All That We Speak

There are a thousand ways to live. Just how many do the two of us know?

Zhang Wei, The Ancient Ship. 

The second time I saw Hassan was at Martyr’s Square. I had come out of Independence Street, watching vehicles lie close to each other, moving slowly. Drivers blasted their horns at the market people crossing the road. Then, as I was about to turn towards the market, I heard the voices of people, swerved towards the direction of the voices and there he was, amid a crowd of other young people, brandishing placards with these words: Democracy Now or Never! Freedom We Speak!

Hassan blinked his eyes and wiped away the balls of sweat dropping off his forehead. I was not sure he saw me. I stood there, from across the road.

At first, he was the only person I watched, the only body my eyes lingered on. He spoke loudly. His voice broke through the noisy air around Martyr’s Square. I had known him for his eloquence, for his confidence, and it was what had drawn me to him the first time we met at the Faculty of Sciences, Al Fateh University.

That sunny day, he was seated beside the Septimius Severus, the sculpture of the Roman Empire, at the green garden of the Faculty of Sciences. Tucked between two other boys, his voice drew my attention from the book I was reading. I looked up to see that his cheeks were puffed, little veins outlined his neck. He gesticulated as he spoke to his friends; sometimes, he would stand up, turn to them, to drive home his points.

“Nonsense,” he said, standing. He paused to look at one of his friends. “This isn't what we need. What is this thing about Cultural Revolution? Listen, we’re suffering, people are suffering and all we hear about since he seized power is Cultural Revolution?”

His friends looked at him attentively. As he spoke, a certain kind of admiration struck me, a kind of longing swelled my belly. I was not sure if I felt or saw in him what my mind wanted. So, I kept calm, smiled as I followed him with my gaze, as I listened to him.

After a few minutes, he was alone. The other two boys had gone. I closed my book, shoved it into my bag and walked towards him.

“Hey, I’m Ibrahim.” I stretched my hands to him, maintaining a reassuring smile.

“Hi, Hassan,” he said, and went back to his book.

“I just saw your friends leave.”

“Oh, yes. They left for their classes.”

“You’re here, in the sciences?” I said.

“No. Arts.” He scratched his head. “Classics and History.”

I smiled. We looked into each other’s eyes. His eyes were deep brown, his lashes a bit long and his nose pointed.

“Here, have some.” I gave him one of the mulberries from my bag. “Can I sit here?”

“Why not? Sure,” he said.

For a few minutes, the air grew tensed between us. We didn't talk. He busied himself with the book in his hands; I bit into the mulberries in my hands, chewing carefully, the pacing of my breathing irregular: slow, at first, and then it grew faster.

“Last night I listened to Gaddafi,” I said.

He turned to look at me sharply. “And the Revolutionary Council.” I added, lying. He looked more intently at me now, as though he would grab the information from my mouth before they left. “What do you think, Hassan?”

“About what?” He said, closed his book.

“This Cultural Revolution thing. I mean Gaddafi’s policies and ideologies.”

“That’s nonsense!” He smoothed his kaftan. “Did they consider our rights? How this policy will affect the ordinary people? Do they have the slightest idea how people are suffering already?” He spat on the ground and wiped his mouth. “Do they even consider us as humans?'“

Was he asking me? I was not sure.

“Gaddafi,” he continued, lowering his voice this time, and looking around. “He has gained control of all commercial activities and banned private ownership. A lot of people have lost their property and money. Don't you know?”

“Yes. My uncle, the last time I travelled home, was lamenting that all the money he had in the bank had been confiscated as the country’s money. Nothing for him.”

“Exactly the point.”  He snapped his fingers. “My father is a bit lucky. He’d withdrawn some of his money from the bank for some business that didn't work. Two days later when he was about to pay it back in, he discovered that the Revolutionary Council had started confiscating people’s money.” Hassan looked back into his book, closed it and then said, “Ibrahim, you see... the people the government has taken their money. What about them?”

I shook my head.

“Think about it,” he said. “We don’t need this. I think Gaddafi wants to follow the steps of Mao Zedong.”

Mao Zedong? I looked at him, confused.

“You do not know him?” he said, then widened his eyes. I felt embarrassed.

“Anyway, he is the chairman of the Communist Party in China. I read about him last semester in an American Journal I got from my professor.”

“Oh really?”

He nodded. “He declared cultural revolution in China to re-impose his views. And what is it called again?” He looked up; hit his palms together, trying to remember something. I smiled. It was alright, I wanted to tell him, but he tapped my shoulder, grinned back at me, and said, “It is called Maoism.”

I did not want to ask him what that meant, so I looked on, listening as he talked.

“We don’t need this here,’ he said. ‘Libya is not China.”

So, on the evening of that day I saw him at Martyr’s square, I sat on the felled bough under the mulberry tree, outside Kareem Hall, feigning to be busy with the little book in my hands. My eyes would go up anytime someone or a group of people approached the hall. Just as I grew exhausted, I spotted Hassan from a distance, gingerly walking towards the hall. I called him.

“Hassan, hello!”

“Hey, Ibrahim,” he said, and walked towards me. He shook my hand. “You stay here too?”

“Yes. Room 104, right wing.”

“Room 78, left wing,” he said. “You can always visit.”

I winked at him. At this point, I felt something growing in my belly, something about to break free. I like you, I wanted to whisper to him, to hold his hands in mine. But no, I bit my lower lip, left the words hanging in my throat.

“Hassan,” I said.

“Yes?” he looked at me, held my shoulders, looking into my eyes.

“I saw you, earlier today. Martyr’s Square.”

“Oh, you were there?”

I nodded.

“It was one of our ways of voicing our mind, you know, about this cultural revolution, about our rights, about this government,” he said.

He squeezed my shoulders, whispered to me about how he enjoyed the protest. His mouth came close to my ear, and I perceived the commingled smell of tea and harissa on his breath.

“Thank you,” he said to me, his face flashed a little smile.

But why was he thanking me? I hadn’t joined the protest; had deliberately gone to Martyr’s Square to see them, to see him.

“It’s nothing, Hassan,” I said, smiling.

“See you tomorrow,” he said.

“Goodnight.”

I watched him as he trudged towards the vestibule of the hall. He placed each foot on the ground with agility.

Two days later, when I visited Hassan in his room, he was alone at his reading table, his head hunched over a book. His roommates had gone out, he said, for lectures.

He was scribbling something in a sepia-cover diary. Books piled on each other. I glanced at the book with the gold lettered title Democracy in the Twentieth Century.

“You’re writing?”

“Yes,” he said. “Trying to write my thoughts about a poem.”

“What poem?”

“It’s a poem by Khaled Mattawa.” He lifted his face. “His words set my bones on fire, and they make me want to never stop calling for a change.” He dropped his pen, flipped the page and started to read the poem. His voice vibrated with something. Maybe excitement. Maybe passion.

Put out the words that fired your waking,
Scatter them on the sand like seeds,
Then with your feet, gently tap them,
And let the bright waves
Receive your meaning.

I nodded. “A great poem,” I said.

“Oh, Allah,” he dropped the book. “Khaled is an extraordinary poet.”

He stood up, took my hand and kissed it. That minute, that moment his lips touched my hand, I froze. Something powered through my body. It throbbed inside me. It was rhythmic. He sat on his bed, beckoned on me to sit beside him.

“We’re lucky to have talents like Khaled. People who are not afraid to speak.” He caressed my hand. I sat there, still, happy.

“You’re a poet too?” I said.

“Oh no, just that I enjoy the truth that lives within the words of poems; how it’s used to resist ....”

“Sometimes I find those words too complicated.”

He laughed. “Aren't we ourselves complicated?” he said.

Immediately, Hassan’s hands rested on my thighs, his eyes pointed towards me, digging into my own eyes.  He leaned forward and kissed me. I closed my eyes, tasted the flavour of harissa on his lips. Tapping me on my arm, he asked me to open my eyes that I should not act ridiculously. It was then I knew his lips had left mine, but I still felt it, still tasted it. I licked my lips. He smirked and muttered something about this being my first kiss.

Footsteps approached outside, towards the door. Hassan hopped up and went back to his reading table. I wiped my lips with the back of my palm and sat straight. But nobody came in. Perhaps the people went to the room next door.

That summer break, when Hassan asked me to go with him to visit his parents in Benghazi, a twelve-hour journey, I was confused because I’d planned to visit my uncle in Misrata, to help him set up his new farm.

“Don’t tell me you won’t go,” Hassan said, noticing my quietness. “Is there a problem?”

No. No. He wouldn't understand.

“When are we leaving?” I said.

“Tomorrow.”

But we didn't leave the next day. Hassan went for a meeting of The Progressive Brotherhood. It was urgent, he’d said. Their coordinator, Hamza, had sent a message across to them the previous night, to meet at a certain place. I had seen Hamza a few times with Hassan. He was tall and blinked his eyes too often. Like Hassan, Hamza argued a lot about why we needed democracy.

A few days before, while Hassan and I were sipping tea at the cafe close to Kareem Hall, the song of the revolution had played for minutes on the radio on the wooden countertop. Thereafter, a voice, thick and soaring, came up. The voice of a member of the Revolutionary Council. He said that Gaddafi had heard about the protest at Martyr’s Square.

I looked at Hassan. He shifted in his seat.

“Such traitors would not be tolerated in this country,” the voice said.

“Nonsense,” Hassan said under his breath, heaped curse words on the man behind the voice, and on Gaddafi. Hassan’s eyebrows furrowed. But he quieted himself and listened to the radio.

“All unauthorized gatherings, all protests are banned. People of this great country, our leader have set up Jamahiriya Guard and haras as-shaabi to ensure such things like this don't happen again.”

A cloud of silence descended on the cafe. People sipped their tea or munched their bread, avoiding each other's gaze. People had their hands suspended in the air or holding onto their teacups. Hassan drew in air and lifted his tea to his lips, downed it and told me, “Let’s leave here. Immediately.”

When Hassan returned from the meeting, he did not tell me what they had discussed, what they thought about the pronouncement. Would they still hold their meetings? What about the protests they’d lined up?

I wanted to ask him about all this, but I did not, because his eyebrows were coated with dust; his face forlorn, as he walked about me. Oh, Allah, he looked so broken! He would say nothing. He just held my shoulder, squeezed it, nodded, and left.

The next day, Hassan and I left for Benghazi. We met his father outside, seated in a padded wicker chair. His jaw squared; his eyes sunk into his face. We greeted him; Hassan introduced me as his friend. “Very good friend, Baba,” he said.

“Welcome,” his father said.

“Thank you, Baba,” I said, grinning.

But he continued to stare at me.

Hassan breezed into their house with our bags, leaving me like the innards of a scrapped lemon before his father.

“You’re a student too?”

“Yes Baba,” I said, rubbing my already sweaty palms together. At once, Hassan reappeared, dressed in white jellaba.

“What’ll our visitor like to drink?” Bu Hassan said, looking my way.

Grinning, “I’m fine, Baba,” I said, a bit embarrassed.

“You can’t be fine.” He sat straight, and then leaned forward. “How about some Coca Cola? Um Hassan! Um Hassan! Fatima!” He turned to Hassan. “Tell your mother to bring two bottles of Coca Cola.”

Hassan left and returned with two bottles of Coca Cola, and said his mother was in the kitchen. Before he uncorked the bottle I held in my hand, his mother appeared  at the door. She had a long chestnut hair, her skin yellowish-brown from the dying sun, and she had pink lips. I could see where Hassan got his pink lips from.

I greeted her.

“Your name?” she asked me.

“Ibrahim.”

“Welcome.” She smiled a weak smile and returned to the kitchen.

That night, Hassan and I lay on our backs on his bed. I could hear his rhythmic breathing. He had not said much since we retired to his room, still infuriated by what I’d done at the dining table.

At the dining table, the conversation had been about how expensive things had become. And I said that Gaddafi would not last in power, that there would be another coup or he’d just die. And I went on and on, unaware of the coldness that had taken over the table; how everyone had quieted. When Hassan stepped on me, I pinned my lips, embarrassed at how his parents stared at me with disgust, how his parents’ gazes lingered on me as I ate. As Hassan and I left for his room, I could imagine his parents still staring at me with disgust. I was stroked with shame.

“I’m sorry for what I said.” I whispered to Hassan.

Hassan pulled me closer, and I dropped my head on his chest.

“Don’t be sorry,” he told me. “It isn't your fault.” He stroked the hair on my head.  “We don’t discuss anything Gaddafi here.” He fell silent. His hands moved down to my chest. “I’m sorry. I didn't inform you. Ever since the killing of our neighbour who was accused of being a traitor, my parents live their lives as though it’s not theirs.”

“Do they know about your activism?”

“Come on, you don’t expect me to tell them.”

Hassan held my hand in his, caressed my fingers.  He hunched forward and planted a kiss on my lips. It was an intense conversation of our tongues, of our mouths too scared to speak what we held for each other. His hand snaked through my body, tracing every part of me, speaking to me in ways I hadn't known. As he entered me, I listened to the rhythmical movement of our bodies, the low creaking of the bed. I imagined his mother, wide-eyed, standing by the door, cursing us. But I latched my eyes, concentrated instead on the magical electrification of our bodies.

Soon we lay beside each other, naked, listening to the inordinate humming of our breathing. I fondled the little hair on his chest.

“I love you.” I whispered to him. “Can’t wait for us to be together.”

He pulled away from me, got out of bed, groped around for his shorts in the dark room.

“It’s haram,” he said and stormed out.

My mouth was ajar. I didn't know what to say, no word rose off my tongue. My heart began to thud. I should nothave told him that. I shouldn’t have.

Back on campus, we avoided each other for days, boycotted every route that would lead us to each other. Not because I enjoyed this; I didn't want to be the person to go to him. I needed to reconsider this thing between us. It was two weeks already since we returned to school, since we became two walls standing apart from each other. But on a sunny Saturday, I decided to meet Hassan.

That same Saturday, Hamza disappeared. And I didn't see Hassan for days that grew into weeks that made me panic. I asked his friends, went to his faculty, asked few of his mates. Had they by any chance seen him? They shook their heads, though, in the eyes of some of them, there were questions. Maybe for Hassan.

I met Mohammed, one of his faculty mates.

“Have you seen Hassan?” I asked him. He stared around briefly, then back at me.

“I heard they caught him too,” he whispered.

“What? It can’t be? When?”

“Bring down your voice,” he said, darting his eyes. “They said they are traitors.”

Not Hassan. No. He was just condemning the repressive government, I wanted to tell him. But he was walking away, toward the arts studio.

I froze there, unable to stop the thoughts that seized my mind: that Hassan had been killed; his carcass had been dropped into the sea. That’s where bodies of traitors are dropped. These words of that man on the radio at the cafe pierced my heart. And this news bruised my mind too, even more.

The next day, I was returning from class. Mohammed pulled me by the hand to the back of the mulberry tree beside Kareem Hall.

“What’s it? Why are you pulling me like that?” I queried him.

“They are about to hang him,” he said. “I told you,” he continued, “they are traitors,” he said assertively and breezed away. I called him. Wait! Wait! Where? My heart pulsated. My body felt heavy. I rushed behind him and got to the cafe. Everywhere was full to the brim. Some people’s face creased with the expectation of what they were about to hear. I scanned the room; found an empty seat at the far end of the room. I settled into a brown wicker seat, sweating andpanting. I drew in air, and then lowered my head to listen to what was happening. A voice was speaking. It sounded like the voice of the man from the other day.

“This government is doing so much to make sure every citizen enjoys good things, but....”

The people in the cafe murmured. The revolution song was blasting on the radio now, filling the whole room with anxiety and fear. I held my hands between my legs. I placed them on the table. My eyes followed the boy who worked at the cafe. He was standing behind the big radio. He turned the knob, and a wheezing rattle shot out. Then he turned the knob again, tuning the right frequency. Some people were wincing. And he stopped. He got it now. But the song had died. The voice was back.

“There is no room for traitors here. Not in this country,” the voice said. Someone was crying, snorting. This would be him, I thought. Hamza. “Today,” the voice continued, “we bring you one of the traitors. Hamza Ahmed.”

Hamza shrieked now. I imagined him sprawled on the ground, tossing, and his hands held behind him, cuffed. Hassan could be there, I thought.

Perhaps he was somewhere in line, behind Hamza. I shuddered and concentrated on the radio.

The voice barked at Hamza, commanding him to sit up and speak.

“Speak! What are the names of others?”

My body froze as Hamza, in between tears, rolled out their names. Jibril Bubakar. Musa Abdul. Rashid Kahbir. His voice was throaty, breaking again and again. Sweat formed on my forehead. My back drenched in sweat. I listened.Hassan Mustapha, he said. My heart throbbed. My head ached, gritting as if a hawk were pecking at the innards of my sanity.

Hamza cried more now. He pleaded; the voices of people around him yelled at him, calling him a traitor. Soon Hamza's voice began to ebb. He coughed as though something had held his throat. He coughed again and again. The revolution song came up and died. People gradually picked themselves out of the cafe. But I sat there. I stayed longer. Tears filled my eyes and when the boy who worked at the cafe came over, to ask me if I was waiting for someone, his figure looked blurred. And when I looked at him through the rivulets of tears already gathered in my eyes, I shook my head. But he didn't leave.

“Do you know him?” he asked me.

I nodded. And he said nothing. He just walked away and when he returned few minutes later, he held a bunch of keys, and told me he wanted to close for the day.

For the next two days, I wouldn't lift myself to go to class. I'd been inside my room until now that I decided to go to the cafe, to sit around there, to have some tea or coffee or maybe nothing. And just outside Kareem Hall, a black car parked there. But the car followed me, gradually, as I dragged myself eastwards. I hadn't noticed it until now. Perhaps I was too preoccupied to. When I peered into the car, I saw two men, all dark-skinned. The one behind the steering had a scar on his forehead and looked thinner than the other one whose cheeks looked a bit puffy.

I turned around, swiftly, towards the narrow path leading to the campus. I drew in air and tightened the grip on the notebook in my hand. I hastened my steps, my sandals raising dust behind me. Over my shoulder, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the car racing towards me. My heart sank. But I could not move away quickly. They pulled behind me. One of them stormed out of the car.

“Hey, stop there now,” he yelled.

I halted. It was as though the ground felt hot and scorching.

“You're Ibrahim, right?”

I nodded. My eyes fell on his face. He looked sullen; the scar on his face seemed broader now. I felt hot liquid travelling down my legs.

“You know Hassan Mustapha?”

No, I didn't know him, I thought of saying. But these men, with their menacing gaze, seemed to know much about me already. I couldn't crawl into the shell of denial now.

“Yes,” I said. My hands were sweaty, my legs wobbled.

“Get into the car,” the man with the scar said.

I didn't. I rooted myself there. Tears rushed into my eyes, threatening to fall through my cheeks. But I resisted. I tried to not look scared. I wanted to know who these men were; why they wanted to leave with me. Where were we going to? I asked. But the next thing that came to me, that landed behind my head, pulled me forward. And just that time, like a dumb lamb taken to the slaughterhouse, I followed them to the car.

* * *

Weeks later, Hassan showed up in my room, in the dead night, huffing and puffing. He tapped me. I hopped out of my bed, looked at him as he led me away, to his room. He looked tired, his eyes bloodshot, hair tousled, his trousers creased on the ankle. Where was he coming from? Tell me, Hassan, what happened? I wanted to ask him. Instead, I said, “Hassan, see what you're doing to yourself?”

Hassan did not respond. He didn't say any words, he didn't yell back at me. He hastened his footsteps.

“I'm glad you're alive, Hassan.”

“They have taken him. They took Hamza.” His voice broke into thin huff. He swiftly stuffed some clothes into his backpack. “They want to silence us. No way. Never.”

“Isn't it too much to fight a government?”

“Never,” he said. “Not a government that sees us as less human.” He threw few of his books into the bag. And turned to face me. “Not the government that wants to silence us.”

I stood behind him, watching him as he rummaged through a bag he'd pulled out from under his bed. “Everybody is afraid,” I said.

Hassan pulled down a grey box from atop the wooden wardrobe. He turned to me.

“Why's your face swollen and bruised?”

I touched my face, as though realizing now what he'd said. How could I tell him that some members of the Revolutionary Council took me away? They thought I’d joined them in their protest. They asked me if I was part of their group? But no, I wasn’t. Although I couldn’t prove this to them at first, they hit me and bruised my face and lacerated my arm. You’re close to Hassan. How come you don’t know about his illegal activism? They yelled at me. Every of their words, every of their sticks and fists that fell on me, reminded me of the pain Hamza underwent before he died. I’d thought I’d join him, too.

I looked away, stared at the poster of King Idris 1 on the wall of his room.

“Ibrahim, huh?”

“It's nothing, Hassan.”

“Nothing?” he said. “Don’t tell me that. Did they come after you?”

“We're all afraid for you, for your life. Can't you see it?” I said.

“No, you're not. Really.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“You all live and walk in silence. You're all afraid of losing your lives. Not mine, not me.”

I raised my leg so that he'd walk across to the other side. “Sometimes we choose silence to live. Hassan.”

“Never are we alive when we're silent, Ibrahim. Silence makes us rot inside.” He lifted the box back to the top of the wardrobe, breathing fast. “Silence is a language I've refused to speak,” he said.

“Think about those who love you. Those you love,” I said, gawking at him, expecting him to say something. That he regretted what he'd said back in his room to me, about our relationship. I stared at him for that reassurance. But Hassan didn't turn. He busied himself with his packing.

“What about your parents, Hassan?” I asked him. “Shouldn't they be considered?”

He hefted his backpack, turned to me. “Don't tell them. Promise me.”

Promise? But how could I promise that Hassan? How would I do that when the news had circulated? How sure did we even know that they were not aware?

Hassan left the room. His footsteps doubled. And when we got to the entrance of Kareem Hall, everywhere was eerily calm.

“Hassan,” I called, my voice breaking as though a lump hung behind my throat. I cleared my throat. And he turned; I grinned. You complete me and make me happiest, I wanted to tell him, to cuddle him, to disappear into his eyes that stared at me like a star in the dark sky. But when I moved further, standing before him, and his face looking down at me, I bit my nether lip.

“I'll never be happy without you,” I said.

He flashed a wan smile at me; squeezed my shoulders. I flinched and shrugged my shoulder off his grip. He didn't say anything. He stood there for a while then he walked away, faster now, into the heart of the night.

An engine revved in a close distance, and a headlight flashed towards Hassan. My heart pulsated and I staggered backward and fell.

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