by Amal Awad
I close my eyes, the tears spilling freely down my cheeks. Khaled and I, finally in connection, linked by the spirit of someone we both loved.
Afterwards, we sit at the bar where Khaled drinks his sorrow. I stick to water.
We occupy tall stools beside one another at the counter in an oddly comfortable silence. Both of us are emptied out, the past finally exhumed.
I feel lighter. Not good. Not happy. My sorrow runs deep and in different directions, but this moment with Khaled feels like a cosmic correction. At the very least, a necessity.
‘What made you ask for me in the first place?’ I say to him. ‘It’s obvious I’m not your type.’
Khaled smiles into his brandy. ‘The woman I loved found someone else. So I did too.’ He meets my eyes. ‘I found someone who was the complete opposite of her.’
‘Right.’ I let out a short laugh. ‘So I was a consolation prize.’
He shakes his head. ‘When I saw you at the wedding, you looked beautiful. And you were respectable and polite. I wasn’t expecting the person who arrived a year later.’
‘I didn’t think I’d be living in Amman for eight years. Call it even.’
‘I told myself that we’d be the same in real life as we were on the phone. But it’s harder to hide when you’re in front of someone.’
I raise an eyebrow. ‘Hide what? Your lack of interest?’ Khaled stares ahead, contemplative. ‘Hide who you are and what you want.’
Energy doesn’t lie.
We’re not looking at each other. We both face a wall of wine and spirits. Behind the shelves is a mirror, but the wooden slats obscure our reflections in the dark. We look like monsters.
I hear Khaled take a gulp of his drink then place the glass down.
‘Do you think if I’d been more confident, you would have loved me?’ I ask this despite not caring about the answer. Perhaps I just want to feel better about how things unfolded. A simple affirmation that I didn’t stand a chance.
Now he looks at me and I turn to face him. I hold his gaze.
‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘I don’t know why you said yes to me.’
‘I didn’t think about it. I prayed istikhara then pushed ahead.’
‘Did you do it wrong?’ Khaled says, and even I have to smile at that.
But then, I met Naeem.
‘I always thought you should have been with someone like Magda,’ I say.
Khaled’s eyes darken a little. ‘My brother didn’t know what he had.’
These small confirmations are what I need to finally sever my cords to the past. I didn’t imagine my awful marriage. I didn’t transform Khaled in my mind into someone he wasn’t as an excuse. Even now, as I look at him – unkempt but attractive, confident and strong – I understand the reasons for my initial choice. I felt powerless in life, so I said yes to someone who seemed all-powerful. Strangely, it is an aura that remains despite his heartbreak and vulnerability.
‘I liked your hair long,’ he says.
‘I know. But I didn’t cut it because of you.’
The night spirals into some strange forgiveness process. After assuring Leo that I am safe, Khaled and I walk down King Street together. We end up at a park with a graveyard that appears haunting in the orange glow of the streetlamps, our breath puffing in the chilly night air. The sky above seems the darkest kind of black, but the moon, sitting among a thin sprinkling of stars, offers a faint light.
We sit on a concrete slab and stare at the graves. Khaled is tipsy, but it hasn’t made him mean. If anything, he seems subdued.
‘My father visits Naeem every day,’ he says.
I think of my visits to my parents’ graves, how much I unload each time I go; how I seek to communicate with their spirits in a concealed realm. Was I visiting Naeem, too, in those moments? Not for the first time, I wonder if they are witnesses to my indiscretions. Do the dead see all, and if they can, do they care? What would Naeem think of my time with Luke? Does he feel easily replaced or betrayed?
Khaled pulls out a packet of cigarettes and extends it to me. We make eye contact and I sense it’s a meaningful offer. I take a cigarette and he lights it up for me, then does the same for himself.
I bum-puff, not wanting to inhale the smoke.
‘My mother is on medication,’ he says.
I close my eyes. ‘It will get easier.’
‘She’ll get distracted when things start moving again.’
‘Like when you get married.’
Khaled shrugs. ‘And Dina. She’s getting too old to do what she does. She makes everyone nervous. They’ll scare her into getting married. It’s not fun being a spinster in an Arab country.’
‘If anyone can manage it, it’s Dina.’
‘I don’t think she cares. She’s a closed book. Opens up when she pleases.’
‘Does she hate me?’
‘No one hates you, Sahar. They don’t even know what really happened.’
I look up, startled. ‘How is that possible?’
‘I told them we’re divorced because I ended it. I want kids and all that.’
‘But I never said goodbye to them.’
‘They put it down to you being too shy and embarrassed to face them.’
‘They must know there’s more.’
‘Maybe. But they’re in a hole. They don’t care.’
We drop into silence, smoking, sore, strangely connected.
Khaled leaves the next day. Outside his serviced apartment, we stand apart, the energy between us transformed even if it’s not warm. At least it’s real. It feels better this way.
He hands me the signed divorce papers. ‘I have something else for you,’ he says, pulling out a paper bag from his backpack.
I hold the parcel in my hands and detect immediately that it’s a book.
‘I had to clean up Naeem’s things,’ Khaled says. ‘I found this. It had your name in it a couple of times.’
Tears spring to my eyes as I rip open the bag to find a battered copy of Naeem’s Mahmoud Darwish book in Arabic, complete with notes in the margins. I struggle to hide my shock and pain. The meaning to this gift, so layered and complex.
‘Thank you,’ I say, trying to keep myself steady. I wonder if, despite the anger and the meanness, Khaled came here not to punish me. He knew, like me, that no new beginning would be whole without this complex but necessary excavation. He thought he was right, in the same way I have justified my place in events. But perhaps now, instead of regret there is acceptance. There is relief. I’m grateful that we had a chance to inspect the remains of our story. I have reached a point that I cannot return from: acceptance that Naeem is gone for good, and with him, some part of myself.
‘Your family were good to me. I’m glad you told them you divorced me on your own.’
Khaled nods slowly, his eyes examining me.
‘I’ll tell them something more truthful. That we both want to start again. And that you’re where you belong. You were never at home in Amman.’
I exhale and look up to see Khaled watching me, disappointment drawing down his features.
I’m surprised by the flood of emotions that follow. Tears continue to spill out of my eyes, but I wipe them away, my face stiff with the effort not to cry.
‘I hope you get your new beginning,’ I tell him. ‘It’s possible.’
I know it was for me.
That night, I go to trapeze alone for the first time. I don’t overthink it. I simply do. I can manage the pikes with a level of ease, and I can shimmy my way onto the bar without assistance. It’s only when I’m up there that the reality of what just transpired dawns on me, and for a moment, I lose my grip and I think I’m about to fall.
Chapter 27
My road winds and curves ahead, and I experience vertigo, unsettled yet so alive to the feeling.
I’m grateful that Maggie insisted I take time off. I would be useless in the bakery. I feel ungrounded, restless, a bit lost. At home, I lie on the couch and inspec
t Naeem’s book, trace the handwriting, breathe in the pages, yearning for any hint of the oud that he used to wear.
Mahmoud Darwish was like Naeem’s guide to life, a passport to another world of possibility that fuelled his hunger for a just, meaningful existence.
I finally look at Naeem’s photo, the only one I have, hidden away in a random folder on my phone. The American journalist who took it favoured candid shots. He captured Naeem’s essence, even from a distance: his smile and warmth as he tended to a male patient; the way his whole body seemed to expand with awareness because he had a purpose.
Sometimes I think that Naeem was an illusion – an intoxicating, comforting way to survive a problematic marriage; a passionate, wild fantasy. A towering presence who kept me alive when everything inside of me was threatening to die. He was life in an arid landscape.
My phone lights up with messages throughout the day. Samira sends me a disaster report about her kids. Inez sends me a photo of something she’s working on in the bakery, then one of her posing provocatively on the lyra at the academy. Kat says the least but packs her brief message with the most meaning.
I have a new idea for our wog cakes. Stop bludging and come back.
Luke does not send me a message.
Leo calls. ‘Maybe it’s time to get that tattoo: when it all feels shitty and the world seems mean.’
‘I don’t trust my judgement right now, Leo.’
‘You get tired of grief, sweetheart. It wears you out. It has a point until it doesn’t.’
When Lara arrives home in the early afternoon, she inspects me, still on the couch with Naeem’s book, my eyes red and my body sore. ‘I was waiting for this to happen,’ she says. ‘I’ll let you wallow for a bit, but I’m watching.’
I take another day off. My phone goes silent and I’m grateful for the peace. Outside, the sky is a dark grey, and the wind is blowing through the trees, creating a natural soundtrack that is both punishing and comforting at once. I pass the day doing very little but listening to music and snacking on chocolate. I flip through a tarot guidebook from a deck of Lara’s, and relive my evenings with Luke.
I am in my pyjamas and thick woollen socks, ready to settle in for a night of more of the same, when Samira arrives with two large pizzas and a surplus of energy.
‘Enough,’ she says, and Lara agrees.
Ten minutes later, Inez and Kat arrive with a box from Maggie’s.
‘Habib,’ says Kat, inspecting my appearance.
Inez ushers me towards the bathroom. ‘I bought you a bath bomb. Lara said you have a tub.’
‘You can’t come out for at least fifteen minutes,’ Lara yells from the kitchen.
Inez draws a bath and I watch, quiet and a little frustrated at the forced interruption.
‘It’s nice of you to come by, but I do take showers.’
Inez unwraps a colourful bath bomb – bright pink and blue with glitter – then tosses it in. ‘My grandmother told me no problem feels the same after a proper bath.’
I undress, watching as the ball starts to fizz, the colour inking its ways across the surface of the water. The room fills with steam and sound, and a zesty aroma stings my nose.
Inez helps me out of my shirt then dumps it on the floor. I strip off the rest of my clothing, not at all worried about my modesty.
‘I brought you my new cake,’ Inez says, her smile bright. ‘Well … a prototype. It’s a vegan chocolate and strawberry take on madeira with pink frosting. You’re going to love it.’
Stepping into the bathtub, I force a smile. Inez’s eyes follow me and I see her gaze trail the scars.
‘Are you upset that we’re here?’ she asks gently.
‘No,’ I say. ‘Just a bit embarrassed.’
She turns off the taps and suddenly it’s quiet. I can hear the girls chatting and laughing in the kitchen.
‘I missed you at trapeze,’ she says, sitting on the toilet lid. ‘Amber said you managed the pikes all by yourself last time you went in.’
Without warning, I start to cry, a gentle sobbing, staggered release of pent-up emotion. ‘I’m sorry,’ I tell her. ‘I feel like I’ve let everyone down. But it’s like something took the wind out of me.’
Inez fixes me with a sympathetic look. ‘You did such a good job of keeping your grief below the surface, you had no idea how it showed.’
‘I was just trying to get on with things.’
I think of Maggie sitting me down early on in my time with her, lecturing me on the dangers of staying so busy you don’t have time to think.
‘We’ve all been there in different ways,’ says Inez. ‘Not that I’m trying to minimise your grief. I know you went through something big. But we’ve all got sorrows and regrets. We’ve all had to say goodbye to things we’ve lost before we were ready to.’
‘I feel so stupid.’
‘You’re not stupid. Just stubborn.’ Inez softens. ‘Even now, you’re focused on how it looks. Just allow it, Sahar.’
‘I can’t. It hurts too much. It physically hurts.’
‘You’re not alone, honey. This is aftershock. You’re coming back down to Earth. But you’ve come a long way.’
I nod. ‘I think too much.’
‘Well, I don’t think you of all people are going to be able to quieten the mind. But you have to be careful about painting over the cracks you know are there. It doesn’t fix the problem.’
I take in her words, studying the soapy neon bathwater. There’s something more I need to know. ‘How’s Luke? I’m assuming he wasn’t invited tonight.’
Inez gives me a strange look, then rearranges her expression to something more neutral. ‘I don’t know, same old Luke. Always busy at work. But he’s more distant than usual. And no, he wasn’t invited. Kat and I reached out to your friends.’
Before she can tell me anything more, Kat pops her head in. ‘Just checking in. We all think it’s a bit weird that Inez is watching you have a bath. Just saying.’
Kat’s deadpan expression is enough to break me out of my moment of sorrow, and despite the tears marking my face, I shake with laughter.
Inez reaches an arm around me and kisses me on the cheek. ‘I could do much worse, thank you very much.’
We have dinner together. I’m the meeting point between two sets of friends, who in strange ways seem to mirror each other. Inez and Samira are warm and dedicated, full of life, and spurred on by their rich imaginations. Lara and Kat are the truth-tellers, the rebellious ones who are fiercely loyal and passionate about everything.
‘I have to say, I was a bit put out that you had friends besides Samira and me,’ Lara says. ‘But then they kept checking in on you and they brought dessert, so they must be all right.’
I smile, a bit sheepish. ‘I’m sorry I’ve been such a drag.’
Lara crosses her arms and fixes me with a stern look. ‘I’m not bloody surprised you’re having a moment. How do you get better if you pretend nothing’s wrong?’
‘I wasn’t pretending. I was trying to move forward.’
Lara lightens her stance. ‘Look … Do what you have to do, but my wedding’s in two weeks and I still need your help so that it’s not crap.’
‘You know you don’t even need to ask,’ I say.
‘I clearly do. Also, since you’ve become an expert in chocolate, I was hoping you could do bonbonnières. Samira would buy sugared almonds for sure.’
‘Well, excuse me for trying to inject some tradition into your special day!’ Samira says in a miffed tone.
‘I’ll do make-up!’ Inez says with a little clap, like she’s calling out an answer on a game show. ‘I mean, if you need someone.’
Lara studies Inez’s make-up. ‘I don’t have any hair and make-up booked. So if you can make me look like you, then yes, please.’
Inez and I look at Kat, who momentarily feigns innocence, then she sighs. ‘Ah fucken hell. Fine. If you need someone to do your hair, I can help you out.’
Lara beams. �
��I was just asking for bonbons, but sure.’ Then she looks at me. ‘And Sahar is making my cake,’ she says a little fiercely, like the fate of the world depends on it.
I’m still sorting through the wreckage, but as I look around the room, I realise something profound. My friends are here. And there it is: a glimpse of my true foundation, the thing that holds me in place no matter the weather.
Chapter 28
Belief does not disappear, it changes shape.
The next day, I wake up feeling revived. I’m keen to get moving again, to return to the things I abandoned in haste. The gym. Trapeze. My chocolate tarot box. Luke.
I’m not sure where I stand with Luke, or how things will be when I return to work next week. I’m tempted to find out, but instead I reorientate my focus onto what I need right now: to take advantage of this small but significant opportunity to finally declutter both my belongings at my parents’ house, and the possessions I have with me.
I start with the apartment. I don’t have much, but I discover Kat’s original list for The Experiment. There, at the bottom, like it was an afterthought, in Kat’s messy handwriting are the words: ‘Learn how to swim’, beside it an illustration of a mermaid.
My parents’ house sits on a quiet suburban street in south Sydney. We’re close to the beach here, but despite its sun-drenched streets and palm trees, it doesn’t quite have a seaside feel to it. It’s old-school Sydney: multicultural, populated, not poor but not dripping in wealth either.
Still, I can see that newly renovated houses pocket the street. There are more cars, and they are shinier. The worn-out migrant experience I was raised in has been spun into something less definitive. I wonder if any Arabs occupy the area at all now.
The house looks different, but in the grey light of the afternoon sun it’s clear that some things remain intact: the cracked white paint, the rusted mailbox, the peeling house number. I brace myself, with Lara and Samira standing either side of me. Empty of its inhabitants, the house strangely appears smaller, deprived of stories to fill its rooms, bereft of energy to keep it humming.