White Masks (15 page)

And he leaves.

Standing there alone, Fatimah sees Mahmud going into the house, looking scared.

“Now what?”

“Nothing,” Mahmud answers. “Just this damned woman.”

“Bahiyya . . . ?”

“I've divorced her, woman, I've divorced her. But she's following me around.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don't know, but her children . . .”

“What children?”

“She has three boys.”

“And what do they want? Goddamn her and her children!”

“They want the money, the
mu'akhar
- the compensation.”

“And you, you promised her the
mu'akhar,
you wretched man! ... Lord, protect us from your sort! A decrepit old hag like her, and you signed over a
mu'akhar!
”

“No, I didn't sign . . . but they still want it.”

“Lord, have mercy . . . and how did this come to pass?”

“They came and threatened me. I told them to take the apartment, take the whole building, take everything in the building. But they rejected my offer. They threatened me, so I ran away.”

Mahmud was really scared. Only twice before had Fatimah seen him like this: the first time was over there, when they put the bag over his head; the
second time was when he and that Bahiyya came to visit together; and now, because of those children of hers.

He stayed home all that day, reading the papers and smoking. He turned in early that evening, long before the children did. And when Fatimah lay down next to him and tried to cuddle up to him - he hadn't slept with her in such a long time - he pushed her away roughly and sat up in bed smoking. He chain-smoked all night. He didn't sleep, just smoked one cigarette after another. She didn't dare go near him again, and fell asleep.

She woke up early to a strange noise. When she got up, he was making tea, so she sat with him in the kitchen and tried to talk to him. But he wouldn't say anything. He just smoked, looking into the distance while she sat beside him, feeling scared. She felt paralyzed with fear, as if her limbs were frozen.

But no one came.

He hunkered down inside, while she was in the lobby of the building sweeping as usual, and the children played outside by the sidewalk. No, they won't come, she thought, what was all this fuss about the
mu'akhar
anyway, they were just being bullies.

She told him she thought they were just bullying him, just so they could fleece him.

“They won't do anything,” Fatimah said. “She should feel grateful to be married . . . who'd marry her, the ugly old hag . . .”

But why had he divorced her?

Fatimah asked him why, but he hemmed and hawed. She screamed the question at him, but when he looked at her with that old look of his, she gave it up.

Why did he divorce her? Was it because he realized she was ugly? Or was it maybe because he loved his own wife? But why was he staring at her like that? He must have divorced her because he loves his family. How could he leave his family, his own children?

Fatimah was standing in front of the building, broom in hand, when she saw them. All she saw were faces, dark faces, and guns. There were at least three of them. They spilled out of a black Chevrolet and came toward her, their guns cocked, their faces blackened. Fatimah stepped back, she wanted to run and gather the children together, but they were closing in on her.

“Where is he?” one of them asked.

She retreated further and reached the door to their quarters; Fatimah opened it and ran in, locking the door behind her. Where was he? She couldn't see him anywhere.

“They've come,” she said. “Mahmud! They're here!”

She expected him to leap out, gun in hand, but he'd vanished. When she looked, she found him standing in the corner of the kitchen, shaking. As she opened her mouth to speak, he put a finger to his lips to silence her. It looked like he was crying. She ran to go back outside and get the children and saw him edging out of the kitchen. As he reached the door to their room the wooden panels were blown off the hinges, splitting, and Mahmud stood there bleeding.

“They got me!”

She took a step in his direction, but bullets were whizzing through the air; she crouched down in the opposite corner. Mahmud, still standing, fell to his knees, and there was blood everywhere. Now she saw that he wasn't carrying his gun after all. There was more blood, and then Mahmud keeled
over and collapsed onto his left side. One of the gunmen kicked the door down, Mahmud's body shifted slightly, shuddering, as if a remnant of life still coursed through him. Then this black face appeared, smeared with soot, its white teeth glistening. His machine gun was pointed at her, but he didn't fire.

Slowly, the gunmen retreated.

As she rushed to Mahmud's side, Fatimah began to wail. She grabbed hold of her husband, trying to drag him away from the door, but she couldn't. She stepped over him and ran outside to find the children huddling against the wall like terrified chicks. She grabbed them, all of them, including the neighbors' children, and herded them into the room. Her shift was soaked with blood. People gathered around her but no one offered to take him to the hospital, until Professor Nabeel Assi arrived and took him in his car, leaving her alone in the house. When he returned two hours later, he told her Mahmud was dead.

She wept, everyone wept, even strangers wept with her. After the burial, Professor Nabeel took her aside - he too believed the bracelet story - and told her not to tell anyone about the bracelets.

“Keep them,” he said, “you may need them one day.”

When Fatimah told him she knew nothing about them, his smile was full of derision.

“You're free to do as you please, but I'm telling you, don't breathe a word about them to anyone. You may need them yet.”

What good were the bracelets anyway with Mahmud gone? And now even Hussein didn't believe me. He was convinced I was hiding them somewhere, and was determined to get a hold of them. What kind of child does
that? At least his father used to give me money, but all he ever does is hit me. No one has ever raised a hand against me . . . Mahmud did, of course, but that was different. The wretch, how dare he! . . . Well, no matter, God is great, and yes, as God is my witness, I stand here alone with the children, the building, and me all on my own . . .

But now there's this Khalil Ahmad Jaber, or the man they call Khalil Jaber, and that's another calamity. And what a calamity! Men! The cause of all my problems! All the men I've ever known have been a problem - and now there's Khalil.

“
Ya akhi,
I tell you I don't know him, I swear to God, I don't know a thing.”

Fatimah Fakhro is standing in the local party office, surrounded by militiamen. Sobbing, she repeats over and over again that she knows nothing. But this one guy, the one with the shades, he's not paying the slightest bit of attention to anything she's saying - it's as if she were talking to the walls . . . Her, talking, and them not hearing anything . . . She's frightened, she feels the same fear as when she saw that other face - the very same fear she felt when he pointed the machine gun at her and didn't fire.

“I swear to God, I know nothing. Yes, I did see him, I saw him several times. Yes, I spoke to him and he told me, he told me that he would erase the walls, and I believed him, I swear I did. I'm not sure how, but I believed him. What have I got to do with anything, I didn't kill him . . . you're not serious . . . yes, yes, he said all those things and more. I wanted to give him something to eat . . . he reminded me of Mahmud . . . I got to thinking of how he was all alone in Kantari, Hussein had told me how spooky it was on that street and I thought of Mahmud, sitting there out on the sidewalk, all by himself, guarding the building. And I said to myself this man is just like
him, and I took pity on him. No, no, he didn't say much . . . well, yes, he used to say that . . . but I didn't believe him. The fact is, I didn't believe his story about the thousand men and the thousand women - they aren't stories you can believe. But then, I thought, maybe he's right . . . everything's possible these days . . . who would have ever believed that all that has happened to us would happen? But it did. No one would have believed it possible, and yet these things happened, and he died. So I thought, well, maybe ... And he looked so poor, flapping his arms in the air like a pigeon fancier, yes, just like a pigeon fancier who couldn't find his pigeons. I used to bring him bread and cheese, and he'd say he liked
laban.
No, no, he had nothing to do with it, he didn't talk to me about anyone, only about the thousand men . . . I don't know, I really don't. He said a thousand men and a thousand women, but I don't know any more than that, honestly, I don't. He only spoke to me once, just once, and he asked me to make him a dish of stuffed grape leaves; so I made him some, and I waited for him, he told me he would come to visit me, he said he would eat it sitting on the sidewalk . . . yes, that's right, he told me to bring it out to him, over by the white wall. I waited for him, but he never came. And when I went out to look, there weren't any white walls - all the walls were covered in pictures and posters. None of them were white. I did see a yellowish wall, so I waited there. It was my fault - he said he'd wait for me next to the white wall, but I couldn't find it. So then I waited for him at home, but of course he didn't come. Then the mistress told me he'd been found murdered . . . I really don't know anything, Sir . . . Yes, of course, you're right, Sir . . .”

With a look of utter scorn, “Sir” got up and struck her. Fatimah wept and wailed, but “Sir” just slapped her face again. And then, they let her go.

They let me go, I didn't say anything and I don't know why, I swear to God I don't. What I know, I told them. I told them everything I know.
Ya akhi,
it's nothing to do with me, I'm not the one going around killing people; we're not the ones doing the murdering, are we? They're the ones killing us! We don't kill people. Don't you see how Mahmud died? And, to add insult to injury, they demanded that I repair the lobby of the building. Instead of feeling sorry for me, Sitt Elham told me her husband, Basheer al-Harati, had agreed to let me stay on in the building only if I paid for the repairs.

“But I have no money.”

“You have the bracelets, sell the bracelets.”

Even her! Poor Mahmud, you died like a thief! Everyone thought you stole the bracelets! But if you did, I'd like to know where they are! . . .

Fatimah searched high and low but didn't find anything. She went so far as to rip the tiles up from the floor of their room. Then she thought she'd ask Hussein to help her look for them. When she did, he stared at her witheringly, as if he suspected her. She asked him to go to the house in Kantari and look there.

“I can't. Her children have taken over the apartment,” Hussein replied.

“Alright then, let's phone Khawaja Fadee and tell him. Maybe he can help us evict them.”

“How would he do that?”

“Well, it's his house, isn't it? He'll find a way . . .”

“No, he can't. It's no longer his. He no longer owns anything here, don't you realize? No, he can't help us.”

Fatimah is sure that Hussein doesn't believe her and that he is convinced
she's hiding the treasure. And now that he's found out about her thing with Khalil Ahmad Jaber, he's started to look at her in that strange way that he has - he doesn't have to shout or lift a finger against her anymore, all he has to do is give her that look, and she hands over whatever money she has. Regardless of what she pulls out of the handkerchief tucked in her bosom, he asks for more.

Still, she had to find those bracelets ... but how? She thought of getting Professor Nabeel to intervene on her behalf about the Kantari house, but he didn't believe her either. He thought she was lying. Even him, her sole advocate, her benefactor . . . So she decided to stop speaking. The best thing was to say nothing and do nothing. They were all going to die anyway, she thought, just like Mahmud, every single one of them.

As she sleeps, Fatimah dreams of Basheer al-Harati, dead; he's coming toward her, a white stick in his right hand, and everything is white. The walls are white, his face is white, his hair, everything. Holding on to the white stick, he advances slowly, and when he reaches her house, he falls to the ground. He falls on his knees, then keels over to the left and rolls away further and further into the distance like a barrel rolling off into the void, and she hears crying and wailing, the very same sounds she hears when the shells rain down on the neighborhood.

Fatimah wakes up shaking with terror. She feels around for the children sleeping beside her, and tries to go back to sleep, but she can't. It's the first time it's ever happened to her that she can't fall asleep. Khalil used to tell her that he couldn't sleep either.

“Why sleep? Half of life is wasted in sleep. Why do we have to sleep? I can't sleep, and soon no one else will be able to either.”

But he did. She saw him, with her own eyes, asleep on the sidewalk at about eight o'clock one evening. She walked right by without him noticing her. Fearing him dead, she went up to him and, after looking around furtively, leaned down close: his chest was rising and falling and this smell - an incredible stench - emanated from him, it was like . . . like what? She didn't know how to describe it - it was unlike anything she had ever smelled before . . . this smell of his, it remains in her nostrils to this day. Every time she wakes up at night and sits up in bed, the smell is there, as though he were asleep by her side - even though he died.