That Other Me Read Online Free PDF

goes into detail about this or that teacher who has it in for him. I lose the thread of his chatter and think of my other unmarried son, Khaled, who normally joins us for the Friday prayer. But he’s disappeared, went fishing with his friends for the weekend—or so his mother told me. I don’t think he’s catching fish after the incident that took place last Monday. I imagine that Khaled must be moping by the shore, using the excuse of a chipped heart to write more of his useless verses. Aishadid not bring up his recent predicament, even though I could tell she was troubled by it, what with all her shuffling about the house with that taut face. Khaled is her favorite son, after all, and he is in pain.
    He’d set his eyes on the daughter of Diab Al-Mutawa. He called her a beauty and declared that it had been love from the moment he’d spotted her in the mall. I’d had to hold back a snicker as I listened to him, but in the end I’d nodded my approval, all the while thinking that it was about time he settled down. I had lost patience with him, the sensitive poet who could never get enough pampering from his mother. There was no reason to stand in the way of such a match. The Al-Mutawa family has always been prosperous and held in high esteem by society. What could be better? I congratulated him on his choice wholeheartedly. But then the girl’s father refused.
    â€œYou hear what I’m saying, Baba? This time I really will graduate,” Badr says, jolting me out of my thoughts.
    â€œIt’s not studies or age that turns you into a man. It’s how you handle difficulty,” I say in a stern voice aimed at concluding this talk that does nothing more than irk me. “And since you haven’t had any—difficulties, that is—you won’t mature further.” In the silence that follows, my mind drifts off to two nights earlier.
    I’d arrived at the Neely agitated, eager to find out whether my friends had heard anything about Diab Al-Mutawa’s refusal—by that time I regarded it as an insult to my family’s good name. But instead, I’d ended up hinting to them that the drink didn’t seem to leave my body as it used to.
    â€œAge plays tricks on the body,” my friend Saeed said to me. There were a brown sofa and two beige chairs in the living room of the Neely, but, as always, we were more comfortable settled on the ground around the rectangular coffee table, on which were placed the usual bowls filled with olives, nuts, and chips. Between Mattar, my banker friend, and me sat Saeed, one leg bent underneath him, the other held to his chest by his arm—a Bedouin’s typical position of comfort. “Youare wiser with age, and you notice that,” he continued, mischief lighting his sharp eyes. “You feel fine, you feel young. Whiskey still relaxes you, and you enjoy it. But age is busily changing all that.” With that, he clapped my shoulder and guffawed. It felt like being whacked with a plank of wood.
    â€œWhat rubbish,” I said, kneading the sting out of my shoulder. We are close in age, but his small frame has remained hard and sinewy, with muscles and veins that bulge like thick ropes under his skin.
    I’d met Saeed nearly thirty years ago, soon after I’d moved to Dubai to work for my brother. Saeed was a regular at the bar of the Saba Hotel, a rowdy place with lots of noisy conversation, smoking, and puking in the bathrooms. Most important, there was no risk of being spotted, because it was not a place anyone I knew went. We’d stay at the bar until midnight, then head out to Mohammad Ali Kebabi, a dim cave of a restaurant deep in the heart of Sharjah’s souk. Bread, kebab, and raw onion: there was nothing better to dilute the alcohol.
    â€œLet me say my piece,” Saeed said, swaying slightly and rubbing his unkempt beard. He refuses to dye it black as Mattar and I do, and under the bright