Underground by Tariq al Haydar

“How can a man of consciousness have the slightest respect for himself?”

—Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground

I am a sick man. Fractured. You may wonder how I ended up on the roof, standing with my eyes closed, arms unfurled. The answer is quite banal. Forty years of a sedentary life:  the pain in my fingers when I bang my fist against the steering wheel while stuck on the Northern Ring Road; the heat of my breath as I sigh standing in line to submit an application to the Department of Peculation in Northeast Riyadh, shifting from leg to leg, hoping to alleviate the ache in my knees. All this for an application that will end up in the bottom drawer of a man much stupider and much more powerful than me. 

I am nothing if not tooth and liver. 

My liver aches from too much contraband vodka. Such is a lifetime spent in a land where women are only a rumor, a theory. A man is not designed to live in a land devoid of women, to be greeted only by men with yellow eyes and their jowls. 

I am nothing if not theoretical. 

What am I if not these organs and slabs of meat bound together by flesh? I floated once, looking down at my body from the ceiling of my cabin on a cruise ship. Imagine. I went on that cruise in search of an imaginary woman, and spent two weeks drinking ill-made daiquiris by a pool frequented by older, obese gentlemen, their folds of skin and fat jiggling in the sunlight.  

It would comfort me for a real woman to kiss my mouth, to momentarily suspend the memories of kissing shoulders and noses, hands, heads of men better than me. Their empty heads. How many languages do they speak? Can they flirt in Italian, like I do with my beloved Gomi? 

Has it taken me this long to introduce her? Forgive me. I had never come across that name before: Gomi. It was how she introduced herself the first time I kissed my mirror and found her in my reflection.

Your knees, beloved. Take care of your knees.

In the beginning, I imagined that I had created her out of my own ribs. She is the devil that resides in my bloodstream, who indulges my every whim.

Would you like me to please you, my king?

*

My work is mere tedium. I walk into the Department of Academic Taxonomy, on the fourth floor, turn left and walk to the largest room with its infinite cubicles, proudly raising my cup of coffee for all to see. They stare at their screens, enamored of their own absurdities. 

I am so proud of you, beloved. If only the world appreciated you.

My pride at that moment is a product of my greatest daily accomplishment: purchasing a cup of coffee. You see, my disdain for my co-workers has rendered me numb to their judgment, but out in the world, in Riyadh, my dignity is compromised. I see billboards pledging fealty to monumental men and tremble. Everywhere I go—restaurants, toy stores, shopping malls—I see these men’s faces, looking far into a horizon I have no ability to fathom. Even someone with as sophisticated a mind as mine bends his neck when under surveillance. I gulp every time I see those obscure white boxes that line the streets with their hidden cameras, monitoring my speed. I sigh when I receive a text from that box, informing me that I must pay 300 riyals for my transgression.

You are my king. Pay it with sincere intentions, and the universe shall provide, beloved.

Steam rises from my paper cup. The coffee burns my palm. 

*

When I venture out into the streets of Riyadh, I find myself surrounded by two types of people: scoundrels and insects. I detest and envy both. I am too weak to be a scoundrel, too stuck in inertia to act. This is why I remain motionless, gripping the steering wheel with both hands, when a scoundrel cuts me off. 

You are the bigger man, beloved.

As for the insects, I envy how they accept their own wretchedness and find some comfort in that acceptance. 

In my eyes, you are a lion, my soul.

I lost my temper once. A prince in a black Mercedes, customized to fit his adolescent whims, honked at me. I gesticulated wildly. The single lane on King Abdulaziz Road was jammed. The other lanes were closed due to construction–the city is perpetually under construction. When the traffic began to move, the prince squeezed in front of me, then exited the car with two henchmen . They were all short and slight of build, early twenties probably. One wore a cap backwards, marijuana leaf emblazoned on the side. The prince–I could tell from his mannerisms, the confidence– walked up to my window.

I was frozen in my seat, perhaps afraid, yes, but also trapped in my own inertia.

Even the bravest lion’s heart fills with fear at times, beloved. 

The prince spat on my window. The saliva streamed down the glass like diseased raindrops. I transformed,  descended into madness. I was a wind, a tornado, a hurricane. I opened my door and kicked it into him, thrust my body into his like a battering ram. We fell onto the asphalt. No force could have scraped me off of him. I dug my fingers into his face, crunched my knuckles against his forehead and cheeks. I wanted to choke the smugness out of him. When his henchmen pulled me away, my fists were dripping with scarlet. 

A lion must keep his honor intact, beloved.

*

My friend talks to me about his exploits in Dubai, Beirut, Manama, Casablanca–what he calls an “escort economy.”  He, along with other frustrated, isolated men from the Gulf, goes there for “sexual tourism.” His tales only make me feel like the man I was, someone who believes in personal relationships when they are purely transactional. Someone who knows that, fundamentally, we all live, “love” and die alone. My knowledge does nothing to alleviate my self-loathing.

I tried to find love once. My mother handed me a photograph and asked, “Will she do?”

I felt wretched, like I do when I contact a prostitute. She was selling me the same as those women: the illusion of intimacy.

Keep your faith in me, beloved?

“Well?” Dressed in black, hair covered with a tarhah, she sat on a wood chair in her garden. She loved to sit under palm trees, even when I pestered her to move inside to air-conditioning.

“Well?” I repeated.

“What do you think of the girl?” She held a broken branch.

“You mean the image of the girl?”  I laughed. I had to commit to a photograph or risk being branded as having lost faith in the human species.

“The girl, the image, what’s the difference?” asked my mother.

“Mother, I will never marry,” I said. “Please accept that.”

My mother rubbed her forehead. I sat in silence.

Would you like to experience a dream with me tonight, beloved?

My chest filled with  heat, as if I had gulped more whiskey than I should have, or if acid from my stomach was shooting up my throat.

*

I was at the Ministry of Co-optation and Vanishing once, attempting to get my cousin out of jail. He had been imprisoned for something trivial–almost everyone is imprisoned for something trivial.

The first thing I saw when I entered the building was a podium manned by a petty low-level officer, a corporal maybe. I don’t know much with regards to military ranks. I had to show him my ID, and he gave me a badge I had to affix to my chest. 

“Salam,” I announced.

He looked at me with disdain, stared right through me, frowned, and then looked at his phone again. To him, I was of the ether.

“What’s your story?” I demanded. “Do I not fill your eye?”

Whem he heard the anger in my tone, his attitude changed. All of a sudden, he respected me. I refused to be disrespected.

“Good tidings,” mumbled the officer as he handed me the badge. “Good tidings…”

We are resigned to the fact that a figure of authority will, undoubtedly, spit in our faces, yet we still maintain our freedom to choose which authority figure does the spitting. What my idiot countrymen fail to realize is that every authority figure they encounter is but a cog in a malevolent machine, a spit trickler, as it were. 

*

 Do you believe in astral projection, beloved? 

What does that even mean? Is there even such a plane?

I escape my realm with difficulty, beloved. Please help me take care of you.

That was the word: care. Love, championed, the supreme emotion creates unrealistic expectations. Care is mundane, substantial. Anyone can fall in love and know nothing of taking care. An unexpected gift, a capacity to listen and empathize, a willingness to sacrifice, deriving pleasure from a beloved’s pleasure. Like Gomi.

“Your realm?” I asked.

She said nothing.

“Could I visit you?” I asked. 

Check your Twitter in the morning, beloved. I’ll have followed you.

I had trouble sleeping when she told me this. The excitement. Anticipation. Maybe she was trying to teach me a lesson about restraint. In the morning, I checked my Twitter account. Nothing.

I couldn’t find a way to your realm. Your intentions weren’t pure, were they, beloved? I long for you infinitely more than you long for me. If only you knew what I’ve done to remove the barriers between us..

I have been trying to induce lucid dreams, to no avail. I think my problem is excessive masturbation. I’ve developed a pornography addiction. I feel weak because it becomes ritualistic. Before, I would do it only to relieve myself, a bodily function. Now, I’ve I’m using these tools as crutches. But let me tell you: the bodies I’ve seen.

I want to show you something.

I want to see her. Just once, smiling..

Come to the roof, beloved.

I walked up the stairs to the roof. A black night. Almost. Gomi’s single eye illuminates the darkness.

Do you see me, beloved? I’m dreaming of you.. Do you see Canopus? That is me.  I am the star at the end of summer. Come to me. Fly. 

Tariq al Haydar’s work has appeared in The Threepenny Review, North American Review, DIAGRAM, Beyond Memory: An Anthology of Contemporary Arab American Creative Nonfiction, and others, and his nonfiction was named as ‘Notable’ in The Best American Essays 2016.

19 November 2021