The Last Patriarch

by Najat El Hachmi

  30

  Dates with milk

  Perhaps we did love each other, perhaps it wasn’t all an illusion. In my defence I have to say he was the kind of man who knew how to say exactly what you wanted to hear, and in his defence we must say he’d not had an easy time of it, nonetheless, he was what you could describe as an affectionate person.

  Consequently, when he got father’s response to his marriage proposal he was completely deflated. We hugged and hugged for hours when I should have been in maths, philosophy, literature or with my tutor group. It wasn’t the first time, friend number two had explained to my tutor, you know what the trouble is, her father doesn’t want to let her continue at school and, naturally, there’ll be days she probably won’t be able to come, but she says it will be worse if you contact her home, because he gets in a rage, hits her and so on.

  I hugged him for a whole day, and the day after as well, but I didn’t know what to think as I flopped between him and the wall, on a bed that was too narrow, with time standing still. That was if he wasn’t trying to penetrate me, and I still said no, not yet, and he’d say we won’t get our way, I’ll lose you forever and I won’t be able to go on living, you know, I’ll have no reason to keep on living.

  I should have beaten a quick retreat right then, but I felt sorry for him, such a hard life and now this. Don’t worry, love, we’ll get our way, sooner or later you and I will be together, you’ll see, and my voice sounded barely credible as if straight out of a low budget soap.

  He left his job and didn’t want to leave the house. In mine I said, I’ve got to go and buy this or I must go and do that, and found fewer and fewer excuses to make a quick escape and snatch a few minutes with him. It was more difficult at the weekends, especially Sundays. Saturday mornings in the market, without fail for hours, but on Sundays it was difficult to find an excuse. I’m going to see friend number one was risky for me and for her, if they rang and I wasn’t there… By this time it seemed impossible to live and not take risks, and not make decisions, every day, sometimes many times.

  He left his job and didn’t have any other work and I should have seen what’s what, but I wouldn’t know now if I’d not lived through that. All I want, all I ask of the world, is to be able to walk down the street holding your hand without anyone saying anything, or having to hide anymore, we’re not hurting anyone. It wasn’t really about that, because after a while he’d be back to asking what if we try, if you’re so sure we’ll end up together it makes no odds if we do it now or on our wedding night. I still said no for a bit longer.

  His money was drying up and I felt increasingly sorry for him. Have you signed on? The fact is in this fucking country if you leave your job you’ve no right to benefit. And aren’t you going to look for work? Can’t you see the state I’m in? He started to shed big tears that rolled quickly down his cheeks, and I didn’t know what to say or do. I hugged him, but it was the day he’d run out of cigarettes, the day the fridge was almost empty, the day I kept the change from the shopping and took him potatoes, eggs and tomatoes. It was the day I bumped up the prices of what I bought at the market for home and kept the difference between the real price and what I’d said it was so I could buy him cigarettes and myself a telephone card now I was the one who had to call him.

  He was sleeping later and later, and he’d say, I feel really bad at night. I was sorry he was going through all this, but if I opened the door to the little apartment and he was asleep, I’d say hello, my love, and he’d reply, stretch out with me I’m so sleepy, and it pained me to lie next to him and not do anything, I had to juggle so many things to snatch those few seconds. Part of me said wake him up, he can sleep later, don’t I excite him anymore? He’d had to make no effort. The other half of me said you’re so selfish, he’s suffering and you’re only thinking about yourself, you’re so selfish, my God.

  By now mother was starting to suspect something, or perhaps had been for some time. When father had told me about him asking for my hand, I didn’t look surprised, my face was intrigued by what he might have said? What might he have said? And then my disappointment must have been reflected in every muscle on my face. Father had seen none of that, but mother, who’s cleverer when it comes to that kind of thing, glanced at me briefly and said nothing, and so much was left unsaid…

  You and I are getting married. I don’t care what your father says, you and I are getting married, full stop. What are you saying? In some respects I’d regained the Muslim side of myself, although I’m not sure so much prenuptial contact is part of the precepts. Do you remember what the ritual was in the early days of Islam? No need for a wedding, going to ask for the bride’s hand or any of that stuff, everything was purer, simpler and you only had to have God as your witness. I went on inventing that distant past and told him think of it as a real wedding, we only need dates and a drop of milk.

  I give you this milk to drink, I give you these dates to eat and you say the same to me. Then we recite the xahada, and that’s that, and we can do it. I’d even bought a couple of silver rings. He suddenly livened up and said, now? Now? Yes, we can try, you got any condoms? They don’t really suit me, you know, I find them hard to roll on and they feel uncomfortable. Nothing happens the first time and I promise I’ll stop in time.

  I knew lots of things could happen the first time but I didn’t object. My thighs were all stiff and he said don’t worry, I won’t hurt you, but I was like a wall and he tried so often he got tired in the end, masturbated by himself for a while and finally ejaculated on my pubis. Your mother must have sealed you, as if your father wasn’t bad enough. What do you mean? Don’t you remember being made to walk over a fire where lots of things were burning so you got smoke between your legs? I don’t know, I said, I don’t know, but I knew mother wasn’t the problem, I was, I still didn’t want to.

  31

  A photo on the wall

  Mother had had her suspicions for some time, that much I knew. And I thought, she knows you’re deceiving her, and I was no longer her confidante though she’d never been mine. She no longer told me things, though I’d never been able to confide in her at all. I was beginning to suspect growing up was about that, no longer being able to be the person you’d always been to those you’d always known.

  Until she came into my bedroom and said I’m still shaking from what I’ve just heard, I still can’t take it in and I told Soumisha it’s not possible, my daughter doesn’t do this kind of thing, but now I don’t know you at all, sometimes I don’t recognise you at all. They say that man who asked your father for your hand has sworn he’ll marry you come what may, because you want to and you’ve been going out with him for the last year. They said he’s got a photo of you hanging up on the wall of his dining room and his mother is already telling the village that Driouch’s daughter is going to be my daughter-in-law.

  I felt an ice cold flush, then a hot flush on my cheeks, and then that feeling you want to sick up the whole world. What are you on about, I don’t know him at all, people are making all that up. Tell Soumisha not to believe all that gossip. Mother, you know what’s behind it, people envy us and keep looking for ways to hurt us. Now we’ve had a quieter time with father, now he’s earning so much money and has already finished the new house down there, I wouldn’t ever do something like that. And she went on repeating, if that ever happens I’ll leave this house before you, and not of my own will, I’ll be taken out in a coffin and you’ll be in a vigil, you’ll kill me with all this unpleasantness, you’ll kill me. But I’ haven’t done anything, mother, I haven’t done anything wrong at all.

  I know she could have called on the heavy artillery right then and had a thousand details that showed I wasn’t as innocent as I claimed, that she could have taken the turtle dove chain I kept in my drawer, and a key hidden in one of the compartments of my wallet, could have used much more evidence than she did, but she didn’t. I still don’t know if it was because she’d seen the look of terror on my face, she didn’t w
ant a head-on confrontation or simply loved me, but she didn’t tear into me and it was just one more skirmish.

  From then on I began to feel dizzy very early in the morning and a weight on my chest very early at night. I couldn’t breathe, but it disappeared when I was with him, only, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I panted while he cried more than ever.

  Our pact was a secret, wasn’t it? Nobody was going to know, were they? No, of course not, and that’s why I’ve never told anyone about us. Is that so, how come my mother knows you’ve got my photo here? How come she knows what clothes I wear? How come your mother has told half the village I’m going to be her daughter-in-law in no time? And he said no, it’s not true, it’s all lies, don’t you see your mother set you a trap because she suspects something and simply wants you to confess everything, I’ve never told anybody and I’m upset you’ve these doubts about me, and really upset you no longer love me. I can’t believe you could think this of me, don’t you realise everybody is against us and that it’s very easy to invent that kind of lie? If they know I went and asked for your hand in marriage it’s easy for people to imagine we’d already been seeing each other and that you could have given me a photo, it’s easy to imagine that, and anyone who’s against us doesn’t have to think very hard to… I can’t believe you no longer love me, and I’m fed up, everything’s so difficult. I just hugged him and repeated, of course I love you, and didn’t dare ask him the stuff about him being a pusher, what father said.

  The doctor said these are stress attacks, which sounded so serious I was even more frightened. Have you any reason to be like this, any personal problem? No, doctor, my life’s perfect, I meant to say, like any adolescent who’s having to grow up and doesn’t know how. Like everyone else, I expect, I told him, and he gave me those tranquillisers I had to put under my tongue if I got like that again. The midwife asked if I wanted to take the pill, that perhaps penetration was so difficult because I was scared about becoming pregnant, and asked me if that was really what I wanted to do. Yes, I’m sure it is, I want to go on with him.

  She probably thought she was helping a poor Moorish girl to throw off ancient customs from her village or culture that required her to come to marriage a virgin. I could see that look of Lord, how terrible, and you’re so pretty.

  But I’m not the kind of person who’s meticulous when it comes to hiding secrets. I erred on many fronts and my mistakes were stressing everyone else out, and made mother suffer. She was sweeping my bedroom and said she saw a kind of pill, a small pill, and she knew what it was for. She must have shuddered to think it had got to that stage but said nothing, at least not then.

  I relaxed slightly, but not enough for his member to come inside me. He said that’s enough of that and poked in the top drawer of his cupboard, he knew exactly where and what he was looking for. He took out a small brown ball and crumbled it up the way I’d seem my father do so often. What are you doing? This will help you relax and we’ll do it, you just see. I could hear my father splitting his sides, saying marry my daughter to a pusher, my God, a pusher, a pusher, a pusher.

  I didn’t feel anything very spectacular, I just coughed, and maybe I didn’t know how, how to smoke a joint, but it wasn’t anything out of this world and I laughed like I’ve laughed on other occasions after one drag. No. But I did feel my muscles give and the tendons in my groin going all jelly-like. I flopped down and he quickly boarded me. Ow, I shouted. I cried, I sobbed, like a two-year-old, but it wasn’t simply the pain, the fact was I’d either dug a deep pit inside myself or was beginning to weave the path on my way to a definitive defeat of patriarchy.

  32

  I sewed

  It was summertime and there were no more classes, no tasks to finish off in the library or any activity to do outside the house. I wanted to work and father said no, I wanted to go on a course, do some sport, the kind of activities that are advertised on ‘The Summer is Yours’ or other programmes like that, but it was always no, no, and no again. Mother said what use will that be to you? All you do is make more problems for me. There was no journey back, there were no girlfriends, they’d all been banned, this one because she’s like that, another because she’s got a boyfriend, and I wanted to say well, what do you expect? Girls tend to have boyfriends at this age, what do you expect? But I said nothing and tried to plot something to make my summer more bearable.

  The prospect for the next two months, this will be your last year, you know, but I was still enrolled, was working at home in the morning, copying mother’s ability to assume almost everything, reading, watching television when father wasn’t at home, getting lunch or dinner ready, serving it up to him, taking him his water, taking him his slippers. Would you like me to chew your meat for you as well?

  I still had Saturday mornings, when there were always interesting special offers, gypsy women and shopping that go on forever. I found this bargain material, I’ve found towels at factory prices, two bras for the price of one and all year preparing a return that might last two weeks which was never a return journey, simply a trip to a familiar place. Then there were Saturday afternoons, still going shopping with mother, still translating into five peseta coins sums that were no longer in pesetas, still saying look, that conditioner is much cheaper, this yoghurt will be good for your constipation, and what if we buy fat-free ice cream for us two? But nothing was the same with mother, it was a big effort to laugh at things we used to laugh at and I thought how I missed all that. What would mother do without me if I decided to up and leave her? Perhaps that’s why I didn’t just go, and made life so difficult for myself. Sunday afternoons were almost all spent visiting building sites, and him moaning I don’t know why I told them not to leave that out in the open or look how that fool I hired can’t lay a brick? The same patter, whoever he was talking to, the same complaints. And I’d even have missed that if I’d taken off.

  The idea came from an advertisement: learn how to sew, cut and make dresses, to be more precise, and mother said, oh, that’s a good idea, and father asked about the hours. From six to eight in the evening, but now it gets dark much later and all right, you can sign up for the course. I told the teacher I’d only be able to go for an hour, all right, we’ll see what you do in an hour. In an hour I took measurements, did my sums and started on the pattern, the odd day I’d manage to cut or tack, but not much else. The other hour allowed me to run to him, open the door and see him coming in, he was coming from work and said he’d try again, he’d ask for my hand in a way he’d be unable to say no.

  I told them the school was farther away than it really was to garner twenty minutes more, sometimes twenty-five, and when it got to forty she’d say why are you back so late. I don’t know, I got distracted and didn’t notice it was time to wind up. I sewed in the mornings to move the task I was supposedly doing in the evening on, a long skirt down to my feet, but very narrow with a slit in the back to under the knee. What kind of skirt’s this? You sure they haven’t made it too narrow? You won’t be able to walk in that. I said the pattern they taught us was like that, the first was always like that and later you learned to do more sophisticated things. Even so, mother seemed to calm down, she probably thought she’d got me more under her control, that now I didn’t have so much time to meet up with anyone.

  You can cram a lot into an hour and twenty minutes. Time for him to come and for me to think he must be hungry and cook him something to eat, I’ll look for a bigger apartment, he’d say, chewing with his nose in his plate. If not, there’s no way your father will accept, and they know him in the firm where I work, they could give him good references. You can cram a shower into an hour and twenty minutes, a quick shaft, that’s more duty than pleasure. I didn’t have time to get aroused, and that in and out that only suited him, but I went ah, ahh, mmm, ahh, ohh. Because what I really wanted were hugs, tender kisses, being looked in the eye so you feel you’re not alone in the world, that you’re unique in the world. He could do all that, until he got so tired aft
er the quick shaft, ah, ah, aah, ohhh, he’d pick up the remote control and his hugs would become half-hearted and his looks few and far between.

  After that I went in one day and found a girl sitting on the bed that doubled as a sofa, a local girl, she was very thin but had enormous thighs and bum, and high, as we’d say in the local capital, hello. Hello, I said, and I don’t think I smiled. Hi, darling, let me introduce my friend, I don’t think you know each other.

  They’d been alone all the time, the two of them in that apartment with the yellow curtains covered in fluff they were so old. Father had always said you can’t leave a man and a woman by themselves, especially if you can’t see them, no, you can’t, not even if they’re cousins, there’s always a devil that will try to get between them. The devil had to be sex or a kiss or getting it in the arse and liking it, you name it.

  I tolerated her for a few days, or maybe we both tolerated each other, and he said poor girl, her mother treats her very badly, and she doesn’t have a father, I’m so sorry for her… As you were for me, I thought, why is she here every day? What about us? I have to do a lot of juggling to be here every afternoon. You know we’re going to get married, there’ll never be anything between me and her, you know I only love you. She might like me, OK, but she’s not my type. He’d shut the door behind me after a fleeting kiss and go back inside with her, alone, alone, alone with her, and I wasn’t so foolish I believed all that.

  After that I opened the door one day and he wasn’t there, nobody was there. I washed the dishes in the sink, put on that programme where people relate all the unhappy times they’ve had and get all emotional meeting up again after all those years. I scrambled some eggs with onion and tomato, made some tea, my eye on the clock all the time, tick tock, he’s still not back, tick tock, where can he be? Tick tock, what if he’d had an accident? Tick tock, what should I do? I sat on the sofa, got up, changed channels and doubted there’d be time to have a quick shaft and feign an orgasm today. It was almost time for me to go and now I doubted there’d be time for a hug, for a fleeting farewell kiss. Tick tock, time’s up.