a voice I laced with pleading, I asked, What did I do?
You’re always like this! You get me angry for the sake of nothing. You get a kick out of seeing me beg for you!
I hugged her, encircling her waist with my arms, as I replied, There’s been no one but you. Hey, is everything okay now?
She chose to offer an answer heard only by the bedposts and the sheets, and as usual, it was much more like a squabble than like the lovemaking that they always talk about so passionately in films.
I was not yet beyond the hard and rocky road of growing into a mature young woman—I was still getting all of those bruises that one picks up on the way, the many slaps on my body, and now I was feeling crushed beneath the wheels of a million-ton freight train named Dai. It was too early then for me to understand how far her savagery would go, and how every bit of it would be my loss. Did I yield out of love? Desire? Worshipful slavery? The number of candles I extinguished was matched by the hot tears I swallowed while she was on top of me, lighting up and burning and going to ash like a meteor passing to its final destruction. I was paying the bread of my body as a sacrifice to keep her happy, and she was sucking out my embers, so deeply that no trace would remain in my depths.
8
Fadil has asked for my hand.
Eyes shining and face worshipful, she added, I haven’t told my family yet what my answer will be, but I believe I’m going to say yes.
It is truly a cause for regret that she was not joking. Neither her features—suddenly those of a woman who has come to own the world in one fell swoop—nor the shy tremulousness in her voice gave any hint of jesting. Meanwhile, something patted me gently on the heart and said, Don’t let it get you down. Not yet. Hopefully, you won’t lose her, too. All the while, though, another voice was abrading my ear, a loud and overbearing voice that would not stop laughing at me as it addressed its words to me. Do you understand now why she got in touch? It’s classic. She is saying a graceful and upbeat goodbye to you, this girl who has finally stumbled upon a man!
I don’t remember anything I said to her in response. I must have put on some show of joy and congratulated her, perhaps I even gave her a big, enthusiastic, warm hug and a genuine kiss. I must have said a lot, and together we must have sketched out a pretty image, a nest holding a couple of birds: this one is Hiba, and that one is Fadil. But where am I? This nest is very small, my dear friend! And you won’t make any room for me after today. You will leave me to run with only one shoe, in the wild wilderness of my loneliness. You will cease to be either the step beneath me that keeps me steadily going forward, or the road I tread.
We women make the same mistake over and over again, and we’ve been doing it since the beginning of time. We truncate our lives, reducing them completely to the man who stamps his name on us. We leave our family and our friendships, our diplomas and our dreams and all the small matters and trivial things that make up our daily lives, and we go to worship at that prayer niche—I’m talking about the
mihrab
of a man. For his part, the man does not have to do very much in the way of self-alteration. He holds onto the circles he has, with their constant motion, and they keep widening, growing and growing while we remain simply a still point in the crowd. We are so very naïve!
As I touched Hiba’s face—which was both remote and enormously expressive—I kept before my gaze the list of things to be stolen from me: late-night phone conversations, sleepovers on summer vacation, fresh projects, promenades on the shore, our running shoes. And her heart!
Ya Allah
, nothing will remain for me. My fingers burned; and there were not enough of them to let me count up all my losses. No doubt, a few inches away, she was making a list that was similar, except that it was headed by the image of a hero. Fadil alone was
You’re always like this! You get me angry for the sake of nothing. You get a kick out of seeing me beg for you!
I hugged her, encircling her waist with my arms, as I replied, There’s been no one but you. Hey, is everything okay now?
She chose to offer an answer heard only by the bedposts and the sheets, and as usual, it was much more like a squabble than like the lovemaking that they always talk about so passionately in films.
I was not yet beyond the hard and rocky road of growing into a mature young woman—I was still getting all of those bruises that one picks up on the way, the many slaps on my body, and now I was feeling crushed beneath the wheels of a million-ton freight train named Dai. It was too early then for me to understand how far her savagery would go, and how every bit of it would be my loss. Did I yield out of love? Desire? Worshipful slavery? The number of candles I extinguished was matched by the hot tears I swallowed while she was on top of me, lighting up and burning and going to ash like a meteor passing to its final destruction. I was paying the bread of my body as a sacrifice to keep her happy, and she was sucking out my embers, so deeply that no trace would remain in my depths.
8
Fadil has asked for my hand.
Eyes shining and face worshipful, she added, I haven’t told my family yet what my answer will be, but I believe I’m going to say yes.
It is truly a cause for regret that she was not joking. Neither her features—suddenly those of a woman who has come to own the world in one fell swoop—nor the shy tremulousness in her voice gave any hint of jesting. Meanwhile, something patted me gently on the heart and said, Don’t let it get you down. Not yet. Hopefully, you won’t lose her, too. All the while, though, another voice was abrading my ear, a loud and overbearing voice that would not stop laughing at me as it addressed its words to me. Do you understand now why she got in touch? It’s classic. She is saying a graceful and upbeat goodbye to you, this girl who has finally stumbled upon a man!
I don’t remember anything I said to her in response. I must have put on some show of joy and congratulated her, perhaps I even gave her a big, enthusiastic, warm hug and a genuine kiss. I must have said a lot, and together we must have sketched out a pretty image, a nest holding a couple of birds: this one is Hiba, and that one is Fadil. But where am I? This nest is very small, my dear friend! And you won’t make any room for me after today. You will leave me to run with only one shoe, in the wild wilderness of my loneliness. You will cease to be either the step beneath me that keeps me steadily going forward, or the road I tread.
We women make the same mistake over and over again, and we’ve been doing it since the beginning of time. We truncate our lives, reducing them completely to the man who stamps his name on us. We leave our family and our friendships, our diplomas and our dreams and all the small matters and trivial things that make up our daily lives, and we go to worship at that prayer niche—I’m talking about the
mihrab
of a man. For his part, the man does not have to do very much in the way of self-alteration. He holds onto the circles he has, with their constant motion, and they keep widening, growing and growing while we remain simply a still point in the crowd. We are so very naïve!
As I touched Hiba’s face—which was both remote and enormously expressive—I kept before my gaze the list of things to be stolen from me: late-night phone conversations, sleepovers on summer vacation, fresh projects, promenades on the shore, our running shoes. And her heart!
Ya Allah
, nothing will remain for me. My fingers burned; and there were not enough of them to let me count up all my losses. No doubt, a few inches away, she was making a list that was similar, except that it was headed by the image of a hero. Fadil alone was
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