The Waiting Hours

by Shandi Mitchell

  Tamara set the butter knife down. “I’m not—” she said. “I’m not—” She searched for what she was not. One of her braids was longer than the others and her hands were dark against the white bread.

  “This is your home, child. No matter how long you’ve been away.” Dottie swept crumbs into the palm of her hand. “Cut them into triangles. They’ll look prettier standing up.”

  36

  When Hassan stepped into his upstairs flat above the pizza shop, it smelled stale and yeasty despite the windows being open. A perpetual air of emptiness. If he were to guess who lived there, he would choose a transient man. A man who didn’t receive guests. A poor man who dreamed of more.

  The walls were bare. One room served as both kitchen and living room. Beside one drafty window were a small table and chair salvaged from the curb, a typewriter, radio, mug, and bowl. And near the other, a worn reading chair, lamp, and stacks of books piled on the floor. He would not guess he was the man who lived there.

  He could afford furniture and even a better flat now, but this had been his first apartment in this country and it was all that he felt he deserved. He went to the kitchen sink and checked under the cabinet. To his relief, the mousetrap was empty.

  On the street below, two young boys raced down the sidewalk. The older child reached the curb first and raised his arms in victory. In this country, even the children played differently. He never saw them on their knees surrendering, or shooting each other with pretend automatic weapons or firing imaginary bullets into the backs of heads to finish the job. Here, there weren’t bullet-pocked walls to kick soccer balls against, or bodies to stare at, or gutters running red to float sticks in.

  He filled the kettle and set it on the stove. He looked around the sparse room and added a childless man to the list. He took off his suit jacket and headed to the bedroom with its single bed and more books. A lonely man. He sighed.

  When he dropped his trousers, his body slumped, grateful for its release. A red welt ringed his waist from the constriction. He rubbed the trouser knees to loosen the dirt and dust, but the marks remained. He examined the wrinkled jacket. The lapels were too wide for today’s fashion, the buttons cheap, the fabric’s weave loose, and the collar still ringed yellow. A lowly man.

  He flipped the limp collar over. The fabric had frayed where it had been split open at the false seam. Two pages, rolled tighter than cigarettes, had been its starch. He turned the pant legs inside out and ran his fingers along the plucked stitches, remembering the needle’s pierce between mangled, swollen fingers. Seven poems per leg. Five per arm. Three in the collar. He would have swallowed a dozen more if he could have carried them five thousand miles. He would have stitched them under his skin. He had sacrificed everything for words. Even her.

  His parents feared him getting married. He was too young. She was Sunni and he was not, and they were in love. She was unafraid and righteous in her beliefs of right and wrong. When she spoke, she lit her audiences’ eyes. Men adored her, women respected her, and everyone jostled to be in her light. And she had picked him. Together, they were invincible. Students against injustice. A revolution for and by the people.

  His gentle mother and thoughtful father raised him and his younger brothers to value knowledge, art, and poetry as humanity’s most enduring and important narratives. They believed differences could be solved sitting around the table with good food and drink. Strangers would become friends, and friends could not kill each other.

  But they were wrong. His parents didn’t survive. His brothers didn’t survive. But by then he was already gone. “Run,” they had said.

  That was the last thing she had said to him, too. “Run.” But he stayed and waited through the day and into the night before stealing back to carry her body away, stiff and heavy where she had fallen. He couldn’t carry the others. He had loved her, maybe. He had loved her mind. Loved her conviction. He was the student. She was the leader.

  He had wanted a proper burial for her. She deserved more than being tossed into the same pits as the culled wild dogs or those carried from the football stadium fields. A game he could no longer watch. A game he once loved that had united Sunnis, Shi’ites, and Christians in one rallying cry: “Iraq!”

  But that was before lessons from the Qur’an were broadcast over loudspeakers while hawkers sold green tea and sweet biscuits during the pre-game show and the guilty were ushered in on pickup trucks and taken to the goalposts. Their crimes bleated over the speakers, as justice was meted out with Kalashnikovs amidst cheers of Allahu Akbar! God is great! As a child, he had cheered. At first because it was expected of him and he didn’t understand the crowd’s eyes that shone with such fervour. Later because there wasn’t a choice and his own eyes shone with the fear of being found out. Allahu Akbar! A revolutionary cry.

  Hassan’s crooked fingers carefully aligned the creases of the pants. He draped the trousers over the wire hanger, smoothing the linen.

  He had wanted to give her a proper mourning ceremony. But there weren’t any women he could ask to remove their shoes and drink bitter coffee and recount her acts of goodness. No addadas to weep professional tears for hours on end. No mordeh shoor to wash her body or wrap her in a white shroud. All he could do was apply dust to her eyes and lay her on her right side facing Mecca and say her name out loud. His wife of four months. “Run,” his parents had said, as his mother stuffed his pockets with food.

  He unbuttoned his dress shirt. He could smell coconut oil. He slid the fabric from his shoulders and paused as he always did when he saw his own skin. Thick scars mapped his chest, abdomen, and arms. He had only shown them once, to those who had let him into this country. Behind their table, they had stared at the blank wall above his head while one took photographs of the lash marks, burns, dog bites, and lacerations. The camera’s flash had seared his eyes with black spots. He blinked every time. “Please, you may put your shirt back on,” one said as the others looked away.

  He hung the shirt on the coat hanger, straightened the shoulders, and dressed the jacket over it. He folded down the collar and pulled a loose strand from the seam. He twirled the thread of his former life between his fingertips. When they had picked him up, he had poems in his possession. Fifty typed copies. They wanted the poet’s name whose words were being passed underground, found in rebels’ pockets, and spoken in the streets. They confiscated his typewriter and unspooled the ribbon to show him the jumbled evidence. He swore he was the poet, but they knew he was only the typist. They wanted the man responsible for the poems. They wanted his name.

  He had tried to resist. He had. But every question was another wound. Eventually, everyone talked, especially the innocent. He tried to warn her and the others. He begged her to leave and them to stop. Instead, she held his broken body up to her followers and said, “This is why we fight.” Amidst the cheers pledging allegiance to her and country, he finally understood their marriage was a political action. He was a line in a poem by the poet whose words made hearts beat and sang with a lifeblood that was prepared to die. They had wanted her name. “Run,” she had said, not knowing he already had.

  He carried her words five thousand miles stitched in the seams of what remained of him as a man. He carried them out alive. Time couldn’t grant him the mercy to live again. In this country, shame wasn’t the same word. Here, it was light and disposable, barely a word. There, shame branded him, his mother, his father, his brothers, and if he had children, his sons, and theirs, and theirs, for eternity. His life for hers. It was just. Allahu Akbar.

  The kettle whistle keened. He understood why Tamara had run from him. Here lived a cowardly man.

  He was not a poet.

  He slipped the suit back in the closet between his cardigans and long-sleeved shirts.

  37

  The alarm jarred Mike awake. He was on his back, in his own bed, in his own bedroom. The light bleeding around the blackout blinds told him it was day. He looked at the clock: 4:00 p.m. Time to get ready. One
more night. He just had to get through one more night and he’d have three days to recover.

  He breathed in deep and exhaled slow. He lay still, working up the courage to move. Maybe it was gone. Maybe life had returned to normal. He felt the choke of relief and hope, and blinked it back. The week had been hell, thankfully it was almost over.

  He watched a spider traverse the whiteness of the ceiling. Lori had said he could sleep in the bedroom. She offered him his own bed like it was a gift. He hadn’t taken the bait. He was tired of fighting. He had nodded and listened, as best he could through the dull ache shuddering up his spine. She took the boys swimming, insisting the water would be good for Caleb’s tender muscle and a friend of hers had free passes. When he asked where they were going, she said the north end and he had said, No.

  This ignited another razor-eyed argument with smiles on their faces for the children’s benefit.

  No, he couldn’t tell her why.

  No, she didn’t have the right to know.

  No, she couldn’t tell her friend.

  Yes, his family’s safety was more important than anyone else’s.

  Because he said so and that should be enough.

  That’s when Connor fell backward, and the shock of his bum meeting the floor triggered an ear-splitting wail. Lori swore, Caleb repeated the word, and Lori yelled at him to get ready.

  They were going OUT.

  It was ENOUGH worrying about HIM every time he walked out the door or didn’t pick up the phone or came home LATE.

  Don’t LIE! She had called the station.

  SOMEONE ELSE could have done it!

  She refused to be AFRAID ALL THE TIME.

  When Lori charged out, she forgot the towels and he didn’t bother chasing after her. Instead, he hollered, “Make sure the kids are in before you shut the door!”

  He knew it was an accident. But she had been distracted and that caused the injury and that made it her fault. Someone was always at fault if you walked it back far enough. Someone always had a moment to make a different choice. Christ, what had happened to his promise to do better? She didn’t understand how much he was hurting, even though she had seen him on his knees. She agreed with the docs who wanted him to take time off. But it would take weeks for compensation to kick in. How would they pay the bills? How much did a four-year-old’s birthday party cost? He breathed in. Just get through one more night.

  The house was still. Maybe Lori wasn’t back yet, but it was almost suppertime. Careful not to jostle his body, he switched on the police radio charging on the side table. Catastrophic emergencies weren’t jamming the airwaves, nor reports of retribution for a twelve-year-old boy. Of course, it wouldn’t occur in daylight hours. These sorts of things belonged to the night. Lori should be scared. She had no idea what the world was really like, which proved how hard he worked to shield them and keep them safe. His pain was making him feel sorry for himself. Lori was right. It wasn’t her fault. He should have kept his friggin’ mouth shut.

  He switched off the radio and wished he had a few more hours in bed to gather his strength. He sucked at his dry cheeks and scratched idly at his chest. His arms and legs were itchy, too, and his muscles twitchy. He needed another pill. The spider was making good progress crossing the ceiling, oblivious to the reality that there was no way out. He looked over at the dresser. His gear was laid out in its proper place, safe and ordered. He had made sure of that. On the back of the door, his uniform hung crisply, and on the chair were fresh socks and underwear. She did still love him.

  It was just an accident. He should have been home to help her. He should have told her it was okay. He had to apologize. Again. He understood why she was sick of his apologies. He was, too.

  The door creaked open a crack. Small fingers poked through, then a nose and a cheek. Mike shut his eyes and snored loudly. The door inched wider. He forced himself to count to ten before roaring his best dragon roar.

  Caleb jumped, a small boy’s fright, before grinning that goofy kid grin. He was still in his swim trunks. Barefoot, knobby kneed, bronze skinned—he was a golden child. He had that damn stuffed toy in hand.

  “Daddy’s wake!” He charged.

  Mike raised his hand to stop him. “Caleb, no, no…”

  But Caleb had already leapt, a flying superhero with his sidekick crocodile. He landed with a whomp on Mike’s chest. Heaving in agony, tears pricked his eyes.

  Caleb rolled off. “I sorry I hurts you like Mommy hurt me.”

  “No.” Mike sucked the pain between his teeth. “Daddy’s okay. Daddy’s just not awake yet. You were flying so high, I thought I couldn’t catch you.”

  Clutching Snappy tight to his chest, Caleb watched his father’s eyes for lies.

  Mike resorted to Distraction 101 for four-year-olds. “Where’s Mommy and Connor?”

  “Connor’s nappy with Mommy on the couch.” He chewed his bottom lip. “She said be quiet ’cause Daddy’s sleep.”

  “Did you go swimming with Mommy?”

  “Uh-huh.” Caleb propelled the crocodile’s stubby arms. “Snappy swimmed, too. Mommy hung him in the sun upside down to dry, but Snappy didn’t like it. He said, Rrrrarrhh.”

  “Snappy has a lot to say, doesn’t he?” The toy looked cleaner and smelled better, too. The chlorine had done wonders. Two dark bruises marked Caleb’s bicep. The placebo bandage the nurse had applied was waterlogged and lifting. She’d been good to his son, he had to give her that. You could never tell looking at someone who they really were.

  Caleb’s eyes brightened. “Wanna see how we dived?” He stood up and belly-flopped on the mattress. Mike groaned as his back ratcheted. Caleb scooted to the foot of the bed with Snappy keeping guard between them. His bottom lip quivered. “Is your back broke ’cause Mommy stepped on a crack?”

  Mike exhaled the pain. “Papa just needs his vitamins.” He searched the ceiling, but couldn’t find the spider. “I have a job for you, Caleb. A big-boy job. Do you think you can help Daddy?”

  Caleb nodded.

  “I need you to get Daddy his vitamins in his pant pocket. They’re in a special pocket that only little fingers can reach.”

  “A magic pocket?”

  “Yes, a secret magic pocket.”

  Caleb scrambled off the bed.

  “Reach in the right side. No, the other right side. The other pocket. That’s it. Do you feel anything?”

  “Uh-huh.” Caleb reached inside. The coat hanger rocked. “Can you get it out?”

  Caleb tippy-toed. The pants tugged against the metal hanger and went slack.

  “Do you have it?”

  “Taa-daa!” He held the pills aloft.

  “Now bring it to Daddy. Gently…”

  Caleb took care not to rock the bed and handed over the pill bottle.

  “Good job, little man.” Mike uncapped it and took one. He was going through them fast. He wanted two, but Lori would see it in his eyes.

  Caleb leaned into his father’s legs. “I have an owwie,” he said, rubbing his bandage. “And I like vinamims.” He watched his father’s eyes.

  “These are Daddy’s vitamins. Only for daddies. Do you understand?”

  His son’s eyes didn’t blink. Mike’s voice dropped deeper, “Caleb, do you understand? These are never to be touched by Caleb or Connor. These are like the stove and matches and Daddy’s police things—they’re only for Daddy. Not you. Never. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Pinkie swear.” Mike held up his baby finger.

  Caleb gripped his father’s finger and kissed his hand three times. “I love you, I love you, I love you.” He leaned back, cross-legged with Snappy on his lap. The soles of his feet were grass-stained and streaked with dirt. The jiggling bed made Mike wince.

  Caleb stroked Mike’s whiskered cheek. “Snappy says you’re bad.”

  Mike held his son’s probing stare. Caleb slapped his cheek. A soft tap. Punishment or warning, Mike couldn’t tell.

  “Don’t do
that.” The words growled in his chest. His son had to do better.

  Caleb lowered his eyes. His small fingers caressed Mike’s cheek. “I said he’s a liar.” He snuggled in, laying Snappy over Mike’s heart. “I told you,” he said, stroking its fuzzy green snout.

  Mike’s chest rose and fell.

  38

  The shower’s spray beat against Tamara’s chest, cascaded down her belly, between her thighs, and pooled around her feet. Its lukewarm salve stung the back of her blistered heels, even as it soothed her aching feet.

  She bowed her head. Her long braids flowed waterfalls over her shoulders, releasing coconut and musk. Her entire life she had shielded her hair under shower caps, umbrellas, and plastic hoods, never lifting her face to the rain. Hard drops pelted her eyelids and the bridge of her nose. Parting her lips, she tasted chlorine and salt. The grime, sweat, and lies of the day swirled down the drain.

  Lathering the soap, she breathed in cucumber and mowed grass. Her hands traced her face, eyes, mouth, the back of her neck, and followed her body’s curves. She washed away the funeral, Dottie, and the house filled with mourners in floral dresses and wrinkled Sunday suits.

  The water murmured like the boy’s house had murmured. She leaned back and the shower whispered the hush that had accompanied the mother’s arrival. She held her white, lathered arms under the spray and rinsed herself brown, washing her hands clean of refilled paper plates, pots scrubbed, and scraps discarded. She had stayed in the kitchen with Dottie assisting in sating the deluge of hunger. Life was voracious in close proximity to death.

  The mother’s meal had been specially prepared and presented on bone white china. Fat was cut away, a scorched bun replaced, and bruised lettuce rejected. Tamara had wiped the edge of the plate with a linen napkin, and Dottie added an unblemished cherry tomato. She won’t eat any of it, she said, but she’ll know we care.