Yousef Al-Mohaimeed - Where Pigeons Don't Fly

‘I want to see you facing me,’ she had said. ‘The whole time we’re in the car I only see you from the side and you’re concentrating on the road.’

He didn’t really understand what she meant by seeing him properly. He thought of inviting her to Saeed’s flat but he kept having second thoughts, worried that some disaster might occur and he would put his best friend into harm’s way.

He left Thuraya and drove Saeed’s car to Maseef. He told himself he had to get a hot mocha and stopped at Coffee Day on King Fahd Road. Most of the seats were taken. He went to the bathroom, washed his face and looked at his eyes in the mirror, rinsed his mouth out repeatedly, then finally took a seat in a far corner, parallel with the road outside and raised his hand when the Filipino waiter looked his way.

He thought of when she said to him: ‘I was a Hejaz girl, coddled by my family, until circumstances dictated I marry that man from Qaseem. Miserly and filthy. My friend, that man never washes or puts on scent. He doesn’t seem to know that there even is such a thing as scent. I’m the complete opposite. I was always clean and nice-smelling. To this very day I take care of myself and my clothes, and that’s after half a dozen kids. One time I called this sheikh and told him that I couldn’t bear living with my husband and that I didn’t sleep with him at all. “At all?” he asked. “No, but every couple of months or more and I need a man who’s always there and tender.” The sheikh suggested straight out that I ask for a separation. How could I ask for a divorce when I’ve got no job and six kids to look after? And what did he tell me? That he was worried I would fall into temptation and sin!’

Her voice became dreamy: ‘I’m with you now, Fahd. I want you but I know that you won’t marry me, that you’re a young man and I’m a married woman with six children, the oldest only a year younger than you. Remember how I told you at the start that I wasn’t one of those girls who spends her nights in hotels on the outskirts of Riyadh or in furnished flats, that I was scared to weaken before you, your good looks and your youth? Well now I’m ready to open my heart to you. I’ll open everything.’

They were parked outside a stall selling mango juice and he asked her, ‘OK, and what about Fadwa?’

She became agitated. ‘Please don’t speak about her ever. I’ve become jealous of her. When I first told you about her, I said it was because I was looking for some warmth. It’s not as easy for women to meet men as it is to meet women. I got to know her at a wedding in Jeddah. She was leading the band: brown, with a strong yearning voice. I was utterly bewitched when she sang,

O my desire,

My solace,

I love you, how I do,

Why turn away,

Why leave me,

When I love you,

I love you, how I do! ’

Thuraya sung in her throaty voice, and that night, Fahd sang along with her. She laughed. ‘It’s like you lived with female wedding singers all your life. Like you listened to their drummers and memorised their songs.’

He told her that it was an old and famous song, and that it had been recorded by Abdel Muhsin al-Mahanna, Ahlam and Asala. He had a nice voice, she said, then continued, ‘Fadwa sang in that voice of hers looking dazzlingly in my direction, so I smiled at her and she smiled back! My relationship with her began then. Of course, my three sisters were with me and they think I’m very pious and strict, mainly because I’ve lived most my life in Riyadh with an old man from Qaseem, so it wasn’t easy to go up to her and talk or get her mobile number. But her looking at me encouraged me to smile. She was watching the bodies of the dancing women as she sang, then she’d steal a glance at me. I’d smile and she would smile.’

Thuraya sighed.

‘My sisters asked me what I thought of her, and I said her signing was incredible, that her voice was wonderful, strong and expressive, that she chose sad, romantic songs, but I didn’t tell them that she had a face like a child, or that her hand slapping the drum was sublime.I wanted to press her to me in a long embrace and smell her breath. Oh Fadwa! My poor Fadwa!’

She turned to him, pressing her lips together.

‘You know, Fahd, I’d love to be with you and her together.’

Her wish took him completely by surprise. She desired Fahd and in the same instant longed to have Fadwa for just one night.

‘I want to see her in front of me, smoking and blowing smoke in my face. I love her voice, her face, her body.’

Fahd put the mocha on the café table. His troubled train of thought, uninterrupted by the al-Arabiya report on Saudi stocks and shares on the television, came to end and he left.

— 25 —

FADWA WAS A YOUNG woman in her late twenties with the features of a boy. Thuraya was captivated by her eyes and brown skin and loved her firm breasts.

‘Lovely and feminine,’ she told Fahd, adding that she had pursued her until Fadwa had finally consented to meet at a café on the Corniche in Jeddah.

‘She ordered a grape-flavoured shisha and said, “Shall I order you one?” I apologised saying that I didn’t smoke, even though I’d like to, and she took a packet of Marlboro Lights out of her silver handbag and handed me one. I hesitated, but her wink and captivating smile hypnotised me into taking it. She changed her mind and took it off me, putting it in her mouth, swiftly lighting it with her silver lighter and blowing a thin stream of smoke into my face.’

Fadwa’s eyes were grave as she handed her the cigarette. Thuraya saw her lipstick on the filter and put it between her lips with pleasure, feeling dizzy as she tasted the butt that had been in Fadwa’s mouth. She drew in smoke, filling her chest, and coughed violently, resting her head on the table until Fadwa was almost dead from laughter and her eyes wet with tears. She came over and sat next to Thuraya and pulled her head to her breast.

‘I caught this scent that left me light-headed. She was stroking my head and saying, “Seems you’re too old for these games.”’

She was on the verge of tears as she looked at Fahd.

‘Must I lose what pleasure is left to me just because I’m thirty-seven? You can’t imagine the risk I’m taking with my sisters and family by going into that café, the fear I feel when I’m wiping my face with a handkerchief covered in rose-water and spraying heavy Oriental perfume until the smell goes away.’

Was she missing tenderness and warmth? She wasn’t looking for relationships with women, but she needed intimacy and love, to be held tight.

‘What can I do with a man whose entire life is hotels, shisha , friends and satellite TV? Shall I look for another man? “Thuraya,” I tell myself, “at least avoid committing a sin!”’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Fahd. ‘What sin?’

She looked out of the car window at a fat white cat that leapt off a rubbish bin and scurried off as a Yemeni emerged from his room in a loincloth and white T-shirt and threw the leftovers of his chicken ribs in its direction.

‘My darling Fahd, you know a relationship with a stranger is considered adultery and my relationship with you hasn’t gone that far, but I’m scared.’

With a happy childhood and troubled youth in the large family home in Jeddah, Thuraya had been pampered by her late father. In year two of secondary school she had loathed mathematics but the woman who taught the subject, Miss Awatef, gave her such looks of tenderness and admiration that Thuraya followed her lead and passed with flying colours despite knowing nothing at all.

In middle school she had been very interested in her cousin, the son of her paternal uncle. Her brother had married this cousin’s sister, and she assumed she would marry the boy. She went to the house next door, where they lived, and set about ironing his clothes when he was due to travel to Cairo, but she lost hope and consented to marry her husband.