Upstairs, Downstairs at Andala

A Palestinian Ghost Story

• Fantasy

								
Upstairs, Downstairs At Andala
A Palestinian Ghost Story

K.L. Afrasiabi

-I-
“You must have transgressed some Allah’s will to bring this about,” I admonished myself.  But, deep down somehow I knew something monumental had happened here. Some irreversible transformation.  

        It began on my very first day of work at Andala’s kitchen, before I had a chance to start a normal life in my new Ghurba, exile.    
 "Go easy on the dishes, will you."  A male voice in thick Arabic accent came to me at around 11 pm when I was rushing to clean the pile after a long stretch that had begun at noon on a cold wintery day, too cold for my warm Mediterranean taste.  Someone on the way to the toilette had said in passing and I had missed him, so I thought and then resumed washing, with my ears tuned to the music coming from upstairs. A few minutes later the sarcastic voice returned    
"Just watch. You'll break the next one." And sure enough I was so startled that a dish dropped from hands and split into half. "Shit. What is this?"  I panicked and ran upstairs. “What’s the matter?” Hamdon the manager asked.
“There is something weird, a ghost.”
“A ghost?!” He laughed. “What have you been smoking brother?”
 "I swear to Allah I just heard him, twice." 
“Okay. Let’s go see. Maybe he‘s hungry.”  I followed him cautiously like a scared cat.  
"You're hallucinating.  Go home. I'll have Hassan finish the rest tomorrow," Hamdon ordered after inspecting the whole kitchen, the adjacent room and even the restrooms and found no sign of anything abnormal, except the broken plate in the sink; it reinforced his suspicion that I was playing a grotesque joke on him.  I quickly picked up my backpack and headed out the door. Hamdon wisecracked. "Don't go around and spread rumors now.  I don't want anyone thinking we sell dope here." "What should I do if it showed up again?” I asked innocently. “Tell him to f*ck off.” “Okay boss. Good night." That night I couldn’t sleep, imagining the ghost showing up at my bedside and jumping on me. In the morning I noticed that my shirt was soaked with sweat. 

-II-
        The next day, I entered Andala after a long pause, praying God to save me from Satan’s ghost.  “Be careful. God is punishing you because you ‘re acquiring an alien taste,” I exhorted myself.  I recalled my mother’s tearful eyes when we were saying goodbye, hugging each other as if we would never see each other again. “God will protect you my son.  Don’t lose your faith.  Remember what the Prophet said ‘lepers, the unbelievers and the idiotic assail you on every corner.”  The wait staff had gotten the wind of my ghost story and a couple of waitresses turned curious eyes toward me when I entered and punched my card.  Then I stepped down to the kitchen with some hesitation and was warmly greeted by Abdol, the Christian Lebanese chef who had placed me at one of his rooms full of Bibles.  “Put some hot water on for soup and wash and cut the vegetables,” he quickly ordered and then sang meaningfully under his lips, “I will no longer be trapped/in this phase of fantasies.”  I kept quiet all day, thankful for no more creepy supernatural encounters -- then and the following days.  I worked long hours, went home late and got up early for the morning prayer followed by an hour or so of learning and improving my English before heading to work.  A month or so later, when the memory of that voice had receded to the back of my mind, it came back with vengeance.  Scarcely had I placed a foot inside when I suddenly heard his cry of “the Prince is coming! The Prince is coming.”  Startled, I thought it was a tasteless joke and proceeded to the kitchen pretending I was deaf.

"Do I have your attention now? Or you want me to put that knife to your throat?" I was about to pick up a butcher's knife and cut some meat right after Abdol’s momentary absence for a smoke.  I froze in my spot and dropped the knife – it moved by itself cutting the meat, in neat slices, with the ghost whistling and singing “don’t let the olive branch drop from my hand.” But as soon as Abdol was back, the knife was dropped on the table and the singing stopped.  “What an idiot,” I thought to myself. “He takes a knife for olive branch.”
 "Good job," Abdol praised me as he picked up the slices to throw into the big pot. 
“You’re a quick learner. I like that. Keep it up boy.” He then asked what was the matter since my astonishment was so great that I stood quite motionless and dimly uttered, "Nothing."  But my hands and my back kept shivering for a long time and I repeated under my lips a thousand times “Merciful Allah.”  A couple of hours later, when Abdol went out for a break, I heard again “don’t let the olive branch drop from my hand – goddamn it.”  What could I do with so crude a tormentor?

“Who are you?” What do you want from me? What has possessed you?” There was no answer initially and then just as Abdol was emerging through the back door I heard the voice whisper into my ear. “We are all dispossessed. No one is the master of his destiny, don’t forget, except God.”   I felt a little assured about its intentions and concluded right then that this was no accidental ghost stopping by on its way somewhere else, that I was somehow stuck with it, for good or bad.  But why me, why was I the only one who could hear him? And should I inform Abdol, Hamdon and others about its reappearance?  After a lengthy debate in my head, I chose to keep it a secret, knowing full well that I would be risking my job if I ventured another word about it to Hamdon – I once overheard him telling one of the waitresses, “he ‘s a good kid but is a bit goofy.”  I asked Abdol what “goofy” meant and he wasn’t  sure so I asked one of the waitresses, Zobedie an Ethiopian, and she thought it meant absent-minded. Still, Hamdon was kind enough to give me a nice cell phone that had been left there for weeks, easily worth a couple of hundred dollars.   On the way home, a grayish dog barked at me from behind a neighbor’s fence and I ran inside my basement studio, my mind conjuring the memory of a preacher’s sermon in our village’s mosque. “Let me tell you about Satan. He only exhales serpents, dead rats, mad dogs, and Arab leaders.” I felt confused and distressed to the utmost degree, couldn’t close my eyes during the whole night. 

-III-
 "I 'm sorry. I was very mean to you the other night," the ghost in its hazy voice jolted me again a couple of nights later.  Funny thing, the more he talked the more it sounded familiar, like a voice that I had heard before more than once but didn’t know where or when no matter how hard I pressed my memory.  “May I inquire about your identity and know how you had the misfortune to lose your life?”   Instead of answering he ordered. "Stay back.” Then I observed the spectacular scene of dishes and pots thoroughly washed by some agile invisible hands; I observed he was a left-handed.  Ne Me Quitte Pas, Il Faut Oublie, Tout Peut's oublie, Que S'enfuit De ja, Oublie le tamp, le Malantandu; the ghost sang and stopped when the washing was done.

								Rate this book:0.0 / 0 votes