That was the day when, a little before sunset, a convoy of government cars came, like red ants, crawling down the black road’s switchbacks. It stopped in the middle of the village, and seventeen coffins wrapped in flags were lowered to the ground. These coffins contained the corpses of the young men of the village who had been killed in the latest attack on the front. Among them were Ahmad, Fandi, Salih, Nasser, Qays, Hasan, Jamal, Mahmoud, Mudhi, Khayrallah, Abdallah, Sirat (my sister Istabraq’s beloved), and my brother Hakeem. They put them down and departed, disappearing up the foot of the mountain in their convoy of cars. They left our village with the blackest night, stricken with bitter lament. The women tore the flags because they needed to tear something out of anguish for the dead, especially after Grandfather forbade them from rending their garments. The village square around the coffins was transformed into a scene of weeping hell.
Grandfather sat silently on his chair, suppressing his tears until midnight, when sorrow burst the dam of his endurance. He exploded in tears and fell down unconscious. We carried him to his bed in the corner of the mosque. There, after we had splashed cold water on his face and sliced an onion under his nostrils, he revived a little and ordered the men huddled in a circle around him not to bury the corpses this time until they had been avenged. Then he drifted away, sinking into his final stupor.
For a whole week, the corpses were rotting. Their odor spread everywhere despite the efforts of the women, who sprinkled them with perfume and piled bouquets of flowers on the coffins. The men returned to where Grandfather was laid out, repeating their request for permission to bury the corpses. Given that he knew better than they did, none of them dared remind him that Islam stipulated speedy burials for the dead. Nevertheless, and without opening his eyes, he refused with a shake of the head.
No longer able to bear the odor and the people’s anguish, our village morphed into a suffocating nightmare. Conversations between people dropped off. Silence reigned, except for the wailing of women. Children stopped playing and were content to pass their free time wandering about aimlessly, staring. My father didn’t go to work. Instead, he remained beside Grandfather, washing him before every prayer and turning his face toward Mecca. He saw Grandfather praying with his eyes. At least, he saw Grandfather’s closed eyelids flicker and his lips move. That was when — after spending the final days wandering about, visiting Aliya’s grave, our nest, and the shore where she drowned — I decided to leave.
I wasn’t able to sleep the night I made the decision. I tossed and turned in my bed. Then I got up, wandered out around the village, and came back to the house. In the end, when the night was hastening toward dawn, I resolved to inform my father and then go. I set off in the direction of the mosque’s main hall because he was sleeping there beside Grandfather. As soon as I passed near the window, I heard his voice in a fierce debate. I stopped and looked in the window, but I wasn’t able to see anything because of the shadows. Nevertheless, I remained nailed in place, trembling to hear my father’s voice with this strange tone for the first time in my life. His voice was powerful and confident, as though rupturing all inhibitions, and it contained a bitter reproach. He directed his words toward Grandfather, whom I didn’t hear make any response.
My father was actually shouting in Grandfather’s face, if they were in fact face-to-face in this darkness. I heard the following words, which were strained by tears and anger: “Father, put aside your loftiness and your arrogance. Ease just a little the weight of your righteousness upon us. As the Qur’an says, You will not tear open the earth, nor will you reach the height of the mountains. You will not fix the world by yourself. The world will not be as you want it, nor as anyone else wants it. Stop looking down on our weakness, for we are mortals and rotting corpses. Have mercy on our weakness, on our situation and our mistakes.
“Father, as far as I’m concerned, you are a god, or else the Lord’s agent here on earth in front of me. But I am a mortal ruled by his limitations, and mortals rebel against their gods in moments of weakness or moments of strength.
“Father, I’m choking from your chains around my neck. I can no longer endure your commands and prohibitions. My spirit takes strength from being bound to you, but it longs to breathe freely, far from your control.
“Father, sometimes I love you in a way that surpasses my love for myself. But at other times, I wish you were dead.
“Father, I’m speaking to you in the dark because I am unable to see you. I have never looked you in the eyes my entire life, and nevertheless, they are more real to me than my own eyes. I see through the eyes of no one but you, even though I haven’t looked at them. My own eyes long to exist on their own before they rot away. Our corpses are rotting, Father! Have mercy on our weakness. You are leading us to ruin!”
As dawn was breaking, I began to see my father leaning over Grandfather’s body, their faces close together, and his hands on Grandfather’s chest or to either side of it. I found myself shaking on account of what I had seen and heard. I hurried to leave, returning to my bed. I was trembling and uncertain as to whether I was asleep or awake. Sweat drenched me, and my throat was dry. I curled up in a fetal position under the covers, and I began to open and close my eyes in the shadows, listening to the beating of my heart and the racing of my breath.
Then I heard my mother start wailing and crying out, “The mullah is dead!”
My father gave the call for the dawn prayer from the roof of the mosque.
I got up and packed as many of my belongings as I could fit into my bag. Then I hurriedly slipped over to the bed in the next room where Istabraq was lying, sick with sorrow over the loss of Sirat. I whispered to her, “My dear Istabraq, I can’t stand it here any longer. I’m going to leave the village. I’m going to leave the entire country. I’m leaving everything here behind, and I don’t know where I’m going or how. I’m going anywhere but here, and I don’t know when I’ll come back. But the one thing that I know is that I can’t stand it here for a single moment longer. I’m choking! I’m choking to death!”
CHAPTER 9
Iwoke to someone ringing the bell from the main door. I looked at the alarm clock next to my head and saw that it was quarter to six in the morning. I got up and went over to the receiver for the door phone. “Yes, who is it?” I asked.
A voice came to me: “It’s me, Fatima. I’m sorry to disturb you, but I need to talk to you. It’s urgent.”
“Oh! Fatima. Come on up. Come on up! I’m on the fifth floor.” I left the door open and heard her steps coming up the bottom flights of the staircase. Meanwhile, I hurried to the bathroom, washed my face, rinsed my mouth, and quickly combed my hair. Then I hurried to clear off the surface of the coffee table, which was cluttered with an ashtray filled with cigarette butts and date pits, empty yogurt cups, and scattered newspapers. Afterward, I went to the door and stood waiting for her as the sound of her steps approached the top.
She was panting on account of the climb, and I repeated the playful cliché that I had learned from Pilar and shared with everyone winded by the climb to my apartment: “It’s good exercise. They say that climbing stairs is good for the heart.”
I reached out my hand, taking hold of hers and helping her up the last two steps.
Smiling, she said, “Good morning!” Then she added, “And what am I going to do with a strong heart if I have no intention of shipping it off to compete in the Olympics?”
We laughed together, and I led her inside. Traces of fatigue from staying up all night were clearly visible on her face. Little red veins stained the whites of her eyes. I noticed that her hair was long and pretty. When she passed under the lamp hanging in the hallway, I saw that the skin of her face was tired and shining as though smeared with oil. I led her to a seat in the living room, and she flopped down, heaving a powerful sigh, or as the saying goes, the uttermost sigh of her heart.