by Claire Hajaj
Margaret hesitated, then nodded. She traded the food for Nagode, and together they turned towards the front gate.
They walked out towards the desert, along a rough dirt track. Clusters of grain stores lined the path, mud-baked circles with their yellow thatched roofs. Crop fields stretched beyond – man’s last barrier against the wilderness. The houses were small and squalid, built of stained concrete, corrugated iron, mud and plastic sheets. Nagodeallah’s small head swivelled towards endless sources of fascination.
Margaret stopped at one of the houses. Its concrete walls were softened by yellow curtains at the windows. Nick stood below the porch as she knocked on the door.
A girl of JoJo’s age answered, her face lean with childhood’s remote beauty. She smiled at Margaret, reaching up to squeeze the baby’s fleshy thigh. Nick thought her body looked strange and lumpy behind its concealing abaya.
An older woman came to the door behind her. A tight abaya covered her from hair to toes; she was tucking in the last strands with distracted fingers.
Margaret turned to Nick. ‘This is Hanan,’ she said. ‘And her daughter Adeya. Hanan speaks little English, but Adeya speaks well. Don’t you?’ She touched the girl’s cheek. Hanan took Nagode from Margaret’s arms.
Nick nodded to them both. ‘Nice to meet you, Hanan, Adeya.’ The girl broke into a smile of shy delight, one foot squirming at the door’s threshold. ‘Nice to meet you,’ escaped her lips, her English soft but precise.
‘Adeya is a friend of JoJo’s. She takes good care of Nagode, too, if I have an errand.’
Adeya blushed at the praise and raised her face to Nick. ‘JoJo is in my class. We are the top students.’
Then her eyes darkened. She turned away, and Hanan pulled her daughter to her wide chest; the gesture spoke of apprehension.
Margaret made their farewells and they left, the door closing fast behind them.
‘She seems smart.’ The girl had reminded him of Margaret somehow – that same impression of fragile intelligence unfolding, like a butterfly’s wing.
Margaret reached across to take the bread and yoghurt from him, tucking them under one arm. ‘My husband saved her life. She had a sickness in her bowels. Hanan brought her to us, screaming. Ahmed drove her to the Town and paid his savings for her operation. Now she needs a bag to make her business. They tease her at school.’ She looked up, eyes blinking at the horizon. The sun was at its zenith, a dry yet penetrating heat. ‘It is hard to be different in this place.’
A nearby enclosure jostled with goats, spilling warm, pungent air. Margaret reached one hand in through the wooden fence. Soft noses nibbled at her fingers.
‘Nothing for you, greedy,’ she said, dipping her head with a half smile, her shape occluded by the light.
It’s hard to be different in this place. It was something Madi could have said to him once – maybe not in those exact words, but making a sort of joke of it in his casually fluid English, one of the hundred times they’d sat on the kissing gate at the garden’s end, their uniform hoodies pulled up against the afternoon drizzle, savouring the fizz of Dr Pepper as the green fields rolled away before them. Or maybe it had never happened. It hurt that Nick wasn’t sure. Once he’d believed he could never lose a single memory of their friendship, that every day would be indelibly preserved in its exact place, sacred, like a missing child’s bedroom. But the door had been locked for too long, and he could glimpse only broken fragments as if through a keyhole: the thrilling bitterness of their first beer after Madi’s triumphant return from the off-license (they never check a blackie’s age round here); the wet sting of sand as they chased the returning Atlantic along the wet sand flats, Madi’s longer legs kicking spray high into the air; the celluloid smoothness of National Geographic, the bumper edition Madi gave Nick for his thirteenth birthday, with Mount Etna roaring red on its cover, costing him a month’s wages earned gutting stinking sardines at Saturday’s fishmarket. It’s nothing, mate, don’t worry about it. Happy birthday, blood brother.
Now Nick looked at the woman walking beside him, bread and yoghurt nestled in the pale crook of her arms. A Christian woman in a Muslim village. An outsider like Madi – only this time the difference lay beneath the skin. He wondered who she confided in.
‘Is it difficult for you?’ he asked – half afraid of being too intrusive, but driven to offer now what once he’d failed to give.
Her head turned slightly towards him, eyes not quite meeting his. Then she stepped back from the fence, turning to face the desert as the goats brayed their protest. ‘You are not the only stranger here.’ For a moment she looked him full in the face, her expression frank, unexpectedly young – before she was striding off again, forcing him to hurry after her, the red beads on her wrist blazing a path through the sunlight.
The village was behind them; now the land was dissolving under his feet, water spreading through the dust in a dark stain. As they paced through reeds, a light wind stirred them into peaceful ripples. The sky arched overhead, a glorious umbrella of light. Beneath it, a moving shadow streamed north, dark wings shattering and reforming. Birds, he thought, migrating. He wondered where they’d come from; maybe they were the same swallows that used to pierce the autumn skies over his mother’s garden with whizzing arrows of flight.
Silence ticked by, bounded by the tread of Margaret’s feet and light intake of her breath. The quiet pulled at the space inside, a gap that opened when his father died. Margaret’s eyes were fixed beyond the lake, oblivious: but why had she asked him to come with her, if not to speak to him?
‘Dr Ahmed said your family is originally from the capital.’ His voice sounded thin in the vast space. ‘So how did you come to be here?’
She raised her eyebrows, scanning the expanse before them. ‘It’s a long story,’ she replied.
‘I’d like to hear it.’
She walked on without replying, hoisting the bread into her other arm without breaking her stride. Nick had a sudden image of her in jeans, moving through a London street with the long beat of those legs, or folding them under a café table, a book in her hand.
Just when he’d given up, she answered. ‘I came here on my marriage. Thirteen years ago.’
‘That must have been a real change for you.’ The dark water was muddying his toes as they skirted the lake. In the distance, Hanan’s goats were braying.
She smiled, a curl of the lips that bordered on scorn. ‘You saw the capital. What do you think?’
He paused. ‘I don’t know. I just thought . . . I wondered if you ever missed home?’
She stopped walking and turned towards him, her face a challenge. ‘Why do you want to know these things?’
He blushed, realising he had no clear answer. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said to her. ‘I didn’t mean to pry.’
He felt her eyes scour him, the harsh scrutiny of judgement. Small lines traced the sweep of her long cheekbones – laughter lines, his mother would have said, though the sunlight turned them silver as tears.
Finally, she sighed. ‘No. I am sorry. Most people here do not ask questions. Perhaps I forgot how to answer them.’ She gestured with her head towards the far side of the lake. ‘Come. It’s not far now.’
They resumed walking in silence. Nick felt curiosity burning stronger than ever. But couldn’t find words to frame his questions, the sun in his face blank and dazzling. He was surprised when she eventually spoke again. ‘I have no home left to miss. My mother died long ago.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Save your tears.’ She raised her free hand to her eyes, shading them from the light. ‘That’s what the priest said when she passed. My sister and I. They said: “It was God’s will to take her.” ’
‘That’s what they said to my mother when she became ill.’ He struggled to keep bitterness out of his voice. ‘She was a believer, too.’
Margaret smiled. ‘They told us England has no real Christians any more.’
‘Well, she felt real enough. S
he prayed and went to Communion every Sunday, until she couldn’t.’ But the Church hadn’t dried her tears as her mind dissolved, hadn’t soothed away that certainty of damnation, of the unforgivable sin and unpardonable wrong. It was the burden of faith without its comfort.
‘Is your mother still with you?’
‘No.’ It was the first time he’d acknowledged the truth since her committal. The memory of their goodbyes still flayed him – her paper-thin face staring at him as he promised to come back soon, the soul-bleaching smell of antiseptic, the itch of her gaze on his departing back.
‘Her body’s alive,’ he explained to Margaret’s questioning glance. ‘But she has an illness – a psychiatric illness like depression. She knows she’s alive, but I’m not sure she wants to be.’
Margaret nodded, wrapping both arms around her chest, hugging the yogurt and bread to her. ‘Who cares for her now?’ she asked. ‘Your wife?’
‘I’m not married.’ He realised he didn’t want to talk about Kate. ‘My mother went into a facility after my father died. They’re experts there.’
He read surprise on Margaret’s face, an arch to her eyebrows that verged on scorn. ‘This is how love ends in your country? Alone in a hospital?’
The words stung. ‘It’s not a hospital and she’s not alone. They look after her.’
‘Look after is not the same as love.’
‘I told you,’ he said, feeling the old chameleon shift from guilt to defensiveness, ‘it’s the best way. She doesn’t love me any more – or anyone. Love doesn’t come into it.’
Margaret shook her head, unflinching. ‘Mothers love,’ she insisted. Her hand went again to the beads on her wrist. ‘Love ties us to the world. Only God should break the thread.’ Her face was flushed, peach scarf blowing into the sky in a brilliant flare. He felt the force of her condemnation, her form sharp and vivid against the blurred white of the landscape, everything else just a background sketch.
Unsettled, he tried to turn the conversation. ‘You have a sister, you said?’
She seemed taken aback. ‘Sarah.’ He saw her draw a breath, resuming her steady walk. ‘And a brother, too. But my marriage has separated us.’
‘Why?’ Nick was surprised. ‘How could anyone object to Dr Ahmed?’
She smiled, biting her lip. ‘I was a university student when I met Ahmed – studying English literature, if you can believe it. I hurt my ankle falling off a bicycle. My friend told me of a doctor who treated students for free.’ She wiped her forehead with the back of her wrist. ‘He mended my ankle. Then he asked me for coffee. I read him Tennyson, and he told me stories of England, of his travels there.’
‘Had you never travelled?’
Margaret’s headscarf whipped in the rising wind; her bracelet glinted as she reached up to adjust it. ‘It was my dream to travel. My father had a big travel agency. He brought brochures to the house. See the world – cities and museums and all these things.’
‘Where did you most want to go?’
‘Many places,’ she said. ‘Italy. France. England. The cities I read about in the poems. The place with the daffodils – that was my favourite. You know: I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high o’er vales and hills.’
Lonely as a cloud. He looked up to the white shapes racing across the sky, vast and solitary, endlessly chasing each other through the void.
‘So what happened?’ he asked. ‘Why didn’t you travel?’
She sighed. ‘My father died from a heart attack. I thought he died rich. But David – our brother – he knew the truth. My father had debts we could not pay.’ Her laughter cut. ‘Pride goes before a fall. I was clever, rich and beautiful, and I had always laughed at those who were not. But then David took me from the university and put me to keeping his house. And that was my life – until he came for me.’
‘Who came?’
‘Dr Ahmed. He offered to send me back to university and pay my fees. But David would not permit charity from a Muslim.’ She threw the word out like a challenge. ‘So Ahmed offered me the protection of a husband. I would have to convert to Islam. He said it was only for show. Faith is a matter of conscience, he said. We all love the same God.’
Nick’s mind turned to his own marriage proposal, made while he and Kate packed boxes after his father’s funeral. As he’d watched her hands busily folding and arranging on his mother’s kitchen table, a terrible vacancy had spread through him; he’d felt like a clock with its mainspring unwound – and he’d clutched Kate like a lifeline, asking her to marry him. Her face had turned red, eyes filling with tears. Do you really want to marry me? she’d asked, the words escaping from the depths of her insecurities. It’s not just . . . this? She’d indicated the table filled with old books and yellowing letters, the debris of a once purposeful life. Yes, he’d replied instantly, terrified of confessing the truth, that he was afraid of an empty life. Later she’d regained her composure, laughing on the sofa. That was so you, Nick, she’d teased. Spur of the moment, nothing organised. She’d insisted on a more traditional repetition, a mechanical process of jewellers and kneeling declarations on a bridge over the Thames.
Now Nick’s heart filled with respect for the old man – and a kind of envy, for the sure inner compass that guided the Dr Ahmeds and Kates of this world, while his own spun so wildly at every crossroads. ‘That’s real goodness,’ he said. ‘How could your family reject him?’
Now he heard the scorn in her voice. ‘When I told David, he said to me: “There is no marriage outside the Church. Only whoring.” It made me glad to defy him. But in the end . . .’ She laughed again. ‘I did not finish my degree, and I never saw my daffodils. The year after our marriage there was sickness in the village, and they begged Ahmed to return. In his goodness he could not deny them. So we came here at last. I was twenty years old.’
She turned towards Nick – a swift, fierce focus. ‘Do you know why I am telling you this?’
Nick shook his head; her stare was hypnotic, lights on an oncoming car. ‘No.’
‘It is to warn you,’ she said. ‘You people always try to mend things that are broken. But perhaps they were broken for good reason. God does not want us to escape His judgement.’
‘Doesn’t Christianity teach redemption?’ If God can forgive us, his mother once wept to him, then why can’t we forgive ourselves?
‘Jesus opened the door to heaven,’ she said. ‘But before we pass through, there is penance. That’s all.’
They’d reached the top of the lake. Beside it, Nick saw what could only be called a hut, reeking of ash and defecation. A piece of red cloth blocked the doorway.
He stopped, instinctive revulsion warning him away from it. But Margaret walked onwards with her bread and yoghurt. Barely breaking her step, she laid them down before the door. Over Margaret’s shoulder, he saw a hand emerge and snatch the food inside.
‘Who is that?’ he asked, as Margaret returned.
‘Her name is Binza.’ Margaret’s face had lost its animation. She walked past him without meeting his eyes, heading back towards the village.
For a moment Nick stood, rooted to the earth. The dark water, the slit in the red cloth, Margaret’s story – they twisted together in his mind. Who is Binza? And what is she to you? But Margaret was already far ahead, dry stalks at the lake’s edge snapping under her brisk footsteps.
As they neared the house, Nagode restored to Margaret’s arms, Nick saw the boy sitting on the porch. He stood up as his mother approached, his frame tense with expectation.
As she entered he ran to her, burying his face in her side. Her spare arm wrapped around him. ‘My wild son,’ she whispered to his bent head. Her eyes slipped up to meet Nick’s, her lips pressed to JoJo’s tight black curls twisting up in a wry smile.
It occurred to Nick that he’d not spoken to JoJo since his arrival. Now he knelt down in the dirt and tried to catch the boy’s eye. One curious brown orb peered at him over his mother’s arm.
‘Hi, J
oJo,’ he said. ‘I’m Nick. I met a friend of yours today. She said you were top of the class.’
JoJo turned towards him. ‘I’m not the top.’ His voice was soft, tiny catches running through the pre-adolescent sweetness.
‘JoJo broke a window at his school.’ Margaret said. ‘His father is angry.’
‘My best friend got into trouble at school, too,’ Nick told JoJo. ‘Because he was too clever, and he got bored. He needed something to keep him interested.’
JoJo’s eyes were fixed on him, a penetrating stare. The accelerating forces of manhood were just beginning to push through his features, lengthening his jawbone and filling out his lips. It gave him an aura of uncertainty – like someone on the edge of a precipice. The loneliness of Nick’s own childhood returned as they regarded each other, bringing an unexpected sense of kinship.
He stood up, coming to a decision.
‘Is JoJo interested in how things are made – like . . . buildings and machines, that kind of thing? Are you?’ He addressed the boy, saw his eyes widen in surprise.
‘I like cars,’ he replied. ‘I have all the Top Trumps.’
‘It’s the same idea,’ Nick said. ‘Learning how things work in the real world. Maybe you would like to come and see how we build this hospital? Would he be allowed – after school one day?’ He directed this question to Margaret, who looked at her son.
‘Would you like to?’ she asked him.
JoJo looked up at her and then at Nick. Nick could see the boy’s mind working, new ideas pushing and pulling inside him.
‘Yes.’ The word sprang from him, his body straightening as he spoke. ‘Yes, I would like to.’
So today I am going to the Town – with Nicholas! He said I must be ready at eight o’clock SHARP. I say: ‘Like a knife.’ But Nicholas, he laughs. ‘Sharp means exactly,’ he says. ‘Engineers must be very precise or our buildings will fall down.’
There are so many cars on the road to the Town. Expensive ones. Big engines. Some of them are from my Top Trump cards. I showed the cards to Nicholas, in my room. My favourite is the Jaguar XJ6. It goes from nothing to 100 kilometres per hour in 11 seconds. The size of its engine is exactly 3,442 cubic centimetres. Nicholas says cubic centimetre means capacity. He says capacity is the power that sleeps inside.
