In the Country of Men

by Hisham Matar

  ‘I swear you must.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But for my sake.’

  ‘There is no need.’

  ‘OK, then, if not for my sake, for Siham’s.’

  Siham looked up at the two adults and, closing one eye against the sun, she patted her chest again. The gesture inappropriate now.

  The man hesitated. Mama saw the opening and stabbed the money into his pocket. ‘I swear by what you hold dearest …’

  The old man froze for a moment, then, like a man defeated, he shook his head dejectedly.

  ‘You have no idea how dear you all are to Bu Suleiman,’ Mama told him.

  He walked beside his daughter to their old black car. As they drove off they revealed the Revolutionary Committee man, Sharief, sitting in his white car, not minding the heat, loyal to his cause, his gun probably still occupying the passenger seat beside him. His confidence and youth were in stark contrast to the sad old man. Sharief seemed beyond age and need, a man calling for the world to keep up with him.

  Mama pulled me back into the house. Every time I turned around she said, ‘Come on, come on.’ Before she closed the door, I caught Sharief waving at me. Mama turned the bolt twice.

  15

  The following day Mama woke up not so much happy as certain. She began to make a cake. She was silent the whole time, moving quickly and precisely. I thought, at last she and Auntie Salma are going to make up. But after she decorated the cake with strawberries she took it across the street to Ustath Jafer and Um Masoud’s house. I stood in the doorway, watching her. Sharief, too, watched her from inside his car. He had become a fixture, it no longer surprised me to find him there. She pressed the doorbell, quickly glancing at Sharief, and with her fingers outstretched rubbed a flexed palm against her dress. As if she was at a loss what to do, she waved to me to come. Just before I took hold of her cool and moist hand Um Masoud opened the door.

  ‘Hello,’ Mama said, a soft quiver in her voice. ‘Is Ustath Jafer in? Please, I need to talk to him. About a very important matter.’ Then, handing Um Masoud the cake, Mama said, ‘I made you this.’

  That visit has remained with me ever since. Whenever I am faced with someone who holds the strings of my fate – an immigration officer, a professor – I can feel the distant reverberations from that day, my inauguration into the dark art of submission. Perhaps this is why I often find a shameful pleasure in submitting to authority. Even in prayer – bowing down, my forehead pressed against the ground, my back arching beneath its own weight, my chest falling between my shoulders, my hands flat against the ground, fingers pressed tightly together, hearing my own whispered prayers – I am often overcome with regret and, yes, shame that I am gloating in it, enjoying my own deprecation. And this is also why, when I finally think I have gained the pleasure of authority, a sense of self-loathing rises to clasp me by the throat. I have always been able to imagine being unjustifiably hated.

  Ustath Jafer, like most government officials, kept us waiting. We sat in the reception room, where the face of the Guide stared down at us from a photograph that was much smaller than the one Moosa hung in our house. The room was done up in the colour of the revolution: the walls pale green, the furniture upholstered in darker green fabric, still covered in plastic, so that when you squirmed it made the sound of a fart and you had to squirm again to prove that you hadn’t farted. A small coffee table stood in the middle, where it couldn’t be easily reached. On it there was an empty ashtray and a tissue box with one pink tissue shooting out of it, closely followed by a yellow one. The curtains were drawn – they were also green – and a weak light burned in a small chandelier above the coffee table. A huge television stood in one corner; it was perhaps as large as my piano. Mama sat upright, her knees touching, her hands wrestling with each other: every time the blood rushed back into one she would rub it out again. Um Masoud walked in and sat beside her.

  ‘He’s coming,’ she said.

  Mama looked at her and nodded.

  ‘Why trouble yourself with the cake?’

  ‘It’s nothing.’

  ‘We are neighbours …’ Um Masoud started, but then to my astonishment Mama began to cry. Um Masoud didn’t seem surprised; she must be used to this, I thought. ‘In fact I have been thinking, saying to Jafer,’ she went on, ‘“Why doesn’t she come when she knows we can help?” I know we haven’t always seen eye to eye but …’ She leaned towards the coffee table and plucked the pink tissue.

  ‘I wanted to …’ Mama said, taking the tissue from Um Masoud’s swollen fingers.

  ‘Never hesitate, we are sisters.’

  ‘I swear to God,’ Mama said, ‘I have always liked you.’ Her eyes wide open, eager to convince.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Um Masoud said lazily. Her confidence was repulsive. ‘Men are like that. They like adventure. The Guide knows this and he is very forgiving.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes,’ Um Masoud reassured her, then, lowering her voice to a whisper, added, ‘Let me tell you this. Once a man was fixed on killing him.’

  ‘Really?’ Mama said, assuming disbelief.

  ‘Yes. What can you say? Mad. His mind had left him. When he was caught the Guide sat with him and asked, “Why did you want to kill me, my son?” They say the man melted like ice in fire, weeping for forgiveness, and the Guide forgave him there and then.’ Mama looked astonished, hopeful, ridiculously naive. Um Masoud plucked the yellow tissue and handed it to Mama. ‘I don’t mean to brag, but Jafer has a special place in the Guide’s heart. And Jafer is, of course, heart and soul devoted to him. Yes. After all, isn’t all of this good fortune we are in,’ she said opening her hands towards the ceiling, ‘because of his generosity? It wouldn’t be right to bite the hand that feeds you.’

  ‘Of course,’ Mama said, adding in the way people do at weddings, ‘May God nurture the goodwill and keep the envious at bay.’

  ‘From your mouth to God’s ear,’ Um Masoud said.

  Ustath Jafer rarely stood chatting with any of the neighbours. He wasn’t unfriendly, but kept conversations to a minimum and always assumed the air of the sort of man I would later come to recognize, one who wanted to make the burden of his monumental responsibilities clear; that he was a man who was thrust by fate’s benevolent hand into the vortex of his time. He greeted people with a sort of inverted modesty that seemed designed to make them feel humble. He was always dressed in a suit and tie, his hair blow-dried and parted to carefully conceal the receding line. He wore gold-rimmed sunglasses which he rarely took off when shaking hands with others. He didn’t have to seem outwardly eager to prove his loyalty. He was a senior member of the Mokhabarat, trained in Moscow by the KGB, concerned with the larger picture, with the mechanics of security, calculating who was to remain in front of the sun and who to be fixed firmly behind it. Most of us as children were led to fear him. Most of us secretly admired his power in comparison with our parents. Not one of us didn’t want to be in his shoes.

  He walked into his reception room, where Mama and I sat waiting like patients at a doctor’s surgery. Mama stood up, I didn’t. He came straight to me, ruffled my hair and said, simply, ‘Suleiman.’

  I stood up, my eyes on Mama, hoping to deflect his gaze.

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘Answer your uncle,’ Mama said.

  I faced the floor and mumbled, ‘I am fine, Ustath Jafer.’

  This made him clap his hands and laugh. He finally turned to Mama. He shook her hand without looking at her face, repeating, ‘Sit down, sit down.’

  ‘Najwa has come especially to talk to you, Jafer,’ Um Masoud said in an unnecessarily loud voice, a smile lurking on her face. ‘She is our dear neighbour. The prophet taught us to love our neighbours.’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ Ustath Jafer said benevolently.

  ‘Thank you,’ Mama said and repeated her statement: ‘I swear, I have always liked you,’ adding that, ‘Masoud and Ali are like my own. I swear, there is no difference betw
een them and Suleiman.’ Then, to my horror, she began crying again.

  Um Masoud looked at her husband and pursed her lips. She seemed to genuinely feel for Mama.

  ‘Go and make us tea,’ he said quietly, and Um Masoud left the room. His tone changed when he addressed his wife, it was rough and unrestrained.

  ‘I swear to you, Bu Masoud,’ Mama said, ‘these days are pure hell.’

  He didn’t ask what she meant, he seemed to know, seemed to know everything.

  ‘He’s innocent. If he has done anything, it’s because he was urged by others. Bu Suleiman has always been devoted, he isn’t the type. It’s just that other people, may God forgive them, have been whispering in his ears.’

  ‘He shouldn’t have listened.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ she said. ‘But, what can you say, the devil is mischievous.’ Then with renewed hope Mama said, ‘I swear, since we found out about Rashid, we have had nothing to do with him or his family.’ She began to weep again. ‘Please, Ustath, you must believe me.’

  ‘There, there,’ he said so softly that I felt a strange urge to hug him. ‘God is great. Capable of all things.’

  And that was all he said, ‘God is great,’ and, ‘Capable of all things.’

  The tea came, served with the cake Mama had baked. I refused to have any, but Um Masoud insisted. I held the plate in my hand and looked at it. I plucked the strawberry from the icing and put the whole of it in my mouth. ‘He’s a sweet boy,’ Um Masoud said. Ustath Jafer glanced at me and shouted, ‘Masoud, Ali,’ then asked his wife, ‘Where are they?’ They were at Osama’s house, she told him, watching television. I imagined all the boys gathered there, watching one of the latest cowboy films Osama was always able to find. He had a genius for hunting down the latest videos. My heart turned with longing.

  Um Masoud walked us out. When we were at the door she gasped. ‘Just a minute,’ she said, then returned with the piece of cake she had given me with the strawberry missing. ‘There, Suleiman, be a good boy and give this to the gentleman sitting there in the car.’ Then to Mama she added, ‘They work so hard, sitting in the sun all day.’ Mama stared blankly at Um Masoud.

  Glad the cake wasn’t meant for me, I took it to Sharief, who smiled past me at Um Masoud then took the plate.

  The boys were coming out of Osama’s house now, their eyes sleepy. They must have been watching the film in the darkened sitting room, each taking a stretch on the thick carpet, folding cushions beneath their heads, blasting the volume. When the hero had kissed the heroine they must have giggled, thrown cushions at each other.

  I walked with Mama to our house, but then, when I saw the dark shade of our hallway, I decided to stay out. I walked around the garden, shook a branch of the orange tree, but no fruit fell. I went and stood on the pavement, kicking a pebble, hoping one of the boys would say something, include me in some game or conversation.

  Adnan had begun to stack stones on top of one another. They were going to play Six Stones. I sat on the pavement. Sharief was devouring the cake. Just when they were ready to start playing I grabbed a pebble and threw it from that great distance to knock down the stack of stones. I wanted to impress them with my aim. But the stone hit Adnan instead. They all turned towards me. Osama, the mighty Osama, came charging at me.

  ‘Are you mad?’ he yelled. I remembered that if Adnan’s skin was punctured he could bleed to death. Osama was now right in my face. ‘Have you lost your mind?’ He thrust the heels of his palms into my chest and I fell. I heard Sharief leave his car. ‘Do you want to kill him?’ Osama yelled, kicking me as I lay on the ground. ‘Enough,’ I heard Sharief say and I received another kick. Where was Kareem? ‘I said enough,’ Sharief said and grabbed Osama by the back of the neck. ‘Enough means enough.’ Osama threw his head back to relieve the pain. Sharief pushed him towards the boys. Osama lost his balance and fell. He looked back at me with hate in his eyes. When he reached Adnan he put a hand on his shoulder, then kneeled down to inspect his ankle, the place where my stone had landed.

  ‘You can’t just hit each other over nothing,’ Sharief said and returned to his car, a speck of cream clinging to one corner of his lips.

  I ran into the shade of our house. Mama was in her bedroom, the door shut. She must have been asleep or ill. A few minutes later I heard an ambulance come screaming into our street. I peeped out of the window of the reception room. Adnan was resting with one arm on Osama, the rest of the boys crowded round him. He limped into the white arms of a doctor, his ankle a ball of bandages. Sharief stood holding the ambulance door open. He shut it with great care.

  16

  The thrust of Osama’s palm-heels still echoed in my chest. I was sure I would bruise, that two blue shadows would reveal themselves above each nipple. I had also grazed my elbow on the hard pavement. Fear, but more self-pity, reverberated through me like an electric current as I lay on my bed. I curled into a ball on my side and recalled how the rest of the boys, clustered with concern around Adnan, had glared at me. Kareem was the only one not surprised; he had already decided, or so it seemed, on the kind of person I was. Masoud seemed shocked, but also relishing the excitement as he fussed around Adnan’s injured ankle. His young brother, Ali, did what he had always done when overwhelmed by a situation, he cried, looking repeatedly at his older brother for guidance. Adnan was solemnly attending to his wound like expected bad news that had finally arrived, neither encouraging nor objecting to Osama’s attack on me. Perhaps he didn’t even notice it. But Kareem, if anything, seemed relieved that day, as if something doubted had now been confirmed. Perhaps doubt is worse than grief, certainty more precious than love.

  By rushing to my rescue Sharief had split the sea, created an undertow that would pull me even further away from Kareem. We drift through allegiances, those we are born into and those we are claimed by, always estranging ourselves. I recalled how, pulling me off the pavement by the hand, Sharief had sighed, ‘Slooma’ – the sugary variation of my name used only by my family, and which I now seldom hear – whispering it almost, claiming me. And I recalled also how minutes later he had closed the ambulance door behind the horizontal figure of Adnan, his gun bulging through the split of his jacket, accepting Osama’s anger, agreeing that I wasn’t innocent, that Adnan was the ultimate victim and I the ruthless, or at best careless, child, puncturing the skin that can’t stitch itself.

  The spot on my elbow, which these days is hard and coiled like the skin around an elephant’s eye, was the colour of beetroot, burning but already sealed.

  As I lay on my bed I tried hard to remember names. I could only think of Ustath Rashid, Nasser and Moosa. I was sure this wasn’t enough; still, hope tickled my chest. I couldn’t wait to run to Sharief. I lifted the mattress, took the book and ran out, silently mouthing, Rashid, Nasser, Moosa, both hands clasped tight round the book, squeezing it as if it were a fish trying to get away. But Sharief wasn’t there. The boys too were gone. A circle of tyre marks was drawn in the dirt. Concerned for Adnan, he must have raced after the ambulance, maybe even gave it an escort, I thought. I stood there feeling hollow. Rashid Nasser Moosa. The names still in my head, bubbling on my tongue, strangely unfamiliar, as if I were hearing them for the first time.

  Concern. I think that was what I craved. A warm and steady and unchangeable concern. In a time of blood and tears, in a Libya full of bruise-checkered and urine-stained men, urgent with want and longing for relief, I was the ridiculous child craving concern. And although I didn’t think of it then in these terms, my self-pity had soured into self-loathing.

  I put the book beneath the mattress in my room and curled again on my side. I listened to the crickets that were now carving the air outside my window. The deep azure sky was weakening, grey entering it. I heard Mama walk into the room, but I pretended to be asleep. My bed was narrow, made for one person, but she found a place beside me and buried her face in my neck. She had always seemed captive, captive in her own home, continually failing to prepare herself
for anything else. Her breathing became unsteady. I felt her tears on my skin, her breath smelled warm and salty, sharp with medicine.

  ‘What am I to do?’ she said. ‘What am I to do what am I to do what am I to do what am I …’

  ‘Mama,’ I interrupted. Her voice was like sand rising, it scared me.

  ‘What if they can’t or won’t help us?’ she suddenly said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘This Jafer and Um Masoud,’ she snapped angrily. I felt blameworthy. ‘I don’t want to live if I must live like this.’

  ‘When I am big I’ll take you to Scotland. I promise, on my life.’

  Then my mind went back to the time when she was imprisoned; every fantasy about the future revived that original dream: the rescuing of the girl she once was.

  ‘Mama, tell me what happened after Uncle Khaled saw you in the Coffee House.’ This was the first time I had asked Mama to talk about the past. Normally, when she was ill, I remained as silent as the wall, hypnotized and horrified.

  She said nothing.

  Is she thinking how to start, I wondered, or is she pretending she doesn’t know what I am talking about?

  She took a deep breath and began whispering into my neck. I felt a great relief wash over me. I could have listened to her for ever. I wanted to turn around and hug her, but I was afraid if I moved everything would change. ‘Your Auntie Nora was the one who told me,’ she started. ‘She eavesdropped on the High Council’s first hearing,’ she said and giggled that strange giggle that was somewhere between laughter and crying. I smiled, thankful to have her back on familiar ground. ‘It was our curse to have seven brothers. They were all gathered with your grandfather. Khaled was at the centre, of course. The poet is finally listened to, finally given full attention by the “hypocrites”. That’s what he used to call them because they used to mock him, couldn’t understand his sensitivity, his complex ideas, the gifted poet.’ She was definitely ill. But it didn’t matter somehow. It was good to have her there, holding me and telling stories again. Even her medicine breath was tolerable, more than tolerable, it reminded me of the past, it was part of us now, part of the stories. Because if the past had a smell it was this, sharp, hard and piercing.