The Patience Stone (6 page)

She falls silent. Listens to the children, who are playing the same game:

“
Hadji mor’alé?
”

“
Balé?
”

“Who wants the foot? Who wants the head?”

“I want the foot.”

They run off into the street again.

She takes up her story. “Why was I talking about your father?” Rubs her head against the wall, seeming to think, to scour her memory … “Yes, that’s right, I was talking about the two of us, our marriage, my loneliness …
Three years of waiting, and then you come home. I remember it like it was yesterday. The day you came back, the day I saw you for the first time …” A sarcastic laugh bursts from her chest. “You were just like you are now, not a word, not a glance …” Her eyes come to rest on the photo of the man. “You sat down next to me. As if we already knew each other … as if you were seeing me after just a brief absence or I were some tawdry reward for your triumph! I was looking at you, but you were staring into thin air. I still don’t know if it was modesty or pride. It doesn’t matter. But I saw you, I watched you, I kept glancing at you, observing you. Noticing the slightest movement of your body, the slightest expression in your face …” Her right hand plays with the man’s filthy hair. “And you seemed so arrogant, so absent; you just weren’t there. That saying is so true:
One should never rely on a man who has known the pleasure of weapons!
” She laughs again, but gently this time. “Weapons become everything to you men … You must know that story about the military camp where an officer tries to demonstrate the value of a gun to the new recruits. He asks a young soldier, Benam,
Do you know what you have on your shoulder?
Benam replies,
Yes, sir, it’s my gun!
The officer yells back,
No, you moron! It’s your mother, your sister, your honor!
Then he moves on to the next
soldier and asks him the same question. The soldier responds,
Yes, sir! It’s Benam’s mother, and sister, and honor!
” She is still laughing. “That story is so true. You men! As soon as you have guns, you forget your women.” She sinks back into silence, still stroking the man’s hair. Tenderly. For a long time.

Then she continues, her voice sad. “When I got engaged, I knew nothing of men. Nothing of married life. I knew only my parents. And what an example! All my dad cared about was his quails, his fighting quails! I often saw him kissing those quails, but never my mother, nor us, his children. There were seven of us. Seven girls starved of affection.” She stares at the frozen flight of the migrating birds on the curtains. Sees her father: “He always used to sit cross-legged. He would be wearing his tunic, holding the quail in his left hand and stroking it at just the level of his thing, with its little feet poking through his hand; with the other hand, he would caress its neck in the most obscene way. For hours and hours on end! Even when he had visitors he didn’t stop performing his
gassaw
, as he called it. It was a kind of prayer for him. He was so proud of his quails. Once, when it was bitterly, freezing cold, I even saw him tucking one of the quails
under his trousers, into his
kheshtak
. I was little. For a long time after that I thought that men had quails between their legs! Thinking about it used to make me laugh. Imagine my disappointment when I saw your balls for the first time.” A smile interrupts her and she closes her eyes. Her left hand strays into her own loosened hair, caressing the roots. “I hated his quails.” She opens her eyes. Her sad gaze loses itself once more in the hole-studded sky of the curtains. “Every Friday, he used to take them to the fight in the Qaf gardens. He would place bets. Sometimes he won, sometimes he lost. When he lost he would get upset, and nasty. He would come home in a rage and find any pretext to beat us … and also my mother.” She stops herself. The pain stops her. A pain that spreads to the tips of her fingers and digs them more deeply into the roots of her black hair. She forces herself to carry on. “He must have won a lot of money in one of those fights … but then he put everything he had into buying a hugely expensive quail. He spent weeks and weeks getting it ready for a very important fight. And …” She laughs, a bitter laugh that contains both sarcasm and despair, and continues. “As fate would have it, he lost. He had no money left to honor his bet, so he gave my sister instead. At twelve years old, my sister was sent to live with a man of forty!” Her nails leave the roots of her
hair, and move down her forehead to finger the scar at the edge of her left eye. “At the time, I was only ten … no …” She thinks about it. “Yes, ten years old. I was scared. Scared that I too would become the stakes of a bet. So, do you know what I did with the quail?” She pauses a moment. It is unclear whether this is to make her story more exciting, or because she is afraid to reveal the next part. Eventually, she continues. “One day … it was a Friday, while he was at the mosque for prayers before going to the Qaf gardens, I got the bird out of its cage, and set it free just as a stray cat—a ginger and white tabby—was keeping watch on the wall.” She takes a deep breath. “And the cat caught it. He took it into a corner to eat it in peace. I followed. I stood there watching. I have never forgotten that moment. I even wished the cat ‘
bon appétit
.’ I was happy, thrilled to watch that cat eat the quail. A moment of pure delight. But very soon, I started to feel jealous. I wanted to be the cat, this cat savoring my father’s quail. I was jealous, and sad. The cat knew nothing of the quail’s worth. It couldn’t share my joy, my triumph. ‘What a waste!’ I thought to myself, and suddenly rushed over to grab what was left of the bird. The cat scratched my face and scurried off with the quail. I felt so frustrated and desperate that I started licking the floor like a fly, licking up those few drops of blood from my father’s quail
that had dripped onto the floor.” Her lips grimace. As if still tasting the warm wetness of the blood. “When my father came home and found the cage empty, he went mad. Out of his mind. He was screaming. He beat up my mother, my sisters, and me, because we hadn’t kept watch over his quail. His bloody quail! While he was beating me, I shouted that it was good riddance, because that bloody quail had sent my sister away! My father under stood immediately. He shut me in the cellar. It was dark. I had to spend two days in there. He left a cat with me—another stray who must have been roaming around—and told me gleefully that if the animal got hungry it would eat me. But luckily, our house was full of rats. So the cat became my friend.” She stops, shakes off her memories of the cellar, and comes back to the room, and her man. Unsettled, she gazes at him a while, and suddenly moves away from the wall. “But … but why am I telling him all this?” she murmurs. Overcome by her memories, she stands up heavily. “I never wanted anyone to know that. Never! Not even my sisters!” She leaves the room, upset. Her fears echo down the passage. “He’s driving me mad. Sapping my strength. Forcing me to speak. To confess my sins, my mistakes. He’s listening to me. Hearing me. I’m sure of it. He wants to get to me … to destroy me!”

She shuts herself in one of the other rooms, to calm her nerves with total solitude.

The children are still shouting among the ruins.

The sun moves over to the other side of the house, withdrawing its rays of light from the holes in the yellow and blue sky of the curtains.

Later, she comes back. Eyes solemn, hands shaking. She walks up to the man. Stops. Takes a deep breath. Grabs hold of the feeding tube, closes her eyes, and pulls it out of his mouth. Turns around, her eyes still closed. Takes an uncertain step. Sobs “Forgive me, God!” picks up her veil and disappears.

She runs. Through the garden. Down the street …

The sugar-salt solution drips, one drop at a time, from the hanging tube onto the man’s forehead. It flows into the valleys of his wrinkles, then toward the base of his nose, into his eye sockets, across his chapped cheeks, and finally into his thick, bushy moustache.

The sun is setting.

The weapons awakening.

Tonight again they will destroy.

Tonight again they will kill.

Morning.

Rain.

Rain on the city and its rubble.

Rain on the bodies and their wounds.

A few breaths after the last drop of sugar-salt solution, the sound of wet footsteps slaps through the courtyard, and into the passage. The muddy shoes are not removed.

The door to the room creaks open. It’s the woman. She doesn’t dare enter. She observes the man with that strange, wary look in her eyes. Pushes the door a fraction wider. Waits some more. Nothing moves. She takes off her shoes and slips quietly in, remaining on the threshold. She lets her veil fall to the floor. She is shaking. With cold. Or fear. She walks forward, until her feet are touching the mattress on which the man is lying.

The breathing has its usual rhythm.

The mouth is still half-open.

The look is still mocking.

The eyes are still empty, soulless … but today they are wet with tears. She crouches down, terrified. “Are you … are you crying?” She sinks to the ground. But soon realizes that the tears come from the tube; they are sugar-salt tears.

Her throat is dry, her voice deadened. Blank. “But, who are you?” A moment goes by—two breaths. “Why doesn’t God send Ezraeel, to finish you off once and for all?” she asks suddenly. “What does he want from you?” She looks up. “What does he want from me?” Her voice drops. “You would say,
He wants to punish you!
” She shakes her head. “Don’t kid yourself!” Her voice is clearer now. “Perhaps it’s you he wants to punish! He’s keeping you alive so you can see what I’m capable of doing with you, to you. He is making me into a demon … a demon for you, against you! Yes, I am your demon! In flesh and blood!” She lies down on the mattress to avoid the man’s glassy stare. Lies there a long moment, silent and thoughtful. Traveling far, far back into the past, to the day the demon was born in her.

“After everything I confessed yesterday, you would tell me that I was already a demon as a young child. A demon in my father’s eyes.” Her hand touches the man’s arm tenderly. Strokes it. “But I was never a demon to you, was I?” She shakes her head. “Or maybe I was …” Her silence is full of doubt and uncertainty. “But everything I did was for you … in order to keep you.”
Her hand slips onto the man’s chest. “Or actually, to tell you the truth, so that you would keep me. So that you wouldn’t leave me! Yes, that’s why I …” She stops herself. Draws in her knees and curls up on her side, next to the man. “I did everything I could to make you stay with me. Not just because I loved you, but so that you wouldn’t abandon me. Without you, I didn’t have anyone. They would all have sent me packing.” She falls silent. Scratches her head. “I admit that to start with I wasn’t very sure of myself. Wasn’t sure I could love you. I didn’t know how to love a hero. It seemed so out of reach somehow, like a dream. For three years, I had been trying to imagine what you were like … and then one day you came. You slipped into the bed. Climbed on top of me. Rubbed yourself against me … and couldn’t do it! And you didn’t even dare say a word to me. In total darkness, with our hearts beating furiously, our breathing all jerky, our bodies streaming with sweat …” Her eyes are closed. She is far away, far from this motionless body. Drowning in the darkness of that night of desire. Of that hunger. She remains there a moment. Totally silent. Totally still.

Then: “After that, I very quickly became used to you, to your clumsy body, your empty presence, which at
that point I didn’t know how to interpret … and gradually, I started to worry when you went away. To keep watch for your return. I used to get in a terrible state when you went away, even for a little while … I felt as if something was missing. Not in the house, but inside of me … I felt empty. So I started to stuff myself with food. And each time, your mother would come over to me, asking impatiently whether I didn’t feel nauseous at all. She thought I was pregnant! When I told other people—my sisters—about this distress, about the state I got into when you were away, they said I was just in love, that was all. But all that didn’t last long. After about five or six months, everything changed. Your mother had decided I was barren, and kept hassling me all the time. And you did, too. But …” Her hand reaches up and swipes through the air above her head, as if to chase away the remaining words bent on attacking her.

A few moments later—five or six breaths—she continues: “And you took up your gun again. Left again for that crazy fratricidal war! You became conceited, arrogant, and violent! Like all your family, except your father. The others despised me, they all did. Your mother was dying to see you take a second wife. I soon realized
what was in store for me. My fate. You know nothing … nothing of all I did, so that you would keep me.” She rests her head on the man’s arm. A timid smile, as if to beg for his mercy. “You will forgive me, one day, for all that I’ve done …” Her face closes. “But when I think about it now … if you had known, you would have killed me straightaway!” She leans right over the man and looks at him for a long time, staring into his vacant eyes. Then she rests her cheek tenderly on his chest. “How strange this all is! I’ve never felt as close to you as I do right now. We’ve been married ten years. Ten years! And it’s only these last three weeks that I’m finally sharing something with you.” Her hand strokes the man’s hair. “I can touch you … You never let me touch you, never!” She moves toward the man’s mouth. “I have never kissed you.” She kisses him. “The first time I went to kiss you on the lips, you pushed me away. I wanted it to be like in those Indian films. Perhaps you were scared—is that it?” she asks, looking amused. “Yes. You were scared because you didn’t know how to kiss a girl.” Her lips brush against the bushy beard. “Now I can do anything I want with you!” She lifts her head, to get a better look at her vacant-eyed man. Stares at him a long time, close up. “I can talk to you about anything, without being interrupted, or blamed!” She nuzzles her head into his
shoulder. “After I left, yesterday, I was filled with such a strange, indefinable feeling. I felt both sad and relieved, both happy and unhappy.” She stares into the thickness of his beard. “Yes, a strange relief. I couldn’t understand how, as well as feeling upset and horribly guilty, I could also feel relieved, as if a burden had been lifted. I wasn’t sure if it was because of …” She stops. As always, it is difficult to know whether she is blocking out her thoughts, or groping for the right words.