DEPAYSEMENT

31

31. PIZMONIM

"I THINK I NEED TO TALK TO SOMEONE."

Once Yusuf has calmed down enough to speak without hyperventilating, he spits the sentence out of his mouth, his discomfort evident to Ewan.

"Okay," Ewan begins gently so as to not disturb him further, "I know - Cat knows this excellent counselor in Cardiff. We can take a train down there and-"

"No, no, no therapists," Yusuf says with an unusually rough tone. "Farouk tried that when Maman ki- passed away."

He is terribly curious as to who Farouk is, apparently the man who sent him to a therapist when his mother died two years ago. Must be an ex, he concludes. Ewan gets up and heads to the kitchen, where he puts on some rooibos tea on the stove. Yusuf limply walks behind him, sounds of his cane hitting the ground following him.

"Do you-" Ewan starts, and deliberately says it as casually as he can, "Do you want to talk to me? About, well, whatever you want to talk about?"

"No," he says with a strange finality to his voice, a gesture of wanting to be left alone with an undercurrent of desperation, "I don't want you to pity me."

"I could never pity you. You're a stoic, I understand, but-"

"Don't you get it?" Yusuf lets his cane fall as he grabs at his own hair, an unholy mixture of anger and sadness evident in his eyes. "I'm fucking pathetic! I'm so ashamed of my history that I'd lie than let anyone know what I am!"

"Yous, you-"

"Your father - why haven't I told him I'm a Jew? Because I'm so fucking scared of my lineage! Ewan, do you-" he pauses, tears flowing freely down his cheeks, "Do you know, I'll be the first in my family, in two generations to turn 35? Maman didn't have a heart attack - she killed herself when I was fourteen! And fucking - nobody knows, I haven't told anyone."

Ewan walks to Yusuf and holds his chest close to his own, hugging him as he violently shivers. "Well, I'm glad to be the first person you've told. And no, Yous, you aren't pathetic. You built a life for yourself despite your past, you-" he holds back a sob after looking at his state, "You're the strongest person I know."

"I wish I didn't have to be," he sniffles softly, and Ewan only hugs him tighter.

...

"Here you go," Ewan hands Yusuf a cup of brick coloured tea, and they both sit in silence, sipping the hot liquid. Yusuf has finally stopped shaking, but as he looks at him nursing the cup in his hands, he seems catatonic. 

"Yous," he breaks the silence, "I have an idea."

He barely hums, but the sudden eye contact emboldens Ewan to continue.

"Take a paper and write on it whatever you have hidden and whatever you want to let out. After that, burn it."

"I don't want to be secretive anymore. I have tried diaries and whispering my secrets into a hole in the ground - for me, it never works. Besides, if you and I get serious, you have a right to know."

Ewan, secretly overjoyed at his talk of getting serious, composes himself and thinks. "Oh, I know," an idea suddenly strikes him, "Write everything down and read it out to me."

He looks at Yusuf, his beautiful brown eyes suddenly engrossed in calculating the suggestion he just made. After a moment, Yusuf gets up with gusto. "I'll do it."

"Great! I'll get you a pen and some paper."

Once the paper is brought in, he places both things on the ornately carved mahogany table and leaves him be.

"Wh-Where are you going?"

"You write. Till you finish, I'll get some chores done."

"Oh, okay."

"I'll be here as soon as you're done."

He passes Yusuf a small grin, and heads off to the kitchen. As he peers inside the fridge to see what he can scrounge up for dinner, he hears the sound of the ballpoint pen scratching furiously against the paper. He smiles to himself, glancing out the kitchen to see Yusuf passionately pour his heart out. He roughly chops some carrots and celery, and thaws half a roast chicken to make a decidedly non - traditional stew. He places the pot on the stove, and heads to the bathroom to load up the washing machine.

Just as he finishes straightening the clothes and turns on the spin cycle, Yusuf's voice leads him out the bathroom and towards the dining table. "Done already?"

"It's been half an hour."

He sits down, clear across from Yusuf, and looks at him intently.

"Okay," Yusuf takes a deep breath, and with a trembling voice and shaking hands, holds the pages up and begins to read.

"My mother grew up in one of the most respected Jewish families in Djerba. My grandfather had three daughters - Ofra, Aida, and Naomi. My mother, Aida, was the favourite, and despite having  no sons, he was happy. They owned a kosher butchery, and it's control was going to go to my mother. But then-" he falters a little, and Ewan can feel him choke up. 

"But then, Tunisia fell. My grandparents, aunts and uncles by marriage, all were sent to Hadjerat M'Guil. My mother was the only one who could escape. She stayed in hiding with a gentile couple in Hammamet. They treated her like a servant, threatened to reveal her information if she didn't play along. As soon as the war was over, she escaped and met my father, Salman Khayat. He was a freedom fighter of the Algerian cause. They fell in love and Maman got pregnant. But before she could tell him, he was imprisoned by the French authorities. He died in prison."

"Yous, you don't have to narrate the entire thing if you aren't comfortable-"

"No, I want to. In twenty years, G-d, I've never told anyone these things and I," he heaves, the burden of truth too heavy to bear upright, "I need to get it out of me."

"Maman raised me as well as a mother could. She never hit me, rarely yelled. We had the perfect life in Nabeul. But then, one of our neighbours got lynched, and Maman realised, because it somehow hadn't occurred to her after the Yom Kippur War, that Tunisia wasn't safe for us. So we moved, and her jobs, alongside me and her retinue of boyfriends, destroyed her mind. She became paranoid and closed off, and started having hallucinations. Hell, this leg, you see? I scared her and caused this. The day I returned home after spending a week at Farouk's, I brought her a bouquet of dahlias, her favourite, and entered the unlocked house. On the table were a dozen pain au chocolats, alongside an apology note. I digested this information, and wanting to comfort her, I headed to her bedroom and found - and found -"

Yusuf begins to hyperventilate and Ewan rushes to his side, gently stroking his hair and speaking in a clear "one, two" manner to aid in his breathing. Yusuf visibly calms down, though just a little, and throws his arms around Ewan while crying.

"If I hadn't gone to that fucking party, Maman would still be alive, I -" he sobs into his shoulder. "All I wanted is for her to not have died feeling guilty."

And Ewan, once again, just holds him tighter.