Adama

by al-Hamad, Turki; Bray, Robin;

  He went on many other picnics to the farms in Unayzah and al-Daghmaniyyat, which was a veritable paradise, as well as hot springs and numerous other places the names of which he could not remember. Best of all were the picnics to the al-Nafud desert on white nights, when the moon was full; they would spend the evening on soft, cold sand dunes where there was nothing but the moonlight and the sound of the fire crackling as it devoured the wood in the otherwise complete silence and tranquillity, as though the doors of Heaven had opened on an eternal night like that on which the Qur’an was revealed. Sometimes they would sleep there, awakening with the first drops of dew before sunrise when the sand was as cold as the silence itself; then the sun would send down its golden rays tenderly before becoming brutal. After Hisham returned to Dammam, memories of the trip to Qusaim remained with him and he set his heart on going back one day; by the time he did so, long afterwards, everything had lost its innocent delight.

  The return journey to Dammam was not as difficult as that to Qusaim: Hisham’s father had learned a lesson he would never forget. He had agreed with the driver of one of the ‘boxes’, a professional who knew the desert like his own name, to pass by the house in the morning so they could follow it through the wastes of Jayb Ghurab. Hisham longed to see the gang in Dammam as well as Noura, but his anxiety about the exam results and the arrests clouded his anticipation.

  The day of their departure was truly painful, when his grandfather and grandmother and his aunt gathered to bid them a final farewell. Tears streamed from his aunt’s eyes, his grandfather was fighting back tears and his grandmother was unable to speak. His aunt had made lots of kalija cakes with lemon and cardamom and aqil patties, which she brought that morning, emphasising that they were for Hisham. At the moment of parting she gave him a long embrace and tried to force a smile to her little lips, but could not hold back her tears. As they got into the car and drove off, Hisham gave one last look at the wooden door where his grandfather, grandmother, his aunt and Suleiman were standing, not knowing that that would be the last time he ever saw them. His aunt developed a strange illness and died soon afterwards, followed first by his grandfather and then by his grandmother. The news of their deaths reached Hisham in Jeddah, and he wished then that he could turn back the clock to plant one final kiss on his aunt’s cheek and her forehead, and to smell for one last time his grandfather’s scent.

  58

  They did not stop at Hisham’s uncle’s house in Riyadh on the way back but kept on to Dammam, which they reached at dawn on the second day after their departure from Qusaim. Instead of sleeping that day Hisham went to the school, where he learned that he had got his diploma. Finding that out made him feel important and capable; his results were not outstanding or even mediocre, but he had passed and that was the main thing. He went home and gave the good news to his mother, who gave him a big hug, crying and smiling at the same time before waking his father, who congratulated him soberly while containing his feelings of joy.

  In the early afternoon Hisham took off to Abd al-Karim’s house, taking some of the kalija cakes and aqil patties with him, but first he stopped by Noura’s house and knocked on the door.

  “It’s Hisham al-Abir,” he said, when he heard Noura’s mother asking who was at the door. “My mother sends her regards and wanted me to let you know we’re back.”

  His mother had not asked him to do any such thing and he was taking a risk by claiming that she had, but having passed his exams had lent Hisham a certain audacity. He wanted the message to reach Noura; surely it would, and that was what mattered, whatever else happened.

  When he got to Abd al-Karim’s house the rest of the gang was not yet there, and he and Abd al-Karim sat drinking tea, talking and eating the cakes. Then their friends began to arrive, Abd al-Aziz, Saud and Salim together and finally Adnan. Apart from his eyes, which were brighter, Adnan looked like a mummy drained of all its vital juices; his face was now scarred from acne. They all embraced and then sat down, gobbling up the kalija cakes and aqil patties that Hisham had brought with him so fast and with such relish that after a few minutes there was nothing left. Over tea they began discussing their future plans. Hisham and Adnan had got their secondary school diplomas and the others had all moved up into the sixth form; only one more year to go and they would all be university students. Hisham had already announced that he wanted to study economics and politics. He wished he could get a scholarship to study in America or Britain, but with his grades he was ineligible, and his father did not have the sort of contacts that would have enabled him to travel on a scholarship despite them. Even if he had, his father would not have been keen; he wanted Hisham to study medicine or engineering, and all his life he had wanted to see his son become a doctor of something. Hisham would have loved to fulfill his father’s wish, but he could not bear either of these subjects; only in things related to ideas and culture and the conflict of political movements did he feel at home.

  Adnan was full of uncertainty; he had also passed with a low average score and had no hope of getting a scholarship. He dreamed of going to Rome to study fine art, but he could not hope to. Even if he had been able to, his father was putting pressure on him to study ‘something useful’ instead of all that ‘child’s play’ he was so taken up with. Adnan’s indecision was such that he was even thinking of dropping his studies altogether and looking for work with his secondary school qualifications alone. One day he might be able to scrape together enough money to be able to get to Rome.

  Hisham looked at his friends with affection now unadulterated in the slightest by political affiliations. Even the wrongs that Adnan had done him were now merely the scars of old wounds that no longer gave him any pain, even if their traces remained in memory. He thanked God then that he had not invited Abd al-Aziz to join the party after his angry clash with Ibrahim al-Shudaykhi following Nasser’s speech that day; that day, which now seemed like ancient history. He felt wrung with pain inside as his glance fell on Adnan who seemed, however bright his eyes were, to be somehow shrouded as though dead. Hisham felt responsible for Adnan’s state. The party and the organisation had spoiled their long and innocent friendship, and in the end he was to blame, from his need to prove to himself and to the party that he was not just any ordinary comrade, but capable of recruiting new supporters.

  Shortly before sunset they dispersed, agreeing to meet earlier than usual the next day in order to plan a trip to ‘Half Moon Bay’ or Aziziya to celebrate their success and reunion.

  59

  Hisham had only got a short distance from Abd al-Karim’s house when the muezzin began the sunset call to prayer; several people were heading to the mosque already, water from their ritual ablutions still dripping from their faces as they hurried along to get there before prayers began, even though the mosque was nearby and there was plenty of time. Hisham himself was in a rush, as he wanted to get home before Noura arrived with the milk. But before he reached the turn into the main street he heard Adnan’s voice, and looked around to see him running along and almost tripping on his robe. Hisham waited for him with acute irritation, afraid that he would miss Noura. As Adnan reached him he was panting, even though he had not had far to run, and he paused for a few minutes to catch his breath.

  “You’ve been gone a long time,” he said eventually, still breathing fast and his face glistening with sweat. “I was worried about you.” Adnan gave him a look that expressed all the emotions churning inside him.

  “Don’t worry,” said Hisham, smiling and placing a hand on Adnan’s shoulder. “Everything’s fine.” He wanted to get rid of Adnan in any way he could: Noura would be on her way to his house by now.

  Adnan gave him a feeble smile. “I was worried and I had no one to talk to. I’m scared, Hisham. There’s no one left except us.”

  Hisham felt a bolt of fear pass through him. Over the last few days he had almost forgotten the subject, and here was Adnan taking him back to Hell again. Adnan looked like a child in a strange city who had l
ost his parents, and feelings of tenderness and guilt swept over Hisham at once.

  “I told you, everything’s fine,” he said with a pretence of calm, trying to look composed and forcing a smile to his lips. “A lot of days have gone by without anyone enquiring about us. If they were after us, they’d have arrested us ages ago with the others, wouldn’t they?”

  “Do you think so?”

  “Yes; and anyway, whatever happens to us is only what God has preordained,” Hisham said, walking towards the street. But Adnan walked with him silently, without his being able to stop him.

  “What have you made up your mind to do?” Adnan asked in a flat, dull voice, at the point where the alley joined the main street.

  “I’m going to go to Riyadh to apply to the faculty, maybe in a week, or ten days at the most. What about you?”

  “I don’t know, I really don’t.”

  They were now very close to Hisham’s house and he was afraid that Adnan would come even further, obliging Hisham to invite him in. He stopped.

  “Sorry, Adnan,” he said. “I’ve got to finish doing some things for my father, so I’ll have to leave you now. We’ll meet up another time.” Hisham went off in the direction of his house.

  “Doing some things for your father, or doing some things with Juliet, eh Romeo?” called Adnan, with the cheerful spirit of the old days. Hisham smiled and waved to him from a distance as he hurried off. Adnan stood there, watching Hisham gradually disappear from sight.

  60

  Noura was just about to leave when Hisham got home. Before going in he heard his mother say goodbye to her from the other side of the door. Instead of going inside Hisham quickly hid behind the wall parallel to the alleyway that led to Noura’s house. Moments later Noura appeared, carrying the empty milk pail. Hisham suddenly emerged from his hiding place, giving Noura such a fright that she dropped the pail. Hisham snatched it up and handed it to her. “Tonight,” he said hastily, and they each walked away quickly in opposite directions.

  Hisham went home. His mother was in the garden, trying to catch something of a breeze, with all the heavy humidity in the air. He went up to her cheerfully and greeted her, kissing her on the head uncharacteristically.

  “God bless you, God bless you,” she said. “You’re back early,” she went on with surprise. “That’s not like you even on school days, so how come you’re home so soon when it’s the holidays now?”

  Instead of answering, Hisham simply smiled, and his mother smiled back as he went to his room. The air there was unbearable, but all he could feel was how happy he was. A few moments later his mother came in with a glass of milk in which she had put some ice.

  “Drink this. It might relieve the heat a bit,” she said.

  “Milk!” he replied, feigning astonishment. “Noura must have been here?”

  “Yes. She only left a few minutes ago. She’s a very clever girl.”

  “In what way?”

  “She saw your father’s car in front of the door this afternoon and realised we were back; clever girl. And beautiful too, and from a good family.” His mother looked at him with a smile. He knew what she was getting at and smiled back, before drinking the milk in one go and then sucking an ice cube without commenting. His mother went out, warning him about sucking ice cubes and the effect it would have on his tonsils.

  “She certainly is a clever girl ... very clever,” Hisham said to himself, smiling wickedly as he pictured his tryst with her that night.

  61

  Hisham was fervent with desire when he went to meet Noura that night, and so was she. And yet, the moment he entered her house, all that desire, all the heat he had been wrapped in, suddenly evaporated, like a hungry person who, for no apparent reason, has indigestion .... When she jerked him by the hand over to their usual corner, she was the one to begin kissing him with an audacity he had never come across in her before.

  “I hadn’t imagined I was so madly in love with you,” she was saying as she kissed him, gluing her lips to his almost painfully. He returned her feverish kisses with a coldness he himself had not thought possible. Her lips were as hot and soft as could be, and yet he did not experience the sensation that usually swept over him when he met her, and which he always longed for. Noura noticed the frigid passivity in his lips, despite all the fireworks she was giving off herself and pulled away in bewilderment.

  “You don’t love me any more, Hisham,” she said, lowering her eyes. “There’s another girl, isn’t there?” With her big eyes she gave him a flirtatious look tinged with worry.

  Hisham smiled wearily. “No,” he said, looking at nothing in particular, “I love you more than love itself, but ...” He did not finish his sentence; he did not know what the matter was with him.

  “So what’s wrong?” she said with gentle reassurance, leaning towards him and taking his clammy palm in hers. She gave him a quick, gentle kiss. “You know I’m crazy about you,” she said softly. “You’re the light of my life. For Heaven’s sake, tell me what’s wrong.” Words like these were normally guaranteed to make his head spin and set his soul ablaze, but he felt nothing now. He did not want to worry her, and smiled as he drew her to him; without hesitation she flung her arms around his neck, fixing her mouth to his with her eyes closed. Yet once again he could not respond, and she drew apart, gazing at him with suspicion. There was a silence disturbed only by the chirping of the crickets in the garden.

  “Have I told you?” she said after a pause, looking at him with a smile, “I’ve bought a new petticoat. Would you like to see it?” Without his answering she began to lift up her dress, showing first her calf and then her lower thigh. Even in the faint light he could make out her ripening body. “Isn’t it pretty?” she said, taking hold of the hem of her red petticoat, which was embroidered at the bottom. Hisham knew she wanted to get his attention. She had never done this; she would never let his hand reach up to those forbidden regions. He looked at her with pure love and smiled, and then took hold of her dress and pulled it down over her leg and gave her a long embrace, smelling her hair with pleasure. He kissed her and then suddenly got up.

  “They must be wondering where I am,” he said. “I’d better be off.” Without waiting for her to answer, he left. She watched him go, wrung with confusion, astonishment and frustration.

  62

  After greeting his father and mother Hisham went to his room and lay on his bed, thinking about what had happened. He loved Noura; now, at this moment, he longed for her and wished he could go back. Only a few moments earlier she had been before him. But he did not know the reason for what had happened. He went over to his bookcase and soon lost himself with Freud in The Future of Fantasy.

  He wanted to find an explanation for his words to Adnan that evening, automatically and without thinking about it: ‘Whatever happens to us is only what God has preordained.’ He thought he had settled this matter long ago, when he embraced Marxism as the only scientific thought capable of reaching truth and predicting the future with any accuracy. There was no such thing as coincidence or fate, he told himself; life was not a drama in which one already knew the beginning and the end and where the only difference was in the details, which in any case had been determined beforehand. Everything had a cause and nothing was preordained. That was the philosophy he had pledged himself to. He was under threat of arrest because he had belonged to a clandestine organisation; if he had not belonged to it, he would not be under threat. If one of the others betrayed him, he would inevitably be arrested, and if they did not betray him he would not. Causality was the essence of existence. He had rejected metaphysics the moment he had found what he had been looking for in Marxism, so how and why had that expression escaped him?

  His thoughts led him to the conclusion that in times of need a person became a helpless child again, searching for a father to protect him and a tender mother, and God was the supreme example of the omnipotent father figure. He recalled a saying of Voltaire’s: ‘If God did not exist it would
be necessary to invent Him’. Man wanted someone to be responsible for him in times of need, when everything was in danger; when the need disappeared, he wanted to be directly responsible for himself ... and become God himself. It was all a comforting fantasy, but a fantasy nonetheless. This conclusion put Hisham at his ease and satisfied his questions. He felt he had reached a scientific deduction in keeping with his faith. ‘Dialectical materialism’ and ‘historical materialism’ crossed his mind; weren’t they also forms of inevitable ‘predestination’? But he dismissed these thoughts under the pretext that he had not explored Marxism deeply enough, which was why he needed to study it starting with its fundamental principles; this was what he was going to do, and no doubt there were convincing scientific answers to questions like this. Marxism was as far as scientific thought could go in terms of programmatic development. With that Hisham went off contentedly to sleep alongside his parents in the television room with the air–conditioning on.

  63

  During the next few days the preparations for his journey to Riyadh progressed at full throttle. He received his papers from the school, had three new robes made in one go, and bought new headdresses and skullcaps, new shoes and some socks. His father gave him some expensive Nejdi shoes he had had made by a famous cobbler in Qusaim during their last trip there.

  Hisham’s mother was not happy about him travelling to Riyadh; she would have preferred him to go to the College of Petroleum and Minerals in Dhahran and stay near her, but he insisted on studying economics and politics, and politics was not taught at the College of Petroleum. In the end his mother left matters in God’s hands, reassured by the fact that Hisham would be living in his uncle’s house and would come to see them every holiday, and he promised to write often.