The New Sufyan
When the money from the sale of the orchard ran out and the private hospital announced that they were going to pull the plug on Sufyan, Jilali paid a visit to the public hospital in hopes of sending his grandson there instead. “I’m sorry,” he was told. “That’s impossible. We need the space for people we can save.”
“What do you mean?” asked Jilali.
“Your grandson was born with holes in his heart,” said the nurse. “You can’t live without a working cardiovascular system.”
In a daze, Jilali left the office and wandered through the halls of the hospital in search of an exit. He’d only just found his way out to the parking lot when the nurse caught up with him.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t realize I was breaking the news. I called your hospital, and that’s what they told me. Did they not tell you anything?”
“They took my money,” said Jilali. “I thought they were going to save him. Now I’ve lost everything. I don’t understand. How could this happen? Why?”
“Your son and his wife are cousins, right?” said the nurse. “These things happen when cousins get married.”
“But my parents are cousins,” said Jilali, “and I turned out perfectly fine. And I married my cousin. There’s nothing wrong with my children.”
A look of discomfort passed over the nurse’s face. “I see,” she said. “All I can say is that your son shouldn’t have any more children.”
When Jilali got home, he found his daughter-in-law, Atiqa, kneading dough in the kitchen. “But why do they have to take him out of the vitrine?” she wanted to know when he broke the news. The vitrine was what she called the life support machine.
“He has holes in his heart,” said Jilali. “It’s because of your cousin.”
“Which cousin?”
“My son.”
“Which one of your sons?” Atiqa wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed—though she was the sharpest of Jilali’s brother’s children.
“Your husband,” said Jilali. “Anwar. Listen to me, Atiqa. You mustn’t let him do it to you anymore.”
“But then how are we going to make a new Sufyan?”
“You leave that to me,” said Jilali. “For now, your job is to not get pregnant.”
That night, Jilali lay awake in bed, tossing and turning. If someone had told him the day before that he would soon find himself plotting to help his daughter-in-law cheat on his son, he would’ve murdered that someone to defend his family’s honor. But Atiqa, he reminded himself, was his niece as well as his daughter-in-law. It would be to everyone’s advantage if she produced a second Sufyan. Even Anwar. He was the best son anyone could have, faithful and hardworking, but sometimes he did have difficulty understanding things. He’d been told many times, for example, that grown men didn’t need to tie off their pantlegs with elastic bands whenever they left the house, but still he insisted on doing so—“Just in case I have to go,” he’d explained. “So that it won’t come gushing out.”
In the next room, Atiqa and Anwar were spending a sleepless night as well.
“Come on,” whispered Anwar. “Why won’t you let me put it in?”
“Because you mustn’t anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s naked,” said Atiqa. “You’re not supposed to put it in me when it’s naked.”
“But you’ve never been embarrassed before.”
“I just wasn’t paying attention,” said Atiqa. “Listen. If you want to keep putting it in me, fine, but not as long as it’s naked. You have to make it wear a plastic bag.”
“A what?”
“A plastic bag. Go and ask your friends. They’ll tell you how to get one.”
The next day, Anwar tied off his pantlegs as usual and left the house with the packets of chewing gum he was trying to sell in hopes of covering some of the hospital bills. For hours, he wandered the dusty streets, shouting, “Chewing gum! Come get your chewing gum!” but no one was buying. When he ran into one of his friends, he remembered what his wife had said the night before. It took him a while to make his friend understand, but when he did, his eyes lit up, and he promised to get Anwar one of those bags.
True to his word, the following afternoon, he brought Anwar not one condom, but an entire box of them. “I’m sure they’ll be just the right size,” he said, smirking.
That night, in the bedroom, Anwar stood before Atiqa and made a show of removing the condom from its wrapper and putting it on. He thought it felt a bit tight, but then he remembered that his feet always felt the same way when he got new shoes. Some things just took getting used to. Atiqa nodded her approval, and he assumed his usual position on top of her. But as soon as he attempted to enter her, the condom exploded.
“But it’s not naked,” he protested when Atiqa pushed him away. “It’s just not wearing a hat, that’s all!”
But Atiqa wouldn’t let him have what he wanted.
The following day, the hospital pulled the plug and called Jilali to collect his grandson’s body. When Atiqa saw her little Sufyan, whom she’d mothered for only one week before he’d been whisked away and put in the vitrine two years earlier, lying cold and lifeless on the bed, it finally hit her: he was dead. She fled the house, sobbing. Anwar tried to go after her, but forgot his elastic bands and had to return to fix his pantlegs. By the time he was ready to chase her, he had no idea where she’d gone.
She didn’t return until late evening, and when Anwar tried to talk to her, she let out a wail and assaulted him, slapping and kicking. “This is your fault!” she screamed.
She refused to spend one more night with her husband. Without anyone’s permission, she took a taxi and went back to her father’s town, almost two hours away. Reeling from the one-two punch of losing his wife and son, Anwar plunged into despair. He couldn’t be consoled, not even when Jilali reminded him that he would see Atiqa again in a few weeks, when she came back to town for her sister’s wedding. Atiqa’s younger sister was marrying Anwar’s older brother.
By this time, Jilali had come up with a plan. He would use the wedding as an opportunity, not to facilitate his son’s and niece’s reconciliation—that could be taken care of later—but to maneuver Atiqa into a liaison. By selecting the man who would father the new Sufyan, Jilali hoped to salvage some small shred of self-respect. This way, he told himself, he would be able to look at his grandson—his grand-nephew, rather—and know he’d had a hand in his creation.
The day of the wedding came. Lights were strung from wooden posts around Jilali’ yard, and chairs were set up, and tents were raised, and guests arrived, and night came on, and dancers whirled, and drummers drummed, and soon, unattached men and women started vanishing into the shadows of the orchard, which Jilali no longer owned. The sight of all those young people slipping furtively into the trees, some in pairs, others alone, on the hunt, reminded Jilali of how hard the last two years had been, and how many sacrifices he’d made, and how much time he’d spent thinking of others, and how rarely he thought of himself, and how little others appreciated him, and how even his wife hardly looked at him anymore, and how old and dry and shriveled up she was, and how, if anyone deserved a distraction that night, it was him. Atiqa’s time would come later. He also had needs.
Glancing around to make sure that no one was watching, Jilali headed for the trees.
He was so focused on the pillars of shadow around him, gauging which ones were fig trees and which ones were women, that he completely forgot about the orchard’s irrigation ditch. One minute, he was creeping along, and the next, he was lying crumpled at the bottom of the dry gulley, gasping in pain. When he groped for his foot, he found his toes pointing the wrong way. Bile leaked onto his tongue, and he whimpered.
“Hello?” said a familiar voice. “Who’s there?”
When Jilali raised his head, he came face to face with Atiqa. Her head was thrown back, upside down, and her body was splayed beneath a large, pale stranger, who was gazing in astonishment at Jilali. In the moonlight, Jilali recognized him as one of the foreigners who lived in town and worked the gypsum mine. Those miners must’ve caught wind of the wedding and stopped in for a bite to eat.
This one was having his dessert as well.
“Uncle,” said Atiqa, “what are you doing here?”
“What are you doing here?” Jilali demanded.
“What do you think?” Atiqa shot back. “Making another Sufyan.”
That was the last thing Jilali remembered before he passed out from the pain.
When he came to, he was flat on his back on his own bed. The faces gathered around him, with the exception of Atiqa’s, were not those of his family—his brothers and nieces and nephews and cousins were all still enjoying the party—but rather those of the miners. They’d carried him back from the orchard, one of them explained in faltering French, and bandaged his ankle as best they could, but he should still go the hospital.
“Don’t worry,” Atiqa chimed in, speaking Darija. “We didn’t stop. We got the job done.”
Nine months later, in the public hospital, a handsome, healthy, pale-faced boy was born. The entire nursing staff converged on the natal ward to congratulate Atiqa. They’d all heard about the private hospital and wanted to make sure that she received proper care.
“You’re lucky, you know,” said the nurse who’d broken the news to Jilali almost a year before, addressing Atiqa and Anwar. “It’s not common for cousins to have such a healthy child.”
“Smart,” said Atiqa, cradling her swaddled child to her breast. “Not lucky.”
Anwar, who’d been strutting about like a rooster ever since his wife had returned to him, miraculously pregnant with a second Sufyan, thought she was smiling at him and beamed back at her. But she wasn’t smiling at him. She was smiling over his shoulder, at her uncle, who stood in the corner of the hospital room, leaning on the cane he’d been using ever since the miners had mis-set his ankle. For nine months, the pain hadn’t left him. Even with an aspirin every night, he couldn’t get an hour’s sleep. He hated that ditch. He hated the figs for requiring irrigation. He hated the orchard. He hated the man who’d acquired the orchard. He hated the private hospital for taking his money. He hated the public one for not taking his grandson. He hated his daughter-in law. And he hated the miners. Especially the one who’d made a cuckold of his son.
The pain wasn’t the reason he winced, though. By now, he was used to the pain.
Atiqa, flushed with joy, mistook his wince for a wink. She winked back at him.
Itto and Mekiya Outini are a wife-and-husband team dedicated to crafting exceptional literature and creating opportunities for their fellow storytellers. Their work has appeared or is forthcoming in The North American Review, Fourth Genre, Fine Lines, Jewish Life Quarterly, MQR, The Chicago Tribune, Chautauqua, and elsewhere, and they’ve received support from the MacDowell Foundation, the Steinbeck Fellowship Program at San Jose State University, and the Fulbright Program. The Outinis are collaborating on several books and running an author support platform dedicated to helping high achievers tell their stories and giving writers the tools to succeed. They hold an MA and an MFA, respectively, from the University of Arkansas.