Minaret: A Novel Read online

  `I wish I could but I have to take Mai home.'

  She stands up to kiss me goodbye. `We used to see each other every night at Taraweeh prayers and now everyone will get busy again.'

  I know what she means. Ramadan had brought us close together. For a month the mosque had been full of people. We were making an effort, sloughing off our faults, quietened down with hunger. In the last ten nights, it was even more crowded, the recitation more powerful, all of us listening to the same verses, enjoying the same mood. Once, a women next to me remarked, `Today I almost felt like I was in Mecca. It's the same feeling, all the people gathering and the spiritual pleasure.'

  Now that Ramadan is over I wonder where I got my energy from - fasting all day while working, then, instead of going home, going straight to the mosque. There I would break my fast, wedged in the crowd, sometimes there was hardly a place to sit and then we would all stand up to pray, and suddenly there was more space and the imam would start to recite.

  In Ramadan I was chauffeur-driven home every night. This miracle took the shape of the wife of the Senegalese Ambassador, one of the many women who come to the mosque only in Ramadan. She prayed next me, shoulder to shoulder, every evening just because we happened to like the same spot, away from the radiator, close to the window with the night air coming in from the street. I didn't tell her that, once upon a time, diplomats like her husband and even the President of the Sudan were regular visitors in my father's house. I didn't tell her more than my name and what I did. There was no need - we had come together to worship and it was enough. Our movements matched; she didn't fidget while standing and that pleased me; she stood close to me and didn't irritate me by leaving a gap. Evening after evening, every day for three weeks, we stood and knelt together. Then our periods swung and arrived at the same time. One day I was praying and she was not there. The next day I was absent too.

  On the drive home, we hardly talked and she instructed her chauffeur to drop her off first. I liked that about her. She was kind without being condescending. In her smooth luxurious car, I used to doze to the sound of the car's indicator and her voice speaking on a mobile phone in Senegalese. I would dive in dreams to become small again, pampered by my parents. They loved me and I was safe with them, special. I made them laugh. The rest of the year I have hope but in Ramadan I have confidence, the certainty that, if I keep plodding this path, Allah will give me hack that happiness again, will replace the past with something grander, more potent and enhanced.

  Tamer is in the flat when we get hack. I see his shoes in the hall but he is in his room with the door closed. I give Mai her dinner. She is hungry because she had refused to eat anything at the Eid party. Even the party hag each child was given, full of sweets, balloons and crayons, stayed clutched in her fist, unopened. She relaxes now that she is back in familiar surroundings. The kitchen is as we left it this morning, with her highchair and the dinner I had quickly cooked knowing I wouldn't have enough time in the evening. She sings and babbles away, hanging her spoon on the table. `You'll wake your uncle,' I say. `Maybe he's asleep.'

  He had spent the last ten days of Ramadan in seclusion at the mosque. Lamya disapproved. She told me so in a rare moment of friendliness. `He's missing days of classes, how will he ever catch up! It's so unnecessary. I don't know why he does these weird things.' He came back home the last evening of Ramadan with a large hag of laundry and a scraggly heard. He looked right through me, his eyes clear and shining, as if he really could see other things, as if he had been through a cleansing, humbling experience. I long to hear him talk about it, what it is like to spend days away from it all, fasting and praying and reading Qur'an.

  He walks into the kitchen carrying in both hands what looks like a box inside a plastic hag. He says it is for me; it is for the Eid. He smiles and, though we had not spoken for days, it is as if our friendship is taking off from where we left it. I wipe my hands on my apron and open the box. It is fine buttery biscuits submerged in castor sugar: Eid ka'ak. I thank him and he ignores me, ruffles Mai's hair, lifts her from her highchair. She shows him her bag of goodies and I explain about the party.

  He stops smiling and says, `Lamya should have given you the day off.'

  `It's no problem. Mai was no trouble there at all.'

  `But still, Lamya made a mistake. If I had known, I would have spoken to her about it.'

  `She probably has important classes she can't miss.'

  `She doesn't have classes. She's doing a PhD.'

  I shrug. `Well, it's over and done with. You needn't be concerned about it.'

  He looks straight at me, his bright eyes even more intense since he'd done the retreat. `It's nice for Mai that she went with you. What has her mother done for her? Nothing. No new dress, no toys, no outings.'

  I automatically defend her. `She's busy with her studies ...'

  He interrupts. `Studying, studying, it's an obsession with this family! It's actually a religious obligation to celebrate. We should he happy, we should give it time.'

  I offer him one of the ka'ak, as a way of changing the subject. He shakes his head, `No, they're for you.'

  `Please. We can have them with tea.'

  He sits down and I fetch plates from the cupboard, put the kettle on.

  He says, `Instead of complaining that Lamya hasn't done anything for Mai, I should do something.' I smile and he goes on. `If you would like, we could take her tomorrow to the zoo, if you like . . .' He sounds vague, it's shyness.

  `Tomorrow is my day off.' I am going to see Omar.

  `After tomorrow then.'

  I nod and in the pause that follows say, `Tell me about your seclusion at the mosque. What was it like?'

  `I found the first two days hard but at the end I didn't want to leave. It felt strange at the beginning not to watch TV, not to go to lectures. Time went slowly. I missed having my own bathroom, sleeping on a bed. There were quite a lot of us there and while I was asleep they'd be talking in a loud voice or reciting Qur'an. I couldn't sleep well. Then, after the second day, I got used to it, like I settled into it and I didn't mind any more about the bathroom or the curry they gave us at three o'clock in the morning for suhur. Imagine!'

  I laugh. `I can only eat cereal or toast at that time in the morning. I can never eat a proper meal.'

  `I'm the same, but cereal was in short supply.'

  `Next year, next Ramadan you must remember to he well stocked.'

  `Yeah,' he says as if next year is too far to think about. I used to have that feeling too when I was young, that time was slow and heavy. Now it skips along; these moments watching him relax, hanging on to his smile.

  You looked changed the day you came out of seclusion. Like there was a light coming from your face.'

  `Have I lost it now?' The almost girlish interest in himself.

  I pause. `No.'

  He makes a face; he doesn't believe me.

  `You won't lose it that fast.'

  He had not said this to anyone else, I can tell from his voice, the slow words. 'I did feel spiritually strong. I did reach a kind of detachment, like things didn't matter, not in a careless, angry sort of way but more like I could take them in my stride. So what if I didn't like what I was studying, it would just be three years and they'll pass fast. But the feeling didn't last long. I couldn't get it to last. While it did though, while I was there, I was happy.'

  I take my first bite of ka'ak, savour the sweetness, the way it sticks to my teeth. Looking at him across the table, I become conscious that I am celebrating; I am not fasting any more. I have danced in the afternoon and now this gift in the evening. Happiness makes me bold enough to say, `Can I ask you something but promise you will answer with the truth?'

  `Yes.' He's serious, both hands around his mug of tea.

  `Did Lamya tell you to get me these biscuits?'

  He shakes his head, `No, she didn't.'

  `She didn't say to you, "Tamer do me a favour, get something for the maid for Ed"?'

 
; He smiles, `No, she didn't.'

  `So why are you smiling?'

  `I am just smiling.'

  `It sounds like you're not telling the truth.'

  He smiles. `I am. Really. Do you want me to swear?'

  Twenty-five

  try and take the feeling of Eid to Omar but the prison puts me in my place. It shrinks me like it shrinks him. I wish it would purify him, wring him and bring him back to me restored. Instead, it contains, habilitates. He had been put through courses designed to make him `address his crime', `acknowledge his guilt'. But there is no catharsis, no purge. There are things that can't be said, thoughts that never see the light of day. I wish that he had been punished the very first time he took drugs. Punished according to the Shariah - one hundred lashes. I do wish it in a hitter, useless way because it would have put him off, protected him from himself.

  `Did you know,' he says, that when I first came in I was put in the hospital wing? They do that to everyone who is sentenced for more than four years. They want to make sure we don't try and kill ourselves.'

  `How horrible.'

  `What's horrible? That we would want to commit suicide or that they would stop us?'

  `It's all horrible.'

  His voice is soft. `You shouldn't visit me, Najwa. It upsets you. All these years you've been coming.'

  `Don't be silly. I have to ...'

  `You feel it's some kind of duty, don't you?' When he speaks like this, he is not Sudanese any more. He has forgotten the fusion of duty, love and need. It is impossible for me not to visit him. As long as he is in prison, I am punished too.

  I say, `I phoned Uncle Saleh to say Eid Mubarak. He sends you his regards and asked why you've stopped writing.'

  Omar shrugs. `It's not easy to write. I haven't seen him for years.' He takes off his glasses and cleans them with the edge of his shirt.

  `Well, I asked him if he was going to come here or go to Sudan. He said he doesn't like travelling any more, especially such long distances. It tires him.'

  Omar puts his glasses hack on. `How's your work?'

  I tell him about Tamer's seclusion at the mosque. It amuses him. He laughs and calls Tamer a fanatic. I feel disloyal but I am pleased that he is laughing, listening to me. But I can't sustain his interest for long. We withdraw, I to my thoughts of Tamer, and Omar to I don't know what. I don't know what goes on in his mind.

  `I'll be coming out soon,' he says, shifting in his seat. `Within a year, maybe after six months.'

  He could have been out seven years ago. But he was discovered with drugs just before he was due for parole and lost his chance. Now I force myself to sound positive, to sound like I believe in him. `That's wonderful! What will you do?'

  `Go to Burger King.' He laughs a little and looks away from me.

  `I mean what will you do about work. Will you look for a job, will you train?'

  He folds his arms. `Yeah, I'll be assigned to a probation officer. They'll give me advice.' He wipes his forehead and I realize he is wary, maybe even afraid of coming out. Perhaps it will hurt, the way light hurts after being too long in the dark.

  I blurt out, `If I had the money, you could go hack to Sudan. There you can start all fresh. No one there knows what you've done or where you've been the past fifteen years.

  He shakes his head. `I would only go back there for a visit,' he says, `to prove that Baba was innocent. They never had any hard evidence against him and I can prove it.,

  I remember how Omar and my father used to argue. Yet now Omar is his staunchest defender. `I want to clear his name,' he says.

  And what do I want for my father? Every day I pray that Allah will forgive him; every day I ask mercy for his soul. But I am not motivated to clear his name. A sentence was passed and we have to live with the consequences.

  I ask Omar, `What good will it do him to clear his name?'

  `It will do us good. We might get back some of our inheritance that the government took - the house or the farm.'

  `Maybe.' I imagine a long hitter fight and little gain.

  Omar insists. `Just to prove that it was all lies against him, all motivated by malice and politics.'

  `But for him, where he is now, it is better if we pray, if we give money to the poor. That's what matters when you're dead.'

  `When you're dead, you're dead, Najwa, and nothing else matters.' He sits back in his chair and a world separates us in spite of genes and love.

  `You're wrong; things are not what they appear. Why are you here?'

  `What are you talking about? You know why I'm here.' He's annoyed now. I must not make him annoyed because he might stop sending me VOs and I will not see him again. But I feel different today and so I say, `You are here because you broke Mama's heart. A son shouldn't hurt his mother. She cursed you with bad luck and Allah listens to a mother's prayer.'

  He looks down at the ground. `I didn't hurt her.'

  `You pushed her. She was ill and you pushed her.'

  `I didn't mean to. She wouldn't give me her purse. It was my money. She made me so angry!'

  When Tamer asks me, `Why is your brother in prison?' I say, `Because he stabbed someone and almost got them killed.'

  We are walking home from the zoo. The caged foreign animals weighed me down and only Tamer's company and Mai's joy made the outing pleasant.

  I say, `It was one of the policemen who was arresting him. They were arresting him for selling drugs.'

  `How, how did he do it?' He is excited by this violence; there is a ring in his voice. He is especially handsome today, the cold brightening his skin. It hurts to look at him.

  `With a knife.'

  `A penknife?'

  `A Stanley knife.'

  He breathes out as if to say `Wow', but reason takes over and he sobers down. `That's terrible.'

  `Omar didn't know the man was police. He wasn't dressed like a policeman.'

  `Plain-clothed,' he says, `that's what they call them.'

  `Yes, there were two of them. They followed him to arrest him and he fought them.' Years of secrecy and now I am spilling all this out to a kid. I realize that I have never been able to visualize the violence I am describing. I am saying words without pictures coming to my head. It's denial. Denial of the harm my own flesh and blood can do. We leave the road and go down to the path along the canal. It is easier to talk away from the traffic, more gentle. Mai turns to gaze at the water.

  Can I come with you next time you visit him in prison?'

  I laugh. `Why would you want to do that?'

  He shrugs. To see what it's like.'

  I explain why he can't. He is clean and should not he fascinated by sin. I explain about visiting orders and his eyes don't leave my face. `I feel sorry for you,' he says. I need this from him. It feels right, nourishing. Then he asks me if Omar has ever tried to escape, like prisoners do in films. He flickers between soulful depth and immaturity. This flickering is attractive; it absorbs my attention.

  Twenty-six

  ow come you're not married?' He is self-conscious now, avoiding my eyes like he knows he's stepping into new territory.

  `I don't know.'

  He raises his eyebrows.

  'OK I'll try again. Fate.'

  `That doesn't tell me anything.'

  I shrug. `When I was your age, I imagined I would get married, have children, the usual things. I didn't imagine anything different. I had friends who wanted to be doctors, diplomats but I never had these ambitions.'

  He looks at me and says nothing. Mai turns around from the television and asks for crisps. I get her a packet from the kitchen and when I sit down it is an opportunity to change the subject. `While you were out, Hisham, Lamya's husband, phoned.'

  `He's probably confused about the time difference.'

  `I asked him if he wanted to speak to Mai but he said no need.'

  Tamer makes a face. `Typical.'

  Hisham's voice had not inspired sympathy. I didn't think, `Poor man, abandoned by his wife while she does h
er PhD.' He seemed well in control, hardy.

  `He's not at all like you.'

  Of course not.' The words come out of him stiff. `I told Lamya not to marry him because he drinks. But she doesn't mind. And neither my mum nor my dad listened to me. They thought I was just a kid.'

  I imagine him young, twelve or thirteen, voicing an opinion that seemed to his listeners irrelevant. He is not happy today; he is not himself. I ask him why.

  He says, At dawn I didn't get up to pray. I just couldn't. When the alarm went, I put it off and went back to sleep. Now I feel the whole day's gone out of balance.'

  `Well, you did set the alarm last night. You can't blame yourself for not trying.'

  `I know. It's just that I feel I've missed out.' He pauses and says, `If I were married, my wife would have made sure I got up to pray.'

  I smile. It depends on what type of girl you marry.'

  `Oh, I would only marry someone who was devout. And she would have to wear hijab.' There is an upbeat youthfulness in his confidence.

  I change the subject. `How are your studies?' It is the wrong thing to ask because he becomes gloomy again.

  `I don't care any more. Maybe the world will end and it won't matter what I study.'

  `Maybe it won't.'

  `Maybe,' he says without interest. He stretches out on the sofa. It crosses my mind that Lamya would disapprove of this. She would say that the sofa is for guests to sit on. He stares straight up at the ceiling; his face is tired, a little drawn. He lost weight in Ramadan and has not yet regained it. He is carrying a burden, studying a subject that does not interest him, insisting that strong faith would make it lighter. I overheard him yesterday pleading with his father on the phone to allow him to transfer his studies to another university, where he could study Islamic History instead of Business. Afterwards he locked himself up in his room. When I knocked, carrying coffee and cake, he said, `Leave me alone, I don't want anything.' He didn't want me to know that he was crying.