A Land Without Jasmine Page 4

  Waddah wasn’t seen at the faculty for a week and then we heard he had killed himself.

  This year, Dr. Aqlan has repeated his offence but this time the victim was a female, a beautiful student named Jasmine Nashir al-Ni‘am. He failed her, even though he knew her grades in the rest of her subjects ranged from very good to excellent.

  When she went to consult him, he suggested dealing with the matter in his normal way. I heard her ask her girlfriends, while she ate a liver sandwich, the meaning of ‘marjoram’. None of them knew. My response was to turn my back and listen even more intently.

  She explained to the other girls, ‘Dr. Aqlan promised he would pass me in his subject if I let him press the marjoram.’ The girls stopped swallowing their food and lowered their heads. They had caught on, but no one said a word.

  Five years ago, Dr. Aqlan moved his office to the third floor, making a point of choosing a room that had a window overlooking my snack bar and the garden. Since this window is located on the side nearest the wall, it is considered by far the best observatory for spying on the female students who frequent the girls’ wing of my snack bar.

  From that ill-omened window Dr. Aqlan could see Jasmine’s face and contemplate her charms as if sipping from an extraordinarily sweet and delicious cup of honey.

  Jasmine is brown and as slender as a stalk of sugar cane. She’s so feminine that she slays hearts even when fully veiled. Her eyes are wide and her black pupils glow with tenderness and sweetness. The impact of her eyelashes, which are thick and long, is almost magical. If she glances at a man he’s struck by a sickness he can’t shake off; passion for her will flow through his veins, mixed with his blood, till Judgement Day. The more access to her and the more contact with her he has achieved, the more likely it is that he’ll sink into insanity and die.

  I swear to God that my eyes have never seen a girl this beautiful at any time since I arrived in the faculty twenty years ago. No girl comparable to her in beauty will ever turn up here, not even in another twenty years.

  I believe that God grants us one Queen Bilqis every thousand years. At the beginning of each millennium He sends us as a magnificent gift one Queen of Sheba like Bilqis: a peerless, legendary beauty. This precious gift comes only once every millennium. That’s how it is with presents from the King of Kings!

  Like a hovering owl, this question has haunted the heads of everyone entering or leaving the faculty: will Jasmine yield and surrender her virginity to Dr. Aqlan or will she resist?

  Male and female students and staff can find no other topic to discuss. Most think she will fall. The girls closest to her, the women who know her best, affirm that she will never bargain away her honour. If push comes to shove she’ll drop her university studies and stay home.

  I think that Jasmine’s female classmates are probably right. After gazing at her features I have determined that she has a forceful personality, a strong will and a proud, defiant spirit that radiates self-assurance and self-reliance. That’s why I think that Dr. Aqlan has made a huge mistake; no matter how much power and authority he has, he will never succeed in subduing her. Jasmine won’t deliver her body to him, even if this refusal causes her death.

  A mean-spirited rumour has been flying through the faculty to the effect that Jasmine, whose family have declared her missing, has spent the week in Dr. Aqlan’s apartment. May God curse them for accusing her of licentiousness at a time when no one knows whether the girl is dead or alive.

  The police have been investigating Dr. Aqlan and his apartment. The suspicions they nourish about him are supported by powerful corroborating evidence. They think Jasmine visited him in his apartment to sort out her problem with him and that she resisted his attempts to flirt with her. Then he raped her. Fearful that men of her tribe would seek revenge, he killed her and hid her body.

  A police inspector, whose name I don’t recall, visited me yesterday. He’s brown-skinned, tall and clean-shaven but with a moustache. His hair is curly like an African’s, but his nose is as sharp as a dagger and his teeth are yellow from smoking.

  He appeared here half an hour before sunset when I had finished cleaning and tidying up and was preparing to leave.

  He told me, ‘We’re looking for a student named Jasmine who’s been missing for a week. Do you know her?’

  I took a chance and mumbled, ‘Yes.’

  He flicked his cigarette pack at the bottom and a cigarette shot into the air like a flying fish. He caught it and lit it with a cheap, red lighter. I was astounded by his dexterity and accuracy. How could he extract just one cigarette with only a light tap?

  Blowing smoke toward the ceiling he asked, ‘When did you last see her?’

  I replied, ‘On Valentine’s Day, when she entered the girls’ wing she called me and handed me a sprig of basil. So I thanked her and placed the sprig behind my ear. Her impulsive gesture made me blush with embarrassment and disconcerted me, even though, to be frank, I’m not at all bashful around women. But Jasmine is a special case; she would inspire emotions even in a stone. She ordered a liver sandwich, hot, and chilled pomegranate juice. She sat in that corner, facing the sunlight, and her girlfriends swarmed around her. They began to ask if she had received a present from a boyfriend or even a lover. She told them she hadn’t met the love of her life yet and opened her black handbag to show them its contents. She may have wanted to silence malicious tongues and to declare before the largest possible group of witnesses that she hadn’t received a Valentine’s Day present from Dr. Aqlan.

  ‘I heard the male students say that at the end of his lecture that Dr. Aqlan had asked Jasmine to stay after class. No one knew what they discussed but they were alone for fifteen minutes. The students believed that he had given her an expensive present for Valentine’s Day. The malicious ones laughed sarcastically, claiming that Dr. Aqlan had been guided by God to shun depravity and to seek a heterosexual relationship.

  ‘Jasmine didn’t finish her liver sandwich but merely nibbled a small portion of it. She drank the pomegranate juice slowly, as if it were bitter medicine. Her friends went off to the next lecture but she stayed behind, alone. She would turn the glass around in her hand and take small sips, which she savoured in her mouth for a time before swallowing. She was lost in deep reflection and an indescribable sorrow clouded her face.

  ‘My heart was consumed by pain for her, but what could someone like me do? I had a daydream that I had an automatic rifle with which I was threatening Dr. Aqlan. I forced him to give Jasmine the grades she deserved, but this was a hollow type of heroism that ended with a lengthy sigh.

  ‘It was almost 11 a.m. when Jasmine stood up heavily and paid her tab. Then I saw her head out to the garden. She chose the seat beside the pomegranate tree. I’m not sure why, but I was overcome then by a powerful feeling that she was weeping.

  ‘A sandstorm blew in and the dust made it impossible to see. Some umbrellas fell to the ground so I left my kitchen to set them back up. It took me five minutes to complete this task. When I returned and glanced at Jasmine I was flabbergasted to find a man, whose back was toward me, seated across from her.

  ‘Although I was busy with many chores I attempted as best I could to keep an eye on her. I’ll tell you frankly I had reservations about that man. Worried and anxious, I confused some of my orders because I felt so stressed and distracted. A dispute broke out between me and an unruly student. It would have ended in fisticuffs had good people not intervened. During this minute, when my eyes were off her, Jasmine departed. From that moment I’ve never seen her again. When I gestured to the man she had been with to ask where she had gone, he opened a white book and pointed to its pages. I ignored him and paid him no heed. I was busy taking orders and don’t know when he left the garden.’

  The officer jotted some quick notes in his little book and then asked me, making a fresh start, ‘Describe that man for me.’

  Scratching my head I told him, ‘I wasn’t able to see his face. I saw the back of his head. He was
middle-aged and powerfully built. His shoulders were wide and his white hair, which was sleek, glittered like diamonds in the sunshine. As I recall this image now, it occurs to me that his hair colour was unique. Its whiteness glistened so powerfully that it dazzled me!’

  Looking at me sceptically, as if doubting the accuracy of my description, he asked, ‘What was he wearing?’

  I said, ‘I don’t recall.’

  He knitted his brows and said, ‘Try to remember.’

  I looked down for a moment, trying to recollect. Oddly, I hadn’t noticed his clothes, neither their cut nor their colour. The one thing that was fixed in my memory was the whiteness of his hair and how it shone like a precious gem.

  The setting sun left a dreary gloom in its wake. I lit a yellow candle and started to make tea.

  Watching me intently he asked, ‘Do you believe there is any relationship between that man and Jasmine’s disappearance?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Do you know who he is?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Does he resemble anyone?’

  I turned toward him, handed him a steaming glass of tea, and answered, ‘He resembles no one else I know. I told you, sir, his distinctive characteristic, which will allow you to identify him, is his white hair.’

  He grimaced as if suffering from acid reflux and then asked me, ‘Are you married?’

  ‘Yes, and I have ten children.’

  ‘Where do you all live?’

  ‘I live nearby in a room that doesn’t even have a bath and my family lives in the village, in a house we own.’

  He brought his face close to mine and asked, ‘Why don’t they live with you?’

  Shrugging, I responded, ‘My finances don’t allow me to rent an apartment in the city for my family.’

  He stared into my eyes for so long that a shudder of alarm racked my intestines. He turned and left without a word of farewell.

  His fierce, accusatory look frightened me; I was shaking when I closed the snack bar. I began to imagine myself in a dungeon where interrogators took turns goading me with slaps, kicks and taunts. Under pressure from their torture I confessed I was responsible for Jasmine’s demise.

  I didn’t go anywhere but headed straight to my room. When I stuck out my hand in the dark I noticed that the flange for the padlock’s latch had been moved. Someone had taken it off together with the lock and reinstalled it slightly lower down the door. I undid the padlock, lit the lamp and immediately realized that the police had searched my room while I was away.

  I quickly pulled the milk powder can from beneath the bed and opened it. My money was all there, untouched, but a chill penetrated my heart.

  It was my fault. I had told many people about the stranger who had been with Jasmine during that last hour before her disappearance. Some of them had obviously been informants who squealed on me to the police, relaying my words to them. This had led them to train their sights on me. I don’t know what they suspect me of? I don’t believe they could possibly nourish any doubts about me. Oh, if only I had cut out my tongue before I blurted out a single word! They’ll drag me involuntarily into this case’s labyrinth. When they see fit, they’ll lean on me and interrogate me with a lot of Q-and-A until the case is concluded – assuming it ever is.

  I despise this blighted university, which is teeming with informants who hide like lizards in cracks and crevices. For twenty years I’ve dealt cautiously with them. Now, like a callow youth, I’ve tumbled into the cesspool of their gossip. If I emerge safely from this case, surviving the beatings, imprisonment and humiliation it brings me, I promise God I’ll slaughter a ram and distribute the meat as alms to the poor and needy.

  4

  THE SACRIFICIAL LAMB

  My name is Ali Nashwan. I am just four-and-a-half years short of twenty.

  Four years ago we moved into the building where Jasmine lives. Fortunately for me, the doors of our apartments face each other.

  That first year she was allowed to play with me. We played school. She was the teacher and I was the student. She taught me amazing things about ancient Yemeni civilizations, about Ma‘in, Saba‘1 and Himyar. One of our lessons still sticks in my mind with all its details. It concerned the engineering behind the construction of the Ma’rib Dam in the Sabaean age. Whenever I remember this lesson I’m amazed at her ability to comprehend difficult matters like these. How could she have reached an understanding of such complex questions when, at the time, she was only sixteen? I was awed by the depth and breadth of her knowledge and began to consider her the equivalent of inventors and geniuses like Alexander Graham Bell and Marconi.

  We also played doctor. She was the physician and I was the patient. I recall that she implanted forty kidneys and seven hearts in my chest!

  When we played palace, she was the princess and I was the jinni. We fought each other with wooden swords and cardboard armour. She always won. When I protested against this uniform result she explained her philosophy of life: ‘Good must always vanquish evil.’

  On my return from school my mind would be full of her. I would eat lunch and then study my lessons throughout the siesta. When her father left their apartment for the afternoon prayer I would pick up my maths book and knock on her door. She was usually the one who opened the door and her smile was sweeter than cream.

  Before entering I would ask if she wanted anything from the grocery store. Winking playfully, she would remove the coins hidden in her bra and send me to the grocer’s to buy her favourite kind of cookie. I would clasp the coins in my fist, feeling their heat and wishing I were one of those lucky coins!

  I would descend the stairs while she closed the door. On the landing I would open my fist and enjoy kissing the coins and smelling the fragrance they had acquired from touching her splendid body. I would be panting by the time I reached Hajj Sultan’s shop, where I would point to a triangular cookie dipped in chocolate. He would take the money and hand me my order while twisting his moustache with his other hand.

  By the way, Jasmine is a first-rate gourmet and when a new type of cookie reaches the market she will be one of the first to buy it. She can render a verdict on its quality after one bite. If she shouts with joy and delight that means the cookie has met with her approval. Then she will tell everyone she meets about this new cookie, advising each person to purchase it. If she wrinkles her brow and purses her lips that means she doesn’t like it. Then she’ll throw the rest in the trash.

  I would return, leaping up three steps at a time. Even before I rang the bell I would find that Jasmine had opened the door and was hiding behind it. I would pretend I didn’t see her and didn’t know what she had in mind. She would stick out a leg to trip me and I would fall to the floor, which was covered by blue carpeting. I would scatter the cookies everywhere, and we would compete with each other to pick them up. In this silly way we divided the cookies between us, each reaping a share commensurate with our cleverness and speed.

  We would sit in the living room, where she would go over my difficult maths lessons with me. She took extraordinary pains to help me understand but I would be in a daze, unable to grasp anything. All the time that she was busy explaining and simplifying equations, I would be gazing avidly at her face, devouring her features, never satiated. The more I looked at her the hungrier and more filled with longing I grew.

  What bewildering secret in her face so enchanted me that I couldn’t take my eyes off her, not even for a second? The strange thing was that I was completely incapable of retaining her image in my mind. I was totally unable to sketch her features in my imagination. I could study her for hours and hours a day, but when I was alone I would fail to recall her face, as if she were a creature that existed only in fables.

  When I forced my imagination to produce a picture of her I saw emanations of unknown origin sully her image and distort her head. The beloved and familiar form morphed into a terrifying creature, a savage beast from which worms and venomous vermin crawled.

&nbsp
; Whenever I tried to concentrate and to construct her beloved body with my intellect, I saw disturbing colours run over her eyes and mouth. Every attempt I made to exert my will ended in bitter disappointment.

  The really weird thing was that when I closed my eyes and tried to call to mind the image of any creature other than her, I recalled it without any difficulty worth mentioning. When I thought, for example, of Hajj Sultan, the proprietor of the grocery store, his picture was readily created in my mind, despite the fact that I had never made any effort, great or small, to recall him.

  Inside me there is another will I don’t control; it attempts to expel Jasmine from my imagination. This shadowy spectre hates and disfigures Jasmine. I struggle against an unknown force inside me. I build my love for Jasmine stone by stone, but it destroys this love and pulls up its foundations. I lift my beloved to the ranks of the angels, but this other spirit that inhabits me reduces her to base images, at times a mouse, at other times a spider!

  When the lesson ended, I would try to keep her with me for as long as I could by asking her about topics more mature than my years. I wanted passionately to hold her attention as well as to show her that I was an intelligent youth. I used to ask her questions about anything that crossed my mind, questions that ran the gamut from politics, economics and scientific achievements to God, miracles, the jinn and cheating in exams.

  Jasmine was like a wise teacher for me, and thanks to her I refrained from cheating and writing cheat sheets and began to treat people according to a high-minded ethic. My interests expanded in an unprecedented way and I grew excited about reading children’s magazines and stories from around the world. I loved collecting stamps and coins and became interested in my diet, in brushing my teeth and in doing fitness exercises. Over and above all this, I found the gumption to buy a tambourine with brass castanets, which I played when my father wasn’t home.