THINKING OF NAIMA

Late at night, he switched off the light, and groped for the bed which he had bought at the flea market, when he thought of marrying his neighbor Naima, daughter of the shoe-mender. He knew that she loved to sleep on a European-style bed. He didn’t marry her, and he couldn’t figure out why that marriage didn’t materialize. He asked himself this question just as he was touching the edge of the bed in the dark.

As soon as he lay down, he decided to think of Naima. And since he didn't fall asleep right away, he had to look for something interesting to think of that made him feel happy. He always wanted to dream of her.

Naima asked him many times: “why haven’t you married yet; and how do you manage with your food and laundry?” At last, he decided to ask for her hand in marriage because of her interest in his personal affairs.

He remembered now how he started to think of her. He thought she might accept him, though he was in his sixties, while she was still a young woman at thirty-five years of age. After all, she was not that pretty and surely that squinting in her eyes made her look very plain. He always said she was plain, because he didn’t want to admit, even to himself, as he was lying in his European-style bed, that she was ugly, though all the guys in the neighborhood said so.

He thought about this very deeply. He didn’t want to ask for her hand in marriage lest he would be rejected. He was sixty years old now and lived most of his life alone after his mother died. He didn’t want to be turned down and felt timid at this age. Furthermore, he was sure that Naima didn’t want to live at her parents’ house after the death of her father when her mother took over controlling and dominating her. Her situation became worse than before, for her mother was sharp-tongued, and was only concerned about what others said about her, beside her elder and younger brothers who loved to flex their balloon muscles in front of her to show her their strength.

Sometimes he heard shouts coming from their apartment which was right above his, while trying to find his way to bed in the dark, stretching his hands in front of him. He often thought of buying a flashlight to put beside his bed. He always worried that he might stumble onto a chair or a shoe and fall down on his way to bed from the door where the electric switch was placed, about a meter and a half away from the bed.

When he heard those shouts, he would know right away that her mother and brothers were beating and rebuking her and wishing fever upon her. He thought of all that and concluded that if he asked for her hand, her family would welcome the idea, at least to get rid of her, and to shift their concerns about her from their shoulders to his, as they say.

He remembered that day when he came back home and saw Naima washing the stairway. He greeted her, and she reciprocated his greeting. Then she asked him what he was carrying in that plastic bag. “Two falafel sandwiches for lunch”, he said. “What a poor guy you are,” she exclaimed and wondered why he didn’t look for a good wife to take care of him in his old age. He told her he was thinking seriously of getting married, and said he would be grateful if she could help him find a reasonable good-hearted woman who would accept to marry an old man like him. When she heard that, she smiled and reached out and touched his hand, which was holding the rails. Suddenly an electric current shot through his body, and he felt the heat surge to his head. His heart started to beat faster, and his mouth became dry.

He is now hearing footsteps pacing upstairs. He can guess that they are the footsteps of a person treading heavily on the floor to make such heavy pounding sound. Ever since he discovered that this was the way Naima walked, he started to feel something strange inside him the moment he heard her footsteps. Her mother didn't make any sound at all when she walked. He thought that her mother dragged her feet, and she rarely walked barefoot. He also remembered the sound of her brothers' footsteps who used to visit their mother and sister from time to time. The family used to get together at the Lesser and Greater Bairam (the Eid), and on the occasion of middle of the month of Cha’bban, when they return from the cemetery after visiting their poor father's grave, who died before he could see his daughter Naima married and settled down. The sound of their footsteps was strong. They usually walked in their shoes, so that they made a strong thudding sound. And that brother in particular, who used to wear worn-out shoes, with the studs protruding from the heels, would make a loud sound on the bare tile floor.

He turned to his right side to expel all those thoughts of footsteps and shoes. He wanted to concentrate on happy things, the things he always sought before he went to bed, like, for example, when he came back home and saw her washing the stairs, and rushed back to his house and sat in the chair panting, while the memory of Naima's touch of his hand was still fresh in his mind, trying to perpetuate that feeling which overwhelmed him. It had been a long time since he was last touched by a woman. He even forgot completely the touch of his mother’s hands, when she used to rub his head to eliminate the headache spells which used to attack him. She used to rub his forehead, eyes and cheeks, murmuring a verse from the holy Quran which starts with “Say: I take refuge with the Lord of dawn from the mischief of whatever he has created”. Now he was lying on his right side trying to recall Naima’s touch. He raised his hand and looked at it, but couldn’t see it in the dark. He closed his eyes, pleased with that feeling which made him remember how he had refused to wash his hands for three days, so that the trace of her touch wouldn’t be removed. It was a feeling that overwhelmed all his body, so much so that his hair stood on end.

In his heart, he felt the sweet impact of the touch. It was a kind of pleasure that overwhelmed him all of a sudden, that made him sigh with great happiness. At this point, he remembered how he had left his work place earlier and rushed home, hoping to see Naima standing on the stairs, then he would put his hand on the rails, giving her a chance to touch him once again. But he returned to his work place disappointed, feeling depressed. On his way back home, however, carrying his sandwiches in a plastic bag, he felt better again, in the hope of seeing her again or, at least, he would sit in his room and listen to the shuffling of her footsteps; hear her moving from room to room barefooted, then he would remember that unforgettable touch.

In a sharp insight, it dawned on him that she used to wash the stairs on Thursdays only. Now, after he turned to his left side, he remembered how he had met her for the second time, when he stood there holding the rails. He gazed into her face, receiving wireless messages transmitted by her body to his, or by her soul to his, telling him how difficult it was to find a proper woman without roaming from house to house, and knocking on doors. He found himself asking her to marry him, and telling her that she was the only woman he wanted. Her face turned red, she felt embarrassed. She didn’t know what to do or what to say. So he decided to withdraw. But as he was moving away from her, he said to her in a low voice that he would talk to her mother. He knew quite well, however, that talking to her mother was not that easy, for she was, as everybody knew, a bad-tempered and sharp-tongued woman, and would use the same curses and obscene words men used. While lying on his left side, he decided not to think about the mother, since the thought of her made him angry, while he wanted to sleep soundly. Therefore, he didn’t try to recall the details of his meeting with her, when he went upstairs and talked to her about this. The only thing he learned in that visit was how Naima liked to sleep. In that visit, he learned that she liked to sleep on a European-style bed with a spring mattress, while he slept on a board covered with a stuffed mattress, following the advice of the doctor of the Department he worked in, when he was diagnosed to have a slipped disc.

Thinking of Naima and of all these things relating to her made him happy, for he discovered that he had now a good reason to roam from one market to another on foot to look for a bed for Naima. Because of his long search, the pain from the slipped disc returned. A colleague of his advised him to look for such a bed at the flea market. Now he found something to keep him busy on Fridays, the weekend when his work place closed and he had to stay home. He found an excuse to leave the house and come back in the hope of having a glimpse of Naima, who hadn’t given him an answer yet to his proposal to her. He realized by that time, however, that the noisy sounds made by her brothers’ shoes became more frequent and noisier in their house. He felt that those shoes were treading on his head every night. Then this was followed by shouts, curses and threats. Probably he heard one curse directed at him and at his family. At this point he wanted to think only of happy things, he didn’t want to recollect all that he had heard, especially that angry shouting describing him as a poor and ailing old man, who didn’t own a house. He also didn’t want to remember how he heard Naima crying bitterly, and other things, including those sounds and shouting which he believed was one of her brothers beating her violently with the help of her mother. He remembered at that time, that he wept silently for the sake of Naima. He wept once again when he saw her some weeks later, while she was washing the stairs. He came closer to her to tell her that he had, at last, bought for her the bed she wanted to sleep on. But she ran away, leaving the water running on the stairs, pouring like a waterfall. He remembered now that he had wept in his room, though he didn’t want to think about such things which made him feel depressed. He felt at that time that he was lonely, and that he would die alone without having a woman touching his hand. Therefore, he started to think of Naima every night, and how she left a nice and happy feeling in him that made him sleep soundly and see happy dreams.

              (Translation by Khaled Al Jbaili)