Women of Sand and Myrrh (21 page)

She got up from her corner and announced to us all that she was going to Turkey. My aunt laughed but I was afraid of the turn my mother’s thoughts were taking, and replied quickly, ‘They might have died a long time ago, then what would happen to you?’ Taj al-Arus didn’t make any comment but she was determined to go, and began bundling her clothes into my case, and preparing the reply she would give if anybody asked her whether she was really a Sultana. Her clothes were not the clothes of a Sultana, nor were the earrings and necklaces and bangles she wore now the jewellery of a Sultana. She deliberated and went off into corners by herself and wept constantly, until Rashid eventually decided to arrange the trip for her, although she swore that her village wasn’t far from Bursa and that she had been to Bursa on foot. Rashid made enquiries about the area she came from, but unexpectedly no one could help him: the countless women who’d been brought to the Sultan were from every country under the sun. Rashid didn’t feel at ease about her until he’d entrusted her to some Turkish pilgrims who were on their way home, and who assured him that they would bring her back to the desert whenever she wished to come.

During the time she was away from the house, my Aunt Nasab made predictions: ‘Taj al-Arus must be staying at one of her sisters’ houses now. Or perhaps her mother is still
alive …’ while I blamed myself because I hadn’t stood up to Rashid when he forbade me to go with her, then took comfort when my aunt laughed and remarked, ‘Taj is sure to be lying to them, and pretending she’s a Sultana!’ I pictured my mother’s bewilderment at being alone for the first time in forty years.

When Taj al-Arus came back after a week, she handed out boxes of Turkish Delight to us with an expressionless face, and refused to say anything about her trip.

She had known, as soon as she arrived in Bursa, that she would never reach her village. Even the ornate and plentiful minarets, which she was told were hundreds of years old, looked strange to her. She was taken to a number of villages, and in the village squares the people gathered around her, old and young, men and women, wearing clothes very different from how she’d remembered them. She could no longer see the pathways which she’d seen in her dreams, nor the trees, nor the houses which she’d remembered stone by stone, and she didn’t go running up to her own house. When the guide told them her story, in case any of the old people remembered the Sultan’s visit and the cars parked in the village field and the dogs which had barked and followed the train for miles, it was passed around from ear to ear. The crowd took several paces forward to see at close quarters the woman whom the Sultan of that far off land beyond the railway line had married. When this happened she gathered herself in and pulled her abaya more closely round her. Her heart beat fiercely and she took refuge in silence, praying fervently. She found an opening for one eye to see through the blackness, and looked at the inquisitive faces. One man introduced himself to her and said that she was his aunt, and took her to his strange house.

As she studied his strange face, she couldn’t smell the springs, and when she asked him about them she realized that he’d been lying. All the same she kept waiting for something unexpected to happen. As soon as he found out from the
women clustered around her that there was no gold in her bag he handed her back to the guide.

She didn’t despair, except once when she was sitting in a village square under a spreading tree surrounded by men and women and children, and she started to think. There were birds twittering right overhead and they didn’t stop singing even though small children were pelting them with stones. Like every other time she felt embarrassed; but this time that embarrassment was mixed with disappointment and sorrow, perhaps because the children were unconcerned by her presence as they threw stones at the birds, and the grown-ups said nothing when the stones landed all around her and one of them hit her on the hand; and perhaps because she was starting to get bird droppings on her abaya. She found herself thinking for the first time, ‘Why? Why?’ She pictured her father bending happily to kiss the Sultan’s hand, the whole village lined up to watch Taj al-Arus leaving to become a queen, and only the dogs chasing after her.

Suzanne

1

I moved the packets and jars out of the way and took down the slender bottle. Although I could hear Maaz joking with Ringo, his loud laughter like the chattering of monkeys, I went to the door of the kitchen to make sure, then hurried back and poured Scotch and water into the glass, took the lid off the narrow bottle and brought it close to the glass. How was it going to be possible to add just two drops? I was at a loss, and afraid that Ringo and Maaz would come in while I was holding the bottle. But all the same I began to tilt it slowly towards the glass as if I was squeezing the breath out of it: one drop, two, or twenty? This time I hid the bottle in a cooking pot and picked up the glass, but I didn’t leave the kitchen. Had I put in three drops or twenty? Perhaps he’d be poisoned, die even. I went towards the sink to pour it away, but then drew back. This was my last chance and I had to risk it. I encouraged myself with the thought that if anything terrible happened nobody would realize the cause. They’d blame the Scotch and bundle the case out of sight, just as they’d bundle him away if he died. I found I was shaking my head, revolted by my own thoughts. Was I trying to calm myself down because I was scared, or had I really grown that hard?

When Ringo saw me coming with the glass in my hand, he rose to his feet announcing that he would begin by cleaning the rooms on the top floor. I gave the glass to Maaz, hoping that he wouldn’t notice my hand shaking. I looked at Ringo and pointed to my mouth and my cheek. He nodded and went upstairs and came down a few moments later with my make-up bag. I sat down facing Maaz, trying to appear indifferent, although my heart had begun to beat violently and my mouth was twisted to one side with the force of my agitation.

Each time his mouth went down to the glass and he drank, I felt a throbbing pulse in my neck; when he’d finished he handed me the empty glass and said, ‘More iced tea, Suzie. Why aren’t you drinking with me?’

I stood up holding the glass, trying to control my twitching mouth. With a forced coquettishness, I pronounced, ‘You can’t live without Scotch, and I can’t live without you.’

Maaz laughed his loud laugh and put his hand to his heart: ‘Our hearts are our witnesses, Suzie.’

I went into the kitchen and put on lipstick and powder, using the glass door of the oven as a mirror. I told myself solemnly that I’d hear his body crashing to the floor any moment now. As I poured more Scotch and water into his glass a voice of guilt whispered inside me, blotting out everything else, ‘Sita said I had to mix the drops with tea or coffee, and here I am adding them to Scotch,’ But then I pushed away the idea that something would happen to him, offering myself the justification that Sita would never have heard of Scotch and wouldn’t know what it was.

I was still shaking and I blamed Suha for ever taking me to Sita. Irritably I thought to myself that in spite of her clothes and her excellent English, she was like Sita and the rest of them whom I saw walking around the streets like sacks of coal. I found myself wishing I’d responded more positively to Ringo’s scheme and seen it right through instead of using this potion of Sita’s.

I’d woken up that morning, or rather I’d left my bed, still more or less asleep. A whole month had gone by since we’d come back from our trip together and I hadn’t seen him. I’d heard his love talk and his voice trembling with emotion on the phone every week or so, and he’d brought me a gazelle that he’d caught out hunting, and then not waited to see me when I came out of the bath. My longing for him was unbearable, and yet I couldn’t manage to have him in my grasp although I telephoned him and went to his house and sent Ringo to his office.

That morning I’d shouted at my husband, and then sat crying loudly. This craving was agony; it opened up a chasm in my body which the blood couldn’t reach. For the first time I’d thought about playing with myself; I’d controlled the hand hovering over my stomach the night before and put it back by my side, vowing that I would try to get Maaz back and marry him, whatever the cost.

Ringo had patted me on the shoulder soothingly and told me he’d get Maaz to come that same morning. When I shook my head disbelievingly, he insisted that I’d see him sitting on that very chair, pointing to a chair untidy with newspapers and James’s clothes; probably he was thinking as I was that he’d begun to neglect the housework because I’d stopped giving him orders and distracted him from what he was supposed to be doing. He bent down to gather up everything that was on the chair, and repeated, ‘Maaz will sit on this chair today.’ Then he began to explain his plan to me, taking out the pin which he usually kept stuck in his shirt pocket. He lit a match and held it to the point of the pin until it turned red as a glowing coal, then black, and I thought Maaz would rise up out of it. At the same time Sita’s bottle gleamed in my head and I began to laugh. Ringo handed me the pin and told me to prick my finger a few times until I had some drops of blood on my hand. I did as he said, and when a few drops of blood were just appearing he mixed coffee with tincture of iodine and sprinkled it on a bandage which he bound around my right wrist. Then he made me sit down on the sofa, and brought a jar with the remains of some cream in it which he rubbed all over my face, and I burst out laughing again. When my pallor still wasn’t convincing enough for him he went to fetch the saffron used for colouring the rice and dissolved some in water and began massaging my face with it. All this time, I was holding a mirror and trying to see what was happening to my face. Then he asked me how to say, ‘She’s killed herself,’ in Arabic. I got up to phone Suha, although I didn’t think there would be an equivalent expression
in Arabic. I couldn’t imagine anyone taking their own life in this country: there was no need for it. In her usual fashion, Suha had forgotten our recent rapprochement and our visit to Sita a few days before, and replied tersely that she was busy and hung up. I rang again, cursing her inwardly, and told her that I was about to give Maaz Sita’s drops. When I sensed her enthusiasm returning, I asked my question, and she asked me sarcastically if I was planning to kill myself. Then she asked me to let her know what happened to Maaz.

I repeated the expression over and over again until Ringo had mastered it; this was the whole sentence: ‘Uncle Maaz, Madame Suzanne has killed herself.’ Then he ordered me not to open my eyes and not to answer Maaz except when he swore that he would never split up with me again.

‘No,’ I added involuntarily. ‘He has to marry me. He asked me to, or have you forgotten?’

‘How could I forget?’ said Ringo, going over to the door. ‘He chased you like a wasp shamed by its own buzzing.’

Ringo’s words made me feel happier, even though I didn’t understand the comparison. I wasn’t stretched out on the couch for long, or it could be that I didn’t notice the time passing because I was going over and over the same subject: I wanted to get him back, and to marry him even if I had to be the second wife.

If I’d stood and repeated this to myself in the mirror a few months before, I would most likely have thought there’s a woman who’s gone beyond the nervous breakdown stage and is well and truly mad – Maaz al-Siddiq’s second wife?

When I heard the car roaring to a halt, I closed my eyes. I heard Maaz’s voice before I heard the door: ‘You heathen! You don’t believe in God. You’ll go to hell.’ When he added in English, ‘You crazy, you suicide,’ I was overcome by a desire to laugh. He shook me and I couldn’t stop my eyes opening. I began to cry but instead of being cut by my tears, he told me reproachfully that anyone who tried to take their
own life without waiting for God’s will to be fulfilled went to hell. The minute he showed signs of pity for me because I’d be going to hell, Ringo came up and took hold of my hand, gesturing to Maaz and shaking his head sorrowfully.

Maaz obediently took my hand from Ringo and I seized the opportunity and flung my arms round him, crying violently and pressing my breast against him with every convulsive sob; I hissed like a snake in his ear that I couldn’t live without him, why had he left me, and where had his love for me gone? The strength of my resolve convinced him, and created just the effect I’d imagined, and did it quickly, because he turned to Ringo laughing and said, ‘God damn you! Bring me some iced tea!’ But as Ringo went towards the door of the kitchen, warning bells rang in my mind. I pictured what was going to happen between us, maybe standing up, maybe for no more than a few moments, then like someone who’d relieved himself of a burden, he’d be off. At this, the picture of the Indian woman on Sita’s bottle, holding up her long hair, flashed into my mind and I recalled her words: ‘Even if it doesn’t do any good, it won’t do any harm.’

I couldn’t hear a sound; he must have guessed from the taste of it: perhaps Fatima had resorted to Sita and her potions and that was why he didn’t want to leave her even though she put oil on her hair and had yellow teeth. But he was strolling around the sitting-room and he stopped by a model aeroplane which David had made. As soon as he saw me he reached out to take the glass from me. ‘God, I need this, Suzie,’ he said. ‘Tell me, where did you buy this plane? It must be the biggest you can get. Has David been into the desert to fly it yet?’ ‘I’ve told you a hundred times,’ I answered irritably as usual, ‘David didn’t buy it. He just bought the motor, and you know he goes into the desert to fly it every Friday.’

I forced a laugh, annoyed at myself for answering him in this way, and aware that the days of the proud pleased assurance which his love had brought to me were gone.

He stretched out his hand to my breast and said, ‘It’s been ages since we ate pomegranates.’ When I asked him what they were he began to explain, and I nodded my head without really understanding: a pomegranate was a fruit like a pearl, he said, and if one of its seeds dropped on the ground, God wouldn’t let us enter Paradise. He went to put both hands on my breasts and I stopped him, making the excuse that David would be home soon. At this he looked so put out that I asked him why he hadn’t been in touch with me if he felt so passionate.