New Voices of Arabia: The Short Stories: An Anthology from Saudi Arabia 9780755607617, 9781780760995

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Acknowledgements

In February 2008, I was part of a media delegation invited to visit Argentina. On the plane flying from Madrid to Buenos Aires, the head of the delegation gave each of us a small diplomatic bag as gifts to be given to Argentinean officials. Opening the surprisingly light bag, I found two small books in Spanish with the aim of introducing them to Saudi culture. It was then that the idea of having anthologies that introduce our literature to the world in all languages was born. This book would not have been possible without the support of the Ministry of Culture and Information, first to the Minister, His Excellency Dr Abdulaziz Khawjah, and to all who contributed to the project. My gratitude goes to the panel that selected the writers, and to Dr Saad Al-Bazei, who offered invaluable assistance and support at all stages of the project, Dr Mohammad Habibi, poet Ahmad Al-Mulla, Dr Hasan Al-Nemi, Dr Mujeb Al-Adwani and writer Jubair Al-Mulaihan. I would also like to thank the editors of the anthologies, Dr Saad Al-Bazei, Dr Abdulaziz Al-Sebail and Anthony Calderbank, for their efforts and contributions. Finally, a word of thanks must go the Deputy Minister for Cultural Affairs, Dr Nasser Al-Hujelan, for his support, and to the Ministry officials Mr Mohammad Abes and Mr Abdularhaman Al-Ahmadi. I would also like to express my gratitude to my friend and colleague Saud Al-Swaida for coordinating the project and to all writers and translators without whose contribution and efforts this project would not have been possible. Yousef Al-Mohaimeed Director of Dar Al-Mufradah Publishers

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Foreword

The function of artistic creativity extends beyond merely conveying aesthetic experience. It provides evidence of people’s cultures, and also demonstrates the power of language through many different styles of literature. This literature expresses people’s concerns, needs and how they interact with their environments. These anthologies of poetry and short stories are rendered in a widely known international language in order to present Saudi culture to the world. This is intended to strengthen the mutual human, artistic and civil ties with the international community. Such relations stem from the belief that artistic creativity is one efficient method for human communication. These collections present a selection of poets and short-story writers of different generations, artistic orientations and social classes in Saudi Arabia. The selection is meant to reflect the diversity of the forms that the poets and story writers use as well as the literary schools to which they belong. It thus aims to clearly portray the level of innovation and progress that these art forms have undergone in the kingdom in recent decades. Therefore, these anthologies are considered a significant contribution to cultural dialogue among nations. Their contribution lies in depicting human emotions and actions pertaining to Saudi culture, thus providing an image of the Saudi experience and stripping away many stereotypical views and preconceptions. This is in keeping with the Saudi leadership’s initiative in supporting international cultural tolerance and religious dialogue. King Abduallah ibn Abdulaziz has led this initiative in order to bring people together, encourage understanding and promote tolerance. This dialogue began locally within the kingdom, after which it progressed to the wider Islamic world to include all Muslim nations. After that, the Saudi call for tolerance and dialogue grew to include the rest of the international community until it was adopted and supported by the United Nations. The Ministry of Culture and Information would like to thank Dar Al-Mufradah Publishers, which has led this project, for their organized ix

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and methodical efforts in bringing about these anthologies in a timely manner. Nasser Al-Hujelan Deputy Minister for Cultural Affairs Ministry of Culture and Information Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Introduction

The Arabian Peninsula lies in the southwestern corner of Asia, lapped on its three sides by the bountiful waters of the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea and the Gulf. It is, today, made up of seven states – Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Yemen, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia occupies four-fifths of the area of the Arabian Peninsula. The historical experiences of the Saudi Kingdom’s different regions are, given the size of the country, markedly different. The western and eastern parts fell under the influence of different states, as a result of their strategic position and resources, respectively. The interior (the Nejd), meanwhile, was ruled by local emirs who competed against each other to increase the size of their emirates. One of the most prominent of these emirates was that of the House of Saud, which succeeded in taking control of most of the Arabian Peninsula to form what was known as the First Saudi State. However, the Ottomans brought about its downfall when it resisted the emirs’ influence. It was, though, successfully re-established as the Second Saudi State for a period of several decades, before disagreement between the Saud brothers gave another emirate the opportunity to bring it down. In 1901 one of the members of the Saud family, Abdul-Aziz bin Abdul Rahman, who would later be known as Ibn Saud, began to reform the kingdom of his forefathers. In 1932 he successfully united the different parts of the region under the name ‘The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’. This state became known as the Modern Saudi State. 2 Records of the literary history of the region date back to the fifth century ad. Poetry was the dominant literary form for a number of centuries, and although narrative literature can be found throughout the history of the region, it did not occupy a significant position in the region’s literature. At the end of the nineteenth century, when translation started to become more widespread throughout the Arab world, the Arabs found xi

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themselves drawn to two new types of narrative writing – the novel and the short story. At the start of the twentieth century, Arab writers adopted Western narrative forms and began to write narrative works, which passed through various phases before reaching maturity. The Western model of narrative writing became hegemonic, with only a few exceptional examples of writing inspired by old Arabic forms. The Arabian Peninsula, of which Saudi Arabia forms the greater part, was not, owing to its geographical location and its historical circumstances, in direct contact with the West, but it was in contact with Arab regions of creative importance, specifically Egypt and the Levant. Examining the art of the short story, we find that there is a direct link between it and the presence of the press. It was mainly the influence of the press that brought about the evolution of the short story from the novel and its emergence as a narrative form. This link is not unique to the Arabian Peninsula or the Arab World – it can also be found in Europe and America. The press, in which serial novels had previously been published, started to commission shorter pieces that were better suited to the space available. This was one of the reasons for the emergence of the short story as an independent art form. The press first appeared in the Arabian Peninsula at the end of the nineteenth century, gaining prominence in many regions at the beginning of the twentieth century. Although it began with strong links to political power, focusing on official news, it later began to orient itself towards cultural – and particularly literary – affairs. The beginnings of the short story in the region came in the form of articles, often dealing with social issues, and demonstrating a desire to bring about the widespread reform of social conditions. The short story did not, therefore, have remotely artistic roots. It was, in fact, rooted in social reform, in that short stories were, to begin with, written in the form of narrative articles dealing with a range of social issues. It was only in the 1940s that serious concern for the artistic style of the stories started to develop. After the Second World War, newspapers and magazines started to take a keener interest in cultural affairs. They published a great number of stories, including – and this was a new departure – many which were translated from French, English, Russian and other languages. The names of Maupassant, Somerset Maugham, Chekhov and others could often be found in newspapers throughout the 1940s and 1950s. During the 1960s the Arab region underwent cultural, social and political changes. Many countries gained independence, having been liberated

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from colonial control. The depth of the impact of these events varied but they all contributed to the transformation of human experience across the region, where a great number of issues to do with society and nationhood emerged. The region became more connected in educational, cultural and intellectual terms to the other parts of the Arab world than it had been before. The short story emerged in Saudi Arabia in the 1940s in response to Saudi society’s need for reform, not as an art form. However, it was in the 1960s that the form reached maturity through the interaction between Saudi short-story writers and Arab writers with more experience of the form. Saudi writers came into direct contact with other Arab writers when they travelled to Arab countries for academic purposes, but there was also indirect interaction through the translations of international writers that were published in local newspapers. In the second half of the 1970s we see that one of the paths along which the short story progresses is a continuation of its previous stage: a traditional structure, based essentially on narrative and with no tendency towards the use of other techniques. Stories of this type focused on social issues, principally through realist representation, without a complex artistic vision. The alternative path followed by the short story represented a trend that was directly linked to the developments undergone by the short story at the beginning of the 1970s in some of the Arab countries with longer experience of the form. The story started to move away from the representation of social reality, instead beginning to focus on moments of extreme emotion and psychological experience. There was also a shift in the use of language, with a movement away from the literal and towards the symbolic and multi-layered. This development in writing style and approach was brought about by a number of factors, including an increased consciousness of and sensitivity to what was happening in neighbouring countries, and the economic changes that the region suddenly underwent, which were difficult to comprehend. These changes resulted from increased oil production and the significant rise in oil prices in the mid-1970s, which had enormous economic and social repercussions and brought about great changes in people’s lives. These changes became one of the topics that the short story focused on most. Some writers were directly interested in social change and its profound impact on society. They charted the change from the village to the city and from nomadic life to settled, urban life, and the nature of the transforma-

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tion of values and morals. Sometimes the subject was approached largely through documentary realism. Many writers pursued this line, notably Ibrahim Al-Nasser, a faithful adherent to the art of narrative and a leading figure in short-story writing, to which he dedicated half a century of his life. Some writers, on the other hand, turned to ‘critical realism’ to track the changes occurring in society – changes that took on numerous dimensions that went beyond merely describing and documenting real life – to give perspectives on the faults of society and the mistakes being made in it. One of the most significant consequences of these social changes was the feeling of alienation experienced by those who could not comprehend the changes that society was undergoing and which therefore had a negative impact on their lives. This strong sense of alienation was felt by those unable to adapt to the new society, preoccupied as it was with material things and appearances and divested of many of its traditional values. Thus by the end of the 1970s and into the 1980s alienation and nostalgia for the past had become significant themes in the Saudi short story. The theme was not just one of social alienation, however, but also cultural alienation, as intellectuals wanted change but sensed the presence of a great gulf between them and the rest of society. It was a world taken over by materialism, in which a person’s value lay in what he possessed, not in what he knew or what he could do for society. The feeling of disconnection with the past also manifested itself, as the increased production of oil, the abundance of money and the increase in individual income brought about numerous social changes. The financial boom led to many people leaving their old homes for modern houses. Their eating habits, their family relationships and their social behaviour changed. This was followed by the abandonment of many of the values that had formed the basis of society, particularly those related to cohesion, belonging, neighbourliness and mutual cooperation. Their place was taken by materialism and egotism. This change was not gradual, either, which would have made it easier to adjust to. Instead it occurred in a relatively short space of time and caused an upheaval in social interaction, particularly in the educated class, which was keenly aware of such concerns and which came to feel considerably alienated because of its inability to adapt to the new reality. In addition to social and cultural alienation was a sense of ideological alienation. Educated persons’ reformist ideas and political views appeared to society around them strange and idealistic, forcing them to retreat into themselves and away from society. Some of the first short-story writers to take up the theme and tackle it to varying degrees of success were Jarallah Al-Humaid, Hussain Ali Hussain, Mohammad Alwan, Hassan Al-Nemi

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and Abdullah Bakhishwin. In the 1980s, short-story writers, male and female, numbered only a few dozen, but by the beginning of the twenty-first century they were in their hundreds. Some of those writers have only a single collection to their name, while others have produced dozens. The subject matter they dealt with was unlimited and the artistic ambition of their stories also varied greatly. While some writers tended towards a straightforward narrative, seeking to give their stories a plot with a purpose or moral, others approached the story as a linguistic expression based on self-revelation and self-expression. In the last decade of the twentieth century many authors brought the modernist approach to the fore in Saudi literature through its various forms of expression. The surge coincided with a boom in narrative writing, and a large group of male and female short-story writers emerged who no longer wrote in the traditional form, with events and characters portrayed through a realistic narrative, but sought instead a denser language approaching the more suggestive language of poetry. But this modernist form of writing differed from one author to another. While some writers followed the narrative methodology of short-story writing, many saw the form as open to experimentation. For many the short story meant a small number of pages, leading to stories free of action and events and focused instead on snatches of life and character confession. For some writers, stream of consciousness became the favoured narrative method. Some of the works in this collection would be difficult to classify strictly as belonging to the short-story form. While they are certainly literary writings of limited words, they do not adhere to the techniques of the short story. Although the short story can be regarded as ‘an elusive art’, it is the presence of action and events, a limited number of characters, a narrative and other techniques such as dialogue, recollection and internal monologue, that make a brief literary work a short story. It could be said that most of these writers are writing their stories from real-life experience without being versed in the rules of short-story writing, and that this is why many fail to develop their writing styles. They produce works written at different times but which do not differ in artistic ambition. Perhaps the abundant production of some writers without a similarly copious critical response has led to the writings of some authors remaining at the same level, with no development of their artistic and writing techniques. One feature worth highlighting is that a number of writers who contributed notably to the artistic maturing of the short story in the 1960s, such

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as Ibrahim Al-Nasser and Abdullah Jifri, also wrote novels. Some writers from the 1980s and 1990s began with short stories before moving on to the novel, and for writers such as Ahmad Al-Dwaihi, Umaimah Al-Khamis, Badriyah Al-Beshr, Zainab Hifni, Abdulhafiz Al-Shammri, Abdulaziz Mashri, Abdullah Al-Ta’ezi and Laila Al-Ahaideb, the short story lost its interest, as if ‘the short story represents the product of youth, while the novel is the product of experience’. Abdo Khal, Yousef Al-Mohaimeed and Raja Alem, meanwhile, achieved success beyond their homeland into the wider Arab world and beyond through translations of some of their works into various languages, earning them distinguished awards. The novel has given writers a significant cultural and media presence, something which the short story has not been able to do. Despite the number of short-story writers of both sexes today running into the hundreds, literary circles in Saudi Arabia, as in other countries, are concerned with the question of the future of the short story and whether it will remain capable of retaining a significant literary status or if it will fade away in the face of the greater narrative art of the novel. If the short story evolved from the novel, will it, one wonders, return to its origin, its sun to set once and for all? Women’s writing has stood out particularly over the last two decades for two reasons: the first is the increase in the number of women writers on the literary scene – a number that the selections here are unable to do justice to – and the second is the move away from the traditional social themes and portrayals of women’s lives and tribulations as working women, or wives, or job seekers in a male-dominated society, to more daring themes. Now no subject is untouchable. While Saudi society may appear conservative and traditional to the outside, many writings, and particularly those by women, have laid bare numerous hidden features of the life of society and shattered social and religious taboos, with the works of Zainab Hifni a fine example of this. Social issues have been dealt with in relation to the degree to which they have crossed the lines set by the censorship system for published material, or those that the writer has imagined based on personal experience of the political and social situation. The treatment of issues with ethnic, political and ideological dimensions has, meanwhile, varied greatly depending on the writer and the exact period. That is because political and social circumstances, and the freedoms permitted to writers, have varied over time. Many of those freedoms and constraints may in fact be unwritten, the product of individual writers and publishers’ interpretation. Indeed, it is apparent that social censorship is more powerful and influential than official state

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censorship, and that it can sometimes become state censorship because of the power of social influence. Changing circumstances in Saudi Arabia have led to significant variations in the level of censorship, and the way in which short stories have dealt with many subjects has differed according to those circumstances, ranging from open declaration to allusion. Subject matter itself has also varied, sometimes focusing on social issues, sometimes tending towards political topics. With the start of the twenty-first century and the proliferation and increased diversity of the media, freedom of expression has become unlimited, and state authorities have been unable to curb those freedoms. Some writers addressing sensitive topics have taken to publishing their books abroad, but the censors have also become more flexible than before. Politics, sex and religion are the three most sensitive topics, but the sheer number of literary works tackling those themes has also served to considerably dampen that sensitivity, and what would not have been allowed to be published a decade ago is now regarded as par for the course. The room for expression is currently far greater than before, and short stories have emerged that are outstanding in both their approach and handling of big themes of patriotic, nationalistic and political dimensions. The reader will, as a result, find a great deal of variation in the stories in this selection, both from an artistic point of view and in terms of how successfully they approach their subject matter. All of that serves, however, to give a good reflection of the reality of the short story in the kingdom. Abdulaziz Al-Sebail (Translated by Clem Naylor and Jon Rooney)

Abdo Khal He was born in 1962 in Jazan, in the south of the kingdom. He has written a number of novels including Cities Eating Grass, Immorality, The Mud, Death Passes from Here, Days Don’t Hide Anyone and Barking, as well as several collections of short stories and a collection of children’s stories. His novel Spewing Sparks as Big as Castles won the 2010 International Prize for Arabic Fiction.

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Plants of the deep For four years, he hadn’t changed the place where he sat. He had stayed facing the sea, staring at the horizon with a patience and anticipation that had gradually become exhausted. He had sat quite still, like a boat thrown up on the seashore, absorbing the waves, the seaweed and news of desolate harbours. From afar you might think he was a rock hewn in the shape of a curled up man, with a head suspended in the distance. But at sunset you would discover that the rock was nothing other than someone who had chosen to nail himself every day to this desolate part of the city waterfront, passed over by the wind, the sea spray and the cries of the seagulls that circled around the smell. From there he could see in the distance waves, sails and boats, as well as fish and fishermen. The sun would set in the distance, and nothing would come to disturb the soul. He would leave his house as the day grew hotter, and behind him an old woman would pour out her imprecations, for at that time of day there were few feet heading for the sea. He would take advantage of the absence of fishermen and street sellers to steal quickly along beside the sea towards the north, passing the fishermen’s boats that were scattered near the waves’ loose tongues. His mind trickled with hope and his heart warmed to it. He would snatch hasty glances at the passers-by, hurrying quickly and doubtfully on, and if he saw someone coming his way, he would slow down and stand there like someone who wanted to collect the sea shells that lay all along the coast. He would walk well away from the paths of those passers-by, and when he was clear of their narrow eyes and swarthy faces he would take out a small bag of wheat from his pocket and start to scatter the grains to the birds that filled the area. He never took a backwards glance no matter what happened, and he never reached his place until late afternoon, when the seagulls congregated. He would join them silently, his eyes darting on the horizon, his patience and anticipation now exhausted. When he saw the sun committing its daily suicide and burying its disk in the distance, he would get up from his seat and go back where he had come from, to be swallowed up by the narrow lanes in the heart of the quarter. In the house she greets him eagerly as she gropes his tall body. In a dried out, yearning voice that had not gown fainter over twenty-five years, she repeats again her familiar lament: ‘Bishr!’

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He hugs her gently towards him, then returns her to the place that she has grown as used to as her own smell. The words stick in her throat, so she can do nothing but burst into tears and mumble painfully: ‘Don’t despair. He’ll come back!’ In the distant past, as a small boy, he had not known the secret of these constantly flowing tears which left her pale eyes empty of anything except a never ending movement. He could hear her crying in the depths of night. When he was a little older she would rest his head in her lap whenever he asked her about his father, and tell him that he would come later: she said that he would come down to them one evening through a hole, and she would never cease to point out the openings set in the ceilings of the rooms. He thought that this story and its effects would cease when he grew up, for he imagined that it was a story woven to bring sleep to her constantly open eyes. (This actually became a habit of his own, even when he had grown into a man of thirty, for he continued to sleep with his eyes open.) But the story never lost its shine for all those years and was never forgotten by this woman whose eyes had turned pale from shedding so many tears. One day, while he was repairing the house, she flew into the sort of a rage that he had never seen before and swore that she would leave him the house and go wandering if he didn’t leave these holes as they were – the holes that that she had kept in the ceiling of every room in the house. ‘Have you forgotten that your father is coming back to us through them?’ she would shout at him. So as not to make her angry, he left them open to the wind and the rain. As soon as the rainy season set in, the house would turn into a series of swamps that could only be drained with great difficulty. He found it hard to convince her to drain the stagnant rainwater, as she insisted on keeping it, muttering ‘I can smell the smell of your father in it!’ So he would give in, and leave the stagnant rainwater, not daring to drain it until it turned brackish and attracted the mosquitoes and insects. Only then would she come to him and say: ‘Your father will not be coming this season, so drain the water!’ Every year, the rainy season would come and go, leaving behind it the dream that had grown old in the memory of that woman. She had never despaired of her husband’s return. He had gone out one night and not come back. Before disappearing, he had told her that he had seen a powerful eagle carry him off and circle with him in the sky before dropping him into the dark and distant sea. The following night, while she was sleeping, she had felt something moving around her, and the ceiling of the room

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split open to reveal her husband suspended in space like an enormous bird beating its wings furiously in the direction of the sea. She thought she was dreaming so she shut her eyes and carried on sleeping, but when she woke she found part of the ceiling of her room split open and could not find her husband. She told how she had wandered the earth looking for him and only come back home when an old man had told her that her husband would come back one night the same way he had left. He advised her to leave her house open and to make supper for him every evening, for when he appeared he would be as hungry as if he had never eaten in his life. She would tell this story every day in his hearing till he was convinced that her mind had been eaten up by madness and left her as a burden for him to bear as one of his daily chores. So he went along with her whims, only occasionally grumbling at her or rebelling at her strange behaviour. Every evening she would go around the holes and gaze at them for several minutes, carrying a long sheet to hide her husband’s nakedness when he appeared, for she swore that he would appear naked as she saw him every day in her dreams. She had never stopped doing this ever since her husband had left the house. She apologized to her son for sleeping so much, saying: ‘He insists that I should spend as much time with him as possible. Don’t blame me, for you don’t know your father. He is very stern, and woe betide anyone who makes him angry! And I don’t want to make him angry!’ At this, the son would shrug his shoulders, swearing under his breath, and leave her to curse him for not believing her. Sometimes she would take hold of him and reprimand him: ‘Do you think your mother’s mad? Yes, I can read it in your eyes. Tell me, don’t be afraid!’ When she found that he said nothing, and that his eyes were darting in all directions, she would leave him with her finger wagging in his face, and her voice ringing out in a tone of profound certainty: ‘He will come. Every night I see him. Then you will be sorry and will seek my forgiveness, but will not find it!’ In the past, she would use clay pots to collect the rainwater that had poured through the holes in the rooms of the house. She would use them to water a piece of ground she had prepared for the purpose, and whenever a plant sprang up she would think it was him. She had sworn that he would grow like a banana tree and would emerge from the skin of a fruit, then fly up to the sky and come back the same way he had left. But she was continually disappointed, for as soon as the plant shot up from the ground

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a little, it would wither and wilt, and all her attempts to make it grow straight again came to nothing. This only changed when she discovered that donkeys were urinating on that piece of ground, at which point she resorted to preparing every room in the house for nurturing the banana seed. It was a strange house: ceilings with holes in them, a floor like a seed bed, and a woman carrying a sheet around every night, expecting to have to hide a man’s nakedness. Usually he would leave her while she was still in an extremely agitated state, shouting: ‘He will come. Every night I see him. Then you will be sorry and will seek my forgiveness, but will not find it!’ 2 I usually stayed in the café on the shore where the fishermen came, scattering themselves here and there, with no conversation except of the sea and its adventures. Some of them would use the time to patch their nets or repair their sailing boats that had been chewed by the deep sea winds. Meanwhile, the café became a place for games, laughter and the drinking of tea, though most people were simply happy to sit and regurgitate old tales. They didn’t like to fish near the town, so you would find them sailing off in groups towards Sudan or Ethiopia, where they would cast their nets near to the coast, together with their hopes and their sorrow-laden songs, and wait for whatever the sea might throw at them. They say that my father had a melodious voice which would stir even the laziest fisherman to leap up and pull in his nets, and he would join the fishermen in their songs. No one sat in this café unless he had some connection with the sea: fisherman, boat builder, fish seller or whatever. I would never have enjoyed any position in the place had I not been the son of a sailor and fisherman, the like of whom the sea had never produced before (so they said), for he knew all its hidden secrets. Many of them would not believe that my father could have been swallowed up by the sea – swallowed up like the flabby bodies devoured by the waters, then slung to the surface when the sea tires of them, to float on the surface and be carried off by birds. They thought it more likely that he simply tired of this city that attracts strangers as it sleeps – strangers who were turning the sea into swamps and ponds for fancy fish, while the city did nothing to preserve its dignity. Because he was a sailor of the old school, they thought, he had grown tired of this attitude and left the city for the oceans where the sea was still youthful and vigorous.

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Every day I would sit in this café, sipping glasses of tea as I listened to wondrous tales of fishermen’s adventures. Then, as sunset approached, I would go back home to find my mother still whispering of her husband’s life. A few days ago a Sudanese fisherman came. He enjoyed a warm welcome and the respect of all, as tales, songs and the smell of the sea poured out everywhere. I was sitting near him, and from time to time he stole a glance, looking at me closely. I could see his tall turban piled on his head like a solid mountain of cotton, a perfect match for his thick trimmed beard flecked with pure white. His eyes shone brightly with a darting glance; they seemed to be able to cut through the person they were looking at, so much so that I felt that he was roaming through my mind. His repeated looks made me feel uncomfortable and I was on the point of leaving when the eldest fisherman’s voice made me stand up and go across to him, moving over to where he was sitting with the Sudanese sailor on his right hand. As I stood in front of them he said to him: ‘This is the son of Captain Husayn al-Mu’alla.’ He stretched out his hand for me to shake with exaggerated courtesy, and I felt embarrassed as I returned his greeting. His eyes ate into my face as he mumbled: ‘How is your father?’ The old fisherman shuffled in his seat and gave him a disapproving look. ‘Didn’t you know that he went missing, sir?’ He paid no attention to him, but sunk his eyes further into my face, still smiling his gleaming white smile. ‘And is your mother still waiting for him?’ he asked me unexpectedly. I started, and nodded my head. ‘Don’t go, I want to talk to you!’ he went on. Some of the fishermen cleared a space for me between them, and I sat there expectantly, as he went on telling some of his adventures with the sea. After the gathering had broken up, and only the older fishermen were left, he excused himself, took me to one side and started to talk to me in a kindly way. First of all, he told me to treat my mother well. ‘Be kind to her!’ he said. ‘But she never tires of repeating the story of my father, who went off such a long time ago,’ I replied. ‘He will come back,’ he replied confidently, in a way that made me tremble inside. ‘Do you know something about him?’ He said nothing, though his eyes continued to look at me doubtfully. Then he asked, in a hesitant tone: ‘Would you like to see him now?’

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I was extremely doubtful about this man, and the welcome that the fishermen had given him, so I replied mechanically: ‘I think he died a long time ago.’ He gave a shadowy smile, but made no comment on what I had just said. He took an empty tea glass, poured some water into it, raised it to his mouth and then started to mumble over it as he brought it close to my eyes. I could see a man sitting in a boat, slowly and expertly spinning a sail. He was painfully thin. I looked in astonishment, only waking to the voice of the Sudanese sailor saying: ‘This is your father. Wait for him! He will come back from the sea just as he went to it. But if you do not wait for him, he will not come!’ ‘When will he come?’ I asked eagerly. ‘This is a piece of knowledge that I cannot read, but he will come.’ Then, before starting to move, he added: ‘Be careful not to be late in meeting him, for he will need you when he arrives.’ He got up, stretching out his hand towards me, and pressed my hand affectionately, before rushing off along the road with his tall frame. Before he had gone any distance he turned around to offer me both advice and a warning: ‘You should wait for him at every sunset. Be careful not to be late for any reason. If you do not keep the appointment, then from one of the holes a withered bird will fall into the house, which will be your father’s soul. So be careful not to be late, and take care that no one sees you. Understood?’ He had disturbed me, so I shouted back to him: ‘And where should I wait for him?’ ‘Where the stars of Ursa Minor shine,’ he replied, directing his words behind him. I was not satisfied with his reply, so I started running after him. He turned round, and with an angry look on his face said: ‘Don’t follow me, you have heard enough!’ His words were sharp and his looks hostile, so I obeyed his instructions and gave up following him. For his part he continued to walk quickly towards the sea, as the older fishermen waved their hands to him in ­farewell. From that day on, I have gone out every day to wait for the arrival of my father. 2 I pulled myself together as far as possible, in order to get up and head for that distant spot on the shore. But I was stopped by a wretched feeling of

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nausea. My mother had made numerous attempts to silence the ringing that was growing inside me, turning into a violent headache that shook my whole being, but they had come to nothing. I could do nothing except clutch at my pillow and bury my head in it, while everything around me heaved this way and that, as it turned into circles that grew alternately wider and narrower, forcing me violently downwards. I would try hard to get the better of this nausea, but my only connection with the earth was my mother’s voice consoling me kindly: ‘Pull yourself together, the time has come!’ I move far away from her, drowning in my nausea. I move away with it, taking a grip on myself so that she will not go. Then it pulls me and runs away with me like a whirlwind, and I am lost, lost in nothingness. Occasionally, at times I can only vaguely remember, I hear her telling me to get up. I struggle and struggle and drown in my nausea. I see a great sea, and I see my own body tossed back and forth on the waves, which are sometimes trying to digest it, sometimes spitting it out. I stumble and raise my head, rising up and up, moving a little away from the lower circles of nausea. In the distance, her voice came back to me with the insistence of a heavy tambourine, sometimes lively and sometimes languid with grief. I felt her hand comb my hair and the smell of lemon scent from fish leaping beside my head. I started trying to grasp at her voice like a safety rope, while fish from the sea swam beside me. Suddenly, the fish abandoned me and my mother’s voice changed. ‘Look, there is a withered bird falling on us! Get up! Get up!’ The harder I tried to get up, the weaker I became as the circle of my nausea grew larger, and I saw my father swimming with difficulty towards the shore, buffeted by the waves and shouting. ‘Help me! Help me!’ He was swallowed up by an enormous whirlpool and I saw him disappear, only for the ringing to return. My mother was trying to get me up, but the harder I tried, the worse my nausea became. I saw the sea hurling its waves and running through the streets, entering houses, dragging me towards a corpse that lay bloated on the surface, for me to snatch it and disappear with it into the depths.

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Cage birds I despise people that raise their voices at their wives, and this contempt increases as the words get closer to the bone. ‘I regard this action as a hideous crime!’ When a man disparages his wife in a public gathering, in the marketplace or in the street, it becomes an unforgivable insult. When I hear something like that it makes me feel embarrassed, as if it was I that had done the foul deed, and when I hear voices like those disparaging their wives, it make me look for a piece of ground for my body to disappear into. Men here are like barbers nonchalantly running the blades of their tongues over their wives’ skins. Even if they draw blood, none of them can be bothered to wipe it away with a soothing word of apology. Women are like old towels which they slip into kitchens or locked rooms, to pour out their polluted stains on them in total secrecy. When we (my wife and I, that is) are in the market place, I usually refrain from indulging a habit we have had since our marriage, for here the sight may arouse sarcastic laughter or suspicion, neither of which I find appealing. But every time we pack our bags to leave these skies, she totters in front of me like the first time I saw her, and gives me a wink. ‘We’ll indulge our habit when the plane lands, won’t we?’ I smile at her and bend my arm over my waist. She hurriedly buries her hand in the gap, grasping my arm with a childish happiness, and we walk along proudly like two lovers exhausted by separation. We wander through the rooms of the house and its winding corridors, each of them ending in a narrow chamber, then forget those damp narrow rooms, and invent a scene somewhere in the world. We walk on the shores, we shop, we make paper dreams fly, and all the time she is hanging on to my arm, as her small delights dance together, filling the space in the house with happiness, before fluttering down to earth. ‘Tomorrow I’ll do this!’ She is silent for a few moments and carries on waiting for the moment to pack our bags. ‘Isn’t it painful to live for a single month each year? A month that goes by like a money lender slinking around the alleys with a sponger’s footsteps and an outcast’s greed?’ She looks at my white hair and the widening glow of a bald spot that has begun to spread, leaving behind a small furrow running between my thick hair, looking for an escape route that cannot be found. Hiding her

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bitter sarcasm, she says: ‘When we came here, your hair was thick and jet black. The years don’t just eat away at our appearance, but they also feed on our expectations. We wait for everything, we wait to go back home, we wait for this month every year, and we wait for me to hold your arms in a public place. And we wait for the child that has refused to share this loneliness with us. Everything is waiting.’ A short silence, then her voice dropped to a crushed whisper: ‘Isn’t it sad that holding your arm should be a great dream that we wait to turn into reality once a year?’ Twenty years have passed since we buried ourselves in this flat. From this grave I go out to work every day. Every evening I come back and find that she has made herself up, danced with the chairs, perfumed the carpets with her feet, and hung a thousand wishes on the walls, with a thousand grumbles and a thousand tears. As the key turns in the keyhole of the door, her feet will already have reached the opening that allows my body to enter, thrown herself at me, and kissed my forehead with passion. ‘Hi, how’s the outside world?’ I have often tried to push her away and told her off for doing this whenever I appear. The first time I told her off her eyes filled with tears: ‘Don’t you like me showing my feelings towards you?’ ‘No, no, dear, it’s just that when I come back I’m dirty, and my body is giving off smells that I wouldn’t like to reach your nose.’ She laughed so much I thought she was going to play her old trick (which never varies) of throwing a cushion at me. ‘Oh, but everything about you is my very existence … I love everything about you!’ After she said this I became embarrassed at my arrogance and started to embrace her when I came back from work, without worrying about the smells given off by my body – the result of humidity mixed with dust and car fumes. 2 My wife and I exchanged hostile glances. For a long time we had been accustomed to look at each other like that when we were totally exasperated. She would often pay no attention to me at all when the blood boiled in my veins; she would keep silent in the face of my sudden outbursts, and things would end in my leaving the house, cursing the hours that brought me together with her under the same roof. After every furious look, her face would blaze up and she would fill her bedroom with tears for days, but without actually reproaching me.

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She would perform all her duties in silence, with wet eyelashes, without responding to my apologies. Every time I thought up some ploy to soothe the harshness I had left inside her – leaving a rose in her bedroom, or a poem, or a small gift – she would come like a cooing dove and leave her body between my arms, quivering like a tree in autumn that had to shed most of its leaves to celebrate what remained of its greenness. Every time she would warn me gently: ‘Don’t scratch the jewel of the love that I bear for you!’ When she found that this sentence had not fulfilled its purpose she would stare at the tufts of my hair! ‘I’ve had enough of the loneliness we feel between these walls! Let’s just be like two cage birds. We have to live inside the cage, not outside it, and our life inside the cage means just you and me, you and me, we just sing and die!’ In this stifling social atmosphere we had no amusement except for walking along the Corniche sidewalk on Fridays. If I found that my constitution was in good shape we would visit one of the parks that spread out along the other sidewalk opposite, facing the dark, dust-coloured sea. Our day was full of stifling routine. I would go to work, and spend ten hours of my allotted life in my office, working continuously. When I saw the clock hands hovering over seven in the evening I would gather my papers together, bury them in the desk drawer and quickly leave. Straight away, I would have to face the night. ‘What can I do now?’ This question would pose itself on a daily basis. I would dream up various hypothetical scenarios to amuse myself, and before they had finished, the key would be turning in the keyhole. No sooner had the door opened than I would abandon the food I was carrying on the nearest table beside me, panting from climbing the twisting staircase with the high rises that made it hard to reach the top. I would feel annoyed when I spied her crouching in the corner of a room, staring deep into space. I would feel her annoyance and her silence would change into a burden thrown on to my own shoulders. ‘As usual, there is nothing to make this tedious person squatting like a guard dog melt …’ She would jump up nimbly and head for the kitchen, and return carrying a glass of water, which I had drunk for twenty years, whether I needed it or not. Then she would make directly for the bags I had left on the table and search them to be sure that I had not forgotten any of the requests that she had slipped into my pocket before I went to work. She didn’t criticize me for stopping my habit of kissing her whenever I returned from work, and I didn’t want to reestablish a habit that had stopped two years or more

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ago. Her silence stirred me and deadened me at the same time. Inside me, active dissatisfaction was wrestling with itself, emerging from within me like the steam of a volcano. ‘There is a better life!’ I would flee from the unease of the moment by going straight to the bathroom, by repeating mechanical questions to which I did not expect an answer and fantasizing about my hopes for another life. An oppressive night and the scent of her heavy perfume, trying to escape from being totally drowned in an excessive humidity. It carries on wafting through the place without finding any escape, except by penetrating my nostrils. Whenever she embraces me in her arms, I almost choke; I throw off her arms and seek shelter with the closed window. A continuous stabbing sinks into my mind: ‘What has she done wrong? What has she done wrong?’ Out of the corner of my eye I catch sight of her in her place, her features downcast. What power we possess when we commit injustices. ‘I beg forgiveness, I don’t mean it. I just feel myself suffocating!’ 2 ‘I mean this perfume is choking me!’ She stood downcast in front of the wardrobe mirror, took a towel, and retreated into the bathroom. I could hear the water running and something like sobbing. ‘What can I do now?’ Four silent, lifeless rooms. If only there were neighbours to relieve our stagnation a little. This city does not welcome the exchange of visits. Yesterday I found a young boy trying to come up the staircase; I picked him up in my arms, kissed his cheeks. My feelings were ablaze as I hugged him to my breast. I fixed him in my bones. I felt his small hands clinging to my chest, pushing me away from him. I kissed him passionately, and the more he pushed me away from him I felt him making me bleed. A woman’s voice could be heard from inside the house: ‘Fetch your son!’ My neighbour grasped the state I was in and snatched his son from my arms, as the child cried in agony. ‘Did he hurt you?’ I tried to apologize but he gave me a blazing look: ‘Curse the father of whoever let you in to the country!’ I retreated inside, his curses penetrating deep inside me like a sharp, piercing sword blade. As usual, she was sitting on a chair opposite the television, her eyes fixed on the wall opposite. If only a child had arrived

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in response to our wishes, it would have put an end to this daily tragedy. We had sought this child with all the money I had saved in this state of loneliness, spending it penny by penny in the accounts departments of private hospitals, spending many long days running here and there, but every time the child refused to come. Her eyes were still fixed on the wall. I sat down beside her and she jumped up to bring a glass of water. She had taken off her make-up and perfume. She stood up to bring the glass of water while I let my head hang to the ground and left my tears to find their own way. ‘What’s the news?’ ‘…’ ‘Did they annoy you at work as usual?’ ‘…’ ‘My God, please stop crying, I can’t bear to see you like that.’ She hugged me to her breast, as she joined me in my bitter tears. ‘God, what’s the point of this loneliness?’ 2 Today is Thursday. Tonight we escape from our prison for a little. We were a group of friends that had got to know one another, and which included our wives. It had become a habit that everyone looked forward to every Thursday evening. I had taken to finishing work early that day. I would leave work before six, planning a nice evening that would take us out of our state of boredom and put back some life into our veins. When I arrived home I found that she had painted on her make-up with great care and put on her heavy perfume. I didn’t show any irritation, and she grinned from ear to ear: ‘Sarah has just arrived, and she will be coming with us!’ I hurried into the bathroom to run some water to wash away the grime that was sticking directly to my body, and as the water poured down, Sarah naturally captured my imagination. She was a woman in her thirties, to whom life had given a fullish figure and a never ending laugh. With her you felt that women were indeed mouth-watering roses – a tunnel to help you escape life’s dark streets. I hurriedly finished getting myself ready and went out to the street to wait for the two of them to come down. I started the car, and over my body sprayed some gentle Parisian perfume, which spread languidly through the inside of the car. I checked that my hair and moustache were tidy, and

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made sure I could catch Sarah’s eye when she took the back seat by tilting the mirror a little. She opened her door quickly and sat down straight away. Meanwhile, Sarah’s hand reached out for the rear door, which she pulled gently towards herself, slipping her body into the far corner out of range of my eyes. Her ‘good evening’ had been like a tender song from the throat of a bewitching singer. ‘Why do we suppose we think every woman beautiful except for our own wives?’ I was annoyed by my wife’s perfume, for in an unequal contest the scent of my own body spray had lost to that heavy smell. It had stopped spreading beyond my clothes and skin, while her heavy perfume had begun to stretch its tentacles everywhere, spreading out like an elderly cat stretching its paws in every direction. It pressed on my chest and clogged the entrance to my lungs. Wanting to show how captivated with her I was in front of her friend, she asked: ‘What do you think of my choice of dress?’ ‘…’ I didn’t have the strength to reply, even though I could put an end to her long wait and rescue the situation with a short, hypocritical word. ‘Didn’t you hear, darling?’ ‘Eh, what are you talking about?’ Sometimes as we embark on a verbal battle with each other, I can feel the words sinking into her head, releasing the ghosts of the past for her to play with before slipping them back into her memory. Her perfume pervades the place, dragging around its heavy steps, clogging the air in all four directions. ‘Didn’t I tell you that this perfume suffocates me, and that you should change it for a lighter perfume?’ This sentence escaped my lips without my noticing, like a giant storming a place, unleashing the storm winds to dislodge all the hidden dust in the universe. Sarah tried to stop the winds gathering pace and attempted to lighten the gloomy atmosphere: ‘It’s a nice perfume. I like the smell of it a lot …!’ Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her tears playing havoc with her make-up. A rattle in the throat that put paid to her stream of words stopped the tears from flowing. Her hand stretched out to the door which she slammed shut. As she slipped into the entrance to the building, her body was shaking terribly, like a gazelle struck by a piercing arrow that lies down with its wounds in

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the forest so as not to be seen by its killer. A nasty surprise, as the woman who never tired of laughing changed into an electric current that stunned me from behind: ‘I never imagined you could be so unpleasant!’ The door slammed shut, and she got out, staggering off in the opposite direction. The car engine was still running as I tried to find words that would let me climb the tall staircase steps. How I wish now that I could find her standing at the door, pulling me to her breast and handing me the glass of water that I have been swallowing for twenty years whether I need it or not! Translated by Paul Starkey

Abdulaziz Al-Saqaabi He was born in Al-Taif, to the west of the kingdom. He holds an MLIS in library sciences and is head of the Registration Department at the King Fahad National Library in Riyadh. He writes plays, short stories and novels. He has published five collections of short stories and two novels.

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The guardian of the old river It is the remains of a river … maybe. It is a wadi – a channel for flood water … maybe. Everyone is waiting for water. And there is no water at all in that place. The houses of the village are lined up waiting for it to come. Their faces overlook the channel. The people of the village decided to keep the channel as it is. Maybe the river will come. Maybe. The channel crosses the village from north to south. Some of those houses face the east, and the others the west. The sun approaches the faces of the western houses when it rises and leaves the eastern houses when it sets. Everything is clustered around the river – little stalls, seats that lovers use. Crossings have been built to join the two banks for those who cannot walk straight across the channel. There is no water flowing at all, but the river might come and do away with the dust of the banks. Maybe. In the middle of the village, facing the channel, he made a house from scraps of wood, cotton and cloth. Everyone knew him as ‘The Man of the Flood’. He welcomed the sunrise every morning by chasing away the cats and dogs, except his dog, his faithful friend. He cleared the channel of the rubbish left over from the gatherings of the previous night. He got very angry whenever anyone disrespected the channel. He would say to them: ‘The water is coming. This is the river of its source, which sins have buried. The Man of the Flood was not a stranger to the village and its people. It was said that his parents were swept away by a flood that destroyed their village deep in the south. Because he was so small, he floated on a plank of wood until he was picked up by the people of the village. He saw that death came with that raging water. He was overcome with a fear that grew with him. The water swept away everything that stood in its way and his parents were too weak to resist it. He saw the water carrying them off into the unknown, then he decided to wait for them. Maybe they would come back with another flood, or maybe a river ploughing its way through an old channel would carry them back.

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He would wait for that torrent to come. He would wait forever. He would watch over this channel. The channel of a river. Maybe. The channel of a wadi. Maybe. His black dog lies next to him. It is his companion. It watches over the channel when he sleeps at night. The Man of the Flood does not sleep a lot and his dog does not sleep deeply. He listens closely, hoping to hear the torrent. It could come from the north or the south when the rain falls, and that happens rarely. His heart beats fast. He asks the people of the tribe to stay away from the channel. When the rain stops and the little streams of water in that channel dry up, his heart nearly stops. He feels terribly sad. He says to the people of the tribe: ‘You have committed so many sins. They have turned into a heap of rocks and sand that has blocked the course of the water. When will all of the people of the village stop sinning?’ He wanders the alleyways of the village. He shouts: ‘Repent. Wash yourselves with rainwater.’ One day he learnt that the people of the village had agreed to fill the channel up with earth, to bring together the east and the west. He did not sleep that night. He kept shouting at the top of his voice: ‘What folly are these people going to commit?’ As he shouted, he looked happily towards the sky, which had started to cover over with clouds. The sun hid itself far away to give way to the rain. It was said that no one in the village had ever known the like of it. Some of those who were well-versed in their history said that their region had not known rain like it for many, many years. Some of the nomads said that the rain that had struck that village deep in the south and had swept away the Man of the Flood’s parents was far weaker than this rain. The Man of the Flood was over the moon – the channel was full of water. It might turn into a river. Maybe. The people of the village were afraid that the rain would sweep the Man of the Flood away. They asked him to leave his flimsy, wretched tent and take shelter in one of the buildings overlooking the channel to the east or the west. He refused, preferring to stay to welcome the first surge of water in the channel.

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How he hoped that the water would come from the south, where he left his parents. The rain was heavy and it was coming from all sides. The channel filled up quickly and ran to the north. It swept the rocks and sand away with it. It swept away the remains of the stalls and the lovers’ seats. It swept away the wretched tent of the Man of the Flood. Some of the men of the village forced him into one of the big houses. They changed his clothes, which had been soaked by the rain. He stood on a balcony overlooking the river with some of the men. They watched the downpour and the torrent of water in the channel. The Man of the Flood noticed some pieces of cloth being swept along by the water. He shouted: ‘Father! Mother!’ He threw himself off the balcony and ran towards the channel. They tried to catch up with him but he was faster than them. They heard him shouting: ‘Let me do it! You won’t have to take the blame.’ His body disappeared into the torrent and the flood pulled him into oblivion with those pieces of cloth. The water left the channel as the clouds dispersed and the sun came back to reassume its position of complete authority. Everyone was very sad about ‘The Man of the Flood, whom the flood had swept away’, as they started to say. They decided to keep the channel open. It would not be touched by the hand of change. It would not be filled up with earth. People’s rubbish started to pile up. And the salesmen built their stalls again. And the lovers put new seats on either side of the channel. The dogs and cats multiplied, and in the place where the remains of the Man of the Flood’s house still lay, his dog ran to and fro, barking, continuing to guard the channel. The remains of a river. Maybe. The remains of a wadi … Yes, that is it.

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The salon Scattered seats, scattered bodies, a story starts and does not end, a story ends before it starts. It is the salon in which faces meet for the first time and faces meet for the last time. I carry my body between those chairs, along those passageways. I hold tightly onto cups of tea and coffee. He might tell me about a story that I wrote, I might tell him about a story that I did not write. I sit, two, three, four, all of them sit, some on the edges of the chairs and tables. ‘How are you?’ Some people say. Conversation does not go beyond ‘How are you?’ One of them sings, ‘You are singing about how people are …’ How well people can talk about how they are. Words start and end, the salon is a chest holding peoples who have perfected the arts of speaking and listening. I, meanwhile, look for my voice – it is discordant and the words it utters have neither rhythm nor rhyme. I spoke about a new poetic form; one of them interrupted to ask if I had filled it out. Another brought out a poem of a thousand lines, each made up of six to eight feet. The feet did not move in a rhythmical way and the salon’s walls did not send back echoes. Whenever my steps fell on the salon floor, I tried to be the one who was always reading, the one whose features were moulding to the shape of words harvested over years. It did not matter that some would know some of these words and some would know me and make me known to some of the others. I felt that being known by some was a way to be known by all. I was one of those not ready to know anyone, those who seemed like the floor of the salon, whose relations changed with every change in people’s footsteps. I asked a friend what the culture here was like. He said: ‘Here there are only cultured people, even that waiter. When he brings cups of coffee and you ask him about the coffee itself, you will be surprised by an elaborate tale of its origins and literary history. When you ask about the relationship between culture and coffee, you will find that they have forever shared an unshakable bond.’ I summon my voice and ask for a cup of coffee. A collection of smiles surrounds me: ‘You didn’t ask us what we were drinking.’ I ask them. Tea, coffee, cappuccino. I am the man whose voice is heard, I am, and the salon is a silent witness to what is said and what is not said. In these moments I find that culture has as many faces as there are types of drink, food and flattery.

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I look for someone I really know. I do not find anyone. No one in the hall really knows anyone. I consider the salon … I find myself alone in front of a cup of bitter coffee. I drink down the bitterness. I give in to my feet; they carry me towards a door, opening onto the sun and the rain.

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The step dance The men gathered in the village square and formed a circle. One put a drum down and started to beat a rhythm with two thin sticks, intoxicating the people of the village with music. They danced. He smiled and gold teeth bore witness to the joy. In his soft voice, he bellowed, ‘The night’. The men stamped their feet on the ground, making a cloud of dust. The men held the hands of a man who they surrounded that night. They threw him into the middle. They formed a circle around him. They thudded over the ground. They spun to the right. And to the left. He shrugged his shoulders threw his head up to the sky. He lifted his hand towards the star hovering over his head. In his soft voice, the drummer bellowed ‘The night’. Sweat poured from his body. He shrugged his shoulders and his head swayed, intoxicated by the voice of a woman who cried out to welcome him. He went back a few steps and some of the men made a space for him between them. He plunged into the middle of the circle. An old man advanced a few steps towards the middle. He moved towards him. The man whom the celebration was for planted a kiss on the head of the old man. They lifted their hands up high. The old man moved back a few steps and he followed him. The men closed a gap, making him have to go back to the middle. He shrugged his shoulders. The old man bent down stiffly. He picked up some ashes and threw them over people’s heads. The ground shook with the fall of the men’s feet. A woman shouted, announcing that the time for the meeting had come. The drummer bellowed, ‘The night’. All the men moved towards the two of them. They surrounded them. They moved back a few steps. They moved a step to the right. Two steps. They moved towards the two of them.

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They both lifted their hands up high. The men moved a step to the left. Two steps. The old man’s body grew heavy. He leant his right arm against the man whom the celebration was for. He embraced him with his left arm. The men clapped their hands. The square was ablaze. The two men swayed. They threw their heads up to the sky. They moved towards a fire that had been made in the middle. The blaze embraced them. The man whom the celebration was for had sweated all his body could. They moved back a few steps. Some of the men made a space between them for the two, who plunged into the middle of the circle. The sound of the drum calmed and the fire lit up, stoking up the noise. The men’s voices blazed. And the women’s voices blazed. Joy spread. The man whom the celebration was for sprang up from the ground. All the women of the village embraced him. The old man was not only his father, he was also a father to the whole village. A woman cried out from far away: ‘Where is he?’ The women want him. He clung to the old man and said: ‘I will stay here all night. The square still yearns to feel the fall of our feet.’ The noise was stoked by the drum. In his soft voice, the drummer bellowed, ‘The night’. The gleam of gold flashed from his mouth. The men moved towards the fire and lit up their hands. They formed a circle. They sang. A young man moved towards the middle. He spun to the right, he spun to the left. He stamped hard onto the ground and it threw him up high. He looked down on the crowds of men. He shouted, ‘Yahey!’ The ground grabbed hold of him again. The man whom the celebration was for moved towards the middle. He tried to drag the old man with him. The old man was feeling warm among the crowds of men. He stood alongside the young man. He stamped hard onto the ground and lifted his hands up high.

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He shrugged his shoulders. He spun to the right. He moved a step forward. He moved towards the fire. He spun to the left. He moved a few steps away from the fire, towards the crowds of men. He threw himself up high and then the ground grabbed hold of him … He moved towards the drummer. He clapped powerfully. The young man moved towards the fire. He stamped his feet on the floor and the men trembled and clapped. Their voices mingled with the sound of the thundering ground. The man whom the celebration was for clapped alone. He moved towards the drummer and shouted at him: ‘We want your night to be hot.’ The drummer smiled, showing his gold teeth. The young man leapt above the fire. The noise of the drum was loud. The old man lifted his hands up high. The men lifted their hands up high. The man whom the celebration was for picked up some ash and scattered it over people’s heads. The men moved back a few paces. The square went white. The drummer bellowed, ‘The night’. The young man headed towards the old man. The sheikh moved forward a few paces. He put a piece of incense on the fire. A fragrant smell spread over the square. The women cried out, ululating, and moved towards the crowds of men. The men surrounded the women’s voices as they sang with joy, rejoicing for a woman who sprung, blazing, from the light of the sun. The young man stamped hard on the ground. It threw him up high. He shouted, ‘I am hers … And she is mine …’ The old man signalled with his head and spun his body around the men. He lifted his hands up jubilantly. The man whom the celebration was for wrapped him up in his arms. The old man headed towards the young man. He said: ‘She is yours.’ The drummer bellowed out, ‘The night’. The man whom the celebration was for spun towards the men. The old man said: ‘She is yours.’

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The ground was heavy with his thudding steps. The two of them surrounded the old man, spun with him to the right and moved a few paces towards the fire. They spun to the left and the crowds of men took him in, lifting their hands up high. They were singing joyful songs to throngs from the black night. The fire lit up and stoked up the noise, and a woman moved towards the crowds of men. Some of them jumped with fright. She took hold of the old man’s hand and took him from the two who had shut him off. The circle of men surrounded the four of them. The woman emitted a mournful cry. The drummer moved towards the middle. The men moved away slightly. The man whom the celebration was for shrugged his shoulders and spun to the right. To the left. The ground opened up under his feet. He lifted his hands up high. The body of the old man grew heavy; he looked for the body of the man whom the celebration was for and found it nearly plunging to the ground. The young man picked him up and carried him through the circle of men. The woman was still shut off by the ring within which the men had enclosed her. The drummer bellowed out, ‘The night’. The woman let down her black hair and soared up high. The man whom the celebration was for lifted up his hands and spun. To the right. To the left. He shrugged his shoulders. In a husky voice, he bellowed out ‘the night’. He moved back. Some of the men made a gap for him between them. He took hold of the woman’s hand They went out through that opening. They went far out of the village. The noise of the drum died down The drummer. The men. The village died down. And the night made their voices blaze.

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The question He moved towards him with heavy paces. He wanted to talk to him. For a long time they remained a pace apart. Would he move forward or back? Why would he not speak first? The hall was swarming with people; he knew none of them. It seemed to him that he had known him for all eternity, which might in fact be true. – Allow me to introduce myself. The words were lost in an ocean of thoughts. This is not a good formula for introductions; there must be a perfect formula. – My name’s Hassan. And what does that mean? Nothing at all. A lot of people’s are called Hassan. Maybe he will reply by saying ‘And what should it mean to me if your name is Hassan? What would you reply? Try to gauge his character in the moment when you first address him. Immerse yourself in him and disappear. Don’t lose the thought. Hold firm and you will be fine, and your name, Hassan, which means good, will be not only an identity but an essence. Try to rouse him with your presence inside him, certain that he is the only person who you have known for nearly all eternity. ‘Please make sure that you each have a number and wait your turn.’ – My number is forty-eight and my name is Hassan. What’s your number? – Fifty. What if I had said to him ‘Hey, Mr Fifty.’ He would no doubt have slapped me because he was attached to his name and proud of it. Better to maintain the short, long pace between them. 2 The alley is long and narrow. Some boys are playing some games, passing about a small ball. One of them throws it at another’s head. It hits him from behind. Just a little graze with blood dripping from it. He fills the neighbourhood with his screams. His mother comes out in an inside-out abaya, with her grey hair flying out from behind a scarf. She hits him hard. She tells him off.

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– Didn’t I tell you not to play with Hassan? You’ve got what you deserve. He looks at his skullcap, covered in blotches of blood, he throws it away and returns to the game. Then the ball grazes his head and he starts the terrible screaming again. Hassan expected everyone to start pummelling him so he fled quickly to his grandmother, who lived in a little mud-brick house. Hassan was all she had. His parents had died when he was small from tuberculosis, so it was his grandmother who raised him. They received some charity money from the mosque because she was an old woman and he was an orphan. – What number are we up to? – Seven. – It won’t be our turn for months. – There are people behind us. – And they have numbers? You, Mr Fifty (don’t make me have to squeeze the words out of you, I know that you can talk perfectly fluently), you know that we have to sit here for a few hours, waiting for our turn. You know that I was two numbers ahead of you – I would be done first. Maybe you would be the last person in that hall. Why won’t you talk? My name is Hassan, what’s yours? I don’t think that that’s a good way to get to know someone. He might say any name. Let’s say Muhammad, for example. A lot of people are called Muhammad. What good is that? I’ll stay as I am – boldness is no better than restraint, it might not serve any purpose. 2 The barber’s shop is thronging. Hassan’s grandmother had brought him there for a haircut. ‘A wet shave please.’ She left him sitting on a wooden chair and went. The barber had put a selection of magazines on a little table for people to entertain themselves with as they waited for their turn. He took a newspaper and started to flick through it like the man sitting in front of him. A picture of one of the boys from their neighbourhood grabbed his attention. He tried to spell out what was written above it. C O N G R A T U L A T I O N S O N Y O U R S U C C E S S.

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So he had succeeded. Just like him. His photo must be published here too. There was no doubt about it. He looked for his photo. He didn’t find it on any of the pages of any of the newspapers and magazines on that little table. ‘It’s your turn now, Hassan.’ He gave himself up to the barber’s razor, which transformed his full head of hair into the skinhead of a conscript. When the haircut was over, he met the boys of the neighbourhood and he asked them the question – why was his photo not in the newspaper? And why was it that particular boy whose photo had been published? 2 – Number twenty … Abdullah Ahmad … Please … Twenty … Twenty … Abdullah Ahmad … Abdullah … Abdullah … – Do you know him? – Who? – Abdullah. – No. Will they wait a little? Maybe he went to one of the toilets. What does it take to get a reaction out of him? Would he hit me back if I hit him? If it had been Abdullah Ahmad who I was talking to, I would have learnt the story of his life and we would have passed the time with conversation. It does not matter. I will wait. Maybe it will all end happily and he will speak to me. My eternal knowledge of him makes me wait. 2 She was bored to death with him. She could not bear it any more. This feeling made her abusive towards him, but the insults she chose were ones that he did not take seriously. Her father. A good man. He was well known for how good he was so people did not find it strange that he preferred Hassan to all the other young people of the neighbourhood. He entrusted him with a job in the grocery that he owned and ran along with his modest government job. Then he married him to his daughter. To begin with Hassan didn’t believe that there was anything between her and the young man who used to sit for hours in the café opposite her father’s house. It was just a look.

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New Voices of Arabia – The Short Stories A plea of weak hopefulness. – You’re still young. Why don’t you marry her? – Her father prefers Hassan. He fled from her to preserve his dignity. She remains a faded reminder of a long since vanished world.

2 – Number forty-eight … Mr Hassan. The sound echoes in the hall. He hurries to where the voice was hidden. – It came from here … Your name is clear here … – I have number forty-eight. Without this number you will not be able to pick up your pension. He goes away. He thinks about whether to leave the hall. He decides not to leave it until he has got to know the man with number fifty. He asks about him. No one knows him. He leaves the hall. He goes home. He walks in with heavy paces. He looks in the mirror hanging in the entrance. He finds the man carrying number fifty in front of him. The question comes to him again. – I am sure that I have known you for all eternity! Translated by Clem Naylor

Abdulaziz Mashri He was born in 1954 in Al-Baha, in the south of the kingdom. He published six short-story collections and four novels. His complete works were published posthumously in three volumes between 2004 and 2010. His works include Death on The Water (1979), Travels of Al-Sarawi (1986) and The Forts (1992). He died in 2000.

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Ibn al-Sarawi It was the twentieth day of the month of Dhu’l-Qa’da. The year of the drought. Attiya bin al-Sarawi carried a clean cloth bag, and in its fold were a crust of bread made of country wheat and a small quantity of dried dates. He put the bag in his right hand; over his shoulder lay a striped ­blanket. He bid farewell to his wife, Sa’ada, entrusting the children with her. The time of the rooster’s first crowing had passed, and he was resolved on his intent to travel to Mecca. It happened that he fell in with a company of ten men with shaved heads, wearing turbans and girded with wide leather belts that clung to their middle, protecting some silver dirhams. And they walked, carried along by stories and heroic tales, until the pain of walking pricked at their feet. They formed a council in the shade, underneath a sidr tree that poured down a midday shadow. Near the sidr tree was a meagre creek flowing with water. Each one rolled out his bag. Attiya bin al-Sarawi rolled out his bag, whose contents were similar to those of the other ten. They started eating. From the shadow of the tree’s frame, it was clear that the time had come for the noon prayer. They did their ablutions with water from the creek. Attiya bin al-Sarawi performed the ritual call and led the ten others in prayer. No sooner was the prayer begun than it was interrupted by a snake passing by in front of them as they faced Mecca. ‘Nothing to be afraid of,’ they said. After a time, someone killed it. The bags were picked up, and the urge to be on their way pounded in their hearts. When sunset drew near, and the sinking sun dipped below the horizon, they pulled off onto an area to the side of the road and entered a side path. They went down into a valley with a trace of greenery upon its dust. On the opposite side of the valley were a few houses. The colour of their buildings was like the colour of the mountain leaning over them. Attiya bin al-Sarawi led the call to prayer and performed the sunset prayer, along with three extra ritual prayers in haste. He stood aside in a separate place, which drew their glances. ‘We will stay for the night near one of these houses,’ Atiyya bin al-Sarawi said. ‘We have dates, and some of us have wheat. The finest traveller is the

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one who brings his provisions along in unknown regions. That person has taken into consideration proper advice.’ ‘Good sirs,’ one of them responded, ‘it is better for us to do our prayers together, and in the shortened form.’ ‘We don’t know about that,’ they replied, ‘until our prayer leader says so.’ ‘Good deeds,’ said Atiyya bin al-Sarawi, ‘are in that which God chooses. If we were to leave it aside, there would be no blame upon us. For we are travelling, and it may be long.’ 2 They knocked on the door of the most outlying house in the village. They knocked calmly and with confidence, like one who had been guaranteed of the excellence of their night’s resting place. ‘Who is it?’ said a woman’s voice from behind the wooden door. ‘Travellers making the hajj,’ replied Atiyya bin al-Sarawi. ‘Night has overtaken us.’ ‘We need a night’s lodging,’ he added. ‘We have dinner with us.’ ‘I am alone,’ the woman replied, with sadness and hunger in her voice. ‘I am afraid of strange men.’ ‘O woman created by God,’ said Atiyya bin al-Sarawi, ‘anyone who is on his way to the hajj has freed himself from sins. So do not speak of baseless ideas and imaginings!’ ‘And who will guarantee that?’ she said. ‘After supper,’ he replied, ‘you retire to your compartment, and we will use our arms as pillows, and sleep.’ She opened one half of the double-door a hair’s breadth. She sized them up with a glance, then opened the half-door all the way. She stood behind the second half-door, which was still shut. They made their formal greetings and sat down on a mat on the floor of the house. They brought out their wheat and asked her about a hand mill. She pointed to the corner of the house and volunteered to grind the grain. 2 They spread out their blankets and stretched out after supper, which the woman had supplemented with sour milk-curds, and aged butter.

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2 ‘Woe is me, for the night is long,’ the woman said. ‘At first daybreak, we have a long journey ahead of us,’ replied Atiyya bin al-Sarawi. 2 The ten men slept, exhausted. Not even a gunshot could disturb their sleep. 2 ‘God give me endurance,’ the woman said to herself. ‘Keep from me the evil of abundance, and grant me the blessing of a little.’ To his sleepless eyes, Atiyya bin al-Sarawi said: ‘My God, forgive the sin of Your servant who is awake. You know Your servant’s soul, Your servant’s wiles, Your servant’s weakness. Have pity! All the iniquities of sins are washed away by the ritual walk of the hajj.’ 2 So it came to pass that he carried the conversation for half the day. Noon came – the time when the sun stood at the centre of heaven’s zenith. They winked and gestured at each other. Each one harbours suspicions about the other, and the others do not suspect or wink at each other. ‘Good sirs,’ said Atiyya bin al-Sarawi, ‘I have thought much of God, and God forgives sins altogether.’ ‘Imam,’ said one. ‘The proverb says, “O stranger, be well-mannered.” ’ ‘The traveller is the like winds that do not cling to trees,’ replied Atiyya bin al-Sarawi. ‘Pluck the hair from my beard if God will accept the hajj of Atiyya bin al-Sarawi,’ one said. ‘If I knew that what you said would prove to be correct, I would return to Sa’ada,’ said Atiyya bin al-Sarawi. ‘They say that the Prophet put emphasis on intention behind actions,’ said one. ‘Whether it’s sincere, or whether there is within it something that sits below the surface.’ Then came the voices of three men: ‘The hajj is a season of blessing. A person sets out, heading to the object of desire. He intends to make the hajj, and is engaged in his effort, and obtains sustenance from his beneficence. All of it is recompense, and a price.’

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2 Six days passed, as the men go down into valleys and climb mountains. And when sunset comes, they sing, Here I am, Oh God, Here I am! It happened that the sun rose on the seventh day on Atiyya bin al-Sarawi, and he became delirious from sunstroke. His face was like dark-brown cinnamon, and his nose was like a sword blade. They said: ‘Let’s kill a billy goat, and slit its throat, and we’ll give him its broth to drink.’ They cooked the billy goat over dried tree branches, and the feverish man drank some of the broth. His fever increased. ‘I will make my will,’ he said. ‘It’s best to be optimistic,’ they said. ‘You’ll live a long life.’ ‘I will make my will,’ he said. ‘Make your will,’ they said. ‘If pain takes you, and anxiety overpowers you, rise up, and ascend the mountain you encounter. And sing – perhaps your voice will reach other lands and wander earth and heaven. As for Sa’ada, I do not fear for her. She is like a man.’ He pulled out of his pocket an old piece of paper, like the colour of dirt. He spread it out in front of him, shivered and said, ‘Record in your hearts what is on here.’ With effort, some of them repeated what was on it: ‘I am from a defenceless, forgotten village, and all its men are in the field or the quarry. My father came from a family of ploughmen, not from noble lords, and my grandfather was a peasant of no renown or pedigree.’

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Maliha: sheep and the death of the fig tree The sun strews tresses of gold, a luminous air that dyes the trees and rocks. It branches out into the fields. It bestows on the cold mountain slopes prism-like reflected shafts. The stone houses lean against the ashgrey mountain and the scattered, low-lying village of Muhadara advances gradually to the bottom of the green valley. A fig tree raises its green cap. It is round like an umbrella. It sways on an ancient trunk that is yellow and solid. It occupies a draping circle, a shade where the essence of it stands at the centre. Towering, it stands on the southern incline, and watches all the houses. It protects them from the terrifying rising whirlwinds of the jinn. 2 A fig tree … It bears fruit twice a year. It bears unripe fruit the first time, for children to arrange into necklaces. They stretch to hang them on high-up branches. As for the second time, its fruit is sweet-flavoured and good, when a fig emerges into ripeness. The eye, passing by, devours it in its yearning. A bachelor … A man … An old man, or a woman … Girls of the village pass near the ancient fig tree. They slander it with vile expressions. They pass by. The girls, all of them, do not know the taste of its fruit. Nor their mothers or grandmothers. 2 Maliha was tending her sheep at the verdant foot of the mountain. She gives them water to drink, and during the hour of afternoon rest, she spreads out her bundle near al-Jalla. Where the water sets the fragrance of basil flowing, she observes the lofty, distant fig tree and eats her lunch … Brown bread … Sheep’s milk … Bread … Milk and singing … She danced for the coming of the seasonal winds. She clapped. Her two

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braids flew up, dancing. And the water danced. The water flows out black eyes that sing, as the sheep’s mouths gobble. The sheep run to the water. The sheep plunge into the glassy whiteness of the water. The water flows and stares. They drink in silence and also stare, and are silent. They are being pulled back and forth like a slack chain. They lie down in fear and wariness. They ruminate in the shade of the fig tree. Maliha sang and clapped a lot, then grew tired. Drowsiness came over her and she fell asleep. 2 The water stares at Maliha’s face. It flirts with her braid and sings. She sinks into the embrace of drowsiness. And Maliha fell into a deep sleep. The water is eyes that sing. They sing and stare, as Maliha is stretched out in a prolonged, terrifying and agonizing dream. (The fig tree lies limp on the ground, flayed of its bark. Its blood flows copiously and floods its enormous yellow trunk. The men of the village surround it, a corroded ring with a wide circumference. Sa’id buries in the dirt the blood that is spewing out. Ali carries a jug. He washes the roots and branches with water. The old sheikh in the village had taken off his turban and covered a great part of the south side of the trunk with it. The blood flows over the turban. Hands and faces are clothed in blood and drown. The boys split up like flies, searching through the slender leaves. The women were like crows on the far edge. Wrapped in their faceveils, they watch and shudder. 2 The sound of the water grows louder. The scent of the water’s rhymes flirts with Maliha’s braids and the fragrance spreads, covering the resounding echoes. Maliha opens her eyes. She stares at the surface of the water. She lightly brushes the wings of the air. She turns around, but can’t find her sheep. She set her illustrious steps to the left of the flowing water. It flows with panic and fear. With pitch-black silence wrapped in dread. Her feet were leading her towards the house … Towards the house … Towards the house … She looks for the torn face-veil, to join her own shudders to those of the women of the village sitting on the far edge.

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The sheep were all lying down in fear and wariness mingled together. They were afraid. And … They are afraid … They don’t know of what. They are wary of the fear they feared. They are pulled into the afternoon shade of the fig tree. Small lambs play the music of an innocent bleating. It grows louder. It bursts forth lightly, sweetly like their silky short wool; with their ears, the ewes gesture silently to their lambs. The lambs play their music … play their music … they jump peaceably, butting one another in innocent joy … The ewes were chewing the silence … They ruminate in fear of fearlessness … They ruminate in wariness. 2 Maliha enters the house … Trembling, she calls her mother … Her mother clutches her daughter’s hand and caresses it. Maliha looks for the torn face-veil. Her mother asks about Maliha’s stronghold: the sheep … fear, and the sheep ruminate in fear … Their small lambs make music and dance and are happy in simpleminded innocence. Maliha, with her hair hanging loose, looks down from the seasonal window that overlooks the southern slope. The towering fig tree stands, watching all the houses. It protects them from the terrifying rising whirlwinds of the jinn. Its leaves have turned into yellow eyes – stern, powerful and large.

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The saddlebag The smell of the saddlebag that was filled with the goods from the market and was carried by the she-ass, along with the weight of the old man once a week, had a unique taste in the nose, which no other smell could replace. Perhaps it was in the smell of the village’s only small shop, which evoked it, but wasn’t just like it. It stayed in the saddlebag, in the nose and in the heart. And today … It’s up to you, boy of eight years or a little more, to get ready your thobe and shoes, and attach the clip to your throat, in order to close the gap of the two neck openings, or to decrease the length of the thobe’s open hem, from the middle of the chest to the neck, so you can take your place by yourself on the back of the donkey behind the old man. 2 The donkey’s hooves made a crackling sound on the rocks along the road, and the crooked road was like neglected rope; it seems far and long, and the boy let himself hope that, if he doesn’t know how it ends, then where is the final point where this distant rope runs out? The road passed through the highest mountains, and through many foothills, and through towns with no farmland. It cut through a small creek that had thin strands of algae-laden water, dark green basil plants, and on both sides rocks, big and small, as smooth as eggs. There were trees as big as monsters, and here and there at a distance, quails, turtledoves and parrots leap up. As they fly, they carry your gaze with them, until they disappear or come back down to earth. As for him, he is going down to the market, as though he will be seeing what no one except him has ever seen. He saw men and women, some of them on donkeys and some of them on foot. Some of them hold in their hand a small woven basket made of palm fronds, and others clutch canes and staffs. As they got closer to the market, their numbers increased. The area was bordered by trees along one side, and by the mountain on the back side. It opens up in front of the interconnected houses, white and bare-stoned. Those trees that had sprung up were close to each other’s trunks, and they lean over, making shade, under which donkeys are tied up; the old man tied up his own donkey and took the empty saddlebag off his back.

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The boy walked behind him, following him, and the senses in his young head were overwhelmed with all the colours, sounds and smells. The old man entered a shop, and greeted its owner. The shop-owner stuck out two fingers of his hand, picked up two colourful pieces of sweets, and handed them to the boy. The rare, beloved smell butted against the boy’s nose. The shop wasn’t like the small shop in the village, except in things that his eyes didn’t linger on. Those things he had already seen before, and he knows what the other things are called and what they use them for. As for those items done up like brides, and those things, like big pomegranate seeds, placed in the corner like lit-up arrows, they are all new to him, and he doesn’t know why people buy them. 2 The old man told the shop-owner, as he handed him the bag, that he was going to walk around the market and come back to take his goods; then he walked out of the shop. O God of children and markets … Why are these rare, mingled smells only in the saddlebag or in the market? People were making a loud noise in every square inch, their paths crisscrossing left and right. On the ground there are women and men selling things, and talking, and others are raising their voices, calling people to their wares. Row after row, with their goods for sale in front of them, and between them and others like them, shoppers pass by and go about their business. Now he knew where the old man gets the pomegranates and plums – from here, from that small pile in front of that man sitting cross-legged. And from that man standing in front of hanging clusters of red dates, the old man buys dates. As for that man sitting there with his hands stained black in front of him, along with wide-bellied jugs and water skins nearly bursting with pitch, no doubt he is selling tar, and the smell of it lingers in the nose. Near his pots and pans lined up in rows was a man with aged eyes and hands, and in front of him canes and trimmed staffs were spread out. Oh God, isn’t there one small staff among them the right size for a boy’s arm? In the market, the boy saw things his eyes had never encountered before, or his ears, or his sense of perception in his head, or his bosom; wherever he turns, he sees a new thing, or things; at that moment he knows that this is where they come from, and that they weren’t just colourful items for sale, crops, smells and the flavour of honeyed sweets that

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refused to vanish from the tongue: they are what filled his entire capacity for comprehension. In fact, he laid eyes on other people of various kinds, other than those he was familiar with, and with different heights, eyes, and short and long beards. Then the old man went on a short stroll, in order to buy basil and shar, and sour and sweet lemons, in front of women old and young who had placed small baskets beside them. The sides of the baskets were almost sticking out with dry green henna leaves, like the leaves of the sidr tree. The boy saw a crowd filled with the sound of people and animals, including camels, cows and a lot of donkeys; near them were sheep and goats. He even saw chickens, eggs and clover around the knees of the women who were sitting. 2 The young boy, with his tongue feeling dry in his mouth, told the old man that he wanted something to drink, so the old man called him, with a friendliness he wasn’t accustomed to, to a short, crooked-headed faucet sticking up out of a cylindrical tin bowl standing near the door of a mosque that was bigger than the one in their village. He drank and washed his face and hands. The old man was collecting the things he came to purchase, and carrying them to that store they had first entered. The boy was carrying more than he could, and was walking behind him. He thinks of his grandfather as different from all these people, with his wide stride in his sirwal trousers, and his towering height in his brown overcoat, and his clean leather shoes, and his neatly worn white outfit, and the cord that gathers up his flared turban on his head. As for his reed cane with the stained head, it is average in slenderness and length. He rarely saw anything like it in other people’s hands. He was meeting a lot of men, and greeting them, and they smile, and treat the boy with cheerful and joking words, and some of them put something in his hand. After his return from the market, he sat down in the house between his younger brothers and the neighbour’s daughter and son, and took out an apple, two bananas, three pieces of wrapped candy, a fist full of sidr tree fruit – the lady who sold the basil and henna gave them to him – and a big lemon that tastes like sugar. He began to distribute them among everyone, the way the old man does among his family members. He plunged into all the details to describe it, in order to convey to them what he heard and what he saw, and what will remain in his head and heart until some point he doesn’t know.

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He had gone all day without eating, and after the old man came back from the market, he took things out of the saddlebag – the source of its smell was no longer a mystery, as the boy understood it – and made his fair distribution among the members of his household, big and small. Afterwards he took off his overcoat, hung his turban and cord on the wall and propped up his reed cane – which he didn’t dare pick up, as he himself had told him not to – and they sat down to lunch. The boy didn’t eat lunch. It wasn’t because he had filled his eyes, ears and nose, but because he continued to complain for days of a pain in his stomach every day at noon, and for many years he complained of that pain and of dreams that disturbed his restful slumbers, and sometimes he remembers a time when the old man was about to tighten the saddlebag onto the back of the donkey, so they could return home, and he saw people gather around the courtyard of that mosque where he had drunk the water. Men came, and the old man said that they were soldiers. Along with them was a man with his hands tied. They sat him down on his behind, and a man as enormous as the night sky approached him. Translated by Chip Rossetti

Abdulhafiz Al-Shammri He was born in 1959 in Hail, in the north of the kingdom. He has published five short-story collections and four novels. He received the Abha shortstory award in 2002. He is currently the cultural editor of Al-Jazira newspaper in Riyadh.

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Planning for a scream The child had been growing in his mother’s womb for months, had become restless and nauseous, realizing that it was the result of poor nutrition from the mother’s lack of appetite. The mother remained stubborn and frank in her desire – once she had been told by her doctor that the baby was male – to name it Saqar, Asad or Namr.1 The father was still pondering the list of possible names for his overdue son and was leaning towards a compromise along the lines of Wahid, Farid or Walid.2 He wanted to appease his young wife, who had married an older man. On the verge of middle age, he had become a meek creature in the hands of this woman. She, on the other hand, had been uncontrollable since her teens. Her astonishment was profound and joy immense when she had learnt that her heart’s desire to have a child had been realized, a new proof of love played out in frantic passion. It was the realization of what had seemed impossible: her great dream, a dream cherished for years, to have a child which symbolized the love in her heart. It had been a fixation and made her feel deeply indebted to the one who had delivered her so wonderfully from the fear of the unknown, the one who had stalked his tender prey with utter accomplishment. The child’s limbs grew and its bones formed. It became ready for this world. The mother remained frank in her insistence that her son’s name should be one of her own glorious suggestions. She tried through her moaning and groaning to push the child into the world, to stir him to his first scream, that strange and wondrous weapon the newborn launch on entry into this world. This soon-to-be-born child was inescapably made ready for fierce battles ahead. Triumphant conquests were bound to follow, it seemed, given a mother who had craved a child so much and given that it was the product of passion that would embody all of her love. Perhaps the scream would help it survive; perhaps it would counterbalance the bloody screams of its mother’s pain. Perhaps she would want to rethink the list of names, for the name to represent, from head to toe, that powerful flare of energy and lightning in which the baby was conceived, to 1. Names derived from the words for ‘eagle’, ‘lion’ and ‘tiger/leopard’ respectively. 2. Names derived from words meaning ‘individual’, ‘unique’ and ‘child’ respectively.

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embody what it would inherit from that bold knight whose wild, passionate crusade had culminated in that wondrous creation, a fire that would be passed down the generations. The father was superseded, having been present only for that momentous rush of passion, on the outside, ensconced in his gratitude and his list of compromise names. It was ready. So it seemed. Being about to scream, like any other newborn in this world, he was prevented by a hand forcefully gagging his mouth at the moment they had covered their ears, as it were, in preparation for the inevitable.

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Destitution All year round beggars would come to our humble houses in clothes only slightly less tattered than our own, peering hungrily around our streets, their faces more lined than ours. Four madmen would roam around with them back then and the local boys would chase after them all. They would stand at our doors or sprawl on the dusty streets and women would come out with handfuls of wheat, barley, dates or old clothes. I still make it my business to chat with their like sympathetically, to tell them how poor my family is, about our senseless poverty. Those beggars would disappear gradually, day by day, when they saw that we were in the same kind of state as they were. They had left us alone some time ago when we had headed for the stars, gone on to other districts where money had come to throw up concrete high and low. Iron grew and glass glimmered and the buildings reached for the sky, level by level. We pretended to a sense of homeliness with our little bushes and seed lawns in front of those gleaming homes. Then the beggars returned to find us, after an interlude of years, to roam our new neighbourhoods, a forest of concrete and streetlights. The madmen did not roam with them as they used to do, as we had sent them all off to neat little prisons we called clinics and refuges, having shut our own hearts to them. They were no longer welcome. The children could not follow them around anymore anyway because they themselves were incarcerated, sat before flickering televisions in their own secure homes. The beggars looked at our brand new houses, with their gates, and were astonished at their dimensions, which seemed impervious to simple and tender affections. They went about their begging, some coming back with nothing, others noticing that the women’s hands were softer and less wrinkled than they used to be. As was my want I chatted sympathetically with them, telling them with conviction that we had swapped our old poverty for a new kind of impoverishment from the time we first saw these forests of concrete, steel and glass. I said, seeming tentative: ‘We’re beggars like you now … we keep begging … we beg and struggle for more and more money.’ I saw them shrug their shoulders in amazement, pitying us for our money and misfortune. Perhaps it was the ultimate demonstration, for them, of our true poverty.

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Death from on high Like a playful monkey, he climbed the double lamppost, as the sun cast a light glow on the faces of passers-by and on those shop fronts which were not yet gawped over by open mouths. He encircled his neck, while climbing, with a plaited rope, letting some of it dangle loose. He had decided irrevocably to jump, to hang himself and put an end to his life, to extinguish his little light. Swiftly he tightened the plaited noose around his neck ready to become a corpse that dangled carefree. Of the few passers-by there were, those who had cause to yell at him did so: ‘Spare yourself … don’t throw yourself away like that.’ One of the passersby, vaguely chewing what seemed to be a mouthful of tobacco, implored him to stop: ‘I’m asking you in the name of God to stop this madness.’ But others behind this counsellor’s shoulders just unleashed their sermons at him and walked on. He stopped tightening the rope around his neck briefly when he saw a man who had assailed him yesterday shouting up from the bottom of the lamppost: ‘Have mercy on yourself … and on me too. Don’t do yourself in before you give me my due, you madman. Just give me some of the money you owe me.’ Another shouted on top of this: ‘Killing yourself won’t clear your debts. I’ll get the money from your parents, your children, your grandchildren …’ He sneered a bitter laugh and re-tightened the cord around his slender neck. I’ll escape you and all, my debt and your losses, by hanging myself here and now like I said I would. Another nearby onlooker shouted: ‘You scum. Can’t you die like a normal man? And are you going to throw yourself off from that height? Why don’t you hang yourself off the big tower, you idiot? Who goes and hangs himself off a lamppost?’ He gazed bitterly down on the passers-by. He stopped tightening the plaited rope around his slender neck. I think he cried when he came down from the lamppost and looked beside himself with grief when he was arrested for inciting violence and defaulting on debts. He remained silent, as if concealing his feeble feelings. Those who had been watching him went their ways; many of them felt sorry for him and the rest saw his actions as an understandable attempt to escape the greed of that moneylender, who had tightened the noose around him and led

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him securely to the authorities. No doubt the moneylender would release him if he came to his senses and repaid some of his money. But the feebleness of the man’s feelings were revealed the next morning at the hour when the sun attains its full vigour and brilliance. The body of a man’s corpse could distinctly be seen dangling free from the city’s only tower. They could not see his face and, given the distance from the ground, no passer-by saw the point in shouting up: ‘Have mercy on yourself … why die this way?’

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The curse of troublesome spirits For sure, it wasn’t my idea to pay any sudden visit to a healer. I was taken there after a fierce fight broke out between me and my family. They were assisted by some tough guy who helped them restrain me and arrange to take me to the healer. He was famous for his skill in casting out the jinn and expelling evil spirits from the hearts and minds of the hapless. Taming me had become an urgent matter for them when they became convinced of an evil presence of the spirit world within me, so they had pinned me to the ground in order to try and cast it out. I even had an epileptic fit at the same time, on top of all the other violence and chaos. It ended up with me being handcuffed and driven off in the boot of my car, which they had taken off me since word went round that I was inhabited by evil spirits. But this possession by the spirit world had not made me completely unaware of what was going on. In fact I was a model, sane citizen at times, though a mad one at others. I became happy to go along with their idea that I was crazy or was perhaps being courted by one of the spirits which wandered my town. They wouldn’t let up arguing, in public and private, that our street, renowned for its kohl-eyed vixens enthralling men with their perfumed wiles, was the reason for my downfall. This was why I would loiter in its darkness for days, pulled from one pavement to the other by their powers, something causing my mind to turn away from itself. As I was driven, my mother wouldn’t let up her feeble whimpering in the back seat. She’d insisted on going with me in the car. She allowed herself a smile to me, despite my tears, and to give me a confident kiss, despite my threats to one and all around me. I feared being branded with irons or being beaten with sticks or whips but she swore she would protect me from that, the anticipation of which provoked my stubborn resistance to all those around me. They were trying to tame me by harsh means so as to resolve things with the minimum of bother. They were trying to tame me like a bull trapped in a barn. My mother’s lamentations were the dim and monotonous rhythm of my journey towards an unknown outcome to my illness. She herself was guided by two main things: her fear of my father and her hope that my spiritual corruption would be redressed by a tried and tested healer. The street was without end. The way might lead to prison or unknown alleyways, perhaps for eternity, where men encounter women in body and soul. My mother had become bored of sitting in the middle seat of

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the car which had become, since they had taken it from me, my father’s unofficial cheap-fare taxi for female teachers. My mother wore an abaya adorned with lace and embroidery, a gift from one of the female teachers. ‘Teacher Bashayer’ felt sorry for my mother, because of my father’s apparent tightfistedness towards her, and so gave her this relatively fancy abaya, along with some brightly coloured blouses, a few modest skirts, even some pots and pans. In a barely audible voice she would read short verses of the Qur’an, muttering prayers against the curse of one of those sick women on our street. 2 They released me from my handcuffs in the presence of the healer. He seemed to me to be an up-to-date, civilized man, far removed from the rituals of the dark, fire, burning coals and incense. All he did was sit on a luxurious and colourful sofa in a vast room decked with modern décor, very appropriate for him. Books were shelved neatly behind and either side of him. The healer twirled a suwak3 around his mouth, watching me out of the corner of his eye, focusing on listening to me and watching my facial expressions. All those with me feigned calm and optimism. It was an attempt at give and take, knowing that a boy like me needs security, no more and no less, whereas they needed money and prestige to pay the bills of the greed which ran their world. We all became quiet in great prayer and supplication to God. The healer gave the readings, moving his right hand over everyone as a sign of peace and gently rubbing his forehead with his left in what seemed to me a rather artificial way. We heard the Fatihah,4 the two recitations for God’s protection, the Ayat Al-Kursi5 and some hard-to-hear prayers delivered in a voice barely above a melodic whisper. All the while he continued the gentle, circular and rubbing of his forehead, reciting Qur’anic verses while his cheeks and upper chest gently distended as he exhaled lightly and without spittle. I felt impassive, watching my dreams turn to ruin, counting my misfortunes. Then I felt inexplicably calm and drawn on towards unconsciousness. I moved out of this torpor into a period of wonderful lightness, lifting me towards a misty world of dreams. The wall without a bookshelf next to me and behind my father opened up before me as I passed over 3. 4. 5.

A wooden stick for cleaning the teeth. The opening surah (chapter) of the Qur’an. Ayah (verse) 255 of the second surah of the Qur’an, Surat Al-Baqarah.

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all their heads like a little cloud. I bent my head to enter through it but noticed that my movements were governed by the healer’s hand. Soon my soul found calm to the bottom of my eternal being, erasing everything except old paths in which I saw indistinct dawns and dusks. And I saw too the shadows of my nervous madness and epilepsy at sunset. It was the black night in which madness lurks to inhabit suffering and unfortunate souls and in which female spirits often become infatuated with men. I saw myself then as a child, humiliated by poverty and beset by whispers, dragging my feet through the dust of our street, surrounded by the clamour of the passers-by, all of them seeking self-fulfilment and rosy futures. I saw two men standing by a camel loaded with thorns. I was too far away to make out what they were saying. Maybe one wanted to buy the camel from the other, or the load of thorns packed on it so neatly. I saw my mother’s shawl in the street, the one she wore when she was preparing to give birth to me at her sister’s house. I heard the voice of an old sheikh giving the call to prayer in the sundown darkness. I thought of him as the healer’s father or grandfather. I encountered the face of my brother who had been killed in a car accident, my cousin who had died a martyr in Afghanistan, my grandfather who had died suddenly of cancer. The aged sheikh, covered only in pure white, wept: ‘Don’t be unjust to the spirit world … you are, all of you, the reason for the world’s pain and tragedy.’ Through the flimsiest of veils I was entered into the alleys of other worlds. Perhaps the mutterings and mumblings of the healer had sent me to the eternal pleasure ground or on a journey into the unconscious where I could examine my chronic condition. I sought my rational mind, which was said to have been sent before to the people of the lower world. I searched for it in the layers of my childhood memory. I found no trace of it. I wondered too in astonishment at the tattoo disappearing on my arm and about the dream beginning to fade in my depths. The disillusion in my memory grew to astonishment. I saw my well-being destroyed and my childhood troubled. I heard the groan of the camel slaughtered to celebrate my aunt’s wedding and the echo of laughter deafening me when some young wretch or other would grapple me to the ground. 2 My journey of lamentations in another world subsided and I woke to the voices of the men around me. Just then I remembered that my mother had not kept her promise when she said that she would protect me if they went to brand or whip me, trying to draw out the evil and troublesome spirits

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from the pores of my body. They had prevented the poor woman from entering on the strict advice of the healer. Women were for another day. Perhaps my very will was drawn out of me. They hadn’t bound my hands or feet. I didn’t dare say that I had just come from the dark world of the spirits. I didn’t want any of them to know that I had searched everywhere within it and had not found my rational mind. I remained impassive when I got into the car beside my mother. I kissed her and she kissed me in a miserable scene of my troubled innocence. Translated by John Peate

Abdullah Al-Nasir He was born in 1951 in Ad’dereaya, Riyadh. He was cultural attaché in London for many years and is currently a member of the Shoura Council. He has published three short-story collections and one collection of essays. His works include Ghosts of Mirage (1998) and Snowed In (2002).

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The metal canister The sea roared. He walked along, chewing the silence. Inside him another roaring surged back and forth. He couldn’t take any more. He’d been miserable and humiliated since he started working for his boss but had endured it in silence. He couldn’t bear it any longer. Everything changed according to the laws of nature except his boss, who was steadfast in his inflexibility and backwardness. A rusty metal canister lay half buried in the sand, in the damp area before the sea. Its bottom half had been partly eaten away by the moisture, and grains of sand flowed through its walls. He gazed at it aimlessly for a long time, as though it was worthy of interest and attention. He didn’t know why he found himself glued to it, staring at its bottom half, which was scratched, lacerated and punctured, and its top half, which had the colour of something scoured by the sun and sea air. He was absorbed in watching it for no reason. He couldn’t take his eyes off it, as though he’d come across a delicate item or an immortal work of art that he was seeing for the first time. What was the big deal? It was just a canister which someone had dropped on the beach and had been consumed by the saltiness and weather. But … He approached it and walked around it, then began examining its inside. He scrutinized it closely, paying attention to every little detail. He pored over its numerous perforations, some wider, some smaller, some vertical, some horizontal, some plugged with sand, some empty … He bent down and put his chin on the ground, and looked at how the light streamed through some holes but not others … He got up and looked at the other end. He found that the small opening on its topside was still shut and that the lid was still in place. The ring-shaped handle had been moved from one side to the other but its imprint was still very clear, suggesting that it had only recently been moved. He was tempted to touch it, to nudge it along a little, but was afraid it would disintegrate at his touch as it looked very fragile. But he was afraid of leaving it too, as then he wouldn’t be able to enjoy it anymore. He wanted it to remain exactly as it was! He began to look at it with strange interest and amusement, wishing he could keep it. It was as though he had some close connection to this insignificant and worn-out find … He had no sense of its core but it possessed a force that overwhelmed his will and mind and he was captivated by its strange appearance and shape.

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He wanted to take it back to town with him but was worried it would wobble and part of it would break away or be altered somehow, thus the image that originally attracted him so forcefully would be diminished … He pondered the possibility of digging around it and uprooting the patch over which it lay and carrying it to town that way. He decided to implement his foolhardy plan and, with some difficulty, managed to carry it back to town … He could barely sleep for happiness, pride and elation at his new treasure. The next morning he put it in his car and arrived at the office before everyone! He put the canister on his boss’ desk and waited … His boss sat down and stared at the canister, amazed and perplexed. He turned to him: ‘What’s this?’ he said with disgust. ‘Look at it! If you look you’ll know …’ He turned back to it, not believing what he was hearing or seeing … He moved closer to the boss and with all calmness and confidence said: ‘Boss, it’s you’.

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The cat The mistress of the palace had a beautiful cat. She played with it, ate with it and slept with it beside her. The mistress’ servants were fond of the cat. They learnt to respect and even fear it. One day a tomcat came along. The cat saw it and they became friends. Then, after a week, the tomcat leapt into the street and left the house behind. The cat wept. It began to mew and search for its friend. They looked in all the houses, lanes and streets but it was gone. The director of the local authority issued a statement offering a reward to anyone who captured the animal alive and brought it in. But the tomcat didn’t reappear. The sadness was visible on the faces of the mistress and her cat. Other cats were brought to the palace but, after sniffing them, the cat would scratch them, because they weren’t the missing tomcat. The mistress was worried. She called in vets, who administered medicine but to no avail. Important psychiatrists were also summoned but it was no use. The cat grew thinner and began to stagger rather than walk. Then one day instead of crossing the road it stopped in the middle. The soldier halted the traffic. A huge queue of cars built up. The cat just watched. People began to get fed up. The children in the cars yelled. One driver got angry and started pounding the horn. The soldier ordered his arrest. The mistress looked down from her palace, which opened onto the most important street in Arbush, and saw her cat sitting there, staring at the cars on both sides. She was delighted to see it cheerful at last and began to wave. But a hungry vulture was hovering. It circled the house and cars and locked its eyes on the cat. It swooped down and with its strong talons grabbed the cat and flew off in circles into the sky. The mistress ran out, screaming for help, but the vulture was already too high. The people could only watch. When it had almost disappeared into the horizon a black dot appeared. The dot descended quickly and landed with a loud noise. The mistress’ cat had become a clump of blood before her very eyes …

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She scooped the flesh and blood off the street and began to spatter people’s faces with it, shouting hysterically and frantically: ‘You killed my cat. You killed my cat.’ A policeman arrested a poor man carrying a bag with a cat inside. ‘Is this the cat you were looking for?’ The mistress said it was indeed the missing tomcat. That’s it. She shouted to the soldiers: ‘Kill him. He’s responsible for my cat’s death.’ But the poor man said: ‘Miss, this isn’t the cat you’re looking for. This is a lion!’ She shouted with contempt: ‘A lion, you son of a bitch?’ He said: ‘I swear, lady, it’s a lion. But in this town lions turn into cats.’ Translated by Christina Phillips

Abdullah Al-Safar He was born in 1960 in Al-Ahsa. He writes short stories, poetry and literary criticism. He has published two collections of short stories and two books of literary criticism. He co-edited an anthology of Saudi prose poems and is a member of the editorial board of the Dareen cultural periodical. His latest poetry collection, The Stranger’s Funeral, was published by the Eastern Region Literary Club in 2007.

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Eternity Very often his image persists, plodding on in the dense fog and wrapped up in an insulating, soundproof cover. Very often indeed this picture persists. His throat is worn out with screaming. The hands valiantly striving to protest. Heavy, oppressive weights crush him and on top of him stretch. This is your eternity, you, son of a ‘b …’

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Deep in the enamel This tree persists in pestering him with its wilting, yellowing leaves and the waning branches sagging with the thirst, the wind and the scorching sun. It persists and the pitcher there in his hand. He wants to sob, howl, lift the debris that started to rise up in his windpipe. Two tears throttle in his throat. He brings the pitcher nearer. The soil soaks up the line of pouring water and voraciously swallows it down. He pokes his dry fingers in the supple litheness that will disappear in no time. He steadies his jug, shakes it, hugs the seeping wetness and the cold touch deep in the enamel. His eyes cloud with leaves breaking and a tree throttling in his own chest.

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Deferral This piece of wood gave him hell. He used to see it in his dreams, fully transformed, bursting with life and having a living soul of its own. He saw it occupying a favourite corner in the place, gracing it with a magnificent presence. The suffering used to intensify when he woke. How on earth can he shape this piece, mould it, touch its soul to come out the way he had envisioned it in his dreams? He feared the moment of work. He might get carried away with the hammering or the finishing touches. He might overdo the chiselling here and there and bits of the piece of wood would go up in sawdust, and with it the envisioned image. His worry ties up his hands. He waits, deliberates, initiates no action. The dream dazes and spellbinds him. He dares not come near the damn thing. His days have become more like embers that enlighten him at night and burn him during the day. The swinging between night and day, light and darkness, totally incapacitated, debilitated him. It sapped his strength and confused his senses; the vacillation between the sheer nearness of the approaching dream and the intractability of its accomplishment made him doubt his own hands … that same oscillation between the alluring splendour and ideal perfectionism of the dream and the difficulty of realizing the image and possessing it whole and unimpaired. He could no longer hold his horses and be patient. His embers burst and he eventually makes up his mind. He puts his chisel away and brandishes the axe that hacks at the piece of wood, in fear that the dream would reach its perfect maturity and so get shattered and vanish.

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Melting With a sheepskin coat that has no room left for more stab holes, the fugitive shrinks in the shade of a dry tree. Floods of light pierce him through from the torn shaded spot. He drags his body – the body of a fugitive soaked with defeats and gaping with multiple stab wounds. He finds refuge in a deserted house by a dilapidated wall. He puts the damaged organs of his body to the test of jumping and slipping in. No sooner his feet touch the ground than he is suddenly hit by pained and anguished howling. He turns to the courtyard. Thick darkness around. Bereaved women who lost their children are wailing and beating at their chests in lament. He puts an inch to his step and takes his place in the mass of pitch blackness, melting away with the howling. Translated by Mujab Imam

Abdullah Al-Ta’ezi He was born in 1964 in Mecca. He has published two short-story collections and one novel. He works for Saudi Aramco and is currently based in Jeddah. His books include Master of the Birds (1998) and the novel Al-Hafai’r Breathing (2002).

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The mirror’s borders He looked at himself in the mirror. It was no use. His face was completely distorted, his thoughts strewn beyond retrieve. He had tried hard to fortify his memory to begin with, but in the end he’d forgotten everything and was forced to return to the picture of himself in the past, when he was in the prime of his life, full of ambitions and strange dreams. He picked up an old bottle of perfume and sprayed the air around him. He stepped back from the mirror and, summoning what remained of his strength, kicked the middle of the glass. He watched as he shattered into small and medium-sized pieces. They say that the mirror tried to contain him within its borders but failed.

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Straight into the light My body was wasting away. As I left my room I realized it was thinner than the day before. My field of vision was curtailed. Time piled up at my feet. I couldn’t proceed. The buildings behind me pressed together in boredom and the smell of cement thickened around me. I clenched some of it in my right hand, while my left hand clasped a bloated stick blackened at each end. Faces in the distance stared, expecting some sudden movement from me. I hesitated before wading into this sorrowful time. I was panting as though starved of oxygen.

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My body continued to waste My straggly white beard reached my stomach. The hair on my upper lip wasn’t a moustache. It was part of the beard that sprawled across my face. Or so it seemed to me. ‘You’ll know more. Just keep what’s inside you.’ I comforted myself with these words as I watched their bodies proceed closer to my stick. Thoughts raced in my head as I grew frightened. A wrinkled face loomed in the distance. The breeze diffracted around it. It didn’t move. I hid in the street opposite. But as I retreated I could feel their terrible approach. I ran away from the noise. They ran after me. I knew they would catch me. A light came into view at the end of the street. It expanded as I got closer. I breathed quickly and ran faster. Their unintelligible voices began to fade. It was as though the street never ended. I crashed into things but I was so thin I barely felt pain. I ran faster, chasing my wasted body until I disintegrated beneath the light’s rays and, shivering, merged with their loathsome voices at the far end of the street.

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A fixed distance My dead grandfather came to me. The dead behave as strangely as they say. He welcomed me in his usual manner. An old man in the semblance of a ghost. He seemed to embody the distance between this world and the next. The light behind him blended into the white of his cold face so that I couldn’t make out its source. I spoke but his silence cut short my words. He moved slowly away from the door. I watched. The skylights lit up as he passed beneath them. I hurried behind him but could not keep up. The distance between us remained the same even though I was running while his steps were slow and dignified.

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She’ll … An inscrutable smile formed on her lips. She tilted her nose back a little to inhale the night breeze, then looked down carefully, trying with her eyes to discover the story of the old buildings crowded beneath her. Without earrings and from a distance she could have been a child as young as seven. Only her eyes, with their long lashes, which sheltered her a little from the sun, gave the impression of a grown woman. Her arms were leant on the metal railings and she was surrounded by silence. She’ll think about the noise and lurking, having only just awoken to the world around her. She’ll shake her head as though her eyes are stuck down by an adhesive black bandage. Sticky fluid will amass on her flushed cheeks. She’ll shout from under the piled corpses and try to make out the way to the sea or desert. She’ll return to the buildings beneath her and examine the dusty streets and alleys. She’ll pull back her elbows and retrace her steps, as though she’s changed her mind about killing herself.

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The picture and the wall The picture had been in the frame for ten years. I took it and hung it on the wall in front of me. I used to look at it when I was bored of examining myself in the mirror, having watched my appearance change over the years. When I got a scratch or scar, or strange marks and black spots appeared, I would return to the picture and see what should have been there. I realized the photographer had done a good job of hiding the old scar by my nose and avoided looking at it. But now I hung the picture next to the mirror so that I could compare them without having to walk back and forth, for I no longer found walking easy. I began to examine the frame. I’d never paid attention to it before. It was very simple. Just four pieces of wood nailed together at each end. Its paint was visibly fading. I was filled with regret. I wished I’d taken a photo of the frame when it was new so I could remember what it was like now. But whenever I decided to implement a desire I would feel the other me retreat, fleeing as if it didn’t know me. I returned to the picture and its faded frame. In it I was looking to one side with a simple smile revealing my upper teeth, and I had a full head of hair. It was as though the frame was part of the mirror next to it, for they both looked old. I returned to the wall the next day. The frame was now around the mirror and the old picture had disappeared. There was nothing but the wall.

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The wall When I’d finished school and my memory had shaken off all the dust, I was able to breathe a little and feel its wall recede. Every year when I visited the area and the alleys led me back to the school, I would feel the wall recede further. Now it had receded so much that I remember last year I could even feel the sound of it collapsing inside me. I trembled as I walked down the alley to the school. I couldn’t smell the concrete but its black silence filled the air. I slowed down and considered turning back. I heard a little while ago that they’d pulled the wall down and demolished the school but I hadn’t confirmed it. It felt strange trying to remember the wall and at the same time feeling the distant sound of its collapse.

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The jahanamia It was late afternoon, a little before sunset prayer. I left the grocery store at the end of the street and walked up the road slowly, examining the new houses accumulating on either side. Some were still unfinished but there were people living in many of them. Our house was situated at one end, with the wide street spreading out in front of it. It bore the English letter ‘T’ – something the estate agent couldn’t stop going on about when he sold us the land. I stopped in front of one villa, which was still being built and whose progress I’d been following for months. I watched the builders as they washed their hands and their tools in preparation to leave. Then I carried on home. I knew the villa would be beautiful when it was finished and I was keen to meet its owner, who had begun to plant things in the garden in advance of moving in. I asked the guard who stood in the corner about the owner but he didn’t answer. I began to wait for the owner to pass by. I was his neighbour after all and it was right that I should know him. Thus I justified my desire to speak with him. I finally came across him unloading bulbs from his car. White plastic bags full of soil and twigs with small leaves were piled up in the front and back, underneath the seats and in the trunk. – Goodness. So many bulbs …? I greeted him. He didn’t take my hand but smiled. – Yes. I love this plant. – What’s its name? – Jahanamia6… – Jahanamia? As in jahannam – ‘hell’? Yes. Most people don’t know what it’s called, even though it’s everywhere. The name surprised me. I didn’t know there was a tree named after Hell. I showered him with questions about its shape, size and so on. He answered them all, laughing loudly when he found a question naïve. He gave me some bulbs to plant in my garden. I hesitated to begin with but pulled myself together, reminding myself that they were just plants. – I’ll just take one. – Take two or three. As you can see I have at least fifty. – No, but thank you. One is enough. 6.

Bougainvillea.

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– Be my guest. He smiled as he passed me a bulb. I planted it that same evening and watered it every day. I was amazed at how fast it grew. It didn’t have a stem and its branches were like demented arms. It flowered continuously. During the short winter it shed half its leaves. I noticed that it avoided the shade of the other trees, preferring direct sunlight. When I went into the garden I would see it on the right and observe the beauty of its white flowers on one side and red ones on the other, reminding me of that myth. I didn’t see my neighbour for some time after that meeting but I followed his jahanamia plants as they raced up the beautiful wall of his villa. About three months later I encountered him again. He greeted me with a smile. – So do you like the jahanamia? – It really is like jahannam! It grows faster than all the trees in my garden! He smiled. – True. – Have you moved into the villa? – No. He spoke absently and I was confused. – Why not? I blurted. Do you need help moving? I know an excellent removal company which doesn’t charge too much. – No. No thanks. He hurried off. I didn’t want to interfere any further. Two days later he told me that he was going away and asked if I would keep an eye on the villa until he returned in a month’s time. Every day, just before five in the afternoon, I opened the garden gate and went and sat on the steps to the villa, as though I was its owner. This was after I’d taken a stroll around the building, examining it in silence from the outside. I did this for a month and began to understand the secret to the jahanamia’s leaves. They were adaptable and harmonized with the silent building. Over four months passed and there was no sign of the owner. I dismissed the guard as I was there all the time anyway. My face would light up with happiness when I entered the grounds. I’d feel satisfied and content. I remembered the owner told me that the jahanamia’s flower was called ‘the mad blossom’. – Mad? – Yes. That’s what she told me.

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– Who’s she? –… I don’t remember who ‘she’ was. A neighbour or an aunt perhaps – I wasn’t especially interested. I could see that the beauty of the jahanamia lay in its mad flowers. I paused often, drawn to them. I enjoyed being among them and them looking at me. I lost track of time. People began to think that I was the villa’s owner. Some of them offered to buy it so it wouldn’t remain locked up for no reason. I didn’t say anything other than to refuse the sale. More than a year passed. Every day around sunset I would approach the jahanamia plants, exhausted from the day’s work. I’d handle them, tired, and listen to the sound of their leaves rustling, which reminded me of their owner’s laughter. I looked after them. I loved watching them spread around me. Fifty bulbs. I planted thirty on the pavement of the adjacent street and distributed the rest around the neighbours. The jahanamia could endure the hot sun and survive for weeks with only a little water. Its capacity for survival induced me to stop watering then. I left them until they were almost dead. I liked their sad dryness and whispering. Eventually I flooded them with water once more and watched as life seeped into their limbs and they began to frantically sprout leaves and flowers again. Then I tired of them. I gave up watching them and forgot all about them. I neglected them for several weeks before returning to them again, exhausted by work. I looked at them dully. These days I didn’t have a job to come from. I was over sixty-five. But nothing had changed. The jahanamia’s peculiar shape still filled me with joy, especially when water brought them back to life. I filled the pavement of our street with jahanamias, as well as most of the gardens of the surrounding houses. The plant had become part of the street. For several years, at the end of the day, until just before sunset, I would sit with bent back and veiny hands examining the leaves of the plants at the empty villa. I’d hold their edges with extreme caution, for their thorns frightened me. Then, as sunset approached, I’d hear them whispering. The whispering grew louder as night fell. I’d hear it as I lay in bed. It spread insanely from the plants to inside me. I’d recall the owner’s laughter and see his old image in the distance. For years I’d hear his laughter rising in the darkness whenever the wind glided slowly over the tops of the plants. Anyone who came down the street around sunset would hear their whisper and mad laughter mixing with the sound of birds returning home and the retreating rays of the sun. Translated by Christina Phillips

Abdullah Al-Wesali He was born in 1962 in Al-Ahsa, in the east of the kingdom. He is a member of the board of the Eastern Region Literary Club and is director of cultural activities at the Culture and Arts Association. He has published two short-story collections (The Glow of Dusty Times (2002) and Gametes (2010)) and one novel.

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The ice cream Waiting for her brother, she looked out from the two cloth holes she had grown accustomed to seeing the world through, and saw the young man. He had jet-black glossy hair and Western features. His smiling eyes, despite their stillness, shone with passionate desire as they beheld a cone piled high with brightly coloured ice cream. Persuasive words about an enticing offer were at the bottom of the advert. Although the sun had almost completely set, the air still felt hot. She headed for the ice cream shop, to quench her thirst. Once the ice cream cone was in her hand, its drab colours confirmed what she had suspected when she saw that the shop assistant’s only similarity to the man in the advert was the uniform he wore. Now that she was outside the mall, she didn’t know how she had ever been able to ignore all those staring men, sitting in their cars in the car park, who now focused on her more than any of the other women waiting there. She did consider licking the ice cream, when she felt it trickling down her hand in a cold sticky dribble; but she changed her mind – it would be a difficult procedure without lifting the niqab that covered her face. Noticing that the ice cream had melted so much that its peak had become rounded, she went back inside the mall, hoping that she might be able to locate an isolated spot but it seemed to be more crowded than it had been before. She went into the toilets, but she was nauseated by the sight of the dirty floor and the stench, so she went back out. There were several sticky streams running down from the cone now, getting so long that they began to drip onto the marble floor of the mall. The ice cream continued to disintegrate and the cone was heading for total collapse. Fearful of getting dirty, she held in it further from her body. Her brother was bound to be waiting for her outside by now. She looked around and in the distance spotted her source of salvation. She hurried sedately towards it, holding her abaya securely around her body with her free hand. Afterwards, cleaning her hands, she felt great relief at having thrown the ice cream in the bin.

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Something remains The number I’d dialled was engaged, so I put my mobile phone to one side. I was gripping the steering wheel with both hands when a traffic jam appeared up ahead, between the concrete barriers on either side of the road. The early summer sun was beating down on the cars travelling the Dammam Khobar expressway, toasting the asphalt. The restlessness of the drivers and passengers showed in their movements and in their eyes, squinting against the dazzling sunlight. I looked at the digital clock. Five minutes of my lunch break gone, forty left. To break up the long hours of work and escape its monotony, I had made a habit of going out for lunch in Khobar, which was only a few minutes away from my workplace. Sometimes we would go out for lunch together. He introduced me to some restaurants which had that wonderful European flavour, and he in turn was very keen on the taste of kabsat al-kan’ad, the traditional eastern Saudi fish biryani dish my wife prepared. The first time he tasted it – sitting cross-legged in front of the communal dish on the floor, exactly like we do – he said, ‘This is the best kabsa I’ve ever eaten in my life.’ Then, as if suddenly realizing he’d committed a faux-pas, he gestured towards his wife and joked, ‘Except for the one Janet makes, of course!’ Janet was sitting on one of the sofas in the lounge of their apartment in the residential compound of the company’s foreign workers, eating a slice of kanad from her own small plate. I noticed that the cars in front of me were veering off into the two right-hand lanes, as the concrete barrier blocked the road on the left-hand side, so I put on my indicator to join them. I had met him four years ago. He was transferred to the Sharqia branch of the company after he and his wife had spent more than ten years moving around the kingdom. ‘I’ll refuse to be transferred away from this area.’ It was one of his firm decisions, made after a trip I accompanied him and Janet on to the local villages, and the Thursday market. He was convinced that Sharqia was less frantic and noisy than anywhere else in the country. I approached the end of the queue of cars. The third lane, which I was

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in, was even more congested than the others, and I could see the cause of the traffic jam from where I was. The extreme heat had obviously been too much for one of the cars, an older model – judging by the steam rising from inside its open bonnet. A man who must have been its owner stood beside it, waiting. A little further on, at the front of the queue, were several state security officers in bullet-proof vests standing at a check point and inspecting the identity documents of everyone in the cars. Conversation with him used to have a different air to it; I was astonished by the simplicity of the way he presented his convictions: in short sentences and informally. ‘It’s just a passing phase, nothing more – this country’s the safest place on earth,’ he said as he put a spoonful of food into his mouth, and calmly began to chew it. This was his response to the numerous calls for foreigners to leave the kingdom. The young security officer holding my identity card was scrutinizing my face. I took off my sunglasses so that he could see me more clearly and our eyes met. He looked deep inside me and I didn’t need to sink into his eyes to feel that a trust that once existed had begun to seep away. Twenty minutes of my lunch break were left by the time I was allowed to leave the checkpoint. I drove faster, trying to make up for lost time. I wouldn’t be able to eat at the restaurant and flick through the newspaper now. A sandwich and a bag of fries were on the passenger seat to my right as I sped back to work. On the first day of June, as we were sipping our morning tea, he said: ‘She wants to leave as soon as possible, because of what happened last Saturday7 … and she’s insisting that I go with her.’ Then, in a strained voice which was nothing like the one I’d become used to, he said: ‘The truth is, I can’t stay here without her.’ I shook my head without saying a word, and we both stared into our cups of tea. They didn’t even wait to get their terminal gratuity. They gave me their bank account details and asked me to transfer it to their accounts. After what had happened my sense of wanting to do everything I possibly could for them had only intensified. I was just about to park in the company car park when my mobile phone rang. It was his number, the one I had dialled earlier. He said a 7. On 29 May 2003 gunmen entered an accounting office of a large company and asked several Filipino Americans if they were Muslims, and then shot them dead in front of their Saudi colleagues. They then went on to attack the Oasis compound in Khobar.

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few words, asked me about Sharqia and then told me that the money had arrived safely. Before hanging up he promised to stay in touch. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Everything’s in order, thank you.’ His final words of thanks were in Arabic.

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The leader’s motorcade His mother was wrapping the iqaal which his father had chosen for him around his new white ghutra, keeping it a little spread out so as to hold the cloth firmly in place. In the five years of school he’d been wearing it, he still hadn’t learnt to put it on himself. She began advising him on various things and especially, once again, to make sure he was in the front row. He saw his sister leaving for school in her dark blue pinafore dress, her collar sticking out like white petals, and he felt himself fill with pride: she would not be able to see the leader’s motorcade. It was only the boys who would be there to welcome him when he landed at the airport. He made his way from the house, winding his way through the little alleys of his neighbourhood and then out into the big square where his school was. His sense of uniqueness diminished the closer he got to school and the more of his peers he saw. They were all dressed in the same uniform as him: white thobe, white ghutra with an iqaal on top – but at least he was the only one in his class who had the same name as the leader. The buildings of the city were soon left behind as their big yellow bus left the town. He was not as interested in the loud conversations of the other students as he was in memorizing the answers his mother had specified to the questions the leader might ask. Most importantly, if the leader asked his name he was to reply, ‘May you live long.’ He was to say this after every answer – that was her most important piece of advice. The road turned into two faded black lines over a vast area of dusty ground. There were no more buildings to be seen, now that the bus had left the city limits. After a while the bus slowed down. A massed crowd of white came into view, its brilliance increased by the sun’s glare. He gripped onto the headrest of the seat in front as the bus turned off the road onto the unpaved ground with a violent jolt. The rising dust added a layer of grime to the prevailing bright whiteness. ‘I want you all to line up, two by two!’ These instructions from their teacher Mr Rushdi were closer to a shout. He had spent the journey standing at the front of the bus watching the road through the front windscreen, and occasionally talking to the driver. He looked strange, with the sides of his white ghutra tucked behind his ears. He took his position at the head of the line, heading for where the groups of students were standing on either side of the road from the airport. The teachers in charge were spread out at the front of the white

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crowd, which was separated from the road by a green shield of soldiers. The neatness of his formal outfit began to deteriorate, rebelling under the pressure of the long wait in the crowd. The disc of the sun rose higher, and its all-pervading white glare kept him from fully opening his eyes. He was on the point of asking the teacher’s permission to go and drink water from one of the big coolers which had been placed at the back of each bus, but he decided it would be wiser to enjoy his dusty spit than to lose his position at the very front. The restless little bodies fidgeted, and the teachers in charge tried their best to get them back into neat formations. For a fleeting moment the sound of speeding engines roared at them, as black cars with tinted windows flashed past at lightning speed. Little hands reverberated, applauding in imitation of big hands, and then the white formations broke up entirely and chaos reigned. On the way back the bus wasn’t filled with the same clamour it had been on the way there: sleep captured some of them at once, and snuck up stealthily on the others. ‘October … war … leader … us … Israel …’ These were some of the words he’d heard his father saying to his mother as he’d been feigning sleep that morning. Now he could hear a discussion, more like an argument, between Mr Rushdie and the Syrian teacher Mr Ghassan, who had decided to join them for the return journey. He walked home, sticking to the sparse noon shadows of the walls. His outfit was no longer neat and formal at all. He had his white ghutra in one hand and his iqaal in the other, his white cotton skull cap was back on his head, and two buttons had come off his thobe. He hadn’t even entered the house before he his sister accosted him. He was surprised by his sister’s shout, who had got home before him. ‘Faisal! Faisal!’ She came out of the house towards him and when they were face to face she asked: ‘Did you see him? Did you greet him?’ Her question surprised him, and his confusion persisted. ‘What did he look like?’ He would have started sobbing, if his memory hadn’t come to his aid. He summoned his mental image of the schoolbook picture of the leader, and before he went into the house he answered her: ‘He was wearing an iqaal embroidered with gold and silver thread.’

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The wager The gallows had been set up that morning in the middle of town, and they were still causing fear and provoking questions about who might fill the noose’s swinging vacancy. The setting sun seemed to be warning the ruler against going back on his word. The accusation was still alternating between the rider and the groom, hardly settling on one before it was back to the other. When our delegation came back from the race that was held with the neighbouring states, the result they brought home was basically a disgrace. We had come last, even though our entrant was the fastest runner of all our mules – the ruler’s very own she-mule. This made the ruler even more angry, and he swore a sacred oath: ‘The one who has caused this will most certainly pay the price before the sun sets.’ And so the predictions continued to vacillate between the ruler’s trusted groom and his relation, the jockey of the favourite mule. Until, that is, just before sunset, when a third possibility emerged. Little by little the accusations began to focus on this new suspect, and our ruler became increasingly convinced of where responsibility for the great shame that had befallen us lay. And so our town went to bed that night quite convinced that it would be the mule who would pay the price of defeat. Dawn had hardly broken when the people of the town gathered in a big circle with the gallows at its centre. The noose was not as empty as it had been: hanging in it was a horseshoe, swinging in the breeze of a morning which was already getting hot. Our eyes, which we were trying to keep fixed on the centre of the circle, stole furtive glances over to where the groom and the jockey stood on either side of the ruler – who was mounted on his favourite mule. Translated by Alice Guthrie

Abdulrahman Al-Deraan He was born in 1962 in Al-Jouf, in the northern region of the kingdom. He has published two collections of short stories and was chairman of the Al-Jouf Cultural Club. He is editor-in-chief of the Al-Jouba cultural magazine. His book The Smell of Childhood was published in 2000.

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A memory thick with blood It was, without doubt, a Friday, exactly an hour after sunset. There was something there, someone’s hand, maybe, jabbing at you as you drifted off to sleep until you woke from your dream straight after your crash in the distance. You examine the bruises; they have spread and got deeper, refusing to heal. A lot of wounds you can overcome with the passing of time: the death of a monarch, humiliation, failure, deprivation. You recount their details now with detachment, as if they are no longer yours – simply borrowed from the past out of some sort of sense of obligation. You have inherited a belief in all the sayings and rumours of your village. Sayings like: ‘The difficulties that humble man and which he cannot withstand take days to overcome.’ The day when your ankle was minced by the bicycle chain and your little steed brought you down to the ground, when you found no crutches to support your weak body other than the words that your grandfather proclaimed as he sat in the midday sun, chewing the morning’s fresh dates and throwing the pits at you. He said, completely unmoved by the blood cascading down your ankle: ‘Get up, grow up, and forget about it.’ His face lit up when he saw you getting gingerly to your feet and he added, as if to congratulate you: ‘My, my, it must be time for us to find you a wife!’ You could only control the terrible embarrassment which flushed over your face by getting back onto your bike and taking refuge in escape, with his exuberant laughter chasing you like a series of little, rumbling claps of thunder. Over the following days, your innocent, obedient mind did not give a moment’s thought to that strange telling off. No, not a moment’s thought. And when you saw Mariam tripping over the hem of her abaya on that unforgettable day, the day which was to be a turning point in the story of your life, all you thought you had seen was a little girl trying on her mother’s abaya. That is why you grabbed hold of her, threw her onto the floor, and started to howl, playing part of the wolf, hungry for his little lamb. You even insisted on chewing her abaya. It only occurred to you that she was lost forever when your mother gave you a stern telling off, almost as if she had joined in with the game, playing the role of the shepherd, except that you could sense that seriousness of hers that you knew so well. ‘The girl’s grown up!’ she said.

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You quickly understood what she wanted to show you – ‘the girl’ was too old now to be called by her name, which was rooted in your memory like a wild plant. It was, without doubt, a Friday, an hour after sunset, and the boy stole a little time to sneak away to her house. He hung by his arms to the balcony, gazing towards the little woman moving about like a trapped butterfly on the roof. He said to her with a voice as threatening as a child’s: ‘Come on, get down.’ Then he got a playing card out of his pocket and flicked it acrobatically. They were at prayers. She turned towards him, her eyes full of fear: ‘Abud! Can I have children like women do because of the blood?’ ‘What blood? Have you been hurt too?’ She jumped with a start when she realized how terribly she was behaving, and she went off inside, leaving the boy pondering all manner of questions. The child fell near the doorstep, on a red rose thrown into the blockedoff alleyway between the two houses which had been the stage for their daily plays. It was from its smell that the boy first learnt the secrets. From the smell alone. He remembers that in those long-distant days they nicknamed her ‘The Hidden Girl’. Some women avoided her real name out of envy. He learnt their secrets: they described the beauty of her eyes, her warm laughter, her hair tumbling down in such shiny curls that her hairdresser would cover the floor when she cut her hair. He even remembers the sweet lies he overheard her telling. He eavesdropped so that he could picture in his mind’s eye that mythic creature whom he longed to see. She was that little girl, about as old as you on that day. You can still hear that voice: ‘Get up, grow up, and forget about it.’ Did you really grow up? You wake up, drink a glass of water, and on your way to work you try to forget her, just as she forgot you.

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Early sun On that black afternoon we had to wait for a few minutes at the gate. The minutes went by like long, heavy hours. We were waiting for them to let us in. The trace of our reflections in the glass of the door only doubled the feeling of sorrow and despair. In these doors, the polished doors of a hospital entrance, you look afflicted by the illness of a long-absent relative. You see your weakness, your lifelessness, that cowering expression which comes over your face as you beg those you pass in the long corridors to believe your lies, those lies with which you trick the drum that thumps in your stifled chest, beating to the quickening rhythm of a recurring question: I wonder if he is still alive? I could see the figure of a woman coming up behind me in the glass as she cut her way breathlessly through the lines of people. Little tweets came out with every wheeze, as if a dozen little birds were locked up in a cage inside her chest. She tried to push the door with her freckled hand. The sweet smell of soup wafted from under her abaya – visitors often tried to smuggle it in for patients. A needle of resentment was planted inside me: what had I brought, exhausted by my despair for a person who pulls in his breaths as feebly as a drowsy tailor pulling thread? We were crammed together like schoolchildren. People started crying for help from the man guarding the entrance but he just strolled over the cool tiles as people asked him to open up. When chaos descended, he turned towards us and stared at his watch, smiling sadistically, in a way that was not fitting for a man in his position. He wanted us to be sure that he was in charge. The man standing next to me asked me the time, but before I could reply he was saying: ‘So it’s time for the game?!’ Despite the crowded, suffocating atmosphere, he lit up a cigarette; he stared pointedly at the high cloud of smoke to show how aggrieved he felt. 2 A succession of images were brimming up through my imagination: I saw him smoothing down my gold embroidered skullcap on the way back from the hajj, I saw him fumbling with the buttons on my shirt after sitting me in front of the photographer before I went to school. I looked at him angrily on the day when he left me trembling in the headmaster’s

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room after he had put my green folder in the cupboard. He hugged me as he left at sunset, with water dripping from his arms, which he had just washed for prayers. He used to give me a look that meant that I should go to get him his camel-hair robe. I would linger for a little while to feel the warm fur and only his frightening voice would stop me. It would startle me on those cold winter nights: ‘Bring it here, or I’ll count to three.’ I was in awe of his bravery when I saw him bare-headed under the bower of palm leaves one afternoon, risking awful sunstroke. The village doctor checked the iron rod that he was heating in the brazier and gripped his neck, his fingers crawling over him like a black spider. When the decisive moment came, he gave us a look to tell us to go away, but we only moved back a few paces before curiosity stopped us and we stayed to watch. We stood in silence begging with our eyes for him to let us stay. We even saw the deep furrow in his head before he rose up like a stallion who felt no pain. On the morning of eid we hurried behind him as he opened the door to his incense-filled room and filled our little pockets with sweets and money. Then he slipped off into the courtyard in his trousers, with his hand clutching the knife hidden behind his back. He waited for the ram to raise his head from the water bowl then took hold of it by the horns. He dealt with it in seconds, leaving clumps of its wool quivering in a pool of blood. I saw, burnt like a tattoo onto my memory, the image of him climbing a branch of the family’s palm tree in the harvest season, singing a folk song from the top of his lungs:

My eyes, oh you’re forever following beauty, From the religion of the Ikhwan you digress.8

Once he had completely stripped his palm, he climbed down from the top of it, crawling on his hands like an animal. Then he bent down towards my brother, who had started to crawl clumsily, and held out his fingers, which had syrup stuck to them. The child changed course, like a little lamb, and licked them with his tongue. I did not wait for the lift. I could not wait for it to come when I saw the old woman tottering inside it after the automatic door shut on her. I was sure that she was only here to breathe her last breaths. 8. The Ikhwan are the religious army who supported King Abdulaziz al-Saud in unifying the country.

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I thought: ‘Will my father recover from his operation and come back to his widowed, orphaned censer? Or did the air ambulance pick him up in vain?’ My brother, who went with him, called me yesterday so that I could pay him my last respects. After the apothecaries’ remedies and the traditional prescriptions failed to save him from his bouts of sickness and once he no longer resisted being taken to hospital, I realized that we would soon be in crisis. From that point on, my brother and I lost all confidence, needing each other to repeat everything we said before we could believe it was true. I say: ‘God, what a terrible nightmare.’ And I start to describe the terrible dream I have just had. ‘But he called you, he actually called you, they really are going to operate tomorrow! Shall I get you a glass of water?’ My wife asks. ‘He called me!?’ I moan like an idiot. A calm voice replies, trying to cajole me: ‘You do know it’s an operating theatre, not a cemetery?’ 2 After years of fighting diabetes, high blood pressure and asthma attacks, his health took a sudden and serious turn for the worse, which had a profound impact on the way he led his life. On the evening when this happened, he took his pillow under his arm after he had started a row with everyone over dinner and slept in the sitting room. The next day, he started objecting to the presence of the maid, and when he threatened my mother with divorce, the secret was out, though it should not have been. I asked the nurse about his room in broken English. She looked it up on the computer, then replied in weak but passable Arabic. In the corridor, the images started to flash up again. I saw him clinging to the trunk of his favourite palm, Munifa, after he had donated her crop to the poor in the name of my mother. My mother had died suddenly as if she was sacrificing herself for him, giving him the rest of her days. I saw him clinging to Munifa’s stump and cursing the council, which had come at the start of the boom to plan the village and uproot part of the garden. When he saw the yellow machines chewing the mud walls up into little mounds of dust, he wept like he had never wept before, a truly apocalyptic sight. I saw him again, this time after he had finally given in to his illness. He was swallowing pills. Before he went to bed, he called out weakly, ‘Salome!’ The maid understood what he wanted and hurried in. She made his bed for him and put his bucket of water in its usual place.

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2 He woke up from the effect of the drugs for a few moments, and called out ‘Salome … Salome …’ Then he collapsed again like an old minaret. When, after a little while, he opened his dim eyes, he asked me about Rakan, and whether he had come back from his exile. I looked towards my brother in case he could help me – it turned out that Rakan was the hero of that Bedouin series! The nurse plunged her needle into his bare arm. He gnashed his teeth in pain. Out of sympathy, I went to hold his arm in my hand. It sent out a soft spray from all its pores, and behind the mist I could see a towering palm, and in its branches, there was a cloud of birds, and a few fronds swayed to the rhythm of an ecstatic melody:

Someone I’ve seen is making me feel uneasy, With a lovely figure that nicely fills her dress.

My brother and I get ready to carry him and sit him in his wheelchair, he looks as light as an empty basket. At that moment the photographer’s camera flashes at the boy, fraught with homesickness, fear and questions, submissive to the fingers crawling over him to smooth down his collar and adjust his skullcap. The whole length of the corridor I push the chair, he seems so light and empty that he would blow away with a gust of wind. I contemplate his head, full of jasmine flowers, and I consider my questions: Is this person you, the strong Bedouin? You, who only needed one foot to climb the highest mountain or the tallest palm? From the hole left by the question, three small suns emerge. They await me every time I leave the house: ‘Dad … Dad …’ I bend towards the vase of roses and kiss them lovingly, my father’s head moves and his daydreams start again. He asks again whether Rakan has come back from his exile and he goes to sleep. Oh God! How small I feel. Why do we have to change roles now, with me so quickly becoming your father and you a fourth, prematurely shining sun? But no. He’s not my father at all, he’s me in 2020.

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Lolita A soft, little, pointed name, spun from the water of green lakes and calm, shadowy trees, its journey across the desert was an ordeal, a cruel punishment. Within an hour of her arriving, my mother, unable to get used to it, gave her the name ‘Leila’; my grandmother decided on the pet name ‘Lulu’a’. Her gruff voice went through the walls when she called for her, and the neighbours’ daughter would reply from the other side. Each member of the family had their own name for her. In a matter of days, she had a hatful of names. Even she did not know whether she was Leila or Lolita or Lulu’a, or whether she was, like me, an irrelevance. She had no choice but to do as she was told and make do with her new situation. She had accepted that two years would be wiped from her life when she decided to take the cash and be part of the idiot slave-trader’s deal. Only I manage to call her by her name. Because I have no job other than to speak, I pull my heavy body along on my filthy kneecaps, and sleep wherever tiredness comes over me – sometimes in the kitchen, sometimes in the stairwell, sometimes in doorways. I imagine that to have chosen that pure name, her father must have been a sculptor who spent his life singing, and her mother a seamstress who rested her body against the trunk of a willow and embroidered green dresses for the trees just before autumn. Her figure is in perfect harmony with her name, as if she was born a long time before her birth, like nectar which flowed from two smiles emerging together, one from a fresh young girl ready to be a mother and the other from an adolescent boy, gasping as he escapes from the coldness of solitude; they meet by chance on a narrow green path in a forest, where there is barely room for two people to pass. 2 Lolita, who was stripped of everything – her name, her clothes, her language, her life, her children, her baby’s crying, the sea air, her country’s gentle sun, the streets chattering with the footsteps of lovers – she came for me. Until that day, I thought that everything that happened in life happened according to fate, that there was no choice but to accept it, and that it affected me like everything else. It did not occur to me to ask why I had been born with two unnecessary feet whose only purpose was to add torture to my heavy body. I did not ask why when the jinn kidnapped that

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boy one evening and returned him possessed, crying in the alleyways: ‘I am your father and the man with a mane and I will lash you with my cane.’ As the boys hurried frightened away from him, I crawled on my hands and knees like a paralysed crocodile until I got over the threshold of the house. The first time I felt that I was part of the family, after years in the world of the reptiles, was when they took me with them to the airport to meet the maid. In the years up until then, they would forget me as I slept in the courtyard, to wake up to a goat licking my feet or a chicken nibbling at the traces of lunch on my hands. I went to meet her with my little brothers and our neighbours’ daughter, who they sent with us to look after her. When we got back, my mother was standing waiting for us. She embraced her and kissed her impatiently, as if she had known her for years. She swore solemnly that she would carry her bag for her. That same day, my grandmother gave her a pair of gold earrings that were the last relics of her long-distant wedding. She swore that she would eat all her meals with her, as if she was rewarding her in advance for remembering the prayer times, the times for her medicines, and those for the Bedouin series that she followed so passionately. The nurse who visited the house, and whose footsteps she listened out for like a tracker, only came a few times before she learnt to give my grandmother’s insulin injection herself. She learnt the names of the actors in the soaps and she laid out my grandmother’s prayer rug for her. My older sister took a photo of her on the first day in her traditional clothing, and our neighbour came to welcome her with a pot full of stuffed vine leaves. My youngest brother could not work out how to communicate with her. He started to teach her his favourite song: ‘Are you taken, girl, are you taken?’ Lolita would do as he said and try as hard as she could to copy him, thinking that this game was part of the work that she had come from abroad to do. As I pull my body along the corridors, she looks at me generously, her eyes overflowing with warmth and kindness. She rushes to my side and touches her soft hand against my head. It feels like being sprinkled with fresh grass and sends through me a shiver of life that I have not tasted before. A woman who looks like one of those dolls displayed in toy shops: a small mouth framed by two slices of watermelon, and narrow eyes that disappear completely with every smile. I loved her so much I even wished she would insult me. She does not complain or moan. She never raises her voice, which is always as hushed as if she were praying. Even the clothes which she has to wear instead of her own somehow increase the hidden

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beauty of her enchanting body. She gets up early and works and obeys until my eldest brother goes to bed, which he does after she has made him his tea at its appointed time. Sometimes, she comes out of his room with her head bowed, like a frightened blade of grass. She only rarely speaks without being spoken to, and she only uses the words necessary for her job, but little by little the language she has created is catching on. She writes a lot of letters and waits with them for my father to leave for work. He picks them up without a word; the sight of her tiny hand next to his huge one looks like it comes out of a cartoon. Did she sleep? What occupied my mind was whether and when and how this delightful little thing slept. I think to myself, ‘Maybe she runs on batteries like those dolls with a recorded voice, which laugh and cry and call out “mummy” and “daddy”.’ I crawl like a crocodile to her room and pause, panting because of the effort of climbing up the stairs. I hear the mysterious rustling of a bush behind the slightly open door. My body casts a shadow like a small hill moving up to an open lake from behind it. Translated by Clem Naylor

Adi Al-Herbish He was born in 1978 in Germany and works as a physician specializing in paediatrics. He writes stories and literary translations. He received the Book of the Year Award from the Riyadh Literary Club in 2008 for his first collection of stories entitled The Tale of the Boy Who Saw Sleep.

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The astrolabe Two things awe me most: the starry sky above me and the moral law within me. (Immanuel Kant)

1 The world is made up of triangles, of an infinite number of triangles. This is a truth known only to mathematicians and those who devoted their lives to making astrolabes. The world is made up of an infinite number of triangles. Join any two known locations, and you will be able to find the third location, if you know the coordinates of any side and angle in the triangle connecting the three locations. The world is full of a countless number of triangles. This was the golden rule used by Ibrahim al-Tanukhi in making the strange astrolabe which his mistress Subh asked him to make for her, and which she held carefully as she made her way through the lanes of Seville, seeking her path to heaven. But why am I anticipating things and telling you the end of the story before the beginning? Let me take you back thirty days, to that cold night in Ramadan when the winds began to make doors flap and window panes thump. To be precise, the story starts in a place for making astrolabes and ends in heaven, and between the former and the latter are details that I will relate here. It seems that Ibrahim al-Tanukhi did not hear us coming as he was preoccupied with his new spherical astrolabe that he was trying to finish. Be careful not to step on any of the brass pieces scattered around the room. You will need to keep your feet as secure as possible, especially when the events of the story begin to unfold. Ibrahim turned right round when he heard a sudden knock on the door. The knock was different from the constant rattle of the wind. He put down what he was holding and shot across the room, shouting: ‘Who’s there?’ No reply! He put his swarthy hand on the wooden bolt and deftly pulled it open. As the door opened, he saw a woman wearing a blue veil standing on the threshold. Ibrahim looked in astonishment at the shape of the woman standing alone in the dark night. ‘What do you want, my lady?’ She did not reply, but instead moved confidently towards the doorway, prompting Ibrahim to make way for her so that she would not bump into him. The woman lifted her veil, to reveal her jet black hair and sad black

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eyes, which had an exhausted look in them. Ibrahim shut the front door so that no one would see him alone with this woman at night, then repeated his question: ‘What do you want, my lady?’ ‘I want you to make me an astrolabe.’ ‘Couldn’t you find another time, a bit earlier, to come to me with an order like that?’ ‘I’ve heard that you claim to be able to make astrolabes that can determine any location or direction.’ ‘I don’t just claim it, it’s a fact. Send me a description of the sort of astrolabe that you want me to make for you and I will supply you with it fully made within whatever time you specify.’ ‘Make me an astrolabe that will lead me to heaven!’ Ibrahim al-Tanukhi was dumbstruck. At first he had thought that she was a whore, but now he realized she was mad! ‘Heaven! If I could make that sort of astrolabe, I would have made one for myself!’ ‘Make me the astrolabe and my maidservant will bring you the sum you specify at the end of the month!’ Ibrahim hurried over to the drawer where he kept his tools and took out a sheet of paper and an inkwell. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked the woman. ‘What do you want my name for?’ ‘I can’t start making an astrolabe until I have written a contract between myself and the person ordering the astrolabe.’ The woman looked at the paper and the inkwell for a time, then muttered: ‘Subh, wife of the Emir Muhammad ibn Sa’d ibn Mardanish.’

2 If you had asked Ibrahim al-Tanukhi the reason for writing that piece of paper, he would not have been able to answer you. Indeed, he would have been quite at a loss. He realized that the idea was near madness, but he found himself drawn to it nonetheless, and he started to work to fulfil the order despite himself. Perhaps the woman’s sad face had something to do with it. Perhaps the written contract was a guarantee that she would return, so he could see her again and fathom her secret. Perhaps the magical nature of the idea was a sufficient motive for writing the piece of paper! An astrolabe that would take you to heaven. The idea was too good to be dismissed that easily. The manufacture of astrolabes was at its peak during that golden period in Islamic Spain. The Books of Examples left behind by Ibn

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al-Saffar and his pupils are a confirmation of that. The whole world had been drawn on the surface of the flat astrolabe. You could measure the elevation of the heavenly bodies, lines of latitude and longitude, times for making observations, and the direction of the kibla, all by using that small brass circle. All you had to do was to put a zero point in the spider’s web in the direction of the horizon, then look along the jamb, to calculate the elevation of any heavenly body. Ibrahim al-Tanukhi could even stand in the palace of Ibn Mardanish and boast that he was able to make astrolabes capable of determining any location or direction. But heaven … heaven was an unknown place, a place that humans could not comprehend or understand. The art of making astrolabes depends on knowing the positions of the stars, then drawing them on the two circles of the spider’s web in a way that preserves the proportions and the positions that these stars occupy in relation to the earth. To make an astrolabe capable of defining the North Star, you must know where the North Star is situated. You cannot make an astrolabe to guide you somewhere if its maker does not know the location, especially if it is heaven! Fort three nights Ibrahim al-Tanukhi searched in Ptolemy’s book Almagest but without success. Ptolemy’s heaven surrounded the earth on every side: it was like a hollow ball swallowing it up. What would the strange woman do if he gave her an astrolabe and declared that every point on the horizon led to heaven? She would throw the astrolabe in his face. For the following two days, Ibrahim read Ibn al-Baytar’s book Using the Astrolabe but its author had not given any attention to places that he was unable to reach as al-Tanukhi was doing. When he could find no mention of heaven in the astronomy books, he turned to the Holy Qur’an, which he finished in seven days, but he could not find in the verses that spoke of heaven anything that might help him to locate it or define its direction. Half a month had gone by since he had written the contract, and he was still immersed in his ocean of books. Finally, Ibrahim al-Tanukhi emerged from his villa and started to wander around Seville until he found himself looking out over the Guadalquivir. The dome of the sky glittered with the night stars. Thousands of them were looking down on him from above. He had memorized them all and could classify them into groups that he had engraved hundreds of times on the circles of his astrolabes. Where was heaven? The days and nights started to slip through his fingers like grains of sand, without his arriving at any answer, or at any method that would lead him to an answer. On the twenty-first day, Ibrahim al-Tanukhi recalled the first lesson he had heard from his master, Abu al-Asbagh al-Jayyani: ‘The world is full of

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all sorts of things, and it is impossible for a man to grasp the details of all these things. So if something is too difficult for you or you cannot find an answer, try to classify it into a particular category of knowledge, then seek out those you reckon have devoted their lives to specializing in that area.’ Ibrahim had heard people speak a lot about a man called Muhyi al-Din Ibn ‘Arabi. They said that he could perform miracles and unheard of deeds; that his conversation was sweeter than pure honey and cooler than fresh water; and that since arriving in Seville from Murcia with his father, he had specialized in the religious and legal sciences. He had also heard a beggar tell him a strange story about the famous Sufi. In his youth, Ibn ‘Arabi had been very ill and in a bout of fever had dreamed that evil spirits were surrounding him on every side, wanting to kill him; but he then saw a strong and beautiful person with a shining face attacking these evil spirits and scattering them in every direction, leaving no trace of them. When Muhyi al-Din asked the man with the radiant face for his name, he replied: ‘I am the sura of Ya Sin.’ If there was ever a man worthy of knowing where heaven was, it was this man, who was commonly nicknamed ‘Our Master’.

3 Finding Muhyi al-Din Ibn ‘Arabi was not a difficult matter. After the imam of the Seville mosque had finished the evening prayer, beggars and others swarmed around the young man clothed in white. Ibrahim started following him on his way home until the mass of ordinary people had dispersed. Ibn ‘Arabi stood there in the middle of the road and turned towards Ibrahim al-Tanukhi with a reverent expression and a sweet smile on his face. ‘Is there something we can do for you?’ he asked. Ibrahim hurried on until he was face to face with Ibn ‘Arabi, gazing into the depths of his eyes as he shook his hand. ‘I want to make an astrolabe,’ he replied. Ibn ‘Arabi in turn looked into Ibrahim’s eyes curiously and asked: ‘Is that your profession?’ ‘Since the day of my birth.’ ‘And how can I help you?’ ‘The woman who commissioned me to make the astrolabe told me she wanted it to take her to heaven.’ ‘An astrolabe to take her to heaven?’ Ibrahim nodded his head without saying anything. Muhyi al-Din Ibn ‘Arabi bowed his head and said nothing for a few moments, then raised it, looking directly into al-Tanukhi’s eyes.

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‘What sin has the woman committed that she wants an astrolabe to take her to heaven?’ ‘Sin?’ ‘Why does she need an astrolabe to show her the way to heaven rather than reaching it through her deeds? There must be some sin weighing her down.’ ‘I don’t know! All I know is that her name is Subh, and that she is the wife of the Emir Ibn Mardanish.’ ‘That’s all you know about her?’ Ibrahim nodded again. ‘How do you intend to make her an astrolabe to take her to heaven when you know nothing about her?’ ‘I don’t understand what you mean.’ ‘Why did God create heaven?’ ‘Why did He create heaven?’ Ibn ‘Arabi nodded his head as he waited for the astrolabe maker to reply. ‘To reward his servants who obey Him.’ ‘And he created hell to punish those who sin. Every man carries his own heaven in his heart, and his hell on his back.’ Ibrahim looked imploringly at Ibn ‘Arabi, as if hoping that he would expand on what he had just said. ‘If your astrolabe that you are making is able to lead you to heaven, it will certainly be unable to lead her to the same heaven. Her heaven is different from your heaven, just as her hell is different from your hell. To make an astrolabe which is able to take her to heaven, you must make it for her and not for yourself.’ Ibrahim al-Tanukhi’s face lit up in happiness and he turned around with a broad smile etched on his face. ‘Where are you going?’ ‘To my house, to make the astrolabe.’ ‘You have understood, then!’ ‘I understand, master, I understand.’

4 Princess Subh was accompanied by her housekeeper when she knocked on Ibrahim al-Tanukhi’s door this time. The housekeeper turned her face away when Ibrahim opened the door, as if she was wanting to hide from her mistress what had happened that night when she had accepted a sum

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of money in exchange for some information he had asked her to provide about her mistress. The brass astrolabe was wrapped in a piece of red cloth. Ibrahim passed Princess Subh the astrolabe and told her that she had to point the zero in the circle of Capricorn towards the horizon, and to walk from her house until she reached the place where the ‘heaven’ jamb intersected the main jamb where Suhayl al-Yamani was located. Princess Subh hurried through the lanes of Seville carrying with great care the brass astrolabe made for her by Ibrahim al-Tanukhi. She was cautiously observing her surroundings, allowing her gaze to wander every few minutes between the horizon mingled with darkness and the two gold jambs. Her housekeeper started to follow her, as she recalled her conversation with the astrolabe maker with the searching eyes. ‘What do you want to know exactly?’ ‘What is the sin that your mistress committed that she is still unable to forget?’ ‘I was a simple servant girl with my mistress Subh when she married the army commander Ahmad ibn Abu Yazid. I was the first to pick up her son ‘Ayyad after she had given birth to him. The physician Ibn Zahr told her that her son would not live, as his limbs were too heavy for him to walk. The fact that ‘Ayyad even reached ten was something of a miracle. Had it not been for the constant care that my mistress Subh took with the boy he would have died at a much earlier age. He wouldn’t eat unless she was giving him the food, and she would cut it up and feed it to him despite the great effort that this involved for her. When her husband Ahmad died in battle, my lady almost perished of grief. We would constantly be striking our hands together and lamenting the loss of her beauty until something surprising happened. A year ago the Emir Muhammad ibn Sa’d came forward to ask for her hand. Ibn Mardanish promised her that he would be generous to her and would grant her a special position among his women, so that she would forget the trials and tribulations she had suffered, but on one condition: that she should not bring her sick son with her into the palace.’ Princess Subh stopped, and started to look at the surface of the astrolabe, whose two jambs were intersecting at right angles. The Suhayl star was shining above her like a night lantern. She started to look carefully at the desolate area where she had stopped after crossing the fertile area surrounding Seville on the east with her maidservant. An old, barefoot man approached whose appearance suggested that he had been waiting for them to appear. ‘What’s this place called?’ asked Subh. ‘It’s a graveyard, my girl.’

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Subh swallowed hard and in a choking voice asked: ‘And do you know who is buried here?’ ‘A boy of eleven who I think was a son of the commander Ahmad ibn Abu Yazid, may God have mercy on him.’ The princess fell on her knees and started to scatter earth from the grave on her hair. So this was the grave! This was the grave of her son whom she had entrusted to his uncle ‘Abbas, and who had died in captivity after being prevented from taking food. This was the grave of her own offspring, ‘Ayyad, whom the Emir Ibn Mardanish had stopped her from visiting, and had warned the slaves and slave girls in the palace not to mention. For the first time, Princess Subh started to cry in the night. She started to rub her face with dust, as though she were trying to find in it the smell of her son, which was dearer to her than the earth and everything on it. ‘Forgive me, ‘Ayyad, forgive me, Abu ‘Ayyad! Forgive me my sins, Oh God!’ Night, a grave, a maidservant and a broken woman lamenting her dead son for the first time. The world is made up of triangles, an infinite number of triangles. If you had asked Ibrahim al-Tanukhi to prove that for you, he would have drawn an enormous triangle linking his house to the fertile oasis of Seville, and rising so high that it touched Suhayl al-Yamani in the sky.

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Sarabande9 Union with you was nothing but a dream asleep, or the furtive stealth of the stealthy. (Lisan al-Din Ibn al-Khatib)

Al-Fadl shut the door of his house and set off in the direction of the music school. He had only walked a few paces when he remembered that he had forgotten his lute. He walked back home angrily and nervously picked it up. How could he forget the lute on a day like this? As he walked out, the birds greeted him with a song heralding the start of a new day. The sun’s rays spread over his face as they flirted with the streets of Cordoba. All this would have made him happy and put him in a good mood had he not been preoccupied with the disaster he had brought upon himself: challenging Ziryab, and in his own school too! It was sheer stupidity! But it certainly hadn’t been right for this black man whom Andalusia had welcomed with open arms to speak as he did to Qamar al-Baghdadiyya on the day she joined his institute. ‘There is something in the Iraqi style that the Andalusians will never be able to absorb,’ he boasted to her. ‘I don’t know whether it is sorrow or depth, but their playing is always lacking in authenticity.’ How could he say this, when it was he that had been chosen as a teacher and model for Andalusian singing? It was the essence of treachery! But however generous the land of your early manhood and old age may be, your true allegiance is always to the land of your birth. So al-Fadl had stood up angrily, shouting and berating his teacher: ‘You’re a liar! Genuine lyricism was born in this very land, nowhere else!’ Everyone heard him say this: Ziryab’s eight sons and his two daughters ‘Aliyya and Hamdouna were all there, as well as the slave girls Fadl, Ghizlan, Hindiyya, Mut’a, Mu’amara and Falla, even al-Shifa’ al-Rumiyya, Qalam al-Andalusiyya, and ‘Abbas ibn Firnas. Al-Fadl well remembered how Ziryab’s face had turned pale and how he had started to splutter every word as if he were having to pluck it from his lips. ‘What do you know about singing? Do you want to test us? All right. I will give you a week, and then we will stage a musical competition here. And if you beat 9. Sarabande: an old Spanish dance popular throughout Europe and America. It became particularly famous when it was used by Cardinal Richelieu in honour of Queen Anne of Austria. The dance is mentioned in the works of Cervantes and Lope de Vega. It was also used by famous musicians such as Handel and Bach. It is said that the origins of the dance go back to a Spanish girl who danced beautifully and sang an extremely sad song without any musical accompaniment apart from the clicking of the castanets that she was holding.

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me, you will see that I will never touch a lute again!’ By now a full week had gone by without al-Fadl’s strings having produced a single note or tune. How was he to respond to the mockery of the teacher or his students? How could he have allowed himself to set himself up as a defender of Andalusia and Andalusian song without being worthy of it? If he lost to his teacher Ziryab, would that mean that Iraqi song was more authentic than Andalusian song? What an injustice! What a disgrace! Dozens of tunes were now doubtless dancing in Ziryab’s fertile imagination, for no other reason than to confirm the student’s defeat before his renowned teacher. Deep in thought, al-Fadl’s ears picked up the clamour of people gathering around the square opposite. Amidst the mumblings al-Fadl could pick out the sound of a sweet song that was almost inaudible, but which seemed to be coming from further down than the rest of the voices. His feet unconsciously headed towards the square, where he was met by a wall of people gathered around a girl who was dancing and singing quietly, clicking her fingers on black wooden castanets. The girl’s singing and dancing were enough to break the heart. ‘What’s going on here?’ al-Fadl asked a man standing in front of him. ‘I don’t know. All I know is that she is a Christian girl who was in love with a Muslim boy and that the boy left her to marry his cousin. Something of that sort, anyway. They say that she went running after him, but he didn’t take any notice of her. Anyway, some time later she went back into her house, then came out again unveiled, singing and clicking her castanets.’ The square was rectangular in shape. The stone-paved surface led downwards to form two sets of steps, one after the other, that formed the long sides of the lower part of the square. The people had gathered at the top of the square, some of them sitting on the stone steps, leaving the whole of the lower area to the dancing girl. No one dared go near her or disturb her, for they were all conscious of the girl’s tender, fragile temperament and could see that she was too delicate to be touched or disturbed. Al-Fadl tried listening carefully to the words that the girl was repeating, whose rhythm was being pressed forward by the speed of her steps. He thought that he heard something like this: My heart has deserted me For my love has gone Woe, woe is me! Let my sorrows rejoice!

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The girl’s looks had a broken, glazed air to them. She was looking somewhere else, as if she did not belong to her surroundings at all. As al-Fadl looked at her pale, pretty face, plaited blond hair, and small, tender feet, he felt a great sorrow. The thing that astonished al-Fadl most, however, was the way the girl had chosen to express her sorrow: by dancing. Why dancing? She hadn’t cried noisily, she hadn’t beat herself or ripped her clothes, she had danced. He wished he could grasp her inner nature, wished he could reach her true self. Was it sadness? Music? Grief? Loss? What was it exactly? Suddenly the girl dropped her weary body onto one of the steps. Making the palms of her hands into a pillow, she rested her head on them and went to sleep. There was a lot of noisy shouting, and the spell that had nailed people to their places was suddenly broken as the girl stopped dancing. Everyone rushed down and there were noisy mutterings. Al-Fadl tried to approach the sleeping girl’s body but without success. Suddenly his heart almost stopped, as a cry and a wail went up: ‘She’s died!’ The Christian girl who had been dancing in front of everyone just a moment ago had died! Without any clamour or fuss, she had stretched out on the ground, rested her head on her hands, then given up the ghost, just as in the song! The whole way, al-Fadl was preoccupied with the girl’s nature and the inner meaning of what he had just seen. In the depths of himself he wished he could grasp that fleeting moment. He only came to himself again as he stood in front of the music school. Ziryab’s pupils were waiting for him on the threshold. Al-Fadl grasped the lute tightly in his fist, swallowed hard, then went in. Ziryab was sitting in the middle of the company on a bench, surrounded by notables and leading statesmen. As was his custom, he had not shrunk from turning every occasion and competition into a celebration for him to prove that he was the best. Al-Fadl wondered whether he should apologize and leave, rather than embarrass himself in full view of everyone. He sat in the place assigned to him opposite Ziryab, and his teacher asked him: ‘Will you begin, or shall I?’ ‘You begin!’ Ziryab took the eagle’s feather for which he was famous and quickly struck his five strings. Then, when he was certain they were in tune, he let loose his booming voice to the four corners of the hall: They said that Khorasan was the furthest demanded of us Then we would return, for we had come to Khorasan.

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God is well able to bring close those who are distant, Those who live on the Tigris and the inhabitants of Jijan. He sang these two lines, then when he had finished them, he began striking the plectrum over the strings at a mad pace, moving it from top to bottom and from a lower to a higher key until everyone sitting there began to sway in ecstasy in time with the music. When he had finished he threw down the eagle’s feather and started to look directly into al-Fadl’s eyes. Al-Fadl felt a mixture of anger and embarrassment. Ziryab had not just produced one of his most beautiful sounds but had chosen verses by an Iraqi poet, al-‘Abbas ibn al-Ahnaf to be precise – a lament for Baghdad and his distance from the city – in order to insult everyone who was from Andalusia. What should he do now? Should he go away and admit defeat, abandoning himself, Andalusia and the land he was born in, as well as the muwashshahat of Andalusia and the girl? Suddenly al-Fadl pulled himself up, thunderstruck by this idea. ‘It’s Andalusia! The essence of the girl I was wondering about, and about her dancing! Andalusia! With her broken Arabic, and her verses that do not keep to any one metre or any one meaning! With her impossible love stretching between Islam and Christianity! With her death, her beauty, her ruin! It’s Andalusia! If I can play her, if I can bring her to life again, and through my strings restore the fall of her footsteps, her slow movements, her heavy sorrow and her loss, then I will be able to show Ziryab what I mean.’ Al-Fadl took hold of his plectrum and started to play. He wasn’t conscious of what he was doing. He wasn’t thinking where he had to put his plectrum. He didn’t think about which strings he was plucking. His mind was completely focused on recalling the scene he had witnessed on the square. He didn’t know whether his thoughts and his hand were in harmony or not. He felt heartbroken, not because of the tunes he was playing – for he was not listening to them at all – but because deep in his heart he knew that Andalusia would be lost, like the girl that had died, because she was so beautiful, so perfect, and it is the fate of everything perfect on this earth to pass away. Ziryab and the others present witnessed a miracle that day. They had been used to listening to music but this was the first time that they had seen it embodied in front of them. From al-Fadl’s melodies, a very beautiful, very sad girl took shape, who started to click her murky castanets with her fingers as she plied the sad steps of her dance. No one dared to stretch out his hand to confirm her murky nature, for they all understood the flimsy, gentle essence of the girl who was too weak to be touched or disturbed. The

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girl collapsed to the ground with al-Fadl’s last tune, rested her head on the palms of her hands, and when al-Fadl stopped playing, she disappeared as though she had never existed. Everyone turned towards the unknown musician in astonishment, jostling to shake his hand and congratulate him. But he surprised them by putting his lute to one side on the ground, quietly leaving through the door, his eyes scarcely able to see through his tears. Translated by Paul Starkey

Ahmad Al-Dwaihi He was born in 1954 in Al-Asala village, in the southern region of the kingdom. He has published seven novels and two collections of short stories. He is a regular contributor to the cultural pages of local and Arab newspapers. His works include the novels Cities of Smoke and The Destiny Trilogy and the short-story collection She Spoke at Dawn.

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She spoke at dawn Yesterday I saw her … We were taming the night, and the night was long, in the pathways between the fields, and the fresh faces, and the fire in between us; we gathered around ‘Am Hadiqan’s tree, and some of the grown-ups took us by surprise. Fatima bint ‘Aishma’a, an old lady, cajoling the night, so that as it ended it wouldn’t send her its myrmidons. And we would be nothing but more of them. I know her: I know her walk, and I know her stooped back. I know that she brought her cow into the village, and went back carrying her food with her. Her home is in a little hut. She puts her bread in the fire in the morning and gobbles it down at night, with grapes. We wait for her at the start of the night and we listen to her nostalgia and her wailing to her ancestors; and at the end of the night, we begin filling our empty stomachs with her grapes. I can see her now, creeping towards the hut, sensing out the path with her intuition (oh God, how many times her feet had snatched at that path). Auntie Fatima bint ‘Aishma’a was one of my last living ancestors, and sometimes she would talk to them and come back to us with stories that we could relate to easily in our current times. We knew her comings and goings. The girls would crowd around her, as if she was our very own fire, just for us children. I drew nearer to her; the fire, the boys, meant nothing to me. I clutched at her cane, hesitantly; before I had a chance to speak she said crossly: ‘What are you doing here?’ The dewy valley; playing; fire; children; night time; Auntie Fatima bint ‘Aishma’a’s grapes, and all the people. ‘Why me?’ I wondered, and ‘Why Auntie Fatima?’ I am careful of her, and of her questions. With an elation I couldn’t grasp completely: ‘What has the wedding got to do with you?’ A little idea, shrinking inside me: ‘You, me and them, we are all secrets’ – and I nearly said to her: ‘The children steal your grapes last thing at night,’ and I hesitated a little in case she attacked me. I nearly shouted out, ‘We don’t belong to you tonight.’ But I remembered that she loves me and has affection for me, in the name of the rest of her ancestors, and that it is her who slips my eid present into my pocket every year, and I walk away happy. The night

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would never betray us. Zahra passed the building. A testimony written on the pages of time. Auntie Fatima was against Zahra’s marriage now. But after a short while I said to her, in agony: ‘Zahra, Aunt Fatima!’ She picked up her sticks of firewood and led me off without knowing where she was going, and I realized that she had not lit her fire yet tonight. Lights illuminated the shelter made of branches where the old people of the village gathered, and the children’s fire lit up the heart of the valley. ‘Am Hadiqan’s tree was a witness, and a tombstone rose up from the earth, and now Zahra came out, lit up in white.

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Flight number 719 My suitcase has only one functioning wheel: the other has been broken by all the turning it has done through the airports of the world. I pushed it onto the automatic luggage belt at check-in at the regional airport, keeping only a novel in my hand to read in those moments of fatal silence, with the stumps of my tickets stashed inside it. A man I know very well, ten years older than me, was walking right behind me, immediately followed by a beautiful girl with her face uncovered. Her shapely body was wrapped in a black abaya which does not hide her baggy trousers, their tassels dangling over her feet in high-heeled shoes. I stole a glance at her hands and I noticed that they were without the henna-dyed patterns that women in that country tended to use as adornment. I had always felt a certain amount of admiration for the man. He was like me in many ways. When I was a child and a young man he had given me so many books and novels. I didn’t turn round towards him but at that moment beyond the glass barrier in the departure lounge I noticed two old friends of mine. I hurried over to them to escape the embarrassment that had come over me all of a sudden. One of my friends held a cup of coffee out towards me, beckoning me over – having noticed how flustered I was – to introduce me to Ahmed, the brother of our friend in prison. They had both worked out, now, the reason for my confusion and my friend began to tease me: ‘Why the embarrassment? There’s no reason for you to be in such a state.’ I rushed off to the bathroom to wash my face and smoke a cigarette before the last call for the flight to Jeddah. When I looked into the bathroom mirror, I saw the man I held in such high esteem standing behind me. We were the only people in the room. ‘Why aren’t you going to Riyadh like you usually do?’ he asked me. ‘I’m going to Jeddah on business for two days, before my holiday finishes, and then from there I’ll go to Riyadh,’ I replied. ‘Then I will entrust you with a task, consider yourself in my place, in charge of everything.’ Bursting full of respect and awe for him, I said: ‘I saw you a moment ago, you were standing behind me at the check-in desk – but I couldn’t turn around to face you because I saw the woman who was with you and I didn’t want to bother you.’ ‘Take my place: I have recommended you to her, just as I am now recom-

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mending her to you. I told her how to recognize you – a dark-skinned man with a novel in his hand …’ I heard a voice over the airport tannoy system calling passengers to go to the departure gate, and in the blink of an eye the man I love disappeared. My two friends had gone to the gate before me, so I caught up with them at the stairs leading up into the plane. I saw the beautiful woman I had seen earlier, sitting in the front seat of the first-class cabin. I raised my voice in a greeting so that she would realize I was there but the flight attendant answered as they took my ticket stub and indicated my seat. Coincidentally, it was next to my two travelling companions, at the end of the second-class section of the plane. As I fastened my seatbelt I caught sight of a newspaper that a previous passenger had left in the seat pocket in front of me, so I replaced it with my novel, with my ticket stub inside it. As I listened to my two friends talking, my memory quickly travelled to Jeddah and began running through the names of all the hotels and furnished apartments which might be ready and able to welcome the city’s new guests. I was so absorbed in this that I paid no attention to the plane shaking, and the repeated warnings from the cabin crew to remain seated, seatbelts fastened. I could not think of any suitable accommodation among the places I knew, owing to our lack of the family documents the security services would require to prove we were related. So I began running through the names of friends who might be able to accommodate some new guests. Suddenly it occurred to me that my new female travelling companion might be more generous than I and might surprise me, after thirty-five minutes in the air, with an unexpected hospitality. But when our plane landed in Jeddah the sea I had been seeing turned out to be a mirage. I was the first passenger out of the second-class section, so as to catch up with the first-class passengers, and position my tall self, with my dark face, at the entrance. I lit my first cigarette and I clasped my novel to my chest as a distinguishing feature, like the man I love had advised me to. The passengers came down the steps one after the other, but the beautiful woman with the shapely build was not among them. I stayed there for a long time, until I noticed that there was no one else left – only my one-wheeled bag, going round and round on the luggage belt. So I set off, pulling it, the sound of it thudding along behind me. Translated by Alice Guthrie

Ahmad Al-Qadhi He writes stories and plays and works as a photographer. He obtained a BA in Arabic language and literature from Umm Al-Qura University. He is head of the Fawanees (Lanterns) theatre group in Jizan. He has published three collections of short stories including The Wind and the Shadow of Things (2001) and What I Didn’t Say (2007).

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Something He stood in front of his fellow pupils, so short he looked like he was one of the school desks. I told him to come nearer, and so he moved right up against the blackboard. I told him to raise his voice and to read. This was a composition class, in which the pupils had to read presentations on ‘a subject that has caught your attention’. How is it that they all manage to find the same words, phrases and worn-out ideas? The first boy was reading in his little voice and gesturing with his hand; how could he have seen this strange creation, which didn’t look like a cat or a dog, and which walked on two legs? He described the creature to us. Lines of fear and amazement were drawn all over his scared little face. I laughed silently to myself at their untameable imaginations: all their notebooks were full of tales of an extraterrestrial being, which was an explanation for the strange creature being offered by an enthusiastic student. One of the notebooks said that this creature was a grave robber that decorated itself with human body parts; and that it memorized people’s addresses when they died, so that if the family didn’t guard the grave, they wouldn’t find their loved one in it – it would have been there one night and then taken to an unknown location. Apparently someone or other, a relation of the village sheikh, had seen the creature around the village, so he rushed to be the doomsayer, telling everyone the bad news. The sheikh died the very next day, not from old age but because he had not taken the story seriously enough when he heard it from the villagers, and asked them not to let themselves get carried away by superstitions. Are all those who renounce superstition sentenced to the same fate? I laughed to myself again, because the boy standing at the blackboard was using such strong language, and the gestures he used to express himself had spread and become movements of his whole body. Who was this stranger who pursued his victims while they were alive and woke them from their tombs once they were dead? I asked the ten-year-old pupil, ‘Do you believe what you’re saying?’ Without any hesitation, he said, ‘I’m bwelling you vit’s rotally true,’ which literally translates as ‘I’m telling you it’s totally true.’ After listening to most of the presentations, I tried to offer their young minds a cultural explanation of the topic. They couldn’t even bear the mere idea of death, so what about the popular horror films that are steeped in it?

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‘My dear children,’ I began, as if I was giving a speech to a children’s congregation, ‘grave robbers are a myth invented to frighten naughty children.’ The pupils who were nearest to the blackboard attempted to make me understand: ‘I wromiz dit’s droo, i brammy dold me!,’ which was their toothless babyish way of saying, ‘I promise it’s true, my grandma told me!’ I meditated on the clamour of their answers, and I tried not to disturb their fertile imaginations with crude facts and harsh reality. But I did test their rational intellect with a demand: ‘If what you have told me is true, then prove it – give me one single item of proof that I can see or hear.’ One of the pupils got out the mobile phone he had been hiding – having first had my word that I would not confiscate it from him – and showed a video that had been taken of the creature. It had been found near their village by one of the border guards, who had killed it, suspecting it to be someone crossing the border illegally – and had then shot some footage of it. I said to them, ‘So now you know the truth!’ I went back home, searched on YouTube, and found the clip under the name ‘strange creature’. I knew that they were laughing to themselves at my exaggerated attempts to convince them of something they would never be convinced of; all that had changed was that I had learnt something from them about superstitions.

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Abu Ghobal playing around10 I came out from between the two buildings absorbed in some idea or other, I don’t know what it was. I came out and everything was moving slowly: calm discussions ending in birdsong arguments, broken up only by the distant sound of car horns. Despite the ants’ hurry to store their sustenance for the coming winter, one of them had stopped, in defiance of this haste, and chosen instead to take a nap on the edge of its colony. Only the Abu Ghobal bird chose to stroll around in front of me, between the dense sugar cane plantations; he would stop, stand still and look from side to side, then walk on, as if there was some idea flickering in that grain of wheat of his that served as a brain. Another bird of the same species was following him and teasing him with movements that were blatantly obvious in their intent: should I shoo them away from each other, and cut short their moment of pleasure as people usually do? I decided instead to watch them and find out the basis for the bad reputation they have in our popular folk tales. They both turned and looked over at me, and then hurried behind one of the giant leaning sugar cane leaves, as if (it seemed to me) rebuking me for my invasion of their privacy. I called out ‘Abu Ghobal,’ and one of them turned towards me, once he’d finished with his companion – who was now engrossed in their antics – and went back to how he was before, totally calm. I lifted the edge of my thobe and sat down on the muddy bank, thinking to myself that this was perhaps like a little party, for them, out of sight of their parents. A third bird was standing a little way off, observing what was going on around him, his gaze constantly returning to fix on the two birds I had been watching. I told myself that I did not have enough of an ideological conviction about this to break off their spiritual ­communication. The newly arrived bird was alternating between different snatches of song by an imaginary band, and the other two were singing the same melodies back to him. I stood up and cleaned off the mud that was stuck to my thobe, laughing and smiling as I did so – for I knew that whether I recounted the moments I had spent with these birds using metaphor, or with absolute frankness, they would be equally enjoyable. 10. Abu Ghobal is a real species of bird which, it is claimed by Saudi regional folk tales and popular culture, is homosexual – and so jokes are told about it.

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Here’s better I saw my grandmother kissing her grandson in that place, and I saw my mother kissing my little brother there, too. I asked myself, as I was growing up and had my first conscious sight of my naked body before me in the mirror, ‘What makes birds attract kisses?’ The question carried on bewildering me, and although we do not call things by their names, everyone I knew agreed to call the male private parts ‘birds’. That term was passed around by word of mouth, and I would often hear my relatives saying: ‘Keep your hands off your birds!’ ‘Careful, don’t touch your birds in front of anyone.’ The birds remained caged by clothes, admonishments and threats. The issue of these birds took on greater proportions in my mind, and I began to follow how it unfolded as a story with close attention, without anyone knowing. Every time I looked at my birds – or other flying birds – I would laugh to myself, thinking, ‘I wonder what will become of these birds? Why do birds get wrapped-up in fear and punishments? What if they could fly away freely?’ I could imagine an old man, his birds having aged, or two naughty boys playing with each other’s birds out of sight of their parents, or a woman playing with some birds, calling them to fly far away, to the core of the story. From the moment that the sheikh Adam was surprised by his woman whilst they were alone among the branches of the Garden of Eden, his birds flew towards their seagulls. The first warning, or perhaps the first declaration, made no difference – they awoke among stones, trees, a plain and a desert, as my grandmother used to say. My grandfather could not contain the pleasure of his birds flying, so we flew together, and here we fell. Each bird has its own story in ancient mythology where paradises are formed and where birds wake up, provoking anger, which crashes down upon them. Then they fly, and we land together at the core of the story. Here we fell, and here is better. Translated by Alice Guthrie

Amal Al-Faran She was born in 1972 in Al-Selayel and worked as a teacher until 2010 when she retired and dedicated her time to writing. She has published one collection of short stories and two novels. She received the Al-Sharjah Award for her first novel. Her first collection of short stories, Alone in the House, appeared in 1999.

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Salim’s week Saturday afternoon Salim’s wife to her sister: He went out to work in the morning, and hasn’t come back. I’m beginning to worry … Perhaps he’s gone out with a colleague. When your husband finds something to amuse him, he forgets himself. He didn’t go to work. His manager has been in touch several times asking for him. Perhaps he did it again – headed for the farm, dozed off and forgot himself. When no one disturbs him, your husband will sleep for two days at a time. Evening Wife to her mother: They didn’t find him at the farm? Where could he be, then? Are you hiding something from me? Has something terrible happened to him? God forbid, my girl! Your father even enquired about him at the hospital and the police station, but he still couldn’t find him. Morning will bring good news. What do you know, he might be knocking at the door right now while we are talking. Sunday morning Salim’s brother to their sister: I told you from the beginning, leaving home for a house of his own was not a good idea; he still needs someone to tell him what to do. A new absence from work, in a government car! They’ll sack him, no doubt about it, he’ll come back, and then I’ll have to support him and his daughters. Sister (to herself): what’s annoying you more is that you can’t collect his salary any more on his behalf. Afternoon Eyewitness: I saw him around the time of the midday prayer wandering around near where his family lives. It was definitely Salim; I know him as well as I know myself. Then he hurried off towards the farms. Evening Salim’s sister-in-law to her father: I can’t hear the sound of the civil defence plane that’s going to look for him in the desert. Hasn’t it arrived yet?

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Father: It came just before sunset. But the pilot refused to move, arguing that the search was pointless. ‘It’s almost dark, and we won’t be able to see him,’ he said. Daughter, nervously: They had half an hour. Wasn’t that enough? Half an hour is enough for him to die, God help us! Monday noon Salim’s neighbour to the imam of the nearby mosque: His father-in-law found his bank statement. It is clear that he withdrew a small sum on Saturday in al-Aflaj. Al-Aflaj? Why should he have gone there? The neighbour, in a whisper: He’s got relatives there who sell drugs, perhaps. God preserve us! The boy’s certainly got bad connections. I’ve been watching him ever since he lived here. Afternoon Eyewitness: Is it Salim they’re looking for? I saw him this morning washing his government car at the last garage out to the west, apparently heading for Asir. Evening Salim’s mother to her daughter: Is something wrong with Salim? He hasn’t been in touch this week, and hasn’t come to visit me! Daughter (stammering): Busy, he must be busy! Then again, you’ve never even said hello to him since he left home, so what’s the difference whether he comes or not? There are tears in the daughter’s eyes, and the older woman’s look doesn’t help her find out anything. Tuesday morning Salim’s father-in-law to the head of the police station: You must step up the search. Perhaps he’s been abducted and killed by terrorists, so that they can use his official car in a terrorist operation. As you can see, my friend, the civil defence plane has been circling the al-Sulayyil area for two days now. If they had been looking for a Pepsi can they would have found it! Salim’s a good fellow, my lad. He never stays away from home more than a couple of hours. It’s four days now! If he were okay he would have come back or been in touch.

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I’ll order the patrols to look for him around the rest houses on the outskirts of Deira now. God willing, they’ll find him! Midday Salim’s boss at work: If I didn’t know him, I’d believe what they’re saying about him. Did you know they’re saying that he’s got a secret mobile number and that his family are trying to contact him on it now, but he either pretends not to know them or replies with a Jeddah accent. He’s involved in something or other making use of his official car! Everything’s possible. The fact that he smiles nicely at you whenever he comes in or goes out and says hello, that doesn’t mean that he’s innocent. I’ve heard that he’s carrying weapons in his work car, and it’s not the first time. A policeman at the checkpoint says he saw him several times in his car in his official uniform. This time, though, his family exposed him through their vigilance and reported his absence. Now he’s in hiding, trying to think of a guaranteed way to come back without anyone questioning him. Perhaps he had an argument with the gang he was smuggling the suspicious load for, so they killed him and threw him and his car into a cave, which is why the plane failed to find him. Afternoon Eyewitness: Ask me, I saw him coming out of a rest house just before sunset with one or two women … I can’t be sure. Evening Salim’s daughter: Mummy, where’s daddy? He phoned yesterday while you were asleep, but I didn’t want to wake you. He’s in Riyadh and will come back in a few days’ time. My cousin Luma said that he was lost in the desert. She embraces her, crying, as the telephone rings for the thousandth time since the morning. She turns to her sister, who has been clinging to her ever since he disappeared: Cut the line. I hate it. It brings everyone except the person I want. Thursday morning Salim’s mother telephones his wife for the first time since they left home: You’ve ruined him, you made him leave me and cut him off from us. May God not forgive you!

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You know who ruined him, woman, you put pressure on him all the time, criticizing him and ill treating him. More than once he said to me that he only wanted you to treat him like a man. He left so that he wouldn’t be humiliated again by his mother in front of the two little girls. It’s you that ruined him. Just help to look for him, and save the accusations until he gets back. Evening Salim’s brother-in-law phones an old friend: Ask about him in the antidrug department. That’s the only authority that can pick up anyone they want without telling the family of the prisoner until they’ve got all the information they want from him, which may take a month or two. Use your personal connections with them to make some discreet enquiries. Are you sure he’s with them? Last month his behaviour sort of changed. He became extremely withdrawn and unsociable, sleeping a lot and disappearing from both home and work for long periods of time without giving any reason. Okay, I’ll do my best, just give me his full name. Friday morning Salim’s brother to the policeman: Someone noticed his car behind an abandoned petrol station just before al-Aflaj, but they didn’t find him there. We’re going there now. Afternoon Father-in-law to mother-in-law: They’ve phoned. They’ve found him. His car’s been broken down since Saturday. It seems he walked a long way in various directions without finding his way. He even drank the radiator water. The legal doctor confirmed he had been dead since Sunday. Evening Salim’s wife to her daughter, in a voice hoarse from weeping: Your daddy’s gone to heaven. When will he come back? People who go there don’t come back. We’ll join him when we’ve got nothing left to do here. Just two doors away, their neighbour to his wife: Salim’s in hell. He went into the desert to commit suicide. You didn’t see how desperate he was in his last few days.

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2 Somewhere in the desert between al-Sulayyil and al-Aflaj, not far from an abandoned petrol station, lies my official car. So many feet have trampled over it in the last few days that one footprint has wiped out another. In the darkness inside are two small dolls, who sing happily if anyone touches their feet. I imagined my two lovely daughters playing young mothers with the dolls while their own mother explained that I would be away forever, and a funeral dirge rang in my ears. I would like to go back to them. It is very cold here. I hate the cold, and the darkness, and the loneliness. I wish I could go back …

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Sand A light sprinkling of rain polished the surface of the sand so that it shone. The desert colours are like me, and I am like them. From one rain to the next they never leave and never change. I am happy, my friend … the rain washes my soul. When her occasional messages arrive, they make my rusty soul shine. I read them and smile. Only yesterday I changed her name on my mobile and called her ‘Ashtar. Should I test the desert to see whether I like it, as befits a Bedouin? I recalled our few cool chats, and resolved that I would have something to say to her in my next communication. I collect my children and we drive off. They are encouraged by the half smile on my face, and they sing. Her face appears in the mirror among them and I think to myself: ‘When did I stop counting the days since I became their mother and father?’ We stop on the shoulder of the desert. They slip towards the sand, and I watch them. They explore the area, embellish its ancient face with their unshod footsteps, then come back. My language is incapable of expressing anything to suit an exceptional situation like the face of a desert, so I bury my face in my rough, dirty bag. I lay out my plastic table, open my few tins and distribute the bread and my orders. The children devour their breakfast while I chew over my instructions, with some sand that a youthful wind raises up in my face. With my last mouthful I recall that I have forgotten the ball, and I reflect on how many eyes on the edges of this sand will be wondering about this ‘foreigner’ and his children who know no more of the desert than as a more spacious place for eating. I collect what is left, the children scatter again, and I remember her (their mother) again. I wonder how long since her image faded? How long is it since I exchanged hating her for hating myself because she had left me with them? If my thoughts had a voice and my mother had heard me she would have asked God for forgiveness, then said: ‘It’s just fate.’ Then after a little, when she remembered how much the word had begun to hurt me, she would perhaps have given vent to six or seven sentences before finding a topic that would keep my voice from sliding into misery.

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Assuming my mother’s voice, I turn my attention to someone other than the one who has left me and summon ‘Ashtar, a woman whom I recreate every day. The beauty of her spirit and her voice distract me from picturing the details of her body. I want her. I wish I could write to her now! What would I say to her? People don’t understand the truth when I present it to them unclothed. They don’t understand me, so they move away and I suffer. I call my children. They gather round, their eyes fixed on my lips. I speak: ‘It’s an old custom of your ancestors, which we are going to revive now! When your ancestors were annoyed, do you know what they would do?’ ‘They would sing,’ said the middle one. I laughed. ‘Correct. But if one of them was extremely annoyed, he would go into the desert and dig a small hole. He would tell the hole what was upsetting him, then bury it. And now we shall do the same.’ The brightest one said: ‘There is nothing upsetting me.’ I said: ‘Dig a hole and put your wishes in it!’ I wanted to add: ‘But don’t bury them, in case they become an ill omen,’ but they had already dispersed. Only the eldest remained. ‘I will dig two holes, daddy,’ she said, ‘one for the things that are overwhelming me, and the other for the things I want.’ I nodded my agreement, and she went away. I turned off at a nearby hill to uncover its roots. I made a hole but the sides collapsed, burying what I was digging. I lifted my right hand to buttress the top of the ditch, to protect the lower part from the top of it, and said: ‘My chest is hurting me. She has gone. She didn’t make me happy by being here, nor did she relieve me by going. They need me, but I am worn out, my hands are cold, and my heart is empty. My heart aches, Lord!’ I lifted my hand, and the round transparent grains half filled the ditch. I wiped its face with my hand, tidying what remained of it. On my left, I dug another smaller hole, then started to grab the sand and scatter it in the ditch, making a wish with every handful. My children, who had been forced apart by the holes, were now brought together again by the game. I lay my head on the sand and fix my gaze on the sky. Its blue colour fades as one gets used to it. I recall that burying one’s sorrows is a female ritual, and wonder: ‘Has my accidental motherhood penetrated me to such an extent?’

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We drive back, as drums begin to strike up here and there. I write to ‘Ashtar: ‘The Dawasir are musical people!’ When I turn the car, I look at the place, and its silence seems awesome. Our suffering has changed nothing of its appearance. I envy the earth. I sing, and my children return my song.

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A day there11 Al-’Asla He woke before dawn, untied his donkey and set off for the east. When he had left the houses behind, he looked at the stars, which gave a death rattle, and he felt a yearning for them in his breast. He glimpsed her in the distance with her women. He adjusted his head cloth, and from his pocket took out his little container of perfume, inserting the short stick between his thick ringlet and his earlobe. He rubbed another spot with his fingers then ran them over his face, stopping at his moustache that had just grown. He came up to her, and she straightened the shawl on her head. He greeted the girls and sang to them. As they rested from the task of gathering firewood, he came up to her, and told her that their sheep’s udders had dried up, and that he was going with the men to Bahrain. He looked into her eyes to read them … She didn’t smile, and he knew that she certainly wouldn’t cry. He planned on returning with her to the land. As he looked at her, he was calculating the shortest period that he could spend there, then reckoned that it was enough for him to come back and find another young man distracting her from collecting firewood, and making her forget his voice. He turned his back on his tears, then slipped a bottle of his perfume into her hand, memorized her features and left. Al-Farsha Under the big acacia tree, one of the women seemed to be leaning on the thorny trunk. As they got closer the other one’s plaits could be seen behind the tree. They came nearer and knew. She was dried up, smallpox marks still showing on her face, though her corpse was not yet bloated. The other one would go back with them, perhaps tomorrow, perhaps the day after, who knows? The two youngsters advance barefoot, the elder in front, while the younger hesitates, pretending not to notice the fire in the sand underneath him. The elder one turns to him with eyes full of tears: ‘Wrap your headdress around your face, come, help me bury her.’ 11. The headings at the beginning of each section are the names of ancient places in my town, while Al-Maqsura is a men’s meeting place among the houses.

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The younger one comes nearer, his eyes fixed on the other girl behind the tree. Her wandering eyes do not settle on his eyes that are drowned in salt. He digs and cries, digs and recalls the looks of his two sisters yesterday. It was not just the look of pain, but the look of farewell, although he had not understood it at the time. He digs, as his brother shouts: ‘That’s enough. Come here, help me drag her over.’ He digs more and weeps. The elder one brings her to lay her in the hole, then looks at the other girl, wipes away a tear with the edge of his headdress and goes away. After a few paces he turns around: ‘If you go near her, we may be bringing you back tomorrow with pockmarks, and you will sit beside her.’ The younger man slips a blade into her hand and follows him. The meeting place The grey-haired man grinds the coffee in his mortar with an intermittent noise. The voices around him in the café are sometimes louder than the noise of his grinding, and sometimes silent as if there is no one there except himself. They talk about the raid and their defeat in the last battle. As he put his coffee on the fire he said: ‘People, we came to them as conquerors, and caught them off their guard. We killed eight of them. Then they came to us in the late morning and killed eight of us. That is God’s justice. Leave us to finish this war between us and our cousins …’ The voices of their young men rang out: ‘By God, we won’t let them, we won’t let them insult us like that!’ Emphasizing his words this time he said: ‘For each man of ours, we take one of theirs, and that’s all there is to it!’ Uproar broke out. Some of them continued to refuse, while others chose from the other tribe an opponent matched to his nearest relative killed in battle. When the men were matched up with each other, he was left. The bloodied body of his uncle was left with no one to match him except for the meanest of men. ‘That so and so for my uncle, the sheikh!’ he shouted, ‘That mustn’t happen!’ He left, followed by his two brothers and a son of the deceased, and the pebbles flew up under his feet. Al-Halila He checked that the road was deserted, felt the six dates in his pocket and smiled, feeling the beads of sweat dripping from his hair into his eyes. He

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could see the small tower rising up on the left of the house. He could see the traces of passing camels coming from his master’s house and heading to al-Halila. He gripped his dates. More than one idea passed through his mind, but he hung on to this one: ‘He’s brought new slaves!’ Al-Halila was unusually quiet. He pushed the door slightly. The women were sobbing in a circle. He looked at his wife, who was among them on the far side. She burst into tears, wiped away her grief with her sleeve and dived into her room. The men called him from their usual corner. He turned around where he was, and saw a stunned look even on the young boys’ faces. He could not see his own children. He went out panting. There were tears welling up in his throat, bigger than the size of the dates he had choked on when he saw a man on the horizon stealing from the palm trees. He was walking on the riders’ path, keeping the dates in his pocket. With every date he would count a young boy and recall his features. He cried when he could not recall the youngest one’s features precisely. He stopped at the door of his master’s sitting room. The sun was boiling his brains. He wiped away his tears, but they simply continued. Al-Ahmar with the two cloaks was heating his coffee. He stopped at the threshold, and the master bent his head a little, then raised it, turning it in the other direction, questioning him but wanting not to hear the answer: ‘Did you sell them?’ ‘I sold them.’ … ‘Better for them.’ ‘All of them? Didn’t you leave one of them for me?’ … ‘They would have grown up and been your servants.’ ‘I don’t have any food to give you or them any longer.’ ‘You could have sold me, and their mother with them.’ Al-Batha’ The women at night in the dried-up stream bed. They can hear the men’s voices in the distance. She is among the young men, chatting with them, as her father-in-law, who can make out her voice from where he is sitting, scolds her and says: ‘That’s enough, may God bring you affliction!’ She leaves the young men for her female friends, tells them some new stories of lovers, then sleeps.

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When the voices die away, they recall their previous night in a whisper. Those called yesterday by their husbands are happy, envious of those summoned on successive nights. After the old and the desperate have dozed off, the rest of them stay waiting with ears flapping. They pretend to be asleep as the sound of approaching footsteps becomes clearer. ‘Hey, you!’ he shouts in a nasal voice. ‘Here I am!’ she replies and jumps up. They pull her as he heads for the far end of the stream bed. The first of them folds her little mat for her, the second sprays her with some perfume she has with her, while a third slips into her mouth a small grain that has been chewed by more than one mouth. I left, and they busied themselves thinking who would steal for them something to relieve their hunger today. Translated by Paul Starkey

Awadh Al-Osaimi He was born in Al-Taif, in the western region of the kingdom. He has published three short-story collections and four novels. He is a member of the Havana Literary Club based in Makkah. His short-story collections include No Trace (2007) and One Idea Suitable for the Ground Floor (2010).

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Crawling among the hedgehogs During his daily work, he immerses himself in minute observations about the sand: its firmness, its wrinkles, and it colours as well. And when he raised his head after a long time, it appalled him that his life was quickly passing and he wasn’t achieving what he wanted. He walks behind the hedgehogs, so that his skin can clothe itself in quills like them; he knows well the smell of odours rising from the earth and descending from the sky. He wants to seem like a real hedgehog when danger takes him by surprise: he curls himself into a ball, leaving it to the quills to practise the dangerous game with his enemies. Despite the fact that he found suitable grazing lands in the hedgehogs’ territory, and is now able to eat delicate grasses and worms, and sometimes with his hands and teeth he pounces on mouse holes, except that he often feels that an enemy is riding on him, or is walking on him at night, as he passes on his way, or is urinating on him, as he thinks, not a single quill has sprouted from his skin, his nose has not turned into a real hedgehog snout, with the exception that the tip of his nose has become rough and dried out over an old cut. They began calling the area where he wanders around the ‘the area of the hedgehog man’, or ‘the man who crawls on his hands and knees a hedgehog’, until the area became famous, inasmuch as the people from neighbouring places came to see it, eager to see the person who had changed many people’s view about hedgehogs. A debate began to take place about the length of time that can turn a person into something like a hedgehog. How long is it? And what are the circumstances and situations in which, if they present themselves, you get the desired result? They didn’t find an answer, except after a long period of argument about a limited point. They try for themselves what the hedgehog man tried, half agreeing on one matter, which is that hedgehogs originally had human heads filled with strange ideas that their owners couldn’t endure living with while standing upright. They had to drop their heads to the ground in order to try it. Later, they discover that those strange ideas pull them down to their lower world, and that their heads have become servants to them, and the quills that surrounded them on the outside are in fact for the sake of keeping contrary ideas away from them. Concerning the phenomenon of quills, others said that they are rather in order to counter nature, which attacks with fangs, beaks and claws for the sake of survival.

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At the same time, a few of them maintained an opinion to the effect that the hedgehog man, in spite of all the fuss that revolves around him, hasn’t for one moment stopped being on the verge of becoming a real hedgehog. The only thing that is delaying him is that he hasn’t been exposed to being killed, in the way that hedgehogs are exposed to every day. The vulture, the mortal enemy of hedgehogs, turns the hedgehog over on its back when he sees it, and it opens up its hands and legs to it, and the vulture kills it without any struggle worth mentioning. As it happened, that bird had not attacked the hedgehog man, which is what infuriated him no end. He acts like hedgehogs whenever he heard the beating of wings over his head, but the bird ignores him in favour of a nearby hedgehog, without coming near him, or even looking at him. The vulture, as he believed, is the decisive proof as to whether he has become a hedgehog or not, and it won’t happen until the bird has pounced on him after turns over on his back, and separates his arms and legs. That’s why he sometimes immerses himself in minute observations about the sand, and then looks up above.

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An employee at his own request From 6am to 8am he thinks about skipping work but he goes through with it. From 8am to 9am he doesn’t do a thing, and says that if he is absent from work, it won’t make a big difference in the course of things. From 9 to 12, he has breakfast with his department colleagues and smokes outside the building, telling himself, ‘You see? You should have stayed at home.’ From 12 to 1 is the noonday prayer, slacking off, and regret for wasting a whole day at the office without doing any work. From 1 to 2:30, he loiters between departments, drinks tea and secretly sneaks onto the internet using an imaginary persona. The rest of the day he is at home, withdrawn, like the covers and blankets used only at night. This wasn’t the broken record of his daily life, since he has mainly been out of work for the last six years, but when he heard his nephew, the government employee, tell him stories about how he spends the hours of his day at the slow, monotonous government office, he inwardly stole the job that belongs to his nephew, who was younger than he was, and began working at it in his house, using its rooms, passageways and objects as a sort of old, dilapidated government facility. Those are the qualities that his nephew so often repeated for him to hear whenever he talked about the facility he worked in. Except that when he stood in front of his mother, Wasla, he was baffled as to how he would categorize her in this everyday job, as he described it. Should he put her in the position of director, or in the position of vice president? Or should he turn her into a regular employee who prepares the usual orders for the daily breakfast hour? And what about his sister Sarra, the divorced college graduate? Specifically, his sister needs special care, since she’s the kind that is sensitive about direct confrontation, and loves to stay far away from the cold words that emerge from her mother, because of a failing and a laziness that occurs on a daily basis. What is the right job for her in this facility, where bureaucrats and petitioners continually confront each other? How is it that he didn’t ask his nephew about a job that was right for Sarra? But is it conceivable that he would disgrace himself in this foolish way, and confess in front of his nephew that he stole his job? Impossible: even if he were told that he was committing a crime (one that isn’t easy to exceed from a systematic standpoint), he hasn’t stolen

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millions, and hasn’t helped himself to bribes and illicit funds, the way he hears from people about bureaucrats who have carried out these unacceptable activities. But he did what he did so as not to stay out of work all his life. Six years without a job have given him a full opportunity with his nephew to hear from him his accounts about work, and how an hour in the workday passes there in all its details. He knows the names of all the civil servants there, and their employee pay-grades, their characters, their ages, and who among them has gotten rich in a short time, who has stayed tightly bound to his monthly salary that hasn’t been raised in many years. To be exact, he knows about the director that he is from a wealthy family, and basically doesn’t need his current job, but when it was offered to him, things proceeded to his benefit, in view of his long civil service, which he spent in utter loyalty. They weren’t his building projects and real estate properties, which he put in the name of his son, in order to avoid paying the obligatory tax, just as he keeps telling his close confidants. He also knows that the director is a ‘player,’ as his nephew assures him, since he puts his second-in-command in charge of all his own assignments, and spends his time outside the office pursuing his own business. He suspects that this characteristic, that of the director who is a ‘player’, suits his mother Wasla, since she is serious and industrious in doing her work bit by bit, so he believes that his mother is more competent than his nephew’s director in taking on the mission to its fullest. Then he thinks a little, and studies the suitability of this job for his sister Sarra. He thinks that she only needs a course on dealing with the public and the way to confront them face to face. As his nephew says, this course is easy, and it would be possible to arrange it for her. So, his sister Sarra will be his supervisor, and it won’t hurt him if she changes and becomes like her mother – serious and driven. In any case, he works for himself, and in the expertise he has acquired at work, there was no role for his sister. It had yet to happen that someone tells him that he was negligent in completing his tasks: the house attests to that, so he’s not afraid if his sister changes into a citizen who works and does accounts and blames the bureaucrats who work for her, if they are negligent in completing their tasks. He will accept that his work is limited to the role his sister assigns him, according to what is needed. The house, with its few rooms and even fewer hallways, and its small, crooked kitchen, is good for a division of assignments: his mother will stay at her fundamental work which she rarely abandons or allows someone else to do. She will remain the mistress of

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the kitchen, as she was. That’s the easiest thing for him, since he needs to have breakfast at nine. His nephew tells him that he is extremely eager not to let go of this routine at work. At exactly 9am, the table is spread for five or six of his work colleagues. They prefer local broad beans with country-style butter, and delicious Hungarian cheese for whoever has an appetite for it, and eggs for whoever prefers them – a table with various breakfast foods that provides the body with energy and small talk, and he needs this service from his mother, he needs her to provide him with a tasty breakfast so he won’t feel the heavy workload, and consequently have his job performance decline. Since the work is being sent to him, who is organizing it this way, he won’t object to any criticism. The position of his sister Sarra will improve as time goes by, she will be a director beyond expectations, he says, disregarding a resounding failure she went through when she married a man who, as it became clear to them afterward, had married her to sate his enormous appetite for enjoying the greatest number of women before he grew old. Sarra was on his unalterable path for reasons too long to explain. He remembers that as he experiences the happiness of a real civil servant who has found work after a long wait.

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Repeated unemployment Listen to me … this hot sun lingers in colours like Satan himself, until it changes them. Pure blue loses its intensity and becomes washed out. Green fades. Even this headdress of yours that you bought just now – the sun will inhabit its red threads while they are on your head. The upper layer will belong to it, and the lower layer will be yours for a time. It’s a fire floating on the heads of human beings as long as it’s there, at that height so close to us every day. We are moist, slow-moving beings, and the sun knows that well. We move slowly, despite the fact that we urge the watches on our wrists to rescue us from the heaviness of time! We sweat in the street to the point that we are looking for someone to lick us, as the sun is above us, searching for us one by one. It follows us everywhere, and when we enter a shady area, it waits for us at the exit, in exactly the same way the sidewalk does. How long has it been that we haven’t been able to take a single inch from it to add to the paltry shade found among us? So what is there for us to do except to wait for the coming of night so we can go out together to spend an evening out in the coffee shop? I see you there, silent! Oh, it’s true, how often have I been told that talking a lot ends up in swollen lips, until the swellings get in the way of your breathing! But everything in our life is passing without us, my friend. Even talking itself knows that, as does work, home, and the coffeeshop. Even the central markets seem like giant aesthetic structures that have no relevance to us. Despite that, we have to talk. In fact, we have to shout at the top of our lungs as we are talking. We have to shout with words like ‘I’m going’, ‘Don’t rely on the roads’ or with expressions like ‘We move from street to street and reap more lies’. For people like us, talking is like breathing: if we don’t do it at the right time, we suffocate. Let me tell you a story that happened to me personally. Afterwards, maybe you’ll leave off your silence and talk with me the way I’m doing with you at the moment. Yesterday, I went to see a watch specialist to repair the gears of my watch which had suddenly gotten loose. Imagine what I saw at the market, as I was on my way there! You won’t believe me if I tell you. But let me assume that you will believe me, even if only for the time being. I stood in the middle of the merchants’ shops, observing the crowds coming loose in the passages, and on the escalators coming and going. Yes, coming and going, in great crowds, but most of them aren’t

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carrying purchases in their hands. Instead, they are only carrying their hands. Empty, motionless hands glue to their bodies, with their fingers closed tight, the way soldiers do in a military review. The shop owners were standing at the doors of their shops in the same manner. I stopped walking, surprised by what I was seeing, and asked myself: if it were prayer time, the stores would be closed, as usual, and I would have seen men of the Association for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice gathering people into nearby prayer-rooms, although it was some time after the afternoon prayer! So what was happening? I guessed that perhaps they were waiting for the visit of a major government official to officially open a big project or something similar! On television one evening, I had seen something of that sort. When one of the officials entered a giant commercial complex, people were lined up to his left and right, in the almost the same manner. When he waved his hand in greeting to them, I saw them raise their voices and whistle around him. I was afraid that some bad manners would escape me, since the idea of a visit from an official seemed dull in my head, so I began roaming around like them, the way they were doing, until it was announced that it was now sunset. At that point, I went, going back home with my broken watch. Let me describe here what I discovered later, that it was merely foolishness on my part, otherwise I would have seen matters in another light. If I had woken up a little at that moment, I would have seen that the area was devoid of the security precautions that normally smooth the way for government officials, so that everything is in perfect order. Everyone knows that their visits to public places are preceded by measures taken by the municipality and the security services that completely upend the area. The municipality focuses on the appearance of the place that is intended to be visited. It chases away the small street-sellers, prevents access to roads and sends out workers to clean and landscape the place all day, so that when the official comes he will find that everything is as he was told in the reports. As for the security agencies, their elements are scattered heavily outside and inside the place. They carry walkie-talkies in their hands, and from time to time they check their guns packed with bullets. If I had woken up a little, I would have seen the market in its quiet, civilian character, as it is every day. But at the time I was preoccupied. I was thinking, that’s all, about the gears that suddenly went slack in my watch and left it with its hands stopped. You may find my great affection for my watch strange, and I of course forgive you for that, because you’ve never had a watch on your hand, and consequently you can’t understand why the sight of the watch when it’s

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working fills me with certainty and the feeling that I’m alive. The sound of the ticking along brings me to a state of happiness that I consider myself incapable of describing in a short time such as this. Imagine, at the very moment that I observe its hands turning, I cross directly to its internal gears, so that I can watch there the nature of the heart pulsating with movement and rhythm and the extent that its movement fits closely to the movement of time within me, and within the things that surround me, to the point that I sometime think, ‘What if this beating heart stops working? Does that mean that I, too, will stop living?’ Do you understand what I’m saying? Now do you understand the significance of the relationship between the watch’s gears and the sound of ticking within me? Although I have a watch that works in a good way, and I worry a lot about the destiny of other people whose watches stopped a long time ago: the beating heart was ruined a long time ago, and can no longer be repaired, except with new gears that work at high capacity and don’t break down. I worry about other people like you who do not talk, and who don’t feel the passage of time, despite the fact that, from a distance, they feel night and day following each other in succession. They suffer from what is inside them, and they weep within themselves but their voices don’t reach anyone. Their sufferings and the dampness in their vaults and subterranean chambers have become one thing. Now do you understand me, my silent friend? When I went back home with my broken watch, silence surrounded me, and I wasted my breath looking for a small bearing that my foot brushed against, bringing me back to some plates I had forgotten on the floor before I went out – plates or an ashtray or a videotape I had used at night and left in the morning on the carpet and went out. But everything in the house was silent. There was no sound from the drinking glasses, or the china dishes, some of them broken, on the walls. No sound from the gas stove when it picks up its spark from the lighter, nor from the teapot as it boils with water and a Lipton teabag for fifteen minutes as usual. I hear nothing, not even the low rustle of my pyjamas against my leg. And when I went to turn on the TV, there appeared, on an Arabic channel, a girl who, judging from her appearance and the stage set she was on, seemed to be reporting the news. But there was no sound from her at all. I knew that I had also stopped working, I had lost the ticking inside me, like my broken watch. That is what has made me look for you here since yesterday, on this street, so I can tell you that I, in spite of my fear and uneasiness, did no succumb, but instead immediately hastened to

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return to the market, walking fast between long lines of silent cars, cutting through gatherings of soundless people in the passageways, until I met the watch specialist, who was about to close up his shop. I showered him with tears, and kissed his head, begging him with hand gestures to fix my watch or lend me his, assuming that there are a lot of clients’ watches in his small workshop, but that they aren’t in any better condition than mine. He didn’t display any amazement at my behaviour, but the expressions of a triumphant man flooded over his face, as if he was waiting for me, and he was utterly certain that I would come to him when I was in that condition. He muttered some words that appeared like a light movement on his lips, then he opened a wooden locker under the table where he repaired watches and took out a watch. He must have set aside watches like that for many others who fell in to the same situation I had landed in. It’s a strange story in the view of silent people like yourself, because movement deep within them has stopped, and the sounds of things around them no longer reach them. Yesterday I actually experienced that, and I spent a time that I imagined to be the time of my upheaval or the time of my breaking-up into delusion. Come on, talk, my friend! Sharpen your hearing to hear the air between us, so you know that I’m talking with you. How long will you remain silent this way, without talking to me about what is going on inside your head, too? It’s all right, enjoy in silence. Take what you wish today from silence, since tomorrow will take the speech it wants from you! But now let’s leave here, so the sun doesn’t turn us into an additional burden on the Red Crescent emergency team. There is a café that makes excellent coffee – why don’t we go there, if that would help you get rid of the tensions and encourage you to look for a way to get you back to work? Maybe the coffee will calm you down, and you can tell me what your problem is, too? And when it happened? And how? Translated by Chip Rossetti

Badriyah Al-Beshr She was born in Riyadh and is a member of the teaching faculty at King Saud University. She writes stories, novels and essays. She has published one novel and three short-story collections including End of the Game (1990), Wednesday Evening (1992) and Grain of Cardamom (2004). Some of her stories have been translated into several languages.

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The chest My father’s wife was a cruel woman, the way stepmothers are in wellknown fairy-tales. That look of burning anguish that leapt from the eyes of the women in my family who sympathized with me for having to be with a heartless stepmother would be sufficient to describe her. My stepmother didn’t hide her cruelty the way clever stepmothers do; instead, she would respond to her neighbours as she was threatening me in front of them: ‘What good will it do me whether I’m nice or not? At the end of the day, they will still say I’m a stepmother.’ Then she would go on to justify herself, saying that cruelty teaches girls, the way it taught her, and makes real women out of them. My father married her so she could raise me and produce brothers who will take care of me when they are grown up, but my stepmother was a barren woman. My father thought she would lavish affection on me as compensation for her lack of the blessing of motherhood, but I understood when I was older, and became a mother, that motherhood is not something that is learnt. I don’t know why my father was unable to protect me, as he saw his wife weighing down my small shoulders with a load that a child of my age and endurance could barely carry. Perhaps it was because his wife’s domineering personality choked off the windpipe of anyone around her, but he only asked her to cover it up, and to be on guard against scandal. My father was a gentle man who didn’t like quarrelling. He dreaded public scandals the way he dreaded remarks that wove their threads around him, with my father and his wife as its nucleus. I began escaping my father’s house to the house of my paternal aunt, which was next to ours. I liked her stories as she combed my hair, about men dancing at the weddings of beautiful girls, firing off rifles by their feet and singing. So I began to love my hair, and it became my umbrella that rained down my aunt’s stories on lonely evenings, and protected me when I was sleeping from the monster that looked like my stepmother. My aunt had a big box of oak wood that she called her ‘chest’, inlaid with round pieces of brass, and its small golden sliding bolt screeched in her hand. It provoked my delight whenever she went to open it. As a child, I never got bored exploring it, and I never happened upon the pieces of candy in it, until my aunt handed them to me from their secret hiding place. Her candy had a strange smell that wafts up to my nose now, redo-

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lent of the smell of amber, musk and saffron, its bitter gumminess crumbling between my teeth and melting in my throat. And its smell continued to rise with my breaths until the following morning. Also in her box were bags of white cloth, with their openings closed shut with coloured braided cords. The smell of the sidr tree and henna emanated from them. Also in the box were colourful necklaces, and every time I would find a necklace that didn’t look like the next, with beads of a different colour – orange and blue – strung like prayer beads, and in the middle of them was a round piece of gold, with Persian and Indian designs on it. My aunt would let me go through her box the whole time, and she knew I never had my fill of it. She would get up and leave me in order to say the additional midday prayer. She would sit on her prayer-rug, and then try to pull me towards her, as she opened up her big Qur’an with the big letters, and call me: ‘Nuri,’ – no one but her used that affectionate name with me – ‘what is this word?’ I would look in the Qur’an and spell out the difficult word for her; then I would stretch out by her warm body as she read aloud in her pleasant voice, and fall into a deep well of imagined things until I fell asleep. The cruelty of time would bring me back to our house, in order to sweep the courtyard, wash the dishes, and write lots of homework assignments in school notebooks, divided between falling asleep and filling the white pages. When I grew older, I learnt to resist the malice of my stepmother, and my aunt pushed me to do it with reassuring looks, so that I would be a strong but prudent woman. I began spending the day at my aunt’s house. I would write out my school assignments, filling my eyelids with a long nap and my stomach with my aunt’s warm bread, leaving the housework and its obligations to my stepmother, who would threaten me. She was eager to have my father forbid me from staying at my aunt’s house, and when my father’s only answer to her was a slam of the door as he locked it from the outside, she left him with no food as a way to punish him. So he started coming to have lunch with us at my aunt’s house, and his wife would sit alone, gnawing on her emptiness and pain. In fact, sometimes my father took his nap with us, and instead of paving the way to rescue me, he began following me towards it. 2 My aunt grew old, but I didn’t believe she was. I didn’t feel the difference, because she only grew more tender and translucent. She used to ask me to dye her hair with henna, so I saw her hair grow increasingly white until

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it was entirely covered in it. I believed the story my aunt told about the women of our families, that their hair went grey early while they were still young. And when she asked me, when I was a tall young woman, to hold out my hand so she could support herself with it and get up, while her legs trembled from weakness, I believed then that she was complaining of a simple pain that would get better if she took medicine for it. And even when my aunt began drifting off to sleep as she was sitting, my father and I began reproach her jokingly about her old age: ‘Goodness gracious, auntie, go to bed. Leave the late nights to the young people!’ She would get up, while repeating, ‘O God, may it end well.’ My aunt remained in bed for days on end, and her thin voice shortened expressions to gestures if the matter required it; there woke up inside me a fear that didn’t want to believe that my aunt was growing old and decrepit the way everyone does. I couldn’t control myself, and cried at her feet. I blamed her with the selfishness of a child trying to cling to her mother, so she won’t leave: ‘Auntie, will you be leaving me too?’ ‘Every soul has its appointed hour, my dear.’ She pointed to the chest. My heart was shattered by bitter tears as I looked at her box and then at her in order to understand what she was saying. ‘My dear, this chest is yours. It was your consolation when you were a girl, and your refuge from your stepmother when you were little. Your tears would dry and your eyes would light up when you saw its candy, and you would get immersed in it, forgetting the fresh pains of childhood. ‘In this chest,’ she added, lowering her voice, ‘is a marvellous secret: it will continue to hold me inside it, and I will listen to you and watch you carefully from it. And when you want me, you will find me near you. I will assist you when there is a need for it, so don’t be afraid. If the world becomes too oppressive for you, open it up, but only in the dark of night and my face will appear to you: if it laughs, then it agrees with what you are asking of it; if not, then it feels the way you see it. 2 The loss of my aunt was something quite difficult: it abandoned me to a vast desert of loneliness, whose sun burned my brow whenever I lifted my head to look for her. It taught me that the time had come to gird myself with patience, no doubt about it! I became accustomed to standing in front of my aunt’s chest, without having my heart burst into tears. I began to console myself with my aunt’s

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things in the dark of night, as she had specified. And I began breathing in her saffron, her henna and her amber mixed with musk. And if I wanted to find out information about some matter that my confusion had gotten me into, I resorted to my aunt’s face, the way I did one day. My father came to tell me that Salim, our neighbour’s son, had proposed marriage to me. Despite the fact that Salim was the only man the mere mention of whose name on lonely evenings did not disturb my peace of mind, I realized that my aunt was the only one who would steer me onto any path that would promise me deliverance. At that, I told my father, ‘I’ll consult with my aunt,’ and I rushed off to my room. Perhaps that led my father to think I was touched in the head, because I had lost the aunt that he knew I loved so much. So he was eager for me to be married before I went insane. Perhaps he also thought I was hiding my embarrassment and happiness by running to my room. But in fact I was hurrying to open my aunt’s chest. I saw her face light up, and her small, straight teeth gleaming. At that moment I knew that my aunt was giving me her blessing and was urging me to accept. So I got married. I carried my aunt’s box with me to the house of my husband Salim, and I left it abandoned in the middle of the house storage room. The surface of my life with Salim was clear and untroubled like the face of a river. Every day, I would scoop from the river a wisdom that never ran dry, until a day came when there arose the yelling of the two little boys as they raced each other in my direction. They were both eager to get there before the other, in order to exonerate himself. ‘It was him! He broke it!’ shouted Abdallah. ‘No, it was him, Mommy! He’s the one!’ the other one started ­protesting. I headed towards the storage room they had come running out of. My aunt’s chest was turned over on its front and its henna was scattered on the floor. Its scent was still fragrant and moist, the way it used to be. Her necklaces were in a heap, one beside the other. I lifted it up and my heart broke in the full light of day. I heard the sound of a mirror breaking as it fell from the side of the box lid. The inside lid of the box had been turned into a black slab that didn’t light up with my aunt’s face or eyes. I carefully picked up the mirror and laughed at my childishness. Every time I opened the box, my aunt had been getting me to look at my face. My face showed in the mirror. The dark of night fooled me into believing it was my aunt’s face that appeared to me. I laughed even more when I realized how much I resembled my aunt!

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The well When Rafa’a died, the last human desires in the bosoms of the people of Huzum village were extinguished, most of all in the bosoms of its women. The flame of taking revenge on Rafa’a no longer burned, for when a person dies, his memory grows flimsy and his human presence melts away. He is no longer a threat to us because he is better and more beautiful; instead, he becomes a weak creature because he dies insignificantly like every human being. Because he no longer competes with us here on earth. The women of the village who were Rafa’a’s companions can no longer recall the spark of life in Rafa’a’s eyes, her mischief, and her love of joking. The women of the village no longer burn with anger as they remember Rafa’a’s legs exposed in front of their husbands, and her breasts heaving with temptation when her epileptic fits, possessed by jinn, came over her. The men no longer think of Rafa’a’s body as a memory subject to possession, because Rafa’a has entered into the weightlessness of the void, and forty days after her death, her memory now evokes an inexplicable gloom in the spirit, turning cool breezes into the scorching heat of a sandstorm. When Rafa’a came to the village of Huzum, she was fourteen years old. She hadn’t yet noticed women’s sly tricks or got the winking references in ribald tales. She wasn’t yet aware of the reason for the words of wisdom that the women spun for her in Umm Ammar’s sitting room, and which provoked exuberant hilarity among the women while at the same time making Rafa’a more embarrassed and confused in her ignorance. Umm Abdallah, Rafa’a’s mother-in-law, used to observe Rafa’a’s shyness – Rafa’a who every night would stretch herself out on the edge of her prayer-rug as she prayed the last evening prayer, and enter into a light drowsy state. Umm Abdallah didn’t hesitate to drive away Rafa’a’s sleep, gently shooing her away to her husband’s room, as a reminder for her that it’s not right for a new wife to leave her husband’s bed empty in their first days of marriage for no reason, except that Rafa’a didn’t ask for anything more than that silence on Umm Abdallah’s prayer rug, in order to arouse in herself some of the confidence that her mother had given her in long-ago nights in her village. Rafa’a had suffered from attacks of a nightmare that recurred every night, starting from the when she began to fall asleep. She would see herself in al-Ramahia valley gathering sorrel and putting it in her sleeve. Her seven sheep were scattered behind the acacia and cypress trees, pulling up clover, wild radish, and desert grass; the sounds of her friends gradually grew until she heard them near her, and

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the tall, rocky mountain echoed back their laughter to the broad expanse of the Nejd. The water in the rocky valley had dried up and its interior was coloured with wild spring flowers in shades from purple to yellow and white. Rafa’a heard the faint sound of pebbles rolling along, then the sound soon grew. It seemed to be the sound of a giant thobe sweeping over the pebbles, and at the moment when the sound grew close to being loud behind Rafa’a, and before she could turn around, a giant hand descended and grabbed Rafa’a by her waist, yanking her as she was lifted up high and unable to breathe. Rafa’a woke up from her dream, her throat hurting from her smothered screaming that no one heard. She got up afraid and embarrassed in front of her new husband. When Abdallah came to ask for her hand, no one told her about it, but she heard her father talking semi-apologetically to her uncle, Abu Salman: ‘Abu Salman, your son Salman is on the long road to an education and is away from home. But the girl’s destiny has come her way – a wedding is both destiny and fate!’ When Rafa’a returned from the path to the well, she found that the hand of their tall black servant girl Marzuqa had sheared the necks of her sheep and pulled them away. She rubbed her hair with henna, washed her skin with sidr-tree leaves, combed her hair with fragrant perfume and rose water, and wrapped her in her mother’s long abaya. She brought her into her room, and Marzuqa sat down, telling her about her life’s long journey, about men’s games with women, and the ignorance of young girls. Rafa’a didn’t know why Marzuqa enjoyed remembering her old sorrows at moments like these. Rafa’a didn’t understand that those stories would become the wisdom of a new era – the era of her exile and loneliness in the new village of Huzum. She had to forget Ramahiya, Salman and her friends in the valley in order to recuperate, and to make it easy for her to get used to the chatter in the sitting room of Umm Ammar, wife of the leader of Huzum; to the wisecracks of Umm Fahad al-Salim, and the stories of the women that cure everything. Mouths are nourished by bread and the spirit is nourished by joy and the sharing of secrets. In the next two years, Rafa’a grew up quickly. She came to have a bigger body and a more outgoing spirit than she had had before. Her body now had new demands that taught her that she was a woman, and her spirit had another view of life. Rafa’a re-arranged everything according to the preferences of her new spirit, and she forced her old spirit to descend into a deep, bottomless well. She buried her sorrows along with it, and her new spirit sat over the mouth of the well. She rearranged Huzum, her house and her friends, which made

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Abdallah and his mother, Umm Abdallah, happy to see that Rafa’a was changing, and they interpreted that to mean that Rafa’a had gotten used to their new life and that Umm Abdallah had gained a new daughter. Rafa’a came to be a public distraction when she would walk with her friends towards Amriya’s extensive farms to go swimming or climb the lasura tree and shake off its fruits. They would gather the sour nabq fruits beside the northern water wheel, and when they drew water from the well, the eyes of young men passing by would cling to Rafa’a alone among the women. Rafa’a was glad to have her friends accompany her, but she awoke in their bosoms a biting jealousy that drew blood. Being close to her burned them as much as it made them happy, because Rafa’a came from an obscure background they didn’t know about, which didn’t give them the slightest bit of knowledge they could disparage her with, which would cure them of their jealousy. She wasn’t like the rest of the women of the village, who are bound together by relationships of blood and kinship: they all know each other’s failings and weak spots in their childhood and youth, and they reproach each other with them, and some of them snap at the chance for that when the opportunity arises. So Rafa’a remained distant from innuendos and sneers while every one of the others was a rich target for casual slander or biting mockery that ends with the object of the remark accepting that this is the reality of being part of the group. On the fifteenth day of Shawwal, when the first moon after Ramadan was full, al-Nashmi had announced to the people of Huzum that he would be marrying off his son Fallah to his cousin Juhair, and that evening, every individual in the village of Huzum believed it was his duty to support and participate in the celebration. Everyone went, and no one remained at home. That night Rafa’a danced as no woman in Huzum had ever danced. She shook her braids, damp with the fragrance of henna and perfume. She let down a mass of brown hair over her face and shook from her spirit the dust time had accumulated there, all through the singing of the entertainer who began tugging at the boughs of her heart in a group song accompanied by a band of Dawsary tribal drummers: O give my heart a gentle pull … Like the current that pulls at the sidr branches. Rafa’a was late getting home that evening. The night was free for her when Umm Abdallah returned and laid out her mattress in the corner far from the oven room and went to sleep. When Rafa’a entered the house, she didn’t notice who was watching her. Cold breezes began to put out the fever in Rafa’a’s body, bubbling over with the beauty of the dance. It

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revealed Rafa’a’s neck glowing with warm perspiration. The scent of roses and perfume wafted from Rafa’a’s damp hair spread out behind her back. She bared her chest to the cool air and walked towards the sidr tree in order to drink from the goatskin hanging on its branch. He was standing by the goatskin, suddenly struck by the thirst to drink too. He saw her and fell in love with her. He didn’t resist her and inhabited her body, abandoning his journey to the north. Umm Amar said, ‘He entered her body and she fainted by the sidr tree on the following night. He was – the Bismillah upon us and you – one of the jinn, a Muslim coming from Yemen, heading north.’ Umm Amar also said, ‘A jinn enters a Muslim when he is in an extreme state – whether it’s joy, rapture, fear or sadness. That’s why a Muslim must mention God’s name when he is in these states, and not let your soul take you to its extreme, so that it’s flimsy and weak.’ Rafa’a was no longer the way she had been before, especially after the jinn overwhelmed her. They said that Rafa’a was greatly changed. She became careless and pallid-coloured. Umm Abdallah said it was nothing more than the cravings that come over pregnant women. But Rafa’a had her period every month, and her belly didn’t swell up. Since that day, Abdallah stopped treating her the way husbands do. Umm Amar said: ‘The jinn threw her down when he saw her husband Abdallah.’ She also said that the jinn was tormenting him with the thought that she didn’t belong to him alone. And when they brought their black slave Mushrif, and he put Rafa’a’s head under his black armpit, the jinn began shaking Rafa’a’s body like a feather. Mushrif threatened him that he would kill him with the smell of his armpit if he didn’t come out of her. Umm Sa’ud laughed, explaining to her daughters that ‘the jinn – the Bismillah upon us and you – don’t like the smell of a black armpit. Merciful God, we are within you.’ When they found Rafa’a’s body floating on the surface of the well, they knew that the jinn had broken her neck and threw her in the well. For when the jinn are forced to leave a body, they don’t allow it to be for anyone but them. Perhaps he hadn’t forgiven Mushrif who had threatened to kill him with his smell, and tossed Rafa’a’s body at him like a rag, so he could enjoy it. Rafa’a’s spirit was circling near the gathering place for the men of the village. Her long dress swept the pebbles, as in her old dream, and before it leapt into the well for the last time, Rafa’a’s spirit heard her companion Mazna, Fawad’s daughter, talking to her sister-in-law Mawdi, on the roof of their house, as they did on humid evenings past.

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‘Abdallah is the one that killed Rafa’a,’ said Mawdi, her voice breaking. ‘Be quiet, so no one hears you.’ ‘I’m telling you it wasn’t a jinn that broke Rafa’a’s neck – it was Abdallah. Rafa’a didn’t come home on the day al-Nashmi’s son got married. That day, she went to meet Salman, who came back from Riyadh, at the well. Rafa’a hadn’t forgotten Salman, and if he hadn’t come to her, then she would have gone to him. The jinn that was hidden by the sidr tree was Abdallah. He had seen her as she was met Salman, and when she saw him, she understood that Abdallah knew everything. Her heart pounded and she fainted for some time. Abdallah didn’t kill her that day. He withdrew. He was afraid of people’s gossip, and of the scandal that would be attached to his name. People would talk about it for a long time. When Abdallah, after months of miserable turmoil, saw Rafa’a near the well by herself, he knew that she was no longer his wife, the way she had been in the past, but that she also wouldn’t go back to Salman. So he attacked her suddenly from behind. Rafa’a heard pebbles rolling under Abdallah’s feet. She was incapable of turning to look behind her, and at the last moment Abdallah grabbed her neck from behind. He squeezed tightly on it until her breathing stopped and her body became limp in his arms. Then he pulled Rafa’a’s body over to the well.’ Mawdi pushed at Mazna’s hand, saying, ‘Are you going senile, Mazna? Keep God in mind … Your talk will provoke blood-killings among the men. Hold your tongue and go to sleep …’ Mazna heard the sound of pebbles rolling and got up on her knees to peer down from the low wall of the roof. Mazna saw the waning light of a star glimmer above the well. The star shone in Mazna’s eyes, then went out as though something was bidding her farewell. Translated by Chip Rossetti

Dhafir Al-Jubairy He was born in 1965 in Annamas, Assir region, in the south of the kingdom. He writes short stories and essays and has published two collections of short stories entitled Steps Erased by Sunset and White Escape.

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Mushabib Al-Ruzaiki or Thesiger’s will In Al-Rahwah,12 the peaceful village lying somnolent in the mountains and adorned with a recently painted white fortress, the roads and the houses slope down eastwards to its outskirts which presently bask in a spring sunshine brimming with warmth. It is Thursday morning. Nothing makes it any different from our usual quiet days, had it not been for the strange car that stopped and the strange people who got out of it. At first they said they were from the embassy of a European country and soon one of them introduced the other members of the group: representatives of Madame Tussauds, the Wax Museum! Just like that, no introductions, no prior appointments, we suddenly found them among us. We weren’t surprised to find an interpreter with them changing the pronunciation of some words and putting others in some non-Arab language. Still, he managed to convey the gist of what those aliens were trying to say. He broke the heavy silence that might have ensued between us and effectively removed the potential mutual suspicions, particularly among us – the young men of the village, the spearhead against any foreign foot set on our soil and the first line of defence against any prying eyes that dare violate our privacy. With the doubts and suspicions about those five people somewhat allayed, one of us dashed a rather blatant question to the interpreter: ‘What can we do for you?’ The interpreter started to explain in his own way the delegation’s need for a human model to select as the typical ‘Continental Character’. And of course they mean the continent of Asia, he added, because we’re Asians. What a surprise! I wonder whether anyone of us has ever dreamt of being that required archetypal character and role model? And how come the countries and museums of the whole world that go about searching for us and our own people do not appreciate our value and worth? This is what occurred to the mind of that ‘one of us’ who posed the question. He was a quiet, taciturn youth. The look in his eyes and the subsequent comment he made, expressing his willingness to offer his services to the delegation, made it all sound considered and said with a kind of wisdom envied by his peers. 12. Al-Rahwah is a village east of the Namaas area (south-western parts of Saudi Arabia). Archaeologists believe that a whole history lies buried under its ruins and old houses. Only a small part of that history has so far been discovered and known.

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They had their information and comprehensive list of detailed specifications ready made beforehand. They wanted Mushabib bin Abdullah in particular, and Mushabib is one of the village elders and figureheads, whether in daytime when the village roads are crowded with people busy with their farm work, or in the evenings when they gather around to chatter and tell stories whose protagonist has always been Mushabib himself. Some of us might have heard something about wax and museums but the wholly new thing for us is this Madame Tussauds thing! Even that, however, wasn’t as important now as their answer to a question we haven’t yet asked: Why Mushabib in particular? Some of us pretended to understand what was going on. Others were still flabbergasted, though an air of cognizance exuded from all our eyes. Some stood about indifferent, as if standing with foreign workers from the spacious Asian subcontinent – spacious as our village has this forenoon become with the incoming Europeans; spacious enough indeed to accommodate the signs of dumbfound bewilderment which the interpreter’s words partly relieved: ‘Mushabib was chosen in advance. He was mentioned by one of the travellers who visited your area fifty years ago.’ (Mushabib must have been playing about in the village roads and alleyways by then. It wasn’t yet the time his people enjoyed his good fortune and benevolence, let alone escape his mischievousness. His limp was quite obvious when he walked, but when he ran he concealed almost any trace of his shorter right leg. Perhaps that’s why, our parents tell us, he was always racing around the village with such speed that whoever saw him totally forgot his disability …) It can be said that his walk nowadays has nothing to do with what he was like half a century ago. Now his left foot lurches ahead first, he leans on it, heaves his body forward to the left so as to give his right foot the chance to catch up with its sister, even though it kicks up some dust and stumbles on in a somewhat slant horizontal way. 2 As for how they knew Mushabib was still alive from the days of the traveller Thesiger, they gave us no satisfactory answer. They wanted us to tell them where he lives. His twenty-four-year-old son was standing with us, gaping. We explained the whole thing to him and he took his time to understand it, then headed home quickly, slipping between the village houses. My words followed him: – Hurry up, Mubarak, your father has entered the annals of history today.

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2 The young men standing with me still couldn’t make out what the interpreter laboured to convey in his broken Arabic and his immense mental effort. ‘This Mushabib is important man,’ he said. ‘The museum wants people not famous, to make him very, a lot famous …’ I didn’t quite understand this whole idea about Europeans abandoning their statues of famous people – statues which I know they love and which fill their houses, museums and public squares – in favour of some other unknown people with distinct Asian features! Why would they? I was more worried, however, about a bitter fact that concerned no one but me in this world! I became painfully conscious that those people have beaten me to discovering the genius that abounds in the dusty roads of our village without anyone paying any attention to it. ‘You’ve blown it,’ I said to myself in a silent moan. ‘You’ve missed your chance.’ Years ago I had chosen Mushabib as my human model, my long-sought artefact and subject matter that surely needed my pen and creative imagination … for years and years I’ve waited and delayed things in anticipation of the right moment and the most opportune time to write about him … introduce him to the world as the living proof of my able pen and my inventive homeland … for years on end I’ve dreamt about the wonderful novel and the world masterpiece that will incorporate my great literary discovery … and here they are again, discoverers of the oil in our deserts, coming back to discover the man in our mountains, pregnant with our silent genius down the ages! The deserts of Arabia have generously given us oil and, alas, Mushabib’s face is what the mountains of Arabia offer us! 2 As if trying to regain the initiative that was progressively slipping from my hands (was I hoping deep at heart that Mubarak wouldn’t find his father?), I suggested that they make a quick tour round the village and its surrounding areas. We crossed with them the narrow road alongside the fortress, descending towards the older houses whose walls and roofs lie in ruins. Some of them showed a great deal of interest in examining the wood panel and the inscriptions on the doors and their iron rings and knockers. We passed by the mosque and I said: ‘This is the mosque where people meet five times, day and night, to …’ and the interpreter interrupted me: ‘Yes, yes, to worship. Beautiful indeed.’ We met some of the village people on the way and they were astonished, as they are always astonished when foreigners are around – an astonishment mixed with a sense of disapproval, of objec-

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tion to our presence with them and to our telling and cheerful smiles. The foreigners took some photographs of the old houses, which were empty of course. Every one we met refused to be photographed with them, refused even to smile or offer a word of welcome. There were only the astonished looks tinged with a kind of cringe. Some of the kids who walked behind us following the delegation withdrew or hid in corners along the way in fear of their fathers. As for the rest of us, and there were only three left, we became more forthright, more ready to offer our services, after our initial unease about the five-member delegation has completely disappeared. ‘Take them to Al-Jahwah village,’ said one of us confidently. ‘It’d be a good photo opportunity.’ We had to take them in a longer walk about, almost full circle round the village. From behind the houses they could see a part of the valley, which was by no means green. Definitely not as green as it had been in earlier years; definitely not as green as it is lodged in the folds of memory now. Then what? Shall we show them the houses and buildings we consider plush and grand? Or should we walk them about and show them the modern network of winding cross-village asphalt roads? Or maybe the lampposts the Electricity Company has replaced three times over, most recently with iron poles, fully equipped – and this is the new thing – with electric lights at the top this time?! Should we show them all the other hallmarks of our modern renaissance? Weren’t those people who met us on the way right to belittle us? (After all we were no longer young to do a thing like that! They on the other hand have always been wise and mature in their attitude to foreigners, wise and mature about everything indeed, so much so that smart alecs that they now are, they no longer wished for anything. Now they only want to live longer, be more self-centred, more absorbed in an egotistical collective self that doesn’t even see itself in the mirror!) We returned to the same place where we had started. It’s taking Mubarak an awful long time to return. One of the two youths accompanying me busied himself with his mobile phone, pretending to receive an SMS or to save a number. He said in a quite audible voice that he’s switching his mobile off to get rid of a persistent caller (who doesn’t really exist). The other kept looking at the healthy, white-skinned, red-blooded members of the group one by one. He found their bodies free from the deep scars and scratches that spread over his hands and feet. His eyes gazed on in deep contemplation, and the one near enough to him could

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well hear sighs coming up from deep inside him. Just to kill time, I asked about the traveller who attended a circumcision ceremony in a neighbouring village. He took some photographs and one of them appeared in a book published in their language (I only saw the photograph taken by the gentleman visitor in which a company of men in a circular formation were about to fire their muzzle-up riffles. The ‘Ardhah13 people in the scene were more than ten men. They all featured in the photograph – to those who haven’t seen it yet – standing with their heads earnestly bowed, handling the wickets of their cocking muskets, getting them ready to fire. Their thobes14 are half way up their shanks. The head of the nearest man to the camera is covered by a white headband tied tight on a cap knitted with woven palm-frond yarns. Most of them wear iqals15 wrapped round their kashmir dismals16 whose tail ends meet together in carefully tied knots in the middle of their heads. From their waists curved daggers dangle and make them stand upright …). The interpreter answered my question, having briefly chatted with the group and after the clean-shaven man with a red bushy moustache explained things to him. I understood the ‘of course’ bit. The interpreter then added: ‘You mean Thesiger? Yes it is him, Mubarak, who recommended that we return here. This gentleman over there is one of his grandchildren,’ and he pointed to a reticent aristocratic-looking young man who didn’t say much. The most voluble among them (we knew him as Mr John) took out a map with names, lines and signs scattered all over it. There were smaller scribbles and scales at the bottom too; like any map drawn carefully to lead to a specific place only the man who drew it knew about it. The man called John signalled me to come closer and I did. He pointed with his hand to some clearly written letters – RAHWAH. I looked at it more intently, and the two young men behind me kept silent. ‘This is our Rahwah, boys. They knew about it ages ago,’ I said addressing both of them. The amazed looks of eyes sailed in waves of silent wonder! 2 Soon as the white man folded his map, Mushabib’s footfalls could be heard behind us, flinging the left foot ahead and dragging the right towards it 13. A Saudi folk dance. 14. Traditional dress for men in Saudi Arabia, a long-sleeved ankle-length garment. 15. Double rope-like cord worn to keep the headscarf (ghutra) in place. 16. The old name of ghutra, a square-shaped cotton cloth folded and worn on top of the hat.

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… (It is worth mentioning here that his foot was not broken as some of his nicknames suggest. He himself must have heard all these nicknames dubbing his limp and was never for once angered by any of them. It was rather a little shortness in the right leg, but the thing doesn’t end here. Two accounts must be cited about the cause of his present situation: Saliha bint Hasan says: When his mother gave birth to him, his feet came out first, long before his head. God forgive us – and she says this cautiously – we might have pulled at them a bit. On the other hand, Aisha bint A’l Taweel insists that he fell off the donkey’s back at the age of six or thereabout when was sitting behind his father …) All eyes were eagerly expecting Mushabib when he arrived. Ours were not less anxious than the eyes of those gentlemen who crossed the seas and the deserts, traversed miles on end, encountered horrors on land and in mid air to reach Al-Rahwah, the native town of Mushabib bin Abdullah Al-Ruzaiki. He himself has never left his hometown except once, some thirty-odd years ago, to do his hajj pilgrimage. He came back ill and stayed in bed for two whole months. All his business, farms and housework were disrupted in the middle of the harvest season. They even prepared his death shroud and kept it ready by his pillow. The blue and green eyes were examining him tip to toe, from the top of his head scarf to his uneven feet, variable in both length and the kind of shoe he wore on each. They greeted him one after the other. Even the woman shook hands with him. (Should we have mentioned from the beginning that there was a woman? Perhaps it’s better like this. Let things go smooth without further narratorial complications. For, what if the narrator took her presence to be a matter of course?) We opened our eyes as wide as they’d go when he reached her, the fourth in line. He shook hands with her and she bowed to him in reverence like a Japanese woman venerating some awe-inspiring emperor. When he shakes hands, as we know from experience, the palm of Mushabib’s hand remains the same. You don’t feel it softening and loosening to nestle in the palm of your hand but stays stiff and almost clenched. Would he in this Rahwi-European morning shake hands his usual way? Would his fingers and the palm of his hand remain arched up, needing sometime to relax, which he doesn’t usually allow as he withdraws his hand quickly? With the long and warm greetings today it seems there’s enough time for the palm of the hand – and for the whole face too – to relax. The man looked intently in one face after another, including the woman’s … and when she squeezed his hand he squeezed hers back. We

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were witnessing all the Rahwa ruggedness … all the harshness rather of the whole jagged cliffs of happy Arabia … meeting these soft European hands … even the incredibly softer, more miraculously tender hand of the only female in the delegation, the only female in the place, the only female in the whole wide world. As it passed from one white hand to another whiter still, Mushabib’s was meeting the hands whose lush white skin betrayed a kind of litheness and luxury envied by all our hands – hands with stiff, fossilized fingers, covered with cracks and fissures filled with the dust of daily toil and the dryness of a lifetime. His hand was all our hands shaking theirs. All our hands were with him, moving from one white man’s to another’s … to the woman’s hand. More specifically here perhaps, meeting the woman’s hand, Mushabib’s was the shaking hand of all of us … dark, lean, honest, rough and strong in constant welcoming ardour. 2 Is our exciting surprise for the day nearly over now? Far from it. The strangeness of this day, which began with Al-Rahwah village confronting northern Europe, followed by the search for our friend Mushabib – whose name incidentally signifies luck and good fortune – and then his shaking hands with everyone, including the woman, without any sign of hesitation, squeezing her hand after seeing her genuine smile and spontaneous, reverential bow … this strange day did not end here. No, sir, for our mouths remained gaping and our astounded eyes kept moving between him and them. We became non-entities, non-existent to them. They’ve found what they’re looking for. Even he no longer felt our presence, although he did cast half a glance at us when he first arrived. He signalled his son to go home ahead of him, maybe to prepare some tea or coffee, or maybe just to get him out of the way. And what about us? We simply no longer existed and he didn’t pay us the slightest attention. For, after the international handshake, he stood completely still, then gestured the delegation with his outstretched hand to accompany him. It was an impulsive, welcoming gesture and they followed him pondering his erratic footsteps. They walked behind him, the more spasmodic his footfalls the more transfixed their eyes were on his limp. One of them was about to take a photograph of him but the interpreter prevented him in something like a mild rebuke. His two feet were in tandem, despite the disparity. The left foot moved ahead and the right was compelled to follow hard on heels of the healthy one, which led and directed the unsteady walk. Each foot left completely different traces on the dirt road, one clear

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imprint of the left and an effaced, smudged imprint of the right foot which totally changed the shape of his shoe. (The village people never tire of his tale with the shoe seller. Mushabib himself tells it at the insistence of others when things around are easy going and festive. The story has actually become a legend on every tongue but the way Mushabib tells it with his dry sense of humour makes it the more amusing. He says: The good pair of shoes I have on grew old and tattered, the right foot in particular going all craggy and looped. I went to the shoe shop to buy a new pair exactly like the one I have and the man gave me what I wanted. I asked for a second pair and the man handed me another. I took the right foot out of the box and returned the left to him. I added it to the pair with me and I had three shoes in my hand. The man looked at me and stretched out his neck hoping to understand better. I explained to him my problem with the right shoe that wears out faster with sweeping the ground everywhere I go. The man thought I’m round the bend and refused outright. I tried to persuade him, Mushabib says, to sell me two right-foot shoes and one left. The rejection was as categorical as the accusations of outright derangement and insanity. I left the shop and the man still flabbergasted, and I think I heard him curse me and the line of business that made him meet the likes of me …) People burst out laughing at his humorous tales but he always keeps a straight face, not a tooth in sight, not the slightest shadow of a smile. At the odd times Mushabib gossips about someone or backbites another, the people present would tell him to leave people be. ‘Don’t forget your own situation, Mushabib,’ they’d say, reminding him of his disability. His ready answer is always the same: ‘I’m telling you, only the most scurrilous of people would find fault with others!’ The serious edge, however, does not in any way eclipse the humour and the fun. His banter often becomes hilarious as his stories branch up and turn the whole evening into an endless series of jokes and boisterous laughter. Today, though, he was never more serious. His footsteps led the delegation to the big brown, recently painted door of his house. The five people walked in behind him and the man with the camera put his machine back in its case. The woman was busy getting some colourful paper and note pads out of her handbag hanging on the right shoulder. I wondered, would they ask for his permission to start taking photographs or has he become part of the cultural heritage of mankind? Perhaps they’ve so overwhelmed the man, perhaps he’s so ingratiated himself, he’s completely become at their beck and call. ‘In the name of Allah,’ we heard the interpreter muttering as he entered the

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house, followed by ‘Glory be Allah the Compassionate and Merciful.’ ‘Welcome, welcome,’ the man said twice or three times. His son on the other hand stood silent by the door, showing no courtesy whatsoever. He cast cold glances at us, not wholly devoid of spitefulness and astonishment. One of the two youths with me shouted at him: ‘Welcome the guests, or aren’t they Arabs!’ He heard his father reiterating his ‘welcome, welcome’ over and over again and Mubarak finally said ‘welcome’. The interpreter nodded and the others followed suit, bowing their heads in a slight gesture of appreciation and gratitude. They climbed the stone steps lately patched up with cement and made easier to scale. They walked half way through a long corridor, turned left then entered the majles.17 On the way, some cast an acquainting eye on the courtyard, overlooked from three directions by upper and lower rooms. The man built them in successive stages, the lower ones of stone, the upper ones of reinforced concrete. The older and newer sections of the house blended together in a hodgepodge difficult to describe as anything other than a reflection of the different stages of the building, the good or bad quality of the work, the scarcity or availability of resources and the building raw materials, and the shared tastes of other relatives dwelling with him in the same spacious house. He welcomed them in the majles, the most decent room in the house. They sat opposite him right in the middle as he gestured them and as the open window helped us see. They had problems sitting on the floor because of their tight pants and because they are obviously not used to it. The woman was the most comfortable among them, thanks to the loosefitting skirt she wore under a sky-blue blouse and a matching headscarf. The scarf covered most of her hair and was tied under the pointed and delicate chin of a woman in her mid-forties. The Arab coffee pot appeared quickly, redolent of the mixed aromas of coffee and cardamom. Mubarak climbed the steps, passing near the place where we sat eavesdropping on the meeting (we were sitting on a stone bench where the steps end and the corridor begins, sneaking peeks and catching bits of the conversation, ever awaiting an invitation that never came). With his clumsy walk and loss of balance, Mubarak almost dropped the coffee pot when he tripped over one the gentlemen’s sportslike long boots … We heard him utter a terrible curse conjuring up the jinn from Solomon’s magic bottles! They had their coffee and they repeated after their interpreter: ‘Shukran, shukran, thank you.’ One of them, with the red bushy mous17. The guest room.

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tache, produced a black-and-white photograph and showed it to Mushabib sitting opposite them. The interpreter crawled on his knees nearer and started talking to Mushabib about the man who visited the area after the Second World War. ‘Do you know him,’ he asked, and Mushabib kept silent, then shook his head in something like a negative answer. ‘But he certainly knew you, God rest his soul, and this is his grandchild,’ the interpreter said pointing to the youngest man in the group. ‘The son of his son?’ asked Mushabib. ‘Yes, yes,’ the interpreter nodded cheerfully. He produced another photograph, like its predecessor in black and white. It featured a kid with a fierce pair of eyes and a rugged mountain look about him. Lean and far from gentle, the boy wore a threadbare, patched-up woven thobe shrunk half way up his shanks. He stood in front of the stone wall of a house, holding a stick in his hand. Maybe he was herding his sheep with it or maybe riding it as a horse and neighing about happy in the back roads and alleyways of the village. ‘Do you recognize this one?’ the mediator asked. Mushabib perused the photograph, his eyes sinking in the sockets of a sixty-year-old head invaded by grey hair. ‘It’s Mushabib, that’s you, Abu Mubarak,’ the interpreter hastened to add. The man’s head leaned forward to peer more closely and with more mental effort. A blank smile invaded his face. Now I remember the favour I’ve done them. Before Mushabib arrived, they had asked us how best to address him? ‘Call him Abu Mubarak,’ I told the interpreter, and now they do. The man looked on, his eyes wandered about rather, totally immersed in the photograph. A while later he lifted his head and the phrase ‘that’s me’ came out sunk in thought, as if someone else said it. They exchanged glances and brief chats among themselves. The man kept looking at them and more often at the photograph in his hand, his eyes glimmering, his complexions all euphoric as if coming back from a pleasant trip that refreshed the look of his eyes. ‘Where did this photograph come from?’ he asked. ‘Yes, yes,’ the interpreter took on the task of answering. He remained baffled for a few seconds, probably facing the most difficult question in his life, posed by this Mushabib. ‘This photographer came here to you sometime ago. He took this photograph of you when you were young. There are other photos like this one, of men in a grand ceremony.’ As if he was beginning to understand, he screamed a long ahhhhhhh: ‘Mubarak … He’s Mubarak.’ ‘Thank goodness,’ the interpreter instantly replied. An air of dubious silence prevailed. Soon we heard some hushed murmuring among the guests and we shouted at the boy who came into

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the majles, carried the brass coffee pot and cups and went out down the steps towards the corner of the house. ‘Mind the old man, boy, from those gentlemen,’ one of us commented. ‘Listen, uncle Abu Mubarak,’ the interpreter pointedly addressed him by this name. It was as if the name was to be officially adopted from now on, although Mushabib in fact was very rarely called that; it was as if the name had returned to him, like the photograph, after fifty years. The interpreter went on having gathered his thoughts and regained the full attention of his listener: ‘We need some photographs and some other necessary things for the work with the brothers over there,’ he added pointing to his listening companions. ‘Photographs?’ the man wondered, ‘I have no photographs.’ Cautiously the Arabist replied: ‘We have this machine,’ he pointed to the camera with his friend. ‘We take the photographs,’ he continued with the same precariousness. ‘You only have to agree …’ The man didn’t have much to say or comment on … It can be said he did and did not understand. A lot indeed can be said about that piercing, wondering look in his eyes, fully engrossed with the photograph in his hand. The word ‘okay’ they heard from him, unanimously understood the way their interpreter had understood it, was enough to go into action. The photographer looked up to the ceiling and told the mediator of the need to take photographs out in the sun. Our joy to follow what happens at first hand and in full details was restored. 2 The five people went out and Mushabib with them, dragging his foot behind him and with it all the dirt of the roads it walks, all the dust of the days that accumulated from years and years back. The sun outside was gorgeous, sauntering along in the springy climate. The whole village was filled with the colour of flowers scattered in places close by the walls, where they escape the cruising cars and the crushing feet, including the feet of our limping friend … It was a bright sun almost in the middle of the sky. It started to scorch our heads but we were wholly indifferent, totally oblivious to everything other than the events unfolding right before our eyes. The crowd walked to the middle of the yard then pushed outside through the door to an ideal place for taking photographs. It is a wide passageway right under the terrace, with a beautiful view of the white lofty fortress that overlooks all the houses of the village … So often have we walked up and down this passageway in joyful days and evenings. No

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album of any one of us – we onlookers – is bereft of a photo taken by the fortress. It makes an ideal background for photographs at all times … exactly what our friends wished for to accomplish this momentous task at hand. ‘Get us in the picture, God damn you,’ shouted one of the young men in a suppressed voice coming through his clenched teeth. ‘Back, you, go back, devil take you,’ Mushabib lashed out at him … We laughed but the five looked at one another, confused. The woman took the initiative and produced a crystal-clear smile. It diffused the sudden tension spreading across the faces and the eye looks … Everybody wanted to return to work. Mushabib bin Abdullah Al-Ruzaiki fixed the Akl18 shmagh on his head. The two sides of the shmagh crossed over his right and left ears, coming down to the back end of his head where they rested just above his shoulders … The wearing of the material with frequent washing was quite clear on the white sidelines of the shamgh which was never subjected to the strictures of an iqal. It was as if Mushabib has not lived a moment like this for a long time, for three decades in fact when he went to issue an ID from the Ministry of Civil Services. He’s never bothered with the shmagh on his head as he does today, fixing it, fiddling with it, making himself presentable … His tanned face is light brownish … his nose fine at the top but falls down in what looks like the base of a triangle at the nostrils … his teeth a wholly different world time has savaged with the extractions, the chippings and the severe yellowing of what is left of them … Most are gone with the passing decades, never to return, but some are good enough still for the floods of smiles he has generously let out today! Only the eyes were his windows to a new world … a world made by the hands of the Europeans who travelled the globe, discovered the unknown continents, turned the whole earth inside out … and here they are, finding the right features and returning to the right man … as recommended by a traveller who had traversed the deserts, crossed the rugged mountains and landed here in a crowded circumcision ceremony in the mid-1940s. The camera worked with the deftness and the skill of the hand that operated it – group, double and single photos, special photos of him posing with the interpreter and with the only woman in the delegation. Incidentally, said one of young men beside me: ‘Women are as scarce with them as they are in our soap operas.’ Members of the group called her Mrs Smith, and it is confirmed to us that she is the mother of the youngest fellow among them. They were very courteous to her, which the other 18. A famous brand of Saudi headgear.

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youth standing beside me considered somewhat exaggerated and affected. He gave rather crude hints as to what really binds her to other members of the group! She was by far the loveliest person in the group. All the differences in history, geography, anthropology and in the clashing of colours and cultures came to the fore when she stood beside our man smiling, her hand on his shoulder, and him reciprocating, hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder. A gentle breeze played with the pink and black scarf covering her hair. Her decent clothing perfectly suited her, looking as if it is her usual wear. Our man was smiling in one shot after another … all kinds of them, group, double and single photos. The single pictures in particular were taken at the special request of the group’s guide and according to his exact specifications. And here he is now, our man, standing alone. The west of Asia meeting the north of Europe; the warmth of the rugged Surat mountains bathing in the fog of the old continent, a warmth that turns the freezing climate into marvellous Mediterranean weather. He is one man facing four men and a woman taking quick notes on a small piece of paper. The European man has measured the distances of the whole world, east and west. It wouldn’t be hard or strange for him to take the anthropometric measurements of Mushabib’s length and width. The man found himself not only under the flashlights of their cameras or the scrutinizing looks of their eyes. He was also at the full disposal of the expert fingers of both the young man and the short trimmed, bushy-bearded Mr George. They have measurements for everything, every organ of the body from the circumference of the head and the length of the arms down to the measurements of the waist and the silver side-dagger in the tight belt tied round it and lifting his thobe half way up his shanks. The hands were busy examining and measuring, their fingertips touching gently everywhere. A third man was taking down every number, every word, every note uttered. Even the feet were measured. Surely, no one doubts that the team delegated from the famous Wax Museum has noticed by now the slight disparity in the length of the two legs. It was a huge change in the span of a few minutes. The man was totally obedient and compliant, turning left and right as requested, for the picture, for the metric measurements (did they measure him in metres or inches, I wonder?), for everything. It was as if we were looking at a totally different man; not the Mushabib Al-Ruzaiki we’ve known for years … With them he gave without asking, obliged without bidding … turning from one side

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to another, moving his head up and down, right and left, responding in a series of impulsive and wholly pliant reactions … Despite his relative shortness, the man we knew was a solid mountain rock. The scorching sun he faced, rising and setting day after day, made him more sturdy and strong. The wind blowing on him in playful breeze and storming whirlwinds found him a big boulder, standing firm against the changing seasons and times … To us at least, from early morning till about noon, Europe was facing a walking mountain … Our man was always finding something to say: ‘Haven’t you finished … hah … enough … ok or shall we do a retake …’ ‘Thank you, thank you,’ the interpreter hasted to say, as if bringing a joyful party to a close. ‘Thank God,’ everyone said in a similar tone. ‘Thank God, thank you,’ the voices took turn to repeat. The female voice came softest and sweetest: ‘Thank you, ma’ asalamah.’ 19 2 The five left us – the interpreter, the lady, her son, George and John. We knew them by their names in the course of the day and the conversations we had with them. We got used to their presence with us. Had they stayed longer maybe they’d have spoken some broken Arabic we could understand. One of the two youths with me even said, posing his question to me: ‘It could be they’re Arabs, couldn’t it?!’ They said their goodbyes to the man and left. Towards us they cast fleeting glances. Their smiles were thankful, appreciating our roles as curious guides and onlookers fascinated by two worlds – the western world that came to us searching for something it lacks and misses, something we have but apparently do not know its worth. The other world can be summed up in the new way Mushabib was looking at us. Soon as they headed up north and their Range Rover vanished in the main street … Mushabib turned to us, cockeyed and full of himself. He took a few confident steps with which his limp totally disappeared. His feet dragged out years that seemed somehow slight and insignificant. Surely he could take these years back, or they could take him, to the time those people have reminded him of, the time of the photograph he was pondering only a short while ago. The three, four copies of the photo they gave him he lodged safely in an inner pocket, near his heart, now warmed up with memories. All vigorous steps and dashing feet now, there is no trace of what he was like an hour ago, years ago. His new-found hubris is clearly proclaimed in 19. Farewell.

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the puffed shoulders, the glee with which his countenance glowed, the splendour of the radiant skin, the dullness that departed his eyes, the footsteps … that steadily moved away from us. Meanwhile, the warmth generated by shaking hands with the foreign gentlemen, and especially with Mrs Smith, was still burning the place with energy. It was as if she pointedly took her time shaking hands with this rugged man of the mountains. She wanted to soak up as much warmth as possible, then fuse it in the perfect statue that will be the latest addition to Madame Tussauds, in fulfilment of the late Thesiger’s will. He strode further away from us. The guests departed and we were sad to see them go. Sadder still was the man who missed the chance of a lifetime. Mushabib was discovered and the whole thing is over. He can only look for a new idea, even if it came from beyond the borders, from somewhere near the land of Mubarak bin London.20 Translated by Mujab Imam

20. Mubarak bin London is the name by which the English traveller Sir Wilfred Thesiger (1919–2003) was known in Arabia. Thesiger visited the Al-Namaas area in 1947.

Fahad Al-Khlaiwi He was born in 1946 in Arras, in the central region of Qassim. He was the cultural editor of Iqra magazine and has contributed regularly to the cultural pages of local and Arab newspapers. His short-story collection Winds and Bells was published by the Hail Literary Club in 2008.

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Winds The city was not used to the winds which had violently shaken its shoreline and which had forced the coastguard to issue a warning against entering the sea. Information came from far-off oceans that the city had the worst of it to come. Meteorologists confirmed severer winds were heading in off the seas and straight for the heart of the city. A flock of birds shrieked over the sea before the gathering winds forced them to fly off towards the far desert. The beach was deserted, having been abandoned by the locals, who were forever indoors, forever talking of the winds. An elderly resident from the east of the city was heard to say that ‘no magic to hand can wish away winds like these’. Dense clouds gathered as if omens of something, but some thought it more likely that they were just heavy rainclouds that the winds would blow elsewhere. Meanwhile the locals became obsessed with every aspect of atmospheric conditions. Academics noted that the very word ‘wind’ was the most frequently occurring one in the holy books and in the annals of ancient and modern peoples. History books also told tales of cities worldwide ravaged and overturned, whole epochs brought to an end and entire ways of life displaced. The records recounted stories of windstorms dissipating into vast empty space, having utterly destroyed vast habitats of tremendous natural beauty. Every wind in the heavens has its orbit and destiny. People become increasingly anxious for information on wind conditions from every port. Others delved into antiquity and told of the myths and legends of the winds which had blown over the ocean depths, wreaked havoc in the desert sands and flattened the strongest fortresses, defeating the most powerful emperors, putting fixity to flight and turning solidity into dust. One man recounted the tale of his father’s village blown apart by winds when he was young, leaving only a handful of the folk reared over the ages to rebuild that village again. Heavy rains from far-off skies had brought tumult then but had receded in the end, allowing the wheat to ripen again and weddings and births to be celebrated once more in the candlelit homes and highways of those days. At last the windstorm hit the centre of the town, whipping and raging around its farthest extremities. Barely had the first day passed than the city seemed besieged on all sides. The people dealt with the situation with a resignation. The local weather station stated that the city had never experienced winds of this strength and intensity before in its history.

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Fathers and mothers implored God for reprieve and for a harvest of blessing and mercy, for deliverance of the city from evil and the devastating storm. Anxiety was written large on those faces fearing the collapse of their houses, their monuments and pillars, especially since the town had been built in the old, random fashion and so would be defenceless against the winds’ ferocity.

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The remains of memory The village occupied a little speck of the far-off desert, twinkling like a tiny star whose glimmer the vast expanse of space annihilated. He was beset both by the anxiety of solitude and an elusive uncertainty as he headed across the desert towards that place. He sensed he had left the clamour of the city far behind him there in the desert gorges. He felt he was recommuning with sunken images in all that stillness and silence. Expanse, emptiness, the scorching sands, the dumb and black-soiled mountains, the dark-green spiky bushes standing on the arterial feet. All of these factors fed into that desert scene, shaped its mystery, convinced him that it spoke like something beyond life, something unchanging. The narrow asphalt road pierced the desert’s haunch, slithering along like a black cloudy snake. All along it, a proliferation of pale blue road signs pointing to scattered settlements, some now just abandoned barns. His childhood friend, who had never gone beyond the village walls in his entire life, asked him: ‘Did you come from Riyadh or Jeddah?’ He replied: ‘What’s Jeddah?’ In the prime of his youth he had left this little village for that big city worked by agitated strings. He had grieved a long night until the hymns of dawn. He had known no one there and his closest friend had been the sea. But later he married a beautiful woman from an Indian family, got a middling job, rented a little house and had many children. Most of those who had migrated to cities were like that, mainly becoming low-tomiddle-grade civil servants and for the most part taking on the flexible, tolerant attitude to be found in their new hometowns. A few stuck to rural ways and remained in their villages until they were buried in the local cemetery. In his imagination, the village had remained tiny, a complex of unjustifiable constrictions like being locked in a wooden box. The city was to him a vast constellation of races and colours, a conglomeration of human diversity. He went down to sit with his old friend and mentor the sea to compose a poem. He felt briefly inspired by the maze of his existence. It was nearing dusk and the sun was seeking the blue of the sea as the gold-tipped waves roared onto the shore. The fishing boats came and went with their catches and the laden ships sailed off on their long journey to western cities. The village stretched like a string of pearls along the shoreline, soft strand with a few scattered pools separating it from the sea. The locals would sit gazing on the sea from their own homes. They had never walled out the roaring waves with cement bastions. Construction

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had spread all along the coast and people sought refuge in that open shoreline, away from the building work. He remained there in that night, his mind wandering anxiously, his face clouded by sadness as he sought the remains of memory, memories of the place which had embraced him so warmly in his youth and its tender dreams. But they would not return.

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Bells Its bells rang out fifty times. Between the clang of one bell and another, a faint tremor occupied a high-ceiling theatre affixed with two masks – one comic, one tragic. He was irritated in that night. He wanted rain to come and saturate the ground, a downpour to seep through the frames of the decaying cars, the discarded planks, the empty tin cans strewn along the roadside. He dreamt of rain to make fleeting memories cling. He drove towards the south of the city whose skies were picked out with stars which wove their fast fading light amid the shredded cotton clouds, allowing remote luminescence to seep into the cold void. The old districts of the south of the city were piled up like little sand dunes, their interconnection disseminating peace and quiet. The ancient foundation of these inter-knit communities summoned up sunlit memories. He crossed a narrow street and headed for his old neighbourhood. The old neighbourhood mosque with its two biers standing as always side by side in front of its wooden doors. Abdo the Yemeni’s café. Abdo had moved back to Yemen years ago and had sold the café to one of the local Indians. He went deeper and deeper into the neighbourhood till he got to the little house he had left thirty years ago, having not been able to afford the rent any longer back then. The landlord had given him two days to find somewhere else. Back then he had gone home with dozens of cardboard boxes from the local food warehouses to pack up his books. He had managed to get the rest of his things into a modest bag: an old brass teapot, an ancient electric heater, a pale glass cup, a flattened sponge mattress, pens, a flute and two tapes – one by Fairuz and the other Fawzi Mahsun. He had started packing the bigger books first: Being and Nothingness needed a box of its own. ‘Freedom precedes existence … nothingness is beyond existence.’ Sartre was a much more philosophical writer than him. Spengler’s Decline of the West (in three volumes) needed more than one box of course. ‘The city is not the nucleus of civilization. The urban population rehearses life and death routinely and has no relation at all to the creation of culture.’ What? Your two days would have been up before that tome answered your question. Thus Spake Zarathustra was smaller and could be packed with the rest of the books. ‘It is everyone’s duty to be a bridge between the advanced and the backward.’ Nietzsche: a great philosopher the like of whom would not be seen again. He had packed in his mumblings and got on with organizing his large books, then the

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medium, then the small. He had carried his incredible array of boxes and his one modest-sized bag and had left this district behind thirty years ago. Sad and melancholic rhythms echoed around his soul’s space. He felt his memory had consumed space and time. It was as if lost expanses of time had been shrunk to meagre shreds. He drove off for the main road and then headed for the sea. He stood on the beach listening to the roar of the waves.

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The village the wheat trucks deserted When the landlord came to the village he addressed the people saying that, because of the climatic and geological conditions, it had been decided that the new road would not pass through the village. The imam had ended his Friday sermon hurriedly – presenting just the key points of the familiar tirade against Jews and unbelievers he had delivered for twenty years – and had hastened his steps to join the procession to the landowner’s estate. The village elders had entered the house, led by the imam and the village sheikh and had bowed before the lord of the manor and kissed his hand. They were after a change in the decision so as to stimulate the village economy and save it from becoming a scattering of huts wide open to the desert. But the wheat trucks followed the new road and the village was left to suffer in the sandy heat. The elders agreed to offer the village’s most beautiful, most alluring, most enticing girl to the lord of the manor to dissuade him from his decision. They instituted a thorough scheme to search for the prettiest candidate for the task and charged their wives with doing so. The sheikh’s wife went in and out of every household to deliver the message that the village’s future was at stake and that each and every daughter of each and every household had to be scrutinized intensively for their eyes, the firmness of their breasts, the soundness of their chests, the suppleness and evenness of their skin. The sheikh’s wife blurted out to one and all: ‘It’s some lucky girl who’ll have to win over the landlord’s heart!’ Many women offered to apply themselves to this task. They spread themselves throughout the village and worked tirelessly. Finally a certain Madaawi was selected for her outstanding beauty, her feminine grace and her intelligence. They pierced her ripe skin and adorned it with golden beaded jewellery, decked her with silver anklets, massaged her braided hair with musk and amber and tattooed her palms with henna. They taught her how to work her erotic charms and exert her control over the desires of her master. But the lord and master, having had his fill of Madaawi’s graces, then exacted his terrible price by gorging his desire on all the daughters of the village. Translated by John Peate

Fahad Al-Mosabah He was born in 1953 in Al-Ahsa. He is a retired teacher who dedicates all his time to writing. He has published seven short-story collections and one novel. He received the Abha short-story award in 2000. His collections include Dry Floods (2001) and The Glass and the Window’s Edges (2004).

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Expanses of thirst The place: A nightclub. The time: In a lost time. He reached the spring. He was thirsty; something inside him held him back. Shepherds and friends intoxicated with a love of survival; the nighttime song of weary souls, far from home. In situations like this he was used to biding his time. He looked around; tents were scattered about the spring, above them thirsty eagles hovered, waiting for an opportunity. The water bearers were assembled beside the spring, and the remaining steps stood as an impervious dam that kept his camel saddled. When he arrived, something would have happened. The covers he took as protection against the bite of time will have disintegrated. He curled up behind the people, leaving them to drink from the fragrance of the place. Souls stirred with life, with the voices of camel drivers, and languid love songs heavy with longing. One of the water bearers came to him in a red dress. She greeted him, with a smile that tore at his insides. His stillness had lured her; she was skilled in solving the mysteries of men. He began to speak to her with a confidence drawn from life experience, while he watched a pigeon hunting an eagle. She spoke, pulling him out of his thoughts: ‘What’s wrong?’ He turned his face from her, hiding his thirst, and his hands concealed what remained. She noticed the trembling of his desire, which needed no confession. His ships were stranded on dry land. She rushed to his aid, showing him she could give him what he wanted. He clenched his insides. ‘I’m searching for a memory.’ She reached out her hand to him. If he trusted her she’d give him what he wanted. Her proposition was enticing, and his profitable. The game of searching began between them. They made their way to the spring. Cheering mixed with song; bets were hedged, and they awaited the outcome. The water bearer’s hand reached him in a silent melody. The pigeon brought down the eagle. Its trembling subsided beneath the smooth talons of hunger. He felt full. Eyes devoured him. His glances fell on the tiled floor of the spring. Speechless, the silence of defeat overwhelmed him, and the bitterness of surrender. He hadn’t found what he was looking for, so he decided to withdraw. Successive envoys came to exonerate her from the blood of the stricken eagle. Pouring her kisses on the floor of the spring, while he recalled the memory of sprawling tents. He discovered the water bearer had arrived before him. Dispiritedly, she guided him to

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a tent-roofed tunnel. He continued to drink from it until his lips cracked. He emerged shackled in memories. He was startled at the sight of the dry spring, over the smooth tiles of which were cast the shadows of people yet to arrive.

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Ruse The angrier father got when he saw me playing with the girls, and the angrier mother got when they escaped me, the emptier words became. Father shouted in my face: ‘Play with the boys.’ Mother yelled at me not to play with the bad boys. What was strange was that neither gave a reason for the prohibition. I carried my confusion to my blind grandmother, and she answered me with perceptive wisdom, saying: ‘Whoever plays with girls gets his clothes torn and whoever plays with boys gets his knees broken.’ Then she slipped into a reverie and turned towards qibla, facing Mecca, and I knew she wanted to pray. I left her satisfied, at least, with the explanation that either clothes are torn in playing with girls or knees are broken in playing with boys. Therefore, I could only combine these opposing notions and comply with my parents’ wishes. I became introverted, while my heart yearned for play. Hasna was our neighbour’s daughter. Every day I discovered a new change in her. Her body transformed with remarkable speed; she grew taller, became softer, she shimmered. Her chest was ample and I wondered from where her bottom had gathered all its flesh. She asked me, ‘Why are you sitting alone?’ I told her why, and she issued an order: ‘Come and play with me.’ ‘Won’t my clothes get torn?’ She pressed a finger to her lip. I noticed how full they were: the movement of her tongue trying to escape the ivory grip. ‘Listen,’ she said. ‘What?’ ‘I’ve found a solution for you.’ ‘What is it?’ ‘When you want to play with me, take off your clothes.’ I was dumbfounded by her suggestion. ‘In what game do you take your clothes off?’ Mischievously, she asked me: ‘Do you want to play ball?’ ‘Alright,’ I answered her, ‘here’s the ball, let’s play.’ ‘Are you any good at it?’ ‘Yes, I’ll pass the ball between your legs.’

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She tried, but she failed. She gave me the ball and stood ready. I made as if to move to the right and she leaned her body with mine, then I passed the ball to the left. She clapped her hands together and laughed, without straightening up. I asked her to kick the ball, but she challenged me to take it from her. I moved towards her, and we collided, knocking each other to the ground and landing together. I felt as though I were losing consciousness in her body, in its excessive softness. I checked to make sure my knees and my clothes were still intact. My eagerness to play increased until she stopped and admitted defeat, explaining that she hasn’t done what I have. I asked her to do as I did, and I found before me a marble statue with the power to enchant. I played her cautiously, in a daze, until I’d almost snatched the ball from her. She carried it in her hands and started to run and I chased after her. I grabbed hold of her and she fell panting. A slight convulsion shook her body, her eyes rolled backwards, her limbs trembled; I thought she was sick. Before I could cry out her frantic lips stifled my voice, having connected with mine. And I felt the pricking of nails between my thighs, while the ball rolled away between us, to settle on top of my clothes beside the wall.

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Abode We’ve lived in this hotel since we don’t know when, which leads to conflicting opinions when the question arises. True, we’re comfortable in this abode of ours but there’s something trapped within us that longs to leave for good. Some believe we’ve been here since the start of the year, someone else replies that we’ve been here a few months, and a third blurts out that we’ve been here a long time, no one knows how long. Another, researching the life of peoples, asserts that we left there because of harsh conditions, while another is certain we left there because we’d forgotten there after our protector left for an area he took by force. Another cries that there wasn’t any territory other than this one in the first place. We’re confused; we don’t know what to believe. All we really know is that we mourn the loss of anyone presented with an opportunity to leave. A new lodger, strange and elegant, caught our immediate attention; perhaps he was in someone’s company. We rejoiced that our number had increased, and we remembered the first days of our stay. The receptionist this time was slow in checking in the new guest, having left him in reception while he prepared a vacant room. All the rooms are constantly occupied. No one comes to stay at this hotel without one of us leaving. Joy and sadness gathered in the hotel lobby. We waited to see whose turn it was to leave, who we would say goodbye to when we welcomed the newcomer. While we waited, the hotel manager disappeared into obscurity, confusion broke out, there was movement everywhere, and the place became thick with investigators. They concluded that the mind had been stolen; vague clues pointed to it. The fingers of blame pointed to thieves and criminals, to a secret group that may have been behind the incident. Every hour we awoke to see someone taken and interrogated. He was dragged away and then someone else was taken. The procedure continued until it had included us all, even the staff. The incident was recorded as being against an unknown, and we remained in a continuous state of goodbyes and welcoming. The spectre of the crime haunted everyone; it didn’t allow us to sleep in peace, in a hotel full of stars. When my turn came I don’t deny I was embarrassed or, more truthfully, afraid. The investigator’s question formed itself. ‘Why did you snatch the hotel’s mind?’ ‘The hotel didn’t have a mind in the first place,’ he answered for me, then looked at me to me see me nodding in agreement. He continued, ‘Who has the right to steal a mind?’ ‘I don’t know.’

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‘Is there anyone you’re suspicious of?’ ‘Not at all.’ ‘Do you have anything more to add?’ I waited for him to answer for me as usual. But he was silent, and then burst into tears and begged me to admit to the crime or be taken to the departure queue. I wanted to respond, to speak, but his crying grew louder and he began to scream like a madman, causing the guards to enter the room and take him away bound in white straps that deeply frightened me. I went out into the lobby and found them shaking hands with a new lodger, while the investigator was placed in a car. The new guest was given a warm welcome. I remained rooted to the spot in the midst of it all, looking here and there. Both sides grew further away from me and I remained like this until a star appeared, the like of which we’d not seen before, even though we had observed it in broad daylight. Translated by Alice Guthrie

Hassan Al-Nemi He was born in 1959 and obtained a PhD in literature from Indiana University. He works as an assistant professor for higher studies in the Arabic Language Department at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah. He has published three collections of short stories and two books of literary criticism. His latest book, The Saudi Novel: The Reality and the Transformations, was published in 2010.

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The faint The clock struck three in the morning. My anxiety increased. My husband was completely unconscious. My God, what should I do? We had no family or relatives in this city. I felt an overwhelming sense of loneliness here. What a terrible feeling it is. What’s to be done, then, I asked myself? I thought of the telephone. Yes, the telephone might make my task easier. I called the hospital. Nobody. I tried again several times. Finally someone answered, startling me with his sleepy voice. I asked him to send an ambulance to take my husband to hospital, but before I could finish, he transferred me to A & E. I repeated my request, and was answered by someone who seemed to take excessive pleasure in sleep. He resented my calling so late, and showered me with a torrent of questions that indicated his desire to escape from my insistent demands. ‘Is your husband on fire?’ he asked absent-mindedly. ‘No.’ ‘Drowning?’ ‘No.’ ‘Fallen off the roof of the house?’ ‘No.’ ‘What then?’ ‘He’s lost consciousness!’ ‘From what?’ ‘I don’t know.’ ‘I’m sorry, this is quite a usual condition, and it doesn’t require an ambulance!’ ‘But …’ I heard a noise from the receiver buzzing angrily in my ear. I looked in fear and confusion at my husband. His eyes were staring, and the size of the dull area in them was getting bigger. I thought of knocking on the neighbours’ house. But I didn’t know them, and the relationship between us was merely a mechanical one. Nothing would justify my request. I plucked up courage, and knocked on the door once, twice, three times. I was met by the worn-out voice of a woman, who asked ‘Who is it?’ without opening the door. ‘It’s your neighbour!’ ‘Is everything okay?’ ‘My husband is unconscious!’ ‘What can I do for you?’

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‘Could your husband take my husband to hospital?’ I asked, trying to sound as desperate as possible. ‘Sorry, my husband is asleep!’ I went back, my heart filled with frustration, and went out into the street to look for a taxi. It was late at night and there was no one there. I ran back. My husband was still in a state of continuous unconsciousness. My God, what should I do? My eyes caught sight of my husband’s car keys hanging on the door. I looked at my husband, and shook his body. He did not move. My eye automatically lighted on the car key. Was it possible? No, it was very difficult, an adventure surrounded by danger. But my husband was on the verge of death. I felt a wave of sweat wash over my body. I had never felt as disturbed as I was now. My reputation and that of my husband were in the balance but he was dying. Which was worse? Death, or reputation? Both of them were bitter. I committed myself to God, put on my coat, veiled myself and put my glasses on over my veil. I tried to lift my husband but I couldn’t. With great difficulty I dragged him painfully along, sat him down in the lift and shut the door. As the lift descended I could feel my soul slip from my body. A strange feeling overcame me. Could I save my husband? Why not?, I asked myself. And the consequences? There was no reply to that question, except for a throb of fear, anxiety and the desire to save him. I reached the car, opened it and threw my husband into the back seat. I turned right and left. There was no sign of any pedestrians, no sign of any patrols, no sign of anything but the dark night and myself. My adventure was beginning. The night was my cover and my friend. The night, the colour of my cloak, though I loved the day more. When would my day come? The decisive moment had come. What powerful emotions I felt, as I put myself behind the steering wheel and started the engine. The car moved. I was overwhelmed by memories of the last time I drove a car. It was when I went with my husband when he was studying abroad that I learnt to drive. Yes, I knew this steering wheel, I knew it well. I had held it in my hands hundreds of times, hundreds of times I had been my own mistress, hundreds of times when I hadn’t had to burden my husband with taking me where I wanted to go. It was only here that I realized the depth of my impotence – an impotence that I was now bringing to an end in very personal circumstances. But wait, was that another light on the horizon? As I drove on, I snatched hurried glances, but there was no one except for me and the night and my unconscious husband. As the car moved forward in the direction of the hospital, my heart was racing and I wondered what I should do now. I thought about my unconscious

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husband beside me, and about his reaction. I felt that I was seeing the world through fresh eyes. How many times had I wandered through these streets before. I don’t recall a definite number. The thing was that I was roaming the streets in a completely disinterested manner. Every time I went with my husband I would look at the high buildings and the splendid shops, more and more astonished at the sound of the cars and the impetuosity of the drivers, but it wasn’t my world. I was in the place but not in it, whereas now, from my seat behind the wheel, I felt that I was seeing the streets for the first time. I felt that they meant something different to me. The traffic lights, the fluorescent lighting, diversions, service exits, multiple lanes, potholes, speed bumps – suddenly, all these words started to acquire a meaning. Now I started to understand my husband’s screams when he saw a speed bump or an unexpected pothole. Suddenly I noticed a car light flashing at me. I pretended not to see it. I looked at my husband, who was still unconscious. The car with the flashing light moved off and I realized that it was ordering me to stop. Should I stop?, I asked myself. But my attempt to save my husband would be wasted and he would perhaps die if I stopped. I stepped on the gas to get to the hospital faster; this was no time for slacking. But the other car increased its speed to match mine. And I then realized that the car with the light flashing faster and faster was definitely on my tail.

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Rahwan and the newspaper vendor One year went by, then two, then three, but there was still no news. My father, who had used to wake me every morning, no longer did so. Every morning he had seen new hope for his eldest son in getting a job. A job … The word has become hateful to me. I have a university degree, but no job. I feel I am handicapped, yes, I am handicapped by my degree. I am not a scholar, I am no use at research, but I do intend to live and make a living from my degree. I woke up today anxious and annoyed. My mother noticed that my face was pale. ‘Are you tired, Rahwan?’ she asked. ‘As usual, mother.’ ‘No, you’re more tired than usual. Have a little rest in bed!’ ‘I’m going out!’ ‘Like that?’ ‘Yes!’ I hurried out towards the street, as my mother saw me off with a good dose of the prayers I needed. I was unlucky, I heard my father say to my mother one evening. He also said, extremely angrily, that I had worn myself out studying while the next one had sat at home. My father was miserable, my mother was miserable and I was miserable. My father was miserable because he had believed that a son should be a comfort and a guarantee for the future. My mother was miserable because she wanted to find pleasure in her only son, and I was miserable because I had no future. My sister, whom my father had thought would be a burden to him, had married. My sister was no longer a burden, I had become the burden, the handicapped person. I thought of working as a driver or an accountant or a car washer, but I discovered that these jobs didn’t need any more people. I stopped in front of a newspaper vendor, grabbed a newspaper and flicked through it. The newspaper seller told me off, saying: ‘It’s forbidden to read!’ I took no notice of him, until he said, this time in an angry voice: ‘I said, forbidden!’ ‘Just one page!’ I said to him. ‘Pay for it!’ he said, snatching the paper from me. ‘I haven’t got any money.’ ‘I don’t believe you!’ ‘That’s your problem!’

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‘Do you mean you haven’t got any money at the moment?’ ‘Not now, not tomorrow, not the day after!’ ‘Why so pessimistic?’ ‘I don’t have a job!’ ‘Why haven’t you got a job?’ ‘Because I’ve got a degree in history.’ ‘What’s a job got to do with history?’ ‘They told me to study history to get a good job, so I did, but I couldn’t find a job.’ ‘Make a living out of history?’ I was trying to fathom exactly what he meant about studying history, but he simply enquired: ‘Do you want a job?’ ‘Yes,’ I replied, with an eagerness he thought strange. ‘Help me to sell the papers, and I’ll give you a share!’ Then noticing my dejection and frustration, he added: ‘Temporarily, until …’ I interrupted him angrily, reflecting what I felt inside myself: ‘Until I find a job in history that will preserve its dignity!’ I took the job as I wanted to escape from my awkward position, even if only temporarily. Dejection, boredom and anticipation – it was a trio to kill me. My father and mother were living my crisis moment by moment. I told them that I had found a temporary job. My mother shrieked with joy, but my father merely wished me well half-heartedly, and I could see from his face that he was not pleased. ‘I’m not happy myself,’ I told him. I added that I had to work at something so that he could be free of me. ‘You know, father, that I don’t have any manual skill.’ I went to bed early, waiting for morning. I waited for it more eagerly than any other morning. Many other mornings had gone by since my graduation as I waited for the illusion of a job but the job never came. In the employment office they had put up a sign that was plain for all to see: ‘No vacancies for holders of history degrees & … & … &.’ But yes, this morning was a different morning. I love the word ‘morning’, with all the associations of renewal and hope that spring to life with the new sunrise. I feel that I am running towards the sun to hurry on its rising. I don’t know whether I slept or not. I got up from bed feeling fresh and enthusiastic, burning with a desire to work. I kissed my mother’s head and went out, borne forth on a river overflowing with her prayers. I headed for the newspaper seller. On the way there, I consoled myself with the idea that doing anything was better than doing nothing. Perhaps a job would come in a month or two. In any case, there was no shame in a man doing any

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job so long as it was honourable. I thought about the material gain, but it wasn’t something that worried me, for I knew that it wouldn’t be much. I just wanted to work. If I didn’t work, I would go mad, I would …! There was no need for prattle. I reprimanded myself and hurried off towards the paper seller. I thought about his job, it wasn’t bad, it was just that it didn’t pay well. He had to be like that, for he didn’t have a degree, whereas I had a degree but didn’t have his job. But I was getting there! I felt anger deep in my heart and wondered whether I could live without a job. I got even more angry. Every time I started to think, I would scratch my head, so hard on one occasion that my headband fell off. I saw it rolling away between the cars, and without thinking I ran after it in the middle of the traffic. Horns blared out in every direction, so loud that I jumped. I carried on walking until I reached the street where the paper seller squatted. I didn’t find him in his usual place. I looked up and down the street, but could find no trace of him. What could have happened? I went up to the owner of a grocery store and asked him about the newspaper seller. He told me he’d moved to the back street. I ran there. The sun had begun to pour out its summer anger. I felt thirsty, so I drank some water from a fountain on the edge of the road, but after looking in every corner of the street, I could still find no trace of the newspaper seller. I continued looking for him in the neighbouring streets, asking passers-by whether they had seen him. No one cared whether there was a paper seller in the street or not. It was of no concern to anyone but myself. But I had to find out, so I widened the area of my search. Every street led to another street, and every street also led to another blank. The streets looked all the same – the same buildings and sidewalks repeating themselves. Even the pedestrians were the same everywhere. Now the sun was in the middle of the sky, and was beginning to pour out its might over the pedestrians. The streets were almost empty, except for myself; I was dripping in sweat, racked with tiredness, and had lost my concentration. I leaned on the wall of an old building, and with difficulty raised my eyes. I saw the paper seller crossing the road in the opposite direction. My heart leaped with joy. I ran along, not turning at all for anything, and arrived out of breath. I couldn’t believe it! I couldn’t find either the paper seller or his newspapers. Who was it I’d seen, do you suppose? I dragged my feet along until I found myself returning to the first street where I’d seen him the previous day …

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Thus spake Kathib The desert has a white face, which watches for the changes in the seasons. This is what distinguishes the desert from other places. Kathib stopped to look at the horizon disappearing. He asked the things that were his what still remained of the desert. He thought he was able to understand it best. But no, things had changed. His camel was no longer the only ship in this vast expanse. His camel whose paws had so often been seared by the heat and the daily toil was now crouching motionless, giving its body to the healer. ‘Why me?’ wondered Kathib, ‘and why my camel? And why the desert?’ Questions that shook his very being. He wished he could know why. He asked the desert what it was being punished for. The healer said: ‘The bullets have to be extracted from inside the camel.’ Eyes boiling with the midday sand, the camel looked at the healer, at Kathib, and at the horizon that had begun to oppress both people and machines. After some considerable time, the healer announced that he was unable to remove the bullets that had lodged in the camel’s stomach. Days went by, and the wide spaces of the desert shrank. Kathib was pained to find himself compelled to wander in a restricted environment. He had been used to wander in a desert with no bounds, but had now found himself, with his family and relations, threatened with death, perhaps through some stray bullets like those that had crippled his camel. But now he was in a state of paralysis of a strange kind. His security, his things, all the vocabulary of the desert had been taken away from him. He went out of his tent and looked at the night sky. He realized how ugly things were. They had told him that these people had come to protect him, to protect the desert and other things. Oh my camel, I am hurt by the silence, your silence, the silence of the desert. I am being killed by my own silence. He wondered how to change things by himself. The pain of loneliness shuddered inside him. He was loath to try to change anything on his own. But with things as they were, going out was better than sitting at home. He went out under cover of night, for he knew how to talk to the desert. He had become used to spending much of his time in a similar state. He glanced behind him. He saw the lamp in his tent glowing. He looked towards the horizon and carried on walking. His ears picked up a strange noise. What could be happening? He stopped to contemplate what he was hearing. He realized that the environment around him was unfamiliar. The moment must

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have arrived. The confrontation was about to happen, no doubt about it. How and when were questions to which he could find no immediate answer, but inside himself he was certain that he had the strength for the confrontation. His eyes took in every part of the camp. He took up a position in a safe place, and observed the site carefully. On the edge of the camp he noticed some soldiers laughing among themselves. At the southern corner of the camp voices mingled noisily and happily. He wished he knew what was going on inside. He couldn’t see any soldiers outside any more. There was an opportunity to go closer. He preferred to crawl on his stomach. Now he was stretching his hand out to the camp. His ears were deafened by the noise. He took out his dagger to make a hole in the camp fence – a hole just large enough for his eyes. He looked. What? He rubbed his eyes and looked again. He caught sight of bare legs. He moved his eyes upwards, and the area of nakedness grew larger. His body was bathed in warm sweat. He had heard that the whole of a woman’s body was arousing, but this …! His Bedouin instincts snorted in his breast as he retreated, crawling back to where he had come from. Despite feeling so wretched, he believed he had found out at least part of what was going on. Collecting himself, he turned his attention to what was approaching, for he had seen a shape swaying in the distance. He cautiously went closer, and the distance between them narrowed. He grasped the significance of the confrontation. An armed soldier. Kathib spake, saying: ‘O desert, this is our opponent. He paralyzed my camel, stole your purity and confiscated your open spaces. So this is my cause, and this is my enemy. Be my witness, desert!’ Kathib climbed a small hill and leaped on the soldier from behind. With his left hand, he twisted the soldier’s neck, pressing his palm over his mouth. The soldier’s resistance grew weaker, and Kathib put a gag in his mouth. He took some rope from his pocket, tied the soldier’s hands behind his back then tied his feet together as well. Then he took hold of the end of the rope and started to drag the soldier towards his tent. When Kathib reached the tent, he dragged the soldier to the place where his camel was tethered, and tied him up beside the broken camel. The soldier muttered something unintelligible. Kathib left him and went away, leaving the soldier to make his noisy movements of protest. The next day, Kathib noticed some unusual activity. Sand-coloured vehicles were combing the area. One of them approached his tent, and a man got out. From his features, Kathib could tell that he was one of his own people. ‘The foreigners abducted someone yesterday,’ said the man. ‘This is his

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photograph. Have you seen him?’ Kathib did not bother to look at the picture. ‘No!’ he replied. As the vehicle disappeared behind the sand, a groan summoned Kathib quickly back inside. The camel was dying, its mouth foaming with froth mixed with deep red blood. There were tears of pain in its eyes. Kathib turned around. His enemy was watching what was happening in astonishment. Kathib sent for the healer, as his camel wept warm tears. His impotence pained him. He poured a bucket of cold water over the camel’s back. The desert received the camel’s fall with a sad reverence, and Kathib shuddered with the tremor of death. The healer came in. His eyes were fixed as he approached Kathib to console him. Kathib looked at the soldier, his eyes blazing with anger. ‘Give your testimony!’ he said. ‘Say to them, “Why us? Why did they kill the desert in us?” ’ As the sad news of the death was announced, the people cursed those who had caused it. They suggested to Kathib that they should take the camel out of the encampment, but he refused. In the evening they started to dig, and when the night was two-thirds gone, the hole was ready. For a moment there was silence, broken only by Kathib’s voice asking for the litter to be brought. They laid it beside the camel, turned the camel over onto the litter and carried it to where it was to be buried. They put the camel in the grave, and heaped on it earth soaked in the arrogance of man. The following morning, a group of lorries stopped among the tents of the encampment. A number of soldiers got out and ordered people to leave. People began to carry out their instructions with obvious annoyance. Kathib was astonished at what was happening. At first, he could not believe his eyes. Perhaps there had been a mistake. It was the others that should leave, not them. In days gone by they had travelled from one desert to another but now they were supposed to abandon the desert completely! To whom? What an irony! Swearing that he would not leave, Kathib addressed the people: ‘Rise up, go to your desert, and may God have mercy on you!’ Then he snatched his rifle and stood at the entrance to his tent. They pressured him, they struck him, they made him suffer to the point of humiliation. His anger exploded in a hail of bullets. Kathib fell proud as the rain. His blood was a signature on a contract of eternal commitment. And his fingers were like spikes of corn in the heart of the desert. Translated by Paul Starkey

Heyam Al-Mufleh She obtained a bachelor’s degree in agriculture and works as a journalist. She has published three collections of short stories. She has received several journalistic and literary awards including the Syrian writer Saad Saib short-story award and a journalistic excellence award for her report on intellectual rights. Some of her stories have been translated into English.

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An idea One day, ‘S’ plucked an idea from his head. He considered it. Its features were not yet fully formed. He wanted to finish off some of its structure, build up its foundations. But boredom numbed his affluent, lazy mind, moving like a yawn through his arteries. He decided, as he turned his idea over in his hands, to put it in the freezer of procrastination. Just for the time being. 2 A man called ‘A’ came across ‘S’. He noticed his idea, which he was holding carelessly, upside-down in his hands. He wanted it for himself so he asked him for it. ‘S’ generously gave it to him as a present, and so it was his. 2 ‘A’ added a lot of his own touches to the idea. He was a smart businessman and he knew how to market ideas. When it was ready to be sold, he exhibited it expertly in his shop. 2 A customer, ‘J’, examined it. He was mesmerized by it. It filled him up with wonder, so he bought it. Because he was an optimist, he decorated it with light colours, tied silk ribbons to it and hung it in his favourite corner of his house. Every morning, as he drank his coffee in front of it, it made his eyes brim with joy, and painted on his radiant face a smile which could clear the sky of its clouds. 2 His pessimistic colleague, ‘M’, always envied him for it. Every time he visited him, he wished that he would give it to him. Faced with his persistent requests, he did as he wanted. He did it out of embarrassment, and because he wanted to help his friend to come out from behind the veils of pessimism, to colour his days with joy and optimism.

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2 Because ‘M’ was resistant to change, he took off all its decorations, and dulled its shine. He painted it pitch-black, then melted it and cast it in a mould the size of a bullet. He started to carry it between his fingers wherever he went, a talisman. 2 Once. He forgot his talisman somewhere and a hungry homeless person stole it. He was planning on killing an affluent man whom he had long envied. The resentful man loaded a gun with the stolen black bullet. Then he fired it at the affluent man and fled. 2 In the morning. The newspapers announced: ‘Mr ‘S’ was found murdered, with a black bullet in his head.’

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The day my daughter flew away I stopped being able to hear her shrieking. I looked for her. I glanced around the groups of children in the courtyard. She was not with them. I searched quickly and calmly through the rooms I was allowed inside. I did not find her. My heart raced. My calm erupted into a roaring din rushing through my limbs: ‘Where’s Sara? Has anyone seen her?’ I called for the woman whose house it was and the others, who were visiting. They scattered through the rooms and outhouses and over the roofs to look for her. Not a trace! I run back and forth across the house moaning like a lioness; my streams of thirsty tears moan with me. On the way here, Ali had warned me: ‘Keep an eye on Sara. Don’t forget her among all the visitors and all that chattering. I know you!’ It was as if his heart had somehow known what was going to happen. The children froze when they saw my fear and my tears. I felt no shame at them seeing me screaming: ‘Where’s Sara? Has anyone seen Sara? Has anyone seen my daughter?’ The mothers raced to question their children. The eldest of them shuddered with fear. He fidgeted with his hands. ‘I haven’t seen her.’ The one wearing a yellow shirt gulped and raised his eyebrows: ‘I saw her.’ I grabbed hold of his collar. My eyes widened until they were as big as his head: ‘Where?’ He hoisted his green trousers up over his little waist: ‘She was playing hear near the door and she opened it and I called out to her but she didn’t answer and then she went out.’ I buried my head in my hands. ‘Oh my god. There are no men in the house. It’s only women and children. Who will look for her for me outside the house?’ The one with the round face raised his short, dark finger and said: ‘I called out to her too. I said ‘Don’t go out of the house or you’ll be like the little rabbit who went out of his house and was caught by the hunter.’ That’s what my mum told me. Isn’t that right, mummy?’ His mother put her hand over his mouth and told him to be quiet. My head started spinning. My throat was like a desert that had never tasted water.

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‘Someone give me my abaya so that I can look for her in the streets.’ The one with the flowery dress spoke up: ‘Sara went out to play in the sand in front of the house. She told me that she likes playing in the sand but her mum doesn’t let her because it gets her clothes dirty.’ Since when had Sara – my two-year-old – known how to speak? Oh, I wish I had never told her not to do anything. I wish I had never forbidden her from eating chocolate, which she loved so much. The pale one with thick, curly hair stood on his tiptoes and said, ­agitatedly: ‘When Sara was playing in the sand, a red car stopped. There was a man with a moustache like my dad’s in it and he called out to her and gave her a piece of chocolate and took her with him in the car.’ How can this have happened to me? My daughter has been kidnapped. The one with the chestnut fringe hanging over her eyes blurted out: ‘I said to her, “Don’t take anything from the stranger.” My mum told me not to eat anything anyone gives me, and never to go anywhere with strangers.’ The fat one standing in front of her snapped at her angrily: ‘Liar. That’s not right. Sara didn’t go in the red car. A white plane came and she got in it and flew off. She went to the sea.’ I was a ball of flesh, being kicked around by little legs. The little one with a shaved head said ruefully, rubbing the tip of his nose: ‘The truth is that Sara went out to the street and a car came. A Merc. It went fast and ran her over and blood came out.’ My daughter died? A car ran her over! I crawled towards the door. My legs could no longer support me and my chest was heaving with the pain of a bereaved mother. For some moments there was complete silence, then, like a judge, the one in a white thobe proclaimed, his eyes narrowing and widening with each word: ‘But Sara is short. She can’t reach this to open it.’ He was pointing to the door handle. I stood motionless. A bucket of icy water washed over my head. My body shook with relentless tremors; my blood was a current, alternating between boiling and freezing. Short. Can’t reach the door handle. Didn’t go out. She’s in the house. The life shot through my limbs, my bones rearranged themselves, each one joining to the next. Like lightning, I flew up from amongst them. I

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stood in the middle of the kitchen. I searched thoroughly. Calmly. Sticking out from under the tablecloth, where it collected loosely on the floor, were two little bare feet. Beyond them two thin legs extended. Then a slim body with two dark arms. And finally two shining eyes in the middle of a brown face, smeared with half a box of chocolates, the rest of which were scattered over the floor.

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A sea of ash With his childish curiosity, he opened the door to their past. It needed quite a push. ‘Grandpa, how did you get married to grandma?’ He polished his thick glasses then hid his eyes and his embarrassment behind them. ‘Tell me, how did you meet her?’ The grandmother did not take her eyes off the television but her frail body did nothing but listen, it was like an ear and it was only pointing one way. ‘You tell me, grandma, how did you get married?’ Her limbs and her lips trembled more than they usually did. ‘Go on. Tell me.’ She wished that a power cut would come and let her disappear into the darkness. Then she would hide her shyness with a laugh and he would set the sights of his curiosity on something else: ‘Ah, women – always being so shy. Go on, grandpa, you tell me. Did you love her?’ 2 ‘Why does he insist on diving so joyously into a sea of ash? What love is he talking about? I married a woman whom I saw for the first time on my wedding night and he is asking me whether I loved her. I hoped that love would come once we were married – that’s what they told me – so I waited for a month, two months. A year, two years. A decade, two decades. Six decades. It didn’t come.’ ‘Every milestone we pass, the distance between us grows. I run behind him, breathless. Breathless. Until we grew old, our hair grey, and the children scattered across my path, a barrier, a chain. And this young grandson is asking me about love? How will my heart’s eighty years of oppression answer him?’ 2 ‘Come on, did you love him? You tell me, grandma.’ The light from the screen rebounded off their serious faces, revealing their expressions in the otherwise dark, empty room. ‘Why aren’t you saying anything? It’s not such a terrible thing to ask, or to answer.’

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2 ‘What a bold young man. How would someone like me know what love is? They stole my childhood overnight. They said, “From this day on you are an adult.” After a few nights they stuffed my little body into a big thobe and sent me out of my family home with a man. My eyes did not dare to meet his face, even when he wasn’t looking. I had become a wife, and I didn’t know how or why. After a few months I was a mother too, and every year this hardship repeated itself. When my strength ran out, I realized that I hadn’t stopped for a day to look at myself or at the man who I had learnt to live with, and who had learnt to live with me. With every day, I became more constrained, more burdened, by my responsibilities. And you’re asking me about love, my dear?’ 2 A coughing fit suddenly took hold of the grandfather. At the sound of a particularly dry cough, the grandmother hurried with her tired joints towards her room. She came back with medicine; he took some cough syrup from her and gulped it down. ‘How are you now?’ ‘OK, thank God.’ ‘It’s nearly time for your heart medication.’ ‘Well, “A lick of paint can’t mend a rotten post.” ’ ‘May God protect you and cure your every illness.’ ‘Thank God, in any case. And you, how are your joints?’ ‘Same as usual, thank God.’ ‘God has clothed you with his protection and given you a long life for me. Help me get to bed.’ The two of them leant on each other as they walked slowly towards their room. Before they went in, they looked behind them; they had forgotten their grandson sitting there. A strange silence took hold of him. His eyes widened, taking in this warm and intimate scene – two bodies’ breaths embracing, their edifices tumbling down on top of each other, and crumbling together. The young man shrieked out in amazement: ‘My God. That’s what love is!’

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Very short stories The equation They said: ‘The garden of the hereafter.’ He said: ‘The garden of this world.’ And she said: ‘I want the two gardens together.’ The scholars devoted themselves to their research. They tried to form the equation that would give her what she wanted. The first millennium passed, and was followed by the second. The woman became bones, and then dust. And the research did not stop.

A task At night-time. ‘The Ear’ gets up to work. It wears its special uniform. It goes out into the streets, the parks, the shops. It goes along the walls and the doors. It mingles with the passers-by, the customers, the shopkeepers and the walkers. It roams. And wanders. And roams. Then it goes to ‘The Nest’ and presents its report. It leaves the nest. And some of the passers-by, the customers, the shopkeepers and the walkers go in. It goes to sleep, tired. And at night-time. It gets up. Translated by Clem Naylor

Hussain Al-Jaffal He works for Saudi Aramco and is the founder of the Al-Waad Cultural Club. He has published one collection of short stories entitled Desire and has participated in several cultural events inside and outside the kingdom.

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The brown lambs’ lament The lambs all sat around a table, and the eldest one spoke: ‘We are here to lighten everyone’s load, because what’s happening concerns us all. We should be looking into whatever’s wrong with any of the lambs, in general, including those that aren’t here at this meeting, and finding a solution to their problems.’ One of the lambs, the red one, asked permission to speak, and it was granted: ‘What’ve we got to do with the brown sheep? They need to solve their own problems – they’re incapable of grazing in one place, they’re all over the place and they don’t love themselves. Why don’t we discuss moving to another pasture near here? Why don’t we come together as one and take action about this chaos? Us red lambs have got our social status to consider: what are those scum doing grazing with us anyway?’ He looked at the eldest lamb, and the idea seemed to have pleased him. He answered the red lamb: ‘Yes, we must move, this place isn’t big enough for us anymore …’ So the red lambs packed their bags, laughing heartily – while the earsplitting plaintive moans of the brown lambs rent the air.

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Desire When I refused to marry the girl that my mother had chosen for me I doubted my own virility. I went into the bathroom that day with a thousand thoughts on my mind; I turned on the hot tap and my body gave two great shudders. When I came out of the bathroom my mother said: ‘I want to see your children before I die.’ I asked myself, ‘Isn’t it possible to have children without getting married?’ I left the house for work, my hand keeping my secrets well hidden as it closed the door behind me. There was a show on television about unmarried and childless men in their fifties which reassured me that I was on the right path. I was so engrossed in it that I forgot to eat the apple in my hand, until my peaceful day was disrupted by the sight of a cute little boy waving as he got onto the school bus.

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The blue gemstone She put the ring with the blue stone on her finger, shouting like a madwoman: ‘He’s going to love me so much, he’s going to marry me soon! You’re not going anywhere, sweetheart, are you? Not while this engagement ring is on my finger!’ Amina’s shouting had annoyed Hiba; she called out to her: ‘What’s the matter with you?’ ‘Oh Hiba, the ring has finally arrived – the thing that will make my life so lovely!’ ‘All this shouting about some ring! I thought you’d won the lottery!’ ‘This is better than any earthly treasure …’ ‘Well, poor people obviously don’t dream big, eh?’ ‘The moment has come: I’m going to send him a letter and let him know that I love him – I’ll say to him “I love you darling, and I really miss you – do you miss me too?” ’ She received his answer very quickly: ‘You are like a sister to me – so you mustn’t say things like that!’ She fell into total silence. In the evening she began moving the ring from one finger to another. Suddenly it got stuck, and she shouted out in alarm, waking Hiba. When Hiba noticed that Amina’s finger had changed colour they panicked, Hiba called an ambulance and chaos reigned. By the time Amina reached the hospital she was overwhelmed with exhaustion, and everything that had happened was playing like a tape in her mind, repeating itself over and over, abruptly shattering her huge dreams. The doctor turned to ask her what had happened. ‘The ring’s stuck on my finger – I can’t get it off!’ ‘Alright, that’s easy, we’ll just cut it off: don’t be scared.’ He began cutting into the engagement ring as Amina watched the footage of her dreams getting erased, bit by bit. ‘Oh doctor, thank you,’ she said. ‘That’s OK. We’ll give you some cream to put on, and you can go home right away.’ As she was heading for the door, Amina turned towards the rubbish bin. The nearer she got to it, the more her fingers relaxed – and when she reached it her hand was open, ready to let go. The unrealistic dreams had gone, and she was now walking very confidently, despite her fatigue. When she heard the ring hit the bottom of the bin she felt the relief of the shackles that had been binding her having been released, and she was free.

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The screen A Tom and Jerry cartoon is showing on a big television screen. A cleaner, carrying a broom in his hand, seems to have been transported somewhere far away as he stares at the screen, two tears slipping out to roll down his cheeks. He smiles, wiping away them away, and goes back into his reverie; perhaps he is thinking of his child, somewhere on the Indian sub­continent, or maybe he is reliving something they did together. Anything’s possible – he might even be remembering his own youth, and getting nostalgic about times in his life that have long since passed. One of the people sitting at the table begins calling out to him, but he shouldn’t! The tears the cleaner was afraid would make a spectacle of him begin to flow in torrents, like rain from a dark sky. The man who had been calling out to him senses a destructive human earthquake coming, and says nothing more. The sky gets darker and stormier, as the cleaner turns back to face the screen.

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The first time ‘If you go back to your country, delete my number, don’t call me – if you want to make me happy, that’s the way to do it.’ She said this as if she wasn’t hurting anyone and, deeply shocked, I retreated into silence. Not content to leave it at that, however, she continued, ‘I’m a curse, a curse, a curse – when will you understand?’ I felt even more alarmed by this, and was pinned to the spot – how could a beautiful young woman like her say something like that? There must be some secret there. I would have to see if I could get to the root of her pain. ‘My soul is obscured by black clouds,’ she went on, ‘I feel like crying – I usually don’t like to cry at all, but right now I really want to!’ Oh God! What must she be going through, to make her say all that? Why was she in such a melancholy mood? ‘Listen, I know that you are asking yourself, “Who is this crazy person?” right? And that you’re going to say to me, “Cheer up, there there …” Well, happiness has slipped further out of my reach the more I’ve groped around looking for the edge of it; I cheat it, and the arrows of delusion get there first; I race it, and I find I’m racing the wind – or I find my mother waiting there to drag me off the race track! Do you know what, I’ve just realized that this is the first time that I’ve talked to anyone on the phone in all this time! And that this is the first time I’ve ever read a poem out over the phone, and the first time I’ve told anyone the story of my mother and how she kept me from playing sports, and that it’s, it’s, it’s … and I’m scared of first times!’ I realized at this moment the real meaning of ‘the first time’, and how terrifying it was for me – but why was I overwhelmed by the sense that I’d already known her for a very long time? Translated by Alice Guthrie

Hussain Ali Hussain He was born in 1950 in Al-Madina and for many years worked as a journalist. He has published four collections of short stories and some of his works have been translated into English and Russian. He was also awarded the Medal of Achievement. His works include The Departure, The Song of the Fugitive and Smell of the City.

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The tall man The clock in Al-Safah Square strikes eight in the morning. He found the square crawling into life. The disk of the sun exerted its power over everything. The sun had never been fiercer than it was then. Dust and locusts swathed the face of the city off as far as the horizon, to infinity. A torrent, an inundation of sun and dust and locusts. ‘Portents of the Day of Judgment’, he said to himself. He dipped his sweaty hand lightly into his pocket but found no cigarette pack. A single cigarette lurked in stillness in his top pocket, its outline evident from the outside. He said to himself that decay had almost consumed it, like it did with every single thing. He leant into a passer-by to get a light in the midst of this desolation. No one in the square had matches, he was amazed to discover. He planted the cigarette in his mouth. No smoke in the square. He was on the trail of his own death. He said to himself that the day had been disconcerting from the start. Patience had become the way to obliteration and ruin the opening of the rose towards the stench of smoke, dust and the sun’s ferocity. He thought to himself: ‘In an hour or two, the sun will relent, and the swarms of multicoloured ants will wend their repulsive way back here.’ 2 Humaydan ‘the Basket’ chewed on a date and cried out to the scattered masses at the Al-Muqaybirah auction: ‘Now come on, good people, who’ll start me off with a riyal for this sweet stuff?’ Heads turned. Despite the number of people there, silence prevailed. One of the onlookers said to all who could hear: ‘There’ll come a time, Humaydan, when we’ll do without “baskets” … a riyal a basket … praise God for His grace and spare us from ruin!’ The devil inhabiting Humaydan’s body walked in between the date baskets and right up to the man. He grabbed him by the throat and spoke loudly enough for all to hear: ‘This man’s mad … going on about Humaydan day and night … am I the only trader here? Have I ever lied over a single lot before? I said it was like honey and so it is. I asked for one riyal not ten … I beg God Himself to spare me from this miserable sinner.’ The man broke free and dumped a basket of dates over Humaydan’s head. The dates scattered and all around gathered them up as the man ran off with Humaydan in pursuit. The commissioner surveyed the scene and reflected that all was well with the world. He decided to delay his visit to the market and head off instead to buy some coffee. There was nothing for it but to go back indoors.

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Coffee and dates in front of him and a black ceiling above; before him a steel door and behind him the darkness. Was everything outside still as it should be? He decided coffee would answer that question. He reached among the sticky dates and started to lick, to lick … while the fire licked his insides. He lay restless in his bed, flicking away flies and surveying the house. Mottled cats. A small mouse endlessly running around until it came up against the bottom of the water pail. He recalled an old incident and laughed sourly. Well, the market might shut soon so he’d better go. He wouldn’t spend long, just enough to get a feel of the market … market … what? He chewed over his question then gulped it down. He couldn’t think about anything. He felt giddy and on the point of passing out. He resolved to go back to sleep but the sun had gathered strength and the heat inside was unbearable. In the morning there was no room to stand in Dakhnah Square. The courthouse stood in the foreground; in front of and around it cars, shops and, in the middle, a neglected garden, as if testimony to local stubbornness. Mi’kal was on the south side, from where the commissioner set off. He had not paid the square any attention for years, being keener on the goings-on in his own neighbourhood. The old mud houses had come down, to be replaced by concrete, steel and bitumen, spat out onto parched anxiety. One thing remained witness to the neighbourhood’s origins: the multifarious minarets. He awaited their calls to prayer impatiently. It was his square, guarded by its armies of ants, its squadrons of bluebottles and subsumed in its own dust. The roof of his house was cracking apart but he didn’t enquire why. The guttering had collapsed; the wooden frames of the door were crumbling. Little space that was safe remained except in the yard and sitting out there didn’t appeal until the sun had abated. When it did abate and he was able to soak up the sun, he would sit in fear of people showing up from Al-Dirah and Al-Bat’haa. They say the caller calls before they’re welcome. Everyone avoided him. He remained alone, in the night, counting the stars, the aeroplanes, the remaining years of life, the past gone into the void and down the dusty streets. Nothing was worth bothering with. He wondered for whom he was saving his money. ‘A sterile man and his sterile wife – who’ll end up raking in my estate?’ Then, with swift bitterness, he said to himself: ‘Every leaf is cast to the wide winds. Who knows when your own will fall?’ His wanderings in Al-Dirah, Al-Muqaybirah and Al-Bat’haa were pointless. The last bastion to be broken into was Al-Haraj. But how to get there from the outskirts of the city with no transport, no

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money, no worries and no fear of tomorrow? The door slammed shut. The winds had started up and the clattering increased. He stood up anxiously, opened the door and saw a neighbour’s cow heading for his yard. He shouted: ‘Were we waiting for the wind only for some cow to turn up?’ He ran down the dark alleys of Mi’kal and irritatedly knocked on one of the doors. A woman’s voice shouted from inside. He said: ‘How come your cows are at my house? Come and get them or you’ll find them next on the meat slabs in Al-Muqaybirah! Get out here, woman! There’s no square inch of mine your cows haven’t ploughed up! Hey!’ A cranky voice inside shouted: ‘If she’s one of ours, she’s clean enough and good enough for your sort!’ He knocked on another door and another and another but no one responded. He went to the entrance to the mosque. He rounded up some people to help him get the cow out. The cow ran off around the neighbourhood and he himself wandered off back to his garden. He laid his head on a stone and slept longer than ever before, till the sun bathed his face again, whereupon he set off once more for Al-Muqaybirah in search of food. The ruins of Mi’kal surround you. Dust settles on you from everywhere. The stars envelop you from sundown to daybreak. What do you want and what do they want? A question like a devil turning over in you: in the markets, the streets, your yard, your bed, your private rooms. Wherever you turn your face there stands another, posing vast questions, endlessly recurrent. Questions present everywhere you looked for them: in one’s neck, belly, chest, between one’s eyes, under the eyelids, in the eyebrows, in the curls of one’s hair. He bore it all and was sent off in all directions by it, until the answer became clear: clear and bright as rainclouds. Is that impossible? A bird in the throat, in an oasis, on a prairie, in refuges. Is it impossible? You are a sign, commissioner, and signs, however faint, will not lead one astray in the end. The path of signs, nails, thorns, palms, fires, nests, bridges, tunnels, floods, the telephone, telephones, the mail, telegrams … He put out his cigarette, took the coffee pot and poured out its yellowy-brown liquid, asking himself whether he had resolved to empty the whole thing into his stomach. He said to himself that the answer was defined by the nature and setting of things. Unyieldingness, unbendingness, volatility, progress, drift, ascent, ascent, ascending. This was the real question, the standing question … Is there an answer to it other than sipping that gleaming liquid? He stirred the fire gravely. It stirred and flickered. He thought the world a transit stop on the way to demise. He hoped to fall upon his way one day without difficulty. He was tired of wandering in search of joy.

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Everyone is on the take, he said to himself. He poured a cup of water into the fire, sending ashes into the air. The result pleased him inwardly. He flipped open the lid of the coffee pot and tipped the dregs into the fireplace. He folded back his bed, stood up, then bent to pick up his cigarettes and matches. He opened the loudly creaking door and headed into the narrow street, winding, dusty and ancient. He saw the cracks in the houses, the gutters, the doors and latches, the little mice, the red ants, the dusty cockroaches and the rust. The journey through these alleys reminded him of a dusty tramp through a graveyard. He wondered when the time would come when he would be put away in one of those modern concrete blocks equipped with water, air and neon light, to end up his former neighbours’ equal. He neglected to dwell on an answer and pursued his path down the dirty pavements. The path twisted its way before him and the sun came to rest over his head. He sucked again on a cigarette. He came across the salt, date and imported goods markets. He acted as if taking council among the sellers but no one knew him. A stranger in a strange district. Its people ceaselessly came and went and few lingered. He was on top of this heap of people. He laughed at his own thronging thoughts. He headed off for the coffee-house, reflecting that worry knew no rest. One could only receive them through a gurgling sheesha and a torrent of tea and coffee. His eyes happened to fall on a familiar of his, who greeted him, standing up directly, applying mouth to cheek, then forehead, then nose. A tall man who said to the commissioner: ‘Long time, no see.’ ‘But each time the right time.’ ‘Not left your house yet?’ ‘To go where?’ ‘We’ve all built places with swimming pools, cars, some of us even got servants.’ ‘Me, I still need something else.’ The tall man was bewildered, shaking his head while he thought, then said: ‘What is it you want?’ ‘I’ve had no rest from my burdens. Pointless burdens. Repeated illnesses. Whispers. Worries. The house felt empty to me and a bite to eat came to seem tempting. I came here to get away from my worries.’ A vague smile extended across the tall man’s hard face. ‘Come on with me then.’ They walked the tarmac streets, with the buildings overlooking them and the armies of ants and locusts below them. The commissioner said to

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himself: ‘You’re always running towards death. The chosen time will come whatever you think about it … the hard thing is to go back to Mi’kal’s ruins, to Dakhnah gardens or to those dirty streets again.’ The clouds blocked out the horizon as he was driven along in a shiny luxury car. He had the feeling that he was heading only for a trap. The air conditioning choked him. The broken Bedouin song flowing from the four corners of the car. He felt enclosed for the first time, like the conditioned air, so that even the tall man became an air conditioner in that moment. How stifled he felt … how stifled … how … sti…fled.

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The smell of the city This city is vast. Its streets are broad and filled with colourful trees. Bright lights. Dazzlingly coloured billboards greeting those coming from north to west. In its streets, white dogs with legs tapering to feet as black as night, with slender necks and delicate spines covered in fine black hair tumbling like languid waterfalls. In the clouds, luxurious city hospital complexes. The dogs’ saliva is viscous and salty and their whining acute when their heads emerge from the windows of Jaguars and Cadillacs. Not that the noise bothers anyone since it has to compete with the car horns when the traffic lights change. In these streets as wide as an ocean, well-planned pavements, brightly yellow, are lined with thick flowerbeds, hung in olive-coloured troughs, highlighted with yellow, red and white which overlook, from dizzying heights, the plants and the people and the cars and the fancy dogs. Sometimes the sky is cloudy. It could rain every day, or only once a year or maybe not at all. But the swimming pools and fountains and the trees fed with filtered water make people think rain unnecessary, especially since the earth is not short of water, as they say stretching their legs and widening eyes in front of the TV. The call to prayer comes five times a day from every direction but places are deserted. A few footsteps resound, then quickly disappear. It was once said that this city had no heart but no one dares believe it, especially when some say that they have heard it wail in the desiccated winter nights. In the serried, sticky, interwoven back streets lie pungent smells and dark yellow cheap gold shops, their faces jutting into the faces of other tight little buildings. This gold may adorn certain breasts for a while, only to return to be displayed again in the same shops, later still to be taken away once more by other women. It is not a city where the lamplighter comes every sundown to illuminate its narrow alleys, to see him hang lamp after lamp untiringly then to hear the click-clack of his plastic sandals as he seeks the next post to hang one from. Were that still true, morning would now find each lamp shattered by stone and rubble. Pungent aromas proliferate from mud houses standing like dead tree trunks but the exact source of the smell is uncertain. Fat women toss leftovers, lamb bones, empty boxes, the dregs of tea, coffee and cheap incense down every alley’s nook and cranny in the twilight, all left for whoever or whatever finds them to sweep away, those that loiter hungrily hoping for something to fall from the high, worn-out

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windows. It is said that this is not a city but its occupants say otherwise in their morning talk forcefully dispersed like the water siphoned mechanically up to the clouds from the hospital fountains. And beyond these boundaries, these pungent smells and these spoilt dogs are banks like phone booths, vending machines selling cold drinks and sandwiches and infernal machines for counting cash and securities, to govern the people and the sticky times. In front of the banks are luxury cars which accumulate bundles of cash and Amex cards and traveller’s cheques. Only the machines connect the disconnected comers and goers. An Asian worker asks, as he hands over a passbook containing big money, ‘Rafiq, one year on, how much better off am I?’ The clerk does not raise his head but takes the passbook, returns it and shouts: ‘Next!’ The Asian takes his passbook and marks something on a certain page, then says all smiling to himself: ‘He knows how much more I’m worth one year on.’ It’s not meant to be a city but all who have to deal with it say differently. Translated by John Peate

Ibrahim Al-Nasser He was born in 1933 in Riyadh and has been a pioneer of Saudi literature from 1950 to the present. He worked in the public and private sectors before dedicating himself entirely to writing. He has published six novels and four short-story collections. His complete works were published in 2004.

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Ghosts We all have secrets we are keen to keep hidden. If we try to analyze them deeply we end up rousing voices within us, one after another, until we are overwhelmed by a whirlwind of cares, stirring up everything in our hearts. In the middle of the night, if I hear those voices, I show them into my lounge (so as to not disturb anyone else) and calmly head off to make coffee and tea (so as not to be accused of inhospitality) while the sleep gradually departs from my eyes. I have even imagined myself in the middle of the day with bright sunshine outside. Then I remember something else I have forgotten in the misery of night. My God, how troubled I am with these other things. Today is the last chance I have to pay the bill I found in the middle of the road. These bills have worried me ever since I got a call about one of them a few years back. I was told I’d be taken to court if I didn’t pay an old bill. I’m too scared to go to court unless there’s someone to defend me because I get confused and stutter easily. How could I defend myself against a charge like that? Obviously I’d need a free and fair trial. I would break down and cry if I had to defend myself. Although I’m poor and have no job, debts have been a big issue for me since that threat I received by phone. I went back to the lounge to fulfil my duties towards my guest … my ghost … to discover it flitting away out of the corner of my eye. I waved, enticing it to stay a little while in conversation, but away it went in an instant, leaving me speechless, immersed in sad silence. I sat there sipping tea and coffee on my own, a heap of questions mounting. Though I tried to dismiss them from my thoughts, they utterly refused to leave me in peace. Despite this heap of questions, I remained fixated on the relationship between these bills and these ghosts which visited me in the middle of the night, only to leave before I had enough time to understand their purpose. I waited up for that ghost, wanting to ask it what the relationship was. Perhaps many of you can’t imagine what bewilderment such fears cause in the emotionally unstable. The terrible fear of a trial and the judgment to follow was tangible to me, a judgment upon me to serve as an example to others neglecting their responsibilities. I explained my sorry state to my father who felt for me and offered to pay all the bills which came my way. My sufferings and the ghosts which visited me to warn of the punishment to come became common knowledge in the neighbourhood. The locals looked on me kindly and began giving me what they could to help me, which I, in turn, gave to my father,

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in order to recompense him for paying one bill after another. But when my father went to his final resting place the problems were before me once again. How would I be able to overcome them? I wasn’t able to sleep, hoping for a ghost to come to solve this conundrum for me, all the while my anxiety escalating as the threat of court action loomed in my mind. Eventually I summoned up the courage to go to my creditors to explain my utter inability to pay. And, do you know what? I was utterly taken aback to be told that the debts had been cancelled because they were out of time.

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Mischief Torrents of darkness burst from over the hills behind our village and over the purple disk which we children saw every day fiercely struggle to hold its vigour and glow. Our prayers for its victory dwindled as it was swallowed whole by its bestial and rapacious predator. Our tears would tumble silently and mix with our chilled sweat. With its last dwindling pinkish rays lingering on the walls and hills our gaze would fix on the far horizon. All of us knew what kind of giant whale it was which swallowed those rays of light in which creation had been couched in daytime. We had been told that there were vast blood lakes behind those hills, the blood drawn from the skin of the sun by that brutal monster’s talons in the evening as they wrestled and fought each other off. We feared everything that reminded us of death and bloodshed and the brutality which lurked behind those hills, waiting to swoop down on our little frames. We would race the winds to find refuge in our mothers’ bosoms away from the darkness and the brutal monster ready to swallow us in a heartbeat. Darkness has descended, as is its want, but we no longer gather together at this time, limbs trembling. We have become a little hardened against the tremendous fear the legends told to us back then, engraved on our consciousness and way of life. We no longer fear the dark nor the slumbers disturbed by fearful beasts spitting burning coals. But the lure of these myths has not been lost forever. They are even now nursed into the young, who are most susceptible to these stupidities. We have become a gang who sneer at everything the people of our neighbourhood, even our village as a whole, cling to. These cynical feelings were nourished in us by a sense of rebellion. Our inspiration was our classmate Abdul Rahman: older, taller and indeed stronger than the rest of us, as we would find out for ourselves. He had forceful and unequivocal views on all things and sneered at everyone else’s, even his father’s. His unyieldingness made us reject the magic arts, the superstition and the lingering animism our neighbours held onto. They ended up washing their hands of us in despair and satisfying themselves with hanging around our necks their well-worn charge: ‘Brazen infidels!’ Whenever something terrible happened, something to shake our nerve and newly found manhood, word would go around that we should be punished before the flood or an earthquake came to the village to destroy all of us, the good and the bad. The setting of this village of ours was a rare one indeed. It lay at the tip of a long sandy tongue of barren desert, escaping the brutal, intim-

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idating heat which sprang from no one knew where, the desert taking in three Arab states. People described our village as naive and backward in everything because it was cut off from the urban world. Superstition nestled in our heads like the spiders nestled in the walls of our bare mud houses. There were no schools there, in the modern sense of the word, not even basic enlightened teaching. Its beliefs were conjured up within its walls and founded on superstitions rationality rejects, benighted creeds resembling the darkness prevailing in our houses most nights unlit by the moon. Ghosts and evil spirits were the bogeymen whose appearance inspired terror in the bravest. It became common to accuse people of summoning them up and manipulating them for their own gain and glory. This lore of spirits inherited from long-gone ancestors was something which ruled our houses, where the worth of doubt was never weighed up or even discussed. These beliefs meant that the jinn and demons were thought to live in the very ground beneath us or even amid the rubble and the residue which any alley in our village was unlikely to lack. Whenever locals tried to ‘thicken the blood’ of anyone under their roof, they would summon up ghosts or perhaps the tantalas, a troupe who carried out the jinn’s orders and who were taller than giants, the toughest of them brutal and cruel. Whenever such emissaries were sent by their masters to express their anger or demonstrate their disapproval, they would reckon with their victims in stones and rain down bits of brick or anything else that came to hand in order to assuage that ire. And were they not thereby displaying their tolerance, those giants who could crush tiny creatures like us if they chose? Thus the sheikh at the mosque would say to us at every opportunity and would add, eyes twitching weirdly and fixated on the sky, that the spirits were servants and creations of God just like us. This was deep in the minds within us, young and old. It became a self-evident truth we all knew like we knew the sheikh of the mosque’s ways and the sincerity of his pronouncements. These deep-seated beliefs shaped our conduct on this earth. When we made our way home at night and one of us stumbled along the way, whether they tumbled or staggered on their way, their mother would seek reassurance by breaking eggs in the place where it happened in order to appease the jinn inhabiting our brother. Every square inch of ground we walked over showed evidence of this practice, for if evil was around it was sure to make its poor victim stumble. If a lamp went out – normally due to a gust of wind or the oil drying up, if not the wick giving out – the firm belief was that it was due to a

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group of jinn wanting to shift from one part of the house to another and being unable to hide themselves from us except by putting out the light. Hammering in nails and pegs or the shifting of furniture or heavy objects was not advised at night. Night was one long nightmare for us; we suffered under its steely darkness as if ghouls squatted on our chests. It dissipated all the pleasures of the day, and our dreams were always of ghosts cavorting around in front of us, competing as to which of them would pounce and swallow us whole. Hence our fervent prayers from deep within our hearts for light to prevail again and for the shining face of the sun to expel the darkness and the night-draped ghosts. But when those gilded rays were assailed again by the sleek hordes of darkness it was a cause for despair among us. Misery inhabited our very blood which had been drenched in the sweat of the sun, which itself now languished behind those far-off hills. It was once rumoured round our way that the jinn were not very pleased with Abu Taha’s good neighbourliness towards them since he had moved to a house near his brother Abu Mustafa. It sat at the entrance to a dark, narrow alleyway, separated from his brother’s only by a small dirt track. From that time all the neighbourhood could talk of was the stones which began to pelt down on that unhappy house as if it was splattering down from out of a girba.21 Those who had been ensconced in fevered sleep would wake to the sound of smashing tiles or shattering glass, their children’s cries for help echoing off to the horizon, their tranquillity utterly destroyed. Many terrible apparitions would then come to haunt their dreams and ravage their tender hearts. We were sure, clinging to our mother’s breasts until our heavy heads drooped into slumber in their laps, that Mustafa and Taha’s eyes were forever fixed on their doors. They were souls on tenterhooks, wondering from one moment to the next when they would be torn apart by some ogre, crossing the threshold and stretching its long iron claws to drag them from their beds, crushing their ribs in its grip. We felt no more at peace nor more devout than they were. Streams of tears and secret whimpering, woken startled by the visions we had had, wailing and gnashing at what was deep in our little hearts. Our mothers would come to lighten our fears and expel the fearsome ghosts hovering in the darkness, with the Qur’anic verse tumbling from their lips. Abu Mustafa had no alternative, given the fearful portents and on the advice of his brother and the sheikh of the mosque, but to move. They had both urged him to comply with the will of the spirits before certain 21. An animal-skin water carrier familiar in the Arab world.

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and devastating disaster befell them all. So Abu Mustafa stirred himself, packed his things and left the neighbourhood to end the raining of stones that destroyed the peace there. We all breathed a deep sigh of relief after the haunting of these spectres and the jinn – our brothers – had been spared us. Who had been missing in all of this was our classmate and leader Abdul Rahman who was our constant guide, either with his thoughts or even with his fists if evidence or the smoothness of his tongue was insufficient. In the wake of Abu Mustafa’s departure, Abdul Rahman came to us, beams of joy dancing around his face. We met him with joy and exultation too, telling him of the anxious ordeal we had been through. All the while he smiled at us scornfully, looking around circumspectly and as if winking to himself about some inner secret. As the hanging shadows descended over the village and its leaves became clad in moistened darkness, the boys all went their ways except me. I was so happy that the nightmare was over and the torment had been lifted off us. I wanted to celebrate with Abdul Rahman, who I knew was the only one of us not afraid of night and darkness. Perhaps I also wanted to ingratiate myself with him and to understand what was in his heart. All we could talk about was the expulsion of the dreaded ghost, the terror of which had been deeply and indelibly felt by all. How astonished I was to hear Abdul Rahman, after a fearsome laugh, say: ‘Are you really afraid of ghosts? I’ll show you something now.’ He slipped away from beside me and the darkness swallowed him up. I stood immobile, clinging still to the wall we had leant against. A brief pause then something to make my hair stand on end. Stones began raining down on me from the veil of night. I shrieked loudly and called out to my friend who had disappeared into the unknown. I muttered my contrition to the spirits I had dared to mock not so long ago. Tears streamed down my face and shivers and chills ran through me. Suddenly the stones ceased and I heard a contemptuous laugh right by me. A figure I could barely make out at first appeared next to me, putting its hands on its waist and I gawped in disbelief, eyes wide open. When Abdul Rahman saw how terrified I was, he slipped in alongside me sniggering sarcastically out of the corner of his mouth, patted my shoulder and said: ‘Do you know what the secret is?’ I swallowed my spit and dragged my failing tongue into uttering: ‘What secret?’ ‘I’ll tell you … but you can’t breathe a word to anyone or there’ll be trouble.’

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As he went on, he sighed deeply from his heart, as if removing a heavy weight from off his chest: ‘You know my uncle Abu Mustafa was always tormenting me …’ I acknowledged his words and he went on: ‘Well … it was … it was me who drove him out of the neighbourhood!’ I stood there looking at him, stupefied, tongue lolling out of my mouth in wonder. Translated by John Peate

Ibrahim Shahbi He was born in 1957 in Abha and obtained a BA in Arabic language in 1981. He has published three collections of short stories, two poetry collections, a novel and a memoir. He contributes regularly to daily newspapers and participates in many cultural events.

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The space of spaces I rubbed space’s eyebrow with my bent finger and tears burst forth. The earth was a red, combusting-like ointment, flaming in frost. People were blazing with hypocrisy and slander. I was sprawled out with the cold. People’s sweat made our noses run, or rather their sebum melting in the fire did; I smelled a pungent stench. As they blazed, people said, ‘I have got so small that I have become like a little fragment, or like a handful, or a plucked bird.’ Meanwhile I was growing so big, without them sensing me, that I filled everywhere – I held the mountains in my embrace. I put the biggest one under my arm to spite it – for it had so often blocked my beloved from my view. I went out beyond space to see where she might be, and I saw her meditating on the shore of a yellow sea. There was azure sand on her knees; her braids were grazing in the swell like green snakes. When she caught sight of me she kneaded the sea and threw it at me as a joke. Then the sea came back towards her, from the middle of the road, embarrassed because my laughing teeth had got to her first. She dipped my teeth in the sea as it approached her, and then she released them so that they would return to me – but my teeth rebelled, and each one turned into a face that looked like her. Her teeth jumped up to become like my face, which made us laugh even harder: we roared with laughter, now. The earth was still glowing red, and the people still burning to cinders. The mountains melted around me; the trees rose up to touch the sky; all the barriers between me and my beloved fell down except for the time barrier. She was moving further away – I shouted ‘Come back!’ She was gathering her teeth up and putting them back into place, to appear beautiful. My teeth came back to me, black. The yellow sea surged as I called out to her to return. She turned away in rejection of my summons. She called out to me, ‘Let me wash off love’s filth,’ and I said: ‘My sins are that dirt – I’m the one who loved you.’ She replied: ‘Hush.’ The trees were dropping with fruit: we ate and we ate. I reached out to scoop up the yellow sea in my hand and the water turned black, so I spread my fingers and let it run through them; it dripped in thin lies. I asked her: ‘What’s the secret?’ and she said: ‘People have been talking badly of you.’

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I was angry, and I turned to the people, and there they were, becoming charcoal. The night had whitened, and the day was a touch of black. The moon came out, ashen, and the snow fell in shades of blue. I asked her: ‘How do you see my colour?’ She said: ‘Overlapping colours, like a rainbow.’ I cried at this description – I want a single colour to distinguish me. When I cried the sea danced. My beloved, her heart set on infuriating me, was singing as she left. I dared to stand up; the time barrier rose up to separate us. I reached out my hand to stop it and my fingers came back spattered with white blood, and when I sat back down I found no place for my beloved. The sea had turned to ash, and the fruit to stone. I looked at the burnt people and all of a sudden they were melting with thirst; they were begging for water; I pointed at the sea and they ran towards it; they dosed themselves up on its ashes and they became as still as corpses. Love stripped my clothes off me: they had been protecting me from the heat of absence, and now my beloved left. So I went back to covering myself in the insults of people who had spent lifetimes competing to know what state I had ended up in – each of them purporting to have total knowledge of all aspects of my life. When the people settled into stillness after scattering the sea’s ashes, the mountains became dwarf-like. The time barrier was the only thing separating me from my beloved: again I tried to stand up. I began to walk, searching for her, my feet sinking into the rocks, crushing the surface of the earth. Time became timeless, and my beloved a ferocious wind coming towards me to uproot me. The earth couldn’t take my weight, so I fell into the depths. The earth covered my body for eons. When I rose up from my resting place I found my beloved had grown old beside my grave; there she was, unplaiting her lustreless grey braids.

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The fires of someone pleading with life The city which kicked me out of itself, like one of those naked and barefooted destitute children, was always awaiting my return. Or was it I who was waiting to go back to it, with sufficient money and social standing to help relieve its hunger, and replace its rags with the attire befitting a mother who has born brilliantly clever people? After I came out of her womb, she never forgot to remind me that I was born under the sign of Aquarius, meaning that my life’s path would oscillate wildly from good to bad. But what happened was unexpected: every day turned out to be against me. So I went through life penetrating ever deeper into its arteries, my eyes on any possible escape route in the path, pushing towards distant exile. I passed many long years in toil and trouble, moving from country to country – sometimes as a slave, sometimes smuggled in with the cattle, other times as an exiled person – but always welcomed with kicks and smacks, curses and swearing. For despite the variety of ways I entered the countries, the welcoming ceremony was the same, and whether I arrived at airports or seaports or came by land, the rituals meticulously prepared to welcome me and my kind never changed. I spent my days craving things – sometimes I longed for an apple or a peach, or some clothes to cover what was left of my body, and sometimes I longed to try walking in shoes, even just cheap or second-hand ones. The only thing I didn’t desire was to go back to my native city in this condition. The blazing fires of poverty and loss had ravaged my body, and my streaming tears had stripped away all trace of the bloom of youth: I was wracked by a middle age that was crippling in every detail. The air was the only commodity I could enjoy without having to beg for it – even on the unusual occasions when it was clean and pure, I could breathe my fill of it without rebuke. I would also seize any rare opportunity life presented to climb a tree, or sit in its shade, or walk along a river bank, or smell a rose. For my concepts of luxury and indulgence were in absolute contrast to the others’ ambitions which were – of course – easier than mine to attain. One day I was hidden away among some bags of rubbish, on the back of a lorry driven by an Asian man, in a petrol country. The force of my hunger made it impossible for me to wait until the lorry was emptied; I attacked the nearest bag and devoured whatever I could get my hands on. I could not make out the nature of what I was eating, and so I was poisoned by some toxic waste. I fell into a long coma, and when I eventually came

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round from it I was disfigured. I could no longer bear moving around from country to country, nor withstanding the welcoming ceremonies meted out to me at each entrance, so I decided to return to my city. No doubt my city would appreciate my circumstances, and would forgive the inadequacies in me – as written in my ill-omened stars and my ill-fated fortune. When, after lengthy suffering, I reached the doors of the city, it slammed them in my face and denied that I belonged there. I didn’t possess a birth certificate or a passport, as I’d spent my whole life sneaking in and out of places – and the city didn’t need identity documents for me: my original features and smell had not changed. I stayed there for months, pleading with the city for a pardon. I tried to persuade it to inflict its harshest physical punishment on me, in exchange for permission to enter the city and to embrace it, to throw myself on to its bosom. But it took no notice: it had begun strutting around, flaunting its wealth. It was absorbed in the life of comfort and prosperity it was living. So I stayed outside the city for the rest of my life, getting to know its changed features. I contemplated the opulence which had spread to everyone inside the city, even the foreigners, but which could be extended to me and tolerate my brief presence there. The city carried on expanding in every direction, banishing me far from itself as I pleaded with it, all in vain. It was my peers who extended the city’s body: they dressed it in gaudy clothes, with faith in nothing but luxury. Every time I climbed a hill to look out over the body of the city which had flung me from itself that long ago day, and listen to its heartbeat, which had motivated me for life, I saw my peers scrambling to plunder it, and I would fall down, floored by my disappointments. All the children who left the city with me that day are now the powers that be in the city: Khaled the mayor and Hamad the administrator, and the engineers, army officers and elite were all born at the same time as me. How on earth did they get where they are today? It’s not important, I don’t need to know. I’ve no longer anything to fear from poverty and hunger and illness – in my whole body there’s not even a pin-head’s space which hasn’t been stabbed by a friend, torn by a fool, crushed by a giant or hit in some accident or other. I am not drawn to cities anymore, and their glittering lights no longer fascinate me – nor the buzz of their streets or the ringing of their phones. Not one single thing in this burnt-out life concerns me anymore except my dream of a pit on the outskirts of the city to embrace what’s left of my body, never embraced in life. Its only ever hope was to stay one step ahead of the kicks, the trampling and the torrents of vituperation.

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Harvest birds The fields crammed with heavy spikes of maize were empty a few months ago. Between the time of bare earth and that of plants bursting into leaf there had been the exhaustion of midday heat, streaming complaints, and a longing for the rain to come and quench the thirst of the cracked earth which gaped up at the sky. It is not just the season of al-thaara which saps the men’s strength – and it’s not the season of al-hidaara22 alone which makes the women’s backs stooped from carrying the bundles of maize stalks. Fatigue is a constant, flowing as predictably as the seasons – no sooner has a year breathed its last breath than another is born from its womb, ushering in the usual weariness. Water dwindles so much that there is a collective thirst. Animals fight each other for access to a rocky watering hole, annihilating a whole nation of hovering insects above it and gulping down the few that are submerged in the water. When the rain finally comes, the face of the earth turns radiant, as she gradually clothes her body in green garments. My father issues his orders: we are to prepare the land for sowing. The prospect of the suffering to be inflicted on us, and on the oxen that pull the plough, fills us with a familiar gloom. There would be no midday siestas for us, not even the briefest snooze in the shade – just days of incessant raging summer heat to curdle our thin blood. The skin on our feet would split into deep cracks, silting up with soil as we worked. The fields are covered in villagers who crowd them, singing – either joyfully, or to forget their troubles. They are optimistic about an abundant season: they sing without pause. Men’s voices mix with women’s voices, and are joined by cows and sheep, all singing as if for a village wedding celebration, while the birds build their nests, to dangle off the ends of branches like green balls, encouraging the farmers in their work. The maize in the fields grows to uneven sizes, as if asking for some rain, from time to time. By the time it is ripe, our hearts have become over-ripe, waiting for our next appointment with exhaustion to come around. The ears of maize which we call the ‘azouq bobbed on the swaying stalks, urging us to pick them, after the leaves had gradually lost their 22. al-thaara and al-hidaara are the two main seasons of farming work – the first is when the land is prepared for cultivation, and the second is when the maize is harvested and stored.

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deep green colour. When that happens, my father issues his orders along with all the other farmers: ‘Tomorrow we’ll harvest the land.’ Harvest time is a festive time for the villagers. It begins with songs and ends in exhaustion, with fingers cut open by the scythes and legs bloodied by the scrape of sharp maize stalks, which crave the blood of those bare feet that have never known shoes. My mother would lovingly cut the swollen ears of maize to make us the soft fresh bread that our mouths watered for. Our father, on the other hand, when dividing my brothers and I up to go and guard the fields from the livestock and the maize from the birds, would tell us to roast some of last year’s ‘adouq on an open fire in the field. That maize was infested by worms, right to the core, and had lost its fresh taste, but his advice was that if we ate those, the hunger provoked by the scent of the new crop would be kept at bay. My father would be overcome with tears when the floods came and irrigated the fields, and overcome with rage when he saw the blackened ears of maize, damaged by bird attacks. He would pour scorn on us, blaming us for our negligence. We used to wage war on those birds with unparalleled dedication and earnestness – but they were very quick to exploit any momentary inattention of ours, and in a flash their chicks would be fed. My brother Ahmed would often gather the chicks up from their nests and feed maize to them, without my father’s knowledge. When my mother saw him she warned him about provoking my father’s anger, but he took no notice. He loved the birds so much that they followed him more than their own parents. I tried to imitate him, without success. The masaatir23 were spread out on the ground, so that the maize could ripen on the ground before harvesting, and the maize stalks would appear in white rows. They slept there, on their sides, for days – constantly preyed on by the burning sun, the wild pigeons, the land quails and a few rodents. Then harvest time came, and we would all go out together, male and female, young and old. Each of us carried a pair of cutters to clip the maize ears off and load them in to sacks. Then we would carry them on our backs to the threshing floors, where we would use the cow to trample them underfoot, and the when the wind blew it would scatter the chaff. Then we would clean the maize, getting it ready for storage. In the harvest seasons, our work always carried on as hard as in the previous seasons: by that time the birds’ chicks had grown, and my brothers’ chicks had flown far away from him to merge with the flocks, as if they had forgotten all 23. The rows of maize laid out on the ground to ripen before harvesting.

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about what he had done for them. Beautiful, radiantly coloured migrating birds would alight instead – but they were stupid, and would not fly away until we touched them. Their voices mingled with the sounds of cows and sheep tearing apart the discarded bits and pieces of maize in the fields, eating them with a voracity that revealed their apprehension of the days to come. We would see out the season by building pyramid-shaped structures from the maize stalks, anticipating the coming seasons of exhaustion. In our breaks from work we would watch the harvest birds catching the worms that fled from the munching mouths of the cattle and the rattle of our feet in the fields, as we took part in stripping the earth of its clothes. Translated by Alice Guthrie

Jarallah Al-Humaid He was born in 1954 in Hail, in the north of the kingdom. He writes short stories and essays and for many years worked in cultural journalism. He has published five short-story collections and his complete works appeared in 2009. His books include Many Faces the First of Which is Miriam’s (1985) and Smell of the Cities (1996).

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Many faces the first of which is Mariam’s Scene no. 1 The (Polish) violinist stood up … all bashful. (I heaved a sigh nevertheless – what a job!) Her soapy figure was quite compatible with the smoky atmosphere of the place, heavy with the smell of grease and the cheap bouquets of flowers. She bowed her head – and a pretty little head it was – and smiled to the audience. They applauded after a short pause following her finale, and they could tell it was the end of the long piece of music only from observing the movements of the three female players indicating as much. Having bowed her pretty little head, everyone in the audience went back to eating and chatting. Their blue foreign eyes hung in faces that have the look of English sailors with Samsonite briefcases, sitting with self ingratiating Arabs happy to be with them. Two families are celebrating the marriage of a young chap barricaded behind the most expensive table. Some family women are with him and one of them (not beautiful by any standards) is apparently the latest addition to the group. After the violinist took her bow, she stepped down from the platform and headed towards the table of an elderly foreigner sitting with an elderly woman. She bent her pretty little head over him then straightened up. She turned to her colleagues (the other violinist and the cello player) as if apologizing. They played ‘Happy Birthday To You’ as she smiled to the old man. Everybody sang along and clapped, then went back to eating again. She returned to her place too, having taken money from the old man. I caught a glimpse of the blue banknote at a distance. What a job, I said again! As she went back to her seat, the kid with me tried to draw my attention to her beauty. Yes, I said uninterested, I noticed that from the beginning!

Scene no. 2 Another morning of the usual thundery clouds and we’re out of this city (this big, contradictory city I love like a living woman). I opened the door with the kind of worry warranted by the state I was in last night (when I threw up even the water. I drank many, many cans of orange juice, each sweet as a silly sugar solution. I gulped them down one after the other, trembling all over) and there she was! Despite the coldness of the cloudy and thundering morning her serene, beautiful, light-brown face was flickering with a smile. Some genuine welcoming remarks came out of me and

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I felt a tremendous joy sweeping me deep down to the bones. Come on in, I said. I was disconcerted, my face cast down, but she was her usual self. Her desert eyes fluttered apologetically. No, I just wanted … if possible … I mean if you happen to have some money … Something cropped up and calls for it right now! At seven in the morning! How honest of you, daughter of the beautiful refugee camp! I loathed and disdained myself (as I’ve never loathed and disdained myself before!) … I only have the taxi fare to the airport … The words came out like a knife stabbing me and wouldn’t spare my poisoned blood. Forgive me … Mariam … I swear … Mariam didn’t believe me of course (her face, honest as the refugee camp and trembling with shame, said it all) … Mariam! (I wanted to cry myself to death) … Why do you choose the worst times … Ooh (my dearest tears were shed at that moment!) shall I see if my friend has some? – No … I thought you’d have some … never mind! – So, you’re off? – Yes. – We’ll see you then … safe journey. – I loathe myself … She laughed, hiding her disappointment with me: – No, don’t worry. It’s nothing, really. Goodbye. Since that day I never liked that city, and it never liked me either. I told my friend as we threw ourselves in the taxi: Are you aware of the gravity of what’s happening?! (He didn’t care in the least!) I went on anyway, as if I wanted to avenge the honour of the beautiful refugee-camp face: To be (a Palestinian) and fated to … have to befriend cities and faces as contemptuous as my face! And I howled out all the tears I had held back in front of her. The taxi driver was shaking his head and saying to himself deep at heart: What a world!

Scene no. 3 I woke up with empty sardine tins, loaves of pita bread torn in halves, pages of newspapers and some cockroaches surrounding my body that lay crouched on the rectangular sponge mattress … The fan in the ceiling is turning on and on (as if for ever) … on and on … (a hellish heat we’re having this year!) When I managed to escape these piles of reptilian, tortoise shapes anxious to climb my body like famished, feverish lice, wishing to crawl up to the top of my head and pierce through to the nerves of my grey hand, which I discover is getting skinnier and scrawnier with these days of hallucinatory sleep, I stood at the door of the room. I stared

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at the water taps … empty to the point of hoarse gurgling. Terror struck me at the sight of the recorder’s tapes, scattered everywhere disorderly and unnecessarily. Before me stood upright the figure of that bearded young man who numbed my brains and chilled the blood in my veins with his death. He had willingly accepted his own extinction, embraced his selfimmolation that was tinged with the colour of diesel and fuel. I wondered as I stared at the blank wall: Where the hell would I go from here? A song – Children … write down in your notebooks – Love!

Scene no. 4 (Ali) tells the following anecdote about himself: The desert was burning ahead of me as I drove the car. I started to feel as if my head wasn’t in its right place. I totally forgot the names and the shapes of my colleagues in the backseat. I listened carefully to their voices and cried. I cried … trying to know at least one of them. I couldn’t look in the mirror lest they’d be watching and they’d know I’ve lost my memory. After half an hour of crying I knew I was a stranger.

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The passions and pleasures of Mattar Abdul Rahman Introduction Mattar Abdul Rahman is not a night watch. He’s not a policeman either, but in Al-Najareen Lane he is known for roaming about at night. It is said he was born in a nearby villages some eighty kilometres away, though no one knows for sure. Only God is omniscient.

A. Every plus point in your beauty my love … is a plus point in my hopelessness and despair! Thus spoke Abdul Rahman to himself as he was saying to the hotel owner: – Is it necessary to keep my passport with you overnight? The hotel owner answered in a mean tone of voice: And do you think I’ll steal it? Mattar Abdul Rahman almost fell back laughing but he’d learnt some ten years earlier that keeping silent is the best thing to do with restaurateurs, hoteliers and holders of higher degrees. He climbed the steps steadily and discovered that his room overlooks the desert. Some night you’re going to have, Mattar, he said to himself, pursing his lips. He sat up and shouted to the old man who waits on late-night customers: – Bring me tea … and aspirins! His father once told him, you’ll never be a man unless you leave this town. People round here hate you like they hate dust. He remembered the dust and when the hotel old man stood over his head he asked him: – Is there dust in this city? – Oh, plenty of it, son, the old man said … but people got used to it. He closed the window and added: – Anything else? In pharmacies they sell frozen chicken, virility tablets and songs. And in restaurants people are overwhelmed by a strange feeling that they are eating dry ice. Goodness me! The sheer loneliness of this place! After three whole hours … Mattar Abdul Rahman discovered that he is alone in a godforsaken hotel (Al-Zahra Al-Mutala’li’a24). A fit of panic hit him. 24. The Twinkling Rose.

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He was about to ask for a soldier to guard him against all the grimness of the desert that lies behind his window. The panic began to seep into things around him and even change their nature. The tea set for instance has somehow turned into some tiny, terrified animals. He opened the door and ran out … The shadow of things retired to a dark spot in the filthy ground. When he reached the toilet he breathed deeply. Good old hotel man, would you keep me company tonight and I’d give you even the clothes I have on? … He went out, however, having laughed a lot before the mirror. – You … boy? Half an hour on, as he imagined, the old man came in loaded with good wishes. There were holes in his eyes … – Please, sit down old man. The old man thanked him but didn’t sit … – Are you ill or something old man? He lifted his hands to heaven and said: Life is in the hands of God, son. I’ve been ill for ten years now. Mattar Abdul Rahman shouted: – And what would you say about a man who’s been suffering all sorts of pains for a hundred years now? The old man laughed … – May the Lord help him! Then he laughed again. – I’m not joking, you know … I’m talking about myself! The old man’s face turned into a spacious piece of cotton soaked with sweat. For a while he stood silent and still like a statue … – Good night then … Do you need anything else? Mattar said to himself, there’s only the guard dog left to keep me company tonight! He told the old man: – No, thank you, old man … I thought you usually stayed up longer in this hotel! In the morning, Mattar got his passport back from the receptionist, thanked him a lot and gave him money. When he went out through the gate, the guard dog was lying on the porch like a good guard dog!

B. Mattar Abdul Rahman stood alone in the street waiting for something … anything! He changed his mind and decided to walk. What a weird town … with an intense sense of solitude. A pale and pallid town, he said … and

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so is my face. He was looking for an equally lonely and pale moon … and he was also fond of studying the fluctuations of the desert. Exactly five years ago he knew that things might never happen but still take hold of his feelings … He almost went berserk! – Do you want any salads? The restaurant owner said. – Like …? He coldly answered. – You know, tomatoes … lettuce … cucumber? – Anything …

C. Friday is a bright white day … filled with the incense, the hubbub, the cheering, the chanting, the prayers, the red-dyed beards, the crowded marketplace. And the marketplace Mattar Abdul Rahman was born into was still an integral part of him … although it turns in his mind into some strange bird … whenever he forgets that his father loves him for a specific reason … – Are you married now, Mattar? – What a question! The opposite side of the argument gave an ardent laugh, then kept thinking for a long time. He said: – Are you still poor? Mattar Abdul Rahman said pointing to his mouth: – Don’t you see this scar, this tattoo? Things were topsy-turvy that day. The man who hit him, the arresting officer, the thief, the negative and the positive things got all mixed up … and Mattar received a huge slap on the face burning still like fire. He lay down completely still afterwards and screamed at the kids around him: – Bring my brother! But his brother didn’t show up that day! People said he was the thief, and they continued to consider him a thief. – Did you forget it? The opposite side kept his composure and said: – I don’t forget a thing like that … – So? – How old are you now, Mattar, honestly? He giggled a lot and said: – Thirty, but I see otherwise.

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The opposite side said: – How? You have me all mixed up. – I saw the sea once and it told me everything … I drowned. – And escaped? – As you see … I’m even healthier now! The experience was as honest as spit! I knew that what I’d buy cheap today I’d sell dear tomorrow. I started bargaining with restaurateurs and hoteliers, kept stacking my school books before my mother to have her pray for me till morning, though I kept losing one round after another despite that! – Why are you laughing? – I just remembered that I have a lot of money. – Do you have a job now? – I worked for a while and made some money but couldn’t go on. He drank his tea … and swallowed a sharp word he was about to say. It tasted like the blade of a knife.

D. At a certain point Mattar Abdul Rahman stopped writing. He stopped at a certain phrase in his long letter, tore up what he had written and went out for a breath of fresh air … His mother said: What were you doing? He said: Have you seen Fawziah lately? She laughed and said: And what’s it to you? – Just wanted to know if she’s still beautiful! His brother said to him: – Cold-blooded, that’s you all over. But his brother married a beautiful woman later on! ‘Walk on foot even, the sad birds would/Till a big sea they’d find … and a bit of food.’ Mattar Abdul Rahman came off the plane and didn’t see anyone he knew. He said good morning to himself and that was that. When he arrived home there were greetings all round, which reminded him of the grey desert grass … and he said to himself: Mom too loves me more when I’m away!

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In the morning In the morning I hug them. In the very early morning I open my arms like a tree and embrace them. They’d be close to crying and I’d be close to God. A fit of white sorrow hits me and I remember my father and some of my friends and I cry. Daytime is not all clarity and lucidity (as you imagine). It’s not a homeland of sunny and fair forenoons. No. The hospital was more like exile. Its white chairs have the colour of nothingness. Its corridors have the quietude of prisons. In the morning there’s the gloom of wintry rain and the muffled sounds of small crying and the broken citizens thinking about cancer and school queues and the time when the shift of the doctor and the policeman ends. In the morning the night would have ended, having crushed chests underfoot like a crazy train. It would have passed on, having worn out the hearts and the veins and the brains. It would have howled like a wolf over and over again and for no reason whatsoever startled the little orange flowers growing in people’s gardens! In the morning the big shops yawn with their stacked newspapers and frozen fish. The sellers would stare on in the impenetrable void of exile. It happens that a man terrified by the morning comes in looking for water in a bottle that has the taste of toilets. He beguiles his wife, his mother, the peevish wet-looking shopkeepers and the guards standing in front of the glass entrance. He shivers at the exit door as he stretches out his other hand with his riyals, bearing in his chest the sadness of skinny and homeless birds. He chooses a corner to cry and have a drink, drawing in his mind images of speedy trains and caravans and passengers. He takes off his shoes as he approaches the boundaries of fear patrolled by the sellers and the black luxury vans. And in the morning the hospital is sunk deep in its colonial white with nurses actively engaged in schemes and lies. The seats would still be empty by then. The men would be silent, wearing glasses and talking to themselves, having reached the lower depths of sadness. It happens that forebodingly I meet them like a persecuted bird or like a pigeon whose head is awash with blood and belated fear. Towards noon the chairs would be clean as confiscated notebooks. The policemen would have closed behind them the specialist’s door. The small words would be on a secret date. The planes would dart ahead in God’s airspace, racing with oil and mountains of basalt and granite and the beguiling northerly clouds blocking the borders with barricades of bullets. The soldiers would age with the severity of their task. The young women would cry carrying their little ones and over their heads flocks of

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stray and evil birds hovering and flapping their wings and crowing their funereal cries! The hospital would be white and low-ceilinged, its walls decorated with small, brief paintings. Two doctors gibber on in jargon. A black man with a sable beard comes in and claims he is the new manager and he’ll change the hospital staff! He then disappears for a very long time in one of the toilets. Two girls jump up and down. A man makes merry and is clap happy for no reason. The footsteps fortified with heavy brass leave and leave behind them a little beat like the buzzing of flies. Blackness pours into the pained heart. A European man passes by, handing out his vague instructions and contented smiles. A mysterious male nurse catches you pursing your lips and he smiles! And in the morning noon would draw near. They (the antidepressants) would lose their morning effect. The stony windows would be firmly locked on women filled with medications and bewilderment! The houses would be shrouded in bashful sunshine and cowardly pigeons, with trees that never grow tall and with children who chase after cats and disappear, leaving the streets for the speedy colourful cars and for the shopkeepers who sit out in the sun and watch the doors and the windows around, then return to their shops for a while and come out again moving their tongues in their mouths. There’d be a lot of rice cooking on gas rings and put on the tables of cheap restaurants and in nylon bags in detention rooms and under big lorries. There’d be men secluded in their rooms drinking in silence, stalking and busy catching and explaining the casual talks behind doors and windows. There’d be women stuffing aspirin boxes in the pockets of shirts at home, looking through the smoke and the smells to faraway places. They cry and wipe their tears with their sleeves and chase after their children with obvious resentment. And in the morning carrier boys would run round with their green handcarts. They don’t speak but just follow anyone who comes out of his car (to the vegetable market) fiddling with the ring of his car keys, smiling and contented with his elegance. They cast down their small eyes with their beautiful whiteness when he tells them off because he doesn’t want a porter boy. I’ll carry my things myself! Stop begging, he says! They stop on the verge of the curse coming out of his lips and scurry along running after another elegant man. The chicken seller would be sitting on the steps of his chicken shop unable to cry after a passing man had scolded him (why do you slaughter the sick chicken and feed them to us?). He carries a huge knife in his hand, his eyes clouded with sadness and chronic conjunctivitis. The glass is shining and the contractors and entrepreneurs are shopping and getting

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deeper into the bargaining and the false merry making. The more the day progresses the shinier the glass. Strange apprehensive men stand behind it, their sneaky eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses and in their hands calculators that never go wrong. Doctors are buying newspapers and famous football players are smiling on blue wrappers. There’s a carnation scent of a lady passing by and there are clouds in the sky about to rain. There are truant civil servants tired of sitting (without work) behind desks. There are public phones and taxies hanging about. The water-works employees are proudly wearing their distinguished uniforms. Their faces are calm and quiet and they carry in their hands huge wrenches with which they move large equipment then walk away quietly. And in the morning … Translated by Mujab Imam

Jubair Al-Mlaihan He writes short stories and is the founder of the Arabic Story Network. He was the chairman of the Eastern Region Cultural Club. He has published two collection of short stories and one children’s short-story collection entitled The Gift (2004).

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The tree of the land Exit. Sorrow collects on me like ice, collected sorrow. I didn’t cry when I stepped through the prison gate, I didn’t cry. And I started to look at the sky, the birds flapping on the horizon, turning into dots like the waving hands of passengers leaving the shore. Birds, birds, birds. And the air is cold, the air, the sea. And there’s a pleasing smell to the sea. On your feet there’s dust now. I told the sea a secret and you’ll find a shadow of small joy in its waves. A small happiness, happiness, perhaps. You’ll see gulls flapping, your eyes with them until the tears, the tears … Perhaps you saw a sea houri holding your hand, taking you to the secret worlds in the depths. You’ll see the earth far off. This earth is far away, yes it’s far away. And you’ll try to be close enough to the surface of the water to hear the whispering of lovers who don’t see you, to be near enough to see the space between two souls, two lips. Two lovers, seeing the sea, seeing life … lovers … for life … life. Now the lovers are by the sea: a boy and a girl. The boy is swathed in lively laughter and is dangling his legs in the water, as if in play. The boy is playing and his girl whispers with shy little laughter and fecundly as if she were a laden tree. The girl keeps looking behind all the time. Perhaps there are eyes scrutinizing her movements. Perhaps some fear or other inhabits her head, a man scrutinizing the shy, little laughter of the fecund girl … her heart running with joy and fear. You are now by the sea and you see a man. The girl and boy are playing around … You see them … again and again. You are by the sea and you see them … again and again. At first I would send sparrows of easy laughter and proud envy towards them. The sparrows of laughter fly and flap around at a safe distance from them. The sparrows toss little flowers from their beaks resembling your little joy. But they don’t see it. The boy dangles his feet in the water, as if in play, and the girl seems to laugh … Again and again the lovers plan their dream garden to come. You hear them whispering the way to tomorrow. They see the sea and they see life. The last time I approached their hearts, they were singing of a simple

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little dream. They plan the land which is part of the light in their eyes. They turn to where their little path lies and they laugh, pointing at comfortable homes and between them they draw pictures of a cosy house in his palm, a house out of which their children come, laughing heartily. And in this dream they grow up and they see life … I whispered to your laughter: ‘They must be weaving their days to come like two beautiful, nesting birds.’ Then I saw how the grass grew in the boy’s hand as he sowed her fingers in the green expanse of his palm. How I laughed fulsomely and drew near the girl, sowing food on her lips. And multicoloured butterflies flew up around them and the gulls gently landed and I said: ‘See their freedom, see their life. They are building a homeland … this is life indeed!’ But then the man came repeatedly … and walked towards the laughing girl … he headed straight for them shaking with dark rage, … I ran towards their dream farmstead … I started shouting and the birds flew off into the sky far far off … the far-off sky … far-off … And I ran towards the man, grabbed him by the throat and threw him to the floor. We fought and I punched him and beat him and dragged him to the sea and forced his head several times beneath the water till the men came who took me away … Many people came, running and shouting, and the gulls flew off far away, with fear in their eyes … The boy ran around and around in circles as if he had gone mad, while the girl stood up and fell down, stood up and fell down inside her abaya and the dust of her dreams. Then they took you to prison. They took you. You remember the officer now, when you were handcuffed, saying to you: ‘And you hit him!’ And you said: ‘I punched him in the head!’ ‘Why the head?’ Then he turned to his deputy, who also had the shiny stars on his shoulder, and winked. They smiled at each other then you said: ‘I even cleaned him up.’ The officer slapped his desk with glee, swapping big smiles with his deputy as if they were both saying: ‘We’ve hooked a funny one here.’ Then he said: ‘Why duck his head in the water?’ Then, taking on a stern look, he continued:

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‘You meant to drown him, didn’t you? It was premeditated.’ And you said: ‘I was trying to clean his face.’ They laughed so heartily you thought they would shit their pants. Then the officer ordered you off to the cells. ‘Hey soldier, take this thing to the cells.’ You remember the soldier pushing you gently in front of him and you walked along as if you were entering the earth’s core, its heart. And you looked with its eyes at the extent of the earth as if you could see a large scroll unfurled over its atlas, covered in letters: L–O–V–E–P–R–O–H–I–B–I–T–E–D E–V–O–L… Many letters, many, scattered, lost, more of them than there are palms and grasses … love … love and its fleeting remnants. 2 You’re not dreaming. I am a man out of prison now, sorrow collecting on me like ice. The air was cold though, the air was cold and the sea had a pleasing smell. The novel air struck my lungs and I turned around. I turned round and saw two policemen guarding the gate … another in a little tower on the corner of the white and gloomy building, another over there … and barbed wire … I said: ‘Hey, there’s no need for big dreams … and little dreams don’t come.’ You grieve for the earth and here you are walking along slowly, trying to shake the heap of sorrow you’re buried in off you … Leave this prison … get away. Doesn’t your head say so? Your heart beats powerfully with the love of the palm tree … Where will you run to? You need to go first to where all these wires and soldiers disappear … but you’ll find that in front of you and to the left of you and to the right and everywhere, because you’re on the earth, the vast earth, and the sky above it is vast too, and the sea is vast and you are the many sparrows of your dreams, the sparrows of the boy and the girl and of people, filled with space and sky and sea. There are vast green and fertile spaces out there and many hearts resemble them, and people are under piles of grief like him. Many walk within this barbed wire smiling like the trees and dreaming their dreams like clouds … Their wellsprings cover a vast desert space with their rain. You must go with the others, shaking off the dust of sorrow and dreaming … dream. Dream a lot and make your earth full of dreams … make them prosper and multiply until the streets overflow with dreams … You’ll see them walking on two feet … and love growing like grass on

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street corners … and those fleeting remnants will return like victorious soldiers … entering your earth, its very heart. And you will see with its eyes … and you will see the lovers coming out of the dream of water, looking wide-eyed at the ocean’s vastness, white birds singing to them as they plan their world and build new nests. 2

It isn’t a dream. Hey there, hey there, you’re not dreaming … you are on your earth … you remember the soldier gently pushing you … you were walking along while humming far-off songs. You turned to see the face of the soldier gently pushing you. You saw with surprise his tender eyes, like the eyes of the boy who had trembled with vigorous laughter and had dangled his feet in the water as if in play. The boy trembling with vitality was pushing you along gently. A series of steel doors and you hear the soldier’s footsteps fade away … you sing in the middle of the cell. You see yourself walking along. The sky brings its waters and the sea comes singing for the clouds … There’s music, you see many ghosts of young men, trembling with joy and dangling their feet in the water as if in play, as if they were planning their world and making nests and smiling at children full of life. And trees, trees … and you stretch out your hand and see how water embraces water and how the palms of the waves rise and touches the rain’s bare fingers and they dance and mingle and melt into the ocean’s vastness … And you say it doesn’t matter where they go after that, because they have become one body of water moving how it wishes, without being troubled by the wind or rebuked by the roads. 2 Now … I blink. The earth is full of the nests of dreams. The earth is giving birth to lovers.

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The locusts A child crawled on the earth at this time, in a forgotten village. He said: ‘My name is Siin. My body is small and my head is large.’ … We called him a wise man with a big head, a seer. Someone else called him the devil … Yes, I am Siin. I used to tell the children that danger comes to us from above. I used to tell their parents so too, but they wouldn’t believe me and would get angry … The young sensed my fear and became afraid. I feared the clouds … We see Siin’s body quake when the skies blacken and rumble with clouds and lightning starts to flash … Siin runs for a high hill and begins lamenting and warning the people … Yes I do not like floods, I do not like locusts … for they come and corrupt everything with complete abandon … We, the village children, played in our playground. The sun hid … clouds drew near … Siin shivered and set off for his hill … a man grabbed him by his slender neck … We laughed as his huge head swayed in the man’s hand like a watermelon. We saw him loll and fall between the man’s feet … ‘You say, you devil, that danger comes to us from above,’ said the man, grinning as he shook Siin like a chicken. The man pointed to the sky and we all looked up … Siin nodded his lolling head and said: ‘Yes, from above.’ The man raised his hand as if to slap him in the mouth … But Siin pointed to the high mountains which hid the sun after afternoon prayer. He said: ‘Haven’t the clouds come over these mountains? Haven’t their floods destroyed your farms and toppled your houses? Haven’t the locusts come out of the skies to beset your trees and devour them?’ The man’s eyes widened and he withdrew his hand. Siin broke free of him and ran to his hill … The man spat on the ground, held out his empty hands and said: ‘I seek God’s protection from the accursed devil … for he is the devil … the devil …’ Siin stayed wailing long on the hill that night. He calmed himself after the floods relented to far-off canyons. But on another night he was the only one who wailed as if bereft … all the others were happy. We played in the sun which grew dark red and sucked all of the joy out of the village. The world suddenly darkened … Siin looked at the sky,

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shuddered and then shrieked: ‘The locusts … the locusts … the locusts are coming!’ He ran shouting to the people but his voice was too weak to compete with the joyous cries of the man who had held him by the throat. The man bellowed loudly, warning the villagers of the locusts. The locusts perched untroubled on the trees bunched together like grapes. The people came out in exultation to spend the whole night filling sacks full with them. Siin wailed: ‘The locusts are many and will devour everything tomorrow’ … but his voice was dissipated in the air. In the morning, people left their farms, set up large cauldrons and lit fires beneath them. And water came to the boil within them. Swarms of blind locusts poured out of the mouths of the sacks that had been left floundering in the water, trying to escape. The locust masses still left on the trees devoured their leaves and fruit and swarmed from farm to farm to farm … Men and women tore open the sacks and poured the locusts into the cauldrons … the joyous children ran around everywhere, circling the cauldrons while their elders licked their lips at the prospect of a banquet … Siin descended fearfully from his hill in the morning and stood beside one of the big cauldrons. He noticed that what they had poured into it was not locusts but rather seemed to be little yellow scorpions with crooked tails with poisonous spikes … The people kept their little fires going and the water boiled in the cauldrons as they poured in the scorpions, all the while licking their lips. I stood watching the mass of scorpions swarming in the pots, rising lightly out of the steam and flying off into the atmosphere … I saw swarms of scorpions flying … amassing in what looked like the shape of huge snakes … big snakes … big … swarms of snakes … swarms, swarms … I saw they had wings, propellers, and zoomed like … aeroplanes … 2 Siin crawls on the earth in this time in the city in the shape of a man, with a small body … he passed me while I stood in front of the door to my house. The sun became gloomy, sucking out the joy of colour … The world darkened suddenly. The man that was Siin shook and turned around. There was no hill. He began to howl and point to the sky. I looked up: it was full of swarms of shining snakes hovering over the city … huge flying snakes … Huge masses of locusts which looked like shiny yellow scorpions fell on our heads …

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The locust mass splintered and penetrated houses and cauldrons and breasts and bridges and the earth itself … The people scattered and the trees and the air and the songs were torn through with what seemed like groans … I stood at my door in the street in the city and my white hair blew away and my limbs fell off and I threw my misfortune behind the screaming, running man who was gathering his intestines, his hands in the air and shrieking like the blood of others. ‘Locusts … locusts … scorpions … snakes … bombs … missiles … planes … war … war … war …’ I followed him as he ran down the middle of the street, the traffic suitably complacent … and from far off, the echo of a scream like a cloud of sorrow … and after it a little question exploding in the air: where is he running to when the sky is above everything? Translated by John Peate

Khairia Al-Saqaf She is one of the pioneers of literature and journalism in Saudi Arabia. She holds a PhD in Arabic literature and teaches at King Saud University. She has published numerous research works in different fields and several collections of short stories including Sailing Towards the Horizons (1982) and When the Wind Blows, the Rain Will Fall (2003)

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Another face of time Fifteen years … Curled up inside it, inside this cell, this ever-shrinking cell. He knew every detail of his veins, they furrowed paths of fear over his skin. Fear enveloped him, his blood dried up in his veins. Whenever he felt like he was living, it surprised him. Death destroyed him. Fifteen years. He memorized the lines on his palms but did not know how to read them. Two feet behind the door, a fumble with the bolt, it caught his attention. Maybe after all these years? Who could have come to see him? Who? A shiver shook through his pores. It climbed from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. Is it time? What should he do? The sound of his heart thuds in his ears. His head throbs. His limbs freeze. He shakes like a wounded sparrow. His eyes try to avoid whoever might come towards him through the door. Maybe it’s him, maybe it’s Ahmad, coming back in one of those two. Fifteen years. Which one will come in? They were both children when the knife in my hand plunged into their father’s neck. Ahmad, the best of friends … On that day the bloody bond between us was all-powerful. Ahmad and I were never apart. We never tired of playing with death. One night, my grandmother was stirred from her sleep. She woke up panicking and rushed towards me. She scared me, stroking my head, muttering something I didn’t understand. Then she told me about what she was afraid of, and she shook her head to get her nightmare out. Without uttering a word, she spat three times to her left … Then she prayed to God for my protection. The next morning, she told me about it, and she reassured me that her spit in the dark of the night would stop any harm coming from her dream. We grew up, Ahmad and I, and we behaved in the same way at school as we did everywhere else, marching everyone to our beat. We spent all our time roaming about, pretending to be a bull and a matador. Our comeuppance often awaited us outside the walls of the school, when we got home and were viciously beaten.

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Schools passed us from one to another. With every move, our love for playing with death increased … We grew up. And we grew up. Ahmad said to me once, with the two of them playing right in front of him: ‘Maybe one of them will inherit my love of playing.’ It was clear that his passion for it had increased, while mine was turning into fear, and realizing this made my heart sink. One evening, our memories took us back to childhood. Ahmad went off and came back holding a knife out towards me. Its glinting blade shone into my imagination and lit up a memory of our battles. I cowered and shrunk away from him, panicking. He approached me and said, smiling: ‘Come on, try, you won’t touch me.’ He stared into my eyes. He didn’t blink. His face loomed up in my eyes, its features terrified me. I hesitated … All of a sudden, I felt the touch of my grandmother’s hand against my head. Immediately I said: ‘Ahmad, we’ve grown up now …’ He shook his head sarcastically and said, coming closer to me, ‘Leave it.’ He hit me hard on the back and said, ‘You’ve lost your fire, my friend.’ He came closer with the knife and thrust it gently into my shoulder, his eyes full of provocation. His smell made me shiver. I grabbed the knife from his hand, a desire for victory surging through my chest. In past battles I would get up from the ground, shaking the dirt from my clothes, and bring on my defeat. Every round, it was always Ahmad who won, so why would he not win now? Inside, at that moment, I changed. I resolved that he would not do it. Within seconds, I had become a lion. He surrendered in the blink of an eye. He fell down, and I rose up, bewildered. He wasn’t playing. As soon as I was locked in the cell, I realized that it had actually been him who had won … The warden slid the bolt across and moved slowly towards him. He heaved his slumbering body up and walked him into a cramped corridor. His chest cramped up, he felt like boiling water was being poured over his body, he stumbled … His grandmother touches him again on the head, fear takes hold of him, Ahmad grabs hold of him, his teeth chatter and his legs tremble. In his eyes, the corridor grows longer, shorter, narrower. Ahmad takes shape beside him, standing in one of them …

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‘Fifteen years,’ his scream reverberates, ‘Ahmad, you’ve taken my whole life.’ The sound of his grandmother’s incantations fills his head, his ears. ‘Who took the decision? Which of them inherited the game from you?’ A glass of water is held out to him from the other side. He knew that he and Ahmad would never be apart.

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The apology I could not grasp how long it took me, with questions spinning through my head, to catch the train and find my seat next to yours, until I woke up, with the roar of the wheels beneath you, on the rails. Cold air hit my right cheek as it rubbed against the window frame. At that point, I stretched my legs to relax them a little, then I crossed them under my body. It was exhausted by everything that you burdened it with without me having control over my head or my thoughts. The computer screen was consuming me with its phosphorescent light, so I bent down towards my legs, to present the two of them with the apology, from me and from you. I felt I should do that for them, just as I am doing now, trying to free them from tension and fatigue. But your legs knocked into me, they were where I had put mine, and they didn’t leave any space for them. Do you know that when I opened my eyes, I wasn’t on the train? And my legs weren’t clattering into yours. I was here. I gave you a sheet of white paper and a pen, and you filled it with a list of things to buy. That evening you were having a party for your friends. You brought out what you had bought, and as usual, you had not forgotten to get a bottle of the cologne that you like to clean your hands and face with after every meal. I kept saying to you: ‘How do you manage to mix up the vegetables with the perfume? And put the apples with the onions?’ And you kept replying that they just sit together in the bag, and only for a few seconds. Time passes and you wash your face and your hands. At the end of the day on which I wasn’t on the train, and my legs were with me and not towards yours, at the beginning of the night, as you are greedily inhaling your perfume from the palm of your hands, I present you with a spread of delicious dishes. I suggested that you should look at your watch. A significant amount of time had passed between when you went out to buy your list of things and when you cleaned your hands with your favourite perfume. The table was still covered. I hadn’t had time to clear the plates off it. Your friends were at their homes. I went into my room. I turned on the computer.

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I wiped my feet gently, without forgetting my apology to them. Time passes. There is a clatter of a train’s wheels in the middle of the night. My ears ring.

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The great ancestor Last night he thought that his ancestor’s rage had caught up with him. The picture of his ancestor suddenly fell from the wall. He was playing catch with his brothers in the main hall of the house and had got carried away. He knew for certain that he was going to be in trouble, but he managed to hide from his father that night. He felt sure that his father would be so late back to the house that he would not do his customary viewing of the old, hallowed pictures, which he hung so carefully on the walls of that spacious hall. He would, though, do it in the morning. That was what he did when he got back late. In the morning, he would escape his father’s punishment, because he would have left home for school before he got up. Then, when it was time for him to come back from school, he would have come up with an idea to get himself out of the situation, and he would be ready for him. From the shocking moment when the picture of the ancestor fell, Salih could not stop thinking about the ritual that his father followed when he thought that one of his sons had become a man. He would take him to that spacious hall. His mother was afraid and hated being there. He would do a tour of every picture; he had taken such care to hang them that he hired someone to clean them and protect them, even when the family was away. Then he would make sure that that particular son knew how his ancestors looked, their names, their positions in the family tree, and the importance of their roles in building up the glory of the family. All this time, Salih would stand beside his older brothers, longing to know what they heard when his father opened, after these tours, a small book with faded script, whose words he poured into their ears. He could not stop thinking about his father turning secretly to some of its pages, putting a magnifying glass to his eye and struggling to read. He would close the book quickly when he sensed that one of them was near. Then he would put it back into the iron box which he locked inside a very secure safe. Finally he would take this safe and hide it in the corner of a clothes drawer. Salih knew that inside this ancient book was everything written by all his ancestors up to his grandfather, who had stopped writing. Salih’s father was his only son. His father would often stand by the great ancestor and spend quite some time carefully recounting all the characteristics, the outstanding rigour, strength, and confidence which brought him fame in his time. He

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often told them that whoever came after him would pass these characteristics on to their children. He would always say, ‘You will inherit them too – fine descendants of a fine ancestor.’ Salih felt that his father believed that a mere sense of the value of these characters, even now that they were dead, would make his children respect their existence and restrain themselves in the hall in which their pictures were hung. He felt that his father believed that anyone who did not show this restraint needed their behaviour examined. So how could he possibly cope with what happened when he got carried away playing catch with his brothers and caught the great ancestor right in the face with a bad throw, bringing him crashing to the ground? These thoughts brought his father’s voice to him, thundering in his ear: ‘That is the founder of our family, do you understand?’ As these words passed through his memory, he realized that the picture of the great ancestor, who had died a century before, was the oldest of all the pictures. It was the most valuable in every way. A terrible punishment must lie in store for anyone who does not treat it with respect. 2 On the next day, Salih went to the headmaster’s office. His chest was full of fear about what he had been summoned there for. This fear was mingled with distress because the facts so clearly demonstrated the innocence of his little brothers – there was no way of getting out of it. Anyway, his mother would side with them as she always did. In any clash or disagreement with them, he was the only one who ever lost. He didn’t care a bit for the pictures – to him they were just dead people who had played their parts and then passed on. Here in the headmaster’s office, he would be on his own. When he got to the door of the office, he tried to get away, but the voice of his father alone was enough to scupper this attempt. He hesitated and slowed down. The supervisor who had accompanied him held him by the shoulder. Then, gently but firmly, he pushed him with his other hand into the office. The room started spinning, the faces inside it blurred together. It felt like they were all there to arrest him and put him on trial. He felt his father’s breath on his face. He quickly forced his way out, strength suddenly shooting through his body. He opened the door running and he ran so no one could catch him … He woke up in the infirmary. The headmaster and his brothers were gathered around him, his father’s hand was stroking his head. He had come to school to thank him – a sheet of paper had fallen from the frame

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of the ancestor’s picture. When he hit it with the ball, he revealed the great lie with which his grandfather had deceived him for seventy years. 2 It was an adoption certificate for a child he had picked up off the roadside. Salih was not particularly amazed because he had never cared much about the history of those ancestors, but it explained why his father used to stare so long at those lines in the old book that had been rubbed out so that he could not read them.

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Oh! She woke up in a wide open space. The houses were like saplings, just sprung from the ground. The air was as fresh as can be. She inhaled it as if to quench the thirst of the veins in her chest. A strange joy flowed through them and soon crept to her lips; she smiled. Donkeys, chickens, dogs and camels pranced freely about in the expanse in front of her. The small ones raced against each other and played with her. The noise of their laughter filled the space. My God! What an enchanting morning. All that the eye can see overflows with irrepressible nature. There are eggs scattered around her, and peacock feathers. Sheep bend their heads to graze on the tips of the plants, eating them calmly. Cocks crow at each other. Ah! There are angels roaming about, there’s no doubt about it. The mercies of nature fill her lungs with an elixir of purity. Is this my house? She sneaks into it through the back door. She hops from foot to foot to avoid stepping on the black and white chickens. It really is it. That’s the chair that I sit on when I want to think. And that’s the coffee pot whose steam rises up to the ceiling, filling the air with the smell of its cardamom and coffee beans. My book, whose hundred pages I did not finish because the hero got ill. My winter shoes, wet from yesterday’s rain, which seeped into the pores of the soil. Yes, my father’s sofa. He dreams, reclining near the window, of an expansive future for the boys of the neighbourhood, a future in which they learn to swim – as long as they keep their clothes on. A camel stretches her neck at my window. The cat, fleeing from the dogs’ barks, hides under my chair. My mother calls out from the room next door. She moved her head forcefully.

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She was still in her bed. When she woke up to the space of nature. Only her voice was not a dream. She was late, and with a bit of a hurry she raced against the time she had left. She gathered up the papers that the printer had sent out before she went to sleep. Around her neck she hung a memory stick, which she had, that evening, loaded up with her thoughts and sources. She picked up the computer and rushed to put on her fur coat in the morning frost. The steam from the coffee clouded up her glasses, an untimely irritation. She threw her body into the car so that she would be standing in the lecture theatre before it turned eight o’clock. Translated by Clem Naylor

Khaled Al-Yousef He was born in 1958 in Riyadh and specializes in library and information sciences. He has published seven collections of short stories and one novel, in addition to editing an anthology of Saudi short stories. His works include A Woman That Never Sleeps (1999) and He Holds Her Hand and Sings (2010).

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Necessities Joy Pointing to her, he said: ‘Don’t you see the position of her ears? They’re different sizes, and they’re uneven in relation to the eyes!’ He added: ‘And the shape of her little eyes.’ I didn’t attach any importance to it at the time. She was the most beautiful child in the world. Then, after her mind and body began to develop and she took her first steps, her beauty quickly grew. She was a refuge for the soul and affection!

Pampering She’s always asking you for something, for things she doesn’t need. She asks for one thing after another, until she lights the fuse of your anger. She laughs at you, and is delighted when she gets what she wants, with her power over your thoughts and feelings. She rejoices when she sees you give in to all her demands and she’s the only thing that matters!

Love She’s intrigued by the classification of living things. She knows that this is a male with its particular characteristics, and that this is a female which is distinguished from the male. Then she quickly applies what she’s absorbed to everything she sees. Her preoccupation with the two sexes intensifies when she sees them side-by-side; she continually talks about them, and insists on fetching others to see what she sees. She happily announces: ‘Love is everything in this life, and every male loves the female!’

Intelligence She knows that she doesn’t know. She knows that she wants to know. She knows that her path to knowing is via continuous questions. She picks up the answer to one question and shapes a star around it, and a world that brings her into its sphere. At that moment she feels as though she knows nothing.

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At other times you’re shocked to learn that she’s understood your old answers, that her intelligence is greater than your ability!

Equality Her position is one of insistence, from which she never backs down. She does not give in to a desire unless it suits her disposition. Any matter or decision that does not take her feelings into account does not please her. She refuses and refuses until, satisfied by the flaring up and the argument, she agrees. You see she’s bigger than all the other kids her age. You see she’s no different to anyone else. She insists on her opinions, her wants and her decisions. She defends herself with silent anger. She takes what she wants cunningly, and pleases herself above all others.

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The hot coals of her breath She took the mouthpiece and pulled off its plastic wrapper, in her other hand she held the nargila pipe, smooth and coiled. She fitted the mouthpiece over the old one, to protect her mouth from old dirt and germs, and began to tease the cherished device. She blew out the air and then drew it in again, exactly like the exhalation of a pair of lungs. She inhaled the mixture of fruit and coals in its belly, and soon began to hover higher and higher with the apple and molasses smoke, harmonious in her thoughts. She looked at him, smiling, and said, ‘I know I hurt you – but you were happy with my life and my faults, and this is the biggest of them!’ She was shaking the pipe, her index finger pointed at the nargila. Then she raised it together with her middle finger, and pressed her thumb against her pinky and ring fingers. ‘You were OK with cigarettes sometimes!’ Silence still enveloped his mouth, in solidarity with his astonished mind. He felt the bitterness of his sadness, while they were in the same life. He still portrayed astonishment at every meeting, characterized by the smoke and the aromas that mingled with the ambience of the place. Questions buzzed in his head, but how could he question her when she was always in the right, and wouldn’t take anyone’s advice? ‘Believe me, I know I’m wrong and that I’m destroying myself, that all my actions are harmful to me and whoever sits with me. But no, you’re right, I’ll quit it, and stop all this. Everything comes with patience. Now let’s carry on enjoying ourselves and talk about something more befitting the event of the evening!’ He swallowed his astonishment to kill words that had become prayer, piety; that she might be blessed with God’s mercy. ‘No, it’s nothing,’ he said. ‘What concerns me – as you know – is your comfort. The proof of that is in front of you. Don’t you see my searching and questioning the passers-by about the nearest café, as though I came to them with a headache and my cure were in the presence of my loss!’ ‘Darling, don’t exaggerate so much! The matter’s very ordinary, people are free to do what they want … I think it’s because you’re highly sensitive or that the situation’s new to you. You’ll soon get used to it and appreciate the importance of this nargila in your life!’ ‘In my life?!’ ‘Yes, your life!’

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She exhaled a dense cloud of smoke that drifted aimlessly until it enveloped his confused face. It formed colours and scents; he coughed when they mingled with his breath. She laughed at him until she coughed too, and said in a hoarse voice: ‘Have I annoyed you darling? Don’t worry, I wanted to get you out of your dark cave. It doesn’t matter, try to get used to my habits so that in future you know how to prepare it for yourself and me!’ Her laughter grew louder and he wondered what fate had in store for him. They talked and told each other stories. One question mark after another formed in his mind. He remembered that she used to promise him often, and that her frivolity was something she reserved for leisure time. He recalled her anxiety as she held a packet of cigarettes and searched for something to light one. He remembered how he’d become bored searching for matches or a lighter to restore her burning nirvana. He was forced to buy anything to calm her. It became clear that the act was no longer confined to her leisure time, and exceeded all physical needs, and that one cigarette was not enough for a single meeting! In fact, he’d often felt their place, despite its spaciousness, could not contain the burnt smoke in the sky. The matter became a fact in his diary, woven within the story of his great love. ‘You know I love you more than anything, and that the taste of your lips is the sweetest pleasure in my life, and that the taste of your mouth, full of this blend of flavours, hasn’t changed – I’ll always devour it! I know I’ll never be sated! I’m not going to repeat what was said before, or change my mind, but you ought to take care of yourself, what you’re doing, I think it’s suicide, really, suicide!’ ‘Oh, believe me,’ she replied, ‘death is death.’ ‘Who said death is death? You’re driving yourself to destruction. Killing the self does not please God! And anyway, is this how we greet death? Darling, I’ll recite prayers and litanies. I’ll become closer to God, more devout. These are the strongest measures I can take and your actions confirm that to seek refuge in Him is the only solution.’ ‘Thank the Lord, I appoint you to obedience and worship!’ ‘Why don’t you appoint yourself?’ She fell silent and stared at him. She didn’t want to continue the debate. A sudden compassion she had not felt before welled up inside her. She took refuge in her nargila and enjoyed watching wisps of smoke as they drifted before her, while he recalled the situation when they had entered the café, where he hadn’t forgotten his easternness as a man put first in every place, but he saw it crushed before his eyes in many cafés. He had strived to

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please her. He lowered his head when he sat opposite her at a small table. He stuttered when he answered the waiter’s ‘What can I get you?’ ‘Two teas and … and …’ She had to complete the order for him: ‘One apple-flavoured nargila, nice and fresh – did you get that? I want a fresh one!’ She sensed his anxiety, the lowering of his voice with his growing resentment. She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. The movements of his fingers and the way his legs were shaking under the table made her anxious. She tried to caress him with snatches of songs that he liked, with other times, distracting him with conversation about the place, its cultural climate and museums. She watched him when the waiter came and placed the nargila down, then carefully laid the coals on top. He handed her the pipe for her to test it. ‘Is it OK? Would you like anything else?’ He replied dryly: ‘No. No, thank you, if we want anything we’ll let you know.’ She smiled inside, sensing her victory over his masculinity, in fact, over all men. Here she was, as though in her own kingdom, unrivalled in her greatness and her superiority over them. She attracted attention displaying a haughty pride, because she was alone in this big café, as she’d been yesterday somewhere else, and before that another place, and before that in a private corner amongst them. She tried to read his silence as she sat facing him, the nargila and the ashtray between them. She watched him closely, to work out the silent dialogue in his head. ‘What’s my darling thinking about?’ she wondered to herself. ‘From his expression he doesn’t seem too convinced by this place! I really hurt you and made things worse, but do you accept my apology? From now on, I’ll quit this pipe. But will you accept me only smoking? Will you be satisfied to allow your love to smoke in her room or on the balcony? Will we leave these fun, always changing places across the length and breadth of the city? Will we leave these exciting faces and this alluring scent?’ She’d made the rounds in her dalliance. She recalled the many places they’d been in, the various cafés. But he felt feeble before her love; he felt he was a prisoner to everything she loved, in the same way he was her prisoner. He trained his ears and his mind far from her, on the remnants of the first cigarette, in the wrinkled faces amid the darkness of old cafés, in scents that had taken root in his memory. It all told him that what he saw of her frivolity and desire for distraction was an extension of the miserable past, of the nargila and its coals that continued to burn before him.

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The curves of her bed You tossed and turned restlessly on the bed. You turned over to avoid an anticipated conversation. You had to flip your pillow more than once. You felt her enter the room despite her light steps. The throbbing in your veins and arteries intensified. Sweat seeped from every part of your body. There was much talk, and you exercised restraint with your continuous silence. It was a long conversation and you fragmented it with a nod or a few broken words. The situation was acute and you diffused it with your dreaming and your calm. One evening you said: ‘If only I could stay awake, I would! I hate sleeping when I don’t want to. I hate the bed when I don’t need it. I feel like it’s draining me, physically and mentally. Often I’ve had to sleep sitting down, and even standing up, on a few occasions! But am I to go against God’s way? Of course not.’ You reached for the electric cable to kill the low light despite your love for its red glow. As though the night had just appeared in your eyes, as though her presence beside you were the beginning of a silent conversation. Her pervasive scent captivated you. You became uneasy when you felt the trembling of the bed as she sat on it, you gave in to your stubbornness, and at that moment your sad self was led to curl up between you, forming a mountain of hesitation and anxiety. The minutes of existence passed with great monotony. You felt the sole of her foot exploring your out-stretched legs, then the toes of her other foot tickled you to draw lines of love on your leg. Then they found their way to your heart, to awaken the love that remained there. You couldn’t bear the flame of your hunger, so you moved your back closer to her. She massaged you with her fingertips and then ran them over your earlobes. You felt her move closer to you and the flame of her breath drew nearer to your senses, knocking on their doors. You turned to her, embraced her with passion and desire. You plunged into her sea and her warmth without rowing or movement. The minutes passed as though the two of you were one body. You shook your head to wake her. She faced you. You kissed her and kissed her, then collapsed into rain to mingle with the sweet streams that flow through ever fertile valleys. Your hands didn’t rest from removing anything that clung to your path. Then, suddenly at the peak of pleasure, you fell and the clouds stopped raining. She slipped from your arms, whilst between consciousness and unconsciousness. The clouds cleared, your hunger and your thirst dissipated. And it was enough to annihilate her feelings. ‘What’s with you? Why did you do that? Is something the matter?’

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You couldn’t reply or speak. A dryness had cut your vocal cords, and there was silence between you. ‘You haven’t done that before! I don’t remember ever seeing you like this – what happened? Tell me – don’t be negative!’ No, not at all … Nothing … It’s nothing.’ You couldn’t describe your condition, you weren’t in possession of your consciousness. You surpassed every expectation. You lifted your head and looked at her. ‘Oh, sleep … Just sleep. Don’t worry … I’m fine.’ She got up to escape the outpour of your grief, after your hidden voice stirred, unable to continue its silence in her presence. Once more the struggle returned. You were face to face with your confusion, between your blunt refusal for any instinctive meeting of your bodies, or your nature that could not bear the dryness of life, the trembling of the nights and days; it could not withstand the throbbing hunger of your arteries, or the burning thirst of your senses. Your confusion brought pain. Arid months had passed unresponsive to the appeal of your desire. You were reaping the harvest of your tyranny, your refusal to allow her to become pregnant. You watched her suffer after you’d suffered from her constant complaining, and the venting of her pains from the preventative medicines, miscalculations and isolation that frays the nerves. Your suffering had reached its limit, and you were able to inure yourself to deprivation. But can you stand by your decision? Can you control your instincts in the face of her constant enticement? Do you hate children to such an extent? Have you sunk to enjoying her suffering? Between you and love endless questions remain. Translated by Alice Guthrie

Laila Al-Ahaideb She writes stories, essays and novels. She has published one short-story collection and one novel entitled Eyes of Foxes. Her stories have been translated into English and Italian.

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Women ‘It’s not me,’ I called to the bus driver as I saw Haya getting off at my house, turning the key in the lock and going inside. The bus drove off with me still onboard. That’s my house and that’s my key but she’s not me. I tried to get up and stop him, and stop her too but my face took on her features and my voice began to change until it sounded just like her sharp ant-like voice. The bus set off taking the women home. Each one alighted at a house whose keys she possessed and went inside. Except for me! The keys were in my hand but the bus driver took me far from my house. He was certain that Haya was me. Just as he was certain that I was now Haya. As far as he was concerned we were all women. So, that’s what happened. She got off before me at my house and the driver thought it was me so off he drove. She didn’t object or try to follow us and I didn’t quite realize what was going on until it was too late. I suppose I gave in without a fight. After all, as far as he was concerned we were all women. Haya has a house and a husband and some kids, just like me. Her features are quite similar to mine as well and sometimes the new girls get us mixed up. But those who know us well can tell that there are more then seven differences between us. Her hair looks softer than mine and I appear a little taller than her, my voice louder than hers, and the way I talk to other women, and my laugh, my choice of clothes, colours and accessories. Of course we’re all very different from one another, but the bus driver wasn’t aware of these differences and wouldn’t have comprehended them. When I went into Haya’s house I found some children who didn’t look like me running towards me with their arms open wide. They went straight for my bag and took out my children’s sweets and gobbled them up. I tried to shout and stop them but Haya’s sharp voice came out instead of mine and managed to shut them up. After a little while the father came home and asked what time dinner would be ready. He was hungry and tired and wanted to sleep and … Where should I go? Where’s the kitchen? He shouted and laughed: ‘What’s the matter with you?’ ‘I’m exhausted.’ My eyelashes fluttered and I raised my eyebrows like Haya usually did when she didn’t understand. He sat next to me and pulled me towards him. I shuddered, but Haya yielded, and giggled.

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The father ate, and his kids. Then the father went for his siesta. He warned me to keep the children’s racket down because he was tired and didn’t want his siesta disturbed. The children played their little games, then fell out over the video cassettes. They filled the house with their noise and chaos. I was trying to keep them quiet and grab a few minutes’ peace for myself. When the father rose from his slumber he asked for mint tea, then he grabbed his mobile and chatted for a long time before sneaking out of the house, afraid that the kids might see him and want to go along. At ten o’clock the kids fell off to sleep and I was left on my own. I tidied up the mess, got my clothes ready for tomorrow and watched a bit of telly while I waited for him. I yawned. The bedroom was inviting me, but the minute I got up I heard the key turn in the lock announcing his arrival. He asked for his supper, then sat in front of the television yawning. He yawned a lot, then fell asleep. I sat there staring into space. In the morning I saw Haya, and she saw me. We didn’t speak about details but we couldn’t stop laughing. The supervisor got really annoyed.

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Mirror Looking in the mirror used to hurt, like a knife, hard and sharp, but then, when the flower of my womanhood opened, I got used to handling the mirror with care, having realized that all I possessed of rosy qualities was a thorn protruding at the end of a stalk. They always thought I was the least beautiful flower, that’s why I’ve never been preoccupied with the colour and the number of petals. In fact I grew up touching the thorn and it never hurt me. I got to know the thorn quite well, and I found out how to look in the mirror every morning and draw the blade away from my face. The Bottom He held her hand and they jumped together but because he was heavier than her he reached the bottom before her, while she still floats through the air. Door I put my key in his heart but it didn’t open. I knocked three times but no one answered. I applied some oil to loosen it but it wouldn’t budge. I shook it, I kicked it, I screamed at the top of my voice: ‘Be open!’ It remained locked, unresponsive to every key I possessed. I turned away and was about to leave. Only then did I feel a draft of air behind me. When I looked round I saw it was ajar and another woman was stepping inside.

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Abaya Tapestries embroidered with red roses and green stems adorned the walls of the room. The bed, which rose just a few centimetres above the floor, was covered with a red velvet sheet. Two cushions embroidered in red roses and green stems and hemmed with small white tassels were placed upon it. In the corner the door alone was black. On the edge of the bed sat a girl in a new abaya, her knees hugged into her chest. Around her were three women, one to her right, one to her left and one on the floor in front of her who was attempting to reassure the terrified girl. In the sandy courtyard outside the house where the women were gathered, the sound of gunshots approaching stirred a primitive joy in their hearts and they surged towards the large gate. On the dance floor two women were dancing with joined hands, the first had long wavy hair and as she dance and turned her neck the hair twisted and twirled through the air diffusing the scent of henna over the guests. The other held her hands in the air and was just shaking her body. A circle formed around them, clapping and singing a Bedouin song, as the sound of gunshots drew nearer. Up on the roof two young men were kneeling behind the wall watching in fascination, observing the dance floor through holes in the white stone, while downstairs, with every gunshot that rang out, the girl hugged her knees more tightly to her chest in fearful anticipation. The large gate into the yard was opened and a group of men made their way inside. In their midst was a middle-aged man holding the edge of his brown cloak with one hand and arranging his head cloth with the other. The dancing showed no sign of abating, and in fact grew more intense as the men entered the dance floor to a burst of gunfire. Palm met palm in a frenzy of clapping and the firing of rifles grew ever louder. And with every burst she heard, the girl cowering on the edge of the bed shrank deeper within herself. The men jostled him towards the room in the corner of the house. Up on the roof the two youths continued to observe the scene below while a pigeon, having circled a couple of times in the sky, alighted on a wooden coop just above their heads. The gunshots reached a crescendo and the girl hugged her knees more tightly. The pigeon circled in the distance and the two youths stood up and looked across the courtyard. The man entered the room and the gunfire ceased.

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The pigeon landed on top of its house and the two youths come down off the roof. The man reached the middle of the room. The women dispersed save for one; the girl was clinging to her abaya. ‘You must make sure you are kind to her. She is young and doesn’t know anything.’ The girl gripped the edge of the woman’s abaya more tenaciously. All that stood between her and the man was the abaya. The woman pulled at the abaya, managed to prise the girl’s fingers off it and departed. The door slammed shut, the light went off, and the din in the courtyard and the shots fired into the air faded away. She cowered in the corner, just her and the new abaya. Translated by Anthony Calderbank

Mansour Al-Ateeq He was born in 1982 in Riyadh. He has published two collections of short stories and received the Al-Sharjah Award for his first book, The Latest Bad News. He contributes to the cultural pages of local and Arab newspapers.

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Is there anything called sand? Before she died, my grandmother told me that we came from sand. We sprang up here with the sun and the heat one day around noon long ago. Meanwhile, some of our brothers were one night changed into foul smelling pools of oil, through loneliness and the winter cold. Our brothers realized that they were annoying us with their smell and sticky touch, so they sank further and further into the ground, while we became more and more lonely. My grandmother said that we came from sand, while women came from clouds. They fell as rain on the sand we had come from, cultivated us, and made us grow. Another group of them fell as heavy rain that sank deep down towards our brothers. In the distant depths, time passed quickly, but with us it passed with an overwhelming slowness, trying our patience. We had all the time in the world to count the grains of sand we had come from, then count them again to be sure. Then we began to miss our brothers who had been turned into oil by the winter, and they began to miss us as well. Here and there they exploded. We could see the flames as they burned, overjoyed to escape. In the distant folds of the earth they were as lonely as we were. They blazed with a desire to come out, and time passed slowly for them too. As the time slowly passed, we realized that we were not alone. We were visited by thin men who always smiled. They said that they had come from the sea, and that the sea was following them, without our seeing it (we had come from the sand, so we would not drown!). Swarthy old men arrived who said that they had come from the rocks, then tall men from the sun, with bright golden hair like the sun. They said that they would bring out for us our oily brothers, who had sunk down a long, long way. They brought their equipment, and as the sun-men were working a lot of clouds went by. We heard a loud clatter from their tools as they worked wisely and silently like their mother, the sun. A metal cable was sunk deep to bring out our faraway brothers. They poured out one after another, powerful as the sea from which the thin men had come. We felt happy with our feet planted in the sticky oil, and when the sunmen had finished their work they smiled and raised their hats. We felt sad as well, for we imagined that we were planting our feet in our blood, and we felt sorry for the state of our blood if it looked and smelled like that. We all believed that we were sand-men, who had come from the sand, and to sand would return. My grandmother said to me that I myself came

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from the shifting sand – from people who were doubtful until the last moment whether to grow or to sink into the precious, foul-smelling oil. The more the price of oil rises, the more I regret it and wish I had put off my decision for a little. But whenever I see factory smoke, the pollution statistics, and the periodic invitations to energy conferences, I see that it is not so bad to come from sand and be turned into dust with time. 2 I am called ‘Gharib’, the strange one. I don’t need to mention my name because most people guess it correctly – people who meet me by chance in the street, at work, or at the energy conferences I have taken part in. They are always saying ‘You are strange’, or ‘Something about you is strange’, or ‘You seem strange’. They also say, ‘Why do you always walk with your head down? Can you smell the smell of dust like us? Where has it come from?’ And I always smile and content myself with smiling. In Stockholm, where I now live, and where I took part in my last energy conference, I said: ‘Hello, I’m Gharib from Saudi.’ (I had used to say: ‘Gharib from sand and oil’.) As soon as I had introduced myself I discovered that the conference was unbearably crowded. Some of the delegates let my name wash over them and didn’t want to hear it; some of them had never heard of Saudi; and some of them had never in their lives seen sand of the type that I had come from. At the conference I also said: ‘It would be better for us to get to each other more. The world is greedy for the energy we are meeting about. If the world exhausts the energy completely, we will look at each other as strangers, perhaps as enemies. Let each one of you say where he has come from. I have come from the sand, and you? From the sun? From rocks? From stones? You, sir, the tall and elegant one, have you come from the trees? And you? From the sand as well! Like me! And you? You must have come from the ice. The ice at the frozen poles. Welcome! My grandmother says that we are equal because we have all come from something, and these things must have come from one single thing. We are equal, as you can see. Let each one of you say where he comes from. In my country there are men who said that they came from worms – worms that reproduce by division, so they spend their whole lives splitting and creating differences.’ I really was strange, for some of the participants in the conference said frankly that they could not see me. ‘We heard your voice, but do you really exist?’ Someone (a sand-man like me with a black suit) said frankly that he hated me. When I displayed my name badge in a prominent place on my suit I felt an increasing feeling of alienation. My photo on the badge was

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staring at me and laughing in a nervous and embarrassed way. Suddenly the photo asked me: ‘You look strange. Do you really exist?’ I really was strange. The black colour of my jacket had changed into a dusty colour that suited me well. I went out. From the window I could see clouds piling up – strange clouds that had never seen me before. In front of the window, the journalists outside were waiting for a statement, while inside, the conference was frantically concluding its proceedings. Should I go out and repeat to the journalists: ‘Everyone tell me where he has come from!’ No one would take any notice. Inside, my dusty suit would pass among them without anyone being able to see my face. The clouds were massing ominously. It began to pour with rain. If there had been golden rain in Stockholm, the rain would have been gentle and brothers would have sprung up from the sand to smile at me, while others would have sunk deep, to become foul-smelling oil that no one could mistake in the Stockholm winter.

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The house We sleep when the sun disappears behind the house – the horrid, crumbling old house on the outskirts of the city. We sleep, and abandon our trivial, worthless talk of the house, and the old question of whether the house came after the city, or whether our city sprang from the house’s deep roots in our desert soil that no one loves. Just as cities usually spring up on river banks or in oases. That is how our day ends. The house is the last thing we see in the evening, and the first thing we see in the morning, when the sun rises in the opposite direction, to shine on its dull windows and on the metal sign written in cheap paint: ‘For sale or rent’. The fact that this sign has been there so long reminds us that our city does not attract anyone, though despite that, no one ever leaves it. I say, ‘We sleep when the sun disappears behind the house’, because we didn’t sleep that day when, instead of plunging into the roof of the house that opened to the heavens like an ancient prayer, the sun remained suspended above the house. Our prayers and pleas to the sun to come down were to no avail. Our eyes turned red from lack of sleep, and our children’s frequent crying. ‘Let’s call the police!’ we said. They came quickly, demanded the house’s surrender as if they had known it for a long time, then fired a hail of bullets that made gaping holes in its body and windows. Then they brought out corpses that were photographed by Al Arabiya TV, which displayed them with a photo of the fat officer who had been talking to the house the whole time. Al Arabiya continued to discuss the house for days after the incident, saying that it was a ‘nest’ and naming the ‘terrorists’ who stayed there, arriving after we ourselves had gone to sleep. No one ever discussed the sun, though. The sun had found itself another home after its old house had been destroyed by the government. After that we continued to sleep peacefully. We had had enough of discussing old crumbling houses available for rent, and the old question of whether they had come after our city or whether our city had sprung from the houses’ deep roots in … etc.

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The man deceived by doors The doors are deceiving me, doctor, they are playing stupid, insufferable tricks on me. I open the door to my office and go into a public bath or a bowling club. I open the door to my house and go into a factory or mosque or a humble apartment. Doors no longer lead anywhere except to more confusion and blind alleys. Even the door to your surgery, doctor, is now just an innocent door to the house of a friend. But now that I’ve found myself in front of you, it’s best that I tell you everything now. As you can see, there might not be another opportunity! It started yesterday. I told myself that if I went into the ladies’ toilet, it would involve nothing more than an apology and an exit. I told myself that the woman adjusting her make-up in front of the mirror would realize that I must have made a mistake and would just smile. Then we would become friends. I might invite her to supper the same evening. I know that arranging it like that would involve an outrageous coincidence, but coincidences happen a lot in films. I told myself once that that sort of coincidence might well happen to me one day. But it seems that none of the film scripts will happen to me ever. As you will subsequently find out, doctor. What did happen to me was that that the toilet door was deceptive. I went in and didn’t find a young lady adjusting her make-up in front of the mirror. I found myself in the men’s toilets – a familiar place but not the one I wanted. The mirrors were laughing in a gloating way and the cleaner was wandering around singing. A man came in behind me, apparently not deceived by the door. At least, he didn’t stop in confusion as I had done. He went straight for the first toilet whistling a naughty song. I felt extremely angry with him as I realized that I had fallen into the trap alone, and that I had simply gone into the men’s toilet, where no one would be expecting me, and where I would have to sing and whistle and pretend to forget the door’s deception. Life is doors, doctor, a long succession of doors, a maze. If the first door deceives you, your life will end in an unending whirlpool of treachery. If you go through the wrong door at the start of your life, I can tell you that from now on the rest of your life will be meaningless. If you have the wrong name, for example – a name that you ought not to have – I would feel sorry for you, for the only door that you had no right to choose would have been badly chosen for you. It would be like gatecrashing a party that you had not been invited to at the very beginning of your life. It would

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make the guests stop and look at you in surprise, wondering what had brought you, and what you wanted. Things would be worse if you fell in love with the wrong woman, and even worse if you were to marry her! This wouldn’t just mean that you had stolen a door that belonged to another man; it would also always imply that the man you robbed would be forced to steal a door that didn’t belong to him. So the doors would become muddled, and at the end of your life, when you sat down alone to complain to yourself of your arthritis and cholesterol and bad back, you would find out what chaos you had caused. To return to my own case, the situation got worse; indeed, it became absolutely dreadful. I opened my office door in the morning and found myself going into Rahma’s house. (Rahma is my mother-in-law’s name, though I’ve only begun to call her Rahma since we were divorced.) I didn’t greet her, but as soon as I’d started talking about deceptive doors she said hello to me and said that she knew me as an intelligent man and that she wouldn’t leave any opportunities for the devil or for kids’ games. I was taken completely by surprise, doctor! I had consented to a divorce because I believed that my marriage had been just another deceptive door. Rahma didn’t give me a chance. She welcomed me, spoke to me effusively and offered me coffee and homemade sweets. She called my former wife and said: ‘He’s come to make it up with you!’ She didn’t give my wife a chance either. She arrived fully made up with her lipstick on and offered her juice herself. As you can see, everything is completely out of my hands! In the evening, little by little I started to get a grip on the problem. People form temporary friendships with their doors. They fix their precious pictures on them, together with the letters of their girlfriends’ names, some mementoes and their coats. Civilized people and believers love their doors. They change their clothes in security behind them, and lean against them when they cry. People who make a great clamour as they pass through them, then slam them behind them (like you, doctor, and like Rahma) are fools who will doubtless be punished by God with the door of Hell! My problem is that I realized all this too late. I had already started to form personal friendships with the doors. I would knock on them several times and they would feel important and weighty. I would open them gently to be sure. Finally things began to succeed. I began to reach my true direction. And if something happened to make a door deceive me, I would punish it and not go back to it again. And so the waters began to return to their proper channels. I’m in front of you now, doctor, to confirm everything. I read on your door: ‘Doctor So-and-So: Psychiatrist’. I knocked on the door gently,

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opened it quietly and came in. I did everything as you can see. I said all I had to say in one go. If you ask me to sit down and ask me the usual stupid questions, this will mean that things are on track, that I really have entered a psychiatrist’s consulting room and that doors have given me their trust again. But, doctor, if by some miracle you change into a general manager, or a dyer or even a head of state – even Rahma – that would mean other things. This would mean that the doors are taking revenge on me and persecuting me and that perhaps I opened a door that did not belong to me some time ago. Perhaps it is my wife, my job, the place where I spent my last boring holiday, my specialism at university, the type of my car, my favourite newspaper or even my name. It’s not the fault of the doors. It’s me that opened the wrong door. It might have been when I was a child, it might have been yesterday. I make mistakes all the time now. Everything seems like a maze or false doors. But I can now confess: the doors bear no responsibility for what happens. They are just punishing me as is natural. Loneliness deceives me, boredom deceives me, the young girl adjusting her make-up in the ladies’ toilets deceives me, but the doors do not deceive me. Just as he does every morning, the man sitting behind the desk will ask the man deceived by doors to sit down. He will pick up the telephone receiver and abruptly say ‘Come here!’ The security men will come in to lead away the man deceived by doors. And behind them the secretary will come in, apologetically: ‘Sorry, sir. He came in quickly and I didn’t see him!’ The manager is very kind. Each morning he listens happily and understandingly to everything the man deceived by doors says. Every morning he summons the familiar security man and forgives the secretary for his inefficiency. Every morning a report comes to him from the medical committee about the man deceived by doors. ‘Schizophrenia: temporary loss of memory’. Despite that he doesn’t issue an order to dismiss him for medical incapacity, for he already knows that the problem will repeat itself, and that someone else will grab his desk the following morning shouting: ‘Doctor, the doors are deceiving me!’ Translated by Paul Starkey

Mohammad Al-Beshayer He was born in 1975 in Al-Ahsa, in the east of the kingdom. He writes stories and film scripts. His first short-story collection, Fragrance of the Window, was published in 2009.

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The cacophony of the grave To the wretched companions of Sherhazad who did not have luck on their side

She was leafing through her newspaper; the smell of the pages still impacted on her so strongly as she inhaled it along with the sweat of the mint leaves swimming greenly in the red of her morning tea. There was also still an air of the child messing about in the way the tips of her fingers got stained with newspaper ink. She put her hair up into a bun, fastening it with a black clip. She cleaned her glasses on the edge of her pink shirt and turned the pages of the newspaper covering half her body. She was yearning to see the letters, and to love them – there was a longing that pursued her, a desire that consumed her, for the day when she would read her name on one of the pages of the newspaper. She craved the sight of the letters of her name forming a seal, stamped and on display for all to see. Mariam bint Al … Oh, that name of her father’s, persecuting her as his family did. Months ago, on her computer, she had leapt over the walls and overcome the barriers: she had openly used her name, signing her writing with it. Word had reached her family, and they had got wind of her dubious relationship, sensing it from the submissive responses she gave her fans. Her windows were closed. Her dream was shattered by ‘aib, that allpowerful concept of shame and disgrace. The flock of apparitions that used to flicker around her every morning were shooed away at noon with the return of her father, his beard coming under renewed attack from white growth, with traces of henna still visible only at its tips. Thank God this newspaper was still delivered every morning, to her brother. She had beaten him to it, and she turned the still-hot pages. She remembered how her father used to bring freshly baked bread home wrapped in a single sheet of newspaper. They would eat the bread, as she slowly munched her way through the words she could spell out to herself. She was woken from her reverie by her maid calling, ‘Mariam, Mariam, newspaper!’ A bundle of newspaper sheets on the table, no longer afflicted by their initial whiteness. That same whiteness that had crept into her light hair – as white as her blank answer sheet had been in school that day. She had struggled to write a single word, with no help from her dying pen, not

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daring to tell her teacher that her pen had run out. But all those other bright blanks paled into insignificance compared with the untarnished whiteness of her sanitary towel for more than a month. A tide of black grief swept over the newspaper pages and made them grimy. Gaza’s hellfire; the magma of death; turmoil and confusion; the earth, no longer big enough for all its children, pushed them out to sea, to drown in their boats. An international investigation was launched into the assassination of Benazir Bhutto; an Israeli minister threatens to assassinate Ismail Haniyeh – she was hooked on these stories. An item in the local news pages jarred her: ‘new grave dug among “the greats” causes controversy’ – where had she read that story before? It appeared before her as clearly as if she was replaying a film by remote control – she kept fast-forwarding it, pausing it and then carrying on again. Whiteness: her womb had not adorned her sanitary towel with even a single red tear drop. She had always hated her womb’s red tears but now she was begging it for them, pleading with it, beseeching. She was wearing herself out physically and mentally, praying for a single drop of blood. Her third month, and still no red dawn to welcome in her night and carry her to the next. A loneliness haunted her: she got to the point of there being no light in her room. A loneliness like the one that shrouded her when she walked along next to the Thaqba cemetery, which had thrown off its walls, as if to show passers-by its ugliness, its faded dusty wooden signs, saturated with the drink of death’s cup, and the remains of water bottles on which the blazing sun took no mercy. The fifth of February, and the sky still offered no water. The earth was dry: her period was due on the fifth of February, but there was not a drop to herald its arrival. She felt that her mother had sensed something, so she told her. ‘Mum …’ Her mouth went dry and her tongue tripped over itself, but she forced it, trying again: ‘Two months and it hasn’t come yet.’ Who, Mariam? That childlike face, those naive eyes, and those naughty hands. Her mother slapped her hands to her face in distress, and tore at her clothes. The sound of her buttons scattering on the polished floor was drowned out by her screams. In the evening Mariam didn’t feel anything at all. A sack big enough to contain the little foetus, wrapped in a white cloth, with only sacking threads as swaddling, scratching at the soft skin. Red tears flowing. She

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sat sipping her tea, pushing the floating mint leaves under the surface with her finger, as they breathed their last breath. With one last gentle and thorough glance of farewell, she read the last news story about her hometown, without her glasses.

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Black as a moon She wound the left rear window of her car right down. She sat restlessly surveying her usual daily view, thoughts roaming around in her head. She wondered what would become of her on this path traced for her by destiny, and about her position on the map she had drawn with her own two hands, but that she could find no spot for herself on. She looked over at the exercise books in the bag beside her, and smiled. Nothing delighted her like the scent of her female pupils when they hugged her, to feel her femininity. ‘How cruel of my father to have named me Nafla – to this day I still don’t know what it means. All my friends could guess was that I was a surplus. My linguist friend told me that it was the name of a plant, a type of legume that was something like a cucumber – and what could be worse than that! But my father says that I was born on the fourth day of the lunar month, when the moon was still very dark, and that’s why he called me Nafla, because my black complexion reminded him of the dark night. A sigh almost singed the niqab over her mouth. She looked at the dry skin on her hand and at the trim of her abaya, noticing how it gleamed. She turned to her bag again, took out her moisturising cream, and rubbed it onto the back of her hand. Her hand shone almost as much as the abaya did. Even her name was derived from nights when the moon shied away and disappeared from view. She went back to the exercise books and looked at her students’ hand-drawn maps of the Arab world, as a map of black Africa crouched in her head. ‘How miserable black is! Even among the continents of the world, it ranks last.’ The firebrand burning inside her turned black, and with its soot she drew a charcoal picture using some verses from ‘Voice of Blood’ by the Angolan poet Antonio Agustinho Neto: I accompany you When Africa meets itself On the way I feel you all All you black people the world over And I live your pains Oh my brothers

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She opened her eyes again and saw the exercise book in front of her, with the map of the Arabian peninsula. She saw Antara25 mounting his horse, dust rising from under his feet. She wished she could welcome him in her home, clean the dust from his marble feet, and soak them in tepid water. Then she would enjoy caressing them, kissing them, and smelling the ambergris scent they gave off. But then Antara would kick her with his feet – even this black man prefers the white woman, Abla. ‘Oh God help us black women!’ Unusually for her, she turned to one side and looked out of the car window, and saw a man staring at her and gesturing. ‘Oh poor thing, he’s been dazzled by my abaya and hasn’t seen the colour of the only bit of my skin that is uncovered by my veil – the section between my eyes.’ She wound up the window and lowered her head, to see his face traced on one of her student’s exercise books. A white face decorated by a moustache and a trace of beautiful jet-black stubble, dark eyes, the whites as bright as cotton. ‘Nothing’s more beautiful than black surrounded by white!’ She raised her head. He must be crazy: he gestured more, and followed her car. She looked at her arm and saw the silver watch studded with diamonds, noticing their beauty as if for the first time, standing out against the black of her arm. ‘Oh the iniquity of whiteness when it encroaches on the black continent for the sake of its diamonds and leaves it in the pitchblack night. Why doesn’t it see anything other than the diamonds?’ She dropped her head towards her copious bosom; and why doesn’t it see anything other than the young black body with its full bosom, little waist and rounded bottom? She looked at herself in the mirror of her leopardskin bag, admiring the whites of her eyes. She had never seen her eyes look so beautiful before. She suddenly realized that white was at its most beautiful when it was framed by black. The moon would not be synonymous with beauty if it did not appear in a black background. Nobody ever described the sun as beautiful, even though it shone. Were these two eyes what had stolen that man’s heart? Poor Ka’b bin Zuhay! Was his beloved a black woman? I’ve read classical love poetry praising black women. Is there any modern love poetry about black women? She turned and stared into his eyes. What beautiful eyes he had – with long black lashes, and the black frames of his glasses ringing the beauty of his eyes. How beautiful black is when surrounded by white! If only she could take his glasses off to see his eyes and surround him with her body and sprinkle her kohl on his eyes, and cover his whiteness with a black abaya. 25. Antra was a black knight and a famous pre-Islamic poet from Arabia.

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She roused herself from her delirious reverie and decided to open her window, but she retracted her hand from the window control button. Even if he fell madly in love with her, would his family accept him marrying her? Or would a lover do the impossible for the sake of his truelove’s eyes? Is he like the poet Nizar Qabbanis, boasting of how many flags they have stuck in the different-coloured breasts of the women they have had sex with? No, because his face shone with honesty and kindness. Should I introduce myself to him or wait? Nafla, how beautiful my name is and the scent that emanates from between the yellow flowers of its letters. His lips closed, mouthing the letter ‘m’ – could it be that he is calling me his moon? Yes, because the moon itself is dark, it only shines with reflected sunlight – and he is my sun. She decided that she would open the window after all. She lowered it, like a cloud clearing to reveal a black pearl. Her admirer smiled at her, and her snow-white teeth shone through her face veil. He pointed down to where a piece of her black silk abaya was flapping, caught in her car door, torn to shreds by the cruelty of the black asphalt.

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An overcrowded vacuum He called the waiter with a click of his fingers. He felt people’s heads turning towards him. Shyly, he gestured to the Filipino waiter to lean down to him so he could hide his embarrassment by whispering in his ear. Had he clicked his fingers very loudly? He gripped his fingers together tightly as if to test whether this was true. He felt the same on their faces, and hid his hand. He looked at his hand, and like someone caressing a little child, he began alternately interlacing his fingers and putting his hand under his chin. The few minutes he was waiting passed slowly, and the sound of the coffee machine’s steam jet enchanted him, mixing with the music pouring out into the café from nowhere. He closed his eyes and pursed his lips, as a craving played with them. He realized a sound was coming from his mouth when he opened his eyes to the sight of a crowd of eyes staring at his lips. He resolved to resist the raging war of waiting by keeping his lower lip apart from its sister. He drew his fingers across the table one after the other. His middle finger and its sister began tapping on the table. Glances were turned towards him. He realized that the sound of his fingers on the table was drawing their attention. He put the brakes on his running fingers. He raised his hand to his face, and fixed his gaze on it. He whispered to it: ‘When will you stop messing about?’ and waited in vain for its answer. He remembered getting sent out of class by the teacher in year six of school, after he’d been caned with a heavy rod. His hand had been messing about under the table as the teacher was writing the date on the green board in clear letters that were easy to read for eyes other than his own, astigmatic as they were. 28/7/1414 of the Islamic hijri calendar – the teacher turned around at the sound of muffled laughter, and in a voice which was as harsh as his rod, said: ‘Get out Ma’youf, you dog.’ 2 He returned to the table in front of him as he lost himself in his memories, wandering aimlessly about in the playground of the Palestine High School in the city of Al-’Amal one burning hot noon. The heat took no mercy on his curly-haired head hiding behind a red head cloth; the complete absence of moisture in the air made his streaming sweat dry into patterns, drawing maps of places he didn’t know on his thobe. He didn’t know how

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it was that he could travel back and forth in his memory, only to find that remnants of the folds of his elastic memory were making a stopover in the glass that his hand was holding firmly – as if to inform whoever came after him that they had been there. He picked up the paper bag that hid the brown sugar lumps inside itself. He opened it and spread them out on the table. His fingers picked them up one by one and moved quickly between the table and his mouth, which chomped them up. There was not a single sugar lump left on the table. After the last one went in, his finger stayed in his mouth – and he immediately looked at the faces of the people around him, all staring at his fingers. He stood up, looking at the door of the café, facing towards a glass door which was so steamed up that he couldn’t see what was on the other side of it. The waiter walked calmly over, with his hair which had brushed against Ma’youf’s ear when he had lent down to whisper into Ma’youf’s ear. Ma’youf’s hand, without him wanting it to, wandered to touch the curls on his head under the red cap he was wearing. He called out to him in his accent, carrying the cup of cappuccino and chocolate cake he had ordered, ‘Brother … brother …’ His voice was hesitant, trapped in the emptiness of the café; and the sound of the door slamming trapped the wisp of smoke from the café inside it.

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Fragrance He gently turned the door handle, and pushed the door even more carefully, so that the noise of the hinges – like two birds trapped inside it – would not expose him. He wandered about, snooping, but he only saw her old abaya hanging on the hook, giving off the scent of old. He started to call out to her: ‘My love? My love … my love?’ No one answered. He sat on one of the chairs in the corner of the sitting room and started turning the pages of a magazine she had been flicking through, tracing the lines of the scented cream that had been printed there by her fingers. He kissed them and brought his nose up close to them, took a deep breath that filled his lungs and intoxicated him and made him soar like an angel. Their hands clasped each other in the heavens and they clung to each other, embracing. He remembered how she used to welcome him with a kiss that wiped away the memory of the gruelling day. The smell of cooking wafted out of the kitchen, drawing him towards it, and in a gentle voice she said: ‘Take your clothes off first.’ ‘I can’t – the smell has captivated me.’ They sat down facing each other and she stretched out her hand to him with a piece of meat. He bit into it and nibbled on her finger. ‘Your finger is tastier than the meat.’ ‘Your teeth are too gentle to bite it.’ The telephone rang, waking him up. He lifted the handle: a few moments of static on the line. ‘Have you eaten?’ He looked at the table in front of him; biscuit crumbs and half a glass of water. ‘Does food taste of anything without your palms’ spices?’ Silence blocked the phone’s mouth; the chattering of longing deafened solitude’s ear. Nothing of speech remained but the saliva that covered the receiver, because he could not control the rudder of kisses. Her hanging abaya beckoned him, then embraced him like a child in its folds. A few moments of lulling and he surrendered between its hands.

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Galileo The executioner raised his iron rod up high and then brought it down on a nail in the middle of his hand, ripping into the flesh and smashing into the bones. Blood spouted into the executioner’s face, and he spat on him. More nails followed, driving into his hands and feet until he was fixed to the cross. He was held up high, so that he might fear God and come back to his senses. The swearing and cursing din of the crowd grew louder. Silence closed some lips, and there were traces of tears repressed by fear in some eyes. Two monks from the crowd whispered to each other: ‘The earth turns?’ ‘Nonsense! I have walked on it for years and years and I haven’t felt it turning.’ ‘Jesus Christ said, “Make no oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is the footstool of His feet.” How could God’s footstool be turning? God forgive such blasphemy!’ He did not repent of his blasphemy. They stripped him of his clothes and divided them up amongst them, they drew lots for his shirt. Dogs bit his body, and his blood gushed from nine in the morning until the evening time, when it formed a clotted stain on the ground as black as his blasphemy. The night’s darkness closed the church doors. The monks drank deep from the wine barrel, toasting the suppression of blasphemy. The wine made their heads heavy, and they fell into a deep sleep. The sound of their snoring was so loud that it shook the windows open; and there above them was the round full moon, turning in the sky. Translated by Alice Guthrie

Mohammad Al-Nujaimi He was born in 1970 in Al-Taif and obtained a master’s degree in education from the University of East Anglia. He works as an educational supervisor in the Education Department in Taif city. He has published four collections of short stories including Dreams Haunted by Death and Before He Goes up to Hell.

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The first step to forgiveness A piece of dark rock lying at the bottom of a crumbling wall was all he needed to restore his faith in life. He jumped up and down and started singing, the words flowing with singular sweetness from his lips to slap the ears of all people around: A dark-skinned woman, born of a dark-skinned bondmaid, Who used to sell her body and cared not what price’s paid. He kept circling the room and the stone in his hand, singing on and repeating the bawdy verses over and over again: The first time my master had me, and has me still when he has the wish, And that privilege’s rites and ceremony I learn from him to ­accomplish. He was so far off, so totally distracted he didn’t even see us. He held that piece of rock in his hands and kept reiterating the whole gamut of sensational verses, oblivious to all of us: Every time we two are together, In midnight darkness clad, We worship and we have each other In amorous love baptized. Yes, the dark-skinned woman; me, Of a dark-skinned bondmaid nee: I abide by no law; I know no sins, I sell myself for no recompense To my master, friends and kin. To me all that’s devoid of sense So long ’tis I who as a slave live, Birth to my own masters give. Suddenly he stopped and looked at us, his face almost beaming. Then he asked: ‘This is a woman who loves what she does. She’s faithful to her master. She makes herself happy for him, derives her happiness from him even. She lives the rest of her day on the time he spares her from his day. Isn’t she a self-denying lover? A true worshipper? I’m almost confident no one has power over her.’

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– Have we come all this way with you, dug all this earth to have you sing this load of unspeakable ugliness? Utter such foul blasphemy? The harsh words of this black man, with his rough voice and grim face that doesn’t know smiling, eventually brought silence to bear. The doctor turned his face away and continued pondering the piece of rock in his hand. He never turned to us again, although Mahmud repeated his questions in an even harsher tone. When he was sure the doctor was no longer listening to him, he turned towards the camp and hit the road. The rest of us dispersed, each following in the footfalls of the other till we threw our exhausted bodies inside our tattered tents. 2 The sun was not up yet and all were fast asleep. Only he was outside brooding over the stone. I plucked up my courage and gave in to my curiosity. I sneaked outside the tent and headed towards him. It did attract my attention then that he didn’t notice me, despite the astonishing calm and quiet that dominate the valley when we excavate in the morning. But no, he didn’t notice me. – Can I join you, sir? The words came out stiff and formal. They sounded very remote even to me. – Come, Muhammad, come. He answered quietly, his face brimming with his bright smile. He said: – Do you remember my question last night? Do you think you have an answer to it? – I’m sorry, doctor, but I didn’t understand your question. The whole thing was rather confusing to me. He busied himself with looking at the stone. I kept contemplating this odd fascination with a piece of dark rock we found next to a crumbling wall. After a while I was bursting with curiosity again. The question persisted and so I murmured: – What was it you found in this rock that kept you up all night? – Man, Muhammad, man. – How is that? – Have you heard of a place called Jamaica? – I’ve read about it. – So you know where it is? – Far away from here, I suppose.

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He smiled then turned towards me and handed me the stone. I held it in my hands and he pointed with his hand to a small inscription in the middle. It looked odd. It was written in a strange language that vaguely looked like English, although I do not speak that language or know it well. – What brought the English to Tuhamah,26 Muhammad? This inscription here is not less than two centuries old. Do you understand what that means? – Baffling indeed. I have no answer to your question, doctor, but I think I’m beginning to understand you. Silence reigned again and it was interrupted only by the sun taking us by surprise, rising suddenly and driving out the remaining bits of night and drowsiness. Life began to return to the workers’ tents too. Their voices and the footsteps started to confirm the return of activity to the site, signally the decisive end of the night. – I think you have an answer to that. Aren’t you an archaeologist after all? The question blurted itself out despite my best efforts to hold it in check. The doctor heard me well. He looked at me intently before he answered: – There are no answers, Muhammad. Everything we have is just viewpoints. Guesswork mainly. It might stand its ground for a while but in the final analysis it is only speculation. – So what’s your viewpoint then? – I don’t know, but I’ll tell you a story I heard when I was studying in the States. 2 It seems the doctor has passed the banner to me. Sleep didn’t come anywhere near my tent last night. I didn’t look for it either. None of the usual lying in wait for sweet slumbers in one corner of the tent. The story I heard this morning made me even more confused. I don’t know why. His words might have roused a vague feeling in me, some old persistent urge to visit a dark chamber in my memory I haven’t really explored, haven’t really looked into in search of myself! – What’s wrong with you? Why haven’t you slept yet? – What woke you up? – I don’t know. – What’s wrong, tell me? What do you feel? Is there something bothering you? 26. The south-western parts of Saudi Arabia.

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– A story I heard this morning is still reverberating in my ears. – The doctor! – Ah! – You asked him about the stone, didn’t you? – How did you know? – I haven’t seen two black men so desperately looking for sorrow and misery like the pair of you. You’re adamant in wanting to dig up the past and bring the dead back from their graves. You stalk the remains of their souls in every crevice of rock and bone. – And what’s wrong with that? Those souls you speak of haven’t really left us. People didn’t let them rest in peace, wouldn’t let go of them. – Digging deep will bring you nothing but deeper wounds. You’ll find nothing but more darkness down there. And you’ve tried that before, I’m sure. Only the injured feel the pain of their wounds. They don’t have to go round finding evidence for others to believe them. – Mahmud went back to sleep and left me to lick my wounds and wonder about the rest of my night. 2 Dear Dr Jaber, I received your letter asking about the possibility of sending you a copy of the old study referring to a manuscript formerly lodged with the librarian, Mr J. P. Morton. I have looked for the book and can confirm it exists, although I cannot locate its present whereabouts. Maybe it is lost for all I know. The title of the book anyway is The Customs of the West Indian People. I have also found some information about the story you were interested in and said the book contains its details. A friend at college told me about it. He heard it in a lecture given by Dr Walter Jekyll. The gist is as follows: In 1882, a group of Jamaican slaves managed to take over a ship and held its crew as captives. It left Jamaica in stormy weather. All attempts made by the authorities to track down the ship failed and many thought it didn’t make it through the storm. A year on, however, some passengers onboard the ship returned with details about the rest of the story. The ship landed in Morocco where the mutineer slaves were recaptured. They lost the battle against their new masters. Those who remained alive were taken captive and enslaved again. But the story does not end here. Apparently, as members of the crew said, some of them were shipped over with the convoy of the Moroccan hajj

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pilgrims and were given as a present to the then governor of Makkah. I hope this information is of some use to you. Best wishes. 2 I turned to him, having read the letter. The same smile was still painted on his face, but his eyes showed more surety and tranquillity this time. – Can you complete the story or should I finish it for you? – I could guess. – The caravan didn’t reach Makkah. It was ambushed on the way and only those worth something were kept alive. Slaves were a lucrative business, you know, and so they had new masters in Tuhamah. – How did you know that? – An old tale my grandfather used to tell me. I thought it had a great deal of imagination and plenty of stacked up and crushed dreams. – What about? – He told me of an old grandmama with blue eyes. She used to sing in a strange language, and she had so many sons she didn’t know their fathers. But she was a very happy person and she never stopped singing. None of her sons could understand her language, and when they asked her she tried to explain in her own language. The problem was they couldn’t understand the secret of their mother’s happiness or her passion for ­singing. I interrupted him at this point of the narrative: – Now I understand. She wrote her song for them on that stone, didn’t she? – Before she died, yes. She took out a dark piece of rock she had with the strange inscriptions written on it. She gave it to them and told them to keep it. Apparently she tried to convey her message to them in signs, or this at least was what they understood then. – And what happened? – The masters took that piece of rock for an evil omen. They never liked the colour black anyway. And they’ve always feared that dark woman with blue eyes, singing on in a sweet voice and in sad melodies songs they could never understand. They stole from the little slaves their heritage and buried it away. Again I interrupted, yelling this time: – They never thought that someday some of her children and grandchildren will retrieve it, that they will find their treasure, that they will understand the message.

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– And that they will sing too, Muhammad. And together we burst out singing: Every time we two are together, In midnight darkness clad, We worship and we have each other In amorous love baptized. Yes, the dark-skinned woman; me, Of a dark-skinned bondmaid nee: I abide by no law; I know no sins, I sell myself for no recompense To my master, friends and kin. To me all that’s devoid of sense So long ’tis I who as a slave live, Life to my own masters give.

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Before he goes up to hell That man about to cross over, guided by some light his eyes still diffuse, is one step away from the door. Soon he will face that drawn veil and he doesn’t know either way whether he is one of the privileged insiders or one of the alien outsiders. Maybe estranged from both worlds, as he used to mumble in his troubled hours. His old, confusing question will be with him even as he goes through the experience – that experience he has been dreaming of encountering ever since the first line of ink he scribbled on paper. Delightful indeed to record for the mere mortals the good life of an immortal who wished to cross over, accompanied by what is left of a voice and the darkness of some questions he kept asking without ever searching for enlightenment. I vowed to take care of him till his last breaths and escort him beyond the door … or, not to put words into his mouth and doctor his revelations, till they take him back inside. And I’ll try to keep my vow to the best of my ability, till boredom beats me in the end. For a vow after all is a value that cannot escape the hammer of handling things as possibilities. Tonight I’m overwhelmed with the urge to divulge things. I had left his body laid out after she wrenched me away from it, and I suppose nothing will absolve me of my sins except the fumbling for a language, except finding words to scatter around and purge him of me. What I like most about his words is all that talking about hell. For hell is not a hole, not a bottomless pit where the remains of broken bodies are gathered. Hell is a paradise difficult to ascend, and you go up to it in stages, having suffered the necessary toil whose reward is estrangement. As he used to paint on his forefront, only the elect few deserve purgation. Their prize is a huge fire that frees them from the shackles of the body, a prize that befits only a saint, and what a saint he was! To him, the first condition of sainthood is the question. Without the right question the mind turns into a machine … just a miserable machine fitted into the skull of a torso that drives him on and revives his lusts and delusions and greed. His voice still echoes within me: – He who is no good at questioning does not deserve the ascension. For three months he had tried hard to couple his answers with a ‘yes’. His father said: – Try chemotherapy. Yes, his answer was always ready. His mother insisted:

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– Continue chemotherapy. Yes … yes … yes. He never for once imagined this yes could be so bitter and unpalatable. His old new dream was to cross over … and this yes was getting in the way. Still, he convinced himself it is part of the toil and the suffering he had to put up with. The more he tried to appease them with this yes the higher his grade and the closer to redemption he drew. Tonight, however, his lips let him down. The letters vanished from them and he remained alone. Only a nod is left from which they understood he’d not say their beloved yes anymore. Tonight ‘no’ was born in spite of everybody. Tonight existence itself tried to appease him and they ran out of hope. – To advance to the sweet beat that consumes your heart away, to conjure up all the voices that made up your visions, and to sing along to that sweet beat, is a gift indeed. It is a gift gained only by the privileged initiate. That’s how he explained his feelings to me. He confessed that these feelings were what he wanted out of his quest, out of his hectic search for the unknown. And for sure he had his options, one of which was his favourite dream. He lived dreaming that one day he’d turn into a pure, captivating, transparent ray of light. None of our little, petty things would cling to it. This image of his soul was the salvation he expected to gain by ascending to hell. Nothing hindered him except that body which kept waning … wilting, withering and wasting away … His ‘no’ turned into a window from which he’d sneak out and upwards; this ‘no’ became both the curse of the loathsome body and the gift of the soul. With quick footsteps he kept racing with the night. He kept standing and falling, walking and freezing dead till the shadow caught up with him and he ran out of footsteps. His fate was to stand mesmerized before the exit door, the gateway to salvation. His dream of ascending to hell stopped right there. There … at the farthest frontiers of vision I curled like a foetus smothered with its umbilical cord. Here … at the nearest boundaries of sense the shadow took shape for the first time in the presence of silence. Emptiness squatted in the shape of a black raven occupying all the distance separating the ‘there’ from the ‘here’. She said: S…a…v…e…meeee. She kept pouring her letters in the shape of interrupted, intermittent sounds. Not one of them managed to escape the fist of emptiness … that emptiness squatting along the distance

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between the ‘she’ and the ‘he’. You, you, she screamed. She never despaired of throwing parts of herself out in the shape of shrill and hoarse screams. And she kept screaming: You … you … y…ou. He couldn’t see but a being in the shape of a foetus smothered with its umbilical cord. He remained silent and his shadow kept growing and expanding till it drowned the voices seeking to reach him … drowned before he realized their hectic clamour to reach him … before he noticed the existence of emptiness … before he realized the distance that swallowed the voice, the image and the dream.

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Never rogered by a stud 1 Friends told me: The sacrifice should be a female; she should be lean and tender; she should taste different; and do find us a young virgin not rogered by a stud yet.

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When I entered the ‘kitchen’ I found an imposing man sitting in a wooden chair behind an old metal table. He was bearded, his set of beads in his hand and a firm look in his eyes. I greeted him and he greeted me back. He turned his face away from me and gestured with his hand to the distance. ‘See the boy standing over there at the end of the hall,’ he murmured. I headed towards the boy without further ado and told him what I have in mind. I listed the specifications of the ideal sacrifice I dream of having. He smiled and asked me to follow him ‘in there’.

3 When we got in there my companion pointed to three doors. On each a piece of typewritten paper was stuck telling clearly what lies behind these closed doors. I concentrated on the third door, because I’m not looking for a small one that fits into the freezer. Nor was I being practical and pragmatic, as some careful people do when they choose for their guests an old one that fills their plates nicely but defies all attempts by those who try to have something of its meat. No, all I wanted was to have one that fulfils the Sharia’s requirements and meets the conditions of my colleagues. I had no intention whatsoever of giving a bit of her away in charity or as a gift.

4 My undivided attention in the middle of that spacious enclosure was wholly attracted by a well-proportioned female, succulently lean and tender, plump but not overweight. When I slipped my hand to feel her backside I found it fat rumped. Her shoulders and thighs are full of meat, her soft skin and gentle touch exactly what I imagined. I needed no further proof that this is the required young one, the perfect sacrificial female for

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the much awaited banquet. ‘I think I’ve found what I’m looking for,’ I told my companion. ‘We only have to agree on the price.’ – See the father. We never decide anything without him. – But how much is she, roughly? – Oh, this one is not rogered. Her body is not ruined by copulation and pregnancy. The likes of her are quite dear. If you want an oldie you can get her for whatever price you want. The old ones with grown incisors have tough, bitter meat and this does not apply to that female you’ve just examined.

5 I left the kitchen with her in my hand. I didn’t have to put her on a leash or tether. I just let her walk beside me, fascinated by her beautiful look and captivating complexion. I was enraptured to touch every soft spot in that lean and lanky body, happy to be near her. I even wondered about those stupid studs who do not know the right females to roger. I was at once happy and sad. In fact the ambivalent feelings I had at that moment almost drove me to take her back and exchange her with an ‘oldie’. Only the fear that my colleagues would find out prevented me. After all she is the perfect ‘female sacrifice’, the female that is good for nothing other than the ‘slaughter’ ritual. She was silent as a solid rock. Her flawless complexion indicated nothing, except perhaps some dimness, some pale light in the eyes about to be extinguished.

6 When I was about to rest my head on the pillow that night, I couldn’t get her sweet taste out of my mouth. She was indescribably delicious. Everyone was elated with that lavish feast. We performed the whole ritual, met all the conditions, fulfilled all the requirements. We threw away nothing except the heart and that head. Not many people like the head and most find it unpleasant and difficult to digest. Still, despite it all, I’m well and truly puzzled at her complete compliance. She totally surrendered to us, although there were only two to carry out the slaughtering. One put his foot on her front legs and pulled her head back by the hair to ready the neck for the blade; the other steadied the hind legs – but she didn’t make a single move. She didn’t resist or

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utter a sound even. She kept staring out in the distance with a wilting smile painted on her lips. She was more ready than us for the ritual. She sincerely wished the end, desired deliverance, perhaps as filled as we are with the old prophecy.

7 Everything went the way the colleagues wished. The sacrifice – as usual – was a female, lean and tender her meat, different her taste, and she was a young virgin never rogered by a dromedary bull. Translated by Mujab Imam

Mohammad Alwan He was born in 1947 in Abha, in the southern region of the kingdom. He has published three short-story collections and one book of collected essays. Before his retirement, he worked as deputy minister for publications at the Ministry of Culture and Information. His first collection of stories, The Bread and the Silence, appeared in 1977.

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Dusty walls He entered the hall. Dust lined the frames of the paintings – paintings that had won so many prizes He smiled calmly while sobs gathered in his throat. His eyes welled up and he bit his lip, swallowing back the pain, sorrow and defeat … Defeat by who? His village. The dusty walls rejected the painting because it exposed them, representing them from a fresh perspective, in an image they didn’t recognize. He bent forward. Through the window he could see cypress trees standing firm like spiteful daggers but leaning to one side, as though the wind had said to them: Death or eternity. There’s no in between … The in between is worthless anyway as the painter is only interested in the face … tongue … legs … He collected the paintings three days after the exhibition started … after his long long journey he returned to his village and saw them. Their plaited hair was a thing of the past. They had been brave before but were elegant now. He had left to discover life but it had already reached its peak, and his village in his absence had declined. The camel was eating mange, and ants were gathering food for winter. No one, not even the children, helped him carry the paintings. The thick drooping moustache … The small mocking mouth … The sand ate the bees. The camel was uprooted from its hump. And you, you went far away. For a long time we waited for you. A very long time. Then you came, laughing and mocking. A brush and oils to paint the face of civilization. Even your expressions we don’t understand anymore. You know … We’re not stupid. He tried to whisper. The wizened hand lifted up … fighting the years. A dust-coloured robe burned by the sun’s blaze pulled back to reveal blue veins. What will you say? Why don’t we understand you? Haven’t you learnt anything in your life other than to carry a stupid paintbrush? … Do we know how to stop this sand? Do we know how to defeat illness? Do we know how to … how to …? The veiny hand lifted and dropped … Arms cleaved the earth. Water flowed … Eyes smiled. Oh sadness … With his brush he conveyed all that. But they rejected it. Night filled the corners outside the village. A gathering … accused with no one to defend him. Faces in the blaze of fire appeared as white pages … with lines of pain,

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sadness, aborted joys … Awesome paintings danced before his eyes and his fingers, which began to tingle. They came with the paintings … The fire blazed in their stern faces … in his heart, in his hand, in the piles of wood in front of him … It ate their outlines … All of them. The green date palm burned. Beneath it a child cried – the last picture … He could feel it screaming … The colours clamoured … Unconsciously his hand entered the fire to save it. It turned into a flame and tore his hand to shreds. The doctor: ‘Fire has consumed his fingers.’ He cried for a long time … The thick moustache … Looked at from all around. A young mouth opened: ‘Now we understand you. You’re defeated.’

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The eye of the wolf Like many things in this discerning era, it happened without reference to time or duration. I saw him and called out with pure childlike excitement and rushed to him. He was sat opposite me, though I didn’t see him straight away. For the coffeeshop was all red headdresses and white headdresses, recalling how the seasons intermingle with no clear limit. Summer merges with winter and spring and autumn disappear. Amid the rising dust the face of my old friend Salim came into view. He left the village a long time ago. He returned one night but left before dawn, leaving the men full of questions and the women inventing explanations. His visit became a new story, which the villagers related in their free time between sunset and evening prayer every night. I planted a warm, sincere kiss on Salim’s cheek. He smelt of perfume and soap … I looked at his face for a long time. ‘How are you? How are the villagers?’ he asked. ‘Good. They ask about you. They were surprised at your sudden visit and swift departure.’ ‘Don’t remind me. I wish questions about that were buried in the folds of this silent expanse of sand.’ He spoke in an accent I hadn’t heard before. I felt he was putting it on. It was a performance in which I could see the director, cameraman and prompter. I looked at them and felt uneasy, for it meant our meeting lost all spontaneity … I found his upbeat mood suffocating. It transformed my joy at seeing him into worry. Exhaling the smoke of the shisha placed in front of him, he asked: ‘Are you still writing sad songs? By the way, why don’t you compose a happy song just once? Try it. It’d be good.’ I looked at him. ‘In your eagerness to talk I forgot I’m your guest, which means I’m obliged to answer. I’ll keep writing sad songs until I find happiness. Do you know when that’ll be?’ He shook his head: ‘No.’ ‘When the dreamy sand is irrigated by the water of the silvery moon,’ I said. ‘Drink, friend, and forget your hyperbole. Do you know about the dreadful decline in real estate? Thank God I sold seven plots in various places before it happened. How much for? An excellent price. I bought a large house with the money. The villagers can all live there, though not their cows, donkeys and dogs obviously.’

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I didn’t say anything. After a silence he spoke again: ‘Are you staying in a hotel?’ I looked at him, smiled and laughed: ‘Me? The country’s full of coffeeshops. Much cheaper. Hotels are out of bounds for the likes of me. The receptionists are put off by my appearance. I don’t smoke in a sophisticated manner and my eyes aren’t blue.’ ‘You can stay with me then.’ I made an excuse but he insisted. He asked me which was my car. I pointed. ‘This one?’ We entered the house. It was grand, quiet and luxurious. But I couldn’t quite place Salim in this environment. In my mind I saw him standing on a well whose wheels evoked the sound of the earth bleeding or tilling the land, urging a group of goats back to the village at sunset while children played and women smiled from the windows and doors. But now suddenly I found him alone. Salim refused to let me sleep alone. I told him the story of the large water tank that had arrived in the village after nearly everyone had left. But only the company that was going to build a mineral water factory would benefit from it. His silence worried me, and the deep look in his eyes … He was trembling. He didn’t say anything and my anxiety grew. He lay down on his bed. I felt a song growing inside me. It took shape in my arteries. The desire to write beset me but I couldn’t find anything to write with. I stood up. He was lying on his back, his eyes glued to the ceiling. I felt like I was falling, like I was hovering between inside and outside. It became impossible to bear this vehemence inside me, this trembling, this explosion meeting still silence. The abating movement … He turned onto his side. His face faced me. I found some paper and a pen. The splendour dissolved and filled my soul. I’ll rest a little, I said to myself. Light filled the room. I looked at him. I began to write. I looked at him again. I couldn’t believe it. Was I seeing straight or imagining things? I rubbed my eyes. One of his eyes was shut, the other open. I felt my sinuses and my neck. My temperature was normal. I was imagining things. Salim, Salim, Salim. He didn’t answer. He was asleep. But how could he be? It was impossible. The tale of the wolf that slept with one eye open was make-believe, invented by a coward who betrayed himself with his fabrications. Courage was one thing, cowardice another, and between them was a large gulf. The wolf slept with one eye open. I looked at Salim’s face. One of his eyes was closed, the other open. Gentle breathing suggested a deep sleep. I shivered. I wanted to write

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but couldn’t. His other eye worried me. It was watching me. Suppose I believed the story. How could it be real? How? How could I write the song that was breaking forth inside me when outside me contradicted everything I knew. One eye … one eye … I switched off the light. Only a faint glimmer remained … Now I could write. I took the pen and relaxed a little. The trembling filled my limbs. I wanted to write. The bed shook. I looked at him. His eye was looking at me. The pen dropped. I drew the cover over my head and squeezed my eyes shut. I couldn’t sleep. Light spread and I could hear movement. I got up. ‘Salim, do you believe the tale of the wolf that slept with one eye?’ ‘Oh, sorry. I should have told you one of my eyes is glass.’ Translated by Christina Phillips

Raja Alem She was born in Mecca and studied English literature at King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah. She has written ten novels, five plays, a biography, several short stories and children’s stories. Her prizes include the Ibn Tufail Prize of the Spanish–Arabic Cultural Centre in Madrid (1991), the Arabic Women’s Creative Writing Prize (2005) and the Lebanese Literary Club Prize in Paris (2008). She also won the International Prize for Arabic Fiction for her novel The Doves’ Necklace (2011).

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The great serpent Everybody knows me by the name of Fatima Al-Makkiah (Fatimah of Makkah). The truth I have managed to hide well over the eleven years of my existence here, however, is that I was not born in Makkah at all but in the Ash Valley near Granada in the year 500h, ad 1061. A history pundit would know that this date coincides with the birth of Abi Bakre Muhammad, son of Abdul Malek bin Muhammad, son of Muhammad bin Tufail Al-Kaisi, known in short as Ibn Tufail.27 Ibn Tufail and I are soulmates and consorts, born of one and the same isthmus. The concurrence of our dates of birth is thus by no means coincidental. I was with him when he worked in healing people then became a hajeb or vizier (minister) in Granada. He later raised me to life in his mother the gazelle when we embodied the persona of his novel, Hai Ibn Yaqzan, who called me the Vapour, the substance from which all living beings emanate and with the departure of which the body becomes base and of no more value than the club I use to fight beasts with. Considering my expertise and increasing knowledge of the natural sciences, attaining the Unity of the Necessarily Self-Existent Being, I constantly helped Ibn Tufail till the court of Al-Muwahideen took him in. He became court physician to Abi Yakoub Yussuf Al-Mansur, the Muwahideen caliph (ad 1163–1184), and he gained great favour and influence with him. When Ibn Tufail died in 1185, I carried him with me and my soul roamed about aimlessly all over the place. Somehow I found myself inclined to the roads heading eastward to Makkah, and when I entered it a woman was giving birth in a divan room in Souk Al-Sagheer, leading directly to Makkah’s Holy Mosque. The midwife was with the aunts of the newborn baby, sitting round a brass basin. Under the basin were veiled layers of mucus, and under these veils the Angel of Death, Izrail, 27. Ibn Tufail (c.1105–1185) was an Arab and Islamic polymath, essayist, novelist, philosopher, theosophist, theologian, physician and minister in ‘Al-Mohad’ (Al-Muwahideen) in twelfth-century Spain. His philosophical novel Hai Ibn Yaqzan (known in the west as Philosophus Autodidactus) left a considerable impact on European philosophy (Hobbes, Locke, Newton, Spinoza, Kant, etc.) and literature (Rousseau’s Emile, Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, etc.). In the history of Arab and Islamic thought, Ibn Tufail’s novel is often seen as an attempt to synthesize the antagonistic philosophies of Al-Ghazali (Algazel) and Ibn Rushd (Averroes), fusing the former’s religious with the latter’s rationalist orientations, reaching out at the same time for a third, sophist and Neo-Platonist unitary framework.

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was himself there, lullabying the baby girl and saying: ‘She ought to have been a boy.’ I was led to the basin, adorned with the mucus, suckled at the finger of Izrail and gained strength over the heavy weight of the women lying on top of my chest. Nine times did they fill up the basin then clear it out and me pestering them with my crying. I spat out all the residual womb fluids lodged in my lungs and I waited for them to despair and leave me be. Eventually they wrapped me in swaddling clothes and left me to a tit sunk in the tears of the woman entrusted to look after me. And so, amongst the tears and the milk, I lived in Souk Al-Sagheer right under the minarets of the Holy Mosque of Makkah. People knew me by the name of Fatimah Al-Makkiah when I started teaching my body how to walk. If you ask me about the graphic line of my ancient life, I tell you frankly that I have moved between the living and the symbolic. I have always avoided the uttered words and their corporate, constricting shapes and bodies. For I have always believed it ‘dangerous to give names to the unnameable, express the inexpressible, enunciate arbitrary utterances on what is not interested in being uttered or named.’ I lived with Ibn Tufail and nurtured whatever ideas, opinions and abstractions interacted deep within him. I moved on to the protagonist of his novel, Hai Ibn Yaqzan, and I let him generate me from earth (from a lump of clay fermented in the land of a deserted island). The hot and cold, wet and dry mud blended within me evenly and perfectly harmoniously – a blending of equal and matching powers … In the middle of the clay a sticky, gooey patch emerged with a tiny bubble in it … filled with a mild and aerated body in the maximum and most befitting temperance. In perpetual effusion from Almighty God, my breath instantly clung to it and all the elements yielded unto me; all the powers prostrated themselves before me and were all dedicated to my perfection … When the cycle of mud was complete, the body members fully fledged and accomplished, the swaddling clothes were torn off me in something like childbirth … As a newborn baby, I cried for help when the nourishing stuff I survived on perished and my hunger intensified. A gazelle who had lost her fawn answered my call and looked after me as I progressed through one level of development after another in Hai Ibn Yaqzan’s body … The death of my mother the gazelle later moved me up the scale of contemplation and cognizance of the material world around me till I could pierce through to the fact that everything is One, that no self runs counter to the Self of the Necessarily Pre-Existent Being. I could communicate with the lucent, celestial bodies in their sublime purity and luminescence, their exalted beings devoid of all kinds of vile-

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ness and defilement. I could move by spinning round the centre of myself or the self of the island till I left no barrier between selves, till I could see every thing in its total non-delimitational reality. I reduced to a minimum my contact with the sensible things till not even the closest to Ibn Tufail could see me. And I kept at my state of constant inquiry till I became privy to what no eye has seen and what has never occurred to a human heart or mind. I was initiated into the secrets and the hidden mysteries surrounding the universe and interacting deep within Existence and existing things. I possessed the power of infinitesimal minimalism along with the capability to transmute, mutatis mutandis, all substances and all times. I conveyed to my consort Ibn Tufail the solemn truth that stars have selves which are parts of us, that his body is the epicentre and that whatever orbits and spheres it contains, interlocking with one another, are the equivalents of his outer membranes … Now in the body of Fatima Al-Makkiah, I was convalescing and resting from my omniscient knowledge. I delved deeper into the sheer sweetness of childhood till I reached my eleventh oblivion in the counting of the Makkans. My problems with the Makki society began when our neighbour Aisha Al-Sabkiah was suddenly in labour, having been widowed recently in her seventh month of pregnancy. That night the moon came down so low it filled the tap water pool in the courtyard of our house, just opposite the divan room.28 Up to that night I had managed to hide my old connections with Andalusia and with Ibn Tufail, whilst at the same time I was trying to deal with the oncoming oblivion that constantly corroded their memory. I used to sleep on the terrace of our roshan29 and my mother used to prop me up with a red cushion lest I’d fall and break my neck. That cushion prop knew a great deal about my story, as its red damask silk has been the same old eavesdropper from the early days of the Arab caliphate, itself coming out of my dreams. Going back to my sleep that night anyway, I must say that I have always returned in my dreams to Cordoba and to the Muwahideen court. Their visions have always haunted me, constantly re-enacting their former roles and past glories, constantly making room for me amongst the narcissus and the water canals where the moons of Andalusia flourished. People 28. Guest room. 29. Al-Rawashen are small wooden window coverings and balconies used both as a decorative architectural element (often painted turquoise blue, green or brown), and as a cooling system bringing the air currents into the house.

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there would be going about their business, singing along and reciting their poems; banquets would be laid out for one and all, and the three of us (the tales, my consort and me) would be in the forefront with the Caliph Abu Yakoub and his son and heir Abu Yussuf. The mellow, melodious muwashahat30 of the singing maidens and the courtesans would be flowing and filling the hearts of the lords and court attendants, gliding up to their redolent rose-scented beards. Abu Yussuf was receiving a Berber delegation, their eyes pools of savage gold pouring over the walls of the palace, studded with engraved passages from the Qur’an. The muwashahat were impregnate with their primitiveness and I was just standing there, bewitched by it all, spellbound by all that supreme nature. Then, suddenly, the screaming of a wild woman … stopped the singing maidens and obliterated the savage gold of the Berber eyes … The screaming bubbled on so densely it blocked my throat, suffocated me and wrenched me out of my floating dream. I didn’t have time to shed my Andalusian trappings … and I knew it was the screaming of our neighbour, Aisha Al-Sabkiah. Thus jolted out of sleep, I found my (presumed) mother and father fumbling for the door. We rushed down the towering flight of stony steps, on to the corridor with its diffuse light filtering through the dantella of Arabesque wood panel, on to the door of our house with its brass bolt, and on to the narrow alleyway to our neighbour’s door. She had fallen by that door, floods of screams hovering over her and spurring us ahead. The bands of her brassière had studded her chest with starry buttons and hung tight to her breasts; the waistband of her breeches had marked her round hips with pen-like circles, silk first then cotton, while the breeches’ legs were like an octopus dying in the dark fluids and the intoxicating smells. I drew near her, despite my mother’s attempts to push me away … My mother the gazelle and the animals of the forest were all round me, searching for the primal moving fire. With the long time I have spent with animals in the company of Hai Ibn Yaqzan, I knew exactly what was wrong with Aisha. Her water broke and her womb spewed out all its retained fluids, leaving the foetus parched inside her as if in a desert. Aisha was too tight. Her ebony bones matted over her hips and left the baby no hope of slipping through.

30. Al-Muwashah (plural al-muwashahat) is a strophic poem expressing love and joy with repeated rondo-like returns to a musical refrain. It is a sophisticated poetic and musical genre that originated in Muslim Spain in the tenth century.

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I was examining her and my mother and father pushing me away when an awful lot of people appeared from nowhere. The midwife was with them and all were mumbling on loads of panicky rubbish. The midwife announced that the mother had choked on her seed and so they left her for dead. They laid her out in the men’s divan room, because it was the nearest place to the road outside and the shortest cut for her funeral to go through the alleyway right to the cemetery. They began to wail and eulogize her, whilst her screams were frozen round her in a web that paralyzed her and prevented her from breathing or screaming for help. I couldn’t join in with them. How could I, and I am who I am in the world of anatomy, being fully capable of saving the mother and the seed with a small incision! When the mother started to go numb, the loom of Izrail spinning and wrapping the arms and the cushion props of her divan bed with its deathly yarns, I got hold of a hygienic knife and cut open her belly. But … before my cut could reach her twisted endometrium, the net of wailing women … woven by spasmodic sobs and screams, entangled me and they tied me up. 2 Moons and solar cycles passed with their countless years and I am locked up in that room they call Al-Makhlawan – a small enclosed space, long as a mummified serpent and attached like a parasite to the women’s guest room. I was held there because, they said, I went mad. The jinni of the woman in her postnatal depression got hold of me and wouldn’t let go. Even my physical appearance changed, in their eyes, to something in between the male and the female form. Of course I didn’t attend the funeral of Fatimah Al-Sabkiah. Mind you, loads and loads of rice cooked with chickpeas were heaped up in all the streets and alleyways on that funereal occasion. A plateful of rice with chickpeas and a plateful of tahiniah31 were shoved in for me from a small opening in the Makhlawan door. Naturally, however, I could no longer feed on their human nourishment. I’ve become all saliva mixed with the womb water of Aisha Al-Sabkiah and I’ve never gone hungry since. 2 A lot of neighbouring people were around, including the ones known as my father and mother, but I was forgotten in that Makhlawan. And I stayed there till I was sure no one who knew me was still alive or still remem31. Ground sesame seed paste often used as a salad dressing in North Africa. In the Middle East it is added to a dip of chickpeas, lemon juice and garlic.

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bered me. The expansion of the Holy Mosque had already swallowed Souk Al-Sagheer by then, so I took off on a rainbow out of my Makhlawan and I roamed the skies with the pigeons of Makkah. We used to coo and pray standing on the water spout of Al-Ka’aba overlooking the Wall of Ishmael (peace be upon him). There, all prayers are answered because under it there is a direct passageway to the seventh sky. By then, too, I have shunned the trappings of my human existence and my public image, which were so different and so distant from the Supreme Self. I have come to assimilate centuries of prayers with my flight of grey pigeons. When peace and quiet would spread over with our praying and cooing, we’d go back to the venation of curved arches and straight lines between the Qur’anic passages inscribed on the covering of Al-Ka’aba. Soon as the night of Makkah would fall, the venation would be incarnate in us, transposing all to the hidden gardens on the edges of that secret passageway to heaven. 2 As far as I know, my move to Nazlat Al-Karrar was wholly accidental. A white pigeon had joined our flight and I was entrusted to take her over to our gardens, which we usually do through some exacting circumambulations and chanting of prayers. I was circling the sky with her stumbling over her clumsy whiteness, and I was facing the Yamani Quarter of the Holy Mosque when Abidah passed by. She was in the last days of her ninth month of pregnancy, led by her mother to circumambulate the Ka’aba nine times so as to ease her childbirth. In the seventh round of revolving, the foretold began to go down Abidah’s vertebra, limping its crooked way to enfold her waist and gush towards the isthmus of the legs … For an instant I was hit by a burning yearning for the smell of human beings and their odd ways of life. Abidah’s quiver made me long to go through the labour of an ordinary woman again, and so I proceeded. It was a difficult birth. As difficult in fact as one getting out of one’s skin, and my own skin was spotted with all her cramps, her wetness and slipperiness. Then again, suddenly, I found myself in the tent of a husband and wife (Abidah and Saleh) – a green and innocent pair … who called me Al-Zahra. 2 Five years I lived in their environment, during which period Makkah had changed its skin for the third time. It had shed its former trappings,

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its rawashen, its red damask silk and its looming figure of Abdullah Ibn Al-Zubair32 whose shadows still hung on the walls of Al-Ka’aba. Makkah had replaced all these with glass and aluminium windows and balconies. I got depressed with the spreading of glassy spaces, which reminded me of the pool of Izrail, first under the brass basin then around Aisha Al-Sabkiah and, before that, with my mother the gazelle. Still, eventually, aided by all the cases I had treated with Ibn Tufail and his philosophy, I managed to reconcile myself to those recurring pools of death. As Al-Zahra I was preoccupied with my own childhood in that stagnant environment rife with metaphysics. I recalled the depths Ibn Tufail and I had reached in Cordoba and in Hai Ibn Yaqzan’s island, and I found my chance for solitude there. I used to feel some hidden breathing accompanying me in my solitude. Then came a day when I discovered her moving about between my feet … She was fiery and fresh, so youthful she looked as if still suckling. Nice and affable, I liked her and enjoyed her company. I carried her in the palms of my hands, in those same palms of expert hands perfectly adept to rise up to the level of all creatures and to cater for their different temperaments and needs. I spent days trying to feed her what I could smuggle of my own food, but she always refused to eat. Later, in my dream, a tree appeared to me and said: I am Tuba, a blessed tree from heaven. The great serpent you nurture is one of my baby girls still suckling. I have been nursing her for thousands and thousands of years and she is not weaned yet. She left me in response to your loneliness and I didn’t prevent her. Please don’t deny me the pleasure of breastfeeding her. When I woke up, my pillow was lined with green leaves in the shape of olive branches. As I approached the serpent with them, a flood poured out and quenched her thirst … I fed her the blessed leaves sometimes and sometimes made her go hungry with fasting, so as to grow up on the value of patience … I forgot to mention that she had a human face, and it used to glow in my company, the cold and death-dealing irises of her eyes colouring … It even occurred to me to cast her in the shape of some idols to relieve our loneliness. The serpent – as if reading my mind – stretched out part of her body for me 32. Abdullah bin Al-Zubair (524–692) is a close relative and revered Companion of the Prophet Muhammad. He rebelled against the Umayyad caliphate and declared himself a Defender of the Faithful after the death of Imam Husain bin Ali at Karbala. An Umayyad army, led by the brutal leader Al-Hajjaj Al-Thakafi, eventually defeated Al-Zubair and besieged him in the Holy Mosque of Makkah where he was beheaded and crucified.

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to start, but when my hands moved to sculpt her she mutinied and took the initiative herself. She let loose in the cellar my own mother the gazelle, who sprang to life agitated and confused. She banged against the wall of the cellar in her attempt to free her legs, tearing bits of it and of my face. I was worried her carcass would swell and the smell would reach Saleh and Abidah, so I restored my power to commune with her. I sang her tune as I sang the airs of all the birds and other animals, and she recognized me by my tune. She took pity on me, breastfed me her hot milk again, and my whole being shuddered with a legendary pleasure. 2 Everyday I had the serpent engendered into some tiny, transparent creatures that joyfully interpenetrated and had intercourse with one another … Extraordinary hectic activity ensued in our house at Nazlat Al-Karar. The animal river was let loose, rising from the cellar and eluding people, then returning to run its dark course there. You’d see the fiery pigeons on the roofs and friezes of Makkah, telling the fortunes of pilgrims and pigeons of the Holy Shrine in their different tongues … You’d see the wise beetles under the covers, spreading everywhere their dark figures that are stuffed with mysteries … Anywhere you moved your foot would trip over some buried secret … so much so I felt sparks of excitement surrounding me, and Saleh and Abidah gathered to treat me of fever … Once in a snooze a beetle standing on the tip of my nose said to me: Only an initiate beholder can generate fire … Beware of fire no matter how long you’ve consorted with it … The daughters of the night have fallen in love with your great serpent, he added. They avail themselves of your sleep to sneak the serpent and engender her into little birds of the night, which they let fly in their bosoms and dark hair till they become dopey with pleasure … The fiery mice hastened to nibble at that vision so as to assure me of the serpent’s total obedience to me. I myself was more fascinated by the sound of the hedgehogs, fiery hedgehogs with hard and pointed prickles. You could hear their click clack noises when they fought duels with one another or sharpened their prickles against the stones of the cellar … A grey monkey used to climb up the friezes right before the hazy eyes of Makkans, holding the head of the serpent in his lap. He’d sharpen her deadly eyes by rubbing them with green fennel, and in the iris of her eye a thousand inner eyes would open. If she directed even one eye at any of Makkah’s houses, its dweller would instantly die. So funerals flowed

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out from our frieze every time the monkey liked to groom the serpent … Sometimes, when the monkey’s sight weakened or napped, he’d amuse himself by breaking his bread and throwing the crumbs to the pigeons. Flights of fiery pigeons would gather round him like a peacock tail. If any one of the Holy Mosque’s grey pigeons joined in to pick at the crumbs, she’d be instantly stunned dead by its awesome vitality … You’d see flights and flights of pigeons coming over to be so fascinatingly stunned dead … The animal river was in every corner and fold and behind every veil. If any human foot treaded the steps down to the cellar, all its creatures would rush to hide in the palm of my hand. In a twinkle of an eye the great serpent too would fold her body and gather it in the flowing river course, coiling up in the palm of my hand too. The human passer-by would only sense in the spot some burning heat whose source he’d never know. Poor Abidah threw tantrums at the tale told of my becoming addicted to fever! The serpent used to amuse herself by shedding her skins, now dark, now light and cheerful, now funereal, now with a layer of proud violet. I gathered all these skins and wove them into a bracelet I wore round my wrist … When Abidah saw it she and Saleh rushed to treat it with ointments and cataplasms. The sparkling shine of the bracelet soon faded and turned into a dark signet round my arm … The great trouble they were having made me thank my luck for their ignorance of what was going on in their cellar, with the animal river running in the skin of my great serpent … All this sublime activity came to a muddied end when Abidah suddenly caught me in the cellar addressing the monkey in his own tongue, and with the same satanic ferocity of his ferocious demons. What further increased her panic was the uniform I had on. It was the outfit Hai Ibn Yaqzan borrowed from the carcass of a dead eagle. Half the eagle’s skin covered my back, the other half my bellybutton and below, while the wings hung on my arms and the tail stuck out of my backside. I had no idea what made her panic so at my appearance, though all animals testified, it was so braced with warmth and graced with solemnity! After that Saleh and Abidah encircled me with the glow warms of their worry, which kept hatching remorselessly round me. Saleh kept me wet with water at all times. He made me a dress cut out of the moisture of morning roses. He did everything to let no serpent spring out of the palms of my hands again. Everything to do with striking a fire he kept away from me. He even enveloped my eyes with the foggy smoke of incense from morning to sunset …

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2 When I was eighteen, in their counting, they married me off to a common, simple man. On our wedding night he was shocked by all the birds, mice and reptiles coming out of my body. He could not withstand the fact that I had such an intimate contact with the animal river. The beetle (Asala) had already failed to convince him. No, he wouldn’t join us; he wouldn’t sail down the animal river course to its secluded, undiscovered realms; he wouldn’t acquaint himself with its fiery creatures made of burning, feverish clay … My husband remained haunted by the fear of my primitiveness, my nature in the raw. If he found me in his bed, a coral rash would spread over and cover his cheeks and behind his ears, pus coming out and deafening him. He’d mutter a prayer and mumble that hell itself lies between the sheets. So he abandoned my bed to his men’s guest room, where he spent endless nights playing cards with the boys. He was for ever getting rid of his queens and exchanging them for the tens of spades and the gentle kings happy and perfectly at ease with their grey beards. My nakedness hurt him. It branded him with my vague signets and incomprehensible tongues. Night after night and game after game, he complained, I was ruining his health. Even when he was surrounded by his playmates and card games, I was sapping his strength and feeding on him. He was losing endlessly because of me! His case reminded me of Ibn Tufail agreeing with Ibn Bajah33 that the plebeians are a real danger to the hypersensitive and supremely natural being. Ibn Tufail himself gave up hope on the possibility of ever reforming them. My husband’s health deteriorated further when I let myself go free with the movements of the planets, leaving my body to spin round its centre. He remained erect for a whole year, then died and I was widowed after him. Saleh was at a loss finding an answer to the charge that we practised sorcery, levelled at us by the relatives of my deceased husband. Of course I didn’t care to awaken him from his death as I usually did when one of my fellow creatures died. I used to gather their vital parts that contained life and lay them in my clothes so as to hatch them anew by the primal fire of my great serpent. But no, sir, I didn’t resurrect my husband. For every existing creature has a particular reason for his existence, and my own raison d’être has been to remove the stones that blocked the free 33. Avempace (c.1085–1139), an Andalusian polymath.

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flow of the animal river in all creatures. And, alas, my husband was always inimical to my river … 2 The wonder of my transubstantiation was perfected with my pregnancy! I knew beforehand it was going to be a kind of birth that befits the endless story of my life. Saleh went back to moistening my skin with watery garments. My in-laws almost forgave me my all sins, almost accepted my weird behaviour after they had heard the annunciation of a baby boy born to resurrect their dearly departed. Many backs were broken the day I gave birth, including Saleh’s, the last of my earthly fathers and the one who patiently put up with us for quite a long time. My newborn was made exactly after the image of my fiery serpent … orange blue blinding the eye, and plain black when her mischief takes hold of her … The instant I cut open my womb for her, she took off. She hit against the surrounding faces and branded all of them, then headed upwards in a sublime move and vanished from sight. The doctor declared – and his brand mark still smouldering in his forehead – that it was a false pregnancy! False too were all the signs of labour! The burning marks between my legs, he added, were a regrettable infection which could be treated and would heal in time … As for me, I pierced through these black keys, these same burning marks … I pierced through the excruciating pain reaching the very heart of pleasure. I died to that specious time and came through to my real existence. And here I am now, bringing up my great serpent on a happy and humorous tree. It stands in the middle of an ancient island made of Hai Ibn Yaqzan’s purest clay. My serpent is everywhere, youthful and fresh as ever amongst the tree stalks, constantly moving around and playing with the other mighty serpents. When I come to her and we interpenetrate one another, her novelty flows through my antiquity and spurs me ahead to enter new cycles. Between one cycle and another stretches endlessness itself, and between me and my great serpent stray souls never cease budding. From us countless peoples and milky ways and fluctuations oozed out, and from the hidden folds of the animal river prosperity spread over to millions and millions … All this while Makkans are getting ever more estranged from the pigeons of the Holy Mosque and their sweet, melodious tongues. And my great serpent keeps at the necks of the pigeons, prodding them, and they

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plunge their beaks in tongues and souls, then spread around their wild animals. No sooner an animal of these touches a Makkan face than it lifts it up in a sublime move and it slips for ever into the river. Translated by Mujab Imam

Saad Al-Dosary He was born in 1958 in Arras, in the central region of Qassim. He studied English literature and has published several collections of short stories, two novels and sixteen children’s books. He currently works as director of PR at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh.

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The infirmary Beetles, ants and fresh wood sawdust had gathered over her corpse, and I had no idea how much time had passed since her death. The door to the small wooden house was ajar. I had knocked on it two or three times before I called out to her: ‘Umm Ayyush! Umm Ayyush!’ The late afternoon wrapped the houses made of tin-sheeting and wood in its purple cloak, clothing those small interlocking cubes in a mysterious serenity. Patches of brackish water were scattered among the houses and filled the air with the smell of human waste. The voices of children, naked except for blackened, torn trousers, were faint amid the roar of the engines of cars following one after the other as they enter the Al-Ghala neighbourhood after a day of labour in the streets of Riyadh. When I visited Umm Ayyush a month previously, she told me: ‘The next time you visit me, I will have exchanged these tin sheets for a house of wood.’ This woman with brown skin – extremely brown – possessed a fierce physical presence. Her body was thin but steely. Her hands were bony and her palms rough. She didn’t talk much. Her flashing eyes were the only things that showed behind her face veil. When something didn’t please her, she covered them up and muttered, ‘There is no god but God, and Muhammad is His prophet.’ She used to sell old clothes in the Sidra markets. Early every morning she would carry two big baskets – one of them for women’s clothes, and the other for children’s clothes. At that hour of the day, the motors had begun their roaring. She would put her baskets in the back of the first truck setting out from Al-Ghala to Batiha’ Street, and seat herself between them. From Batiha’ Street to the Sidra markets Umm Ayyush would walk on her two hard feet. ‘Do you know where the Sidra markets are?’ the man with deep black skin asked, trembling. ‘Yes,’ I replied. That’s all I said. ‘Everyone knows her there. Ask about Umm Ayyush. One of all those women who work there. She has no possessions, but she isn’t envious of anyone. She accepts her lot, praises God and goes on her way. No one has heard anything pass her lips except the shahada.’ ‘I have a feeling you will be able to help me,’ he told me in a whisper. The patient lying next to him, an old man with a red beard, shouted, ‘Don’t bother yourself with him. It’s the ravings of a dead man.’

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The young patient lying on the other side of him didn’t say a thing. He was watching him warily, looking back and forth between me, the old man and the black man. When I visited my father in the infirmary, I had gotten into the habit of wandering among the hospital rooms. At the start of the visit, my father is eager to hear news about my mother and my sisters; suddenly he becomes upset and his eyes are bathed in tears, but he doesn’t cry. He remains silent, fixing his glances at the ceiling. At that point, I begin my tour among the patients until the time of my visit nears its end. I return to find him sleeping every time. Illness and the narrowness of his circumstances flooded over his face. ‘I will help you,’ I told him. His eyes grew red and his chin trembled. I took his hand between mine, and brought it to my chest. ‘What do you want from Umm Ayyush?’ ‘I want her to bring me an orange. She doesn’t know that I’m still alive. When they brought me into the infirmary, people told her that I was dead. I want her to come and bring an orange with her.’ I had no difficulty getting to know Umm Ayyush. The noise of the women vendors, mixed with the smells of their fat bodies and their cheap perfumes gave the market an intense suffocating atmosphere. Every one of them was sitting or standing behind a pile of old clothes or cheap shoes or fiery spices, and shouting at the female buyers who were shouting at them, too, and tossing back at them the pieces they didn’t like. Amid all these crowds, sweat dropped from the foreheads of the vendors, dampening their face-veils and further diffusing the odours of their bodies. I approached her, and noticed in her eyes a gentleness that prompted me to ask her: ‘Are you Umm Ayyush?’ ‘There is no god but God and Muhammad is His prophet,’ she replied. A fat woman who was sorting through the children’s clothes that were in front of Umm Ayyush pushed me aside. ‘The man didn’t die,’ I said quickly. ‘He’s in the infirmary now. He asks you to visit him and bring an orange with you.’ Her eyes were fixed on mine. I bowed my head, and my shoulders bumped against passing women’s shoulders; then I withdrew to leave. I walked a few steps, and there she was, her steps following directly behind mine. She stopped me, asking ‘Did he tell you he wants an orange?’ I turned to face her. I read in her eyes bowers of neutral apprehensive-

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ness, and I felt that a grey fuse was about to connect one of my veins to one from her angular body, and then explode. ‘He wants to see you.’ ‘Can you take me to him?’ She spread a white bed sheet over her wooden display board. The vendors exchanged sly glances at what was going on among them, as the middle-aged man waved the flies away from his face with his right hand, clinging with his left hand to a reed staff, which he used to strike the women whose veils had slipped from their faces. Umm Ayyush got in the back seat. She was silent all the way to the infirmary. I watched her eyes in my rear-view mirror, as they remained staring feverishly into space, although I couldn’t probe the source of that fever. ‘Stop.’ I stopped. She got out. She came back with a bag of oranges in her hand. ‘Go.’ I headed out of the city. To the side of us was the desert that pressed with its roughness at the edges of my small car and made me feel that bitterness was sharpening its knife on my breath. 2 He was moaning then. ‘They will take care of you in the infirmary, father.’ He mumbled a few things. My youngest sister collapsed in his arms, weeping. She began crying until the stray hairs on her cheeks were wet. ‘Don’t cry,’ he told her. Then I roughly removed her from him. ‘Your brother is the best one to take care of you all now.’ I stopped the car. Umm Ayyush got out and walked behind me. We entered the infirmary and I led her to the sleeping room. My heart was battered by its nervous flutter. I walked ahead of her as though I were walking at my own funeral. I breathed as though I were stealing air from the infirmary patients, one after another. I wanted to bring her to his bed and say, ‘Here he is,’ and then I would go far away, praying for them. We arrived. He wasn’t there, and the old man with the red beard said, ‘Didn’t I tell you he was delirious? He died.’ The bag fell from her hand and oranges scattered all over the sleeping room. The young patient looked warily back and forth between me, the old man, and Umm Ayyush. I stretched out my hand to hers, and her fingers fled mine.

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Outside the room with the beds, she walked ahead of me, and I followed her. ‘Can you take me home?’ ‘Where do you live?’ I asked her. ‘In Al-Ghala.’ On the road, a wave of self-destruction burned my ribs. A gust of eagerness for decay came over me. ‘Here.’ I stopped my car in front of a house made of tin sheets. A girl who didn’t pay much attention to our arrival was leaning against the door. Umm Ayyush got out, and when she got near the door, she told the girl, ‘Your father is dead.’ The girl laughed. She looked at me with sceptical eyes. ‘Who’s that?’ she asked. Umm Ayyush entered the tin-sheet house. I leaned my head up against the head-rest and a feeling of sorrow flooded over me. I lingered, observing the houses of tin around me. Water here is difficult. The air is difficult. I always used to feel confined in our cement house, where at least there was water, air and light. ‘How do they experience this?’ I asked myself. Here is gloom, dirt, stains of brackish water, isolation, poverty and a despair at night that is poured out into defeats during the day. ‘Won’t you please come in?’ I raised my eyes and there was the girl in front of me. She was around twenty. The brown of her cheeks reveals a stray mist, and her chest behind her shabby dark-blue thobe heaves elatedly and damply with a feverish thirst. ‘Aren’t you Ayyush?’ She became upset, yelling like a child: ‘Aisha. I’m Aisha. That patient was the one who called me Ayyush.’ ‘Your father?’ ‘The patient. I hate the Ayyush he used to love.’ Her face burned with a dark destructiveness, but the expressions that stifled my scorching evening compelled me to ask her, ‘You don’t love him?’ ‘No. I hate him.’ She smiled reticently. ‘Please do come in.’ She went ahead of me. Her supple body was shaking, and the feeling of shouting and wailing pervaded me. I put out my hand and clutched her arm.

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She turned towards me and the fragrance of inexpensive basil emanated from her. ‘Your father is dead.’ In silence, she focused her eyes on my face. The features of her face began to open up, little by little. She got close to me. ‘Am I beautiful?’ I turned my face away from her so she wouldn’t read the anguished look there. She was beautiful. Her beauty was warm and from the south. Her ebony body shouts out womanliness. Her hair was somewhere between kinky and soft, and her skin was tender and sleek. She turned around again and headed to the house. ‘Yes, Aisha,’ I said under my breath as I entered. She scowled. She rushed to pick up the mess scattered within the tinsheet walls, while repeating, ‘He’s dead. He’s dead. We’ve known for a long time that he’s dead.’ I withdrew. I felt that I should leave. I got into my car, expecting that Aisha would follow me to invite me in again, but she didn’t. ‘I hate him.’ Whenever I visit my father in the infirmary, I end echoing in my head this opinion of hers. I look at my father, immersed in looking up above, and a burning sourness stings me. I want to give him my body so he can leave the infirmary. So he can return to our house, to my haggard mother and my exhausted sisters. So he can go in to see them, the way he used to do every afternoon, and they would leap up at his arrival. We would go around the table for lunch with a silence that their great respect for him imposed. ‘I wish I could give you my body.’ On the way back from the infirmary, I decided to visit Umm Ayyush. Some months had passed since that day. Her house was lit from within. I knocked on the door, and she came out, with veil covering her head. ‘Do you remember me, Umm Ayyush?’ She covered her eyes and muttered, ‘There is no god but God and Muhammad is His prophet.’ ‘I came to see about you,’ I replied, hesitantly. She didn’t answer. She was silent for a little, then broke out into tears. She leaned against the side of the corroded door, and it nearly collapsed along with her. I held her up and brought her inside. On the floor was a cotton mat with a covering of filthy bed sheets. I stretched her out on it,

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and she was eager not to let her veil drop from her face. I looked for water. There was a faucet in the far corner, with an empty can of peas below it. I filled the can with water and offered it to her. After she turned her face away from me, she lifted the veil and slowly drank it, then placed the can beside her. ‘Are you ill?’ ‘I’m well, my son.’ I hesitated before asking: ‘Where is Aisha?’ She put the fingers of her right hand over her eyes. She didn’t cry but she sighed. ‘There is no Aisha. There’s no one.’ ‘Where did she go?’ ‘No one knows where she went. Some way that she secretly married a young man, and then he divorced her the next day, and that he hasn’t let her leave his house. Some say that she travelled south and died on the rough road. Some say she worked as a midwife in a maternity hospital, and that the police arrested her along with other women in a brothel. I was incapable of responding. ‘And you live by yourself, you poor old woman,’ I said to myself. ‘No one knocks on the door of your worn-out loneliness?’ I felt like she could hear my thoughts when she replied, ‘I don’t need anyone. Umm Ayyush doesn’t need anyone. When you visit me next time, I will have exchanged these tin sheets for a house of wood.’ A small drop of water was flowing along the side of the can of peas. I followed in with an intense focus until it reached the ground and dust swallowed it.

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The book of night Darkness illuminates the whisperings of the air, and I become stripped of language. I search in the hollows of silence, but I only find an inkwell whose feathers have been burned to ashes, and which has fallen, without wings, into the abyss of the slaughterhouse. I asked myself, with considerable gloating satisfaction, ‘Which came first? Did the ink make the inkwell, or did the inkwell make the ink?’ I didn’t think about the answer for long, since the night was having its usual appointment with my veins. It is the night alone that mounts my arteries and takes them away to meadows of vapours. Every meadow appears to me there, and is suddenly transformed into the body of a woman. Then I see this body wrestling with tongues of rainbow-like flame, until it evaporates. I don’t remember when the night horses began to travel with me there. All I can recall is what happened the first night. I was returning to my small apartment, from an evening in the desert with friends, intoxicated by the sand that flooded my soul with the magnificence of its full moon at the centre of the expanse of that evening. I felt that a black horse was galloping alongside me, and on its back was a woman. All I could see of her was one of her radiant legs. I slowed down so that the horse could get ahead of me and I could see the entire woman, but that didn’t improve matters, because the horse slowed down as well. When I ventured to stop the car, the horse was racing past desert dunes far from me, and the woman, radiant in her nudity, gradually moved away until she filled the space with a scandalous light from which crystal-like diamonds dropped down. I stood watching the scene, possessed by a song I hadn’t heard before. I blocked my ears, but I heard it in my blood; even when I got back in the car, and drove it at high speed, with the radio at full blast, I still heard the song, and I still felt the light flooding over me, and the diamonds shooting out, pouring down on my face, and still felt her nudity and her hair flying up over her shoulders convulsing me, as if she were whispering to me, ‘Hey, you’re not dreaming.’ If I’m not dreaming, then what can I call what happened? The next morning, I woke up soaked with questions, and my busy day couldn’t dry me off. I spent countless nights waiting for the next rendezvous with her – her horse, her light, her diamonds and her song – but she didn’t come. There was no place in the desert where I didn’t waste time waiting, until my nights were shattered and the paths connecting me to people were torn apart. Everyone who knew me began assuring each

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other that I was no longer that intimate friend who connected people, that person who brought them together in the sun of noisy talk and moon of singing. They began saying that his sun has been extinguished and his moon has set. Yes, that is what happened, and yet more would happen. I shut the door to all light. The night had begun to dwell within me, or rather it was I who dwelled in it. Each of us became a dwelling place for the other. And when the evening pulls down its curtains on my loneliness, I continue to transform it into musical modes. Perhaps I will break into song. The night-time hours are turned into the beginnings of a tune, and through them I try to form something that lets me evoke the whole tune, but to no avail. The strange thing is that before I feel the first rays of the sun, I enter into the excitation of song. It’s as if I am close to it, as if I am beginning to feel the intoxication of her horse, and on the next evening I begin again. And thus, thus it is every night. I told myself, stop singing, try to write the song, maybe you will get to meet her again. But the words accumulate on the page, and the first rays of the sun do not seize her. On the first night, I wrote: The grass of the dead grow their leaves within you, Silence is born from your silence, Why is it that you do not revive the dead, With your sighs? I don’t know how these words emerged. I looked at them on the page, as if they weren’t mine. They absolutely are not mine, so how could I have written words like these in order to bring back a woman who dazzled me with her light? I considered the matter, just as the tune that comes and goes, without any involvement from me. On the next night, I wrote: You are the nearest of them to the fasting of the villages, So slaughter what will be meal for breaking your fast, Scatter the dust of their years with your grief, And enter where the embryos are, Where the endless births are, Where the morning is that turns with its fire and light O you, let their fasting be for someone else, So leap up and warble Seek protection in their wails Fly high above this sadness And may you trace out a circular pattern from their desires for evident liberation.

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For nights on end, I continued writing poetic prose like this, without being able to understand it. What does this woman want from me? What do I want from me? Maybe the last question is the one closest to an explanation for the situation I am in. So I began asking myself. I framed the question more rigorously: What do I want from this woman? Splendid!, I told myself. I will tell her what I want, and maybe I will possess the freedom of my pen. No sooner did I begin writing than I found myself on the back of a black horse that was leading me to fields of mist. At first, I paid no attention to all the women who were wrestling with tongues of flame, since I had been drawn to a desire to see the woman whom the mists do not reach. I placed the nib of the pen on the trembling page and began to write. ‘Why do you weave from me water that sparkles, submitting to the whiteness of your river? Why do you believe me to be a horse whose warmth you ride upon, and on whom you plough through the billowing waves of your desert? I am not the water that you suppose, nor the steed you believe I am. I will not write a poem for you, for I could not reach your music. I will write myself as I am, I will scatter words in prose, in order to find you, to tell you that, since your steed, my time has not tread upon the threshold of day. You have transformed me into an evening tree that thrives in night-time soils. On this night, I sing of you and I write of you. In you the night is transformed into a celebration of your colours and your voice. The light that shines from you appears, a compass that searches for your dunes, and the hooves and neighing of your steed as it withdraws from me, radiating the kohl-black of your hair. And here I am asking you. Why did you squander the night on me? Why, after I penetrated deeply into the darkness, do you ask me for light? What dead people now do you incite me to gasp at? What villages today can I slaughter my meal to break their fast? With you I am afraid of daylight, frightened of the sun, so appear to me, so that I may be free, so that I may treat the illness of my veins to rid them of the horses that only lead me to women who evaporate in mist. They are all women who believe that they are you. O you who recorded with her steed the history of my silence.’ I looked at the page, and at that moment I was convinced that the words on it were my words. Dawn was beaming on the horizon, and I slept. When I awoke, beside me there was a body emanating light, covered with diamonds, a naked body. My song, which I had long waited for, surrounded it. I opened the curtains, and there was the sun in the centre of the sky, and, look, there were hundreds of dead people whom I had known well, staring at my apartment balcony. I felt the palm of my wife’s

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hand rubbing my shoulders and neck. I turned to face her, and I found her wearing the garb of a warrior-woman out of history. I went out with her to do battle amid the carnage in broad daylight. We were surrounded by light and diamonds and steeds that sing to the fasting villages.

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The cage This air rising from her lungs wasn’t air, and this water gushing from her eyes wasn’t water. I tried to breathe in some or drink something, but the wooden door that was up against my back was more solid, so I was unable to stop and understand what was happening. ‘Half a chicken is enough for us, Farida.’ ‘All of you?’ she asked, in a Cairo accent. ‘Yes. Just my mother and father, three girls, two boys and me. Just me.’ ‘Just you, what, sweetheart?’ Then she shouted, in mock anger and amazement, ‘Half a chicken?’ On her plump lips was a sweet smile. She turned her short, plump body, the lower half of which was covered by a black skirt, and the upper half by a red winter sweater. I followed her feet, planted in leather sandals, and with every step she takes I thank God that He gave us a kind neighbour who is good at all the arts of cooking, and owns a big box of candies wrapped in collared paper, and toys that run on batteries, and a wooden cage for two songbirds that never stop singing, and a husband that goes to work first thing in the morning and doesn’t come back until late at night. She raised her voice from inside the kitchen: ‘Don’t tell your family I’m making them lunch!’ ‘Yes, ma’am,’ I said quietly. I got up, and walked with exaggerated good manners towards the kitchen. She looked at me over her shoulder. ‘Open the refrigerator and get yourself a glass of juice.’ ‘I don’t want one,’ I replied. I lowered my head. She tossed the knife from her hand, opened the refrigerator, filled a glass for me and gave it to me. I drank it to the last drop. ‘Here’s to your health, sweetie!’ ‘Go on,’ she added, as she turned to the knife again. ‘Go outside so you can play, and come back at one o’clock.’ Thank you, auntie, I wanted to tell her. Or thank you, my Egyptian mama. But I remembered how she tried once to teach me how to pronounce ‘tante’, and it came out of my mouth all wrong, and how she laughed in

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a charming way that I’d never heard before. Right after that I swore that I wouldn’t say that silly word again, and I was content to address her the way she prefers to be called: Farida. I put the juice glass in her hand and ran to the door without saying a word. In the giant pile that is our house, I looked for things I could play with, but I couldn’t move my foot from place to place. ‘Where is my stamp album?’ I asked my oldest sister, as she came out of the door of the second room, wearing a faded thobe that made her look thinner and a dusty head-wrap she had tied over her hair smeared with shiny oil. She paid no attention to my question. As she pulled out the last sittingcushion, stuck to the dust of the wall, she answered: ‘Can’t you see, you little nuisance, that we need more hands to help put this cursed house in order?’ ‘You do this work once a year,’ I replied confidently, ‘so why the anger and the yelling?’ ‘Because we have to finish this quickly and get lunch ready for the empty stomachs that will be here in an hour!’ she replied with emotion, trying to suppress it. I felt that I would find a solution to all this mess. ‘Farida will bring lunch over,’ I said, putting my hand on the wet wall. She didn’t stop the work she was doing by herself; in fact, it suddenly increased. There was a silence shared by all the hands that were going up and down, dusting and wiping, washing and sweeping. They turned to me, their eyes asking, Farida will bring lunch over? I answered the looks they gave me: Yes, I … Their pupils were like bows drawn, pointing their arrows straight at me. ‘I told her: today is your day to work.’ My mother fired her first arrow, and it struck my neck. ‘I hope you’re not angry, mama. Farida likes you. She asked me: How is your mama? I told her, My mother won’t be cooking her white rice today. She asked me why? I told her about your work, which you’ve been doing since dawn.’ She got up from her couch and tossed aside the magazine filled with pictures of children, and said in her usual voice – or her more than usual voice – ‘How much chicken do you make for your lunch? I thought about it before I answered her: do I tell her the truth and whisper to her that we are happy when there’s a quarter-chicken on our rice? ‘Half a chicken is enough for us, Farida,’ I told her quickly.

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Aziz, ‘the eye man’, was the first person I happened upon before I burped in the street for the first time after this magical lunch that was spread out on an extra table that we had worked hard to find. There was the meat of two chickens, and a salad swimming in unheard-of salt, and fruit and bread that wasn’t from ‘Fasid al-San’ani’, who flattens the dough with his feet and then, using a stick splattered with the remains of flies, tosses it into a fire made from the wood he collects from ruined houses in our alley. ‘The eye man’, as he winks his right eye, eager in his desire to find out, said, ‘Don’t you say “Praise be to God” after your burp?’ I knew that the mothers in our alley warned their children about him. Because he’s ‘the eye man’ that is jealous of everyone who has good fortune, with his eye that he can’t close. ‘When you eat meat and vegetables and fruits,’ I bragged to him, ‘can you keep the air in your stomach from coming out?’ He sucked in his lower lip, split down the middle like a camel’s lip. ‘Very nice, God willing. A holiday came your way that nobody else got?’ Among the warnings we got from our mothers was to say ‘Allahu akbar’ three times to ourselves if ‘the eye man’ says something that shows his envious intent. I felt that I didn’t need to carry out this precaution, since I wanted to play after my very great happiness about this lunch. ‘Yes,’ I told him. ‘The holiday doesn’t come to people like you, because if it did, you’d be jealous of it, and it won’t come back again.’ The eye man was astonished at what I said, and over his face there passed a cloud of sadness that I hadn’t before seen cross between his eyes wide open in fear. He got up from the stone he was sitting on and slowly shuffled his feet over the dust on the ground until he reached his house. He went inside and closed the door behind him with a sound. I chased the rays of the sun that were starting to die out, out of a desire to warm my body after a strange coldness struck me at the vanishing of the remnants of the food I had eaten that afternoon. I saw him approach from the end of the street, carrying sheets, papers and a plastic bag. He began to get closer, while I was still stunned that he was coming so early. He walked right by me without turning his head in my direction. I watched him until he went inside, and the shock of it enveloped me,

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from my head to my now empty stomach. Only ‘the eye man’ came into my head. It’s the sorcery of ‘the eye man’, I told myself. ‘Bad luck came to me from his eye.’ I was about to recite the amulet, but – ‘How can I help it if misfortune descends on me. Whatever happens, happens.’ I approached the door, and didn’t hear anything. I got myself completely under the window, straining to hear. ‘It’s no use.’ I set off to our house, with a question for my mother on my face. I decided to bring it to her ears. No sooner did I enter than she met me, with clean plates in her hand. ‘Take them to Farida, and tell her, “God bless you, you’re a kind soul.” ’ I gently picked up the plates and headed to the street. He opened the door. He looked at me without talking, left the handle and went inside until he reached the couch that Farida was sitting on. Out of her chest comes black air that isn’t air, and out of her eyes comes water that isn’t water. His sheets, his papers and his bag were tossed at the entrance to the room, with the exception of one paper, which was still in his hand. My hands were frozen on the plates, and the door was frozen against my back, and I could hear her say snatches of things about children, feeling like a stranger, loneliness, emptiness and suffocation. I heard him say only one thing, which entered my ear clearly and obscurely. ‘It’s not my fault. It’s God’s command.’ I tried to shout, without being aware of anything. ‘Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar, but …’ ‘How can I help it if misfortune descends on me. Whatever happens, happens.’ I close the door, clutching it with both hands, until the two sides of the lock touched in a cold embrace. I turned my head towards the other corner of the alley. And there was Aziz ‘the eye man’ sitting on the stoop of their house. The same sad cloud was still passing over his face. I walked in front of him, and made him think I hadn’t seen him, and I praised God with every step I took, that He gave us a kind neighbour who is good at all the arts of cooking and owns a big box of candies wrapped in coloured paper, and toys that run on batteries, and a wooden cage for two songbirds that never stop singing, and a quiet husband who tells his wife

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as he puts his right hand on her shoulder, waving a paper in his left hand: ‘It’s not my fault. It’s God’s command.’ Translated by Chip Rossetti

Saleh Al-Ashqar He was born in 1951 in Hail, in the northern region of the kingdom. His family moved to Riyadh in the mid-1960s where he completed his education and obtained a BA in English literature from King Saud University. He has published two collections of short stories, The Clamour of Doors (1989) and The Shadow of the House (2008).

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The clamour of doors This small room is draped in darkness … and I’m crowded with myself, sir. So crowded things around me begin to tangle and intertwine. I see the wall hug the wall and hold it tight to its spacious chest. They stick to one another … become one wall … one wall dissolving into the other to the point of vanishing … I saw them both get undressed … shake off the two pictures hung on them. In the middle of one of the pictures a Bedouin stretches himself out, huddled in his Arab abaya. He pillows the palms of his hands and yields his body to a golden sand dune. I saw the picture fall off and cry out loud. The other picture used to fill me with joy every time the morning trickled through my fingers. When it fell I felt tremendously sad. The wall penetrates the wall. It leaves me alone and departs in the dark. The room itself is open to the spacious darkness now. I turned my exhausted head to one side. I saw the chair moving … and going away with extreme caution and suspicion. It walks away without ever turning back … dragging its legs and drawing behind them crooked lines on the floor. Its footfalls make a heavy and terrifying noise. It’s as if the earth tries to hold the chair back, make it stay for a second, a moment, a little while. But it resists and moves away hurriedly and fearfully. With my own eyes I saw the chair flying. And with these two hands I locked this door through which I came in, self-assured and perfectly at ease. Now it is opening … Creaking … Dragging its whining noises and crawling towards me … getting nearer and nearer. Now the door stands before me with all its awesome solemnity, its usual pride and eternal uprightness. Then suddenly it bends over and flees. I’m afraid … I am dying of fear! I turned my face the other way. I saw the shoes … Only a minute ago I heard this very worn-out pair of shoes rousing itself to walk away on its own … I saw its eyes-like holes waving goodbye to me unashamedly maliciously … It examined the things left in the room with expert eyes, venomously directed at my feet. The pair of shoes is getting closer. The beat of its walk is terrifying. It stopped, wiped the dust off its face and roared up a loud terrifying laugh. Quietly and deliberately it then pulled itself together, spat at my naked feet, turned its face away and disappeared, all proud and full of itself. I wanted to beg of it … to please let me slip into it and leave this place … but I am weak and my voice is broken. It’s vanished without a trace in the dark now anyway. An intense pain burns up in my limbs. It

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flared up from my wet toes … and spread all over my cold body. The pain has a distinct sour taste and I have nothing but my fear. I lifted my head and it was unbearably heavy. The ceiling is crumbling down … the very ceiling that was towering and hanging up high is crumbling now. I shiver … and fall with all the fear I have. I gather my scattered limbs and myself … I take refuge within me and cry. The ceiling gives way fast. I tried to scream … open my mouth … close my eyes … lift my hand … or even register my last defeat. But it wasn’t the kind of ceiling from whose corner a lamp dangles or under whose protection a bird or a moon goes naked. In the wink of an eye, sir … I saw it shed a tear the colour of clouds. The ceiling cries. Stands naked in front of me and cries. It was awesome and spacious as the eye could see. What’s left to you now? Thus fell the question like the slaughtered carcass of a sacrificial offering. I saw, as the man crowded with himself would see, a window leading to a window leading out to a window … I saw a land enfolded with a sky and with crying … voices rising and falling and bodies cracking up and collapsing. There you are now, I said to myself. You’re the only witness. I let my head rest on my shaking knees. I plunged into another kind of darkness, and at that very special moment, fleeting and fleeing from any precise motion, I told myself: What do you see now? I saw your face letting out a cry and I myself burst into tears. A long time passed and your hands laid out on your knees as if you’re acting in a melodramatic scene. You’re going through the widest of doors now, I said.

The first door Faleh is a little child. He’s afraid of his shadow, of the night, of the jinn and of his father. He gets ready to go to the distant school every morning. He stands in the queue with other school children and sings the anthem in the morning without ever understanding a single word. He goes to his class followed by other children and the teacher. He spends his day and runs back home. His mother receives him. Hugs him. Feeds him. Warns him not to go out at noontime. When the rain comes … and the rain doesn’t come often … joy lights up the little heart. For the school closes its door … and play is sweetest in wet noondays. His father would have left town by now too.

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Another door I stared out in the far distance. Very far away. Deep darkness and a black pit, nothing else. When the radio entered our house terror came along with it. It was huge … with multi-coloured wires … a big green eye twinkling on the right side … and a lot of loud noises. If a knock on our door was heard my father would cover it with a white piece of cloth. I was afraid and constantly casting worried glances at my mother’s tearful eye. It was getting painfully and slowly snuffed and wasted. From the backside of a scabby she-camel they got her a ‘halamah’ … a blood-sucking bug. They hatched it inside her eye. She cried with the intolerable pain but they said in disparate voices brimming with confidence: Soon, Um Faleh, God will heal and grant you health. The radio was babbling on … and sometimes singing … Mother cried with the singing sometimes too. I ask her: Where are all those people speaking on the radio, mother? Your father will tell you when he returns from Baghdad, she says, then wipes her tearful eye with her dry finger.

Another door: a discovery I always saw him at midday. He’d be sitting in his usual place … silent and solemn, his eyes widening with alarm at every new child stumbling in his walk … and at the widening circle of mouths to feed. He’d stare long in the neutral face of his wife who’d look down to the floor, coy and fearful. He turns to the children huddled together. He looks intently in their faces one by one. At Faleh’s face he stops longer and looks more intently. His piercing eyes plunge deep into the small round face. He’d wish Faleh would stand up this very minute. Right now, stand up and walk about slowly before his eyes. He’d watch him and measure the height he’d reached. His eyes would be on the verge of saying lots of things but he only gives a momentary mysterious smile instead. There are tears and questions and fears and hopes hiding in his eyes … and this mesmerizing metallic silence that envelopes him every time he enters the house and sees the burgeoning number of children … the wasting eye of the beloved … He has nothing to give but silence and the widening baffled eyes. Noises hush, motion comes to rest and the children stop playing.

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Another door Faleh stands right at the door of the mosque, bare-headed, bare-footed, pale-faced, sunken-hearted. In his small hands he carries a metal bowl filled with water, waiting for the congregation to finish their prayers. But his waning heart is way out there in the small dark house, stuck to the hot breaths of the beloved sobbing with the burning pain in her right eye. The pain is steadily aggravating and spreading to all her head. If the little ones gather round her, she hides her pains in her pillow for a while then with legendary stubbornness forces a charming smile … or turns her face away if her eyes met the man of the house. Great and towering was her patience indeed. Women in the neighbourhood said: This is an evil eye that struck her in the dearest and most beautiful thing she has – her large, calm eyes oozing love and surety. When the man of the house is away – and he travelled a lot – her eyes become sad but alert, spacious as the house itself, till the absent darling returns. If she puts her make-up on and applies kohl to her eyes she becomes the talk of the women. All the young men in the area sang the praises of my eyes, she used to tell her neighbours proudly. And her eyes do have an irresistible allure. When things were going fine and he’d be cheerful and at ease, Abu Faleh used to kiss her on the eyes in the presence of the moon. And here you are Faleh, in the presence of the congregation of worshippers, raising your arms with the bowl, awaiting some prayers to fall. You watch the surface of the water as it ripples after each mumble. Quick as the rain the news has spread among the lined-up members of the group … Um Faleh is struck with an evil eye right in her eye … and here’s her son, Faleh, with the vacant look in his eyes, coming to beg for a remedy to the dropping eye. Faleh stands just past the door … just inside the mosque, watching the lips move with words he does not understand. Some people pour out a few words in the bowl along with their droplets and pass on hurriedly. Others take heir time and ask about the patient, then lift the vessel to their lips, close their eyes and whisper something in sincere piety and devoutness till the surface of the water shakes with tiny waves. Others still only cast a quick look in the bowl but as soon as they step out in the street they raise their arms and voices with prayers. Now Faleh would like to run … fly home … free himself from his misery and pour the holy water in the eye of the beloved. The worshippers are away and only the imam of the mosque is left. He came dragging his feet, his hand fiddling with the hair of his thick beard. He signalled to the boy and approached him, held the bowl of water and brought it to his lips. He went into a sudden and complete trance. His lips

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began to tremble and his long white beard shook with curious speed. He was puffing and blowing in the bowl with an audible but unclear voice. When he finished his prayers and readings (of the Qur’an), he handed the bowl to the boy. The imam was one-eyed.

Another door In the early morning … with the very first drops of morning dew … I found myself smudged all over with a white, gooey stuff. It has a mysterious, unforgettable smell that kept stuck to all the walls of the memory chamber. I could smell it now. It’s like the smell of something chewed. A big, almost circular spot … and some small wet, scattered spots nearby above the knee, sticking to the skin like light glue. I didn’t leave the bed or make a move. The room was crowded with bodies stacked up in a disorderly manner, all falling in a ceaseless sleep. Midway between shame and fear I sneaked out of bed. When my feet trod the cold floor outside the room, I was overcome with delight. I had an overwhelming desire to touch the white gooey stuff. I said to myself as I hid in a dark room: Get it back, retrieve that smell again. The primal rites and festive ceremonies began. One moment … then my pulse raced and I was panting and shivering like a feverish man. My loins and all membranes shuddered, and my whole body began oozing water … my eyes widened and I almost screamed … a moment further and the storm was over, snuffed. Unique it was and overwhelming. Right in the middle of the day. Um Faleh’s eye twinkled. She wanted to say something but she held back the words and painted a white smile on her face instead.

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Mirrors 1 I dressed up as a woman and put my make-up on … I painted my face, swiped on my eyes a heavy coat of mascara and kohl and headed downtown to the gold market. I was dreaming of a handsome man following me, his perfume filling the whole marketplace, whispering sweet and soft words in my ears … like you’re beautiful … your eyes are gorgeous. But except for the women wonderstruck by the captivating glitter of gold, the souk was stark empty. When I walked through its endless winding alleyways I actually believed I was a woman. I entered a shop crowded with ladies, its bright lights shining. The very elegant salesman showed me all kinds of beautiful and brilliant pieces of gold that dazzle the eye. I couldn’t resist the temptation. I bought a necklace and off I went back, a gilded woman … forgetting who I am.

2 I put on I’m dead and gone right there before them. I held my breath and let my tongue hang out from the corner of my mouth, having laid myself out on the floor with my eyes as wide open as they’d go. I saw the children gather round me, amazed and baffled. They exchanged looks in dead silence. I didn’t hear any of them cry, not a single grieved sound of any sort … I was sad and overwhelmed with frustration and a sense of defeat … I could only hear the sound of dance music coming from the next room. When I woke up from my dud death the children dispersed in a very noisy clamour as if nothing had happened … I fell to crying buckets.

3 I entered the famous ‘Oud Cemetery’ … looking for my father’s grave … I’ve missed him. I visit him when the dark deepens around me. He alone can look me in the eye and with one glance read all the hidden words. I wanted to tell him how very sad, depressed, frustrated and desperate I am … tell him that life and the whole world are utter nonsense to me … that I think about committing suicide many times over before every daybreak. The graves are scattered everywhere, filling the whole earth. All are similar and adjacent to one another, as if they’re tiny mounds in the midst

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of a harsh, arid, deserted and desolate desert. One day soon you’ll go in there my friend, I said to my humble self. The worms will devour your body with relish and you’ll vanish among these small mounds and be forgotten once and for all. Perhaps you’ll never even have the pleasure of anyone’s visit … no relatives, no friends. The gravedigger saw me coming and hurried towards me with a scant smile on his face. A small or a big grave you’re looking for, sir, he said? A big one, I said! And when will you bury him, God willing, he asked? Oh, we buried him way back, a very long time ago, I said in a sheepish voice.

4 I don’t know how I entered that place … The low light is so diffuse you can barely see the person sitting next to you. The blue smoke is progressively filling the place and the soft sounds and the slow music incessantly invite you, move you, to dance. There is a swimming pool on the side of which many long legs dangle, as if they’re made of glass or water or pure light or even the rainbow itself. My heart started thumping and I was hit by a fit of panic, hesitation and suspicion. You must leave this place at once, I said to myself decisively. There were men and women walking about, stark naked as on the day they were born. Take off your clothes and enjoy yourself, said a man with nothing on except the thick body hair he wore. A blonde you’ve never seen the like of will be with you in a minute … She’ll give you everything you want … will take very good care of you … tip to toe … You’ll never think again of a woman you’ve slept with … Here we format memory. The girls here are very well trained, he said, professionals … and the place is perfectly safe … Our prices are the lowest in town … free food and drinks for all clients. I took a deep breath then took to my heels.

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The child who saw the sea In one moment his mouth gaped and his eyes were very wide open. He’s never seen before what he now sees. Something at once frightening and fascinating … tranquil and turbulent … near and far … clear and mysterious … brilliant and dim. Something incomprehensible, beyond the limits of his imagination. Cautiously he came closer and slowly dipped the toes of his right foot in the water. His heart throbbed faster. He closed his eyes and bit his lower lip. The water was cold and the sun was sinking in the sky. He came closer still and, having looked around, turned his head and found the four corners of the world right there in his hands … in the wink of an eye he took off his new travelling thobe and surrendered to the irresistible allure of the water. He sat at the edge of the fine sand. The water was flowing slowly and rising up to his waist, then rhythmically ebbing and leaving enough time for the gentle air to breeze over his shanks. The tiny grains of sand climbed up his body and evoked in his heart a cold and pleasant shiver. He slipped his small hands into the water, joined the palms together, filled them and splashed the water on his face. A fit of joy and jubilation hit him. He started beating at the water surface and drops of water flew up in the air and fell cold on his joyous naked body, totally engrossed in its clamour and childishness. The thrill of it all overwhelmed him and filled his heart with freedom and joy. He crawled on a bit further and let the water rise and timidly tap his chest … uttering a scream of joy and excitement with every stroke. A fleeting wave topped his head and showered his eyes and nose. The salty taste hit him. He got up quickly and started rubbing his eyes. The salty water and the cool air enveloped his whole body. He thought for a moment, took two steps forward and sat again slowly and apprehensively, firmly closing his eyes and lips. The fleeting wave lingered for a minute on and soon vanished. He opened one eye only. He saw the water far off and saw himself run and run and take the plunge. Translated by Mujab Imam

Sharifah Al-Shamlan She studied journalism at Baghdad University in 1968. She writes short stories and essays and has published five short-story collections, with some of her stories being translated into English, Spanish and Italian. Her books include The Ultimate Quiet (1989), Scenes from a Life (1993) and City of Clouds (2005).

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A grain of wheat The grains of wheat laugh and roll around together. Some of them leap about like acrobats. As the grains sway, machines scoop them up and put them onto a long, wide belt to take them towards the mill. One grain said to another: ‘How wonderful it is that we might be a piece of bread in the hands of a hungry child, giving him the sap of life.’ Another grain said: ‘And how wonderful it is that we might be dough in the hands of a mother. She will bake us at dawn, and sing a love song to her little ones as our smell spreads to every corner of the house.’ A third said: ‘It scares me that we might be a usurer’s breakfast, his bread smeared with butter and jam.’ A fourth said: ‘I will clog up the mouth of an arms dealer if I end up as a piece of cake on his plate.’ A little grain of wheat heard them and spun free from the rest, twisting itself round and round until it fell to the ground. Then it rolled and rolled until it reached a new field of wheat. It found beautiful red clay, which called out to it lovingly, so it went in. The clay kissed it and embraced it, and the wheat went further and further in, until it found that its love for another had become a burden. The water had absorbed into its body. It turned to the right and then to the left, and it found other grains of wheat that looked like it, their stomachs filled with early pregnancy. The little grain of wheat seemed happy to be pregnant and talked about it day and night. It sent out a little white root, like a child’s tooth, into the ground, and it sent two little leaves towards the sun. They kissed the face of the morning and sang to the coming dawn; they sang to the sun as it emerged from behind the cloak of night. At this point, it took out its simple tools and started to prepare lunch for the tender stem and the root. Every day the stem grew and the leaves got bigger, until it found itself become as tall as a three-year-old child. Spring came, and the little ones came out through a beautiful green sheath. The sheath faced the eye of the sun and the sun was kind to it. It started to wish it good morning and good evening, and the sheath grew and grew. Little by little it turned more and more yellow, until it was golden. The mother grain was happy and extended her body to make space for all of them. She invested her very being in them. She passed on her experiences and her dreams to the grains that were coming to life. An artist used to come to the new field at dusk. He delighted in the colour of the sun as it withdrew its roasted rays from the shame of sepa-

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ration. He drew them and invented stories about them, which he put in a little children’s book. He drew the sheaths with faces and swings and games and love songs. They used to wait for him to come, the wind would shake them, yearning for him, and they would dance joyously for it. Our grain, which had been little, could sense that danger was approaching. Her root was deep in the ground so she could not move. Even if she could, she did not want to. Our grain heard a thunderous roar; the sky was raining down fire and flames. Our grain called out to the little grains in their sheaths to go quickly, deep into the earth, to submerge themselves in the clay, and to wait for a better time, a new day of happiness, to begin. The grains went quickly, they went quickly, deep into the earth, while aeroplanes painted with multicoloured stars hurled down their rockets and burnt the field. A little later, they swooped down over it. The stars exploded, scattered and shattered. Blood flowed, and the soil blocked it out so that it could not come in, but the sun burnt it. A month later, the artist returned with no legs. He was in a wheelchair. He tried to draw the burnt field and the plane that had scattered its parts, and grains of wheat hidden in the faces of girls. But he couldn’t; he wept, and his tears were candles, illuminating the darkness of the days.

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Hunger and wrong At night, she laid her little one to rest in his dusty grave in the date vat and decided that she would not let her brother’s children die of hunger. Hunger knows no right or wrong. It would be wrong for her brother’s little ones to die. She would stand in the way of what was wrong. She lifted a basket over her head, a basket that was faded like her dress. She put the days since Uthaymin left her inside it and started to carry it with her around the hungry streets, through the thirsty dirt alleyways. She looked again and again at the bottom of the alleyways’ walls for an old bit of bread or a forgotten piece of fruit but never found anything. Uthaymin was her husband. He left her long ago. She was two-months pregnant with her child Ibrahim. Ibrahim must have now been seven months old but still he could not sit up, and it looked like he was not going to be able to – his bones were weaker than the leaves of a palm. He sucked her nipples weakly and screamed feebly – her nipples were emptier than the date vat. Her bare, cracked feet led her up the longest path in the village to the big house, where one of the housewives accosted her, chewing a bark toothpick between her teeth: ‘Nuwair, are you a saleswoman now?’ ‘No, madam, I don’t have anything to sell. And even if I did, I wouldn’t find anyone to buy it.’ ‘Then what’s in the basket, Nuwair?’ ‘The days of my life, madam. Does anyone here buy days?’ The housewife looked shocked. ‘What do you mean, “your days”? Are you mad, Nuwair?’ As she spoke, she held out a dry scrap of bread and seven dates. Nuwair took what was in her hand, put a couple of dates into her mouth and chewed them. She put them into the little one’s mouth and ate the other five. She wrapped up the bread and the date pits and put them in the basket with her days. She set off again towards her family’s house, the house with no men in it. They all went out searching for scraps to live off, searching for some well-irrigated, fertile land. How selfish they were. ‘Why didn’t they take them with them? They should live and die together.’ That’s what Uthaymin said to me: ‘You won’t survive, Nuwair, and if you survive the journey, how will you live? Here you have a house; there’s no house for us there. I am a man who can look after himself.’ She cried a lot, until her eyes dried up, and Uthaymin ran away without saying goodbye, depriving her and himself of the chance of a farewell.

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When she got to her family’s house and went in, her brother’s wife was grinding date pits to feed her children. She offered her what she had in her hand. There were seven of them – ‘Oh Nuwair, you ate seven dates by yourself’ – and her mother gave her a wretched look, as if to say, ‘Not even for me, you didn’t even leave one for me.’ Nuwair leant her bones against the wall. Her hand started to fiddle with a stick and scratch at the ground with it. ‘What are you looking for, Nuwair?’ ‘I’m looking for water.’ ‘Water. If there was water, all our troubles would be over. We’ve looked for it everywhere with no joy. How could water come when the heavens aren’t listening?’ ‘They should pray and ask for water.’ ‘We have prayed and prayed, Nuwair. What’s wrong with you today?’ ‘Nothing. But is –’ She swallowed her words. Her brother’s wife kept on grinding weakly. Her children could not move for hunger. Nuwair’s mind turned to the big house. People who had visited it said it had a big vat full of dates, and that the owner of the house kept it all for himself and his family. Why didn’t he feed the people of the village with them so that they could live today and leave God to look after tomorrow? They said a lot about him – that he took land and houses and everything as payment for a bag or two of dates. And he always used to say, ‘What am I to do with your houses and your land? Dates, on the other hand, are food, and more important than your land.’ She left her thoughts behind and decided to go down to the well to look for water, she could not stay like that. But there was no water in the well and she said, ‘Mum, the well is dry.’ Her mother said piously: ‘What is with you must vanish: what is with God will endure.’ Nuwair said, ‘Why doesn’t He give us some of what is left?’ Her mother asked for God’s forgiveness and said: ‘Oh Nuwair, don’t blaspheme. It is God’s will.’ ‘Oh Lord, oh Lord, have mercy on us.’ Nuwair’s voice was full of faith. She left the well just as she had gone there and found her child lying with his face to the ground. She turned him over and found that he was dead. She did not scream and she did not mourn. She said to herself, ‘Now he has found peace.’ What pained her was that she could neither wash him nor find him a shroud. Her mother said, ‘We start with God, Nuwair, and to Him we return.’ She wrapped him up and took him to the mosque.

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When she arrived there, she found hungry dogs dragging about a child who had been left before hers, so she took Ibrahim back, deciding to dig him a grave at home and bury him there. She would not leave her child to the dogs. At night, she laid her little one to rest in his grave in the date vat and decided that she would not let her brother’s children die of hunger. Hunger knows no right or wrong. It would be wrong for her brother’s little ones to die. She would stand in the way of what was wrong. She crept towards the big house and went very cautiously into the vat of dates. She lifted up the hem of her dress and collected dates in it. Then she went back to the children and fed them. Her mother said ‘Where did you get those from?’ She said, ‘You have done wrong to get them. Don’t eat them.’ But her mother had put some dates in her mouth. In the morning, the owner of the big house shouted. The sky responded to his shouts with thunder, and Nuwair’s mother prayed humbly. Translated by Clem Naylor

Talaq Al-Marzougi He lives in Riyadh and participates in cultural events. His first short-story collection, Turquoise Blood, was published in 2006. He is a member of the Narrative Society in Riyadh.

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Sand tracks His eyes try to capture the details accurately. They follow the edge of the distant skyline, tucked in right behind the tent where a train of camels stretches in an almost invisible line. The ones in the front have already gone deep into the haze of the bluing horizon and have completely disappeared; the rest of the camels at the rear are still visible, struggling against the notion of vanishing in the void. The sand stretches flat in front of him and so gives him the chance to see more clearly ahead. Soon, however, it frustrates him as piles of sand stand erect in conical shapes of different sizes. It seems to him that the acacia bushes scattered around apparently haphazardly are in fact distributed in such a way that contributes to controlling the quick and shifting sand movements. Right where he stands, the near side of the desert directly opposite him, there’s a white tent turned earthy yellow with the dust. The front of the tent is open to the sand, which lets the sun in half way through to skirt the edges of the draped and drooping back part. In the tent there is a man in his seventies with a snow-white beard and wrinkled face, his blind grandpa. He knows him well even though the details of his face are almost erased from his memory now. He died a long time ago at the high noon of a wintry day. The little left of him in his memory includes his horrific death scene – he was standing screaming and the fire devouring his clothes and his frail body. He tried to light his pipe and the fire caught the bottom edge of his thobe, then spread all over to his thick sheepskin jubbah.34 He fell to the floor in a sorrowful way, writhing in pain and making horrific hissing sounds. Then he simply died. Only his mother was around and she filled the whole place with howling and screaming. All was almost to no avail, had it not been for one of their relatives who happened to be passing by the tents. He rushed to help them but was too late to save the old man. That’s all he remembers. Stumbling with words, his mother would say afterwards that they buried him under a huge acacia shrub with a solid dark stem and lots of holes in it. I’ve loathed acacias ever since, she’d often add and fall in solemn silence. He could see his deceased grandfather walking to the middle pole of the tent with cautious and feeble steps. He leans against it, slides down to the floor and sits silent for a while, perhaps thinking about something. He opens a cylindrical box with the typical care and precision he was known 34. A cloak.

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for. He takes out some white cups, stretches out his left hand and holds the tail end of the curved brass handle stuck to the bottom of the yellow (Rasslan) coffee pot. He lifts it up to his chest level and tilts it down with the deliberateness and meticulous attention of a craftsman. The yellowish coffee liquid pours out but before it hits the hollow of the cup his hand and the contours of his face freeze. The stream of pouring coffee freezes too and remains hanging in the air. The beat of the slow music in the place sneaks deep inside his soul and fills him with intense sorrow. What really worries him is this tent rope. Its shadow doesn’t feature anywhere although it is past midday and the sun has already left the heart of the sky. At this time back home his grandpa’s camel, Umaireen, would be squatting as usual, his front legs sunk in the sand, busy at his monotonous rumination, impervious to everything and everyone around. His eyes focus on the back part of the camel’s thigh, branded with marks that seem to the uninitiated some kind of magical talismans – the two hammers and crescent, his grandfather’s brand. Unlike the rope, Umaireen’s extended shadow stretches eastwards and is sharply broken at the edge of the draped back part of the tent. He feels the beauty of the whole scene. The game of light and shade has always fascinated him. It blows things so out of proportion and shows them much larger than they really are. The cool air of the AC sneaks through his thobe and he feels cold. He crosses his arms over his chest and leans forward a bit to take a closer look. Yes, he knows those first moments very well indeed. He still remembers the first time he stepped into the heart of that big, silent tent. He felt a kind of deep echo resounding as the breeze moved the tassels of the dense and braided goat hair yarns hanging on the edge of the low roof top. At those moments sunk deep in time he remembers how completely he felt at home, his real home, and how the city he came from was nothing to him but some tedious hours of studying and some constant screaming of a teacher for unknown reasons. He closes his eyes and feels the power of that extraordinary scene. It is exactly the same scene that comes back to him from a very distant time: His blind grandfather stands up and walks alongside the line of cushions stacked up by the back pole of the tent. He walks deftly between things as if he knows their exact locations with the accuracy of a seeing man. The boy couldn’t understand how a blind and slow-moving old man can go about doing his own things with such an absolute precision. The shadow of that tent rope he couldn’t see still worries him. It disappeared so mysteriously and unjustifiably.

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Images stream to his consciousness in high speed and intensity: the old man with his big nose and white beard, staying in most of the forenoon, completely relaxed, leaning against a special prop made for him – the saddle of one of his camels. To the boy coming from the city, he looked like one of heaven’s angels. He scratches the tip of his nose and returns to the state of absolute stillness he was in while standing. He is utterly motionless, only his eyes moving with the deliberate wilfulness of a contemplative man trying to recapture all the details. He is at the mercy of a strong temptation pushing him to try to retrieve that distant and transparent scene, too laboured to recall it to memory with its full and unforgettable clarity. He seems unable to free himself from those memories. They keep pulling him towards a burning yearning to that tent sunk in the sand of a valley (Al-Khashabah) in the middle of nowhere. He knows that these old memories, anchored in the lower depths of his mind, have a great attraction. He can never escape their magic no matter how old he grows. At this very minute he is inhabited by that oppressive urge which makes him unwilling to obliterate the boundaries between his arid present and the delicious memory appearing before him in all its intensity and splendour; he is still inhabited by the tyrannical certitude that makes him in need of restoring everything from the crystalline time of childhood, everything that tries to give memory a tangible shape. A persistent desire overwhelms him and drives him to see things start and unfold again. He doesn’t want to feel his mind defeated by the passage of time. A short while after sunset the colour of the spacious sky starts turning into a thick and ferocious dark. It is heavy with the glittering of countless tiny holes I was not familiar with in the city’s blank night. As usual, when the night emerges with all its awesome solemnity, the family gathers around grandpa sitting in his favourite place near the tent. Their boisterous movements show they’re still hyperactive, more excited than necessary perhaps, preparing themselves to listen to the endless tales he pours into their hearts and minds every evening. The voice of my grandma Nora came over intoning a ‘laaaaa iiiiilah iiiiiilllla Alllllllaaaah’ (No God but Allah), so loud and drone as if struggling against the ferocious power of the night. Behind the tents the bleating sound of sheep sunk in darkness, permeated by the long painful growling of a she-camel, was sharp and shrill like the voice of a wounded man calling for help. My mother was rushing about in the tent with swift, tense steps, looking for the cup in which my grandfather drank his milk. No other cup

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would do. I was rushing about with her, holding on tight to the edge of her dress, filled with great fear. If only my grandpa’s tents had electricity to dispel all this darkness. My grandpa is now sitting there in his evening gathering. As usual, he never stops sending his prayers up to heaven: ‘OOOOOhhhh Allah! May it be a good evening tinged with no evil whatsoever.’ Then he adds, asking his eternal question: ‘Umaireen is back, Nora?’ ‘He’s back to H’radah,’ my grandma answers briefly. I haven’t seen anything like this ferocious, fearful night. At last the hectic movement of things quieten and settle down a bit. The ritualistic coming of the Bedouin night, at once terrifying and wonderful, is almost over. Alas, at that moment, the barking of my uncle Sa’ad’s dog can be heard approaching at a distance, wreaking havoc in the desert scene again! By the time my grandpa’d finished filling his pipe with tobacco, the restless movements would have come to a complete end. They’d gather round him as he wipes his face and beard with the palm of his right hand and says: ‘The story goes that when Abu Zaid took his horse to the water one day, he saw a girl filling her waterskin by the well. He liked that beautiful girl and asked her name. A’lia bint Jaber, she said. This woman would be fine for me I think, he said to himself. Problem is that Bani Hilal’s Sheikh has forbidden Bani Hilal boys from marrying anyone but Bani Hilal girls. He went to see their Prince Hasan bin Sarhan and said: Sheikh, I want you to come to my rescue and help me with the Prince of the Ubaidah tribe, Sheikh Jaber. I beg of you, come with me to ask the hand of his daughter A’lia in marriage.’ The lamp hanging on a trunk leaned against the pillar of the tent seeps a miserly pale light barely enough to make visible the heads of the people sitting around. What terrified me was the sudden darting of small butterflies from the pitch blackness of the night. They’d bang themselves so forcefully against the glass the lantern, keep fluttering their wings for a while then fall to the floor dead. ‘The Prince refused outright. Abu Zaid, he said, you shall marry no one but a Bani Hilal girl. O Prince, please, just go and see her and you’ll excuse me, Abu Zaid said. The Prince refused again and Abu Zaid insisted again. Look Salamah, the Prince said, I’ll send some people to see her and describe her for me. If she’s worth it we’ll stand by you and come to your rescue.’ Grandpa coughed violently. He threw the pipe to the sand and hid his

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face in the inside of his two hands for a few moments. He’d then pick his pipe again and continue: ‘He sent his messengers and when they returned they did not praise her. O Prince, they said, the girl is scrawny and not at all as Abu Zaid described her. The prince refused again and Abu Zaid insisted again. May the Lord grant you long life, Prince, just you go and see her yourself. Although this girl is of average stature, she towers over her mates. When Abu Zaid pushed it a bit, the Prince said to himself: Why wouldn’t I go and see this girl who drove Abu Zaid crazy? The Prince rode his camel and went to see her and took a man called Abu Al-Ulah with him. The Prince stopped his camel and walked to her. When he saw her he was stunned by her beauty and they say he couldn’t even walk back. He just sang a poem in which he said: Lead along my camel, Abu Al-Ula, I prithee, Or call someone to lead my camel for me. They tell me A’lia is all scrawny, bony and dry stiff; Slender I’d say her stature rather, like youth itself. If she stands up her tight belt on her round hips rests, And if she bends over it’d fall, were it not for her breasts. Tell the man chasing after love to pursue his beloved And I’ll guard him against the evils of those who A’lia envied. He almost stuck his face to the painting but he noticed the visitors passing by around him. He turned to the spacious gallery hall and found the music still filling the place. Something strongly and deeply attracts him to this painting. He lifted his hand and passed his fingers along the painting’s embossed lines of oil colours. He touched the face of the old man and moved on to the yellow liquid frozen between the coffee pot and the cup. He realized that all those seasons of joy and rapture are nothing but a dream that passed and shall never return. He felt the great disparity between his present and his active imagination constantly labouring to retrieve the past. His fingers, he knew full well, are only digging up a distant time gone and will never return, even though he could still hear its waning echoes in his ears now. He was thinking of those magic moments that had bewitched him one spring in Al-Khashabah valley with all its white sheep and red camels spreading out and roaming about the desert every morning. They formed a picture of captivating beauty that somehow somewhere contained his

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special, indescribable, unnameable secret. How much of that life does this painting have, he wondered? He surveyed all the other paintings on the walls and withdrew towards the exit door. Just before he went out he turned to the painting. His grandpa’s camel Umaireen was ruminating on, impervious to one and all.

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Turquoise blood Before the ritual The moon that was pillowing a blue cloud last night, heavy with somnolence, is up tonight granting the universe some glittering shade of silver. I stretched out on the couch right under the falling moonlight. The desire to sleep is not gratified yet this evening, maybe because I’m used to not surrendering my eyes to the numbness of sweet slumber before darkness completely encloses the room. It is full moon tonight and it has already started to pour its silver over the city. I pulled the curtains and left the window wide open to the turquoise light, which spread its magic allure over great many items of the room’s contents. Only then I gave in to my worries and premonitions. I don’t know how long I stayed like that. What is certain is that I had prepared myself for sleep. Maybe I was just hanging in that twilight zone between wakefulness and sleep, or maybe I did actually doze off. The last thing I remember is that I was gazing at the wine-red curtains and the way they hung down on either side of the window. Against the wine-red colour, the turquoise shade gave the place a touch of sensuous splendour and charm. There are some mutterings around me coming from the deep unknown. I could distinctly hear them as I was still stretched on my sofa and near my head stood the wooden model of Scheherazade I’ve recently sculpted. The mumblings started to build up and turn into a vague voice that soon became clear and captivating, distinctly reiterating: – It is the moon. Its rising is life; its setting death. Apprehensive, I turned to my left where the table stood with the wooden model of Scheherazade on it. She was sitting there with her chin buried in the palm of her right hand, staring at me and smiling. Strange thing is I wasn’t in the least scared. I started racking my brains and I remembered that when I sculpted her with my own hands, she was standing and holding the edge of her embroidered gown in her right hand …

First ritual/the epiphany I’ve decided not to die, she whispered. That was a thousand thousand years ago. She came down from the stand and squatted by the window under

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the floods of turquoise light. Her opulent breasts curved gracefully in her naked bosom. I was baffled and yet, despite my bewilderment, I could hear her regular breathing. I could see her ample chest heaving her breasts in a gripping, riveting way. I directed my eyes right at her, trying to capture every seductive detail of her youthful body. Her earrings dangled on either side of her long neck with exceeding elegance. Her light perfume spread and filled me with a vague, captivating pleasure. The more I leered at her the more overwhelmed my whole body was with a deep shudder. She turned her head away and looked outside the window, watching the shining moon. I let my eyes focus on her lanky hair resting on her naked shoulders. I noticed a fine wine-red ribbon plaiting with her locks into a single braid in the middle, the rest of her hair free from the ribbon and scattered all about her naked back. The moonlight pouring on her face gave her complexions more delicate softness and smoothness. She was still looking directly at the moon, so sunk in the pleasure of deep contemplation that for a while she forgot all about me. I remember when she came down from the stand she started to lull me and tell me her tale, and I was totally engrossed, hypnotized with the rapturous telling. She stopped the flow of questions dead on my lips. She started talking: – Oh, I tried to rebel, tried to beguile the executioner. I didn’t want to give in to the intractable labyrinth. I was fooling the male and in turn he was fooling me. I passionately loved him and hated him at one and the same time. It was he who could at once assert and annihilate my femininity. When darkness would fall I used to weave one tale from the other till dawn would break in on me. I would then express my wish to do my ablutions with the whiteness of the morning whose lights have started to flood the world around me. Only now I escape the tyranny of that fear I experience every night till the crowing of the amicable cock. Only now, in a moment stolen from those terrifying times, I can openly state my wish to strip naked in your arms, to dance, to tap with the toes of my bare feet the shining marble floor of this room. Would you like to dance, she asked me? – Yes … yes, and I started reeling to the beat of her steps falling on the marble floor. I felt a kind of lightness I’ve never felt before. Eagerly I told her: – Awake in me the swan song of the soul in this delicious, purgatorial time, for we might not meet again.

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I felt her voice and the gestures of her soft, delicate hands sowing spring itself in the multiple folds of my veins. I felt them ploughing my desert that ever awaits the spring rain. Suddenly she stopped the dancing. She moved towards me and held my arm with both her hands. She looked me in the eye and said in a broken voice: – For a thousand years boils and blisters and blankness have covered the complexions of my face. I have tried to defy them with the sweet talking till you came along and chiselled away all that ugliness. Now I have the courage to stand before you, fully conscious, and wish to exchange love and adoration with you. So get up, I sorely miss you. And, she added, I’ll have you donned as an eternal face death itself cannot erase. How did I stand motionless and mesmerized before a woman with such beauty and splendour? How didn’t I do anything crazy? How did I manage to sublimate my desire to hold her in my arms? I don’t know … All I remember is that I remained huddled in silence before the ring of her sweet tone of voice. I completely surrendered to a case of intense and enraptured listening. – In the evenings of old I used to kindle in the veins of the night the fire of my great grandmama’s cunning. I used to lull the tyrant with tales blazing with the flames of agonizing anticipation and expectancy. I was afraid the stamp of death would reach my own veins and bleed them out one after the other. I know you are different from the whole lot of them, sir. After all, your delicate fingers have formed the details of my brilliant body. What is it that attracts me to you? Is it the clarity latent in the depth of your black eyes? Or is it the quiet tone of your voice that betrays a lack of interest in the whole might of man? I feel you’re so like me we’re truly identical. I was spellbound, bewitched by this voice coming out from the far ends of eternity. I was afraid to wake up. I was afraid her voice would somehow vanish, melt away with the silver moonlight and get scattered all over the spacious dome of the sky. – The graceful movements of your metallic chisel, chipping away at the hard rock, have sparked off a tiny detail filled with the eternal feminine beauty. I was overjoyed with life and now I feel more beautiful than all the other women. I feel I’m more fit than all the other women to dance with you and with you alone.

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Second ritual/the apotheosis Her presence started to grow and steadily gain momentum, and she crowned it all with the dancing. She stepped down from the wooden stand and started tapping the floor with her naked feet. Tuk … tuk … trak … she went on and on, dancing and tapping the floor with the tips of her toes, sweat oozing from her naked body profusely, widely, feverishly … tinged with some lust and with a longing to travel to the far edges of endless time. I followed the dancing with great curiosity and an immense pleasure. – Stop … stop. The blood circulation of my body went haywire when the moonlight awakened you to life. She stopped the dancing and stood erect right opposite me. With her graceful stature before me she looked lofty like an oak tree. She lifted the hair scattered on her face with white and pointed fingertips of utmost beauty, inflaming me with an overpowering desire I laboured to forcefully repress. Only now I’m sure the strokes of my chisel have tapped the sources of beauty in the heart of the dumb and inarticulate stone. Only now I’m sure that my pleading with the stone to split open and talk was not in vain. The strokes of the chisel did not fall on a dry and dead mass as I thought. Now I have a terrible feeling every time I remember Pygmalion. Do you know Pygmalion, lady? She ignored me and went back to dancing and I held her fine fingertips in my hands and started beating the floor with my feet too.

Third ritual/the incongruity When the moon disappears in the nebula I descend to the womb of the underground earth. I hide the Laws in my hands and penetrate the seven gates. The guards order me to take off my clothes and I obey them. I shed one item of clothing at every gate and bury my regal attire under the thresholds. At the seventh gate I stand utterly naked and sink in the dark. Three nights I remain tight held to the ground with an invisible string. I keep defying the dark and the loneliness, stuffing my mouth with bitter screaming. No one answers. Only the evil spirits and the demons are present, going brutally deeper, further obliterating the turquoise lights. In the last three nights of the lunar month the moon becomes a crescent. For three nights of death I await my devoted children to arise and wash away the darkness with the blood of sacrificial offerings till the light clears again. When the moon is full again I sink in an epiphanic moment. My veins crowd and overflow with blood and I’m sure the moment of return

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is due and has already started. I pass by the seven gates on my way back, picking up my clothes and garments, crowning my head with the silver studded diadem of plains and meadows. I hold the golden sceptre in my hand, fasten the Tables of Fate to my waist and prepare the basketfuls of grain to sow in the fields. I conduct my ritualistic ascension to the sky again, spilling plenty and fertility on the earth, planting joy in the irises of the eyes. The singing of the blessed people reaches my ears: Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Glory be to the Holy One Who appears in the sky Hallelujah, Lady of the great sky A Sacred Torch you are, filling the sky with Your glowing ­luminescence You make the day sparkle at dawn Hallelujah! Virgin daughter of the moon Ever great and dignified and radiant You Who shine with grace in the evening. I was confused. I didn’t know what was going on. I squatted and hid my head between my knees. I’m not sure how much time had passed before I lifted my head and surprised her with a question: – Who are you? – I am all women. – But who in particular? – I am She in whose self all names are gathered. She turned her face to the west and her eyes hung on the horizon. Silence reigned between us as heavy as melted lead. Pleadingly I called her: – Look at me, Layla, and tell me why all this sadness in your eyes? She turned to me and said: – It is the moon: Its vanishing is death. She continued in a tone heavy with even greater sadness: – When you miss me, look for me in the mud tablets and at the borderlines where sugarcane grows. You’ll find signs that I’m there, bathing in the moonlight, rising again at its first appearance.

Fourth ritual/the absence I searched the room for her and didn’t find her. Even the wooden base of the statue was stark empty and engulfed in solemn stillness and silence. There’s absolutely nothing there. I felt a great sorrow and sadness crushing me.

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The sad ring in her voice as she urged me to look for her in the mud tablets sidetracked me from the rays of moonlight that started to vanish. When I came round I saw the fuzzy light of dawn vanquish the turquoise light. The turquoise light diffused submissively and I was bitter for losing her. I stood at the metal windowsill and gazed in the distance, my fingers trembling, the veins of my hands swelling with overflowing blood. My eyes were fixed on the distant horizon where the moonlight is progressively diminishing. The scattered clouds in the skyline looked like domes studded with silver. They struggled hard not to vanish in the tyrannical haze that conquered the vast empty space. The legions of turquoise lights were squarely defeated before the advancing haze, filling the horizon and making visibility poor. It was the calamity that made me speak and so I screamed: ‘Come back, woman, sculpted with the pulse of my fingertips, created with the strokes of my chisel. I made you. I gave birth to you from my own heartbeat. There are burning questions brimming with worry still; there are endless questions still stuffed in my mouth.’ My voice was lost in the vast empty space. I felt the pointlessness of it all and I closed my eyes. The only thing left in my memory is that minaret with its flickering lights struggling to emerge from behind the dim darkness of dawn. Translated by Mujab Imam

Umaimah Al-Khamis She was born in Riyadh and has been director of educational media at the Ministry of Education since 2001. She has published four collections of short stories and two novels. Some of her stories have been translated into English and Italian. She received the Abha Award for short-story writing in 2001. Her works include ‘Where Does This Light Go’ (1996), ‘The Antidote’ (2001) and the children’s story ‘Wasmiyah’ (2005).

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The stranger In the darkness, I lightly feel my way around the furniture with the tips of my fingers. I am afraid I might make a noise since I don’t yet know where they are. Just as the serpent emerged from among the trees in the Garden of Eden, crowned with lust and sin, so I stuck my head into the inner hallway, trying to find the phone in the dim light that reached the hall through the south window. There it was, between the chairs, black and with speed-dial buttons. When I picked it up, its earpiece seemed strange in my hand, and I felt lonely. I remembered my white phone with red buttons. My fingers glided over it like a skilled typist, driving away a cloud of sadness that began to rain on my heart. I had to call him now. I had to find him. I won’t waste my time with sadness and memories. He may be muffled in clouds and wrapped in mystery, but when he picks up the phone, his voice is warm and weary, like the opening lines of a sad song. Where could he be now, I wonder? It’s 2:30am, the streets are empty of cars, and the traffic lights are content to stay yellow … Where could he be, I wonder? He keeps a tight lid on his emotions. His voice is never like the voices of men encumbered by inhibition and the chronic need for a woman – voices that are clingy like reptiles and leave me cold. I pick up the phone, tap my fingers and call again. Did he go to see one of his friends? But he hates staying out late. He hates the cacophony of loud voices, and gum in my mouth during the conversation. He also hates a feeling of urgency, and the city of London, and the way Arabs go on vacation. He loves his old home and loves the music of the Atlas Mountains in Morocco. He loves many other things, but he never once tried to tell me that I was on the list of the things he loves. My nightgown is white silk, and over it is a robe adorned with pinkcoloured satin threads. My slippers lie on the floor below, like two cats wrapped in long white fur. Everything on me is painted and polished: my nails, my lips, and my body, like birds in mating season – colourful, adorned and ready. My eyes accustom themselves to the darkness of the hallway. I walk quietly, and my slipper-cats under my feet meow coquettishly and submissively. I stand by my bedroom door. Sounds of the stranger’s breathing – approaching snoring – reach me. I make certain, then I go back to feel my

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way to the phone. I pick up the receiver and press the buttons precisely and eagerly. With every number I breathe deeply, and recall one of God’s beautiful names. I wait. No answer! Often my naivety brings me into a long underground vault of waking dreams, and in that exact moment, I remembered Van Gogh after he cut off his ear in order to give it to his beloved. Even if I gave him my ear, I would remain there, warm, wrapped inside his voice. I call again, and imagine the ringing of the phone wandering through the rooms of his apartment. I wonder what it’s like. How intimate is its ambiance? What is its architecture like and where does the light fall on it? I drew endless designs for a sketch of his apartment, until in the end I settled on a design that I imagined was withdrawn inside itself, so if there are car horns and noises from the street, then he is talking from the hallway. But if his voice is sullen and yawning, then he must be in the bedroom. I enjoy the ringing of the phone in his apartment, as it makes its way through there, creating a connection between me and him! Previously, on the nights when I couldn’t find him, I would dream of him, and I would force birds in my dream to fetch him, and all the next day I would remain preoccupied with interpreting the vision, looking for the Lebanese woman Umm Yusuf who was good at reading fortunes and omens and at interpreting dreams. But her answers to the dream were always vague, contradictory and foolish: they won’t be useful tonight as the words crowd together in my throat, wanting to leap up to fly across the empty space that separates me from him between the east and the north sides of the city. But I am seized before this mouthpiece, through which I have to tell him that I was a bride tonight and that I had the wedding procession, surrounded by women carrying tambourines, while I was carrying a bouquet of purple-coloured flowers I made of silk especially for this purpose. My family was there, and there were photos – a lot of flash photos – and the colour of the flowers in the reception hall was also purple. Ah, I know he’s annoyed by these feminine details, but it doesn’t matter: I’m alert and ready. As if I were blind man whose sight has been returned to him only five minutes ago, and then he is asked to describe what he sees. Again I creep quietly, frightened, towards the bedroom door. I stand there, like a door ajar. I sharpen my hearing, then withdraw quietly and

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lightly, when I hear the sleeping man snoring. I go back to pick up the receiver: if the tons of words I have to say were spread over the desert of the Empty Quarter, they would cover it and then flood over towards the sea. My room was my small desert, and our conversation was its rainclouds. Before our night-time phone call, I would scatter golden dust on my neck and extremities. I would perfume myself and colour my lips. I didn’t want to have it turn into a meaningless daily routine. I wanted it to be a rare, respected ritual. I used to see him at the end of the aisle at the supermarket, beside the cleaning equipment and laundry detergent. Shades of fear, interrupted scenes, and the nervous look on his face, and when I would go back home, I would discover that the fear (in the supermarket) had snatched away his features, run away with them, and blur his face, so that it ended up that every time I saw him it was just like the first time, and in those seconds between the shock of the scene and the terrified turn of the head, I would try to glue his face into the folds of my memory. But after several attempts that ended in failure, I asked for his photo, and at the end of aisle, beside the laundry detergent, he gave it to me. In my small desert, as I contemplated his photo, I discovered that he had a birthmark on his right cheek and a dimple on his chin, and on his right eyebrow were light traces of a scar. It was a splicing process, where it was impossible to mesh his image with his voice. On some nights, after taking precautions, eager to get to my room, I would take it out. When my eyes met the round pupils of his eyes, I would feel afraid and shiver: who is this man reclining on the edge of the seat in the photo? I would hide the photo quickly and look for the phone with the red buttons, in order to reach him without doing the ­splicing. He would tell me: On the phone, you’re elusive and timid, like the neck of a frantic horse, but when I see you, beside the laundry detergents, you seem lively, stammering and wrapped in your abaya, and you hide your confusion and shyness like the tail of a tame cat. Oh! I have to tell him that the train on my wedding dress was ten metres long, and the hairdresser worked for three hours doing my hair, and for two hours covering my face with make-up. I have to find him – and find him now – since tomorrow the stranger will wake up and perhaps I won’t be able to talk to him. I wouldn’t call him right after I woke up; I was embarrassed that my voice would seem swollen with traces of sleep, so I would wash out my

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mouth, gargle with warm water, and put something sweet in my mouth, humming some songs so that my vocal cords would be strong and my tone of voice mellow. Then my sister would make fun of me, saying: ‘Goodness gracious, is Umm Kulthum about to go on stage?’ Oh my God! Where did he go tonight? Will I be forced to dream about him? Why tonight, exactly, when endless conversations sprout up like grass in my throat? Oh God! … Summon him – even if he yawned and fell asleep, You never do! The mouthpiece of the phone – with him, it’s like the mouth of the well where the two angels Harut and Marut clung to the bottom, teaching humans magic. His magic breaks apart the talisman of existence around me – that hidden existence behind men’s angelic wings, and behind the steering wheels of the cars that take them far away, heading towards magnificent driveways, and that pull girls inside, towards rooms filled with furniture and servants, and ringed with cement. I try to restore the mosaic of images that he is made of, while he is far away there in the eastern part of the city. With a passionate grief I began to discover that there was nothing between me and him but a space occupied by words strung like pearls. I sneak up again to the bed, and sleep on the edge of it. I’m afraid the stranger’s hand will reach me. I put my head on the pillow, while keeping my feet on the floor. I’m afraid that if I lie down, the stranger’s bed will swallow me like a whale. I look out the window, where the trees in the garden are wrapped in the sleeves of their silence. The walls are white and faded, and stir up my emotions, because of an excess of loneliness. There has never been a screen on which my waking dreams are displayed! Above the right-hand wall, and in the pale light of the window, there was a poster of a mysterious girl with thick, fiery-red hair scattered about her. The background of the poster was filled with leaves that had fallen from the tree, as if she were Eve fallen from Paradise. My last call was at 4:45am, and when he didn’t answer, loneliness swallowed my heart like a black, ferocious dog. There was no longer anything but the stranger’s bed, dark as a whale’s jaws. In the sky, the morning star appeared. It seemed as though it were smiling an encouraging smile, a mother’s smile radiating courage into her daughter’s limbs all through her first day of school. I lay down in the bed. My limbs were exhausted. I hadn’t slept for two nights before my wedding day, exhausted by nervousness and tension. The wrinkles of the bed beneath me grew and were transformed into quick-

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sand that skilfully sucked me in. I never found him! The lump in my throat grew bigger. I was afraid that I would begin to sob and the stranger would hear me, so I thought about going to cry in the bathroom. I turned my face to the nearby pillow. The stranger’s head would sink into the pillow after deep sleep overtook him. The colour of the sky had become bluish-violet, and the poster of Eve falling from Paradise was becoming clearer. I went back to contemplating his face again. And suddenly. My limbs began to tremble, and the quantity of blood pouring into the chambers of my heart weakened. I felt that something burning, flaming, was cutting me in two, something I saw reflected in the room’s mirror. In my nose I began to smell the smell of laundry detergent and the bright fluorescent lights in the supermarket. A mosaic of images. On the pillow there was the birthmark on the surface of the right cheek, a dimple on the chin. Ah! The right eyebrow with a light childhood scar above it. The curtains began to shake from the effect of a gentle dawn breeze that crept into the room, and began to spread the milky colour of the morning. Then … and only then … I knew why I hadn’t found him. I had married him!

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The young girl The girl’s mouth was full of magic. When she whispers ‘palm tree’, the air outside her mouth turns into a summer palm overflowing with date clusters swaying with passion. And when she utters ‘sun’, the walls of the room where she withdraws herself shine intensely from the radiation of the dazzling light of the sun that forms into a ball from the young girl’s mouth. When she says ‘house’, there is a small house, whose doors are locked before the threshold of the evening, while its windows radiate the intimacy of domestic desires at the end of day. When the girl pronounces ‘river’, then a great river crashes and collides, with bridges arching over it, and with small sailboats cutting across it, blowing their whistles to announce their passing. The amusement and happiness the girl got from this caused her to not feel the confinement of the place – except lately: for when the river wells up between her teeth, she has to direct it to the suitable wide downward slope that will still its body with all its pride and glory before her. At the same time, before she pronounces ‘sun’, she has to make sure to cover up combustible things in the room around her, before the sun forms into a ball and ignites it. But vultures are a simple matter: when they flap from between her lips towards the ceiling, they turn their stern eyes as they look for a window that can give them access to the open horizon. She began to be conscious of the pain of distances and extent, and she also knew that the confining, hidden place made people withdraw around her, as they leave for her a place crowded only with embodied words. It was then that her heart became filled with loneliness, as it implored her to seek human voices that will soften the loneliness of silence, and light up the dark upper recesses. And so she remained mute for six days, and on the seventh day, she cleared her throat loudly and pronounced ‘Solution’ … ‘Solution’ materialized from her mouth in the form of a small dwarf with a loud, sharp voice like the sound of porcelain dishes touching each other. His eyes were round, and in their depths gleam very old secrets. That gave them a spark of wisdom and peacefulness, which filled the girl with confidence in the small notebooks he was carrying in his right pocket. ‘I know you miss them, and you miss their chit-chat, their slander, their accumulated sorrows, and the hollowed-out shells of their hopes … You

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long to encircle them, once their mouths are filled with broken speech.’ The girl bowed her head, as if in shamefaced agreement with what he said. He pulled out of his right pocket a notebook, its cover decorated with black and white triangles. He flipped through its pages, and settling on a page, he said, ‘You are sending out words from your heart to your mouth. That’s why they possess a will of their own and take a physical form. So before your words emerge from the chambers of your heart, force them to pass by your brain. There the brain will refine and modify them, the way a carpenter turns a living tree into wooden clogs.’ He began to gather up his things and leave. The girl’s eyes flashed like two stars, and a fever of activity surged through her eager limbs. But she hesitated, asking him: ‘Will I see you again?’ ‘No,’ he replied. ‘Enzymes in the brain will break me apart and dissolve me!’ Afraid that fear and hesitation would throw her into disorder, she whispered ‘vulture’. She pressed it forcefully towards her brain, and when it came out of her lips, it was nothing but v-u-l-t-u-r-e. River became r-i-v-e-r, and the sun was s-u-n. Solution the Dwarf began to disappear, after she had mastered the mental basics. Her speech began to move from embodiment to abstraction. But afterwards, they say that the girl became g-i-r-l, then g-i-r, then g-i, and then g. That letter was her final stage before she disappeared … while people were gathered around her!

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The eunuch Who decided on the Arabic word for a car’s steering wheel and gave it a name taken from the Arabic word meaning ‘to lead’? Did the Arabic Language Academy make it an Arabic word? Was it logically derived from an Arabic root or did it come from common usage, as spoken by Arabs? In olden days they had what they called ‘camel leads’ or ‘horse’s reins’, so whoever took hold of the ‘lead’ was the ‘leader’. He is the master who controls the direction of the transport. But he is a man with a thick black beard that circles around his temples like a maharajah ready for the deep slumber of Nirvana. He clutches the steering wheel firmly between his hands, and gives terse, peevish answers. Sometimes he may not answer if that temperament of his doesn’t feel like it. He scatters specks of his masculine presence inside the car while I recoil. He wants to be a driver, but how can I make him a horse? He comes from the east, where men pass beneath the doorways, domes and arches stretching to their full height and stout-chested, crowned with an obscure and mysterious triumph, and where there are narrow roads where the women step aside out of men’s way, where the women’s voices, patience and footsteps are all muffled, while a man becomes an eloquent rooster who crows right out of the egg. My skin shudders as I approach the car, fortified by my abaya and face veil, while he is a withdrawn, mysterious, being in the darkness of the car. I notice a flash in his eyes – my God, what makes his eyes flash like this? Nothing lights up men’s eyes and makes them sparkle except women. My heart shrivels up and happiness floods in confusion out of joy for the errand I’ll be going on. I get in the car. Its air is choked with his breathing. I shout at him, ‘Open the windows!’ I pull out an air freshener from under the car seat and spray it in the darkness of the car. I intend to aim the freshener his way in order to humiliate him, while he is opening the windows with the buttons on the driver’s side with a hidden, furious movement. The air of the car is filled with annoyance and anger. That’s better: this air can kill off any other spirits that can grow in the space that brings a woman and a man together. I began to amuse myself by observing my hand wearing rings, and the colour of my nail polish. And when I raised my eyes suddenly to the car mirror, his eyes were still flashing. Unconsciously, I hid my hand under the sleeve of my abaya. Does this rooster make me the star of his night-

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time dreams? Oh God, that’s all I need tonight. Our house is in al-Muraba’a, one of the first neighbourhoods that left old Riyadh so that the northern district could coat itself in cement, villas with high walls, an entrance for women, an entrance for men, wide house gardens where palm, quinine and sidr trees grow, and where Persian jasmine forms a trellis over its walls. The Mukhallaf house is behind us: we share one wall with them, and despite the fact that their daughter Suha is two years ahead of me in school, she hasn’t yet started wearing the abaya, while my father used to hint at the need for me to wear it at one point. The sidr tree in their house bears fruit twice a year: the first time at the end of winter, when the edges of the evenings begin to be warm; and the second time when those same evenings cool down in expectation of the arrival of the coming winter. Its fruit is yellow, small and sweet. We eat some of it, and I collect the rest for my mother. We look for the ladder and find it beside the room of their Yemeni driver. We lean it up against the tree and climb it. From the top of the tree we can see the neighbours’ garden, and we can see their grandmother in front of us, leaning against the wall as she spreads out her prayer rug above a carpet that her son’s wife quickly and irritatedly spreads out for her. The grandmother puts her hand on a small radio inside a brown leather case. In front of her is a long-spout coffee pot and a bowl that she waves her hand by from time to time, in order to drive away flies. Then she vanishes into her own world again. The Yemeni driver turns out the light in his room, which falls on the end of the hallway beside the main entrance and is directly opposite the sidr tree. He pulls off his thobe and his inner trousers and remains standing there. At that time in our childhood, we were incapable of deciphering the scene. We were content with the silent collusion created by fear, embarrassment and the anxiety that something is happening that is ruining our enjoyment of gathering the sidr-tree fruit. Where was our family? I no longer recall, but events in childhood happen that way, with no reason or justifications. So they remain events of childhood. The door to that room remains linked to the sidr tree that glows there in the back of the memory with a terrifying image, the way X-rays illuminate the skeleton behind beautiful bodies. He takes a small comb out of his pocket and combs his hair, beard, and moustache. Who is Shah Zaman (‘Ruler of Eternity’ – what a name!) making himself pretty for? He’s like a cat imitating an attacking lion by

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puffing himself up! I’ll make him the Fool of Eternity – he won’t be bragging about his name. I order him suddenly to stop in front of a store on Al-Ulya al-Aam Street, and when he can’t stop directly in front of it, I find it an opportunity for a vicious scolding that turns words into sharp blades that pierce him, that pierce him deeply, to castrate him and crush him, to destroy his masculine vigour. Who is Prince Chump making himself pretty for? Who? God, soothe my heart with your forgiveness and mercy: why do I have all this malice? When his mother carried him when he was a nursing baby, and drew him to her breast, she certainly wasn’t hoping that he would grow up to become a driver for some Nazi woman, a woman who lived out her greatest dream – to castrate her driver. I’m the first guest to arrive at the parties I go to, and the last one to leave. I feel that the hair of his beard is falling out from boredom as he waits for me outside, as he turns into a nice beardless young man, a delicate eunuch who doesn’t scatter specks of his masculinity in the space of the car. For the religious feast, I gave a holiday gift to all the household servants except him, and in an arrogant, haughty tone he asked me to spend the feast day with his people in al-Batiha. In an icy, emotionless tone I replied: ‘Wait until I finish my errands.’ Oh my God, have mercy on me and make my heart tender and moist with the abundant rain of your mercy. God, don’t let this irritation and malice that I am launching in the direction of Shah Zaman be turned into atoms that make their way around the universe and eventually come back to me, my husband and my children … Oh God, be with me. Instead of turning on the right-turn signal, he opens the window and sticks his hand out to indicate to the car behind us; his hand is hairy like a Neanderthal’s. This way of doing things stirs up my rancour and fury: why doesn’t he use the car’s technology, but has to involve backward methods used in the back alleys of Asian cities? I yell at him and order him to close the window, bring his hand back inside, and use the turn-signal. With any luck, it will break off and you’ll be wearing it around your neck, I mutter peevishly. I don’t know whether he heard or understood, but he certainly knew that I was angry for some reason, and that the air in the car has become tense and fraught, a grim space where no imagined things, secret dreams, or desires would flourish! He has the hand of a Neanderthal and of Abd al-Hadi’s, as well as his

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filthy fingernails. The second year of high school, on the last day of exams, we were able to leave school early, when the glow of the electric fence running at full capacity eased off around the schools for girls in Riyadh. We had agreed that we would go and buy ice cream from BaskinRobbins, and because we wouldn’t be able to put on make-up in school – since that would certainly turn into a minor (or medium) scandal – we began putting it on in the car, and our hands shook with the car’s movement, and our delighted screams with that awkward exuberance that accompanies a small extent of illicit freedom, and the orange sun of 10am that allows Abd al-Hadi’s mirror to see the scene in all its details. We put small gold and silver hearts on our cheeks, while our hearts leaped with the impact of the first waves of youth, that wild, unstoppable wave, and small hearts almost wide enough for a single love story. I felt secure in the world and trusted in it, and it was unimaginable that there could be other sides to it, terrifying and bitter, that could burden those hearts with painful darkness one day. We arrived late to Baskin-Robbins, around 11am, because Abd al-Hadi was carrying out the household’s instructions by shaking off any car that followed the women’s car. That morning, with our bright make-up and our gold hearts, we had acquired a small entourage of followers. It wasn’t as large as that of the president of a country, but it was close to the size of a foreign minister’s entourage, and we got there eventually. We stood in front of the store and waved at the man at the counter. He came and we asked for a banana split. We were there in front of the store. One of the two sellers was tall and slim, wearing a red headdress, carefully ironed and starched, and with a dimple around his chin; the other was a little shorter, but he was bolder. He approached us, placed his hands on the edge of the window, and stuck out his head, asking, ‘Did you pass or fail?’ Then, when he saw were embarrassed, and didn’t answer out of shyness, he asked, ‘Why don’t you girls in the blue-duck club answer me?’ pointing to the colours of our school uniform. We laughed hard, with that downpour of thunderous laughter that we use up intensely in the day of our youth, so that all that remains of it in our later years are pale, faded glimmers. He gave us his phone number, and when none of us stretched out her hand to take it, because of shyness, he tossed it in the car and withdrew nimbly and quickly. Then we rushed to snatch it, and Nora bit my fingers in order to get it. The number was written on a cassette tape of the song by Samira bin Said, ‘She’ll Never Get Off at Your Stop, No Matter What’. We handed the tape to Abd al-Hadi so he could pop it in the cassette

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deck. Then, and only then, he turned around with his whole neck, the way the possessed girl did in The Exorcist, to say in a gasping voice, ‘I want ice cream. Give me ice cream.’ He stretched out his hand with its filthy nails, and his brown-and-yellow checked shirt, filthy and dark, like a chimpanzee when he stretches out his paw, demanding a banana from the crowd. His Neanderthal hand grew closer and grabbed Nora’s chest. We screamed in fear and the car turned into a time bomb. Masha’il didn’t tell her family, but Nora, after her short fainting spell, will end up hating ice cream all her life. As for Nora and me, we spent all that summer paying him small fees in exchange for his silence, until he asked for a 26-inch screen TV, and our budget dried up. After that, we turned to our gold, but eventually we reached a point where the matter wouldn’t be solved without setting off a small scandal arranged by Masha’il’s brother, who was two years younger than us. He insisted that Abd al-Hadi leave the household staff and persuaded our father of it, and the painful thing is that when he left, he didn’t inform on us and didn’t say anything about the procession, the ice cream or the tape. Perhaps he didn’t intend to tell anyone from the start, but our fear made us susceptible to his blackmail all through the summer of that miserable year. We lost Masha’il that summer as well, after her brother insisted that she cut off her relationship with us, although she kept for herself the tape of ‘She’ll Never Get Off at Your Stop, No Matter What’. I won’t let him eat up my day, and stain my windows dark, like the demon that climbed on Sindbad’s back and who turned to him whenever they had gone some distance, and asked for a piece of meat, until Sindbad was forced to cut off a piece of his own flesh to feed him. I won’t reach that stage. I will castrate him. Maybe after this, I will stop seeing X-ray skeletons behind beautiful faces, and I will stop squirting air freshener inside the car to fight against his detestable masculine particles. I want to live my life, content with myself, like the rest of humanity. The following week he went over my head and turned in his resignation directly to my husband. My husband accepted it reluctantly; he no longer argues with me, since he knows about my testiness with the drivers that came before this one. ‘No one will agree to work for us,’ he told me. ‘It’s better that you stay confined to the house.’ Men – the men of Asia and the men of Riyadh – cooperated with each other against me, and I can’t drive my car, according to a religious ruling. In any case, the following week, my husband sent out an advertisement to be published in the newspapers (‘Wanted: Driver for a small family’), and when I saw it my heart shrivelled. Translated by Chip Rossetti

Wafa Al-Omair She holds a BA degree in Arabic language and literature and works as a teacher. She has published one collection of short stories and two novels, The Heart of the Rose and As Sharp as Thorns.

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The path The heavens flashed and thundered furiously. Rain poured onto the street. Clouds shrouded the sky in a thick cloak. He gathered his things in a large leather bag. ‘Tonight it will all be over,’ he muttered to himself. ‘I can’t take any more. What’s the point. When a pot of salt spills over a plate the food is completely ruined.’ The sky clamoured. He shivered and sat down on the bed. He listened but all he could hear was the rain smacking the pavement outside. The lights of the house opposite shone on the wet trees while the wind played with their branches. He watched them and thought how alike they were. When they told him to turn right he turned right. When they told him to turn left he turned left. Was he just a yes-man? Didn’t he have an opinion of his own? Were his decisions his own? Even now when he was in his thirties? For ten years he had planned to become a doctor. He handed in his papers at the College of Medicine but his father stopped him. He forced him to withdraw, and instead of becoming a doctor he became a cloth merchant. ‘You’re a merchant. The son of a merchant. That’s what you are.’ So he believed he was a merchant and had no business with medicine. Though he still felt he was wearing skin that was not his own. He fell in love with a neighbour’s daughter. He wanted to marry her but his mother stopped him. ‘She’s not right for you.’ He dressed himself in a traditional cloak and sprayed himself with perfume so they could marry him to his cousin. The world was barely big enough to contain his mother’s joy. Perhaps he was happy, or bewildered by the feeling boring at his chest, wounding him. As the years passed the wound grew deeper. The gap between him and his wife widened and he divorced her. She took the children and returned to her parents’ house. Had he wanted to divorce her? Who knows what he’d been thinking? His thoughts were like propellers rotating at top speed in his head and never slowing. Propellers with sharp blades that sliced him until blood flowed to his heart. Today was the straw that broke the camel’s back. He was with some friends enjoying a game of cards and chatting when a quarrel broke out. ‘You’re slave to your wife,’ said one of them. ‘You’re the son of your mother,’ the other shot back. He laughed. ‘What are you laughing at, yes-man?’

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He froze, astonished, then shuddered as though bitten by a snake. He jumped up and grabbed his friend by the throat but the other men intervened to break them up. As he drove through the busy streets he mulled over what had happened. ‘Am I really a yes-man? How did this happen?’ All was quiet and he felt sad. He felt as though he was suddenly a stranger to himself and his surroundings. Even his room seemed different. The house was silent and empty. But where would he go with his bag? He put his clothes back in the wardrobe and laughed at himself. Even if he left the house behind, would he be able to leave himself? Would he change just by getting away from them? Would he follow the same path again or find another one that connected him to his true self? Was the problem him or them? Was it too late or was there still time? The trees were still, as were the lamps surrounding them on every side.

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Their lifeless bodies A voice moves deeper inside you, merging with the clamour of the waves. The wind moans. Small boys strike the sea with their small arms, their eyes drowning in laughter. Glee embraces their hearts, perfumed with morning vapour. You look at them, then walk away. Grains of sand slip between your toes, which are sticking out of the front of your sandals, moist and scoured by the sun’s blaze. Ideas come to mind, then fall away, bubble up, then cool off. They depart your racing memory like a frightened cat, hailing things that passed you by yesterday and dwell in you no more. Precious, simple things that touched you lightly as they crossed your path. What has kept you until now from discovering that you have never been more fragile than you are today, never more of a stain on the world, as though the world needs you to prove how ephemeral it is. Arwa resisted the moment of departure. Every time it knocked on her door she ignored it. There were plenty of burdens at home and at work to keep her from you for a lifetime, but in the end she chose to open the door and leave. You were together for two years. The most beautiful days of your life. The happiness in your eyes was enough for an eternity. When she told you she loved you, you felt the world was a fragrant spring. Happiness was easy. Joy was a friend that safeguarded your souls in communion. Do you know when precisely the love between you began to fade? She said that she had lost you, that you were no longer in her life. Perhaps you were gradually falling into oblivion, disappearing like a cloud of fog. You retreated while she tried to work out what had happened, what had changed you thus. You tested her theory that she couldn’t live with a man she didn’t know. She wasn’t like your mother, who didn’t mind that there was no love between her and your father, who was content to be his wife and live at his feet, which she kissed for forty years. When he kicked her she would respond by kissing them again, just like a pet dog. ‘Have I done something wrong? Is it me?’ she asked. You look at her but say nothing. Your silence makes her even more sad and angry. She screams at the walls. She cries and punches the cushions. She smashes the vases and rips up the furniture, trying to rid herself of the terrible feeling of defeat that has swept over her. But you’re as deaf as a mountain. What is it that you can’t say to her as you watch her crumble before you like

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a building? Can you tell her that you got up one day and the world was different, that a blackness had spread over everything and it all seemed wrong? That you were no longer yourself? That you’d become a wretch whose face she would spit on if only she knew the truth, who was a thief and a liar and involved in bribes. Would she even believe you or just think you’d gone mad? The sea roared and the sun ascended to the middle of the sky. A little of that dream that no one pays attention to … A little of that secret deceit … A little of it and life would be as simple as love, as perfect as the touch of a magical evening. A little of it and you’d walk like you are now, with the sea beside you and the small boys punching it. The past is fickle weather in a black chest. And the days of your youth, a happy virgin land, have become mere photographs taken but kept by no one, not even you. Yours is a fresh day. A soul ascended a wall that belonged to you and scratched on it with long fingernails as though fleeing from death. Your wound is sharp like a knife cutting arteries whose remorse is as profound as the soul’s yearning for release. How can the sea bear these little rich boys disturbing it like that, when Arwa does not respect a woman’s heritage of suffering and sacrifice? Are you looking for love? For a cloud that don’t remain in the sky? For leaves that quickly fall to the ground, driven by the wind in every direction? The darkness supports its weight on a deserted corpse. Morning treads its heavy feet on fresh flowers, which open up on thick green stems before they’re crushed and their delicate leaves covered with dirt. There isn’t enough fruit to fill men’s hearts. The trees have chosen to whither in their new lifeless bodies. Life is not yet released of its tumours.

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For some reason She arrived late. She was exhausted from the stress. The pressure of work left her confused about what she wanted. She’d intended to take a stroll on the beach but received a phone call that her father was waiting for her at home with her young son. An old man stopped in front of her and asked in a soft voice whether she had some headache tablets in her handbag. She lifted her head, as he was tall. He had delicate features, and wrinkles surrounded his restless mouth. ‘I’m afraid I don’t have any medicine at all on me,’ she said hesitantly. His body moved constantly, as though it would never stop. She thought he would turn around and walk off but he just looked at her. ‘Why not?’ She was confused and felt awkward. ‘Leave me alone. My father is waiting for me at home with my son. They’re there alone. You don’t know my father. You can’t imagine what he’s like. One minute he’s nice and friendly, the next he’s like a vicious storm. He won’t tolerate me being any later than I already am.’ ‘Don’t worry,’ said the old man. ‘It’s no big deal. I just wanted a cure for my headache. You know how maladies affect the old. Yesterday I couldn’t sleep because I had colic. The pain was unbearable and I’d run out of medicine. It was late so I didn’t want to go to the pharmacy to get more. It was pitch black and everything was still. All I could hear was the sound of people breathing as they slept in their houses under heavy covers and on sturdy beds.’ ‘Aren’t you married?’ she asked. She had sat down next to him on a bench facing the sea. ‘My wife died in hospital. I received the news of her death at home. I didn’t visit her once. The poor woman asked for me up until she died. I’ll die if this headache doesn’t go away.’ His hand began to shake and his face seemed to contract. She didn’t know what to do. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘there are lots of things we have to do. Lots of tasks and burdens that others don’t care about are loaded on our shoulders. We’re pushed beyond the limits.’ ‘I know what you mean. Are you tired?’ She answered as though she’d just noticed the time and where she was. ‘It’s none of your business. I was in a hurry before you interrupted me. You have no right to delay me. Who are you anyway? What’s your headache got to do with me? Do you think you’re the only one suffering? Do I have to tell you all my problems?’ ‘I just wanted some medicine. You don’t have to shun me just for that,

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as though I’ve committed some crime against you. I hardly know you and you’re taking umbrage.’ ‘Do we have something to argue about?’ Shuffling the grass around with his feet, he said: ‘I wouldn’t object if you were to tell me what was on your mind. I’m a good listener.’ ‘It’s nothing special, believe me. I may be a widow bringing up her only child but it’s no big deal. You have to constantly prove you’re up to the task. Sometimes I wonder what I’d have been like in a different world. You probably think I’m mad – I can see it in your eyes. But wait. How will it end? Who knows what I’ll do? I go to bed late and cry for half an hour before sleeping. I long for my dead husband and hurry to my son in the middle of the night to cover him and make sure the windows and doors are closed. I buy gifts for relatives on special occasions – I never forget but still they gossip. Sometimes my hospitality is a pretence. Hospitality shouldn’t be forced. Believe me. It’s not silence or politeness. Sometimes I tell my father that everything is fine and that he doesn’t need to remind us how worried he is every time we visit. I’m not gong to take my son and live with him. His house is overflowing with wives and children. I don’t want us to be like a ball passed around between their feet. I’m sure you understand!’ ‘Good.’ He got up to leave. ‘Indeed we don’t know anything. What’s happening? Why did I abandon my wife when she needed me? I didn’t want her to die. She was there waiting for me, her eyes on the door. I could feel them, small, sad, homeless. Her voice was weak calling out to me. Her last words remained stuck in her throat. We lived our lives together, simple and happy. I wasn’t ready to think about anything else. I let a heart that loved me die without understanding anything. She had to go on alone. Now all I see is death in the house. It closes the door behind me when I go out for a walk, freely silent, mocking the tablets. When I return it won’t ask why I’m late. It knows its appointment with me.’ She looked at the trees nearby. ‘Perhaps I should think of the nice things that have happened. My life doesn’t need more blackness. I can’t imagine it being any more depressing. I couldn’t bear it. Things aren’t clear in my case. I’m always busy. Days aren’t given to you except to be taken away. I don’t take anything for myself anymore. I’ve suffered a lot. I plotted against my feelings. I believed that I could do better, that I would quit all this. Now I know what I want to do. I’ll take a holiday from work and travel somewhere with my son. There’ll be plenty of time there to be flooded by happiness.’ ‘How is it possible for someone to be earnest when everything is

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e­ vaporating in front of him? The only good thing is that death isn’t far off for me. I was frightened of it all my life but kept my fear locked up inside me. After my wife’s death my fear became clear to me. There was no point ignoring it. There’s no point in feeling lonely. Some things happen easily and barely leave a mark. When he’d finished speaking he moved off in silence. She watched him for a moment, then got up and walked down to the beach. Translated by Christina Phillips

Yousef Al-Mohaimeed He was born in 1964 in Riyadh. He has published four collections of short stories and five novels. His second novel, translated into English and published by Penguin under the title Wolves of the Crescent Moon, was on the shortlist for the Jan Michalski Prize. It was also translated into French and Italian. The translation of his fourth novel, Munira’s Bottle, received the Pushcart Prize in the United States. In 2011 he received the Abu Al-Qasim Al-Shabi Award for his novel Pigeons Don’t Fly, and the Italian Alziator Literary Award for his novel Wolves of the Crescent Moon.

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Don’t leave your shoes upside down, even in Norwich I regained consciousness to find myself lying on crisp white sheets, a patient in Norwich General Hospital. I’d been transferred from the Bupa hospital on the outskirts of the city in a semi-coma. I tried to remember who I was, who had brought me here, where my family and my mother were, whether I was on earth or in heaven, but I couldn’t. I saw the drip feeding into my arm; it seemed miles away as if it were high up in the sky, like a celestial body or a distant planet. I began to sift through my most recent memories, and some of the very distant ones, and I saw my life hurtle past me like the Norwich to London express. Yesterday morning, in Mrs Catherine’s house, where I was lodging, the Muhamad Abdu song, ‘Morning breeze, say hi to his radiant cheek’, came floating up the wooden stairs. Not only could I hear it but I could smell it too, the smell of my mother’s morning coffee. I rubbed my eyes and as I sat up the legs of the bed creaked. I walked over towards the tall window and pulled back the curtain a little. I could see the street, civil servants, workers and school children; the English invading the pavements, with umbrellas protecting their hairdos from the drizzle. The woman across the road emerged from her house and said goodbye to her little white dog, his tail wagging like a pendulum, before he shot back inside the house. When I opened the door of my room the plucked notes of the simsimiya and the tones of Muhammad Abdu’s voice grew louder. I could almost see him in his white ghutra, standing in front of the musicians on our black and white TV set. What was Muhammad Abdu doing here in Norwich on a cold colourful morning like this? It occurred to me that Muhammad the Emirati student might have put on an old cassette but then I remembered he’d gone home more than a month ago. I went down the stairs, which seemed more like the steps leading to a hermit’s cell. I had learnt to go up and down them like they did, sideways rather than forwards so that I wouldn’t fall headfirst and tumble to the bottom. I would be kept awake at night by the thought of having to go down stairs in the middle of the night to the only bathroom in the house and the terrible creaking of the wooden stairs, like the weeping of trees being felled. It had happened on several occasions: if I forgot to clean my teeth for example. I’d gently switch on the landing light and tread as lightly as possible so as not to make any noise, thinking that it would severely embarrass Mrs Catherine, and Mr Jonathan as they sighed and heaved in the adjacent bedroom. If the door

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was ajar I’d catch sight of them out of the corner of my eye as I passed, like two bears hugging, not paying the slightest bit of attention to my presence. The afternoon the taxi stopped in the street outside number 146 and I got out, I was surprised to see Mrs Catherine open the door and welcome me with her husband, or so I thought at the time, Mr Jonathan. He was huge. He picked up my suitcases with ease and charged with them up the narrow wooden staircase in the middle of the house. I thought he made an exemplary husband, until my Emirati colleague Muhammad informed me, with a jibe at my naivety, that he was her boyfriend and that he came to stay at the weekends. Sometimes she would leave with him and spend the night at his house after finishing her shift at the hospital. Mr Jonathan had an extremely loud laugh and when he found something amusing I would feel all the wood in the house rock with consternation. Perhaps the ugliest of his laughs was the one that cracked a couple of my ribs when I came home one afternoon. I was walking towards the kitchen when I saw him pressing his huge body against Mrs Catherine, his mouth glued to hers in a long kiss. I had no choice but to retreat, hoping that neither of them had noticed me, and made a dash for the stairs, but he saw me at the last minute and roared with bellowing, sarcastic laughter. It was like a bullet aimed straight between my skinny shoulders. Wherever I went in the little house the song ‘Morning Breeze’ floated round my ears like a desert butterfly. Mrs Catherine always put two kinds of cereal out for me even though I didn’t like them, and so I would end up taking a piece of toast and spreading some butter on it. I’d gone several days thinking it was cream cheese until I read the word butter in English on the top of the plastic tub. Then I stopped using it. Even after I went out with my bag over my shoulder, shut the front door behind me and set off down the street, I couldn’t get the Muhammad Abdu song out of my head. The shy drops of rain against my forehead wouldn’t help me to forget it, nor the wet streets, the women and children with blond hair, the old folk walking their dogs, the huge green trees that swayed in the wind like genies praying to the gods, not even the cloudy overcast sky. Nothing at all could oust the sick and oppressive longing that had taken control of my head. I walked down the streets that my Emirati friend Muhammad had led me along the first day. We had headed towards Durham Road, the main road in the city, where we waited for the blue bus that took us past the school. ‘This is the most important road in Norwich,’ he said. ‘It takes you all the way into the city centre.’ Then he added: ‘So you don’t forget the name,

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think of our currency in the Emirates: dirham.’ Suddenly I remembered all my days, and they crawled like sharp needles over my body laid out on the white bed. ‘Why am I here?’ I asked myself. Four doctors and nurses surrounded my bed. They had monkey’s faces and white coats, but I was unable to scream in panic, for the drugs had made my tongue and jaw too heavy. If you spill milk on the earth or the carpet, Allah will punish you, and turn you into a monkey or a goat. My mother was full of old wives’ tales and she filled our childhood with such warnings and admonitions. We used to think that Saad, the famous monkey in Riyadh zoo, was our grandfather who had committed a huge sin by taking a swim in a bath of milk. His own grandparents had suffered terribly in the Year of Hunger but he had been lucky and life had given him all he could wish for. Then he sinned, so Allah punished him by turning him into a monkey munching bananas, whose job it was to entertain the people. The women standing in front of his cage would laugh at him and when he waved his member in their faces they’d screech bawdily and nod suggestively at the men standing next to them. I came to Norwich with my mother’s mentality, her dreams, her faith and her traditions. I always turned shoes the right way up. If I saw a shoe upside down, its sole facing towards the sky, it would disturb me enormously and I’d turn it over immediately so that the dirt and residue from the street would face the earth, the earth in whose belly Satan dwells. When Mrs Catherine had seen me, on more than one occasion, turning an upside down shoe the right way up, she would always ask me the same question and I never understood it. Finally she wrote it down on a piece of paper, and I translated it with the electronic dictionary. I denied that I was mentally ill, and I tried to explain to her in my broken language that such things were forbidden in our religion, as my mother had instructed me as a child. I didn’t know the word ‘reprehensible’ so I used the word ‘forbidden’. I’d learnt it from a religious Muslim colleague in our class. He used to walk around after the Japanese girls who were studying English with us and advise them to cover up their bodies. They filed a harassment claim against him to the director of the school. Coming home from school one afternoon I didn’t get off the bus at my usual stop on Durham Road. I stayed on with some students who were going to the last stop in the town centre. I wanted to buy a shirt and a woollen overcoat for the winter that had suddenly come upon us. I was walking past Q&A down into the centre of the market towards Marks & Spencer. I had been warned against buying from them by my religious

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friend who said that the owner was Jewish and supported the oppression of the Palestinian intifada in Jerusalem. I went into the store, chose a striped shirt and put it in my shopping basket. Then I picked out a heavy grey woollen overcoat and went and paid for them. I left the shop and walked to Pizza Hut on the corner. On the way I saw a young couple eating a meat sandwich. The boy threw the last bit of the sandwich in a rubbish bin that was hanging from a lamppost. I stopped, put my hand in the rubbish bin and pulled out the piece of food. I kissed it and then placed it on the corner of a step of a nearby shop. As I walked away I heard the shopkeeper yelling insults at me most of which I couldn’t understand, and then saw him pick up the morsel and throw it back in the rubbish bin. Mrs Catherine was unable to confirm her conclusion that I was mentally ill, because of this incident in the town centre, because she never knew anything about it, but she was left in no doubt when the parcel from my mother came. It contained a box of dates and a red prayer mat. Mrs Catherine was amazed by its design and the silky softness of its texture and I remembered the advice of one of my relatives before I left home, that I should be generous to the English so that I would learn their language from them. So, in order to ingratiate myself with her, I offered her the rug as a gift. She refused at first, and she tried to pay me for it, but my rustic insistence won her over in the end. I had imagined she’d hang it on the wall like a painting, especially since there were lots of patterned plates hung on the walls. But I was stunned to find her the next day sitting on the sofa in the living room with her feet planted firmly on the mat, right on top of the picture of the two holy sanctuaries. I attacked in a frenzy, pulling the mat from underneath her, and cursing her in Arabic. She didn’t understand a word of course, even though she was terrified and shrunk back as she stared at my raging features before I stormed upstairs cursing everything. From that point Mrs Catherine was convinced I was mentally ill and that she should exert great caution in dealing with me, even though I tried to explain to her that she had put her feet on something sacred to me. She didn’t understand and she argued with me at great length suggesting that I suffered from obsessive compulsive disorder and that I needed ­treatment. ‘You pray on rugs like this, don’t you?’ she said. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And don’t you put your feet on the rug when you’re stood praying?’ she asked. ‘Yes,’ I said.

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‘So what are you so angry with me for then?’ she said victoriously. I explained to her that I put my feet at the end of the mat, while the picture of the holy sanctuary was where I placed my head when I prostrated. ‘What’s the difference between your head and your feet?’ she retorted. ‘Aren’t they all parts of your body?’ That’s where our discussion ended, until, that is, my last day in her house. A nurse with a monkey’s head approached me. She spread her lips in a smile. Her mouth was very big, as a monkey’s mouth should be. I could not speak. My eyes were drowsy, and the objects in front of me were misty and blurred. Her mouth was very far away, like a crescent moon high up in the sky. Perhaps she was checking my pulse. I wanted to stretch out my hand and pluck the crescent from her face, but I was unable to move my hand, never mind lift it up. How hard it is to see things in front of you and not be able to interact with them in speech or words, to object or refuse. What was it that had turned the people in front of me into monkeys? I was desperate for a mirror so I could see whether my own face was human or ape with features from a distant desert. My memory returned to the very recent past, and how I had screamed when I came home from school and entered Mrs Catherine’s house, how I had assaulted her in a fit of madness. She was removing a mixture of egg yoke and cucumber from her face. When she had finished she put the plug in the hand basin and was pouring milk over her hands, face, neck and vast bosom. Then she scooped up the milk that had gathered in the sink and washed her face. I could hear my mother’s voice from across the sea saying, anyone who pours milk on the carpet will turn into a monkey. My mother’s features were stern and harsh. I heard her, at that moment in Norwich, as if I were six years old, as if I’d just come home from school exhausted, staggering under the weight of my huge school bag. As I approached Mrs Catherine at the washbasin to stop her, she turned to me with a strange look on her face. It wasn’t the face I knew at all. I swear it was covered in hair, with two protruding jaws and no lips. Her head was the head of an old monkey. I was terrified. I screamed and stepped back and collided with the banister and fell. I tried to stand up but an enormous monkey was standing on my head, leaning over me snorting loudly. Then I remembered nothing save that face which stands near me now, as I lie spread-eagled on the white bed surrounded by an army of monkeys, who seem to be discussing the procedures for transferring me to a psychiatric ward.

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Kept in the fridge like a can of pop The sad midday sun dripped regret and nostalgia as I turned the key in the ignition and set off, fumbling over my mistakes and sense of selfimportance, even though all I drive is an old Daewoo, well past its sellby date, that I picked up recently from Deeb rent-a-car. The migrating birds that filled the sky over King Abdulaziz Road promised an abundant hunting season. I wound down the window – manually – and inhaled deeply so that the stagnant air outside could flow freely through my wide open lungs. I pulled up at Panda supermarket and turned off the engine of the Korean car. Muhammad Abdo seemed to choke as he crooned ‘We have Allah, my dear,’ to the entertainment of the restless birds in the Riyadh sky. The automatic glass door slid open deferentially the moment it saw me and as I strutted in I thought to myself: ‘Just look at that! Things are starting to show me a bit of respect at last. Soon human beings will start to do the same.’ A person is always the last thing to respect you, but he inevitably will. So worry not! In the sugar and confectionery aisle a young woman was casting alluring glances at a young man who was running after her. He held out a scrap of paper and she took it eagerly, her passionate eyes oozing more sugar and sweetness than you could possibly ­imagine. At the cold cabinet I dropped the empty red shopping basket as I remembered my father’s death a few days before. There was no longer any point taking him a carton of fruit cocktail juice. I reached for the chilled soft drinks and shuddered at the touch of their frosted surfaces. They resembled the corpses detained in the morgue at the private hospital, unable to leave until their overdue medical bills were paid. I picked up a can of diet Seven Up. It was very cold, almost frozen. I felt it bore the same icy chill as my father’s wizened body holed up in the refrigerator at the morgue. ‘The kindest thing you can do to a dead person is bury him,’ said my mother. I know that, and I love my father very much but how can I be kind to him and bury him when he’s imprisoned in a huge fridge guarded by stubborn locks that sleep not night or day? I was supposed to pay the extortionate fee so that I could take delivery of the corpse and honour him with a decent burial befitting a dignified Najdi gentleman who’d struggled all his life. But how can someone who possesses nothing but a battered old Daewoo worn out by backsides and feet, and lives in rented ­accommodation, afford

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the nightly rate and the painkillers and the autopsy and ten continuous days of misery. I handed a riyal note to the checkout attendant, the price of the can of Seven Up. True, I’d liberated that can from the silence of the dead in a Panda supermarket fridge, yet I was unable to liberate the body of my father from the refrigerator in the private hospital. After all those years of hard work, there he was, just like a can in a fridge, but not as cheap. As I was about to enter Al-Rajhi mosque for afternoon prayer I thought enviously of the wealthy who turned up with their relatives’ corpses in red ambulances and took them into the corpse washer who washed them and anointed them with scented oil before funeral prayers were held. I would have liked to have fetched my father so he could lie there peacefully with the other dead resting on the slabs. They must be eminent people, the sort who are received by the major hospitals or who possess the means of paying the cost of a private hospital where the floors are so clean you can see your face reflected in the shining marble. Why do they detain the dead in fridges if their heirs can’t pay for their treatment, I wondered. After prayers were over the wealthy dead were laid out in front of the imam and I prayed for them and my father too. I imagined that he was with them, as if I were praying the funeral prayers for one who has died far away and cannot be brought home. What’s the point of going up to people, showing them these loathsome bills? The imam would probably call upon some member of the congregation who was in the police or worked for the anti-begging squad to escort me outside. I couldn’t get the words out, they stumbled as they climbed up the steps of my throat, and I was overwhelmed by a sudden bout of embarrassment, dejection and hopelessness. I withdrew bearing my mother’s sadness and the pain of my father’s loss and strewed it all over the pavement of Imam Saud road. Eventually I stopped at a house. There was a cold water dispenser in its wall for passers-by to drink from, and I had a drink, after a Bangladeshi worker had filled his large plastic bottle and gone on his way. Back to the hospital where my father had been asleep in the refrigerator for a week. I opened the cold can of Seven Up and started the motor. I inhaled Fairoz as she brightened up the fronts of the paint, plumbing and tile shops with her voice: ‘How our families worked to choose our names’. It took me right back to the end of January 1964. My mother was regaining her colour in the upper room of our mud house in old Shmaisi, and I was screaming in derision at the world around me. My grandmother danced as she announced: ‘A boy!’ You’ve come at last after seven broken-

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winged girls. My wings haven’t been much use extricating my father from the icy fridge of the dead or burying him in the warm earth. ‘His name is Yousef,’ said my mother, and sent a messenger to the palm grove in Al-Kharj where my father would spend months tending the palm trees and cutting the clusters of delicious dates and taking them to the souk in Al-Muqaibra. The messenger returned bearing word from my father to wait until his return, and if the baby was beautiful then his name should be Yousef, and if not then Abdullah. How much effort, father, you put into my name! How much effort my family made, as Mrs Fairoz sings, but I am unable to do anything. What did you say father? I possess much? How? I didn’t hear you. Raise your voice. The voices of the dead normally have a nasal twang, their voices emerging from their closed noses! Ah yes, now I can hear you clearly. You want me to queue up, appeal, requesting the payment of your sojourn in the hospital in my hand, at the doors of eminent well-todo citizens, contemplating the faces of the guards and their cold expressions. How, father, do you expect me to turn into a beggar when you have infused generosity into my veins ever since I was a child? What? Are you saying that I have been a beggar ever since I stood in front of the congregation at the mosque? Are you pulling my leg? Are you relishing my predicament as you lie there dead in the fridge like a can of Seven Up? Is that what you’re doing? I never pulled your leg, father. The can is cheaper than you, just one riyal, but you will cost me my dignity. Don’t you see the difference? The can, father, I saved from the clutches of the icy freezer in a matter of seconds, but for you, I must stand defeated and aggrieved in a long queue waiting to submit my petition in order to expedite your death. Don’t you see, father? To release you from death to your new life in the ground means I must die of shame. It’s not your fault; I’ll look after everything, father. I will search for some one to lead me to the queue of death and I will crush it like an insect at the rich man’s doorway. What? You’re asking me what it is I’m going to annihilate like an insect? It’s my dignity, father. I entered the gift shop and florist in the hospital foyer, opened the chiller full of fresh red roses and went inside like a person looking for a flower. I was shocked by the biting cold and I said to my self that if my father was inside this chiller among the roses he would be more relaxed. I selected a red rose that was just about to open, thrust ten riyals into the Indian salesman’s hand and went out. In the lift on my way up to the fourth floor I remembered that my father was no longer in his room. As soon as I got out of the lift I stopped. My head was spinning until I noticed

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her smile as she called over to me, laughing sympathetically: ‘Have you forgotten today as well?’ I said yes, and she must have thought that I had come to seek out her smile in a land where even the dust scowls. I faltered as I put the flower on the counter in front of her, then pointed out that my father was no longer looking for flowers, and that she should give it to whoever she liked. Before I could retreat back into the lift the receptionist on the surgery department asked me, in her Syrian accent, if I had extricated my father from his icy blockade or not yet. ‘I’m just about to,’ I said. While I waited to go in to see the executive director of the hospital I thought about people who sob sadly in graveyards while their mothers and fathers are being buried. Shouldn’t these folk be really happy? They’ve sorted things out properly and found their loved ones a snug spot in the gloomy ground. Isn’t it the one whose father’s corpse is wrapped in a sheet of ice and he can’t even take him to the nearest piece of ground to bury him in who deserves to weep? The secretary motioned to me to enter. I stood in front of the director. He lifted his round spectacles and looked at me silently: ‘You again?’ he said finally, his tone of voice nearly knocking me over. Yes it’s me, sir. I have come to ask for my father who’s imprisoned in your respected fridge so that I can pile upon him earth, sadness and loneliness, I have come to pluck my old man from the jaws of a new death, because my father died twice, once on your white bed and once on your white ice. What would happen if the electricity suddenly got cut off for a day in Riyadh? What would you do with my father’s rotting corpse? Would you throw it out with the hospital refuse? Or would you burn it and scatter the ashes in the warm summer wind blowing over Riyadh? Before leaving I asked him: ‘Do you have a back-up electricity supply in case the power to the fridge gets cut off?’ He looked at me and said sympathetically: ‘Yes.’ Then he reiterated his advice that I should write a supplication to a well-off citizen who might be inclined take on the cost of my father’s burial. And if I had a friend who was a journalist I should approach him with a view to his publicizing my predicament on the local news pages so that it might draw the attention of some generous soul. I told him I would. I left the hospital, oblivious to everything around me, until a coal-black raven flew over the poinciana tree that shaded the ambulance, and I burst into tears.

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The rooster’s leftover The children danced behind him as he walked down the street, laughing and throwing stones. ‘Look what the rooster left!’ they chanted. ‘Watch out! It’s coming to get you.’ His beard was thick and unruly and his face looked like a piece of wasteland that no one cared for. And although he engaged other people in intelligent discussion about politics, they considered his opinions and ideas deranged – the ramblings of a mad man. One day he came back from town clean-shaven, and although uneven skin could be seen, full of ruts and bumps, his moustache was neatly trimmed and he was wearing a clean thobe. Now, when he walked down the street, he was calm and composed and paid no attention to the people who mocked him. He started to carry a newspaper or a book. Some of them didn’t recognize him at first, while others rumoured that a woman who lived in town had fallen in love with him and, liking her man to be well turned out, she had changed his appearance. One even went so far as to suggest that a genie had kidnapped him and whisked him off to the mountains where she had turned him into a handsome youth and slept with him many times, teaching him how to make love. They cited as evidence the fact that he had begun to be embarrassed with women and no longer worked next to them as he had before. What astonished them even more was that he no longer answered their questions, nor was he troubled by their mockery. Then a few days later some boys asked him: ‘Leftover, why did you shave your beard? Where’s your hair?’ Without hesitation he replied: ‘If there was any good whatsoever in hair it wouldn’t grow on your private parts!’ The boys roared with laughter, and the whole town started to use the phrase. Leftover’s eyes were narrow and sharp, watching other people like a hawk eyes its prey. In his side pocket he carried a small fragment of mirror. One day a man tried to take it off him for fear he would injure himself, or hurt someone else. He became agitated and started to froth and foam like a raging camel. He berated the man and cursed his mother, and for days after, whenever he passed the man’s house, he would lift up his thobe and piss spitefully against his door. On the days when he remained silent he would remove his mirror from his pocket and sit against the wall of an abandoned house on the edge of town, gazing at his reflection for hours on end. His expression, as he babbled away incoherently, would shift from scowl to smile, then a long kiss and closed eyes. Seeing him like this on one occasion a young man standing nearby asked him what he was doing:

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‘I’m trying to reason with my father,’ he replied, ‘and make him see that what he did was wrong.’ No one knew who his father was. One old man, before giving up the ghost, claimed that he was the son of Marzoug Bin Eid. He was a strapping man with bulging muscles whose wife had borne him six ravens, but when the seventh, who was Leftover, came along, he was fair-skinned. The whispers, rumours and doubts that crowded in on their little hovel amid the old ruined houses were too much for the father to bear and one cold night he upped and left with his ravens and his wife, leaving Leftover behind to grow up all alone, lost and deprived. He was taken in by a solitary old woman who treated him as a son and put him to work as a shepherd. She looked after him with three goats she owned. She let them out every morning to roam the streets and in the evening they’d return home with Leftover. Sometimes he’d be leading the goats and sometimes they’d be leading him. While he was still a child this old woman told him that his father and mother had fallen down the local well. It all began when the mother tried to pull up her pail full of water and it got stuck on a stone that was sticking out of the side of the well. Then she stepped on a loose stone on the edge of the well and it gave way and she fell in. The father jumped in after her and the water and his blood splashed all over the stones. After that Leftover went every sunset and peered into the well, crying in a voice so thin and emaciated that his throat almost cracked: ‘Mother! Father!’ And the well, and the serpents hidden in the water, would answer him: ‘Mother! Father!’ ‘Why don’t you come out, mother?’ he would say as the tears welled up in his little breast. ‘I’m here, mother. I’m your son, Leftover.’ But this time the water serpents were silent and Leftover went home broken hearted and dejected, dragging a huge bucketful of sadness at the end of a rope of never ending desperation. That night, Leftover collected all the stones and pebbles and bricks he could lay his hands on and piled them up at the edge of the well, before calling out for the last time: ‘Mother! Father! I am Leftover, your son.’ There was no answer. He went berserk, picking up the stones and pebbles and bricks and hurling them into the water. Violently he threw, until he was exhausted and sweat poured down his neck. When all the missiles were gone he slumped to the ground next to the well and fell asleep. From that day forth he no longer asked about his mother and father hiding in the well. The old woman’s voice had woken him at the crack of dawn, but now it was the hot sun that roused him, casting its rays over his clothes as

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it climbed into the morning sky. He would step out into the street, hair dishevelled, with a thick bushy beard. He had passed the bean shop so many times that he always found someone who would shout his name and give him a plate of beans topped with spicy salad and covered with shiny golden oil, and a hunk of bread still steaming from the oven. Leftover would pounce on the plate like a stray animal, innards tormented by hunger to the point of delirium. Then he would finish off his morning repast with a metal cup filled to the brim with water. Leftover no longer had the old woman to care for him, or the three goats to keep him company in his loneliness and rub their heads against him while he stroked their ears with his fingers. They had been like his sisters, looking for him when they couldn’t find him, bleating anxiously when they lost sight of him. He was the same. If he lost them he’d roam the streets and alleyways looking for them, asking passers-by, shopkeepers and children if they’d seen them, but they all made fun of him. And just as no one understood the secret of his relationship with the goats, neither could any one explain his aggression towards cats and dogs. If one of them ever came too close to his fingers he’d grab it and fling it aside, then scream at it and chase it away. When Leftover was a year old, the rooster spotted him scrambling about near the front door, amusing himself in the midday sun by the door step. The bird strutted up and down the dusty lane, crowing haughtily as its ugly round eyes watched the little child. Suddenly it flapped its brightly coloured wings, dust flew up and filled the yard, and, as if it were a professional boxer, the huge rooster pounced on the tiny body and set about it with its beak. The baby screamed and howled and tried to deflect the bird’s onslaught with his tiny hands but the rooster’s vicious beak plucked the flesh from his soft cheeks and pecked at his eyeball and the edge of his upper lip. At last two women who were passing attacked the bird. One, using all her might, pulled the wooden leg off a drinking fountain, which was standing against a nearby house, and hit the rooster with it while the other tried to push it away from the child. The first, dressed in her abaya, chased after the bird and set about it with the wooden leg. The terrified creature flapped about with great agility as the blows rained down, until one blow struck its neck and another its head. A spurt of warm blood soaked into the dust as the father emerged from the house and saw his son crying in pain, the rooster in its final throes. The man yelled at the women and harangued them rudely, warning them what would become of them if they dared pass in front of his door again. It was no surprise to the two women, when the father left town one night

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with his wife and the six ravens and moved far away, leaving the seventh, Leftover, abandoned and alone. They had seen the grief and resentment in the father’s eyes when they stopped the rooster from devouring the child, and redeeming him. Translated by Anthony Calderbank

Zainab Hifni She was born in Jeddah and graduated from King Abdulaziz University in 1993. She writes short stories and novels. She has published three shortstory collections and three novels. Some of her stories have been translated into French and Dutch. Her works include I No Longer Cry and Features, both published by Al-Saqi Books.

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My uncle’s house I was woken from my sleep by a gentle prodding of my flank. I opened my heavy eyelids. From behind the disappearing veil of sleep I saw the outline of my mother, eyes full of tears. I stirred myself and asked her anxiously what was wrong. ‘Your uncle died late last night. The driver’s going to take me to the house and come back for you.’ I struggled to drag myself away from the warm comfort of the bed. Drowsiness still colonized my limbs. The shadow of my uncle loomed before me. I wished him God’s mercy and recited: ‘la howla wa la qawwata illa billah’.35 The phone rang, shattering the sad walls of silence. I pretended not to hear it but the ringing was insistent and I finally gave in. My elder sister’s voice drilled into my ear: ‘Hayat, our uncle’s dead.’ ‘I know.’ ‘Shall I call by for you?’ ‘OK, I’d rather go with you than the driver. Ugh, I hate funerals.’ She raised her tone sharply: ‘But he was your uncle!’ ‘I don’t need any lectures this morning, OK? You know how much I loved him.’ I felt depression and dread pounding through me as I stood on the threshold of that old house which hung heavy with the smell of death. There was the sound of a tape reciting the Qur’anic verse: ‘Ya ayyatuhaa al-nafsu al-mutma’innatu/Arja’ii ilaa rubbiki raadiyatan mardiyyatan.’ 36 My eyes wandered all around: old furniture, big rooms with high ceilings, cracked walls, rusted staircases, damp and rotten window frames. Everything showed the marks of time. I sighed deeply. I turned my attention to my aunt in her widow’s black. My God, how suffering ages a person. She looked over seventy and yet wasn’t even sixty. My mother stood behind her, sharing the pain. My uncle had been her only brother and I knew how much they loved one another. I never saw them quarrel once. He would visit us often and share his troubles with my mother, although he was quite a few years older than her. I recalled what he looked like, his gentle-hearted smile, his fascinating stories. There was always a sparkle of contentment in his eyes. He lived in one of the ordinary neighbourhoods of Jeddah near the entrance to the uptown market, in an old house pockmarked by poverty. It was my grandfather’s bequest to my uncle, and my 35. A religious formula, often recited on news of a death: ‘There is no change or power except through God’. 36. Surat Al-Fajr (The Dawn), Verses 27–28. ‘Oh contented soul/Return to your Lord pleased and pleasing.’

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mother had foregone her share in it. He had a daughter and had tried for more children but God did not grant them. He accepted His decree. He yielded to His mercy. Safia, my cousin, was nearly the same age as me. She was remarkably beautiful, something she inherited from her mother’s Yemeni origins. She had big, honey-coloured eyes, fine rounded features and pinkish, soft skin offset against the ivory of her perfectly formed body. I sometimes had pangs of jealousy. I was always keen to stay with them at weekends. My aunt was strict in a beautifully feminine way, with a disciplined mentality appropriate to my uncle’s material circumstances. I remember how she would come in while we were fast asleep and turn the air-conditioning off and the fan on. If the room got too warm, I would seek refuge on the roof, lying in the night breeze staring at the stars. If I heard footsteps, I would rush back and hide beneath the quilt, Safia’s breath tickling my nose until I turned her head away before slipping back into my pool of sleep. My aunt loved to raise birds. We would get worked up, Safia and I, when they were slaughtered. We would stand far off and watch while my aunt grabbed the bird with one hand and unreflectingly slit its throat with the knife in her other. The flow of blood would freeze me to the spot and I would cover my eyes, curiosity though making me look again between my fingers. When we began to show the signs of womanhood, our family decided we had to wear the abaya. I cried because it would get in my way but I noticed that Safia was joyful at the prospect. Astonished I asked why and she replied: ‘Are you stupid? Wearing an abaya means we’ve entered the adult world.’ Our conversations took a different turn after we turned fifteen and our secrets became of another sort. Ignoring my aunt, we would rush up to the roof and climb over the high wall to see Sudayyiq, the neighbour’s son. Safia was taken with him and he loved her back. He was no kid, a young man of twenty-three in fact. He wrote love letters obsessively, skilled as he was in the language of love and refined in its expression. He would attached them to a stone and throw them over to us. Safia on one occasion met with him surreptitiously and returned, heart thumping and face radiating joy. I asked her eagerly what had happened between them. She looked down at the ground through her long eyelashes and said with girlish guile and quivering lips: ‘Nothing happened at all.’ When we listened to love songs or watched passionate love scenes on video, we would be assailed by our own inner desires and would blush with shame. We would sneak off to bed, turn our backs on one another and listen intently to each other’s moans coming from beneath the covers,

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as we quenched instinctive thirsts into sweet silence. She once timidly asked me: ‘Don’t you ever dream about men?’ I replied in a low voice: ‘Yes, of course.’ Sometimes we would playact in front of the mirror, strutting about ostentatiously, both of us showing off our womanly charms – which only encouraged my jealousy. I said: ‘Look at that, God has given you the most amazing figure of any girl who has walked the face of the earth.’ Once Safia wanted to get a message to Sudayyiq. She said to me: ‘Hold on tight to the banister!’ We laughed hysterically and for quite a time. I didn’t know how she kept her balance as she slipped over the wall, staggering along in the night sky, eyes transfixed by her man, arms flapping in space, appealing to him in her panic. Then, in a split second she disappeared before my eyes and her body slammed into the street below. It was a three-storey house and poor Safia landed on hard ground. She survived for three days in a coma but then expired. I spent an entire year walled in by depression, her spectre swimming in the darkness of my days, her voice echoing in my ears. I would visit my uncle from time to time and he would envelop me in love and yearning. Some years after Safia’s death, a boy proposed and I refused him without a moment’s hesitation, the spirit of Safia still possessing me. And I remember the day I saw lights hung over the street across from my uncle’s house. I knew they were for Sudayyiq’s wedding celebrations. I cried like I never had in my life before. I felt Safia’s spirit within me. I imagined how she would have gloried in her white gown, Sudayyiq’s arm around her waist, and her laugh reverberated through my grieving heart. My uncle cried the day I graduated from university. He hugged me and said: ‘If Safia were alive, you’d be celebrating together now.’ Memories wracked me now, reels of her jammed up in my head. I brought myself around to reality. I put a stop to wallowing in the past. I whispered to my sister: ‘I want to go.’ She stared at me discouragingly. ‘You have a duty to mourn. He was your uncle. What will people say about us?’ One of our relatives nodded towards the coffee and the pile of little cups stacked up. They fuelled my despair. They looked like severed heads. The woman in front of me stood up and pointed to the coffee by way of asking me if I wanted a cup. I wagged my finger in refusal. I moaned. I couldn’t bear to sit in this suffocating and disconsolate atmosphere any longer. The past was baring its fangs. It was sinking its teeth into my senses. I slapped it and it smacked me back. Memory raked over my pain. The spirit of Safia loomed before me. Her voice churned through my insides, calling to me: ‘Hayat, come on up, let’s play! … You cheater – it’s my turn! … Hang on, Hayat … what do you think of my new dress? … Do you know,

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Hayat, when I get married, I’m going to have ten kids? I don’t want any of my kids growing up alone. I dream about a big family … Do you think Sudayyiq will propose soon or am I still too young?’ Back came that laugh and the recollection of it tore me apart and filled me with pain. I shook myself loose of the chair and shot off amid the disdainful stares around me. My mother called after me, my sister too. I pulled my wrap around me, the hot air slapping me across the face. I stood a while in front of my uncle’s house and cast a brief glance at the ageing building. The ghost of my uncle appeared before me at one of the windows, waving me off as he would always do, his eyes exuding that wholesomeness he had within. And beside him was Safia, the bloom of her girlish face resting against his shoulder. With tears in my eyes, I ordered the driver to set off, certain I would never enter that house again.

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The exile The doorbell rang for a long time. She woke perturbed from her sleep. She called to the Andalusian maid in a loud voice. No response. She grudgingly threw the bedclothes off her warm body and rubbed her drowsy eyes. She walked heavily towards the apartment door and opened it. Her eyes met those of a stranger. She shut the door quickly, realizing that she hadn’t put on a robe on over her flimsy nightdress, through which the contours of her sweet figure and the outline of her push-up bra showed. ‘What do you want?’ she said in a drowsy voice from behind the door. ‘Your driver called in at the workshop yesterday. He told me your bathroom needed sorting out.’ The accent was Yemeni. She asked him to wait in a peremptory tone and shouted again for her maid. Again, no reply. God damn these servants. They’re a curse you know but then again you just can’t do without them. Where is the damned woman? She suddenly remembered she had told her the day before to go with the driver to the supermarket today. She took her robe off the hook and wrapped it around herself. She went back to the door, opened it abruptly, looked down at the workman’s shoes and told in him bluntly to leave them on the doorstep. She walked in front of him and showed him where the bathroom was. He looked longingly at the line of her spine, the sensuous fluidity of her walk, the swaying of her behind. He took it all in and lusted after her from deep within. He cursed her inwardly. My God, what a woman! She must realize what a hold she has over us. Why can’t she cover it up? That’s quite something. Does she think only a certain class of people can lust after that or something? He put his toolbox down and immersed his inflamed senses in the business of fault detection. Her sleepy voice penetrated his concentration. He became aware of her condescending tone as she said: ‘Why don’t you answer me? I just asked you how much this is going to cost me to sort out?’ ‘We won’t charge, madam,’ he replied in a soft voice. She left him to his work. He then heard the sound of Ragheb Alama singing ‘Teach me to love the world, teach me to love’ coming from the stereo. The woman hummed along in a light tone. He cast his gaze in curiosity towards her bedroom. He noticed her shadow cast on the bedroom wall, swaying in time with the song. He tried to suppress his emotions, distracting himself with his work. He suddenly sensed a feminine fragrance playing around his face. He raised his head to see her before him, her black gypsy hair flowing down her spine and over her shoulders.

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He sighed deeply and glanced at her furtively. God she’s amazing! A lustful smile was pasted on his face. He pulled himself together to suppress it. She stood in the bathroom doorway, saying: ‘Are you done?’ ‘Yes, madam. It’s all working now.’ The woman went in to check he had done his work correctly. She stole a glance at her footsteps. He blinked and gawped at her stupidly. She looked up and her hair accidentally brushed the tip of her nose. She flinched in alarm. He was agitated and closed his eyes. His breath seared his throat. Sweat streamed from his forehead and he breathed a sigh a relief when he stepped out onto the street. At the end of his day, he went back to his room. He looked worn out, framed by his fatigue. He gazed at his face in the broken mirror hung next to his bed. He was barely twenty-five years old, still a young man. How could he bear this loneliness? How could he cope with this isolation? He raised his eyes to the ceiling. He stared at the mouldy, damp walls and let out a sad sigh. Fuck the foreman! He’s a merciless bastard. From nine o’clock right through except half-an-hour off for lunch. Ach, I feel sick. He threw his exhausted body onto his dusty bed. He pushed his hand beneath the pillow and pulled out a small photo of a woman and three children. He kissed it with tightened lips. His thoughts turned to the woman: his beautiful wife, even more beautiful than that woman this morning. He sighed. Ah, where is she now and where am I? He remembered their last conversation before he had left for Saudi Arabia. Her last worry-tinged question: ‘What are you going to do if your urges get the better of you?’ ‘I’ll master them.’ ‘Can they be mastered? They’re a need like food and drink.’ Her eyes showed her anxiety as he replied: ‘Don’t worry, I can resist. I can keep them in line.’ His tired eyes drooped now. He tried to sleep. He gazed at his far-away wife’s picture, her fulsome breasts and shapely figure. He recalled her graceful bearing, her provocative walk, her gypsy hair with those ringlets which turned him on, her eyes that openly beckoned. His desire rose while his blood simmered and his limbs trembled. His body stiffened. He put his hand inside his clothes and his fingers fumbled with the secrets of his lust. He released that lust and then relaxed. On his way to work and near his local shopping centre the next morning, he glanced at one of the black African street sellers sitting on the pavement. Her upper body leant against the wall and her legs stretched out, revealing to him her cracked heels. She had spread a cloth in front of her on which were a handful of sweets swarming with flies. She played

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with the hem of her black, worn dress. Behind the cotton dress, her breasts sagged to her waist, beads of sweat running down between them. She absentmindedly wiped them away with a scrunched-up tissue, poking it down now and again between the crevasse and then bringing it out again dampened with her sweat. He drew near her, his breathing overwhelmed by the smell of her armpits, a little different from the fragrance of the woman from the day before. His mouth was filled with saliva. He approached her, winked and stuffed a small banknote into her palm. She clutched it delightedly then tucked it into her bra. Her eyes gleamed beneath the sun’s glare. She gathered her things up hurriedly, wiped snot from her nose with her dirty palm and resignedly dragged herself off. Translated by John Peate

Biographical Information

The editors Abdulaziz Al-Sebail Abdulaziz Al-Sebail, the former Deputy Minister for Culture, obtained his PhD from Indiana University in 1991. He taught Modern Arabic Literature at King Saud University and was the editor-in-chief of Al-Rawi (narrative magazine). He is the founder and editor-in-chief of Nawafidh (a magazine for literary translation). He has published several critical studies on Arabic literature and has participated in the translation of many books, including The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature. His last publication in Arabic was the book Arabism of Today: Cultural Perspectives. Anthony Calderbank He studied Arabic and Persian at the University of Manchester, England, and has taught both English and Arabic in the UK and the Middle East. Since 2008 he has lived in Riyadh, where he is now Deputy Director of the British Council in Saudi Arabia. His translations include Miral al-Tahawy’s The Tent and Blue Aubergine, Yousef Al-Mohaimeed’s Wolves of the Crescent Moon and Munira’s Bottle, Sonallah Ibrahim’s Zaat, and Naguib Mahfouz’s early novel Rhadopis of Nubia, plus a collection of Nubian short stories, Vintage Nights of Musk by Haggag Hassan Addoul, as well as a number of Palestinian short stories published in the collection Land of Thyme and Stone. The translators Alice Guthrie She was born in London in 1976 and studied Arabic at the University of Exeter, England, and at IFPO in Damascus. She is a freelance translator, researcher and writer.

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Mujab Imam He is a lecturer in English at Al-Kharj University, Saudi Arabia. His translations into Arabic include Beckett: Daring the Impossible (forthcoming), Angela’s Ashes and Rethinking Multiculturalism. His translations into English include Modern Arab Thinkers and The God-Given Gift, Top of the World. Clem Naylor He studied Arabic and French at St John’s College, Oxford. As part of his degree he spent a year in Damascus. On his return in 2007 he started work as a translator. He has translated several academic publications, and his literary translation work has included some plays for the Royal Court Theatre, London. One of these – Withdrawal by Mohammad Al-Attar – was performed and published in 2009–10. He translated Al-Attar’s short play Online, which was part of the Royal Court’s August 2011 series ‘After the Spring’. Since finishing his BA in 2009, he has done a master’s degree in Middle Eastern Studies at Oxford and edited a dictionary published by the Oxford University Press for Arabs learning English. He now works in the UK civil service. John Peate John Peate is a university teacher, doctoral researcher, translator and language consultant based in the UK. He has bachelor’s degrees in both English and Arabic from the University of Leeds, a master’s degree in translation from the University of London (School of Oriental and African Studies) and is studying for a PhD in Arabic–English comparative linguistics at the University of Salford. He has taught Arabic, translation and interpreting at Salford and Leeds Universities and is currently fulltime Teaching Fellow in Linguistics at Bangor University. He has studied Arabic in Morocco, Egypt, Syria and Oman as well as in the UK. He has translated poetry and literary prose pieces for a large number of projects in recent years, including the Beirut 39 anthology, the Rotterdam Poetry Festival and numerous pieces for Banipal magazine. He is also an established translator specializing in the legal and academic fields. Further details about John are available on his website: www.johnpeate.net. Christina Phillips Christina Phillips is Lecturer in Arabic Literature at the University of Exeter. She began translating Arabic fiction as a PhD student at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. Her translations include

Biographical Information

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Morning and Evening Talk (2008) by Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz, and Like A Summer Never to be Repeated (2009) by Mohamed Berrada. Chip Rossetti Chip Rossetti is a PhD candidate in Arabic Literature at the University of Pennsylvania. He holds an AB in Greek and Latin from Harvard and is currently the managing editor of the Library of Arabic Literature, a new book series of classical Arabic works in English translation. He worked for a number of years as a book editor at US publishers such as Little Brown, Wiley, and Basic Books, and from 2005 to 2007 was the senior editor at the American University in Cairo Press. He has written for Saudi Aramco World as well as for Frommer’s and National Geographic travel guides. He is the translator of Bahaa Abdelmegid’s novels Saint Theresa and Sleeping with Strangers (both AUC Press, 2010) as well as Ahmed Khaled Towfik’s bestselling science fiction novel Utopia (Bloomsbury Qatar, 2011) and Magdy El Shafee’s Metro, the first adult graphic novel in Arabic (Metropolitan Books, forthcoming.) In 2010 he won a PEN America Translation Fund grant for his translation of Muhammad Makhzangi’s Animals in our Days, a collection of short stories on the theme of animals. He lives near New York. Paul Starkey Paul Starkey (DPhil, University of Oxford, 1978) is Professor of Arabic and Head of the Arabic Department at Durham University, England, and a Co-Director of the Centre for the Advanced Study of the Arab World. His research interests include Arabic literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, literary translation theory and practice, and travel to and from the Middle East. He is the author of Modern Arabic Literature (Edinburgh University Press, 2006) and was co-editor of the Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature (Routledge, 1998). He is currently working on a study of the Egyptian novelist Sonallah Ibrahim. He teaches Arabic–English translation at Durham and has published English translations of Arabic novels by Rashid Al-Daif, Edwar Al-Kharrat, Turki Al-Hamad, Mansoura Ezz Eldin, and Mahdi Issa Al-Saqr. He has also translated a number of short stories and novel excerpts which have appeared in Banipal and other international journals. His latest translation is of the Palestinian author Adania Shibli’s second novel, We Are All Equally Far from Love, published by Clockroot Books in November 2011.