Free Eighteen Days of Spring in Winter by Saeida Rouass Page A

usual cries and noise you hear in our neighbourhood, those you know. All of us could tell the difference. My father went to the front door and listened for a while through the peephole. There was no other sound than the howl of pain. He opened the door slowly and instantly the wail got louder. It was in the staircase. My father stepped out to follow thesound. I jumped to join him, but my mother grabbed my arm to stop me. I pulled away from her. It happened so fast, I didn’t realise I had done it until I was at the door. She didn’t try to stop me again. Salem was watching from his seated position, paying attention to what was happening in his usual silent way. I followed my father into the staircase and we peered over. I could sense the other neighbours behind their front doors, listening through their peepholes too. No one opening the door, saying to each other ‘It’s OK, Dr Ahmad is seeing to it.’
    Down at the bottom Mustafa was rolling around on the floor, his clothes wet, holding his head, wailing. There was blood on his hand. My father rushed down to him on seeing the blood. He blocked my path midway. ‘You’ve come far enough,’ he told me.
    I stopped there as my father knelt down over Mustafa. He softly removed Mustafa’s hand away from his head to look at the wound. It was only now the neighbours started leaving their apartments, some rushed to help and eventually they prepared to carry Mustafa upstairs.
    Before they lifted him my father called for my mother. She also came rushing down. Kneeling on the opposite side of Mustafa, my father handed her a towel that was handed to him a moment ago. She took it and needing no instruction folded it efficiently and placed it over the wound with the right amount of pressure. With her other hand she stroked Mustafa’s hair and standing up with the others, she made herself small as they carried him to our apartment. I leant against the wall as they passed me, my mother completely ignoring me. It said enough.
    The neighbours hung around for a while offering my parents towels, cotton wool and thanks. One even offered my father a needle and thread. He laughed of course, ‘What, you think we are in a movie?’ My father loves his rhetorical questions. ‘That won’t be necessary, thank you,’ he said, closing the door to the offers and spectators dressed as Good Samaritans.
    The wound was deep, but thankfully didn’t require stitches. They cleaned and bandaged Mustafa up. They talked about concussion, gave him a cup of hot sweet tea and laid him on the sofa until he began to slowly say what happened.
    â€˜I was pushing my stall out from under the stairs to take onto the street. You know I have no fruit or vegetables left to sell. But, I thought “Let me wash the stall before curfew.” I like to keep it clean. You know the dust in this city. If I don’t keep it clean the customers won’t buy. If they see it is filthy, my fruit rots. And besides, my cousin said he will bring me some apples tomorrow … inshallah .’
    â€˜Get on with it,’ my father snaps, wondering like the rest of us when this man will say what happened instead of going over every detail like he was reporting to a Chief Constable. Did we really need to know about the apples and the cousin?
    â€˜Anyway, so I was washing it and these thugs, I don’t know them, they didn’t tell me their name, I didn’t ask. They came and threw the bucket of water over me and started shaking my stall and laughing. Now I may be old, but I’m not a coward. I started pulling them away from it, fighting them but they were three. One smashes the bucket over my head and the next thing I remember is waking up at the bottom of the stairs. Did no one hear the shouting?’ he asked, looking around him, wondering where all the neighbours had gone.
    My father stood up. ‘What is the use of a neighbourhood watch if no one is