States of Passion

by Nihad Sirees

  “‘Forget about what happened yesterday,’ she whispered.

  “‘I wish you’d teach me how to dance… not necessarily that one…’

  “‘Dance however you feel. I was watching you and thought it was good. Just keep doing what you’re doing. People are going to love you. Goodbye.’

  “Raheel left the house. All the woman stood there and saw her off except for Bahira. She stayed in her room—at peace, though, because she was free, and ready for a new adventure in which Widad would play a starring role.”

  We sat down to lunch at 3:30. The old man had the same habits as the elderly in Aleppo: sleep in late, which meant that he didn’t have breakfast until 11:15, eat lunch late, have little more than a glass of warm milk at 10 p.m., and totter off to bed well after midnight. Because I had stayed up late the night before listening to him tell the beginning of the story, I had to adhere to his sleeping and eating schedule. I didn’t find it difficult. I was already accustomed to waking up early for work at the Agricultural Bank. I was constantly exhausted and had to nap every afternoon in order to regain the strength I lost during the awful night before last. I found myself thanking God I didn’t get sick after being caught out in the rain. Ordinarily I catch cold if I don’t dry my hair after showering. Isn’t that odd? I think the reason was how intrigued I was by the story.

  I snap back to the house where the old man and I are sitting at the dining-room table, waiting for the servant to serve us lunch. The old man was taciturn, which was his custom whenever he stopped telling the story. In those moments I respected his silence and remained silent myself. The rain was coming down hard outside. The dining room adjoining the salon was well heated, and the warmth radiating from the wood-burning fireplace in the living room reached us. I’d learnt just a little while before that the servant’s name was Ismail. He had set the table with two decorative china plates and three sets of spoons and forks and knives, European style, so we could enjoy several courses: soup, main dishes and dessert. That day I discovered that Ismail preferred the old man and his guests to sit at a table bare except for cutlery and napkins so he could serve the food in the proper order, which required his going back and forth to the kitchen.

  When he first walked in with the soup—vegetable soup, by the way—he cast me a discomfiting look and loomed over me before filling my bowl. He then stepped behind the old man’s chair and filled his, glaring at me until he left the room once again. I sipped my soup, comfortable, unafraid, unaffected by Ismail’s unpleasant glances in my direction. We also had some seasonal salad. But when it was time to serve the main course I got a little nervous when he presented me with a skewer of spiced meat doused in lemon and garlic but served the old man a plate of steamed vegetables.

  I started to fear the servant, and carefully inspected the food and drink he served me. There was no cause for alarm if he served me from the same pot from which he served his master, but when he prepared food especially for me, it was worth stopping to think about it. I didn’t trust him. Let me repeat this for the umpteenth time: I could tell he didn’t like me and wanted to harm me in some way, or at least get me out of there before I could figure out why. I stared at the skewer of meat without touching it as the old man vigorously tucked into his steamed vegetables, despite the pain caused by eating with his dentures in. When Ismail returned carrying a dessert tray with crème caramel—which his boss seemed to like because of his gum pain—I noticed his surprise and visible disappointment at finding I hadn’t eaten any of the meat. This meant there was a strong possibility he had spiked the food with something that would make my stay at the house as short as possible. He took away the food and replaced it with the plate of caramel without asking any questions. After finishing my dessert, I peeled an orange. When I had finished eating that, I praised God, thanked the old man, and got up to wash my hands.

  I let the water run over my hands longer than usual, then dried them and studied my face in the mirror. As I backed away I suddenly bumped into Ismail. He wasn’t carrying plates from the table and wasn’t coming out of the kitchen, because the washroom was on the other side of the house. He was spying on me, pure and simple. We stood toe to toe for a few seconds. I exhaled in his face and he exhaled in mine. I was trying to conceal how unnerved I was, how frightened, even as he looked down on me in that fancy, highfalutin outfit so commonly worn by servants in palatial homes. I sensed that he was having a bit of fun with me, demonstrating how easy it was for him to to scare me. I had to take a step backwards and to the right in order to head towards the living room, where I wanted to sit and calm myself down. But he came at me with a terrifying look on his face, harsh and sadistic.

  “Excuse me?” I found myself asking.

  “You didn’t touch your meat,” he said with his mouth clenched.

  I told him I wasn’t feeling well, then pulled back and walked away even as I could feel him standing there watching me.

  I collapsed into my chair by the fireplace, heart racing. I was afraid he would follow me there before the old man arrived, but I spent five minutes alone, confused and frightened, without his appearing. Then the old man entered and I sprang up to help him sit down.

  He thanked me and said, “Let’s have some tea and then go up for a nap. We can continue the story later.”

  I told him I also needed a nap. He nodded and fell silent. A few moments later the servant came in carrying a tea tray laden with fine china. I asked for mine without sugar. He poured the tea, handed each of us our cup, and then left without making eye contact with either of us. We sipped our tea in silence as the rain kept pouring outside.

  I went up to my room and sat beside the window, looking down on the desolate landscape being washed by the rain. I couldn’t see farther than sixty metres beyond the backgarden fence. Despite the appeal of a warm bed in a world soaked with rain, I refused to lie down. I needed to think about the servant’s behaviour. I had already planned to spend some time thinking about it. What did Ismail want from me? Did he want me to leave? If he hadn’t wanted me there, he would have tried to keep me out from the first moment I showed up on their doorstep, after the wild dogs had led me there. The first hour I’d spent there, I’d felt he was a kind person. He even got my room ready, changing the sheets and warming them up, leaving a new razor out for me. What could have transformed him into a person who hated me so much that he would spy on me and even try to bring me harm, or worse?

  “What does this prick want?” I heard myself whisper. Then, in an audible voice, I asked myself, “Did he come into my room last night while I was sleeping? If he did, how did he manage to do so if I had locked the door and made sure the window was shut? What was he doing in my room while I was sleeping anyway? Did he have a knife? Or a gun?”

  So many questions, and I couldn’t come up with an answer to any of them.

  All of a sudden it dawned on me that the whole thing had to do with the story the old man was telling me. The way he treated me had changed ever since the kindly old man had started to open up and tell me his story. The whole thing began to take shape in my cloudy mind. Ismail had something to do with the story the old man was telling. At that point I still didn’t know how he was related to the story or what his relationship with Widad or Khojah Bahira might have been. I had to hear more of the story before I could understand the relationship between the old man and his story, let alone how Ismail was related to it all. But why would Ismail want to prevent me from listening to the story? After all, what was I going to tell anyone? I decided I would fight to stick around and hear it to the end. It wasn’t only a story. It was more than that. It was the revelation of something unknown. Just then my attention was distracted by a human apparition outside the garden fence walking under the pelting rain without an umbrella. I got up in a hurry to wipe the grime from the window and brought my face in close to get a better look. The man was running and quickly disappeared before I could be certain whether it was Ismail or someone else. What would he have been doing out
in the rain? I drew away from the window, about to sit down again. But I decided instead to lie down on the bed. I kicked off my shoes and rested my head on the pillow. It felt good to close my eyes. Despite my extreme nervousness at Ismail’s behaviour, it was nice to have a clean blanket and a warm room in such rainy, flood-like weather.

  *

  After his nap, the old man continued…

  “Khojah Bahira wouldn’t let Widad go with them to the wedding parties, which would sometimes last until the early morning hours. She would say that it wasn’t the right time to give this young woman her debut or for the women to get to know her. Because Widad was scared of being alone in the Farafrah house, Bahira hired a servant named Fatima to stay with her whenever Bahira and the others were out. Fatima was in her forties, an Armenian woman who had lost her family during her terrifying flight from the genocide during the Great War. She made it to Aleppo with a group of young girls. She looked like she was their mother; at the time she was over thirty. Most of the girls were taken in by local merchants, but a scrap metal seller proposed to Fatima and made her his second wife. Her name was difficult to pronounce so the merchant called her Fatima, after his dead mother, and let her live in a small room that had once been a storehouse for his merchandise. He defended her against the ruthlessness of his first wife, who considered Fatima a personal servant for her and her children. Unfortunately for Fatima, the merchant died and left her in the custody of his wife, who used to beat her every day, until she was driven to run away. She simply packed her tattered clothes and some food in a bundle, flung open the door and left. She wanted to become a professional servant in the homes of the wealthy. It seems that fortune began to smile upon her when she entered the service of one of the good-natured Khojahs, and she began living in an atmosphere of happiness, dancing and song, getting to know most of the Khojahs in the city and many of the wives of notable men. She would simply leave the house of her master if she were ever insulted or confronted with an unkind word. Or she might receive a better offer and move to another house. This is exactly what happened when Bahira asked her to come work at her house. She agreed immediately despite the fact that she had no quarrel with the woman she was serving at the time.

  “Although Fatima wasn’t fluent in Arabic, she understood what was asked of her. She spoke her own private language, a mélange of Arabic, Armenian, Turkish and Kurdish, which made Widad laugh. She would spend the day sweeping, dusting and washing, and she went shopping for food at the nearby market, peeled the vegetables, and prepared all the meals. And because she had been brought to Bahira’s house on account of Widad, she found that she was expected to take care of the young woman above anyone else in the house. She took this task seriously, to the extent that she refused to serve the other women whenever she was hurrying to take care of something Widad had asked her to do. This annoyed Suad, Farida and Aisha. Still, they found her pleasant even when she refused to do chores for them. Whenever the women went to work a wedding party or an engagement or some other occasion, Fatima would focus entirely on Widad, never leaving her side. Fatima would salt some watermelon seeds, and they would sit and chew on them beside the window in the wooden balcony, looking down and watching the people on the street, which was illuminated by a kerosene lamp the city administration had hung from a telephone pole in front of the house. She regaled Widad with wondrous stories. Even more wondrous was the fact that Widad could understand the tales Fatima told her in her unusual hybrid language. Widad actually understood so well that she became addicted to hearing them. She hoped Bahira and her friends would leave the house for parties so she could be alone with Fatima, who only felt like telling her stories when the two of them were alone.

  “Fatima would make up stories for Widad. Believing that the young woman was afraid of the dark and of being alone, she tried to entertain her. She thought this was why Khojah Bahira had brought her there. The most beautiful story was about a young man who got into a fight with the son of the governor, wounding him seriously. But he didn’t die, so the young man, whose name was Kurdo of the Mountain, had to flee into the mountains, where he became a professional bandit. Kurdo envied travellers and their wealth, so he would hold them up and steal their money. The beautiful thing about Kurdo of the Mountain was that he distinguished between rich and poor. He would steal from the rich and leave the poor alone, which was why the people loved him and were proud of him. They would help him and deceive the soldiers sent to kill him. Fatima told Widad many stories of the adventures of Kurdo of the Mountain. He fell in love and was beset with desire. He stole from the rich and helped the needy, killed soldiers but also helped those wounded fighting against him. Kurdo of the Mountain assembled a band of brave young men. Once there was a young Armenian woman who fell in love with him and followed him up into the mountains. He tried to make her return to her family, but she refused because of her love for him. She even saved his life once. Fatima turned the story of Kurdo of the Mountain and this Armenian girl into a sprawling epic with dozens of related stories. The main plotline was romantic love and heroism. In reality the soldiers had eventually managed to kill Kurdo and the Armenian girl, and to arrest the other members of his band. But Fatima refused to let her epic have an unhappy ending out of concern for Widad’s feelings. Widad sympathised with the bandits. So Fatima continued inventing new adventures and stories about the indomitable Kurdo of the Mountain.

  “Kurdo of the Mountain became a familiar figure in Widad’s mind. She vividly pictured his handsome face and strapping body. He was intimidating and feared by his enemies; even his friends and the men in his gang were careful around him. Widad would ask Fatima to describe all of Kurdo’s adventures in detail. How did Kurdo stand? How did he speak? Did he fight with restraint or did he open fire on his enemies with abandon?

  “She tried to behave like the brave Armenian girl because she was in love with Kurdo. Whenever she dreamt about the adventures of Kurdo and his gang, she would picture herself alongside her hero. There were no wrinkles on his face. He was handsome and strong and he didn’t resemble any of the men Widad actually knew. She couldn’t think of anyone with his features. She loved Bayonet Abduh but he could never compete with Kurdo of the Mountain. Her affection for Abduh was nothing like her love for Kurdo, which was why Kurdo’s face wasn’t that well defined for her. She believed he might have looked like Captain Cevdet, to some degree, the man her mother had loved and for whom she had abandoned Bahira’s house of music.

  “The way Widad hung on Fatima and her stories made Khojah Bahira uncomfortable, and she thought seriously about kicking the servant out. She had intentionally hired an older woman who didn’t speak Arabic very well in order to prevent any relationship from blossoming between her and Widad, but Fatima had managed to win Widad’s heart and trust. The stories made her more solitary and reflective, and further removed from Bahira. So why had Bahira bothered to set her apart from other people? Ever since Widad’s arrival, Bahira had been concerned about her. She forbade her from going out, afraid that a man might see her and fall in love with her. And since he would be prevented from approaching her, he might try to kidnap and run off with her.

  “She was also concerned about women. Because of her work she was unable to be with her all the time, which was why she had brought Fatima the Armenian to take care of her and entertain her in the first place. But she had certainly not expected her to become fixated on the made-up stories that she would insist on hearing every night, even when Bahira was at home.

  “Fatima instilled something unnerving in Widad’s heart without realising that it was forbidden in Khojah Bahira’s house. The stories made her dream about men, those terrifying creatures, mortal enemies of the Khojah. She had forbidden them from entering her house ever since Widad had arrived, out of concern for her, and now all of a sudden Fatima had brought them in with her stories about Kurdo of the Mountain. Once, Widad made the mistake of mentioning him affectionately as the women were sitting down for lunch. Widad giggled as she
said that one day she wanted to marry a bandit and elope with him into the mountains. In that moment everything came to a standstill. All the women stopped chewing. Suad, Aisha and Farida turned around to see how Bahira would react. They all knew she was waiting for the right moment to discipline the young woman according to her fancy, to assert her control over her. Bahira chewed her food in silence, glaring at Fatima, who was stiff with fear. She knew well that she had put Widad into an impossible position with stories that had encouraged her to dream about boys. She had heard a great deal about Bahira and her love of women. Her feminine intuition told her that Widad was being groomed to become the older ablaya’s lover, which was why she would tell Widad not to bring up those stories with anyone, no matter who it might be.

  “They finished lunch, but before Fatima could begin washing the dishes Bahira called her into her room. Shutting the door behind her, she started to upbraid her:

  “‘What are you doing, Fatima?! I didn’t bring you here to mistreat me like this.’

  “Fatima responded in her particular dialect:

  “‘I done? You say… take care Widad… Fatima good girl.’

  “‘I didn’t ask you to tell her about any bandits.’

  “‘I say once… love other time.’

  “‘You made her fall in love with a bandit… what’s even worse is that she thinks about men now. That’s off-limits in my house. I don’t want her to trust men.’

  “‘But he’s a girl.’

  “‘Yes, Fatima, Widad is a girl,’ she said, adding with irritation, ‘I didn’t bring you here to explain that to me. Get out of here. Right now.’

  “‘Oh my God!’

  “‘I don’t need a housemaid any more. I’ll take care of Widad myself.’

  “Fatima remained silent. She cared about Widad. She had arrived there to take care of and entertain her and now she was so attached to her that she might even beg the Khojah and kiss her hands and feet just so she could stay. For the first time in her life she might beg someone to let her stay.