45

In the morning a knock on the door woke him. He was drenched in sweat, and the humidity had made his body smell unbearable. He got up quickly, put on his tob, and opened the door. Umm Salih was holding a small tray, her veil over her face. She put the tray on the little desk. Hisham inquired about Salih and was told that he had gone to school early. He was forced to reflect that for most young people today was a normal school day and that the world did not stop for one person …

He took a quick shower in the bathroom next door, then gobbled down all his beans and bread. Then he drank his tea with something a little short of absolute pleasure, because he was so desperate for a cigarette. He wondered what Abu Salih had told his wife to explain Hisham’s sudden arrival. No doubt he hadn’t told her the truth. Her manner when she brought in his breakfast didn’t suggest that she knew anything – unless she possessed a very cool head and was in complete control of her emotions; or perhaps she had no emotions at all; or she had concluded that the matter did not concern her in the least, as it was her husband’s business. Umm Salih was the epitome of the traditional Nejdi woman. Her world was restricted to pleasing her husband and master, and serving her children. This was why Hisham’s mother hadn’t grown close to her, as she had to Hammud al-Shahham’s wife. His own mother’s world and interests were much broader – without impinging on her husband’s rights, of course. Hisham saddened when he thought of his mother. He missed her a lot. He wished she were beside him now, so that he could fall into her arms and give vent to his tears. Perhaps they would cry together – she always shared his suffering. Just having his mother beside him would make him feel secure, but where was she now? They were in the same city; he breathed the same air as she, they were scorched by the same heat and stinking with the same humidity, but she was further from him than she had ever been before. The image of Noura floated through his mind, but he banished it nervously, and soon the image of his mother returned to fill his whole mind.

He could do nothing but wait; a deadly boring waiting. He was extremely anxious about travelling to Beirut and terrified by the danger of arrest. At the same time, he was dying a slow death by boredom with every moment of waiting. He looked at the time and found that it was not yet ten. My God, how slowly time passed! He had showered, eaten breakfast and drunk his tea in less than half an hour. He got up and began to pace up and down the room, then stopped in front of the window and inspected the garden. It wasn’t a garden in the proper sense of the word – just a patch of ground with some neglected couch grass scattered about. There was no one like his father for looking after a garden and bringing it to life. Hisham’s mother was always saying, ‘Abu Hisham, what wonderful hands you have … they are magic … you must have green fingers!’ He smiled to remember that. His eyes travelled beyond the garden to the public road – or his ears, rather, for the wall around the house was too high for him to see over. Beyond the street stood the Middle School, where he and Adnan had spent three years. What memories! His head spun with images; memories reeled in his mind like the films they used to watch at home on the projector they hired when they didn’t want to go out to the cinema, when the film was of the exciting sort best watched at home. Events and faces crowded with amazing rapidity in his head; things he thought he had long forgotten still lurked there, just waiting for him to rediscover them in all their detail. Most striking of all was that for the first time Hisham understood how significant Adnan had always been. He was present in every event in his life he could remember. The pair of them had been like a single entity, and he had never realised this before.

Hisham smiled faintly to remember the day they had stolen something for the first and last time. It wasn’t stealing in the true sense of the word, more a search for excitement. On their way home from school they passed a small shop owned by Hali. They used to stop by the shop and drink a bottle of cola or share a can of tomato juice or orange juice, which they would drink with a pastry. This particular day Hisham announced to his friend that they would eat and drink whatever they fancied without paying a single penny. He explained his plan. Adnan tried to dissuade but Hisham insisted, so Adnan had to accept. They stood in front of the counter. Hisham asked for two large cans of tomato juice, two cans of orange juice, two cheese-and-jam sandwiches and two pastries. It was a lot to order, and the shopkeeper doubted whether they could afford it, so he asked for the money in advance. Hisham replied brazenly:

‘What’s the world coming to? We’re regular customers, we’ll pay when we’ve finished, or else you can keep your stuff!’ By this time they had already opened the cans of juice and eaten half the sandwiches, so the shopkeeper had no choice but to accept. Adnan looked at Hisham and whispered in a frightened voice:

‘Hisham, the bill’s two and a half riyals, and I’ve only got four piastres, you’ve really got us in a fix!’ Hisham laughed, his mouth full of bread and juice:

‘Don’t worry. I haven’t even got a piastre, but don’t worry …’ They finished everything, then Hisham said to Adnan:

‘You go now … go on!’ Adnan hesitated at first, but eventually did as he was told and left. The shopkeeper’s eyes were glued to them, and as soon as Adnan left, he asked Hisham to pay. Hisham fumbled in his pockets as if he were fetching money, then suddenly took off at full pelt. This initially startled the shopkeeper, but his surprise didn’t last long, and he abandoned the shop and gave chase. Hisham was very quick, but the shopkeeper almost caught him, and would have done had fate not intervened – at precisely the moment when the shopkeeper reached out to grab Hisham, his loincloth fell down, and he wasn’t wearing anything underneath, so his private parts were completely exposed. The shopkeeper stopped to cover himself up, while Hisham disappeared into the distance, amazed at his escape. From that day on they took a different route to school, avoiding Hali’s shop, but they remained terrified for several days. They were afraid that the man would complain to their school principal, and would look for them. Then the news would reach their families, which would be a real disaster. But ‘God preserved’ and nothing happened, though they never repeated the stunt.

Hisham left the window and paced around the room again, the memories still crowding his head. He would never forget the day when they’d almost lost the ‘dearest thing they possessed’. This was a few days after the shop incident. They were coming back from school, talking and joking, as they walked along a side road from which several alleys branched off, trying to avoid the main road and Hali’s shop. Three slightly older youths stepped out of one of the alleys. They stopped the two friends and searched their pockets, but found nothing. One of them, apparently their leader, blocked their path, took a cigarette from his pocket, lit it and inhaled deeply as he looked at the two of them. Finally he said:

‘Since you haven’t got any money on you, we shall have to –’ Hisham’s heart began to beat faster, and every part of his body started to tremble. Adnan’s face turned pale and they looked at each other for help. This was his mother’s worst fear – that which she had warned him about was going to happen. The leader stepped forward and the other two grabbed them and marched them to a pen in one of the narrow alleyways. Without thinking, Hisham started to shout and scream like someone struck by a fit of madness, and Adnan did the same thing. The youths tried to gag them, but Adnan bit the hand of his captor so hard that he let him go with a scream. Hisham hit the boy holding him with his school bag and he let go as well. They were both free and took to their heels, still screaming. The youths caught them up, but they had to stop and retreat when a man appeared from one of the adjoining alleyways. Fate had intervened to save them again. After this incident, they went back to walking along the main roads – let the shopkeeper see them, and be that as it may.

He looked at his watch again: eleven o’clock. It must be broken. Time stood still, and the heat was unbearable. How he missed his mother. He wanted to leave this ‘safe house’ and head off to Adama, come what may, but he didn’t dare. He went to the bathroom and took another shower, then returned to the room, smiling thoughtfully. Perhaps this room was just a rehearsal for what was to come. His cravings for a cigarette had worsened and he considered going to the sitting room in the hope of finding some among Abu Salih’s things, but rejected the idea. He looked around and found the book he had been reading last night thrown onto the bed. He picked it up but could find no enthusiasm for it it today, so he took House of the Dead out of his bag and escaped to Russia.