White Masks Read Online Free Page A

out anything. So I went out on the balcony - but all I could see from there was that the lights inside the room were switched off. What to do? I said my prayers, asked God to give him guidance, and went to bed in the other room - Ahmad’s, I mean - but it still had his smell and I couldn’t fall asleep there, so I went to the living room and slept on the sofa.
    The next morning he came out to go to the bathroom. I went into the bedroom, cleaned and tidied it, and when he came back, he asked me for a bottle of water, and told me to leave. You must be hungry, I said, and told him I would make him a bowl of foul.
    He just shook his head to say no. I went and fetched him a bottle of water
and when I came back he was in bed. I asked him if he felt ill, whether he needed me to call the doctor, but all he did was shake his head and motion with his hand that I should leave the room. Then I heard the key turning in the lock behind me. It went on like this for about five days, with Khalil spending all day - and night - in bed, neither eating nor sleeping, and only coming out of the room to use the toilet. I was beside myself with worry, and though I tried to be helpful, I just didn’t know what to do. I’d stand outside the bedroom door for hours pleading with him to open up and have something to eat.
    Then, one day, he opened the door. It was dusk, almost dark but not quite, and there he stood wearing the same pajamas he’d had on for five days. “Alright,” he said, “I’ll eat.” I went straight to the kitchen and got him a plate of rice and spinach stew, a loaf of bread, and a raw onion.
    He gestured that I should leave the food at the door. I did as he asked, and went back to the living room, and there I slept soundly for the first time in days. I said to myself that if he was eating, the worst of the crisis was over.
    In the morning, when he went to the bathroom, I discovered that he had eaten only the bread and had left the rice and spinach, and the onion. I removed the plate, took in some fresh bread and some cheese, and left again. When he returned to the room, he locked the door as usual. I felt completely lost . . . and I had no one to turn to . . . I was afraid of a scandal, and of him too. Abu Ahmad would surely get angry if I told anyone, and his condition would worsen, so I didn’t tell anybody except our neighbor, Imm ’Imad al-Kaadi. She’s an older woman, she’s someone really special, and I was sure she’d keep my secret. So I went to see her. When I got
to her house, there she was sitting alone in the living room wearing her white headwrap with little wisps of gray hair escaping from underneath. She looked really concerned when I told her about Abu Ahmad. She sidled up to me on the sofa and dropped her voice.
    â€œListen, dear,” she said, “these things happen. Exactly the same thing happened to Hajj Abu ’Imad, God rest his soul and the soul of your departed. How old is your husband?” I told her he was about fifty.
    â€œThat’s what it is, dear,” she went on. “It’s the difficult age. May the Lord spare your husband, dear child. That’s exactly what happened to Abu ’Imad. He was forty-seven and one morning, all of a sudden, he woke up and wouldn’t get out of bed, he said he wasn’t going to work. He stayed in bed for two weeks. He didn’t lock the bedroom door, we could go in and see him, but he hardly spoke or ate. Then, God be praised, one day he got up. As far as I can see, my dear, your husband’s case is very similar to mine. It’s a difficult age, you know, men feel they’re past it, that life has passed them by and that old age is around the corner. They feel they’re no longer men, you understand what I’m saying, don’t you? But it’s just a phase, a short phase, and it’ll pass, inshallah, with the help of God. My dear, you should be thankful. Other men .