Minaret: A Novel Read online

  I said to Anwar, `It's interesting about converts isn't it? What would make a Westerner become a Muslim?'

  He made a face.

  'I think they're brave.'

  You say that because as Muslims our self-esteem is so low that we're desperate for approval. And what greater stamp of approval can there he than a white man's?'

  He had fixed ideas about religion. The Islamist government in Khartoum was his enemy. He liked to point out its faults and contradictions. I was surprised when he asked, `Did she phone you back?'

  `Yes, she did.'

  `What did she want?'

  `I was the one who phoned her. Wafaa was just returning my call.'

  `I'm sure she invited you to accompany her to a religious lesson or offered to lend you books - they're all the same that type.'

  Because he had guessed right, I kept quiet. I did not want him to make fun of her. She had once washed and shrouded my mother; I would always feel a connection to her, a kind of gratitude. She had said, `My husband and I can pick you up on our way to the mosque. There's a ladies' class tomorrow evening. You don't live far from the mosque, aren't you lucky! Phone me if you want us to pick you up - don't be shy.'

  I didn't feel enthusiastic about her suggestion, just faintly sad.

  `Do you pray, Najwa?' she asked.

  `No ... no I don't.' I had learnt to pray as a child. I had prayed during Ramadan, during which I fasted mostly in order to lose weight and because it was fun. I prayed during school exams to boost my grades. I liked wearing my mother's white tobe, feeling the material around me. I liked feeling covered, cosy. But I had often bobbed up and down, not understanding what I was saying, impatient to get the whole thing over with.

  `But you should pray, Najwa,' Wafaa said, `so that Allah will bless you. It's the first thing we're going to be asked about on judgement Day. We're going to be asked about our prayers.' I didn't like her mentioning judgement Day. It made me feel nervous and gloomy. But her voice was cajoling and soft as if she were talking to a child, or someone who was ill. She made praying sound easy and possible, she made getting Allah's blessing sound like something within reach, accessible. I wished I could believe that everyone was able to reach out to Allah, that it was possible to be innocent and clear. It would be difficult for me to pray, to remember the times of the prayer, to wash, to find clean cloth to cover myself. It would be an uphill climb. I felt a stab of guilt at my laziness but I pushed it away. Anyway, Anwar would laugh at me if I started to pray, he would really laugh.

  Twenty-two

  e told me what happened to his leg. They had put it in a pail of ice for a whole day to hurt him, just to hurt him. They had asked him to spy on the activities of the Communist Party, offered him money and a car and, when he refused, took him away and put his leg in a pail of ice. `That's the tool of torture in the poorest country in the world.' He laughed in a sarcastic way. `Nothing elaborate, no specially-built torture chambers and no expensive equipment, just a pail of ice.' I started to cry and he said, `Don't cry. There are others worse than me.' One had to have his leg amputated, others got shot, and others didn't have, like him, a sister in the police to help him escape. But I didn't know the others; I only cared about him. He said he would not be surprised if by now his sister had lost her job or worse. He said he had not said goodbye to his mother. `I don't want to get depressed,' he said. `Chat to me, Najwa, about something else.'

  I bought him a jacket. I wanted him to look cool; we were in London after all. He liked it. I knew he did by the way he took it out of the bag; by the way he tried it on, slowly as if he was not eager for it, as if he was unconcerned. I was almost breathless to see him look so handsome. He said, `Thank you,' in an offhand way, became distant for a while. Maybe it hurt his pride to accept a gift from me. He wasn't working. He was not allowed to work until after six months, and then he had to find casual work. What does `casual' mean? he asked me. He was smoking too much, because he was idle, he said. He had always been active; he had always been involved. 'But you are doing something,' I would tell him, 'you're writing.' He wrote articles for the Arab newspapers based in London. Sometimes, though, he found himself writing about himself, about his childhood, his father. 'I never used to write personal things,' he said, 'but now I wake up in the morning with such vivid memories of Khartoum. I just start jotting them down.' He wrote smoothly and effortlessly in Arabic. It was writing in English that made him struggle, that made him need me. He said, '1 want to write reports for Amnesty International.' He suggested we talk in English all the time, so that his pronunciation would improve. He liked certain words: frustrated, inevitable, sexy. It made us laugh, mixing the two languages, Arabic nouns with English verbs, making up new words that were a compound of both. It made him happy to discover that he could read all the papers for free in the public library. It was warm there too; he didn't like the cold.

  But he would sneer at me sometimes, out of the blue. I could never feel entirely safe with him. We would he happy and chatting and then suddenly the conversation would twist. 'You and your family must be the Home Office's ideal asylum seekers - a flat in London, bank accounts filled with the money your father swindled.' Yes, we had the flat but the bank accounts were not full. He said, 'Don't try to kid me, I'm not stupid.' We quarrelled. I hated quarrelling with him, hated that I would explain and explain yet he never believed me. And he had a knack of winning arguments even when I was in the right, even when I was telling the truth. `Your father must have had another account then, offshore, somewhere else - Switzerland. It's ironic that you can't get hold of the money but believe me it's there.'

  I wanted him to meet me halfway but he would argue his point. He would not give in. I learnt that there were reasons behind his moods - had news about his colleagues and family in Khartoum, the humiliation of having to prove he was a genuine asylum seeker. `You're too sensitive,' I would tell him, `they're just asking you routine questions, you'll get it in the end.' He would smile and squeeze my hand, loosen and start to talk. `I tell them "If the government fell today I would go hack tomorrow. I don't want to live here", but they don't believe me.' The number of times he said, `The hitter reality of Sudan,' until the words floated in my head and I wanted to know how to live with that, how to he happy with that. Change, he would say, revolution. But I had been hurt by change, and the revolution, which killed my father, did not even do him the honour of lasting more than five years.

  Anwar liked me to talk about working for Aunty Eva. I told him how she needed me all weekend when her sons and their children came. She needed me on Monday to tidy up after they left and from Thursday to start preparing for their visit. That was why Tuesday and Wednesday were my days off. He said, When my six months is up, I'll apply for a security position - many Sudanese have found work in Arab embassies.' He said, `We're now like the Eritrean refugees in Sudan' and I remembered the lifeguard at the American Club who used to stare at me when I came out of the pool. Maybe he had been educated too and did not want to work as a lifeguard. I had not thought of that before. There were a number of Eritrean bouncers who sat round a table at the entrance of the club and made sure that only members were allowed in. I remember them reading. My eyes would flicker over their books and I'd he surprised - `Since when did servants read!' - and then I would forget all about them.

  `What's wrong with us Africans?' I asked Anwar and he knew. He knew facts and history but nothing he said gave me comfort or hope. The more he talked, the more confused I felt, groping for something simple, but he said nothing was simple, everything was complicated, everything was connected to history and economics. In Queensway, in High Street Kensington, we would watch the English, the Gulf Arabs, the Spanish, Japanese, Malaysians, Americans and wonder how it would feel to have, like them, a stable country. A place where we could make future plans and it wouldn't matter who the government was - they wouldn't mess up our day-to-day life. A country that was a familiar, reassuring background, a static landscape on which to paint dreams. A
country we could leave at any time, return to at any time and it would he there for us, solid, waiting. I said to him, `Thank God my parents didn't divorce. At least I had a stable family - a fractured country but not a broken home.' He said, `Silly girl,' and laughed as if I had made him forget his worries. `What does divorce have to do with it?'

  He put his arm around me because we were not in Khartoum, because we were in Hyde Park and the few people who walked past didn't stare. They didn't care what we were doing and would not have been surprised. We were free. I could not yet get over that. Freedom enthralled me when I was with him and when I was alone. Like an experiment, it made me hold my breath and wait.

  `I missed you.'

  `Let's go home. It's cold here; it's uncomfortable. Come with me home. We'll be more private at home.'

  `Your flatmates would see me.' But I could ask him to come over to my place. There was no one there. I dared myself to speak. My heart started to beat.

  He said, `Ameen and Kamal are out this time of day.'

  `They might come hack. What would they think of me?'

  `They're very liberal minded. Don't worry about them.'

  `They're Sudanese.'

  `So am I.'

  `Why do you always win arguments?'

  He kissed me instead of answering.

  `Do you love me?'

  `Yes.'

  'Why?'

  He looked into my eyes. `Because of the tight skirts you used to wear in university. You don't know what you did to me.'

  I laughed. If I went home with him, would he introduce me to his flatmates as his fiancee? I couldn't ask him. But I could go; I could go with him and find out. I would see his room, sit in it, breathe in it. The awe of knowing that it could be easily done, that no one could stop me, was like standing on the brink, daring myself to move further. I stood up and said, 'OK, let's go'. I made my voice calm, my eyes casual so he wouldn't guess I was joking. He was delighted, couldn't believe his luck.

  We walked out of the park. `This way to the station.' He held my elbow.

  I smiled. `No, this way.'

  He said, suspiciously, `Where do you want to go?'

  `Selfridges.' I laughed at the expression on his face, the realization that I had tricked him. He laughed too; he was in a good mood today. It was fun to try to guess his mood, to gauge how much teasing he could take.

  We passed a couple of Arab women dressed in black from head to foot; their faces were veiled. Anwar made a face and, when they were out of earshot, he said, `It's disgusting, what a depressing sight!'

  His expression made me laugh. `Aren't you curious about all the beauty they're hiding?'

  `I'm only curious about this,' he said. He put his arm around me and squeezed my waist. The pressure of his fingers made me giggle.

  We went into Selfridges through the door that led into the men's department. My father had liked to buy his clothes from here. Christian Dior shirts, a Burberry jacket that he would only wear in London, red boxer shorts. If I mentioned my father now, Anwar would sneer, make a comment about bourgeois spending and the good feeling between us would go away.

  'Do you want to try anything on?' I asked him, `You don't have to buy it.'

  `So what's the point?' He seemed uneasy, taken aback by the largeness of the shop.

  I shrugged. `Just for the fun of it.'

  In the perfume hall, I tried on a new perfume, spoke to my mother about it in my head, heard her saying, `Don't buy it from here, we can get it cheaper at the Duty Free shop.' I lifted my hand for Anwar to smell. He would never believe that my mother had cared about saving money. He thought the rich spent without thinking. His nose brushed against my wrist. He was self-conscious in front of the sales girl; he always became uncomfortable under the gaze of anyone white.

  I persuaded him to try on perfume too. `Enough,' he said when we reached Calvin Klein after Chanel and Paco Rabanne. He still didn't believe me that it was OK not to buy anything, the sales girls didn't care.

  Upstairs in the ladies' section, I tried on an evening dress. It fitted perfectly, was low cut, sleeveless. With satin against my skin and my eyes shining I was not in London but going to a wedding at the Khartoum Hilton, my mother complaining that the dress was too revealing but my father indulgent, having the final say, `Leave her, let her wear what she likes.' I walked out of the changing room and some shoppers turned to look. The elderly sales lady put on her glasses and said, `It's lovely on you.' Her voice was low as if she knew from long experience that I would not buy it. I laughed when I saw Anwar's face, the way he forgot to he nervous of the sales lady and was ogling. For a minute I was completely happy, fulfilled. His admiration was like a prize.

  On our way out, I bought a box of Millie's cookies. We ate them in the bus going to the Victoria and Albert Museum, which Anwar wanted to visit. We sat on the top deck because he wanted to smoke even though the stairs bothered his leg. `We could be happy in London,' I said. `We could forget all about the problems in Sudan.' He didn't reply. For him, more than for me, London was temporary, exotic. His life was on hold, he was constantly waiting to go back and take up his rightful place. When the government fell (he did not allow me to say `if' - it had to fall, he said, it must fall) we would go back to Khartoum and get married.

  `How did you describe me to your flatmates?' I wanted him to say, `As my fiancee.'

  'I told them we were together in university. I told them you were pretty'.'

  'Pretty? Every other girl in university was pretty.'

  He smiled. `When they meet you they'll know you're stunning.'

  `And what else did you say?' I hit into my chocolate chip cookie. It was how I liked it best, melting.

  That your English is excellent.'

  `What else?'

  `Northing.'

  I raised my eyebrows. `Really. Nothing,' he said and with his thumb wiped a chocolate smudge from the corner of my mouth.

  I didn't believe him. He would have spoken about my father for sure.

  Twenty-three

  bought him the best, most up-to-date computer and the day it was delivered was the first day I went to his flat. We set it up in his room, which was small and smelled of cigarettes. I opened the window for fresh air, something he apparently never did because he did not like the cold. Beside the open-plan kitchen and sitting room, there were two other bedrooms in the flat. The largest one belonged to Ameen, whose father owned the flat. I liked him straight away. He was flabby and smiling, his manners gentle and diplomatic. He was a doing a PhD in Chemistry down the road at Imperial College but always seemed laid back about his studies. I imagined that Anwar expected me to be like Ameen, upper class but committed to the communist cause, lavishing on it bourgeois money. Kamal was different, studying on a scholarship, aspiring. I didn't like the way he studied me, as if I were a puzzle to he figured out. He never looked at me directly. He was always shifting his eyes, but not from shyness. It was something else. A rivalry sprang up between us. It was silly but he took it seriously. Anwar would go on about how good my English was, better than Kamal's who was specializing in it. He would joke about it but I think Kamal took offence and took every opportunity to put me in my place. Ameen and Kamal kept different hours to Anwar. They would be arriving or leaving while I was there, would stroll into Anwar's room for a chat. They never knocked - they never had to with the door wide open - and this informality pleased me. They acted as if I were a cousin or a sister, as if Anwar and I could not possibly be doing anything wrong. This lulled me.

  The summer was not sunny, not fresh but clammy, close. I knew Anwar's moods now. Rage when he couldn't get a security job (they turned him down because of his leg) and afterwards the quiet bitterness. He worked nights in a restaurant instead, the same Ethiopian restaurant he had taken me to. Often he brought back food and, unless the others had got to it first, I would heat it when I came during my days off. We would eat together with his papers and the computer between us. He did not know how to touchtype but I did. We s
at with the computer manual and learnt Word Perfect together. Sometimes he gave me things he had written by hand and I typed them in. Or he would have started a file and I would go over it, checking the grammar. He insisted that I learn to type Arabic too. He dictated to me and I typed. It made us both feel important.

  One day he said he had written a poem about me.

  `Show it to me.'

  `No, you might not like it.' He smiled, holding the paper out of my reach.

  `Please.'

  He shook his head but I managed to snatch it and ended up laughing on his lap. The poem was direct, simply erotic.

  `Are you angry?' He was smiling, not caring if I was.

  `Of course not.' I wanted him to think me daring.

  Ameen poked his head into the room and I put the poem away. `Come, let's play cards,' he said. It was twelve o'clock and he had just got up, looking puffy. `I'll wait for you in the sitting room. We can drink a glass of tea, have a bite to eat.' He was hinting that he would like us to make tea, crack some eggs for breakfast. Because this was his flat, he expected the others to wait on him. Poor Ameen. Like Aunty Eva and so many of us, he felt deprived without his Khartoum servants. It was as if he was waiting for them to magically reappear, to clear up after him, to make the flat neat. We heard him putting on the TV, the blare of the news. Anwar closed the door and kissed me. He was different and I was different because I hadn't been angry about his poem.

  It was inevitable that one day I would sit on his bed, that he would put his arms around me and ask, `Haven't you teased me enough?' We had circled each other for months, flirted for months, all the time aware that we were in London, conscious that we were free. And I had known in the back of my mind, that I would hold out and then give in to that side of me that was luxurious and lazy, that needed to he stroked and pampered and through him never he the same again. Afterwards, after the playing and the seriousness, such silence. I could hear the hum of the computer. The grating sound of the key opening the door of the flat, Ameen's excited voice, `Anwar, did you hear the news, come and hear the news.'