The Man
1-
It was around one o’clock in the morning when the drunk Ayman entered his home in Astoria to find his wife Zaynab waiting in the clean and neat living room watching an Egyptian film on mute so she would not wake their three children. He almost tripped over the little rug by the door and then cursed at who put it there. She looked at him and knew what was coming her way. It was obvious from the way he walked and the look he gave her and how she looked back at him what to expect. She knew that in few minutes she would be weeping silently in her room while Ayman would be snoring next to her, or on the living room sofa as his habit of late after their usual quarrel regarding his behavior, and which would end up in its normal violent pattern. But, still that night she did not back down.
They were the total opposites at that moment. Two contradicting beings forced to be in one shared space by the marriage they had before when they were young and somehow in love. It was the time for battle. Again, she thought for a second after seeing the crazed look at her husband’s face that she should have been in bed pretending to be asleep. He would have loved that, because that meant that he would go and give his beloved kids their kiss on the forehead with his breath stinking of booze, and where he would stumble play the father for few seconds doing mundane things like checking their covers or closing the window. Of course he would loved that because that would had gave him the television with the food that she normally leaves for him in the kitchen. They had not slept together for a while, since she started smelling the cheap perfume of the other women he would be hanging with.
That night, things got heated up very fast. Ayman wanted to do his usual trip to his children’s room to show that he cared about them. Zaynab was not going to let that happen that night and she went and blocked the door leading to where the kids were sleeping, while asking him about where was he? And why he did not answer her calls to him so he would have dinner with their kids? Ayman told his wife of twelve years his usual clichés that he is a man and could do whatever after he tried to lie as usual to her deaf ears. She knew all of his lies and these days there was no need to hide things anymore. Things have been exploding for the last few months and his violence had been escalating with time.
At first, Ayman tried to push his wife aside, and when he couldn’t move her he clinched his fist threatening to hit while mumbling words no one can understand. Again, Zaynab did not seem to care. She had been there before and that night she was going to stay put again and take the punches, slaps and probably the belt. He did not disappoint and first slapped her across the face with his hand making her take her hands of the door to protect her face. He tried to gain entry to the room but Zaynab was fast to block the door again so he went back into slapping her on her bare face that she would cover every now and then with her hands without leaving her post. When, Ayman saw that he started hitting her on her neck and head since hitting her on the face would leave marks and was not making him any progress.
“You bitch, the daughter of a thousand dogs,” he said while slapping her again across the face that is covered with her hands that still carried the ring indicating her married status. He was slurring and his words incoherent, but anger was emitting out of his crazed eyes. He was mad and intent to pummel his hapless wife who would put few scratches on his forearms every now and then whenever she could. That elevated his level of aggression. He clinched and punched his wife all over her body leaving her crying in silence. He did not like to kick, because he once kicked her while she was pregnant and left her unconscious. That really scared him a lot, not for her, but for his child that she was bearing at the moment, and which as he told her many times before was more important to him at any given day.
The belt came next and Zaynab escaped to the bedroom they shared once so her children would not hear her screams since that the punches were getting harder right outside the door where the three children shared a room. At first she tried not to cry just to piss him off but she could not hold her tears longer. She ended up getting a number of lashes with the belt as she cowered between her bed and the closet covering her head with her hands while the belt came from above. He cursed at her and called her a prostitute as well as untamable.
2-
After beating his wife to a pulp, Ayman went back to the living room and sat in front of the television and turned it on. He was getting out of breath and wanted to cool off. He was hungry too although he had eaten outside with his friends before he came home. He headed to the kitchen and found his food in its normal spot. He ate a little while standing up and then decided to bring the food to the living room and eat it. He brought many dishes and some drinks and sat facing his big television. He picked up the remote and started going through the channels. He first checked his normal pay-per-view and the stuff his new television recorded but did not find anything to his likening. Nothing was there that matched his sour mood. The news on al-Jazeera, MBC or al-‘Arabiyah did not interest him and instead switched to Rotana, the ‘Arabic music channel and started watching music videos and soon he fell asleep leaving the television and the lights on. He also left the food on the table scattered knowing that Zaynab would come and take care of it the next day. Soon, the noise of him snoring with the flickering silver light the television was leaving all over the walls gave an eerie feeling from that room. His hands had some blood on them and little fragments of hair were lodged underneath his nails. His hair was still wet. He was sweaty.
3-
In her bedroom, Zaynab could not fall asleep. Sleep been eluding her lately. She stayed in her position lodged between her bed and the closet that started looking like a good place to crawl into and hide for a while. She looked inside and started seeing that some of her clothes had fallen to the ground from the fight of the night before where she hid inside the closet after he beat her all over the house. But, the thought of her kids waking up kept her from having those defeatist thoughts and instead she kept on thinking about what to do. She looked all over her room again and saw the same things where in the dark things started getting humanly shapes that scared her a little. She wanted to talk to these figures but could not and therefore resorted back into thinking.
4-
She looked at the pictures hanging from the mirror on top of the dresser and was able to reconstruct her history in a flash. She was young when she was first introduced to Ayman who was seven years her senior and who had just returned back from New York to find a woman to marry. He had money and was nice at that moment. The pictures showed some of her early days with him. There was the picture they had on their wedding day as well as another picture of them together on a street in Queens with their first two children Ahmad and Reema, who were born back home. Also there was the picture with Ayman and Zaynab with their firstborn Ahmad along with other family members all smiling. Zaynab remembered her story with Ayman and how he had to go back to New York so he could divorce the woman he got his green card through and to find a home for his family that started to grow with every visit he would make back to Zaynab. There ware also pictures of their daughter Reema when she was born of course with some family members. The pictures of Yaser, their youngest and who was born three years ago in Queens occupied most of the impromptu frame. Ayman is seen holding him in many parts of New York City, as well around the apartment. It was obvious Ayman’s fondness for his youngest through all of those pictures. She thought of the love there is between the members of her family. All of that flashed in front of Zaynab. Her whole history came again in front of her eyes. She had been going through this a lot recently. She wished many things regarding that history. She wanted to change many things, but did not know if she could.
5-
Ayman woke up to see his son Yaser standing still waiting for him to wake up. Ayman remembered that the gentle touches he felt in his sleep probably were those of Yaser trying to tap him as his norm to wake up. Ayman smiled right away and looked at his watch and grabbed his son to play with to the kid’s delight. The television was still on showing still the videos of current ‘Arabic pop stars. Soon, the cries and laughter filled that room and Ahmad and his sister Reema emerged from the kitchen with food and tea for their father. It was obvious that Zynab had prepared the kids for school and had made breakfast for everybody. Ayman did not seem to be bothered that his children saw him waking up in the living room after spending the whole night on the sofa. But, he was surely bothered when his ten years old daughter Reema asked him about that.
“Why don’t you sleep with mom any more?” asked Reema.
“I came home late and did not want to wake her up,” replied Ayman.
He tried to escape the topic by playing with the youngest Yaser, who seemed to be happy for all the attention he was getting from his father. But, Reema was not satisfied and kept on asking her dad more questions that made him mad and brought the beast out of him again. She was just standing in front of him. One look at her and he was reminded with his resolved wife. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and mumbled something and went to action. Ayman pushed his daughter while screaming and cursing at Zaynab, and busted to take his shower preparing himself to go to work. He did not notice that when Reema fell to the ground her face had hit a chair and left a mark on his soft skin. The crazed look came back to his eyes again.
6-
Zaynab came from the kitchen to see her daughter crying. She tried to calm her down and asked Ahmad to be ready to leave the house for school. He was there standing watching his sister silent. He watched the whole thing without saying a word. Zaynab did not notice the mark on her daughter’s cheek. She was more concerned with getting them to school on time. So, she helped her daughter get up and get her school bag, sandwiches and coat. Zaynab also went to her room and was out in a matter of a minute with her normal long dress and with her Hijab covering her head.
7-
the school was few blocks away and Zaynab with all of her children in tow was able to get there on time. Ayman never took his children to school and of course never picked them up. He was always busy with his store and Zaynab was left to do everything related to the house and the children. He worked seven days a week and never had time for his family, who seemed to be functioning well.
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