Elias Khoury - As Though She Were Sleeping

Milia veiled her breasts with her arms and threw herself into the sea. The taste of salt swept over her, a flavor that would return to her lips on that cold winter morning when she found herself in that bed in the room at the Hotel Massabki. She sucked at her lips and went back to sleep. But there she was on the rocky Beirut littoral, dipping her tiny breasts in the salt water and gazing at Musa as he pursued his water games. He dove underwater and she suddenly felt certain that he had drowned and would not return to the surface. But then abruptly he emerged on the other side of the vast open water. She waved to him but he was heading away from her, far away.

She closed her eyes and slipped her head into the water, and then opened her eyes to the intense blue that was turning into a light-suffused green mingling with gray. The depths of the sea have eyes that are green, she thought. These rocks and these colors yielded the greenness that enveloped her night. She raised her head and a light wave of cold swept over her. She felt a pain behind her eyes. She screamed for Musa but he was far away, swimming, paddling with his hands, his head dipping into the water and bobbing through the waves.

When Musa came back he saw her standing motionless in the water, the look in her eyes anxious. He grabbed her by the hand to pull her out of the sea. She shook her hand away and stooped over, covering her breasts. She followed him. She put on her own clothes. She was hungry. A tremor of cold smacked her. The July sun broke hotly over the water but Milia’s body shivered beneath her short dress, pulled over the wet bathing trunks that she had not dared to take off. Musa bought a pastry brushed with thyme that he divided with his sister. He tore into his share. She watched him and nibbled at her half.

That night she dreamed of the lamb and felt its wet little kisses. And that night her menstrual blood came. She had become a woman now, her mother told her, and she must act as women do. Milia was afraid of this blood. She did not understand how the egg that had formed inside of her could erupt into this mess of blood. Does that mean the egg has died? she asked her mother. You mean, every month a baby dies inside of me?

Don’t talk such nonsense! It isn’t death, it’s nature, Saadeh told her.

And so Milia understood that nature meant death. Sensations formed inside of her and welled up as her monthly time approached. Her movements grew slower. She sensed something forming ball-like in her belly and it made her queasy. She would press her hands against her lower abdomen as if she were pregnant and wanted to protect the developing baby from slipping out. The blood never appeared until the little lamb did, and not without considerable pain. This sudden panic about the embryo falling out followed her until she was with child. There in the remote little town she no longer saw the little lamb crouching above her. She began to walk daily through the alleys and streets until her feet hurt with exhaustion. Returning home, she would fall sleep immediately and dream of the blue woman coming toward her before disappearing into the wadi after laying the child in her arms. She would bring the baby boy to her breasts, letting him suck at her nipple as though it were an orange. It was ecstasy; her uterus muscles convulsed and water welled up from deep inside.

She never told Mansour about leaving the house to walk through the town. In the morning, feeling stuffed full to the brim like a heavy ball, she would go out for a walk. But Mansour saw her. Nearing the Church of Our Lady of the Tremblings, where the Virgin Maryam had felt the sudden fright of a mother worrying that her son would be sent over the precipice into the deep wadi, Milia sat down on a white stone overlooking a grove of olive trees and let her gaze wander. Mansour saw her by coincidence. He had come out of his shop to smoke his morning narghile in Sulayman’s coffeehouse. He saw her shadow from behind and followed her. She was like a rolling ball, a shape impossible to mistake, and so he followed it. When she perched on the small white boulder he hid himself behind a wall. He did not come any closer and he did not speak to her. He stood motionless, hardly daring to breathe. She stood up and began to walk in the direction of home and he went to the café. In the evening he came home and found her asleep, as usual. He woke her up. She made his dinner and went back to sleep without any exchange of words between them.

The next morning as she was making his coffee he came to her wanting to kiss her but she stepped away. He spoke to her but she did not answer, simply giving him a look of rebuke. Mansour was absolutely certain that she had not seen him at the church. He was not prepared to believe her stories about these dreams of hers. He felt sure she was feigning it all, giving herself the freedom to interpret matters however she liked. He asked her what the matter was but she did not answer. He felt smothered. He had gotten used to the silence, to living with a woman who was more like a ghost, but her disgruntlement and sadness were becoming too much to endure.

Tell me — what is the problem?!

You know.

No, I don’t know, so tell me.

It’s nothing, she said, and turned her back and left the kitchen for the sitting room. He followed her and put his hand on her shoulder. She turned around and said, Take your hand off me, please .

What is it — what did I do?

You were following me.

Me?

Yes, you! You stood behind the wall at the church. But I saw you anyway.

When was that? he asked.

I don’t know, maybe yesterday, or maybe a few days ago.

How did you see me?

I saw you through my back.

No one sees through their back!

Looking at Mansour, she saw him take the shape of Musa. She saw his lower lip tremble and the tears cling to the underside of his eyelashes. She leaned over, wiped his eyelids with her fingertips, and kissed him there. Don’t lie to me anymore. Promise me you won’t lie. Yallah , tell me.

I promise, Mansour said, penitent.

That was the day on which Mansour realized that he was afraid of this woman. He heard her call him Musa but he said nothing about it. A time or two before he had flared up, raising his voice at her when she called him by her brother’s name. My name is Mansour, he said. Why do you pin your brother’s name on me?

I don’t know, she said. Maybe it’s because I miss him.

Miss anyone you want, and yes, I know he’s your brother, but my name is Mansour.

Mansour, she said. Fine. You are Mansour.

But Musa did not disappear. One time he heard the name, or thought he heard it, when she was asleep. He was making his usual moves when he heard the name. He retreated and tried to go to sleep. But he couldn’t and so he went to her again and took her, deceiving himself into thinking he had heard the name wrongly. But he felt the utter strangeness of it all with a sense of alienation that he could not shake off. This woman was a stranger here. He no longer knew how to talk to her. Her low voice made him wary of voices in general, and her languid eyes seemed focused only on distant points. He had an uncomfortable sensation of never being able to reach them, wherever it was they went.

That morning when she leaned toward him and brushed her fingers along his eyebrows and kissed them, Mansour felt like a child. He had as much as admitted seeing her by chance and following her, and standing behind the wall looking at her as she sat on a rock in front of the church steps.

Now really, how did you see me?

She said she had seen him with her back because she could see everything in her dreaming. She told him how a person sees in all four directions when dreaming. She asked him about his dreams. He never saw dreams in his sleep, he said.