Minaret: A Novel (18 page)

There were many Africans in the restaurant. The music, the rugs on the wall, the dark solid furniture and the fact that Anwar was not the only one eating with his hands meant he could feel at home. I tried to imagine Omar's reaction to this place and me in it. He would look down on it because he despised the `ethnic' scene. He would say that I had come down in the world.

When we finished eating, we had tea and Anwar lit a cigarette. I started to look at his article like I promised I would. `The light is dim.'

'Leave it then,' he said.

`No, I really want to read it. The light isn't that had.' I had to tread carefully. He wanted me to correct his English but at the same time he was sensitive to criticism. I flinched when I saw `the corrupt post-colonial government'. He would have had my father in mind, but thankfully his name, my surname, was not in there.

'Your handwriting is clear, easy to read.'

`I should type it up. But I don't have a typewriter.'

I thought to myself, 'I will buy him an electric typewriter or, better still, a word-processor, something fancy to surprise him.' I had a bank account and I was free to do with it what I wanted. Uncle Saleh was far away so I needn't worry about him saying, 'Just live off the interest, try not to touch the savings.' I would buy Anwar a computer.

`Najwa, stop daydreaming. Read.'

I made some comments. The use of 'the' instead of 'a', minor spelling. 'I don't think you can say, that was the reason for the failure for which".'

`Why not?' He was becoming tense.

'I don't know. It just doesn't sound right.' I hardly sounded convincing. Also "showed interest to", should be "interest in".'

`Anything else?' His hand reached out for his papers as if he was possessive about them.

`Nothing else. The rest is fine.' I was lying.

He breathed a sigh of relief, took the article and folded it away.

I wanted to change the mood. 'Is it wise to let a silly girl who didn't finish university comment on your work?'

He laughed and I relaxed again. `I have no choice.' He was teasing me.

`So that is why you invite me and phone me - because you have no choice?'

`My feelings for you leave me no choice.'

`Clever answer.' But I said it softly. I was touched by the way he looked at me. He gave me hope that I would not be in limbo for long, that I would not be without a family for long. But there were prickly areas between us, things I couldn't say to him. His opinions were so clear-cut, there was no room for my murky thoughts, the questions that I asked myself: what am I doing here, what happened to Omar, will I ever go hack to Sudan and what will it be like without my parents? Would Anwar ever change his mind about my father? I hoped he would. He was changing in other ways. There was the awe with which he turned over the pages of the Guardian and his addiction to watching Question Time. He used English words more and more, was less sharp in his criticism of the West. And this was the same Anwar who had led student demonstrations against the IMF and burnt the American flag. I did not dare ask him if he felt his anti-imperialist convictions contradicted seeking political asylum in London. Perhaps because the Berlin Wall had fallen, he was softening too.

I made a mistake last week and told him about Omar - how he had been caught dealing drugs. But I didn't give him all the details and led him to believe that Omar was serving a short sentence and would be out soon. Anwar's response was, `What do you expect from a spoilt playboy?' I made him promise not to tell any of the other Sudanese, but even after he promised I felt he might break his promise one day, to prove a point, to make an argument stronger. Since then I had been wary of saying certain things to him.

This holding back disappointed me. I wanted us to be true friends, transparent and unashamed.

I looked at him across the table - at his intelligent eyes and moustache. He was speaking about human rights in the Sudan, the new junta government. He said this had to be stopped and that had to be stopped. He said Sudan had the highest internally displaced population in the world.

`And you and I are displaced,' I said.

`We're not in the same boat. You're very lucky, Najwa. What do you know of imprisonment or torture or just plain poverty? You can't compare yourself with other ordinary people.'

`Of course I didn't mean to compare myself.' I would always he inferior to his `masses', my problems trivial and less worthy. But sometimes I craved his pity more than love. `Why do you always put me down?'

`I don't mean to. You're the nicest thing that happened to me in London. It would he unbearable without you.'

`I'm afraid,' I blurted out, `that what happened in Khartoum will always affect us.' But it was not really what happened, but who I was, whose daughter I was. I searched for the right words. I did not want to mention my father and risk becoming teary.

`Look,' he was smiling, `here no one knows our hackground, no one knows whose daughter you are, no one knows my politics. We are both niggers, equals.'

I laughed at his new use of that English word. I wanted to sit close to him, the way we sometimes sat on the bus. Every time he touched me, I forgot that prickly space between us, forgot that if my parents had been alive, they would never have approved of him.

`I wanted you to come with me yesterday.' I had gone to visit my mother's grave.

`I don't like going to cemeteries.' He moved back, took his elbows off the table. `What's the point?'

`I don't know. I just wanted to do something because it was her anniversary.'

`Did it take you a long time to get there?' He was trying to sound interested.

`Yes, it's at the end of the tube line. It was nice - the weather was better than today.' The cemetery was colourful with grass and flowers. I had to walk quite a bit to get there, down a lane, past open fields. There were families who had parked in the cemetery car park. The children played around the graves, innocent and happy. I sat on a bench and watched them. They made me wish I were a child again. One man stood at the side of a grave, talking or praying, moving his lips. He had so much to say. I wondered what he was saying. He was wearing a cap, which made me think he was religious. I wondered if religious people were comfortable in cemeteries. He seemed religious, raising his hands up to pray. There was no way of knowing if his deceased relative was a man or a woman. All through life there were distinctions - toilets for men, toilets for women; clothes for men, clothes for women - then, at the end, the graves were identical.

I wanted to speak to my mother but I didn't feel she was there. I couldn't imagine her under the ground though I was sure that she was. It was like I knew for sure that one day I too would die but I couldn't imagine it. All my life I had been living. How to imagine any other state? What was my mother feeling now? Did she know I was here? I could ask that religious man. He might know but you couldn't just go up to people and ask them such questions. My mother was vivid and alive in my dreams. She was always in Khartoum, wearing a pretty tobe, on her way out, Musa opening the car door for her, or she was in her room and I was sitting on her bed - how I loved my parents' bed - and she was in front of the mirror combing her hair, dabbing perfume on her neck, chatting with my father, raising her eyebrows, glancing at me in the mirror, and we would laugh, sharing a joke about my father: laughing at his fuss over his clothes, how he liked his moustache just so, at his pride in the brand new suit he had brought on his last trip - Pierre Cardin he would say, not just anything, Pierre Cardin.

There were prayers engraved on the bench. They were blurred but I blinked and made an effort, read them out carefully. I searched for the words, the reason I had phoned Wafaa, and they were there: Wash my sins with ice. I need not have phoned her after all.

Before going to the cemetery, I had dialled Wafaa's number. I had kept the piece of paper; I hadn't lost it or thrown it away. A child answered the phone, babbling. He dropped the receiver, picked it up. I couldn't understand what he was saying. 'Call your mother - where's your mother?' I kept saying but it was no use. I nearly gave up when a man picked up the phone. He said 'Salaamu alleikUm' but spoke with a London accent. Was she married to a convert then? I was curious. He said Wafaa was out and asked me if I would like to leave a message.

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.

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.