Yousef Al-Mohaimeed - Where Pigeons Don't Fly

She glanced at her imitation Charroil watch. ‘Tell you what, let’s make a plan about where we’re going first, then we’ll drive. I want to see it and try it out, too!’

As she spoke she put her hand in his lap and he shrank back like a cat.

He took the exit and turned left at the lights. The area was all brightly lit hotels and cars. Children clustered at shop entrances and the women sold toys, nuts and fizzy drinks stored in blue and orange ice-filled refrigerators.

Thuraya resumed her story. ‘Later, I called my husband’s mobile when he was at work and his dirty little pal picked up. When I heard his voice I told him, “You’ll come to a bad end, mark my words,” and I hung up on him. When my husband got home he beat me again. I ask you, does anyone beat his wife for a friend?’

This time round, Fahd tried to avoid angering her. ‘I don’t know, I’ve never been married.’

She punched him in the chest and in her beautifully flawed accent said, ‘My little idiot. So silly and soft. You’re just like the smooth men from the Hejaz: they love women and appreciate them.’

Fahd was heading south, and before the side road gave out he turned right and saw a rose-red neon sign proclaiming Shamaat al-Amakin . He pointed.

‘There’s the spot, see?’

She said he had to get out of the hotel district so they could drive around one of the new neighbourhoods until her friend turned up, because she didn’t know anyone else at the wedding.

— 24 —

FAHD NAVIGATED A NARROW path through the rows of cars, worried that he might hit one. A Honda stopped in front of him. The boot opened, then the doors, and two women got out of the back as a fat youth emerged from the driver’s seat and began pulling out white tubs of food. The tubs looked heavy and the youth hunched forward as he walked over to deposit them by the women’s entrance to the hotel. He closed the boot and moved off, and Fahd followed him to the ring road.

Fahd was forced to mount the pavement and come back down on to the road. Then he swerved across to the far left-hand side of the street and without stopping at the lights, kept to the left and turned into a newly built neighbourhood. Its buildings were of average height but its streets were fairly broad. In the darkness Thuraya’s hand reached out for his lap. Fahd’s breathing became uneven and rapid. Excusing herself she turned to look behind her then raised the armrest and leant towards him, snapping open the safety belt and entering the virgin forest.

Unable to drive Fahd stopped at the end of the road facing an old wall made out of breeze blocks. He hesitated. Should he switch off the car’s lights in the middle of the street, or would that leave them at risk of a car careering along in the dark? He kept the lights on and maintained a lookout for any headlights approaching from either side or from the rear. Bolder now, his right hand began caressing the softness of that realm of irresistible pleasure.

His phone rang in his pocket and Thuraya grimaced, saying that she’d told him more than once to switch off his mobile as soon as she got in beside him.

‘Seems you’re scared of Mummy!’ she added in vexation. ‘A Jordanian, to boot.’

Fahd laughed openly as he patted her thigh. He checked the number and saw it was Saeed. At a time like this, you bastard? he said to himself.

‘Don’t let it bother you,’ he whispered and they continued their tour of the quiet streets.

‘Go back to that street by the wall!’ she said with relish, but he found a wide road that was more or less dark and stopped the car by a high marble wall. He doused the lights, keeping the engine running and Thuraya surged forward like an enraged tigress in pursuit of its prey.

She was more skilful this time, calmer. This time he didn’t close his eyes but stayed on the lookout. An Indian labourer shot past them on a motorbike then a speeding car whose driver didn’t turn their way. Suddenly a car came swerving right up behind them and Fahd gripped her boyish crop and held her still so she couldn’t rise. Frightened, he snapped, ‘Don’t move.’

Her body stiffened.

‘Don’t be scared,’ he said soothingly, ‘but don’t lift your head up just now.’

Her body stopped moving and became cold as a corpse. The thickly bearded driver crossed to the right-hand side of the road, drove past in his old blue Ford Crown Victoria, then turned left across their car, pausing for a moment while he pressed the remote control for the automatic gate. He was the owner of the house next to whose high marble wall Fahd and Thuraya were parked.

The car mounted the cement ramp in front of the garage door and went inside. Fahd watched the red glow from the rear lights reflecting off the wall until the garage door closed, then switched on his lights and drove away.

‘You’re done?’ she asked.

‘No, but you need the right mood and a bit of peace, not anxiety and fear.’

He entered Aisha Street, always crowded at night, then went straight across at the ring road traffic lights, heading back to the cluster of hotels and passing the old, black women stacking up cans of Pepsi and Seven-Up in front of them, their niqabs hiding eyes that brimmed with the sadness of long years of toil and hardship. A white Toyota Camry estate stopped in front of him and two young black women got out and stared at them.

‘Good God, looks like the whole street’s black!’ said Thuraya.

‘Look’s like you’re a racist,’ said Fahd in a bantering tone, but she replied sharply, ‘Get out of here with your “racism” and your silly slogans.’

He laughed, embarrassed by her aggression and whispered that song he had once heard in the house of his grandfather, Abu Essam: ‘… from the red spirit of the revolutionaries …’

‘“We have set you in ranks, some above others …” she said, then, ‘God, Lord of the Worlds said that, not me.’

Thuraya hunted for a cassette. She found an old tape, blew on it to clear off the dust and put it in the machine. Suddenly, Fahd stopped outside the hotel’s entrance for women where a southern Egyptian was posted in a sky blue jellabiya , his turbaned head lolling forward over his cane. He was overrun by children trying to get past him to the women’s section.

‘I can’t get out unless I’m sure my friend has really arrived.’

She pressed the buttons on her mobile and started talking, waving at him with her left hand to lower the volume on the cassette player. Her friend appeared to have asked her a question, because she said, ‘It’ll be quarter of an hour before I get to the wedding.’

She was lying. She hadn’t told her that she was outside the door at that very moment.

‘Let’s take a quick spin,’ she said.

‘It’s tricky to get out of this area because of the traffic. I don’t think there’s anything stopping you going in and waiting.’

She sensed he wanted rid of her and in a broken, faltering voice said, ‘You still haven’t taken that money out of the bank for me. I told you my sister was coming from Jeddah and I need to go shopping with her.’

Fahd was carrying no more than one hundred riyals in his pocket. His bank balance was in good shape but he found it hard to swallow that a woman his mother’s age should be exploiting him. True, she was in need, he told himself, but it was unpleasant to be begged from so brazenly. He took her lined hand and kissed it in something like apology.

‘I’ll bring the money next time, before your sister gets here.’

As Thuraya prepared to open the door with a defeated air, he said, ‘Just a minute, I’ll set you down right outside the entrance.’

He wanted to atone for disappointing her; he hadn’t brought the money and he hadn’t found a quiet spot where they could sit together and she could see him properly.