Lina Mounzer

Celebrations

    The clock on the wall ticks; maddening, precise. We sit, all nine heads bowed, the food on the table piled in steaming heaps, so much of it. At the head of the table, my father is the only one who does not steal glances at the waiting feast. The windows are open to the evening, the street below us strangely quiet. A low breath of breeze blows in the first cadence of the sunset call to prayer.
    “Allahu Akbar,” mutters my father, and my mother repeats these words out loud, her eyes piously fixed on the ceiling as she reaches for the soup ladle.
    “There, you all heard it, we can break the fast now. Everyone, sahtein salaf!” She sweeps her arms across the table proudly, a conductor signaling her orchestra to begin.
    The cacophony commences at once: gulp of water, slosh of ladle, clatter of spoon, slurp of soup, crunch of salad, and a low hum of conversation that intensifies as the initial pangs of wild hunger are sated. To my left, my sister Layal is blathering away at Sami’s sister across the table, something about her son, “Three words, and only fourteen months old! Mama, of course, and Baba,” she closes her hand around Abed’s wrist on her other side, “and Dani – that’s what he calls her, isn’t it cute, although sometimes he mixes his words up and calls her Mama as well. Babies! They grow up so fast.”
    Abed smoothly pulls his arm out of Layal’s grip and reaches for the chicken. Next to him, my mother ministers to Sami’s parents across from her, every so often nudging my father into speech.
    “– isn’t that right Nidal? I was telling Mr. and Mrs. Fakhouri how Aïsha is the only one entrusted by her boss to handle the Saudi royalty at the hotel. Her boss just adores her, trusts her completely.”
    My father smiles and nods, his eyes left out of the gesture as if they are too tired to comply. I try to avoid looking at him, his spineless, glycerine yielding in face of my mother.
    Across from me, Sami chews his food thoroughly, his nostrils flaring slightly with each clamp of his jaw. He had explained earlier how this technique helps prevent cavities, and how it wouldn’t do for a dentist to have cavities. He tries to catch my gaze, once raising his eyebrow at me – a ridiculously handsome gesture – at something amusing his father says. I avoid his eyes, looking instead at the empty seat at the end of the table beside me. It is slightly pulled out to accommodate our legs, Sami and I, looking as if the person assigned to it had just left the room for a moment on some errand or other.
    “Aïsha,” calls my mother, “why aren’t you eating?” Whipping her head around to his parents: “She eats like a bird that girl, like a bird,” then to Sami: “Well, doctor, at least you know your bride to be will be keeping her figure, eih? Just like her mother.” She pats her slight paunch proudly.
    I push the food around on my plate, destroying the mound to make it seem smaller. My stomach bobs on its moorings, and I swallow, willing what little I have managed to down to stay that way.
    I usually do not fast during Ramadan – a secret rebellion in the form of mouthfuls stolen away and swallowed in privacy. But it has not been difficult this first day, because she will not allow me to eat. My pious daughter, no bigger than a kidney bean, bent in prayer for the entire holy month.
    “You live too much in your head,” Alia would often say, and it was only later that I understood the irony of her leveling such an observation at me.
Soon the three roast chickens are a pile of glistering bones and most of the other dishes are bereft of their contents.
    “Well,” beams my mother, “time for the sweets.” Sami’s mother gets up to clear the table and Layal stays her hand. “Don’t you dare,” she says.     “We’ll take care of it. Andrani!” Then again, “Andrani!”
    From my parent’s bedroom her son begins to cry. “Akh, she made me wake up the baby. She always does this. She’s so lazy that girl, it’s killing me.”
    Sami’s mother nods knowingly. “You have to teach them everything. Mine didn’t know anything when she first arrived from Sri Lanka. If I didn’t stand over her head all day nothing would get done at home.”
    “I got mine young,” says Layal. “Seventeen. They’re less stubborn at that age.”
    The bile rises in my throat, bitter and thick.
    Andrani stands shyly at the door, waiting for them to finish talking.
    “Yes, Madam?”
    “Andrani, remove plates,” says Layal, miming the action. Andrani begins clearing the table.
    The muscles of my legs twitch. I imagine myself getting up in one fluid motion, grabbing Andrani by the hand and running: out of the door, down the street, out of the neighborhood, through the twisting veins of the city down to the beating sea – and here I always stop, looking out at the horizon and wishing there was some way across the vast water and into the sun.
    “I’ll help you,” I say, and I take the plates from her hands, willing someone to say something, anything so I can let loose. No one does. The clock ticks, the walls pregnant with the sound.

    We used to sit on the balcony, Alia and I, watching the sun rise as the rest of the house breathed unaware around us. We drank the tea that I prepared – “Oh, it’s the youngest sister’s duty to serve her elders, haven’t you read the fairy tales Aïsha?” – watching as the street unfurled into morning: the baker shoveling endless mana’eesh out of his oven, the produce trucks arriving with their wax-bright wares, the mechanic dawdling rumpled up the street to throw his steel shutters up and open, ready for a new day of business.
    She regaled me with her war stories, her eyes shining as she told of the countless near-misses I never tired of hearing.
    “It exploded right in front of the building as Baba was carrying you down to the shelter – you didn’t even blink an eye. Kept right on sleeping until Baba made it downstairs and then you woke up and asked, ‘Why is Mama screaming like that? I can’t sleep.’ Do you remember?”
    She giggled and slapped her thigh, her eyes lost in the past.
    “Remember that time the Itanis came over for coffee and ended up staying a week because of the fighting? I was so sad when they left, the house was suddenly so empty. It suited Layal just fine though, god how she hated sharing her dolls with Amal! The curse of the middle child, always having to share.”
    When my mother woke up she would peek her head through the glass doors. “All right girls, enough jaw snapping, time to get to work.” And I would get up and Alia would sigh, finding herself caught in the inevitable march of another day. She was always between jobs, always looking, and when she found one, it never lasted.
    “So tedious, Aïsha, so tedious,” she would murmur. “I don’t know how anyone does it.”

    I take my place behind the reception desk at the hotel and fix my name tag to the left front pocket of the navy uniform we all wear. My curls are ironed straight, my face – powdered, blushed and glossed – is in place.  I shift my position slightly to the right so that I can see the sea glittering through the double glass front doors. The nausea is bad today. It is almost like seasickness, and looking at the distance allows me to forget its force for a few minutes at a time. The revolving door spins, blurring the view. The day begins.
    All day I stand, smiling, booking rooms, assuring, reassuring, taking calls in my husky work voice, looking out for Joseph, my boss. He stays out of reach. Once I see him across the lobby, smoothing his slicked-back hair into a ponytail and he tosses me a wink before being swallowed up into the dining hall. My breakfast rises into my throat. I race it to the bathroom.
On the way out, I see him talking on his mobile phone in the corner and I stand before him, unsmiling, willing him to hang up. When he does, he turns to me with a grin, looks around to check that the hall is empty and gives me hug that turns into a bite on the neck.
    “Zouzou,” pushing him away. “I really need to talk to you.”
    “I know habibti, but I’m really busy –”
    “You’ve stopped answering my calls.”
    “Yes, well, I have a hotel to run you know.” He starts to walk away.
    “I’m pregnant.”
    He turns around slowly, taking me in from head to toe. He smooths his hair back.
    “How did it happen?”
    “You know how it happened, Zouzou. You lied to me. You told me you had a vasectomy.”
    “I did. You must be fucking around with someone else and trying to pin the blame on me.”
    “You were the only –”
    He circles my neck with his hand, a choking caress, bringing his lips close to my ear.
    “Aïsha, you know we can’t get married. You always knew. Don’t try to trap me now, it won’t work.”
    He lets go of me and takes a step backwards. I can feel the bitter remnants of vomit in the back of my throat.
    “That’s not –”
    “Zouzou?” A melodic voice floats around the corner and a pair of heels click-clacks into view. A tall woman stands before us, taller than Joseph, her blonde hair flowing around a face whose nose, chin and cheekbones seem too sharp and well-defined to be real. She wears a floral-print dress molded to the shape of her body, the roses holding her perfectly rounded breasts out like an offering. In the deep cleavage between them glitters a diamond cross.
    “Zouzou, the car is out front with the valet. Are you coming?” She gives me a questioning look.
    “Yes,” he says, sliding his arm around her waist and smoothly pulling her to him.
    “Paulette, this is Aïsha, my receptionist.” She nods, and a shadow of a smile sweeps across her lips.
    “Aïsha, Paulette, my fiancée.”
    As he turns to go: “And as for the problem you were telling me about, you can sort it out on your own, can’t you? I trust you.” His grin is real. I watch their buttocks sway in unison around the corner, her heels marking the time.

    When the day is finally done, I spend some moments sitting in my car, staring out at the sun sinking into the sea until my eyes sting. The call to prayer is launched into the dusk from minarets across the city, floating down to the empty streets. Somewhere to the west my mother and father are just sitting down to eat at the long empty table. I imagine them silent and chewing, my mother saving the effort involved in coaxing my father to speak only until absolutely necessary. I have already told them that I will be having Iftar at the hotel.
    I do not cry. It would serve no purpose. I should have known better. I started sleeping with Joseph because it seemed almost impolite not to. He gave me my first job, he treated me well, he wooed me with smiles and small gestures of kindness. I had never slept with anyone before and it struck me as about time to do so. I didn’t want anyone to mistake me for one of those girls who guard their hymens like the entrance to a cave of riches only to be plundered by their husbands.  The first time I didn’t feel much except for a small stab of pain, though nowhere near as dramatic as my sister Layal and my few married friends had made it sound. The second time my orgasm took me by surprise: my body contracted and exploded, and for one brief flare I saw all the hidden corners of my mind illuminated. This became what I sought with Joseph, why I came back to him again and again: the secret communion I had found with myself.
    My stomach growls, a painful combination of nausea and hunger and I know it is her growling at me.

    On the morning of Alia’s thirtieth birthday I went in to wake her up as usual, throwing the curtains open to the breaking light. She did not stir, even when I called her name softly and rumpled her hair. I walked around the bed to blow into her face, something which always woke her spluttering curses. That’s when I saw the bottle of pills standing empty on the bedside table. She knew I would be the one to find her. She must have.
    Her death was proclaimed to be an aneurysm, and the sheikh who washed and shrouded her body was coaxed to keep our secret with a few folded bills passed to him by my father. A lie to protect his reputation – “ours,” hissed my mother when I railed against him for his weakness, his inability to accept what we had all done to her.
    My mother thinks what killed her was her loneliness, her spinsterhood. “If only we had let her get married when she wanted to,” she wailed in those first few days, when Alia could be spoken of because she still seemed so near. “She would have died at least having known what it is to be a wife, a woman… Why God, in your infinite mercy did you take my eldest from me so cruelly?” And she beat her breast and wailed, a show of anguish loud enough to keep up with the professional mourners who keened out songs of Alia’s youth and beauty and tragically early end, to get the crowds riled up and sobbing. I stayed away, disgusted by the vulgarity of the whole spectacle, entering the room only to serve coffee and accept tearful condolences, remembering how Alia and I had giggled at this performance at other funerals we’d been to, disguising our laughter as grief.

    The next afternoon I sit on my bed in the silence of my room. Under the mattress there is a bundle of money I have been adding to over the years, in the hope that it would one day help me escape this city. Now it is clear I will have to use it for a different sort of escape. I had hoped that Joseph would at least offer to help me pay, but it is clear that he has no intention of involvement past what he has already contributed.
    My belly cramps and I double over, the breath stolen from my lungs. I clutch my stomach, moaning. I remember Alia’s face at dawn, her beautiful eyes ablaze.
    “We almost died that day you know. It was terrible, I still have dreams about it sometimes. After that there were no classes for weeks and weeks and we spent spring in the village, do you remember?”
    My mother comes into the room. “Aïsha? What is it habibti?”
    “Nothing, Mama,” I say, “just a little stomachache.”
    “Oh, you’re hungry aren’t you? Sunset is only two hours off.” She places her hand on my head. “The first two weeks of Ramadan are difficult for everyone. But we must suffer in order to understand the sufferings of those less fortunate than us. And then, before you know it, it will be Eid, and we can celebrate and eat to our heart’s content.”
    When she leaves I am crying. “I can’t,” I whisper, to myself, to her. “I just can’t carry you anymore.”

    The doctor’s office is decorated in shades of beige, but for a long brown leather couch in the corner. On the walls hang: various pictures of smiling babies, a framed drawing of the cross-section of the female body, the half-uterus cradling a full fetus, the doctor’s certificates from some university in France, Ceci est pour certifier que Dr. Salah Alawy…, a designer clock with no numbers on the face. This last item hangs right above his head, centered in the middle of the wall. He is in his late thirties, soft around his midsection, his eyes hidden behind thick glasses.
    “Well then,” he claps his hands, “how far along are you?”
    “I’m not sure,” I say, “my period is about a month late.”
    He opens a folder and writes down my name, my father’s name, my date of birth, my identity card number. Then he ushers me into the next room where a monstrous gurney with stirrups takes up half the space. Next to it is an ultrasound screen and a whole host of other cold-looking instruments.
    “Take off your clothes,” he says, “then, up here.” He pats the gurney like a warm bed and smiles. He hands me a white smock to put on.
    Once I am on the gurney, feet spread and in place, he lifts up the upper half of the smock, places a dab of cold gel on my middle and presses the ultrasound scanner into the flesh. A grainy image appears on the screen.
    “See now, here is the baby,” he points at a gray smudge. “These right here, see them? These are the beginnings of hands and feet. From the development of the embryo, I’d say you were about seven weeks along. That puts your due date somewhere at the end of June, around the twenty-seventh. Do you smoke?”
    “Sometimes,” I say.
    “Are you willing to give it up? If you’re a heavy smoker I’d tell you to cut down, but a light smoker can get away with quitting without it being too much of a shock to the system.” He looks at me, his eyes glinting behind his glasses.
    “Dr. Alawy,” I say, “I’m afraid you may have misunderstood. I’m not keeping this baby. They told me you would know what to do. I’ve eaten nothing all day, I’m ready.”
    He lowers the scanner, appraises me on the gurney. “Well,” he says, “neither have I. I’m sorry. I’m afraid you’re going to have to come back tomorrow. I’m fasting, and I make it a rule never to perform these operations until after Iftar. If you come an hour after sundown tomorrow, say around 8 pm, we can take care of it then. Make sure you eat nothing at least five hours before.”
    He names the price, which I already knew, and shows me out of the office, his smile replaced with a severe look more suitable to the occasion.
That night I cannot sleep. My body turns against me; I cannot stop throwing up.

    I am in his office the next day at 8 pm sharp, weak from hunger. A nurse lets me in and tells me the doctor is running a little late, “Iftar with his family, you know.” From her disapproving eyes I know she knows why I am here.
    Suddenly I understand that I cannot do this, cannot sit here and wait for him to show up and calmly usher me inside, as if it were routine, nothing, just another procedure. This time I will run. This time when the muscles in my legs twitch I obey them, springing out of the door and out into the grey hallway. It is she who is pushing me, my daughter, Alia: I can feel a great rush all around me and suddenly I’m no longer running but floating. The grey walls peel away, and the city twinkles beneath, a network of lights interrupted by scars of darkness here and there. And all around it the sea, heaving, alive, a saltrush, a metal taste, a swelling canvas for the light of the moon.
    A great swell of joy builds from my toes and into my body until I feel I am about to burst with it, until my skin starts to tear from the sensation. I’m flying, I think, flying, and as soon as I have that thought I feel the air grow heavy around me, my belly swelling until I fall like a ripe fruit that cannot but fall, fall with a searing understanding of how I will bruise, burst, splatter – the ground rushes up, I hear wild screams, mine, I taste blood in my throat, mine, and I know then that I am utterly alone, utterly alone and the ground is so close I can see the texture of asphalt. I close my eyes against the impact.
    And when I open them again I see Dr. Alawy, taking off a pair of blood-spattered gloves.
“Oh good,” he smiles, “you’re awake. “You fainted in the office. You must have been very hungry and tired. You’ll be able to eat as soon as the grogginess wears off. Some bleeding in the next couple of days should be normal. Otherwise it went very smoothly. Alhamdillah ‘aal salame.”

    For the next few days I cannot understand if I am moving through time or space. My slowness extends to the hours, I can feel them congealing in all the corners of our house. Even my father complains of the length of time until Iftar. I want to tell him that I have done this to the days, but he is moving too fast for me to find him. The only name I can think of for my sorrow is relief, but even that is not quite right, not slow enough for this oozing, this wound.
    It is a telephone call that breaks me back into reality.
    From Sami, to my father. I listen in on the extension to Sami’s smooth, manly voice.
    “I just thought you should know, Mr. Younes. My cousin Salah wanted to call and tell you about this” – he clears his throat – “ this event himself but I thought it would be better if you heard it from me.”
    Dread grips me with all four of its animal limbs, paralyzing my body.
    “Thank you,” says my father. “I am grateful for that courtesy.”
    “I’m afraid I will have to call off the engagement. I won’t tell my parents why.”
    I am so afraid that only my knees and shoulders register the impact of this freedom on my body.
    “Thank you,” says my father again. “You are an honorable man.”
    “Yes. Well, it’s none of my business Mr. Younes, but I suggest you watch your daughter more closely before she brings more shame to your family.”

    In my room I pace, pushing off the walls. Now I have caught up to time. Now I must be faster, faster than time. Would that the money were still there, I would have grabbed it and ran, anywhere, anywhere. I think of hurling myself from the balcony, of running out into the street and throwing myself into the path of a passing car. In the end I lie on my bed, heart pounding, willing myself to sleep and never wake up again. He will kill me. I have shamed him. He will thrash me and lock me up forever.
    There is a knock on the door. I stay my breath.
    The knock comes again, louder.
    “Yes?” I finally manage to croak out.
    My father enters the room, pushing the door open with his back. He is carrying something, which he sets down on the dresser. I cannot see what it is.
    He sits quietly down on the edge of the bed and reaches his arm out. I flinch, until I feel his hand resting on my shin, caressing the skin as he has not done since I was a child. His hands are rough and thickly calloused.
    “Aïsha? Are you all right? I brought you some tea.” He gestures at the dresser.
    The words hang in the air between us, until I am able to pluck them out of the silence and turn them over, beginning to understand.
    “You seem a little tired, hayete.”
    “I’m ok, Baba, I’m fine.” Then, because he is quiet, and because I have never asked: “How are you?”
    “Surviving.” He coughs out an awkward laugh. “I have enough health to fast, and I have your mother, and you and your sister. My business is doing fine, praise God, and things are peaceful in the country. What right does any man have to ask for more?”
    He gets up and brings me the tea. “Drink up, drink, tea is good for you.”
I raise the glass to my mouth, hands still shaking. Some tea drips onto the front of my dress. He wipes it away with his sleeve.
    “Aïsha,” he says, and his voice sounds far away. “The one who lives. We called you that because we were so afraid of losing you, things were so bad when you were born…. Live, Aïsha, and live up to your name. And if you need help…. Well, it has been a long time since you – any of you – have asked for my help.”
    Then, as he turns to leave the room:
    “I know how you and your sister loved to drink tea in the morning together. It made me so happy to see it.”
    It is the first he has spoken of Alia since her death. He leaves the room and I sit for a long time, holding the glass to my cheek. It is warm, warm and bitter.

    We sit around the table, Abed, Layal, my mother, my father and me. “Eat, eat,” admonishes my mother. “One would think you were all still fasting! Eid Mubarak everyone, time to make up for a month of not eating!” She laughs, and we comply, accepting the heaping plates of food she passes down the table.
    My stomach is empty, hurting. I try to force a few mouhtfuls down as my mother tuts to Layal. “That family, they were no good anyway. Fancy breaking off an engagement because he’s moving to France. He’s probably trying to free himself so he can bag himself some no-good French girl and a passport. Don’t worry Aïsha, we’ll find you another husband.”
    My father lays his fork down and places his hand over my mother’s.“You will do nothing of the sort, Salam. Aïsha is still young and there is plenty of time. I like having my daughter in the house.”
    His voice is quiet but authoritative. It is the voice of a man pulling rank, and we are all surprised to hear it. My father looks at me and I look back, a gaze of gratitude that connects us, one to the other.
    My mother says nothing more, pursing her lips and turning away.
    After we have eaten dessert, I go out onto the balcony alone. The buildings are festooned with bright Eid decorations marking the end of another Ramadan. People walk arm-in-arm, decked out in their holiday best. Laughter mingles with street noise, as natural as the rush of cars and honking of horns.
    I press my hands into my hollow belly and turn to look at the two dusty chairs pushed into the corner.
    “Do you remember?” Alia would always ask. And I would always shake my head that I didn’t, not exactly, not wanting her to stop recounting the memories.
    “I remember,” I should have said. “How could I possibly forget?”
    “Aïsha,” calls my father from inside. I listen to the sound of my name.

* * * * *

Biography

Lina was born in Beirut, Lebanon and has spent most of her life there. She moved to London in September 2005 to work towards her Masters degree in Creative and Life Writing and hopes this means that her days of working in advertising are irrevocably over.

limoun@gmail.com