Rabee Jaber - The Mehlis Report

A row of lit-up stone houses. Evergreen cypress trees swaying in the night. I heard the wind, and the sound it made as it struck the branches. I heard my grandfather breathing heavily. We’d come a long way, and he’d been walking uphill with me in his arms.

An old woman was waiting for him in a lit doorway. She was emaciated: skin stretched over bone. She was holding a tray with pitcher of lemonade and some cups. I said I was thirsty.

“Drink, my girl. You’ve come a long way. Drink.”

I drank a cup, then shyly held it out to her. She poured me another. My grandfather joined me, but only drank a single cup. I drank two, and wanted to ask for a third, but didn’t. What was this thirst? The cold taste in my mouth. And the smell in my nose. Lemon and water and sugar. The smell of rosewater as well, but weak. No. Not a smell. The memory of the smell of lemonade. It seemed nothing like the taste I knew, but somehow reminded me of it.

A young woman came out of the house. She was wearing striped pajamas, like those of a man. Her neck was pure white, but a scar as black as coal — the black of dried blood — crossed her neck from one side to the other. She noticed me staring at her scar and, embarrassed, did up the top button of her pajamas with her hand.

My grandfather disappeared from sight. The young woman said there was hot water in the bathroom. I could sense my grandfather had not gone far. He must have entered one of the nearby houses. The lights were on in those houses: yellow poured through the windows and fell in rectangles on the grass. I could hear voices inside, but they were low, like whispering. The old woman smiled as I entered the house. The books were the first things to catch my eye: the shelves were covered in them.

There was a long passageway between the rooms. The young woman led me down it to the bathroom. I entered and closed the door behind me. It wasn’t very big, but it was comfortable. I turned on the shower, first the blue faucet and then the red one, and the sweet warm water began to come down. I took off my clothes. I put my skirt on top of a tall table in the corner. I put the rest of my clothes on the edge of an empty bamboo laundry hamper beside the table. And I folded up the blanket and set it against the door, so that if any one tried to come in by mistake it would block their way, or at least hinder them a bit. But I wasn’t really worried someone would come in. I did that automatically, without thinking. I simply folded the blanket and set it down against the door. The water was pouring out of the shower and onto my head, dripping onto my forehead and face, onto my neck, my breasts, my stomach, my legs. It flowed over me as I closed my eyes: I didn’t want to see the black mixing in with the water as it went down the drain. I wanted that water to clean me while I slept. I spent a long time in the shower. I rubbed my body with a bar of fragrant baladi soap. The smell of that lather (olive oil and other aromas) filled my nose, and did not fill it. It was as if I were remembering the smell of that soap. But I was clean again. The water had washed away the dried blood on my face. My hair was clean. I found a comb, and as I was combing my hair, I felt some pain on one side of my head, where they had struck my ear. I also felt some pain in my right thigh. I leaned over to inspect it and discovered a bruise, blue. The water grew colder. I turned off the blue faucet, and the water was warm once more. I washed my head one last time as the water went cold for good.

I got out of the shower and dried myself off with a large towel that hung from a nail by the sink — had the towel been put there for me? I wanted to see my face, but there was no mirror above the sink, or anywhere else in that bathroom. What should I wear? My clothes were filthy. I filled the sink with water and washed my clothes with soap, then wrung them out and put them on. I shook out the blanket and picked up the dirt that had fallen from it to the floor. I tried to clean up the place as best I could. There was a knock at the door. The voice was not that of the old woman. It was the younger one. She was beautiful: her face fair and slender, with brown shoulder-length hair. She looked liked a French actress I loved, but whose name I couldn’t remember. Emily always made fun of how I forgot actresses’ names. She said I remembered the names of the actors — the men — but not the women. Emily.

The woman spoke from behind the door. She said she hadn’t put a broom or mop in the bathroom so that I wouldn’t wear myself out trying to clean it. She also said she had some clothes for me: I could put them on now, and she would wash my own clothes. I cracked open the door slightly, then opened it all the way. I told her I’d already washed my clothes and put them on. She laughed, and looked a bit confused. I saw she was holding a blue blouse and a yellow skirt. I said I was fine, but that there was some dirt on the floor from my blanket.

“It’s not my blanket, actually. They wrapped me up in it and left me.”

“Try to forget that,” she said. “Don’t think about it.”

A pleasant smell wafted in from the end of the corridor, and the old woman called out. Her voice wasn’t all that loud, but I could still hear her call. I headed in its direction and came to the kitchen: a white sink, white cabinets, and a wooden table with a white cloth over it. The tablecloth was embroidered with small blue flowers. I’ve made you an omelet, the old woman said; I’ve made you some eggs with onions and parsley and fennel. In the sink I could see a round tray with what was left of the washed green fennel on it. The old woman approached with a ceramic frying pan and flipped the omelet onto a glass plate. I could hear the oil boiling within the puffy steaming eggs. At that moment I noticed the hunger tearing through my body. The whole time — while I was walking along the demarcation line — I’d been thirsty, I’d been thinking about water, about how badly I needed to drink something. But I’d been hungry too. I hadn’t eaten since they’d kidnapped me. What had the woman with the scar on her neck said to me? “Try to forget that. Don’t think about it.”

There was a basket of bread on a small table beside the larger one. A white cloth had been folded over once and was covering the bread. Had it been folded like that so that I’d see the brown bread and know to eat it?

The old woman approached, took out some of the bread and put it in front of me, and told me to eat. She said she hadn’t put much salt on the omelet, but there was salt on the table. She pushed a small white plate toward me: salt covered one half of it, and some spice covered the other. I could smell cinnamon. Or rather, it was as if I were smelling cinnamon: I saw the spice’s color and imagined the smell of cinnamon.

Will you eat with me? I asked.

She said she’d eaten a little while ago, but.

She stopped mid-sentence, got up, and brought over a jug of water and two clean cups from near the sink. She filled my cup, and hers.

“I’ll drink with you. And you, have some water and eat before the eggs get cold. This is whole grain bread — it’s delicious. Eat, my girl.”

I ate the omelet and drank one cup of water after another. While I was eating, the young woman came and sat down with us. She had brought her own glass of water. We sat around the table and drank without speaking. The very last bite from my plate quenched my hunger. I knew my stomach was full. I could feel it swelling against my undershirt. The damp fabric was clinging to my stomach, but I didn’t feel cold. The place was warm. The younger woman looked at the empty chair beside her. I later realized she was reading a book that was open on the chair — I couldn’t see the book from where I was sitting.