Minaret: A Novel (25 page)

The lady who has a daughter Mai's age asks me to make her a cup of tea. She addresses me in English and I suspect that she has a Filipina maid and has become used to speaking to maids in English. It's bothersome to make her tea. The thermos would have been useful as Lamya said. Now I have to scramble to find the best teapot, fill the sugar bowl. In the kitchen, I can still make out the songs. They excite me; it's a bubbling shallow excitement. Lamya strides in. We need more chairs!' She grabs two of the kitchen chairs and carries them out saying, `Bring the other two and if later we need more we can use the one in Tamer's room.' He won't like it; he won't like us taking the chair he is sitting on. I wonder if he can hear the music, the attractive laughter. I follow her with the remaining kitchen chairs and return to fetch the tea tray.

I must keep an eye on Mai. She has lost interest in the dancing and is getting bored. She sidles up to a dish of pistachios and knocks it down. It falls unharmed on the carpet. She sits on the floor in the middle of the scatter of nuts. I rush to sort things out, scold her but she is unperturbed and walks off. When Bushra reaches out for her hand, she is responsive and smiling. They look nice together, curled up in the armchair, Mai playing with the straps of Bushra's handbag, their heads close together. Their hair is the same colour but one's is curly and the other one's straight. Bushra looks up when the latest Amr Diab song starts to play. She joins in the clapping, mouthing the lyrics. Tamer should see her like this.

The doorbell rings and it is Lamya who opens the door for the latecomer, I am too far away. I hear her shriek with laughter, followed by the others in the room. I look up and see a girl in hijab, wearing exactly what I wear when I go out, a beige headscarf, a floor-length skirt and a short coat that doesn't reach the knees. I don't understand why everyone is laughing. The girl looks familiar, like one of Iny friends at the mosque. She starts to take off her coat, removes her headscarf, loosens her curly hair. When she throws her headscarf across the room and everyone shrieks I am sure something is wrong. Her smile and her gestures are theatrical; everyone is looking at her. She starts to dance and the music is just right for her cheeky smile, her glittering eyes. The centre of the room is all hers now and she is moving slowly as if doing a striptease, unbuttoning her blouse to peals of laughter, untwisting her wrap-around skirt. I laugh too as if laughter is contagious. They clap for her in time with the music. She is now in a black sleeveless dress, silky like a negligee. A red sash is tossed towards her; she ties it round her hips and dances across the room, triumphant. The party will be remembered for this. Lamya is all delight and laughter. She leans towards the Duchess of York. `We don't make fun of our religion, but just today, just once today.'

I have to tell him. I have to be with him. The lady has finished her tea and gestures for me to take her cup away but I ignore her. The doorbell rings and I ignore it. To walk down the corridor to his room is to move from yellow gaiety to mellowness, calm and cool like the first moments of sleep. I push open the door and he is at his desk, twiddling his hair. He turns round and smiles and I am laughing and telling him how they all knew it was a joke from the beginning, from when she walked in wearing hijab and I was the silly one crouched on the floor picking up pistachio nuts, looking up and seeing a familiar figure, thinking it is like one of my friends at the mosque. I laugh and say, `Would you believe it, for them the hijab is a fancy dress!'

He doesn't laugh with me. He gets up from his desk and says, `This is terrible. This is wrong; they shouldn't do that. I'm sorry, Najwa. You must he upset, you must he offended.'

`Oh no,' I say, `they are just young girls. Just young girls playing, they don't mean anything, I can even dance better than them. It's nothing personal against me. I am nothing to them, nothing. I don't matter ...'

`Stop It.' He puts his hands on my shoulders and he shakes me a little. His eyes are solemn, clear and I see goodness in them. I have always wanted goodness, I have always believed in it and here it is. He says gently, `Stop it, stop putting yourself down.' He should not come close to me but he does and I cling to him, I cling to him because I am sour and he is sweet. He kisses me and he doesn't know how. I should push him away, not let him learn, but his smell holds me still. Suddenly Lamya is at the door, half in, half out. The very presence of her dress, her face rigid with dislike strikes me as an aberration. I should move away from him but I am stunned.

`What's this!' She's swollen with how dare you, how dare you, how dare you. She is more shocked than we are. I move away from him, my hand on his T-shirt and something snaps in her. She takes a step towards me, lifts her arm and strikes me across the face. It stings and I gasp as her rings and bangles grind nay skin. There is darkness when I close my eyes. It is Tamer erupting as the blood pounds in my ears. It is Tamer shouting at her not me.

he said she would call the police if I didn't give her the money. I had a hundred pounds. I was sure I had a lot of money - a hundred pounds - but my purse was full of bank statements on pink paper. I kept flicking through them and there was no money. She wanted ID and I searched frantically but my passport wasn't there and neither was my library card. I didn't know this woman. She spoke Arabic; she was dark and wearing an evening gown. She looked down at me and said that she would call the police. She spoke calmly but at the word police, my blood turned cold ...

`Najwa!'

I opened my eyes. Silence and calm after the nightmare. `You were mumbling in your sleep,' Anwar said.

I sat up and breathed. I shouldn't doze off during the day; it brings no rest. `Why have VOL] stopped coming over? Why do I always have to be the one coming here?'

He looked up from the letter he had been reading. `Because it's more sensible for its to meet where the computer is.'

He tossed me the letter and turned hack to the computer screen. It was from his sister in Khartoum, long and chatty. I read it, searching for my name. Surely by now he would have mentioned me to his family. `Who's Ibtisam?'

`My cousin.'

`Why does your sister mention her a lot?'

He was typing and he didn't stop. `They're close.'

`Is that all?'

`Sort of.'

`Is there something between you?'

`Nothing formal.'

Was I supposed to worry or not worry? `Nothing formal means there is something informal.'

He turned to look at me. `No it doesn't. Her mother and my mother talk and make speculations. They've been planning things since we were kids, but it's just talk. I don't feel any strong inclination towards her.'

I folded the letter. Now, if he could come over and put his arms around me, say, `You mustn't feel insecure, you mustn't worry.' But he wouldn't do that, as if there was a law: Anwar must not feel sorry for Najwa.

`Come and check this,' he said. I walked over to the computer, pulled up a chair, started to make a few comments and corrections. I could sense his growing irritation the more errors I found.

`But all in all, it's very good. As if you copied it from a newspaper.

`What newspaper?'

`I just meant it's sharp, professional.'

`If you're accusing me of plagiarizing, you might as well tell me from where.'

I knew why he was defensive. Hardly any of the English articles he sent out got published, and every other day he was turned down for a job. I knew the comforting words I was expected to say but today I didn't trust myself to speak. I would say the wrong things and start a quarrel. Quarrels took too long to patch up, they took too much grovelling; hours of coaxing and patience.

It was a relief to hear Ameen call out, 'It's time for the news. Kamal, where are you? Anwar?'

We moved towards the blare of the TV as if it were a magnet. The familiar faces of the presenters, serious and, over the days, endearing. I was becoming attached to them as to characters in a soap. We slumped on the sofa and the chairs. There was a sense of anti-climax now that the war was over, now that the news was not meaty enough.

We had bonded watching the Gulf War on TV. Now that it was finished and the news left us unfulfilled, we played cards instead. Ameen often won, which annoyed Kamal. Neither he nor Anwar liked to lose to Ameen. It threatened their sense of justice that he, the bourgeois owner of this Gloucester Road flat, could also have such innate luck. To give Anwar a chance, I sometimes held back my good cards, stopped myself from winning but it didn't always work. We played kunkan and put down very small amounts of money: fifty pence, the last of the one-pound notes. There was an atmosphere to these games, metallic because of the war, stifling because of the cigarette smoke and whisky. The drinking made them crave certain food. I heated tins of foul, mashed it with feta cheese and tomatoes. Often I fried eggs, aubergines and ta'antivah, heated endless loaves of bread. I didn't like eating with them but I liked the concentration of the game. The smooth, pretty cards held me in a pleasurable suspense.

None of us yet had put down any cards but we had been going several rounds since lunch. Any time now, one of us was hound to have the necessary fifty-four points. 'It's nearly five o'clock,' said Ameen, 'I'd better he going soon.' He drew a new card from the pile. He laid out three kings and three queens. `I'm invited for breakfast.'

`Breakfast at five!' I laughed and so did Kamal. I looked at Anwar. He smiled but his eyes were on the cards. Ameen was laying his hand on the table; six of hearts to the Jack with a joker in the middle.

Ameen tossed his remaining card in the middle, took a draw of his cigarette, collected his winnings. He smiled, `It's Ramadan breakfast, you heathens!' I caught my breath. `Oh no!' They laughed at my reaction. Kamal said he knew it had started but had forgotten about it. Why would anyone in his right mind fast in London? `Or anywhere else?' said Anwar. `The thirst people endured in the heat of Sudan was not healthy at all.'

Ameen called back from his bedroom, `These relatives of mine are fasting here normally and every single day at sunset they have the table set out for breakfast.' It jolted me that Ramadan could happen, could come round and I would not know about it. I looked at Anwar and he was calm, normal as if nothing unnatural had happened. `Why didn't you tell me?'

`Why should I?' said Anwar. For some reason that made Kamal laugh.

`What do you mean why? It's important. It's Ramadan. I should know about it. It shouldn't happen without me knowing. If we were in Khartoum we would have known, our daily routine would have changed.'

`So now you know. Are you going to fast?'

`Yes, I always fast.'

`What kind of fasting?' He was teasing me now as he shuffled the cards, Kamal an appreciative audience. They often joked about how Westernized I was, detached from Sudanese traditions.

The ru rural kind of fasting.'

'To lose weight?' Anwar smiled. My attempts at dieting always amused him. Kamal looked at me in that way I didn't like.

`Well, partly,' I said.

So why don't you fast any other time of the year, why this particular month?'

`Because it's the month of fasting, that's why. Everyone's fasting.'

Rut we're in London now,' Kamal said. 'People in London don't fast.'

'We've always fasted.'

'Really, your whole family?' Anwar and Kamal shared a s11111e.

`Yes,' I said. 'In Khartoum all my family used to fast.'

I didn't. Did you, Kanial?'

'No. Anleen did though.'

`Well, I don't see why I shouldn't keep it up when I'm here.'

Anwar sat back and looked at the cards in his hands. 'Rut what's the point if it's a conlnlunity activity?'

`It's part of our religion.'

He looked at nme. `Shouldn't von question these things, though? Shouldn't you ask yourself if it's suitable for every time and place? When you fast, your productivity is reduced, you can't work to your full potential.'

lout we're not working today. We're just playing cards.'

`When are you going to learn how to have a proper discussion?' I le had said this before but I couldn't remember the occasion. A sense of dcl,'i tau, `When are you going to learn?' slips in again.

`I alll having a proper discussion.' I felt sick not because he was having a go at me but because I was all alone, alarmed about something he didn't care about. Was it madness to see something, know something all by yourself with everyone else oblivious?

`Go,' he said, suddenly bored, `go get me more ice.'

I went to the kitchen and opened the fridge. I stared at its contents, smelled the cold food. There was lunch in my stomach and there shouldn't be, the taste of Coke in my mouth. I missed the lightness of fasting, my body clean, my mouth dry and then the special food at sunset, the drinks in jugs with ice, purple for helomur, orange for gamar el-din, pink for grapefruit, and guests, cars parked in front of our house, my mother's hostess smile, saying, don't drink too much, don't fill your stomachs with water, you won't be able to eat later.