The Bamboo Stalk (36 page)

At Christmas celebrations in Manila, you can feel the occasion
as much as if you were in the Vatican. Am I exaggerating? I've never been to the Vatican to know, but anyway, it's nothing like in Kuwait. In the Philippines, the occasion has a special warmth and you can almost see the effect on the faces of those around you. There's an atmosphere of faith. Prayers. More people going to churches and cathedrals. That might be easy to explain, given that ninety percent of the population is Christian – eighty percent of them are Roman Catholics and the other ten percent of various other Christian denominations. But what is odd is our interest in other celebrations, such as the way Filipinos mark Chinese New Year. People come out on the streets to celebrate and some streets are decorated with Chinese lanterns and coloured streamers. People beat drums and some of them wear traditional Chinese costume and dance with brightly coloured dragons. We're people who love to celebrate like no one else. We'll never miss an opportunity to party.

As usual my neighbours had decorated their sitting room with streamers. On one wall there was a sign reading
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU
. The place was full of singing and dancing and all kinds of food and drink, including home-brewed alcohol – what the guests most wanted to find, however foul it might taste. I drank a lot that night. Everyone stopped dancing and the lights were turned off, leaving the place romantically lit by candles. It was time for videoke, the Filipino version of karaoke. The microphone was ready and the television was playing famous songs, with the words on screen. Being in Kuwait had helped me see Filipinos more clearly. We Filipinos love to sing.

We
?

Yes,
we
.

The microphone was passed around. People sang solo or in
groups. Helped by the words on the screen, they sang to the music song after song. I couldn't help joining in when the music started up for
Parting Time
by the Filipino singer Erik Santos. I grabbed the microphone and I didn't need the words on the screen. I listened to the piano intro and waited for my cue to start. I shut my eyes to sing and thought only of my memories of Merla.

Everyone listened to my song in silence. I sang louder as the end of the song drew near and the rhythm picked up. I gave a bow with the microphone still in my hand. As the piano music faded out towards the end, I whispered the last line: ‘I remember the days when you're here with me.'

The sitting room broke into whistles and clapping. People toasted me with their drinks. I bowed theatrically and blew kisses around in the air. The music began again. People gathered round the microphone to sing together and I withdrew quietly to my own flat.

I put the laptop on my knees. The browser was still on the email sign-in page. The fact that I was only half sober made it easier to press the ‘enter' button. The inbox had many messages. Adverts, messages from my mother, pictures of her with Alberto and Adrian. The pictures reeled drunkenly in front of my eyes. I smiled at my brother's big smile in the picture, and the stream of drool from his mouth. I missed my chubby little brother. There were pictures of my mother's house and of our house. The money I had sent them had changed many things. But my sense of happiness with the messages and the pictures didn't last long.

Merla, why?

 

13

The atmosphere in the
diwaniya
was no longer what it had been and the crazies weren't the crazies I had known. They had given up everything to devote themselves to the parliamentary elections. Their conversations had become more intense. They were no longer interested in including me in the conversation so Arabic dominated their discussions.

One evening Turki asked me to go somewhere with him, along with Mishaal and Abdullah. ‘Where?' I asked him.

‘It's not far,' he said. The four of us went off, leaving Jabir and Mahdi in the
diwaniya
organising files that contained lots of phone numbers. I later found out that Jabir and Mahdi were working for the election campaigns of several candidates. Since they weren't yet old enough to vote they had decided to serve their country in another way, they said.

Turki had a small pick-up he'd borrowed from a friend. He stopped in a street in the nearby district of al-Surra, in front of a school. We got out of the car. He asked me to help him carry a large cloth banner that was in the back, while Mishaal and Abdullah were busy unloading some metal stands and bags full of sand.

We put the banner on the pavement and Turki spread it out. It was black with Arabic writing in yellow. Mishaal and Abdullah set up the stands and held them in place with the sandbags. ‘Isa, hold the cloth from the end here,' said Turki.

I stood where I was and said, ‘Not before I find out what the words in yellow mean,' I told him.

He put his hands on his hips and said, ‘Not now, Isa.'

I shook my head and insisted: ‘Yes, now!'.

He gave in to my obstinacy. He pointed to the words in turn, translating as he went:
Sorry, al-Surra is not for sale. Kuwait is more precious.
Mishaal and Abdullah had finished setting up the metal stands. They each took a corner of the big piece of cloth and helped Turki carry it. Soon the banner was up, facing the street. We looked back at it as we drove off in the pick-up for another site to put up more banners. The other ones said,
Sorry, we won't be ruled by the dinar. Kuwait is more precious
. In the Kaifan area we met some other young men trying to attach banners to the wall of a mosque.
Sorry, the consciences of those who resisted the Iraqi occupation are not for sale
, they read.

I gathered that what we were doing was voluntary work and that the Boracay gang were not the only people doing it. In fact many young people in various parts of Kuwait were putting up similar banners against bribery, condemning the practice of vote-buying by some parliamentary candidates. ‘In some areas, the price of a vote has reached 2,000 dinars,' Turki told me in disgust. ‘They're not selling their votes. They're selling Kuwait,' he added sadly. I don't know whether Kuwaitis needed that amount of money, given that the poorest of them seemed rich to me. All I knew was that my friends had shown me an aspect of themselves that I hadn't seen in the days we had been together in the
diwaniya
: their persistence, their enthusiasm for their candidate in the parliamentary elections, their willigness to volunteer to work in the campaigns, distribute leaflets and put up banners in the streets warning people against selling their country.

Their commitment reduced me to silence. I didn't ask many questions when they were talking in Arabic. I just observed their faces and enjoyed their enthusiasm, which was so infectious that I forgot about my Asian features when I was carrying leaflets and putting them under the windscreen wipers of cars, repeating to myself the words I hadn't been able to read: ‘Kuwait is not for sale.' In those days I was more Kuwaiti than I had ever been before. My sense of belonging to the country – the country in whose four-coloured flag my father's remains had been wrapped – was at its peak. I recalled what Merla had said in one of her emails:
Don't bother about the way you look. I don't bother about the way I look. Prove to yourself who you are before you prove it to others. Believe in yourself and those around you will believe in you, and if they don't believe that's their problem, not yours
.

Merla was right in what she said. I needed her more than ever, and I needed her to tell me more.

*   *   *

When we had completed our mission, Turki took us back to the
diwaniya
. Jabir and Mahdi were still doing their paperwork, happy with the number of calls they had made, to ask voters to come to election meetings and to promote their candidates. I leafed through their papers. There were leaflets and pictures of candidates surrounded by Kuwaiti flags and a map of Kuwait. The map was small and easy to draw, rather like a bird's head. I thought of the map of the Philippines, with its hundreds of islands and many irregularities.

My friends were supporting four candidates. I saw pictures of three of them on the leaflets that Jabir and Mahdi had, but the fourth leaflet didn't have a picture. I asked Mahdi why not. ‘That
candidate's a woman,' he said. ‘Maybe she prefers not to put her picture and just to make do with her name – Hind al-Tarouf.'

 

14

I was stunned to hear the name. For a moment I was oblivious of everything around me. So that was why Khawla was so happy that time when I went ‘colololooosh' down the phone. It had never occurred to me that this might be why my sister was so pleased. Mahdi was hoping that Hind would win the elections and said this would be good for Kuwait. But Khawla had said, ‘It would be good for the family in general.' If it was good for Kuwait, it would be good for me as a Kuwaiti. If it was good for the family I doubted it would matter to me.

When I heard Mahdi mention my aunt, he noticed how surprised I looked. ‘What's wrong?' he asked me.

I was reluctant to tell him, but he was so enthusiastic about her winning and I was so proud to be related to her that I had to reveal it. ‘Hind al-Tarouf is my aunt,' I said. Everyone was tongue-tied. The crazies stopped their work and exchanged glances with each other, then looked towards me, staring at me with curiosity. ‘You're joking!' said Turki.

I shook my head and said, ‘Hind Isa al-Tarouf is the sister of Rashid Isa al-Tarouf, my father.'

Jabir sat up straight. ‘You're lying!' he said. I didn't say a word. Their surprise made me regret that I had spoken out so hastily. If only I had held my tongue. What was odd about Hind being my aunt, I wondered, though my mind was gnawed by doubts. Jabir continued, ‘Ever since I was young the Taroufs' house has been
like a second home to me. I know them as well as I know myself. But I've never heard of you!'

I replied with cautious confidence: ‘So you know Mama Ghanima, Awatif, Nouriya and Khawla.' His eyes opened wide when he heard the names. I continued: ‘Maybe even Raju and Babu and Lakshmi and Luzviminda. But even if you've never heard of me, that doesn't mean I'm not Isa Rashid Isa al-Tarouf.' He was speechless. My answer, supported with names, struck him dumb. ‘What's wrong?' I asked him. ‘Will my aunt lose the elections because of me too?'

Embarrassed, he shook his head. ‘No, I don't mean that, but,' he said. He put one hand on his head, not the way he would if he was dancing one of those Kuwaiti dances, but from the impact of the surprise. I gave him time to take it in, but this time it was me who would be taken by surprise. ‘About a year ago,' he said, ‘I don't remember exactly when, but Rashid's mother got a new Filipino servant.' I nodded. He put his other hand on his head and said, ‘His name was Isa.' The other guys were listening to our conversation in silence.

‘I'm Isa,' I said.

He put out his hand to shake mine in an ironic, theatrical gesture. ‘And I'm Jabir, the son of your neighbour, Umm Jabir.'

Mishaal was sitting cross-legged in the far corner. He clapped. We all gathered around him. He looked straight at me and held out his hand as if holding an apple. ‘Didn't I tell you? Kuwait's a small place,' he said.

*   *   *

It wasn't wrong of me to tell my friend I was related to Hind al-Tarouf. But I did make a mistake when I didn't ask him to keep
it a secret, as my family wanted. If only this little country were bigger! If it were, would I have had to do all that? It's almost impossible to live when you have to be so careful about what you do, what you say and where you go. How could I bring shame on my family when I was nowhere near them? What is this power that people have over one another? Why is the tongue the thing that people in Kuwait fear more than anything else? It's just a small muscle wet with saliva, but it can do plenty of damage.

What Jabir had heard reached his mother, and from his mother it spread to the houses nearby and then to other people, and because Kuwait is a small place where almost everyone knows everyone else, and because words have wings, the news flew through the realms of gossip, especially places where women gathered. The news landed comfortably on the tongue of one woman only to fly off once again.

Khawla didn't have an opinion on the matter. She took the middle ground, between me, her only brother, and the rest of the family. I couldn't make out her attitude when she called me. I needed someone to stand by me. I hadn't done anything wrong. I had left the Tarouf house voluntarily because I didn't want to impose my curse on anyone. When I was driven out of the house with my father many years ago, the house started to enjoy good luck. Why didn't good luck descend on it when I left it voluntarily this time? Which of us was jinxing the other? Grandmother said I was a curse on the Taroufs but the way I saw it the Taroufs were a curse on me.

I still remember some of what Khawla said in that conversation. ‘Umm Jabir is despicable. Grandmother is ill. Nouriya is making threats. People we're related to have found out about it and are saying Rashid had a son by a Filipina maid and so on.' She
suddenly stopped.

‘And what next?' I asked her.

‘Some of the relatives have made it clear they feel sorry for me,' she answered hesitantly. ‘They say it will reduce my chances of finding a decent husband.' Grandmother had said the same thing to my father in the kitchen years earlier. It seems she was right. Awatif and Nouriya had escaped the curse of Josephine, but now it was about to strike my sister.

When I didn't respond, Khawla continued, ‘I'm sorry, I don't mean. . .'

I interrupted her: ‘Not at all, I'm the one who should apologise.'

Kuwait really was a wonderland, but very different from the wonderland I had imagined all the time I was in the Philippines. This wonderland wasn't the one in my dreams. The only thing that the country in my old imagination had in common with the new reality was that they were both wonderlands.