But no one opened the door.
No car came quietly to a halt outside the building.
No voice called from a strange number to tell her he was all right.
Nothing at all, save the longing that gnawed at her limbs and filled her nights with loneliness.
— 47 —
IT WASN’T JUST THAT Tarfah sensed the cooling of her relationship with Fahd; lying on her bed at night and examining her life her intuition would bother her. She began to lose hope of ever seeing Fahd without having to beg him. What was at first a mere impression had become undeniable fact, had become a sort of pleading on her part. There was some mystery she didn’t understand. Why was he avoiding her? When she spoke with him he seemed almost tearful with longing for her.
There was a mystery in their relationship that Fahd barely understood himself. He wanted to meet her, to hold her, to sear her mouth with kisses, but he kept going to the bathroom to wash his mouth out, gargling and spitting, sniffing the air almost, as if his very breath smelt foul. It got so bad that when she dragged him down there he almost vomited. How many times had he lingered in the bathroom dousing himself with blisteringly hot water, watching the steam rise up as he scrubbed away?
That evening his directness surprised her, and maybe himself as welclass="underline" ‘Will I see you today?’
She didn’t moan lasciviously, but, coquettish and sly, replied that he should give her an hour to see how she felt. Then, because she had already made up her mind to agree, she became impatient.
On his way over to see her he was eager and full of longing. He was listening to MBC FM and the voice of Abdel Majeed Abdullah streamed sweetly out. As soon as he got close he asked her where he should pick her up.
‘Entrance Three,’ she said.
‘Facing the schools, right?’ he asked to make sure. ‘The one opposite Nada Alley?’
He called again to tell her to come outside and she took him by surprise, swaying slowly over. Arrogantly, he thought.
She got in beside him, in one hand the olive green handbag embroidered with knights holding lances and arrows and in the other a plastic bag whose shop logo he couldn’t make out. She said that she had been going to call him but he had surprised her by stopping the car outside the entrance. There were no shoppers about, just a pair of security guards lighting their cigarettes.
‘It’s evening prayers,’ she said to him. ‘That’s why no one’s outside the entrance.’
They drove along together.
He asked if they should take a hotel room or a flat, or hide out in one of the unlit building lots since it was nearly nine and there wasn’t enough time to settle down for a long session.
‘Don’t mind,’ she said. ‘You decide.’
They drove north, searching for a building plot. They passed the first unlit dirt road. She uncovered her face and he kissed her quickly. They decided to look for a flat. She suggested they head over to Fahd Crown Hotel on the airport highway and he explained that there wasn’t enough time to enjoy a place like that. They ran through the names of furnished flats they had visited and settled on a new flat in Nuzha that they hadn’t used before.
He parked the car, consumed by the worry that Tarfah would search through his things. He always did his best to stop outside the entrance to the flats so he could see her body move if she bent down to have a rummage.
The reception area was spacious and luxurious but no one was there. The door to a side room was ajar and he knocked gently, calling out, ‘Friend?’
An Indian emerged. From his broken Arabic it was clear he was a recent arrival to the country. He rapped out the usual question—‘Family section?’—then picked up the key and Fahd followed him to the second floor. The corridor was clad in expensive marble and the doors on either side gave the impression that the flats within were clean and respectable.
His first impression on opening the door to flat 18 was that it looked like a room in a highway motel. He looked at the bedspread, worn through from repeated washing. In view of the time, which was flying through their fingers, he decided to take the flat and handed over a photocopy of their forged marriage contract and one hundred riyals to an Egyptian employee who had arrived that moment. Tarfah was sitting in the car. He signalled to her that she should come over but she didn’t move. He phoned her and asked her to get out.
Taking the key he walked ahead of her to the lift and when the door slid shut she threw herself into his arms. He told her the place was run down and filthy but searching for another and wasting time wasn’t an option. Her heart fluttered as did her delectable breasts, a photo of which she had sent to him on the phone that morning, showing two currants, pricked up behind the pink stretch top that pressed against them.
This is me just woken up … she had written. Fresh as a daisy!
He had spent half an hour enlarging the area over her breasts in an attempt to read the printed English slogan: Let’s dance the Hula-hula!
He opened the door and shut it quickly behind them. The flat was pitch black. He tried turning on the lights but without success, flicking the switch by the door, in the bathroom and the bedroom, even the button for the air-conditioner. It was no use.
‘Lock the door,’ she said. ‘I’ll light the candle I brought last time.’
They needed the air conditioner, he said, and lifting the receiver dialled reception. The Egyptian answered. ‘Look on your left, sir. Flip the big switch.’
He opened the grey fuse-box and pressed the large rocker. Everything in the flat lit up. He slid home the bolt on the front door and she rushed into the bedroom. Taking off his shoes, his socks and his shimagh he went into the bathroom for a short while and when he came out found her doing herself up in front of the mirror on the dressing table, lightly spraying perfume over breasts that quivered beneath the perforated black satin.
He hugged her hard and squeezed her sinuous hips. She kissed him and he let his hands creep over her. Besieged by fear of failure he attempted to arouse himself.
Her moans grew louder and she pulled him towards the bed, but he was slack and limp and he turned on to his back beside her, staring at the ceiling. She rolled on to him, laughing, doing her best to make the moment light-hearted, but she couldn’t erase the fact that she was handling a flaccid piece of meat. She sat on the edge of the bed and heard him say, ‘The place is disgusting!’ then, ‘The filth in here makes me feel sick!’ as though searching for something to excuse his failure.
He noticed that her back was half-naked and shivering and her head, with its exceptionally soft, exceptionally black hair was trembling violently. He tried to comfort her and stroked her back but she went over to the dressing table as though she were drugged, picked up her head covering and spread it over the dirty pillow. She laid his head back upon it and said, ‘Relax!’ then added with a strained smile, ‘Don’t let it bother you. Everything will get back to how it was, and better.’