Strings - Capstone Amal Al Shamsi (1)

“Because then Sara got married and Qasim went to police school and no one was left.”
Maybe to himself, he said, “It’s over quicker than it lasts.”
He thought of his mother. She must have known it was lonely at home after that. Sitting
next to him at breakfast, she said, ‘I need to speak with you.’ She passed him bread and he
snapped at her that he had to hurry, because that was what he did at that time. She caught him
in the evening and pressed the key to his father’s Pajero. It felt electric and he was overjoyed, too
stuck in this joy to realize that she meant to come with him. When it was dark, he tried to wake
who was left but they wouldn’t budge for the whole moon, not since Qasim left. With his tail
between his legs, he walked outside and found his mother in front of my father’s car. She said,
‘Quickly! What’s the matter with you, it’s so hot.’
Her hair was tucked into a long, thin cloth that she swathed across her entire upper body
and head. Some henna red strands still peeked out. She seemed in that moment, like she had
been weaving in and out of the night her whole life.
He hesitated by the driver’s side but she seemed ready to jump in the driver’s seat
herself.
He feigned ignorance, but couldn’t fool her.
‘Yalla! I know you can drive!’ He could. Revving the engine just to stop her taunts, they
set off. It was silent until he reached the sand, holding his breath as they dipped and rose over
the mounds. Then, when it seemed like there was no one else alive other than them as far as they
could see, it was different. He let his foot slip and let the tyres tumble forward on their own
accord. Eventually, his howling laughter became a match for his mother’s shrieking.
Leaning all the way forward until his chest almost touched the windshield, Hamza drove
wearing a manic grin. He remembered his hair being tugged backwards by the wind and his
mother’s head bumping against the car’s ceiling. “Stop!” she would cry whenever he faced any
minor obstacle. He would swerve around it but then she would grab his arms until he pushed the
brakes. Yet when he turned to her, she was always smiling with all her teeth, like her eyes, they
were always crowned with delight.
Some time later, he stopped to catch his breath on the side of a road, head dizzy, smiling
as his mother told him off in a half-mocking way. His cheeks felt cold and when he brought his
hands to them, they were wet.
When his father’s fury cooled down, he was able to take the Pajero out in the daytime.
Although he was barely fifteen, everyone in the town had seen his face for so long that
they could swear he was older.
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