Dates on My Fingers: An Iraqi Novel (Modern Arabic Literature) by Muhsin al-Ramli Read Free Book Online

a box of Middle Eastern sweets as a gift. He was very happy with it.
    Two days after the meeting about the trash can, one of the women stopped me on the stairs and said in a threatening tone, “This won’t do. You have to pay. We are in Spain, not in your country. There are laws here.”
    What could I say to this? Would she even understand if I told her that the first law in the world had been decreed byan Iraqi, Hammurabi, in his stele? Her tone, her words, the twitching of her jaw, and the hairs coming out of her nose all provoked me.
    “Fine,” I replied. “If you have a right over me in anything, make a formal complaint, and obtain your rights according to this law that you are talking about.”
    She was silent for a little while. Then she burst into imploring tears. “I’m a widow who’s all alone, and my pension is small. My dog died two months ago, and no one came to comfort me. I’m heartbroken over him, and I cry more than I cried for my husband. Sonny—my dog—was a good dog. Whenever I came in, he would wag his tail and welcome me joyfully. He would go with me for my daily walk around the park. He was—”
    I interrupted her when I realized that she was prepared to spend the entire day talking about the virtues of her dead dog. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I’m in a hurry and am waiting for a phone call.”
    The flow of her tears stopped, and she said in a different tone altogether, “So will you contribute to the payment?”
    “No,” I said. “Excuse me, goodbye.”
    Then I turned and went up the stairs without looking back. Behind me, I heard her muttering words that were certainly insults because she slammed her door afterward. What could I say to this old woman, who was older than my mother by perhaps twenty years, and nevertheless looked healthier than her and hadn’t stopped putting on makeup? How could I make her understand the deaths of my brothers, my cousins, Grandfather, and my beloved Aliya, not to mention the castration of my father and the wars, while she was shedding tears over a dog?
    After that, all of them started keeping their distance with the exception of my friend, the Cuban. But I kept taking theinitiative to greet them whenever I ran into them on the stairs, in the lobby, or at the bread and fruit shop across from our building. Some of them didn’t return the greeting at first, but as time went on, they became content to exchange pleasantries and leave me alone, not inviting me to any further meetings.
    I was more comfortable with this isolation: it’s what I wanted. I would enter my apartment, my world, where I lived among my books, my kitchen, my music, and my efforts to improve my Spanish. I would cut out any picture about Iraq that I found in the newspapers. For a period of ten years I hung these up in the apartment, until in the end they crowded the walls of my bedroom, the living room, the hallway, and the kitchen. It was unfortunate that the newspapers would only publish tragic photos of Iraq, such as destroyed buildings, burned-out tanks, flies in the busy markets, and pictures of the dictator’s image in the streets and courtyards and on building façades. For that reason, I did my best to select the least grim of them. I hung them everywhere except the spot where I prayed, behind the living room door. They were all black and white apart from two color postcards, one from Tunis with palm trees, and the other sent to me by my friend from Iran, with minarets and golden domes in the style of the holy city of Karbala. I also had the colorful cover of a Spanish newspaper, which had been designed by computer: a map of Iraq that had fighter jets pointing their tips at it.
    I was content in this world of mine where I lived out my first identity, my nostalgia, and my longing for my mother’s embraces, for my siblings, for a visit to Aliya’s grave, for swimming in the Tigris River, for my friends, for our cows, donkeys, chickens, and for the mountain. I yearned for news