For Alan
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Only Those Who Struggle Succeed
GHUSL
Under the bright lights the skin had turned a whitish gray. A bandage wrapped around the face kept the mouth closed and flattened the black hair, made the chin thick and shapeless and pushed the cheeks toward shut lids. Rolled towels beneath the head and neck lifted the shoulders slightly from the metal bed, and under the white sheet the big toes were strung together with twine.
I will do it myself, she had said. Haraam, haraam, the men had replied and she had laughed inches from their faces. And what is this? Is this not also sin? They had waited with her for the coroner’s van, had unlocked the room and shown her where the materials were kept. After they lifted and placed him on the table the eldest among them turned to her once more. Sister, let us prepare him. The rest shifted their eyes as she moved closer to the table, uncovered his face and asked them to leave.
Towels and sheets, white and folded, were stacked on the counter next to a plastic bucket and washcloths. She washed her hands in the sink and let the hot water run until her fingers became red and raw, the rough powdered soap granules burrowing beneath her nails. When she put the gloves on they were tight and pinched her damp skin and she pulled them off and set them on the counter. The hygiene mask stayed in its box and the incense stick stood unlit in its holder.
With a washcloth wrapped around her hand she lifted the half-filled bucket and turned toward the table where he lay. The skin to her looked coated in silver dust, like the ashes that remain after the burning of a great tree. Up we go. With her right hand at the nape of his neck she lifted his head and shoulders and with the left slowly and gently pressed down on his stomach, keeping cloth between fingers and skin. Several times she pressed and released, and without completely lifting the sheet wiped and cleaned between the legs in short, quick moves.
Hanna who is small
fell
in a well he got stung by wasps
poor Hanna
poor Hanna
how
did
you
fall?
Again at the counter she washed her hands and cleaned the bucket. Even with her back to him she could still see his face. The thin closed lids and the brown eyes she knew had to still be beneath them. If she stood without moving she could see him sit up on the steel table and swing his legs over its edge. He would look around and catch his image in the mirror on the wall. How funny I look, ya Zaynab. She gripped the counter to steady herself as warm water filled the bucket.
Where are you?
When she turned around he was still on his back, the brown eyes shut and the lips a pale violet. Look at us playing hide and seek, even now. She carried the bucket and a clean washcloth to the table and set them down, took her time wetting the cloth, dipping it into the bucket and squeezing it several times until there was nothing left to do but begin. She moved the sheet and looked at the hands once so small. Give me your hand, ya Hamoud. Cleaning now between the fingers of hands bigger than hers, moving from the smallest to the thumb.
this is Mr. Tall
and useless
this is the
labneh licker
and this is
the ring wearer
This is uncle
Abu Hatem
this is the
nit killer.
She wet the washcloth again and touched it to the forehead and slowly worked it over the eyes, the moisture clinging to thick lashes, and down the nose, her hand hesitating above the faded scar that began at the bridge and zigzagged down to the right and disappeared. He was three when he had fallen and she was nine and she had been chasing him up and down the hallway when he slipped on the black and white tiles and his giggles turned to wails. She had picked him up and held him as blood gushed from the wound between his eyes. He had clung on to her so tightly, had pulled on the skin of her neck as he cried, would not release her even when their father came running into the room.
Her eyes moved to the top of the head, the gauze that covered, concealed. We’ll clean it, the hospital nurse had said. She had wanted to say No, dizzied by the thought of more hands she did not know, touching and prodding and taking. Now, her eyes fixed on the cloth until she willed them to shift, to follow instead the washcloth she ran over each arm, right and then left, flattening the small hairs against the skin. Within seconds they began to dry and she watched them shrink back into curls. She looked at the hair on her own arms, not much lighter or finer, and a smile flashed across her face and disappeared. Neither one wanting to wait for the other, they used to stand side by side at the sink to make wudu before prayer, take turns running arms beneath the faucet, carrying with cupped hands water to wet their hair and clean their mouths and noses, their necks and ears.
She waited for her breath to steady before her hand again reached toward the bandage and this time worked around it, wiping the black hair that jutted out in thick locks. Hair that once was combed back
