Sarab Page 6

  “Watch out!” The dark hand grabbed hers, and her fingers cracked inside the iron fist. “Don’t you realize what you’re doing? You’re gumming up the tape!” She looked down, and was horrified at the sight of glue spreading to the insides of the cassette. She didn’t say a word. She bent over, snatched her bag of shame from the ground, and disappeared under the young man’s glazed eyes.

  She retreated like a hunted animal, wondering whether she had ruined the tapes on purpose to silence the mill grinding out its threat of Hell. Sarab wandered to her room, feeling the soaked rag weighing it down like a mountain of sin, twice as heavy now because of the wickedness that had made her gum up the tapes. Guilt prodded her to return to the room and finish her task submissively, but she was deterred by something she couldn’t explain. She began to wander through the courtyard, aware of the enormous compass inside that room, with its ability to break out and swallow up the world she knew. She resorted to hiding under her blanket, sinking into her corner in the wall.

  Soon the courtyard was swept by a new wave of cassettes entitled “Demons Find Their Ideal Dwelling Place within Women.”

  “Thanks be to God, I’ve been saved from being female,” Sarab sighed, congratulating herself on her disguise. She was deeply attached to the white male clothing that draped her with superiority, exonerating her from any hint of femininity.

  But the problem of the bloody rag remained unsolved because, while she was waiting for the washed rag to dry, the second rag got the better of her and was saturated with blood, threatening to compromise Sarab and tip her into the ranks of the hellish female sex.

  During her next period, she hit upon a brilliant idea. She began to cover the rag in plastic to stop excess blood from leaking onto her clothes. But it wasn’t long before the rustling sound and the touch of the bloodied plastic between her thighs drove her mad with every footstep. So, in another burst of ingenuity, she added paper padding over the plastic layer, which made it more absorbent and lessened the slipping sensation. Paper was available in abundance, and was easy to dispose of by putting it in one of the many plastic bags around and tossing it into the rubbish.

  Absorbed by these petty daily torments, Sarab was oblivious to the rising tide around her, a current of arrogant hatred circulating among Mujan’s inner circle—especially her brother.

  *

  Human weakness was another factor that shielded Sarab from the development of hatred in her brother’s heart.

  One morning, the two leaders accompanied their followers on a sudden journey to the desert outside Medina. The convoy of Land Rovers forged deep into the desert, leaving all traces of the city far behind them. Sarab found herself in a Land Rover with Sayf and the two leaders, and couldn’t believe her luck.

  The refreshing morning breeze brushed their faces and threw back their head coverings, making their long hair fly out jubilantly. They looked like a gang of young men out for some fun.

  Responding to the temptation of the men’s released hair, and for the first time in months, Sarab allowed her head covering to slip to her shoulders, uncovering her long braids. At once, Muhammad’s eye was caught by that shining braid, so like a woman’s hair, and he stared at it for a while. Everyone else had curly hair that snaked to their shoulders, but Sarab’s hair was different: it was soft, and had a luminous tinge.

  Sarab noticed the men’s astonished glances, and Sayf’s glare that would have liked to turn her into stone for her boldness. But she didn’t care; the morning breeze had goaded her to rebellion and she succumbed to the high spirits that had stormed her being and threatened to launch her out of the hurtling car. She had never felt such happiness as she surrendered to the rapture of the morning and the wind and the rush into the unknown, far from captivity inside the house that was her only defense, and that she had only imagined leaving to go to her grave. Once inside, she hadn’t dared to cross the doorstep again for fear that the river of demons outside might sweep her away. But now she was outside, pushing deep into the hidden heart of things, protected by the presence of the two untouchable leaders.

  Finally the convoy reached a military camp that had sprung out of the huge dunes; it seemed to have been waiting for them.

  “Allah, Allah, Allah . . .” Mujan’s voice shook with childish glee at seeing the well-appointed camp. “God bless our loyal followers in the National Guard who conquered this camp to invite us here.” In the heart of the huge and austere void, the camp welcomed them with every facility for civilized living, including powerful generators, cisterns, running water, and air conditioning that blew cool air through the camp like a breeze from a heavenly oasis.

  An officer of the National Guard quickly emerged from the central tent, welcoming them with visible reverence.

  “God’s greetings, dear Sheikh Mujan. It is an honor to welcome you and your jamaa to our humble camp.”

  “May God bless you, brother, and may He further the trust between us.”

  “All our hope rests in you, Sheikh.”

  “May it please God.” They embraced warmly.

  “Please, extend our thanks to our brothers and supporters in the Guard, and confirm that their service will be a boon to us as long as we live. May God reward you all handsomely.” The officer went on to greet each individual warmly, placing rapid kisses on the foreheads of Mujan and Muhammad, and on the cheeks of the other members of the jamaa. He led Mujan to a canopy in the middle of the camp, where the ground seemed to swallow them from view. They had gone through a door in the ground of the camp that led to an underground bunker. No sooner had Mujan entered the bunker than he was struck dumb by the quantity of supplies piled up there.

  “This is all at your disposal, Sheikh Mujan,” the officer said. “Your loyal supporters smuggled everything they could for months, and the supervisors at the National Guard’s supply warehouses didn’t even notice.”

  Sarab relaxed on the dune, surrendering to the heat of the sand beneath her and the coolness of the shadow descending over the desert. Her senses were entranced by the thrilling contrast between cold and heat, between the opening up of space and the obscuring of it, and by the spasm that had peeled her away from the stagnation of the courtyard where she had been confined for months. A young man from the Guard passed by and lit the campfire a few steps from where she lay. At once the smell of firewood wafted toward her and she was encircled by the searing heat of the invigorating flames. She buried her body deeper into the tranquility of the sand, and was suddenly ravenous, with both a physical and spiritual hunger, for life. Driven by the ambiguity of this mysterious new craving, she plunged into the smell of barbecue; the freshly slaughtered animal’s blood was clotting in a small pond behind the camp. The scent of burning meat called forth a beast hidden in the heart of the desert, and in her own heart. An irresistible appetite for blood and escape was pumping through her veins, giving her face a seductive glow. Spontaneously, her fingers unfastened the buttons of her male garment and she allowed the night’s coolness to flow like the holy spring of Salsabil over her throat and her breasts, thwarted and frustrated from the endless disputes and evocations of Hell that had surrounded her for months.

  From where she lazed, she could see a sudden transformation come over the leaders. Like snakes shedding their scales to reveal a succulent new skin, the two leaders shed their armor. She was struck by the smile that split Muhammad’s features like a lightning flash, and her heart was crammed into her throat. Muhammad’s smile was answered by Mujan’s and, like an infection, smiles ran freely over the stern faces around them. Everything in the camp suddenly softened and freshened, and the two leaders exchanged jokes with their followers.

  “We’ll have to hide you, Sarab—our enemies won’t take us seriously when they see our fighters have such attractive braids.” Muhammad sprang this praise on Sarab as he approached to stoke the fire. He had turned his back to her so she couldn’t tell whether he was joking or serious; had he discovered her identity? But calling the jamaa’s members �
��fighters” made the comment even more peculiar. As he knelt by the fire, the rising flames drew her attention to his handsome face. Sarab’s heart stopped for a moment, and the heat of the blood rushing to her face rivaled the heat of the fire. On his knees, illuminated by the fire, he turned and stared into her face. She was confused; he was like an angel or a mythical bird flashing from the flames, and her distress was increased by his ambiguous smile. A tremor in his depths was reaching her through the distance that separated them. Without further comment he chose a piece of the lamb shoulder and threw it gracefully onto an empty plate. Sarab choked with tears; she felt like a beggar desperately entreating more of that human contact. The pain of that need goaded her until she had to escape her weakness. She moved off like a dog with its tail between its legs and sat at the foot of a sand dune, chewing on meat salted with tears. She couldn’t stop thinking that Muhammad bin Abdullah was the first person to notice her, or to offer her something other than criticism and indifference.

  At dawn the following day the 4x4s appeared, carrying three officers from the National Guard. A halo of authority surrounded them as they prepared to train the group to use the weapons that were stored underground. The awestruck men lined up under the critical eyes of the officers, who scrutinized their fitness for duty and proceeded to assess their latent capabilities as fighters. The weapons were brought out of the cache and an officer began to distribute them according to the possibility they saw in each man. They asked her brother Sayf to try the M240 sniper rifle.

  “You’re skinny, and light as a feather.” The officer regarded Sarab with a keen eye, and sweat broke out at the back of her neck and traveled down her spine. “A heavy weapon like this will fling you through the air with one shot,” he said, as he followed her gaze, which was hovering longingly on the automatic rifles beside Muhammad bin Abdullah.

  Without hesitation, Muhammad handed her an M60 machine gun, although he directed his words to the training officer. “Our grandfathers were as skinny and light as bolts of lightning; they also killed like bolts of lightning,” he said, oozing authority that curtailed the officer’s searching, sardonic glance at Sarab, and he handed Sarab an automatic weapon.

  The first round she fired almost blew off her shoulder, or so she imagined from the intense pain the gun discharged into her body as it flung her to the ground. She lay there dumbfounded, laughed at by the superior males. Muhammad watched her anxiously while she struggled to stand up again and tried to endure the pain. Gradually her shoulder became a map of bruises, but while she could bear the pain, it seemed impossible for her to hit a target unless it was by accident. All her bullets strayed shamefully off course and left her the butt of everyone’s jokes, Sayf leading the mirth when he wasn’t ignoring her. That day seemed endless; she was afraid that the training would continue forever, until her trembling arm was so completely shattered there would be no hope of hiding it. More than once she had to resist an urge to throw her gun into the faces of those disdainful men and turn her back on them, but Sayf’s scornful glare gave her the strength to last until sunset.

  That night she sat far away from the fire, hidden from view by the wall of a tent. The men’s voices reached her but she stayed out of sight. Only Muhammad bin Abdullah noticed her dejection. She had the idea of seizing her chance and running off into the night, letting the desert swallow her while the men were lying down. She heard Muhammad bin Abdullah’s voice approaching, and drew back, plunging into the tent covering while Muhammad stopped and called, “Masrour, will you . . .”

  “Sum.” The huge servant didn’t let him complete the sentence before pronouncing the traditional word to say, “Order me, I obey.”

  She could hear a smile in Muhammad’s voice as he went on: “God bless you. Turn down the fire under the coffee.”

  “Tum.” The servant spent no more time over this word, which he used to say, “It is done,” and he sprang to carry out his command.

  The two words sum and tum formed the entire lexicon uttered by the slave who had accompanied his master Nasir al-Kharaymi, the most important member of the council after Mujan and Muhammad bin Abdullah.

  Hearing the two words echo into the desert night, Sarab realized exactly what it was she was lacking: the will to intentionally annihilate herself and vanish within the two leaders.

  From her hiding place, she saw Masrour swiftly carrying out the order, dragging his teenage son Kasir behind him. Masrour and Kasir were like two rods, the father with his giant’s body and the son with his long, gangly body that looked like it might snap in two. They had turned heads in the Medina house because of the padlocked chain that linked Masrour’s leg to his son’s. They walked and slept chained together, and it was only unlocked when they used the bathroom. Before the father went to relieve himself, he chained his son to the window bars; when the son went, Masrour sat guarding the door, waiting for him to come out. There was nothing in Kasir’s appearance to suggest he might run away, and neither father nor son were heard to speak a word of complaint, but everyone was convinced of Kasir’s escape attempts. He didn’t listen, not even to Mujan, and took no notice of anyone. He seemed to be deaf. Kasir was crushed at being deprived of the ability to use his outstanding intellect; that year, he had advanced from being an average student to one who could compete at state level, but Masrour had denied him a high school education by dragging his son behind him to the house in Medina.

  The day of Sarab’s disgrace in the camp was a day of pride for Masrour; his son Kasir had roused widespread admiration. The moment they put a machine gun in his hand, a commotion broke out in him. His mask of indifference collapsed and his face gleamed with a child’s glee as he began to move it in a circle around himself. With the first hail of bullets, the fury in his eyes was replaced with lust and his whole being shook with the ecstasy of annihilating the target dummies. Drawing everyone’s attention, he straightened up and carried on shooting without batting an eyelid. Suddenly he was no longer a boy, a crushed fifteen-year-old son; Kasir had become a lethal tool of correction. He circled and fired, annihilating flocks of bustards. He never missed a moving target or made a single mistake, winning the approval of the leaders and his father Masrour. Sarab didn’t envy Sayf as much as she envied that infatuated boy, all his senses awakened, who had just fallen in love with his machine gun. He sparked a rivalry in the jamaa, as his skill detracted adulation even from Sayf. Suddenly Sarab noticed Kasir staring at her defiantly, waving his gun in front of her as if he had smelled the female scent in her male clothes.

  “Give me the order and I’ll tear out my eyes for you, my lord.” With a deep sense of service, Masrour abandoned his silence and added that phrase to his lexicon. That night, with unwavering resolution, he unfastened the chain on his son’s leg. He released him, sure of his loyalty to Mujan, and above all to the machine gun that had become part of his flesh.

  Training, which stretched out for almost a fortnight, formed a series of continual humiliations for Sarab. One moonlit night she confronted a hopeless truth. The grains of sand seemed to be stinging her from below while the campfire hissed, the heat accumulating on her face weighed her down with defeat, and tears shone in her eyes. She had grown used to the pitying, lofty glances of her comrades; this was the first time she had appeared on their radar, only to magnify her failure.

  Sayf avoided her like the plague while he wallowed like a puppy in Mujan’s praise of his genius: “You’re a born sniper!” Sayf was wrapped up in this commendation. For a week he never paused, even for a moment, to commiserate with or mock his sister; she simply didn’t exist for him. His laughter rang out each night as he challenged Kasir to a competition to eat the bustards they had shot that day, now roasting on the fire. Sarab hadn’t swallowed a morsel of it, stupefied by the delicious fragrance that traveled into the night, exciting the hunger of the desert and its predators.

  “Take this.” Muhammad said, handing her some of the meat. “You need to gather your strength for the next round. We certa
inly haven’t lost hope in you yet.”

  Muhammad’s sympathetic glance made her bruises ache even more. It simultaneously paralyzed her and provoked her to run out into the night and never return. How would she explain her failure to keep pace with the jamaa’s successes? Everyone else was progressing in their training, while she only demonstrated a high tolerance for overcoming obstacles and the rigorous morning exercises, and continued to be an abysmal failure at target practice.

  Would she be thrown out of the camp and the jamaa’s house in Medina too? She trembled with the horror of finding herself outside the protection of the two leaders and away from her brother. She was convinced that his rejection of love linked her to him like a halter. She secretly wished she could break the halter and flee.

  “What path do you have other than this? Align your resolution with our path and you will hit the mark. I think your only barrier lies in the will to aim your heart; you haven’t yet summoned the will to fight.” Muhammad had evidently seen straight through her.

  Sleep eluded her for a long time as she lay on her blanket in the open air outside the leaders’ tent. Everyone slept outside, wrapped in the refreshing darkness of the desert, muscles aching from the day’s rigorous training. Before she fell asleep, the last person her eyes settled on was Muhammad on his blanket, his eyes boring into the night and the unknown fate in store for them.

  Explosions rocked the night and pitched the men from their sleep, terrified. They leaped from their blankets and seized their weapons, ready to return this unexpected attack on the camp.