Lice Dress

Nadia was the eldest of three sisters, but also the heaviest and the largest. Perhaps that was why her marriage came somewhat late in life. She had only boarded the marriage train when she turned thirty. Her bridegroom was ten years older. Like most soldiers completing mandatory military service in the Iraqi army, he was discharged by an official decree when the Iran-Iraq War ended, eight years after it began.

The only work he could find then was as one of the construction workers who lined the sidewalks each morning with simple hand tools that they carried wherever they went, brandishing a trowel, a large basin, and occasionally a small hatchet. These manual laborers swarmed the sidewalks all day long.

This type of work became hard to find once oppressive international sanctions were imposed on Iraq. Then most people could not afford to repair their houses or to build new homes or shops. Many dwellings and stores looked rickety or about to collapse. Their owners were incapable of restoring them and just used them, expecting them to collapse at any moment for any reason or no reason at all.

For these reasons, a manual laborer was extremely lucky to work four days in a row. Patrons with projects picked the youngest, strongest men who could complete the repairs or new construction in the period of time agreed on by the employer and the worker.

Thus, Ala’, Nadia’s husband, found that his chances of finding work decreased each day, even though he attempted to hide his age by shaving daily, using the same razor till it wore out.

He also dyed his gray hair with cheap, imported, black Indian henna that would only mask his gray hair for a limited number of days. Despite his stratagems, his luck finding employment was poor.

2

The couple did not think seriously of having a child until more than a year after their wedding. They would respond to anyone who asked why they had not had a child with a formula they had agreed on: “We will be blessed with a child when God so wills.” Actually, the wife was concealing with great difficulty the heartache she felt at not having conceived sooner but could not admit this even to her husband. How could they assume responsibility for another person when they lived in dire poverty that they seemed to have no way of escaping?

The couple tried to limit their contacts to their immediate families. If, for example, they were invited to the wedding of a relative, one spouse would feign illness, and the other would take responsibility for informing their families of this malady. Then news of this illness would spread with great speed among their relatives until their prospective hosts would realize that this couple would not be able to attend the ceremonies.

Although the costs associated with attending them were slight, one could not go empty handed. A guest would need to bring something, even if only some fabric for the bride. Finding the money for such a purchase, though, was difficult for this couple.

The only ceremonies that one or both attended were funerals and wakes. Whenever Nadia heard that some relative, friend, or neighbor had died, she would go early in the morning to present her condolences to the surviving spouse. Then she would volunteer to prepare for the women’s wake, cooking whatever she could or preparing tea and serving it to the women mourners as they arrived from various regions. The services she provided would take the place of any financial contribution she would otherwise have been expected to present to the spouse, mother, or sister of the deceased.

Her husband, for his part, at every ceremony of this type, would stand in the men’s tent beside the children or male relatives of the deceased and receive condolences from all those who attended; then people would think he was one of the brothers or the eldest son of the deceased, especially after he allowed his beard to grow longer and let the gray to show in the hair on his head.

Matters proceeded in this way for more than a year until one evening the husband came home from work totally exhausted, his entire body coated with dirt. Then his wife felt certain that he had found work that day and rejoiced to see him return like that. She rushed to heat water over a small kerosene stove she placed in the bathroom. Next, she fetched a large, clean, blue towel, which she hung from a nail hammered into the wall in the bathroom, before retreating.

Once her husband had finished his warm bath, he sat down while she quickly fixed a meal. Then he recounted what had happened that day and situations he had experienced while working. Even though he spoke with evident enthusiasm, his wife had difficulty forcing herself to listen to him, since she was worried about something.

After speaking nonstop for half an hour, her husband noticed his wife’s concern and asked, “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” she replied as she removed the plates from the dinner mat and placed them on the footed tray, which she was about to lift and carry to the kitchen.

This upset Ala’, and he reminded his wife: “You know I don’t like to converse by asking questions.”

“My sister is getting married two days from now, this Thursday,” she replied anxiously.

Then she rose calmly, lifted the tray filled with their plates, and left the room.

“So soon?” Ala’ asked. Then he bowed his head thoughtfully.

4

A few minutes later his wife returned with a small brass tray with two tea glasses on it and placed it before her husband. She sat down facing him. Although the couple were seated in the same area, separated only by that small tray between them, news of this impending wedding plunged them into a raging sea of reflection.

“God is generous,” Ala’ reminded his wife after taking a sip of tea. “Today I will try to buy a secondhand gown for you from the old market. There is no need for you to give your sister a present. Siblings are not expected to give presents—isn’t that so?”

Once she heard her husband would buy a dress for her, one she could wear to this event, Nadia felt slightly relieved, because all her clothes looked worn or frayed. As far as a present was concerned, she had kept six tea glasses that were beautifully decorated on the outside with attractive colors; one of her relatives had given them to her for her wedding. Fortunately, that set of glasses was still in the original box.

All the same, she would keep this present a secret between her and her sister. Her husband had no need to know about it, since he might conclude that his wife was a spendthrift, careless, or not sufficiently concerned with the needs of her own household.

After lunch, the couple chatted about the youngest sister’s engagement, which had been announced only a month earlier. When the husband felt sleepy, he seized the cushion that rested beside him and stretched out almost automatically on the ground with his head on that pillow and sank into a deep slumber.

Approximately an hour later, when the husband woke from his siesta, he found that his wife had completed all her daily household chores and was seated near him, crocheting. “I’ll go to the old market now,” the husband said, rising and beginning to leave the room. His wife smiled and then quickly locked the door behind him before returning to her crocheting.

She spent the afternoon with her normal routine, and before long the sun was setting. The voices of muezzins were raised to call worshipers to pray, amplified by loudspeakers on the roofs of mosques small and large. Houses then turned on their lights after lamps on the main streets and alleyways were illuminated.

After Nadia had performed her prayers, she heard her husband’s fingers tap on the door and she rushed to open it. Ala’ greeted his wife and handed her two plastic bags; the blue one contained potatoes and eggplants. Inside that bag was a clear sack with a few dates. The second bag was black and had tied ribbons around it. She hurried to take both sacks to the kitchen.

When he saw her leaving, her husband remarked, while pointing to the black bag, “I think it’s the right size.”

After unloading the contents of the blue bag into the little refrigerator that occupied a small corner of the kitchen, the wife returned to her husband, carrying the black bag, but found he had spread his prayer rug to perform the sunset prayer and left to perform his ablutions.

After sitting back down in her usual place, she edged the bag toward her. She opened it and drew the dress from it. Once she spread the dress out on her lap, she began to scream in alarm: “lice! lice!”

The husband rushed back into the room with water from his ablutions dripping from his face and arms and found his wife trying haphazardly and with obvious disgust to put the dress back in the bag.

“Burn it,” Ala’ instructed her. “Get rid of it! We have enough problems as it is.” Then he began to perform his prayers.

Nadia had not heard what Ala’ said and understood the exact opposite. So, at midnight, when she was certain that her husband was sound asleep, she slipped from her bed, left the room, removed the bag from its place, opened it, drew the dress from it, and placed it in an old clay pot that sat in a corner of the kitchen. Then she poured kerosene on it till it was saturated, covered the pot, and set it aside.

Finally, she went back to bed, after washing her hands several times with soap and water. The next morning, once her husband had left to find work, Nadia went to the clay pot, opened it, and was horrified to find dozens of black bodies of tiny insects floating on the surface in the pot. She cautiously removed the dress from the pot, spread it on the floor, and then poured the kerosene and the dead vermin down the kitchen drain. She repeatedly washed out the clay pot with a sponge she soaked in soap and water.

The dark red dress seemed to be free of insects but stank of kerosene. Then she thought she would cleanse the dress of the smell by boiling it in hot water. She filled the pot with water, placed the dress inside it, lit the kerosene stove, and placed the pot on top of it. After the dress had boiled for about half an hour, she removed the pot from the stove and left it to cool for a time. Then she removed the dress the pot and repeatedly rubbed it between her fingers with soap and water.

Much of the kerosene’s odor had disappeared, but the red color also had lost some of its former brilliance. After soaking all night in kerosene and then boiling in hot water, the dress had lost its splendid color. Nadia squeezed the water out of it thoroughly with her hands and then climbed to the house’s flat roof to hang the dress on the clothesline there, securing it with two small, wooden clothespins.

Before she began to prepare lunch, Nadia put a lot of Vaseline on her hands to hide how dry they had become and the color their skin had acquired from handling kerosene. After frying the eggplant in olive oil, she prepared to heat water for her husband, who liked to bathe in warm water during the summer.

She filled another pot with water, placed it on the kerosene stove, and lit a match she had removed from its box and tried unsuccessfully to ignite the stove. Nadia made a second attempt but still nothing happened. So, she snuffed out the match and dropped in on the floor. Then she lifted the kerosene stove and found that it was very light—so light that it was certainly empty of kerosene.

At the customary time, her husband returned from his demanding search for physical labor but did not feel a need for a warm bath, because he had not found any. He merely washed his face and hands with water from the tap.

While eating lunch they both discussed the wedding that was scheduled for Thursday and how early they would need to leave for it that day so they could help the hosts however they were asked.

When they both had finished lunch, the husband asked, “Is the tea ready?”

“We no longer have enough kerosene to prepare tea,” the wife admitted, hesitantly, while trying to avoid looking at her husband.

“You need to pray a lot that I get a job tomorrow,” the husband remarked in a tone of voice that sounded more hurt than playful, “or we’ll be obliged to eat raw potatoes!” Then he left the room.

While the couple was busy with the rest of their day, the dress hung on the clothesline even as the sun began to set. As each section dried, its color turned pale pink.

By Faleeha Hassan

Translated by William M. Hutchins