Guapa Read online

  My eyes scan the empty plot of land around me. “I’m sure it’s nothing, it’s just that his mother called about an hour ago. He didn’t come home last night. Did you notice when he left? Was he alone?”

  “I can’t remember. It was crazy last night. Let me make a few calls and get back to you.”

  I put the phone in my pocket and walk toward the edge of the hill, looking out over my city, one that keeps on growing, messily and organically. Rooftops with aluminum water tanks and white satellite dishes shimmer under the sun. There is something unsettling about seeing the poverty here after spending so much time in the western district. And yet, it also feels familiar, as if the eastern and western districts are two sides of a coin where one could not exist without the other. Millions of lives are being lived down there, in those houses and roads that heave with traffic. Somewhere down there are Maj and Teta, and, of course, Taymour.

  Before I met Taymour I had no reason to tell anyone anything. And then, when I had him, I wanted to share my joy with the world. I struggled to keep quiet about us, and immediately told Basma and Maj. My love for him was too great to be confined to a secret life. I told him I wanted to tell others. Taymour did not want this, and the thought of it made him tremble with anxiety.

  “But if we stay hidden like this, it will be so easy to lose you.”

  “We will always find a way to be together,” he replied. “We don’t need anyone’s endorsement for that.”

  Now that I’m so close to losing him, all I want to do is stand on top of this high cliff and scream his name. I want to cast the pain out of my body and make sure that the memory of what we had will ricochet across the valley and echo throughout the city forever.

  I take my phone out and type out a message: Do you remember promising that we would find a way to make it work?

  I walk back to the car and lean against the side door. A young boy walks up from behind one of the houses. He looks at the both of us, as if weighing his chances, and then settles on Laura. He holds out his arm and sticks out his bottom lip.

  “I don’t have money,” Laura says, looking up from her phone momentarily. She shakes her hands and says, “Ma fee, ma fee.” The boy insists, his bottom lip now sticks so far out it almost touches his nose. Laura sighs and points to the crate of figs. “They’re fine to eat.”

  The boy is startled and his lip returns to its normal position. He turns around and walks back to one of the houses.

  “This is the problem with you Arabs.” Laura shakes her head. “You are willing to starve for your pride.”

  Ignoring this — for one is used to ignoring such comments in my line of work — I ask if she is planning to interview anyone besides Ahmed while she is here. She shakes her head, not looking up from her phone.

  A dusty jeep drives up the hill and stops a few meters away. Two bearded men step out. They look at me, size me up. I try my best to look harmless. Despite the hot day, the men are wearing heavy jackets with bulges at their hips. The younger of the two, good-looking with emerald green eyes, speaks first.

  “Laura,” he says, pointing to her.

  “That’s me,” Laura responds, adjusting her hijab. The man reaches out and shakes my hand.

  “Sheikh Ahmed is waiting for you,” he tells me in Arabic. “Leave your car and come with us. We will bring you back here afterward.” I turn around and translate this for Laura, and we both get into the jeep, which has a strong smell that after a few moments I realize is gunpowder.

  For a long time interpreting felt like the purest form of bridging worlds. If I couldn’t say what is truly on my mind then at least I would be able to mold the words of others, illuminating each world for the other and finding the point where both meet. A bridge is a position of power, and whenever possible I try to use such power for good. But when I see that the words I am asked to translate are blatant lies then it is my job to do something. Because if the lies come out of my mouth, if they pass through me even if they belong to someone else, am I not complicit in them? In those situations, I misinterpret. There’s an art to misinterpreting. It needs to be done subtly so that it doesn’t cause chaos, but just enough to leave a lingering sense of confusion. Nowadays, when everything is uncertain, it is easier than ever to misinterpret. Lies are everywhere. They hang from our lips, lies built on more lies until we don’t know what the truth is anymore. That is the moment when misinterpreting can do good. But words have power. America taught me that.

  We drive down the hill and through an empty street, lined on both sides by ramshackle brick houses. A few children peer through windows as we drive by, but otherwise the only signs of life are the clothes hanging limply on metal wires in front of the houses.

  It would be so easy for them to drive us to some ditch and throw us in. An image of myself and Laura, our headless bodies thrown into a sand pit somewhere, appears in my mind. I shake my head and look at Laura, who is looking out of the window, her eyes studying the houses and streets. My eyes are drawn toward the delicate skin above her Adam’s apple where the men might place the knife. Shut up, Rasa, I think to myself, shaking my head some more.

  The jeep stutters to a stop in front of a two-story building. A bearded man is standing outside wearing a cleanly pressed beige dishdasha and silver-and-blue tennis shoes. I do not recognize the brand of shoes. Perhaps a cheap knockoff. The man is holding a wooden cane, the varnish gleaming in the sunshine. He introduces himself as Ahmed and welcomes us. When he sees me looking at his cane, he smiles.

  “They broke my hip. I’m old now,” he explains, though there’s hardly a wrinkle on his face. There’s warmth in his gaze, but beneath that I glimpse a steeliness that keeps me on my toes. It reminds me that although we are being welcomed, we are also being watched.

  We follow him up two flights of concrete stairs. Inside, the building looks like it is still under construction. Or is it destruction? It’s hard to say. The stairs have no railings, and metal rods jut out of the walls like rusted snakes.

  “You’re in luck,” Ahmed turns to us as we climb the stairs. Even hobbling there is something enchanting about him, something vibrant and captivating. “We just had a shipment of diesel come in this morning so we’ve got the generator up and Um Abdallah is cooking us a nice early lunch.”

  I translate this for Laura.

  “Where did the diesel shipment come from?” Laura asks.

  I begin to translate and Ahmed interrupts me.

  “No need to translate back to me,” Ahmed says in Arabic. “I understand and speak English, but I prefer to speak only in Arabic. Please explain to her that in our country the elite speak English to appear sophisticated and differentiate themselves from the lower classes. So for me to speak English in my home would be treacherous.”

  He pauses while I translate this for Laura, who nods and says nothing, and it occurs to me that the only power I had, the possibility to misinterpret, has been stripped from me. I am left with a feeling of being naked with my hands tied behind my back.

  “As for her question,” Ahmed continues, “we get shipments sometimes from our friends.”

  “Do you not normally have electricity?” Laura asks, and Ahmed chuckles.

  “The only government services we’ve seen here for the past twenty years have been the regime thugs patrolling the streets and beating our children.”

  Ahmed leads us into a modest living room. Red and gold cushions line the walls, and a small television sits in one corner broadcasting the news. Ahmed tells us to sit down. The heavy smell of roasted lamb and rice fills my nostrils, reminding me that I have had nothing but coffee and cigarettes all morning.

  “Where do you live, Rasa?” Ahmed asks, watching me. I tell him I live downtown and he seems surprised by this.

  “I would have thought you lived in the western suburbs.”

  “I used to live there,” I say, trying to remain aloof. He nods, studying me. I glance at Laura, hoping she will jump in to divert the conversation. Thankfully, the sound of
clattering of pots in the other room breaks Ahmed’s gaze.

  “Um Abdallah is finishing up with lunch,” he says. “She’s not been well the past weeks. Neither have I, to be honest.”

  I translate and Laura asks him why.

  “Our son disappeared last month,” he says. “We organized a protest in the city center and he went along. He never came back home.”

  “I’m sorry,” Laura says. “How old is he?”

  “Twenty-four,” Ahmed takes down a framed fourteen-by-ten-inch photograph from the wall. He hands it to Laura. “Abdallah,” he says. Laura looks at the photo and passes it to me. The young man staring back at me in the photo is dark, clean-shaven, and unsmiling. His eyes have the same subdued perceptiveness of his father’s. I give the photograph to Ahmed and he hangs it back on the wall.

  “Did you still protest after your son disappeared?” Laura asks.

  “For a while, yes,” Ahmed says. From the kitchen we hear the scraping sound of rice being spooned onto a plate. “We have an obligation to the revolution. Abdallah being gone only makes the struggle more personal for me. The hope that arises from despair can be the best hope of all, and my obligations to demand change are as much to myself as to my country. But we are done protesting. Now we’ll take what is ours.”

  Laura writes this down as Ahmed excuses himself and walks into the kitchen. I can hear whispering. Ahmed says something along the lines of “It’s okay, you can come, he’s as old as your son.” He emerges moments later, carrying a steaming plate of rice with chunks of lamb. Um Abdallah walks out behind him with a bowl of salad. She’s a short, plump woman with a round face and large brown eyes. She’s younger than I imagined she would be, although it is difficult to know. She could be thirty or she could be fifty.

  Um Abdallah puts the plate she is carrying on the table and then hurries toward us. She wraps her arms around Laura and kisses her on both cheeks, as if greeting a long-lost friend. She turns to me and clutches her chest, bowing slightly. We sit down at the table and Um Abdallah puts a large helping of rice, lamb, and salad on each of our plates. As she spoons some rice onto my plate she turns to Ahmed.

  “Did you tell them about Abdallah?” she whispers.

  Ahmed nods. Um Abdallah asks him what we said. He puts a hand on her arm.

  “As I mentioned over the phone,” Laura begins, “I’m writing a story for an American newspaper about last night’s events. Please feel free to speak candidly, and if there’s anything you would like me to not reference to you, let me know.”

  “We aren’t afraid, you can write our names down,” Ahmed says. “Please, eat and ask anything.”

  “This latest move, taking over parts of the city, where do you see this going?” Laura asks.

  “We gave lots of chances. We called for parliament to be dismissed and for new, fair elections. We gave the president one more chance. But you have to earn your legitimacy. Now we have our own plans.”

  Ahmed stands up suddenly and walks into the other room. He returns a moment later with a large sheet of paper that he places on the table. On the paper is what looks like an urban plan for a city. In the center is a large circle labeled “mosque.” Around it, squares with labels such as “house” and “school” and “hospital” are arranged in a circular fashion around smaller circles, “mosques.”

  “This is what our future city will look like. No more elitist security measures that separate one citizen from another, no more public institutions located in buildings that are falling apart.”

  “And look,” Um Abdallah says excitedly, pointing to the large mosque in the center. “All the homes … no, all the buildings even … within five minutes walking distance from a mosque.”

  When I translate this for Laura, she asks if they want an Islamic state.

  “We live in a Muslim country,” Ahmed responds.

  “But a Muslim country is not the same as an Islamic state,” Laura says.

  “Everyone wants an Islamic state,” Um Abdallah chimes in. I hesitate as I translate this, but neither Ahmed nor Um Abdallah seem to notice.

  My mobile phone vibrates in my pocket. The message from Taymour is short: We made no promises. His words form a tiny lump at the back of my throat. I swallow the words down with a spoonful of rice.

  “Many in the country don’t want an Islamic state,” Laura persists.

  “No, no,” Ahmed shakes his head. “They are a very tiny minority. This tiny minority falls into two camps. The first are the enemies of Islam, who purposefully try to drag the masses away from God. And the other camp are those who simply do not know better. And when they see the benefits of such a state, you will see how they will change their minds.” He turns to look at me with a smile on his face. “No?”

  I don’t reply, and focus on translating all this in between spoonfuls of rice and lamb. That “No?” — was it a challenge to me, or am I reading too much into it? I wonder in which group Um Abdallah and Ahmed believe I belong. Would I even be able to disagree with him? I recall a time, a few weeks after the sniper attacks on the protesters, when I could no longer take being away from it all, and Basma and I went to join Maj in the demonstrations. As we tried to enter the midan a young man stopped us with a raised arm and the familiar scowl of old times.

  “Women’s side that way,” he told Basma. He pointed to his left, toward a small square surrounded by a plastic blue tarpaulin.

  “What do you mean women’s side?” Basma pushed past him. “What are you, border control?”

  “There’s a special square for women. It’s for your safety,” the man said.

  “We’re safer together,” I told him.

  The man looked at me. “Oh really? Scared you’ll get hurt? Maybe you should also go to the women’s section.”

  Instead I went home. I only went back once after that, at the insistence of Maj, who by that point was involved in documenting police abuses for an American human rights group. When I arrived I realized I didn’t recognize anything anymore. The beards had grown out, the women were segregated, and the chants had changed. I scanned the faces in the crowd, and they looked back at me in a different way. The walls had returned. The trust was gone, and I felt my own familiar walls rise once again. Looking around, I began to think: If we did manage to bring down the president, and if we tore down every damn picture and statue from the city, what would we replace him with? The protests had felt like the most authentic thing I had done in my life. Now they felt like a martyrdom operation to help a new generation of dictators come to power. Maybe this shift began with the young man telling me to go to the women’s section. How could I share my political dreams with those in the squares when I couldn’t even share my personal ones? I joined the protests so that I would no longer have to wear a mask. What’s the point of risking your life to remove a mask only to have to wear a different one? That would be like castrating donkeys. So I stayed in the square long enough to smoke a cigarette in solidarity and left soon after.

  If the revolution succeeds, it will be people like Ahmed who will have my fate in their hands. If that happens, will I still be able to hide behind conversations? For today it helps that the food we are eating is delicious, the lamb is soft and fatty and melts the moment I put it in my mouth. The salad is cool and crisp. I wolf down my food, and Um Abdallah immediately puts another dollop of rice and meat on my plate. I try to protest but she stops me.

  “Eat, eat,” she insists as she pushes more salad my way. She turns to Laura. “Look at Abdallah, he’s the perfect example of a young man who was failed by this regime. He is so beautiful, Abdallah.” She stands there, holding the salad spoon, then turns to me suddenly and asks, “Ustaz Rasa, can I ask you a question?”

  “Of course …”

  “Do you pray?”

  “Pray?” I hesitate. “Sometimes … not often.”

  She shakes her head. “No, my son. That’s not right. God created this entire world for you, provided you with this wonderful meal, the clothes on your
back … the very breath you are taking at this precise moment, God gave it to you. And you do not take five minutes out of your day to thank him? Please, I am telling you for your own sake … just twice a day at first, if that’s all you can manage … I promise you will see the changes in your mind and body immediately.”

  I smile to show that she has not upset me. “I will pray,” I say, and a sudden image shakes me with the impact of a thought that reclassifies all other thoughts — the idea that Um Abdallah could be my mother. The thought comes to me quickly, insidiously, that now that her son has disappeared I could move out of Teta’s house and live with them. I would eat delicious food like this all day, scooped straight onto my plate, and we would pray five times a day and then go out together to protest as one big family. We would rebuild this country starting from right here in this tiny living room in al-Sharqiyeh, and yes, every house will be within five minutes’ walking distance from a mosque. It would be nice, really, to have such a mother and father. Plus, I’d finally get out of my bourgeois bubble. Here I’d have some authenticity maybe, and my position on things would be clear.

  Laura says something and Um Abdallah quickly replies with something that sounds like “I hope your story can help us find him,” but I do not hear her properly. I ask her to speak more slowly because I can’t translate at this speed. Again Um Abdallah says this too quickly, and Ahmed repeats it to me.

  “She asks if there are any specific questions you need to ask to help us find our son,” Ahmed says. I translate this for Laura.

  “I don’t want to raise your hopes,” Laura begins. “My newspaper wants me to cover the wider protests, but I’ll definitely mention that your son disappeared.”

  Um Abdallah stands up and grabs the photograph of Abdallah hanging on the wall. She carefully takes the photograph out of the frame and hands it to Laura.

  “You can have this photograph,” she says. “If you publish this in your newspaper —”

  “Oh, no, I can’t do that,” Laura says, pushing the photograph away. Ahmed takes the photograph from Um Abdallah’s hands and places it on the table.