The Corpse Washer (The Margellos World Republic of Letters) (3 page)

It was a bit smaller than I had imagined it. The scents of lotus and camphor wafted through the air, and I felt the humidity seeping into my skin. He closed the door behind us and went inside ahead of me. The first object that struck my eyes after we crossed the hallway and
entered the main room was the marble bench on which the dead were washed. Its northern part, where their heads would rest, was slightly elevated so that the water could flow down. The
mghaysil
was more than six decades old, and many generations of our family had worked in it, including my grandfather, who had died before I was born. The walls and ceiling were painted a yellowish white, but time and humidity had peeled portions of them, especially on the ceiling. The patches looked like autumn leaves about to fall. My father pressed a button on the wall, and the fan in the middle of the ceiling started to whirl. I looked to the right and saw the coffins brought from the Religious Endowment Center piled in the corner. Close by above them on the wall was a modest window which allowed the sun to illuminate the room. A slant of light had snuck in and left a spot on the floor. The window was above eye level and left the corners a bit dark, but I could see a fragment of the sky. The old ceiling fan traced fluttering wings on the opposite wall. Directly beneath the window was a door leading to a tiny garden where the pomegranate tree my father loved so much stood. Next to the door was a wooden bench on which relatives would wait and watch their beloved dead be washed and shrouded. Six feet away from the marble bench was a big white basin right below a copper-colored water faucet. Copper bowls and jugs were piled inside the basin. My father scorned plastic containers, which had recently become quite common. Under the basin to the left was another faucet with a low wooden stool in front, the kind we used in the bathroom to sit on and wash. To the right of the basin was a big wooden cupboard with glass doors that held the bags and boxes of ground lotus leaves, camphor, shrouds, cotton, and soap.

The marble bench was rectangular and its base was ringed by a moat lined with white ceramic tiles funneling into a small stream that took the water into the tiny garden rather than into the drain— for the water used for washing the dead was never to mix with sewage. From the left-hand corner a small walkway led to the bathroom and a small storage room. On the western wall the Qur’anic verse “Every soul shall taste death” in Diwani script hung within a
thick wooden frame right over the wooden door which led to a side room where Father sat most of the time. That room had two wooden chairs separated by a small table. There was only one window, and next to it a portrait of Imam Ali.

Father went in and hung his jacket in the storage room. Then he came back and went to the side room and sat on one of the wooden chairs and turned the radio on, setting the dial to his favorite station. I followed him. He motioned to me to sit down. My eyes wandered again. I don’t know why I’d thought that we would start working right away. He said that first I had to just watch him and Hammoudy at the job for a number of weeks. Hammoudy was five years older than I was and had worked with my father from a young age. This was how he began. Afterward I could start to help out and hand him the necessary items. I wouldn’t start washing until I’d mastered the preparatory work and had fathomed its meaning. I nodded dutifully. Half an hour later, Hammoudy arrived and asked what he should do. Father asked him to sweep the place and check the cupboards to make sure they were fully stocked. He told me to go with Hammoudy, so I did.

I watched Hammoudy sweep the floor around the marble bench and the corners—although there was really no need to sweep. After he took the broom back to the storage room, he seemed eager to explain the lay of the land to me, proud to display his professional knowledge of the place.

Hammoudy was not the only one in his family who worked as a body washer. His mother, Umm Hammoudy, was also a washer, in charge of the women’s
mghaysil,
which lay behind this one and whose door opened onto the next street over. His father had died when he was three. Two years later, his mother married another man, but Hammoudy’s stepfather was captured by the Iranians during the war. He was in the popular army militia. Because he never returned after the war ended, he was considered missing in action and presumed dead. No one married her after that. People said that whoever married her would die. Umm Hammoudy had asked my father to take her son on as an assistant, and he agreed. He had left
school after tenth grade to help her out and was exempt from military service because of the limp in his right leg which he got when he was hit by a speeding car while riding his bike on one of Kazimiyya’s streets.

Hammoudy gave me a quick tour and showed me where the lotus, camphor, cotton, soap, and shrouds were shelved. Then we went to the storage room where the towels and boxes of shrouds and other materials were kept, and where there was also a tiny gas stove to make tea and heat food.

We went to the side room, and Hammoudy brought a third chair from the tiny garden and put it in the room. My father asked him to make some tea. I sat down and skimmed the previous day’s newspapers which were lying around. Hammoudy came back with a tray and put it on the table. The scent of cardamom filled the room. My father was intoxicated by the voice of Zuhoor Hussein coming from the radio while our spoons stirred the tea in tiny cups dissolving the sugar. We took sips and put down our cups one by one. Hammoudy took the sports page of
al-Thawra.
A relative calm descended, interrupted half an hour later by loud knocks at the door. Hammoudy darted toward the walkway.

A male voice asked whether this was the
mghaysil.
Hammoudy said that it was and invited him to enter. The voice said that first they would go to the car to get the body. Father turned off the radio and made his way to the door. I put the newspaper down on the table and looked at him, but he seemed unaware of my presence. Five minutes later Hammoudy returned, followed by two men carrying the deceased wrapped in a large white sheet. Hammoudy pointed to the marble bench and they laid him down there.

People used to bring in the dead after obtaining death certificates from the Office of Forensic Medicine. Father was a careful man, so he made sure to read the certificate before washing anyone. The men who brought the body both wore black. The first man was about Father’s age, in his early fifties. White had crept into his hair and the sides of his moustache. The pale rims of his brown eyes were red with tears or fatigue. The second man had similar features
and hair color, but was younger and stubble-bearded. The older man asked Father about the fee.

“Whatever you can manage,” he answered, “plus the cost of the shroud, but later. Who is the deceased?”

“He was our brother,” the man said. “He had a stroke.” “There is no power save in God,” my father said. “May God have mercy on him and give you long lives.”

The elder replied: “May God have mercy on your loved ones.”

The younger man didn’t say a thing. My father invited them to sit on the bench or to stand if they wished and declared that the washing and shrouding would take about three quarters of an hour. The elder man didn’t utter a word and stood next to his brother a few feet away from the washing bench. I stood nearby, leaning on the wall.

Father approached the washing bench from its west side and removed the sheet from the body. The pale face and hollow eyes of a man in his late fifties appeared. I was afraid and felt a tightness in my chest. This was the first time I’d seen a dead man up close. His hair and moustache were grizzled. The moustache was thin, unlike his beard, which looked like it hadn’t been shaved for days.

Hammoudy approached the bench from the east side. My father lifted the upper part of the body so that Hammoudy could pull the sheet out from under it. They did the same thing with the lower part and then Hammoudy presented the sheet to the elder brother, who stood still. The dead man had a white undershirt and gray pants on, but was barefoot. His fists were clenched. Father grasped the right fist and opened it gently. Hammoudy did the same with the left fist. They undressed him except for his white underpants. Then Father covered the man’s body from his navel to his upper thighs with a white cloth Hammoudy had handed to him. He removed the underpants from under the cloth and handed them to Hammoudy who folded all the clothes and put them in a sack and offered it to the brother.

Father went to the basin and removed his slippers. He took down the white apron, from where it hung on a nail to the left, and put it on. It covered his chest and body down to his knees. He tied the
apron strings behind his back and rolled up his sleeves. He took a bar of soap, turned on the faucet and lathered his hands and arms up to his elbows. Then he rinsed them. He repeated this twice more.

While he was drying his hands and arms with a towel, Hammoudy put one of the big bowls under the second faucet. Water was pouring down. He took out two bags from the cupboard. He put one down and opened the second and sprinkled some of what was inside it on top of the water. I began to smell the scent of ground lotus leaves, which I used to detect on Father when he returned home.

Father approached the washing bench from the east side and said in a hushed voice: “In the name of God, most Merciful, most Compassionate. Your forgiveness, O Lord, your forgiveness. Here is the body of your servant who believed in you. You have taken his soul and separated the two. Your forgiveness O Lord, your forgiveness.” Then he started to gently wipe the belly to make sure all fluids were out of the body. Hammoudy put a stool close to the bench so that the bowl of water he was about to put on it would be within Father’s reach. Then he placed the bowl on the stool and added some ground lotus leaves to it. He put a small metal bowl in the big bowl.

Father filled the small bowl with water and motioned to Hammoudy, who sprinkled some of the ground lotus on the dead man’s head. Father started to lather the hair and scrub it. Once the head was washed, Hammoudy helped him turn the man on his side while Father kept repeating: “Your forgiveness. Your forgiveness.” He started to wash the right side of the body. First the head, then the right side of the face, neck, shoulder, arm, hand, chest, and belly. He kept pouring water and moving his hand softly along the body, repeating: “Your forgiveness, O Lord, your forgiveness.” When he reached the deceased man’s hips, he washed his private parts without removing the white cloth. Then he washed the leg, from the thigh to the toes. Then the two of them turned the body onto its back.

Father went to the other side of the bench and they turned the body on its left side to wash it. Father repeated the process with the
same meticulousness from the head until he reached the sole of the left foot. Hammoudy had refilled the big bowl and stood waiting to replace the one Father was using. Father went to the basin and cleansed his hands and arms after the first wash. The floor around the bench was wet, but most of the water had gathered in the moat and made its way out into the garden.

Hammoudy took out the camphor bag and crushed two cubes of it, adding the powder to another bowl. Again, Father gently rubbed the deceased’s belly and started to wash the right side of the head with the water mixed with camphor and made his way to the toes and then moved to the left side. After finishing the second wash he cleansed his own hands and arms again. The third wash was done with pure water alone.

Father used to lower his eyes as he washed, almost seeming asleep. But his hands washed with strength, without harshness. Afterward he went to the lower faucet and cleansed his hands, arms, and legs up to his knees three times and dried himself with a towel Hammoudy handed him. Then he took another white towel from the cupboard and carefully dried the man’s body and gave the towel to Hammoudy, who took it to the storage room.

Father took the camphor bag and measured out a spoonful into a small container. He rubbed some of it on the dead man’s forehead, nose, cheeks, chin, palms, knees, and toes—the spots that touch the ground when one prays. Afterward he cleansed his own hands and feet again, as did Hammoudy. Then Father took some cotton and stuffed it into the dead man’s nostrils and placed some between the dead man’s thighs and turned him over to put some between his buttocks. I later learned this was done so that no blood would leak and pollute the shroud. Then he took a deep breath. Hammoudy brought out a large piece of cloth and a pair of scissors. He handed them to Father, who cut out a big swath. Hammoudy took back the scissors and the remainder of the cloth. My father held the man’s thighs tightly and wrapped the piece of cloth around them twice. Hammoudy handed him the rest of the cloth. Father wrapped it around the man’s head and tied it under his chin, keeping his face exposed.
Then Hammoudy brought out the three parts of the shroud. Father took the first part and spread it over the body, covering the man from the navel to the knees. Then he sprinkled some more camphor on it. Hammoudy handed him the second, bigger piece. Father took it and covered the body from the shoulders to the lower legs. Together, they wrapped it around from below as well. The third piece was the biggest, it covered the entire body. Supplications were written on its edges in a beautiful black script. Hammoudy brought out three bands. Father took one of them and wrapped it around the shroud just above the feet and tied it in a knot. Then they lifted the corpse from the shoulders and Hammoudy pushed the second band with his right hand under the back, and Father caught its other end. They put the corpse down and my father tied the band. They did the same with the third band, which held the edge of the shroud near the head. Father took a deep breath, looked at the shrouded corpse and said out loud: “There is no power save in God.”

The dead man looked like a newborn in swaddling clothes. Father prayed as he washed, but he had not said a single word to Hammoudy. They had worked together for years and communicated with each other only through gazes and nods, at one in their rhythms.

Hammoudy went to the corner, where a few coffins were piled up, and gestured to the men to help him bring one to the washing bench. The younger brother helped him carry it. They set it down next to the bench. Father stood at the head of the bench to lift the shrouded man by the shoulders. Hammoudy stood at the other end, ready to lift the feet. Father said: “God help us.” That was the signal to start lifting. They lowered him gently into the coffin. Hammoudy went to the garden and brought back a branch from a palm tree. He handed it to my father, who broke it into two pieces. He placed one alongside the right arm between the collar bone and the hand and placed the other at the identical spot on the left side. (Later, my father told me that the branches were supposed to lessen the torture of the grave. At times he would make use of branches of lotus or pomegranate.) He covered the coffin and said to the two men: “May
God have mercy on his soul.” This sentence signaled that the ritual was now complete.