That Other Me (18 page)

I blow up. “That's a lie! How can you say something like that when all you want is to share Sherif bey's bed? You didn't consult me when you decided to take him as a husband, did you?” I picture their bodies snuggled, their shapes curving into a precise fit, like two spoons one on top of the other. “It's disgusting!”

She raises a hand and I wait for it. I tilt my head to one side so that the full surface of my cheek is open, a dare to what may come. A thought hisses and grows, with the urgency of a screaming kettle: If she slaps me, I vow never to talk to her again. I'm not a child anymore.

But Mama rounds her knuckles into a fist, as if deciding that a slap is not good enough, that a punch might be more appropriate to dent her daughter's outburst. What would that do to my face? Could I become famous as the singer with the bulbul voice and broken front teeth? Madame Nivine said that for the best result in the world of fame and music, an enchanting voice must always be partnered with beauty. Alarmed, I drop to the floor and stay there, curled up like a tortoise.

“Oh, get up.”

“No.”

“You are even sillier than I thought.”

I don't look up. I'm sure she is waiting for me to reveal a soft spot. The next thing I hear is her bedroom door. It closes with a hard thud.

The Neely stinks of cigarettes, booze, and onions. Saeed had insisted that I stay put and let him take charge. My head spinning, I'd passed out on the floor. He should be coming back soon. I open the balcony door and groan at the lingering ache in my head. Peering down below, I half expect Saeed's Nissan Patrol to veer into the parking lot, for him to hop out with a broad and reassuring grin that heralds his success in taking care of last night's unsavory business.

Noon. What is taking him so long? A flood of impatience has me dialing his cell phone number repeatedly. (Ah, where is the man!) When it keeps disconnecting, I stomp back into the apartment, still shocked that things had gotten so thoroughly out of control.

Some bizarre fit—that's the only word for it—takes hold of me: a bout of weakness and shivering that propels me to the bathroom, where I throw up. Galina's strawberry lips had turned blue. How could I not have seen it? She was struggling. She was choking. How could I not have heard it? I splash my face with cold water, then stare at it in the mirror; it is stripped of its color, like a dying leaf. I curse
Satan's water for having blinded me, for having dulled my conscience to the point that I'd nearly killed the girl.

Back in the living room I frown at the empty glasses and cigarette ash on the table, at the pillows strewn on the floor and the sticks we'd used for that ridiculous dance. There's something else, too: a string of amber worry beads that Hareb gave me. I pick it up and flop onto the couch, wondering who had retrieved it from the cabinet drawer.

My brother bought the beads sometime in the early 1970s, when the company first started making real money. He paid a grand sum of two thousand Indian rupees to a merchant in Bombay. It was the first time he had bought anything expensive. And he chose to give the gift to me.

“Because we are one,” he had said. Judging by his expression, he believed it to be a profound truth, impossible to dispute, and I had found myself nodding vehemently, convinced of our sameness. After all, we were brothers brought up in the same household, part of the people of the palms.

As a boy I'd often helped Hareb at the palm grove, removing the dead leaves and debris from the dug-up water channels or pruning the trees. We'd secure ropes around our waists and scramble up the date palms in a competition to see who was faster. It didn't matter to him that I almost always won. But on the occasions when he won, I would sink into a dull, black mood. He'd slap me and tell me not to be such a sissy. Then, as if remembering the age difference, he'd pinch my cheeks until they turned red: a demonstration of his love for me that was no less painful than the slaps. I was ten; he was nine years older.

Lost in the memory, I'm hardly aware of the beads sliding between my fingers, clicking in a fluid rhythm that eases my impatience. I'm pulled back further into that past shared with Hareb. Under a dome of sky that traps a harsh light and the burn of the sun, we hold our heads up to catch a whimper of a breeze. There's the
seih
, strewn with umbrella-crowned desert acacias. How many times did he drag me
along the broad expanse of the valley to hunt for honey? With a widemouthed earthen jar hugged to his waist, Hareb enjoyed the search, and after he'd nicked the honeycomb from the bees and stored it safely in the jar under a muslin cloth, he would insist on sharing it with the neighbors. With a grand smile, he would watch my face sour as I divided the find.

I smell the dry dust. Barefoot on the scalding earth, with tattered kandoras and sun-bleached wizars pulled up and knotted securely at the waist, we would dart on the balls of our feet from one patch of shade to the next, moving in zigzags to avoid the dried-up plant pods, spiral-shaped and prickly and the scatterings of half-buried acacia thorns. Once, trotting back home along the seih after we'd found a particularly large nest, I stepped with my full weight on one of those needle-sharp thorns. I remember squealing like a woman as I fell back, and I raised my foot so that Hareb could pull it out.

Along with a few stray bees that followed the scent of their honey in a dizzy pursuit, a cluster of buzzing flies zoomed around the jar. They changed course upon scenting the blood on the bottom of my foot. I cursed them. I cursed the thorn. I cursed the tree.

In that moment, as payment for my injury, I decided I would no longer distribute the honey equally. The burn, the sweat, and the throbbing hole in my foot: they were enough to convince me that I should keep as much as I dared from a honey jar that I considered mine by right. I did so with no guilt, and over time I grew bolder, held back a little bit more, always ready to argue my case if Hareb ever discovered that I'd kept more than my share. He never did.

I search for a hint of sameness. I'm mulling over how my brother and I shared an upbringing but not a way of thinking when my phone rings. Saeed has arrived.

He steers the car out of traffic and onto a relatively empty road. He offers me a cigarette and I light it, pulling in three long, deep drags. Smoke enters through my mouth and exits through my nose. The nicotine shoots to my brain, but it fails to satisfy me. “Tell me.”

Saeed rubs the stubble on his cheeks. “Well, we brought the doctor.”

“What?”

“Don't worry. He's a discreet old man who Abu-George uses to deal with all kinds of medical issues concerning his girls. Nothing broken, according to the doctor—just some bruising here.” He strokes his neck.

This should relieve me, but the scowl that's been plastered on my face since last night's incident stays put. The questions loom in my mind like barbed wire. “Stop trickling information! What does the bitch want?”

“She's completely on edge. She would have gone to the police had we not taken charge right away,” Saeed says. “Abu-George and I warned her to think before she acts, because she's in a conservative Muslim country. A girl in an apartment filled with men—especially a girl who is selling her services—would not be believed! We told her that the first thing the police would say is, ‘What were you doing there in the first place? You asked for it.' We told her she'd be thrown in jail and, once she'd served her time, deported.”

A police report—and that could lead to a court case! It would be her word against mine. Even if it all went against her, there's no guarantee that word of what happened would not get out. Society is fickle. All it takes is a single scandalous whisper. I would be branded. It wouldn't affect my success as a businessman, but it would discredit me in the eyes of my peers, make me a laughingstock: Majed Al-Naseemy, notorious for assaulting whores.

“These Western types,” Saeed says, “love to make a big fuss out of everything—no respect for discretion. I talked to her like a kind
father, gentle, you know, explaining that that's not the way to resolve a small problem. And, stupid cow that she is, she blew up.” He sighs through his teeth. “I guess it's because she's shaken. Yes, very upset.”

Right now, the last thing I care about is how shaken or upset she is. “Yes, yes, of course she has to act like she is,” I say through clenched teeth. “This whole drama is nothing more than a neat little deception. Isn't that how these girls are, always acting this role or that?”

He opens his mouth, but one glance at my bulging eyes and he fixes his sight back on the road. He's driving toward my house. He says, “Abu-George—he stayed with her—had the doctor give her some sedatives. So she's calm, in a better state to listen to him. Let's just wait and see what happens. Don't worry, everything will be solved, insha'Allah.”

“Solved? What, angels will descend and make this go away? Did you offer her money?”

“She won't take it.”

“Why not?”

He takes a sharp breath through tobacco-stained teeth. Every minute drags as I wait for an answer. I suddenly understand. He has failed.

My agitation is a worm in my gut. It slithers; it pauses. And when it bites, I pound the dashboard. “I should have dealt with the situation myself! This is all your fault, you know,” I say, “you and that bastard Abu-George. Bringing such girls to the Neely!” My tone is fierce, relentless. “The most you can handle is keeping the Neely stocked. Anything beyond that is too hard for you. Have you ever done anything right?”

“Now, wait a second.” He looks hurt, but knowing Saeed, it's certainly an act. “I—”

“
Chup
,
chup
,
chup!
Shut up! No, you listen to me. You are going to take me home and wait for me while I freshen up. Then you will take me to the slut so I can put an end to this mess.”

At the house, I am beset by a brooding anger as I shower and change into a fresh kandora. I grab a wad of hundred-dollar bills from the safe and slip them into my pocket. Aisha arrives home from an outing and finds me in the kitchen, gobbling down the last bite of a sandwich.

“Your eyes look like someone poured kerosene in them,” she says. “And why is Saeed waiting outside? The doorman told me he brought you here. Where is your car?”

“At the garage.”

“What's wrong with it?”

“How should I know? Do I look like a mechanic?”

“I mean, what happened?”

“It broke down.”

“Did it happen last night? Is that why you didn't come home?”

“What's wrong with you, woman? You want to know about the sore and its medicine?” my voice thunders, silencing her abruptly.

I drive Saeed's car. He sits next to me and indicates the way. My grip on the steering wheel is tight as I cross Al-Maktoum Bridge and head toward Meena Bazaar in Bur Dubai. Once we reach the Ramada Hotel, I make a U-turn and enter the first of the smaller streets behind it. The buildings here are medium-sized, rising no higher than ten floors. We pass one that has been turned into a hotel. I miss the name but catch the sign at the entrance:
VALET PARKING WITH DRIVERS.

It's 2:15 p.m. A school bus in front of me keeps stopping at curbs and corners. I want to finish this business with Galina the Russian as soon as possible, but I don't overtake the bus, just stare at the bundles of noisy children hopping off. The delay gives me a chance to think.

Much as I'd like to break her neck as soon as I see her, getting physical would only inflame the situation. She will be angry; of that I
am sure. She will probably curse me. I decide I must rise above all that and deal with her using words only—strong words, and perhaps, if she is sensible, a few gentle words, too—as I urge her to take the money. It's the sight of the dollars, clean and crisp, that will tame her.

“There, right there.” Saeed points to a mud-colored six-story building with cement troughs for balconies, and suddenly I can't wait to confront her. I honk the horn, and the three cars behind me do the same.

The elevator smells of coconut hair oil and stale sweat. Saeed presses a button. The second-floor corridor is broad and dim. Lunchtime noises seep from behind apartment doors, along with the pungent whiff of fried onions and heavily spiced Indian curry.

Her apartment is three doors down, and Abu-George is outside, punching numbers on his phone as he waits for our arrival. He wears a striped shirt with the top buttons undone, showing off a thick gold chain nestled in chest hair. His jeans are so tight—his flab is pinched into a tube around his waist, his crotch squished in a trap that looks so painful I find I'm jiggling my hips to make sure all the equipment between my legs can move freely—that I wonder why he needs that cowboy belt to hold it up. He puts his phone in his pocket and tells me that the effect of the pill the doctor had given her has worn off. “Now, it won't help to lose one's temper,” he adds with some hesitation. “We have to be calm.”

“Of course,” I say, giving him an icy stare.

“Right,” he says, and rakes his hair—shiny and slick with oil—back with his hand before turning toward her apartment. He knocks, but to our surprise the door across the way cracks open in response. We turn around and see a small girl with a red thumbprint bindi on her forehead. She stares at us with big black eyes that brim with distrust. I crouch to her height and scold her in Urdu. “Who called you?” I hiss. “Get back inside.” The alarmed girl retreats just as cold air blows on my back.