The day began like any other. The warm smell of fresh bread drifted through the kitchen. Soumaya was preparing breakfast as usual. He remained motionless for a moment, his eyes gently closed, gathering his strength for yet another day as he mouthed a silent prayer. It was difficult to give thanks for a hopeless life, he thought, but it was a life nonetheless, one that he was obliged to continue, so he resigned himself to another morning.
‘Hajj!’ Soumaya yelled over the spluttering sound of eggs in the frying pan. ‘Are you up yet?’
He was like a grandfather clock, old but still incredibly punctual. There were certain moments when she could almost glimpse the father she used to know instead of only the fading pieces of a man she had loved and idolised. The person who took his place, this broken, helpless creature in the other room, was a stranger to her and she to him. His face was unrecognisable, his beautiful features buried under that haggard exterior. In difficult times when she found she could no longer cope, she closed her eyes, forcing herself to see that familiar dimpled chin. As a child she used to trace the way his lips curved into a smile with her tiny finger. But his eyes! She no longer recognised his eyes. He didn’t even see her: he simply looked past her with that vacant stare. Now his sole preoccupation was that school of his across the street where he had taught so many years ago. The bedroom window was his portal into that lost world. With glazed eyes he stared out for hours, and Soumaya knew that little could be done to reach him.
She stirred the scrambled eggs in the pan, cursing as the oil splattered onto the kitchen floor.
He lifted his head slowly off the warm pillow. Steadily, and with the same calculated precision he employed every morning, he reached for the cane propped up against the side table and walked over to the corner basin near the large window. He breathed in gusts of refreshing lavender. The school gardener had been planting lavender for years. In fact, very little had changed. The moss that blanketed the walls grew in irregular patches, the same cats crawled into the same holes along the hedges, and the graffiti, scrawled messily in white chalk, still covered the same pavement. And now the same bell rang once again, signalling recess.
It was a deep jingling sound that seemed to echo against the very walls of his room. Soon it was followed by laughter that beckoned him closer to the window. He looked out, lost in reminiscences of his past life.
‘Hajj! Move away from the window!’ Soumaya anticipated his every move. His routine and his obsession made living with him exceedingly predictable. ‘Keep it closed unless you have your sweater on!’ she yelled, with little hope of being heard.
He edged even closer. Children were dancing around happily in the garden as the teachers looked on. There was a huge gap in the fence, so supervision was essential. A lone figure caught his eye, a child playing football on the grass. He kicked a ball up into the air, bouncing it off his knees then chasing it in circles around the garden. Yet each time he kicked the ball he strayed closer to the edge of the pavement. The supervisor had failed to notice him, neither had anyone else on the street.
Soumaya stacked the dishes on the kitchen counter. Swiftly and mechanically she arranged a platter of cheese and vegetables. Whatever could be salvaged from the eggy mess in the frying pan, she placed in the centre. A tattered photograph in a worn-out frame stood on the marble counter. It was a relic of her past life. She glanced at it, recalling the family outing she had memorised down to the last detail. It all seemed so distant to her now, distant and yet so familiar. She shoved the plate roughly across the counter, cursing loudly as it knocked the photograph to the floor.
The child continued to chase the ball, edging closer and closer to the street, oblivious to the immediate threat of cars speeding past him. The old man gripped his cane tightly and his heart beat faster as he continued staring out of the window. All of a sudden the ball flew into the street and the boy ran after it.
Soumaya was busy picking up the pieces of a past life that lay shattered on the kitchen floor. The slithers of thin glass crunched under her slippers. The photograph, crinkled but still intact, lay on the floor behind her. She could see it without turning around. Tossing the glass into a bin under the sink she turned slowly to face it. It lay there silently, and she almost expected her loved ones to come back to life.
Laughter fills the empty corridor and echoes off the walls that are plastered with colourful hand drawings and messy collages. They’re laughing at her as she fidgets with the camera, pressing the buttons, tugging at the lens, trying to follow the directions. They’re calling out to her. Her fingers are unsteady with her own laughter as she yells at them to keep still. She concentrates and steadies her hand. She’s wasting time. The students will soon arrive. Father must get back to school.
She bent down slowly and picked up the photograph. Hesitating for a second, she marched over to the bin and hurled it in with the shattered glass. It was all over now: there was no going back.
Suddenly a deafening sound startled her. A car screeched to a halt on the street below. Soumaya was overcome with an immediate sense of panic. She searched the house calling his name; but there was no reply. Rushing to the corridor, she caught sight of the open door. In a flash she ran out of the house and shoved her way through the crowd, her entire body tense in anticipation. She feared the worst. Why did I leave him? Why did I leave him? She could smell it again, that burning, suffocating smoke.
It blinds her eyes, but she forces them open. She pushes forward, shoving, shoving through the hysterical crowd. Where is he? Screams and sirens surround her. The smoke gets thicker. A woman grabs her arm. Her face is vaguely familiar, but nothing is registering in her mind, nothing is making any sense. The world is spinning as she nears the school. ‘Soumaya! They’re shelling! They’re shelling! Get back!’ She squeezes past them, searching frantically for her father.
A car came to a sudden stop just inches away from him, but he stood unharmed and expressionless, staring into the distance. The children on the green lawn giggled, and the twisted vines around the brick walls and all the sights and sounds he once knew filled his senses. He smiled serenely.
Soumaya took his arm gently, led him away from the crowd, back to the comforting safety of their apartment. As always, he didn’t see her. She followed his eyes as they focused on the rubble on the other side of the street. This was what it had now become, nothing but shattered glass, wild weeds choking the grounds and climbing up the crumbling blackened walls. Yet underneath this sad exterior a shadow of the school’s former glory was still present in the simple rooms, the crumbling wooden doorway below the red tiled roof and the elegant stone columns at the entrance.
All this captivated him so. Yet for Soumaya it was nothing but a sad reminder of a lost life, a memento best left buried under the rubble.