In Praise of Hatred (14 page)

‘We need hatred to give our lives meaning,’ I thought as I celebrated my seventeenth birthday alone. It is hard when no one celebrates with you, or gives you flowers and presents. Safaa returned to her house with Abdullah for a while, after which they would be leaving for Saudi Arabia. Marwa packed a small bag and went to stay with Zahra. Maryam considered birthdays to be a foreign heresy whose merrymaking was not appropriate for the daughters of the family God had settled within the corners of our house. I sat alone and stretched my feet along the edge of the pool. I relaxed and enjoyed the September breezes. While I drank juice, I began to anticipate the next school year and my revenge on the girls who had made me feel that I was gloomy, unsuited for such relaxation in the sunlight. I loved how the spray coming off the sleepy fountain tickled my feet and my soft fingers. I needed hatred to reach love, to leave behind all the ashes, the twilight of objects and faces.

I read the margins of Hossam’s textbooks and inspected the drawings scrawled over the chemistry volume; I burst out laughing at the picture of a donkey with a Roman letter ‘N’ on it. (I guessed that it was meant to be Najwa, our neighbour’s daughter – she had married a wood merchant and had never noticed Hossam’s confusion. He loved her and would write her love poetry praising her chastity and virtue.) All this was a letter Hossam had written to me, replacing the years of silence and estrangement with confidences as between friends. He had left me his notes so I could read them and know how tormented he was; how he longed to achieve martyrdom in God’s service; how his skinny body could no longer contain his soul, hidden behind fiery words and pledges to the infidels that their Day of Judgement was near. There were also
nashid
I had never heard before, which incited mujahideen to the death. I missed him; we were as harsh to each other as if we were strangers. When we passed each other, neither of us lingered to exchange a confidence, or relate some trivial moment which was given value by being shared. I missed him, but didn’t seek him out.

I observed him silently the day when he rushed into my grandfather’s house, all agitated, with a black-speckled shawl on his shoulders. There were bloodstains on his shirt, and Maryam didn’t believe that they came from a sacrifice a friend of Hossam had made to his mother’s memory. My brother entered the cellar and I saw him hide a gun in a sack of bulgur wheat. I knew that he had killed our neighbour Abbas, a pilot whose green eyes Safaa used to be infatuated with. Hossam washed and assured us that everything would be fine. He sipped his coffee in silence and avoided looking at me; he wanted everything to seem normal. I left silently for school and saw people crowding around the pilot’s body, now covered with a woollen blanket. I didn’t stop, but I glimpsed his huge corpse’s hand lying there limply, between the armed men who were surrounding the body and closing off the street. I felt nauseous and dizzy in the second class of the day. Ghada brought me a cup of tea and put her hand on my forehead, reviving all my desires for her. I cried, and as I told her I’d just seen someone murdered, Hiba and Hana moved away from me. They observed me, and there was contempt in their eyes for my weakness. I was allowed to go home, accompanied by Ghada who squeezed my arm affectionately as I cried in silence.

Members of the Mukhabarat were searching houses in the alley, ours among them, after having carried the body away and cleaned up the blood. The corpse evaporated: his smile no longer beamed. I fell asleep and was haunted by nightmares. I saw his smiling face. In the early evening, I heard Bakr whispering as he listened to Maryam describe how the Mukhabarat had searched the house and rummaged through the sacks of bulgur wheat, adding that she had taken the precaution of hiding Hossam’s gun in the hole where my grandfather used to hide his money and his rifle, and thanking God that Hossam had left a few minutes before.

Bakr’s face was exhausted and worried, showing everything he couldn’t speak about, and he stayed in bed for three days. Different images merged and all my memories of Hossam caved in all at once, from when he was a silent child, skinny and mad about mathematics. No one then could have predicted his future; he was silent and distracted for hours at a time, oblivious to the din surrounding him – we thought he was going to become a poet. His odd ideas had reminded my mother and aunts of Omar’s strange and contradictory childhood. When we were young children, Hossam would prepare a seat on the branches of the only tree in our courtyard and stay there for hours. When he was a teenager, he never went to the cinema with schoolfriends, or chased cheerfully after girls with the idiocy typical of that age; he hid and suppressed his violent feelings. I used to see him get up from his bed during the night, sit on the step to his room, and cry unrestrainedly. I didn’t know why he would pace around like a madman in the Sufi circles
Bakr took him to, without even listening to the rhythm. Bakr effectively adopted him, and assessed the fullest extent of his intelligence. Hatred and cruelty slept in his nephew’s heart. Finally, Hossam saw a light in the shadowy tunnel of his life. He spent a long time with Bakr, until he became almost like a secretary or bodyguard to him. He joined a gym and his body began to develop. His muscles grew and his movements quickened, like those of a runner training for a marathon.

Hossam and I didn’t talk properly like siblings, or conspire together; moving to my grandfather’s house made me a stranger to him. My infrequent visits to my parents’ house made his image fade in my mind. When I saw him, I felt he was a stranger at first, but I loved him, and objected to his constant observations that made me out to be a woman who must be controlled, and who must obey the orders she’s given. My father had initially blessed his son’s relationship with Bakr, reassured that the smell of fish would never emanate from his clothes. For a short time, he wanted Hossam to become a carpet trader, while my mother wanted her precious boy to be a doctor and reminded us that his soft fingers and piercing eyes would suit a skilled surgeon. His image as the murderer of our neighbour the pilot held sway over me: the coldness as he hid the gun after throwing his bloodstained shirt in the bathroom stove, his quiet slumber – it all made me wonder about the power of the hatred in his heart. I liked it, setting aside the moments of sympathy that had afflicted me when I’d seen the dead body.

While I was off school, Ghada visited me and brought me flowers. We spoke like close friends; I loved her sympathy for me, and I sensed her worry when she spoke to me about her relationship with the fifty-year-old man. We no longer saw him as much, as he was overworked and had grown wary in his movements following the assassinations. They seemed to herald a serious confrontation that would drag the country into a cycle of violence, and no one knew how it would end. Ghada told me of her difficulties with her family who refused to acknowledge the relationship but kept silent out of fear of violent recrimination from her lover, over thirty years her senior. She denied that he brutally tortured prisoners, describing him as a magnificent man.

Her lips were full, like ripe figs which dripped honey as they were devoured. I briefly envied her her daring and asked her forgiveness. Haunted with longing for her, I sank wearily into her arms and wept. I felt wonder as her fingers combed through my hair like a plough through earth; the air she breathed out had a smell of decay which clung to my black hair, which I didn’t look after any more, and to the
malbad
under my thick hijab, which I rarely took off even in my own room. I was afraid of being spied on by the unfamiliar men I saw in dreams.

Later that day Safaa and Abdullah came and drank tea in my room, happy and lively; they were travelling abroad that same evening. Safaa wept as she said goodbye to us. I went out of the door with her and craned my head to see her leaning on Abdullah’s arm as they disappeared around a bend, fearing I would never see them again. I was afraid of losing the people I loved, and I clung to whatever they left behind them.

I slackened in my hatred, and openly expressed my sympathy for the murdered pilot. Alya scolded me for this; the other girls in our group mocked me and reminded me of how our sect had been persecuted, and of the corruption of the officers who had turned the country into a private money-making farm for themselves and their own sect. I suddenly felt a secret pride that it was my brother Hossam who they now described as a mujahid, declaring that God loved him. I scolded myself for my weakness; I saw the girls, even as they mocked me, as illuminated icons, and I envied Alya for the powerful hatred that lived in her heart. I almost kissed her hand so she would forgive me and return that essence to me which had given my life meaning in the midst of turmoil. I felt that the tranquillity I had known in our group was rotting away, like my hair which Ghada had stroked with her affectionate hands.

I scolded Marwa vehemently for her sympathy for the murdered Abbas’s family; I was astonished when she retorted that I wanted to destroy the country. I didn’t answer her or explain my feelings, but I reread entire sections of the pamphlets, which dwelled on descriptions of the unbelievers, in a low voice in front of Hana and my companions. I became much closer to Ghada and, obviously, I learned more about her assignations with her lover and their secret meeting-place. I went with her to cake shops; we laughed on the streets and we whispered girls’ secrets to each other. We mocked Nada’s idiotic voice and her cadaver-like smell. I dreamed of recovering Ghada’s soul and saving her from that executioner. I imagined him murdered; the families of his victims would thank Hossam and Bakr for avenging the people he had hung by their feet and forced to swallow their own faeces while he stood and watched, smoking greedily. Ghada would cry on my chest, and I would pass my fingers through her soft hair and I would make her relax in the arms of her only saviour.

*   *   *

Maryam and Marwa were surprised at my joy when I read Safaa’s letter from Saudi Arabia out loud to them in which she informed us, sarcastically using the Bedouin dialect, that she spent her time sleeping and playing checkers with Zeina, Abdullah’s other wife. In the picture she drew for us they seemed to be becoming close friends, conspiring together against the man they both loved. The few letters that followed were filled with tears and irritation at the enclosed houses, the Filipina maids, and Abdullah’s long absences; he was accompanying Sheikh Nadim Al Salaty to gather donations in support of the men fighting the Soviet Communists in Afghanistan.

At the end of one letter, Safaa told us she was beginning to suspect she might be pregnant. Maryam wept like a happy child and Marwa let out a trill. Radwan led them to the shrines of the saints, where they read
mawalid
and wrote spells to ward off Zeina’s evil eye, unconvinced of what Safaa had written about her generosity and their odd relationship. When I saw Marwa trilling with such power I tried to match her, but my voice rushed out like a sheep bleating as it tried to catch up with the herd. I remembered that such trilling hadn’t been raised in our house for a long time.

I was annoyed at Ghada’s reticence, and that she didn’t take me to her secret house so I could see it for myself and submit my final report to my group, just as I was irritated by a young man who followed us surreptitiously. His shirt was unbuttoned and a silver chain decorated his wrist – he looked like a playboy searching for prey. I was reassured one day when I saw him get into a taxi driven by Hossam, who ignored me completely; I realized then that Hossam hadn’t gone to Jordan with Bakr.

That night, I was haunted by anxiety and I trembled in terror. A journey abroad would keep Hossam and Bakr out of harm’s way, but it also marked the beginning of a new series of assassinations. The victims, although they numbered no more than ten, were only the beginning of the organization’s dream, which Hossam had explained by drawing a diagram of four circles and three triangles in the borders of an algebra textbook. I understood the few words, written in
ruq’a
script and decorated with green flags: these words informed the Prophet that the martyrs were coming, and they were followed by ‘Our souls will be sacrificed for Islam,’ written in perfect English.

I asked Zahra if I could see Bakr. She shook her head and finished sprinkling the
freekeh
with spices, advised me to use
bilun
to soften my hair which had begun to resemble thistle heads. That night, I stood in front of the mirror to look at my hair. My looks used to resemble a Pharaonic painting: sharp eyes, long brown face, drooping eyelids. I cut off my hair, wanting to remove any symbol of my femininity. I concealed my nipples in the depths of my breasts. I kept my long braids in my sketchpad. Laughing, Omar compared me to Mireille Matthieu; ignoring my questions about Hossam and Bakr, he enthusiastically described the horse he had just bought from an Arab trader, its svelte muscles and the magnificence of its form, and then he suddenly left us, as he usually did. Maryam confirmed that he had won the horse in a bet. As usual, she started recounting what was said in respectable houses about his latest scandals, and added that he would kill his horse soon. I tried to convince Marwa that we should go and see him, and she replied sarcastically that my uncles had all vanished.

She was alluding to Selim and his Sufism. He had begun to carry tambourines in Sheikh Daghstani’s group, neglecting his family and my grandfather’s shops, content to ensure that the veil between himself and the face of God had been drawn aside, and that columns of light had opened up before him. He no longer heard us; he would shake his head pityingly, and hope that the Merciful would live in our hearts. He emptied his wardrobe of all his English suits whose pinstripes he used to be very fond of. He now made do with coarse brown cloth, a woollen turban and rubbery shoes, like the ones worn in the villages. His careful money-management left him and he became bored. He didn’t want to regulate the account books that formed the family’s inheritance, in the midst of the storm which would leave nothing behind. Omar intervened quickly and skilfully, and managed the shops and work without wounding Selim’s feelings. He told us that he couldn’t trust a man who took three days to return from Bianun, which was only 20 km away. He sought out a craftsman and paid him double wages, asking Khalil to leave the arcade and supervise him. Everything seemed to be going well, but Khalil didn’t like his task. He only sat in a cane chair, longing for Wasal; his new Aleppan wife couldn’t make him forget the charm of the many dissipated nights he had spent in Wasal’s arms.