Nine
I TAKE THE STEPS two at a time. When I walk inside the restaurant, the owner yells at me for being late. I tie on my apron and let the warm water fill the large, steel sink, soapsuds bubbling. I think about Rami again, how his hand felt in mine, then I think about Denise and feel guilty. Now concentrating on the task at hand, I wash the dishes carefully, which have piled up since the morning crowd. My fingers are numb, slow. The kitchen door swings open and the owner curses at me again. “Yallah, work faster. I don’t pay you to do nothing all day. Dishwashing is not a hard job. Any idiot can do it.”
“Fuck you," I mutter under my breath. But my boss doesn’t hear me and I wish he did, then maybe he’d fire me and I’d be free from this place.
By lunchtime, my hands are sore. I pull them out of the water and wipe them with a rag. They are red and raw and I curse myself for being here. I want to grab a plate and smash it on the floor like they do at a Greek wedding but I don’t. Sitting on a stool, I rest for a while. From the corner of my eye, I see Salem making a grilled cheese sandwich. When it’s ready, he flips it onto a plate and carries it over to me. “Here," he demands, “eat.”
“Thank you.” I eagerly accept his offering.
“Do you like girls?” he asks suddenly.
I nearly choke on my sandwich. “Of course! I have a girlfriend. Her name is Denise.”
Salem lifts his mouth in a grin. “Is she Lebanese?”
I shake my head and take another bite of the sandwich.
“That’s too bad. You should marry your own kind. These Canadian women are too liberal. You can’t boss them around.”
I chuckle then notice Salem isn’t laughing. “We’re only dating. It’s not serious. I’m having fun, that’s all. I’ll probably marry a Lebanese woman.”
“Good. Nothing wrong with a little fun with an enklese girl but it’s best if you find a nice Lebanese girl. Preferably a virgin. I know some.”
I can’t help but laugh again. “Really? How do you know for sure? Have you examined them?”
His face darkens. “I’m serious, Amir. My daughter Neveen will remain a virgin until she’s married. My wife was a virgin. My sisters were all virgins when they got married.”
“But we live in Canada. Things are different here.”
“My values haven’t changed because I moved to a new country.”
I look down at my sandwich and suddenly don’t feel very hungry.
He changes the topic. “Will you bring your girlfriend to the birthday party?”
“No, she has to work.”
“That’s a good thing. I know a nice Lebanese girl. I’ll give her parents a call and see if she can make it to the party.”
Rather quickly, I say, “No, there’s no need for that. I have a girlfriend. It wouldn’t be fair to her.”
“Okay, okay," he says, lifting his hands in the air. “If you change your mind, let me know. By the way, come over for dinner tonight. Rami said he’d like you to tutor him with his English.”
“Oh, I don’t…” I pause. “I’m not sure…” I stop again.
“It’ll be nice. You can help my nephew and at the same time get a home-cooked meal. You must miss your mother’s cooking, no? That’s why you should marry soon, Amir. Marry a nice Lebanese girl who knows how to cook!” Salem laughs, grabs me by the shoulders, and pushes me back to the sink where more dishes are ready to be washed. I clench my fists so tight that I feel someone will have to pry my fingers apart.
My shift seems to last for hours and hours and when Salem approaches me and asks if I’m ready to go, I’m happy to be heading out of this restaurant even if it means free tutoring at the old cook’s house. It’s not that I don’t like going there; it’s just that any Middle Eastern household reminds me of my own and I feel sad. We walk quickly. When I climb up the steps to his front door, I see Rami smoking on the porch. He doesn’t look up right away. His eyes seem to be focussed on something in the distance, but when I turn and look, I don’t see anything but dusk on snowbanks. Seconds later, he gets up and extends his hand. I shake it with my glove still on. Rami stares into my eyes and smiles. “Ajabney your glove," he says in our own private hybrid language.
I smile and whisper, “I’m glad you like them.”
Salem turns around and grunts, “Why are you speaking like that, Rami? Speak proper Arabic or proper English, not both.”
“Sorry uncle," Rami replies quietly in Arabic. I look away.
Salem then taps his boots on the edge of the door and takes a quick glance at my leather gloves. “They look brand new. Were they an early birthday gift from your girlfriend?”
“Yes," I now reply, walking past Salem as he holds the door open for me. I glance at Rami, who is looking into the distance again, his faint smile falling like the sun.
Once inside, we eat a dinner of stuffed eggplants and rice. I swallow the food rapidly because I’m starving and it tastes good to be eating a home-cooked Middle Eastern meal. Salem’s children are not here; they are at night school, taking extra courses so they can graduate sooner, Salem exclaims proudly. He hopes they’ll be lawyers, doctors, engineers, or accountants, any of the professions. “I don’t want them to end up being a cook like their old man. I didn’t come to this country so my children would have to work in a restaurant.” His shoulders slacken; he looks defeated.
Later on, Rami sits beside me and I open the English textbook and get him to repeat some words after me. He concentrates and tries hard. I admire his determination. Even when he stumbles, he goes back and tries once more. There are moments when he’s staring at the book, trying to read a sentence, that I dare to take sideway glances at his face: his strong forehead, his goatee that is perfect, not too thick, not too thin. He smells good too, I think. Expensive cologne, not the cheap kind. He looks up once and turns but I’m too slow and he catches me. “Fi shay?” asks Rami.
“No, nothing’s wrong.”
He speaks in English now. “I say wrong. Sorry, I try but it hard to read.” He leans back on the chair with a sigh. His legs are now spread that his knee touches mine under the dining room table. I fidget and move the chair over. Rami notices. “Sorry. I got long leg.” I don’t correct him but give him a lingering look in the eyes; they are light brown with almost a tint of green. But then I look across the room.
Rami suddenly leans into my ear. “Why you lie about glove?”
I don’t have time to reply because Salem, who is standing in the doorway, says sharply, “The lesson is over for the night. It’s time for you to go, Amir. It’s getting late.”
Rami rises from his chair and says in Arabic, “I’ll drive him home.”
“No, no, you have to study. I’ll take him home," demands Salem.
I put on my coat, my face reddening, and follow Salem out of the house. I turn and see Rami watching from the doorstep.
We drive in silence. Salem’s car slides on a piece of ice and he curses. His words remind me of how my father used to swear when driving us around Beirut. Only when we reached the outskirts of Beirut did he stop cursing and enjoy the drive. I suppress my laughter. I want to tell Salem about my father’s driving but the tenseness on his face warns me to be silent. Finally, he opens his mouth and speaks. “My nephew Rami is naïve. Still fresh off the boat. He doesn’t know much about life. I want him to get married soon. It’s important that he finds a girlfriend and begins dating. You know he’s almost twenty-five and hasn’t had a steady girlfriend.” Salem sighs and continues, “People are talking about him. They’re wondering if he’s gay.”
“I don’t think so. He’s just a late bloomer.”
Salem nods and pumps the brakes as the car slides on another ice patch.
The week passes rapidly. I finish my shift and wait outside for Salem. It’s my birthday. I can’t believe that I’m thirty. As I lean on the olive stucco, I think about my life. I still have the same job I’ve had since I arrived in Canada, still washing dishes and hating it. The other day I had walked
past McGill and was almost tempted to walk inside and get some information, but I froze, then kept walking past the campus. I don’t know what I’m afraid of. I know that if I keep working as a dishwasher, I’ll go crazy. I feel my spirit and dreams have somehow drowned in foamy dishwater. Sighing, I look up at the half-crescent moon trying to become whole and I feel that I’m like that half moon, that I’m an incomplete person living half a life. When Salem finally emerges from the restaurant, he has a large grin on his face. “We don’t have to walk to my place! Rami is picking us up.”
I lower my eyes at the mention of his name. We wait for a few minutes until Rami pulls up to the curb in an old green Chevy. I slide into the back seat. Rami flashes me a smile but I only mumble a curt hello and snap the seatbelt on. He drives as fast as a Beirut driver swerving through traffic and we arrive at Salem’s house in less than fifteen minutes. He keeps glancing at me through the rear view mirror but I turn away, do not hold his gaze. I see Salem staring at me and this makes me look down at my hands. I feel my cheeks burning.
The house is filled with guests, mostly regular customers from the restaurant and a few of Neveen’s friends. I look around but don’t see her brother. Neveen leans in. “It’s not fair. My brother gets away with everything. He’s out and about with his friends while I have to stay here," she says with a sigh.
“And celebrate some old guy’s birthday, right?” I tease.
“No, no, I didn’t mean that, honestly. I’m happy to celebrate your birthday, Amir. If you were younger, I would even date you.” She smiles again and nudges one of her friend’s shoulders. “Mona, isn’t Amir cute?”
The girl giggles and blushes.
“Okay, okay," I laugh. “Stop teasing the old guy.”
“Happy birthday, Amir!” Neveen shouts then wanders away with her friends.
Standing by the doorway of the living room, I watch everyone chatting loudly and drinking glasses of soft drinks or arak and I cringe, remembering the first time I had drunk that Arabic liquor. Rami sneaks up behind me and wakes me from my thought. “Happy birthday," he whispers in Arabic.
“Shukran.” He smells of soap and cologne. We don’t speak, just stare at the others around us who continue drinking and eating from the small dishes of maza. I see Salem’s wife rushing across the room, making sure there is enough food, enough plates, enough napkins for her guests. The whole scene overwhelms me. I quietly slip outside with Rami following me.
“I’m not one for parties," I confess.
“I no like too," he says in his broken English. We don’t talk for a while then he says in Arabic, “What do you like?”
“Many things.”
“Like what?”
“Why are you so interested?”
“You’re an interesting person. I want to know you better.” He looks deep into my eyes until I rub my hands together, uncomfortably. “Do I make you nervous?”
Yes, I want to admit, but don’t. “No. I’m just cold.”
“Maybe we go back inside," Rami says in English again.
I look down at the ground but when he’s not paying attention, I glance up at Rami’s full lips, his dark eyes, his long fingers. When my gaze lingers on his hands, he lifts them up and says, “Ajabak? You likes my hand. Too big, laa?” I smile at the way we seem to have our own private language sprinkled with English and Arabic words.
Like a timid teenager, I look away quickly and don’t answer him. Salem flings open the door and shouts, “Come back inside. What are you two doing outside? It’s freezing out there.”
As we walk inside the house, Rami rests his hand on the small of my back and I notice Salem shooting him a look of disapproval but he keeps his hand there until I move aside and let him walk ahead of me; I can’t stop my eyes from noticing his tight jeans and when I walk past Salem, he gives me a disapproving look too.
When we return to the party, Middle Eastern music is blasting out of the stereo system. Someone hands me a glass of arak, which I brace myself for and swallow in one gulp. It’s easier this way, rather than explain why I hate drinking this Middle Eastern drink. People are starting to form a line for the dabke. Salem swings a string of beads above his head while the dancers hold hands, stomp their feet on the floor and kick them into the air. Rami suddenly joins the end of the line and drags me into it; our fingers intertwine and the perspiration on our palms blends together. Before I know it, I’m getting hard, holding this man’s hand, while dancing next to him. Everyone is shouting out in Arabic, throwing their heads back in laughter. Rami yells into my ear, “This fun, no? You dancing good.” He winks. I frown. Sweat drips on my forehead. My cock throbs and I can’t take it any longer. I pull my fingers away from Rami’s, withdraw from the crowd and sneak upstairs. As I proceed to the bathroom, I don’t hear footsteps tiptoeing down the hallway.
Ten
AMIR TIPTOES ACROSS THE hallway and ducks when he passes Walid’s apartment door. This has become a routine for him on his way in and out of his home. He swallows his feelings of anger and humiliation. Since the rape, he hasn’t run into Walid and hopes never to. When he cuts across his door, his body sometimes trembles to the point that he has to lean against the wall until he regains composure. He peed himself once, when he thought the door was opening, and had to sneak back into the apartment to change his clothes before trying once more to exit his apartment floor. He’s thirteen now and still pees himself. Usually late at night when the nightmares jolt him out of bed. He doesn’t take the stairwell anymore. Only the elevator. But when there is a blackout, he pretends he has a stomach ache so he doesn’t have to walk down the stairs and increase his chances of running into Walid. His mother yells and screams at him but he doesn’t care. When she protests a lot, he sticks his finger down his throat, then rushes out of his room into the kitchen where she is and throws up in the garbage can or sink. That usually works and he gets to stay home. Now he makes it to the elevator in a few seconds without coming upon Walid. It’s a good day today, he thinks. The elevator works. When he reaches the ground level, he races out of the building, weaving around passersby and cutting across cars stuck in a traffic jam, the loud voices of vendors setting up shop trail behind him.
As soon as he reaches the schoolyard, the bell rings and he makes it just in time to his classroom. Mr. Labaki begins every morning class with a student bringing in a newspaper article and summarizing it to the class. It’s Amir’s turn today. Dragging his feet, he stands at the front of the class and tucks his loose shirt into his pants, clears his throat, holds up the article. There is a photograph of a man carrying a little boy, his face bloodied and dirty with rubble. In the background, broken stones surround them. And a beat-up Mercedes. Another car bomb. “Two days ago on the border between East and West Beirut, there was another car bomb. Several people died, including this little boy. His name was Bashir. He was six years old. He had a sister, a brother. The man holding him is his father. The father said the bomb should’ve killed him too, because, without his son, he is already dead. This is our home. This is life for us. Bombs don’t know if you’re Lebanese, Syrian, Palestinian, Druze, Christian or Muslim. They don’t care. Things will never get better. Not in this country. We will never have peace. We are already dead like this father said. One bad thing happens and your entire li…” Amir’s voice cracks.
“Amir," Mr. Labaki says, now standing in front of the boy and taking the article out of his hands. “Thank you.”
With his shoulders hunched, he returns to his desk, slides into his seat and looks out the window. He watches a bird fly into the pale blue sky before the earth shakes and another bomb plummets pebbles.
The bell tolls again. Amir gathers his books and stuffs them into his bag, but before he can leave the room, Mr. Labaki calls out to him. He walks slowly to the teacher, who waits for the other students to leave, then asks Amir to sit down. Amir pulls out a chair and flings his bag on top of the desk. Mr. Labaki stands across from him. “Is everything all right, Amir? I know it’s
not easy with everything we must endure on a daily basis. Are you getting enough food and water? How are your parents coping? I know it’s not easy. I find it a struggle too. But I can get them help if they need it.”
Amir doesn’t reply. He looks everywhere but into Mr. Labaki’s concerned eyes.
“I regret that my students have to live during these hard times. During childhood, you should have a carefree life but many of you can’t. I’m here if you ever need to talk. I hope you know that. Do you have anything you want to talk about?”
Amir shrugs his shoulders. There is silence then he stammers, “There’s this man named…”
Mr. Labaki says, “Go on.” He cups his chin in his left hand.
“Well, he lives in my building and he…” Amir pauses, rubs his small hands together. He feels he could tell his teacher and he would understand but the words don’t come out of his mouth. “He…”
“Is he your friend?”
Amir shakes his head, then his shoulders rise up and down, slowly at first then more quickly. He begins to cry.
He feels Mr. Labaki patting his head. “Tell me what’s bothering you," he encourages. Amir opens his mouth but nothing comes out but muffled cries; tears rush in a steady flow now. Mr. Labaki says in a soothing voice, “It’s okay. Cry. Let it out.” The bell abruptly rings again; Amir hears the stomps of students as they trample into the room, chattering and laughing. He quickly rises from his seat, wipes his eyes with his palms then slings his backpack over his right shoulder and pushes past the other children.
The Lebanese Dishwasher Page 5
