I Can't Think Straight (15 page)

She had not seen him for several years, and reminded him of this fact at once.

‘I live in New York, Aunty,’ Sami told her.

‘Like Zina,’ she replied. ‘You don’t see her there?’

‘It’s a big place. The whole population of Jordan would get lost just in Manhattan.’

Kareem smiled, faintly embarrassed.

‘He just moved there, Aunty,’ Kareem explained quickly. But his mother-in-law was right, over a period of two months in New York, Sami should have at least begun to make an effort to see Zina. He had not given it enough consideration since Sami had moved there, but it did not reflect well on his family that his brother was not looking out for Omar’s youngest daughter in the big city they both shared. Kareem considered, while he carefully straightened the line of his cutlery. In fact, if Sami and Zina got to know each other, they might even…

‘Have you met Zina?’ Reema asked. ‘She’s very beautiful, you know. And she cooks.’

Kareem beamed. There were times he felt that he and Reema were of one mind. It was such a useful faculty to have, this concor-dance, this happy harmony with his in-laws. Sami shifted in his seat and smiled politely.

‘She’s too beautiful for me, Aunty.’

That was a bizarre reply, Reema thought. How could anyone (least of all Zina) be too beautiful for any man? What did he mean by such an answer? Was he trying to be sophisticated? Perhaps this kind of phrase passed for wit in America. She studied Sami as he self-consciously took a sip of his mint tea. He was handsome, though perhaps not as clean cut as Kareem; he wore his hair slightly longer and his clothes were more fashionable, more black, more New York.

Which was not necessarily a bad thing, since Zina always dressed as though she was expecting an invitation to a funeral. Two daughters married to two brothers. She had been so focused on getting Tala married over the past few years that she had neglected to properly maneouver on behalf of her youngest child. Sami would be a coup – for Kareem’s family even more so, she quickly reminded herself, since they were not in the same league financially or socially as she and Omar. But then so few people were. And it would remove from her shoulders the burden of worry about her wayward, over-sensitive younger daughter. A gentle click within Reema’s mind placed a sepia-edged picture there, of Lamia and Kareem, Tala and Hani, Zina and Sami. The pleasure of that vision coincided with the gratifying pulse of nicotine that was coursing through her now, at last, as she embarked on her second cigarette. It was a golden moment of the mind but Reema could not pause to enjoy it. There was clearly some arranging to be done.

In a voice that was deeply commanding, Kareem was expounding (again) his own solution for the crisis between Palestine and Israel.

Tala had noticed that as soon as Hani had arrived to join them for breakfast, Kareem felt compelled to move the discussion to politics.She shifted further back in her chair – a plush red velvet con-struction – and toyed with the food on her plate, a snowy mound of labaneh yoghurt, sliced cucumbers, green olives and dried thyme. It was her favourite, traditional breakfast, but she could do no more than try the cucumber this morning.

As the talk continued, Tala closed her eyes for a moment and felt only the softness of light-tinged shade. The sweetness of the sensation was intoxicating. Gone was the furniture-stuffed room; gone was Lamia’s disinterested, polite face; removed were Kareem’s insistent eyes, and her father’s tapping fingers. It was peace, she felt, to sit there with sight blocked out. She felt a wave of sleep lap up to her, caressing her with the sweet stroke of its promise of release and renewal. She was deeply tired; had been exhausted since her mother’s visit to London had turned into a relentless trawling around dress shops, restaurants and bespoke home furnishing establishments, all in final readiness for the wedding. The forced absorption with every, minute, ridiculous detail of her nuptials had acted like a soporific to numb her true feelings, and at the time, haunted by her last walk away from Leyla, Tala had been grateful for it.

‘Are you okay?’ Hani’s soft voice was gentle to her ears and she opened her eyes and smiled at him. She nodded and he touched her hand for a moment. There was reassurance in the touch, a certain safety, and it brought to the fore her affection for him. It was for Hani’s sake, for the sake of their future together, that she had not attempted to pursue Leyla by phone or letter and when her resolve had been weak, the busy stress of the wedding preparations and her mother’s close proximity had been enough to ensure the communication between them would remain closed forever. Tala swallowed a soft sigh and looked at Hani. His attention had turned back to Kareem.

‘Palestinians have no other weapons,’ Kareem was saying. ‘If we are driven to use ourselves, to suicide missions, then that’s part of guerrilla warfare.’

That she had to open her eyes and ears to the old record of Kareem’s views, which almost always echoed the views of the majority (he would never dare to think on his own, let alone stand by an original thought, even if one should miraculously occur to him) seemed too hard to Tala just now. Her mind felt raw, like a field of open wounds; her senses were offended by anything around her that was ugly, and at this moment it seemed that everything that touched her eyes and ears was unsightly. She looked at her brother-in-law fiercely.

‘It’s barbaric,’ she said. ‘This idea of martyrdom, of paradise waiting for you if you kill yourself and take innocent people with you, is obscene. It’s pure brainwashing, but no-one will admit it.’ Her voice was rising, but she felt powerless to control it.

‘They’re not killing innocent people, mama,’ said Reema, picking through the meaningless debris of her daughter’s so-called argument to find the one aspect she could comment on. ‘They’re killing Israelis.’

‘They’re killing children,’ said Hani firmly. The side of Reema’s mouth that did not have a cigarette protruding from it twitched palpably at this insolence, but before she could respond, Kareem came to her defence.

‘Children who will grow up to be Israeli soldiers,’ replied Kareem, reaching to wipe from the glass-topped table a tiny smudge of water left by his wife’s glass. ‘With all due respect,’ he continued, straightening the cutlery within his reach, ‘You and I have never suffered like our Palestinian countrymen. You and I have never watched our tiny house, that we were forced into after Israeli guns drove us from our land, being demolished because they wanted to teach someone else in the village a lesson. You and I have never held a dying baby in our arms because an Israeli gun shot him in response to rock-throw-ing. You and I have never watched our children crying from hunger because we ran out of milk during a curfew.’

It was a stirring piece of rhetoric, but Tala was willing to wager that Kareem himself had never placed his perfectly polished shoes within miles of a refugee camp.

‘If I remember rightly, you were busy the last time we went to a refugee camp to interview people for jobs,’ she reminded him.

‘I was busy holding the fort at the office, for your father, that day,’ explained Kareem patiently. ‘And Lamia and I went to the refugee charity dinner just last month.’

‘Where the refugees washed the dishes,’ muttered Sami, under his breath, but with just enough projection for Tala to hear. She caught his eye and smiled briefly.

‘No-one is condoning Israel’s actions.’ Hani took over calmly.

Kareem leaned his solid form back in his chair and cast a quick, smiling glance at Omar; it was a smile of companionship, Tala noted irritably. A smile of condescension towards the opening of Hani’s earnest argument that they would nevertheless hear out with avuncular patience, while waiting for the day when Hani matured to their higher level of understanding.

‘But if we blindly condone everything that we do,’ Hani continued, ‘if we don’t critique ourselves, we’re not going to progress either. We have to be practical when it comes to Israel.’

‘What you call being practical sounds to me like being defeatist,’ interrupted Kareem, with a serious nod to Reema.

‘Then you’re not listening properly,’ Hani replied. ‘Do you know I wanted to be a violinist when I was young?’

‘Did you?’ Tala asked. An image came to her mind of a small, serious boy in a dinner jacket holding a burnished wooden instru-ment, a snapshot of hope.

Hani nodded. ‘But here, and especially at that time, something so artistic, so unreliable, so impractical, especially for a boy, was unthinkable. If your father had a business, and you wanted to be a writer or an artist or a singer, then too bad - you joined the business.

We live in a world where practicality is prized. And yet, in politics, where in fact the Palestinians have almost nothing to negotiate with, no-one wants to be practical.’

‘Because we have honour,’ Kareem proclaimed proudly. ‘You’ve been a politician too long, Hani. I respect your views; but for myself, I have to aim high, otherwise how do dreams come true?’

He ended his carefully modulated statement with a nod to his parents-in-law. Omar cleared his throat, preparing to speak for the first time that morning.

‘Hani has a point,’ he said. ‘We have to cut out emotion and look at it as a business deal.’

Kareem nodded respectfully at his father-in-law, switching hors-es with such practised ease that no-one even noticed him jump.

‘When you put it that way, Ammo, it begins to make sense.’

Omar looked away, pleased, but slightly embarrassed under the clear, admiring gaze of his son-in-law. When he glanced up again, Kareem was reaching out a hand to Hani. They were good men, he thought, and his daughters were lucky to have them.

As dusk took hold of the room, and she switched on lamps, Zina thought she must have misheard.

‘What?’ she asked Lamia, staring at her in dismay. ‘Did you say Sami?’

In spite of the freshly pressed lines of her silk dress, Tala lay back on Zina’s bed and smiled sardonically. Zina looked at her, exasperated. It was fine for Tala to relax and enjoy the sheer stupidity of a moment like this, but dinner was due to be served in ten minutes, there were at least thirty people downstairs having cocktails, Zina could find nothing to wear and now Lamia was here making all sorts of crazy suggestions.

‘He likes you a lot, you know.’

‘Yeah, well, he seems nice,’ returned Zina.

She pulled off the dress she had just tried on and flipped through the remaining clothes in her closet. Lamia watched, trying not to wring her hands.

‘Then why is it so out of the question? He’s very nice, very handsome, well educated.’ She paused, listening to the irritating click of the wooden hangers. ‘And he wears black. You would match perfectly,’ she added, appraising Zina’s wardrobe with distaste. Zina swung round and fixed her sister with a burning look.

‘He’s gay.’

Lamia sat down. The content of the statement was hardly a shock to her, but its audible utterance was. Tala sat up reluctantly, for the gentle cradling of the pillow had been infinitely soothing to the pressure in her temples. Beside her, Zina stood angrily over Lamia.

‘He’s not gay,’ was Lamia’s desperate reply.

‘And the Pope isn’t Catholic,’ noted Zina.

Tala laughed despite herself. ‘Being gay is not a crime, Lamia,’

Tala said. ‘Zina is just pointing out a fact.’

‘It’s not a fact.’ Lamia’s voice was rising higher, driven by the certainty that her sisters were intent on bringing down Kareem’s wrath upon her.

‘Please,’ Tala laughed. ‘Everyone knows he’s gay. Even if they’re scared to say it to your face,’ she added pointedly.

Zina’s muffled voice carried back to them from her walk-in closet where she was disentangling a black dress from a hanger. ‘I bumped into him one time in the Village with his boyfriend.’

Lamia’s eyes widened. ‘Did he introduce him like that?’

‘Of course not. But it was extremely clear.’

‘It’s not clear.’ Lamia was pacing now, as if the desperate scuff of her heels on the carpet might erase the reality of her brother-in-law’s sexuality. ‘And if it is, it’s a phase. Don’t ever repeat this to anyone. It would jeopardise his chances of getting married. Kareem’s trying to persuade Sami to come back to Amman to live. It would be a better influence on him.’

‘Perfect,’ Zina said. ‘Then of course I’ll marry him. I haven’t been doing enough social welfare work. Maybe rehabilitating gays would be just the thing.’

‘My God, Lamia,’ Tala said quietly. ‘Are you so scared of your husband that you’re willing to sacrifice your own sister’s happiness by setting her up with his gay brother?’

Zina turned and watched Lamia squirm.

‘It’s a phase..’ Lamia squeaked.

‘Homosexuality is not a phase,’ Tala said. ‘Do you really think Sami can just change?’

Lamia’s blinking eyes were cast down to the carpet, but when she raised her head, they showed a flash of anger that Tala felt as a kick of misgiving in her stomach.

‘I think you would know more about that than anyone else,’ she hissed, and turned on her heel, slamming the door behind her.

Zina turned to Tala with narrowed eyes that spoke of her disgust at Lamia, and then she stood straighter and held out her arms, a silent query about the suitability of the dress she was now wearing.

Tala nodded approval, although she had hardly noticed the garment.

‘Let’s go downstairs,’ Tala suggested. She felt a sudden desire to move; her nerves crackled with energy, her limbs were restless for motion. All the disgust and disappointment she felt at Lamia’s be-haviour could be just as credibly directed at herself for deceiving Hani when she felt passionately about Leyla. She swallowed, a vain attempt to loosen the dryness of her constricted throat, and with a head that was now spinning, tried to focus on Zina, applying her make up. She got as far as watching the lipstick being chosen when she felt the room move suddenly from beneath her, and then plunge into blackness.

Chapter Twelve

With her newfound purpose and confidence, Leyla had recently become the object of attentions that she had not sought herself. Having been unable to find any sign of lesbian women around her for years, they now seemed to be everywhere.