Chapter Twenty Five
“His grave silence”
"ما الذي تريده مني, فأنا نفسي لا املك شيئا!
امشي على الأرض حافية القدمين والقلب مقسوم الى قسمين"
Mahra
Sunday- 5:45 AM
Another night passed…. since I fell from the seventh sky and hit the ground; a certain type of feeling swept me up, as I sat there in the sea of my sorrow, losing track of time. I felt as if I was falling or drowning or dying… little by little, with pain, with agony.
But there was nothing I could do, at least for now.
I sighed and rested my head back on the sofa, where I sat from the last couple of hours, ever since Zayed left me alone after asking me to eat. The food that he had ordered, sat, untouched, on the table because along with everything else I had lost my appetite too.
It was raining again tonight with slightly heavy storms. I shivered as I saw, through the rain-soaked window, the flash of a lightning bolt. Wrapping my scarf closely around my shoulders, I pulled my knees up and hugged them. I was cold and I missed my cozy throw and socks back home.
Home, how very distanced and very close that place is!
My eyes closed slowly and I was slipping into a deep sleep, when I heard the clicking of a door, nearby and lifted my eyelids up. It was him; I didn’t have to turn and see to know that, so I stared, not at him but at the window instead. I wished he’d walk past me and leave without me having to face him but he didn’t.
I heard him get closer and stop at a distance. I could feel his eyes on me, on my-dead-self. The only proof of life in me was the blinking of my eyes, which he could see, I think. But why was he here? Did he come to rouse my sad soul again? Can’t he just let me be?
In spite of how we felt about each other and regardless of the intentness and vulnerability of our situation, he chose to take a seat beside me. From the corner of my eye, I saw him sit on the armchair to my right and stretch his left hand on the armrest. I remembered how one day we girls were discussing the beauty and grace of his hands in the office. Now, those very hands were suffocating me to death.
He sat facing the window, just like me. We stayed like that for a long moment; none of us uttering a word. The heavy cloak of silence covered us both…until at length;
“Why me?” were the words running through my mind and now I invoiced them, still staring ahead at the window.
In vain, I waited for his reply but it did not come and so I swallowed the lump in my dry throat, disappointed.
Was the answer to my question too hard or was there no answer at all?
I bit hard on my lip; trying to find the will to speak to the person I despised the most. I forced myself to look at him and saw him staring side-ways at the world outside, half of his face hidden in the darkness.
“Is there someone else?” I put forward another of my questions, which had been hard to verbalize. What kind of a newly-wed asks her husband whether if he desired another woman over her?
My kind, of course, the unfortunate kind!
Apparently, my last question made him turn to me, his face dead and eyes bitter. We stared at each other for a good while, I studied his eyes intently but he revealed no secrets. He peered at me with no emotion displayed, whatsoever.
Finally, he gave up and rested back on the chair, sighing. He still ignored my question with his proud silence and implanted a deep crease on his forehead, a sign of his irritation. A cold reaction such as this was all that took to confirm my doubts.
There was an icy breathe that escaped my lips, “Then let me go.” I requested.
His eyes found the floor and he shook his head. “That’s not an option.” He uttered.
“Why not?” I asked, tears gushing in my eyes. He chose to remain silent again.
“Take me back home,” I persisted, with a shaky voice, “We will tell everyone that it didn’t work out.” I seemed to be convincing myself more than I was convincing him.
He shook his head, like he couldn’t believe my absurdity and my upcoming words pushed the limits.
“Undo whatever you have done.” I wished, out loud.
His jaw hardened as he stared out in space; “It’s too late for that.” He replied, voice husky.
Once again his reply maddened me, provoking me to scream at him. “Then, fix this.” I cried. “It’s because of you I am trapped here.”
“It might be hard for you to believe,” He began. “But I hadn’t planned this either.” He retorted, bitterly.
“You fooled everyone by convincing them that this was what you wanted.” I complained, glaring at him. He hadn’t been looking at me, but my blameful last sentence made him turn to me.
His eyes confirmed that he understood the double meaning behind that sentence. He understood that he had convinced me of that too.
“That was unintentional.” He looked down, guilty.
“Tricking Hamad? Was that unintentional too?” A deep frown appeared on his face, he seemed confused. “You forced him to believe that you wanted his sister.”
“I had my reasons.” He stated.
“What reasons?” I demanded.
And silence was all I got in reply.
After a while, I heard him move. He supported his hands on the armrests and got up slowly. “You need rest.” His voice came and that was how he left the suite again at half past five, in the morning.
I was trying to be strong and unbreakable, but as soon as he left, I broke into sobs, feeling sorry for myself again. Every other reason for my pain suddenly disappeared; I ached now because I missed my father. His face kept flashing before my eyes and I wished if he was here with me. I wished if he would come back for a day, or an hour or at least a short minute, so that I could hold his helpful hands or kiss his humble forehead.
Things would’ve been a lot more different now, if he were here. Zayed would’ve treated me in a different way because he’d know that father would’ve had my back, he would be my shield, supporting me anywhere and everywhere.
But I was alone. Father was not here and Zayed could do whatever he wanted to do to me.
Some part of me was grateful that Zayed left me here alone, because I needed to be isolated, hide in this room, away from him and his dark eyes. Every time I see him now, I sense something breaking inside of me, so easily, so quickly as if I was made of glass.
All of a sudden, I heard the shattering of glass and turned to the source of the sound. Apparently, I just broke a glass which was placed on a table, alongside the sofa I sat on. Last night, I hadn’t touched my food but poured some water in that glass and drank it. Now, in process of resting my arm on the armrest, I didn’t realize how my hand hit this fragile glass and it crashed into uncountable pieces just like me.
I paid no heed to it and placed my heavy head on the same armrest, sleeping away.
~*♥*
Zayed
7:18 AM
Reasons, she said she wanted reasons. Zayed would give her all the reasons in the world but he knew her weak mind couldn’t take them in at the moment. He had reasons for everything, for his actions, his choices, behavior all of them. Unfair reasons…but reasons.
She needed to wait because his merciful heart will give her one shock at a time, killing her softly, step by step!
When she asked about the other woman, who was another tale that needed to be told, another arrow, another thorn, Zayed was amazed how she guessed right about his feelings towards Jenaan. He had never uttered a word about her. Nobody aside from Badr knew anything about her.
And now, when she demanded for answers, for reasons; silence was all that he could give her in reply.
Zayed sat in the same café he came to yesterday. His own burdens and strains were what accompanied him again. He’d gotten used to them, the dark shadow of stress that wandered around his head, had become like an unwanted friend.
He mulled over her rather odd behavior, sipping through his Turkish coffee as he did. This morning as he got out of his room, after praying his Fajr prayer, his eyes fell upon a broken phone which he hadn’t seen last night. He guessed it belonged to her and knew that she had tried calling home, which also meant that Mahra had found out that the lines in their room were dead because of him. It was his doing.
Perhaps she may not be that sharp!
Once he got to the living room, he was surprised to see her sit there in the darkness, absolutely scatterbrained. For a split second he was afraid that she might have done something to hurt herself. Curious and worried, he walked towards her and relaxed only when he saw her eyes open.
He exhaled in relief and stood there looking at her state. She seemed to be in a total different world, lost deeply in her thoughts, ignorant of his presence. The food that he had ordered last night remained untouched. She also wouldn’t sleep, spending her night here in the cold, without any blanket or anything of that sort. He couldn’t understand why she was doing this to herself!
Was she trying to punish herself for his wrongdoing?
Nonetheless, he sat beside her to see what else – aside from the obvious – was wrong. She had assumed a stance which indicated that she was calm. It was only when his eyes fell on her puffy ones, which he’d been ignoring for a while, did he realize how troubled she was inside.
Zayed despised himself for being the cause of such distress!
Unlike what he had predicted, the small conversation that they both had turned out to be a disaster. Touching forbidden topics and awakening graved feelings, which led him to leave the room and come here.
He knew that running away from all of Mahra’s questions was of no help. Sooner or later, he had to face them and there might also come a time when he would be forced to answer them. Because he cannot imprison her with him here and there will come a day when they will go back.
The vibration of his phone was what pulled him out of his trance. He reached for his phone in his pocket and upon withdrawing it he saw a familiar name on the screen.
Badr calling….
Zayed inhaled, knowing that he couldn’t ignore Badr anymore. He’d called hundreds of times yesterday too.
“Hello.” Zayed’s dry voice said, as he answered.
“You picked up at last, been ignoring my calls all this time!” Badr complained in his very first sentence. His nephew was silent as always and so he carried on. “Why wouldn’t you answer?”
Zayed frowned deeply, he was sick of people demanding for answers. “I am answering now.” He spoke, his voice dead.
“You had me worried.” Badr stated, noticing the coldness in the air.
Once again, Zayed chose to ignore him and changed the topic. “How have you been?” He asked.
“I am fine. It’s you we’re worried about.” Badr said, with a fake chuckle, trying to lighten up the mood, because from Zayed’s ‘Hello’ he’d realized something was majorly wrong.
“How’s everyone at home?”
“Alhamdulillah they’re fine. What about you? How are you and how’s Mahra?”
“Good.” Zayed replied a short, undetailed reply. What else could he possibly tell him?
Badr waited for more but that was the only answer he was going to get so he carried on. “So, you didn’t go to Switzerland?” He inquired.
Zayed was silent for a while, surprised at how he knew. “No, we didn’t.” He uttered. “Things didn’t turn out the way we wanted them to.”
“My sources tell me you are in the country.” Badr said.
‘Hats off to your sources’ Zayed mentally mocked. “Yeah, we are in Abu Dhabi.” He then informed his uncle, who took a while to comprehend his nephew’s situation.
“What happened that you ended up there?” Badr then interrogated.
“I got married that’s what happened.” Zayed declared, sarcasm oozing from his tone.
“What do you mean?”
Zayed shook his head, not wanting to talk about it. “What’s done is done. Now I have to deal with the consequences of my doings.”
“Why? What have you done?” Badr persisted and Zayed could not ignore him any longer.
“Well, I just told my wife the truth.”
“And what is that?”
“That I had no intentions of marrying her.” Zayed answered flatly.
“What made you do that?” the discontent in Badr’s voice was clear.
Zayed stared down at his coffee, not knowing what to say. “I was too patient all this time and I couldn’t control it any longer.” He confessed his true feelings to his uncle.
“You are making me worried.” Badr’s concerned voice said.
“Don’t be. I have learned the art of dealing with my messes.” Zayed admitted. Despite him telling Badr not to worry, his uncle still took his time grasping the latest turns in Zayed’s life.
“Then, what did she do?” he asked, puzzled.
“What do you expect!?”
The silence that came afterwards proved that Badr understood the effect of the recent events on Mahra and how she might have reacted.
“How is she now?”
“She is dealing with what I was dealing with from the past couple of months.” Zayed said, remembering the argument with his father, him lying to his mother and also the fight with Jenaan.
“Did she break any bones?” Badr laughed, but Zayed was deadly serious.
“Maybe not bones,” He said, “But she has a broken heart.”
Speaking of hearts, Zayed realized he had broken two hearts in one week; the first one was Jenaan and now Mahra.
“Jenaan went didn’t she?” He asked, thoughtlessly.
“Yeah, surprisingly she did on your wedding night, saying that she had a conference to attend.”
Zayed hmm-ed and didn’t say much.
“Did something happen between you two?” Badr guessed. Before he could come to any conclusions, Zayed changed the topic once again.
“No,” He began. “Listen I need you to take care of Hamad for me. He keeps calling and I don’t want to deal with him right now.” Zayed’s voice was quiet and rough, still reflecting the strains of the conversation they just had.
“Don’t worry I’ll handle that and you take care of that girl! She’s someone else’s Amana.”
“I’ll try.” Zayed murmured
“No, say you will.”
“Insha Allah. I have to go now. Take care of father.”
“I will, Ma’assalaamah.”
“Ma’assalamah.”
As the call was disconnected, he threw the phone on the table and completed his coffee.
~*♥*
5:46 PM
After hours and hours of wandering around in the centers of the capital, and having lunch with his friend Sami, Zayed returned to his fate, once again. Being away from Mahra, helped him think through his troubles and find a solution for them. They had a case and now he needed a verdict.
Insured about his capabilities, he opened the door of his suite, confidently and stepped in. There, as his eyes swept the room, he found her right where he had left her hours ago. His hands released the door knob and it closed with a thud, which was what awoke Mahra. He watched her move in her seat and heard her gasp, loudly; then with some trouble, she managed to straighten up at his approach.
Placing his car keys and phones on the nearby table, Zayed took a couple of steps towards her and saw her holding her right arm with the other hand and staring at it. Perplexed, he narrowed his eyes and upon looking closely at her, he noticed some blood on her right arm, which she was trying to hide with her shaky fingers.
He moved closer to her to take a better look but Mahra had her head bowed and refused to let him see.
“What’s wrong?” He questioned, his voice had a hard edge. Mahra shook her head without saying anything. “What did you do?” He continued, grimly.
No answer…
He was getting supremely worried, afraid she might have done something serious and at the sight of blood dropping from her fingers onto her clothes, something tightened in his chest.
“What have you done, Mahra?” He asked, looking pointedly at her hands.
It was only when she extended her uninjured hand to grab a bunch of Kleenex that Zayed saw the huge gash on her forearm, slashed deeply and bleeding uncontrollably. He surveyed around, searching for a clue, looking to see what was it that caused such an injury. And then his eyes fell upon the shattered glass on the table and he understood. She had gasped when he first entered the suite, she must have injured herself then.
He frowned and shook his head. “Let me see.” He said, as he made to sit next to her but she jumped up, abruptly.
“Get away from me.” Mahra shrieked, her voice sounded worn.
“You’re bleeding a lot.” Zayed stood up too. “I can help you.” He put forward, reaching for her hand but she pulled it away.
“Leave me alone, that’s all you can do to help.” She yelled, moving further away.
Zayed stared at her blackly, and managed to hold back a sigh of frustration. “You might have broken glass in the flesh.” he said, his tone hardly composed. At his words, Mahra looked down at her hand, with her back to him.
Deadly silence lasted for a long minute in which he stared at her and she at the injury.
Zayed broke it. “Let me help you.”
“You’re the last person on earth I’ll permit to help me.” She turned to face him, her tone filled with disgust. “I’d rather die than take your help.” She finished, now yelling.
He peered at her for a short moment, his anger reaching its limits; “To hell with you then.” Zayed hurled back, his voice a little harder now. And with that he left her alone, heading to his room.
He slammed the door shut behind him, angrily and threw his ghatrah on the bed. No one in his entire life had treated him like this. Who was this little imbecile girl who had enough guts to scream at him and call him names? Unfortunately, both his hands were tied because of his father, or else he’d teach her how to behave with a grown man.
Stubbornness, he hated her childish stubbornness. It made her so blind that she couldn’t differentiate between what benefits and harms her!
As he made to perform ablution for his Maghrib prayer, he couldn’t shake off the irritation she gave him. He was still enraged when he dried his face with the towel, rolled his sleeves back down and began to pray. It took him awhile to do so, after which he sat on his bed and remembered what Badr told him.
‘Take care of that girl’
Had been his words, but how can you take care of someone who doesn’t want to be taken care of?
Instantly, he got up, changing his mind at the last moment as always and made for the door. Once he got out, he saw Mahra, now sitting on the other corner, her head resting on the sofa and eyes closed. Leaving her there, he headed to the drawer in which he had spotted a first aid kit. Along with the kit, he loaded himself with as much patience as he could sum up and with a stone heart, he went and sat beside her.
Unexpectedly, Mahra didn’t react except straightening up her head and opening her eyes which helped Zayed to say what he said next.
“It could be a serious injury.” He said, in a calm and soothing tone. Mahra remained unresponsive. “Don’t be stubborn and please…let me see your hand.”
Mahra didn’t or better yet couldn’t react or say anything, looking extremely weak. Her silence encouraged Zayed to grab hold of her arm and examine it. Surprisingly, she didn’t retreat this time and slowly he tried to remove the bundle of bloody Kleenex from the injury to reveal a buried cut, the size of his index finger, across her forearm.
“It’s hard to see the depth of the gash because of the henna but the bleeding has stopped.” Zayed informed, looking for some broken glass pieces in her skin. At a sensitive spot, he was pressing a little harsher than he thought he was, upon which she hissed.
“Sorry.” He apologized, sincerely.
“I took it out.” She mumbled, “The glass, I took it out earlier.” Mahra said; her voice barely audible. Zayed gave a short nod and carried on.
“You have lost a lot of blood.” He looked up to glance at her and noticed how pale she was.
Slowly, he began to clean a little blood around the injury and applied some iodine on it, then covered it with a bandage. As unskilled as he was, but he tried to be as careful as he could be with her. For some reason, he thought she had endured enough pain for one day.
“I don’t think it needs stitches. It’ll heal in a few days.” He said, placing her hand on her lap and picking up the dirty tissues. He went to the kitchen, came back carrying a sandwich and a glass of juice. Placing them on the table in front of her;
“Eat.” He ordered, calmly.
Mahra didn’t budge and so he moved to sit across from her on the sofa, elbows on his knees, watching her.
“This stubbornness is not going to get you anywhere.” He spoke, struggling to make his voice tender. “You have to eat so that we could talk.”
Mahra wasn’t looking at him all along but his last sentence made her turn to him. He, just like her, seemed exhausted.
“I don’t want to talk to you.” Mahra’s rude reply came.
“Why not?” Zayed muttered, gazing at her. She smirked, sarcastically at his words.
“Aside from the obvious, you don’t bother to answer any of my questions.” She taunted.
Zayed tried to ignore her bluntness. “Don’t you think I have reasons?” he said, matter-of-factly.
“Which is exactly what I have been asking for,” She breathed. “You must have a good reason for the loathsome and despicable act of yours.” The growing anger in her voice was what made him laugh, a half-suppressed and disrespectful laughter, which bothered Mahra and she went on. “I mean, you don’t seem like a lunatic who’d go around screwing with people’s lives.”
Here Zayed raised his eye brow at her choice of words and leaned back on the chair. She too stretched her legs and sat straight. “Who knows, maybe you are.” She finished.
Silence…
“Ya Sabar Ayoub. (God give me patience)” Zayed inhaled, fighting hard to retrain himself.
Here he was thinking the woman was too weak to talk.
“You know it was for these reasons only that I kept questioning my father’s opinion of you.” He spoke more to himself, but she heard him.
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing.”
“You don’t answer any of my questions and then you expect me to talk to you.” She grimaced.
“I don’t answer because I know you won’t be able to understand.”
“Let me be the judge of that. I might not be a mastermind like you but I am not stupid.” She retorted.
“If you were smart you wouldn’t be acting the way you are right now.” He stated, eyeing her hand and the food in front of her.
“Right you are,” Mahra agreed. “If I were smart, I wouldn’t have fallen in your trap.” She snapped and glared at him. “If I were smart, I’d be in my mother’s home right now.”
“Is that what troubles you? That I didn’t take you back home?” He asked, cautiously.
Mahra’s eyes were wet again. “You are not a man of your word.” She shook her head, staring at the floor.
“Have you ever bothered to think why I didn’t take you?” Zayed objected, a while later. “Did you even consider what would happen to your mother if her daughter came back home on the first night of her marriage?” The clever man knew what the girls weak point was, so he used her mother as his first card to play in this game and from the look on Mahra’s face, he knew he had hit home.
Mahra’s mother’s merry eyes kept flashing before her eyes and she imagined what would her unexpected visit do to those eyes if she saw her? And what would happen to that heart if she told her the truth?
“I did it for her and for my sick father.” Zayed explained.
“You deceived all of them.” She said, frostily.
“I did no such thing.” Zayed growled, losing his composure. “All I did was, tell you the truth because I didn’t want you to live a lie.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?” Mahra demanded.
“Because I had to marry you!”
“Why?” Her voice echoed in the silent room.
He gazed at her and she stared back, hopeful for an answer but she didn’t get any, only a vacant stare and silence, his grave silence.
~*♥*~*♥*~*♥*~*♥*~*♥*~*♥*~*♥*~*♥*
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