Adama

by al-Hamad, Turki; Bray, Robin;

  Outside the front door, Hisham found an old red Chevrolet waiting for him. Muhaysin was behind the steering wheel, beside him a dark young man with fine but somehow quite un-handsome features, but a face that immediately put one at ease. He had curly hair and wore dark sunglasses and a small skullcap that barely covered half his head. All the picnic supplies were in the back of the van, together with four other young men who had pulled their headdresses over their faces like veils. There was nothing especially eye-catching about them except for one exceedingly tall person, thin almost to the point of emaciation with strangely pale skin and long brown hair that reached down to his shoulders. He had an elongated face, straight nose and a very broad forehead that neither his headdress nor his skullcap quite fit.

  This young man got out and invited Hisham to take his place, but Hisham declined and went round to the back of the van. “There’s room for everyone here,” insisted the man, catching hold of him, and Hisham got in after all, this tall individual following. The van drove off, making a great noise and filling the narrow alleyway with exhaust.

  “Slow down, Muhaysin!” cried the four in the back, their shouts mixed with laughter. “Take it easy, man, take it easy! We’re not cattle, you know!”

  When the van got to al-Khabib Street, Muhaysin pointed to the third person sitting in the front. “Let me introduce you to one of my dearest friends,” he said, “Muhammad al-Ghubayra. And this,” he went on, looking at Muhammad and laughing, “is Hisham, an expatriate Qusaimi.” All three of them laughed. “He’s going to become a friend of ours, too,” Muhaysin added, looking at Hisham with a genuine smile.

  Hisham had no idea how long they spent going up and down the soft sand dunes under the burning sun, everything around them arid and apparently bare of all forms of life but for a few small palms here and there: how these trees managed to grow in such conditions seemed a mystery. Just before midday they came within sight of a wide patch of green, full of trees of many varieties and surrounded by sprinklers spraying water everywhere. Hisham had no frame of reference for such a sight. Everyone in the back of the van began to whoop, and Muhaysin smiled as he said enthusiastically, “Behold, al-Rashidiyya.”

  Muhaysin parked in a remote spot in the orchard, surrounded by pomegranate and citrus trees. Everyone in the back leaped out with great shouts of excitement. Muhammad, Hisham and Muhaysin got out too, and as they did Muhaysin took Hisham by his fingertips, saying,

  “Come on, I’ll introduce you. Guys, guys,” he said loudly, escorting Hisham to where the four boys were standing around the van and dusting off their clothes. He put his arm around Hisham’s shoulders. “This is Hisham al-Abir,” he said, “from the Eastern Province. He’s a bumpkin from the oases really,” he continued, laughing, “but he lives back east.”

  “A bumpkin and a Rafidhi,” said one of the boys, using the familiar derogatory word for Shi‘ite, “what is the world coming to? God rest the soul of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab,” he added, referring to the founder of the strict Sunni sect associated with the unification of the Arabian Peninsula under Ibn Saud.

  The others burst out laughing. “What rubbish, Salim,” they said. “Don’t claim to be progressive; God Almighty, you’d rather turn the clock back!” This brought more guffaws.

  When the laughter had abated, Muhaysin pointed to the tall young man. “This is Dais al-Dais,” he said. “Don’t let his nickname ‘Mr Awkward’ deceive you, as he’s one of the cleverest guys you’ll ever meet. And this,” he went on, “is Salim al-Sannour, Salih al-Tarthuth and Muhanna al-Tairi.”

  They all shook hands and began unloading the food, cooking pots and tea and coffee-making equipment from the van while Muhaysin and Muhammad collected firewood. Then they sat down on a threadbare old rug they had brought with them and spread out in the shade of the citrus trees. Muhammad al-Ghubayra started a fire at a distance and made the tea, while Salih al-Tarthuth cut the onions and tomatoes for the kabsa stew. It was a wonderful spot, infused with a refreshing atmosphere from the shade and the delightful moisture in the air given off by the sprinklers. As Muhammad began handing round cups of tea Dais spoke up.

  “I finished reading Les Misérables yesterday,” he said in a nasal twang, slurping his tea. “What a novel. Can you believe I actually cried when Jean Valjean died?”

  Muhanna al-Tairi laughed. “You’re weird, Dais,” he said, “like your name.” He laughed again and looked round at the others, but when he found that no one else was laughing he stopped. “You are strange, Dais,” he repeated. “All that culture and intelligence, yet when you read a novel you cry like a girl in her boudoir!”

  “What’s so strange about that?” said Dais coldly. “Sensitivity is the essence of intelligence. But what would you know about it?” he went on, drinking the last drop of tea in his cup. “There’s a world of difference between being sensitive and being a dope-fiend who smokes himself senseless.”

  The others roared with laughter to Muhanna’s obvious embarrassment, although he too briefly joined in. Muhaysin laughed hardest, wiping tears from his eyes with the corner of his headdress, which had been lying beside him.

  “Haven’t you heard the news?” said Salih al-Tarthuth in the distance once the noise had died down. “They say Nasser has accepted the Rogers peace initiative.”

  “There must be some compelling reason why,” said Muhammad.

  “Or else it’s a ploy to gain time,” said Muhaysin.

  “Abu Khalid definitely knows what he’s doing,” said Muhanna al-Tairi, using Nasser’s nickname and calmly drinking his tea with a know-all look on his face. “There must be things he knows that we don’t. You can trust him to know what’s in our interests even if we’re not aware of it ourselves.” The others all nodded silently in agreement with Muhanna’s remarks. Hisham remembered the time the gang in Dammam had met with Ibrahim al-Shudaykhi; this lot were all as mad about Nasser as Ibrahim had been.

  “They say that Nasser’s ill, and that he made his last trip to the Soviet Union to get treatment,” said Salim al-Sannour after a short pause. “God forbid that anything should happen to you, Sheikh,” he said, looking despondently at the ground. “God grant him a long life.”

  “If anything happened to him the Arabs would be lost,” said Muhammad al-Ghubayra.

  “You’re right,” said Muhanna al-Tairi, “but it’s not illness I’m worried about for his sake, it’s conspiracies. There’s no way America and its secret services are going to leave a man like him alone.”

  “They know he’s the Arab nation itself,” said Dais with uncharacteristic fervour. “If he dies or he’s killed, the whole Arab nation dies.”

  The others all nodded again in agreement and then fell silent, enjoying a sudden dewy breeze. Hisham had been quiet throughout, listening and smiling without comment. The breeze dropped just as suddenly as it had blown up. Muhaysin looked at Hisham and said, “We haven’t heard anything from you yet, Hisham – or don’t people talk politics in the Eastern Province? Perhaps the Americans keep you quiet?”

  The others laughed and looked at one another, while Hisham himself continued smiling as the ghosts of old comrades passed through his mind.

  “Seriously,” said Salim, “what do you think, brother Hisham?”

  “Please, brother Salim, there’s no need for formalities.”

  “Fine. Then what do you think, Hisham?”

  “About what?”

  “Do you think the Americans will leave Nasser alone?”

  Hisham looked at the others as they all turned their gaze on him. These lads were all infatuated with Nasser; he himself had many contradictory feelings towards the leader that he was unable to reconcile: he loved him and, like any lover with his beloved, would try to find justifications, whatever they might be, for his policies, for the bitter defeat the Arabs had suffered in June, for his recent acceptance of the principle of peace and his abandonment of 1948 Palestine. Yet, Hisham had been a member of a party that saw in Nasser a threat to both its ideology an
d its very existence. Though he had left the party and had come to loathe it, he could not forget its criticism of Nasser’s agenda. Hisham had come to adopt a Marxist view that did not endorse the notion of ‘the hero’ in history. In this light Nasser was no more than an individual who gave voice to a class movement, and there was nothing extraordinary about that.

  “I don’t know,” Hisham said. “But whether he dies or gets killed, he’s not immortal, anyway. He’s going to die one day, isn’t he?” No one said anything, and he continued, “And when he does, will the Arab nation really die, too?”

  “God forbid anything should happen to him,” said Muhanna. “I can’t imagine life without him.”

  “But the main thing is, will our lives come to an end when Nasser’s does?” Hisham went on, as Muhanna gave him a look full of suspicion.

  “What do you mean, Hisham?”

  “What I mean is that we mustn’t tie our own fate to that of one man. However important he is, he’s still just a man in the end, and men die. Are we going to die with them?”

  There was a general silence. Muhanna’s tension was plain to see in his movements. Now and then he would shift his position, and he was drinking his tea astonishingly quickly. It was then that Hisham put his cards on the table.

  “What we need is an ideology that’s capable of lighting the way ahead, whether or not we have a great leader. It’s ideology that makes men, and not vice versa.”

  “But Nasser isn’t just a man,” said Muhammad al-Ghubayra passionately, “he’s an ideology himself as well. When he dies, God forbid, he’ll still live on in his ideas.”

  “Well said, well said,” said Muhanna, nodding, a smile on his face.

  “All Nasser comes out with are slogans,” said Hisham, repeating something he had read in the party literature, “general aims, not ideas.”

  “Good God!” said Muhanna, “Everything advanced by the July Revolution and the land reform and socialist laws, mere slogans? You’re not being fair, brother Hisham.”

  “That’s what they are,” Hisham replied nervously, “all words and nothing more. ‘Lift up your head, brother’, ‘Freedom, Socialism, Unity’, ‘Freedom of speech is the introduction to democracy’. It’s all talk without application, slogans with no coherent thought behind them. Is this ideology or an agenda?” As Hisham spoke he looked at Muhanna, who was about to explode.

  “What is ideology if not that?” burst out Muhanna. “He defined our goals and the way to realise them. Freedom of expression is the way to democracy, and freedom, unity and socialism are well-known objectives that don’t need a commentary and a synopsis. There’s ‘The Philosophy of the Revolution’ and ‘The Covenant’ and the ‘Declaration of 30th March’, as well as Anwar Sadat’s writings about Nasser and the Revolution; aren’t these ideas? What more do you want?”

  Muhanna paused to catch his breath. The others, who were in a fever of excitement and anticipation, looked at him admiringly. Hisham felt embarrassed in this atmosphere of ardent Nasserism, the likes of which he had never come across in Dammam. Everyone loved Nasser, both here and in Dammam, but there it was not with the same infatuation he was encountering just then. It seemed to him that the Qusaimis were extreme in all things. For them everything was a matter of love or hate with nothing in between; either they were believers or they weren’t, with no middle ground between Heaven and Hell. He was afraid that if he prolonged the discussion Muhanna in particular might go beyond mere words, a prospect that by nature Hisham both feared and hated. He preferred to keep quiet and let Muhanna enjoy his victory.

  Just as everyone was stirred up and glancing at one another, Salih spoke up. “We’d better start getting the stew ready,” he said, “if you lot want any lunch, that is!” He went over to the fire and Salim followed him to help. Salih put the meat, tomatoes, fat, onions and salt all together in a pot and added water, then put the pot on the fire.

  “That’s not how you make kabsa,” said Muhaysin in surprise, after watching him do all this. “You should fry the meat and the onions in the fat first, then add the tomatoes and the water and salt later.”

  Salih laughed. “That’s the old, traditional, tiring way,” he said. “This way’s quicker and easier.”

  “God cover up our shortcomings,” said Muhaysin resignedly. “The main thing is not to let the rice get stodgy,” he warned.

  “Don’t worry, your brother’s a good cook,” replied Salih with a laugh. He put the lid on the pot and left it on the fire and then, after pouring himself a cup of tea, went for a walk around the orchard, sipping his tea as he went. Meanwhile Muhanna was still caught up in his debating victory, and intoxicated with the admiration from the other members of his gang; what he wanted now was to deliver the coup de grâce to his victim.

  “Well, you haven’t said anything, brother Hisham,” he said, looking askance at him. “Or are you convinced?”

  He wanted a frank admission of defeat from Hisham in front of all the others. Silence was not enough for him. Hisham sensed the desire for humiliation in Muhanna’s question and felt his blood boil. He tried to stay as calm as possible as he replied,

  “You haven’t said anything to convince me, brother Muhanna.” Muhanna’s face and movements tensed up again and the others listened as Hisham went on, full of unease inside but trying to retain his composure. “When you talk about freedom, socialism and unity you’re speaking about concepts and things that are unclear even to Nasser himself. You certainly can’t have read the minutes of the discussions of unification between the Baathists and Nasser, or between Aflaq and Nasser to be precise,” he said, referring to the coming together of Egypt and Syria in 1958 to form the United Arab Republic. “Because if you had it would be clear to you that their differences were about exactly these concepts, even if they did reach agreement on them in the end, albeit with a different arrangement. And as for the books and sources you mentioned, they’re full of general talk that’s of no use to anyone; it means everything and anything and nothing, whereas what we need now is a comprehensive ideology that can take in the past and the present and light the way to the future.”

  Hisham finished talking. He had been trying to bring the discussion to an end and had spoken with all the frankness and clarity he could muster. But Muhanna would not leave it at that.

  “Fine, brother Hisham,” he said, smirking. “If you’re not a fan of Nasser and his ideas, what in your opinion is the ideology that can save us?” He spoke with a sarcastic ring in his voice. “And please don’t talk to me about the Baathists or the Arab nationalists, or even the whirling dervishes of the Muslim Brotherhood,” he said, butting in just as Hisham had been about to answer. “They’re all naive fools and phoneys. If it’s that kind of ideology you’re talking about, then I’m sorry to say you’re just as naive and clueless yourself.”

  Muhanna thought he had cut off every possible way out available to Hisham, who felt he had no choice but to play his last card. “No, he said, “no, it’s nothing like that. It’s ... Marxism.”

  Everyone leaned forward, peering incredulously at Hisham, who felt a sudden sense of joy at becoming the object of interest. “Yes, Marxism,” he repeated, with unfeigned calm and confidence this time. “Marxism is the complete, scientific way of thought that can give us the keys to history, society and politics; whoever holds these keys will have nothing to fear and nothing to regret.”

  “You mean Communism?” said Muhanna slyly.

  “Are you a Communist, Hisham?” asked Muhaysin, aghast.

  “Communism?” said Salih in astonishment. “That means not believing in God.”

  “It means the non-existence of freedom,” said Said censoriously.

  “Communists, Baathists and the Muslim Brotherhood are all the enemies of Nasser,” said Muhammad, looking at Hisham with repugnance. “I detest the lot of them.”

  “I like the Soviets,” said Salim, “but I don’t trust Arab Communists. They’re the enemies of Arab nationalism.”

 
Hisham waited until all the comments had died down, as inside he felt an overpowering haplessness. “Marxism as a philosophy,” he said, plucking up all his courage. “I’m not a Communist, nor do I support any of the Arab Communist parties.”

  “Oh, please,” said Muhanna scornfully, “is there any difference between Marxism and Communism, esteemed comrade?”

  “Yes,” Hisham snapped, finally losing his cool, “yes there is, you half-witted sheep, chasing after big men and taken in by honeyed words.”

  “Me, a half-wit, you unbeliever, you atheist, you and your kind who screw around however you like?”

  The atmosphere between them froze, and Hisham shrunk back silently as Muhanna got up, pointing at him and saying angrily, “It’s not this one’s fault, it’s Muhaysin’s fault for inviting him in the first place!” With that he stormed off towards the orchard, where he walked down the first path he came to.

  “That’s enough, everyone,” said Muhammad, breaking the anxious silence that had followed Muhanna’s exit. “What do you say we have a game of Plot?” Without waiting for an answer he went to the van, fetched a deck of cards and got together with all the others except Hisham and Dais, who stood up and went for a walk in the orchard in the opposite direction from Muhanna. “The stew will be ready in half an hour,” they could hear Salih calling out to them. “Don’t be long ...”

  57

  The days in Qusaim passed by smoothly and happily, contrary to Hisham’s expectations, once he had got to know his new friends and despite the shock of the Marxist convictions he had announced at the picnic in al-Rashidiyya. His friendship with Dais, Muhaysin and Muhammad grew stronger, but as for Muhanna, the picnic was the beginning and the end as far as their relationship was concerned. Hisham would see him from time to time at the Plot evenings with the rest of the group, but they would not say anything to one another beyond the conventional civilities. Muhanna did try to begin political conversations centred on Nasser, but Hisham kept quiet, playing Plot without uttering a single comment.