Mother of All Pigs Read online

  “When I asked Muna if she has a boyfriend or if her family has plans for her to marry, do you know what she told me?” Laila picks at the food on the table and doesn’t wait for her mother-in-law’s reply. “She said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’”

  Last night Laila felt such a mixture of disapproval and jealousy that she was unable to continue the conversation. Going over it again this morning, she still finds it hard to believe and adds aloud as an afterthought, “Such confidence—freedom.” As soon as the words leave her lips she can tell she has said something wrong.

  “We’ve had too much of that around here. It’s contagious, don’t you think?”

  The malice in Fadhma’s voice is unmistakable. But Laila wasn’t referring to the unpleasant subject the two of them have been avoiding, although she admits to herself she has been bothered by it for quite a while.

  “You need to talk to Samira,” Laila states matter-of-factly. “After all, you are her mother.”

  “Yes, the mother is the first to be blamed.” The old lady makes a desultory motion with her hand under her chin as though slashing her own throat. “But I tell you now,” she adds testily, “I am not the only person at fault in this family.”

  Laila, expecting the worst, steels herself for a first-thing-in-the-morning fight. Instead her mother-in-law begins to openly despair, which strikes Laila as out of character, for Fadhma usually shows no emotion other than stubbornness.

  “I’ve begged Hussein to remind Samira of her duty—to counsel her. It is her reputation and ours at stake.” Straightaway Fadhma’s mood changes and her words come out as though forged in molten lead: “But his attention has been elsewhere.”

  Suddenly one of the English idioms Laila teaches in level two at school comes to mind: there is an animal in the room more unpredictable than an elephant—dirtier and smellier too. It is rampaging through their lives… However aren’t all their disagreements like this? Fadhma always tries to deflect any criticism. This morning Laila refuses to be dissuaded.

  “When I’ve questioned Samira she always has perfectly good excuses for going out,” Unperturbed, Fadhma sips her tea.

  “The new headmistress said she saw Samira in the capital,” Laila responds. “Imagine, the girl drops out of teacher training college, has nothing to do, and ends up among strangers when it’s so dangerous! Of course Mrs. Salwa only thought she recognized someone who looked like Samira.”

  The two women huddle together in strained silence. Laila doesn’t exactly remember when she began to suspect that Samira was acting carelessly. It hadn’t been during the big upheavals during the Arab Awakening; she and her teenage friends were too young to go to the demonstrations. But something’s turned toxic. Laila isn’t sure why that is—the political uncertainty all around them or the company Hussein’s half sister is keeping.

  Although Laila harbors many doubts about the society in which she lives, she meticulously stays within conventional boundaries, and she expects those she lives with to do the same. Samira, her husband’s unmarried half sister, is particularly vulnerable since relatively little is needed—perhaps only a rumor of a girl’s indiscretion—for the entire town to become inflamed and a family ostracized forever. In a culture where a woman’s virtue is paramount, any defense of it is a sign of its erosion. Better to avoid scrutiny. The women of the Sabas family have to protect one another because no one else will.

  Rising slowly from her seat, Mother Fadhma smirks triumphantly and says, “At least with our guest, my girl won’t be out by herself, will she?”

  The old woman draws the new robe around her like a protective shield. Its thick material will make her sweat like a pig. Forgetting herself, Laila almost laughs out loud. It is the English idioms about animals she finds useful inside and outside the classroom.

  Her thoughts are interrupted by seven-year-old Salem bounding into the kitchen. Relieved, the two women turn from each other. Laila takes her son’s perfectly formed face and squeezes it between her hands. She admits that despite everything she has cause to be thankful. Her eldest is a great source of comfort to her, and seeing him fresh and alert immediately improves her mood. He was born exactly nine months after her marriage, and with Hussein still living full-time in the army, her firstborn became the love of her life.

  In the doorway, a second, smaller boy waits quietly. Dark like his father, Mansoor also inherited his father’s disposition and tends to be reserved and moody. Sometimes the most trivial things overwhelm him and his asthma flairs. Laila instantly notices his furrowed brow. He finds it hard keeping up with a brother who, though a year older, is much more self-assured.

  She beckons to her second son, calling softly, “Habibi, darling, come here,” and pats him on the back as he climbs onto the chair beside hers.

  Both children still in their pajamas have washed their faces. Salem stuffs bread and yogurt into his mouth, while Mansoor begs Laila to feed him.

  “You’re a big boy now,” Salem sneers.

  “Am not…” Mansoor’s voice trails off into wheezing.

  Laila, shushing him, cuts up a boiled egg with a spoon and slips it into an unreceptive mouth. Before the taunts start again she warns, “Your new aunt is sleeping!”

  The boys lower their voices. Her sons like their visitor. They tore open the gifts she delivered from their overseas relatives and were impressed to meet a real live American, like Abby on CSI. Moments later Salem forgets his mother’s warning and waves a fork under his brother’s nose. The squabbling brings Fadhma immediately to the table. She envelops Mansoor in her arms while at the same time cajoling Salem until both brothers promise to behave themselves. As they bask in her affection, Laila momentarily reflects on why her children never share their troubles with her. She suspects they are closer to Fadhma because she panders to them. The feeling they have for their mother—which Laila actively cultivates—is respect, fashioned more from fear than love.

  “See the trouble you’re causing your jadda!” she tells her sons. She doesn’t care if the boys torment their grandmother. However, some display of formal courtesy, no matter how empty, is necessary.

  “I am not worthy, Umm Salem,” Fadhma answers. Her simple statement is a two-pronged assault in the understated conflict between them. She knows that Laila finds false humility irritating, and by calling her “Mother of Salem,” she effectively reduces her daughter-in-law from a person to a function.

  Laila imperiously looks through Fadhma to the repurposed five-gallon clarified butter tin waiting on the sideboard near the sink. Filled with the last of the precious washing water for dishes, it has been standing there for the past three weeks. “That truck better come today,” she complains, disgusted at the chaos all around her. It doesn’t have to be like this.

  Last week the boys didn’t require such supervision; they ate quickly, dressed, and went outside to play with their friends before the walk to school with their mother. Now the two of them bicker and play with their food. Laila has also noticed that when it is time to leave they become unusually quiet. She wonders if she hadn’t spied on them would she have been able to determine the cause of their unhappiness.

  After Muna’s arrival yesterday evening, Laila was in the kitchen when she heard Mansoor’s whine from the back terrace: “Those boys don’t like me anymore.” Instead of going and asking what was the matter, she hid behind the thick curtains over the terrace door.

  Salem put down a shiny new toy gun, a gift from one of his American aunts, and said, “So what? They told me they hate me too.”

  As Laila watched, she knew her younger son would not be able to understand how anyone could feel anything other than admiration for his older brother.

  “What?” Mansoor asked incredulously.

  Salem, wiser than his years, took a tissue from a box among the cushions, wiped his brother’s nose, and gently placed his arm around the six-year-old’s shoulders. Laila’s sorrow at that moment was outweighed only by the rage she still feels toward her husband
.

  She suddenly rises from the table. “Hurry up!” she orders the boys, and leaves the kitchen. Her steps soften once she opens her bedroom door. Behind it, in a wooden crib, sleeps Fuad, the youngest of her three sons. She pushes a damp curl from his forehead. The toddler, not yet two, spent most of the previous night awake with a sour stomach; he had gotten too excited at the family dinner for Muna. Laila gets ready. She glances at the sleeping child one last time before pulling the door behind her.

  The hallway is deathly quiet. Samira’s bedroom door is also closed, its occupants still asleep. Laila can just about make out someone moving around the living room—Fadhma, no doubt, complaining to that dead husband of hers. She finds the boys in their bedroom, waiting silently, prepared for school. Salem and Mansoor stare up at her.

  “Yalla,” she whispers, “let’s go.”

  3

  At the butcher shop, Hussein is scrupulous when it comes to the storing of meat. He keeps two refrigerators, one for meat that is permitted and another, much larger, to accommodate forbidden flesh. They are not labeled halal and haram. While he observes no particular dietary restrictions because of religion, he wants to act responsibly—even if he is the only one conscious of the precautions. The halal box is almost empty except for a few pieces of offal. He sells all the freshly slaughtered mutton and goat from the hooks displayed in the window. The other box is filled to capacity, ready for the weekend. He will bring even more ham and sausages under the cover of darkness later tonight, but by the close of business on Sunday, every bit will be gone.

  The premises of the dingy butcher shop are washed down daily, water permitting, but the drains are often clogged with fatty grease and give off an unpleasantly pervasive, putrid smell. Hussein lights the gas burner and puts a pan of water on to boil. He can hear his assistant, Khaled, at work in the back. The boy mutters a prayer. This is followed by a frantic scrabbling of hooves against the tile floor, then a spattering that dissolves into a barely audible gurgle as the blood, rich and soupy, drains into an old galvanized bucket. Several muffled thumps—the head and hooves being removed—then a sound like an old oily carpet being torn in half as Khaled peels off the skin. With a liquid slap the entrails pour out, silken and milky. Hussein pictures his assistant rummaging through the pile, like a sorcerer searching for auguries, and picking out the delicacies: the liver, kidneys, and small intestine. The boy inflates the lungs with a series of quick, hard breaths, the time-honored way of testing an animal’s health. He returns to the front of the shop, lays the sheep’s cadaver on the long wooden counter, and, wiping his bloody fingers on his grimy apron, grins stupidly at his boss.

  Hussein ignores him and takes a cleaver from the extensive array of well-used hardware that hangs on the wall. There is something deeply satisfying about dismembering a carcass, something irrevocably final about each bone-crushing blow. With each swing of the cleaver Hussein feels his mood improving. Bam! This shows the young delinquent the error of his taillight-smashing ways. Whack! That is for the water truck. Crack! Laila. The next crunch is going to be for Samira and all the trouble she’s been causing them, but at the last moment Hussein changes his mind and once again delivers it as his personal contribution to the struggle against juvenile crime. He works methodically, separating leg from loin, shank from breast, rib from shoulder, venting his frustrations with every stroke.

  From his handiwork, he selects two handsome joints and hangs them in the window. Already flies are beginning to gather over the piles of meat, which ooze fat, soft as jelly, onto the counter. The bell over the screen door suddenly rings, announcing the first customer of the day. Hussein forces a welcoming smile.

  “Mrs. Habash, good to see you. What will it be today? We have delicious lamb.”

  The mayor’s wife is one of the town’s most prominent citizens. She married her cousin and belongs to an ancient tribe, which, like the Sabas lineage, traces its ancestry back to a fortress settlement in the country’s south. Over a hundred years ago their families, and other Christians, were forced to flee northward—the result of a misunderstanding that turned into a sectarian conflict. Eventually they came to a Byzantine city destroyed by earthquakes and established a village that grew into a town. This historic connection is useful to Hussein. It makes it easier to stop by the mayor’s office every couple of weeks with what he calls “a little bite” that is bigger than the crumbs the mayor usually receives. Hussein considers the expense of these friendly consultations another indispensable operating cost. Why should he and his uncle Abu Za’atar be the only ones with their noses in the trough? It is only fair, and no one asks him to do it, but it doesn’t make dealing with the mayor’s wife any easier.

  Mrs. Habash dismisses his offer. “I was thinking Issa would like chicken for lunch. You don’t have one in the back, do you?”

  Hussein began keeping a few birds in a small coop in the yard after Mrs. Habash told him that she didn’t like going to the market. She feels it’s beneath her dignity to bargain like a falah, a peasant. She prefers to come to Hussein instead and is prepared to pay for the privilege. He calls out, “Khaled, jajeh!” and the boy appears clutching a robust, speckled fowl in his arms.

  Hussein is puzzled. Khaled is fond of this particular bird. It is the pick of the flock and the boy gives it special treatment and feeds it extra food. But he can’t say anything in front of Mrs. Habash, so he takes the plump chicken and turns it around for her benefit. She nods in approval. Hussein hands the bird back to Khaled and tells him to prepare it. He urges the boy to hurry—“Assre’!”—more for his sake than for the customer, whom he regards as intrusive. She has probably ordered chicken only so she can gossip while it’s being plucked.

  “How’s the family?” She inspects the meat on the counter. “I hear your niece has arrived. I hope she’s not like one of those Arab hip-hoppers.”

  “Not at all. Muna is a well-mannered young woman,” he replies, although from what he remembers from last night, he cannot be sure.

  “I look forward to meeting her. I would be happy to show her the mosaics after service on Sunday.”

  “I’m sure she will enjoy that.” He can already anticipate what’s coming next.

  “Perhaps you will join us?”

  Long ago Hussein abandoned whatever religious convictions he held. Experience made it impossible for him to carry on believing. Nevertheless, in the past he went to church for the sake of form. As his drinking, disillusionment, and shame increased, he gradually stopped going. Those had been his reasons. His wife insists on attending for the children’s sake, even though it has become difficult. Sometimes people whisper and stare.

  Hussein doesn’t want to offend such an important customer. He usually compliments Mrs. Habash’s good taste and even agrees with her when he thinks her opinions are ill judged. His uncle stupidly recommends this as sound business practice.

  Hussein instead opts for evasiveness: “Sundays are my busiest days, Mrs. Habash.” It was hard to miss the cars that blocked the main street during the weekend. “All of my customers are Christians anyway. And when I can, I take a moment alone to…” He can’t bring himself to lie outright, so he swallows the word “pray.”

  “That’s all well and good,” she sighs, “but commerce is no substitute for worship. Religion anchors our way of life.”

  At any moment she is going to remind him that their town was mentioned in the Bible. The Byzantine ruins their families settled on had been an ancient Moabite town where Musa walked and Isaiah prophesized. Like the writing on the side of the tour buses said, VISIT THE LAND OF THE PROPHETS. His father would not have agreed more.

  Hussein throws up his hands and wearily concedes, “Can’t argue with that.”

  Ignoring him, Mrs. Habash presses on: “I was just telling Issa this morning, even a woman of my considerable years feels the strain whenever I’m near the Eastern Quarter. Mark my words, in a year’s time all us ladies will be wearing hijabs.”

  Hussein knows how he
is expected to react, but his customers from the Eastern Quarter have been thoroughly decent to him. His van may have been assaulted outside the mosque, but he cannot bring himself to hold a grudge against a religion and all who follow it. His eighteen years in the army taught him to be extremely wary of organized bigotry, and even his two-year special assignment didn’t dissuade him.

  Hypocrisy, he reminds himself, is not the exclusive preserve of the pampered and protected who rarely venture beyond family and home. He encountered it in his commanding officers and the secret police, men far more devious than Mrs. Habash. Yet he finds her attitude disquieting. When the numbers of Syrian refugees were low and they were housed with relatives and sympathetic friends in the country, she talked about the importance of solidarity and initiated a few desultory charitable collections. The homeless and bereft who wandered through were nothing more than annoying nuisances, to be pitied rather than feared. Once hundreds of thousands fled over the border and the Eastern Quarter filled with refugees and other migrants, the town’s demographics started changing and Christians, historically the majority, were being outnumbered. Those with the most to lose—people like Mrs. Habash—responded by locking their gates, building their walls higher, and closing their minds.

  “Laila hasn’t mentioned any trouble to me,” he admits slowly.

  “She will,” intones the mayor’s wife, before complaining, “I just don’t know when the country will return to normal and our town will belong to us.”

  Hussein finds Mrs. Habash’s memory highly selective. The town has never been theirs. When their grandfathers and their uncles and fathers—then small boys—first settled, they fought side by side against local nomads over a watering hole. Go back a few generations and someone somewhere is always fleeing or seeking sanctuary with strangers. The entire region has a long history of forced migration. The Syrians are not the first refugees, nor will they be the last.