The Things We See in the Light

by Amal Awad

  Luke is silent for a few moments. ‘Remember that time you told me you know what it’s like to want something that isn’t quite right? What you said, and the way you said it … It was the exact thing I needed to hear at that moment.’

  The night at the queer dance party, when Luke walked me home. ‘I remember.’

  ‘Sometimes all the things I want to achieve seem bigger than where I’m standing. Does that make sense?’

  ‘You’re capable of more. I get it. I worked in a home kitchen for years and it felt huge. Now it would feel tiny.’

  Luke’s arm still rests on my body, his energy easy, familiar. I touch his cheek, study his lived-in features and blue eyes. ‘You are so surprising to me.’ He presses his lips gently to my forehead. ‘I’m going to sound like a twat, but I think you’re beautiful. And special.’

  Then he is tracing the scar on my shoulder, the tips of his fingers gently tapping my skin. His hand trails down my side and lands at the second, smaller scar at my hip. I have studied them so many times, awkwardly swivelling around in front of the mirror to examine the contours of both, properly. I know them by heart. As he uses his fingers to softly caress their edges, they feel larger than they are in my mind.

  He kisses the scar on my hip then the one on my shoulder at the top and bottom. ‘That must have hurt.’

  ‘It looks worse than it is.’

  ‘Do I get to know what caused these?’

  I want to tell him. To reveal the past and set it free, because although this could quite possibly be a short-lived affair, I feel the weight of Naeem’s memory.

  I sit up and take Luke’s hand, my heart beating faster as I steel myself. ‘You know I worked at refugee camps for a few years. Well, one day, some kids were going for a joyride in someone’s minivan. I don’t think they were trying to hurt anybody. They were just angry and restless. All these kids getting some vague form of education in these crappy demountables, it would drive anyone mad.’

  Luke’s touch remains, but he’s still, attentive.

  ‘The kids used to wander around. I mean, they were living in the desert, and it was a bit like no-man’s land sometimes. The Wild West,’ I say with a smile. ‘So they behaved like outlaws. Not all of them. But some of them hated what was happening to them. They knew they’d be given a rough deal.’

  Luke is silent, but he gently squeezes my arm.

  ‘One afternoon, I heard some commotion. I had no idea what was wrong. The doctor I was with went to investigate, then suddenly …’

  The explosion ripped everything apart. I remember how it lit up the space around me, how it sounded, the way time froze, like I was watching it happen in a film, not standing in it. The shape of the world around me bent in unimaginable ways, the frequency of sound shifting until it felt like there was nothing to be heard, and nothing to be felt.

  ‘There was an explosion. It was pretty bad. It happened in winter … Everything was slippery and snowy. It was so cold. The kids … They’d veered into a truck carrying oxygen tanks for the hospital. It was an accident.’

  There were two of them, I was later told.

  ‘Have you ever seen an explosion?’ I ask Luke.

  He nods once. ‘Quite a few, but not too close.’ We lock eyes. His hand on my shoulder gives another gentle squeeze. ‘How many died?’

  ‘Eight people. Including the two kids.’

  ‘Fucking hell.’

  ‘I never went back after that.’

  Everything had changed forever.

  Luke parks his car outside my apartment building. I feel the need to be polite, so I invite him in. Luke almost snort-laughs. ‘I wouldn’t do that to you. I recognise a fellow hermit when I see one. I’ll see you tomorrow at work.’

  He moves in for a kiss, his hand caressing my cheek while he does so. An excited burn rushes through my body and I have to stop him. My forehead meets his with a soft bump and I smile.

  Luke waits until I’m safely inside the building, taking off once I give him a final wave.

  I am still smiling as I trudge my way up the stairs. My mind is bursting with the events of the last day, my stomach churning in excitement. The burn is familiar, but while there is uncertainty there, it opens up into a field of possibilities rather than one burdened by an immediate dead end. This, I realise, is what hope feels like; a rising storm after a drought. Scary, but in a good way.

  When I reach the final step, my smile dissolves as I take in the silhouette of a man seated on the floor outside the door to my apartment. My initial fright gives way to a deeper worry that I am hallucinating. I would know his figure anywhere, but I feel his presence like it’s a quantifiable essence. The scent of aftershave reaches me before the man looks up and meets my gaze.

  It’s Khaled.

  His energy is different – he wears his pain. But it is him, in the flesh, and I am in disbelief.

  Chapter 24

  The things we do. How we affect each other.

  Khaled looks out of place in my kitchen. The shape of him is the same. But he is haunted. It’s not his presence that worries me, it’s his spirit, the air of sorrow that hangs off him. He is antsy, wandering around like a tourist of the ordinary, his hands fisted at his sides as he traverses the kitchen.

  I’m still in my clothes from the day before, stirring a pot of Lebanese coffee at the stove. The scent begins to restore me after the shock of finding my ex-husband at my doorstep. I close my eyes as I think of Luke.

  ‘What’s this?’ Khaled says in Arabic. He’s holding up the napkin with Kat’s list of experiences for The Experiment, which I had stuck to the fridge door with a magnet.

  ‘It’s just something funny my co-workers came up with,’ I reply, also in Arabic.

  Khaled is reading it, his eyes slowly following Kat’s scrawl down the napkin.

  ‘Slow dance with a man,’ he reads, his voice low. His mouth forms a sardonic smile.

  My stomach aches as I remember slow dancing with Luke. He would have driven home with a smile on his face.

  Khaled returns the list to the fridge, tapping the magnet against it so that the napkin is upside down.

  ‘It was just a bit of fun.’ I fix my attention on the pot of coffee. It starts to boil furiously, so I turn down the heat and stir it into submission.

  ‘Where do you work?’ Khaled asks.

  ‘At a patisserie cafe and chocolate studio.’

  ‘I see,’ he says.

  ‘I like it there. I’m learning a lot.’

  Khaled studies me from across the kitchen table. ‘You have changed a lot,’ he says. ‘I almost didn’t recognise you.’

  ‘Same.’

  ‘Your hair. You cut it.’

  We’re both quiet, and I look away. The sound of my spoon against the metal pot is a clunky soundtrack.

  I hear the scrape of a chair being pulled out. When I turn around, Khaled is seated, his fingers tracing patterns on the table, his eyes dark.

  I switch off the stove, place the pot on a silver tray then locate small coffee cups and saucers. I dig out a small jar of sugar. It feels like a strange offering for this meeting point between two competing worlds. Khaled has only just swept back into my life, but it’s startling how much becomes clear. I have, as he put it, changed so much.

  ‘Do you have somewhere to stay?’ I say as I search for something sweet. I find a packet of biscuits, rip it open and slide out the tray. I don’t bother plating them up.

  ‘I missed you,’ he says.

  ‘There are hotels in the city. I can help you book a room.’

  ‘So that’s it?’

  I pour the coffee, my hand steady. ‘We’re divorced, Khaled. It’s over. I don’t understand why you’re here.’ I regret being so abrupt when I see how he bristles at my words.

  He takes the cup of coffee I offer him. ‘You wanted the signed papers, didn’t you? Not just my words?’ He pauses. ‘And I have questions.’

  He is calm, but this is Khaled’s version of serenity. As alw
ays, it’s about being in control.

  ‘My brother is dead.’

  His blunt words rush through me like fire and I wince. But I minimise my reaction. ‘I know. I was there.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Allah yirhamo.’

  ‘I’m getting married again.’

  I crack a wry smile. I can’t help it. ‘Mabrook.’

  Khaled is unimpressed. ‘Is that it?’

  ‘What would you like me to say? I hope she’s everything I wasn’t.’

  ‘That won’t be hard.’

  ‘Well, for once we’re in agreement,’ I say, rising from my seat, the coffee and biscuits untouched.

  ‘How could you just leave like that?’

  I close my eyes and try to centre myself. Khaled getting married does not surprise me. It’s been eight months since my departure. I am not even concerned. He’s not like me. I doubt he’s laid it all bare and inspected the damage, or turned inward.

  I give him my full attention. My eyes on him, I stand tall. ‘Can we stop pretending, Khaled?’

  ‘Yes. I want you to tell me the truth.’

  ‘You are not my husband anymore. You divorced me by text, remember?’

  ‘I was angry. It doesn’t count.’

  ‘It always counts, Khaled.’

  I hear the door open and a few seconds later, Lara calls out to me. She looks startled as she steps into the kitchen. ‘Oh. Sorry, am I interrupting?’ She looks at Khaled then at me. ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘I’m her husband,’ he says in English.

  Lara manages to see the humour in it. ‘Not anymore. Did Sahar invite you here?’

  ‘He’s just leaving,’ I say. I meet Khaled’s gaze, fearless but frustrated. ‘You have to go. We can talk tomorrow.’

  I lead him out, but he stops at the front door.

  ‘I wish you hadn’t shown up the way you did,’ I say, my arms crossed.

  Khaled takes a moment. ‘How did I show up, Sahar?’

  ‘Like a storm.’

  I close the door and rejoin Lara in the kitchen. She looks worried. ‘Bloody hell.’

  Then I collapse into the dining chair and exhale several shaky breaths. My hands grip the dining table and I try to clear the mental scenery crowding my mind. Khaled in various stages of grief, never friendly, sometimes needy.

  Lara approaches me. ‘Are you OK, babe?’

  ‘I think so.’ I try to steady my breathing but my entire body is shaking, a shadow of overwhelm hanging above me.

  ‘Should we call the police?’

  ‘He’s not dangerous, Lara. Just angry and embarrassed … and grieving.’

  Then I see it: an envelope Khaled has left me. I drag it over to me and inspect its contents. They’re in Arabic, but I can read the language well enough to see that they are divorce papers, and Khaled is yet to sign them.

  Lara grows impatient. ‘Just sign the papers and tell him to bugger off.’

  ‘What if he doesn’t sign them?’

  ‘Then we’ll find someone who can help you make him.’

  ‘He came all the way from Amman to do something he could have done by mail.’

  Lara shrugs. ‘People get funny about being the loser in these situations.’

  I nod, more settled. ‘I had sex with Luke.’

  Lara’s response is delayed. ‘I swear, sometimes I wish I was a drinker.’ Then she studies me long and hard. ‘OK. Out with it. Every last dirty detail. No more fucking breadcrumbs. What happened?’

  ‘I just told you.’

  ‘Not with Luke. In Jordan. The scars. You haven’t told me about the scars.’

  ‘I know. OK.’ I lift my eyes to meet Lara’s, her face etched in worry.

  I already know that I can’t give Khaled what he wants: some kind of twisted victory, no matter how bittersweet. We have both lost something irretrievable. Our marriage bombed, but really, it’s Naeem’s ghost that haunts us both.

  Jordan

  The seventh year

  The refugee camp is bitingly cold, a storm is threatening, and a pregnant woman is bleeding. I am Naeem’s assistant for the day, and despite the tense atmosphere, he has been playful up until this point and his presence dims my anxiety. We trudge through deep snow to reach a prefab that would fail to keep a family warm. Outside, we find a little boy waiting, his hands knotted together. Naeem gives him a lollipop and the boy tries to smile.

  Inside, a young couple are seated on a thin burgundy mattress, a white sheet across the woman’s legs in a nod to propriety. She is on her back, moaning, her feet kicking at the straw mats covering the floor, one hand on her belly. She lets out a piercing scream. Even in the near darkness of the room, I can see the agony on her face. Her husband bends over her in panic.

  Naeem’s voice drops as he offers her reassuring words. ‘Ya sitti,’ he says as a sign of respect, then tries to usher away her terrified husband. Naeem appears calm, but I read the panic in his tightly held body. ‘Sahar, we need the ambulance,’ he tells me in English. ‘Go now.’

  I run out of the prefab, my mind stained with the image of the woman, her face drained of colour as she bled onto the mattress, reddening the white sheet. Lost in thought, I trip and fall, my foot collapsing sideways. I yell out in pain but keep going, spurred on by the image of the blood spotting the straw mats like a trail to hell.

  Ten minutes later, the woman is being transported to the clinic. Naeem travels with her, and I retreat to his private room. Two hours later, when Naeem returns, I’m stationed on a cot, my knees folded up to my chest, my arms wrapped tightly around them. I am shaking, that woman’s nightmare a painful reminder of my own miscarriages. I am still wearing my wet shoes and my clothing clings to my skin. My headscarf sits loosely around my head. Naeem assesses me from the door.

  ‘Take off your shoes,’ he says, coming towards me.

  I remove my hiking boots and strip off my socks. My ankle throbs. I rub it and Naeem takes hold of my foot to inspect the damage. ‘You’re swollen,’ he says.

  He wraps an icepack around my ankle then sits beside me on a plastic chair, the kind that belongs on a patio on a hot summer’s day. He rubs his face as though he is trying to scrub the day away. We are both in shock, but I hate to see him in so much pain.

  ‘I don’t know why God lets people suffer like this.’

  Naeem almost chuckles. ‘Do you want a drink?’

  I decline, but watch, my body slowly starting to settle, as Naeem rummages around in a steel cabinet. He emerges with a small bottle of dark liquid with no label on it. ‘It can help with the shock.’

  I decline again with a slow shake of my head. ‘I don’t want any. You have it.’

  He unscrews the cap quickly then drinks straight from the bottle. ‘You know, if you stay here, people will talk. I’m not taking patients right now,’ he says.

  I remain seated, my eyes fixed on the wall, my mind in a place I didn’t know existed and I want to laugh. As if I could be worried about what people would say amid such tragedy. Up close, I’ve witnessed the loss of a wife and mother. I am an ungrateful person to think I ever had it hard as a child.

  ‘I don’t care what people say.’

  Naeem’s eyes pour into mine. A gentle ache rises and expands in my stomach. But he makes no move towards me. I feel unsettled. The cord that runs between Naeem and me is suddenly frayed.

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ I say. ‘Do I mean so little to you that you can change your mind all the time?’

  Naeem’s demeanour shifts, and he breaks out of his sullen mood to come closer. He drops into the seat again, his hand searching out my knee. He squeezes it before his head lands between my knees. I run my fingers through his thick, curly hair.

  We sit like that for a while, silently unpacking the mess around us and between us.

  Eventually, we separate and Naeem removes the icepack. He walks over to the bin, then tosses it inside. It lands with a thud.

  My body feels heavy, but I wait for him to turn ar
ound. When he does, my face is placid as I search for connection in his eyes; the same eyes that have searched mine so many times.

  Naeem hesitates. ‘You should get going before they block the roads.’

  I scramble off the cot, but as I sweep past him, he takes hold of my arm.

  ‘I’m still a man. I don’t think we should be alone anymore. Someone could walk in at any time.’

  I nod. ‘I wish I’d never met you,’ I say.

  I go to leave but Naeem’s response is instant. He pulls me back and draws me to him. Then he holds on tight as if for the last time.

  We kiss, standing there like two lovers lost. It is intense, and timeless. Then we hear the commotion. The crescendo of chaos is jarring; it’s a mixture of things – horns blaring, people shouting, a smash. With it, a feeling of immediate panic.

  We break apart, dazed. Naeem heads to the door.

  The room lights up. There is no sound as the shockwave rips through me. Then everything stops. It is, for a few moments, transcendent. I am powerless, but completely surrendered. Then it becomes real. There is sound again, and it is terrifying in its mass of screams, sirens and invocations. My eyes struggle to stay open amid the chaos. Panic spreads through my body, but I can’t move.

  I don’t know how long it takes me to remember where I am, and who is with me, but as some point I think of Naeem and search for him. I see no one. Then the world turns black.

  I wake up in an ambulance. It takes me a while to become fully conscious, but then I remember everything, relive it quietly in my mind. My body awakens to the terror, even though I’m so tired, the flesh around my shoulder ripped open, blood down my side. I can’t tell what blood is mine. It feels as if it’s my life that has been blown apart, everything I worked so hard to hide blasted into view.

  I have no power over karmic punishment.

  Chapter 25

  Perhaps there is no such thing as good or bad luck. Just good or bad days.

  At work the next day, I immediately seek out Luke. I find him in the pantry and I’m relieved because we’re alone but for a new junior in the kitchen.