Dreams of Water (20 page)

He offered a different kind of life for her in his stories and in his tenderness, pausing when there was a need to wait for breath and applying the same intent when he spoke as he did when listening. She'd felt at times a light illuminating her confusion so that what would have been arduous became a thing of ease, and what she might have feared she later met with courage. She misses him not because she longs to see or touch him again but because the thought of an empty place where he once stood, of silence where he spoke and blindness where he once saw,
of indifference in place of his passion and distance where once there was closeness, devastates her.

She sighs and reaches for the small red radio that once belonged to Bassam, wishing her friend was with her. This, she thinks bending over to look closely at the radio, is what Salah would do. She lifts a hand and slowly turns the tuning dial, her ear listening for an easing of static, here, no not yet, or maybe there, yes, that's clearer, until the voice of an announcer can be heard without interference. There, Aneesa thinks, leaning her head back against the armchair she is sitting in, her eyes closing slowly. That is how Salah would have done it, deliberately and without apprehension at what he might have once missed.

‘My mother just wasn't that kind of person,' Samir says, reaching further into the bottom of the cupboard. ‘She didn't really have the patience for showing tenderness.'

He pulls out several pairs of women's shoes and places them on the floor. They are so covered with dust that he cannot even tell what colours they are. Aneesa holds out a large rubbish bag and motions for Samir to put the shoes inside it but he hesitates.

‘I want to look at them for a minute,' he says. ‘Besides, there's more in there. Let me get them all out.'

He is sitting on the floor. His head and the top half of his torso disappear into the cupboard again.

‘That's not what I was asking you about,' says Aneesa, still standing with the bag open in her hand.

‘What?'

Samir pulls his head out again and looks up at her. His hair has dust on it and he is blinking because the dirt has
also gone into his eyes. He sneezes and Aneesa giggles.

‘What did you say?'

‘I asked you how you felt about your mother when she was alive.'

Samir throws another pile of shoes on the floor and sits up on his knees. Besides the dust, Aneesa can see and smell mould on some of the shoes. She watches Samir pick up a shoe and wipe it with the back of his sleeve. It is black patent leather and has a clip-on satin bow at the front. Samir pulls on this and grunts when it comes off.

‘I remember this pair,' he says without looking up. ‘She wore them with a black beaded gown that I used to love.'

He turns the shoe to the side and Aneesa notices the thick, high heel and rounded toe. She gasps softly when Samir lifts the shoe up and drops it into the bag.

‘They'll all have to go, I suppose,' he says with a sigh. ‘None of them is in good enough condition to give away.'

Aneesa lifts the ends of the bag up and opens her arms wider as Samir proceeds to throw the shoes inside. She knows he is finding the task of getting rid of his parents' things difficult and wishes there were some way of consoling him. But for the past two days, he seems to have withdrawn further into himself. He no longer answers her questions directly and often sounds as though he is speaking to himself in an empty room.

‘It's this house,' Samir says as he watches Aneesa tie the ends of the rubbish bag together. ‘I feel alone in it even when there is someone else here with me.'

Aneesa looks at him as he stands up. He knows he has been especially distant since he first asked her to help him clear up the flat. Sometimes, friendship feels like a skill
that he does not possess, so delicate are the bonds that bring people together, so fine the emotions connected to them. He would like to reach out and touch Aneesa's hair but does not dare to.

‘Look, why don't we stop for a while?' Samir asks. ‘I'll wash my hands and find us something to drink. Just leave the bag there, Aneesa. I'll deal with it later.'

When Aneesa used to imagine herself in this flat, it was as a visitor in Salah's home. She feels his absence here keenly but has no memories of him moving through these rooms, cannot see the lines his footsteps once made or the shadows that preceded them. Instead, watching Samir as he walks out of his mother's bedroom, dejection in his shoulders and in the sigh he leaves behind, she realizes that he is what she will remember most about this place, his seeming helplessness and the sensibility he has sought to hide.

She goes out to the enclosed balcony and, because it is slightly chilly, puts on the jumper that is tied around her shoulders. It is early afternoon and the traffic on the Corniche is not as heavy as it was earlier in the day. Still, the sound of car engines is a definite if distant drone, strangely comforting because it is so much a part of Beirut.

Samir comes out to sit with her.

‘Your father gave me a painting before I left,' Aneesa says.

‘I remember it. It was one of his favourites.'

‘Where did it hang here, do you know?'

Samir shrugs.

‘I don't remember where he had it. But it was one of the few things he insisted we take with us to London.'

‘I think you should have it now.'

‘He meant for you to keep it, Aneesa.'

‘I only took it because I promised myself I'd give it back to him once he returned.' She tried to recall details of the painting that now hung on the wall opposite her bed but saw only a splash of bold colour and floating wings that seemed to lift the picture upwards.

‘It's an angel, isn't it?' Samir asks.

‘Yes.'

Samir shifts in his chair.

‘He talked about the painting once after he fell ill,' he says. ‘He said it had given him great comfort when Mother died. ‘He believed …' Samir hesitates.

‘Yes?'

But Samir only shrugs his shoulders. Salah had never spoken of religion to Aneesa. Yet he had had a quietness about him that made her think of the enduring silence of an empty church in winter and the exquisite symmetry in the outlines of a mosque against a barren landscape.

‘Why do you think he gave the painting to me?' she eventually asks.

Samir crosses his arms in front of him and looks out towards the sea.

‘I expect he must have thought you needed that angel more than he did.'

Ramzi likes coming down to Beirut. He enjoys staying in a flat that overlooks the sea and prefers the corners and empty spaces in its rooms to the long, crowded dormitories at the orphanage. As soon as he and Waddad arrive on Friday afternoon, he rushes to the bedroom, puts his
backpack down on the floor and goes out again on to the balcony to look down at the empty car park. Then he rushes the hallway and wheels his bicycle to the front door.

‘I'm going downstairs for a bit,' he calls out to Waddad.

‘It's too late now,
habibi
,' Waddad says as she emerges from the kitchen. ‘I don't want you out playing at this time of night.'

Ramzi cannot understand why she should think he would not be safe in the dark.

‘But look outside.' He points towards the windows in the living room. ‘It's still daytime.'

‘Ten minutes then,' Waddad says, shaking her head. She walks back into the kitchen and puts her apron on. Ever since Ramzi's visits began she has had to think about cooking again, substantial meals that they sit at the dining room table to eat, she and her daughter and the young boy.

Tonight, they will have
kafta
, minced meat mixed with parsley and spices which she spreads out flat in a rectangular pan. She peels and slices a few potatoes and places the pieces on top of the meat, pours tomato paste diluted in hot water over it and puts the pan into the oven, then she goes to the sink and picks up the sponge to clean the dishes and utensils she has just used.

It almost feels like it did when her husband was still around and the children had been young. In her mind's eye, she sees her husband sitting in an armchair in the living room, perhaps watching television or reading one of the leather-bound books he kept on the bookshelf in the hallway. Although he had not been a smoker, he would sometimes puff on a cigar that someone had given him
and the waft of smoke would weave its way to the kitchen, around her head and into her hair.

The front door slams shut. Waddad listens for footsteps.

‘
Marhaba
,' Aneesa comes up to her and kisses her on the cheek.

‘You didn't bring your friend with you?'

‘Samir?'

Waddad turns around and nods.

‘Didn't think of it,' Aneesa says. ‘Here, let me finish the washing up.'

‘It's all right,
habibti
, I'll do it. Could you call Ramzi up from downstairs?'

Aneesa puts her handbag on the kitchen table.

‘Whatever it is smells very nice,' she says as she walks out.

Looking down at the car park from the balcony, Aneesa watches Ramzi making loops and circles with his bicycle in the fading light. His head is sunk deep into his raised shoulders and though she cannot see his features, she imagines his eyes have squinted into slits with concentration and his top front teeth, still slightly large for his child-mouth, are pressing hard into his bottom lip.

Aneesa leans into the railing.

‘Ramzi,' she calls out a couple of times, but he does not seem to hear her.

She takes a deep breath, sticks out her chin and tries again.

‘Bassam!'

Ramzi stops, looks up at her and waves but Aneesa is too stunned to respond.

‘It's time for dinner,' she finally whispers to no one but herself.

Samir is tidying up the kitchen before going to bed when he hears a knock at the door. Aneesa has been crying, her eyes are red and her hair is dishevelled. Samir motions for her to come in and when she does, she stands for a moment by the front door, her shoulders pushed up towards her ears and her hands clenched in tight fists. He shuts the door behind her and takes her by the arm.

‘Come,' Samir says gently. ‘Come now, Aneesa.'

They sit side by side on the sofa in the living room with only the side lamp on. It is not cold but Aneesa still has her jacket on. She sniffs loudly.

‘I just put Ramzi to bed,' she says.

‘That's good.'

‘
Mama
's gone to sleep as well.'

Samir only nods.

‘I had to get out of there, you know?'

Samir reaches up and touches Aneesa's hair. It is not frizzy like it was when he first knew her but has waves in it now that end in wisps around her head. He smooths it back and as he does so feels her snuggle into the crook of his arm. This close, he can smell the dampness on her cheeks and hear her breath going in and out. He leans his cheek on the top of her head.

‘Samir?' Aneesa looks up and he lifts his head again.

‘Yes,
habibti
?'

She sits up and he removes his arm from around her shoulders. They look closely at one another.

‘What if you stayed here?' Aneesa begins. ‘What if you didn't go back?'

Her eyes, even at this time of night, do not look any darker but rather deeper, as if they had receded further into her thoughts.

‘Remember that night we all went out for dinner together, with my father?' Samir asks.

She nods.

‘You had on a long black dress and these long earrings.' He gestures towards his own ears and they both laugh. ‘I'm sorry, Aneesa, that I didn't tell you then how beautiful you are.'

He leans forward and kisses her tenderly and when he holds her, he can feel her sigh into his body.

Everything has been cleared out of his parents' flat and, despite the still solid walls and the furniture, to Samir it is like an empty shell, although it has occurred to him that the hollowness he now feels might be inside his own heart.

Will I ever be able to live here? he asks himself. Not alone and not with all these memories. He is equally reluctant to let the place go; with it he sees the last tenuous connection with his past vanishing away. Yet there have been times since his return to a much changed city when he has felt himself at one with this new incarnation of Beirut, with the rough, less sharpened parts of it which sometimes make him feel slightly embarrassed as if in merely not understanding these incongruities he can disassociate himself from them.

Beyond his flat, he abhors the obsession with wealth that seems to have taken over everyone here. What
happened to the middle classes? he asks himself. Is it the war that drove them away to seek futures that this country can no longer offer them? In returning, he believes he brings with him an accurate judgement of what has become of Lebanon, though Aneesa often faults him on that. What, she says, would you expect from this place after what its people did to it and to each other? He knows there is truth to her question, but is certain as well that something valuable, something Lebanon once possessed in abundance, is absent now and he does not think it will ever return. Perhaps, Samir ponders, I am forcing my own sense of loss on to what I am experiencing today. He is doubtful also that in leaving Beirut for good he would be able to brush this unfamiliar distaste away and thinks that it will haunt him always, even as he tries to disown it.

One morning, standing in the doorway of his parents' bedroom, he is startled by a rush of wind that pushes through the open window pane and rustles the half-open blind. Leaning out to shut the window, his head halfway through it, he sees on the wall beneath, the morning sun moving with the shadows just as it did when he was a child, delighting him yet again. Samir straightens himself up again and stares down at the Corniche. It will go on with or without me, all of this, he thinks to himself.

Unlike Salah, Samir is not accommodating, nor does he encourage in Aneesa an aspiration for greater eloquence. Instead, he often leaves her clinging more tightly to her intransigence as if in doing so she might succeed better in persuading him when, in fact, the exact opposite is true. But she is happy to be with him and this, she thinks,
has something to do with their shared past, their mutual knowledge of a loving but puzzling Salah. Together they make firmer Salah's presence in the world until she is no longer so conscious of his disappearance.