You Talk Funny
We were lying on the bed. He was half naked and looked satisfied, his fingers playing lazily with my hair. I was curled up in a ball next to him, the covers pulled up to my neck. The television was on and the window was close, the sea far. My clothes were lying scattered around the room. I was filled with a strange sensation, as if I’d understood. I’d entered the secret area, the red zone that, it sometimes seemed to me, everything in this world revolved around. This was it then, what everyone was so excited about, what the books of virtue were filled with, what made men wolves and girls sheep or, at best, well-guarded “pearls” kept hidden in boxes, in a box inside a box inside a box, all in a closet with many locks, the closet in the basement and the basement a tomb. This then was the secret that made them work so hard to expel me from my life? What a disappointment!
Faris leaned on his right side with his palm on his cheek. “So you studied at the Girls’ College?” he asked.
In this world, men sleep with a woman then get to know her.
“For three years.”
“You never got a diploma?”
“No. Saqr decided that wasn’t necessary. He said I would eventually get married, so what did I need a diploma for?”
“He has a point,” he said, stretching and yawning lazily.
My stomach lurched. “Do you agree with him?”
“Well, actually, when I decided to get married I was looking for a girl who wouldn’t mind being a housewife. Girls these days—”
“They’re ambitious?”
“They crowd the men.”
“Because after all, this world is your world?”
“Everyone has their role.”
Just like that, this man who had taken me into his bed had decided what kind of life I should have. I closed my eyes, ready to sleep.
“But why aren’t I given a chance to choose my role, based on what is right for me and what I am capable of?” I asked.
“All women are capable of doing housework.”
“Men are capable of doing it too.”
“Oh! A little revolutionary!” He pinched my cheek, as if he liked what I said. “You ask a lot of questions, like a child.”
Then he kissed my palm. My fingers curled up. He laced them between his, and asked, “What did you major in?”
“Something related to computers.”
“Why computers?”
“Because they are a window onto the universe.”
“Computers are ‘a window onto the universe’? Does anyone in the world really talk like that?”
“What do you mean?”
He yawned for the fourth time and said, “You talk funny.”
I felt like I had some kind of deformity inside me. “I don’t know any other way to talk.” After a short silence I added, “I wanted to go to the College of Arts.”
He didn’t answer. Didn’t ask. He closed his eyes, and after a while he started snoring. He wasn’t interested in hearing the story.