Mu’az made up his mind as he was standing there. He approached the glass exterior of the gallery and pressed his face up against the glass. He focused with his every layer of seeing — perception, interpretation, dissection, composition — on the very final painting, the last in the exhibition. He focused on the absent figure in it, on the pool of light, which was the absent figure’s remains, a fog of breath, gradually allowing the handfuls of absence to cloud his eyes. His eyes wide and tearful, his sight was extinguished; the last thing he saw was the dripping lines of longing left behind by the figure who had disappeared in front of him, flowing into the city, and submerging the image of her in his mind, flooding his systems, which came together in the completion of the picture. The pupils of his wide eyes turned completely white. Surely that was the color of Adam’s eyes, from whom he’d inherited the pain of leaving Eden, and the color of Jacob’s eyes, from whom he’d inherited the pain of losing Yusuf.
When he turned to look back at the city and all he could see was a spot of light dancing over the blood fountains in his eyelids, he knew he’d gone blind. Within the blackness that had taken root inside Mu’az, shadows, memories, and reality were all rolled into one. He recognized two faces in there somehow: the face of the Turkish woman’s eunuch, who was sexy even to men when dressed up as a woman, and Azza’s face as she’d appeared to Yusuf, the summation of everything gathered together in the Lane of Many Heads, a mirror, a face that stood for Mecca itself. Mu’az shut his blind eyes against the mirror, squeezed them; he could hear the glass shatter. All he could think about was telling someone what he’d seen. He took out his cell phone and dialed the number he’d been warned never to call unless it was an emergency.
“Listen. This is Mu’az. I have something important to tell you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Azza’s Aisha.”
“……”
Silence. Mu’az repeated himself. “Azza’s still Aisha.” Hearing his own words, he understood the problem. He was saying the word Aisha, which meant alive, but it was the same word as the name. So he rephrased: “Azza’s still living, Yusuf. She’s not dead. She’s alive. She’s with Long Belt, Khalid al-Sibaykhan.”
He licked the salt spray off his lips thirstily and got ready to head back, but there was no Lane of Many Heads left and the Kaaba was surrounded by barricades. He thought of going back to his father, wherever he was. For the first time in months, he found himself missing the sardine rows his father used to pack them into to sleep after night prayers. When he considered the blackness behind him, and in front of him, and on either side, and above, and below, the thought of how far he’d traveled away from that sardine can frightened him. He desperately needed those blind recitations, which his father forbade. Going to bed after performing the night prayers together and being up for dawn prayers in the mosque. None of the Imam’s children dared miss either of those two appointments. Dusk was when the demons spread through the world and dawn was when the angels appeared. His journey stretched before him between those two appointments.
Blue
THE WHOLE TIME SHE WAS IN JEDDAH, NORA HAD THE TOP FLOOR OF THE SEAFRONT tower he owned all to herself. All she wanted was to forget about what she’d been through in the desert. She’d been alone with the sheikh on the flight back, but the sullen look on his face told her never to mention what had happened with Bundug.
She had no idea what had gotten into her that day to make her want to cross his clear red lines, but in the end she decided to shove open the glass door that led to his office, which had always been off-limits to her. Once she was inside, she had no idea what to do, though. She plopped herself down onto a chair in front of the desk and sat there, bewildered, like a pathetic little auditor who was out of her depth. As she aimlessly admired the expensive antiques dotted around the place, a box suddenly caught her eye. Perhaps it was the contrast of the rough box to the luster of everything else that drew her attention.
Her curiosity was piqued. She pulled the box toward her and tipped it upward, peeking inside. In the midst of a stack of papers, damp and charcoal-smeared, she spied a blue folder bearing the label AISHA’S EMAILS, standing up against the side of the box. Blood rushed to her head and without thinking she grabbed some of the contents of the folder and ran back to her room. She stuffed them under her mattress and sat down on the bed in the dim light, trying to steady her heartbeat.
That night her sleep was interrupted by the stolen words, shifting and pulsing beneath her bed, enveloping her in their nightmares.
“What’s this gloom? Is this a funeral?” The phrase broke through her shallow sleep. He barged in like a storm, and she leapt up in bed. He pulled the curtains back, allowing the sun to reach her bed, as she spread her arms over the bed as if to protect it. She could tell he was drained from the dark circles around his eyes, and when he examined her, the signs of sleeplessness in the disturbed bedding around her didn’t escape him either. “Get the hot tub ready,” was his order to her assistant and to his own on the phone he said, “Make sure to burn everything. Don’t miss a scrap. I want it over and done with.” When he hung up the phone, he turned to Nora. “We both need to wake up.” Nora was frozen in place, terrified. Had he discovered the missing papers? He stared at her. “Or do you prefer trying to wake up while you’re still in bed?” he asked her sarcastically. She let out a deep sigh and smiled devilishly. His cell phone rang, interrupting them. “Lord let this be mercy not torture!” He jumped onto the bed as soon as his phone call was over. “I hate missing out on these sweet, lazy moments with you, but there’s nothing I can do about it. An empire of demands awaits. Though I do prefer you when you’re this starved lioness.”
It was ten in the evening by the time he put on his embroidered cloak, careful not to disturb the wave in his brilliant headscarf. He left her, swimming in the scent of his agarwood perfume. She knew from the extreme care he’d taken with his appearance that she had several hours, perhaps days, to herself before he’d be back. She locked her bedroom door and took out the few papers she’d managed to nab from the folder. She inhaled the damp smell, with the faintest hint of pine, and ran her eyes over the page.
FROM: Aisha
SUBJECT: Message 48
Dear ^,
You read all my charts: the CT scans, MRIs, ultrasounds, my medication schedule.
So tell me: is there any part of me that’s still alive? Worthy of surprise, of another step toward life?
I think maybe I’ll gather that all up into an amulet and put it around Azza’s neck if she comes to bid me farewell.
I’ll let you in on a secret:
Am I her reflection?
Should I let you in on one last, final secret?
Me Aisha, I’m the one who’s always been ready to walk away from this world and everything in its packaging. Everything the world gives us comes in packages, which we then open so we can absorb life from them. If it weren’t for you, I’d have taken those unopened packages to the grave with me. I discovered that I barely touch my perfume bottles, never turn on a new device, never dare cut up an entire cake; that I squeeze every last drop out of my toothpaste, carefully skim the surface of my lotions and lipsticks, never scrape out my eye shadow or sharpen my eyeliner, my new clothes yellow where they lay folded in a suitcase at the top of my wardrobe. I pass over things as if not passing over them at all. Only lightly touching the surface of things, never reaching their core or even denting them (just like my hymen). I haven’t had a haircut since I was born. It just creeps down my back. I was planning to hand it all back over to the angels on Judgment Day, to be bare once again like I was on the day I received it, the day I was born. If it hadn’t been for you, my can opener. You were the one who bothered to cut my hair one Sunday as we sat beneath a breathtaking willow tree. The tree made a palace just for us, shielding us with its branches. You surprised me by undoing my braid and wetting my hair with a splash of Evian. You layered my hair like cascades on either side, which shimmered with every nod or laugh. I was so graceful with that hairstyle.