Cigarette Number Seven

from one prison to another. It was shit. But you know what? Somehow those were good days. I wrote a lot in prison—stories that I still have. I had all my friends there with me, and I made new friends I still have to this day. I mean, if it wasn’t prison and we weren’t being beaten up, I would have wished those days would never come to an end.”

I listened to my father and tried to understand what he was saying about prison, about torture, about friendship. I wondered if he and I could be taken to prison by the police I had seen earlier, and if, once there, we would relive the magical stories he was telling me. The thought filled me with fear and awe. But my father had a weak heart now. He wouldn’t be able to withstand a beating from the red hose. I, on the other hand, was used to the hose and could take anything.

Take me, you brutes, and leave my father!

8

The first time I met Ali, we were in a large, crowded coffeehouse. Someone was talking incessantly at me so I was too distracted to give Ali’s eyes the attention I immediately understood they deserved. I captured the moment and saved it: Ali’s eyes were to be my discovery of the year. The coffeehouse was crowded and loud. I hate crowds and I hate noise, so I wasn’t relaxed. I stole a few curious glances at Ali, but we didn’t talk that day.

The next time I saw him was at my place. There were fourteen of us, in a space that could barely fit four, for the sunset meal one joyful Ramadan evening. Some mutual friends brought Ali along, and finally I met him properly. His irises were one solid color—I still don’t know how to describe his eyes, except that they seemed to me like windows onto the world.

I could never understand the dazzling look in Ali’s eyes. Did he see an unspoiled world? Did he see these damaged people as children, discovering the world for the first time, touching everything with their curious fingers? Did he look up at a clear sky? Was the world for him like Alice’s Wonderland? Did he see trees in brilliant greens and yellows with blossoms that reached the limits of color? Did he see colorful birds and white doves flying in peace, out of the hunter’s reach? Did he see us as we really were, underneath the smoke and smog and petty things that killed the sparkle in our eyes? Were our eyes—the eyes of those of us who were damaged by blood and defeat and unfinished revolutions—innocent and pure to him as well?

How did he see the world and us? How did his eyes carry so much innocence and wonder and peace?

The strange thing was that whether he smiled, laughed, or frowned, there were no lines around his eyes. They stayed calm and clear, nothing disturbing the innocence that emanated from them. When his gaze escaped into faraway meditations or memories, or even to painful thoughts, the same look remained, the same clarity that was like a soft wave caressing a sandless beach.

In one lucid moment, which I carefully captured and preserved, I knew I was going to fall in love with Ali, that my destiny would be tied to his. I woke up a few days later to find his hand clutching my wrist. He was clinging to my hand in his sleep, his breathing close to my face. Love was fearful at first, reluctant, drawing near for a moment before disappearing for days—I could see it and not see it. But time passed beautifully. The doubts came and went.

When I looked out of the big window in my apartment, Ali would come up close behind me and put his arms around me; he held me tightly and rested his head on my shoulder, and time stood still.

Not all my moments with Ali could be captured. It was an incomplete happiness. But when he looked at me, my heart skipped a beat. When I received him at the door of my small apartment I was embraced by the universe. I was miserable when he left, but every time he returned, he brought whole galaxies with him. Ali was everything I wanted to see every time I opened my eyes. Ali was the path I would follow until I closed my eyes for the last time and crossed over to another world.

9

I only like to walk on the beach. I don’t like swimming in the sea—all the salt water and jellyfish and mysterious creatures and dangerous currents. No, I don’t like swimming in the sea at all. I don’t really like walking either. Lying on the sofa has always been my ultimate pleasure. But I do like walking by any body of water.

In my early teens, I used to walk by the canal near my grandmother’s house. It would be cold, the streets nearly empty. Canal water is dark, without the beauty of the sea. I would walk and walk until I got to the base of the big statue where I sat down to count the passing ships. They were giant oil tankers. I could smell their cargo as I counted them and watched those who came and went around me: men, women, young people, strolling as people do by the water. Children played by the base of the statue, but I barely heard the noise they made.

I got that feeling whenever I found myself surrounded by water. I imagined myself floating on its heavy surface, and sometimes I imagined myself surrendering to its depths. I dreamed about death a lot, though I wasn’t really sure if they were dreams or visions. I saw myself dead in a variety of clichéd ways: I opened the door of a speeding car and rolled on the asphalt until blood poured out of my body. I walked on the