The President's Gardens by Muhsin al-Ramli

Author:Muhsin al-Ramli [Al-Ramli, Muhsin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC000000 Fiction / General
Publisher: Quercus

CHAPTER 14

A Childhood Preserved in a Military Chest

Abdullah didn’t interrupt Zaynab with a single word. She had expected he would have questions, but he didn’t, and his silence was as heavy upon her as the weight of her years. She felt this silence and listened to him drawing and exhaling the smoke of his never-ending cigarettes. Having grown accustomed to calculating the time internally, or else by sensing the light, she knew the sun had either set behind the mountain or was just about to. Her intuition was confirmed by the sound of Abu Muhammad’s car horn from the bottom of the hill or possibly halfway up the slope.

Before Zaynab got up, she asked Abdullah again whether he had any questions. Did he want her to show him the cellar and give him the box of his things, including the rooster cap? Did he want her to stand beside him and declare to everyone the truth of his lineage, while she in turn would set aside for him his share of the inheritance?

But Abdullah didn’t say a word. In silence, he helped her up. As she heard the crunch of dried vegetation under their feet, she told him, “I used to come here to tend the flowering shrubs I planted on her grave, but I stopped when I lost my sight.”

He supported her arm with one hand as he handed her the cane with the other. The two of them descended with slow, cautious steps as Abdullah matched his stride to hers. When they got down to the car, he helped her in and sat next to Abu Muhammad in the front seat, not next to Zaynab as before.

After the car set off, Zaynab tried again to break the silence, asking Abu Muhammad about the health of one of his children. Abu Muhammad kept up the conversation with her, describing the harvest that year, mentioning the imminent marriage of his eldest daughter, and going on to recount how one of his cows had broken its tether in the night and eaten so much from the stores of barley that it made itself ill. When they took it to the vet, he told them to give it Pepsi to drink. So they bought an entire case of Pepsi bottles, which they poured into a bucket and forced the cow to drink by plunging its nose in the bucket. The cow had begun mooing out long, gassy burps, which caused the children and the neighbors to collapse in laughter. The two of them laughed as well, while Abdullah’s face remained serious, as though he hadn’t heard a thing.

Zaynab and Abu Muhammad kept talking and laughing until they entered the village. Abu Muhammad asked whether he should take them both to Hajja Zaynab’s house, where he had picked them up, or whether he should take each to their own house. Zaynab asked Abdullah if he would accept her invitation to dinner. “No, thank you,” he said. Her tone hinted at something more, asking

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