The Inbetween People (14 page)

W
HICH
DAUGHTER
, the man says, I have nine daughters.

You stand in front of her father and you try to describe her to him. He watches you intently for a time, a crease across his forehead. He is no longer the sour man, wiping away the remains of his breath from a winter window; he is intense, avid, anxious to help.

I have nine daughters, he says. It could be one of three of them, they are of a marrying age, and they’ve all worked out there, he nods towards the yard. Never mind, he says, I will bring you to them, and you will show me the one. But first, tell me about yourself.

You tell him where she will live, that you are in the army, he blinks and nods, and it is as you suspected it might be, for he relies on Israelis for his business to succeed, an Israeli flag is discreetly placed inside the window of his shop. The arrangements are made, there in the shop, with the smell of petrol all around you, and the fat sausages that he tends on a stand rotating between you and him, the steam rising against his red face. In the end he nods and grasps your hand, I think it is the eldest girl you mean, he says, I am fond of her, but you seem like a good man.

He calls out to his wife in the house behind the shop, talks to her in urgent tones, disappears through the door, and you hear hurried footsteps, hushed voices coming from the house. The father emerges again, a bottle of Arak held to his chest, my name is Sulieman, he says, and he thrusts his hand towards you. He takes two glasses down from the shelf behind him, pours an equal measure into each glass, raises his drink to you. Drink, he says. Drink to my daughter and to you, Saleem. This is good Arak.

What is your eldest daughter’s name, you ask.

Sahar, he says.

Her name is Sahar. The name roars around your mind, the alcohol burns inside you, and he laughs and pours another glass. She is beautiful, no? Oh, you are not the first man who has had an interest, but you are the first who asked. How can a man with nine daughters refuse such an offer? Tell me, Saleem, where will you work? What type of care will you take of my daughter?

After a time he leads you outside, along a gravel path to a garden, a surprisingly tranquil place, behind the petrol station, looking down over the lake. She is there, the girl, two of her sisters sit with her, you see immediately that they are sisters. This is the eldest, her father says, pointing at her. This is Sahar. They all turn to regard you in unison and, suddenly wary of looking at her eyes, you turn again to her father, yes, that’s her, you say. You nod at the sisters, and they nod back, their faces frozen masks in front of you. You don’t turn to Sahar, though you feel her eyes on you.

You sit with them for a time, the sisters remain also, there are few words. Her mother appears with a jug of mint tea, sweet cakes, she nods at you, smiles, and then disappears inside, and presently the other sisters drift away and walk around the garden, bending over to smell the roses that grow there, reaching out to touch the aromatic foliage of the hyssop.

Sahar rises to pour the tea, pushes the glass towards you. You sit at the table with her, her body is rigid, she stares at the lake and she doesn’t speak. You watch her sisters in the garden, and a young child, still a toddler, wanders outside and leans against Sahar’s leg.

This is my youngest sister, she says. You turn to her voice. I want to study, she says then, the words come at you in a rush. I want to study in a university. She doesn’t look at you when she speaks, her eyes are fixed on the lake below her, even though it is dark now, almost indistinguishable, only visible to those who know it is there.

You rub your finger along the table before you. What is it you want to study, you say.

Literature, she says. I’ve always wanted to study Arabic literature. It is a dream for me. She strokes the toddler’s head. My mother had nine daughters, she says. She turns to gaze out over the lake again, and there is the hum of a mosquito in the air near you. I want children, she says, but later, after I finish my studies. Not now. I don’t want to be that kind of wife.

Then there is a great rush of doors opening and her family is suddenly all around you. The father lines up the daughters, names their names, kisses each one as he says her name aloud; then there are other family members there, they eat and drink into the night, the sky is inky black over the mountains of Galilee. You watch the girl, the side of her face, her smile, the way she glances at you from time to time, turns away if she finds you watching. There are no more moments alone with her until it is time to leave.

You are dizzy from the alcohol, sleepy from the food. You stand to leave, shake hands with her father, he pushes her towards you. For the first time her eyes meet yours.

And then, at that moment, you remember your mother with a pang, you wonder how it was for her, her engagement night, her wedding, the emptiness of her new home. You have lived without her for many years, for the very house you live in is devoid of recollections of her, its occupants loath to mention even her name, it is as if she never was. You do not learn from your grandmother or your father who your mother was. You are not sure in that moment who she actually was, for perhaps your memory betrays you, so you no longer know who she was, for a memory can fall through the hands, become lost, obscure, nothing. You only know that there was laughter, and music, and that the house was full of air and light, it was a place of words, of adjectives, adverbs and explanations, not the common nouns uttered by your grandmother, the grunts and the sighs; and there were books too. This girl standing in front of you wants that, and you can give it to her. For the first time somebody has asked you for something that you can give.

You will study, you say to her, I’ll make sure you study. Her lips curl back and she smiles at you, and her eyes smile too, and you smile back.

Karim is sitting at the kitchen table when you reach home, he has moved one of the plastic chairs back in from the yard, he smells of fish from the factory where he works. He is smoking a cigarette, the blue smoke curls towards the open door and hangs in the still air before drifting out into the night, and in a rush of words you tell him that you are to marry, and that the girl, Sahar, will study literature in university. How are you going to pay for that, he laughs. I’ll work, you say, I’ll work hard so that she can. There’s work in the factory, he says, and he exhales the smoke from his lungs as he speaks, there’s plenty of work in the factory, or are you above that, he laughs, are you above the rest of us after your three years in the army.

You pause at the doorway, watch his face that is turned towards you, I’ll take it, you say, I’ll work there; and the words are like a kind of death to you and already the smell of that factory is crawling over your skin. He laughs then, a yelp of sorts, you’re coming to work with the dead fish, he says. You mount the stairs, quietly, your footfall leaves no echo in the silent house, and you stand alone in the darkness of your bedroom. You regard the mountains outside the window, shrouded by shadows and darkness, only sometimes the moon breaks out from the cover of the clouds and then they gleam white and eternal, with dashes of gold throughout, just for a fleeting moment.

C
HAPTER
19

December 12th, 2000

D
ear Sareet,

You must be home now, tired, I’m sure. Perhaps you are already in a taxi in Amsterdam, your cheek against the window, the rain falling in torrents outside. It is winter, cold.

Now the taxi driver is pulling up to your apartment (you laughed at my idea of the high-ceilinged house, with the large garden I once envisaged). I see you standing outside the apartment block, gazing upwards towards the fifth floor, a dim light glows inside, but they are asleep, the family. The light was left on as a mere courtesy, and bracing yourself you walk through the cold rain towards the doorway, into the elevator, home.

Perhaps you are now sitting at that mahogany table you described, a glass of sherry in your hands. You are quiet so as not to awaken the family, you are tired, the kind of tiredness that deep trauma brings, sighing now, rubbing the palm of your hand along your forehead, you are not ready to talk.

I am hopeful you have calmed down somewhat by now, that the rage inside you has somewhat dissipated. I should tell you that, despite the insults you lavished upon me throughout your stay, I’m glad you came, and came alone moreover, without the children, that you came to see Avi without them, as I had asked you to come, his mother. I waited for the opportunity to tell you that while you were here, but the opportunity never arose. You were tired and angry, and you were gone so soon after arriving—five days, that’s all you had with us—upon your departure your very visit seemed surreal, imagined, and it is almost as if you never returned.

Yes, I have fed the stray cat that you adopted, you have not lost your ability to attract stray cats (I confess that this pleased me), he is curled up in the far corner of the patio purring. In fact I think he has adopted me in your absence, at least he behaves in a manner that indicates he is fond of me, and when I return from my work in the gardens he is waiting for me at the door and rubs against my legs until I feed him (he even comes indoors from time to time). Beyond him is an olive tree, glowing golden in the light of the blood moon, and the fig tree that you said was doing poorly, though I feel it will survive. I have planted the bulbs that you kindly brought from Holland, stripped the sheets in the spare room of the house, where Avi sometimes sleeps and where you insisted on sleeping: it is as if you were never here.

And yet you were here, you came back! And while you were here I stumbled upon the realisation that though you once left this place, it never left you. It is still there, part of you, I can see it in your eyes. It never left you, Sareet. And this place is full of you.

You must allow your anger to subside; for it is unreasonable, misdirected and a waste of your energy. Of course, the years have changed Avi. How did you ever expect him to have remained the same? You must try to understand that though Avi doesn’t need you, neither does he need me. If it’s any consolation, Avi does not need you, me, or anyone and has not done so for a long time—your leaving gave him the kind of self-sufficiency that you always had, that you now resent in him. Try to admire him if you can for learning not to need you—for if he had needed you, there’s not a thing he could have done about it.

Do you remember that night when you shouted and screamed at us, said that you couldn’t take it anymore, us, anything about your life, that death was the only way out? You were peeling an apple at the time and you brandished an apple in one hand and a sharp knife in the other. Or the time that you ran away, simply walked away from the patio, disappeared into the evening and didn’t return, until I eventually deposited Avi in the children’s house where he went every night, though it was way before bedtime for the children and I read deep resentment in Yifat’s eyes (do you remember she ran the children’s house for many years?) and went to look for you. I eventually found you in an olive grove, down by the orchards. You cried until the dawn so that I knew you would leave eventually. We sat there until sunrise and eventually you came home to take a shower, and at breakfast I met Yifat and she told me that Avi did sleep that night but that for a long time before sleep came he stared at the wall, eyes open, perhaps his mother was already lost to him then.

Daniel

C
HAPTER
20

G
randmother is not well. The words come down the phone, your father’s voice, he barks out the bare details. He has never phoned you at the base before; you are surprised that they kept the folded piece of paper that you handed to Grandmother on your first army leave, in case of emergency, you told her, so that she snorted and shook her head.

The Army releases you immediately, out into the hot sun and the blue sky, and you travel back to your village by bus. There are three buses you need to take from the base to your village. You are surprised by the sick feeling in your stomach and the way your hand trembles. You lean back, your face against the cool glass, and you close your eyes.