Dates on My Fingers: An Iraqi Novel (Modern Arabic Literature) (6 page)

The group all came out, wiping sweat from their foreheads, fixing their clothes, and waving the collars and armpits of their shirts in order to air them out. There was Antonio, Eva, Jesús, Enrique, Maria, and Pilar, who came up to me and said, “How was it? Did you enjoy the evening?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Me too!” she said. “There’s no more metro service now. I live outside Madrid in Móstoles. How about you?”

“I live here, close by, on Fomento Street. Near Plaza de España,” I said.

She said, “Oh, how lucky you are! Do you live alone?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Would you let me spend the night at your place?”

“Sure.”

We said goodbye to the others, and Antonio said, “Till next time—at work in two hours!” Then he added, with a smile that was meant to be suggestive, “Try to get some sleep, even if it’s only one hour ….”

We had only turned into the next street when Pilar slipped her arm under mine, clinging to me as she walked. The streets were empty except for people like us, coming out of the clubs, or loitering drunks, who snored in the recessed entryways of banks. From time to time, a car sped past.

Pilar said, “It’s lucky that my work is in the evening. This way I’ll be able to sleep. What about you?”

“Me?” I said. “I start work at six. So I usually take a nap when I get home. From noon until three, and sometimes until six in the evening.”

I could feel her soft breasts against my arm, and her breath on my shoulder when she spoke. She said, “We have clubs in my neighborhood too, of course, but ever since I was fourteen years old I’ve loved the ones here in the center. I’ve gotten to know lots of friends in them. How old are you?”

“Thirty. And you?”

“Twenty-six,” she said.

We reached the door of the apartment building where I lived and found a cat sleeping there. It got up and moved off when I stopped and took out the key. Pilar said, “Oh, how cute! I have a cat too. Her name is Clara. My friend Laura gave her to me for my birthday two years ago.”

I opened the door and turned on the lights in the stairway while she continued to talk about her cat without waiting for an answer, perhaps to fill the silence or to further our acquaintance. “I love her very much, and she always sleeps in my arms. That is, if I don’t have another person in bed with me, of course!” She laughed. “Imagine, she gets jealous too!”

We got tired climbing the stairs. Since the stairs were old, like the building, they were made of wood and had high steps that were all the more uncomfortable due to how narrow the stairwell was.

“It’s true, she gets jealous of me! Unfortunately, Laura and I quarreled nine months ago. She got jealous over her boyfriend on account of me. How much do we have left?”

“Two floors,” I said. “I live on the top floor, the fifth.”

Panting, she continued, “Uff! Well, no problem. We’re young, and they say that climbing stairs is good for the heart.”

She grabbed my arm for help and took off with a jump, moving two steps ahead of me, such that her butt was just in front of my face. It was round and luscious. Her tight black pants revealed its details, and the pants seam sank deep between the two cheeks. The outline of her underwear was visible as a bulge, higher on one side than the other. I knew they were white because I could see the tops of them coming out above her pants. She was bending over as she climbed, causing her shirt to rise a little.

She was breathing hard, but she didn’t stop talking: “I live on the third floor, and we have an elevator because the building is new. I own my apartment, which I bought with a mortgage from the bank on the basis of my salary. I’ve worked in the post office for five years.” She stopped at the top of the stairs. “Uff! We made it! Which of the two is it?”

“The door on the right,” I said.

She went toward it and stopped, dropping her black purse from her shoulder and leaving me space to open the door. I inserted the key, saying, “It’s a small, humble abode. But it is enough for me. I’m comfortable in it. After you.”

I turned on the light for her and she pressed ahead down the hallway toward the living room. She gazed at walls covered in the hundreds of pictures that I had cut out of the newspapers. She said, “Oh! It’s a museum! Very cozy. Are these pictures from your country? Didn’t you tell me you were from Iran?”

“No,” I said. “I’m from Iraq.”

She said, “My aunt’s husband is Egyptian. His name is Mansour. He’s a nice guy.”

She threw her purse on the couch and took off her purple shirt, revealing skin that was as white as the shoulder straps of her camisole. Her breasts looked large, twice as big as Aliya’s. The tops of them were bare, and they pushed up the light, silken shirt. I could tell she was not wearing a bra because the nipples were protruding clearly on either side of the deep cleavage, where a small gold cross hung down between the two domes. She began exploring the apartment, sticking her head out the living room door to look it over.

“One bedroom—it’s full of pictures too! And this is the bathroom. So, where is the kitchen? Oh, there it is, off the hall.”

She headed toward it. I turned on the television, lowering its sound. Then I sat on the chair to take off my shoes. I heard her voice from the kitchen saying, “I feel just a little bit hungry. How about you? Do you want me to prepare a little spaghetti with cheese and milk? An Italian friend taught me that. It’s a delicious dish.”

“No,” I said. “For me, I’ll be fine with a couple of dates and a small cup of yogurt.”

I joined her in the kitchen. I took down the bag of spaghetti for her, got out a small cooking pot, and lit the stove. She took a glass and used it to carry water from the sink to the pot. Then she came back to break the spaghetti sticks.

She didn’t stop chatting and repeatedly passed behind me, brushing her breasts against my back on the pretext of how narrow the space was. Or she’d put her hand gently on my back. She opened the door of the refrigerator and bent over, gazing inside, and half of her back appeared, white under the light, white shirt, while her black pants slid further down with
the movement of her buttocks. Even more of her underwear’s diaphanous lace was visible, and I could see the fuzz where the line that separated the two cheeks began. Their tops were showing, two round forms extending back and sloping down from her waist on both sides.

She said, “Here’s the cheese: yes, it’ll work well. And here’s a carton of milk.” She stretched out her arm with each, setting them on the edge of the stove without taking her head out of the refrigerator. “I don’t see that you have any wine. It’s true we drank a lot, but I’m dying for one last glass.”

“I don’t drink alcohol,” I told her. “But there is some nonalcoholic beer, if you’d like.”

“Where?” she asked, not changing her position.

So I bent over behind her, resting my hand on the bare spot of her back, my face close to hers. I pulled out a can for her from behind the bag of pita bread, and she turned her face and kissed me on the cheek.

“Thanks! Why don’t you drink alcohol? Mansour drinks. Are you very religious?”

“No,” I said. “Yes. To a certain degree. But I’m not a fanatic.”

She said, “I don’t believe in the existence of God. But I respect the views of others.”

I didn’t want to talk more about that subject, which I knew backwards and forwards. Otherwise, I would have asked her about the cross that she wore. I already knew the answer would be along the lines of “It doesn’t mean anything. It’s a universal, traditional symbol.” Or that it was a gift from her mother or her friend. Or because it is beautiful and simple. And further justifications like that, which didn’t point to the secret truth of the person’s religiosity. At the same time, I had no desire for her to ask me, like everyone else did, about the superficialities
of Islam which were the extent of her knowledge: marriage to four women, the veil, the beards, and all those other topics that I had grown tired of debating and explaining, especially when someone you’ve explained everything to comes back two days later with the very same questions.

“I believe in God,” I said, “and I respect the views of others.”

She may have sensed my lack of interest in discussing it, so she changed the topic: “You’re good at Spanish. How many years have you been here in Spain?”

“About five years,” I said.

She kept moving, brushing against me. “And you don’t have a fiancée or a girlfriend?”

I said, “Female friends, yes: the co-workers that you saw with us at the club. But no fiancée.”

She asked with a seriousness overlaid with humor, “Surely you are married in your own country?”

I responded in a similarly facetious tone, “Yes, four wives and forty children!”

She laughed. Then she covered the pot and said, “Come on, let’s sit in the living room for a while until the water boils off, then we’ll add the chunks of cheese and some milk. The food is going to be delicious!”

I sat on the couch, and she came and sat next to me, pressing against me and setting her can of beer on the table in front of us after taking two sips. When she saw me staring at the television screen, she said, “There’s nothing good on TV now.”

True, there were just late night shows advertising different kinds of cars and modern exercise equipment. So I turned it off, and she wrapped her left arm around my neck and reached her right hand to my shirt. She opened the buttons and said, “Why don’t you change your clothes? Make yourself at home.”

She laughed, pulling me toward her, toward her lips, and we began a long kiss, our tongues, our lips, and our quick breaths intermingling. All the while her hand played with the hair on my chest and moved further down. I had been thinking of her voluptuous breasts since I saw them bouncing in the club. I wanted to know what it was like to touch large breasts like that. With my lips still on hers, I made a move and slid my hand under her light undershirt.

Oh, how nice it was! Soft, my fingers sank into them, and my hands cupped all the way around. I felt both nipples standing erect. My fingertips brushed the ends of them. Then my fingers circled around on all sides. The warm place between the breasts, where they pressed together, made me shudder.

The shudder passed through my body, and my loins tightened. Her fingers descended toward my waist, and she clung to me all the more, melting into me with her eyes closed. I don’t know how long we continued like that, but when we stopped and I looked at her face, I found her smiling, blushing. She was even more beautiful with her shining eyes and her deep passion.

I said, “Make yourself at home! You can change your clothes too, if you want.”

We went off to the bedroom. I opened a dresser and took out for her a pair of my pajamas. When I turned around, I found that she had taken off her pants. I saw her white underwear pressing into the fullness of her butt and thighs, also white.

“Just the bottoms,” she said. “I’ll keep this shirt of mine.”

I changed clothes too, keeping my back toward her so that she wouldn’t see the taut erection in front of me.

We felt comfortable and free, such that she began to move more confidently and spontaneously between the living room, the bathroom, and the kitchen. She brought me back
an open cup of yogurt with a small spoon inside. She gave it to me and sat on my lap, filling it up with her butt. I reached around with one hand, which I moved in a circle, caressing it on all sides. She leaned against my chest and kissed me from time to time. I started touching her breasts again, on top of her shirt … and underneath.

CHAPTER 5

A
fter considering the matter in a halting, conflicted, and wavering way, I made up my mind not to sleep with Pilar. I would avoid falling into sin that night as far as I was able.

I had never slept with anyone before her. Yet I wouldn’t let her know that I was still a virgin because she wouldn’t believe me. She would laugh, or she would be afraid, or I don’t know what. I was also afraid of God and Grandfather and Aliya. And my confusion, my lack of experience, and the likelihood of failure.

I would be satisfied with the kisses I had won from her and my fondling of her large breasts, which were just the kind that I lusted after whenever I saw such a woman pass by on the street in my daily life. Or when they would bare them in the movies or at the seashore during the summer. For I hadn’t experienced anything in my life like Aliya’s amazing breasts: neither large nor small, succulent, firm, and erect—even when she was dead. As though they were created precisely to answer my desire. I wanted them that badly. She used to smear them for me with dates, and I would suck them under the poplar
trees and the willows, lying on the sand in the middle of the forest along the shores of our Qashmars Village.

Pilar finished eating her meal after giving me a couple of bites to try. It really was delicious. (I said to myself that I would try to prepare it later, which I actually did. I even became an expert with the dish, varying the kinds of cheese and milk.) She washed the dishes in the kitchen, then came out and went into the bathroom. She pushed the door shut without closing it all the way. I heard the tinkle of her peeing. Then she rinsed her mouth, blew her nose, and washed up. She came out, gesturing with her head toward the bedroom.

“Come on.”

“No,” I said. “I am going to try to sleep a little here on the couch, even if only half an hour. I’m tired, and I usually have a lot of work on Mondays.”

Her expression changed a little, and she said, “Why the couch? The bed is big enough for both of us.”

“No …. Whenever I’m tired, I snore loudly. I also don’t want to bother you with my alarm clock.”

“Fine,” she replied. “Whatever you want.” She came over and gave me a kiss on the mouth, saying, “Sleep well.”

Then she disappeared into the bedroom. I closed the door after her, turned out the light in the living room, and lay down on the couch.

I wasn’t actually very tired because I was used to sleeping during the day. I also wasn’t sleepy on account of how hard my heart was beating from having a woman in my house, especially after all those kisses and caresses. I wanted a little time alone to go over everything that had taken place. This always happened with me. After any exciting event or conversation, I would go off by myself for a while to recall it all, contemplating
it, enjoying it, scoping out its horizons. My fist squeezed the erection under my pajamas, and Pilar’s smell filled the place.