The Locust and the Bird

by Hanan al-Shaykh

  The months sped by. Muhammad returned to Beirut for a holiday and confided in me that he planned to break off his engagement. His fiancée was protesting at the way he neglected her and had accused him of being in love with me. I had expected this to happen: engagement, marriage and children could be mere formalities with some people, but never for a man like Muhammad. I thanked God that our relationship was strong once more, and I promised that I would fast and pray twice as often to compensate for my lies and deceit.

  There’s No More Money

  in My Husband’s Drawer

  FIVE MONTHS HAD passed since Muhammad’s return from Silk Valley. Separation had only strengthened our love.

  One morning Ibrahim shook his head at me in sheer derision.

  ‘It’s as though you don’t begin to realise how bad things are,’ he said. ‘You sit there chewing gum and ask to go out!’

  I’d heard from Khadija that Abu-Hussein’s shop had been losing money, but had paid little attention. After all, there’d been no changes at home. The Haji still provided meat, vegetables, rice and white bread. The house continued to teem with relatives and friends. In any case, when I asked the Haji about it, he wouldn’t confide in me. We were not like other married couples. We were simply two people who happened to live in the same house, each leading separate lives.

  Before long the situation became clear. My husband’s business partner claimed that he had bought shares on the stock exchange with some of the profits from the business, but without telling the Haji. Then the share price dropped alarmingly. They’d invested in a lot of stock and could no longer meet the repayments and interest. The partner proposed selling some land to keep the business afloat, and wanted to know whether my husband had any land he could sell as well. The situation left my husband baffled: why wasn’t his partner speaking to him face to face, instead of through a lawyer? Besides, he had no land to sell. Instead he agreed to sell most of our expensive Persian carpets, which he had bought not for their beauty but because they were very durable. He would keep only three rugs for himself. Then he had to sell our best furniture. In tears he asked me to give him my jewellery. I cried too as I handed it over. I wept for my armlets, each shaped like a snake; my bracelet which looked like dababa (army tank) tracks; and the bracelet hung with gold English sovereigns that we called ‘Ottoman’ lira. The entire family gathered round as I used soap to ease the ten bands off my wrists, as if they didn’t want to leave me. I sobbed even more when I heard their clinking in the distance.

  Hadn’t I seen myself just like Nawal in the film Tears of Love? Now here I was, surrendering my jewels to my husband in the same way. The only difference was their use: while her husband took them to use at the gaming table and lost everything, mine needed them to keep his business afloat.

  Whenever I’d seen my husband sitting behind the long wooden cutting table in his shop, holding a huge pair of scissors, it had struck me how unsuitable those shears were for someone with his tiny hands, beady eyes and slight stature. His was a figure that could virtually disappear inside the cavernous space of his storeroom, with its hundreds of bolts of English, French and Italian cloth. I’d see before me the orphan boy who’d arrived in Beirut, treading a straight and narrow path, just as he’d been taught to do by the religious scholar who’d raised him. He’d lived his life in the city, like a horse with blinkers, so shy that all he ever saw of Beirut was the ground beneath his feet.

  My husband’s business partner was, in contrast, a larger man who laughed a lot and had a very loud voice, one joke following the next. In fact, when I saw his empty coffee cups and the cigarette butts piled in his ashtray, I wished my husband could approach life with the same abandon.

  Several weeks passed before the partner’s lawyer got in touch with the Haji again, telling him that his contribution to retain his half of the shop wasn’t enough. The lawyer claimed that the partner had saved the shop by selling all his land. Now he needed Abu-Hussein to sign the transfer papers. I asked my husband why he’d agreed to assign his shares to the partner if they weren’t giving back the furniture, the Persian carpets and my jewellery, but he wouldn’t talk to me about it. It was as if I had no right to ask.

  The news hit the streets. As the vendors hawked their wares – ‘Now friends, we’ve got some fantastic perfume here,’ or, ‘How about some al-Sudan’s soap?’ – they’d add, ‘Have you heard the latest? The Haji al-Shaykh has been swallowed whole by the lion!’ (Lion was the family name of his partner.)

  In fact the Haji had been swallowed gradually, without realising it. A couple of years earlier, my brother Kamil had discovered a stash of money hidden in the shop. Suspicious, he’d handed it immediately to the Haji. But instead of suspecting his partner, my husband just handed the cash over to him without question. This was my husband: habitually interfering in every single aspect of our lives, however trivial; and yet investing, without question, blind trust in his dishonest business partner.

  A renowned lawyer approached my husband, offering his legal services, but the Haji turned him down.

  ‘God is the only lawyer,’ he asserted.

  He sat on his prayer mat, praying and glorifying God. By the time he’d finished praying and weeping, his eyes had become red blobs, like tomatoes, and his forehead was a patchwork of deep trenches.

  I wept for him too, but inside I seethed. Instead of accepting the lawyer’s offer to defend him, he fell forward on to his prayer mat and did nothing.

  I tried in vain to urge him to take action, going so far as to call him a chicken. And though I went on behaving as if I was still married to the owner of a shop in Souq Sursouq, the news of our downfall gradually spread through Beirut, to the families from the south, and finally to Muhammad.

  He reproached me for having kept him in the dark about the situation. He took me in his arms and gave me a hug.

  ‘You realise, don’t you,’ he said, ‘that this is God’s way of ensuring you can get a divorce and we can marry.’

  I couldn’t believe how opportunistic he was being and I told him so. But, he said, it was unfair to accuse him of thinking that way. Circumstances had suddenly turned in our favour, nothing more or less. I didn’t want to hear him tell me again how I’d been destroying his future hopes, that it felt as if the eleven years we’d spent together had just been a way of passing the hours and keeping ourselves amused. Instead, I asked him for more time to think the whole thing over.

  A general aura of sorrow took over the house. My husband’s relatives who’d been living with us went their own ways. Apart from three prayer mats, the floors were bare. The dire situation tightened around us like a vice: thoughts of coffee mornings, gold bracelets clinking on my arm and summers at Bhamdoun vanished in a trice.

  My nephews’ lives were transformed overnight. The Haji bought two small wooden stalls for them and they began selling thread and sewing materials in the market. If Hussein the Ideologue, at age eighteen, ever saw a pupil or friend from his school on the horizon, he’d abandon his stall and hide. By this time, he had joined the Popular Party of Greater Syria,19 and hung the founder’s portrait and the party’s emblem in our home. Muhammad urged me to get him to resign his membership at once, since the government was opposed to its leader and what the party stood for.

  The ex-partner returned and reopened the shop under a new name, in partnership with one of his brothers. The Haji asked for a job on a monthly salary to support us. I could not understand how the Haji could maintain his dignity and avoid humiliation. The ex-partner agreed, and my husband stuck with it until he could no longer stand the lack of respect with which the owner’s brother treated him. One day he snatched the tape measure from around his neck, threw it at the brother and left the shop for the last time.

  He then purchased a stand only a few metres from his former shop. Each morning he would walk past the old premises, greeting his ex-partner as if nothing had happened, and praising God for everything. The stand was pitched right by the entrance to a l
arge shop belonging to a merchant who was aware that my husband was honest and had been a successful businessman, and so he allowed the Haji to be there. The very sight of him attending his modest little stand – selling cotton underwear, socks and other items, with no tape measure around his neck and no large pair of scissors in his tiny hand – aroused sorrow and regret in the hearts of all his former acquaintances.

  Summer arrived. Instead of going to Bhamdoun for the season, we moved the mattresses, sheets and mosquito nets up on to the roof. There we slept in the open, trying as best we could to escape Beirut’s stifling heat. We named our new summer abode Roof Bhamdoun.

  The family disaster had its benefits. Everyone, young and old, was preoccupied by our misfortune. This meant they paid less attention to me and I was often free to be with Muhammad. But with our relationship back as it had been, he started to fuss again. He was always happy to see me and forget his frustrations (a word I’d learned from him), but when the time came to part the grumbling would begin. I was not able to counter his black moods, nor could I defend myself when he blamed me for them. They would flare up for the silliest reasons, such as when we’d see a film with a happy ending. We went to see Rabihah, a film about a Bedouin woman who met a man from the city who was taking part in a hunt with a prince and his attendants. The young man’s horse threw him to the ground, but no one else in the hunting party noticed. Rabihah ran to his aid. They fell in love but, when her family discovered he was from the city, the head of the tribe ordered them to be separated and the woman married to a cousin. On her wedding night, Rabihah ran away to the city to be with the young man.

  Throughout the film, Muhammad groaned, sighed and wriggled. He whispered in my ear that this film was our guiding light. When he told me there was something he must do and refused to ride on the tram home with me, I thought: He’s finally decided to leave me. I’d guessed correctly: Muhammad didn’t meet me in his room the next day or for days afterwards. Instead he sent me a letter via Maryam. I could tell it was an angry letter from its length and his handwriting: the words seemed rushed and bigger than usual. I raced to Fatme’s house, and when I couldn’t find her I went out into the garden, where a young male cousin of hers sat studying by the fountain, exactly where I had met Muhammad. I stood on the spot where we had been so happy, holding an angry letter from him. Without hesitation I asked the young man to read the letter to me, and was mortified by what I heard:

  How I long to be swallowed up by hell and leave this unsettling world. For every beautiful memory, every happy moment I’ve spent with you, there are as many painful memories that erase from my life all that is beautiful. Time and again I’ve thought of leaving you, but I’ve utterly failed. Now I’ve reached the point where I can stand this bitter life no longer. I intend to leave you, whatever the cost. Death seems an easier fate than this torture. So here I am, writing this letter to bid you farewell. Be patient and remember you are not mine; you belong to the owner of that house to deal with as he pleases. You share his food and his life. I can only see myself being kept at a distance, separated from you by any number of impassable barriers. How can you expect me to sleep soundly or lead a happy life? It makes me happy to know you are so near, yet the thought of the future pains me, tortures me, and deprives me of all life’s pleasures, especially the pleasure of having you close by. Love is pointless when I am continually burned by the fires of accursed jealousy. You are the only thing I ever think about; all the time my mind is preoccupied by my love for you. Even worse, I am incapable of escaping from this utterly pointless love …

  19 The PPS, founded by Antun Saadeh, which advocated a greater Syrian state, to be known as the Fertile Crescent, encompassing Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine/Israel.

  ‘Forgive Me’ – ‘God Is the Forgiver’;

  ‘Forgive Me’ – ‘I Have Forgiven You’

  MUHAMMAD AVOIDED ME for an entire ten days. When I lost hope of bumping into him I became determined to find out what was going on, and so I went to his office. When he saw me his jaw dropped and a deep flush stained his cheeks. He asked me if I wanted a drink, as though getting me a drink was more important than talking to me. Then he insisted that I go home, promising to discuss matters with me later. But I wouldn’t budge. A colleague entered the room, and Muhammad, embarrassed, busied himself dealing with his enquiry and ignored me completely. I nearly screamed, ‘Could it be possible that our relationship has come to this?’

  Instead I stood up, muttering something like, ‘Oh! Did you really think you were such a big deal!’ and stormed out.

  Another week passed and I avoided everyone, unable even to face myself in the mirror because I felt so humiliated. Then, quite by chance, Muhammad saw me in the street with one of my daughters and gave me a look that meant he wanted to meet again. When we did meet, he told me he’d decided to take things into his own hands. He’d been to see my father in the south, and my brother Hasan, and had asked for their help in getting my husband to agree to a divorce. Although I had been terrified of a divorce and the scandal it would involve, in the end I was relieved that he had finally talked to them on my behalf. Unbeknown to me, Hasan – rather than discussing things with my husband – came straight to the house and took Ibrahim aside. When Ibrahim heard the news, he fainted.

  As if the last pieces of a complicated jigsaw had been fitted into place, everything afterwards seemed to happen easily. In no time I found myself sitting with Abu-Hussein before a sheikh in the shariah court. I renounced any claims I might have had to my daughters and made the traditional request for my husband’s forgiveness: ‘Forgive me.’

  He replied, with tears in his eyes, ‘God is the forgiver.’

  He then asked me to forgive him, and with tears in my eyes I pronounced the traditional phrase, ‘I have forgiven you.’

  Could it really be true that I was sitting in front of a sheikh as he signed our divorce papers?

  Afterwards, Father arrived and took me away to the south. I wondered whether Muhammad had promised my father cash, like Abu-Hussein, who had once paid my father gold coins to force me into marrying him.

  As I climbed aboard the bus headed for the south, I burst into tears. It was taking me far away from my neighbourhood and my two daughters, Mother and Maryam, Khadija, my nephews and nieces, the neighbours. I remembered the day Mother and I arrived in Beirut, completely empty-handed. Now here I was with a small suitcase on my lap containing all my clothes. But the further we moved from Beirut, the less sad and the more relaxed I began to feel.

  We didn’t go back to Nabatiyeh itself, but to the region of al-Qulayeh, where Father leased fig trees during the summer. I helped Father and his wife and my half-brother to keep the birds off the figs until they had ripened and could be laid out in the sun to dry.

  After a few days, Hasan’s wife arrived with my daughters. I’d been dying to see them. I’d been reassured to know they were being cared for by Maryam, Mother, Khadija and their father, but I felt even happier to have them at my side.

  On our first evening together, the girls announced they’d take turns dancing. Fatima was the first to get to her feet; she danced while my half-brother blew on a flute. We circled about her, clapping our hands – me, Father and his wife. Then it was Hanan’s turn. She danced and danced before going back to sit beside her sister. I began to sing, expressing the most heartfelt desire to live like this for the rest of my life, in a cabin amid the fig trees, grape vines and bees, far from the hubbub of Beirut and our crowded house. I raised a call for freedom, just like Layla in the film Daughter of the Desert. Now I could sleep between my two daughters as my own mother had. The beautiful colour of the flesh of the fig entered my daughters’ cheeks as the mountain air made them bloom with health.

  After another two weeks, Muhammad arrived in a smart suit. Seeing him from afar, my heart left my body and rushed towards him. My daughter Fatima was delighted, but Hanan hung back shyly. After a few awkward moments, a small fly went up his nose. As he bent over, try
ing to eject it, it seemed the fly had arrived at just the right moment to break the tension.

  Two days later, Hasan’s wife returned to take my daughters back to their father in Beirut. I told myself that I’d be seeing them again in a couple of weeks, as soon as I’d returned to the city, when at least we’d be living in the same neighbourhood. Yet my heart sank as I watched them taking my sister-in-law by the hand. Both girls turned to look back at me, as if seeking confirmation that I really was prepared to let them go. I stood rooted to the spot. The bus halted and they climbed aboard. Their little eyes watched me as the bus pulled away, as if warning me this was my last chance if I wanted us to stay together. The din of the bus penetrated my ears. I bit my finger. For the first time I realised exactly what I’d done.

  The Persian Carpet

  AS MUHAMMAD AND I got out of the car that brought us back to Beirut from the south, I could hardly believe we were together and that I’d become his wife so soon after my divorce. When Father tried to insist we should wait for the three-month canonical menstruation period before I remarried, Muhammad took his revolver out of his holster and pointed it at Father’s head. Now, here I was entering my old howdah with pride, instead of sneaking in like a thief. I felt like passing on the good news to the cupboard, the mirror, the bed, the table and the chair: We’re married and things have changed! For the very first time we could open the door leading out to a bench overlooking the small garden. But, though we didn’t double-lock ourselves inside any longer, it was hard to stop acting like a criminal. I soon discovered my divorce was the neighbourhood scandal and that Muhammad’s family accepted my presence only very reluctantly. Because I was the one who’d divorced my husband, the blame lay with me. And I’d abandoned my daughters, the elder aged ten and the younger seven, all because I didn’t dare to fight for them. I’d known when I sought a divorce that the sheikh wouldn’t consider me a good mother, since I had committed adultery.