Minaret: A Novel Page 11

  `So many of them are Islamists. You know the type, the wife in hijab having one baby after the other.'

  `Aren't there women students too?'

  `Yes, unfortunately. The sight of them wearing hijab on campus irritates me.'

  I remembered the girls in Khartoum University wearing hijab and those who covered their hair with white tobes. They never irritated me, did they? I tried to think back and I saw the rows of students praying, the boys in front and the girls at the back. At sunset I would sit and watch them praying. They held me still with their slow movements, the recitation of the Qur'an. I envied them something I didn't have but I didn't know what it was. I didn't have a name for it. Whenever I heard the azan in Khartoum, whenever I heard the Qur'an recited I would feel a bleakness in me and a depth and space would open up, hollow and numb. I usually didn't notice it, wasn't aware that it existed. Then the Qur'an heard by chance on the radio of a taxi would tap at this inner sluggishness, nudge it like when my feet went to sleep and I touched them. They felt fat and for them to get back to normal, for me to be able to move my toes again, they would have to first crunch with pins and needles.

  It was like that at the funeral parlour when the four women came from the mosque to wash my mother. They all wore hijab and long dark coats, their faces plain without makeup. `Do you want to attend the washing?' they asked. I shook my head and waited outside the door, heard the splash of water. `Which shampoo do you want us to use?' One of them poked her head out of the door, releasing the strong smell of antiseptic. Her name was Wafaa; she was Egyptian. `Which was your mother's regular shampoo?' Her hands, which held the bottles of shampoo, were covered in light, clear gloves, she wore a thin plastic apron. Afterwards, when she told me that I should pray for my mother, I felt that same bleakness in me. I became aware of that hollow place. Perhaps that was where the longing for God was supposed to come from and I didn't really have it. Wafaa taught me a specific prayer - asking Allah to wash my mother's sins with water and ice. I forgot the exact wording but the image of ice remained and the feeling she imparted that my mother needed me still. Everyone else seemed to think that my mother didn't need me anymore, that I was free.

  When they put on their coats and were about to leave, Wafaa gave me her phone number. `We have classes at the mosque. We get together once a week.' The others nodded. Wafaa smiled and said, `We enjoy ourselves, come and join us.' Another lady said shyly, `We would like to see you again.' She was the youngest of them, she had henna on her fingernails, sparkling eyes. I liked her yet felt she was remote, different from me. I took Wafaa's phone number and dropped it in my hag. Couldn't they see that I was not the religious type?

  On the telephone, Randa asked if I had any news of Khartoum. `Do you remember Amir?' I said, starting to tease her. She had liked him at one time. I could never understand why - he never spoke. Perhaps she thought his silence enigmatic while I assumed he had nothing to say.

  She laughed. `Of course I remember Amir - what's his news?'

  `Uncle Saleh told me that he graduated from Khartoum University and got a job in Saudi Arabia.'

  `Saudi Arabia! Well, he'll make good money there.'

  `Yes.' The words were easy in my mouth, like I was going through a familiar routine. `He'll become the perfect bridegroom.'

  She laughed. `Oh no, don't start. I'd forgotten that old crush.'

  I smiled, pleased that we were talking naturally. `Do you have any news of the guys from the club?'

  `Yes. Remember Sundari?' There was still a smile in her voice. `I heard she's hack in Khartoum with her daughter.'

  Of course I remembered Sundari, the fuss of the scandal. She and her American marine got married and went to live in the States.

  `How old is her daughter now?' I asked Randa.

  `She must be four now. Apparently, she's gorgeous and everyone in Khartoum loves her.'

  I smiled, imagining the little girl pretty like her mother, chunky like her father. A memory of him doing push-ups in the garden of the club, while Sundari watched, her silky hair touching the grass. I said, `I'm sorry I missed seeing them.'

  `Well, her husband wasn't with them - I forget his name. And that got people asking questions. It turned out that they're divorced and she's come hack to live with her parents.'

  Tears sprang to my eyes, `Oh no, how sad, that's really sad!'

  `Najwa, you hardly knew her. You needn't get so upset.'

  It is upsetting!'

  `Stop it. You're overreacting.'

  But I was sobbing now, spasms as if I were vomiting. I couldn't stop.

  Nineteen

  he letter had been forwarded from our old address in Lancaster Gate. It was addressed to me. I looked at the signature first: Anwar. Yet it was posted from London. My deepest condolences for the passing away of your mother. Automatic tears filled my eyes. I brushed them away. I heard the sad news from the Sudanese community here in London and they tell me you and your brother Omar are keeping to yourselves, not mixing much. Will you make an exception for me - I would like very much to meet you? I could hear him say this, the teasing in his voice. What is your news? Are you studying or working? I'm sure you're wondering how I got your address. I got it from the Fmhassy. Or rather, I had a friend get it for me. I'm not on good terms with the Embassy for obvious reasons. You have surely heard ...

  Yes I had heard about the coup. Uncle Saleh from Toronto advising me to stay put, not to go back to the Sudan. No, it did not mean that things were normal, he had said, of course the President is not coming back. Who are these people? I asked. My uncle said that he had no idea where they came from.

  This military junta, Anwar wrote, has brought to an end five years of democracy and free press. Two coups in four years, Uncle Nabeel had said, is not at all good for business. I was writing for an English language paper, among other things, and they closed it down. Things deteriorated to such an extent that I had to leave. So here I am, a political refugee, and it is reassuring to see that a healthy and vital opposition is gathering in London. Please phone me, Najwa. Here is my number.

  I looked at the number. I would dial it and hear his voice. We would laugh like we did in the university. His letter was so friendly. It meant that our quarrel was forgotten or was too old to matter. He didn't think I would still be holding a grudge against him. He had believed that my father was corrupt. But now he was against this new government, and had probably forgotten all about my father. What was the point of it all, Coup after coup - one set of people after another - like musical chairs.

  I am sharing a flat with two other Sudanese. Kamal is a PhD student. He's doing English Literature - what a luxury! He's living up the part - thinks he's a gentleman. The word `gentleman' was written in English. The other, Arneen, is a bum but he can aftord it, he's loaded. Sleeps all day, cards and cigarettes all night. He's the one who helped me get your address from the Embassy. (Against all odds he somehow managed to rouse himself and get there before they closed!) There are certain people, that merchant stock from which Arneen comes, who support each and every government the Sudan has ever known and I don't exclude the British. For such people, appeasement is the only politics they know. I smiled.

  He would be less talkative face to face, more reserved. He always came across as more relaxed and open in his writing. I knew that about him. He could look at me for a long time without talking. I folded the letter and sat in a daze. The kettle had boiled but I didn't get up to make tea. I looked at my watch: five to nine. I could phone him now (disturb the sleeping Ameen) but I would be even later getting to Aunty Eva. I abandoned breakfast, grabbed my shoulder hag and jacket and ran to the underground station.

  I read his letter again in the train. My dearest Najwa. But that didn't mean anything; that was just an expression. Please phone inc. I Will. I counted the years on my fingers. Nearly five years. I have so much to chat to you about. Me too.

  I arrived at Aunty Eva's late. I went to her at home every day now instead of going to Uncle Nabeel at
his office. I hadn't liked it at that office. It was off Park Lane, narrow and claustrophobic, even though it was two storeys and painted in calm, pale colours. There was nothing glamorous about the work - shipping freight rather than people across the world. I had imagined myself working in a travel agency that resembled the British Airways office in Khartoum - glass windows, a prime corner spot in the centre of town. All day important people would visit and I would know the details of their travel arrangements. The teaboy would ask me what I wanted to drink and make me feel important.

  Instead, I made the tea for Uncle Nabeel and his clients. I didn't like the way some of them looked at me. Greasy men with bleary expressions who spent their evenings in the nightclubs off Edgware Road. It was a relief to walk out in the middle of the day, cross Oxford Street and buy Uncle Naheel's lunch from Nlarks and Spencer. He always gave me money to buy a sandwich for myself too, which was kind. Sometimes he would go for a restaurant lunch with his clients. On these days he wouldn't give me lunch money and I would walk to Hyde Park if it wasn't raining and eat crisps and chocolates sitting on a bench. I wasn't really needed in the office: my typing was slow and, though I was good at answering the phone, not that many people phoned.

  One day Aunty Eva called. Uncle Nabeel was out and so we chatted for a while. 'I'm struggling,' she said. We have a dinner party tomorrow night and all the work is on Inc. This is the hardship of this country.' She missed her Ethiopian maids in Khartoum. She hadn't brought them with her because of all the stories about maids escaping once they arrived in the West.

  `I'll come and help you, Aunty,' I said. `I'll ask Uncle Naheel and I'll come to you first thing in the morning.'

  Uncle Naheel welcomed the idea. He gave me money and another phone call with Aunty Eva vielded a shopping list. I arrived the next morning at their house in Pimlico laden with bags of groceries and enthusiasm for the dinner party. To he with a family again, to he with one of mother's friends. Something opened up inside me. The need to he useful, the pleasure In being in her kitchen, in finding out where everything was kept, opening her fridge, putting the groceries away. She taught nee that day how to stuff vine leaves, how to set a table, twist and fold a napkin just so. And when she went to shower and change, I put on Radio I loud, and enjoyed cleaning the kitchen. I mopped the floor and took the garbage out. That was three months before and I never went back to Uncle Naheel's office.

  Today, Aunty Eva opened the door for me in her pink dressing gown. Her hair was smooth on her shoulders. Even without make-up she looked good, stamped by beauty. She was petite and plump with creamy skin and hazel eves. There was a warmth about her, in the ease with which her eyes watered and her skin broke in perspiration. When she worked hard in the kitchen she complained of the heat, even in mid-winter. As if reflecting her personality, the house was unusually warm. It was the first week of March and they had already switched off their central heating.

  `Come, Najwa,' she said and I followed her into her bedroom. Her accent was typical of the Syrian Christians of Khartoum, familiar to me but still quaint. In the bedroom the bed was covered with photographs, black and white, coloured, in different sizes. `Today,' she said lighting a cigarette and sitting on the edge of the bed, `there's no kitchen for us. Your uncle's invited out. I've decided we'll sort out these photographs once and for all.'

  I sat on the floor, my elbows on the bed. In sepia, there was Eva the young beauty, in a low-cut dress of the fifties; Eva in the first mini-skirt of the sixties; her two little boys in baby-walkers, in a paddling pool, their Ethiopian nanny in the background. Aunty Eva put on her glasses to take a closer look. Her fingers were covered in liver spots, the nails painted as brightly as the jewels in her rings. `Labib is older than Murad and he's always been the smaller. Look, Murad had pushed him off his bike. That's why he was sulking.' Her sons were now both married and living outside London. I liked it when they came over with their wives and young children. I learnt how to change a nappy, heat up bottles, pulverize normal food and spoon it into a baby's mouth.

  Aunty Eva finished her cigarette and said, `Make me a coffee, Najwa.'

  In the kitchen I put on Radio I and tidied away the breakfast things. It was my favourite programme, The Golden Hour. When they played the songs of the early eighties, I would remember discos at the American Club, New Year parties at the Syrian Club, songs Omar and I had memorized, arguing about the correct lyrics. I only listened to pop music when I was alone in the kitchen. Aunty Eva preferred the tapes of Feirouz or simply fiddled with the radio dial until she found classical music. She enjoyed cooking but needed me to chop garlic, squeeze lemons and do the basic things like boiling spaghetti. More important than that, she needed me to load the dishwasher, wipe the table and the floor. And of course tackle the horror of the bathrooms. On the line from Toronto, Uncle Saleh had been furious that I wasn't going to Uncle Nabeel's office any more. `What do you mean you're helping her?' Help. Waiting upon. Servant's work. He didn't understand that I needed her company, needed to hear her gossip about Khartoum, needed to sit within range of her nostalgia.

  I carried the coffee back into the bedroom. Aunty Eva was sitting on the bed, one of her legs underneath her, the other sticking out straight: a plump calf, tiny feet. She held up a photograph and smiled. `Look Najwa what I found. This was a fancy-dress party at the club. I'm dressed as a belly dancer. How could I?' She chuckled and I looked down to see her young and voluptuous in a glittering costume, her eyes merry, her cheeky smile. Next to her a woman was dressed as a Red Indian in a wig of stark black hair in two long braids, with a feather stuck to the hand around her forehead. In another photo from that same party, a man with blue eyes was dressed in white Arabian clothes. `Lawrence of Arabia.' Aunty Eva smiled and stuck the photo in the album.

  She picked up another photo and sighed. My mother and father, not in fancy dress but in national costume. My mother in a shining tobe, transparent enough to see her bare arms. Her smile was a little held back, the way she was in company. My father looked almost official, wanting to please. He would have been the one keen on this party - the right connections, the movers and shakers. He thought of my mother as being too laid hack, too complacent. Old money, he would say, turning up her nose at the nouveau riche and the social climbers but yet unable to do without them. How healthy my mother looked. How sturdy my father looked. They didn't want to die. It happened against their will. Did they know that I was flattened and small without them?

  Aunty Eva put her finger on the face of the woman dressed as a Red Indian. `A close friend of mine. One day she walked into her bedroom and found her husband in bed with this woman.' Her finger jabbed the chest of a woman dressed in a tight black Bedouin outfit, covered in embroidery, with a striking necklace around her throat. Her eyes were large and staring under pencil-thin eyebrows. `Imagine,' Aunty Eva said, `in her own bedroom!' It seemed that the location bothered her more than anything else.

  `Which one was the husband?'

  Aunty Eva flicked through the photographs looking for the errant husband. `In her own bed,' she murmured, `would you believe it? There he is - dressed as a cowboy.' He was a jovial, respectable-looking man wearing glasses. The cowboy hat was pushed hack to reveal a balding forehead. `A High Court judge,' Aunty Eva said. He was a man who could have been one of my father's friends, probably was one of my father's friends. He could have come to our home, joked with me. I would have called him `Uncle' and, as a child, run into his arms. If my father's friend could cheat on his wife, then why wouldn't my father cheat on the Treasury?

  Wash rnv sins with ice. Where did these words come from? A memory of the smell of antiseptic, the splash of water, the funeral parlour. The prayer Wafaa taught me to say for my mother. She had refused to take any money for doing the washing. I should have phoned her afterwards to thank her again.

  I asked Aunty Eva, `Did my father really do all things he was accused of doing?'

  The defensive way she tucked in her chin showed she disapproved of the
question. She said slowly, 'It's not so black and white. There are grey areas in business and one day being in the grey area is safe and the next day it's taken against you.' She made a spitting sound of disgust. The world is treacherous. He had a military trial; they passed a harsh sentence. It needn't have been like that.'

  But did he or didn't he embezzle?' I struggled with the word, almost whimpering.

  Her eyes said I was being disloyal. Your father didn't harm anyone. He didn't ruin anyone, he didn't kill anyone.'

  My tears made her soften. `Do you know what your mother said to me about him? She said, He gave me back my dignity. He made me able to hold my head up high in front of people." She was a divorcee when he married her ...'

  'What! I didn't know.'

  She didn't want you to know. She was ashamed of it. Her first husband had walked out on her and disappeared. He went to Australia, he went to America - no one knew. She had to get a divorce through the courts. In those days it was a scandal and she was sensitive, it hurt her. No suitors wanted her after that; she was in her twenties and getting no proposals. People said your father proposed because he was ambitious. They said he was after her money and her family name. Is it true, is it not true?' She shrugged. `The important thing is that he made your mother happy. Remember that.'

  Twenty

  e shook hands. I thought we would laugh but we didn't, not like yesterday on the phone. He had answered, not one of his flatmates, and I had teased him saying, `Do you recognize my voice?' When he immediately said my name, we laughed. But now, meeting face to face, we were awkward, self-conscious. To avoid arriving too early, I had showed up too late and that annoyed him. Also `in front of Marble Arch tube station' wasn't specific enough. I had gone from Speaker's Corner and walked up and down in front of McDonald's. Anwar stood in the same spot, looking at his watch, waiting.

  He looked different, broader, maybe because he was wearing a thick blue jacket. I had never seen him wearing a jacket before. It looked cheap as if he had bought it from C&A. I said, `Let's go for a walk in the park.' He said, `It's too cold, let's sit somewhere and have coffee.' His left leg was stiff when he walked; he limped a little. `Did you injure it?' I asked but he just looked away as if he hadn't heard me. We wandered around, looking for somewhere suitable. This place was too crowded, that looked like a restaurant and we didn't want to eat. Things were much simpler in Khartoum University. I said that and he smiled.