Khalil stared at Mu’az for a long while, irritated by his idle chattering. He was looking for his point of attack and then he said, “Is Azza with him?”
The accusation riled Halima. “God protect us from your devilry, Khalil. Don’t go making trouble. And keep us out of your twisted obsessions.” Halima turned to look at Mu’az. She wanted to get into his head to know the truth. Why hadn’t it occurred to her?
Mu’az broke through the apprehension that had settled over the three of them. “Apparently the princess is still lying there in a sandalwood coffin at the top of the citadel. People say she still winks and braids her hair with camphor and rose perfume.”
“Camphor makes you infertile,” Halima interjected.
“No, camphor comes from one of the springs in paradise. And the princess is still waiting for the Turkish pasha who locked her up in there until he could defeat her father the Sharif of Mecca.”
“Mankind has had free will ever since it was a speck of cells on our ancestor Adam’s back. You can go look for what you want in the citadels of the Turks, developers’ high-rises, dovecotes, wherever,” said Halima, making Khalil wonder whether she was hinting at what he’d gotten up to in the Turkish seamstress’s basement. “But it’s pointless vanity,” she continued. “All Eve’s daughters are the same in the end. Deep by night and sweet by day. As for the ones in coffins, God knows best.”
Khalil looked back and shot Mu’az a disdainful look. “You still digging up graves? Huh? Has your camera flash got any bones to fess up to yet?” He was trying his hardest to irritate him.
Mu’az was defiant. “They told me that human waste has been piling up and that it attracts crows. They said we’ve become the biggest crow colony on earth.”
Halima cut through the tension between the two men. “That detective’s getting more and more suspicious. He’s chasing down every single thing in the neighborhood, his own shadow even. You two know he’s been asking about you both.” As soon as she said that, she regretted it. She felt sorry for Khalil and she didn’t want to give him something else to worry about. He was gloomy enough as it was! She couldn’t imagine either one of them being involved with the body in any way. She was quick to add, as if to apologize, “Never mind the Seven Wonders of the World, these days there are two thousand and seven! There’s a murder on every TV screen — and all for entertainment. Men stay up all night in cafes, smoking shisha, to watch that stuff.”
The look of worry in Khalil’s eyes only intensified. Everywhere he turned, the phrase “He’s been asking about you both” followed. The cab was filled with a glum silence as they each followed the course of their own private apprehensions. The night outside the window was less heavy. Mu’az thought about the meanings pregnant with meanings that lay behind words. They felt like thick honey on his lips.
Khalil took them up Hafayir Hill in silence. He felt as empty on the inside as the top of Mount Omar to his right, which had been shorn of all its houses and leveled. Thoughts ate at his black insides, which were exposed to the elements. He saw the neon yellow bulldozers that were parked, waiting for morning, waiting for flying saucers to land atop the spacescrapers.
“God help me. Not a day passes without another mountain in Mecca disappearing. Where are the houses at the top of Mount Omar that we’ve always known?”
“Their misery was wiped out in the name of progress! The land they used to occupy is called Ground Billion now. They’re planning to build the tallest buildings in the world on Mecca’s mountaintops.”
“Taller than the minarets of the Holy Mosque?”
Mu’az saw Mecca through Halima’s eyes. “The development here is out of this world, Auntie. They’re pouring billions into it every day. The massive corporations are like their own world order. They don’t answer to the laws of any one country. The last deal they signed was with Elaf Holdings for three billion dollars to develop one mountain here and another one in a different area. Not even Manhattan’s like this! The Valley of Abraham is lit up like a Christmas tree. I swear if the Many Heads went out for a stroll in Mecca, they’d think they’d been resurrected in New York City.”
“God help us. Why are they trying to make the holiest city into George W. Bush Land? Turn here.”
Khalil veered right toward al-Misfala and Abraham the Friend of God Avenue, in the direction of the royal palace. “That’s globalization for you,” he said sarcastically. “I’ve got a pilot’s license from America, Auntie. But I married into a sewage cleaner’s family, I’m tied down to a convent full of old women and I drive around all day in a taxi. My only hope is in the private airlines, Sama, Ama, and Nas. But they’re not hiring. May God let us die believers!” Khalil sped up as he veered left toward the tunnel that led to Ajyad.
Mu’az thought that if he took a shot of Khalil the pilot’s head it would come out all blown up. Khalil still felt he was too big for the neighborhood. He’d decided that the skill required to switch on a commercial airplane’s computer system was greater than all the locals’ brainpower put together. Khalil was weighed down by his frighteningly heavy technical know-how in a neighborhood of illiterates who had no interest in books and no idea about the power of neutrons and atoms. And they all called Khalil “The Cabbie.” You can pound the earth and pierce the sky, but you’re still a cabbie.
“So who’s singing at the wedding tonight? Discovery? Or Qamari al-Hafayir?”
His question took Halima by surprise. He was trying to drive the phantoms from his mind.
“Tonight’s the crème de la crème! It’s at the Scepter Hotel, at the top of the towers. It’s the wedding of Sheikh al-Sibaykhan’s secretary.”
“That Sheikh al-Sibaykhan is chairman of the board of Elaf Holdings, which owns three-quarters of Mecca. It has investments everywhere, like an octopus, and the right to requisition private property within belts one and two in the perimeter of the Holy Mosque in the name of development.” When Mu’az heard the name Sheikh al-Sibaykhan, he knew his decision to come was the right one.
“They’ve brought the singer Ahlam and her band all the way from Bahrain for the occasion!”
“And why do you think they requested an old-fashioned tea-lady like you, Auntie?”
“Nothing looks prettier than when you mix the local and the exotic! Your Auntie Halima ties it all together, boys. Among all those chefs and waiters from the eight-star hotel, I’ll be the local color.”
Khalil pulled up in front of the entrance to the hotel at the Baraka Tower. Halima stepped out of the cab and walked toward the entrance, her abaya open over the peacock-like outfit they’d had made for her. Mu’az followed her. She breathed in before stepping into the elevator, to allow the attendant in his red and white uniform who pressed the button to share the confined space as they ascended. Mu’az noticed how little attention the attendant actually paid them. The golden walls inside the elevator stripped Khalil’s bitterness off his face, and the golden glow of life returned to his dark cheeks. He was keenly aware that they were on their way to a place that people like him never got to see, not even in the afterlife. Suite after suite overlooking the masses praying in the courtyard of the Haram Mosque. The prices ranged from fifteen million to fifty to a hundred.