2008 - The Consequences of Love. (8 page)

For one last time, I looked up. My image was cut in two. Then I walked out, leaving my broken reflection behind.

Jasim begged me to come back when he found out where I lived. I told him to leave me alone. “OK,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, “but I am your only friend. No one will support you like I did.”

“Just leave me alone,” I said.

My friendship with Mr Quiet continued even after I left the café, and we would meet to talk in the shopping mall, or in the Corniche. I started feeling more comfortable around Mr Quiet. Ever since I arrived in Jeddah, I had never had a friend I could trust, and this was the first time I felt really safe with someone.

He was an illegal resident in Jeddah. He had been deported countless times before, but he’d always come back. Last time, he had learned his lesson, he said. Since smuggling himself back into Jizan, Saudi Arabia’s main port in the south, he had covered his face with a long beard and dark glasses, and dressed like a typical Saudi. He also stayed away from other foreigners to avoid suspicion.

I also tried to get to know Hilal better, but he didn’t have the time for friendships. Hilal, who shared a room with three Sudanese in a tiny flat in Al-Nuzla Street, worked hard in his job and he never had any time for leisure. “I am in a rich country,” he used to say, “so I am going to take the opportunity and work hard to save as much as I can.” He wanted to save to go back to Sudan and set up a bus service between Port Sudan and the capital of Eastern Sudan, Kassala, where he was born.

Even if I didn’t have many friends, things looked up for me. I felt excited that I could build a new life on my own. I don’t need my uncle or Jasim, I thought.

But no sooner was my smile returning to my face than Hilal brought me the sad news that wiped out the little happiness I had started to enjoy.

One Thursday morning, he came to my flat and told me that Mr Quiet’s flat had been raided by the immigration police and that he was now awaiting deportation in a prison in the centre of Jeddah.

“I can’t believe he was caught,” Hilal said. “Abu Imad is the most careful illegal migrant I know, and believe me, I know many of them. I just can’t understand how it happened.”

As soon as Hilal told me the news, I hurried to the prison to try to see Mr Quiet one last time before he was deported.

The prison used to be Jeddahs old airport before it was converted. From the outside, it looked enormous, fenced off by high white walls with windows only on the very top floors. When I arrived, I saw a statue of a small plane just outside the entrance, its rear tyres firmly on the ground but its front tyres slightly lifted, ready to soar. It was ironic that an object like a plane, modelled on a free bird, now stood at the entrance to a building where people were detained because they brought their dreams to the wrong place.

An armed policeman was standing outside the gate. I knew I didn’t stand much chance, but tried anyway.

“
Assalamu alaikum
,” I greeted him.

“
Wa ‘alaikumu
,” he replied coldly, stopping half-way off saying the full greeting.

“May
Allah
prolong your life,” I said. “Would it please be possible for me to see a friend awaiting deportation?”

He stretched his sleepy face into a mocking smile. “Are you a foreigner?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Where is your
iqama?
”

I handed it to him. He flicked through it, and then threw it back at me. I caught it against my chest.

“Leave. You can’t visit anyone. The prison is closed,” he said.

“But he is the only friend I have left in Jeddah. Please let me say goodbye, just for once…”

“I said, go.
Yallah
, what are you waiting for? Do you want to join your friend in prison?”

I bowed my head and walked back home, to my lonely room.

Just as I arrived home, Jasim called. “Naser?”

I put down the phone. But as I lay on the bed, I began to realise that once again he was the only person I knew. I switched off the light and cried.

THE WIND FROM THE RED SEA

I
N THE DAYS following, I didn’t really think much more about the note, and whenever I did, I tried to suppress the thought. Because there was no point. Where could it take me?

Friday evening, three days after the girl dropped her note, I decided to go to the Corniche to clear my head. I would stay the night in my secret place.

I woke up on Saturday morning, my back aching from sleeping on the hard rock. I closed my eyes, trying to rest for a bit longer, but the bright sunlight was shining through my eyelids. I sat up and yawned.

I walked to the sea to wash. As I bent double, I caught a glimpse of my reflection wobbling over the surface of water. It was as if it was trying to flee, diving to the depths of the sea. The cold water shook up my thoughts.

Why did I allow Jeddah, with its rules and prejudices, to make me passive and afraid? Why was I not out there looking for the girl in the street? I should be chasing her instead of hiding. Maybe there was nothing special under her
abaya
: yes, she could be a phantom, a madwoman, or a silly girl with too much time on her hands. But wasn’t this still a chance worth taking in a country with such a high wall between men and women?

I looked over the water towards the Red Sea. I prayed that the girl was genuine and hoped that she would come looking for me again.

Back in Al-Nuzla the black and white movie was still playing, but there were even fewer people in the street, just a handful here and there. I felt like an extra on the film set, stealing too much attention in the absence of the main actors.

By the time I got home, I urgently wanted to get out of the blazing sun. I needed a cold drink and a quick meal, then I would wait for her under the shade of my palm tree. Today was not a day to be afraid.

“
Salaam
,” I said to the
shawarma
shop owner, a stocky Lebanese man.

“
Wa ‘alaikumu salam
,” he replied.

“
Shawarma
, please.”

“Chicken or meat?”

“Since when do you think I eat chicken?”

“A troublemaker, eh?” he chided.

I grinned.

As I reached into my pocket to pay, I read the Islamic quotation pinned up behind him: “Life is Temporary.” And in the mirror next to it, I saw the reflection of Abu Faisal, the beheader. He was coming into the shop.

His presence had an immediate effect. Men swiftly got to their feet and one after the other, they reached out to his famous right hand and kissed it with such passion, as if it were the Black Stone of the holy
Kabba
. Others showered his forehead and shoulders with more kisses. Someone shouted, “
Allah wa Akbar!
May
Allah
bless you, our enforcer of justice.”

I stood looking at him. It felt as if the angel of death were knocking on my door. The thought made me shudder. I put my money on the counter to show I wanted to leave. So much for taking chances today.

Abu Faisal’s eyes, like two soldiers hiding in a trench, were small, rounded and narrow. How could he possibly look at the world with such small eyes?

I collected my food and made my way out through the pack of people. Outside, in the hot air, my stomach turned. I threw my sandwich into a rubbish bin and crossed over to the Yemeni shop.

I pushed myself through the few customers who were clustering around the old shopkeeper’s counter, fanned the incense smoke from my face, and headed to the back of the shop. The amplifier nailed to the top shelf was softly playing
suras
from the Qur’an. I shoved the empty boxes on the floor aside, opened the fridge and rummaged to find a cold Pepsi.

The shopkeeper shouted, “They all are cold, just take one and leave.” I ignored him and continued looking until my fingers stuck to a can. I picked it up, made my way to the counter and left half a riyal next to his till. As I strolled back to the shade of the tree opposite my uncle’s old house, back to the black and white movie show, sweat rolled down my face.

I sat underneath the wide branches of the palm tree and guzzled the Pepsi, the cold liquid quickly hitting my throat.

I glanced around to my right. In the far distance, I could see a woman coming out of a house. I stopped drinking and focused my attention on her. Was this the girl? But wasn’t that Zib Al-Ard’s house she had just left? If he is fighting a war in Afghanistan, then how would it feel if his sister and I…Does Zib Al-Ard even have a sister? I wasn’t sure, but I knew that his father had a second wife who lived a few yards down the road from Zib Al-Ard’s house. I stood up and glared at the woman again. Maybe it was Zib Al-Ard’s father’s second wife who had dropped the note at my feet? It was possible.

Before he was converted to strict Islam by the blind imam, and when he was under the heavy influence of drink, Zib Al-Ard had talked about his father’s second wife. He told me that one afternoon when his father was at work, he encountered her in their kitchen when she came over from her house to help his sick mother. She was only sixteen, the same age as him, and he said she wasn’t wearing her
abaya
because she thought there were no men in the house. The moment they met, Zib Al-Ard said, they fell for one another and before long they had kissed. A few days later, they made love on the kitchen table. He lost his virginity to his father’s second wife while his mother was sleeping in the next room.

The woman who came out from Zib Al-Ard’s father’s first house entered the second house. I sat back down on the pavement, but I didn’t immediately discount the possibility that the second wife might be the girl.

A few more people passed by: a group of four women, two boys, a Yemeni man carrying a dagger under his belt, and an old man who came out from the villa opposite to chase away two pigeons who were mating on the tree overlooking his house. I counted the cars as they drove past. Number three was a Jeep with shaded windows. It drove so fast, shattering the peace, as if it were hurtling towards an emergency; someone was committing a sin somewhere in Al-Nuzla and they needed urgent punishment.

I was starting to nod off, my eyelids slowly succumbing to the soporific breeze that found me under the tree. I tried to force myself to stay awake. And it was when I turned my half-closed eyes to the left that I noticed a woman walking slowly towards me. But my mind was too tired to wonder whether it might be
her
. I turned my head away and lay on the cool pavement and drifted asleep.

The next thing I heard were busy footsteps close by. Sitting up on the pavement, I watched a scrap of paper falling in front of me. I looked up, but saw only a dark shadow hurrying down the street. I picked up the paper and jumped to my feet. I ran into the middle of the street trying to catch sight of her, but she had already disappeared. Nothing was moving. I looked over to my right and saw four women, all in full veil, moving silently.

I stood still beneath the scorching sun. Sweat ran along my forehead and dripped down my neck.

I looked at the yellow paper, already softening in my damp hand. I had forgotten that I was standing in the middle of the road. Faintly, as if it were a long way away, I heard the horn of a car. I was lost in my own dream and it took me an age to come out of it. Someone was yelling at me. It was Muhammad Ali Al-Hyrania—the nerd. His head was craned out the window, and his father stared at me from behind the wheel with both his hands on the horn.

“Get off the street,” the nerd screamed. I stepped aside to let them pass and walked back to my spot under the palm tree. I looked around to ensure I wasn’t being watched, then I hungrily devoured the note:

Habibi
,

I am taking a great risk in doing this. I walked past this tree every day since last Tuesday, more than once, hoping to find you. But for the past four days, the tree has been alone. I am not sure what you are thinking, but if I have to, I will come to this spot every day for the rest of my life to convince you that you are my special one
.

In the name of Allah, I must tell you that it has been over a year since I fell for you, and my eyes have been faithful to you ever since. You have become the only companion in my lonely days and nights, summer or spring. When I saw your smile from a distance for the first time, I was like a thirsty person in a desert seeing a mirage. But when I came closer to your face, that mirage was in fact an oasis and for the first time in my living memory, I felt a surge of selfishness and wished that I alone could disembark at your oasis and take forever lasting rest
.

Salam from the heart of a girl in Al-Nuzla
.

I looked at the ground next to me as if she were sitting there in her black
abaya
reading her note out loud. I stretched out my full length on the pavement, embracing the note, feeling its warmth, its words sinking inside me.

On my way back to my room I dared to sing a song from the refugee camp. It was about a woman who danced against a frankincense gum tree; the singer trailed her for the rest of his life, his nose guiding him to her gorgeously scented being.

A
T FOUR O’CLOCK the next morning, the telephone’s ringing woke me up from my sleep. I staggered over to the receiver.

“Hello? Naser? Naser?”

“Is that Jasim?” I asked, rubbing my eyes.

“Who else would call you at this time of the morning? I miss you, my dear. I wish you were here. Paris is full of rain and I am walking in the dark thinking only of you.”

He kept talking about how much he missed me, and how sorry he was about Rashid. But I was too tired to say a thing. I ran the palm of my hand over my face as if it were water, trying to wake myself up.

“Naser, are you there?”

“Jasim, please, this is not a good time to talk.”

“OK, you are tired, go to bed, my dear. I can’t wait to see you.”

I slammed the phone down and threw it off the table.

The night was hot. I was sweating all over. Before returning to bed, I took a cool shower. I came out of the shower with drops of water still glistening over my chest, wishing I could dry myself by lying against the warm back of a woman.