accompanied by the eternal wail of women.
My bitch status was normally confirmed to me at least twice on the way back from Hajji’s shop and more than that if I stopped for a cigarette. Once, when Nada and I had tried to hide from the road, behind the wall of an apartment block, it had come from a woman in Arabic and was accompanied by a bucket of dirty water over our heads. Sometimes they were a joke, the lines coming out of the guys in the cars, ‘Hey baby, you wear hair gel?’ ‘Hey, baby you wanna come for a ride?’ Sometimes the door of the van slid open.
Fucktrucks
we called them at school. They said there was a bed inside, but I never looked. Head down. Walk on. ‘Hey sexy,’ weighed down with accent, sometimes the words were a blur of consonants, sometimes it was just a horn, but it was always there, as an undertone, as an overtone, ever since I was a kid, even if there was no skin showing at all, it was always there,
Bitch, hey Bitch, yeah Bitch, I can see you. Bitch.
On the day itself Dad had heard the radio cut out in the early hours when he was shaving and he later told me that it reminded him of what used to happen when there were coups, like the ones he had experienced in Syria. I thought it sounded cool to live in an age of coups. I had seen photos of Dad aged sixteen strutting around Damascus with his friends looking dandy in his fake Ray Bans.
Dad had then noticed that the phones were dead too. That was at about seven. He also saw the swarms of helicopters in the sky.
‘How did you know the phones were dead?’ I asked, because I was still thinking like a detective.
And he replied, ‘Because I tried to call your Mother.’ And I had not expected him to say that. I had not expected him to say that because I just did not think that they were going to ever speak again.
But when I had woken up, after all this had already happened, to find Dad sitting at the end of my bed looking agitated, I had, of course, assumed that he had found my cigarettes or the letter I had written to Nada and I remember thinking,
‘This is all I damn need right now.’
So I was a bit excited, if I am honest, when he told me that the Iraqis had invaded.
‘How?’ I ask and he raised his hands as though I was asking about a letter that got lost in the post or how a pay rise had been denied to him.
‘Why?’ I ask and he frowned and looked a bit mystified then said, ‘Arrogance?’ A bit like a question and left it at that.
‘What shall we do?’ I ask and he replied,
‘Just stay at home for a while.’
It is stamped with amateurism this diary of mine, this detective log book, as it scrapes on, cataloguing uneventful days, forgetting to tell the reader what has actually happened.
02.08.90 14:45 No one on the streets. Sh. not left the house.
02.08.90 14:54 Four helicopters in the sky at once.
There’s a photo of Nada and I stuck between the pages. We’re pouting painted lips at the camera and wearing matching baggy clothes with studded belts and my prettiness seems so fat-soluble next to hers. It looks as though it was on the verge of being dissolved away forever.
The invasion meant that Dad did not have to go to work. He seemed quite relieved. Mama had kept telling him that he worked too hard, that he put too much into it, that the hospital did not deserve him, that his employers were exploitative, that it was going to kill him in the end and so on and so forth until, predictably, that had turned into an argument too.
We had nothing to do, so Dad put on a record, the soundtrack to the film
Heat and Dust.
Dad loved India. I think he secretly liked something about English colonialism too. I sat with him as he sipped his afternoon tea and we looked out of the long mirrored windows and I remember wondering whether in three weeks’ time, when my nose healed, I should get an Indian-style hoop for my nose rather than the diamond stud.
02.08.90 17:24 Bustanji arrives to water the garden
.
My diary fails to record
My bitch status was normally confirmed to me at least twice on the way back from Hajji’s shop and more than that if I stopped for a cigarette. Once, when Nada and I had tried to hide from the road, behind the wall of an apartment block, it had come from a woman in Arabic and was accompanied by a bucket of dirty water over our heads. Sometimes they were a joke, the lines coming out of the guys in the cars, ‘Hey baby, you wear hair gel?’ ‘Hey, baby you wanna come for a ride?’ Sometimes the door of the van slid open.
Fucktrucks
we called them at school. They said there was a bed inside, but I never looked. Head down. Walk on. ‘Hey sexy,’ weighed down with accent, sometimes the words were a blur of consonants, sometimes it was just a horn, but it was always there, as an undertone, as an overtone, ever since I was a kid, even if there was no skin showing at all, it was always there,
Bitch, hey Bitch, yeah Bitch, I can see you. Bitch.
On the day itself Dad had heard the radio cut out in the early hours when he was shaving and he later told me that it reminded him of what used to happen when there were coups, like the ones he had experienced in Syria. I thought it sounded cool to live in an age of coups. I had seen photos of Dad aged sixteen strutting around Damascus with his friends looking dandy in his fake Ray Bans.
Dad had then noticed that the phones were dead too. That was at about seven. He also saw the swarms of helicopters in the sky.
‘How did you know the phones were dead?’ I asked, because I was still thinking like a detective.
And he replied, ‘Because I tried to call your Mother.’ And I had not expected him to say that. I had not expected him to say that because I just did not think that they were going to ever speak again.
But when I had woken up, after all this had already happened, to find Dad sitting at the end of my bed looking agitated, I had, of course, assumed that he had found my cigarettes or the letter I had written to Nada and I remember thinking,
‘This is all I damn need right now.’
So I was a bit excited, if I am honest, when he told me that the Iraqis had invaded.
‘How?’ I ask and he raised his hands as though I was asking about a letter that got lost in the post or how a pay rise had been denied to him.
‘Why?’ I ask and he frowned and looked a bit mystified then said, ‘Arrogance?’ A bit like a question and left it at that.
‘What shall we do?’ I ask and he replied,
‘Just stay at home for a while.’
It is stamped with amateurism this diary of mine, this detective log book, as it scrapes on, cataloguing uneventful days, forgetting to tell the reader what has actually happened.
02.08.90 14:45 No one on the streets. Sh. not left the house.
02.08.90 14:54 Four helicopters in the sky at once.
There’s a photo of Nada and I stuck between the pages. We’re pouting painted lips at the camera and wearing matching baggy clothes with studded belts and my prettiness seems so fat-soluble next to hers. It looks as though it was on the verge of being dissolved away forever.
The invasion meant that Dad did not have to go to work. He seemed quite relieved. Mama had kept telling him that he worked too hard, that he put too much into it, that the hospital did not deserve him, that his employers were exploitative, that it was going to kill him in the end and so on and so forth until, predictably, that had turned into an argument too.
We had nothing to do, so Dad put on a record, the soundtrack to the film
Heat and Dust.
Dad loved India. I think he secretly liked something about English colonialism too. I sat with him as he sipped his afternoon tea and we looked out of the long mirrored windows and I remember wondering whether in three weeks’ time, when my nose healed, I should get an Indian-style hoop for my nose rather than the diamond stud.
02.08.90 17:24 Bustanji arrives to water the garden
.
My diary fails to record
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