Bird Summons Page 9

  It was her own breathing she was hearing, the contrast of cold wind on her face and her hot body breaking into sweat. She was no longer watching the time, measuring how long she had been running. It was as if she had broken through a barrier, leapt over a hurdle and entered another zone where she had extra strength and a longer wind. She opened her mouth and let the air touch her dry tongue. Sweat dropped into her eyes, the salt stinging and blurring her vision. She blinked and nearly tripped over the raised roots of a yew. When she collected herself and again broke into a run, she couldn’t make him out any more. Did he go left towards the water or did he head towards the monastery? She wasn’t sure. The uncertainty made her slow down. And when she slowed down, she came to her senses. It was like surfacing from cloudy water to normal air and breath. What made her do this, run after a total stranger, chasing a man and most likely giving him the wrong impression? Her behaviour embarrassed her. Usually she was reserved, not prone to silliness. Did she think he was Amir? But how would Amir be here. Holiday silliness. Daytime fantasies. She was suddenly conscious of how thirsty she was. She had forgotten to bring her water bottle, but she found a few coins in the zipped-up pocket of her jogging pants. Instead of walking further to look at the boathouse, she took the path that led to the monastery.

  The monastery had been converted into luxury holiday flats. A placard said that up until 1983 one of the wings had been a boarding school for boys. The monks taught in the school and tended their vegetable garden and fished. With time, the number of priests dropped, the school shut down and hundreds of years of dedicated worship came to an end. Salma walked past a cemetery where the priests were buried. She tried to imagine their daily life: worship, work, fasting, fishing. It was a way of living that her own religion condemned. Instead men should love women, have children, beat the dusty track of work, profit and loss. It was an indulgence to give all that up, ungrateful to disdain the messiness and hide in this beautiful spot. They called it austerity and sacrifice, but she wasn’t fooled.

  Gothic architecture, long stained-glass windows, even a gargoyle. She stepped into the cloister. Tranquil deep purple and a sudden coolness so that she shivered in her sweat-soaked clothes. She had read about the converted monastery online and expected to find a café where she could get a bottle of water and maybe a coffee. The stone walls made the atmosphere solemn, arches after arches. But there were people around. A man and his daughter played ping-pong on a table placed under the columns. Salma wandered around and read the signs. The chapel pool. The church atrium ideal for weddings and concerts. What she knew about Christianity she had learnt from the Qur’an. Sometimes David explained things, or Norma, his mother, would answer one of her questions. Norma usually went to church on Christmas Eve but not every Sunday. When David converted to Islam, she neither opposed nor joined him, but it seemed to have dented her confidence in some way. That was how she came across to Salma, at any rate, as if she was not confident in her religious beliefs. Her answers to Salma’s questions were often tentative. Words like ‘scriptorium’ and ‘sacristy’ meant nothing to Salma. She walked through the arches until she reached a grand staircase. Upstairs presumably would be the flats.

  She was searching for drinking water and coffee, but she found something else. On the door it said Monks’ Refectory. She pushed open the door. A big wide space, wood panelling along all the walls, red paint all the way up to the high ceiling, stained-glass windows. When the door closed behind her, she saw a sign with information about the room. Here was where the monks had their meals. This had been their dining room. A pulpit protruded from one end of the room. There, during mealtimes, one of the monks would stand and read from the Holy Scripture. The room was now a comfortable lounge, furnished in tartan with a billiards table and armchairs. There was no one using it, but Salma felt a thickening in the air. It almost had a colour and a visibility. It almost had a hum. It was as if the monk standing at the pulpit and reading had left an imprint. As if the words spoken over the blessing of food had magnified in power. A moment of true sincerity had done this. Maybe the young monk had been hungry, smelling food he could not eat, at least not yet. But he believed what he was doing was necessary, to bless the food, to give thanks. And now, long after the monks had gone and their lifestyle with them, this spirituality lingered and refreshed. A thickening, that’s how she would describe it. Like normal air turning to smoke, like when you’re making sauce, stirring the spoon easily through liquid waiting for a change and then it comes, almost imperceptible, that first hint of heaviness. This heaviness was here, in this room, she felt it.

  When she went back to the cottage, she joined Moni in the garden. She sat on the grass and finished the bottle of water she had eventually managed to buy.

  Moni started talking about the boy she had seen earlier but soon found herself running out of words. She couldn’t describe why he had made such a big impression on her. Besides, Salma was asking her about Iman. ‘She found coloured pencils on the shelf, next to the board games, and she’s been drawing birds ever since.’

  ‘That’s good,’ said Salma. There was always a tenderness in her voice when she spoke about Iman. Salma switched to talking about Lady Evelyn. She had noticed the book on the table next to Moni. ‘Are you reading it from cover to cover?’

  ‘Of course, how else?’

  ‘I keep dipping into it, bits and pieces, but it stays with me. I liked how her granddaughter said she was frail but physically tough. When she went out hunting, her tweed riding suit would get soaked because she dragged herself over the wet heather, then she would come home, have a hot bath and the next morning put it on wet again!’

  Moni made a face. ‘I didn’t get to that part yet.’

  Salma launched into the benefits of physical exercise. ‘You know, sitting is the new smoking,’ she said. ‘It’s just as bad for you.’

  Moni was unmoved. Salma looked fit and sweaty, emitting waves of heat. She put her bottle down and pitched herself forward, face down on the grass, and started to do push-ups. Moni was vaguely impressed but felt somewhat embarrassed for her friend. Salma was acting Western. Sometimes, Moni did sense a gulf between them and became actively conscious that Salma had crossed a line Moni would never cross. Salma had married a white Christian – of course, Moni knew that David had converted to Islam, that he had done so years before he met Salma, but still she could never think of him as ‘one of us’. Besides, English was the language of Salma’s household and she often spoke and thought as if she was British and nothing else. This was all alienating for Moni but still intriguing. Despite having worked in a bank and marrying late, she was conventional and compliant. By refusing to join Murtada in Saudi, she was not in principle asserting herself or flaunting convention. She was just unable to let go of what she believed was best for Adam.

  A ringing command from Salma interrupted her thoughts. ‘A walk,’ Salma was saying, looking up at her. She had rolled on her back by then, ready for crunches. ‘A brisk walk would do you good, Moni. Believe me. And not only physically. You will feel good about yourself too. Your energy would be boosted, your day-to-day chores would be that much easier. Remember, when we go up that hill to the grave, it will be four miles walking. We can go tomorrow now that we’re having today to settle. Today you really need to practise.’ When Salma wanted to persuade Iman to do something, she cajoled and flattered. But with Moni, her voice carried a patronising tone.

  Not that it offended Moni. Her thoughts were of the little boy whose name she didn’t know. She stood up. ‘I will go for a walk right now.’

  ‘Great,’ Salma beamed.

  Moni didn’t want to walk. She wanted to see the boy again. She left the cottage and walked in the same direction he had taken earlier in the day.

  In the afternoon it rained heavily and none of them went out. Moni baked cupcakes, making do with whatever ingredients she could find in the cottage. Salma wasn’t pleased. ‘Count me out. I need to
watch my weight,’ she said. The irritation in her voice was because she knew that she would be tempted by the smell of baking, knew that she would struggle to resist and there was a fifty-fifty chance she would give in.

  Iman showed more enthusiasm over the cupcakes and even offered to decorate them. She sat at the kitchen table wearing a Cinderella costume, the brown bodice and an apron with false patches. The kerchief covering her hair and the long sleeves were similar to the clothes she usually wore. It made her look natural, almost as if she weren’t dressing up. But she was more helpful than usual, more deferential to Moni.

  Navigating the still unfamiliar kitchen, adjusting the recipe to suit what was available, were challenges Moni was happy to take on. Besides, she was baking for the boy. To thank him for the umbrella he had given her when he found her walking in the rain earlier. He had appeared out of nowhere carrying it and walked with her back to the cottage, still without saying a single word. If the rain cleared up later, she would go back to where his cottage must be and take with her a batch of cupcakes.

  The rain continued, and tea and the cupcakes almost replaced dinner. Salma had a tuna salad and Moni ate the previous day’s leftovers. Iman steadily ate one cupcake after the other and finished off with a glass of milk. When she complained of constipation, the other two were quick to blame her erratic eating habits.

  While Iman struggled in the bathroom, Moni asked Salma the question she had always wanted to ask. How on earth had her parents ever allowed her to marry David?

  Salma smiled and said, ‘It was strange. Even now when I think of it, it just seems like fate. David was in Egypt working for BP. He had a good position with a nice flat and a car. That flat was a company let and the BP employee who dealt with the housing of the expatriate staff happened to be a long-time friend of my father’s. Uncle Emad’s wife was my mother’s friend, so you could say that they were family friends. Uncle Emad was very impressed with David. Among the other BP employees, David stood out for him because, during his time in Egypt, David had converted to Islam. After he did that, people started telling him, you need a wife. And Uncle Emad went one step ahead and not only said “you need a wife” but “I have just the right wife for you.” ’

  Here Salma paused because it was at this stage in the story where she could mention Amir. Usually she didn’t. Even her children didn’t know about him. But now she said to Moni, ‘I was involved with someone else at the time. One of my fellow students in university: Amir. We had even started to talk about getting engaged. My mother had already met him. The three of us went out to a cafeteria together. I remember that day. She came to meet him behind my father’s back. She was tense. Amir spoke well. He said he loved me and that he had spoken to his parents about coming over formally to ask for my hand in marriage. But, he said, it was a bad time for them. His mother had just had a mastectomy and his father was in debt and struggling over the difficult sale of a piece of farmland. My mother listened to all that Amir had to say but she seemed sceptical. She said he should go ahead anyway and speak to my father. He said he wouldn’t do that behind his parents’ back. She said how about sending an aunt or an uncle as a substitute for his parents. He said that he wouldn’t feel comfortable doing that. She started to get annoyed. She felt he wasn’t cooperating enough, wasn’t flexible. She was being generous, she was giving him a chance. He was a student without a penny and after graduation he still had three years of military service to complete. She wanted him to make more of an effort. He, though, felt that she wasn’t being sympathetic. I sat there between them barely getting a word in.’

  Moni imagined a younger, hemmed-in version of her friend. It was not easy to do so.

  Salma went on, ‘There were rows afterwards between myself and my mother. There were rows between my mother and my father when he found out that she had gone to meet Amir behind his back. “Why should we believe him?” my father said. “All this talk of his mother’s illness and father’s court case could be a lie.” In the middle of this poisonous atmosphere, Uncle Emad stepped in. “I have a fantastic suitor for Salma,” he said.’

  This was where Salma chose to pause in her story. It was an odd place to stop because it was a beginning. It was even before meeting David. A day in which she was at her desk trying to study, the atmosphere which she had described as poisonous wafting through the flat. For days, her mother hadn’t spoken to her. It was as if she didn’t exist. Without being told she was forbidden to go out, she had stopped going out. Classes were done for the year and it was study break. Usually she would have gone out to study at a friend’s house (where Amir would also be) or she would have gone to the library. Now, she just stayed at home, staring at her notes. It was, she remembered, unexpectedly hot for that time of year. Her jogging bottoms, which she wore as home clothes, felt heavy. Her long-sleeved T-shirt was irritating. But it was her mother who always supervised the seasonal shift in clothes. A whole ritual in which the winter clothes were folded with naphthalene mothballs and packed away. Then the summer clothes would be brought out and aired before being used. Salma did not dare initiate a conversation with her mother about switching to summer clothes. She sat in her room with the window wide open and longed for a cold climate. Hearing Uncle Emad’s jovial voice outside was an escape.

  Moni interrupted Salma’s thoughts. ‘But didn’t they mind that he was a foreigner? Didn’t they think that one day you would leave the country and not be with them again? Wasn’t the cultural difference a problem?’

  Salma looked at her friend. She liked Moni’s methodical mind. She had recognised it from early on, buried under the jam that was mother and carer. ‘David’s favourable circumstances drugged them. My parents discussed these things that you just said, they voiced these objections, but they came out muted, through a haze of wonder. He was so different from anyone they had known, so beyond their experience that they couldn’t quiz him or doubt him or joke with him. They suddenly went flat; they put all their trust in Uncle Emad’s endorsement and said that it was up to me. Instead of the poisonous atmosphere, they were suddenly tiptoeing around me, sort of in respect. Later, the cultural differences did become a problem for them. But by then, David’s time in Egypt was coming to an end and we moved here. Funny enough, my parents were shocked. They never expected him to leave, they thought he would be in Egypt for ever. It’s strange that they thought that way. And to answer your question, at first they didn’t mind that he was a foreigner. But afterwards, when my younger sister got married, it was obvious that they were closer to her husband than they were to David. They got along better with him.’

  Moni said, ‘I’m surprised. The way you met is more conventional than I thought. I was guessing that you worked together in the same company and then fell in love. Did he accept this kind of courtship?’

  ‘No, he didn’t accept everything,’ Salma said. ‘For example, he didn’t want to meet my parents until he had met me first. He was sure of that. He insisted that we meet up alone. We did. My father was adamant that at that stage David wouldn’t pay for anything for me. Not even a coffee. So, we went to the Aquarium Grotto Garden and I bought my own ticket. It cost two Egyptian pounds. David had to pay fifteen pounds because he was a foreigner. I liked him straight away. There was nothing not to like. He didn’t appraise me, I would have hated that. He never showed off. But once we got inside the park, I realised that I didn’t want to be there. It was full of students for one thing and I was anxious that one of them would recognise me and tell Amir that they’d seen me. “Let’s go somewhere else,” I said to David. “Anywhere.” He protested, “But your dad said . . .” and I said, “It doesn’t matter, I live a double life. I don’t always tell my parents where I go.” It was easy to be honest with him. I was speaking to him in English and it didn’t feel real. It felt that the normal rules didn’t matter any more. Everything was different. But I didn’t tell him about Amir. I could have easily, and I think he would have understood and gone away. B
ut even then, I didn’t want him to go away.’

  ‘It’s fate,’ Moni said. ‘You were meant for each other.’

  Salma was conscious that she had been candid with Moni, but still there was something she was keeping back. A minor detail she had pushed to the back of her mind. ‘I thought he would drop me when I told him that I lied to my parents. He just laughed about it and said I was sneaky. To me it sounded like an endearment: “Sneaky”. When a language is new to you, the words can sound different than their meanings. They ring other chimes. I couldn’t get over the fact that everywhere we went, he had to pay more for things because he was a foreigner. I had never known that. How would I have known? So, I started buying the tickets and speaking to the waiters. He wouldn’t say a word. He’d let me haggle and bring the price down as I was used to doing. It made me feel important. With Amir it had been the complete opposite. He always had to take the lead, pay the bill and decide what we did. When his allowance from his dad ran out at the end of the month, I had to pretend that I was unwell and that I didn’t want to go out, so as not to embarrass him. Amir was like that. If I opened a juice bottle he couldn’t open or got a better grade than him in a test, he would sulk for hours. Suddenly, with David, I was free of all that. What I wanted mattered. What I wanted I got. He even stood up to my parents and took my side. That’s when things went forward, and we started arranging the wedding and trousseau and all these details.’