In the Country of Men by Hisham Matar

Author:Hisham Matar [Matar, Hisham]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Literary, Azizex666, Fiction
ISBN: 9780385340427
Publisher: Dial Press Trade Paperback
Published: 2006-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

I had faded into sleep and woke up disoriented, not knowing what time it was. The sky was dark, the world was silent. But still I felt a warm comfort at having napped for the first time. I must be becoming a man, I thought. I noticed an odd smell in the house, but the tide of sleep was strong, it pulled me and I drifted back into the warmth and magic of its certainty.

A few hours later I woke up dying, horses galloping up my nostrils, down my throat. I jumped out of bed and opened the window. I did this in every room of the house, opening windows and doors without knowing why. She had left the gas on in the kitchen.

When she woke up the following morning she couldn't understand why I was so upset and kept repeating, 'What's this smell, did you leave the gas on in the kitchen, Slooma?'

I slammed the door shut and locked myself in my room. From the way she spoke through the door it felt as if it really was another woman who had left the gas on to kill us.

'Why are you upset at me? How do I know you are all right if you don't speak?'

My mouth was about to utter something, but I held it shut with my hand.

'How do I know that you are not dead?'

I covered my ears and shut my eyes.

'OK,' she came to say in the late morning. 'At least come out for some food. It's almost lunch time and you haven't even had breakfast.' When she walked away, I heard her say to herself, 'What a strange boy.' After a while she returned to ask, 'What if your father comes home now, what will he say about us?'

By noon she slipped a note beneath my door. It read:

I, therefore, hope that my beloved son will honour me with his visit, and I am sending my vizier to make arrangements for the journey. My one and only desire is to see you before I die. If you refuse my request, I shall not survive the blow. May peace be with you!

It wasn't funny. I recognized the words. They weren't hers, they were from a letter King Shahryar had sent, when his heart was ill with sadness and he believed he was going to die, to his brother King Shah Zaman. She just replaced the word 'brother' with 'son'. I folded it twice and pushed it back beneath the door. After a few seconds I heard her pick it up.

By the afternoon knives were stabbing at my stomach, and I was dying for a pee. I walked out and went straight into the bathroom, locking the door behind me. I couldn't hear her outside. I went to the kitchen, poured myself a huge glass of milk, grabbed a loaf of bread and went straight back to my room, leaving my door ajar. It was past four, nap time was over. Where was she?

I went out on to the street to see if any of the boys were there.

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