Raja Alem - The Dove's Necklace

Even Nasser was captivated by this complicated personality. There he was, up all night, out in my coffee shops, rummaging through his files on Khalil. Not even a few loose stones in a crumbling wall in one of my corners escaped his attention. My throat constricted, I darkened my winding alleys in the hope of spitting him out. The cafe had closed, leaving Nasser seated with a cup of tea — three sugars — going cold in front of him. We were long past midnight. He finally got up and headed toward his car.

As he passed in front of Imam Dawoud’s house, something happened that was beyond my control. A body burst out of the darkness and crashed into Nasser, who sensed fleetingly a mocking hiss before he fell to the ground. In the second it took him to get back to his feet he made out the body of a monster torn out of black with a large square mud-colored head. He heard it roar and watched as it shoved the Imam’s door open and disappeared inside. Nasser rushed to follow when a cry for help rang out: “Someone broke into the Imam’s house and kissed Sa’diya on the mouth while she was asleep in bed next to her brothers and sisters!” Nasser couldn’t believe his ears and started knocking angrily, but the hubbub died down straight away. He could sense Imam Dawoud was irritated when he opened the door. He yawned and eyed Nasser sleepily.

“Are you all okay? Did someone break in?” The words died in Nasser’s throat.

“Faith is our fortress,” replied Dawoud. From where he was standing in the doorway, Nasser could sense Sa’diya lying stunned in her bed inside, licking her bloody lips. He was dying to push the door open and inspect the room, but the Imam’s beatific face obliged him to withdraw. It made him wonder to himself if perhaps he’d imagined the whole thing.

The next thing that caught his attention was Aisha’s front door, which was ajar. It creaked as he pushed it open and slipped into the corridor. The dark was like lumps of coal. He took out his lighter and proceeded carefully, his shadow, tall against the damp, cracked walls, following closely behind him. A faint snapping sound led him to a spot at the bottom of the stairs, and suddenly his foot sank into something soft, terrifying him even more. He bent down with his lighter, and there before him in the meager spotlight lay the coal-black body with the brown square head, the twisted grimace, and the popping eyes. Nasser’s hand trembled and the lighter fell to the ground, ricocheting off into the darkness. He cursed himself for being such a coward and knelt down to feel about for it on the floor. The feeling of silky fabric in his hands filled him with revulsion, but he finally managed to find his lighter and light it. He leaned down closer to examine the body. It was just an old, stretched-out abaya topped with a hideous mask. The thick lips were still wet with Sa’diya’s blood. A forged ghoul, and right at Nasser’s feet. He was certain it was a message meant for him. But who was it who was trying to scare him off with these threatening messages? He couldn’t bring himself to touch the ghoul on the floor; he was still trembling. Something inside him told him he was face to face with Aisha’s ghost.

“That’s Aisha’s ghost!”

Nasser jumped in terror. The voice cutting through the darkness had broadcast his fear out loud. It was Mu’az, standing in the shadows, watching and sniggering. Nasser wanted to break his neck, but he was frozen, like an idiot, to the spot where he knelt on the ground. “Don’t let it frighten you,” teased Mu’az, “it’s just a ghost from our childhood. Every kid in the Lane knows the Veil Monster.” Nasser felt like a fool for falling for the trick.

“But it crashed into me … Are you sure it wasn’t you playing a trick on me with this Veil Monster?”

“I wouldn’t dare,” Mu’az replied. “And anyway, it’s a game that mothers and grandmothers play. To be honest, it still scares me. It’s just a silly, childish game, but somehow it manages to arouse the devil in us.”

“But it was really there; I saw it running down the alley to your house. It must have been you.”

“I swear on the Quran it wasn’t me.” He lost his smirk. “It must’ve been that thing,” he added, gesturing to the heap on the floor in the corridor. “Someone must’ve been here, waking up the Veil Monster.” His voice trembled. He came into view standing by the staircase, carrying a candle that threw their shadows leaping toward the great heavy door as if rushing to escape. The smell of burned meat took hold of their senses and the walls of the corridor.

“You don’t think—” Nasser was silent. “If Aisha has indeed run away, why would she draw attention to herself with a game like this?” He was more interested in quelling his own doubts than those of Mu’az. “Who could it be?”

“Well, that’s hard to say, but the only person around here who’s known for playing dress-up games like that is Khalil—” The absurdity of his own idea took him by surprise. “But he’s never shown any interest in Aisha. Not in a woman with that kind of intellect …”

“Well what is this Veil Monster then?!”

“It’s a ghoul made of masks, or face-veils. Our mothers play the Veil Monster trick on us whenever we act up.” He stood examining the features of the mask, which were scrawled in coarse coal, as if it were a face that had burnt to a crisp, black and gauzy with fresh blood on torn lips.

So there they were, all of these heads bursting with apprehensions and suspicions — those of Mu’az and Nasser, for example — and they were completely out of my control.

Nasser summoned Khalil for interrogation. On the day, however, Nasser clean forgot and left Khalil the pilot waiting outside his office while he rifled, utterly engrossed, through Aisha’s letters, looking for any mention of the Veil Monster.

FROM: Aisha

SUBJECT: Message 10

I asked you to grant me some faraway corner of yourself.

The corner shouldn’t be a cellar, or a storeroom on the roof even. It should be more like a treehouse in a forgotten backyard, where you hid out as a child and pretended to be a pirate or an angel of revelation, where you hid your possessions, your little anxieties, your adventure comics.

I hole up in there with you, and we spy through the bathroom windows of the surrounding buildings at the girls bathing directly across from the green almond tree with its round birds’ nests that fall to the ground every morning to wipe away the Lane of Many Heads’ fatigue … When a girl is washing herself, she will often pause for a moment, rooted to the spot, and stare into a golden mote, imagining a book, a man’s faraway hand, or that of an angel, or God even … Then she plunges herself beneath the fast-flowing stream. Or she scribbles a few words on paper in ink whose sighs bleed under the water pressure, their intimacy washing away… As unsuitable as ink might be for writing in water, it’s perfect for writing about the deepest secrets and sins and caresses …

A nest of straw, no more … With you.

Aisha

P.S. I had a dream. This isn’t me speaking, it’s the voice of the Veil Monster, the Lane of Many Heads that’s forced its way into my mind. It was a silvery night, and I was crawling toward the darkened hallway, feeling my way along, led by the sound of muffled laughter from a spot at the bottom of the stairs. My mother and grandmother were there, squatting on the ground, flattening out a brown paper grocery bag between them, cackling wickedly as they slashed the shape of the Veil Monster’s hideous features onto it with a fat charcoal crayon. From my hiding place I could hear its flesh tearing, and the black abaya being eaten away by its own gluttony to the point that it was worn and frayed; the mouth was bared in shrieking anger. Topped off with that growling voice, it was the picture of torment. Suddenly, the Veil Monster was looking directly into my eyes, and then crawling toward me, its voice squeaking. I fled, but its strangled voice was licking my body, and it was only then that I realized I was naked.