Elias Khoury - As Though She Were Sleeping

Now he will pounce on me, Milia thought. He will capture and open me. The most peculiar sensation came over her. She had the feeling she was standing on a very high terrace waiting for someone to come, someone she knew would throw her from this height, and yet she was resigned to the wait. She closed her eyes on the image of a terrifying fall and a pair of hands reaching to throw her down on the bed and strip off her dress before tearing off her underclothes.

The wait went on and on. Drowsiness closed in on her. She leaned back on her right elbow and something like a light and fitful sleep crept over her. The fog of the road began to rise and spread inside her eyes. She shook herself and opened her eyes. Now she did not see Mansour standing naked in the middle of the room. The man had disappeared. She saw his crumpled clothes strewn on the floor and remembered the sight of him trying to pull off his things. His trousers had caught on his shoes, the shirt had twisted around his neck, and his socks seemed to be stuck to his feet. She saw his thick black moustache trembling over his lower lip, and the expectant smile returned to her lips. Then she heard something like a faint moan. She realized it was coming from the bathroom. The groaning grew louder and there were sounds of vomiting and retching. But instead of going to the bathroom to see what had befallen her husband, she lay down on the bed and covered herself in the sheet without taking off her dress.

Honeymoon, hunh ? Milia raised her voice, believing the bridegroom sitting on the commode in the bathroom would hear her. When he did not answer she was afraid. The image of the man swallowed up by the fog high on Dahr el-Baydar appeared to her, shivering as he ran to the car making sounds like a puppy’s yelps overtaken by groans. He opened the car door and sat down next to the driver, trembling and panting. Milia got out of bed. When she went over to the stove she saw that the flame was dying. She added some kindling and waited for the flame to leap. She walked closer to the bathroom door and called to him. Still Mansour did not answer. She knocked on the door several times. She heard only a faint moaning, muffled as though it came from far away. The warmth from the rekindled fire spread across her body and she wanted to take off her dress. She stooped over the suitcase, pulled out her long blue nightgown, and put it on. She heard the man calling for her and she went to the bathroom door.

Open up for me, Mansour, it’s Milia.

But the voice calling her had become even fainter, as if whispering. Was he calling for Milia or for Mama?

For God’s sake, open the door.

Lower your voice, the driver will hear you, the man said, his voice hoarse now.

Do you want us to get a doctor?

Calm down, please! Just calm down.

His words stopped abruptly and his moans sounded even odder now. Milia was certain the man was going to die and she sank to the floor in front of the door, kneeling there and rapping on it, over and over. She grasped the doorknob as if she would use it to scale the door. She heard Mansour calling for his mother, but in a whisper. She begged him to open the door and she listened to the rattling sounds of his retching. She crouched there, feeling alone and completely helpless, for she could think of nothing to do.

I’m going to go down and ask the owner to send for the nearest doctor.

Lower your voice, the driver’ll hear us, he must be laughing at us.

Mansour’s voice seemed to be coming from the bottom of a deep well as he told his wife she must not leave the room. There was nothing at all to worry about.

Go on to bed and I’ll be there soon.

She did not know how she got to her feet, or went over to lie down on the bed, or pulled the covers over her and went to sleep.

And why is she naked now? And why are these tremors coming over her like blows to her body?

Milia decided to open her eyes because she sensed death. She knew that death comes only as a long dream with no ending. Death is a dream, she said to her brother Musa. Come on, look at your grandmama, see how she’s always dreaming. The grandmother lay flat on her bed in a muddle of white sheets and the women sat all around. There was only a faint sound of weeping; no one dared wail out loud for Malakeh Shalhoub when she closed her eyes and passed on. Their grandmother had never liked crying over the dead. When the dead are finished dying, there’s no need for anyone to weep! This was what Malakeh screamed at the waiting women when her daughter died. That day after darkness fell, people heard the voice. It was her husband, Nakhleh, howling like an ox under slaughter. Later, rumors would go around the neighborhood that the man died — only two weeks after the death of his daughter — from the pain caused by having to suppress so many tears. His wife had forbidden him to weep over his daughter Salma.

Milia did not tell her brother Musa she had seen her aunt Salma in her dream. Musa was only three then. He could not understand such things.

The night before her aunt’s death Milia opened her eyes at the sound of her mother’s wailing. She decided to return to her dream where she might save her dying aunt, who was only twenty years old. But even there, Milia’s aunt would not emerge from her profound sleep; she would not open her eyes. The dream was a puzzling one. Milia understood its meaning only years later when she began to menstruate and dreamed that she was flying.

When Milia related the dream to her grandmother everything was already over. The elderly woman held back her tears and requested the little girl to tell the others what had happened in her dream. That day Milia learned to speak about the cryptic, perplexing images she saw at night. As she spoke her cheeks would darken to red and her tongue would show in the gap made by her absent front baby teeth. She could not say a single letter without lisping. She told them how she had seen her aunt Salma falling into the pond in the garden and thrashing about amidst a multitude of tiny red fish as she called out frantically for help. In the dream, Milia tossed a rope to her aunt and Salma grabbed it. She tried to get out of the water but the rope slipped from Milia’s hands.

Her aunt lies on thick tufts of grass. Milia walks over and tries to awaken her but just then she hears her grandmother’s voice: Don’t wake her up, my dear, leave her to dream! That was the moment when Milia woke up, shaking with fear. As soon as she went back to sleep, it seemed, she heard her mother’s screams, leapt up from her bed in alarm, and understood that her aunt Salma had died.

Actually, Milia was not telling the truth. She lied to everyone, but it was only because she was afraid to tell them the rest of her dream. She was afraid to reveal to them that she had entered her aunt’s sleep space. She had dreamed her aunt’s dream. Who would believe that anyone could enter the sleep-visions of another human being? Milia herself had not taken in fully what had happened; she would not understand what it meant to enter someone else’s sleep space until the moment of her own death. Only then did she see what no one ever sees; and she divulged it only to the infant who entered the world from her body.

Milia lies down next to her aunt on the grass. A filmy white mantle coats Salma’s closed eyes. Milia can see herself entering that filmy cloud and then she sees her aunt flying over what looks like a remote and bottomless valley. She hears the heartbeat of the woman who sails across the sky and she sees fear in her eyes. Salma wears a wedding dress; a long white veil ripples and flutters behind her. Suddenly the veil plummets into the round basin below in the garden and rain comes down in sheets. Milia tries to catch up with Aunt Salma but she cannot. Running toward her aunt, she trips and falls. Blood oozes from her right knee. She looks upward and sees Salma drawing farther away until she is no more than a white dot on the horizon. Milia hears her mother crying. She opens her eyes and sees Saadeh huddled in the corner of the room, sobbing. She knows that death has arrived. She understands that death is an unending dream, as her grandmother would say. At the age of seven it dawns on her that she can steal into the sleep-vision of death and savor the watery taste of it.