The Map of Love (82 page)

‘My pipe in my hand
And a fur on my back
Filled with silver
Filled with cash —’

On the wall Anna’s tapestry, still in three pieces, hangs from the makeshift batten Madani has rigged up for it. Yet again Amal wonders about that middle panel, about Horus. Where had he come from? She tries to put the question out of her mind. She reminds herself of Harry Boyle’s letter — of how that had been a puzzle for Sharif Basha and his friends, and how she had stumbled upon the answer ninety years later. But once more she goes over the possibilities. She had not put the panel in Isabel’s bag. She is sure, at least, of that. But could Isabel have done it? And if so, when? And where had she found it? In the trunk before she brought it to Amal? But when they had gone through the trunk together and found the Osiris panel, Isabel would have said. She would have said, ‘Oh, there’s another one. I left it in New York.’ Could she have found it later, in New York among her mother’s things? She still would have said. Why should she hide it? No. Isabel was surprised to find it in her bag. Amal is sure of that. Or is she?

‘I have a ship
And God’s forgotten me
In the harbour
Come, little flower
Come with me —’

Amal has intuition. She has imagination. Does she still believe that every question has an answer? She goes again over Layla’s words: ‘Oh the day after my brother’s murder Mabrouka rolled up Anna’s tapestry in three bags of muslin. One she gave to me “for Ahmad”, she said, “and his children after him.” The other she gave to Anna for Nur. I do not know what she did with the third.’ Layla had given the Isis panel to Ahmad and he had given it to
Omar. Anna had not given the Osiris panel to Nur. Or if she had, it had still ended up wrapped inside her trunk and been passed down to Jasmine. What had Mabrouka done with the third?

They have not yet told
Omar that it has appeared. It seems
too strange a thing to mention casually over the phone. They have thought perhaps they should surprise him. Stitch the whole thing together, iron it, and have it hanging there for him to see.

‘Come, little flower
Come with me
I mean you well
And my heart is whole —’

When would he come? When would he call? Isabel is not worried, but she has not known him long enough. She does not realise what a solitary figure he now cuts. Beloved by many, hated by many, but essentially solitary. How else could he have ended up — living where he lives, doing what he does — except alone in that no-man’s-land between East and West? For her it has been different. She has not had a public life. She has concentrated on the boys, and she has translated novels — or done her best to translate them. It is so difficult to truly translate from one language into another, from one culture into another; almost impossible really. Take that concept ‘tarab’, for example; a paragraph of explanation for something as simple as a breath, a lifting of the heart, tarab, mutrib, shabb tereb, tarabattatta tarabattattee, Taroob, Jamal wa Taroob: etmanni mniyyah / I’ve wished / w’estanni ‘alayyah / I’ve waited / ‘iddili l’miyyah / I’ve counted … Amal catches herself falling asleep and considers whether she should go to bed — or would the baby wake and get her up again immediately? She cannot wait to see
Omar with him. She has grown used to worrying about her brother over the last few years. She worries, and then he phones. He will phone soon. She looks up at the tapestry. Tomorrow they can stitch it and have it ironed. They can put little Sharif in his bouncer seat under it. He would look at it as Nur used to look at it when she was a baby, lying at her mother’s feet in the courtyard watching the balls of silk jumping on their threads. Once more Amal sees Anna sitting in the sunshine, working at
her loom, old Baroudi Bey beside her, his eyes on his rosary, the baby in the basket, the sounds from the house drifting into the courtyard. She sees Sharif Basha coming through the doorway, pausing to take in the scene and to feel his heart flood once again with love. She sees Anna take each finished panel from the loom. Mabrouka holds one end and the two women roll the length of cloth carefully between them. She sees Sharif Basha lying on the diwan in the salamlek and she sees hands draw a white sheet over him and she hears the sobs of the men and the keening of the women. She sees Mabrouka in her room, tying wrappings of muslin around three long rolls of cloth, weeping, pausing to dash away the tears that blind her, muttering, muttering all the while. Amal makes out a few of her words: ‘from the dead come the living’, ‘the branch is cut but the tree remains’. Mabrouka weeps and wraps and mutters, ‘The precious one goes and the precious one comes.’ The tears make their ragged way down the lines on the old face. ‘The Nile divides and meets again,’ and again, and again. ‘He brings forth the living from the dead’ — the baby’s cry sounds through the house and the sudden fear that seizes Amal’s heart is so strong that it jolts her off the sofa and to her feet.

Omar!’ she cries out loud. ‘My brother …!’

The battered trunk, ransacked of its treasure, sits by the wall. The old journals, emptied of their secrets, lie on the table. Beside them are the pages, neatly stacked, in which Amal has written down the story of Anna and Sharif al-Baroudi. Next door, Isabel sleeps soundly. Sharif is cradled in Amal’s arms as, once again, she makes her way with him down the long, dark corridor. She holds him close, patting his back. Whispering. ‘Hush, my precious,’ she whispers, ‘hush …’