  ‘I’m from a village on the other side of the mountain,’ Ramzi says. ‘I wasn’t born in the orphanage.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Aneesa?’ He says her name softly. ‘Do you think they like me there? At the orphanage, I mean?’

  She hears a car start up at the other end of the square and the sound of running feet in the distance. She pats Ramzi on the arm and pushes him gently towards the car.

  ‘Come on. Mama’s waiting.’

  The drive up to the house takes only a few minutes.

  ‘This’ – Aneesa points through the windscreen – ‘is our house.’ The green shutters are closed and the plants in the garden are all dry and brown. ‘Did you bring the key, mama?’

  ‘Yes, I did. But I don’t think we should go in.’

  ‘Why not?’ Aneesa takes the key from her mo
ther and walks up to the front door. ‘I want to show Ramzi Bassam’s room. There’ll be lots of things in there that he’d be interested in.’

  She steps inside. Waddad grabs hold of Ramzi’s arm as he attempts to follow Aneesa indoors.

  ‘Ramzi doesn’t need to go inside,’ she says with urgency. ‘I don’t want him going in there.’

  Ramzi looks at Aneesa and then back at Waddad.

  ‘I’ll stay out here with you,’ he says to the older woman. The house is dark and damp. Aneesa tiptoes through the rooms, afraid of recalling too much. Standing in the doorway of Bassam’s old room, she suddenly understands her mother’s fear. What if Ramzi remembered nothing at all? She hurries back to the front door, steps outside and locks it behind her.

  In the back garden, Waddad and Ramzi are sitting on a stone ledge where the rose bushes had once been. Their heads are bent close together and they do not hear her approaching.

  ‘Father was a good man,’ Ramzi is saying. ‘But he just didn’t understand.’

  Waddad nods, puts her hand through his arm and waits for him to continue.

  ‘Bassam followed him around with that bucket whenever he pruned the roses, hoping to be praised for what he did, but all along the boy knew it was Aneesa his father wanted with him.’

  We were in the house once and you told me you needed to have your hair cut. You picked up the newspaper on the coffee table and put your hand on the front of your shirt and patted your chest. I rummaged in my handbag and handed you a black ballpoint pen. I moved to the sofa and watched you draw a wide, oval-shaped arch on the corner of the paper where there was no print.

  ‘This is what my hair should look like,’ you said. ‘On the right side, it’s exactly right.’ You turned your head and smoothed back your hair. ‘See?’

  I looked at you and nodded.

  Then next to the first arch, you drew another, this time in a square shape.

  ‘But on the other side, it’s all wrong, like this,’ you continued.