I, the Divine (16 page)

And Polo said: “The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many: accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of the inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space.”

—
I
TALO
C
ALVINO
,
Invisible Cities

Mustapha usually woke Saniya up early every morning by repeatedly poking her side with his fingers. He no longer slept much, getting up much earlier, their age difference causing irreconcilable sleep patterns. His daily finger poking annoyed her, which was why he continued to do it. Annoying her, a pleasant diversion when they first married, had become his only entertainment in old age, teasing and ribbing his only merriment. In the beginning, the jokes at her expense were constant, but as the marriage matured, there emerged a zone of respect he rarely breached. However, in his old age, the marriage turned full circle. Her husband believed they had reached a time in their marriage where they were one, no respect needed when one is with oneself.

Mustapha did not poke her awake that morning because it was their anniversary. He lay close to her, face to face.

“Good morning, darling,” he said in his most romantic voice.

Saniya opened her eyes gently, noticing a strand of his white hair approaching her face. He surprised her by kissing her, a simple peck. She tried not to show her revulsion. She still loved him, yet she could not overcome her distaste of his smells. She realized he could do nothing about it. He bathed three times a day, which did nothing for his early morning aroma, musty, subtly tinged with putrefaction. A month earlier, she had opened the suitcase in which she had stored her wedding dress. Mustapha was on the bed. “That stinks,” he had said. The suitcase smelled exactly like he did in the morning, Saniya thought. She never mentioned anything, not then, not now, knowing fully well how preoccupied he was with age and the ensuing decay. They lay next to each other. His face was slightly asymmetrical, still handsome, not to him though. When he thought no one was looking, he would pull at his slack cheek muscles, staring in the mirror, trying to recapture a time when muscles behaved. His face close to her on the pillow, gravity skewing his cheek in an unnatural, slanting angle she found charming.

“Who would’ve believed?” he asked. The timbre of his voice still deep, attractive, unchanged from the day she met him.

“Happy anniversary, darling.”

He smiled. She smiled. He got close to her and burped, taking her by surprise. She crinkled her nose. He laughed.

She looked away, wishing the newly installed mosquito net was two singles as opposed to a double. He wanted a mosquito net even though there were no mosquitoes. He kept scratching imaginary bites until she relented. He had secretly hoped a mosquito net (such nets have all but disappeared long ago, even from mountain houses) would allow him to sleep like a little boy again.

He rolled over, his pajama bottoms drooping, exposing unnecessary flesh, and got out of bed, energized, headed toward the bathroom. She stayed in bed, staring at the daisy-patterned wallpaper, hazy at first, the net acting as a scrim, clearing as her eyes adjusted. Three inches from the bottom, a peel in the wallpaper was exacerbated by Kooky, who had turned an unnoticeable tear into something that required attention. I must call to have it fixed today, she thought, just as she had every morning for the past three years. I have the extra rolls of wallpaper. I’ll tell Tariq to take care of it this afternoon. She closed her eyes for a minute. I should tell Tariq to get someone to wash the windows as well. They need to be cleaned.

“I had another strange dream,” he said over the sound of the filling bathtub. He always shared his dreams in interminable detail. The sound of running water caused the inevitable pecking on the bedroom door. The pets had been banished from the bedroom when the mosquito net was installed. Alfie, the dog, and Trumpet, the cat, waited patiently for the door to open, but Kooky began pecking as soon as he heard her husband running the bath. She pressed the maid’s buzzer.

“You were in the dream,” he said, “only younger.”

Miki came in carrying a silver tray. One would think it was an extension of one of her limbs. The uniform looks good on her, Saniya thought. She should get two more in the same yellow color. Sri Lankan skin color is probably the only tone that could pull off that yellow. Kooky tried to trip Miki, biting at her big toe through the shoes. Alfie and Trumpet entered the room and waited patiently for Miki to lift the hateful mosquito net.

“Good morning, madam,” she said, placing the coffee cup on the nightstand, trying to ignore Kooky.

“Good morning, Miki. Is my son up?”

“Yes, madam,” as she put the other coffee cup on Mustapha’s nightstand and began to lift the net.

“Did you make him tea?”

“Yes, madam, and orange juice.”

Trumpet was on the bed the minute the net was off.

“You had green hair,” her husband said, “and I mean bright green hair, which doesn’t make sense because I think your hair is the best thing about you, if you know what I mean.”

“Yes, darling, I know,” usually enough of an answer to satisfy him.

Trumpet curled up next to her. Alfie waited until she had her first sip of coffee before placing his head on the bed to be petted. Kooky began climbing at the foot of the bed and made his ritualistic daily journey till he reached her chest and squawked.

“Tell your bird to keep it down,” her husband said from the bathroom. “It’s too early in the morning.” His standard response, every day.

“Shh!” Kooky and Saniya nuzzled.

“So what did you think of the dream?”

“It’s interesting.”

“Yes, it is, isn’t it?”

Ramzi appeared at the door. “Are you up?” he asked.

“Oh, yes, come in, come in.”

“I want to get my email,” he said.

“Sure. How did you sleep?”

“Got up at six, which is not as bad as usual. I should be over it by tomorrow if I take a nap this afternoon.”

“Do you have diarrhea yet? You always have diarrhea when you first arrive here.”

“I don’t know, Mother. I haven’t eaten anything yet. Don’t worry about it, okay, Mother?” He was at her computer, the modem dialing. It was only eight in the morning and he was dressed in pleated, tan, casual slacks, a pressed burgundy shirt, and brown loafers with what had become his signature, gold tassels.

“Is my son up?” Mustapha walked out of the bathroom stark naked but dry. Even his pubic hair was now white. “On the computer already, definitely your mother’s son.”

Ramzi stood up and kissed his father. Clothed facing naked.

“You should have woken me up when you got here,” Mustapha said as he began dressing.

“You looked too peaceful sleeping.”

“You,” Mustapha pointing at Saniya, who was still sipping her coffee, “you should have woken me up.”

“I will next time, dear.” Another sip.

He finished dressing in his customary ten minutes—as meticulous in his clothing selection as his dapper son. Still used garter belts to keep his socks up. Drank his coffee in two gulps. “Well, I’m off to work. I’ll see you at lunch, son. We can catch up then.”

Mustapha left the room. Ramzi waited till he heard the distant door to the apartment close before taking a compact disc from his pants pocket and turning on the stereo behind the computer.

“I just love the fact that you have everything you need in your bedroom, Mother.”

“It’ll be your bedroom when we’re gone. Do you ever listen to anybody other than Joan Sutherland, dear?”

“Sometimes.”

The first call of the morning was always at eight-thirty from Amal, her oldest stepdaughter. This morning was no different. The phone rang, in asynchronous stereo for Kooky always followed with an exact trill replica.

“Happy anniversary, Saniya.” Amal, always cheerful in the morning, was probably in the office already. “Is Father out already?”

“Yes, of course. It’s twelve minutes past eight-twenty. The schedule must be kept.”

By the time she finished her coffee, every family member would have called to wish her a happy anniversary and congratulate her on the safe arrival of her son. She was surprised to receive a phone call from her other stepdaughter, Sarah, from America. Sarah was not calling about Ramzi—it seemed those living abroad did not view international travel as an event worthy of a congratulatory call—she simply wanted to wish her a happy anniversary. Somewhat perturbed, Saniya asked if she needed money. Not at all, she was just calling because of the occasion.

She found herself considering what she should wear, how she should appear to her son on his first day back in over a year. What impression should she impart? What attitude did she want to reveal? In fall, on a rainy day like today, she always wore trousers, shirt, and a sweater, comfort and warmth over wide hips. She hesitated, contemplated a designer suit.

When Ramzi left for the United States, leaving her alone with her husband, a knell sounded. Her children had grown up, her husband was acting childishly, and she felt discombobulated and distraught. It was her expected retirement, but she was not prepared for it. It felt like a combination of stud farm and glue factory. She had to reinvent herself, change herself but not appearances. She adjusted to a new life without allowing the family to perceive threat. She picked the trousers, shirt, and a sweater. She would appear to be the kind of mother her son expected.

By ten o’clock, she was at the office, the Lebanese International Cable Company, LICC, her bastard baby. Although she was no longer needed for the day-to-day running of the company—Amal managed quite well on her own—she still managed to show up every weekday morning. People assumed it was Amal’s brainchild, and Saniya preferred it that way. She had thought of it when her husband bought a satellite dish.

When the war ended, everyone in Lebanon who could afford it installed a dish. The black and gray circles replaced the straight lines of antennas on Beirut’s rooftops. She wanted to “share” her good fortune with those not lucky enough to afford the price. Think of all the children who do not have the choice of good television because their parents are not hard working enough to be able to afford the five or ten thousand–dollar price, she told her husband. Don’t they deserve to see the same programs the rich children do? It won’t take too much of my time, she said. No, no, she said, I won’t be dealing with people. I’m not good with people. I’ll let Amal do that. I know, I know, I don’t have the technical understanding, but we have a satellite, and we have cables that run from it to our television, so it can’t be much harder to have cables running to other televisions. I’ll hire some engineer. Her husband finally relented, allowing her to dirty her hands, for the sake of the children. Although he did not know exactly how much she now made, since she was in charge of all finances, even his, her income the year before was ten times what he brought home.

When she looked back at how her business had started, Saniya was surprised by many things: the ease with which she made decisions, the decisiveness itself, the sheer audacity of her actions, her understanding of the logic of investment, and her lack of self-doubt. The company was set up easily. She opened an office, hired an engineer, and bought a huge dish from which they ran cables to any customer for only ten dollars a month. Her cables crisscrossed the city like dribbles in a Jackson Pollock painting. She had two hundred clients signed up within the first week. She recouped her investment in a little over six months. The problems arrived when men—it’s always men, men with money—began to copycat her idea. The solution arrived when she hired Tariq, the driver.

Tariq was a young Shi’ite from the south, a cousin of her husband’s driver. Her husband objected to him because of his connections to Hizballah, labeling him a fundamentalist because of his beard. Although Tariq was religious and had fought with Hizballah—could any teenager avoid the peer pressure of belonging to a murderous clan with a war raging on?—he was not the fanatic her husband assumed. If he looked with keener eyes, Mustapha would have noted the pitted skin. The short, unkempt beard was an attempt to cover up acne scars. Her husband saw a face that suggested the personality of a ruffian. Looking further, she saw the eyes of a boy desperate to please. She hired Tariq. He became her partner in crime.

When her competition began to take root—three different companies, owned by men with political connections—Saniya realized her only hope lay in dealing with them quickly and decisively utilizing the Lebanese Business Method. She asked Tariq and friends to hijack and destroy a truck carrying equipment belonging to one of her competitors. The owner of the company blamed the other two. The Lebanese cable war broke out. No one suspected her company or its principals—Amal, who was oblivious to what was going on, or her—for women knew nothing of “business” matters. Satellite dishes were riddled with bullets, generators blown to smithereens, cables cut. Her competitors left her alone for she had nothing to do with the battle. By the time the dust settled, the police got involved, and the newspapers ran their stories, her company was well entrenched. Other than the first blow, Saniya and Tariq remained uninvolved in the skirmishes with the exception of occasional tinkering with “independent” satellite dishes, impairing the reception, forcing their owners to subscribe to the only working cable company in Beirut, LICC.