Women of Sand and Myrrh (10 page)

He woke early, before me

And warbled and sang

And hopped gaily about

And bathed his bright feathers.

But then he got married

And like a balloon

He began to deflate.

O, little bird

O, my canary.’

The garden-door bell rang. I wondered who it was who didn’t know how to open it. It was Kawkab, Nur’s mother. My heart beat fast. I tried to keep my voice normal and asked how Nur was and why she hadn’t come too, as if the mother knew what was between us. She pulled off her dusty abaya and rolled it up in her lap, then swivelled her eyes around, looking piercingly from above her face veil. ‘It’s nice here. Did you get the material from Lebanon?’ She gestured with her hand to the curtains then waved towards the sofa.

She didn’t wait for a reply and asked about the bearskin on the floor: ‘What’s that?’ Then she added, fanning her face with her hand, ‘It’s hot. What did you say it was called? A bear. And you didn’t get rid of its head? Look at its mouth and its tongue hanging out, all ready to eat someone. God forbid!’ I didn’t like the bear; Basem had come home with it one day, and because Umar was so attached to it I’d grown used to it. I hated Kawkab, hated her face, even though it was withered with tiredness and the harshness of her life. Suddenly she embarked on the subject which she’d come to discuss. Putting on a sympathetic voice, she said, ‘Nur’s not very well.’ I hated the look of her face still more. ‘She’s like a stick of incense. She’s coughing her lungs up. Yesterday I fed her a kilo of bananas but her cough’s still bothering her and her chest hurts. You and Nur are sisters, best friends, and yet you don’t come and see her any more.’ Her tone changed and scolding now she said harshly, ‘She told me that you’re heartless. You leave the phone off the hook and when she comes to see you, you don’t open the door to her. And your driver tells lies and says you’re not in. You ought to be ashamed! Ashamed!’

I looked down at my fingers, trying to stop myself shaking. I hadn’t known that I could be so weak. I excused myself and
went into the kitchen and rested my head against the fridge for a few seconds. I clasped my hands round my neck and pressed. When it started to hurt I stopped and opened the fridge and took out a jug, fetched two glasses and put them on a tray. How I didn’t drop them I don’t know; my hands were trembling and I walked slowly, my eyes on the tray, pretending that I was concentrating on balancing the glasses: two empty glasses, since I’d left the jug in the kitchen. I smiled at Nur’s mother: ‘How stupid of me. I’ve forgotten the lemonade.’ I came back with the jug and poured some lemonade nervously into her glass. She raised her veil and swallowed it in one go and put down the empty glass, then said as if rounding off the conversation or replying to a question, ‘No, daughter, it won’t do. A child’s soul is precious to its mother’s heart. You’re a mother, you should know. Come and see Nur and you can talk to each other and make it up.’ As if I didn’t want her to hear me, I mumbled, ‘I’ll try and come this afternoon.’

Nur’s mother stood up, laid her hand on mine and baring her yellow teeth attempted a lighter note: ‘Come on. Come back with me now for a few minutes. Let me see you telling each other off and making up.’ And she pressed my hand and squeezed my fingers tightly.

In spite of her show of affection I could only feel repelled by her. Still, I went with her to the door, opened it and went out with her. I didn’t even take my purse and walked with one hand tightly clasping the other. My annoyance had turned into sadness and I wanted to cry. As I entered Nur’s sitting-room I realized that we’d made the journey there at high speed; Nur’s mother hadn’t spoken to me on the way, as if she felt no need to cajole me any longer.

It was ten days or more since I’d been in that house, two days after Ghusun’s concert. That day I’d woken up in the early afternoon, morose and discontented. I’d phoned Suzanne, Tamr and Ingrid, but none of them was at home. It was Nur’s daughter’s birthday party and I’d already decided
not to send Umar. I’d promised myself that I’d read or iron my blouse, wash a dress, tidy my room, make a puppet, clean the birdcage, write some letters, repair a broken shell necklace, make a jelly, but I did none of these thngs; I got dressed and decided to go to Sitt Wafa, the Arabic teacher, but when I went out Said wasn’t around.

I felt irritated with him, then I remembered that I’d finally given him permission to go to the mosque for the afternoon prayer. In the past I’d forbidden him because he stayed away for so long and he’d always given me the same answer: ‘It’s the company, Auntie. Every day somebody from home turns up and the news is fresh, fresh.’ He didn’t like praying in his room and for a week he wouldn’t speak to me. Then one day I heard a sharp cry from the garden and when I rushed out I found him there weeping and he said to me, ‘A snake, Auntie; it was huge. It saw me doing my ablutions and shot out its tongue to bite me but it knew I was getting ready to pray and it was afraid.’ He realized that this trick hadn’t worked so a bit later he came crying again and said that the sheikh of the mosque had seen him and threatened him and said, ‘You heathen! You don’t come to the mosque any more. Have you stopped praying?’

I went back into the house and was thinking about taking off my old nail varnish and putting on some new, when the phone rang. It was Nur, reminding me about Ghada’s party and saying, ‘Everyone’s waiting for Umar.’ Trying to sound normal, I said, ‘Umar’s at Sitt Wafa’s and Said’s not here,’ but as usual Nur insisted on sending her car. When she’d hung up I looked around for a present to take and saw the female canary at the door of the cage, frightened to come out and fly. I shut the door on her and picked up the cage, annoyed with myself that I hadn’t thought of getting rid of her before now.

The party was for the mothers as well, and they sat talking and eating while the children played between the sitting-room and the garden, chasing the dogs and the gazelles.
When it was over I stood up, reassured and happy because Nur too seemed to have decided that our relationship should become an ordinary friendship; even my initial embarrassment had disappeared within moments of entering. But now Nur clasped my hand and gulped, ‘It’s still early.’ I answered her untruthfully, ‘No, really. Basem’s coming home early today.’ But Umar protested, drumming his feet on the floor, which gave Nur the opportunity to interrupt and say ingratiatingly, ‘Would you like to sleep at our house, Umar, and play with the gazelles?’ He was silent, gathering himself up to answer, then said, ‘Me and mama.’ Feeling as if my breathing was being constricted, I said sharply, ‘No, darling. Come on. Baba’ll be all by himself in the house.’

Umar ran off after one of the gazelles while Nur said beseechingly, ‘Me and Umar agree. Please, Suha, stay with me for the night. I’m scared and fed up.’ But I walked towards the door, feeling my patience running out. ‘That’s enough of this rubbish, Nur. I can’t possibly stay with you for the night. Grow up! You’ve got a child and so have I. And I love my husband and you love yours.’ I didn’t regret bringing our husbands into the conversation but Nur sprang over to the door and stood barring the way with a stubborn expression on her face. I went over and pulled back the curtain and then tried the other door but it was locked. I thought of Umar. What if he wanted to come in and couldn’t or if he saw me through the glass door and called to me and I stood there without moving, unable to answer him or open the door?

I looked around me and my eyes rested on the telephone; I pleaded with it to ring. Suddenly I said, ‘Now I understand why Saleh left you. You’re spoilt and thoughtless.’ Nur didn’t answer me, but continued to brace herself against the door with all the strength she possessed. Her great house had dwindled to nothing and it was as if her life was all concentrated in that door. She said, ‘I don’t understand. You’re the one I want and yet you behave so coldly. I’m ready to live
with you and leave Saleh and my family for you, and you’re even worried that the dogs and the gazelles might come in and see us! I really don’t understand your nature. If somebody loves you, you run away from them and torture yourself about it …’

Things didn’t go as I’d planned. Nur fought and protested, but she was like a moth that knows it will get burnt if it comes too close to the lamp. When I reached home after flatly refusing to spend the night with her, I don’t know how I got into the house or what I said to Basem or how I looked as I sat waiting. I knew that she would chase me. The phone rang: Nur was crying, saying she was sorry, asking me to forgive her. Afraid that Basem might notice, I said quickly, ‘I’ll talk to you tomorrow.’ A few seconds later she phoned again and I repeated, ‘Tomorrow’, put the receiver down and unplugged the telephone, to Basem’s astonishment. ‘Nur’s bored, and she’s too demanding,’ I said carelessly. ‘More bored than you?’ asked Basem teasingly. ‘I don’t believe it. And anyway you always have friends who are bored and discontented.’

I stared at my reflection in the mirror and thought, is this really happening to me with a woman? I’d asked myself this question hundreds of times and rediscovered each time that this experience with Nur was deeply shocking to me.

Next day I couldn’t see Nur anywhere. Her mother took me by the hand and opened the door of Nur’s bedroom, saying, ‘Come along, my daughter. Human beings shouldn’t abandon one another.’ She turned away and then I saw Nur lying full length on the bed. I’d promised myself that I would talk calmly and settle the matter once and for all, and this was what I wanted to do, but instead I shouted, ‘So, Nur? You sent your mother, did you?’ I knew as soon as I heard myself speak that I’d made a mistake. I’d imagined handling Nur in a completely different way so that we’d be like two friends exchanging confidences and I’d say that Basem had found out about us and threatened to divorce me and take
Umar away from me. But all I could do was say with a sort of malicious delight, ‘So, Nur? You sent your mother after me, did you?’

Nur’s scream reverberated around the room and made the dust rise from the curtains. Kawkab suddenly reappeared, her eyes transformed into black stones with sparks flying from them; because the rest of her face was covered by a face veil all her anger shot out of her eyes. ‘Be patient, my daughter,’ she said, lifting Nur’s hair off her neck and face to soothe her. ‘Be patient. I want to talk to this … this woman without a conscience, and find out what’s going on in her mind.’ What was she talking about? She walked up to me, her eyes ablaze, and shouted, ‘Only God Almighty can make my daughter suffer!’ Nur shouted at her mother who paid no attention and continued to blaze with anger. She thrust her face right up next to mine and said, ‘If anyone harms as much as a fingernail of Nur’s, I’ll brand her until there’s no light left in her eyes.’ Then she dragged me out of the room by the arm, although Nur shouted at her and jumped up off the bed and caught hold of her mother’s hand. Nur and her mother are vampires, I thought, and I’m their prey. I’ve got to escape fast. Her mother pushed Nur back inside her room, banged the door shut, and finished, ‘Now d’you realize what Nur means to me? So one word from me to Saleh, and you and your husband and family are out. Deported.’

Was it possible? What would happen to Basem? But instead of crying or shouting back at her, I thought she doesn’t know what’s between me and her daughter. I found courage again and as if they were the only words I knew how to speak I said calmly and slowly, trying to control a trembling in my voice, ‘What Nur and I do together is forbidden. We have an illicit relationship.’

The mother cleared her throat and moved her fiery eyes off me for a moment and I thought, quickly now I can get out of the door and forget this house, tear it out of my memory, whatever it takes. I’d actually gone a few steps when I heard a
small noise behind me; it was the woman’s dress trailing along the floor and when she grabbed my hand I screamed, frightened by the suddenness of the movement. Leaning forward she whispered almost in my ear, ‘That’s wrong, my daughter. Wrong. But adultery with a man is worse. And you know what things are like between Nur and her husband.’ I didn’t tell her that I didn’t know him, nor did I say, ‘Who is this man who can manage to live with your daughter?’ I just wanted to get out of the door, and out of the country. The woman reached a hand into her bosom and took out a small cloth bag. Horrified, I thought she was about to try and drug me or poison me but she took out an English gold pound and pressed it into my hand.

The gold between my fingers made my heart race again until it hurt me. The feel of it seemed to bring me to an abrupt decision: I could only resolve the situation by talking to Nur. Going on talking to her mother was like banging my head against a brick wall: she was a creature from another world.

I went back in to Nur and let the gold coin clatter on to the table. She was turned to the wall. ‘A gold pound from your mother,’ I said, looking into her face, hating it. I let my eyes roam around the room trying not to look at Nur again, trying to ignore her presence and focus my thoughts far away from there for a few moments. I had to get away, to imagine myself in an aeroplane, and ignore Nur’s sobs and the smell of food and the bed with studs on either side and the shaded lamps and the curtains drawn to blot out the existence of what lay behind. I remembered the first time I’d come to Nur’s house, and the time that Nur had thrown herself on me and held me to her. I saw myself exchanging the impossible with her. It was as if it had happened, but to somebody else, and hadn’t left its mark on me. But I cried because what was happening now wasn’t what I’d wanted to happen nor what I’d promised myself would happen; because Nur was crying and we ought to have been rushing off together on a wild ride like before; and because it was impossible to get out of this house.
Only this time, like a singer with a beautiful voice who can’t help bursting into song, or like a bee compelled to plunge its head into a flower, I stood up and it was as if all the power in the world was spreading along my veins and arriving in my brain. I could do nothing to control it; I just knew how lucky I was because I would never live in this house, and I wasn’t lonely and didn’t suffer from emotional impoverishment, and because I knew what I wanted and I was about to go through the door and out of the house and garden and I would never see them again even if every hair of my head was pulled out one by one and they tried to drag me back in by force. I saw the mother sitting on the floor; she was leaning back against the sofa, which was covered in material patterned with lemons and strawberries, and she beckoned to me to come over to her. But I walked on like a sleepwalker, a big smile on my lips, past her, out of the door, through the garden and into the fresh air.