Mama Hissa's Mice

by Saud Alsanousi

  “Actually, I felt just the same. I’m always nostalgic for old places. We parked our cars in the plot opposite the park, carrying bags of food. Fahd wouldn’t have agreed to go anywhere if it hadn’t been for his dread of returning to the house you had left, Hawraa. He was missing his sons. And there’s no need for me to add that he was missing you, too. Not a single hour went by without him grabbing his phone and checking for a message from you. I won’t keep talking if you keep crying. Here, take this. Dry your eyes. Okay. So we spent three hours together. Hours deeply rooted in the past. Oh, if only you had been with us, Fawzia! Our memories brought back to life the old park, which even the McDonald’s there now hasn’t been able to revive. There were boxes from Happy Meals and plastic toys scattered on the ground at the entrance opposite the deserted restaurant. Sadiq bent down to pick up a small rubber ball, with the golden arches on it. He looked around him as if afraid that someone would see him. You know your cousin, Ayub. Crazy. But even you can’t imagine what his craziness drove him to just before dawn today. He looked at us, juggling the ball back and forth in his hands, and asked us if we were game. We exchanged looks, Fahd and I, each waiting for the other to cave.

  “We took off our sandals. We folded up our dishdashas, wrapped the hems around our waists. None of us said a word. Our eyes were laughing, somewhat embarrassed. Sadiq started searching, beneath an ancient sidra, for flat stones of different sizes while holding the rubber ball. Fahd joined in immediately. I don’t know how, but I felt myself shrinking. My dishdasha became wide, loose, the sleeves baggy. I looked at Fahd’s and Sadiq’s faces: now neither had a thick mustache or a beard. Fahd’s face was smooth and dark with wide eyes, and his hair was jet-black. Sadiq’s face had regained its old redness, pimples sprinkled across his cheeks. I rolled up my sleeves and then joined them collecting stones. We crossed the park. Nothing looked like it used to, except for the giant trees running parallel to the wall, braving the dryness, and the rusty, neglected swings on the spongy black floor. We built a small pyramid of seven stones for anbar. We formed two teams, one of them a man down. We took turns throwing the McDonald’s ball at the seven-stone pyramid. It crashed to the ground like a bombed building. Each of us pushed the others out of the way to pick up the ball. We rolled in the soil and dry grass like street cats. One of us threw the ball at the other’s head, definitely against the rules. Fahd ran, laughing. Sadiq followed him, laughing. I caught up with them, drenched in sweat and shaking with laughter myself. The ball moved from our hands to our feet. Fahd kicked it far away. The two of them ran toward it. I became Khalid Al Harban and started commentating loudly on Fahd’s technique: ‘Muayyad Al Haddad’s with the ball . . . He crosses . . . He goes . . .’ He kicked it powerfully. He nutmegged Sadiq. ‘GooOOOOal! Allah, Allah, Allah! Muayyad Al Haddaaaaad . . . ya salaaam!’ We flopped on the ground, catching our breath, coughing, laughing, coughing. Fahd straightened up, holding his lower back in pain. An old image of his father sitting cross-legged on the ground came to me. The words fell out of my mouth, telling him not to shower at night. Mama Hissa’s joke to his father years ago didn’t make his son laugh today. His face turned pale. Sadiq looked concerned. It prompted Fahd to check his phone. Your voice wasn’t there in his in-box, Hawraa. Your husband broke into a smile. ‘The chest has a key!’ Sadness tinged the happiness on your brother’s face. He said, ‘Ohhh!’ before asking Fahd, ‘What reminded you of the song?’

  “Fahd looked around him and replied, ‘Same thing that reminded you of the park.’ Sadiq continued to repeat the song. He belted out, ‘The key’s with the blacksmith.’ Fahd joined in, looking serious like Abdulkareem, ‘And the blacksmith wants money.’ As soon as they finished singing, ‘And rain comes from God,’ Sadiq opened the bags of food. We started to eat like ravenous little boys. The three of us hadn’t gotten together like this, liberated from everything, our diwaniya, our headquarters, our houses—since I left Surra in 1997, twenty-three years ago. Each of us started to test the others’ memory. ‘Do you remember Abu Sameh and his song “Fill the Jug Up for Me”?’

  “‘Of course.’

  “‘And you, do you remember Mama Zaynab pushing the supermarket cart on the asphalt?’ Our first fight. Al Najah Middle School. Mr. Desouky with his bulging eyes. Mr. Murhif. Al Anbaiie Mall, Al Budur Bookstore, and Al Riyadi magazine. Mama Hissa’s stories and us sitting in the courtyard; when the power got cut in September 1990; Shail, the star of Canopus up in the sky at a time just like this thirty years ago. The Peace and Friendship Cup. The zalamat house. Al habal and al qumbar, our favorite pastimes, and the gold souk in Basra. Fawzia, her chocolate, and how she’d retire to her room to read Ihsan novels—”

  “Me?” Fawzia interrupts, as her name has caught her attention. Ayub and Hawraa turn to her.

  “Yes, you,” I say. She squints her lackluster eyes, saying that she only remembers what I read to her. “Fawzia! Ihsan Abdel Quddous novels. You used to read them. You used to be able to see,” I remind her.

  Her eyes widen. She is trying to remember. “I’ve never been able to see in my life.” I look at her, finding no words to respond. She points to her ear. “Finish the story.”

  “Which story?” I ask her, perplexed.

  “Fahd and Sadiq’s story.”

  I finish their story while looking at Fawzia’s face. “Fahd asked me about the draft of Inheritance of Fire, my novel, when we were talking about you and Ihsan’s novels. I didn’t answer him since I’d kept quiet about it ever since I started writing. Ever since I decided to write us as we are: Fahd, Sadiq, Ayub, Dhari, and me. Without the masks of Turki, Mehdi, Mish’al, Abdullah, and Jaber—the masks I had gotten used to hiding behind. Sadiq sensed that I was holding back. He smiled at me while grabbing a sandwich and asked if we both knew what he was craving. He didn’t wait for us to guess and said, ‘Jaber’s Egyptian sandwiches, macaroni and ketchup.’ Fahd laughed, but I kept my lips shut as I remembered how delicious they had been. With a frown on his face, Fahd said that he was missing Mama Hissa’s food and her sour achar. His phone rang; it was Khala Aisha. She was worried about him. We had been out all night. He reassured her, as he got up from the ground and dusted the grass off his dishdasha, that he’d be heading home right then. Before hanging up, he told his mother that he was craving mutabbaq samak. He hung up, looked at us, and announced with a flourish, ‘For lunch today, we’ll have mutabbaq samak!’ He clawed the air with his nails and let out an excited ‘Meeeeow!’”

  THE FOURTH MOUSE: ASHES THE INHERITANCE OF FIRE

  THE NOVEL

  Chapter 1

  More than three years had passed since the surgery that Hawraa had warmly welcomed. Her doctor informed her to prepare herself for pregnancy. And in accordance with a treatment plan administered under his supervision, she gave birth to twin boys in 2012. These twins cemented Fahd’s conviction that Fuada’s Kids was important, even though it had already been in existence for four years. “It’s all for my kids,” he’d say. The goal of our activities in the first few years, each via our own radio show or blog, was to get closer to people by stirring up their nostalgia. Granted, the past wasn’t perfect, but we didn’t need to be reminded of that, because it was better than where we had ended up. I worked on preparing and presenting my show, Nostalgia. Sadiq called his show I’m History in Its Entirety. It was the most controversial because of the issues he covered, and because he was trying to revisit history from another perspective, and that’s exactly what people refused to do. What’s New Today was a variety show, mostly artistic in nature, hosted by Fahd, which relied on Fawzia’s archives.

  While Dhari worked on a comprehensive religious program, Ayub specialized in broadcasting news programs, making use of his work at the newspaper. The old-world character of our radio station and the reliance on people’s distant memories stoked a great wave of optimism. The larger communication companies and banks started to compete to advertise on our online radio stream and website. Our way of doing things spread like wil
dfire. Companies adopted the very same approach—whipping up shared memories—to reach the general public through their ads on TV, radio, and newspapers. They marketed their services by exploiting people’s nostalgia for “back then” or “the good old times,” which became popular terms, more proof of how everyone had lost these memories.

  While we reminded listeners and visitors to our website of what they had loved, we were simultaneously telling them what they had blinded themselves to out of hatred. In the beginning, our group had a good amount of exposure. A lot of people gave us a warm welcome, though some were suspicious about our reluctance to reveal our names, share our location, and be present at press events. Some tried hard to figure out who our group supported. Those loyal to the government named us the opposition. The opposition accused us of supporting the government. The religious groups saw us as a rebellious entity, outsiders. The anti-religious groups classified us as a religious movement.

  I had stopped publishing my column, but Ayub had convinced the editorial board to allocate me a weekly column separate from the old one. I started to publish articles under the pen name “Fuada’s Son.” In the beginning there was an onslaught of vitriolic attacks, which put the newspaper in a difficult position, even though I was only writing about what was going on around me. I didn’t understand how the reader was engaging with the writer. The reader had become a deadlier censor than the censors themselves. People were doing wrong, I was writing about it, and others were blaming me for writing about it! My consolation was in Ayub and the people who started to support us. I don’t know how the seven of us became seventeen, then seventy . . . Our numbers kept multiplying: dedicated university students, activists. They all organized symposiums, concerts, and theater performances in the markets and public spaces. They would champion our slogan, Protect yourselves from the plague! And we’d be among the onlookers. The five of us spent most of our time working at the radio station, our headquarters. We became closer than ever before. I would observe my cousin. He had changed a lot. “And what about your jihad, sheikh?” Fahd teased Dhari. Dhari answered him, saying that, first, he wasn’t a religious cleric. Then he gestured to the transmitter and the microphone and pronounced, “This is my j-jihad.” Only Ayub shared his sentiment. He approached Dhari and kissed his forehead. Both of us knew the extent to which Dhari was torn between the heavy religious legacy he’d shouldered ever since he was a teenager and his skeptical mind that took a second look at everything. Dhari was only engaged in jihad with himself. Sadly, as much as our group was able to make progress, the problems between the two sects grew, bubbling before bursting forth, uncontrollable lava. Revolutions in neighboring countries inflamed the souls at home.

  One afternoon, we sat in front of the TV in the diwaniya, like mourners attending a funeral. We listened to the statement issued by the government. It blamed the people for having abused their freedoms. Freedom of expression was an original right, but . . . the people, on the pretext of exercising this freedom, had abused it. They transformed it into sectarian sedition, in the newspapers, at public rallies, and inside the parliamentary dome. The sect became the authority instead of the state. The statement ended with “We are greatly saddened by the events that are storming the country today, and unfortunately are forced to implement a new system, in accordance with the current climate, rather than the 1962 constitution, because Kuwait’s security is above all else . . . We are asking God the Great and Almighty to pour out blessings of safety and security on our dear country . . . Peace be upon you and mercy . . .” We witnessed demonstrations we’d never seen the likes of before. In front of the mosques, the hussainiyas, in diwaniyas, and on the streets. And because disaster, as usual, was too embarrassed to come alone, it dragged along its friends. The price of oil collapsed. Belts were tightened and taxes imposed. Gas prices went up. Food aid stopped. Public sector employees had their salaries cut in half. The value of the Kuwaiti dinar dropped for the first time.

  While we were awaiting a government response to the naked chaos that gripped the country, frustration reigned everywhere after the GCC suspended most of its agreements. Two of the member countries were forced to impose visa restrictions on Kuwaiti citizens to stem their sudden mass migration, which resembled a refugee crisis as thousands of people sought a safe place that wasn’t too far from Kuwait. Even when two more countries withdrew after disputes over oil production quotas, the media still broadcast the old song, “Our Gulf Is One and Our People Are One!” When Fahd made fun of this on his show What’s New Today, because the song didn’t reflect our current reality, he was called out by the Ministry of Information: “Final warning . . . or your website will be blocked and your activities suspended!” The “final” warning came out of the blue without a first or second one before it. It was a painful blow to Fuada’s Kids and its supporters. We were slowly suffocating, ever since the government had imposed pre-censorship on newspapers after parliament had been dissolved once and for all, in an even worse way than it had been in the mid-1980s.

  Days flew by, and the twins, or Fuada’s grandkids as Fahd and Hawraa called them, grew up quickly. They attended most of our get-togethers in the diwaniya. Bright-eyed, they’d listen to us talking about the old courtyard. Their questions about their parents’ grandmas, Hissa and Zaynab, were never-ending. With the twins in mind, I wrote the Ibn Al Zarzur series. And for their sake, Sadiq drew the illustrations for the stories just as the old woman had described them years ago. Fahd started reading them these stories every night at bedtime. He would replace some of the Arabic words with English ones that his two boys could understand.

  I started to take the boys to the seaside every week, when they both turned five, on the condition that they didn’t speak to me in English. Their parents worried about their sons’ attachment to electronic devices, but didn’t seem concerned that their boys spoke a broken Arabic that resembled code. I found the twins’ company pure joy. I don’t know why. My relationship with them pushed Fahd to ask me, “When will we see your kids?” It was the very same question that my mom kept repeating. I’d never respond, thinking, How can I when tomorrow isn’t promised to any of us?

  Fahd’s silence seemed to say, We won’t ever see your kids.

  One afternoon, I was with the twins on one of the beaches in Salwa. Between the sea and the swings, I think I tempered their addiction to devices. In their company, I escaped the suffocating atmosphere strangling the country. I liked their many questions. I tried to decode them when they sprinkled in English words I didn’t know. And I liked that I couldn’t tell the twins apart. Each one resembled the other like his reflection in the mirror. Two boys created in one placenta. They suckled at one breast. They had the same face, voice, movements, and questions. They were full of mischief. Whenever I asked one of them who he was, he answered with his brother’s name. They allowed me to finish what I was saying to one when it was meant for the other. They then would explode in peals of crazy laughter. “I’m not him! I’m meee!”

  “Uncle, what are we?” One of them blurted out this question while running toward me, shaking the sand off his swimming trunks. I asked him what he meant.

  His brother hesitated before saying, “Are we like Mom or like Dad?”

  What would Mama Hissa have said? I looked at the sky. “Darling! Habibi! You’re Muslim and that’s all there is to it . . . The Prophet says—”

  His brother cut in. He begged for an answer to a final question. “The Prophet . . . Is he like Dad or like Mom?”

  I sought refuge in my watch. I got up. “It’s time to go now.”

  His brother grabbed my arm, on his face a look pleading for my answer, swearing it was his last, last question. He pointed his little finger up above. “God, subhanahu wa ta’ala . . . Shia or Sunni?” I imagined the sky falling. I saw my mother’s hand poised, ready to strike. I felt compassion for myself and for her, for a situation that happened a very long time ago.

  “Ask God for forgiveness, habibi. You said ‘God glorifie
d and exalted,’ meaning God is above both and above all such things.”

  “God forgive me.”

  “May He forgive you, my boy.”

  I threw two towels on their bodies and pushed them out in front of me to the car. I was on my way back to Rawda, Salwa on my right and the sea on my left. The twins were in the back seat. A somber voice on the radio talked about the different groups and sects of jinn. This sect is better. The other sect is corrupt. I silenced the radio, not knowing any jinn other than the purehearted ones living in the sidra. One of the boys stretched his arm between the two front seats. He pointed at a sign with an arrow toward Al Masjid Al Aqsa Street on the right. He knew I was annoyed. He promised that it was the last, last, last question. “Uncle . . . is the Al Aqsa Mosque in Salwa?”

  “No, darling, it’s in Jerusalem.”

  His brother poked his head between the seats. He brought his face close to mine, his eyebrows raised, staring with his wide eyes, like his father’s were as a kid. He asked me the last, last, last, last question.

  “Jerusalem? Where’s that?”

  11:30 p.m.

  Present Day

  “You’re sure that he told Khala Aisha that he was craving mutabbaq samak?” Hawraa asks, staring as if there is something catastrophic in that detail. I nod my head. I continue where I left off.

  “Sadiq told him to hold on, saying, ‘We’re just getting started!’ Fahd apologized, using Aisha’s worry as an excuse. And so that his mother could finally go to bed. As soon as we had crossed the road, we became aware of two groups of young men on the dusty plot where we had left our cars. Seven. Eight. Maybe ten. I don’t remember. When leaving the park, I felt like I was ten years old again, and that these guys had gathered to set off fireworks to celebrate the successful first day of the cease-fire. Most of them were adolescents and the rest in their mid-twenties. Older maybe, by a bit. I tried to make out their faces. The weapons in their hands could only mean bad news. Sadiq and Fahd headed for their cars, while I stood watching what was going on.