In the Country of Men

by Hisham Matar

  The car pulled over in front of Kareem’s house. Kareem froze, as if his heart had dropped into his shoes. Four men got out, leaving the doors open. The car was like a giant dead moth in the sun. Three of the men ran inside the house, the fourth, who was the driver and seemed to be their leader, waited on the pavement. He smiled at the two fat brothers Masoud and Ali. I didn’t register then that he knew them. None of us had seen him before. He had a horrible face, pockmarked like pumice stone. His men reappeared, holding Ustath Rashid between them. He didn’t struggle. Auntie Salma trailed behind as if an invisible string connected her to her husband. The man with the pockmarked face slapped Ustath Rashid, suddenly and ferociously. It sounded like fabric tearing, it stopped Auntie Salma. Another one kicked Ustath Rashid in the behind. He anticipated it because he jerked forward just before it came. The force of it made him jump, but he didn’t make a sound. He wore that strange embarrassed smile of his. He didn’t argue or beg, as if the reasons why, all the questions and answers, were known. His shirt was torn. But no blood. I was surprised by this, and later thought that if he had bled – even a little – it would have made it easier on Kareem, because we all would have respected a bleeding man. Ustath Rashid looked towards us, and when his eyes met Kareem’s, his face changed. He looked like he was about to cry or vomit. Then he doubled over and began to cough. The men seemed not to know what to do. They looked at each other, then at Auntie Salma, who had one hand over her mouth, the other clasped round her braided hair that fell as thick as an anchor line over her shoulder. They grabbed Ustath Rashid, threw him into the car, slammed the doors shut and sped between us, crushing our goal posts. I couldn’t see Ustath Rashid’s head between the two men sitting on either side of him in the back seat; he must have been coughing still.

  Kareem took a few steps after the car. For a moment I thought he was going to run after it. He stood with his back to us, then turned and walked home. Auntie Salma was standing, still clutching her hair, looking in the direction the white car had vanished, as if it were arriving, as if Ustath Rashid was in fact finally coming home from a long trip.

  No one knew why Ustath Rashid had been taken, but the next day the rumours began to spread that he had been a traitor. Um Masoud came to our door, clicked her tongue, looked around her and said, ‘That’s the fate of all traitors.’

  Baba had heard Um Masoud gossip before: she claimed that Bahloul the beggar was richer than all of us put together, that Majdi the baker didn’t only sell ‘innocent bread’ – that was how she put it – but something else, too, called Grappa, which wasn’t only haram, but also illegal in our country. Such rumours didn’t bother Baba, in fact sometimes they amused him, but Ustath Rashid was his friend. The two would often go walking by the sea when the sun was low. And many times they sat talking softly in Baba’s study, where they were sometimes joined by Nasser. I would bring them coffee. Mama would knock twice, then open the door for me. Walking in slowly, balancing the tray, I would be hit immediately by the coarse, smoke-filled air. It made the bitter smell of cardamon and gum arabic rising up from the coffee almost pleasant. ‘Don’t spill,’ were often Mama’s last words before she swung the door open on those secret meetings. I quickly learned that the best way was to look ahead; not caring if I spilled, or not caring overtly, seemed to be the trick. But at the beginning I walked with my head down, facing the three black pools of coffee on the silver tray, telling my hands to be firm as I caught to my left, in the periphery of my vision, the knees of the two men sitting in the comfortable butterfly-cloaked armchairs, and to my right the brown wooden expanse of Baba’s desk. When I had safely placed the tray on the desk, Baba would say, ‘Well done, Suleiman.’ When I looked up to face him I sometimes heard my neck crack. Their conversation was suspended from the moment Mama had knocked on the door, they were eager for me to leave. ‘Close the door,’ Baba would say, but then he often called me back at the last minute. ‘Here,’ he would say, ‘empty this,’ handing me an ashtray full of cigarette butts and dead matchsticks. And a few weeks before Ustath Rashid was taken, I placed the tray on Baba’s desk and saw tears in his eyes. He was reading something. Ustath Rashid and Nasser were sitting in silence watching him. I went to his side. I nudged him and asked, ‘Who upset you, Baba?’ Ustath Rashid held his hand up and smiled. ‘I am afraid it’s me, Suleiman.’ I was confused; why would Ustath Rashid upset Baba? Nasser chuckled. Baba put his hand on my head and in a scratched voice said, ‘No one upset me, Slooma. I was just reading …’ He looked at the piece of paper in his hand. ‘It’s so beautiful. We will have to publish this,’ he said, handing the piece of paper to Nasser. Nasser folded it twice and put it in his shirt pocket.

  I had never seen Baba cry before. I couldn’t understand why reading something beautiful made him cry.

  When Baba heard Um Masoud click her tongue and say, ‘That’s the fate of all traitors,’ he couldn’t keep silent. ‘That’s a lie,’ he told her, his voice bubbling with anger. ‘A lie the authorities spread to justify the disappearance of the innocent.’

  Um Masoud studied her fingers, comparing the length of her nails.

  ‘But then they don’t need to, obviously; there is always a volunteer more than willing to lie for them. The effortlessness, the automatism by which it happens …’ Mama tugged at his sleeve. ‘Let me,’ he snapped. He squinted his eyes at Um Masoud. ‘Weeds!’ As he spoke the word he turned his hand as if tightening a screw, as if that word was meant to fix Um Masoud in her corner. ‘Weeds, like rumours, need no help.’ Baba’s face reddened. It frightened me to see him like this because, although he was often serious, he very rarely became angry.

  Um Masoud continued to study her fingers, smiling knowingly now, as if some old suspicion had finally been confirmed.

  Ustath Rashid had once told Baba that their wives were like two lost sisters who had finally found each other. The first time they met – standing in Auntie Salma’s kitchen among the half-unpacked boxes – the two women seemed happy that fate had finally brought them together. Since then, no two days would pass before one called or visited the other. They found excuses to interrupt each other’s life. Many mornings Auntie Salma would come to our door to borrow sugar or flour or salt, and Mama would always ask her in. ‘I am short of time,’ Auntie Salma would say, but then forget herself until Ustath Rashid or Kareem would come for her, upset she hadn’t even started preparing lunch yet. And sometimes it was Mama who went next door, and we were the ones left without lunch. Mama never forgot herself as she did with Auntie Salma.

  They drank tea and talked endlessly; occasionally they would hunch over into whispers, then one of them would clap her hands and burst out laughing. They brought the latest music to play for each other, and sometimes one would play the tabla, calling out – aywa aywa – with the beat while the other danced, knocking her hips from side to side. And once I saw them dancing in Mama’s bedroom to Julio Iglesias, dancing slowly the way men and women did in foreign films, then Auntie Salma bowed and kissed Mama’s hand. Mama pulled her hand away quickly when she saw me. Auntie Salma came to me, held my hands and we danced. She was so sweet, full of smiles, her cheeks red.

  When Baba was away and Mama became ill, we didn’t answer the door, pretended we weren’t in. But once I was so frightened I opened the door for Auntie Salma. She saw Mama on the floor in the bedroom, smelled her. It was as if a black shadow had fallen on Auntie Salma’s face. She left the room, then came back with a wet towel. She patted Mama’s face. Mama woke up, she seemed disoriented. ‘What are you doing here?’ she said. Auntie Salma helped her up to bed, then asked me to fetch a glass of water. When I returned I found Mama crying. Auntie Salma said, ‘Praise the Prophet, girl,’ and with a deep sigh Mama praised.

  After Ustath Rashid was taken Mama didn’t go to Auntie Salma and Auntie Salma didn’t call or visit. Mama didn’t want me to see Kareem either. ‘No need for you to be so close to that boy,’ she said. She had never called him ‘that boy’ before. ‘This is a time fo
r walking beside the wall,’ she said. When I asked her what she meant, she said, ‘Nothing, just try not to be so close to him, that’s all.’ She could feel my eyes following her, trying to understand, so she added, ‘It just isn’t good for you to be so close to all of his sadness. Grief loves the hollow, all it wants is to hear its own echo. Be careful.’

  I was affected by Mama’s words; I did feel myself nudged by guilt whenever Kareem and I were alone. She was right: a certain sadness had entered his eyes the day Ustath Rashid was taken, but it wasn’t the sadness of longing, it was the sadness of betrayal, the silent sadness that comes from being let down. Or at least that’s how it seems now. He became quieter – he was always quiet, but not this quiet – and refused to join in any of the games we played. Instead, he would lean on a car near by as we played football in the street, looking at us in a way that made me feel far away from him. At those moments I wished the Revolutionary Committee would return and this time take my father so that we would be equal, united again by that mysterious bond of blood that had up to that day felt like an advantage.

  Later, when we were alone, I told him, ‘Sorry, Kareem. Sorry we didn’t all stand arm-in-arm to block the way. After all, Mulberry is our street.’ He curled his lower lip and shrugged his shoulders. I felt the way Mama must have felt when, after she had been ill, I was angry at her; I wanted so much to bring him out of his silence. I took him swimming. But instead of heading for the deep, clear waters of the sea that touch the horizon, quickly past the blue-black strip that always frightened us because its floor was alive with dark weeds and movement and things, Kareem swam reluctantly. When I was past the dark waters, moving like a streamer with my long flippers, stabbing my arms fast into the pale turquoise, I looked back and saw him on the shore, walking away.

  4

  When Baba arrived home the following day he seemed preoccupied. It was eight days since Ustath Rashid had been taken. He didn’t bring gifts as he usually did when he returned from his travels. This confirmed that he had been lying: telling us he was going abroad when he was escaping to his other life here in Tripoli, on Martyrs’ Square.

  I waited and waited, then asked, ‘What did you bring me?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he said without even looking in my direction.

  The time before he had brought me a watch that worked under water and had its own light. He usually got Mama a perfume bottle. She would open it, put a drop on the inside of her wrist, smell it, then smile to herself.

  And he wasn’t full of stories, nor did he comment about the things Mama had done to welcome him. She had spent the whole morning in the kitchen. She had hollowed courgettes then stuffed them with rice and meat. The whole kitchen was alive with the smell of parsley, lemon and cardamon. She soaked pomegranate seeds in rose water and sugar. Then after she had showered, blow-dried her hair and put on a fresh dress, she burned musk incense sticks and dug them into the plant pots around the house in anticipation of his arrival. She looked beautiful; she always looked beautiful when he was home.

  Baba’s signature ring was made of one ring followed by three rapid ones: Ding-dong. Ding-dong-ding-dong-ding-dong. Like a rabbit hopping once, then leaping three times. When Mama heard it she picked a pink rose from the vase that was stuffed full of them and planted it in her hair, just above her ear, before running to open the door.

  He came around lunch time, like he said he would. When we sat down to eat he didn’t sigh deeply with contentment or say, ‘There’s no place like home.’ I wished he would because these words always made Mama’s cheeks blush. Instead, he stuffed his napkin above the knot of his necktie, stretching his chin towards the ceiling, which made his lips frown, and began sipping his soup.

  Mama did all the talking and hardly ate anything. She tried to serve him seconds, but he held his hand over his plate and shook his head.

  ‘Any news of Rashid?’

  ‘We still don’t know where he is.’

  ‘Faraj, I am worried, worried for us.’

  ‘We’ll be fine. How’s Salma?’

  Mama sighed.

  ‘She needs us now more than ever,’ he said, placed his napkin on the table and left the room.

  ‘You have chosen a dead-end road,’ she said after him. When he didn’t respond she looked at me.

  I extended my plate to her, to serve me some more even though I was full.

  When he came out of the bathroom he went into the sitting room and shouted, ‘Where’s the tea?’ Baba had to have green tea after lunch. He said it aided digestion. It was so bitter it made the roof of my mouth itch.

  Now that he was safely in the sitting room and she making tea in the kitchen, I took the opportunity to sneak into their bedroom. I searched his jacket for those huge sunglasses. His scent – a mix of pipe smoke and cologne – felt like a presence in the room. I didn’t find them. I went to sit beside him, kiss his hand and tell him how happy I was that he was home, but I found Mama in his arms, her make-up melting. ‘Come, you know how I hate tears,’ he told her. She looked at him, attempted a smile. ‘I need you,’ he whispered and she nodded wearily. She dried her face and left the room. ‘Maestro,’ he said when he saw me. ‘My darling boy.’ He got hold of both of my cheeks, pulled me towards him and kissed me on the nose. My cheeks were in agony, tears in my eyes, but I was grinning so broadly I couldn’t hide my teeth even if I had wanted to.

  Mama returned with the tea tray. Baba nudged me with his knee. I poured the tea, the steam pungent with mint and sage. I held the pot as high as I could, creating as much froth as possible. ‘OK, enough,’ he said, but I kept going higher. ‘Careful,’ he said anxiously, but I could feel him smiling proudly at me. It made my chest tickle.

  When he finished his tea he looked at his watch, stood up and said, ‘Wake me up at four. I have an important appointment.’

  ‘With who?’ she asked, following him. ‘But you just got here.’

  I could hear them talking before they both fell asleep. And although they never woke up before their time, I walked around the house quietly. I listened to the radio low against my ear, sat a few centimetres away from the television. I felt such relief now that Baba was home. Now everything can be normal again, I thought. Now I can leave the house without worrying.

  Particularly in summer, when the sun swelled with heat, the whole world went to sleep: children, adults, even dogs found a patch of shade to slumber in. I never learned how to nap. It always felt strange to get into my pyjamas at three in the afternoon. It reminded me of being ill. Instead I would search the neighbouring building plots for things I liked or thought useful, things that used to be knives or parts of old radios, and took them to our garden. There I scraped glue that was always oozing out of the joints of the glue tree, got whatever wood I could find, and carrying everything in the wrap of my arms I climbed the straight flight of stairs up to the flat roof.

  The roof tiles were baking, you could see the heat rippling above them. I had forgotten my sandals so I hopped, running for the shadow made by the water tank, to my workshop. I rubbed my feet on the coolness of the shaded tiles. I looked up at the sun. I thought, how strong the sun is, how mighty, and felt frightened by it, by the possibility of it not moving, or coming closer, pressing down against us like a giant balloon. I remembered my Quran teacher Sheikh Mustafa’s story of the Bridge to Paradise, the bridge that crosses Hell Eternal to deliver the faithful to Paradise. We all will have to cross it some day, and some of us won’t make it. Those will fall into the fires below, the fires that call for them. What a sight it will be! The heat, the screaming – there’s bound to be screaming – the flames licking the sides of the bridge, making the handrails – Sheikh Mustafa said nothing of handrails, but there are bound to be handrails – hot to the touch. ‘The heat will reach some of us faster than others,’ Sheikh Mustafa said, ‘because for some the heat, the fires of Hell themselves, will be like a voice calling.’ I suppose it’s like when you hear your name and you can’t help but turn to the source that
spoke it. Some of us will be longing for Hell Eternal – God forbid – the way we long to respond, to obey, when our name is called even by someone we have never met before, or by a teacher who has asked a question we know we can’t answer: we raise our hand and say, ‘Yes,’ and if he can’t see us, we reach higher and shout, ‘Over here, sir!’ when we know there’ll be nothing to do except curl our lip and shrug our shoulders. Because the fire calls for the fire. Sheikh Mustafa warned me about this, he said, ‘You must try to ignore the heat, Suleiman. When you are on the Bridge to Paradise, you must keep your eyes focused on Paradise and the beauty of Paradise. And whatever you do, don’t look down.’

  Watching the heat ripple off the tiles on the roof, I thought I should train myself for that day. I decided to walk – not hop, not run, but walk – in a line as straight as an arrow, without even arching the soles of my feet, back to the staircase. The staircase was to be my paradise. The first step didn’t feel as bad as I expected, but after a few steps the soles of my feet were on fire and I found myself hopping and running, wondering if hopping and running were allowed on the Bridge to Paradise.

  I wished I was like the Sheikh. Surely he won’t feel any heat, I thought, the man is holy. He led the prayers at the local mosque. Baba liked his voice, and so after Friday prayer, later in the afternoon, he had him come to recite some Surahs to bless our house. His voice, soaring and expansive, seemed to reach and fill each room. He was blind. I never got a good look at his eyes, they were always hidden behind thick black lenses, but sometimes I glimpsed one from the side, open and searching for light like a snail waking up in the rain. I liked to sit beside him, to watch his body flex in a breathless, suspended moment: his face tilted upwards and his right hand beside his ear, before it comes, his voice, from wherever it comes, and sails throughout our house like a thing unbound. Sometimes it brought tears to my eyes that I wiped away quickly. Sometimes I wanted to ask what he saw, how he imagined us and the world, but I didn’t know how to ask such questions then.