Brilliant (9 page)

I will go to university. I will work. I will eat what I want.

> <

 

After coffee with the girls at La Brioche, I take a cab to Marina Mall, drift into a couple of shops, buy another purse, a birthday card for Russ (fifty-six next week), then wait outside in the usual line-up for a cab. The sun feels dangerous. A small plane with a long streamer makes obscenely loud loops over the Corniche, plunging and climbing. Just watching makes me queasy.

Two local women and their Indonesian maid, her arms full of shopping bags, nab the next cab, my cab. “Well, that was rude!” I say and they glare at me. The Indian couple behind eye me uneasily and gesture elaborately when the next cab pulls up. “Yours! Please!” I can still hear the plane as we pull away. Practice for an air show probably. Either that or we're being attacked by the Iranians. “Crystal Tower,” I tell the driver. “Now.” He keeps a nervous eye on me in the rear-view mirror.

But home, I can't settle. Russ is in Oman on business until Thursday. It's too late in the morning for golf, too hot even for me who's learned to play a reasonable game in 100-degree heat. I think about Skyping Chris in New York, but even my workaholic-hedge-fund-analyst son won't be up at this hour. And I can't call Annie or Cherry and say, “Hey, let's meet at Dome for lunch.” We've just had coffee.

I download shots of our last trip — Russ surprised me for our thirtieth with a long weekend in Casablanca. I go online to see what my darling Tea Party's up to this week, then log twenty minutes on the treadmill. Dora's left her signature rice and chicken dish on the counter as she always does on Sundays. But all I want is bread and cheese, a nectarine. I eat standing up. And then, nothing. There is nothing to do. No one is waiting for me anywhere.

> <

 

This no place for free-loaders. When I hear that word, I laugh. English has good words. People free of loads sound like my employers. Not royals like family of Carmela, thank you, my God. But people with so much money they could pay all Philippines' debt. Whole country, serious! But not enough to pay me.

My old boss, she never nice one minute. Agency think good match because we same age, thirty-one. She very beautiful, very rich, very bad. Hard to believe someone be like this.

One morning I am up at five like every day, washing cars. Mercedes, two. Land Rover, two. Plus Sir's Maserati. Hot already, sun beating headache into me. Employer, she come out, inspect. She find tiny wrapper, maybe from driver, on back seat of Land Rover. March over, stick paper in my face, then slap two sides. When I cry, she call me name. She call me hundred name in two years, but worse is Stupid. I am many things, not all good. But not stupid. One piece paper! This happens!

Carmela much more worse. She happy now. Okay, more happy. None of us happy. (I lie little bit to Ronni.) Carmela work in Crown Prince palace. He not bad man, well, she never, ever meet Prince. But Carmela is nanny to nephew of Prince. Little boy who is monster. He kick her, he poke her. One time he set her clothes on fire while she sleep. Devil boy. But nobody believe her, even when see burn uniform. Blame her. Then much worse, no pay for five month. Her family in Philippines get no food, no rent. Middle of night she catch bakery truck at palace. Please, she beg driver. Otherwise boy kill me. He very scared, but good Muslim. He drive here.

Carmela, my friend. Strong lady. Make good coffee too.

> <

 

Ellen is small and pretty in a plain sort of way. You could never imagine her naked. She wears a beige Ann Taylor suit, nothing haute, and arrives carrying two bags, a dark leather laptop case and a gift bag from Patchi, the good guest, someone who thinks she's clued into our ways:
Always bring
chocolates if an Emirati invites you to their home
.

Fatima shows her in, but doesn't have enough English, and Mother must be upstairs changing again, so I introduce myself.

“Oh, yes,” she says. “You must be so excited about university. And your upcoming wedding too.”

“I'm Asma, the other daughter,” I say. “Sit down please.”

“I'm so sorry,” says Ellen, and I can tell Mother never mentioned she had two daughters. “What are you studying?” She looks around for the appropriate couch to sit on.

“English, geography, history, business studies, French, maths, physical education, information technology,
UAE
social studies, Koran…” I'm growing breathless, but she did ask.

“Of course,” she says, sinking finally into a couch. She looks even smaller now and her face is tight with trying to say the next correct thing. “High school. I remember those subjects. Not
UAE
social studies, of course. Though it sounds more interesting than learning about the Pilgrims.”

“Pilgrims?” I say. “I didn't know you had pilgrims.”

“Our original settlers in America. Back in the 1500s. Or maybe it was the 1600s. I kind of forget…” and she trails off. “They were like our Bedouin.” Now she looks really doubtful. “Well, maybe not. History really isn't my field of expertise.”

“I thought you taught history.” I know exactly how this sounds.

“Art history,” says Ellen. “Ancient art history. Greek. Roman.” I watch her try to regain her authority. “Is your mother here?”

“Upstairs. She's late. Get used to it.” I know I've now crossed into obvious rudeness. Ellen opens her case and sets up her laptop on the coffee table. She avoids my eyes, but keeps stealing looks at her watch, a hot-pink Swatch that says: I may be in a business suit, but I'm fun. Fatima pads in with trays of sweets — we keep them in cold storage perfectly arranged in pyramids for guests. “Oh, my goodness!” Ellen says. Her eyes are jumping out of her face. Fatima smiles slightly. Mother has told her not to smile too much because that draws attention. Ellen takes a bite of
maamoul
, swallows, then tucks the rest, when she thinks I'm not looking, into her napkin. She doesn't like our pastries. They're really big
maamoul
, Baba's favourite.

Mother sweeps in, hands stretched out to her teacher. One holds her new iPhone. Her
abaya
is open. Underneath she's wearing skinny black jeans with zippers halfway up her shins and a clingy white cashmere sweater. In her ears, dangles of freshwater pearls. On her feet, the same heels Eiman pointed to in the magazine. Where did she get those?

“Sit! Sit!” she says, waving because Ellen has stood. “I'm a bit late, aren't I? Please forgive a naughty student. But I am here now, ready to work!”

Ellen glances at me, but when I don't move, she angles the laptop toward Mother. “I thought we'd start with a lesson on aesthetics. It's a good place to begin.”

“I'm sure you're right,” says Mother, switching off her mobile, but not before giving a quick check for messages.

Fatima glides in. Her hands shake slightly as she holds a platter of savoury pastries in front of Ellen. “Oh, my goodness!” Ellen says again, but seems unable to choose. Fatima hovers.

“Try this.” Mother points to a mountain of meat pies. “
Sfiha
. Very good meat. The best.”

“I actually don't eat meat,” says Ellen. “But I will have some coffee. I love Arabic coffee. Oh, I almost forgot,” and she reaches down to the Patchi bag. “I brought a little something.”

“
Habibti
! How kind! You Americans are so generous.” Mother hands the box of chocolates — large, Ellen's spent a lot — to Fatima, who now has to place the pastry tray on the coffee table. Mother cocks her head slightly toward the kitchen. These will be added to the offerings in cold storage. Chocolates make the rounds from family to family, guest to guest. A giant circuit, a grand tour of recycled sweets, especially during
iftars
and Eid. But Ellen will never know this. She thinks we'll share them tonight as a family, have them for dessert with our coffee, comment on her excellent choice: “She has a real sense of Arabian hospitality, that one!”

> <

 

“Stars & Stripes Forever” plays from my purse. A bit of home, Russ said, when he programmed it as my ring tone. I've been waiting for something to happen all day, all week. And here's Cherry, incoherent.

“I'm so glad you're there!” she cries. “No one else is home. No one is ever home in this awful place.”

Her husband on that killer stretch of the E11? Bad news from her son in Dallas? A scary mammogram? What?

“They've gone. They've fucking gone.”

Steve just called her from the airport. “‘It's the only way out, my love. Got in too deep,' that's what he told me. They pulled a runner. They pulled a fucking runner,” and Cherry begins to wail. I'm thinking: my love?
My love
?

“But we'd heard they might be leaving.” I could say many things right now; this seems the safest.

“Not like this. This isn't a proper goodbye. We were going away this weekend. To that new resort out near Liwa, facing the Empty Quarter. Just the two of us.”

“You and Steve. And he was going to pay? With what? Qasr Al Sarab rooms go for $1,000 a night.” It's the nastiest thing I can think to say.

“Don't get all moral on me,” says Cherry. She isn't crying any more. “Steve told me about you. And you were so chummy with Ronni.”

“Come over,” I say.

“I'll never, ever see him again,” Cherry sobs.

“Just get a cab, okay?”

> <

 

Ellen is still on the first slide of her PowerPoint when Sami arrives with the boxes of
maamoul
. Mother waves him toward the kitchen storage room and turns her eyes back to the laptop, but I can see Ellen is bothered. She keeps looking at me. Maybe she thinks I am in the way, that I am intruding on her lesson. But I have nothing else to do this morning and this is not as boring as most things.

“Plato had a great influence on the field of aesthetics,” Ellen is saying, when there is a scuffle behind the swinging door to the kitchen. She stops and waits but when there is nothing else, Ellen clicks to her next slide. “The four elements, Madame Qubaisi, these are the cornerstones of modern aesthetics.”

Sami hurries in. “Madame, it is Fatima.” Mother looks more annoyed than concerned, but follows him. There's loud conversation behind the door, during which Ellen goes onto the next slide, checks her watch again.

“What happened?” I ask Mother when she comes back, but she ignores me.

“Please excuse the interruption,” she says to Ellen. “You know housemaids: always a drama! They should be paying us!”

Ellen murmurs something, but I can see she's a bit put off. She skips to the next slide. And then comes the sound I've heard all my life, familiar as the
muezzin
calling everyone to prayer: the sound of two hands clapping.

“You'll have to excuse me,” Mother says, standing. “My husband.” And she's gone.

“She won't be back,” I tell Ellen, who looks like she's just seen a camel trot through the breakfast room.

“Why didn't he just come in?” She's so stunned, she's not watching what she's saying, is forgetting the delicate footwork around our cultural differences. “If he needed her, why didn't he just…?” But now she's heard herself. Her whole body shrinks. She closes her laptop without turning it off.

“The measure of a man is what he does with power,” I recite. It's the only quote I know from Plato. I like it. It feels subversive.

Ellen sits back against the pillows, though she doesn't reopen her laptop. “How do you live here?” she asks and I see that she really, really wants to know.

If she really, really listens I will tell her about my friends and the things we do, how sometimes we dress up in our brothers'
khandouras
and
ghutras
and sneak out, pretending to be boys. How sometimes we even kiss each other. How we will do almost anything to feel alive.

> <

 

Back home they do not know. They keep coming. Why? Money. Say goodbye kids and husband. Mother, father, everyone.

I go Hong Kong first. Crazy Americans who got four boys. Go
UAE
, cousin tell me. Big money. I pray Blessed Virgin Mary and get message: Go!

First, think: Bad, but not
so
bad. Then Madame begin breaking me. Hands shake, can't sleep. So tired cannot carry baby without feel very scared. If I drop her — she big baby, so heavy — I be dead. Madame make me write every thing I do: iron shirt, stove on, baby nap. Every thing in book: start time, stop time. I say, Madame, instead of write, let me do. Take too much time! She hit me. Only bad nannies say no, she say.

Every day more tired. Cars, kids, but keep go. Then the Baba touch me in my private place. No, I say. No money, he say. We go like that. Three month. One morning cannot get out of my bed. “I am breaking,” I say to Mother Mary. I pray and pray. Go! she say.

Night I jump from window. Not far, but ankle crack, so I crawl to street. Cab come. No money, so he want sex. I wait another cab. He bring me to embassy. Some good people.

Carmela know my story.

“Hey,” she say, when she think I am sad.

“Hey,” I say back.

“Crochet,” she say and bring out yarn Ronni give. “I make you hat,” she say.

“Hat?” I laugh. “Maybe snow here!”

“Yeah.” She laugh. “Maybe snow.”

> <

 

We don't end up talking about Steve at all.

“Remember that crazy couple from, I can't remember where, Manchester? No, Liverpool. They used to throw these huge bashes on their yacht, hire half the waiters in Abu Dhabi,” says Cherry. “I saw Elton John there once.”

“I think it was Tom Jones,” I say.

“Were you there too?” Cherry's eyes are swollen, but she's got her legs tucked under her on my loveseat and her hand wrapped around a glass of wine. I've refilled it twice, will need to put on a pot of coffee to sober her up. “I can't remember. We go back and back, don't we?”