Editing my Haifa Fragments manuscript, I have to mercilessly delete some scenes. Here's one of them:
Half way up, Maisoon stopped. Turned around and
started walking back down Share’a El-Jabal.Now what? Ziyad followed in
silence. “Take me to that nargila place you go to sometimes.” She wasn’t asking
him. She was making a statement. “Bas Maisoon! It’s just a small place full of
white smoke and sweaty men. No women.” Great! Just mumtaz. “It’s… it’ssort
of a closed club… and all they do is smoke, play Shesh Besh, talk politics and
make up nonsense conspiracies.” His words were carried backward up the
mountain. I want to feel it. I want to sit and smoke a nargila like Majid
did. “And the chairs are really really uncomfortable!”
No response other than Maisoon’s scarf swooshing
behind her.
It was nothing like what she thought it might be.
It wasn’t even a nargila place. Jihad lived in a dilapidated stone house, with the
original dark green wooden shutters, coming off their hinges. Ziyad opened the
narrow heavy door and walked in without knocking. Maisoon had to will movement
into her body to follow his shadow; even in the almost-darkness, her eyes were naturally
drawn upwards to the high ceiling, lending the long, narrow entrance an
illusory sense of spaciousness.“Yalla, ta’ali! What are you waiting for? A
special uzumi?” Ziyad was already opening a door at the other end of this outer
room; yellow-grey light escaping from beyond and landing on the cream tiles. Dense
smoke swirling around in the light.She followed slowly, her courage discarded
at the front door like shoes left at the entrance to a mosque. A cough, shaddi
being thrown, shesh besh tiles moving around hectically, slapping down on the
board. A sudden scratching of a chair and the movement of bodies as Ziyad walks
in. “Ahlaaaaaan ya Abu El-Hasan! Shu hal honour! We thought…” Maisoon’s
entrance caught the rest of the words in the man’s throat. The body turned into
stone, the mouth remainedhalf-way open. Four heads raised, scanning the space
between Ziyad and Maisoon. Drawing a line with their eyes. “Assalamu Alaikum,
shabab,” Ziyad didn’t lose his balance and laughed. “Ya salam, one sabiyya and
you’re off your tiles? And you call yourselves zlam!”
“You know this is no place for any sabaya, Abu
El-Hasan,” Jihad threw his shaddi and played his black tiles, closing off
Mu’atasem’s white. He looked at Maisoon sideways, his nod half an apology, half
an acknowledgement of her boldness to enter this space reserved for men only. Maisoon
accepted his apology with half of a crooked smile of her own.
When the men realised the invader was here to
stay, they settled back into their shesh besh game, not without grumbling under
their breath as a sign of protest. Maisoon found a frayed old smelly kanabai in
one corner and settled down. Ziyad sat down in a wooden chair and watched the
game of shesh besh, waiting for his turn to play. Soon Maisoon was forgotten in
the corner, and Mu’atasem continued with his interrupted stories of his prison
days. In the darkness, he looked almost as old as Majid, and for several
minutes Maisoon thought that she would get something, a thread. But when he mentioned
some dates, she realised he couldn’t be talking about the same period. She
closed her eyes, absorbing the story which, all of a sudden – or so it seemed
to her – turned into a tale of women and sexual journeys. She opened her eyes
and looked at Ziyad – he was immersed in the game. She closed her eyes again,
lowered her back on the kanabai, and dozed off. Dreamed of prisons and nymphs
and desert. The persistent ringing of her phone jerked her back into the room.
From the corner of his eye, Ziyad saw Maisoon
stepping outside to the back garden, the phone to her ear, an unsettled look on
her face.He watched her intently from the window, but the darkness obscured the
contents of her face. All he could see was her skirt pacing up and down,
followed by the bluish smoke of a cigarette. And then another. Fifteen minutes
and three cigarettes later, she walked back in. Sat on Ziyad’s knees. Drank
from his beer. “Oh, I hate beer,” she said, making a sour face.
“What was that all about?” He drew back as much
as he could from her warm body.
“Shu? El telefon?” she now moved to a free chair
next to him, seeing how awkward he felt with her sitting on his knees. In front
of other men. “Oh, hayati, it was Shahd. She was telling me about this cousin of
hers from Khirbit Jbara. Some soldiers broke into his house last night.” Her
voice was brimming with anger.“Just like that, for no reason. They broke some
furniture. Searched the house. Didn’t give a reason. And they took all his
research. He’s been working on it for months. His pregnant wife was terrified…
she’s bleeding and he doesn’t know what to do.” Her face became clouded,
weighed down with this new story. Too many stories.Too little space in the
brain. “Let’s just go home, Ziyad. Min fadlak. I’mexhausted.”
Silently, he followed her
in the dark.
Can’t have even one single
night with you.
You alone.
Just give me one night,
evening, I’ll even settle for a morning kahwa and cigarette on that crammed balkon
of yours.
But without checkpoints,
soldiers, ta’ashirat, crossing borders, the chasm between this world and
theirs.
Is that too much to ask of
you, Mais?
Will we never be alone –
just the two of us?
“I’ll walk you home, but
I’m not coming up.” She turned around, noticing only now that he was walking a
few steps behind her. Looked away – knew a lie was forming on his lips.
“I promised Basel to help
him with this project he needs to submit at the end of the month. Have to be at
his place early in the morning.” Maisoon kept walking, increasing the distance
between them. “But I can be at your place for lunch tomorrow… I’ll make you a
nice shakshooka.” He caught up with her, touched the small of her back, but her
body evaded him. The rest of the way to the souk passed in silence.
They parted in such incongruence with the building tension
between them – could very possibly be physically touched. He kissed her lightly.
Turned around, without salamat. She grabbed him by his shirt and pulled forcefully
towards her. Collision of bodies.Cold stone against her back. Warmth spreading
down her legs. His tongue on her neck.Fingers invading her belly. Feeling the
muscles of his back tense at the touch of her palms. The very subtle groan –
almost a whisper – released involuntarily with his outbreath.
Two teenage boys
approaching, their laughter pushing the wind ahead of them. She cups his face
in her palms, kisses him violently, pushes his body away, and disappears into
the dark stairway. “No shakshooka tomorrow. I want a restaurant. Tisbah ‘ala
alf kheir albi.” Her voice tumbled down from the top of the stairs with the
same violence of her kiss.
(c) khulud khamis, deleted from Haifa Fragments, forthcoming by Spinifex Press in 2014.
