by Fadia Faqir
Now I live in Great Britain. I have a job, a car, a husband and a large house. I am rich, so rich I could pay for your university education. One day you will see inc right in front of you. I am sure that my heart would recognize you, would single you out even if you were among hundreds of children.
We worked in the vineyard for hours then the whistle of Mother Superior told us that it was time for lunch. We gathered in the middle of the vineyard around a built-in wooden table laden with food. I would wash the mud off my hands, get a plate and join the queue. We ate freshly baked bread, mountain tomato, green peppers and goats' cheese with thyme and olive oil. I ate quickly with my hands, pushing the slices of tomatoes into my mouth. The nuns would laugh at me. `Nobody is chasing you with a stick in his hand, eat slowly,' Francoise said.
`Shwayy, shwayy?' I pretended not to understand her Arabic.
She would smile.
`South-east of here, you said?'
`Yes' She began collecting the empty plates and putting them on the table.
When the seagulls soared overhead we knew that it was time to go back to work and leave them the leftovers.
`Take me to the sitting room?' Gwen asked feebly. I held her hand and helped her legs, stiff with arthritis, up the step between the kitchen and the sitting room. When she finally settled in her chair, I gave her the book which would keep her busy for a few days. `Look what I have knitted for your Layla.' She spread a small white baby jacket on her blanketed knees. I looked speechless at the intricate pattern of flowers and stars. It must have taken her months to weave it with one needle. `But she must be sixteen by now But, of course, how silly of me!'
Holding her ageing hands I looked for the familiar in her blue eyes, trembling lips and lavender scent. Running my fingers on her green protruding veins my fluttering heart settled and I was able to hold back my tears.
`There was, there was not, in the oldest of times, a young girl called Jubayyna. They called her that because she was as white as goats' cheese. She had dark hair, tomato-red cheeks and big eyes. She used to play in the yard with the hens, goats and camels. They all loved Jubayyna. One day when she was chasing a dog the evil giant snatched her, flung her on his back and took her prisoner in his far-off castle. One of her camels followed her, and stood in the valley surrounding the high castle singing:
`The camel shouted and screamed. Jubayyna cried and cried until her tears flooded the valley surrounding the castle' Then my mother suddenly stopped talking.
`Mother, what happens next?' I gasped.
`Her camel might save her,' she said, hugged me, kissed me then covered me with the white sheepskin rug.
After I did the washing-up and tidied the kitchen I kissed Gwen on the cheek as always and left. I walked up the side street and continued walking on the main road, ignoring the footpath made especially for pedestrians. What if I got run over by a lorry? Would anyone anywhere shed a tear? My hands were trembling when I filled in my donor card. Give any part of my body to anyone who needs it after my death. Get in touch with ... My family did not know my whereabouts and I did not know the whereabouts of my daughter. I scanned the list of people I knew in this country: Parvin, Miss Asher, Liz, Minister Mahoney, my boss Max. `In case of emergency contact Gwen Clayton, 18 King Edward Street,' I wrote. If I died, Gwen wouldn't be able to cope and would ask her son Michael to help her, so my death might bring them closer.
Miss Asher, one of the Little Sisters, the English one, who spoke holding her mouth tight, sat on the bedside trying to convince me in her broken Arabic why I should go with her to Britain and leave the Little Sisters Ailiyya convent in Lebanon. I was happy there.
They had got me a sewing machine and I spent my mornings working in the vineyard, and my afternoons making pillowcases, robes, underwear, petticoats, belts, lamp covers and collars. I copied anything they brought from France. I sewed and sewed, then at sunset, I took my pipe and walked to my favourite spot at the very top of the mountain where I blew happy tunes watching the sun sink into the water and listening to the jingling of cow bells and the bleating of sheep. The kerosene lamps were lit one by one in the valley. It reminded me of my village Hima, my mother and my teacher Miss Nailah. She no doubt would swim out of the castle to safety and then her patient camel would carry her home.
Looking at the wooden bowl full of grapes sitting firmly on the wide windowsill, I said to the English lady, `No, I am not going anywhere, miss, I am happy here.' Arianne, the Mother Superior, tried to talk to me about Jesus, who died to save all humanity. I asked her not to talk to me about God. She stopped, but remained kind and understanding. They stripped me of everything: my dignity, my heart, my flesh and blood. My mother's face was lit up with love when she told me the story of Jubayyna. She kept telling me that I was better than everyone else until I believed her, then I fell, and fell. Even the camel knew the meaning of friendship and ties.
Whenever I walked to town up New North Road, I passed by the big old white house next to the tennis club, my favourite because of its spacious garden. I stuck my head through the hedge to have a look at the neat flower beds. A big apple tree stood in the middle, its trunk covered with ivy. The white lace curtains of the old small windows fluttered in the breeze. Suddenly, I realized that the black shadow near the gate was a Rottweiler so I offered it my head. It began jumping up and barking so I closed my eyes hoping that it would wrench my flesh strip by strip, that it would gouge my eyes out with its black paws, that it would paralyse me with one bite of its scissor jaws. `Stop it, Raider!' a woman shouted from the upper-floor window and I missed the chance of ending it all.
One morning a tired and serious-looking Francoise came to see me. It was still early, and I was lying in bed, trying to decide whether the shriek I heard was that of a seagull or a raven. If it were a raven some kind of parting was about to take place.
`I must talk to you, Salma.'
I sat up then smiled a good morning to her.
She was gazing at her feet when she said, `Khairiyya sent me a letter this morning saying that your family has found out that you have escaped from prison. Your brother Mahmoud is looking for you.'
Mahmoud? When I was young he used to buy me Turkish delights, but a few years later he started yanking my hair with his thin brown fingers. Mother used to watch him in distress. I sat up.
`Sister Asher, who is one of us, wants you to go with her to Britain.'
I covered my arms with the white sheets.
`You will be safer there.'
I wanted to cover my head with the quilt and just lie still in the darkness.
She rubbed her left eye and said, `We cannot take any chances. A policeman has visited Khairiyya recently and asked her about the whereabouts of all the girls we managed to smuggle out. You must go with Miss Asher to England.'
`Hinglaand? Fayn hinglaand?'
`It is far enough,' said Francoise and rubbed her left eye. If the left eye fluttered then parting was upon us. She placed her long wooden rosary around her neck then pulled the tassel down.
`La ma widi hinglaand,' I said and hugged her.
`I know you don't want to go, but you'll learn to like it, habibti,' she said.
The grey concrete building of Exeter Public Library looked like army barracks, but its glass windows gleamed in the warm light of the sun. When I opened the door I was met with a hushed polite silence so I cleared my voice and said to the middle-aged librarian, `I would like to join the library,' but my `o's came out all wrong. I was afraid of being turned down. She looked f o r a form. A leaflet warning against AIDS, `Positive women: call us .. .'was pinned to the noticeboard. I waited for the librarian, who was rummaging through the drawers, to find an excuse to deny me membership. You are an alien, we have no national insurance number for you; you cannot get in. `But I am not an indefinite-leave-to-remain holder, I am not a temporary-visa holder like them Albanians, I am a British subject,' I repeated like a mantra, `I am a British citizen.' I swore allegiance to the Queen and her descen
dants. Flushed and embarrassed, she produced a form for me to fill in. I was so grateful to be given membership, to be treated like them, that I dropped the form and the pen on her shiny black shoes.
I was wrapped in a blanket and sitting on the floor when Miss Asher, the English Little Sister, said, `I changed your name to Sally Asher and got you a temporary document.' I stuck my head out from the covers and saw a middleaged woman with silver-framed glasses, leather sandals and buttoned-up grey shirt. The expression on her face was similar to that of the Jesus crucified on the wall of the big hall. `A lawyer in Beirut has done the papers of adoption for me. The visa section did not like the idea of adopting someone in her twenties. I had a long chat with the ambassador, who is a secular fundamentalist, and told him that you had lost all members of your family in South Lebanon and all your documents, and that you are suffering from a severe psychological disorder. Jesus will take care of her and we will give her a family,' she crossed herself and added, `I will show her the way of the Lord and teach her English.'
Francoise was translating what her English Little Sister was saying. Holding my reed pipe tight I listened to her in silence.
`Here is your temporary Lebanese passport and your travel documents. At three o'clock we will take a boat to Cyprus.'
I looked at the white nightdress with flowery pockets I was making for Francoise and the big bowl of grapes and repeated like a parrot, `But I am happy here.'
Francoise rubbed her left eye, held my hands tight and said, `Child, you must understand that your life is in danger.You must leave.' She stuck her hand in the pocket of her brown robe and produced a shred of blue sky `This turquoise necklace belongs to my distant past in the back streets of Paris. I want you to have it.'
I fingered the cold blue beads set in a silver pendant and imagined what Paris would look like. `Thank you so much,' I said and stuck the necklace in my cloth bundle.
I sat on one of the chairs and placed a large illustrated book on the table. The library was quiet before the lunchtime rush. An old Greek woman, wearing a black dress with a wide skirt, her head tied with a black scarf, was patiently sweeping the yard of her old white cottage. Hidden Greece was the title of the book. One of these days I would go there, play my pipe for the sheep, chase the hens, run after the dog and ride the horse. The whitewashed walls of the cloister kept the heat of the sun away. I closed the big black book and looked at the bowing heads of readers in the library. They would smile to each other, greet each other, but never say what people of Hima used to say to strangers: 'By Allah, you must have lunch with us. I won't take no for an answer.'
Arianne, the Mother Superior, held a special prayer for me. I hugged them tightly, kissed Francoise, whose tears were trickling down her face, and walked down the hill with Miss Asher. I was told that Mahmoud, my brother, would be there at any moment, his dagger tied to his belt and his rifle loaded. I'd better hurry, I was urged. I could hear their French hymns and see the flickering of their candles even when walking towards the sea. The seagulls were soaring above us like white clouds. A taxi was waiting for us; before getting into the passenger seat, I looked up and waved to the convent with its painted glass windows and crucified Jesus.
Miss Asher tugged at my sleeve. `Let's go.'
`Lits goo,' I repeated. Those were my first words in English.
Peaches and Snakes
THE BACKPACKERS' HOSTEL WAS TOTALLY QUIET. ITS residents had finally gone to sleep. While watching the flickering reflection of the orange street lights on the dirty curtains I heard Parvin's muffled sighs coming from her ex-army bed. She must be crying. I put the kettle on and made her a cup of tea. `Miss, tea?'
She looked at me with her red swollen eyes and said, `I don't want your tea.'
I held back the hot mug.
She began crying and repeating, `Sorry. Yes. Thank you. Sorry.'
`Drink,' I said and she held the mug and drank some tea.
`Too sweet,' she said.
'Only four spoons," I said.
After she drank the tea to the last drop, she sat up and asked, `Where do you come from?'
`Over the sea,' I answered.
`Are you Arab?'
`Yes, Bedouin me.'
`Wow! A fucking Bedouin Arab!I
`I fucking no allow,' I said.
She smiled.
She put the mug down, pulled herself up, put the pillows behind her head and sighed. She said that she did not know how she ended up in this dump. Her father wanted her to get married to an ignorant bastard from Pakistan. She tried to dissuade him, pleaded with her mother, but no, she either went ahead with it or he would disown her in the papers. `Parvin is not my daughter.' She ran away and ended up in a refuge run by Pakistani women, not far from Leicester, where she used to live, but the women advised her to move down south because some of their girls were kidnapped.
'"Kidnapped" what means?' I asked.
`They took them away by force. They push them into a car and take them away,' she said.
I smacked my Bedouin lips in disbelief. The only English words that came to mind at that moment were, `Trouble your heart.'
Although her hazel eyes were glistening with tears she smiled and asked, `Trouble my heart?'
`Not. Not," I said.
She pressed her head with her hands and began crying.
`What's your name?' I asked.
`My wretched name is Parvin,' she said and wiped the tears with the back of her left hand.
`Many names I. Salina and Sal and Sally' l said.
Parvin began crying again. I sat next to her on the bed and stuck my hands between my knees. She was thin and short, with shiny straight black hair and large hazel eyes, which she kept hidden behind her lowered thick curled lashes. She had a small nose and full lips that remained partly open showing a chipped front tooth. She was wearing a white shalwar kameez, which emphasized the darkness of her skin and her angular shape.
`Parvin, stop crying please. Your tears gold,' which was what my mother used to say whenever I cried.
She ignored me.
I got up and sat on the ex-army bed. What brought me here? What brought her here? Who was watching over her?
In the twilight the small port looked haunted, with boats covered with nets and dirty pieces of cloth. An old Lebanese fisherman spat in the water then began swearing when he saw us approaching. We were late. I threw my bundle on board then stepped on the side to get in.When I pressed with my foot on the bottom of the boat it began swaying. I held Miss Asher's firm hand. When we were both seated on a wooden bench inside a small cabin, the old fisherman wiped his hands on the wide black pantaloons and pulled a string. The engine began purring and suddenly the whole boat began shaking. `Yala!' he shouted and the boat sped through the water. I held Miss Asher's hand to steady myself. When I was able to look back through the small door I couldn't see any lit windows although it was dark and the convent looked like a big dark eagle, wings spread, beak open, perched on the top of the mountain.
My skirt, top, underwear and dirty tissues were scattered all over my bedroom floor. What was Jim's family name? All of that fumbling in the dark so that you would forget who you were for a few minutes. The bed was ruffled and the mattress cover was stained. The room was stuffy and smelt of sweat and sage. I pushed the window open and sat down on the bed. The small leather bag containing my mother's letter folded around the lock of her hair looked like an amulet hanging on the side of the Indian mirror. My tribal protection had been removed, my blood was spilt and my arms had broken out with red sores. A shiver ran through me as if I had caught a sudden chill. A cold evening breeze rushed through the window I put on a fleece and began stripping the bed and the pillows. I put all the dirty linen and clothes in the washing machine in the bathroom and turned the knob right up to ninety degrees for ultra white. I sat down on the toilet seat watching the clothes being tossed around in the soapy water, spun, then tossed around again. Finally the whirring and vibration of the machine spinning the laund
ry dry shook the old wooden floor. I wished that I could put me among the washing so I would come out at the other end `squeaky clean', without dry stains or dark deeds. Without the approval of the elders, without papers, without a marriage contract I went ahead and slept with a stranger. They should cut me into pieces and leave each at the top of a different hill for birds of prey. `Salma,' called Liz from the landing, `I need the toilet.You have been in there for an hour and a half.'
The rhythmic sound of the pestles of Hima grinding roasted coffee beans was an early sign of weddings in the offing. It was Aisha's turn this year. A dark farmer from the valley had come to take her away in his cart. Her dowry was a piece of fertile land by the river. I was not sure whether I should go to the wedding, but my mother said if I didn't old tongues would start wagging. On Friday I went to the women's tent, greeted everyone, then sat on the ground with the other women of the tribe. It was so hot sweat trickled down my nose. I was young, pregnant and unmarried. The horse race filled the village with clouds of dust and shouts of victory or defeat. Aisha went to the tent with her husband. The men held hands and began bowing and singing in unison, `Dhiyya, dhiyya, dhiyya,' until their voices were just a hoarse drawing and releasing of breath. A young boy handed them a white handkerchief so they stopped singing and dancing and began shooting in the air celebrating Aisha's honour, her purity, her good fortune. Suddenly among the cries of joy and ululations we heard Sabha's mother shout, `Sabha was shot. Oh, my brother! Sabha was shot.' Sabha was my school mate. Some whispers in the dark turned into a rumour and then turned into a bullet in the head. I swallowed hard. An old woman in black squatting next to me and sucking on her long pipe whispered, `Good riddance! We've cleansed our shame with her blood!'
