Ishmael's Oranges (19 page)

She heard the words
proactive self-defence
–
and then another voice, shouting over the first, said
cynical expansionist policy
. The World Service langour became a symphony of competing sounds, the wrongs suffered and the wrongs done. Who on earth could tell them apart?

There was banging behind her, urgent and fierce. Water splashed onto the floor as she turned, her hands dripping.
Let it be him. Let it be him, or else I'll let the water spill over onto the floor and it can wash all of this away
.

The reckless bargain raced through her, as she ran to the door and dragged it open, the radio and the rushing water drowned into silence by the pounding in her ears. Salim's eyes were red and his hands white from clenching the frame.

‘I wanted to come before,' he said, his voice hoarse, as if he hadn't used it in days. ‘Is this really possible? Are we
mad?'

Yes
was all she could think as she drew him in with her wet hands, so clumsy against the firmness of his arms.
We're all mad, everything is mad in this world
. The sound of water became a song as she reached up to his face, pulling him downwards, kissing him. ‘Stay here tonight,' she whispered. ‘It's not our fault, any of it. You have to stay here with me, for as long as you want.' And she felt the warmth pulsing through him as he pushed her backwards towards the
bed.

They promised that they would tell their families on the same
day.

Jude arranged to meet Tony for dinner at his north London flat, and Salim planned to call Hassan that evening.

‘Why don't you go and see him?' she asked. But he smiled at her and shook his head. ‘Never give an Arab bad news in a mechanic's shop with wrenches to hand,' he
said.

Jude knew she was avoiding the issue too, in her own way. She couldn't imagine how she might tell her parents. The very thought of it turned her stomach into a writhing mass. But Tony… Tony was another thing. He would surely understand. He would tell her how to make it all right.

She dressed in clothes Salim liked, to give her courage
–
tight blue bell-bottoms with a loose blouse and a beret on her blonde hair. On the bus to Camden she pressed her forehead to the window, watching the soft shades of people flicker by in the faint dusk of early summer, caught up in a world of carefree happiness beyond her reach.

Tony's flat was a modest size for the son of a rich man. But everywhere she looked it whispered wealth. The bookshelf was heavy oak and the old leather bindings of the books said
first edition
rather than
second-hand
. There was art on the wall where students would put posters. A sleek turntable in the corner was playing Ella Fitzgerald.

Over dinner they talked about the family. Tony had recently taken a job at his father's law offices. He showed Jude a picture of a young paralegal he was interested in, a Jewish intern from Switzerland. Her face beamed out of the image, all white teeth and rich brown
hair.

She felt oddly deceived by Tony. He talked like a rebel but he'd slipped into his father's life like a hand into a silken glove.
You joined your father's company, you'll marry this Bec from Switzerland and you'll move to Regent's Park and set your table with crystal. And you'll go to Shul and wear the yarmulke and host your own Passovers with that twinkle in your eye that says it's all a joke to you. But it isn't a joke. It's you, it's who you are and who you always have been
.

At last they took their coffee over to the soft leather sofa, and Jude knew that the moment had come. So she told him, in halting words, what she had come to
say.

It was easier than she'd imagined. He was an Israeli and a British citizen, nothing like the dangerous men of Uncle Max's nightmares. He had many Jewish friends, in Israel and here. He was destined for great things, one of the best students in his class. He understood more about Jews than most English
goyim
ever could. He spoke Hebrew. And he loved her. He loved her more than anything, and she loved
him.

Tony sat as still as stone in his chair, until she'd finished. After the first silence fell, he put his head to one side and looked at her as if seeing her for the first time. Jude waited, her throat tightening.

Finally he asked, ‘So what about Jack and Dora? I take it you haven't told them?' She shook her head, looking down at her hands. He blew air out of his mouth in a slow whistle. ‘I'm not sure they're going to go for all this Israeli citizen stuff,' he told her, his voice measured and steady. ‘You know they think Max is one step above a savage anyway. What does middle-class England want with Israel?' Judith felt a little block of hope slide out from underneath
her.

‘So what do you suggest, then?' she said, keeping her voice calm. ‘I have to tell them something.'

Tony shrugged. ‘Tell them he's Jewish.'

‘I can't tell them that!' Jude was horrified.

‘Why not? He's Israeli. He knows Hebrew. He's a Semite. According to you, he's virtually Moses.'

‘I can't do that, Tony. They'd know. And he'd know, too. He'd think I was ashamed of
him.'

‘Aren't you? You come here like you're coming to an execution. You want me to
–
what? Give you a blessing? I'm not a Rebbe, you know.' He gave her a weak smile.

‘I wanted you to help me break the news to my parents. To…' she hesitated. ‘To help me figure out what to do. I just want to help them understand him like I do. I know it's going to be hard.'

‘Hard.' Tony leaned back into the cushions and cupped his chin in his hands. ‘Darling Jude, you have no idea how hard this is going to be. Never mind Jack and Dora. It's you I'm thinking about, little one. It's going to be impossible, I promise you. You want my advice. Wait a while before you tell anyone else. Just wait, until you're sure.'

‘Why should I wait?' Jude was angry now, getting to her feet in agitation and walking to the other end of the sofa. Outside, the lights of darkening London shone dazzling in through the window. ‘I know I'm never going to marry a Jew, Tony. Never. I tried for Dad, for you all, but I never met a single person I even liked, never mind loved. Now I have, and he happens to be an Arab. Too bad for you, and Jack and Dora, but why shouldn't it be good for me? Why shouldn't he be as good for me as that Swiss girl of yours and her rich father?'

She saw Tony flinch. He stood up too, set his coffee down and walked over to the bookcase
–
the communist manifesto, as Alex liked to call it. A signed picture of Sunderland FC was framed above it, one of Tony's most treasured possessions. Jude wanted to apologize, to rage at him.
You're supposed to be on my side. Tell me this is going to be okay. Help me make it good
.

He took a breath. ‘I always hated Hebrew school too,' he said. ‘You know, the droning Rebbes with their greasy yarmulkes going on about the destiny of the Jewish people. Whole weekends lost to Jewish destiny! When I could have been at the football.' He gave an exaggerated shudder, and Jude smiled despite herself.

‘Most of that stuff seemed psychopathic to me, the kind of thing people would get locked up for if they did it in Newcastle. Do you remember the foundation story, not the Moses one
–
the first
one?'

Jude felt lost. ‘Abraham?'

‘Him, yes. It's one of the worst ones. Truly. I mean, first he marries an eighty-year-old woman and tells her she's supposed to be a mother to a whole people. She frets herself into a frenzy because
–
surprise, surprise
–
she can't conceive. So he has sex with a servant girl called Hagar and the two of them take the baby away from her. Then when the old woman finally has a kid of her own, what does he do? Tries to sacrifice it on the mountain, because he hears voices from God telling him to do it. What a great story! No wonder we're so proud of it.' He smiled again, but this time Jude had to force herself to laugh. That old guilt, the horror of rejecting daily bread everybody else finds so delicious, stirred in her stomach.

‘They sent her packing, that Arab girl who had the first boy. Ishmael they called him. Abraham's original heir. Sarah was jealous and wanted all of God's goodness for her little Isaac. So they tell us that Hagar and Ishmael went out into the desert. Just a girl and a kid, all alone in the heat, sent to their deaths by his papa like a used
rag.

‘The Rebbes would tell you it was all part of God's will, to make way for the chosen nation. And Ishmael had a nation of his own in the end, so no harm done, right? But I tell you, there isn't an Arab on earth that doesn't carry a little bit of Ishmael around with him. Who can blame them? They were always the ones to get kicked, first by God and then by everyone else. And they'll never be finished kicking back.'

He turned around to face her, grey in the cold reflection of the window.

‘
Bubbellah
, I can see you love this one. And if you say he loves you too, I don't doubt it. But believe me, he'll never forgive
you.'

‘Forgive me for what?' she whispered.

He walked over to her and took her hand. ‘For being on the winning team, darling.'

Salim waited anxiously for Jude to get back that night. He cleaned the two rooms of his flat, made stacks of sandwiches and turned on the old television he'd traded from his neighbour in exchange for some bookkeeping. He flicked from channel to channel through the hiss of the broken aerial, his stomach closed. The room reeked of washing and damp wood. Was he more worried for her or for himself? They would give her a hard time, he knew it. It was always harder for women than for
men.

Hassan had proved the truth of that. He'd called Salim a
majnoon
donkey, a born troublemaker, a man without pride in his people, a boy who forgot his own history. But at the back of his outraged insults was that calm certainty that all Arab men have, that their women could be tamed or dropped at will, and that any trouble they brought into a man's life would soon blow
over.

When Jude eventually came back, she sounded cheerful and told Salim that Tony would like to meet him one day. But her face was pale and she threw herself into his arms as if he was the only boat floating in an empty
sea.

‘Was he angry?' Salim asked. ‘Did he say he'd talk to your parents?' At the back of his mind the question hovered:
did he turn you against me? Did he make you change your mind?

‘He wasn't angry,' she said, hugging him. ‘He was surprised. He said it would be hard for us. But we know that.'

‘We know that,' he agreed, kissing her forehead. She was so small to be so brave. ‘You're worth everything that comes. You're the most courageous person I know.'

‘A
mensch
.' She had tears in her eyes, but she smiled up at him. ‘That's what my grandmother would have said. A person has to be brave before they can be worthy. I know she would have loved you, Sal. She would have seen through all of it, seen who you really
are.'

He believed her, he had faith in her, more faith than he realized was still left inside him. She'd stood up to her family for his sake. She saw him as worth the
risk.

That summer he slaved to get the best possible mark in his finals. Jude would sit up with him late into the night, making little index cards to help him remember equations and theories. And when her head finally drooped in sleep he would lie beside her and watch her breathing, wondering at her choice. Her hair was the soft yellow of candlelight, and her skin felt like still water. He would do anything to justify her faith in him, to become the man she saw through those blue eyes. She knew he was made for better things. She knew what it was to dream of another, forbidden
life.

He tried to soften the way for her. He took tea with the sour, fascinated Ruth Michaels of the Jewish Society and even attended the local synagogue. He'd put on the yarmulke and smiled at his neighbours, and anyone would have sworn he was a Jew.
Even me
. And in that lofty room, filled with the rustle of lambswool suits and the rich smell of embroidery, he could almost imagine it himself. That he, Salim Al-Ishmaeli, was not really an Arab, forever predestined to hold losing cards
–
but one of the chosen ones, the masters, who always seemed to come out on top of the
game.

A week after finals, Salim took Jude back to Finsbury Park, ‘the scene of the crime', as he called it. Summer had burst through the bareness he remembered; the dark green was now soft and the trees a remote rustling of leaves. He spread out a picnic of cheese sandwiches and early season strawberries on the lawn and she presented him with a bottle of champagne. When she brushed his hair from his forehead he could see the July sunlight shining through drops on her lips, and when she pushed her mouth onto his he could taste it, a mix of sour and sweet.

Two plastic cups later she told him again how proud she was of him, beautiful in her sincerity. He jumped on the moment. He'd been planning it for days, and had waited all morning for this opportunity to confront
her.

Despite her promise, Jude had still not told her parents about them. To her family, he didn't exist. Her pride in him was only a half-truth, a self-deception
–
otherwise why the secrecy? Her face fell as he spoke, the words tumbling out of
him.

‘You'll feel better after you tell them,' he argued. ‘They deserve to know. What are you waiting
for?'