Baba shook his head. ‘Don’t think ill of her,’ he said. ‘It was the way she thought of Amir. She took too much responsibility.’
‘I don’t think ill of her, and I don’t think it was because she took too much responsibility for Uncle Amir. She just did not know what to do. They overwhelmed her in their separate ways,’ I said, and then said nothing more for a long time because I could see Baba was perturbed by what I had said or by the way I had said it. Then he sighed and looked up and nodded, inviting me to continue. ‘She knew what Uncle Amir was really like. You spoke of how shame emptied your life. Uncle Amir had no time for shame. It would have seemed like self-pity and selfishness to him, a weakness. He would have turned what sought to shame him into an insult, and blustered and hit out at it, as a man should. So when the moment came he pressed her to sacrifice what was required for his well-being, and she did because she did not know what else to do.’
‘Maybe we are saying something similar,’ Baba said after a little thought. ‘So you will be going back to London.’
I nodded. He waited patiently for me to speak then he said, ‘What are you smiling about?’
‘Did she always like plums? I remember she loved them,’ I said. ‘Sometimes she brought a bag home and we sat there and ate every single one until they were finished.’
‘Yes, she always loved plums but they were not easy to get here,’ Baba said. ‘We had to wait until they were in season on the mainland.’
‘They don’t taste the same in England somehow,’ I said. ‘Do you still have that Collected Shakespeare you used to have many years ago?’
‘Yes, Khamis kept everything,’ my father said, smiling at the thought of his friend. ‘He said he kept all the books because he was sure I would come back, so he must have known something I didn’t. I remember the first play I was able to read was Two Gentlemen of Verona.’
I asked: ‘Did you ever read Measure for Measure?’
My father shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. I might’ve tried. Most of the plays were too difficult for me. I could not get past the zounds and exeunts and harks and rummage in yonder prologue, and usually found myself nodding off after two or three pages.’
I said, ‘When I first read the play I heard an echo which made me sad. Isabella made me think of Mama because I always guessed that there was some force behind what she did though I did not know about Uncle Amir. I was just not convinced about the perfidious brother who tried to persuade his sister to submit to Lord Angelo whose heart was sick with a bullying lust. What brother would do a thing like that?’
‘Tell me about the play,’ Baba said.
This is what I told him. The Duke of Vienna, wishing to test his deputy Lord Angelo, arranges to go on a long journey and leaves him in charge of the city. Lord Angelo has a reputation for high-mindedness and virtue, which the Duke must have had some doubts about, because in reality he does not leave the city but disguises himself and hides in a monastery. Lord Angelo is zealous in his righteousness, and thinks the Duke has been too lenient in his application of the law, turning a blind eye to all kinds of improprieties. One of the first things Lord Angelo does, when he thinks himself free to operate without hindrance, is to order the arrest of Claudio, who has been living in sin with his betrothed, Juliet, who is now pregnant. He orders the execution of the young man for the crime of fornication, a penalty the law allows. Execution, you might think, how barbaric! But that is all that Viennese law allows him to do when he might have wanted to do more, disembowel and castrate him for a start. Also, he only arrests Claudio and condemns him to death when he might have done the same for Juliet as well, pregnant or not. In some parts of the Muslim world where they prize purity and obedience, they know how to deal with fornicators, who are almost always women. They dig a hole in the ground, put the woman in it up to the neck, fill up the hole leaving the head exposed, and then stone the fornicator to death. All Lord Angelo does is to arrest the man and order his execution, and he leaves the woman to the nuns. Yet even that sanction, which the law allows, the Duke, with his tolerant ways, has permitted to lapse.
As he is escorted to jail, Claudio meets an acquaintance, Lucio, a frequenter of brothels, a maker of mischief, and a loud-mouthed chatterbox full of tedious jokes. Claudio explains to Lucio about this arrest and asks him to let his sister Isabella know, so that she may appeal to Lord Angelo for clemency. Isabella is about to take her vows as a nun but when she receives this news she agrees to do as Claudio asks, go to Lord Angelo and plead for her brother’s life. She knows, like everyone else, that to get the smallest thing you desire, unless you are born to it, you have to plead and beg. She is admitted to Lord Angelo, who tells her that Claudio is to be executed first thing the next day: no talk of mercy, no use wheedling me, it is the law, no hanging around.
Isabella addresses Lord Angelo with spirit, pleading and courteous at first, and then when she realises that he is a hard, self-righteous man, she accuses him of unnecessary harshness and cruelty. She does enough, she thinks, to be allowed to come back the next day to hear Lord Angelo’s answer to her pleas. So, at least she has delayed the execution and has given herself some hope of saving her brother. What she doesn’t know is that Lord Angelo has been struck by her beauty and, perversely, by her virtue, and now desires her to submit sexually to him. When she returns the next day he tells her so in unmistakable terms: Plainly conceive I love you. If she wants Claudio to live, she must yield to him. Isabella, the novice nun, is appalled at this cruel seduction and expects Claudio to be as well, but when she tells her brother he tries to persuade her to agree to Lord Angelo’s demands. Death is a fearful thing. What sin you do to save a brother’s life becomes a virtue. Now the Duke gets involved. He has had his answer about Lord Angelo’s suitability to rule, the dirty hypocrite, but he needs to catch him in the act of misrule. By a series of stratagems the Duke foils Lord Angelo, saves Isabella’s honour and himself proposes marriage to her. It is a play, after all.
I said: ‘There was no Duke to put things right for this Isabella, no one to restrain the man of appetite who, once he had her in his grip, never let her slip away. Nor was there any role for you in the play, Baba, because Shakespeare had already reserved the heroine for the Duke.’
‘I will not bother to read it then if there is no part for me.’
‘Sometimes I wonder if things were meant to happen as they did,’ I said, ‘or if there was a mistake, a mess-up along the way.’
*
Munira returned from her examinations in a cheerful mood. They had gone well. She rang her daddy with her news and told him that we were coming round to see him later that afternoon. I knew that I would not be able to avoid meeting him in the end. I told myself that I was doing it for Munira. My reluctance to greet her daddy made her unhappy, as if there was some wrong that still stood between us when I had declared to her there wasn’t. I knew from Baba that my mother asked for a divorce soon after I left for London because she wished to re-marry. She must have waited until I was out of the way so as not to upset me or to have to put up with my petulance, and then she did not tell me. So, in short, Hakim was her proper husband and he had lived with her in some fashion and had been there to bury her with respect in the end while I was in Folkestone, fucking and bickering with Rhonda.
I went with Munira to the grand house where Hakim lived with his first family. I heard dogs barking as we turned into the drive, and a lean uniformed man appeared from the garden side of the house. He smiled when he saw Munira and she waved at him. A Land Cruiser was parked in the drive and two other cars were in the garages to the left. I wondered how such wealth could be maintained without guards or locked gates and where even the dogs were kennelled out of sight. They relied on fear, I guessed, which terror had made into the citizen’s normal conduct. Who would dream of risking capture and its aftermath by attempting to steal from such ferocious owners?
Munira walked round the side of the house to the garden door, looking over her shoulder and
smiling, tugging me along. I knew from her that both Hakim’s other daughters were away studying, one in Boston and the other in Utrecht on generous scholarships awarded by those countries. The son was around, and I met him when we were strolling in town one afternoon: the same age as Munira, handshakes and smiles, hurrying on after his own affairs. Munira entered without knocking, as if she was entering her own home. I was introduced to an aunt or cousin whom we found in the kitchen, and guessed she was another Bi Rahma, the household skivvy, a poor relation who had found a niche with the family. She told us Mama was resting but Bamkubwa was inside. Munira was already walking past by then, calling out Daddy, kicking off her sandals as she stepped through glass doors and down some steps into the sitting room.
I had only seen Hakim on television before and had only ever heard him speak on the telephone. He was in his mid-sixties, I guessed, his eyes shadowed by loosening bags of skin and his thick neck starting to sag and wrinkle. He swivelled his recliner towards us as we entered, and rose to his feet. To me it seemed that he did so without effort, a large powerful man despite his age. He was watching a recording of the European Champions League final on mute and he switched the set off as he rose. He smiled at Munira and opened his arms as if he would embrace her but the gesture was rhetorical because seconds later he held out his hand for her to kiss. As she bent forward to kiss his hand, he brought his other hand over and rested it on her shoulder. I thought I saw her stiffen slightly, like a reflex at an unexpected touch. Perhaps he did not normally touch her in that way. She stepped aside and turned towards me, her face all smiles.
Hakim looked at me for a long moment, his face composed and unsmiling. He then held out his hand and I stepped forward and took it. During the brief contact, I felt a hand that was thick with meat but was unexpectedly smooth, made that way I imagined by expensive soaps and creams. Hakim gestured towards a chair and sat down in his own huge lounger. Munira was talking, filling in the space with her words as we settled in our chairs.
‘Salim, at last,’ Hakim said gently, smiling. ‘Your mother would have laughed to see this moment.’
Lord Angelo, I thought. He would have looked even more intimidating twenty years before. Plainly conceive I love you. Redeem thy brother by yielding up your body to me, you bitch. I did not speak, and the space between the three of us was filled by Munira and Hakim, as they discussed her plans for the future. Should she go to Columbia to do an MBA or should she go to Berkeley to do Economics? She wished she could go to Italy but it would take years for her to learn the language. Italian men were so handsome, she said. But honestly, she wasn’t sure. She thought she preferred the United States, although if she came to London – glancing at me – she could stay with me. Hakim snorted at this and said I was staying on here, wasn’t I? I was not going anywhere now that I was back. He glanced towards me to see if I would speak. When I did not, he continued: There’ll be something here for you if you decide to stay. I can guarantee that.
At some point during the visit, I said how much I regretted that I could not get back in time for the funeral, and I was grateful to him and to Uncle Amir for their generosity on that and other occasions. It was as much my duty as it was yours, he said. When it was time for me to go, Hakim shook my hand again and said, I meant that, if you decide to stay. I nodded with what I hoped seemed like gratitude, but what I thought was, If I come back, it won’t be to become a beast in one of your pens.
*
‘Aren’t you going to stay?’ Munira said as my month was drawing to an end and I talked to her about calling at the travel agent’s office to confirm my flight. ‘Stay for another month, think it over, don’t leave yet.’
‘I’ll think it over when I get back there,’ I said.
‘What’s the big attraction? Is there someone you are returning for?’ she asked.
‘No,’ I said, ‘nothing like that. Just a lot of bits and pieces to sort out, bits of life.’
‘All right, go away and think about it and then come back,’ she said. ‘I know you’ve got a good job in London but as Daddy told you, there’s work for you here if you want it.’
*
My father asked me the same question. ‘What’s the big attraction back there? Is there someone you love? Is there someone waiting for you to return?’
I smiled despite myself at the faces my father pulled from the embarrassment he felt as he asked the question. We were not used to having conversations like that, and had only just recently got used to having conversations at all. I loved that way of putting it: someone waiting for you to return, just you. I wiped the smile off my face and said: ‘No, there is no one waiting for me. You mean a woman, don’t you? I loved a woman some time ago. Her name was Billie, but I lost her. Her family discouraged her. Or maybe she did not love me enough in return.’
‘You’ll love again,’ Baba said.
‘You didn’t,’ I said.
My father said, ‘You can’t live alone.’
‘You did,’ I said.
‘I didn’t. I lived with the misery of love gone wrong, and I almost lost my life,’ he said. ‘Until that old man came back and took me away. Maybe sometimes you have to be forced to do things that are good for you, or force yourself.’
I shook my head. ‘It isn’t like that,’ I said. ‘I told you before. I want to see what will come out of what has befallen me. I have been corrupted by possibilities. Remind me again of those words you told me when I left last time, something about blessing and love.’
‘I can’t remember exactly any more. My father used to say those words at one time. Something like: the recollection of blessings is the beginning of love,’ Baba said. ‘He meant the love of God, not the profane thing we are talking about. Maybe it still works for mere sinful mortals as well.’
*
I was on edge, tense on the journey back to London. I had learnt to pay attention to such feelings, as if something was putting me on the alert.
Baba died minutes after I boarded the flight to Addis Ababa. I had a six-hour stopover in Addis Ababa airport but then the flight was cancelled and I spent a miserable twenty-six hours there before they found a seat for me. I boarded the overnight flight to London and arrived in Putney a day later than I should have done. I received Munira’s call later that morning to say my Baba died on the afternoon I left and was buried the next day. The reading for him was held during the night I was stranded in Addis Ababa. It was a stroke. He said he was tired and went to lie down. When Khamis’s young man Ali took him a coffee in the afternoon to wake him up, he was gone.
‘You would not have been able to get back in time, even if you had not been stranded,’ Munira said. ‘Your Baba had some money put aside, and his old friend Khamis looked after everything. They were like brothers, those two.’
I thought of how my father used to be many years ago and how at times I suspected that those silences were reserved only for me, that to other people he was as garrulous as a shopkeeper. I thought of his eyes, which sometimes looked as if they had glimpsed an ancient sorrow. I remembered once watching him as he stared at his feet for a long time. Then he said, These toenails, they keep growing. You don’t get a moment’s peace from them. Such agonies occupied poor Baba in those days. But that moth-eaten man who used to be was not the one I was with until a couple of days ago when I decided to return to England. I should have stayed. What use was someone like me to this England? But then what use was someone like my father anywhere? Some people have a use in the world, even if it is only to swell a crowd and say yeah, and some people don’t.
A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR
Abdulrazak Gurnah is the author of eight novels: Memory of Departure, Pilgrims Way, Dottie, Admiring Silence, By the Sea (longlisted for the Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Los Angeles Times Book Award), Paradise (shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Whitbread Award), Desertion (shortlisted for a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize), and The Last Gift. He is a Professor of English at the University of Kent, and was a Man B
ooker Prize judge in 2016. He lives in Canterbury.
Also available by Abdulrazak Gurnah
Memory of Departure
Vehement, comic and shrewd, Abdulrazak Gurnah’s first novel is an unwavering contemplation of East African coastal life
Poverty and depravity wreak havoc on Hassan Omar’s family. Amid great hardship he decides to escape.
The arrival of Independence brings new upheavals as well as the betrayal of the promise of freedom. The new government, fearful of an exodus of its most able men, discourages young people from travelling abroad and refuses to release examination results. Deprived of a scholarship, Hassan travels to Nairobi to stay with a wealthy uncle, in the hope that he will release his mother’s rightful share of the family inheritance.
The collision of past secrets and future hopes, the compound of fear and frustration, beauty and brutality, create a fierce tale of undeniable power.
‘Gurnah writes with wonderful insight about family relationships and he folds in the layers of history with elegance and warmth’
The Times
‘Gurnah is a master storyteller’
Financial Times
Click here to order
Pilgrims Way
An extraordinary depiction of the life of an immigrant, as he struggles to come to terms with the horror of his past and the meaning of his pilgrimage to England
Dear Catherine, he began. Here I sit, making a meal out of asking you to dinner. I don’t really know how to do it. To have cultural integrity, I would have to send my aunt to speak, discreetly, to your aunt, who would then speak to your mother, who would speak to my mother, who would speak to my father, who would speak to me and then approach your mother, who would then approach you.
Gravel Heart Page 27
