by Hisham Matar
My feet were burning. I ran down the staircase to the garden and walked under the shade of the small fruit trees, digging my toes into the cool earth then flicking my feet ahead with every step, imitating Baba’s walk. I picked a blue plum, but it tasted sour, so I threw it under its tree. Where it lay I could see my teeth marks and the white gap my bite had left. At the foot of the wall that separated our house from Ustath Rashid’s house a few mulberries had fallen in the dirt and were being attacked by ants. This was the last surviving tree from the mulberry orchard that our street had erased. I looked up at its thin branches and the small berries that still clung to them, hanging over the wall. How much longer before they too will fall to the ants, I wondered.
I fetched the ladder and climbed very slowly. Each berry was like a crown of tiny purple balls. They reminded me of the grapes carved into the arches of Lepcis. I decided that mulberries were the best fruit God had created and I began to imagine young lively angels conspiring to plant a crop in the earth’s soil after they heard that Adam, peace and blessings be upon him, and Eve, peace and blessings be upon her, were being sent down here to earth as punishment. God knew of course, He’s the Allknowing, but He liked the idea and so let the angels carry out their plan. I plucked one off and it almost melted in my fingers. I threw it in my mouth and it dissolved, its small balls exploding like fireworks. I ate another and another.
I don’t know how long I was up on the ladder, but the nearby branches had certainly begun to look barer when I started to feel dizzy. I touched the top of my head, and it was as hot as a car’s bonnet at midday.
The mulberries were so ripe I could see now that many more had fallen on the other side of the wall. Armies of ants, I thought, were probably gathering to eat them. I looked up at the clear blue of the sky and thanked the angels and asked God to please forgive their mischief. I was full, and my stomach wasn’t feeling good – this fruit was delicious in the mouth but turned as thick as blood in the stomach – but every time I tried to stop my mouth wanted more. So I decided I would sit over the wall, dangle my feet one on either side as if sitting on a horse and eat all the berries I could reach. I turned and pulled the branches closer. And when I couldn’t eat any more I filled my pockets with them.
When I reached the ground I almost lost my balance. I turned on the garden tap and put my head under it. The cold water felt good, but when I stood up I saw the world spin. I quickly put my head under the water again and shut my eyes but saw colours and strange figures dancing. My eyes, shut or open, were covered in a curtain that blurred everything. My ears too filled with a whistling noise. The world turned even faster. I sat where I stood. I felt the damp earth come through my shorts. I must turn off the tap, I thought. Then I heard Mama calling. I pulled out all the berries in my pockets and stuffed them in my mouth, chewing and swallowing as fast as I could. Then I noticed Bahloul the beggar standing outside the garden fence. He was staring at me. How long had he been standing there, I wondered. He pointed his finger at me. ‘I see you, I see you,’ he shouted. Although I knew Bahloul was mad, these words, these meaningless words that he always repeated, increased my confusion. I wondered if he thought I was stealing my neighbours’ berries and was announcing himself the witness. Was I stealing? I wasn’t sure, but I was sure that even if I were I would be forgiven. After all, the berries belonged to Kareem and Ustath Rashid and Auntie Salma. But all that wouldn’t matter; if Bahloul went spreading rumours someone will believe him, because ‘there’s no smoke without fire’. My heart shuddered. I tried to look, to seem, to feel innocent because, as Sheikh Mustafa had told me, the innocent have no cause to fear. Mama called again. I leaned against the wall for guidance, hearing the water beat into the dirt behind me. I thought of going back to turn the tap off, but continued walking towards the kitchen. ‘There’s no smoke without fire,’ the sentence repeated itself once more in my head.
The cool shade of our house made the blood in my head disappear. Even though I could barely see anything except the movement of this strange curtain of light and dust, I sat down where I knew a chair was. In the distance – could Mama hear him too? – I caught Bahloul screaming fervently, ‘I see you!’ and I wondered if by walking away like that, weak and dizzy, I had confirmed my guilt and so hardened his conviction.
‘Why are you wet? What is this red on your hands and face? What is the matter with you? What happened? What happened? And why, in the name of God why aren’t you answering me?’
I sat arched over the kitchen table, my lower lip dripping with saliva. I wanted to speak to comfort her but I couldn’t. My eyes stared into nothing, through a curtain of flickering light. I didn’t know what was the matter with me, but was now more concerned for her. Normally, at this time, I would be pulling her hand up the stairs to my workshop to show her what I had made. She would kiss me then walk to the edge of the roof to look out on to the sea, her long silk house-robe, decorated by a giant fanning tail of a peacock, billowing behind her. The sun would be weak and many colours by that time, mirroring itself on the sea. I would stand beside her, leaning against her leg, and every time I looked up her eyes would be fixed and squinting at the shimmering water. She would tell me how the sea changed because the sea changes every day. At those moments I could ask her any question, and she would give me the answer, any question I could think of and as many as I could think of.
‘What happened to you?’ She banged the table and stood up. I could feel her moving all round me. She began to speak to herself: ‘It’s all your fault. If anything happens to him everyone will blame you, say you were napping while your own son needed you. He’s only a child, Najwa, what were you thinking?’
It’s very odd to hear your mother call herself by her name, it’s very odd to hear anyone do that, but particularly Mama, because almost no one called her Najwa. To me she was Mama, to her family she was Naoma, and to the rest of the world she was Um Suleiman. Baba called her Um Suleiman or Naoma or Mama and only very occasionally Najwa. It came so sweetly from his mouth.
As I thought this I heard Mama’s voice travel and scream Baba’s name. I didn’t feel myself rise or leave the kitchen but found myself at the entrance of their bedroom. I could barely see her bent over and shaking him. He woke up startled and confused. I wondered if it was four yet, time for his important appointment. They both looked at me. The curtain on my eyes thickened. I saw in Baba’s face a look of annoyance at Mama for waking him up like that because there I was standing and obviously all right. Then everything went dark.
5
When I woke up it was night. I felt disoriented. I could hear voices outside but couldn’t locate where they were. There was a front half and a back half to our house, divided by the hallway swing-doors. In the front there were the formal rooms: the reception room where we received guests we didn’t know very well and where I practised my piano, and opposite the hallway the dining room we never used. In the back there was the sitting room, where we kept the television, then the kitchen, and beyond them the bathroom and bedrooms.
My door was open, and through it I could see that the sitting-room light was on. Mama coughed and asked a question: ‘Where is he?’
‘I don’t know. He’s lying low until we see what happens to Rashid.’
That was Moosa. I loved it when Moosa was here.
‘He didn’t tell you where he is?’
‘No. I have just come from Martyrs’ Square, and he wasn’t there.’
‘I told him not to get involved with Rashid and his leaflets.’
‘Don’t worry, Rashid won’t talk.’
‘I am not a child. I know what these people are capable of.’
‘I drove past the university. The students have taken over the entire campus, hanging banners from windows: We are not against the revolution, we are against the extremes of the revolution. Autonomy for the student union. Slogans inspired by our leaflets.’
I imagined Mama waving her hand beside her ear as she often did when she was hearing some
thing she didn’t agree with, because Moosa added, ‘Um Suleiman, don’t be so cynical. These are exciting times. Everything can change.’
‘Clouds,’ she said. ‘Only clouds. They gather then flit away. What are you people thinking: a few students colonizing the university will make a military dictatorship roll over? For God’s sake, if it were that easy I would have done it myself. You saw what happened three years ago when those students dared to speak. They hanged them by their necks. And now we are condemned to witness the whole thing again. The foolish dreamers! And it’s foolish and irresponsible to encourage them.’
‘It’s our obligation to call injustice by its name.’
‘Go call it by its name in your country. Here it’s either silence or exile, walk by the wall or leave. Go be a hero elsewhere.’
‘Until when? How long must we bow our heads?’
‘Until God rescues us. Nothing lasts for ever.’
I walked out of my bedroom and heard Moosa sigh, ‘Indeed, God never forgets the faithful.’ He saw me first and began clapping. ‘O Champion! Welcome, welcome.’
Mama rose from the sofa. ‘How are you feeling? Are you all right?’
‘Yes,’ I said because I knew she needed a quick answer, a quick good answer. I told her I felt good, that I had had the most restful sleep and the most beautiful dreams and when I said that, the part about the dreams, she asked me to sit down and tell her them.
Mama liked dreams and believed that in them lay secret messages foretelling the future or revealing the true nature of a person. She could tell you what a dream meant because every detail in a dream is a symbol. It’s true. For example, a sea in a dream means life. If it’s wild and raging you are going to have some hard times, but if it’s calm your days will be calm and beautiful. Fish is greed. A girl is good luck and also means life. A boy is very bad luck. But the most important thing to remember about the meaning of dreams is how you feel when you wake up from them. If you have dreamed of a beautiful girl in white drowning in a raging sea and then you were surrounded by a gang of boys beating you with dead fish but you woke up happy, don’t worry, don’t be afraid, it’s a good dream.
I quickly made up a dream where I was walking by a calm sea. Mama smiled and said it was a good omen.
‘What else did you dream?’ she said.
I thought quickly, but Moosa saved me. He stood up and put me on his shoulders.
Moosa was so tall he had to bow slightly to pass through a doorway. From his shoulders I could see the chandelier’s crystals twinkle beside me as he began digging his fingers into my legs. ‘He’s well, he’s well,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing wrong with him. He’s the Champion, our big Champion, and there’s nothing wrong with him at all. Just look at him, look at his muscles. He’s fine, just fine. We all just love to make a big fuss about our Champ.’
I had always loved Moosa’s massages, but now my body was still stiff from sleep, and it hurt to have him dig his big fingers into my thighs and feet. I giggled.
‘I am never invited to lunch parties any more,’ Mama said. ‘And if I invite my friends they won’t come.’
‘Cowards,’ Moosa said.
‘No, just sensible.’
I ran my fingers through the crystal beads of the chandelier. My hands were still red from the mulberries. They looked like a girl’s palms hennaed for Eid.
‘When was the last time my relatives visited, or his for that matter? And all for what?’
‘You can’t give people braver hearts.’
‘No. Only you and my husband and Nasser and Rashid and the naive students you are dragging with you are the brave ones left in this country.’ She sighed. ‘Help me,’ she said, her voice softening. ‘Help me convince him to leave this wretched path.’
‘I am not the best person to do that,’ he said.
‘But he listens to you.’
Moosa let go of one of my ankles and looked at his watch. The time was nine-ten.
‘Who are the faithful?’ I asked.
‘Put him down,’ Mama said, and like a crane Moosa arched over. She pressed her hand on my forehead, her skin cool and moist.
‘How do you become one of the faithful? I bet their feet won’t burn on the Bridge to Paradise.’
‘He’s still warm, but no fever. I will make us something to eat,’ she said and left the room.
‘Food, food, food; when we don’t know what else to do, we eat,’ Moosa said and laughed. Moosa’s laugh made you laugh even if you didn’t find what he was laughing about funny.
‘The boy needs his strength,’ she said from the kitchen.
He looked at me and smiled. I sat beside him on the sofa, on top of my hands. It was normal for me to do this because my hands were often as cold as ‘ice-cubes’. That’s what Mama called them. My feet too were often that cold. Whenever they touched hers she flinched, rubbed them or went to fetch a pair of thick winter socks.
‘Did you like Lepcis?’
‘Yes.’
‘What did you like about it?’
‘The sea-monsters. When will you take me to the circus? You promised.’
‘Maybe tomorrow.’
‘How do you become a faithful?’
‘You pray that the devil won’t find you.’
‘Why is the devil looking for us?’
‘It’s his job.’
‘I think mulberries are from Heaven.’
I was hoping he would take me into Baba’s study and look up some fat book, and we would learn all there is to learn about mulberries.
When Moosa read you had to stop and listen, he wouldn’t have it any other way. He would sit on the edge of his seat and put me opposite him. His hands would change with the words, sometimes quick and urgent and sometimes gentle and slow, and when he would reach a place he liked he would leave the book open on his lap, clap his hands and sing into the air above us, ‘Allah! Praise be to Allah how sweet words can be,’ or about the author, ‘What’s all of this light, this wonder, this spectacular majesty, this precision – absolute precision of language, I swear!’ Then he would pick up the book and continue reading.
If it was poetry he would hold the book with one hand and with the other join index finger to thumb and speak – each – word – as – if – it – were – a – building – standing – alone, and when he found something he liked he didn’t clap or shout praise for the author or the author’s family – no – he would pick up his smoking cigarette and take a deep, slow drag while his eyes reread the lines, his leg rocking nervously, then say, with his eyes still on the page, ‘Do you hear it, Suleiman, the action? The action is always in the words.’ Then he would repeat the poem and ask me to notice the action this time because poetry, he used to always repeat, is words in action. I tried to understand this when he read from his favourite poet: his compatriot Salah Abd al-Sabur:
The sky reflects the earth;
the windows of the sick the bridge lights;
the eyes of the gendarme the blinking minarets.
I wasn’t surprised when I didn’t understand such passages. But I was unsettled whenever I recognized something familiar in a poem, something I thought I had experienced:
Noon, you fill my heart
with fear and dread, showing
me more than I want to see.
Or:
Now dusk, now a parting glance,
from the sun leaning fatigued against the hills.
Now, blackness.
And sometimes what unsettled me was the fervour in Moosa’s voice when he read lines like:
The precious robes we wear
have been loaned to us by the Sultan
with whom we have a friendship
as deep and vast as an abyss.
Moosa was very fond of Salah Abd al-Sabur, and when, in 1981, the poet tragically died at the age of fifty, Moosa wore a black necktie every day for forty days.
Moosa infected me with his love of language. He did annoy me, though, when, reading prose, he skipped b
ig chunks or added in his own bits. I could tell when he started adding because his eyes would leave the page and stare at me. If he wasn’t inventing then where was he getting it from?
‘The person who wrote this big fat book, Moosa, didn’t write these words,’ I would tell him. ‘He didn’t want them there or else he would have put them in himself. You can’t put words in his mouth!’
He would smile to himself, jiggle his leg, then slap the book with the back of his hand. ‘But he’s going in circles.’
‘Just read it as it is on the page,’ I would plead.
‘But he’s fumbling all over the place. He crawls to say what he wants to say. I know what he’s getting at, so let me bring it to you from the end.’ Then, in a military fashion, he would say, ‘Silence! Full attention!’ and resume reading as soon as he was able to erase the smile from his face.
I was hoping now he would take me to Baba’s study and read to me about mulberries. But when I told him that mulberries were from Heaven his response wasn’t good. He simply said, ‘They’re a small, soft, stoneless fruit like any other fruit.’
‘No they aren’t. They are the angels’ gift. They are a heavenly fruit never intended for this earth, but the angels went behind God’s back even though they knew He’s the Allknowing and they knew He’s the Allseeing because they love us. They risked everything, Moosa, everything, to give us a taste of Heaven in this life. I thought you would know this.’
He rubbed his big hands together and raised his eyebrows and stared blankly at me. This was how he reacted when I had asked how babies were made. Then he said, ‘It’s an idea.’
Mama came in carrying a large tray which Moosa bounced up and took from her then placed on the floor. The three of us sat round the food in the centre of the room and ate. The bread was hot, and when I tore it steam billowed out in small clouds. The tea felt good going down my throat, warming my chest.
