When the Grey Beetles Took Over Baghdad

by Mona Yahia

  —Don’t … she quavers.

  Is she imploring or is she threatening?

  I throw myself into the river, plunge headlong underwater. My legs paddle. My body recognises the prenatal element. I can hear the roar above the water. Although mother cannot swim, her voice still pursues me. I sink further to defy her fright, avenge it, punish it, drown it.

  I fall on a muddy bed, the source of the river’s colour. Now that I have been to the bottom of the Tigris, what I will have to see next is the edge of the Earth. My legs kick river and earth away and push me upwards. I float up to the surface. Air! My head emerges at the side of the boat. I did not swim so far away after all! Everybody is looking at me as if I have popped up from the underworld. Mother’s face is as wet as mine.

  —Mama, I saw little cancers down there.

  —We’ll never take you on a boat again!

  In the summer, we sleep on the roof at night. I keep turning in my crib. Sucking my thumb does not relax me. The stars hang in the sky, like street-lights without lamp-posts. There are as many trees in the woods as stars in the sky, they say. My eyes close. Dark, as if in the woods, where trees crowd beside each other, like people in the suq. The wolf has devoured Laila’s granny, and is now after Laila. The farmer slashes his belly open, and out springs granny, looking quite wolfish herself. I open my eyes. The stars reassure me.

  Mother is restlessly pacing about the roof, instead of going to bed. It has to do with her two sisters, I believe, who emigrated long ago to America. Sometimes they write, but mother never got over their departure.

  I will leave the pogrom buried in my mother’s memory for another occasion.

  They say that our night is day in America, and their day is night here. Which one is the correct time? I ask. They laugh, as they always do when they are short of an answer. They tell me that while I am asleep, my aunts in New York are having lunch. Probably that is why mother is upset at night. She must be longing to join the faraway meal.

  Pacing the roof will not take her to America though.

  I am sitting on my potty chair in the corridor, and spinning the wooden abacus balls on the arm rest. Suddenly I spot yellow fluid streaming along the floor. Only when it reaches the end of the corridor, and is about to cascade down the stairs do I realise that the pot inside the stool has been removed. In fact, I am not supposed to use the potty any more. Mother has practised it with me several times. We would sit back to back on the wooden toilet seat, giggling, our buttocks pushed together. Then we would release our pee, in turn, and giggle again at the sound of the trickling. It was great fun, and I begged her to repeat the lesson every day. But mother stopped it as soon as she noticed that I had forgotten my fear of falling inside the bowl.

  I hitch up my trousers and go and play in my room. I want to have nothing to do with the mess in the corridor. A while later, Bellou shows up and tells me off. It was brother, I retort. She knits her brows. So small and such a big liar, she bellows and goes off.

  Mother soon appears and scolds me again. Bellou has told on me. The bitch. So what if it is not the first time. I burst out crying. They do not care. I hug my new teddy bear and creep under the bed, determined not to come out ever again.

  It must be winter, for the scent of orange peel singeing on the stove wafts in the house. Teddy-Pasha’s tummy is wet with my tears. I turn him over and bury my face in the fur of his back. From the back, Pasha still smells like a visitor. The odours of Orosdi-Back, the department store, also cling to his head and to his feet.

  I pull my foot up to my nostrils. The woollen sock stinks slightly. I remove it, sniff my toes, and sniff the sock again. My nose detects a third ingredient. I pick up my bootie, and plunge my face inside. It’s leather, I knew it. Leather, wool, and foot sweat have mingled their smells on the web of my socks. If only Bellou does not find out, and I can keep my feet unwashed and my socks unchanged a while longer, then the odours will grow pungent, and blend into one dark heavy mass.

  *

  Again I have mixed blue and green and yellow and red. Again they have yielded a lump of grey. I knead the plasticine into a ball, then roll it into a cylinder, a fat worm, a piece of dung. Soon it lengthens into a cigar, a candle, a hose, a snake. The snake coils itself and sleeps. While it sleeps, I make a ball of it again. Did someone tell it to go to sleep? From the ball I shape an egg, then a bulb, then a bottle. The bottle falls and breaks its neck. Now it’s a fat worm again.

  I stretch the worm and smooth one side with my thumb. Then I fix a triangle of a head, attach a looping tail, and add four bits for the limbs. The lizard is ready. I place it on my parents’ bedpost.

  Mother will turn frantic at the sight of a lizard.

  I call her to the bedroom, point my finger at the framed picture standing on her night table. Two girls are sitting cross-legged in a courtyard. Their faces in the picture have been smeared. A plate of watermelon segments is placed in front of them. A smaller girl stands between the two. Her features are clear. My mother. She is smiling.

  —Tell me about your sisters and the watermelon, Mama, I say, and lie on her pillow.

  She seats herself on the bed and relates the story I know by heart. That the elder sisters wanted to be photographed without her. That they used all kinds of threats and stratagems to keep her away from the camera. That she, nevertheless, would not budge … I lean on the bedpost and suck my thumb, waiting for her to detach her eyes from the photograph, scheming how to manoeuvre them to the lizard above me.

  —And in the end I appear in the picture, between my two sisters. But in real life, they’re gone, and all I’m left with is the watermelon.

  To hell with the watermelon! How many times did I remind Mama that she was not alone, that she had me and father and brother, ten times worthier than faraway sisters. I creep towards her, hold her face in my two hands, and turn it in the direction of the bedpost. Mother jumps up, retreats a few steps, and begins to yell. A laugh escapes me. She thinks my model is real.

  She stands as if trapped, staring at the reptile and shouting. If father were here, he would have chased the lizard with a broomstick. But father is at work, and the deaf creature refuses to move away. Mother now slaps her face in helplessness. The scene disturbs me. I hasten to pacify her. I even give away my secret. It’s not a lizard, only a toy. Plasticine, believe me, Mama, don’t be upset, please.

  It is too late. My words will not deliver her from her fit.

  I pick up the plaything. Look, Mama, it’s not real. Seeing it in my hand, she lets out a long shriek of horror. Her voice runs through my body, and blows breath into the lizard in my hand. Repelled, I fling the reptile on the floor. Now mother and daughter yell together, bound by the same fright.

  A while later, mother gains control over herself. She tramples and disfigures the animal, flattens it into inanimate matter again. I fetch a broom and sweep the lump away, down the stairs, along the courtyard, and out to the street. A hungry cat might smell the lizard hidden in the plasticine. The sheer memory of its touch between my fingers sickens me. It is mother who is now in tears of laughter. She resembles the smiling girl in the photograph.

  I am flicking through a Semir comic on the balcony. Semir is an Egyptian schoolboy who keeps getting into trouble because of his stupid friend Tihtih. Mother is sewing in her room. Bellou is singing in her incomprehensible language in the kitchen. From time to time I stick my head out between the rails of the balustrade. We are waiting for father to come to lunch. For the twentieth time I ask mother where father is and when he will at last show up. And for the twentieth time I hear one and the same answer. Father is at the suq, he should be here any minute.

  Any minute is getting as unreliable as a metaphor. I announce that I am going to fetch father from the suq myself. Mother hums something while cutting a thread with her teeth. It does not sound like an objection. I slip Semir under my arm and take off.

  The next moment, I am at Suq al-Hamidiyah. I do not remember how I got there. Only the pri
de I felt on reaching the neighbourhood market all by myself.

  Two Bedouin women, with ringed noses and tattooed blue dots on their foreheads, squat at the edge of the suq. One is plucking dead hens. The younger is selling eggs in a basket. A snivelling toddler is tied to her back. A baby sleeps in her arms. Its mouth clings to her nipple, pulling her breast halfway to her belly.

  The ice-man, with the hairy chest and the stained undershirt, is forever chopping pieces off a huge block of ice. Behind him, the pomegranate and tamarind sherbets trickle down into glass containers.

  I sniff the bakery. Father always lifts me up to watch the discs of bread crusting on the inner walls of the clay oven.

  Father! I have forgotten about him. Where is father?

  The scales clink. A bespectacled client, dressed in pyjamas, is examining the iron weights with mistrust. The grocer grumbles, and tosses a few more loquats into the pan.

  Watermelons huddle together in the next store. Oval and as tall as myself, they stand in rows, supporting each other. Halves recline lengthwise outside, their red flesh glowing. My mouth waters. If only I can stimulate mother’s appetite for watermelon again.

  I walk by the confectioner’s shop. Trays of baklawa, halawa, malfouf, kanafa … and a horde of flies hovering like a black cloud about the stand. I accelerate my pace. I do not like sweet things anyway.

  Steam carries the whiff of broad beans from the cooking pot. The vendor is pushing his three-wheeler in my direction. I scrabble through my pockets for a coin in vain. Where is father?

  The aroma of coffee and the click of dice call my eyes to the coffee shop slightly above ground level. Two men are playing tawla on the veranda. A third customer, with a checked black and white kaffiyah, is sitting at their table, holding the nargilah tube, the water pipe, in one hand and a fly swat in the other. His gaze is glued to the butcher’s shop across the street.

  Skinned and beheaded carcasses of sheep are hung on hooks. Their heads, swarming with flies, are nailed above them, like hats above matching suits.

  In the shade of the coffee shop veranda, the hammal, porter, prostrates himself on a prayer rug. His lips move in a soundless recital of prayers. The hubbub of the suq does not reach his ears. Nor will any fly dream of accosting him.

  A few steps away from the butcher’s I spot the shoeblack. The Kurd with the grey beard and embroidered skullcap is sitting on his stool, sipping tea from a stikan, tea glass. I always run to the gate when he rings our bell, and cast a heap of shoes at his feet. Then he allows me to remove his skullcap and marvel at his shining bald head.

  As I cross the street towards my shoeblack, a herd of sheep sweeps along and shuts me in. They block my sight. Their wool scorches my skin. They bleat. They stink. They almost hurl me to the ground. I drop my comic strip. Its pages disperse under their hooves. I cry out for father and realise that I am all on my own.

  I burst into tears.

  The shoeblack is advancing in my direction. The herd passes by. A woman in a black abaya collects the pages from the ground. I am still sobbing. The Kurd stretches his arms to me. I recoil from his touch. The black abaya hands me back a rumpled Semir, soiled with hoof marks. I push her hand away. They all terrify me. I want to go home. I am not certain that I remember the way back.

  She’s lost, I hear a man say.

  I find myself at a cross-roads. The sight of Bellou and mother striding from a side-street calms me down. They have spotted me, my two dear mothers, the real and the little, the small and the tall. The one smiles, the other frowns, and then vice versa. This time, I will be spanked, I can smell it.

  —Next time I’ll go farther still, as far as Sind and India, as far as Wonderland … I grumble later, sucking my thumb in bed.

  Bellou tells me the story of a little girl, who, like me, is again and again tempted by unknown faraway worlds. Yet each time she sets out, the little girl loses her way and cannot return, like a cat who has climbed up a tree and fails to climb down. Gradually, she learns that no way back is possible, that her only option is to move onwards. Or upwards, in the case of the cat.

  And then? What happens then?

  And then an angel turns up, and meets her halfway.

  In autumn, a carriage pulled by two black horses halts before our gate. The horses are wearing garlands around their necks. Bellou’s suitcase lies in the backseat. She presses me to her breast with a vigour that almost squashes me, and pokes something into my hand. She smells of laurel soap. The horses look foolish, I say. As if they were the ones getting married.

  Bellou and the coachman wave goodbye. I open my hand and find her amulet! The wolf fang will have to wait until my breasts grow big enough, so that it can fall between them.

  Mother says that Bellou will be happier with him than she used to be with us.

  But why?

  Because from now on, she will be washing her own children, cleaning her own house, and preparing plate-sized Mossul kubbas for her own family.

  In her empty room, the mattress is folded in two. My drawing of her, running away with her sister is pinned on the door. Bellou did not take it with her. After tomorrow, I am going to nursery school. No maid will sleep at our place any more.

  What is after tomorrow?

  —After tomorrow is going to bed and waking up, then going to sleep again and waking up again, father says.

  After tomorrow is an indefinite time, any time after tomorrow, brother says.

  First Day at School

  Small children are crowded in front of the nursery. The door is closed. Boys and girls are standing stiff, like pawns removed from a chess-board. It is their first day. Half of them are crying.

  A long bell rings. The door unlocks. An obese woman appears. Her hair is arranged in a heavy chignon. Smiling, she leads the children inside. A young assistant makes the children sit at tables for two, lined up in five rows. The nursery teacher takes her place behind them, at the back of the room.

  I sit in the first row, nearest to the door, sobbing. The girl beside me has two carroty plaits. Her eyes are dry. She grins at me, almost motherly, and promises to tell me a secret if I stop weeping. I quieten down, start sucking my thumb. She says her name is Selma. That’s all? Her fish-like lips approach my ear and whisper. Sit Sarah, the obese teacher, steals the children’s lunch. What? I swear it, by Baba’s life! The sit exchanges red apples for yellow ones, big bananas for rotten ones, drinks half our Coca-Cola and dilutes the rest of the bottle with water. My eyes are wet again. Selma reassures me. Sit Sarah would never lay hands on hot pickles, or non-kosher food.

  —Pass it on to your Mama. It’s the only way out.

  Mariam, the assistant, distributes wooden cubes. Selma builds towers, not stopping until they collapse. With my free hand, I help her pick them up.

  —You’ll come tomorrow, won’t you? she asks.

  I nod, sucking my thumb.

  Tomorrow, next year, and for many years to come, I will still be sucking it. But it is not only my thumb I do not easily relinquish, it is infancy I am clinging to, our doctor friend claims, the way I clung to mother’s womb four years back. After several days of labour, the poor woman gave up, and I thought I had got my own way and would be left in peace, forever inside. But soon a blinding light assailed me. They had cut mother’s tummy open, and out they dragged me – screaming and kicking out at the world.

  For a whole year, each morning, the same struggle recommences. I exhaust all methods of manipulation to avoid the social programme imposed on me: I cannot dress myself, mess up the soft egg, have stomach ache, cough, snivel, throw up. I tell stories about the witch who is starving us, about the boy who urinates on my patent leather shoes, about the dirty words they are teaching us, about cockroaches in the toilets and worms in the water. Mother is exasperated. The school bus honks. Brother rushes out. She will either yield to my pressure and let me stay at home, or lose her temper and haul me into the bus. The chances are fifty-fifty. It is worth the trouble.

  In my abs
ence Selma watches over my bench, next to hers. Though she was born three weeks after me, she is a head taller already. Because unlike me, Selma drinks milk, finishes her breakfast, and goes regularly to nursery. She has barely any eyelashes though, and is the only red-haired child in the class. King David was red-haired, she tells everybody. Her skin is freckled, translucent, her fingers are pink. Next to hers mine look yellowish, like those of a chain smoker. Her nipples are red, her buttocks square, her earlobes fleshy, and her nostrils, large and round. Her small white teeth easily vanish from sight when she is devouring a hot pickled sandwich. Her tongue can reach the tip of her nose. Her left ear can wave hello. Her eyes are honey-coloured. With the passing years, they will deepen into brown. Her forearms are less hairy than mine, but then she has this graceful line of hair running down her back. Those above her lip gather beads of sweat at midday. Her navel sinks inwards while mine sticks out. Her genitals are surprisingly smaller than mine. Our bellies are similar, both puffed up, as if we have swallowed a basket ball.

  Her mother has packed two lollipops in the shape of bottles in Selma’s lunch box. One for her, and one for me. We hide them in our pockets, away from sit Sarah’s goggling hungry eyes. Selma’s lollipop is red, mine is yellow. In the break, we undo the cellophane wrappers and start to lick. As our bottles grow slim and shiny, Selma’s lips and tongue become red. Mine yellow, she says. Let’s exchange them and see whether our mouths will both turn orange! Selma agrees, but we should wash the lollipops first.

  Selma and I are holding hands and bounding down the stairs into the courtyard with the drinking-fountain. We count each step out loud as we jump. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Only eight steps? But we can count to ten! We leap up again, counting in English this time. It is the only courtyard where the nursery children are allowed to play. In two years, when we will be in primary school, we will be free to play everywhere.