‘How come you were so late?’
Tenderly, she took his hand. Her palm was hot and its surface so fine that the yielding, silken skin almost sloughed off when he rubbed it with his thumb.
He set out for the Southern Ring Road, but the street didn’t continue on ahead and only two directions were available: right towards Batha Road and the jaw-dropping traffic by the lights beneath the flyover, or left, past the beauty salons, spare parts suppliers and the new district with its stench of overflowing drains.
He went right and looking over at the other side of the street she said, ‘Don’t go back! Just look at the traffic!’
The tunnel took him by surprise and he turned right, then turned again and re-entered the neighbourhood they had just left. Passing World of Dreams he decided to take the left-hand road this time in the direction of the new district where he could do a U-turn under the bridge and take the Southern Ring Road heading west towards Shamaat al-Amakin event hall.
In the new district there were open plots of land and whole floors of translucent darkness despite the putrid stench that crept through the air conditioning vents.
‘Fahd? Shall I uncover?’ she drawled.
He nodded, and she struggled to unfasten her head covering from behind, then looked over at him, a wanton catamite. She moved closer in the darkness and the car swayed slightly. She brushed his lips with a kiss that was fleeting and timid, as the darkened road had now come to an end and other cars suddenly appeared. Fahd decided to return to the ring road, turn beneath the bridge and head west.
‘Well, I don’t know where I am!’ she said. ‘The most important thing is to get me away from Khanshlaila!’
She took his hand and laid it on her chest.
‘See how hot it is?’
The small potholes in the road were filled with filthy water that gave off an acrid smell. Fahd tried to avoid them in the soft gloom.
On the ring road the cars raced crazily. He tried keeping to the middle lane, avoiding hassle from the lunatics to his left and the influx of new cars on the right. He was not that skilful a driver yet, and cars in Riyadh moved as chaotically as blind ants fighting over crumbs.
‘Do you love me?’ she asked.
He nodded. ‘Of course, and I desire you.’
‘Ahhhh!’ she sang with the madness of a forty-year-old child.
Her middle finger was toying with his fingers and every time he looked at her he saw her staring hungrily back.
‘Will you marry a Jordanian or a Syrian?’ she asked and he laughed out loud, then suggested she marry him to her daughter in middle school.
She remembered her husband and her mood suddenly clouded. He was a dog, she said: He beat her!
‘No one does that without a reason …’
‘OK then, I’ll give you an example and you be the judge: the last time I caught a slap from that bastard. For twenty years I’ve been trying to get him to buy us a house. Not for my sake, it’s for his kids, not that he ever cared about them! He always refused and asked me whether I lacked anything? This one time I decided to call his best friend and ask him to persuade my husband and help him buy a place, but on the condition that he mustn’t say it was me who called. More than once I told him: “Please don’t say that I called to ask you!” He gave me his word, but unfortunately he lied and told my husband about the call. My husband returned home like a raging bull. He came into my room, chucked the kids out and closed the door, then he flogged me with his aqqal until I wept.’
‘You’re in the wrong because you got his friend involved,’ said Fahd, boldly. ‘If you can’t persuade him yourself then that’s the end of the matter.’
‘Well of course, that’s not all that happened.’
‘Sorry for interrupting … This is Exit 25. Shall I get off here?’
She was silent and he turned towards her to find her devouring him with her gaze.
‘So, you’re going to leave me so soon, are you, Fahoudi?’
She glanced at her imitation Charroil watch. ‘Tell you what, let’s make a plan about where we’re going first, then we’ll drive. I want to see it and try it out, too!’
As she spoke she put her hand in his lap and he shrank back like a cat.
He took the exit and turned left at the lights. The area was all brightly lit hotels and cars. Children clustered at shop entrances and the women sold toys, nuts and fizzy drinks stored in blue and orange ice-filled refrigerators.
Thuraya resumed her story. ‘Later, I called my husband’s mobile when he was at work and his dirty little pal picked up. When I heard his voice I told him, “You’ll come to a bad end, mark my words,” and I hung up on him. When my husband got home he beat me again. I ask you, does anyone beat his wife for a friend?’
This time round, Fahd tried to avoid angering her. ‘I don’t know, I’ve never been married.’
She punched him in the chest and in her beautifully flawed accent said, ‘My little idiot. So silly and soft. You’re just like the smooth men from the Hejaz: they love women and appreciate them.’
Fahd was heading south, and before the side road gave out he turned right and saw a rose-red neon sign proclaiming Shamaat al-Amakin. He pointed.
‘There’s the spot, see?’
She said he had to get out of the hotel district so they could drive around one of the new neighbourhoods until her friend turned up, because she didn’t know anyone else at the wedding.
— 24 —
FAHD NAVIGATED A NARROW path through the rows of cars, worried that he might hit one. A Honda stopped in front of him. The boot opened, then the doors, and two women got out of the back as a fat youth emerged from the driver’s seat and began pulling out white tubs of food. The tubs looked heavy and the youth hunched forward as he walked over to deposit them by the women’s entrance to the hotel. He closed the boot and moved off, and Fahd followed him to the ring road.
Fahd was forced to mount the pavement and come back down on to the road. Then he swerved across to the far left-hand side of the street and without stopping at the lights, kept to the left and turned into a newly built neighbourhood. Its buildings were of average height but its streets were fairly broad. In the darkness Thuraya’s hand reached out for his lap. Fahd’s breathing became uneven and rapid. Excusing herself she turned to look behind her then raised the armrest and leant towards him, snapping open the safety belt and entering the virgin forest.
Unable to drive Fahd stopped at the end of the road facing an old wall made out of breeze blocks. He hesitated. Should he switch off the car’s lights in the middle of the street, or would that leave them at risk of a car careering along in the dark? He kept the lights on and maintained a lookout for any headlights approaching from either side or from the rear. Bolder now, his right hand began caressing the softness of that realm of irresistible pleasure.
His phone rang in his pocket and Thuraya grimaced, saying that she’d told him more than once to switch off his mobile as soon as she got in beside him.
‘Seems you’re scared of Mummy!’ she added in vexation. ‘A Jordanian, to boot.’
Fahd laughed openly as he patted her thigh. He checked the number and saw it was Saeed. At a time like this, you bastard? he said to himself.
‘Don’t let it bother you,’ he whispered and they continued their tour of the quiet streets.
‘Go back to that street by the wall!’ she said with relish, but he found a wide road that was more or less dark and stopped the car by a high marble wall. He doused the lights, keeping the engine running and Thuraya surged forward like an enraged tigress in pursuit of its prey.