The Occasional Virgin

by Hanan al-Shaykh

  THE

  OCCASIONAL VIRGIN

  For Freya

  ALSO BY HANAN AL-SHAYKH

  Women of Sand and Myrrh

  The Story of Zahra

  Beirut Blues

  Only in London

  I Sweep the Sun Off Rooftops

  The Locust and the Bird: My Mother’s Story

  One Thousand and One Nights: A Retelling

  CONTENTS

  Also by Hanan Al-Shaykh

  Part One: Two Women by the Sea

  One

  Part Two: The Occasional Virgin

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  A Note on the Author

  A Note on the Translator

  Also available by Hanan Al-Shaykh

  PART ONE

  Two Women by the Sea

  1

  To reach the sea, Huda and Yvonne travel like a pair of ants, one behind the other. Two very cautious ants, as the road twists and turns deceptively, and motorists are surprised by the sudden appearance of people on foot, and by overhanging branches, extending in all directions.

  ‘Let’s cross over to the pavement,’ Yvonne begs Huda, trying to free her hair from a trailing branch.

  They stop for a moment, then set off on their way again, the never-ending stream of cars moving so quickly that their passengers hardly have time to turn their heads and glance fleetingly at the two women, who are in fact extremely pretty. One dark, one fair; one tall, one average height; both perfectly in tune with the summer weather: yellow shorts, barely skimming the top of the thighs, a short blue skirt with white polka dots, white T-shirts, and trainers so light and airy they almost lift them clear of the asphalt.

  ‘Are we going the right way?’ asks Yvonne, clearly anxious.

  ‘According to the map …’ Huda answers, wishing that her friend would have second thoughts about going to the sea, as she had washed her hair the day before yesterday in preparation for the trip. This hair-washing involved an elaborate process of applying oil and allowing it to soak in, then washing it, spreading shea butter on it – which felt disgusting – and then rinsing, applying conditioner, wrapping each strand around rollers and sitting under a dryer, then brushing out each strand using a hand dryer. After this, she no longer had curly hair; instead it hung straight down over her shoulders, shiny as an aubergine.

  They go off on a footpath, which rises steeply. Huge overhanging trees, and houses, or rather villas, apparently empty, surrounded by neglected gardens, black figs spattered on the asphalt, olive trees and dozens of squashes like orange footballs bearing no relation to the soft green plants which produced them. They turn on to a road with high walls on either side, and when there is no sign of the sea, Huda is filled with doubt. She examines the map and is not reassured. They follow the road to the end, and the minute they take another turn, on to a narrow track, they suddenly see the blue line on the horizon. Unable to suppress her delight, Yvonne begins running towards the sea, while Huda follows, worried and apprehensive. But getting to the sea is not as easy as it looks. High rocks, trees, stones and crashing waves stand guard over it. Have they come the wrong way? In their confusion they fail to notice the gap in the wall until a man rides up on his motorbike, dismounts, and climbs through it. Cautiously they follow and find themselves in a rock garden perched right on the seafront. The tension suddenly vanishes from Huda’s mind as she stands confronted by white rocks like huge cacti. In the middle of one rock, that has a flattened top, yellow plants grow, the colour and texture of Yvonne’s hair. Every time the water attacks them, the plants float briefly, then become still and smooth again. Huda secretly envies Yvonne’s hair. They stand together contemplating these plants in surprise.

  ‘They’re like a woman’s pubic hair,’ says Yvonne.

  ‘Is yours platinum blonde?’ Huda asks. The rocks are otherworldly and she feels an overwhelming desire to walk on them, especially when she notices a young man and woman strolling over them quite casually.

  ‘Let’s go on those rocks.’

  ‘No. Let’s choose a place to sit,’ Yvonne answers at once.

  She walks over the red earth, where there are pine trees growing. Huda notices the resin dripping from one tree. They descend along a small path, just a few steps from the sea, and find nature has mixed sea and shore together. Patches of blue water surge between the rocks, with a single outlet connecting them to the wider sea.

  Delighted, Huda breathes freely again. ‘It would be difficult to swim here,’ she says. ‘Impossible in fact. Never mind, we can sunbathe and sleep.’

  ‘You must be crazy! We’ll swim over the stones and seaweed till we get there.’ Yvonne gestures vaguely with her hand, and Huda understands that ‘there’ means the open sea, just water and gentle waves, not like here on the shore, where it crashes against the rocks, white foam flying, raging.

  ‘I’ve got a book . . . you go and swim.’

  ‘Are you joking? Did madam come all the way from Toronto and me from London so we could read? I don’t think so. I’ve got jelly shoes that are great for swimming. You could walk over anything in them.’

  Huda chooses a place under the trees but Yvonne wants to sit right beside the sea, in the sun, away from the trees and rocks. They spread out the towels. Yvonne strips down to her bikini, reaches out a hand to help Huda, who is slow to take off her skirt, claiming the zip is stuck. ‘You go first. Anyway I want to climb on the rocks before I swim.’

  Yvonne races towards the sea, stumbles on pebbles and sharp stones, scrapes her leg, but is unconcerned. She throws herself into the waves and swims, striking out in the water as if to confirm that she is actually there, in the Mediterranean, the only real sea as far as she is concerned. She wants to bite the water, hold it in her teeth, such is her desire for it. She dives like a duck, rediscovering its intimate spaces, a visitor after a long absence, savouring the taste of it, the coldness, the saltiness, the silence. Then she stretches one arm out on the surface of the water like a cat, then the other, swimming fast now, so that the sea can’t escape from her, drinking in the air, embracing the water and exhaling, no longer seeing anything but the colour blue mixing the sky and sea together. She closes her eyes as if she has finally come home after a long journey.

  Huda climbs back up to the pine trees, having refastened her skirt around her waist. She sees the tree that is oozing resin and smiles at the old familiar smell, the smell of the Beirut pine forest, and her grandmother bending over to light a fire with the needles and urging her to breathe in the smoke to cure her whooping cough. Huda continues walking over the rocks, which have become a proper footpath, bounded on either side by a metal handrail, so fine as to be almost invisible, a winding, uneven path, but broad enough. Crabs scurry from one hiding place to another. Small fish like eyebrow tweezers discover they are almost on dry land and escape back into the water. Huda looks for Yvonne and sees that she is still in the sea, which appears normal from a distance, no longer a theatre of horrors, a sea jungle, as it was when she saw it earlier.

  She follows the rock walk to what is apparently the end, as her path is blocked by a sign saying ‘Strada privata. Divieto di transito.’ An attractive young man leaning against a big iron gate and sketching a tree at bewildering speed looks at her and smiles. She smiles back at him, then returns the way she came, to the seashore where she can see her things waiting for her in the distance. A barking dog greets her. She ignores it and takes her place on the towel and the dog barks louder. The Italian family sitting nearby tries to quieten it down, in vain, as it continues barking at her, seeming to sense that she is afraid of it, even though it’s tied to a chair leg. She removes her skirt finally and puts
on the jelly sandals, intending to go into the sea, ignoring the big pebbles and jutting rocks. Everything is urging her to do it: Yvonne, who keeps calling her, the Italian family and their dog, the other bathers, and most of all herself. She makes several efforts to rush into the sea and swim out over the seaweed and pebbles, assuring herself that the water is only a few inches deep, but she does so hesitantly, so that the waves push her this way and that against the rocks.

  Everyone must be looking at her, even the seagull, angry at the bathers preventing it from fishing. Yvonne calls her again, louder this time, laughing, and Huda lowers herself gradually in, holding her breath, waggling all her limbs in order to keep afloat, like a centipede trying to swim. Her head, clad in a bathing cap, around which she has wrapped a gaily coloured scarf, bobs up and down as she treads water, and she looks attentively around her, ignoring Yvonne’s calls, studying the sea and sky. When she can no longer see Yvonne out of the corner of her eye, her heart begins to thump. Yvonne must have dived underwater hoping to surprise her. The thought of this spoils her concentration and she suppresses a cry and plants her feet on the seabed. Yvonne is lying on her back in the sea as if she is at home in bed. Huda takes a breath for the first time and dares herself to swim just a short distance, not far enough to get out of her depth. She continues holding her breath, thrusting her legs down from time to time, making sure her feet can still touch the bottom, then exhaling at length. Yvonne can’t have failed to notice how useless I am in the water, she thinks. She splashes around noisily, lying on her back, the only position that doesn’t make her look as if she is running away from a fire.

  The water seems heavy, or maybe it’s her head, heavy with fear of the water. She decides to get out, but Yvonne is swimming towards her, calling her back, so Huda increases her speed, pretending to be completely at ease in the sea, turning on to her back again, although in fact one foot is constantly testing to make sure the ground is still there, ready to receive her feet if necessary.

  ‘Are you deaf? I’ve called you hundreds of times. You seem to like swimming in kids’ pee.’

  ‘I’m thirsty.’ Huda changes the subject.

  ‘And I’m hungry.’

  Getting out of the sea is harder than getting in. Huda tries to look confident but finds herself colliding with rocks, toppled by waves each time she regains her balance. Yvonne laughs, but Huda doesn’t join in, afraid she’ll lose her balance again, until in the end she resorts to going down on all fours.

  They finally reach their spot and eat apples, pears and KitKats.

  ‘Will you climb those rocks with me?’ Yvonne points to where several young men are standing, laughing, looking down at the sea and daring one another to jump in.

  ‘Me? Are you crazy?’ Huda hides her delight at the fact that Yvonne hasn’t noticed she can’t swim. Why don’t I tell her the truth? But I’m scared she’ll insist on teaching me!

  ‘Come anyway. You don’t have to dive with me!’

  ‘Yvonne, you must be joking. Those rocks are really high. Don’t be stupid.’

  ‘In Lebanon I used to dive from higher rocks than those. Honestly.’

  Yvonne walks quickly towards the rocks, which are shaped like wild horses, some of them dull black and eroded like old teeth. She bounds up them like a goat, and when she reaches the boys doesn’t immediately dive in, but stands talking to them and looking down at the sea. She must be scared, thinks Huda. Did she really climb up there to dive, or because she wants to get to know them? Yesterday night before she went to her room Yvonne had said to her, ‘I have a feeling I’m going to fall in love on this holiday,’ and Huda had thought to herself, Good luck with finding somebody who will love you back.

  Time passes and Yvonne is still talking to the boys and looking down as if inspecting the sea. Huda begins to worry that one of them might push her in as a joke. Then, all of a sudden, Yvonne dives off the cliff, her body a white trail left by an aircraft in the blue sky. She hits the water, then surfaces laughing.

  Huda no longer watches Yvonne, who is climbing back up the rocks. Instead she gets to her feet and heads for the grove of pine trees growing in red earth, looking for shade. Its relative coolness restores her composure and the sea is blue now, unconfined, washing gently against the trees and touching the horizon. Gradually she feels calmer.

  The sea is land with water on it. She will supply her own confidence. She is the only one who can teach herself to swim, not the others who have reached out their hands to help, one after another, encircling her waist as if they thought they were her lifebelts. To her their arms were like snakes, colder than the water, more unstable, less predictable.

  The sea had depressed Huda ever since she was a schoolgirl, bent eagerly over a drawing of a Phoenician princess walking with her prince beside the sea, while their dog played with a shell. The creature that lived in the shell had dyed the dog’s mouth a purple colour that clashed with the blue sea. She had written below the picture, ‘The colour purple was discovered in the city of Tyre. Tyre is a Phoenician city situated on the Mediterranean Sea, like Beirut.’ Then she took her crayons and gave the prince and princess the most beautiful clothes, and coloured the world around them like rainbows mingling with the blue of the sea, but instead of being happy that she had finished her homework, she felt a pain, different from when she had a toothache or grazed her knee: it began in her throat and descended into her belly, because the world and the colours she had drawn on the sheet of paper were what she longed for, unlike her house, empty of colour and pictures and music. The pain attacked her throat and she felt as if she was suffocating because she would never walk by the sea like this prince and princess and their dog, never set eyes on its blueness or the lovely colours of the prince and princess’s clothes except in her dreams, and only then if she dreamt in colour and not in black and white as usual.

  One day, Huda went up to the roof to find out if Beirut really was a Phoenician city on the Mediterranean Sea, but all she could see were low buildings with neglected gardens, a single high building sprayed with patches of red stucco, neighbours chatting on roof terraces and balconies now that evening had come, doves flying around and alighting at random, and a couple of cats darting away when they spied the neighbour woman pummelling a piece of meat with a wooden mallet, then returning to meow full-throatedly once she had finished extracting the thin white veins from the meat.

  The sea must be somewhere in Beirut: she drew it with a blue crayon in her geography book. She learnt how to colour the sea so it appeared like a real blue surface, shaving off fragments of a blue crayon with a razor blade and rubbing them on to the page with a piece of cloth. The sea was always to the left and she wrote above it in a sloping hand ‘The Mediterranean Sea’, a phrase as vast as the ocean.

  Huda’s first encounter with the sea happened when all of Beirut rushed to look at an Italian steamship that had run aground on the beach. Among the crowds that day were the people of Huda’s quarter, old and young. They all dismounted from the bus and ran together across a sand that was like burghul wheat, and a little boy pointed to it and asked his mother if it was an enormous garden of tabbouleh. Huda reached out her hand incredulously to touch the sea; she saw the ship, like a big black bird with one wing stuck in the sand and the other lying on the surface of the water, exposed to the sun and rain.

  She couldn’t remember if she had paddled in the water that day or not, although she did remember the women’s legs with their protruding veins, and their heels so dry and cracked they looked as if they’d been cut with a knife. She tried to picture her mother’s legs, but couldn’t, for she had rarely seen them without thick black stockings. The first time she had taken off her dress and put on a swimsuit, she had thought of her mother’s black stockings and headscarf, but these images vanished as she looked down at herself and thought Is this really me? She remembered hurrying into the water, into the roofed-in sea, the place known as ‘The Women’s Swimming Pool’, constructed of three walls and a fourth wit
h an opening halfway along to let the seawater in. She found out by chance that the girls of her neighbourhood went to the women’s swimming pool with one of their aunts every Sunday. In tears, she reproached her best friend for not telling her of these excursions: ‘So the sea’s not for people like me?’ Her friend, also in tears by then, answered that they didn’t dare take her with them because they were scared of her parents, which upset Huda even more, as she realised she would never be able to escape the fact that her father was a religious man, something that would slam doors in her face whatever she tried to do in life.

  Her friend was well aware that Huda was the most open-minded of all the girls: she knew Arabic and French songs by heart and told jokes and imitated film stars and people in their neighbourhood, first and foremost her own mother and father, and in the end Huda joined the rest of them at the pool. Of course, there was no need to warn her to keep it secret, as everybody knew that her parents would not only punish their daughter but also the friend’s aunt who had brought them, and their fury would extend to the other parents, for swimming in the sea was forbidden for girls like her, even in this covered pool. The sea meant wearing swimming suits, which meant that a girl’s reputation was soiled like a silver bowl whose gleaming surface had become tarnished and blackened.

  Once the rumour got around that the girls from this traditional quarter were going swimming in the sea, explaining that it was the women’s swimming pool they were going to did nothing to diminish the scandal. The pool was on the other side of the city, the more modern and open side, where there were nightclubs, European showgirls and foreign business men. Women paraded about in high heels and sandals revealing toenails painted in vivid reds, as they dragged their dogs along, dogs with full bellies who only growled when inferior people walked by. Going to the sea, even if it was to the women’s swimming pool, meant walking through streets lined with hotels and bookshops that displayed foreign magazines with women’s faces and bodies on their covers and sold fiction and new novels about love, passion and betrayal. The inhabitants of these quarters looked different from Huda’s neighbours: their shopping bags were filled not only with meat and vegetables, but also strange imported fruit; they didn’t walk as if the cares of the world were on their shoulders; and they even went to eat in restaurants, undeterred by the cost, although their homes were close by.