2008 - The Consequences of Love.

by Sulaiman Addonia; Prefers to remain anonymous

  He fixed his headdress and said, “Sure, go ahead.”

  As he sat down, I got a glimpse of myself in the mirror behind him.

  “Mirror?” I exclaimed. I remembered my first friend in Jeddah. Of course. How could I forget him? I turned to the man and said, smiling, “Thank you, brother, for allowing me to look around. Thank you.”

  And with that I ran to catch the bus to Jasim’s café.

  Jasim was my first, last and only option. If he didn’t give me the money, there was going to be no escape from Jeddah. I swore to myself that I would do whatever was necessary to get the money from him.

  Jasim was sitting at a table near the kitchen counting the day’s takings. I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him to the small room in the back.

  “Hey, what’s the hurry, my dear?”

  I shut the door behind us.

  “I need your help,” I said, looking him straight in the eye. His face almost disappeared behind the smoke from his cigarette.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, scratching his chin with the back of his hand.

  “Jasim, you are the only person who can help me.”

  “In the name of Allah, Naser, what is wrong?” he asked, throwing the glowing cigarette butt on the carpet.

  “One day you’ll burn this café down,” I said, stamping it out with my foot.

  “Oh, so you do care about me then,” he said playfully.

  I ignored his comment. I took his hand in mine and said, “Jasim, I hope that you will be kind and will remember that I never complained about the things you did to me. In return, I hope you will help me.”

  “Anything, my dear,” he said, kissing the back of my hand.

  “I need fourteen thousand dollars,” I blurted out.

  “Ya Allah, that’s a lot of money. You’re not thinking of opening a rival café, I hope, are you?”

  “No,” I replied and without further hesitation I added, “I am going to Europe.”

  “You are joking, right?”

  “I swear I am serious,” I replied. I could feel my eyes widen as I said this.

  “Ya Allah, I can see that,” he said, as he went to sit on his bed. He looked at me and wanted to say something, but signalled with his hand that I should come and sit next to him.

  “Jasim?”

  “Shush,” he said.

  He leaned his back against the wall, and closed his eyes.

  “Where do you want to go?” he said.

  “I told you, to Europe.”

  “Yes, but where in Europe? It’s not one big country, you know.”

  I shrugged my shoulders and after a pause, I replied, “That will be up to the smugglers. They will know which country is best.”

  He sighed and asked, “They asked for fourteen thousand dollars just to smuggle you out of here?”

  “I am not going alone.”

  He jumped up and said, “What? Did you find your brother?” He hugged me, exclaiming, “Oh, I am so happy for you. So he’s had enough of your uncle, has he?”

  “Jasim,” I whispered, “I am not going with my brother.”

  “Who are you going with then?”

  I looked at him and for a second I wondered whether I was doing the right thing to trust him with the truth. Then I said, “I am going with someone I love.”

  He spat in my direction and turned to sit on his bed. He looked up at me and asked, “Who is it?”

  I rubbed at the trace of his spittle on my shirt.

  “Who is it?” he screamed.

  “Shut up for Allah’s sake,” I yelled, “just listen to me, Jasim. Why don’t you give me time to explain things to you? Just listen.”

  I was breathing heavily. He stood up, bringing his face close to mine and asked, “Then tell me quickly, who is he?”

  “I am in love with a woman, Jasim. And I want to take her to Europe.”

  He laughed loudly. Then suddenly the laughter caught in his throat. He shook his head and looked at me, curled his lip and looked away.

  After a while I took his hand and said, “Please, Jasim, help us.”

  He pushed me away, shouting, “What about your brother? Are you going to leave him behind? You can’t really be that selfish?”

  “My brother chose to live with my uncle years ago and as far as I know the two are happy together. I don’t know where they are, they never told me. I can’t go to Riyadh and search from door to door. My uncle admires him. I know he will look after him.”

  He sat on his bed and looked at me, slowly shaking his head. “Who is this girl? Ya Allah, where on earth did you find her?” he asked, crossing his legs and pushing aside the pillow next to him.

  “I’m sorry but I can’t tell you.”

  “And why not?” he shouted, kicking the box next to the bed.

  I watched as he stepped up to the TV and swiped all the videotapes off the top. Breathing like a horse, he turned around. “Oh, my dear, how much I have loved you, but you never wanted to see it. And now you are hurting me.” He caressed my face, but I pushed his hand away. “Where did you find her?” he asked.

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “So forget the money. Go and wash your cars and spend fifty years saving. Get out of here. Go on, leave and don’t ever come here again.”

  He shoved me towards the door. “Don’t push, I will leave by myself,” I said.

  As I turned to walk out, I got a peek of one of Jasim’s men magazines from Germany on top of the box by the bed. I looked up at the mirrored ceiling. I closed my eyes and saw my past racing towards me, my past in this room which I had been trying to forget for a long time. Ya Allah, I thought as I stopped.

  “What?” he screamed.

  “No,” I insisted. “I will not leave without the money or…”

  “Or what, my dear? Ah?”

  “I will go to the religious police and I will tell them everything about your smuggling business, I swear to Allah, and I will tell them about what you made me do. Everything that happens in this room.”

  “What? You dare do that and I—”

  “I will,” I replied firmly. “But I know you are sensible, Jasim. I don’t want to give you any problems. I just need the money. Plus…”

  “Plus what?”

  “You always go to Europe, so you can come and see us.”

  He laughed wryly. But then he turned his back to me and seemed to bow his head in thought.

  After a few moments, he turned to face me, his eyes red at the rims.

  “OK,” he said.

  “OK, what?” I asked him.

  “I will give you the money,” he answered. “Now leave me, please. I will have to think how to get hold of such a big amount. I will give you a call when I have found it. OK?”

  I couldn’t believe it. I wanted to run to Fiore’s house to tell her the good news, but I would have to wait for the following day to find the Pink Shoes in Al-Nuzla Street. So instead I went to Hilal. I knew exactly where to find him at this time of the evening.

  51

  I FOUND HILAL, as I expected, sitting outside his house. He was talking to his friend who was selling fried dough balls. Hilal was helping by putting small pieces of dough into the massive frying pan. When he saw me approaching, he stood up and limped towards me waving his walking stick. He hugged me and extended his hand, wet with flour. I declined with a smile.

  “I need a big favour from you,” I said.

  “If you want a new job, I have nothing at the moment,” he said, shaking his head.

  “Hilal, I need your help with something else.”

  “What? Another drive to the Corniche with your beauty? I always want to come and ask you about her, but love is private and belongs to the heart deep inside.” He poked my chest with his finger as he said that.

  “Can we go somewhere private? I know a place.”

  When we arrived at the Pleasure Palace, Hilal looked around like a young boy taken to a mysterious forest and left there alone: his mouth opened wide an
d he was shaking his head in disbelief.

  I chuckled and sat on the pavement watching him. He looked up at the wall behind me.”Oh ya Allah,” he exclaimed, “this looks like the middle of nowhere and yet we’re only ten minutes from Al-Nuzla Street.”

  He laughed and staggered towards me. As he sat down next to me, he asked me, “What do you call this place again?”

  “The Pleasure Palace.”

  I pulled a cigarette and a lighter out of my pocket.

  Hilal threw his stick at a passing rat. “Rats, I can handle,” he said, “but are there ghosts around here too?”

  “They say the King loved women and that he had lots of them. Can’t you smell their lingering perfume?”

  “Oh, yeah, now that you mention it, I agree with you. A woman’s scent is eternal.” He put his arm around me and laughed. “Let’s hope they are around us now as we speak.”

  The usual spell of muteness when a woman was mentioned fell over both of us. We set off on our separate dreams. I imagined I was looking up at the nine-storey building through the darkness. I focused on her third-floor window, and could see her sitting on her bed, as she told me she did at night, feeling lonely and longing for the next afternoon when we would lie together, warming each other’s faces with our breath and enjoying each other’s closeness.

  My whole being flew back to that building, my heart gliding in front of me like a kite swinging in the air. I imagined that she was getting ready for bed; that for once she had thrown her window open, that she was taking off her clothes, combing her hair and rubbing oil on her neck, and caressing her breasts with her long damp fingers.

  Hilal nudged me and asked, “Are you all right?”

  He took out his small box of chewing tobacco, put some in his palm and slowly rolled it into a small ball. He carefully placed the ball on the inside of his cheek and then, using his tongue, he moved it around and put it between his lower lip and teeth. The ball of toombak pulled out his lower lip and exposed his yellow teeth.

  I looked at him for a long moment without blinking. “Hilal, I am so happy that your wife is coming to Saudi. I was starting to wonder how you could manage to live without her for so long. I mean, you must really miss her.”

  “Of course,” he said. “But her letters keep me going.”

  “She writes you letters?”

  “And she writes beautifully,” he replied. “I do miss her. But our letters give each other hope. If it were not for her letters, worries would be wound around my heart like the turban on my head.”

  I laughed at his expression.

  “But I am a lucky man,” he said, beaming. “She is coming soon. When I was in Port Sudan, we arranged everything. Now, it is just a matter of small details. I hope it will take no longer than a month or two now. I am sure everything will be fine.”

  Hilal heaved his shoulders forward and stretched his hand out to his healthy leg to massage his knee. “Anyway,” he said, “I am sure you didn’t bring me here to show me the Pleasure Palace. I have a feeling what this could be about, but do you want to tell me first, my dear friend?”

  “OK,” I said. “Please listen carefully.”

  52

  THE NEXT AFTERNOON, after we laughed and talked about our planned escape—telling each other how unbelievable it all was—Fiore suddenly fell silent.

  “But what will happen if our plan fails?” Fiore asked. Her warm voice dropped to a whisper. “What will we do if Jasirn doesn’t keep his word?”

  I could feel her anguish. I wished my embrace could calm her fears, or my kisses convince her that everything would be fine.

  Jasim was our only option. We had tried to think of alternatives, but the reality was that there was no one else to help us. The only other choice we had was to stay in Jeddah and continue our lives the way they were. But we were both convinced that this was bound to come to an end. We were living like two fugitives in Jeddah. All we had was Fiore’s room, with her father just yards away, the religious policemen patrolling Al-Nuzla Street, and the blind imam preaching about the evil sins. The small kingdom we created in her beautiful room was as weak as if it were a castle built of sand.

  “It will be fine,” I tried to reassure her.

  Fiore buried her face in her hands. I reached out to her and lifted her chin.

  I feared going back to my lonely room. I didn’t want to leave her. I wanted to be with her for ever. I didn’t want to let go of her pink painted nails, her parted lips. I loved looking at her eyes; the fact that one was slightly smaller than the other gave the impression that she was eternally searching for something, for her life. As I caressed her delicate lips with my finger, and gazed at her wild hair, I was happy that she was my woman and I was her man. It felt right. We belonged to each other, I thought. We deserved to grow old together because we had made the impossible possible. I hoped fate would be kind to us.

  Later that night, I went to the Corniche to say goodbye to my mother.

  I sat for hours staring at the sea, until it turned as black as the sky.

  Then, I stepped into the cool water of the Red Sea, wearing only my shorts. I had not felt this good for a long time.

  Only swathes of darkness lay ahead of me. But when I looked behind me to the Corniche, I saw the street lights flickering and they reminded me of the oil lamps hanging from the camels when my mother sent me away to Sudan.

  Now it was my turn to say goodbyes in the darkness.

  “Mother, Semira, I’m sorry that I couldn’t make my brother love me as much as he loved our uncle. And now that I have decided to take my life elsewhere, I am sad that we will all live in different parts of the world. Where I am going is a long way from here but if, as they say, all the seas of the world are connected then I will pray that the country which takes me will be surrounded by the sea on all sides, so that I can talk to you from wherever I am and you will still hear me as clearly. So this is not a farewell. I love you. Please keep safe from the bombs until we meet.”

  53

  DECEMBER WAS COMING to a close and January, the month of new beginnings, was only two days away.

  It was almost three weeks since Jasim had agreed to give me the money for the smuggler businessman. He called to say that he would have the money ready later that evening.

  Before I went to meet Fiore, I went to my tree with a bucket full of water. I had started to look after it again—as well as watering it, I would sit underneath it just as I used to. It was returning to life as if its thirst was not only for water but also for a friend’s company. I wished I could tell Yahya and Hani about my imminent departure so that they could look after it in my absence.

  The Jeep was parked in front of the big mosque. Hamid was standing beside the Jeep next to another shorter man. He had a white beard and was wearing a red and white chequered gutm and a white thobe, which fell slightly above his ankles. He had a stick in his hand.

  For once, I was relieved to see a new policeman. He must be Basil’s replacement, I thought.

  After Basil led me inside the park that night,Yahya had arrived on his motorbike. He jumped over the fence and went for Basil.

  It was Fiore’s idea that the best way to get rid of Basil was to strip him of his beard since it was that which gave him religious authority over others; then to threaten him with such an earthly force that fear would spread in his weak heart for the rest of his life.

  When Yahya held Basil by his neck, he yelled at him, “It is not enough that you have recruited two of my best friends and sent them to Afghanistan? Yes, do you know them? Faisal and Zib Al-Ard? But I promise you this. If you come near Naser ever again, I will make sure you will die in Al-Nuzla Street and not Afghanistan.”

  Later that afternoon, I was in Fiore’s room celebrating the good news of Jasim agreeing to help us. We were in bed dreaming about our future life in Europe. Over at the mosque, we could hear the blind imam delivering his sermon. We lay naked next to each other on Jier bed, facing the ceiling, with one of her legs betwee
n mine. The room glowed under the candles. We both closed our eyes and thought about what was coming. We were silent for a while.

  “Quick, close your ears,” said Fiore, sitting up and putting her two fingers on them.

  The imam was about to end his speech and as always he finished off with the supplication: “Oh ya Allah destroy the infidels’ lands, as they are destroying our lands. Oh ya Allah tear down their towers and their houses.”

  As the amens of the faithful rang through the street, Fiore lay back on the bed and hissed, “He is praying for the destruction of our future home.”

  “We are going to Europe,” I said to Fiore. “But…”

  “But what, Fiore?” She whispered, “It still scares me.” She took away her hand from my chest and caressed my face. She turned on her side and looked at me. Her lips on my neck felt like rose petals. My hand slipped down from her waist to the top of her hip. My hand pressed on her hip bone; her body was getting warmer. I could feel her warmth as she rested her chin on my chest. I looked at her parted lips, and her half-shut eyes. “Will the Europeans accept us?”

  “I hope they will,” I said to her. “Fiore, no place in the world is perfect. But at least we are going to a place where we can fight to achieve our ambitions. Mossa said it won’t be easy. He told me life as an immigrant can be tough, but you are a daring woman. You will tame the place.”

  I could feel her warm breath as she laughed.

  Like a scarf, she pulled her long curly hair to one side and spread it out across my chest.

  “I couldn’t believe it when Hajj Yusef said that some of the people he helped smuggle five years ago to Sweden came back to visit Mecca with Swedish passports. Five years and they let them be citizens of their countries.”

  She turned back to lie on her back and was now staring at the ceiling. She closed her eyes.

  “Fiore?”

  “Yes.”

  “I know it will depend on the smuggler, but where would you like to go?” I asked her.

  Without hesitation, she said, “To where I can be whatever I want to be. But if I can choose, I would want to go to Paris.”