The Patience Stone Page 2

  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.”

  The room grows dark.

  “I’m scared, Mummy. It’s all dark.” One of the little girls is whimpering in the passage, behind the door. The woman stands up to leave the room.

  “Don’t be frightened, darling. I’m here.”

  “Why are you shouting? You’re scaring me, Mummy,” weeps the little girl. The mother reassures her: “I wasn’t shouting. I was talking to your father.”

  They walk away from the door.

  “Why are you calling my father Al-Qahhar? Is he cross?”

  “No, but he will be if we disturb him.”

  The little girl falls silent.

  It is now completely dark.

  And, as the woman predicted, the mullah has not come.

  She returns with a hurricane lamp. Puts it on the ground near the man’s head, and takes the bottle of eyedrops out of her pocket. Gently, she administers the drops. One, two. One, two. Then leaves the room and comes back with a sheet and a small plastic basin. She removes the dirty sheet covering the man’s legs. Washes his belly, his feet, his genitals. Once this is done she covers her man with a clean sheet, checks the gaps between the drips of sugar-salt solution and leaves, taking the lamp with her.

  Everything is dark once more. For a long time.

  At dawn, as the hoarse voice of the mullah calls the faithful to prayer, the sound of dragging feet can be heard in the passage. They approach the room, move away, then come back. The door opens. The woman enters. She looks at the man. Her man. He is still there, in the same position. But his eyes draw her attention. She takes a step forward. His eyes are closed. The woman moves nearer. Another step. Silently. Then two. She looks at him. Can’t see clearly. She isn’t sure. She backs out of the room. Less than five breaths later she is back with the hurricane lamp. His eyes are still closed. She collapses onto the floor. “Are you sleeping?!” Her trembling hand moves to the man’s chest. He is breathing. “Yes … you’re sleeping!” she shouts. Looks around the room for someone so she can say it again: “He’s sleeping!”

  No one. She is afraid.

  She picks up the little rug, unfolds it, and stretches it out on the ground. The mornin
g prayer done, she remains sitting, takes the Koran and opens it at the page marked with a peacock feather, which she removes and holds in her right hand. With her left, she tells the prayer beads.

  After reading a few verses, she puts back the feather, closes the Koran, and sits thoughtfully for a moment, gazing at the feather peeking out of the sacred book. She strokes it, sadly at first, then anxiously.

  She stands up, tidies away the rug, and walks toward the door. Before leaving, she stops. Turns around. Goes back to her place by the man. Hesitantly opens one of his eyes. Then the other. Waits. His eyes do not close again. The woman takes the bottle of eye-drops and measures a few drops into his eyes. One, two. One, two. Checks the drip bag. There’s still some solution.

  Before standing up, she pauses and looks nervously at the man, asking him, “Can you close your eyes again?” The man’s vacant eyes do not respond. She persists, “You can, you can! Do it again!” And waits. In vain.

  Concerned, she slips her hand gently under the man’s neck. A sensation, a horror, makes her arm twitch. She shuts her eyes, clenches her teeth. Breathes in deeply, painfully. She is suffering. As she breathes out, she extracts her hand and examines the tips of her trembling fingers in the weak light of the lamp. They are dry. She stands up to roll the man onto his side. Brings the lamp closer to his neck so she can examine a small wound—still open, bruised, drained of blood but not yet healed.

  The woman holds her breath, and presses the wound. The man still doesn’t respond. She presses harder. No protest. Not in the eyes, or the breath. “Doesn’t it even hurt?” She rolls the man onto his back again, and leans over him so she can look into his eyes. “You don’t suffer! You’ve never suffered, never! I’ve never heard of a man surviving a bullet in the neck! You’re not even bleeding, there’s no pus, no pain, no suffering! It’s a miracle! your mother used to say … Some bloody miracle!” She stands up. “Even injured, you’ve been spared suffering.” Her voice rasps in her tightening throat. “And it’s me who suffers! Me who cries!” Having said it, she moves to the door. Tears and fury in her eyes, she disappears into the darkness of the passage, leaving the hurricane lamp to project the trembling shadow of the man onto the wall until the full rise of dawn, until the rays of the sun make their way through the holes in the yellow and blue curtains, condemning the lamp to insignificance.

  A hand hesitates to open the door to the room. Or is struggling to. “Daddy!” The voice of one of the children can be heard over the creaking of the door. “Where are you going?” At the woman’s shout, the child pulls the door shut and moves away. “Don’t bother your father, darling. He’s sick. He’s sleeping. Come with me!” The small footsteps run off down the passage. “But what about you, when you go in there, and shout, doesn’t that bother him?” Her mother replies: “Yes, it does.” Silence.

  A fly sneaks into the heavy hush of the room. Lands on the man’s forehead. Hesitant. Uncertain. Wanders over his wrinkles, licks his skin. No taste. Definitely no taste.

  The fly makes its way down into the corner of his eye. Still hesitant. Still uncertain. It tastes the white of the eye, then moves off. It isn’t chased away. It resumes its journey, getting lost in the beard, climbing the nose. Takes flight. Explores the body. Returns. Settles once more on the face. Clambers onto the tube stuffed into the half-open mouth. Licks it, moves right along it to the edge of the lips. No spit. No taste. The fly continues, enters the mouth. And is engulfed.

  The hurricane lamp breathes its final breaths in vain. The flame goes out. The woman returns. She is filled with a deep weariness—of her being, and her body. After a few listless steps toward her man, she stops. Less decisive than the previous day. Her gaze lingers desperately on the motionless body. She sits down between the man and the Koran, which she opens at the flyleaf. She moves her finger over the names of God, one by one. Counts them. Stops at the seventeenth name. Murmurs “Al-Wahhab, the Bestower.” A bitter smile puckers the edges of her lips. “I don’t need a gift.” She pulls at the peacock feather peeking out of the Koran. “I haven’t the heart to go on reciting the names of God.” She strokes her lips with the feather. “Praise be to God … He will save you. Without me. Without my prayers … He’s got to.”

  The woman is silenced by a knocking at the door. “It must be the mullah.” She hasn’t the slightest desire to open. More knocking. She hesitates. The knocking continues. She leaves the room. Her footsteps can be heard moving toward the road. She is talking to someone. Her words are lost in the courtyard, behind the windows.

  A hand timidly pushes open the door to the room. One of the little girls comes in. A sweet face beneath a mop of unruly hair. She is slender. Her little eyes stare at the man. “Daddy!” she cries, and shyly walks closer. “Are you sleeping, Daddy?” she asks. “What’s that in your mouth?” pointing at the drip tube. She stops near her father, unsure whether to touch his cheek. “But you’re not sleeping!” she cries. “Why does Mummy always say you’re sleeping? Mummy says you’re sick. She won’t let me come in here and talk to you … but she’s always talking to you.” She is about to sit down next to him when she is stopped by a cry from her sister, squeezed into the half-open doorway. “Be quiet!” she shouts, mimicking her mother’s voice, and runs up to the little one. “Come on!” She takes her by the hand and pulls her toward their father. After a moment’s hesitation, the younger girl climbs onto her father’s chest and starts yanking at his beard. The other shouts heartily, “Come on, Daddy, talk!” She leans toward his mouth and touches the tube. “Take out this thing. Talk!” She pulls away the tube, hoping to hear him say something. But no. Nothing but breathing. Slow, deep breaths. She stares at her father’s half-open mouth. Her curious little hand dives in and pulls out the fly. “A fly!” she cries and, disgusted, throws it on the floor. The younger girl laughs, and rests her chapped cheek on her father’s chest.

  The mother comes in. “What are you doing?” she screams in horror. She rushes toward the children, grabbing them by the arms. “Get out! Come with me!”

  “A fly! Daddy’s eating a fly!” shriek the girls, almost in concert. “Be quiet!” orders their mother.

  They leave the room.

  The fly struggles on the kilim, drowning in saliva.

  The woman comes back into the room. Before reinserting the tube into the man’s mouth she looks around, anxious and intrigued. “What fly?” Noticing nothing, she replaces the tube and leaves.

  Later, she comes back to pour sugar-salt solution into the drip bag, and eyedrops into the man’s eyes.

  Her tasks complete, she does not remain with her man.

  She no longer puts her right hand on her man’s chest.

  She no longer tells the black prayer beads in time with her man’s breathing.

  She leaves.

  She doesn’t return until the call to midday prayer—and not to take out the little carpet, unfurl it, lay it on the ground, and say her prayers. Just to put new eye-drops into the man’s eyes. One, two. One, two. And then leave again.

  After the call to prayer, the mullah’s hoarse voice beseeches God to lend his protection to the area’s faithful on this, a Wednesday: “… because, as our Prophet says, it’s a day of misfortune during which the Pharaoh and his people were drowned, and the peoples of the Prophet Salih—the Ad and the Thamoud—were destroyed …” He stops and immediately starts again in a fearful voice. “Dear Faithful, as I have always told you, Wednesday is a day on which, according to our Prophet, the most noble, it is right neither to practice bloodletting, nor to give, nor to receive. However, one of the hadith, quoted by Ibn Younes, says that this practice is permitted during jihad. Today, your brother, our great Commander, is furnishing you with weapons that you may defend your honor, your blood, and your tribe!”

  In the street, men are shouting themselves hoarse: “Allah O Akbar!” Running: “Allah O Akbar!” Their voices fading as they near the mosque: “Allah O …”

  A few ants prowl around the corpse of the fly
on the kilim. Then grab hold of it and carry it off.

  The woman arrives to gaze anxiously at the man. Perhaps she is afraid that the call to arms will have put him back on his feet.

  She stays near the door. Her fingers stroke her lips and then, nervously, stray between her teeth, as if to extract words that don’t dare express themselves. She leaves the room. She can be heard making something for lunch, talking and playing with the children.

  Then it’s time for a nap.

  Darkness.

  Silence.

  The woman comes back. Less anxious. She sits down next to the man. “That was the mullah. He was here for our prayer session. I told him that since yesterday I have been impure, that I am menstruating, like Eve. He wasn’t happy. I’m not sure why. Because I dared compare myself to Eve, or because I told him I was bleeding? He left, muttering into his beard. He wasn’t like that before; you could have a joke with him. But since you people declared this new law for the country, he’s changed too. He’s afraid, poor man.”

  Her gaze settles on the Koran. Suddenly, she jumps: “Shit, the feather!” She looks for it inside the book. Not there. Under the pillow. Not there either. In her pockets. There it is. With a big sigh, she sits down. “That mullah is driving me out of my mind!” she says as she puts the feather back inside the Koran. “What was I talking about? … Oh yes, bleeding … I was lying to him, of course.” She glances keenly at the man, more mischievous than submissive. “Just as I’ve lied to you … more than once!” She pulls her legs up to her chest and wedges her chin between her knees. “But there is something I’d better tell you …” She looks at him for a long time. Still with the same strange wariness in her gaze. “You know …” Her voice goes hoarse. She swallows to moisten her throat, and looks up. “When you and I went to bed for the first time—after three years of marriage, remember!—anyway, that night, I had my period.” Her gaze flees the man to seek refuge in the creases of the sheet. She rests her left cheek on her knees. The look in her scarred eye loses some of its wariness. “I didn’t tell you. And you, you thought that … the blood was proof of my virginity!” A muted laugh shakes her crouched, huddled body. “How thrilled you were to see the blood, how proud!” A moment. A look. And the dread of hearing a cry of rage, an insult. Nothing. And so, soft and serene, she allows herself to visit the intimate corners of her memory. “I shouldn’t really have had my period then. It wasn’t the right time, but I was a week early; it must have been nerves, fear about meeting you. I mean, can you imagine—being engaged for almost a year and then married for three years to an absent man; not so easy. I lived with your name. I had never seen, or heard, or touched you before that day. I was afraid, afraid of everything, of you, of going to bed, of the blood. But at the same time, it was a fear I enjoyed. You know, the kind of fear that doesn’t separate you from your desire, but instead arouses you, gives you wings, even though it may burn. That was the kind of fear I was feeling. And it was growing in me every day, invading my belly, my guts … On the night before you arrived, it came pouring out. It wasn’t a blue fear. No. It was a red fear, blood red. When I mentioned it to my aunt, she advised me not to say anything … and so I kept quiet. That suited me fine. Although I was a virgin I was really scared. I kept wondering what would happen if by any chance I didn’t bleed that night …” Her hand sweeps through the air as if batting away a fly. “It would have been a catastrophe. I’d heard so many stories about that. I could imagine the whole thing.” Her voice becomes mocking. “Passing off impure blood as virginal blood, bit of a brainwave, don’t you think?” She lies down right close to the man. “I have never understood why, for you men, pride is so much linked to blood.” Her hand sweeps the air again. Her fingers are moving. As if gesturing to an invisible person to come closer. “And remember the night—it was when we were first living together—that you came home late. Dead drunk. You’d been smoking. I had fallen asleep. You pulled down my knickers without saying a word. I woke up. But I pretended to be deeply asleep. You … penetrated me … you had a great time … but when you stood up to go and wash yourself, you noticed blood on your dick. You were furious. You came back and beat me, in the middle of the night, just because I hadn’t warned you that I was bleeding. I had defiled you!” She laughs, scornful. “I had made you unclean.” Her hand snatches memories from the air, closes around them, descends to stroke her belly as it swells and slackens at a pace faster than the man’s breathing.