Yousef Al-Mohaimeed - Where Pigeons Don't Fly

‘I want to try and understand this,’ whispered Saeed.

‘Concentrate and you will.’

The words were not difficult, emerging slowly, precisely and rhythmically from the mouth of a poet in his sixties who waved his right hand as he looked out at the audience through his spectacles, his intonation staccato as he pressed on the words to mould and shape them. After him there was a younger poet who recalled his time in prison and coming home a stranger, the kisses of his friends and girlfriends …

‘Girlfriends? What? The kisses of his girlfriends! In front of these people, in a city like Riyadh?’ It was the bearded man in the brown mashlah , rolling his eyes so the whites showed as he tried to interrupt the poet. ‘This is not permitted. This is promoting disgusting behaviour!’

But the audience were applauding the poet enthusiastically and the extremist began muttering, ‘God suffices me and is my best provider. God suffices me and is my best provider,’ as one of the others, a sparsely bearded teenager, shouted, ‘Peace be upon you!’ into a mobile phone in an attempt to create a distraction.

Fahd gave Saeed a kick and gestured towards them: ‘They’re going to wreck the show. Trust me.’

Saeed drew closer and whispered with bitter sarcasm, ‘I’d be worried if they hadn’t already wrecked the country a long time ago.’

The men in the dark brown mashlahs , some of them with their shimaghs pulled back to leave their skull-caps half exposed, were being joined at regular intervals by groups of teenagers with shaven temples, who took their heads and kissed them to break people’s concentration on the poets and draw attention to themselves.

As soon as the reading came to an end they tried to mount the stage and hand out advice to what they saw as the sinning, misguided poets and guide them to the path of righteousness. But the security guards in their sky blue uniforms smoothly blocked their way, asking them to remain calm while the poets were led off backstage, and so the event ended peacefully.

Fahd left the auditorium followed by Saeed and got a plain, black coffee, while Saeed had tea. They found an empty table and sat down, parking their paper cups. The smell of fried chips filled the air. By the entrance the young extremists huddled around the men in mashlahs .

‘Don’t they look like football players gathered around the coach at half-time?’ Saeed said.

‘Well they’re certainly playing with the country. I get the feeling we’ll have problems tonight.’

Squeezing a Lipton teabag around his spoon, Saeed said casually, ‘No. They’re all talk. Trust me.’

‘You’re wrong, Saeed. That’s what you think.’

‘After all the terrorism they’ve lost their hold over people.’

A cold northerly breeze had made the coffee cool quickly, though Fahd drank black Americanos no matter how cold. He took a short sip: ‘Believe me, they’re not done yet. They’re like locusts. We’ve got them at school, my friend: they lure the students into the Islamic Awareness Society or the Islamic Club.’

Crushing the paper cup powerfully with his hand, Saeed whispered, ‘OK, then, do you know what those two groups are?’

‘They’re terrorists.’

Saeed laughed and winked. ‘Don’t turn into a takfeeri and declare them all infidels! Islamic Awareness is the Muslim Brotherhood and the Club is the Surour Group.’

‘Surour my arse. Listen Saeed, that lot are the furthest thing from happy and carefree. They’re always scowling. It’s like the whole world is wrong and they’re the only ones who are right.’

‘No. Listen here Fahd: it’s nothing to do with surour , the word for happiness. I’ve read a lot about them online. They’re called Surourists after Mohammed Surour Zein al-Abedeen from the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. He fled Syria and came to Saudi Arabia and preached among you lot in Buraida until he got together a group of young acolytes. They became teachers and sheikhs and that’s how a number of tributary organisations branched off, known as the secondary Surourist parties. They’ve split from the Muslim Brotherhood; there’s disagreement between the two, I mean.’

‘I don’t think these types have real disagreements; they’re all cut from the same cloth.’

‘On the contrary. They get into serious quarrels and they fight dirty. Take the Islamic Awareness Society and the Islamic Club at school: if you look closer you’ll find there’s a hidden conflict between the two, and sometimes it comes out into the open. The students think that every teacher is trying to increase the number of students in his club, but in reality he’s recruiting for the parties that lie behind them.’

Saeed jumped to his feet. ‘All the seats will be taken.’

Fahd hurried after him and the pair entered the huge theatre. The audience had crowded towards the stage and they could only find space in the high seats at the back.

The lights dimmed and the stage curtain parted to reveal a white plastic board displaying the name of the theatre along with those of the author, actors and playwright to a subdued musical accompaniment. Suddenly, sandals began to fly through the void of the hall, sandals that emerged from the darkness and clattered against the illuminated whiteboard, followed by many more shoes, until a figure in the shadows stood up and shouted, ‘Stop up the pipes of Satan! This is not permitted.’

Two more rose up with him and they headed to the three steps that led to the stage. At first, some of the audience assumed that this was part of the play, A Moderate without Moderation , which addressed the issue of a middle ground in Islam. After all, modern plays were prone to incorporate such scenes. But the auditorium lights came on and security guards struggled to hold off the vandals, who were trying to get on to the set and rip up the pictures of women. Then others clambered up on the left and the destruction began. Whenever the security men managed to block one of them, another would pop up on the opposite side of the stage and smash whatever he could lay his hands on. One man, with a short beard like pubic hair, was pulling the bulbs from the light emplacements beneath the stage and smashing them against anyone who got in his way. Another strongly resembled Yasser. He was in a rage, his open mouth disgorging curses and obscenities.

Fahd watched as the fundamentalists smashed up the set. Some tussled with the actors and members of the audience jumped up in protest at their behaviour. In the back row sat an American critic who had come to speak about contemporary American poetry at a literary festival. He was dumbfounded, his eyes moving between the stage and the upper circle where some female audience members, sitting in a designated area separate from the men, had started to scream. This was true theatre, performed on life’s stage. Chairs started to be raised on both sides, light fittings hurled like swords on some Islamic battlefield of yore, and in one depressing scene punches were exchanged, while the American followed proceedings with the camera in his mobile phone.

After an hour of active combat and struggle to control the rampant extremists, one of the security guards fired two shots in the air, and everyone stampeded for the exit in alarm.

Fahd looked around for Saeed but couldn’t see him. He sat down between two rows of seats high up at the back, waiting for the hubbub to die down and a few minutes later made his way down to the exit. One of the men had been arrested and Fahd watched as he was forcibly led off to a security vehicle between two security officers, who then returned and fetched another detainee. Most of them had fled at the sound of the gunshots.

Outside stood three young men. One was wearing a tracksuit and had his hair drawn back and fastened with a rubber band. His voice was loud and angry: ‘What do they want? If they don’t like the theatre then they shouldn’t come!’