Saud Alsanousi - The Bamboo Stalk

I went out to Willy’s Rock one night in the middle of 2005. I left my shirt, my shoes and my packet of cigarettes on the beach. The tide was so high that it was above the stairs. The only parts of the rock that were visible were the niche and the three trees. I walked into the water until it was up to my waist. Then I held my lighter between my teeth and started to swim out to the island.

It was late and the only people on the beach were the guards and a group of guests sitting in the dark in a semi-circle like ghosts. Only their white shirts were visible. The lights in the hotel rooms behind me weren’t on, which made the stars look brighter. I went up the stairs and stood in front of the statue of the Virgin Mary. I put my hands together and began to pray. The sound of the waves around me was loud but it gave me a sense of calm. The waves were crashing on the rock, spraying salt water on my face. I wiped them away with the back of my hand.

‘I’m not crying, Mother Mary,’ I said.

I looked up into her face. ‘Those were drops of seawater. Don’t worry,’ I continued.

She didn’t look at me. She was looking at something behind me in the distance. I climbed the last step, which brought me to the same level as her. I leaned over her left shoulder and whispered in her ear. ‘But I will cry if I have to stay here too long,’ I told her.

I wrapped my arms around her with my eyes closed. Then I heard a sound alongside the sound of the waves, rather like a piece of guzheng music. The hairs on my arms stood on end. I looked at the Virgin Mary’s face. Her eyes were still looking into the distance. I turned to see where she was looking. There was a group of guests sitting on the sandy beach. They were swaying from side to side. One of them was playing strange music on an instrument I didn’t recognise.

I lit a candle. I clenched my teeth on the lighter and went down into the water to swim back to shore.

6

They were Kuwaitis, young men, five of them, sitting on the beach in a semi-circle. The one in the middle was holding an instrument that looked like a guitar. He was playing and singing while the other four listened in silence. He sang louder and the guard came over. ‘Sir,’ he said. ‘You’ll disturb the other guests.’

The Kuwaitis looked at him without saying a word.

‘You can sit over there,’ the guard added, pointing to the compound next door, which was dark because it was being renovated. ‘That hotel’s empty, as you can see.’

The man in the middle stood up with his instrument and walked off. The others followed him, each of them carrying something.

I was sitting close by, between them and the sea, level with Willy’s Rock, listening to what they were saying. When they had moved and started singing again in the other compound, under a towering coconut tree, I could no longer resist going to join them.

‘ As-salam aleekum ,’ I said, greeting them the way my mother had taught me. They looked at each other, then at me, and then they answered in unison, ‘ Wa alaeekum as-salam .’

I was worried they might be drunk, but apart from one of them they weren’t. ‘You’re from Kuwait, aren’t you?’ I said with a smile.

They looked at each other in surprise. ‘Yes,’ said the man in the middle. ‘How did you know?’

‘I can tell, sir.’

They spoke among themselves but I didn’t understand what they were saying. Then one of them, a man with a glass in his hand, said in perfect English, ‘Please, have a seat.’

‘Can I really, sir?’

‘Yes, yes, of course,’ they all said, pointing at the ground.

I sat down with them. One of them reached over and offered me a cigarette from his packet. I took my own packet out of the pocket of my shorts. ‘Thanks, sir. I have one,’ I said.

He took my cigarettes out of my hand and examined them. He handed them back and insisted I smoke one of his Davidoffs. ‘Have one of these,’ he said. ‘It will clear your chest out.’

His friends laughed. The man with the glass reached for a brown bottle with a red label. ‘Would you like a drink?’ he asked, offering me his glass.

‘Legally I’m not allowed to drink,’ I said. ‘I’m only seventeen. But I have already tried it.’ He was about to put the glass back in its place. ‘But I’d be delighted to accept your invitation,’ I added. I took the glass from his hand. ‘They say that Red Horse beer is powerful stuff. Is that true?’ I asked him.

He downed the rest of his glass and grimaced as if he had bitten into a lemon. ‘Try it for yourself,’ he said.

I drank a whole glass in one gulp and everyone laughed. The man poured me another glass and I asked the man in the middle, ‘Aren’t you going to play the. .’ I hesitated, then asked, ‘By the way, what’s that instrument called?’

‘It’s an oud,’ the young man said. The name reminded me of the stories my mother used to tell about Ghassan, who played the same instrument.

The man started plucking the strings with a small piece of black plastic.

‘Sir, what’s the name of the piece you’re going to play? I asked.

‘This is a song by my favourite singer in Kuwait,’ he said, continuing to strum. Then he stopped, put the piece of plastic between his nose and his upper lip like a moustache and said, ‘It’s called. .’

I don’t in fact remember the name he gave but I do remember that his friends burst out laughing. He laughed too, then started to play again. ‘His thick moustache makes him different from all the other singers in Kuwait, as well as his voice,’ he said.

Then he began to sing. He moved his head around, sometimes looking up to the sky and sometimes resting his head on the instrument. I wanted to understand the words.

I drank glass after glass and my head started to feel heavy. The music went on, and the singing couldn’t have been more beautiful.

I stood up, with the world spinning around me. ‘Stop, stop,’ I said. The man in the middle stopped singing and all five of them looked at me.

‘Look, you guys. I’m going to tell you a secret,’ I said. No one said anything, so I continued. ‘I’m Kuwaiti,’ I said.

I looked up with difficulty to see their faces. They looked surprised.

‘My name’s Isa,’ I added.

They exchanged glances.

‘If you don’t believe me, I’ll prove it to you.’

The man in the middle put his oud upside down on his lap and looked at me with interest.

‘Could you all clap please?’ I said. They started clapping, still looking surprised. ‘No, no, not like that,’ I said, and they stopped and looked at me.

The man with the glass banged his feet together. ‘Like this?’ he asked, making fun of me.

‘No, sir. Clap the way the Kuwaitis clap,’ I said.

This time they smiled and said things to each other I couldn’t understand. They started clapping in that crazy way. I shook my shoulders and my body swayed back and forth. Their surprise, their big smiles and the effect of the beer all encouraged me to continue. I leaned my shoulders forward, put my hands on my head to hold an imaginary hat. The man who was drinking stood up too and came towards me. He started moving his shoulders back and forth like me. The others began to show interest. I bent my legs, then leapt into the air. The man stood beside me, shoulder to shoulder. ‘No, not like that. Do what I’m doing,’ he said. He planted his feet firmly on the ground. I did the same. We went on shaking our shoulders slowly. I started pulling on that invisible rope with my hands, with my legs apart.

They burst out laughing. They roared. They rolled on their backs. ‘Yes, you’re right. You really are a Kuwaiti, but Made in the Philippines,’ one of them said.

They went on laughing at the top of their voices.