by Rana Haddad
Dunya focused her lens on the hakawati’s face. He was smiling directly at her. He had long and curving eyelashes that he fluttered at her mockingly. “Look at this girl!” he pointed his finger at Dunya. “She’s taking photos of all and sundry without asking for permission. Shouldn’t we have a say in whether she’s allowed to steal our images from the air like this or not? But no, we’re gentlemen after all and we’ll submit to her curiosity, won’t we? We’re not afraid of a girl who might or might not be a thief of light, who might or might not be taking pieces of our souls, our hearts, and dreams, and storing them inside that machine she’s holding. We’re men and so we don’t worry about subtle, ephemeral things like this, do we?” The hakawati waved his book in the air. “Did you not know that the soul is made of light? And photography, I’ll have you know, is the art of capturing light inside a machine, capturing it and making it everlasting.”
“What fresh crop of new nonsense is this? I don’t believe a word of it,” a man with a white mustache and stripy clothes said.
“Well, what’s your answer, girl?” the hakawati asked Dunya. “Are you nothing but a thief of light? The boys here would like to know.”
“Light,” Dunya said looking around her at the strange assortment of mustaches waiting in anticipation for her answer. “Light is something subtle but infinite. If I take some I’m not stealing because it comes from a fountain whose supply is like a never-ending tap of water. I only take a drop and I only do it so that something beautiful can be seen later by others. Do you really think this is stealing?” Dunya addressed the men.
The audience clapped and clapped and clapped, while a barrel-shaped, angry-looking waiter replenished their hookahs. Finally, he brought Dunya her own hookah as a mark of respect and solidarity. “This is a honey-scented one for you, my dear.”
When the show was over the hakawati jumped off the table and walked toward Dunya.
“And what brings you here, young lady?” he asked her playfully. “Is it me? Did someone send you to take a picture of me and if so, who was it?”
“Well,” Dunya said. “I came to Aleppo looking for a man who looks almost exactly like you, but he is not you. The young astronomy student Hilal Shihab. At first I thought you were him. Might you have heard of him?”
Now that he stood so close to her Dunya noticed how Nijm’s features were more delicate than Hilal’s, and how his hands were so much smaller. She tried to compose herself. This was easily one of the strangest incidents she had experienced in her still rather young life. She had never before heard of anyone have such a thing happen to them.
Nijm looked at Dunya as if she had asked him the strangest of questions.
“Isn’t Hilal Shihab the only son of Said and Suad, the tailor and seamstress, and does he not live abroad?” he said in a trembling voice.
“Yes that’s him!”
Dunya was about to jump up and down from joy and had to stop herself from putting her arms around Nijm in celebration of that good news.
“You say that I look like him, so much so that you mistook me for him?” Nijm scratched his ear in disbelief.
“Yes,” Dunya said. “The only difference is that you’re a little shorter than him and you dress very differently. And he does not have a mustache . . . but, as for the rest, you could be brothers.”
“This is the oddest thing I have heard for a very long time,” Nijm smiled. “So very, very odd and strange.”
“Do you know where his parents live?”
“Yes,” Nijm said. “They live on Plum Street. Would you like me to take you there?”
“Please,” Dunya said.
Nijm looked contemplative for a moment as if he was trying to make up his mind about something. “As it happens I’ve been meaning to visit Hilal’s parents for a while now, but then I heard about his father’s passing away and didn’t want to intrude on his mother. But I have a question to
ask her.”
“What sort of question?” Dunya asked.
“The first I heard of Mr. and Mrs. Shihab and their son was when I received a delivery of an exceptionally well-made outfit, a product of their skilled hands . . . more than six months ago now. And as I never went for a fitting, how could it be explained that the outfit fit me so perfectly, every line and every curve? Additionally, I never ordered the outfit, nor paid for it. Wouldn’t you say that this is most improbable and strange? And then to add to the conundrum, you appear in my life like a vision in a dream and your first words to me are related to their son. And you say that I am the spitting image of him. There must be an answer to all of this, wouldn’t you agree? I’d like to ask Mrs. Shihab about it,” Nijm said matter-of-factly.
That afternoon Dunya walked out of Café Taba in the company of the young and handsome hakawati in front of a throng of disapproving men, of all shapes and sizes, all ages, all religious and political persuasions—but they all agreed on one thing: “Foreign women!” they muttered to one another.
“Even this one who looks so innocent, look at her, she just goes off with any stranger! If my daughter did that I’d flatten her,” one of them said after a moment of silence.
“That hakawati is cheeky. I wanted to ask her to come with me. Presumptuous fool! Who does he think he is?” said another.
“He’s a sly young thing. All these love stories. I bet you he tries to practice what he preaches on unsuspecting young women. Keep your wives locked up, guys. Keep the key somewhere secret.”
16
A Girl Like No Other
This city was far too strange, and far too mysterious, much stranger and more mysterious than any other city Dunya had ever set foot in. She felt as if a deep and eternal song filled it, a song that had begun before the world was born, a song that never stopped being sung and had never been interrupted. It was a silent song, but everywhere she went she imagined she could hear it. Its beat was that of a heartbeat, its melody that of a sigh, and its shape that of a beautiful young woman who loved to dance both day and night, regardless of whether it was dark or light, and who did not care a fig whether anyone was watching.
One alley came after the other, each one following the other from unexpected corners. Beautiful noises, throngs of people, crowds, smells of pepper, flour, dust, oranges, and donkeys’ feet. How beautiful chaos could be, how freeing to have so many uneven lines, to walk on a ground that wasn’t insulated from the earth by hundreds of layers, to feel the heart of a city beating.
“Here we are!” Nijm announced as he stood in front of an old bakery, sandwiched between a series of dilapidated and dusty-looking apartments.
The Aleppo Central Bakery
Est. 1945 By Habibi & Sons
“But Hilal doesn’t live next to a bakery,” Dunya said.
“Yes, I know, but I do,” Nijm said. “Before I take you to Hilal’s house, I’d like to change into the outfit which his parents made me. And I’d like you to meet my wife, love of my life. Wouldn’t you like to meet her?” the hakawati pointed to a door underneath the bakery at the bottom of some steps.
“You have a wife?” Dunya found this hard to believe. Nijm looked so young and so irresponsible. “Can’t I meet her another day? I’m in a hurry to find Hilal, I’ve been looking for him since this morning.”
“Hilal’s house is only a stone’s throw away. Just come in for a minute, and then we’ll be on our way, I promise.” Nijm smiled. “You’re a pretty girl and if Khadija hears of me walking up and down the city streets with you, I’ll never hear the end of it.” Nijm laughed. “I’ll make you a glass of my special lemonade while you wait for me, or a cup of tea. I’m famous for my special lemonade and for my mind-blowing tea.” Nijm rolled the tip of his mustache around one of his fingers, as if this was an invitation that would be impossible to resist.
“Maybe another time,” Dunya said.
Nijm stared at Dunya and she stared back at him, and for a moment their eyes met and she felt that she was at risk of falling into them. He had beautiful deep b
lack eyes. And he fluttered them at her. Why did he flutter them like that? And why was he looking at her like this, in that exact same way Hilal looked at her, with those exact same eyes? There was no way in the world now that she would go into his apartment with him. There is only one Hilal in this world, and this man is not him. I don’t want, nor do I need, two Hilals. One is all I need. She quickly averted her eyes from him.
“If you come in I promise you I won’t touch you, not even with a feather. I promise. Please say yes. Say yes.”
“No,” Dunya said. “And in any case what sort of young man invites a young woman he just met to come into his apartment? And what sort of young woman would say yes?”
“Normally it is not done, I know, I know. I’m a traditional young man and I accept our customs. The reason I wish you’d come into my house with me is because, well, I’m very good at making tea and I think you’d love my tea, but if you try my special lemonade, then you will be hooked on it. As I mentioned earlier, I make the best lemonade in Aleppo. Is that not a good reason? And I want you to meet my wife, as I said, and I want her to meet you. I really, really do,” Nijm smiled cheekily. “I swear upon my mother Basma and her soft and gentle heart, and upon the honor of Khadija and her long black tresses, that I am an honorable young man. I’m not an immoral and heartless hunter of girls, if that is what you think.”
“I don’t believe you,” Dunya said in a determined voice.
“I swear that I’m not.”
“You look as if you are. Can’t you just write Hilal’s address on a piece of paper and then I can go and find him myself?”
“I could,” Nijm said. “Yes, I could, but I’d like to go with you. I want to meet Hilal and his mother, and I want you to introduce me to them.” Nijm took a deep breath and in what looked like a final desperate attempt he said the following: “In any case, even if I didn’t have a wife and if I was looking for a girl to seduce, you’d not be my type, I swear it. I see you more as a sister. And be sure that if any harm came to you, the entire congregation of Café Taba would point their fingers at me and I’d become a social and artistic pariah. That’s not my life’s ambition. I want to be a singer and a star, and I think you might be able to help me. Consider me your brother. I don’t have a sister.”
“You’re a strange boy,” Dunya said. “And so insistent and pushy. I don’t usually like pushy people, and neither does Hilal. He might really hate you, you know.”
“I’m sure he’ll like me,” Nijm rolled the tip of his mustache dreamily. “Everyone does.”
“Do they?” Dunya couldn’t believe her ears. This young man really had a rather inflated ego, but he was making her laugh. She’d never met such an annoying and smug young man and in the end her curiosity got the better of her. So after insisting that she take his set of keys from him as her guarantee, they went down the steps into his underground apartment.
Both Nijm and Dunya now stood in the middle of a large room full of bags of flour stacked to a great height. There was a collection of cushions, which were arranged like a sofa in the middle. On the right wall there were shelves full of books of every shape and size, and on the left wall there was a large cupboard filled to bursting with clothes. On a third wall there was a long mirror and next to it a small mirror and next to that a tap above a white basin. Dunya turned around slowly in order to survey the room. She kept turning and turning and turning. “Why do you have so many bags of flour everywhere? And where is your darling wife, the love of your life?”
Nijm followed her quietly and then stood face to face with her. “If you stop turning around,” he said bossily, “I’ll tell you.” He looked at her in a sly way, half-closing his eyes. He seemed to be examining her through his soft and rather long eyelashes, up and down as if trying to make up his mind about her. He then clasped his mustache, paused a little, dropped his hands, and, “Hmm,” he hummed.
“Hmm, what?” Dunya asked him.
“They say that girls with overly curly hair have a tendency to be reckless,” he said in a thoughtful tone. “And I must say in your case at least it is true, so true!” Nijm laughed.
“I am curious, not reckless.”
“No?” Nijm didn’t seem convinced. “Whatever pleases you to think, think it, but the truth is that you are reckless. And not only that, but also feckless.”
“Feckless?” Dunya said. “You on the other hand are smug and vain, most vain and smug, and will I also soon be finding out that you are a liar?”
“A liar?” Nijm said. “No, not a liar.”
“So if you are not a liar, where is your wife then, love of your life?”
“She’s on her way. Khadija! Khadija! Come down, Khadija!” Nijm called out.
The hakawati called his wife, once, twice, and one more time but she didn’t appear to hear him.
“There is no Khadija, is there?” Dunya said. “Didn’t I tell you you’re a liar?”
“Look, Dunya,” Nijm said in a serious tone. “I am grateful that you trusted me enough to come into my apartment with me. I don’t know what it is about you, but as I said before I was so taken and impressed by how you came into Café Taba and your boldness and courage that there and then I decided we must be friends. But friendship without truthfulness is not possible and therefore I also in that same instant decided I would tell you the truth about myself. But before telling it, I had to make up a little lie. I hope you’ll forgive me.”
“What truth?” Dunya asked Nijm. “What lie?”
“Well, . . .” Nijm said.
“Well what?”
“Well, well, well. What the hell.” Nijm took the middle of his mustache between two of his fingers and then without any warning he ripped it off his face—whoosh!
Nijm’s ornate mustache came off his upper lip very easily and didn’t leave a trace. He held it up in the air, and swung it above his head proudly as if it were a mouse he’d just caught.
Then he put it in his trouser pocket.
“Your mustache is not real?” Dunya was startled. “You’re in disguise?”
“Yes, Dunya. I’m not who I appear to be, nor what you think you can see,” he said in a soft and melodious voice.
“Your voice,” Dunya said.
“What about it?” Nijm asked playfully.
“You have a girl’s voice.” Dunya fixed her eyes on him.
“Certainly not a boy’s,” Nijm repeated in that exquisitely feminine and sensuous voice, which was completely different from the one he’d used before. “I told you you had nothing to worry about, didn’t I?” He took his fez off and flung it away, along with something Dunya had imagined—only seconds ago—to be his hair.
Long luscious black locks were set free.
Nijm then ran to the tap in the corner and washed his face, splashing water here and there. He then sat down on a chair and dried his cheeks and forehead with a freshly laundered white towel.
“What’s your name?” Dunya asked.
“Suha,” she said.
What had at first appeared to Dunya to be a handsome young man was nothing of the sort, because the truth of it was that she was a ravishingly beautiful young woman.
Why did she hide herself, Dunya wondered? There must be a reason for her intricate disguise. Did she do it to protect herself from others, or to protect others from herself? She was everything that inspired love; how could anyone resist her? How could anyone not want her for themselves, want to fall at her feet and love her? Dunya imagined how a girl like Suha walking down the street or singing in the cafés of Aleppo might cause a riot, numberless street battles and fist fights would ensue, as well as shootings and intense and protracted gang warfare. She was that beautiful.
And as for her voice, her real voice with which she spoke as her real self—it was utterly beguiling and expressed a perfect picture of her soul, adding to the fatal mixture of her beauty and impossible charm, a lethal ingredient.
There was a velvety silence that filled the room now. Suha took her men�
�s shoes off and put them near the door. Her bone structure, her stature, and her height were all those of a girl. She was not a boy, not a young man. He was not a he, but a perfectly exquisite she. Dunya could not quite get to grips with this sudden change in Nijm’s identity and appearance. It was like a hallucination. She looked at Suha as she took her tie off and unbuttoned her jacket. She moved so differently and behaved so distinctly from how she did before; everything about her was different from Nijm, except a certain irresistible attractiveness, which was the same. What a good actress she was! Dunya felt confused and yet privileged that Suha had decided so whimsically and for no apparent reason to reveal her true self to her. What did she want from her?
Dunya sat down on a cushion and took a deep breath. “I want to hear your story. Tell me everything,” she said.
Suha came nearer to her and sat on a cushion opposite her. “Are you sure you want to hear it now? Or shall I just wear the dress Suad sent me and then we can go and find Hilal?”
“Was it a dress that she sent you?”
“Yes,” Suha said.
“So Hilal’s parents know you as a girl?”
“It seems they do,” Suha said.
“Do you think they wanted to introduce him to you or you to him, because they’re hoping you might become his wife one day?” Dunya asked fearfully.
“No, I’m sure it’s not that, it’s something entirely different. Don’t worry, I won’t try to snatch Hilal away from you,” Suha said. “He is your sweetheart, isn’t he?”
But Dunya was not sure how anyone, even Hilal, would not fall in love with Suha at first sight. And her heart sank.
Clearly if she was going to bring Suha to Hilal’s house, she would need much courage. It would be the ultimate test of his love. If he truly loved her, Suha would not touch him in any way. If he truly loved her, not even a girl as stunning as Suha would be able to steal his love away from her. Dunya looked at Suha and felt rather faint.
