Sinan Antoon - The Corpse Washer

Reem, too, disappeared all of a sudden, just as Hammoudy did. It was seven years ago, but unlike Hammoudy’s, her kidnapper was not human or nameless. I called her at home one morning in August. The phone kept ringing. There were no cell phones back then. I called again in the evening and no one picked up. Our secret sign before was to have the phone ring once and then hang up and she would call me back. But after our engagement we could speak freely in front of her father and stepmother. She had convinced me to ask for her hand, and I overcame my hesitation. I didn’t have any savings and my income wasn’t even enough to rent an apartment. Having her live with us at home was out of the question. I had no desire to start a family, but she kept telling me that years were passing and she was getting tired of doing everything in secret and struggling just to be together. She persuaded her father to agree to the marriage. He had hesitated a bit at first, because of my father’s profession and my financial situation, but she told him that I intended to travel abroad and do graduate studies. Her stepmother, happy to get rid of Reem once and for all, helped convince her husband to let us live in one of the houses he owned in al-Sayyidiyya after we got married.

I, too, had to get my parents’ approval, especially since marrying a divorcee was frowned upon. My mother had met Reem once when I invited her and another colleague to lunch at our house. She liked her, but I didn’t tell her that we had something going on. When I told her we were thinking of marriage, she asked, “Why did you choose this divorced woman out of all the others?” I told her that my heart had chosen. She agreed, but grudgingly. I asked her to try to convince Father. All he had to do was accompany me to Reem’s house to formally ask her father. Father didn’t mind that she had been married before. Perhaps he was moved by the fact that her ex-husband was a martyr, like his son. He asked me about her family and her father’s line of work. He wasn’t convinced that I was in a position to marry a woman from a rich family. In the taxi to their house he asked me terse questions about where we planned to live, the dowry, and other questions to which I had no clear answers.

The distance between our house in Kazimiyya and theirs in al-Jadiriyya was the gulf between two classes and two worlds. I thought of the problems and tensions we would be confronting because of that chasm. Father had never set foot in al-Jadiriyya. What was he thinking about when he looked through the taxi’s window at those huge modern houses? Was he thinking that I was about to sever my last bond to him and that I had succeeded, at long last, in leaving his sphere?

We stood at the main gate. There were three cars parked in the long garage. To the right there was a big garden with a neatly trimmed lawn edged on all sides with flowers. A palm tree towered over the far right corner. Below it was the Arabic Jasmine from which Reem used to pluck flowers for me. I rang the bell and we both waited. Father looked up at the two-story house and the adjacent houses. I looked at my shoes to make sure they were spotless and fixed my necktie. It was the first time I’d worn a tie and jacket in years. Father didn’t even own a necktie. He wore a sky-blue shirt and a dark jacket, and had put a skullcap over his head. Reem’s father emerged from the wooden door and walked toward us. We shook hands. He led us back through the door to the guest room.

He was very proper, but there were invisible barriers he didn’t care to cross. We exchanged pleasantries and the ritual went on as usual. He asked us what we would like to drink: juice, tea, or Arabic coffee? We both asked for coffee. He went to the door, which was ajar, and relayed our request. They had a maid, but I knew that Reem was going to bring the coffee, since that was what ritual dictated.

I knew from her footsteps that she was about to enter. She was wearing medium-heeled black shoes, which accentuated her slenderness as she walked, a black skirt just below the knees and a blue shirt with long loose sleeves. She had on her favorite silver bracelets, and her fingernails were painted creamy white. She offered the coffee to Father and invited him to take a piece of chocolate as well. He thanked her. Then she turned to me. We exchanged a smile as I took the coffee and chocolate. I couldn’t resist stealing a glimpse at her cleavage. In deference to the occasion, she was not as generous that day as she usually was, so I couldn’t see much. She seemed a bit timid, as if she knew what my eyes were searching for.

A heavy silence fell. My attempts to initiate a conversation that could engage both my father and hers failed. Both were laconic and kept what they said to the minimum. My father wasn’t chatty to start with. Her father seemed to believe that he had been forced to seal an unprofitable deal. On the way back, Father warned me against depending too much on Reem and her father. Don’t become a “burden” on them, he said. I was hurt by that word, but said nothing. The years had taught me that it was futile to argue with him.

The engagement ring gave us a freedom we had not enjoyed before. I started to visit her at home, and we could go out together for hours far more often than before. But this sweetest of times lasted only three months. Reem suddenly disappeared.

I kept calling, but there was no answer. In the evening I went to their house and rang the bell, but no one came to the door. I noticed there were only two cars, Reem’s and her stepmother’s. Her father’s car was not there. The curtains were shut and the gate was locked. I was baffled. I went home and called her friend Suha. She said that they’d left that morning for Jordan and that she had no idea when they would be back.

I thought of all possibilities, but couldn’t find a convincing explanation. If her father had forced her to leave, she would have called and asked for help. I knew he was thinking of leaving the country and had increased his business in Jordan and Turkey, but still. I went to his office in Karrada to inquire. One of his assistants said that he didn’t know, but perhaps his wife was ill and had gone to Jordan for treatment. I thought that Reem must have gone along with her and would return soon. I convinced myself that she would call, send a letter, or just return and surprise me, but she never did.

A month and a half later, one of the drivers at her father’s company hand-delivered a letter from her. I recognized her handwriting on the envelope. I opened it right away and read it while standing. It was written in blue ink on elegant paper:

Darling,

You will always be darling to me no matter what happens. Please forgive my absence and sudden departure and my not telling you anything. Maybe you will forgive me after reading this letter. I hope you understand me, just as you always have, with an open heart after you listen so lovingly and patiently. The last thing I want to do in the world is to hurt you, or be away from you. When I am far away from you I am far from myself. Please believe me when I say that you are more precious than anything in this world and my love is what compelled me to do what I did.

Two months ago while showering, I felt a tiny lump in my left breast. I went to the doctor, but didn’t say anything to you at the time, because I didn’t want you to worry. The doctor decided that they would remove it and do a biopsy. It turned out that it was malignant. My father insisted that we go to Jordan to get a second opinion and it all happened rather quickly. The second and third opinions were identical. The X-rays showed that the cancerous cells had spread quickly and a mastectomy was the only option. I am undergoing chemotherapy now and my days are full of nausea, headaches, and vomiting. My long hair, which you stroked, is all gone. They say it will grow again after treatment, but I find that hard to believe right now. My chest scar has yet to heal, because I suffered an infection after the surgery. I woke up after surgery to find a big wound as if someone had stabbed me and stolen away the breast you so loved and called one of the domes of your pagan temple. The breast you used to cup with your palms. The breast whose nipple you used to suckle on at times and bite like an insatiable puppy at others. The breast whose rights you said you wanted to defend and which you wanted to liberate from the fabric and wires that strangle it. They took that breast away from me and it is no longer part of my body. I couldn’t muster the courage to stand before the mirror — except once. I broke down afterward and cried for hours. I’m struck with the storms of irrational thoughts and feelings which inhabit anyone whose body is afflicted with sickness. Why? Why me? I’m still too young for it. I’m not forty yet. The doctor back in Baghdad said that cancer rates have quadrupled in recent years and it might be the depleted uranium used in the ordnance in 1991. I hate my body now and wish I could run away from it to a new body. I don’t think I could live in peace with it. Forgive me for going on and on so selfishly about my fears and thoughts.