Джоха Альхарти - Celestial Bodies

Ustaz Mamduh said: I came as a service to patriotism and Arabism.

London said: I want a BMW, it suits my status as a doctor and as the daughter of the House of Merchant Sulayman. Why did London have to mention her ties of blood to her grandfather?

Salim said: I want the new PlayStation.

Zarifa said: Best we marry off this boy before something happens that we’ll really regret.

My aunt said: Go to Muscat and don’t worry, I’ll see to things in the Big House.

My partner Abu Salih said: This deal is watertight.

Teacher Bill said: Why didn’t you learn English when you were little? Now do you realise how important it is? It’s the most important language in the world.

The most important language in the world. In the world. The world. The world is very big. Very small. My partner Abu Salih said, We’re finished with the old ways of commerce. It’s all about ads these days. That’s what moves minds and opens pockets.

Pockets, pockets.

Papa, I said, I want a riyal. And he laughed. A whole riyal for a scruffy lad like you? In my days, we used to hope maybe one day we’d see a penny with our own eyes. One single little penny!

I wrote her name on the palm-tree trunk. I engraved it with hot metal onto the gate out at the farms. Mayya. The small world. The large world. No, thanks, I do not want any juice. I want shay. Yes, tea. More tea, please. Why is my head pounding? The stock exchange collapsed and Mayya screamed and moaned, You mean to say we aren’t building the new house after all? she wailed. Our own three-storey house!

What was I to do? It collapsed. The stock collapsed. Mayya collapsed, Habib fled. Zarifa said he was raving. That’s all, raving. Raving mad. He fled. My father went mad. He was on the cusp of old age. He threatened, he promised, and then he never returned to the subject. Zarifa returned to her old habits, freeing herself to take care of me.

On the day my father decided to marry her off to Habib, Zarifa tipped the paper horn of pepper into my mouth and poured it all down. Then she grabbed my ear, squeezed it hard, and said, If you tell anyone I did this, your father will truss you up and hang you upside down from the palm tree.

I didn’t have anyone to tell, anyway. The pepper burnt my throat all the way down. I drank lots and lots of water, and when night came I could not find Zarifa. I could not find Zarifa’s embrace to hide myself in.

My partner Abu Salih said: We’ll take on this deal. My cousin said: Buy a building. Real estate is the safest thing in this country. This country. Everything in this country changes with astonishing speed.

London said: I don’t like this al-Khuwayr neighbourhood. Papa, there’s nowhere to walk.

Don’t exaggerate, London.

Papa, all these streets are designed for cars’ feet, not people’s feet.

Then she forgot all about it, once she and her friends started to get absorbed in their never-ending expeditions from one mall to the next, in her car.

I love the capital! said Salim. True, it isn’t Dubai, but we can find everything we want here. I didn’t ask him what exactly it was that he wanted.

Muhammad didn’t say much at all. Not then, and not ever in his life. Neither he nor Salim made me as happy as London did. When she was born the world couldn’t contain me for happiness. She was pretty and cute and she looked a lot like Mayya. At the time, Zarifa swore that she would not enter Salima’s house. She would not go in there and do her duty, pouring the coffee for all the women who would come to visit. I said to her, But this new baby is my daughter, mine, and Mayya is my wife. Why are you thinking of Salima? What does she have to do with this? She said she could not stand to see Salima, and she would not darken the door into Salima’s home.

When Mayya had Muhammad, she said, I will not go to my family’s house to rest up. I’m staying here. I’ll have a maid to help.

In the graduation ceremony I was given my secondary diploma. I held onto it tightly. That evening, I showed it to my father. I was breathing hard. He laughed. Why are you panting like a dog in front of everyone? You won’t gain anything from that bit of paper. This is what will help you, he said, and he patted the pocket of his dishdasha. He laughed.

He laughed. Laughed!

I couldn’t find anyone to ask. No one would tell me how she died. When I got older I asked my aunt. It was the basil bush that killed her, she said.

At conferences, every so often they place flowers along the tables. But never basil...

How could this be, Auntie? How could a basil bush kill someone?

She waved my question away.

Zarifa despised my aunt. When my father died and I moved to Muscat she went to join her son Sanjar in Kuwait. How could my mother die because of a basil plant, Zarifa?

I don’t know.

But — you know everything, Zarifa.

Hooting, she yanked me close. Clutched to her chest I could smell her sweat, mingled as ever with that chicken-broth scent. I am Zarruuf, she said. That’s all I am. And I never know everything. I know how to cook, I know how to eat, how to dance, and I know— She made the kind of obscene gesture I’d begun to notice a lot, from men, from women, as soon as the fuzz began to show across my upper lip.

Yes, I did steal my father’s rifle. I went with Zarifa’s son Sanjar and our friend Marhun to hunt magpies. Sanjar warned me, If you don’t get hold of that rifle you’re not a man. Marhun added, And if you don’t come, we’ll roast you instead of the magpies. Anyway, once we were in the desert they attacked me and held me down. They tried to force me to say it: I am the slave, I am Abdallah the slave of Sanjar and Marhun.

But I didn’t say that. Instead, I said, I’ll tell Zarifa everything. So they left me alone. But they ate the magpies all by themselves. I swore that when I grew up I would eat a hundred magpies all by myself. But by the time I was nearly grown up it was against the law to hunt magpies.

Mayya never planted any basil. She liked growing native wild roses, sweet-smelling jasmine and also the other kind of jasmine that has a strong and piercing smell, as well as daisies and greens, lemon trees and quince bushes. The courtyard was vast, and she commandeered most of it for gardening. Once I asked her, Why aren’t you sewing, Mayya? You silly man, she said, you don’t understand anything. Why should I go on sewing when there are seamstresses everywhere you turn? And to be honest, I’m tired of it. But she got tired of studying, too, in just the same way. She lost hope about learning English and stopped going to evening classes. When I suggested we enrol Muhammad in the Hope School for special-needs children, she cried and cried. Then she said, My son is just like all the other boys. He’ll go to school just like his brother and his cousins. Muhammad was not like all the other children, but she did not want to see that. She never planted any basil. One night — it was a clear, quiet night — I asked her what she would think about maybe planting some basil? Its smell brings vipers! she said. On the night after the magpie hunt, Zarifa dressed my wounds — which were pretty bad — with salt and turmeric. All the while I babbled, asking one single question over and over. How did she die, Zarifa? How did my mama die?

Zarifa had not said a word all night. But now, finally, she said, Abdallah, my boy! You know what the proverb-maker says. Ignorance is bliss.

When Khawla began driving her car, Mayya suddenly insisted on learning how to drive. But she failed the test. The police were prejudiced against her, she announced. They were in conspiracy with Khawla. Mayya was sure of that. Khawla was pretty and she had style; there was an elegance about the way she did things. I hired a driver for Mayya but she threw him out after a few months. Mayya! I said. What have you done now! But all she could say was, Ya rajul, ya rajul, chiding me as though, being a man, I just didn’t understand. After Khawla’s divorce, when she opened a beauty salon in one of Muscat’s fanciest neighbourhoods, Mayya tried again to get a licence.