Mister N, page 7
When the doorbell rang, and he heard movement and muffled shouts, N knew that someone had come to inform them. He ran to his room and locked the door. He didn’t want to receive the news confirming that what he had witnessed wasn’t a dream. His father hadn’t hesitated for a second. He hadn’t spent a single moment thinking about N, caring about the presence of a child on the sofa in the corner of the room. It was as though he had departed some time earlier, and all that remained was for his body to catch up. The doctor had been depressed for years, it was true. Thurayya went on shining brilliantly while her husband hesitated and faded. She felt compassion for him and treated him well, but she had begun living where he was not.
The people came in waves to offer their respects to the deceased. Thurayya extended her hand to those she knew and recoiled from shaking hands with those she had always shunned—which is to say, the ones who used to come to see her late husband, doctor to the poor. They came in wearing their cheap clothes and their worn-out shoes and offering generous prayers for the soul of the departed. Men in red, black, and white kaffiyehs; women, veiled and unveiled, carrying their children, some suckling their babes in full view of the other visitors. Porters, villagers, day laborers, refugees, and foreigners: they came timidly and left with eyes streaming.
Thurayya’s cheeks reddened and her blood pressure rose. She gave a signal for Mary to get on with bringing out the coffee so that the masses might “get off my imported carpets and my velvet couches” as soon as possible. Then she made up her mind that, for the funeral on the following day, she would put out chairs on the landing, which was large enough to hold any number of people. The mourners would be many, and the apartment wasn’t big enough for all of them. In the early morning, wooden and wicker chairs arrived in a truck that stopped at the entrance to the narrow street. They were carried up just four flights of stairs and arranged in rows, side by side, in front of small, low tables bearing ashtrays and boxes of white facial tissues. Thurayya directed Mary to greet new arrivals in front of the apartment at the top of the stairs, and to seat “those people” outside, on the landings, while respectable people of any standing would be brought into the salon. She summoned two waiters to take over Mary’s normal role of preparing and serving coffee.
N went out to the landing, and no one in the salon called him back. He sat beside Mary, not talking and not telling anyone that he had witnessed his father’s suicide. He hid the matter for a long time; he was still hiding it now. For his father to have killed himself in N’s presence was too much to endure. For his father to have let go of N’s little hand forever and jumped; for his father to have left N sitting in the corner, just like that, and jumped; for his father to know that N had no real family but him and yet still to jump; for his father to know that he was forever abdicating the role of N’s father, ensuring that N would never again be a son to anyone for the rest of his life.
It wasn’t that Thurayya treated his father badly, though it was very likely that she had a lover. After the doctor’s death, however, Thurayya refused to marry her other man in order to spite the one who had dared to leave her, her and the two children—and also so it could not be said that the doctor had done himself in because of her, and so that no one could possibly find fault in her performance as a widow. She cried for days and looked good in mourning. She chose a black dress that left her neck exposed, revealing its slender profile. She was splendid in her sadness, like some actress from the golden age of Hollywood. That’s how she saw herself, and that’s how others saw her. She kept her head held high. You could see the two tendons on the sides of her neck, long and taut, looking as though they alone were keeping her head from rolling off in sorrow.
Thurayya would always say that the war was what killed her husband. She would tell how he had escaped a terrible massacre, and how he made it home and told her he had seen the face of the killer, knew his name, and that even so, the man had not opened fire upon him. No! cried Mr. N in his heart: you are the one who killed him with your neglect and your betrayal. You are the one who sparked a war inside him.
———
Children come according to their mothers’ stories about them. A mother loads her child down with fairy tales, nothing more, and then sends him out to the world—either full and self-sufficient or else lacking and deficient forever. My brother, Sa’id, was born already bearing a story that told him he was unique and destined to shine, that he was the smartest and most beautiful. I, however, barged my way into life, uninvited, unwanted, the supernumerary son; which perhaps is why I clung so tight to the womb. Just the opposite of my three sisters, whom Thurayya claimed miscarried in their second and third months. And whenever anyone worked up the courage to ask her how she was so sure they were female, Thurayya would shiver with anger and swear that she was certain of it because of maternal intuition, the same intuition that made her realize even before she saw my face that I wouldn’t look like my brother or have any of his virtues. Sometimes, when life feels too much for me, I find myself replaying that moment when the midwife dropped me in Thurayya’s hands and she discovered that I was a boy. She, who said she wanted it to be a girl after Sa’id; I, who think she didn’t want anything at all after Sa’id. I picture her look of disappointment, irritation, and grief when she saw me, unplanned, unwanted, and unloved. A moment that I can’t remember, of course, but the scene is nonetheless as vivid as if seared into my flesh. I can even see the moment she first looked at me like a thing, some object she had no need for and for which she could think of no specific use. A tumor working its way into her system and threatening her existence. Yes. Thurayya treated me as though I were an intruder in her life. And I treated myself as though I were an intruder upon life itself …
Mr. N opened the drawer where he kept his pencils. He didn’t like the one in his hand. It was some cheap model that required him to press down harder than he liked in order to make the words clear—not to mention the fact that the thing slowed him down and hurt his fingers. He had explained to Miss Zahra exactly what type of pencil he wanted, Faber-Castell 2B, and she had brought him a box of this Chinese junk that barely wrote. He took out the box, replaced the one he was holding, and threw the whole package in the wastebasket. But no, he thought, she might not see it there. She ought to realize what she’s done wrong. So he took the box back out and dumped out the six pencils inside. He broke them, one after another. Then he set them beside the box on the table so she would notice them as soon as she entered. Miss Zahra had clearly forgotten who he was, had forgotten that she was there to carry out his requests. She needed to be cut down to size. He was the customer there, she was the employee, and the customer is always right. He had explained to her exactly how pencils were classified. He had taken out a piece of paper and written:
And she had folded the piece of paper and put it in her pocket so as not to forget. Nevertheless, she had forgotten or ignored it. It’s true that Mr. N had taken a liking to her; that she was good and kind to him; that he sometimes surprised himself by dreaming the kind of dreams about her that made him wake up embarrassed and damp. But the episode of her taking his papers without permission was sufficient to make Mr. N reevaluate their relationship. As did her perfume and her other recent lapses.
With his last remaining Faber-Castell 2B pencil, which he had sharpened so many times that it was no longer than his pinky, Mr. N scratched out his frustration with Miss Zahra and resumed writing:
Sa’id dressed me in the black suit. It was a little too tight for me around the middle. I sucked in my stomach and told him, “Button it! Button the pants!” Then I put on the belt so the button wouldn’t pop off and get lost on the floor. He knotted the tie around my neck. Then he moved me back a little to get a good look at me before brushing off some specks of dust he saw on my shoulders. “Ready?” he asked, tears in his eyes. I frowned at him. I felt that my feet were starting to sink into the tiles. “What’s wrong with you?” Sa’id asked. “Answer me. Are you ready?” I shook my head and retreated. I was having trouble breathing. Chest heaving, I felt I was working too hard just to take in tiny quantities of air. “It’s alright,” Sa’id said, closing the distance between us. “Just loosen the belt. You’ve made it too tight.” He undid my belt, unbuttoned the pants, and sat me down on the chair. “Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ll go right down to the market and buy you a suit that fits better. It won’t take us more than half an hour, trust me.” I nodded. Then I shook my head. I felt liquid running down my face, and I didn’t know if it was sweat or what. Sa’id was losing patience. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked again. “This is no time for tears. We have to bury Thurayya. Come on. Get up and wash your face. We’re going to be late.”
I went into the bathroom and locked the door. Sa’id was still telling me to hurry, but I took off my clothes and refused to come out. Naked, I stood in front of the mirror and whispered, “Please make Sa’id leave now!” Sa’id gave me a moment and then he began pounding on the door. “Come on, N! Let’s go! What did I do to deserve a brother like you?”
I couldn’t bear that from him, couldn’t bear for him always to be complaining about me—he, whom life had never shortchanged, a prince unaccountably born into a family of neurotics. “And what do you think I did to deserve Thurayya?” I shouted at him. “And to deserve you and our father? Just go! I don’t want to hear about any of you ever again!”
Sa’id made no reply. I could hear him breathing on the other side of the door, just opposite where I stood. Then I heard his footsteps as he walked away. I heard him put on his jacket, leave the hotel room, and close the door behind him. I didn’t emerge from the bathroom in case it was a trap. But why would he bother trying to trick me? Sa’id knew better than anyone that Thurayya was never a mother to anyone besides him. He came to pick me up so it wouldn’t be said he hadn’t informed his younger brother of her passing. Now, I told myself, he would say that I had refused to attend, and no one would blame him. I alone would be the one to blame, same as always. Sa’id was the social one. He was good with people. Pleasant to have around and easy to talk to. Witty. Smart. N, on the other hand? Naïve, silent, sulky, cautious, shy. When someone was bullying me, yelling at me, mistreating me, Sa’id would listen in silence, never breathing a word of protest. Instead, he calculated what he stood to lose by interfering: things you’d think were of trifling value compared to brotherhood. Yes, people were mean to me, and he never got upset or defended me. Indeed, he would hide a satisfied smile, for his ego inflated and swelled in direct proportion to the degree that I shrank. I couldn’t understand why Sa’id was jealous of me. He was the favorite. He was the pampered son, whose least request was never refused. In everything he did, Thurayya supported him, indulged him, cheered him on, while she hardly ever noticed me or praised me—I who was smarter and more studious than Sa’id, I who had been head of my class for years. There wasn’t a single day that Sa’id declined to play the role Thurayya had written for him. Not only did he perform it to her exact requirements, he relished it and began chewing the scenery. He never once told Thurayya to stop, and he never once defended me, his little brother. He enjoyed his authority, and he didn’t want to lose even a scintilla of his distinction, even if it meant trampling me on his path to success. To this day, I don’t understand his attitude. How was he able to stomach such favoritism? To not only stomach it but swallow it whole, to really see himself as royalty both by nature and by birth? If I had been in his place, I would have choked on the injustice of it, the flagrant unfairness. I would have put a stop to it …
As for me, I didn’t dare stand up to Thurayya—not as a boy, not as a teenager, and not as an adult. It was her lack of love that crippled me and made me weak before her … and toward everyone else too, come to think of it. In abandoning us, my father deprived me of my final stronghold. I was afraid of Thurayya and her fits of anger that came so unexpectedly. I didn’t know what caused them or how to weather them, apart from hiding in corners and behind doors until she calmed down. Which meant living my entire childhood in corners. That’s where my character was truly formed, and it’s where I remain. My brother, Sa’id, was the opposite, of course. He did everything he could to occupy the center. Thurayya loved that about him, and made room for him wherever she went. She pushed me to the corner and him to the center, erasing me from her sight. She would praise Sa’id for resembling her and wonder aloud how I could possibly be related to her. She’d say he was born to lead, to be in charge, and how, from the very first, he was white and perfect as the full moon, with a high brow, a full head of shiny black hair, and eyes that were blue and wide as though the sky itself had taken root in them. She said that drums had been pounded, desserts distributed, and guns fired to proclaim that a son had been born unto the family. She worked herself into a tizzy telling the story of how the Virgin had come to her during the pregnancy, informing her that she would receive a gift to delight her heart and paint the name of Thurayya in gold.
I found that last claim of hers very odd when I was a child, pondering over it for years. What did it mean for a mother to have her name painted in gold? Children tend to bear their fathers’ names, not their mothers’. Later, though, I understood: Thurayya loved winning, but she also loved winners. Neither I nor my father had ever won anything, but Thurayya saw from the start that my older brother suited her to a tee, more than compensating for her disappointment in the two of us. And she was right. Today, Sa’id is a first-class winner. He owns a giant company that has branches in some of the most important world capitals. His picture occupies the front pages of papers that carry the news of the rich and famous. He married a woman from a family of noble descent, quite worthy of Thurayya, who became grandmother to two lovely granddaughters and a magnificent grandson, given the name Sa’id Junior by his father.
Yes. Children come according to their mothers’ stories about them. A mother loads her child down with fairy tales, nothing more, and then sends him out to the world—either full and self-sufficient or else lacking and deficient forever. My own story began with Thurayya’s disappointment that I wasn’t a girl, then her frustration that my skin was so dark, my eyes black, that I came out with hair on my face, and that my birth weight was so paltry. All this frustration compelled Thurayya to refuse me her breast when I was born, because, as she said, I most certainly couldn’t have sprung from her loins but was someone else’s baby, swapped for her own. The proof? That I didn’t look like my brother. And Thurayya said all of this in front of me, without batting an eye. Half-smiling, she’d then relate how the nun in charge had rebuked her and compelled her to feed me after I was washed and dressed and my hair was combed. I took in the story of my birth without feeling much of anything, since it was forbidden for me to be sad, reproachful, or angry, in case Thurayya might get annoyed and so become sick.
And when Thurayya did get sick, even though he knew we could hardly have been the cause of her illness—an illness of some mysterious variety we could never quite identify—my father, who never lost his temper with us, would lose his temper. His anger would be diluted with a deep sadness when Thurayya informed him, so improbably, that we were behind her fatigue and the decline in her health. Because we wouldn’t comply with her wishes, she said; we didn’t obey her, and we showed so little respect. As for this “we,” which included me, it should have been directed only at my brother, seeing as I was far more a child of the corners, the shadows, the silent, shameful hiding places of the apartment, than I was her son. Nevertheless, my father would scold and threaten to punish me, with hardly a glance at Sa’id, who ignored my father right back. Then he would order the two of us off where he wouldn’t have to look at us anymore, but my mother, in the meantime having been overcome by regret and compassion, would order my father to go after us and bring Sa’id back, at least, because he hadn’t had his dinner yet. She was worried, she said, because Sa’id was looking a little too pale lately. And my father would do it, and Sa’id would return to our mother triumphantly, as always, while I remained a prisoner in my room, where the doctor of the poor would eventually take pity on me, take me on his lap and hug me, and offer me fruit or candy, which I would refuse, not being hungry. Then he would pick me up and put me to bed, since he knew he shouldn’t keep Thurayya waiting too long.
Despite all the gaps in my memory, I remember—and always will remember—how hard I tried to rise to even the lowest verge of the image Thurayya clearly would have preferred to see in me, thinking that maybe she would be satisfied and love me a little if I could manage it. After I had my own little nervous breakdown as a child, and after Mary arrived, I realized that Thurayya couldn’t bear the idea of having a sick child, even if the sick one was me, so I became a healthy boy, obedient, kind, and content. I lost my appetite, and the desire to disappear overwhelmed me, a disgust with both speaking and eating, though I pretended quite the opposite in Thurayya’s presence. Then I started doing so well in school that I was first in my class, year after year. I brought home awards and certificates of distinction, but Thurayya would turn away, saying only that she knew already that I was smart, that there was no need to elaborate. Meanwhile, I read in her eyes the regret that Sa’id wasn’t the one who could achieve such excellence and bring home those grades.
Whenever she had company over, she went on and on, praising Sa’id in my presence, giving elaborate descriptions of his small triumphs, while I would listen contentedly, happy about my older brother, waiting for my turn to come, convinced that this time she surely wouldn’t ignore whatever I’d just accomplished, sitting as I was directly opposite her. Except my turn didn’t come, and it never came a single day as far as she was concerned. Even when she grew gentler and weaker, when my father left us for his grave, and then my brother left us to make his fortune, and I alone remained with her, happy that I now finally had the opportunity to get close to her and win her heart … even then I couldn’t win. Almost at once, she started forgetting my name and calling me by his. She would kiss my hands as they fed her, and take hold of my arms as they supported her. And if I asked, in her moments of clarity, “Who am I?” she would smile and say, “You are my father.” I would tell her, “No, I’m your son,” and she would reply, joyfully, “Of course! You are Sa’id.” And when I corrected her, when I said, “No, not Sa’id,” she would begin sobbing, “You don’t love me anymore.”
