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Authors: Inaam Kachachi
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cities. Did the Hekmets find asylum in Sweden or in Holland? Who was it who died and was buried in New Zealand, Jalal or his brother Kamal?
She asked about my brother, Yazan, and I told her that we called him Jason now, as it was common to Americanise our names. I told her that Yazan had been involved with drugs, but was getting help and hoping to return to school. I talked to her about my mother’s illness and her constant cough. ‘Hasn’t she quit smoking?’ she asked. ‘No. She’s just as you left her. Smokes excessively and suffocates herself. She has the lungs of a policeman who never refuses a cigarette.’ My grandmother looked impressed that I still remembered those local figures of speech.
She hesitated for a moment before asking about my father. I told her that we didn’t see him often since he’d split up with Mom and moved to Arizona. He’d opened a small bookshop there and printed a local classified ads paper. ‘What happened to the love that your mother took on the world for?’ I didn’t know how to answer. Although I was pushing thirty, I had never experienced such love that would make one oppose the whole world in order to live it.
My grandmother refused to eat or drink anything at the base. Despite the heat, she pushed my hand away when I offered her a glass of water. As if our water was poisoned. Then she got up and returned from where she’d come. Before the car drove away, I heard her reproof, ‘Was it necessary, this tasteless job of yours?’
XVI
The old woman put her hand on the shoulder of the young man with the thick moustache sitting on the kitchen chair on the other side of the table, and brought her face closer to his. Her paleness contrasted with his darkly tanned skin. Her lips parted to say something but words failed her. Her heart wouldn’t let her say out loud what she was thinking. She forced the words, and her voice came out with a strange rattle, like that of a rusty tin can left to the wind.
‘She’s working with the Americans. Zeina’s working with them.’
‘ Khala , everyone works with the Americans these days.’
‘No, Haydar, my sweet. That’s not true. None of our relatives or neighbours work with the occupation.’
‘But she’s American herself. She left here when she was a young girl and she became American.’
‘So Americans forget their roots?’
‘No, but Zeina was brought up in a world different from ours.’
‘We will bring her up from scratch, this ignorant girl. Right, Haydar, my dear? We won’t leave her to her ill manners.’ She said the last two words in Turkish for effect: ‘ tarbiya siz ’.
Haydar quickly put his palm to her mouth. ‘Shush, you shouldn’t say that. She’s still our daughter.’ He could not believe that a woman of Rahma’s age still preserved, in the folds of her wrinkled skin, all the heritage of generations brought up with a strong sense of justice. His own generation was used to fear and hypocrisy, to bribery and double-dealings and ulterior motives. They’d wanted all of us Baathists. For those who were too stubborn to join the party, they’d invented the decree that said every good citizen was a Baathist by default. Besides, there’d been an abundance of wealth that had turned their heads. Factories and contracts, schools and scholarships and delegations abroad, hospitals and festivals and magazines and artificial lakes and rivers, tourist resorts and research centres. Then the windmill of war started and drained the oil to the last drop. The men were gone, and the women left behind beating their chests. Still the winds of righteousness kept blowing between the Tigris and Euphrates, endlessly roaming the land. The breaths of people like Rahma came out under the cover of darkness to blow on the wounds of our souls, to heal the fissures with a secret ointment that was said to be inherited from the days of Babylon and Assyria. So when the Americans came, they found a mysterious country that they
She asked about my brother, Yazan, and I told her that we called him Jason now, as it was common to Americanise our names. I told her that Yazan had been involved with drugs, but was getting help and hoping to return to school. I talked to her about my mother’s illness and her constant cough. ‘Hasn’t she quit smoking?’ she asked. ‘No. She’s just as you left her. Smokes excessively and suffocates herself. She has the lungs of a policeman who never refuses a cigarette.’ My grandmother looked impressed that I still remembered those local figures of speech.
She hesitated for a moment before asking about my father. I told her that we didn’t see him often since he’d split up with Mom and moved to Arizona. He’d opened a small bookshop there and printed a local classified ads paper. ‘What happened to the love that your mother took on the world for?’ I didn’t know how to answer. Although I was pushing thirty, I had never experienced such love that would make one oppose the whole world in order to live it.
My grandmother refused to eat or drink anything at the base. Despite the heat, she pushed my hand away when I offered her a glass of water. As if our water was poisoned. Then she got up and returned from where she’d come. Before the car drove away, I heard her reproof, ‘Was it necessary, this tasteless job of yours?’
XVI
The old woman put her hand on the shoulder of the young man with the thick moustache sitting on the kitchen chair on the other side of the table, and brought her face closer to his. Her paleness contrasted with his darkly tanned skin. Her lips parted to say something but words failed her. Her heart wouldn’t let her say out loud what she was thinking. She forced the words, and her voice came out with a strange rattle, like that of a rusty tin can left to the wind.
‘She’s working with the Americans. Zeina’s working with them.’
‘ Khala , everyone works with the Americans these days.’
‘No, Haydar, my sweet. That’s not true. None of our relatives or neighbours work with the occupation.’
‘But she’s American herself. She left here when she was a young girl and she became American.’
‘So Americans forget their roots?’
‘No, but Zeina was brought up in a world different from ours.’
‘We will bring her up from scratch, this ignorant girl. Right, Haydar, my dear? We won’t leave her to her ill manners.’ She said the last two words in Turkish for effect: ‘ tarbiya siz ’.
Haydar quickly put his palm to her mouth. ‘Shush, you shouldn’t say that. She’s still our daughter.’ He could not believe that a woman of Rahma’s age still preserved, in the folds of her wrinkled skin, all the heritage of generations brought up with a strong sense of justice. His own generation was used to fear and hypocrisy, to bribery and double-dealings and ulterior motives. They’d wanted all of us Baathists. For those who were too stubborn to join the party, they’d invented the decree that said every good citizen was a Baathist by default. Besides, there’d been an abundance of wealth that had turned their heads. Factories and contracts, schools and scholarships and delegations abroad, hospitals and festivals and magazines and artificial lakes and rivers, tourist resorts and research centres. Then the windmill of war started and drained the oil to the last drop. The men were gone, and the women left behind beating their chests. Still the winds of righteousness kept blowing between the Tigris and Euphrates, endlessly roaming the land. The breaths of people like Rahma came out under the cover of darkness to blow on the wounds of our souls, to heal the fissures with a secret ointment that was said to be inherited from the days of Babylon and Assyria. So when the Americans came, they found a mysterious country that they
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