Minaret: A Novel Page 19

  A blue van drove up in front of my flat. Her husband was driving. He was English and blond. I had never met anyone like him before, a convert. I sat next to their children, one long-haired boy, two skinny girls. Wafaa seemed livelier and younger than I remembered, was wearing trousers and a brown headscarf. Perhaps she was cheerful in the presence of her family. Her husband didn't speak or look at me while she chatted in Arabic all the way to the mosque. She complained about the children's school and the media coverage of the war, but I got the impression that she took all these things in her stride. The van smelt of turpentine and there was a scrap of wallpaper lolling on the floor. Her husband, All, worked as a painter/decorator. As for her, she was a dressmaker's assistant in a tailor's shop off Bond Street. 'I can make you some clothes,' she said and I took it to mean that my clothes were unsuitable.

  All intrigued me. I had got the impression from Anwar that the English were all secular and liberal. All was nothing like that, yet he was completely English and had never set foot outside Britain. When I got to know Wafaa better, she told me about his conversion, how he used to be a devout Christian and felt that the Church was not strict enough for hinm. The more lifts I accepted from them, the more I got to understand him, listening to him complain to Wafaa about the traffic or joke with one of the children. It was not only his accent that I found odd. He was not very bright but I was touched by his patience with the children, the way he took on life. I thought of Anwar and Ali, how they would never meet, how the existence of one somehow undermined the other.

  I knew Anwar well enough to guess what his reaction would be to what I was hearing and seeing around me. His views on religion were definite and he hated fundamentalists. He believed it was backward to have faith in anything supernatural; angels, djinns, Heaven, Hell, resurrection. He wanted rationale, reason, and he could not help but despise those who needed God, needed Paradise and the fear of Hell. He regarded it as a weakness and on top of that it was not benign, he would argue, it was not harmless. Look at what happened in Sudan, look at human rights, look at freedom of speech and look at terrorism. But that was exactly where I got lost. I did not want to look at these big things because they overwhelmed me. I wanted me, my feelings and dreams, my fear of illness, old age and ugliness, my guilt when I was with him. It wasn't fundamentalists who killed my father, it wasn't fundamentalists who gave my brother drugs. But I could never stand up to Anwar. I did not have the words, the education or the courage. I had given in to him but he had been wrong, the guilt never ever went away. Now I wanted a wash, a purge, a restoration of innocence. I yearned to go back to being safe with God. I yearned to see my parents again, be with them again like in my dreams. These men Anwar condemned as narrow-minded and bigoted, men like All, were tender and protective with their wives. Anwar was clever but he would never be tender and protective. Once I told him that Kamal had come up behind me in the kitchen, pressed against me quickly pretending it was an accident. All he said was, `You're sophisticated enough to deal with this, Najwa. Don't make a big thing out of it. be flexible with him, the poor guy has lots of hangups.'

  Wafaa said, `I'm so pleased that you're coming with us to the mosque every week. I'm so pleased you like our gatherings.'

  I did like them. I liked the informality of sitting on the floor and the absence of men. The absence of the sparks they brought with them, the absence of the frisson and ambiguity. Without them the atmosphere was cool and gentle, girly and innocent with the children all around us, chubby little girls sitting close to their mothers, baby boys who crawled until they reached the wall, pulled themselves up to stand proud and unsteady. I liked the talks at these gatherings because they were serious and simple, vigorous but never clever, never witty. What I was hearing, I would never hear outside, I would never hear on TV or read in a magazine. It found an echo in me; I understood it. No matter how much you love someone they will die. No matter how much health you have or money, there is no guarantee that one day you Will not lose it. We all have an end we can't escape. I thought such talk would make me gloomy, would bring me down, but I would leave the mosque refreshed, wide awake and calm, almost happy. Maybe I was happy because I was praying again - not like when I was young when it was just to boost my grades or to complement my fast in Ramadan - but with the intention of never giving it up. I reached out for something new. I reached out for spiritual pleasure and realized that this was what I had envied in the students who lined up to pray on the grass of Khartoum University. This was what I had envied in our gardener reciting the Qur'an, our servants who woke up at dawn. Now when I heard the Qur'an recited, there wasn't a bleakness in me or a numbness, instead I listened and I was alert.

  One of the Prophet's companions used to stand up in prayer for most of the night. He prayed on his roof and a little boy looking up thought he Was a tree. A tree growing on top of a house, hou' odd! If that man wasn't enjoying himself, how could he have resisted sleep, how could he have continued to pray for so long? And the enjoyment came because he humbled himself. . .

  Anwar phoned every now and then. At first he was angry that I hadn't helped him with his article, then he was perplexed. I told him about my new activities and friends. `It's a phase you're going through,' he said. `You're not like these people, you're not one of them, you're modern.' His first impression of me was the one that had endured. The university girl in the tight, short skirt who spoke private-school English, who flirted and laughed, was daring and adventurous.

  `I've changed, Anwar.'

  `No, you haven't. You're just imagining.'

  In the mosque I feel like I'm in Khartoum again. It's the atmosphere, the way people ...'

  `You're wrong. There's more to Sudan than Islam.'

  I didn't want to argue with him. He would win with figures and facts, his arguments well thought out. But I was following my feelings and I didn't know how to defend them.

  He said, `I miss you. Don't you miss me?'

  `I do but I can't handle the things you say about my father any more. I can't live a life where I don't even know that Ramadan has started. I can't. I'm tired of having a troubled conscience. I'm bored with feeling guilty.'

  If he had proposed marriage there and then, I would have accepted and gone hack to him. But fate made him say, You don't feel guilty, Najwa. It's these people brainwashing you. What's between us is love. It's nothing to feel guilty about.'

  He was talking about something else, as if he was not talking to me. And he knew how to hurt me. If everything you hear in the mosque is correct, your beloved Aunty Eva will go to Hell because she's not a Muslim. How can you justify this, after all the good she's done for you?'

  I started to stammer, I burst into tears, whimpering into the receiver. He tried but he couldn't stop himself from laughing.

  To leave one forbidden thing is better in the sight of Allah than going on Hajj fifty thousand times. When uve show restraint, when we respect the boundaries o f Allah, He gives us countless rewards. If we didn't make mistakes we wouldn't be human. But we have to repent too and ask for forgiveness. Even the Prophet Muhanttnad, peace be upon him - who had no sins - used to ask j or forgiveness seventy times a day.

  Can I ask forgiveness for someone else, someone whos already dead?

  Yes, you can. Of course you can. And you can give charity in their name and you can recite the Qur'an for their sake. All these things will reach them, your prayers will ease the hardship and loneliness of their grave or it will reach them as bright, beautiful gifts. Gifts to unwrap and enjoy and they will knots that this gift is from vou.

  I stood in front of the mirror and put the scarf over my hair. My curls resisted; the material squashed them down. They escaped, springing around my forehead, above my ears. I pushed them hack, turned my head sideways to look at the back and it was an angular hump, a hush barely covered with cloth. The cotton scarf was almost threadbare. It was an old one that my mother used to wear when she oil-treated her hair. Now it flopped at a defeated angle over my forehe
ad. I didn't look like myself. Something was removed, streamlined, restrained; something was deflated. And was this the real me? Without the curls I looked tidy, tame; I looked dignified and gentle.

  Untie the material; observe the transformation. Which made me look younger? Scarf or no scarf? Which made me look more attractive? The answer was clear to that one. I threw it on the bed. I was not ready vet; I was not ready for this step. The smell from the scarf was of the oil my mother used on her hair. I pictured her coming back from the hairdresser in Khartoum, her hair soft and straightened, with a bit of static in it and the deep smell of hairspray. On such days, her tobe would barely cover her hair and she would gladly let the material slip. When I was very young I liked to stroke her straightened hair, enjoy its temporary smoothness. `Your hands better be clean!' she would say. A drop of water or perspiration would restore a strand of hair to its original curl and on a day like that she would be going out to somewhere special where she would shine and make heads turn. But in sombre times, when her hair was not done, she would hold it back in a bun and not let the material of her robe slip. Then she came close to looking like she was wearing a full hijab. She would not have believed it but even then she looked beautiful too, squeaky-clean, fragile without make-up and the way the glow in her eyes was revealed.

  I took out one of her old robes - yards of brown, silky material. I tied my hair hack with an elastic band, patted the curls down with pins. I wrapped the tobe around me and covered my hair. In the full-length mirror I was another version of myself, regal like my mother, almost mysterious. Perhaps this was attractive in itself, the skill of concealing rather than emphasizing, to restrain rather than to offer.

  Wafaa took me shopping for my first headscarves. I ended up buying them from Tie Rack. I chose the colours but followed her guidance in buying squares as well as long rectangles. Back in her house, in her bedroom, with her daughters as audience, she showed me how to tie each one, what folding I needed to do beforehand, where to put the pins. `You look very nice,' she said, all enthusiasm and encouragement. Where did she come from, this woman? It was her role to shroud my mother for her grave and teach me how to cover my hair for the rest of my life. She was a guide, not a friend. One day she would move away to another pupil and I would graduate to another teacher. Now I sat at her dressing table, took a pin from her hand, looked at her perfumes and creams. When All returned home, she refused to let him come into the room. He gave a resigned response from behind the door and we all giggled. When I went home, I walked smiling, self-conscious of the new material around my face. I passed the window of a shop, winced at my reflection, but then thought `not had, not so had'. Around me was a new gentleness. The builders who had leered down at me from scaffoldings couldn't see me any more. I was invisible and they were quiet. All the frissons, all the sparks died away. Everything went soft and I thought, `Oh, so this is what it was all about; how I looked, just how I looked, nothing else, nothing non-Vlsual.'

  The more I learnt, the more I regretted and at the same time, the more hope I had. When you understand Allah's mercy, when you experience it, you will be too ashamed to do the things He doesn't like. His mercy is in many things, first the womb, the rahim, He gave it part of his name, Al-Rahnnan - the All-Merciful. It is a place we have all experienced. It sheltered us, gave its warmth and food ... do you remember ... ?

  Sometimes the tears ran down my face. I sweated and felt a burning along Iny skin, in my chest. This was the scrub I needed. Exfoliation, clarifying, deep-pore cleanse - words I knew from the beauty pages of magazines and the counters of Selfridges. Now they were for my soul not my skin.

  It was inevitable that Anwar would seek me out one last time. He came to my place and rang the bell. Instead of buzzing him in, I said, `Wait, I'll come down instead.' I put on my new ankle-length skirt, my long-sleeved blouse. I put on my headscarf. It was like the day in Selfridges when I had tried on that skimpy black dress and walked out of the changing room to twirl in front of him. There was still laughter in me, the desire to tease him one last time. I tied my headscarf with a pin. I slowly walked down the stairs to the shock on his face.

  Part Six

  2004

  Thirty-three

  am out of a job now; I am unemployed. It is the first time for me to be fired, to be told don't come back. I don't set the alarm but I still wake up at the usual time. I open the curtains and the sun hurts my eyes. A day for pushing Mai on the swings. Lamya hadn't given me the chance to kiss her goodbye. Instead she picked up the phone and summoned her mother. Doctora Zeinab arrived to look after Mai until another nanny is found, or a place becomes available at the university creche. She arrived too, to deal with her wayward son. It wasn't only his behaviour on the night of the party that brought her but his exam results as well. He had failed. They were at him all day, mother and sister, nagging and blaming until he packed and flounced out of the flat. For the past few days, he has been bunking down at the mosque. No doubt Lamya blames me. She thinks I have seduced him, manipulated his youth. She thinks I am after their money. I can hear her voice buzzing in my ear, what she is pouring out to her mother, bringing her into the distorted picture. Perhaps they sit around the kitchen table with their coffee mugs while Mai watches TV, the washing machine churning away, the man who collects the garbage clambering up the service stairs. I flush, thinking what Doctora Zeinab will hear, how I can't defend myself. No wonder it is a sin to talk about people behind their hack, it is such a power.

  I haunt St John's Wood High Street. I pass their flat, the red pillar box in front of it. I pass the newsagent that has just opened. A van is parked on the road; it unloads cartons of milk, juice and eggs. The boutiques are still closed. I stare through the windows at a beige outfit with matching handbag and shoes. There are no price tags; the design is minimal, only a few items are displayed. I need not wonder what it feels like to walk inside, to choose a dress. I know. I know the privileged welcome, the luxurious dressing room, the hush of thick carpet and perfume. I cross the road to Oxfam. It is also closed. The coat in the window looks nice and wearable; I should go in one day and try it on. Perhaps it is high time for me to shed my pride and wear second-hand clothes. I have long found out that, here in London, middle-class women wear second-hand clothes for fun. But I'm not middle class; I do not have a degree. I am upper class without money.

  The scent of fresh baked bread draws me to the bakery. I buy croissants and sit in the small park in front of the flat. The park is almost empty this time of morning. An elderly lady is taking her walk; a man sits on a bench reading the Telegraph. They know that this is the best time of the day, the freshest. The lady smiles as she passes me and says good morning. People are nice in this area. The elderly are refined. They remind me of my mother. I dream of her a lot these days. She is ill and troubled, worried about Omar. I must read Surat Yasin for her, now that I have free time. I watch Lamya as she leaves for the day. Her clothes are familiar to me from the times I've ironed them, hung them in her cupboard. I've collected that jacket from the dry-cleaner. I watch her walking to her car. She is attractive but slight, lacking in allure. A neighbour passes her and she greets him deferentially, smiling widely. I have not seen her deferential before; this is another side of her. I look up and catch Doctora Zeinab pulling open the curtains, the sun reflects on the window and I can't see the expression on her face. It must be hard work for her - Mai and the flat. Somehow I can't imagine Lamya lifting a finger to help but this is unrealistic, she must be doing her share.

  I meet Tamer in the Regent's Park. It feels strange, the two of us without Mai. He looks rumpled, haggard. He is neither eating nor sleeping properly at the mosque. For the first time, he looks unclean but he is soon bored with questions about his well-being. He brushes my concern aside and is not interested in the croissants I got him. He is distracted by thoughts and plans. `I'm not going to do my re-sits. I don't want to do them. I'm going to transfer to another university outside London.'

  I think of
the cities outside London. They must he dull and green in comparison. `Unless your parents approve, how will you manage on your own? They already have the flat here. Will they pay for your accommodation elsewhere?'

  He stiffens. `I'll get a job.'

  As what?'

  'I don't know. I'll deliver pizza.'

  it won't he safe for you at night. There are people who might hurt you.'

  He doesn't insist that he can look after himself. Instead he kicks an empty carton of juice towards the side of the path. `I tried asking in the mosque for work but once I start talking everyone wants to know why I have left home, why I quarrelled with my family. I don't like that. I want to be left alone. I don't like people being nosy. We have to get married, then I can come and live with you.' He looks at me, pleading.

  `Your parents will never approve.'

  `They'll have to accept it. The longer I stay away from home, the more they'll realize that I'm determined.' He is like someone else, a common rebellious teenager.

  I try again. `If you hurt them, you won't be happy and I want you to be happy.'

  He still doesn't soften. `I have to think of doing what will please Allah, not what will please anyone else. I don't want to commit a sin.'

  `You won't commit a sin.' How can I be sure? I've seen people slide and fling themselves; I've seen it in myself.

  He stops walking and looks at me, `You never said yes. You never said you would marry me.'

  I laugh. `Didn't I?'

  `No you didn't. I just assumed.' He looks handsome now; his eyes brighten.

  `Well, to say yes, you must promise me you'll take a second wife.'