by Alia Mamdouh
I do everything for the sake of what is best for you and then you blame me for it. I am not your enemy, Nader. Your father was not your worst enemy, either.
Oh, what to do with good mothers! They repeat those laughable expressions with astonishing facility: for your own good, what is best for you, what is in your interests, or for a higher good, as my father always would say. Good, or what was in our interests, was the end of me and the end of Suhaila, as we dragged our feet from one place to another, from exile to hospital, from the place that is beloved to the place to which it was a mistake to go. All of her loved ones, all of those beloved women, will applaud and say, You are right, Suhaila. And when she awakens she will look at us. I crave a soft touch from harsh sons, she will say.
But what is the use of it all when I can barely hear you, and when you block your face from me, and you say, Go away and eat yourself!
I am left to become like that beggar who used to show up at my grandfather’s house in Baghdad, obsequious and cowering. If he ate, he acted ill, while if he remained hungry, he looked mortified at his own shadow and fell into even worse shape. Now I have become the begging drifter who waits for the feast day gift of a strange donor whose name is My Mother.
With the passage of the days and the years, I turned into a beggar of a superior and distinguished variety, for I would design the realm that beggardom encompassed. I would amass videotapes of the American films from the forties that she loved, so that she would not leave home in the evenings to go to the cinema houses. I would bring her the forms from the central library in Brighton so that she could document her research on prisoners and spare some time for me. I would search in the flea markets for antique wine glasses and jazz and blues records and take them back to her. I would always return from the university at a run, leaping up the steps, short of breath. I would be carrying a bouquet of roses and some fresh vegetables that I had bought from the Pakistani man. Meanwhile, she was huddled inside, worried and depressed but with no trace of tears in her eyes.
I have used up all my tears. I used them all up on him, on them, all of them.
I would see traces of him on her as I went into my room, the bathroom, the kitchen. Cleaning myself up, I would make trouble for her; I grumbled in the way she did, as a means of getting nearer to her. Her mood would change. I am at your service, dearie, she would respond. I am your servant and you are so full of yourself, Nader! Yes, w-Allahi, full of yourself! You handle egotism very well indeed—you do egotism one hundred percent.
She would repeat my name, saying it over and over. Nader, Nader, Nader. If only I had been younger than I was then. If only you had been my mother and I had been your daughter; if only your father had stayed on as the first and last man tethered to me, and united to my body, taking the threads of me and not being so quick to criticize every last thing; if only my milk that nursed you had run in your veins like blood; if only, if only . . . then you would not talk to me in this hard way of yours!
She was immoderate in her love and she coerced me into accepting her extravagance. She wanted to hear that she exceeded all bounds; she wanted to hear me say to her, Let me see all of your teeth when you smile.
She provoked me into anger by using her love. With it she made me oblivious. There is no one like her for loving excessively.
“Na—.”
It is her.
I started. As if stung by lightning I jerked my head up to look at her. The eyes were half open. We were together, face to face.
“Yes, Mother! Yes, I am here, I am here beside you. This is just a temporary thing, Mother. Just a little accident.” My voice grew stronger, louder. “We are all here. I am here and so are your beloved friends. We are all here together.”
I noticed the white hair at her temples. Those signs of age had assaulted her in the time since we had left Baghdad. One day—that was when we were in Brighton—she had said, I will not let it go completely white. I will color it and appear in disguise. There—what do you think of that?
I will be the one to return the color to her hair, here! I will do that, with Blanche’s help. And Asma, Nur, Narjis—all of them can help.
She always looked so pretty as she left the house before I did, heading to the main library. Mr. Ken would be waiting for her in his car at such and such an hour; and he would bring her home before I returned from the university. In the evening, she would prepare her papers. That is also how she began to work with Monsieur Alain. A French lawyer, he was a friend of Uncle Diya’s. Monsieur Alain’s features were very reassuring. When he saw us standing before him in his office in an old building at the Opéra, at four o’clock in the afternoon, he told us immediately that he had strict instructions from my uncle to the effect that he must watch over our life and future.
Immediately after Uncle Diya left for Africa, however, the mission turned into a difficult one. Indeed, it became an alarming mission as far as I was concerned. The relationship between us—between Suhaila and me—got so tense that I would not listen to any advice whatsoever. My uncle’s prescription resembled a stimulus by injection with the sole remaining hope. I was the one who would take over guard duty for my mother, as if she were a waxen body on display in a darkened hall, waiting for my day-long ministrations in order that she not melt from heat and neglect, in order that she not rot. I was not very keen on this; my uncle still considered me an adolescent who wasn’t at all serious about life, and he thought that all he had to do was to engineer some ongoing discipline. And so, by means of this monsieur, he would admonish and reprimand me. My uncle’s monsieur always directed his words to me particularly. He asked me about my studies and my experience in practical things. Carpentry, construction, gardening. His conversation was gentle and affectionate, as Suhaila commented later on. But his way of getting acquainted provoked me. He would ask the same question numerous times but in different ways to test my state of mind, my abilities, and my way of thinking. It is true that he did not offer me advice quite in the way that Suhaila did, but neither did he give me a serious hearing or afford me a chance to organize my thoughts and ideas in a way that suited me. He was like the Party representative at our school in Baghdad: in his presence, I felt like I was a failing student. It was my mother’s wordless persona that excited his admiration, and first and foremost he wanted to attract her appreciation, though had he gotten out of bounds it would have stirred up only anger. She was wearing black, and a lead-gray shawl covered her neck and hung down over her shoulders. She wore low-heeled shoes. She chose her apparel with absolute care as if we were going out to meet one of those foreign ambassadors, for she had a strong preference for the classical look. In the beginning, I used to imitate her. I wore a full suit, which made me look older than I was. I was approaching sixteen at the time. I didn’t know the niceties of how to behave. My English was laughable and the monsieur was skilled at heading me off, steering me away from the bold or off-limits responses that I used to prepare in advance as a way of showing off my budding masculinity. For my mother he would attempt to play serene musical compositions as he chatted to her about concerts, evenings of dance, and various waltz tunes, enumerating for her benefit the theatres, halls, and troupes whose names he mentioned in passing.
We are right here at the Opéra and we can reserve tickets now for the coming performance. What do you say, Madame Suhaila?
He irritated me by not including me within the orbit of his interests and concerns. That was his way: directing one invitation after another to her, suggesting that these were places to which she really ought to go, and in his company. It was not as if she was lacking basic knowledge of these venues. She was both satiated with the theater, after all, and thirsty for it.
Of course, sometime, later on—why not? We will go one of these days, she would say to the monsieur. I adore the theater but I prefer to settle in a bit first so that I will know the ground I am standing on. Thank you, Monsieur.
I recalled what she had said to me about her readiness to return to dance,
perhaps to come up with an imitation of certain ancient Sumerian and Babylonian dancers. This was after she had been subjected to my father’s abuse. She was on the point of telling all of this to the lawyer, I believe. In those years, when we were still in Baghdad, I would return from school in the late afternoons to find her massaging her legs, rubbing them hard. I would notice some bruises on her body. But what she had to say about them left no room for further questions from me.
Just imagine, Nader! I nearly broke my hand while I was going up that wooden stepladder to straighten your wardrobe shelves. Do, please, stop collecting those posters and all those recordings and the pictures of Bob Marley and those bands whose names I don’t know. What is this—your room looks like a shop where one goes to buy posters and cassettes.
In the evenings when I was around, she tried to move normally, but it was clear that she felt extreme fatigue. As she went into her room, my anxiety about her would stick to me like my shadow. She was acting in front of me, acting for an audience composed of me. She was acting for him and for herself, too. Is what I was seeing now acting, as well? Did she talk with my uncle about those things and then did he retell them in the hearing of that lawyer, Alain? Was the monsieur’s task to treat her, finding a medical diagnosis that would help her to sleep and dispel her fears? I used to answer him in her place.
You see, Monsieur, we tried to form a musical band of guys in Baghdad. My mother agreed to let us turn one of the rooms in our house into a practice studio but my father vetoed the whole project out of hand.
When I told him that I played guitar, a little, he was astonished, but he also seemed to like the idea. For the first time I witnessed that quiet and agreeable smile of his. It all seemed like a couple of friends sitting around and chitchatting as a way of getting to know each other better. But then the conversation changed: the apartment, income, whether it was better that I remain in the Iraqi school or go to a French school, whether Suhaila could enter one of the municipality’s French language-study schools and many other things. It was nearly eight o’clock in the evening and all we had to do was sign the proxy authorization. It had been read out loud. None of us commented on it or added anything, changed or struck out anything. What my uncle had set out there was correct and suitable, and my mother said, It is fair. She had transferred his inheritance and a little of hers to his account outside the country without my father’s knowledge. It is yours before it is anyone else’s, Nader, she told me. When I heard her say this, I had the sensation of having become as old as my father. But I would not be as he wished me to be: a beneficial, serviceable revolutionary youth. I had seemed an ordinary enough young man; I would chase pretty girls and they chased me back as they did others, these girls from those parts of Baghdad labeled by my friend Husayn as Qusur al-Fawq, the palaces of those above where men of high status and high salaries lived. Everything in those palaces worked automatically: lights, beds, doors, and bodies. As for that amazing story we heard one day and began telling it and went on repeating it for a very long time, whenever we heard the rumors going round that such-and-such a minister was seen landing in his private helicopter by evening at the home of his new wife. . . . But Husayn said to us, No, she isn’t his wife, she’s, yaani, you know . . . and he did not go on. I wished I could ask my father about that story as we were eating dinner, for instance, or watching television. I would gird myself to launch into it but I didn’t dare. I was afraid that if I began I would suddenly be clueless about where we were heading and where we would end. We would go our separate ways—perhaps forever? I was preparing myself for leaving him. He was capable of leaving us, Suhaila and me, for entire days and nights. When he resurfaced it was not our prerogative to see him, and so we might well be apart again. There was no hope that I could have a real father who was really there, who would open the door to me and talk to me calmly about small things, simple things, silly and ordinary and non-revolutionary things. A father who would talk to me about himself, about me, about the sweet young boys who are completely unaware of the electric current their bodies emit when they come in contact with girls, about the tears that I would want him to hold back for me and not let them pour out far away from him and her. When I start to cry, I do not let up. I don’t know what I am to say and I can’t call him Papa. When I mouthed this word, it simply felt to me like those strong kicks that would send me back to the hard floor. I used to count the times that I had called to my father, as if I were a cashier counting his money; and then I would know how very bankrupt and ruined I was.
I heard my mother’s voice a second time. “Na—”
“Mama. Look at me, now, I’m here, right beside you, Mother. We all want you to come back. I will play and we will all sing for you. Meet the day, Mother. Show that you can move something. Please.”
Here is the only chance I will have to say what I want to say to her. Only with her illness is this a possibility. I let go of her hand to get up and walk. I pace round the room. Mother, you are my mother. You are without heart. Talk to me a little. I have tried to come near to you. How long and how much I have tried! But you have not made it simple for me. Why, Suhaila, why? Here I am cursing you again.
Seventeen
I
We worked out what each person had to do. It all seemed to fall into place without any deliberate or formal planning. Every morning I showed up telling myself that this would be a morning unlike other mornings, previous mornings. The eyelids would go up, she would look at us, and she would close them suddenly. She would sense us: she might move her head in our direction as we stood around her. One of us would grip a bunch of flowers in one hand and bring them close to her nose, and we would all believe that she was breathing them in with her eyes. We would read the gift cards that came with the flowers. Every day, Tessa sent a bouquet different from the one she had sent the day before. Suhaila, we love you always, she would write. There were flowers whose names I didn’t know, always bright and cheerful. Giving her a kiss on the cheek and then laughing into her face, Blanche would say to her, “Not all of the flowers are from Tessa. These are from my daughter Maya and my husband Salwan. This one is a single, lovely red rose that hasn’t opened yet, and it’s from Jalila, the Tunisian—do you remember her? She’s the woman who wrote the anti-American banners in French and held them up in the demonstrations. Here are bouquets from your neighbor, Madame Morino and from Clara, the residence supervisor at the Théâtre du Soleil. Even from London—your colleague Dr. Hafiz sent a huge flower arrangement and a lovely card that says, Wake up and rise, Suhaila. Rising fresh and new is your distinctive quality and you have a reputation for it. And here—look at it with me, Suhaila, here is a sketch on very elegant paper. Sawsan has drawn your face all veiled by the light of the sun. And here are bouquets from Ahmad, Nur’s fiancé, and from Hammada, Asma’s son. Where are we going to put all of these flowers—hmm, my dear? Please tell me?”
If Blanche came in I would stay with her for a few minutes and then I would leave. I would watch the two of them from behind the immense glass wall. Blanche would bend down and whisper into her ear and she would try to smile but she could not really manage it. Her jaw would curve slightly leftward and her smile would retreat and we would know that she had understood. Blanche would press on but without constantly looking into her face. It was her ear that spoke, and her hand, and Blanche always remembered to hold her hand and to start there. I don’t know what she was telling her or why Suhaila would listen with all of this attention. My mother was regaining her consciousness slowly and acquainting herself with us one after another. When Blanche would laugh and I could see her teeth, I would feel a little jealous. Coming out of the room, standing in front of me but before I could ask she would give me a cheerful response. “The third week has passed now and the time has come to color her hair. We’ll do that—me, Asma, and Narjis.”
Seeing my astonishment, she went on. “That’s not all. There’s another surprise—I’ll tell you when the right moment comes.”
&n
bsp; She always spoke with such sincere devotion and feeling. She wasn’t explaining the things she intended to do as a sort of duty. Everything she did was done in her own particular way, which kept us from feeling that any of it was beyond her capacity or endurance. She never glanced at her watch, and the two of them seemed to understand each other through a spontaneous and childlike interaction. We would sit next to each other, Blanche and me, after Asma had gone in, and conversation would begin.
“I told you she would regain consciousness. We all told you that. I suppose that you didn’t have any confidence in what I said. I am like Suhaila—I catch sight of the unseen with my intuition. I knew she would wake up from her coma even if, in the beginning, it was all very difficult for her and for you especially. Everyone who loves the world as she does, as I do, and as we all do, dies and then returns. She understands life in this way, Nader, and we must not complain too much about that. Just think, as I have been seeing her during the past few days as she has been regaining consciousness, she has been moving her organs and limbs in secret—that is how it looks from outside but I think that she has been moving more than we have. Where did this inkling of mine come from? First and foremost, it came from her, Nader. Ayy, death is a truth but some of us were ignorant of life. Coma: why do you see it only in the medical sense? After one of these evening visits to her, Narjis’s comment was: She is more ensconced in life than we are, because she is trying to speak to us in a language we were not accustomed to before. We are the ones who are having such a hard time reaching her and not the other way around. This vacillation between death and life, Nader, is her attempt to talk with us, and with you, and perhaps also with your father.”
When I don’t see Caroline, I miss her. That has never happened before.
