The Bamboo Stalk by Saud Alsanousi

priest smiled, a sign that the ritual was over.
    â€˜But is there any way I can get the bee out of my head, Father?’ I asked.
    The priest looked surprised.
    â€˜When I ran away from Inang Choleng’s house,’ I explained, ‘a bee followed me.’
    Now he looked interested. He nodded his head, encouraging me to continue.
    â€˜I was running and the buzzing was right by my ear and I was frightened.’
    I started thrashing the air around my face to explain what had happened.
    â€˜I tried to shoo it away, but it was insisting on something. It hit my ear.’
    I hit my ear with my finger, continuing my little reenactment.
    â€˜I hit it, but I dropped the chicken and it fell to the ground, then . . .’
    I put my hands over my ear and stared into the priest’s face.
    â€˜Suddenly the buzzing outside stopped. But then I could hear it inside my head instead.’
    The priest smiled. His smile gradually faded. He was thinking about something else but he wasn’t silent for long. ‘That’s guilt,’ he said.
    â€˜The Lord will forgive you if you pray, and the buzzing will disappear.’
    I prayed and prayed, but the bee chose to stay in my head for ages.
    Â 
    6
    My mother never stopped talking about my father and Kuwait and the life that awaited me. I used to cry when the subject of Kuwait came up. It was a country I knew nothing about and I couldn’t imagine myself anywhere other than on my grandfather Mendoza’s land in Valenzuela. I got annoyed when I heard the name Rashid, because my mother never stopped mentioning him. But because life was hard and my mother painted a picture of the paradise that awaited me, I ended up looking forward to the day when I would be rich and I could get whatever I wanted without having to work for it. If I was impressed by an advertisement for an expensive car, my mother would say, ‘You can have one of those if you go back to Kuwait.’ If I pointed to something in the shops that my mother couldn’t afford, she would say, ‘In Kuwait Rashid will buy you one like that.’ I imagined myself as Alice in Wonderland, running after my mother’s promises instead of the rabbit’s and falling down a hole that led to Kuwait, the Wonderland. My mother convinced me that we were living in hell and that Kuwait was the heaven I deserved.
    I had learned to read English, and one day my mother gave me my father’s first letter to her to read. He had sent it after we left Kuwait, when I was four months old.
    In his letter my father wrote:
    Dear Josephine,
    It’s been three months since you left and you still haven’t
asked why I abandoned you and Isa so mysteriously
.
    I handed the letter back to her and sighed. ‘I hate the name Isa,’ I said.
    She frowned. ‘But Isa’s a beautiful name,’ she said reproachfully. ‘It’s Arabic for Jesus,’ she added, patting my head.
    â€˜If you choose your mother’s religion, then Isa is the son of God, and if you choose your father’s religion then Isa’s a prophet sent by God. In either case you should be proud of your name.’
    I didn’t respond.
    â€˜Go on reading, José,’ my mother said with a smile.
    I continued, mainly because she called me José:
I know you won’t ask, because you’re the one who was always saying that everything happens for a reason and for some purpose and you’re not the kind of woman who looks for explanations.
    We know, or rather we admit, you and I, that getting married and what we did later on that crazy night on that boat was reckless.
    I looked up at my mother’s face.
    â€˜What happened on the boat, Mama?’ I asked.
    â€˜You’ll find out one day,’ she replied, a look of irritation on her face.
    I read on:
That’s why we accepted the consequences and lived with them in the beginning. But afterwards I must admit I couldn’t take it and in my