The Locust and the Bird

by Hanan al-Shaykh

  I begged Muhammad to let my girls know I was back in town. We laughed when he returned, saying he’d asked his go-between, the boy at the grocer’s, to tell them. Terrified that my daughters wouldn’t be allowed to see me, I started pacing the room like a caged beast. When the doorbell rang I rushed to open it. There they stood! I gave them a big hug and showered them with a million kisses before asking if anyone at home knew they were here. I looked at their plaits, which I was so used to braiding myself, and just managed to hold back the tears.

  Then Hanan spied the Persian carpet I’d laid down.

  ‘Hey,’ she yelled, ‘there’s the stolen carpet!’

  I winked at Fatima, as she’d been the one who’d helped me sneak it over to Muhammad’s. It was the smallest of our carpets, and at the beginning of each summer the Haji would take them to the roof, lay them out, brush them down, then leave them for one day under the sun before brushing them once again. Then he’d roll them up with mothballs and place them on top of the cupboard until the beginning of winter. When he found only two carpets up there he went insane, accusing everyone of stealing. In spite of all the commotion and fuss, Fatima had proved to be a rock and never revealed the secret to a soul. But Hanan soon ensured that everyone in the house and neighbourhood knew where the stolen carpet had been discovered. Furious, my ex-husband and his son, Hussein the Ideologue, tried to ban my daughters from visiting me. Yet the girls still managed to sneak out when they were supposed to be playing. I visited the female principal of their school, explaining about my divorce and asking her permission to see them there. She congratulated me for what I’d done and said I was very courageous.

  That word she used, ‘courageous’, became a source of great pleasure to me. It was better than ‘selfish’ and ‘frivolous’, the two epithets most regularly used to describe me before I divorced Abu-Hussein and married Muhammad. My ex-husband had gone as far as calling me ‘tarred’ (as in ‘tarred and feathered’). The school principal, who wore sleeveless blouses, gold sandals and dyed her hair, laughed as she told me she was the daughter of a renowned religious Imam. She was a graduate of the American University, yet this had not stopped her brother from tracking her from one beach to the next, to check whether she was wearing the bathing suit she kept hidden inside a towel. She managed to maintain her deception, claiming she only wore the bathing suit when she was in the bath. When her mother confronted her over traces of sand found inside it, she’d shrugged her shoulders and said she’d brought the sand home on purpose to add to her bath, so she could feel she was really swimming in the sea. ‘A pinch of salt as well,’ she’d added defiantly, ‘and just a sprig of seaweed to go with it!’

  That word ‘courageous’ was an ointment to salve my wounds. Muhammad and I had both been ‘brazen’; we’d challenged society. Everyone was whispering about our scandal and my divorce, though no one had stopped for a second to consider the scandal of forcing a fourteen-year-old girl to marry her widowed brother-in-law. On the contrary, practically the entire family sided with my husband and felt sorry for my two daughters. I was ostracised. No one contacted me, except for my brother Hasan, his wife, and Kamil, who was now happily married. Mother loathed Muhammad, the cause of my divorce. Maryam had to stay inside the house, terrified that Abu-Hussein and Ibrahim would accuse her of collusion.

  My coffee-morning friends cut me dead, as did the neighbours. I fought back with the only weapon I had: my love for Muhammad. I thought about the sheer misery of those women I’d once known so well, women who, unlike me, had never tasted the sweet pleasures of love and passion. Their spouses never watched films the way Muhammad and I did; they didn’t understand songs or fall under their spell; they never recorded their thoughts, wrote down proverbs, memorised poetry and recited it by heart. I decided Muhammad was enough for me and rejected the rest of them as they had rejected me. I pictured myself floating in a river, passing trees and rocks, leaving them behind. But I still couldn’t forget them.

  I was singled out, vilified, because I had divorced my husband and married the man I loved. But across the neighbourhood, they were all at it behind closed doors. One of our neighbours was having an affair with a married man next door. Their houses were connected by a locked door with a cupboard pushed against it. In the summer, when her lover’s family left for the south, she moved the cupboard aside. Wherever you looked there were countless tales of illicit love affairs that flourished so long as they were kept secret. I had to bite my tongue not to scream, ‘People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones!’

  It choked me to think of poor Maryam stuck in that house. But knowing that she was about to be married comforted me, and in any case, I was certain the Haji would marry somebody else soon to look after the housekeeping.

  I was haunted by the old house and neighbourhood. When I awoke from my siesta, my heart would begin to pound. I’d look around for my shoes, so I could tear back to the old house, scared to death I might be late. But as soon as I saw the coloured scarf I’d begun wearing in place of my black one, and the loafers instead of my old shoes, I calmed down.

  I didn’t really regain any of my old spirit till Maryam got married. It was as though we’d been two parts of a magnet that had been separated, and finally brought back together again – especially since she too had married the man she loved, the Prime Minister’s bodyguard. When Maryam and I sat down with our husbands, the common denominator between the four of us was love. We’d fallen in love in secret, and, in the case of us two women, endured a miserable, almost terrifying childhood. We shared a good laugh when I told her that the Haji was still sending beggars round to knock on our door. Muhammad was so fed up with it that he’d tell them in French, ‘Complet!’ He was also getting fed up with my relatives from the south, who were forever asking for official favours: ‘Please, Muhammad, help me, I need an eye operation,’ or, ‘Help, Muhammad, we need new irrigation in the tobacco field.’

  Then Maryam described how, after she became pregnant, my daughter Hanan kept crying because she wanted to go and visit her. So from time to time the Haji brought her over and she got to sleep in the bed Maryam had prepared for the baby. The news made me smile, but inside my heart was breaking for my youngest, who must have needed affection, especially with the departure of Maryam. As I’d known he would, Abu-Hussein had married again. She was a barren woman from the south, a woman who was mean, abrupt, and unkind to my daughters and nephews. I’d heard that she would hurry to the kitchen when she heard the fridge door open, even in the dead of night, just to catch the culprit.

  ‘I’m a Member of the Family

  Suffering This Misfortune’

  ONE MORNING, MUHAMMAD shook me awake to tell me that my nephew Hussein the Ideologue had tried to assassinate a senior judge.20

  Muhammad was assigned as one of the investigating officers to ransack our family home in search of the young man. They’d be interrogating family members one by one. Muhammad refused his superior’s orders, explaining the personal reasons why he was unable to do such a thing. How could be possibly go into his wife’s old home, revolver in hand, after he had divorced her from her family, and was banned from entering it?

  I didn’t want Muhammad to go to his office the following morning. I was afraid my family would think he was joining the search for my nephew. I too was forbidden to visit the family house, and so I longed to turn myself into a cat, so I could sit with the women to support them.

  It was an enormous disaster for the entire family. The Haji and my other two nephews were taken in for questioning. The Haji either refused to answer questions or responded with a single sentence, ‘Only God knows.’ Finally, the chief detective lost patience and slapped him in the face. But the Haji only continued to respond with his single sentence; he neither changed his tone, nor met his interrogator’s eyes.

  Muhammad kept me informed of what was happening. My middle nephew had been put in prison for three months in order to force the family to tell the authorities where the Ideologue was
hiding.

  When Muhammad explained why he could not enter our house along with the other detectives, his boss had told him he understood. But he also made it clear to Muhammad that a promotion was waiting for him if he could somehow sniff out the whereabouts of the fugitive boy.

  ‘I’m well aware of the proverb, “One man’s disaster is another’s gain,” ’ Muhammad told his boss. ‘But the problem is that I’m a member of the family suffering this misfortune.’

  I was delighted by these words. I sent a message to my family through Hasan’s wife, passing on Muhammad’s advice not to talk to the press.

  When the Ideologue had been missing a whole week, Muhammad heaved a deep sigh of relief and whispered to me, ‘OK, he’s got away. God be with him!’

  I sighed too. It seemed I was the only person who understood why my hot-headed nephew had done such a thing: he felt the need to act against a perceived injustice, because his father had been so humiliated.

  As with most crises, there was one positive outcome: the flight of the Ideologue meant my two daughters were able to visit me more often without shaking in their boots on the way home.

  20 He made an attempt on the life of a senior judge of the court that had condemned Antun Saadeh, leader of the PPS, to death.

  Monkey Shit

  I TRIED EVERY JOKE and funny trick in my repertoire to make my transition from my old house to Muhammad’s go smoothly, but without success. Our old howdah no longer lifted me up; it no longer served as our love nest, a place to rock and comfort me. My old house still felt like home. It had been full of fear, but it was also full of the din of family and neighbours, who called to each other from windows, balconies and rooftops. How I wished I could have been standing on the roof with Maryam when they brought home the corpse of our neighbour, the Prime Minister, after he was assassinated in Amman! I could no longer crane my neck along with the other members of the family to see what gifts and letters Ibrahim’s son had sent back from America, where he was studying. When he didn’t send me greetings I was so upset; it meant I’d become the undesirable aunt.

  I thought I’d manage to win over Muhammad’s family and that the wall of ice between us would finally melt. When Muhammad was assigned a two-week posting to the provinces, I fondly imagined that during those two weeks his family members would soften. With Muhammad away, they wouldn’t even be wondering about the scenes of love and passion going on behind our door.

  But I remained a prisoner. To avoid gossip, Muhammad asked me only to go out with his sister or sister-in-law, a request that made me very angry, although I agreed. I had no desire to allow others an opportunity to gossip or suspect that I might fall in love with someone else: ‘She’s done it once already, so what’s to stop her doing it again, or even a third time?’

  When Muhammad returned after his fortnight away, he exclaimed, ‘My God, you’re so beautiful. Now I know why I’m dying of love for you. You’re gorgeous!’

  A few moments later, I headed barefoot for the kitchen to bring him some fruit I’d been preparing.

  It was then that I overheard his sister-in-law complaining.

  ‘OK,’ she said to the others, ‘so all the trouble we’ve gone to to get hold of some monkey shit has been for nothing!’

  ‘Hurry up and get rid of it,’ her husband replied, ‘before the stench starts rising.’

  I tiptoed to the front door and peered outside. In the corner, by the entrance, was a pile of black monkey shit. The next day, Miskiah told me that the idea had been to cast a spell so that, as soon as Muhammad set eyes on me, he’d find me as ugly as the pile of poo.

  After the monkey-shit episode, Muhammad’s eldest nephew was helping his mother plant their small garden, and threw her a knife. It grazed my daughter Fatima’s leg as she stood watching. I had severe doubts about whether it was an accident. Muhammad thought my accusations completely ridiculous, but he promised he’d work on finding us our own house.

  The feeling that someone was trying to do us harm only made our love intensify. When we went to the cinema, I was happy and proud to clasp his arm. And yet, when he decided to have a new dress made for me, I chose the seamstress who had made the trousseau for my first marriage. I didn’t know how to reply when he asked, ‘Why that seamstress and not another?’ I managed to come up with the answer a few months later, when I realised that I’d chosen her because she was a major part of my past. In spite of my intense love for Muhammad, I was still homesick for our old house, when it was OK that my household responsibilities were a tissue of chaos – burnt food, semi-clean clothes and unfinished housework.

  Now I had no choice but to be a new kind of mistress of the house. I felt like a student who must complete her assignments as well as possible, or else her teacher would be annoyed. I had to prepare the food and put it on the table; we didn’t eat standing up the way we used to in my old house, taking scoops from the saucepan. Now I had to lay out clean towels, look for buttons that had come off his shirts and sew them back on, make sure the iron wasn’t too hot when I ironed his trousers, and sprinkle water on his collar and press it so it stood up straight. But these tasks didn’t suit my impatient nature. Muhammad also asked me to remember everything I spent; by the end of the first week in the month I’d managed to get through his entire salary. Then he asked me to report to him each night on what I’d bought that day, so he could keep a record of our expenses. I started to feel the diary he kept was even more restrictive than the way the Haji had hidden money and bought everything himself. Muhammad discovered I didn’t know how to count money, but simply held out a handful of cash so that vendors could take what they needed and then give me the change.

  I began to ask myself whether I’d exchanged one kind of fear for another that was even more complicated. Once Hanan arrived during her midday break as I was pounding meat, getting lunch ready for Muhammad. She brought a piece of cloth for me to make her some gym shorts like her sister’s for sports lessons. I said I’d do it after lunch and, if she came back tomorrow, they’d be ready. She began to cry, saying the teacher would beat her because the sports class was in two hours’ time. In a total quandary, I looked around: should I leave the meat, hurry inside to the sewing machine and make the shorts for her? I could explain things to Muhammad later, though he’d be extremely hungry. Sensing my panic, my daughter suggested that she borrow her sister’s pair, thinking this would make things easier for me. But that only made me feel worse. Why was I so scared of Muhammad? Why, if only for a single second, did I once think about returning to my old house, even to the Haji himself? Was it because life had suddenly become so serious, now that I was married to Muhammad? I could no longer laugh at everything; was I expected to turn a new page and change my very personality as well? ‘Consider my status, Kamila,’ I could hear him say. ‘Consider my position.’

  My Third Daughter, Ahlam;

  My First Son, Toufic

  WHEN I WAS pregnant with my first child with Muhammad, he kissed my tummy day and night, and talked to his baby in the womb. It made me see exactly what had been missing when I had had my two daughters, and in my life with Abu-Hussein. After I gave birth to a daughter, Ahlam, Muhammad would talk to her while she was nursing, watching her carefully and explaining why he’d given her a name which meant ‘dreams’. In his diary he recorded how she’d nursed, how she’d burped, the date when her first tooth broke through, and then her molars; he recorded when she stood for the first time, when she took her first faltering steps, how she wouldn’t go to sleep unless she’d played with my hair first. We gave her a first-birthday party, just like in the films. I invited Fatima and Hanan, Kamil (who had become a cook at a famous restaurant in downtown Beirut), Hasan and his wife, Mother, and some of Muhammad’s brothers and sisters. Muhammad made every effort to keep the atmosphere cordial on this happy occasion, but the shadow of my divorce and our subsequent marriage hung over the gathered company.

  With great relief we moved to our own house. I loved it. Mother moved from Kami
l’s place to live with me when I found I was pregnant again. I didn’t think Toufic, the new child, could win over Muhammad as Ahlam had. But poems, panegyrics and popular verses flooded in for Toufic, until the very walls seemed to echo in praise of the newborn, and all because he was a boy. Among the verses written for my new son were lines penned by a famous poet, entitled ‘The Little King’: ‘If I’d been there the night he was born, I’d have dressed Night’s body in Day’s garb.’

  And that was how the chapter on my divorce finally closed. I’d produced an heir apparent and proved I could be a worthy wife for Muhammad. I finally realised why Fatme had described Muhammad as being ‘high-life’ all those years ago. He had nobility. His family were descended from a tribe of noble origin, and there were recorded tales of their great deeds. His father was renowned for having fought against the Turks and for his great strength. It was said that the people from his village in the south were even scared of his horse.

  Muhammad began to fuss over the new arrival. He blamed me if the baby caught a cold or had diarrhoea, always using the same reproach: ‘You must have let him catch cold, then he got congested and started to cough. Kamila, you’re supposed to be taking care of him, you know. Please do it for my sake!’

  It frightened me. I knew that whether my baby lived or died depended more on me than on God’s will or medical care. I reverted to my old role, the stone-bearing donkey, unloading one burden only to take up another, this time in my womb. I became pregnant for the fifth time and gave birth to a little daughter, Majida, with green eyes. After the delivery I lay there with milk oozing from my breasts, feeling just like one of our cows back in Nabatiyeh. I leaned over her to moo and clean her up with my tongue.