She yelled at him, “I thought you were dead . . . I would have killed you if you were!” She crumpled to her knees, hugging his legs, moaning openly, her lips closed.
Saleh’s shaking body bent down and kissed her head.
No more than an hour had passed after the two prisoners’ return when Khal Hassan’s wife came over in her abaya, her face dull. She held Dhari by his hand. She looked at Saleh’s face, driven by a hope that died as soon as he told her that he hadn’t seen her husband or heard anything about him over there.
The doorbell rang a day after the two prisoners had returned. Tina entered and announced, “Baba Abbas.”
Saleh ordered her to seat the neighbor in the diwaniya. “She’s crazy! How can she just let him stand around in the street?” he wondered aloud. Saleh was in a foul mood, as any man would be who had lost his mother and was helpless before the calamity that had befallen his sister. Fahd and you followed Saleh to the lounge, where Abbas awaited him. The courtyard walls and its floor were coated in soot. The sky was still black. You entered the diwaniya. You found Sadiq’s dad standing in the company of two men from the neighborhood. Gesturing toward the seats, Fahd’s dad took the initiative and said, “Have a seat, have a seat.”
Abbas shook his hand. “We’ll rest afterward.”
“Is everything okay?” Saleh inquired.
“Everything will be fine once the Palestinians leave our street,” Abbas responded as he wagged a finger.
And leave they did. It was the last time you heard their familiar dialect, that very afternoon. Their language was no longer among the mix on your street. The zalamat house was no longer there at the head of the street, bordering Alameen the Punjabi’s store, and there was no longer a family soccer team to play against on the dusty plots of Surra.
Abbas had pressed on their doorbell. He pounded on their door with both hands.
Abu Naiel had opened the door and looked at the surly faces of his neighbors.
“Listen here . . . ,” Saleh had started.
He hadn’t listened. “You listen here . . . after Abu Taha’s death, there’s nothing left here for us.”
That’s what Abu Naiel said before the existence of his household was erased from your street for good. He went on to establish a new life in Jordan. Everything faded away, everything except for his crestfallen face in your damned memory.
THE SECOND MOUSE: BLAZE THE INHERITANCE OF FIRE
THE NOVEL
Chapter 16
My homeland . . . the home of daylight . . .
O my homeland . . . reborn again . . .
You ring the earth, the waves of the sea . . .
My homeland of daylight . . .
In those days, the love for Abdulkareem Abdulqader was no longer limited to that coming from Fahd Al Bin Ya’qub. “The wounded voice,” as his fans called him, was the voice of all of Kuwait when he sang “Homeland of Daylight” and made you all cry, despite the dearth of daylight under a sky that the oil well fires blanketed with unending night, blinding the eye of the sun at the peak of its rise. You all listened to the song at a time when other areas in Kuwait were listening to the exploding of mines planted by the Iraqis before they withdrew. Fahd searched for the song’s color. He wasn’t able to. “It’s every color,” he concluded.
With the resurrection of Kuwait, your parents came back from Saudi Arabia by land. Your mother hugged you for so long that your body took root between her arms, locked in her embrace. You hardly recognized her, weak with yellow eyes ringed by dark circles. You returned to your family house. In this nation reborn, many things went back to how they had been. But this new incarnation of Kuwait could only coexist with the newness of things: accept them as they were and as they weren’t.
Adnan the Syrian returned and opened up the butcher shop in an extension to the Al Awaidel house that overlooked the street. Alameen the Punjabi wiped away the dust that had accumulated on his washing and ironing business. He coated the steps at his storefront with the brown spittle that you had missed seeing for months. Life returned to Al Anbaiie Mall, which had been closed since the first week of August 1990. Shakir the Indian unveiled the glass front of his restaurant, displaying foods dripping in oil. Behind Shakir was a photo on the wall with both your emir and the sultan of Al Buhara. Above the door of his store Haydar the Iranian grocer hung up colored rubber balls, water guns, and plastic swords. Out of joy, he distributed gum, pistachios, and sunflower seeds to all the kids. Jaber the Egyptian resumed tending to the shawarma spit—one day lamb, one day chicken. He decorated the restaurant’s ceiling with Kuwaiti flags and some Egyptian ones, too. Abu Fawaz mounted large photos of the emir, the crown prince, and the Kuwait Towers on his storefront. The entrance of his bookstore was packed with books; how or when they were printed, you had no clue. Their covers had images that became widespread afterward: the map of Kuwait oozing blood, a drawing of the Iraqi president riding an elephant toward the Kaaba, and another drawing of his head on a snake’s body. Images that chased you in your sleep for years to come. Salim the tailor immersed himself in swathes of fabric, cutting out children’s clothes in the colors of the Kuwaiti flag. Mushtaq the Pakistani barber dusted off his store sign, which read JEWEL OF SURRA, not understanding why so many men were growing out their beards and steering clear of his razor blade. Even Abdulkareem took Fahd by surprise with his appearance on a cassette cover with a thick, impressive beard. It was said that it was his final recording before his retirement, because music was haram and because God had finally guided him to repent—although his beard had actually been a disguise meant to mislead the occupying soldiers.
“If Abdulkareem becomes religious . . . he won’t sing then, right?” asked Fahd. You nodded. “Hopefully, he won’t find God, then!”
Your motley street returned to how it used to be, except . . . You started to take stock of what was no longer around. You considered what the occupying forces had taken away with them when they left: Mama Hissa’s spirit, Fawzia’s eyesight, Tina’s presence and the scent of coconut oil in her hair after Mama Hissa left, Khal Hassan, Dhari’s clear speech, the “Ice cream! Ice cream!” of Abu Sameh the Palestinian, the “Khaaam! Khaaam!” of the Yemeni fabric seller, the zalamat house and its soccer team, and your Palestinian and Jordanian teachers at school. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians left, leaving behind some family members, giving them the opportunity—or burden—to live on in this new reality, where their safety was guaranteed only by saying, “We’re from Lebanon.”
The Nazem Al Ghazali songs disappeared from Mama Zaynab’s courtyard; her grandchildren claimed she was originally from Al Ahsa in Saudi Arabia. She was no longer Bibi Zaynab. She became “my Mama Zaynab from Al Ahsa”—as Sadiq would confirm, denying his grandmother’s tongue, which had become a disgrace after the liberation—lest she embarrass her two grandkids in front of their friends, attracting the unwanted gibe of “Your grandma’s Iraqi?” She lived in hope of the day when the northern borders would open up and she’d visit her family, and when her hour came, she’d leave to die there, buried with her ancestors in Al Najaf, next to the shrine of Imam ‘Ali. The Iraqi president no longer had a presence in the Al Bin Ya’qub household, and those who had loved Iraq became pure Saudi supporters. Abu Sameh the Palestinian’s voice was replaced by that of a Syrian man. Despite the delighted response of the children to the “Ice cream! Ice cream!” calls of this new voice, it didn’t sound like your street. The calls of the fabric seller turned into the ringing of your doorbells. The Yemenis became Indian salesmen; working out of bags, they filled up your street, selling incense, oud oil, kohl eyeliner pens, and cheap knockoff watches. The national TV station stopped airing shows that cast Iraqi actors accused of supporting their regime. Your favorite series, Peace to the World, teetered on the brink of suffering the same fate. It was broadcast with some scenes cut out.
Many years later, you’d remember Abdulkareem chanting a colorful song that took on the status of an anthem: “Homeland of dayligh
t, in spite of pains, the homeland returns anew.” You asked yourself if, after the occupation, the nation had returned or if they returned it to you. You rejected the idea, certain that they hadn’t brought the real Kuwait back, just something that looked like it.
Missing prisoners tinged Kuwait yellow. Although the retreating occupiers had plundered much, they left behind a lot as well. Ads melding images of destruction with the caption So we never forget popped up all over. Boards, banners, and yellow posters inscribed with the slogan Don’t forget our prisoners were found in the streets, on house walls, and on TV screens. The new insult among the teenagers on the street was “You Iraqi!” Abdellatif Al Munir and Jasim Al Mutawwa became a memorial statue of mute marble at the central market, erected on the sidewalk in front of Mahzouza and Mabrouka’s house. Fahd stuck up photos of Abdellatif and Jasim next to a giant one of Sheikh Fahad Al Ahmad on his bedroom wall, between photos of Muayyad Al Haddad; Saleh removed them all. “Don’t put up photos!” he ordered. The reason? Because they were haram and chased angels away from the house. You asked him about Fahd’s photos that Aisha stuck up on the TV console and the pictures of the crucified messiah that were on Tina’s bedroom wall, and the photos of martyrs: Didn’t they chase away the angels, too?
The way he looked at you made you retract your question, apologizing, “Okay, okay, I won’t ask again!” The photos of the martyrs and prisoners in Saleh’s house, before they were removed, didn’t look at all like the ones in Abbas’s house. Hassan’s wife and Dhari, searching for Hassan in Iraq’s prisons, were batted back and forth between the National Committee for Prisoner Affairs and the Martyrs Office. No news. Some new expressions emerged to differentiate between the once uniform Arab countries: the “opposing countries”—Iraq and those other Arab countries in the same boat. Kuwait became, as Abdulkareem Abdulqader said, “the ring of the earth and the wave of the seas.” In time, you all came to be stuck on a small island, not looking beyond the confines of your boundaries. All concepts were turned upside down. Florence, who in Mama Hissa’s time was a reason for people to curse Abu Sami, was now the very reason for his high status and importance, as he was now the husband of an American. You continued to refer to him as “the American’s hubby,” not to belittle him as you used to do, but rather to acknowledge his superiority and that of his children: their link to an American woman was now a source of prestige.
It was your first day of school after the liberation. The end of 1991. It was morning assembly at Al Najah Middle School. You stood among hundreds of students, the Kuwaiti flag raised high in front of you all in the school courtyard. You all yelled for the first time in a long time, “Long live Kuwait . . . Long live the emir . . . Long live the Arab nations,” before enthusiastically repeating the national anthem that you’d missed for months, observing its impact on the faces of the Kuwaiti and other Arab teachers. We trickled to classes soon after the bell announcing the beginning of the first period. While students competed at the front to get a chair, you three fought at the back, up to your old tricks, trying to get a chair in the last row as far as possible from your teacher’s reach. You drew the magical button on the tops of your desks. Your class hadn’t changed. You returned to it just as you had left it, Sadiq, Fahd, and you—leaning your chairs back against the wall. Your classmates in front were as they had been, except for some new nicknames: “prisoner’s son” or “martyr’s boy.” Before you had been thirty-eight students; then you became thirty-four after losing Awad the Yemeni, Abdl Fadhil the Sudanese, and the two Palestinians Samir and Hazim.
You’d barely put your books down on the desks in front of you when the first teacher entered—Mr. Murhif. On a quick visit, it seemed. “Flip your books over,” he ordered. You flipped them over on the table. On the back cover of each book was the circular logo of the Gulf Cooperation Council, containing the flags of the six Gulf nations, in addition to Iraq, which had joined some of the council’s institutions, including the ones for education and sports. Mr. Murhif grabbed one of the textbooks and, pointing to the Iraqi flag, relayed what the school’s administration had instructed: “Color over this flag with Wite-Out.”
You started to conceal the Iraqi flag on the back of your textbooks. He ordered you to open the rest of your books. He stipulated which pages you wouldn’t need anymore, certain ones with flags and maps: canceled, deleted, crossed out, outside of the curriculum, front and back of one page. “Cut it out!” Your joy at shortening your school curriculum didn’t stop your old habit.
You raised your hand up high. “Mr. . . . Murhif . . . I’ve got a question!”
He glared at you, his eyes widening, confirming who you were. “I hope you go blind, you grumbler! You’re still asking questions? Look at you after only an hour on the first day!”
You didn’t just make up questions for the fun of it. You didn’t understand why they made him so angry.
You straightened up and stood, following the creaking of your chair with your questioning. “Mr. Murhif . . . just a little while ago, in the courtyard, we were saying ‘Long live the Arab nations,’ and now we’re crossing out maps and flags?”
His eyes bulged. He looked at your face, his arms outstretched. “Okay, so what? What am I to do with you?”
You grew bolder: “It’s either one or the other: either we stop saying ‘Long live the Arab nations,’ or we don’t cross out certain Arab flags and maps!”
He didn’t pay attention to either of the options that you suggested. He suggested a third option, more like an order. “Or you eat shit!”
THE THIRD MOUSE: EMBERS
Sand will become embers . . .
And the sea will become fire.
—Su’ad Al Sabah
4:56 p.m.
Present Day
Whenever the details of those seven months surface, they take me back, isolating me from everything, except for that time, and that time alone. They make me confront the person I used to be, whom I no longer know. They reacquaint me with people who have been preserved in name only.
Now I’m here. Only one hundred yards separate me from Fuada’s Kids headquarters. I can see the building, but I’m stuck in traffic, wedged between the crowds, police cars, ambulances, and fire trucks. All the turns to my right are blocked with burning tires and sandbags. Picking up my phone, I call my cousin. He doesn’t answer; his voice is still repeating the poem on the radio. His voice climbs at times, then drops at others.
“Explode
The house s-snake is coming out
From the cracks and the s-stones of your walls,
From the holes in your straw hut
The fabric of your w-worn blanket is
Spitting her fire on your garden flowers
Drying out your g-green plants.”
What are you doing, for God’s sake, Dhari! I call back. Pick up, pick up, pick up! It wouldn’t be an issue if someone else ignored my call. No answer.
Ayub calls me. I mute the radio. His voice is loud, overpowering the sound of the radio in his car. “Have you guys lost it?”
I reassure him, despite my emotion. “I’m on my way to Dhari; the headquarters isn’t far. I’ll make all of this right.”
“You’ll make what right? Listen, listen to this . . .” He pumps up the radio volume in his car, which he doesn’t need to do. The shouting of the person speaking is loud enough. “Those Nawasib who have adopted their slogan from the mice instead of God’s religion are slipping poison into honey . . . Imam ‘Ali, peace be upon him, said, ‘When the people of truth say nothing about falsehood, then the people of falsehood are deluded into thinking they are in the right,’ and God, praised and exalted, said in His book, ‘And say: truth has come and falsehood has died, indeed falsehood was always bound to die.’ O you, who claim that the mice are coming . . . you are yourselves the mice, even if you’re disguised as—”
“Which station is that?” I ask, agitated.
He responds as usual, caustically, “The guy is saying we’re Nawas
ib. It’s obvious they’re Shia. It’s the House of Prophet Muhammad’s—”
“Ayub!”
My interruption went unnoticed.
“Listen, listen, now it’s your group!”
“Ayub!”
He turns the dial to the Lions of Truth radio station. They are broadcasting Dhari’s voice reciting the poem while a coarse voice comments on it. It’s as if the commentator has grabbed Ayub’s phone and is yelling in my ear, This is what the mice are saying, with the atheists’ blessing. Dhari’s voice rises, the Islamic hymn still playing in the background:
“Explode
You’ve been s-slaughtered now
Time after time
The black wolves accost you
Stealing from you the p-pulse of your spirit
Brushing against your squandered flesh.”
The thick voice rudely yells with all of its might, “May the tongues of the Rawafid be paralyzed. Who are the black wolves? Who? And if we are the wolves, well, wolves are better than the mice that attacked those telling the truth. Listen, you who’ve made the mice your symbol, Muhammad—peace be upon him—said, ‘Five kinds of animals are harmful, and their killing is allowed in the sanctuary. These are the mouse, the scorpion, the crow, the kite, and the rabid dog.’”
Ayub’s voice gets louder on the phone; laughing, he says, “They’re all the same. Crazy is what they are!”
The speaker repeats the Prophet’s words, to fit his agenda, “Five wrongdoers can be killed in the sacred mosque . . . five wrongdoers, and the mouse is at the top of the list. O you who glorify the mouse and call out to the people to protect themselves from the plague!”
Ayub asks me about Sadiq and Fahd. No news. He begs me to tell him what happened earlier. I end the call by urging him to find them both and ask them what happened at dawn prayer earlier today. I turn up the radio. Dhari is finishing his poem.
Mama Hissa's Mice Page 21
