Saud Alsanousi - The Bamboo Stalk

‘Kuwait’s a small place,’ I broke in, putting out my hand and making the same gesture as Mishaal — as if holding an invisible ball.

* * *

Jabir and I went back to the diwaniya and found Abdullah waiting for us there. Turki, Mishaal and Mahdi soon came back too, after the election meeting was over, looking glum. They spoke to Jabir in Arabic and Jabir’s face soon changed too.

‘So, how did it go?’ I asked Turki. He didn’t answer.

Mahdi stepped in: ‘It began perfectly.’

‘And then?’ I asked.

‘It ended really badly,’ replied Mishaal. They went back to talking in Arabic and I understood some words but not others.

For the first time I found myself interrupting them. ‘Could you let me in on the conversation? Please,’ I said.

They turned towards me. Turki nodded and said, ‘Your aunt is crazy.’

‘She’s lost the election,’ added Mahdi.

‘But the results haven’t come out yet. Today isn’t even voting day,’ I said in surprise. ‘We read the results on the faces of the people who walked out of the meeting,’ said Turki.

‘You shouldn’t say everything you know, even if it’s true. Your aunt is reckless,’ Mishaal concluded. Abdullah, who had been silent so far, spoke in English that I could hardly understand. His theme was that women are governed by their emotions, but I couldn’t work out if this was criticism or praise.

* * *

After Hind made her speech she had started to take questions from the audience. Everything was fine. She was confident, quick-witted, with an answer to every question. The last question, or what turned out to be the last question, came from an elderly woman who seemed eager to put Hind on the spot. ‘In the past we only heard about you in the context of what you call the rights of the bidoon. Their cause was one of your priorities,’ the woman said.

‘And it still is,’ Hind responded immediately.

‘Do all the bidoons deserve Kuwaiti nationality?’ the woman asked.

‘Yes, of course, in just the same way as other Kuwaitis,’ Hind replied, or blurted out, as they put it.

The woman picked up her handbag and stood up. She shook her head in protest as she began to leave the hall. ‘God have mercy on Isa al-Tarouf,’ she said. The hall rang with applause as soon as the old woman mentioned my grandfather’s name. She walked out and many other members of the audience followed her out. The meeting broke up before my aunt had a chance to explain what she meant.

I called Khawla to console her. She was shocked and sad. ‘People don’t want to listen. They didn’t give her a chance,’ she said bitterly. I asked how Hind was. ‘She’s fine, but Grandmother is very upset,’ she said, fighting back tears. ‘Grandmother’s in her room, with Awatif and Nouriya trying to calm her down.’

‘And you? How are you, Khawla?’ I said, speaking gently in response to her sadness.

She gave a long sigh. ‘Me? I don’t know. I almost believe what Grandmother believes,’ she said. She started breathing rapidly. ‘Everything that happens to us is because of him. Ghassan is a curse,’ she added.

17

The elections took place on 17 May 2008. It was no surprise that Hind lost, especially after some newspapers reported what she had said at the meeting. One well-known newspaper had a banner headline reading: Casting Doubt on the Patriotism of Citizens: Hind al-Tarouf says Kuwaitis Don’t Deserve to Have Kuwaiti Citizenship .

There was a mournful atmosphere in the diwaniya , given the reaction in the newspapers that attacked my aunt. The Boracay gang knew the result before it was declared. Hind’s defeat was no surprise to me: the real surprise was that Nouriya had carried out the threat she made when she came to visit. She had been telling the truth when she warned me and now she had done it. It wasn’t unexpected that Grandmother would stop paying me my allowance, but for Aunt Hind to do so too!

I suddenly found that all I had was what I earned from working in the restaurant and the allowance from the government, and the two amounts would hardly cover the rent. I started spending from my savings, month after month. I worked out how much money I would need in the future and found that, if things continued as they were, I would be broke within a few months.

The gang offered to help me financially. Jabir was the most enthusiastic, maybe because he felt guilty. Mishaal invited me to move into his flat on the eighth floor of my building. ‘I only need it at weekends,’ he said.

‘You can live temporarily in the diwaniya , until you find a place to live that suits you,’ offered Turki.

Ibrahim Salam, although his place was small, didn’t hesitate to help. ‘My little room has made space for you before and it won’t hesitate to take you in again, my brother,’ he said. After much discussion back and forth, he reluctantly agreed to rent me space to sleep in his room for thirty dinars a month.

* * *

Only one week after I moved into Ibrahim’s room, the shift leader in the restaurant called me aside. ‘You’d better make some plans for the future. This is your last week working here.’ And the reason? No reason.

I made up a reason of my own — Kuwait was spitting me out.

Khawla called me a few days later. ‘Have you really been fired from your job?’ she asked. ‘Damn! Nouriya did that,’ she said.

Disputes broke out in the Tarouf household. Hind and Awatif had a serious disagreement with Nouriya, who was behind me losing my job. ‘Leave the kid alone,’ they told her.

Nouriya was furious with Hind because of what she had said in the election campaign and because she had lost. ‘If Isa al-Tarouf were still alive, you would have been the death of him,’ she said.

Grandmother was in a bad way because of what was happening in the house. The sisters were at odds. Khawla left to live in her other grandmother’s house, saying the situation in Grandmother’s house was unbearable. ‘Grandmother slaps her thighs all day long in grief, and asks God to have mercy on her husband and on Rashid. She lifts her arms to heaven and says, “May God avenge you, Ghassan.”’

‘Khawla, I want to understand. Please. These are complicated things,’ I said.

There was silence from the other end of the line. ‘Please, answer me,’ I said. Still silence. ‘Who’s the reason for all these problems?’ She still didn’t utter a word. I spoke louder. ‘Ghassan?’ I asked.

‘No,’ she said faintly.

I lowered my voice too, afraid of the most likely answer: ‘Me?’

‘No,’ she said, louder this time.

I let out a sigh of relief — relief that I had been cleared of blame.

‘There’s no one else,’ she continued. I didn’t say anything. ‘It’s the Taroufs,’ she concluded.

18

I left a lettuce leaf in the middle of Ibrahim’s room while I waited for Inang Choleng. I’d forgotten to feed her for some time. She wasn’t in the habit of going without food for long. I was really anxious. I found her under the computer table, dried up inside her broken shell.

Inang Choleng had died — that silent, patient creature that was so good at listening and never complained. That morning was so sad. O God, you alone know how much I wept. Who could console me? Who would understand why I was crying over her? When Ibrahim came back from work he saw the sadness on my face. I didn’t tell him about the tortoise when he asked me. What was the use of talking about something he wouldn’t understand? I left him in the main room and escaped to the bathroom. I turned on all the taps in the basin and the shower and burst out crying, unable to hold it back. Ibrahim knocked on the door when he heard me sobbing. ‘Brother! Are you all right?’ he said.