The Cry of the Dove: A Novel (5 page)

Miss Nailah said, `H for Head. S for?'

`Salma,' I whispered.

`What?' she said, waving her stick.

I cleared my voice and said, `Salma, miss.'

In her sharp voice she said, `Good. Do you know how to write your name?'

`No, miss'

`To the blackboard!'

I stood by the blackboard shaking, my bladder full and my pantaloons about to slip down.

She held the chalk and wrote `S-A-L-M-A'.

I held the chalk, aware of ten pairs of eyes looking at me, and started drawing the letters `Salma'.

`How old are you?'

`I am six, miss'

Miss Nailah said, `Well done!'

I ran back home to show my father what I wrote: `Salma', `head', `donkey' and `man'. He was so pleased that he asked my mother to brew me some tea with extra sugar `for this clever girl'.

Wherever I went I saw churches in the distance: old, decaying and dark houses of God. Whenever I entered the cathedral or a church I would feel cold as if they had their own hidden air-cooling system circulating the smell of mould clinging to the old stones. They were always dark, hushed and lonely places. If you did not force people to go to church why would they? There had to be a strong imam or priest shaking his stick, invoking God and promising sorrow `tailormade for each heart' if you didn't worship Him. The cathedral was deserted except for priests, who rushed about in their black robes and white collars, a few old ladies with neat grey hair and two madmen standing next to the glass donations box.You would find the odd alcoholic or homeless person sleeping on prayer cushions spread on the long wooden benches. Religion was as weak as the tea in this country. What was left of it was, `Is this your maiden or Christian name?' which the immigration officer had asked me and I did not know how to answer.

`Muslim no Christian.'

`Name? Nome? Izmah?' he said.

`Ismi? Ismi? Saally Ashur'

`Christ!' he said.

The mosque's blue dome and minaret, where the imam stood to call for prayer, could be seen at the top of the arid hill. The call for worshipping God and obedience came five times a day. `Allahu akbar! Allah is greatest. Get up and pray!' Old men woke up at sunrise, did their ablutions and walked with reluctant, half-asleep young men to the mosque. The imam stood there on his high platform urging them to go in and ask Allah for his forgiveness.

`We cannot sell our olives before getting a fatwa from the imam,' my father used to say. I looked at my father with my ten-year-old eyes and realized that he was weaker than the imam. His thin tall dark body spoke of years of horseriding, ploughing and reaping. His wandering eyes spoke of days of looking at the sky, waiting for clouds to be blown in, waiting for the rain to come and save his crops. Why was that tall strong man weaker than the imam? Why should he consult him before selling the boxes of olives rotting in the storeroom?

A rainbow was floating in the river Exe promising rain. My father, haj Ibrahim, would have been thrilled to see it, its colourful stripes promising sacks of wheat in the storeroom, a trip to the city to sell crops, a new lamb's-wool cloak. Some in Hima would have seen in it a promise of making enough money to take on a second wife. `I praise thee and thank thee, Allah,' they would have said. Right next to the railway dump it appeared as it was: a deceptive reflection of light on water. I wiped the sweat off my forehead and tied my hair back with a rubber band. I should watch a video about two male gangsters hiding in a convent pretending to be devout nuns. I was also a sinner pretending to be a Muslim, but was really an infidel, who would never be allowed to enter the mosque. Then I remembered that Liz forbade me from using the video player in the sitting room because I tampered with the timer and because my dark hair fell everywhere.

My landlady would be sipping her cheap wine and waiting for me to come home to give me advice on something or other. I put the shopping on the pavement and unlocked the door. Sure enough the sour smell of wine wafted to my nose. She was at it again. `Hello,' I sang.

`Is that you, Salma?' she said.

`Who else, Liz?'

And then I knew what was coming, a question about the weather. `It remained dry today?'

`It rained a little, but now it is dry.' I looked at her straight grey hair, her misty eyes, the fine web of red veins on her cheeks and nose, the slightly drunken recline on the sofa and said to cheer her up, `There is a huge rainbow arched over the fields, the hills, and reflected in the river.'

Another sip from the dirty glass was followed with a hesitant, `Maybe I should have a look?'

`Yes, Yes. Do you want coompany?'

`Cumpany,' she said in an immaculate English accent.

`Cumpany,' I repeated after her, tightening my jaw muscles.

`Mother,' I screamed, spitting the sour lemon out of my mouth. The midwife was sticking sharp iron bars inside me. She scraped and scraped looking for the growing flesh. The fluid of tears did not put out the fire.

`Please,' I cried. Please she cried. `I ... I . . .' and before I could finish the sentence, my mother's inflated face disappeared into darkness.

When I woke up my mother said, `Nothing. It is still clinging to your womb like a real bastard.'

My madraqa was soaked with blood, my dirty hair was stuck to my head and my face was burning with tears. With both hands I began beating my head and crying, `What shall I do?'

`If your father or brother find out they will kill you.'

I knotted the white veil around my head, stood up and ran up the arid hill, down the arid hill to the school. Miss Nailah used to sleep in one of the rooms. I knocked on the iron door calling, `Miss Nailah! Miss Nailah!'

`In the name of Allah, who is it?'

`They will kill me, shoot me between the eyes.'

`Who? What? Why?' she asked while unbolting the door.

I rushed in then stood in the middle of the room. Beating my chest with my right hand I cried, `I place myself in Allah's protection and yours, Miss Nailah.'

`What is it?'

`I am pregnant.'

She went pale. `You poor, wretched you.' She straightened her long hair, put on her veil, tightened the knot under her chin, swallowed hard then sat on the edge of the bed.

I stood there, in the middle of the almost empty room, trembling.

She finally said with difficulty, `First of all you must hold your tongue. Don't tell a soul.'

`Do you want company, Liz?' I asked again.

`No. I'd rather finish this first.' She raised her stained glass of wine.

I tilted carefully the bottle of washing-up liquid, which I kept hidden behind the cereal box in the cupboard that Liz had allocated to me, until one tiny green drop fell on the yellow sponge. I must be careful when washing my mug. If Liz caught a whiff of the lemon scent we would have a row I would lose my tongue completely and go silent and she would pour her Radio 4 English over my head. `The cutlery and crockery are old. You must not wash them with chemicals. What is it with you people? Washing and cleaning all the time. No wonder you have sores all over you.' She would speak to me as if I were her servant in India, where she used to live, not her tenant who pays her forty pounds a week plus bills.

The kettle was boiling so I switched it off, poured some hot water in the mug and dropped a teabag in it, then stirred. Streaks of brown colour whirled in the water instantly. I was convinced that what I was making was not tea because I could not see the tea leaves and because the water turned brown instantly. Every afternoon in Hima I used to put some tea leaves in the metal pot then fill it with water, add some dry sage or cardamom pods and seven large spoons of sugar then place it on the open camp fire we kept under the fig tree. When it boiled, I would pick it up then put it back again to boil it one more time until the aroma of the tea and cardamom reached my mother's nose. I fished the wet round teabag out and threw it into the bin, then tried to open the milk carton. I pulled and pushed the wings, but it refused to open. I couldn't even open a damn carton! I was angry with myself for being so foreign so I stabbed the carton with a knife spilling the milk all over the worktop. In Hima, whenever you needed milk you would take a bowl and put it underneath a cow then pull its teats until your hands were sprayed with fresh warm milk. I wiped up the milk with the multi-purpose cloth, which Liz used for wiping all surfaces including the floor. The cloth was impure so I washed my hands with soap and water, had a sip of the now cold tea and rushed up the stairs to my room.

I was not allowed to put my mug on the two antique chests of drawers, which squatted in the corner like shepherd dogs. So I put it on the cheap side table next to my bed, which squeaked whenever I sat or slept on it. I put my television, which I bought from a junk shop for twenty pounds, on the small antique table Liz had provided. Looking through the open made-to-measure curtains from my window I could see the railway line and the glow of the setting sun. The cream and navy curtains were the only promise in the room of a better future, a future of owning a house and furnishing it with new made-to-measure pieces. A few books and many glossy magazines rested on the DIY shelf. I emptied my shopping bag on the bed. I had got carried away this time. I bought instant hair colour, facial scrub, breath freshener, shampoo, E45 cream, Big Dum the toilet cleaner, which was on the top of Liz's list of prohibited items, and a jar of Nescafe. The rattle of coffee beans urged the lady to take action, go borrow some sugar from her dark, handsome neighbour, who had just moved in.

If I were not waiting for him out there among the vines Hamdan would make a shrill sound as if he were calling his dogs back to the barn. Whenever I heard his whistle I would sneak through the metal bars then jump down to meet him. Barefoot I would walk by the wall, by tree trunks, behind rocks, afraid to disturb the dog. When I arrived in the vineyard I would lie down quietly looking at the distant stars and listening for footsteps. I recognized his light ones, the paws of a hyena meeting the ground then leaping hastily again. He would grab my ankle, suppressing his cackle. Under the indigo sky and among the dark shadows of trees we would embrace.

He would tug at my hair and say, `You are my courtesan, my slave.'

`Yes, master,' I would say.

He would push and push and I would lie still, biting my lip in order not to let a cry escape. Panting I would rest my head on his chest and he would run his fingers through my hair and sing me love songs: `Your love took hold of my insides, my soul.'

`My love for you is kicking and shoving like a mule,' I would say and he would laugh and hug me.

For few fleeting moments I felt that Hamdan loved me, cherished me. I would never recapture that feeling ever again.

`Lighten up! Groom yourself! Sell yourself!' Parvin said to me. `You are now in a capitalist society that is not your own.

She was right. Most hair colour was designed for blondes, and a dark woman like me, who had gone prematurely grey, found it hard to match the original colour of her hair. Yesterday a man was talking on the radio about `institutional racism'. He must have been referring to the blondness of it all. A healthy blonde advertised the toothpaste, hairdryer and light yoghurt. Whenever I looked at the ornate mirror, which Liz had brought all the way from India, I saw a face dripping like honey wax, a face no longer young. My hair was dark, my hands were dark and I was capable of committing dark deeds, I thought, while looking at the well-lit first-class carriage of the London train. There, on the blue chairs, my future husband would be sitting in his grey suit and pink shirt reading the Financial Times. A sensitive, generous, rich white Englishman, who was dying to meet an exotic woman like me with dark eyes, skin, hair and deeds. I would rub my olive skin against him, and - puff - like magic, I would turn white. Just like that, without using a skin-bleaching cream for years I would become whiter and fairer. Just like that I would disappear.

`You have to leave this place immediately,' said my teacher Miss Nailah.

'Why?' I panicked.

`If you don't you will get killed.' She ran her tongue on her dry lips.

I pressed my wet face with my hands. `Where shall I go? What will happen to my goats?'

`Never mind your goats. It's your neck we are trying to save here.' Miss Nailah blew out her kerosene lamp, put it on the floor, then held my wrist tightly. `The best thing to do is to hand you over to the police and pray that they will keep you in protective custody for ever.'

Putting my shopping items on the bathroom windowsill I saw the colourful reflections of the old mill's lights on the water. The fractured lights were floating on the water of the river in different directions. I recognized that breeze. She was out there looking for a resting place, for a foothold, for rescue. She was out there tired and whimpering. She was calling me. I pressed my ears with my hands. A shiver ran through me as if I had caught a sudden chill and my ugly dark nipples, which were one and a half centimetres long, the size of my little finger up to the first joint, stood erect. I must not stay in tonight. I should go to warm pubs and brightly lit restaurants full of sparkling reflections of candlelight in wine glasses, where I would get embraced by warm human breath, by the murmurs and laughter and by the promise of finding degrading treatment.

In Swan Cottage I lay in bed watching the plaster peel off then tumble down to the floor. The room was as damp as the prison cell where I had spent five months. `Solitary confinement,' I had repeated after the warden. The police officer told me that I was to be put in a cell for my own protection. My tribe had decided to kill me, they had spilt my blood among them and all the young men were sniffing the earth. `We are trying to save your life,' said the warden. Her name was Naima. I used to count the scratches on the walls, add one every day. One thing: I was happy to be pregnant.What would I have done if I had my periods? Would I have sat on the tin bucket for six days?

When I went to the Turk's Head pub I clipped a red flower in my hair to look exotic like the girl in the advertisement for the Seychelles Islands. She had long smooth black hair, even olive skin, narrow black eyes and large breasts with invisible nipples. She stood on the beach with a coconut in her hand shaking her straw skirt to tribal music. `Our golden crop, ya ya ya. Reap and put on top, ya ya ya' The summer songs signalled the beginning of the engagement season, when all the girls of Hima started turning in their beds, looking through the iron bars of windows for signs of morning light. The bridegroom's mother would come tomorrow to propose, carrying gold necklaces, emeralds, rubies, silk brocade, linen damask, Hebron glass and Attar pure perfume in ornate glass bottles. They would finally stand in the cool shadow of a man.