He who walks barefoot over coals is worthy of you,
And he who waters your seed with sweat, tears and blood is worthy of you…
‘… is worthy of you,’ echoed the swaying crowd, entranced, while Saeed galloped up the steps gleefully and audibly singing, ‘He who waters your soil with the filth of murder and blood is worthy of you …’
Once they had passed the soldiers at the top of the steps and were sitting down, panting and trying to catch their breath, Fahd gave him a thump. ‘You’re crazy. The place is swarming with soldiers and cops.’
‘Men, let nothing you dismay,’ said Saeed, then joyfully held his arms aloft and shouted, ‘Smile! We’re in the pearl of stadiums.’
‘Your father occupied the Grand Mosque and it looks like you’re about to take over the stadium,’ Fahd whispered in his ear.
Down below the soldiers were drawn up in ranks and the band members were sitting in an area by the back of the goal. The bandleader looked around at his men and gave instructions in readiness for playing the national anthem as the king entered the stadium at half-time.
Opposite the rear entrance to Hammadi Hospital lived Muhannad, Fahd’s friend from middle school. One evening, as they played on the Playstation, Muhannad had suggested that Fahd come to the stadium the next day to watch a match along with him and his elder brother. He asked Suleiman’s permission, who reluctantly gave it, though he wavered over whether to go with him or not. At the last minute he backed down and gave Fahd one hundred riyals so he wouldn’t have to rely on anyone else.
‘Watch out for yourself, and don’t get separated from Muhannad.’
Half an hour before kick-off the three of them spotted a crowd of supporters rushing to the edge of the terraces overhanging the tunnel entrance to lean their heads out and watch the players stride out on to the pitch of Malaz Stadium. Muhannad’s older brother, Mansour, suggested they go and see the players up close and in the flesh and the two younger boys were delighted and noisily sprinted off. The crush of people was frightening, everyone striving to wriggle through to the edge of the terrace and hang on to the low cement barricade in order to get a view. Mansour was behind them, guiding and pushing them forward, and they almost suffocated from the lack of air.
As al-Daie and al-Jaber emerged before the screams of the fans, Fahd felt Mansour press up painfully behind him. When he continued to press forward, Fahd tried to step out of the way and shifted a little to the left only for another man to barge into him. He looked round in alarm to find a man with his head swathed in a shimagh showing nothing but his eyes, and he swivelled about and dragged Muhannad away, saying, ‘Let’s go.’
The episode brought back memories of the incident with the feather from his childhood and he felt very guilty for going to the stadium with someone he didn’t know well and for not taking his father with him. It also reminded him of the time he and his Iraqi friend, Muwaffaq, had climbed on to the tables in the passage that ran past the classrooms during break time, to watch a football match through the curtains of the second floor windows. Muwaffaq was getting very close to him; Fahd understood what he wanted, backed up a little to make room. Muwaffaq slipped between Fahd and the wall like a tame ginger tabby. Fahd pressed against him from behind and the two of them laughed until they were surprised by Nasser, the class monitor, who climbed up on the table to harrass them, putting his hand on Muwaffaq’s shoulder and pulling the boy towards him, saying, ‘You can see better from over here.’
Frightened that he might take his revenge, Muwaffaq went with him.
The game began and the crowd roared with one voice, the stadium’s terraces transformed in a vast unruly vessel. Suddenly Fahd felt that it really had become a ship, rolling through the swell, and he became almost dizzy.
Every pass drew a shriek from the Bedouin youth in front of them with his long hair and blue shawl wrapped around his neck and shoulders, while the ground beneath three men next to him had become a sea of shelled sunflower seeds. In the dying minutes of the first half, as Fahd stared distractedly at the people around him, everyone started shouting and screaming and jumping up and down and he leapt up with Saeed. He hadn’t seen the ball enter the net but he saw Hilal’s players running after Sami al-Jaber. It was a moment of overwhelming happiness.
Fahd’s eyes were raised heavenwards towards the floodlights dispersing the darkness, fixed along the rim of the soaring white concrete awning where the pigeons flew over spectators’ heads, hovering around the powerful lights then settling down beside them on the massive steel crossbeams. Every now and then a feather broke free and slowly drifted down, gently rolling back and forth as Fahd tracked its progress until it came to rest in the crowd or landed unnoticed on someone’s shoulder.
At half-time, Fahd asked Saeed if he wanted anything from the cafeteria. Descending the steps and going outside, he was taken aback to find a large crowd around the cafeteria’s high counter, their cries unanswered by the bewildered Bangladeshi employees. Fahd dithered: to return without bringing Saeed any water or sunflower seeds would be pretty feeble, especially if he claimed the crowds as his excuse.
Saeed’s more than friend, he thought to himself. He’s a brother, if not my final support now that my father’s gone, just as my father supported him in obedience to Mushabbab’s wishes. So how am I going to cope with this lot?
He approached tentatively. In front of him a man sat his child on one end of the saddle-shaped counter and screamed in vain at the Bangladeshi. At the other end were four young men. One was wearing a long frizzy wig, another the football shirt of Barcelona’s Brazilian star Ronaldinho, while the remaining pair shouted at the employee who was handing out bottles of water and juice cartons and ineptly counting change. When one of the employees went into the small storeroom at the back leaving his co-worker alone at the front, the man in the Ronaldinho shirt plucked up his courage and, vaulting the high counter, took four water bottles out of an open box in front of the astonished employee.
‘Take the whole box!’ shouted the one in the wig, so he snatched it and set it down in front of his friends amid cries of encouragement. The remaining employee made a run for it, dodging a water bottle and a volley of loud curses, ‘Bangladeshi animal.’
Fahd returned without water or roasted seeds and climbed the terraces to find the band on the pitch, ready to play, and the loudspeakers blaring out fervent patriotic anthems. Suddenly they fell silent and the stadium announcer proclaimed the arrival of the king. The king waved his hand and the crowd went wild, whistling noisily, and then the national anthem started up accompanied by the players and fans.
Now that the king was inside the guards began conducting intensive searches at the entrances to the terraces. Fahd had his pockets carefully patted down by a national guardsman with a thin, stern face who located his wallet and asked him to take it out and then went through his pockets one by one before handing it back. He asked Fahd for his ticket stub; he took it out of his top pocket, and the man silently waved him through.
Why did the soldiers always have the faces of embittered Bedouin or the inert masks of villagers, dead planks devoid of all expression, anger, hatred or joy? Were they always like this, even at home? How did they greet their wives? Did they hug their children like normal people?
His father would turn tail in terror whenever he encountered one of them. He was once riding in his friend’s car when they pulled over outside a Tamimi supermarket. Suleiman got out and was chatting to his friend through the open driver’s side window when he heard the traffic patrol’s loudspeaker give a sudden squawk and felt the red and blue lights slap his face. Stopping in mid-sentence, he took off in a comic sprint, clearly terrified, as though he were yet to cast off the anguish of his years in prison and his fear of prison guards. In fact, the older he got the more frightened, anxious and confused he felt at the sight of any man wearing military uniform, even if it was a lowly rank.