The Unexpected Love Objects of Dunya Noor

by Rana Haddad

  “Dunya?” Suha grabbed her hands. “What happened?”

  Dunya looked at Suha’s face for a moment. She didn’t dare to look in her eyes, so she looked instead at her cheeks, at her chin, then gave up and buried her face in her hair, putting her arms around her chest and holding her very tightly. “Oh Suha, Suha.”

  The two of them stood like that for a moment or two while Suha’s two cousins watched them with raised eyebrows.

  “I wanted to bring Hilal to see you,” Dunya said in a soft voice. “But he did not come home that night, and the next morning a boy delivered a letter . . .”

  (Of course, Dunya made sure not to mention Hilal’s link to Suha in front of her cousins.)

  With a sharp, long whistle Aziz summoned a teenage boy who was lingering in the corner. “Jamal! Go and buy a big chocolate gateau for our lovely lady guest. Take the bicycle, Jamal.”

  “Hamoudi,” he called out to another boy, “four teas please.”

  Dunya explained to Suha, Aziz, and Badri how her sweetheart Hilal had been snatched by the Syrian Army from his hotel in Latakia, and how they had sent his mother a highly suspicious, typed letter. The four of them spent an hour or so slowly sipping their sugared teas, concocting strategies, weighing options, and baking up a cunning plan around a wooden table.

  As Suha’s cousins (both ex-Syrian army conscripts) offered their expert advice, Dunya tried to keep her eyes and thoughts away from Suha. But Suha was sitting next to her on a wooden bench and she kept accidentally moving nearer and nearer until in the end she was almost glued to Dunya’s side. Every time Dunya moved toward the far edge of the seat, Suha would follow her like a cat. Then, in the end, the two sat side by side on one half of the bench and Suha put one of her arms around Dunya.

  Suha’s touch distracted Dunya and she had to concentrate hard to hear what the cousins were saying. How she longed to put her arms around Suha too and to sit with her alone and just stare at her. She simply wanted to stare at her. Take her in. Who was this girl? The mystery of her, the strong impact her presence had on Dunya was something she still could not understand, or accept. Suha was so carefree and unselfconscious and she held her tightly and without shame, perhaps because she did not feel that there was anything to feel ashamed about. But she, Dunya, felt almost paralyzed by fear and shame for the first time in her life.

  For the last three days she hadn’t been able to sleep. Whether her eyes were open or shut all she could see was Suha. When she tried to brush her hair, there Suha was between the brush and her hair. When she tried to put a spoon of yogurt in her mouth, there was Suha, between the spoon and her lips. She could taste her. When she dressed she felt Suha between her clothes and her skin. Suha was suddenly all around her, inside and outside her. When Dunya looked out of the window, she saw Suha. Suha was always there. And here she was now, painfully real, sitting next to her, no longer floating in her dreams at a safe distance.

  Suha wore a sky-blue dress, her feet were bare and they dangled from the bench, she had her arms around Dunya, her fingers occasionally affectionately brushing her hair. This made Dunya feel so nervous that she could hardly breathe. As the cousins spoke and made suggestions, Dunya could feel both Suha and Hilal battling inside her heart, but it was clear to her who had won, and who had dethroned the other. Suha won without doing a thing, without lifting a finger, without knowing, or wanting to. She’d won Dunya’s heart, but what, then, was she going to do with it?

  Dunya wished she could cover herself with a large bag, so that Suha would not be able to see her, nor guess at how she felt and what she wanted.

  “Hey, cheer up, Dunya,” Suha said to her. “We’ll find Hilal, you and me. It’s nothing but a tempest in a teapot.” She took one of Dunya’s longer curls and rolled it around her finger. “Don’t worry those pretty curls,” she said. “I much preferred you when you were more silly, not so serious. Come on, smile, smile, be reckless, be feckless, like you were before. Don’t frown like this, it doesn’t suit you. My cousins will take care of Hilal, won’t you, boys?”

  “Yeah,” Aziz said. “Suha is right, don’t worry, Miss. My advice is to start by trying to find out where exactly Hilal is stationed. In the beginning we must rule out the obvious possibilities, for example, there’s a large barracks outside Aleppo. Could he not be there? He’s an Aleppo boy after all and that’s where Badri and I were stationed when we first started our army service, before we were sent out to other units. I know people who work there, cleaners, bread-delivery boys, low-level contacts, but it’s better than nothing, no?”

  “No?” Dunya said. “Oh yes, yes, I mean yes. Well, why can’t we simply drive up to the Aleppo barracks and ask them if Hilal is there, and then we’ll have our answer?”

  “No!” Aziz panicked. “Please don’t try that!”

  “Why not?” Dunya asked.

  Suha playfully slapped Dunya’s cheeks on both sides. “Why not? Indeed, why not? Tell that silly girl, Aziz, why not?” she said.

  “Because—well, Miss Dunya, your fiancé hasn’t been recruited in the conventional way, obviously, he’s in some sort of trouble, isn’t he? If we draw attention to ourselves, we might get tarred with the same brush as him. We men could get beaten up, whipped. You girls, well, we can’t be sending girls to army barracks, now can we?” Aziz scratched his head. “We need a roundabout way of doing it.”

  Dunya found out more about Suha’s charming cousins over bites of the delicious cake that eventually arrived in a cardboard box. Their tall, strong physiques, developed over years of carrying bags of flour across their shoulders and kneading bread fast and furiously, were ideal for the job, where apart from making bread they often had to stand between customers when fights broke out. This happened quite regularly, according to Badri and Aziz, because often when a woman came in unaccompanied she would get her bottom pinched, and then all hell would break loose. The woman would start screaming and then she would violently slap the first man she saw or hit him with her handbag. The men would start beating each other up, loaves of bread would fly, and so on. Sometimes men—of the tough and hardened variety, known locally as zeeraans—would untie their belts, pull them out, and start whipping the air or anyone they could catch.

  As the cousins told their colorful stories to Dunya, Suha looked at her and every now and then she touched her hand, or her cheek, or her foot playfully; it was as if she was trying her hardest to bring back the girl she had met on the first day before Dunya discovered she was Hilal’s sister. Immediately after that she’d become so different, so distant; she felt as if she’d lost her. What had happened? Why did Hilal being her brother change everything?

  When the cousins left, Dunya asked Suha if she wanted to visit Suad with her.

  “She wants to see you.”

  “Well, I, on the other hand, don’t want to see her. As I said, Dunya, no girl can have two mothers. Do you want me to betray the mother who brought me up, who took care of me, who actually loved me? I don’t think I can do that.”

  “You don’t have to betray her. Anyway, I must go and see Suad.”

  “No, you must not. You must spend the afternoon with me, and you must, I really mean it, you must meet Basma, who is my real mother,” Suha smiled cheekily. “You must.”

  “I must?” Dunya stood up and picked up her bag from the floor. “I must go and visit Suad, and I must find Hilal. And then after that I’ll come back and see you and your mother.”

  Suha grabbed two of Dunya’s fingers as she got up. “You’re not going anywhere. I’ve been waiting for you for days and days and days. Do you know how long I waited for you? Let’s spend the afternoon together. I want to hear all about you. Last time I told you about myself, now it’s your turn to tell me. I thought we were friends, I like you and I thought you liked me. Just because I’m Hilal’s sister, doesn’t mean you have to suddenly be so formal with me. I liked you the way you were. Let’s go back to how we were when we first met, let’s continue from there. And don’t worry a
bout Hilal—my cousins will bring him to you in a bag of flour or inside a large gateau if that is what it takes. They know lots of dodgy people, don’t underestimate them.”

  “You really think they can get me Hilal back?”

  “Yes,” Suha said. “I’ll make sure they do. He’s my brother, isn’t he? And perhaps one day I’ll love him as much as you do.”

  “I am sure you’ll love him very much. And he’ll love you.”

  “You think so?” Suha sat down. “Look, if Hilal is really my brother, does that not mean you’re my sister? Not a biological sister but a sister of the heart. That’s even better. If he loves you, I love you too. We’re twins aren’t we, and don’t they say twins have the same heart and the same soul? So if you love him, you must love me! Don’t you?” Suha kissed Dunya on the cheek.

  “I do,” Dunya said, rather shyly.

  “Okay then, let me make you my speciality cup of tea to celebrate. Last time you only tried my famous lemonade.” Suha stood by a little gas stove and picked out a little paper bag of sweet-smelling tea leaves and threw them into a teapot with boiling water. She found some sugar, and glasses, set the teapot down and lay on a carpet a little way from Dunya and looked at her. She looked at her the way she had always done, from the beginning, in a way that made Dunya feel overwhelmed with shyness. No one had ever looked at her in that way before, not even Hilal. Dunya distinctly felt the effect that look had on her. How it touched her, how it moved her.

  “You’re too timid,” Suha said to her. “I really don’t know if you are the same girl I met in Café Taba. What happened to you?”

  “Something did happen.”

  “I know it’s Hilal, I understand,” Suha leaned her head sideways and looked at Dunya even more closely. Then she pulled Dunya gently toward her by one of her hands, and rested her head on her shoulder while they both sat down. Their arms were around each other’s waists now. The silence between them was loud—louder than a roaring crowd.

  Suha moved nearer toward Dunya and lay down on the floor next to her. Their bodies were now brushed one against the other. Dunya’s eyes were shut at first, and then she summoned up the courage to half open them, and there she saw Suha. “I want to take a photograph of you,” Dunya said to Suha. “Sit on that chair here, beside this cupboard. Close your eyes.”

  But Suha didn’t do as she was told and kept her eyes wide open. How could she ever capture Suha in a single photograph? And how could she be so sure that what she saw inside her viewfinder was not simply a trick of the light? Dunya took a few steps back and focused her lens. She could see Suha, all of her, encompassed in the small rectangle of her lens. She could catch an image of her, something she could keep forever. But when she looked at this photograph in years to come, would Suha have turned into a stranger? Only a few days ago she was a stranger, and in the future she might turn into something vastly unknown again. But at this moment and with this small distance between them, the distancing effect of the lens made Dunya feel less fearful. Dunya didn’t know how near or far she wanted Suha to be. A strand of hair half covered one of Suha’s eyes and Suha looked at her in such a tender way that she felt her heart melting. This was the moment in time that she wanted to hold forever still. She pressed the shutter button.

  “Is that it?” Suha said, getting ready to stand up again.

  “No, let me take another one.”

  Suha looked into Dunya’s camera.

  Dunya knew that if she looked into Suha’s eyes without the camera between them, Suha would easily be able to guess her feelings. Suha looked at Dunya as Dunya was looking at her, while the camera stood between them like a screen behind which each of them could hide. She pulled out a little instrument from her bag and held it near to Suha’s shoulder and clicked it.

  “What is this?” Suha asked her.

  “A light meter to measure the light,” Dunya said.

  She saw that Suha, like her brother, was a person made up of layers, layers of light and layers of dark. There was light under the dark, and dark under the light. It was something that had so intrigued her in Hilal before, but in Suha it mesmerized her and held her captive. She was like a question in motion.

  “Is that it?” Suha said, getting ready to stand up again. “I didn’t hear the shutter click. I didn’t see the flash. What kind of camera do you use? A silent one?”

  Dunya put her camera down on a table nearby. “I can’t take this photograph of you any more.”

  “But you have been taking photographs, Dunya.”

  “No, I only took one, and I’m not even sure it’s going to come out. There’s too much light in the room. We must try another day.”

  “Too much light? What are you talking about? If anything, it is too dark,” Suha said. “You are such a strange girl, Dunya, but I can’t help but like you. I don’t know why.”

  Suha flirted with Dunya mercilessly that entire afternoon. She’d stare at her, hold her gaze and watch her blush. She’d touch her, lie next to her, and slowly but surely she drove her to feel intense desire for her. Everything the two of them did that afternoon was what new lovers might do, what a boy and a girl falling in love might do, not two girls who are getting to know each other as friends or future sisters-in-law. But she must be careful, Dunya knew, for Suha was surely nothing like Hilal. The most likely possibility was that she was exactly his opposite. Suha could never love her, she had never loved anyone, and if she did it could never be a girl—such a possibility would never occur to her. She was nothing but a habitual seductress who flirted without thinking about it, unconsciously, innocently, without a purpose or intention. Perhaps Dunya’s impressionability and all too transparent adoration amused her a little and made her want more of it, a little more every time. Perhaps it flattered her or entertained her. It was nothing but a game to her.

  Suha stood in front of the mirror and began to take her dress off. Then she threw it on the floor. She took off her tights and then she washed her face with water and took off all of her makeup. She was still as, if not more, beautiful than ever like this.

  She opened the wardrobe and began to rummage inside it. “Here,” she shouted, “this is just perfect.” She threw a man’s light summer suit on a chair.

  “What are you doing, Suha?”

  Suha pulled out a gray-haired wig and a French beret from one of the drawers. Then she grabbed a box from under the wardrobe and stood in front of the mirror, applying tens of different types of makeup to her face. A little bit of this and a little bit of that, a short, thick mustache here and an eyebrow there, men’s cologne and something that looked like extra neck hair.

  “You look like a really smug old man.”

  “I look like a typical, lovely, Christian, middle-aged man from Latakia. Can’t you see?” Suha walked around the room proudly.

  “Even your walk’s so deliberate, stiff-legged and full of belly! Why are you wearing this?” Dunya came near to Suha and touched the cushion she’d added as padding on her belly.

  Suha pushed her away.

  “You’ll make my clothes smell of your perfume and then we’ll both be in trouble with my wife, love of my life. She won’t be happy.”

  “How could anyone be interested in you, in more than a platonic sort of way? Tell your wife, love of your life, she has nothing to worry about. You’re out of harm’s way, looking like you do.”

  “You’re cruel.”

  “Just honest.” Dunya smiled. She paused a little to think, surveyed Suha’s new appearance once more and laughed quite loudly. “So what’s the plan?”

  “I’m planning to take you on a little trip. Do you have some money?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t.”

  “And?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Dunya felt more relaxed now that Suha had turned into a fatherly old man. She walked arm in arm through the city with her and then they found a taxi, which took them out of town. For a couple of hours it drove them south of the cit
y while they continued to hold hands. Finally, when they were somewhere that looked like nowhere, a large, walled compound became visible in the distance: Aleppo Army Headquarters.

  “Thank you, driver, just drop us here please and come back for us in an hour,” Suha told the driver with a pitch-

  perfect impression of a well-heeled patriarch from Latakia. “Daughter, pay the driver,” she said to Dunya. “Women. They hold all the purse strings nowadays.”

  The driver looked as if he agreed. With a tone of bitter tragedy in his voice, he added, “It’s a sign the world is going to end.”

  The Aleppo barracks looked rather terrifying. The wall around it was made of breezeblock upon unpainted breezeblock rising about ten meters high. Above the last row, a sharp line of colored broken glass followed the building round like a noose.

  All along the walls, and painted with thick brushes dipped in black paint, were repetitions of the following sentence:

  Long Live Hafez al-Assad!

  “Stop! Put your hands up in the air!”

  Dunya and Suha raised their hands up in the air and looked ahead of them at a soldier with a ruthless-looking face (punctuated by a pair of big, soft, long-lashed eyes).

  “We weren’t planning on playing in a cowboy movie,” Suha said rather impatiently.

  “Who are you two? What are you doing here? And who has given you permission?” the soldier demanded.

  “We are here on urgent business,” Suha said, puffing up her chest in a gesture of proud defiance and putting her hands in her pockets. “We don’t have time to get permission. It’s a matter of life and death, young mister. We’re here to look for a husband for my daughter.” Suha pointed at Dunya with her index finger as if to illustrate her point.

  The soldier examined Dunya carefully. “Well, that’s a rather novel way of going about it, Sir. Yes, your daughter is very pretty. And yes, our camp is packed with men, most of whom are single. But we’re not here to get married. We’re here to save our country.”