As soon as the call to evening prayers was over, he left and made for Noura’s house. He thanked God that his father hadn’t been at home. He might have assumed Hisham was going to the mosque and accompanied him. Hisham could hardly contain himself, thought it wasn’t yet time for his meeting. He chose a dark corner in an alley opposite the house and waited, smoking nervously. After about half an hour, Abu Muhammad came back from the mosque, went into the house and shut the door behind him. After another quarter of an hour, the door reopened a fraction, the gap so small it could hardly be seen. Hisham stamped out his cigarette and went hesitantly towards the door, taut with nerves. He glanced around cautiously, then pushed at the door and found himself inside. He was struck immediately by Noura’s smell, which reached him through a powerful scent of perfume. She pulled him quickly by the shoulder as she always did, and dragged him to their usual corner under the palm tree. Before they sat down, she threw herself at him and kissed him with a passion and warmth he hadn’t known in her before.
When they separated, he used the dim light available to study her; to see what effect five months had had on her. Had she changed or was she immune to change, like everything else here in Dammam? She seemed more vivacious, and she was plumper. Everything in her that could had become fuller and rounder. Her hair, which she had always worn combed into two long pigtails, was now left to flow freely, falling down over her back and the tops of her thighs. Everything about her spoke of a new maturity; she had become a real woman, capable of arousing every desire. Only one thing about her annoyed him, for a reason he couldn’t understand: she had put lipstick and makeup on her face, and sprayed perfume behind her ears. Noura had changed a lot while he had been away, and Hisham did not like the ways she had changed. Isn’t it strange, he thought, how things we love change when we don’t want them to, while the things we want to change stay the same? This was not the Noura he had kissed for the first time in his room. She was more like Suwayr now – in fact, she was Suwayr. But he didn’t want Suwayr now, he wanted Noura.
When they sat down she threw her head on his breast and kissed every part of his face within reach of her lips. She was murmuring about love and desire, and the days that had vanished from her life while he was away. He said nothing the whole time. Then she pulled away from him, laughing in a whisper, not covering her mouth with her sleeve as she would have done once, but leaving the whites of her small parted teeth to gleam in the darkness.
‘When I saw you today with your new looks,’ she said, ‘I almost threw myself on you and to hell with the consequences. I didn’t know that a moustache could make you so beautiful.’
He smiled at this comment, seized by the urge to flatter her.
‘Beauty is for women,’ he said. ‘Men are just handsome.’
‘Call it what you like … You are beautiful. You are exciting, in fact.’
Again she threw herself at him and kissed him passionately. How you have changed, Noura! he said to himself as her lips continued to rove across his face. Where did you learn how to kiss like this?
‘I wish I could stay with you forever,’ she said breathlessly when their embrace eased for a few seconds.
‘What about Fahd, your fiancé?’ he said, frowning.
For the first time since they had met, the smile disappeared from her face. She bowed her head towards the ground and played with some grass between her fingers.
‘You know, then,’ she said, extremely quietly.
‘Can things like that be hidden?’
There was a short silence. He looked at her as she continued to play with the grass, head bowed.
‘I have to get married,’ she said. ‘I’m almost seventeen now. I can’t wait for you to graduate from university to get married. And even if I wanted to, my father won’t wait for me. There have been several suitors, and if he knew about our relationship, he would kill me.’
She was silent for a moment, then went on, ‘The fact is that Fahd is an excellent young man, kind and gentle, with an excellent job, and he will let me finish my education. I couldn’t have found a better man for a husband – except for you, of course,’ she added, ‘but we can’t get married.’
Her last sentence wounded Hisham terribly; from nowhere, he was overwhelmed by a feeling of insignificance. But she was right in what she said. Noura had really matured; no longer was she Noura the Milkmaid. It was true that her fate really wasn’t in her hands, and even he was not complete master of his own fate. Were he to want to get married, he would not be completely free to choose whomever he wanted. There were customs and practices, people you could marry and people you couldn’t. If he were to rebel against all that, his fate would be total isolation. Not only would he be cut off from all his relations, he would inflict terrible pain on everyone. He didn’t want to hurt anyone, least of all his parents. As he and Noura spoke, he suddenly recalled a conversation from his distant childhood.
He had been almost twelve years old, on a trip one Friday with his parents and some other families to one of the date palm plantations scattered around Dammam. The men were playing cards and discussing the news, hot from Syria and Iraq at the time, and what Nasser would do. The radio never left their side. The women were in another part of the plantation, singing and dancing and laughing, while the children played between the men and the women. Hisham remembered that he had abandoned the other children to play with Mayyada, the daughter of his father’s friend, Hammud al-Shahham. She was about ten and extremely pretty, like one of those expensive dolls he had seen in the luxury shops in Emir Khalid Street in the city of Khubar. She had long, chestnut-coloured hair, honey eyes and pale skin, with touches of red on her cheeks that glowed at the least movement. She had crimson lips and extremely fine features, and two prominent dimples that stood out whenever she laughed or smiled. On the way back to the house, the girl came up by chance in conversation when his mother asked him whether he had enjoyed himself. He mentioned that he’d been playing with Mayyada the whole time. His mother smiled and said, ‘God preserve her, she’ll be a paragon of beauty when she grows up. She’s taken on the best of both her parents – Syrian beauty and the slim build of the Nejdis.’
‘I’ll marry her when I grow up,’ Hisham said, innocently.
At this point his father interjected, saying, ‘No, my son … she’s not one of ours.’ Hisham didn’t understand. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked.
‘There are people you can marry and people you can’t,’ explained his father. ‘Two entirely different sets of people.’
He still didn’t understand. ‘But her father Hammud al-Shahham is one of your best friends, and her mother is one of your dearest acquaintances, Mother.’
‘If only …’ said his father. ‘But these are two different things. Marriage is one thing and friendship quite another.’
Still Hisham didn’t understand. ‘But our relative, Jar Allah al-Abir, married an American girl when he was in America …’
‘To marry an American isn’t the same … That’s one thing, and we’re talking about another.’ But he still didn’t understand. Years later, when he was older and understood most things, it still didn’t make any sense to him.
The fact was that Noura was ‘available’, but he couldn’t and didn’t want to marry him now, and her father couldn’t wait for Hisham’s family to see if Hisham graduated before they asked for her hand. She was quite right, but still he felt an overpowering sense of his own worthlessness.
‘Hisham … Hisham! Where have you gone?’
Noura’s voice brought him back to reality. He turned to her with a smile. ‘Where could I possibly go when you are with me?’ he said. He planted a quick kiss on her lips. ‘It’s late,’ he said, getting up. ‘Time to go.’
‘Incidentally,’ he said, by way of a parting shot. ‘You’re far more beautiful without makeup.’ He made for the front door leaving Noura sitting on the freezing ground, looking at him with astonishment and shivering with cold.