by Nadine Sinno<\/p>\n
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Kiki wanted nothing to do with the noisy lapdog that her son Meedo brought home that day. Decades of being told that the drool of dogs was considered impure in Islam had ingrained in her a repulsion toward the entire species. It did not help that shortly after the civil war ended, a bunch of wild dogs who had been feasting on corpses in abandoned downtown Beirut had found their way out and were roaming the city every night in search of human flesh. One of them mauled our own neighborhood tabbal, the volunteer drummer who beat his drum in the middle of the night so folks could wake up and eat a suhoor<\/em> snack before dawn, in preparation for fasting the next day. News of the drummer had unsettled residents, who stopped leaving the house at night, thinking if God was fine with the dogs eating his most faithful of disciples, then they were all fair game. It was also personal for Kiki. As a child, she watched my mama get bitten by a dog. Both Mama and the dog were rushed to the hospital because they worried the dog might have had rabies.<\/p>\n Kiki adored Meedo, the light of her eyes, and she never said no to him. She had stayed in a painful marriage, putting up with years of abuse at the hands of her ex-husband so Meedo could have a \u201cstable\u201d home growing up. When Meedo turned eighteen, she divorced her abuser and promised to never share her bed with another \u201cson of a bitch.\u201d And now, after all the sacrifices, her beloved Meedo had brought home a drooling bitch that shattered her sakina<\/em>, her spirit of tranquility, and threatened to desecrate her cherished space.<\/p>\n \u201cMama, you have to give her a chance,\u201d Meedo said. \u201cHaram<\/em>, poor thing, look at her.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHabibi<\/em> Meedo, I would give you my soul, but I won\u2019t go to hell for this dog. Haram Ana<\/em>\u2026 I am the poor thing. You know I cannot live with najaseh<\/em>\u2014impurity.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCome on, Mama. Who still thinks like that?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe Quran still thinks like that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAre you sure about that? That it\u2019s written in the Quran?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo, I\u2019m not sure. Maybe it\u2019s not in the Quran. Maybe one of the prophets said it. I\u2019m not a sheikh<\/em>. How the hell do I know?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s assume the drool of the dog is truly impure, Mama,\u201d Meedo reasoned. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to rub your face all over hers. Isn\u2019t she adorable? Just look at her for a second.\u201d<\/p>\n Meedo knew Kiki\u2019s heart was big enough for all of us, including his stinky little dog.<\/p>\n \u201cI named her Coco,\u201d he said mischievously. \u201cNow we have Kiki and Coco.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMeedo, I can\u2019t even look at her. I\u2019m going to have a stroke. Habibi<\/em>, I don\u2019t have anything in the bank if that\u2019s what you\u2019re after. Every penny that my father left me was spent on you. I even talked to my lawyer about writing the apartment in your name. You don\u2019t have to kill me to inherit this place. Do you want me to leave? Just say it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cKhalas<\/em>, that\u2019s enough,\u201d Meedo said. \u201cTomorrow I\u2019ll take Coco back. You never have to see her again.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThank you. I\u2019m sorry, Habibi<\/em>. You\u2019ll have to forgive me.\u201d<\/p>\n But Coco never left Kiki\u2019s house after that day. They say that Kiki made the mistake of looking into Coco\u2019s eyes, and that once she looked into those brown eyes, she was bewitched. The unwanted guest slept in Kiki\u2019s bed, ate at her table, and received a thousand and one kisses every day\u2014her impure drool soon rationalized as not something that the Quran, or the Prophet, ever meant literally<\/em>.<\/p>\n When my uncle fretted about the dog contaminating his ablutions and threatened never to set foot in her house again, Kiki wasn\u2019t fazed.<\/p>\n \u201cI understand,\u201d she explained. \u201cIf you don\u2019t come to me, I will come to you. But you will grow to love Coco. You will love her because God created her just like the rest of us. She has eyes, ears, a mouth, hands, and feet. And she has a big heart, just like me. The only animal we are not supposed to love is the pig because he disobeyed God. But Coco would never do that.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, Kiki made an exception for my mother.<\/p>\n \u201cMunia is excused,\u201d Kiki told folks who accused her of playing favorites whenever she put Coco in another room during Mama\u2019s visits. \u201cI watched Munia almost bleed to death when that dog bit her. And Munia\u2019s nerves are fragile. But one day, Munia will fall in love with Coco, and Coco will cure Munia. Munia won\u2019t even need those damn pills anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n Kiki\u2019s heart did have room for all of us.<\/p>\n \u201cThey all think I\u2019m crazy,\u201d she once told me over the phone. Earlier that day, she had texted me a picture of Coco sitting lazily on my mother\u2019s lap. In the picture, Mama is smiling peacefully\u2014a rare sight since 2005, the year Mama had her first manic episode\u2014as she caresses Coco\u2019s shaggy hair. For a moment, I couldn\u2019t help but wonder if Mama was truly cured.<\/p>\n \u201cBut that\u2019s the last of my concerns,\u201d Kiki continued after taking a puff of her cigarette. \u201cThis dog cares about me more than my own family. She knows when I\u2019m sad. She knows when I\u2019m happy. She never leaves my side. God brought her into my life for a reason. He knew I needed a friend. She\u2019s my best friend, and she loves me the way I am. Crazy Kiki. She doesn\u2019t tell me to stop doing this and that, that I look like a whore in my tight tops. No, Coco doesn\u2019t judge.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell, we don\u2019t know that for sure,\u201d I teased. \u201cCoco can\u2019t talk, so you don\u2019t really know what she thinks of your tight tops.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOne day, she\u2019s going to talk,\u201d Kiki retaliated. \u201cYou will see. This dog will talk.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Nadine Sinno is a Professor of Arabic at Virginia Tech. Her creative work has appeared in\u00a0Mizna<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Sukoon<\/em>. Her scholarly articles have been published in journals including\u00a0MELUS<\/em>, the\u00a0Journal of Arabic Literature<\/em>, and\u00a0ASAP\/Journal<\/em>. Her literary translations include Nazik Saba Yared\u2019s\u00a0Canceled Memories<\/em>; Huda Hamed\u2019s\u00a0I Saw Her in My Dreams<\/em>; Jabbour Douaihy\u2019s\u00a0Firefly<\/em>; and Rashid al-Daif\u2019s\u00a0Who\u2019s Afraid of Meryl Streep? <\/em>Her monograph,\u00a0A War of Colors<\/em>, explores graffiti in postwar Beirut.<\/p>\n
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