Yousef Al-Mohaimeed - Where Pigeons Don't Fly

A scene worthy of a future painting, perhaps: The Cemetery .

— 61 —

FAHD REMAINED IN THE cramped holding cell, detained on charges of practicing sorcery and committing the lesser idolatry, all because of a string of painted prayer beads. Despite the kindness of the sheikh with the cream mashlah and his paternal air, he had now vanished and Fahd hadn’t seen him again. He was like Lorca’s gypsies, hiding their knives in the dust.

It was a narrow, stifling room with a fan dangling from its ceiling, though he couldn’t tell whether it was working or whether warm air was shuffling in from some high window like a crook-backed pensioner. If this was going to go further, he wondered, how long would he be held here? Would they transport him to another prison? Would the court hand down a harsh punishment? He remembered the hawk-eyed man telling him that the penalty for sorcery in this safe and untroubled country was death, telling him this as his slender fingers toyed calmly with his beard. The killers’ calm was agonising. Despairingly Fahd shouted that he was no magician; his father had been in prison that was all. He had passed the time with these olive stones, he had …

The man had smiled, until Fahd could almost see the cutting beak behind his mouth, and mockingly said, ‘My goodness, are the whole family ex-convicts?’

Fahd was in a desperate situation, the man went on. The charges against him were solid, especially since the woman’s brother had made a complaint on her behalf that Fahd had bewitched her so that she would go out with him against her will.

Damn ! Fahd thought to himself. Wasn’t it she who had pursued me? Hadn’t my desire for her faded? Hadn’t she been the one who proposed meeting to console me for my mother’s death? Now who will console me for my death, when it comes? Will I have to stand in some public square like Saeed’s father, Mushabbab, wearing a hood that bears the reek of impending death before my head is sent flying? The penalty for sorcery is beheading by the sword, so kill every sorcerer, but I, sheikh, am not a sorcerer. My father was the one who got me in this fix; he was the one who bequeathed me his effects that I might be mindful of his mistakes and avoid the long imprisonment, the night-time terror of waiting for deferred execution and that was his lot. Look, Father, I’ve taken a short cut. I’m going straight to the slaughterhouse.

The huge man terrified me, roughly turning the toothstick in his mouth and telling me that my file had been handed over to the Bureau of Investigation and Public Prosecution. There was no way out apart from the Indonesian bringing food and tea. How could I offer him a bribe when I had nothing? I promised him a big reward if he helped me. Not to escape: I just wanted to make a call.

His eyes flickered about as he handed me his battered mobile phone. I hurriedly dialled Saeed’s number, terrified that it would be turned off or he wouldn’t answer, particularly since he wouldn’t recognise the number. The moment I heard his voice I quickly said that I was in the Committee’s headquarters, mixed up in a serious case, to which he said in his Southern way, ‘Leave it to me.’ The next day the sheikh with the cream mashlah arrived and I was so happy to see him that I almost hugged him. I reproached him for leaving me, for not listening to my story and the story of the coloured prayer beads, and he smiled, patting my shoulder and telling me that I would leave once I had drawn up a confession of being alone with a woman other than a relative and signed it, pledging that I would not commit the same sin again.

Feeling that I had been set free, I almost fainted. A murderer condemned to death, out in Chop-Chop Square, and just before the sword is raised through the air to split him with its maddened whistle, just before it sinks into the flesh and tendons of his neck and sends his head flying, one of the crowd cries out, ‘I release you in God’s name. In the name of God Almighty, go, you are free,’ and the people gathered there praise God and noisily rejoice, while the condemned man is led back to the car, his hood removed, and seeing life anew, signs away his right to appeal in the courts.

And so the worthy sheikh saved me from execution. I could have fallen on his head and kissed him and I could have embraced Saeed when he came to collect me. My eyes were flickering all over. I had no idea how he’d managed to arrange things, more easily than I had thought possible.

As soon as Fahd saw Saeed he asked him how he had done it.

‘Get in and I’ll tell you,’ Saeed said.

‘But how? How come they changed their minds so easily?’

‘Connections, my friend. Connections over and above the law …’

‘What connections?’

‘Your uncle.’

‘Damn you and my uncle!’ Fahd bellowed in a rage, trying to open the car’s locked door. He raised a pointed finger at Saeed and screamed, ‘I swear if I’d known this when I was back there I’d never have signed the pledge, even if they’d condemned me to death. I’ve nothing left to lose!’

‘Fahd, listen to me. If things had been left to grow and spread it might not have been a death sentence, but you could have gone to prison for a long time and been robbed of your life and your studies.’

‘What, Saeed? There’s no one left to help me off their rubbish-tip except my murderer of an uncle?’

‘Because your uncle has ties to them. Don’t forget, he knows their top guys and most of them pray at his mosque. They’ve got interests in common.’

‘Fine. Where is he then?

‘He came after making a few calls and finished your paperwork, then he left again.’

‘He left? Really? Without saying anything? He didn’t make any problems for me?’

Saeed avoided the question and turned his gaze towards the shops in the street. He would go back to the flat, he said, so Fahd could take a shower and change his clothes and celebrate his release at an expensive restaurant.

When Saeed tried to park the car outside Buhasli restaurant on King Abdullah Road, Fahd objected, remarking that he hated the whole street, its shops, restaurants and cafés. He had barely recovered from his unpleasant memories of Starbucks, he said, so Saeed drove on to Saraya, the Turkish restaurant on Thalatheen Street, and as they were waiting for their food, Fahd asked, ‘Tell me. What happened?

‘Basically your uncle asked me to tell you that he never wants to see you again.’

‘To hell with him. I don’t want to see my mother’s killer anyway.’

‘There’s something else.’

Saeed fell silent, poking holes in his paper napkin with a fork and considering how best to explain. ‘He took a copy of your case file at the Committee and asked them to keep a record of your pledge.’

‘Why? So he can haggle with it whenever he wants?’

‘No.’

‘You sure?’

‘He told me he was taking your sister to live with him because you are untrustworthy and incapable of looking after her.’

Fahd said nothing for a while, briefly peering out at Thalatheen Street as if he was struggling with his eyes to stop a sudden tear springing forth. He saw pigeons wandering around over the broad pavement. One of them hopped on a tub containing a wilting bush while the rest continued to circle the tightly packed paving stones, pecking away as if reading their painful life stories. He returned his gaze to the gloom of the restaurant and whispered in a sad, defeated voice: ‘God damn him.’

‘A week ago you were thinking of emigrating. When I asked you about your sister you said she was the same as your uncle and she didn’t concern you any more.’

‘She’s all that’s left of my family, Saeed, do you understand?’