An Excerpt of Abdulaziz al-Saqabi’s ‘A Drop of Alcohol’ – ARABLIT & ARABLIT QUARTERLY

Translated by Lily Sadowsky

“Who are you afraid of? Go on, get a move on. You call yourself a man? Prove it.”

He told his wife he’d be gone a month, but he hasn’t left yet. I bet that you’ve already filled in the story yourselves; you’ve seen it play out a hundred times on TV, in shows like Tash ma Tash. But this story’s not like that: he’s not leaving for another woman or setting off on some grand journey. Nonetheless, he’s dead set on leaving Riyadh.

This isn’t the beginning of the story either. It began almost a year ago. Now, he’s standing in front of his wife with a small suitcase in one hand. The setting is traditional, likely familiar to most Saudi families: The sitting room is big—or big enough. The television, too. There’s a couch in front of it, on the left side of the room. In the center stands a table with a small dish of dates, pots of coffee and tea, and a set of cups. A young girl no older than fifteen sits in the corner, on her phone, scrolling through social media, not paying attention to her parents over by the entrance, not caring—or maybe not knowing—about her father’s plans to leave that night. It seems like his coming and going is familiar, too.

Across from the television sits a second girl, maybe in her early twenties. She’s intently watching the match between Barcelona and Real Madrid. Two others are watching with her, all rooting for the same team. It’s clearly an important game—part of a tournament, maybe, or a championship. Urgency flows across the green pitch with the players’ movements and across the tricolor stadium with the fans’ roars. A goal delights some and depresses others. Considering when these games usually start, it must be past ten o’clock.

A woman, having just checked on her sleeping child, quietly enters the room. She’s not the girls’ sister but the man’s. She prefers to stay with her brother’s family while her husband defends the nation’s southern border. She walks by her brother and sister-in-law. “Good evening,” she says calmly. The possibility of her brother’s imminent departure is not on her mind. She heads for the kitchen—to prepare some more tea, maybe, or a meal. She looks at her phone. No new messages.

On the right side of the room, near the entrance to the kitchen, is a dining table big enough to seat fourteen. On the right side of the table, further from the entrance, is a boy on the cusp of manhood—probably in high school, judging by the notes scattered around him; definitely younger than the soccer fans, whose cheering and jeering are keeping him from finishing his problem set. He’d rather be watching the game with them, but duty—well, homework—calls. He looks up whenever a team threatens, strikes, or scores, but he doesn’t seem to be following more closely than that. Or he just doesn’t care enough about either of the teams.

The young girl gets up and goes over to her mother, who is still standing by the entrance. The girl shows her mom a picture on her phone. “What would you think . . . if I ordered this from Amazon?” The mother shakes her head, and the girl returns to her corner. She casts her brothers an indifferent glance, then considers asking her sister, but she’s afraid she’ll refuse without even taking an eye off the match. She clings stubbornly to her phone and continues scrolling instead.

The man sets his suitcase down and takes out his wallet. He then takes a small card out of his wallet and hands it to his wife. She looks at the card, walks over to the small table, retrieves her purse, and places the card inside it. She takes out her cellphone and sees a bunch of new notifications on the screen. She’ll deal with them later, as soon as her husband leaves. The man picks up his suitcase again and takes a few steps toward the group. “Farewell,” he starts to say. His wife steps back, clearing his path, and takes a good look at him. She has to raise her head a bit, as she seems to have grown shorter and plumper in her mid-fifties. Just then, the doorbell sounds, and the man’s departure halts. The housekeeper exits the kitchen and heads for the entrance to the villa compound.

Has a warrant been issued for his arrest? Did that card have the number for an attorney? Are the state security forces at the door now, waiting to arrest him on charges of, say, financial misconduct or corruption? No one would fault you for thinking so. That’s the way things look, but then again, is rooting for Real Madrid or Barcelona more important than saying goodbye to a father—perhaps for much longer than a month? Have they lost all common sense? The boys don’t look up from their match or their studies. The girls don’t cling to their father, begging him not to go. His sister doesn’t hug him either, though it’d be tough for her to be so far away from both her husband and brother at the same time. His own wife doesn’t even shed a tear. She must not be worried that his eye will wander, though he’s aged well—still alert, handsome, elegant, and healthy in his early sixties. No, it’s as if he’s already gone.

Nobody seems to think it’s strange that the doorbell is ringing so late at night. The man decides to wait to see who it is. Another, younger man enters the room—probably their eldest son. He walks over to his father. “These are the papers,” he says before turning to his siblings and asking, “What’s the score?”

“Zero–zero,” the middle son answers, without welcoming or even looking at his brother.

The woman takes her husband’s suitcase and opens it on the dining table, packing the papers inside. The man’s sister returns from the kitchen with a piece of cake.

“Is the little one asleep?” the eldest son asks his aunt.

“Yes, for a few minutes now.” She sits down and starts eating her cake with a small fork. The image of a child’s eye is clearly visible beneath the frosting. The cake must be left over from the boy’s first (or maybe second) birthday party. The celebration could’ve been a day, or two days, or even only several hours ago. But his father, who’s deployed at the border, couldn’t have been there. Maybe everyone else—the man, his wife, their children—already had their own pieces, sharing in the joy of such a milestone. Maybe this is the last piece, or maybe there’s much more.

Let’s stop and assess the room from a bird’s-eye view. Three people are standing: a mom, a dad, and their eldest son. The dad is on his way out, carrying the suitcase that his wife just repacked. Their youngest son is doing homework at the dining table—in front of him are his notes, problem set, and calculator. At the other end of the table, the dad’s sister is eating a small piece of cake on a small dish with a small fork. Three more children—two boys and a girl—are watching an English-language broadcast of a soccer match between two European teams. They must be fluent, or else they just prefer the Western commentary to the Arabic commentary. Finally, the couple’s youngest daughter is in a corner with her cellphone. The dad is wearing a white thawb and a red shemagh secured with an iqal. The eldest son is also wearing a white thawb but no shemagh. His hair is soft and short. He’s wearing glasses, as is the younger of the two brothers watching soccer. That brother, on the other hand, is not wearing a thawb but shorts and a branded shirt. The other men don’t need glasses. Another girl, only slightly younger than the eldest son, is now descending the stairs and entering the room. She’s carrying her phone in one hand and a book in the other. She sits beside her youngest sister and continues reading. The housekeeper has returned to the kitchen.

You’d expect a moment like this—in which a father decides to leave his family—to feel fateful. He has, after all, been the head of the family since his parents passed away. But everyone is acting like the mom and dad are just about to sit down to enjoy their coffee or tea, to talk about the day’s events, or observe their children as they root for a soccer team. It’s as if this happens nightly. But it doesn’t. And it’s not as if the father has done something reprehensible, either. His wife is not standing there, disbelieving and heartbroken, as he carries his suitcase past their son and over the threshold. No, it’s the opposite. She keeps glancing at her phone then back at her husband. She’s waiting for him to leave, or at least use the restroom one last time, so that she can check her notifications. No luck, though—he’s still there. Even their eldest son wants this scene to end so that he can go back to his house, to his wife and kids. He has to get up early to go to work and should be in bed soon.

The dad eventually puts an end to this tedious, tiresome affair. Raising his voice, he announces to his family, “I’m leaving for about a month. May God watch over you.” The group turns then to where he’s standing, beside his wife and eldest son. His bookish daughter of course shuts her novel, placing it on an empty seat. The youngest daughter no doubt looks up from her phone. The three kids on the couch certainly get up to say their goodbyes, to kiss their father’s head one after the other before returning to the match. His sister sets her cake aside without question, wipes her mouth, and gets up as well. Right? Wrong. None of that happens at all.

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Abdulaziz al-Saqabi (@abdulazisaleh) is a Saudi storyteller, novelist, editor, and playwright. His most well-known works are غفوة ذات ظهيرة and القرية تخلع عباءتها: نصوص مسرحية.

Lily Sadowsky (@happydowsky) is an editor and translator from Los Angeles, CA. She holds an MA in Middle Eastern studies from the University of Chicago. Her translations have appeared in The Common, the Markaz Review and ArabLit Quarterly, and at the 2021 Bila Hudood: Arabic Literature Everywhere festival.

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