She looks around slowly. The room. Her man. This body in the emptiness. This empty body.
Her eyes fill with dread. She stands up, refolds the rug, puts it back in its place in the corner of the room, and leaves.
A few moments later, she returns to check the level of solution in the drip bag. There isn’t much left. She stares at the tube, noting the intervals between the drips. They are short, shorter than the intervals between the man’s breaths. She adjusts the flow, waits two drips, and turns around decisively. “I’m going to the pharmacy for more solution.” But before her feet cross the threshold, they falter and she lets out a plaintive sigh: “I hope they’ve managed to get hold of some…” She leaves the room. We hear her waking the children, “Come on, we’re going out,” and departing, followed by little footsteps running down the passage, through the courtyard…
After three cycles of the prayer beads-two hundred and ninety-seven breaths-they are back.
The woman takes the children into the next-door room. One is crying, “I’m hungry, Mummy.” The other complaining, “Why didn’t you get any bananas?” Their mother comforts them: “I’ll give you some bread.”
Just as the sun withdraws its rays from the holes in the yellow and blue sky of the curtains, the woman reappears in the doorway to the room. She looks at the man a while, then approaches and checks his breath. He is breathing. The drip bag is almost dry. “The pharmacy was shut,” she says and, looking resigned, waits, as if for further instructions. Nothing. Nothing but breathing. She leaves again and returns with a glass of water. “I’ll have to do what I did last time, and use sugar-salt solution…”
With a quick, practiced movement she pulls the tube out of his arm. Takes off the syringe. Cleans the tube, feeds it into his half-open mouth, and pushes it down until it reaches his esophagus. Then she pours the contents of the glass into the drip bag. Adjusts the flow, checking the gaps between drips. One drip per breath.
And leaves.
A dozen drips later, she is back, chador in hand. “I have to go and see my aunt.” She waits again… for permission, perhaps. Her eyes wander. “I’ve lost my mind!” Agitated, she turns around and leaves the room. Behind the door, her voice comes and goes in the passageway: “I don’t care,” near, “what you think of her…,” far, “I love her,” near, “she’s all I have left… my sisters have abandoned me, and your brothers too…” far, “… that I see her,” near, “I need to…,” far, “… she doesn’t give a damn about you… and neither do I!” She can be heard leaving with her two children.
Their absence lasts three thousand nine hundred and sixty breaths. Three thousand nine hundred and sixty breaths during which nothing happens except what the woman had predicted. The water bearer knocks at the neighbor’s door. A woman with a rasping cough opens the door to him… A few breaths later, a boy crosses the street on his bike whistling the tune of “Laïli, Laïli, Laïli, djân, djân, djân, you have broken my heart…”
So they return, she and her two children. She leaves them in the passage. Opens the door, abruptly. Her man is still there. Same position. Same rhythm to his breath. As for her, she is very pale. Paler even than him. She leans against the wall. After a long silence, she moans, “My aunt… she has left the house… she’s gone!” With her back against the wall she slips to the ground. “She’s gone… but where? No one knows… I have no one left… no one!” Her voice trembles. Her throat tightens. The tears flow. “She doesn’t know what’s happened to me… she can’t know! Otherwise she would have left me a message, or come to rescue me… She hates you, I know, but she loves me… she loves the children… but you…” The sobbing robs her of her voice. She moves away from the wall, shuts her eyes, takes a deep breath in an attempt to say something. But she can’t say it; it must be heavy, heavy with meaning, voice-crushingly heavy. So she keeps it inside, and seeks something light, gentle, and easy to say: “And you, you knew that you had a wife and two daughters!” She punches herself in the belly. Once. Twice. As if to beat out the heavy word that has buried itself in her guts. She crouches down and cries, “Did you think about us for even a second, when you shouldered that fucking Kalashnikov? You son of a…,” the words suppressed again.
She remains still for a moment. Her eyes close. Her head hangs. She lets out a long, painful groan. Her shoulders are still moving to the rhythm of the breath. Seven breaths.
Seven breaths, and she looks up, wiping her eyes on the sleeve embroidered with ears and flowers of wheat. After looking at the man a while, she moves closer, bends over his face and whispers, “Forgive me,” as she strokes his arm. “I’m tired. At breaking point. Don’t abandon me, you’re all I have left.” She raises her voice: “Without you, I have nothing. Think of your daughters! What will I do with them? They’re so young…” She stops stroking him.
Somewhere outside, not far away, a shot is fired. Another, closer, in retort. The first gunman shoots again. This time, no response.
“The mullah won’t come today,” she says with some relief. “He’s scared of stray bullets. He’s as much of a coward as your brothers.” She stands up and moves a few steps away. “You men, you’re all cowards!” She comes back. Stares darkly at the man. “Where are your brothers who were so proud to see you fight their enemies?” Two breaths and her silence fills with rage. “Cowards!” she spits. “They should be looking after your children, and me-honoring you, and themselves-isn’t that right? Where is your mother, who always used to say she would sacrifice herself for a single hair on your head? She couldn’t deal with the fact that her son, the hero, who fought on every front, against every foe, had managed to get shot in a pathetic quarrel because some guy-from his own side, would you believe-had said, I spit in your mother’s pussy! Shot over an insult!” She takes a step closer. “It’s so ridiculous, so stupid!” Her gaze wanders around the room and then settles, heavily, on the man who may or may not hear her. “Do you know what your family said to me, before leaving the city?” she continues. “That they wouldn’t be able to take care of either your wife or your children… You might as well know: they’ve abandoned you. They don’t give a fuck about your health, or your suffering, or your honor!… They’ve deserted us,” she cries. “Us, me!” She raises her prayer-bead hand to the ceiling, begging, “Allah, help me!… Al-Qahhar, Al-Qahhar…” And weeps.
One cycle of the prayer beads.
Desolate, she stammers, “I’m going… I’m going… I am… mad.” She throws her head back. “Why tell him all this? I’m going mad. Allah, cut off my tongue! May my mouth be filled with earth!” She covers her face. “Allah, protect me, guide me, I’m losing my way, show me the path!”
No reply.
No guide.
Her hand buries itself in her man’s hair. Beseeching words emerge from her dry throat: “Come back, I beg you, before I lose my mind. Come back, for the sake of your children…” She looks up. Gazes through her tears in the same uncertain direction as the man. “Bring him back to life, God!” Her voice drops. “After all, he fought in your name for so long. For jihad!” She stops, then starts again: “And you’re leaving him in this state? What about his children? And me? You can’t, you can’t, you’ve no right to leave us like this, without a man!” Her left hand, the one holding the prayer beads, pulls the Koran toward her. Her rage seeks expression in her voice. “Prove that you exist, bring him back to life!” She opens the Koran. Her finger moves down the names of God featured on the flyleaf. “I swear I won’t ever let him go off to fight again like a bloody idiot. Not even in your name! He will be mine, here, with me.” Her throat, knotted by sobs, lets through only the stifled cry “Al-Qahhar.” She starts telling the prayer beads again. “Al-Qahhar…” Ninety-nine times, “Al-Qahhar.”