Adama

by al-Hamad, Turki; Bray, Robin;

  The day of his departure came. His mother made him a special breakfast, including eggs with tomatoes, baked beans, watermelon jam, yellow and white cheese, homemade bread, fried and boiled eggs. She sat with him for a long time, giving him bits of advice about steering clear of shady company and suspicious places and bad habits and politics and all the things God had forbidden, all the while saying over and over that she knew he was a ‘sensible boy’ who would never do anything foolish, but that she had to warn him all the same. After breakfast she gave him one hundred riyals as a good-luck present.

  Shortly before midday Hisham’s father returned from work to take him to the train station. His mother was quite calm as she said goodbye to him. She kissed him on both cheeks and he kissed her on the forehead and left, carrying his huge black suitcase and imagining the prayers of his mother that he could not hear. Adnan and Abd al-Karim were already at the station when he and his father got there, and everyone was fighting to get to the ticket desk. On the platform the crowds were even worse. Abd al-Karim would not let him push and shove with all the others, but instead took the money from Hisham’s father and threw himself into the throng by the ticket desk. Minutes later he returned with a second-class ticket; he was smiling, his headdress having fallen off and his face shining with sweat.

  Hisham’s father gave him three hundred riyals’ spending money to last him until he got his first grant from the faculty. Hisham was thrilled. With a fortune like this he would be able to buy whatever he wanted, especially now that he would be responsible for purchasing his own food and drink and paying for his accommodation. He put his suitcase in the luggage carriage, and kissed his father on the forehead, embraced his friends and boarded the train. He shoved his way through crowds of people with their distinctive smells, which the humidity made somehow different from any other smells anywhere else. Once he had fought his way to a seat and sat down, he looked out of the window to where his father and his friends were standing. As the train moved off, he waved goodbye to them; he took a long look at his father, who was watching the train carry his son away into the future, and perhaps into the unknown, though in reality there was no difference ...

  Through the window of the train from Dammam the buildings of Riyadh began to appear, vague and indistinct like a dream on a summer afternoon. The heat haze of that August day mingled with sandstorms, whipped up by the breath of genies from the al-Dahna desert, giving Riyadh the appearance of ...

  British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the

  British Library

  ISBN 0 86356 311 2

  eISBN 978-0-86356-530-4

  © Turki al-Hamad, 2003

  English translation © Robin Bray 2003

  This edition first published 2003

  The right of Turki al-Hamad to be identified as the author of this

  work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright,

  Designs and Patents Act of 1988

  Saqi Books

  26 Westbourne Grove

  London W2 5RH

  www.saqibooks.co.uk