Guapa

  “I don’t have the time,” I say. I want to tell them I’m in love. I want to yell and scream about it. I do have a special someone. He’s getting married tonight. Drinks on me!

  “Why buy a cow these days? Everyone is giving out their milk for free,” Hamza chuckles.

  I glance at Basma, who rolls her eyes and looks down at her half-eaten plate of lamb and rice. There is a sudden buzzing in my ears and everything feels like it is closing in.

  “Rasa will marry when he’s ready,” Basma jumps in. “He’s still building a career. Now get over it, you’re worse than an Arab mother.”

  Meanwhile the conversation continues. While Lulu is joyously talking about the stability that marriage brings, I look at Taymour laughing onstage and hide behind a fresh cigarette.

  Another waiter rushes past Leila’s mother, an anguished-looking woman who is scanning the crowd like a hawk. There is a strong smell of alcohol in the air, and her mother is hiding a panicked look with a smile as she talks to a group of older women.

  “Yes, yes, the kids are just hyper. Hyper,” she repeats, as if by saying this enough times it might be true.

  I stand up to catch the waiter’s attention. I wave my hands in the air but he whooshes right by me.

  “Are you still going on about that money?” Basma grabs my suit and pulls me back down.

  “It’s a lot of money,” I say as I plunk onto the seat.

  “Let me deal with it.” She sighs. She catches the eye of the fat waiter and with an authoritative flick of her wrist brings him over. She reels him in with one finger, like his chin is connected to her index finger with an invisible string. He leans down until his ear is inches away from her burgundy lips.

  “Listen,” she says, enunciating each word. “My friend here has been waiting for his change for an hour now. I don’t care where it comes from and I don’t want to hear whose fault it is, but if you don’t get me that change in the next ten minutes I will make sure that you don’t have a job by the end of the night.”

  The waiter nods and runs off. Five minutes later he is back with a wad of notes in his hand.

  “That’s how you do it,” she says, stuffing the notes into my sweaty palm.

  I look at the bills in my hand. I feel like I am going to vomit.

  “Should I leave them a tip?” I ask Basma.

  “After all this you want to tip them? The only tip they deserve is a shoe on their head. You’ve spent too much time abroad, Rasa, you forgot how to speak to them.”

  In my ear Mimi is whispering furiously. “I’m in so much pain right now, you have no idea. I got laser lipo done the other day and I’m all bruised up. I know, I know, I know, I don’t really need it, but it’s just to get rid of those fatty areas that I’ve tried for years to diet away. I know my fat spots so I know it’s not a matter of losing weight, you know? Please don’t tell anyone.”

  Perhaps it is the alcohol that is doing the thinking on my behalf, having hijacked my actions like the Islamists hijacked our revolution, but I feel a sudden connection with Mimi and her secrets, and before I comprehend what I am doing I grab her gin and tonic and whisper in her ear, “My grandmother caught me in bed with Taymour last night.”

  I say this all in a rush, and then take a big gulp from her drink. Her face freezes for a moment, really only for a split second. Then, without saying anything, she turns her head and says not a word to me for the rest of the night. This is just as well as I am finally able to listen to the conversation taking place across the table.

  “It’s a question of public morality,” Hamza is saying. “I mean I’m not against gays. But there’s a difference between the privacy of your own home and doing it in a public cinema.”

  “Are you talking about the cinema?” I ask.

  “It’s disgusting,” Lulu says. “I believe in human rights, even gay rights if that’s what they want. But do it in private for God’s sake.”

  “But those people who go to the cinemas have nowhere else to go,” I say.

  “That doesn’t make it acceptable to do this sort of thing in public,” Hamza says. “What people do in the privacy of their own home is no one’s business. But those men are perverts, using a public cinema as a sexual playground. This spreads diseases. Imagine if a young child had suddenly walked into the cinema.”

  “Everyone knew what that cinema was for. No one went there without knowing what was involved. And how is it public morality to beat them up and stick an egg in their ass?”

  Hamza swats away my question with a wave of his hand. “Look we need rules and regulations here. A public space is a public space. It’s simple. That’s what the morality law is for. They aren’t there to prosecute the gays, they are there to prosecute perverts who want to have sex in public.”

  “Why is this bothering you so much, ya zalameh?” Dodi asks.

  “It’s not bothering me as much as it’s bothering this guy,” I point to Hamza. Basma kicks my leg under the table. “I’m telling you these men had no choice but to go there. They probably live in tiny one-bedroom apartments with wives and children and cousins and don’t have any other escape. They don’t have the luxury of a private space, of flights to Europe or America. Let’s call this what it is, which is the government’s attempt to distract us from the rising food prices and the protests. Let’s arrest a dozen powerless slum dwellers that meet each other in a dirty old cinema.”

  “This has nothing to do with the economy or the terrorists,” Hamza says. “The economy is doing great. Look around. You think we would have been able to have a beautiful wedding like this five or ten years ago? This government has liberalized our country. They’ve just built a brand-new highway that will lead directly from the western suburbs to the airport. No need to have to drive through downtown or any of those nasty places. The journey to the airport will be safer and more convenient. The project will be like a miracle, it will give a huge push to foreign investment.”

  “Open your eyes and see how the rest of the country lives. We are starving and can’t even say a word about it.”

  “Ya zalameh, don’t give me this communist shit.” Hamza chuckles. “People always want to blame the government. You think you could be sitting here drinking gin and tonic if those terrorists came to power?”

  “I was in the slums today,” I yell, pointing my fork at him. “I saw how people live. I saw the dirt and squalor. Just admit it, that we live in a police state that starves people.”

  “Change the subject,” Basma orders the table.

  “It’s always too easy to blame the government,” Hamza says, ignoring her. “Ya zalameh, let me tell you, the problem isn’t the government. I work in the government. Those are good guys trying to make this country better. We’re dealing with a population that does not value education … they are uneducated and don’t want to do anything except quote the Quran and bomb innocent people. Look, imagine running a country is like running a giant company. Do the employees democratically elect the CEO? No, because they don’t know what is needed to make the company profitable … and those crazy jihadis, they don’t know how to run a country, they’ll make a mess of it.”

  “This whole company analogy just isn’t working for me,” I mumble.

  “Look at the president’s wife and all the charity work she’s done over the past ten years,” Hamza says. “She was on the cover of Vogue. Vogue! Ya zalameh, she set up fifteen schools in the slums and she went there herself, but no one even bothers going to those schools. Yaani, they don’t want to learn. That’s our problem as a society. We don’t want to learn.”

  “Give me a break,” I say. “The First Lady’s husband is stepping on the throats of the poor. The police are his militia, attacking anyone who dares to dissent. For most people, their only experience of the government is when the police come and beat them up. What will it take for you people to open your eyes? Must we dig up the bodies of those killed and sit them upright in the door of every house in this city so you will realize at wha
t cost your stability comes?”

  By now the tables next to us have gone quiet and people have shifted their gaze toward us.

  “Look,” Hamza says, his eyes flicker with the excitement of a fisherman who has just felt a heavy tug on his rod. “The uprisings may have started out well but they’ve degenerated into jihadis and terrorism.”

  “Oh yes.” I throw my hands in the air. “Jihadis and terrorism. Jihadis and terrorism. If you say it enough times maybe it will be true.”

  “Don’t be a fool. The government here is good and fair, and the terrorism threats are real. It’s not perfect but it’s better than the alternatives. You say you’ve been to the slums, so you know the mind-set. It’s a dangerous mind-set. Did you hear last week the Salafis came out from the slums with swords. It’s like the Middle Ages. If you and some people like you want to be a bit theatrical about the government — you’ll soon get over it.”

  My blood is boiling and I can feel my face turn red. Lulu starts talking but I am not hearing what she or anyone else is saying. I point at Hamza. “You’re a regime prick. You’re responsible for all the deaths that have happened. It’s people like you!”

  “I think you’ve had enough to drink,” Basma says, grabbing the gin and tonic from my hand. “Maybe you should go home and get some sleep, Rasa. Things will seem less tragic in the morning.”

  “It won’t make a difference. Day or night this thug will still make me sick. It’d be worse if I was sober.” I clench my fists and feel the bills scrunch up in my palm.

  “Relax,” Lulu pleads. “Can we change the subject? None of this stuff matters —”

  “Oh shut up, you.” I stand up and address the entire table. “It all matters. Don’t you see that? It all fucking matters.” I throw my napkin on the table and it drops into the glass of water, tipping the glass over my plate of food. The water swirls in the oil of the lamb and rice. People at the other tables begin to whisper to each other.

  “Oh God, everyone’s looking,” I can hear Mimi say, holding her head in her hands. Her voice is far away now.

  From the corner of my eye I see Leila shuffling toward me in her dress, teetering precariously on her heels. Behind her Taymour is staring at me, his jaw to the floor. Before I know what I am doing I walk around the table to where Hamza is sitting with a smug smirk on his face. He stands up but before he can say anything I push him hard. His legs fly up in the air as he trips backward over his chair and falls into the fountain with a splash.

  “Immoral bastard,” I say, watching him flail and splutter in the water. The music stops. I look around. Everyone is watching me. I run to the door, staggering drunkenly through the crowds of expensive dresses and black and white suits.

  I am reaching for the door when a hand grabs my shoulder and spins me around. Taymour is looking at me, his eyes full of so many things. His hand on my shoulder moves up briefly, to touch the skin on my neck just above my shirt collar. Taymour and I are friends, good friends in fact. Wasn’t it only natural that he would touch my neck lovingly on the night of his marriage? As our skin touches I see us together in bed, naked and laughing so hard we are in tears. I see myself shirtless, pulling down the shades in the bedroom, carefully, slat by creaking slat. I smell sweat and can hear the lazy strumming of a guitar. I see Taymour creep into his house as the sun rises and take off his clothes and slip into bed. I taste the strong black coffee we drank as we drove around the city, around and around, thinking and talking about what we could do, where we could go. Then I see Taymour and Leila, by the beach next to shimmering skyscrapers, pushing two boys on swings. I see Leila chopping onions at the kitchen table. I hear Taymour’s voice humming in her ear as she lifts her arms to adjust her ponytail. Then the images blur into one another, like shuffling cards, and Taymour pulls his skin away from mine.

  “You had something to give me?” he asks softly.

  I lean over and kiss his cheek. “Habibi. I’m so sorry.”

  Taymour shakes his head. “You can’t call me that here.”

  I smile. “But that’s what you are. My habibi.”

  Taymour’s mask begins to crack. “Please,” he whispers. “I beg you to stop calling me that. Can’t you see what it’s doing to me?”

  I look at his face. There are tears in his eyes. An unbearable silence settles between us. Finally, I turn around and walk away, from Taymour, from the silence. I take a few more steps toward the door. Before I leave I look back one last time, and realize that the man standing there did not betray me. The only person who betrayed me was myself.

  I burst through the doors. They slam behind me, muffling the noise from the banquet hall. I’m underwater. My heart pounds in my chest, like the drumbeats of war or my very own zaffeh.

  Even with all the alcohol coursing through my bloodstream I manage to hail a taxi outside the hotel and order him to take me home. I want nothing more than to fade like a shadow into the city before the reality of what I have done hits me. Hamza will get me for what I did. He will hunt me down and destroy me, like a cat that has caught a small bird. Even if he doesn’t, there is no way I can show my face in those circles again.

  “Don’t go through the city center, there’s heavy traffic,” I tell the driver.

  “The center is empty tonight,” he says. “As of eleven o’clock the army closed it to all cars coming from the suburbs.”

  I look at my phone. It’s just past midnight. I catch the driver’s gray eyes in the rearview mirror. They look so familiar. I feel like I may have known him a long time ago.

  “But what about people’s businesses?” I ask, studying the driver’s face.

  “No businesses.” He cracks his chewing gum between his teeth. “No one is allowed to leave their town and everyone should stay home.”

  It is the way his jaw clicks as he chews the gum that takes me back to that night. We have met before. The night after studying with Maj. The taxi driver in the red shirt. Is it really him? He’s older now. His stomach has rounded and his temples are graying. Time has come and gone and the winds have brought us back together.

  “Is the government attacking the eastern district?” I ask.

  “There is no shelling,” he says. “It is just clashes with terrorists.”

  “When I spoke to some people in al-Sharqiyeh today I did not see any terrorists. So the clashes are with the opposition?”

  “Yes, yes,” he says. “Some clashes, but only in the areas the terrorists have occupied.”

  I grab on to the back of his seat and lean in to him, so that we are almost cheek to cheek.

  “But what about the women and children? You just said the army isn’t allowing anyone to leave? What crime have they committed?”

  “Well, they deserve it for allowing terrorists to live among them.” He glances sideways at me with nervous eyes and cracks his chewing gum again.

  “You’re not answering me.” I bang my palms against the back of the seat like a spoiled child. “What crime have women and children committed if someone has a gun in their neighborhood?”

  He is silent. We drive by a group of men protesting in support of the president, with signs saying the people and the regime are one hand. Army soldiers on nearby tanks wave their rifles in the air. The crowd cheers as we drive by. I turn back to the driver.

  “You don’t remember me, do you?”

  He swallows hard. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Is your family safe?”

  “I took my wife and children out. Our house is in the area where the clashes are.”

  “So you’re married?”

  “With three girls,” he says. The streetlights cast a hollow yellow glare on his tired face. We drive by a statue of the president, his right arm extending out toward the hills. Beside the statue two military men are patrolling the street.

  “Is that what you wanted?”

  He turns to face me, angry. “What do you think, that I’m shaath?”

  “We’re all some sort of
shaath,” I say. “We cannot accept that we might be different. But we’re all different in our own way.”

  The man clutches the steering wheel tightly and says nothing. We drive along the deserted streets, across the bridges, and through the tunnels that coil under the city like snakes. It’s time for decisions now, and everyone has made their choice: between state and terrorism, between honor and shame, between community and lies. I don’t want to choose anymore.

  “So where are your wife and daughters now?” I whisper in his ear.

  “They are staying with my wife’s sister downtown.”

  “And what’s your crime to lose your home? Will the government rebuild it?”

  He is silent. Then, as if woken from a deep sleep, he yells, “They only give promises!”

  My phone rings. It’s Laura. I pick up.

  “What story do you have for me now?” I yell. “Come on. Hit me with whatever you’ve got.”

  “Are you drunk?” Laura asks.

  “Not just drunk, Laura, alive.”

  “Listen, I need you. The regime has just released photographs of Abdallah’s body. Ahmed’s son. From al-Sharqiyeh. He’s been killed.”

  I think of Um Abdallah’s face, the look in her eyes as she spoke of her son, the empty seat at their dinner table. “I can do a lot of things, Laura, but I can’t bring back the dead. Trust me, I’ve tried.”

  “Rasa, listen to me,” she snaps. “The opposition has declared an armed rebellion. This is war. The president is about to make an important speech. I need someone to get down here and help interview the crowds. I’ll pay you double.”

  “Not double, not triple. Nothing. I want no part in any of this. Down with the president and the opposition! Down with all of society and their performances. Down with everything! Let everyone kill each other, and then when it’s all gone we can start something new.”

  I hang up and take out the picture of Ahmed’s son from my pocket. I slowly unfold the photograph, ironing out the creases that dissect the boy’s face into squares. I look into Abdallah’s eyes. I was right. There is sadness in his eyes, but it is not without hope. A glimmer of hope, yes, but hope nonetheless. I turn the photograph over, to the tiny black scribbles I wrote to Taymour earlier today. The lines are so close together, so desperate was I to fit everything in, that the white of the paper is barely visible. I tear the photograph apart, into smaller and smaller pieces and toss them out the window.