Finally I will be taken seriously

Say something, Hiba! Anything!

She dropped her head onto my shoulder, and I could no longer pick up anything but the murmur of lips wanting to utter but stumbling over the words. I put my arms around her and what I heard was like a mighty kick that struck deep behind my ribs. She held my hand tightly and said,

9
I am not a damp creature. Weeping is not one of my distinguishing features. Between the two of us – moisture and me – there is no particularly intense, intimate relationship that one could depend on. It is true that I am water’s child, and my feet carry the flavour of salty sand. I am like as can be to a seashell, as I move along the ground: in my cupped palms I conceal the reverberations of the Gulf. If you were to scratch at my memory, you would see nothing but astounding blue and boats and the splash of the tides. It is true as well that I have inherited a superabundance of weeping which goes back to an ancient era. Ever since Karbala, ever since the death of that young man so long ago, we Shi’is have been weeping and our tears have never dried. And since Karbala we have come to understand our weeping as an ongoing, never-ending daily act, a process that is always there. It is not seasonal, selling us its goods and leaving town. And so, I do hold inside me a profuse reservoir of tears that exhaust me every night; but I do not cry.

Ever since I was a semi-boy or a sexless child, I had gotten used to the idea, never challenged, that children do not attain their gender until after marriage, when the girls give birth to children and the boys go out to work. Because I was so naughty, and because I always brushed up against a handful of devilish boys, I was used to not crying. Weeping gave a pretext for sarcastic comments and yielded an especially painful quiver of jokes and heart-rending jibes. I certainly had no need for this tattoo of shame that would follow me like a buzzing insect. When I got a little older, I told myself that it would be best for me to continue my abstinence, allowing only a few pure white tears for the black days – and at that point in my life, I had not yet seen a black day. It was Hassan, and only Hassan, who changed my crying habits. He left me a map washed clean of any features and a broken compass, and then he said to me, Go on!

I awoke in a very troubled mood. I was not going to give in to all of the weeping that had accumulated inside me as a terrible hard lump of melancholy and over sensitivity, compounded by several closed doors – my mouth, my phone, and likewise, the door to my room. It was Saturday and on my face was an enormous question. Where and how would I come up with enough endurance to get all the way through another day so that I could fall asleep once again?

Overwhelming feelings of loss toward Hiba blanketed me more heavily than the comforter on my bed, and my heart remained cold. Two nights ago, a long, sharp blade had pierced my midriff. Yet, I could not stop scolding myself for my self-centred reaction. Why should I not be the happiest girl in the world, just because she was the happiest? Didn’t we always feel the same way about things? But I was not marrying that American Fadil. He had not encircled my right ring finger with an engagement ring. No one had released their celebratory ululations on my behalf.

Awwwh, but I am not angry with him, nor with her, not at all: it is just that I feel so very alone, and for the first time. And to make it worse, Hiba is so completely preoccupied with other things that she will not even notice! She now has someone who fills her completely, so what need does she have of me? My problem lies not in Hiba’s engagement, but in how cheaply she could replace me with somebody else, and how completely, to the point where she did not even have enough sympathy to grant me a decent separation period to get accustomed to her absence. Or, barring that, time in which I could at least learn to claim that I had forgotten her, or subjugate myself into accepting her loss! The swiftness with which it had happened, and my obliviousness, which had given me no opportunity to consider such a possibility before it landed on me, redoubled my feelings of loss.

I repeated to myself that this was just another difficult day and at least I could count on it coming to an end. The water heater was empty but I could not shake the numbness and yesterday’s lingering odour from my body without bathing. I had to bathe in cold water. And then I could not find an ironed shirt or a clean pair of socks, and Edna was still asleep. So I delayed the driver of the car which carries me to the college every day by five minutes. Even so, the day’s hardships had not really and truly begun.

With the rain typical of early February, a grey sky, and streets blocked by flowing water, it was hard to get anywhere. A drive that normally took half an hour took twice as long, and I arrived at the college late, a few minutes after eight o’clock. The entry gate for students arriving in private cars was all but closed. Another minute and the only way I could have entered campus would have been to pass by the security guard women once I had shown them my university ID, which I never carried in my wallet unless we were in the middle of exams. It was not a question of neglect so much as a little cheat we had inherited from the previous generation of girls. One could generally and sensibly assume that we would not be carrying our ID cards. If one of the supervisors – these women who watched us so closely – were to seize us for any transgression outside the lecture halls (which they did not enter), we could always make the excuse that we had forgotten our IDs, and then we could invent any name we liked and escape the punishment of having fifty riyals deducted from our allowances.

It was a trick I had not been compelled to use, so far anyway, since the rules were more relaxed for those of us who were in the science departments than they were in the arts, where everything was really intensely regulated. That was true except when the month of Muharram started, the month when we Shi’is commemorated Husayn’s death, even if we were not allowed to do so publicly. They would lock the building entries and erect search points that were just like the roadblocks out on the ordinary roads. During Muharram, the major infraction incurring punishment and a fine was the wearing of black shirts. To wear a black shirt at that time of year, like wearing them on a few other special days scattered throughout the year, was customary for Shi’is. In response to this policy of punishment, at the college we insisted on wearing them, in what appeared a silent resistance to an efficient and tangible attempt to banish our difference, were it only a difference in colour.

We did not give the issue more prominence than it deserved. We got through it with a bit of joking and a lot of looking the other way. We managed to avoid letting the very idea that we were being constrained and oppressed control us. And if the microscope we were always under magnified everything, still, we would slip out from under it with ease and without concocting any artificial or excessive confrontation. We wore regular blouses over our black shirts as camouflage. Or, we recorded our names as being in violation and went peaceably on to our lectures, supplicating God out loud to help these supervisors, as we reckoned that they would be obliged to count as transgressors what was almost a third of the entire student population of the college or even more. Moreover, to feign ignorance is an effective policy. It does not make light of your adversary, it just neutralizes your foe’s argument. We would have been far likelier to find this policy altogether beneath us, had we been given alternative solutions.

With the human tide we create, and this mark of our difference that we wear, we are suddenly manifest and can no longer be ignored. The question of our otherness is no longer left to guesswork about the shape of our features or the particular sorts of names we bear, nor in our mutual withdrawal into our own kind, looking as though we are accumulations of flesh inside a different and larger body that does not fit us very well at all. Our distinction glares now: it is the black shirt that we have worn with stunning persistence, happily giving up our allowances for the month of Muharram. We give up, too, the peace that we could have been harvesting, had we been content, submissive to our circumstances. Together, as one mass, we turn into an enormous question that rolls on and accumulates, like a snowball growing bigger and bigger. What are those people? Where does their difference lurk?

What is so frightening, from the start, about our being different? Is it because we form a storm of question marks, moving fiercely through an undistinguished and previously unnoticed space in this nation, that never before experienced the essence or function of questioning, or of being in a state of difference? Is it because we release an intensity of presence which remains unacknowledged on the map of the world or between the thighs of a recognized tribe? Is it because we breach an unannounced law, one that requires us to cloud over our dissimilarity, from the universal and only mould that the other is supposed to know and follow, and from all that is real and correct?

My late arrival was a parsimonious little smile of good luck, because it meant that I did not have to pass alongside a section of the quadrangle where a group of those we had named banat al-balad, the country girls, had gathered in a space between Science Buildings One and Two. So I did not have to exhaust the paltry energy in my veins with any encounters, any long exchanges of greetings and questions that always come up after the weekend break, specifically queries about Hiba’s engagement. A little cluster of classmates had reserved a seat for me so that I didn’t have to search for one in the big hall or drag a chair from another lecture hall in behind me. Moreover, our lecturer had not arrived yet, and anyway she did not care if a whole half an hour of lecture time was frittered away in meaningless chatter or if students came in late through the rear door to the lecture hall, whether they had an excuse or not.

I made the most of this extra time. I went down to the cafeteria and ordered a coffee. The woman behind the glass counter raised her eyebrows when I asked for two spoonfuls of instant coffee and three of sugar. I did not understand her surprise. Was it the concentration of coffee or the sweetness of the sugar? I did not have any small change and neither did she, so I added in a cheese croissant and a chocolate bar and gave her ten riyals.

I sat down at the white marble table, fished my mobile out of my bag, and left a missed call for Dai. If she wasn’t busy right now, she would definitely call back. I needed her voice, with its easy tone, somewhere between gelatine and honey. Whenever Dai laughed, I felt that the ether surrounding her had loosened its joints in some fundamental sense, to the point of dislocation. I would feel truly that she was curing me.

She did return my call. Her words were two warm palms undoing the nodes of pain in my neck and releasing a faint aah of pleasure. I heard a fine-grained laugh when I informed her that I had bought the cheese croissant for her, and she exclaimed, You fox, you! It only took one more minute to shed myself of my hateful feelings toward this Saturday, the first day of school after the Friday break, and I would even have belted out that old song with her, which mixed nonsense words with the days of the week to teach them to little kids, al sabt sabamabut, wa’l ahad raan raan, wa’l ithneen … My mother would always sing it to me when I was depressed on a Friday evening because the weekend was over and it was back to waking up in the morning and facing a Saturday that would drag on forever. I had all but fixed a permanent smile on my face when her phone suddenly went dead. Maybe it was the bad weather bringing the network down, or maybe the battery was gone, or whatever, never mind, it was not a problem at all. I waited another minute, and when she did not call back, I headed into my lecture.

The sudden sharp ring of my phone, more like two thuds than a continuous ringing, interrupted the professor, who was immersed in explaining something, and all eyes swung to the back where I sat. I tried not to show any obvious confusion or embarrassment, to avoid letting them know the sound had come from my bag. The duktoora rapped the blackboard with her chalk to regain the girls’ attention, offering a sparse little smile that reduced me to dumb embarrassment. I had never forgotten to switch my phone to silent; I was not one to take any chances, fearful of being thrown out of the lecture in the usual humiliating manner doled out to those who committed a transgression like this.

I raised my bag to my lap and took out my cell phone with barely a movement. A message from Dai: SORRY I hng up on U. th angels of death passed by, Malik & Ridwan, & I was afrd they wld take my cell.

I gave myself the excuse that the lecture bored me and that anyway it was completely useless. Besides, the corner of the hall I was sitting in did not allow the professor to see me clearly. So I answered her. Hah! How cultured U R. Such politeness! Remember the names we respect – Shanqal and Manqal.

Among us all –students of the sciences and those of the arts – there existed a strong culture of competition about who was superior. This culture had prevailed so strongly and for so long, renewing itself with every new class, that one really might wonder what gave it such a long life. I have no idea who started it in the first place nor from whom I picked it up. Just as my university ID had been handed over to me, so was the notion of this competition for precedence, and for my part, I supported it. The girls in the science faculty would say that those in the arts were superficial. They had a faulty way of thinking and they were idle, with enough free time, after all, to paint their nails and dye their skin with washable tattoos. This idea was so established that we thought we could tell where a girl belonged from her appearance – the way her blouse looked, the obvious care she took with her makeup – without ever needing to scrutinize her uniform to see that she wore a black skirt, as distinguished from the official navy blue skirt that science girls wore. Likewise, they had the same sort of things to say about us; that we were silly, boastful, and lacked the qualities by which they measured femininity. You could pick one of us out, they claimed, by the everpresent soiled lab coat and thick-lensed eyeglasses.

In what passed for amusement and whiling away time (as opposed to wasting it), we tossed the ball back and forth: at the sciences goal, the scales tipped in favour of seriousness and practical thinking, while on the arts end, the balance favoured relishing and living your life to the full. Naturally, practical reality was not an exact copy of our preconceived notions; nevertheless, a clear difference was there for all to see. I found it inconceivable to weigh the two brain types in the same way, when one was thinking about Colin Powell’s blood pressure and the other the victories of the great conqueror Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi; or when one was contemplating Einstein’s relativity and the other, al-Farahidi’s grammar. It is true that our difference did not go so far that we would use the equation α + β = γ where they would use me + you = love (as they do). I certainly did notice students majoring in Geography, who had a tough time in their first year getting through the computations they had to have for their studies, justifying the difficulty by saying that calculations belonged to the field of mathematics, even though they had barely gone two years since studying math, anyway.

Hah, Shanqal she says! God tk them, making terror for us wherever we go!

Shanqal and Manqal. These are not the heroes of some cartoon show on the Space Toon channel. They were what we called the pair in charge of security in the college. These two women had arrived a year ago in green uniforms that looked like soldiers’ duds. Their presence was something new and it spurred comments and rumours that flew from one mouth to the next. It was said that they were here because of something having to do with a drug distribution ring. Others said it was due to short-sleeved relationships – this said with a meaningful wink, for we understood what short-sleeved meant. It was said to be related somehow to the scuffle that had happened the year before, following an argument over religious doctrine between two students, one of whom was then expelled.

It was true that there had been a squabble over a matter of dogma; it had led to a clear change in the college’s policy of banning certain practices. The change was that we were liable to searches at any moment. We could no longer pass religious books to anyone, even if they were compilations of devotional passages and supplications with which one could end one’s ritual prayers. We could not kneel to a rosary associated with the soil of the blessed Hussain’s grave. Personally, I felt no longer capable of handing out the magazine on the sly, so I began taking a chance on distributing limited copies of it on computer discs. I handed them out on the bus going home to avoid spreading the blame. The possibility that what I was doing would be revealed was practically nil, since we studied computer in this, our second year, and I could rely on our constant exchange of discs for cover. Things like this were certainly going on, but their connection to the expulsion of students or to the appearance of a pair of security personnel was not so clear, since even the announcement of the expulsion, which was posted on the announcement board in front of the Student Affairs Office, had alluded only to either cheating in final exams or moral offenses that took place outside the college proper, in the area where students waited for their private cars.

The two security women were actually rather pleasant and more or less cooperative. We got through an initial period of lying in wait and extreme caution, and we still could not make out any fixed aim or specified task that was theirs. The students tried frequently and energetically to pick a quarrel with Malik and Ridwan, as Dai had named them, but they got nowhere. The women would respond that they did not know the reason they had been summoned for this duty, and that all they were required to do was to patrol the college and look closely at anything that seemed suspicious or a clear transgression of college regulations. In fact, there was only one rule. No moving about. On the basis of this curfew, there was nothing that might logically escape surveillance or grilling. Why did you bring a block of halva sweets into the college, one of us might well be asked. Or, where was the justification for two girls sitting in a spot that was not easily visible to everyone? The two of them rarely waited for any response, though. They were satisfied to issue a clear order to go somewhere else, or to do something else, depending on what we were about. I deduced this from the little amount of contact I had with them.

Shelving the lecture and sending messages instead was pleasant. I could understand (me, such a self-disciplined person most of the time) why some students would spend whole lecture periods in the companionship of their telephones. So I finished up with, Do u have a lecture?

No, am free d rest of d day, wanna meet?

Grrreeeaat idea. I hv class 11 to 12. I’ll blow t off & c u.

U dn’t hv loads of absents in t?

No way. I’ve gt 13 hrs max 2 b absent & I hvn’t tkn more thn 2.

I’ll pass by. Ur lecture’s where.

Jst dn’t 4get my croissant.

Finally the lecture was over, though I had not listened to even ten words of it. I began getting really impatient. At this point in proceedings, my tendency to go for the seats at the back of the hall would become an irritation, for I could only sign the attendance roster after a hundred or so students had their turns. The wait was a pain and my whole head was with Dai. I waved at Salma who was sitting in the first row. I made a sign asking her, Did you sign for me? She answered with a gesture I was accustomed to seeing. The others had snatched the book away before she could write my name. Five minutes passed with me parked sullenly against the wall, before I was able to sign and get out.

Playing these parts infuriated me, whether here at college or before, at school. I viewed them —– perhaps falsely – as academic put-ons, which some girls seemed to slip into at school. These sorts of students wormed themselves into a servile niche and enjoyed special favour and esteem. Because I am not one to believe in allowing everyone’s actions through the gates of good intention, I was always vigilant toward such girls. I might never excel at making accurate distinctions, but at least I would not swallow their sour and their sweet without even recognizing the taste.

Ten minutes past eleven, and I was finally managing to get to my appointment with Dai. I prepared a good strong excuse for her. Let me call it a clamorous excuse, completely unrefined, totally street, just as she always loved for me to be! I paced back and forth alongside the steps to the theater immediately adjacent to the Arts Library. I had chosen the spot carefully, for it was our first meeting in such a public and visible place. Since everyone knew Dai, it was tricky for me, in front of any of my friends, to come up with a believable reason for absenting myself from class and spending time alone with someone who was no more than a classmate. Naturally, I could come up with some sort of false pretext on a moment’s notice, even a perfectly crafted lie that would fool anyone. But I didn’t like to give Dai any more reason than necessary to focus on the idea that our relationship could be prolonged only by keeping it secret, and that it was better for it to remain like that, and that furthermore I was so wary about this that I would even lie to guarantee it. The spot here, next to the Arts Faculty Library, offered a territory distant from everyone.

If a satellite photo of our college existed, it would show what looks like two little colonies as close together as they could possibly be but sharing almost nothing. Two communities with two cafeterias, two libraries and two campus bookstores. Even the kiosks for photocopying, computer printing and binding were strictly regulated: one for the sciences, where you were not allowed to have anything related to the arts curricula printed, and vice versa. Over here, a density of blue skirts and over there, black skirts. We maintained this sharp separation even though the two divisions lay beneath the roofing of a single internal courtyard common to all of the buildings, with their sciences and their arts. Of course, it was not impossible to see the occasional mingling of the two somewhere or other, but this mostly remained a potential held within the strict limits of expectation and subject to low calculations of probability: What were the odds that I would meet one of the twenty girls I knew over there, amongst nearly four thousand? There was not even a statistically significant chance of it.