Dates on My Fingers: An Iraqi Novel (Modern Arabic Literature) (17 page)

“We settled first in Barcelona; then I persuaded her to come to Madrid and set up this business with me. But she doesn’t know anything about my other objective, which I’ve made good progress toward achieving. I’ve compiled plenty of details about when this animal comes and goes, about his house and his favorite places. And I’ve acquired the trust of two strong thugs who will help me, professionals from a Colombian gang. They’re ready to make a move any time I want. Executing my goal and fulfilling my oath is nearly accomplished. The only question is choosing the appropriate time and place. So, what do you think?”

CHAPTER 12

I
certainly didn’t think anything at that moment. I just reeled from the sudden shock. My father, who clearly noticed my surprise, didn’t insist upon hearing my immediate impression, nor did he object when I changed the subject. I invited him to come out with me and pretended to focus my thoughts on resolving Rosa’s fury.

He said, “You go ahead to the club and wait for me there while I call her now. We’ll see what happens.”

I found the club’s outside door half-open. I stuck my head in and called to Fatima, whose voice came back to me: “Come on in!”

I slipped in without opening the door any further. As soon as I got down and looked around, I was taken by a second surprise of an altogether different kind, which lessened the bitterness of the earlier one with my father. The place was as clean and neat as if a team of professionals had just then installed the furnishings. In fact, Fatima had just succeeded in getting everything in order. She was putting on the finishing touches and spraying air freshener, circling around and aiming it into the corners.

She smiled and asked, “So, what do you think?”

I was able to give her, of course, my immediate opinion: “Amazing! How did you do all that? You’re my hero!”

Her smile broke into a contented laugh. She went behind the bar while asking me if I wanted something. “No,” I said. “I’m waiting for my father to come down.”

“How was he when you saw him?”

“Fine,” I said, but I was quick to change the direction of our conversation to anything else. I asked her, “How’s your hand doing?”

“Perfect. I told you it’s just a scratch. If only all our injuries were like this one!”

Then I turned to routine questions along the lines of whether she would be going home or whether she would work today. This was interrupted after a little by the sound of the door being thrown open. My father came in, vivacious and happy, spreading his arms like a stage performer and boisterously calling out: “Ta da! Fatumi! Fafy! Good morning, my dear!”

“Hi, Mr. Noah! Good morning! How are you doing?”

“I’m as strong as an ox, as you can see! Saleem and I are going to have lunch. Do you want to come with us?”

“No, thanks! I have to go home. I need some more sleep, and we have a lot of work ahead of us tonight too.”

“Listen, if you don’t want to come, you don’t have to. Just give me a call so that I can arrange something. I do especially need you to be here tonight, but you worked so hard last night and today that you deserve more of a rest.”

“Don’t worry, Mr. Noah. I’ll be here for sure.”

“Fine. In that case, to pay you back, I’m also giving you Wednesday off, in addition to your usual Monday and Tuesday.”

My father patted my shoulder, saying, “All right then, let’s go, Saleem! You go now too, Fatima. We’ll see you tonight. And you can arrive late, if you want. That is, after midnight, when the party gets going. See you later!”

We went out, and he led me to the Chinese store to buy another pack of cigarettes. His mood was convivial there too, and he joked with the woman behind the counter. He kept repeating a few words in Chinese, which I understood to be a greeting, and a couple other words that may have been obscene because the woman laughed and replied, turning them back on him, “No, no! You are, you are!”

After that, we left, and he led me from one narrow street to another and through several alleyways until we arrived at a traditional Spanish restaurant, whose façade testified to its antiquity. The scent of ancient wood wafted out as soon as we went inside. My father had been calm on the way there, admiring the pleasant weather, praising Fatima and the goodness of the Chinese shopkeepers with banalities that were nothing more than attempts to fill the silence. He tossed a few coins near the head of a vagrant sleeping in one of the corners, saying, “Poor guy, he’s got AIDS.”

Nevertheless, I noticed how he resumed his exuberant manner as soon as we entered the restaurant, calling out to the waiter there and addressing him by name—“José!”—who, together with another friend, responded with a similar affability and intimacy. My father directed me toward a seat at a table in the farthest corner of the dining room, next to the window that overlooked the alley. Meanwhile, he stood with the men at the counter and explained our lunch order, jumbling the pronunciation and the sequence of the Spanish words and resorting to gestures at the menu or samples of the dishes on display.

There, in the corner illuminated by sunlight coming through the window—the clock facing us pointed to nearly four o’clock in the afternoon—we partook of our food, drink, cigarettes, and conversation slowly and deliberately.

We went back to fill in the details of what we had covered in our earlier discussion and to finish up numerous episodes. He expressed his overpowering desire to call Azad to let him know that he had found me, saying, “This would make him very happy.”

He followed that by saying, “But I can’t do that because we agreed that I would only call him when I had carried out my goal. At that time, I will call him without making any indication, implicitly or explicitly, about what I have done. Just the call by itself will mean that I have completed the task. We will simply exchange greetings, ask how things are going, and talk about other, normal things. Do you know, we also agreed to make the pilgrimage to Mecca together, as soon as we are free from the tyrant’s regime. Then, we will repent before God, be purified for our sins, and pursue righteousness.

“I tried to convince my brother Azad more than once that he should marry and start a new family. He’s in a position to do that from the standpoint of health and finances. But he continued to refuse, saying that he had taken an oath upon his soul to marry and bear children only after the tyrant falls. He doesn’t want to bring other children into the world who will be subjugated by the dictator or the mere sight of his face.”

Then I told my father what I had heard and read in the news about the intention of the United States to assemble a coalition and attack Iraq if it didn’t allow inspections and the removal of weapons of mass destruction.

He exclaimed, “What weapons of mass destruction? What is there that’s more destructive than the dictator himself,
who kills and drives out millions? Why don’t they just take him out and save us?”

We argued about politics after that. I rejected an attack on Iraq under any pretext, and he said that salvation from the dictator was something for which we ought to pay the highest price. I told him, quite deliberately, that Germany, for example, refused to participate in an alliance like this.

His answer surprised me: “Of course. The Germans are a great people, civilized and respectful of the laws. And a filthy affair like a dictator needs an opponent to match, such as the American president. The Americans put the dictator there, and they ought to take him away. Afterward, we’ll know how to take care of them, for it is easier to fight the thief who is a stranger than the thief from inside your own house.”

The political discussion not only revealed to me another side of my father, but it was also a view of the bitter state of affairs there in Iraq, where the long-suffering hope for a release from oppression was now exhausted. Up to this point, the conversation had revealed to me how much my father held on to his other personality, to vengeance, and to the demands of religious obligation. Now I sought to call forth the other side of him so that I could see both sides together at the same time, or at least, so that I would be able to sense the power of each, relative to the other.

I asked him whether he had spoken to Rosa on the phone, and how she had responded. The enthusiasm in his voice fell a little, and he lit another cigarette. He said she was very angry with him and that he hadn’t been able to understand anything except her refusal. He couldn’t hear everything she said because she was sobbing violently on the phone as she cursed him.

Then he commented, savoring the carefully enunciated words, “She seems like a wounded bull, to use a Spanish expression. Or like a wounded lioness, to use an Iraqi one. She’s like that. I understand her. And I don’t hold it against her.”

There was silence for a few moments, and he began to stare out the window. I asked him what he was thinking of doing. He sighed and shifted in his seat, putting his hands on the table and shifting his gaze to scrutinize my face in a serious and direct way. He said, “I don’t want to take you away from your private life and drag you into my affairs. But I need you. I need your help. Can you do it?”

I had been slouching on my side of the table, but now I sat up straight in my seat, alert and curious.

He went on, “Rosa is very angry with me. And she’s right to be angry. I understand. But I’m also certain of her love for me, and a passionate woman is always ready to forgive. Indeed, she wants to forgive and looks forward to it. But at the same time, she’s waiting for some creative or special apology. That’s the price she feels will earn her forgiveness. Gifts, flowers, and special words are appropriate, of course, but with every new falling-out, it’s necessary to search for a new and fitting apology.

“Therefore, I was thinking that you could go to her. Yes, you! Tomorrow you could go to her house in Barcelona. I could give you her address, her telephone number, the location of the flower shop and the type of flowers to buy, the words to say, and the appropriate time. That way, it would all be a big surprise for her. She knows how important my children are to me, and you in particular. This would also be a way for me to acknowledge my love for her in front of my family, which is important to every woman. A woman feels more confident whenever she sees her lover introducing her and acknowledging her in front
of people she knows are important to him. This arrangement would also be a good opportunity for the two of you to get to know each other better.”

(At that moment, I thought again about asking him what his relations with women were like after what had happened to him when he was tortured, but I didn’t dare.)

My father demonstrated his characteristic tone and fluency in putting forth his wisdom, as well as with his persuasive style. To a certain extent, this presentation surprised me, and to the same degree, I liked how intelligent it was. A certain feeling of satisfaction came over me because he was restoring our close relationship in a significant way. Or maybe because I felt that he needed me. So I wasn’t refusing, and indeed, the matter intrigued me. But I told him I had to work, and that it wouldn’t be easy to go to Barcelona, solve the problem, and return, all in the same day, then go to work immediately. For that reason, we had to think of some way to arrange a suitable schedule for it, or he needed to give me time to ask for a few days off.

And here came my father’s final surprise, which he expressed with more certainty and desire than the previous two. He said, “What do you think about leaving your job and coming to work with us in the club? We—no, I need you to be there. We’d pay you a better salary, and you’d be free to choose your hours. You would be one of the managers, not one of the regular employees.”

I smiled, and I may have gasped like someone who had been splashed in the face with cold water. I responded, again not refusing, but with an answer like my previous one, saying, “But I don’t understand the least thing about your work. I don’t have any experience in it at all!”

He leaned back, knocking the ashes of his cigarette off to one side while shaking his other hand to make light of the
matter: “No! These are minor issues. You don’t need experience or professional training for this work. You could take charge of the cash register, for example, or of ordering things we need and negotiating their prices and transport. You know, general administrative issues. Really, Fatima can teach you all the other aspects of the job in one night. These are minor issues, Saleem, minor. So, what do you think?”

CHAPTER 13

W
hen he heard my assent, I saw his eyes flash with a restrained desire to jump up and shout for joy. He reached for his wallet and said, “Take a plane to Barcelona. It’s faster and more comfortable.”

But I’m one of those people who prefer traveling by train. It makes me feel as though I possess the freedom for long reflection, which flows easily with the rhythm of the train’s motion as it darts through various landscapes. How pleasant it is to sit near the window, looking out at the movement of the ground and the trees, rivers, hills, villages, cities, animals, mountains, plains, fields, and clouds. A long parade of open land and spacious skies. During such times, my mind wanders freely: reviewing, remembering, analyzing, planning, dreaming. Unbroken silence and undisturbed reflection, alternating between the internal and the external. If I’m not contemplating the view, I’m pondering my inner life, and vice versa. While my eyes are focused on one, the mind’s eye excavates the other. Or one of them will bring me to the other by invisible channels of insight. Moreover, train travel has a romantic
character, impressed on my mind, perhaps, from watching old movies filled with encounters, farewells, lovers waiting at train stations, or wandering journeys (like mine, now) for the sake of remembering and reflecting. The director usually chooses seats by the window for those characters too.

So it was that I didn’t read more than seven pages of the book I brought with me. I became distracted in recalling the previous night, my first night of work at Club Qashmars, where my father danced with a joy that I knew perfectly well was the result of my being there with him. My agreeing to what he wanted had a big part in it too. After performing his comic opening monologue, he undertook Rosa’s role of general oversight without neglecting his own role of circulating among the customers. Even though he always had a glass in his hand, he didn’t finish more than two beers throughout the night. He had also arranged that things wouldn’t go on as late as dawn, as happened on other weekends. By some clever adjustments, he managed to bring the night to an end by 3:00 a.m. Perhaps he was thinking about Fatima’s fatigue and my own after my first shift, and of my journey the following day. But he definitely didn’t notice Fatima’s and my delight at our growing intimacy and physical contact.