She smiles back at him. ‘I have to go now. Yvonne’s home and she’s waiting for me.’
‘No, no. Not until we’ve eaten together. But you never told me how she learnt Arabic.’
‘Yvonne’s Lebanese like me, even though she’s blonde.’
‘Her name’s Yvonne? I thought she wasn’t an Arab,’ he says in a self-congratulatory tone, as if he’s caught a criminal in the act.
‘In Lebanon we name people Yvonne and Madeleine, and even Mademoiselle as a first name! She was born with fair hair and green eyes. Everybody thinks she’s foreign, and, by the way, I caught you looking at her!’
‘It’s true, I was keeping an eye on her. I thought she was spying on us, on Muslims, because she looked foreign but she knew Arabic.’
‘But you fancied her. I know she’s sexy and Arab men love blondes and women with blue or green eyes.’
‘I’ve repented and turned to God. I don’t deny that in the past I was totally reckless and frivolous, but I came to my senses, thanks to the will of the Lord. My Lord guided me to the straight path. I used to drink the wine left in customers’ glasses when I was working as a waiter. One evening, when I was drinking the dregs from the bottle itself, I heard the call to evening prayer, and it seemed to me that a voice was calling me, reproaching me, so I threw down the bottle and called out, “I repent, Lord” and from that night on I have prayed and fasted and read the holy books.’
‘Where did that happen? In Algeria?’
‘In London! It was a recording on the cell phone of a man from the Gulf who mistook the kitchen for the gents. Will you tell her about what’s happened between us?’
‘No, no. She’s Christian and she’d think that what you and I agreed on was a kind of madness.’
‘On the contrary, she’ll envy you because Islam is a flexible religion as regards marriage and divorce. Why should your friend’s reaction be one of disapproval? Didn’t my marriage to you guarantee your honour and self-respect? I respected both your body and your soul and didn’t treat you like soiled goods.’
‘If I’d been soiled goods, I wouldn’t have been a virgin!’
‘Why were you still a virgin? Of course, it was because in all these years you’d never found a man who was a sincere believer, the sort your parents advised you to marry. Rest assured, I’m ready to take all the responsibility.’
Ah, Arab chivalry, she laughs to herself, then aloud, ‘Perhaps I should go now.’
‘But we agreed to eat together. Shall we go and get something in Golborne Road? It’s not far from here.’
Have you lost your mind? Do you think I’d go anywhere with you?
But she agrees in the end. The image of him muttering ‘In the Name of God the Compassionate, the Merciful’ comes to her mind and takes her back to a language she’s pretended to forget at various stages of her life. Just the sight of the bobbles on his socks, because they’ve been washed so often with other clothes, reminds her of her father’s and brother’s socks and evokes warm feelings in her.
Huda walks along with Hisham. They go down quiet streets, past houses and cafés, crossing a bridge where the cars rush by so fast that Huda is almost knocked over in the slipstream.
They are going along Oxford Street, which is thronged with dozens of tourist rickshaws and echoes to the sound of Arab songs, acting like magnets to draw in the Arabs walking by. Sports cars roar and growl, their Arab drivers competing to see who can make the loudest noise. Vagrants and beggars, Roma, Europeans begging from Arabs in broken Arabic and using incorrect quotes from the Quran, phrases used to praise and thank God, rather than to ask for alms, that they must have got from translation sites on the internet. Women swathed in black abayas fly along in the rickshaws like a flock of black doves singing songs of thwarted love, but laughing and happy to be in the heart of London.
I’m going to be a tourist in London with Mark. She found herself texting him, asking him to wish her luck for tomorrow’s meeting at the theatre.
A pretty young blonde woman is begging, her head bent close to the ground, looking as if she’s acting a part, raising her bowed head from time to time, and in her hands is a sheet of paper with Arabic writing on it, obviously handwritten by an Arab: ‘As for the poor, do not rebuff them. The Almighty has spoken the truth.’
‘With Almighty God’s help the Arabic language will become as important as English,’ Hisham says, looking at the beggar.
‘And the shisha will take the place of beer!’ responds Huda.
When Hisham gives her a disapproving look, she thinks, Why am I with this guy, why don’t I tell him to fuck off and be on my way?
They board a bus taking them to Ladbroke Grove.
She breathes a sigh of relief when she sees that his attention is focused entirely on his phone, as if it’s his hand or a third eye. He never stopped consulting it when they were in his room, even after they’d had sex, as if he was confiding his impressions to the machine and it was agreeing or disagreeing.
‘I’m trying to find a shop whose owner I used to know. I want to buy something, something for you!’
He wants to buy me a wedding ring. It’s time to leave. But I can trick him, vanish like a mustard seed in a forest, she tells herself comfortingly.
‘Oh, thanks, I don’t want anything.’
She notices that they’re walking along Golborne Road and that it’s not how she expected. She’d read that it was like a microcosm of the Maghreb, an area known as ‘Little Morocco’, but it is groaning with loneliness, the tables of its restaurants and cafés almost deserted, a mosque with bearded men at its door, a Portuguese patisserie. One of the cafés reminds her of a café in Beirut frequented by men only, who spent their whole time playing backgammon. Men from the Maghreb smoke cigarettes and shishas inside and outside. Hisham stops suddenly to talk to a shopkeeper and Huda can barely make out what the two men are saying even though they’re talking Arabic.
On display here are caftans, kitchen utensils, and ceramic and earthenware vessels, including Moroccan tagines. She breathes a sigh of relief as she realises that Hisham isn’t thinking of buying her a wedding ring. Strange, the word used for a wedding ring in Arabic: mahbis, also meaning prison.
Hisham fingers the shawls hanging at the shop’s entrance and asks Huda to choose one. She declines as she never wears such things, and besides, these are particularly ugly and made of cheap polyester and scratchy nylon. As they move to another rack, she glances at their reflection in the shop’s mirror and sees someone who must surely be her double at Ta’abbata Sharran’s side. She feels immense regret that she has agreed to eat with him, that what she did with him in his room somehow indicates that they’re in cahoots, co-conspirators.
‘You really don’t have to buy me anything.’
What she wants most of all is to get rid of this millstone round her neck, i.e. Hisham, but she’s promised to have dinner with him, so that’s what she’ll do. In any case, she’s hungry. She just has to put up with his company for another hour or two, then today will become no more than a strange memory. On this occasion, she doesn’t proclaim her opinion out loud, although it’s not like her to hold back from saying when something upsets her. He insists, pleads with her: ‘Please, we’re going to a restaurant belonging to a friend of mine and I want you to agree to cover your head,’ and he hands her a dark brown shawl.
‘Let’s go to another restaurant then.’
‘Please. Please, Huda.’
‘Hisham, for goodness’ sake, look at the tight jeans I’m wearing, this fitted top. I don’t want anyone to see me with a hijab. “The neck upwards belongs to God. What’s below the neck belongs to man.” I don’t want to have that saying quoted at me.’
‘That’s disgusting. Shame on you.’
She leaves the shop, pleased with her excuse, but he hurries after her, still carrying the shawl and apologising to her in a way that makes her think, I’m crazy. I deserve everything that’s happening to me. ‘If you play with a cat, e
xpect to get scratched’, as they say.
She goes back into the shop with him and changes the brown shawl for another, more colourful, and arranges it on her head before the shop’s smudged mirror, at which point Hisham suddenly descends on her with expressions of admiration, sounding to her astonishment as if he is being flirtatious: ‘Praise God! Your face is as radiant as the sun or the moon. I don’t know what to say!’
These compliments make her recoil like a snail sprinkled with salt. She is filled with remorse: he’s sincere and she’s a hypocrite and a liar. But isn’t he the one who has indirectly forced her to become a hypocrite, so that she can get even with him? Then another flattering remark from him makes her start spinning her web again, like a spider whose eyes have suddenly come back into focus.
‘That pretty face of yours would be even prettier if you wore a veil.’
He sees her expression, which says plainly ‘Have you gone mad?’
‘Why are you scared? I didn’t say a niqab, just a piece of transparent material over your face, and it won’t hinder your movements in any way, trust me.’
‘You must be joking! It’s crazy. Your eyes should be visible, and then your heart and mind are visible too. But tell me, what’s the point of covering my face if people can still see my features?’
‘The point is that it makes the woman’s face as a whole less provocative. The niqab only reveals the eyes, where the greatest provocation resides. What we’re talking about is the provocation that is more powerful than death, the provocation of a woman’s beauty. Don’t we describe a woman as alluring, or enticingly beautiful? As the saying goes, “Ask God’s protection from being led astray by beauty.”’
‘But why are you scared of beauty instead of thanking God for it?’
‘Anyway, please cover your head with the shawl in the restaurant, for my sake.’
If only their conversation could have carried on in this vein so she could have walked away and left Hisham alone with his thoughts, instead of discovering that she was both fish and bait, for as soon as she enters the restaurant to keep him happy, two bearded men rise to welcome him from a table where two women and a couple of small children are talking noisily. One of the women wears a hijab and the other a niqab. Hisham greets them with an abrupt ‘Peace be upon you’.
Huda smiles at the two women. The one in the hijab smiles back, while the one wearing the niqab, who is enveloped in black from head to foot, contents herself with a welcoming nod of the head. The two men, the husbands of these women, appear to have decided rapidly that Huda doesn’t exist. She sits down on the vacant chair next to the woman in a hijab, who has a nice face.
‘Hallo, sister.’
‘Hallo. My name’s Huda.’
‘Pleased to meet you, Huda. My name’s Suad.’
The woman with the faceless head says, ‘What a beautiful name, Huda, the light of God’s guidance. I’m your sister, Aisha.’
The restaurant is packed with Arabs: families with children, young girls probably no more than nine years old with their heads covered, running and playing and laughing as if their headscarves came into being at the same time as their hair and don’t stop them playing and causing havoc like other children. Young men with the latest haircuts and clothes sit around a table laughing noisily to the accompaniment of songs that are a mixture of Eastern and Western. Suddenly the woman called Aisha protests: ‘No! Not Sami Yusuf again. We’re fed up with hearing him.’
‘Who’s Sami Yusuf?’ asks Huda, raising her voice to attract Hisham’s attention so she can urge him to move to a table where they can be on their own, get their food quickly and leave. Or maybe it’s better if she just leaves once and for all.
But Suad, who has an Egyptian accent, hurries to answer Huda’s question with real enthusiasm: ‘I can’t believe you’ve never heard of Sami Yusuf. Where have you been living?’
‘In Canada.’
‘Ah, I understand. You’ve got a good excuse.’
Huda listens to the song and as it booms out again Aisha gets to her feet in protest, only to be restrained by her bearded husband, demanding that she sit down: ‘Whatever’s wrong with you?’
My best times were when I felt close to you
But everything fell apart the moment I strayed from you
In each smile, in every sigh, every minute detail
Traces of you are found there
Wherever you are, I’ll find you ’cause you’re the one I turn to
Wherever you are, I’ll be with you
’Cause you’re the one my heart belongs to.
I need you.
Huda looks at Aisha and nods her head as if agreeing with her, for the song is naïve and sentimental. All the same, it ignites the enthusiasm of the majority of customers and especially the young men with the latest haircuts, who stand up around their table, close their eyes and raise their arms in supplication as if performing a piece of theatre. When the song is almost over they prostrate themselves humbly and the whole restaurant applauds. The song is a Sufi prayer addressed to God, not to a human lover.
Next comes a song by Yusuf Islam, formerly known as Cat Stevens, called ‘A is for Allah’, followed by Doris Day singing ‘Que sera, sera’. Amazed as Huda is to hear the song in these surroundings, she listens to it differently this time round and can believe that Doris Day is singing to God, the only one who knows and understands the secrets that the future holds.
Que sera, sera
Whatever will be, will be
The future’s not ours to see
Que sera, sera
Dishes of couscous, vegetables and chicken arrive at the table.
‘Can we eat now?’ Huda asks Hisham, having tried without success to catch his eye. He’s either avoiding looking at her, or he’s completely ruled by his two bearded friends, especially the one who never raises his eyes from his prayer beads, indifferent to his wife Suad. She, meanwhile, is busy with the toddler in her lap and a little girl, presumably her daughter, who looks about five.
When Hisham doesn’t show any sign of answering her question, Aisha the faceless says, ‘You’re welcome, sister. With pleasure. Of course, please help yourself.’ Everyone excuses themselves and goes to wash their hands, returning to sit at the table and say ‘In the Name of God the Compassionate the Merciful’ before they start eating, just as she used to do in her parents’ house when they taught her to thank God for this blessing.
As she reaches for the food, Hisham stops her, not because she hasn’t said ‘In the Name of God’ but because she hasn’t washed her hands as she is supposed to do before eating. She suppresses her anger and embarrassment in front of the others, who pretend not to notice what Hisham has done, but is exasperated by the fact that he feels at liberty to reprimand her. ‘Oh sorry, I forgot.’ She goes out to the bathroom, wishing the restaurant had another door so she could escape. To spite him, she doesn’t wash her hands and comes back pretending to shake the water off them. As she reaches for the food once more, he hands her some dried figs: ‘It’s better for you to begin your meal with figs so the stomach is ready to digest vegetables and meat, as it instructs us in the Quran.’
She is hungry. The delicious food descends her gullet: grains of couscous and morsels of fragrant chicken transport her right back to reality.
She can’t help staring at Aisha as she pushes the food into her mouth under the black niqab. She’s like a hooded falcon. When the falcon’s hood is removed, it spreads its wings and flies up into the air, but she wonders what Aisha does when they remove the niqab from her face. Does she fly like a bird? This image gleams in her imagination and she thinks of using it in the British version of One Thousand and One Nights.
Huda notices the bearded man, Suad’s husband, speaking in whispers with Hisham, his frown deepening, while the other bearded man, Aisha’s husband, merely nods or shakes his head. Then the three men suddenly move on to another table.
Now I’ve eaten, I have to leave, thinks Huda. But a woman from
another table seizes the opportunity of the men’s absence and descends on Suad, whispering something in her ear. Suad says disparagingly out loud, ‘You’re right, my bag is Christian Dior, but it’s a copy, a fake!’
Suad turns her back on the woman, ignoring her and reaching out a hand to Huda’s earring, as if deliberately taking a different tack, to prompt the woman to leave. ‘Your earrings are really unusual. They’re beautiful. Did you buy them here?’
‘I inherited them from my grandmother. They’re Ottoman half-lira coins.’
But Suad ceases to be interested in Huda’s earrings, because she is distracted by the woman saying as she leaves, ‘OK fine, there is no god but God,’ and Suad and Aisha reply ‘And Muhammad is His Prophet.’ Then at once Suad begins telling Huda and Aisha how the woman came to ask her to boycott Christian Dior products on account of his name. Huda and Aisha laugh. ‘I don’t believe it!’ remarks Huda, while Aisha says, ‘It’s not relevant whether the bag’s a copy or an original. You should have just told her that we Muslims believe in Jesus Christ too.’
‘You’re right. It’s a waste of time talking to her. I don’t like that woman. She’s trying to set herself up as our leader. She’s contacted me hundreds of times asking me to sign a petition in protest against the Egyptian shaykh who’s issued a fatwa making it legal for a husband to eat his wife in times of famine. I told her this was rubbish and we’d do better to ignore him.’
Huda has clearly taken to Suad and she begins to joke with her. ‘OK, let’s tell her the man’s wife would be starving too if there was a severe famine, so she’d be nothing but skin and bone!’
Suad laughs. She’s probably in her twenties and her kohl-rimmed eyes laugh with her, beneath eyebrows like two swords.
Once more Sami Yusuf’s singing fills the restaurant, and once more Aisha objects: ‘Why doesn’t everyone understand that there’s nothing special about Sami Yusuf even if he does sing mainly religious songs?’
The Occasional Virgin Page 14
