Something Old,
Something New
LEILA ABOULELA
Her country
disturbed him. It reminded him of the first time he had held a human
bone; the touching simplicity of it, the strength. Such was the landscape
of Khartoum: bone-coloured sky, a purity in the desert air, bareness. A bit austere
and therefore static. But he was driven by feelings, that was why he was here, that was
why he had crossed boundaries and seas, and now walked through a blaze of hot air from the aeroplane
steps to the terminal.
She was waiting for him outside the airport, wearing
national dress; a pale orange robe that made her look even more slender than she was.
‘I mustn’t kiss you.’
‘No,’ she laughed, ‘you mustn’t.’
He had forgotten
how vibrant she was, how happy she made him feel. She talked, asked him questions. Did you have a good trip? Are you hungry?
Did all your luggage arrive? Were they nice to you in the customs?
I missed you too. There was
a catch in her voice when she said that; in spite of her confidence, she was shy.
‘Come, come and meet my brother.’ They began to walk across a car park that was disorganised and dusty, the sun gleaming on the cars.
Her brother
was leaning against
a dilapidated Toyota. He was lanky with a hard-done-by expression. He looked irritated. Perhaps
by the conflicting desire to get his sister off
his hands and his misgivings about her marrying
a foreigner. How did
he see him now, through
those narrow eyes, how did he judge him? A European coming to shake his hand, murmuring salamu
alleikum, predictably wearing jeans, a white
shirt, but somewhat
subdued for a foreigner.
She sat in the front next to her brother. He sat in the back with the rucksack
that wouldn’t fit in the boot. The car seats were shabby, a thin film of dust covered everything. I will get used to the dust, he told himself, but not the heat. He could do
with
a breath of fresh air, that tang of rain he was accustomed to. He wanted her to be next to him. And it suddenly seemed to him, in a peevish sort of way, unfair
that
they should be separated
like that. She turned her head back and looked at him, smiled as if she knew. He wanted to say, ‘you have no idea how much I ache for you, you have no idea’. But he could not say that, not least because the brother understood English.
It was like a ride in a fun-fair.
The windows wide open; voices, noises,
car-horns, people crossing the road at random, pausing
in the middle, touching
the cars with their
fingers as if the cars were benign cattle. Anyone of these passers-by could easily punch him through
the window, yank off
his watch, his sunglasses, snatch his wallet from the pocket of his shirt. He tried to roll up the window but couldn’t.
She turned and said, ‘It’s broken,
I’m sorry.’ Her calmness
made him feel that he needn’t be so nervous.
A group of schoolboys walked on the pavement,
one of them stared at him, grinned
and waved. He became aware that everyone looked like her, shared her colour, the women were dressed
like her and they walked with the same slowness which had seemed to him exotic when he had seen her walking in Edinburgh. ‘Everything is new for you.’ She turned and looked at him gently. The brother
said something in Arabic.
The car moved away from the crowded market to a wide shady road.
‘Look,’ she said, ‘take off your sunglasses and look. There’s the Nile.’ And there was the Nile, a blue he had never seen before, a child’s blue, a dream’s blue.
‘Do you like it?’ she asked. She was proud of her Nile.
‘Yes, it’s beautiful,’ he replied. But as he spoke he noticed
that the river’s flow was
forceful, not innocent, not playful. Crocodiles no doubt lurked beneath the surface,
hungry and ruthless. He could picture
an accident; blood, death, bones.
‘And here is your hotel,’ she said. ‘I booked you in the Hilton.’
She was proud that her country
had a Hilton.
The car swept up the drive. A porter
in a gaudy green uniform
and stiff turban opened the door for him before he could do it himself. The porter took his rucksack. There was a small fuss involving her brother in order to open the boot and get the suitcase. His luggage was mostly presents
for her family. She had told him
on the phone what to get and how much to get. They would be offended, she had
explained, if you come empty-handed, they would think you don’t care for me enough.
The hotel lobby was impressive, the cool tingling blast of the air-conditioner, music playing, an expanse of marble.
He felt soothed somehow, more in control, after the bumpy
ride. With her brother away parking the car and a queue at the reception desk, they suddenly
had time to talk.
‘I need an exit visa,’
she explained, ‘to be able to leave and go back with you. To get the exit visa, I have to give a reason for leaving the country.’
‘Because you’re my wife,’ he said and they smiled at the word. ‘Will be my wife. Will be insha’ Allah.’
‘Insha’ Allah.’
‘That’s it,’ she said, ‘we won’t be able to get married and just leave. We’ll have to stay a few days till the papers get sorted out. And the British Embassy
… that’s another story.’
‘I don’t understand what the problem
is,’ he said.
‘Oh,’ she sighed, ‘people
have a wedding and they go off on their honeymoon. But we won’t be able to do that, we will have to hang around and run from the Ministry of
Interior to the Passport Office to the British Embassy.’
‘I see,’ he said. ‘I see. Do I need an exit visa?’
‘No, you’re a visitor. You can leave whenever
you like. But I need a visa. I need a reason
to leave.’
‘Right.’
They looked at each other and then he said, ‘I don’t think your brother likes me.’
‘No, no he doesn’t
mean to be unfriendly … you’ll see.’
The first time he saw her was at the Sudanese
restaurant near the new mosque
in Edinburgh.
His old Chemistry teacher had taken him there after Friday prayers.
When she brought the menu, she told them that the peanut soup was good – a
speciality – but his teacher wanted the humus salad and he ordered the lentil soup instead because it was familiar. He was cautious by nature, wanting new things but held back by a vague mistrust. It was enough for the time being that he had stepped
into
the Nile Café, he had no intention of experimenting with weird tastes.
He was conscious of her footsteps
as she came from the kitchen, up the stairs. She was wearing
trousers and a brown headscarf
that was tied at the back of her neck.
She
had very black eyes that slanted. After that day he went to the Nile Café alone
and often. It was convenient, close to the Department of Zoology
where he worked as
a lab technician. He wondered
if, as she leaned to put the dish of couscous
in front of him, she could smell the chemicals on him.
They got talking
because there weren’t
many customers in the restaurant and she
had time on her hands.
The restaurant was new and word had not yet got round that it was good.
‘We’ve started to get a few people coming in from the mosque,’
she told him. ‘Friday
especially is a good day.’
‘Yes, it was a Friday when I first came here and met you.’
She smiled in a friendly way. He told her that at one time he had not known that the big building next to the restaurant was a mosque.
There was no sign that said so.
‘I thought it was a church,’
he said and she laughed
and laughed. He left her an extra
tip that day; it was not often that people laughed
at his jokes.
Had it not been for his old Chemistry teacher
he would never have gone to the mosque.
At a bus stop, he had recognised a face he had not seen for a number
of years; a face associated with a positive feeling, a time of encouragement – secondary school, the ease with which he had written lab reports. They recognised
each other straight away. ‘How are you? What are you doing now? You were my best student.’
In primary and secondary
school, he had been the brightest in his class, the most
able. He sat for the three sciences in his Standard Grades and got three As. It was the same when he did his Highers.
There was no reason at all, his teachers
said,
why he should not sail through
medical school. But he got to his third year in
Medicine and failed, failed again and dropped out. He had counselling and his parents were supportive, but no one ever really understood what had gone wrong. He
was as bewildered by his failure as everyone else was. His get-up-and-go had suddenly disappeared, as if amputated.
‘What’s it all for, what’s the point?’
he asked himself. He asked himself the taboo questions. And really, that was the worst of it; these
were the questions that brought
all the walls down.
Snap out of it, he was told, and snap out of it he eventually did. A girlfriend helped but then she found a job in London and drifted away. He was simply not up to medical school.
It’s a shame, everyone
agreed. They were sympathetic but at the same time they labelled
him now, they put him in a box, a student who had
‘dropped-out’, a ‘giver-upper’.
One day when she brought him his plate of aubergine and minced meat he asked her, ‘Would you like to go up to Arthur’s Seat?’ She had never been there before.
It was windy, a summer wind that carried
away the hats of tourists and messed up
people’s hair. Because her hair was covered, she looked neat, slightly
apart from everyone else. It made the outing not as carefree
as he imagined it would be. She told him she had recently got divorced
after six months of marriage.
She laughed when she said six months not six years, but he could tell she was sore – it was in her eyes.
‘You have beautiful
eyes,’ he said.
‘Everyone tells me that,’ she replied.
He flushed and looked away at the green and grey
houses that made up Edinburgh. She had wanted to talk about her divorce;
she had not wanted to hear compliments.
They talked a little about the castle. He told her about his girlfriend,
not the nice one
who had gone down south, but the previous
one who had dumped him. He was able to laugh about it now. She said her husband had married her against his will. Not against
her will, she stressed, but his will.
‘He was in love with an English
girl but his family disapproved and stopped sending the money he needed to continue his studies in Edinburgh. They thought a
Sudanese girl like me would make him forget the girlfriend he had been living with. They were wrong. Everything went wrong from day one. It’s
a stupid story,’ she said, her hands in her pockets.
‘Did you love him?’ he asked her. Yes, she had loved him, wanted to love him. She had not known about his English girlfriend. After the honeymoon, when he brought her to Edinburgh and started acting strange, she asked him and he told her
everything.
‘Would you believe it,’ she said, ‘his family now blames me for the divorce!
They say I wasn’t clever enough, I didn’t try hard enough.
They’re going around Khartoum saying all these things about me. That’s
why I don’t want to go back. But I’ll have to eventually when my visa runs out.’
‘I’m glad I’m not pregnant,’ she went on. ‘I thank Allah every day that I didn’t become pregnant.’
After that they spoke about faith. He told her how he had become a Muslim. He spoke
about his former Chemistry teacher
– how, after meeting
again, they had fallen back into the swing of their old teacher–student relationship. She listened,
fascinated. She asked him questions.
‘What was your religion
before?’
‘I was a Catholic.’
‘Have you always believed
in God?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why on earth did you convert?’
She seemed almost surprised
by his answers. She associated Islam with her dark skin, her African blood, her own weakness.
She couldn’t really understand why anyone like him would want to join the wretched of the world. But he spoke with warmth. It made her look at him properly, as if for the first time.
‘Your parents probably don’t like it,’ she said, ‘or your friends? They won’t like you
changing.’ She was candid in that way. And she was right. He had lost one friend after a bitter, unnecessary argument; another withdrew. His parents
struggled to hide their dismay. Ever since he had dropped out of medical
school, they had feared for his well-being, fretted that he would get sucked up into unemployment, drugs, depression; the underworld that throbbed
and dragged itself parallel
to their active middle-class life. Only last week, their neighbour’s son had hanged himself (drugs of course
and days without showering). There was a secret plague that targeted young
men.
Despite their misgivings about his conversion to Islam, his parents eventually had to admit that he looked well; he put on a bit of weight, got a raise at work. If only
he would not talk about religion. They did not understand that side of him that was theoretical, intangible, belonging to the spiritual world. If only he would not mention religion then it would be easier to pretend that nothing
had changed. He was
confident enough to humour them. Elated that the questions
he had once asked – what’s it all for, what does it all mean, what’s the point of going on – the questions
that
had tilted the walls around him and nearly smothered
him, were now valid. They were questions that had answers, answers
that provoked other questions, that opened new doors, that urged him to look at things in another way like holding
a cube in his hand, turning
it round and round, or like moving around a tall column and
looking at it from the other side, how different it was and how the same.
When he took her to meet his parents, the afternoon was a huge success. We’re going to get married he said, and there was a kind of relief in his mother’s eyes. It was easier for his parents to accept that he was in love with a Muslim girl than it was to accept that he was in love with Islam.
From the balcony
of his hotel room, he looked out at the Blue Nile. Sunshine so bright
that he saw strands
of shimmering light. Palm trees, boats, the river was so blue.
Would the water be cool, he wondered, or tepid? He felt sleepy. The telephone rang and he went indoors
again, sliding the tinted glass door behind him.
Her happy voice again. ‘What were you doing, why aren’t you asleep? Everyone sleeps this time in the afternoon,
it’s siesta time, you must be exhausted. Did you remember to bring dollar bills – not sterling, not traveller
cheques? You mustn’t eat at the hotel, it will be terribly
expensive, you must eat only with us here at home. Yes, we’ll pick you up later.
You’ll come for dinner, you’ll meet my parents. Don’t
forget the gifts. Are you going to dream of me?’
He dreamt that he was still on the aeroplane. He woke up an hour later, thirsty, looked up and saw a small arrow painted
on the ceiling of the room. What was
the
arrow for? Out on the balcony, the contrast startled him. Sunset had softened
the sky, rimmed the west with pinks and soft orange. The Nile was benign, the sky already revealing a few stars, the air fresher. Birds swooped and zigzagged.
He heard the azan; the first time in his life to hear it outdoors. It was not as
spectacular as he had thought it would be, not as sudden.
It seemed to blend with the sound of the birds and the changing sky. He started to figure out the direction of Makkah using the setting sun as his guide. Straight east or even a little to the north-east it would be now, not south-east as it was from Scotland. He located
the east and when he went back into the room, understood the purpose
of the arrow that was
painted on the ceiling.
The arrow was to show the hotel guests which way to face Makkah. After he had prayed,
he went downstairs and looked for the swimming
pool. He swam in water that was warm and pungent with chlorine.
Twilight was swift. In no
time
the sky turned a dark purple with sharp little stars. It was the first time he had swum
under a night sky.
Her house was larger than he had imagined, shabbier. It was full of people – she had
five brothers and sisters, several
nephews and nieces,
an uncle who looked
like an older, smaller version
of Bill Cosby and an aunt who was asleep on a string bed in the corner of the room. The television blared.
Her mother smiled at him and offered him sweets. Her father talked to him in careful, broken English. Everyone stared at him, curious,
pleased. Only the brother looked bored, stretched out on another string bed staring
at the ceiling.
‘So now you’ve seen my family,’ she said, naming her sisters, her nieces and nephews. The names swam in his head. He smiled and smiled until he strained
the muscles of his face.
‘Now you’ve seen where I grew up,’ she said, as if they had got over a hurdle. He realised, for the first time, the things she’d never had: a desk of her own, a room of her own, her own cupboard,
her own dressing table, her own mug, her own packet of biscuits. She had always lived as part of a group, part of her family. What that was like, he didn’t know. He did not know her well enough.
He had yet to see her hair, he
had yet to know what she looked like when she cried and what she looked like when
she woke up in the morning.
‘After we have had dinner,’ she said, ‘my uncle knows an English song.’
She was laughing again, sitting on the arm of the sofa. ‘He wants to sing it for you.’
Bill Cosby’s look-a-like sat up straight in his armchair and sang, ‘Cricket, lovely cricket at Lords where I saw it. Cricket, lovely cricket
at Lords where I saw it.’
Everyone laughed.
After singing, the uncle was out of breath.
They went on outings which she organised. They went on a boat trip, a picnic in
the
forest, they visited
the camel market. On each of these outings, they were
accompanied by her brother, her sisters, her nephews
and nieces, her girlfriends.
They were never alone. He remembered Michael
in The Godfather, climbing the hills of Italy with his fiancée, surrounded by armed guards and her numerous relatives,
backed by an unforgettable soundtrack. It was like that but without the guns. And instead of rolling
hills, there was flat scrubland, the edges of a desert. He watched
her, how she carried
a nephew, how she smiled,
how she peeled a grapefruit
and gave him a piece to eat, how she giggled with her girlfriends. He took lots of photographs. She gave him strange
fruit to eat. One was called doum
and it was
brown, large as an orange,
almost hard as rock, with a woody taste and a straw-like texture. Only the thin outer layer was to be gnawed at and chewed, most of it was
the
stone. Another fruit was called gongoleez, sour, tangy, white chunks,
chalky in texture to suck on and throw the black stones away. Tamarind to drink, kerkadah to drink, turmus, kebkebeh,
nabaq. Peanut salad, stuffed aubergines, moulah, kisra,
waikah, mouloukhia. Dishes he had eaten before in the Nile Café, dishes that were
new. She never tired of saying to him, ‘here, taste this, it’s nice, try this!’
‘Can’t we be alone, just for a bit?’ he appealed.
‘My family is very strict, especially because
I’m divorced; they’re very strict,’
she said but her eyes were smiling.
‘Try and sort something out.’
‘Next week after the wedding, you’ll see me every day and get tired of me.’
‘You know I can’t ever get tired of you!’ he exclaimed.
‘How can I know that?’ she smiled.
She could flirt for hours given the chance. Now there was no chance because it was not clear whether her uncle, Bill Cosby, eyes closed and head nodding forward, was dozing in his armchair
or eavesdropping.
Mid-morning in Ghamhouriah Street, after they had bought ebony to take back to his parents, he felt a tug on his shoulder, turned and found his rucksack slashed
open, his passport missing;
his camera too. He started to shout.
‘Calm down,’
she said, but he could not calm down. It was not only anger – there
was plenty of that – but the eruption of latent fears, the slap of a nightmare. Her brother had parked the car in a bit of shade in a side street. They reached it now, her brother tenser than ever, she downcast and he clutching
his ravaged rucksack. He kicked the tyre of the car, f-this and f-that. Furious he was, and out to abuse the place,
the time, the crime.
The whole street stood still and watched a foreigner go berserk, as if they were watching
a scene in an American
movie. A car drove past and the driver craned his neck to get a better look, laughed.
‘Please,’ she said, ‘stop it, you’re embarrassing me.’ He did not hear her. Her voice
could not compete with the roar of anger in his ears.
‘We’ll have to go to the British Embassy
and get him a new passport,’ she said to her brother.
‘No, we’ll have to go to the police station and report this first,’ he replied, getting into the car, wiping the sweat on his forehead with his sleeves.
‘Get in the car,’ she said to him. ‘We’ll have to go to the police station and report your
stolen passport.’
He got into the car, fuming.
The police station was surprisingly pleasant: a bungalow and several outbuildings. It was shady, cool. They were treated well, given cold water, tea. He refused to drink the tea, sat in a sulk.
‘Do you know how much that camera cost?’ he hissed. ‘And it’s
not insured.’
She shrugged, less shocked
by what had happened
than he was. Soothed by the drink, she started to tease him.
‘They’ll chop off the hand of the thief who stole your camera. Really they will.’ Her
brother laughed with her.
‘I really can’t see what’s so funny,’ he was still brooding.
‘Can’t you take a joke?’
she said and there was an edge to her voice.
Afterwards they drove in silence
to the British Embassy. There, they endured a long queue. The embassy
staff hemed and hawed.
They did not like to hear of passports
getting stolen. And as one question
led to the other, they were not overjoyed either to hear
of people getting married
in a few days’ time. They interrogated her and her brother, broad, flat questions
but still she felt sullied and small. Coming out of the embassy, she was anything but calm.
‘What did they think? What were they trying to insinuate? That I stole your passport! As if I am desperate to go back there …’
‘What’s that supposed
to mean?’ he asked.
‘It’s supposed to mean what it means!
You think you’re doing me a big favour by marrying me?’
‘No, I don’t think that, of course not …’
‘They do! They do, the way they were talking. Sneering at me and you didn’t even notice!’
‘Okay, okay, calm down.’
A small boy touched
his arm, begging. Gnarled
fist, black skin turned grey from
malnutrition, one eye clogged with thick mucous.
He flinched at the unpleasant touch, felt guilty, fumbled
in his pockets and started to take out a two-hundred dinar note.
‘Are you out of your mind,’
she said, ‘giving him that amount? He’ll get mugged for it.’ She opened her bag and gave the boy instead
some coins and an orange.
As she got in the car, she told her brother about the beggar and they both laughed in a mocking way – laughing
at him in Arabic, the height of rudeness.
‘Perhaps you can contribute to the petrol then,’ the brother drawled,
‘given you have so
much cash to spare. I’ve burnt a lot of gas chauffeuring you and your fiancée
around, you know.’
‘Right, if this is what you want!’ He yanked out the notes from his wallet and
slammed them down near the handbrake.
‘Thanks,’ her brother said, but when he picked up the wad of cash, he looked at it like it was not much, like he had expected more.
She sighed and looked out of the window. It was as if the theft had brought out all the badness
in them. He thought of asking to be dropped
at the hotel. He thought of giving
up and leaving for Scotland the next day. That would punish her for laughing at him; that would hurt her. But he did not ask to be dropped
off. He did not give up. True he had no passport and would not be able to travel, but something
else made him stay.
They walked into disarray – her house, almost unrecognisable for the sheer number
of people who were distraught, in shock. A woman was pushing
the furniture to one side; another
dropped a mattress on the floor; everywhere weeping,
weeping and a few hoarse voices shouting
orders. Her uncle, Bill Cosby’s look-alike, had died,
dozing in his armchair.
For a moment, the three of them stood in the middle of the room, frozen in disbelief. The brother started to ask questions
in a loud voice.
‘That’s it,’ she hissed, ‘we’ll never have our wedding
now, not in the middle of this mourning, never, never!’ And she burst into tears.
Before he could respond,
her brother led him away, saying ‘the house will be for the women
now, we have to go outside. Come on.’
The garden was hell that time of day, sun scorching the grass, reflecting
on the concrete slabs of the garage.
How precious shade was in this part of the world, how quickly a quarrel could be pushed aside, how quickly the dead were taken to their graves. Where was he now, the uncle who sang, ‘Cricket, lovely cricket!’ Somewhere indoors being washed with soap, perfumed and then wrapped in white, that was the end then, without preliminaries. He could faint standing
in the sun like that, without a
passport, without her, without the reassurance that their wedding
would go ahead. It couldn’t
be true. But it was and minute after minute passed with him standing in the garden.
Where was her brother now, who had previously watched
his every move while she had circled
him with attention,
advice, plans? She was indoors sucked up
in rituals of grief he knew nothing
about. Well he could leave now, slip away
unnoticed. He could walk to the main road and hail a taxi – something
he had not done before because she and her brother had picked him up and dropped him back
at the hotel every single day. Death, the destroyer of pleasures.
The body was being taken away. There it was shrouded in white and the shock of seeing that Bill Cosby face again, asleep,
fast asleep. The folds of nostrils and lips, the
pleasing contrast of white hair against dark skin. He found himself following her brother into the car, getting into what now had become his seat at the back, two men crammed in next to him, an elderly
man sat in front. The short drive to the mosque, rows of men. He had prayed that special prayer for the dead once before
in Edinburgh,
for a still-born baby. It did not involve
any kneeling, was brief, cool. Here
it was also raw, the fans whirling down from the ceiling, the smell of sweat and haste.
They drove out of town to the cemetery. He no longer asked himself
why he was accompanying them; it seemed the right thing to do. In the car, there was a new
ease between them, a kind of bonding
because they had prayed together. They began to talk of the funeral
announcement that went out on the radio after the news,
the
obituaries that would be published in the newspaper the next day. He half-listened to the Arabic
he could not understand, to the summary
in English which one
of them would suddenly give, remembering his presence.
Sandy wind blowing, a home that was flat ground, a home that had no walls, no
doors. My family’s cemetery, her brother
said suddenly addressing him. Once he
married her and took her back with him to Edinburgh, would he be expected to bring her back here if she, God-forbid,
died? Why think these miserable
thoughts? A hole was eventually made in the ground;
you would think they were enjoying the scooping out of dirt, so whole-heartedly were they digging. With the sleeve of his
shirt, he wiped the sweat off his brow – he was beginning to act like them – since
when did he wipe his face with his shirtsleeves in Edinburgh?
He wanted a glass
of cold water but they were lowering
the uncle in the grave now. They put him in a
niche, wedged him in so that when they filled the grave, the soil they poured in did not fall on him.
For the next three days, he sat in the tent that had been set up in the garden for the men.
A kind of normality prevailed, people pouring in to pay their condolences, the women going indoors, the men to the tent. A flow of water glasses,
coffee, tea, the buzz of flies. Rows of metal chairs became loose circles and knots, as old friends
caught up with each other, a laugh here and there could be heard. ‘What’s
going to happen to your wedding
now?’ he was asked. He shrugged, he did not want to talk about it, was numbed by what had happened, dulled by the separation from her that the mourning
customs seemed to impose.
In the tent, the men agreed that the deceased had had a good death, no hospital,
no pain, no intensive care and he was
in his eighties, for God’s
sake, what more do you expect?
A strange comfort in that
tent. He fell into this new routine.
After breakfast in the hotel, he would walk along the Nile, and after passing
the Presidential Palace, hail down a taxi, go to her house. He
never met her and she never phoned him. After spending
the day in the tent and having lunch with her brother
and his friends, one of them would offer him a lift back to the Hilton.
Late in the evening or the early morning,
he would go swimming. Every day he could
hold his breath longer under water. When he went for a walk, he saw army trucks carrying young soldiers
in green uniforms. The civil war in the south had gone
on for years and wasn’t drawing to an end – on the local television station there were patriotic songs, marches. He had thought, from the books he’d read and the particular British Islam he had been exposed
to, that in a Muslim country he would
find
elegance and reason.
Instead he found melancholy, a sensuous
place, life stripped to the bare bones.
On the third evening after the funeral, the tent was pulled down, the official mourning period was over.
‘I want to talk to you,’ he said to her brother, ‘perhaps
we could go for a walk?’
They walked in a street calmed by the impending sunset. Only a few cars passed. He said, ‘I can’t stay here for long. I have to go back to my work in Scotland.’
‘I’m sorry,’ the brother said, ‘we could not have your wedding.
But you understand …’
‘It’s going to be difficult for me to come again. I think we should go ahead with our
plans …’
‘We can’t celebrate
at a time like this.’
‘It doesn’t have to be a big celebration.’
‘You know, she had a big wedding party last time?’
‘No, I didn’t know. She didn’t tell me.’
‘I blame myself,’
her brother suddenly
blurted out, ‘that son of a dog and what he did to her! I knew, you see. I heard rumours that he was going with that girl but I didn’t think much of it, I thought it was just a fling he was having and he’d put his girlfriend
away once he got married.’
They walked in silence
after that, the sound of their footsteps
on crumbling asphalt.
There was movement
and voices in the houses around them, the rustle and barks
of stray dogs. Finally her brother said, ‘I suppose
we could have the marriage
ceremony at my flat. But just the ceremony, no party …’
‘No no, there’s no need for a party …’
‘I’ll talk to my father and my mother, see if they approve the idea.’
‘Yes please, and after the ceremony
…’
‘After the ceremony you can take her back with you to your hotel …’
‘Right.’
‘Her father has to agree first.’
‘Yes, of course.’ He walked lighter
now, but there was still another hitch.
‘You know,’ her brother
said, ‘we lost a lot of money marrying her off to that son of a
dog.
A lot of money. And now again this time … even just for a simple ceremony at my place, I will have to buy drinks,
sweets, pay for this and that.’
On a street corner, money was exchanged
between them. He handed her brother one fifty-dollar bill after the other, not stopping
until he sensed a saturation.
‘Thanks, better not tell her about this, okay? My sister’s always been sensitive and she
doesn’t realise how much things cost.’
His hand trembled a little as he put his wallet away. He had previously paid a dowry (a
modest one, the amount decided
by her) and he had brought the gifts in good
faith. Now he felt humiliated, as if he had been hoodwinked or as if he had been so
insensitive as to underestimate his share in the costs. Or as if he had paid for her.
On the night before the wedding,
he slept lightly, on and off,
so the night seemed to him elongated, obtuse. At one time he dreamt of a vivid but unclear sadness
and when he woke he wished that his parents
were with him, wished that he was not alone, getting married
all alone. Where were the stag night, the church wedding,
invitation cards, a reception
and speeches? His older brother
had got married in church
wearing the family kilt. It had been a sunny day and his mother had worn a blue hat. He remembered the unexpected sunshine, the photos. He had turned his back
on these customs, returned
them as if they were borrowed, not his. He had no regrets, but he had passed the stage of rejection
now, burnt out the zeal of the new
convert, was less proud, more ready to admit to himself
what he missed. No, his parents could not have accompanied him. They were not hardy enough to cope with the heat, the mosquitoes, the maimed beggars in the street, all the harshness
that even a good hotel could not shield.
Leave them be, thank them now humbly in the dark for the generous cheque they had given him.
He dreamt he was being chased by the man who had ripped his rucksack, stolen his
passport and camera. He woke up sweaty and thirsty.
It was three in the morning,
not
yet dawn. He prayed,
willing himself to concentrate, to focus on what he was
saying, who he was saying it to. In this early hour of the morning, before the stir of dawn, all was still – even his mind which usually buzzed with activity, even his
feelings which tumbled young. Just a precious stillness, patience, patience
for the door to open, for the contact to be made, for the comforting closeness. He had heard a talk once at the mosque,
that there are certain
times of the day and the year
when Allah answers prayers indiscriminately, fully,
immediately – certain
times – so who knows, you might one moment pray and be spot on, you might ask and straight away be given.
After dawn he slept and felt warm as if he had a fever. But he felt better when he
woke late with the telephone ringing
and her clear voice saying,
‘I’m so excited I’m going to be coming to the Hilton to stay with you. I’ve never stayed in a Hilton
before, I can’t wait.’ It was a matter of hours now.
Her brother’s flat was in a newly built area, a little deserted,
out of the way. One of her cousins had picked him up from the hotel and now they both shuffled up the
stairs. The staircase was in sand, not yet laid out in tiles or concrete, there was a sharp
smell of paint and bareness. The flat itself was neat and simple;
a few potted plants, a large photograph of the Ka’ba. The men – her brother, father, various relations and neighbours whom he recognised from the days in the mourning
tent – occupied the front room, the one near the door. The women were at the back of the
flat. He couldn’t
see them, couldn’t see her.
Shaking hands, the hum of a general conversation in another language.
The Imam wore a white jellabiya, a brown cloak, a large turban. He led them for the maghrib
prayer and after that the ceremony
began. Only it was not much of a ceremony, but a signing of a contract between the groom and the bride’s father.
The Imam pushed away the dish of dates that was on the coffee table and started to fill out a form. The date in the Western calendar, the date in the Islamic calendar. The amount of dowry (the original
figure she had named and not the additional dollars
her brother had taken
on the street corner). The name of the bride. The name of her father who was
representing her. The name of the groom who was representing himself.
‘But that is not a Muslim name.’ The Imam put the pen down, sat back in his chair.
‘Show him your certificate from the mosque in Edinburgh,’ urged her brother, ‘the one you showed me when you first arrived.’
‘I can’t,’ he said, ‘it was stolen or it fell out when the things in my bag were stolen.’
‘No matter,’
the brother sighed and turned to speak to the Imam. ‘He’s a Muslim for sure.
He prayed with us. Didn’t you see him praying
just now behind you?’
‘Did they tell you I have eyes at the back of my head?’ enquired
the Imam.
Laughter … that didn’t last long.
‘Come on, sheikh,’
one of the guests said, ‘we’re all gathered
here for this marriage
to take place insha’
Allah. We’ve all seen this foreigner praying,
not just now but also
on the days of the funeral. Let’s not start to make problems.’
‘Look, he will recite for you the Fatiha,’ the brother said, ‘won’t you?’ He put his hand on
his shoulder as a way of encouragement.
‘Come on, sheikh,’
another guest said, ‘these people aren’t even celebrating or having a party. They’re in difficult
circumstances, don’t make things more difficult. The bride’s brother
said he saw an official certificate; that should be enough.’
‘Insha’ Allah there won’t be any difficulties,’ someone ventured.
‘Let him recite,’
the Imam said, looking away.
He was sweating now. No, not everyone’s eyes were on him, some were looking away, hiding their amusement or feeling embarrassed on his behalf. He sat forward, his elbows on his knees.
‘In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful,’ her brother whispered helpfully.
‘In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful,’ he repeated,
his voice hoarse but loud enough. ‘All praise to Allah, Lord of the Worlds,’ and the rest
followed, one stammered
letter after the other, one hesitant word after the other.
Silence. The scratch of a pen. His hand in her father’s hand. The Fatiha again,
everyone saying it to themselves, mumbling it fast, raising their palms, ‘Ameen,’ wiping
their faces.
‘Congratulations, we’ve given her to you now.’
‘She’s all yours now.’
When he saw her, when he walked down the corridor to where the women were gathered, when the door opened for him and he saw her, all he could say was, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe
it!’ It was as if it were her and not her at the same time – her familiar voice saying his name, those dark slanting
eyes smiling at him. But her hair
long and falling on her shoulders (she had had it chemically relaxed),
make-up that made
her glow, a secret glamour. Her dress in soft red, sleeveless, she was not thin …
‘God, I can’t believe it,’ he said, and the few people around them laughed.
A haze in the room, smoke from the incense
they were burning, the perfume
making him light-headed, tilting his mind, a dreaminess in the material of her dress, how altered she was, how so much more of her there was. He coughed.
‘Is the incense bothering you?’ she asked him.
A blur as someone
suggested that the two of them sit out on the balcony. It would be
cooler there, just for a while, until they could get a lift to the hotel. He followed
her out into a sultry darkness,
a privacy granted
without doors or curtains, the classical African sky dwarfing
the city below.
She did not chat like she usually did. He could not stop looking
at her and she became shy, overcome. He wanted to tell her she was beautiful,
he wanted to tell her about the ceremony, about the last few days and how he had missed her, but the words, any words wouldn’t
come. He was stilled, choked by a kind of brightness.
At last she said, ‘Can you see the henna pattern on my palms? It’s
light enough.’ He could trace, in the grey light of the stars, delicate
leaves and swirls.
‘I’ll wear gloves,’ she said, ‘when we go back to Scotland, I’ll wear gloves,
so as not to shock everyone.’
‘No, you needn’t do that,’ he said, ‘it’s
lovely.’
It was his voice that made her ask. ‘Are you all right, you’re not well?’
She put her hand
on his cheek, on his forehead.
So that was how soft she was, so that was how
she smelt, that was her secret. He said without thinking, ‘It’s
been rough for me, these past days, please, feel sorry for me.’
‘I do,’ she whispered, ‘I do.’