The Others

by Siba al-Harez

  Open the doors to your wardrobe, I said.

  For every wall and in every corner of her room I had a story—except for those mirrors on her inner wardrobe door panels. For them I had memorized a single story, the story of the beginning. She got up and opened them, and so suddenly I found my body all over her room, the whole length of that wardrobe and four of its six doors and three fourths of the wall supporting it. I glanced at the mirrors. There I was, many times over. If I were to pick up a rock and throw it at the mirror and my body shattered, would the pieces even have any substance? I mocked myself: slivers of glass? What kind of pain am I still intent on gaining? Then a thought occurred to me. Perhaps that old soul of mine which had been imprisoned in the mirror ever since Dai had first touched me would come out!

  Did I cry? I asked her. The memory of our first time was sealed off in red in my mind. It was a secret memory with a door there was no reason to knock on, with a keyhole there was no need to spy through. When the mirrors were out, I went blind for a moment because of the light, and then all of a sudden I could see everything, and the images came down on my head until they drowned me, I remember. She was licking my face and eyes, and I was crying and saying to her, I am dying! I am dying! And she was saying, Everything will be fine, don’t be afraid. And now I think, maybe my memory is distorted, maybe I have gotten things all mixed up. I must not have cried, my memory must be leading me astray. Dai was looking at me, looking for an explanation. With my eyes I signaled her to look in the mirror. That day, was I crying?

  Yes, you were.

  I was counting on her proving my memory false. I don’t cry with anyone, I was thinking, I don’t cry at all, ever. And if I were to cry in front of someone, if it were up to me, it would certainly not be Dai! But, if I could not even remember crying before, then perhaps nothing about anything was really up to me.

  Really?

  Really.

  So what happened?

  I was taking off your clothes.

  Then what?

  Then I touched you.

  And then what?

  Then I touched you again!

  Then what?

  What are you getting at with all of these questions?

  Did I come?

  Only at this moment was I discovering that none of this seemed to resemble the image I had been carrying in my head. New pictures I had never seen before were taking over. She answered me.

  No …

  No what?

  You didn’t come.

  The circles of astonishment were widening and widening in my mind until they precipitated a collision with a thousand exclamation points attached. No, I hadn’t … ? Where had I been as she penetrated me? And why, that evening, had I spent the entire night washing myself, over and over? All the while I washed, I tried to bring myself to prayer, but couldn’t because I felt so guilty. I remember very clearly that I could not perform the prayers for several days thereafter. She added, You were in shock, you didn’t really know what you were doing. That usually happens when it is the first experience. At that last phrase, I laughed, but in disgust. She looked bewildered, even stunned. Was it such a trivial moment that it deserves to be forgotten? she seemed to be asking me. My laughter made a larger question inevitable behind her perplexed face. Wasn’t I the first one who touched you? Answer me, don’t leave me in such doubt about something like this. Don’t rob me of the truth of you!

  But as she did not dare to actually ask her questions, I did not care about giving her any answer.

  I put my hands out toward her, crossing one wrist over the other. Handcuff me!

  That isn’t necessary.

  Do what I ask.

  But …

  Don’t argue with me.

  She tried to deflect me, claiming that she didn’t have anything that would work as a rope. Nervously, she opened her drawers, scattering what was in them, grumbling. It was clear that she felt caught in a dilemma. She was giving me pleading looks, asking for my sympathy, asking me to save her from this.

  What’s your waist size? I asked her.

  What!?

  Bring the measuring tape.

  I know Dai’s infatuation with her body measurements, exactly how many kilos she weighs, the portions of food she eats. Anything having to do with numbers and her body puts her in a fever. She treats her body according to mathematical formulae that are extremely difficult if not impossible to maintain. She is so parsimonious with her body that it is all but a heap of bones. I would not be surprised if the measuring tape were folded up carefully and concealed under her pillow.

  She walked toward her wardrobe and took out the measuring tape, which was hung over the wooden rod next to her shirts and trousers and dresses.

  Tie me up! She hesitated again. I crossed my wrists even more insistently, and directly in her face, but with a gesture more like a plea than a clear threat or an order that could not be disobeyed. Tie me up!

  It was not in my power to say to her, Give me back my confidence, my faith, my certainty, my purity, although she would certainly have been the first to understand what I meant if I had been able to ask. But I had come to the conclusion that it is not in our power to have something better than what was before.

  She was on the verge of crying as she did it. Whenever I closed my eyes I could hear her breathing, as if she were sobbing. I threw my gaze to the darkness under her bed, protecting myself with it in compensation for the insolent light of her room. She treated me gently, not as she would if she were rediscovering my body, but rather with the sad softness which we sometimes feel when things stolen from us return, but which we had no power in us to bring back ourselves. The more she got entangled in my weak points and the hidden places of my pleasure, the more I pulled back, although there was nothing but the hard floor and the shattering of my bones to receive me.

  I was crying, too, or rather, I was leaving it to my body to cry, to clear a space for its grieving: my body and I, we sit together on the steps and we cry. So many words my body had said to me as she touched it, before it went insane with desire, before it had been warned away from sin. My body was far away, and only its filthy memory existed, below an imperfect sky aborting its clouds so that not enough rain could fall for it to become clean. My body was crying, as its griefs reproduced themselves, each one calling out for nourishment, for water. My body’s loneliness, its fear, its doubt. My body screams whole words, though letters are lost amidst the tears, and I cannot understand what it says. I am afraid to pat my body on the shoulder to make it stop crying. I do not want it to stop before its sadnesses are consumed. I do not want to console it with cheap words, cheap excuses. I want it to heal.

  Why aren’t you breathing?

  There’s no reason.

  You frighten me!

  Don’t be frightened.

  My mind wandered, and I did not come to until she was undoing the yellow plastic tape numbered on both sides in inches and millimeters. She began to kiss my wrists, moistening me with her saliva and the trembling of her lips.

  You didn’t have to push me to that.

  It’s what I asked.

  You don’t see what I see.

  So, what do you see?

  She lifted my hand in front of me. This!

  It’s just a mark, it will go away.

  She stared at me as if to say, You don’t understand! You won’t understand!

  Don’t scold yourself. Nothing happened to make you scold yourself.

  I decided to face her contempt for me head-on. I took out a tissue and wiped her sticky saliva from my body. She had never before allowed me to do anything like this. When she came close to kiss me, I stepped back and said, Wash your mouth, first! I was inclined to really push her around a little, to make light of her, even as her gazes showed just as strong an inclination to show herself humble. I lay down on her bed, covered myself with the sheet, and tucked its edges beneath me, so that she would not come and join me there, sharing the sheet and pressing herself against my
body. I left my shoulders showing and my arms outside the sheet. I did it deliberately instead of putting on my clothes and leaving. I wanted her to see my body in her bed naked and close by, but beyond her reach and beyond what she deserved. And I ignored her. I turned on the little radio that always shares her bed with her and began rummaging through the stations. Defeated, she left me there and went into the bathroom.

  As soon as she came back, she lay down, next to me at first, staring attentively at the sheet that covered me. Then she rested herself on my chest and began to cry. If she had left me a choice then I would have chosen to put off her crying until after I had left. I couldn’t stand this role any longer, this usual and often repeated role, but I did not know how to explain that embracing the crying of others simply weighs me down more each time it happens. It is not easy to be alone with the weeping of others, to make yourself into a tissue upon which they dry their grief, leaving in your heart the echoes of their sobbing. They fill your darkness with voices that are difficult to listen to, and they coat your fingers with bitter salt.

  Faced with the pain of her crying, I could not remain unconcerned but I could not feign anything or appear as if I truly sympathized with her. It was simply that side of me that cannot maintain silence for very long if it is drawn in, and I was implicated in her crying to the very core of things. I pulled up the blanket and covered her trembling. I wiped her sweaty forehead and her cheeks. Dai was clinging to me as if I were all she possessed, and the last thing she would possess, and I could not disentangle myself from her arms. I was forced to wipe her tears with my bare hand since the box of tissues was out of my reach. The sight of Dai weak was pounding at me. She has no right to be weak! She has no right to be a mere ordinary person, soiled by what dirties ordinary people. Ordinary people who grow weak, are defeated, know pain, and cry. This was Dai! And Dai was the mistress of my angels and my devils all at once. She had no right to be anything other than that!

  What’s wrong? Why are you crying?

  Because I love you so much, because you don’t love me at all. I always knew that you were going to leave me! Why did you have to draw it out, why did you stay so long?

  I am still not sure what it was that brought me to her, but what I was sure of was that I had not come to open any more doors. And if I were to allow my reaction now to cleave a hole and escape through it, without a doubt I would leave a lot of filth on the walls of her heart and chaos in her mind. I suppressed my irritation and my strong desire to scream at her, I loved you to the point that my bones hurt! To death, to the point of worship I loved you! What did you do to me, then, Dai? You shattered my heart.

  Instead, I smiled lightly and answered her. A few months is not a long time, I said.

  But you are a lot, even for a few months.

  She lifted her head off my chest. She was dizzy from so much crying. She raised her head and laughed. I hate it a little bit when she overdoes the crying, and I hate it a whole lot when she follows crying with laughter. What justifies her digging into herself? If I have enough reasons to make light of her, why does she do it too? She said something in the way she always does, to make fun of her crying, a joke I didn’t hear, and then she giggled nervously.

  I felt in need of doing something to regain my good mood. Let’s do something. Something we’ve never done before.

  Marry me.

  What?

  Marry me.

  You’re joking!

  Not at all! Marry me. I won’t hurt you. I won’t be unfaithful to you. I will do everything exactly the way you want it. Just, marry me!

  I did not know how to escape from the hysteria that surrounded this request of hers.

  Say something sensible!

  Like … like that I will strip off the extra hair on your legs.

  The hair on my legs hasn’t even sprouted yet!

  Marry me.

  In Paradise.

  When I woke up this morning I had no determination to make the day any different than the pattern of other days, days so similar as to be copies of one another. I woke up early in a troubled mood, the only reason being the way my mood has of not coming as I expect. I didn’t care. I just left it to treat itself until it got well.

  And now, as I place my kiss on Dai’s cheek, and withdraw her arms from around me, and press my finger into her dimple to make her smile, and tell her that I still owe her the clothes in which I left the house the last time, fifteen months ago—in this good mood of mine, I am incapable of explaining to her that coming here this time is not coming back, and that I was using her to cure myself of her, to absolve myself of all of the pain that she left in my mind and existence. Trying her for one last time to make sure for myself that I do not want to come back to her.

  I stare at her as if we are strangers, while she is engrossed in tugging on my wrists. I ask myself, did I know this girl once? Where does she get all of this simultaneous delicacy and harshness? She wraps round my wrists two black bracelets that look more like cloth ties.

  Don’t wear them when you are with strangers.

  Why not?

  So that no one thinks you broke your wrist.

  At the door, my grip was loosening as hers tightened, and my fingers were slipping outside of her palm as her fingers stayed clinging to mine. She said a lot of things that I do not remember, something like goodbye and sorry. I remember how very pretty she looked, pretty and sweet, despite her sadness. A razaqi flower, very white, hung down alongside her face. She grasped it with her fingertips and stroked it before picking it and presenting it to me as a final gift.

  23

  Umar, kiss me right now!

  Why right now?

  I won’t ask you that again.

  Are you sure?

  About the kiss or about asking?

  Both.

  I’m sure.

  What if the kiss were to ruin our friendship?

  It’s supposed to ruin it, somehow. Anyway, we are adults enough to repair what is ruined.

  What if you are just saying it on a whim and later on you regret it?

  I won’t regret anything that you’re a part of if I’m the other part! And anyway it’s not a whim.

  And what if I were out of control and I wanted more than a kiss?

  Nothing guarantees that I won’t want the same.

  What if I don’t please you?

  You will.

  I might not be a good kisser. He finished his sentence in English.

  I’ll teach you how. Now, kiss me.

  If I don’t?

  Let’s just say that if you don’t kiss me within seconds I will take that kiss myself.

  Yesterday we were together, too. He called me to tell me that he was about to board the airplane, and then he called again to tell me he had arrived safely, and then again to tell me he could get a room in the hotel right next to the one I was staying in. We were practically facing each other, and the breeze that was leaving my window behind was passing on to his window. I was just as certain that the day would not pass without my seeing him as I had been doubtful two weeks ago about the possibility of our meeting at all. On that night, and after I said to him, Come, I put down the phone to find myself suddenly struck with guilt about burdening him with such a heavy mission, and I called him a second time. I’m withdrawing my offer, I don’t want you, don’t come! But after a few days, he was so out of control that he canceled his summer classes and traveled to Lebanon to attend one of the concerts in the Beiteddine festival series.

  I will not do irreparable harm to the world’s teeth if my schedule is packed for one term and I study those subjects poorly and not very conscientiously, he said. And then, nothing rivals West Side Story and the violinists of Bond, not even the two hundred dollars that I will pay!

  And so we met here in Medina. I gave my mother the excuse that I had to buy a toothbrush. Don’t be late, she said. In the trade center, which is always full of crowds and commotion, we met. All I saw of him was his back, and all I could hear i
n the sea of chaos and crowds was the sound of my confused steps on the tiles, which were out of sync with the rhythm of my pulse. I thought my heart would stop completely at the rate it was pounding. A shop window crammed with colors and goods and perfume bottles, all glass. Lots of glass. I do not know how I walked those twenty steps to Donut House without the slightest turn toward the dark green hue of The Body Shop façade. I found myself behind him exactly, pressing my fingers into his palm, his warm palm, like two old friends, or a pair of lovers, and as if I had done the same thing a million times before. He was startled for a moment, I think he was startled, and then he said, I don’t know which one you prefer, choose yourself, and I pointed randomly. I felt the whole world staring at us. They all must know that we had an assignation. He took his wallet from the pocket of his olive-green trousers and paid, and pushed the glass door leading to the street so I could go through, and the breeze went straight to my heart, and without any reason for it I loved him more, and I don’t know why I remembered something he had said to me many times. I will always be concerned with you, and I will work to make sure no harm comes to you. We went outside and sat at the fountain and I laughed, because I don’t eat doughnuts, nor does Umar, and we had not cleaned off the spot where we sat down, and there must have been a terrible gray stain now on his pants and my abaya. A few meters from us stood a policeman next to a No Smoking sign. Next to us was an Iranian family taking pictures of the fountain and the tiles and the walls of the sacred enclosure where the Prophet is buried. For a moment I thought I was in one of Ally McBeal’s craziest, most hysterical made-up scenes.