Friendly Fire

by Alaa Al Aswany

  2

  A Close-fitting Covering for the Head, Brightly Colored

  What I liked about her most were her morals, which were impeccable. There were five of us in the accountancy class and she was the only female student who covered her hair. Her head scarf wasn’t one of those flowing, billowy ones; it was just a cover for the head, a round piece of embroidered silk to cover her hair of a sort that I found out later was called a bonnet; she had a varied collection of bonnets, each dress having its own of the same color. And her beauty was stunning: wide black eyes, a complexion of shining, angelic whiteness, a little nose as delicate as some delicious fruit, and full lips, which, when slightly parted, revealed regular, pearly teeth.

  All that beauty, and swathed in a grave and modest comportment that commanded respect. No frivolous laugh escaped her lips and there wasn’t a wanton or uncalled for word to any of her male colleagues or a single attempt to attract attention to herself. In addition she was so profoundly religious that she would ask the teacher to halt the class so that she wouldn’t have to skip the afternoon prayer. I was attracted to her, but despite all my experience with women I didn’t dare. How could I pollute the surface of that dignified bearing with a cheap flirtatious word? Months passed as I watched her in silence during class; and, as I knew for sure from the slight quiver that would pass over her lovely face whenever our eyes met, she could feel my glances.

  One evening, the telephone rang at home and I heard her voice on the line—smooth and drowsy, as though she was asleep or had just woken up. She asked me about some point that was unclear in the last class, then thanked me and hung up. I stayed awake the whole night thinking. Why had she called me specifically? First, I was weak at accounting, as she well knew, and second she had the number of the teacher himself and could have asked him if she’d wanted. Could it be that…?

  The idea that she might love me had me soaring like a bird in the sky.

  I rang her the next day and her mother enquired coldly, “Who is this?”

  “Her classmate Salah, Tante,” I answered quickly.

  She said nothing for a moment as though carefully weighing the situation. Then she called her. This time we talked for ages. I discovered that she had two sisters and that her father was a university professor who worked in the Gulf and I told her about my father who had died recently and complained of the complicated inheritance procedures. In the end, I asked her if I could ring her from time to time. She laughed and said, “Why not? That way we can encourage each other to study.”

  Our phone conversations became long, daily affairs that strengthened the love in my heart until one day my feelings overflowed and I suddenly said to her, “Listen. I love you. Will you marry me?”

  She said nothing for a long time. Then she responded, in a voice that sounded to me low and sad, that this was what she’d been afraid of at the beginning and that, though I was as outstanding a young man as any girl could wish for, she wasn’t thinking of marriage yet. It was a hard blow, and I asked her in a despairing voice if that meant that she was refusing me. She replied that she was neither accepting me nor refusing me; she just wasn’t thinking about marriage. Our calls continued and I didn’t talk to her about marriage after that, but I would express my love every day, telling her, “I love you, I love you.” Sometimes she’d laugh and sometimes she’d say, “If you really love me, study hard.” One day, when the finals were approaching, she told me, “Why don’t we review together? Come to the house tomorrow. I’ve told Mummy and Daddy.”

  I spent the night as in a fabulous dream. I didn’t sleep and I didn’t read a word, and when the appointed time came, I was wearing my best clothes with my hair neatly brushed and my face shaved. How happy I felt as I rang their melodious doorbell!

  Her house was lovely and her family lovelier still. Her father was a man of great distinction who embraced me in his fatherliness, and her mother, still beautiful despite her age, covered her hair with a somber black bonnet. I really liked it about her parents that they would leave us alone in the study and close the door on us. Didn’t that demonstrate the trust they had in their daughter, and in my own morals too?

  How beautiful love is! I started going to see her every day. I’d sit beside her as we went over our lessons and talked, and I’d move close to her and smell the scent of her hair and suddenly surprise her by grasping her soft, plump hand, feeling it melt in my grip. At such moments, she’d color and gasp and whisper fearfully, “Are you mad? If Mummy caught us it’d be a disaster.”

  Then one day, when I’d gone to review with her as usual and had sat down at the desk and spread the lecture notes out in front of me, she informed me, casually, that her parents had gone out and that they wouldn’t be back before evening. The moment this sunk in, I felt the blood seethe in my body and a veil fell over my eyes, so that I couldn’t make out what I was seeing. In a strangled voice, I asked her to bring me a glass of water and the moment she got up and turned around I grasped her arm and pulled her toward me, covering her face and neck with hot kisses. She let out a low scream and resisted a little, then surrendered to my embrace, and we dissolved in a long, burning kiss sweeter than any I’d tasted in my life before. When I recovered my senses, I found her face had turned pale and was wet with tears, and it wasn’t long before she broke into a bout of painful weeping. I tried to calm her and said I was sorry I hadn’t been able to control myself. I told her, to make light of the matter, that it was only a kiss after all, but my darling screamed in my face, “It’s nothing to you, but for me it’s a catastrophe. Me, on whom no man but my father has ever laid a hand—how could I have allowed you to kiss me? What am I going to tell my father? What am I going to tell my mother?” My beloved collapsed in a new fit of weeping and wailing and I couldn’t stand it, so I left in a hurry feeling extremely upset.

  Then there we were, my mother and I, in their living room with my beloved seated like a shining star between her parents, wearing a bright red dress with a bonnet of the same color. My mother spoke at length about my upbringing and my morals and the wealth my father had left me and how much she wanted to see me happily married. When the talk turned to the bridal settlement and the jewelry, my beloved stretched out her beautiful, delicate hand, adjusted the bonnet, which had slipped a little, and said to my mother in her magical, dulcet voice that the sum of twenty thousand pounds wasn’t nearly enough, and spoke of young women related to her whose settlements had reached as much as sixty or even seventy thousand. Then she ended by saying, politely but firmly, that she couldn’t possibly accept less than thirty.

  And I nudged my mother eagerly to agree.

  Izzat Amin Iskandar

  IZZAT AMIN ISKANDAR was my classmate in First Preparatory. He was on the short side, his body strong and broad, his head large, his hair black and smooth. He wore glasses, along with a slight meek smile, almost of supplication, and that Coptic look—sometimes shifty, misgiving, and frightened, sometimes profound, submissive, and burdened with guilt and distress. He also had an artificial leg and a crutch. The crutch ended in a piece of rubber that prevented it from making a noise or slipping, and his artificial leg he covered with his school pants and a sock and shoe to make it look normal.

  Each morning Izzat limped into the classroom leaning on his crutch, dragging his artificial leg and swinging from one side to the other with every step until he reached the end of his bench. There, in the corner next to the window, he would sit down and lay his crutch on the ground, paying it no further attention. He would completely absorb himself in the lesson, writing down carefully everything that the teacher said, listening alertly and knitting his brow in concentration and then raising his hand with a question—as though by becoming so involved in the lesson he could insinuate himself into the throng, hide himself in our midst, and become, for a few hours, just one student among the others, stigmatized by neither crutch nor limp.

  When the bell sounded for break, the moment its splendid tones rang out, the students would all che
er for joy, throw down whatever they were holding, and push and shove their way, sometimes even knocking one another over, to the door of the classroom, from where they descended to the playground. Only Izzat Amin Iskandar would receive the sound as though it was the fulfillment of some ancient, awaited prophecy, close his exercise book, bend quietly down, and then take the sandwich and the comic from his bag and spend the break seated where he was, reading and eating. If any of the other students were to look at him and show any curiosity or pity, Izzat would smile broadly while continuing to read, to make it clear how much he was enjoying himself, as though it was the pleasure of reading and that alone that kept him from going down to the playground.

  It was the first time I’d taken my bike to school. It was a Thursday afternoon and the playground was empty of all but a few students playing soccer on the far side. I started riding my bike. I would cross the playground back and forth, making circles round the trees, imagining myself in a bike race and yelling at the top of my lungs, “Ladies and gentlemen, and now for the World Cycling Championship!” In my mind’s eye, I could see the public, the important people, and the riders with whom I was competing and hear the shouts and whistles of the fans. I was always in first place, reaching the finishing line before the others and receiving bunches of flowers and kisses of congratulation.

  I continued to play like this for some time and then suddenly I got a feeling that I was being observed. I turned and saw Izzat Amin Iskandar sitting on the laboratory steps. He’d been watching me from the beginning and when our eyes met he smiled and waved, so I set off toward him and he started his standing up process, leaning on one hand against the wall of the steps and grasping his crutch under his arm; then he raised his body slowly until he was upright and came down the steps one by one. When he reached me, he started examining the bicycle closely. He took hold of the handle bar, rang the bell a number of times, and then bent and ran his fingers over the spokes of the front wheel, muttering in a low voice, “Nice bike.”

  I was quick to say with pride, “It’s a Raleigh 24, racing wheels, three-speed.”

  He gave the bike another look over, as though to test the truth of what I’d said, then asked, “Do you know how to ride with your hands in the air?”

  I nodded and set off on the bike. I was an expert rider and happy to show off in front of him. I pedaled hard until I got to top speed and could feel the bike shaking beneath me. Then I raised my hands carefully from the handlebar, until my arms were straight up in the air. I stayed that way for a bit, then turned, and came back to where he’d taken a few steps forward to the middle of the playground. Coming to a halt in front of him, I said as I got off, “Happy now?”

  He didn’t answer me, but bent his head and started looking at the bike as though weighing something profound and surprising in his mind. He struck the ground with his crutch and moved forward a step until he was up against the bike. Then he grasped the handlebar in his hand, bent toward me, and whispered, “Let me have a ride, please” and went on insistently repeating, “Please, please.”

  I didn’t take in what he was saying and stared at him. At that moment he looked like someone swept by a wave of such longing that he couldn’t stop himself or go back, and when he found I didn’t reply he started shaking the handle bar violently and shouting, in anger this time, “I said give me a ride!” Then he tried to jump up and get on and we both lost our balance and almost fell over.

  I don’t remember what I was thinking right then but something propelled me toward him and I found myself helping him onto the bike. He leaned his weight on my shoulder and the crutch and after several strenuous attempts was able to raise his body up high and then get his sound leg over to the other side of the bike and sit on the saddle. His plan was to hold his artificial leg out in front to avoid the pedal and at the same time to push the other pedal hard with his sound leg. This was extremely difficult but, in the end, possible. Izzat settled himself on the bike and with my hand on his back I started to push him forward gently and carefully, and when the bike started to move and he began pedaling, I let go. He lost his balance and wobbled violently but quickly recovered his poise, straightened out, and started to control the bike. He had to make a huge effort to pedal with one leg while keeping his balance but moments passed and the bike proceeded slowly and Izzat passed first the big tree and then the canteen kiosk and I found myself clapping and shouting, “Well done, Izzat!”

  He kept going in a straight line until he had almost reached the end of the playground where he had to make a turn, which scared me. But he made the turn carefully and skillfully and when he came back the other way he seemed confident and in complete control of the bike—so much so that he changed gear once, and then again, until the rushing air made his hair fly.

  The bicycle was charging ahead at great speed now and Izzat passed down the pathway that extended between the trees, his form appearing and disappearing amid the crisscrossing foliage. He’d done it, and I watched him as he leaned back on the bike, which was flying like an arrow now, raised his head, and let out a long, loud cry that echoed around the playground—a strange, drawn-out, cracked cry that sounded as though it had been long imprisoned within his chest. He was shouting, “See! Seeeeeeeeee!”

  A little later, when I ran over to him, the bike was on its side on the ground, the front wheel still spinning and whirring, and the dull-colored artificial leg, with its sock, shoe, and dark, hollow inside, lying separated from his body at a distance, looking as though it had just been cut off or was a separate creature with its own independent life. Izzat was lying face down, his hand on the place were the leg had been amputated and which had started to bleed and make a stain that was spreading over his ripped pants. I called to him and he slowly raised his head. There were cuts on his forehead and lips and his face looked strange to me without the glasses. He gazed at me for a moment as though gathering his wits, then said in a weak voice, with the ghost of a smile, “Did you see me ride the bike?”

  Dearest Sister Makarim

  IN THE NAME OF GOD, the Merciful, the Compassionate, from whom we seek help, and praise and blessing upon Our Prophet Muhammad, Lord of All Mankind, and upon his kin and companions, one and all.

  To continue:

  Dearest sister Makarim,

  We long so very much to see you, my dear sister. I swear, my dear Makarim, our thoughts are with you always and just yesterday I woke with a terrible start in the middle of the night to the sound of someone weeping—it was your sister-in-law Batta. She was awake and crying hard and she said to me, “Hasan, I just can’t bear the thought of Makarim all on her own over there with Mum.”

  Our hearts are with you, dear sister, and all of us—me, Batta, and the children—pray to God, Mighty and Glorious, that He inspire you with patience and steady your heart. You have proved yourself, my dear Makarim, a true daughter, and anyone who knows what you’ve done for our mother in her illness can testify to that. You must know, my dear sister, that your care of our mother will not go unrewarded, for a single prayer from our beloved mother will open wide to you the gates of Paradise, God willing.

  My beloved sister, I have shown our mother’s x-rays and tests to the doctors here and they all confirm that the growth—and I’m so sorry to have to tell you this—is in the tertiary stage, meaning that surgery will not help and the only solution is chemotherapy. Makarim, you are a Believer and have been raised to obey God and submit to His decree and you know, dear sister, that sickness and health, life and death, are in the hands of the Creator, Glorious and Sublime, and that the children of Adam have no say in them.

  I imagine, my dear sister, that you would like to know of my welfare. I swear to God, my dear Makarim, that the last thing I’d wish to do is add to your worries. You have enough to deal with. Since Batta and I got back from our last pilgrimage we’ve had nothing but troubles, praise God for all things. Last month, I felt a terrible pain in my right side and it got so bad at night that I fell out of bed onto the floor, we
eping like a child. They did tests at the hospital and the doctor told me my left kidney had huge stones in it and they’d have to do an operation. To cut a long story short, my dear sister, I had the operation and they kept me in the hospital for three weeks. I swear by the Almighty, my dear sister Makarim, the whole thing—operation, tests, and all the rest—cost me ten thousand riyals and not a penny less, praise be to God for all things. And then, as soon as I’d got over the operation I had a problem with my sponsor, who’s the owner of the school where Batta and I work.* He’s one of the important sheikhs and very well connected and he could have us thrown out of the country in twenty-four hours if he wanted. The problem is that my sponsor discovered that I frequently visit the villa of Sheikh Fahd al-Rubay‘i and sometimes give his children help with their lessons, so he thinks I’m giving them private tutoring for money even though I assured him that Sheikh Fahd and I are just friends in God and basically we meet to study the Qur’an together. But the sponsor wasn’t convinced and he doesn’t miss a chance to hint to me that I’m giving private lessons. I got so mad that two days ago I yelled in his face, “Fear God, Sheikh! The burden of proof is on the accuser, Sheikh! Shame on you for accusing me with no proof!” But it made no difference, my dear sister, and he has docked me two months’ incentives, God forgive him.