‘You’re right about what you said … I’m a devil wearing an angel’s mask! No. I am worse than a devil: a devil expresses himself, but I have the soul of a devil and the look of an angel!’
Instead he looked at her calmly. The smile returned to his lips; there was a wise expression on his face, and a childish innocence in his eyes. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘You don’t need to be sorry. You didn’t mean any offence.’ As he spoke, he felt his stomach cramp with pain, but the innocent look never left his face. Moudhi fidgeted a little and tried to say something, but her mouth would not obey her. A few vague words came out, then she quickly got up and left, wiping her nose with the edge of her veil, and leaving him alone in the sitting room in a state of mounting self-disgust.
39
When he left his uncle’s house that afternoon, it was in a state of weightlessness. He could not feel the ground beneath his feet, nor the world around him, nor the cigarette that burned his finger when he reached its end. He had caused Moudhi to suffer, he had forgotten Suwayr, Noura had become a ghost from the past and he had shattered the remains of his mother’s image of him. My God! How could man be the cause of so much pain to those he loved? How was it that the greater the love, the greater the suffering one caused?
For the first time in a long time, Suwayr’s house made him pause. It looked deserted, devoid of life. He made up his mind to see her, so he headed for the street and checked that Alyan was in his shop; he watched him trying to stay awake as he brushed away the flies that were back from their winter holidays. Then, after checking that there were no passersby in the alley, and glancing without emotion at the window of his old room, he went back and tapped lightly on the door three times. It wasn’t long before a voice came from behind the door, ‘Who is it?’
He said simply, ‘It’s me,’ in a quiet voice, glancing to right and left. The door opened to reveal a face he knew well. Nothing about it had changed; it was as pretty as ever, but for a pallor that had spread over it, like the pallor of consumption. He quickly went in; she shut the door quietly, then they went to the usual room. Suwayr was smiling cryptically the whole time in a way that reminded him of the Mona Lisa; devoid of any excitement, but somehow brimming with excitement too.
Before they sat down, she clasped him quietly to her breast and tried to smell every part of his body her nose could reach, then she kissed his mouth tenderly and lovingly; her lips were deathly cold. Hisham was determined to break off his relationship with her once and for all, now that Moudhi suspected something (and now that he no longer needed her body). When she opened the door, he’d been struck by a powerful wave of desire. He had expected her to throw herself into his arms as soon as she saw him, then that they would slip into bed at once. But her strange behaviour stifled his desire, replacing it with a feverish curiosity. She hadn’t put on any sort of makeup or scent. That was perhaps natural, as she hadn’t been expecting him to come. But she stayed as she was after his arrival, smiling that same calm, cryptic smile that so disturbed him. She was wearing an old, pale nightdress that left her shoulders bare. He stretched out his hand and stroked her naked shoulder, but she remained motionless, still smiling, so that the last spark of desire inside him was extinguished and he was overcome with apprehension. This was not the Suwayr he knew. Had she stopped loving him? He didn’t think so, otherwise she wouldn’t have let him in. What had happened, then? Was she ill? Perhaps.
Suwayr suddenly got up and left the room, coming back with a tea tray. She had put on some of the perfume he had given her all that time ago, and was wearing lipstick. And now she was wearing the blue nightdress that he liked. She still loved him, then, but why? He stopped questioning himself as she offered him a glass of tea, still smiling and looking at him without a word. The deafening silence continued, undisturbed except by the slurping of tea and the voices of some boys playing outside. He could no longer stand her cryptic smile, or her almost lethargic glances in his direction. Trying to penetrate the silence somehow, he said:
‘Aren’t you afraid Alyan might come home?’ He knew that her husband would not come home now, and she knew that he knew it; he just wanted to speak, to say something. She said nothing, sipping her tea calmly and smiling. Silence prevailed again – even the shouting of the boys outside had stopped, as if there were a conspiracy being hatched against him. Her sleepy looks and cryptic smiles were too much for him. He finished his glass, shaking it to indicate he had drunk enough as he put it back on the tray, having made up his mind to leave. She seemed aware of his decision, saying in a voice that seemed to come from the world of the dead, or from some far-off time:
‘Have I become so insignificant in your eyes? Two months without my seeing you or hearing anything about you?’
Although he was relieved she had broken the silence, he was tortured by her questions, and immediately wished she had said nothing. A murderer’s killer can be crueller than the murderer himself. Hisham did not reply, but clasped his hands over his lap, a dumb smile etched on his lips. He bowed his head to the ground like an accused man waiting for the verdict on himself. She was still smiling that deadening smile, a smile that had turned into an accusing question mark interrogating every part of his body. To break the terrible silence that followed he said:
‘You know … the problems of studying, and a new house. And I spent the vacation with my family … When I came back from holiday, I tried to contact you,’ he added, as if he had just remembered. ‘But the house was deserted, and I thought that you must have gone away … Where have you been?’
For the first time since that meeting, she laughed. ‘What a cunning one you are!’ she said. ‘Where have we been? Where could we have been? We’re always here, and it looks as though we shall die here!’
‘But only those who love us will find us,’ she went on, sipping the last drop of tea and looking at him with eyes that had regained their sparkle. ‘You could easily have knocked on the door and checked,’ she said, pouring more tea into both their glasses. ‘Just like you did this time.’
As she said that, her smile became broader, and she gave him a look that he felt stripped him completely naked. There was just this dumb smile in front of him. He surrendered utterly, bowing his head again. Suwayr knew that she had achieved her objective and instantly reverted to the Suwayr he knew. She threw herself on him and kissed him with lips that had regained their warmth.
‘I was almost going mad,’ she said. ‘If I hadn’t picked up some scraps of news from Moudhi, I really would have gone mad.’ She laughed affectionately. ‘I almost gave myself away to her, I was asking about you so much,’ she said, her eyes sparkling strangely. ‘I saw the suspicion in her eyes as I was trying to find out where you were living, though I tried to seem innocent. I was on the point of going to your new lodgings. Discovery wasn’t important. Nothing was important to me anymore after you had left. If things had been entirely in my hands, I would have shouted your love to the whole population of Riyadh.’ She kissed him rapidly again with burning lips. ‘Every time I asked about you, I did it just to hear someone say your name,’ she said. ‘Even when I was on my own and overwhelmed with loneliness, I would say your name to myself and the loneliness and hopelessness would disappear.’
Suddenly she broke into floods of warm tears. He didn’t know what to do. He stretched out his hand and caressed her bare shoulder gently and lovingly. She grasped his hand and put it on her wet cheek, repeating in a soft voice:
‘I love you. I love you, Hisham. It is time you knew how much I love you.’
He knew that she loved him, and really he loved her … but he loved Noura and Raqiyya and Moudhi and his mother as well. She wanted a love that it was not in his power to give, even if he had wanted to. But still he answered:
‘And I love you too, Suwayr.’
She snatched his hand from her cheek. ‘Liar!’ she said, angrily, her voice shaking. ‘Yes, liar! You don’t love me, Hisham, you just want my body. You’ve obviously found some other b
ody. That’s why you’ve left me!’ She burst into fresh tears. Again he caressed her gently, as she said through her tears:
‘You don’t know the meaning of love, otherwise you wouldn’t have made me suffer so much. I love you, whether you love me or hate me!’ She calmed down a little and wiped away her tears with her palm, laughing softly:
‘All right, don’t love me. Love my body, I don’t mind … but don’t leave me … I adore you, Hisham, and I don’t want you mixed up with anyone else.’
Hisham succumbed to a sudden feeling of vanity. With no particular object or intent, he said, slightly facetiously:
‘Ishrak only applies to God! It is forbidden to worship anyone else!’
She looked at him with moist eyes, like a wild tiger.
‘Then you are my God!’ she said, her eyes widening even further. ‘You torment me and show me mercy! Everything you do is acceptable and worthy of praise!’
Now he really could not bear it. Without thinking he said, ‘I seek forgiveness from God Almighty.’
As he spoke, a feeling of vanity and something he did not recognise – something like guilt – mingled inside him. Her hand clutched his. He reached out his other hand and patted and stroked her cheek, while she threw herself almost violently into his arms and began to breathe in his scent, saying again and again, ‘I love you, I love you, Hisham! I adore you!’
He grabbed her roughly in his arms and bent over to smell her hair and kiss her bare neck. The fires of their lust began once more to blaze. He felt that things between them were returning to normal. He lifted her head from his chest, intending to kiss her and move towards the bed. As he was about to do so, she closed her eyes and hissed:
‘May God forgive you, Hisham … don’t you know that I adore every atom in your body … don’t you know that I am carrying you inside me?’
He leapt up like a man who’s been singed by a stray spark, pushing her head away from him. All his internal fires were abruptly extinguished, now a new fire blazed, more powerful than the others. ‘What did you say?’ he asked, in a trembling voice.
‘I am pregnant, Hisham …’
He felt that the earth swayed beneath him and that his head had turned into a ball of fire, while she remained calm, looking at him tenderly, the dumb smile back on her face. He pulled himself together and tried to be as calm as possible.
‘Congratulations … congratulations, God willing! Alyan must be very happy!’
‘Yes, he’s very happy. But what has Alyan got to do with it?’
‘He’s your husband. Doesn’t he have a right to be happy after waiting so long?’ Hisham said in a confused voice.
‘But it’s our son, Hisham!’ she said, giving him a sly look. ‘The fruit of our love!’
He felt as if he were about to faint, but pulled himself together.
‘How do you know?’
She smiled.
‘A feeling … and a woman’s feeling is never wrong.’ Before he could reply, she went on, ‘I know that it is our son. And so do you. Don’t be afraid, I won’t cause you any problems. What matters to me is that I have got you forever … I am carrying you inside me and you will be part of me forever. You won’t be able to leave me after today, because you are sleeping inside me and you will be with me forever!’
Before he could say anything, she planted a long kiss on his mouth. He felt the taste of salt on his lips, the bitterness of colocynth inside him, and all the misery of the world in his soul.
40
He almost abandoned his studies. If it hadn’t been for his fear of failing, he wouldn’t have gone to college at all. His teachers were astonished by the alarming drop in his grades, though some of them continued to give Hisham good marks because of his excellent reputation. He took to visiting Suwayr almost daily. They would just talk and relax in each other’s arms, without going to bed. Suwayr sometimes tried to tempt him, but he had lost all his desire. Once he tried to make love, but couldn’t do it, which just compounded his existing anxiety. He kept away from Raqiyya, whose wild triangle no longer aroused him at all. Conflicting feelings ripped him apart internally, but Suwayr seemed as calm as he was fraught; her eyes radiated happiness. She seemed happier than at any other time during her life. Whenever she opened the door to him she wore a radiant smile, and she glowed with pleasure whenever she stroked her belly, gazing at him and smiling with the happiness of a child promised a gift. They sat and talked for hour after hour about anything that came to mind. In fact, Hisham did most of the talking. Suwayr would prop her head against his shoulder, take his palm between her hands, and lie with her legs stretched out before her. From time to time she would run his palm over her belly or kiss him as she savoured the smell of his neck.
These were fleeting moments of relaxation for Hisham, the only ones granted him since discovering the new life forming inside Suwayr. When he dragged himself away, as soon as her door shut behind him, he returned to his personal hell. Even sitting and chatting with Muhaysin, Muhammad and Dais had lost its charm. However much life bustled around him, he felt lonely wherever he went. Nothing interested him any longer. He felt he had aged internally, that he was now more than a hundred years old and his life had gone on far too long. The only thing he looked forward to now was the call to afternoon prayers, which signalled that he could go to Suwayr’s house afterwards. Sweat was his nightly companion, soaking him until he lost consciousness and slept without knowing how or where. Muhaysin warned him of the dangers of excess, both financially and physically, but Hisham just raised a glass in his face, cackled nervously and said:
‘Your health! Cheers! A la vôtre! Who cares!’
Hamad, who supplied him with drink, also warned him of the likely consequences of excess, but Hisham made no effort to listen to either of them. Drink gave him some comfort, though by the time he woke up this had transformed into terrible sadness, with the result that he turned to alcohol again. Intoxication no longer made his veins pulsate with sexual desire, or filled his head with delicious musings. Rather, he indulged the exquisite melancholy that gripped every atom of his soul. Sometimes the first glass would stimulate desire in him, but later glasses filled his mind with a terrifying image that drove out all other thoughts: his mother’s eyes, Suwayr’s belly, Noura’s lips, Raqiyya’s bottom and Moudhi’s hand merged into a weird whole that really frightened him. Suddenly, Suwayr’s belly burst open and blood spilled over Raqiyya’s bottom and Moudhi’s hand, then Suwayr started to lick the blood from Raqiyya’s bottom and Moudhi looked at her hand and screamed. Then she licked her hand, laughing, while red tears flowed from his mother’s eyes. Her face had become a lifeless waxwork, ghostly white. Noura’s lips grew so bloated that her whole face became just two giant lips, and she laughed hysterically as she approached him, trying to kiss him. He would back away as she pursued him, still laughing.
With every cup he drank, his sorrow grew, and with it grew his self-indulgence. When he reached the dregs, he raised his cup in the air to shout, ‘A la vôtre, Françoise Sagan! Bonjour, Tristesse!’ Sometimes, Muhaysin would come to his room and join him in a glass or two, but he soon left, shaking his head over his friend, now living in another dimension. Several times Muhaysin tried to find out what had happened; but Hisham wouldn’t speak and stayed silent, smoking and drinking. Even the tears refused to fall from his eyes, though he had a great need for them.
41
One evening, just back from Suwayr’s, Hisham sat alone on the roof savouring the pleasant May breezes and forcing himself to revise a subject on which he would be tested the following day. He was trying with difficulty to resist a strong temptation to drink some arak when he heard a knock on the door. He didn’t move, knowing Muhaysin would open it. He heard Muhaysin’s greeting, then the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs. He sighed and got up, cursing Muhaysin and his never-ending visitors. Flicking away his cigarette he made for the door to the staircase, hoping that way to escape the tedium of company. But before he reached the door
he was astonished to see his father’s face looming over him, smiling without smiling, Abd al-Rahman and Muhaysin in tow. This was indeed a surprise.
Hisham ran to his father, kissed him on the brow and privately thanked God he’d got rid of his cigarette. Then he invited them all into his room. His father, though, preferred the roof with its pleasant May breezes. Everyone sat down on the worn-out carpet while his father looked round.
‘A nice house,’ he said. ‘You’re lucky to have found it.’
‘It’s a lot of rent, but worth it,’ replied Muhaysin. Abu Hisham nodded understandingly. Hisham asked how everything was and what his mother was up to.
‘Everything is fine. We’re all fine!’ replied Abu Hisham, nodding again.
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