And I know of divorces in between: sneering put-downs would hang from the couples’ lips, but their mouths would refuse to utter them. Their supportive listeners would ask for criticism, and our protagonists would offer some but they would hold back from speaking the insult that was on the tip of their tongues, because they’re above that. Cursing each other becomes a matter in which friends must drag it out of them, and wait, and anticipate, just as when the two were preparing for their wedding. And so, they both bask in their own good will. Restraining from calling each other names becomes an indication of their own exceptional morals. More admiration follows, then a round of applause.
I also know of a disastrous divorce where my friend Zumurrud advised the wife (a mother) to stop cursing out the father in front of their four-year-old. The mother, Zena, told Zumurrud that it was hard for her to restrain herself considering what she had gone through with her ex, but that she would try. The main problem was her parents who began to spread more gossip than usual about the ex.
The kid would sit and listen, then he would jump up and start playing manically as if he wanted to run away from the voice destroying his father’s image. After having witnessed one of these moments of madness and after having given up trying to restrain her parents (her providers) who are free to talk about whatever they felt like, Zena resorted to asking her parents to use a nickname for the father (whose original name is Mahmoud) whenever they wanted to pluck his feathers like a chicken, so to speak. She explained to them that her request was purely for the purpose of protecting her son’s emotional health and not to preserve her ex’s image. And, she added that Zumurrud was the one behind these instructions, in order to bolster her credibility.
Two weeks later, Zumurrud visited Zena at her parents’ house where the family gathered in the living room, including the little boy, Abd al-Latif (named after his grandfather) who kept spinning himself around. The grandmother started the conversation laughing (within earshot of the boy): “In order to please our psychoanalyst, Madame Zumurrud, and to put our daughter’s mind at ease, we will refer to that piece of shit as Tarzan.”
And they went on talking about Tarzan, and the conversation intensified and expanded, and Tarzan was sullied, and trampled on, and dragged through the mud, then flushed down the toilet. “Tarzan . . . Mahmoud, woops slipped out, I mean Tarzan . . . even his son, even his own son (gesturing toward Abd al-Latif) . . . Tarzan’s son! Ha.”
I finish my shower, dry my body, and reconnect with time and space.
I remember once again that I’m not in my apartment; I’m at Shwikar’s place—she always takes me in when my electricity goes out. And my electricity goes out often because the building I live in is too old and the landlord refuses to repair it. So, the electricity doesn’t go out in my apartment for the same reason it goes out in the other apartments in Lebanon. I live close to the beach, on the Rawsheh side. And the electricity in Lebanon goes out a lot in the poorer areas but hardly ever does in the richer ones. I’m not rich and own no horses; I live in a shabby little apartment, in a shabby little building that survived the civil war. The owner isn’t Lebanese, so he didn’t sell or renovate the building after the war, and it remained poor-looking, like a janitor’s son at a prestigious school.
Where do I go now? Koko’s going to start her cleaning feast and she’ll surely be more comfortable if I get out of her way now that we’ve had our sobhiyeh morning coffee.
And as soon as Koko asks me about the state of my apartment, I feel the need to leave immediately. I can’t bring myself to talk about it when it’s injured. You know what, Koko? I’m going to go there now. I’m going to sit in my apartment, nag at my landlord, then hug the place and bond with it again.
I don’t want any hard feelings between my apartment and me, not while it’s going through such a hard time. I will stand by it.
I leave. I walk. I lose most of my temper because of a blaring horn then lose whatever is left because of a guy on a moped who crowds me on the sidewalk, and then I lose it all together when he comments on a particular part of my body. I finally reach home.
I tiptoe to my door. I slide the key apprehensively into the keyhole, afraid maybe a dragon will jump out at me from behind the door. I crack open the door and search inside my apartment for that which must not be named: the cockroach.
Is a dead cockroach waiting for me in some corner? And if it is, where’s its family hiding? Living here without paying rent I bet. Sigh. This is a serious matter, but I certainly don’t want to dwell on it. These creatures make me more anxious than Israeli bombs. In fact, what scares me most about shelters is the possibility of finding a C there. It’s as if I see them through a magnifying glass—huge. And I see them through a reducing glass too, invisible, everywhere, and capable of reaching any place. On days when I’m blessed with electricity—may God bring it back safely—I keep the lights on in the apartment, so C will think I’m home and hide from me. I base this theory on my observation that when a foot nears a cockroach on the street, it scurries off panicking in all directions. Then it must be as afraid of me as I am of it. And although this theory doesn’t entirely reassure me, I still put it into action in an attempt to keep
