The Occasional Virgin

by Hanan al-Shaykh

  ‘But he attracts young men to religion with his songs, and that’s important! His music attracts them more effectively than fatwas issued by shaykhs or incitements to kill for a cause, or for no cause at all,’ says Suad.

  ‘Yes, and he attracts females too. His photos are just like those of any other star, focusing on his face and hair and lips …’

  ‘No, you’re wrong there, my dear Aisha!’ says Suad.

  ‘Listen, now that you and I and Huda are all firm friends, I have to tell you that I think you’re physically attracted to Sami Yusuf. I’m afraid for you. Your love for him, even though it’s at a distance, is a kind of adultery and you’re a wife and mother.’

  Suad changes the subject and praises Huda’s beauty, thanking God who has blessed Hisham with the chance to meet her. ‘Praise the Lord who brought you from Canada to London so he could get to know you.’

  At this point, instead of telling them she’d only met Hisham that day and only known him for a few hours, so few that they could be counted on the fingers of one hand, she leans forward to embrace Suad and kiss Aisha on the shoulder, apologising that it’s time for her to leave.

  ‘No, don’t be angry, darling,’ cries Suad. ‘Hisham had to go off with our husbands because they didn’t want to stay with us after your shawl fell down on to your shoulders. Mind you, they only mentioned that once they’d stuffed themselves with food. Such hypocrisy! In any case, the second witness is running late and should show up at any moment. By the way, Hisham is a good man – he didn’t signal to you to cover your hair. My husband sometimes tries to get me to cover myself even when we’re alone together. The marriage ceremony won’t take more than five or ten minutes, but while it’s going on you’ll absolutely have to keep the shawl on your head. I wish,’ continues Suad, ‘that women could be official witnesses at a marriage ceremony, then Aisha and I could have been your witnesses. I really like you.’

  Huda’s heart sinks and she suddenly feels dizzy. She gulps, her mouth dry. She must escape this minute – outwit him and get away.

  ‘Would you believe me if I told you that this is the first I’ve heard of this marriage?’

  ‘Maybe Hisham wanted to surprise you!’

  ‘No, listen to me, I didn’t know him before. I met him a few hours ago. And what happened, happened.’ Then, annoyed at herself for being so demure in front of the women, even though it was for their own sake, she says boldly, no longer holding back, ‘I agreed to have sex with him after he’d insisted that we had to say to one another “I have married you before God and His Prophet”.’

  ‘And did you both sign something?’ says Suad quickly.

  ‘No. Anyhow, thanks so much, and goodbye.’

  ‘Hang on, darling. You’re absolutely right. Hisham should have told you that he wanted to formalise the marriage in front of two witnesses in order to clear his conscience; it won’t do; he’s treated you unfairly, but his intentions are pure.’

  ‘Never mind about Hisham,’ intervenes Aisha. ‘Think about the Almighty and how pleased He’ll be with you, how He’ll forgive this sin of yours.’

  ‘Thanks for everything. But it’s really time for me to go.’ Now Huda doesn’t pause, even when Suad stands up to say goodbye to her, or conceivably to ask her to stay a bit longer. Huda plunges out of the restaurant like a wild horse, Hisham hurrying after her, apologising for having left her with the two women.

  ‘Not at all. It’s the best thing that could have happened to me. You’re the biggest liar I’ve ever met. You’ve been plotting and scheming behind my back. Now I realise why you wanted me to wash my hair, so that you could arrange this marriage with your stupid friends. But at least you left me with two truthful women. Go on, get back to the restaurant. The witness must be on his way.’

  ‘Please Huda, please, I’m sorry. If I didn’t tell you before, it was because I didn’t want to make you worried, and because I was afraid you’d think it was a complicated process, whereas in fact it couldn’t be simpler! Somebody recites the Fatiha before two witnesses and we repeat it after them, just like that, in a family gathering in the restaurant, no mosque or officiating clergy.’

  ‘Why didn’t you think about that when we were in your room? You should have explained to me before we slept together that having Almighty God and His Prophet, peace be upon him, as witnesses wasn’t sufficient. If I’d known that we’d also need two human beings as witnesses, I’d have refused for sure.’

  ‘I changed my mind because I didn’t know before that you were a virgin. When I discovered that you’d preserved your virginity up till then, I was sure you’d held fast to your religion without being conscious of it.’

  Come on, Huda, tell him the whole story, starting with the game of the bee and the wasp and ending with the virginity strawberry, the proof of it still on the bathroom window ledge.

  ‘Please, Huda, forgive me and agree to have the Fatiha recited in front of two witnesses. That’s all I ask of you.’

  Maybe you’re tricking me into marrying you for real, because you’ve fallen in love with me.

  But aloud she says to him: ‘Marry in front of two witnesses to confirm that we aren’t hypocrites and are being honest to God and to ourselves? Sorry, I’ll never ever agree to that.’

  ‘Even if I were to tell you that I’m asking the Lord to pardon me for being driven by my animal instincts? I know I won’t be able to sleep a wink until I marry before two witnesses.’

  ‘But, let me say again, we’ve married and fulfilled all the requirements in front of two excellent witnesses without violating any laws, so I don’t understand why we should call two human beings to witness our marriage. What’s happened has happened, and I don’t think we’ll be sleeping together again. In any case, I live in Canada and I’ll be leaving in a few days and never coming back. That’s the reality. Canada’s where I work and where my life is.’

  ‘I know that. I’m not asking you to change anything. All that concerns me is that you help me return to the straight path. Every marriage should take place in front of witnesses, even a temporary marriage like ours. There are those who say that a marriage can be valid without witnesses in rare cases when it’s impossible to find any, and then the couple marries as we have already done. But I ought to have got hold of two witnesses. We’re not living in the jungle.’

  ‘Sorry, you should have left me in your room and rushed out into the street and fetched two witnesses, or else opened the window instead of putting a blanket over it, and shouted, “Good people, I need two witnesses straight away.”’

  ‘That’s enough, please. I don’t want to compound my sins. I’ve done wrong and I don’t want what happened between us to look like prostitution or sex outside marriage.’

  ‘Prostitution? So that was prostitution for free, since I didn’t take a penny from you! Sorry, apart from the couscous.’

  ‘Please stop talking like this, or else …’ He looms in front of her, eyes bulging, as if he’s about to hit her.

  ‘Or else what?’ she replies loudly, summoning what courage she can. ‘You want to put into practice what you said this morning at Speakers’ Corner? “The hen must be slaughtered when she cries louder than the rooster.”’

  ‘I’m sorry for that. But listen to me, I confess I’ve made a nonsense of religion and moved away from God and His Prophet and God’s anger has descended upon me.’

  What actually descends on him at the door of the restaurant is the hand of the second witness, who begins apologising for being late. When he greets Huda, smiling, she immediately remembers seeing him in Hyde Park that morning, joking with the African monk. Clearly worried that the witness will notice him pleading with Huda, Hisham says quickly, ‘Everyone’s waiting for you inside. We’ll join you in a few moments.’

  Huda hails a taxi but Hisham rushes to prevent her opening the door, catching hold of her hand and saying to the driver, ‘Sorry, we have some urgent business to finish.’

  ‘Good luck with that,’ says the dri
ver sarcastically and speeds off.

  ‘Huda, please, you must help me. Ten minutes, no more. Remember how I helped you when you weren’t feeling well, put my job at risk by taking you to the place where I work. Remember it was you who seduced me; you put your arms round me first and you didn’t object to anything I did. Forgive me for mentioning it, but remember how you undressed in front of me! Now we have to marry in front of two witnesses, and maybe you’re pregnant by me, for virgins can get pregnant even from the smell of a man. That’s all I have to say. The rest is up to you and your conscience.’

  Huda bows her head as if hoping the ground at her feet will open and swallow her up, but the lights of an approaching taxi beckon to her and like magic she’s on board, then in a flash Hisham enters by the opposite door and sits next to her, an octopus clinging to its prey.

  Should she tell the driver she doesn’t know this man so he’ll stop the car and throw him out? But Hisham is acting like a relative, a friend, a brother. She gives the driver an address before retreating into silence, instinctively aware that Hisham is insisting on accompanying her to find out where she is staying with Yvonne. The taxi stops at the address she has given to the driver, that of Yvonne’s office. They get out and she pays the fare. She enters the code at high speed so that Hisham can’t learn it, hears the buzz and pushes the door open.

  She goes in, waving goodbye to him, takes the lift to the top floor then descends the stairs to the ground floor. She calls Yvonne again but doesn’t get through: her friend must be submerged in the noise of the wedding. She opens the door and looks up and down the street to make sure that Hisham has really gone, then hails a taxi and gives the driver Yvonne’s home address. She clasps her hands together, trying to calm herself down in a voice that all of London can hear.

  4

  Yvonne looks down at her dress constantly as she drives to St Ethelburga’s Church in the City of London to attend the wedding reception of a neighbour who is now a close friend, though he never became a lover. Was she wrong to wear the yellow dress instead of the turquoise one that Huda favoured?

  Today Yvonne, by choosing the colour yellow, seems to want to tell herself and everyone there that she is like a daffodil opening in the warmth of the sun.

  She parks her car ten minutes away from the church. The narrow passageway leading to the chapel is not really what she is expecting, but it opens out into a courtyard and garden behind the church, with guests everywhere. So this is where she is going to hunt for a man – no, not hunt, for the prey is never happy when it falls into the hunter’s hands. She will ensnare a man in this perfect setting. She has tried before on every possible occasion: funerals, doctors’ waiting rooms, social gatherings, at the supermarket, even in the underground when she started using it from time to time instead of driving her car; not to mention the countless clubs, gyms and dance classes she joined.

  Yvonne pretends to be interested in everything she sees in the church garden except the men. She inspects the plants and even stops in front of a statue that doesn’t interest her at all, noticing out of the corner of her eye that the women are looking at her dress. She feels reassured, its beauty has become almost like protective armour, giving her confidence. She smiles and talks to people, telling some of them that she is divorced, her eyes following the men, transformed into instruments for distinguishing between the single, the married, and the gay. She bends down and picks up a little girl, and spins her around like a top, trying to make her laugh to attract people’s attention, as she has learnt from her mistakes that she should appear natural and happy even if she doesn’t have a man or a child. Gone are the days when she used to exchange emails with her friends and with women she didn’t know about the long wait for a boyfriend, feeling glad when someone wrote: ‘Don’t despair! Who knows? Lightning may be about to strike!’

  She put those days behind her when she found herself with other women at a birthday party that changed suddenly from a joyous occasion into a kind of wake, all of them lamenting their bad luck and tears flowing freely, especially when someone played a Connie Francis song from the sixties: ‘Where the boys are, someone waits for me, A smiling face, a warm embrace, Two arms to hold me tenderly.’ Then someone else remarked, ‘Do you want to know how they thought of adding salt to chocolate? It was my tears falling on it.’

  There was even a professional biologist in this circle of disappointed women, who tried to revive their hopes by explaining to them that love was like bacteria, both useful and harmful. Of course bacteria helped ferment cheese, turn milk into yoghurt and pump plants with vitamins, but at the same time they could be deadly to humans, plants and animals. Yes, love devours people like a swarm of gnats.

  Yvonne gives the little girl back to her mother and moves on to talk to an elderly man, trying to make him feel as if he were young again, smiling at him, her eyes shining. She hurries over to kiss the bride who retreats and blows Yvonne a kiss, whispering ‘I’m afraid for my make-up.’

  ‘Then I’ll give Ghulam two kisses.’

  The old Yvonne would have answered, ‘Come on, why do you care about your make-up? You’ve caught a man and now you’re a bride.’

  A couple hurry in with their child, heaving sighs of relief because the wedding festivities haven’t begun yet, telling the bride and groom that their train stopped four stations away and they had to take the bus.

  I ought to be grateful that I’ve been so lucky in my life. It’s better to have a car than a kid you have to drag around on public transport. But she immediately rebukes herself for having such thoughts: Don’t forget, you never went in a car until you were twelve years old!

  She removes her shoes before entering the tent that they called ‘The Tent of all Faiths’. The word ‘Peace’ is written over the tent door in different languages: English, Arabic, Hebrew, Hindi, accompanied by the symbols of different religions. She stacks her shoes with the others outside the tent, as requested on the invitation, pleased to see that hers are more striking than all the rest. She had spent about an hour, with Huda’s help, choosing shoes and tights that people would notice.

  ‘Cinderella’s shoes!’ exclaimed Huda, seizing hold of them. Yvonne had bought them in China. They were made of grass-green silk, with plants and fishes embroidered on them in orange thread. ‘Yvonne, everyone who sees them will rush to find out who they belong to.’

  Yvonne sits down in the big camel-hair tent that was said to be an authentic Bedouin tent. But here there is no tribal shaykh with his guests in their Bedouin clothes, as they appeared in school textbooks, with someone pounding coffee beans nearby, the regular sound in the stillness of the desert night gladdening the hearts of caravans of travellers guided by its rhythm to the tent. Instead the members of the tribe in this tent are engaged in battles with their children who refuse to stop rolling around on the Persian rugs and jumping on the cushions and ottomans, their fair heads and dark heads bobbing up and down as they reach up to touch the sun and moon in the stained-glass windows.

  When relative calm eventually prevails in the tent, the din grows louder in Yvonne’s head: Why didn’t any of the Lebanese who were against the sectarian war think of erecting a tent like this to call for peace and dialogue and understanding between those inflexible minds, instead of fleeing to another country or hiding away in the air-raid shelters like rats! Then rejecting her own question: A tent of peace in the midst of war. The shells would have pulverised it within seconds, those involved in its construction would be dead and fire would have consumed all the expressions of peace and love over its entrance. And now Lebanon’s back in the headlines because of what’s happening in Syria: ISIS, refugees, Hizbullah, Iran.

  The bride’s aunt, sitting on Yvonne’s right, seems to guess what Yvonne is thinking. She asks whether she’s a friend of the bride or the groom. When Yvonne introduces herself, the aunt asks if she is one hundred per cent Lebanese, as she looks European.

  ‘Do you visit Lebanon?’

  ‘Yes, every year or tw
o.’

  ‘But the situation there …?’

  ‘The situation there sickens me. Religions flourish and catch fire and devour people once they’re nicely roasted,’ answers Yvonne, her irritable tone unsuited to the festive occasion and the atmosphere of tranquillity in the tent.

  Somewhat disconcerted, the aunt remarks, ‘Ah, religions. But don’t you agree with me that it’s a wonderful idea for Sophie and Ghulam to get married in this tent?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ answers Yvonne, smiling, even though her Adam’s apple is about to explode from the confusion that has recently resurfaced in her. Am I still Lebanese? Shall I turn the page of Lebanon and my family? Perhaps I’ve half turned it already. If I’d stayed in Lebanon, I wouldn’t be on my own now, I’d have got married and my family would have stuffed me with food like the white goose so that my bridegroom the ghoul could devour me.

  In her childhood Yvonne used to hear the story of the ghoul who kidnapped a young girl and began bringing her food and more food. One day she said to the ghoul, ‘Oh Ghoul, you’re the opposite of what I’ve heard about you, for you feed me instead of eating me. In fact you give me more food than my family does.’ The ghoul answered, ‘Of course. I’m feeding you to fatten you up and then I’ll enjoy eating you, for now you are skinny and I’m worried I might crack my teeth on your bones.’

  The smell of sweaty feet rises into her nostrils. When she asked her mother to buy her a pair of slippers with Mickey Mouse’s face on them, like the ones owned by the girl next door, her mother instead brought out her big brother Tanius’s old tennis shoes. She grabbed hold of a sharp knife to cut them down to size, having failed with the big kitchen scissors, then stuffed Yvonne’s feet into them, indifferent to her shouting and wailing. ‘No, Mum. These aren’t slippers and they’re too big for my feet. No, no, they stink, Mum, they stink. They smell like mothballs. Please, Mum.’

  A tall young man with brown hair and blue eyes comes into the tent and appears undecided whether to sit in the front row or the second row where she is sitting. She rejoices inwardly when he sits down next to her. Thank God I didn’t stay in Lebanon. I’m a citizen of the world. The young man turns to her. ‘My legs are so long they’ll get in the way if I sit in the front row,’ indicating the seat in front of him. Is he apologising because he doesn’t want her to feel flattered that he has chosen to sit next to her! To herself she says, Thank God your legs are long. I’ve always liked praying mantises and tried to pick them up, and your legs remind me of theirs.