Shumaisi

by al-Hamad, Turki; Starkey, Paul;

  Al-Faq‘awi never smiled, and his face was a terrifying spectacle: one-eyed and pockmarked, with a thick, straggling moustache and beard. Even the schoolteachers feared him, because he could sack them or write bad reports about them. He often came into their classes unannounced, stick in hand, and in front of the class mocked any teacher he thought was failing in his duties – and, of course, they were always failing.

  In one of al-Faq‘awi’s classes, the pupils were required to recite some verses of the Holy Qur’an, making clear the letters that needed idgham, ghanna and iqlab. Before Adnan’s turn came, he raised his finger to ask permission to go to the toilet. The teacher reprimanded him sternly. Adnan sat hunched in his seat staring at the Holy Qur’an in front of him, shaking terribly. Hisham’s turn to recite came and went. As usual, the stick had its share of him that day though, thank goodness, he had not made so many mistakes that he was laid out on the floor and beaten with a whip, then given a detention. The teacher told Adnan to stand up and recite, but he stayed silent, shaking. Then he began to cry. The teacher noticed a patch of urine under Adnan’s chair. He grabbed him violently by his shoulder and examined his wet clothes. He hit Adnan with the stick, then dragged him to the front of the class, put his legs in the whipping seat and ordered the nearest two pupils to lift it up. The stick came down again, hard and savagely, as Adnan continued to scream, and the teacher cursed, with the saliva flying from his mouth, as he repeated, ‘Cursed children … if your families don’t know how to bring you up, I’ll do it myself … I’ll do it myself!’ The cane continued to rise and fall. When the teacher finished, he spat at Adnan, cursing, then left the class after ordering Adnan to stay for an hour after the end of the teaching day when the other pupils had left.

  Classes finished. Hisham had not yet left, but stayed with Adnan. Tears still hung in the corners of his eyes. ‘Why didn’t you go to the toilet?’ Hisham asked.

  ‘The teacher was in a temper, and I was absolutely desperate. What do you expect me to do?’ replied Adnan innocently, wiping away a tear with his sleeve.

  ‘You should have gone, come what may. He would only beat you and give you detention … What’s it matter?’ said Hisham.

  Hisham smiled as he remembered scenes he had long since thought lost from his mind. He decided to read Freud and the psychoanalytical school more carefully, hoping they would give some answers to the questions that he couldn’t find answers to in Marxism.

  When he had gone to the mosque at dawn that time after his sexual experience with Raqiyya, he had prayed deeply and pleasurably for the first time in his life, and had experienced some kind of profound spiritual revelation. Before that, his prayers had been mere physical movements, devoid of spirit, and really just a recognition of social conventions. Although he felt insignificant when he observed such conventions, he couldn’t abandon them altogether, for God was merciful and forgiving, even though his creatures knew no mercy or forgiveness. But after that violent experience with Raqiyya, when he’d suffered an unbearable pyschological split, he needed a merciful and forgiving Father on whom he could throw his burdens. A Father not like other fathers; a Father who would forgive his errors and mistakes, take him by the hand and lead him to rest after suffering; to release from all the guilt and pain inside him.

  But what a difference there was between his state of mind after Raqiyya and this strange upset in the case of Adnan. In a crisis it was quite normal to look for a merciful, powerful father and a gentle mother. Everyone looked for a shoulder to cry on and someone to throw one’s burdens onto. But few people wanted to stay crying on that shoulder. It might be comforting, but much better was to learn from one’s mistakes and then go out and get it right. Pleasure lay in the existence of pleasure’s opposite, not only in pleasure itself. And though it might be nice to find someone willing to take on all your responsibilities, the price was extremely high: freedom itself. Only a child could afford this price, and who wanted to remain a child forever? We all find warmth in our mother’s embrace, and strength on our father’s shoulder, but few people want to stay forever in her embrace or on his shoulder. Nevertheless, it seemed that Adnan was one of them.

  Religion was an urgent requirement. God existed, but it was also necessary for Him to exist. If He didn’t exist, there would have been no need for Him. And if there had been no need for Him, He would not have existed. Need and existence complemented themselves at this point. Personal experience was the best proof. To hell with Marx, Feuerbach and al-Rawandi. They saw in religion nothing but ritual and form. But the essence of religion was this essential need, without which one just could not live. Without God, it was inevitable that existence became an absurdity, and an unbearable burden. Perhaps life was like this! But it was up to us not to let it be so, otherwise what was the meaning of life? A saying of Voltaire’s came to Hisham’s mind again: If God had not existed, it would have been necessary to invent Him. And he recalled a saying of Ivan Karamazov’s, that everything became permitted and justifiable when there was no God.

  The street dogs were barking. Hisham was still leaning against the wall, oblivious to the cold tea he was still drinking.. He threw down Al-Munqidh min al-Dalal. He took the chair and put it under the window, then turned out the lights, and began to follow what was happening on the opposite bank of the silent river of the road.

  ________________

  * Technical terms referring to detailed points of pronunciation in Qur’anic recitation (tajwid).

  16

  How pleasant the weather always was in Nejd at this time of year! It was neither too hot nor too cold, neither damp nor dry, just pleasant, like the descriptions of paradise. These days he hung around the canteen with his new friends, sometimes gossiping about the teachers or the news, while on other occasions they would just chatter aimlessly, mostly about ‘girls’. He seemed the least experienced of them, indeed not experienced at all. They would be talking about Mizna and Badriyya, Hayla and Aisha, Awatif, Ibtisam and Muna, and he couldn’t find anything to say. He wanted to talk about Noura and about Raqiyya and tell them about the stories he was writing about Moudhi, but something stopped him. So he remained silent, immersing himself in the principles of law and economics, until he was called a ‘bookworm’ and ‘Four Eyes’. Even though he disliked this description, he was trusted and loved by everyone. His friends would seek him out to help them with subjects they didn’t understand, or to solve their emotional problems. They would consult him on the beauty of their girls, bringing photographs in their pockets. He liked this and hated it at the same time. To be trusted meant that one was not an object of fear, and this annoyed him, for he didn’t want to seem ‘safe’ all the time.

  He took many trips out on the Kharis Road, sometimes with Abd al-Rahman, but usually with Muhammad and Muhaysin, when they made one of their frequent visits to the house and had a spare car. On those days, Nejd became something else. It reverted to the days that had seen Qays and Leila, Antara and Abla, and that transparent poetry which you can only find in Nejd. Everything was beautiful; even men’s behaviour became finer and more transparent, after being coarse and tasteless. The sun and land of Nejd knew no mercy when they were given the chance, and how many were the chances!

  He started to sleep in his room. The cold on the roof was unbearable in the early hours of the morning. This also gave him a better opportunity to observe the street opposite, and to follow the activity of the husband and wife who had now moved back down to the lower floor. The roof had been transformed into a barren area of red and yellow dust on which the winds played at midday. His relationship with the ‘new’ Adnan was now nothing more than a meaningless social convention. He would sometimes meet him in the canteen, when he ate one of Amm Wardan’s sandwiches after noon – just a passing greeting, a conventional question about how each of them was, then everything would return to normal. It was obvious that Adnan didn’t want to continue their friendship, and Hisham wasn’t enthusiastic either. Adnan didn’t usually come to the cantee
n alone. There were usually two colleagues with him, both wearing unkempt beards. Sometimes there were as many as five, drinking tea and speaking out of earshot in a whisper. The thing that most surprised Hisham was that they hardly ever smiled. If one of them actually did smile, he covered his face with the sleeve of his gown as if to apologise, then reverted to those impenetrable features, and Adnan would do the same. He couldn’t remember him ever doing that before. The thing that disturbed Adnan and his friends most was when Hisham and his friends were sitting at an adjacent table letting rip dirty jokes and laughing at the top of their voices, then talking and shouting. Despite the fact that Hisham only occasionally took part in this rowdy talk, he liked to sit among these colleagues and steal a glance at Adnan and his friends. He would see Adnan stealing a glance at him, and then the pair of them would look at the table again as if they hadn’t seen each other. Adnan’s group looked down on Hisham’s group; they would soon get up, repeating, ‘There is no power or might except with God … there is no power or might except with God,’ while the others carried on laughing and shouting. Hisham didn’t take much notice of the ‘new’ Adnan’s style, or his new personality, yet he felt that he had lost something indefinable. And Hisham also felt that life was concealing something from him; something new he couldn’t put his finger on.

  One day he was coming back from college, after having a snack with his friends at their house. He had been doing that a lot recently in spite of Muhanna, whose eyes betrayed anger quite clearly even though he didn’t express it openly. That didn’t bother Hisham much, so long as Muhammad, Muahysin and Dais showed him genuine affection and so long as he frequently brought with him fresh milk for lunch, or beans and fresh bread, and sometimes mutabbaq with eggs or bananas many evenings for supper. The strange thing was that Muhanna was politer to him when Hisham bought the supper.

  One day, burping the whole way from the effect of the milk he had drunk at lunch, he reached home just before the call to afternoon prayers. He knew that this uncle would be in the mosque, that Ahmad was probably doing ‘overtime’, and that Abd al-Rahman was either taking a siesta in his room or wandering the alleyways of Riyadh in search of amusement, and God only knew where Hamad might be! – so he felt free to stop and belch as he pleased. The street was deserted – there weren’t even any dogs or boys, so when he reached the corner of his uncle’s house he stopped for a moment to look at the house opposite. Mentally he replayed what he had seen in the room and on the roof – then suddenly stiffened. He felt a strong desire to disappear, but the door had opened. A woman looked out. She wore a black scarf round her neck that hung to the ends of her hair, except for some fine strands that glinted in the golden sun. She was carrying a bucket of rubbish, which she threw out before suddenly noticing him. She didn’t react, just clasped the bucket to her chest and stayed standing beside the door. Hisham had no idea how long the two of them exchanged feverish glances; on these occasions time is not measured in minutes and hours. He shivered. It was quite definitely the woman on the roof. A sort of terrible embarrassment overwhelmed him. He couldn’t meet her gaze, but retreated, cringing like a dog, and shut himself into his room. His heart thumped, sweat dripped from every pore in his body and he seethed with shame. But when he had calmed down a little he drew his chair up to the window and peered out.

  Her door was shut, but her window was wide open and she was sweeping the room, with her bottom to the window. He almost exploded when he glimpsed the cleft between her buttocks. The room was spotless, but still she continued sweeping. He was loving this. Suddenly she spun round and smiled at him before slamming the window shut. She had seen him! She had known he was there from the first moment. Perhaps she also knew of his nocturnal spying. He felt happy and terrified all at once, and he craved a cigarette. Shouting for Said, he ran down the stairs.

  Moudhi got to him first, trying to cover her face with her veil, and saying in a clearly agitated voice, ‘OK, OK! What’s the matter? God willing nothing is wrong!’

  ‘No, no, nothing’s wrong. I’m wanting Abd al-Rahman. Where’s Abd al-Rahman?’ asked Hisham. Moudhi calmed down.

  ‘Enough of this,’ she said. ‘You’re driving me mad. All this commotion for a dimwit! You’re always going on like this!’ Hisham pulled himself together and calmed down.

  ‘I need him for something important,’ he said. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘One moment, and I’ll fetch him, said Moudhi, going back inside. It was only a few moments before Abd al-Rahman entered, his hair straggly and uncombed. He was clearly anxious. ‘It’s not like you to shout for me. I hope to God there’s nothing wrong?’

  ‘No, nothing’s wrong. I just needed a cigarette. Do you have one?’ Abd al-Rahman looked startled, then shouted with laughter. ‘God confound you, sheikh! All this for a cigarette! Take one. No! Take the whole packet!’ He threw Hisham a packet of Marlboro Reds and made for the door, still laughing. Before he shut it behind him, he turned and looked quizzically at Hisham, asking, ‘Since when have you smoked?’ Hisham just smiled and took out a cigarette. He lit it as Abd al-Rahman went out, yawning, ‘God curse you, you’ve caused enough trouble this afternoon.’

  The cigarette was fantastic. He experienced the usual pleasant queasiness and that delicious erotic tension. How he longed for Raqiyya. In fact, right now he was ready to take any woman – so what about the woman over the road? He climbed back onto the chair, but saw nothing. The door and the window were shut. He stepped down onto the ground, lit another cigarette, which he smoked right down to the filter, then went to his little stove and made tea, arguing with himself all the while: There’s no doubt that she saw me. And there’s no doubt that she wants what I want. But wait. How can I be sure? It’s perfectly obvious. How can I be sure?

  He dragged on another cigarette and looked out of the window again: Nothing … I’m dreaming. No … Yes! What about her husband? He’s the wealthiest man around – but is life just possessions? No. But neither is it just my precious metaphysics! – She saw me and smiled … perhaps. But then, does everyone who smiles at you want to fuck you?

  He smiled … fuck … what a harsh, dreadful word, expressing nothing pleasurable sounding. There’s no doubt that we Arabs are not just harsh in our way of life, Hisham thought, but also harsh in our hearts and feelings. Fucking. But if that is so, where do Ibn al-Muluh and Kuthayyir and the others get their finer feelings from? They were just the exceptions to the rule. And what does my life have to do with the poetry of Majnun and Kuthayyir? But fuck remains a harsh, ugly word, making the whole concept of sex seem more mechanical than sensuous. He dozed off, smiling pleasurably to himself.

  17

  From then on Hisham slowed down as he approached the house on his way back from college, his eyes glued to the door of the house opposite. Every time he came back the door would open, and the woman would appear and give him the same smile. Hisham would dive inside, hiding the excitement bubbling up inside him. She was obviously watching for him from the window that overlooked their street. Otherwise, how could she see when he was coming home? He was certain that she wanted him. He had no idea why. But she definitely wanted him. He was confused, torn between the promise of pleasure and the prospect of huge embarrassment. But after several of these encounters, he screwed up enough courage to smile back at her, then dashed inside, feeling like he’d achieved something major. He went up to his room, lit a cigarette, and drew heavily on it until his nerves had calmed a little. (Cigarettes no longer induced that delicious headache, the salivation in his mouth or any of the sexual feelings he had derived from them in the past. Now smoking was a need he was compelled to satisy. So now he bought his own cigarettes – a development that pleased Abd al-Rahman, who had begun to grumble about Hisham’s consumption of his own.

  One day, he came back from college before noon. Doctor Said Ghadban had taken the day off, Doctor Mutawalli Shahtuti had – as usual – disappeared, and there was no one at his friends’ house. As he approached his uncle’s hous
e, the door opposite opened and the woman appeared, smiling. He smiled back. This time, though, after quickly checking the alley to her left and right, she beckoned him over. The street was empty but for a few dogs crouching and yawning in corners. Hisham’s heart was in his mouth. He almost tripped over his cloak as he ran inside. He raced up to his room, slamming the door behind him, and immediately lit a cigarette which he smoked with a trembling hand. But despite his terror, he was very aroused. When he had calmed down a bit, he drew the chair across to the window and looked out.

  She was in the usual room, sitting on the floor with her eyes trained on his window. She smiled again, as if she had been waiting for him. Pain shot through his head and he almost fell off his chair. He got down, soaked with sweat, and lit another cigarette, but it didn’t bring him the calm he hoped for. Unconsciously he made for his wooden box, taking out a plastic bottle one-quarter full of arak. He unscrewed its cap, then immediately screwed it on again and put the bottle back in the box. He lit another cigarette. Then he went back to the wooden box and hesitantly drew out the bottle again. He remembered his promise to keep away from drink forever. But he craved that delicious headache, that state of abandonment and carelessness he had felt the last time he drank. Then he thought of all the nausea and terrible pyschological torment afterwards. For several minutes he stood, paralysed, holding the bottle. At last he opened it, then took a teacup and poured a quarter measure into it, which he topped up to the brim with water. He stared at the cup for a few moments, then swallowed its contents in a single gulp, like a man removing his own chains. Fire burnt his throat and his stomach heaved, but he got a grip on himself as his mouth began to water. It was only a few minutes before his stomach settled and that pleasurable ache began to fill his head with confident feelings of lust and bravery. He went back to the chair and looked out … She was still there. Their eyes met and they both smiled. He gestured to her, asking if he should come. She nodded assent, then got up and shut the window.