A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar

by Suzanne Joinson

  These circles. They were unbearable. He turned on to Vauxhall Bridge and walked towards the river and it was happening again: the ground around his feet cracking, sand coming up. It is harder than one would think to escape a desert.

  He sat down at a table outside a Lebanese café. His legs were aching. He pulled from his bag a paperback, Graham Greene’s England Made Me, not to read, but as a prop or an aid to keep his hands steady. When he left the flat he had packed all of his calligraphy and drawing materials and his notebooks, some books, some T-shirts and emerged into the living room with the satchel over one shoulder. He had tripped over Anwar’s guitar case which was left lying across the floor and had given the case a boot.

  ‘Hey,’ said Anwar, ‘watch it.’

  ‘Why do you carry around a case with no guitar in it?’ Tayeb had felt like kicking the case again; actually, he felt like picking it up and smashing it across Anwar’s skull. Anwar laughed without taking his eyes off the screen.

  ‘Gets the girls. Pulling magnet. Works every time. Off out?’ Nidal was sitting next to him, hypnotised by the high-definition contorted images on the screen. He didn’t acknowledge Tayeb. Tayeb didn’t answer Anwar who, with a cup of tea on the floor next to his red-socked ankle and his rolled cigarette fuming in his hand, looked young and stupid. Tayeb didn’t hate him. He walked out without saying anything.

  A waiter came out to take his order but Tayeb stood up and moved on, heading slowly towards the river. The traffic was a violence around him. He should have just done it, what they wanted; it would have been over now and he could have continued his life, drawing his tattoos on the city. He crossed the road. The river-path was wide and breezy. Tourists walked in small groups, tall men walked small dogs on thin leads and women pushed prams. Tayeb’s brain circled in on itself: there was Marcus and his wife Audrey, but he couldn’t impose on their north London terrace and their forever trying to conceive a child. Anatole from Dalston? No, he had his own troubles. Some of the men from the casino? No.

  At the entrance to a waterway taxi opposite Tate Britain he looked down the ramp to a swaying boat. Paying for a day-return even though it was expensive, he made his way to a seat at the front of a boat so that the full expanse of Westminster’s finest arranged itself before him. The movement of the boat unbalanced him; it was like viewing a painting through the rain which had started up. A person could disappear into a scene so desolate and never return again. Tayeb imagined a camera in his hand. If he were filming he would not go for the obvious panoramic shot, instead, he would focus on the boy sitting on the seat alongside him with hair as orange as oranges. The boy was holding his mother’s hand and looking anxiously at her face. Next, a close-up shot of the mother: in her thirties, with the melancholia that comes from mother-tiredness. She was not looking at her son but thinking about something else and as the boat began to move on the water, the boy continued to look up at her, for reassurance perhaps, but her eyes remained on the water outside.

  Tayeb was from a desert, he was uncomfortable being adrift. He could identify with the small boy’s worries. At some point during his first year in London, Tayeb had walked across Lambeth Bridge at night just as a man, about twenty yards in front of him, had pushed himself off it. It was not so much a jump, more of a lean. Tayeb rushed to the side of the bridge and saw the body fall into the grey–black swirling water. It disappeared immediately. Tayeb had uselessly shouted, ‘Hey hey, hey!’ into the wind. The body re-emerged momentarily, corked up on the swell of water like a cormorant, but very quickly down it went again. Tayeb knew he should phone someone, or do something. The body did not bob up again and then it occurred to him that he could not give his name to an official and that he could not be witness to anything in this country.

  The anxious-faced boy with the orange hair was closer to his mother now, his fingers touching her hand and Tayeb was relieved when she looked at him finally, not smiling, but with the territorial confidence of the one in charge. What power she must feel at being able to ease him, even if temporarily.

  The boat pulled in at Greenwich and the sulky young black girl with the ticket machine round her neck asked him if he wanted to get off.

  ‘No. I’ll go back.’ He showed her his return ticket.

  This time nobody got on. The boat turned round and the journey was repeated in reverse, as if he were being sucked through a mirror. He rummaged through his satchel, through the empty envelopes with stamps but no addresses on them, the poems of Darwish, a cheap notebook with the cover ripped off, something he had written in English on the back of an Oxfam request for money envelope – red-hot blood runs fast, like rivers. I have seen too many injuries for one person. Bodies are fragile, they are meaningless dust. At Victoria Station: the gateway, place where life in England begins and ends. The pigeons are pecking at my toes and I can’t smoke in here. This country has stopped smoking at stations which is barbaric, really – but there was no sign of his fountain pen. It was lost and that fact seemed unbearable, emblematic: that he had lost himself again. Back to the blue door where he slept last night. What else could he do?

  Dress: The outfit may be completed with a number of hats – a light straw for summer, a soft felt for touring, and a small and becoming hat for the park.

  11. A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar – Notes

  June 19th

  The baby breathes magical air, her skin is mole-skin soft. The tips of her fingers pat against my arm, it is the softest feeling, like a butterfly walking. Lashes are black insect legs, sticking to a cheek. Skin hangs around the knees, waiting for bones to expand inside. She likes to be folded in against me. Her toes spread wide, large gaps between each one. Her ears are oyster pearls, sweetness. There is a terrifying translucence of the skin. I have night visions now, of her falling into a river and being taken away. Nightmares filled with floods coming, waves washing over her. Sometimes she is caught up in a tree, tangled in its branches and I must get to her, but can’t. Or she is a cat, fur falling off in patches and uttering a pitiful cry. She is slipping away from me, falling away, or I have been careless, and lost her. I wake up convinced that she is gone; I reassure myself by touching her flat, uncurled fingers and put them in my mouth and suck them. She seems to like it.

  ‘Eva, come, look,’ Lizzie said.

  I followed my sister to the back of the house where Lolo was standing with his hand resting on the flank of a white cow and its calf. The calf stood trembling between its mother’s bony knees. Lolo was gently patting the cow’s back, looking pleased with himself.

  ‘Millicent bought it at the cattle market and it transpires that Lolo is a charmer of cows,’ Lizzie said, and giggled. ‘Aren’t you pleased?’

  The cow looked philosophical, flicking its tail at the flies which were persistent in bothering it.

  ‘She’s beautiful.’

  ‘I’ve named her Rebekah,’ Lizzie said. Then I realised: our own supply of milk. No more opium-scented yellow milk. I can now feed Ai-Lien directly. It is fascinating to watch Lolo and the milking process. The calf tugs at the udders and suckles on his mother, then, once the milk is flowing, Lolo gently moves the calf aside so that it is still standing next to the mother, nestling about her, being licked, and Lolo squeezes from the teats six or seven pints of milk before allowing the calf to return and drain the rest. As he pumps the udders he sings, softly and soothingly to the cow and its calf.

  Ai-Lien enjoys it – both the singing and the milk. Her eyes close and her lips swell. She seems to have grown in size almost immediately, but I am sure I must be imagining that. She sleeps on my chest, breathing softly, and often I hold her on me all night. I happily forgo my sleep for her comfort. Such a distance I have come since the day I journeyed alone, by tram, to the China Inland Mission in Stoke Newington, to stand in front of a panel of four men and two women to defend my calling. I memorised my speech so intently it is still with me now:

  ‘Members of the Council, my Direction is never illuminated to the degree a
t which I fully understand the nature of the path I tread, or indeed, what I will find along that path; but by a small flickering candlelight of faith, that gives off only enough light for the next, immediate part of my journey.’

  Pausing, as rehearsed.

  ‘And with each step, I grow stronger. I am steady.’

  I hear the rattling rain, watch the grey faces of the Council conferring, the bonnet – worn on Millicent’s advice – slipping. I had decided against a description of mystical swooning, or an emulation of Lizzie’s wet-eyed devotional face, thinking rational argument would be more convincing. Lizzie had already been selected to accompany Millicent on overseas missionary work. I could not be left behind, and to my great relief, rationality won out. Signed, witnessed and welcomed a missionary. I did not expect to come to know a baby.

  June 20th

  It was a surprise to see Khadega in the courtyard at midday sitting amongst the potted fig trees along with a chaperone, a minuscule elderly lady swathed and mummified in brown material. I came in with my bicycle and leaned it against the courtyard wall.

  ‘Here is Eva,’ Millicent said, poking her small, black leather Bible towards me. The chaperone made a clicking noise in her mouth as she sat down, squatting on her heels with her back against the wall in what looked like a terribly uncomfortable position. I looked around for Lolo. I had left Ai-Lien in his care.

  ‘Eva, good, you’re back. Mohammed has agreed that Khadega will visit each day to learn English, as he has no sons. We have convinced him that English will help him when it comes to trade negotiations.’

  ‘I’m surprised.’ Apart from her eyes, Khadega’s face was entirely covered. It seemed excessive in the privacy of the courtyard. A lizard flickered past my foot.

  ‘I spoke to him last night. He could not resist in the end.’

  She smiled at Khadega, and then glanced at me. ‘You will be her teacher.’

  ‘Me? But Millicent, I have the kitchen and the food to oversee, as well as Ai-Lien, of course.’

  She looked over at me. ‘I have noticed that you find time for your bicycle rides and your little writing sessions in the pavilion. I am sure there must be an opportunity to teach Khadega some vocabulary.’

  ‘Writing in the pavilion?’ Lizzie said, putting down the teapot and looking at me.

  ‘Yes, through the hot part of the day I am . . . I do make notes.’

  ‘But you should sleep,’ Lizzie said.

  ‘I can’t in this heat.’

  The writing: it calms me, makes me feel as though I am exploring. Actual movement, in the heat, in the day, is too difficult. I must somehow – I hesitate to use the word pretend . . . I must believe I am keeping these notes for some reason.

  ‘Yes,’ I said then to Lizzie, apropos of nothing. She was looking at me strangely. Lizzie’s blue clear eyes look like chips of glass standing out from the eyeball, like marbles at the bottom of a glass of water.

  ‘Khadega will be a conscientious learner,’ Millicent said.

  My sister twisted her hair into a rope on her shoulder and moved away, reversing backwards, a light-touch eradication of herself. She did not look at Khadega.

  June 24th

  My student and I have not successfully achieved a rapport. Our problem is mostly one of communication. I rummaged in my trunk and found the book I had optimistically acquired in London before departing, A Sketch of the Turki Language by Shaw, but as soon as I sit down to read it the usual feeling returns: this great battle with language, the unending task of learning the name of everything: bowl, spoon, wheel, tree, road and river. I immediately want the specifics, I want to know the name for each curled, dried root on the market stand, each strain of tea, each type of animal foot hung up to dry. I want to rush past the basic words, house, door, horse, and find the word given to the moment before the sandstorm arrives. In my haste, though, I become very quickly muddled. Whereas Lizzie wanders the world collecting words like stones and linking them together quickly into conversational chains, for me it is like trying to hold sand in my palm and my inadequacies infuriate me. What did Burton say? It took him twenty-two days to master a language? Without language, infiltration into another culture remains impossible.

  Khadega speaks – as well as Turki – colloquial Russian, some Manchu and some Chinese, but I struggle with all of these. With the Turki instruction book in hand, I tried again, recalling Millicent’s words: ‘Turki, stretching its complex structures all the way to the Turkish of Constantinople, though less changed, perhaps, purer, by virtue of existing in one of the most isolated areas of the world.’

  ‘Turki is like a great, ancient tree’, Millicent taught us in the acclimatisation centre, ‘with a thousand branches growing from one trunk. Imagine this and it will help.’

  My tree spreads its roots along the floor; it grows up, poking through my feet, extending through my spine, shooting upward. I try to conjure life into new words and grow them. I draw shapes, Turki is an alphabetical language in the Arabic script, and it is pleasant to draw the curves, but then the grammar comes and drowns me. Whatever is hearsay-present or future-potential? Vocabulary rests briefly in my mouth. It is as if each word has been polished down, smoothed to an almost perfect sphere, and then dropped, lost. Everything has a name: the carter, the dusk, the birdsong. But the names won’t stay in my mouth.

  ‘How can I teach her when I can’t speak to her?’ I complain, but Millicent only answers, every time, ‘Ask, and it shall be given’.

  I keep on knocking but it does not open. I sit opposite Khadega, both of us cross-legged on a suzani rug. I continually fail to understand her, or to be understood. The expression on her ill-formed face grows ever darker as I painfully try to extract words from her until I want to pull up the suzani threads, unravel the images of pomegranates and leaves and use the threads to wrap around her neck and half-strangle her, she is so insolent. It is an immense relief when Lolo brings refreshments and I am released so that Millicent can spend the remaining hour with her.

  After luncheon today Millicent held a makeshift service in the courtyard, and telling Khadega that this is our normal practice she invited her to join. They knelt together and bowed their heads. Dear Lord. I watched Khadega’s mouth move over the sounds as Millicent incanted the lines. When the prayers ended Millicent picked up Khadega’s hand and rubbed it, pressing the surface veins on the top of her hand like violin strings.

  Afterwards, they came into the small kitchen and Millicent instructed Lolo to ‘do something domestic’ with her. They stood at the table and she ‘helped’ Lolo. They cut the wild garlic and the grasses Lolo uses to flavour our food and, as they cut, Millicent asked Khadega questions, only the simpler of which I could understand. Does your father respect you? Does your mother understand you? Are your sisters kind, or cruel? Khadega was not forthcoming, particularly about her family, but eventually she answered: my mother hates me, Rami also, and my father only loves Lamara, the pretty one.

  As the questions continued I noticed that Lizzie had left the courtyard. I went down into the garden to see if she were there. Despite the dead-heat of the mid-afternoon, Lizzie was walking towards the small native outhouse at the bottom of the orchard. I ran behind her.

  ‘The conspiracy has set in somewhat, hasn’t it, darling?’ Lizzie said. She was wearing a long blue Chinese smock without the satin trousers and her hair was untidily gathered at the back of her neck. A blue convolvulus flower was poked behind her ear; it was wilted. She snapped a small branch off a jujube date tree and hit it, gently, on leaves of the small shrub-like trees that make up a hedge, not looking at me.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘For a walk.’

  ‘She’s monopolising all her time, isn’t she?’ I said.

  Lizzie stood upright, as if shaking off an unwanted thought and flicked a leaf with irritation.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Millicent. She’s focusing totally on Khadega. It leaves us out, rather.’

  ‘Oh
. That. All in the name of evangelism.’ She was squinting in the sheer light.

  ‘Yes.’

  Lizzie turned away from me. I stumbled after her; the heat was ferocious, and the fabric of my satin trousers began immediately to soak with my sweat.

  ‘Shall I come? Let me get Ai-Lien and we’ll come with you.’

  ‘No. It’s too hot for the baby out here.’

  ‘Oh, she won’t mind. She’ll sleep.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘She is a native after all.’

  Lizzie backed away from me as if offended by my presence, then turned, and when I called out her name, she didn’t look back. She opened the gate at the bottom of the garden.

  ‘Take a hat at least,’ I shouted pointlessly, ‘or a scarf.’ She walked out despite the sun, each strand of hair looking as though it might at any moment be set on fire, her long cotton robe flapping about her legs, the camera held on its leather strap around her neck.

  I watched her go for a moment, puzzled as to why Millicent asked Khadega so many questions and why they spent so much time in the kitchen, but as I write this now it occurs to me that she intends to infiltrate Khadega’s home and convince her that there are better alternatives. Home, after all, is the central province, the base of power. If Khadega’s conversion is to be successful then she will be cast out from her family, and it is likely that she will be isolated, condemned, despised and rejected. The only way to persuade a young woman to undertake such an experience is to convince her that where she currently abides is oppressive, and to offer her an alternative, better sanctuary. Entry to the home represents, for Millicent, the ultimate missionary goal of entry to the heart, gateway to the soul.

  These are her techniques, now I can see them, and this, I presume, is how she cast her spell on Lizzie.