He laughed loudly, until his eyes filled with tears.
“And I remember that the younger …” He corrected himself, “I mean the older, Sadiq, gave me five piasters and told me to buy chocolate with them from the shop. I gave the five piasters to Wisal and she bought five little pieces of chocolate which she passed out to us, to me and you and Ezz and Umm Sadiq and my mother. I divided the piece she gave me between us because she didn’t take anything for herself. When I ate the chocolate I found out that it was very delicious, so I went back to Wisal and asked her for the half that I had given her. She had eaten it. I cried so you gave me the chocolate that Wisal had given you.”
“Strange, I don’t remember.”
“I remember it clearly. I also remember that you would give me everything. You would carry me and I would put my arms around your neck. I would only go to sleep next to you.”
My face reddened in embarrassment. I changed the subject: “Do you remember how afraid you were of the sea, and how you would yell and cry when I was trying to teach you to swim?”
15
Wisal
Abd al-Rahman held out his hand with the telephone receiver and said, “Talk!”
I grasped the receiver and put it to my ear. I heard her voice and I knew it, even though I asked in confusion, “Wisal?” Then my voice was cut off. No, the telephone line wasn’t what was cut but rather my voice, as if I had returned to al-Furaydis and lost the power of speech. She filled the silence with words of welcome and with questions.
Abd al-Rahman took the receiver from me and said to Wisal, “Ruqayya is crying. I didn’t know she loved you so much. I wanted to surprise her — she didn’t know you were on the line, she didn’t expect it. Okay, better next time. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Where had all these tears been? My tears flowed for an hour or two. I would dry them, and dry them again. I would blow my nose and then dry my tears. Those who passed by in the Center didn’t notice that a woman was crying in their colleague’s office, or that the crying inside her, even though it was bound by silence, could have been raised to fill the ears of those passing in the street. I didn’t notice that Abed had left the office until he came back carrying a box of tissues and a glass of water and a sheet of some pills. He gave me a pill and the glass of water and I took them from him.
He sat facing me in silence. Then I noticed my silence, and his, and my tears, and was filled with embarrassment. I wiped my face and got up. I said, “I’m sorry, Abed, I’m so sorry.” I headed for the elevator. He followed me, and we got in together. As soon as the door shut he opened his arms wide and hugged me, hugged me strongly and kissed me. He wanted to take me home but I refused. What happened? I walked in the streets of Beirut, not knowing if I was headed for home or not. Was I walking or scurrying or running? I look back from afar: a woman of thirty-five walking as if she were running, or running strangely and sporadically, not going anywhere. Why? Does she want to flee from her story? From scenes that loomed unexpectedly from their place when Abed appeared days ago and when Wisal’s voice followed him, so that the door that had been closed for years and chained with a large lock opened wide? How had an old, heavy door opened like that, without a sound or a squeak? It opened, and it all followed. Then the boy hugs her in the elevator, hugs her strongly, and she goes to him as if she had been waiting for years. What happened? She kissed him as he kissed her, why did he kiss her and why did she kiss him? She runs from the question, from herself, from Abed who had suddenly appeared to her in the form of a man, as if he were one of her brothers come back from the dead. And does a brother kiss his sister like this, on the lips? She was shaking like someone with a fever. She stopped suddenly on the street, and sat on the sidewalk. She sat for a few minutes or maybe an hour or two. When she calmed down a little she went toward the house.
The children were waiting, expecting their mother to be whole and complete. Here she is standing in the kitchen preparing lunch as if nothing had happened. Here she sits with them at the lunch table. They ask her why she’s not eating. “My head hurts. I’ll sleep.” She sleeps, and at night she says to Amin, “Wisal called me from Jordan.” The rest of it was on the tip of her tongue: “And Abd al-Rahman kissed me in the elevator,” but she did not say it. Her tongue was tied, as if it had decided in her place not to say it.
What will I do about this kiss? Where will I go with it? I’ll forget the whole thing completely, as if it never happened. I’ll lose it intentionally, and it will be lost. I went to Wisal, I took refuge with her, just as she and her mother and little brother had taken refuge with us one faraway day. I barricaded myself behind her, concentrating on her voice. The voice seemed strong and painfully near. Who said that the telephone can connect us? It does not; it asserts the distance while forcing you to visualize what you know, and you visualize it now on your skin like a knife blade that touches a nerve, that cuts deeply into your living flesh. Her voice came to me close and clear and I was on the other side, like two women divided by a glass barrier, as if it were the barrier separating the prisoner from his visitor, or more precisely, separating one prisoner from another. So be it, I’ll prepare and talk to her as she talked to me. I’ll subdue the lump in my throat and control the tremor and my tears. Tomorrow.
But the following day I did not go to the Center where Abd al-Rahman works, and not on the day after that. I did not go and he did not come. When two weeks had passed without his appearing, Hasan began to ask about him. He took his telephone number and called him. He said, “Mama, I invited him to dinner tomorrow.” I did not comment. I woke up at dawn as if I had set an alarm. The thought of him and his image and perhaps my fear of meeting him woke me. Can things go back to the way they were? How will we bring them back? He came promptly. I busied myself with preparing dinner, and he busied himself, or was busy with talking to Amin and the boys. I didn’t speak to him directly or look at him, nor did he look at me. The evening passed safely. He no longer came to visit us unless Amin or one of the boys invited him. He no longer knocked on the door unannounced, laughing when it opened and saying, “The unwelcome guest has arrived.”
One morning there was a knock on the door. I was cleaning the house, still wearing my nightgown. I opened the door, and Abed was standing there. He said, “I know Amin and the boys aren’t at home. I wanted to tell you good morning, and to have a quick word with you.” He remained standing at the door, and for a moment or two I stood staring at him, not knowing what the next step was. I laughed suddenly, and said, “Welcome, come in.” I said, “One moment.” I changed my clothes quickly and went to him. I said, “I’ll make you a cup of coffee.” The coffee boiled over, so I filled another small pot with water and added three spoons of ground coffee. I stood watching it. Why had Abed come? It boiled over again — had I ever made coffee before? He called from the living room, “Ruqayya, I won’t stay long, I’ll have a quick word with you and leave. The coffee boiled over, didn’t it?” In a voice that surprised me by how loud it was I said, “It didn’t boil over, I’ll be with you in a minute.” The third time. I fixed my eyes on the coffee pot and moved it a little away from the center of the flame. The coffee boiled up, and I poured two cups. I offered him one and then brought in my cup and sat on the facing seat. A sip, then with the second sip the cup spilled on me. I laughed to hide my embarrassment, and said, “I don’t know what’s come over me today.” He laughed, and I laughed. Then we laughed more, and I got up to change my clothes again. When I returned he was standing, preparing to leave; he said, “I have to go to work.” He leaned down a little and kissed my head, and went down the stairs with rapid steps. He did not look back.