The Radiant City. Lauren B. Davis
animal. Saida uses a tissue to pick it up. The man would shit in his own bed, she thinks. Two doors down, she lets herself into the apartment where her father and her brother, Ramzi, live. This apartment is also two rooms, with the men sharing a bedroom. The main room is slightly smaller than hers and there is a table with four chairs. There is also a larger arm chair, bought second-hand for her father, covered in gold-and-blue damask, somewhat stained, and a round brass-topped table on which stands a silver tea set with a samovar that is not real silver. The tea set is the last remnant of life in Damour, of her mother’s good taste and of promises betrayed.
Saida boils the coffee and sets out bread, cheese and oranges. Elias, her father shuffles out of the bedroom, adjusting his dentures. They do not fit properly and they hurt him, she knows, but he is too proud to go without them. His hair sticks up at odd angles and his eyes have dark shadows under them.
Saida worries about her father, who has never found his way in this country, never healed—as though anyone could—from the loss of so many family members. His wife. His parents. His younger son, Khalil. His daughter-in-law, Farida. His son-in-law, Habib. His grandson, his namesake, Little Elias. He walks through the world now, his ear cocked to the cries of ghosts. Nor has he coped with the fall in status. No longer a civil engineer, respected, a landowner—but a café keeper, and less, the old man who sits by the door. She knows he misses the field, the oranges and the sun. She knows he misses being a man who understands his world. He is so often baffled now, sits gazing out the window.
He kisses her on both cheeks, pats her unscarred arm. “Good morning, Daughter.”
“Did you sleep?”
He raises his eyebrows and makes a tsk-tsk sound. “La. Two hours, maybe three.”
“So go back to bed, Father.”
“Give me coffee. I’ll be fine. An old man’s complaint. A lack of sleep is nothing in this world. Nothing.”
Saida pours the coffee, sweetens it and hands it to her father. He blows on it noisily and then sips. “Good. Your brother sleeps like a drunkard. Tanks could roll through the living room and he’d hear nothing.”
“Is he up?”
Elias makes a face.
“He’s going to miss the bread man.”
“Get him up.”
Saida goes to the door and opens it. “Yalla! Ramzi! Up!” Her brother lies on his back on one of the two narrow beds, long arms and legs dangling over the sides, his mouth open. She shakes him on the shoulder. Without waking, he reaches between his legs with both hands. Through the thin blanket Saida sees he has an erection and she feels blood come to her cheeks, bringing with it a flush of resentment. She slaps his arm. “Wake up! You’re late again.” His eyes spring open.
“What?”
“Get up, Ramzi. The bread man will come and you will not be there. What is he going to do? Leave the pita on the stones?”
“I’m not your son, Saida. Get Joseph up if you want to bully someone,” he says, but he sits up and scratches his head, a sure sign he’s moving in the right direction. “What time is it?”
“Seven-thirty.”
“Shit.” He scrambles out of bed. “I need a shower.”
“Yes, you do,” she says, wrinkling her nose as he pushes past her.
She goes back to the kitchen and pours more coffee for her father, puts food on a plate for him. “Do we have grapes?” says Elias.
“No grapes. Have an orange. I have to get Joseph up,” she says.
“Are you taking me to the café, or is Ramzi?”
“I’ll take you.”
“The sheets should be changed today.”
“I know, Father. You don’t have to always tell me,” she says as she leaves.
Back in her own apartment, Joseph has not yet stirred. She runs the back of her hand along his cheek. “Wake up. Come on. Wake up.” He moans and turns away from her. “No, no, you don’t. Up. You have to go to school.”
“No school today. Teachers are on strike,” he mumbles into the back of the sofa.
“You are a liar and a lazy boy,” she says, but her voice is not angry.
Joseph tries to hide a smile. “Donkey boy.”
“Yes, walid himar. Now get up or the donkey will bite your ass.”
“Oh, that’s terrible!” he laughs at the pun and rolls off the couch as his mother goes into the bedroom. “I have to dress and get down to the café. Make sure Ramzi meets the delivery. And listen to me, Joseph,” she calls to him as she pulls a navy blue dress from the closet, “I mean it. You go to school today. All day. And come to the café as soon as you’re finished. I want to see what the homework is.” She hears him in the bathroom. “Do you hear me?”
“I’ve got soccer after school.”
Saida knows this is not true. She wants it to be true, but she knows he does not go to soccer, although it is an excuse he uses often. There are never any soccer clothes to wash. Never a soccer ball in the house. As far as she knows he owns no soccer shoes though he says he keeps them at school.
She does not want to call his bluff and telephone the school. Although she would never say this to her son, she dislikes the teachers at his school almost as much as he does. The tone of voice they use, as if their mouths are full of sour pickles, makes it clear they hold no respect for her—just another Arab woman raising a child alone, and one who bears the taint of her hardscrabble life in the texture of her very skin. The headmistress, Madame Brossard, lumps her into the same stew with Algerians, Tunisians, Moroccans. How can she explain who she is to the Parisians, who never go into Barbès, let alone beyond the périphérique, into the housing projects where most of the immigrant population live? Her father once an engineer, her mother once a teacher just like them. Saida speaks three languages, how many do they speak? It’s no use, and she suspects it’s as little use for her son, who doubly condemns himself because he makes his friends among the beurs, those hard-eyed, slouching, baggy-clothed boys who try so hard to look like American rappers and who everyone assumes steal wallets on the subway whether they do or not. And her son does not. Of this she is sure.
She pulls her tights up under her dress. “I will call the school, Joseph; I will find out if you have soccer or not. Don’t make me do that.” He says something she can’t hear over the flushing of the toilet. “What?”
“Call if you want. I have soccer.”
“I will call. Don’t you think I won’t. And if I find out you are lying to me, I will tell your grandfather, I will tell your uncle. And you know what they will do. You’ll be locked in your room for a month.”
“I don’t have a room. Besides, I’m too old for all that. I make my own decisions.”
Saida wraps a scarf around her neck. She says nothing for a moment, letting him think about the consequences of his words. It’s natural he would push the limits. It’s his age.
“You can’t treat me like a child anymore,” Joseph says, standing in the doorway, his hand on his hips. Her beautiful son. Bold and brazen as he should be. Saida smiles at him, then narrows her eyes, purses her lips and shakes her head at him in a parody of his own expression until he laughs.
“Such a mean man you’ll grow up to be.”
“I’m almost grown now.” He shuffles back and forth, afraid to look foolish.
“Almost grown isn’t grown. Be at the café this afternoon. I need you to take your grandfather to the doctor. He has to have his blood pressure checked.” And Joseph sighs deeply so she will know how he suffers, but Saida understands she has won this round at least.
Oh, the men