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  Hisham swallowed again. “Anyway, you know where I stand; there’s nothing I want more than to work with you.”

  For the first time since they had left the school grounds Mansur smiled, showing his white teeth, and put his hand on Hisham’s elbow and squeezed it hard. “Now that’s more like the young man I admired so much,” he said enthusiastically, his voice ringing with pleasure. “I was sure you were a patriot and that you believed in the cause of the people and the Arab nation. But you provoked me with all your dithering.”

  They continued walking in silence until they reached Hisham’s house, which was not far from the school. Hisham stopped and pointed out his home, inviting Mansur in and trying to tempt him with the prospect of his mother’s cooking. But Mansur declined, saying he had to catch the bus to Qatif.

  “Why do you want to go there?” asked Hisham, surprised by the explanation.

  “For the simple reason,” replied Mansur sarcastically, “that I’m from the area, my family lives there and so do I.”

  “So you’re a Shi‘ite?”1 said Hisham without thinking, his astonishment plain to see on his face. He instantly regretted asking the question so hastily and was about to apologise, but Mansur answered quickly with an ironic smile.

  “So they say. But I don’t consider myself Shi‘ite or Sunni.”

  “So what are you, then?” Hisham’s second question was both impulsive and foolish.

  “You’ll find out later,” said Mansur, smiling and waving goodbye. “See you tomorrow.” And off he went towards the centre of town, leaving Hisham swimming in a sea of questions.

  As he entered his room he heard his mother’s voice coming from the kitchen.

  “Is that you, Hisham?”

  “Yes, Mother,” he answered automatically; and at that moment the image of a bird he had long ago trapped in the garden passed through his mind.

  ________________

  1. Adherents of the Shi‘i sect of Islam (‘Shi‘ites’) are followers of the descendants of Imam Ali, the Prophet’s cousin and son-in-law. Historically tensions have existed between Shi‘ites and Sunni Muslims. Sunnis constitute the majority in Saudi Arabia.

  9

  “Excuse me ... Excuse me ...”

  Hisham woke from his doze to a hand tapping him on the shoulder. He looked around and found that the train had come to a complete stop; one of the station attendants was standing in front of him, asking casually, “Excuse me, don’t you want to get off?”

  “Have we arrived at Riyadh?”

  “Ages ago. Everyone’s got off. Except you, obviously.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Hisham said, getting up in haste. “I was completely exhausted. I must have dropped off just before we got in.”

  “Never mind. But please get off quickly.” The attendant thus concluded a conversation that did not interest him and, giving Hisham a quick glance with no particular meaning, he made his way towards the front of the train. Hisham rubbed his eyes and wiped his glasses, then adjusted his robe and headdress. He gathered together the newspapers and magazines he had brought to amuse himself, though they were still exactly as they had been when he had boarded, and headed towards the exit.

  He descended from the train and began getting his bearings. No sooner had his feet touched the ground than he was hit by a blast of hot air, filled with fine specks of dust that had a peculiar smell. ‘My God, have we really just exchanged the humidity of Dammam for the dust of Riyadh?’ he asked himself as he made his way into the main station. No one was there except another attendant, who was sitting on a dilapidated wooden chair drinking a large cup of tea and smoking a cigarette, swatting the flies that had come in to escape the heat. Hisham smiled as he remembered one of Abdullah al-Qusaimi’s articles, with a title that went something like ‘These Flies Kill Me Twice A Day.’ He found his huge, black suitcase lying in a corner with some well-worn others and pulled it out, wheezing towards the exit as the attendant sat, still fighting off the flies.

  Nothing in Station Street was moving except the hot wind, laden with that fine, red, irritating dust. Hisham sat down on his suitcase, waiting for a taxi to take him to his uncle’s house, but nothing appeared on the horizon; it looked as though the passengers who had got off the train before him had claimed all the taxis. The wind blew harder. Hisham began drying his sweat with his headdress, which was soon covered in red blotches: the grains of sand had run down his face, mixing with the sweat to make an unpleasant soup. ‘The humidity in Dammam’s more bearable than this,’ he repeated to himself as he continued to wipe away the soup, which would suddenly dry and leave behind specks of dust embedded in the fabric of his once-white headdress. And still there was no sign of hope on the horizon, until at last a car appeared in the distance sending up a cloud of red dust. Hisham jumped up and waved it down. The driver stopped, and Hisham approached and poked his head through the front window.

  “I want to go to Old Shumaisi Street,” he said, trying to sound authoritative, though a hopeful note crept into his voice. “It’s not far from the al-Muqaibira souk.”

  The driver looked at him, stroking his beard thoughtfully. “It’s a long way,” he said. “It’ll cost you three riyals.”

  “Three riyals! That’s a lot for a journey like that. I’ll give you two – that’s the going rate.”

  “It’s up to you. I’m not taking less than three,” said the driver, getting ready to move on.

  Hisham crossly agreed to his price, afraid that he would be unable to find another taxi. He put his suitcase in the boot and slipped into the front seat beside the driver.

  “It’s a long way: it could take more than half an hour with the traffic like this,” the driver said. His skin was dark brown and dry, his face gaunt; he had a small, pointed beard and a thick, black moustache that arched over his mouth. His hair hung down over his shoulders in long plaits.

  “Where are you from?” the driver asked, trying to strike up a conversation.

  “Dammam,” replied Hisham indifferently, staring out of the window.

  “From the Eastern Province.”

  “Yes.”

  “You a Rafidhi, then?” the driver asked, using a derogatory term for a Shi‘ite and giving Hisham a grin that showed his teeth: some were missing, others were dark from smoking, and a single gold tooth gleamed at the front of his mouth. But Hisham simply looked at him with a half-smile, without answering, and the driver realised that his customer did not want to make conversation. After repeating “There is no God but Allah” several times he also fell silent, and as the taxi crossed Dhahran Street in al-Mulizz, Hisham withdrew into himself. The taxi went to al-Mulizz via Railway Street, then proceeded to University Street and al-Assarat, passing by the Central Hospital to finally reach Old Shumaisi Street.

  10

  The night of his acceptance of Mansur’s offer, Hisham did not sleep: the excitement had worn off and it was time for some serious reflection. His fear had returned. Once again the image of his parents became fixed in his imagination. ‘What an idiot I am,’ he began saying to himself. ‘He told me himself to leave it alone, but I ignored him. I ran after him, begging him to accept me. He took me in with all his comments and accusations and made me chase after him as if I’d had a spell put on me. Me, the intellectual that people always sit up and listen to, paying attention to that stuck-up so-and-so! I’ll show him tomorrow! “You can accuse me of whatever you want,” I’ll tell him. “I’ve got plenty of confidence in myself; your accusations don’t fool me. And you can’t make me doubt my ideals either, or my principles or my patriotism. Say what you like, you’re not going to hurt the people I care about.” Yes, that’s what I’ll tell him, and I don’t care what happens.’

  While standing in the queue the next morning his eyes met Mansur’s; Mansur smiled at him, but he looked away. During the break he looked for someplace out of the way to eat his lunch, far from anywhere Mansur might be. Adnan, who had been finding his friend’s behaviour of the last few days odd and perplexi
ng, watched him. As Hisham was taking a bite of his jam and cheese sandwich and joking with Adnan, Mansur suddenly appeared, standing in front of him with that athletic figure of his and a faint smile on his lips like one of Solomon’s demons just loosed from his bottle. Hisham stopped eating, feelings of trepidation overwhelming him once again. He tried to keep his composure, determined that this time he would refuse Mansur’s proposal unequivocally.

  “Hello Mansur,” he said, looking at him steadily. “Do join us.”

  Mansur smiled. “Bon appétit. I’ve already eaten, thanks. If you don’t mind, Hisham,” he continued, “I’d like to have a word with you in private.”

  Mansur glanced at Adnan and looked at Hisham again. Hisham felt a growing sense of unease, but could only agree. He put his Coke and sandwich to one side and excused himself to Adnan with an unaffected smile before walking off with Mansur in the direction of the courtyard. Adnan watched them in astonishment.

  They walked in silence for a while, Hisham almost too agitated to contain himself.

  “What’s up?” he said, trying to break the silence and suppress his nerves at the same time, while keeping his eyes fixed on the ground as though he were searching for something. “Haven’t you got anything to say?”

  “No, nothing,” said Mansur with a smirk, looking at him calmly. “I was just thinking about what you said yesterday.” He paused before continuing. “Why did you think it was strange I was a Shi‘ite? Or rather, from a Shi‘ite family?”

  Hisham had not been expecting this question and stammered a little as he answered. “I didn’t ... I didn’t think it was strange, so much as an unexpected surprise.”

  “A surprise! In what way?”

  “I don’t know ... You can usually tell Shi‘ites from their first names, or their surnames. But you, neither your first name nor your surname would make one think you were a Shi‘ite. Sorry – I mean, that you belonged to a Shi‘ite family.”

  Mansur smiled and cracked his knuckles. “You’re right,” he said. “My first name’s just an ordinary one. It hasn’t got anything to do with the Imams or mullahs. There are Sunnis and Shi‘ites with it, even Christians and Jews. As for my surname, I’m from a little village; I’m a barrani, not from the qal‘a – so my family name isn’t well known. In fact, I’m not really from an old family at all.”

  “The qal‘a? Barrani? What do you mean? I’ve lived all my life in Dammam and been to Qatif several times, but I’ve never heard of anything like that before.”

  Mansur’s smile broadened. “Of course you haven’t,” he said. “You’d have to be a Shi‘ite to have heard of them, not a Sunni.” Mansur laughed nervously as he spoke. “By the way,” he went on, “what do you think about the Sunni-Shi‘ite issue?”

  “It doesn’t matter to me much, to tell the truth,” Hisham replied without hesitation. “In fact, not even remotely. I see it as a remnant of the past. What have Ali and Uthman and Muawiya and the succession of the caliphs after Muhammad’s death got to do with us? We’re living in the present, and we’ve got enough to worry about as it is.”

  “That’s true. But I want to explain for the sake of your social enlightenment and to make you more aware of the class struggle. The people of the qal‘a, the qal‘awis, are the city people, members of the leading families, people in authority and landowners. The barranis are the peasants who live in the villages, the nakhlawis, as the city people call them; they’re the ones who serve the masters. And boasting aside,” said Mansur, after a few moments’ silence, “I’m a peasant.”

  This was all news to Hisham. “Strange,” he said in amazement, “I thought you were all the same.”

  “There’s no such thing as a homogeneous society, comrade. Everywhere there are different classes and the class struggle, whether it’s Shi‘ites you’re talking about or Sunnis, Christians or Jews.”

  It sounded odd to Hisham the way the word ‘comrade’ tripped off Mansur’s tongue, but he did not let himself get hung up on it for long. For a short while the two of them walked along slowly in silence as Hisham thought of the best way to tell Mansur that he had changed his mind about what he had agreed to the day before. But Mansur interrupted his thoughts:

  “Anyway,” he said, “I put your name forward to the comrades and they’ve agreed for you to join the organisation. In fact,” he went on in a reassuring tone of voice, looking at Hisham and smiling, “they were thrilled to have a good element like you joining.”

  Hisham wanted to say something about what he had decided the night before, but was unable to. He had felt a kind of elation spread through him when he heard Mansur say how the comrades were delighted he was joining, a strange pleasure, a sudden enthusiasm coursing through his veins. The images of his mother and father and the bird vanished; he forgot all about his anxieties of the previous days, and all that was left was a single sensation: that he was someone important, someone wanted, someone sought after. He was full of this feeling as he said,

  “I’m fully prepared to begin the struggle.” He spoke fervently, but not with the same fervour that the words of Guevara or Fanon made him feel.

  Mansur stopped walking and looked at him sternly. “In that case, my connection with you ends today,” he said, as though giving an order. “Another comrade will come and see you to enrol you in your cell. The password is ‘Ashrawi sends his regards’. Don’t forget: ‘Ashrawi sends his regards.’”

  Mansur turned around and headed towards the school building, but Hisham caught up with him. “Who is this comrade?” he asked. “Where will he come to see me? And how?”

  “Don’t worry about it. Everything’s been arranged. Don’t forget: ‘Ashrawi sends his regards.’” Mansur took a few steps, and then doubled back as though he had forgotten something. “By the way,” he said, “your friend who was sitting with you; his name’s Adnan al-Ali, isn’t it?”

  “Yes ... why?”

  “Nothing. Just curious. Don’t forget: ‘Ashrawi sends his regards,’” said Mansur, the shadow of a smile playing on his lips. Then he strode off, leaving Hisham confused and gazing into the distance.

  11

  It was about ten o’clock in the morning and the whole class was listening intently to Mr Haqqi, the biology teacher, as he explained single-cell organisms using the amoeba as an example. Suddenly the door of the classroom opened and Rashid, the school monitor, put his head round, a smile peeping through the thick moustache on that delicate face of his. The teacher stopped and everyone looked towards the door.

  “Hisham Ibrahim al-Abir’s wanted in the headmaster’s office,” Rashid announced. A shot of fear went through Hisham and he felt a cramp in his stomach again. This was the third time he had been summoned by the headmaster, whose threats were still within vivid memory. What could he want this time? Did he know about Hisham’s meeting with Mansur and what they had talked about? ‘Damn you, Mansur, I knew you were bad news,’ he said to himself as he got up wearily, the other pupils watching him curiously, the teacher with a look of dismay. Dragging his feet, Hisham walked to the door where the monitor stood, still smiling. Hisham went on talking to himself. ‘This time it’s prison, no doubt about it. But what have I done? No, it isn’t a question of what you’ve done, it’s what you’re going to do: it’s your intentions they’re interested in, not your actions. Well to hell with the lot of them: Mansur, the headmaster and Goat-Face here.’

  Hisham and Rashid walked quietly along the hall that led to the headmaster’s office, the silence broken only by the sound of their footsteps.

  “So, what does the headmaster want?” Hisham asked, without expecting to get a reply: he knew the monitor was no more than a slave obeying orders.

  “Nothing important,” said Rashid. “He just wanted to tell you that ... Ashrawi sends his regards.”

  Hisham stopped suddenly, rooted to the spot. His heart began to pound, his head felt hot and he began sweating from every pore. “You ... you,” he said, turning towards Goat-Face, his face drained of colour
and his eyes bulging.

  Rashid’s smile, managing to get through his thick moustache this time, broadened as though he were enjoying the moment. “Yes, me. We haven’t got much time,” he went on abruptly, his clownish smile vanishing as he glanced in all directions. “I’ll see you this afternoon in front of the municipal park. You know where I mean, obviously?”

  Hisham nodded as Rashid walked on to the headmaster’s office. “Go back to your classroom. I’ll see you later.”

  For several moments Hisham remained transfixed as he watched Rashid hurry away and disappear down one of the corridors without looking round. In a state of complete bewilderment he dragged himself back to the classroom. ‘Rashid Abd al-Jabbar,’ he said to himself, ‘the monitor. Goat-Face. He’s the comrade! I can hardly believe it.’

  He walked into the classroom without first asking the teacher’s permission and threw himself into his seat as teacher and pupils alike looked on inquisitively.

  “What did the headmaster want?” asked Mr Haqqi.

  “Nothing. He just had a question about something,” said Hisham, feeling as though he had bells ringing in his head. The teacher glanced at him and then went on with the lesson, looking over at Hisham from time to time.

  “Everything all right?” One last attempt by Mr Haqqi to satisfy his curiosity.

  “Perfectly all right, sir. Perfectly all right.”

  The class came to an end and still Hisham felt as though he were drowning, oblivious to the pupils crowding around him and bombarding him with questions.

  12

  All the way home Hisham was spinning in a vortex of conflicting thoughts. He felt completely dejected, oblivious even to Adnan walking beside him and talking away. He was confused by this new world he suddenly found himself in, without any prior warning. The faces of pale phantoms kept recurring: Mansur, Rashid, the headmaster ... Suddenly a vision of a police officer sprang up, followed by another of crossed bars, and in the distance a coarse rope swinging ... Hisham’s heart was thumping so hard it seemed about to burst from his chest.