The Bamboo Stalk (3 page)

‘Why was he talking to you about these things, Mama?' I cut in.

‘Because the people around him dismissed his ideas? Maybe,' she replied, spontaneously but sceptically. ‘He was an idealist, I thought, and I'm sure everyone else thought so too. His mother gave him special treatment, saying he was the only man in the house. He was quiet and rarely raised his voice. He spent most of his time reading or writing in the study. Those were his main interests, apart from fishing and travelling abroad with Ghassan and Walid, the only friends who came to visit him, either in the study to discuss some book or to talk about literature and art and politics, or in the little
diwaniya
in the annex if Ghassan had brought his oud along. Ghassan was an artist, a poet, sensitive, although he was also a soldier in the army.

‘At the time the countries in southeast Asia, especially Thailand, were popular destinations for young Kuwaiti men. Your father often spoke to me about going there with his friends. When he was talking about Thailand one day he looked me straight in the eye and said, “You look like a Thai girl.” Did I really look like one, or was he hinting at something else? I wasn't sure.

‘It was depressing in the old lady's big house when he went away with Ghassan and Walid. I would count the days till they came back and got together again and made some noise for a change in the house or in the
diwaniya
.'

My mother suddenly stopped a moment and looked at the
floor. ‘I used to watch them in the courtyard from the kitchen window, laughing and getting their gear ready for a fishing trip,' she said. ‘They'd be gone for hours and I'd wait for your father to come back so that I could put his fish in the freezer and wash the fish smell out of his clothes.'

She turned to me and said, ‘I hope you find friends like Ghassan and Walid, José, if you go back to Kuwait.'

‘Tell me more, Mama. What about Grandma?'

‘The old lady worried about her son and the way he spent his time. She often told him she was worried that either his books would drive him mad or the sea would sweep him away. She often walked in on him in the study and begged him to stop reading and writing and turn his attention to things that would do him good. But he insisted that writing was the only thing he was good at. He loved the sea as well as his library. He adored the smell of fish as much as his mother liked her incense and Arabian perfumes.'

My mother closed her eyes and took a deep breath as if she was smelling something she loved.

‘Your grandmother was always worrying about your father, not just because he was her only son but because he was the only remaining man in the family and only he could pass on the family name. Most of his male ancestors had disappeared long ago. Some of them were sailors who disappeared at sea and others in other ways. Those who survived only had daughters. The old lady said this was because long ago a jealous woman from a humble family had cast a spell so that only the women in the family would survive. Your father didn't believe in such things, but your grandmother was totally convinced. In those distant days your grandfather and his brother, Shahin, were the only surviving males in the family. Shahin died young before marrying. Isa married your grandmother, Ghanima, late and
they had your father, Rashid, and when Rashid's father died Rashid was the only male left in the family.'

My imagination ran riot: people dying at sea, sailing ships fighting giant waves, a woman casting spells in a dark room, the males dying out one by one because of magic. My mother's stories made my family sound like characters in some legend.

‘He was the only reason I had the patience to stay in the old lady's house and put up with the way she mistreated me,' my mother continued. ‘He offered me words of sympathy at night, when everyone else was asleep. He used to slip his hand into his pocket, pull out banknotes and give them to me – one dinar, or two or three. Then he would leave. I wasn't interested in the money of course.'

Aunt Aida interrupted her. ‘All men are bastards,' she said.

My mother and I turned towards her. ‘However much they don't appear to be,' she added.

My mother replied with two words: ‘Except Rashid.'

‘One evening in the kitchen, he put his hand on my shoulder and whispered, “Don't be angry with my mother. She's an old woman and she doesn't mean what she says. She's neurotic, but well-meaning.” I didn't want him to take his hand away. I forgot all the insults from the old lady. After that I deliberately made her angry every now and then. I'd drop a glass on the kitchen floor and leave the pieces lying around till the next morning, or I'd leave a tap running all night and making noise, or I'd leave a window open on a windy day so that all the dust came in and landed on the floor and the furniture. When the old lady got up in the morning, she would throw a fit. Everyone in the house would wake up to her shouting and calling out “Joza!”, the name she had given me because she thought Josephine was too hard to pronounce. She would curse and yell and swear, and I would just sweep up the
pieces of glass from the kitchen floor or spend the whole day dusting and cleaning the place in the hope that when night came it would bring your father's gentle hand to touch my shoulder.'

She took out a handkerchief and wiped the tears from her eyes. ‘One day he was writing his weekly article in the study,' she continued, ‘resting his left elbow on the large file that contained a draft of his first novel. I put a cup of coffee down in front of him and said, “I like watching you write, sir.”

‘“Can't you call me something other than ‘sir
'
?” he said.

‘I didn't know what to say. I couldn't imagine ever calling him Rashid, like his mother and his sisters.'

‘“Isn't there anything else you like, other than watching me write?” he asked.

‘“Anything else?” I said.

‘He put his pen down, locked his fingers together and rested his chin on his hands. “Something, or maybe someone?” he said.

‘After that I was sure I was in love with him, or almost, although to him I was no more than someone who would listen without objecting whenever he wanted to explain his ideas and beliefs. Since I was certain he hadn't fallen in love with me and never would, I was content to love him in return for his interest and his sympathy.

‘When I came to work in their house, your father was just getting over a love affair. He had had a relationship with the girl since he was a student. He wanted to marry her but, because of prejudices I know nothing about, the old lady prevented the marriage. So love alone is not enough to bring you together with the girl of your dreams. Before you fall in love, or so I understood from Rashid, you have to choose carefully the
woman to fall in love with. You can't leave anything to chance. Apparently some names bring shame on others, and that's what happened with Rashid. As soon as his mother heard the girl's family name she rejected the idea of Rashid marrying the girl. Some time later the girl married another man.

‘The relationship between your father and me continued like this. When the old lady was asleep in the afternoon or at night, and the sisters were busy at university or watching television upstairs, I would take the opportunity to make tea or coffee for Rashid, and spend as much time as possible with him, listening to stories that mattered less to me in themselves than as a reason just to be in his company in his study.'

 

6

My mother's intuition was quite right about his remark on how she looked like a Thai girl. My father was hinting at something. He didn't say it straight out, but there was an insinuation. My mother didn't tell me all the details, but he must have been clear about what he wanted, because she answered him firmly. ‘Sir, I left my country to get away from things like that,' she told him. As time passed, his hints became more explicit but my mother stood her ground.

Then one day he said, ‘Shall we get married?' and she finally relented. She must have been very pleased, because she accepted the marriage, which wasn't really much of a marriage.

It was the summer of 1987 and my mother had been in Kuwait for about two years. As my mother told me, and as I later experienced for myself, the summers in Kuwait are brutal. Rashid's family spent the weekends in their beach house on the coast south of Kuwait City. The house is still there and the family gathers there from time to time.

My grandmother and my aunts had gone there with the Indian driver, on the understanding that my father would drive my mother and the cook there and join them. He set off later the same day but he didn't go straight to the beach house. He stopped the car in front of an old building not far away. He and my mother got out, while the cook stayed in the car.

‘It was old and in bad shape,' my mother said, talking about the building. ‘Apparently it was housing for foreign workers. There were clothes hanging on lines in the courtyard and in the windows. It didn't look like a woman had been near the place in years. There were tyres of various sizes piled up in the corners of the courtyard, and abandoned planks of wood, old wardrobes and cupboards covered in dust and thrown aside any old how. There were coils of wire and mattresses that were torn and faded by the sun. Instead of going in through the front door your father took a narrow passageway to the left towards an outer room. There was a man waiting for us there. He looked like an Arab, with a long bushy beard and a dark mark in the middle of his forehead. He was wearing an Arab gown and an Arab headdress but without the black band that Kuwaitis usually wear to hold the headdress in place. The man called in two other men, who apparently lived there. We didn't stay long. We sat down in front of the man, who started talking with your father in Arabic. He turned to me and asked, “Have you been married before?” I said no. He asked your father something in Arabic and he answered yes. Then he turned back to me and asked, “Do you accept Rashid as your husband?”

‘He wrote out a piece of paper after we agreed. We signed it, Rashid and me. Then the other two men signed it too. Then it was “Congratulations.”

‘On the way back to the car, I was rather sceptical. “Is that all it takes to get married?” I asked.

‘He nodded and said, “It's simple.”

I was hesitant and I didn't feel any different towards your father. When we got out of the car he was my master, and when we got back in again, he was still my master. “Are you sure?” I asked again.

He took the piece of paper out of his pocket. “This piece of paper proves it.” He put his hand out, offering me the paper. “You can keep it,” he said. I asked him about the old lady and his sisters. “Everything in good time,” he replied casually. I shut up. I wasn't convinced we were really man and wife, but because of the way I felt towards your father I accepted it.

‘We got back in the car and drove off to the beach house. The cook didn't say anything but he was looking at me suspiciously.'

*   *   *

I doubt my father did what he did because he really wanted to marry my mother. Perhaps he just wanted to have his way with her. Anyway, it was good of him to go through with this strange marriage.

That same night they had a secret rendezvous at a time set by my father. After midnight my grandmother and my aunts went to sleep. When the lights in the house had gone out one by one, my mother slipped out and walked along the beach in the cold sand.

‘Josephine,' my father whispered. He was launching the boat into the water. ‘Yes, sir,' she said.

‘You shouldn't call me that any longer,' he replied. ‘Come closer,' he beckoned, ‘so I don't have to raise my voice and people notice.'

My mother went up to him and stood there while he launched the boat and jumped in.

‘Has everyone gone to bed?' he asked.

‘Just now. The old lady and the girls have gone to their rooms.'

He put out his hand to her. ‘Come,' he said.

She was confused. ‘Where to?' She asked.

He was still holding out one hand to her. With his other hand he pointed out to sea at a red light that was flashing.

‘Near there,' he said. ‘We won't be long. An hour, or two hours at the most.'

She looked behind her at the beach house. ‘But, sir, I . . .'

‘If you insist on calling me “sir”, then I, as your master, order you to come with me.'

My mother took a few hesitant steps towards the boat. She left her shoes in the sand and started to wade deeper and deeper into the water. The water rose above her waist. She grabbed my father's hand and he put his arm around her waist to lift her into the boat.

He pushed off from shore with a long wooden pole, then started the engine as soon as they were out of easy earshot, while my mother sat next to him with her knees folded up against her chest, hiding the contours of her body, which would have shown through her wet clothes.

Then and there, far from shore and close to the flashing red light, as the boat rocked in the calm sea, I made my first journey, leaving my father's body and settling deep inside my mother.

 

7

As the months passed my mother's belly expanded to make room for me as I grew. The rounded bulge stuck out and she couldn't hide it forever under her loose clothes. She hid it from my father at first. ‘It was a strange marriage,' my mother said. ‘It didn't seem real, especially after he had fulfilled his objective. He was still my master, in spite of everything that had happened. So I kept you secretly inside me because I was frightened he might try to make me have an abortion if he found out.' Like Aunt Aida, she didn't tell my father she was pregnant till it would have been impossible to have an abortion.

My father didn't believe it at first. He didn't know what to do when he realised she was serious. He told her off for keeping quiet about it for so long. ‘That was when I realised that this wasn't a real marriage,' she said. He hinted at the idea of an abortion. When he understood it was too late he promised her he would act at the right time. As time passed the changes were obvious – the way she looked and the way she moved, her complexion, her nose, her lips, her swollen fingers and the way she walked. It wasn't hard to tell, especially as the lady of the house was the father's mother. One day in the kitchen, in the presence of the Indian cook, Grandmother sprang the question on her. ‘Who did it?' she asked, expecting my mother to confess that she had slept with the cook. My mother burst into tears, and the cook fell to his knees, kissed Grandmother's hands and assured her he had never gone anywhere near Josephine.