The Palm House Read online

  I’m an infant in my mother’s arms. We’re riding in a litter on a camel, heading toward the north, as if to emigrate. I become older the further north we go, and begin to feel cold. At sunset, the caravan stops to rest at a small oasis. My mother puts me down, and I immediately learn how to walk. A short while later, I’m a young boy sitting beside a palm tree, its ripe dates all around me on the ground. I put a few of them in my mouth, but they taste different: more bittersweet than normal dates, and lacking flavor. I eat a couple and examine the pits, then turn my gaze to the tall palm as I sing:

  “Turn, palm tree, turn,

  Throw me your dates and your light,

  Hide me from the bat,

  From the soldiers’ servant,

  The one who steals jars and steals people,

  The spineless Devil.

  Turn, palm tree, turn,

  Throw me your dates and your light.”

  I circle the palm until I’m dizzy, then I lie down and fall sleep beside it. When I wake up, the others are gone, and I’ve become an adolescent. The caravan vanishes into the distance: my mother has forgotten me. This place suddenly seems so strange. When I call out to my mother, I hear myself uttering words I do not understand.

  Now I’m in that muddled state between waking and sleeping, caught up in the smell of perfume and the tram’s warmth. I’m beginning to understand: My melancholic mood this morning must have something to do with that dream. This is the same dream that unsettled me last night. Yet how does it end? Or how will it end?

  I hear some commotion around me, but I don’t want to open my eyes. I can also hear the names of stations being announced on the tram’s speakers, and I wait for those last words, “End of the line! Everyone off please!”

  The commotion increases. Some sort of bright lights are flashing. People are talking loudly in a language I don’t understand, and I can hear Hakima meowing timidly. I open my eyes and see her head sticking out of my coat. Some children have gathered around me, but they’re only interested in Hakima, not me. A group of tourists has also appeared, and are taking pictures of us without asking permission. Their faces stretch out in broad smiles—smiles for Hakima, not for me—and they ask a few asinine questions in weak English, feigning politeness. I’m annoyed at being woken up, and I feel violated by their cameras and their laughter. It’s as if I were a statue or a painting. Frightened by the strange voices, the flashes, and the incessant clicks of the cameras, Hakima curls herself into a ball and digs her sharp claws into my chest, something she rarely does.

  I stroke Hakima’s back, and am finally forced to give up my warm seat. I head for the back of the tram and sit down, but these people are everywhere. Fortunately the end of the line comes quickly. A part of me wants to stay here in the warmth, but I get off anyway, and am happy to see that the group is staying on and heading back with the same tram. I stomp around in the cold, waiting for the next tram. Hakima meows to let me know she’s hungry, and I realize I’m hungry too. I pull out the cold bread roll and split it with her. She calms down a bit, and so does my stomach. I try to figure out the time—without my watch, which has stopped working—but it’s useless. It’s impossible to tell the time in this dim neon glow. Morning, noon, and afternoon all look the same; the features of time have all disappeared. Here, neither the trees nor anything else have shadows. You yourself have no shadow, so you become hazy, unfixed, and featureless, just like time.

  I walk in funereal silence, watching the snow coming down relentlessly to cover the trees: there’s not a single trace of green any more. The peace is broken by a scream from the sky, the sound of a lowflying plane. I can hear it, but I can’t see anything through this haze.

  When I was young, I used to bolt from the house anytime I’d hear a plane. They only ever rarely passed over our village. It didn’t matter if I was in bed or in the bathroom or at the table. I’d still come rushing out to watch the plane as it soared above us like a cloud. Sometimes I’d stumble over things in my haste, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to see the strange loud bird leaving its traces in the sky. The cloudy line behind it reminded me of a wagging tail at first, but then it seemed to swell up like someone’s intestines, before finally disappearing. I was always amazed at how the plane would be in one part of the sky while its sound would reach me from somewhere else. Someone—I can’t remember who—once tried to explain to me that some planes travel faster than sound. But it didn’t make sense to me at the time because it didn’t look like sound was actually traveling. In fact, I couldn’t see sound at all. Back then, I simply dreamed of riding that wondrous metal bird and seeing our village from above. But the bird never came down from the sky for me.

  I got on a plane many years later, and have been on a couple more since then. But flying has never brought me any real joy. I feel disjointed every time I fly, as if I were split in two: one part of me forever in my homeland, and the other a phantom venturing out into the world. Now I look at planes with a cold and sorrowful eye. I know they can carry the body from place to place with ease, but the soul always stays behind. Souls do not fly planes. They can’t be moved so easily.

  I suddenly remember Khalifa Wad Nafisa. He was the one who told me that some planes are faster than sound. How could I have forgotten that tall young man? I only spoke with him twice. He mostly kept to himself and didn’t talk much, but he was very knowledgeable and open-minded. He had studied at one of the universities in Egypt, but his real interests lay in music and painting. Every time he came back from one of his trips, I would hover around his house in the hope of seeing him and hearing his stories about the places he’d been to and the people he’d met. The man was always smiling. I remember the one time he came with me to the tombs. The whole way there, he sang beautiful songs I’d never heard before. And I remember his words to me, words that he repeated the other time I saw him, to the point that I practically had them memorized.

  “You’ll see wonders when you set out into the world, Hamza. You’ll see people much more decent than the ones in our village, but also people who are much worse. You’ll see all sorts: idiots constantly worrying about their possessions, and other people who want to destroy the world. You’ll see pious people and atheists; women and men; old and young; rulers and the ruled. You’ll see all sorts, Hamza. Some of them will laugh at you, and some of them will trick you with their lies, with their fake respect and piety. They’ll try to take advantage of you and suck your blood like oil for their own survival. You’ll see wonders, Hamza. By God, you’ll see wonders!”

  The new watch that Sheikh Rikabi gave me back in Egypt still isn’t working. It’s in revolt against the time of this country, and tells it however it pleases. I’ve set it over and over again against the clocks on Vienna’s squares and train stations, and here I am setting it against the one at the Schwedenplatz. I get off the tram at Taborstrasse, thinking to kill some time at the Karmeliter Market.

  I’m hungry, and I know there’s nothing to eat back at the apartment other than some dry cat food, which I keep to give to Hakima in emergencies. I had planned to spend the little money I brought with me on food for Hakima today, for I can’t bear to hear her meow in hunger. But maybe I’ll buy something we can both eat instead.

  I love all open markets. I often buy fruits and vegetables from them on Fridays or Saturdays. Whenever I hear about a market in Vienna, I make sure to go visit it. I’m almost certain that I know all of them by now: the Karmeliter Market, the Nasch, the Hannover, the Viktor Adler, the Brunnen. I love their hustle and bustle, their vitality, the cries of the vendors. But they really bring me down when I pass through them in the evening. At that time, after the working day is done, tons of perfectly good fruits and vegetables fill the trash bins or are thrown carelessly onto the ground, where they are either sniffed at by dogs or trampled by the feet of passersby. I often want to pick up this food and take it with me, but I’m always too embarrassed, and too proud: it would only add to my humiliation.

  When I was y
oung, I never threw out a single morsel of bread, whether stale or fresh. My mother taught me to kiss anything that anyone dropped on the ground and to set it to the side of the path, so that a bird or some other animal might have it. For all things that fall to the ground are the apportioned lot of animals and birds—that’s what my mother told me. But where was my share among all these scraps? No pain is worse than being hungry and walking through all these piles of food without being able to stretch out your hand to them. Wealthy cities are cruel to those with only a few shillings.

  Mehmet, the roasted chestnut vendor from Turkey, is there in the market. Every time he sees me he greets me in Arabic, and always in the form of an invocation, “May God preserve you—prayers and greetings!” This is how he says it, believing it to be an actual greeting in Arabic, and so I reply in kind. I buy some of that sourdough bread the Turks call ekmek and some cheese from the adjacent Turkish stall, and return to sit down beside Mehmet: the stove he roasts the chestnuts on gives off some very friendly warmth. I speak with him for a long time, more to warm myself up than because I actually want to talk.

  When I get up to try to walk around a bit, I feel as if my head has remained seated. Black spots dance in front of me, growing larger until I can no longer see. The vertigo sends me reeling, my mind weighed down with all these distant memories and unable to break its bonds. I sit down again, and am immediately gripped by that very same feeling that accosted me long ago on the day I visited the graves of my mother and my sisters, the day of great thirst. I sink into the vertigo, resuming the dream that was interrupted in the tram:

  I circle the palm until I’m dizzy, then I lie down and fall asleep beside it. When I wake up, the others are gone, and I’ve become an adolescent. The caravan vanishes into the distance: my mother has forgotten me. This place suddenly seems so strange. When I call out to my mother, I hear myself uttering words I do not understand.

  I stand there and try to cry out again, but this time no voice emerges. I see a greenhouse not too far off and head toward it, thinking they might be in there. As I draw near, the scene inside it piques my interest: I can see a garden filled with birds, a water fountain, and people too. They’re wearing strange clothes and walking in a silent, mechanical manner. I enter to look for the caravan, and hear the door close behind me. The air inside is sweet and fresh. The people approach me, still walking in that mechanical way of theirs. They stop in a line and stare at me strangely, absently, and then carry on with their walking. I ask them if they’ve seen the caravan. My voice has returned, thankfully, but it’s hoarse now, the voice of an old man—I’ve grown older without realizing it. The people reply with puzzling gestures and words I cannot understand. The whole thing upsets me, and I make to leave.

  Two giants are standing at the door. They order me to take off my clothes and put on the same clothes as all the others. Through the glass, I can see the specter of the moving caravan, and I can just barely hear the echo of my mother’s voice calling me. I try to leave, but the two giants lay hold of me. They strip me down and dress me in the uniform: a blood-red wrap. These clothes somehow make me compliant. I begin to understand their words, and my memory slowly fades. I imitate their manner of speech, taking on their tones and inflections. I start to walk as they do, mechanically, though I have no idea where we are heading. We’re all the same now. Young and old, men and women—it’s all the same now.

  Hakima wakes me up from my nap with an irritated meow, so I pull out some bread and cheese for her. She keeps using her left paw to grab at the cheese, something I’ve never noticed before. I try putting the food down to the right of her, but she still uses her left paw. “You sweet little southpaw!” I say to her, smiling and petting her happily, for I too am left-handed.

  I was born left-handed. My mother thought it was sweet, an auspicious sign. She didn’t know of a single left-handed person in our entire family. She used to love to play with me when I was a child and watch how I used my left hand for every action. My father was of a very different opinion, however. To him it was a defect and an evil omen. My mother told me that she cried one day when my father said that “the boy has been touched by Satan.” He said that the Devil is left-handed, and that if I kept using my left hand for everything, I would not be granted very much of God’s bounty in this world. As for Sheikh al-Faki, who considered himself a religious authority and also quite erudite, he told my father many things about the left hand: that it was originally the hand of Satan; and that it was also the hand of impurity and filth, and whoever eats with their left hand takes no pleasure in their food or drink, and receives no strength from them.

  My father once told me a ridiculous story that Sheikh al-Faki was circulating in the village: When God first created mankind, He gave each person only one eye, one ear, one nostril, one leg, and one hand. The people were content like this, until they saw Iblis, the Devil. He had two of everything, and mocked them for their lack. So they complained to God and asked Him to give them what the Devil had. God replied that the left side is an evil that Satan must bear until Judgment Day, and that they could take it from him if they wanted to. But God warned the people, saying that this would mean they would have both good and evil in them. The people, however, rejoiced at this chance, and since that day all of us have had two of everything, just like Satan.

  Sheikh al-Faki forced me to use my right hand for everything, as did my father. It was so hard for me to write with my right hand, and using my left one would have made things much easier for me. But whenever Sheikh al-Faki noticed me writing on the board with my left hand, he swooped like a vulture and lashed the back of my hand with his cane, yelling, “This is the hand of filth, the hand of Satan! No verses from the Quran may be written with it!”

  Nothing exasperated Sheik al-Faki more than my remaining silent while he beat me. He used to explode in rage while I gazed at him calmly. I protected my head from his blows and the lashings of the cane, but I would not run from him despite the pain, which made him even more infuriated. Seeing him like this helped me persevere against his malice. I will never forget that one day when he beat me with such fury—as I held my ground—that he very audibly broke wind in the process. All my classmates immediately burst out laughing, and Sheikh al-Faki started raining chaotic blows down on everyone as they laughed and yelled. I was the loudest and taunted him more than any of them, of course. From that day on, we started calling him “the Farting Sheikh,” and mocked him by make farting sounds.

  In Quran school, Sheikh al-Faki used to have us pupils wipe the board with stale water from an old bucket made of rusty tin. At the end of my first day in the school, I wanted to do something useful, so I took the bucket that we washed the board in—we used to write in either chalk or ink—and poured the water in it onto the ground outside the school. The sheikh was outraged, and started cursing me and raving, “God’s letters! God’s words! God’s water! Goddamn you Hamza Wad al-Rikabi, you left-handed devil!” I had no idea what I had done wrong. I ran home in terror, while he charged after me like an enraged bull.

  That was my first day in Quran school.

  I stayed away the following day. I feigned illness to my father, but I told my mother the real story, and she took pity on me. Sheikh al-Faki came by in the evening to inspect his victim and tell my father about my atrocious deed. My father cursed me and cursed the Devil too, as if we were one and the same. My mother went outside to where they were sitting and leered at the sheikh until he changed the subject to stories of other heroic deeds of his, which always delighted my father. They started laughing in that strange way of theirs—something between a cough and a hiss—while they sat on the prayer rug sipping hot tea with lots of sugar.

  I went to school the next day and after the lesson Sheikh al-Faki ordered us to drink the dirty water in the bucket: he considered it holy water in which God’s Quranic verses had dissolved. I was the only pupil who refused, and he laid into my head and body with violent blows from his reed cane, scared that my refusal
would cause a mutiny among my classmates. They all stood there for a moment dumbfounded by my refusal, but they started to drink when they saw how he went after me with his long cane. I protected my face but didn’t run away. And despite the pain he inflicted, I didn’t drink the water that day.

  He stopped and spoke with my father once again as he was making the evening rounds to dole out extra punishment to some of the children before their bedtimes. As usual, my father sprang up and made a big show of his anger, “Idiot! You miserable ass! You won’t drink God’s water, you son of the Devil?”

  My mother replied loudly to the two from inside the house, “God’s words aren’t in some bucket, Sheikh al-Faki! His words are in books and in people’s minds, not in their stomachs!”

  “Don’t ever listen to women,” my father answered in a low voice, in collusion with the sheikh. “They lack both reason and religion.”

  I was happy to have my mother’s support. In the days that followed, the sheikh ordered everyone to drink only after he had sent me off to do something else. Or sometimes he turned his back to me, as if he were afraid of my rebellion.

  One time, another pupil, Ilyas Wad Farah al-Nas, hurried toward him saying, “Hamza didn’t drink God’s water, sir!” So Sheikh al-Faki screamed out, “God’s curses on Hamza, that ass, that left-handed devil! He’ll enter Hell through the widest of its gates!” Then he furiously beat Ilyas as if he were beating me, and the poor boy stopped telling on me after that. I stopped my good friend Uthman Darab Sidru from giving Ilyas another beating during the break later that day. Uthman wanted to teach him a lesson, since he was always on the sheikh’s side and was always telling on us, even though he was a very poor student in both memorization and writing.