The Unexpected Love Objects of Dunya Noor

by Rana Haddad

  “I’m only looking for one particular future husband, young man, and I hear he might be one of you.”

  “I’m sure many men here would find your daughter delightful, but this is neither the time nor the place,” the soldier said.

  “Well, sir, it’s not as simple as you might think. It’s far more complicated than that. Is there someone by the name of Hilal Shihab in this camp?”

  “Why? All such information is confidential.”

  “He’s my poor daughter’s fiancé. Their wedding was scheduled for last week and Mr. Hilal Shihab disappeared into the army a day earlier, thus abandoning my daughter and dishonoring her! What he did was unacceptable and no father worth his salt would accept it. Would you?” Suha said to the soldier, trying to incite his chivalrous feelings. “I knew I was risking my life coming here, but what father wouldn’t do that for his dear daughter?” Suha put her arms around Dunya’s shoulders. “She’s brokenhearted.” Suha looked at Dunya with pity and despair. “And as you know, heartbreak is a fate worse than death, particularly for women.”

  “Is it?” The soldier inspected Dunya with great pity.

  “Yes, of course,” Suha said in a melancholy voice. “And that’s why you must help us find that damned Mr. Shihab urgently, and we must be allowed to borrow him from you for a day or two and take him to the mosque and get the sheikh to marry them immediately. We have no time to waste. She’s in love with him, and she refuses to marry anyone else. I will not allow her to turn into a spinster, just because Mr. Hilal Shihab decided to join the army at an unsuitable moment.”

  “But it’s a national duty.”

  “Of course, of course. I couldn’t agree with you more. I love my country, too. I worship the president as we all do. But Hilal must, he must be found and he must, he must marry her. It’s a matter of life and death. You understand? If we wait until he comes out of the army, she’ll be too old and he won’t want her any more. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” said the soldier, in a surprisingly understanding tone, “but there are 2,002 men in this compound and how am I to find that one highly irresponsible young man among them?”

  “Don’t you have records of him?”

  The soldier seemed confused. He was a sweet man at heart, and when he thought a little about it, he realized that he really had no idea why he was standing there with a gun in his hand and pointing it at a doting father and his upsettingly pretty daughter, whose youth could fade at any moment during the next three to four years.

  “Okay,” he said in a rather mellow tone of voice, as if he’d made up his mind. “I’ll go and ask at the office.”

  “You’re an honorable man. I knew it from the moment I saw you,” Suha called out loudly as the soldier turned his back and goose-stepped to the barracks.

  Dunya and Suha sat on a stone with their backs to each other, waiting for the soldier, looking completely out of context. If anyone who knew them saw them now they would surely have said to them, “Are you completely out of your minds? Run back home, run right away! Run back home, you insane girls!” This was no place for two young women to hang out, especially not in costume.

  They sat with their backs to one another on a rock; their shoulder blades touching, their spines parallel.

  Behind them was a long asphalt road that looked like a giant snake ready to pounce on someone and destroy their trust in nature forever. In front of them was the barracks. The sound of soldiers marching could be heard like a constant thud or a nervous heartbeat. And every now and then a testosterone-

  fuelled scream would blare out of the loudspeakers, which looked like diminutive satellite dishes:

  Left, right, left, left, right, left, right.

  STOOOOP.

  Sons of bitches!

  Donkeys, morons, oxen and owls!

  To their left and to their right, the edge of the Syrian desert began, a desert whose name they didn’t know and whose smell they had never smelled, a smell of dust and dry air—a smell of something baking. The air moved in fits and starts, causing shadowy clouds of dust to move around them. They had to close their eyes. Half an hour went by, and then they heard the sound of boot-steps. When they opened their eyes and looked at the ground, they saw a cloud of dust. And just above it, a soldier’s boot.

  They both stood up. “Have you . . . ?” they asked in one voice.

  “No one named Hilal is stationed here,” the soldier said in a firm official tone.

  “He must be!” Suha said.

  “He isn’t.”

  “Where is he then?” Suha asked.

  “He’s not here. That’s all I know. No more.”

  “But I happen to know that he is.”

  “Where was he born?” the soldier asked.

  “Aleppo,” Suha answered. “Don’t all Aleppo boys get sent here first? That’s what I heard. I’m one hundred percent sure that Hilal is here. He must be here.”

  “I must go,” the soldier said.

  “But we need your help.”

  “I’m of no help to you,” the soldier said in very low voice, “find someone more powerful than me to get your message across to Hilal.”

  “So he is here?” Suha raised her manly voice.

  “Sh, sh, sh . . .” The soldier whispered.

  Suha inserted a small brown envelope into the pocket of the soldier’s army shirt—just above his heart. “Here’s a note for him, in case you find him later.”

  The soldier handed the envelope back to Suha.

  “I can’t take this. If they find it on me they’ll make mincemeat out of me, and then a casserole.”

  “Tell him Dunya came to see him, promise me you will,” Dunya whispered to the soldier.

  “I promise,” the soldier whispered back. He then turned around and walked away, as if ashamed of himself; his rifle swaying left and right from its holster like a little mast, he marched back into the barracks.

  In the background Dunya and Suha could hear the Syrian national anthem playing from the loudspeakers:

  Syria my beloved!

  You have returned my pride to me.

  You have returned my freedom!

  Soon the taxi drove up behind Suha and Dunya at great speed, nearly hitting Suha. Were it not that the driver’s exceptionally large foot pushed the break violently to the ground, this story might have come to a sudden and tragic end right there.

  “You could have killed her!” Dunya told the driver.

  “Her?”

  “Enough of that now. To the center of town, Mister!” Suha instructed the driver in a gruff voice. She then put her arms around Dunya and kissed her hair to comfort her. Dunya was shaking like a leaf, and could no longer contain her tears. How could Hilal be inside such a camp? And how were they going to get him out? What if they were hurting him? What if they were beating him?

  “You spoil her too much,” the taxi driver said.

  “Can you just drive please, and focus on the road?” Suha said. “Aren’t you far too nosy for a taxi driver?”

  “It’s our job to be nosy, Sir. We are the eyes and ears of the nation!” (It is a well-known fact that a fair percentage of taxi drivers in Syria moonlight as paid government spies).

  Suha leaned over to whisper something in Dunya’s ear.

  “He’s not your father. I’m no fool,” the taxi driver said loudly and then he winked knowingly. “You two are in love, aren’t you?” he shouted.

  When the taxi dropped them in the city center, Suha paid the driver and then ripped her mustache off and stuck it on his face. “Thank you,” she said to him in a sensual, feminine, husky-dusky voice. “You should become a detective.”

  She had a spare mustache in her pocket for the short walk home.

  20

  In Basma’s House

  Dunya could hear slow footsteps coming down the staircase, the shuffling of cloth on cloth, cloth on walls, breathlessness. “Where have you been?” a woman’s voice came from above. Soon a woman with a bun, large hips, and
a bosom hidden under a loose, black dress appeared at the bottom of the staircase. She was clearly a widow, clearly broken, but also clearly full of love for her daughter.

  “This is my new friend Dunya,” Suha said to her mother.

  Basma examined Dunya from top to toe. She could tell just from looking at Dunya and how she dressed and carried herself that she came from another world, where neither she nor her daughter had ever set foot. She was Syrian, but not the way they were.

  “Hello, Mrs. Habibi,” Dunya said.

  “What has Suha been doing to you? Oh, Suha.” Basma brushed some flour off the top of Dunya’s hair and then ushered them both upstairs to her dining room. “I have a pan of stuffed zucchini with yogurt simmering on the stove.” Basma gestured for Dunya to sit next to Suha’s usual chair at the table, “Let me feed you.”

  She laid out a plastic tablecloth on the table, along with three white porcelain plates and forks and spoons and salt and a bowl of green peppers and cucumbers. Then she brought over a bottle of water from the fridge and three cans of Pepsi. “Do you like Bebsi?” she asked (as there is no ‘p’ in Arabic), pouring one into a glass for Dunya without waiting for an answer.

  Seeing Suha sitting next to Dunya that evening at her dining table made Basma see Suha differently, though she did not know why. Suha seemed so happy, full of delight, and there was something dark and fiery and jewel-like in her eyes that she had never seen before.

  “Suha told me you were a singer,” Dunya said, munching on some pistachios that Basma had just brought over.

  “This isn’t supposed to be public knowledge.” Basma frowned as she put a napkin stand on the table.

  “I don’t tell other people, Mama, but Dunya’s different and she lives in London. People there don’t think songstresses like us are fallen women.

  “When did I become a songstress, Suha? We have no songstresses in our family. You’re not a songstress,” Basma said matter-of-factly.

  “Suha was born to be a singer, Mrs. Habibi, I can’t imagine her being anything else, she’s gifted. She told me it was you who taught her and that you also have a most beautiful voice.”

  “Did she now? Well, my daughter likes to exaggerate. I have the voice of a crow, if the truth be told. Suha, yes, I can’t deny, sings like a bulbul bird. But, and this is what’s most important, I hope, Dunya, that you will not be a bad influence on her. She’s my only daughter, and I must take good care of her until she finds a husband.”

  “I want Dunya to hear your voice. . . . Mama, sing to her.”

  “Oh, Suha.” Basma raised her eyebrows but tried to hide her disapproval. It was not polite to be too strict on her daughter in front of such a modern-looking guest, who would not understand it and think of her as backward. Basma was very sensitive to other people’s opinion of her and was addicted to being thought of as a good and even ideal mother. But people’s idea of such a mother varied so vastly and radically from city to city, from town to village, from country to country, and from one era to another. And this girl here, Basma could see, came from a world other than the one she and her daughter inhabited. She would not understand why she had to be so strict with Suha.

  “I’d love to hear you sing. Please, Mrs. Habibi, sing,” Dunya pleaded.

  “If you insist that you want to hear my voice, then I’ll sing for you. But please don’t tell Suha that she was born to be a singer. That isn’t true. She was born to love and be loved by a good man and her children and family. A woman can’t have both love and fame, she must choose. Do you want her to be forever lonely, and not to give me beautiful grandchildren?”

  Basma reached under the sofa and took her oud out. She sat crossed-legged on her sofa. And when she sang she did not look broken any more—but whole.

  Her voice reminded Dunya of the beautiful voices of female singers of the golden age. She was clearly a great talent, and to hide it must have killed her. When a candle hides its light, where does the fire go? Dunya always imagined that if inner fire (just like real physical fire) is not used to create, then what else can it do but destroy? Had Basma destroyed large parts of herself and was she now attempting to do the same to Suha—in the name of love?

  After they’d eaten the delicious zucchini in yogurt, Dunya begged Suha to sing too. “Now you sing, sing for me.”

  Suha took out her notebook and her mother’s oud. She leafed through a few pages. “I wrote this song for you,” she whispered in Dunya’s ear. She tested the strings and then began to sing.

  Suha’s voice was not the same as the hakawati’s voice, but so much more. It was a voice impossible to imagine, impossible to resist. It rose and fell like a waterfall, like the waves of the sea or the winds of a galaxy. It filled the room and circled Dunya’s heart like a noose, it hypnotized her. Was Suha’s song a prayer or a plea? What did she want from her? Dunya looked at Suha and watched and heard the lyrics and the words arising from the root of Suha’s heart. Dunya had never seen someone sing like that before, and never for her.

  I am here,

  Because you can see me.

  If you can’t see me, I disappear.

  She tapped her oud gently. She looked at the floor and then at the ceiling and out of the window and took a deep breath.

  Hold me, or I’ll fly.

  Hold me in your arms.

  Hold me in your eyes.

  I am here because you can see me.

  If you can’t see me,

  I disappear.

  Suha repeated the words of her song, over and over again. And while she did it, she did not look at Dunya, nor at Basma. She only looked at her oud, and occasionally out of the window.

  The evening passed and Suha and Basma and Dunya chatted and polished off the zucchini, as well as part of a tray of freshly made kenafeh dessert.

  Dunya stood up and looked out of the window of Basma’s house where she saw the roofs of hundreds of houses and the tops of alleyways moving across the city in infinite lines and shapes. She listened to the barking of dogs, the meowing of stray cats, and the sound of the last cars reaching their homes in time for the midnight prayer, the call to which boomed high above the city. She had missed her last train back to Latakia.

  *

  Mrs. Habibi’s bathroom was old fashioned. It had a tap and a tiled floor. There was a little gas stove with a metal tub on it.

  “We heat the water here,” Suha explained. “And then you can add cold water from this tap.”

  She struck a match and lit the gas.

  There was a little wooden seat where one could sit, and a porcelain jug with which to pour water over one’s body.

  “This is for you.” Suha gave Dunya a square piece of soap made of a natural material called ghaar. “And here’s a towel.” She gave her a large white towel. She held Dunya’s wrist for a moment and then let it go.

  Suha looked at her, and Dunya looked away. All she wanted to do was kiss her lips, run her fingers through her hair.

  Suha turned around and went to her bedroom.

  “Wait,” Dunya wanted to say to Suha, but she didn’t. Wait, wait, wait.

  Perhaps if this had been a dream, she might have said it out loud: “Wait, wait, wait.”

  Suha’s room was very small and her bed very big. It filled most of the room. She was already under the cover when Dunya came in and sat on a chair nearby. “Where shall I sleep? Don’t you have a spare mattress?”

  “Come,” Suha said. “You can sleep here.” She lifted her bedcover.

  Dunya lay down quietly next to Suha. She tried to keep a space between them so that no part of her touched Suha’s body. Suha switched off the light.

  Dunya closed her eyes.

  “Why are you so scared?” Suha asked her in the dark, “Are you scared of me?”

  “I’m not scared,” Dunya said.

  “Then why are you so silent and why are you hiding your eyes from me, when you were so open and clear before, when you used to look at me?”

  “I’m not hiding an
ything.”

  “Then why is your heart beating so fast? I can hear it.”

  “It isn’t beating fast,” Dunya said.

  Suha took Dunya’s hand and laid it on her own heart.

  “My heart is beating for you, at least I can be honest. I’m not afraid of how I feel for you. I love you. I never imagined I’d say this to anyone, let alone a girl. How could I have imagined that love would finally come to me like this, in the unexpected form of girl?”

  “How do you know it’s love? Maybe it’s not.”

  “I love you even though you’re a cowardess. And you love me too. I can see it, Dunya. You can’t hide it from me.”

  “Don’t say this, Suha, it’s not true,” Dunya whispered in the dark.

  “Why should I not say it?” Suha laid her head on Dunya’s chest. “I love you . . . and you love me. It’s very simple.”

  “No, it’s not true. Please don’t say things like that, Suha, don’t say it.”

  “I don’t care if you’re a boy or a girl,” Suha murmured. “I don’t care if it is wrong or right. I love you. I love you, the way a boy might love a girl, or a girl might love a boy. Even if you were a bird I’d love you, if you were a stream I’d love you, if you were the dust in the air, even if you were the wind, the breeze I breathe, even if you were a flower, a fragrance, a sound, a song, I’d love you.”

  Both Dunya’s and Suha’s hearts were beating so loud now that both of them could hear it. Their heartbeats broke the silence of the room. Could Basma, who slept in the room beside them, also hear it? Dunya wondered fearfully. And not only Basma, but everyone who passed in the street outside must also be able to hear their hearts, and the neighbors, and the birds on the trees outside, everyone without exception must be able to hear the sound of her and Suha’s guilty hearts.

  Dunya gently moved Suha’s hand away from her, and her head to the cushion beside her, and then she turned around and lifted the bedcover over her face and hid underneath it. “Let’s go to sleep,” she said.