Waiting for the Past: A Novel

1

To get there I’ll open a thousand doors.

So Narjis said to herself, having sealed her lips, and from that time forward she began planning her escape, preparing for the long and exhausting journey: the journey that was to open for her other, unknown doors, confronting her with a life she had never yet known.

She was not entirely sure what would be the consequence of such an undertaking, nor could she have grasped it at the moment she decided to flee—it was all clouded. But she was driven by the forces of love and fear simultaneously, and she was determined to make the attempt, to try to achieve something better than just sitting and waiting for the final moment: death at the hands of forces outside one’s own control.

When the time came, she packed a medium-sized suitcase, into which she put three shirts, a suit jacket, two skirts, two nightgowns, a towel, various toiletries including a toothbrush and toothpaste, and some underwear. She buttoned her blouse, then brushed her hair in front of the mirror and put it up in a ponytail, staring at her face, which was set with determination in those crucial moments, between one life on which she had closed the door and a different one she had not yet tasted. It might taste of honey or of bitter gourd, but she was prepared to swallow bitter gourd, or even poison, rather than stay as she was, prisoner of a barren life, stalked by fear from every direction.

She had already sold her mother’s house—abandoned since she had inherited it—in order to finance her perilous journey. She had paid the sum upon which she and Mohsin al-Alwan had agreed, and would pay still more as circumstances required, in order that she might reach her destination. But why was Narjis fleeing, and where did she mean to end up? Where did she go, and what was it that she sought?

The first white ray of dawn crept gradually in to replace the black. The muezzin’s voice, issuing from the mosque, summoned people to prayer, the words Prayer is better than sleep breaking like waves in his booming voice; she had not slept a wink. She felt no submissiveness as the imam, Nazih al-Amin, summoned the faithful: Nazih al-Amin, a name meaning righteous and trustworthy, belonging to a man in whom Narjis discerned neither rectitude nor sincerity. She gazed from the upstairs window, which overlooked the street, until all the worshippers had made their way to the mosque and the street was empty of passersby. Her husband slept deeply in the other room, after his weekly night out, and as usual the rising sound of his snoring had found its way from one room to another. With the determination of a horse that will not be tethered to the earth, she slipped from the house, and inhaled the dirty air laden with the yellow dust of the khamsin.

On the previous day the temperamental desert, growing agitated, had blown about its densely particulate clouds, depositing their residue on all God’s creation—humans, animals, and plants alike—invading the streets and houses and pounding them with waves of sand and dust, occluding the horizon and dimming the colors of the city. Then it subsided, leaving the atmosphere still enshrouded in dust.

There was a being, not human, its features indistinct, driving her powerfully in the borrowed voice of her mother. It came from somewhere beyond all that could be seen: Where are you going, Narjis? But she did not turn toward it—that voice could no longer stop her, and she felt no regret for what she had left behind. She knew that wagging tongues would stab her in the back, but this no longer concerned her. She had flung into the wastebasket everything that made up her past; now her time, her future, had commenced—still unclear, but with a bit of patience it would come clear enough. Something told her, It’s your turn now to seize the reins of your own destiny, to take matters in hand, and we’ll be together all the way, for better or for worse.

She knew she would grow weary, and that the burden of her exhaustion would be hers alone to endure, on this journey that had cast her onto strange paths such as she had never trodden before, on which no one mattered to her but that man who still dwelt in her head and accompanied her steps, although she did not know whether he was alive or dead. All alone, unable to see clearly ahead of her, she faced the adventure or misadventure of a destiny spun from threads of fatigue and uncertainty: nothing ventured, nothing won, or what was the meaning of life? She would attain her object, armed with the proverb: There is no destiny but that which we forge with our own hands.

The ends would justify the means—and yet, by what means was she to achieve her goal? Yes, from time to time she would complain, despair would pervade her soul and fear rend her heart, but in the end she would take courage, gird herself with patience, and be confident in the choice she had made. She would follow the stream whose springs had burst forth in her heart, to discover where it might lead.

What was Narjis seeking: for what purpose had she set out upon these rugged paths so fraught with peril?

2

Little by little the light advanced, dispelling what remained of the night’s darkness before the sun overwhelmed it. It was dawn, the hour five-thirty, the air veiled in a layer of dust. Narjis was in a place called Nahdha Bus Terminal, her suitcase propped beside her. The white ribbon on its handle stood out conspicuously, a signal to the guide who would lead her on her journey of escape. She stared at the passing faces, and at those of the people positioning themselves for the start of a new day: women from the south, who sold clotted cream and honey, laying out their wares upon the floor. Small carts were set up, whose proprietors arranged goods for sale; beggars also took up their places to await the hands that might reach out to them. Many soldiers, too, were trying to get to their barracks, to resume those ceaseless wars, inevitably waged with these bodies snatched from the embrace of their mothers, their wives, their deferred aspirations. Their faces were etched with tribulation—they had had their fill, not of the world, but of sorrow; gunpowder clogged their noses as war effaced their dreams. They were, without doubt, expecting another war, from which how many of them would return? How many would lose a limb and be crippled for the rest of their lives? How many of their names would be erased from the annals? Oh, country, overflowing with oil, and yet hunger prevails: will your wars never end?

The time wore her down, dragging on for what seemed like ages—mocking her, lashing her with myriad fears and apprehensions. She was waiting for a certain person she had never laid eyes on, of whom she knew nothing except that he was a man, not very tall, wearing black trousers and a black-and-white striped shirt. His name was Abu Asim, and it was he who would take her to Khanaqin—so she had been told by Mohsin al-Alwan, who, well versed in smuggling operations, knew how to evade the hazards of the road. To his instructions he had added, Don’t initiate any conversation with him during the trip; wait until he speaks to you first.

She had not asked how the man would recognize her; before she could so much as open her mouth to inquire, he told her, as if he had read her mind, He’ll know how to find you. Bring a suitcase with a white ribbon tied to its handle, and put your hair in a ponytail also tied with a white ribbon. Stand near the line of women selling tea and clotted cream. That’s all you have to do, but—just to be sure—ask him his name before you go with him.

The hands of the clock seemed not to advance at all, but rather to retreat, so that she found herself squeezed by a monstrous pair of pliers—what if she should be caught? What reason could she adduce to justify her running away if they should arrest her and assail her with questions? Why, they would want to know, hadn’t she notified the authorities of her departure from the city, since she had signed a pledge that bound her to stay? Who had instigated her escape? Where was she going, and what was she after? For whom was she working? Who was this Abu Asim, and what message was she carrying to deliver to the enemies of the state?

She felt as though her head would shatter with all these hypothetical questions, as still she stood there in Nahdha Bus Terminal, glancing occasionally at her watch and searching the faces around her. She realized that among the consequences of her running away was that it would create a resounding scandal in a closed society always eager for entertaining diversions: a protracted scandal, finding ready mouths to propagate it, to embellish the rumors, which repetition would convert to facts. But what else could she have done? Waste away and die a little more each day, simply to satisfy others? Or await her fate in the anteroom of one of the secret prisons?

Her situation would matter to no one but her husband, Mu’nis al-Shaa‘ir,¹ and she was not afraid of him, dismissing as inconsequential his discovery of her running away—she did not even call it that; rather it was a search for a truth that was missing, and for a life of which she had dreamed but which she had never lived and must therefore seek elsewhere. Even once he found out what she had done, he would not be capable of quenching her rebellious spirit; all means of continuing under the same roof were closed to them now. During one of their many quarrels, she had driven him to make a verbal declaration of divorce, for she knew that the way through the courts was long and exhausting. The decision to leave had come over her as soon as she discerned the merest ray of light to guide her: a faint beam, spun from a fragile hope that left her no alternative.

No, with regard to her husband her conscience would not trouble her. He had within minutes retreated from his decision to take the oath of divorce, and tried in various ways to make amends, but she would not accept his retraction. Although her husband had come to his decision in the heat of the moment, it was she who had devised it; she had seen her opportunity and goaded him into a hasty declaration, as if she had been awaiting her chance since the day she married him. What mattered to her now was that, before God, she was free of this man, a stranger to her body, husband to her only in the eyes of others. Her mother, who had ensnared her in this marriage, no longer had any authority over her, for she had succumbed to death several months earlier. Nor did her relatives have any influence, for all contact with them had been severed when her father was killed in the war.

Her real fear, the dread that taxed her endurance of the passing time as she stood there in Nahdha Bus Terminal, was something else, subject to the law of the land: the law that, closing its myriad talons on the populace, controlled people’s lives to the point where no one dared speak openly of politics, for fear of an eavesdropping neighbor, or even a family member secretly in the service of the government agents, who might report to them something overheard. Should they discover the intention behind her flight, she would be at the mercy of the four winds. She could not tell what might become of her or what torture she might have to withstand so as not to confess—this for the sake of those who had paved the way for her escape, after a security officer had forced her to sign a paper that bound her to give information if anything new came to light in connection with Yusef Hassan Omran; the document bound her also to stay where she was or, should she decide to travel to another city, to inform the authorities and declare the purpose of her journey.

After a period of time that seemed endless, she was roused from her reverie by the short man’s voice: a voice high as a note played by the wind in the reeds. Standing beside her, not looking in her direction, he said, Madame Narjis? Her breath seemed to stop when she heard her name, and her pulse raced. She glanced briefly at him—he looked more dwarf-like than merely short-statured, lost in his voluminous striped shirt, his head set between sloping shoulders, his hair thick and black as a toupee.

What is your name? she asked him.

Abu Asim, he replied.

How, she wondered privately, is this diminutive fellow going to protect me from the dangers all around me? Before making any move, he said to her, Follow me.

Putting some distance between herself and him, she followed him to a taxi parked a few meters away. Its driver was standing beside the hood, a light-complexioned man with a thin gray moustache, wearing a faded blue dishdasha and a red-and-white checked kaffiyeh.

Next to a window in the back, behind the driver’s seat, sat a woman who appeared to be in her sixties, of dignified mien but with an expression of