Free Mothballs by Alia Mamadouh

looked at them; he liked them empty but wanted them full. He whispered to the arak and joked with it; it waited for him and he waited for it.
    Across the table, the father waited for lines of caresses. The policeman’s despotism relaxed, and his official clothes came off. He traded his boots for the bare floor, and his bare toes trod upon it. Here he encountered disorder. He was out of prison, and did not harbour anything but love. He acted lovingly toward you each in turn, starting with Adil, calling him and joking with him. He hugged and kissed him, lifted him up in the air and buried him in his chest, then put him down. He put him on his lap, and they looked at one another. He started to read him a book, spelled out the words, and helped him with the arithmetic. He pinched his cheek, saying, “I can never get enough of you.”
    Abu Adil leaned his chair against the wall, spread his legs, drank and drank, nibbled one end of a cucumber. He drooped sleeping on Adil’s plump legs.
    â€œGod bless you, Adouli, rub my head. My head always aches when Icome here and when I go to Karbala. I feel as if there is a voice calling me. Every day I hear the voice, and every day the voice changes. It sounds like a voice I’ve heard before. I know it from afar and it frightens me. Adouli, everything tires me out – even sleeping makes me tired. Ah, that’s where it aches, there, behind my ear. Dear God, you know when I hit your sister, I cry later in the train. In prison I remember your tears and her tears when I hear the prisoners screaming and crying. You know, Adouli, sometimes I think you should come to see me, there, in the prison, so you can see how I live. Dirt and black death, flies and lice. Locusts and rats are my only friends there.
    â€œAh. Every time I want to drink until I’m drunk, but every time wake up more sober than before. Your grandmother says arak is a sin. Yes, there’s a lot of sin in this world, but if she tasted arak just once she’d get used to it like me. Don’t be afraid of me, Adouli. I don’t frighten anyone. I’m always afraid, but I don’t want you to be afraid of anyone. Even God Almighty himself doesn’t want just our fear. Adouli? Is it true, that I’m not frightening? Tell the truth. Don’t be afraid.”
    He got up and leaned against the wall. Adil was silent, rubbing his fingers together and then raising them to his mouth. He chewed his nails and swallowed them. “Have you had supper?” He nodded yes.
    â€œGo finish your homework. Come here and let me kiss you.”
    The call to evening prayer dispersed the voices, and you were consumed by weeping. You cried alone, and your tears made you laugh. The stars were unruly, and this whole horizon was a lie.
    The floor was stained, warped, and uneven. When it rained, the rainwater seeped into the cracks, holes, and hollows in the roof of your room. You put out the buckets and heard the water plopping down.
    This frayed laundry rope, that scattered and chaotic room, dusty and deserted, the door scorched, and everything in it old: pillows, blankets, broken chairs, boxes broken apart, copper and silver utensils, spoons and dishes. This was your grandmother’s first dowry. She was in love with anything old; every year she came up here, spread out the contents, and began to clean, rub, and polish them. My mother was with her. We all came up here to see our grandmother’s secrets; everyone in the family had a share of this heritage.
    Open the boxes and look. Objects that have never been insulted, never been whipped with a lash. They are united in their dust, sleeping where they lie. They are rusty and faded, yet they cling to their silence and passion. They began to address me, to talk to me, and I asked them to confess. They are more beautiful than the others: my father, his sister, Rasmiya’s husband, and Uncle Munir.
    Things had this tremendous quality, of becoming