First published in 2015 by
INTERLINK BOOKS
An imprint of Interlink Publishing Group, Inc.
46 Crosby Street
Northampton, Massachusetts 01060
www.interlinkbooks.com
Arabic text copyright © Najwa Barakat, 1999, 2015
English translation copyright © Luke Leafgren, 2015
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Barakat, Najwá.
[Ya Salam. English]
Oh, Salaam! / by Najwa Barakat ; translated by Luke Leafgren. --
First American edition.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-56656-992-7
I. Leafgren, Luke, translator. II. Title.
PJ7816.A6745Y3313 2014
892.7’36--dc23
2014032559
Printed and bound in the United States of America
General Editor: Michel Moushabeck
Editing: John Fiscella
Proofreading: Jennifer Staltare
Cover design: Pam Fontes-May
Layout design: Leyla Moushabeck
Cover art: Meryl Natow
To request our complete 48-page full-color catalog, please call us toll free at 1-800-238-LINK, visit our website at www.interlinkbooks.com, or send us an e-mail: [email protected].
For all cities, like my own,
that have ever descended into madness.
Translator’s note: Salaam is the Arabic word for “peace.” The Arabic title, Yaa salaam, is both a way to address a woman by that name and a common phrase for expressing surprise, similar to “Oh, my goodness!”
CHAPTER 1
A cloud said, “Isn’t this the city that no longer resembles itself?”
Another replied, “What’s more, it’s nothing like any other.”
A third asked, “Is it true what they say about its people, that they never cry anymore?”
The teeming clouds jostled each other and crowded together, gazing down in amazement.
CHAPTER 2
The first light of dawn.
Luqman opened his eyes to the alarm clock. He didn’t need it. Every day, just to spite it, Luqman would wake before the alarm by a few seconds, precisely at the time he wanted, just to show that he, Luqman, didn’t need it.
Ever since Luqman had learned to make bombs, he had possessed an internal clock, razor sharp, that carved the flesh of sleep away from the bones of wakefulness precisely when he wanted. He took pride in it with his comrades. They would make bets with him, and he’d nail it. He always nailed it—times, locations, targets.
Truth be told, had Luqman been from any self-respecting country, he perhaps—no, he certainly—would have been made a general by now. Had the war continued, nourishing him with its blaze, his life wouldn’t have shriveled up and blown away like ashes scattered in the wind. One day, all of a sudden and just like that, they had severed his war like a rope. Luqman’s life tumbled backwards, head over heels, and landed in a heap. A coma, a paralysis of the brain—clearly Luqman’s life was afflicted by something or other.
Luqman played with his penis. Come on, Partner, get up! I promise you a day unlike any other. He put his finger underneath to give it a boost, and “Partner” lifted its wobbly head. Then it collapsed back onto Luqman’s belly and slept. It wasn’t in the mood today. Oh, well. Luqman wasn’t in the mood either. Maybe he would bring it to see Marina in the evening. Hadn’t she begged him to come dozens of times?
Marina…God! When he first saw her, he was struck by how white she was. So tall and so white in the midst of this summer, a summer overcast but scorching, sticky and dusty, stinking with noxious odors, and crowded with dirty people and deafening car horns. Marina was amazing in the summer. And in the winter?…He didn’t know. Cold and refreshing like a glass of soda, like a sweet scent with a touch of mint.
She had refreshed him at first sight. It was as though someone had stuck his head in a refrigerator and held it there, as though thousands of fans began dousing him with mild, autumnal breezes. Her legs bare, she danced like someone strolling along a secret tunnel carved through the disgusting heat of summer, slowly, leisurely, her dry skin never breaking a sweat. The swelter fell upon it and bounced away like a mirror reflecting light.
He had called her over to his table and opened a bottle in her honor. She didn’t smile, nor did she seem surprised; she had no reaction at all. Neutral, cold, gleaming—like snow.
The waiter said to him in Egyptian dialect, “First-rate Russian caviar! She arrived with last month’s shipment. Seventeen years old! I swear to God, Mr. Luqman, you deserve an entire night with her. What do you think?” Then he turned to Marina and said in English, as he folded the fifty-dollar bill into a small pocket inside his jacket, “Marina, you can stay wiz Mister Luqman all ze nite.”
Luqman hadn’t intended to engage her for the whole night, especially when he remembered that the fifty was the last bit of money he had. But there was something in the tone of the waiter, who knew Luqman back in the days when dollars flowed like sand through his fingers. And then, Luqman wanted to keep up appearances. Finally, Marina’s name reminded him of an old woman in his village who used to chase him as a boy with a bucket of water every time he came near her mangy cat. All this led him to give in and accept the waiter’s “…all ze nite.”
When Luqman stretched out over Marina, it was like sinking into a bed of lush grass, with the sun of his blood-swollen veins falling upon her sweet, glistening waters.
And when the slumber crept to his eyes, it was uncommonly peaceful. As he fell asleep, head gently nodding, he murmured, “Look here, comrades. See how I’ve taken a Communista!”
That’s what they used to call Russia in his village, the Communista. And that’s what Luqman started calling Marina, the gleaming white Russian girl.
--
Drenched in his own sweat, limbs splayed, Luqman got up reluctantly. He had to get up or the festival would pass him by. He didn’t want to miss a single detail, no matter how small. He would be in the front row so that nothing would block his view.
He put the coffee pot on the burner. Then he lit a cigarette, one of the few he had come across the previous night, and went off to the toilet. He lifted the seat cover, dropped his boxers, and sat down. What is it that turned the white of the sink and the bathtub to this disgusting gray, given that the water hadn’t worked for years?
“Peace returned, but the water never came back,” Luqman said to himself while carefully calculating what his bowels were pushing out, the amount of water he would need to flush it down, and how much was left in his plastic containers. He would ask the doorman to fill the bathtub with water from the broken water main below the stairs. No, he would do that himself when he came home. Doormen were no longer what they used to be, and neither was Luqman.
He leaned forward a bit, lifting his rear end so he could throw the cigarette butt through the hole in the seat. As soon as he settled back, two eyes, shining with their sharp blackness, came into view.
It was standing in the small window, frozen in place and alert but without embarrassment. It stared at Luqman and didn’t twitch a whisker, as though it weren’t afraid. As though it were never afraid.
Luqman