He quickly turns the key in the lock and hangs a blanket over the metal window blind. The dust from it fills the air. He takes her by the hand and places his other hand on the Quran, saying, ‘I have married you before God and His Prophet.’
‘I give you myself to enjoy.’
Is this really happening! Huda, the theatre director famous in Toronto for her daring plays, actually speaking these words. She’d always thought this sort of marriage was reserved for the women who used to consult her father: divorcees, old maids, widows, looking for temporary marriages – so-called ‘marriages of enjoyment’ – in most cases to married men, who didn’t want to marry again openly, so married a woman who was like a lover but a lawful lover, halal, permitted by religion. She is like Fadila now, who was addicted to temporary marriages and once asked Huda’s father to bless her and agree to absolve her from the statutory waiting period between these marriages, since she would definitely never get pregnant as she was well past fifty.
Hisham jumps. ‘Did you say “I give you myself to enjoy”? Are you Shia? Now I understand why you defended Mirza Ghulam.’
‘Mirza Ghulam? Who’s he?’
‘The impostor who claimed that he was the eleventh Imam, the Mahdi, at Speakers’ Corner.’
‘Ah, that Indian. Yes, my family are Lebanese Shia, and if you want to change your mind because I’m Shia, feel free. I’m used to telling everyone who asks me why I’m not married yet that I’m still waiting for the Mahdi.’
Hisham shakes his head disapprovingly, with a scowl on his face. ‘God forbid. That’s heresy. I don’t understand you at all. I’m sorry to say your ideas are totally unsound.’
‘I think it would be better for us both if I left at once.’
‘You’re right. Goodbye.’
She gets to her feet slowly, half convinced that she is playing with fire, but what’s really bothering her is her fear that the strawberry could explode inside her and stain her clothes. How long could that miracle fruit remain in the dark? Would it dissolve automatically if she left it in peace? Would she be able to remove it herself? She tries to calm her nerves. I could go to a gynaecologist wearing a black abaya and a full-face veil and throw myself on his mercy. ‘Oh doctor, I’m not a virgin. I put the strawberry inside me to prove to my bridegroom that I was a virgin when he slept with me for the first time, but he called me a little while ago to say that he wouldn’t be arriving until next week.’
Hisham hurries over to stand by the door, as if to stop her leaving, and says in a low voice, staring at the floor, ‘Please don’t go. I’ve fallen in love with you, sister Huda.’
‘Can’t you stop calling me sister Huda? I don’t want to marry my brother.’ She bows her head for a moment, then says, ‘I have married you before God and His Prophet,’ and he quickly places his hand on the Quran, trusting his words will be a waterfall to cool his burning body, and repeats, ‘And I have married you before God and His Prophet.’
At this point their bodies are supposed to break free like two horses racing over hills and through fields of sugar cane, but it doesn’t happen. He doesn’t kiss her or touch her breasts, try to undress her or take his own clothes off. She unzips her jeans and lowers them to mid-thigh, while he flings himself on top of her and begins undoing his flies and taking out his member, then tries to push her knickers to the side and stuff himself into her without success. She congratulates herself. He hasn’t disappointed her expectations. As anticipated, he regards her more as a machine than a person. For him she is a body without a head. She helps him, pulling down her knickers with one hand, as if she really is a machine, or like a robot in a women’s underwear factory that she’d once seen in a TV programme about Iran. It’s just as well, as she wouldn’t have been able to face having sex with him if he’d showered her with love and delicate emotions.
As he enters her body, Huda tries to look inside her head. I don’t believe you’re having sex with this fanatic, she says to herself. All I’m going to think about is the strawberry waiting to explode, and the satisfaction of having my revenge on him when he sees my virginal blood and his arrogance and self-righteousness melt away. His behaviour towards me at Speakers’ Corner wasn’t that of a believer to a non-believer, but of someone full of contempt and hatred, who wants to impose his ideas on others, and surely that makes him a fanatic. But as she tries to distract herself in various ways from an overwhelming desire to push Hisham off her, she decides to convince herself that he is forbidden fruit, and this is what will excite her and sustain her enthusiasm. He descends on her as if he is riding an electric bike at speed.
When she tasted the first kiss of her life in Toronto, it occurred to Huda that she might be the only member of her family, indeed the only person in her entire neighbourhood, who had tried kissing. Exchanging kisses seemed like a modern innovation, devised by film directors and people who advocated free love. As an experiment, she brings her lips close to Hisham’s and is not surprised when he kisses her without opening his mouth. His lips remain firmly closed like the pockets of a new dress that haven’t yet been unstitched. The best kisses were Roberto’s. She preferred them even to Mark’s. They filled the air with romance. She remembers Roberto and the villa bathed in sun and shadow, while Hisham’s prick begins to feel like a hipbone digging into her stomach. It was the surroundings that had made Roberto’s kisses so memorable.
She can’t help thinking, as she waits for Hisham to get it over with, that this is the first time she has slept with a religious man, and that the men in her family probably have sex with women in this fashion.
Suddenly she pushes him off her. ‘Please. Stop, please.’ She wriggles uneasily as if she’s being throttled and as he lifts himself off her with difficulty she stands up and begins removing her top and jeans and bra. His hands go up to pull hers rapidly out of the way and his pupils move at speed in the whites of his eyes as he attempts to stop her. No, she isn’t going to let him do whatever he wants. If she’s in this situation, it’s because she wants him to face up to his hypocrisy, even without any virginal blood. He wants to have sex with her and go through this fake marriage just to satisfy his desires, but she wants to peel away his groundless religious beliefs like someone peeling an artichoke.
‘What’s wrong with you? Aren’t I your lawful wedded temporary wife? Or do you no longer believe in the marriage vow I repeated before you, with God and His Prophet as witnesses?’
‘I don’t like the way you’re standing there with your chest uncovered. A woman should be modest, even in front of her husband.’
‘If you don’t want to see me as I am, then you don’t really want to get to know me.’
‘This body is ephemeral, but the soul is eternal. I’m trying to get to know your soul.’
‘Ephemeral! It’s in the prime of life!’
He doesn’t answer, merely handing her bra and top to her, avoiding looking at her, turning his face to the side. Instead of putting them on, she begins taking off the rest of her clothes, including her knickers. Now she is completely naked. She has escaped again from the burning of the chilli pepper. She wishes she could play the game of the bee and the wasp once more.
‘I’m ready,’ she calls to Hisham, who puts his hands over his eyes as soon as he sees her naked, as if protecting them from hellfire. In a voice fraught with horror and anger he cries out, ‘God forgive me. God protect me from the Devil.’ Then he whispers, ‘Huda, please. The marriage is invalidated if the husband has sex with his wife when she is naked.’
‘Then we won’t sleep together.’
She finds herself lying on the bed once more, with him repeating as if he’s gone mad, ‘I’ve fallen in love with you, I’ve fallen in love with you.’
This is the only sentence that has escaped from the nets of religion and fear, and when he begins moving more violently on top of her, Huda’s curiosity about the Chinese strawberry increases, as if she’s in a chemistry class waiting for the result of an experiment.
He e
jaculates over her stomach in silence. At that moment she remembers that she should have screamed like someone experiencing sudden sharp pain, so she screams so loudly that Hisham is afraid a neighbour or a passerby on the pavement outside might hear. Then she begins to wail and cry. How could she produce tears so quickly and spontaneously, as if she really were a virgin? She knows that cunning is the stratagem of the weak, but she isn’t weak. She can justify all her actions to herself, and her body is like a plank of wood that has no connection to her thoughts and emotions. That’s why she doesn’t feel she is betraying Mark.
He gets up off her and makes for the door, to check if anyone has come to see what all the noise is about. It is then that he notices the bright red blood on his member and on the little black hairs that look like a beard with traces of strawberry clinging to it. Again she congratulates herself. She laughs inwardly but modifies the laughter into a faint groan.
‘I don’t believe it,’ he shouts at her. ‘Has your indifference towards religion made you so careless in every aspect of your life? Of course you wouldn’t know that the true religion forbids a man to approach a woman when she’s having her monthly period. Don’t you know, you liberated, civilised, modern woman, that having sex with a man during your period exposes both man and woman to all sorts of illnesses? There’s a wound there that mustn’t be touched until it’s completely healed.’
‘Can you get me a Kleenex?’
He hurries off to the bathroom, shaking his head in anger and disappointment, and she lifts herself up from the bed. The moment she sees the red stain she smiles to herself. The strawberry has restored her virginity. The red stain spreads joyfully over the bedding. Such a stain has its rites and traditions. If blood flows the girl’s family dance in delight and hold their heads high, for it is an irrefutable sign of their daughter’s purity, and the bridegroom’s family rejoice because he is a true man and has succeeded where others have failed!
She stops herself collapsing into laughter as she remembers the teacher in their ‘health education’ class saying ‘One drop of blood, yes one drop, travels around a thousand kilometres daily inside a person’s body.’ And now Huda wants to add, ‘Those bloodstains must have travelled millions of kilometres all the way from China before they ended up on this bed.’
When he comes back with some toilet paper and hands it to her, she explodes in his face: ‘What’s the matter with you religious people! Haven’t you heard of virginity, and deflowering virgins?’
He stares at her for a moment, trying to take in what he is hearing, then chews his lip contritely and looks up at the ceiling. ‘Thank you, Lord. You are the true benefactor. You guided me to this marriage. I ask Almighty God’s forgiveness for every time I have sinned.’ His eyes fill with tears. ‘I didn’t know you were a virgin. You’re a true Muslim and I’ve treated you as if you weren’t.’
I see you’re all sweetness and light now, you bastard. All this fuss for a few drops of blood, but instead of discussing these things with me this morning, you landed on me like a ton of bricks because I didn’t fit into any of your stereotypes.
Aloud she replies both coquettishly and modestly, repeating a phrase she has heard in Arab films, ‘This is the wisdom of the Lord.’
A tense silence descends and when he makes no comment, as if he still has doubts about something, she begins to reproach him: ‘You were convinced I wasn’t a virgin, simply because I didn’t wear a headscarf or a face veil. I bet if I was like a sack of coal you wouldn’t have got married to me in the way you did.’
‘Please don’t talk like a Westerner or an Islamophobe about your virtuous covered sisters.’
‘You’re right, I shouldn’t. My name is Huda Kamal from the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon. I work as a teacher in Canada.’
‘And I’m Hisham Qasimi. My mother’s Egyptian and my father’s from Algeria. I study electrical engineering at a college in London as well as working as a doorman in this building.’
As if this reminds him of the blanket stained by the strawberry’s virginal blood, he hurries to remove it from the bed.
‘I’ll throw it in the rubbish bin. I don’t want anyone to see it and think bad thoughts about me.’
‘Let me wash it for you in the bathroom.’
‘No, no, I’ll wash it.’
All the same, she folds the blanket so that the red stain isn’t visible and hurries to the bathroom where she rubs the spot with soap until it disappears.
‘Great.’ She’s happy with the effect created by the strawberry, and the fact that it hasn’t caused any problems and has disappeared without any harmful side effects, leaving Hisham feeling as proud as a peacock and her with a sense of power over him, however slight. Returning to his room, she claps her hands.
‘Really great.’ She repeats the phrase, anxious to be on her way.
‘What do you mean, great? There is nothing great but God. I’ll go and get some couscous with chicken from the restaurant, straight after I’ve prayed.’
I don’t want to eat with him! ‘The afternoon prayer?’
‘No. The prayer for after intercourse. I want to do my ablutions. Please don’t open the door to anyone.’
She tries to call Yvonne without success, tidies her hair, powders her forehead and puts on her jacket, all the time trying to pursue the idea of a new play about virginity, a strawberry and a religious man.
He prays clasping his hands to his stomach, like Sunni Muslims do. She doesn’t know why they do this differently from Shia. The moment he finishes praying, she says ‘May God accept your prayers,’ just as she has heard her parents saying to one another. He remains standing there without moving, looking at her in annoyance.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘To be honest with you, what’s bothering me is that you don’t behave like a Muslim. For example, you haven’t washed after what happened between us, and it’s my duty to guide you towards these things.’
Huda never once saw her father trying to communicate with God, instead he used to eat his breakfast at speed, put on his green turban, the colour of Paradise, and sit waiting for people who called him Master so that he could give them guidance. You’re not allowed to guide, Huda used to think. ‘God guides whom He wills.’
As time passed, she found herself not only welcoming her father’s advice and opinions, but also admiring his intelligence and even his ability to dissemble.
People came to him asking him to solve problems relating to religious law and he told them not to bother too much: ‘These are trifling matters, that shouldn’t concern you,’ he would remark. ‘Focus on the essence of things in religion.’ And they would leave satisfied and content, praising God and thanking Him for His graciousness. Like the woman whose daughters forced her to visit the shaykh when her cursing and swearing got out of hand. He didn’t offer her any advice, but fetched a jar of water and put his hand in it, then withdrew it, asking the foul-mouthed woman to do the same. She obeyed in surprise and was on the point of making some vulgar remark, when he forestalled her: ‘We’ve shaken hands now, which means that you’ve made a pledge not to go back to swearing.’ As she said goodbye to Huda’s mother, the woman whispered in her ear, ‘Poor you. Do the two of you have sex like that in the bathtub?’
‘I don’t want to wash here,’ says Huda to Hisham, smiling coyly.
‘It’s fine. Go to the bathroom now and say “There is no god but God” while you wash. Understand?’ He hands her a clean, worn towel. She goes into the bathroom, wets the end of the towel with hot water and rubs her stomach, then with her hand she cleans thoroughly between her legs, but doesn’t dare to dry herself there in case the red dye stains the towel. She turns the shower full on and under cover of the sound of rushing water she calls Yvonne a few times and when she doesn’t get through she leaves a message: ‘A girl’s honour really can be restored every time, thanks to the strawberry. Ta’abbata Sharran took my virginity, haha. You can’t imagine how happy I am. He changed in a flash from a feroc
ious lion into a peacock strutting around as proud as could be.’
Then she notices a copper jug that must be for ritual ablutions, similar to her father’s jug that always used to stand in the corner of their bathroom. She imagines that it’s looking at her and begging to be removed from this country. Even though she doesn’t go near it, it is asking her ‘Do you remember those days, or have they ceased to have any effect on you, as if they never happened?’
Winking at it, she whispers, ‘Mission accomplished,’ then looking at herself in the smudged mirror, ‘Go on, Huda. Don’t stop now.’
When Huda comes out of the bathroom, she finds Hisham completely absorbed in his phone with an expression on his face that she doesn’t understand. Then his phone rings and he answers it tersely: ‘In a little while. I know. There is no god but God.’
‘You haven’t washed your hair! What’s wrong with you? Why don’t you follow religious principles? The hair also has to be purified after sex. “From the top of the head to the tips of the toes!”’
‘You’re here, not in an Arab country, so you should stop criticising me. I haven’t washed my hair because it takes me a lot of time to dry it and style it.’
She plays with her hair and wonders to herself: why does religion forbid women to uncover their hair? She gathers up her hair and ties it back. What is it about hair that makes it taboo for people to see it? Isn’t it just a substance like seaweed or threads on a weaver’s loom? A woman’s hair is a man’s possession: he holds on to it when he’s angry, or when he’s caressing her.
‘Oh, I understand. Sorry, my bride.’ He smiles at her and she realises his smile is him acknowledging that of course she was completely inexperienced until he took her virginity. ‘I’m ready to take full responsibility,’ he says.
She laughs to herself when he calls her ‘my bride’, and says he’ll take full responsibility. What responsibility? Is he going to marry her for real in a civil ceremony because he’s deflowered her? Aren’t they supposed to have made love after they were already married with the consent of God and His Prophet? She isn’t going to point out his hypocrisy. It’s enough that he’s almost become a ring on her finger.
The Occasional Virgin Page 13
