Tomorrow morning’s the divorce hearing at the Palace of Justice. That’s all I know. I haven’t dared ask my dad about the details. I know he wasn’t happy about this marriage, and deep down I’ll bet he’s glad I’m getting divorced. At the same time, I know I’ve embarrassed him before society and his associates in the national companies they’ve fought so proudly to incorporate since being liberated from the French mandate. He’s bound to these people not only by ties of friendship, but also by the interests of fledgling corporations allied with the Quartet Company, most of which is owned by Waseem’s family. Basically everybody in both his family and mine was sure the marriage would fall apart once the flame of teenage romance had died down and the magic carpet had brought us down to earth again.
To my chagrin, I’ve discovered that society’s verdicts aren’t always stupid after all. When I fell in love, I was sure the whole world was wrong, and that I alone knew what reality and love were. But now, all I know is that I want to be unshackled from this marriage. There’s no harm in my admitting that I made a mistake and that I want to correct it. All that matters now is to let go of my pride and make a new start.
Zain paced the balcony. Why is Najati so late? He promised to come by so that we could talk about tomorrow. It’s the day I’ve dreamed of for so long, yet now that it’s almost here, my knees are wobbly, I’m so scared.
She knew her father hated talking about the issue, and she didn’t blame him, which was why she’d hired Najati, an old friend of the family’s and her father’s one-time partner. She called Najati’s house to find out what had kept him. No answer. I know this is the first divorce in the Khayyal family. No woman in the clan has ever had the nerve to insist on marrying a man because she was in love with him and then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, to insist on divorcing him a year later because she couldn’t stand him anymore. No woman in all Ziqaq Al Yasmin has ever dared say, “I’m in love.” When a neighbor girl did that some time back, her mother put a hot coal on her tongue. Well, I committed the same sin that girl did, and now I’m committing a second one: getting divorced. I feel so sorry for Fadila, who gave in and let Mutaa put that ring on her finger!
In need of moral support and wanting to know what awaited her the following day, Zain tried calling Najati again. When his wife answered the telephone, she told Zain that he’d been invited to a book-signing event by a well-known author. “Everybody’s who’s anybody in the literary world will be there. Aren’t you going, too?” That author is so inundated by admirers, he won’t even notice if Najati didn’t show up. As for me, I’m lonely, I’m worried to death, and I need him, damn it!
Crestfallen, Zain hung up and went back to pacing the balcony. She decided she would have to face the next day on her own, unarmed outside and inside.
Her father came out and asked, “Would you like me to go with you tomorrow?”
There was nothing she would have liked more. But a voice inside said, Let him be. You’ve put him through enough as it is.
“No, dad,” she told him. “Najati will be there, and we’ll be just fine!”
She could feel her father heaving a silent sigh of relief.
“All right, then,” he said. “I’ll be turning in early, since I’ve got briefs to file in several different courts tomorrow.”
What she hadn’t said was: I really do want you to go with me tomorrow, and I know you’re afraid I’ll change my mind. You’re going to bed to escape your worries, but you might not sleep a wink. You’ll just turn off the light and try not to think about how rash I can be!
At that moment a flame was ignited in Zain’s heart. I’m going to take hold of my life without anybody’s help. I’m not going to let anybody interfere in my decisions or even listen to anybody’s opinion unless I’ve asked for advice.
When Zain went to bed, she slept fitfully, dreaming off and on. When she couldn’t sleep, she journaled. The strong woman that lived inside her wrote about how happy she was that her father had decided not to go with her to the courtroom. Zain told herself that if she’d known how to go through the divorce procedures on her own, she wouldn’t even have let Najati come with her. Several times on the same page she wrote, “I want to take hold of my life. I want to own my own destiny. I don’t want to depend on anybody but myself. I want the right to make mistakes the way men in Ziqaq Al Yasmin do, and the right to correct them without everybody else getting all bent out of shape over it.” She wrote herself to sleep, her owl cooing in her ear.
The morning of the big day finally arrived. A hard-hearted winter had wounded Damascus with its snows, and in through the window wafted the fragrances of a warm, long-awaited spring.
Despite her restless sleep the night before, Zain was alert and ready to go, like a slave on the day of her release.
One night I was staying late at the library getting ready for final exams. The winter winds were blowing wildly outside, making a sound somewhere between a howl and a scream. I sat down in the only vacant seat at a large table next to the window. As I was studying, a car pulled up outside with its radio blasting. An exquisite, captivating voice crooned, “We’ll come back some day to our neighborhood and walk down memory lane! However long we’re apart, no matter the distance, we’ll be back, the nightingale told me on the morning when we met at the bend.” Then all of a sudden, I saw Waseem’s face peering in through the window. He was spying on me even though I’d announced that I was leaving him.
He gestured for me to come outside. I was about to turn my back to him and just go on with my work. But then I remembered that my intention wasn’t to defy him or provoke him. All I wanted was to divorce him and never see him again as long as I lived. So I got up and left the library for fear that if I didn’t, he might come in. I didn’t want a repeat of the scandalous, violent behavior he’d exhibited one day when he came to my dad’s house shouting, “She’s coming back home with me right this minute. Otherwise, I’ll force her back, and I’ll take a second wife!”
He was waiting for me at the campus gate with a bundle of thunderbolts in his hand. I was relieved, since loud ruckuses don’t scare me. What scares me is the sound of silence, and luckily for me, silence was a language he didn’t know anything about. He opened the door to a fancy new car. “Get in,” he barked. As I got into what felt like my coffin, I didn’t say a word, and neither did he. He just got in after me and took off like a madman. He drove us to some dark suburb of Damascus and pulled over in front of a cemetery wall.
“Get out,” he commanded. I got out of the car and asked him calmly, “What are we doing here?” Aiming a revolver at me, he pushed me over to the wall as though it were an execution platform and said, “This is the Husni Al Za`im Cemetery. And if you refuse to come back to me, you’ll be buried here, too.”
I don’t know what crazy place it came from, but I heard a voice burst out laughing. “What makes you think you can bring a dead love back to life?” I asked him. “What’s past is past, and that’s that.”
Then he shot at me. I don’t know whether he aimed and missed, or whether he’d just meant to scare me into submission. I suspect it was the latter. In any case, his plan failed. I took off running but he didn’t try to catch me. And when I flagged down a passing car, he just stood there in a daze—confused and half-terrorized by a woman who was so determined to be rid of him that she’d rather die a real death than endure the figurative death of a marriage devoid of love and respect.
The car stopped.
“What’s going on?” asked the driver.
“Sorry,” I said. “My car’s broken down. Could you take me to the Qasr Al Dhiyafa Hotel, Abu Rummana, Parliament Street, or Baghdad Street?”
“Get in,” he said. The woman in the passenger’s seat, who appeared to be his wife, looked at me suspiciously.
“What brings you here?” she asked coarsely.
“Well, whatever brought you here!” I retorted.
Her husband laughed, and she shot me a nasty look. I didn’t say anything the rest of the way even though the husband probed me for details about my situation. I remembered the guy who had given me a ride to the clinic in the village of Rayhaniya the day my cousin shot me. My cousin had pretended to be shooting at a sparrow. Luckily his hand was shaky, but he did manage to wound me. This was after he killed my owl and left it on my bed as a warning. All this had been his way of punishing me for publishing something I’d written in the Readers’ Mail column with my picture beside it. What scandalous behavior!
For a minute there I was afraid the couple might try to kidnap me. So, why not tell them what I’d been doing outside a cemetery in the pitch dark? I mean, people are usually kidnapped because they’re rich or influential. But what was there to prevent them from kidnapping me out of curiosity—just to get me to tell them my life story, which was a pretty long one? I was old enough to drive myself by this time, but all that really mattered to me was to drive the car of my life. And that was exactly what I intended to do once we finally had our divorce hearing. It was just that my husband had been trying all the stubborn antics he could think of to keep it from happening.
Realizing she probably hadn’t slept well, Zain’s father came knocking on her door. When she was ready to leave the house, he said solicitously, “I’ll go with you.”
“I told you I didn’t want you to,” she assured him earnestly. “I want to depend on myself and correct my mistakes on my own. Besides, Najati will be waiting for me at the door.”
I stood before the judge as my husband stood next to the exit. I approached the bench without feeling or acting the least bit intimidated. My wings were flapping and about to carry me away. The judge, who looked at me with visible hostility, wore the turban of a religious cleric, which took me by surprise. Maybe that’s the way judges dress in Islamic courts, and I just hadn’t known it. He eyed me with as much appreciation and respect as if I’d been a mosquito on his robe. It reminded me of the fact that when Najati came to pick me up, he’d seemed a bit taken aback to see me leaving the house without a headscarf. Actually, it hadn’t even occurred to me to put one on. He seemed equally surprised at my stylish white dress, which looked like a miniature wedding gown of sorts. Although he didn’t say anything, I got the feeling he was pleased, maybe because, as my aunt had mentioned once, he was “a Communist.” Gee whiz!
“Where is your legal guardian?” the judge asked me.
Najati had instructed me to keep my mmouth shut and let him answer. But the question riled me up so much that I blurted out, “I’m my own legal guardian, and I want a divorce.”
“I didn’t hear what you said,” the judge replied, his voice as frigid as a surgeon’s scalpel.
“Your Honor,” Najati interjected, “Her father, who is her legal guardian, has given me power of attorney.”
As if speaking to me directly would have sullied his tongue, the judge instructed Najati to tell me that I would have to waive all financial demands of my husband should he agree to divorce me. Turning to look behind me, I looked daggers at my husband as if to say: If you don’t, I’ll spread secrets about you that you aren’t going to like one bit!
“I agree,” he declared with the laconic good manners of a gentleman. With a nod to my husband, the judge concluded the matter with a speed that astounded me.
I made no objection when the judge had Najati sign the document before I did, and as I exited the courtroom, I didn’t look back. All I wanted was to get out of the building and leave it behind. I’d gone by the Palace of Justice countless times as a girl when my father would take me to visit my aunt in the Halabouni neighborhood behind the Hejaz Station. But now it was associated with a different kind of memory, the kind I didn’t care to hold onto.
At the door Najati said to me affectionately, “Congratulations on your divorce. You fought for it with everything you had. Would you like me to take you home?”
“No, thanks,” I replied. “I’d like to walk. But thanks again.”
I came up to him and was about to plant a kiss on his forehead the way I’d always done when I was a little girl. But he pulled away in embarrassment. Looking uneasily this way and that, he said, “God be with you,” and got hurriedly into his car. Then he drove away as though he were fleeing from a woman headed for perdition.
As I crossed the street, I glimpsed the man who’d just divorced me—or, rather, the man I’d just divorced—coming in my direction. It was over. I had a lump in my throat, and an ache in my heart. I was going to miss his uncle the wonderful poet, his parents, his brothers and sisters, his aunts, and his nieces and nephews. But I had to put all that behind me now.
I clicked down the sidewalk in my spiky white high heels. With every step I took, I dug them into the pavement in a declaration of resolve. I kept walking without a glance in his direction. It was over. I passed the Hejaz Station, whose big nonfunctional clock was a telling reminder of the way time in my city had come to a standstill.
After turning a corner and heading down another street, I paused on the bridge that spanned the Barada River, kissed the water with my spirit, and continued toward Uncle Abu Umar’s Sweets Shop, which sold hard candies, chocolates and pastries. Whenever my dad and I visited the store when I was little, the shop owner would pick me up and stuff my mouth with candy. When he saw me this time, though, he looked the other way. Had I grown up so much that he didn’t recognize me? Or was he angry with me because I’d had the cheek to marry somebody my father didn’t approve of?
She passed the Brazil Café on the other side of the street. When she came to The Havana, the aroma of coffee accosted her from a table on the sidewalk. She was in the mood for a cup of coffee, and she had enough money with her to buy one. She quietly took a seat at an unoccupied table. As she sat down, she could have sworn she saw a man at the next table sewing his mouth shut with a needle and thread. Meanwhile, the wall next to her table seemed to be sprouting huge red ears that resembled flesh-eating plants, and that gave off the same fetid odor.
She couldn’t help but notice that she was the only woman in the cafe. The waiter came up with a bewildered look on his face. The whole place went quiet. Some of the customers who’d been playing backgammon dropped what they were doing to stare, and Zain held her breath. They’re probably thinking: Who does she think she is? How dare a girl come and sit down in here?
A few minutes later, who should she see walking toward her table but Ghazwan, who’d been hanging out with some friends there that day. Oh, God, he’s coming this way, and he’s looking straight at me! Hailing her enthusiastically, he said, “Well, hello there! If it isn’t the Subki Park girl! It’s so good to see you again! I must have missed you when you came back out of the pharmacy that day. Or did you run away from me?”
Zain couldn’t help but feel happy to see him standing there with his cheerful face and that gorgeous dimpled chin of his, so deep she was sure she could drown in it. She wished she could tell him everything that had happened to her since the day she’d seen him in Subki Park. But she’d been learning the language of silence. The sight of him put a smile of genuine contentment on her face.
“May I?” he asked with his accustomed gentility as he pulled out a chair.
“Be my guest,” she replied.
Without further ado, he asked, “Who are you? What’s your name? You look like the budding author Zain Khayyal, whose picture I’ve been seeing in the newspapers. Is that you?”
“And what difference does it make what my name is?” she asked. “Either way, I’m somebody who wants to take hold of her life and find her wings. And I didn’t get those words from some textbook, or from a story you published in The Critic magazine!”
He gave her a look that bathed her in affection, but she decided not to believe it, especially when she remembered that she’d gotten divorced less than an hour before.
It’s weird. I seem to bump into him whenever I’m at a crossroads in my life. The first time was after my abortion, and now I see him again after my divorce. What’s going on? Is he fate in the flesh? Well, whatever he is, I’m not going to fall for him! I’m not going to go plunging to my death in those amorous glances, or lose my head over that sweet, handsome face or those mysterious, grotto-deep eyes. No way. I’m running back to the safety of my papers and pens.
“Would you like another cup of coffee?” he asked. To her consternation, she heard herself say, “Yes, I would!” She didn’t approve of this new rebelliousness in her senses, and she was determined to suppress it with the lance of her pen, which could numb her like opium compliments of the poet Coleridge.5 Never again am I going to let romantic love debase me or rob me of my sense of direction.
So, the moment the second cup of coffee arrived, she shot out of her seat.
“Goodbye,” she said, and headed for the door without waiting for a reply.
He ran after her while the other customers at The Havana sat transfixed by the peculiar scene.
“What do you say we start over by me inviting you for a cup of coffee at The Brazilia across the street?” Ghazwan suggested.
She wanted desperately to say yes, but didn’t dare let herself. I could easily fall in love with this guy, and I’ve got to get away from him. But why should she fall in love with him? All she knew about him was that he was a good-looking Palestinian who’d written wonderful lines that she’d read in a newspaper somewhere. He was also the super-sensitive type and a bit of a crazy, and they were on the same wavelength. You crazy woman. You thought the very same things about somebody else once, and today you’re secretly celebrating your divorce! Are you looking for more misery? Have you already forgotten how much you went through?
“No, thank you,” she said with all the strength she could muster. “I have to go now.” It was as if the voice she spoke with came from somewhere deep inside her, but wasn’t really hers. Either that, or she’d turned into a rational, level-headed woman who contemplated both herself and everything around her fairly and impartially, unmoved by the logic of tears or sentimental chatter. Supposing he is the right man, then he’s the right man at the wrong time.
She felt a headache coming on, and decided to take refuge in an aspirin pill.
“I need to go to the Kaddurah Pharmacy,” she said faintly.
“Okay,” he agreed. “I’ll take you there, even though I know you’ll disappear on me again! But I’m going to repeat my request: Will you marry me, little girl whose name I don’t know?” When does he ask me to marry me? Right after I’ve had an abortion, or right after I’ve gotten divorced. He really is the master of bad timing!
Zain burst out laughing. Then, as he and the waiter were settling the tab, she ran out and jumped into the first taxi she could find.
When she got to the house, she didn’t find her father. In fact, nobody seemed to be home. Maybe he wanted to avoid a confrontation. The empty house came as a happy relief, since what she needed most right then was a tryst with a blank sheet of paper where she could scribble down mysterious symbols that only she could decipher.
She made her way to her father’s pistachio-green library, the room where she had once fused passionately with her then-beloved while everyone else in the house was asleep. This then-beloved was the person she had divorced today with the passion of a bright spring morning, washing her hands of all that was past. Seated at her father’s desk with a sweetheart who had never betrayed her—her pen—she fused anew with a blank sheet of paper.
She sat writing reflections that had nothing to do with the details of the day’s events or the painful loss of her ex-husband. She wrote instead about the pain of having lost herself, about her human weakness and her mistakes. It was as if she were writing herself back into existence. She whispered to the paper, “Other people are me, too.”
Suddenly she heard her father saying, “Where have you been?! I looked for you at the Palace of Justice and all the way back to the house. And I called you after I got back.”
“Sorry, Baba!” she said in earnest apology. “My mind was somewhere else.”
“Najati told me how you defied the judge.”
“Well,” she said truthfully, “I didn’t mean to. Anyway, that’s all in the past now, and I’m trying to make a new start. A chapter of my life has ended, and I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” Her father heaved a sigh of relief. He didn’t want to reopen old wounds any more than she did.
When Zain went to bed that night and escaped through a hole in her pillow into her secret little world, she was greeted by Ghazwan’s extraordinary face. His eyes radiated affection, sorrow and determination. She thought back on how he had been about to drive her for the second time to the Kaddura Pharmacy to see whether she would run away from him again, and how she’d made her getaway even before he’d expected her to.
* * *
If it weren’t for my poor health, there’s no way I’d let my daughters leave the house to work at the brocade shop. People say I’ve lost my mind, and maybe I have, since I don’t remember anything from those years when God punished me for what I did to Hind.
Abdulfattah didn’t like the idea of his daughters working in his big Damascene brocade store. There’d been a change in Hamida and Fadila, and it bothered him. They weren’t tame anymore the way women are supposed to be. There was something about them now that reminded him of his brother’s late wife Hind, who had left behind a demon by the name of Zain. Yet despite his misgivings about his daughters’ new role, he’d started to enjoy staying home, a fact he blamed on the medicines his doctor had prescribed. He liked spending his days in the big house in Ziqaq Al Yasmin. He sat cross-legged on a stone bench beneath a dome covered with inscriptions and cornices. The bench was spread with a rug, and his back was supported by cushions along the wall behind him. He loved listening to the murmur of the water as it flowed down from the courtyard’s elevated fountain inlaid with marble mosaic. Ensconced there holding his prayer beads, he bathed in the fragrances that wafted from planters filled with white jasmine, honeysuckle and basil. From the time he’d been accused of causing Hind’s death, his condition had gone from bad to worse. He’d refused to call a doctor to examine her because that would have meant letting a strange man see her body. As a result, she’d bled to death under the midwife’s inadequate care. I regret that. No, I don’t. Yes, I do. No, I don’t. Yes, I do. No…
He hated the sound of the phone ringing, and Fadila wasn’t answering it. She was busy getting ready to go to work. So Buran answered instead. Fadila could hear her mother giving some caller an extraordinary welcome, and she knew that slimy Mutaa must be on the line. The conversation went on longer than usual. The mother called Fadila. Then, covering the receiver with her hand she crooned happily, “The signing of the marriage contract is scheduled for Friday, and the wedding will be a week after that at the Orient Palace Hotel. So put on your dancing shoes! It’s going to be an amazing wedding, and they’re covering the whole thing, even though it’s usually the bride’s family that pays. Anyway, you talk to him. His mother wants to see you at her house. She’s been sick, and Mutaa says she has something she wants to talk to you about.”
The mother shoved the receiver into her daughter’s hand. As she took it, Fadila felt as though she were holding an adder that was about to bite her. The voice she detested (and which her family adored) came over the line saying, “My mom’s sick, so she can’t come visit you. But she’d like to talk to you and bless our marriage. I’ll pass by your workplace this afternoon and the driver will take us to the house. My mother has something important she wants to tell you about. It concerns me, of course, and I think it has to do with my habits, what foods I like and don’t like, that sort of thing. I’m sure you won’t mind spending some time with a mother who’s been sick, but who’s happy to be marrying her son off.”
Fadila chafed at the phrase, “marrying her son off.” After all, she was a person in her own right, with her own plans, who might not marry him after all. In fact, she’d told Mutaa more than once that she didn’t love him and wasn’t going to marry him. The first time she’d said it was the day when the families had recited the Fatihah.6 As far as she was concerned, they might as well have been reciting it over her grave! When, later on the same day, she’d told him she was in love with somebody else, it seemed to inflame his love for her like never before. When she told Zain about this, Zain warned her that what had been inflamed wasn’t love, but the desire to possess. Zain had gone on to add that women rarely know how to distinguish between these two, and that they pay dearly for it.
After hearing Fadila’s declaration, Mutaa had asked her with a mixture of sarcasm and apprehension, “So who is this gentleman you’ve set your heart on?”
“He’s a school teacher, and a poet.”
“Ah!” he replied mockingly, “So let him try paying the rent and the water and electricity bills with those marvelous poems of his!” Then, looking at the diamond ring he’d given her, he added, “And let him give you a ring made from the jewels of meter and rhyme!”
She hadn’t answered. She was too overwhelmed. She was stuck between a rock and a hard place—the rock of her family, and the hard place of this allegedly ideal groom.
No sooner had Fadila reached the shop than Mutaa started barraging her with telephone calls. He told her his mother was so sick she might not even live long enough to attend the marriage contract signing ceremony. Fadila didn’t remind him that she didn’t intend to go through with the ceremony anyway, and that the only reason she was coming was to honor an ailing woman who was hoping to see her son get married.
He showed up in his luxury car and the driver got out to open the door for her, but Mutaa, wanting to make a show of “honoring” her, beat him to it. Climbing into the car like somebody getting into her own coffin, Fadila felt alternately curious and reluctant. In the elderly driver’s eyes, she detected a look she didn’t know how to interpret. It seemed to convey a mixture of guarded warning, fear, and pity. It was the first time she had ever been inside Mutaa’s ornate villa on Qusur Street. With its opulent Western-style décor—from the elevator, to the posh European furniture, to the glistening crystal chandeliers with their dazzling moonlike glow—the place was in stark contrast to the large but modest dwelling in Ziqaq Al Yasmin. He took her coat, and she secured her headscarf around her face and neck. Then, in the monotone of a tourist guide, he launched into a bland description of their surroundings: “This chandelier is from Venice, the wall hanging is a French Aubusson tapestry, the lamps are made from Sèvres and Galéa porcelain, and all of them are from Parisian flea markets. The vase had been stolen from the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, but it was so beautiful, my dad couldn’t resist buying it. The chairs are Louis XV from Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, my dad bought the paintings at an auction, and …”
Weary of his braggadocio, Fadila broke in petulantly, “But your walls are made of cement, while ours were built from stone like the Umayyad Mosque and the Church of St. Paul. Besides, the pond in your courtyard doesn’t have any goldfish in it, and you don’t have any jasmine trellises. You also don’t have a wall fountain in your bay room …”
Interrupting her with a raucous laugh, he said, “Don’t worry! You’ll learn to love my things, and me, too!”
“Maybe,” she conceded, her tone still defiant, “but I’ll still go on loving the things I love.” Then she added curtly, “So, why don’t you take me to see your mother. Didn’t you say she wanted to speak with me?”
“Oh, of course. I’ll even carry you to her!”
With that, he came over to her, his nostrils flaring, his breathing loud and accelerated. Before she knew it, he had picked her up, only to slam her down on the floor. Dazed, she had no idea what was happening. He’d turned into a crazed rhinoceros. He butted her red dress, ripping off its buttons and tearing her underwear. Then he proceeded to bite her and thrust his horn between her breasts. He butted her here, there and everywhere. Then, his horn longer than ever, he rammed her in her feminine part. She cried out in pain. He dug his horn in deeper, as if her cry had sent him into the throes of ecstasy. She tried to resist, but the rhino crouched over her with his tremendous weight, leaving her paralyzed. He pumped his horn in and out, in and out like someone stabbing a body with a knife over and over in the same spot. She screamed in agony, but no sound came out, as he held her mouth shut with his foreleg until she could hardly breathe. As the rhino kept stabbing harder and harder in a frenzy of fiendish pleasure, she suddenly realized she had nothing on but her headscarf.
She heard the excited animal letting out a sound that made her pain all the worse: “Ah… ah… ah!” A few seconds, or minutes, later, she heard Mutaa snarl, “Instead of enjoying my body, you fainted, you bitch. Well, at least I know now that you were a virgin! Don’t worry. We’ll sign the marriage contract the day after tomorrow. But this is what you get for having the nerve to say you don’t want to marry me! I own you now, and I give the orders. After all, nobody else would want you anymore. You’ve spent the last few months being a spoiled smart-ass and insulting my manhood. So now it’s time for you to kiss my feet and beg me to take care of you. And if anybody finds out you’re not a virgin, I’ll say I don’t know anything about this. Maybe it was that worthless sweetheart of yours, the poet and school teacher Najm, who took advantage of you.”
“So where’s your mother?” Fadila asked, trembling from head to toe. “Didn’t you say she wanted to see me?”
“Oh, that!” he sneered. “My mother’s in Bloudan getting the house ready! Did you really believe she wanted to talk to you?!”
His words dug deep into her flesh, but even then she didn’t comprehend their implications. Her only concern now was to tell Najm what had happened, then go home and take a long, long bath.
Shattered, she went out to the car alone. Mutaa didn’t even do her the courtesy of escorting her to the car, much less open the door for her and accompany her back to her house. The driver’s face registered no surprise. He seemed to be accustomed to the sight of wretched, weeping women. As for her, she didn’t shed a tear. She decided she’d have to stand on her own two feet the way Zain had advised her to do after getting the divorce she was so proud of. She headed home prepared to face her fate alone.
“Could you stop in front of a shop somewhere?” she asked the driver in a tremulous voice. “I need to make a phone call.”
“As you wish, Miss,” he replied, his solicitous tone betraying a hint of disdain.
The shopkeeper asked her to pay for the phone call beforehand and insisted on dialing the number himself to make sure it wasn’t long-distance.
The telephone rang in Najm’s house. “Please answer!” she thought desperately. “Please!” Then the miracle happened. She heard his voice over the receiver.
“Hello?” That one word was the lifeline she needed.
“Could you meet me in front of Bakdash Ice Cream Parlor in ten minutes?” she asked hurriedly. “It’s urgent.”
“I’ll be there,” he replied.
Fadila asked Mutaa’s driver to take her to the entrance of Souq Al Hamidiya. Since the car wouldn’t be able to make its way down the crowded, winding roofed-in street, she got out and walked the rest of the way to their meeting place. She could hardly believe how much pain she was in. She felt a warm liquid, which she realized was probably blood, running down her thighs, and that scared her. As she approached the ice cream parlor she could hear the clip-clap, clip-clap of the giant wooden paddles in the vats of ice cream. It was a familiar, nostalgic sound that brought tears to her eyes. Or am I crying about something else? When she arrived, Najm stood waiting for her. Without wasting a moment, she proceeded to tell him her story, her face drenched in tears. “Mutaa raped me so that I’d have to go through with the wedding. He said now I’d kiss his feet and beg him to marry me!”
She nearly rested her head on Najm’s shoulder. But like him, she knew they were surrounded by prying eyes. Doing his best to calm her, he said simply, “I’ll marry you. I love you. I really do. In my eyes you’re still pure as pure can be, and he’s a filthy whore. The monster.” She was amazed to hear him call Mutaa a monster, since that’s exactly what he had acted like.
She wished she could give him a big hug, but they were right in the middle of the crowded marketplace, so she contented herself with a look that told him how she felt.
“Our love isn’t just a physical thing. What matters most to me is your spirit, your determination, your courage.”
Fadila felt a sudden pang of hesitation. She remembered that Najm belonged to a certain political party. So, might he turn her into a martyr for some ideological cause as a way of spiting others? Or did he really love her? For the first time she felt sure that the phrase “happy ending” didn’t necessarily apply to real life, and that she might be jumping out of one trap and straight into another.
As she stood miserably under the spray of water in their ancient bathroom, whose shower consisted of an unsightly pipe installed on the wall, she thought to herself. For all I know, Najm will turn out to be a “monster” too. I’ve got to be careful about everything. I’ve got to stand on my own two feet, and not go crying on somebody’s shoulder about what somebody else did to me when the person whose shoulder I’m crying on might be even worse that the person who hurt me in the first place. As a girl who’s only semi-pretty and semi-successful, I’ve got to learn to depend on myself. At the same time, I don’t want to judge Najm unfairly. I want to give him a chance.
* * *
Zain was getting ready for work when the telephone rang. Her grandmother answered. It was one of Zain’s maternal aunts in Latakia.
“Did he really divorce you?” she wanted to know.
“I’m the one who divorced him!” Zain corrected her.
“Why?” asked the aunt. “Weren’t you madly in love with him? What happened?”
Not knowing where to start, Zain stammered, “Well, because…”
Grandma Hayat snatched the receiver and, covering it with her hand, whispered with an unaccustomed imperiousness, “Just say, ‘It wasn’t meant to be!’”
Zain, who adored her grandmother, repeated parrot-like, “It wasn’t meant to be, Auntie.”
After hanging up, Zain asked, “Why do I have to keep saying that even now that the divorce is over? Why don’t I just tell people the truth and be done with it?”
Grandma Hayat, whom Zain viewed as a repository of the most ancient and revered wisdom, said, “Listen, sweetie. Nobody’s interested in hearing the truth, or what really happened to you. They’re not even interested in knowing whether you were right or wrong. All they want is some juicy gossip for next month’s reception. If you want everybody in town to know your secrets, just make your aunts or your girlfriends promise not to tell anybody what you’ve told them. You don’t know what people are like, Zain. So don’t get mad at me for saying this. Just remember how in love you were with your husband, and how you discovered later that he wasn’t what you thought he was.”
Zain couldn’t object to what her grandmother had said. All right then, nobody’s ever going to know why I divorced him—not even Grandma!
Once again the telephone started howling for attention. Her grandmother answered while Zain sidled up to her to listen in. This time it was a maternal uncle of Zain’s in Latakia. When he asked for Zain, Grandma Hayat fibbed, “She’s not home. She’s got an exam at the university.”
Zain was amazed to see what an accomplished liar her pious grandmother was! But she made no objection.
The uncle shouted over the phone, “Tell Zain her mother Hind was a rose that left a thorn behind!” Then he slammed down the receiver.
Zain was equally amazed to hear her uncle describe her mother as a “rose.” She knew how furious he’d been with her when she left her aristocratic father’s estate in Latakia, hopped on a bus and took off for Damascus to teach French in the National School, where she lived in a residence hall. According to Zain’s father, her mother Hind had left the estate on a white horse, though in her dreams it was always a reddish color. She also dreamed about an owl escorting her mother gently away.
“Oh,” Zain said suddenly to her grandmother, “I forgot to tell you: Juhaina’s coming for a visit this evening after I get home from work.” Juhaina Asiri! The little girl Hind brought with her from Latakia to help her with the housework when she got married. She and Zain grew up together, and I used to take care of both of them. I do love her, but…
Grandma Hayat hadn’t liked the Asiri family, whose venerable old house in Ziqaq Al Yasmin had been fancier than the Khayyal home. Some people even said it was nicer than Azm Palace. In Hayat’s opinion, though, none of the houses around the Umayyad Mosque was anything compared to the mosque itself. She felt guilty about it, but she disliked the Asiri family because one of its members had married the daughter of a Turkish pasha. He thought he was a big shot after that, and his wife acted as if none of the neighbor ladies was good enough for her. The women of the neighborhood were in general agreement that when Ido Asiri, the pasha’s daughter’s only son, fell in love with the Khayyal family’s servant girl Juhaina, this was God’s way of punishing the Asiri family for being such highfalutin snobs.
When Juhaina told Grandma Hayat that her father-in-law was going to give her and her son ownership of the Asiri family dwelling, Hayat had already heard the news. Wanting to make sure it was true, she cautioned Juhaina, saying, “He can’t put more than a third of the property in your name, since he’s a Sunni Muslim. Besides, your husband Ido is also an heir to the house, and he’s taken another wife.”
“That’s true,” Juhaina admitted. “But since he’s making me and my son owners of the house while he’s still alive, the Islamic inheritance laws won’t apply.”
After a brief pause, she added, “Please don’t tell the other neighbor ladies. I want to keep it a secret.”
“Well,” Zain said, laughing, “good luck with that! The news is already out. There’s no such thing as a well-kept secret in Ziqaq Al Yasmin.”
Zain silently gloated to hear people say with obvious envy, “The Khayyal family’s servant girl Juhaina (the ‘cow girl,’ as her mother-in-law referred to her disparagingly) owns the Asiri mansion now!”
All sorts of explanations were put forward for this bizarre turn of events. Some people said the girl’s father-in-law was in love with her. Others concluded that Juhaina must have slipped some sort of amulet inside her father-in-law’s pillow, since otherwise, how could he have gone from hating her to being putty in her hands?
After being sold by her father to Zain’s mother Hind when she was just nine years old, Juhaina had developed into a woman of strength and stunning beauty. The neighborhood boys who hovered around her said she looked just like Sophia Loren, except that Juhaina was prettier.
One of the lessons Grandma Hayat had drilled into Juhaina after Hind died was, “A secret heard is a secret kept.” Unfortunately, there was no such thing as keeping a secret in Ziqaq Al Yasmin.
And of course, she wasn’t trying to keep any secrets when she scandalized her husband by doing a lurid dance at his wedding to his second wife! That same night, Juhaina found her father-in-law lying half-buried in a rare crop of snow that had blanketed the entire courtyard. She was stunned at the sight. Here, sprawled helpless before her—alone and at her mercy—was the man who, with his wife “the pasha’s daughter,” had never once treated her with the respect she deserved as his daughter-in-law and the mother of his grandchild.
This was the night when Ido would take his second wife, the daughter of an influential merchant. Her mother-in-law, the pasha’s daughter, had gone to the wedding out of sheer spite. As a matter of fact, Juhaina herself had been about to leave for the wedding, where she planned to perform her special dance of revenge. She could dance better than Tahiya Kariouka and Samia Jamal, as all the women in the neighborhood could attest.
But just as she was on her way to crash the wedding party with her little boy in tow, what should she find but the man who had made her life hell lying on the courtyard floor and struggling like a cockroach on its back. She could easily have pretended not to have seen him and left him for dead. And the thought did occur to her. It also occurred to her father-in-law as he gazed up at her in terror. But she didn’t have the heart. So she picked him up and carried him to his bed. She saved his life even though she expected nothing from him but more insults and abuse the next morning.
The suffering Zain and Juhaina had been through together as little girls after Hind’s death had forged an unbreakable bond between them. I’m proud of having taught her to read and write, although I did it without really trying. I would just come home from school and share with her whatever I’d learned that day!
After Juhaina’s visit, Grandma Hayat remarked, “Even the sweetest cowife is a bitter pill to swallow.”
Zain mused, “I remember the night when Juhaina crashed her husband’s wedding party and danced that wild, half-naked dance of hers—which she could get away with since all the guests were women, and the groom was her own husband! And after that women in the neighborhood started rebelling against any husband who had the nerve to take a second wife. Have you noticed that?”
“You’re right,” the grandmother agreed. “They’ve got a deterrent now, don’t they!”
“Juhaina’s managed to change a lot of things around here,” Zain added.
The little cat slipped onto the old woman’s lap. It looked worlds better than it had on the day Zain brought it in from the street. In fact, it was almost beautiful. It was walking better, too. Grandma Hayat began stroking it affectionately, and the cat seemed happy with the pampering it had missed as a kitten.
“By the way,” said the old woman, giggling, “He’s a he, not a she. I’ve named him Haroun!”
* * *
From the time Zain and Waseem were divorced, the phone had been ringing off the hook at her house. People seem to get high off scandals.
Another ring of the phone. Zain jumped up to answer it. I’m not going to use my grandmother as a shield anymore! To her pleasant surprise, the voice she heard was that of Dr. Manahili, who had called to congratulate her on a short story of hers that he’d just read in a Lebanese newspaper. Dr. Manahili had given her a second chance at life, and he knew it. And the fact that he knew this made her happy. He was also the only person who had never said a word about her divorce. So now they were friends who shared a secret. He invited her to have coffee with him in the outdoor café at the foot of Mt. Qasioun. “It’s to the right of the square where you look out over the orchards.”
“Have you invited my dad to come?” she asked.
“Your father hates sitting in coffee shops, even the beautiful ones in Dummar, Hameh, and Al Ayn Al Khadra. When I invite him to spend time with friends in places like that, he always turns me down.”
“Okay,” Zain replied. “I’ll be there after I get off work at five.”
As little Haroun rubbed up against Zain’s legs, Grandma Hayat picked him up and gave him a kiss. My goodness, this little guy has gotten better fast! He walks as well as any other cat now, and now that his coat is nice and clean, you can see what a beautiful face he has. He’s a real character, and he’s developed little rituals of flirtation and playful ways of getting our attention. But he can be fierce, too. When the neighbor lady Fitna tried to pet him the day she’d come to gossip about Zain’s divorce, he pulled away from her. If fact, he scratched her and hissed in her face. And I’m sure Zain feels exactly the same. She doesn’t want to hear another word about her divorce.
* * *
Fadila took another bath the next morning, and this time she nearly scrubbed her skin off. She was desperate to wipe those hoof prints not only off her skin, but out of her memory. The very thought of the bastard made her blood boil, and she wanted the whole world to know how despicable he was. I’m going to tell my family what that son of a bitch did to me. It may be a heavy price to pay to get rid of him and make my family leave me alone, but they’ll hate his guts now. Then they’ll have to open their eyes to what kind of a “groom” he is. My dad will be so mad, he’ll never let him set foot in this house again. No more rolling out the red carpet for him as if he were this one-in-a-million son-in-law that’s going to lay him golden eggs! My dad says things to Mutaa like, “If the ground knew who was walking on it, it would kiss your feet!” My God! It makes me want to puke! And my mother fawns all over him, too. But now they’ll despise him the way I do, and they’ll kick him out. They’re sure to stop pushing me into marrying a man I don’t love. I know I was right to stand up to that horned monster. When he slapped me with his foreleg, that hurt even more than when he slammed his horn into me and stabbed me with it every way he could think of. I resisted, I screamed, I writhed in pain, and he didn’t give a damn. His slaps left visible marks on my cheeks, and pretty soon they’ll start turning black, blue and all shades of hate. I can hide the bruises on my body, but not the ones on my face, or on my soul!
As her parents sat drinking their morning coffee with cardamom pods and rose water, Fadila came in to join them and, in as few words as possible, told them about the incident. “After conning me with a story about how his mom was sick at home and wanted to talk to me, he raped me.”
She expected her father to fly into an indignant rage and call down curses on Mutaa, his father, and all his ancestors. But in a surprise that stung as cruelly as her father’s slaps, he growled, “You should thank your lucky stars, girl. He spoke to me just a little while ago and said he wanted to move up the marriage-contract signing ceremony to tomorrow. So you’d better keep your mouth shut and quit acting like a spoiled brat. Be grateful he’s still willing to marry you! Who else do you suppose would want you now, huh?”
Her mouth gaping in shock, Fadila sputtered, “But he’s the criminal, and I’m the vict…!”
Before she could finish her sentence, her father started calling her names.
For the first time in her life, Fadila interrupted her father: “Najm’s prepared to marry me!” she shouted. “I told him what happened, and he told me to take a bath the way a bride does before her wedding and wash off Mutaa’s filth. He really loves me, and I love him, too!”
This time the father blew his top. “Love, love, love!” he shrieked mockingly. “What’s this stupid nonsense? Ever since Zain got married against the wishes of her father, who got her the poshest trousseau a girl could wish for, all you girls and women in Ziqaq Al Yasmin can talk about is this idiocy. It’s the latest fad. And now Zain’s divorced, trashed like a stray dog, and her picture’s in newspapers and magazines like some nightclub entertainer. For shame!”
“Love isn’t some new fad, Baba. And it isn’t shameful, either! Zain gave me an Arabic translation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, but I can tell you for a fact that it wasn’t Shakespeare who invented romantic love!”
“What would you know? It’s just a new-fangled idea that we’ve got no need for! And I don’t want you seeing that perverted cousin of yours ever again!”
“But no, Baba, you’re wrong. What about Qays and Layla? Kuthair and Azzah? They were all Arabs…”
“And infidels! All of them were dirty infidels! Have some shame and be grateful he still wants to marry you! Now, I don’t want to see you again until the night of the ceremony, you hear? Get out of my face, you filthy good-for-nothing!”
“But I didn’t do anything. He raped me!”
“You’re a dirty slut!”
So she left. It was obvious that trying to talk to her father was a useless proposition. She would never get any support from him for the simple reason that she was a female. When a cat had given birth to a litter of kittens once, he’d thrown the females against the Damascus wall and killed them, but left the males alone.
Agitated, Fadila’s mother came running after her. She’d expected her mother to say something in her defence, or at least to sympathize with her. But before she could say a word, her mother lit into her, crying, “What happened is all your fault!” Then, her voice rising, she went on, “You’re the one who insists on wearing tight clothes and short headscarves instead of putting on the traditional headscarf like the one your grandmother wears, or a three-layered one like mine! You made him rape you, since you got him all stirred up! Girls like you should stay in line so men won’t go wild and do the things they do.”
As if she hadn’t gone on long enough already, the mother added, “Like your father said: Thank your lucky stars he’s going to cover your shame! So cut out this nonsense about wanting to marry some poor wretch named Najm that you say you’re in love with. We’ve had enough of this silly talk about love, sweetheart. Come on now. Pull yourself together. So Mutaa did what he did to you. Even so, he’s an honorable man, and he’s prepared to sign the marriage contract tomorrow. Luckily for you, he’s going to keep you from being scandalized.”
“I don’t love him, and I don’t want to marry him. He’s despicable. And I don’t care what you think! I want to marry the person I’m in love with the way Zain did. You can’t put a hot coal on my tongue the way mothers used to be able to, and neither can any other mother, even in Ziqaq Al Yasmin. Those days are over.”
Fadila looked up and saw the neighbor ladies lining the surrounding rooftops like TV antennas. She knew now that the upcoming reception would be devoted not to gossip about Zain’s divorce but, rather, to the story of how Mutaa had moved the wedding date up by a day and a night. I refuse to go through with this marriage. And if they manage to force me into it, I’ll commit suicide.
“Who can tolerate rebellious women? They should be burned as witches. No woman has been allowed to swerve from the path set out for her by males since ancient times.” Fadila reread these lines from an article Zain had written and given her a copy of. She decided to try to see Zain and tell her what had happened. Then again, she didn’t want advice. All she wanted was a sympathetic ear.
One cloudy morning, Fadila’s sister Hamida announced to her mother, “I’ll be late getting back this evening. I’ve joined the Baath party and they’re having a meeting.”
Buran wouldn’t have dared object to her daughter’s involvement in the Baath Party. It was the ruling party, after all, and she didn’t want to bring trouble on the residents of Ziqaq Al Yasmin. After their mother left the room, Fadila whispered, “Did you mean what you said, or is that just an excuse for coming back late?”
“I don’t know,” Hamida replied truthfully. “All I know is that I want to be free like my brother and his friends. And I really am a Baathist, so just let my brother try beating me again! I might join some other party later on, but until then, I’m going to find a way to command enough respect not to get knocked around anymore, at least.”
* * *
It upset Juhaina that when she visited the Khayyal home, she hadn’t had a chance to be alone with Zain. She wanted to vent to her about the torment she’d been going through every night since her husband took another wife. For weeks now I’ve lain in bed every night trembling with rage. Gone are the nights when I tremble with pleasure the way I used to when he was in love with me. He would whisper louder and louder, “Juhaina, Juju, my life… aah!” Now I have to listen to him pounding his new wife in the next room. I hear the same whispers and moans of ecstasy that used to take me so high I’d nearly pass out on my pillow. Well, all that’s moved to the pillow in my cowife’s room, which is right next to mine. It pains me to think that she actually has a face and a name and that she’s a human being like me, but even though it’s a big house, I can’t avoid passing her in the hallway since our rooms are right next to each other. It’s as if he gets double the pleasure if there’s a woman in the next room who’s hurt by what he’s doing and who knows every little touch she’s missing. For all I know, he’d invite me into their room to watch if he could, since that would take him even higher! Then, if I pounced on him crazed with lust and jealousy, he’d come again, with two women begging for what his body has to give.
This situation had changed around a month earlier, when the despised cowife began showing signs of being pregnant. The moans of ecstasy coming through the bedroom wall began giving way to angry shouts. So delighted was she at their misfortune, Juhaina nearly reached orgasm just listening to them have it out in the next room. The louder they yelled, the higher she went. She launched out alone on dark waters in the vessel of pleasure until, reaching the end of the churning rapids, she came tumbling down a waterfall of warm, delicious froth. Then she drifted off as the sound of their bickering rocked her to sleep. She knew her husband hated pregnant women, since she’d experienced it firsthand herself, and he couldn’t have cared less about a woman after she’d given birth.
This time the argument was about something really trivial, just like the ones she and he had had before. Specifically, it was about an issue that the unemployed Ido, son of the Ottoman pasha’s daughter, deemed of life-and-death importance: the matter of the salt in his food! He started blustering furiously at his new wife for daring to cook rice with just a little salt. She told him she’d done this based on orders from his father and his doctor. His shouts even louder now, he started making fun of the elegant way she had of arranging the dishes on the table.
“Do you think putting the rice in a stupid heart-shaped mold is going to make it taste better?” he asked contemptuously.
When Najwa suggested that he sprinkle more salt on his own plate if he wanted to, he launched into a tirade about how salting food after it’s cooked isn’t the same as salting it while it’s still in the pot. This was the first time I’d ever called my cowife by her name, even in my thoughts.
The next morning as each of the two wives was making her own coffee in the kitchen, the same stupid argument broke out again. Hearing it being repeated all over again made Juhaina sick to her stomach. She was fed up with the spoiled brat who kept a steady stream of idiotic complaints going into Najwa’s ear.
“You lazy bitch, you should cook in two separate pots, one with salt in it for me, and the other without salt for my dad!”
“I can’t,” she told him, maintaining her composure. “I’m tired and I’m having cravings.”
Lighting into her like a crazed bull, he struck her suddenly on the face, sending her reeling to the floor. When she tried to get up, she lost her balance and fell again. Setting aside the food she was preparing for her little boy and the coffee she was making for herself, Juhaina went over to Najwa, held out her hand to her, and lifted her off the floor. Even though short-statured Najwa had taken cover behind Juhaina, Ido managed to hit her a second time. When he moved in for a third blow, Juhaina—both taller and stronger than he was—grabbed him by the arm and hissed, “If you touch her one more time, I’ll break your hand. And you know I’ll do what I say. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, you pitiful little monster?!”
And he knew she meant business. Once he’d hit Juhaina in the face the way he had Najwa, and like Najwa, she’d been sent sprawling to the floor. But Juhaina had gotten up and hit him back as hard as he’d hit her, and then he ended up on the floor. That was when he realized for the first time that her body didn’t exist solely for his enjoyment. She’d dealt him an excruciating blow, and from that day on he hated and feared her. Maybe that was why, when he took another wife, he made sure she was shorter than Juhaina and less capable of defending herself. Striking a woman was, after all, part of the fun. He liked feeling he was stronger than she was and that, unlike his henpecked father, he was the one in control. He’d been confident when Juhaina first came along that he could lord it over her to his heart’s content. But then she’d stood up to him! Not only that, but she’d started coming to her cowife’s defense, and become the owner of the house. God, he hated women!
“Have you lost your mind?” he hissed back. “Have you forgotten the agonized dance you did at her wedding? How can you defend your enemy?”
“It seems my enemy isn’t Najwa, or your father, or even your mother,” replied Juhaina evenly. “It’s you! So why don’t you go find yourself a job and leave us alone? Then go marry a third wife, but don’t bring her to this house. I’ve got your number now, and so does poor Najwa.”
And with that, Juhaina carried her weeping cowife to the bathroom and washed her face for her, saying, “If he hits you again, I’ll break his arm off and make him pick it up himself! If you need anything, I’m right in the next room.”
* * *
After Grandma Hayat had updated Zain on Juhaina’s and Najwa’s news, she remarked, “As I’ve said before, there’s no such thing as a secret around here! The women in the neighborhood are having the time of their lives gossiping about how both Ido Asiri’s wives have stopped sleeping with him. Rumor has it that they’re lovers now.”
Thus far the hearsay hadn’t drawn any connection between Ido and the new maid, who looked to be around sixty years old, and who’d been hired by his mother so she wouldn’t have to see her two daughters-in-law as they drank coffee together and spent their evenings talking. She couldn’t force them out now that her scoundrel of a husband had given the house to the “country bumpkin servant girl,” as she referred to Juhaina whenever she was forced to mention her.
* * *
Mutaa actually had the nerve to call me. As if I were his servant now that he’d raped me, he announced, “We’ve moved the marriage-contract signing ceremony up to tomorrow.”
He admitted what he’d done, but instead of being remorseful, he said nonchalantly, “Sorry, the devil must have gotten into me. But I haven’t changed my mind about wanting to marry you!” The arrogant bastard!
Before Fadila could open her mouth to object, he added, “Your family supports my decision. In fact, they’re really happy about it.”
In other words, my family’s rewarding him for his crime. No way will I ever marry somebody who stoops to such crooked means of getting what he wants, much less a man who’s capable of rape!
An aunt of Fadila’s passed by the brocade shop, ostensibly to buy a gift. But the minute other people were out of ear range, she said viciously, “What happened is all your fault, you know! No girl with an ounce of self-respect would go to her fiancé’s house before they’ve signed the marriage contract!”
“But he told me his mother was sick at home and wanted to talk to me about something in private!” Fadila shot back. “How was I supposed to say no to a request from somebody he claimed was on her death bed? Besides, my mother had agreed to it!”
“Well, then,” the aunt retorted primly, “you should have taken your mother, grandmother or me along. Most of the neighbors agree with me, by the way. Besides, the way you dress is provocative. Do you see now why we’re always telling you to wear the traditional veil or a three-layered scarf?”
“But I do wear a headscarf, and nothing shows but my face!” “That’s the bare minimum, my dear, and it shows how weak your faith is. If you don’t want to be a source of temptation, you’ve got to cover yourself up completely.”
Temptation! Oh, yeah, that! Her aunt’s sermon faded out as Fadila thought back on the temptation she’d experienced one day with Najm. She’d told her parents she was going somewhere with Zain, but went instead with Najm to an orchard belonging to a friend of his in Hameh on the Barada River. She watched him swim at a spot where the river broadens as it runs through a lush valley. When he got out of the water, his luscious body glistening in the sunlight, a rush of desire shot through her pores, and she would have done anything to kiss him all over, then fuse with him—in the water, in the grass, it didn’t matter. As she dried him with a towel, she ran her fingers over his shoulders, and nearly gave in to her to her urges. A shudder went through him that awakened even more of her suppressed innocent desires. Then suddenly he said, “Will you marry me? I love you, and I want you!”
So no, there was no way she would ever marry that rhino Mutaa. But she was prepared to take her chances with Najm.
* * *
The day the marriage contract was to be signed, Abdulfattah woke up counting the hours till his damaged honor could be repaired, however partially. He’d decided that unless Mutaa did what he had promised, he would kill his daughter.
“Get her up,” he instructed his wife. “It’s ten-thirty in the morning.”
Buran went to Fadila’s room, but didn’t find her. It occurred to her that Fadila might have gone to work early to get away from the house. Even so, she felt a pang of motherly concern. Where could she be? Virgin or not, she’s still my daughter! She called the shop. Fadila hadn’t come in. Then she put in calls to family, friends, and acquaintances, with Zain at the top of the list. Nobody had seen her, and she’d said nothing to anybody about where she’d gone. When Mutaa arrived that evening with the sheikh who’d be officiating at the ceremony, they told him Fadila had disappeared, and said they’d been too embarrassed to notify the police. Mutaa called a man he addressed as “Lieutenant Naji,” asking him to issue instructions not to allow so-and-so out of the country by land, sea or air.
“Oh, and regarding our appointment this evening,” he added, “can we postpone it till tomorrow?”
By this time Fadila and Najm had reached Beirut with the help of an official in the border town of Jdaidet Yabous. They’d decided to get married there and send a copy of the marriage certificate to her family. She telephoned Zain, who cried, “Where are you, girl?! The whole neighborhood’s been looking for you! And maybe the police, too.”
“I’m in Beirut with Najm,” Fadila assured her. “We’ll make our marriage official tomorrow morning, and I’ll send my family a copy of the papers with a driver who works for ‘Taxi Al Alamayn.’”
“I can’t call them, Fadila. You’ll have to do that yourself. They hate me enough around here already as it is. In any case, don’t call them till after you’re officially married. Let them worry about you for a while. Maybe that way they’ll remember that you’re a human being, and that they might have loved you once upon a time, at least when you were little.”
“Najm would like to speak with you.”
“Hi, Najm, and congratulations to the two of you. Don’t forget that Fadila might have gotten pregnant from what happened the other day. It wasn’t her fault, of course. But I didn’t want to remind her of it.”
“Any child she carries will be mine. All that matters to me is for us to be together.”
After they hung up, Zain sat motionless for a while, as if some sorcery had turned her to stone.
For some reason I feel guilty toward Fadila. But why should I? I’ve never asked anybody to follow my example. We should all do what we think is right and then take responsibility for it. Love is a trek over a tightrope stretched between two stars, and without a safety net. Some people are prepared to take the risk, and some aren’t. I personally thought it was worth it. So I tried, and I fell off the rope. I’m only human. But I’m not going to let anyone rob me of my freedom or my right to make mistakes. Love is a gamble, and you can’t buy an insurance policy against failure. I’m wounded and let down, but I’m working myself out of it.
On the other hand, Fadila and I have been friends ever since we were little, and I don’t want her to go through what I did. I have this feeling of foreboding hanging over me. I’d better do some writing. I see the lives of people I’ve known—Fadila, Juhaina,
Najwa, Hamida, Fayha—flowing out through the ink in my pen, and I create a world of my own.
As if he picked up on Zain’s sadness and confusion, little Haroun jumped into her lap and tried to console her.
I get discombobulated when Juhaina consults me about things and pours her tears onto my writing table. I get the same way when my cousin wants me to tell her which “love lottery” ticket to buy. In fact, I’m discombobulated by everybody who asks for my advice. They don’t realize I’m confused myself. On the other hand, their coming to me this way makes my pen happy, and I take refuge in blank sheets of paper. I have to, since I encounter so much hatred in people around me. I struggle with their rejection of me and my passion for freedom. But more than anything else, I struggle with my own mistakes.
Her grandmother’s voice jarred her out of her reverie.
“I heard the phone ring,” she said, “but I was stirring the yoghurt sauce for the stuffed squash, and I didn’t dare leave it for fear it would curdle. Who was it?”
“Oh,” Zain replied quickly, “It was a wrong number.” Then she whispered to herself, “Your secret is safe with me.”
* * *
Zain opened her eyes one morning with a dream still fresh in her mind, and it got her to wondering. Why do men cheat? Or, more to the point: Why would a man cheat on a woman he was once so madly in love with that he fought for the chance to marry her? Why is it that once the honeymoon’s over, a man goes looking for honey in some other tree? And further, why does he do it knowing full well that his wife will find him out no matter how hard he tries to hide it? There was a time when he couldn’t keep his eyes and hands off her, when a mere brush of her finger would catapult him to the heights of arousal. Yet despite this, a man might even betray the woman he loves with a stranger that Fate happens to throw in his path. So, is there some extraordinary pleasure like what I experienced in my dream last night, and which I never had in my marriage? I mean, the kind of pleasure you might have with somebody you don’t even know? If so, then why don’t I, or other women who’ve written before me, have the guts to give it a try, whether we do it just so that we can write about it, or whether for the sheer enjoyment of it—the way men do—without apology, and without hiding behind the excuse of art or literature?
Her thoughts were interrupted by the importunate cries of the telephone. It was her journalist friend Mazen, who wanted to do a full-page interview with her for his newspaper. She couldn’t really say no, since he had supported her in the past without flirting with her a single time! Out of politeness, she promised to come see him once she’d finished her work at the library. Some people claimed that she had only succeeded because her father was a well-known lawyer who could pull the right strings for her. I don’t give a damn about gossip anymore. I’m just going to be what I am, and that’s that. Looking at herself in the mirror, she whispered, “Good morning, little owl that doesn’t hurt anybody unless they hurt you!”
Zain’s lovely companion sat perched in the window, her image reflected in Zain’s mirror. Every day the bird would appear in a new incarnation. One day her feathers would be pure white, other days adorned with brown stripes or forest-green spots. Zain knew her owl didn’t wear masks. She was just moody, and every mood came with its own color scheme. Sometimes she would alight on the window sill bleeding and moaning, and Zain would let her carry on with her rituals of mourning. Zain understood that like her, there was nothing anybody could do for her little owl, and she needed the freedom to carry on alone. Zain talked to her owl looking straight into the mirror, knowing that if she turned to look back, she would disappear.
After the interview Mazen escorted Zain outside. When they got to the sidewalk, they ran into a towering, extremely good-looking young man. He and Mazen exchanged a hug, and Mazen said to him, “Let me introduce you to Zain, a well-known writer.” Turning to Zain, he added, “Zain, meet Amer the poet. He looks like a wrestler, but he’s actually quite a gentle soul!”
As she shook Amer’s hand, she shuddered as if she’d just wrapped him in a passionate embrace.
“Where’s your car?” Mazen asked her.
“I haven’t bought one yet!” she said.
Hearing this, Amer offered her a ride. Mazen was about to object when, to his amazement, Zain replied lightly, “Thanks! I’d appreciate that!”
She and Amer got into his car and drove off. Mazen’s jaw dropped in amazement. As he stood on the sidewalk watching them disappear into the distance, he thought: Damn it all! I’d been dying to offer her a ride. So why didn’t I have the guts to do it?
His voice dripping with desire as he took her in from head to toe, his eyes lingering on certain curves along the way, Amer said, “You’re invited for a cup of green tea in my humble basement apartment in Al Rawda. I got a bag of it this morning from a Chinese friend of mine.”
From a Chinese friend? Or from the corner grocery store? What difference does it make? She declined at first, even though she was dying for an adventure. That dream is still tugging at me. Are there situations of raw attraction—the way things were in the wild before language was invented—where the body is entitled to pleasures all its own? Can the prey really be the hunter sometimes? If so, then the trick is to give the hunter the illusion that he’s the one doing the catching. Then, while he’s enjoying his catch, the prey gets a double enjoyment: the pleasure of the encounter, and the pleasure of the game. Am I writing in my head now, or is this really happening? And will I be able to tell the two apart from now on?
Zain felt herself setting foot on an unknown continent, led on by her craving for experimentation and discovery. But she figured she must just be writing in her head.
“Come on,” he urged. “You’ve got to try some green tea at my house!”
So, instead of insisting that he take her straight home, Zain relented and accepted his invitation. After he’d pulled up outside his apartment building, he reached for her hand. She didn’t resist, or even hesitate. On the contrary, no sooner had he closed the door behind them than she surprised him by planting a feverish kiss on his lips. He picked her up the way one picks up a tiny doll. She wrapped her legs around his massive body and squeezed with all her might as though she wanted to merge with him. Then, without a word of introduction, chatter, or promise, they fell together onto the entranceway floor. Lightning struck with its magic wand, and before she knew it, they were both naked. She nudged him away from her slightly so that she could contemplate his body, which was reminiscent of a statue of a beautiful Greek god that had suddenly come to life. As she did so, he fell upon her with kisses, embraces, and sniffs, and she returned the favor in utter, earnest, mad surrender. Slowly but insistently, his boat entered the coral grotto, the waters alternately frothing up about it and gushing out of the mouth of the cave. She heard what sounded like sighs, moans and gasps coming out of her. Only then did she realize that she’d never really known ecstasy before. As the boat reached the grotto’s inner sanctum amid flashes of lightning and peals of thunder coming in rapid succession, she saw Ghazwan’s face, and her soundless whispering of his name sent the cave walls crashing down.
With his name still on her lips, she went soaring through space astride a star. She wished she could hear Ghazwan’s voice whispering her name in turn. But what she heard instead was the voice of her father calling, “Lunch time! The food’s going to get cold while you sit in there scribbling!”
She heard the flip of a light switch, and the green-hued library was bathed in the bright glow of the chandelier.
“You always write under the patch of light from the little desk lamp,” her father remarked with concern. “That can’t be good for your eyes!”
Zain couldn’t tell her dad, “Don’t talk to me when you see me busy writing! Don’t even come near me!” When I write, I turn into a crazy owl flying through a dark enchanted forest. My talons tear at the blank page, reopening the wounds of what was and was not.
Just then Grandma Hayat followed her father into the library saying, “The gas canister ran out before I’d finished frying the bread for the fattat al-makdus. Could you hook a new one up for me?”
Bless you, Grandma!
“Sure,” he said to his mother. “So, then,” he said to Zain apologetically, “we’ll be eating in another ten minutes. Sorry about that!”
“No problem, dad,” she replied affectionately, “I’ll be right there!”
However, she couldn’t tear herself away from the desk, as there were several voices coming simultaneously out of her heart and her pen.
A voice said accusingly, “Ghazwan proposed to you without even knowing your name, and even though you were weak, sick, wounded and helpless, but you ran away and left him stranded in front of the Kaddura Pharmacy, whereas all Amer offered you was a cup of green tea, and you ravished him like a sex-starved maniac! What’s wrong with you, anyway?”
Then came a terrified voice from somewhere inside her: “I did no such thing! I woke up this morning, went to the library, did an interview with my friend Mazen, and came home again. A friend of his gave me a ride home, and then I sat down to write. So what’s this trial all about?”
“Liar,” countered the accusing voice. “Before you sat down here to write, you were setting fire to Amer’s cold tile floor.”
“I did no such thing. I’m just writing something out of my head! But now I can forgive men for their infidelities, provided that they acknowledge women’s right to cheat on them too.”
“Yeah, right!” came the accuser’s mocking riposte. “Everything you just wrote about, you’d already done. First you went to Amer’s cave, and then you came running back to purge yourself at this desk. You think you can exonerate yourself on the pretext that you’re a writer, and that you make no distinction between your actions and those of your characters.”
“Hurry up, girl. The food’s gotten cold!”
And Zain sprinted to the kitchen.
* * *
A few days later Zain passed by Mazen’s office to look over his transcript of their interview before it went to press. As she was about to leave, she noticed that he was wearing a black necktie. When she asked him about it, he said, “You remember Amer, the poet that gave you a ride home after our interview the other day?”
“Of course.”
“Well, I’m going to his funeral. He died in a terrible accident on the Aleppo highway. He was a reckless poet. Anyway, do you need a ride home?”
“No, but thank you,” Zain replied, wincing at the painful news.
Do you suppose Amer told him what happened between us that day?
Instead of walking straight home, she took a long detour. So, it’s Lord Death again. He’s been my arch enemy ever since I lost my mother. I lay down next to her in her coffin and tried to wake her up, but it didn’t work. Now here I am immersed in life, drinking it in with a vengeance without thinking about the fact that I’m really just heading for my own death. When people we know die, we grieve not just because we’ve lost them, but because we’re afraid of losing our own lives.
When Zain arrived at the house, dark clouds were gathering in her heart.
To her delight, however, she found Juhaina visiting her grandmother. She concluded from the way the two women went quiet when she walked in that they’d been discussing matters of an intimate nature. Might Juhaina have admitted to her relationship with Najwa now that the whole neighborhood was abuzz with the story? It was obvious that she hadn’t, since her grandmother appeared relaxed, with Haroun in her lap. Zain greeted Juhaina with a kiss and sat down to join them.
I really don’t care what Juhaina’s done. Who am I to judge her? The earliest image I have of her goes back to our summer vacation at my dad’s farm in Rayhaniya. I was a little girl at the time, and I poked at a beehive with a stick. All I’d really wanted to do was find out what was inside it. In any case, I was attacked by a swarm of bees and went running for cover to Juhaina, who hid me under her long skirt and took the bees’ stings for me. That’s the kind of person I’ve always thought of Juhaina as being. I suspect there really is some sort of romantic connection between her and her cowife, but that’s her business. Besides, I’ll never forget how she saved the life of a man who had never shown her a whit of appreciation or respect. He’d never called her anything but “that country bumpkin servant girl that used to tend the cows.” But in spite of it all, she picked him up and carried him to his bed instead of leaving him to die of the cold. Whatever she’s doing and whatever people say about her, that’s the Juhaina I’ve always held in my heart.
Picking up on Zain’s positive, endearing vibes, Haroun jumped into her lap.