He shook his head, saying, “I know. But he wanted a special hand-made leather one. It is hard work. I don’t want to upset that rhino, do I?”
As soon as I arrived home from the Haraj, I realised I was running late. I changed into my new trousers and walked down to Al-Nuzla Street. The trousers itched my legs, but they made me feel like a man going on a date with his girl. I felt energised.
When I reached the big mosque and looked across the street, I saw a flash of pink. When the sunlight landed on her shoes, I saw the colour flood back into Al-Nuzla, turning everything a shade of rose.
I slowed down and walked at her pace. I saw she had seen me as well. I kept watching her shoes. By now I pretty much guessed what type of legs she had from the way she walked but I didn’t dare to dwell on that too much.
I closed my eyes and imagined we were strolling alongside the sea, a lovers’ walk on the pavement of the Corniche, hand in hand.
When we reached the corner where I usually turned left to get to Ba’da Al-Nuzla, I stopped, but the girl continued marching straight ahead, drawing me along with her.
She was striding now, slowly, as if prolonging the moment. We walked in parallel to each other—she on one pavement and me on the opposite side—all the way to the bottom of Al-Nuzla Street and back.
That day she didn’t drop a note, but the experience of walking on the same street as her, side by side and at the same slow pace, was so lovingly intense that it gave me even more to think back about once I came home.
The following afternoon, it was the last day of July and a week since she dropped her first note in Ba’da Al-Nuzla. She had a new note for me:
Yesterday, when we walked alongside one another, you on one side of the road, and I on the other, I wished for a sudden earthquake so that the wide street that separated us would fall into the open ground and then when the religious police would find us arm in arm, we could say, “This is what Allah wanted when he shook his kingdom.” But then, I swore that slowly I will take myself into my habibi’s arms without such a miracle. This I vow to you.
Her words were too beautiful to be true. They could only be written by a woman, I persuaded myself. For me, it was an act of belief to think that a woman existed under that abaya. For all I knew, she could have been a man wearing a veil pretending to be a woman. I couldn’t be sure. Words were the only thing that I had from her to convince me she actually was a girl.
At times, this type of love drove me mad. When I crouched on my bed with her notes, and when I began to imagine the voice behind the notes, the colour of the feet in the Pink Shoes, the shape of her breasts, her hips, the smell of her skin and everything that made her feel and look like a woman, the desire to touch her would get hold of me. The urge to see a strand of her hair would consume my entire day and night. But all I could do to ease the frustrations ripping my inside was to read her notes over and over again. “Because these words could only be written by a woman.”
Jasim arrived back from his trip to Paris on the first day of the new month.
I went to see him that evening. He looked slimmer, but stronger. He almost lifted me off the ground when he hugged me.
As soon as we went to his room and sat down on his bed, he said, “I was so concerned about you. You must have been so bored.”
There was no chance I would have told him that in fact I was having the most exciting time of my life, it was too dangerous. So I said firmly, “I have been reading a lot.”
“Good. Good,” he said, putting a foot on top of his luggage.
“Why haven’t you emptied your bag yet?” I asked him.
“You are eager for your present,” he said.
“No. It is just that you normally unpack so quickly.”
“Well, my dear, I am travelling again in five days’ time,” he said, sighing.
“Why?”
He stood up and picked a pack of cigarettes from the top of the TV and came back to sit on the bed. He lit one and threw the pack at me. The writing on the pack was in a foreign language. I assumed it was French.
“Do you want to know where I am going?” he asked me.
He leaned forward and took a flight ticket from his briefcase. He put it on my lap. “Here, take a look.”
“You are going to Rome?” I asked him.
“Yes, and then we are going to London, and to Madrid, and to Washington, DC.”
“Who is ‘we’?” I asked him.
“Are you jealous now?” He laughed and added, “Don’t worry, I am going with my kafeel and his entourage. This time we are going for a month. We are back on the first day of September. But knowing this kafeel I wouldn’t be surprised if we stayed longer. Remember two years ago when he fell in love with a lap dancer in Geneva? He made us stay with him for three months until he fell out of love with her.”
He put out his cigarette and holding my hand, he said, “I will miss you if it happens again. To be honest I am tired and I don’t want to go, but you know I can hardly refuse him. He likes my company and he helps me keep my business open. But I am lucky to have an assistant who I can trust to look well after my beloved café. And after all, the prince makes sure his entourage lives like royalty.”
Mr Quiet had told me before that when Jasim first came to Saudi Arabia he used to have a different kafeel, a Saudi man who owned two restaurants in north Jeddah. But then Jasim befriended Rashid. “Rashid is the personal assistant to one of the most influential people in Jeddah,” explained Mr Quiet, “and it was Rashid who introduced Jasim to his new kafeel.”
But, Mr Quiet said, no one knows the name of his kafeel or anything about him except that he is a powerful man. “I assume,” Mr Quiet added, “his kafeel would not want his name to be made public in a café like this.”
I tried to find out more about this kafeel from Jasim. “So when are you going to tell me who your kafeel is?” I asked.
He brought his face closer. “Some things can’t be told, my dear. How many times do I have to say that to you?”
As I stood up to leave, he gave me my present. It was Tayeb Salih’s Season of Migration to the North.
I had heard about this book from Hilal. Apparently it was a controversial book and prominent amongst the forbidden literature in the Kingdom because of its sexual content.
“Ya Allah, this is amazing. How can I thank you?”
Jasim held my hand and said, “Why don’t you stay the night? I have a lot to tell you.”
“I can’t. I have things to do.”
“Just stay tonight. I am feeling lonely.”
“I can’t,” I said.
He let go of my hand. “OK, OK, just go.”
Her next note took me totally by surprise, and brought me even closer to her.
It was late morning, 4th August. I was waiting around in Ba’da Al-Nuzla for the Pink Shoes to appear and I was flicking through the newspaper. As was always the case in Okaz, most of the stories were devoted to King Fahd Ibn Abdul Aziz and other members of the royal family. There were pictures of the King opening a new hospital and visiting landmarks in different parts of the country. Anything new that was opened was named after him. My Saudi friend, Hani, once told me how bad it really was. “I am serious,” Hani said, “this King is so self-obsessed. Did you not hear the news last night?”
“What?” I asked.
“The football league will be named after the King and the cup league will be called after his deputy, Abdul-Allah Ibn Abdul Aziz.” He shook his head. “I’m worried that one day the King will insist all of us are renamed after him as well.”
I strode back and forth on Ba’da Al-Nuzla, reading Okaz. When I had finished, I laid it on the ground and sat on it. Opposite, on the rooftop, I saw a boy staring at me so I stared back. Several minutes passed and he was still standing on the edge of the rooftop peering down on me. When I heard footsteps, I turned my head and saw the girl with the Pink Shoes coming round the corner. I looked up at the boy and then at the marching Pink Shoes before my eye
s returned to the boy. “Please go,” I mumbled to the boy as I stood up. And I wanted to shout to the girl not to drop her note. But she had akeady scampered past and dropped a new note next to the rubbish bin. I looked up at the rooftop and the boy started stepping back. He unfolded a prayer rug and started praying.
I quickly picked up the note and fled home. At home, I read her words aloud and excitedly.
A few years ago, we had a TV, video player and antennae. But then my father had a crisis of conscience and asked the blind imam if it was halal or haram to have these things. The imam ruled that it was haram, and told him about the punishment for those who watch TV and listen to music. So my father came back home, shaking from his trip to the mosque and destroyed everything. He even came to my room and took down all my pictures, and tore up all my photos because they are haram. So I don’t have any photos of me to drop to you with my notes, but habibi, if I am good at one thing it is painting, and I confess this to you: I have made a small drawing of you that looks exactly like a real photo of your face. I tucked it inside my bra between my breasts. I promise you that it will always be attached to my chest like a permanent beauty spot, until it is replaced by the real you.
When I read that she had made a sketch of me and where she kept it, I could barely breathe. It was as if my whole being was transplanted to that image of me which lay in that secret place between her breasts. I would be the first to smell her morning breath, the first to shower in her sweat, and the first to watch her eyelashes fall like glittering Kashmiri curtains at the end of another day in this world: a sad world where daydreams triumph over reality, the articulate are turned into mutes and their voices replaced by signs; a place where a lover must become a fugitive and hide against the skin of a woman whom he might never meet.
15
SATURDAY MORNING, I woke up early. I opened my window and the day flooded into my room, bringing fresh air and birdsong. As I stretched my arms, the sun painted bright spots on my skin and aroused in me all the desires and hopes of the previous night.
At about 7 a.m., I went to work. I was planning to stay until late morning, then I would go to Ba’da Al-Nuzla, collect her note, and return.
My boss agreed reluctantly. “Just for today, ah, I will allow you to do this. I am happier now that you are back. You look like you are capable of washing all the cars in Al-Nuzla.”
At 10 a.m., I came back home, ripped off my work overalls, took a quick shower and changed into my trousers and shirt and went to Ba’da Al-Nuzla. By half-past ten, I was there, and as I stood next to the rubbish bin, I saw a woman entering the street. I looked down at her shoes, but they were black.
All the girl’s previous visits to Ba’da Al-Nuzla had been between eleven and noon. But midday arrived without her, only with more heat. All the women who walked in the street turned out to be bearers of false hope. By around 12.30 I felt exhausted under the burning sun. I needed to go and buy water but the nearest shop was about ten minutes’ walk. What if she came looking for me when I was at the shop?
I knew I had to go back to work, but I wasn’t going anywhere until she came.
The streets of Jeddah were haxy and hot. Only her most recent note that I held in my hand kept me standing there. I wiped the perspiration from my face and as I stretched my legs I heard the azan for midday prayer. I tried to drag myself out of my lethargic state. I had ten minutes before the start of the second azan—summoning worshippers to line up behind the imam for the beginning of the prayers—ten minutes before the religious police would start patrolling the street to arrest lapsed men who don’t go to the mosque. The last thing I needed was to be caught, flogged and my name registered in their books as an apostate. Even though I had been in Saudi for ten years, I was still a foreigner and I didn’t want to risk deportation.
With the little energy I could muster, I trudged back home. I got to my door just as the muezzin started announcing the second azan. As I shut the door behind me, the blind imam began the prayer.
I shuffled to the kitchen and gulped down an entire glass of water, followed by two more. The phone was ringing continuously. It could only be my boss, I thought. I ignored it.
I knew that she was unlikely to be there during prayer time, so I set my alarm for fifteen minutes past one.
I made sure I was better prepared for the afternoon. I took three bananas and filled one of my drink bottles with cold water before I left the house for the dead-end street. I also wore my black baseball cap to keep the sun out of my eyes.
I arrived in the street in good spirits, but as the afternoon progressed and my shadow grew, I started losing my strength again. The time for the next prayer, Salat Al Asar, was approaching and there still wasn’t any sign of her. I dropped down to the floor next to the garbage bin. Just then, the muezzin started his call. I pulled myself up from the floor and ran home, my feet almost tripping over each other.
Maybe there had been a change of plan. Maybe it was easier for her to come later on in the day because of some family matter. Or maybe it was getting too hot for her to walk all the way to Ba’da Al-Nuzla in the morning and so she had decided to make her trip during the cooler evenings.
Half an hour later, I was back for the third time that day in Ba’da Al-Nuzla.
But nothing happened. The smell from the bins was disgusting. Gradually, the daylight was disappearing with the departing sun. There were fewer women in the street now, and the black and white movie was coming to an end. I hoped the girl with the Pink Shoes might be one of the few who, for one reason or another, managed to stay out later without upsetting the men in their families. So I continued to hang around for a bit longer.
Night set in. A street lamp was broken and its light was flashing on and off. But I decided to keep waiting. “Just for a bit,” I told myself.
Then suddenly I heard a soft and feminine voice yelling at me. “Is that her?” I asked myself. I looked around. There was no one. Then I heard the voice once again: “Look up. Here, up.” It was the boy with the prayer rug standing on the rooftop. “You again?” he asked. I turned on my heel and ran straight back home.
Back home, and with shaking and tired hands, I washed my trousers and shirt and hung them out of the window; just as I had the previous night. “You must keep presentable, because tomorrow she will be there.”
The following morning, as I made my way to Ba’da Al-Nuzla, I couldn’t care less about the boy or my work. I was more worried about being betrayed by the girl than by the boy with the prayer rug, or whether I might get sacked from my job. All I hoped was that I would see the Pink Shoes again.
But the girl didn’t show up that day either.
I had walked up and down, watching the feet of every woman that walked past in the street, so that by the end of the day the whites of my eyes were saturated with the unrelenting black of their abayas and their shoes.
That night, as darkness fell, I didn’t go home. I went down lanes that had no street lights and kicked at the dark with my legs as though it were something I might be able to scare off. But it didn’t work. The night came on, as it always did, and I was left wondering whether the Pink Shoes had ever existed.
Then I heard the boy’s voice again. “Excuse me,” the voice said. This time I didn’t run but turned around to look at him. He was now standing next to me. The boy was small and slim, and his small hands barely fitted around his rolled-up prayer mat. His large black round eyes looked up at me, ready to fire a question.
Not wanting to talk, I looked away. My eyes scanned the street hoping to see her shoes even in the darkness.
But the boy kept nudging me and pulling my shirt down to get my attention.
“What do you want?” I shouted, without looking at him. “Go on for Allah’s sake, say what you want and leave me alone.”
“Are you in love?” he asked me.
I looked at him again, trying to act normal.
“Why do you ask that?”
“Because,” he said, “my father told
me that in our village in Chad, lovers walk day and night aimlessly under the stars, moon and sun. Their bodies look like they belong to those who are dying because they don’t eat; and their eyes are all over the place, because their hearts are always shifting.”
I didn’t reply to the boy. I just staggered through the dusty streets of Ba’da Al-Nuzla back to my room.
Next morning, I still didn’t go to work. Instead, I headed to Ba’da Al-Nuzla and waited there from early morning to late in the evening. At times, I would walk up and down the dusty street, or sit on the burning sand, or stand leaning against the smouldering walls and suffer the sun’s reflective heat, and other times I would just crouch in the corner, wearily looking at every woman who passed down the street. But there were no Pink Shoes.
I felt stupid. Maybe this was all a game to her? Maybe she wanted revenge against men and wanted to make an example out of me, watch me fall on my knees and beg for her reappearance? Or maybe she wanted to demonstrate to her friends that she could bring a man to the brink of madness with just a few romantic notes? Ya Allah, maybe, now that she had got me where she wanted me—sitting next to a stinking rubbish bin all day long—she had decided to throw away her stupid shoes and was laughing under her veil.
The hot sleepless nights had taken so much energy out of me that by Friday morning, after another four fruitless days, I thought back to what the boy had asked. Was I in love? How could I love someone whom I had never seen or heard? I was just one of a thousand Al-Nuzla boys, hungry to talk to a girl and yearning to be loved by her.
No, I can’t be in love, I thought. All I have seen of her that makes her stand out from the rest are those Pink Shoes. I had read that men fall for intricate details of a woman’s body: a delicate mouth, or seductive eyelashes, and it is even said that the way women roll their hips can force a man’s heart into declaring instant love. But shoes? I must be the first man in history to fall in love with a woman solely because of her shoes. I needed to step back from this make-believe world and forget about her. “No, I am not in love,” I told myself. “I just dreamed of loving a woman for so long that I am falling in love with the idea of love.”
2008 - The Consequences of Love. Page 9
