The Patience Stone Read online

  She shuts herself in one of the other rooms, to calm her nerves with total solitude.

  The children are still shouting among the ruins.

  The sun moves over to the other side of the house, withdrawing its rays of light from the holes in the yellow and blue sky of the curtains.

  Later, she comes back. Eyes solemn, hands shaking. She walks up to the man. Stops. Takes a deep breath. Grabs hold of the feeding tube, closes her eyes, and pulls it out of his mouth. Turns around, her eyes still closed. Takes an uncertain step. Sobs “Forgive me, God!” picks up her veil and disappears.

  She runs. Through the garden. Down the street …

  The sugar-salt solution drips, one drop at a time, from the hanging tube onto the man’s forehead. It flows into the valleys of his wrinkles, then toward the base of his nose, into his eye sockets, across his chapped cheeks, and finally into his thick, bushy moustache.

  The sun is setting.

  The weapons awakening.

  Tonight again they will destroy.

  Tonight again they will kill.

  Morning.

  Rain.

  Rain on the city and its rubble.

  Rain on the bodies and their wounds.

  A few breaths after the last drop of sugar-salt solution, the sound of wet footsteps slaps through the courtyard, and into the passage. The muddy shoes are not removed.

  The door to the room creaks open. It’s the woman. She doesn’t dare enter. She observes the man with that strange, wary look in her eyes. Pushes the door a fraction wider. Waits some more. Nothing moves. She takes off her shoes and slips quietly in, remaining on the threshold. She lets her veil fall to the floor. She is shaking. With cold. Or fear. She walks forward, until her feet are touching the mattress on which the man is lying.

  The breathing has its usual rhythm.

  The mouth is still half-open.

  The look is still mocking.

  The eyes are still empty, soulless … but today they are wet with tears. She crouches down, terrified. “Are you … are you crying?” She sinks to the ground. But soon realizes that the tears come from the tube; they are sugar-salt tears.

  Her throat is dry, her voice deadened. Blank. “But, who are you?” A moment goes by—two breaths. “Why doesn’t God send Ezraeel, to finish you off once and for all?” she asks suddenly. “What does he want from you?” She looks up. “What does he want from me?” Her voice drops. “You would say, He wants to punish you!” She shakes her head. “Don’t kid yourself!” Her voice is clearer now. “Perhaps it’s you he wants to punish! He’s keeping you alive so you can see what I’m capable of doing with you, to you. He is making me into a demon … a demon for you, against you! Yes, I am your demon! In flesh and blood!” She lies down on the mattress to avoid the man’s glassy stare. Lies there a long moment, silent and thoughtful. Traveling far, far back into the past, to the day the demon was born in her.

  “After everything I confessed yesterday, you would tell me that I was already a demon as a young child. A demon in my father’s eyes.” Her hand touches the man’s arm tenderly. Strokes it. “But I was never a demon to you, was I?” She shakes her head. “Or maybe I was …” Her silence is full of doubt and uncertainty. “But everything I did was for you … in order to keep you.” Her hand slips onto the man’s chest. “Or actually, to tell you the truth, so that you would keep me. So that you wouldn’t leave me! Yes, that’s why I …” She stops herself. Draws in her knees and curls up on her side, next to the man. “I did everything I could to make you stay with me. Not just because I loved you, but so that you wouldn’t abandon me. Without you, I didn’t have anyone. They would all have sent me packing.” She falls silent. Scratches her head. “I admit that to start with I wasn’t very sure of myself. Wasn’t sure I could love you. I didn’t know how to love a hero. It seemed so out of reach somehow, like a dream. For three years, I had been trying to imagine what you were like … and then one day you came. You slipped into the bed. Climbed on top of me. Rubbed yourself against me … and couldn’t do it! And you didn’t even dare say a word to me. In total darkness, with our hearts beating furiously, our breathing all jerky, our bodies streaming with sweat …” Her eyes are closed. She is far away, far from this motionless body. Drowning in the darkness of that night of desire. Of that hunger. She remains there a moment. Totally silent. Totally still.

  Then: “After that, I very quickly became used to you, to your clumsy body, your empty presence, which at that point I didn’t know how to interpret … and gradually, I started to worry when you went away. To keep watch for your return. I used to get in a terrible state when you went away, even for a little while … I felt as if something was missing. Not in the house, but inside of me … I felt empty. So I started to stuff myself with food. And each time, your mother would come over to me, asking impatiently whether I didn’t feel nauseous at all. She thought I was pregnant! When I told other people—my sisters—about this distress, about the state I got into when you were away, they said I was just in love, that was all. But all that didn’t last long. After about five or six months, everything changed. Your mother had decided I was barren, and kept hassling me all the time. And you did, too. But …” Her hand reaches up and swipes through the air above her head, as if to chase away the remaining words bent on attacking her.

  A few moments later—five or six breaths—she continues: “And you took up your gun again. Left again for that crazy fratricidal war! You became conceited, arrogant, and violent! Like all your family, except your father. The others despised me, they all did. Your mother was dying to see you take a second wife. I soon realized what was in store for me. My fate. You know nothing … nothing of all I did, so that you would keep me.” She rests her head on the man’s arm. A timid smile, as if to beg for his mercy. “You will forgive me, one day, for all that I’ve done …” Her face closes. “But when I think about it now … if you had known, you would have killed me straightaway!” She leans right over the man and looks at him for a long time, staring into his vacant eyes. Then she rests her cheek tenderly on his chest. “How strange this all is! I’ve never felt as close to you as I do right now. We’ve been married ten years. Ten years! And it’s only these last three weeks that I’m finally sharing something with you.” Her hand strokes the man’s hair. “I can touch you … You never let me touch you, never!” She moves toward the man’s mouth. “I have never kissed you.” She kisses him. “The first time I went to kiss you on the lips, you pushed me away. I wanted it to be like in those Indian films. Perhaps you were scared—is that it?” she asks, looking amused. “Yes. You were scared because you didn’t know how to kiss a girl.” Her lips brush against the bushy beard. “Now I can do anything I want with you!” She lifts her head, to get a better look at her vacant-eyed man. Stares at him a long time, close up. “I can talk to you about anything, without being interrupted, or blamed!” She nuzzles her head into his shoulder. “After I left, yesterday, I was filled with such a strange, indefinable feeling. I felt both sad and relieved, both happy and unhappy.” She stares into the thickness of his beard. “Yes, a strange relief. I couldn’t understand how, as well as feeling upset and horribly guilty, I could also feel relieved, as if a burden had been lifted. I wasn’t sure if it was because of …” She stops. As always, it is difficult to know whether she is blocking out her thoughts, or groping for the right words.

  She rests her head back on the man’s chest, and continues. “Yes, I thought that maybe I felt relieved because I had finally been able to desert you … to leave you to die … to rid myself of you!” She huddles into the man’s motionless body, as if cold. “Yes, rid myself of you … because yesterday, all of a sudden, I started thinking that you were still conscious, quite well in mind and body but determined to make me talk, to find out my secrets and possess me completely. So I was scared.” She kisses his chest. “Can you forgive me?” She looks at him tenderly. “I left the house, hidden beneath my chador, and wandered the streets of this deaf, bli
nd city in tears. Like a madwoman! When I went back to my aunt’s house in the evening, everyone thought I was ill. I went straight to my room to collapse into my distress, my guilt. I didn’t sleep all night. I was sure I was a monster, a proper demon! I was terrorized. Had I lost my mind, become a criminal?” She pulls away from her man’s body. “Like you, like your cronies … like the men who beheaded the neighbor’s whole family! Yes, I belonged to your camp. Coming to that conclusion was terrifying. I cried all night long.” She moves closer to him. “Then, in the morning, at dawn, just before it started raining, the wind opened the window … I was cold … and afraid. I snuggled up to my girls … I felt a presence behind me. I didn’t dare look. I felt a hand stroking me. I couldn’t move. I heard my father’s voice. I gathered every ounce of strength, and turned around. He was there. With his white beard. His little eyes blinking in the darkness. The worn-out shape of him. In his hands he was carrying the quail I had given to the cat. He claimed that everything I told you yesterday had brought his quail back to life! Then he embraced me. I stood up. He wasn’t there. Gone, taken by the wind. The rain. Was it a dream? No … it was so real! His breath on my neck, his calloused palm against my skin …” She rests her chin on her hand, to keep her head upright. “I was thrilled by his visit, lit up. I finally realized that the cause of my relief was not my attempt to abandon you to death.” She stretches. “Do you under stand what I’m saying? … The thing that was actually releasing me was having talked about that business of the quail. The fact of having confessed it. Confessed all of it, to you. And then I realized that since you’ve been ill, since I’ve been talking to you, getting angry with you, insulting you, telling you everything that I’ve kept hidden in my heart, and you not being able to reply, or do anything at all … all of this has been soothing and comforting to me.” She grasps the man by the shoulders. “So, if I feel relieved, set free—in spite of the terrible things that keep happening to us—it is thanks to my secrets, and to you. I am not a demon!” She lets go of his shoulders, and strokes his beard. “Because now your body is mine, and my secrets are yours. You are here for me. I don’t know whether you can see or not, but one thing I am absolutely sure of is that you can hear me, that you can understand what I’m saying. And that is why you’re still alive. Yes, you are alive for my sake, for the sake of my secrets.” She shakes him. “You’ll see. Just as my secrets were able to resuscitate my father’s quail, they will bring you back to life! Look, it’s been three weeks now that you’ve been living with a bullet in your neck. That’s totally unheard of! No one can believe it, no one! You don’t eat, you don’t drink, and yet you’re still here! It’s a miracle. A miracle for me, and thanks to me. Your breath hangs on the telling of my secrets.” She gets to her feet with ease and then stands over him, full of grace, as if to say: “Don’t worry, there is no end to my secrets.” Her words can be heard through the door. “I no longer want to lose you!”

  She returns to refill the drip bag. “Now I finally understand what your father was saying about that sacred stone. It was near the end of his life. You were away, you’d gone off to war again. It was a few months ago, just before you were hit by this bullet, your father was ill, and I was the only one looking after him. He was obsessed by a magic stone. A black stone. He talked about it the whole time … What did he call that stone?” She tries to think of the word. “He asked every friend who visited to bring him this stone … a precious, black stone …” She inserts the tube into the man’s throat. “You know, that stone you put in front of you … and tell all your problems to, all your struggles, all your pain, all your woes … to which you confess everything in your heart, everything you don’t dare tell anyone …” She checks the drip. “You talk to it, and talk to it. And the stone listens, absorbing all your words, all your secrets, until one fine day it explodes. Shatters into tiny pieces.” She cleans and moistens the man’s eyes. “And on that day you are set free from all your pain, all your suffering … What’s that stone called?” She rearranges the sheet. “The day before he died, your father called for me, he wanted to see me alone. He was dying. He whispered to me, Daughter, the angel of death has appeared to me, accompanied by the angel Gabriel, who revealed a secret that I am entrusting to you. I now know where this stone is to be found. It is in the Ka’bah, in Mecca! In the house of God! You know, that Black Stone around which millions of pilgrims circle during the big Eid celebrations. Well, that’s the very stone I was telling you about … In heaven, this stone served as a throne for Adam … but after God banished Adam and Eve to earth, he sent it down too, so that Adam’s children could tell it of their problems and sufferings … And it is this same stone that the angel Gabriel gave to Hagar and her son Ismael to use as a pillow when Abraham had banished the servant and her son into the desert … yes, it is a stone for all the world’s unfortunates. Go there! Tell it your secrets until it bursts … until you are set free from your torments.” Her lips turn ash-gray with sadness. She sits a moment in the silence of mourning.

  Her voice husky, she continues. “Pilgrims have been going to Mecca for centuries and centuries to circle around that stone, praying; so how come it hasn’t exploded yet?” A sardonic laugh makes her voice ring out, and her lips regain their color. “It will explode one day, and that day will be the end of the world. Perhaps that’s the nature of the Apocalypse.”

  Someone is walking through the courtyard. She falls silent. The steps move further away. She carries on. “Do you know what? … I think I have found that magic stone … my own magic stone.” The voices emanating from the ruins of the neighboring house prevent her once more from pursuing her thoughts. She stands up nervously and goes to the window. Opens the curtains. She is petrified by what she sees. Her hand goes to her mouth. She doesn’t make a sound. She closes the curtains and watches the scene through the holes in the yellow and blue sky. “They are burying the dead in their own garden,” she exclaims. “Where is the old lady?” She stands quite still for a long moment. Overwhelmed, she turns back to her man. Lies down on the mattress, her head against his. Hides her eyes in the crook of her arm, breathing deeply and silently, as before. To the same rhythm as the man.

  The voice of the mullah reciting burial verses from the Koran is drowned out by the rain. The mullah raises his voice and speeds up the prayer, to get it over with as quickly as possible.

  The noise and whispering disperse across the sodden ruins.

  Someone is walking toward the house. Now he is behind the door. Knocking. The woman doesn’t move. More knocking. “Is anyone there? It’s me, the mullah,” he shouts impatiently. The woman, deaf to his cry, still doesn’t move. The mullah mutters a few words and leaves. She sits back up and leans against the wall, keeping quite still until the mullah’s wet footsteps have disappeared down the street.

  “I have to go to my aunt’s place. I need to be with the children!” She gets to her feet. Stands there a moment, just long enough to listen to a few of the man’s breaths.

  Before she has picked up her veil, these words burst from her mouth: “Sang-e saboor!” She jumps. “That’s the name of the stone, sang-e saboor, the patience stone! The magic stone!” She crouches down next to the man. “Yes, you, you are my sang-e saboor!” She strokes his face gently, as if actually touching a precious stone. “I’m going to tell you everything, my sang-e saboor. Everything. Until I set myself free from my pain, and my suffering, and until you, you …” She leaves the rest unsaid. Letting the man imagine it.

  She leaves the room, the passage, the house …

  Ten breaths later she is back, out of breath. She drops her wet veil on the floor and rushes up to the man. “They’ll be patrolling again tonight—the other side this time, I think. Searching all the houses … They mustn’t find you … They’ll kill you!” She kneels down, stares at him close up. “I won’t let them! I need you now, my sang-e saboor!” She walks to the door, says “I’m going to get the cellar ready,” and leaves the room.

  A door creaks.
Her steps ring out on the stairs. Suddenly she cries desperately, “Oh no! Not this!” She comes back up, in a panic. “The cellar has flooded!” Paces up and down. Her hand to her forehead, as if rummaging through her memories for somewhere to hide her man. Nothing. So it will have to be here, in this room. Determined, she snatches the green curtain and pulls it aside. It’s a junk room, full of pillows, blankets, and piled-up mattresses.

  Having emptied the space, she lays out a mattress. Too big. She folds it over and scatters the cushions around it. Takes a step back to get a better sense of her work—the nook for her precious stone. Satisfied, she walks back over to the man. With great care, she pulls the tube out of his mouth, takes him by the shoulders, lifts him up, drags the body over, and slides it onto the mattress. She arranges him so that he’s almost sitting up, wedged in by cushions, facing the entrance to the room. The man’s expressionless gaze is still frozen, somewhere on the kilim. She reattaches the drip bag to the wall, inserts the tube back into his mouth, closes the green curtain, and conceals the hiding place with the other mattresses and blankets. You would never know there was anyone there.