The Marsh Birds (5 page)

‘Your body is nothing to be ashamed of,' Mr Hosni sang softly as he soaped Dhurgham's legs and thighs. Dhurgham stood passively in the basin. ‘It is a most beautiful body, too, Birdie, and you should be proud. With a body like yours you should never be unhappy.'

Mr Hosni sighed as he began to soap Dhurgham's belly and chest in gentle sweeping movements. He looked up and noticed that Dhurgham was crying softly and Mr Hosni felt tears start in his own eyes. He patted Dhurgham's head with his foamy mitten, leaving a huge dollop in his hair.

‘Don't cry, Birdie! Your life will be much happier and much better than mine—trust me on that! I'll take care of you and I'll never judge you!' Mr Hosni gave a small sob and turned the boy to the mirror, smiling brokenly. ‘Look at yourself, baby!' He shook the boy's shoulders until Dhurgham smiled wanly at the image of his lean little body covered in suds, his half erect penis and the lump of foam sliding from his hair. Mr Hosni towelled him dry, wrapped him up and carried him to the sitting room. He cuddled the boy until he fell asleep.

This boy, he thought, would feel loved and would never be deserted or cast out or shunned. This boy would be truly loved. ‘To love, not to destroy and humiliate, Hani,' he said out loud to himself, happily.

It was as if a perfect boy had been born whole, aged twelve, and handed to Mr Hosni to be his very own.

The next time Dhurgham had a bath, Mr Hosni took a video. Dhurgham begged him not to but when Mr Hosni looked hurt he didn't have the energy to refuse. Mr Hosni brightened immediately and that evening transferred the images to his computer, chirping, ‘Don't worry, Birdie, buck up! These are private for you and me—I'll never send these to anyone, I promise.'

Dhurgham saw the video once. He was ill with shame, made worse by Mr Hosni's great tenderness towards him. The footage was grainy and ugly. His thin body stood out white in the shadows, his face was averted and his eyes down. It didn't look manly.

The thought of it sapped his strength.

Mr Hosni's mother visited. Mrs Abboud was a large, stern woman who stayed only five minutes. She kissed Mr Hosni, gave him a large plastic bag full of dishes wrapped in alfoil and asked Dhurgham to show her out and walk her to the corner. She said nothing to him all the way, but when they parted, she grabbed him by the chin, twisted his face up to hers and searched it for something. Dhurgham met her glance because, for all that, she was not a scary lady. She gave him a strange, sad smile and tossed his face away, patting his back to go home.

When he got in, he noticed first a wonderful smell. He found Mr Hosni in the sitting room, wracked by sobs over an array of dishes, savouries and sweets, and an Eid card.

‘They hate me,' Mr Hosni mouthed indistinctly through a raw and ugly wail.‘I haven't seen my father since I was twenty-five.' He rocked back and forth, and Dhurgham squatted at his side, not knowing what to do.‘I broke his heart. Oh, my Mother! Yamo Yamo Yamo!' Mr Hosni rocked and sobbed harder, and Dhurgham began to weep, half scared at seeing an adult like this.

‘Mother Mother Mother,' he murmured too, his voice catching in his throat.

Mr Hosni's wails faded and stopped. They stayed sitting together in front of the TV. Mr Hosni placed his arm around Dhurgham's small body.

‘You are a sweet, sweet, sweet boy. Well brought up too. I think I might adopt you.'

Dhurgham shut his eyes and leant into that warm armpit.

After that he and Mr Hosni slipped into an easier relationship. Mr Hosni usually slung his arm over Dhurgham's shoulders in front of the TV and both were comforted. Mr Hosni managed to get an Internet connection through one of his influential friends and was inordinately proud of being one of the first private Internet users in Damascus, although terrified of being monitored by the secret police. He paid for it and for protection from the authorities with Dhurgham's money. Dhurgham learnt how to use it under Mr Hosni's guidance. It was something that he had always dreamed of learning. They giggled together over naked women, and Mr Hosni stroked Dhurgham's blushing ears.

‘You haven't seen much of Damascus, Birdie. I'll give you a proper education. I'll take you to all the great places.'

They only ever went to the gloomy Roman theatre at Busra but the promise hung in the air and Dhurgham leant in close in front of the TV at night.

With Mr Hosni, Dhurgham slowly healed. His bony thinness gave way to a fine leanness. He grew. His blank-eyed look appeared less often, his hair shone, he slept through the night and in time stopped taking tablets. He began to get the energy to be bored and to chafe at the intensely domestic life they led, although he remained too low-spirited to do anything about it. Their days together were filled with not much. Mr Hosni made him sit at the computer and play games while he did a modicum of work repairing electronics and managing his digital printing in the room upstairs. Mr Hosni cooked him breakfast and lunch, and usually took him out to dinner. Mr Hosni took him shopping or just strolling to the post office on Said al Jabri Avenue to collect or post his clients' orders, and to the bank to check their deposits and telegraphic transfers.

Mr Hosni loved his fruit to be perfect and his tomatoes firm. His spinach had to be perky. Their twice-weekly trips to the fresh produce souq could take up a whole day as Mr Hosni chattered and dithered over his choices, exclaiming in delight over the smell of mandarins today and the unblemished apples, or clicking his tongue in disappointment when he could find no peaches he approved of. Mr Hosni had his favourite place to shop for everything and disparaged any competitors of his chosen shops and stallholders as though shopping were a sport and he determined that his team should win. He taught Dhurgham how to choose everything with the right care and attention, what to look for, what to smell for, and how to tap a watermelon; but he nonetheless never let Dhurgham do the shopping by himself. Mr Hosni rarely let him even wander off by himself.

Dhurgham's bottom hurt. He sat at the table looking at Mr Hosni from under his lashes, but Mr Hosni seemed exactly the same as every morning—cheerful, warm and unreadable, preparing breakfast for them both.

Mr Hosni was in a good mood, better than usual, but careful to maintain his usual exterior. He hummed, as he often did, snatches of songs that made Dhurgham want to cry. Umm Kulthoum, his father's favourite, and Suad Massi, Nooni's.

Mr Hosni was secretly delighted. The boy was so young, so soft, so easy, so beautiful. He loved him, he really did. It was much better this way, better the boy know everything from his nearest and dearest, rather than get held down by strangers and forced. The boy was too beautiful to leave innocent in this terrible world, he needed to be able to protect himself and to choose the good from the bad. There were some dreadful people out there. Mr Hosni couldn't bear the thought. And the boy, he could tell, was ready. So beautiful and loving.

Dhurgham kept his eyes down, unnerved, and longing for Mr Hosni to hug him or murmur something in a deep voice in his ear, something to make the pain all right. Perhaps Mr Hosni would apologise. He would say it was a mistake, that he was a bad man but would never be bad again with his beloved boy.

Mr Hosni smiled and suddenly reached across the table, gripped Dhurgham's chin between thumb and forefinger and lifted the face until the black eyes met his.

‘You are a grown-up, Birdie, in charge of your own money. Getting screwed is part of love, grownup love. Much better with someone who loves you than with a bad man. Now be a man about it!'

Dhurgham sat up and twisted his face out of Mr Hosni's hand. He couldn't meet Mr Hosni's eyes and the words failed on his lips but he had a sudden revelation in all the mist that his father would kill Mr Hosni for this, and he felt himself strengthen as he tried to lean inward onto the memory of his father. Then a fiery wave of shame burned through his body and he thought—
I can never tell my father this
. He sat stiffly, waiting for Mr Hosni to saunter out, waiting for space to think unscrutinised. But Mr Hosni hovered, invading, bucking him up, being nice to him, staring at him; and soon, in a strange way, Dhurgham wanted him to stay, to somehow take away the burden that overwhelmed him. So they spent the whole day together and, by nightfall, Dhurgham had talked too much and had suffered enough kindnesses from Mr Hosni to know that he no longer had the upper hand, no longer could kill him, really, as Mr Hosni had been too good to him. Mr Hosni told him that he was a well brought-up boy, and this praise of himself and most of all his parents softened him still more. They went to their separate beds and both slept dreamlessly.

Dhurgham smashed up the entire neat kitchen on the second day, breaking everything that was breakable, including the table and chairs and the lights, then paid for it out of his money to a thin-lipped Mr Hosni by candlelight. He then slipped into a hazy, self-hating acceptance.

Mr Hosni changed tactic. He told Dhurgham that his family were dead, held him tight and patted his head, and then adopted a more fatherly tone and role with him, never reminding him of his adulthood and never reminding him of love. Dhurgham craved this remission into childhood so profoundly that he was prepared to pay for it with adult love in the dark once a fortnight or so. He quickly learned not to think about it, to see it as a kind of uncomfortable dream, and he appreciated how Mr Hosni respected this. He appreciated, too, how Mr Hosni cuddled him long afterwards as though he was a little boy who had had a confusing nightmare.

A year passed. Dhurgham was a more silent boy than he had been—he had more to think about. His body lengthened and strengthened. He and Mr Hosni never spoke about money and never spoke about the fairly rare evenings that saw Mr Hosni slide his soft and perfumed body into the single bed and curl in close behind Dhurgham. Dhurgham fantasised about running away and about joining an army. He wondered how much money was left and whether he could just ask to see it, then take it and walk out the door. But he owed Mr Hosni too much; and he wanted Mr Hosni to like him, to think well of him and to love him.

Mr Hosni no longer looked at himself in wonderment. For him it was a happy time. Perhaps the happiest time of his life. He provided Dhurgham with everything and could see that the boy was grateful— no pushy urchin, this one.

He had seen his birdie glow in almost angry embarrassed pleasure when he praised that beautiful painting. He lay awake thinking about how changed his life was, now that he had someone to care for, someone to love. And Dhurgham was special, talented. Gifted, even. Maybe a Van Gogh. Mr Hosni felt ennobled; he could truly say he loved someone who was not his mother or father. The boy would understand, in time, especially when he saw more of the world. He would be careful to make sure his boy only went with the decent, gentle types. He'd be just like a father whose daughter had started dating. He would watch over his boy, yes he would.

It was in a way a settled time. Dhurgham said little as Mr Hosni took him to parties and gatherings. Dhurgham dressed to please Mr Hosni, and Mr Hosni swelled with pride to have his well-groomed, tall, exquisite nephew at his side.