In the Country of Men

by Hisham Matar

  ‘I don’t know,’ Mama said. ‘I didn’t tell him.’

  He rinsed the glass, filled it and walked back to Baba, but just outside the kitchen, as if he had heard a balloon explode in a nearby room, he paused for a second, then continued. I heard him knock twice and say, in the same loud and optimistic tone, ‘Bu Suleiman?’

  In all of this time Moosa didn’t look into my eyes long enough for me to tell him or ask him anything. His movements were mechanical. I yearned to describe to him, second by second, what we had watched together on television. I remembered how there was comfort in the retelling of it when he and Mama and I sat around the breakfast table immediately afterwards. There were many details we had neglected, details I had noticed and was now wondering if he, too, had seen, like that dark patch of urine that Mama had missed. There was the way Ustath Rashid had been nudged tenderly up the ladder, with a mere touch on the elbow, and the sudden frustration at Ustath Rashid’s reluctance that had overtaken the man at the bottom of the ladder. I couldn’t wait, I couldn’t wait for us to tell it back and forth, over and over, the way we described scenes in films we liked. And the man who was walking across the National Basketball Stadium, in the middle of the chaos, walking calmly from one corner of the screen to the other, holding a battered black typewriter under one arm as if it were a puppy; did either of them notice this? I longed to ask Moosa where he thought this man was going, what he was going to do with a broken typewriter, and why then and there? It hadn’t occurred to me then that it might be Nasser’s typewriter, evidence rescued from the chase.

  Mama filled a teapot with water and placed it on a burner. She was moving with certainty now that Baba was home. When she looked over at me and saw that I was looking at her she smiled, came and kissed me on the cheek. Even though she looked tired, her face was rosy and her eyes sparkled. ‘It was a narrow escape; now I must focus on you.’ I had no idea what she meant, but found myself smiling back at her.

  We heard someone enter the bathroom and lock the door. After a few minutes Moosa appeared, walking towards the kitchen, clutching the white sheet in one hand. He flung it to one side. ‘Let him see himself for what he really is,’ he said; his lower lip was trembling and tears pooled in his eyes. He turned around himself, then left the room. Mama looked at me as if I would know why Moosa was behaving in this way. She followed him, then I heard their voices in the reception room. I stood outside the entrance.

  ‘I can’t bear looking at him,’ Moosa said. ‘The betrayal in his eyes – I am sorry, I am sorry – his voice scorches me, this is worse than death – forgive me – this is the blackest day of my life.’

  After a long silence Mama said, ‘Only yesterday you were ready to die for him, now you wish he had died for you.’

  ‘I’ve been up for two days …’

  I felt a presence behind me in the hallway. I turned around but found no one there. The walls long and lined with the same infinite bird plucking at the same infinite twig, the swing-doors silently shut at the end, the clock ticking monotonously like two people arguing.

  ‘They killed the students closest to us. Rashid is dead, whereas Bu Suleiman is … People are talking, saying terrible things about him.’

  ‘Let them talk. They would have been first to give him up if it was the other way around.’

  ‘Rashid didn’t, he didn’t. And his wife, the poor woman, now suffers the consequences.’

  ‘May God compensate her.’

  ‘I don’t know how to answer them, I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘Go home,’ Mama said suddenly. ‘It’s time you returned to your country.’

  ‘This is my country. I’ve lived here half of my life.’

  ‘The only reason you are still alive is because it’s not your country.’

  ‘There was so much hope, so much hope. Three years ago eight thousand students in Benghazi and four in Tripoli. Twelve thousand students took a stand in an illiterate country of less than three million. We didn’t succeed then. It took three years for hope to be reborn, only to see the few who dared sacrificed for the many. One of them, my friend, Muhammed …’ he said and wept.

  Mama’s voice too now was tearful. ‘Stop, Moosa, please. Praise the Prophet.’

  ‘He was asking for news, if I knew where Bu Suleiman and Rashid were. I didn’t have the heart to tell him. He was calling from inside, barricaded with the others in the university. I didn’t have the heart to tell him what was happening outside.’ Then, in an agitated voice, as if he was blaming Mama, he said, ‘They gave their lives for their country.’

  After a long silence Mama said, ‘They weren’t standing for me. May God have mercy on their souls and compensate their families, but they weren’t standing for me.’ Then in a pleading tone she added, ‘If you want to help us, pack your bags and go home to your family in Cairo.’

  He sighed. ‘We have been issued with a deportation notice.’

  ‘When must you leave?’

  ‘Tomorrow. Father is furious. He left today.’

  Again I felt a presence behind me, this time accompanied by a muffled, exhausted breath. Before I could turn a hand took me by the shoulder and buried me in loose fabric. I immediately wrapped my arms round Baba’s waist and I was swallowed up in that stench again. I squeezed and he flinched. He mumbled something I couldn’t make out. Then I realized it was my name. When I tried to pull myself away, to see his face, he squeezed me tighter. Mama and Moosa came to see what the noise was. Baba loosened his grip a little and I was able to look up at him. His eyes and lip had grown bigger, redder and bluer. Other details I hadn’t noticed before were now visible and in a way they were more disturbing. His left eye was completely shut, but his right eye, close to the nose bridge, was open and as red as blood. A net of small purple veins mapped areas of his cheeks and chin. On one of his temples there was a small burn, a yellow and red circle. I couldn’t see the other side of his face but imagined another one there to match it. His jallabia was unbuttoned at the chest, and the same wire-like hairs that I had once pulled sprouted out unharmed.

  ‘What are you doing out of bed?’ Mama asked.

  ‘This is still my house, isn’t it?’ His lower lip, swollen and purple, quivered and distorted his words.

  ‘Come and sit down,’ she said, pointing towards the reception room.

  But he walked away. I walked beside him, my arm wrapped round his waist. The clock’s ticking was much livelier than our pace. I let go of him and ran to the clock. I opened its glass door and held the pendulum still. He was in the same place I had left him, favouring one side. I ran to him and when I embraced him he flinched again, tightening his arm round me. When we passed through the hallway swing-doors, he stopped for a moment, as if relieved we were alone now. Then he said, quietly like a secret, ‘Let’s go to the garden.’

  The sun was an hour or two from setting and its light was soft and orange.

  ‘Take me up to your roof.’

  It’s your roof too, I thought. It’s our roof. And even though I was holding him and we walked together side by side I felt so far away from him. I squeezed him a little tighter and looked up at his battered face in the warm and dying sunlight.

  I waited until he had both feet on the first step before taking the next. And I don’t know why at one of our pauses I said, ‘One by one we’ll get there,’ and immediately hoped he wouldn’t respond because anything he would have said would have made me feel awkward.

  Life could have spent itself while we climbed those stairs, and I wouldn’t have minded.

  The roof reminded me of when we burned his books. ‘We’ll buy you new books, Baba.’ Democracy Now was still beneath my mattress. When we reached the top I slid from beneath his arm, placed his hands on the fence and ran to fetch it. When I returned my heart was beating so fast I could barely speak. ‘Here,’ I said and, wrapping his hands round the book, whispered, ‘I saved this one. Don’t tell Mama or Moosa.’ He held it with one hand to his chest, leaned with the other
on my shoulders and we watched the sea. Baba craned his neck. Then I heard his breathing change. ‘I can hardly see it,’ he mumbled.

  ‘The sea is quiet today,’ I said, hoping to distract him. ‘A good day for swimming, Baba. A good day for lying on your back and floating.’

  Light shimmered fast on the water like seagulls crowding round food that the jealous sea was keeping from them. He tried to look towards Ustath Rashid’s house, but was aiming too high. ‘Maybe we’ll go swimming,’ I said, and again the hope that he wouldn’t respond returned. Then he turned, and I turned with him, like ‘two halves of the same soul, two open pages of the same book’. ‘Let’s walk under the trees,’ he said.

  We went down and walked on the patterns the low sun threw beneath us. I saw the ladder leaning against the wall where I had left it after eating the mulberries. I let go of Baba and climbed the ladder. When I was halfway up I looked down and saw him resting against the wall, holding his rib. I began hunting for mulberries. I altered my eyes to look only for small dark creatures. I walked on my hands and knees along the high wall, negotiating branches, until I found a crown of berries, ripe, red-black with juice and each as big as a beetle. He was sitting on the ground, leaning his back against the wall, holding a small stone – a stone very much like the ones I had thrown at Bahloul, and which on landing on his back had delivered a very satisfying blow – stabbing it into the dirt beside him. When I reached the ground I showed him the berries in my cupped hands and said, ‘Mulberries, Baba, mulberries. The angels stole them from Heaven to make life easier for us. They are the sweetest thing.’ I took one and stuffed it through his swollen lips. When he didn’t move I said, ‘Chew.’ He moved his lower jaw up and down a few times then spat it out into his hand. I couldn’t understand. I ate one and it was as delicious as ever. ‘You don’t like them?’ I said. His deformed lips made him look disgusted. He threw his chewed up berry into the dirt, wiped his hand on his jallabia and, pointing his finger at the small round burn on his temple, said, ‘They put out their cigarettes here,’ sucking in air. I looked down at the mulberries in my hands.

  21

  Baba remained mostly in his room for the following two weeks. Then one morning I woke up to hear him and Mama laughing. They were normal, as if nothing had happened, their voices light, floating with love in our house. Then I heard her sing absent-mindedly to herself, the way she used to do when taking a bath or hanging clothes out to dry or painting her eyes in front of the mirror or drawing in the garden. That singing that always evoked a girl unaware of herself, walking home from school, brushing her fingers against the wall, a moment before the Italian Coffee House, before Baba and me and this life. Hearing it unsettled me. It had been a long time since I had heard her sing like this.

  After a little while my door swung open and Baba walked in. I pretended to be asleep. My heart raced, thumping below my ears. I felt him sit beside me on the bed. ‘Slooma,’ he said gently, his voice improved, almost normal now. When I didn’t react he stood up and left the room. I then heard Mama’s voice rise and fall in the kitchen.

  After holding myself prisoner in my room for a few minutes I got up and went to the bathroom. When I came out I didn’t know which way to go: to the kitchen, where I could hear their voices and the sound of cutlery scraping plates, or back to my room to sleep some more – maybe I could sleep the whole day through, I thought.

  ‘Slooma,’ Mama called cheerfully.

  They were both sitting at the breakfast table. Baba had a smile on his face. I immediately wanted to ask him why he was smiling, but didn’t. He opened his arms and said, ‘Come, Slooma.’ His hair was combed and he smelled of cologne. He must have bathed; the wounds on his back must have healed enough for him to bathe.

  ‘Thank God, Slooma,’ Mama said. ‘Baba is feeling much better today.’

  I thanked God out loud to show how pleased I was. He released me from his embrace and held my face in his hands. His hands were trembling, his eyes almost normal. I looked into them, but it was hard to find him there.

  After breakfast Mama took to reading the newspaper to him. She read only the international news and whenever the name of our country or leader was mentioned she mumbled it quickly. When he caught me watching him, he smiled.

  ‘I think I will draw today,’ Mama said, folding the newspaper.

  Baba looked at me. I began to feel nervous, nervous in the way you feel when alone in a lift with a stranger.

  ‘What are you going to do today, Suleiman?’ he asked.

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  Mama returned, clutching pencils in one hand. There was a bowl of fruit in the centre of the table. She held each one, turning it in her hand, then decided on an orange. She went out into the garden, saying, ‘I’ll be back for a chair and a little table. Yes, I’ll need a little table. Oh, I am so excited.’

  Baba and I were alone again. Just as he took a breath to speak, the doorbell rang.

  I ran to answer it. It was Ustath Jafer.

  ‘Hello,’ I heard Baba say from behind me.

  They shook hands. This was the first time Ustath Jafer had ever visited us.

  ‘I am glad to see you up and about.’

  Baba led him into the reception room, not smiling but blushing slightly. When he turned on the light he did a double take at the large photograph of the Guide. ‘I am grateful for your help,’ he said, almost absent-mindedly. He turned to me. ‘Tell your mother to prepare some tea.’

  I found Mama setting up her table and chair in the garden.

  ‘Ustath Jafer is here.’

  Her face lit up.

  ‘Baba wants you to make tea.’

  ‘But of course,’ she said, walking briskly to the kitchen.

  I went to my room. I felt the need to hear the world. I took my radio and lay with it in bed.

  Revolutionary forces [it was the Guide’s voice] are capable of and have the right to use terror to eliminate anyone who stands against the revolution. Now we can truly end the old Libyan society and build the new one, where the revolutionary elements help each other in fighting any anti-revolutionary movements in the universities, in the factories and in the streets.

  Then came the cheers of the crowd, unstoppable, so loud they turned into a wave of noise, drowning everything, and because it became everything and was senseless I longed for the voice of the Guide to return. I went round the dial a couple of times, but every time I returned I found the massive and empty noise of the crowd.

  I decided to go for a swim. I put on my swimming shorts, grabbed my flippers and ran out of the house. Mama was back in the garden, drawing her orange, singing to herself. She saw me in my swimming shorts, my flippers beneath my arm.

  ‘Look first,’ she said, holding a pencil drawing of the orange, double the size of the real one.

  ‘Bye,’ I said and left.

  ‘When you return I’ll have another one. Perhaps with the skin peeled and resting beside it. I remember seeing a painting like that by some European artist. They are very interested in fruit, those Europeans. I wonder why,’ she mused, looking at her drawing.

  The ground was hot. I thought of returning to collect my sandals. It was a good walk still to the sea. But to stop the momentum of my steps seemed to require more effort than to keep on moving. I thought of putting on my flippers, but that would have made me walk as slowly and awkwardly as a pigeon. I tried to keep as close as I could to the walls of the houses, but the sun was vertical, the shade narrow and mean. It was quicker to walk in the sun. I walked like an insect, my elbows raised up to my ears, my back arched, my feet curling against the heat. I hopped quickly as if I were dying to pee. Several times I stopped to sit down and give my feet a break, rubbing them and blowing at them. I thought of the bridge sizzling above the fires of Hell, the one we all have to cross to reach Paradise. I held the sea as my target, my paradise. When I reached Gergarish Street, the wide street that follows the shoreline to downtown, I could see heat rippling up from the tarmac. I
ran across it, I ran across the sand too and didn’t stop until I reached the water-soaked flat sands of the shore. My feet finally in blissful relief. Low wavelets curled their white foamy edges across the turquoise face of the water, the wind was almost still. I looked at the dry sand behind me and wondered how I would walk back.

  At the end of the pier, where the waters were as clear as glass, someone was sitting, dangling their feet in the water. For a moment, before I remembered that he and his mother had moved to Benghazi, I hoped it was Kareem. When I got closer and realized that it was Bahloul, I almost laughed. He seemed to be daydreaming. I never imagined Bahloul sitting like this in solitary contemplation. The pier creaked beneath my feet. When I reached him I couldn’t help but chuckle, and he turned around, his face disfigured with fear. He seemed to be trembling. This reaction irritated me. I pounded my feet on the wood of the pier and growled ‘Ghrrr’ at him and was reminded of that secret rush of power I had felt chasing him around our garden, throwing stones at his back, hearing my shots land with a satisfying thud, the thumps that made him scream hideously like a horse. He stood up, seeming to consider his escape. How could he be trapped with all of that sea behind him? I made as if to charge at him. He turned solemnly towards the sea and after a short pause jumped into the water. There was something exaggerated about his fall, as if he was jumping from a great height. And only then did I understand why Bahloul hadn’t got his boat wet; why, although he had saved up and bought the boat, he hadn’t started fishing yet. Bahloul couldn’t swim.