In her head the clock was still showing twelve, the time of takeoff. She felt like the airplane was propelling time before it, pushing that first split second of twelve o’clock forward, leaving open-ended time behind it. On the screen in front of her a diagram showed the direction of the qibla: a miniature airplane linked by a black thread to a miniature black cube representing the Kaaba. She watched the airplane in front of her plow westward, pulling the thread to the black cube tighter and tighter. The airplane tugged and the cube tugged back, until she felt the thread snap and the cube tumbled backward into the void while the airplane shot forward toward its destination.
Vibration
HE OPENED HIS EYES. IT WAS MORNING. SOMEONE HAD PAINTED THE AUTUMN morning bright yellow, and the hot sandstorm wind was blowing, howling across Mecca’s mountains and its high-rise buildings, the migrant laborers’ bitterness seeping out of the fissures in those haphazard, cheaply finished tower blocks. Nasser knew it was the season of palm tree pollination, and the sandy wind made him wonder: are there any palm trees left in Mecca to be pollinated? This was the land that Abraham had made sacred, forbidding that any trees be cut down here or any animals be hunted. All these transformations that were taking place now, did they not deserve God’s curses, and those of the angels and mankind, too?
He started his car and headed over to Mu’az’s studio. He didn’t bother to look to his right or his left. He’d stopped double-guessing and double-checking all the details now.
“Do you have a photo of Azza?” he asked without any preliminaries. It surprised them both.
“Of course not!”
Nasser drove to the Lane of Many Heads for a final visit. When he got there, he hardly recognized the place. Nearly everyone had left and the cafe was the only building still standing. The Sudanese cashier explained to him what had happened:
“The neighborhood didn’t fall silent all at once. The houses were knocked down gradually, one at a time, like teeth falling out. Last week, the last of the residents received notices that they had to move out within a month.”
“What about you?” Nasser fought to keep his guilty feelings at bay. Had that fatal melancholy he’d let out of the morgue begun to slowly spread through Mecca?
“So long as the cafe’s still standing, I’ll be here. It might take a while. The whole neighborhood got rich overnight. They took their compensation money and got out of Mecca.”
“Even Imam Dawoud?”
“He’s lodging with the Imam of al-Malah mosque until they find him another mosque to serve.” Nasser felt like someone had pulled the entire scene out from under his feet, leaving him suspended in a void. The neighborhood had emptied out right under his nose. Maybe the next time he came looking for it, he’d find a big hole instead.
“What about Yusuf’s mother? Where did she go?”
“She came by and told me she was going to stay with Haniya, right after Sheikh Muzahim went to live with his relatives in Ta’if. She left a note for Yusuf in case he came looking for her.”
“Did Yusuf come by to get it? Can I see it?”
No, I can’t give it to you, but she did leave another copy. She said she tied it to her window on the roof.”
Nasser ran over to Sheikh Muzahim’s abandoned house and up the crumbling stairs to where Halima had her room on the rooftop. It was the first time he’d seen the place devoid of Halima’s sunny presence. The window of her bedroom, which looked out over the roof, was directly in front of him. Her prayer shawl was tied to the bars of the window and at one end of it there was a knot in which she’d tucked her note. He undid it and began to read:
Yusuf, I didn’t go to the home. You were right. May God give me the blessing of faith as death draws near, and surround me with people. Tala helped me write this note for you. God bless her. She gave me her time even though she’s really got to study hard to get good grades so she can get a scholarship to study abroad. Life here isn’t the same as in the Lane of Many Heads. Tala writes stories like you. She’s only seventeen and I tell her to dream. I tell her that every girl should write her dreams. Otherwise they’ll just pass her by, or get ground into the dust and chaff …
Tala was the one who suggested I could come live here with her grandmother Haniya. Haniya’s a joy to be around. She loves life and she can get drunk on a single grape. She welcomed me with open arms. When I lived with them, it was the first time I’d ever seen a house without a man, except for their Indonesian driver. She has two unmarried daughters who have no children. They have jobs like you: all papers and trips abroad. I thought that maybe if you traveled, you’d find the world you were looking for. And don’t worry about me, Yusuf. I’ve been to Jeddah and seen the world! Haniya takes me to the seaside every Friday. We eat chili chickpeas and ice cream from snack vans. People put up windbreakers and spend their whole vacations by the sea. They fly plastic kites and pay a little money for pony rides. They swim until sunset and then they pray right on the salty sand. We go to the Pyramid department store, too. The whole world’s there buying their clothes, and everything’s five riyals. No one goes without. Life here is easy. We only knew it was pilgrimage season because she took me for meningitis and flu jabs yesterday. So, your mother is doing just fine. When you settle down, give your address to the Sudanese cashier. Haniya’s going to send her driver once a month to check. You can call me on 0559722147.
I leave you in God’s hands for He never neglects His charges. Please, don’t undo the small knot at the end of the prayer shawl. I made a vow that if you made it back safe, I’d give away coffee and almond sweets.
Nasser could feel time catching up with him. He’d lost the nickname Siren Man since he’d stopped coming to the neighborhood in his official Land Rover and now came in plainclothes in his own Infiniti instead. As he walked back through the neighborhood that night, examining the crumbling houses, searching for what had passed him by in that plotline he’d now exited, a dog came running up to him. It was a Saluki, but bred in some poor neighborhood so it had lost its distinguishing features. It still looked beautiful to Nasser, though, with its long neck and cropped tail. When it got close to Nasser, it halted and began to sniff the air. He’d never usually stop to pet a stray, but this dog charmed him somehow, so he followed after it as the dog led him past various abandoned houses in the Lane of Many Heads. He saw houses that had fallen off the human map. They’d been abandoned by their owners and then squatted in by undocumented workers, who hid out there until they were to be torn down.
It may have been a coincidence, but the dog led him over to the building known as the Arab League, which the court had awarded to al-Labban’s four sons, ordering the eviction of seven families, including their sister, Umm al-Sa’d, and her husband, al-Ashi. The sons had bribed judges and psychiatrists to get their late father ruled as not having been of sound mind when he’d drawn up the deeds, thereby invalidating them. As for the basement, they’d pretended not to notice that the Turkish seamstress was still there. He could see the broken collection box still hanging on one collapsed door. Nasser stopped to watch if anything was going on. Although there was hardly any movement around the basement at all, one or two women did go in then came out again after about an hour. Nasser was waiting for a sign.