They looked everywhere: in Shumaisi, the Umm Salim roundabout, Asir Street, Manfuha, Zahrat al-Badi’a, Ujailiyya and in Alisha itself on the off-chance, but without success. After they had almost given up, they found a house in an alley branching off a dirt road leading from Asir Street. It was a pleasant surprise by any standard when the broker didn’t object to their bachelor status. His only comment was that their behaviour when they moved in would determine whether they could stay or not – an unusual position for a broker like him to take. They didn’t haggle much about the rent. They were so happy that they forgot about the rent being high, at five thousand riyals a year. When they saw the house they were even more pleased, because it was airy and spacious. It wasn’t a mudbrick house, but a modern house built of reinforced concrete, with four living rooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen and a small paved courtyard open to the sky. Two of the living rooms directly overlooked the courtyard, as did the kitchen, and a room next to the front door. This had a bathroom opposite, with a small door separating it from the courtyard. The fourth room was on the roof. This was actually the most spacious room of all, with two windows – one of which overlooked the alley – while the other opened onto the wide roof. There were no windows in any of the other rooms except for one in the outermost room overlooking the alley. Hisham bagged the upper room for himself. It would give him the seclusion and quiet he wanted, especially knowing that Muhaysin had a lot of friends and acquaintances. Hisham wanted to mix with people when he chose, not when the others wanted to. Muhaysin chose the bigger of the two rooms opening onto the courtyard, and they turned the other room next to the kitchen into a storeroom for food. The outer room they turned into a reception room.
When they signed the rental agreement in the afternoon – a historic day for Hisham – they paid the broker half the rent in advance. Hisham, after some persuasion and the signing of various agreements and contracts, had already borrowed eight hundred riyals from his cousin Ahmad. Swept along with enthusiasm, they went straight to an auction and bought a small fridge, a gas stove complete with chimney pipe and some essential kitchen utensils. They put off furnishing the reception room until the half-year holiday, when they would move in permanently.
During the days leading up to the holiday they went to their new home every afternoon to explore their new neighbourhood. Hisham could feel a delightful glee within him, whose source was an almost alarming sense of freedom and independence; this was the first time he had ever been truly self-sufficient.
Their new neighbourhood was like much of Riyadh: alleys and narrow dirt streets with houses on both sides, most of them built of mudbrick but some built of reinforced concrete. Their neighbourhood was near one of the scientific institutes and the general government hospital, so it was full of students, teachers and low-grade officials, with services like bakeries, small groceries and laundries scattered about. Not far away lay Asir Street, with its butcher shops, ful restaurants, dry bread bakeries and fast sandwich and mutabbaq shops. Everything about the new quarter, with its great location and its abundant services, seemed relaxing. It was possible to get everywhere on foot. Alisha, where the college was, was not more than half an hour’s walk away, and the local bus went from Asir Street to every part of Riyadh for four piastres a ride.
As for the neighbours, they knew nothing about them. All they knew was that they were family people. There were no bachelors apart from themselves in the alley. Their house adjoined three others on one side, four on the other and two houses at the back. After that, there were several empty plots of land dividing other clusters of houses. Opposite theirs were more houses built together on the other side of the alley, which resounded with the shouts of children that started after the afternoon prayers and only stopped just before the evening prayers, to be replaced by the howling and scrapping of stray dogs.
They noticed, from the dubious glances directed at them when they came to the house every afternoon, that their presence worried the neighbours. Even when they greeted one of the neighbours who happened to be there, he returned the greeting with some incomprehensible grunt, looking at them distrustfully. If the Prophet had not said, ‘Greeting is a custom, but returning it is a duty,’ he would probably not have responded at all. They decided to be as disciplined and upright as possible in order to win the trust of these neighbours; but how would this be possible when they could sense hidden eyes following their every movement from behind closed doors and windows …?
23
When he told Suwayr of his determination to move house after the holiday, she went mad. He didn’t dare tell her the news until he had given her as much of his physical love as he could muster, and she seemed happy and contented. He himself hadn’t realised he was capable of giving so much love all at once, but deep down he felt that this might be their last meeting. Her blind jealousy had lately become annoying, and the twinge he felt whenever he left her place was more insistent than ever, especially when he passed in front of Alyan’s shop and saw him busy chopping meat, trusting in the goodness of the whole world, completely oblivious to what was going on almost under his eyes.
They were sipping milk with ginger when he told her he had decided upon the move. She put the glass nervously on the tray and looked at him with wide eyes that had lost none of their sharpness though filled with tears.
‘Now I know what this vast quantity of love was for,’ she said bitterly. ‘I was wondering what had come over you today. I told myself that at last you had fallen in love with me. How stupid I am …’ She couldn’t finish but burst into tears, resting her head on her bare knees. He tried to calm her, but she snatched her hand away with unexpected force. ‘Take your hand away, you deceiver,’ she said in a quavering voice. ‘Do you want to leave me now that I’ve found you?’
‘Who told you that? I’ll be a bit further away, but I’m not leaving you.’
‘You liar!’
He left her to cry for as long as she needed. Eventually she calmed down a little and stared at him through bloodshot eyes, still weeping. Then she wiped her tears away with her hand. ‘I knew that the end was coming,’ she said, her voice cracking. ‘But I wasn’t expecting it so soon. It was all too good. There I was swimming in a lake of happiness, and now I’m drowning in the Devil’s lake. Here I am returning to darkness once again …’
She paused to wipe away a falling tear, then smiled sadly and said, ‘I was madly in love with you from the first time I saw you. I didn’t know the meaning of love before you. I know that you have never loved me, you have only loved my body. I don’t mind, so long as you are with me and near me. But for you now to leave me … I wish I had never known you … I wish I had never known you.’ She started to cry again, and could not continue. He felt at that moment as if a sharp blade was piercing his body from inside, cutting through everything it found in its way. Without thinking he pulled her to him, burying her head in his breast, this time without any resistance on her part. He left her to cry as he ran his hand through her freshly perfumed hair.
‘I love you,’ he said. ‘Believe me, I love you, I cannot live without you.’ She dragged her head from his breast.
‘You love me?’ she said in a broken voice, the tears still welling up in her eyes. ‘Liar! Does a lover desert his beloved?’
‘Who told you that I am going to leave you? It’s just that I am moving to a new house.’ For the first time since he had told her the news of his move, she smiled.
‘Really?’ she asked, looking at him miserably. ‘But you’ll be a long way away from me.’
‘Don’t they say that absence kindles the fire of love?’ He smiled as he said this, while she laughed timidly.
‘My love for you has been burning ever since I knew you,’ she said, now weeping less violently. ‘It doesn’t need anything else to kindle it. Have you ever seen anyone blowing on a fire on a stormy day?’
‘Our relationship will be stronger, believe me.’
At that moment, he meant what he said, while she was sil
ent and a little calmer. He looked at her flushed face and the wavy hair that had fallen chaotically about her bare shoulders. She dried her tears, then said in a voice tinged with doubt, ‘I hope you are telling the truth … do I have any choice but to believe you? You will show me your new house, won’t you?’
‘No, don’t think about that. But you’ll always be seeing me, believe me!’ He smiled, then pulled her towards him. She threw herself on him with her whole body, and they became one flesh.
24
The half-year examinations finally finished, and he passed them with excellent marks. He was eager to see his family, friends and Noura in Dammam, after the long months of separation that seemed to him like an age. Indeed, it had been an age, judging by the events and changes he had experienced. He was desperate with longing for his mother’s face, his father’s brow, for Noura’s scent and for the gang at Abd al-Karim’s house. He packed his travelling bag several days before he was due to leave. The day before he set off, he visited Suwayr to say goodbye. She didn’t stop crying the whole time. ‘I have a feeling that this is our last meeting,’ she said, and he wasn’t prepared to set her mind at rest. He was so anxious for Dammam that he cared about nothing else. He said goodbye to her abruptly while she squatted in the room, sobbing. Then he passed by his friends’ house and said goodbye to Muhammad and Dais.
On the eve of his departure, he met up with Muhaysin and his two cousins Hamad and Abd al-Rahman in his room. Hamad presented them with a bottle of Haig’s whisky to celebrate Hisham’s departure. They poured some of it into a teapot, added ice and water, and had a leisurely drink from small tea glasses – except for Abd al-Rahman, who contented himself with smoking. Hisham saw that Muhaysin was drinking. He called him on it, surprised. The reply was a quick smile and a whispered comment, ‘We’re not such peasants …’ He smiled back, not bothered about the reason, just pleased that his friend was drinking. Everyone was in a great mood, especially Hisham, who couldn’t wait for the following day, and clouds of smoke steeped in alcohol gathered in the room from all the Marlboros and Abu Bass. Their snacks were simple – yellow cheese, tuna and some nuts and dry cheese. They didn’t think that they needed anything more, especially given that Umm Kulthumm was singing on the ‘Voice of the Arabs’ that evening.
Hisham was drinking, smoking and musing to himself. The alcohol gave him a clarity of mind he had never known before, while at the same time, with each glass that he drank, he felt desire overpowering his entire being. Suwayr came into his mind. He longed to be with her at that moment, to say goodbye to her properly. He almost jumped up to his window to she what she was doing. He imagined her making love to Alyan, and felt the heat of arousal pulse through his veins. But with the fourth glass his desire became less intense, and he began to think objectively of his relationship with this woman. Did he really love her, as he had told her, or was it simply lust? If it was simply lust, then why didn’t he miss Raqiyya as he missed Suwayr, despite the fact that he had become annoyed lately at his relationship with her, and despite sometimes feeling that he didn’t want her? Was loathing a sort of love? But what was love? He loved Noura, but he didn’t have the same feeling for Suwayr that he had when he thought of Noura. He neither loved nor hated Raqiyya, but he was consumed with lust for her when her wild triangle came into his mind and he imagined her soft, cruel body. What was love, then? He couldn’t stop thinking about Suwayr. He really wanted her physically, but sometimes he thought about her without feeling any arousal at all. With Raqiyya it was the opposite; he could never think about her without growing tense with longing. Perhaps it was the sympathy and pity he’d felt for Suwayr ever since she told him the story of her marriage to Alyan.
She’d been very young, about sixteen, when she was betrothed to Alyan, who was even then over forty-five. When they told her, she was overwhelmed with happiness. She saw it as a chance to escape the tyranny of her father, the cruelty of her mother and her brothers’ orders. She would have her own house and her own garden. She would finally be free and independent. She imagined herself as a bride with a man at her side to protect her and provide her with a fatherly presence and the warmth of a home. But this happiness was short-lasting. She soon wished she had never left her father’s house. It was clear what the marriage would be like from the first night. She was penetrated by a sullen man whose appearance made her miserable from the moment she saw him. She had none of the usual romantic dreams for a girl of her age at that time; instead, she had to slave in the house from morning to night. She had even had to leave school after the sixth year.
Suwayr had never imagined her husband could be such a lout. She couldn’t care less whether he was young or old, she was just looking for a warm heart. But that first night, Alyan threw himself straight on her without any preliminaries. She was paralysed with terror, incapable of doing anything. He ripped off her clothes and penetrated her, forcefully and painfully, oblivious to her screams or her suffering under his heavy body. She felt no pleasure or happiness that night. All she was conscious of was the pain, and the blood that stained her white sheet. When he had got what he wanted from her, he turned on his back and snored loudly, leaving her traumatised in a way that had affected her ever since. Even her tears were too terrified to fall that night.
But she knew the value of her blood the following day, when her mother came and turned over the stained sheet, laughing and shrieking with joy, then kissing her daughter and congratulating her on such a fortunate marriage. Then her father came in with a smile on his face, congratulating her in his turn. She knew that those drops of blood were the most precious thing she possessed; they were her holy of holies, the only part of her precious to her family. And now those drops had gone, had she retained any sanctity or value? The sheep were sacrificed, and that was the end of it all.
In the end, she submitted to her fate ‘for better or worse’, as she used to say. Her new life was no different from her old one, except that the master of the house now had claims on her actual body, which was one up on those in charge of the old house. When two years went by without her becoming pregnant, Alyan first started to wonder, then to upbraid her, threatening to take another wife who would give him a son to bear his name. With all her heart she wished that he would marry again and give her some peace, but he didn’t, and her life continued as before.
When she saw Hisham spying on her from his window, and took to watching out for his daily return from college, some hidden feelings of femininity began to stir, and she felt something shift within her, the nature of which she could not comprehend even though she was knew it was there. That was what she told him. Hisham remembered now that he had asked her whether there wasn’t anyone else who had stirred those hidden emotions, but she reacted furiously, bursting into tears which he’d quickly calmed with soothing kisses and apologies. From that time on, however, doubts plagued him despite his attempts to make light of them, though they contradicted the unadulterated, unconditional love he could see she offered him.
He tried to persuade himself that they were not bound to each other in any way, that whether he doubted her loyalty or not he did not have the right to hold her to account for what she did. Nonetheless, jealousy consumed him whenever he wondered about her other lovers. And when he heard the dogs bark at the end of the night, he would even feel jealous of her husband – the sight of him made him feel both insignificant and jealous. Yes, he loved Suwayr in a way that he just could not fathom. But did love need understanding or philosophy? It’s just a feeling. And if what he felt for Suwayr wasn’t love, what was it? It was impossible to get to the bottom of emotions.
Hisham was dragged from his musings by a light knocking on the door. Everyone jumped, and there was a sudden hush. Who could it be? Perhaps his uncle had smelled the smoke and heard their loud laughter (God forbid, they all prayed to themselves!). They hastily put out their cigarettes and hid the ashtrays and the whisky bottle under the bed. Then Hisham, trying to walk straight, got up to open the door. The
effect of all the glasses he had drunk rapidly wore off. His skin prickled from the cold. His mind was working feverishly to devise a suitable excuse for their being together if it was his uncle. As soon as he opened the door, however, he felt huge relief. It was only his cousin Ahmad, with a paper bag. Ahmad walked in and ostentatiously sniffed the air in the room, while everyone grinned and swore, ‘God confound you, sheikh!’
Ahmad sat down, his narrow eyes contracting still further.’God confound me?’ he said. ‘What are you doing, you lot, causing such a disturbance?’
‘You’re always confounding us, so may God reward you in the same way, sheikh!’ said Hamad, pouring himself another glass of whisky, while Ahmad laughed, sniffing again.
‘For God’s sake,’ he said. ‘You’ve turned this room into a chimney! But there’s another strange smell,’ he said, sniffing more thoroughly. He looked at the teapot, then at the company, his eyes screwed up. ‘What’s this?’ he asked. ‘Tea? It’s nice, is it, cold like this?’ He reached for the pot, and as soon as he touched it, said, ‘As I thought, you bunch of sinners. Cold tea!’ He lifted the lid of the teapot and hurriedly smelled it, then said with a sigh, moving it away from his face, ‘Curse you! Whisky in al-Mubaraki’s house! God’s servants beware!’
Shumaisi Page 9