Naphtalene

by Alia Mamdouh

  We were all Nasserites. When my grandmother heard his voice she said, “I don’t care if his nose is too big. But his voice—it’s as though I’ve heard it before. It’s like Abu Jamil’s voice.”

  My father came into my room when he returned from Karbala, turned on the radio and tuned it to Voice of the Arabs, set down four glasses before him, clinking one against the other. He listened and said: “Please God, may we be free of this calamity!”

  Rasmiya kept Nasser’s picture in her small work bag and looked at him whenever she opened it; she kissed it and put it back in with the cotton and surgical spirits.

  Umm Mahmoud, Abu Mahmoud, and blind Umm Aziz told us, “I wish I had my sight just so I could see him.”

  Farida was like quicksilver. When his name came up she paid attention and got excited. When anyone cursed him she kept quiet.

  We pushed into the crowd, taken by his name and his picture, and when the electric current was cut off we spoke to him in the dark, Adil and I, on behalf of our family. Faces and bodies on roofs and behind windows cried out and threw sweets and nuts to us. Our voices rose as we saw him, young and warm. Then he went high up into the sky.

  All Baghdad joined the insurrection that day. Cities, villages, and coffeehouses shut down, shops closed up, the universities wrote their banners and the students flew them, green, white, and red. The high schools let out most of their classes; each class covered the rear of the one before it, the faces of the police and their cudgels and sticks wanted even more of these bodies and heads. My father took the day off and came to Baghdad, telling his superior that his mother was ill. He took off his uniform and slipped into the crowd. I didn’t notice him there, but Wafiqa saw him and smiled.

  How often I had raced and skipped, ran and strolled down Great Imam Street. I could see him now as he taught me how to fly. Nasser came and infiltrated our vocal cords and set all the secrets free. We entered into the rapture and began to chant: “Curse the English, curse reaction, down with colonialism and the Regent. Say Palestine is Arab. Down with Zionism.” Stop stuttering. Fight. They fought with bare chests, necks small and large, and collars worn out from washing, and swore allegiance to him.

  His voice was like piety, and my grandmother’s shouted along with the rest: Down with the treaties. Down with tyranny. You memorized everything quickly. No one expressed his anger at the King of Iraq. Faisal II was absent from our cries, and stayed far from our voices. All the aunts and women of the neighborhood loved him: “He’s a dear. He’s still young. All the troubles have come from his uncle Abdulilah and the English.”

  The picture of the King of Iraq deceived young and old alike. He was handsome and sad, gloomy, and unfortunate as well.

  Girls dreamed of him, and women worried about him. There was no blow aimed at him, and no celebration in his honor. Nasser took up all the banners. When he held court in Cairo, prisoners came out into prison yards and wrote his name with coal or their fingernails on the peeling walls.

  When he gave a speech about the Suez Canal, the Arab radio stations divided homes into Nasserites, reactionaries, and the camp of those who did not know anything about it. Shops were closed, and homes were turned upside down in the search for a radio tuned to Voice of the Arabs or a leaflet slipped under old mats.

  The neighborhood was still in shock. Hubi’s shop had been closed for seven months. We walked by it every morning and said “Good morning” to it. We passed by again in the afternoon and touched it with our hands. The dogs and cats licked the crevices of the place and congregated under the stone steps. Hubi was a bachelor, and his mother and sister cried for him; the whole neighborhood was like a face engraved in acid. Abu Iman was carried home on the men’s shoulders one night and everyone heard his shouting, his punches and curses. Rasmiya made nothing up. She bid a good morning to Abu Mahmoud, whose face was as sour as a squeezed lemon. His head was empty and his face was suddenly old. Mahmoud was nowhere to be found, in the neighborhood or the school. When he passed it was after dark, and if he slowed his pace he did not offer a greeting. He moved to his uncle’s house in the al-Fadl neighborhood.

  You still had Firdous, Adil, Nizar, Hashim, and Suturi. You did not play with beads, or build mud houses; Mahmoud’s top had gone after it had dug holes in the ground. You imagined you were impossible to quantify, and that you would see him all through your life, inside the house and on the high roof. You opened your head and went down to the soul. You smoothed every road for him so he might settle there. You smiled as he helped you wipe away the handprints, your father’s punches and the coarseness of the road. But after Mahmoud’s death you brought him to the other side of the river. I covered him with a bit of clean, thick cloth, tied him with the first laundry line, and established the place of residence preserved in the box of blood. The brightly colored beads of childhood scattered—stolen, gilded with light touches, longings, and delegations of tears, and the spongy mud we mashed with our feet as we played sliding down slopes or streams. The first hours of the first meeting and pressure on the lock, and I hurried to hide him among the chapters of a year that would never return. When no one remembered him, I released him in the open deserts of the body. Mahmoud rarely came through that door; Firdous, too, fled from my grasp, raised her fist, which had grown, and loomed at my face, saying, “We’re going to move near my uncle in al-Fadl, as well. The government is going to destroy this neighborhood. My mother’s looking for a new house for us.”

  You did not heed her words well. Your nose had not picked up the new scent. When you coughed, the dust and trash of your street was coughed up from your lungs. When you stood waiting for Adil at the gate of the school, you entered the race arena with him. Adil moved like a rabbit among the gaps in the lanes and alleys, free of the silence he had maintained since the night in the bath. He was divided on himself, and walked with every part of him wanting more division. When he left the school, he slipped away from me and raced to Khulud and her riverbanks. There he made the rounds of the street, the neighborhood, and the school, the stones and the people. He stretched his legs out to the river’s edge and played with his hands in the sand that breathed between his feet, fine and moist. He formed faces, numbers, and features. He looked at the Tigris and threw pebbles into the surface of the water, but did not look at Khulud’s mansion. Looking at it did not do him much good, so he left the mansion to its creature and took her image into his soul. When the breeze blew over his chest, he wrote her name and flew it in the air, and when a wave reached him, it wet his rib that rended itself flesh and muscles. Everything he felt he threw away, and everything he threw away he expected to disappear. When I took him to my room he remained seated, and when I went out he stayed where he was. When we put food on the table he ate, and when he was hungry, he did not utter a sound. I opened his books and read, and he read along with me, never making a mistake, never grumbling or complaining. He revolved around his only star, but never uttered her name.

  That Khulud never went out and was never absent. She stayed in the airy halls of her mansion, going up to the high roof with its floor of many-colored bricks, throwing him from afar an empty, folded piece of paper, with sticks of birds’ nests, with a small, harmless pebble. She came down to the garden and sat on the wall, jumped and skipped, stuck her head out and disappeared among the rosebushes, emitting her golden laugh and throwing him all sorts of flowers we had never seen before. The roses scattered on the stones, pebbles, and sand, and they flew into the waves. Adil did not pick them up. He did not turn her way or greet her, nor lift a finger or bow his head. He only gazed at the opposite shore, at the fishermen and their old nets and corroded flat-bottomed boats while Khulud trampled his sand castles, obliterating his features and hopes. She walked behind him, a ribbed white ball in her hand, wearing a white dress and light sandals, her hair loose with bright, new, yellow ribbons in her other hand. She was quick and boisterous, as pretty as a dove steeped in coquetry. Everything about her was petite: her round face, her eyes and nose, h
er eyebrows and delicate, blooming, laughing lips. She walked like a soldier, her steps sudden and movements brisk. She skipped after the ball, playing near the river, opposite Adil. She danced and leapt through the air. Her body undulated delicately; her skin was the color of a flower, and her bones were fine, fed with vegetables and luxury. She fell near Adil and stood behind his back. He did not move. She bounced the ball, making small holes, touching him, passing the ball across his head. You were standing near both of them. You walked along, at a leisurely pace, not looking in their direction.

  “My name is Khulud. What’s yours?”

  He did not turn around. “I know.”

  “What grade are you in?”

  “I passed to the sixth grade.”

  “Me, too.”

  She took the ball in her hand and stood in front of him. For the first time he saw her. “Do you know how to braid hair?” She put the ribbons in his hand and turned her back to him. “Go on, braid my hair.” There was nothing left of Adil but his arms. He turned to her and busied himself with her locks of hair, his hands burning with excitement as he felt them, separated and combed them with his fingers. He squinted, adorned by sweat. His legs trembled and his hands shook. He spread her hair across her back, fondled it, brushed it forward, and got up hurriedly. Her voice stung him from behind his back, trapping him on the riverbank.

  “Afraid? Afraid?”

  Adil ran, fell and got up again, his feet barely touching the sand, his arms fleeing her touch. The mud splattered on his clothes, his knees and hands. He raced, shouted, laughed, and did not disappear. The shore guided his steps. No one was there but the three of us. Khulud ran after him, and stopped and waited in the middle of the pebbles and stones, rolled and fell in front of him. She got up and her voice pierced the air: “Afraid! Afraid!”

  She picked up pebbles and big stones and threw them in the air over him, at me, and at her house. Adil ran, remembering Munir’s baldness and the blood on my hand from my wounds, and my aunt’s spitting. He raced and buried his head in the wind. They raced each other; the first time they met each ran in a different direction. The beginning of this river is a drop of blood that moved and released its wailing in the circle of its area of the Mosque of Abu Hanifa as far as the dirt dam, as far as loud Khulud’s light steps; Adil was as far away as the stars in Gemini.

  I bowed my head. Khulud, in front of me, panted beneath Baghdad’s bright sky and the Tigris waves crashing before us. I said, “He’ll come back in a little while. Don’t worry.”

  16

  Let us forget fear and settle comfortably away from it.

  Only Farida beat it before her, and did not speak to it without mocking it. She approached her fear with natural muscles and found it work in the end: to make Munir stagger with the rest looking on. My aunt remained the virgin, lifting up the title and contemplating it day and night. She took off the black dress, washed her dusty skin, and proceeded to put on a seductive nightgown; madness returned to her face.

  She began to beat us, Adil and me, and grandmother accepted it. All she wanted was for my aunt to remain chaste.

  Her voice sounded like a trumpet after months of long muteness. She went into the bath and wept there, shouted, and unleashed her voice upon us. She came out half naked and stood in the middle of the courtyard, shouting, while grandmother stood in front of her, praying and breathing on her, seizing and pulling her, encircling her with her arms: “Dear, I have my voice back. Are you listening or not?”

  She said: “Huda, dear, Adouli, come and listen, dears. I’m afraid she’ll go hoarse. I’m afraid so much talk and she’ll lose her voice. Perhaps I should cut back a little and be like you and talk little. What do you think, dears. Will I lose it?”

  Farida changed. Her voice was a web of heavy-headed pins, and her silence too assaulted us. She took up all my father’s weapons and plunged them into our flesh and our bodies, and we recalled Jamil, gasping. She beat us and we all cried, all four.

  Grandmother held her head: “Please, Farida, my dear. Your voice has come back and it won’t go away. God bless you, my dear, put your clothes on. I’m afraid you’ll get ill.”

  “No, no, I want to go out, I want to walk in the streets and see the neighbors, take a walk, and sing, and say hello to everyone. I want to hear my voice again. I’m afraid of lies.”

  You stood far off.

  “What’s wrong with you? Are you listening to me? Don’t worry, I won’t beat you from now on. This is my voice. Tell me, Huda, have you gone mad?”

  When she began to curse or laugh, when she insulted everyone, when she was cruel or talked nonsense, nothing could deflect her violence.

  My father came several times, looking weary, sallow, and old. His clothes were faded and his shirt wrinkled, his boots dirty, and his face pale, melancholy, and unshaven, as if he had emerged from a shroud.

  He did not shout or curse. He did not strike or torment us. That Jamil had been stolen for good, and we were even more frightened. When we were quiet he was uncomfortable, and when we went somewhere he vanished. When we stood in front of him he looked down at the ground, and entered into obedience to all things.

  When he went into his first room in the middle of the house, he wandered. He handled the Qur’an and stood a long time before it. He opened the closet and touched his best clothes, never looking in the mirror.

  His eyes were lifeless, as if exhausted by hatred and rage. He did not take Adil in his arms, or call out to either of us. He was not tender, he was dejected and quiet. He now had other children whose entreaties and shouts he could hear: Saad, Raad, and Ali. He wanted a new gold-colored star hanging on his shoulder to soothe his grief, so that he could move to Baghdad as an awesome captain. He continued to wait for that star for months and months, wild-eyed and menaced. Wafiqa deluged him with smiles and supplications, but he kept an even greater distance, and we were even more afraid. Grandmother sent for him and he did not come right away. When he went to Baghdad, he came and went at night, and he listened to Wafiqa’s feeble voice: “Listen well, Abu Adil. This is not the time for blame. Your sister must be divorced. The courts know her predicament, and we don’t want scandals. Anything you say goes.”

  He did not raise his head or grumble.

  “And so?”

  “I sent you the claim the government issued on this house. They want to close off the street and the whole neighborhood. I found a house in al-Salikh. Near your aunts’ house, old but cheap—they were going to demolish it. The government will give us money, and you have to help us out a little, dear Jamouli. I know your situation; you’ll get that new star, God willing, and hang it on your shoulder. Leave everything to me. What your mother says she does.”

  He raised his head to look at her, and said in a barely audible voice, “Is that true, Mama?”

  “Your promotion was delayed for a year and a half. Your friends have become police captains. The world has changed and you have to change as well. Jamil, leave off drinking and swearing. How can you be promoted to captain when every day you’re cursing the captain and the cabinet minister? You shout and you’re quarrelsome.”

  She was quiet for a moment, watching him.

  “Now get up and let’s go and see the new house. As to later on—God will sort Farida out.”

  I did not hear the rest of what they said. I went out into the street and Adil followed me. For the first time I heard Adil’s voice sounding coarse: “It’s true, Huda, we’re going to be thrown out of this house.”

  I did not reply. We walked among the people hand in hand. Everything was in its place. The smell of cooking reached my nose, and I heard the voices of women as they dumped out dirty washing water in front of us. We walked along the muddy paths, through the mire and rubbish. Hashim rode an old bicycle, riding and falling. I turned away from him and he from me. We stopped in front of every bench, counting them and never making a mistake. We saw the holes in curtains and I hit them with my hand and moved on. All the residents chatted and
exclaimed. We painted our names onto the metal electricity poles. The water pipes were rusty, and water leaked out of them.

  The baker’s shop was closed up. Abu Mahmoud sluggishly sold his wares, with crumbs of cheese scattered underneath the trays, and flies swarming over them. He did not shoo them away or cover the cheese with the palm branches, which had yellowed and withered while the rest had fallen to the ground. He did not look up at Rasmiya, who was still limping from her beating. She plied her trade sticking needles in people’s thighs and arms. We passed by her house, from which emanated the smell of surgical spirits and dried blood.

  I saw Suturi and Nizar and bowed my head down. They watched in silence. Mahmoud was still absent.

  There were still long lines in front of the shop of Hubi the butcher. He was back selling his wares looking vexed, neither singing nor joking. The pebbles and bricks of our grandfather’s great house were strewn about.

  I touched the walls of the houses, the gaps in the corners and the grains of dirt. I clung to the ample sand, and my dreams ran into the drains. We wailed, and the streets were changed beyond recognition by violence. We wept and comforted ourselves that all this outcry was warmth and that all this dust was roses.

  “You’re always quiet, Huda. Where shall we go? Now we’re far from home.”

  “If you’re afraid, go home. I want to go farther.”

  “No, I’m not afraid. But I want to cry and I can’t.”

  Wafiqa said: “They used the last of their tears on the roof the day Iqbal died.”

  Blind Umm Aziz gathered her palm leaf tray, counted her coins, put them in a purse, and tucked it into her breast pocket. Abu Masoud the painter remembered that he had forgotten the light in his shop, opened the door and turned the light off, and turned to us. We looked at him. For the first time I saw him seeming dignified and handsome.