The Bamboo Stalk Read Online Free PDF Page B

Mama,’ I said, pulling a face in disgust.
    â€˜Yes, the smell of guts is really nasty, but the smell of fish on Rashid’s clothes . . .’
    She left her sentence unfinished, closed her eyes and took a deep breath until her chest expanded. ‘I miss him so much,’ she sighed.
    Aunt Aida pointed to the kitchen door and said, ‘In the upper section of the fridge, José, there are ten galunggong fish. Bring two of them.’ Aida stuck a finger up each nostril, then continued in a hushed voice. ‘Let’s put them up your mother’s nose!’ she said.
    My mother ignored her and went on talking about herselfand my father when they were together.
    My father stayed away from his mother’s house while my mother was pregnant. He was stubborn, she said, or pretended not to care, while inside he badly missed the old lady. I was sure he felt remorse, even if he didn’t show it. He didn’t visit her at all during that period, maybe because he was embarrassed. He did try to contact her but his sisters told him she didn’t want to hear his voice and so none of them made any attempt to get in touch with him.
    My father was sure that as soon as I came into the world his mother’s attitude would change. He thought she would take me into her arms as soon as she saw him carrying me, as soon as she realised she had now become a grandmother. He had taken a decision to call me Isa after his father if I was a boy, or Ghanima after his mother if I was a girl.
    My mother had no regrets about anything in her life, including marrying my father and getting pregnant with me. She believed and still believes in her own private philosophy: ‘Everything happens for a reason and for a purpose.’ The couple lived in isolation until I was born – the moment my father had been counting on. In the maternity hospital on 3 April 1988, the doctor gave my father the news that I had arrived. ‘Your wife has given birth to a baby boy, and they’re both in good health,’ the doctor said.
    My father picked me up in his arms and took a long look at my face. ‘Maybe he was looking for just one thing that you two had in common,’ my mother said. For sure, what he saw was a face with elements taken from other faces, but not from his own. My features were a mixture of my mother’s, Aunt Aida’s and my grandfather’s.
    As soon as we three – my father and mother and I – were out of hospital, my father drove to his mother’s house. When wearrived my father asked my mother to stay where she was in the car, because his mother might not be able to handle the sight of her just then, whereas her grandson, me that is, might make it possible for her to accept my mother as time passed. My mother waited in the car while my father carried me in to his mother.
    My father tried to open the front door but his mother had changed the locks so that he couldn’t come in if he ever thought of coming back. When he rang the bell a new Indian maid opened the door. He spoke with her a while, then pushed the door to go in and disappeared out of sight of my mother. A few minutes later my mother saw a car drive up to my grandmother’s house. She lay low in her seat so that no one would see her. The car stopped at the kerb outside the house and four women got out. One of them rang the bell and the servant opened the door. It didn’t take long. As soon as they disappeared behind the door, the garage door at the side of the house opened and my father appeared, carrying me in his arms and heading for the car in silence.
    â€˜Your father changed after he visited the old lady’s house,’ my mother said with a sad look. ‘He didn’t speak much and he was always thinking about something. He spent more time reading and writing. I tried to persuade him to go out boating several times but he always refused. He said Ghassan and Walid were busy getting ready for a trip