Days of Ignorance (10 page)

Hot tears streamed noiselessly down, and she was swallowed up by a terrible feeling of loneliness and lostness. She remembered all the nights she’d spent gazing up at the distant sky with its stars suspended in space – at the times when it was possible to see them. They would gleam with a mysteriousness that gave her a sense of her insignificance and the insignificance of her sorrows. During those nights she would wonder how a past suspended in a distant sky could so defeat her. How could a star that had gleamed millions of years before – and that, for all she knew, might still exist, or might have turned into a black hole – make her life, her whole life, into such a trivial thing?

And now, how would her life appear? And would she be able to bear what this life was to become? Did anything await her? She realized that she had to sharpen her mind so as to preserve for him the image of the life in which he was no longer present so that, if he came back, he wouldn’t be shaken through and through by confusion. They would have the stuff of a long conversation. And when they had their conversation, she would cry. Yes, she would cry the way she was crying now, though not as miserably. She would tell him she’d learned what Hell is, and that she’d pleaded with God not to cast her into it twice.

5

The absolution

The movement in opposition to the war on Iraq is gaining daily momentum in US universities, particularly among on-campus residents, although professors and students do not expect protests to reach their peak until the war is actually underway. Student protests against the possible war are concentrated in New York University and Hunter College. However, some observers believe that the students who are apathetic about the issue still outnumber the activists who are losing sleep over the possible outbreak of this conflict. Some analysts have stated that as hundreds of students rush to Washington DC to demonstrate their opposition to the anticipated war, thousands of others are likely to stay where they are until the first military strike has been launched.

Dubar * the 24th of Adhil,

the twelfth year after Desert Storm

‘I know I’m late in saying this, and that you might blame me when I do say it. However, saying it isn’t going to change anything.’

‘. . .’

‘I’m almost sure it’s never crossed your mind, and that it won’t mean anything to you. Excuse me. I’m stumbling over my words. I just don’t know where to start.’

‘From the beginning. Say what you have to say in the fewest, clearest words possible.’

‘I haven’t received an “absolution”.’

He said it in a tone that he attempted to make sound disdainful, and a chill blew up. The telephone remained suspended, motionless, between her shoulder and her ear. Her eyes fixed on a painting on the wall before her, she saw the clouds in the picture move apart, their notched edges looking like demons standing in a long line between her and him. For a fleeting moment she suspected that God in His heaven had stepped between them, and the world disappeared from view behind leaden shadows of hopelessness and heartache.

An absolution, an absolution, an absolution.

Where had she heard it before? Where, when, and how? From beneath which mound had this derisive tone emerged, and the guffaw that now filled the empty space in her head? A vulgar, shameless guffaw, it reminded her of the titters of the girls at the university cafeteria, something that might issue from someone who’s overly repressed, but not from a normal, healthy human being.

Oh, God.

How many clouds had traversed the city’s autumn sky, suspended, like the telephone, between earth and heaven? How many prayers had left the holy precincts for the Lote tree that marks the end of the seventh heaven? How many spirits had opened the portals to the world of the unseen in those moments, running after the steed of knowledge only to have the steed kick them, then wink and escape with a smile?

He said nothing. She said nothing. They were hemmed in by a heavy, stifling, alarming silence. When she finally managed to discern something of her surroundings, she saw them stealing into her room from all directions: from under the door, through the window, through the air-conditioner vent, through the electrical outlets. She saw everyone who, before long, would discover that she had punctured the sacred, transparent barrier they’d erected ages ago to keep colors, races and ethnic groups from mingling, and as a result of which corruption had taken up residence in both land and sea. They filled the room and, with sardonic smiles, said one after the other, ‘We told you he was a
takruni
, but you didn’t get it. Now you’ve ended up with another disaster on your hands, and you’re the last to know.’

The killer phrase had been the final one: ‘. . . the last to know.’

For so long she’d thought she was close to him. And now, what should she find but that she was farther away from him than she could ever have imagined? Pain crushed her ribs, and something in her heart was torn to pieces. She thought about how Malek had had a part in causing this pain, and a part of her heart was torn to pieces. A little part that swore never to forgive him.

‘Why are you so quiet? Say something. Tell me off. Tell me you’re angry, that I’m a bastard and that I don’t even deserve for you to listen to me anymore.’

‘You had no right to hide something like this from me.’

‘I wasn’t hiding it. I didn’t think it would mean anything to you.’

‘What you thought was a dangerous thing, and what you did was even more dangerous!’

‘What do you mean, Leen? Don’t scare me, and don’t be cruel to me.’

‘You were cruel before I was. You’ll never know what you’ve done.’

‘. . .’

‘You’ve hurt me, and you’ve hurt yourself. And I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive you.’

‘But . . . maybe you’re right. Maybe I shouldn’t have kept something like this from you. There were moments when I thought of telling you. But I didn’t want to upset you. I’ve been trying for the last two years to get my status changed. Throughout this time I’ve dreamed of being able to tell you about it in the past tense. I thought I’d be granted citizenship soon, and that once that had happened, it wouldn’t be a bad thing for me to tell you that I was born here, but was only recently granted a certificate sealed with two swords uprooting a palm tree. Try to understand my motives. They weren’t bad at all.’

‘And you, didn’t you ever think about the pain I’m feeling now? If I told you you’d deceived me, could you deny it or blame me? Look where you’ve put me in your life. I always thought I was close to you, really close. And now I come to find out that I’m far away. You forced me to pressure you mercilessly to tell me something that a lot of other people around you already knew – a lot of people who may not have any intimate ties to you. Malek, how many times did you talk to me about the dilemma you faced, and that was forcing you to postpone our engagement? How many times did I try to find out what kind of a dilemma you were talking about? But all you did was keep telling me it didn’t concern me. You sat back and watched while I floundered about, worrying, racking my brain, not knowing what to think. I was about to doubt your intentions toward me. Yet none of that was enough to get you to take pity on me and tell me what your dilemma was.’

She’d once written to him, saying, ‘I know the moment when I started to change.’ As she hurriedly threw out these words of hers, she’d realized she was changing, although she hadn’t known what she was changing into. The right half of her head was throbbing violently, and she wanted to end the call before she said something she would regret.

She saw the cosmos confining her behind a cold glass barrier. She could see and hear everything on the other side, but all she could feel was cold. Even Malek she saw beyond the barrier, and she didn’t cry. Deep inside her there churned all the feelings that make a person want to cry, but without knowing how. Her throat went dry. Her spirit also seemed dry, as though love had never touched her.

With difficulty she said, ‘I’d like to go now. I don’t have anything to say, and there’s nothing I want to hear.’

‘Take it easy, Leen. I love you.’

‘And you’ve proved it,’ she said mockingly.

‘Leen!’ he cried at the same moment.

He couldn’t see that she wasn’t mocking him. She was mocking the innocence of hers that had so charmed him. Now she knew why it had charmed him. She was mocking the moment she’d once been so sure they would never have to face, only to find them facing it when they’d least expected to.

‘Let me go before I hurt you with my words. I don’t want to do that, and if I go on talking, it’s bound to lead to pain.’

‘Watch out, then, for the Leen I know, so that she won’t hurt the Leen I love.’

Click . . . and she hung up. She didn’t even wait for him to hang up first the way she always did. She went over to her wardrobe and brought out a medium-sized, colorful box that held his letters, the box that, long months later, she would find Hashem hunched over, rummaging through its contents and scattering her photos.

She began reading his letters and underlining the places where he had communicated respect for her difference, her mind, and her ability to understand:

I refused to get involved with women before I met you because I wanted a woman who was different:
a woman who would enthrall me with her mind 
. . . They say that Muhammad ’Abd al-Jawwad is the most accomplished left-back in the history of Saudi soccer. They always like to use superlatives: the best, the most beautiful, etc.! They’re free to do as they like, and I’m free to do as I like. So I say:
To me you’re the most amazing woman 
. . . A prostitute phoned me yesterday. She claimed she was from Riyadh. I almost weakened and went to her.
But I only remembered you
. So I didn’t give in . . .
Would it surprise you if I told you that your love has taught me to swear off racism
? I used to be prone to it, horrible as it is. After all, there’s nothing strange about that in a society that feeds us on its stereotypes from the time we’re born: Indians
are called
‘rafig
’, Bedouins are called ‘Serbs’, Hejazis are called
‘Tarsh Bahr
’, Egyptians are called swindlers, Lebanese are called pimps. And those are only some of the filthy epithets I used to use, but your love cleansed me of them.

She kept wondering: if he really saw her this way, then why had he concealed his dilemma from her? She was alarmed to see how his behavior had given the lie to all the words he’d written about her, about life, about what ought to be and what ought not to be. She’d believed in the silly principle that says people should live according to the way they think. She’d clashed with lots of people around her because of this naïve principle since it flew in the face of the prevailing way of life in her country: her country, where people said what they didn’t do and did what they didn’t say. Her country, where life was being destroyed by corrosion after spinning endlessly round and round in a stinking mire. Like a vast unpolished silver surface – rough, frigid, and massive – her country needed a little hellfire to melt it down, purify it and reshape it. But God hadn’t sent down His punishment yet.

It alarmed her to see the way his behavior gave the lie to the romantic picture of love that had filled her mind and that she couldn’t let go of. For a long time she’d thought that love meant being close to someone, as close as close could be. But suddenly she’d realized that, like anything else in life, love is subject to a person’s particular ideas and way of life.

Even so, regardless of his motives or his way of life, Malek had had no right to conceal such a thing from her. After all, it didn’t concern him alone, but both of them together. It concerned the relationship between them. She would always think of it this way, and she would go on wondering what had caused him to behave as he had. Had he been worried about how she might react if she knew? Had he been trying to spare her pain? And what pain? She wouldn’t have been in pain. Rather, she would have understood the dilemma he faced and would have thought with him about how they could resolve it. She wouldn’t have pressured him or hurt him. Nor would she have gotten caught up in waiting for a commitment she had thought was imminent only to find that it was far, far away. She would have understood. But he’d chosen for her not to understand, believing – as he always did – that he was sparing her harm, and that the matter didn’t concern her despite the fact that it concerned her to the point of being excruciating.

Oh, God. So he didn’t know me after all. All those telephone calls and all those times spent together suddenly show themselves to be flawed. All we were doing was wasting time on a long, drawn-out prattle.

She was filled with rage, bitterness, confusion, amazement and grief. When she began thinking about the fact that there might be other things he had concealed, was concealing, or would have concealed from her in the future, she realized, with difficulty, that she’d lost faith in him. And when she reached that moment, she came back to her old oyster shell, the one she’d opened for his sake, and let it quietly close around her. She stopped being happy: she stopped being the heavenly creature – as he used to call her – that had captivated him with its sweet spirit and pristine innocence. She stopped telling him she loved him or that she missed him, or that she was sad. Blame thrashed about deep inside her like a little child restrained to a bed. But she didn’t want to blame him, since blame wouldn’t do any good. It wouldn’t give him an ‘absolution’, and it wouldn’t restore order to the chaos his actions had left in their wake.