“Detective, thank God you managed to get away!”
The distance gaped between him and Azza. He glanced behind him, only to find her staring accusingly at him.
“You’re working with him?” she hissed.
“This is Detective Nasser! He knows everything …”
She retreated further. “I saw your father’s grave in Madrid. He traveled to all those countries looking for that key. He was probably the one who led me there so I could help you discover who you are — and now I find out you’re working with this guy?” Her voice had the fury of a person betrayed.
“Azza, listen—” Nasser stepped forward, into the space between them. “Wait, that’s not Azza!” he exclaimed in disbelief.
Azza was already moving back toward the hotel entrance.
“Hold it, where are you going?”
“There’s something I have to sort out,” she muttered to herself; they could barely make out what she said.
“There’s no one called Azza,” said Nasser desperately. “She was invented by Aisha the cripple! Aisha’s dreamt us all up …” Yusuf wanted to follow Azza, but Nasser stood in his way. He watched her retreat out of the corner of his eye. Was that a faint limp? Could it be the Aisha he’d always hated?”
The second the abaya vanished inside the hotel, Yusuf felt the same tearing of flesh from flesh he felt when they pulled him away from the Kaaba and ripped the key out of the lock. The same violent separation. He was in a trance, and when he felt the blow to his stomach he was unprepared, struggling uselessly to break free of his attacker and reach the door that had swallowed Azza, any door …
Click
THE ELEVATOR TOOK AGES TO REACH ITS DESTINATION. ONE CORNER OF HER HEAD was shouting, “Get to the door. Get out. Out!” But the other three were pushing her toward the other door, past the single purple orchid that reminded her of her mother’s dress stuffed into the window that had been nailed shut and of Aisha’s murmur in her ear:
The first time we were alone together you asked me, “Who is the man who’s touching you now? Who’s the one who makes you feel? Who brings you to life?”
I am black,
My eyes are black,
My hair is black,
My heart is black,
My blood is black. Does blackness come from too much touching?
Or from never being touched?
She opened the door to the suite slowly and walked in, coming face to face with him immediately. The only thing separating them was the wild purple of the orchid, and the brilliant green of those words:
Azza isn’t even a tree. She’s like a kind of indestructible grass: drown her, scorch her, stamp on her, freeze her with frost. She’ll grow again the next day like new.
A click: she felt it deep in her spine, like the sudden flowing feeling after a tooth’s been pulled out. Had the door clicked shut or had she snapped?
Lighter
AMIDST THE EXPECTANT SILENCE THAT LAY OVER THE INTERCONTINENTAL Hotel, Khalid al-Sibaykhan’s assistant stood in a room at the end of a corridor, feeling utterly lost. He tossed the envelope he’d received from al-Sibaykhan onto the bed, the bank transfer receipt still inside it. So many zeros his eyes got lost and his heart skipped a beat as he skimmed to the end of the figure, while al-Sibaykhan watched him mockingly, expecting him to cry. Yes, it was all tragic and overblown, but he was much too dry on the inside to wring tears from the veins beneath his skin.
Those zeros were beyond his wildest dreams. Not just that; there were also the promotions that would see him reach the highest ranks possible in the field of criminal investigation. With al-Sibaykhan, life was all elevators, and steel and glass structures soaring into the skies. Life was nothing but endless zeros — everyone recognized al-Sibaykhan’s zero-shaped logo — to the extent that you couldn’t even keep up with your account balances. Al-Sibaykhan’s word was an axis for the whole world to collapse and revolve around; he himself had spent his life revolving …
He opened his wardrobe and took out the huge Samsonite case. He opened it and felt about inside to be certain all the papers, which he’d virtually memorized, were still hidden inside, then closed it and left the hotel, his shoulders slumped. Even the exhaustion that had overcome him after the events of the past week was nothing in comparison to the rotten taste rising in his throat. A rat had chosen to burrow a hole into his body and die there. He took a deep breath, afraid of contaminating the air and disturbing the people around, or infecting them too with his rat.
The gleaming white Land Rover’s brakes squealed as it exited the hotel parking lot under watchful eyes. He drove aimlessly, leaving the city and its mosque behind him. He pulled over at the edge of the road north of the city, got out, and stood by the passenger door, at a loss. Then he got the case out, and, with trembling lover’s fingers, took out the blue file, and squatted down by the back wheel of the car. His body shrank as he reached into the file: there, inside, was the essence of his beating heart, the snakelike rollercoaster that lifted him up and twisted him round and whirled him three hundred and sixty degrees only to return him to the point where he’d begun and to the first woman whom he’d wrapped, whose words he’d wrapped, around his neck like a collar before jumping into the void. Siren Man shook at the first touch after a long separation.
“My God, woman …” he moaned, crushing his head against the hot metal of the car. Why didn’t I burn you before, like I was told to? Why did I dare disobey al-Sibaykhan for you when he ordered me to destroy all your emails? Why are we too weak to change our nature? I’m a coward and a traitor to my very last drop of blood, and I’ll die that way. In the end, you led me to confront myself, to confront two choices: run away with you, or pursue Yusuf … And I chose the bank account! Why was I too weak to put up a decent fight against my own emptiness? Why was I too weak to be a better man, Aisha?” Her name rent his chest like the howl of a lost wolf.
“Aisha, only your hands can make me come.” With the flame of his lighter, he set the first email alight, as tears dripped to the scorching sand. Detective Nasser al-Qahtani let himself cry freely, and Siren Man sobbed as the papers, one by one, were consumed by flames.
About the Author
RAJA ALEM IS the award-winning author of ten novels as well as numerous plays, short stories, and essays. In 2011 she became the first woman to win the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, for The Dove’s Necklace. In 2014 the book won the LiBerator Prize for the best book translated into German. Her work has been published in seven languages. She is a member of PEN International. Together with her sister, artist Shadia Alem, she established an Educational and Creative Center to promote creativity and provide books for the girls of Mecca. She was born in Mecca and currently lives in Paris.