The Others

by Siba al-Harez

  The prevailing characteristic of this year is that I was busy. Very little time and many postponed projects. I got my tasks done at the last possible moment: my final paper for graduating, studying for my final exams, picking up my diploma, applying for the job, and then leaving it. My pace this year was accelerated and I moved to a loud beat, so that when I finally stopped I no longer knew how people spend their days when they do stop!

  I added only two kilograms to my balance sheet this year—and the credit for them goes to bags of m&ms and long hours on the Internet—and I lost them in the second half of the year with my disturbed sleep patterns and sharp mood, in addition to not having partners to share the dining table with me at two o’clock in the morning, eating two fried eggs with cheese and a round of bread. Most of my losses yielded to the same reasons: a bad mood and a messed up sleep schedule, plus missed conversations left on the screen of my cell phone and angry friends.

  But overall, my relationship with sleep this year was pretty good. Waking, also, was fine, accompanied by a less sharp mood and the heightened possibility of hearing three particular words and seeing half a smile before brushing my teeth. I finally did away with the ticking of the alarm clock, since I did not have any important appointments that required my waking up at specific times. The new thing was that my dreams seemed attached to my eyelids with steel forceps whenever I slept, and they remained fixed there until after I had awoken. For a person who has never remembered dreams, it is not comfortable to acquire this new habit of remembering them.

  I still have my old doggedness about every no I have said and my hesitation before every yes. I all but leave those yeses silent. Sometimes. This year I believed that I was living according to a plan I did not understand, and so I would end up with more spontaneity, and absurdity, more isolation, and fear, more likelihood of dedicating myself to desires that my personal shortcomings would not allow me to transform into reality. I was more compliant this year, sometimes going beyond what I was expected to do, and I turned into a wall for others’ graffiti. There were many unintelligible writings, and others that were good, and some sculptures. And likewise there was some foul graffiti and offensive words.

  I do not want to make excuses for what I was, nor for what I was not. I grew up a lot this year. I grew up more than three hundred sixty-five days’ worth. I accommodated my fragilities and achieved some balance with my failures. I came to terms completely with my receptivity to defeat and my propensity for setbacks. I came out of it in a way different than I went into it. I am no longer concerned with counting up my nose dives or lying in wait for my losses or beheading the scarecrows in the fields of my fear. I no longer have any desire for immediate gains or enjoying the limelight or making new friends. There is no almanac whose days I would study, no miracles to fortify my certainty, no anticipated victories to include among my winnings. I grew up, like other people grow up. And—even if this comes in the category of belated confessions—this was the year of my weakness, the year of a devastated harvest, the year of ruin and a wrecked soul, and the tetanus that eats at the edges of the heart.

  It was the year of the one and only one error, and the open curtains, and the few quarrels with Mama. The year of navy blue, of irrefutable books, of the printer’s screech. The year of Herbal Essences shampoo, ads for CloseUp toothpaste, Galaxy chocolate. The year of the Internet, deservedly—MSN chat windows and all of the imaginary users with their imaginary names. The year of French fried potatoes, cans of green beans, sandwich crumbs wedged down between the keys on the keyboard. The year of evil desires and lack of resolve, of a total inability to make my mind up about anything, and wrong hypotheses. Right now, the hypothesis that I am putting to the test is the following: If I was able to reserve myself a preferential seat in a doubtful year like 1400, it will not be impossible for me to reserve an even better seat, with a comfortable cushion and footrest, in every year to follow.

  This year I loved Grenouille a lot, so much that I did not find his crimes scandalous at all. The only crime that left me raging was his death, arranged with the lowest imaginable level of savagery. I mean the kind of savagery that the death of a lord deserves, and not a simple savagery of dogfights and cleavers, even though I understood why Patrick Süskind wanted to grant Grenouille less glory and a death that would not make him into a legend. I loved Kundera. I would not forgive him at all if he had chosen to not limit the forlornness of this world with his lightness that is unbearable. I loved especially his surpassing ability to introduce the world to me, and to push me to put my questions—every one of them—on the table. I loved Nietzsche because of the one and only line of his that I’ve ever come across, that to bear double pain is easier than bearing a lone pain.

  I loved the crying of a little boy, a long and silent crying because he was so overwhelmed by the wide gap between his imagining of the world and the truth of it in Almost Famous, and I loved when they all sang “Tiny Dancer.” I loved Michael Nyman’s brilliance and his earthy soul in the music to Gattaca. I loved Tom Cruise in Vanilla Sky, even though everyone I talked to about it badmouthed the film and insulted him. I loved him in Magnolia, and I loved the intersecting lines of the film, and his genius in convincing me that he was not coming out of a screen but rather out of houses and streets and bars, coming from the backdrops of real places and their vestibules, and from the eyes of those who lived in the film and their tired hearts. I loved the man who said, I have a lot of love, and I don’t have anyone to give this love to. I loved him and I hated the rain of frogs at the end of the film. I loved Westlife for their song “Soledad,” about the singer’s absence and the streets that were empty without her, and the feeling that those whom we miss are a loss hard to replace. I loved them too when they sang “My Love,” which goes, “where the skies are blue … where the fields are green, to see you again.”

  I had a friend,3 what a friend, an unconditional friend, a friend for the difficult times and the dreariness at the end of the night, and urgent calls. A friend for playing XO, and erasing from my mind the poems that upset me because they were so sad, and going broke before half the month was over. A friend for deterring ambiguous questions, subjugating time, and flinging insults back and forth. A friend for sharing insomnia and complaining and exchanging the last page of the newspaper with the sports section. A friend who does not stop being lovely no matter how hurtful I am, how vulgar, how bad-natured. A friend who points to vague places in the distance and says, One day we will be there, my friend. A friend who generally nods his head these days, and thinks about how it is that I am impelled by gratitude and the way writers exaggerate to make a hero of him. That is what he is, wAllahi, that is what he is, by God.

  What do I hope for this year?

  To answer this question I have to digress and talk about the song I was addicted to this year. Maybe most people don’t listen to country music; there is no harm in passing on a bit of information about “I Hope You Dance.” It is sung by a good-looking woman named Lee Ann Womack. If the links were not down, I would have sent it to you. The song talks about keeping a sense of wonder, and not taking things for granted, and it expresses the hope that there are always doors opening for every door that shuts. We should not let love go out in our souls, nor keep faith from having a fighting chance to prove again how important it is for us to hold fast to it. Here is the song’s refrain (I remember it well):

  And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance

  I hope you dance

  I hope you dance.

  What do I hope for this year?

  I can toss out some easy hopes: that I will learn French, travel to Italy, find some Andumi brand pasta so that I do not die of hunger. But my true hopes are four: I hope that my fear does not remain a rock of Sisyphus that I bear, with one feebleness of mine atop another, so that it destroys me. I hope that my passion for life does not melt away, nor my love of experience with all of the enormous costs it brings. I hope that I am not included on the list of poor miser
able wretches, defeated people who are more numerous than the earth’s expanse is broad. I hope I do not commit the sin of death. With the exception of that, I can deal with death, cleverly or stupidly, according to whatever circumstances require, although I cannot manipulate the great fates which I do not comprehend, whose free flow I have no power to redirect, and whose passage I cannot deter.

  My overwhelming desire right now is to dance. I hope I go on dancing.

  1 You are supposed to read this in the Internet club a few hours from now. Leave the icons however they happen to be, and read it in light of them. I know that you know that I do not like the Hotmail icons.

  2 The truth is that I became aware of that when you asked me: What happened in this year of yours? And what changed in you?

  3 There is no need for me to tell you who it is, right?

  22

  I often cling tightly to the idea that tomorrow will be better than today, no matter what this day held. And even though I have met with many failures and disappointments, when the features of my tomorrow are not different, I still hold fast to the one certainty that I possess. Despite my being the only one who can govern the details of my day, I do not know how days are crafted. How are they kneaded? How are they baked? How do you prepare that spoonful of yeast?

  All of my days pass by this way station: my daily venture from home just before the late-afternoon prayer. Whenever the emptiness and boredom of my life overwhelm me, the streets are my only escape. Every day the streets carry different smells, different children playing different games, women’s voices I have not heard before, and birds lighting up the horizons with singing the more the day darkens. Although I am not in need of regaining my old longings or my tenderness, I have found myself walking in the very streets that Dai took me to in the winter before last, and I head for the same promenade, passing opposite the window of her room without giving it a look.

  Today I left home earlier than usual, and without any advance planning I was standing there in front of the door to her home, my finger pressing the bell. One of the little devils, as she called her brothers, came to lead me to her room. There, I waited five minutes, heavy and disconcerting minutes, hearing her voice in the bathroom and tracing the sound of her steps: she cleans her teeth, she washes her face, she moistens her fingers and pokes them into the locks of her hair, she dries her hands, she lifts her arm and smells herself, she examines her pajamas, she turns the key in the lock and comes out. After taking two steps more, she is standing doubtfully inside the door to her room, staring at her visitor who has come without letting her know in advance.

  I was thinking of all sorts of things to say, bits of news, little thoughts. I probably shouldn’t have come and bothered you! Are you annoyed that I came? I guess I should have called first. I’m here because … I need you, I mean I miss you! Don’t refuse to see me. I hope my timing isn’t bad, maybe you have other obligations. As soon as she was standing in front of me, I couldn’t say a word; my language was entirely gone, and my ability to take any sort of stance was gone, too. I had not prepared for this, I hadn’t practiced for it, it just came as pure need, and I cannot always control my needs.

  I had very low expectations. Maybe she would gracefully get out of receiving me. Maybe she would treat me cautiously and with reserve. Maybe she would talk to me, but coldly. Maybe she would start blaming me out loud. Maybe she would hurl all her anger onto me. But my expectations were not borne out. She smiled as if one of her miracles had come to pass. She took me by the hand and we sat down on her bed. She was staring at me as if I were about to slip from her grasp, as if I would disappear, the parts of me scattering into thin air—indeed, as if I were unreal and she was imagining this. I was following her actions as if she were not really there. A part of me was withdrawing from this scene, shrinking into a ball somewhere inside of me, and I was trying hard to hold on to that part of me.

  She didn’t say anything and I didn’t either. She just went on staring at me and smiling. When I was tired of feeling how very enormous was the distance between us, I whispered into her ear, Will you do something?

  It’s your turn to say the secret password, she said. Secret password? What secret password? If she was testing my memory, though, apparently I passed the first test. I whispered, Hold me. She said, I can’t hear you. So she was testing the depth of my need for her. Don’t be stubborn with me, Dai. Hold me.

  I was on the point of saying, Hold me really tightly or Hold me as hard as you can! But I left it to her to hold me so firmly that she could feel my ribs, my shoulder bones, and then more to caress my neck, my jaw, and my forehead. Her eyes held a huge question. Are you really here with me? The moment she was ready to hug me she would get her answer, I thought, and she did. She hugged me as she’d always hugged me, in the same hard way, as if she were saying, I want you to melt in my arms.

  You haven’t changed, I said.

  But you have.

  I have changed!

  You’re older.

  What happened while I was away?

  Pretty much nothing.

  Don’t you want to hug me?

  Yes, I do.

  She put her hand under my shirt.

  Why do you torture me?

  Here I am, close to you.

  I didn’t come here to have sex with you.

  She waved her hands around in front of me as if to say, See, I don’t have any weapons in my hands!

  I know. I just want to see you and touch you.

  It feels like forever, this long time that has passed since I was naked with her. Under all this bright light, I have lost that familiar habit—that is, if I ever really did get used to being naked before. She got up and took off her clothes, with her usual calmness that I knew so well. Dai who has no problem with the nakedness of her body. It is impossible for her to hesitate more than once when I say to her, You first!

  As she was about to come back to me, I moved away from her, rubbing my thumb against the raised paint on her wall. Turn out the light and bring me a cig, I said.

  She turned it out and came back quickly. She wanted to light me the cigarette. The lighter’s flame as it flew up in front of her face cast a sharpness over her features that I had seen only in her moments of anger. I took her by the hand and moved her until I got the best shadow I could, where her eyelashes appeared longer and her eyes turned into tiny pearls.

  Are you trying to scare me?

  But you don’t get scared.

  Didn’t I tell you that you’ve changed?

  I smiled. The feeling came over me, unbidden, that I was making light of her. She said, Give me a kiss before the cigarettes ruin the taste of your mouth.

  She kissed me, but our kiss died out quickly. All of my attention was focused on my need for a cigarette, on the bubbly feeling in my head and the pulsing in my veins. She moved away, disappointment showing on her face. Her irritation was clear in the light sarcasm of her voice, as she muttered, It’s like boiling an egg!

  I left her and went toward the bathroom where I spat her kiss into the basin. I asked myself angrily what had brought me here. What had been my motive? I returned to her room, my mind pounding and echoing, as if with the ferment of just beginning to form some decision. I turned on the light and opened the curtains of her west-facing window. Nothing had changed at all. It was as if I had been here yesterday and the day before. I sat on the floor almost against the bed and I stretched out my hand to her. Come. With the obedience of someone who does not understand her role in a presumed scenario, she came, searching in my face for some reasonable answer. I patted my stretched-out legs. Sit down. She sat. I took a long drag on my cigarette and followed it with a gulp of Pepsi. All of my motions were deliberate; I was seeking an escape from her kisses. I stuffed the cigarette into the Pepsi bottle and pushed the bottle away, under Dai’s bed.

  I hate seeing my cigarette ends. They remind me that I have sucked out their souls completely, burned their embers, and when I have finished, I abandon th
em, cigarette butts massed together and yellowed like someone hugging himself as he wilts, for there is no one else there to share him, to huddle in the empty space between his arms.

  I stared at her body out of sheer curiosity. She really hadn’t changed. Then I looked at her and shrugged. She was opening the buttons on my blouse, moving from bottom to top.

  I dropped my head onto her shoulder. I could not bear the way her burning gaze fell over my body. I couldn’t bear the air conditioning’s stuttering. I couldn’t bear it as she turned into a little finger, feeling me millimeter by millimeter.

  Lie down.

  I lay down.

  How much I had always hated the moment when she reached my lower body, making it necessary to go further, to bare more expanses; and where my cooperation appeared to be something agreed on in advance, waiting only for her to ask, or even for just a little hint. How much I had despised discovering, once we had reached this point, that I had become naked, as if being completely naked was not inevitable, given what was taking place.

  I do not know how people deal with their bodies. I don’t know how they see those bodies in the mirror. I don’t know how they preserve their own private boundaries when they ride in buses. I don’t know how they avoid the embarrassment of two bodies touching. I don’t know what feelings they have about their own nakedness, how they overcome that oppressive sense of being naked. I know only that the nakedness of my body cannot be appealing and beautiful as long as it is shameless, as long as I am well aware that my body was not created for this exposed and indecent role. I have gone through the same moment time after time after time, and I still feel that my body is mine, it is for me, and I cannot put it out there in the open for others to share, even if it is only one other. I still feel that there is nothing quite as exhilarating as keeping my body a sacred secret. Maybe the fact that I bathed in my underclothes until five years ago lost me the ability to let anyone share in this secret and for me to enjoy sharing it.