by Claire Hajaj
‘What’s this?’ she asked, wary.
‘I was going to bury it,’ he replied. ‘There, where he’s resting. But I thought he wouldn’t want me to come. I failed him.’ Tears came at last, the first he’d cried. They burned his face as they fell. ‘He came to me for help, but I didn’t understand. I missed my chance.’
She pulled off the silk, and held up the picture of the Orange House. The little boy’s eyes stared up at them both out of the golden frame in sweet bewilderment. The tree seemed so fragile behind him, just like the one fluttering lightly above Marc’s ashes.
She laughed at the sight of it, unlocking her own tears. ‘Wow, Sal,’ she said. ‘After all this time, you can still surprise me.’ She hugged the picture to her chest. In the bitterness of her grief, her one consolation had been that the Orange House had also burned – that it, too, had felt the searing pain of the flames. Gone forever, like my child. But from her hands the baby looked straight into her, back through the years of her life to her own girlhood. That face was Marc, was Salim, was herself in Rebecca’s arms. It freed something inside her, an old weight – she felt it floating away from them, up to the sky.
Salim saw her tears falling onto the frame. My Jude. I’m so sorry. I don’t deserve to weep.
‘Take it,’ he said. ‘It belongs to you now. You and Sophie. You’re the only things I want to remember.’
Her hand traced the child. Salim’s last glimpse of the Orange House was through her fingers, as she slipped it quietly into her pocket.
‘I learned a strange thing from Nadia today,’ she said, recovering. ‘She says Muslims believe it was Ishmael, not Isaac, who Abraham nearly sacrificed. That Ishmael was his true heir.’
‘We learned it at school,’ he said. ‘Around the time of the Eid. I was never really paying attention.’
‘What a thing for us to argue over.’ She wiped her nose on her sleeve. ‘Which son to sacrifice.’ He saw the white winter sun pouring through her fingers.
‘I was so in love with you once,’ she went on. Not the words she’d planned, but they came flooding out like water. ‘Such an unlikely love, but it was amazing, wasn’t it? That’s what made our children. What made Marc.’
‘It was.’ He pictured them through the light, the twins when they were little, the glory and the wonder of them as he held them in his arms.
‘And when Nadia was telling me that story, I thought – all these old, hateful tales that we can’t forget, they’re the real enemy, aren’t they?’ She looked out to sea. ‘So whatever you’ve done, Sal, whoever’s to blame – I don’t want to be angry any more.’
He heard Sophie’s voice calling from the hillside, and the rumble of car engines. Jude looked up; but she didn’t turn to leave. Salim felt a wave of hope break in him, in time with the crash of the surf.
‘So… what now?’ he asked her. ‘Where should we go from here?’
Her eyes closed, and his heart sank – but he dared not look away; he sensed a turning coming fast for both of them, approaching with terrifying speed. I missed so many, because I was always looking behind me. I lost her because I could not find my own way.
And then, to his wonder, her eyes met his. They were open as the day he’d first seen her, alone in a crowd at the party.
‘You used to tell us about the sea by your house,’ she said, and he remembered. Those days lying side by side like Marc and Sophie in a boat on the English river, sharing stories of home. ‘Why don’t you show me, since we’re here?’
He laughed. ‘It’s cold. It’s winter, in case you hadn’t noticed.’
She bit her lip in the ghost of a smile. ‘So you swim, and I’ll wave.’
Her fingers were still covered with soil. He wanted to reach out and take them, but shame held him back, just as grief held her. Away to the south, the muezzin began to call the noon prayer. Maybe there are no roads left to try. She sighed and started to turn away.
‘Come on then, Judith Rebecca Al-Ishmaeli,’ he said. ‘One walk with your husband. Before they send the search party out.’ Her head came up, and he saw Marc’s smile on her face.
She set off ahead, towards the beach. He heard her calling, ‘Yallah, slow coach. Are you coming?’ She was a small beacon in the wasteland, a boy chasing a football hurled up into the blue, carried onwards by the winds to who knows where.
He answered – I’m coming – and he followed, turning away from the land and its fruits, running to her through the blowing seeds, the watching world vanishing behind. As he reached her she turned, and he saw it stretching out ahead of them – the long-forgotten way. They set a course through the empty space, a single outline blurred against the light. And at the edge of the shore the winding path met them, carrying them downwards to the sea.
Acknowledgements
So many thanks are due.
First, with deepest gratitude and love, to those who gave me their blessing and everything else besides – my family Rowan, Leila, and especially my beautiful mother. Her life tells a tale more extraordinary than fiction; she gave me – and this novel – a starting point.
To those already gone ahead – Ethel, Nouhad, Sayed, Max, Trudy, Gerald, Anne, Marwan, the Book sisters and brothers – and to those still with us on the road – Abla, Blanche, Polly, Mahmoud, Haj, Sam and my cousins, the generation born along the way – for carrying both tribes’ precious stories forward to new worlds.
To my agent Gordon Wise, for his faith. To Juliet at Oneworld for rolling the dice and to my editors Ros, Eléonore and Jenny for helping me bring a long-sleeping story to life.
To Paolo Hewitt, the Don of north London, for that all-important introduction, and to Jenny Fairfax for opening the door.
To Adam LeBor, for his kindness to a stranger and the wonderful Jaffa, City of Oranges.
To William Goodlad, for taking the first look.
To Stephen Vizinczey, for his friendship, for letting me steal that line from An Innocent Millionaire and for every other word he’s written – which still dazzle me as they’ve dazzled millions before me.
Finally and above all, to my husband – who, while saving the world, gave me the space and the love to take this long journey. Thank you, sweetheart. You know what it meant. And to my daughter, who at last gave me the reason. Delilah, my love. Here is your story.
