Guapa

  “And to think only a few months ago we thought we’d go out in the streets and suddenly the world would open up and we’d never need visas anymore.”

  Nora laughs. “He says he wants to write an article about me, a lesbian who runs an underground bar in the Middle East. I told him I’d kidnap him if he did. That’s all I need right now. Imagine if he knew what goes on in the basement. He’d be on the phone to the BBC.”

  I force a smile and drink my beer.

  “By the way, I got taken in today,” Nora says.

  “Again? What now?”

  “I’ve been a good girl, man.” Nora throws her arms in the air. “I’ve deleted all the pro-revolution groups from my Facebook and told people no more activist meetings at the bar. Head down, you know. But they came in around noon today. It was just me cleaning up. They wanted to talk. They said it was a routine conversation about the bar. Five hours later, I step out of their offices and the sun is setting and I’m thinking, What the hell just happened?”

  I catch the bartender’s eye and indicate for him to bring more beers our way.

  Nora continues. “This time they told me they have footage of me walking into a supermarket and throwing my passport on the floor and calling for an Islamic government.” She chuckles and shakes her head. “They should make a movie, these guys, with this active imagination of theirs.”

  “Did they ask about downstairs?”

  “They asked some questions, but very vague, about the people who come here, that sort of thing. I just let them say what they want, ya zalameh. They close us down, we’ll open somewhere else.”

  I light a cigarette and sigh, blowing a cloud of smoke above my head. My phone lights up. The glare of the backlight sobers me up as I read the message from Taymour: I’m sorry. Last night changed everything. Maybe it’s better if you don’t come tonight …

  Please don’t deny me, I reply. I put the phone down and then immediately pick it up again and send another message: If you do then we are both doomed.

  “You look like shit,” Nora says. “What’s wrong?”

  For a moment I consider telling her about what happened last night, but then decide against it. Nora probably hears stories like mine every day. They hang from the walls of Guapa like sad family portraits.

  “I’m fine. It’s just been a long day.” Perhaps one day I will hang my story on Guapa’s walls, but for now I prefer to keep it with me.

  The woman from the camps has left and in her space two young men with long hair are discussing a new collective of DJs who make underground music.

  “It’s like a mix of electronica, traditional Arabic music, and sounds captured in sieges and battles,” one of them says, while the other nods in appreciation.

  From across the smoky room I see Maj walk in. He is wearing black jeans and a tight black vest over a white T-shirt, his black duffel bag thrown across one shoulder. He runs a hand through his bangs and looks around. I wave my arms until he sees me and makes his way through the crowd. Even from here I can see the swelling under his eye.

  “How did you explain the bruises to your parents?” I ask Maj as he drops his bag on the floor. A few strands of long brown hair from his wig poke out from one side of the bag. He kicks the bag under the bar and lights a cigarette. He looks better without the dried blood on his face, but up close I can see a cut on his lip and his right eye is colored an angry purple.

  “I told them I got into a fight. I got a lecture but now they’re over it. Maybe they know, but if they do they didn’t say anything. We danced the familiar dance of denial.”

  Nora comes over to give Maj a quick kiss. She touches the bruise under his eye and smirks, then goes behind the bar to fix us some drinks.

  I look at the bruise. “It looks bad. Have you seen a doctor?”

  “It looks worse than it is, really,” Maj says casually. “My libido always gets me in trouble. We should have invested in that apartment we talked about. We’d have had all the privacy in the world. We wouldn’t have needed any furniture, really, except a mattress and some sheets. Instead we’ve wasted all our money here.”

  “How can you have wasted it here when you never pay for your drinks,” Nora barks from across the bar.

  “Never mind,” Maj says.

  “You really should stop going to those cinemas,” I tell him. “They’re not safe.”

  “You know that’s not why this happened.”

  “Why then?”

  “Because of my work,” he says. “They knew I was collecting evidence of police abuse.”

  “Regardless, they would not have anything to hold against you if you weren’t cruising.”

  “They would find something else to hold against me.”

  “Well maybe you should find a safer job, then.”

  “You’re sounding like my mother. Besides, it would be more dangerous if the evidence of regime abuses I’ve collected were actually generating even a bit of outrage from someone …”

  Nora comes back with a tray of six shots of whiskey.

  “Drink up, they’re watching us tonight and they like us drunk,” she says. “It’s better for the stability of the country.”

  We take two shots each. The alcohol burns as it makes its way down my throat. My stomach feels like it’s on fire. I grimace and light a cigarette.

  “So, Maj,” Nora says. “A good night at the cinemas?”

  “They got me in the bathroom stalls. I was with this guy, lives in al-Sharqiyeh, gorgeous cock. Then the fuckers storm in. Not dressed in uniform or nothing. Looked like every other guy there. Lots of yelling, people running away. I guess they closed off the exits because they rounded us up like sheep. Up against the wall. Frisked. Said they were looking for ‘satanic paraphernalia.’ ”

  Maj appears more confident and alive than I have ever seen him. His voice is like a machine gun, ratatat tat taratatat. The arrest, humiliation, and anal exam to “check his sexuality” seem to have given him a boost of confidence. He is carrying the experience of having an egg up his ass like a badge of honor. Doesn’t he care what could have happened to him? If he doesn’t, I certainly do.

  “I’m going to have to find a way to incorporate the black eye into my act tonight,” he says, giggling.

  “Let’s hope we’re still open by then,” Nora says.

  “We are attacked everywhere for being gay,” I say.

  “We’re not attacked for being gay,” Maj replies. The crease between his eyebrows, which is now much deeper than I have ever seen it, twitches as he spits out his words. “This is a regime that preys on the angry and the weak. On the downtrodden and oppressed, on the poor, on women and refugees and illegal immigrants. Today they released me in a matter of hours. And why is that? Because I speak fluent English and live in the western suburbs. Politically, I’m too costly to kill.”

  “Absolutely,” Nora says, raising her glass. “To the resistance!”

  “To the resistance that is now dominated by religious nuts who hate gay people,” I say. “How can you toast to that?”

  Nora raises a finger in the air. “Just because someone is religious does not make them against gay people. Many are simply against a rigid framework of sexuality imposed by the West. Those who oppose homosexuality without distinction are misreading the Quran.”

  “That’s not true,” I argue. “Remember the story of the Prophet Lot? Islam explicitly condemns homosexuality, and any so-called progressive cleric who suggests otherwise is delusional.”

  Maj laughs. “By the very nature of being a religious cleric they must be delusional. Besides, Islam or not, there is a long acceptance of homosexuality by Arab society that stretches back to the pre-Islamic period. It was those prudish Victorians who spoiled the party.”

  “And you’re wrong, Rasa,” Nora says. “When God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, it was not because of homosexuality, it was about lustful acts in general, and criminality, and general debauchery, really …”

  “Much like Guapa …” Maj
quips.

  “Yes, much like Guapa. Make no mistake, if there’s a hell we’re burning in it.”

  “This conversation is my idea of hell,” I say.

  “Anyway,” Nora says. “I’ll raise my glass to anyone who opposes the regime.”

  I shake my head and start on the brand-new pint of beer that has magically appeared in front of me. I’m not sure whether this is my third or fourth but I am starting to feel less inhibited. I wish I could place the blame for what happened to Taymour and me on the regime. Then I could be angry as well. I could wave my cigarette in the air and call for the downfall of the regime and an end to imperialism. But really, what can I do? Call for the downfall of Teta?

  “I wish everyone would just sign on to the reform process,” I say. “Everyone should negotiate but, like, really mean it.”

  “The reform process,” Nora scoffs. “Please, it’s driven by the West, which has no desire to see us make our own decisions. They have given us a pen to sign our own death warrant and we’re arguing over the color of the ink.”

  “Besides,” Maj says, speaking more quickly now, as if struggling to catch up with his thoughts, “should they negotiate with the criminal regime that has made our lives hell for decades now? Blood on their hands, blood on their hands, all of them, to hell with them all.”

  “Who doesn’t have blood on their hands?” I say. “These days if you don’t have blood on your hands, then you don’t have any power. Let everyone with blood on their hands come to the table. I don’t care. I don’t want to make love to them, I want them to stop all this stupidity.”

  “The resistance will prevail,” Nora says, “and I will stand by them until every last regime rat is gone.”

  Neither of them seems to notice that my head is now in my hands. I suppose revolutionaries have more important things to worry about. I’m feeling hopeless and don’t want to say anything else, so I get up to go to the bathroom. I walk down the rickety stairs until the music becomes a series of thumping beats. I stand at the urinal and look at the chipped walls. My phone beeps in my pocket and I pick it up with one hand while I’m pissing.

  I know it’s hard … Taymour’s message reads.

  I return to the bar and see Maj sitting alone. He watches me as I take my seat next to him.

  “I just read the message you sent me this morning,” Maj says. “Did your grandmother really catch you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?”

  “You had your own problems to worry about.”

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “And last night of all nights. Have you spoken to Taymour yet?”

  “A few messages.” I don’t tell Maj about going to see Taymour in the restaurant. “What if he just acts like nothing has ever happened between us? As if the past three years were simply my own crazy delusions. Maybe it was all in my head …”

  “You know that’s not true.” Maj puts a hand on my shoulder.

  “Do I?” A moan escapes from my mouth, a heaviness sinks into the pit of my stomach. I am seconds from crying. “Even you can’t say for certain. For all you know I could have made up this affair, dragged you along in my fantasies. Right now Taymour and I are a secret, and when it’s gone there’s nothing left. Just thin air, as if nothing ever happened. All that’s left are memories. And I can’t trust my memories.”

  “You don’t need him to validate anything for you.”

  “No, but I need to speak to him, if only to make sure that last night wasn’t just a bad dream.”

  “Don’t go to the wedding.”

  “I have to go. It’s eib not to go.”

  “The tyranny of eib.” Maj sighs.

  I rub my forehead and turn back to what’s left of my drink. There are a few ashes floating on the surface of my beer like dead fish. In the background Sheryl Crow is singing about every day being a winding road, and that we all get a little bit closer to feeling fine.

  “You know,” I turn to Maj, “there’s a word in Japanese, tatemae, which refers to what a person pretends to believe, or the behavior and opinions people must display to satisfy the demands of society. But at least in Japanese the word acknowledges that it is a pretense. For us, only eib. There is not even the recognition that this is all for show.”

  “But you still buy into it. Still you cry over the biggest coward in the city … he’s a regime supporter and why? Out of fear. That is the worst kind of regime supporter.”

  “You don’t understand his situation.”

  “Then you’re the coward,” Maj says. “Because you’re too scared to let go of him. You know people say the opposite of fear is desire, where we presumably run away from what we fear and toward what we desire. But fear and desire are more complicated than that. There’s fear at the heart of every desire and desire at the heart of fear. So I wonder, by desiring Taymour, what exactly are you afraid of?”

  “You know, Maj, I’m not like you. I can’t just feel no shame. I can’t walk around acting like a freak.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” Maj spits, pushing his chair away from the bar.

  “I don’t mean it that way,” I begin. “It’s just that I can’t afford to let go of him. Because Teta, Taymour … they’re all I have to work with.”

  “And what do you think I have?” Maj snaps, the crease in his forehead twitching furiously. “You’re always talking about being alone. We’re all alone, and everyone in this country is giving an Oscar-winning performance to try to belong. How is a woman with her Armani bag, or a man who slams his bruised forehead down on the floor five times a day, or a police officer who walks around with his baton, puffing out his chest like a gorilla, any less of a performance than when I wear a wig and dance? We are all performing.” He points a finger at me. “The problem with you, Rasa, is that you want to integrate. But look around. There is nothing real to integrate into.”

  Before I can respond Maj stands up and puts his packet of cigarettes in his back pocket. He picks up his duffel bag and storms down the stairs to get ready.

  Basma picks me up from Guapa soon after Maj goes downstairs. She’s straightened her springy curls, so that her hair flows in orchestrated waves down each side of her face. She drives us to the hotel where the wedding is taking place. The car races through the streets. Loud techno music blasts from the radio. Basma has one hand on the steering wheel and is rolling a joint with the other. I am slumped in the passenger seat.

  Every minute that passes is a minute closer to seeing him. As soon as I see his face I fear my heart will throw itself at his feet. I always knew the dangers of a secret love affair. Such a love is not palpable. It’s like a whiff of the sweetest-smelling rose, at any moment it may dissipate, leaving behind not even a trace. If Taymour and I are really over, no one will know our love ever existed. How can I wake up tomorrow morning and put on a mask to hide the empty hole in my life? Forget tomorrow, how can I do that tonight? How can I speak to anyone about anything without discussing how everything has fallen apart? I don’t have any energy left to put on my mask. I can’t bear the thought of letting my emotions rot inside of me, all for the sake of an illusion. That would be too much sorrow. Too much loneliness.

  “I can see a checkpoint,” Basma says. “Quick, duck so they don’t see you.”

  I curl myself into a ball and drop into the space between the seat and the dashboard. Makeup kits and bottles of perfume poke my side. Basma slows the car for a moment and then accelerates again.

  “No stopping at checkpoints. The perks of being a woman.” Basma cackles. “You can get up now.”

  “I hate society,” I say, picking myself off the floor.

  “Society hates you back. Here.” Basma hands me the joint. “You’ll need this. It’s a dry wedding.”

  “But they’re not religious.” I am already approaching unacceptable levels of drunkenness but I could do with a few more drinks.

  “They don’t want to offend anyone.”

  “Well I�
�m offended it’s a dry wedding,” I say. “Doesn’t offending me matter?”

  “No, it doesn’t. Anyway, the manager of the bar next door is a friend of my uncle. I struck a deal with him so he’ll sneak us some drinks.”

  I light the joint and inhale. So that’s it, then. After today I’m on my own. But I don’t even have all of myself. My public self would be somewhere else, laughing and mingling with others, participating in a façade, while my heart is left to mourn alone.

  The hashish hits me. Everything begins to take on a numbing fuzziness. If I can feel like this all the time, things might not be so bad. I take another drag.

  “I can’t believe this wedding,” I yell over the sound of the radio. “It’s a façade. I knew Leila in college. Back then she was fiercely political. And now —”

  “And now she’s marrying into one of the richest families in the country. So she’s still political,” Basma takes the joint from me and holds it between her fingers like a cigarette. Her fingernails are painted a deep burgundy color.

  “Such a façade,” I mumble to myself. The car is filling up with smoke and the music is giving me a headache. I reach over to turn the volume down. Basma smacks my hand away from the radio dial.

  “Were you with Maj?” Basma asks.

  “Yeah. You heard?”

  “Heard what? You think I have time to hear anything, habibi? I just work and work and then take a fucking sleeping pill and go to bed.”

  We stop at a traffic light. A car pulls up next to us. The driver, a middle-aged man with a Salafi-style beard, motions for Basma to lower the window. She debates this for a moment and then does so. A cloud of smoke seeps out of the two-inch gap and into the air outside.