Restless

By M.A. Murad

"If only I grew up in a world where I could choose my name, family, creed, and place of birth! How much better that world would be." Dissatisfied with his life, Mujeer is on a quest to break away from his background. That quest becomes a purpose in itself and pursuing it an obsession. It is his way of reclaiming what he believes were wasted years. On his way, he questions his societal values and beliefs, and formulates a picture of how he wants to spend the remainder of his days.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Oct 11, 2024
• ISBN: 9781035866496

M.A. Murad

M. A. Murad was born in 1962. He studied art and architecture in the UK, and has worked and resided in various cities in Europe and Asia over the past 38 years. He currently lives with his wife in the middle east. You can contact the author on HTTPS://MAMURAD.AMPBK.COM [https://mamurad.ampbk.com]

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Copyright Information ©

M.A. Murad 2024

The right of M.A. Murad to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781035866489 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781035866496 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2024

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Acknowledgement

For their support and insightful comments, my thanks go to Yasser Al Tal, Nabil Kassem, Rami Barhoush, Randa Bushnaq, Deema and Salma Al Ashab Omar and Khaled Bushnaq, and Khaled Bushnaq Jr.

Cover Art by the Author

You can contact the author at

https://mamurad.ampbk.com

restless

1

I hate my name! Mujeer; the one who welcomes to his home the needy and the scared. The one who offers protection to the persecuted and the refugees. I am constantly told how unheard of my name is and how noble its meaning is. I still hate the name and its archaic connotation; we are living in the twenty-first century, after all, and being called Mujeer in these times is as weird and irrelevant as being called the swordsmith or the guard of a fortress.

If only I grew up in a world where I could choose my name, family, creed and place of birth! How much better that world would be.

Granted, there are those who are incredibly lucky to grow up happy with what was handed to them at birth. However, even those fortunate few will, at times, question if one thing or another could have turned out better had they had a say in it. Such questioning usually resulted from going through a rough period in their life, or when wondering if they were contented with where they stand in the world. These thoughts, however, are often considered ungrateful or blasphemous for challenging God’s will and the role of humanity in his grand plan.

Not for Mujeer, though. Almost everything about his life was something he wished was different; his memories of growing up were a series of events that made his life unbearable. He resented the name he was given and the family into which he was born. Most of all, he resented Mhaidleh, the village that was his home. He genuinely believed that it was a cursed place that made people worse than they would have been had they lived elsewhere. For him, it was where hopes, ambitions, and all things beautiful and pure were buried prematurely.

Every time he pondered over the misfortunes in his life, his family or his village and its people featured as an active ingredient, if not a direct reason for them. It took him no effort to realise that even when day-to-day decisions or deeds didn’t work out well for him, those pre-determined factors had something to do with the way his actions and their outcomes were shaped.

When he got his promotion, it wasn’t the higher grade or the raise in salary that he rejoiced in; it was the fact that he will also being transferred. He was finally going to break away from his family and his village. His name, as weird as it was, he could live with, but an extraction from his environment would be his salvation.

He was certain that if he stayed, he would turn out to be as resentful as everyone who lived in Mhaidleh. His transfer would be an escape; an opportunity to save what could be saved of himself, and to revamp what remains into what he could—one day—be proud to be.

On his way back from work at three, Mujeer stopped by Amana Supplies Store. It was a warm spring day, and there were no other customers in the shop. Under the watchful eye of Obaid, the shopkeeper, he picked up the purple octagonal tin of assorted chocolates; the all-occasions famous treat that was ‘Mackintosh’s Quality Street’.

He hesitated a little when he saw the price tag on it.

Who cares? he thought. I got promoted and my mother will want to give out something to the neighbours; I will make it worth her while when she brags about my promotion.

Amana Supplies Store was the only shop in Mhaidleh, and in Arabic, its name literally translates as ‘Honesty’. Ironically though, the shop’s owner, Obaid, was as far from honesty as can be, and the quality of the products he sold was as questionable as their prices and sources. It was not uncommon to find overpriced canned goods on his shelves with the expiry dates scratched off.

If anyone complained, Obaid would tell them to go and shop elsewhere; knowing that his customers would settle for the unreasonable prices and inferior products and service rather than make the thirty minute-walk to the shop in the nearest village.

Up until maybe twenty or so years ago, one could hardly find a spot in Mhaidleh where olives, fruits or vegetables weren’t planted. Every family had a plot of land they farmed, and during the summer, trucks would take the excess produce to be sold in villages and cities around Mhaidleh.

That was in the past, though, and it was when an older generation, including Mujeer’s grandparents, were still living.

It could have been a succession of bad harvests that changed all that, Mujeer did not know for sure, but his father’s generation—as if by general consensus—opted to join the army rather than farm the land, work as civil servants, or be employed by a business. The army provided a fixed monthly income and gave young men a chance to move somewhere else.

Couldn’t you have bought something more useful? Do you think that our neighbours will be happy that you got promoted? Salem, Mujeer’s stepfather, said coldly as he turned the chocolate tin in his hands. He was searching for the price tag that Mujeer had already removed.

In an instant, Salem had managed to put a damper on what Mujeer thought would be an occasion to celebrate.

Stop it! Don’t spoil the moment for us, said Aisha, Mujeer’s mother. She then turned to her son with a smile: Congratulations, my dear, tell us more about this promotion. She took the tin from her husband’s hands and proceeded to open it.

Well, maybe he is right; the neighbours are a bitter bunch. Everyone in this village is bitter and envious, Mujeer said while thinking mainly of his stepfather’s own bitterness, who in turn looked at Mujeer with a stretched arm and an open palm. Exactly what I’m saying, Salem concurred.

Aisha gave her husband a reproachful look as she handed him a piece of chocolate and said, No, they’re not. Don’t let you’re your uncle ruin this for you. Tell me about the promotion, will you become the new postmaster?

No, I won’t. The postmaster himself doesn’t know if there would be a title change with the new grade. Mujeer stopped talking, but his mother kept looking at him as if waiting for a punchline. He continued, It’s been three years since my last promotion, and I was due one. I will move up from seventh grade to sixth; that’s at least thirty dinars more per month, but I was not told if I would get a new title. He did not mention that his promotion came with a transfer.

In total irrelevance to the conversation, Salem said, Why couldn’t you have joined the army? It’s what your father wanted and your brothers respected that. You would have become a sergeant or first sergeant by now.

Is this what we will discuss now? Ten years after I chose not to join the army? said Mujeer.

Well, an extra thirty dinars is well needed here, Salem said as he unwrapped the chocolate that Aisha gave him and put it in his mouth. Maybe now you can start thinking about getting married.

Let him be. He will get married when he is ready for it, Aisha snapped.

Ready for it? He is twenty-eight years old for God’s sake. All his brothers and sisters—even the younger ones—got married and have children. What is wrong with Abu Juma’s daughter, she turned nineteen, and they are a good, rich family, Salem said while chewing the chocolate; his already yellow teeth have now gone brown.

As his mother and her husband discussed his marital future, Mujeer sat absent-minded in an armchair. They went on as if he weren’t in the same room with them. His career and his status as a bachelor, were topics that came up every time Mujeer spent more than five minutes with his stepfather. Mujeer was certain that Salem also brought up these topics with his wife when they were alone. Perhaps even more frequently.

Salem was obsessed with marrying the last of his stepchildren off. He viewed them as a hindrance to what otherwise could have been a wonderfully comfortable life; free lodging with his late brother’s widow in his late brother’s house without needing to deal with his late brother’s offspring.

Aisha, on the other hand, was getting more attached to the idea of her son sticking around the house. Mujeer knew that she dreaded the prospect of having to spend the rest of her life alone with her second husband. As it stood, Salem’s negativity was divided between his wife and his stepson, and with Mujeer leaving, that negativity would all be Aisha’s.

When it came to the question of marriage, Mujeer never considered anyone other than Alia as a wife. He was miles away thinking of the girl that he loved for many years when he realised that the discussion between Salem and his mother was getting heated. He intervened to stop it, Let’s wait and see what happens at the post office over the coming few days.

Mujeer left them, took a shower, and changed into a T-shirt and a pair of jeans. He had his lunch alone, then put on his trainers before going out on his daily walk.

Every afternoon of the week, and regardless of the weather, he would walk for about thirty minutes to the coffee-house in the village nearest to theirs. As soon as he sat down, and without needing to order, the waiter would bring him a cup of coffee without sugar, and a glass of water; it was his consistent usual.

Over coffee, he would put on his earphones and watch American movies, TV shows, and YouTube clips on his mobile phone. It cost him one Dinar to connect to the wi-fi; the password of which was changed daily by the coffee-house’s owner.

The earphones, in addition to the loud music from the radio, the bubbling sound of water in hubbly bubblies, and the cracking of dice and backgammon stones on the wooden boards, acted as a barrier between Mujeer and the rest of the customers. It secluded him from the world and made it easier for him not to overhear any of the conversations, or interact with anyone. He needed that barrier, and made an effort not to have it breached. On rare occasions, and as their village didn’t have its own coffee-house, he would see some of the men from Mhaidleh come into the coffee-house and deliberately ignore them.

Having nothing more useful to do with his time, Mujeer religiously followed this routine to kill five to six hours daily. He would go through a whole pack of cigarettes and had become a fixture at the coffee-house; everyone knew where he sat, and it was always kept free for him.

During those hours he would get lost in a world that was so different from his own. A world of TV sitcoms and movies where women worked and led lives independent of men, where men and women could be friends, and where men and women had sexual relationships outside of marriage. In those shows, everyone seemed freer and happier. The women, in particular, appeared smarter and stronger than the ones he knew in his life.

He would order tea halfway through the evening to justify tarrying in the coffee-house, and would only go home when he was certain that his mother and his stepfather were asleep. They almost never stayed up past nine o’clock.

When he eventually returned home, he would tiptoe to his room, lock his door, switch on his desk-top computer, put on his headphones, and masturbate as he watched porn. That was the only release for all the frustration bottled-up inside him. The physical gratification had become a nightly ritual, and his ticket to a deep and languorous sleep.

There was no telephone line and no internet connection in their house, but Mujeer owned a sizeable collection of porn compact discs that he had accumulated over the years. When he was younger, and before he got his computer, Mujeer resorted to his memory of images of naked women and pictures of couples having sex that were circulated covertly at school before being returned to the source student. He would, sometimes, use his own imagination, but not once did Alia feature as a muse. His love for her was way too pure than to be mingled with his carnal fantasies.

On that particular night, however, and in spite of the satisfaction of masturbation, Mujeer could not get any sleep. Although it was a bit chilly outside, the crickets were unusually active. They were so loud and persistent, they sounded like they were chirping inside his room, under the pillow, and inside his head even. He consciously tried to think of something else to distract him before the crickets drove him crazy, but the thoughts he turned to, disrupted his sleep even more than the chirping of the crickets.

Twenty-eight years, and nothing to show for it; no house of my own, no car, and no wife. Just a high-school diploma and a shitty career. I don’t even look that good. I still haven’t told Salem and Mother about the transfer to Amman. I want to postpone my mother’s heartbreak for a day or two. But I should be thinking about my life in Amman; I will need to pay rent and buy food. There will also be the monthly trip back to this shithole. Would I be able to save any money, or afford to send Salem something?

Mujeer got out of his bed, and in total darkness, he located his slippers with his feet and slipped them on. It was pitch-black, but he knew his room and this house too well than to stumble, or bump into anything on his way out.

In his pyjama bottoms, T-shirt, and slippers, he sat on the front step of the house with his back against the door. It was a little chilly, but the wind was