by Ghada Samman
He gestured for me to come outside. I was about to turn my back to him and just go on with my work. But then I remembered that my intention wasn’t to defy him or provoke him. All I wanted was to divorce him and never see him again as long as I lived. So I got up and left the library for fear that if I didn’t, he might come in. I didn’t want a repeat of the scandalous, violent behavior he’d exhibited one day when he came to my dad’s house shouting, “She’s coming back home with me right this minute. Otherwise, I’ll force her back, and I’ll take a second wife!”
He was waiting for me at the campus gate with a bundle of thunderbolts in his hand. I was relieved, since loud ruckuses don’t scare me. What scares me is the sound of silence, and luckily for me, silence was a language he didn’t know anything about. He opened the door to a fancy new car. “Get in,” he barked. As I got into what felt like my coffin, I didn’t say a word, and neither did he. He just got in after me and took off like a madman. He drove us to some dark suburb of Damascus and pulled over in front of a cemetery wall.
“Get out,” he commanded. I got out of the car and asked him calmly, “What are we doing here?” Aiming a revolver at me, he pushed me over to the wall as though it were an execution platform and said, “This is the Husni Al Za`im Cemetery. And if you refuse to come back to me, you’ll be buried here, too.”
I don’t know what crazy place it came from, but I heard a voice burst out laughing. “What makes you think you can bring a dead love back to life?” I asked him. “What’s past is past, and that’s that.”
Then he shot at me. I don’t know whether he aimed and missed, or whether he’d just meant to scare me into submission. I suspect it was the latter. In any case, his plan failed. I took off running but he didn’t try to catch me. And when I flagged down a passing car, he just stood there in a daze—confused and half-terrorized by a woman who was so determined to be rid of him that she’d rather die a real death than endure the figurative death of a marriage devoid of love and respect.
The car stopped.
“What’s going on?” asked the driver.
“Sorry,” I said. “My car’s broken down. Could you take me to the Qasr Al Dhiyafa Hotel, Abu Rummana, Parliament Street, or Baghdad Street?”
“Get in,” he said. The woman in the passenger’s seat, who appeared to be his wife, looked at me suspiciously.
“What brings you here?” she asked coarsely.
“Well, whatever brought you here!” I retorted.
Her husband laughed, and she shot me a nasty look. I didn’t say anything the rest of the way even though the husband probed me for details about my situation. I remembered the guy who had given me a ride to the clinic in the village of Rayhaniya the day my cousin shot me. My cousin had pretended to be shooting at a sparrow. Luckily his hand was shaky, but he did manage to wound me. This was after he killed my owl and left it on my bed as a warning. All this had been his way of punishing me for publishing something I’d written in the Readers’ Mail column with my picture beside it. What scandalous behavior!
For a minute there I was afraid the couple might try to kidnap me. So, why not tell them what I’d been doing outside a cemetery in the pitch dark? I mean, people are usually kidnapped because they’re rich or influential. But what was there to prevent them from kidnapping me out of curiosity—just to get me to tell them my life story, which was a pretty long one? I was old enough to drive myself by this time, but all that really mattered to me was to drive the car of my life. And that was exactly what I intended to do once we finally had our divorce hearing. It was just that my husband had been trying all the stubborn antics he could think of to keep it from happening.
Realizing she probably hadn’t slept well, Zain’s father came knocking on her door. When she was ready to leave the house, he said solicitously, “I’ll go with you.”
“I told you I didn’t want you to,” she assured him earnestly. “I want to depend on myself and correct my mistakes on my own. Besides, Najati will be waiting for me at the door.”
I stood before the judge as my husband stood next to the exit. I approached the bench without feeling or acting the least bit intimidated. My wings were flapping and about to carry me away. The judge, who looked at me with visible hostility, wore the turban of a religious cleric, which took me by surprise. Maybe that’s the way judges dress in Islamic courts, and I just hadn’t known it. He eyed me with as much appreciation and respect as if I’d been a mosquito on his robe. It reminded me of the fact that when Najati came to pick me up, he’d seemed a bit taken aback to see me leaving the house without a headscarf. Actually, it hadn’t even occurred to me to put one on. He seemed equally surprised at my stylish white dress, which looked like a miniature wedding gown of sorts. Although he didn’t say anything, I got the feeling he was pleased, maybe because, as my aunt had mentioned once, he was “a Communist.” Gee whiz!
“Where is your legal guardian?” the judge asked me.
Najati had instructed me to keep my mmouth shut and let him answer. But the question riled me up so much that I blurted out, “I’m my own legal guardian, and I want a divorce.”
“I didn’t hear what you said,” the judge replied, his voice as frigid as a surgeon’s scalpel.
“Your Honor,” Najati interjected, “Her father, who is her legal guardian, has given me power of attorney.”
As if speaking to me directly would have sullied his tongue, the judge instructed Najati to tell me that I would have to waive all financial demands of my husband should he agree to divorce me. Turning to look behind me, I looked daggers at my husband as if to say: If you don’t, I’ll spread secrets about you that you aren’t going to like one bit!
“I agree,” he declared with the laconic good manners of a gentleman. With a nod to my husband, the judge concluded the matter with a speed that astounded me.
I made no objection when the judge had Najati sign the document before I did, and as I exited the courtroom, I didn’t look back. All I wanted was to get out of the building and leave it behind. I’d gone by the Palace of Justice countless times as a girl when my father would take me to visit my aunt in the Halabouni neighborhood behind the Hejaz Station. But now it was associated with a different kind of memory, the kind I didn’t care to hold onto.
At the door Najati said to me affectionately, “Congratulations on your divorce. You fought for it with everything you had. Would you like me to take you home?”
“No, thanks,” I replied. “I’d like to walk. But thanks again.”
I came up to him and was about to plant a kiss on his forehead the way I’d always done when I was a little girl. But he pulled away in embarrassment. Looking uneasily this way and that, he said, “God be with you,” and got hurriedly into his car. Then he drove away as though he were fleeing from a woman headed for perdition.
As I crossed the street, I glimpsed the man who’d just divorced me—or, rather, the man I’d just divorced—coming in my direction. It was over. I had a lump in my throat, and an ache in my heart. I was going to miss his uncle the wonderful poet, his parents, his brothers and sisters, his aunts, and his nieces and nephews. But I had to put all that behind me now.
I clicked down the sidewalk in my spiky white high heels. With every step I took, I dug them into the pavement in a declaration of resolve. I kept walking without a glance in his direction. It was over. I passed the Hejaz Station, whose big nonfunctional clock was a telling reminder of the way time in my city had come to a standstill.
After turning a corner and heading down another street, I paused on the bridge that spanned the Barada River, kissed the water with my spirit, and continued toward Uncle Abu Umar’s Sweets Shop, which sold hard candies, chocolates and pastries. Whenever my dad and I visited the store when I was little, the shop owner would pick me up and stuff my mouth with candy. When he saw me this time, though, he looked the other way. Had I grown up so much that he didn’t recognize me? Or was he angry with me because I’d had the cheek to marry somebody my f
ather didn’t approve of?
She passed the Brazil Café on the other side of the street. When she came to The Havana, the aroma of coffee accosted her from a table on the sidewalk. She was in the mood for a cup of coffee, and she had enough money with her to buy one. She quietly took a seat at an unoccupied table. As she sat down, she could have sworn she saw a man at the next table sewing his mouth shut with a needle and thread. Meanwhile, the wall next to her table seemed to be sprouting huge red ears that resembled flesh-eating plants, and that gave off the same fetid odor.
She couldn’t help but notice that she was the only woman in the cafe. The waiter came up with a bewildered look on his face. The whole place went quiet. Some of the customers who’d been playing backgammon dropped what they were doing to stare, and Zain held her breath. They’re probably thinking: Who does she think she is? How dare a girl come and sit down in here?
A few minutes later, who should she see walking toward her table but Ghazwan, who’d been hanging out with some friends there that day. Oh, God, he’s coming this way, and he’s looking straight at me! Hailing her enthusiastically, he said, “Well, hello there! If it isn’t the Subki Park girl! It’s so good to see you again! I must have missed you when you came back out of the pharmacy that day. Or did you run away from me?”
Zain couldn’t help but feel happy to see him standing there with his cheerful face and that gorgeous dimpled chin of his, so deep she was sure she could drown in it. She wished she could tell him everything that had happened to her since the day she’d seen him in Subki Park. But she’d been learning the language of silence. The sight of him put a smile of genuine contentment on her face.
“May I?” he asked with his accustomed gentility as he pulled out a chair.
“Be my guest,” she replied.
Without further ado, he asked, “Who are you? What’s your name? You look like the budding author Zain Khayyal, whose picture I’ve been seeing in the newspapers. Is that you?”
“And what difference does it make what my name is?” she asked. “Either way, I’m somebody who wants to take hold of her life and find her wings. And I didn’t get those words from some textbook, or from a story you published in The Critic magazine!”
He gave her a look that bathed her in affection, but she decided not to believe it, especially when she remembered that she’d gotten divorced less than an hour before.
It’s weird. I seem to bump into him whenever I’m at a crossroads in my life. The first time was after my abortion, and now I see him again after my divorce. What’s going on? Is he fate in the flesh? Well, whatever he is, I’m not going to fall for him! I’m not going to go plunging to my death in those amorous glances, or lose my head over that sweet, handsome face or those mysterious, grotto-deep eyes. No way. I’m running back to the safety of my papers and pens.
“Would you like another cup of coffee?” he asked. To her consternation, she heard herself say, “Yes, I would!” She didn’t approve of this new rebelliousness in her senses, and she was determined to suppress it with the lance of her pen, which could numb her like opium compliments of the poet Coleridge.5 Never again am I going to let romantic love debase me or rob me of my sense of direction.
So, the moment the second cup of coffee arrived, she shot out of her seat.
“Goodbye,” she said, and headed for the door without waiting for a reply.
He ran after her while the other customers at The Havana sat transfixed by the peculiar scene.
“What do you say we start over by me inviting you for a cup of coffee at The Brazilia across the street?” Ghazwan suggested.
She wanted desperately to say yes, but didn’t dare let herself. I could easily fall in love with this guy, and I’ve got to get away from him. But why should she fall in love with him? All she knew about him was that he was a good-looking Palestinian who’d written wonderful lines that she’d read in a newspaper somewhere. He was also the super-sensitive type and a bit of a crazy, and they were on the same wavelength. You crazy woman. You thought the very same things about somebody else once, and today you’re secretly celebrating your divorce! Are you looking for more misery? Have you already forgotten how much you went through?
“No, thank you,” she said with all the strength she could muster. “I have to go now.” It was as if the voice she spoke with came from somewhere deep inside her, but wasn’t really hers. Either that, or she’d turned into a rational, level-headed woman who contemplated both herself and everything around her fairly and impartially, unmoved by the logic of tears or sentimental chatter. Supposing he is the right man, then he’s the right man at the wrong time.
She felt a headache coming on, and decided to take refuge in an aspirin pill.
“I need to go to the Kaddurah Pharmacy,” she said faintly.
“Okay,” he agreed. “I’ll take you there, even though I know you’ll disappear on me again! But I’m going to repeat my request: Will you marry me, little girl whose name I don’t know?” When does he ask me to marry me? Right after I’ve had an abortion, or right after I’ve gotten divorced. He really is the master of bad timing!
Zain burst out laughing. Then, as he and the waiter were settling the tab, she ran out and jumped into the first taxi she could find.
When she got to the house, she didn’t find her father. In fact, nobody seemed to be home. Maybe he wanted to avoid a confrontation. The empty house came as a happy relief, since what she needed most right then was a tryst with a blank sheet of paper where she could scribble down mysterious symbols that only she could decipher.
She made her way to her father’s pistachio-green library, the room where she had once fused passionately with her then-beloved while everyone else in the house was asleep. This then-beloved was the person she had divorced today with the passion of a bright spring morning, washing her hands of all that was past. Seated at her father’s desk with a sweetheart who had never betrayed her—her pen—she fused anew with a blank sheet of paper.
She sat writing reflections that had nothing to do with the details of the day’s events or the painful loss of her ex-husband. She wrote instead about the pain of having lost herself, about her human weakness and her mistakes. It was as if she were writing herself back into existence. She whispered to the paper, “Other people are me, too.”
Suddenly she heard her father saying, “Where have you been?! I looked for you at the Palace of Justice and all the way back to the house. And I called you after I got back.”
“Sorry, Baba!” she said in earnest apology. “My mind was somewhere else.”
“Najati told me how you defied the judge.”
“Well,” she said truthfully, “I didn’t mean to. Anyway, that’s all in the past now, and I’m trying to make a new start. A chapter of my life has ended, and I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” Her father heaved a sigh of relief. He didn’t want to reopen old wounds any more than she did.
When Zain went to bed that night and escaped through a hole in her pillow into her secret little world, she was greeted by Ghazwan’s extraordinary face. His eyes radiated affection, sorrow and determination. She thought back on how he had been about to drive her for the second time to the Kaddura Pharmacy to see whether she would run away from him again, and how she’d made her getaway even before he’d expected her to.
* * *
If it weren’t for my poor health, there’s no way I’d let my daughters leave the house to work at the brocade shop. People say I’ve lost my mind, and maybe I have, since I don’t remember anything from those years when God punished me for what I did to Hind.
Abdulfattah didn’t like the idea of his daughters working in his big Damascene brocade store. There’d been a change in Hamida and Fadila, and it bothered him. They weren’t tame anymore the way women are supposed to be. There was something about them now that reminded him of his brother’s late wife Hind, who had left behind a demon by the name of Zain. Yet despite his misgivings about his daughters’ new role, he’d started to
enjoy staying home, a fact he blamed on the medicines his doctor had prescribed. He liked spending his days in the big house in Ziqaq Al Yasmin. He sat cross-legged on a stone bench beneath a dome covered with inscriptions and cornices. The bench was spread with a rug, and his back was supported by cushions along the wall behind him. He loved listening to the murmur of the water as it flowed down from the courtyard’s elevated fountain inlaid with marble mosaic. Ensconced there holding his prayer beads, he bathed in the fragrances that wafted from planters filled with white jasmine, honeysuckle and basil. From the time he’d been accused of causing Hind’s death, his condition had gone from bad to worse. He’d refused to call a doctor to examine her because that would have meant letting a strange man see her body. As a result, she’d bled to death under the midwife’s inadequate care. I regret that. No, I don’t. Yes, I do. No, I don’t. Yes, I do. No…
He hated the sound of the phone ringing, and Fadila wasn’t answering it. She was busy getting ready to go to work. So Buran answered instead. Fadila could hear her mother giving some caller an extraordinary welcome, and she knew that slimy Mutaa must be on the line. The conversation went on longer than usual. The mother called Fadila. Then, covering the receiver with her hand she crooned happily, “The signing of the marriage contract is scheduled for Friday, and the wedding will be a week after that at the Orient Palace Hotel. So put on your dancing shoes! It’s going to be an amazing wedding, and they’re covering the whole thing, even though it’s usually the bride’s family that pays. Anyway, you talk to him. His mother wants to see you at her house. She’s been sick, and Mutaa says she has something she wants to talk to you about.”