The Bahraini Factor

The Bahraini Factor

Amal is a sixteen-year old genius with unique observational skills and an exceptional talent of finding logical patterns in everything that he sees, a talent that has enabled him to solve complex mysteries on a daily basis back in his country. But when his family moves to the small island of Bahrain, he becomes so preoccupied with the sharp contrasts of Bahraini society and the many facets that shape the mentalities and attitudes of its population, that he starts to doubt if he will ever fully understand them. When he discovers that a precious pearl has been stolen and smuggled into Bahrain, it takes him on an adventure through different parts of the island where he finds out about its famed pearling history and witnesses firsthand both the old and the new of its culture. As he comes closer to finding the pearl, he also draws near to a major realization about his new home. He learns the inevitable Bahraini Factor.

Mohammed Hassan

90000

ID: 14332853 www.lulu.com

9 781304 744173

Mohammed Hassan

ISBN 978-1-304-74417-3

THE BAHRAINI FACTOR

THE BAHRAINI FACTOR

THE BAHRAINI FACTOR MOHAMMED HASSAN

Mohammed Hassan 2013

Copyright Š 2013 by Mohammed Hassan All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

First Printing: 2013 ISBN 978-1-304-74417-3 Mohammed Hassan House 783 Road 1622 Block 816 Isa Town, Bahrain +973

To purchase a paperback copy, visit: http://www.lulu.com/shop/mohammed-hassan/the-bahrainifactor/paperback/product-21369858.html

Dedication To a nation that always motivates me to do too much by always complaining that there is too little.

Contents

PREFACE ...........................................................................................ix CHAPTER 1 .....................................................................................13 STANDARDIZED UNLEARNING.............................................13 STEREOTYPICAL INNOVATION ............................................17 GUARANTEED POSSIBILITIES...............................................20 CONSERVATIVE DECADENCE ................................................23 CHAPTER 2 .....................................................................................25 MOVERS AND LURKERS..........................................................25 MUTE PROPAGANDA ...............................................................29 ATTAINABLE INOPPORTUNITIES .......................................32 WELL-MANNERED MISBEHAVIOR ......................................36 HOLIDAY VOCATION IN THE SUNNY SHADOWS.............39 VIOLENT SAFETY ......................................................................42 CORPORATE FISHERMEN.......................................................47 RIGIDLY FLEXIBLE MINDS .....................................................50 VINTAGE MODERNITY ............................................................56 UNPATRIOTIC PATRIOTISM .................................................61 NEW BUCKET, OLD PAINT .....................................................65 CHAPTER 3 .....................................................................................70 THE BAHRAINI FACTOR .........................................................70 GLOSSARY .......................................................................................83

PREFACE Before proceeding to read the novel, I thought it would be beneficial to clarify a few things. While the events and characters in the story are fictitious, the inspiration behind them comes from a very real place. I was born and raised in Bahrain to Bahraini parents and throughout the thirty years I have lived here, I have often found myself examining the peculiarities of the people I have encountered and how they echo the dominant mindset of the time. I have noticed that—likely due to the rapid modernization that it went through over the past three decades—Bahrain experienced several eras of radical social changes in relatively short periods. The most obvious difference was in the behavior of the youth, who I was able to see evolve from one generation to the next because I was always enrolling in academic institutions in the hopes of evading holding a regular job like a responsible adult (something I did successfully until I was twenty eight years old.) I saw a generation that was isolated from the rest of the world, then I saw a generation that was witnessing the world enter their lives with a mixture of intrigue and caution, and then a generation that embraced foreign lifestyles yet still resented foreigners. I did my best to take as much as possible of those observations and place them within appropriate comparative terms of even older and more vastly different eras and aspects of Bahraini life to tell a story of major contrasts. To that effect, I hope I succeeded.

The story is told from the subjective point of view of Amal, who is a sixteen year old boy who moves to Bahrain from an unidentified country. In his homeland, despite his young age, he managed to make a daily habit of solving complex mysteries by utilizing his sharp observational skills and affection for logic into a system where every seemingly complex situation can be reduced to simplicity by finding the appropriate logical pattern that it followed. His genius fails him, however, when he applies the same system in an effort to understand his new surroundings and he is left with more questions than answers about Bahrain. The mental dialogue he has regarding his new home takes precedence over the backdrop story of a mystery about a stolen, precious pearl which unfolds in the vein of Sherlock Holmes. ix

Readers might notice that a pessimistic or cynical view dominates the better half of the story’s events. This is intentional as, by my and many other Bahrainis’ view, Bahrain is a nation of cynics and pessimists. Therefore, it’s expected that—assuming that he isn’t cynical by nature—some cynicism would find its way into Amal’s character after his move to Bahrain. In that manner, it edges closer to self-analysis rather than an onlooker’s observation. It is also my hope that shining a light on the cynicism would help reduce it by showing its ugly and counterproductive nature.

The book doesn’t serve a political purpose and it treads very lightly on the political history of the country but, as with many works of literature, there is inevitably room for interpretation by the reader.

Some ambiguity regarding the accuracy of Amal’s conclusions was necessary as part of his character’s natural progression. His intellectual prowess aside, he is a foreigner in a new country and as such, he can’t always arrive at the full and precise explanation. There are subtleties in between and he has no access to those. He only has access to what he sees unfolding in front of him or what he hears from others around him, with his new best friend Noor being a direct line into Bahrainis’ mentalities and attitudes. At the same time, his passion for learning and his heightened attentiveness enable him to gauge the situation with a higher level of accuracy than a regular tourist or expatriate. That balance in character is a major component of the novel and is the driving force behind his struggle throughout his adventure. The answers are always within inches of his fingertips yet never fully within reach. His young age is also intentional as it mirrors a time of learning for an individual.

My intention from the onset was to create the seminal Bahraini novel, not in the sense of one that describes Bahrain in a comprehensive way, but rather one that will inspire Bahraini authors to innovate in writing by realizing that there are no limitations in the realm of fiction in general. Being born in Manama or in New York has no bearing on potential or quality of writing as the thought process where the story formulates takes place in a world where Manama and New York don’t exist. It’s all fiction, regardless of the reality that contains it. Liberties can always be taken to weave and mold any story into something unique, influential and entertaining. x

I genuinely believe that any work of art, literature or entertainment by any citizen will add to the pool of that nation’s cultural identity, regardless of the prevalent political atmosphere of the day or the political allegiances of the author. My sincerest hope is that Bahrainis realize the importance of building an infrastructure of art and entertainment for a better future and that innovation in any field will eventually lead to theirs and to their country’s success in the long term. This is my contribution to Bahrain’s cultural identity.

xi

MOHAMMED HASSAN

CHAPTER 1 STANDARDIZED UNLEARNING I don’t think I’ll like it here. The sun outside was a scorcher.

Summers are really relentless on this island. The traffic on the highway outside this school alone was irritating. Break, go, break, go, break. I’ve only been here a week and I could swear I saw the same street get congested with at least one extra car every day. How do they all fit inside those narrow lanes?

This school is something, though. Bright-Learner’s International School, or BLIS, as the students here call it. It’s huge. The walls are so tidy, they look like they’ve been washed and waxed since the day they were built. Wouldn’t be surprised if they were too. This is one of the most popular private schools in Bahrain. Enough rich families send their kids here that a wall-waxing budget wouldn’t be too unrealistic… I don’t know how I feel about the white and blue uniforms. I look like a kid. I’m sixteen years old. I think I’m old enough to be capable of putting an outfit together, thank you very much. I noticed the public school students wear white and grey uniforms. They also have separate schools for boys and girls.

Shouldn’t this be the other way around? No one’s ever gonna learn anything at a public school anyway. At least, if it was a place where boys and girls could meet, it’ll give them an incentive to show up…

It’s only been a few minutes since the first lesson bell rang and these hallways are already empty. Those students scattered to their classrooms pretty fast. Things were never that organized in my old school. The hallways there were always buzzing, even after the bell rang. And I don’t remember seeing a clean wall, though, who could tell with all that inappropriate graffiti? Everyone was loud, the teachers barely got a word in and the place was a mess. God, I miss it.

Now, I’m here on this tiny, little island and in this apparently perfect school. I’m surrounded by the best-behaving teenagers on Earth. The biggest transgression I’ve seen so far is kids playing football on the street and causing a lot of car honking. I bet all the students form a 13

THE BAHRAINI FACTOR straight line and politely wait their turn to get on the bus. I can already hear them settling down inside the classrooms and letting the teachers start the lessons, like they’re considerate adults or something. What manners! If they’re not raising hell and overcome with the rebellious spirit now, then when exactly will it happen? Are they this laidback their whole lives?

Maybe all the rowdy ones go to public schools. I know public schools started the new semester a week before us because I’ve been seeing droves of boys in white shirts and grey pants eyeing droves of girls in blue uniforms on the other side of the road. For some reason, it seems that most public boys’ schools in this country have been built opposite public girls’ schools with only a road or two setting them apart. Now the first thing this resulted in was creating the most obscenely congested traffic you’ll ever see in your life, both when students are being dropped by the school and when they’re being picked up. But to me, the most interesting result of putting opposite schools of opposite genders is students of both sexes partaking in very public mass flirting sessions after school. Both the boys and the girls line up along the walls of their school, waiting for their parents or transport to pick them up. Of course, by the time those ones arrive, who knows what young love blossomed from a willfully reciprocated glance and a quick exchange of phone numbers. I like that this happens, though. That’s one thing teenagers do around the world that I find completely normal, so I’m definitely glad they do this here. I bet that helped take the edge off when the time came for men and women to share a workplace or any situation where they’re required to coexist together. You hear something like ‘Muslim country’ and your mind immediately wonders how strict it must be for the women living there. But this country is hardly strict towards women from what I’ve seen so far. Maybe these strategically placed schools had a hand? I can’t know for sure. But if that really was the plan then I have to admit, it’s kind of genius… I’m just realizing now that the most carefully planned aspect of Bahrain’s schools might have nothing to do with education. I don’t know if these opposite schools were intentional or just happened to happen but I like that they did. I’m secretly hoping it was intentional because if they kept building 14

MOHAMMED HASSAN schools and never learned anything from it, the irony would be twice as unbearable…

I wouldn’t be surprised if no one else spotted this. People here seem to have a knack for not realizing what’s right in front of their eyes. I’m watching these hordes of students going through schools and universities and every time I see them, I wonder if they took the time to look around and see the scarce opportunities for them when they graduate. It’s a teeny tiny island with turtle-speed growth and more sand than buildings. The whole country is too small for the people who already graduated, let alone the ones who are still in college. What are they hoping to be when they graduate? Miracle workers?

“Are you in this class?”

Oh, man. I forgot to go inside the classroom. I must’ve been waiting outside this door and talking to myself for at least ten minutes. Hope this teacher is the understanding type…

“Yes. I’m new here.”

“Oh, yes, yes. Come inside.”

He seems like a nice guy. He’s definitely Persian. I just can’t tell which one is more Persian, his face or his accent. Judging by his reaction, he was waiting for me. He must have already taken attendance and figured I’m the last one left…

Look at this class. There must be at least thirty students in here. I like that some of the rows have mixed pairs of boys and girls. You know, the more I see, the more I believe that people are quick to stereotype. This just seems like a normal, tolerant country. I think I might fit in here, after all…

“Class, this is your new classmate. His name is Amal.”

Why’s everybody laughing? Is there something wrong with the way I look? Ugh. That’s why I hate uniforms. This shirt looks creased. Half these pants are filled with air. Why do I have to be so skinny? Okay, wait, that can’t be it. Some of these students look just as ridiculous as I do. What’s so funny then?

“Alright, that’s enough, class.”

Even the teacher is turning red. He’s telling them not to laugh but he’s obviously holding back a smile. Oh, great, now he’s giving me the sorry eyes. I don’t get it. What’s so funny about my… oh. Okay, 15

THE BAHRAINI FACTOR now I see. I’ve been living back home my whole life that it didn’t even occur to me. Amal is a girl’s name. I remember my mom telling me the story of how they gave me that name because she and dad have been trying to have a baby for so long that they were starting to lose hope. When they had me, they called me Amal because it means ‘hope’ in Arabic. This never mattered to anyone back home. I know Indians sometimes call their boys Amal but in here, that’s a girl’s name. Ugh… does that mean I’m gonna have to be subjected to laughter every time I introduce myself? Well, so much for fitting in…

“Be nice to him. He’s not from Bahrain. You can sit down now, son. Sit over there, next to… oh.”

Why are they laughing this time? The teacher is scratching his forehead like he’s trying to find his way out of a maze. This is getting out of control. Oh, to hell with this. I’m just gonna go sit next to the chubby kid he just pointed at…

Wow, this kid’s face is so red, he looks like he’s about to explode. Are they laughing at him?

“Hey, what’s your name?”

I’ve never seen anyone struggle so hard just to open his mouth…

“Noor.”

Noor? Isn’t that’s a girl’s name?

16

MOHAMMED HASSAN STEREOTYPICAL INNOVATION This cafeteria is pretty big. At least, big enough to handle the stream of students going in and out that glass door. I can’t stand this noise pollution, though. I’m hearing mixed conversations in Arabic and English and it’s giving me a headache...

I’m kind of glad Noor is sitting on this table with me. He hasn’t said a word yet besides his name but, for some reason, I’m fine with that… look at those three sandwiches stacked on top of each other on his tray, waiting their turn to be annihilated. He’s already wolfed down the first. I can’t blame him, really. I’ve never seen such shamelessly thin sandwiches. Eating four of those is like eating one real cheeseburger—not that you can’t get a real cheeseburger in this country. From what my dad told me, this is definitely a food-obsessed culture. They take their cuisines very seriously. If you know where to look, you can basically find anything you want to eat. There’s literally a meal for every financial level, ranging from the insanely affordable to the pretentiously overpriced. You can realistically find a filling meal for as little as two hundred fils, which is a little over fifty cents.

Of course, most people are nowhere near that destitute. They eat because… well, because they can. It seems like everyone here has turned eating into a favorite pastime. You wouldn’t guess it if you see how thin they are. Where does it all go?

This restaurant boom seems like a recent one. I guess one branch of a well-known restaurant opened up and was a hit so all the others followed. Apparently, this struck such a chord with local businessmen that they’re rarely interested in opening any other type of business.

My dad says a friend of his, who has a number of successful food outlets, once told him that the only way your product will make a profit in this country is if people can drive it or eat it. I get why business owners would wanna avoid a risky business venture, but I’m confused at the way they’re limiting their scope to a complete lack of originality. It seems that the standard method is to wait until a foreign fast-food outlet takes off then you bring it here, which is just sad. I mean, if you’re an Arab who conducts business deals with people from all around the world, the last thing you’d wanna do is perpetuate the stereotype that Arabs do nothing but eat and never innovate, and 17

THE BAHRAINI FACTOR that’s all you end up doing when the only businesses you’re opening in the country are food outlets branched out from American franchises…

Noor seems to be the exception to the thin population rule. He’s not that big but he’s bigger than most of the other guys I’ve seen around this school. He doesn’t look like the type who deprives himself of anything. His whole appearance is like a demonstration in indulgence. His not-so-white shirt has wrinkles on each side and the buttons are barely holding back that protruding gut. There’s this small stain on the inside of his collar, which is uneven and sitting on top a loose button. His shoes are about to go extinct and there’s no way that hair was brushed or combed. And I bet those pants absorbed so many spills that they eventually turned— “Alright…”

Was I staring at him for too long? I gotta stop doing that to people…

“There’s no way I’m calling you Amal. Maybe I don’t have the best name for a guy but Amal and Noor? No way, dude.”

His accent is different. It’s not a thick Middle-Eastern accent or a perfect American accent either. His t’s and r’s were off. And dude?

He must have learned his English from TV… “You have to come up with another name.”

“But why should I change it? Noor is also a girl’s name.”

“Noor is also a guy’s name. If you look hard enough, you’ll find guys called Noor here and there, but you won’t find another guy in this country with your name. Trust me.”

“You can’t be sure of that.”

“How about I just call you Am instead?”

Am… “I don’t mind.”

“Good. You’re Am, then. Hey, look behind you over there. You see that guy?”

That janitor is really going to work on the glass doors with his rag. He must be pretty old, judging by the mixed grey and black hair, but I can’t really tell for sure when I’m facing his back…

18

MOHAMMED HASSAN “I heard he was fired from his old job ‘cause he stole some money. He was a security guard in a jewelry shop. They caught him right while he was doing it.”

“How do you know that?”

“Everyone here is talking about it. It just happened a couple of weeks ago. The owner was his friend so he didn’t call the cops, just fired him instead.”

He’s picking up his bucket and going out to clean the other side of the glass. He’s gonna be facing this way but I doubt he’ll notice us staring at him with all the other people buzzing around here…

That’s not the face of an old man. That’s the face of a tired, young man. His forehead is starting to wrinkle and his beard stubble is all grey but I’m guessing that’s the result of a bad smoking habit, if that rectangular bulge in his shirt’s pocket is anything to go by. Man, that’s one mean scowl. That scowl looks like it’s been etched on his face since birth. His arms are still going to work on the glass. He’s a bit short and a bit thin but he’s obviously not weak. This guy must have been toughened up by years of physical labor. That couldn’t have been an easy life for anyone. Nope. That is not a happy man… why is his neck shining? Is that a necklace under his shirt’s collar?

Actually, he’s shining everywhere. He’s wearing a pendant necklace, a silver watch on his right wrist and a bracelet on the other wrist. The janitor that was fired from a jewelry shop is covered in jewelry.

Apparently, that’s not suspicious to anyone else here but me…

“He seems… interesting.”

“I’ve never seen him crack a smile even once. The guy’s a total creep. He doesn’t even reply when you say ‘Salam.’ Just walks right past you with that angry look on his face. Hey, you don’t speak Arabic, do you?”

“No.” “Well, It’s not like you were gonna have a conversation with him anyway.”

It’s obvious that I will…

19

THE BAHRAINI FACTOR GUARANTEED POSSIBILITIES Talk about big. Our new home here is spacious enough to house three families and maybe even their pets’ families. Between the four bedrooms, the large kitchen, the study room, the library and the small gym, I can’t even call it “our house” because this is way too big for a house. I still can’t believe they just gave it to my dad as part of his new job. Well, that along with the car and ridiculously high salary.

Apparently, this country relies heavily on foreign workers to get its things done, so they lure them in with these extremely cushy job offers. I’m gonna guess Noor was giving me the general public’s attitude today, when he told me he wasn’t too happy about that. It can’t feel good when people you grew up with don’t think you’re good enough to work for their company. But judging from the jobs Noor mentioned, the career prospects people here aspire for sound like a very short list from the get go. It seems that in this country, having a career means you’re either a public sector employee or a successful accountant. If you really broaden your horizons, you can aspire to be a banker. There’s barely any interest in creative or artistic fields. The local magazines that I’ve seen at malls and supermarkets sit on the rack for a long time, and that’s if they even get picked up at all. They’re basically guides on how to spend the nightlife on the island and offer little more. Published authors are scant and the periods between the books they publish and the small splash they make are few and far between. There’s no overwhelming artistic pulse that you can gauge here. If Noor is the model of the standard Bahraini, then this country’s artistic movement is held back by an inflamed infection of pessimism. Being an artist requires an abundance of optimism, and that’s hard to find in Bahrain. In fact, most of these so-called careers are fueled by a ubiquitous refusal to be optimistic. In Noor’s words: “What am I gonna be if I graduate with an arts degree? I’ll starve to death. Better to study business than nothing.” And I just can’t wrap my head around that logic. The biggest reason why artists struggle to make it big in places like the US is because it’s saturated with millions of other people who are dying to do the same thing. So every single artist becomes a small fish in a big pond. In Bahrain, there are barely any fish! The pond is pretty 20

MOHAMMED HASSAN much up for the taking. The chances for emerging artists to get noticed and make a real impact are much higher than in other places.

These people should be clamoring to be artists. I bet the first Bahraini to do it and embrace art forms as a real career is guaranteed legendary status. Others will probably follow by the thousands. The most influential artists are the ones who get there first and this country should be hungry for those by now… I’m hungry. My mom has been cooking that dinner forever… I think referring to this country as a pond with no fish might not be the best metaphor. It’s an island full of fishermen… why am I talking to myself about this?

“Amal, come down. Dinner’s ready.”

“Coming.”

Wow, I can hear my mom’s voice from downstairs? Either the walls are super thin or the villa’s so big that that was her echo from five minutes ago…

The study room and the library’s doors are open. My dad must be already in the kitchen…

These stair steps are extravagantly wide. I don’t know why…

The table is already set? I can’t help but get the feeling that ever since we came here, Mom doesn’t have a lot of work to do in her new job. That probably applies to my dad as well.

“Sit down, sweetie.”

“UN’s inspection of Iran’s nuclear plans escalates tension in the Middle East.”

“Honey, put down that paper. It’s dinner time.”

I don’t know why dad’s reading the Gulf Daily News at this time. He’s always had this weird habit of reading the day’s news at the end of the day, when no one else cares anymore. And I see he still likes to read out loud to us, like a broadcast…

“Let’s see… Singapore’s foreign minister to visit Turkey.”

I feel like yawning…

“American soldier dies in helicopter crash in Afghanistan.”

Well, that one is sad. I still wouldn’t call it news, though. Oh no, he’s flipping the page. He was still on page one!

“Business news.”

“Honey, seriously. It’s giving me a headache.”

He’s folding it. Finally. We can eat in peace, now…

21

THE BAHRAINI FACTOR “So son, how was your first day at school?”

“It was alright, I guess. It was kinda boring.”

“You just need time to adapt. It’s all new for you.”

“Your dad’s right. Give it at least a month. By then, you’d get a good idea of how people are like around here.”

A month? I need at least thirty years to understand these people…

“Your mom and I are adapting to our new jobs as well. People here seem really nice. Have you met anyone yet?”

“Yeah.”

“See? You’ll be fine. If you really wanna fit in, you should do what I do and keep up with the news. It’ll give you good conversation starters.”

Ugh. He’s picking up the GDN again…

“Japan auction for rare pearl put on hold.”

“Honey, I’m serious. It’s annoying.”

“But I’m trying to get him interested in the news.”

“Later. Eat your dinner before it gets cold. Both of you.”

Oh, this reminds me…

“The school told us we’ll be going on a scuba diving trip to Muharraq next week. Something about celebrating the rich pearl history or something.”

“Who’s going with you on this trip?”

“I don’t know yet. They said someone will come tomorrow to tell us about it.”

“You’ll have adult supervision though, right?”

“Right.”

“It should be safe enough then. You’ll have fun, trust me.”

Yeah, somehow, I’m guessing your idea of fun is different from mine…

22

MOHAMMED HASSAN CONSERVATIVE DECADENCE There’s nothing special about this bedroom. It’s big enough but the walls are painted with this faded shade of white or yellow. It’s depressing me. I’ve been staring at this ceiling for at least ten minutes now. This bed is comfy, though. That’s all that should matter to me. I know I won’t be staying in this room a lot. I need to be out there, exploring this place. Maybe I should sneak out the window. Nah… Though, it shouldn’t be a problem finding something to see at this time. Night life is vibrant around here. I’m not surprised. A Muslim country with legal alcohol, nightclubs and prominent prostitution is bound to get famous for its nocturnal activities. A big part of what makes this island a tourist attraction are the relaxed laws.

It’s hard not to see it as too liberal, especially since its neighbor is the most notoriously conservative Muslim nation in the region. Every weekend, this tiny island gets crammed with a Saudi invasion as thousands of Saudi Arabians get into their SUVs and expensive cars and cross the bridge connecting the two countries for a two-day drinking binge. It’s almost like that bridge is a backdoor for Saudis to sneak out and stop being Saudi for a weekend. I wouldn’t have guessed it was as rampant as Noor told me if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes the day that we arrived here on Thursday night. It’s enough that traffic is bad by itself, add the Saudis and other nationalities that come here on weekends and it’s a miracle anyone can get to where they’re going…

By far, the most interesting thing that Noor told me, though, was that most of the patrons of these bars and nightclubs are expats and other Gulf residents. Bahrainis usually avoid these places. I’m not sure how they feel about its existence on their island, either. There was an air of both acceptance and contempt when Noor mentioned the weekly visitors. It’s like he didn’t wanna sound closed-minded but he wasn’t too happy that it happens so close to where he lives. I think I know why he feels that way. You look around you and you see that— whether the intentions behind it are sincere or not—the appearances are still Islamic. The girls are dressed in veils and black abayas. The men can be seen going in and coming out of mosques in large crowds.

Religious chants are played out loud from cars and religious festivals 23

THE BAHRAINI FACTOR draw in most of the country. By looks alone, the people are religious.

The places I’ve been through so far look friendly and inviting, but that’s probably because those are the areas populated with expats of every shape and color. They’re used to seeing something different.

The places that I looked at from the window of a moving car seem pretty hostile to change. The narrow alleys, the politically-charged graffiti, the same faces they must see every day and just the reclusiveness of it all gives a whole different impression of the locals.

I have this feeling that not everyone here welcomes outsiders with open arms. And when their only idea of an outsider is someone who just comes to their country to drink and dance, it becomes easy to understand why… actually, it’s not just the alcohol and nightclubs.

When it comes to pulling down the taboos, this country has always gone one step ahead of most other countries in the region. Bahrain was the first to strike oil. It was the first of the Gulf countries to introduce education, particularly for women. It also has women running for parliamentary elections and women voters. Again, that’s a big change for a small place that prefers familiarity. When you put all of these things together in one pot, it becomes such a mishmash of this and that that you can’t decide if this is a life of decadence marring a conservative country or a repressive movement impeding people who are progressive by nature… what is up with all the damn contradictions in this country? How does a small place go about having so many extremes in the first place? God, my head hurts. I wish I can just go to sleep already…

The more I remember everything that happened today, the more my mind gets stuck on that janitor. There’s something so curious about that guy. I’ve seen his kind a million times before. He obviously has a secret and I don’t even doubt that I’ll uncover it. I’m used to being that curious by now. Finally, I’m getting sleepy…

Wait… why was that auction put on hold?

24

MOHAMMED HASSAN

CHAPTER 2 MOVERS AND LURKERS Typical of this class to be already seated before the teacher is even here. At least, they’re chatting out loud. I guess that could count as a form of rebellion…

Wait. Who’s that walking in behind him?

“Good morning, class. This is Mr. Robert Carlos. He’s a professional scuba-diving instructor and the owner of ScubaTime Pro. It’s a shop that sells scuba-diving equipment. He’ll be our guide on the trip to Muharraq. I’ll let him introduce himself and explain everything. Mr. Carlos.”

This guy looks weird. White, pale skin and orange curly hair.

Very curly hair. And narrow eyes too. I wonder where he’s from. I can’t place a nationality. Ugh. Look at that annoying grin. He looks like the universal archetype of male macho jerks…

“Hi, guys. My name is Robert Carlos, but you can call me Rob, okay?”

What accent is that? He’s stressing on the R’s and L’s for some reason. And what the hell is he wearing? Khaki shorts and sneakers?

This is what you wear to prove you’re a responsible adult? Well, at least he’s wearing a shirt so he looks half presentable…

“Next Sunday, we’ll be going on a tour to one of the shallow sea beds east of Bahrain. When we’re there, we’ll dive into the sea. But not too deep, don’t worry.”

Yep. Faint laughter is the right response to that…

“It’s usually only six or seven meters deep. You will, of course, be wearing the right outfits provided by our shop and you’ll be given all the necessary equipment as well as a quick training session that teaches you all the basics of scuba diving. Now, I brought a couple of things with me that I will show you now.”

Woah. How long has that bag been sitting behind the teacher’s desk? That’s one humungous bag…

25

THE BAHRAINI FACTOR “This is called a regulator. It regulates the pressure of the air when you’re underwater. We’ll teach how to use it in the training session.”

He’s going through the bag again. This is gonna be a long day…

“Am, this guy looks weird.”

Good. That means I’m not the only one in thinking that. The fact that Noor couldn’t wait to tell me this and had to whisper it to me right away means that this guy looks extra special weird. Let’s see if he can shed some light…

“Why?” “I don’t know. He just does. He sounds funny too. There’s something off about him.”

“Ugh.” “What?”

Something off about him… I hate it when people say that. What does it mean? What’s an ‘off’? Is it something that’s different about a person? If it is, why can’t people mention it specifically? It shouldn’t be too hard to do. After all, it is the one thing that made you notice how different they are. And what would be an ‘on’ about a person?

To look, think and behave in an identical manner to everyone else?

Why should being unique be marred with such a negative connotation? Ugh. This jerk was supposed to help me find an answer to what’s weird about the guy, now my mind has a million questions!

It’s interesting, though. If Noor can’t place the weirdness, it means this is the type of non-Bahraini that he’s not used to seeing. Of all the nationalities that you see walking around the island, this type of face stands out. His parents must be of some mixed races, but I can’t tell which…

It doesn’t help that the list of expats in this country is a long one.

They have the educated and usually rich expats who come here for the cushy jobs, but they also have expats who are dirt poor and come here looking for opportunities. You see them riding on their bicycles to go to a quick job somewhere for a few dinars, working as waiters and clerks, and selling things on the street. And they’re not few either.

The local English-language channel I saw last night airs the same news in English, Tagalog and Hindi. That’s how many of them live here…

26

MOHAMMED HASSAN Apparently, the two sides are not always on good terms. One close look at them and it’s easy to understand why. Expats are people who lived in a country where if you complain a lot, people ask you “if you don’t like it here, then why don’t you leave?” so you go ahead and leave. Bahrainis are people who live in a country where they complain all the time, but if you ask them the same question, they just look at you funny. The concept of immigrating to another country and working your way from the bottom doesn’t even occur to them. The ubiquitous mindset is to stay here and keep complaining until something is done about it. To them, that’s the right thing to do for your country. To the people who weren’t born here, that doesn’t make any sense. They think they’re just not willing to do the hard work. No wonder there’s been an underlying animosity between the two for years. Their mentalities are polar opposites. And you put that in the frame of a tiny— “And that’s everything you will need.”

Oh, man. I missed everything he said. When did this table get so cluttered?

“Now, the training session will be this coming Thursday, so three days from now, and it won’t take long, maybe one or two hours to cover all the basics. And that’s it. So… Any questions?”

Okay, let’s see now…

“Yes, you.”

“Where are you from?”

Did I say something funny? Why is this guy laughing?

“I think I should have said any questions about the trip, but okay.

I’m actually Bahraini. My parents came from Spain about forty years ago, which is around the time they had me, and opened a jewelry shop here on the island. They closed it down a long time ago but I grew up near the shores of Muharraq and I know this whole country like the back of my hand, both on the shore and underwater, so don’t worry, you won’t drown.”

Yeah, this class likes to laugh, I see…

“How long have you been diving?”

“I’ve been a diver for almost my whole life. Like I said, I grew up near the waters here so I’ve had years to practice both on my own 27

THE BAHRAINI FACTOR and professionally. I even speak Arabic because I learned from the locals.”

“When did you open your shop?”

“Uh, I opened ScubaTime Pro around fifteen years ago, I think.

We have one of the most successful diving programs in the island’s history. We also have an unblemished safety record with zero incidents since we opened. People’s safety is our main concern. We want you to explore the beauty of the island but while making sure you’re safe at all times.”

You sound like a walking PowerPoint presentation. Can’t you just answer like a normal human being?

“Why did your parents close their jewelry shop? Did they go bankrupt?”

Okay, this time I know why they’re laughing…

“Come on now, guys. Mr. Carlos is here to talk about the trip, not his life story.”

“No, no, it’s okay. Yes, it did go bankrupt. However, I learned a lot of things from my parents, both in business and in life in general.

Maybe it was not meant to be for them, but I know that they made mistakes and I always make sure to never repeat those mistakes when it comes to me and my life.”

“What kind of mistakes?”

“Amal, that’s enough. Mr. Carlos, thank you for coming here.”

“My pleasure. I hope I was helpful, anyway.”

Meh… “Oh, one more thing, class. As part of the school’s policy, every student has to get a written permission from his or her parents allowing them to go on the trip. It must be signed by both parents or we can’t let you go. Clear? You can either give it to me or give it directly to Principal Ibrahim because he asked to see each paper anyway.”

28

MOHAMMED HASSAN MUTE PROPAGANDA This computer glare is giving me a headache. I hate this flurry of technology. I can feel the thing sucking the life out of my eyes. I don’t know why people willingly sacrifice their vision for these things. Their heads are always buried in the desktops and laptops and tablets and smartphones, and then they wonder why they have to wear contact lenses. Maybe I shouldn’t be complaining. My bedroom has a desktop computer. It’s not the end of the world, after all. Let’s see now, how should I word this? Parental Permission… dear whatever, this is a letter to confirm our something, something to let Amal go on the trip to something, signed Mr. and Mrs. Something… good. Let me just print…

Now, let me find that GDN my dad was reading… there we go…

‘Japan Auction for Rare Pearl Put On Hold.’

‘An auction for a rare Japanese pearl that was planned to be held at the Jumeirah Emirates Palace Hotel in Dubai has been postponed indefinitely, organizers announced yesterday. The rare and natural ‘Aiko’ pearl was scheduled to be on display on Sunday, 14th in a low-key affair that was to be attended by a select group of potential buyers. The organizers withheld the names of the bidders but sources confirmed it included prominent jewelers from the US and Japan, as well as a select group of billionaires from the UAE. The ‘Aiko’—also known as ‘Buenaventura’ in some parts of Europe—weighs a full 200 carats and its value is estimated at $1.5 million (BD 567,000). It’s owned by Japanese business tycoon Hiroshi Mizushima, whose entire wealth is estimated at $200m (BD 75.6m). Mizushima, 81, famously discovered the pearl in his younger days as a pearl merchant, while scouring the shores of Kashiko Island in the early 1950’s. The pearl was the largest in a collection of rare gems that he discovered on the island’s shores, which were often credited for launching his entrepreneurial empire. For over half a century, he built a successful business enterprise that enjoyed rapid growth and expanded into construction, real estate, automobile production and other industrial sectors. In the 1970’s, he won several 29

THE BAHRAINI FACTOR awards recognizing his philanthropic contributions to the world. He divorced his wife of 20 years, Masuyo Natsumi, in 1973. They had no children together.

When asked for comments regarding the auction’s postponement, organizers cited Mizushima’s deteriorating health as the main reason.

The Japanese businessman has been battling a bout of illnesses over the past few years and his condition has recently worsened, casting doubts on his ability to attend the auction.

The organizers issued an apology for any inconvenience caused and denied having a confirmed date, saying their current main concern is Mizushima’s well-being.’

There are so many suspicious things about this article that I don’t know where to begin. First of all, if he’s been battling a bout of illnesses then how come these greedy people only decided to care about his health now? The man is eighty one years old and sick. He obviously knows his time is running out. They must know it too, yet they arranged the auction in the first place. And that’s another thing.

If he’s so close to his deathbed, why would he want to sell the pearl now? This isn’t just any pearl. It’s the pearl that launched his whole empire. He must have a special place for it in his heart. And now he’s selling it in an auction? Even though he has more than enough money? And suppose if he did want to sell it, for whatever reason.

Does he really need to be present for that? I’m sure it can be arranged in his absence… this article makes me angry. I can’t blame the media in this country for it, though. This is the standard vagueness you’d expect from any newspaper in the world…

I should be grateful there’s even a newspaper, at least. From what I’ve seen so far, the media here doesn’t have the same pull as it does in the West. The ads barely have any impact on shifting mentalities.

No one appears swayed by the billboards to jump on some brand new offer. It’s still word-of-mouth for the most part. Some friend’s friend would get a faster broadband package after he heard his friend’s brother’s friend got one for a lower price, while the TV ads on the local channels go on arbitrarily playing for no one. The only way an ad would be considered popular in this country is if it was so exceptionally bad that everyone ends up seeing it, just to mock how 30

MOHAMMED HASSAN bad it really is. Noor and some students were already mocking some Arabic commercial they saw on TV yesterday. The local news programs offer nothing of real value. Everyone is updated on the world’s news through Middle Eastern news channels or through the internet. The very shallow pool of celebrities consists of the same handful of Bahrainis doing the same thing every year with the same faint response from the public. They are celebrities in the eyes of the media, but people aren’t rushing to the stores to buy their works or finding out what they said in the latest magazine issues so they’d follow in their footsteps. Maybe that’s a good thing. Then again, with no one leading, it does leave them with no thirst for cultural innovation. Then again… oh man, I can’t be bothered with that now. I have a couple of signatures to find…

31

THE BAHRAINI FACTOR ATTAINABLE INOPPORTUNITIES Yet another one of BLIS’ hallways that’s absolutely quiet. I’m starting to think everyone here is part of a secret noise-makers club where they get rowdy and out of control whenever I’m not around.

They’re plotting every day, drawing up plans to keep me out of it.

This is the administrative building, though. I bet these students won’t even dare to make a noise here even if they were the rowdy type.

Let’s see now, which one is Principal Ibrahim’s office… there it is. I hope he’s in. This permission slip is a good excuse to meet this guy.

Maybe I’ll actually find out something useful about this trip from him. More than what that weird Carlos guy gave me. Let’s see if this guy is in his office…

“Come in.”

Good…

Orange, curly hair? This guy’s back is just as flamboyant as his front. What’s he doing here? And why is he hunched over the Principal’s desk like that?

“Sit down over there, son. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

I can barely see the Principal’s head over this guy’s broad shoulders. I guess I’ll wait on this sofa until he leaves. They’re really talking quietly. I can’t even hear what they’re talking about. I hope this doesn’t take long…

This is one impressive wall. Principal Ibrahim’s name is plastered all over these certificates. Excellence Award, For the Contribution, In Appreciation… the trophy in that tall cabinet in the corner is huge.

Did he single-handedly win some kind of sports tournament? No, that one has the school’s name on it. Everything else has his name on it, though. Mr. Ibrahim Al-Shaikh…

Al-Shaikh… that’s a familiar family name. I’ve been noticing a lot of the same family names popping up everywhere I go. Car dealerships, law firms, clinics, small shops and huge buildings all have the same family names on their signs. Even mixed nuts are associated with families that have had a long history of selling mixed nuts. It seems that most of the money floats in closed circles in this economy, with the family that got there first owning the bigger share.

And this isn’t some secret government plot or religious master plan.

32

MOHAMMED HASSAN It’s just capitalism at work. Most of these businesses belong to dominant families of both Shia and Sunni origin, and both had great grandparents who jumped on opportunities when others didn’t think to do the same. That’s why I don’t understand what Noor told me about the friction between the two sects in this country. It seems to me like they have more things in common than they want to admit.

Both have certain families richer than the others, both make up the biggest parts of the population and both are outspoken about their religious ideologies. The goals are the same but with different terminology. Their mentalities are almost identical yet they’re fighting about everything. I don’t understand what difference it would make who’d get the upper hand in anything. It’s like waiting for the drop of a one-sided coin…

In a way, business here is not so different from the US, where a handful of large corporations own and influence everything. Except in Bahrain, the families are the corporations. The family name is their brand. Some go as far as plastering their full name on the shop’s sign.

I’ve seen more than a couple of shops with the same family name but different first names built directly next to each other. Sometimes even opposite each other. Some of them— “You’re making a big mistake!”

Wow. Robert Carlos is really angry…

“Keep your voice down, please. I’m trying to have a civilized conversation with you.”

Principal Ibrahim is one big man. He looks like a wrestler squeezed into a suit…

“You’re trying to run my business into the ground, that’s what you’re trying to do!”

“You’re overreacting.”

“I’m not. You just don’t understand how bad this will be for me.

You can’t keep the equipment here, don’t you understand? This is not how it’s done. Honestly, I feel insulted.”

“And you don’t understand that this is the first ever trip of its kind for our students. We have to be extra cautious with everything. I don’t want one of them to have an incident over there. This school relies on its reputation and if something goes wrong on that trip, God forbid, we’ll never live it down.”

33

THE BAHRAINI FACTOR “What about my reputation? Do you know what will happen to me if people in my line of work found out you kept our equipment at your school for inspection? They’ll start asking questions. They’ll think why would they do that unless there’s something wrong with it?

There must be something wrong with their equipment…”

Not necessarily…

“Then word will get out and no one will come to us anymore. It will ruin me, can’t you see that?”

“Look, Mr. Carlos, I understand your concerns but you have to look at this from a different perspective. We’re only keeping your equipment for a few days. We’ll get an expert to examine the items to determine if they’re safe…”

“Oh, an expert? You mean like me?”

He’s got a point there…

“It’s just a safety measure. Once everything is okay, you take the equipment and the students and go. I really don’t see the problem here. Nobody will even hear about this.”

Erm… “And how can you guarantee the safety of my equipment at your school? Suppose one of your students finds the cylinders and ruins them and then your expert finds it and people say it’s my fault? Or what if something happens to it after he’s done examining and we get to the water and—“ “I’m sorry, Mr. Carlos, but now you’re just being paranoid. Let me make a few things clear because I want to make sure we understand each other here. Number one, we didn’t come to you with the idea for this trip, you came to us. Number two, these aren’t adults you’re taking with you on that trip. These are boys and girls between fourteen and sixteen. They require adult supervision—” “But—“ “Please, let me finish. And while you are no doubt capable of supervision, we simply can’t afford to risk their safety, even if we have to overdo it. It might seem unnecessary to you but it is common practice for us. Our school will lose everything if anything goes wrong over there. And last thing, no student will touch the equipment because it will be locked inside our storage room, which is clean and safe and always guarded. If after this, you’re still not convinced, I 34

MOHAMMED HASSAN suggest you reconsider the whole trip but don’t expect me to change my mind about any of these conditions. I don’t gamble with my students’ lives.”

That has to be the meanest, coldest stare I’ve ever seen shot from a man’s eyes. This Carlos is scary… he just walked right out. I don’t think he even saw me… the Principal is squeezing his eyes like a lemon. Something tells me this might not be the best time to give him this permission slip… I’d better sneak out of here before he opens his eyes…

35

THE BAHRAINI FACTOR WELL-MANNERED MISBEHAVIOR This is the third day in a row that Noor has eaten those skinny sandwiches at recess. I’m sure they sell other things at this canteen but I’m not sure that he knows that. And it’s always four of them… ugh. What am I eating? Cardboard? How can anyone swallow something this tasteless?

“I’m gonna start bringing my own food from now on. I can’t eat this.”

“You know, there are people in Africa who can’t even afford food.”

“Well, they shouldn’t be subjected to eating this even if they could afford it. You know, I have a feeling that trip won’t happen.”

“Why not?”

“I saw that Carlos guy at Principal Ibrahim’s office. They had a huge fight.”

“Good. I hope it gets cancelled.”

“You don’t wanna go?”

“No one wants to go. What are we gonna do there? Dive for pearls? Sounds more like work than a trip. They should take us to watch a movie at City Center.”

No wonder he’s chubby. He doesn’t wanna do anything that makes him break a sweat…

“What were they arguing about, anyway?”

“The Principal wants to keep his equipment here so an expert can examine it. Carlos didn’t like that. The Principal didn’t budge and Carlos just stormed out of his office.”

“So they’re taking his stuff and keeping it here? That’s just wrong.”

Well… that is wrong.

“I hope they do cancel it and take us to City Center like they did last semester.”

“Ugh. Swallow before you talk, at least.”

“There are three movies I wanna see.”

“Ah!” Aaah! Noor’s food is on my hand!

“Oops. Sorry. Here let me get that.”

36

MOHAMMED HASSAN “Ah!” Aaaaah! Not with that dirty tissue!

“Oops. I forgot I already used that one.”

To hell with this! I’m gonna run to the bathroom!

“Hey, careful you don’t fall down!”

Jerk…

Why must the bathroom be so far away? I need to wash this filth immediately before it grows into something else on my body… I’m gonna puke. I can’t get the image of that chewed piece of burger out of my head. I’d die of embarrassment if I was in Noor’s place. And the worst part was he was laughing when I was running to the bathroom. Ugh. He’s like a kid who thinks everything dirty is funny…

I don’t see anyone else behaving the same way. The manners I’ve seen here so far have been just great. This is a laid back nation.

Routine is king and the routine is that people you meet will generally be nice. There are very little exceptions to the rules—Noor being one of the major ones…

The one thing that I simply can’t cope with is the excessive amount of staring. It seems to be a mandatory thing for these people.

And they don’t just stare at you. They penetrate through your eyes and explore your deepest secrets and life events, burrowing all the way back to your moment of conception. And the really creepy part is that they manage to do it while just passing you in under three seconds. That’s how skilled they’ve become at it…

You take into account the small size of the country and you’d understand why a new face might be cause for a healthy dose of staring. In fact, the reason why they’d stare in the first place is probably to see if they know you. I get that. I just don’t get the rest.

Apart from some rude and reckless driving, they’re perfectly wellmannered. That’s the thing I don’t get. It makes sense that they’d want to stare at you but it makes no sense that they’re privy to every other pillar of good manners except for the staring. The women are treated with respect, with men opening doors for them and letting them cut in line. Men say ‘Salam’ to you with a quick smile as they pass by, even if they don’t know you. If someone drops something, everyone will offer to pick it up. If they find a missing wallet, they’ll 37

THE BAHRAINI FACTOR try to find its owner. Everyone is welcoming and friendly. It’s just the damn staring…

Here’s the bathroom. Finally… I haven’t touched the door yet, why is it opening?

It’s Robert Carlos… your eyes are scary. Please stop staring at me and just pass me by… ouch. Well, that shoulder bump was unnecessary…

This guy looks like pure evil. What a creepy, forced smile that was. Somehow, I feel dirtier after he brushed against my shoulder than when Noor spit his chewed food over my hand…

Ugh. This bathroom floor is drenched in water. Oh, the janitor is here. He’s giving me his back. Good. He doesn’t know I’m in here.

And he’s really scrubbing the life out of the floor. I think we’ve solved the mystery of who drowned this bathroom…

Ah, it feels so good to finally wash away this filth. I feel like me again… the best thing about this mirror is that I can see the janitor at the corner without turning my head… Everything in this damn place is wet, even the stalls. Did this guy just throw the bucket of water around? All the stall doors are open. We’re the only ones in this bathroom. Well, now that Robert Carlos isn’t here. Hmm… two creepy people alone in a room? Gee, I wonder if they were plotting something unseemly…

The hand dryer doesn’t work. Of course… at least, this tissue dispenser has a brand new roll…

I see the trash can is empty. So he’s not completely incompetent as a janitor. Let me just get out of here before he turns around… the door knob is dry. Huh.

38

MOHAMMED HASSAN HOLIDAY VOCATION IN THE SUNNY SHADOWS This heat is unbearable. The afternoons on this island are nothing short of torture. It’s hot all day long in the summer but the afternoons are a test of humanity. I’m glad Noor invited me to have a dip in their villa’s pool. At least, it showed he had a semblance of remorse for the emotional scarring he subjected me to earlier today. Just the image of… ugh. I have to get that out of my head…

Why won’t my forehead stop sweating? I’m standing right by a pool that I just got out of and it still won’t stop. This is just too much.

This heat is gonna take some getting used to. What’s funny is that even people who live here still haven’t found a way to cope with it.

The word ‘weather’ is a synonym for ‘heat.’ And the line ‘it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity’ is either a verbal tick or a law that must be expressed orally. I’ve heard it myself at least three times and the first was on the plane on the way here! Noor says the local forecasts often lies about the weather, dropping it down a few degrees because by law, they’d have to declare it a public holiday. That sounds a bit paranoid to me…

This is the only island I know of where no one is at the beach.

Oh, they go there on occasion. They have a few public beaches and a number of private ones but going there is like an event to them. You’d think islanders would take advantage of living on an island and spend each day like a vacation, playing football on the shore barefooted, swimming and splashing in the waves and just embracing their little heaven on Earth. But not these people. They’re content spending their days in their dreary villages and half-assed cities, surrounded by bricks and exhaust pipes. The last thing you’d want in such unbearable heat is to be near the traffic and noise pollution, but apparently that’s what they want. They want the industrial millionaire lifestyle. Funny how they didn’t notice that millionaires make their millions just so they’d vacation in an island like theirs… why am I the only one who notices these things? Am I some kind of genius for noticing the painfully obvious? I’m convinced they’re pretending to be this oblivious just to piss me off…

Noor is coming out of the pool. Finally, I can ask him to help me with this Carlos thing. He’s friendly enough. Plus, he doesn’t seem 39

THE BAHRAINI FACTOR too preoccupied with anything. He’ll probably say yes. For someone his size, he’s pretty agile in the water…

“It’s hot today.”

“Isn’t it this hot every day?”

“Give or take. It’s not really the heat, it’s the humidity.”

Number four…

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure. Can you hand me that towel?”

“I need you to help me find out what bad thing Robert Carlos did.”

“The diving guy from school?”

“Yes.” “I don’t understand.”

“The guy is obviously guilty of something. The things I saw today make me convinced he’s up to no good. I have a few theories but they’re just wild assumptions. I need to find out more so I can be sure.”

“Why?” “It’s what I do. I’m sure it looks weird to you, but back where I lived, I used to solve these mysteries on a daily basis. It’s no big deal, really. You just find a logical pattern and everything falls into place.

Right now, the most likely scenario involves Carlos stealing a rare pearl from an auction.”

“No way!”

“Well, I wouldn’t say no way. A couple of ways, maybe. He is a diving instructor, after all. He must know a thing or two about pearls.

He threw a fit over the Principal keeping his stuff at school, which isn’t really all that bad, so he must be hiding something in there. And I saw him in the bathroom with the janitor this morning. When he brushed against my shoulder, I felt the back of his hand and it was dry. Which means it’s impossible that he used any of the facilities inside since the janitor flooded every inch of the place. He couldn’t have dried his hands either, because the dryer was out-of-service and the tissue roll in the dispenser was brand new. And he didn’t use a tissue of his own because the trash can was empty. So the only reason he was there, obviously, was to conspire with the janitor, who you told me had a criminal past. Since he’s involved, it probably also 40

MOHAMMED HASSAN involves your school in some way. Last night, I read there was an auction for a rare pearl in Dubai that was postponed. I’m guessing it was postponed because the pearl is missing. I’m just making a leap and assuming it was Robert Carlos who stole it. It’ll probably make sense when I prove it.”

Yawn…

“Wow. That’s amazing. So he’s a criminal?”

“At this point, I don’t know for sure. It’s just an assumption. I’m probably right, though. It’s gonna take a little exploring to remove all doubt. I’m new to this place so I need you with me. You’re in?”

“Well… I don’t know. It sounds dangerous.”

“We’ll be very careful. Look at it this way. If Carlos really did do it, the trip will be cancelled and you’d have a better chance of going to a movie.”

He’s thinking… just say yes already…

“Why not? I don’t have anything else to do. Okay, I’m in. What do you want me to do?”

“We have to break into the school’s storage room and check the equipment.”

“How are we gonna do that? They put a security guard at the door.”

“We’ll sneak in tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“Tonight. It’s the safest time. And our parents can’t know.”

41

THE BAHRAINI FACTOR VIOLENT SAFETY It’s two thirty after midnight. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the highway opposite our school this empty. We’re finally getting close to the school. It looks so ominous with most of its lights off. I feel like I wouldn’t even see it if it wasn’t for the street lights. I don’t think anyone is here…

Without a shadow of a doubt, the best thing I’ve experienced in this country is an overwhelming sense of safety. This just might be the safest country in the world. I can walk anywhere without fear of being robbed. Odds are high that you can leave your car in the street unlocked overnight and find it still in its place the next morning. At worst, some jerk dented it and flew away without leaving a note, but the car will still be there. This might be another good manners thing.

Or maybe it’s such a small country that stealing from anyone would be like stealing from yourself. If my dad’s GDN headline reading is any indication, the rare instances of theft that are reported are usually committed by the influx of expats who came here from poorer countries. They probably don’t have families and friends here.

Everyone else does, though. And they’re very close. You don’t wanna steal from someone then find out the next day that he’s the guy who’s wed to the sister of a coworker’s family’s friend. What’s more is that most people here don’t strike me as rich. Most would sympathize with someone who was robbed. After all, they’re all sharing the same financial difficulties that come with raising a family and paying debts.

Sympathy plays a huge part in deciding whether or not to pick someone’s pocket…

It’s curious to me that so many of the young people you see on the news and on the streets these days have developed a violent mentality. I can’t really say I’ve seen real violence happen in front of my eyes or even heard about it happening frequently. But I did see those youths, throwing rocks at policemen. I saw them setting fire to a row of tires and blocking the road on my first day here, on our way to our new home. I also heard complaints of Molotov cocktails. They’re not that violent yet but it sounds like they’re heading in that direction.

That would be sad. If that happens, the best thing about this place would be gone. Safety is not something that just the elite enjoy. It’s 42

MOHAMMED HASSAN something everyone wants. And this country looks like it already has it. Why would anyone wanna ruin that for themselves?

“Alright, we’re close enough. Get ready.”

Noor is panting like he’s just run a marathon…

“I… can’t… believe… we walked this far.”

“I told you. No one can know we’re here. Even public transport would be suspicious at this time of night. Now, let’s see… there’s a security guard sitting on a chair near the gate. But the light from his cubicle is off.”

“Is he asleep?”

“Yeah, actually. How did you know?”

“If he’s asleep then it’s the same night guard they’ve always had.

He’s been guarding that gate forever. He’s always asleep.”

Feeling safe, is he? I knew that’s the thing I’d like most about this country…

“That makes it ten times easier for us. Obviously, we still can’t go through the gate. Is there another way into the school?”

“There’s a window on the other side of that building. The teachers always leave it open because the class always stinks. We have to climb over the wall but it’s not too high.”

“I think I hear a car coming by. Let’s go.”

It’s even darker behind the school… but Noor’s right. The wall isn’t that high…

“Here, put your foot on my hands, I’ll push you up.”

“Nah, I can do it.”

He’s gonna jump by himself? Someone hasn’t weighed himself lately…

“I can’t believe I’m gonna sneak into a school. This feels so wrong.”

Okay, he’s taking too many steps backwards… wow, that’s a real jump. And it sounds like he landed gracefully on the other side too.

First the agile swimming and now climbing walls? But apparently he gets tired when he walks. This must be a thing of practice makes perfect…

“Okay, jump up.” … oof!

“There’s the window.”

43

THE BAHRAINI FACTOR So it really is open. I can’t see anything inside with the lights off…

“Am, you go in first.”

“Why?” “You’ll see.”

Well, this isn’t suspicious… whatever, it has to be done anyway… ugh!

“What am I smelling?”

I can almost feel the goofy grin behind me…

“You’re smelling Class A12, my friend. The one class in our school that has more jocks and athletes than normal people like us.”

“My nose is on fire. I have to get out of here or I’ll pass out.”

The hallway outside is lit. If it wasn’t for the light coming through the door’s glass window, we’d be in total darkness…

“The light switch is over there by the door.”

“Wait. Don’t turn it on. The storage room is in one of these hallways outside, right?”

“Yeah, it’s to the left.”

“There should be a guard there then. Let’s just open the door quietly.”

Yeah, I knew this door would be locked…

“Damn, the door is locked!”

It shouldn’t be a problem…

“Am, did you just take a hairpin out of your shoe? Who are you?

Wait, you can pick the lock with that, right?”

I’m so sleepy…

“It’s open. Let’s go. Don’t stand up. Keep your head down and move slowly.”

The hallway is not only lit, but there’s a sound coming from behind the corner…

“You hear that?”

“Yeah. It sounds like a… video?”

Okay, that’s a loud laugh. It’s obviously the guard. Noor looks like he’s about to have a nervous breakdown. He really needs to calm down a little. If only he knew how infinitely boring this is…

“This one is definitely awake. I’ll take a peek over the corner.”

44

MOHAMMED HASSAN There he is. And he’s sitting right next to the door marked ‘Storage.’ He’s looking into his mobile phone and grinning like an idiot. That’s gotta be some kind of Arabic play he’s watching because I don’t understand a word of it…

“Am, maybe we should just go back.”

“I wish. But that’s not an option. You’re gonna have to distract him.”

“What?”

“Just for about five minutes. I need him away from that storage room so I can go in.”

“How?” “Anyway you can. But you can’t let him see you. He can’t know any one of us is here. We’ll meet outside by the open window in no more than ten minutes.”

“Great. Fine, I’ll go to the hallway on the other side and get him to move.”

Alright… let’s see now. The guy is still laughing at his phone and… two knocks? It sounded like they came from Noor’s side… that’s right, Mr. Security Guard. Pause that video and pay close attention because… yep, there’s the two knocks again. Now get up… come on, get up and walk towards the direction of the noise… good boy. Poor guy looks more scared than Noor. I can’t blame him.

Guards aren’t allowed to carry any weapons. What will he do if a real criminal was here? Reason with him? I just hope he doesn’t get scarred for life… this time the two knocks came from closer by. I think Noor is trying to lure him into taking a full lap around the building’s hallways. That’s pretty smart, actually… okay, the coast is clear. Time for me to get some evidence…

I don’t even need to check if this door is closed. Let me just get the hairpin I put in the other shoe, bend it like this, stick in there and… finally…

There’s the switch. I’m guessing I have even less than five minutes inside this room. Let’s see what we have on the shelves.

Papers, brushes, broken stuff, plastic bags and… well, hello there, giant cardboard box at the bottom corner. I wonder what you have inside… there it is. This box is definitely for the trip. Cylinders, masks, regulators… it’s all here. But there’s nothing remotely 45

THE BAHRAINI FACTOR suspicious, though. Hmm… this box is smaller but it’s sealed. Let’s see now… wetsuits. There’s gotta be at least twenty to thirty wetsuits in here… still, there’s nothing inside them… wait a minute. That can’t be right. Our class has thirty but thirty one people are going. Where’s Carlos’ wetsuit? That piece of plastic on the top shelf… There it is, wrapped inside a plastic bag of its own. It’s so typical of that douchebag to separate his suit from the rest, like we’re beneath him or something. I knew I was right about him. Why do I doubt myself? I’m always right. What’s this? An oval-shaped bulge in the right leg of Carlos’ wetsuit? Gee, I wonder if anything suspicious is stitched inside. Let me just tear this thing up and… something fell… it’s an oyster. Well, well. An oyster, the home of pearls, elaborately stitched into the leg of Robert Carlos’ wetsuit right while an auction for a famous pearl is mysteriously delayed. I think I have enough to make this clear to everyone now. All I have to do is open this oyster and inside it I will find… nothing? It’s empty… but… that doesn’t make any sense. Why would he hide an empty oyster inside his suit? I can’t be wrong… can I? Okay, I need to get out of here right now…

There’s Noor, standing outside the window just as we planned…

“Oh, Am, thank God. Please tell me we can go home now.”

“Yeah, yeah. Let’s go.”

“What did you find in there?”

“Nothing that makes sense.”

46

MOHAMMED HASSAN CORPORATE FISHERMEN I can’t sleep. I spent the whole night dreaming of a chance to get back to my bedroom and sleep, and now that I’m here, I can’t sleep. I hate this place. I hate this weather, I hate that school and I even hate Noor a little bit. He didn’t do anything wrong but just seeing his face reminds me that I have to live here now. Bahrain did something to me I will never forgive. It broke my record. I have been going on these investigative excursions since I was nine years old and never once did I get anything wrong. This country broke me. I can’t even function correctly right now. I wanted to do something when I got home but I can’t remember what it is now. My mind is scattered in a billion directions. And what’s that damn noise outside? I’ve been hearing commotion on the street every night when I go to sleep. It’s far away but I can still hear it. It must be more delightful shenanigans from the self-entitled citizens of Bahrain, upset at the world not giving them everything they want so they project it in the guise of legitimate protest. It’s amazing that these people have the audacity to complain about anything, considering how good they have it. People where I used to live struggled just to stay afloat. They have to work long hours in physically draining jobs for minimum wage that gets eaten up by a number of taxes. They’re forced to sleep in bad neighborhoods with two locks on their doors and gun shots outside. It was very hard to trust in people. Anyone could sue anyone at any time for whatever reason, even if it wasn’t a convincing case. The main objective is to survive at any cost. The situation is volumes better here and in more than one way. But of course, these people don’t understand any of that. Living on their comically tiny island, isolated from the real world, they probably think they have it much worse than everyone else on the planet. They think of life in simple terms so they get upset when they don’t end up getting their way because the truth is complicated. They’re still fishermen. Oh, sure they have their apartments and their cars with Bluetooth and WiFi, and they go to their modern workplace in the financial center of the city, but their general outlook on life as a whole is still ‘if I go out to catch fish, then I should be rewarded with lots of fish’ with no regard to subtleties in between. They think their suits, their cars, their lattes, their shopping 47

THE BAHRAINI FACTOR malls and their tweets make them modern people, but there’s nothing modern about their way of thinking. Women? Oh, they shouldn’t live alone or they’ll get a reputation! Foreigners? Oh, they’re taking our jobs! Politics? Oh, we need someone from our sect in there or we won’t have any! But hey, we’re good at using smartphones and that makes us smart, right? What a fake nation. I hate these people, especially the young ones. Ugh, the young ones. The ones that caused that noise I heard a while ago. They’re rude, loud, disrespectful, lazy and more self-entitled than any other group in this hole. The older men seem so respectful in contrast that I doubt those are their children. And I don’t believe these men were just as rowdy as them when they were their age. There just can’t be that much disparity.

They must be adopted. Or, I don’t know, maybe they take after their mothers. The girls in this country are shallow and have nothing on their minds besides catching a guy and evolving him into a husband.

And those are Noor’s words. If he can see that, then it must be excruciatingly obvious. I don’t like them either. I don’t like anything and anyone and everything and everyone associated with this place. I just want my sanity and my record back. I don’t like you, Bahrain! I really don’t!

Wow, that was a lot of pent-up anger... I need to solve this pearl thing or I’m really gonna lose my mind. And I need to put some clothes on. I bet I look like a lunatic, pacing around the room in my boxers… okay, enough with these distractions. Let’s review. Oyster stitched into Robert Carlos’ wetsuit. There’s not much online about Carlos, apart from his shop’s website and his achievements as professional diver. And the only thing I found about the Aiko pearl is that Aiko is a female Japanese name. Ai stands for ‘love’ or ‘affection’ and ko stands for ‘child.’ This Mizushima guy must have really loved this pearl if he called it his lovechild… I obviously can’t find out anything about the janitor online… the only thing left is… oysters. Oysters in Bahrain? No… pearls. Pearling in Bahrain. Okay, let’s see now… this looks interesting…

‘Bahrain: Pearl of the Gulf’

48

MOHAMMED HASSAN ‘Bahraini pearls were widely believed to be the best in the world.

The sea’s freshwater springs, along with the saline water, give the pearls a distinct luster that is often not found in other parts of the world. It’s this balanced mixture of salt and freshwater that gives Bahrain its name, which means “two seas” in Arabic.

For most of the 19th century and even earlier, pearls were the most valuable gemstones in the world, worth even more than diamonds. The Greek writer Pliny had written about the beauty of Tylos, which was Bahrain’s Greek name, describing it as “famous for its vast number of pearls”.

During the golden age of pearling, which started in the 1850’s and lasted until the 1930’s, pearls were the principal economy in the small islands of Bahrain. The industry began declining, however, when much more affordable, cultured pearls from Japan flooded the world market. Divers left the dangerous pearl diving work and headed to more lucrative jobs when oil was discovered in Bahrain in 1932.

Today, the pearling industry in Bahrain is not what it used to be, with only a very small number of pearl merchants left. In an effort to preserve the natural creation of pearls on the island, Bahraini law forbids the importing or trading of cultured pearls from abroad and special attention will be paid to any pearls that come from traders outside the country.’

Well, that’s all there is to it. The janitor is the only piece left in this puzzle. The most likely outcome is that he has the Aiko pearl for some reason, but after all this, who knows if I can rely on my instincts anymore… I’m feeling sleepy again but there’s no point in sleeping now. I have to be up and getting ready for school in twenty minutes…

49

THE BAHRAINI FACTOR RIGIDLY FLEXIBLE MINDS I think this spot near the trees is my favorite spot in the whole school. Everything is serene at this time in the morning. The students are just starting to come through the gate. I love looking at them like this. Nobody has the energy to even make eye contact with me. They look like a group of zombies, dragging their legs through the entrance of an abandoned town. The weather is much more merciful in the morning, even though it’s the height of summer. You can hear birds chirping in the sky. Well, that and the sound of the Quran playing in the public school a little away from here. Our school doesn’t play the Quran. I’m assuming it’s because the students come from various backgrounds with different religious beliefs. It’s different for a public school. There, all the students share the same background so they can play the Quran every morning on the speakers and no one would complain…

It’s impressive how Islam remained a pillar of lifestyle in this country. If they’ve been merchants for as long as that website said, that means they’ve been exposed to a multitude of customers, tourists and businesspeople with all sorts of beliefs and rituals. The shore is a portal into the lives of other people, passing through with their imports and exports. The more variety you’re exposed to, the likelier it is for some of their traits and mentalities to rub off on you. But these people have tough skin. It’s like all the variety they’ve seen helped them build a tolerance towards changing themselves. You’d think that’s just a typical thing in any country, to hold onto your beliefs, but there’s something much bigger in the way these islanders are wired. They’re tradesmen first and foremost. Their minds are geared towards it by instinct, and judging by their floating through immense changes in the worldwide economy these past few decades, that can’t be a lucky fluke. The only way to reserve your spot as an important figure in an unpredictable field like trade, throughout all those years, is if you have a natural skill for adaption. Your business sense has to change in order to survive the wider landscape changes in the country and maybe even the world…

But on the other hand, a religion like Islam requires total commitment. You can’t skirt on any aspect of it and still fulfill your 50

MOHAMMED HASSAN obligations towards it. That’s the entire point behind it. It’s total surrender to the will of Allah. That requires people who remain steadfast and aren’t prone to change. The mind of a devoted Muslim is ultimately rigid and the mind of a savvy merchant is ultimately flexible, so how did these people manage to have both? It’s not even something that’s hard to spot when you look around you. The East, West, Muslim and non-Muslim mingle together in the most obvious examples. That Arabic Quran playing in that school is probably blasting from Japanese speakers. The jeans and polo shirts some of the young men wear to the mosque are made by American designers.

English curse words are common place in people’s conversations, even if they are slanted with local accents. They definitely absorb other cultures, but what really sticks out is how these merchants remain merchants through it all. They’re the ones who brought the Japanese speakers and American clothes while people’s religious practices became more common and their religious demands more vocal. They’re getting more business-savvy but they’re not getting any less Muslim. How do they do that?

There’s Noor walking through the gate. He’s kinda late. I thought he was just gonna skip school today. Good thing he showed up. I need him to help me find the janitor. I don’t know where he went. I thought janitors were supposed to show up early but I never know with this one… Noor looks like he didn’t get enough sleep. I hope he doesn’t pass out on me…

“Am!” “I can’t find the janitor. I looked everywhere.”

“That’s what I wanted to tell you. This girl I know texted me this a few minutes ago. Look.”

‘OMGG u wont beliv wut I just hurd robert jeniro quit LOOOL’ I’m mortified. This can’t be a thought communicated by a human brain…

“What language is this? And what’s a Robert Jeniro?”

“Robert Jeniro is what everyone in school calls the janitor. You know, because he’s always frowning?” …

51

THE BAHRAINI FACTOR “She’s saying he quit his job this morning.”

Oh! “If he quit this morning that means he might have already left. If he’s gone, then we’re all out of luck. How are we gonna find him now?”

“I don’t know. So what do we do?”

“Well…”

Well, that’s a good question. I honestly don’t know how I’m supposed to go about finding him when I don’t know his name or where he lives. I don’t know anything about him except that he’s a thief. By the time we do find him, he’d… be…

“Am, where are you going?”

It’s impossible not to spot a man who loves his jewelry, even if you’re watching him from all the way inside the school while he’s strolling past the gate with a brand new pack of cigarettes in hand.

But there’s definitely something new shining about him today.

There’s an extra bling in his left hand. I can even see it from here. It could be a key or it could be— “It’s him! Wait, Am, you’re not gonna talk to him, are you?”

“Wait for me here. If anybody asks where I am, say I’m in the restroom. Don’t attend class. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Poor Noor. I hate how I keep leaving him on his own like that. I hope the security guard doesn’t come back to see him before I’m done…

Now, where are you, Mr. Janitor? Ah, there you are… no, no, you’re not getting into that broken down car before I get a chance to meet you… the parking lot is empty. Perfect…

“Excuse me!”

Oh, man. I’ve never seen this frown up close before… he’s wearing the same necklace and watch he wears every day… okay, he won’t watch me panting forever. I have to say something…

“Uh… car?”

He’s shaking his head… is it weird that I like confusing him?

“Car! You car! Car!” That’s right. Turn around and… got it!

“Car? Car?” 52

MOHAMMED HASSAN Look at him. His head is shaking in all directions. He has no idea what’s going on… okay, I’m thoroughly enjoying this but I have to stop…

“You no car? Oh, okay. Sorry. Sorry.”

Now, let’s see if I got what I wanted… there it is. Getting a snapshot of his hand was the easiest thing in the world. I hope I solve this thing sometime today. I wasted so much time on what’s clearly a boring and easy mystery… oh, no. That guard is dragging Noor away…

“Wait! Why is he taking you that way?”

“Erm… class?”

“Why you’re not in class? Why you outside?”

This guy looks like a nuisance…

“That’s what I mean. Our first class is in Building BL3, not this way. Both our class, me and him. Right, Noor?”

“Oh! That’s right!”

“Show me jadwal.”

“I forget it today.”

That guard isn’t fully convinced by Noor’s excuse…

“Wallah! Wallah!”

Okay, that seemed to win him over…

“Come on, let’s go.”

This narrow opening between this building and the school’s wall looks like it was made for students to hide. The fact that the wall we jumped last night is right at the end of it doesn’t help its case either…

“Man, I hate this guy. What happened with the janitor?”

“Look at this.”

“Whoa! What’s that shiny thing on his hand? It’s huge.”

“That’s a pearl ring.”

“Pearl? So he really did steal it?”

“I don’t think so. If this was a separate pearl, he’d have to weld it onto the silver band. Plus, if it was stolen, there’s no way he’d wear it in public like that. But there is another possibility. He could have purchased it.”

“Him? There’s no way he could afford something like that, can he?”

53

THE BAHRAINI FACTOR “Well, we don’t know his other recreational activities. He could have paid for it with stolen money.”

“How can we know that?”

“You will tell me.”

“I will?”

“Take the phone and get a good look at the picture. Does the ring look familiar?”

That’s it. Squint…

“I don’t know. I don’t really see a lot of pearls around, you know?”

Ugh… “Ignore the pearl. Focus on the silver band under it. Do you recognize the shape or the design?”

“Hmm…” I wish he’d hurry up. Every second he takes, the guy is getting further and further away. At least, if he recognizes the band, we might have something to go on…

“Nope. I’ve never seen this before.”

Well, it was nice while it lasted. My streak is officially broken.

This is one mystery that won’t be solved. Thank you, Bahrain. I knew I wouldn’t like it in this— “Wait.”

“What?”

“I don’t think I’ve seen this ring but I’m sure I know where he got this other ring.”

Other ring? Look at that… that ring is so tiny that I didn’t even see it on his right pinky. It’s nothing special, though. It’s just a brass band with a red stone in the center. The stone has a distinct design.

Still, it can’t be that expensive…

“There’s a small shop in Manama Souq that has this style. This guy I know, he’s my age but he’s always going there with his brother’s friends who are older than him and they like to wear exactly the same ring.”

“Can you ask them where exactly did they buy it?”

“I had a big fight with that guy. I don’t think he wants anything to do with me.”

54

MOHAMMED HASSAN “So the only thing we can do is go to Manama Souq and check shop by shop until we find the one that has it, and even then, there’s no telling if that will be helpful.”

“What can we lose?”

My time, my effort, possibly my money…

“Your attendance record.”

“Yeah, right. As if I had one. I jumped over that wall more times than I’ve walked out the gate.”

“You know how to get to that Souq, right?”

“Yeah, man. We can just take the next bus.”

There goes my whole day. It’s gonna be spent window-shopping instead of ending this ridiculously prolonged chapter of my life, a chapter that I’ve already ended in my head…

“Okay, but we have to go right now. We don’t know what the janitor is gonna do next. Every minute counts.”

“When do you think we’ll be back?”

“I really don’t know. How big is that Souq?”

“Pretty big.”

“If we’re lucky, we might be able to come back before the last class ends.”

“Okay then. Let’s go.”

There he goes, taking ten steps backwards to jump a low wall. I think that student at the back of the class spotted us through the window…

I don’t like that goofy grin on his face. I better jump after Noor before he— “Look! Look! Noor’s jumping!”

Ah! The whole class is rushing to the window! An entire classroom is shouting at us! I better hurry before their teacher joins…

“They’re both ditching! Noor’s jumping! Noor! Noor!”

55

THE BAHRAINI FACTOR VINTAGE MODERNITY This is it. This is where this country’s struggle with the balance of old and new, ambitious and reserved, advanced and old-fashioned all boils in one pot. I expected the Souq to be something like Chinatown but it’s different. There are no decorative ornaments that highlight some cultural identity. I don’t think there’s a need for it either. This place has been around long enough, and overflows with enough nationalities and their own traditions, to be considered the country’s own cultural identity. It’s not Chinatown but it’s not Times Square either. There’s nothing impressive here. It’s just a bazaar with vendors and all kinds of pedestrians passing by. There’s very little room to even walk in some of the spaces. The only thing that I find impressive here are the new buildings in the horizon. It’s not the towers themselves that are impressive, but it’s the way they dwarf the old Souq and the small to moderately-sized buildings scattered around it. This narrow alleyway between these two old houses is something and the view that I can see at the end of the alleyway is something else. It really is. The decrepit walls are covered in fading paint yet, through that narrow opening I’ve seen a Porsche speed by in a glimpse. Who knows, the Porsche could belong to someone who lives in one of these two houses too. This is the Island of the Mix, after all…

Ugh. My shirt is soaked with sweat. I feel the sweat seeping into my brain. All I want is to find the answer to one question, just one unifying question that would give me the first step in the path to understanding this place. I can make sense of anything if I just know one thing: is this an old country whose people have been forced to adapt to modernization, or is it a modern country with people who had a thirst for modernization that was long unquenched? Looking at this Souq, I now know that I’ll never get my answer. If Bahrain was a living organism of contradictions and extreme opposites, this Souq would be the nucleus. Even the line between residential and commercial are blurred. The ground floor of every building is a shop and the floors above each shop are apartments with clothes hung out to dry. Patches of sand are, apparently, convenient parking spots and the back of pickups double as both transport and shops for fruit and 56

MOHAMMED HASSAN vegetable or fish and prawn. Old buildings and new buildings, old cars and new cars, women in black abayas and women in leggings, old men in fading thoubs and young people in acid wash jeans.

Contrast is everywhere. Wait… are those couches on the sidewalk?

“Am I seeing couches on the sidewalk or is the sun finally getting to me?”

“Taxi drivers put them there. That’s where they hang out. Hey!” Woah! That Indian guy nearly took Noor’s shoulder with him!

He didn’t even stop…

“Matchoof ent? Sij Hindi!”

Noor has been complaining about the abundance of expats in the Souq since we stepped off the bus. He’s been complaining about so many of them being in Manama in general. Indians are a favorite target of his. “New New Delhi,” I think he called it. To be fair, it’s hard not to spot one anywhere you look. They’re all over the country, but they congregated here at the capital. I’m guessing most Bahrainis share Noor’s feelings towards having too many foreigners in their country but for some reason, it makes it more fascinating to me. I love seeing people with different mindsets lumped into one group and forced to find a way to coexist. It’s life…

“Okay, are you sure they sell that ring here? We’ve been looking for forty five minutes. I’m literally covered in sweat.”

“Uff! Are you always this bitchy when you go out?”

“I complain when there’s something to complain about, like when someone says they know where something is but they really don’t know where it is.”

“I told you, it’s here. It’s not my fault I can’t remember exactly where. You’re lucky I’m even with you right now or you’d never even get here.”

Well… he has a point there…

“Can we at least stop for a minute? I need to catch my breath.”

“Oho!” “Just for a minute. Let me just… I never felt this exhausted before.”

“I thought you did these things every day back where you lived.”

“Don’t blame me. Blame your country. I can’t get used to this heat.”

57

THE BAHRAINI FACTOR “Man, it’s not even that hot. Wait until the middle of this month.

You’ll melt right in front of the AC.” Gee, I can’t wait. Like I need—wait! Is that…

“Look over there!”

“Where?”

“Behind you, the shop at the corner.”

“The one selling glasses?”

“Yes, look at the smaller table next to the glasses.”

“Smaller table? I can’t see—oh! That’s it! That’s the ring!”

“Finally.”

Yes, that’s definitely it. No wonder we didn’t see it the first time we passed here. This has to be the shortest table ever made. It’s like a footstool… why is there nobody here?

“Why is there nobody here?”

“I think he’s the one getting up from that table over there.”

That round table has too many old men and too many glasses of tea and milk on it. I think one of the old men is blind too. The guy in the Ray-bans and white thoub is coming towards us. He looks young.

And Bahraini. This should be easy enough for Noor…

Why did the man just say “Dinar”? Is Noor asking him about the price? I hope he doesn’t waste our time with that…

“Am, give me your phone.”

That’s right. Take a good look at the photo, sir… now ask him about the ring on the finger… ugh. He’s shaking his head. He doesn’t know… Noor looks agitated… he’s asking him again… the guy is still shaking his head. He doesn’t look too happy about Noor nagging him… Noor’s voice is getting louder. I hope the guy doesn’t—Ah! What a bark! The lungs on that guy! They’re fighting out loud!

People are looking at us!

“Ahmed!”

Someone from the round table just called the guy. I think it’s the old blind man with the dark glasses. He just took the phone from Noor…

“What’s going on?”

“That’s his dad, I think. He’s gonna go talk to him. This guy insists he doesn’t know where to find the ring. I know he’s lying.”

“What if he really doesn’t?”

58

MOHAMMED HASSAN “He does. I’ll get it out of him.”

Damn you, Noor… the guy is hunched over, talking into his dad’s ear… his hands are making shapes… his dad is thinking or maybe… remembering? Wait… is he describing the ring’s shape to his blind dad?

“Eee! Bu Khalil!”

Okay, he just clapped his hands together and jumped in his plastic chair in joy. I may have witnessed the Bahraini equivalent of a Eureka moment. I know “ee” means yes. I think he actually remembered the ring. If he did, that would be incredible! Now, he’s the one making gestures and shapes with his hand to his son. What’s he describing? The guy is coming back… okay, at least I got my phone back. I was worried this hot-headed guy was gonna smash it to pieces… the guy is repeating the exact same gestures to Noor… Noor just asked him something. It sounded like a surprised reaction… Did what I think happen really happen?

“He says they know where we can find it. There’s a man called Ibrahim Al-Buflasa who has a small jewelry place in Muharraq. It’s pretty far, though.”

“Do they know where exactly in Muharraq?”

“Yeah. His dad just told him where we can find his shop.”

Wow! “Wow!” “Wooow!”

What the… the blind man just repeated what I said out loud. His friends seem to really enjoy his portrayal of me. Glad to see he lost his sight but not his sense of humor…

“Yas, yas! Jolly good, very good!”

Oh, wow… that’s a great British accent, actually. His friends are bowling over with laughter…

“Come on, Am. Let’s take one of those pickups over there.”

I can hear the old people still laughing at me from behind. The old man is getting louder! He’s not even saying anything. He’s just shouting some gibberish that sounds British! Okay, I’m not gonna look, I’m not gonna look… I’m just gonna glance at the old man from over my shoulder while I’m walking away… woah! The guy is standing up and waving his hands like a lunatic!

59

THE BAHRAINI FACTOR “Say hallo Mistar Bu Kah-leel for me!”

60

MOHAMMED HASSAN UNPATRIOTIC PATRIOTISM This pickup driver is really taking liberties with the rules of the road. Red traffic lights, no U-turns, slowing down near speed bumps.

None of that exists in his world. I’ve never seen anyone butcher driving laws so callously. But nothing is gonna be more gruesome than that poor cat he ran over. I can’t get the image of its carcass, just stuck to the road like that. It doesn’t look like he’s the only driving like that either. We’re bound to get there fast, at least…

So many cars in so many narrow lanes… why would you ever introduce more than one form of transport to such a small country?

It’s so small that it’s not even visible on the world map. I don’t think you can show it to someone without a computer. You need the computer so you can zoom in on the world map, then zoom in on the Middle East, then zoom in on the Arabian Peninsula, then zoom in on the tiny blob next to Saudi Arabia, then zoom in on the island and say “you see that island? We live in one third of that!” They’re not even occupying the whole island. One train or monorail would solve the whole island’s congestion problem and provide transport for ninety percent of the population. It doesn’t look like that will happen, though. People here love their precious cars. Some of the houses I’m seeing have three cars parked outside, and they’re all probably for one family. According to Noor, the one ritual every young Bahraini must perform is engaging in “car talk”. It’s a rite of passage to them. I already lost count of the ones I saw washing their cars in public. They hold Formula One every year in their circuit. They’re a nation of racers and gearheads now. I guess pearls and fish take the backseat…

I can’t stop thinking about that blind man. I just can’t believe he managed to remember the exact shape of the ring without even touching it. And how can he give us such precise directions? I can’t wrap my head around that. And that pitch-perfect accent… a lot of these old people were alive when Bahrain was still ruled by the British. It only became an independent state in the seventies. That’s not really that long ago. They probably saw them and interacted with them on a daily basis. That must be why that blind guy knew how to do a perfect British accent. He certainly can’t have learned it from TV! It looked so surreal seeing him say it while wearing a ghitra on 61

THE BAHRAINI FACTOR his head and a fading thoub. He barely absorbed any of the actual language, just the tone of delivery. I wonder how many Western traits seeped through to the locals from that era…

My dad must have been right when he told me about Charles Belgrave. He left a blueprint of modernization for the country.

Starting a school for women, training police, setting up courts, digging for oil… though, it’s obviously the English version of modernization. He was a British advisor hired to give advice to a British colony. I doubt there was any escaping that. All that exposure to the British supposedly should have made people here tolerant of outsiders. Yet there were still people who didn’t want Belgrave or the British. When I look around and when I read the local news and when I look at this driver, I feel like there’s some lingering resentment a lot of them have for foreigners. Every time I catch him glancing through the windshield mirror, I see a look of either suspicion or disapproval in his eyes directed towards me. Maybe I’m just paranoid… I can hear the religious cleric blasting on his radio. He’s shouting at the top of his lungs, clearly going on a political rant, denouncing Bahraini government and in the same breath commending certain Bahraini clerics—at least, the familiar names that I heard before. I can tell that by his pronunciation of their names alone. And it’s really loud. I hope this driver doesn’t get us into trouble… I sensed the same kind of resentment from the blind man. The only difference is that he verbalized his resentment as humor. I wonder how many other unsuspecting expats ended up as comedy fodder for him and his friends’ amusement. What exactly is that, though? Is it a go-back-toyour-country type of rejection masked by laughter? Is it acceptance in the form of good-natured ribbing? Maybe both? Maybe neither?

Maybe that’s just a Bahraini being Bahraini. He might not have needed a reason to do it at all. The outsider is just a natural difference to them and a difference is good enough to make fun of. I don’t even think that’s really them, anyway. I don’t know what a traditional Bahraini is. I don’t know what traditional Bahraini thoughts are.

Belgrave was here for what? Thirty years? That’s a long time to plant your own mindset into a country who was just teething its own identity in an evolving modern world. By the time Bahrain was on its own, they absorbed everything from that school of thought. Most of 62

MOHAMMED HASSAN the country might have never wanted anything to do with Belgrave or the British or the West the whole time. Yet they changed at the end.

Maybe being part of the self-proclaimed modern world wasn’t something they thought they needed when Belgrave was around. But isn’t the will to modernize your country in itself considered modern thought? Just the desire for it alone means you’ve taken the first step.

And the desire for it isn’t something you gain. It’s inherent in character and thought. Everything you do after that, even trying to repress change, will inevitably have a modern outlook. So how do you fight modernity with modern tools? Aren’t these the same people that left pearling to pursue more lucrative careers after oil was discovered, like that article said? So they’ve already been modernized. They’ve always been modernized. What changes were they resisting over the years? What change are they resisting now? Odds are their country changed a million times throughout history and this incarnation they’re fond of is just one of several identities. The weirdest thing is that they look like they’re working so hard to undo any new results.

It’s like they see it as damage to the country, not part of it. It’s an outsider’s influence that’s untrue to original Bahraini ideologies and beliefs. But which ideologies and which beliefs are the original ones?

Islamic beliefs? Those were outside influences from Saudi Arabia and Iran. British colonialism? That was obviously foreign too. The Portuguese? Well, they came and left but their fort is still here for tourists to see, apparently. Maybe Bahrain is Tylos, the one that Pliny was writing about. Does it end there? How far back do I have to go to find the original Bahrain that these people are resisting to change? It’s like all these outside influencers left little pieces of their identity here and there until a brand new entity was created. Is original Bahrain made up of a million pieces of unoriginal Bahrain? That would mean the only way to be a patriot is if you’re not a patriot. But then it won’t… what exactly are they… how do I even… I… “Damn it.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Huh? No, nothing.”

“Are you sure, man? You look like you were really thinking hard about something.”

“It’s just… this guy didn’t have to crush that cat like that.”

63

THE BAHRAINI FACTOR “What can you do? They’re all over the roads.”

“He could’ve avoided it. If he wasn’t driving like crazy.”

Oh, man. The guy just took another glance at me through the windshield mirror. I think the word ‘crazy’ might have triggered an alarm in his head. I should stay away from these universal words.

Whatever you do, don’t say ‘mother’ out loud… ouch! This truck won’t stop bouncing up and down and this seat hurts. It looks like we’re driving on a patch of sand and rocks. I see houses in front of us.

We’re stopping…

“We’re here. Let’s get out. I’ll pay.”

Finally, I can get out of this earthquake machine…

My whole back feels numb. I feel like I’ve been sitting on a rock.

The guy must live somewhere in that neighborhood over there. These houses look new but the neighborhood still looks old. I doubt the rest of Muharraq looks like this, though. The bridge alone was— “Rooh!”

Oh, man. Why is he arguing with the driver now?

“What’s going on?”

“You believe this guy? He wants two more dinars!”

“No, no, no! No two more! You say you give full five dinar!”

“Yes, five full if go inside there, no stop here!”

“I no can go inside! Too much far! Car no good for inside!”

Why are these two imbeciles arguing in broken English? They both speak Arabic…

“We can’t waste our time with this guy. Just pay him and I’ll pay you the extra later.”

“I don’t care about the money, Am. He’s a thief. I can’t let him get away with it.”

“Here, give him this five. You can pay me later.”

“No, Am, really—“ “Just give him.”

Finally, the guy is rolling up his windows and driving away… he honked a single honk at us and raised his hand. They communicate goodbyes with honks here?

“Now, can we please get to that Buflasa guy?”

“Yeah, it’s this way.”

64

MOHAMMED HASSAN NEW BUCKET, OLD PAINT All the houses over on that side look similar. They must be housing units. I don’t know why they look so weird, though. This whole place feels old. Or maybe old isn’t the right word. It feels… I don’t know but it doesn’t feel new. And these houses are definitely new. They all have the same design and the same new paint and everything surrounding them is different in shape and different in color. It’s like these blocks of houses were built somewhere else in one go then lowered by a plane right on that patch of land. They stick out like a Band-Aid on clear skin…

Those houses in front are different, at least. Some of them are obviously renovated but some are rundown. Well, maybe rundown isn’t the right word. Poor? No, that’s not it. Modest? Not exactly… why can’t I find the right words to describe this place? Noor keeps checking the time on his phone. He can’t possibly be worried about school…

“You think we can still make it back to school in time?”

“In time for what?”

“Good point.”

The atmosphere here makes me relaxed for some reason. I’m drenched in sweat but I don’t feel hot. I feel warm. Like someone who just got back home from a long trip. It’s like I have no obligations or I’m too sleepy to give them any attention. I just wanna breathe easy and let everything go. I’m breathing… is that a breeze I’m feeling?

“That’s it. His house is one of the ones over there near the boats.”

There’s a shore here! And there are boats docked along the shoreline. Out of all the places I’ve been to, this is the only one that makes me genuinely feel like I’m on an island. This is the image that comes to my head when I think of islanders. They live by the sea.

They make their living from the sea. The sea is their livelihood and their hobby and everything in between. Now, this makes sense. These boats must belong to the people living in these houses and they… wait a minute…

“Where did we just come from?”

“Arad.”

“And where is Arad?”

65

THE BAHRAINI FACTOR “It’s in Muharraq. Why?” “Muharraq is an island?”

“Yeah. Why?” So… we crossed a bridge from Manama to Muharraq… then we crossed that causeway over there to this patch of land over here… which is separated by water from another patch of land back there… no… no, it can’t be… but it has to be… it is. There’s no other way to put it. I’m on an island within an island within an island. This is too surreal for me. I need to get out. My brain will overheat. If I’m not careful, I might lose my mind and never leave. I’ll live here as the resident crazy person, running around the shore barefoot and laughing stupidly at the sky…

“Let’s hope he’s home” Nobody’s answering. Please, be home…

“Ring the doorbell again.”

“Still no answer. I don’t think anyone’s here.”

“Knock!”

“They have a bell, Am. Why would they—“ “Move!”

There. Everyone in the neighborhood must have heard that knock…

“Easy, you’re gonna break their door down! What if they’re really not here?”

“Mayn?”

That sounded like a woman… it is a woman… I can’t tell what she looks like with her face covered like that but she sounds old. It could be his wife or his mother… Noor just mentioned the man’s name. I’m hearing a lot of “ee”s. We must be in the right place…

“She says he’s asleep. She’s gonna go wake him up. Well, this is it. You’d better be right about this, Am, or this whole day was a waste.”

“You had something else to do today?”

“We could have gone to City Centre, at least.”

“Don’t you ever go anywhere else?”

That’s him…

“Hayakkum.”

“Let’s go in.”

66

MOHAMMED HASSAN This house looks modest from the outside but inside it’s actually impressive. This front yard is really big. Though, that old wooden door looks out of place. We’re heading to it, apparently…

Wow… this room must be his store. It’s not as big as I imagined.

It’s just four walls with a table at one end. A table that has bowls full of pearls on velvet cloth. There’s also a scale. He’s obviously a pearl merchant but I don’t know why this room makes me nervous. It feels shady. The guy looks old but he doesn’t show it. His cheeks are droopy and his shoulders are hunched forward but there’s still a display of strength in his movement. If I was just passing by on the street, I’d think this is just another old man wearing a thoub and ghitra. Funny how that shiny Rolex on his wrist won’t let me do that.

Everything is shiny in this place. The pearls are radiating enough white to provide lighting for the room. And those rings in the glass display case are… yes!

“Am, look! That’s it, right?”

I’ve seen that photo enough time to know what it looks like by now. That’s definitely it…

“That’s it. We found it. But I still need to know a few more things. I’m gonna ask him a few questions. You translate.”

“Uh… okay.”

The guy looks agitated. It’s enough that we woke him up but now he has to be subjected to an interrogation in my foreign language gibberish…

“Show him the photo. Ask him if the ring on the janitor’s hand is his.”

“He says yes.”

“Does he recognize the man in the photo?”

He’s squinting. I don’t like the scowl that’s forming on his— woah! Why is he hurling a torrent of Arabic at Noor? He’s wagging his finger and throwing his hands in the air. He’s furious!

“What’s happening? What’s he saying?”

“He’s saying something about… people can’t be trusted these days… it was better back then… nothing called friendship anymore… everything is about money.”

“That means he knows him. Ask him how long he’s known the janitor.”

67

THE BAHRAINI FACTOR “He says they’ve been friends since they were kids. They grew up in the same neighborhood.”

If they’ve been friends for a long time that means he probably bought a lot of jewelry from this shop. It’s likely that he’ll come back again sometime soon…

“Okay, now he’s asking who we are.”

“Ask him if his friend came here recently with a pearl he wanted to sell.”

“He says yes… he came here yesterday and told him he had a… a very special pearl that he found in the sea… he wanted a very high price for it but… he didn’t give him the money because… he wanted to take it to a lab first to get it X-rayed… he says he’s glad he didn’t pay him because… uh…”

“What?”

“I don’t know how to translate this. It’s… unnatural?”

“You mean cultured? But that’s not possible. Is he sure?”

“He says he tested it a number of times. It’s definitely not natural.”

That doesn’t make any sense. If the pearl the janitor brought was cultured, and the ring he wore came from this place, it means it can’t be the Aiko pearl either way. Why would the janitor bring a cultured pearl to sell to his friend, who he knows is an expert in pearls?

“Ask him about the ring I’m pointing at, the one in the display case. Did he sell one to the janitor yesterday?”

“He says no.”

“But we—“ “Wait… he says he didn’t sell it but he did lend it to him… when he came yesterday, they had a fight… his friend kept saying that it was expensive and rare but he didn’t agree and insisted they wait for the X-ray results… his friend agreed to wait but said he wanted something in return… to make sure that… he doesn’t steal the pearl from him… so he gave him that ring as a guarantee… and now he says he’s sure from his own tests that he traded his natural pearl ring for a cheap, unnatural one and wants his ring back. Am, I’m confused.

What’s going on?”

I’m missing something here… the Aiko… postponed auction… janitor… new ring… empty oyster… trip… Robert Carlos…

68

MOHAMMED HASSAN “Ask him this. Ask him if he called his friend to let him know that the pearl is cult—I mean, unnatural.”

“He says la. He didn’t call him because the guy said he’d be back tomorrow morning.”

Finally!

“Finally!”

“What?”

“Everything is clear now. This mystery’s solved.”

“Ha? What are you talking about?”

“Just ask him one final question. What time is he expecting the janitor to come tomorrow?”

“Six.” “Perfect. Alright, we’re done here. Thank the guy and tell him his friend recommended this place to us and that we’ll come back tomorrow with him at six to buy something.”

“Uh… okay.”

Finally! What a load off of my shoulder. Everything forms a perfectly logical pattern now. All that’s left is to catch him in the act…

“Let’s go back.”

“Am, are we really coming back tomorrow?”

“Of course not. But I don’t want the guy to be suspicious and call the janitor. I need him to show up here tomorrow at six.”

“Why?” “You’ll see. We have to head back to the school now. I have to talk to Principal Ibrahim.”

“Why?” “Everything will be clear to you tonight at the school.”

“Tonight? What are you—“ “You’ll see.”

69

THE BAHRAINI FACTOR

CHAPTER 3 THE BAHRAINI FACTOR It’s two after midnight. Any minute now, Robert Carlos will show up on this highway and walk through the school’s gate. I’m glad we’re not stuck with taxis and buses this time. We can just sit here in Principal Ibrahim’s car until he shows up. I doubt he’d see us from such a far distance…

“Am, you’re gonna eat your Snickers?”

“You’ve had two already. Don’t you wanna live to see the morning?”

“I need to catch up on my sugar intake.”

“Why?” “Guys, I think that’s him.”

The Principal is right. That’s Carlos going through the school’s gate…

“The police said they’d be waiting for him. You two wait here until—Amal!”

“Am! Wait!”

There’s no way I’m missing my last chance to see this guy. I wanna show him that I’m the one who caught him, not the police. I wanna see him bow before my uncompromising intellect. I want him to admit that he’s been outsmarted. I deserve that kind of closure, at least…

I don’t see him in the yard. He must be in the storage room already. I have to go faster…

There’s nobody in the hallway… Wait. What’s that sound? It’s coming from the hallway to the left…

“Noor?”

“Am, you shouldn’t do this alone. You don’t know what that creep might do.”

“That’s… how…”

“Ah, there you are, you two. Did you see him yet?”

70

MOHAMMED HASSAN “No, I… there’s no way this happened. How did you get here so fast? How did you get here before me?”

“I ran. I went through that open window in the stinky room.

Running is hard when you’re holding your nose.”

“You ran?”

“I ran.”

“You… ran?”

“Why do you keep saying that? Yeah, I ran. I run all the time.”

“Noor is actually our school’s top runner. He has been for the third year in a row now.”

“He did? You did?”

“Yeah, man. I love running.”

“Then why were you out of breath the whole day?”

“We were walking under the sun. And we walked all the way to school and back home last night. Plus, I ran two kilometers the night before. Give me a break.”

But if you’re the school’s top runner… and you look like that, then… I think… I think I’ve finally arrived at a conclusion.

“Here come the police. Now we can catch him in the storage room. Let’s open the door.”

I don’t think so…

“You know what? I don’t think he’s there.”

“What are you talking about? You, Noor and I saw him walk through the gate. We all saw him go into this building. He must be in the storage room.”

“He’s not there. You can open the door and check if you like, but I’m sure he won’t be in there.”

And… I knew it.

“He’s not here! I can’t believe this!”

I finally understand now…

“Then where is he?”

One, two, three, four, five… got it.

“I’ll tell you where he is. He’s out, standing in the yard, wearing a winter coat and holding the pearl way high up in the sky while wrestling a polar bear.”

“Son, this is no time for jokes! The police are here to arrest this man!”

71

THE BAHRAINI FACTOR “I’m not joking. Everything is telling me that’s where he is and that’s what he’s doing. Go see for yourselves.”

It’s such a liberating feeling to let go of it. I’ve been holding onto it for so long. Ironically, I finally feel in control…

“Help! Help!”

Yep, there he is, with winter coat, polar bear and all. He’s holding the pearl up with one hand, like he’d rather let the bear eat him first, and keeping the bear away with the other hand. This works as closure, I guess…

“Oh my god! Watch out, kids!”

“Yumma! It’s a bear!”

“Kids, stay away! Go back inside the building. The police will handle this.”

“Yumma! Yumma!”

Erm… is that a tear gas canister?

“Wait, don’t do that here! There are kids here!”

“Mister Ibrahim, let him do it! Do it! Yalla, do it!”

Wow, I’ve never seen Noor so scared. He threw himself right into the Principal’s arms…

“No, no, he doesn’t have to, son. Look, the bear is running through the gate. It’s okay. He’s out now. They’ll catch him.”

I think the policemen just shouted at one of their guys to stay here. Everyone else is running after the bear. They still have the teargas canister. I’m gonna assume they’ll use it. What else are they gonna use? I don’t think this country is equipped to bring down polar bears…

Robert Carlos is still standing in his spot. This is finally it…

“You stole the Aiko pearl.”

That’s it. I wanted to see that look on your face for so long now…

“What?”

The policeman didn’t waste any time, snatching the pearl away from his hand like that. This pearl is even bigger than I imagined. It looks like it’s glowing under the moonlight… and the cuffs go on.

“How did you know about it? No one but me knew about it. Tell me how you knew!”

Now comes the easy part…

72

MOHAMMED HASSAN “Alright, I’ll tell you. You stole the Aiko pearl, either before or during the planned auction. I don’t know how but you managed to smuggle it into this country without anyone knowing. Knowing that the pearl was useless if people knew it was the famous Aiko pearl, you decided to use our school to cover your tracks. You proposed the diving trip with the students after you came up with the plan where you’d plant the pearl inside your wetsuit then, on the trip, you’d pretend to find it somewhere in the sea. The stitching that I only found in your own wetsuit and the oyster that I found inside it made this a credible theory. Since the law in Bahrain allows you to own any pearl you find, you’d get to keep it and nobody would make the connection between you and the Aiko. Now, I don’t know what made you choose this particular school for your scheme but I’d say it’s one amazing piece of bad luck that you chose the one with the most involved and cautious Principal, probably in the entire country. Your exaggerated reaction at his insistence that he checks your equipment is what really aroused my suspicion. I immediately made the link between you and the pearl. That’s why I couldn’t believe my eyes when I searched the storage room and found nothing but an empty oyster. I was sure the Aiko was in there. Then I realized that wasn’t your original plan. Putting the equipment in the storage room presented a problem for you. It was under surveillance and you going in there yourself would raise more eyebrows. That’s when you devised a new plan, one that included the janitor. Who else could go anywhere in the school without anyone noticing? You obviously didn’t trust the security guards, who would probably report everything you tell them to the Principal anyway. The janitor, on the other hand, was a fellow thief. I’m sure you found out about his dark history from someone at the school, since everyone was talking about it. It became obvious to me that you two were involved in something when I caught you leaving the bathroom that day. Your hand brushed against mine as you went out and I noticed that it was dry. I found that suspicious because the whole bathroom was drenched in water. You couldn’t have dried your hand with a tissue since the trash can was empty, and there was an unused roll of tissues in the dispenser. You couldn’t have used the dryer either because it was out of order. That means you entered the bathroom with no intention of using any of its 73

THE BAHRAINI FACTOR facilities, which left me with the only possible conclusion that you went inside to talk to the janitor. It couldn’t have been too hard to communicate since you yourself said you speak the language. You told him about the pearl and how to plant it in the diving suit. I assume he agreed as long as he received a percentage of the money from its sale. Am I right so far?”

Look at those beads of sweat forming on your forehead. You know I’m right, you little…

“Now comes the best part. Instead of following through with the plan, the janitor decided to cut you out completely and keep all the money to himself by stealing the pearl from you and taking it to his friend to sell it. That would make sense, wouldn’t it? That’s what thieves do, they steal. But if that’s what happened, then how come we didn’t find the Aiko at his friend’s place? That’s because you predicted the change of plan would happen. You realized he couldn’t be fully trusted. You weren’t gonna gamble with your precious pearl.

That’s why you decided to test him by giving him a cultured pearl instead. Naturally, he did what people like him are expected to do and, thinking it was the real and expensive one, he took it to his friend for a sale. That would explain why he arranged to visit him tomorrow morning. He was sure it was the real thing. When we came back to the school to tell the Principal all of this, he told me he saw you running across the yard today and I immediately realized that you’d found out about the janitor resigning and would probably come here tonight to finish the job by putting the real pearl in the wetsuit yourself. So we decided to drop by and bring the police with us.

That’s pretty much it. Did I leave anything out?”

Go ahead. I dare you. I double dare you to tell me I’m wrong…

“You have no idea what you did.”

“I think I do. I stopped a criminal from getting away with his crime and spared people suffering and heartbreak.”

“What do you know about heartbreak?”

“That particular pearl had considerable sentimental value to its owner.”

“It’s more valuable to me than to that horrible old man.”

“Hiroshi Mizushima is its rightful owner.”

“You don’t know anything, do you?”

74

MOHAMMED HASSAN “I know he discovered it on Kashiko Island and that he loved it like a child.”

“You idiot. I am his child.”

Oh, boy…

“Ah, who cares now? Might as well tell you everything.”

Ugh. There’s more?

“Hiroshi Mizushima never found that pearl in Japan. He never found it at all. He stole it from my mother, along with her health and her life. He came to this country with his Japanese wife in the fifties and opened a small jewelry shop. At the time, the cultured pearls coming from Japan were everywhere and they came here hoping to start a jewelry business. They failed. It’s in his nature to be a failure, even back then. The shop closed and they were broke. That’s when he met a Spanish woman living here, who was also from a respected family. He carried a secret affair with her for months. Her name was Maria Galo Buenaventura.”

That’s why the Aiko is known as Buenaventura in Europe. Oh, come on. How could I possibly have known all that?

“They spent a lot of days by the shores of this island, away from the eyes of their rich friends and families and blended in with the locals, who just assumed they were husband and wife. One night, while she alone on the shore, she found a group of oysters buried a few feet below the surface. It had the most amazing pearls inside.

They were perfectly round and white, and there was the biggest pearl she’d ever seen in her life. She ran back to him to share the good news and they celebrated the whole night. Unfortunately, she decided to share another piece of news with him that night as well. She told him that she was carrying his child. She told him that she was carrying me. He told her not to worry and with the money they’d make from these pearls, he’d divorce his wife and marry her instead.

The next morning…”

He’s close to tears. I think I know where this is heading. Why does this only happen to me? Why can’t this just end already? Why can’t this just be another case of a thief who stole and was caught?

Why does this only happen to me? Why me? Why me?

“The next morning, she woke up and found him gone.”

The pearls too, right?

75

THE BAHRAINI FACTOR “The pearls too.”

Why me?

“She looked for him everywhere but she couldn’t find him. She later learned that he’d gone back to Japan with his wife and was telling everybody how he found these rare natural pearls on the coasts of Kashiko Island. He sold most of them and went on to build his empire with his wife by his side, while she stayed here. She was devastated. She had no choice but to tell her family about her pregnancy. Of course, they disowned her immediately and told her to stay away. After pleading and crying her heart out, they told her to find someone who was willing to marry her and cover her shame. She was broke and pregnant. She had no choice but to marry the first man who said yes, a heartless brute called Saul Carlos. He was just a rich animal, always drunk and always bullying everyone around him. He thought his family’s money allowed him to do anything he wanted.

She didn’t have a choice. They got married and she gave birth to me, as if he was my father.”

Hmm… “My poor mother lived the rest of her life under his constant physical abuse just so I can have a good childhood. I grew up not needing money and surrounded by rich friends who liked to go to the sea. I learned the language from the locals in our neighborhood. My mother kept her secret from everyone else, until she was on her deathbed. I was twenty years old when she told me about my real father and the pearls and what he did to her. At that moment, I knew I had to make him pay. I left this country a couple of years later and I spent most of my life travelling from one place to another, learning as much about pearls and diving as I can.”

Oh, wait a minute… yeah, that has to be it… these things are so easy to solve now that I’m not preoccupied with understanding this place…

“I came back here and opened my shop. I knew that if I was gonna make him suffer, it had to be through that damn pearl. He was always talking about it in interviews, like he wanted the whole world to know he got away with it. When the day came and I heard about the auction in Dubai, I knew it was my chance. I stole that pearl right from under his nose. I snuck in and out without anyone knowing and 76

MOHAMMED HASSAN yes, I was gonna use your school to get away with it. It was gonna work if it wasn’t for you. Do you see what you’ve done now? You ruined everything. He’ll get away with what he did now. He’s the criminal, not me. He ruined my mother’s life and robbed me of a father. He deserves to suffer. He needs to feel what she felt. He’s a monster.”

“He’s also dead.”

“What? No, no he’s not! He can’t be!”

“That can’t be right, son. It would be all over the news if he did.”

“Oh, he’s long gone. Do you speak Japanese?”

“Of course, I do. I studied it so I’d confront him in his own language one day.”

“Do you know what Aiko means?” “’Ai’ means affection and ‘ko’ means child.”

“Ai’ also means love. Lovechild. The Aiko was named after you.”

Poor guy has changed into three different colors the last ten minutes…

“From the moment I read about the history behind that pearl, I was immediately skeptical that it would ever be sold. Not only did Mizushima not need the money, but it also held sentimental value to him. Now, after hearing your story, I’m absolutely convinced that your dad would never part with it as long as he was still alive. There’s no way he’d give up the symbol of his life’s biggest mistake. You said you were twenty when you found out about him and it was the same time your mother passed away, which means it was sometime in the seventies. Your father’s philanthropy and his divorce both took place in the seventies. I doubt that’s a coincidence. It’s more likely that he somehow found out about your mother passing and was overwhelmed with guilt. You said he kept mentioning the pearl in his interviews, as if he wanted the whole world to know. Well, maybe that’s exactly what he was doing. He was telling the whole world so you would know, maybe in the chance that you would go to him. He tried to find you, which explains why the Buenaventura name is associated with the pearl in Europe, most likely Spain, but he didn’t find you. How could he? You don’t carry his name and you left this country to travel from one place to the other for most of your life. He 77

THE BAHRAINI FACTOR had no way of knowing you were dead or alive. He named it after you as a reminder of the injustice he did to you and to your mother. He was probably holding onto it until you’d show up. Then he’d give it to you himself.”

“But why would he choose Aiko? It’s a—“ “Girl’s name? Yeah, I know, I know. Trust me, they do that sometimes. Now, the fact that this auction was actually arranged in the first place leaves me with the only explanation that your father fell ill and died but his death was kept a secret from the media. Why? I don’t know, really. Maybe his business associates thought it would help them milk some money. Since it’s out of the question that he agreed to sell the pearl during his lifetime, it might be reasonable to think that they wanted to time the news of his death so it would coincide with the auction, maybe to get the value of the pearl to go up. It would be even more reasonable to assume that he didn’t assign the pearl to his partners in his will, which means they were trying to sell a stolen pearl that they never actually owned then later announce his death after the transaction was complete. That was their plan, probably. Until you beat them to it. So, you see, you didn’t really steal the Aiko from your dad. You stole it from a bunch of thieves who stole it from him first. Now, unlike him, you get to go to jail.”

This chapter is over. Goodbye, Robert Carlos. It’s nice seeing you dragged away like that…

“Am… wow.”

“Son, that was incredible. I can’t believe you managed to figure all of that by yourself. But how could you possibly know about—“ “I know, I know. You’re asking me how I could possibly know that he was standing in the yard, wearing a winter coat and holding the pearl up while wrestling a polar bear. There is an explanation for that too. And I have to say, this is the one thing that racked my brain the most. It seemed like I was out of my element the whole time on this one. Every time I came across a clue, I found out that I’m actually one step behind. Then I realized that that kept happening because I was using the universal method of solving mysteries by placing events and characters in a logical pattern. I’ve been using that method for as long as I remember and it worked every single time back in my home country. But things changed when I arrived in Bahrain. From 78

MOHAMMED HASSAN the first day I got here, I’ve been trying to understand this country.

I’ve been trying to define it, simplify it, categorize it, but I failed in each attempt. I couldn’t understand why you are islanders who don’t make the sea a big part of your life, or how your locals resent foreigners when their whole identity is foreign, or why your youth’s only obsession is driving when most of your roads aren’t fit for driving, or how you can exist both as profit-minded merchants and as content Muslims, or why the most predominant type of animosity among you exists between people of the exact same kind. Even when I found out about the Aiko pearl. If this happened in any other country, I’d have concluded that Robert Carlos stole the pearl and then I’d catch him red-handed from the first day and that’s that. But not in Bahrain. Nothing made sense here. Sloppy Carlos was nowhere near easy to catch, the janitor that was covered in jewelry went unnoticed, the Principal wanting to take equipment that belonged to one expert to give it to another expert was unusual, and everything else from the pearl merchant being friends with the janitor to the pearl itself was out of the ordinary. I didn’t understand why at first but then it hit me. I was using plain logic. That doesn’t work here. And now I know why it doesn’t work here. Every conclusion I reached was wrong because I forgot to add the Bahraini Factor, which is when two completely opposite things defy all logic by existing together in one place at the same time. I thought to myself, this is a sneaky thief who’s in the possession of a precious, stolen pearl. He would do what everyone else would do in his situation and try to get away with it as soon as possible. But right before we were about to open the storage room door I thought, what if I applied the Bahraini Factor to his situation? Well, first, he’s a sneaky thief who’s good at hiding, so he’d also be out in the open. The yard is the closest place here that’s out in the open. Second, he’d be running away before we catch him, which means in Bahraini Factor terms, he must also be standing still.

Then, I realized, it’s the height of summer, so it means he’d be wearing either a winter coat or a jacket. I just went with winter coat.

And he’s in the possession of a stolen pearl, which means he should be hiding it, so obviously he’d also be holding it up in the sky for everyone to see. The polar bear was something I had to think hard about. I thought, what’s the last thing that would stop a thief from 79

THE BAHRAINI FACTOR getting away with a stolen pearl in the middle of a desert island at night? Why a polar bear, of course! See? It all makes sense. You just have to add the Bahraini Factor.”

“Son, I don’t, uh… what?”

“Am? Are you—“ “It’s actually quite profound when you think about it. I mean, for a country to have the ability to embrace two things and reject them at the same time, that’s admirable. So what if it defies logic? Let it. Why should a country fit your expectation of what common sense is before you accept it? Accept it. Embrace it, along with what comes with embracing it. It embraced the illogical with no reservations and no prejudice. Shouldn’t I reward it by doing the same? Oh, I forgot to tell you about the janitor. He’ll be at the pearl merchant’s place tomorrow morning at six. Noor will tell you where it is.”

“How did you know where it is?”

“We were given directions by a blind man.”

Wow! That makes even more sense when I say it out loud!

“Well then, guys, there’s nothing left for us here. The police will catch the janitor tomorrow and the pearl will go back to its owner, whoever that is. Wait here. I’ll bring the car around and then take you two home.”

I’m so happy!

“This was a great day, wasn’t it?”

“Where do you think that polar bear came from?”

“Don’t know.”

“It must have come from somewhere.”

“Don’t know, don’t care. You don’t need to analyze everything, you know.”

“Am, are… you okay?”

“Me? Of course, I’m okay. What could possibly not make me okay?”

“Are you sure? It sounds like you’re… you know. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m okay now that I have the Bahraini Factor. If I didn’t have that, then I’d be forced to admit that either logic doesn’t exist or that I’ve completely lost my grip on reality. But clearly, logic still exists.

It’s simply been rewritten for the sake of this small island, that’s all. I 80

MOHAMMED HASSAN was right, wasn’t I? He was here wrestling a polar bear, wasn’t he? So I’m in full control of my brain. It’s not really hard to get when you think about it. The only way anything makes sense in this country is if it doesn’t make any sense at all. If it wasn’t this way, then what other way could it be? It’s just this way.”

“Aha. Okay. I hope they let us skip school tomorrow. I’m exhausted.”

“I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep tonight. I’m too excited.”

“Where’s the car already. I wanna lie down.”

“This was a great day, wasn’t it?”

“You said that already. Obviously, I don’t have to tell you this but Principal Ibrahim told me that the diving trip has been cancelled and we’re going somewhere else instead.”

“I bet you’re happy now. You’ll finally get to go to City Centre.”

“No, we’re not. We’re going to the Tree of Life.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a tree that’s been living in the middle of the dead desert for hundreds of years.”

I think I’ll like it!

THE END

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MOHAMMED HASSAN

GLOSSARY Jadwal: ‘schedule.’

Wallah: swearing by Allah’s name.

Matchoof ent?: ‘can’t you see?’ or ‘are you blind?’

Sij Hindi: common pejorative expression meaning ‘what a real Indian,’ stems from the racist belief that all Indians are intellectually inferior.

Oho: an expression denoting annoyance or dismay.

Ee: colloquial term for ‘yes.’

Ghitra or ghutra: a piece of square cloth worn over the head by Arab men as part of a traditional outfit.

Thoub: a robe-like garment worn by Arab men as part of a traditional outfit.

Rooh: meaning ‘go,’ often used in a similar manner to ‘no way.’

Mayn: ‘who?’

Hayakkum: ‘welcome,’ plural of hayyak.

La: ‘no.’

Ha?: colloquial term for ‘what?’

Yumma: ‘Mom’ or ‘mother,’ usually shouted by children when they’re scared and calling for their mother.

Yallah: meaning ‘come on’ or ‘hurry up.’

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