Raja'a Khalid

Road to Tayyibah
​
        Hind looked in the rearview mirror and caught sight not of Salman’s eyes in his counterfeit Police
sunglasses but his smile, his two front teeth in gold. So, he knew. But how? Joebelle wouldn’t tell. She
wasn’t the type to talk about things like this. Maybe he’d pressed his ear to a door and listened like Hafiz
and found out. That this was no holiday.
        ​Tayyibah was not a holiday. It was a punishment. Two months at Umm Al Ghaith’s farm. Time
enough–Umm Hadeyah and Baba felt–for Hind to realize the wrong she'd done. Lying to Joebelle, telling
her she was going to try on shoes at Mango and slipping out to the car park instead, getting into Rashid’s
Armada. Even as she was doing it, stepping on the escalator, going through the sliding doors, her heart
had beat violently in her chest, two fast beats at a time. Dum dum, dum dum, dum dum. The first beat for
the boy’s touch. The second beat for Baba’s slap. Twin thrills. Forever entwined.
        Deep, deep, deep inside she was sure Baba would not actually ever hit her. He couldn’t. She was his
favorite afterall. He’d stroke her hair and run his thick finger down her small upturned nose, call her his
little pussycat. Meow. On account of her green eyes. She’d got them from her mother she suspected who
he’d left behind in Balochistan, their short lived marriage, the unanticipated event on the itinerary of a
houbara hunting party. He’d raised Hind with too much love, spoiled her with frocks and dolls but she
still felt the gap, the endless void of a mother-shaped hole in her universe. It was on her sixteenth birthday
that she asked Baba her mother’s name for the last time. He’d held a forkful of white forest cake in front
of her lips. Don’t ask me, he’d said. Open your mouth pussycat, eat this.
        Tell me her name Baba.
        I don’t remember. Eat the cake.
        She took the bite then ran to her room, bit her pink silk pillow, cried thick salty tears which rested for
a while on her long lashes then cascaded down her cheeks. Baba had come into the room, raised her chin
with a thumb. Aren’t I enough for you? he’d asked.

Rashid with the Armada had caught her eye at Starbucks in Mercato. He was in a big group and she felt
his gaze hit her cheek like Dubai’s white hot sun. They chatted on bluetooth for an hour. When she went
back the following weekend he was there. He had figured out the routine she had with Joebelle and
Meitha. When he made the offer of a drive she didn’t hesitate.
        His car was new. The smell of leather mixed with his heavy oud and Commes des Garcons excited
her and scared her in equal measure as did the D’Angelo track on the player. Up close he looked older
than the twenty one he said he was. He drove them to an abandoned villa in Umm Suqeim, parked in the
dark driveway. When she told him she was seventeen, he laughed. That’s my favorite number, he said,
putting a hand on her knee.

        What happened in that car? Baba had asked.
        We just talked, was her reply.
        He didn’t believe her, this much was clear but his rage broke silently, hidden inside, confined, like the
rumblings at the center of the earth. There was even a tear in his eye from the effort of keeping it all
within him. This is going to hurt me more than it’s going to hurt you, he’d said, as he’d picked up the
phone and called Umm Al Ghaith telling her that he was sending Hind over to Tayyibah for eight weeks.
Why? For the fresh air, change of scenery. And Meitha would come too, to give the girl some company.
        Meitha’s rage hadn’t been silent or confined, she’d screamed and screamed at Baba. Shave her head,
Meitha had said pointing at Hind. If you want to keep her from trouble.
        But Baba said eight weeks in Tayyibah was enough for now. Next time it would be longer, six
months if Hind even looked at a boy. She guessed that he knew what she had come to terms with years
ago. Boys would find her no matter what. They always did, their phone numbers scribbled on slips of
paper left under the windscreen wiper of Mouza’s G Wagon. For your sister with the green eyes. Yes,
Hind was different from her sisters, stood out in that line up of seven. Her raven colored hair glistened
blue under the midday sun, her skin the color of cream, the shape of her lips a little rosebud. Just looking
into your eyes will send me to hell, a boy had said from the window of his Brabus. She hadn’t caught his
name but the slip of paper he flicked at her landed on her lap like a butterfly. Mouza had ripped it up and
thrown it like confetti in Hind’s face. You’re more trouble than you’re worth, she'd said.
        ​Look, said Salman pointing.
        Camels, half a dozen of them, some sitting under the shade of a Ghaf.
        More mandi, said Salman and laughed.
        Bas bai bas, said Meitha.
        It’s bhai not bai. Safina didn’t teach you anything.
        How much further Salman?
        We’ve only been in the car an hour so another hour at least.
        Hind tapped her baby pink nails on the window. Bubble Trouble the color was. What funny names the
nail colors had. Call My Agent, Casting Couch, Topless. She wondered if there would be a parlor in
Tayyibah, if she’d be able to change the color. Perhaps a peachy neon orange next. Umm Hadeyah had
taken Hind’s hand into hers that morning and whispered in her ear. You’ll do anything to get attention,
maybe we should just chop these fingers off. Her stepmother’s wizened face flashed before Hind’s eyes.
She stood behind Baba as he closed the door to the Patrol, arms crossed, squinting in the sun, doing little
to hide her smile. The woman was ecstatic inside Hind knew, euphoric at the prospect of having Hind sent
away for she had never made a secret of the fact that Hind was another woman’s child. In front of Baba
Umm Hadeyah had taken Hind into her arms, braided her black hair, put her in pretty dresses but behind
his back she’d pinched Hind on her legs, threatened her with hot spoons, called her the devil’s princess.
Your mother was a whore, she’d said to Hind once. And you’ll be just like her. The woman was
convinced that Hind’s mother had been a witch too and that witchy blood now ran in Hind’s veins,
convinced that Baba’s devotion to Hind could be credited to some serious hocus pocus. But Hind never
minded the taunting, the twisting of her arm, the whispered insults, she even called the woman Ummi for
Baba’s sake for in return he gave her gifts he gave none of the other girls. She could see the flames of
jealousy that licked at Umm Hadeyah, could see that all the old woman was trying to do was hold onto
Baba, Baba who had slipped away from her fingers like sand from a fist years ago. Umm Hadeyah’s
hysteria was the stuff of tragedies for she would never have the power over him that Hind had. Even now,
even with this banishment to Tayyibah, Hind knew Baba did not love her less, that he was not really
angry, only afraid, afraid of accepting the event that was just round the corner. She would belong to
another man soon and the fear of this made Baba tighten his grip. Even in a crowded room his eyes
sought only her and when they’d meet her gaze they’d offer up a wordless story, a private joke as if the
two of them were alone. He’d lose himself when he would lose her of this she was certain. She’d come
back after the eight weeks with even more power than before. As they’d said goodbye in his study he’d
pulled her close. Promise me we won’t have to do this again, he’d said.
        Am I still getting the Lumina for my birthday? she asked him and left the room smiling because he
did not say no.

        ​By the way, guess who’s getting married? said Meitha.
        Who?
        Abdullah and Omar.
        The twins! To who?
        ​To two sisters from Sharjah.
        A prickly electricity pulsed on the surface of Hind’s skin as she recalled the twins faces, or face rather
for they were witchingly identical. She hadn’t seen her cousins for, she counted on her fingers, eleven
years. Eleven years ago they’d stayed over, come to her playroom when she was alone and locked the
door behind them. One grabbed Hind’s Japanese princess coloring book and colored the princess’s face,
arms and legs with black ink while the Other undressed her Barbies and sheared off the hair with a pair of
scissors. They offered to leave if she would take off her frock. And so she did. Stripped till the only things
left on her were the socks and plimsolls on her feet. They had looked at her body officiously, like doctors,
then quietly they’d left. They went to boarding school in England after the summer so Hind never saw
them again. They became pilots she heard.

        When’s the wedding?
        March.
        I’m going to stop here for petrol, said Salman. Want anything, chips, Pepsi?        
        Red Bull.
        Red Bull for me too.
        There’s a palm grove if you want to take a walk.
        Hind and Meitha got out into the crisp December air. They crossed the road and walked through the
gate to the oasis where tall date palms with dusty fronds stood in formation beyond an empty car park laid
with gravel.
        Ew! Meitha shrieked and turned to leave.
        What is it? said Hind.
        Nothing, let’s go. Meitha tugged at Hind’s sleeve.
        Tell me.
        It’s nothing!
        And then Hind saw them. On the gravel, not just one or two but dozens of used condoms, scattered
like washed up jellyfish. She rushed to the Patrol. Salman was already inside, his fingertips orange with
the dust of twisty cheese chips.
        You don’t want to take a walk?
        No, no, said Meitha. Let’s go.
        Hind opened her can of Red Bull and sipped. Salman overtook a horse truck and Hind saw for a
moment the horse’s eyes in the window. She’d miss her Buraq, Buraq who’d been with her from the start,
from whom she had no secrets because she would whisper them into his ear. Black bodied with a white
star on his head, she’d been afraid of him once, briefly when she was fifteen, after a fall and Farah had
gotten her back up. Farah who wore her long black hair in French braids, who was as tall as a man and
just as strong, who’d said to Hind once that at night she turned into a horse herself. They’d been alone
sugar cubes in palms, storm clouds gathering outside when Farah had slipped her fingers through Hind’s
and led her into an empty stable. She told Hind her heart ached with the burden of a forbidden secret, that
she had a wild horse inside her that was tearing to break free, that he took control of her at night, that the
truth of herself felt like a boot on the chest. She pressed Hind’s hand on her left breast and there was the
dum dum, dum dum, dum dum. Please let me, Farah had said as she’d placed her lips on Hind’s parted
them with her tongue, leaned her tall body into hers. Hind understood then what Farah had meant by the
wild horse, for she could feel it take over her. Her arms and legs no longer her own yielded to the steed,
letting him charge through her veins, her hips, her back. As thunder clapped outside Hind had felt a jolt, a
gush of energy, like waves leaving her center, coursing slowly to her edges where they crashed into one
another then ebbed away. That night she had a dream and in it there was Baba illuminating light as he
smiled and placed a hand on her shoulder, telling her that try as she might, he would always have the
grand total of her secrets, that he alone was her keeper, that it was he who would steward her from planet
to planet, sun to sun, moon to moon, to wherever it was that she needed to go. She woke with a start and
Baba’s face hung there in front of her, the afterimage burned into her eyes, refusing to fade until she
stared for a minute into the morning sun which was bright and clean because the rain had cleared away
the smog and settled the dust.
        Farah wasn’t at the center for Hind’s next lesson and all Hind ever learned from the office was that
she’d gone to train in Abu Dhabi and wasn’t ever coming back.

        You see those mountains, used to be leopards in there, said Salman. But they’re finished.
        Hind recalled seeing the cats at the zoo. Sleeping, bored, forlorn. There had been an info board
outside the enclosure about how they’d been hunted to near extinction. Mostly by villagers who were
protecting their goats. Hind looked into the distance at the mountains and imagined herself on four legs,
on the edge of a rocky cliff, at once the hunter and the hunted. Is this what Baba saw in her? Was he even
now watching her prowl on the edges of the world he’d made for her, a world of ponies, Parisian
apartments, Hermes handbags, Miu Miu shoes. In the action of sending her away he was actually pulling
her in close. He’d be there in Tayyibah, in the rocky hills, in the clouds, in the green watching her, his big
hand blocking the sun, his loud laugh creating a deafening silence.
        She would play his wordless game, she’d go to Tayyibah and sit still for eight weeks on musty
cushions, take walks with Meitha to the parameter of the farm, pet the baby goats, eat the rice and lamb
every day for lunch and dinner. She would watch Umm Al Ghaith make luqaimat, khabeesa, balaleet,
open her mouth for these and the dates stuffed with nuts. At night she would step out to see the stars that
were impossible to find back home because orange city lights clouded the view and turned the sky into a
purple haze. No, the night sky in Tayyibah would be clear, deep and black and she would gaze into it as
Umm Al Ghaith would tell her and Meitha stories of girls who cavorted with djinns and woke up to find
their hair turned to snakes.
        She’d come back as the leopard Baba wanted her to be and the two of them would continue their
stalking. He’d get her the Lumina SS she asked for–what the racing boys called the death driver–and she
would throw her arms around his neck, kiss his cheek, let the roughness of his beard scratch the skin of
her lips. She’d ask for painting school in London and to this too he would say yes and ask why she was
always finding a way to stab him in the heart. Hind closed her eyes and recalled not a vision but a scent
instead. Leathery oud, tobacco smoke, black pepper, burnt roses. Baba’s scent. Then his voice. If only I
wasn’t your Baba. He’d said that to her when they had been alone in the majlis one evening.
        ​Whatever he was trying to save her from, she’d known its truth already. She’d heard it from him after
all.

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Raja’a Khalid is a Saudi-born, Dubai-based (and raised) artist and writer. She has an MFA in Art from Cornell University and has exhibited in London, New York, Basel, Vienna, Paris, Rotterdam, Madrid, Dubai and Athens. Her short fiction has previously appeared in Vestoj.