The Green Bicycle (26 page)

T
he next morning, Wadjda swung herself up onto her new green bicycle and set out through the neighborhood.

Her feet moved her forward. She pedaled at her own speed, on her own terms. For the first time in her life, Wadjda felt the freedom of pure, unchecked movement, and knew the sensation of using her own power to whisk herself through the city. The warm wind slipped under her loose veil and blew her hair back as she swerved down streets and alleys, bumped on and off sidewalks.

I'll never let go of this feeling
, she thought, and pedaled harder.

At her grandmother's house, she braked and slid to a stop at the curb. The lights still arced over her head, but they were dark now. The street was deserted and quiet. Only a few streamers and stray decorations hinted at the festivities of the previous evening.

Staring at that quiet house, anger welled up inside Wadjda. She wanted to scream at her father, to berate him at the top of her lungs. No, more than that. She wanted
to take him by the shoulders and shake him, rattle him around until he turned back into the man he used to be, the man he was before he made this stupid decision. Back when he was just her father, and she loved him more than any other person on earth.

Instead, she stood up on the pedals and pressed down, moving on, away from the scene and everything that went with it. Her mother's words sounded in her ear.
He made his choice.

I'm making a choice, too
, Wadjda thought. It was a choice to be happy, to not let anything stop her. She was making it for her mother, and she was making it for herself.

Pedaling fast, she turned a corner and saw Abdullah playing football with a group of boys. They were behind the abandoned mall, in the same spot where she'd found him smashing windows before their crazy adventure at Iqbal's house. Braking to a stop and hopping off her bike, Wadjda started to approach cautiously. But then, standing up a little taller, she defiantly rolled her bike right past them.

It was impossible to hide her excitement. Wadjda felt like it was visible in her eyes, in the quirk of her smile, the flush of her cheeks. She was glowing with it. After all, she thought, the dream of the bicycle had always been tied up
with Abdullah. She could ride next to him now. Together, they could go anywhere their feet could take them.

“Hey!” she called.

Abdullah took his eyes off the ball and looked up, squinting against the sun. Wadjda smiled at him and leaped atop her bicycle. He grinned back, delighted, and waved for the others to go on without him. As Wadjda watched, he sprinted off the dusty lot and dashed to his own bike, waving at her all the while.

He didn't care if the other boys saw him playing with her. Wadjda was his friend, the best friend he would ever have, and he didn't care who knew it.

“Let's go!” he shouted, and jumped onto his bike, pushing hard to catch up with Wadjda as she pedaled away.

His friends watched them go, jaws hanging open in shock. If they had seen an elephant walk onto the field on its hind legs and kick the ball straight into the goal, they couldn't have been more surprised.

But in seconds, they were left behind. Wadjda and Abdullah swept through the streets toward the toy shop. As they got closer, they saw the owner sitting in front, sipping tea and chatting with a friend. As the children passed by, he smiled proudly at Wadjda.

Like Abdullah's friends, the other fellow was shocked to see a girl riding a bicycle. He blinked at the owner in
confusion. The old man just smiled and shrugged his shoulders as Wadjda and Abdullah disappeared down the block.

“A new world indeed,” he chuckled.

And for the first time in many years, he felt more excited for the future than nostalgic for the past.

Around the corner, Wadjda swerved into an alley, sped down it, and curved back onto the main street, pedaling as hard as she could. She pushed her bicycle faster and faster, drawing ahead of her friend. Every minute or so, she looked back to see if Abdullah was closing the gap.

“Catch me if you can!” she yelled, and raced past several men on the corner. They turned their heads, looking disapprovingly after her. But Wadjda was already gone.

Putting on another burst of speed, she broke away from Abdullah, who huffed along behind, doing his best to keep up. But Wadjda was already too far ahead. Her feet pushed the pedals furiously. At long last, she was riding her dream, and no one would ever catch her.

There.
She'd done it. She'd reached the end of the road, where the highway began. It didn't seem real. Wadjda braked, came to a stop, and stood watching the trucks and cars rumble by. A sense of liberty overwhelmed her, a feeling of deep gratitude and happiness.

Nothing comes easy in life,
she thought. But whatever price she paid for this moment was worth it.

The cars flashed by. The green bicycle waited, ready to take her wherever she wanted to go. Wadjda looked ahead, fixing her eyes on a point in the distance. She couldn't see it, not clearly, but she knew it was there. That the future was hers.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to express my sincere thanks and appreciation to everyone who helped to make this book a reality, including Rosalie Swedlin, Rena Ronson, Roman Paul, Gerhard Meixner, Namrata Tripathi, Amy Berkower, Craig Emanuel, and with special thanks to Genevieve Gagne-Hawes for her invaluable assistance and support in guiding me through the writing of my first novel.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Haifaa Al Mansour
is a Saudi Arabian film director and screenwriter, and the winner of an EDA Female Focus Award. Her first feature-length film,
Wadjda,
won the Best International Feature Audience Award at the Los Angeles Film Festival, among other awards, and is the basis of this novel.
The Green Bicycle
is her debut book.

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