Haifa Fragments. khulud khamis

half an hour, waiting for you! Or did you forget me again?” Ziyad’s voice rises in a furious wave over the clamour of the café.

      What day is it anyway? She hasn’t seen him for at least a week, and he is beginning to dissipate somewhere into the background of her life. “No, no, I didn’t forget you, habibi. It’s just that … I’ll be right there.” There is no point in trying to explain it to him. What would she tell him anyway? Oh, just discovered my father was a poet. Yes, the same father who almost disowned Tayseer … and me.

      Maisoon returns home a couple of hours later, drops her bag on the floor and sinks onto the diwan. He wants to own part of her world. He wants to put a mahbas on her finger. m a h b a s. She turns the letters on her tongue, stressing the ha’a. From the root habasa. Imprisoned. He wants to confine her—no less than with a shackle of gold around her finger. So that the whole world knows she belongs to a man. Not to herself. Yes, she’s ready to give up some inconsequential liberties. But not her right to freedom.

      To dance at four in the morning. To wash the dishes once every other day. Only. To have her morning kahwa with a cigarette on her narrow balkon under the clothes hanging to dry. In her father’s gallabiyya. To clean the house only once every two weeks. To make love at noon. Sometimes right before dinner. (And why not?) To eat fresh fruit for lunch. To read a book all night long while the birds are tucked away in the darkness. To draw in the morning. To take pictures of the souk in mid-afternoon, bursting with colour.

      No. She won’t be able to do these things if she is to wear a mahbas. Not in her way. And Ziyad will not understand. His concept of freedom clashes with hers.