Kashua Sayed - Second Person Singular

The moment the lawyer opened his eyes he knew he’d be tired for the rest of the day. He wasn’t sure whether he’d heard it on the radio or read it in the newspaper, but he’d come across a specialist who described sleep in terms of cycles. Often the reason people are tired, the specialist explained, was not due to insufficient sleep but rather a sudden awakening before the cycle had run its course. The lawyer did not know anything about these cycles — their duration, their starting point, their ending point — but he did know that this morning, in essence almost every morning, he rose right in the middle of one. Had he ever experienced what must be the wonderful sensation of waking up naturally, at the tail end of a cycle? He wasn’t sure. He imagined sleep cycles like the waves of the sea and himself as a surfer upon them, gliding toward shore and then suddenly, violently, being tossed into the water, waking up with a terror he did not fully understand.

The lawyer was internally programmed to wake up early, and yet, when he had to be in court in the morning, he would set the alarm on his cell phone, even though he knew he would jolt awake before it rang.

The sounds of his family’s morning routine floated down to his bed. Or rather, his daughter’s bed. She was six years old, in first grade, and ever since her birth the lawyer had made a habit of sleeping in her room. As a baby, she woke up often in the middle of the night, in need of nursing, changing, and soothing, and it was at this time that the lawyer first altered the family’s sleeping arrangements. The baby slept in a crib in her parents’ bedroom, alongside her mother, who tended to her, and he slept alone on the floor of his daughter’s room, on a mattress.

At the time, his wife did not begrudge him this arrangement. She knew her husband needed a full night’s sleep in order to function properly at work, and she, enjoying a full year of maternity leave, was not saddled with the difficult and demanding work of a young attorney who was just beginning to establish himself as one of Jerusalem’s most promising criminal lawyers.

So for two years, the lawyer slept on a thin mattress laid over a Winnie-the-Pooh rug, the bear sailing along in the basket of a hot air balloon, surrounded by four serene, sky-blue, cloud-graced walls and a posse of stuffed animals, some of which were gifts from family and friends, and others, the bulk of the collection, bought by the couple for their firstborn child, who continued to sleep in her parents’ bedroom alongside her mother. Ever since their daughter had begun to sleep through the night, the lawyer had been visiting his wife several times a week, staying in their bed until morning. Occasionally, his wife would pay him a visit, but he preferred the former arrangement, because the toys, housed on the shelves and in the drawers — teddy bears, puppies, and innocent dolls in wedding dresses — seemed to peer out at them in fear and astonishment, aghast at the strange ceremony being performed right beneath their noses.

When their daughter turned two, the couple decided it was time for her to make the leap from crib to toddler bed. She was tall for her age — and still is, even today, looming a full head over the rest of her classmates — but even after buying the new bed, a pink race car that contrasted nicely with the sky-blue walls and the floating clouds, the lawyer continued to sleep in the girl’s room and she began to sleep on his side of the queen bed with her mother. The lawyer’s life, though, took a turn for the better with this new stage in his daughter’s development because the toddler bed came equipped with an orthopedic mattress.

Last year, the couple had a second child, a son. Several weeks after his birth, the couple moved out of their rented apartment and into a duplex that they had built and designed to their specifications. The upper floor consisted of a large living room, a designer kitchen, and two bedrooms, one of which was especially large — the couple enjoyed calling it the master bedroom, a term they’d only recently acquired — and another that had been outfitted for the new baby boy, with sky-blue ceilings and Shrek wallpaper. The girl’s room was downstairs. It was airy and cream-colored, with a matching bed, desk, shelves, and a spacious purple-and-cream closet. The bottom floor also had a bathroom, a small storage room, and an office, the lawyer’s sanctuary — an antique mahogany desk, a gift from one of his clients, dominated the book-lined room.

The move to the new house did not alter the couple’s sleeping habits. Their son was still an infant and his mother preferred that his crib be near her bed, and their daughter, despite all attempts to convince her otherwise, was scared to sleep alone in her room. The lawyer and his wife, sensitive to her fear of being alone on the bottom floor, suggested that she sleep on a mattress in her brother’s room. She agreed, but nearly every night she woke up terrified and ran straight to her parents’ room. And that is how the lawyer found himself back in his daughter’s bed. Not that he minded. At the end of the day, the lawyer preferred sleeping alone.

The lawyer heard his wife’s shrill voice ordering their daughter to wash her face and brush her teeth. Her quick and cantankerous steps reverberated through the ceiling. Why does she walk like that? he wondered. It was like she was making a point with her feet. Boom, boom, boom. Red Army soldiers on parade. “How should I know where your hair scrunchies are?” he heard his wife yell. “Maybe next time you should be a little more careful with your things. You’re not a baby anymore, you know. Let’s go. Quick. Downstairs, get dressed, and make sure you have all your school books. Too bad. No hair scrunchies. You’ll make do. Let’s go. I don’t want to hear another word. I’m late.”

The lawyer recognized his daughter’s chastened steps on the wooden stairs and the sounds of his wife, blowing her nose in the bathroom and spitting as she brushed her teeth. He thought about his wife, about the noises she made, and wondered if there was a way to tell her how awful it sounded. He was sure that, if she knew, she would change her ways. The toilet seat came down with a thud and his daughter pushed open the door to her room. Her eyes, as he expected, seemed to be seeking shelter from her mother’s scolding.

The lawyer smiled at his daughter, peeled off the Bratz blanket, sat up in bed, and motioned to her to come sit beside him — the exact sign she had been waiting for. She wanted to know whose side he had chosen this morning, and the smile and the invitation for a hug reassured her. Who knew, perhaps he’d even criticize his wife, admonish her. “I didn’t lose my hair thingies,” the girl protested, sitting in her father’s lap. “I put them next to the sink yesterday before I went to bed. Why’s she yelling at me? Tell her, Daddy, I didn’t lose them.”

“I’m sure we’ll find them soon,” the lawyer said, caressing his daughter’s hair.

“We’ll never find them. And anyway, they’re old. I need new ones, lots of new ones, so that if some of them get lost there’ll still be more. Okay?”

“Okay,” the lawyer said. “Now get dressed. We don’t want to be late, all right, sweetheart?”

“I don’t have anything to wear,” she said, pouting as she peered into her closet. The lawyer smiled at his daughter again and left the room. He considered going into the master bedroom to wish his wife a good morning and then wondered whether she’d come downstairs to greet him, but he did not go in and she did not come down. The lawyer had no tolerance for false gestures. He had heard often, from clients and experts on TV, that the way to ensure quiet on the home front was for the husband to deceive the wife, to compliment and praise her at all times, but that quiet, of the kind they were referring to, he already had aplenty. The lawyer could not contend that his wife henpecked him; on the contrary, she ran the house and took care of the kids with unwavering authority and never complained when he stayed late at the office or refrained from helping around the house. As he went upstairs and into the kitchen to make coffee, he considered these things, satisfied that his wife harbored no complaints.