States of Passion

by Nihad Sirees

  Up until that day I hadn’t been able to accept what had happened. Not even Khadija’s bitter tears confirmed for me that the telegram my uncle had received informing us of the ship’s sinking was true. But I had lost my mother for ever. She used to say she wanted to die with me or instead of me if I came down with a fever. That was why, when I sat down across from my uncle, I expected him to tell me that the news wasn’t true and to apologise on behalf of the telegraphic service, especially when I saw him holding an envelope and staring at me as he waited for me to come in and sit down. So as to prevent my imagination from rushing to unrealistic expectations, he addressed me in his croaky and hushed voice, drowning out the orderly tick-tock of the grandfather clock that was taller than I was.

  “‘You know very well, nephew, what happened to your mother and father, God rest their souls.’

  “He paused in order to add the necessary gravitas to what he was saying. I acknowledged this silence. He had taken away all my hope. I realised I was going to be an orphan for ever. His pause gave me the chance to reconsider my expectations. Because I hated them all so much, I had been hoping he would tell me they were kicking me and Khadija out of their house and that we would have to go and live alone in my parents’ house, which was now mine. But he went on mercilessly:

  “‘It’s time to read you your father’s will.’

  “He took out his glasses and placed them on his nose. They didn’t have arms to go over his ears the way glasses are made today. He read out the will as I listened in silence.

  “The only thing I understood was that I was going to have to live in my uncle’s house until I got older, and that I would have to marry Jalila so that not a single share of the soap workshop would go to anyone outside the family. My uncle would be trustee over me and my property, which was half of the soap workshop and my father’s house. If I refused to marry Jalila I wouldn’t inherit anything at all.

  “They bequeathed Jalila to me. That’s what had happened. My uncle finished speaking, took off his glasses, and returned the will to its envelope. Then he stood up to place it on the table beside the grandfather clock. I remained speechless, staring at his empty chair. I was devastated. But I had a habit of not showing how upset I was, something I’d inherited from my mother, so I didn’t express how much I hated my uncle and his wife and his daughter Jalila. Something to my left caught my attention and I calmly turned around. Jalila was sitting on her chamber pot trying to shit. She was staring right at me. I looked at her red and bloated face. Her mother was sitting behind her on her low-slung chair, shaking as she laughed at something one of her servants had said to her.

  “Through a narrow window just below the ceiling you could see the last few stairs leading to the upper floor. Anyone walking downstairs would be able to see what was going on in the living room from there, and anyone looking from below would be able to see the person going upstairs. I was trying to look out the window so I wouldn’t have to look at Jalila. I saw Khadija there. I wanted to gaze into her tender eyes. She looked back at me. It was the first time she came through for me. There she was, leaning over the guardrail, trying to offer me support with her tearful eyes.

  “My uncle and I left the room. When I got upstairs, Khadija embraced me and held me close. In my room, I started crying and repeating, ‘I hate him… I hate them all.’ She tried her best to cover my mouth.

  “The tragedy unfolded smoothly; at least for me it did. I was young. As I told you, I wasn’t yet twelve years old. Whenever she started crying, I would squeeze Khadija tight. She liked me to call her Khaddouj. I knew she was crying over the death of her employers, who had both been very good to her. I would draw close and hold her, and she would reciprocate by holding me the way I liked to be held: with both arms, resting my head on her shoulder as my face brushed against her neck. She would cry for a bit longer before calming down. We’d stay like that for a long time.

  “I loved the way she smelt. Not even my mother had a smell like hers. A scent like cloves. Even today, I still can’t figure out how to explain that smell. Whenever she hugged me, I would feel at peace, calm and still. There wasn’t anything quite like Khaddouj’s smell to take me away from thinking about the loss of my mother. There was no place on earth that could make me feel as peaceful as I did when my face was nestled between her shoulder and her neck. She’d lean her shoulders against me, wrap her arms around me, and caress my scrawny chest.

  “She hadn’t embraced me when we were at home. She never once did that. My mother didn’t either. She’d let me rest my head in her lap and I would lie on my back as she freely tousled my hair and stroked my forehead with a tender hand. Whenever Khadija had me in that position, she’d laugh and call me a spoilt brat. In her opinion, an only child is bound to be spoilt by both parents, and that’s the child’s right. She hugged me for the first time the day after I’d spoken to my uncle. Rather than staying out on the staircase, she pulled me inside my room and then sat down to place me in her lap, squishing my face against that throne between her shoulder and her neck. We were both in tears. When we finally stopped crying I felt a tremendous calm, a peace that eliminated all of my dejection and my hatred for my uncle and his family. I was filled with tender and incomprehensible feelings whenever my chest nestled against her breasts. At first she would try to keep them away from me. Whenever I drew closer she would pull back, then she’d forget herself and turn back towards me. I would fondle her breasts once again. She tried to pull away, but in the end she stopped noticing when her breasts rested against my chest.

  “That was the day I discovered the scent of cloves and sweet figs that lingered on her skin.

  “She had a toned body, tall and barley-coloured. She was neither skinny like my mother nor fat like my uncle’s wife. I would describe her as being full. When she hugged me to calm me down, I would run my hands over her forearms and her shoulders and her back. I couldn’t feel her bones. They were covered by a thin layer of pillowy and comfortable flesh. I would cling to her so that her breasts were close to me.

  “That familiar and pliable body silently used to take beatings from her husband before he passed away. I hated him from the instant I laid eyes on those blue and winecoloured bruises all over her face and her neck. I believe that at the hammam she showed my mother the bruises all over the rest of her body. Maybe that’s why I felt such powerful sympathy for her body, just as she felt sympathy for my sudden orphanhood.

  “We didn’t speak much. That’s just the way I was. My uncle would start to worry about my psychological well-being when he noticed my long silences, which could last for days on end. He would see me here and there, at various places in the cavernous house, looking around at everything and interacting with everyone in absolute silence. Khaddouj found a kind of eloquence in that silence, as she told me when I got older. Because of my distaste for my uncle’s family, I shrank away from them, finding my only refuge in solitude and in being close to Khadija.

  “After a while, I started becoming afraid of being away from her, especially at night. I would have strange nightmares about oceans, drowning, suffocation and then death. I would wake up mewling like a kitten, my body as stiff as a board, terrified of what I had seen in the dream, without the strength to toss away the blanket and get up to shake off what had scared me so badly. One time, when Khadija was singing me to sleep, I told her, ‘I’m afraid of the night. I’ve even started getting scared of the dark.’

  “She stopped moving, brought her face in close to mine, and asked me in a whisper, ‘What are you afraid of? You haven’t always been like this.’

  “‘I have bad dreams.’

  “‘Like what?’

  “‘Oceans and boats and caves. Drowning and people dying.’

  “She shook her head. She understood that my parents’ drowning was causing these nightmares.

  “‘There’s no need for this,’ she said encouragingly. ‘You used to sleep in your room all by yourself.’

  “I continued to be silen
t and sad. I really wanted her to sleep next to me. I couldn’t stand being alone. She looked over and saw how despondent I was. The way I was looking drove her to ask, ‘Do you want me to sleep in here with you?’

  “I nodded unenthusiastically. She smiled at me. Maybe she considered me a brat for not jumping for joy at her offer, because she started tickling and kissing me, and we tumbled around on the bed laughing.

  “She switched off the light and got into bed next to me. I wasn’t right next to her, but up against the wall. She patted me and invited me to snuggle up next to her. She placed her hand under my head and pulled me in close. Then she fell asleep.

  “For a while I couldn’t move. I breathed in her strange odour, my face under her chin. I didn’t want to upset her. The whole thing was pretty strange, obviously. I was too nervous to move, which could have made her move away from me or to turn onto her other side. I woke up in the same position. I didn’t have nightmares that night. Her soft and warm presence, her tangy smell kept the nightmares at bay. In the morning she was happy to hear how well I had slept beside her, and she promised to sleep next to me that night as well.

  “I started to look forward to nightfall all throughout the day. Whereas I had once hated the night, I began to love it, to anticipate its arrival. When it finally arrived, I would find myself in such a good mood I’d begin to hum a popular tune unintentionally. Khadija would smile and stroke my hair as she got the bed ready and then invited me to get in. She did so cheerfully, maybe with a little smile on her face as well. She would leave the light on and then get into bed next to me. I would curl up next to her, and as I brought my face in close to her neck, she would move it out of the way so I could get in nice and close.

  “The first time my skinny frame pressed up against her full and fleshy body, she didn’t get upset. She began to play with my hair instead. She would run her fingers through it and then brush it down to the side with her hand. Then she would plunge her fingers into my thick hair and do the same thing all over again.

  “‘You heard about your beloved father’s will. Are you sad about it?’ she whispered.

  “‘Yes’, I replied, relishing the scent of cloves. ‘I’m sad about it. Nobody ever told me I was going to have to marry Jalila when I grow up.’

  “‘Don’t worry about it too much. She’s going to grow up to be very beautiful.’

  “‘But I don’t love her, Khaddouj. She’s so serious, so fat. I really hate all of them.’

  “She scolded me by squeezing my head and squishing my nose under her armpit. She snorted once before saying, ‘Don’t you dare say anything like that ever again. He’s your uncle, your father’s brother.’

  “‘But I hate him. I feel like he doesn’t even like me. I’m scared of him when his eyes get big and wide.’

  “At first she remained silent. Then she sighed. Her chest rose and fell. Even though she was wearing a cotton nightgown, her left breast brushed across my ear. I lifted my arm and her supple belly found its way under my hand. Her head moved. I guessed that she was trying to look at me but all she could see was my hair. My face was still buried in her armpit.

  “Some time passed. Maybe she was trying to figure out why I had done that. Why would I cling to her and dare to touch her belly button? She gently took my hand and returned it to my side, then drew a hair’s breadth away from me, leaving my head where it rested. It must have made her uncomfortable.

  “The next day she looked at me through different eyes. Several times I caught her sending probing glances my way. She was trying to discover whether I was staring at her whenever she turned away or bent over. Was I spying on her? She was obsessed, the poor girl. I felt a little bit guilty. I wasn’t sure what I was doing exactly. I felt like I had committed an adolescent trespass, like being difficult or too serious. I was suspicious of my own reasons for being like that. It seemed to make her uncomfortable, so I didn’t push. One reason for that was how happy I was whenever I touched her body. As far as I was concerned, she represented something maternal, the woman the little boy in me wanted to be near.

  “I was sad about what happened. I had been comfortable with the way she looked at me but I started to avoid it, especially after she stopped going to the bathroom with me to help me bathe. She would take me in there instead and explain how I was to wash myself. She told me I was old enough to take care of myself. I would start crying whenever I took a bath. My tears flowed into the warm water I poured over my head with a copper pot. The first time I knocked on the door asking for a towel, she thought the redness in my eyes was from the soap. But when she found out I was sad, she would hug me the way she always did. She held me, without letting me cling to her in return.

  “On the orders of my uncle, Khadija took me to register at the neighbourhood school. I had to re-enroll after nearly a month out of school. It was too difficult to get to my old school. We’d lived far from my uncle’s house. My old school was two buildings away from my father’s house.

  “The arrival of the telegram about the ship going down made us forget all about school. I would gaze down through the window at the street and watch the other kids walking by in their black uniforms, carrying their bags as they scampered off to school or headed home afterwards, without feeling any urge to be one of them. I was comfortable with being lazy, until my uncle Ibrahim Pasha found me sitting with the women, listening to their idle chatter, and he mentioned that school could take me away from all of that. By the way, I found everything they were talking about very interesting.

  “The teacher enrolled me in his class and asked me to follow him. I had to let go of Khadija’s warm hand as I secretly cursed the school and my uncle, who had brought it up in the first place. But I quickly came to like it. It was very different to my old school, much calmer. It had a large courtyard lined with classrooms. There was a single class for each grade. Most of the time they would combine students from two grades in the same room with a single teacher, but there weren’t that many students there compared to my old school. God only knew how many classes or how many students that school had. When we were let out of class, in between periods, it was like Judgement Day. The boys were naughtier. What really made me despise that old school was one of those boys in particular. He was enormous, even though he was only one year older than me. From the moment he laid eyes on me he started to bully me. If I didn’t give him my lunch and whatever money I had, he would beat me up. I had to be very sneaky in order to avoid his wrath.

  “At my new school I didn’t encounter anyone as bad as that devilish bully. Perhaps there were other boys who picked on the weaker ones but I didn’t run into any, thankfully. There was a boy in my fifth-grade class who was a lot like me. He was calm and skinny but bashful somehow. Whenever he spoke his face turned red, just like me. But he also had some strange tics which I loved to watch and have a laugh at whenever he was around. His name was Malek, and when I learnt that the name for heron in Arabic is Malek al-Hazeen, or Sad Malek, I started using that as a nickname for him.

  “The best thing about that school was my teacher. He was old and wore a red fez to hide his baldness. He wouldn’t leave his seat until the bell rang. He used to make the pupils do their homework in the classroom to fill time while he groomed himself, which he never seemed to stop doing. He would pull out a compact mirror and a pair of scissors, and start plucking the little black hairs from his ears. He never grew tired of this. I’d forget all about myself and my homework whenever he took out his mirror and I’d sit there staring at him. My seat was right in front of his desk, with only a single chair between us. He would catch me watching him a lot of the time, and I would look away, immediately fearing some kind of punishment. Then I would go right back to watching him as soon as he returned to the busy work with his ears. Sometimes I was even able to make out a tiny hair that had evaded his scissors and mirror. I imagined pointing it out to him.

  “1936 was an important year, with a flavour all its own. I turned twenty and Jalila turned twelve.
I finished my bachelor’s degree. Although I wanted to travel to Damascus to continue my studies, my uncle thought I should stop with just the one degree so I could take over the books at the soap workshop. He wanted me to go straight to work and learn how to manage the business. I would eventually become the owner, once my uncle passed away, along with Jalila, who would become my wife.

  “I spent my days at the soap workshop waiting for my Jalila to call. In the evenings Sad Malek and I would go to the Dunya or the Eastern to watch Mohammed Abdel Wahab films. We’d also take part in demonstrations and other anti-French Mandate events organised by the National Bloc. One day in September, Malek came to see me at the soap workshop. He whispered in my ear that the delegation that had travelled to Paris at the beginning of the year to negotiate with the French government for independence was arriving in Aleppo that day. They were returning after a victory in the negotiations. The Bloc called on the people to give the delegation a welcome worthy of heroes returning from a glorious battle. I asked my uncle for permission to go, and as he had actually donated some money to the office of the National Bloc he let me. We hurried off to the train station.

  “The train was packed that day with people who had come to greet them. First and foremost was Monsieur de Martel and the other members of the Aleppo Government. A brass band played as we chanted slogans in favour of an independent Syria. Apparently they had also added an additional slogan celebrating Syrian-French brotherhood. We began to chant it, overjoyed by the successful negotiations. As the train approached, the people grew increasingly excited and the music more frenetic. By the time the music stopped, some of the most excited people had nearly fainted. Station agents were stopping the enthusiastic masses from falling off the platform and onto the tracks. It was only by the grace of God that dozens of people didn’t become victims of the Treaty, crushed under the wheels of the train.