“Dad,” I said, my voice distorted. “Uncle Jihad is dead in the bathroom.”
He looked up at me disbelievingly. I watched his face gradually change; his eyes grew whiter, his jaw dropped. He ran up the stairs, followed by Melanie. I let them pass me. I heard my father wail. I had never seen my father cry before, never seen him so distraught. He knelt on the floor and rocked Uncle Jihad in his arms. I couldn’t understand a word my father said. I stood in the doorway in shock. My father wouldn’t stop. He wept, the bathroom reverberating with the sound. In between sobs, my father kissed Uncle Jihad’s bald head. Melanie, tears flowing down her face, tried unsuccessfully to calm him. I no longer recognized the man in front of me. I called my mother. “Listen to me,” she said. “Put your father on the phone. Then you go to his room and get his travel pack. In it, you’ll find a pillbox. Take out a Valium and give it to him. Do you understand?”
In the bathroom, Melanie held my father, who held Uncle Jihad. I gave my father the bathroom phone and watched his face as he began to calm down. I ran downstairs and came back up with the tranquilizer. I watched him nod in acquiescence to my mother’s instructions. He handed me the phone. My mother told me to put him to bed and said she would call back in ten minutes, after she called the hotel management.
Melanie and I helped my father down the stairs, his arms draped over both of us. I put him in bed, under the covers. Melanie drew the curtains, darkening the room. I stroked his head, just as I had seen my mother do many times before. He promptly drifted into sleep.
I went back up to check on Uncle Jihad. I didn’t want anybody to see him naked with his pajama bottoms down. When I entered the bathroom, I held my nose and flushed the toilet.
“Do you want to carry him to his bed?” Melanie asked.
I nodded. I was pulling his pants up when I realized his bottom was soiled. I wiped his behind with a damp washcloth. My stomach felt queasy again.
I tried to lift Uncle Jihad from his shoulders while Melanie took his feet, but he was too heavy. We ended up dragging him slowly. The carpet kept pulling his pants down, exposing his genitals. By the time we got him onto the bed, I was dripping sweat. I covered him with the comforter and closed his eyes. His skin already felt leathery.
Uncle Jihad used to tell me an Iraqi story about whom to mourn.
It seems the great Caliph Haroun al-Rashid was traveling among his people when he came across a woman weeping. He asked the cause of her immense sorrow, and she replied that she was mourning her beloved son, who had just died. He asked her what her son did while he was alive. She said he worked for her. She was poor, and her son kept her alive. She no longer had anyone to take care of her and no one to make her a living. “Cry no more,” said the caliph. “I will give you a sturdy mule. He will work hard for you and help you earn a living. You shall not miss your son. You will be as comfortable as you were before.”
Haroun al-Rashid moved on. He came across another woman crying next to the grave of her son. The caliph asked her the same question, “What did your son do while he was alive?”
“My son? He used to gather honest nobles and men of good repute to his feasts. He would serve them the most delicious of meals. He would entertain them with the most ambrosial of music, regale them with the greatest of tales. When these men left his feasts, he would ride with them, keeping them company until they lost sight of his tent.”
“Weep on, O mother of a most gracious son,” said the caliph. “Cry and shed more tears, for no one, certainly not I, can comfort you or make good such a great loss.”
And Haroun al-Rashid wept.
I sat on the bed, crying and stroking Uncle Jihad’s head. My mother called. Just as she said that someone from the hotel would be coming to the room, I heard a knock on the door. My mother had talked to Air France and booked my father on a flight to Beirut. Melanie led three men in suits to Uncle Jihad’s room. “All I want from you is to put your father on the flight this afternoon,” my mother said. “That’s all. Everything else will be taken care of. Once he’s on the flight, Air France will make sure he gets here, but I need you to get him on the plane. After the doctor and coroner do their work, the hotel will ship Jihad to Beirut. Just take care of your father. You can stay in the room till you go to the dorms. It’s dealt with.”
“I’ll get him on the plane,” I promised. I watched more men walk into Uncle Jihad’s room.
“One more thing,” she said. “Make sure she leaves. I don’t want her using the suite after your father’s gone. Don’t let your father know that I know. But remember, after your father’s gone, she’s gone. I don’t want her with you.”
The muffled footsteps sounded odd, quieter than nurses’ rubber soles. Fatima’s tilted head appeared in the doorway, peering into the room. Her hair was loose and framed her face. She grinned and tiptoed in, cradling two pillows and a blanket in one arm and her high-heeled pumps in the other. “How did you get in?” I whispered.
“What do you mean? I just walked in. I waited for you at home and then decided, fuck you, I’m not letting you sleep on the floor.”
“But we’re not supposed to be here. We can’t get a bed in here or anything.”
“Then you should’ve returned home. Lina, too,” she whispered, setting the heels and bedding down by the recliner, where my sister was snoring softly.
Fatima disappeared into the hallway and returned with a gurney. “If we serve food on it, we can sleep on it. I’m certainly not going to sleep on the floor.” Fatima picked up the pillows, fluffed them, and lay down on the gurney. “Come here,” she said.
I lifted myself onto the gurney and squeezed next to her. She wrapped her arms around me and nuzzled my neck. “Your necklace is imprinting itself on my back,” I whispered.
She rotated it around one hundred and eighty. “Is that better?”
“Wearing an emerald necklace to come here doesn’t make sense.”
“I know, but it’s your father’s favorite necklace of mine. He was always complimenting me on it. I thought maybe, you know, if …”
I folded Uncle Jihad’s clothes, put them in his suitcase. I went over his room inch by inch, combing every nook, making sure I forgot nothing.
Melanie and I packed my father’s things while he sat cataleptically in the corner. I knelt before him, held his hand. It took him a while to look at me.
“I have to get you dressed,” I said. “You’re going home.”
I made sure he wore a light cotton shirt. I debated whether to give him his favorite wingtips or his moccasins, which would be easier to take off during the flight. I chose the wingtips, appearance being paramount to my father. He had his best tie on, double-knotted.
“You know where to get hold of me,” Melanie said. “All you have to do is call Mike. He’ll always know where to reach me. If you ever need anything …” Her voice trailed off.
I took my father to the airport in the hotel’s limousine. I waited till an Air France representative arrived to escort him. When she tried to walk him through the metal detector, he refused to let go of my hand. “I want to come along,” I said. “Until he gets on the plane.”
A stewardess came out to escort him to his seat. I stood up and hugged him. He swayed gently back and forth on his heels, but his arms remained at his side. I watched the jumbo jet lift into the shimmering air, taking my father home.