Adama

by al-Hamad, Turki; Bray, Robin;

  Hisham’s mother kissed her mother-in-law’s forehead. “How are you, Aunt?” she asked mechanically, using the conventional term of address.

  “Well, my daughter, well,” replied Umm Ibrahim equally perfunctorily, and the conversation was over.

  Hisham’s grandmother was about sixty-five, but looked much older, having been ravaged by one disease after another. She was able to move only with the greatest effort. Yet she was on the plump side, and her face still bore the traces of an old beauty: her fair complexion was eye-catching and she had a little mouth and wide eyes, or so they had been before the trachoma had ruined them. Her nose was curved ‘like the blade of a sword’, as they used to describe it in days gone by, when her beauty had been proverbial. She was from an old family, and Hisham’s grandfather had only been able to marry her after countless difficulties; his own family, the al-Abirs, were neither as ancient nor as wealthy as the al-Thabiti clan to which his intended belonged. In the end, the only things that had acted in his favour were that the two families were already distantly related and that Hisham’s grandfather had accompanied his grandmother’s father on his journeys with the aqilat to Syria and Egypt.

  Hisham’s grandmother led them into the house, although they all knew the way well and nothing had changed since the last visit. They passed through the courtyard, in the middle of which stood a palm tree with clusters of dates hanging down like the flowing locks of a Jerusalem beauty sung of in psalms and in The Song of Solomon; in a corner on the right was the burj, or lavatory, and in the opposite corner a small pen containing a cow and some goats with their young nearby. The courtyard ended in the entrance to the main part of the house, which was not large. It comprised two floors, the first consisting of the qahwa, or coffee room, the largest room in the house and its principal sitting room, with a small room next to it used as a larder and beside that another, slightly more spacious, multi-purpose room. It was a kitchen, a sitting room for the women and a guest room when necessary. The second floor consisted of two small separate rooms and another, slightly larger one overlooking the qahwa that was used as a bedroom in winter; in summer, the roof terrace was the preferred place to sleep.

  Umm Ibrahim went first into the qahwa, calling out: “Abu Ibrahim, Abu Ibrahim, look who’s here.” Hisham’s grandfather was sitting behind a small stove used for making tea and coffee, holding an elaborate fan made of palm leaves in his lap. He had nodded off with his head propped up on a cushion. Hisham’s grandfather was in his early eighties, having married late in life as a result of his travels in search of a living. He was of medium height and slim, bald on top with thick hair around the sides of his head; he wore a long white beard and carefully twisted moustache. His face was the image of Hisham’s father’s own: round and pockmarked, with small eyes and a rather snub nose, little mouth, wheat-coloured complexion and thick, white eyebrows.

  “Your son, your son! Is everything all right?” asked Hisham’s grandfather, opening his eyes wearily and beginning to wave his fan rhythmically. Then, through half-closed eyes he looked at the others as they came forward. “Ibrahim! Is that you?” he said in a faint voice swinging between doubt and certainty. “Welcome, welcome.” He tried to get up, but Hisham’s father bent over him and kissed him on the head. Next came Hisham’s turn to be wrapped in his grandfather’s warm embrace, which exuded his distinctive scent of sandalwood and smoke. Last of all came Hisham’s mother, who kissed her father-in-law on the head and then withdrew, while Hisham and his father sat down beside the old man around the stove.

  Hisham’s grandfather lit the stove and opened the high window, using a rope beside him like a pulley. Thick smoke filled the room for several minutes before the wood began to burn properly. After placing a tea kettle and a coffee pot on either side of the stove he began asking his son how things were and scolding him for visiting so little, Hisham’s father giving various excuses in reply. Meanwhile Hisham’s mother and grandmother were sitting in silence not far from the men.

  Suddenly Hisham’s grandfather looked at his grandmother and said, excitedly, “Umm Ibrahim, have you sent anyone to tell Sharifa that her brother’s here?”

  “No, I’ll go myself,” replied his grandmother with the same enthusiasm, getting up. Hisham’s aunt’s house was only two or three houses away. A few minutes later Hisham heard her delicate voice preceding her through the doorway of the qahwa that led into the rest of the house, as she called out, “Where’s Hisham? Hisham ...” And then her gentle face appeared. She had already removed her wrap, which she threw aside atop the first cushion she came across before going straight over to Hisham, who had risen to his feet to greet her with a beaming smile on his face. For several minutes Sharifa stood there, embracing Hisham and planting kisses on him, before kissing her brother on the head, embracing his wife, then greeting her father.

  “You’ve grown, Hisham,” she said, sitting down beside him and looking him over. “You’ve turned into a handsome young man. Oh, if only I weren’t your aunt!” She laughed gleefully. “We must get you married off so you can fill the house with children to bear the family name.” Still laughing, she gave him another kiss on the cheek. At that last sentence, Hisham’s grandmother glanced at his mother and gave a half-suppressed sigh, before busying herself with her cup of coffee. Hisham’s mother, embarrassed by her mother-in-law’s sidelong looks, did likewise.

  The relationship between the two women was strained, the former having wanted her son to marry another woman when it became clear that Hisham’s mother was unable to have any more children. His grandmother’s insistence on this point had greatly increased after her youngest daughter Hayla died of tuberculosis before her sixteenth birthday. Hisham’s grandmother had also suffered the loss of a son before the age of one. Whenever she saw Ibrahim she would urge him to remarry, saying, “You’ve only got one son, and may God grant him a long life; but what would you do if, God forbid, anything happened to him? Would you stay like that without an heir to keep the family name going after you? The law allows you four wives, and there’s nothing wrong with God’s law.” These conversations caused Hisham’s mother to suffer feelings of inadequacy as well as hatred towards his grandmother, but she never diminished her outward respect for Umm Ibrahim. Hisham’s father would listen to his mother’s advice, considering it well-meaning, and say, “You only think of what’s best.” In truth he was quite satisfied with life with his wife and son, even if occasionally he did wish that a miracle would grant Hisham a brother. Whenever Sharifa saw that their mother had been alone with her brother she would go up to him and say, “Don’t pay any attention to what Mother says. She’s just a silly old woman. Just let it go in here and out here,” she would say, pointing first at one ear and then the other. “Hisham’s worth ten children,” she would go on, “and may God grant him a long and healthy life.” Hisham’s mother sometimes overheard Sharifa’s remarks, which engendered great affection for the younger woman, and whenever she saw Hisham’s fondness for her and noticed the striking resemblance between them, the fonder she felt of Sharifa.

  Sharifa was, in fact, almost the original model for Hisham: they had the same straight, pitch-black hair, eyes, nose and mouth; the same pointed, triangular face. The only real difference between them was Sharifa’s darker complexion. Hisham remembered how, on visits to the family in Qusaim when he was little, he had liked only to sleep in the arms of his aunt Sharifa, who was not then married; he could not relax beside his aunt Hayla (which used to infuriate her). Only when he smelled Sharifa’s scent and the musk she put in her hair would he close his eyes, nuzzling her breast and going to sleep. When she married their cousin, Suleiman al-Abir, he felt a sense of loathing towards the young man, despite the fact that Suleiman was extremely kind to him; Hisham had been seven years old at the time, and to this day he still felt little affection for Suleiman. He recalled how, on their wedding night, he had thrown stones at the door of the new couple’s upstairs room; his punishment had been a beating from his father so
painful he had never forgotten it. For a while afterwards he had remained angry with his aunt, but in the end she won him round with reassurance of her affections supplemented with bribes of sweets and nuts.

  53

  Hisham’s father always enthused about Sharifa’s incomparable mataziz, and on the evening of their arrival he had been looking forward to a supper of either that or marquq; but there was not enough time to cook either dish, so Sharifa made do with preparing a large bowl of qursan bread with meat stock, beans and big pieces of cured meat.

  When the men returned from the mosque after evening prayers, the bowl of food had been placed on the table in the middle of the qahwa, filling the place with its delicious smell. Suleiman, Sharifa’s husband, joined them for supper, having come to welcome them and then accompany the men to the mosque. He was a conspicuously tall man with a dark complexion, curly hair and heavy limbs, although the features of his face were extremely delicate; his right hand in particular was covered with the marks of burns inflicted in the traditional belief that they had a strengthening effect. All the men devoured their food by the pale light of a lantern, while the women sat in a room downstairs. The most delicious part of the bowl of qursan was the dried meat and green beans threaded together, as well as the fresh cow’s milk that had been churned only that morning. By the time the men had finished eating there was little left, particularly of the meat, but it was enough for the women.

  After supper they all gathered in the qahwa to have tea and coffee. Hisham’s mother was the only one to cover her face; she did not actually cover it completely, but simply raised the scarf she wore draped over her head and shoulders as a kind of barrier between herself and Suleiman, who was sitting with the other men around the stove while the women sat near the entrance to the men’s front door. Before taking his leave, Suleiman invited them to supper the next day, promising them some of Sharifa’s mataziz; meanwhile Sharifa herself asked her brother and Hisham’s mother to let him spend the night at her house, and to Hisham’s absolute delight they agreed without hesitation. Off he dashed with his favourite aunt, forgetting about exams and the arrests; he exulted at being in a place where no one knew anything about him and where no one could reach him. Here there was no anxiety, no tension, no fear that could get through to him, and as he lay down on his perfumed mattress on the roof terrace, his aunt’s kiss on his forehead was the last thing he was aware of in the waking world.

  54

  When Hisham awoke the next morning, Suleiman had already departed for his shop in al-Jarda and his aunt had prepared a sumptuous breakfast of fried eggs, hot fresh milk with lots of sugar, grilled pieces of masabib dough accompanied by fresh, white butter and tea. She sat next to him, urging him to eat without having anything herself and swatting away the flies that stuck to everything.

  Hisham loved his aunt and pitied her at the same time: for all the long years she had been married, God had never given her a child to bring her joy and comfort her in her solitude. She had been pregnant and given birth several times, but for some unknown reason none of her children had survived. She had even gone to some folk healers, who tried all sorts of charms and herbs on her, but to no avail. Eventually, faced with no other alternative, she had left the matter to fate; in fact, she had gone so far as to ask Suleiman to marry another woman if he wanted children, even expressing a willingness to look for a prospective wife for him herself, but he had refused. From that moment on she had devoted her time to bringing joy and happiness into her husband’s life and serving him to the best of her ability.

  In cases like these Suleiman’s behaviour was unusual, but he was, like his cousin Hisham’s father, unwilling to take another wife. Children were not always a source of happiness, he would say, and it did not matter to him whether or not anyone carried his name on after him. Everyone else disapproved of this sort of view, but no one could force Suleiman to do anything. His father had died a few months after he was born; 1929 was the ‘Year of Sibila’, the battle at which Ibn Saud crushed the Bedouin troops who had helped him unite the Arabian Peninsula and then rebelled against him. Suleiman’s mother died a few years later, and he had been brought up by one of his uncles who already had numerous children.

  Hisham felt boredom setting in after he had finished his breakfast. Sharifa had gone to knead the dough for the mataziz, bake the qursan, milk the cow and churn the milk, then clean the house before Suleiman returned in the afternoon with a lamb to slaughter for the evening meal. Hisham considered going for a walk around the city, but where would he go? There was nothing to see, no one he knew; there was no better option than to read. He went back to his grandparents’ house; his grandfather had gone out to sit and talk with his friends in the sun and then have a stroll in al-Jarda; his father was still asleep and his mother was cleaning the house while his grandmother churned the milk. Hisham took out War and Peace from his suitcase, but soon cast it aside and took up The Iron Heel instead and, going upstairs, lost himself among the labourers in the alleys of Chicago.

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  Suleiman had invited all of Hisham’s father’s peers and the childhood friends he would often speak about, some of whose names Hisham knew. A number of them had come accompanied by their sons, and there were four boys present of a similar age to Hisham. While the men spread out in the qahwa, Hisham’s father and grandfather sat in the mahkama, the place at the head of the room reserved for elders and guests of honour. Suleiman was nearby, sitting directly behind the stove making the tea and coffee. The five boys were sitting near the door at the other end of the room; it was clear to Hisham that the other four already knew one another, as they were talking about picnics and the al-Nafud desert and al-Daghmaniyyat and Ain Wahtan; and since these were places Hisham did not know, he kept quiet throughout the conversation, looking at them and smiling without being able to join in. It was a kind of ordeal for him; at that moment he wished he were among his own friends in Dammam.

  Sitting next to Hisham was a boy of a similar build, if a little shorter. The sun had left its mark on his face, which was dark brown, although his legs, one of which was almost half exposed, were paler. He was extremely handsome despite his very broad features. When this boy noticed that Hisham was not taking part in their discussions he looked at him with a smile.

  “Don’t you go picnicking in the Eastern Province?” he asked. “Or have you become too Americanised?”

  “On the contrary,” said Hisham, “we don’t even set eyes on the Americans. They don’t live where we do, and they’ve got their own ‘camp’. But I don’t know anyone here, and I don’t know what you’re all talking about, that’s all.”

  Hisham felt cheered up to have someone talk to him. The good-looking boy smiled again. “In that case I’ll show you Qusaim,” he said. “You’ll find it’s more beautiful than you’d imagined when you get to know it and delve into all its hidden nooks and crannies. And I’ll introduce you to our friends, as well. You’ll see for yourself, they’re some of the best young people around. My name’s Muhaysin, by the way,” he went on after a pause, reaching out and shaking Hisham’s hand in a strange way that seemed inappropriate. “Well, my real name’s Abd al-Muhsin, but they call me Muhaysin for short. Abd al-Muhsin al-Taghiri. I’m in secondary school.”

  “I’m Hisham, Hisham al-Abir. I was in secondary school. I mean –”

  “So you’ve taken your diploma? Me too. What a coincidence! We’re all going on a picnic in al-Rashidiyya tomorrow,” Muhaysin went on. “You’ll come with us, of course.”

  “Of course,” replied Hisham.

  “We’ll pass by to collect you in the morning; make sure you’re ready.”

  Hisham nodded, though he had no idea what this ‘al-Rashidiyya’ was. At that moment Suleiman brought in the tablecloth and spread it out in the middle of the sitting room, and at a wave from his father Hisham went to help his cousin bring in the food. Together they carried in the main dish, a large plate full of rice with a whole lamb on top, its head resting in the mid
dle and scattered all around it the liver, stomach and intestines wrapped up together as well as some fried eggs. All that was decorated with raisins and pine nuts. Then came the big bowls of jarish, qursan, maruq and mataziz, with large pieces of cured meat on top, followed by fresh milk with plates of small dates and two large dishes of fruit. Muhaysin and the other boys helped to lay the table. Once Suleiman had made sure everything was as it should be he called everyone to the table; first Hisham’s grandfather stepped forward, followed by his father, then one by one the others, each of them urging the rest to go first.

  “Do start, do start,” said Suleiman when they had all gathered around the table, standing at its head alongside Hisham. “Every year we have two feasts,” he said, referring to Eid al-Fitr at the end of Ramadan and Eid al-Adha, the Feast of the Sacrifice. “This is the third. God bless Abu Hisham, who’s the reason we’ve all gathered here together.” With that he invited them to sit, and as he and Hisham took their seats a mass of hands reached out and began to tear apart everything in front of them.

  56

  The next morning Hisham sat in the qahwa beside his father and grandfather as they had a breakfast of dates and bitter coffee, while his mother sat behind the stove making tea. His grandmother sat on the other side of the stove, quietly enjoying a cup of coffee. Hisham was waiting for Muhaysin to turn up as promised. Suddenly he heard a knock at the men’s front door and the sound of a car horn beeping intermittently; Hisham said goodbye to everyone, and as he left he could hear his grandparents’ prayers for him and his father urging him not to come back too late; his mother murmured something inaudibly, but he knew she was reciting the Sura of the Seat of God and the Two Pleas for Divine Refuge.