Three parties, p.19
Three Parties, page 19
No, no, stop it! he told himself. Stop it! He was being silly, insane. Worse, he was being impractical. Too many potential outcomes, too few contingency plans. Someone was bound to find the body, pedestrians were passing by, all it would take is for just one of them to see it. When they did, they would balk at the little, the nothing, that Firas did in response.
But he could write it off as shock. Don’t do this. People always respond to tragedy in odd ways. I’m begging you. Firas was no less impervious, no less human than anybody else. Go. Inside. The. Fucking. House. It would be believable. He could get away with it. You’ve lost it. You’ve completely fucking lost it. Yes, he was going to get away with it!
Just then, he glimpsed Mr. Grint across the street, watering his grass. He and Firas locked eyes. Knowing a party was scheduled to take place, Mr. Grint would inevitably wonder what Firas was doing by the side of the house and tread over to find out. There was also the question of what he would tell his parents when they noticed Mazen was not in his room, a question to which any response would lead to countless more questions and an exponentially smaller number of cogent answers.
He staggered back into the house and dialed.
“9-1-1, where’s your emergency?”
“It’s not an emergency. I need to report a death.” He provided her with the address.
“Have you checked this person’s pulse?”
“He’s dead.”
“Sometimes a person can seem—”
“He’s dead.” Firas was ready to repeat the phrase as many times as it would take to end the conversation, and in precisely the same catatonic voice.
“Can you describe what happened?”
“He killed himself.” This, too, he said catatonically. “The rest I can fill in when you get here.” He hung up, then plopped down on what he at first failed to realize was the peach English roll-arm; surprisingly, its leg held up. He sat there stiffly, determined not to slouch, determined not to relent. His hands gripped the edge of his seat, but he soon relinquished it; if he was going to sit stiffly, it was his responsibility, not that of the roll-arm, to keep himself from wavering. His reddened cheeks were beginning to whiten; he willed them to a faint pink, because it conveyed the appropriate amount of agitation for the scene. If he was sweating, he didn’t feel it. He had chosen a breathable outfit for the occasion, anticipating sweat from all the movement required of a host and from all the bodies of his guests as they pressed up against one another in a small room. His breathing, like his posture, never wavered, with short, steady breaths requiring little movement. He could not hear or feel those breaths. He gave his body the benefit of the doubt and assumed that they were happening.
He thought of how he would deliver the news to Suhad and his parents. There were several ways to deliver good news, but never more than one to deliver bad. He needed to get it right. On any other day, he likely would have. But not today. Today was a day of wrong. He didn’t know why, and he didn’t know why he should care. Understanding something does not in itself mean it could be prevented or corrected. Sometimes tragedies occur because a void needs to be filled.
The catatonic voice he’d used with the operator seemed most appropriate for the occasion. But it wouldn’t work. Firas needed to be strong, to cradle them all into the news, to thrust his shoulder forward for their tears and pry his ears open for the inescapable pleas to say that he was wrong, that it was all a misunderstanding, the youngest Dareer had survived the fall.
After the initial delivery there had to come the defense. The fault was his, after all. He was the hero of his own story, and the villain in Mazen’s. The villain won, but the story was not over. The other Dareers would avenge the lost son, and would do so via an endless and righteous stream of passive-aggressive remarks and silent treatments, and the occasional exclusion from family-related events like their monthly dinner outings. Likely they would devote themselves more closely to Allah, not the merciful one who loves all beings but the wrathful one who smites them. Then Firas would alter his voice and mannerisms to fit the lifelong apology to which he was sentenced. In his attempt to break free from one confinement filled with shame, he wound up getting transferred to another, filled also with guilt and regret. Even now he could see this confinement shrinking.
He scanned the living room and cringed. Nearly everything had been set. The party blowers rested comfortably on the folding tables alongside the flowers at their center. He could have waited until later; he could have let Maysa take care of everything as she was hired to do. But too vividly he could hear the noise that was to be. Not only the party blowers, whose ill-timed wheezes bounced from guest to guest, but all of it. He heard the chatter among the guests, the introductory So how do you know Firas? and the compliments they may have shared of what a wonderful person he is. He heard the rustle of wrapping paper from the gifts he instructed everyone not to bring but were brought anyway because don’t be silly! He heard ceramic clinking in toasts to his honor, the beastly chewing of his lamb and the clicking of tongues prying pieces of it out of teeth. He heard the music as an undertone, then as something greater, a more all-encompassing thing that refused to settle for underscoring the mood of the moment and insisted instead on dictating it, guiding everyone to the state they were supposed to be in, which was anything but mourning. He heard the slow sizzle of his tension dissolving and the deceleration of his heartbeat against the rib cage of the warm body enveloping him.
And then he tore it all to shreds.
Crashes of cups and plates, volcanic thrusts of food, the violent jerking of flowers that so resembled strangulation. One by one, he popped the balloons with his feet and fists until their flaccid remains littered the terracotta rug. He upturned the folding tables with a scream that blunted the resulting thump, and then smashed the Bluetooth speaker against the windowsill before wondering if he’d forgotten anything, if any element of his party had survived the massacre so he could make sure to kill it too. The monster in him had fully emerged, and while he had satiated most of its appetite, Firas suspected some of its remaining hunger would set it loose again soon.
As he surveyed the mess, he remembered the final strap before pulling the switch to complete the execution. He couldn’t believe it had come to this, after all these years, that he would be forced to do it again. He thought of how precisely to go about it. Calling them was out of the question, for the monotony of his voice would be instantly detected and its root unearthed. To text them made sense, but not for Firas, not for the man who crafted invitations by hand. It would require an email, no less cordial and professional than a cover letter. Its content would need to produce a sense of regret over any inconvenience combined with a sense of urgency, of legitimacy, regarding the reason behind it. But it also had to convey the need for privacy. He began typing:
My dearest guests,
Unfortunate circumstances prevent me from hosting my birthday party on this day. I appreciate you all for making space for me in your busy lives, and I hope you can understand that I would not be canceling this event, to which I was so looking forward, without valid cause.
Sincerely,
Firas Dareer
He read and reread it, then diverted his eyes away from it for precisely five minutes before reading it once more with fresher eyes. But before he could assure himself of its adequacy and send it off, a rush of footsteps barreled into the house.
“We got a call about a suicide?” A pair of officers arrived, one hunchbacked and withered, the other plump and boyish. Firas led them to the side of the house, whence he glimpsed a prying Mr. Grint across the street and flashed him a vicious scowl. He also noticed there was no ambulance in the driveway. He understood why, but somehow he thought he would be exempt from the process, from being questioned in the way the man who found the body always is.
“Is this your brother?” asked the hunchbacked one, while his partner took notes.
“Yes.”
“He jumped?”
“No. He let go.”
“Is anyone else home?”
Firas shook his head, wondering if he was displaying sufficient sadness, and whether it would look more or less suspicious if he amplified its audiovisual cues.
The officers assessed the scene, peering up at least three times at Mazen’s window, and so many times at the meditation garden that Firas lost count. They instructed him to wait for them inside and he did. Eventually, the hunchbacked one came into the living room and took note of the mess.
“What happened here?”
Firas stared at him for a second, praying the scene would speak for itself and then knowing it would not. “I’m not in a partying mood anymore.”
The officer noticed the birthday sash on one of the folding chairs. He had no reaction to it, because reactions were not part of his job. “Has he ever tried to—”
“Yes. Once, two years ago, with a bottle of ibuprofen.” Firas had seen enough films to know most of the questions coming his way, hoping to use his flimsy grasp of the process to hurry it along before his parents returned from the nursing home.
While waiting for the medical examiner to arrive, most of the questions were cleared: background information on Mazen’s mental health, the medication he took, the contact information for his psychiatrist.
Then the officer questioned him about his final interaction. Firas lied, claiming to have witnessed the fall before words could be exchanged. The officer nodded, then asked: “Can I use your bathroom?”
Firas initially suspected that the officer was merely pretending to need the bathroom to verify the bit about the ibuprofen, to deduce from its absence whether Mazen truly did try to kill himself before. An absurd notion (there were much easier and more substantive ways of confirming it), quickly dispelled and quickly replaced. Firas’s thoughts turned to his grandfather’s nursing home—specifically its distance from the Dareer house. He estimated a thirty-five-minute drive given the detours caused by the pride parade. As for how long it would take his parents to get Jido resettled, which may have come with a fervent fight from the management (it was his third escape, after all), he calculated approximately an hour before they would arrive back home. Likewise for Suhad, who was likely enjoying her time with the cousins and would be in no hurry to return.
The hunchbacked officer returned from the bathroom.
“How much longer is this going to take?” Firas asked him.
“The M.E. should be here in a few minutes.”
Firas’s panic swelled. All he could hear now was the hand of Time, drumming its fingers along the parts of his back he couldn’t reach, combined with the sputter of an engine crawling up the driveway and the jarring screech of brakes and frightened parents. Police tape stretched across the front of the house, barricading the neighbors who now wandered over with the elongated necks of ostriches risen from their hole in the sand. The plump, boyish officer blocked their view of his brother’s corpse, but at some point he would have to move. At some point Firas’s failure would have to be witnessed and judged.
The medical examiner arrived, dressed in protective gear: gloves, booties, goggles, face mask, hair covering, and a white jumpsuit, all of which struck Firas as embarrassingly excessive for the occasion. She evaluated the scene and the body and took pictures of both. Then she mumbled something to the officers that Firas couldn’t hear, or didn’t wish to hear. Before long, she was done evaluating and photographing, and the officers approached him.
“We’re gonna be taking the body now,” said the hunchbacked one, and he informed Firas of whom he needed to contact to retrieve it.
Eventually the tape came down and they were gone. What Firas hadn’t expected was that they would take some of Mazen’s possessions with them. He knew they had to take the body, of course, but the inanimate objects that composed his brother’s life seemed to him off-limits. As though the loss were not great enough on its own, it had to include the removal of the things he owned and used and now, in his absence, had no real sense of themselves.
Firas stood in the doorway, watching his brother being carted away, the blood seeping through the white sheet over his head, when the sound of mouth-breathing and bone-creaking pierced the air.
“Bismillah…”
Struggling to tear his gaze away from the body, Firas turned to her. “What are you doing back so soon?”
Maysa stood there, gawking at him. At his unflinching eyes. At how dry they were. “I come to clean our mess.”
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
Mazen looked peaceful lying there, his leg dangling off the side of the bed. Firas was always quick to approach his brother when it was time to alert him to dinner. But when he saw that Mazen’s eyes were closed, he could not help but take a moment before waking him. Such peace did not deserve so quick a disturbance. It was much too elegant, the dangling leg punctuating its serenity. A serenity that softened the contours of his face. Brushed aside his hair. Massaged his shoulders. Pried open his mouth. Whitened his skin. Stopped his breathing. Erased his heartbeat.
It was the not knowing that unsettled Firas, really. He was unaware of the protocol, as no school he attended ever taught it. They taught racial tolerance and sexual consent and never getting into cars with strangers; but no instructions were ever given for handling the discovery of a self-harmed sibling. Despite the initial shock, Firas remained calm. He alerted all the appropriate people, drove everyone to the hospital, brought his parents and sister water and food as they sat in the waiting room. Then, after Mazen’s return from the hospital, Firas set about petitioning local schools to educate the masses on how to handle themselves in such a situation. Of the thirty-three high schools that exist in the city of Detroit, all but five went ahead with a lesson plan they deemed “long overdue,” with many even giving an additional one at night for the general public. This lesson, as Firas envisioned, would educate people about the steps required when one finds an unconscious body: checking the breathing and pulse, calling emergency medical services, performing CPR, stopping blood flows, and a long list of things not to do when administering first aid. Having already gone through the experience once and, for the most part, succeeding, Firas never felt the need to take the lesson himself. Instead he basked in a sliver of pride, rigid and bland as his bouts of pride often were, and continued to live his life.
It never occurred to him, somehow, that such a lesson would include the warning signs that come before, and the many steps thereafter.
There was no cleanup required in Mazen’s bedroom now. Even the first time, Firas had little to do beyond washing the glass of water his brother had used to swallow the pills. Then, upon seeing the bottle of ibuprofen on the nightstand, he noticed that its cap was missing and determined to find it. Finding it was crucial to Firas, and the more time he spent searching for it, the more crucial it became, leading him to every crevice in the room, and a few just outside the door, until he eventually discovered it in a vent that blended into the walnut-brown carpeted floor. After that, he was done. The bed didn’t even need to be made, just unwrinkled.
He gazed out the window and saw Maysa kneeling by the meditation garden. Without any instruction from Firas, she had retrieved the stiff-bristle brush his mother kept under the kitchen sink and set to scrubbing the blood off the rock with a solution of water and washing soda. She was being helpful and it unnerved him. He’d spent years seeing this woman as his enemy, and did so more on this day than any before it. He had by now conditioned himself to view her this way, and in less than an hour she completely upended this view. He wondered, then, what she did for the other families she worked for. What kind of messes did she clean for them? Generally, her work at these other houses was quite standard. She dusted and mopped and occasionally cooked, or, in cases where the woman of the house was of a domineering sort, merely assisted in these tasks. But there were moments, as this one, when she came upon the anomalous. Moments that took place at crowded gatherings—backyard weddings, memorial services, baby showers, and so on. More often than not, however, they occurred in the background during commonplace chores. The foreground, really, for Maysa herself was the background. Maysa and her brush, setting the stage for spouses quarreling, spouses making up, children sneaking out, medical emergencies, basements flooding, kitchen fires, and so many incidents that would prove scandalous upon public reveal. She never spoke a word about them, even when Firas’s mother, desperate for interaction during her recuperation, prodded her. Nonetheless, Maysa remembered every bit of every scene, her peripheral vision honed to ensure that she never missed a detail, never dropped her guard against the joy that still existed around her even as it ceased to exist within her. She could remember the exact number of volumes in the Hadith collection the Najjars always flaunted to their guests; she could recognize how much thyme had sprouted from the Abu Hassans’ garden since the week before; she could recall what time the smoky scent of arabica would float out of the Asghars’ kitchen; she could recite by heart the Bible verses etched into the gold-plated plaques above Yara and Michael Shehadeh’s bed, and every vulgar word they shouted when they fucked. She knew every color of every slate tile, every length of every curtain, every barbecue in which the kebabs were grilled to sheer perfection.
But this was rarely the case with the Dareer house. Throughout most of her tenure, Maysa remembered its details only upon stepping through the front door and forgot them the instant she stepped back out. Her peripheral vision became obsolete in this house. It was only after New Year’s Eve that this began to change. Suddenly Maysa took notice of things, her peripheral vision heightening exponentially with each visit, seeing more and more no matter how little of it she wished to. At times she even found herself inserting her presence into their lives, reading text messages and hiding folding tables, in ways that inevitably placed her in their peripheral vision. And now, as she scrubbed Mazen’s blood off the rock, she found her peripheral vision going from obsolete to completely nonexistent, rendering her unable to see anything but the blood. In spite of herself, and despite several decades of training, Maysa had become a part of this foreground as much as anybody else.
