Dates on My Fingers: An Iraqi Novel (Modern Arabic Literature) (8 page)

The sheikh said, “She was possessed by a demon, God curse it! It was feeding on her blood, so I killed it.”

His words surprised my father and me, while Grandfather replied with the equanimity of one familiar with such things, “God’s curse is ever upon Satan and his followers.”

The butterfly girl opened a door, out of which came a tumult of voices. She entered carrying a tray filled with glasses of steaming tea. A group of children escaped from the doorway behind her, running noisily, shooting off in the direction of the courtyard to play. She brought the tray around the circle to us, and we took our glasses from it. She smiled at me when she leaned over in front of me, and I smelled her perfume, made from plant stems. When her sleeves pulled back, two white arms like slices of cheese appeared, adorned with delicate gold bracelets and a cheap digital watch.

She bent over the two old men, and the sheikh said to Grandfather, “This is Gulala, my youngest daughter. The last of my litter.”

He laughed, and Grandfather commented, “God preserve her!”

Her father asked her, “Where did you put the pen and notebook, my sweet girl?” She gestured with her head to the shelf behind him, speaking some word in Kurdish. He turned and picked up an old notebook. Its paper was yellow, resembling the paper of some of the books there, of which I recognized only the Qur’an. He tore out a sheet and put it
on the notebook, which was resting on his thigh. Then he set about writing and asked, “What did you say the name of your daughter was?”

I answered faster than Grandfather, “Istabraq.”

He wrote and asked again, “And what is the name of her mother?”

I hesitated because we didn’t usually say the names of our mothers: I would always just call her “Mother.” So her name didn’t come to me as quickly as my name, for example, or those of my siblings. It was the same thing for us with Grandfather’s name since we called him “Father” when we were small and “Grandfather” when we grew up, while the others addressed him with “O Mullah!”

Father answered him, “Maryam.”

I asked Father in a whisper, “Why her mother’s name, and not yours, her father’s name?”

Sheikh Abd al-Shafi heard me and answered me from where he was, “On Judgment Day, we will all be called by the names of our mothers because the mother is single and indisputable, while the fathers might be numerous and uncertain.” Then the sheikh became engrossed in writing, drawing from time to time upon old books that he pulled from the small shelf behind him.

I glanced at Istabraq and saw her watching Father and me, so I smiled at her. She extended an arm out from under the sheet and beckoned me with the fingers of her outstretched hand. I reached over to her, and she interlaced her fingers through mine. Her palm was warm and radiated tenderness. She closed her eyes for a while before opening them on Father, who had come close to her face to ask in a low voice, “How are you doing, my dear?”

She nodded. He bent over her forehead to plant a light kiss there, then moved away with tears in his eyes.

Grandfather was looking curiously at what his friend was writing, his lips moving as Grandfather followed along. When the sheikh had finished writing, he began to fold the paper in a unique way, doubling it and then redoubling it upon itself until he had made it into the shape of a small triangle, which he closed by pushing a corner between the opening of the folds. He returned the notebook to the shelf and brought out from there a spool of thread. He drew about half a yard of the thread and inserted it through a corner of the triangle. Then he tied the two ends to make a necklace.

He held it out to Istabraq, saying, “Wear this around your neck always, day and night. Do not take it off, except when you are bathing.”

While I was helping Istabraq hang the paper necklace around her neck, I heard Grandfather say, “We have a sick cow. Write her a spell too, O sheikh!”

Turning back to get the notebook from behind him, the sheikh said, “At your service! It would be an honor. What’s wrong with her?”

Grandfather began describing for him the symptoms of our red cow’s illness. After making the cow’s necklace, he gave it to Grandfather and said, “May our Lord restore her health!”

After we finished sipping our glasses of tea, the sheikh approached Istabraq. He used his fingers to pull open her eyelids. Staring into her eyes, he said, “There are two small steps left and everything will be finished. Afterward, you’ll be a bride as good as new.” He yelled toward the far door, “Gulala!”

The butterfly girl approached. He spoke to her in Kurdish. She bent over my sister, and we understood that he
wanted Istabraq to be carried to the middle of the square sitting area. So my father and I got up and laid her out on the carpet in the middle. The sheikh went around her, and Gulala arranged Istabraq’s dress so that it would cover her nicely. Then she took hold of Istabraq’s feet while the sheikh began stretching out her arms along the floor, parallel to her head. He took the fingers of her hands and made them touch each other, calling out to us, “Come over here! See how they are not equal. That’s natural: a person is like a car and needs a tune-up from time to time.”

The sheikh was both graceful and spry in his movements. Sitting at her head, he stretched out his legs and rested his feet against her shoulders. Then he began pulling hard on Istabraq’s arms while comparing her index fingers. Meanwhile, his butterfly girl kept her firm grip on Istabraq’s feet. He pulled her more than once, and each time Istabraq closed her eyes but didn’t groan.

Then the sheikh called, “Come and look! See how they are equal now. I will adjust you all, for all of us carry minor illnesses. These don’t hurt us, but they do add up. Come, my boy!”

He called me over after we had returned Istabraq to the bed, and I stretched myself out in her place on the carpet in the middle. I reached out my arms, and he called to the others, “Look!”

Meanwhile, I was conscious of the butterfly girl’s touch on my feet. What was the flavor of her white palms? Her tea had been delicious. The sheikh tugged forcefully on my right arm. He repeated that three times and said, “Finished!”

I sat upright and found myself face-to-face with the girl, who hadn’t taken her hands off my feet. “Thank you,” I whispered to her. She smiled.

I got up, and Grandfather lay down immediately in my place. The sheikh’s attitude made us like kids playing happily. When it was Father’s turn, all of us, including Istabraq, laughed to see his huge body and his belly, which lifted his robe in the middle like a tent. I sat right up next to the girl, holding one foot while she held the other. I could smell even more clearly the plant extract perfume that emanated from her.

Grandfather asked his friend, “And how will you pull someone like him?”

The sheikh answered with confidence, “I’ve pulled some who are fatter than him.” When he compared his index fingers, he said, “See how his body is the most balanced of you all. His fingers are nearly equal. He must work a lot. Work is health!”

When we returned to our places, the sheikh directed some words to his daughter. She brought him a small pouch, then headed to the door leading outside and called for the children, who came running. In the meantime, she gathered the empty glasses of tea and went out. The little ones stood before the sheikh in a line. When each child got to the front of the line, he would turn his back to the sheikh, who looked behind his ears. Then the sheikh would bring the child’s neck close to Istabraq’s eyes, saying, “Look. I’ve made an incision in the ears of each of them. It’s a simple thing. It doesn’t hurt, apart from a prick that you’ll barely feel. If the wound of any of them were fully healed, I’d cut the ear again in front of you.”

Each child went off at a run after showing himself to the surgeon. It seemed that they were used to doing this.

Gulala returned, carrying a copper washbasin and a pitcher of water. She set them down it the middle. Next, she went over to Istabraq and made her sit down. She pulled off Istabraq’s shawl and gathered her hair up. She took out Istabraq’s silver
earrings: crescent moons with a star in the middle, from which other small moons hung down, each of which had a different colored bead in the middle. She examined them, then put them into Istabraq’s palm, which was lying in her lap.

The sheikh advised, “Don’t lose them while the wound is healing.”

He approached her from behind while taking a shaving razor out of his pouch. My heart trembled, and I hoped that Istabraq wouldn’t see the razor. She didn’t, just as the sheikh intended.

He reached out with the fingers of one hand to fold her ear down. Then he extended the razor blade and made an incision behind the ear, light and quick. He quickly did the same thing with the other ear. At the moment of each cut, Istabraq closed her eyes and only a small squeak came out of her mouth. The sheikh brought his pouch up to her head. Taking a little of the yellow powder inside between his fingertips, he used it to stop up the cuts he had made. Then he took out a matchstick, which he moistened with his tongue and stuck into the pouch. He began applying the powder to Istabraq’s eyelids and left them closed when he was done. Then he brought the open packet close to her nose and commanded, “Inhale! Inhale deeply!”

Afterward, he tied up the pouch and put it aside. Gulala turned around to bring the washbasin close to Istabraq’s chest. The sheikh said, “There! It’s all over. Wash your face and blow your nose. Blow your nose.”

Then he returned to his former seat next to Grandfather, explaining the procedure he had performed. “This is for the treatment of Yellowing Disease. I opened her arteries and put in dabagh, a powder from the dried rinds of pomegranates mixed with the powder of seeds from the Glowing Tree. This is a plant found only on the peaks of the Hasarost Mountains.
The fruit it bears are small bells that are heavy with little seeds. Each bell has its own color which gives off light at night. There are seven seeds in each bell, and I pay one lamb per bell to those who go up the mountain. It’s a rare tree. Getting there and finding it is an arduous adventure. Yes, its colored bells give off light, like the Christmas trees that Christians have.”

Grandfather asked, “And what are those?”

Father volunteered an explanation without looking in Grandfather’s eyes, “I’ve seen them at the homes of my German friends when they are celebrating the last night of the year. It’s a tree that they hang colored lights on, as well as paper bells and other things. Gifts and colored socks.”

The session calmed down after that. Istabraq’s face appeared optimistic and comfortable. We all listened intently to the conversation of the two sheikhs while the aroma of food came to us from a door left ajar. Sheikh Abd al-Shafi spoke at length about the multitude of patients who came to him from all parts of Iraq, as well as from Iran, Turkey, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the Syrian deserts. He would treat them and offer them hospitality as his guests, some of them for a couple days, and he wouldn’t take anything from them in exchange because, as he said, “this is a gift from God, and he is my reward for it.”

Then he counseled Grandfather to treat his diabetes by eating barley bread, reducing his salt consumption, and giving up sugar. “Drink your tea straight, and take a dose of juice pressed from the wormwood tree every day with the morning prayers. It’s bitter, very bitter, like the colocynth, but it will do you good, believe me! You’ll once again be strong as an ox!”

They carried on a long conversation. The two of them spoke while Father and I were content to listen. They continued to speak freely even around the platter of turkey surrounded by
bowls of yogurt. The grilled turkey pieces were arranged in a row on a pile of rice mixed with raisins and various types of spices. They spoke about the tobacco fields and the sunflowers in Kurdistan, about sons and grandsons, about the angels and the Prophet’s companions, about the friends they had in common, and about their memories of the days of battle against the English. They cursed the current government.

Following the late afternoon tea, another car stopped in the courtyard of the house, and a Kurdish family of children and an old woman got out. They said that she had been afflicted with the evil eye.

The sheikh said goodbye to us. He and Grandfather embraced, and Grandfather invited him to visit us in our village. The sheikh excused himself, saying that he wouldn’t be able to visit because he didn’t know when God would send him a sick person whom he was duty bound to treat. “But you, come visit me!”

Grandfather gave him a promise. But he would not be able to keep it.

On the road, Grandfather told us more about the memories he shared with his friend, the sheikh. Istabraq was asking for less water. Father wasn’t convinced by what he saw of the treatment, yet he pretended to be satisfied out of deference to Grandfather. All the same, he asked his German friends about it when he returned to Kirkuk. They were dumbfounded and called a friend of theirs, who was a doctor in Berlin. The doctor said, “This treatment for jaundice works too. The powdered pomegranate rinds go through the blood to the worm and drive it out.”

My father was reassured. Meanwhile, I was at a loss about how to get my letters to Aliya during the following two days before Istabraq was able to get up.

At least, I was at loss until we found a hiding place for ourselves in the middle of the forest under the willow trees near the shore. We began to call it our nest. It was there that we knew our first kisses and learned what it was like to suck on fingers and lips that were daubed with dates.

CHAPTER 6

I
decided to go to my father’s club that evening too. I had to find a convenient opportunity to talk to him, or else we could agree on a time to meet. At the very least, I hoped that I would get to know him better.

After coming to this decision, I went over to the kitchen window that looked out on the neighboring building. It had a shabby-looking roof on account of the pigeons having taken over its rain spouts for nests. I had tried so many times to destroy these nests with a broom handle, but they were further back than I could reach. So I just swore at the pigeons. They came from Plaza de la Puerta del Sol in the middle of Madrid and from Plaza de España, where there was a statue of Don Quixote and his sidekick, Sancho Panza. I would sit there and stare at them for a long time whenever my longing for Grandfather and my father grew sharp, as though the two of them were in everything I saw. Meanwhile, the pigeons around me would eat from the palms of the elderly retirees relaxing on the benches. They would eat the tourists’ cookies. Then they would come to poop on my clothes, and on the clothes of my
Cuban neighbor below me. What’s more, they would even enter the kitchen and poop on my cooking utensils and on top of the refrigerator with the bread crumbs.