The Turtle of Oman (4 page)

Slow

A
ref and his grandfather had been looking inside and under things for a long time now, checking out new streets, shops and cafes, finding friends, wandering the beaches. Since Aref was little, they had been making plans:

 

Someday Soon

1. Yes, we will go to Masirah Island and watch kite surfing!

2. Yes, we will march around Al-Hazem Fort and pretend we are living two hundred years ago!

3. Yes, we will visit Jebel Shams, the highest mountain of our country!

4. Yes, we are always looking hard to find the leaf-toed gecko. Maybe it will sit on our feet.

5. Yes, we will see the “magical light” at Wadi Shab.
Sidi says it is a long drive and if we sit down and stare, something inside our eyeballs will start to shimmer. Sidi says the trees look like they are floating in the sky.

 

Even when they weren't doing anything special, Sidi and Aref, Team of Two, pretended they were—yes, we will take all the spices out of the drawer and smell them and throw the old nasty nutmeg away! When Aref was little, Sidi would sit quietly on a bench while Aref ran in circles around him. Sidi would close his eyes and say, “I'm soaking up the light” or, “I'm thinking of what we just did, or what to do next.”

Sidi knew the real official names of rocks and stones and said it was because he had always lived in view of the Hajar Mountains. He loved that massive wall of brown rumpled slopes and peaks behind the city. Everyone in Muscat looked at those slopes all their lives. Sidi said he was the sultan only of stones.

And Sidi always had time for Aref, since he was retired now and never wore a watch. He didn't like watches. He said time felt heavy on his wrist. He hated rushing and thought the world was hurrying so much that people were missing all the good parts.

Aref had taught Sidi how to use a computer, but Sidi didn't like it. He said the letters on the screen went too fast and made him dizzy. The wealth of information was overwhelming. He didn't want to know the news from Zanzibar.

Aref's mother stood in the doorway of his bedroom staring at him. He was lying on his bed reading a science magazine about glittering galaxies.

“Is there any news about your suitcase, Aref?” she asked. “You don't seem to be making any progress. Why don't you manage a little packing before Sidi gets here? You need to pack the clothes you love most.” She had come upstairs from cleaning out the refrigerator and still had a dishrag in her hand. She wanted the refrigerator to be spotless for his cousins and had crammed everything that was left onto one shelf.

“I don't love any clothes.”

He was wearing a blue-and-white striped T-shirt and blue jeans. He plucked at them as if he were swatting them away from his body.

Then he jumped up, did a cartwheel on his carpet and landed perfectly. So he did another one.

Know Your Michigan Turtles

M
ish-Mish had followed Aref's mom upstairs and stood on her hind legs batting at the curtain pull. Sometimes she got a claw snagged and tugged hard to free herself. Aref thought she might be trying to close the draperies. She liked dim light for her four-hour naps. Aref thought Mish-Mish was extremely smart. Often she moved her cat-lips as if she were trying to speak.

“Mom, why can't I put Mish-Mish in my suitcase and punch air holes in the top? Hani and Shadi will not take good care of her. They barely know her. What if she thinks we're never coming back and runs away? What if she goes looking for us, what if she gets lost forever?”

It was possible to imagine all sorts of bad things without working too hard. You could think about centipedes curling and writhing under your bed. One might crawl up the leg of your bed and sting you. Or a tiny shriveled mummy person the size of your hand, standing up on your chest in the dark, sending out light-rays, and growling. You could picture your own head falling off without warning, or your human body growing a tail. You could imagine kids in the United States making fun of your accent or your clothes or the ways you did things.

Aref's mother sighed. “Please? Just for a little while? You pick what you want to take with you. You're old enough! If it fits in your suitcase, you can take it.” She had been saying that for weeks.

Aref picked up the tourist brochures and postcards of Michigan his mom and dad had been giving him. They had ordered them through the Internet and printed them in color and by now he had a thick collection—snows and bridges and lakes, boats and cherry trees. The biggest lakes were called the Great Lakes. He had to admit Michigan looked like a very nice state. He stuck the stack of pictures into a suitcase pocket. Then he took them out. If he was moving there, why did he need to pack the pictures? He would see everything in real life soon enough.

On his desk he had placed his favorite brochure of all,
Know Your Michigan Turtles.
When this one arrived, Aref went a little crazy in a happy way.

“How did they know? How did they know I like turtles the best?” he had asked.

His dad had raised one eyebrow and shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe everyone in Michigan likes turtles,” he said.

Aref learned that Michigan is home to ten native turtle species. Not sea turtles, like the giant ones in Oman, but smaller turtles that lived in the woods and in lakes.

 

Smaller Turtles

1. The state reptile is called a “painted turtle.” On the front of the brochure is a picture of a painted turtle sitting on a log, staring into the sun.

2. Snapping turtles have long tails and white skin under their chins.

3. On May 23, World Turtle Day, Michigan celebrates with Turtle Festivals and Turtle Story-telling.

4.
Box turtles have polka dots on their undershells.

5. Wood turtles are enormous, not small at all.

 

Aref stuffed this one brochure into a suitcase pouch.

The other things he wished he could take—his whole room, his friends—would not fit into a suitcase of any size. He couldn't take his bicycle. Which made him think: I would rather be riding my bicycle than packing. For sure, for sure!

He could hear water running. His mom was in the bathroom taking a shower. Aref rapped on the bathroom door lightly and shouted, “Mom, I am going outside for a minute!”

“Come back inside soon!” she yelled. “And stay on our street.”

His bicycle was tucked behind the dark red blooming bougainvillea bushes on the side of the house. An English name was painted on its back bumper,
FAST FORWARD
.

He clicked his red helmet under his chin, and coasted down the road next to his house.

His parents always said they were lucky not to have too much traffic on this street, which was why they had given him permission at the age of seven to ride on his own block up and down whenever he wanted. How much traffic would there be in Michigan?

Construction workers on a noisy yellow bulldozer were pushing sand and gravel off to the side of an empty lot. They waved to him and he quickly raised his right hand in greeting. They wore yellow hardhats similar to his helmet. One of the workers called out to him, “
Deer balek
—be careful, son!”

A dump truck paused over at the side. Dust spiraled up from a huge hole that an excavator was digging. He didn't know exactly what they were building. Probably just another house. But he wished: a candy store? That would be good. It could be standing there, a striped surprise, when he returned.

He swooped down a tiny section of pavement that went nowhere, as if once someone had planned to build a house there and quit. He stopped his bike at the end of the alley, staring out over the valley of houses, moving vehicles, tiny moving people, and bright sun cascading down upon everything—and beyond it all, the sea. He tried to imprint this scene on his mind, then began backing up, slowly, from the end of the alley, to the street, where he turned around again. “Why, why, why?” His mind clicked along with his pedals.

Sometimes moving backwards was important. Aref wished there could be one day, maybe Mondays, when everything moved backwards, as a sort of time experiment changing the view. You could eat dinner in the morning and breakfast at night. Cars could only reverse. Or you could eat dessert first at every meal. Wouldn't that feel like a different world?

Sometimes, even though he was old, Aref walked backwards swinging his arms, making a back-up beep, like a bulldozer or truck would make. You saw differently when you walked backwards. Aref had read a book backwards, put his shirt on backwards to see how it felt, and tried to write his name backwards. It looked very strange. English started at the left and moved right, Arabic words started at the right and moved left. What was backwards to one was forward to the other.

Would he feel backwards in Michigan or just the same as he felt in Oman?

He was pedaling hard. He knew where the cracks were. He knew the best place to make a fast swooping circle and turn around. He knew where the bump rose in the street in front of Ziad's driveway and today he pedaled hard up over it so his bottom rose from the seat and the wheels jumped into the air.

Ummi Salwa was standing in her doorway moving her arm out and back to her chest, beckoning to him. She had a hard time speaking above a whisper now—she said it was because she was 100, but her voice was still deep and musical if you got close enough to hear her.

“
Marhaba
, Ummi Salwa! Hello!” Aref shouted. She smiled and waved harder.

Aref placed his bike down gently by her walk and ran up to her.

“Are you still here?” she asked.

This was very very strange. He could imagine what Sidi would say: “No, I have already left, I am gone now. You are having a dream.”

“Yes, I am still here,” Aref said politely. “My father left, but my mother and I are still here. We are packing. We are leaving in a week.”

Ummi Salwa reached into the side pocket of her silken housecoat and pulled out a package of four tangerines and a small box of chocolates. “I wanted to give these to you, my son,” she whispered. “May Allah bless you and may all the days be kind to you.”

Aref surprised himself by taking her hand and kissing it. He had never done this before, but Sidi always touched her hand to his forehead. Kissing it just seemed like the right thing for Aref to do at that moment. “Thank you, Ummi Salwa,” he said, also in a whisper. “I will think of you and look forward to seeing you when we get back.”

She closed her eyes. Sidi had told him that Ummi Salwa could fall asleep while standing up now, but Aref didn't know if she was asleep or not. Maybe she was just counting up to the age she would be when he returned. Or praying. He walked back to his bicycle, placing her gifts in his basket. He should probably take the chocolate home, so it wouldn't melt. He looked back to wave, but she had stepped inside.

He made one more big zigzag down the street and coasted smoothly into his driveway. He was sweating now. He opened the door, and placed the gifts on the kitchen table.

Cat Without a Map

“D
id you pack anything yet,
habibti
?”

Aref thought of the turtle brochure and his gifts from his friends and said, “Yes.” He pressed his forehead against the cool refrigerator. “Will I feel backwards in Michigan?”

“What are you talking about?” His mother turned to him. “Sweet boy, of course not! You'll feel perfectly at home!”

“How do you know?” This was Aref's favorite question. He had now asked it one million forty-two times in his life, since he could talk.

“I just know.” She put Ummi Salwa's chocolate in the refrigerator to harden it again and asked if he wanted a tangerine. He shook his head. “I think I'll have one, then,” she said, peeling it with her fingernails.

She took a bite. “Ummmm—juicy. You know, Aref—even Sultan Qaboos went away from Oman to go to school. He went to England. It was long ago . . . and he came home. In our country it is quite a tradition that people go away, then they come back home. We can be proud of it.”

Mish-Mish pressed against his leg. He would miss her so much. No one else seemed properly worried about this. Mish-Mish might forget him. “Do cats have good memories?” he asked his mother.

“I think so,” she said. “I think that a cat can walk a very long distance to find its way home, so it must remember things. Remember a few months ago when I told you about a cat that got lost in America when its family took it on a trip? Why you would take a cat on a trip, I still don't know. The poor cat jumped out of the car at a rest stop and disappeared. It started walking on its own and unbelievably traveled safely across two hundred miles of Florida to find its old neighborhood. Can you imagine? All that way, and it ended up a mile or two from its house. It was gone two whole months! But don't worry, Mish-Mish will like Hani and Shadi too.”

This made Aref feel worse. What if Mish-Mish tried to walk to Michigan? She'd get lost in the desert. Also, he didn't want to share his cat. Hani and Shadi, whom he used to enjoy playing with, were starting to seem like big trouble. “I hate them,” Aref said. He ran to his room. His head still felt hot.

Aref's mom followed him and said, “My darling, you need to change that thought. You know it is not true. We do not hate anybody. They are your cousins and you love them very much.”

Aref shook his head. “I used to,” he said. “Now I only like them a tiny bit. Mish-Mish is my cat!”

His mom was staring at him with her serious face.

“Okay, I am sorry.” He shook his head.

“That's better,” she said. “You know Mish already likes more than one person in this house. She won't hate us just because she likes them. She can have more than three friends!”

He could smell the sun left over from his bike ride in his own swirling hair.

And there it was, his suitcase, still open wide on the floor.

His mom left the room and returned with some neat stacks of folded laundry. She placed them on his bed. “See,” she said. “Easy! Just start putting these in!”

Aref wanted to kick something. He moaned in an odd way, like a faucet with a problem.

His mom sat down on the bed. “Aref, it's not a good time to be grouchy, you know. It's a good time to accomplish our chores and feel excited.”

Maybe if he didn't pack, he wouldn't really have to leave. He slumped around his room, in front of his mother. Sunlight poured through his large window. A giant palm frond from the tree outside waved up and down. The shadow was like an arm directing traffic on his rug.

“You could pretend we are in a movie,” Aref's mom said.

That seemed a little interesting. “What do you mean?”

“Haven't we seen movies in which people pack and get on airplanes and fly off above the sea and kiss the ground when they get to their special destination and everything is fun? Remember that movie about the flying bears? Didn't they do a little dance when they got off the plane? Aren't you excited about the airplane?”

“Not really.” Aref remembered that movie. It was for babies.

“But you've never been in an airplane.”

He was thrilled about the airplane, actually.

“Dad said there are movies in the backs of the seats and you can pick which one you want to watch. The remote control and the volume are in the handle of the seat—doesn't that sound fun? There's a whole list of movies, some especially for kids.”

“Can I watch whatever I want to?”

“Yes! If it's for kids. And he said our apartment is perfect. It has a balcony that looks toward the swimming pool and a nice purple couch and striped chairs and our bedrooms have drawers built into the walls and it even has pans and a teapot in the kitchen. We weren't expecting that. He is making a list of things we will need to buy—like new rugs for inside the door and more towels and a big pot for soup. It will be fun to go shopping when we get there.”

Shopping was rarely fun. Aref suspected only grown-ups found it fun.

His mother patted his head. But Aref wasn't a baby anymore and he didn't like it. “I still don't want Hani and Shadi in my bedroom,” he moaned softly. “I'm sorry, but it's true.”

She laughed. “They will take care of it. Trust me. And maybe you will have two windows in your new room instead of just one, wouldn't that be nice? You could do your reading for school out on the balcony, because there are chairs and a table out there, and it won't be so hot, like here. And when the snow falls in winter, you will see something very unusual. The snow will be fresh and soft—you'll be able to go outside and build in it. A snow person with a face and a hat! Maybe we'll get to see those giant snowplows clearing the streets. In the summers, you'll be able to walk right out our apartment door and dive into the swimming pool. You always wanted a swimming pool, right?”

“But we won't have the beach.”

“No. We won't have the beach. Not our beach, anyway. The Great Lakes have their own beaches. Lake beaches. I think the sand is different shades of color in different places. Maybe they don't have waves, but in summer you can swim there too. It's a little drive from Ann Arbor.”

Aref shook his shaggy brown hair. “I don't think they will have waves. And I still don't think I will like it there, no no no, I don't.”

He liked “no” in English even better than he liked “la” in Arabic—they meant the same thing. But “la, la, la” sounded like a song and “no” felt stronger now. He was glad to be speaking English because he didn't feel like singing.