The Patience Stone (2 page)

“They told me that after two weeks you’d be able to move, to respond … But this is the third week, or nearly. And still nothing!” Her body shifts so she is lying on her back. Her gaze wanders, joining his vacant gaze somewhere among the dark and rotting beams.

“
Al-Qahhar, Al-Qahhar, Al-Qahhar
…”

The woman sits up slowly. Stares desperately at the man. Puts her hand back on his chest. “If you can breathe, you must be able to hold your breath, surely? Hold it!” Pushing her hair back behind her shoulders,
she repeats, “Hold it, just once!” and again bends her ear to his mouth. She listens. She hears him. He is breathing.

In despair, she mutters, “I can’t take it anymore.”

With an angry sigh, she suddenly stands up and repeats, shouting: “I can’t take it anymore …” Then more dejected: “Reciting the names of God, over and over from dusk till dawn, I just can’t take it!” She moves a few steps closer to the photo, without looking at it. “It’s been sixteen days …” She hesitates. “No …,” counting on her fingers, unsure.

Confused, she turns around, returns to her spot, and glances at the open page of the Koran. Checks. “Sixteen days … so today it’s the sixteenth name of God that I’m supposed to chant.
Al-Qahhar
, the Dominant. Yes, that’s right, that is the sixteenth name …” Thoughtful: “Sixteen days!” She takes a step back. “Sixteen days that I’ve been existing in time with your breath.” Hostile: “Sixteen days that I’ve been breathing with you!” She stares at the man. “Look, I breathe just like you!” She takes a deep breath in, exhales it laboriously. In time with him. “Even without my hand
on your chest, I still breathe like you.” She bends over him. “And even when I’m not near you, I still breathe in time with you.” She backs away from him. “Do you hear me?” She starts shouting “
Al-Qahhar
,” and telling the prayer beads again, still to the same rhythm. She walks out of the room. We hear her shouting, “
Al-Qahhar, Al-Qahhar
…” in the passage and beyond …

“
Al-Qahhar
…” moves away.

“
Al-Qahhar
…” becomes faint.

“
Al
…” Imperceptible.

Is gone.

A few moments drift by in silence. Then “
Al-Qahhar
” returns, audible through the window, from the passage, from behind the door. The woman comes back into the room and stops next to the man. Standing. Her left hand still telling the black prayer beads. “I can even inform you that while I’ve been away you have breathed thirty-three times.” She crouches down. “And even now, at this moment, as I’m speaking, I can count your breaths.” She lifts the string of prayer beads into what seems to be the man’s field of vision. “And now, since my return, you have breathed seven times.” She
sits on the kilim and continues, “I no longer count my days in hours, or my hours in minutes, or my minutes in seconds … a day for me is ninety-nine prayer-bead cycles!” Her gaze comes to rest on the old watch-bracelet holding together the bones of the man’s wrist. “I can even tell you that there are five cycles to go before the mullah makes the call to midday prayer and preaches the hadith.” A moment. She is working it out. “At the twentieth cycle, the water bearer will knock on the neighbor’s door. As usual, the old woman with the rasping cough will come out to open the door for him. At the thirtieth, a boy will cross the street on his bike, whistling the tune of “
Laïli, Laïli, Laïli, djân, djân, djân, you have broken my heart
,” for our neighbor’s daughter …” She laughs. A sad laugh. “And when I reach the seventy-second cycle, that cretinous mullah will come to visit you and, as always, will reproach me because, according to him, I can’t have taken good care of you, can’t have followed his instructions, must have neglected the prayers … Otherwise you’d be getting better!” She touches the man’s arm. “But you are my witness. You know that I live only for you, at your side, by your breath! It’s easy for him to say,” she complains, “that I must recite one of the ninety-nine names of God ninety-nine times a day … for ninety-nine days! But that stupid mullah has no idea what it’s like
to be alone with a man who …” She can’t find the right word, or doesn’t dare say it, and just grumbles softly “… to be all alone with two little girls!”

A long silence. Almost five prayer-bead cycles. Five cycles during which the woman remains huddled against the wall, her eyes closed. It is the call to midday prayer that snatches her from her daze. She picks up the little rug, unfolds it, and lays it out on the ground. Makes a start on the prayer.

The prayer complete, she remains sitting on the rug to listen to the mullah preach the hadith for that day of the week: “… and today is a day of blood, for it was on a Tuesday that Eve, for the first time, lost tainted blood, that one of the sons of Adam killed his brother, that Gregory, Zachary, and Yahya—may peace be upon them—were killed, as well as Pharaoh’s counselors, his wife Asiya Bint Muzahim, and the heifer of the Children of Israel …”

She looks around slowly. The room. Her man. This body in the emptiness. This empty body.

Her eyes fill with dread. She stands up, refolds the rug, puts it back in its place in the corner of the room, and leaves.

A few moments later, she returns to check the level of solution in the drip bag. There isn’t much left. She stares at the tube, noting the intervals between the drips. They are short, shorter than the intervals between the man’s breaths. She adjusts the flow, waits two drips, and turns around decisively. “I’m going to the pharmacy for more solution.” But before her feet cross the threshold, they falter and she lets out a plaintive sigh: “I hope they’ve managed to get hold of some …” She leaves the room. We hear her waking the children, “Come on, we’re going out,” and departing, followed by little footsteps running down the passage, through the courtyard …

After three cycles of the prayer beads—two hundred and ninety-seven breaths—they are back.

The woman takes the children into the next-door room. One is crying, “I’m hungry, Mummy.” The other complaining, “Why didn’t you get any bananas?” Their mother comforts them: “I’ll give you some bread.”

Just as the sun withdraws its rays from the holes in the yellow and blue sky of the curtains, the woman reappears in the doorway to the room. She looks at the man a while, then approaches and checks his breath. He is breathing. The drip bag is almost dry. “The pharmacy was shut,” she says and, looking resigned, waits, as if for further instructions. Nothing. Nothing but breathing. She leaves again and returns with a glass of water. “I’ll have to do what I did last time, and use sugar-salt solution …”

With a quick, practiced movement she pulls the tube out of his arm. Takes off the syringe. Cleans the tube, feeds it into his half-open mouth, and pushes it down until it reaches his esophagus. Then she pours the contents of the glass into the drip bag. Adjusts the flow, checking the gaps between drips. One drip per breath.

And leaves.

A dozen drips later, she is back, chador in hand. “I have to go and see my aunt.” She waits again … for permission, perhaps. Her eyes wander. “I’ve lost my
mind!” Agitated, she turns around and leaves the room. Behind the door, her voice comes and goes in the passageway: “I don’t care,” near, “what you think of her …,” far, “I love her,” near, “she’s all I have left … my sisters have abandoned me, and your brothers too …” far, “… that I see her,” near, “I need to …,” far, “… she doesn’t give a damn about you … and neither do I!” She can be heard leaving with her two children.

Their absence lasts three thousand nine hundred and sixty breaths. Three thousand nine hundred and sixty breaths during which nothing happens except what the woman had predicted. The water bearer knocks at the neighbor’s door. A woman with a rasping cough opens the door to him … A few breaths later, a boy crosses the street on his bike whistling the tune of “
Laïli, Laïli, Laïli, djân, djân, djân, you have broken my heart
…”

So they return, she and her two children. She leaves them in the passage. Opens the door, abruptly. Her man is still there. Same position. Same rhythm to his breath.
As for her, she is very pale. Paler even than him. She leans against the wall. After a long silence, she moans, “My aunt … she has left the house … she’s gone!” With her back against the wall she slips to the ground. “She’s gone … but where? No one knows … I have no one left … no one!” Her voice trembles. Her throat tightens. The tears flow. “She doesn’t know what’s happened to me … she can’t know! Otherwise she would have left me a message, or come to rescue me … She hates you, I know, but she loves me … she loves the children … but you …” The sobbing robs her of her voice. She moves away from the wall, shuts her eyes, takes a deep breath in an attempt to say something. But she can’t say it; it must be heavy, heavy with meaning, voice-crushingly heavy. So she keeps it inside, and seeks something light, gentle, and easy to say: “And you, you knew that you had a wife and two daughters!” She punches herself in the belly. Once. Twice. As if to beat out the heavy word that has buried itself in her guts. She crouches down and cries, “Did you think about us for even a second, when you shouldered that fucking Kalashnikov? You son of a …,” the words suppressed again.

She remains still for a moment. Her eyes close. Her head hangs. She lets out a long, painful groan. Her
shoulders are still moving to the rhythm of the breath. Seven breaths.

Seven breaths, and she looks up, wiping her eyes on the sleeve embroidered with ears and flowers of wheat. After looking at the man a while, she moves closer, bends over his face and whispers, “Forgive me,” as she strokes his arm. “I’m tired. At breaking point. Don’t abandon me, you’re all I have left.” She raises her voice: “Without you, I have nothing. Think of your daughters! What will I do with them? They’re so young …” She stops stroking him.

Somewhere outside, not far away, a shot is fired. Another, closer, in retort. The first gunman shoots again. This time, no response.

“The mullah won’t come today,” she says with some relief. “He’s scared of stray bullets. He’s as much of a coward as your brothers.” She stands up and moves a few steps away. “You men, you’re all cowards!” She comes back. Stares darkly at the man. “Where are your brothers who were so proud to see you fight
their enemies?” Two breaths and her silence fills with rage. “Cowards!” she spits. “They should be looking after your children, and me—honoring you, and themselves—isn’t that right? Where is your mother, who always used to say she would sacrifice herself for a single hair on your head? She couldn’t deal with the fact that her son, the hero, who fought on every front, against every foe, had managed to get shot in a pathetic quarrel because some guy—from his own side, would you believe—had said,
I spit in your mother’s pussy!
Shot over an insult!” She takes a step closer. “It’s so ridiculous, so stupid!” Her gaze wanders around the room and then settles, heavily, on the man who may or may not hear her. “Do you know what your family said to me, before leaving the city?” she continues. “That they wouldn’t be able to take care of either your wife or your children … You might as well know: they’ve abandoned you. They don’t give a fuck about your health, or your suffering, or your honor! … They’ve deserted us,” she cries. “Us, me!” She raises her prayer-bead hand to the ceiling, begging, “Allah, help me! …
Al-Qahhar, Al-Qahhar
…” And weeps.

One cycle of the prayer beads.

Desolate, she stammers, “I’m going … I’m going … I am … mad.” She throws her head back. “Why tell him all this? I’m going mad. Allah, cut off my tongue! May my mouth be filled with earth!” She covers her face. “Allah, protect me, guide me, I’m losing my way, show me the path!”

No reply.

No guide.

Her hand buries itself in her man’s hair. Beseeching words emerge from her dry throat: “Come back, I beg you, before I lose my mind. Come back, for the sake of your children …” She looks up. Gazes through her tears in the same uncertain direction as the man. “Bring him back to life, God!” Her voice drops. “After all, he fought in your name for so long. For jihad!” She stops, then starts again: “And you’re leaving him in this state? What about his children? And me? You can’t, you can’t, you’ve no right to leave us like this, without a man!” Her left hand, the one holding the prayer beads, pulls the Koran toward her. Her rage seeks expression in her voice. “Prove that you exist, bring him back to life!” She opens the Koran. Her finger moves down the names of God featured on the flyleaf. “I swear I won’t ever let him go off to fight again like a bloody idiot. Not even
in your name! He will be mine, here, with me.” Her throat, knotted by sobs, lets through only the stifled cry “
Al-Qahhar
.” She starts telling the prayer beads again. “
Al-Qahhar
…” Ninety-nine times, “
Al-Qahhar
.”