I was a bit flustered, because I’d never reflected on my reasons for loving certain works of art. Beauty would simply and suddenly hit me in the gut. I hesitated, then said, “I don’t know exactly, but I felt that the man he sculpted was sad and isolated.”
Professor Isam al-Janabi smiled, and his eyes glittered. “Bravo. Many critics say that his works express an existentialist attitude toward the emptiness and meaninglessness of life.” He said the last sentence in standard Arabic and in a different tone. Then he added: “Remind me of your name again?”
“Jawad,” I said.
“Of course you loved him, Jawad. How could you not?”
We left the lecture hall together and continued our conversation about Giacometti and abstract sculpture until we reached his office. He asked me to come in. Stacks of papers, books, and clippings were piled on his desk and chair. The shelves were piled to the ceiling with books. He put his bag on his desk, then gathered the pile of manuscripts and newspapers from a chair so I could sit. I looked at the books. Most of them were in Arabic and English, but there were some titles in Italian. A huge black-and-white poster of Giacometti covered what was left of the wall. In the picture, Giacometti was carrying one of his tiny statues and walking between two thin large ones. I was taken by the poster, and Professor Isam al-Janabi noticed my reaction.
He looked at it as if seeing it for the first time: “Ah, here is your friend Giacometti in his studio.” Then he asked me about my background and interests, listening intently to everything I had to say. He, too, had come from a poor family. His father worked at a paper mill and wanted him to be an engineer, not an artist.
I asked whether he’d met Giacometti. He said he hadn’t, because Giacometti died years before he had gone to Europe. He got out of his chair and looked for something on the shelves. After half a minute, he reached up and plucked a book from one of the top shelves. It was a big book with Giacometti’s name written in a big font on the cover. He blew the dust away and gave it to me, saying it contained all of Giacometti’s works and I could borrow it, provided I took good care of it. I was very happy. He looked at his watch and said that he had a lecture in a few minutes. I apologized and thanked him for his time. We shook hands and said goodbye.
I left his office and headed to the library to use the dictionary to help me understand the English texts and captions accompanying the images. I sat leafing through the book fondly, reading all about Giacometti’s life. I was fascinated by his work and wanted to know its secrets, so I started looking at his family photos wanting to know everything about him as if he’d become a relative. I learned that he was born in 1901 in Switzerland and died in 1966 after living through two world wars. Perhaps that explained the sadness in his works. He had studied in Paris with Bourdelle, who had worked with Rodin, but his work was so distinct that it was difficult to categorize. His statues were conspicuously thin, as if they were threads or thin mummies exhumed out of tombs. The body was always naked and with minimal features. Some works were of a hand waving alone without a body. Humans, in Giacometti’s world, be they men or women, appeared sad and lonely, with no clear features, emerging from the unknown and striding toward it.
There was one page in the book that had quotations by Giacometti. One of them stayed with me. He said that what he’d wanted to sculpt was not man but the shadow he leaves behind.
TWELVE
The first week of my fourth year at the academy I saw Reem sitting on a bench near the theater department all in black and wearing sunglasses. I approached her and said hello. She greeted me amicably but apologized for not recognizing or remembering me. I reminded her of my name and my silly joke about trying to save her from drowning after that exercise and of our short conversation at the cafeteria. I asked her about the black she was wearing. She said that her ex-husband had died two months before. I offered my condolences. She thanked me and smiled, saying that he was an officer and had died on the front line. I mentioned that my brother was a martyr, too. I didn’t want to burden her so I didn’t ask why she’d been away for so long, but I asked whether she was back in school. She nodded with a smile. Death had brought her back to me.
THIRTEEN
One morning I surprised Reem with a question I’d been meaning to ask but had hesitated to pose: “Did you love him a lot?”
“Who?”
I found it strange that she didn’t realize I meant her ex-husband. “The deceased.”
She turned to me and looked at me with her magic eyes. We were sitting next to each other under the palm tree she loved. Then she looked straight ahead without saying a word. I feared that I’d hurt her feelings or reopened wounds that had yet to heal, so I said “I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to … ”
She smiled and said, “No, it’s not a problem. It’s a sensitive subject. I will answer you when I can trust you more.”
“And when will that be?”
“Don’t rush.”
After that day I was careful not to bring up her marriage again. Two months later we were sitting at the cafeteria of the British Council near the academy. She asked me about my relationship with my father. I told her about my clashes with him, that he was disappointed in me because I had decided not to follow in his footsteps and insisted on studying art, which he thought was a waste of time.
She said that her father never paid any attention to what she did or wanted to do. “I wish he’d insisted I study one thing or even objected to my studying at the academy. I would’ve interpreted that as a sign that he cared or loved me. But he was always busy with his business and I rarely saw him. Only his wife, who was another of his profitable deals, could compete for the attention he usually devoted to his business. He married her after my mother passed away. After moving in with us, she turned my life into hell and fought me in every way possible. So marriage was my only escape.
“I didn’t love my husband, but I hoped that living with him would lead to another kind of love. I’d fallen in love with a young man who lived on our street when I was in high school, but I later realized that it wasn’t a serious or meaningful relationship. We were both young and spoke on the phone a great deal, whispering and whatnot. We met every now and then whenever it was possible. It withered away when he moved with his family to al-Sayyidiyya. It was quite far and he didn’t have a car. Our nocturnal chats became less frequent and the whole thing just died.
“During the summer vacation right before I entered the academy, one of my relatives asked for my hand. I’d seen him two or three times at weddings. He had studied engineering and then became a lieutenant in the Republican Guards. He got two medals for bravery during the war. He’d seen me once leaving high school and offered to drive me home. I thanked him politely but refused his offer. He later confessed that it wasn’t a coincidence at all and that he had approached me so as to test the waters. Although I never believed in traditional marriage, my only goal was to free myself from my stepmother, and I came to the conclusion that I had no choice but to compromise.
“Ayad was handsome. He was pleasant during the initial visits. Throughout our engagement he would come every three weeks during his leaves from the army. He was very gentle and understanding at first and promised that I could complete my studies and be independent. I liked his maturity, especially when I informed him that I didn’t want to have kids until after my studies. He agreed and said that he would want to be in Baghdad, not on the front, when his children were born so he could raise them himself. It seemed that the war would go on for another two or three years anyway.