Free The Corpse Washer (The Margellos World Republic of Letters) by Sinan Antoon Page B

minarets. It had become a tradition to issue these calls during air raids.
    I got out of bed and went downstairs. The door to the guest room was ajar, letting a bit of the candlelight into the hallway. I stood outside the room and saw him kneeling, his forehead down on the
turba.
1 He liked to pray in the dark. When my mother once asked him why, he said that God’s light was everywhere. I was thirsty so I went to the kitchen and drank some water out of the faucet. I likedto use the palm of my hand instead of a glass. I went back to the hallway and stood at the door of the guest room.
    He was still there, kneeling, but I couldn’t hear him whispering anything. He hated it when anyone interrupted his prayers. If my mother called him, he would raise his voice as he prayed to signal to her to go away and wait for him to finish. I called out his name in a hushed voice, but heard nothing. I went inside the room. I took two steps and said: “Mother is worried about you.” He remained motionless.
Could he have fallen asleep in that position?
I approached and gently put my hand on his back, asking him if he was all right—but he didn’t move.
    I turned around to switch on the light near the door, but it didn’t come on. Then I remembered that there was no electricity. I went to the hallway and brought the candle that was sitting on a plate near the edge of the stairs. I put the candle on the table and knelt next to him. I put both hands on his shoulder and called out, “What’s wrong, Father?” I tried to lift him up, but he was stiff. Then his body leaned to the left and settled on its side. His eyes were shut. I rushed back to the kitchen and brought a bottle of cold water from the fridge. I sprinkled a few drops on his face to wake him up, but nothing happened. I placed my ear to his chest. His heart was still.
    I heard my mother’s footsteps rushing down the stairs. She yelled: “Where is Hajji?” She had a candle in her hand. She stood frozen at the door when she saw me on my knees next to him. I was calling out to him, but he was in that eternal prostration, like a fetus crouched in his mother’s womb. The candle fell from her hand and she started to strike herself and scream “Oh God.” She realized that his weak heart had given out after such a long journey and that he would never wake up again. She fell on her knees next to him, wailing. She took his face in her hands calling out to him as if he could still hear her. Then she started to kiss his forehead and hands, repeating “Please don’t go, Hajji! Don’t leave me alone. Please don’t go, Hajji. Ohhh, God.”
    I was sad and overwhelmed by the realization that I didn’t really know my father very well. I had always lied when asked about hisprofession, claiming that he ran a store. Was I ashamed or embarrassed? My mother kept repeating after his death that God loved him so much that he took him away while he was drawing close to him in prayer. He had undertaken the pilgrimage to Mecca three years earlier to make sure he would be with his son Ammoury in paradise. He wanted to be buried next to him in Najaf.
    When I had informed him of my decision to go on studying art and that I did not want to follow him in his profession, he said, “Who will wash me then?” My mother insisted that I should be the one to wash his body. She thought it would provide the reconciliation that should have taken place when he was still alive.
    “His soul will be in peace if you wash him,” she said. “Please do it. For God’s sake and mine.”
    But I refused adamantly to do so. How could I tell her that I wasn’t totally convinced that there was such a thing as a soul? I had feelings of guilt because I had let him down by abandoning our ancestors’ profession and had failed in my own endeavors. His assistant Hammoudy washed him. Hammoudy was like his third son and cried like a child the next morning when I told him of Father’s death.
    After obtaining the death