Something Old Something New

 

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.’