Stealth (New Directions Paperbook)

by Sonallah Ibrahim

  I hear movement. The door to the room opens. Fatima comes out. She moves between the sideboard and the kitchen. Her clogs clomp. She makes a plate of ful beans. She takes it to father and stays inside. After a while, she comes back out. She opens the front door and goes out, closing it behind her. Father comes out of the bedroom and goes to the bathroom. He mutters a few verses. I can tell he is doing ablutions. I crawl under the table in the direction of the front door. I can see his legs in front of the sink. I leave my hiding place, holding the dish. I go to the front door. Softly, I open it, then close it hard. Father is still at the sink. He rubs water over his ears. He turns to me and says: “Did Fatima forget to close the door?”

  I say as I wave the empty dish at him: “The oil shop’s closed. It’s Friday.”

  He says: “They used to open for a while before high prayer. Shall I make you an egg?”

  I say: “I’m not hungry.” I go into the room and sit at my desk. I take the notebooks out of my satchel. I open my reading textbook. I read a poem called “Lament of a Cat.” Father comes in. He spreads the prayer rug out on the floor and prays the morning prayer.

  He puts on his clothes. He goes out to pray the high prayer at the mosque. I make sure that the doors to the apartment and the bedroom are both locked. I open the dresser. I drag the desk chair over in front of it. Climb up. On the front of the top drawer there’s a glass pane with a picture of a lion. A bottle of Bislari’s iron tonic. I take down The Great Star of Knowledge. I bring it to the desk. I flip through its pages. A little picture falls out of it, about the size of an I.D. photo. A new one. It shines. I can tell whose it is by the perfumed scent spilling off it. It is Tante Samira’s. She looks just the way I saw her during Eid. Very beautiful.

  I put the picture back in its place. I examine those pages that father has marked with slips of paper. I flip through the pages again. At the end of the book, there is an index of the four sections. I read through it quickly, making notes of important page numbers in my penmanship notebook. I start with page 108 in the first part. I don’t understand a thing. I go to page 25 of the second part. Then page 61 of the third part, then 3 and 140 from the fourth part.

  I read: “Take the skin of an owl and dye it with henna and alum, then write on it the letter aleph and draw next to it the name of the angel in cursive, the invocation and the ellipsis, make it into a cropped hood and wear it.” What does “the ellipsis” or “a cropped hood” mean? I move on. “Write ‘O Koreishite, Sharaibite, Yahoubite’ on the sand, then sit on it and recite from the holy book, ‘And we will make before them a wall,’ along with the holy words, ‘For they cannot see,’ then say, ‘Take their eyes and their sight and make them, O servant, these names in the sea wrapped in darkness that they might not see me. “Deaf are they and blind, For they cannot see.” ’ ”

  I keep reading: “The divine benefits of the name ‘Ghaffar.’ Whosoever puts it inside a square during the last night of the month on a grey sheet of paper and carries it after reciting the name the same number of times as the day of the month, God will make him invisible to whosoever would do him harm.” Next to this is a drawing of a square with four rows made from blocked off columns. The top of the columns are headed by the letters gh, f, a, and r. The other columns are marked by numbers.

  I go back to “O Koreishite, Sharaibite, Yahoubite.” I go to the few empty lines in the back of the penmanship notebook. I close the book and put both of them back in their place in the dresser, and push the chair back to its place.

  I look out from the balcony. Abdel Hamid, the nutcase. He walks out of the building and heads toward the entrance to the alley. He is fully dressed and carrying a newspaper in his hand. Mother forcefully presses the key into the lock. She pushes the door. I go into the room. She locks the door behind me with the key. My father stands at the window. He looks over the comings and goings in the street. I tell him about mother. A stone falls from the window. I hear one of the children chanting: “There goes the crazy man!”

  Father comes back in carrying a bag of grapes on the vine, with the plump fruit. And another of Armenian cucumbers. I don’t like them when they have a bitter taste. I like the local ones better.

  I wait until he has changed clothes. I pretend to be memorizing my daily Quranic verses. I ask him about the verse that starts off, “And we will make before them a wall.” He knows most verses by heart. He finishes the verse for me.

  Uncle Fahmi brings a round box of sweets over to us. On its cover, there is a full-color picture of a European boy wearing a tall cap and holding a cane. I take the box from him and put it on the desk. He sits on the edge of the bed. He wears a dark brown jacket and beige trousers. He is carrying a book. He puts it on the desk. Father sits cross-legged next to him. They turn to face each other. I sit at my desk. I go back to my review of grammar, syntax, meter, and pentameter. I grab Uncle Fahmi’s book, The New 1,001 Nights by Abdel Rahman al-Khamissi. The Everyman’s Book series. Five Piastres. Father warns me: “Leave the book alone and go back to your homework.” I tell him I’ve finished going over all the grammar. He says: “Study something else then.” He shouts at Fatima to make some coffee. I pull out my chemistry notebook. I read about how to separate sand from salt.

  Uncle Fahmi takes off his fez and puts it next to him. He passes his hand over his hair. There is a ring of matted hair from where the edge of the fez rested. He says the whole country is in an uproar over the divorce between the king and Queen Farida, and that the students at the high school for girls marched in protest and chanted “Farida’s left the brothel. She’s sworn off all betrothal!”

  Fatima brings in two cups of coffee on a tray. She puts them on the round table. She hangs around for a second, saying: “Something else for you now, Bey?” Father says: “No thanks.” She leaves the room. They sip the coffee without talking. Father says to him: “What is that fancy shirt you have on?”

  “Van Heusen.” He takes a pack of Blair’s no. 3 cigarettes out of his pocket.

  Father asks him: “Did you switch?”

  He says: “It’s ten piastres cheaper than Three Fives brand.” He offers one to father, but he turns it down, saying: “I never switch.” Uncle Fahmi lights one with his Ronson lighter. I hand him the ashtray and he puts it between them on the bed. He asks: “Hey! Do you have a backgammon set?” Father shakes his head and says no. He says he used to play every night at “The Parliament,” his regular coffeehouse, back in the days of the real estate trade. He sighs and begins to talk mistily about that time. The broker would walk from table to table with a map. He would throw a glance over at it and pick a piece of property. He didn’t pay a cent. You could barely throw your dice or take a sip of your whisky before the broker would come back and announce he had sold your property for a good price. You would collect your profit without breaking a sweat. More than once, he would go back home in a horse-drawn cab with a purse full of gold coins in his hand.

  He asks about Sameera. Uncle Fahmi answers that she’s worried about Nadeen because she is so rebellious. She wants to go alone with her fiancé to the cinema. Father says: “So what?” He turns to me and I pretend to be absorbed in my reading. He goes on: “So what if they kiss each other or something? Doesn’t she love him and plan on marrying him? Then that’s that. You need to get over this old-timey talk. It’s a new world.”

  Uncle Fahmi lights another cigarette. He says: “To tell the truth, Khalil Bey, I’m here about a personal matter.” I lift my head up from the book and prick up my ears. Father turns toward me. I put my head back down. I start to move my lips and run the pen over the paper. Uncle Fahmi complains about Nabila wearing him out. He says: “I give her what she wants right away. I bought her an electric washing machine with a revolving element that holds 52 liters. I brought in a telephone line. I got an Electrolux fridge.”

  “Is it electric?”

  “It works with oil, gas, or electricity.”

  Father asks “So what’s she angry about?”

 
Uncle Fahmi leans his head towards father. I prick up my ears. Father turns towards me. He orders me to go study in the hall. I pick up my notebook and open up the door that has been left open a crack. I bump into Fatima who runs away quickly. I leave the door open a crack. I stand near it. Fatima stands in front of the sideboard. She makes herself busy filling the spice bins. I hear Uncle Fahmi say: “She doesn’t want to sleep next to me, and she says I’ve lost my appetite for women.”

  Father says: “Is it true?”

  “Listen, Khalil Bey. You understand what happens when a woman turns down her husband.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Fahmi raises his voice in anger: “She’s the one who killed my passion.”

  “Keep your voice down.”

  Fahmi goes on without paying attention: “I can’t go on like this. I’ve been wearing these same clothes for a week. I can’t change because all my clothes are back there.” We walk back and forth over the pavement in front of the Jewish school. The street is dark. Our apartment’s lights are on. The bedroom window is open. We stop on the pavement in front of it. Mother and grandma are going through the dressers. They pull out clothes and pack up suitcases.

  Fatima and I look at each other. We listen and hear father’s voice: “Where are you staying now?”

  “At a friend’s place. I can’t go on like this.”

  “Okay. Don’t panic.”

  “Now I’m just fine. I get up in the morning feeling just great.”

  He goes on talking in a low voice. Father’s voice is direct: “That’s just a morning cycle. It doesn’t really mean anything.” They stop talking. Father calls to me. I wait a second, then go in. He says: “Go get your English textbook. Show your Uncle Fahmi the words that you didn’t know.”

  I drink a cup of cinnamon with milk. Fatima makes me the sandwich I’m going to take with me. Butter and strawberry jam. She wraps it in a sheet of newspaper and puts it next to the satchel on the desk. I put on my clothes and pick up the satchel, but I leave the sandwich. Father tells me to put on a sweater because it has turned cold. Father adjusts himself in his chair. He complains that his foot falls asleep. Fatima squats down on the floor and starts to rub his feet for him. I leave the room. I take out my key as I watch them from the corner of my eye. I put the key in my pocket and leave the door open a crack. I open the apartment door. I prick up my ears. No movement. My heart starts to pound. I shut the door with a bang and run under the table. I put the satchel in front of me. I hear the sound of the bedroom door closing. Father’s voice: “Be sure to lock it.” Fatima’s voice: “I can’t find the key.” “Okay. It doesn’t matter. Just come over here.”

  I raise my head, being careful not to hit it on the bottom of the table top. I open the satchel and take out the sand. I scatter it on the floor. I write on it with my finger: “O Koreishite, Sharaibite, Yahoubite.” I sit on the sand. I keep a careful eye on the cockroach nests. I repeat in a soft voice: “Take their eyes and their sight and make them, O servant, these names in the sea wrapped in darkness that they might not see me. ‘Deaf are they and blind, For they cannot see.’ ” Then I am quiet. I listen. No sound.

  I come out carefully from under the table. I leave the satchel on top of the sideboard and go over to the door to the bedroom. My heart is pounding hard. I put my eye to the keyhole. I don’t see anything. I turn my head and press my ear against it. I don’t hear anything. I set my glasses back on the center of my nose. I gently turn the doorknob and push it just a little. I repeat to myself in my head: “O Koreishite, Sharaibite, Yahoubite.” I take a step inside, confident that they won’t be able to see me. Shining up at me is my father’s bare bottom between the raised up, naked legs of Fatima. She is lying on the bed with her head down on the pillow. I take a step closer. I hear her say: “Oh well. It looks like you don’t want it right now.” He brings his mouth close to hers. She turns her mouth to the side. He tries to kiss her. She looks shocked. He tells her: “Open your mouth.” She doesn’t do it. He says: “Grab hold of it.” She asks: “Like this?” He says: “Yes.” After a second she says: “It’s no use.” I come closer. She turns toward me. She screams: “Holy shit!” She pushes him to the side and gathers up her clothes. She tries to sit up. Father turns his head. He shouts: “What the hell are you doing here?” I cry out: “Damn you both!”

  I turn to leave the room. I snatch my satchel from the sideboard. I open the front door. Slam it hard behind me. I go out to the street and cross over to the other side. I walk along the narrow side street that runs parallel to the boulevard with the tramcar. I make it to school right at the end of the national anthem. I join in with the line as everyone heads up to the classrooms.

  English class. Then natural sciences: properties of liquids, the theorem of Archimedes. We go down to the lab to do a chemistry experiment. The lab supervisor isn’t there and the Bunsen burner doesn’t work. The teacher uses the blackboard to explain extraction of oxygen from potassium chloride to us.

  The bell for the short recess rings. The students get ready to go down to the playground. They all gather around Maher. His hair is parted from the left. His shirt collar is open and overlaps the collar of his suit coat. He is carrying some strange thing in his hand. He says it is not a camera, but a 3-D lens viewer. “Stereoscope videomaster.” We have to work hard to repeat the name. He says that it grants its user the power, from its lens, to see the world as it really is. It shows 3-D pictures in natural color to make animals and surroundings clearer. The teacher comes over to us and puts out his hand to take the viewer. He looks into it and says: “Wow. It’s as though the giraffe is standing right in front of you.” Maher shows us the slot where you can load a card of slides. He says there are 94 cards and each one has seven full-color scenes. The teacher asks how much it costs. Maher is full of pride: “100 piastres.”

  “Wow. And the slides?”

  “Twenty piastres each.”

  We go down to the playground. The school guard calls my name. He gives me a roll of paper, saying that a black man on a motorcycle brought it for me. The sandwich that I forgot. The children play with a ball made of socks. I watch them while I gulp down the sandwich. We mark the two goals out with pieces of brick. We gather around Magdi and Hany. They flip a coin in the air. King or writing? Hany wins by taking king. He starts to choose the members of his team. He studies our faces. He points with his finger. The chosen one runs to his side, all proud. Magdi follows. My eyes meet his as he looks us over. His eyes keep moving and settle on the boy next to me. The choosing of the two teams goes on. I am the only one left. Each captain counts his team members. Magdi’s team needs another player. As though surrendering, he waves me over.

  The bell rings announcing the end of recess. We go back up to class. The Arabic teacher comes in. He explains transitive verbs to us. He is stunned by how slow I am. A knock at the door. My heart starts to pound. The teacher calls out: “Enter.” The geography teacher enters carrying a long cane. Standing behind him there is Lamae, he is good-looking with his thick lips and rosy face. The teacher steps over towards my desk, shaking his cane. His shoes are fat and bulging, like they’re about to explode from both sides. My heartbeat get stronger, but he moves on past me and goes to the back rows where the older students and the ones who have been held back are sitting. He picks out one with a fat head. He drags him to the front of the class. He rains blows down on him with the cane without saying a word, then he calls him “ill-mannered” and “badly raised.” The boy doesn’t make a peep. He just takes the blows quietly. Then he settles back behind his desk. A loud silence settles over all of us. The Arabic teacher doesn’t say anything. The geography teacher leaves. We start our lesson over again. We read out of our textbook a story called: “A Strange Rescue From Certain Death.” The teacher gives me a hard time for my mistakes in pronunciation.

  The class ends. None of us say anything about what happened. We go down to the art classroom. The teacher is dark-skinned, medium height, and skinny. H
is necktie is loose. He’s jumpy. He has a copy of the picture magazine al-Musawwar in his hand. He reads us the story of a thirteen-year-old boy from the magazine. “The boy tells his father, ‘It’s our shame that we stay here in Damascus while Palestine is burning. I’ll get together a team of commandos from my friends, and we’ll all get together in the town square.’ The father admired his son’s precocious manhood, so he kissed him and said, ‘We’ll go together, my son. And let the first volunteers in your team be your younger brothers.’ ”

  He continues reading as he walks around the room: “The father joined the rescue operation forces and the son put together a team of thirty children. They snuck their way from the border all the way to Jerusalem. They attacked a Jewish stronghold in the King Dzavid section of the city. The youngest of them was infiltrating mine fields and setting them off. They almost took control of three houses that Jewish forces had held using assault rifles. They managed to blow up two of them. When the boy attacked the third, holding his rifle in one hand and a grenade in another, he shouted: ‘You Haganah, if you’re men, show your faces and fight me man to man.’ No one dared come out, but a single bullet shot out and lodged in his back, killing him once and for all.”

  The teacher goes to the blackboard, and says: “Everyone draw what you liked best from the story.” I draw the father and his son. The picture doesn’t seem very good to me. I erase the whole thing. I draw an open field with plants and trees. I try to figure out what mines look like and where I should put them. The teacher walks around behind us. He looks over what we draw. He leans over and draws me a tree. He pats me on the back to encourage me. I draw a boy at the edge of the field.