The Empty Family (v5)

by Colm Toibin

  It did not occur to him that the mattress had arrived with Abdul’s knowledge and approval until Abdul came home that evening. He had, he admitted, helped carry it up during his lunch-break.

  ‘Who’s it for?’

  ‘My cousin Ali is coming here. He’s a butcher.’

  ‘Why is he staying here?’

  ‘Because he’s my cousin.’

  ‘Does Baldy know?’

  ‘Of course he knows.’

  Malik went on to the roof and sat on the cushions. Abdul soon followed him.

  ‘There’s nothing I can do. He’s my cousin. What should I have said to his father? They live in the same building as my family.’

  ‘You could have said that there is no room.’

  ‘No one in my family has ever said that.’

  Later, they ate in silence. As he got ready to turn off the light, Malik asked Abdul when his cousin was coming.

  ‘Next week,’ Abdul replied.

  ‘Do you want me to tell Baldy that I want to go back to the room where I was before?’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So what will we do when your cousin’s here?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Malik almost asked him then if he cared that they could no longer be alone with each other, but instead turned away from him and tried to go to sleep. After a while, he regretted that he had not asked. He was sure that Abdul was still awake and wondered if he might do it now, but he could not think of a way to start the conversation again and he also realized that he was not sure he wanted to hear the answer that Abdul might give.

  The image he had in his mind of Ali the butcher was of a man the same age as Abdul, or even older, so he was surprised when he saw Ali for the first time. He seemed young, almost innocent, and he was very polite and shy. He smiled softly when he spoke but he mostly listened as Malik described the street. He was puzzled that they had no video recorder attached to the television and that in the kitchen they had only one saucepan with burn marks on it and one frying pan. He asked if they had their meals on the roof and appeared amazed when Malik said that they had never once moved the table from its place in the main room.

  It struck Malik that Ali made Abdul look old; against his freshness Abdul seemed tired, and then as he lay in the bed with the other two sleeping he realized that this made him want to be with Abdul even more. It made his strength, his height, his hairiness, his solidity more real and present and caused Malik to feel proud of the life they had before Ali came. Even his silences now did not make Malik uneasy; if he noticed Abdul beginning to withdraw he smiled at him and shrugged.

  Ali, it emerged, was not only a butcher but a cook. With the small amount of money they had, he made Abdul and Malik buy a big saucepan. He himself bought spices and some days would bring home meat that was left over in the butcher’s shop and cook for all of them.

  The problem was that he left in the morning at the same time as they did and was home in the evening at the same time as Malik, before Abdul. Since they had never yet arranged to have the same day or half-day off, this meant that Malik and Abdul were never alone together. In the first few weeks Malik found himself at night lying in bed thinking of Abdul’s body, imagining that he was running his hand over and over along the wiry hair between his legs. In the mornings as soon as they heard the shower going in the bathroom and they knew that Ali would not appear for some time, Malik moved towards Abdul’s bed and held his hand for a while or kissed his chest, but they always had to be careful in case Ali came out of the running shower for some reason.

  One evening as the three of them were having supper Ali produced a wallet of photographs from his suitcase. He wanted to show them pictures of himself with his six brothers. The photographs were sunny and bright; the seven boys looked alike and, Ali explained, since there was just a year between each of them, people often could not tell the difference between them.

  ‘We all have the same clothes,’ he said. ‘No one knows who owns what.’

  He then began to flick through the rest of the wallet.

  ‘Look, Abdul,’ he said, ‘here’s you and Nadira when the twins were born.’

  Malik saw Abdul lowering his shoulders; suddenly he seemed afraid. The photograph was obviously of a man and his wife and their two babies. They were all smiling. The man was Abdul, thinner and not as bald, and the woman was beautiful, with long hair and shiny white teeth. Malik glanced at Abdul but he had his eyes cast down.

  Malik then stood up and went to the bathroom and waited there for a while before returning to the main room and announcing that he was going out. Abdul did not even look up.

  ‘I need some fresh air,’ he said, ‘and a walk but I won’t be long.’

  Ali, he thought, might be reassured by what he had said, but Abdul would know that he had never gone out like this before in the evening. He would know also that Malik had nowhere to go, no knowledge of the street at night. It was the only thing he could do, he thought, as he went down the stairs, and even if he had to stand looking at a shop window, he would stay on until the lights had been turned off in the room and he would not have to look at Abdul again.

  He realized as he walked up and down the street that he should have guessed that Abdul was married. A good number of the older men were married, so it would make sense. Even if he had not guessed, he should have asked. But Abdul in all their conversations had never mentioned it, had never talked much about his family at all, just as Malik seldom had. He had never heard Abdul even mention making a phone call. Also he had presumed that Super knew about everyone in the street, anyone who passed his window or anyone new who arrived. He wondered now if Super knew and had decided not to tell him.

  He pictured Abdul when he saw him first, how silent and self-contained he was, how unlike all of the others. He could not imagine him married. One or two of the married men wore wedding rings or showed people photographs of their family, but Abdul had never done this. And then suddenly it struck him that everything about Abdul, his silences, his way of being alone, his reticence about himself, and how he was always careful not to give the impression that he would come looking for Malik, everything pointed back to the photograph, to the man pictured happy with his wife and his young children, the man sad now to be away from them. And it would explain too how unhappy he was when he arrived first in the room alone with Malik, his presence having been organized by Super and Baldy. How eager he must have been to have his cousin come and break up whatever might happen between them!

  Malik had twenty euros in his pocket, so when he found an open-air bar at which there were a few Pakistanis having coffee he sat down and ordered a Coke.

  He pictured Abdul in the mornings as he lay in bed holding hands with him. He knew Abdul waited for this and liked it. But these were just images and moments. He was a fool for thinking they amounted to anything. Soon they would amount to memories because he would not hold Abdul’s hand again or put his hand on the bulge in Abdul’s crotch or be patient with him when he became silent.

  Whoever he knew or remembered was not a real person, that much was now apparent. He did not know Abdul, who had made sure of that. He had remained unknown, unknowable. Everything about him could be explained by the fact that he missed home, everything including his sporadic tenderness towards Malik, his wanting and then not wanting to be held and made excited. All of this was simple now. As he sipped his drink Malik understood it all.

  Soon, he thought, he would talk to Super; he did not know yet what he would say, but he would make clear that he did not want to be in the room with Abdul and his cousin. He might make the reason sound religious and this would please Super. But he knew that he had to take care not to blame Abdul for anything or make Super suspicious of him.

  He imagined Abdul and his cousin Ali rolling out Ali’s mattress now and both of them carefully and modestly preparing for bed. He wondered if Abdul would ever have actually told him about
his wife, and if he had more children than the twins. He knew that it was not nothing for Abdul that Malik was aware now that he had a family. He knew also that, despite Abdul’s being often withdrawn, there was, or had been, a bond between them, but even though it had been based, or Malik thought it had, on something half understood, it was the more real for that; it had been based on the idea that they had sometimes wanted each other, that Malik was not merely a way for Abdul to relieve his loneliness, or a temporary substitute for the young woman in the photograph.

  Over the next few days he avoided being alone with Abdul. He had his shower first and left the apartment first. In the evening when Abdul was there, and if Ali was in the kitchen or the bathroom, he went and stood on the roof or rummaged in his suitcase or arranged his clothes. When his half-day came he went back to the apartment as usual. Since he had not been sleeping he thought that he might wait until the sun had moved from enough of the roof to allow him to stretch out on the cushions and sleep. He also thought that he would wash his clothes in the machine and then leave them out to dry.

  He was surprised to find Abdul in the apartment. As soon as he saw him he went into the bathroom and stayed there for a while, hoping that Abdul might soon go. When he came out he found that Abdul was in the main room facing him. Abdul looked at him sadly and put out his hands and shrugged.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. Abdul held his gaze and seemed to suggest that Malik should come towards him.

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘Please,’ Abdul said.

  ‘Did you say please?’

  Abdul nodded and sighed.

  ‘Yes, I did. Please.’

  When Malik moved towards him Abdul held him. At first he thought this was Abdul’s way of saying sorry, of recognizing that they would not be together again, but soon he realized that Abdul had an erection and that his intentions were unmistakable. He had to decide what to do.

  ‘Maybe we should talk?’ he whispered.

  ‘Can we talk after?’

  Malik waited for a moment before he replied.

  ‘Just say one thing now.’

  ‘You’re not to imagine …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I promise I’ll talk to you.’

  ‘But say one thing now.’

  ‘Can I do something?’

  ‘What?’

  Abdul leaned towards Malik and kissed him. He pushed his tongue into Malik’s mouth. Malik put his arms around Abdul’s neck and smelled his breath and felt his tongue in his mouth moving against his own tongue. He did not know what this meant. It was something that they had never done before. He pulled back only because he felt that he was going to ejaculate. He stood gasping in front of Abdul.

  ‘That’s the first time I have done that,’ Abdul said.

  ‘You’ve done that with no one?’

  ‘No one.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  He saw that Abdul was close to tears.

  ‘You are with me,’ Abdul said.

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You are with me.’

  Malik shook his head. Abdul went towards the door of the apartment carrying a chair to block it and then came back into the room.

  ‘We can’t,’ Malik said.

  ‘Come and lie beside me and listen to me.’

  He put out his hand and guided Malik to the bed.

  ‘Just talk?’ Malik asked.

  ‘Just listen,’ Abdul replied.

  He pulled Malik towards him.

  ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. I couldn’t believe when Ali produced the photograph.’

  He sighed and they both lay still.

  ‘There were nights when I came back and I tried to say something and instead I had to walk out and go up and down the street and hope you’d be asleep when I came home.’

  ‘It’s all right. Now that I know. It’s all right.’

  ‘It’s not all right,’ Abdul said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You are with me. That’s why.’

  ‘I’m not with you.’

  ‘I want …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I want the two of us …’

  ‘We can’t.’

  ‘Do you want to?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Be with me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then it’s fine. When I go home you can come with me.’

  ‘And be what?’

  ‘It’s a big family and now you’re a friend of Ali’s as well. We will have to be careful and it won’t be perfect, but it’ll be worse if we don’t. Look, I have thought about it every night. People often come and stay with my family and there are always friends and cousins. It’s not like it’s just a small house with me and the woman you saw in the photograph.’

  ‘She’s your wife?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you have more children?’

  ‘There’s a girl as well as the twins.’

  ‘What age are they now?’

  ‘The twins are eleven and she’s nine. And all their cousins live around and my brothers have friends who stay. Ali’s brothers have friends who stay.’

  ‘Friends like me?’

  ‘No. But no one will think it strange that you are staying.’

  ‘But your real family is your wife and your children?’

  Abdul looked away and was silent for a while. Then he whispered something that Malik could not catch.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said that my real family is you.’

  In the weeks after that, no one noticed that Malik and Abdul took the same half-day, or maybe, Malik thought, Baldy and Super did but decided not to comment on it. He did not know what to think about what Abdul had said. He watched him and saw how relaxed he seemed now when he came in at night, how he loved lying on the floor with a cushion under his head after supper listening to music.

  A few times Malik raised the subject of Abdul’s family with Ali and he learned that what he had said was true, but he still did not know what it would be like to live in a house with other people who did not know why he was really there, until he realized that this was how he lived now.

  He waited in the apartment for Abdul to come. It had been a quiet morning in the shop. He opened the window and stood out on the roof and felt that the season was changing, that it was warm now only in direct sunlight. He had put some cold food on the table and made a place for himself and Abdul. When he heard the key in the lock he moved out to the hallway to greet him. Abdul kissed him on the forehead when he came in the door. He pulled two cassettes from his pocket.

  ‘These are new,’ he said. ‘Salim recorded them for me.’

  Malik smiled and gave him a mock punch in the stomach.

  ‘When we get the CD player, what will we do with the cassettes?’

  ‘Ali can cut them up and cook them.’

  They sat together eating in silence and then, once Abdul had put the chair to guard the door into the apartment, each of them went in turn to have a shower. Then they made love quietly on Abdul’s bed. Later, as Abdul slept, Malik went to the roof in his shorts and T-shirt and sat on the cushions in the sun.

  When he heard Abdul moving, he looked up. He heard the shower going again and was standing at the open window when Abdul came back naked, drying himself. He put on fresh clothes. As Abdul put his finger to his lips and left the apartment, Malik had a shower and dressed himself. After a while, when he himself was on the street, he followed the directions that Abdul had given him some weeks before. He moved casually on the shady side of the street until he was on another street where he was sure no one would know him. Then he walked in the sun. Soon, he could see a huge ship in the harbour that was there some weeks and not others; it was, he thought, like a city in itself. He knew now to cross the street and turn left and head down to the waterfront. He ambled slowly, as Abdul had told him to do, looking at the small fishing boats and the palm trees and trying to pretend that the
re was nothing special about this.

  When he came to the end of the walkway he crossed another street when the lights went red for the cars and green for the pedestrians. He followed the line of the waterfront until he saw Dino’s ice-cream shop. He made his way to the opposite side and then down a side-street, walking in a straight line until he came to a boardwalk with palm trees that looked over a beach and the sea. Even though he had seen seagulls every day and had heard the foghorn at night, until he began to come down here he had never realized how close the apartment was to the sea.

  Abdul was sitting on a seat as arranged. He stood up when he saw Malik coming, and as Malik put out his hand Abdul slapped it and smiled as though they were ordinary friends meeting. They walked along by the sea, stopping sometimes if there was anyone on the beach they could look at, or if there was a boat or ship coming into port they could examine.

  Although Abdul did not talk as they walked along, there was, Malik felt, no tension in his silence. He was amused by things, by people who passed, or by anything Malik said. He knew that they would walk as far as they could and then turn back and walk together to the seat where they had met and part there, Abdul going ahead, Malik leaving twenty minutes and then following him. Abdul, he knew, would collect some meat from Ali’s shop and they would both follow Ali’s cooking instructions and have supper ready for him when he came in. Since they had a DVD player, they would finish supper early and watch a film before they went to bed.

  But all of that was hours away, the hours after darkness fell. Now it was still bright. And all Malik wanted was for this walk to go on, for him to say nothing more and for Abdul to leave a silence too, for both of them to move slowly by the big strange bronze fish, both of them looking at the tossed sand and the small waves breaking and being pulled out again, out to sea. Both of them were on their afternoon off, away from all the others, away from the street; both of them were slowly walking away from everything as though they could, but not minding too much when they had to turn back and face the city again. Brushing against each other, they both knew that they should do that only once or twice, and only when no one was watching them.