How pleasant the weather always was in Nejd at this time of year! It was neither too hot nor too cold, neither damp nor dry, just pleasant, like the descriptions of paradise. These days he hung around the canteen with his new friends, sometimes gossiping about the teachers or the news, while on other occasions they would just chatter aimlessly, mostly about ‘girls’. He seemed the least experienced of them, indeed not experienced at all. They would be talking about Mizna and Badriyya, Hayla and Aisha, Awatif, Ibtisam and Muna, and he couldn’t find anything to say. He wanted to talk about Noura and about Raqiyya and tell them about the stories he was writing about Moudhi, but something stopped him. So he remained silent, immersing himself in the principles of law and economics, until he was called a ‘bookworm’ and ‘Four Eyes’. Even though he disliked this description, he was trusted and loved by everyone. His friends would seek him out to help them with subjects they didn’t understand, or to solve their emotional problems. They would consult him on the beauty of their girls, bringing photographs in their pockets. He liked this and hated it at the same time. To be trusted meant that one was not an object of fear, and this annoyed him, for he didn’t want to seem ‘safe’ all the time.
He took many trips out on the Kharis Road, sometimes with Abd al-Rahman, but usually with Muhammad and Muhaysin, when they made one of their frequent visits to the house and had a spare car. On those days, Nejd became something else. It reverted to the days that had seen Qays and Leila, Antara and Abla, and that transparent poetry which you can only find in Nejd. Everything was beautiful; even men’s behaviour became finer and more transparent, after being coarse and tasteless. The sun and land of Nejd knew no mercy when they were given the chance, and how many were the chances!
He started to sleep in his room. The cold on the roof was unbearable in the early hours of the morning. This also gave him a better opportunity to observe the street opposite, and to follow the activity of the husband and wife who had now moved back down to the lower floor. The roof had been transformed into a barren area of red and yellow dust on which the winds played at midday. His relationship with the ‘new’ Adnan was now nothing more than a meaningless social convention. He would sometimes meet him in the canteen, when he ate one of Amm Wardan’s sandwiches after noon – just a passing greeting, a conventional question about how each of them was, then everything would return to normal. It was obvious that Adnan didn’t want to continue their friendship, and Hisham wasn’t enthusiastic either. Adnan didn’t usually come to the canteen alone. There were usually two colleagues with him, both wearing unkempt beards. Sometimes there were as many as five, drinking tea and speaking out of earshot in a whisper. The thing that most surprised Hisham was that they hardly ever smiled. If one of them actually did smile, he covered his face with the sleeve of his gown as if to apologise, then reverted to those impenetrable features, and Adnan would do the same. He couldn’t remember him ever doing that before. The thing that disturbed Adnan and his friends most was when Hisham and his friends were sitting at an adjacent table letting rip dirty jokes and laughing at the top of their voices, then talking and shouting. Despite the fact that Hisham only occasionally took part in this rowdy talk, he liked to sit among these colleagues and steal a glance at Adnan and his friends. He would see Adnan stealing a glance at him, and then the pair of them would look at the table again as if they hadn’t seen each other. Adnan’s group looked down on Hisham’s group; they would soon get up, repeating, ‘There is no power or might except with God … there is no power or might except with God,’ while the others carried on laughing and shouting. Hisham didn’t take much notice of the ‘new’ Adnan’s style, or his new personality, yet he felt that he had lost something indefinable. And Hisham also felt that life was concealing something from him; something new he couldn’t put his finger on.
One day he was coming back from college, after having a snack with his friends at their house. He had been doing that a lot recently in spite of Muhanna, whose eyes betrayed anger quite clearly even though he didn’t express it openly. That didn’t bother Hisham much, so long as Muhammad, Muahysin and Dais showed him genuine affection and so long as he frequently brought with him fresh milk for lunch, or beans and fresh bread, and sometimes mutabbaq with eggs or bananas many evenings for supper. The strange thing was that Muhanna was politer to him when Hisham bought the supper.
One day, burping the whole way from the effect of the milk he had drunk at lunch, he reached home just before the call to afternoon prayers. He knew that this uncle would be in the mosque, that Ahmad was probably doing ‘overtime’, and that Abd al-Rahman was either taking a siesta in his room or wandering the alleyways of Riyadh in search of amusement, and God only knew where Hamad might be! – so he felt free to stop and belch as he pleased. The street was deserted – there weren’t even any dogs or boys, so when he reached the corner of his uncle’s house he stopped for a moment to look at the house opposite. Mentally he replayed what he had seen in the room and on the roof – then suddenly stiffened. He felt a strong desire to disappear, but the door had opened. A woman looked out. She wore a black scarf round her neck that hung to the ends of her hair, except for some fine strands that glinted in the golden sun. She was carrying a bucket of rubbish, which she threw out before suddenly noticing him. She didn’t react, just clasped the bucket to her chest and stayed standing beside the door. Hisham had no idea how long the two of them exchanged feverish glances; on these occasions time is not measured in minutes and hours. He shivered. It was quite definitely the woman on the roof. A sort of terrible embarrassment overwhelmed him. He couldn’t meet her gaze, but retreated, cringing like a dog, and shut himself into his room. His heart thumped, sweat dripped from every pore in his body and he seethed with shame. But when he had calmed down a little he drew his chair up to the window and peered out.
Her door was shut, but her window was wide open and she was sweeping the room, with her bottom to the window. He almost exploded when he glimpsed the cleft between her buttocks. The room was spotless, but still she continued sweeping. He was loving this. Suddenly she spun round and smiled at him before slamming the window shut. She had seen him! She had known he was there from the first moment. Perhaps she also knew of his nocturnal spying. He felt happy and terrified all at once, and he craved a cigarette. Shouting for Said, he ran down the stairs.
Moudhi got to him first, trying to cover her face with her veil, and saying in a clearly agitated voice, ‘OK, OK! What’s the matter? God willing nothing is wrong!’
‘No, no, nothing’s wrong. I’m wanting Abd al-Rahman. Where’s Abd al-Rahman?’ asked Hisham. Moudhi calmed down.
‘Enough of this,’ she said. ‘You’re driving me mad. All this commotion for a dimwit! You’re always going on like this!’ Hisham pulled himself together and calmed down.
‘I need him for something important,’ he said. ‘Where is he?’
‘One moment, and I’ll fetch him, said Moudhi, going back inside. It was only a few moments before Abd al-Rahman entered, his hair straggly and uncombed. He was clearly anxious. ‘It’s not like you to shout for me. I hope to God there’s nothing wrong?’
‘No, nothing’s wrong. I just needed a cigarette. Do you have one?’ Abd al-Rahman looked startled, then shouted with laughter. ‘God confound you, sheikh! All this for a cigarette! Take one. No! Take the whole packet!’ He threw Hisham a packet of Marlboro Reds and made for the door, still laughing. Before he shut it behind him, he turned and looked quizzically at Hisham, asking, ‘Since when have you smoked?’ Hisham just smiled and took out a cigarette. He lit it as Abd al-Rahman went out, yawning, ‘God curse you, you’ve caused enough trouble this afternoon.’
The cigarette was fantastic. He experienced the usual pleasant queasiness and that delicious erotic tension. How he longed for Raqiyya. In fact, right now he was ready to take any woman – so what about the woman over the road? He climbed back onto the chair, but saw nothing. The door and the window were shut. He stepped down onto the ground, lit another cigarette, which he smoked right down to the filter, then went to his little stove and made tea, arguing with himself all the while: There’s no doubt that she saw me. And there’s no doubt that she wants what I want. But wait. How can I be sure? It’s perfectly obvious. How can I be sure?
He dragged on another cigarette and looked out of the window again: Nothing … I’m dreaming. No … Yes! What about her husband? He’s the wealthiest man around – but is life just possessions? No. But neither is it just my precious metaphysics! – She saw me and smiled … perhaps. But then, does everyone who smiles at you want to fuck you?
He smiled … fuck … what a harsh, dreadful word, expressing nothing pleasurable sounding. There’s no doubt that we Arabs are not just harsh in our way of life, Hisham thought, but also harsh in our hearts and feelings. Fucking. But if that is so, where do Ibn al-Muluh and Kuthayyir and the others get their finer feelings from? They were just the exceptions to the rule. And what does my life have to do with the poetry of Majnun and Kuthayyir? But fuck remains a harsh, ugly word, making the whole concept of sex seem more mechanical than sensuous. He dozed off, smiling pleasurably to himself.