Saud Alsanousi - The Bamboo Stalk

I was right next to Merla. My leg was touching her wet, bare leg. I had various feelings, but not fear. I would never be frightened in Merla’s presence, even if we faced death together.

I remembered the dream. A sense of numbness began to seep into my body from the part that was touching her leg. I could feel the pulse in my temples, and the humidity, wherever it came from, added to my sense of confusion.

‘What are you thinking about?’ asked Merla.

‘Nothing,’ I replied without thinking, as if on the defensive against some implied accusation.

Who was I trying to lie to, I wonder. Merla didn’t wait long before hitting back. ‘Don’t imagine that I don’t understand you,’ she said.

The raindrops pounded the rocky ground outside the cave with a staccato rhythm matched by my heartbeats. ‘For some time now, the way you look at me, the way you behave,’ Merla continued.

She moved her face close to mine. I could feel her breath. The air she breathed out went into my lungs as I breathed in. Her eyes stared into my eyes. My eyes, open this time, were fixed on her flashlight. The blood throbbed under the bruise on my head.

‘What you’re thinking is impossible, José,’ she said.

I felt a fear I had never known in her presence. ‘Yes, yes, impossible,’ I agreed.

We were still face to face. ‘Why is it impossible?’ she asked. ‘Do you know why?’

I looked straight into her eyes. ‘Because you’re my cousin,’ I said.

She smiled a strange half-hearted smile. ‘A silly reason like that wouldn’t stop me doing something that I really wanted,’ she said.

She turned to face the entrance to the cave. ‘There’s another reason that prevents me,’ she said.

She switched off the flashlight. The light was so faint I could hardly see her face. ‘If you weren’t a man. .’ she continued.

19

‘José, José, José.’

I was fed up with being summoned by my grandfather. The grievance rankled, but it rarely came to the surface and never passed my lips.

When my mother talked about how she had suffered, psychologically at least, when working for the old lady in Kuwait, I didn’t understand what she meant until I found myself working so hard for Mendoza.

After a long, exhausting day, I would leave my window open to hear the sound of the crickets, but that was rarely the only thing I heard.

‘Damn you, bastards!’ Mendoza’s drunken voice, alongside the sound of the crickets. ‘Merla.’ He said Merla’s name in a hushed voice, then shouted out my name: ‘José!’

I didn’t answer.

‘You bastards.’

I opened my eyes. The shadows of the bamboo plants danced on the walls of my room, cast by the flickering candlelight that shone through Grandfather’s window.

‘José!’

I stuck my fingers in my ears. The silence was unbearable. I took my fingers out. I listened carefully. The crickets came back, and. .

‘José!’

I pretended to be asleep.

‘I know you can hear me.’

The sound of wood knocking against wood. A cup of tuba on the table.

‘I hate bastards!’ shouted Mendoza.

I jumped to the window, put my arms through the iron bars and imagined I had my hands around his neck.

‘I’m not a bastard,’ I said.

Mendoza didn’t respond. Might he perhaps come through the door behind me? He didn’t stay silent for long.

‘Can you prove that?’ he said, and burst out laughing, then started to cough.

‘Curse these crickets. I wish they’d come and live in my room, so that I could hear them and close the window at the same time.’

I brought our brief conversation to an end by slamming the window shut.

* * *

‘José!’

Now it was the next morning. ‘Bring me a banana.’

‘A yellow banana,’ he added after a moment’s pause.

Of course the banana should be yellow, so why did my grandfather insist on saying what colour. Ah! He knew the banana trees around our house only had bunches of small green bananas that weren’t ready to pick yet. I hate you, Mendoza.

‘The bananas are still green, Grandfather.’

He pretended to be angry. ‘You must be able to find a yellow banana,’ he answered in his annoying voice.

‘No, there aren’t any,’ I replied, my patience exhausted.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, I’m sure,’ I said, though I knew what he was planning to say.

‘OK, I hope you grow a thousand eyes so that you can see things clearly,’ he said, raising his voice.

‘I’ll pray to the Lord to make your wish come true, Grandfather,’ I answered him calmly.

He didn’t reply. I was sure he was about to explode with anger.

I was fourteen then, and Mendoza’s wish still frightened me as much as it always had.

* * *

For years I used to wake up every morning to the alarm clock next door: ‘José!’ As soon as I opened my eyes, I would run my hand over my face, and thank the Lord when I had checked it was still covered with skin.

Grandfather was cunning. He knew the effect the old legend had had on me since I was a child — the legend of Pinya.

He had fun frightening me with a fate similar to that of the girl in the legend. If he couldn’t think of any other tasks for me to perform, he would ask me to bring him something — anything from anywhere. Because he knew that the thing wasn’t where he sent me to find it, he would be waiting impatiently for me to come back empty-handed. Then he would spring his malicious little curse on me: ‘I hope you grow a thousand eyes so you can see things clearly.’

I wasn’t yet seven when Mendoza started frightening me with this wish of his. As soon as he said the words I would be off, running in fear like a mad thing, looking for whatever it was in the place he suggested, and in other places too, while he roared with laughter behind my back.

* * *

The story of Pinya was one of many that my mother and Mama Aida used to tell me before I went to sleep. I would ask them to repeat the stories and I enjoyed them every time as if I were hearing them for the first time, except for the legend of Pinya. I hated that one from the first time I heard it, and I asked Mama Aida not to repeat it. Even so, I couldn’t forget it.

* * *

Once upon a time, in a certain village, there lived a woman with a beautiful daughter. The daughter was spoilt because she was an only child. She was badly behaved and lazy and she had no initiative. Her mother met all her demands anyway, because there was nothing in the world she loved more than Pinya.

Pinya was well-known in the village and the other children envied the advantages she enjoyed that weren’t available to them. One day Pinya’s mother fell ill. She wanted to get well as soon as possible so she could look after Pinya, but for the moment it was the mother who needed looking after.

’Pinya, Pinya,’ she called weakly, unable to get out of bed. ‘Come here, my girl. I need you for something,’ she added.

Pinya was busy playing in the backyard.

‘OK, Mama. What is it?’ asked Pinya, standing at the foot of her mother’s bed.

‘I’m exhausted. I can’t get up,’ her mother said. ‘I’m hungry but I can’t eat anything solid. I’d like you to bring me a bowl of congee.’

Pinya was surprised.

‘It’s very simple, Pinya,’ her mother continued. ‘Put a little rice in a pot. Add some water and a little sugar, then leave it to simmer for a while.’

‘That’s really hard to do, Mama,’ Pinya said impatiently.

‘You have to do it, Pinya,’ her mother said weakly. ‘What will your poor mother eat if you don’t?’

Pinya dragged her feet downstairs to the kitchen.

She got the pot ready, and the rice, the sugar and the water, but she couldn’t find the big spoon. ‘How can I stir it without the spoon?’ she wondered. She shouted up to her mother, ‘Mama, where can I find the big spoon?’