Dreams of Water

by Nada Awar Jarrar

  Aneesa orders coffee and opens the newspaper she has brought with her out on the table. For a moment, she is distracted by the movement around her, noise and activity that is too familiar to ignore. She looks at the faces of passers-by, their brown hair and dark eyes and skin that is somewhere between pallid and fair. Everyone here, she suddenly thinks, looks just like me.

  ‘You’re smiling.’

  She looks up.

  ‘Samir!’

  He has not changed much, a little older but with the same anxious eyes and earnest expression. Aneesa stands up and lays a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘You finally came,’ she says.

  Samir had not expected to find her like this and feels nervous and unprepared. He wonders if his hair is tidy and lifts a hand to smooth it back into place.

  Aneesa gestures to the chair opposite hers.

  ‘How long have you been back? Is Salah here too?’ Samir sits down, his heart beating fast. He feels a rising panic at having to tell Aneesa the truth and wishes he had had the foresight and the courage to do it earlier.

  The waiter brings Aneesa’s coffee. She does not reach for it and sits waiting for Samir to speak. When he says nothing and puts his head down so she can no longer see his eyes, Aneesa understands.

  ‘Tell me, please.’

  Samir looks up and shakes his head.

  ‘I wanted to let you know,’ he begins quietly. ‘It all happened so quickly. He was only ill for a short while.’

  He feels a sudden stab of pain and puts a hand to his chest. It takes him a moment to realize that he is only relieved at finally feeling able to talk about his father’s death. When he looks into Aneesa’s eyes and sees the tears forming there, he pauses before continuing.

  ‘I’m sorry. I was so distraught, I …’

  ‘I should have known about it right away.’ She puts out a hand to lay it on the table and accidentally touches his. The noise around them recedes and she is suddenly aware of herself and of Samir too, the two of them leaning towards each other, and of the sound of their breath. ‘When did it happen?’ she asks.

  ‘It was some time after you left. He had a stroke last December and only lasted a few weeks after that. I should have called you before he died, I know. Then when you didn’t contact us, I just let it go. ‘

  She shakes her head and sniffs again.

  She sees how it might have been an ordinary day when she went about her business as usual, nothing that distinguished it from the rest, nothing to signal the sudden change in her life. Was it just around the time when they were calling each other less and less, when she realized she would have to put thoughts of her other life behind her and just get on with things here?

  ‘I need to know more, Samir.’

  Aneesa’s voice is getting louder. He tells her the date and time of Salah’s death and realizes that they are emblazoned in his own memory for ever.

  ‘You were with him?’ Aneesa asks.

  Samir nods.

  ‘At home.’

  She tries to remember where she was at the time, early evening in Beirut, sunlight a recent memory and nothing to look forward to but the dark. She pictures Salah lying down on the living-room sofa, his eyelids closing gradually as he stares into the fire and his heart, beating to a slower rhythm, suddenly ceasing in that brief instant before he can begin to sigh with pain or relief.

  ‘Where is he now?’ Aneesa asks.

  Samir has a vision of his father sitting at the table across from theirs. He is looking the other way but the gracefulness in the way he holds his head is instantly recognizable. Samir rouses himself and sits up straight in his seat once again.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He watches her close her eyes for a moment and then open them again.

  ‘You had him buried over there?’ she asks.

  He nods. He thinks he sees impatience cross her face and feels a momentary anger. The man at the table next to theirs turns around and Samir looks at him. He is nothing like Salah.

  Something has been lost, Samir thinks to himself, something that cannot be immediately retrieved. He looks down at his hands, folded neatly over each other on the table, and cannot imagine what it might be.

  Around them, the café is suddenly filling up and the sound of chairs scraping across the pavement fills their ears. Aneesa sighs and reaches for a tissue from her handbag. She cannot understand why she should now feel comforted by Samir’s silence and then realizes it is because she is reminded of Salah, of the way he would sometimes stop talking, as if pausing between thoughts, until they had both forgotten what they wanted to say and it no longer seemed to matter anyhow.

  Aneesa is getting used to waking up just before dawn. She puts on her slippers and gets up. In Bassam’s room, Ramzi is sound asleep and Waddad does not call out from her bedroom. Aneesa shuffles quietly into the kitchen and turns on the overhead light. She fills up the kettle from a bottle of mineral water on the kitchen work surface.

  At the first sound of the call to prayer, Aneesa puts the kettle on the stove and walks to the window. The mosque is not too far away and the loudspeakers are directed towards the back of the building where the kitchens are located. She feels an initial irritation at the high volume of sound and then the muazzin’s voice, intensely nasal but clear, begins to soothe her. It moves through the night and the distance and arrives, unwavering, at her window. Perhaps there are others like me, awake and listless, Aneesa thinks. But they are praying now, kneeling towards the east and whispering secret words that only the heavens will hear.

  She pours the hot water into her mug, on to the teabag, and waits a moment or two for it to brew. In her dream, Salah had been lying down in a bed this time, a sheet drawn up to his chin so that only his face showed as if illuminated by the whiteness that surrounded it, his mouth stretched in a formal smile that somehow emanated warmth. She had looked down at him and smiled, longing to touch him but sensing that she must not.

  Knowing for certain that Salah is no longer alive reminds Aneesa of the days that followed her father’s death. She had wept but known that at any moment she could have stopped and picked up the comforting routine of school and home life. It had, she suddenly realized, seemed just then like nothing more than an interruption and it was only some time later, when she understood that her father would no longer take her hand and gently squeeze it in a silent hello or help her with her homework in the evenings or sit in the armchair in the living room watching the television, that his absence became real.

  Aneesa throws the teabag out, picks up her mug and walks out of the kitchen, turning the light off as she goes. Once in her bedroom, Aneesa shuts the door and puts on the bedside lamp.

  Once, as they stood side by side waiting for their bus to arrive, Salah had taken off a glove and slipped his hand into hers. They had not looked at each other, clasping their fingers together tightly, bare palms pushing against one another, Aneesa wanting to cry out and then the bus coming into view so that she could finally let go and run up the stairs to the upper deck with Salah coming up slowly behind her.

  She lies back down on her bed and turns out the lamp. Can ours still be called an enduring friendship? she asks the darkness. Now that he is gone?

  Waddad goes into Ramzi’s room and taps him gently on the shoulder.

  ‘Come on, habibi,’ she says quietly. ‘Time to wake up. Your breakfast is ready.’

  Ramzi grunts and rolls on to his back. He opens his eyes and grins when he sees Waddad so that she realizes he is still young enough to enjoy waking up in the morning. She ruffles his hair.

  ‘Come to the kitchen when you’re ready and we’ll eat.’

  Ramzi comes to stay only at weekends, spending the remaining part of the week at the orphanage where he attends school. Waddad misses him when he is not there but sees him when she goes up to the orphanage to do her volunteer work during the week.

  ‘Is Aneesa still asleep?’ Ramzi asks when he walks into the kitchen.

  ‘Sit
down, habibi.’ Waddad motions to a chair at the breakfast table. ‘Yes, she was up during the night and didn’t get much sleep.’

  She sits down to eat with Ramzi who scoops a dollop of labne on to his bread and places a black olive on top of it. Waddad dips a piece of bread into a mixture of thyme, sesame seeds and olive oil and pops it into her mouth.

  ‘What are we doing today?’ Ramzi asks. ‘Is Aneesa taking me somewhere?’

  ‘What would you like to do?’

  Ramzi shrugs his shoulders.

  ‘Shall I go and wake her up now?’ he asks.

  ‘No, no. Let her rest a bit. Why don’t you take your bicycle downstairs and play until Aneesa wakes up? Have you had enough to eat?’

  Ramzi pushes his chair back, and goes to fetch his bicycle. He wheels it out of the front door and into the lift. Once on the ground floor, Ramzi goes to a nearby car park that overlooks the main road. Although the sea is just on the other side of the road, he is not particularly interested in it. He is ten years old and there are too many other things, like his new bicycle, that intrigue him. He jumps on to the bike and begins to ride around in circles and loops, then he tries lifting the front wheel up as he balances on the other. He manages to stay up for about a second or so. If only one of my friends from school were here to see me, he thinks. Maybe I should ask Waddad if I can bring a friend with me next weekend or if I can take the bike up to the orphanage for the week. So far, she has not said no to anything. Aneesa is a little more difficult to handle.

  From the balcony, Waddad keeps an eye on Ramzi. He pedals fast towards one end of the car park and suddenly swerves so that he and the bicycle fall on the ground. Waddad winces and watches until Ramzi picks himself up again and gets back up on to the seat of the bicycle.

  ‘He loves that bike, doesn’t he?’ Aneesa comes up behind her mother and looks down at the car park.

  ‘Good morning, habibti. Did you finally manage to get some rest?’

  Aneesa nods.

  ‘Are you planning on doing something with Ramzi today?’ asks Waddad. ‘I think he’d like to spend time with you.’

  Aneesa pulls her dressing gown more tightly around her and sips at the cup of coffee she has brought with her. It is exactly as she likes it, strong and bitter. As a child, her father would sometimes let her have a taste from his own cup and was always surprised when she asked for more. Children aren’t supposed to like coffee, he’d say with a smile.

  ‘Salah has died,’ she blurts out.

  ‘Salah?’ Waddad begins. She looks anxiously at her daughter and leans over to lay a hand on her arm.

  ‘I’ve told you about him, mama.’

  Waddad shakes her head.

  ‘Your friend? In London?’

  ‘I saw his son Samir. He’s back here now, staying in their old flat.’ Aneesa gestures to the further end of the Corniche then drops her hand. ‘It happened a few weeks ago,’ she continues.

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were still thinking of him.’

  In the back of Aneesa’s mind is an inkling of what lies ahead, a reluctant sadness perhaps, or an awakening that will feel like the sky opening above her, pushing outwards until she can lift herself upwards too. Now, standing on this dusty balcony, the damp air around her, Waddad to one side and in the street below a young boy who would be her brother, Aneesa understands that it will always be like this, that the connections she makes on this onward journey of her life will never leave her, touching her skin’s surface like a gentle mist that comes and then recedes.

  ‘Neither did I, mama,’ Aneesa says quietly.

  ‘And this boy lives with you now?’ Samir asks.

  Aneesa shakes her head.

  ‘He only comes to stay at weekends.’

  They are taking a stroll on the Corniche. Since early morning the sun has shone intermittently and only moments ago, they saw lightning flash on the water and heard the claps of thunder that followed. Very few people have ventured out in this weather and Aneesa and Samir are enjoying their almost solitary walk.

  ‘Reincarnation,’ Samir says. ‘I didn’t think people believed in that sort of thing any more.’

  An image of the old sheikh of her childhood flashes through Aneesa’s mind. She reaches up and runs a hand over her chin, imitating the way the old man fondled his strangely shaped beard. He’s probably dead now.

  ‘It’s very important to people who live in the mountains,’ Aneesa tells Samir. ‘They all think they’ll have the chance to return for another lifetime and redeem themselves.’

  ‘And you? Is that what you think too?’ Samir turns to look at Aneesa. A lock of hair has fallen over her face and is hiding her eyes and she is pressing her lips together tightly. He wonders if he should change the subject to save her embarrassment at his question but finds himself pressing on with the subject. ‘Well?’

  Aneesa stops and turns her back to him to face the water.

  ‘Sometimes I would like to,’ she begins quietly. ‘Imagine it, Samir. Imagine being able to come back again and again, to yourself and those you have loved. Do you know what it would mean?’

  Looking out over the grey horizon, Samir thinks he is capable of believing in endlessness and in hope. He waits for Aneesa to continue but she turns abruptly and begins to walk again.

  ‘Still, it’s very convenient, isn’t it?’ she says sharply. ‘I mean this denying death. It doesn’t bring them back.’

  With the next clap of thunder, big drops of rain begin to fall. Aneesa pulls up the hood on her jacket and begins to run ahead with Samir in tow.

  Samir has remembered something Salah once told him about Aneesa. It was before his father had fallen ill, when he had just found out that Aneesa wanted to return to Beirut.

  ‘Is it her mother?’ Samir asked.

  It was Sunday and they were out for a drive in the country, on roads that meandered through green fields and occasional forests.

  ‘She hasn’t told me why,’ replied Salah.

  ‘But you do know why, baba. You must.’

  Salah looked out of the window and pointed to a farmhouse at the end of a field.

  ‘Seems very isolated out here, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Baba, I’m just concerned about you. I know you’ll miss Aneesa.’

  ‘Yes, I will.’

  ‘Then why do you think she’s leaving?’

  Salah sighed and looked down at his hands, palms down on his knees.

  ‘It’s to do with her brother,’ he finally said. ‘She wants to get things sorted out. I don’t really know.’

  ‘But I thought she came here to start again,’ Samir protested. ‘I thought she just wanted to get on with her life after the kidnapping.’

  ‘She didn’t come here for a new life, Samir.’ Salah’s voice sounded impatient. ‘She came here to run away from it,’ he continued. ‘She’s only just realized that things like that do not leave you.’

  Samir recalls the conversation and thinks of the experiences in his own life that will always stay with him, such as Salah’s death and this lingering doubt that he might not have understood his father as he should have. He wonders too if in staying away from Lebanon for all those years, even after the war had ended, he had been running away too. It surprises him sometimes to realize how, in some ways, he and Aneesa were very similar.

  Seeing Aneesa again, Samir has a new idea of her as a woman with purpose, not in the way his mother had been, focused and determined to the exclusion of everything else, but as someone whose resolve cannot be questioned. He knows Aneesa watches him carefully and compares him, perhaps, to his father, but feels she has nonetheless noted something in him that he has wished for himself: the possibility that one day the gods will also lead him.

  Aneesa and Ramzi are in the car park near the flat. They are waiting for the group of boys that Aneesa has seen play here on Saturday afternoons. Ramzi has brought his bicycle and he is riding it in ever-growing circles in the centre of the empty car park while Aneesa stands w
atching. She has been at a loss to find something for Ramzi to do when he comes to visit and is hoping that the boys will let Ramzi join them. But she is not sure how to go about arranging it. I have never had to deal with this sort of thing before, she thinks to herself.

  Aneesa calls Ramzi over.

  ‘Look, I’ll talk to the boys when they get here,’ she tells him. ‘I’m sure they’ll be fine about it.’

  Ramzi is perched on the seat of the bicycle with one leg on one of the pedals and standing on the other. He shrugs and hops to steady himself. Aneesa waits for him to ride off again but he only looks at her. He has changed in the two years since she first saw him, taller and less delicate-looking, and no longer resembles Bassam so much. He seems, she suddenly realizes, much more real somehow; the small childish hand that grasps the bicycle’s handles and the scruffy trainers with their laces half undone, these have become a dear and familiar sight.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she asks.

  Ramzi gets off the bicycle and wheels it towards her.

  ‘Waddad will be waiting for us,’ he says. ‘Why don’t we just go home?’

  Aneesa notices a group of children approaching from the other side of the car park. She begins to lift a hand to wave at them but stops herself when she sees the alarmed look on Ramzi’s face.

  ‘Listen, habibi,’ Aneesa says, suddenly understanding. ‘I’m feeling a bit tired. Do you mind if I go home and leave you here? You can make your way back on your own, can’t you?’

  Ramzi beams at her and nods only briefly before jumping back on to his bicycle and riding towards the children. Aneesa stands there for a moment, looking at him, and is surprised at how pleased she is that he does not stop and look back.

  It is the first time that Samir has come to Aneesa’s home and he is intrigued at the thought of meeting her mother. But Waddad is not as he had pictured her. She is not a bent old woman nor is she particularly motherly in her manner. Instead, she is small and if not feisty, at the very least energetic, and she seems as interested in him as he is in her. They do not sit in the living room on the tired old sofas he noticed when he walked in, but are standing in the kitchen while Waddad fiddles with a pot over the stove and Aneesa tries to get her attention.