Fifth Phone Call

“It’s been ten days . . .”

“That’s right.”

“Ten days, Fatima!”

“I know.”

“I miss you! I miss you a lot!”

“Did I tell you what I did yesterday for six hours?”

“What did you do?”

“I put my hands in my coat pockets and walked.”

“For six hours?”

“Yes. I put my hands in my pockets and walked along al-Shuwaikh coast.”

“Do you really have to say ‘I put my hands in my pockets’ as if there’s some special meaning to it?”

“I love the look of a person with their hands in their pockets. A look of unconcern and liberation. It also tells you that I went out without a handbag. I’m relieving myself of everything. Lately I’ve been feeling that all the things that exist in the world simply out of habit annoy me and make me itch and scratch.”

“So you walked for six hours. That’s it?”

“Six hours, Faris! Six hours! I remember one time, it was a clear winter day and I wanted to walk to the grocery store. You acted as if I was about to bring on a scandal. I’ll drive you, you said. I was unable to walk for ten minutes, and yesterday . . . yesterday I just walked, I walked for six hours, and there was the sea and the horizon and the oil tankers exporting petrol so that we can import it back again. That’s a funny story. But what matters, Faris, is that I walked, for six hours, as if I were trying to catch up with what I’d missed out on. Then I wondered what those ten days of running away had done to me. I’m turning into a street cat. I explore the sidewalk and dig in the beaches and roam at night and I remember you. I think about your Dunhill cologne and your Adidas deodorant, the heat of your hand and the roughness of the sole of your foot when you rub it against my leg before you sleep. I remember the scent of your cigarettes and your shirt buttons, half of which are missing and half of which are still fastened, precisely like our marriage, and I feel for the first time in ten days that I love you.”

“So . . . you’re coming back?”

“No. I love you more when you’re not around. Yesterday I decided to hold on to this love. I like it. I’m not saying that to convince you of the value of our marriage, but of the rightness of our divorce. Only thinking about divorce gives me a chance to see you like this, relieved of our relationship, and to have thoughts of missing you.”

“You’re talking like a crazy person again.”

“You have no right to talk about me that way. What I’m saying makes sense; it just doesn’t really resemble what the mothers and fathers and ancestors whose fists control our lives down to the last centimeter would say. If divorce is going to make me capable of love and smiling and walking for six hours . . . then it’s the best thing that can happen to me.”

“What about me? Do you think I’m going to call you up one day to enumerate the merits of divorce, extol its features and tell you it’s the best thing that has happened in my life?”

“I can’t stay in a marriage I don’t want to be in out of pity.”

“I think you have a duty to come back so we can solve our marital differences like grown-ups.”

“You’re wasting your time with me. You can be happier with another woman. And I . . . I’m very happy with my ability to remember the buttons on your shirt and your smile, and this is the most you’re going to get from a woman like me.”

“I don’t want another woman. It’s not that simple. You’re acting like you’re exchanging a shirt. I’ve gotten used to you and I like having you in my life, but it seems a poet like you can’t appreciate these feelings.”

“I’m trying to be fair, and to be fair to myself first of all. I can’t give you anything, and you in turn can rob me of everything. I don’t want you. I can’t be your wife.”

“I’m trying to come up with solutions while you’re focused on destroying all possibilities of reconciliation.”

“What about what I want? A divorce, anything! Why do you leave what I want out of the equation as if it doesn’t mean anything to you? Did my desires ever mean anything to you? What about my desire to make my own decisions about things that affect me?”

“This is a technical matter. I’m your legal guardian.”

“If this is marriage then I don’t want it.”

“But this is marriage, Fatima, and we can’t change the world’s rules.”

“I don’t want to change the world’s rules. I don’t want the world’s rules to rob me of what I have left. As for you, I am certain you’ll come across a thousand suitable women. I wish you luck.”

“Wait . . .”

“Goodbye.”

“Fatima, Saqr is sick.”

“What did you say?”

“He lost his vision in one eye. He wants you to visit him.”

“Saqr lost his vision?”

“It’s the diabetes.”