Hide-and-Seek

I remember how the men forbade us from sitting on the chairs inside the mourning tent. We paced through the rows of men, arm in arm, squeezing between those arriving hungry for lunch. We were a big group, too, glowering. Noor in our midst. I clapped him on the back every time the men smiled at him—at us—in that pathetic way. As if we were kittens. We weren’t kittens. I knew things; I thought I did. I was the only one in our group who knew how Noor’s dad passed away.

A fussy uncle asked us to leave the tent, to make way for cousins bearing platters of turmeric rice and sweaty lamb, cauldrons of sauce. “Out. Out,” he said, “Go play hide-and-seek.”

But we craved the food as much as men did.

“You’ll eat afterwards, after the men,” he said. “You’ll eat afterwards. In proper time. Out—and take Noor with. Out!”

We insisted on staying. For Noor’s sake we insisted on staying. Puffing my chest, I said, “Well, the food’s to mourn his father.”

The fussy uncle laughed and asked some older cousins to drag us out.

I had to announce that I knew how Noor’s dad passed away, to prove a point to him—we deserved to stay. “I know how uncle died!”

We got kicked out in a blink. I got literally kicked out. Kicked in the butt.

My dad was smoking right outside the tent. When he saw me getting kicked out, he shook his head and laughed.

The older cousins pointed at the two oldest among us, Shareef and Omar. Told them to shut me up. I couldn’t go around running my mouth like that.

“Okay,” Omar said to them.

“You got that?” Shareef said to me.

I nodded, rubbing my butt.

It was a Saturday. So we went into our usual spot. A construction site down the street, not two floors off the ground yet. Piles of pebbles, sticks, and sand flanked its entrance. There, we usually logged bricks and pebbles at the walls or broke sticks—and sure, sometimes we even played hide-and-seek.

Shareef and Omar were sword fighting. Others were playing makeshift marbles. But I sat on the stairs to the second floor, choking back tears.

“How did my father die?” Noor asked. He was standing before me, wild-eyed, arms limp.

A cousin hit me with a pebble in the head. “Yeah, how?”

Shareef pointed his stick at me. “Tell us.”

They were hungry. They chanted for me to tell them. “Tell us! Tell us! Tell us!”

They hauled me up to the landing, below blue skies. They sat at my feet. Waiting. Eager.

Except Noor. He was still standing there.

“Oh, well. He owed me sixty dinars,” my dad said after hanging up the call.

We were in the kitchen. He was smoking. I was making him coffee.

“How did uncle die?” I asked after the mood loosened a bit.

My dad blew out smoke then told me the story in his sleepy voice, with its bored drawl.

Now, I was telling it my own way.

Uncle was driving at night. Making another food delivery in his pickup. And what with most his trips taking him down to the capital just to make a few dinars, he was saving up by cutting back on cigs and coffee. The night he died, he was sleepy. Couldn’t keep his eyes open.

I was about to say, truckers are out at that time of night.

Though Noor whined and covered his eyes.

They glanced back at him. Some shifted in their seats. But then acting all cool, Omar said, “Go on.”

“Yeah, go on!”

“No,” I said, watching Noor. “No.”

They threw themselves on each other. They pretended to wail. Slapped my thighs and begged for more.

But I couldn’t go on.

I still think about how Noor, covering his eyes. Of course back then I couldn’t put it into words. Only later did it strike me how terrified I’d been since having heard the story of the accident. I mean, I couldn’t even nap in the back of my dad’s pickup anymore, for fear of waking up headless. Or dead. I couldn’t even sleep at night. And if I did sleep, I’d wake up crying, still thinking I’d died. That’s really when I started looking away from trucks on the road, asking my dad questions to distract him from what I was doing. And no, I never got my license.

I couldn’t go on. But Omar stood up. He grabbed me by the collar. Tipped me past the edge of the stairs. “You gonna tell us how uncle died or what?”

Shareef smacked me on the butt with his big stick.

“Tell us! Tell us! Tell us!”

Omar said to me, “We’re not just some kittens, you know?”

“Tell us! Tell us! Tell us!”

I was praying for one of the older cousins to pop in on behalf of the fussy uncle and tell us we could finally go eat, that the men were finished. But it’d been too soon since we’d left for that to happen, I knew.

I was beginning to think, alright, I’ll tell.

“Okay, okay, let go. I’ll tell!”

Omar pulled me back and let go. I was upright once again but struggling to breathe.

He and Shareef leaned against the wall, the one cracking his knuckles, the other tapping his stick against his palm. Pair of wolves they were.

Once again, everyone’s excitement turned into anticipation.

Except Noor. He was standing at the bottom of the staircase, still covering his eyes.

Yeah, I told them how uncle died.

But I told them the story like how my dad told it.

Everyone fell quiet afterwards. Nobody moved much. Someone sneezed.

At last, Noor shouted, “Let’s just play hide-and-seek. Come on. I’ll count!”

Still covering his eyes, he began to count. Except, he did not stop at ten. Nor at thirty. Nor at one hundred. And still nobody had moved much. Nor did he stop at one fifty. Nor at three hundred.

We forgot about the tent. We forgot about the food. And he just kept on counting.